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returntothepit >> discuss >> Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld personally signed memorandum approving torture in 2003 by HailTheLeaf on Mar 9,2006 12:47pm
Add To All Your Pages!
toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 9,2006 12:48pm
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/33184/

That one-page memorandum "authorized sleep deprivation, stress positions, meal disruption --serving their meals late, not serving a meal. Leaving the lights on all night while playing loud music, issuing insults or criticism of their religion, their culture, their beliefs." In the left-hand margin, alongside the list of interrogation techniques to be applied, Rumsfeld had personally written, "Make sure this happens!!" Karpinski emphasized the fact that Rumsfeld had used two exclamation points.

When asked how far up the chain of command responsibility for the torture orders for Abu Ghraib went, Karpinski said, "The Secretary of Defense would not have authorized without the approval of the Vice President."



Here's a good shot of Rummy, with his fellow war criminal buddy.


"What good fortune for those in power that people do not think."

--Adolf Hitler




toggletoggle post by the_reverend   at Mar 9,2006 12:56pm
no duh...



toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 9,2006 1:01pm
for real...



toggletoggle post by dreadedsilence at Mar 9,2006 1:09pm
so?



toggletoggle post by anonymous at Mar 9,2006 1:14pm
HailTheLeaf said:
Rumsfeld had used two exclamation points.


Now he's just gone too far.



toggletoggle post by Yeti at Mar 9,2006 1:23pm
thats what they consider torture? serving meals late and criticizing their religion? whoa boys, no need to break out the big guns



toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 9,2006 1:24pm
read the rest of the article



toggletoggle post by BobNOMAAMRooney nli at Mar 9,2006 1:25pm
Bomb them with our surplus of fat white girls, they will stop being angry.



toggletoggle post by scoracrasia   at Mar 9,2006 1:26pm edited Mar 9,2006 1:27pm
Sounds like San Quentin. What's the big deal?



toggletoggle post by Josh_Martin at Mar 9,2006 3:00pm
HailTheLeaf said:
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/33184/

That one-page memorandum "authorized sleep deprivation, stress positions, meal disruption --serving their meals late, not serving a meal. Leaving the lights on all night while playing loud music, issuing insults or criticism of their religion, their culture, their beliefs."


Who is defining "torture" in this instance? None of that seems like torture to me. That's what just about every prison in America is like.

I hope the left doesn't make a big deal about this. The more they cry about stupid shit like this, the less they will be listened to when the important stuff comes up.



toggletoggle post by DrinkHardThrashHard  at Mar 9,2006 3:16pm
Good for him. There is simply not enough torture in the world, and let's face it, Hostel just didn't cut it.



toggletoggle post by Dissector   at Mar 9,2006 3:20pm
dreadedsilence said:
so?





toggletoggle post by Hoser at Mar 9,2006 9:48pm
Hail The Queef makes the left look stupid again!!!!

*crowd cheers*




toggletoggle post by hungtableed at Mar 9,2006 10:02pm
HailTheLeaf said:

"authorized sleep deprivation, stress positions, meal disruption --serving their meals late, not serving a meal. Leaving the lights on all night while playing loud music, issuing insults or criticism of their religion, their culture, their beliefs."


If you think any of the above mentioned actions are torture, then you are seriously a pussy and you obviously care more about protecting terrorists (or even potential terrorists) than U.S. soldiers and Marines.




toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 10,2006 12:29pm edited Mar 10,2006 12:30pm
HailTheLeaf said:
read the rest of the article


wow, since no one can read, I guess I'll have to post more...

"A case I'd documented even before then was that of 57 year-old Sadiq Zoman. He was held for one month by U.S. forces before being dropped off in a coma at the general hospital in Tikrit. The medical report that came with his comatose body, written by U.S. Army medic Lt. Col. Michael Hodges, listed the reasons for Zoman's state as heat stroke and heart attack. That medical report, however, failed to mention anything about the physical trauma evident on Zomans' body --- the electrical point burns on the soles of his feet and on his genitals, the fact that the back of his head had been bashed in with a blunt instrument, or the lash marks up and down his body."

"When I interviewed Ali Abbas in Iraq, his descriptions from Abu Ghraib bore a remarkable similarity to those given by detainees released from the American prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and from the little noticed American mini-gulag in Afghanistan."

"They shit on us, used dogs against us, used electricity and starved us," he told me. "They cut my hair into strips like an Indian. They shaved my mustache, put a plate in my hand, and made me go beg from the prisoners, as if I was a beggar."

in Sherbegan Prison in Afghanistan in December, 2001, one of the detainees, Shafiq Rasul, described the situation as follows: "We all had body and hair lice. We got dysentery and the toilets were disgusting. It was just a hole in the ground with shit everywhere. The whole prison stank of shit and unwashed bodies."

"He would not be allowed to wash for at least six weeks. He would be transferred to a U.S. base in Kandahar and endure a "forced cavity search" while he was hooded, then go on to suffer countless beatings. When he was later transferred to Guantánamo Bay, he would witness the "Guantánamo haircut" where men would either have their heads shaved completely or have a cross shaved into their head in order to insult their faith. Denial of medical care and long stays in solitary confinement, along with sleep deprivation tactics, were the norm.

Other forms of treatment included:


Gratuitous violence: Prisoners would be punched, kicked, and slammed to the ground.


Exposure to the elements: Prisoners were locked in cage-like structures located in hangers with no heating.


Denial of nourishment.


Denial of religious rights including purposeful desecration of the Quran.


The use of dogs to threaten prisoners.

And keep in mind, this was the norm. The extreme we know from the recorded deaths of at least 98 prisoners in American hands in these years."

typical prison stuff huh? nothing wrong there at all, that's a great way to treat people. Hey Hoser, since you're the expert, what does your prized Geneva convention say about this stuff?



toggletoggle post by tiredofhailtheleaf at Mar 10,2006 12:37pm
Why don't you shut the fuck up HailtheLeaf? BLAH BLAH BLAH
GET OFF THE INTERNET AND IN THE KITCHEN BITCH!



toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 10,2006 12:42pm edited Mar 10,2006 12:42pm
there's the intelligent response I'd expected! you know how to read, good for you, now go evolve for a few million years and maybe you'll catch up to the rest of us, I know you want your thumbs, but it looks like you'll have to wait awhile.



toggletoggle post by BobNOMAAMRooney nli at Mar 10,2006 3:38pm
hungtableed said:
HailTheLeaf said:

"authorized sleep deprivation, stress positions, meal disruption --serving their meals late, not serving a meal. Leaving the lights on all night while playing loud music, issuing insults or criticism of their religion, their culture, their beliefs."


If you think any of the above mentioned actions are torture, then you are seriously a pussy and you obviously care more about protecting terrorists (or even potential terrorists) than U.S. soldiers and Marines.



Someone must have slept without his nightlight last night!



toggletoggle post by Dankill at Mar 10,2006 4:51pm
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ



toggletoggle post by Hoser at Mar 10,2006 6:32pm edited Mar 10,2006 6:33pm
tiredofhailtheleaf said:
Why don't you shut the fuck up HailtheLeaf? BLAH BLAH BLAH
GET OFF THE INTERNET AND IN THE KITCHEN BITCH!


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA......She is getting pretty annoying with this dumb shit. It's still fun to see how dumbass left wingers think. I say that she keeps doing it. I've been forwarding the stuff to my father and he gets a kick out of it. He says that it's just another example of the dumb and entitled thinking that parents have so moronically allowed their children to pursue. Her parents were worthless hippies too, no doubt.




toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 11,2006 12:06pm
Conveniently avoided every point she made in her last post, didn't you Hoser?

If you don't believe the report, I'd love to hear your reasoning, and if you think that the facts in the second post aren't torture, I'd love to hear that reasoning, too. Otherwise, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

(I will agree though, that HailtheLeaf's arguments would have been taken more seriously had she put the facts in the second post in the first post, because they're much harder to argue with, and clearly not everyone is going to click on the article; liberals only lose to conservatives due to lack of organization)



toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 11,2006 12:17pm
Hoser should go work for Faux News, he knows just how to debate current events with the left, come back with insults, personal attacks and stupidity that have nothing to do with the topic being discussed instead of making valid points with facts.



toggletoggle post by Hoser at Mar 11,2006 1:24pm
You have yet to make any valid points, my dear. Who gives a shit if these Arab scum get tortured? If it saves 1 single American life, I'm all for it. What if it saved the life of one of your parents, or a loved one? You see, left wingers only bitch about things that don't directly effect them. I'm for American lives, that's all. I could give a shit about some dune monkey's personal feelings. I could give a shit about your sobbing for the terrorists. I could give a shit about the ACLU and their twisted agenda. I shouldn't name call, you are right about that. BUT, I'm human and get so SICK TO DEATH of the left wing's UNORGANIZED and GRABASTIC agenda. They have no real issues to argue over because they are SSOOOOO completely out of the loop of reality. They don't pick their battles wisely....they run around like a bunch of unorganized squawking chickens....making a lot of noise but not really getting anything done. Now....argue about something that has a direct effect upon yourself.....like the Massachussetts tax burden. You bitch about this country and GW Bush, and maybe you should bitch about Ted Kennedy's fat, slovenly ass as he sits back and runs one of the MOST taxed states in the union.....then you can tell me what a good guy he is and what a great state Mass. is. Maybe you and your cronies should concentrate more on that crooked shithole state that you live in and less on things that do not directly effect you. Learn to crawl before you walk is all that I'm saying. Hope this didn't offend you or damage your self esteem. I'm just being honest.



toggletoggle post by slowlypeelingtheflesh   at Mar 11,2006 2:04pm edited Mar 11,2006 2:05pm
Hoser said:
You have yet to make any valid points, my dear. Who gives a shit if these Arab scum get tortured? If it saves 1 single American life, I'm all for it. What if it saved the life of one of your parents, or a loved one? You see, left wingers only bitch about things that don't directly effect them. I'm for American lives, that's all. I could give a shit about some dune monkey's personal feelings. I could give a shit about your sobbing for the terrorists. I could give a shit about the ACLU and their twisted agenda. I shouldn't name call, you are right about that. BUT, I'm human and get so SICK TO DEATH of the left wing's UNORGANIZED and GRABASTIC agenda. They have no real issues to argue over because they are SSOOOOO completely out of the loop of reality. They don't pick their battles wisely....they run around like a bunch of unorganized squawking chickens....making a lot of noise but not really getting anything done. Now....argue about something that has a direct effect upon yourself.....like the Massachussetts tax burden. You bitch about this country and GW Bush, and maybe you should bitch about Ted Kennedy's fat, slovenly ass as he sits back and runs one of the MOST taxed states in the union.....then you can tell me what a good guy he is and what a great state Mass. is. Maybe you and your cronies should concentrate more on that crooked shithole state that you live in and less on things that do not directly effect you. Learn to crawl before you walk is all that I'm saying. Hope this didn't offend you or damage your self esteem. I'm just being honest.



The problem with you is the first few lines. Things like "Who gives a shit if these Arab scum get tortured?" and " I'm for American lives, that's all." Having an outlook like that is fucking ridiculous.

I hope you get your head chopped off. This is exactly why terror groups hate America, because of assholes like you.



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 11,2006 2:40pm
Hoser,

If you believe in saving American lives, you wouldn't talk like that.


Here is the central point that conservatives don't understand:

Not everyone over there is either a supporter of America or a terrorist. Some people lean one way or the other, and most are right in the middle and trust neither side. Every time America is perceived the way you just made us sound, those who lean towards us inch towards the middle, those in the middle began to lean away from us, and those in poverty who lean away from us become great recruitment targets for Al Queda, where they WILL kill American soldiers and civilians.

Now does that mean we should budge an inch in our policies to appease the terrorists? FUCK NO. Those who are already terrorists have made their choice, and they're not going back, so fuck 'em. We're at war, and treating them like anything but enemies is living in a fantasy land.

But, antagonizing the other BILLION Muslims who are in the middle is like giving Bin Laden military aid every day. The fact that we're losing a public relations battle to some "dune monkeys" that kill civilians should give you a clue as to how poor our foreign policy is. 9/11 proved that we are vulnerable, that what goes on in the desert halfway across the world DOES affect us, so why do we insist on poking the bear when that's EXACTLY WHAT AL QAEDA WANTS.

The bottom line is this: If the terrorists successfully frame this war as Christian vs. Muslim, WE LOSE, and if we frame this war as civilization vs. anarchy, WE WIN. That's it. THAT'S IT.

We had every ability to win that argument in 2001, and we still have a shot, but right now we are LOSING. Now ask yourself, which side of the argument does it help when Americans tell the world they could give a shit about some dune monkey's personal feelings? And which side does it help when Americans say only American lives are important, when the terrorists are saying only Muslim lives are important? If a neutral Muslim hears both of those things, why the hell should they side with us? Would you?

Now I don't think this is your intention at all, you have legitimate anger against immoral fucks who would kill all of us if they had a chance. I just think you haven't had the opportunity to hear these facts before. I just hope for the sake of American lives that you and all conservatives will take a minute and give what I've said here some thought before automatically reverting back to your positions.

The truth isn't pretty, but every time you say things that reinforce the terrorists' perception of this war, you are giving them a gift in American blood.



toggletoggle post by Y_Ddraig_Goch  at Mar 11,2006 3:49pm
I like the vikings better than the English, Danelaw for life baby



toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 11,2006 6:44pm edited Mar 11,2006 6:45pm
Hoser said:
You have yet to make any valid points, my dear. Who gives a shit if these Arab scum get tortured? If it saves 1 single American life, I'm all for it. What if it saved the life of one of your parents, or a loved one? You see, left wingers only bitch about things that don't directly effect them. I'm for American lives, that's all. I could give a shit about some dune monkey's personal feelings. I could give a shit about your sobbing for the terrorists. I could give a shit about the ACLU and their twisted agenda. I shouldn't name call, you are right about that. BUT, I'm human and get so SICK TO DEATH of the left wing's UNORGANIZED and GRABASTIC agenda. They have no real issues to argue over because they are SSOOOOO completely out of the loop of reality. They don't pick their battles wisely....they run around like a bunch of unorganized squawking chickens....making a lot of noise but not really getting anything done. Now....argue about something that has a direct effect upon yourself.....like the Massachussetts tax burden. You bitch about this country and GW Bush, and maybe you should bitch about Ted Kennedy's fat, slovenly ass as he sits back and runs one of the MOST taxed states in the union.....then you can tell me what a good guy he is and what a great state Mass. is. Maybe you and your cronies should concentrate more on that crooked shithole state that you live in and less on things that do not directly effect you. Learn to crawl before you walk is all that I'm saying. Hope this didn't offend you or damage your self esteem. I'm just being honest.


Hey Hoser, explain why you think the lives of the people who fell out of their mother on this continent are worth more than those of people who happened to fall out of their mother in the middle east? I'm dying to hear your rational on this one...also, how can they be the "terrorists" if we invaded their fucking country? Those people have never threatened us, never bombed us, never threatened war, until our country fucked with them. They are defending themselves, and doing a damn good job of it, I'm sure you would fight also if someone invaded your state and napalmed your children, somehow I doubt you'd buy it if they occupied your city, blew your house off the map, shot your wife and said "we're here to bring you freedom!". I don't live in MA anymore, I moved over 2 years ago, I think all taxation is theft, especially if that tax money is used to kill other people instead of help them, or make the already rich, richer. I don't like Ted Kennedy because he's well aware that federal income tax is illegal, but does nothing to stand up and say so.



toggletoggle post by Hoser at Mar 11,2006 8:05pm edited Mar 11,2006 8:07pm
Ok......to answer your 1st question: Because THIS is my country. If I were born elsewhere, I would do anything to save the people of THAT country.

#2 Did you forget Sept. 11th, Pan Am flight 301 over Lockerby, Scotland, the 1st twin tower bombing, the USS Cole bombing....shall I go on?

To the rest of the assholes that posted their silly responses, like them hoping that I get my head cut off....come cut it off....I'll gut you and your family. I was making a point and now realize that arguing with you dumbasses is completely pointless. What you assholes realize is that me and many like me really don't give a shit what the rest of the world thinks of us. Thats why I don't dress like you slowlypeelingyourdick. I don't try to have the most sickly metal name on here.....I wear more than just black, and I don't care what any other country thinks of us....and neither do said countries care what we think of them! Your argument and comment were just plain stupid.



toggletoggle post by whiskey_weed_and_women  at Mar 11,2006 8:10pm
Hoser said:
Don't forget your love for the loser left wing.......ever notice that the loser left wing idealists all smoke weed and embrace the hippy lifestyle? Now THATS who should be running this country....HAHAHAHAHAHA.




I AM STRAIGHT EDGE, I AM STRAIGHT EDGE !!!!



toggletoggle post by Hoser at Mar 11,2006 8:11pm
ShadowSD said:
Hoser,

If you believe in saving American lives, you wouldn't talk like that.


Here is the central point that conservatives don't understand:

Not everyone over there is either a supporter of America or a terrorist. Some people lean one way or the other, and most are right in the middle and trust neither side. Every time America is perceived the way you just made us sound, those who lean towards us inch towards the middle, those in the middle began to lean away from us, and those in poverty who lean away from us become great recruitment targets for Al Queda, where they WILL kill American soldiers and civilians.

Now does that mean we should budge an inch in our policies to appease the terrorists? FUCK NO. Those who are already terrorists have made their choice, and they're not going back, so fuck 'em. We're at war, and treating them like anything but enemies is living in a fantasy land.

But, antagonizing the other BILLION Muslims who are in the middle is like giving Bin Laden military aid every day. The fact that we're losing a public relations battle to some "dune monkeys" that kill civilians should give you a clue as to how poor our foreign policy is. 9/11 proved that we are vulnerable, that what goes on in the desert halfway across the world DOES affect us, so why do we insist on poking the bear when that's EXACTLY WHAT AL QAEDA WANTS.

The bottom line is this: If the terrorists successfully frame this war as Christian vs. Muslim, WE LOSE, and if we frame this war as civilization vs. anarchy, WE WIN. That's it. THAT'S IT.

We had every ability to win that argument in 2001, and we still have a shot, but right now we are LOSING. Now ask yourself, which side of the argument does it help when Americans tell the world they could give a shit about some dune monkey's personal feelings? And which side does it help when Americans say only American lives are important, when the terrorists are saying only Muslim lives are important? If a neutral Muslim hears both of those things, why the hell should they side with us? Would you?

Now I don't think this is your intention at all, you have legitimate anger against immoral fucks who would kill all of us if they had a chance. I just think you haven't had the opportunity to hear these facts before. I just hope for the sake of American lives that you and all conservatives will take a minute and give what I've said here some thought before automatically reverting back to your positions.

The truth isn't pretty, but every time you say things that reinforce the terrorists' perception of this war, you are giving them a gift in American blood.



All good points.....and all points taken. Thanks for having the balls to explain the position. I respect you for that, and you sound educated; which I also respect.




toggletoggle post by Hoser at Mar 11,2006 8:12pm
Dude, John Edwards is a psycho.



toggletoggle post by whiskey_weed_and_women  at Mar 11,2006 8:13pm
Hoser said:
Dude, John Edwards is a psycho.


you sir clearly miss the joke.



toggletoggle post by Hoser at Mar 11,2006 8:17pm
Enlighten me please.



toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 11,2006 9:19pm
Hoser said:
Ok......to answer your 1st question: Because THIS is my country. If I were born elsewhere, I would do anything to save the people of THAT country.

#2 Did you forget Sept. 11th, Pan Am flight 301 over Lockerby, Scotland, the 1st twin tower bombing, the USS Cole bombing....shall I go on?


please do, since none of those incidents had anything to do with Iraq...



toggletoggle post by BobNOMAAMRooney nli at Mar 11,2006 10:30pm
I think what Albert Camus said in a letter published in Combat in 1948 in which he defended his portrayal of Franco's regime in a play of his instead of a critique of Stalin's regime really applies to this arguement about torture. I don't remember the exact quote but it was something like

"You have no right to criticize my decision to focus on Spain if you care about the suffering of another man only when he shares the same views as you."



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 12,2006 7:15am
Hoser said:

All good points.....and all points taken. Thanks for having the balls to explain the position. I respect you for that, and you sound educated; which I also respect.



Thanks man, I respect you too for hearing out the arguments and considering a different point of view.



More liberals to need wake up and realize that just as America is unnecessarily getting trounced in a PR war with its enemies, progressives are unnecessarily getting trounced in a PR battle with neo-cons. Why? Because we fall victim to our own presumptions.

Listen to how far right conservatives convey themselves online, on cable news, and talk radio. They make their points clearly, concisely, and thoroughly, leaving very little potential ambiguity. But liberals with a public platforms think that the centrist and conservative elements of their positions are automatically presumed by the viewer. They are not.

I'll give an example: Note where I said above that "We're at war, and treating our enemies as anything but is living in a fantasy world". In the past, I might not have included that sentence, presuming well everyone thinks that way, so why state the obvious? WRONG. Why would a far right conservative automatically assume the best about someone on the other side? Had I not included that sentence in my last post, my viewpoint might not have been taken as seriously by a conservative, and my entire argument might have been dismissed as the deluded words of a nieve terrorist sympathizer. I see this happen to progressives over and over (it's happening to HailtheLeaf in this very thread), and by the time they make it clear that they are not terrorist sympathizers, all the conservatives have already stopped listening to them. Under those circumstances, the smartest progressive cannot hope to outdebate the gremlins in Ann Coulter's vagina.

(Let me make it clear, I'm not trying to say that liberals should try to sell themselves as something they're not, that's why neither Gore and Kerry were able to win the Presidency. They acted too much like watered-down Republicans in the general election, and therefore a large percentage of liberals never turned out to vote for them. No one of any political persuasion wants to elect a boring, neutered conformist with no personality. What I'm saying is that progressives should be honest and forthcoming about all their positions, even if all those positions are not liberal)

In summary: for progressives, to include centrist or conservative positions that you believe in is good, but dwelling on those positions to the point where you're not using the majority of your time to make progressive arguments is bad. Until we can learn to strike that balance, we will lose every debate, even in situations where all the facts are in our favor.






toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 12,2006 12:01pm
Ann Coulter HAS a vagina? I definately want proof on this one...



toggletoggle post by vomitious at Mar 12,2006 1:42pm
Yes, I believe that she does, and from what I've been told, it's cleaner than your moose knuckle/stank box, too!



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 12,2006 2:17pm
You people realize that people in gauntanamo lie intentionally just to make us look bad? When the actual study of how many real korans were desecrated, they found that the handful of incidents involving US soldiers were already prosecuted in a military court before the Newsweek story broke. The majority of the other incidents involved prisoners desecrating their korans themselves. These people are Machiavellian by nature. Even if it goes against what they say they believe, if it results in a blow for us or one step closer to implementing sharia law worldwide, then they'll do it.



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 12,2006 2:18pm
By the way, is it now tortue to not only deny a meal when prisoners don't cooperate but to also force feed prisoners when they try to starve themselves?



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 13,2006 4:14am
HailTheLeaf said:
Ann Coulter HAS a vagina? I definately want proof on this one...


It's actually more of a gremlin gestational sac, but since it's crawling with syphilis, vagina seemed more appropriate.



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 13,2006 4:50am
PatMeebles said:
You people realize that people in gauntanamo lie intentionally just to make us look bad? When the actual study of how many real korans were desecrated, they found that the handful of incidents involving US soldiers were already prosecuted in a military court before the Newsweek story broke. The majority of the other incidents involved prisoners desecrating their korans themselves. These people are Machiavellian by nature. Even if it goes against what they say they believe, if it results in a blow for us or one step closer to implementing sharia law worldwide, then they'll do it.


Absolutely. I have no doubt that many of the prisoner's allegations are boldface lies.

However, governments often go against their own morals in wartime, including our own (from the McCarthyist witchhunts of the cold war to the Japanese internment camps of WWII where innocent citizens and residents of the US were held for years, and some even died). So logically, the burden of proof is on the government that there isn't torture going on, both historically speaking, and particularly after the Abu Gharaib scandal. We may not like it, especially when we know terrorists are lying and manipulating the situation to their advantage, but it is the fault of our own policies in the past that we are stuck in this situation.

Ultimately though, those terrorists behind bars are where they belong, and they're not going anywhere. If they lie and deceive, I can't say I'm the least bit surprised or disappointed, and neither are any other Americans. But when OUR government that WE pay for is under suspicion of torturing prisoners, I have every right to be outraged, particularly when that leads to increased instances of tortured Americans and a climate that is more condusive to terrorist recruitment.

Rumsfeld recently said something retarded like we allow the UN inspectors to go to the prison but not to talk to the prisoners, because they might lie. Well, with that logic, no prisons should ever be inspected because some prisoners will always lie to improve their situation. Just because some people are lying, it doesn't mean that no one could be telling the truth, and it certainly doesn't mean our government is infallible.



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 13,2006 10:10am
I don't think terrorist recruitment has gone up. The number of suicide bombings in Iraq have plummeted. If there were more terrorists, there would definitely be more suicide bombers, since Zarqawi wouldn't have to worry about losing resources. Plus, the Sunnis in the Anbar province, even after the sectarian "civil war" (I didn't know a week counted as civil war), openly declared war on al qaeda, and are driving them out of western Iraq.



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 13,2006 10:11am
Oh, and I forgot to read your last part. The UN team only relied on prisoner testimony. They didn't even bother to get any info from the government.



toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 13,2006 1:56pm edited Mar 13,2006 1:58pm
PatMeebles said:
I don't think terrorist recruitment has gone up. The number of suicide bombings in Iraq have plummeted. If there were more terrorists, there would definitely be more suicide bombers, since Zarqawi wouldn't have to worry about losing resources. Plus, the Sunnis in the Anbar province, even after the sectarian "civil war" (I didn't know a week counted as civil war), openly declared war on al qaeda, and are driving them out of western Iraq.


You don't think terrorist recruitment has gone up because of our invasion, the continued occupation of Iraq, and the way we treat the people there? That's so absurd I don't even know what to say to it...We're created an entirely new terrorist state, a recuitment camp bigger than Afganistan ever was, and a whole new generation of pissed off fanatics. Next will be the civil war...



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 13,2006 3:35pm
Exactly.


PatMeebles said:
I don't think terrorist recruitment has gone up. The number of suicide bombings in Iraq have plummeted. If there were more terrorists, there would definitely be more suicide bombers, since Zarqawi wouldn't have to worry about losing resources. Plus, the Sunnis in the Anbar province, even after the sectarian "civil war" (I didn't know a week counted as civil war), openly declared war on al qaeda, and are driving them out of western Iraq.


I don't know if you've gotten the chance to go abroad in recent years, Pat, but hatred of America across the board has gone up so much during the Bush administration, it's unreal. And clearly, the more and more people hate America, the more sympathetic they will be to our enemies.

It's true that the increase of sectarian violence in Iraq can go hand in hand with a decrease of suicide bombings by Al Qaeda and other foreign based terrorist groups. And why not? Zarqawi and Bin Laden want chaos in Iraq, they don't care how it happens, and once an internal conflict picks up momentum, they're not going to waste suicide bombers when chaos is already self-sustinent. It may seem hard to understand, since suicide bombers seem to be totally expendable by definition, but their leaders are not going to waste their only weapons when it gains them nothing; they may be crazy, but they're not stupid. After all, Al Qaeda killed 3000 Americans with just 20 terrorists. They could have sent more of course, but they didn't, only as many as they had to.

Also, you assume that Zarqawi would use more suicide bombers if he had enough to spare, but that suggests that the only place he ever intends to use suicide bombers is Iraq; I assure you that is not the case. These people want to bring chaos to the entire world until everyone submits to their dogma, and they will use each suicide bomber only to cause as much damage as possible.

Furthermore, as you yourself suggested, when foreign fighters continue to suicide bomb indiscriminantly once a civil war begins, it eventually backfires to unite citizens against them in force; in fact, a common enemy is the only external force that can stop a civil war once it begins. (I don't think that has happened yet, though, since like you I don't believe that a civil war has even begun yet in earnest - but with the way things are going, civil war does seem more and more imminent). But again, and unfortunately, I don't think that Zarqawi will be stupid enough to attack indiscriminantly and unite Iraqis against him if civil war breaks out; rather he will sit back and watch when it suits him, and only attack in ways that will aggrevate the situation.

Also, at no time in history has the military strength of an army been accurately measured soley based on the level of its military activity at a given moment. In the case of international terrorism, where there is no central organization but rather countless unassociated splinter groups, the current degree of military activity tells us even less about the recruitment and troop levels of our enemies.


PatMeebles said:
Oh, and I forgot to read your last part. The UN team only relied on prisoner testimony. They didn't even bother to get any info from the government.


The UN team didn't go to Guantanamo at all, if you believe our Secretary of Defense. In fact, that was the Rumsfeld complaint I was addressing in the first place; it began with him saying hey we invited the UN Inspectors but they never came to look, so how can they judge? Then, when challenged with the fact that the UN Inspectors didn't see any point in looking if they couldn't talk to the prisoners, Rumsfeld gave the same reasoning as you did earlier: "people in guantanamo lie intentionally just to make us look bad".



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 14,2006 1:14am
You know, I really don't care about elitist europeans who hate us. They keep talking about oil, but they were the ones who voted against an iraqi invasion because their leaders were bribed with oil. They talk about tolerance, but they have completely abandoned their immigrant population, and their nihilistic moral relativism has opened the door for islamofascists to take root and create autonomous regions around places like Paris where sharia law is openly enforced. They say we let our poor and helpless die after Katrina yet they don't do anything about a heat wave that killed thousands of elderly. After the riots in Paris started, it took Chirac a whole week to appear on television once. They talk about how America destroys people's civil liberties, but places like the Netherlands are debating (at the very least) putting security cameras on every street in order to maintain order, a la England.

The reason I don't think a sectarian civil war will break out is because of your predicitions about Zarqawi. Being stupid and indiscriminately bombing Iraqis and other Middle Eastern peoples is EXACTLY what he's been doing since day 1. The civilian population is already completely united against him. Combine that with Sunni acceptance of and even enthusiasm about their future role in Iraqi society, and you have the makings of a stable society. The only way a real civil war begins is if the Iraqi army falls apart. That doesn't look like it's going to happen. They've done a phenomenal job in securing the peace, especially after the mosque bombing.

Al Qaeda may be very patient people, but as intel on them is gathered, we know they've been completely decimated in places all around the world, as early as right after 9/11. Support for terrorism dropped (at least before the cartoon fiasco) according to the PEW research center (run by Madeline Albright, no friend of Bush).

That's all my sleep deprived mind can think of now.



toggletoggle post by soloman nli at Mar 14,2006 9:18am
HailTheLeaf said:
PatMeebles said:
I don't think terrorist recruitment has gone up. The number of suicide bombings in Iraq have plummeted. If there were more terrorists, there would definitely be more suicide bombers, since Zarqawi wouldn't have to worry about losing resources. Plus, the Sunnis in the Anbar province, even after the sectarian "civil war" (I didn't know a week counted as civil war), openly declared war on al qaeda, and are driving them out of western Iraq.


You don't think terrorist recruitment has gone up because of our invasion, the continued occupation of Iraq, and the way we treat the people there? That's so absurd I don't even know what to say to it...We're created an entirely new terrorist state, a recuitment camp bigger than Afganistan ever was, and a whole new generation of pissed off fanatics. Next will be the civil war...



Where you getting your stats that say terrorist recruitment is up?

We didn't create a terrorist state, we created an ally.



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 15,2006 9:25am
PatMeebles said:
You know, I really don't care about elitist europeans who hate us.


You assume I was talking about Europe in particular, I was not. There are reasonable, enlightened people scattered all over the world, of which those who are European are only a fraction, and of which those who are elitist are an even smaller minority. If reasonable people around the world are finding legitimate cause to view the US as just as much as a threat to them as terrorism, I don't want to know what the unreasonable ones are thinking.

Take Iraq, for example. If reasonable people there don't side with us, where will the loyalties of their new military and police force be?

From the AP just a couple hours ago:

"Eleven people — most women and children — were killed when a house was bombed during a U.S. raid north of Baghdad early Wednesday, police and relatives said.

Associated Press photographs showed the bodies of two men, five children and four other covered figures arriving at the hospital accompanied by grief-stricken relatives.

'The killed family was not part of the resistance; they were women and children," Ahmed Khalaf said. 'The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death.'"

As stories like this begin to accumulate, reasonable people's opinions do turn against us, and we SHOULD care, because as I originally pointed out, each time everyone inches down the spectrum away from us, neutral people become agitated, agitated people become sympathetic to our enemies, and terrorist sympathizers become terrorist recruits.


PatMeebles said:
They keep talking about oil, but they were the ones who voted against an iraqi invasion because their leaders were bribed with oil.


Even if you take oil out of the equation, they still would have been against overthrowing Saddam Hussein, as would have anyone with the least bit of common sense, because of two key factors: an inevitable civil war that makes the mission unwinnable, and the fact that once you go, you have to win. Those two put together create an inherant paradox, and EVERYONE in the civilized world (aside from the neo-cons) understood this years before we went, including George H.W. Bush, James Baker, and most Republicans. The only reason we created this terrible situation was because everyone was too chickenshit to stand up and say something in the post-9/11 climate.


PatMeebles said:
They talk about tolerance, but they have completely abandoned their immigrant population, and their nihilistic moral relativism has opened the door for islamofascists to take root and create autonomous regions around places like Paris where sharia law is openly enforced.


You'll get no argument from me on this one.


PatMeebles said:
They say we let our poor and helpless die after Katrina yet they don't do anything about a heat wave that killed thousands of elderly.


MRE's (Emergency Food and Water) are something the US military can get to anywhere within 24 hours, whereas combating a heat wave that efficiently is not possible. Had the US Military delivered MRE's to Katrina victims the day after the hurricane, and had some of them still died of heat stroke because of the 100 degree weather, I certainly wouldn't hold our government responsible for that.

Despite the fact that we expect the state to make all reasonable and timely efforts to protect its citizens, there is a limit to how much we can expect the government to take care of us.


PatMeebles said:
They talk about how America destroys people's civil liberties, but places like the Netherlands are debating (at the very least) putting security cameras on every street in order to maintain order, a la England.


Sweet, I can smoke weed and wave to the camera!

Seriously though, is this any worse than the US leading the way in satellite technology that zooms in just as close as those security cameras. At least in the case of the street cameras, people know they're being watched...


PatMeebles said:
The reason I don't think a sectarian civil war will break out is because of your predicitions about Zarqawi. Being stupid and indiscriminately bombing Iraqis and other Middle Eastern peoples is EXACTLY what he's been doing since day 1.


Indeed. But note that I said above that indiscriminate bombing once a civil war begins would backfire, eventually uniting both sides against external forces; however, until a civil war begins, chaos is the best catalyst, and there is no better way to achieve chaos than indiscriminate attacks.

If you don't think a civil war will break out, this was posted just yesterday:

"Baghdad Police Find 65 Bodies in 24 Hours
AP - 5:22 am
Police found at least 65 bodies in Baghdad in the past 24 hours, including 15 men bound and shot in an abandoned minibus, in a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian reprisal attacks, officials said Tuesday."


And then, posted by the AP in just in the last couple of hours:

"Iraq Edges Closer to Open Civil Warfare

Iraqi authorities discovered at least 87 corpses — men shot to death execution-style — as Iraq edged closer to open civil warfare. Some of the bloodshed appeared to be retaliation for a bomb and mortar attack in the Sadr City slum that killed at least 58 people and wounded more than 200 two days earlier."



PatMeebles said:
Al Qaeda may be very patient people, but as intel on them is gathered, we know they've been completely decimated in places all around the world, as early as right after 9/11. Support for terrorism dropped (at least before the cartoon fiasco) according to the PEW research center (run by Madeline Albright, no friend of Bush).


The problem with that is that if you listen to every qualified analyst of the cartoon fiasco, they all say the same thing, that it was not a cause of tension but rather an effect; an indicator that is symbolic of growing animosity between East and West (which as I have pointed out, is just how Al Qaeda has wanted to frame this war from the beginning, as opposed to civilization vs. anarchy, which is the way we must frame it in order to win).

The number of poor, uneducated, young Muslim men in the world with no hope of advancement exceeds the entire population of the United States, and the worse American policies look to them, the more vulnerable all of them become to jihadist recruitment. This effect is so widespread and scattered, it's impossible for any research organization to get an accurate reading of it.




toggletoggle post by hungtableed at Mar 15,2006 12:50pm
ShadowSD said:


Ultimately though, those terrorists behind bars are where they belong, and they're not going anywhere. If they lie and deceive, I can't say I'm the least bit surprised or disappointed, and neither are any other Americans. But when OUR government that WE pay for is under suspicion of torturing prisoners, I have every right to be outraged, particularly when that leads to increased instances of tortured Americans and a climate that is more condusive to terrorist recruitment.
Just because some people are lying, it doesn't mean that no one could be telling the truth, and it certainly doesn't mean our government is infallible.


hmmmmm, seems like you're more willing to give the sub human arab terrorist head cutters the benefit of the doubt because, well, afterall, our government is capable of lying as well.

So, you're worried about increased recruitment in Al Qeada huh?
I bet you were one lead the charge, along with the un-American un-Civil Liberties Union, who fought a bloody battle the release 100+ sum odd new abu garib photos.
....now, why do you think the U.S. govn't didn't want them released?
because we'd see shit we never saw/heard about?

---NOPE! there was nothing new, same shit, naked bodies getting barked at by dogs.
IT WAS BECAUSE SHIT LIKE THAT AND FAKE STORIES (ughhh hemm ones made up by prisoners) ABOUT KORANS BEING PISSED AND SHAAT ON MAKE BEAUTIFUL COVER ART FOR AL QAEDA RECRUITMENT FLYERS.

ohhh, also, shit like "Saddams torture chambers have been re-opened....under U.S. management" being said by elected officials who obviously were never was given the 101 of Saddams torture chambers doesn't help us either.



toggletoggle post by BobNOMAAMRooney nli at Mar 15,2006 2:53pm
hungtableed said:
ShadowSD said:


Ultimately though, those terrorists behind bars are where they belong, and they're not going anywhere. If they lie and deceive, I can't say I'm the least bit surprised or disappointed, and neither are any other Americans. But when OUR government that WE pay for is under suspicion of torturing prisoners, I have every right to be outraged, particularly when that leads to increased instances of tortured Americans and a climate that is more condusive to terrorist recruitment.
Just because some people are lying, it doesn't mean that no one could be telling the truth, and it certainly doesn't mean our government is infallible.


hmmmmm, seems like you're more willing to give the sub human arab terrorist head cutters the benefit of the doubt because, well, afterall, our government is capable of lying as well.

So, you're worried about increased recruitment in Al Qeada huh?
I bet you were one lead the charge, along with the un-American un-Civil Liberties Union, who fought a bloody battle the release 100+ sum odd new abu garib photos.
....now, why do you think the U.S. govn't didn't want them released?
because we'd see shit we never saw/heard about?

---NOPE! there was nothing new, same shit, naked bodies getting barked at by dogs.
IT WAS BECAUSE SHIT LIKE THAT AND FAKE STORIES (ughhh hemm ones made up by prisoners) ABOUT KORANS BEING PISSED AND SHAAT ON MAKE BEAUTIFUL COVER ART FOR AL QAEDA RECRUITMENT FLYERS.

ohhh, also, shit like "Saddams torture chambers have been re-opened....under U.S. management" being said by elected officials who obviously were never was given the 101 of Saddams torture chambers doesn't help us either.


WAAAHHH WAAAAAHHHH WAAAAAHHHHHH DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT MY MOMMY GOVERNMENT LIKE THAT




toggletoggle post by Yeti at Mar 15,2006 3:33pm
i would like to give a standing ovation to Shadow. you are remarkably intelligent



toggletoggle post by hungtableed at Mar 15,2006 8:54pm
BobNOMAAMRooney nli said:

WAAAHHH WAAAAAHHHH WAAAAAHHHHHH DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT MY MOMMY GOVERNMENT LIKE THAT



yea fuck the government, stick up for the fuckin filthy rat bag arabs insted who have nothing to live for any ways and would cut your head off as fast as any one elses.



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 15,2006 9:15pm
Well, Europe is just one of the places like that. And the negative stories that keep accumulating about Iraq are way outnumbered by positive developments. Those positive stories are deliberately not reported on or pushed back onto page A17. When over 60% turned out to the polls to vote (more than Americans turned out), that story was buried. When anything good happens, we barely hear about it, even on Fox News (unless you're watching an editorialist show like O'Reilly).

And once again you keep talking about a civil war. I know you don't think it's already happened, but you're obviously expecting one to eventually break out. While that's definitely a huge concern and should be taken very seriously, the situation is much less severe than the newspapers would have you believe. If things are going so badly, then why are Iraqi's so optimistic? If the country was falling apart, then why did the Iraqi army stay together and not fall apart (like the US army did during our civil war) and quell the violence following the mosque bombing without killing a single civilian? If the Iraqis hate us so much, then why do they want us to leave AFTER the job is completed? Right now, the only legitimate concern regarding sectarian violence is that band of shiites running around kidnapping people.

Now, I agree with you that tensions are still very apparent in Europe and even the US. There's no denying that. However, the fact that support for terrorists dropped while support for the US rose must mean something positive. They don't hate us more. Our policies didn't make them hate us more, at least after a while.



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 15,2006 9:24pm
By the way, I really have to commend your reasonable arguments. You seem like a realist more so than a peacenick. People like Hail the Leaf bring up things like allying with Saddam because we were against Iran (a realist policy, just to point that out to them), in a kind of moral equivilancy-based argument.

"Dude, you can't be mad at them for 9/11! We bombed Dresden!"



toggletoggle post by BobNOMAAMRooney nli at Mar 15,2006 11:24pm
hungtableed said:
BobNOMAAMRooney nli said:

WAAAHHH WAAAAAHHHH WAAAAAHHHHHH DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT MY MOMMY GOVERNMENT LIKE THAT



yea fuck the government, stick up for the fuckin filthy rat bag arabs insted who have nothing to live for any ways and would cut your head off as fast as any one elses.


"BUT GISE I TOTALLY THINK ALL THOSE WORTHLESS SHITSCUM ARABS SHOULD RESPECT THE SANCTITY OF LIFE OF OUR JOURNALISTS COVERING THE WAR...BUT ONLY IF THEY'RE WRITING STORIES ABOUT HOW AWESOME THE WAR IS BECAUSE IF THEY'RE NOT IT'S LIBERAL MEDIA BULLSHIT AND IT'S JUST AS BAD AS THE AL-QAEDA PROPAGANDA AND THOSE JOURNALISTS DESERVE TO BE EXECUTED FOR TREASON"

I'm paraphrasing but I think you've done a fine enough job of painting yourself into a corner.




toggletoggle post by infoterror  at Mar 15,2006 11:40pm
HailTheLeaf said:
"What good fortune for those in power that people do not think."--Adolf Hitler


NO ONE REMEMBERS THAT WHEN HE SAID THAT
HE WAS COMPLAINING ABOUT DEMOCRACY
LOL MISQUOTE





toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 16,2006 7:10am
It applies to all governments, whether Hitler was to stupid to realize it or not, and to make the point that the quote applies more broadly that its original intent is actually quite clever. If you're worried that HailtheLeaf is offending the Third Reich with a misquote, feel free to contact Hitler's PR people, and they'll call your people.



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 16,2006 7:11am
It applies to all governments, whether Hitler was to stupid to realize it or not, and to make the point that the quote applies more broadly that its original intent is actually quite clever. If you're worried that HailtheLeaf is offending the Third Reich with a misquote, feel free to contact Hitler's PR people, and they'll call your people.



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 16,2006 4:30pm
hungtableed said:

hmmmmm, seems like you're more willing to give the sub human arab terrorist head cutters the benefit of the doubt because, well, afterall, our government is capable of lying as well.


No, I just hold our government to a higher standard than I do terrorist head cutters. If I didn't, then that would mean I don't expect any more from our government than I do from terrorists. And if I don't expect more from our government than I do from terrorists, then there's no reason to be more fearful of one than the other.

Forget your politics for a moment, and look at the logic of that argument, step by step. If you still don't get it, let's try it with music. Say you think a recently released metal CD by a band that you really like is worse than an earlier CD by that band. So you spend all this time on rttp talking about how much the new CD sucks balls and how disappointed you are - in fact MUCH more time than you spend talking about how much you hate let's say disco. Now does that mean that you think the new CD is shittier than disco just because you spent more time complaining about it? No, you just don't hold disco to as high a standard as the metal you like. Now if someone were to seriously say to you, well you must think the new CD is worse than disco since you spend so much time criticizing it, you would call them a retard, and you would be right to do so. Someone who would assume that my criticisms of our goverment equal a favoritism towards terrorists would be comparably retarded.


hungtableed said:
So, you're worried about increased recruitment in Al Qeada huh?
I bet you were one lead the charge, along with the un-American un-Civil Liberties Union, who fought a bloody battle the release 100+ sum odd new abu garib photos.
....now, why do you think the U.S. govn't didn't want them released?
because we'd see shit we never saw/heard about?

---NOPE! there was nothing new, same shit, naked bodies getting barked at by dogs.


Clearly, in the article that started this thread and the pictures that were originally released, we've established that there have been beatings, electrodes, and at least one death that resulted from prisoner mistreatment. Based on that information, and based on the fact that the government initially tried to conceal that information, it is only the function of a free society that people demand additional information to ensure that nothing further was concealed. Whether or not a certain set of photographs "reveal nothing new" is irrelevant to your argument, as the terrorists have enough imagery from the initial set of photos to make effective recruitment posters for the duration of this war.

Regardless of which side of this argument you fall on, concealing information when there has already been a scandal about it is both stupid and pointless, because it only makes people more suspicious and driven to uncover the truth.


hungtableed said:
ohhh, also, shit like "Saddams torture chambers have been re-opened....under U.S. management" being said by elected officials who obviously were never was given the 101 of Saddams torture chambers doesn't help us either.


It is clearly an exaggeration for them to say that, because no matter what you believe, there is some nasty shit that happened in Saddam Hussein's prisons that will NEVER happen under America's watch. And I will also agree with you that such exaggeration comes at a price.

Internationally, although it is helpful in the regard of showing people that there is internal criticism of bad US policies, it is harmful in the sense that the quote can be used by our enemies as propaganda. However, if you want to make the case that the harm outweighs the helpfulness, you could just as easily say that any internal challenge of American policy can be used as anti-US propaganda (which it can), and then the only solution would be to cease all public criticism of US policy, and consequently we would stop being a democracy. Clearly, if we stop being a democracy, the terrorists win.

Domestically, saying "Saddams torture chambers have been re-opened....under U.S. management" is helpful in the sense that it grabs people's attention and shines a bright light on the subject, as well as encapsulating the outrage of Americans who were appalled by the photos. However, it is harmful in the sense that when people become aware that there has been some exaggeration, they often end up dismissing the whole topic as an exaggeration (as you just did). If you want to make the case that the harm outweighs the helpfulness in this case, I would be inclined to agree with you. (As I explained earlier in this thread, the left needs to stop preaching to the choir and focus on appealing to those on the other side, instead of constantly alienating them with hyperbole and presumption.)



toggletoggle post by infoterror  at Mar 16,2006 4:31pm
THEY NEED MORE TORTURE
THEY'RE LOSING SO FAR
LOL ISRAEL WILL BE MAD AT BABY




toggletoggle post by Serpentrainbow at Mar 16,2006 4:42pm
Yeah! this torturing of all these people must get all the countries that already hate us to have others join their parties, and in the future we will be fighting them on our own, which will only result in a nuclear war. When they cut someones head off we got pissed,Is that not torture? what goes around comes around. Once all of you grow balls maybe we can change this instead of speaking it we can act it. This makes me sick.



toggletoggle post by armageddann nli at Mar 16,2006 5:33pm
ShadowSD said:

Sweet, I can smoke weed and wave to the camera!


It is not allowed to smoke weed in the streets in Holland...just so you know. Obviously they dont really care, but if you go to a coffee shop they wont let you smoke on the terrasse.

About the rest, I just think it is time to stop putting terrorists and muslims in the same bag.

....but again: I'm French, I'm part of the Axis Of Evil, and my opinion on this cannot be taken seriously.




toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 16,2006 6:33pm
PatMeebles said:
By the way, I really have to commend your reasonable arguments. You seem like a realist more so than a peacenick.


I appreciate that, thanks, I think this has been a good debate on both sides.


PatMeebles said:
People like Hail the Leaf bring up things like allying with Saddam because we were against Iran (a realist policy, just to point that out to them), in a kind of moral equivilancy-based argument.


Was it truly a realist policy to ally ourselves with Hussein in the 80's? When Iraq attacked Iran, the West supported Saddam Hussein, seeing him as the lesser of two evils. The problem was we were not realistic enough to see the implications of supporting the aggressor in the conflict, and of supporting a military dictator that initiated the use of chemical warfare in the battle. We were not realistic enough to see that supporting Iraq would rally the Iranian people around the new theocratic government, strengthening it when it well might have fallen, and extending a war that caused the deaths of so many Iranian soldiers that people rallied around their government even more, until it was entrenched with enough power to survive even after the death of Khomeni.

Hell, if we had been realistic enough in the 50's not to allow the CIA to topple Mosaddegh (a nationalist reformer who was en route to bringing democracy to Iran) in favor of propping up the young Shah (who was a "safer" ally in terms of guaranteeing our oil supply), every scholar agrees there would have never have been any Islamic Revolution in Iran in the first place, and we would have a powerful ally in the region now when we needed it most.


PatMeebles said:
Well, Europe is just one of the places like that. And the negative stories that keep accumulating about Iraq are way outnumbered by positive developments. Those positive stories are deliberately not reported on or pushed back onto page A17. When over 60% turned out to the polls to vote (more than Americans turned out), that story was buried. When anything good happens, we barely hear about it, even on Fox News (unless you're watching an editorialist show like O'Reilly).


Negativity in the news is a universal problem in the American news media, as any mass media expert will tell you, particularly when it comes to the coverage of third world countries. If you watch enough news, you would think a country like Iran has nothing but desert, that women hide their faces and bodies, that their President (Ahmeninajad) got elected purely for being an Anti-Semite, and that Westerners get decapitated in the airpoint. Only when you go to Tehran do you see that it is one of the biggest cities in the world, that the airport is newer, cleaner, and more modern than most US airports, and that a American citizen can get through customs and security ten times as quickly and easily. Only then do you see that women wear modern clothes, never cover their faces, and only cover their hair when in public (and even then, most only cover about half their hair or less, and each day it erodes further). Only then do you hear that despite President Ahmeninajad's despicable anti-Semitic remarks (for which you learn he has been publicly and repeatedly reprimanded by Iran's largest reform party), his domestic rhetoric is actually capitalist, populist, uncorrupt, and forward-thinking in comparison to the country's current status quo (concepts such as elected officials should be servants of the people, and that Iranian money shouldn't be stashed away in Swiss banks, but rather invested in the infastructure of the country). Only then do you see that most people have cell phones and satellite dishes that get music videos and CNN, that you can buy Internet access cards at newsstands, that many young people hang out and drink and smoke pot together, listen to metal (there's at least one dude whose favorite band is Manowar), many guys have long hair, and some people even play in metal bands. Only then do you see that no one gives you shit for being an American, and some people are in fact nicer to you because of it. You would NEVER know any of that by watching the news in America, only that Iran has a repressive theocratic government made up of fundamentalist zealots (which is 100% true).

Therfore, negativity in terms of the American news media's coverage of ALL third world countries distorts our perceptions of their cultures and their peoples, which can lead to an inability for us to evaluate whether certain foreign policy decisions will lead to America's long term security or not.

The reason you can tell the problems in Iraq go beyond this phenomenon is that you hear no better from the AP Reporters of all nationalities that are on the ground there, including those journalists who are themselves Iraqi.


PatMeebles said:
And once again you keep talking about a civil war. I know you don't think it's already happened, but you're obviously expecting one to eventually break out. While that's definitely a huge concern and should be taken very seriously, the situation is much less severe than the newspapers would have you believe. If things are going so badly, then why are Iraqi's so optimistic?


I find it very hard to believe that Iraqi optimism has been on the rise since the sectarian tension began to heat up, it simply defies common sense. If you have any figures to back this up, please post them.


PatMeebles said:
If the country was falling apart, then why did the Iraqi army stay together and not fall apart (like the US army did during our civil war) and quell the violence following the mosque bombing without killing a single civilian?


According to everyone including even the Bush administration, desertions in the Iraqi army have been a problem since day one. Just a couple days ago, several Iraqi Defense Ministry officials were jailed, having almost succeeded in placing over 400 Al Qaeda operatives in key security positions surrounding the Green Zone (where all our troop bases are located). The fact that Iraqi police and security defused the plan is reason to be hopeful, the fact that any more defections would have likely made the plan successful is not.


PatMeebles said:
If the Iraqis hate us so much, then why do they want us to leave AFTER the job is completed?


They don't trust Iraqi police, security, or armed forces to protect them. Again, no reason to be hopeful.


PatMeebles said:
Right now, the only legitimate concern regarding sectarian violence is that band of shiites running around kidnapping people.


Did you read the AP stories I posted? Those aren't American newspapers, those are Iraqi journalists on the ground.


PatMeebles said:
Now, I agree with you that tensions are still very apparent in Europe and even the US. There's no denying that. However, the fact that support for terrorists dropped while support for the US rose must mean something positive. They don't hate us more. Our policies didn't make them hate us more, at least after a while.


I hope you're right.

Unfortunately, I just can't find any reason to be so optimistic; I simply don't have any figures available to support such a viewpoint.

However, to prove I am capable of some optimism in the Middle East, the following story, just posted to the AP, gave me cause for hope as far as long-term American/Iranian relations (even though I don't at all trust Iran's current theocratic regime):

"A top Iranian official said Thursday that Tehran was ready to open direct talks with the United States over Iraq, marking a major shift in Iranian foreign policy. Washington also said it was prepared to open discussions.

(This) marked the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that Iran had officially called for dialogue with the United States."




toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 16,2006 7:11pm
PatMeebles said:
People like Hail the Leaf bring up things like allying with Saddam because we were against Iran (a realist policy, just to point that out to them), in a kind of moral equivilancy-based argument.


That's right, I love how Saddam was the U.S.'s right hand man in the 80's, but suddenly he's the scapegoat for 9/11 which he had nothing to do with. Our government helped him into power, gave him weapons, even chemical weapons, and sat idly by and watched happily as he gassed thousands of his own people to death with deadly chemicals that U.S. citizens paid for. Oh, silly bad man, we'll teach you a lesson, we'll put sanctions against your country, which won't hurt or bother you in the slightest, just cause more deaths, pain and needless suffering of the people of Iraq. Now suddenly he's this bad guy, well you know what? now that it's 20 years later and Saddam is finally on trial for all of these terrible things that we're suddenly horrified with, where are the people who helped him into power and funded him while he was doing all of these things? Why the fuck aren't THEY also on trial?



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 16,2006 8:54pm
HailTheLeaf said:
PatMeebles said:
People like Hail the Leaf bring up things like allying with Saddam because we were against Iran (a realist policy, just to point that out to them), in a kind of moral equivilancy-based argument.


That's right, I love how Saddam was the U.S.'s right hand man in the 80's, but suddenly he's the scapegoat for 9/11 which he had nothing to do with. Our government helped him into power, gave him weapons, even chemical weapons, and sat idly by and watched happily as he gassed thousands of his own people to death with deadly chemicals that U.S. citizens paid for. Oh, silly bad man, we'll teach you a lesson, we'll put sanctions against your country, which won't hurt or bother you in the slightest, just cause more deaths, pain and needless suffering of the people of Iraq. Now suddenly he's this bad guy, well you know what? now that it's 20 years later and Saddam is finally on trial for all of these terrible things that we're suddenly horrified with, where are the people who helped him into power and funded him while he was doing all of these things? Why the fuck aren't THEY also on trial?



Uh, we gave him dual use chemicals. We've found dual use chemicals in Iraq since the Invasion. So if you say that we sold him WMD's in the 80's, then you have to believe that there were WMD's in Iraq before, during, and after our invasion.

And we tried to help the Iraq people during sanctions by putting our trust into the UN to run a clean operation with Oil For Food. What a big mistake that was...

And it's strange. You say that it's a good thing that Saddam's on trial, yet you were adamantly opposed to overthrowing him in the first place.

I'll answer Shadow when I have some time.



toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 16,2006 9:03pm
We gave him plenty of weapons, chemicals and other fun things, I bet the pentagon has the receipts. Is that the Iraq invasion excuse you're sticking to? WMD? We have nukes...no one is invading us to take them away..oh yeah, doesn't Pakistan have them too?China? I was opposed to overthrowing Iraq's government and helping Saddam into power in the first place, along with every other government we've helped to overthrow, and every other ruthless shitbag dictator we've helped to install. Anyone who helped a scumbag like Saddam should be on trial right now, it's not like he's the only one responsible for all the deaths.



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 16,2006 9:08pm
Russians gave him planes and billions of dollars worth of guns. France sold him the Nuclear stuff. After that you just ramble.



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 17,2006 11:10am
PatMeebles said:
I'll answer Shadow when I have some time.


Cool, sounds good.

In the meantime, forgive me for jumping ahead to quickly answer a couple points...


PatMeebles said:
Uh, we gave him dual use chemicals. We've found dual use chemicals in Iraq since the Invasion. So if you say that we sold him WMD's in the 80's, then you have to believe that there were WMD's in Iraq before, during, and after our invasion.


Not necessarily. We sold him the potential for chemical WMD's, whether that potential was realized at any given time was also the results of several other factors, including Iraq's military strategy and economic concerns. After the first Gulf War and failed Kuwaiti invasion, Hussein's main concerns were preserving his grip on power despite economic sanctions and an embarassing military loss. Therefore, he had too full a plate domestically, particularly as the years went on and sanctions continued, for him to realistically consider external acts of aggression.

That's why I found the whole argument that he had WMD's in 2002 foolish, regardless of who said it, and why everyone in the UN was openly laughing at Colin Powell as he tried to present supposed evidence of such weapons.


PatMeebles said:
And we tried to help the Iraq people during sanctions by putting our trust into the UN to run a clean operation with Oil For Food. What a big mistake that was...


Agreed.


PatMeebles said:
And it's strange. You say that it's a good thing that Saddam's on trial, yet you were adamantly opposed to overthrowing him in the first place.


Sounds right to me. The fact that toppling Hussein opened the door for a worse scenario (fundamendalist Al Qaeda-sympathetic theocracy), meant no one could put him on trial without taking a foolish risk (as we ultimately did); however, everyone agrees the guy deserved to go on trial. Again, my viewpoint here is also that of George Bush Sr. and James Baker, who although believing that Saddam Hussein on trial is certainly a good thing, didn't think it was worth the risk to overthrow him.




toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 19,2006 5:41pm
From the AP today:

"In a New York Times column, retired Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003-2004, called the defense secretary 'incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld must step down.'"



toggletoggle post by anonymous at Mar 20,2006 4:21pm
I think Pat gave up...



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 20,2006 4:54pm
Nobody at the UN was laughing at Colin Powell. France gave us the intel on the alluminum tubes (which led to a really racist cartoon of Condi Rice). In fact, German, French, Jordinian, Russian, etc. intelligence all said that he had the weapons. And the State Department, despite what most people have said, was right on board in believing that Chemical Weapons were there.

And, if the new documents are found to be authentic (which they're looking to be), Saddam had open ties with Al Qaeda affiliated networks in Asia, and was training people in three locations in Iraq for clandestine operations, and was actively involved in a chemical weapons program as late as 1997.

I also don't think that al qaeda will be friends with Iraq at all. 1) Zarqawi has completely ruined that chance and 2) The religious parties didn't win an outright majority, so they need to form a coalition, which means that Islamic fundamentalism will not run the country.

Now to your last post...

"Was it truly a realist policy to ally ourselves with Hussein in the 80's? When Iraq attacked Iran, the West supported Saddam Hussein, seeing him as the lesser of two evils."

That is a textbook case of realism.

And it's not that realist policies are always right. It's just that realism does not deal with idealism, which is what this administration is trying to do (balance the two together so that they accomplish what they want with help in the region, even if it is Pakistan).

What you wrote about Iran is really interesting. I knew that the people were fed up; I just didn't know that Iranians were actually able to get away with so much. Do you have any links that goes further into that?

The problems with desertion in the Iraqi army lost any real seriousness since they got good at fighting. Yes, there were desertions in the beginning (I think the first falluja assault was a good example), but their morale is high now, especially after successfully diffusing (or delaying, from your point of view) a civil war without any casualties.

Now, your point about Iraqi journalists on the ground brings up a question: If the military were able to buy stories on the front page written by Iraqis, then what's stopping Al Qaeda or anti-Bush AP reporters from doing the same? I'm not saying that's always the case; far from it. I just don't buy all the negativity as well as ALL the optimism, although I think there's more optimism than negativity in the end.

I haven't seen any stories on Iraqis not trusting the Iraqi military. I know of one interview with a single iraqi blogger, but that's it.

I wish I could post more links. I feel like I'm not arguing well enough.



toggletoggle post by Serpentrainbow at Mar 20,2006 6:43pm
Dude ronald fucking reagan sold saddam hussein fucking chemical weapons to go to war with iran. Oh and get this... the last cocaine epidemic in the 80's started when bush senior was in office he was exporting ether to columbia which is used to wash coke. Now bush jr is exporting ether to columbia and cocaine is on the rise again. If thats not a conspiracy then cocaine is legal.



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 21,2006 6:24am
PatMeebles said:
Nobody at the UN was laughing at Colin Powell.


Then you didn't see the footage that will forever be etched in my mind: Colin Powell, with a look of anger and frustration, as the UN eruped with laughter in response to the WMD case he was presenting. I remember seeing that on TV and thinking: "How could anyone, regardless of their political persuasion, give these WMD arguments any credence?" Despite our many conflicts with UN interests over the years, I cannot think of one instance in the organization's 48 year history where people openly laughed the United States and the arguments it was presenting. This should have been a red flag to everyone, but apparantly, this footage was not repeated 1% as much as the Dean Scream by our supposedly "liberal" news media.



PatMeebles said:
France gave us the intel on the alluminum tubes (which led to a really racist cartoon of Condi Rice). In fact, German, French, Jordinian, Russian, etc. intelligence all said that he had the weapons. And the State Department, despite what most people have said, was right on board in believing that Chemical Weapons were there.


I realize that there were officials both in the Democratic Party here as well as in other countries who made such claims. That so many different sources would be complicit in a view that proved to be so utterly false is a reason for both suspicion and concern; the fact that a person like myself, with no resources, could determine from the beginning that Hussein had no WMD's post-9/11 using basic common sense reasoning, is still further reason to be disturbed.



PatMeebles said:
And, if the new documents are found to be authentic (which they're looking to be), Saddam had open ties with Al Qaeda affiliated networks in Asia, and was training people in three locations in Iraq for clandestine operations,


I will shit a brick if such reports are proven authentic.

What made the Iraq/Al Qaeda association seem particularly asinine to me from the outset was that the Middle East has in the last generation been balanced between two major forces: fundamentalist theocracies, and military dictatorships. The fact that Iraq and Al Qaeda would "team up" therefore, defies common sense. (I know there are several instances historically where a shared enemy can make strange bedfellows, but this situation simply does not fit that mold.)

The only possibly credible reports that I have heard on this subject to support your viewpoint say that after having no relations for years, Bin Laden reached out to Iraq for backing in the mid-90's, and despite some minimal low level communication, Iraq ultimately never responded. If these reports are true, this is because Hussein knew that Bin Laden's overtures were certainly duplicitous and deceitful, as the two powers shared diametrically opposed interests in every internal aspect of the region.



PatMeebles said:
and was actively involved in a chemical weapons program as late as 1997.


1997 I could believe. (As I suggested in an earlier post, after Iraq's military embarassment of Kuwait, the economic deterioration from sanctions had a gradual and not immediate effect).

But by the time 9/11 rolled around, Saddam Hussein had no realistic ambition to invade a nursery school. He had his hands full with internal concerns, mainly preserving his power by presenting himself as still an invincible dictator to those under his control. (Ironically, the US used that against him to make the war happen, counting on the fact that he wouldn't save himself by admitting he had no WMD's, because he knew such an admission would have weakened his position internally).



PatMeebles said:
I also don't think that al qaeda will be friends with Iraq at all. 1) Zarqawi has completely ruined that chance and 2) The religious parties didn't win an outright majority, so they need to form a coalition, which means that Islamic fundamentalism will not run the country.


Unless...

1). A full-scale civil war erupts, and the current government collapses

2). The Sunnis can never be brought into the process, and the Shiites vote for fundamentalist leaders in the wake of growing anti-US sentiment


Again, though, this is a case where I sincerely hope the future reflects your optimism more than it does my pessimism.



PatMeebles said:
Now to your last post...

"Was it truly a realist policy to ally ourselves with Hussein in the 80's? When Iraq attacked Iran, the West supported Saddam Hussein, seeing him as the lesser of two evils."

That is a textbook case of realism.


It would have been more realistic to see that supporting the side that attacked first would have many negative consequences, one of which was to strengthen Iran's theocracy, the opposite of our intention. Staying out of the conflict would have been the most realistic strategy, because both Hussein AND Khomeni would have been weaker in the long run had we done so.

In otherwords, your assertion that supporting Iraq against Iran is a textbook case of realism implies that the textbook definition of realism includes shortsightedness. I would argue that foresight into the realistic long-term consequences of our actions is an essential cornerstone of realism.



PatMeebles said:
What you wrote about Iran is really interesting. I knew that the people were fed up; I just didn't know that Iranians were actually able to get away with so much. Do you have any links that goes further into that?


As luck would have it, I just found one last night, which eerily echoes my comments (down to what I said about metal bands being in Iran):

http://hotzone.yahoo.com/iran;_ylt=AngCbYa1oPQxxnb_XIi9H.6LFMsF;_ylu=X3oDMTA2NWJlcmlsBHNlYwN0bg--




PatMeebles said:
The problems with desertion in the Iraqi army lost any real seriousness since they got good at fighting. Yes, there were desertions in the beginning (I think the first falluja assault was a good example), but their morale is high now, especially after successfully diffusing (or delaying, from your point of view) a civil war without any casualties.


I recently posted a thread to rttp which concludes with an overwhelming amount of evidence to suggest that the US claims of Iraqi troops levels are completely inconsistent and not to be trusted: http://www.returntothepit.com/view.php?formid=27712



PatMeebles said:
Now, your point about Iraqi journalists on the ground brings up a question: If the military were able to buy stories on the front page written by Iraqis, then what's stopping Al Qaeda or anti-Bush AP reporters from doing the same? I'm not saying that's always the case; far from it. I just don't buy all the negativity as well as ALL the optimism,


Agreed.



PatMeebles said:
although I think there's more optimism than negativity in the end.


Every report out of Iraq I have read recently has been negative. For the optimism in Iraq to outweigh the negativity as you suggest, the amount of anti-US propagandist influence would have to be exponentially greater than the pro-US propagandist influence, which would inherentally prove my side of the argument anyway, if you think about it.



PatMeebles said:
I haven't seen any stories on Iraqis not trusting the Iraqi military. I know of one interview with a single iraqi blogger, but that's it.


"Religious and ethnic militias and criminal organizations have infiltrated police in some areas, further undermining the fledgling force's effectiveness and credibility. Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority has accused some units of the Shiite Muslim-dominated force of kidnapping, torturing and murdering Sunnis." Sectarian militias replaced Iraqi government forces in some areas after one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines was bombed. In other areas, Shiite militiamen or members of Sunni insurgent groups have infiltrated police and military units. (The Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/6/06; Knight Ridder, 2/24/06)

That, plus the fact that many people are afraid of the US leaving (as you've pointed out), are clear signs that Iraqis do not trust their military.




toggletoggle post by anonymous at Mar 22,2006 1:31pm
If the Democrats learned how to talk like you, Shadow, they would have won every election since 9/11.

Whatever anyone thinks politically, it sucks balls that we have only had one solid party in this country (Republicans) since we were attacked. One party is not a democracy.



toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 22,2006 1:42pm edited Mar 22,2006 1:43pm
The only party we have are Republicrats, they all continue the same policies in office, they all support state sponsored terrorism, they all keep you struggling so you don't have time to figure out what they're doing or become involved in the decisions that control your life. There is no opposition party here, no party that represents citizens.



toggletoggle post by scoracrasia   at Mar 22,2006 1:48pm



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 22,2006 2:34pm edited Mar 22,2006 2:37pm
I have to agree; Shadow should replace Howard Dean at the DNC.

But once again, just because something is bad policy doesn't make it a non-realist one. Supporting the lesser of two evils is realism, no matter how arguably bad the policy is. The reason why we supported Hussein in the 80's was because we had hoped he would win, and the Iranian Theocracy would collapse, thus leaving only "the lesser of two evils." I'm not saying it's right; just that it's realist

ShadowSD said:
What made the Iraq/Al Qaeda association seem particularly asinine to me from the outset was that the Middle East has in the last generation been balanced between two major forces: fundamentalist theocracies, and military dictatorships. The fact that Iraq and Al Qaeda would "team up" therefore, defies common sense. (I know there are several instances historically where a shared enemy can make strange bedfellows, but this situation simply does not fit that mold.)


These people are so Machiavellian in their goals they'll do anything to achieve them, even if it means that they side with someone as "secular" as Saddam (secular meaning that he imposed Sharia Law and made Baathists take religious tests, right?). They piss on their own Korans, just so they can lie to Newsweek.

ShadowSD said:
anti-US propagandist influence would have to be exponentially greater than the pro-US propagandist influence, which would inherentally prove my side of the argument anyway, if you think about it.


Prove your point, yes. I just hate the fact that you're right, and sensationalism will always outweigh good news. But, enter the European and US MSM, and you do have a seriously larger anti-US propoganda machine, mostly from Europe, but American media is still pretty bad.

ShadowSD said:
-- February 2004: Rumsfeld says the number of Iraqis serving in the security forces was over 210,000, and that the number may grow to over 226,000 by April. (State Department, 2/24/04)

-- September 2004: Rumsfeld says the "latest number, last week was 105,000. Now it looks to be 95,000 - that is to say that are trained and equipped." (DOD Briefing, 9/7/04)

-- February 2005: Rumsfeld says ".the fact of the matter is that there are 130,200 who have been trained and equipped.That's a fact. And how do I know that? I know it because General Petraeus counts them." (Fox News, 2/1/05)

-- June 2005: Rumsfeld says the" fact of the matter is the number's (of trained troops is) 168,000." (ABC News, 6/26/05)

-- July 2005: General Casey told told Congress that only three of the approximately 100 Iraqi army battalions are taking on the insurgents by themselves. Three battalions is approximately 700 soldiers. (Associated Press, 7/22/05; Knight Ridder, 11/30/05)

-- November 2005: President Bush says, "40 Iraqi battalions are taking the lead in the fight." He said a battalion is typically comprised of "between 350 and 800 Iraqi forces," which would bring the latest estimate of fully trained Iraqi troops to somewhere between 14,000 and 32,000. (Bush Speech in Annapolis, 11/30/05)

-- December 2005: When asked how many Iraqi troops were now able to stand alone without the backing of U.S. troops, President Bush said there were "about 200,000-plus capable" forces. He continued by saying that " Now, not all of them are ready to take the fight to the enemy." (Bush Speech, 12/12/05)

-- March 2006: President Bush says, "60 Iraqi battalions are taking the lead in the fight." He previously said a battalion is typically comprised of "between 350 and 800 Iraqi forces," which would bring the latest estimate of fully trained Iraqi troops to somewhere between 21,000 and 48,000. (Bush Speech, 3/13/06)


This is actually consistent if you take into account battle-ready levels. By "taking on the insurgents by themselves," those battalions mentioned are at level 1, which means absolutely no support from Americans AT ALL. No intel, no air support, nothing. Level 2 means that the Iraqis take the lead in fighting, with American assistance in intel and some air support, and maybe a commander to direct the troops. But the Iraqis in that instace are going to do the figthing themselves. NATO forces are level 2. I think it was the Danish that were offering to send troops to Iraq if the Americans provided security for them. What the hell does that mean!? The Iraqis are actually better equipped to handle the situation than NATO allies. Now, the first quote doesn't say whether the recruits are in the process of traning, and therefore not battle ready, or if they are "trained and equipped," as in the second quote. But, when it comes to "trained and equipped" troops, the numbers are consistent as time progresses.



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 22,2006 2:35pm
fuck, I did the quoting wrong. I'll fix it.



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 22,2006 2:45pm
Fixed. I just don't get why the >> has to be in all caps. Oh well...


I also just remembered your first point. Do you remember who was laughing? I guess i didn't take into account everyone in the middle east and other dictatorships represented on the UN. After all, A lot of our intel was gathered through foreign sources.



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 23,2006 3:46am
Clearly I'm boring at least Scoracrasia with my long-windedness and constant quoting, so I will keep my answers clear, concise, and brief (which is probably one reason my original points to Hoser were so effective)

They didn't show any close-ups as to who was laughing, just a wide shot followed by reaction shots from Powell as he tried to continue, clearly both frustrated and embarassed. I don't see how you can automatically assume that laughing at a lie implies a bias towards dictatorships; I found what Powell was saying laughable as well, based on the believability of his evidence contrasted with common sense and a basic understanding of the world.

I understand that "lesser of two evils" is realist. However, I think that givem the way we went about pursuing 1980's Iran/Iraq policy, assuming it would work was not realistic. You can't be in tune with reality unless you consider long-term consequences, taking into account the variable of time. I believe one thing that makes me a realist is the fact that I'm concerned with the realistic conclusions of policies, not just my idealistic hopes about what will result from my realistic assessment of a particular moment. I will stop beating this point to death, though; here, we can agree to disagree.

As I said above, I could believe reports that say Bin Laden sought Iraq backing in the mid-90's, and Iraq never responded, since as you said Al Qaeda will do whatever they have to to achieve their goals. I can believe Al Qaeda could have sought a partnership with Iraq. I cannot believe Iraq would have sought a partnership with Al Qaeda. That's where it all failed the common sense test.

When it comes to what we Americans hear about our own country from our own news media, we are always at a greater risk of hearing pro-US propaganda than anti-US propaganda. The less you are aware of it, the more subtlely and pervasively it's occuring. We should never be nieve enough to assume that just because we have the most democratic nation in the history of the world, that we are immune to the lessons of history. Our existence as a nation is always a constant journey towards our founding ideals, never an absolute manifestation, and blind patriotism is at best chronic stagnancy in that journey, and at worst outright regression.



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 23,2006 4:28am
ShadowSD said:
Clearly I'm boring at least Scoracrasia with my long-windedness and constant quoting, so I will keep my answers clear, concise, and brief (which is probably one reason my original points to Hoser were so effective)

They didn't show any close-ups as to who was laughing, just a wide shot followed by reaction shots from Powell as he tried to continue, clearly both frustrated and embarassed. I don't see how you can automatically assume that laughing at a lie implies a bias towards dictatorships; I found what Powell was saying laughable as well, based on the believability of his evidence contrasted with common sense and a basic understanding of the world.


Ok, I'll take your word for it that Powell was laughed at by everyone. Thank you France for giving us the intel and then laughing at us as we try to tell the UN about it. What a douchebag country

ShadowSD said:
I understand that "lesser of two evils" is realist. However, I think that givem the way we went about pursuing 1980's Iran/Iraq policy, assuming it would work was not realistic. You can't be in tune with reality unless you consider long-term consequences, taking into account the variable of time. I believe one thing that makes me a realist is the fact that I'm concerned with the realistic conclusions of policies, not just my idealistic hopes about what will result from my realistic assessment of a particular moment. I will stop beating this point to death, though; here, we can agree to disagree.


I agree it was bad policy in that Iraq lost. Now that we have hindsight and can look at the consequences, we can judge differently. However, if back then you had two countries in which one was literally holding the world hostage due to its control on oil supplies, and its nextdoor neighbor wanted to attack and take out the regime, you could/would make a case for supporting Saddam. Of course, now we're slapping ourselves in the forehead for doing such a thing.

I think you and I agree that it was bad policy. That ends this discussion, as far as I'm concerned.

ShadowSD said:
As I said above, I could believe reports that say Bin Laden sought Iraq backing in the mid-90's, and Iraq never responded, since as you said Al Qaeda will do whatever they have to to achieve their goals. I can believe Al Qaeda could have sought a partnership with Iraq. I cannot believe Iraq would have sought a partnership with Al Qaeda. That's where it all failed the common sense test.


Saddam is also quite Machiavellian. Hitler allied himself with Islamofascists in WWII, just because they were another ally (I know about Godwin's law, but if you're talking about someone that idolized Hitler, then hey, might as well use the analogy). Also, of the first batch of documents, we learn things like Saddam was supporting islamofascists in Southeast Asia (who had strong AQ ties) as late as 2002.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...icles/000/000/011/990ieqmb.asp?pg=2


B. An approval to meet with opposer Osama bin Laden by the Intelligence Services was given by the Honorable Presidency in its letter 138, dated January 11, 1995 (attachment 6). He [bin Laden] was met by the previous general director of M4 in Sudan and in the presence of the Sudanese, Ibrahim al-Sanusi, on February 19, 1995. We discussed with him his organization. He requested the broadcast of the speeches of Sheikh Sulayman al-Uda (who has influence within Saudi Arabia and outside due to being a well known religious and influential personality) and to designate a program for them through the broadcast directed inside Iraq, and to perform joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz. (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the details of the meeting in our letter 370 on March 4, 1995, attachment 7.)
C. The approval was received from the Leader, Mr. President, may God keep him, to designate a program for them through the directed broadcast. We were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to see what other doors of cooperation and agreement open up. The Sudanese side was informed of the Honorable Presidency's agreement above, through the representative of the Respectable Director of Intelligence Services, our Ambassador in Khartoum.
D. Due to the recent situation of Sudan and being accused of supporting and embracing of terrorism, an agreement with the opposing Saudi Osama bin Laden was reached. The agreement required him to leave Sudan to another area. He left Khartoum in July 1996. The information we have indicates that he is currently in Afghanistan. The relationship with him is ongoing through the Sudanese side. Currently we are working to invigorate this relationship through a new channel in light of his present location.


Even if it is the late 90's, this would disproves everything that lefties have said about Iraq not being linked with terrorists at all. Now combine that with documents showing Al Qaeda to be in Iraq as late as 2002 (documents not proven to be compeltely authentic, but they come from Iraq and have been translated), and you have to ask yourself exactly what Saddam was up to, because he sure was up to something.


ShadowSD said:
When it comes to what we Americans hear about our own country from our own news media, we are always at a greater risk of hearing pro-US propaganda than anti-US propaganda. The less you are aware of it, the more subtlely and pervasively it's occuring. We should never be nieve enough to assume that just because we have the most democratic nation in the history of the world, that we are immune to the lessons of history. Our existence as a nation is always a constant journey towards our founding ideals, never an absolute manifestation, and blind patriotism is at best chronic stagnancy in that journey, and at worst outright regression.


The only thing I disagree with in here is that the American media is riddled with Pro-US propoganda. I wouldn't say that the media goes out of its way to say "Americans are fat and lazy," but there definitely is not an attempt to say that we're better than everyone else.



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 23,2006 9:54am
PatMeebles said:
Ok, I'll take your word for it that Powell was laughed at by everyone. Thank you France for giving us the intel and then laughing at us as we try to tell the UN about it. What a douchebag country


Before anyone gorges themselves on freedom fries, I said don't know whether France was among those who laughed or not, it was a wide shot.



PatMeebles said:
I agree it was bad policy in that Iraq lost. Now that we have hindsight and can look at the consequences, we can judge differently. However, if back then you had two countries in which one was literally holding the world hostage due to its control on oil supplies, and its nextdoor neighbor wanted to attack and take out the regime, you could/would make a case for supporting Saddam.


I wouldn't have, no. I have always felt that supporting an aggressor in any conflict villifies us and thus strengthens our enemies, which can lead to us being attacked in the future, and it also gives (or can be perceived as giving) moral justification to a first strike mentality, which can also lead to us being attacked in the future.

We may not like it, but America as a superpower sets the standard for the rest of the world in ways we don't even realize, and this is doubly true after the fall of the USSR and our emergence as the sole superpower. We elect a foreign policy hardliner (Bush), and yet we are surprised when other countries do the same (Iranians electing Ahmedinejad / Palestinians electing HAMAS).

Ultimately, America sets the standard nowadays, and everytime we punch the mirror for mimicking us, we can't change the reflection; we only end up with shards of glass in our hands.



PatMeebles said:
Also, of the first batch of documents, we learn things like Saddam was supporting islamofascists in Southeast Asia (who had strong AQ ties) as late as 2002.


America was supporting Islamofascists with Al-Qaeda ties in Saudia Arabia as late as... well we still are, actually. Such tangential connections prove nothing (unless you want to entertain the idea that the US is backing Al Qaeda because we support Saudia Arabia).



PatMeebles said:
Even if it is the late 90's, this would disproves everything that lefties have said about Iraq not being linked with terrorists at all. Now combine that with documents showing Al Qaeda to be in Iraq as late as 2002


Al-Qaeda was also in the US until 9/11. Why do you not even consider using that evidence to suggest that the US was involved in 9/11? Because it fails the common sense test.



PatMeebles said:
The only thing I disagree with in here is that the American media is riddled with Pro-US propoganda. I wouldn't say that the media goes out of its way to say "Americans are fat and lazy," but there definitely is not an attempt to say that we're better than everyone else.


That's interesting, in this thread there has been a lot said about the stigma of third world countries in our news media, and how only the negative stuff seeps through (I gave a pretty thorough example of Iran earlier). Such uniform negativity being constantly reinforced in the news media about other countries and cultures would itself result in an implicit suggestion of American superiority, don't you think?




toggletoggle post by anonymous at Mar 23,2006 2:42pm
WE SHOULD BE TORTURING MUSLIMS.
IF NOT FOR BEING JIHADIST, FOR STINKING
OUT EVERY APARTMENT BUILDING IN THE U.S.
WITH THE SMELL OF CURRY!

KILL EM ALL AND LET ALL SORT EM OUT!



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 23,2006 2:57pm
ShadowSD said:
I wouldn't have, no. I have always felt that supporting an aggressor in any conflict villifies us and thus strengthens our enemies, which can lead to us being attacked in the future, and it also gives (or can be perceived as giving) moral justification to a first strike mentality, which can also lead to us being attacked in the future.


Well, that's your argument. Like I said, I don't really think we're disagreeing on what cause support for Saddam in the 80's, or whether it was bad policy. I was jsut making a point about hindsight in the last post.

ShadowSD said:
We may not like it, but America as a superpower sets the standard for the rest of the world in ways we don't even realize, and this is doubly true after the fall of the USSR and our emergence as the sole superpower. We elect a foreign policy hardliner (Bush), and yet we are surprised when other countries do the same (Iranians electing Ahmedinejad / Palestinians electing HAMAS).


Bush ran as an isolationist in 2000. 9/11 obviously changed that. But, we also don't want to wipe Isreal off the map (like Iran), or Iraq. You may disagree with why we're there, but even if it was for oil, we went in to foster a democratic and free Iraq that would (hopefully) be friendly to the US, thus (if you're stuck on the oil argument), would make oil trading a lot easier.

I guess your point would be demonstrated if a kid saw his dad smoking pot, then went ahead with shooting up black tar heroin and smoking crack at the same time, and when his dad caught him he would say "What?! You do it too!!!"

ShadowSD said:
Ultimately, America sets the standard nowadays, and everytime we punch the mirror for mimicking us, we can't change the reflection; we only end up with shards of glass in our hands.


Cleverly put, and I can agree, but under different circumstances (as stated above). When a debate about NSA was happening, a Democrat said "I thought Republicans wanted a smaller government. I guess they made it small enough to fit in our phones." You guys are coming up with some catchy phrases; keep it up.

ShadowSD said:
America was supporting Islamofascists with Al-Qaeda ties in Saudia Arabia as late as... well we still are, actually. Such tangential connections prove nothing (unless you want to entertain the idea that the US is backing Al Qaeda because we support Saudia Arabia).


OBL wants to overthrow the Saudis. Islamists, yes. Al Qaeda, no. Oil country that we're stuck having to deal with, hell yes.

ShadowSD said:
Al-Qaeda was also in the US until 9/11. Why do you not even consider using that evidence to suggest that the US was involved in 9/11? Because it fails the common sense test.


Well, Al Qaeda was in the US because it wanted to attack us. Al Qaeda was in Iraq training in places like Salman Pak (a government-run training ground with 747's used in hijacking lessons) and recruiting fighters to fight in Afghanistan

ShadowSD said:
That's interesting, in this thread there has been a lot said about the stigma of third world countries in our news media, and how only the negative stuff seeps through (I gave a pretty thorough example of Iran earlier). Such uniform negativity being constantly reinforced in the news media about other countries and cultures would itself result in an implicit suggestion of American superiority, don't you think?


Not if we're blamed for the world's problem, like we are for sectarian violence (I didn't realize that the mere presence of US troops would cause Shiites and Sunnis to hate each other becasue of their race.)

Alright, I'm off to my guitar player's high school to see his senior recital.



toggletoggle post by BobNOMAAMRooney nli at Mar 23,2006 3:24pm
Salman Pak's terrorist training ground image was refuted when it became obvious that the defectors supplying the information on the facility were not credible at all and merely pawns for the INC. I remember reading two interviews by one of the defectors where in one he claimed that Salman Pak housed a Boeing 707 while in the other he claimed it housed an Ilyushin-76 for terrorist training.

If he were more credible the obsolete 707 might lend credence to the lie that Iraq was involved in 9/11. Yet the Ilyushin and the time period in discussion (mid to late-90s) leads me to believe that Salman Pak, if it was a terrorist training ground, could have been used to train fighters in Chechnya.

It could have even been an anti-terrorist training facility as it was used by Iraq's police force and Iraq's national airline was largely comprised of Il-76s and Boeing 707s.



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 24,2006 10:15am
ShadowSD said:
We may not like it, but America as a superpower sets the standard for the rest of the world in ways we don't even realize, and this is doubly true after the fall of the USSR and our emergence as the sole superpower. We elect a foreign policy hardliner (Bush), and yet we are surprised when other countries do the same (Iranians electing Ahmedinejad / Palestinians electing HAMAS).


PatMeebles said: Bush ran as an isolationist in 2000. 9/11 obviously changed that.


They love to make that argument, don't they? The problem is that Dick Cheney was advocating an invasion of Iraq to ensure a permanent oil supply long before 9/11. The attack on our soil simply provided a political climate that allowed us to go.

Had a Democrat or conventional Republican (like Bush Senior) been elected, we NEVER would have invaded Iraq after 9/11. Only the neo-cons advocated something so stupid, and neo-cons had Bush's ear from the beginning. Bush should have been honest in 2000 that he was running as a neo-con, but he didn't because that never would have won the election, so he ran as a salt-of-the-earth, honest and uncorrupt traditional conservative.

Many people in Iran feel the exact same way about Ahmadinejad, who did not campaign as the foreign policy neo-con he is, but as a salt-of-the-earth, honest and uncorrupt traditional conservative.




PatMeebles said:
But, we also don't want to wipe Isreal off the map (like Iran), or Iraq.



I hope this article opens your eyes, as it did mine:


"(Iran has) the largest Jewish community in the Middle East, outside of Israel.

At the Jewish Community Center in Tehran, Dr. Unes Hammai-Lalehzar says the Jewish population has had its ups and downs, but he doesn't believe there's any discrimination from the general public.

I ask him if there's been any change in the climate since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent remarks both questioning the Holocaust and calling for Israel to be 'wiped off the map.'

'As far as daily life goes here, there hasn't been an impact on us,' he says, 'We don't see any difference in our lives. But maybe others feel differently.'

He continues, saying the Iranian government has made a clear effort to distinguish between Zionism and Judaism.

'Zionism is a political party that enjoys Jewish symbols and ideals, but it's not the same thing,' he says. 'The law that is being enforced in Israel is not Jewish law, it's not religious; its anti-religious.'

In the nearby synagogue, David Zakaria, who owns a rubber factory, agrees.

'His comments were directed more to Israel as a political entity,' he says of President Ahmadinejad. 'I'm connected to Israel religiously, it's the Holy Land, but not politically.'"

Full Article: http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/20060119/hz_iran_0106/blogs2276;_ylt=AoC.F..VVaoDWiB4j4tTGnWwEcsF;_ylu=X3oDMTBhcGtxczUxBHNlYwNoenRyaXA-


The fact that these viewpoints have not been voiced in the American news media 1% as much as the initial knee-jerk reaction to Ahmadinejad's comments can only harm us, building an unnecessary atmosphere of resentment and mistrust between West and East that only benefits jihadists in the long run. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to hate the theocratic government of Iran that don't involve the red herring of labeling all Anti-Zionism as Anti-Semitism.




PatMeebles said:
You may disagree with why we're there, but even if it was for oil, we went in to foster a democratic and free Iraq that would (hopefully) be friendly to the US, thus (if you're stuck on the oil argument), would make oil trading a lot easier.


The problem with the democracy argument is that I never bought that either. You can't impose democracy by definition, and any grade schooler can figure that out by glancing at a Social Studies textbook.

Can you name one time in history democracy has successfully been imposed to replace fascist laws and dogma? Anytime in human history a culture has tried to unilaterally interfere with a less developed society, the results were invariably disasterous.




PatMeebles said:
OBL wants to overthrow the Saudis. Islamists, yes. Al Qaeda, no. Oil country that we're stuck having to deal with, hell yes.


I was just going by the same standard you provided for Saddam Hussein, being supportive of a regime (Sudan) that was linked to Al Qaeda. Many of the most powerful people connected with the Saudi goverment are members of the Bin Laden family. Like it or not, that is a link to Al Qaeda. If such tangential reasoning rings hollow to you, you understand why I am hesitant to use tangential reasoning to suggest Hussein was aiding Al Qaeda.




PatMeebles said:
Well, Al Qaeda was in the US because it wanted to attack us. Al Qaeda was in Iraq training in places like Salman Pak (a government-run training ground with 747's used in hijacking lessons) and recruiting fighters to fight in Afghanistan


The 9/11 hijackers did their flight training in the US, so they were using US planes to train, and this is undisputed (unlike the Salmon Pak claims) Does that in and of itself make our government responsible?

Also, Al Qaeda later recruited Americans like Johnny Walker to fight against the US in Afghanistan? Is our government responsible for that?




PatMeebles said:
Not if we're blamed for the world's problem, like we are for sectarian violence (I didn't realize that the mere presence of US troops would cause Shiites and Sunnis to hate each other becasue of their race.)


No one is saying that, those sectarian tensions have always existed in Iraq. What people are saying is that US troops are responsible for overthrowing Hussein, whose iron-fisted dictatorship was the only thing keeping those tensions in check. (Which was one of the main reasons George Bush Sr. and James Baker gave fifteen years ago when turning down the opportunity to topple Hussein)





toggletoggle post by hungtableed at Mar 24,2006 11:36am
Like I ever gave a fuck that Saddam was killing his own people. Since his capture, and throughout the insurgency's campaign ( which, contrary to popular belief is dying down at an expotential rate in regards to dead American Soldiers ) it has become apparent that the only way to keep such a savage people in check is to rule them with an iron fist. 'Islam' litterally translates as 'SUBMIT'. Muslims know no other alternative but to be ruled by absolute power and fear.

Fuck Iraqi Freedom, they could have all been gassed by Saddam and I wouldn't have given two shits or a fuck. I would have much rather have gone to war for oil than to free the arab gutter rats of Iraq. I mean, I guess I would NOT go as far as preaching "BLOOD FOR OIL" but I'd much rather that exchange than "BLOOD FOR THE FREEDOM OF IRAQIS"



toggletoggle post by infoterror  at Mar 24,2006 3:31pm
GOOD RESOURCES HERE

http://www.chris-floyd.com/

BUT REMEMBER
THESE ARE YOUR ELECTED LEADERS

STOP ELECTIONS NOW



toggletoggle post by HailTheLeaf  at Mar 24,2006 3:47pm
ShadowSD all laying the smackdown in here...



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 25,2006 4:58am
ShadowSD said:
Had a Democrat or conventional Republican (like Bush Senior) been elected, we NEVER would have invaded Iraq after 9/11. Only the neo-cons advocated something so stupid, and neo-cons had Bush's ear from the beginning. Bush should have been honest in 2000 that he was running as a neo-con, but he didn't because that never would have won the election, so he ran as a salt-of-the-earth, honest and uncorrupt traditional conservative.


Al Gore was more hardline on Iraq than Bush was. If Al Gore were elected, we would be in Iraq anyway.

ShadowSD said:
Many people in Iran feel the exact same way about Ahmadinejad, who did not campaign as the foreign policy neo-con he is, but as a salt-of-the-earth, honest and uncorrupt traditional conservative.


Didn't the elections turnout not even pass 30%?

ShadowSD said:
I hope this article opens your eyes, as it did mine:


Interesting article. But Ahmadinejad still wants to wipe Isreal off the map. As to why the media doesn't report this, I don't know.

ShadowSD said:
The problem with the democracy argument is that I never bought that either. You can't impose democracy by definition, and any grade schooler can figure that out by glancing at a Social Studies textbook.


What I don't buy is that we forced democracy down their throats. The barrel of the gun wasn't turned on them to force voting; the barrel was turned away towards terrorists who wanted to stop the voting (I don't mention insurgents because they themselves protected Sunni voters from AQ). There was a higher turnout for elections than the 2004 American elections. We didn't force the Sunnis to participate. They finally realized that it's much better for everyone if they participate democratically.

ShadowSD said:
Can you name one time in history democracy has successfully been imposed to replace fascist laws and dogma? Anytime in human history a culture has tried to unilaterally interfere with a less developed society, the results were invariably disasterous.


Japan. And yes, we controlled it by ourselves.

ShadowSD said:
PatMeebles said:
OBL wants to overthrow the Saudis. Islamists, yes. Al Qaeda, no. Oil country that we're stuck having to deal with, hell yes.


I was just going by the same standard you provided for Saddam Hussein, being supportive of a regime (Sudan) that was linked to Al Qaeda. Many of the most powerful people connected with the Saudi goverment are members of the Bin Laden family. Like it or not, that is a link to Al Qaeda. If such tangential reasoning rings hollow to you, you understand why I am hesitant to use tangential reasoning to suggest Hussein was aiding Al Qaeda.


Actually, I have to completely disagree with the idea of being a Bin Laden automatically meaning a connection with AQ. Just look at his niece, who was doing nudie pictures in a bathtub (well, nudity by OBL's standards). Bin Laden's family is vast, and they have disowned him. It's a tangent, but Zarqawi's tribe has also disowned him.

ShadowSD said:
PatMeebles said:
Well, Al Qaeda was in the US because it wanted to attack us. Al Qaeda was in Iraq training in places like Salman Pak (a government-run training ground with 747's used in hijacking lessons) and recruiting fighters to fight in Afghanistan


The 9/11 hijackers did their flight training in the US, so they were using US planes to train, and this is undisputed (unlike the Salmon Pak claims) Does that in and of itself make our government responsible?

Also, Al Qaeda later recruited Americans like Johnny Walker to fight against the US in Afghanistan? Is our government responsible for that?


Once again, no, because this was all done to attack us.

ShadowSD said:
PatMeebles said:
Not if we're blamed for the world's problem, like we are for sectarian violence (I didn't realize that the mere presence of US troops would cause Shiites and Sunnis to hate each other becasue of their race.)


No one is saying that, those sectarian tensions have always existed in Iraq. What people are saying is that US troops are responsible for overthrowing Hussein, whose iron-fisted dictatorship was the only thing keeping those tensions in check. (Which was one of the main reasons George Bush Sr. and James Baker gave fifteen years ago when turning down the opportunity to topple Hussein)


Well, yes. Luckily, those tensions haven't brioled over into a full-scale Civil War. The sects have mostly turned in weapons for political dealings. And things were going much better until the mosque bombing. But even after that, religious and political leaders of all parties (at least the mainstream ones that count) called for peaceful demostrations and comdemned retaliatory violence. So while the sectarian violence has recently flared up and tensions are very high, considering the circumstances, We should be happy that the majority of Iraqis have not taken up arms and that political negotiations are still underway. Granted, it's going to be much harder now, but it's not hopeless.



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 25,2006 12:53pm
PatMeebles said:
Al Gore was more hardline on Iraq than Bush was. If Al Gore were elected, we would be in Iraq anyway.


I honestly don't believe there is any evidence to suggest that anyone other than neo-cons intended a regime change in Iraq; if there is, I'd love to see it, as I watched all the debates in 2000 plus extensive news coverage and was quite up to date with the positions of both candidates. (Besides, if that's what Democrats really wanted, why were Clinton's late 90's Iraq airstrikes so focused in scope; he had eight years to overthrow Hussein and made not the slightest effort)



PatMeebles said:
ShadowSD said:
Many people in Iran feel the exact same way about Ahmadinejad


Didn't the elections turnout not even pass 30%?


I said many, not most.

(Low turnouts in Iran should be no surprise in any case, as the President and his branch of government cannot really do much at all without the approval of the Supreme Leader and his branch of government; in otherwords, the Ayatollahs/Mulas, who hold all the real power).



PatMeebles said:
Interesting article. But Ahmadinejad still wants to wipe Isreal off the map. As to why the media doesn't report this, I don't know.


The media has reported nothing but that about Iran, which is the problem; the article I found is a diamond in the rough. It shows that challenging Zionism (a political philosophy which is a danger to America, Israel, and the entire free world in general, because it is a constant catalyst for and reinforcement of the jihadist terrorist threat) is a very different thing from Anti-Semitism, which is an ugly disgusting predujice that is sadly and unwittingly strengthened when exploited for political points by Zionists. The greatest irony of such exploitation is that many of the most influential Zionists in American policy are actually Christians who believe that scripture should guide policy (which is exactly what the jihadists believe, thus validating and reinforcing their viewpoint from the other side of the mirror).

If you (or anyone else reading this) doubt any of this, read the following article in (published in Haaretz Israel News, no less) and prepare to be amazed:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/695227.html



PatMeebles said:
What I don't buy is that we forced democracy down their throats. The barrel of the gun wasn't turned on them to force voting... We didn't force the Sunnis to participate. They finally realized that it's much better for everyone if they participate democratically.


Sure, and that part is great. But we BEGAN with the barrel of a gun, invading a fascist state, overthrowing it's leader, and externally introducing the idea of democracy. That's what I take issue with, because of the tens of thousand of innocent civilians our army killed to achieve this. When we had a Revolutionary War, how many innocent civilians were killed? Although most minutemen were regular citizens and not soldiers, they CHOSE to fight for their freedom. That's the difference between an internal democratic revolution, and an attempt to facilitate democracy externally: the amount of innocent life lost before the process even has a chance of succeeding.

If we don't hold innocent civilians in the highest regard, we lose moral ground in condemning 9/11. And losing that moral ground is something NO American wants to accept.



PatMeebles said:
ShadowSD said:
Can you name one time in history democracy has successfully been imposed to replace fascist laws and dogma? Anytime in human history a culture has tried to unilaterally interfere with a less developed society, the results were invariably disasterous.


Japan. And yes, we controlled it by ourselves.


Only after the deaths of more innocent civilians than had ever been slaughtered by a democracy in documented history. If that is the best example for imposing democracy, I can already feel that moral ground slipping out from under us...



PatMeebles said:
Actually, I have to completely disagree with the idea of being a Bin Laden automatically meaning a connection with AQ. Just look at his niece, who was doing nudie pictures in a bathtub (well, nudity by OBL's standards). Bin Laden's family is vast, and they have disowned him. It's a tangent, but Zarqawi's tribe has also disowned him.


That's the problem with tangential reasoning, as I said, there's plenty to disagree with. (I could have thrown another tangent at you too: the fact that, in addition to Osama Bin Laden, 19 of the 20 9/11 hijackers were also Saudi Arabian; that sounds a lot more damning than any tangential reasoning suggested about a Hussein/Al Quaeda connection.)



PatMeebles said:
ShadowSD said:
The 9/11 hijackers did their flight training in the US, so they were using US planes to train, and this is undisputed (unlike the Salmon Pak claims) Does that in and of itself make our government responsible?


Once again, no, because this was all done to attack us.


So therefore, by this logic, if Al Qaeda had intentions of attacking Iraq, then no terrorist training in that country can be blamed on Saddam Hussein's government. The problem is, it is much less painless to come up with evidence to suggest that Al Qaeda hated what it perceived as Saddam Hussein's secular regime than it is to come up with evidence of collusion between the two.



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 25,2006 2:22pm
ShadowSD said:
I said many, not most.

(Low turnouts in Iran should be no surprise in any case, as the President and his branch of government cannot really do much at all without the approval of the Supreme Leader and his branch of government; in otherwords, the Ayatollahs/Mulas, who hold all the real power).


Ok


ShadowSD said:
PatMeebles said:
Interesting article. But Ahmadinejad still wants to wipe Isreal off the map. As to why the media doesn't report this, I don't know.


The media has reported nothing but that about Iran, which is the problem; the article I found is a diamond in the rough. It shows that challenging Zionism (a political philosophy which is a danger to America, Israel, and the entire free world in general, because it is a constant catalyst for and reinforcement of the jihadist terrorist threat) is a very different thing from Anti-Semitism, which is an ugly disgusting predujice that is sadly and unwittingly strengthened when exploited for political points by Zionists. The greatest irony of such exploitation is that many of the most influential Zionists in American policy are actually Christians who believe that scripture should guide policy (which is exactly what the jihadists believe, thus validating and reinforcing their viewpoint from the other side of the mirror).

If you (or anyone else reading this) doubt any of this, read the following article in (published in Haaretz Israel News, no less) and prepare to be amazed:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/695227.html


That article doesn't give support of the study. You might want to look into the arguments for and against this paper a little more.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013517.php

That's the only link I can find right now with limited time (I'm getting picked up to play in Maine really soon)

ShadowSD said:
Sure, and that part is great. But we BEGAN with the barrel of a gun, invading a fascist state, overthrowing it's leader, and externally introducing the idea of democracy. That's what I take issue with, because of the tens of thousand of innocent civilians our army killed to achieve this. When we had a Revolutionary War, how many innocent civilians were killed? Although most minutemen were regular citizens and not soldiers, they CHOSE to fight for their freedom. That's the difference between an internal democratic revolution, and an attempt to facilitate democracy externally: the amount of innocent life lost before the process even has a chance of succeeding.

If we don't hold innocent civilians in the highest regard, we lose moral ground in condemning 9/11. And losing that moral ground is something NO American wants to accept.


That's one of the worst things about war. People have to die. But leaving Saddam in power would have killed much more innocent civilians. Over 75,000 would be dead according to UNICEF (I think it was that organization), where 25,000 civilians have died since the invasion, mostly from insurgent attacks directly on the population. So while I think it's a tragedy that so many people had to die, I have to take into account that the situation is better than the alternative.

ShadowSD said:
Only after the deaths of more innocent civilians than had ever been slaughtered by a democracy in documented history. If that is the best example for imposing democracy, I can already feel that moral ground slipping out from under us...


Given that the cities we bombed were strategic positions that were part of the war industry, and given the prosperity and advances in Japanese society, I'd say it was worth it.

ShadowSD said:
That's the problem with tangential reasoning, as I said, there's plenty to disagree with. (I could have thrown another tangent at you too: the fact that, in addition to Osama Bin Laden, 19 of the 20 9/11 hijackers were also Saudi Arabian; that sounds a lot more damning than any tangential reasoning suggested about a Hussein/Al Quaeda connection.)


I don't know if I brought this up, but Al Qaeda wants to overthrow the Saudis.

ShadowSD said:
So therefore, by this logic, if Al Qaeda had intentions of attacking Iraq, then no terrorist training in that country can be blamed on Saddam Hussein's government. The problem is, it is much less painless to come up with evidence to suggest that Al Qaeda hated what it perceived as Saddam Hussein's secular regime than it is to come up with evidence of collusion between the two.


It would be easier to imagine the logical aspects of this if it were taken for granted that both organizations followed their "beliefs" idealistically with no compromise. However, these two entities saw in each other a means to achieve the ultimate short-term goal: Bringing America to its knees. I'm begging you to check out the conservative blogs like powerlineblog.com, captainsquartersblog.com, and the weekly standard. These guys are keeping track of all the new documents that are being released, and so far those documents aren't boding well for the idea that Saddam and OBL could never work together.



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 25,2006 2:25pm
ShadowSD said:
PatMeebles said:
Al Gore was more hardline on Iraq than Bush was. If Al Gore were elected, we would be in Iraq anyway.


I honestly don't believe there is any evidence to suggest that anyone other than neo-cons intended a regime change in Iraq; if there is, I'd love to see it, as I watched all the debates in 2000 plus extensive news coverage and was quite up to date with the positions of both candidates. (Besides, if that's what Democrats really wanted, why were Clinton's late 90's Iraq airstrikes so focused in scope; he had eight years to overthrow Hussein and made not the slightest effort)


I believe the legislation to overthrow Hussein was in 1998. Clinton, by that time, I think was caught up in Kosovo, Lewinsky, etc. I could be wrong on the exact date. But, Clinton probably didn't have the real stomach for a long term war. Plus, we thought sanctions were working.



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 29,2006 2:12pm
PatMeebles said:
That's one of the worst things about war. People have to die. But leaving Saddam in power would have killed much more innocent civilians. Over 75,000 would be dead according to UNICEF (I think it was that organization), where 25,000 civilians have died since the invasion, mostly from insurgent attacks directly on the population. So while I think it's a tragedy that so many people had to die, I have to take into account that the situation is better than the alternative.


Unfortunately, far more than 25,000 Iraqi civilians have died since we invaded; the number surpassed 120, 000 a long time ago. (Source: McLaughlin Group)

Therefore, more innocent people have died because we invaded than would have otherwise. It should be no surprise: internal civil wars result in civilians enlisting as soldiers and making the choice to risk death for their country, whereas externally affected civil wars contain complexity and chaos that lead to those civilians more likely to be butchered in cold blood. There's no running away from this simple fact, which has repeated itself consistently for all of human history. We should try to base our foreign policy around facts, not momentarily convenient reasoning.


PatMeebles said:
Given that the cities we bombed were strategic positions that were part of the war industry, and given the prosperity and advances in Japanese society, I'd say it was worth it.


Had Japan found it's own way to democracy and capitalism, there would have been far less innocent lives lost (by the reasoning I offered above). There is no way to measure the societal impact of the loss of that many lives, but the loss itself is undisputed, whereas a hypothetical comparison of how societally advanced Japan would have been had they not been nuked is just that: hypothetical. You have at best a hypothetical assumption (that the Japanese are more advanced now because of WWII) weighed against a documented truth (the vast loss of civilian life in the atomic blasts), all in order to prove an end-justifies-the-means argument about killing civilians. Meanwhile, the terrorists use an end-justifies-the-means argument about killing civilians to murder Americans every chance they get. In a "hearts and minds" war against terrorism where we are losing neutral Muslims every day, maybe we need to reevaluate our moral thinking to purge any ambiguity that might validate the reasoning of our enemies, ultimately increasing their ability to recruit suicide bombers trained to kill American civilians.


PatMeebles said:
However, these two entities saw in each other a means to achieve the ultimate short-term goal: Bringing America to its knees. I'm begging you to check out the conservative blogs like powerlineblog.com, captainsquartersblog.com, and the weekly standard. These guys are keeping track of all the new documents that are being released, and so far those documents aren't boding well for the idea that Saddam and OBL could never work together.


I am very up to date with what conservatives have to say on the Iraq issue (in fact I've spent more time listening to them than anyone else, since you learn more listening to your rivals in politics, and particularly in this decade I listen more to conservatives since they are the ones with all the power). I've watched several hours of Bill Kristol (editor of The Weekly Standard) over recent years during television news debates and analysis, and find nothing new in these blogs that I haven't already heard.

I know that Bush apologists have done everything to try to scrape together evidence to justify the war after the fact. What should be a warning flag to you is the fact that neo-cons have been acting as if they're pulling teeth trying to justify Iraq ever since it happened.

And yet if such exalting evidence had existed sooner, it would have already been released to the media by the Bush Administration, as this government's main focus from 2002 to present has been pulling teeth to justify the invasion, and so they wouldn't have passed up the opportunity to offer evidence that backed them up as soon as they had it. Again, common sense test. Just look at the strain of those trying to make the case, balanced with how long it has taken for supportive evidence to dribble out, and something is clearly fishy.


PatMeebles said:
That article doesn't give support of the study. You might want to look into the arguments for and against this paper a little more.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013517.php


That article just proves my point. What Allen Dershowitz wrote to suggest the paper's writers are Anti-Semites simply because they criticized Israeli foreign policy is just unbelievable and reprehensible. (I say this as someone who generally agrees with Dershowitz and thinks he made several brilliant points in an eloquent debate of secularism vs. religion that I watched in its entirety; compared to this matter though, he was doing a better job convincing me OJ was innocent.) Dershowitz wrote:

"The wrenching out of context is done by the hate sites,and then [the authors] cite them to the original sources, in order to disguise the fact that they've gotten them from hate sites."

Dershowitz is suggesting that the fact that certain arguments and figures exist on Neo-Nazi hate sites as well as in the paper automatically means the paper got its information from those Neo-Nazi sites, and implies that the paper condones all the attitudes of that site.

Meanwhile, many critics of illegal immigration use arguments despite the fact that the same arguments are also exploited by white supremacists; not all critics of illegal immigration are white supremacists, nor do they get their arguments from white supremacist sites. Many of the corrupt and rich have for years used the same tax cut arguments word for word still used by honest fiscal conservatives; not all supporters of tax cuts are rich and corrupt, and not all fiscal conservatives get their arguments from the rich and corrupt. Someone who likes Korn may use the exact same argument for liking heavy music as the people on rttp (getting your aggression out, for example); does that mean that people here are going to stop using "getting out aggression" as a reason just because they hate Korn with a passion? Not all metal fans who enjoy getting aggression out like Korn, nor do they get their arguments from nu-metal fans simply because both groups used "getting out aggression" as their reasoning. There are always people you find reprehensible who may end up using the same arguments as you, but if the specific argument you are both saying is ultimately true, then you shouldn't distance yourself from that fact, because the many huge differences between you and said reprehensible people LIE ELSEWHERE and deserve no minimizing (by stressing differences that don't exist). To silence yourself in order to distance any and all of your beliefs from someone revolting may be politically correct, but it is intellectually repugnant.

Meanwhile, the piece by Caroline Glick gets angry, attempts to discredit the study without presenting a shred of objective evidence, and finally only challenges one point about the Harvard paper intellectually:

"The paper's first footnote maintains,'The mere existence of the Lobby suggests that unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national interest. If it was, one would not need an organized special interest to bring it about.' Every semi-sentient person with even an incidental knowledge of American politics knows that there is no area of human endeavor that is not represented by a lobby in the US."

Which is absolutely true. But read that again. It's entire logic in terms of discrediting the paper is based on a semantic slight of hand that hopes you won't have the patience to give it a second look.

There are two ways the phrase "the mere existence of the Lobby" can be interpreted: 1) The Lobby existing only as a yes or no question, or 2) The Lobby existing as defined by a particular set of terms.

The paper's intent was 2, and that is quite clear in context, but when the phrase is isolated, 1 is obviously a case of better writing because it is more on the mark as a phrase. In otherwords, the Harvard paper was being written to define what it alleged this lobby was, and what it alleged the lobby had done, and was thus making a declaration about it's "existence" under that definition. Anyone can figure that out if they actually read it (or even click on the link to the summary that I posted), but most people don't take the time, and Glick's article is aimed at those people.

In otherwords, it's like if I wrote a paper about the Nazi atrocities, and my first footnote said "The mere existence of this government suggests that absolute power can cause incredible suffering", then some neo-Nazi idiot dismissed all the findings of the paper by saying said "Every semi-sentient American knows that without government, there would be anarchy." Obviously, I was not criticizing the Germans merely for having a government at that time, but rather referring to "government" under the definition supported by the rest of my paper; so ultimately, this person would be trying to use a semantic slight of hand to discount all the facts the paper presents.

The only reason that he will fail while people like Glick and Dershowitz will succeed is because the Neo-Nazi is absolutely on the wrong side of sympathy, and they are completely on the right side of sympathy. Zionists bank on the fact that a knee-jerk disgust based on sympathy will allow semantic hat tricks to obscure actual debate, and unfortunately, they usually win the bet. The sad irony is that Zionist policies have harmed Americans and Israelis instead of protecting them, anatogizing and isolating us into a foreign policy corner, and this sad trend only shows signs of continuing...



toggletoggle post by Yeti at Mar 29,2006 3:25pm
Shadow for president! wow man i have learned more from reading this thread than anything i have watched on the subject for the past 5 years.



toggletoggle post by Pat Meebles nli at Mar 29,2006 4:13pm
ShadowSD said:
PatMeebles said:
That's one of the worst things about war. People have to die. But leaving Saddam in power would have killed much more innocent civilians. Over 75,000 would be dead according to UNICEF (I think it was that organization), where 25,000 civilians have died since the invasion, mostly from insurgent attacks directly on the population. So while I think it's a tragedy that so many people had to die, I have to take into account that the situation is better than the alternative.


Unfortunately, far more than 25,000 Iraqi civilians have died since we invaded; the number surpassed 120, 000 a long time ago. (Source: McLaughlin Group)

Therefore, more innocent people have died because we invaded than would have otherwise. It should be no surprise: internal civil wars result in civilians enlisting as soldiers and making the choice to risk death for their country, whereas externally affected civil wars contain complexity and chaos that lead to those civilians more likely to be butchered in cold blood. There's no running away from this simple fact, which has repeated itself consistently for all of human history. We should try to base our foreign policy around facts, not momentarily convenient reasoning.


The only originaly source for a number even close to 100,000 was the lancet study. Slate tore it apart a while ago.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108887/


ShadowSDsaid:
PatMeebles said:
Given that the cities we bombed were strategic positions that were part of the war industry, and given the prosperity and advances in Japanese society, I'd say it was worth it.


Had Japan found it's own way to democracy and capitalism, there would have been far less innocent lives lost (by the reasoning I offered above). There is no way to measure the societal impact of the loss of that many lives, but the loss itself is undisputed, whereas a hypothetical comparison of how societally advanced Japan would have been had they not been nuked is just that: hypothetical. You have at best a hypothetical assumption (that the Japanese are more advanced now because of WWII) weighed against a documented truth (the vast loss of civilian life in the atomic blasts), all in order to prove an end-justifies-the-means argument about killing civilians. Meanwhile, the terrorists use an end-justifies-the-means argument about killing civilians to murder Americans every chance they get. In a "hearts and minds" war against terrorism where we are losing neutral Muslims every day, maybe we need to reevaluate our moral thinking to purge any ambiguity that might validate the reasoning of our enemies, ultimately increasing their ability to recruit suicide bombers trained to kill American civilians.


When watching the history channel, the estimation was that taking japan through regular forces would have cost maybe 5 times the amount of lives that the bomb took. You also assume that I think WWII itself made Japan more advanced. I'm saying that because of the swiftness that we ended the war with, we were able to force the Japanese to surrender, and we forced our way of life on the population in a much "worse" way than we have in Iraq.

When you compare my reluctantly utilitarian stance on civilian deaths, to Al Qaeda's, you severely clout the reason why I bring up these statistics in the first place. Citing utilitarian statistsics wasn't a justification to go to war in the first place; merely a rejection that Iraqis are somehow now worse off. If I were being truly utilitarian, I would say it's ok to directly target civilians, as long as the total death rate wasn't as high a Saddam's, even if it's an insignificant difference. I'm not saying that at all. What I say is that we need to severly avoid civilians (which we have), and we need to advance our methods in order to flush out insurgents without harming civilians (which we have). The tragic deaths are still a tragedy (which Al Qaeda wouldn't care about, since they truly are ends-justifies-means SOB's)

PatMeebles said:
However, these two entities saw in each other a means to achieve the ultimate short-term goal: Bringing America to its knees. I'm begging you to check out the conservative blogs like powerlineblog.com, captainsquartersblog.com, and the weekly standard. These guys are keeping track of all the new documents that are being released, and so far those documents aren't boding well for the idea that Saddam and OBL could never work together.


ShadowSD:
I am very up to date with what conservatives have to say on the Iraq issue (in fact I've spent more time listening to them than anyone else, since you learn more listening to your rivals in politics, and particularly in this decade I listen more to conservatives since they are the ones with all the power). I've watched several hours of Bill Kristol (editor of The Weekly Standard) over recent years during television news debates and analysis, and find nothing new in these blogs that I haven't already heard.

I know that Bush apologists have done everything to try to scrape together evidence to justify the war after the fact. What should be a warning flag to you is the fact that neo-cons have been acting as if they're pulling teeth trying to justify Iraq ever since it happened.

And yet if such exalting evidence had existed sooner, it would have already been released to the media by the Bush Administration, as this government's main focus from 2002 to present has been pulling teeth to justify the invasion, and so they wouldn't have passed up the opportunity to offer evidence that backed them up as soon as they had it. Again, common sense test. Just look at the strain of those trying to make the case, balanced with how long it has taken for supportive evidence to dribble out, and something is clearly fishy.


If that's your opinion, then you haven't really been paying attention. The fact is that the evidence was strong, since everyone believed it. The fact is that the government hasn't had the resources to translate the millions of documents recovered SINCE 2003 (so they wouldn't have been presented in 2002). Negroponte owned the documents, and stalled in releasing them until now. His reasons for not releasing them have gone from "nothing interesting" to "far too interesting to declassify." And right now, all the info from the documents has provided tons of evidence for the invasion; you don't have to pull teeth to extract pro-war supporting intel from these documents.


ShadowSDsaid:
PatMeebles said:
That article doesn't give support of the study. You might want to look into the arguments for and against this paper a little more.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013517.php


That article just proves my point. What Allen Dershowitz wrote to suggest the paper's writers are Anti-Semites simply because they criticized Israeli foreign policy is just unbelievable and reprehensible. (I say this as someone who generally agrees with Dershowitz and thinks he made several brilliant points in an eloquent debate of secularism vs. religion that I watched in its entirety; compared to this matter though, he was doing a better job convincing me OJ was innocent.) Dershowitz wrote:

"The wrenching out of context is done by the hate sites,and then [the authors] cite them to the original sources, in order to disguise the fact that they've gotten them from hate sites."

Dershowitz is suggesting that the fact that certain arguments and figures exist on Neo-Nazi hate sites as well as in the paper automatically means the paper got its information from those Neo-Nazi sites, and implies that the paper condones all the attitudes of that site.


No, Dershowitz is saying that academics took already-out-of-context quotes from neo nazis and quoted them as documented fact.

ShadowSD:
Meanwhile, many critics of illegal immigration use arguments despite the fact that the same arguments are also exploited by white supremacists; not all critics of illegal immigration are white supremacists, nor do they get their arguments from white supremacist sites. Many of the corrupt and rich have for years used the same tax cut arguments word for word still used by honest fiscal conservatives; not all supporters of tax cuts are rich and corrupt, and not all fiscal conservatives get their arguments from the rich and corrupt. Someone who likes Korn may use the exact same argument for liking heavy music as the people on rttp (getting your aggression out, for example); does that mean that people here are going to stop using "getting out aggression" as a reason just because they hate Korn with a passion? Not all metal fans who enjoy getting aggression out like Korn, nor do they get their arguments from nu-metal fans simply because both groups used "getting out aggression" as their reasoning. There are always people you find reprehensible who may end up using the same arguments as you, but if the specific argument you are both saying is ultimately true, then you shouldn't distance yourself from that fact, because the many huge differences between you and said reprehensible people LIE ELSEWHERE and deserve no minimizing (by stressing differences that don't exist). To silence yourself in order to distance any and all of your beliefs from someone revolting may be politically correct, but it is intellectually repugnant.


Point taken. But these people directly quotes nazis and put it forward as fact. I don't quote from the corrupt, I don't quote from Korn fans, and I don't quote from nazis, unless I'm making fun of Infoterror.

ShadowSD:
Meanwhile, the piece by Caroline Glick gets angry, attempts to discredit the study without presenting a shred of objective evidence, and finally only challenges one point about the Harvard paper intellectually:

"The paper's first footnote maintains,'The mere existence of the Lobby suggests that unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national interest. If it was, one would not need an organized special interest to bring it about.' Every semi-sentient person with even an incidental knowledge of American politics knows that there is no area of human endeavor that is not represented by a lobby in the US."

Which is absolutely true. But read that again. It's entire logic in terms of discrediting the paper is based on a semantic slight of hand that hopes you won't have the patience to give it a second look.


That's not the only article on it. The authors refuse to debate the validity of their claims. They try to act like they never wrote it, even when Jews want to debate them openly in public (so much for Jews silencing critics). This whole idea that Israel controls US foreign policy is ludicrous, with our support of a two state solution, our economic assistance to Palestinians before Hamas took power. What about the fact that Israel was one of the most anti-soviet countries during the cold war in a region where the soviets wanted to take over? Shouldn't that mean something other than Jews controlling the world?



toggletoggle post by infoterror  at Mar 29,2006 6:03pm
BUT WE'RE MAKING DEMOCRACY SAFE FOR ISRAEL!



toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 29,2006 7:45pm
PatMeebles said:
The only originaly source for a number even close to 100,000 was the lancet study. Slate tore it apart a while ago.


John McLaughlin (certainly no liberal, and a host who makes sure at least half of his panel is far right at all times) of PBS's The McLaughlin Report routinely quotes statistics for US Troops Killed, US Troops Wounded/Amputeed, and Iraqi civilians killed. Several months ago, I remember seeing that the number of Iraqi civilians killed had exceeded 120,000.

Whenever McLaughlin puts these figures on the screen, he always names the original source of the numbers. I wish I could remember it offhand... but it's certainly no controversial source, and it'll be right there on the screen the next time he quotes the figures. (It should also be noted than neither far right wingers Tony Blankley or Pat Buchanan ever take issue with the veracity of those numbers after McLaughlin lists them.)


PatMeebles said:
When watching the history channel, the estimation was that taking japan through regular forces would have cost maybe 5 times the amount of lives that the bomb took. You also assume that I think WWII itself made Japan more advanced. I'm saying that because of the swiftness that we ended the war with, we were able to force the Japanese to surrender, and we forced our way of life on the population in a much "worse" way than we have in Iraq.


OK, fair enough, I had thought you meant WWII vs. no WWII; however, if you're talking about using the atom bomb versus fighting the Japanese conventionally, that's a different argument, and certainly a more complicated one.


PatMeebles said:
When you compare my reluctantly utilitarian stance on civilian deaths, to Al Qaeda's, you severely clout the reason why I bring up these statistics in the first place. Citing utilitarian statistsics wasn't a justification to go to war in the first place; merely a rejection that Iraqis are somehow now worse off.


I would think that justifying the war implicitly includes the assumption that Iraqis won't be worse off afterwards. (Seems kind of necessary for the whole bringing democracy argument...)


PatMeebles said:
If that's your opinion, then you haven't really been paying attention. The fact is that the evidence was strong, since everyone believed it. The fact is that the government hasn't had the resources to translate the millions of documents recovered SINCE 2003 (so they wouldn't have been presented in 2002). Negroponte owned the documents, and stalled in releasing them until now. His reasons for not releasing them have gone from "nothing interesting" to "far too interesting to declassify." And right now, all the info from the documents has provided tons of evidence for the invasion; you don't have to pull teeth to extract pro-war supporting intel from these documents.


I think your point of view comes from a leap of faith in our government that I'm not willing to make. Obviously, declassification and analysis take time, but so do falsification and cherry picking.

The reason I assume the latter where you assume the former is the past behavior of this administration. 1) As determined by the 9/11 commission and countless other neutral sources, much of the Iraq/Al Qaeda evidence was cherry picked if not fabricated, which means the Bush Administration has a history of doing this. 2) When Joe Wilson challenged a piece of their "evidence", the White House retalliated by outing his wife as a CIA agent, proving they retalliate against anyone who challenges the veracity of their claims, even when it risks breaking the law. 3) Armstrong Williams was among "independant" conservative talk show hosts and cable news commentators who backed up the pro-war arguments, and was eventually revealed to be a paid Bush Administration mouthpiece, which means the adminisration has a history of propaganda and attempting to deceive the public about the war.

I could list about a hundred other reasons I don't trust these people, but you can see why I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt...


PatMeebles said:
ShadowSDsaid:
Dershowitz is suggesting that the fact that certain arguments and figures exist on Neo-Nazi hate sites as well as in the paper automatically means the paper got its information from those Neo-Nazi sites


No, Dershowitz is saying that academics took already-out-of-context quotes from neo nazis and quoted them as documented fact.


That's what I just said. I simply added that Dershowitz is making that assumption because he sees certain information in the paper that is also used by Neo-Nazi sites, and he assumes the paper therefore must have gotten the information from those sites. I think I explained pretty well why such an assumption is a) flawed and b) a red herring that stifles debate, exploiting sympathy to shame people away from even considering a different viewpoint.


PatMeebles said:
But these people directly quotes nazis and put it forward as fact.


How do you know that for certain? Based on Dershowitz' faulty reasoning that I just deconstructed in my last post?


PatMeebles said:
That's not the only article on it. The authors refuse to debate the validity of their claims. They try to act like they never wrote it, even when Jews want to debate them openly in public (so much for Jews silencing critics).


If all that is actually true, I totally agree with everything you've said on this subject, and I've picked the wrong people to defend.

But since anyone who speaks out at all against Israeli influence in American politics is smeared with the exact same claims, you can understand my skepticism.


PatMeebles said:
This whole idea that Israel controls US foreign policy is ludicrous, with our support of a two state solution, our economic assistance to Palestinians before Hamas took power.


Israel Prime Minister Olmert (and Sharon before him) advocate a two state solution. In fact, anyone in their right mind advocates a two state solution, and just the existence of a two state solution certainly doesn't mean the Palestinians will automatically get a fair shake. The question is what territory will the Israelis and Palestinians each get? If the Israelis get all the fertile land and religous shrines, and the Palestinians get nothing but shit, a two state solution is hardly fair.

In addition, the fact that there wasn't a two state solution in 1948 or the fifty eight years since then (and the fact that Israel has only in this decade agreed to it) suggests a gross unfairness towards the Palestinians (who apparantely didn't deserve their own country until this decade, and yet have been expected to police themselves without sovereignty, and since they're unable to do that, they deserve no seat at the negotiating table; WTF?!).

Economic aid to the Palestinians has been pennies compared to the aid we give Israel every year. Also, Israel has nuclear weapons, but the Bush Adminstration refuses to even admit that out loud, while at the same time criticizing Iran for preparing to have such capabilities in ten years; the irony is that Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, whereas Israel never did.

All this is bad news for us (and Israel) when it gets out to the world, and good news for Al Qaeda recruitment. Too bad they're the only ones who see it...

If we wanted to protect American interests, and in the long run Israeli interests, we would have been even handed in the process starting decades ago: even levels of aid per capita, standing up to Israel when it violated UN Resolution 242 just like we stood up to the Palestinians any time they did something wrong, and threatening BOTH sides with a total suspension of aid unless they sat down at the negotiation table. This whole strategy of "the Palestinians have no state, but we expect them to at the same time police themselves and prevent terrorism, and since they can't, they won't have a say in negotiations" is the most self-defeating strategy I've ever heard of, inherently designed with no possible hope of succeeding, only perpetuating a stalemate that leads to the inevitable deaths of countless Israeli and Palestinian civilians (and with that policy now a rallying cry for jihadism, it has since lead to the deaths of thousand of American civilians too, and will sadly lead to countless more).





toggletoggle post by ShadowSD at Mar 30,2006 11:05am
I missed responding to this one part...


Pat Meebles said:
Point taken. But these people directly quotes nazis and put it forward as fact. I don't quote from the corrupt, I don't quote from Korn fans


Of course you don't. But if they like listening to Korn to "get their aggression out", does that mean you would stop using "getting your aggression out" as a reason for liking the bands you like? No. And if someone said well you're only getting that quote from Korn fans, you would call them a retard, and would have every right to do so. Someone who would assume that the existence of a quote or statistic in paper as well as a Neo-Nazi site automatically means the paper got the figure from the Neo-Nazi site would be equally retarded.


(The problem is, you don't really have to be a retard to fall for the Zionist trick, because it exploits the fact that NO intelligent American wants to be perceived as agreeing with ANYTHING the Nazis have said. That's the trap. And on top of that emotional reaction, any critic of Zionist policy knows that their intellectual point will IMMEDIATELY be dismissed if they are perceived as at all sympathetic to racist extremists. Put those two things together, and all debate on the subject can be easy stifled; sadly enough, it has been for decades. Forget what your opinion is on Israel for a moment, and consider the fact that theoretically, under these politically correct cirumstances Israel could do ANYTHING, and debate in America would be paralyzed to challenge it. It's really sad, especially since people around the world see America's unwillingness to even reconsider its policies, and that not only recruits jihadists but also recruits more Neo-Nazis who twist Israel's current influence into a sick hatred of an entire race; meanwhile, the existence of more of these Neo-Nazis creates more of a backlash in the civilized world against them, which makes it that much easier for labeling any critic of Israeli policy an Anti-Semite to make the American public dismiss all those person's points out of shame and disgust. It's a vicious circle, in fact it's an outright downward spiral, one from which I see no escape...)



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 30,2006 6:18pm edited Mar 30,2006 6:20pm
ShadowSD:
If all that is actually true, I totally agree with everything you've said on this subject


Then I'll take care of this first

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/27/israel

Website:
As all of this has been going on, the scholars who wrote the piece have been largely quiet — giving a few early interviews in which they defended their work, but declining to get into a point-by-point discussion and also criticizing their critics for implying that their piece is anti-Semitic. (Most of the critics do stay a bit away from that explicit charge, and while “bigoted” is used frequently, “anti-Semitic” is generally not, at least by the professors discussing the article.)


ShadowSD:
John McLaughlin (certainly no liberal, and a host who makes sure at least half of his panel is far right at all times) of PBS's The McLaughlin Report routinely quotes statistics for US Troops Killed, US Troops Wounded/Amputeed, and Iraqi civilians killed. Several months ago, I remember seeing that the number of Iraqi civilians killed had exceeded 120,000.

Whenever McLaughlin puts these figures on the screen, he always names the original source of the numbers. I wish I could remember it offhand... but it's certainly no controversial source, and it'll be right there on the screen the next time he quotes the figures. (It should also be noted than neither far right wingers Tony Blankley or Pat Buchanan ever take issue with the veracity of those numbers after McLaughlin lists them.)


The Lancet Group isn't a controversial one (MoveOn.org didn't give the statistics originally). However, this is the ONLY study that has actually put out a number anywhere near to 100,000. Also, Pat Buchanan is an isolationist "to hell with them" conservative.

ShadowSD:
PatMeebles:
If that's your opinion, then you haven't really been paying attention. The fact is that the evidence was strong, since everyone believed it. The fact is that the government hasn't had the resources to translate the millions of documents recovered SINCE 2003 (so they wouldn't have been presented in 2002). Negroponte owned the documents, and stalled in releasing them until now. His reasons for not releasing them have gone from "nothing interesting" to "far too interesting to declassify." And right now, all the info from the documents has provided tons of evidence for the invasion; you don't have to pull teeth to extract pro-war supporting intel from these documents.


I think your point of view comes from a leap of faith in our government that I'm not willing to make. Obviously, declassification and analysis take time, but so do falsification and cherry picking.

The reason I assume the latter where you assume the former is the past behavior of this administration. 1) As determined by the 9/11 commission and countless other neutral sources, much of the Iraq/Al Qaeda evidence was cherry picked if not fabricated, which means the Bush Administration has a history of doing this. 2) When Joe Wilson challenged a piece of their "evidence", the White House retalliated by outing his wife as a CIA agent, proving they retalliate against anyone who challenges the veracity of their claims, even when it risks breaking the law. 3) Armstrong Williams was among "independant" conservative talk show hosts and cable news commentators who backed up the pro-war arguments, and was eventually revealed to be a paid Bush Administration mouthpiece, which means the adminisration has a history of propaganda and attempting to deceive the public about the war.

I could list about a hundred other reasons I don't trust these people, but you can see why I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt...


My point of view didn't come from a leap of faith in the government, and it certainly isn't a leap of faith when you look at these captured documents (which the administration hasn't made one single mention of to the public, I might add).

ShadowSD:
When Joe Wilson challenged a piece of their "evidence", the White House retalliated by outing his wife as a CIA agent, proving they retalliate against anyone who challenges the veracity of their claims, even when it risks breaking the law.


Joe Wilson changed what the administration said and then claimed that what they "said" was false. Bush said that Iraq SOUGHT uranium in Niger. He didn't claim that a transfer actually took place. Wilson said "but no transaction took place," as if that was the original claim to begin with. Niger's own PM admitted that Iraq came looking to open up trade (Niger's only exports goats (or something like that) and Uranium).

ShadowSD:
PatMeebles:
ShadowSDsaid:
Dershowitz is suggesting that the fact that certain arguments and figures exist on Neo-Nazi hate sites as well as in the paper automatically means the paper got its information from those Neo-Nazi sites


No, Dershowitz is saying that academics took already-out-of-context quotes from neo nazis and quoted them as documented fact.


That's what I just said. I simply added that Dershowitz is making that assumption because he sees certain information in the paper that is also used by Neo-Nazi sites, and he assumes the paper therefore must have gotten the information from those sites. I think I explained pretty well why such an assumption is a) flawed and b) a red herring that stifles debate, exploiting sympathy to shame people away from even considering a different viewpoint.


No, that's not what you just said. Dershowitz is saying that they quoted the article and directly cited it. You're claiming that the paper merely has some of the same info as Nazi sites. It's different to share an opinion with someone and to directly quote from them and cite them, which I agree with.

ShadowSD:
PatMeebles:
This whole idea that Israel controls US foreign policy is ludicrous, with our support of a two state solution, our economic assistance to Palestinians before Hamas took power.


Israel Prime Minister Olmert (and Sharon before him) advocate a two state solution. In fact, anyone in their right mind advocates a two state solution, and just the existence of a two state solution certainly doesn't mean the Palestinians will automatically get a fair shake. The question is what territory will the Israelis and Palestinians each get? If the Israelis get all the fertile land and religous shrines, and the Palestinians get nothing but shit, a two state solution is hardly fair.

In addition, the fact that there wasn't a two state solution in 1948 or the fifty eight years since then (and the fact that Israel has only in this decade agreed to it) suggests a gross unfairness towards the Palestinians (who apparantely didn't deserve their own country until this decade, and yet have been expected to police themselves without sovereignty, and since they're unable to do that, they deserve no seat at the negotiating table; WTF?!).

Economic aid to the Palestinians has been pennies compared to the aid we give Israel every year. Also, Israel has nuclear weapons, but the Bush Adminstration refuses to even admit that out loud, while at the same time criticizing Iran for preparing to have such capabilities in ten years; the irony is that Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, whereas Israel never did.

All this is bad news for us (and Israel) when it gets out to the world, and good news for Al Qaeda recruitment. Too bad they're the only ones who see it...

If we wanted to protect American interests, and in the long run Israeli interests, we would have been even handed in the process starting decades ago: even levels of aid per capita, standing up to Israel when it violated UN Resolution 242 just like we stood up to the Palestinians any time they did something wrong, and threatening BOTH sides with a total suspension of aid unless they sat down at the negotiation table. This whole strategy of "the Palestinians have no state, but we expect them to at the same time police themselves and prevent terrorism, and since they can't, they won't have a say in negotiations" is the most self-defeating strategy I've ever heard of, inherently designed with no possible hope of succeeding, only perpetuating a stalemate that leads to the inevitable deaths of countless Israeli and Palestinian civilians (and with that policy now a rallying cry for jihadism, it has since lead to the deaths of thousand of American civilians too, and will sadly lead to countless more).


During the Oslo treaty dealings, Isreal agreed to give Arafat nearly everything he wanted. It was Arafat who screwed the deal over and decided that there would be no compromise

Isreal has given back territories to Arab countries that signed treaties with it, like Egypt. Isreal was also provoked to war by the blockade that Egypt deployed against its shipping, which is an act of war. I don't agree with UN resolution 242 because it demands that Isreal give up territories forcefully when the other side hasn't even bothered to offer a truce.

Also, I wonder why aid hasn't been as great to Palestine than it has been to Isreal, unless you look at the suicide bombings, elected officials who deny Isreal's right to exist, the fact that after the Gaza withdrawl the Palestinians destroyed the Green Houses that had been given to them by Isreali philanthropic groups. This also brings up another question of why hasn't the Middle East been so quick to aid Palestine.



toggletoggle post by PatMeebles at Mar 30,2006 6:21pm
I don't know why the quoting messed up in some places. I followed all the criteria.



toggletoggle post by infoterror  at Mar 30,2006 7:17pm
MAYBE THE MIDDLE EAST
IS JUST NOT OUR BUSINESS

LIKE VIETNAM




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