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SCGoer
04-18-2004, 05:43 PM
If anyone blames the economy on Bush.......please go and do some research, and stop listening to what the politicans have told you.

The economy was starting to tank in late 1999, early 2000. By mid 2000 we were at the beginning of a recession and just now are looking to come out of it.

The presidents controlling the economy is one of the biggest falsities ever. They might cause it to go up and down a bit........but they don't have that much control


FINALLY......someone talking some sence!!

Melonie
04-18-2004, 05:55 PM
Okay, he committed perjury about getting a BJ, who gives a shit and why did we spend millions upon millions of dollars to find this out? Couldn't that money have been better spent elsewhere? Couldn't the president have been dealing with more pressing issues then testifying about getting a BJ?

What this has to do with Bush vs Kerry I also don't know

In my own mind, the linkage here is that John Kerry also having dallied with a young hottie (MUCH hotter than Monica !), but having used his wife's millions to send the hottie off for a permanent incogneto vacation in Kenya to avoid the story being plastered all over the US media. The important point to me is that Bush is at least a straight shooter - he pays attention to his responsibilities as president before his responsibilities to his Willie. On the other hand, democratic presidential dalliances have been a tradition since Kennedy at least (well maybe not Jimmy Carter - but he was a creature of an entirely different sort anyhow), and Kerry seems eminently suited to carry on in the Kennedy - Clinton tradition.

In a larger context this also speaks towards Kerry's relative credibility. Of course after Kerry announced during a speech to unionized oil drillers that he favored opening up ANWR to new oil wells a few months ago, that sort of drove home Kerry's credibility to me i.e. tell them anything that they want to hear today and change your tune as required tomorrow ! On the other hand, Bush may not be saying what I want to hear all the time, but at least he is consistent in his position and doesn't change his tune to suit the audience of the day.


what do you think about the administrations fight against porn, how do you rationalize this with your obvious interest in strip clubs

Not that I support the degree of christian zeal which seems to accompany these efforts, BUT ...

Consider for a moment the totally liberalized position of Europe in regard to nudity and sex. The result of this is that there IS no strip club industry in Europe as we know it in the USA. In order to earn decent money in many European clubs it's necessary to perform sex on stage and offer sex to customers.

The thing which makes it possible for exotic dancers to earn money in US clubs without offering sex to customers is that, to some degree, nudity and sex are still taboos in American culture. This means that American guys are still willing to spend money to "see" beautiful nude girls. This is definitely not the case in Europe, where any guy can see hundreds of hot nude girls for free at any major beach ! Maintaining or even tightening the sex and nudity taboos in America should actually IMPROVE the ability for American exotic dancers to earn decent money without having to offer sex with customers !

samart
04-18-2004, 06:42 PM
OMG. Someone mark this date in History........for I have been quoted! hehehhehehe

Ya know....I think that this will be my last post on this subject. Why you might ask? I have started to see a very common echo from another UBB that I read. One that bashes our commander in chief and has had a poster go as far to say that he "hoped that the body count in Iraq was huge." (If you want to see the guy that wrote this, do a google on Lib and AGW...it's probably one of the biggest hitter posts). I thought that I got away from that, but I see it coming back at a different place. It's not something that I want to hide from, but it's something that I choose not to see as it may really change the way I look at some.

Anyway....enough of my ramblings. I see us bickering and bitching, posting quotes that slam one person or show how one person did so great. Citing things like that will sway no one, putting up quotes from here or there will not cause someone to change their mind. Only doing research for themselves will cause that.

As Forrest Gump said........"And that's all I've got to say about that........."

Richard_Head
04-18-2004, 10:32 PM
In my own mind, the linkage here is that John Kerry also having dallied with a young hottie (MUCH hotter than Monica !), but having used his wife's millions to send the hottie off for a permanent incogneto vacation in Kenya to avoid the story being plastered all over the US media. The important point to me is that Bush is at least a straight shooter - he pays attention to his responsibilities as president before his responsibilities to his Willie. On the other hand, democratic presidential dalliances have been a tradition since Kennedy at least (well maybe not Jimmy Carter - but he was a creature of an entirely different sort anyhow), and Kerry seems eminently suited to carry on in the Kennedy - Clinton tradition.

I read that RUMOR, didn't see any evidence of any truth to it anywhere, and it was dropped, do you know something everyone else doesn't or is an unsubstantiated RUMOR good enough for you?


In a larger context this also speaks towards Kerry's relative credibility.

Speaking of credibility where are those Iraqi WMD's that we were all told that we were in such eminent danger from?


Not that I support the degree of christian zeal which seems to accompany these efforts, BUT ...

Consider for a moment the totally liberalized position of Europe in regard to nudity and sex. The result of this is that there IS no strip club industry in Europe as we know it in the USA. In order to earn decent money in many European clubs it's necessary to perform sex on stage and offer sex to customers.

The thing which makes it possible for exotic dancers to earn money in US clubs without offering sex to customers is that, to some degree, nudity and sex are still taboos in American culture. This means that American guys are still willing to spend money to "see" beautiful nude girls. This is definitely not the case in Europe, where any guy can see hundreds of hot nude girls for free at any major beach ! Maintaining or even tightening the sex and nudity taboos in America should actually IMPROVE the ability for American exotic dancers to earn decent money without having to offer sex with customers !

You make a good point there Melonie, but I think you're being a bit naive if you don't think this push against indecency will not also filter down to the strip club industry, it's already happening in many clubs around the country and I'm betting the dancers at those clubs are not any better off for it.

Richard_Head
04-18-2004, 10:56 PM
If anyone blames the economy on Bush.......please go and do some research, and stop listening to what the politicans have told you.

The economy was starting to tank in late 1999, early 2000. By mid 2000 we were at the beginning of a recession and just now are looking to come out of it.

The presidents controlling the economy is one of the biggest falsities ever. They might cause it to go up and down a bit........but they don't have that much control


FINALLY......someone talking some sence!!

Talking sense huh, can we agree that the President is at least partially responsible for the record deficit (to make you all happy, by record deficit I'm referring to biggest deficit dollarwise not percentage wise, either way though it's a HUGE deficit)? Is it wise to lower taxes at the same time as running up this record deficit? I don't think so. Don't tell me the president has no control over the economy.

Melonie
04-19-2004, 03:48 AM
I'm beginning to agree with Samart that continuing this thread might be pointless, but I'll try one more time


I read that RUMOR, didn't see any evidence of any truth to it anywhere, and it was dropped, do you know something everyone else doesn't or is an unsubstantiated RUMOR good enough for you?

I know that the UK press printed a bunch of stuff - sent a reporter to Kenya to interview the girl's father (who was none too pleased with Kerry). The Boston Globe reported her comings and goings to Kerry's townhouse around midnight. However the US national media avoided reporting on this story like the plague, even though in some cases both US and Euro media were owned by the same news corp i.e. Murdoch (hmmm ... you don't suppose there was any behind the scenes pressure do you ?) That's the advantage of having big money. If Bill Clinton could have afforded to give Monica a couple of million bucks and stick her on a plane to Nepal, the oval office action would only have been a 'rumor' too !


Speaking of credibility where are those Iraqi WMD's that we were all told that we were in such eminent danger from?

According to Israeli and Russian intelligence, some of these travelled by truck convoy across the Syrian border after the war started and are now buried under the sand. Of course, we'll have to declare war on Syria and invade their territory in order to find the WMD's (which was the reason they were taken there in the first place). Meanwhile, terrorists still have potential access to them.


You make a good point there Melonie, but I think you're being a bit naive if you don't think this push against indecency will not also filter down to the strip club industry, it's already happening in many clubs around the country and I'm betting the dancers at those clubs are not any better off for it

I'm totally against local governments using dance clubs as an easy target to gain political brownie points, and have posted many times to that effect. However, these crusades are all being driven at the local level and not from Washington. And in the final analysis, it IS a frequent occurrence that the passage of new dance club ordinances can increase the income of dancers in the affected clubs ... dancers who are willing to break the ordinance and provide more contact than the ordinance allows !


Talking sense huh, can we agree that the President is at least partially responsible for the record deficit (to make you all happy, by record deficit I'm referring to biggest deficit dollarwise not percentage wise, either way though it's a HUGE deficit)? Is it wise to lower taxes at the same time as running up this record deficit? I don't think so. Don't tell me the president has no control over the economy

When the economy began to stall out in the early 60's, John Kennedy also reduced taxes. Reagan did the same thing in the 80's. In both cases, within a year total tax REVENUES increased along with US economic activity. In both cases, within a few years, deficits turned into surpluses because of economic and profit growth (well, at least until Lyndon Johnson started the Vietnam War). Economist Arthur Laffer is famous for explaining why this works - basically it boils down to a low effective tax rate creating an incentive for US entrepreneurs to take a chance on new investments and new businesses with new employees and new profits, versus a higher tax rate encouraging people to put their money into non-productive tax shelters or funnelling it out of the country to avoid the US high taxes.

Remember that on a dollar basis, the top earning 10% of American citizens (those earning over 100K) actually pay 66% of all tax dollars that the government receives. These are the people that buy stock in speculative new companies, start new businesses, hire new workers, and pay the vast majority of income tax dollars. The lower earning 50% of American citizens (those earning under 60K) only pay 4% of the tax money received. Thus the theory that Bush's across the board tax cut is the primary reason for the deficit is bogus. 50% of people weren't paying squat in regard to federal taxes anyhow, before or after Bush's tax cut !

In reality, even with the $87 billion dollar cost of the mideast war, and even with increases in fed budget allocations for education etc, some MAJOR reasons for the increasing deficit were the fast rising costs of SSI and Medicare benefits. Unlike Al' Gore's campaign rhetoric about the "lockbox", the tax receipts and benefit payouts for these programs have always and still do go directly from the hand of the wage earners paying taxes to the beneficiaries receiving checks. The great pyramid scheme conceived by Roosevelt and Johnson, respectively, have finally hit the point where the bottom of the payment pyramid can no longer expand (new workers), while the top of the pyramid is getting wider (people living longer through more complex and expensive health care). Less money coming in versus being paid out equals deficit spending.

Obviously, the budget had to be increased in other areas to deal with the increased terrorist threat. All through the 90's, CIA and FBI and NSA budgets were cut. The number of active military was also cut dramatically, shifting emphasis to reserve units (which are much cheaper than active duty troops if they are not called up, but quite a bit MORE expensive once they are called up and deployed). Additionally, throughout the 90's budget cuts slowed the upgrading of gov't computers, military hardware etc. When a serious Islamic terrorist threat hit us on 9/11, Bush was forced to increase spending to deal with these neglected issues.

The "magic" economy of Clinton's 90's was due in no small part to these deep budget cuts and neglected improvement expenditures. I equate it to a person neglecting necessary home and car maintenance. You can have one hell of a party with the money you save for a while. However, at some point your house starts to sag because termites were able to sneak in through the unmowed grass and have been eating away at the beams from the inside. Also, when the day comes that your car is needed for a fast trip to the hospital, you find that it's not firing on all cylinders thus you can't pass slowpokes. At this point, the point where Bush found himself, it's much more expensive to repair the results of serious neglect than it would have been if smaller expenditures for maintenance and gradual improvements had been made regularly in the preceding years.

At any rate, we need to spend what we need to spend to reduce the chances of a second 9/11 to as low a level as is practical. If that results in a budget deficit for a few years, so be it. I also don't buy the argument that budget deficits can be judged in absolute dollar terms. My god, 50 years ago you could buy a nice new car for $2,000 where today it costs $20,000 ! Housing prices have risen by MORE than a 10 to 1 ratio in the past 50 years. Also, the population of the USA has grown over 30% in the last 50 years. Between these factors, this constitutes a 13 to 1 adjustment for current deficit dollars versus deficit dollars which occurred 50 years ago, which is totally neglected when liberal comments are made that Bush has run up the biggest deficit in history (in dollar terms) !

Melonie
04-19-2004, 02:22 PM
A new set of "liberal" based polls just came out today. Even with the WMD hearings and the Spanish attack over the past month, Bush seems to be gaining ground ...

Gallup Poll and CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll
.

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?"

Approve Disapprove Don't Know
% % %
4/16-18/04 52 45 3 1,003
4/5-8/04 52 45 3 1,014
3/26-28/04 53 44 3 1,001
3/8-11/04 50 47 3 1,005
3/5-7/04 49 48 3 1,005

ace_barker
04-19-2004, 03:29 PM
I'm beginning to agree with Samart that continuing this thread might be pointless,

Melonie, I agree with you 100%. The blinders are on too many people that George Bush is evil. They believe any garbage source on the internet and if we defend him we are lemmings to Limbaugh and Hannity. absolute joke. Have you listened to the Air America radio that is out there now? They just attack and accuse Bush of everything. The fear mongering that people believe Bush is trying to do would be humorous if people didn't really believe it.
1. using lacy peterson case to ban abortion
2. wants to own all the arab countries for his oil buddies
3. went awol from texas air guard
4. lied about wmd's completely ignoring that ALL intelligence agencies around the world said he had them.
5. wasn't elected president, he stole the election in florida.
6. Gore really won election because he got more votes nationally, completely ignoring the electoral college
7. giving tax cuts to his rich buddies and not enough to the poor. Even though the top 50% wage earners pay 96.03% of all federal tax monies. 122,000,000 people in the USA pay no federal taxes.

Richard_Head
04-19-2004, 04:38 PM
I'm beginning to agree with Samart that continuing this thread might be pointless, but I'll try one more time.

I agree.


I know that the UK press printed a bunch of stuff - sent a reporter to Kenya to interview the girl's father (who was none too pleased with Kerry). The Boston Globe reported her comings and goings to Kerry's townhouse around midnight. However the US national media avoided reporting on this story like the plague, even though in some cases both US and Euro media were owned by the same news corp i.e. Murdoch (hmmm ... you don't suppose there was any behind the scenes pressure do you ?) That's the advantage of having big money.

LMAO, you've got to be kidding me, if there was any shreed to truth to this rumor the US media would be all over it, once they smell blood, they go for the kill.


According to Israeli and Russian intelligence, some of these travelled by truck convoy across the Syrian border after the war started and are now buried under the sand. Of course, we'll have to declare war on Syria and invade their territory in order to find the WMD's (which was the reason they were taken there in the first place). Meanwhile, terrorists still have potential access to them.

You're giving a lot of credibility to Isreali and Russian intelligence aren't you, they wouldn't have reason to mislead us would they?


I'm totally against local governments using dance clubs as an easy target to gain political brownie points, and have posted many times to that effect. However, these crusades are all being driven at the local level and not from Washington.

Isn't it kind of naive to think actions of the federal gov't won't lead to actions by local government's. I'd much prefer to not live in a repressive, intolerant country.

As for your thoughts on taxes and the economy, when has the trickle down theory ever produced long term growth? It doesn't, it didn't for Reagan, it didn't for Bush Sr, it's not doing so for George W, it's nothing but a short term stimulant.

Personally, I don't feel bad at all for the wealthy in regards to taxes, this country has been damn good to those individuals and I see nothing wrong with them paying more than their share of the taxes. IMO, if you're going to give tax breaks give them to those who need them.

Richard_Head
04-19-2004, 04:43 PM
Melonie, I agree with you 100%. The blinders are on too many people that George Bush is evil. They believe any garbage source on the internet and if we defend him we are lemmings to Limbaugh and Hannity. absolute joke.

Give it a rest, conservative talk radio/cable TV has ruled the airwaves for years now feeding crap and propaganda to every yahoo willing to buy into their crap. Clinton was attacked from time he took office until the time he left. Pay back is a bitch sometimes isn't it.

Melonie
04-20-2004, 04:00 AM
Pay back is a bitch sometimes isn't it.

I guess all that I can constructively say at this point is "we'll find out in November" !

Zofia
04-20-2004, 06:25 AM
Bush. He's got better, though not good ideas about trade. His tax cuts, especially the dividend tax cut were good ideas. Bush has the much better foreign policy and I like the school voucher program. No point in paying for rotten public schools and a decent private one. Kerry, he's got only one thing going for him, he's right about Israel. But, his policy on Israel and the Palestinians isn't much different from Bush's.

ace_barker
04-20-2004, 06:43 AM
The TOP 50% wage earners in the United States pay 96.03% of the federal taxes. Go to the IRS website and see it for yourself. How much more would be fair? 122,000,000 Americans pay NO FEDERAL TAXES. Zero zilch zip. The top 50% are the ones who will create jobs. You know as does everyone else that if you give the government $100,000,000.00 for a jobs program a ridiculously low amount will actually go to jobs. The private sector creates jobs, let it work. The problem with this country IMO is that we have too many lawyers in elected office. They are slick talking Bullshit artists. Ban lawyers from elected office and this country gets better. Heck they can't serve on juries why not elected office. Sorry about the last part but that is my dream.

montythegeek
04-20-2004, 06:40 PM
Also correcting a false point of fact.
Lawyers can serve on juries, they just usual get thrown off by presumptive challenge.
The infamous Jurror #4 was a lawyer.
PS your rule would have disqualified Abe Lincoln.

NinaDaisy
04-20-2004, 11:38 PM
[quote=Vicki-Valentine



Oh yes you forgot to list that George Bush liberated 51,000,000 people to date. But I guess you only want to hear the BS that he went AWOL when in the Texas Air Guard even though it has been proven over and over and over that he served his term.


"Liberated"? Iraq is the most dangerous country in the world now. As bad as things were under Saddam, rights for women are worse than before and policing is roughshod and near impossible. He's also liberated a lot of oil and liberated many contracts for Halliburton.

Speaking of liberating, why aren't we invading North Korea when they've TOLD us they have nuclear capability? If they were sitting on a mountain of oil we'd have levelled them. There are dozens of other despotic nations out there, including our "buddies" Saudi Arabia. And what about China and their dismal human rights record? Oh right, MONEY!

At least some of the left-leaning posts on this site admit that Clinton wasn't perfect, but most of what I see coming from the right are half-assed rationales, no compromise and making a lot of excuses for the sorry state our appointed president has put this nation in.

NinaDaisy
04-20-2004, 11:50 PM
Lest we forget that the US government under Reagan (and Bush Sr. as VP) trained Bin Laden back in the 80's and SUPPLIED Hussein with weapons in the same time period while they were fighting Iran.

The US has a misguided foreign policy that our enemy's enemy is our ally.

Richard_Head
04-21-2004, 04:12 PM
The TOP 50% wage earners in the United States pay 96.03% of the federal taxes. Go to the IRS website and see it for yourself. How much more would be fair? 122,000,000 Americans pay NO FEDERAL TAXES. Zero zilch zip.

You should check out this book Ace, I think you'd find it interesting to read about how much taxes the wealthy really pay.
http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/perfectlylegal.html


The top 50% are the ones who will create jobs. You know as does everyone else that if you give the government $100,000,000.00 for a jobs program a ridiculously low amount will actually go to jobs. The private sector creates jobs, let it work.

Perhaps you haven't noticed the 2.5 million jobs lost on Bush's watch. There are lots of economic theories out there, Bush seems stuck on this trickle down shit, that only works when the wealthy are willing to let their income trickle down.

Melonie
04-21-2004, 10:50 PM
Lest we forget that the US government under Reagan (and Bush Sr. as VP) trained Bin Laden back in the 80's and SUPPLIED Hussein with weapons in the same time period while they were fighting Iran.

The US has a misguided foreign policy that our enemy's enemy is our ally.

Forgive me, but lest we also not forget that the US Gov't under Franklin Roosevelt trained Russian troops and supplied them with all sorts of weapons so they could conquer Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and a bunch of Eastern Europe while fighting Germany along with us in WW2 ?

NikkiD
04-22-2004, 01:43 AM
The options really suck! Kerry looks like a mortician, but Bush is Bush, so he gets no vote from me! Nader is running for the 500th time, right?

Weluckyfew
04-23-2004, 07:46 AM
Lest we forget that the US government under Reagan (and Bush Sr. as VP) trained Bin Laden back in the 80's and SUPPLIED Hussein with weapons in the same time period while they were fighting Iran.

The US has a misguided foreign policy that our enemy's enemy is our ally.

Forgive me, but lest we also not forget that the US Gov't under Franklin Roosevelt trained Russian troops and supplied them with all sorts of weapons so they could conquer Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and a bunch of Eastern Europe while fighting Germany along with us in WW2 ?



Melonie -
You hit the nail on the head, both parties are guilty of the "enemy of my enemy" syndrome. their policy should be "Sometimes you have to lie down with the devil, but never forget he's the devil or you may not get back up again."

Right now we're cozying up to Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc wonder which one of these "friendships" will be the first to bite us in the ass. We actually have an administration that thinks Uzbekistan (and other opressive dictators) is closer to our values than France or Germany, just because Uzbekistan (and others) are willing to support our war - of course they're only supporting it in exchange for buttloads of money and political recognition.

Weluckyfew
04-23-2004, 08:09 AM
<<<Oh yes you forgot to list that George Bush liberated 51,000,000 people to date. But I guess you only want to hear the BS that he went AWOL when in the Texas Air Guard even though it has been proven over and over and over that he served his term. >>>

It has NEVER been proven that he served his term:
But the hundreds of pages of National Guard files contain no new evidence and are unlikely to change the basic standoff between Mr. Bush and the Democrats, which is where, when and how often the president showed up for duty from May 1972 to May 1973.
...The only document in the two-inch-thick stack that puts Mr. Bush in Alabama in that period is a document that the White House released on Wednesday, a copy of a dental exam performed at Dannelly Air National Guard base in Montgomery on Jan. 6, 1973
NYTimes, Feb. 16, 2004

I think much bigger questions are how did he magically skip to the front of a 500 person waiting list for the National Guard, why did he refuse to take the physical he was ordered to take (thus losing his pilot status) , why was he made a 2nd Lt. (by special appointment) when he never went through Officer Candidate School (the normal path) and how did he get an honorable discharge almost a year before his scheduled discharge?? Personally i wouldn&#039;t care about any of this since children of privlege from both parties were guilty of this sort of thing, but Bush is the one who makes it fair game by doing silly shit like the aircraft carrier/flight suit photo op. Just mentioning it since it was brought up.


Liberated 51 million people? Right now the situation is so bad that several of our "Ally"countries are pulling out their troops (which were never significant anyway- Spain has 1,300 troops there, we have 130,000)several American firms are pulling all their people out of reconstruction efforts and even voices on the Right who agreed with the war are questioning how poorly the post-war was planned for and run (i.e. we set up Chalabai as head of the interim Iraqi council - a man who hasn&#039;t lived in Iraq for over 40 years)
An editorial in today&#039;s NYTimes:

Can it really be considered "liberating" people if we pull them out of a burning house but put them in a sinking ship?

Melonie
04-23-2004, 03:31 PM
Right now we&#039;re cozying up to Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc wonder which one of these "friendships" will be the first to bite us in the ass. We actually have an administration that thinks Uzbekistan (and other opressive dictators) is closer to our values than France or Germany, just because Uzbekistan (and others) are willing to support our war - of course they&#039;re only supporting it in exchange for buttloads of money and political recognition.

Oh absolutely agreed. The only reason that the US once was &#039;forced&#039; to support Saddam Hussein was that Jimmy Carter wouldn&#039;t support the Shah of Iran, leading to his overthrow by Islamic extremists, a Theocracy taking the Shah&#039;s place under Komeini, Americans being taken hostage, Iran becoming an arch-enemy of the US in the news media, the US military being basically powerless to do anything about Iran at the time, and Saddam Hussein being right next door with a sizeable army (and a desire not to be replaced himself with an Iraqi Ayatollah).

But this is nothing new- Japan was our ally in WW1, our enemy in WW2, and is now our ally again. Same can be said for probably half of the countries in the world, who play the same game of self-interest at one time or another. My god, look at Canada, who is now essentially an ally of the French and Germans rather than an ally of the US and UK !

However, in this day and age, the only way to avoid such questionable alliances is to field a US army of sufficient manpower to dominate any situation which could possibly develop all by itself using conventional weapons (thus removing the need for allies such as these), and American politicians and voters having the stomach to do so and the willingness to pay for it.

The founding fathers had the right idea when they warned future leaders against "foreign entanglements". Unfortunately, the world has become a much smaller place in the last 200 years. It&#039;s way too late to construct a 50ft prison wall around the US border.

It&#039;s also way too late to leave the rest of the world to take care of their own affairs, since in the case of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Western Europe etc. our economy and business establishments are hopelessly interlinked. If cheap oil stops flowing and gas hits $5.00 a gallon, our economy will be in shambles. If Jewish controlled investment houses sell out of American investments and move the money to Europe or Asia, our economy will be in shambles. If Americans stop buying European cars and if Europeans stop buying Coke, Colgate Palmolive, General Dynamics and Cisco Systems, both of our economies will be in shambles. At that point we might very well have our own civil war to deal with, rather than worrying about somebody else&#039;s ! Unfortunately, I don&#039;t think that John Kerry has managed to figure this point out so far.

Weluckyfew
04-23-2004, 04:05 PM
Right now we&#039;re cozying up to Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc wonder which one of these "friendships" will be the first to bite us in the ass. We actually have an administration that thinks Uzbekistan (and other opressive dictators) is closer to our values than France or Germany, just because Uzbekistan (and others) are willing to support our war - of course they&#039;re only supporting it in exchange for buttloads of money and political recognition.

Oh absolutely agreed. The only reason that the US once was &#039;forced&#039; to support Saddam Hussein was that Jimmy Carter wouldn&#039;t support the Shah of Iran, leading to his overthrow by Islamic extremists, a Theocracy taking the Shah&#039;s place under Komeini, Americans being taken hostage, Iran becoming an arch-enemy of the US in the news media, the US military being basically powerless to do anything about Iran at the time, and Saddam Hussein being right next door with a sizeable army (and a desire not to be replaced himself with an Iraqi Ayatollah).

But this is nothing new- Japan was our ally in WW1, our enemy in WW2, and is now our ally again. Same can be said for probably half of the countries in the world, who play the same game of self-interest at one time or another. My god, look at Canada, who is now essentially an ally of the French and Germans rather than an ally of the US and UK !

However, in this day and age, the only way to avoid such questionable alliances is to field a US army of sufficient manpower to dominate any situation which could possibly develop all by itself (without the need for allies such as these), and American politicians and voters having the stomach to do so and the willingness to pay for it.

The founding fathers had the right idea when they warned future leaders against "foreign entanglements". Unfortunately, the world has become a much smaller place in the last 200 years.




Iranians were marching in the streets against a brutal dictator - one we put into power having arranged the overthrow of their democratically elected government (an imperfect democractic election, but then so is ours)

Carter was very supportive of the Shah, even spent New Years with him in 1978. What do you suggest he could have done? From what I&#039;ve read the only option, with the Iranian people marching in the streets, would have been to back him in a bloody crackdown ala Tiannamen Square. besides the moral issue of that it would have only delayed the inevitable. Maybe if we had pressured him on human rights issues years before his people wouldn&#039;t have rallied against him. And since all the mainstream moderate opposition had been killed by the Shah the only ones left were the extremists who ended up taking over.

And yes we shifted alliance with Japan BUT those were different governments - and are you saying Canada isn&#039;t an ally of the US just because they don&#039;t agree with our war in Iraq? Would you call Uzbekistan&#039;s, Pakistan&#039;s and Turkey&#039;s government more our ally than Canada? If that is the logic then would it be fair of France, Germany and Canada to say we stopped being their ally first because we stood against them on the Kyoto Treaty (global warming), The establishment of a stronger World Court and abdication of the ABM treaty?

As for "field a US army of sufficient manpower to dominate any situation which could possibly develop all by itself "

I think that&#039;s wishful thinking. There is a time for military but there are many problems that we can&#039;t just shoot our way out of - i.e. no matter how big out military is we can&#039;t go against North Korea (in the opening seconds of the war North Korea would open fire on the South - there some 10,000 artillery pieces within range of Seoul, a city of several million.) And what if Afghjanistan keeps sliding into anarchy, our troopp levels are already spread thin. We&#039;d need a draft and we&#039;d need to post hundreds of thousands of forces overseas for years - um...I&#039;d rather we got a little better at diplomacy (again, there is a timne for military, but we already spend more on our military than the entire rest of the world combined!)
And without cooperation from Allies we can&#039;t realistically crack down on global terrorism - we need cooperation to keep nukes and biologicals out of their hands.

And cost? We&#039;ve spent a few hundred billion on Iraq, with no end in sight - and Bush&#039;s only proposal is for more tax cuts. We already have debt so high that the IMF is warning that we&#039;re endangering the global economy

Melonie
04-23-2004, 04:21 PM
We&#039;d need a draft and we&#039;d need to post hundreds of thousands of forces overseas for years - um...I&#039;d rather we got a little better at diplomacy

There you go. History has proven over and over again (Calvin Coolidge, Neville Chamberlain, John Kennedy) that there will always be some countries who only respect diplomacy and negotiations carried out at gunpoint.

The fact is that American policies have changed so much since the WW2/Korea era that a large part of the world no longer trusts us to "stick by them" for the long haul because of policy reversals by succeeding US administrations. IMHO this is the primary reason that Afghani&#039;s and Iraqi&#039;s are hedging their bets, which allows the insurgents to continue to operate.

Weluckyfew
04-23-2004, 04:27 PM
Melonie,
I think we agree on the need for a very strong defense, i think most people do. but hwen we&#039;re already spending more than the rest of the world combined i think we should start to look at the bigger picture of what&#039;s wrong.

And i would guess that we all also agree that the way we treat our vetrans is atrocious - the VA hospital system is a crime

Melonie
04-23-2004, 04:37 PM
I think we agree on the need for a very strong defense, i think most people do. but hwen we&#039;re already spending more than the rest of the world combined i think we should start to look at the bigger picture of what&#039;s wrong.

IMHO the reason for this is that since WW2 the traditional role of the UK as the world&#039;s policeman (where petty despots are concerned) has been taken over by us ! Whatever shining plans were behind the League of Nations or the United Nations have proven totally ineffective, particularly when the small nations ruled by despots outnumber and outvote the large democratic nations. World peace will only come to pass when there is a single will behind it - enforced at gunpoint. Pax Romana ... Pax Britannia ... ???

Weluckyfew
04-23-2004, 06:11 PM
I think we agree on the need for a very strong defense, i think most people do. but hwen we&#039;re already spending more than the rest of the world combined i think we should start to look at the bigger picture of what&#039;s wrong.

IMHO the reason for this is that since WW2 the traditional role of the UK as the world&#039;s policeman (where petty despots are concerned) has been taken over by us ! Whatever shining plans were behind the League of Nations or the United Nations have proven totally ineffective, particularly when the small nations ruled by despots outnumber and outvote the large democratic nations. World peace will only come to pass when there is a single will behind it - enforced at gunpoint. Pax Romana ... Pax Britannia ... ???



I think a lot of nations would take issue with the idea that the world was better when dominated by Roman or English empure rule. And even if they tried it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reinstate the draft at a time when a very large percentage oppose the war (assuming we agree that the draft would be necessary to do anything more than we&#039;re doing now, and arguable it&#039;s even necessary to do what we&#039;re currently doing)

As for farming out to the resident armies, the US military, according to the NYTimes, found that 10% of the new Iraqi defense forces turned their guns on the Americans and another 40% deserted

Melonie
04-24-2004, 03:55 AM
I think a lot of nations would take issue with the idea that the world was better when dominated by Roman or English empure rule

I never said that it was better, only that it was more peaceful (successful domination also results in peace) with fewer despotic rulers allowed to terrorize their neighbors.


it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reinstate the draft at a time when a very large percentage oppose the war

True as things stand at the moment, but this could change VERY quickly if a North Korean supplied nuke should re-arrange the US Pacific Coast for example. I also think that you&#039;re confusing the actual percentage of conservative US VOTERS with the actual percentage of conservative opinions which are able to be heard in the US news media (and particularly in your apparent favorite publication the NY Times)!


As for farming out to the resident armies, the US military, according to the NYTimes, found that 10% of the new Iraqi defense forces turned their guns on the Americans and another 40% deserted

This was exactly my point about recent US policy reversals. If I was an Afghan or Iraqi, I would be very reluctant to commit myself to actively opposing the &#039;insurgents&#039; who, because of a future US policy reversal, might be able to return to power next year and then try to kill me and my family in retribution for my &#039;collaborating&#039; with the &#039;enemy&#039;. The likelihood of a US policy reversal is 1000 times higher now for the Afghans and Iraqis than it was for the French, Chinese, etc. during WW2 who were faced with basically the same decision in taking up arms against the Germans and Japanese. It wasn&#039;t until the Vietnam era that the US sent the message to the world that we WERE willing to walk away from a military commitment and leave people defenseless against the retribution of &#039;insurgents&#039; returning to power. Of course, many of the same Vietnam era opinions "the war is wrong, too many US soldiers are being killed, we have no reason to be there" are being echoed in the US news media today, and the Afghans and Iraqis are watching it via satellite !

Weluckyfew
04-25-2004, 06:19 PM
I think a lot of nations would take issue with the idea that the world was better when dominated by Roman or English empure rule

I never said that it was better, only that it was more peaceful (successful domination also results in peace) with fewer despotic rulers allowed to terrorize their neighbors.

Guess I&#039;m not sure what your point is here - are you saying the only choice is being terrorized by depotic neighbors or being ruled by an outside empire?



it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reinstate the draft at a time when a very large percentage oppose the war

True as things stand at the moment, but this could change VERY quickly if a North Korean supplied nuke should re-arrange the US Pacific Coast for example. I also think that you&#039;re confusing the actual percentage of conservative US VOTERS with the actual percentage of conservative opinions which are able to be heard in the US news media (and particularly in your apparent favorite publication the NY Times)!
UM...I never really understood this argument that there aren&#039;t enough conservative viewpoints being heard in the media. On the one hand Fox News loves to trumpet how they are #1 in the ratings, and all the conservative talk shows trumpet how many listeners they have and how many stations carry their shows but at the same time they complain that the country can&#039;t hear their message.

And the NYTimes, a liberal publication overall, has far more conservative voices on the eidtorial page than you&#039;ll find liberal voices in, say, The Washington Times. I think the NYTimes is highly flawed, but i think it still does a great job (it could just do a much better one)

And I underestimate the number of conservative voters? I don&#039;t have to estimate them at all, I can look at the results of the last election. About 50%.



As for farming out to the resident armies, the US military, according to the NYTimes, found that 10% of the new Iraqi defense forces turned their guns on the Americans and another 40% deserted

This was exactly my point about recent US policy reversals. If I was an Afghan or Iraqi, I would be very reluctant to commit myself to actively opposing the &#039;insurgents&#039; who, because of a future US policy reversal, might be able to return to power next year and then try to kill me and my family in retribution for my &#039;collaborating&#039; with the &#039;enemy&#039;. The likelihood of a US policy reversal is 1000 times higher now for the Afghans and Iraqis than it was for the French, Chinese, etc. during WW2 who were faced with basically the same decision in taking up arms against the Germans and Japanese. It wasn&#039;t until the Vietnam era that the US sent the message to the world that we WERE willing to walk away from a military commitment and leave people defenseless against the retribution of &#039;insurgents&#039; returning to power. Of course, many of the same Vietnam era opinions "the war is wrong, too many US soldiers are being killed, we have no reason to be there" are being echoed in the US news media today, and the Afghans and Iraqis are watching it via satellite !


I&#039;m against policy flipping too, which is why i opposed the war. It didn&#039;t take a genius to see that once Saddam was gone the country was going to be a mess of rival groups and outside influences. the reason George Bush I didn&#039;t go after Saddam is because he knew how big a committment it would be - in the first Gulf War we even let large elements of the "evil" Republican Guard escape to Iraq because we didn&#039;t want Saddam to be so weakened that the country fell apart.

So now where are we? They grossly underestimated what it would take to rebuild the country and hold it together - even though MANY on the anti-war side were saying all along it was going to be grossly expensive and long and take many, many lives. So now we&#039;re starting to see the Bush flip-flops (I bring it up since they love to point to Kerry flip-flops) the people will welcome us as liberating heroes --oopps, maybe not. We won&#039;t need more troops...oopps, yes we will. We have to ban any Baathist member from givernment...oooppss, no we can&#039;t. Iraqi oil will pay for reconstruction...ooppss, no it can&#039;t.

Damn...what was my point?

Isis
04-26-2004, 10:08 PM
all u political buffs should check out FactCheck.org (http://FactCheck.org)

very helpful stuff in this world of political propganda

Weluckyfew
04-27-2004, 07:35 AM
Great site, thanks Isis-

Tigerlilly
04-27-2004, 12:41 PM
Here&#039;s some food for thought for all the Bush fans- it comes from my favorite local columnist at the Tampa Tribune

A Mad Hatter Approach To Criminal Justice
DANIEL RUTH
Published: Apr 25, 2004

If memory serves, the reason all these people are being killed in Iraq is because the United States yearns to plant the fertile seeds of - altogether, now - DEMOCRACY across the fertile crescent.
At the same time, the predicate for spending a few billion dollars to sustain Hamid Karzai as the mayor of Kabul is because the United States dreams of a day when Afghanistan&#039;s warlords will experience the epiphany of a Jeffersonian DEMOCRACY.

Now, to be sure, while the Bush administration is propping up more puppet governments than ``Sesame Street,&#039;&#039; who could argue that establishing democratic societies is, in theory, a noble calling?

But here is where we start to get into Mad Hatter territory.


Not Nice

After all, the reason we supposedly invaded Iraq was because Saddam Hussein was the mother of all evildoers who oppressed the citizenry in a variety of ways, not the least of which was throwing people in jail for the helluva it and keeping them locked away for no particular reason ad infinitum.

That&#039;s not nice.

So you&#039;d think if you were going to do all this liberating and occupying, it might be a good idea not to start committing some of the same sorts of jurisprudential excesses as the chap you displaced.

It may come as something of a jolt to the U.S. Justice Department of John Ashcroft, but this nation was founded on pretty inviolate legal principles such as due process. They teach it in law schools - it&#039;s all the rage.

Yet at the moment there are more than 600 foreign prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, detainees nabbed in the war against terrorism or captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan or Iraq.

None of these men have been permitted contact with their families or a lawyer. None have been formally charged with any crime, nor have they received some sort of hearing before a judicial body to challenge their detention.

This can happen - in a democracy?


Caught Sneaking In?

A few days ago the U.S. Supreme Court took up the issue of the legal status of the GITMO detainees.

U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson, arguing for the government, maintained the detainees are not entitled to civilian legal protections because they are combatants captured in the war on terror.

And besides, Olson maintained, the detainees are being held on sovereign Cuban soil and thus fall outside the protections of the United States&#039; legal system.

No! Really, he said that.

Let&#039;s all stipulate that many of the 600 detainees are really, really bad people, who in virtually any other society would justly be behind bars. Fair enough.

But the Bush administration&#039;s refusal to extend even the most modest legal protections to these people betrays an arrogance of power and fundamental distrust of the very constitutional principles and values that distinguish this country from any other nation on the planet.

As well, the notion that the United States isn&#039;t the de facto sovereign power on GITMO is more delusional than the Manson Family.

As if we would give it back if Fidel Castro asked.

Besides, it&#039;s not as if the detainees were captured trying to sneak onto Guantanamo Bay. They are on GITMO, in this faux judicial limbo, because the United States put them there precisely to deny the prisoners legal status.

What would send a more profound message to the rest of the world that the United States represents the gold standard of blind justice than providing some semblance of legal protections to its most despised enemies?

In the end, all the Supreme Court arguments notwithstanding, the GITMO detainees deserve some legal representation for the simplest of reasons - it&#039;s the right thing to do.

There&#039;s a Founding Father moment for you.

Fairness! Whatta concept.

Tigerlilly
04-27-2004, 12:52 PM
another reason to get Bush the wanna be dictator (that&#039;s exactly what I call someone who wants to tell people who they can marry and when a woman can or can not have children and puts people in jail without any legal rights )

the last three and a half years, we&#039;ve lost 2.6 million jobs. We have a million people who can no longer collect unemployment. This president has done nothing about that. We know that the cost of health care has gone up 49 percent, and this president doesn&#039;t have a plan to do anything about that.

By the way that info comes from

A vote for Bush is a vote for anti freedom of choice !

ace_barker
04-27-2004, 01:45 PM
tigerlily your posts are really funny.

Weluckyfew
04-27-2004, 03:05 PM
ace, were you planning on rebutting what she said, or just mocking her? (not that I haven&#039;t been guilty of a few knee-jerk posts myself)

Melonie
04-27-2004, 05:28 PM
It may come as something of a jolt to the U.S. Justice Department of John Ashcroft, but this nation was founded on pretty inviolate legal principles such as due process. They teach it in law schools - it&#039;s all the rage.

Yet at the moment there are more than 600 foreign prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, detainees nabbed in the war against terrorism or captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan or Iraq.

None of these men have been permitted contact with their families or a lawyer. None have been formally charged with any crime, nor have they received some sort of hearing before a judicial body to challenge their detention.

I&#039;ve been biting my lip .......

When there is a legal state of war (which there is in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq because congress voted to that effect), the jurisdiction changes from US courts to the World court, and the standards change from US laws to International Law / Geneva Convention. Under International Law a soldier captured bearing arms as part of an &#039;enemy&#039; force is considered a prisoner of war, not a criminal. By the same principle, a soldier of any military force is not considered a criminal for killing a member of an &#039;enemy&#039; force without provocation. Just as in any other war, International Law allows the prisoners of war at Gitmo to be held unconditionally until the war is over. At the moment, both the Afghan and Iraq wars are far from over.

To grant US &#039;civilian&#039; legal rights thus due process of US civilian law to Gitmo prisoners caught fighting against US forces in time of war, but who happen to be US citizens, is not required under International Law. If you&#039;ll recall, there is a founding father&#039;s legal precedent for this situation - Benedict Arnold would have been hung without a trial had he not escaped to rejoin &#039;enemy&#039; forces and skip the country ! If you&#039;d like a more contemporary example, try the Rosenbergs (although public pressure did force a trial in this case since it occurred in peacetime between WW2 and the Korean war - a very short trial though). There IS of course ample precedent involving non-US citizens caught acting against the interests of the US within US borders in time of war i.e. German spys/saboteurs during WW2 - it&#039;s called a firing squad.

This supposed principle of treating enemies of the US as civilian criminals instead of an &#039;enemy&#039; force engaged in acts of war/espionage/treason is exactly the reason that terrorism was allowed to spiral out of control during the Clinton Administration. It is also the reason that nearly 1000 US soldiers and gov&#039;t personnel were killed as a result of a number of terrorist incidents in the 90&#039;s i.e. USS Cole, Lebanese Army barracks, several US embassies etc., while essentially zero &#039;criminal&#039; terrorists were &#039;brought to justice&#039; during that same period. To grant prisoners of war who are non-US citizens being held at Gitmo US &#039;civilian&#039; legal rights and due process of US civilian law is somewhere between absurd and laughable.


What would send a more profound message to the rest of the world that the United States represents the gold standard of blind justice than providing some semblance of legal protections to its most despised enemies?

This is exactly the message that the Clinton administration had been sending throughout the 90&#039;s ... although when translated into terrorese the message comes out "we&#039;re pussies - you can commit whatever terrorist acts and atrocities you choose and no effective retribution will follow". This message killed two of my friends on 9/11.

Pan Dah
04-27-2004, 08:32 PM
Personally I believe these terrorist scum have no more rights than they gave the civilians in the WTC, and the only reason for not hanging or shooting them summarily is the possibility they can be “persuaded” to provide information valuable in preventing other terrorist acts.

But my emotional reactions are not supposed to be the basis of our legal system.

Melonie is right the foreign detainees at Gitmo should probably be considered prisoners of war. But if I recall correctly, earlier in this situation didn’t the Administration deny they were prisoners of war so they would not be entitled to Geneva Convention protections. One of those, I think, is immunity from interrogation beyond certain basics.

So it seems the Government is nicely having it both ways, claiming they are not entitled to legal protections because they are military detainees from a war zone, but they are not entitled to protections given prisoners of war.

I don’t know what the answer is. I didn’t lose any friends on September 11, but several of my friends did. And I still get periodic flashbacks of watching the fireball engulf 5-10 floors of the second tower as we watched from an office window under a mile away. So I want these guys kept on ice, interrogated and prevented from doing it again. But I prefer an America, which respects individual rights as it has (plus or minus a few lapses like the Nisei) for 200 years.

Sorry if this doesn’t make any sense. I guess I’m not thinking too logically and clearly on this topic.

Tigerlilly
04-27-2004, 09:03 PM
So it seems the Government is nicely having it both ways, claiming they are not entitled to legal protections because they are military detainees from a war zone, but they are not entitled to protections given prisoners of war.


EXACTLY!

Bush is behaving alot like a terrorist in my opinion. Those 600 people need to be formally charged if they are going to hold them like that.

Someone else mentioned something I very much agree with -he wanted and planned to go to war even before he was elected-if you can even call him elected-let&#039;s not forget the FL votes. Not to mention that he is VERY chummy with the guy who runs the company who made the new voting machines. Can you say conflict of interest ::)

And how about Halliburton- Bush and his buddies are PROFITING off others pain and suffering. I don&#039;t think it any coincidence either.

Since he has been in office this country has had steady decline in so many areas-deficit, healthcare costs, unemployment. He made lots of promises about education as well that he has done little to nothing about either.

Woo-hoo he gave a $300 tax credit to families with children but it now costs almost 50% more to keep them healthy :scared: There goes that $300 and then some.

He has been an absolutly horrible President and anyone who votes for him needs to have their head examined because he DOES NOT DESERVE another term !

Tigerlilly
04-27-2004, 09:32 PM
The thing I hate most is that most people just don&#039;t bother to try and learn what&#039;s really going on, and just make emotional decisions based on a few snippets from some &#039;bleached blonde failed actress talking head&#039; - thanks Nina LOL! Or worse yet, take a few photo ops from an elected official spewing some emotionally-charged garbage and run with it. Most Americans live in a world that is just as censored as the old Soviet Union, taking whatever crap they are spoon-fed by the powers that be as the gospel. They close their minds and ignorantly follow whatever figure they find appealing, all the while shaking their heads at foreigners who do the same - like Islamic terrorists and supporters.

:10: :10: :10: to Bridgette ! It&#039;s what I call the blind sheep effect. I spend hours upon hours reading various news sources including many international ones so I can form a balanced opinion. Yet I still find myself being called "funny" for having an opinion based on the facts that I take the time to learn rather than buying into as Bridgette said- all the spoon fed crap and photo ops.

Such is life, I guess ::)

Weluckyfew
04-28-2004, 12:42 AM
<<<Personally I believe these terrorist scum have no more rights than they gave the civilians in the WTC, and the only reason for not hanging or shooting them summarily is the possibility they can be “persuaded” to provide information valuable in preventing other terrorist acts.>>>

ah, but there&#039;s the rub, these "terrorist scum" weren&#039;t involved in 9/11, at least many of them weren&#039;t. 146 were finally released after months or years of detention (and some of them were children.) The point isn&#039;t "treat these evil terrorists with love and affection" the point is "are we sure these guys are evil terrorists????"

<<<When there is a legal state of war (which there is in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq because congress voted to that effect)>>>

That statement is wrong, Melonie, and it surprises me you would make it (I disagree with your opinions but your facts are usualy right on) Only Congress has the power to declare war and no declaration of war was ever passes.

<<<a number of terrorist incidents in the 90&#039;s i.e. USS Cole, Lebanese Army barracks, several US embassies etc., while essentially zero &#039;criminal&#039; terrorists were &#039;brought to justice&#039; during that same period.>>>

Again, not true at all, people were brought to trial and convicted :

The Cole attack :


The embassy bombings:


In the "Lebanese Army Barracks" (I assume you mean the Saudi barracks bombing, the Lebanese one happened back when Reagan was prez) there were indictments but not arrests.

I&#039;m no fan of Clinton, but the one time he did use military force (bombing Sudanese factory) the Right screamed that he was trying to divert attention from his impeachment. Perhaps if the Right at the time were more worried about the country than trying to overthrow our elected president...

<<<There IS of course ample precedent involving non-US citizens caught acting against the interests of the US within US borders>>>
Gitmo prisoners were not caught within US Borders, they were in Afghanistan.

One thing that does really piss me off though are people in Arab countries who act like these men are suffering such a horrible fate while at the same time they ignore people who are truelly rotting away in prisons in Iran, Syria, Turkey, Indonesia....

<<<when translated into terrorese the message comes out "we&#039;re pussies - you can commit whatever terrorist acts and atrocities you choose and no effective retribution will follow". >>>

sssssoooo.....by this logic the terrorists should be quaking in their boots at the righteous might of our military retaliation. We&#039;re now doing what you said Clinton didn&#039;t do, we&#039;re using the full force of our military might against them. Then perhaps you can explain to me why every anti-terrorism expert I&#039;ve seen quoted says that recruitment for extremist groups is skyrocketing. Terror attacks are being committed all over the globe. Is is maybe, just maybe, possible that the ultimate answer to this problem is going to be a little more complex than just invading and bombing and shooting??

Melonie
04-28-2004, 03:42 AM
That statement is wrong, Melonie, and it surprises me you would make it (I disagree with your opinions but your facts are usualy right on) Only Congress has the power to declare war and no declaration of war was ever passes.

My legal buddies tell me different. Congress officially authorized both of these wars, the UN considers them to be wars etc. therefore from a legal standpoint they fall under the jurisdiction of International Law / Geneva Convention. This is opposed to a unilateratal military action taken only on the authority of the president (which is also permitted under US law), an action not authorized by congress, i.e. sending US troops to Grenada or Panama in the past. I believe you are thinking about a formal declaration of war, which hasn&#039;t been done since WW2. During the Korean war (which did not have a formal declaration of war either, but which did have congressional approval) prisoners were treated the same or worse than the prisoners of the Afghan and Iraq war at Gitmo.


Then perhaps you can explain to me why every anti-terrorism expert I&#039;ve seen quoted says that recruitment for extremist groups is skyrocketing. Terror attacks are being committed all over the globe. Is is maybe, just maybe, possible that the ultimate answer to this problem is going to be a little more complex than just invading and bombing and shooting??

I agree with this. All that the military assault is doing is making the terrorists think twice and pinning down a large portion of their assets in the middle east instead of perpetrating attacks around the world on a regular basis.

I also agree that the real answer to putting an end to Islamic terrorism lies elsewhere. Specifically, it lies with America&#039;s unconditional support for Israel being withdrawn. This is the underlying motivating force behind Islamic extremism, and there&#039;s no reason to think there will be a US policy change where Israel is concerned.

Weluckyfew
04-28-2004, 09:23 AM
Melonie,
I understand your point about legal war, but none of these prisoners have the status of prisoners of war, and that seems to be the point of contention. The "war" on terror will never be over, there is no one to surrender or sign a peace agreement, so how long will these guys be held?

Image means a lot in this war, and unfairly or not the Gitmo prisoners are seen across the world as evidence of US double standards - these guiys should be held in accordance with the Geneva convention. Will our prisoners be treated the same, no. But we&#039;re supposed to occupy the high moral ground here, not just because it&#039;s the right thing to do but also because it will help us win the hearts and minds of people who now support extremists.

<<<Specifically, it lies with America&#039;s unconditional support for Israel being withdrawn. This is the underlying motivating force behind Islamic extremism>>>

I agree that this is a problem that sorely needs addressed, but it&#039;s only one factor. For anyone interested , sorry this is long but it&#039;s very informative (from Foreign Policy Magazine - the print version included a bibliography)

Think Again: Al Qaeda


By Jason Burke


May/June 2004

The mere mention of al Qaeda conjures images of an efficient terrorist network guided by a powerful criminal mastermind. Yet al Qaeda is more lethal as an ideology than as an organization. “Al Qaedaism” will continue to attract supporters in the years to come—whether Osama bin Laden is around to lead them or not.





“Al Qaeda Is a Global Terrorist Organization”


Wrong. It is less an organization than an ideology. The Arabic word qaeda can be translated as a “base of operation” or “foundation,” or alternatively as a “precept” or “method.” Islamic militants always understood the term in the latter sense. In 1987, Abdullah Azzam, the leading ideologue for modern Sunni Muslim radical activists, called for al-qaeda al-sulbah (a vanguard of the strong). He envisaged men who, acting independently, would set an example for the rest of the Islamic world and thus galvanize the umma (global community of believers) against its oppressors. It was the FBI—during its investigation of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa—which dubbed the loosely linked group of activists that Osama bin Laden and his aides had formed as “al Qaeda.” This decision was partly due to institutional conservatism and partly because the FBI had to apply conventional antiterrorism laws to an adversary that was in no sense a traditional terrorist or criminal organization.

Although bin Laden and his partners were able to create a structure in Afghanistan that attracted new recruits and forged links among preexisting Islamic militant groups, they never created a coherent terrorist network in the way commonly conceived. Instead, al Qaeda functioned like a venture capital firm—providing funding, contacts, and expert advice to many different militant groups and individuals from all over the Islamic world.

Today, the structure that was built in Afghanistan has been destroyed, and bin Laden and his associates have scattered or been arrested or killed. There is no longer a central hub for Islamic militancy. But the al Qaeda worldview, or “al Qaedaism,” is growing stronger every day. This radical internationalist ideology—sustained by anti-Western, anti-Zionist, and anti-Semitic rhetoric—has adherents among many individuals and groups, few of whom are currently linked in any substantial way to bin Laden or those around him. They merely follow his precepts, models, and methods. They act in the style of al Qaeda, but they are only part of al Qaeda in the very loosest sense. That&#039;s why Israeli intelligence services now prefer the term “jihadi international” instead of “al Qaeda.”

“Capturing or Killing Bin Laden Will Deal a Severe Blow to Al Qaeda”

Wrong. Even for militants with identifiable ties to bin Laden, the death of the “sheik” will make little difference in their ability to recruit people. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently acknowledged as much when he questioned in an internal Pentagon memo whether it was possible to kill militants faster than radical clerics and religious schools could create them. In practical terms, bin Laden now has only a very limited ability to commission acts of terror, and his involvement is restricted to the broad strategic direction of largely autonomous cells and groups. Most intelligence analysts now consider him largely peripheral.

This turn of events should surprise no one. Islamic militancy predates bin Laden&#039;s activities. He was barely involved in the Islamic violence of the early 1990s in Algeria, Egypt, Bosnia, and Kashmir. His links to the 1993 World Trade Center attack were tangential. There were no al Qaeda training camps during the early 1990s, although camps run by other groups churned out thousands of highly trained fanatics. Even when bin Laden was based in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, it was often Islamic groups and individuals who sought him out for help in finding resources for preconceived attacks, not vice versa. These days, Islamic groups can go to other individuals, such as Jordanian activist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who set up his al Tauhid group in competition with bin Laden (rather than, as is frequently claimed, in alliance with him) to obtain funds, expertise, or other logistical assistance.

Bin Laden still plays a significant role in the movement as a propagandist who effectively exploits modern mass communications. It is likely that the United States will eventually apprehend bin Laden and that this demonstration of U.S. power will demoralize many militants. However, much depends on the manner in which he is captured or killed. If, like deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, he surrenders without a fight, which is very unlikely, many followers will be deeply disillusioned. If he achieves martyrdom in a way that his cohorts can spin as heroic, he will be an inspiration for generations to come. Either way, bin Laden&#039;s removal from the scene will not stop Islamic militancy.

“The Militants Seek to Destroy the West so They Can Impose a Global Islamic State”

False. Islamic militants&#039; main objective is not conquest, but to beat back what they perceive as an aggressive West that is supposedly trying to complete the project begun during the Crusades and colonial periods of denigrating, dividing, and humiliating Islam. The militants&#039; secondary goal is the establishment of the caliphate, or single Islamic state, in the lands roughly corresponding to the furthest extent of the Islamic empire of the late first and early second centuries. Today, this state would encompass the Middle East, the Maghreb (North Africa bordering the Mediterranean), Andalusia in southern Spain, Central Asia, parts of the Balkans, and possibly some Islamic territories in the Far East. Precisely how this utopian caliphate would function is vague. The militants believe that if all Muslims act according to a literal interpretation of the Islamic holy texts, an almost mystical transformation to a just and perfect society will follow.

The radical Islamists seek to weaken the United States and the West because they are both impediments to this end. During the 1990s, militants in countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria began turning their attention abroad as they grew frustrated by their failure to change the status quo at home. The militants felt that striking at the Arab regimes&#039; Western sponsors (the “far enemy” as opposed to the “near enemy”) would be the best means to improve local conditions. This strategy, which bin Laden and those around him aggressively advocate, remains contentious among Islamic radicals, especially in Egypt.

Yet, as the March 11, 2004, terrorist bombings in Madrid revealed, attacks on the “far enemy” can still be employed with great effect. By striking Spain just before its elections, the militants sent a message to Western governments that their presence in the Middle East would exact a heavy political and human toll.

Weluckyfew
04-28-2004, 09:25 AM
article continued - sorry for the length, but thought it was relevent to our discussion:
“The Militants Reject Modern Ideas in Favor of Traditional Muslim Theology”

No. Although Islamic hard-liners long to return to an idealized seventh-century existence, they have little compunction about embracing the tools that modernity provides. Their purported medievalism has not deterred militants from effectively using the Internet and videocassettes to mobilize the faithful.

At the ideological level, prominent thinkers such as Sayyid Qutb and Abu Ala Maududi have borrowed heavily from the organizational tactics of secular leftist and anarchist revolutionaries. Their concept of the vanguard is influenced by Leninist theory. Qutb&#039;s most important work, Ma&#039;alim fi&#039;l-tariq (Milestones), reads in part like an Islamicized Communist Manifesto. A commonly used Arabic word in the names of militant groups is Hizb (as in Lebanon&#039;s Hizb Allah, or Hezbollah), which means “party”—another modern concept.

In fact, the militants often couch their grievances in Third-Worldist terms familiar to any contemporary antiglobalization activist. One recent document purporting to come from bin Laden berates the United States for failing to ratify the Kyoto agreement on climate change. Egyptian militant leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has decried multinational companies as a major evil. Mohammed Atta, one of the September 11 hijackers, once told a friend how angered he was by a world economic system that meant Egyptian farmers grew cash crops such as strawberries for the West while the country&#039;s own people could barely afford bread. In all these cases, the militants are framing modern political concerns, including social justice, within a mythic and religious narrative. They do not reject modernization per se, but they resent their failure to benefit from that modernization.

Also, within the context of Islamic observance, these new Sunni militants are not considered traditionalists, but radical reformers, because they reject the authority of the established clergy and demand the right to interpret doctrine themselves, despite a general lack of academic credentials on the part of leading figures such as bin Laden or Zawahiri.

“Since the Rise of Al Qaeda, Islamic Moderates Have Been Marginalized”

Incorrect. Al Qaeda represents the lunatic fringe of political thought in the Islamic world. While al Qaedaism has made significant inroads in recent years, only a tiny minority of the world&#039;s 1.3 billion Muslims adhere to its doctrine. Many sympathize with bin Laden and take satisfaction at his ability to strike the United States, but that does not mean they genuinely want to live in a unified Islamic state governed along strict Koranic lines. Nor does anti-Western sentiment translate into a rejection of Western values. Surveys of public opinion in the Arab world, conducted by organizations such as Zogby International and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, reveal strong support for elected government, personal liberty, educational opportunity, and economic choice.

Even those who believe “Islam is the solution” disagree over precisely what that solution might be and how it might be achieved. Radical militants such as bin Laden want to destroy the state and replace it with something based on a literal reading of the Koran. However, some political Islamists want to appropriate the structures of the state and, in varying degrees, Islamicize them, usually with a view toward promoting greater social justice and outflanking undemocratic and powerful regimes. An example of the latter would be the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) movement, currently led by veteran activist Qazi Hussein Ahmed. JI represents a significant swath of Pakistani popular opinion, and although it is tainted by appalling levels of anti-Semitism, it has taken a stance against bin Laden and the Taliban when politically feasible. Often, as in Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey, such groups are relatively moderate and can serve as useful interlocutors for the West. They should not be rejected out of hand as “Islamists”; refusing to engage them only allows the extremists to dominate the political discourse.

“The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Is Central to the Militants&#039; Cause”

Wrong. Televised images of Israeli troops violently repressing Palestinian protesters in the occupied territories certainly reinforce the militants&#039; key message that the lands of Islam are under attack and that all Muslims must rise up and fight. However, although a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would help alleviate political tensions in the region, it would not end the threat of militant Islam.

The roots of contemporary Sunni Islamic militancy cannot be reduced to any single, albeit thorny, problem. Militants feel the umma is under attack. In their view, Israel is merely the West&#039;s most obvious outpost—as it was when it became a Crusader kingdom in the 12th century. If the Jewish state disappeared, the Islamists would still fight in Chechnya, Kashmir, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, and Algeria. Their agenda is typically determined by local grievances, often with lengthy histories. For instance, although bin Laden was already calling for a boycott of U.S. goods to protest support for Israel in the late 1980s, he had never been involved in an attack on an Israeli target until recently. His primary focus has always been to topple the regime in his homeland of Saudi Arabia. Likewise, Zawahiri&#039;s lengthy 2002 book, Knights Under the Prophet&#039;s Banner—part autobiography, part militant manifesto, which first appeared in serial form in 2001—focuses almost exclusively on the author&#039;s native Egypt.

Moreover, considerable support for the Islamic cause stems from Muslims&#039; sense of humiliation. A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which would still leave the “Zionist entity” intact, would therefore offer little succor to the wounded pride of any committed militant or, more crucial, to the pride of those in the wider community who support and legitimize extremism and violence.

“Sort Out Saudi Arabia and the Whole Problem Will Disappear”

No. Saudi Arabia has contributed significantly to the spread of radicalism through the government-subsidized export of its Wahhabist strand of hard-line Islam. This policy arose from the turmoil of the late 1970s, when outrage over government corruption and the royal family&#039;s decadence prompted hundreds of Islamic radicals to occupy the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The 1978-79 Shiite revolution in Iran threatened Saudi leadership in the Muslim world and offered a cautionary tale of the fate that could await the House of Saud. In an effort to appeal to religious conservatives and counter the Iranian regime, the royal family gave the Wahhabi clerics more influence at home and a mandate to expand their ideology abroad.

Since then, Saudi money disbursed through quasi-governmental organizations such as the Muslim World League has built hundreds of mosques throughout the world. The Saudis provide hard-line clerics with stipends and offer financial incentives to those who forsake previous patterns of worship. In Pakistan, money from the Persian Gulf has funded the massive expansion of madrasas (Islamic schools) that indoctrinate young students with virulent, anti-Western dogma. This Saudi-funded proselytism has enormously damaged long-standing tolerant and pluralist traditions of Islamic observance in East and West Africa, the Far East, and Central Asia. Wahhabism was virtually unknown in northern Iraq until a massive push by Gulf-based missionaries in the early 1990s. And many of the mosques known for radical activity in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Canada were built with donations from private and state sources in Saudi Arabia.

The inequities of the Saudi system—in which most people are very poor and ruled by a super-rich clique—continues to create a sense of disenfranchisement that allows extremism to flourish. Many of the most militant preachers (and some of the Saudi hijackers who perpetrated the September 11 terrorist attacks) come from marginalized tribes and provinces. A more inclusive style of government and a more just redistribution of resources would undercut the legitimacy of local militants and deny radicals new recruits. Yet, while such reforms might slow the spread of Wahhabism and associated strands outside Saudi Arabia, in much of the world the damage has already been done. As with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Saudi Arabia is one of the many causes of modern Islamic militancy, but it has no monopoly on blame.

“It Is Only a Matter of Time Before Islamic Militants Use Weapons of Mass Destruction”

Calm down. Although Islamic militants (including bin Laden) have attempted to develop a basic chemical or biological arsenal, those efforts have been largely unsuccessful due to the technical difficulty of creating, let alone weaponizing, such materials. As one of the first journalists to enter the research facilities at the Darunta camp in eastern Afghanistan in 2001, I was struck by how crude they were. The Ansar al-Islam terrorist group&#039;s alleged chemical weapons factory in northern Iraq, which I inspected the day after its capture in 2003, was even more rudimentary. Alleged attempts by a British group to develop ricin poison, but for the apparent seriousness of the intent, could be dismissed as farcical.

Nor is there any compelling evidence that militants have come close to creating a “dirty bomb” (a conventional explosive packaged with radioactive material). The claim that Jose Padilla, an alleged al Qaeda operative arrested in the United States in 2002, had intended to deploy a dirty bomb has been largely discounted—it was an aspiration rather than a practical plan. Constructing a dirty bomb is more difficult than most imagine. Although the International Atomic Energy Agency warns that more than 100 countries have inadequate control of radioactive material, only a small percentage of that material is lethal enough to cause serious harm. It also requires considerable technical sophistication to build a device that can effectively disperse radioactive material. Some have also voiced the fear that militants might obtain a “prepackaged” working nuclear warhead from Pakistan. However, that would only be a plausible scenario if an Islamic regime came to power, or if high-ranking elements of the Pakistani military developed greater sympathy for the Islamists than currently exists.

The 1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack in Japan highlights the difficulties terrorist groups face in deploying weapons of mass destruction. Despite possessing sophisticated research facilities funded by an estimated $1 billion in assets, the group failed nine times to launch a successful attack prior to the incident in the Tokyo subway system. (Even then, the fatalities were mercifully limited to a dozen people.) Confronted with such constraints, Islamic militants are far more likely to use conventional bombs or employ conventional devices in imaginative ways—as was the case with the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States and the March 11, 2004, train bombings in Spain.

“The West Is Winning the War on Terror”

Unfortunately, no. The military component of the war on terrorism has had some significant success. A high proportion of those who associated with bin Laden between 1996 and 2001 are now either dead or in prison. Bin Laden&#039;s own ability to commission and instigate terror attacks has been severely curtailed. Enhanced cooperation between intelligence organizations around the world and increased security budgets have made it much harder for terrorists to move their funds across borders or to successfully organize and execute attacks.

However, if countries are to win the war on terror, they must eradicate enemies without creating new ones. They also need to deny those militants with whom negotiation is impossible the support of local populations. Such support assists and, in the minds of the militants, morally legitimizes their actions. If Western countries are to succeed, they must marry the hard component of military force to the soft component of cultural appeal. There is nothing weak about this approach. As any senior military officer with experience in counterinsurgency warfare will tell you, it makes good sense. The invasion of Iraq, though entirely justifiable from a humanitarian perspective, has made this task more pressing.

Bin Laden is a propagandist, directing his efforts at attracting those Muslims who have hitherto shunned his extremist message. He knows that only through mass participation in his project will he have any chance of success. His worldview is receiving immeasurably more support around the globe than it was two years ago, let alone 15 years ago when he began serious campaigning. The objective of Western countries is to eliminate the threat of terror, or at least to manage it in a way that does not seriously impinge on the daily lives of its citizens. Bin Laden&#039;s aim is to radicalize and mobilize. He is closer to achieving his goals than the West is to deterring him.




Jason Burke is chief reporter for Britain&#039;s Observer and author of Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2003).

montythegeek
04-28-2004, 06:22 PM
WLF
Statements in the text like:

Although the International Atomic Energy Agency warns that more than 100 countries have inadequate control of radioactive material, only a small percentage of that material is lethal enough to cause serious harm.
cast doubt on the sense exhibited by the author. That is like saying only a small percentage of the anthrax or smallpox is in the hands of terrorists so we do not need to worry. What percentage of the fuel oil and fertilizer was in the hands of Timothy McVeigh when he blew up the OKC Federal Blg.? Independent of which terrorist it is, terrorists cause terror. So what if more people died in the Tokyo subway of heart attacks than the actual Sarin gas--it was still a terror weapon in the hands of terrorists. A terror weapon does not need to be a qualitatively "great" terror weapon.

Weluckyfew
04-29-2004, 12:36 AM
WLF
Statements in the text like:

Although the International Atomic Energy Agency warns that more than 100 countries have inadequate control of radioactive material, only a small percentage of that material is lethal enough to cause serious harm.
cast doubt on the sense exhibited by the author. That is like saying only a small percentage of the anthrax or smallpox is in the hands of terrorists so we do not need to worry. What percentage of the fuel oil and fertilizer was in the hands of Timothy McVeigh when he blew up the OKC Federal Blg.? Independent of which terrorist it is, terrorists cause terror. So what if more people died in the Tokyo subway of heart attacks than the actual Sarin gas--it was still a terror weapon in the hands of terrorists. A terror weapon does not need to be a qualitatively "great" terror weapon.


Sorry, but I find your logic very illogical. Saying that we shouldn&#039;t panic because there is less dangerous radioactive material than is widely believed is NOTHING like saying we shouldn&#039;t panic because terrorists only have a small amount of smallpox. - saying that it would be very hard for my enemy to get a gun is NOTHING like saying my enemy has a gun but only has two bullets.

His point is that it&#039;s harder for them to get WMDs than much of the media would have us believe. A lot of people, I&#039;m sure, believe that Padilla was arrested for planning to use a "dirty" bomb. Actually he was planning to plan to use it - he had no source for the radioactive material, no expertise, no training. In truth he wasn&#039;t much of a threat - it was right to arrest him, obviously, and right to keep him in jail (assuming he&#039;s convicted) he could have eventually become dangerous --- but he was nowhere nearer having a dirty bomb than you or I.
I think the author is merely saying that despite the fact that you hear so much about dirty bombs it&#039;s more hype than threat - yes it&#039;s a danger, but there are far more serious and immediate ways to attack us.

"So what if more people died in the Tokyo subway of heart attacks than the actual Sarin gas--it was still a terror weapon in the hands of terrorists. A terror weapon does not need to be a qualitatively "great" terror weapon."

Your tone seems to be implying that the author is dismissing the seriousness of the threat of terrorism - I didn&#039;t get that at all. If you read the article he&#039;s warning us that the threat is growing. he&#039;s just trying to depict that threat is a realistic light, which is important in this age of sensationalism.

Let&#039;s remember that while Bush spent 9 months touting his futuristic anti-missile defense to defend against incoming missiles (a sensationalistic threat and a sexy, high tech solution) terorrists were carrying out plans to attack us in a very low tech, unsensationalistic way. Oh , and it might be good to point out that that sensationalistic threat (incoming missiles) doesn&#039;t exist and our sexy, high tech solution (shooting down those missiles) didn&#039;t work, doesn&#039;t work, and won&#039;t work for years, if ever.

Tigerlilly
04-29-2004, 10:38 AM
To understand how George W. Bush will win the next presidential election, it helps to understand how he won the last one. While all public attention rested on hanging chads, butterfly ballots and a skewed recount in the wake of the 2000 Presidential election, the root of the problem has been overlooked. As investigative reporter Greg Palast uncovered, the state of Florida purged over 90,000 people from their list of eligible voters under the guise that they were felons. In fact, almost none of the disenfranchised voters were felons...but almost all were blacks or democrats.
Palast&#039;s investigation revealed that at the heart of this ethnic cleansing of voter lists was the creation of a new centralized database for the state of Florida. In 1999, the state fired the company they were paying to compile their "scrub" lists and gave the job to Database Technologies (DBT, now ChoicePoint). DBT, a private firm known to have strong Republican ties was paid $2.3 million to do the same job that had previously been done for $5,700.

The first list of felons from DBT included 8,000 names of felons from Texas supplied by George Bush&#039;s state officials. The state government said they were all felons, and thus barred from voting under federal law. Local officials complained about the list and DBT issued a new one, this time naming 58,000 felons. Palast discovered that the one county that went through the process of checking the new list name by name found it was 95% wrong.
Because of the way DBT compiled its erroneous list, Florida voters whose names were similar to out-of-state felons were barred from voting. An Illinois felon named John Michaels could knock off Florida voters John, Johnny, Jonathan or Jon R. Michaels.

DBT didn&#039;t get names, birthdays or social security numbers right, but they were matched for race, so a felon named Joe Green only knocked off a black Joe Green, but not a white person with the same name. There was no need to guess about the race of the disenfranchised: a voter&#039;s race is listed next to his or her name in many Southern states including Florida because racial ID is required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

DBT&#039;s fee of $2.3 million was supposed to include verification that the individuals on their list were actually felons, but Palast&#039;s investigation showed that DBT could not provide any evidence that they made a single phone call to verify the identity of the names scrubbed prior to the 2000 Presidential Election.

Unfortunately, nothing is preventing this purge from taking place again on a national scale. Due in large part to the attention paid to butterfly ballots and hanging chads in the fall of 2000, the new Help America Vote Act (HAVA) demands that every state replicate Florida&#039;s system of centralized, computerized voter files before the 2004 election, presumably to avoid the paper-ballot confusion of the Florida recount. Martin Luther King III and Greg Palast recently co-authored a piece on the dangers of such databases, recalling the Florida debacle. Their conclusion: "Jim Crow has moved into cyberspace -- harder to detect, craftier in operation, shifting shape into the electronic guardian of a new electoral segregation."

ChoicePoint already has contracts with numerous states to provide electronic voter lists purged of supposed felons. They are a natural choice as one of the U.S.&#039;s largest database companies. ChoicePoint provides information on federal criminal records by district for 43 states and also provides online access to more than 63 million criminal records for all fifty states. Who better to provide HAVA-mandated voter lists to state governments?
________________________________________________

The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O&#039;Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O&#039;Dell&#039;s company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.


cut & pasted from:

darkness
04-29-2004, 02:09 PM
DICK N BUSH
we&#039;re clearly getting fucked!

montythegeek
04-29-2004, 04:45 PM
Mr. Palast us hardly an objective, impartial source. Mr. Palast is not "an investigative reporter", he writes polemics.
Read this account of who was responsible for the power outage last year, written before the lights came back on, which has all ( I repeat ALL) of the causes for the the blackout wrong. I found it doing a explorer search for his name.
This article is on the same site as one of yours.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0815-07.htm
Mr. Palast can come to a conclusion with absolutely NO facts.

I guess George Bush needs to moonlight as a tree-trimmer in Ohio to keep the electric supply secure.

Weluckyfew
04-30-2004, 12:52 AM
Monty, if you do a Google search you&#039;ll come up with plenty of other sources that say the same thing about the Florida election, and these are mainstream sources. I&#039;ve never heard anyone dispute the facts as laid out above (of course the Florida officials argue that they were unintentional errors) Unfortunately no one needs to dispute the facts because it&#039;s mostly ignored by people and the media -- once they had beaten the "chads" story to death they got bored and moved oin to American idol ro a kidnapped dog or something

Tigerlilly
04-30-2004, 12:30 PM
I guess the rules of the Geneva Convention apply to everyone but us >:(