Daily Kos is trying to come up with three good things Bush has done, and he’s having problems. I can’t come up with three — I can, however, come up with one. Here’s the text of comment I left over at the Go Fish:
Believe it or not, I do have one thing that I can completely seriously thank Bush and his administration for.
Thanks to his blundering incompetence, many people (myself included) are paying far more attention to politics than we used to. Bush’s otherwise disastrous presidency just may be the single strongest argument for people to actually wake up and pay attention to what’s going on in the world around them and to try to do something about it by getting involved than any ad campaign, voter registration drive, or anything else in years. More and more people want Bush out of the White House, and are realizing that for that to happen, they actually have to participate in this democracy of ours.
And for that, from the bottom of my heart, I thank President Bush.
But that’s all I can come up with.
Come on!
I agree with you Aaron I’d rather have bush as president…
About the weapons of mass destruction. If saddam didn’t have them, he could have got them. Imaging just one icbm (Intercontinental Balistic Missle) A few Nuclear Reactor rods and nuclear radioactive waste. Then if he launched it over here we could have millions dead on this side!
Sorry about the tripple post.
Think about this.
Bush has started to restart the econemy. It is slowly picking it up. If we chnged to Kerry right now we’d be weakened for terrorists to attack. Didn’t 9/11 happen right after Bush entered office? It was becuase everyone was figuring out who he was gonna have as council members! If we change now we’re gonna suffer from a terrorist attack!
I can’t really agree with that. I don’t think we should fear change. We should embrace the concept of change IF IT IS APPROPRIATE! The fact is, Kerry does not have a better plan than Bush. Kerry’s plan is to do NOTHING unless we have all of the U.N. with us. That’s dangerous. Kerry is afraid of acting alone and he cannot take a stand unless there are people there to back him up. That is the major difference I see between the two candidates. And that is the most important thing to remember during this time of war.
yea, a war that bush started and one that will never be won. there is no way in the real world that all of terrorism will be wiped off the face of the earth. thats just plain stupid. there are measures that can be taken, of course, but intimidation of the world is not the right one. i would venture a guess and say that all the people who supported this war are nothing but hypocrits. most of you would have been satisfied with iraq being blown off the map. none of you are humanitarian in the least bit. so give me that bullshit about us liberating a people. you know you really dont give a shit. dont make excuses for bush. and what is so wrong with going to the UN for support. how long can u expect the united states to be #1 if we do whatever we want whenever we want with 8 nations behind us at the start. that is what is really dangerous. before we went into iraq, a lot of the world didnt hate us, as you would assume by what you see in the media. but going into iraq with hardly any backing from the rest of the world only created more animosity towards the US.
bottom line is that bush screwed up big time in iraq and a poll just recently taken in iraq (a nation-wide poll) says that most people in iraq want US and British troops out. i say we leave. bush cant say that or he’s not getting re-elected. as he shouldn’t. since “the end of this war” there has been nothing except controversy around this war and the “war on terror” has come to a complete hault. this war on terror is a fad, just like any other period in history. now dont get me wrong, i think a war on terror is a good thing. bush is not the man for it. he should go back to owning the texas rangers. maybe he might be able to handle that.
In conclusion, I seem to see a pattern here. No one seems to be able to refute anything that I say on this blog even after I ask them to. I don’t want my ego to get TOO big, but if you really do disagree with me (with FACTS and not just your loud mouth) PLEASE post or even E-MAIL ME! I would LOVE to continue this topic on a more personal and independent medium.
Gerald….I am thoroughly disgusted by your last post. Here’s a few specifics.
“There is no way in the real world that all of the terrorism will be wiped off the face of the earth.”
I agree. I also agree that there is no way that we can remove crime from our society. But what you are suggesting is that since we cannot get rid of it….we should not fight it. Is that to say that since we can’t get rid of crime, we should not have any police force to fight it? I think not.
Second: The U.N. is a governing body who’s job is to keep peace on this world as best it can and preserve the betterment of mankind. But what about when they don’t do their job? For instance, when 3 of the major world superpowers (Germany, France, and Russia) have personal financial and military interest in Iraq that they do not want disturbed by a war – and they let these interests interfere with the betterment of Iraqi society and world peace – they are not doing their job.
Third: Right now, Iraq is not stable (nor would any country be after regime removal). With this in mind, you want to leave? You want to leave Iraq and its people with nothing? Pardon my french, but are you fucking crazy!? You want to leave them out to dry, and yet you say things like “none of you are humanitarian in the least bit.” And THEN you go so far as to call ME a hypocrite!? I think we can see a clear credibility gap here.
Fourth: Have you ever heard of NATO? NATO is in Iraq with us. Almost all of it. This is not a one-country fight. Which brings me to:
Fifth: America was just the only country with enough balls to go in there and kick out Saddam. The man was evil, and he had to go. I wish tyranical dictators could be negotiated with peacefully, but they cannot. We have seen that through Neville Chaimberlain trying to negotiate with Hitler, and Jimmy Carter trying to negotiate with the U.S.S.R. It just doesn’t work.
Sixt: As for the WMD’s, we had no reason to believe that they WEREN’T there. Everyone said he had them. He USED them on his own people! Even Kerry said he had them.
“Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. He miscalculated an eight-year war with Iran. He miscalculated the invasion of Kuwait. He miscalculated America’s response to that act of naked aggression. He miscalculated the result of setting oil rigs on fire. He miscalculated the impact of sending scuds into Israel and trying to assassinate an American President. He miscalculated his own military strength. He miscalculated the Arab world’s response to his misconduct. And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction.”
John Kerry, Remarks At Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 1/23/03
Finally: I’ve addressed this before and it is extremely important. THIS MUST NOT BE IGNORED!
THE MOST DANGEROUS SIGN OF IMPAIRED JUDGEMENT!!!!!
Do not confuse what you WISH to be true with what you KNOW to be true!
I don’t care how much you HATE Bush. But to say that Iraq is worse off now than it was under Saddam is just wrong. You can WISH all you want that Bush finally did something evil, but you should KNOW about what Saddam had done to his own people. You better KNOW that over 250 mass graves have been found in Iraq. And to ignore those facts just to politicize a war is DANGEROUS! STAY TRUE TO WHAT IS TRUE! Do NOT ignore that which you KNOW to be true just so you can take a cheap shot at BUSH!
Over 800 US soldiers killed.
10,000 Iraqis dead (probably more)
No WMDs…
Yet, Has the war in Iraq been a total waste? You must ask yourself, what would have happened if we had not gone to war. Would the terrorists have stopped? Maybe. But most likely not.
Even this doesn’t justify the war however.
SO WHAT DOES?
If anybody would actually listen to the “idiot’ Bush’s speeches before the war, you’ll hear him say this:
“We must stop the Iraqis before they develop WMD capability”
and not this:
“We must destroy the Iraqi WMDs.”
if anybody wishes to say a reason why this war was not justified, or how we just went for the oil, believe me, I have an EDUCATED, LOGICAL reason why you’re wrong, not idiotic “rhetoric.”
Just remember this: “A sure sign a man is either lying or ignorant, is that he refuses to give his enemy any credit at all.” M. Ontko
ddfgd
ok mr. mulder, i have some things to say to you. first off i wanna right my thesis statement here. from the comments u have written its clear that you think that i am some sort of a anti-republican bush hater who disagrees with everything bush does. that, although easily enough for u to say, is not true. i only diagree with most of things he does.
so, whereas my comments were disgusting, yours were laughable at times. lets continue the point by point method you started.
your first point was probably the most ridiculous. your analogy between cops and criminals and terrorists and war was weak and invalid. listen, the only people against cops are criminals. so by using yur extremely useful logic we come to the conclusion that the only people agaisnt this war are terrorists. wonderful, when do we attack ourselves then? not to mention the rest of the world. what u tried to pull there is called a weak analogy fallacy. and to begin with, i never said i was against the war in the first place. ill go into this later.
yur next point was better, but still idiotic to say the least. yea yea, france and russia and germany and china can go screw themselves. but dude, dont even pretend that this war was a uniamously approved war. there was overwhelming oppostion in the UN.
you third point i will give to you. i dont know why i wrote that, but in any case, i have since come to realize that we have to stay in iraq. but the mere fact that we need to stay there only tells me that bush screwed up. i, like everyone else, was under the impression that this was going to be a quick war, one that would show the power of the unites states and its allies. one where we would be in and out and the iraqis lived happily ever after. BUSH DID THIS! he decieved me and millions of others. yes, i know that we have to stay, but bush made his fair share of miscalculations as well.
yur next point was stupid as well. yea, nato is there, but so what, us and great britain hold a very distinct majority of the troops over there. one country has already left, and more want to leave. don’t kid yurself, this was our war.
next point i agree with. i dunno why u brought that up. whatever though, saddam had to go and he couldn’t be negociated with. good for you. im not disputing the fact that he had to go.
again with yur next point u brought something up that i didnt say anything about or even allude to. this is what i was talking about with classifying me as some liberal hippie douchebag. wmd’s? i dont know if they’re there, i dont know if they’re not, i dont know if they’re somewhere else. for know, to say something that u dont know about yet is dumb. and as for kerry’s statement that somebody has shown me for the 300th goddamn time, i say to u I DONT GIVE A SHIT! i dont care what he said, he was just repeating what bush told him. and they may still be there who knows. stop putting words in my mouth and stop pushing yur agenda, its sickening.
i dont know what the hell you were rambling about at the end there, but it sure seemed to me like u were assuming something about me.
let me conlcude this for you. bush has not done anything to deserve my vote. clearly he dealt with iraq in the wrong manner. going into iraq to get rid of saddam was a good idea in theory. it has been the way this adminstration has handled that theory that has made me lose all respect for bush. IF HE HAD DONE BETTER I WOULD NOT BE WRITING THIS! but he screwed up, and he did so in such a way that basically is worthy of getting voted out of office to be replaced by just about anybody, be it john kerry or not (but it will be). ill give u a rundown of why he screwed up. he started a war that didnt need to be started so qucikly and rashly. he dealt with the UN and the rest of the world in such a manner that gave the unites states very poor PR. that was one of his biggest mistakes. he should ahve sent more troops in the beginning of this war. he miscalculated the amount of insurgents in the country. he made me think everyone in iraq hated saddam and would welcome the us openly and warmly. he is now probably going to send more troops because of the insurgents. the country is ont he brink of civil war. soldiers are tired after 10 months. the majority of the iraqis want troops out of iraq. the feel very strongly about their country and take great pride in knowing that its THEIR country. the reconstruction of iraq is in disarray (it is something that is much more suitable for the UN). in case you were wondering, we still have soldiers in afghanistan. 721 coalition soldiers have dies since the mission was accomplished according to bush. theres more. now on the good side, 200 or some terrorists have been captured by the FBI and and evil dictator was removed from his throne and a people were liberated. was it worth it, i dont think so. besides that, i dont agree with most of bush’s policies anyways. he is way too conservative for me. bottom line, he hasn’t done anything to get my vote and only deseved a vote for anybody else at this point. but theres still 6 more months left. my only hope to you aaron is that u realized that i thought the war in iraq was a good idea that was turned into a bad one by bush. he deserves to get kicked out. the end.
well not quite the end. i would like to make a correction. instead of “was it worth it” i would like to replace that with “was it a success.” so substitute foe me there. gracias.
I appreciate your post…..except for the fact that you changed entirely from the time you started typing to the time you finished. Lets start at the beginning:
“from the comments u have written its clear that you think that i am some sort of a anti-republican bush hater who disagrees with everything bush does. that, although easily enough for u to say, is not true.”
Now lets look at some fine examples:
“i dont agree with most of bush’s policies anyways. he is way too conservative for me. bottom line, he hasn’t done anything to get my vote and only deseved a vote for anybody else at this point”
And let’s look at your last post:
“i think a war on terror is a good thing. bush is not the man for it. he should go back to owning the texas rangers. maybe he might be able to handle that.”
You don’t like Bush. So don’t tell me anything different.
And as for your comments about my ideas:
“the only people against cops are criminals. so by using yur extremely useful logic we come to the conclusion that the only people agaisnt this war are terrorists.”
That’s not MY logic. That’s YOUR logic. Personally, I don’t believe that the only people who don’t like cops are criminals. Some people think the police department is full of donut-eating pigs who shoot anything that moves. Trust me…..I’ve met people who think that way. And besides, my point was that we can’t just sit back and let terrorist run free just because we can’t stop them all (a point that I am sure you agree with).
Your next observation:
“dude, dont even pretend that this war was a uniamously approved war. there was overwhelming oppostion in the UN.”
I never said it was unanimously approved…moron.
What I said was that the U.N. was not doing its job as a peace-keeping body by letting Saddam get away with building AND USING WMD’s. I’m sure you are aware of the oil for food scandal. And if you are not, you should do a little research. It looks like a few of the larger countries in the U.N. were pocketing a little extra cash from the oil for food program in Iraq. My point about the U.N. was that too many dominant countries had financial ties with Iraq that kept them from performing their duties as leading nations in the U.N. You agreed with my comments about France, Russia, and Germany. Tell me…if those three countries had not opposed the war in Iraq, would you still be whining?
And this probably took the cake:
“i, like everyone else, was under the impression that this was going to be a quick war, one that would show the power of the unites states and its allies. one where we would be in and out and the iraqis lived happily ever after. BUSH DID THIS! he decieved me and millions of others.”
And as for Bush misleading you….bullshit. If you’re too ignorant to know that any kind of military occupation will not be “in and out” then that’s your problem. No one ever said this was going to be quick and painless. Who ever said it was going to be a “quick war?” There is no such thing as a quick war…moron. I didn’t want it to come to this, but I’m going to do it anyway.
Soldiers in Iraq: over 130,000
Soldiers who have died in Iraq: 721 (according to you)
Percentage of soldiers who have died in Iraq: 00.5%
I don’t like making human lives into numbers, but I don’t see any other way to shut you up. This is not a catastrophy. We have more than enough soldiers in Iraq to carry out the rest of the clean-up mission. Are more soldiers going to die? I’m sure of it. Do I like that….no. But I can assure you that there would be far more lives lost under Saddam’s torture regime than under U.S. occupation.
again, for some unknown reason you have chosen to discredit me by bringing up ridiculous examples. all i was trying to say is that i’m not anti-republican or a devout liberal. im middle of the road, granted, leaning left. if you pulled yur head out of yur elephants ass for a second or two, maybe u might see that. so i don’t like bush, eh? well guess what, your a bloody genius! yur right! i dont understand where there was any contradiction in my statements. i simple said im not an anti-republican bush hater, but be that as it may, i still disagree with bush and frankly i think his ability to lead a nation is questionable. however, he has sparked my interest in politics, which was the beginning topic of this post i believe.
im not gonna argue the cops and criminals shit anymore. it was a damn stupid argument and to try to make me look like i dont care about crime by relating it to the war in iraq was pure retardation. and yur point to go after terrorism i agree with and i never said otherwise. i dare you to try and quote me where i said different. and dont try to use anything and put a spin on it either, but if u want, i will be glad to prove u wrong. (p.s. – i know what you’ll use if you do try).
you know, you tried to make it look like since those three countries disapproved of the war unjustly, that totally denounces the UN. that fact is, and im sure youve heard this, that everything comes down to the dollar; everything. united states included. i bet if u went through the history of the united states, it has done things that were probably wrong, but profitable. and the fact is that every country can play the pot calling the kettle black game with any other country today. as to your question of my reactment if those 3 countries hadn’t opposed the war, i can’t say cause i dont know. chances are that the liberal media would have found some dissention (cause there was plenty of it) anyways in the UN. and chances are that somebody would have found something to disprove them. and the never ending cycle of bullshit would continue.
as for bush misleading me, he did. when he gave his mission accomplised speech, i thought the war was over, AND SO DID YOU AND DONT SAY OTHERWISE. but apparently it wasn’t. we may not be fighting the iraqi army anymore, but fighting is fighting. and as for quick wars: ever heard of desert storm? yea, thought so. this fighting is different though. we aren’t fighting a country anymore. we’re fighting rogue ballsacks who don’t wear uniforms. when we went into iraq, we fought their army and kicked their ass, and when bush gave his speech, i thought it was pretty much over.
now we get to your much regretted, but just couldn’t resist figures. 721 have died SINCE THE END OF THE WAR. less than 200 actually died during the war. “the war” part of the iraq war was highly successful as far as military casualities for the coalition is concerned, and as far as everything else is concerned as well. dont get me wrong. it has been the aftermath of this war that has really bugged me. 721 soldiers dead when theres no official war!? (not that the iraq war was an official war itself) come on, thats not a tragedy to you? it most certainly is a miscalculation of this administration.
and finally, this has probably bugged me the most about the people that are still feeling good about this war. the thought and debate process has suddenly changed from a year ago. a year ago i heard “iraq poses a threat to the united states security” and “they have weapons of mass destruction” and “saddam is linked to al-queda” and in the distint background i heard something about iraqis being oppressed. now all i hear is “oh, well, they have been liberated and……ummmm…..saddam was a dick…..and…..ummmm……they have been liberated.” now thats all fine and dandy, but 2 years ago while we were fighting afghanistan, nobody gave a shit about the oppressed peoples of iraq. even today, nobody wakes up and thinks to themselves, “wow, im sure glad all those folk in iraq are under safe and sound u.s. occupation.” give me a break. be consistent oh mighty advocates of bush. if yur main argument for the war was that wmd’s were there when the war began, still argue that, cause it hasn’t been proven otherwise, right? it really bugs me; this shift it the debating patterns of the proponents of bush and the war. you can’t just argue something and then something else just because it suits yur republican partys agenda.
i don’t think bush is hitler. i don’t think the iraq people are worse off. what i do think is that bush has screwed up in the way he has conducted this war on terror, as i have said countless times before. where are we arron? where are we in this war on terror? we are stuck in iraq, thats where. do you think the people of the united states, and moreover the rest of the world, are going to tolerate the united states going to every country that “poses a threat”, take over control, try to instill a democratic society, and then leave troops behind for the insurgents? troops are going to be in iraq for a long long time, just like korea. is this the only way our terrorism policy has to be conducted? i don’t think so. i think the iraq war has shown that something needs to be changed. and if bush can show that, then i’ll more than likely vote for him.
and one final word: to anybody who says that people who disagree with the government should move to another country (not you aaron), shut the hell up! its our american right to say what we want, when we want, because its only in protest of our CURRENT government, not the theory of democracy that madison envisioned. we dont have to support our sitting president if we disagree with him, even in times of war. we must, i repeat, must support our troops, however. to all those people who DO say that, i say to you: you get the hell out of my country and take over another one, say like, boliva, and call it the united states of the ku klux clan. bite me asswipes.
You are an angy, angry man. Let’s go through this again, only I’ll try to keep it short.
“when he gave his mission accomplised speech, i thought the war was over, AND SO DID YOU AND DONT SAY OTHERWISE.”
I am saying otherwise. I did not believe that we were finished. I did not believe that the war was over. We had not finished what the President had said we would, therefore it was not logical to assume that we would just up and leave the country. I did not, and still do not, believe that the speech he gave on the Lincoln was a good idea. This is because I knew people like you would be stupid enough to think we could just leave and forget the country.
“and as for quick wars: ever heard of desert storm? yea, thought so.”
Yeah…I heard about it. I lived through it. America never finished the job during Desert Storm. That’s why we are fighting in Iraq now. Quick war……you may think so. But if you ask me, it was never finished. Quick implies a beginning and an end. I don’t think we ever had an end to that one.
” a year ago i heard “iraq poses a threat to the united states security” and “they have weapons of mass destruction” and “saddam is linked to al-queda” and in the distint background i heard something about iraqis being oppressed. now all i hear is “oh, well, they have been liberated and……ummmm…..saddam was a dick…..and…..ummmm……they have been liberated.” “
If you look at all my previous posts you will see that I have always stayed focused on the war. I have never changed my argument or my position. There is documented evidence of the USE of WMD’s in Iraq. I believe there was an artillary shell filled with sarin last week that could have killed a lot of people had it been used properly. One of my previous posts quotes a few articles about iraq and its weapons. I have never swayed, and neither has Bush.
hahaha, well i’ts obvious that you have given up and theres no more fight left in you. that last post was a doosy, i must say. in my opinion you have lost your touch, what little u had to begin with, i.e.: “America never finished the job during Desert Storm. That’s why we are fighting in Iraq now.” wow, a conservative giving in so unconsciously to the idea that almost all liberals cried about to begin with: “george w. is just finishing his dad’s blunder!” thats shoddy work, really.
as i have said before, it was a mistake on my part to say that troops should leave; my humble apologies. bush is still a queer.
and bush has never swayed my ass, did u listen to his speech the other night? i did, it was pretty bad, he never says anything different and with no conviction. whatever, i never heard anything about wmd’s or al-queda, at least for the 10 minutes i watched him. hes really boring (but not as boring as kerry). well arron, its been fun! by the way, russia produces the most oil and saudi arabia has the most oil reserves thus far. iraq produces like the 8th most, however it does have the 3rd most amount of reserves. united states produces the 3rd most but doesnt have much reserves. the united states only counts on iraq for 5% of all its oil imports. facts my friend. alright, this will be my last post, so u can have the final word if u like. later.
I didn’t want to make too long a post last time because I wasn’t sure how much more of this you could take. But since you insist, here’s the last word.
The fight against the war in Iraq:
Liberals have 3 main points:
1) There were NO WMD’s in Iraq.
2) Iraq had NO ties to Al Qa’ida
3) America was too hasty in getting involved.
This is the last word. I will dispute these with fact. FACT!
1) We know that Saddam had WMD’s. We know that he used them. I find it hard to believe that he destroyed them all in compliance with the UN. Mostly because coalition forces have recently found two 150 lb. artillary shells filled with serin gas. These aren’t just bombs that militants make in their basements. These are weapons that were built to function as projectiles fired from advanced military artillary. The same shells that saddam told the world that he had destroyed. Each of these shells is capable of killing 2000 people. That means coalition forces have saved the lives of 4000 people. So coalition forces have saved over 5 times the amount of lives that they have lost.
Also, since the American liberation there have been mobile weapons labs found that were unaccounted for by Saddam, Botulinum toxins unaccounted for by Saddam, and hundreds of general munitions factories overlooked by the UN inspectors.
2) Proven ties to al Qa’ida.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/152lndzv.asp
enough said on that topic.
3) 14 months is not hasty. Going to the U.N. and having them construct a resolution allowing the use of force in Iraq is not hasty. The only reason that the resolution did not pass was because it was vetoed by 2 countries that were being payed off my Saddam through the Oil for Food scandal: France and Russia. After putting up with biased opposition for 14 months, the administration decided that enough was enough. Citing information and intelligence spanning over a decade, Bush and his team proved their case to the world and went into Iraq for 2 reasons: humanitarian aid, and national security.
Humanitarian: Saddam was a murerous dictator. Iraqis are better off now than under Saddam.
National security: proven in points 1 and 2. WMD’s and direct ties to terrorism.
That is the last word. Unless you can dispute FACT, you lose.
Ya know what….I’m not done. I was trying to be reserved, but I’ve had enough of your arrogance. I’ve had enough shit from you. Here’s the deal: when you want to make a point, support it with evidence that helps your cause. Here’s an example of how NOT to do that:
“and bush has never swayed my ass, did u listen to his speech the other night? i did, it was pretty bad, he never says anything different and with no conviction.”
You dispute the fact that Bush never swayed by telling me that he “never says anything different.” Nice work….moron.
ok…next blunder of yours to rip apart.
“America never finished the job during Desert Storm. That’s why we are fighting in Iraq now.” wow, a conservative giving in so unconsciously to the idea that almost all liberals cried about to begin with: “george w. is just finishing his dad’s blunder!” thats shoddy work, really.
If you’d been listening to the President instead of ignoring him you would know that he does not approve of his father’s work in Iraq. George H.W. Bush did not finish the job. Instead, he let the precious U.N. fail miserably. And since Clinton didn’t bother to finish the job, George W. Bush was faced with the task. There’s nothing “liberal” about it except for the fact that you’ve ignored the facts and just went on your own prejudices…moron.
And your facts about oil? Well they just disproved the liberal argument that the war was all for oil, didn’t they? If America only relies on Iraq for 5% of their imports and Iraq is anything but the world’s top oil producer, then there’s not much use in going to war for oil, is there? No. There isn’t….moron.
So once again, I bid you good luck and I wonder how you’ll screw yourself over next time we meet.
Later moron.
Still not done. I forgot to add one thing.
You are a moron.
STILL not done. I must say thank you Gerald for being the only one on this comment string to actually carry on an argument with me. Although you may not be the SMARTEST person I’ve argued with, you are definitely the most entertaining. So thank you.
And just for kicks, I looked this up.
Moron: A person of mild mental retardation having a mental age of from 7 to 12 years and generally having communication and social skills enabling some degree of academic or vocational education. The term belongs to a classification system no longer in use and is now considered offensive.
Congratulations! You have officially been offended!
Aaron —
I don’t really mind you stating your point, vociferously if you feel the need. However, I would greatly appreciate it if you would refrain from the pointless and juvenile personal attacks against people who disagree with you. Debate the pros and cons of Bush and Iraq all you like, I enjoy seeing the discussion (whether or not I agree with it). However, please do so in a polite manner.
This goes for anyone else who would like to chime in here also, for that matter — I only singled Aaron out because of the multiple posts, the last of which were nothing but a personal attack.
Thanks much for keeping this in mind. And with that — have fun!
Dually noted. I’ll try and keep my temper from here on.
to Aaron Muldor,
Just thought you should know that George H.W. Bush went to war with the Iraqis, because they were invading Kuwait. If it had anything to do with WMD’s, we didn’t hear of it.
someone who remembers
….jesus…. a majority of the stuff im reading in this discussion is horrible….i believe we came here to discuss what was president bush doing WELL….i mean, i know everything that hes done wrong…everyone and their mother’s know what hes done wrong…if theyre educated, which brings me to my next point. the problem with opinion is between educated and non-educated opinion: people who are easily offended when someone talks against their beliefes and views in a certain subject, person, or idea is, for the majority, hands down uneducated, and look to solely discuss and argue(this group of people ranges from dilettantes to people who are full selfish intentions). educated people,(note:education pertains to a spectrum of things, such as values and morals, politics, government, and things of the like, and if you have a good balance of things, you’ll do well) however, look at both sides fairly, and understand contrasting differences between the partys, and instead of just arguing and discussing, they try to find a solution to the problem. now i know what you’re all thinking, that one decision cannot meet the needs of all citizens, but that is a fact, because the human race is an insatiable one. however, utopia can be achieved if people go out and get educated. im not saying that once that happens, bam, we’re all good, and thats it, but if you all want the human race to continue and flourish without erradicating itself, you gotta do it. and why can’t people get educated? theres a few factors: lethargy and poverty. why is this a problem? because half the nation doesn’t vote(lethargy) and if you don’t care, how can you expect people to change this nation? as for you who say politics is BS, i don’t blame you, cuz for the most part of it, it is, but this is a DEMOCRACY!!!you can go change something you don’t like if you don’t like it. the problem with democracy, however, in this nation, is that more than half of this nation doesn’t care(the voting age), so we’re all basically let the elitist few, or just people who get the lucky chance of winning an office with some sort of power, to do whatever the hell they want. my instructor said it best, apathy or action, it’s your choice. anyways, getting back to task, GB passed a bill finally giving the people over sees some money so they can finally drink,eat, and arm themselves properly. that is the only good thing that GB did for the better. then again, if u look at it educationally, we wouldnt be in this ‘war on terrorism’ if he didnt break the coalition in the whitehouse, break the coalition in the UN, break the coalition with NATO, didnt got to iraq for the sole purpose of catching his dad’s enemy(and US enemy…and with no proof), demolished education in the US….not a lot i can say is good. and if your one for patriotism, such as i, youll get the educated thoughts in your head, that patriotism does not mean partisanship. if you love your country, youll see that promoting your president who wants you to go fight for your country for no cause other than the damn manifest destiny is not kool. you cant fight terrorism with terrorism. we have so much crap in the US, so we should fix our nation first b4 attempting to OFFER other nations help, not force.ill tell you this much, bush was the man when he was gov. here in texas. he promoted minorities and women to offices, really tryed to promote education here in texas, although it couldnt happen under our current outdated constitution of 1876….so should you take anything from my opinion, take the right to go educate your self about politics, the past, history, all that.
just wanted to add to my previous comment, im not a bush hater or advocater. i do dislike a lot of the things he does however.
For Daily Kos,
I am very disappointed in you! I mean you have a hard time coming up with three…three? good things about the president? Why give up so quickly?
Did President Bush quit when he didn’t win the popular vote? NO
Did President Bush ever quit when he did not discover those WMD’s in Iraq? NO
Did President Bush quit after he got a DUI for public drunkenness. NO
Did President Bush quit after failing in all those businesses and losing all his friends’ money? NO
Did President Bush quit when his oil company, Arbusto Energy, gained no success in the late 70s? NO
Did President Bush quit when the Texas Rangers sucked horribly? NO
Did President Bush quit when he had a “C” average on his report card and low SAT scores after graduating from high school? NO
Did President Bush quit when he threaten to shut down the White House AIDS office? Pending…
Did President Bush quit when he forgot to read the intelligence briefings which would have told him in advance about the terrorist atrocities that were to take place on 9/11? NO
Did President Bush quit the Kyoto Protocol agreement on global warming, to reduce green house gases in our environment and possibly yield the seasonal shifts, preserve wildlife from extinction, save vegetation, stabilize temperatures, lower carbon dioxide levels, cool oceans, preserve glaciers, prevent wildfires, and any other signs of mother nature telling us that were going to a road of damnation? YES….wait…ah crap, scratch that.
But did President Bush quit the killings of innocent people in foreign countries? NO (he brought them democracy down the barrel of a gun!)
Did President Bush quit trying to take no notice of the 6th Amendment when dealing with POW’s? NO (What you do is you ship ‘em off to Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay and and exercise the right to good ol’ fashion sodomy. Who knew those communist would be good for something.)
And did President Bush quit when he knocked up that one girl? You bet your sweet-anus he didn’t.
So….what was I talking about…oh yeah, out of all the bad days our spiritual, beloved Leader has had…has he ever—EVER—let us down? I mean look…all of our marvelous southern values have finally won. Who knew after all that trouble of the north winning the civil war, we would still have Black Americans living in the lowest slums of our country and neo-Christian conservatives running Congress. This just comes to show that with a little elbow-grease and a few piles of Kuwaiti and Iraqi corpses, as well as business dealings with major corporations, you can achieve anything you set your mind to.
So don’t you come to me and whine about having a hard time coming up with three good things about our GOP President! Here, I’ll start you off with some good ones…lets see…nice smile…that’s One…uh…spiritual…oh yeah, you gotta have that one if you wanna get those votes from those evangelist voters on your side…uh…talks like you and me…who ever said that not being articulate is a bad thing, I mean sure…if you misplace deflation and devaluation and temporarily ruin Japan’s economy, like that one time you visited, you could have problems…but hey…that’s why we got erasers on pencils (and black markers to censor books contain information you don’t want to slip out to the ignorant public. Oh yeah…and those tax cuts he does…boy do I love to see my benefits go down the drainer in order to pay peanuts for my country. I mean, I’m a hard worker damnit! Oh…and the Pro-Life support…no matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican…you can bet your ass we’re shoving our Catholic values down people’s throats and avoiding a woman’s right to choose…while we scratch our heads wondering what could possibly have happened to all of this over population dilemma.
So there.
There is no excuse to not come up with three good things about our President. Now go out there and tell you redneck hick of a neighbor to advocate “four more years!” Let all those liberals live in another land…they don’t appreciate this country like we do! USA USA USA!!!
wow. I thought this thread died in May, but I suppose I could come back and post more thoughts.
Justaman, I agree with your thoughts on an educated public. But then you went ahead and posted (in my opinion) a very uneducated version of the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq.
You didn’t even give a thought to reasons why the war in Iraq would be more helpful in the long run, and I thought that’s what you were supposed to do as an educated voter. Well I’ll help you out :)
First of all, the war in Iraq wasn’t only about WMD’s. WMD’s were the topic that required the most evidence to prove, and was therefore the topic of most focus. This biggest reason we went into Iraq is naturally the reason that required the least amount of proof, and thus, the least amount of attention in terms of media: humanitarian reasons. When hundreds of thousands of people are tortured and murdered by their own government, we have a problem. When a certain dictator publicly funds terrorist action against Israel, we have a problem. When the U.S. uses its patriot missiles to stop Saddam’s SCUD missiles from hitting his neighboring countries, we have a serious problem that can’t really be solved by sanctions. Afterall, this guy owned his countries entire fortune…so why would anyone think that economic sanctions would hurt one of the richest men in the world? Plus….he wasn’t even complying with the U.N. sanctions. So Bush decides that someone has to do something before its too late. The U.N. claimed that Saddam was a “gathering threat.” But not an imminent threat. So the U.N. (or rather France and Germany) decides to wait until he IS an imminent threat to do anything.
But why would anyone in their right minds allow this madman to continue his regime?[url=http://www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/wm217.cfm]Money[/url]
Well….that’s the other side of the story. Now you can read both of our posts and decide what you believe.
hmm….I thought it said HTML allowed. Well here’s the link without all the clutter.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/wm217.cfm
If this war is about removing a malicious, Hitler-like dictator, it has been finished already. Put your ignorant little minds at ease. “President” Bush made repeated assertions that he had “good intelligence information” that Saddam Hussein was up to no good and was arming himself (with weapons we provided in the first place, but were dismantled…hard to swallow for conservatives) ready to kill the American people. The “misinformation” of the WMDs came after, yet going to war on a hunch was alright with the now deceived and shooken-up public (from the 9/11 misfortune). After the embarrasing discoveries made while in war…the operation soon was focused on the “Iraqi Freedom” part (plan B…nice call). Well we sure are having an awful hard time pursuading those people that we’re the “good guys” (world police, remember that!)…it’s been, what, 1,000 dead up till now (not including civilians and fighters from the Middle East). With so many “evil-doers”, to put it articulately, in the world, some of which have done more crimes against humanity and have declared to have gone “nuculer” like Kim Jong Ill, we went after the shady, yet economically strategical one. Most answers now focus on how evil Saddam was, but Saddam was evil before the WTC attacks,and yet the nobody got “liberated” then…It’s strange how he was involved with terrorists and WMDs, as “intelligence” tells us, right after 9/11 though we had information on Iraq in 2000 from National Security Adviser, Ms. Rice, had no means of developing such weapons and that Iraq posed no threat to the United States. There is video and textual proof of this, but it probably wont matter to conservative fanatics to deep in stubborn beliefs to see.
How could Iraqi civilians be worse off than being held under martial law by a foreign government? Why do you assume that the U.S. is giving these people the same rights and treatment that he is giving you?
Of course,if the U.S. hadn’t helped to install Saddam into power,things might have been much different.
Can you show me that the rebuilding of Iraq will leave it in better condition than it was in ,say, when it invaded Kuwait? As I recall,it was a botched meeting between the U.S. ambassador and Saddam that led him to believe that he could get away with invading Kuwait. Having convinced the U.N. that it was thoroughly dreadful that one despotic Arab nation should take over another despotic arab nation,the Americans,led by a guy named Bush, launched a crippling war against the Iraqi people. Having evicted Saddam’s forces from Kuwait, they pushed the war deep into Iraq, damaging the infrastructure and killing thousands of civilians in the process. They littered the land with depleted uranium-tipped shells, a highly toxic ‘dirty weapon’,and in an effort to squeeze Saddam out of power, the U.S. persuaded the U.N. to impose some of the most callous and brutal sanctions ever visited on a nation. Ten years later, when it becomes apparent that the people of Iraq aren’t about to rise up and depose Saddam, the next Bush to make it to the White House manages to convince everybody that the WTC attacks were somehow the work of Iraq, and that Iraq was building nuclear weapons,and that everybody should join in another great American crusade. The UN in its wisdom disagreed. The US in its arrogance ignored the UN.
The threat that Bush said existed turned out to be negligible. American troops slaughetered the Iraqi army in their thousands [as well as themselves]. No evidence of chemical or nuclear weapons was found. Unlike Gulf War One, Gulf War Two was a war in which the stated objective was not achieved.
Unlike Gulf War One, Gulf War Two will be a war in which the
unstated objectives will prevail. Iraq will be rebuilt, but only as America sees fit. There is much talk of a democratic government, but this is a flat lie. You cannot ‘instal’ democracy, especially if you intend to exclude specific political groups from the process. What you end up with is a puppet government, rather like the one that was created when Uncle Sam shoehorned his preferred candidate, one Saddam Hussein Al Tikriti, into the top seat of Iraq.
And we all know how successful that was.
From Taranaki
November 25, 2003
MAUREEN FARRELL ARCHIVES
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Got Wingnuts on Your Christmas List? 15 Fabulous Gifts for Freepers
By Maureen Farrell
With Christmas approaching, you’re probably already dreading the annual holiday hunt. Chances are, you’ve got plenty of conservatives on your list, and just as likely, they’re people you admire yet respectfully disagree with. But you may also have a couple hard-nosed ideologues to consider. What do you get the Freeper who thinks he knows everything?
Ignorance is bliss, as they say, but in many cases, intervention is necessary. Granted, your Wingnut may balk and his or her head may spin ‘round and ‘round like that little girl in The Exorcist, but a temporary case of Linda Blairitis is a small price to pay for peace on Earth and good will towards men, isn’t it?
That’s why books make perfect presents – provided your favorite Freeper isn’t tragically overwhelmed by assaults to his rigidly fragile belief system (The book, Rating the Presidents, for example, ranks Ronald Reagan lower than Bill Clinton in “character and integrity,” which could send any Wingnut into a catatonic stupor). And so, you may want to find books that gently counter your loved one’s numbskull notions and then nonchalantly bookmark the pages and highlight the paragraphs which most accurately apply, like so:
1) For the “Love It or Leave Its” on Your List:
Lies and the Lying Lies Who Tell Them: A Fair And Balanced Look At The Right, Al Franken, page 24:
“If you listen to a lot of conservatives, they’ll tell you that the difference between them and us is that conservatives love America and liberals hate America. That we ‘blame America first’. . .
They don’t get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping the loved one grow.”
2) For Those Still Obsessed with Bill Clinton’s Penis:
Dude, Where’s My Country?, Michael Moore, pages 20-21:
“This is mind boggling. Here you have two dozen bin Ladens on American soil, Mr. Bush, and you come up with some lame excuse that you were worried abut ‘their safety.’ Might it have been possible that at least one of the twenty-four bin Ladens would have possibly known something? Or maybe one of them could have been ‘convinced’ to help track Osama down?
Nope. None of that. So while thousands were stranded and could not fly, if you could prove you were a close relative of the biggest mass murderer in U.S. history, you got a free trip to gay Paree!
Of course the bin Ladens have been your business associates. Why wouldn’t you do a little favor for some of the old family friends? But, to use the Clinton analogy again, imagine, in the hours after the Oklahoma City bombing, Bill Clinton suddenly started worrying about the ‘safety’ of the McVeigh family up in Buffalo – and then arranged for a free trip out of the country. What would you and the Republicans have said about that? Suddenly, a stain on a blue dress wouldn’t have been the top priority for a witch hunt, would it?”
3) For Wingnuts Who Prattle on about Bush’s Decency:
What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias And The News, Eric Alterman, pages 172-173:
“While Bush claims publicly to ‘do everything I can to defend the power of private property and private property rights,’ he and his partners in the Texas Rangers arranged for Texas authorities to expropriate private land investors to build their new baseball stadium. When some owners resisted, or balked at the low process being offered, their land was condemned and expropriated by force of law. This occurred on 270 acres of land, even though only about seventeen acres were needed for the ballpark. The rest was used by Bush and Co. for commercial development and has provided the basis of Bush’s personal fortune.”
4) For Those Who Believe “They Hate Us for Our Freedoms”:
All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup And The Roots of Terror In The Middle East, Stephen Kinzer, page ix:
“One day I attended a book party for an older Iranian woman who had written her memoirs. . . After she finished speaking, I couldn’t resist the temptation to ask a question. ‘You mentioned Mossadegh,’ I said. ‘What do you remember, or what can you tell us, about the coup against him?’ She immediately became agitated and animated.
‘Why did you Americans do that terrible thing?’ she cried out. ‘We always loved America. To us, America was the great country, the perfect country, the country that helped us while others were exploiting us. But after that moment, no one in Iran ever trusted the United States again. I can tell you for sure that if you had not done that thing, you would never have had that problem of hostages being taken in your embassy in Tehran. All your trouble started in 1953. Why, why did you do it?’”
5) For Dorks Who Misread Bush’s Post-9/11 Popularity:
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got To Be So Hated, Gore Vidal, page 20:
“Simultaneously, Bush’s approval rating soared, but then, traditionally, in war, the president is totemic like the flag. When Kennedy got his highest rating after the debacle of the Bay of Pigs, he observed, characteristically, ‘It would seem that the worse you fu*k up in this job the more popular you get.’”
6) For Anyone Underestimating the “Con” in Neocon:
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses Of Propaganda In Bush’s War On Iraq, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, pages 48-49:
“In testimony before Congress on February 25, 1998, Paul Wolfowitz urged Congress to authorize the [Iraqi Liberation Act] as a way of getting rid of Saddam without using U.S. ground troops. ‘Help the Iraqi people remove him from power,’ Wolfowitz said. He added, ‘However – and I think this is very important — the estimate that it would take a major invasion with U.S. ground forced seriously overestimates Saddam Hussein.’
At the time, these words were meant to reassure members of Congress. The idea of a U.S.-engineered ‘regime change’ was still considered radical and dangerous, and Wolfowitz wanted to make it clear that he was not asking them to sign on to the even more dangerous idea of drawing America into an outright war. Five years later, however, the inauguration of George W. Bush and the post-9/11 war on terrorism would put Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives back in the driver’s seat of U.S foreign policy. Nine days after the September 11 attacks, PNAC [the Project for a New American Century] sent an open letter to President Bush, calling not only for the destruction of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, but also to extend the war to Iraq, and take measures against Iran, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority.”
7) For Poetry-Lovers:
Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld, compiled and edited by Hart Seely, page 77:
You saw what happened in Afghanistan:
The people went out in the streets,
And they were joyous
And they had balloons
And they played music
And they welcomed the U.S.
Because everyone knows
The United States doesn’t want to occupy Iraq.
8) For Dunderheads Who Still Think the 2000 Election Was Legit:
The Clinton Wars, Sidney Blumenthal, pages 769 -770
“On June 8, 2001, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, after extensive hearings, approved a report on ‘Election Practices in Florida During the 200 Campaign’. . . The report stated:
‘The Commission’s finding make one thing clear: widespread voter disenfranchisement — not the dead-heat contest – was the extraordinary feature in the Florida election. . . The disenfranchisement of Florida’s voters fell most harshly on the shoulders of black voters. . .
After carefully and fully examining all the evidence, the Commission found a strong basis for concluding that violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) occurred in Florida. . . The state’s highest officials responsible for ensuring efficiency, uniformity, and fairness in the election failed to fulfill their responsibilities and were subsequently unwilling to take responsibility. . .’
No one knows how many black voters were improperly scrubbed from the rolls or how many ballots marked with clear intent were not counted. But certainly there were more than enough of those ballots to have elected Gore if they had been.”
9) For Anyone Who Ever Sent You a “Clinton Body Count” List:
Blinded by the Right: The Conscience Of An Ex-Conservative, David Brock, page 331
“As George Bush took office, I wondered if everything I had seen on the right in the ‘90s was just a prelude for what was about to happen. As Bush’s government was assembled, with Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni handling the flow of resumes from the Heritage Foundation over to the White House personnel office, many of the key players made up a rogues’ gallery from my past. As I scanned a column in the Washington Post each morning where the new Bush appointees’ names were announced, it was glaringly apparent that this is what the Clinton wars had been all along. The Federalist Society of right-wing lawyers who had been the heart of the anti-Clinton conspiracy turned out to be a virtual Bush government in exile; the new administration’s policies of tax cuts for the wealthy, slashing environmental protections, and rolling back civil rights bore the Society’s stamp, as did many of Bush’s nominees to the federal bench.”
10) For Those Who Consider FOX News “Fair and Balanced”:
The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way In The New Century, Paul Krugman, pages 288-289
“Surveys show that a majority of Americans think that some or all of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi, while many believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11, a claim even the Bush administration has never made. And since many Americans think that the need for a war against Saddam is obvious, they think that Europeans who won’t go along are cowards.
Europeans, who don’t see the same things on TV, are far more inclined to wonder why Iraq — rather than North Korea, or for that matter Al Qaeda — has become the focus of U.S. policy. That’s why many of them question American motives. . .They don’t see opposition to an Iraq War as cowardice; they see it as courage, a matter of standing up to the bullying Bush administration.
There are two possible explanations for the great trans-Atlantic media divide. One is that European media have a pervasive anti-American bias that leads them to distort the news, even in countries like the U.K. where the leaders of both major parties are pro-Bush and support an attack on Iraq. The other is that some U.S. media outlets — operating in an environment in which anyone who questions the administration’s foreign policy is accused of being unpatriotic — have taken it as their assignment to sell the war, not to present a mix of information that might call the justification for war into question.
So which is it? I’ve reported, you decide.”
11) For Wingnuts Who Think Liberals Are Weenies:
Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts The Truth, Joe Conason, page 66
“[T]he startling fact is that liberal Democratic politicians are at least as likely to have done military service as their Republican opponents and critics. Among the U.S. senators in the 107th Congress, the percentage of veterans was slightly higher among Democrats than among Republicans (if service in the Vietnam-era National Guard is excluded). That sort of statistic wouldn’t matter so much if not for the right’s continuing indulgence in venomous attacks on the patriotism of liberals and Democrats.”
12) For Anyone Who Unconditionally Trusts the Pentagon:
Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, James Bamford, page 82
“According to secret and long-hidden documents obtained for Body of Secrets, The Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government. In the name of anticommunism, they proposed launching a secret bloody war of terrorism against their own country in order to trick the American public into supporting an ill-conceived war they intended to launch against Cuba.
Codenamed Operation Northwoods, the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refuges fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked.”
13) For Anyone Who Unconditionally Trusts the Bushes:
Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul For Saudi Crude, Robert Baer, pages 48, 51
“Call it poetic coincidence. But right as the Carlyle Group was getting into its annual investor conference at Washington’s Ritz Carlton Hotel on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon, only two and a half miles to the south. . . At the meeting were the group’s senior counsel, James Baker, secretary of state in the Bush I administration; then Carlyle chairman Frank Carlucci, Ronald Reagan’s last secretary of defense and national security advisor before that; and Shafiq bin Laden, representing the Bin Laden Group — one of the world’s largest construction companies – but far more famous today as Osama bin Laden’s brother. The gathering was the perfect metaphor for Washington’s strange affair with Saudi Arabia. . .
Carlye’s most famous advisor is George Herbert Walker Bush, the forty-first president of the United States. . . Indeed, even as his son was campaigning for the presidency in 2000, papa Bush flew to a posh desert compound outside Riyadh to discuss Saudi-U.S. business relationships with Crown Prince ‘Abdallah. Carlyle insists that Bush was not carrying the investment firm’s portfolio on the trip, but it could not have escaped the notice of his superwealthy hosts that G.H.W. Bush is a trusted and highly valued Carlyle senior advisor – with a son making a run at the White House.”
14) For Semi-Sentient Female Freepers:
Secrets of the Tomb: Skull And Bones, The Ivy League, And the Hidden Paths of Power, Alexandra Robbins, pages 157-158:
“The plaintiffs claimed that admitting women [into Skull and Bones] would lead to ‘date rape’ in the ‘medium-term future’ and that before women could be admitted to the society, a change in society bylaws was necessary. Bones held a second vote on October 24. More than 425 members came to the tomb and hundreds more voted by proxy; the votes tallied 368 to 320 in favor that women should be elected to the society. The women were initiated on Sunday, October 27. Senators David Boren and John Kerry later disclosed that they voted for the admittance of women. George Bush and George W. Bush have never confessed how they voted, though George W. might have provided a clue when he told PBS producer Lynn Novick, a woman who graduated from Yale in 1983, that ‘Yale went downhill since they admitted women.’”
15) For Blowhards Who Pontificate About JFK and ‘Nam:
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam And The Pentagon Papers, by Daniel Ellsberg
pages 195-196:
“But what wasn’t clear to me was how Kennedy could have been so prescient in 1961, or where he would have gotten such a strong personal commitment, as to draw an absolute line against American ground combat in Vietnam. Bobby had not said that his brother had already decided in 1961 to withdraw from Vietnam; he had simply told me that JFK preferred to and intended to do that rather than to send ground troops. . . .I asked, a little impudently, ‘What made him so smart?’. . .
‘Because we were there!’ He slammed the desktop again. His face contorted in anger and pain. ‘We were there, in 1951. We saw what was happening to the French. We saw it. My brother was determined, determined, never to let that happen to us.’”
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Maureen Farrell is a writer and media consultant who specializes in helping other writers get television and radio exposure.
© Copyright 2003, Maureen Farrell
‘War president’ Bush has always been soft on terror; His campaign says vote Republican or die – but he lets al-Qaida off the hook
by Craig Unger / The Guardian
Where’s George Orwell when we need him? Because we Americans need him. We desperately need him. Consider: in August 2001, immediately after reading a memo entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US”, President George Bush went bass fishing – and never called a meeting to discuss the issue.
A month later, on September 11, when he was told that the terrorists had attacked, Bush spent the next seven minutes reading a children’s book, The Pet Goat, with a group of schoolchildren.
And when it comes to his own military service, recent revelations show that Bush got out of fighting in Vietnam thanks to his dad’s political clout. Even then, Bush didn’t fulfil his obligations to the National Guard.
Yet somehow the Bush-Cheney ticket is convincing Americans that only a Republican administration can handle national security. If John Kerry wins, Dick Cheney warned: “The danger is that we’ll get hit again and we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating.” The choice is simple: Vote Republican, or die. And voters are buying it.
A poll just after the Republican convention showed that 27% of the voters preferred Bush to Kerry when it came to national security. Increasingly, it is becoming clear that if Bush wins in November it will be because of the fear factor.
Yet the truth is that Bush is actually soft on terror. When it comes to going after the men who were behind 9/11 and who continue to wage a jihad against the US, Bush has repeatedly turned a blind eye to the forces behind terrorism, shielded the people who funded al-Qaida, obstructed investigations and diverted resources from the battle against it.
One key reason is the Bush-Saudi relationship, the like of which is unprecedented in US politics. Even after the success of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, the subject is largely taboo in the American media. Never before has a president of the US – much less two from the same family – had such close ties with another foreign power.
Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the US and a powerful member of the royal family, has been a close friend of George Bush Snr for more than 20 years. Nicknamed Bandar Bush, he drops by the Bush residences in Kennebunkport, Maine, and Crawford, Texas, not to mention the White House. He and Bush senior go on hunting trips together.
Then there’s the money. More than $1.4bn of financial transactions have gone from the House of Saud to corporations and institutions tied to the Bushes and their allies – largely to companies such as the Carlyle Group, Halliburton, and HarkenEnergy. So what does all that influence buy the Saudis?
Let’s go to the White House on September 13 2001. Just 48 hours after 9/11, the toxic rubble at the World Trade Centre site was still ablaze. The estimated death count, later lowered significantly, was thought to be as high as 40,000.
On that afternoon, Bandar met on the Truman balcony with President Bush and the two men lit up Cohiba cigars. At the time, the White House knew that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. It knew that Osama bin Laden was Saudi. And, as the 9/11 commission concluded, it knew that Saudi Arabia was “the primary source of money for al-Qaida”, which was largely funded by wealthy Saudis via Islamist charities.
President Bush was in the presence of the ambassador from the country that is the guardian of Wahhabi Islam, the fundamentalist sect which helped produce al-Qaida. This is where the war on terror and a massive investigation into the greatest crime in US history should have begun.
But, given the intimate relationship between the two families – and, of course, the fact that the Saudis help fuel America’s 165m automobiles – this was not just a meeting between the president of the US and the ambassador of a country that harboured and financed terrorists. The Saudis were special.
Because Bush and Bandar were the only two people present, we do not know exactly what was said. But we do know that the president failed to join the issue of the Saudi role in terror or how to stop the funding of terrorism through Islamist charities and financial institutions.
That same afternoon, the first of 11 chartered planes began to pick up more than 140 Saudis scattered throughout the US. Saudi Arabia and the president’s defenders have mounted a massive PR campaign to minimise the damage of the Saudi evacuation. But the facts in the 9/11 commission report remain unchanged. The Saudi evacuation flights were not the fantasies of conspiratorialists. They actually took place. The departures were approved by the White House and the vast majority of Saudi passengers were not interviewed by the FBI.
This was the biggest crime in US history. But, in the midst of a grave national security crisis, rather than investigating it the White House and the FBI spent their limited resources helping evacuate the Saudis.
Over the next two years, the 9/11 commission found, the Bush administration failed “to develop a strategy to counter Saudi terrorist financing”. As a result, our Saudi allies were half-hearted in cooperating on terrorist financing and, the commission concluded: “the US government still has not determined with any precision how much al-Qaida raises or from whom, or how it spends its money.”
Now, thanks to Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia and the Failure of America’s War on Terror, a new book by Senator Bob Graham, we know that the Saudis may have played an even bigger role in 9/11 than previously reported. As a member of the Senate intelligence committee, Graham said he learned that “evidence of official Saudi support” for at least two of the 19 hijackers was “incontrovertible”.
As co-chairman of the joint House-Senate panel investigating 9/11, Graham found his efforts to get to the bottom of the Saudi role in 9/11 again and again were quashed by the Bush administration. When his committee tried to subpoena a key witness who happened to be an FBI informant, the FBI refused to cooperate. “It was the only time in my senatorial experience that the FBI has refused to deliver a congressional subpoena,” Graham told Salon.com in a recent interview. “The FBI wasn’t acting on its own,” he added, “but had been directed by the White House not to cooperate.”
In the end, 27 pages of the report on the role of the Saudis in 9/11 were classified by the White House and not released to the public. According to Graham, the Bush administration may have censored the material because it did not want the public to be aware of Saudi support for the 9/11 terrorists. “There has been a long-term special relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia,” he said, “and that relationship has probably reached a new high under the George W Bush administration, in part because of the long and close family relationship that the Bushes have had with the Saudi royal family.”
Graham writes: “It was as if the president’s loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America’s safety.”
If that is the case, no wonder the Bush-Cheney ticket is counting on fear.
I think us sitting around second guessing the president is like arm chair quarterbacking. We all suddenly gained super insight into knowing what should have been done and what should not have been done to win the game. But who wants to get up off of there fat ass and run for office to change anything? VERY FEW PEOPLE and the ones who do run are inherently flawed just like the rest of us. The analogy of the the little red hen comes to mind also. Everyone want to eat the bread, but noone wants to crush the wheat or help bake the bread. It is kind of disheartening. I would not want to weight of the country on my shoulders, they are not broad enough. I admire any one that has the guts to be president right or left.
Okay, Bush bashers, it’s time for a reality check. John Kerry has about as good a chance of winning this election as I have of being struck by lightning. This election is going to be a landslide for Bush, with at least 320 electoral votes. Therefore, it’s time for you folks to quit your whining and look forward to four more “horrible” years of being safe and secure under President Bush.
Okay, Bush bashers, it’s time for a reality check. John Kerry has about as good a chance of winning this election as I have of being struck by lightning. This election is going to be a landslide for Bush, with at least 320 electoral votes. Therefore, it’s time for you folks to quit your whining and look forward to four more “horrible” years of being safe and secure under President Bush.
For Stevenson and Smith,
Put Away Your Hankies…a message from Michael Moore
9/20/04
Dear Friends,
Enough of the handwringing! Enough of the doomsaying! Do I have to come there and personally calm you down? Stop with all the defeatism, OK? Bush IS a goner — IF we all just quit our whining and bellyaching and stop shaking like a bunch of nervous ninnies. Geez, this is embarrassing! The Republicans are laughing at us. Do you ever see them cry, “Oh, it’s all over! We are finished! Bush can’t win! Waaaaaa!”
Hell no. It’s never over for them until the last ballot is shredded. They are never finished — they just keeping moving forward like sharks that never sleep, always pushing, pulling, kicking, blocking, lying.
They are relentless and that is why we secretly admire them — they just simply never, ever give up. Only 30% of the country calls itself “Republican,” yet the Republicans own it all — the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and the majority of the governorships. How do you think they’ve been able to pull that off considering they are a minority? It’s because they eat you and me and every other liberal for breakfast and then spend the rest of the day wreaking havoc on the planet.
Look at us — what a bunch of crybabies. Bush gets a bounce after his convention and you would have thought the Germans had run through Poland again. The Bushies are coming, the Bushies are coming! Yes, they caught Kerry asleep on the Swift Boat thing. Yes, they found the frequency in Dan Rather and ran with it. Suddenly it’s like, “THE END IS NEAR! THE SKY IS FALLING!”
No, it is not. If I hear one more person tell me how lousy a candidate Kerry is and how he can’t win… Dammit, of COURSE he’s a lousy candidate — he’s a Democrat, for heavens sake! That party is so pathetic, they even lose the elections they win! What were you expecting, Bruce Springsteen heading up the ticket? Bruce would make a helluva president, but guys like him don’t run — and neither do you or I. People like Kerry run.
Yes, OF COURSE any of us would have run a better, smarter, kick-ass campaign. Of course we would have smacked each and every one of those phony swifty boaty bastards down. But WE are not running for president — Kerry is. So quit complaining and work with what we have. Oprah just gave 300 women a… Pontiac! Did you see any of them frowning and moaning and screaming, “Oh God, NOT a friggin’ Pontiac!” Of course not, they were happy. The Pontiacs all had four wheels, an engine and a gas pedal. You want more than that, well, I can’t help you. I had a Pontiac once and it lasted a good year. And it was a VERY good year.
My friends, it is time for a reality check.
1. The polls are wrong. They are all over the map like diarrhea. On Friday, one poll had Bush 13 points ahead — and another poll had them both tied. There are three reasons why the polls are b.s.: One, they are polling “likely voters.” “Likely” means those who have consistently voted in the past few elections. So that cuts out young people who are voting for the first time and a ton of non-voters who are definitely going to vote in THIS election. Second, they are not polling people who use their cell phone as their primary phone. Again, that means they are not talking to young people. Finally, most of the polls are weighted with too many Republicans, as pollster John Zogby revealed last week. You are being snookered if you believe any of these polls.
Kerry has brought in the Clinton A-team. Instead of shunning Clinton (as Gore did), Kerry has decided to not make that mistake.
Traveling around the country, as I’ve been doing, I gotta tell ya, there is a hell of a lot of unrest out there. Much of it is not being captured by the mainstream press. But it is simmering and it is real. Do not let those well-produced Bush rallies of angry white people scare you. Turn off the TV! (Except Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers — everything else is just a sugar-coated lie).
Conventional wisdom says if the election is decided on “9/11” (the fear of terrorism), Bush wins. But if it is decided on the job we are doing in Iraq, then Bush loses. And folks, that “job,” you might have noticed, has descended into the third level of a hell we used to call Vietnam. There is no way out. It is a full-blown mess of a quagmire and the body bags will sadly only mount higher. Regardless of what Kerry meant by his original war vote, he ain’t the one who sent those kids to their deaths — and Mr. and Mrs. Middle America knows it. Had Bush bothered to show up when he was in the “service” he might have somewhat of a clue as to how to recognize an immoral war that cannot be “won.” All he has delivered to Iraq was that plasticized turkey last Thanksgiving. It is this failure of monumental proportions that is going to cook his goose come this November.
So, do not despair. All is not over. Far from it. The Bush people need you to believe that it is over. They need you to slump back into your easy chair and feel that sick pain in your gut as you contemplate another four years of George W. Bush. They need you to wish we had a candidate who didn’t windsurf and who was just as smart as we were when WE knew Bush was lying about WMD and Saddam planning 9/11. It’s like Karl Rove is hypnotizing you — “Kerry voted for the war…Kerry voted for the war…Kerrrrrryyy vooootted fooooor theeee warrrrrrrrrr…”
Yes…Yes…Yesssss….He did! HE DID! No sense in fighting now…what I need is sleep…sleeep…sleeeeeeppppp…
WAKE UP! The majority are with us! More than half of all Americans are pro-choice, want stronger environmental laws, are appalled that assault weapons are back on the street — and 54% now believe the war is wrong. YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO CONVINCE THEM OF ANY OF THIS — YOU JUST HAVE TO GIVE THEM A RAY OF HOPE AND A RIDE TO THE POLLS. CAN YOU DO THAT? WILL YOU DO THAT?
Just for me, please? Buck up. The country is almost back in our hands. Not another negative word until Nov. 3rd! Then you can bitch all you want about how you wish Kerry was still that long-haired kid who once had the courage to stand up for something. Personally, I think that kid is still inside him. Instead of the wailing and gnashing of your teeth, why not hold out a hand to him and help the inner soldier/protester come out and defeat the forces of evil we now so desperately face. Do we have any other choice?
Yours,
Michael Moore
http://www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com
Of course Michael Moore would issue a statement like this. He’s a radical liberal that he would say anything to try and keep the idea in his mind that Bush is packing. Besides, Mr. Moore needs to be reminded that the national polls, first of all, consistently show a lead for President Bush, and anyway, those polls don’t really matter. It’s the state polls that count, and when it comes to the battlegrounds, Bush is looking very good right now. Bush is leading in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Maine, Minnesota, Colorado, Nevada, Arkansas, Missouri, Arizona, Ohio, and most importantly, Florida. Bush is probably also going to add New Jersey, Oregon, Maine, and New Hamshire to his win column, which leads to my conclusion-Bush by a fairly wide margin.
“Bush is probably also going to add New Jersey”
Speaking as a NJ resident I suggest you keep your mouth shut and let us still wonder whether you are a fool or not. However it’s too late, you opened it and prove me right.
Bush has absolutely no chance in my state. So many young voters 21-18 are pissed off and we will be voting in droves.
And yes this is about the only good thing bush has done. He has energized the young, INFORMED voters to vote against his sorry ass.
4 more months!!!!!! :)
Great blog!
GO BUSH!! To all you Kerry fans…
here is my opinion, Kerry claims to be such a devout Catholic and yet he supports abortion, he supports gay marriage, divorce and many other things that the Catholic church DOES NOT support, he is a hypocrit! If jesus was on this earth do you think he would support abortion? Or GAY MARRIAGE? or divorce? NO i dont think so, Bush is only doing what he thinks is right, he has so much pressure on his shoulders being president especially right now! this world is freakin crazy!! VOTE BUSH 2004!!!!
First off, Kerry supports choice, not abortion. Secondly, he does not support Gay Marriage, and lastly, shut the hell up about Divorce; Bush supports it too, you moron. Clearly you are one of those religious zealot voters since you think this is a major issue.
“If jesus was on this earth do you think he would support abortion?”
I don’t know, but do YOU think Jesus would support killing 12,000 innocent Iraqis based on lies?
Anyways, I can completely make your ENTIRE post irrelevant with one phrase–Seperation of Church and State. It’s people like you who made the Pilgrims come to this land.
:P
P.S. It is spelled hypocrite.
Personally, I would hope if Jesus would be alive today that he would listen to the personal tragedies of people, rather then judge them…
WAIT A MINUTE!!! Rob, President Bush has finally brought values back to the White House, after the disgrace of Clinton…there is no basis to challenge him on issues like abortion, gay marriage, and divorce. I’m also getting real tired of the anti-Bush whiners calling anyone who supports him “moron” or “idiot” as if anyone with intelligence is voting for Kerry. I consider myself pretty intelligent, as well as many of my friends, and we’re casting our ballots for President Bush.
Actually, there is a lot of intelligence needed for someone to vote for Kerry…it would probably take someone with a 1000 IQ to figure out his position on Iraq!
If you have “SO” much intelligence, address my points you retard. Don’t just spout silly talking points. You didn’t address 1. You just brought up Bill fucking Clinton, who HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS RACE YOU FUCKING IDIOT.
Kerry has had one position on Iraq. He thinks Bush was right to disarm Saddam, but NOT the way he did. Kerry voted to give the PRESIDENT the authority to CHOOSE to goto war IF NECESSARY, and to BUILD A REAL COALITION.
It wasn’t NECESSARY, and He didn’t build a REAL coalition. Bush also grossly mismanaged the war.
You’re right Rob, I should address your points.
I have no idea what Jesus would have thought about the Iraq war. But I know he wouldn’t have endorsed the killing of 3,000 on September 11, nor would he have endorsed the daily killing of others by the Iraqi insurgents and other terrorist groups. The Bible does mention “an eye for an eye.”
Separation of church and state is nowhere to be found in the Constitution, and in fact, many of the Founding Fathers didn’t want there to be a separation of church and state, Benjamin Franklin being one of them.
You claim that John Kerry has had a constant position on the war in Iraq. What about “I voted for the war before I voted against it?” What the heck is that supposed to mean? Sometimes he is against the war, sometimes he’s for it.
Thank you. I will now address your points with my counter-points.
You are right. I am not Jesus. However I do believe it was Laceface (a Bush supporter) who first mentioned yeshua (jesus) and I merely was replying to her comment. How does she know have any idea what Jesus thinks about being pro-choice on abortion? Or How do YOU know that Jesus supported an eye for an eye? The Christian Bible didn’t exist in Jesus’s time.
While the exact words of Seperation of Church and State are not in the constitution, the basic idea of a seperation of church and state is and it is clearly implied. The first amendment reads:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Notice it does not say “of a” religion. It says only “of” religion. That is because what the first amendment means is that there should be no law respecting the establishment of religion in general.
For more clarification, you can check this out:
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=269
It is a site by an independent group called factcheck.org
I’m not good at staying on topic. I just want to say that Republicans pay by going into debt, and democrats pay by raising taxes. Which makes more sense? Eventually we will have to pay off this war. Therefore either fundraising billions of dollars or raising taxes. I like Rob. PEACE
This race will be over by the end of next week-Bush is going to cream Kerry in the debates! Bush is such a good debater.
Thank moveon. :) Just getting the REAL truth out there.
And to Mortimer…you are right Bush is a good debater because he was a cheerleader. Cheerleader’s are good at driving simple, catchy phrases home.
However this country doesn’t want a Cheerleader as president, we want an intelligent, skilled debater.
HA YES!
Kerry won the debates, no ifs ands or buts about it.
The tide has turned!
debate*