PeterDavid.net

Bush has plenty imagination. Just look at that negative ad campaign against Kerry. Pure fiction, that stuff.

They couldn't have averted it because of what Rice said some time ago: "No one could imagine terrorists flying planes into buildings." That's not true. No one *in the Bush administration* could imagine it. Writers of fiction have imagined it. Information gatherers imagined it. The administration simply could not because they consistently display lack of imagination. Every job requires a proper tool. In this case, the tool--imagination--simply wasn't in their toolbox. If a carpenter needs a Philips head screwdriver and all he's got is flatheads, oh well. You're screwed.

Is this the best shot you can take, PAD? I'm beginning to think I'm wasting my time coming here.

On the other hand, You did title the thread correctly. That's okay. They can't all be gems.

I think it's a quite valid criticism. Not one many people want to admit or accept, but that doesn't make it untrue. Then again, it doesn't make it necessarily true either.

Monkeys.

I agree that it's quite valid. Writers of fiction have indeed imagined such a thing...see the pilot episode of Chris Carter's Lone Gunmen for an example. Heck...it was even specifically the World Trade Center.

I don't normally come here for political commentary, but I'm beginning to think that's as good of a reason to come here than any other.

Excellent Chicago Parody from a couple days ago, and I agree with the administration's apparent lack of imagination as well. Politics is a chess game. You don't have to be able to predict your opponent's next move, but you have to be aware of all possibilities, and be prepared with a counter-move for each.

Peter:

"In this case, the tool--imagination--simply wasn't in their toolbox. If a carpenter needs a Philips head screwdriver and all he's got is flatheads, oh well. You're screwed."

Is there some irony going on here? As near as I can tell, this situation would result in being unscrewed.

I think even "lack of imagination" is glossing over the issue. I don't think anyone expected suicide bombers in the US - and certainly not ones that were middle-class Muslims.

Most extremist activity comes from poverty. Take the 14-year-old boy who the Hamas almost talked into setting off a bomb at the Israeli checkpoint. He was offered NIS 100 ($12) to do it - and it was almost enough.

Suicide bombers were not expected in the continental US because it was assumed that no one would be desperate enough to come here just to commit suicide. Hijack? Sure. Our security infrastructure was built to prevent hijackings for that reason.

The fact that the 9-11 bombers were well-educated, well-financed, had families and lives in this country and were STILL willing to kill themselves is what really undid the intelligence agencies. That's not the fault of the Bush or Clinton administration. That's a monumental paradigm shift.

What we should be doing is stop trying to cast blame but finding ways of dealing with the new threat.

I agree that it's quite valid. Writers of fiction have indeed imagined such a thing...see the pilot episode of Chris Carter's Lone Gunmen for an example. Heck...it was even specifically the World Trade Center.

A few weeks after the World Trade Center was destroyed, the news media reported that the Bush administration had called together a number of writers and screenwriters to brainstorm ideas about possible attack scenarios. The adminstration was ridiculed. Now PAD wants to make analogies because the Bush administration didn't already have that concept in their "toolbox". At least Bush realized that he needed said "tool" and went out to get it. When future adminstrations take over, that tool will be in their "toolbox". Wish I could say that about the PREVIOUS administration.

Let's be clear about something here - If the Bush Administration had correctly realized that there were terrorists planning on flying planes into the World Trade Center and had taken decisive action to prevent it, we all know who would be screaming the loudest.

Democrats.

There would have been an outcry of complaints about how mean-spirited the Bush White House was. How racist is was for picking on poor Middle-Easterners who weren't doing anything wrong. (Even after the attack, caution about Islamic terrorism drew cries of "racial profiling" and "bigotry.") Here was the evil, sinister Shrub Bush persecuting some innocent people of Middle Eastern descent because of some intelligence reports that nobody could prove or disprove anyway.

And if Bush had succeeded in preventing 9-11 (even though that was the next best thing to impossible)? Would they have been able to say, "See? We saved the World Trade Center!"

No way. Dems would just say that there was no plot to blow up the World Trade Center and the Bush Administration was inventing intelligence reports to cover up its own bad behavior.

All this is is Monday morning quarterbacking at its worst. And Bush loses both ways. Because the towers fell, Dems can claim that he should have prevented it, even though they would have fought him tooth and nail if he had tried.

One thing I can say with certainty is this - at least after the towers fell, President Bush reacted exactly the way every president should act. Decisively, quickly, and with the determination to let every terrorist in the world know what they would face if they ever attacked us again.

That's a whole lot more than I can say for Team Clinton, who never saw the multiple terrorist attacks on its watch coming and didn't do anything about them after the fact. USS Cole, anyone? Clinton sure taught Osama a lesson after that, didn't he? And 9-11 wasn't the first attack on the World Trade Center.

Based on what has happened before with terrorists and their attacks, I can understand why they would put off the idea of terrorists taking over planes.

Based on previous events/attacks on the U.S., and the fact that the Bush team was following the Clinton-style of handling terrorist activities as a law-enforcement issue, one could look at the 9-11 attack as a way of trying to push the U.S. in to the ground. It's already been seen that the Clinton administration wouldn't pursue terrorists for attacks on the U.S., and a physical body count would cause us to cut and run.

It's too bad for them we changed tactics once we got a body count.

As for the "imagination that Saddam had WMD", that wasn't imagination in the slightest, since he did use them in the past. One would have to assume then that he still had them. Clinton believed that in 98. So did Gore, and so did a whole bunch of democrats who wrote and implored Clinton to do something about Hussein.

Regarding the "mission accomplished" item, the mission was accomplished: the mission was to remove Saddam from power. We did that. Job done. To believe that the transfer of power, and that we wouldn't get any other resistance is proof of a different lack of imagination.

As for Kerry having an idea -- heh. That's imagination in and of itself, IMO. Seriously though, if he says "we're out of there" -- it'll be looked at as once again the U.S. is weak, and can be pushed over. Again.

I agree that it's quite valid. Writers of fiction have indeed imagined such a thing...see the pilot episode of Chris Carter's Lone Gunmen for an example. Heck...it was even specifically the World Trade Center.

Even earlier, in Debt of Honor, we had Tom Clancy speculating about a 747 crashing into Congress, taking out the President and a good chunk of the legislature. Clancy was even interviewed about it in the weeks following 9/11.

Personally, I think the WMDs are somewhere else. I found it funny that they thought Saddam was dealing in plutonium enrichment tools and a day or two after he's captured, Kadafi is throwing his hands in the air saying "we're stopping our nuclear program!" Probably because Iraq is where they got part of the equipment for their program. It just seemed like much more than a coincidence.

As for the nerve gas and such. It was carried out probably a month before we went in. You didn't have to be Carl Sagan to know that we were making plans to come in there.

I'm not saying Bush was lying and I'm not saying he was being totally honest. I found it hard to believe the WMDs weren't there at all. Even with all the nice new chemical suits they found in the bunkers.

"I agree that it's quite valid. Writers of fiction have indeed imagined such a thing...see the pilot episode of Chris Carter's Lone Gunmen for an example. Heck...it was even specifically the World Trade Center."

"Even earlier, in Debt of Honor, we had Tom Clancy speculating about a 747 crashing into Congress, taking out the President and a good chunk of the legislature. Clancy was even interviewed about it in the weeks following 9/11."

PAD also had Omnibus blow up the World Trade Center (and simultaneously, a wing of the White House) in an issue of Hulk. 438, I think it was.

Jason

I think Peter’s point is not only valid but, for those who plan to cast their votes for the incumbent, I don’t know how anyone can think there’s any other explanation as far as Iraq is concerned. Whether you love GWB or not, I don’t think you can deny things have gone badly in Iraq. So, either the Bush administration didn’t plan an adequate peacekeeping or exit strategy (which would support Peter’s argument), or they just didn’t care as long as they blew up everyone they needed to blow up, and to hell with what happened when the dust settled. If I were a Bush supporter, I’d rather believe the former then the latter.

When I worked in a mail room in San Diego, I was required to attend a lecture about “suspicious” mail (this was before 9/11 by the way). The instructor was an SDPD bomb expert. Towards the end of the lecture, he reviewed all the warning signs with us—strange handwriting, wires sticking out of packages, stains, etc.—and said something along the lines of, “A lot of these guys end up giving themselves away with these signs, but if they’re really careful, and they really want to get you, they’re gonna get you.” His face blanched as he said this, realizing that he probably shouldn’t have said that, and he went on to something else.

I don’t think GWB is to blame for 9/11, nor anyone in his administration. I think one of the hard truths our country needs to face is that all the security in the world isn’t going to stop these people if they’re motivated enough.

Which is why I don’t support GWB. We will never, EVER, be completely secure from terrorism, period. And it isn’t worth letting our country slip into the Orwellian nightmare Bush and Co. has planned with his Stalin Patriot Act nonsense to gain nothing about a false sense of security.

To my mind, the best way to keep our shores secure from terrorism is to develop a foreign policy in such a way that people in other countries don’t hate us so much they’re willing to commit suicide in order to kill us.

Oh yeah, and we should probably stop training people (e.g. Bin Laden, Hussein) on how to kill other people, so we don’t have to act surprised when they turn around and try to kill us. That might help.

PAD, you're clutching at straws here. This Monday morning quarterbacking (wow, how many metaphors will I cram into this?)will only resonate with hard core Bush haters. Preaching to the choir (zing!)

I love the folks who harp on about how it should have been OBVIOUS to anyone with more ganglia than a planarian worm that if an Arab is taking flight lessons in Florida but is spending more time learning takeoffs than landings...well jeeze, do we have to draw you a picture??? What the hell was WRONG with our intelligence?

But take a peek at THE AMAZING BIZARRO WORLD, where the FBI did indeed put the pieces together and foil the plot. Can you imagine the NPR "All Things Considered" episode.

Cue: sad music
VOICE OVER: Meka leka Hi meka jamie ho
TRANSLATOR: I came to America because I was told it was the only way I could fulfill my dream. To fly...
NINA TOTENBERG- Mohammed Attaa's dreams crashed on the night of September 3rd. That's when over a dozen FBI agents burst into his apartment and took him at gunpoint....

And so on. The ACLU would be wondering just how the hell the FBI is able to know so much about some poor immigrant's flight school lessons. The folks who STILL think that America turned into a den of anti-Arab violence post 9/11 (despite it being, well, not true) would have FREAKED if even the mildest "profiling" had occurred without any "reason".

And the terrorists, assuming they knew that the airline bit was foiled, would have gone to plan B. And since I don't want it on my conscience just in case some whack job reads this I won't do the demonstration but I'll wager that myself, Tim, PAD, Karen, Eclark, the Other John Byrne, and several other regulars here could, over pizza and beer, come up with about 12,000 perfectly viable plans for mass slaughter. (it still amazes me to this day that some very obvious and completely unstoppable things have NOT been done…did they catch more than we know? Are there less of them than we think?)

Mark L.
What about the Japanese Kamikaze fighters? There's a precedent that isn't from fiction. If it's happened before, it can happen again.

I can tell you who is at fault for 9/11. The terrorists and nobody else. This crusade by the Left to blame Bush is almost as stupid as the Rights blaming 9/11 (and every other problem known to man) on Clinton. Some very bad people wanted to hurt us. They had been trying for years. Go look up how many terrorist acts planned for U.S. soil were stopped in the 90's. Including a few involving planes in one way or another. They got stopped then and just kept trying until they got one through. Had we stopped the 9/11 attackers, had there been no 9/11 and its aftermath, they may very well have done something else just as big a few years later. This blame garbage is stupid and just gets in the way of dealing with it.
Iraq. There's a pain and a half. Bush wanted to go in and we did. Guess what? We're stuck there. Stuff the twisted way we got there for now. That's another blog. We're stuck there. There is no winning exit from this. We stay and we become the ruling invaders in the eyes of many in the middle east. We become an even bigger tool for terrorist to get followers whether we like it or not. We, leave and it goes to chaos and it becomes more like the image of a terrorist breeding ground then Bush and Co. tried to paint it as before. Or, we leave and the Iraqi people put in place rulers that we don't like. Back to square one. Anyone who believes that we're going to make an America style democracy over there is nuts. Things like that have to come when it's their time. You can't force that kind of change and the middle east has shown no signs of it being their time.
Iraq is just going to become another club to be used by the left or right to pound on whichever man wins in Nov. If Bush wins, it will be the continued failure of Bush that all these people are going to their deaths for. If Kerry wins, even if he changes not a single thing, Iraq will be the Bush success that fell apart thanks to the D's and Kerry's foolhardy handling of Iraq and how they bungled it once they gor Bush out of the way.
No winners.

Bill's last point is dead on. Because of where I work we do that for our area exactly that way. Over pizza and beer or pints and nachos. We look at our own security and others and work up table tops for ourselves. It's amazing how much you can find when you just start looking at things and thinking like that.
That's a big point he and I can agree on in this. They wanted to hurt us. They would have one way or another. This Monday morning crap is foolish.

Gotta go with M. Martin's last point as well. That one always got me. How many times are our leaders going to hop into bed with the Devil himself just because he's not as bad (in their eyes) as that other Devil and then act surprised when he turns on us or acts true to his nature. Saddam has always been a bastard and he has always done what he's done. It just became a problem when he was no longer "our" bastard. Bigger questions... How many more times are we the people going to keep letting our leaders play this game. Can we even stop it?

Cutting through the crap that is in this thread:

Bush is as much a murderer as those who flew the planes into the buildings on 9/11. Since his daughters weren't around, he needed another way to get rid of the constand hard-on he'd been sporting since the attacks. Thus, he fabricated stories of WMDs and attacked Iraq. Now, we're bogged down with good men dying for nothing every day, and that PIECE OF SHIT HILLBILLY IS DOING ****NOTHING****!!!

He sits in his comfy office, thumb UP HIS ASS, playing with people's lives for his own amusement. If that sorry sack of SHIT is not out of the White House in November, I will seriously consider moving to Canada. I don't need a man who is damn near mentally retarded running my country into the ground and fucking me over.

I think if we are going to use football metaphors here 9/11 should be considered at least Monday Night Football so it would be Tuesday morning quarterbacking.

Let's be clear about something here - If the Bush Administration had correctly realized that there were terrorists planning on flying planes into the World Trade Center and had taken decisive action to prevent it, we all know who would be screaming the loudest.

Democrats.

For the first two seconds? Perhaps.

Once hard evidence is presented that "here's what they had in mind"? Abso-fragging-lutely not.

I think the "failure of imagination" card is partially valid, in that pretty much everyone in this administration who deals with defense/security issues is an old-style Cold Warrior who worried about countries and not stateless regimes.

I don't know, however, that the Clinton team would have done much better than they were in place. The only real argument for such is that there wouldn't have been (a) a settling-in period for a new team (made much worse by the controversy in 2000, of course), and (b) a group coming in with "whatever Clinton did, change it" high on the agenda in many places.

While I do think on the whole that this is an administration that settles on an ideology and an action first, then thinks about it later, I completely agree that it's silly to hold that and that alone responsible for 9/11. The 9/11 hijackers, as Bill says, were a lot smarter than that, and almost assuredly had backup plans.

I am much more interested in what we as a country have done after the 9/11 attacks, and I don't think this commission is going to have much to say about them.

And to Tim Butler -- I really don't think Democrats would be accusing the administration of making up intelligence reports out of whole cloth. Apart from a few really extreme conspiracy theorists, no one's accusing them of making up intelligence about Iraq. Cherry-picking it and ignoring the items they didn't like, yes, but not inventing it. Flash back two and a half years earlier, when this administration had yet to show some of its more egregious "forget the facts, give me my answer" moments, I doubt anyone would have raised questions for more than a minute.

TWL

I don`t think the problem was lack of imagination. I think it was a combination of arrogance and naivety.

I can imagine that a lot of theoretical possibilities for terrorism were also thought of before 9/11 but nobody thought it was likely to happen in the USA. Terrorism, especially on a big scale, happens elsewhere, but not here. Unfortunately it was not the first time that something really terrible had to happen so that people realize the dangers. As I keep saying, in a way the USA lost its innocence.

In a way, the same happened when the USA invaded Iraq. Destroying is always much easier than rebuilding. I was amazed from the beginning that the USA was so naive to believe that people in general would embrace the US troops as liberators and welcome them. That with getting rid of Saddam all serious problems are gone and the rest is comparatively easy. It seems to me that very little planning had been done what is actually necessary to turn Iraq into a stable, democratic country - hopefully with a government at the end that is to the liking of the USA. The USA really should have known better. Afghanistan is still far from stable and of course there is the situation in the Middle East.

Unfortunately too much has gone wrong in Iraq. The situation is getting more and more difficult and dangerous. In a way, it is a no win situation: The US soldiers need to protect themselves and go after extremists but by doing so, they also kill innocent people and tensions grow. This cycle of hate and revenge is certainly nothing new and I see no reason to be optimistic.

" USS Cole, anyone? Clinton sure taught Osama a lesson after that, didn't he? And 9-11 wasn't the first attack on the World Trade Center."

The investigation that proved bin laden was behind the Cole attack wasn't completed until after Clinton left office and the people behind the first WTC attack were caught and tried (including the mastermind of the attack).
There are tons of things to criticize Clinton about butb to say that he was weak on terrorism isn't one of them.

I am much more interested in what we as a country have done after the 9/11 attacks, and I don't think this commission is going to have much to say about them.

I expect them to. However, I also expect them to throw out a few "it would have been better if" scenarios. That's not what will be reported.

Look at "Meet the Press" this week. The two leads on the committee said, respectively, "More could have been done" and "maybe we could have done better if we were lucky". However, they were both even-handed and trying to look forward.

Headline the next day? "Committee Members say 9-11 could have been prevented"

So, what I expect is a reasonable report, but the reporting and analysis will center on a few provocative phrases.

Lack of imagination ?Arrogance ?Yes and Yes.The current administration and its advisors are all still living in the cold war days .They were more concerned with a big hulking threat from a country instead of a sneaky little bastard with nothing to lose.In iraq it was never considered that maybe the big bad guy you know was better than the little badguys you dont.Look at the chaos in the former soviet union as result of breaking up that" evil empire".Also i recall a story where the fantastic four liberating Latveria threw the country into complete disarray without Doom in charge.Was a saddam a bad guy ?Yeah .The guys we are facing now however are worse for one reason .They were crushed for years under that bastard and have nothing to fear or lose in thier eyes from us .Once again showing we never IMAGINED a group in the country would resist" freedom "on OUR terms.
To get back to the main point when planning on things of this nature consider all possiblilities before you commit not just the ones you want to hear.
WMDS many agree that they were there and that Saddam was working on them .however whether or not they were an immmediate threat to this country is the bigger issue and did he have the means to deliver said weapons assuming they still existed.Mobile weapons labs,unmanned drones...hmm
maybe there is some imagination after all

Andrew,
The "crap" you are cytting through on this blog consists of things people have which are called OPINIONS; they use these OPINIONS in things called ARGUMENTS or CIVILIZED DEBATE. Through the exchange of these OPINIONS/DEBATE we may learn something more about each other or the topic at hand.
I won't even get into the rest of your hysterical, hateful, ridiculous post. Just let me know if W. wins in November if you need any help packing your bags.
And until then, make sure you take your meds.

To back Derek up a bit,

Not only were they caught, questioned and jailed for life but they were pumped for info. As is now public record, some of the info they gave helped the U.S. (under Clinton) stop a few other large terror attacks.

Andrew,

Give my love to the Baldwins:)

Toodles:)

I recall one episode of "Babylon 5", in which Sheridan, facing multiple assassination attempts by a fanatic, raised what I consider a valid point - that if someone is so determined to kill you that they're willing to die in the process, there isn't really that much you can do to stop them. (Other than killing them first, of course - which was the action taken in that episode...)

As regards Clinton and terrorism, it's fascinating that many of the same people who insist Saddam managed to hide his WMDs also believe that really was an aspirin factory that was blown up in the Sudan on Clinton's watch. Why would someone lie about such things during the Bush administration, but not the Clinton administration?

Jerome,

Let me know if you need help cramming your opinions up your ass.

Just because someone states their opinion does not mean I need to respect it. I can insult, berate, and ridicule a person for what they think if I please. It's quite alot of fun, actually.

Unfortunately, Andrew, that's not what grownups do. Most of us outgrew your kind of behavior in 2nd grade.

Explain to me WHY I should respect the opinion of someone I disagree with? Let's say some ignorant fool says Bush is doing a good job, or that JFK was one of this nation's finest "leaders"? NOT point out that one is little more than a hillbilly, and the other a womanizing sleeze who had the election purchased for him by his father? Am I supposed to say "Well, That's What You Think, And It's OK."

I think not.

Andrew,

Stay home, we have enough lefty wackos here!

cheers!

You know how much of a pain in the ass airport security is nowadays in response to 9/11? Even after we've seen in all the gory details what can happen without ridiculously tight security we're all incredibly sick of how much slower the process is and how much of an invasion of our privacy rights it is.

Now, imagine that the Bush administration, after hearing that a plane hijacking might be used by terrorists in the future, implemented this strict security even without any terrorist attacks had occurred. He would have been completely raked over the coals by everyone. Even if it led to a group of Arabs with weapons getting caught and jailed for conspiracy on 9/11, we wouldn't care about that nearly as much as how we were now late for everything.

This is simply an unwinnable situation, and no matter what Bush had done he would have been demonized by his critics, in much the same way that Clinton would have been if this had happened (or attempted) on his watch.

I saw it on a special last night about airport safty measures, "Tombstone Technology" one does nothing until it takes a life or many.

Sorry, PAD, I love your writing, but I'm tired of the Left Wing "Bush = Evil" talk I'm hearing here. I care about your writing skills, not your personal opinion on everything you think is Bush's fault.

Anthony - Actually, I used to be a strong supporter of President Slappy. I supported us going into Iraq, even.

Now, with more US troops dying every day, Bush screwing over the working class and trying to institute bigorty as law (y'know, that whole "I ain't gonna let dem damn queers marry!" stuff he stammers out), I realize that we need someone who isn't a waste of life in the White House.

I hate Bush quite alot, and will cheer the day he leaves us on a course to recover from his blundering, drunken mistakes.

Uh, folks, I think that "Andrew" is just some guy having fun with us. Probably a right winger putting on an act to make left wingers look stupid.

Doing a good job too.

Peter, it wasn't a lack of imagination (NASA used the same explanation, that they couldn't imagine one of the rockets, filled with flammable liquid, might catch fire on the launch pad before launching, unless Tom Hank's FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON made that 'fact' up), it was a lack of CLOUT.

OF COURSE someone had IMAGINED it could happen. The problem was who had the CLOUT to DO something about it--given the PROBABILITY.

People in the administration have already imagined a huge meteor crashing into Earth, a ray beam blowing up the White House and the Empire State building. The question is who has the CLOUT to implement some kind of defense based on the PROBABILITY of those events happening.

Simple example:

Nuclear missile launched against the USA--accidentally. Now what? Sure, failsafes prevent the missile from spreading radiation, but that's still an ICBM hitting the downtown of some major city, what to do? Having an anti-missile defense sure would be handy, but look at the political reaction. I'm sure in September 2001, NYC would have liked having a defense system to shoot down two plane-sized missiles.

Of course, getting such a system built would require . . . clout.

-- Ken from Chicago

P.S. Of course like a lot of arguments, the use and definition of terms lies at the heart of the argument. If Reagan had called it a missile defense "deterrent" or "buffer" instead of a "shield", or even a missile-"resistant" shield (like a bullet-"resistant" vest), maybe the debate might have been more substantial. Arguments that technology would "never" be capable of intercepting a missile seem incredibly lame.

Mike:

>Sorry, PAD, I love your writing, but I'm tired of the Left Wing "Bush = Evil" talk I'm hearing here. I care about your writing skills, not your personal opinion on everything you think is Bush's fault.

Which begs the question, "Why do you come to this site and read his personal opinions?"

Let's say some ignorant fool says Bush is doing a good job, or that JFK was one of this nation's finest "leaders"? NOT point out that one is little more than a hillbilly, and the other a womanizing sleeze who had the election purchased for him by his father?

Now that is entirely unfair.

JFK's no hillbilly. [rimshot]

TWL

P.S. Sorry, Andrew, but here I'm going to echo others I frequently disagree with. Your opinions are your own and you can certainly have them, but if all you do is rant for no good reason you're not going to change the dynamic you're ranting about .

As for the "imagination that Saddam had WMD", that wasn't imagination in the slightest, since he did use them in the past. One would have to assume then that he still had them.

I see.

So, because I know my downstairs neighbor had something dangerous at one point, it's acceptable for me to decide unilaterally to bust down his door and go in guns blazing because he might still.

Understood.

*******************

Sorry, PAD, I love your writing, but I'm tired of the Left Wing "Bush = Evil" talk I'm hearing here. I care about your writing skills, not your personal opinion on everything you think is Bush's fault.

I can't speak for PAD, only myself...someone that most Republicans would quickly and happily label a "Bush hater" (i.e. I don't think he's a very good leader, and find that he stands against what I stand for, and vice versa.)

But, I don't think "Dubya" is evil. I don't think he's smart enough to be evil. I do, however, feel that he's grossly out of touch with everyday life in this nation. And, as we're seeing more and more each day, it's dangerous.

"Explain to me WHY I should respect the opinion of someone I disagree with? "

You should respect it if it's thought out, informed and well presented. Dissing it *only* because you disagree with it gives it short shrift. Dissing the person who says it out of hand reflects far more on you than it does on the person.

Granted, I've gotten impatient with people who disagree with me. But usually it's because they get in my cyberface repeatedly, aggressively and arrogantly.

PAD

Bush is no hillbilly, either. There's not enough trees or mountains in Crawford, Texas for it to be considered "hillbilly" country :)

" I can insult, berate, and ridicule a person for what they think if I please. It's quite alot of fun, actually."

Yes, you can insult, berate and ridicule people.

But I don't want you to. Not here.

I want you to know two things, Andrew. First, we're more or less on the same page about Bush, so you're not talking to a knee-jerk Bush-lover here. Second...we aspire to be civil to one another 'round here. We aspire to be tolerant and decent, because once the insults start getting tossed around, intelligent discourse goes away. It goes away from both the people you despise and the people you agree with, and sends the entire discussion spiralling into a pit of 'Oh yeah! Well you are too!"

If nothing else, consider this: The real challenge in the little debates that occur here (and around the net) is that not to change the mind of the person you're debating. It's to bring over to your way of thinking the people who are on the fence. The people who aren't really sure or committed one way or the other. That's the real triumph, and I admit it's ephemeral since you rarely know when or if you've accomplished it. But what I can tell you with an absolute certainty is that NO ONE is swayed by an advocate who primarily leads with insults.

You can, of course, claim you don't care if people come to agree with you or not. But if that's the case, then might I suggest that you should be. After all, persuade just enough people...and it might be the votes needed to get Bush out of office.

PAD

Andrew,
I think it's much more fun to discuss our differences of opinion without resorting to name-calling and insults. Since you disagree, will you be calling me names now, too? Jerome and I have had major differences of opinion on another thread, but he has kept the conversation civil and lively. Your insults toward him are not appreciated. You have an opinion, state it. If you only want to rant, find people who wish to read nasty and foul thoughts. All here know I am firmly against the current occupants of the White House, but a free and open society allows for those who support them to express that without being belittled.

Boy, sometimes it's really tough trying to stay on the high ground. The thoughts in my mind about that kind of behaviour.....

For a non-partisan view, let's remember that, pre-9/11, in case of a hijacking the hijacked were encouraged *not* to fight back or make an escape attempt. The theory was that if you stayed calm, negotiations could work things out and you & your fellow hijacked could eventually be released; while if you fought or fled, you'd be much more likely to get killed on the spot.

This actually seems to have ended on 9/11 itself. I'm told the Pennsylvania plane didn't reach its target because the passengers were contacted, learned that their plane was going to be used as a missile, they knew they had nothing to lose.

The terrorists plot escaped the Bush Administration for one reason: Greed. When Bush came into office the administration was more preoccupied with selling a missile defense system to the public. Considering that many of the top officials are holdovers from as far back as Nixon it’s logical that they would think in Cold War terms, and who is to say that China or North Korea will not be a major threat in the future. But, given that the system was inoperable even in tests that gave it every advantage of hitting the target, the administration moved forward because human intelligence and battling terrorism do not create profits for weapons manufacturers, who are not only major financial contributors to the Republican Party and the Bush Administration but have employed a number of officials in the past who are members of the Wolfowitz Cabal.

Concerning the Clinton Administration’s failure to eliminate Osama Bin Laden and previous attacks on the WTC; the blind cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman was prosecuted for the bombing of the WTC in 1993 and apparently no link was made to al Quida. Top officials of the Clinton Administration have said repeatedly that they had no evidence of who attacked the Cole during their tenure and therefore had no idea who to retaliate against. They were apparently aware of al Queda’s attacks on the embassies in Africa in 1998 and had targeted Osama Bin Laden, but were unable to get confirmation on a target due to poor intelligence which is one of the main reasons they pushed for the completion of the Predator drone to be equipped with cameras so that they could get a bead on their target in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan.

To everyone about Andrew and others.

There's an easy way of dealing with posts that go way outside the realm of polite discourse and into abuse and ranting. Don't respond to him/her/them at all in your posts until such a time as the person knocks it off and starts acting civil. It's no fun to play alone. And if the person gets really nasty, well we all saw the Martian Death Ray from above remove a few posts and a poster a month or so ago. I don't know about you all but I would rather be right, wrong, bright or dumb as a brick with the group of you that know how to be civil.

I still think this (9/11) was/is far less about who is or was in the White House then about the fact that this would one day happen no matter who (R or D) was sitting in the big chair. Here's the scary truth that most people don't want to admit. No one is really safe. We value the freedoms we have in this country but they do make us a little more open to attacks of this type. And I wouldn't trade a single one in for the fact that they win if we go that route. If they make us so wildly change our way of life because of fear, they win. But that does leave us open. A free country will never be completely safe and there is nothing Clinton or Bush could have done about it.
Now, Iraq..... Bush is a twit. It's a mess. I really don't like him right now. And he'll win this November because Kerry isn't a great option unless you just want the unBush.

*sigh*

Sorry about being an ass.

I'm in a rather pissed mood today, mostly due to the fact that I read in my city's paper today that amongst the two-dozen US soldiers killed this past weekend was someone from the area where I live. I didn't know the guy, but it rather pissed me off that someone my exact age got killed for no good reason.

My lashing out at folks here was more or less residual "pissyness" from my seething hatred of Bush. Sorry for the insults I've directed at you folks. I was out of line. In the future, I'll direct my anger/annoyance into amassing an army of bionic squirrels to take over the world. . . or Iowa, whichever is easier.

Jerry in Richmond,
It's easy to write off people, but better to make an effort to educate. Some won't respond well and that is the time to ignore them.

Andrew,
Well said. Apologizing shows class.

Jerry in Richmond,
We haven't had a candidate I truly wanted in office for a very long time. But at the moment I truly want those in the White House out of power. This is the reason so few vote. No one seems worthy of the office. No one wants to improve conditions for all the people and the environment. At least Kerry seems to wants to improve a few things for us average citizens.

Andrew,

Bionic squirrels? You been hanging out around my workplace or what?

Karen,

Preaching to the converted, K. But I'm not sure Kerry is the answer. Let's get something clear before I say my next bit... While I don't hate Bush as a person, I hate him as a Prez. He moved us into something we should never have been in in the most heavey handed, dim witted, clumsy and foolish way. He has set this country up for failure with Iraq because there is no way out of this that won't hurt and, most likely, flop. He has shown only a passing fancy at best of dealing with some of the many problems he has created there and they will come back to haunt us.
But Kerry, unless he does one hell of a job in the next few months changing my mind and many other's, is not the answer. I'm not saying I won't vote. I will. Maybe even for Kerry just out of sheer bloody mindedness. But few others will. He has failed to be anything other then the anti-Bush up to this point. Enough for some but I think Dole showed how bad being the anti-Clinton worked. You have to show that you can be The Man (or the woman for you out there that will get on my for being sexy... er... sexist) and not the anti-Man.
Hmmm.... anti-man? Was that the guy who flew around on bugs or the Norman Bates superhero concept?
Man I need sleep.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/sandplanes.asp

Tell me why I still believe that someday we'll come across those WMDs?

With a loved one in the military, the choice comes down to which canidate I believe will be most likely to keep them alive, or will their death count for something.

Which is why I'm voting for Jack Sparrow this time out.

Yeah, writers could imagine it. Writers can imagin a lot of things. But do they always come true? Of course not.

Jeez. I have to say, this is downright irritating to hear you say, pecificly, no one in the Bush Administation could have imagined this. No one in the Clinton, or Bush Sr., or any other president could either.
Before 9/11 it was always assumed we where safe - and that things like that simply didn't happen to us. Nobody at ALL dreamed something like this would come true. We where all complacient - and sadly paid for it.
I think it's unfair, arrogant, and insulting to say Bush, even with imagination, could had stopped 9/11. Do you notice, at all, for one second, how long Bush was even in Office? He barely got in there - and we suddenly are attacked like Peral Harbor. I swear - it seems like you can't say anything without it dripping with Liberalisim.
You obviously think about things a lot - and think for yourself. But do you ever think that you, possibly, could be wrong? Your not omnipitent. No one is. I don't assume I'm right all the time.

I'm sorry for blowing up like this. It just grates on my nerves how biased you seem to be. In the 2002 election, you and Glenn came on saying it showed how the Republicans tricked us, by frightening us with terrorism. That sounded like it came from an aggervatingly stupid idea that if people vote republican - then it must automaticly mean the people where tricked.

Seen 'em. Still doesn't work for me on the entire WMD's thing though. To believe that Saddam had a full WMD collection in his acid free boarded bags and dumped it all just before we attacked is a bit dim. Even he isn't/wasn't dumb enough to get rid of his best weapons within days of an attack that no one could not see coming a mile away. The proof of the WMD's not being there came when we attacked and they weren't launched against us. Please think about this for more then a second or two. These were his weapons of choice for years. These were the weapons that we feared the use of the most because we didn't want to see thousands upon thousands of bodybags coming back home because of their use and he knew that. Bush wanted him gone at all costs and he had to know that as well. He had to know that there was no way he was staying in power. Do you really believe that Saddam had less then two IQ points to rub together? If he had had them, we would have had a body count of American soldiers well into the thousands.
Even Bush and Co. are moving off of that track ever so slowly. We've gone from "he has WMD's" to "he had programs for the developing of base materials for the stuff that may have been used to make the stuff that could have been...."
And has anyone else noticed how much more the Bush crew is playing down WMD's since we got Saddam and started pumping him for info? Prob because his answers are all along the lines of him not having them.

Let's see. Bush in office for 8 months. 9/11 happens. Not his fault. Barely been there.
Clinton in office less then 30 days. Trade Center bombings in 1993. The right points out that Clinton was is office, it was under his watch and it was his fault while giving him no credit for catching the bastards who did it.
Neither of them were at fault for the attacks but I do so love how the right and the left look at the world and the events in it.

Anyone in a position of any authority and consequence in a national security position should not only have imagined it, but already been aware of the possibility.

Fact:
Hijacking roughly a decade previous in Europe, with the hijackers threatening to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower.

Fact:
Foiled, and publicly reported, plot from the Far East (can't recall if it was in Hong Kong or perhaps the Phillipines -- but it is not my job to remember all these details) involving multiple hijackings on the same day and crashing the planes.

Fact:
During the GWB administration, and prior to 9/11, at the G-8 summit, it was publicly announced that airspace had been closed and extra security instituted due to the threat of a plane being flown into the meeting place.

Fact:
The blowing up of the Pan Am plane over Lockerbie, demonstrating the explosive force and concomitant damage on the ground from an airborne bomb.

Rice's inane comment, which PAD used as the springboard for the thread (and which she has recently said she wishes to "correct" during her testimony, as she "misspoke" earlier) paints her as either unqualified for her position, or as plain old stupid. Not a happy choice.

The U.S. military, in fact, had scheduled a national security exercise involving the theoretical hijacking of multiple commercial airliners - the exercise was supposed to take place on 9/11/01.

If it takes 'imagination' to envision anything carrying thousands of pounds of combustible fuel being used as an instrument of destruction, that lowers the bar on what imagination actually constitutes, IMHO -- a rudimentary understanding of chemistry and physics would be more than sufficient to leap from A to B.

I'm not so sure that there is a lack of imagination at work here. Let me start off by saying: I am a "lefty wacko". I am, however, not one to say things without research. I only have one link which relates to what I'm talking about right now, but I will be looking for the other (I can't remember it off the top of my head.)

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=507514

This is one link I have found regarding the story of an FBI translator who was aware of the possibility through intel reports she had been working on. She was able to give approximate time-frames, probable targets, etc. I'm not sure if this is the link that mentions it, but one link mentions that her report was turned over to the administration in June or July.

I am looking for the link to confirm this (I have read it in one or two sources, but don't remember where.) but, in July, a senior administration official (Rumsfeld, I believe) suddenly stopped flying on commercial airliners.

I do not believe it is a consiracy, but I do find it somewhat suspiscious.

"In the future, I'll direct my anger/annoyance into amassing an army of bionic squirrels to take over the world. . . or Iowa, whichever is easier."

See, now THAT'S the constructive way to channel anger...become a supervillain.

Anyway, classy apology. We all have bad days. For me it's Monday. Any Monday. Give me a Monday and a rocket launcher and...well, there'd be some changes, let me tell you that.

Back to the issue at hand...I really think that Rice was just saying something we all say without having to defend its literal meaning. An earthquake rocks Iran and we read about the "unimaginable destruction". Unimaginable? Like, this earthquake somehow was destructive to a degree that no scientist previously thought possible? For that matter, how can people ever say "unbelievable" when describing something either good or bad? When John Kerry says that it's unbelievable how badly Bush has screwed up the war does he literally mean that he, John Kerry DOESN'T BELIEVE that the war IS screwed up? These are EXPRESSIONS, not meant to be parsed over by Miss Krabapple your 4rth grade English teacher.

People have been using the word "unimaginable" to describe extreme events for a long time. But let me offer a challenge--has there EVER been an event in our entire history that could truly have been described as "unimaginable" by the people of that time?

Me, I'm ready for everything from large radioactive reptiles rampaging through the streets of our cities to the dead rising

I've been reading all of this quietly, and I haven't posted anything in a while. What really strikes me is that to the best of my recollection, the scandals the left are invovled in generally don't hurt or involve anyone outside of their immediate circle. Yes, Clintion lied about getting some. And he was very wrong to do so. But the right's scandals seem to be more about "We're the party of morals and ethics! Now let's screw the middle and lower class." Halliburton. Slandering Richard Clark. I seem to recall that the Medicare bill will now cost a third more and that many moons ago, there was a scandal with the congressional bank that cost the taxpayers millions that was by and large Republican legislators. Oh, and aren't Georgie and Dickie pretty tight with Ken Lay?

www.villiansupply.com For all your Evil Deeds!

PAD I love your writing but I consider you to be very bias when it comes to politics. I guess that's okay since your only expressing your opinion. However, it would be nice sometime to read something you wrote that sounded "fair".

Okay, time to reveal a dirty little secret - I used to enjoy reading Tom Clancy's novels (now, of course, he's basically the CEO of Tom Clancy, Inc., and seldom actually writes anything...).

In "Patriot Games" (the novel, not that overblown made-for-TV thing that hit the theaters a few years back), there was a terrorist attack on US soil. Jack Ryan, retired professor and CIA analyst, noted that the attack was unpredicted because of an unwritten agreement among terrorist groups - no one wanted to awaken the sleeping giant.

I think that's why no one thought 9/11 was going to happen - we all thought the terrorists were too smart to want what's happening today...

"The fact that the 9-11 bombers were well-educated, well-financed, had families and lives in this country and were STILL willing to kill themselves..."

I thought most of them didn't really know what the endgame was going to be. Only a select few ringleaders? Maybe if they HAD been aware, things would have been different?

"I can tell you who is at fault for 9/11. The terrorists and nobody else. This crusade by the Left to blame Bush is almost as stupid as the Rights blaming 9/11 (and every other problem known to man) on Clinton. Some very bad people wanted to hurt us."

Which brings us once again to the question of WHY? And what could have been done to prevent it? As in: what did we do to attract such unwanted attention?

There are many other countries in the world which are not Islamic, and have democracy and piles of money. So why is it the U.S. which is so frequetly the target these days? The answer to these questions won't JUSTIFY the attacks. But it could explain them. The next question being, where to go from there?
"You know how much of a pain in the ass airport security is nowadays in response to 9/11?"

Which helps to explain which people don't fly as much any more. Paying that much to be treated that way? Uh-huh ... Not that it really does much good. The 'security' is still ridiculously porous.

"Now, imagine that the Bush administration, after hearing that a plane hijacking might be used by terrorists in the future, implemented this strict security even without any terrorist attacks had occurred. He would have been completely raked over the coals by everyone. Even if it led to a group of Arabs with weapons getting caught ..."

How? None of them had fake IDs. None of them were wanted for anything. And ... "weapons"? Just about ANYTHING can be a weapon.

"I think it's unfair, arrogant, and insulting to say Bush, even with imagination, could had stopped 9/11."

It IS fair to say the problem began several administrations earlier. Although, given how the British and French were meddling in the Middle East long before the Americans stuck their feet in it, it does make one wonder why they aren't more of a target, doesn't it? It comes back to the question ... why are Americans so loathed and despised by these people, as opposed to their hating others as much? It may seem fanatical and unsane to our point of view, but the other 'side' doesn't see it that way. And until we really fully understand this, we can't begin to formulate a response which will work. Short of wiping them all out, of course.

"The fact that the 9-11 bombers were well-educated, well-financed, had families and lives in this country and were STILL willing to kill themselves..."

I thought most of them didn't really know what the endgame was going to be. Only a select few ringleaders? Maybe if they HAD been aware, things would have been different?

"I can tell you who is at fault for 9/11. The terrorists and nobody else. This crusade by the Left to blame Bush is almost as stupid as the Rights blaming 9/11 (and every other problem known to man) on Clinton. Some very bad people wanted to hurt us."

Which brings us once again to the question of WHY? And what could have been done to prevent it? As in: what did we do to attract such unwanted attention?

There are many other countries in the world which are not Islamic, and have democracy and piles of money. So why is it the U.S. which is so frequetly the target these days? The answer to these questions won't JUSTIFY the attacks. But it could explain them. The next question being, where to go from there?
"You know how much of a pain in the ass airport security is nowadays in response to 9/11?"

Which helps to explain which people don't fly as much any more. Paying that much to be treated that way? Uh-huh ... Not that it really does much good. The 'security' is still ridiculously porous.

"Now, imagine that the Bush administration, after hearing that a plane hijacking might be used by terrorists in the future, implemented this strict security even without any terrorist attacks had occurred. He would have been completely raked over the coals by everyone. Even if it led to a group of Arabs with weapons getting caught ..."

How? None of them had fake IDs. None of them were wanted for anything. And ... "weapons"? Just about ANYTHING can be a weapon.

"I think it's unfair, arrogant, and insulting to say Bush, even with imagination, could had stopped 9/11."

It IS fair to say the problem began several administrations earlier. Although, given how the British and French were meddling in the Middle East long before the Americans stuck their feet in it, it does make one wonder why they aren't more of a target, doesn't it? It comes back to the question ... why are Americans so loathed and despised by these people, as opposed to their hating others as much? It may seem fanatical and unsane to our point of view, but the other 'side' doesn't see it that way. And until we really fully understand this, and the reasons behind it, we can't begin to formulate a response which will work. Short of wiping them all out, of course.

"Halliburton. Slandering Richard Clark. I seem to recall that the Medicare bill will now cost a third more and that many moons ago, there was a scandal with the congressional bank that cost the taxpayers millions that was by and large Republican legislators."

In order--

Halliburton seems to have done a fairly good job in Iraq. At any rate, not many companies are equipped for this job--which one should have been picked?

Slandering Richard Clark-- yeah, by quoting him. The bastards! (here's a funny out of context one--
"The fact is, President Clinton approved every snatch that he was ever asked to review."
-Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror by Richard A. Clarke
(Page 145)

Medicare WILL cost more, thanks to the new drug benefits. You want to take DRUGS away from DYING SENIORS??? What are you, a REPUBLICAN???

As for the congressional bank scandal--oh wait, your really ARE a republican, aren't you? very clever, bringing up either the Keating 5 scandal ( Democrats and every democrat's favorite republican John McCain) or the 1992 congressional bank scandal that was so heavily dominated by democrats that it led to the Republican takeover of the house of representatives for the first time in decades.

And you blame the republicans, knowing that someone will look it up and make the Democrats look venal. Clever, clever boy.

"Oh, and aren't Georgie and Dickie pretty tight with Ken Lay?"

Not so tight that they allowed him to go on ripping off the country, like he was able to do under other administrations. Where were the watchdogs then?

I don't get it, really. I'm conservative. I don't "hate" liberals, I just don't understand them. At all.

Someone said Bush's ads are lies against Kerry. I wouldn't mind being educated. I know how Kerry's are lies about Bush, but I can't see how quoting Kerry's record and how it disagrees with the conservative mindset are "lies".

Iraq is going pretty much how I thought it would. I can't imagine (!) how anyone would think it would go differently. While I am NOT trivializing the loss of life, we lost more men in one day of every war other than the Gulf war than we have in all of the Iraq war. It isn't going "well" because war CAN'T go "well".

Nor do I understand how Bush is hurting the middle and lower class. I've moved from upper-lower to mid-middle class on his watch. I and several friends have started small businesses because of how much easier it is now than it was before.

My complaint with Bush is that he spends too much. With all the compassionate liberals out there, it seems like so many entitlement programs could be funded in the private sector instead of through Government programs (why should the government, by definition an inefficient machine, run entitlement programs? Isn't it the responsibility of envisioned individuals to commit acts of charity????)

The government should provide security, roads, and not much else. It's all the "else" stuff that makes politics a joke.

"Let's see. Bush in office for 8 months. 9/11 happens. Not his fault. Barely been there.
Clinton in office less then 30 days. Trade Center bombings in 1993. The right points out that Clinton was is office, it was under his watch and it was his fault while giving him no credit for catching the bastards who did it."

I never blamed the first WTC attack on Clinton. But compare the responses. Clinton tried and jailed those directly responsible. That's it. Bush quickly struck back devastatingly and let the world know that anyone who even supported terrorism would be subject to similar treatment. Which approach is going to discourage future attacks?

I'd say that question's been answered pretty decidedly.

USS Cole? In the days following the attack, the "slandered" Richard Clarke claimed that he knew exactly who was responsible and presented the Clinton administration with a detailed plan for dismantling al Qaeda on a global scale.

Clinton and his advisors turned down the plan and in the end, did nothing.

As for the issue of Democrats attacking Bush if he had taken the necessary steps to prevent 9-11 (if that were even possible), this entire discussion is the answer to that question. If the Dems were that reasonable and fair-minded, they wouldn't now be trying to pin 9-11 on President Bush. They never would have denied that Hussein had WMDs even though prior to the invasion of Iraq, everyone (including the UN) accepted it as a given that he had them. My goodness, Dems attack the Patriot Act as if John Ascroft is personally using it to murder liberals, rape little girls and pillage the DNC.

And that's AFTER 9-11. If you don't accept the WTC attack as "hard evidence" of the need for increased security, I doubt very much that you would accept anything less prior to 9-11.

Tim

In the future, I'll direct my anger/annoyance into amassing an army of bionic squirrels to take over the world. . . or Iowa, whichever is easier.

Hey now, Iowa would be more difficult to take over than you think. :)

Anyways, I agree with the general "lack of imagination", but more so with Iraq than 9/11.
I think 9/11 would have happened regardless, or something along the lines of the plan used in 9/11.

I also think whoever was president would have done as good of job as Bush.
But, of course, that doesn't excuse the rest of Bush's cockups - namely Iraq.

Overall, a general lack of intelligence and intelligence gathering lead to 9/11.
And that's not Clinton's fault either.

I mean, c'mon... until 9/11, the FBI and CIA didn't really work together, didn't share information.
How fubar'ed is that!?

But, unlike the Clinton Administration (that I recall), the Bush Administration is splintered.

There is no unity.

Ridge is way out in left field (or right field if you want to stay political), Rice is a twit.
Powell's saying one thing, Bush says another.
Most are saying we're getting out of Iraq, Rumsfeld says we're sending more troops in.

Not to mention that nobody has kept their story straight about WHY we went to Iraq.
Or how important bin Laden is, not national security, but to help Bush's ability in getting reelected.

What the friggin hell?

Here is the text of Condi Rice's statement before the commission. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,116531,00.html

Here's a couple of high points as far as I'm concerned (emphasis added is mine):

I took the unusual step of retaining Dick Clarke and the entire Clinton Administration's counterterrorism team on the NSC staff. I knew Dick to be an expert in his field, as well as an experienced crisis manager. Our goal was to ensure continuity of operations while we developed new and more aggressive policies...

We also moved to develop a new and comprehensive strategy to eliminate the Al Qaeda terrorist network. President Bush understood the threat, and he understood its importance. He made clear to us that he did not want to respond to Al Qaeda one attack at a time. He told me he was "tired of swatting flies."

This new strategy was developed over the Spring and Summer of 2001, and was approved by the President's senior national security officials on September 4. It was the very first major national security policy directive of the Bush Administration - - not Russia, not missile defense, not Iraq, but the elimination of Al Qaeda.

So, the first major NSC initiative was not Iraq? Kind of blows a hole in Mr. Clarke's version of things.

Only if you assume she's telling the whole truth.

Look at the substance of the public speeches she, Bush, Rumsfeld and others gave from January to September.

Lots on China (understandable given the downed plane)
Lots and lots on SDI.
Anything on al-Qaeda?

Rice had a major speech scheduled for the evening of September 11th, which from all accounts didn't mention non-state terrorism in the slightest as a security issue.

Let me be clear: I'm not trying to blame the Bush administration for 9/11. I think it was to some extent unavoidable, and whatever "fault" they bear for it is mostly something they'd share equally with the last 3-4 administrations before them.

Like Craig, I think the main problem is what's happened since then -- particularly, yes, Iraq. Even if it wasn't the "very first NSC initiative" (which I'm not willing to concede at present), it's obviously been seriously on the minds of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle since at least 1998 if you look at the PNAC letters and essays.

I don't think they missed the boat on 9/11, nor do I agree with the really conspiracy-minded folk that they simply "let" it happen in order to have an excuse.

I do think they seized an opportunity when they had it, and Osama's been on the back burner for at least 2 of the last 2.5 years.

TWL

Technically, it doesn't blow a hole in Richard Clarke's version of events. As I understand it, Richard Clarke was the one pushing the very initiative adopted on September 4. He was pushing it, I believe, from at least January of 2001 to September. What Richard Clarke testified to was that, while terrorism was a priority for the Bush administration, they had their attention focused on many other things, i.e. Star Wars missile defense, the downed spy plane in China, and yes, Iraq. That's why the directive wasn't offically given the go-ahead until September 4. The Administration was, by Clarke's account, delayed in adopting this first official directive because they were engaged in other pursuing other objectives.

I haven't read Clarke's book, so I'm basing that on the testimony he gave and his interviews following the testimony i.e. Meet the Press, Hardball, etc.

As to the lack of imagination idea, well...maybe. There may be some truth to that. I didn't vote for Bush. I don't think he's evil. I don't think Richard Clarke thinks he's evil. The Bush Administration was following the course that they genuinely believed appropriate, and it's folly to try to blame them for the attacks, just as it is for the Administration to blame the Clinton team.

Terrorists don't operate based on logic and reason. They operate based on fear. That said, I'm not a fan of the war on terror. I despise terrorism and think it needs to be prevented, but I think that's a job for the intelligence agencies acting in covert, than for the military in all-out wars. I think the war on terror is, frankly, a war of rhetoric. We're never fully going to eliminate terrorism. All we do in trying to blow out the flame of radical terrorist cells is spread the embers. I think that's what Richard Clarke was getting to when he said that the war in Iraq is undermining the war on terror...that it's resulting in more radical extremists being willing to cause terror and destruction.

That's just my opinion, though. Political debatest like this are healthy, and good, especially when they're tempered with respect. I respect those who disagree with me. But those who are shrill or abrasive in expressing their views, whether they agree with me or refute me, lose my respect.

Opinions are opinions. There's always room for debate. It's when people stop respecting one another that the debate breaks down. Suddenly, it's like talking to a wall.

Hello, wall. ;-)

"has there EVER been an event in our entire history that could truly have been described as "unimaginable" by the people of that time?"

Define "our".

I feel reasonably safe in thinking that it was "unimaginable" to people a thousand or more years ago that some huge hunk of rock could come down from the skies and vaporize their village. Mostly because the universe, as they believed it to be, didn't work like that. Bit of a stretch between that, and not seeing that people could used bigger planes than the Japanese had in WWII to hit buildings instead of aircraft carriers.

Too, in a world where a nuclear weapon can be delivered by sub-launched missile to a coastal city in a matter of minutes, there seems to be a certain amount of unpreparedness when a place suddenly went silent, off-course, into a building, and no one seemed to look to see if there was something else going on that wasn't, er, kosher, as it were, at the same time. Not until the SECOND one hit some time later. ie response time was dismal.

The problem is that the Middle East is very complicated. They fight each other, but not only each other. In other cases, they're a united front against the world.

Let's say the U.S. immediately pulls out all its troops. Yes, the Iraqi factions will fight each other, and there will most likely be a bloody revolution and mass genocide until one sides' military dictator takes control.

In the mean time, terrorists will be trained there, and guess who their first target will be? The very country who was kind enough to pull out and stop interfering so they can determine their own fate: The U.S. And because they have a pretty big record to beat, it will repeatedly make 9/11 look like a small accident.

Not only that, but if it does happen it's easy to predict that the U.S. troops who just left, tail between legs, will have to return again when Kuwait, Jordan, and probably Israel are attacked by the new Iraqi dictatorship. Only this time, without a dictator who just likes playing games, the U.S. will be fighting a fully armed Iraqi army.

I don't really see what the hell, the administration could have done.
The US Government gets hundreds (maybe thousands) of threats made against them every other week. Some are against the country as a whole, some are against administration members, some are against the president himself. It would be a logistical impossibility to commit all your resources to every single threat so each one has to be investigated on its own merits. You cannot blame one person or one department in the US government for 9/11. You can only blame the terrorists who carried it out.

PS. This has nothing to with any political party, i'm not American, i'm British, so don't give a toss about what Kerry, Bush, Clinton, whoever are doing just to make each other look bad. All that does is belittle the memory of those who died and does nothing to prevent further attacks or catch those that did it.

What is irritating about this debate is that much of it exemplifies binary thinking. If you're against Bush, there's nothing that his team did that's defendable; if you're for Bush, any criticism of his tactics and strategy are invalid and are just partisan attacks.

Nothing in this world is that simple, folks. One could agree with the overall Bush strategy against terrorism, but can still be extremely critical of the tactics employed (e.g., invading Iraq is an acceptable goal, but not being able to muster more international support was an unacceptable mistake; getting rid of Hussein was a laudable goal, but the slowness and lack of preparation to handle the resulting chaos was inexcusable).

Bush has plenty imagination. Just look at that negative ad campaign against Kerry. Pure fiction, that stuff.

One example is the Bush campaign that claims that Kerry voted for 350 tax increases. Aside from the fact that 350 tax increases of $1 million each is probably better than 10 tax increases of $10 billion each, a look at the actual votes reveals that some of the votes are for measures that EVERYBODY voted for, some of them were for tax DECREASES that simply weren't as high as Republicans would wish, and some of them were part of omibus bills that are linked and concerned with other issues.

Tim B,

Didn't mean the right as in YOU. I was talking about the constant banging of the drum by so many on the Right.
Compare the responses? Only if you compare the acts themselves. If you think the American people would have accepted a full blown war because some guys blew a truck up and charred one of the towers.... Never would have happened. Also look at what was done after the bombing and not just look at the act in a bubble. We got intel off of those guys that let us stop terrorist acts against us that were in the active stage.
Which response worked? Answer that question fully when 8 years have past from the 9/11 2001 mark. Why, that would be the time period that would allow you to compare the two tactics side by side. As for now, we've had the same number of attacks on U.S. soil after 9/11 that we had after 93 for this time period.
Which brings to mind another fun one of the Right to show how great Bush is and how well his plan to invade Iraq has worked in the war on terror. I love how so many on the Right try to use the trump card of, "yeah, well how many 9/11 style attacks have we had on our soil since then?" Like that means anything?!? Please, please, please, someone slap one of those guys and ask them to name how many 9/11 style attacks we had on U.S. soil BEFORE 9/11 2001.

First, as was mentioned earlier, somebody in the Bush Administration was worried about terrorists using airplanes as missiles -- just look at the security precaution for Bush's appearance at the G-8 summit earlier in 2001. The notion that 9/11 came about because it was a hitherfore-unimaginable act is silly; there are entire departments within the FBI, the CIA, the Pentagon, the NSA, and several other hush-hush secret agencies that do nothing but dream up these scenarios and consider their possibilities.

The long and short of the whole matter is that the Bush Administration has a serious credibility gap. Their response to any accusation against them is always the same -- destroy the messenger. There is no attempt to bring up any evidence disproving the accusations (because there aren't any), and they have repeatedly stonewall any attempts by non-Administration members to get the answers (note that the 9/11 commission only managed to get $11 million in funding from the White House, versus the $30 million that was given out when the commission to investigate the Columbia shuttle disaster was formed).

For all the slandering of Richard Clarke that has been performed by the conservative media, note that none of them have managed to actually refute a single fact Clarke raised. Hell, some of the stuff Clarke raises can even be corroborated in Bob Woodward's flattering biography, Bush At War, yet nobody is accusing Woodward of treason or profiteering.

In the end, ask yourself which is more likely:

1. That the Bush Administration is a group of self-serving Iraq-obsessed neoconservatives who do whatever they want under cover of government secrecy, and who are now facing accusations from lifelong Republicans who are disgusted at how the Administration is betraying their conservative ideology,

or

2. That the Bush Administration is a pack of ever-alert angels and selfless servants, who keep their meetings and policy plans secret merely for the collective good of the American public, and who happen to be under vile attacks from lifelong Republicans who have been zapped with a mind-control beam to make them turn against George W. Bush because they're jealous of his boyish good looks.

Let's face it, kids, when even G. Gordon Liddy and Pat Buchanan look at you and say "you're an extremist," it's time to seriously reevaluate your position...

For everybody,

For each side here that asks how either Kerry or Bush is telling lies in their ads..

www.factcheck.org

Does a good job pin pricking both sides.

Peter wrote: "That might work. Me, I don't want to see people die in Iraq in civil war, but the fact is that people *are* going to die there in civil war because they're not a united country, they're composed of various factions who want to kill each other. The question is, how many of those who are going to die are going to be Americans?"

Sixty years ago or so, there were maybe 40 democracies on the planet. Today, there are more than 100. Many countries that are now democracies once had bitter ethnic, religious or political differences that were at least as devisive and deadly as those currently found in Iraq. But with hard work by people who didn't throw in the towel when things get ugly, differences were resolved and the chaos subsided. In some cases, there was a large and horrible human cost before this happened -- own Civil War is a perfect example an example. But the end result is that more people than ever on this planet have a means of self-determination that was never possible before.

As far as the question of why Americans should be involved? Well, without the help of the French, we would have most definitely lost the Revolutionary War, and without a successful revolution template for rebellious French intellectuals to point to or emulate, the French Revolution might never have happened. The result? Today there might be few, if any, democracies on the planet.

Russ Maheras

Bush IS evil. That's why gas prices are so high. At an all-time high to be exact. The oil companies are making record profits and we are paying the price at the pump. The oil companies are then making HUGE donations to the Republican party. Sorta all ties together, doesn't it?

As I write, Condy Skank is speaking before the commission. She's all smiles and light. As if to say "All is right with the world. We are perfect and you are idiots to be questioning us." Betcha Clarence Thomas is drooling all over his Coke can today.

9-11 should have been prevented. The Israeli airline, EL AL, has had locked and reinforced doors on their cockpits for a very long time. For the other airlines to say that they didn't think they needed to do the same is complete bull. For the government to not force them to do so was a failure of leadership.

9-11 happened specificly because Bush was in office. As soon as he was gifted with the Presidency, it was ordained to happen. This was because he is the son of Bush, Sr. The problems that have happened after 9-11 are all Jr.'s responsibility. Taking us into Iraq under false pretenses is a crime worthy of Impeachment. That won't happen because the Republicans have control of our country. If Clinton or Gore had done this, they would have been Impeached. Such is the way of the "Yer witt me or agin me" mental midgets of the (not-so) right.

"Didn't mean the right as in YOU. I was talking about the constant banging of the drum by so many on the Right."

Thanks. I honestly didn't think you did, and I hope I didn't imply that in my response. I'm not taking any of this personally.

Yet. ;-)

"Compare the responses? Only if you compare the acts themselves. If you think the American people would have accepted a full blown war because some guys blew a truck up and charred one of the towers.... Never would have happened. Also look at what was done after the bombing and not just look at the act in a bubble. We got intel off of those guys that let us stop terrorist acts against us that were in the active stage."

Who said that the only other response was a fullblown war? Did I? I hope not. How about a proportional response? I don't think the fear of trial and conviction is going to put fear in the hearts of any terrorist. A military response might not either, but it's got a much better chance of succeeding.

"Which response worked? Answer that question fully when 8 years have past from the 9/11 2001 mark. Why, that would be the time period that would allow you to compare the two tactics side by side. As for now, we've had the same number of attacks on U.S. soil after 9/11 that we had after 93 for this time period."

As a matter of history when dealing with tyrants and terrorists, appeasement and negotiation doesn't appear to work as well as confrontation. You're right in that time will tell. Someone could use a dirty bomb or unleash a bioterror weapon on our shores tomorrow. But I feel more comfortable knowing that any terrorist who would do that knows that everything he holds dear may be bombed out of existence if he goes forward with his plan.

That's my opinion, anyway.

"Which brings to mind another fun one of the Right to show how great Bush is and how well his plan to invade Iraq has worked in the war on terror. I love how so many on the Right try to use the trump card of, "yeah, well how many 9/11 style attacks have we had on our soil since then?" Like that means anything?!? Please, please, please, someone slap one of those guys and ask them to name how many 9/11 style attacks we had on U.S. soil BEFORE 9/11 2001."

I honestly have never heard anyone say that we know the war on terror is succeeding because no one has flown an airplane into a building and killed 3000 people since 9-11. That sounds pretty foolish. Just like it would be foolish to say that the war on terror is a failure if anyone ever attacks us again.

Tim

"Let's face it, kids, when even G. Gordon Liddy and Pat Buchanan look at you and say "you're an extremist," it's time to seriously reevaluate your position..."

Pat thinks anyone who doesn't hate jews is a Zionist extremist. You can have him, my friend.

"9-11 happened specificly because Bush was in office. As soon as he was gifted with the Presidency, it was ordained to happen."

Uh oh, break out the tinfoil hats gang, we have spotted black helicopters and they're heading this way.

Alan Coil wrote:

"As I write, Condy Skank is speaking before the commission."

Condy Skank! Ha ha ha ha ha! That is hilarious! And witty! It almost makes me want to become a liberal again, so I can come up with such funny nicknames for people in the news!

I have plenty of items I would like to post about some very thought-provoking statements on this topic and a few others, but I have just had the privilege of seeing Condoleeza Rice testify for the past three hours on TV in front of the 9/11 Commission, and I juut have to say this: "Wow!"
I do not think I can ever recall someone with that much responsibility under that much pressure with such a wide range of heavy responsibilities in such an historic setting comethrough it with such flying colors. She absolutely BLEW ME AWAY!
If you think about this time in history and ALL the scenarios she has to take into account and departments she has to run and responsibility on her shoulders, it is truly amazing.When she interjected herself in a subtle manner over whether or not we can bring democracy to Iraq, citing our own country's problems with the American Experiment ("I know when the Founding Fathers wrote 'We The People' they did not mean me - I was considered 3/5 of a person') I was touched. It was something she has said before, but it really came through today. The genesis of the American Dream and maintaining it was not and is not easy, nor will it probably ever be. And we've had over 225 years to get it just right! We have been in Iraq for just over a year. It will take a while, but I am confident that we can deliver for the Iraqi people better and more peaceful lives, and that the Iraqi example will eventually inspire the rest of the Mideast to give up violence and hatred.
Now that takes some imagination - and the will to make it a reality. this administration - and rice in particular - have both in spades.

As for those who would stoop to name-calling, all i can say is that Clarence Thomas is the only other black person besides Condi in at least the past two decades who it has been politically correct to bash. So go on. I can only hope as many Americans watched this extraordinary woman - heck, extraordinary person - today as watched those ridiculous Anita Hill hearings. She was an inspiration to all of us on one can take on so much responsibility, be professional and sharp, answer tough questions and do it all with grace, style and class.

Finally, for those who would criticize Condi's (the correct nickname) positive attitude and smile, what would you say if she looked moody, talked defensively and spoke snippily? Some people just can't win. I thought she was tremendous even under heavy fire from Kerrey and was well-informed.
For those who doubt her intelligence, this woman entered college at age FIFTEEN and in addition to her doctorate was the first black female provost in Stanford's (one of the elite academic institutions in the country) history.
She has a great deal on the ball, whatever you think of the Bush Administration's policies.

Mr. President We must not allow an imagination gap!!

/Dr. Strangelove

Condoleeza Rice is an enormous asset to the Bush Administration and the entire country. I've been impressed with her since day one and I hope that she will continue on to bigger and better things. I would hope that she would think seriously about a run for President. I'd vote for her!

Think about that - the "racist, bigoted, sexist" Republicans running an African-American woman for President. Wouldn't that be something. Although I doubt it will change the rhetoric on the other side of the aisle too much. (I'd love to see a Hillary/Condi competition in 2008!)

Tim

Point: Halliburton didn't have to overcharge for fuel and food overseas, and I'd like there to have been at least another bid for the job. It went straight to Cheney's old crew.

Point: The White House manipulated the numbers to make the Medicare bill seem less costly---their own man said so. And if we were allowed to use drugs from another country or control the prices instead of toadying to the Drug Lobbies, it would still have cost more than we were orignially told. (My brother's a pharmacist. I am correct.)

As for the scandals, well I if I was wrong I apologize. But I was there and I recall it the other way around, with the Republicans taking advantage of the fact that checks that should've bounced cleared anyway. If you can point me to a website that'll lead me to straight facts, I's be grateful.

I still think they're a group of schmucks. Individually, I don't know.

Yes, we still need to work on our democracy, but do we have the right to inflict it on others? Do the Iraqui people not have the right to manifest their own destiny? We can't shove democracy down the throats of a nation and expect candy and roses. That is why we are seeing an escalation oc violence. Just as our founding fathers wanted control, so do the Iraqui people.

Karen:

>>Yes, we still need to work on our democracy, but do we have the right to inflict it on others? Do the Iraqui people not have the right to manifest their own destiny? We can't shove democracy down the throats of a nation and expect candy and roses. That is why we are seeing an escalation oc violence. Just as our founding fathers wanted control, so do the Iraqui people.

Agreed. There have been at least 2 reported protests consisting of Iraqi crowds numbering somewhere between 20,000-30,000 reported in the media. These aren't assassins or terrorists coming in from other countries. These are Iraqi citizens. While it may be fine to argue one way or the other on whether the Iraqi people "deserve" democray, it is not a humanitarian endvour to force it down the throats of others.

Interestingly (or not), I had a different impression of the hearings. I thought she came off as and over-eager to make sure absolutely nothing could have been even the slightest mistake.

Granted, the odds were good that Jerome and I were going to perceive these events differently anyway, but I also wonder how much of that is because I listened to it on radio rather than watching it on television.

Looking forward to reading the full transcripts when I get a chance.

TWL

Bush IS evil. That's why gas prices are so high. At an all-time high to be exact. The oil companies are making record profits and we are paying the price at the pump. The oil companies are then making HUGE donations to the Republican party. Sorta all ties together, doesn't it?

While I have no complaints about paying less per gallon for gas, I have to wonder if we've got our priorities in order when we complain about paying less than $2 for a gallon of a liquid that allows us to go long distances in a short period of time...including down to Starbuck's for the privilege of paying $3+ for a cup of coffee.

Rargh. Trimmed too much in that second sentence there:

I thought she came off as and over-eager

Please make that "came off as extremely defensive, and over-eager to..."

Sorry 'bout that.

TWL

Good point to Nytwyng. I'd also add that anyone who thinks gas prices are high should really spend some time in Europe. $2 a gallon is relative chicken-feed.

Now, today's papers are reporting that Oman's main oil field is definitely past its peak. If (and that's a hefty "if") that's a sign that oil production is starting to peak ... then my suspicion is that we ain't seen nothin' yet.

TWL

You guys are paying $2 a gallon? This doesn't get said that often, but I love living in New Jersey.

The precautions during that G-8 summit indicated that Bush's handlers took seriously the idea that someone might use an entire aircraft as a means of mass assassination. Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, ever thought that a passenger jet might be hijacked and used as a blunt instrument of terror, just to kill whoever might happen to be in the way. Well, nobody this side of al-Qaeda, anyway...

I remember the morning of 9/11/2001 well. There were no public announcements by the terrorists that they were going to strike. Until the second plane hit, it was widely assumed that the first one had suffered some sort of malfunction and crashed accidentally.

None of this in any way excuses Bush's subsequent war on Iraq - as has been pointed out numerous times already, there was no real link between Iraq and 9/11.

(Incidentally, Condi's statement about the Founding Fathers wasn't quite correct. She would have been 3/5 of a person for census purposes - other than that, since she was black and female, she wouldn't have been considered really a person at all...)

"Yes, we still need to work on our democracy, but do we have the right to inflict it on others? Do the Iraqui people not have the right to manifest their own destiny? We can't shove democracy down the throats of a nation and expect candy and roses. That is why we are seeing an escalation oc violence. Just as our founding fathers wanted control, so do the Iraqui people."

"Agreed. There have been at least 2 reported protests consisting of Iraqi crowds numbering somewhere between 20,000-30,000 reported in the media. These aren't assassins or terrorists coming in from other countries. These are Iraqi citizens. While it may be fine to argue one way or the other on whether the Iraqi people "deserve" democray, it is not a humanitarian endvour to force it down the throats of others."

"(Incidentally, Condi's statement about the Founding Fathers wasn't quite correct. She would have been 3/5 of a person for census purposes - other than that, since she was black and female, she wouldn't have been considered really a person at all...)"

I couldn't resist the temptation to put these three statements together. The last one is a genuine example of oppression. Lack of freedom. Usurped rights. Treating someone like they are less than a person and preventing them from enjoying the rights and freedoms that others have. And I dare say, in Hussein's Iraq, the degrees of oppression went far beyond being treated like a fraction of a human being.

The two former statements assume so many mind-boggling things that it is amazing. Among them I see: liberating an oppressed people is "shoving democracy down their throats" (like democracy is really no different than oppression), democracy can be inflicted on people (as if they would choose oppression if we didn't take away their rights to), freeing an oppressed people from tyrants is not by definition a "humanitarian effort," people who are oppressed don't necessarily want to be free or shouldn't be freed from their oppressors, freedom isn't absolutely morally right, and totalitarianism isn't absolutely immoral.

We can debate the politics of the current situation until we are blue in the face, and that is fine. I'm discussing principle rather than the specific Iraq war, which reasonable people can disagree on. But to say that there are situations in the world where more democracy and freedom may not be a good thing is, in my opinion, execrable. Ideally, what we are fighting for in Iraq is the ability of the Iraqi people to manifest their own destiny. Under Saddam Hussein, that was impossible. Now, if we are careful and can succeed in what we are doing, there may come a time when the people there will have the freedom to decide their own fates. And to say that that freedom is something that we are "inflicting" on them or "shoving down their throats" is, to me, the moral equivalent of saying that maybe it wasn't so bad when some people were considered only 3/5 of a human being. After all, we don't want to force anything down anyone's throat. Like equality and freedom.

(Sorry for the rant. But it's Thursday, and I feel a little like Captain America. If you don't like me today, tune in tomorrow. On Fridays, I feel more like Wolverine.)

Tim

Tim B.

We did have military action against terrorist for years. We've scrubbed more then a few bases and camps and the S.A.S. has had more then a few ops where they got to play Die Hard the real game. The former Soviets had had more then a few fun and game times with terrorist as well. We've supported those who fought them. Of course, most of them then turned on us but that's another story. All that happened was new groups formed from the ashes of the old or old groups just moved their base of operations. The type of military action that we took after 9/11 when we went after Bin Laden worked very well but was only accepted by us and the world because of 9/11.
And I'm with you on saying that a massive attack (great band) on the U.S. at a later date does not mean that the fight against terrorist is going bad. Like I said way before; if they want to hurt us bad enough they will find a way. I think it was Rice who said something today that was dead on. We have to be right (about what they're doing and how to stop them) 100% of the time. They only have to be right once.
You've never heard that line about the "since 9/11" bit? Guess you don't work and play with people who have the listening and viewing habbits of those around me. Short list:
Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly, Hume, Savage, Will (I think), Hedgecock, Coulter, most the C's and R's on the FOX news op-ed shows. I get to hear that remark at least once a week when the "War on Terror" gets brought up on any of there shows.

The two former statements assume so many mind-boggling things that it is amazing. Among them I see: liberating an oppressed people is "shoving democracy down their throats" (like democracy is really no different than oppression),

But for all intent and purposes, we're talking about a group of people that don't want democracy.

Sure, we'd love them to have it. And some of the people likely do want it.

But it seems like alot of 'em don't. And that's where it comes to "shoving it down their throats".

Democracy is a concept which, imo, must be willingly embraced.

From perusing bits and pieces scattered about the web, my favorite Codi moment so far:

KERREY: Why didn't we swat that fly?

RICE: I believe that there's a question of whether or not you respond in a tactical sense or whether you respond in a strategic sense; whether or not you decide that you're going to respond to every attack with minimal use of military force and go after every -- on a kind of tit-for-tat basis.

By the way, in that memo, Dick Clarke talks about not doing this tit-for-tat, doing this on the time of our choosing.

RICE: I'm aware, Mr. Kerrey, of a speech that you gave at that time that said that perhaps the best thing that we could do to respond to the Cole and to the memories was to do something about the threat of Saddam Hussein.

That's a strategic view...

(APPLAUSE)

And we took a strategic view. We didn't take a tactical view. I mean, it was really -- quite frankly, I was blown away when I read the speech, because it's a brilliant speech. It talks about really...

(LAUGHTER)

... an asymmetric...

KERREY: I presume you read it in the last few days?

RICE: Oh no, I read it quite a bit before that. It's an asymmetric approach.

I don't think it's Rice who was hurt today.
Hmmmm, Condi vs hillary in 2008? Won't hapen...but if it did, some fun, eh?

"Democracy is a concept which, imo, must be willingly embraced."

The only time I can see where someone would willingly choose oppression over freedom is if they think they are the ones who will be doing the oppressing. (Or they'll be favored by the oppressor, like some parts of Iraq were.) I don't see that as a reason to not free the masses. Those who side with the tyrant should be opposed, not embraced.

Let me know though if you find someone who doesn't want personal freedom. Who likes to have their lives run by someone else. Who wants no choices in life. Who desires to be treated like something that is less than human. Who is satisfied to be considered cattle. Who desires nothing better for themselves than to be at the whim of a tyrant. Who has no dreams and no aspirations.

When you've found such a person, you can safely say that you have someone to whom freedom and democracy are an imposition. I suppose it's possible that you may find someone who is that beaten down and devoid of life, but I think that they would themselves demonstrate the reason why freedom is something we should passionately export as often as possible.

Tim

Alan wrote: "Bush IS evil. That's why gas prices are so high. At an all-time high to be exact. The oil companies are making record profits and we are paying the price at the pump. The oil companies are then making HUGE donations to the Republican party. Sorta all ties together, doesn't it?"

Gas reached about $2 a gallon under Clinton's watch, didn't it? Maybe he was part of the evil oil conspiracy, too.

Actually, the reasons for the price increases are more complex than you may realize, and prices are manipulated all the time by one of the world's largest "legal" monopolies: OPEC. I wonder why the European Union hasn't ever fined OPEC, like it did Bill Gates, for monopolistic practices? Perhaps they are afraid OPEC might retaliate and destroy the European economy? Gates was an easy target. He is an American businessman (it's always been fashionable to pick on Americans in Europe), and what harm could he possibly do -- make Windows a more mediocre, more virus-prone operating system than it already is?

By the way, you should be thanking your lucky stars you buy your gasoline in the United States. When I lived in England in the early 1980s, petrol cost the equivalent of about $3 a gallon. While in England and Scotland two weeks ago, gas was about 80 pence a liter. Since about four liters equal a U.S. gallon, the cost for one gallon of gas was about three pounds, 20 pence, or about $5.75 a gallon.

So instead of bad-mouthing the mean old oil companies, you should probably have them on your holiday card list for keeping oil prices so low in the U.S. for so long. Most Americans are spoiled and they don't even know it.

Russ Maheras

Bravo, Tim. Good points, all.

Before today, I didn't think Condi would have a hope of beating Hillary, but not anymore.

Those are debates I'd PAY to see.

Craig wrote: "But for all intent and purposes, we're talking about a group of people that don't want democracy."

Huh???!! Say, what??!! I'm sure this same, narrow-minded argument could have been used as well by those Americans who didn't want us to get involved in World War II. "It's not our fight. Why should our boys go over there and die? Screw the Europeans, they've been fighting each other for more than two thousand years. And what's so bad about facism in Germany? It got them out of their economic mess. What do they need a democracy for, anyway? Hell, ours got us into the Great Depression." And on, and on, and on.

The Iraqis lived in a totalitarian society, but you apparently think they would have been better off if we had just minded our own business? Tell that to any Iraqi refugee who fled the country, or any Iraqi who lost a loved one to Saddam's butchery, and they'll probably look at you like you were crazy.

Russ Maheras

Tim,
They do not choose to be oppressed, but that does not neccessarily mean they choose our version of democracy. They are NOT being given a choice. It is our way or the highway.

Tim:

>>The two former statements assume so many mind-boggling things that it is amazing. Among them I see: liberating an oppressed people is "shoving democracy down their throats" (like democracy is really no different than oppression)

No assumption coming from me, but it sees that you'd like to warp my statements to fit your ideology. I can't control the later... however, I can redirect yo to my original statement.Read it in its entirity and you'll be hard-pressed to find where I said anything about liberating people = shoving democracy. It is interesting to methat you are currently seeing the current actions of our troops as liberating anything. Dispite the protests, dispite the 11,000 civilians killed, dispite what is being seen in our own news agencies as well as others around the world, you still view what is currently happening to the Iraqipeople as a functioning democracy? Interesting indeed.

>> democracy can be inflicted on people (as if they would choose oppression if we didn't take away their rights to)

What rights are we currently providing them? Really, I'm curious. Maybe the right to dadge bullets. Thousands of protests are being copletely ignored.

>> freeing an oppressed people from tyrants is not by definition a "humanitarian effort,

They were freed a year ago according to the original goal that was publically provided to the citizens of this country.

" people who are oppressed don't necessarily want to be free or shouldn't be freed from their oppressors, freedom isn't absolutely morally right, and totalitarianism isn't absolutely immoral.

This is absolute nonsense and was not stated anywhere about.

>>We can debate the politics of the current situation until we are blue in the face, and that is fine. I'm discussing principle rather than the specific Iraq war, which reasonable people can disagree on. But to say that there are situations in the world where more democracy and freedom may not be a good thing is, in my opinion, execrable.

One need not have a democracy to be free. One could also argue that democracy will nt wrk in that region. There is no possibly way to seperate religion from government for starters.

>> Ideally, what we are fighting for in Iraq is the ability of the Iraqi people to manifest their own destiny.

Ideally, you are correct. However, that was not the original excuse for going in and manifesting their own destiny won't work with U.S. hand-selected puppets in temporary presidential positions with no real influence.... and doesn't seem to be working at the moment, since a very high percentage don't want us there any longer.

>> Under Saddam Hussein, that was impossible.

I can't argue this.

>>Now, if we are careful and can succeed in what we are doing, there may come a time when the people there will have the freedom to decide their own fates.

Where do you see "care" being given to n of the situations over there or in the mechanisms being put into place?

> And to say that that freedom is something that we are "inflicting" on them or "shoving down their throats" is, to me, the moral equivalent of saying that maybe it wasn't so bad when some people were considered only 3/5 of a human being. After all, we don't want to force anything down anyone's throat. Like equality and freedom.

Again, you can twist words to attempt to portray those who disagree with you as devil incarnates, but you may want to stick to using their own words and intentions when doing it. You'll be more succussful in making your points that way.

By the way, I said it was democracy we are inflicting on them and shoving down their throats. Not freedom. There IS a difference.

Huh???!! Say, what??!!

See: What Karen said.

They don't want our democracy. That's all there is to it. And it's not just the ones shooting at our troops that think that way.

Hell, they don't want us (USA) period.

So yes, we're shoving it down their throats.

If both the Shia and the Sunni are now working together then it doesn't matter what Kerry's plan is or Bush's plan is; it's effectively over.

On a lighter, I was searching the web and found this gem:
TOP TEN OTHER JUDGEMENTS DICK CLARKE MADE ABOUT CONDI RICE BASED ON HER...ERR...APPEARANCE

10.) Her favorite literary character? Lando Calrissian from Star Wars.

9.) That she might express policy disagreements by saying, "oh, no you didn't!", and then dismissively cracking her bubble gum.

8.) That the NSC's phones would frequently be jammed as she furiously dialed in to vote for Ruben Studdard on American Idol.

7.) That she might distractingly "whoop it up" in the War Room, yelling "Shazz-amm, suckah!" after each successful missile strike.

6.) That she would create a diplomatic embarrassment by calling a foreign dignitary "Sugah!" and then offering him a Seagram's-and-grape-soda.

5.) That Donald Trump really waited far too long to tell her "You're fired!"

4.) That, far too frequently, National Security Briefings would degenerate into nothing yo' mama jokes and gang-signs

3.) That her duties as National Security Advisor might be compromised by her outside interests: singin', dancin', and stealing chickens from Old Man Codger's farm

2.) That when confronted with a ghost or other supernatural spooky, she would bug her eyes out comically while wailing, "Feets, don't fail me now!!!", which is an express violation of White House security protocols regarding extradimensional intrusions

...and the NUMBER ONE JUUDGEMENT DICK CLARKE MADE ABOUT CONDI RICE BASED ON HER..ERR..APPEARANCE..

1. That she only got the NSA job over Clarke because she was a...well, COME ON, you know why

Fred Chamberlain,
Tim is not "warping" your statements to fit his ideology. he is simply responding to your statements, in what looks like a calm, intelligent and reasonable manner, and the "you can twist words to portray those who disagree with you as devil incarnates" line is really defensive and paranoid. Neither he nor anyone else can read your mind, so if you disagree with the way he or anyone else interprets your words, then the best way to counteract that is by simply stressing what you DO mean. You make some statements, then disagree when those statements are held up to scrutiny? Just respond and make your position clearer. It beats whining and playing victim.
Also, while we're on the subject of your words:
"Where do you see 'care' being given over there or in the mechanisms being put into place?"
Uh, the same place you DON'T see it, I would guess- Newsreports, etc. And based on what I've seen, we are making every effort to do this the right way.

Also,
"Thousands of protests are being completely ignored"
Really? Thousands? We've been there less than 400 days. Rounding it off, that would mean there are 2.5 protests going on a day. But since you used tousands, that must mean there have been at least 2,000, which means there have been slightly over FIVE protests EVERY DAY. Assuming the average Iraqi gets only six hours of sleep a day, that means there is a new protest about every three hours, which can't run TOO long or else it'll bump into the next protest.
Wow! The Iraqi people must not be doing much else, even eating, taking care of their children or having sex, if they are able to have thousands of protests in such a short period of time!
You really should choose your words more carefully.
At least you agree you can't argue that the possibility of freedom for the Iraqi people would not exist if Saddam was still in power. Nice of you to admit that.

Wow Jerome, you surprise me... ok, point by point:

>>Tim is not "warping" your statements to fit his ideology. he is simply responding to your statements, in what looks like a calm, intelligent and reasonable manner, and the "you can twist words to portray those who disagree with you as devil incarnates" line is really defensive and paranoid.

Not at all. I stated myself claerly the first time. I talked of democracy, not freedom. It is clearly stated in my first post. Feel free to go back and reread it. No paranoia here. Simply restating my original statement in order to avoid being misrepresented, thank you.

>>Neither he nor anyone else can read your mind, so if you disagree with the way he or anyone else interprets your words, then the best way to counteract that is by simply stressing what you DO mean.

I did so.... and then did it again, quite clearly the first time and then from a terminal that is omitting some of my letters here and there. I'm not computer literate enough to even try and figure that one out.

>>You make some statements, then disagree when those statements are held up to scrutiny? Just respond and make your position clearer. It beats whining and playing victim.

Again, no whining or playing here. Just responding to mistatements attributed to me. Go poke someone else with your stick.

>>Also, while we're on the subject of your words:
"Where do you see 'care' being given over there or in the mechanisms being put into place?"
Uh, the same place you DON'T see it, I would guess- Newsreports, etc. And based on what I've seen, we are making every effort to do this the right way.

You see black and I see white, apparently.

>>Also,
"Thousands of protests are being completely ignored"
Really? Thousands? We've been there less than 400 days. Rounding it off, that would mean there are 2.5 protests going on a day. But since you used tousands, that must mean there have been at least 2,000, which means there have been slightly over FIVE protests EVERY DAY. Assuming the average Iraqi gets only six hours of sleep a day, that means there is a new protest about every three hours, which can't run TOO long or else it'll bump into the next protest.
Wow! The Iraqi people must not be doing much else, even eating, taking care of their children or having sex, if they are able to have thousands of protests in such a short period of time!
You really should choose your words more carefully.

...and you should lose the sarcasm and condescension. You obviously read my entire post and know that I stated a few times that thousands of protestors (20-30,000 as reported by several news agencies) have gathered on at least two occassions to make their voices known. No bombs, no explosives, etc. Their voices have not been heard.

>>At least you agree you can't argue that the possibility of freedom for the Iraqi people would not exist if Saddam was still in power. Nice of you to admit that.

The Iraqi people are not yet free, but thanks for the kudos.

Karen and Tim Lynch,
Just to give you an idea about how much I truly appreciated the SUBSTANCE of Condi Rice's historic and inspirational testimony, I encourage EVERYONE to pick up a copy of The New York Times tomorrow if it has transcripts of the testimony. It was that good, and some of the exchanges - particularly with Bob Kerrey - were true treasures. Oh, and i loved it when after Kerrey had called her Dr. CLARKE for about the FOURTH time, and she said:
"With all do respect Mr. Commissioner, I don't think I look like Dick Clarke!'
Bill Kristol said long ago that Bush should drop Cheney and have Rice as V.P. I have wholeheartedly agreed even before today. After today, I ma have to get a letter-writing? internet campaign. She is extraordinary, incredibly special and in substance, style and symbolism is someone who exemplifies the very best that America has to offer. She is a shining epitome of the American Dream.

Russ Maheras posted:
"As far as the question of why Americans should be involved? Well, without the help of the French, we would have most definitely lost the Revolutionary War, and without a successful revolution template for rebellious French intellectuals to point to or emulate, the French Revolution might never have happened. The result? Today there might be few, if any, democracies on the planet."
Actually, the French became involved in our war for independence more as part of their long rivalry with Britain--the same reason for support from nations like Spain and Holland (though it could be safely said that none of the three wanted their own subject peoples to follow the American lead). As for that French Revolution, you might want to remember the actual results of that little deal. Not only did it lead to the execution of the French king and queen, but also a great number of the French nobility (whose only real crime was their title) and a fair number of people who were perceived as too lenient to the "crimes" of the monarchy and the Church (a little period commonly known as the "Reign of Terror"). Then, after about a decade, the Revolution ended after a military dictator took power--and eventually declared himself Emperor--which led to almost two decades of continental warfare. Even after the fall of Napoléon (the 2nd time), the French monarchy was restored and remained for a bit more than 50 years, only to finally collapse after the Franco-Prussian war.

Fred Chamberlain,
The Iraqi people are free from Saddam Hussein. That's a helluva start. No other kind of freedom would be possible without his removal, which so many still criticize.

PAD,
Do you honestly believe that if Gore would have won the elction that 9-11 wouldn't have happened. Come on, man, these people hate Americans. All americans. They hate us. Why can't you realize that. Why can't you all see that, & quit thinking that peace is the answer. There can be no peace against a group of people that hates you for no other reason then to hate you.
As a jewish man, I can't believe you don't see that. Do you think that Osama & Saddam are friends of Israel. do you think the Palestinians are misunderstood & if Israel heard them out this would stop?
We are at war against a group of people who believe it is their duty to destroy us.
One more thing, Peter, Close to a year before 9-11 a group of mid east men were detained, They got themselves a nice layer 7 suid the airline for racial profiling. When 9-11 happend, the airports had reported that the terrorists had baought tickets using cash, & because of what happened a year before, did not detain the men, because the airlines were scared that they would get sued & let them go.
See, the problems with liberals is that they are more concerned with "rights" then safety. Liberals (i'm not saying Democrats as not all Democrats are liberals. I've actually met conservative Democrats & liberal republicans)would sell this country down the river. They want to weaken our country. Look at the moral decay thathas gone thru our country.
We have parents aquited of murdering their children (i'm not talking abortion), sleaze on tv & the radio.
When do you want our army to react, Peter, after the threat or before the threat. With 9-11 we reacted after the threat, with iraq, we reacted before the threat.
Nothing President Bush does will be good enough for you. Nothing.

"See, the problems with liberals is that they are more concerned with "rights" then safety. Liberals (i'm not saying Democrats as not all Democrats are liberals. I've actually met conservative Democrats & liberal republicans)would sell this country down the river. They want to weaken our country. Look at the moral decay thathas gone thru our country."

That's the big issue here then, isn't it? Would we as a country rather be free or safe? This may be rather ghoulish of me, given what we are discussing, but I would take freedom over security any day, and I'd imagine there's a good chunk of people here who would agree with me, even if that freedom increased the chances of a 9/11 happening again.

Of all the things one can accuse any member of the Bush administration of, a lack of imagination is not one I would put at the top of the list.

In the days after 9/11, Bush asked his people to talk to their underlings and think "out of the box" in terms of a response to the terrorist attacks.

One proposal came from a general, and was entitled "Thinking Out of the Box: Poisoning Food and Water Supplies in Afganistan". This proposal never found its way to the president, and is one example that I have read of where plenty of imagination was used.

Of all the things one can accuse any member of the Bush administration of, a lack of imagination is not one I would put at the top of the list.

In the days after 9/11, Bush asked his people to talk to their underlings and think "out of the box" in terms of a response to the terrorist attacks.

One proposal came from a general, and was entitled "Thinking Out of the Box: Poisoning Food and Water Supplies in Afganistan". This proposal never found its way to the president, and is one example that I have read of where plenty of imagination was used.

"If both the Shia and the Sunni are now working together then it doesn't matter what Kerry's plan is or Bush's plan is; it's effectively over."

Wow, those must be a couple of really big guys.

You guys are paying $2 a gallon? This doesn't get said that often, but I love living in New Jersey.

Don't know if anyone else is or not, but you'll notice I said, "less than $2." Figured that would be the best way to hit a good price range coast-to-coast. :-)

And, thanks, Tim...wish I could take full credit for that, but it's an concept that I first heard floated on the old Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. And, even though I don't drink "gourmet" coffee (or much of any coffee, for that matter), it was hard for me to dispute the logic. :-)
**********************
We are at war against a group of people who believe it is their duty to destroy us.

"We?" I don't recall "Dubya" asking my opinion before he ordered an invasion in (if we go with this "we" business) my name.

Of course, there are those who would say that, yes, "we" are at war against a group of people who believe it is their duty to destroy us...and it is being waged by a group of people who believe it is their duty to decide what is best for us in every aspect of our lives.

In that perspective, it's difficult to see the difference between the ones "we" are waging war upon and those waging the war.

Joseph wrote: "Actually, the French became involved in our war for independence more as part of their long rivalry with Britain--the same reason for support from nations like Spain and Holland (though it could be safely said that none of the three wanted their own subject peoples to follow the American lead)"

I didn't state France's motivations for helping us during the Revolutionary War because the "why" really didn't matter -- at least not as far as the Continental Army was concerned. The same goes for the Iraqis today. Our motivations for helping them throw off the yoke of a dictator really does't matter to them as long as they end up free, and we leave when it's all over.

Joseph also wrote: "As for that French Revolution, you might want to remember the actual results of that little deal. Not only did it lead to the execution of the French king and queen, but also a great number of the French nobility (whose only real crime was their title) and a fair number of people who were perceived as too lenient to the "crimes" of the monarchy and the Church (a little period commonly known as the "Reign of Terror")."

I didn't go into the details of French Revolution because my main point was that the success of the Revolutionary War in the U.S. may have been what influenced the French intellectuals behind the French revolt to give a revolution a shot in the first place. Had the U.S. attempt failed, the French might NEVER have stumbled into a democracy, and they might still be living under a monarchy today.

Russ Maheras

Here's some red meat for conservatives who like to collect examples of media bias--from http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2004/04/chris_matthews_.html

Chris Matthews Misrepresented Rice's Testimony

On Hardball, which I was just watching, Chris Matthews played this excerpt from Condoleezza Rice's testimony for the 4 9/11 widows he was interviewing:

BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?

RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." Now, the...

BEN-VENISTE: Thank you.

RICE: No, Mr. Ben-Veniste...

BEN-VENISTE: I will get into the...

RICE: I would like to finish my point here.

BEN-VENISTE: I didn't know there was a point.

RICE: Given that -- you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks.

BEN-VENISTE: I asked you what the title was.

RICE: You said, did it not warn of attacks. It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.

Then Matthews said this:

"He didn’t say warn. He asked what the title was. The direct question – she didn’t want to give a direct answer. How did that hit you?"

He did say warn! Here again is the question Ben-Veniste asked: "Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country?" Rice was perfectly correct that he had asked it and, of course, perfectly entitled to answer the question as asked. It's bad enough for a partisan thug like Ben-Veniste to misrepresent a question he just asked, but this was either the dumbest thing Chris Matthews ever said or the most brazenly partisan lie he's ever told. He had, after all, just played the tape of Ben-Veniste asking if the PDB "warned"!

Craig wrote: "They don't want our democracy. That's all there is to it. And it's not just the ones shooting at our troops that think that way."

Sorry, Craig. If you are talking about the majority of Iraqis, then you are just misinformed. I get my intel straight from the people who are actually in country, not local politicians or editorial writers with a personal agenda.

Russ Maheras

I don't know that I'd call that media bias, Bill. I'd call it a shining example of Chris Matthews being an idiot -- so far as I understand, neither side of the political aisle wants him. :-)

TWL

'I wonder why the European Union hasn't ever fined OPEC, like it did Bill Gates, for monopolistic practices? Perhaps they are afraid OPEC might retaliate and destroy the European economy? Gates was an easy target.'

Well, first off Russ, OPEC is better viewed as a cartel rather than a monopoly; they set prices together but hardly can be said to work to block the use of Russian or Norwegian oil, for example. It's simply a case that the countries who naturally have large oil supplies have decided that others have to play by their rules.

Secondly, its eleven members, as noted, are countries rather than corporations. Do you think countries should be treated in exactly the same way as companies?

See, the problems with liberals is that they are more concerned with "rights" then safety. Liberals (i'm not saying Democrats as not all Democrats are liberals. I've actually met conservative Democrats & liberal republicans)would sell this country down the river. They want to weaken our country.

You mean such commie pinko liberals as Benjamin Franklin?

"Those who would surrender essential liberty, in order to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither safety nor liberty."

To my mind, the best way to keep our shores secure from terrorism is to develop a foreign policy in such a way that people in other countries don’t hate us so much they’re willing to commit suicide in order to kill us.

You're nucking futs if you think that that's remotely possible.

Assuming that it's true that Islamists and Islamofacists wish to kill us because we're
"infidels" what the heck kind of foreign policy is there that would refute and deflect that?

What if there are people out there, and countries made up of said people, who regardless of the quality and content of our foreign policy and even the benign or benevolent way that our nation treats others, that simply don't like us? What kind of solution is there towards that?

Oh yeah, and we should probably stop training people (e.g. Bin Laden, Hussein) on how to kill other people, so we don’t have to act surprised when they turn around and try to kill us. That might help.

Ah. Good. Wait. No.

That involves clairvoyancy. Sometimes part of being an ally to another nation or group against a confirmed enemy means aiding your ally and honing their skills and powers.

We do that a lot. On the other hand it's not exactly an exact science to determine which groups will stay your friend once they have learned what you know. The only way to avoid providing tactical powers and strategic abilities to future enemies is to isolate ourselves from all current and potential allies which is a stupid idea!

Which means that your principle is correct in general but in specific the other extreme would be just as harmful.

There are tons of things to criticize Clinton about butb to say that he was weak on terrorism isn't one of them.

Saudi Arabia offered Osama Bin Laden's head on a platter and Clinton declined.

Criminal investigations and judicial proceedings regarding the first World Trade Center bombing resulted in the public revelation of certain intelligence-gathering methods just-previosuly used to hold terrorism in check. Once these methods were revealed to the world the terrorists compensated for this vulnerability and rendered that method totally impotent.

The inapropriate treatment of that incident resulted in us actually desensitizing ourselves and making overselves more vulnerable to harm.

CJA

I didn't know the guy, but it rather pissed me off that someone my exact age got killed for no good reason.

How thin-skinned is your sentimentality?

How many people your age die in car accidents? How many as a direct or indirect result of alcohol consumption?

How many people are murdered?

To be pissed off because of commonality with the dead would end in a coronary if you took it to the logical extent and acted consistently.

There are people my age and younger and even older who volunteered to be warriors and fight for me and you and us. They did this willingly. They chose to obey orders to travel to a far-off land to defend various principles and remove a villain from power. In doing so, some died. The main villain is gone. A horrific institution responsible for the oppression and violation of millions was dissolved a year ago under the force of our guns. The population itself must be guarded until it is no longer helpless (and for the most part the peaceful, benevolent Iraqis are in no position to protect anyone from the majority of the malevolent forces in the area).

These volunteers died for something.

(That was way longer than planned... but logical and neccessary).

Bush IS evil.

So am I.

That's why gas prices are so high. At an all-time high to be exact. The oil companies are making record profits and we are paying the price at the pump. The oil companies are then making HUGE donations to the Republican party. Sorta all ties together, doesn't it?

No. Your "facts" are not actual facts.

Taking inflation into consideration, and the value of the American dollar relative to the price of a gallon of gasoline at various time what we pay of gasoline now is less than what we paid in the eighties and seventies even with the "energy crises" and "fuel shortages".

9-11 should have been prevented. The Israeli airline, EL AL, has had locked and reinforced doors on their cockpits for a very long time. For the other airlines to say that they didn't think they needed to do the same is complete bull. For the government to not force them to do so was a failure of leadership.

To force companies to purchase certain items when previously in this area their need was apparently non-existent would be an example of fascism, not leadership.

9-11 happened specificly because Bush was in office. As soon as he was gifted with the Presidency, it was ordained to happen. This was because he is the son of Bush, Sr. The problems that have happened after 9-11 are all Jr.'s responsibility. Taking us into Iraq under false pretenses is a crime worthy of Impeachment. That won't happen because the Republicans have control of our country. If Clinton or Gore had done this, they would have been Impeached. Such is the way of the "Yer witt me or agin me" mental midgets of the (not-so) right.

9/11 would have happened no matter who was President because there has been a ninth month in every year for over 1600 years and every month has at least twelve days.

The attack on 9/11/1 was planned prior to 2000.

Bush 41's policies and loose ends became the responsibility for Bill Clinon in 1992 and remained so for eight years until the responsibilities were passed to Bush 43.

No one considered impeaching Clinton over any of his foreign actions despite even LESS public justification and the Republican presence in Congress being even stronger.

CJA

I'm not even reading all these replies, so forgive me if I'm repeating what anyone else has said, but I'm replying to the post.

I do wonder if this is even worth replying to, since it seems to amount to a very lame cheap shot, but I guess I'm easily baited so here goes.

By the way, this post contains spoilers for one of Tom Clancy's best books. Be warned.

First off, Tom Clancy imagined exactly that back in 1995 or 1996 (whenever Debt of Honor came out) and I'd bet there are plenty of people in the administration who have read it, so this whole "couldn't imagine it" thing is easily disproven. Possibly even George Bush has read it. (Sigh: YES, he reads books. Go to hell anyone who wants to reply otherwise. Heck, he could probably understand that Clancy book far better than I can because of all the fighter pilot terms, aircraft terminology, business market workings and government abbreviations that tended to make it slow going for me.)

Of course, this makes it sounds like I'm saying the opposite of what Rice said, since she stated they couldn't imagine it. Not at all. I think "imagine" is just her shorthand way of saying "seriously think that it would happen tomorrow just because it's possible in a fantasy."

Movies, books, and other fiction posit all kinds of events that could happen. Why doesn't the government get into a major security fit over whether the seizure of an airport and rigging of the traffic control systems could really happen just because "Die Hard 2: Die Harder" showed that it was theoretically possible? Because there are millions of things that are possible and most are improbable, especially when considering the organization, funding and secrecy needed to do so...as well as the strategy.

9-11 was unthinkable. Not in terms of the planning and organization to use a plane or planes as living missiles, but from the views of a commonsense Westerner in a Judeo-Christian society unaccustomed to the terrorist death cult mindset.

Even Tom Clancy didn't think of THAT. In his book, a Japanese commercial pilot who has lost his family members in Japan's unofficial war with the U.S.A. gets his tanks refilled, declares the need to fly the plane PASSENGERLESS to its maintenance facility for repairs, files a false flight plan, kills his copilot and then flies the plane into the capitol during a presidential address, destroying almost the whole U.S. Government.

In other words, the pilot has nothing to live for due to the deaths of his family and is motivated by grief and revenge. His copilot is the only innocent who dies as collateral damage in his use of the plane as a weapon. And there is a legitimate strategic point to his target, in wanting to cripple the opposing country and kill the people whose actions and orders brought about the deaths of his loved ones and defeated his country (albeit in a war his nation started).

EVEN if you've read Debt of Honor, it's a far cry from envisioning terrorists happily willing to die and take along hundreds of innocent passengers in the process to attack a few buildings full of businessmen, a small part of a military building and a capitol or White House (whichever the target was) on an average day.

It's that kind of pointless hate that is much harder to imagine.

It's even more unthinkable if you don't see the U.S.A. as a cowering weakling that surrenders in cowering fear at the first bloody nose, the way Osama bin Laden saw us after Mogadishu. If you see America as a slumbering giant that would rouse itself to rain down a hellish fury on anyone that would attack you on your own soil for no reason, then you think that that should dissuade any enemies from any plots they might steal from Clancy or Michael Bay or Jerry Bruckheimer or McTiernan or the March 2001 pilot episode of "The Lone Gunmen" where a hacker uses the Octium chip to take control of a commercial airliner and fly it into the World Trade Center.

If you see your country as perfectly willing to do the smackdown on such an enemy, then there CAN be the failure to imagine such a terrorist who would engage in such an attack anyway.

All right, this is probably a much longer and more well-argued response than your post merited. You probably just wanted to make a snotty little comment that I used to think would be beneath you. Damn, I used to read any Star Trek book you wrote because you were my favorite writer. Hard to believe. I used to think you had a good insight into people; now, all you can do is slander the fine people in this administration as dimwits instead of seeing that maybe they just have a different viewpoint from yourself?

Oh, and Saddam HAD WMDs. The question is "Where did they go?" not "Why did Bush say he had them?" EVERYONE right and left for a decade said he had them and was working to develop more, and Saddam gave the world ample reason to believe it, so quit being childish.

I dont think its a matter of imagination.

The Bush administration's priorities have always been motivated by vested interests.

An interesting thing to note would be an interview Niaz Naik (Pakistani Ambassador the UN in New York) gave that he had been told by the US Ambassador in August 2001, that the Bush administration had plans to invade Afghanistan in 2002 or so.

I believe it might have had something to do with the pipeline that was supposed to run through afghanistan - a contract the taliban government had awarded to an argentinian company instead of an american one.

American companies such as Haliburton were mobilizing within the region and were investing in Pakistan at the sametime.

9/11 just made things a lot easier for them.

Tim says:
"I don't know that I'd call that media bias, Bill. I'd call it a shining example of Chris Matthews being an idiot -- so far as I understand, neither side of the political aisle wants him. :-)"

Good point, though without him we wouldn't have those hilarious saturday night live skits. "Paul Begala, you horrid little lawn gnome, what do you think?"
"Well, Chris--"
"SHUT UP! Who the hell cares?"

Saw this online. Thought it was an interesting bit of fact, and so far it seems to check out. If it's wrong, I guess I should have checked harder.

On August 6, 2001, Condi hands Bush a national security briefing. The title of the briefing is "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States," and it warns of airline hijackings planned by al-Qaida.

On August 7, 2001 (THE NEXT DAY), Bush continues his month-long vacation. Possibly the longest vacation in Presidential history. Spends an extraordinary amount of his time clearing brush.

Yeah, Condi did great in those hearings, and there's no failure of imagination in the white house at all.

EVERYONE right and left for a decade said he had them and was working to develop more, and Saddam gave the world ample reason to believe it...

And, a few centuries ago, EVERYONE said that life could spontaneously arise from given elements. After all, you could look in a haypile for vermin, find only some mouse fur, and a few days later, there'd be mice - OBVIOUSLY, the mice spontaneously generated from that fur, right?

Just because EVERYONE thinks something, doesn't make it true. EVERYONE thought heavier-than-air powered flight was impossible - in fact, Lord Newcombe proved it! Of course, Lord Newcombe was unaware of work being done on internal-combustion engines at the time...

Which do you truly think more likely - that some third-rate tinpot dictator managed to develop nukes and massive chemical-weapon depots under the very noses of his neighbors, and further managed to hide them from both international inspectors and an invading army, or that a group of scientists, fearing the irrational wrath of said tinpot, lied to him about the wonderful progress they were making on the weapons he wanted?

Clinton Defends Policies With 9/11 Panel has this nice tidbit. Combined with Clarke's admission that none of his recommendations would have stopped 9-11, you just have to ask why this witch hunt keeps going on:

[Clinton] explained the rationale for many of the terror-fighting policies that his administration instituted and the message his administration left behind to the incoming Bush administration.

Clinton "did not indicate anything fundamentally that he would have done differently" given what U.S. intelligence knew about Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida threat, the person said.

So, Clarke's changes wouldn't have stopped it, and Clinton wouldn't have done anything different? Can't we just admit that it was terrorists that caused this?

Matthew Rossi,
You should have checked harder.
The title of the presidential brief Condi gave to Bush WAS titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack United States".
That IS NOT the same as "INSIDE the United States", so that could have been taken to mean any of our embassies, businesses or others around the world.
Also,according to Rice, the briefing did NOT WARN of airline hijackings by al-Qaeda,
"It did not warn of attacks inside the united States", said Rice of the August 6 briefing, "It was a HISTORICAL document based on OLD REPORTING. There was NO NEW THREAT INFORMATION."
Since the August 6 briefing is about to be released to the public, I believe Condi is teling the truth.
Otherwise she'd face charges of perjury, humiliation, the end of her career and quite possibly prison.
And that would be, you know, bad.
Also, since it IS STILL CLASSIFIED, there's NO WAY whoever wrote "this interesting bit of fact" could POSSIBLY know that it warned of airline hijackings by al Qaeda or of anything else.
So your information was flat-out wrong. Sorry.
But DID do great in those hearings. You were right about that.

What I think a lot of people here are missing is that you can read about something happening in a novel or watch it in a movie and still not be able to imagine that it could really happen.

This doesn't get said that often, but I love living in New Jersey.

So, you enjoy long lines at the gas stations online the Garden State Parkway because everyone there is too stupid to be trusted to pump their own gas?

John Kerry wants to raise the gas tax. Just something for you Bush haters to ponder. The unemployment rate is the same as Bill Clinton's 2nd term in office. Just something for you Bush haters to ponder. Bill Clinton gave a report to congress during his 2nd administration stating Hussein had weopons of mass destruction. just something for you Bush haters to ponder. John Kerry, in a letter to Bill Clinton said congress would approve a preemptive strike against Iraq if Clinton ordered one. Just something for you Bush haters to ponder at.
Do some research before you go jump all over someone.

Sorry, Craig. If you are talking about the majority of Iraqis, then you are just misinformed.

Really?

Could have fooled me.

People that actually want freedom usually fight for it.

But yet, only now, once we've given them freedom, are they fighting. And they're fighting us.

Perhaps you were reading somebody elses post or something, because they don't want our democracy.

I don't see how it can be any plainer than that.

And don't forget to separate those two terms: freedom and democracy.

They are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

The unemployment rate is the same as Bill Clinton's 2nd term in office. Just something for you Bush haters to ponder.

From what I've read, the unemployment rate is figured differently than from when Clinton was in office.

But, you'd have to be pretty damn blind to see that there haven't been 2 million jobs created to make up for the 2 million lost.

Unless you count all those new burger joints and Wal-Marts as "created" jobs. I sure as hell don't.
I didn't go to college to flip burgers, and I'm sure alot of other people didn't either. Yet, that's what we're going to be stuck with before long.
And even then, we get to compete with the illegals for even that.

Now you know why Bush wanted to reclassify burger flippers as "manufacturing" - he has to make up the lost manufacturing jobs somewhere.

Bill Clinton gave a report to congress during his 2nd administration stating Hussein had weopons of mass destruction. just something for you Bush haters to ponder. John Kerry, in a letter to Bill Clinton said congress would approve a preemptive strike against Iraq if Clinton ordered one. Just something for you Bush haters to ponder at.

It's funny how the Bushies keep harping on the point that Clinton said that Saddam had WMD, as if that makes everything all right.

Tell me, who decided that the reports that Saddam MAY have WMD was worth the risk of getting us in the quagmire that we are in now?

Greg wrote: "Secondly, its eleven members, as noted, are countries rather than corporations. Do you think countries should be treated in exactly the same way as companies?"

I don't know. That's an interesting question. But aren't we already heading in that direction? Libya, for example, was sued by the family members of those killed in the Lockerbie terrorist incident.

I do know that if a cartel looks like a monoply, acts like a monopoly, and wields power like a monopoly, then perhaps it IS a monoply. OPEC certainly has all of the organization traits anti-monoply laws were designed to guard against.

Russ Maheras

The title of the presidential brief Condi gave to Bush WAS titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack United States".
That IS NOT the same as "INSIDE the United States", so that could have been taken to mean any of our embassies, businesses or others around the world.

Sorry, Jerome, but you're just plain wrong here (a common trait among folks who get their news from conservative talk radio). I'm looking at the full, unedited transcript of Condi's testimony right now from the New York Times, and here is the passage in question:

BEN-VENISTE. Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the Aug. 6 P.D.B. warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that P.D.B.

RICE. I believe the title was Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States. Now, the P.D.B. -

BEN-VENISTE. Thank you.

But let's face it: between the crummy economy, the loss of jobs, the mounting bodies in Iraq, and now the revelation that the Administration did diddly-squat about stopping terrorism before 9/11, the only hope Bush has left of getting re-elected is to lie like hell.

Craig wrote: "People that actually want freedom usually fight for it. But yet, only now, once we've given them freedom, are they fighting. And they're fighting us. Perhaps you were reading somebody elses post or something, because they don't want our democracy."

There are plenty of Iraqis fighting alongside WITH coalition forces. Why do you think the insurgents bomb Iraqi police stations, Iraqi military recruiting operations, etc.? There are currently tens of thousands of police and Iraqi military people working in cooperation with the coalition.

By the way, coalition forces carry out more than 1500 patrols every single day -- only a tiny fraction of which are actually attacked. Baghdad alone has 5 million residents, most of whom are armed. Believe me, if the majority of Iraqis wanted us out tomorrow and staged a mass uprising, the coalition would be overrun in 24 hours.

Every day, tens of thousands of Iraqis are working alongside coalition forces to rebuild the infrastructure of the country, but such information is not considered sexy enough news to most media members. Remember the old media addage: If it bleeds, it leads.

If you truly want to find out what is really going on in Iraq, talk to the GIs who are on the ground in country -- they are an apolitical bunch who just want to finish what they were ordered to start, and then come home.

Do you really believe Iraqis were better off under Saddam's dictatorship then an Iraqi-crafted democracy (which is really what they are getting), or are you just arguing the point because a successful democracy in Iraq might mean Bush gets re-elected?

If you are being motivated at all by the latter, I find it disgusting. If you actually believe the former, then I'm at a loss of what to say. What rational person chooses dictatorship over democracy?

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. In 32 years of voting, I have rarely ever voted a straight party ticket in any election. The reason I vote this way is because I feel that once I align myself with one single party, that means my thought process about the issues has ceased. I refuse to do that because I refuse to be someone's drone. Are you a drone regarding Iraq, or are you a free-thinker?

Russ Maheras

"But, you'd have to be pretty damn blind to see that there haven't been 2 million jobs created to make up for the 2 million lost."

You know, it's remarkably hard to get simple answers to basic questions like just exactly how many people ARE employed? I've read that more people are working now than 2 years ago...but since the population is larger, this doesn't instantly mean job creation.

Meanwhile, the "2 million jobs lost" figure keeps getting bandies about even though the last few month have had close to a half million jobs created. And if I understand it correctly, the official unemployment figures are oddly compiled--if you lose a job at a factory and open your own business you may well not be counted.

At any rate, you'd have to be blindly hating Bush not to have seen significant improvements in the economy. If it's not enough, hey, that's fine. If you think Kerry can do better, great. I haven't heard to much from Kerry about undoing the Bush tax cuts so I don't know exactly what he will do differently but with a good GDP, relatively low unemployment (5.7 would once have been considered a great number) and low inflation it might be best to do nothing and just take the credit.

I've always thought people were awfully naive to think that the President has a whole lot to do with the economy anyway, good or bad. But fiar is fair--if it was called the Bush Recession you can't complain when things get better and it becomes the Bush Recover.

Jonathan (the other one),

While there is a remote chance that you're right and Saddam didn't have WMDs of any kind and lied about it or was misinformed or whatever, that really has nothing to do with Peter's contention that Bush just imagined it, does it?

After Gulf War I, terms of Iraq's surrender included that Iraq list all WMds currently in its possession, so that the U.N. could set about a schedule for disarming the weapons. Saddam was increasingly uncooperative, and in 1998 kicked out the U.N. weapons inspectors (the ones overseeing the disarming).

So for four years, Saddam had time to use, hide, move, disarm, whatever these WMDs--without the U.N. (or the U.S.) knowing what happened.

It is such a mistake to say that the Bush Administration "lied" about the WMD threat--when Iraq had acknowledged that they did indeed have WMDs!!!

Let's say that I give you a challenge--to find the 12 basketballs marked "WMD" that I hid in the state of California. Only you can't start looking until the year 2008. And between now and then, I may have friends of mine smuggle said basketballs into Nevada, Oregon, or even Mexico.

What I think the "Bushies" are trying to say, in response to Den's comments, is that the Democrats who are accusing Bush of going into Iraq under false pretenses, after advocating the same actions under the Clinton administration, are attacking Bush for political reasons, because if reality were introduced they wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

But I do see the point of the Bush critics...sure, nobody had any reason to think that Bin Laden would ever attack anyone in the USA. I mean, c'mon! It's...unimaginable! So when they got a memo announcing the astounding, hard to belive reality that, yes, Bin laden DID want to attack the USA...well, after picking their jaws off the floor they should have put the whole country on double secret red alert.

I wonder what other memos from the prestigious Duh Institute we are unaware of?

Fanzig, if Saddam had been in possession of nukes, given his plentifully-demonstrated mental instability, would he not have used them during the first Gulf War? Since this did not happen, a reasonable person could come to the conclusion that the weapons in question did not exist. This opinion would be further bolstered by the fact that foreign inspectors had been combing Iraq for some time, and come up with absolutely no evidence that any of the weapons, even the chemical and bio weapons, had survived the treaty that let Saddam keep his country. Thus, the oft-repeated contention at the time (and yes, no matter how many times Bush and his handlers deny it, the contention was presented often) that Iraqi forces had thousands of tons of bioweapons, hundreds of chemical warheads, and at least some nukes required someone's imagination. I don't think it was Dubya's - I don't think he's that smart, really - but someone came to the conclusion that the UN teams were wrong, the CIA was wrong, the NSA was wrong, and the evidence of history was wrong. They had to be wrong, after all - if you were to trust them more than you trusted Saddam's hollow threats, there'd be no rush to attack without building a real coalition first!

I guess nobody ever read either Dubya or Cheney the classic tale of "The Emperor's New Clothes"...

"Yes, we still need to work on our democracy, but do we have the right to inflict it on others? Do the Iraqi people not have the right to manifest their own destiny?"

There's the rub. Remember the Evil Empire? The late Soviet Union? Seems more and more people there miss those "good old days". Not because they were on top or part of the oppressors, but just because at least they had a sort of stability and knew where their next meal was coming from. Under the new regime, this isn't always a sure thing. Yes, I live under a supposedly democratic government (Canada) but democracy doesn't put food on the table and there are certain practical considerations which can trump idiological ones.

No, I'm not poor and starving and I'm not referring to myself. But that there just may be people in Iraq who aren't looking at our 'gift' of democracy in quite the same way as we do. "Walk a mile in their shoes... etc".

"down to Starbuck's for the privilege of paying $3+ for a cup of coffee."

I don't. But which alternative do I have to paying through the nose at the corner gas station when the price differs by only a fraction of a cent from one end of the city to the other?

"Ideally, what we are fighting for in Iraq is the ability of the Iraqi people to manifest their own destiny. Under Saddam Hussein, that was impossible."

And what if what they wish as their destiny is a Stalin-like ruler who will ensure they are crime and violence free? Er, except for the violence perpetrated against them by their own government, of course. :p Do we go in and tell them "no, no, you've got it wrong"?

"While in England and Scotland two weeks ago, gas was about 80 pence a liter."

They aren't an oil producer. The U.S. and Canada are.

"Come on, man, these people hate Americans. All americans. They hate us. Why can't you realize that."

So, let's give them more reasons to hate us? Brilliant strategy, then.

"Assuming that it's true that Islamists and Islamofacists wish to kill us because we're
"infidels" what the heck kind of foreign policy is there that would refute and deflect that?"

The question there remains one I'm still waiting to see answered. There are a lot of other countries ruled by "infidels". But, other than Isreal, which have been specifically targetted by these fanatics, other than those who have sided openly with the U.S.? What I'm getting at here is that there seems to be a pattern of "if we leave them alone, they leave us alone". So, the fact that we're infidels may be at least in part a red herring. Perhaps nosybody foreign policy habits are indeed what's caused all the problems over the years?

Remember that the only obvious 'exception' to this was the bombing in Bali, but that there is strong evidence to show that was done to hit the Australians (a country which was part of the Iraqi invasion force) known to be in that night club.

"Thus, the oft-repeated contention at the time (and yes, no matter how many times Bush and his handlers deny it, the contention was presented often) that Iraqi forces had thousands of tons of bioweapons, hundreds of chemical warheads, and at least some nukes required someone's imagination."

So if I asked you to provide the quotes from administration officials that Saddam posessed "at least some nukes" you'd have little trouble providing it?

Isn't this great, we have people that read comic books as a hobby, discussing world politics, like we all really know what is going on.

I say let's have PAD return to the Hulk so that all may be right with the world again.

Star Wolf answered my statement, "While in England and Scotland two weeks ago, gas was about 80 pence a liter," with a reply of, "They aren't an oil producer. The U.S. and Canada are."

Uh, sorry to break this to you, but they've been pumping oil out of North Sea oil wells since the 1970s. As a matter of fact, in 1998, North Sea oil accounted for nine percent of the world's oil production. And the poor Brits are still paying three times what Americans are paying for their petrol.

As I said, most Americans (and I guess Canadians as well) are spoiled and don't even know it.

Russ Maheras

What I think the "Bushies" are trying to say, in response to Den's comments, is that the Democrats who are accusing Bush of going into Iraq under false pretenses, after advocating the same actions under the Clinton administration, are attacking Bush for political reasons, because if reality were introduced they wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Well, I'm neither a democrat nor a republican, so it doesn't matter to me what reasons someone has for criticising the administration. Politicians say lots of things all the time and 90% of it is pure rhetoric. What matters to me is who acted on this intelligence by sending our troops into this quagmire. Who stripped all nuance out of the intelligence reports, eliminating words like "may" or "possibly?" Who committed us to a long-term occupation in a country whose entire history is one of tribal blood feuds and iron-fisted rule and expected democracy to magically appear and take hold? Who has stretched our military forces dangerously thin? Who diverted resources last year away from hunting for the people who were actually behind 9/11 so that he could fix his daddy's mistake?

In short, who got us into this mess?

George W. Bush.

YES, he reads books. Go to hell anyone who wants to reply otherwise.

And yet, he's the one who says he doesn't read newspapers. His wife says otherwise.

If he can't even keep that straight, how can we expect him to run a country?

Heck, he could probably understand that Clancy book far better than I can because of all the fighter pilot terms, aircraft terminology, business market workings and government abbreviations that tended to make it slow going for me.)

That's only if you assume he actually went to flight school and all the stuff that goes along with actually *serving* in the military.

Do you really believe Iraqis were better off under Saddam's dictatorship then an Iraqi-crafted democracy (which is really what they are getting), or are you just arguing the point because a successful democracy in Iraq might mean Bush gets re-elected?

Iraqi-crafted democracy? When it's that going to happen? Before the next ice age?

All that's going on right now is that we watch our gov't pull the strings on what is and isn't going to be allowed in an Iraqi gov't.
So, again, it comes back to the fact that they're not getting what THEY want and what will work for THEM, rather than us.

As for Bush, if he gets reelected, I fear what this country has turned into.
Hell, I fear what this country has turned into already because he got elected the first time around.

But, we know that Iraq won't be stable any time soon, so we don't have to worry about that improving Bush's odds of getting reelected.

Either way, I'm not going to sit here and say that the ends justify the means since Saddam is captured... the country is in tatters and our gov't has no damn clue what to do about it.

Meanwhile, the "2 million jobs lost" figure keeps getting bandies about even though the last few month have had close to a half million jobs created.

Like I said, I want to see what KINDS of jobs are being created.

If it's Wal-Mart jobs, I'll just laugh at you. Hell, I'll laugh in your face till I pass out.

Who diverted resources last year away from hunting for the people who were actually behind 9/11 so that he could fix his daddy's mistake?

You know what's funny, is that there is no mistake on the part of George W the First. Atleast as far as I've read.

We went to Kuwait the first time around, and we did what we were allowed to do and set out to do: get Iraq out of Kuwait.
Afaik, we never were after Saddam.

Which makes things look worse for Bush.

So if I asked you to provide the quotes from administration officials that Saddam posessed "at least some nukes" you'd have little trouble providing it?

Here, try this one on for size:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3403519/

Including the gem:

"We believe that he [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons"

Speaker: the honorable Richard Cheney, March 2003. (The 16th, I believe.)

Now, he says what he meant was a reconstituted PROGRAM ... but that's most assuredly not what was actually said.

TWL

Robert Jung,
You are correct. I was wrong. I got a bunch of papers today, and somehow I read the quote wrong (probably tired from working 3rd shift). Both the New York Times and New York Post have the "Inside The United States" quote, by the way.
But please, don't assume all Bush supporters/ conservatives/ Republicans get their news from conservative talk radio. I very RARELY EVER listen to any of those shows, and have not listened to one second of them since I moved back to my hometown in January. I watch some TV. And I READ. A lot.

Robert Jung,
The title still doesn't change the fact this briefing contained "historical threat information" about the domestic danger of al Qaeda but no terror threat warnings that pointed to a potential - let alone imminent - attack.
"It did not warn of attacks inside the United States," Rice said. "It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information".
This is what Rice said under grilling from that obnoxious partisan schmuck Ben-Veniste.
As today's New York Post headline declares:
"The Lady Is A Champ".

Karen and Others,
To all those who would depict us as "shoving democracy down the Iraqi people's throats" and that "thousands of protests are being ignored" I have only one question:
After we got rid of Saddam Hussein, what would you have us do? Just leave? This assumes the competing Iraqi factions would get along and sing Kumbayah after we left. We are helping them rebuild (that's what the $87 billion is earmarked for - you know, the money Kerry voted for before he voted against? - because we realize that if a "free" Iraq does "not help them put food on their tables" then they will find it harder to see "freedom" as better than oppression.
Yes, thousands are protesting. About 60-100,000 people protest Roe v. Wade every January 22 and throughout the year. Do these people reflect the views of all Americans? And does that mean it should no longer be the law of the land?
We are taking the Iraqi people who are protesting into account, but the majority of the people there do want to be free. If you simply focus on the protesters you see on TV then you must also assume the majority of the Muslims in the Mideast are angry Islamic fanatics, since that is the way thousands are portrayed on TV as well. Deep down you seem to feel these protesters represent the wishes of the majority of the Iraqi people, and I would truly like to know why you are more inclined to see the angry protesters you see and hear as being more representative of the Iraqi people than the many who are working with us to construct a new, free Iraq and those who HAVE welcomed us with open arms.
They are more free now than they have been in years - maybe ever - and will continue to be if we have the fortitude to do what is right and stay the course.

After we got rid of Saddam Hussein, what would you have us do? Just leave?

See, I hate this type of reasoning over Iraq.

"Well, we're there, we can't leave now" and "We got Saddam didn't we?"

Well, we shouldn't have been there in the first place.
I said 3 years ago that the only way Bush would get reelected is if we were in a war, because people don't like to change leadership in times of war.
And here we are.

Yes, thousands are protesting

Please. People are protesting all over the world. Our enemies, our allies.

These aren't backyard hippie gatherings we're talking about.

They are more free now than they have been in years - maybe ever - and will continue to be if we have the fortitude to do what is right and stay the course.

I wish I could see things your way, but I can't.

Now that we're in Iraq, and we've attracted all the terorists from around the world (terrorists that weren't there before), the situation will drag on for years.

"Like I said, I want to see what KINDS of jobs are being created.

If it's Wal-Mart jobs, I'll just laugh at you. Hell, I'll laugh in your face till I pass out."

Funny, I don't remember that being a big consideration when the jobs were created under the previous administration. The fact is, manufacturing jobs have been vanishing for quite a while and probably aren't coming back any time soon. Unless you want to tariff the hell out of the goods we import...but that would almost certainly lead to economic disaster.

"Here, try this one on for size:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3403519/

Including the gem:

"We believe that he [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons"

Speaker: the honorable Richard Cheney, March 2003. (The 16th, I believe.)"

Now, he says what he meant was a reconstituted PROGRAM ... but that's most assuredly not what was actually said.

Well, I can't do any better than copy what Eugene Volokh wrote at http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-volokh063003.asp

"But then if you do a bit more research, you see a rather different picture. First, a clue that there might be more to see: People don't generally talk about "reconstituted nuclear weapons," but they often talk about a "reconstituted nuclear weapons program." That was my sense when I first heard the Cheney line, and a LEXIS-NEXIS search confirms this — all 15 pre-March 16 uses of the consecutive words "reconstituted nuclear weapons" were within the phrase "reconstituted nuclear weapons program."

I likewise did a hotbot.com Internet search for pre-March 16 uses of "reconstituted nuclear weapons," and found over 30. I then did a hotbot search for pre-March 16 uses of "reconstituted nuclear weapons" that didn't also include "reconstituted nuclear weapons program" (not a perfect way of checking how often "reconstituted nuclear weapons" has been used alone, but pretty close), and found two — both simply referring to "reconstituted nuclear weapons programme," using the English spelling. I also manually checked those pages yielded by the first hotbot query; some were no longer accessible or had been changed, but the remaining ones all referred to a "reconstituted nuclear weapons program."

It's the program that's being reconstituted, not the nuclear weapons. I suppose you might be able to rebuild a nuclear weapon that had earlier been dismantled, but I've never heard of that being referred to using the word "reconstitute." Maybe Cheney just misspoke, and was simply saying that Saddam was reconstituting his nuclear program, in order to eventually produce nuclear weapons — not claiming that Saddam already had a nuclear weapon.

Oh, but you might say — how could we know that? Well, maybe we could just have a close look at the whole transcript (which I found on NEXIS). And when we did, we would find that four times during the interview Cheney says that Saddam is just trying to get or produce weapons (or will try to get or produce them), not that he already has them:

And I think that would be the fear here, that even if he were tomorrow to give everything up, if he stays in power, we have to assume that as soon as the world is looking the other way and preoccupied with other issues, he will be back again rebuilding his BW and CW capabilities, and once again reconstituting his nuclear program. He has pursued nuclear weapons for over 20 years. Done absolutely everything he could to try to acquire that capability and if he were to cough up whatever he has in that regard now, even if it was complete and total, we have to assume tomorrow he would be right back in business again. . . .

We know he's reconstituted these [biological and chemical weapons] programs since the Gulf War. We know he's out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons . . . .

Well, I think I've just given it, Tim, in terms of the combination of his development and use of chemical weapons, his development of biological weapons, his pursuit of nuclear weapons. . . .

And over time, given Saddam's posture there, given the fact that he has a significant flow of cash as a result of the oil production of Iraq, it's only a matter of time until he acquires nuclear weapons. [All emphases added.]

If people actually looked at the entire transcript — or even searched for the word "nuclear" — they'd see that throughout the interview, Cheney was acknowledging that Saddam didn't yet have nuclear weapons ("Done absolutely everything he could to try to acquire that capability," "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons," "his pursuit of nuclear weapons," and especially "only a matter of time until he acquires nuclear weapons.")

What's more, the quote about "pursuit of nuclear weapons" comes immediately before the question in reply to which Cheney mentioned "reconstituted nuclear weapons." The one quote that people seize on must surely be Cheney misspeaking, not trying "to mislead the American public" or "reckless[ly] exaggerat[ing]."

Cheney is no fool; he wouldn't acknowledge several times in one interview that Saddam didn't yet have nuclear weapons, and then try to contradict himself right there. Rather, he must have made a slip of the sort that people often make when they're in an extemporaneous conversation. And this explains, I suspect, why Rumsfeld didn't think that Cheney said Saddam had nuclear weapons: Rumsfeld must know that Cheney doesn't believe such a thing, and that Cheney wouldn't intentionally say it."

So if you are determined to believe that adminsistration officials really said many many times that Saddam had nukes Cheney's slip gives you a bit of ammunition. If you're interested in the truth, you might find the above a convincing explanation. Since you said it was an "oft-repeated contention" that Saddam had nukes I was hoping for something a bit more straightforward.

Joe V,
Yes, the people who are posting here - or most of them, anyway - read comic books. This does not preclude us from having not only strong but informed opinions about what is going on in the world. The fact that the people who post on this site actually have an interest in reading puts them (and me) in a dwindling fraternity of those who actually do so, as evidenced by declining newspaper and newsmagazine circulations, etc. I have been involved in politics for many years. I founded and environmental club in college AND was president of my College Republicans group, in addition to being class president (How's THAT for a trifecta?). In 2002 alone, I was involved in four winning PA State House Races. And you know what? The debates I have had with the people in the short time i have been posting on this site is a heckuva lot more interesting, thought-provoking,honest and informed than the vast majority of conversations I have had with my political colleagues and adversaries and damn sure beats the "conversations" I have with most of the rest of the people I encounter which usually comes down to the "Bush sucks!" or "We should nuke the whole Mideast! Screw those arab bastards!" type of discourse.
Maybe MORE people should read comic books. Then maybe we would eventually have more people interested in reading, the arts, and making informed choices in regard to their government and its policies.

Yay and verily....informed political discussions from all sides of the political spectrum...the sure-fire way to REALLY piss you off (no fun debating folks who don't know what they're talking about, you know....)

Craig Ries,
1.) As Ive stated before, not do I feel in the end that this was a necessary preemptive strike - which I actually did struggle with for a LONG time and which I know you vehemently disagree with - but I feel even more strongly and with absolute confidence that helping the Iraqi people attain and sustain a freer and self-governing society will not only inspire some who would lean toward the terrorist way of thinking, but inspire many more freedom-loving people in the Mid East that freedom is a viable concept. It will be a beacon and help stabilize the region.
You may feel differently, but i really feel doing so shows "lack of imagination".

I've read the Volokh article, Bill -- in fact, I came across it while finding Cheney's exact quote.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that the only time the phrase is generally used is in the context of a program.

Just one problem: as I said before, that is NOT what Cheney actually said. I, for one, have difficulty believing that he doesn't pick his words pretty carefully, particularly when going on national television where he's got to know his words are going to be repeated and analyzed for millions of people.

When you take that quote in combination with "we don't want the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud" (said repeatedly by both Bush and Rice), and the implication to the American public is extremely clear.

Sure, Volokh's "explanation" is enough to keep Cheney's statement from being an outright lie, just as the weasel-phrase "British intelligence has learned that" keeps the infamous "16 words" in the State of the Union from being an outright lie and thus impeachable.

It doesn't mean it's not deceptive. If I put "Bush Sexually Abuses Dead Fowl" on page 1, and two days later publish a page-22 correction that he was actually only seen stuffing a Thanksgiving turkey, I don't think a reasonable human being would think that constituted fair treatment.

I don't think that was a slip of the tongue for Cheney. I think it was a deliberate bit of fear-mongering.

TWL

BTW, Bill, I'm not the one who said it was an oft-repeated contention. Just for the sake of accuracy.

TWL

Tim,

You're right, I didn't mean to say that it was you who had said "oft repeated". The hazards of cramming too many comments in one posting.

Again, Cheney DID say "reconstituted nuclear weapons program" several times throughout the interval. Unfortunately, it is only the one time he left out weapon that ever gets mentioned.

And one further point--why was it not headline news the very next day that the vice president of the United States had claimd that the country we were about to invade had NUCLEAR WEAPONS??? Wouldn't that be fairly big news? I suspect that most people, hearing the interview as a whole came away with the idea he was trying to convey--that Iraq was full of dangerous WMD and planning on upgrading to the most dangerous ones.

I was attempting a little humor, with my previous comments. I know that just 'cause we read comics doesn't ALWAYS mean we live in a fantasy world (although some of us do seem to live in a fantasy world) and that we all have opinions and are involved in other interest. I too am involved in politics and although have a degree in education, I actually work for the banking industry.
But since I know PAD reads this I want to ask him a question that you all seem to be ignoring... WHERE THE HELL IS "TEENAGE NINJA MUTANT TURTLES"? Was it cancelled? Did Dreamwave loose the licensing? What's up?

"So, you enjoy long lines at the gas stations online the Garden State Parkway because everyone there is too stupid to be trusted to pump their own gas?"

People still take the parkway?!? Are they mad???

And one further point--why was it not headline news the very next day that the vice president of the United States had claimd that the country we were about to invade had NUCLEAR WEAPONS??? Wouldn't that be fairly big news?

I'm fairly certain it DID make the front page of most papers, actually. Not a six-column headline a la the Onion's "WA-" [headline continued on page 2], but I distinctly remember the newspapers and newsfeeds I looked at considering this a Highly Big Deal.

Hell, if you want to get into the "why wasn't X a huge story", I've got a swooningly long list of X's to bring up...

TWL

You may feel differently, but i really feel doing so shows "lack of imagination".

Of course I feel differently. It wouldn't be an argument otherwise. :)

The whole mess that is now Iraq came about because Bush wanted to take out Saddam, regardless.
Saddam could have honestly converted to Christianity and Bush still would have done this.

Sure, eventually, we might actually help the Iraqi people.
But that doesn't convince me that we needed to start our sudden (and unconvincing) "humanitarian conquering" with Iraq. There are many other places that we could have overthrown a dictator and tried to give the people freedom and democracy.

The fact that Iraq was the first choice, that it's supposedly part of the "war on terror", when in fact the terror didn't arrive till after we got there, and Afghanistan is still sitting near Square One... well, you can see that this isn't adding up at all.

"I'm fairly certain it DID make the front page of most papers, actually. Not a six-column headline a la the Onion's "WA-" [headline continued on page 2], but I distinctly remember the newspapers and newsfeeds I looked at considering this a Highly Big Deal."

And I'm fairly certain it didn't...but we may well just be reading different papers! I do know that the Washington Post, no great friend of the administration, saw through the mistake--they pointed out that Cheney had "contradicted himself" during the interview by saying that iraq had no such weapons and 4 days later, in a dana Milbank article, they mentioned that Cheney's aides had already clarified his remarks by saying that he meant weapons programs. It seems that the significance of this statement was not all that great at the time and quickly clarified. I haven't found any headlines dealing with it at the time (by no means an exhaustive search--I'm getting ready for a trip to pennsylvania to spend easter break with my girls).

So...while this is certainly fair game, no denying, if this is the best example of Bush administration people claiming that Iraq possessed nukes I think it's safe to say that the claims that this was an idea that was actively put out there are less than accurate.

Anyway, have a great vaction everyone. Drive safely, drink in mederation and give your loved ones a hug.

Re: "people who read comic books" debating political issues.

Let's go for one from each end of the spectrum; Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont is such a big Batman fan that he did a voice role on the first Dini-Timm Batman:TAS (Governor in the Jonah Hex episode). Justice Clarence Thomas was a major Milestone Comics fan, Icon in particular, and told Dwayne McDuffie he was a big Rawhide Kid fan in his youth.

And, just for the heck of it, per Joe Straczynski who got it from Bruce Boxleitner, Karl Rove told Boxleitner that Babylon 5 was his and Dubya's favorite sf tv show ever. And Rove made a special effort to track down Boxleitner when he was in D.C. to tell him that; we're not talking saying something in a receiving line to be polite.

Side comment about Boxleitner: I heard him on a radio talk show a few weeks back hosted by Jerry Doyle. They talked a lot about being conservatives in Hollywood and how it creates stress in the career and limits it sometimes. Bruce said he is just about convinced the only reason he's allowed in the room at the SAG is because he's married to Melissa Gilbert (D).

Hello, this will be my last post for this thread. It has been most wonderful to read & share some ideas w/ others, but I find that this thread has perhaps gone long enough. No one here is going to change anyone’s mind. Some will continue to love GWB & some will continue to despise him.

And as the saying goes, "that's ok".

We live in a wonderful country were we are allowed to think & feel. To each their own. What I find troubling is how defensive some of us get. I mean, if we met in a convention, in a line waiting to get an autograph from PAD, why we'd be talking about comics & such. But here we are ready to go to war against each other over differences of opinions. I could write a 50-page letter telling you why what most of what Bush is doing is right. Some of you can write a 50-page letter telling me why what Bush is doing is wrong.

Like I said earlier, no one is going to change anybodies mind. Am I going to stop reading PAD’s work because I don’t agree with his political ideology, of course not. That would be silly & petty & I would miss out on some great comic stories.

I hate the X-Men. I don't care for them. BUT there are those who love the X-Men. There is nothing that I can say to a person that loves the X-Men to convince them otherwise. I could tell them how the JLA would mop the floor with them. How Superman & Wonder Woman all by themselves could destroy the X-Men. But to that X-Fan, nothing I say will make a difference.

I love Batman. I think he is the greatest character ever created. I think he can beat anyone. Some would argue with me about how Wolvie would cut him to ribbons, or why Spidey is a better character. That won't make a difference to me, because to me, Batman rules.

Some are Marvel people, some are DC people. I’m a DC guy, although I do pick up Marvel’s Ultimate line.

Even the closest of people disagree. I don’t agree with everything my wife does or say. Same goes for my parents. But we do keep civil, even during arguments or debates

Most everyone in this thread made valid comments. But the points have started to repeat themselves. The Bush haters have all pretty much said the same things. The Bush supporters have pretty much said the same things. Some have even begun to call other names, & make fun of the opinions of others. The civility is being held by a thin layer of ice.

I find it funny that we all come to this site because of one thing, being PAD, yet instead of celebrating what we have in common (A love for the work that PAD puts out)we spend days arguing back and forth about something that no one can make another agree on.

Do I feel safer knowing Saddam is no longer out there? Absolutely! Does PAD? Probably not (I don't mean to speak for you, Peter, just gathering from the comments I've read.)

Do I think Iraq had WOMD? Yes. Do I think they were able to hide them or Destroy them? Yes. Do others, No.

Can Bush or anyone else have stopped 9-11, I think most of us agree that was a no.

I like cats & i like dogs. I've got 2 of both. Some people hate cats, some hate dogs. I like them both, & there are those out there that agree with a little both sides had to offer.

All I can say that HATE is an ugly word, & an even uglier emotion. Hate is what led those Bastards to bring down the WTC. Be careful. Some of you say that you hate GWB. Why? What did he actually do to you? Really. I’ve my disagreements over what the administration does sometimes. I will whenever the next administration comes in also. But really, How is any of your lives really different with GWB in power. I go to work every day, my mortgage is always due on the 15th of the month, we shop, we travel, we do stuff. My life hasn’t changed. You don’t like his policies, is that a reason to hate him. Call him a hillbilly & dumb because He’s not articulate. When you insult him the way you do, what you do is several things, you insult the people that voted for him, & wors, you insult the people that grew up in the same place or similar situation as him.

Our soldiers dying is a horrible thing. But please, & I say this with the utmost respect, love & admiration to the armed forces, as my dad & both grandads are veterans. My dad served in 'Nam & in Panama (when the US took out Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega), & both my grand dads served in Korea, but the people that join know what they are getting into. What do you all think an army does? We are a military country, we’ve been that way since WW 2. You join the army for what, to have them pay your student loan? Our men & women joined up voluntarily. They weren’t grabbed of the street & made to serve, they enlisted. Same goes for the National Guard & Reserves. We are a powerful country because we have a powerful army. And armies fight wars. The price of our freedom has always been the blood of our soldiers. Some of you will disagree. That’s fine. It’s your right to be entitled to such opinion.

We achieved our independence by the blood of our militia, we saved our country from civil war by the blood of the army, and we won WW 2 by the blood of our army. It has always been our army protecting us.

What do you think our soldiers do when they read some of the comments made by some of us here? Or don’t you think they don’t have Internet over there? You call their commander in chief an idiot, a hillbilly or worse. You tell them what they are doing is wrong, & a failure & they shouldn’t bother trying.

C’mon guys, tearing up & insulting each other isn’t going to change anything. Lets grab to what we all have in common, a love for comics, & the writing of a truly gifted writer. Let’s quit with the insults to one another. Offer your point, but respect the other people.

Thank you for your time & I look forward to exchanging ideas with all of you.

Joe V.

Gee, it sound as though that 8/6/01 memo, while not a "smoking gun", sure shows a lack of imagination on the part of the Bush Administration.

Isn't it great to see we take the POTENTIAL of a threat seriously only after it's already been used successfully.

Let's see a show of hands on whether or not we could have had stronger airport security pre-9/11?

Hi there everyone from Spain.
I'm a Spanish guy who has been coming to this website lately, and I've been trying to read all the posts I can (there are so many). I'll try to make an effort with my english so you can understand me.

My contry has been shaken recently with terrorist atacks, and a lot of people have died. And, for sure, more people will.
I want to state some things first: I dont hate americans, my opinion isn't against the U.S. and I admired that you seemed so united after the 11-S (at least thats what TV showed). I read your comics, watch your movies and buy other stuff from your country.I enjoy this things, I respect you people.
But I can tell you what I (and lots and lots of other people) feel about how your goverment reacts. Not only Bush's administration. I'll try to explain my point of view. In Spain we had ETA terrorists, bomb exploding and all that stuff...Bush said that he went to Iraq to make the world a safer place, but it's obvious that money is stronger than peace and comprehension. 11-S was horrible, but people can't kill other people so lightly, or at least they shouldn't. I see Bush on TV saying that they wont give up to a few terrorists and murderers, and that they will continue. But then I see 100 people blown up in a temple. Not terrorists. Inocent people.

All I want to say is that after the "actions for a better and safer world", the world is not safer. Is more dangerous. In Spain people have died because our goverment backed Bush's decision. Even after the whole country stood up against the war.
How can we stop that? I don't know, but I think that you (or your army or whatever) can't go around killing poor people. Terrorists must be caught. But inocent people can't be paying with their lifes for that. Maybe we, the occidental world, can't completely understand the way they think, the way they live they religion...but that doesn't make them less human.
Get the terrorists, get THEM, but dont start a war on inocent people. It's sad to me that, not only U.S., many countries accept the death of people for money. Because, seriously, that's almost all it goes about.
Look the History books and you will see in how many wars have been the U.S. involved the last century. I beg to the people in charge: STOP PROMOTING WAR. War isn't the way. Dont kill inocent people. Stop the Janet Jackson silly thing (damn, it's just a breast), don't get so spiritual with The Passion of the Christ (hey, not bad feeling about catolic people)and try to actually make a better world.
But that's impossible. War will continue. People will die.
Terrorism will go on, now and always will be, because there will allways exist lunatics and murderers, with or without war. Don't fool yourselfs.
Now people of my own countrie (country?) will die because of lunatics and because of money.

One last thing that comes to my mind.
Once I read in this forums someone saying something like "a big percentage of europeans regrets that Hitler didn't finish the job"..........what the hell is that? please excuse me but that's soooooooooooooooo...better shut my mouth..
I don't know but sometimes with some potsts in this forum I get the feeling that people talk about European contries as if they were other worlds and we were stupid...please, be a little bit more open-minded.

Bruno,
That was not the only comment in poor taste. Some people post before they think, some post exactly the nasty things that are in their minds. I hope you know that the majority of Americans do not think like that.

"But then I see 100 people blown up in a temple. Not terrorists. Inocent people."

Bruno,
About the mosque that was hit in Iraq; there was a news report (again only stating what i read)that there were Sheites distributing weaopons in there to people. I'm sure there were innocent people in there also, & I'm not condoning the act, but that was the reason for the attack of the Mosque.

War isn't the way.

Bullshit.

Peace under these conditions is merely the horrible status quo between conflicts and actions that create positive change!

CJA

Craig wrote: "Isn't it great to see we take the POTENTIAL of a threat seriously only after it's already been used successfully."

That's the American way. Always has been, it seems. Someone has to hit us over the head before we realize that adversary means business. After the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that led to our involvement in World War II, you'd think we would've learned our lesson. But no, we were surprised again just nine years later in 1950 when the North Koreans suddenly invaded South Korea. Not only were we again caught by surprise, but we came within a hairsbreadth of losing that war. There are plenty of other examples as well. The surprise attack by North Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive, for example. Although we won virtually all of the battles during that coordinated, country-wide offensive, there were so many U.S. casualties, and so much surpise at the large number of attackers involved, it is looked upon by many as the turning point of the war from a standpoint of U.S. public opinion. More recently in Lebanon, we had more than two hundred Marines killed like sitting ducks in their rooms by a truck bomb during U.S. peacekeeping operations there. This, even after we knew terrorists were starting to use large truck bombs as weapons. The World Trade Center attack (not the first attack under Clinton's watch in 1993 -- the attack under Bush's watch eight years later that finished the job) was our latest in a long history of "wake-up" calls.

The problem with our "surprise attack" track record in THIS day and age, however, is that if (or should I saw when) a nuke is eventually used by terrorists, there might not be a U.S. government left anymore to argue with each other about which party's fault the attack was.

Russ Maheras

The Blue Spider,
I agree. For those who feel "war is NEVER the answer, I would just say: 'That depends on the question now, doesn't it?'
War has ended slavery, fascism, Sovirt totalitarianism, but other than that, it has limited benefits.
For those who say, "The best way to solve problems is to not have any enemies", well, war solves that problem too. If we proceed the right way, we won't have nearly as many enemies because we're going to kill them.
For those who say "violence only begets more violence, I say, "You're right! They killed three thousand Americans and now we're going to kill them."

the previous statement may seem a little rough, but I have witnessed in my lifetime, the effects of appeasement, which most Democrats/liberals seem to favor.
From FDR on, Democratic presidents were only feebly opposed to Soviet expansionism (FDR called Joseph Stalin "Uncle Joe", glossing over the fact he killed FIFTEEN MILLION people during his reign)
But the worst was Jimmy Carter, who perhaps most naively believed if we were "fair" to the Arab world and our other enemies and let them sort out their own business, it would benefit us.
The result, of course, was disaster after disaster.
Under carter's watch, Soviet-backed Marxists came to power in Nicaragua, the Seychelles and Grenada. The Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan. Carter lifted the ban on travel to Cuba and North Korea. Also, with his impeccable timing, Carter gave a speech on May 22, 1977 exhorting Americans to abandon their "inordinate fear of Communism". days later Cuba dispatched a military force to Ethiopia.
But besides being weak on Communism, Carter abandoned our one Arab ally in the Mideast, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran.
Carter withdrew American support for the Shah in 1978 and then stood idly by when, weeks later, the Shah was deposed by a mob of Islamic fanatics. The Shah was pro-West. So what? seemed to be the response of most liberals.
Indeed, Carter's U.N. ambassador Andrew Young actually said that the Ayatollah Khomeini would "eventually be hailed as a saint."
He was not alone.
Richard Falk of Princeton also praised khomeini, and predicted that he "may yet provide us with a desperately needed model of humane governance for a Third World country.
And in what sounds eerily familiar to arguments being made today, Ramsey Clark, an avid "peace activist' in the war on terrorism returned from a meeting with Khomeini in Paris in 1979 and urged the u.S. government to take no action to help the Shah. He argued that Iran should be able to "determine its own fate." Clark implored members of Congress not to come to the Shah's defense.

So soon after Carter allowed the pr-Western Shah to be deposed by a raving anti-American Islamic mob, the mob seized the American embassy and took fifty-two Americans hostage, an act that i feel is a shining example of liberal american diplomacy. It resulted in American citizens being held captive by angry barbarians in a frightening land for 444 days, during which time carter's sole mission to rescue them ended with a helicopter crashing in the desert.
Of course, the hostages were finally freed - the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated and they knew they wouldn't be able to screw with us anymore.
Appeasement and "being nice" simply DOES NOT work with some people!

Karen,
The Hitler statement regarding Europe may not have been "sensitive", but it is correct. Anti-semitism IS rising in France and Germany. Which is kind of ironic seeing as how these countries are repeatedly used as examples of how WE should be.
Sorry if the truth hurts anyone, but it is the truth.

Terrorists must be caught. But inocent people can't be paying with their lifes for that. Maybe we, the occidental world, can't completely understand the way they think, the way they live they religion...but that doesn't make them less human.

The major difference is that terrorists attack innocents intentionally, where we don't. Terrorists use mosques and civilians as shields to try to prevent attack.

The violent upswing in Iraq is not surprising with the June deadline looming. Right now, one of the things keeping al-Sadr in business is that it is considered an American occupation. Once Iraq has control, they lose part of the argument. That's why we have to stick to that deadline. If we continue to postpone each time there is an uptick in attacks, we are allowing them to dictate the terms.

Well, it seems that more or less my english is understandable. I'll try to make it better this time.

KAREN
I hope so. And I'm glad to hear that. It's easy for people to generalize. I'll try to avoid that.

JOE V.
I also read that some of the people in the temple was shooting to the U.S. soldiers. And I also read on CNN that Bush's administration said that only one person died in the Mosque. And that doesn't seem quite true. With media manipulation it's hard to know exactly what happened.

THE BLUE SPIDER.

War is horrible, but sometimes it is necessary. I'll give you that. My own country was in civil war this century (1933-1936). And then we were under a dictatorship(Franco) until 1975 more or less.
War is necessary when people has to fight for their life, for their rights. Probably you saved our butts at the World War II. But tell me: what are you doing in Iraq? You got Saddam out of the power, that's great. Congratulations, seriously. But a year has passed and no weapons has been finded. And even Powell, I think it was him, said lately that maybe their information wasn't actully very precise a year ago. MAYBE?. Damn, they said that the weapons WERE THERE. They worked hard trying to make us belive that.What is your reason to be there now?. Now that american people is dying (is it spelled like that?): what are they dying for? It is not your land. It is not your country. You did a great thing, getting Saddam out. But what is your reason for keeping your people dying there? for money? To be sure that when the dust is down U.S. and allys will have they portion of the cake? Is that an ideal to die for?
"Peace under these conditions is merely the horrible status quo between conflicts and actions that create positive change!" For who?

Lots of technology improvements through history relate to war. War is, in lots of ways, bussines. Countries like U.S. oftenly promote war to reactivate economy. That's not a secret.

JEROME MAIDA
I'm sorry but I'm afraid I wasnt able to completly understand what you posted. You make reference to a lot of U.S. historical points and I'm not an expert at that.
One thing that comes to my mind sometimes. Let me explain. I know you had civil war. But since then: in how many wars have your country been involved, and how many of them have been in your territory? I think it is easier for the goverment and a percentage of the population to be willing to get into war when you know that you wont be hearing a single shot in your neighbourhood. You had terrorism, Spain also, but it is not the same.
Through the centuries many countries has played the "powerfull country" rol. Spain did it looong time ago. Spanish empire was known has the "empire where the sun never sets down". France did it with Napoleon, and lots of other countrys. Now is U.S.'s turn to be the strong one. The expansionist. But that doesn't last forever. Try to make things better, to make a better world to live in, because maybe in the future you wont be so strong. (well, that was speculation, but whatever.)Be more opened to the world.
Anti-semitism is growing in Europe as it could grow in other places. I live in Ibiza Island and it is full of inmigrants, muslims. And after what is happening lately in Spain, sometimes people have a bad feeling but you have to live with it. You can't make them all pay for what a few lunatics did.

Well, thats all for now hehe. I don't want you people to feel my opinion like an insult or whatever to you. Most of my opinions are questions I was asking myself about your country, to understand what american people (not the goverment) think about all that.

Thank you

OFFTOPIC:
PETER DAVID (why is written PAD?)
Love your Hulk comic-books. Actually thats how I found out about this web. They are reprinting your whole Hulk run here, I'm reading it for the first time and I'm enjoying it a lot. I loved Captain Marvel also.

Regards :)

Several people here said most Iraqis don't want us there. To that, I say take a look at this recent ABC poll of 2700 Iraqis: http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/GoodMorningAmerica/Iraq_anniversary_poll_040314.html

I think by anyone's standards, "most people" is an exaggeration -- especially if you happen to be Kurdish.

Dude,

I'm sorry but a tiny poll of less then 3000 people who were probably easy to poll because they were the pro U.S. people rather then the ones in hiding, on the run or in combat with our troops is week. Look at a lot of the other numbers that scrub that thing. We've just racked up a total of 700 kills in the most recent fun and games there in a region that we haven't come close to securing. We have groups that have spent generations at each others throats putting aside their pissing at each other in order to deal with us. That's something even Saddam couldn't tick off some of them enough to do. Hate to prick Bush's PR blitz but I have friends who went and came back and went again who were gung-ho about going, told me I wasn't supporting my country by saying that Bush was an idiot and this private little war of his was stupid and told me when they got back that I was closer to right then they were and that it sucked what they saw of what many if not most the people of Iraq thought of us. Too many people confuse their joy of seeing Saddam go for them liking us. The two aren't the same thing. Iraq is/was a mess from the word go. They don't want an American style country for themselves. Now that we're there we're really screwed and when it's all said, done and collapsed, the deaths will have been wasted on a pointless crusade started by a clueless fool of a Pres.

So a poll that doesn't jibe with what liberals are CONVINCED is right must therefore be wrong! As the Church lady used to say, "How conveeeeeenieeeeeeent!"
Also, Jerry, while I respect these friends of yours and their opinions, there are many soldiers coming back from iraq in my area that have an opposing view about how the Iraqi people view us.
Oh, and if Bush is allowed to finish this, Iraq will not collapse, because we won't let it. It's the Democrats/liberals who abandon allies like the Shah and the South Vietnamese, and hightail it after events like Mogadishu in 1994. Republicans actually feel that once we start a fight, we should finish it. And we will. Despite the portrayals in the media, our military men and women are doing an excellent job. The fact that Iran and Syria are secretly supporting the "insurgents" shows how scared they are of us succeeding.
Which we will.

Jerome,

First- I'm not a liberal. hate to break it to you but I'm not. Look at my posts in this blog from above. I may not like Bush right now but I'm one of the people saying he didn't know about 9/11, couldn't have stopped it and that the 9/11 hearings are a stupid waste of time. Real liberal points of view, eh? I don't like polls from either side to be honost with you. How many polls showed Bush winning 2000 with a clear margin of 10% at least? How many showed Gore mopping the states with Bush? How many were ignored by the FOX, CNN, Newspaper and chat people because they showed something other then what they wanted. I saw lots of people stop using Zogbee(sp)because the didn't like what it was saying. 50/50 race to the bitter end.
I work around a political area (The VA Capitol). You don't think I've seen a hundred ways to warp a poll starting with the location or with the questions asked?
Second- Yes, our soldiers are doing a damned fine job. They are doing what they're told to do better then most people in other walks of life can and going above and beyond with it. But the guys I'm talking about are coming back changed in mindset, not to the job or the mission, about the success of what we're being told will happen in Bush's pipedream script. Yeah, I've got more then a few soldier friends who were gung ho, went and have stayed that way. But I've yet to meet anyone who went there saying that this was a foolish dream of Bush's and has now changed to a backer of this mess.
Third- You can bring up all the FOX News talking points you want and it only shows that you're not paying attention. I never said cut and run. Again, actually read what I've been saying here. I have stated quite clearly in this blog that I think we have to stay. We are stuck there until we can finish this in some way, shape or form. I just don't believe from looking at the history of the region, it's peoples or our track record over there that this is going to end as the grand glorious thing that Bush and company keep B.S.ing us that it will be.
The thing that I have taken a great dislike to Bush over this for is that it was a foolish thing done in a foolish way. We (the U.S.) went and stepped into a vipers nest that we had no real reason to get into to. Bush and company used 9/11 and the fear of the people of the U.S. to excuse this garbage and we are now well and truly stuck with it.

Bruno,
what do you mean they are repringtin david's run in spain. Wow, i wish marvel would do that here. They've reprinted all of Bruce Jones Arc but nothing from the PAD-meister. What's up with that?!!!!!
PAD, I've always had the feeling that Joe Quesada doesn't like you. You've met him so you know, but me as a fan i get that impression. I've got almost your entire run, but i'd still get the trades.

and as afar as anti semitismm on the rise... i don't think that it has changed since the bible days, the Jews seem to always be one of the most discriminated people on the planet now for 2 millenium. I just think that now we here more of it.

Jerry,
Sorry if I seemed to paint you with a broad LIBERAL brush. You actually have been more one of the more reasonable posters, even when I disagree with you.
I just have REALLY been getting nervous with the way this past week has been covered and people's reactions to it. Irealy feel if we DO cut and run, it will be disastrous, and I DO mean everything I said about most Democrats being appeasers. It always comes back to haunt us.
Finally, I wish you and other posters would stop assuming that people like myself simply regurgitate Fox News talking points. During the last seven years when i was in Philadelphia, i was unable to receive Fox News Channel. So until this past January, when I had to temporarily move back to my hometown I had NEVER seen "The O'Reilly Factor", "Hannity and Colmes" or any of the rest of FNC's programming.
I make my judgements by watching a variety of programs but mainly by reading a LOT of newspapers and books. I even read the NY Times a lot, even though I disagree with them a lot.
And I feel we just HAVE to stay the course in Iraq.

"Do you honestly believe that if Gore would have won the elction that 9-11 wouldn't have happened."

No. I do, however, believe that he would never have been granted the war powers necessary to attack Iraq, that the RAM (Republican Attack Machine) would have been on him before the dust of the Trade Center settled, laying the entirety of the responsibility upon him, and that the rest of his administration would have been mired in hearings with a very specific and direct purpose: How many ways can we blame this on Gore? The same conversatives who rallied behind Bush and established a mindset that criticizing the president was unpatriotic would have been on Gore like barnacles on a hull.

PAD

Jerome,

You get your wish in one way(not worded well. I know you don't want the soldiers in harms way). Don't worry. We won't cut and run no matter who is in office. Someone point out where I'm wrong but most, not all but most, leaders I know of who ran on "I'll get us out" became "we have to stay" once they came to power. Even this stuff with Spain seems to be going back and forth. Kerry and the Dems know that pulling out of Iraq, no matter what they say now, would be the second biggest mistake of the century (the first being going in like we did). Like I said, we're stuck. In that way, Bush played checkmate really well. It's also a bit of a overplay on how the press has played the last week in the hearings. Lot's of TV and talk radio coverage but not as much water cooler talk. And those that do are the same that always do and take the same side they always do.
You don't watch that much FOX News?!? I only said that because you write like they talk. Dude, go get a job with 'em. Make the big bucks. You're a shoe in :).

PAD can be backed up on this pretty easy. Don't even need to much imagination. Just the prior six years to Bush taking the White House.
One accusation that the RAM (like that) throws around to say that this is Clintons fault in some way is to point out how he gut the spy guys and their funding and never did anything to upgrade them. Big, fat wrong. Lie actually.
FBI counter terrorism budget was doubled in the 90's under Clinton. Look it up. Budget Office records of Congress show this for anyone who wants to find it. It might have been more if it hadn't been for such flaming libs as Hatch, Newt, Ashcroft and others. First they fought the funding, all on record, because it wasn't needed and they (Clinton admmin) needed to learn to use the resources and money the already had better. The Rep majority shot it down. Here's one that should jog a few memories. After Oklahoma City, siting both it and the Trade Towers from 93, the Clinton Whitehouse tried to get the intel agencies the increased wiretap and covert ops powers it needed to better track some of these groups and stop them before they struck again. How did RAM react? They slandered the FBI. It couldn't be trusted. They used the Sunday chat shows and talk twits like Rush to wage a war of lies. This wasn't for the safty of America. It was a Clinton power grab. This was just Billery working to create an enemies list to destroy people. Filegate, filegate, filegate!!!!! and so on. Go back and look at some of the stuff the Clinton Admin suggetsed doing. Some of it is almost the same stuff that Ashcroft did after 9/11 and spoke so highly about how great it was. Of course, when Clinton and company put it foward, he fought it and said that it was an assult on our freedoms.
Would the Reps attack the character of a Pres while or boys were in harms way? Yes. They did it to Clinton. They did it as men were under fire in Bosnia. They told lies over the air waves "Clinton has run the military so far down that they're running out of ammo. Someone attacks our boys and they can't defend themselves." Hannity amongst others. A fave of his. They would do the same to Gore if 9/11 happened on his watch.
How might it have been different? There is no way that I believe Gore would not have gone after Bin Laden. 2001 through 2003 would have played out about the same. But there's no way we would be in Iraq now trying to get people to forget that it's about WMDs and fool them into believing this is about giving liberty to the world. But many of the Reps would be just as low as they accuse the Dems of being now. And people wonder why I'm sick of both sides.

One thing I have to say with all this talk about the Republican Attack Machine is that there is no mention of the Democratic Attack Machine. Yes, believe it or not, for a party that wants to appease everyone from Stalin to the PLO, the Democrats have had enough backbone the last few years to absolutely second-guess Bush at every turn and talk about what a failure the War On Terrorism is while our men and women are under fire. The Patriot Act, which - as Condi Rice reminded us - has helped do away with bureaucracy and has helped the FBI, CIA, and the other agencies to work closer together, has been demonized by them - even Kerry, who voted for it - as trashing our civil liberties, wen even the liberal press has not been able to point out one instance where someone's civil rights ave been violated. John Ashcroft as been slandered unlike anyone I can ever recall. I would say you would swear he was Hitler, but I feel that a lot of these people would actually portray Hitler in a more positive manner. Some black groups have claimed that Condi Rice "is not really black", and it's funny ow NOW can celebrate Nancy Pelosi's rise, but don't have similar praise for a woman - and a black one at that - who is the National Security Adviser. I guess it's because she works for an "evil" administration.
And even though I feel a lot of the criticism of Clinton was vile and unwarranted, I have never seen either party's presidential candidates and elected officials base the rationale on their candidacies on spewing venom at Bush. It's Al Gore wo has said Bush "betrayed this country". It's Democratic elected officials like Cynthia McKinney who have literally said that Bush "knew about the attacks" and "let them happen."
Yeah, the Democratic Attack Machine is doing a DAM fine job.

Oh, and PAD, regarding the title of this blog, finally being proactive against terrorists rather than waiting for imminent threats to unveil themselves takes imagination.
Trying to make the Mideast a more stable, peaceful and freer place, which a lot of people asume can't be done, takes imagination.
Feeling that the WMD may be in Syria takes imagination.
Having the balls to try and reform Social Security before it goes broke and/or our young people pay a tremendous price due to inaction - while knowing your political enemies will roast you alive - takes imagination.
Reforming Medicare by passing and providing a prescription drug benefit for seniors that getts the AARP to back the plan takes imagination.
Trying to change our monopolistic public education system with a plan that wins the support of TED KENNEDY takes imagination.
INCREASING funding for the arts and passing a campaign finance law knowing that your conservative base hates both takes imagination.
To move forward on the idea of a palestinian state takes imagination.
You can't see the imagination in these proposals - regardless on how you feel about them - and you accuse the Bush Administration of lackinh imagination?
Maybe you should try looking in a mirror.

Oh, and for those who repeatedly feel we need permssion slips from our "allies" like France and Russia and the blessing of the hallowed United Nations before acting in American interests, there is a huge scandal brewing involving the U.N. AND our allies regarding Iraq.
Seems the (corrupt) U.N. and "allies" like France and Russia had a vested interest in keeping Saddam in power. That being corrupt money.
In Washington, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - following in the footsteps of the Iraqi Governing Council - last week held it's own hearings on the scam, the scam being a multibillion dollar corruption of the United Nations' Iraq Oil-for-Food program, the biggest scandal in the U.N.'s history.
The IGC had earlier hired top international accountants and lawyers to investigate powerful evidence found in Baghdad that Saddam Hussein used the program to reward sympathetic foreign politicians and companies - and that top U.N. officials, some of them on Saddam's take, turned a blind eye to kickbacks and sanctions-busting on a gargantuan scale.
And the U.S. General accounting Office has estimated that Saddam skimmed as much as $10 billion from the $47 billion program.

U.N. SCANDAL Pt. 2

It is not yet clear how much U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan knew about the shameful goings on, including the extent to which program administrators collaborated with Saddam's regime and conspired in the defrauding of the Iraqi Kurds.
But there is no doubt that Annan played a key role in setting the program up and appointed its chief administrator Benon Savan - whose name is reported to be on a list of untoward Oil-for-Food beneficiaries.
Last wednesday, the Senate committee eard that Saddam had skimmed millions from Oil-for-Food by purchasing and reselling for profit some 37,000 automobiles - including luxury cars and SUVs.
Oil-for-Food's official purpose, of course, was to let Iraq sell oil and use the funds to buy food and humanitarian goods like medicine.
Instead, and with the knowledge of U.N. officials, the money went for all kinds of non-humanitarian purchases, including building palaces, buying arms and bribing foreign politicians and opinion-makers.
And when food and genuine humanitarian goods WERE bought through the program, it was often at vastly inflated prices, with muc of the excess being kicked back to high-ranking officials of Saddam's now-defunct regime.

U.N. Scandal - Part 3
It has also been revealed that France and Russia were the two largest recipients of the Oil-for-Food largesse (kickbacks and payoffs). As Sen. Richard Lugar said last week, "The corruption...almost certainly contributed to the international division over containing and ultimately ousting Saddam Hussein."
Before anyone even considers giving the United Nations real power in Iraq (or anywhere else for that matter) the world must find out the full extent of the Oil-for-Food scandal.
Plus, what Kofi Annan knew - and when he knew it.
Wow! What a scandal! Involving Saddam Hussein, the United Nations, France and Russia!
I mean, who could have IMAGINED that?!

So a poll that doesn't jibe with what liberals are CONVINCED is right must therefore be wrong!

No, only the fact that some journalists probably aren't stupid enough to try and poll those that don't want us there, for fear of their lives.
And rightfully so.

But the other points made are correct: Sunnis and Shiites in some parts of Iraq are working to fight us, instead of each other.

For all of our training of Iraqis, alot won't fight their countrymen, and others are joining the insurgents.

Sure, we did the dirty work for them in getting rid of Saddam. But just because they cheered us for that doesn't mean they want us there still.
They DO look at us as just another occupying force.

I mean, who could have IMAGINED that?!

No worse than the thought that France and Russia didn't want Saddam out because of oil contracts.

But then, oil is part of the reason we are there.

Hell, I don't even think any Republican but a Bush could have done the BS that this Bush has.

Btw, I want to know: Why the hell are Republicans taking the moral high road with Iraq now against other countries?

Some countries might have wanted Saddam to stay in power for a variety of reasons: military contracts, oil contracts, frigging stability in the region was a damn good reason.

Yet, we're the one that put the bastard into power.

Oh, yeah, that should give us the right to take him out of power. Right...

Craig wrote: Some countries might have wanted Saddam to stay in power for a variety of reasons: military contracts, oil contracts, frigging stability in the region was a damn good reason. Yet, we're the one that put the bastard into power.

Where in the world do you get your information? The U.S. had nothing to do with Saddam's rise to the presidency in 1979. It's true that Saddam was covertly wooed by the Reagan administration in the early 1980s after he started a war with Iran, but Saddam's brutal rise to power was done all by his lonesome. Ironically, when Saddam was clawing his way to the top in the 1970s, the U.S. was actually friends with neighboring Iran.

I'll ask you a better BTW question.

Take out the WMDs (as the White House is now doing) from the reasons to go into Iraq. What is the prime reason that we could go in there. 1441. We had 11 or 12 resolutions that said Saddam had to do this stuff or else. We had 1441 that said that he had to disarm or else.
Just two problems. 1441 says that action would be taken. It did not say "full blown attack, war and occupation". Also, the start of that line is always wrong. It's not "we had" but "they had". 1441 is a U.N., not U.S., resolution. That's one of the reasons we should have been sseeking "permission slips". It wasn't our resolution to enforce. How does that matter? Two ways.
1) I'm a cop. I can enforce Va laws in my state. I can't go into Texas with my gun and badge and just decide that I'm going to enforce the law there, Texas or Va law, because I'm not a cop there. That action would actually make me a criminal there. I can't say, "Texas Law 1441 says this and your not doing the job so I will!" Even if I arrested/killed the worst mad-dog killer, I would go to jail as well because I broke the law. Texas aint Va and I have no leg to stand on as a cop there.
2) We enforced 1441 because Bush wanted to. He used 1441 as an excuse. OK. He and his supporters are the same people who have been flipping the U.N. the bird for years now. They have made fun of U.N. resolutions and claimed that we, the U.S., won't have anything to do with whatever U.N. act or resolution that the Rs didn't like that week. So now we're to believe that they find the U.N. resolutions to be writ in stone? And, even better, would they just sit back and say OK if someone else said that force was needed to get us to do what the U.N. said because, hey, the U.N. has a resolution?

Jerry wrote: "Dude, I'm sorry but a tiny poll of less then 3000 people who were probably easy to poll because they were the pro U.S. people rather then the ones in hiding, on the run or in combat with our troops is week."

Three thousand is a tiny sample size?!! You apparently don't know much about the science of polling. As far as the type and quality of the people being polled, it's true that that's an unknown. Suffice to say, however, ABC has far more access to the average Iraqi than any U.S. official, and what makes this poll interesting to me is the fact that ABC has never been a fan of the Bush Admiinistration.

Jerry wrote: "We have groups that have spent generations at each others throats putting aside their pissing at each other in order to deal with us."

The way I see it, there are only a few folks in Iraq actively doing this -- probably no more than a few thousand or so in a country of 28 million. In Afghanistan, our special forces guys have made great inroads with tribal infighting. I think it's still possible to do the same in Iraq -- especially after the new Iraqi government moves into power.

Jerry wrote: "Hate to prick Bush's PR blitz but I have friends who went and came back and went again who were gung-ho about going, told me I wasn't supporting my country by saying that Bush was an idiot and this private little war of his was stupid and told me when they got back that I was closer to right then they were and that it sucked what they saw of what many if not most the people of Iraq thought of us."

Yeah, well I have a number of colleagues who are in Iraq, and they are painting a very different picture. They are doing their job to the best of their ability, and tough as thing have been, almost all agree that significant progress has been made. Sure, there are problems, tensions, distrust, and death, but keep in mind that the Iraqis lived in fear for decades and tens of thousands were routinely tortured or killed by Saddam's thugs. It's no wonder they are suspicious and hateful.

I wouldn't write off Iraq yet. There are a lot of Iraqis who want this to work as much as we do.

Russ Maheras

Russ,

Jerome hit me with those points a while back and I've answered him/them already. Look above cause I really hate typing.
Plus, look at how much this is dragging on. One thing I hear all the time is, "look at Germany and Japan after WW II. We had to stay there and look at where they are now." Yeah, and look at how many fire fights we had to deal with there after WW II. Look at how many battles we had to get into. Scratching your head? That's because we didn't go through anything like this with either of them. And damned sure not one year after our then leader said that it was all done in his nice little staged photo op.
Look, I don't like what Bush has done or gotten us into. But we're there. Some of this is like a bunch of guys over pints talking over the play that should have been made in the 83 superbowl. Nice, fun but pointless (to a degree).
Here's what I would like to know. Straught up, who thinks we would be best served by staying and who thinks we should leave? Best guess (this thread did start with "Imagination" in the name), where will Iraq be ten years from now after all of this is said and done.

Craig,
So the thought that an organization that is supposed to be a fair and balanced arbiter of peace throughout the world (and one I've always known to be corrupt) may have turned a blind eye at best - and been complicit at worst - in the diversion of moneys that was explicitly supposed to be going to these Iraqi people you seem so concerned about doesn't bother you enough to even pause on your Bush-bashing for a papragraph? We're accused of "coddling a dictator" because we helped him during a war with an equally vicious neighbor, yet a scandal involving said organization and two of our supposed "allies" in the defrauding of innocent people doesn't give you pause? Doesn't make you sick?
And really, where in the world do you get the idea we PUT him in power? Or are the facts inconsequential to an argument to Blame America First, Last and Always?

One thing I have to say with all this talk about the Republican Attack Machine is that there is no mention of the Democratic Attack Machine.
Jerome

That's because any Dem Attack Machine has been pretty ineffective. We had our last president investigated almost from the time he entered office for business and moral issues while the so-called-liberal press egged them on. Bush had many shady dealings that have NOT been exonerated by the SEC, even though his spin is that they have, but where is the investigation? Where is the outcry? Anyone from the press who has asked questions this administration hasn't like has been threatened with denial of access. How open are these people? Why all the secrecy? Not everything they do is involved with national security. Why is there not more outrage about the secret meeting with the big oil producers? Why are there no answers to questions? When wil someone with a true investigative journalistic background start asking REAL questions?

Am I the only one here who remembers the "Impeach Clinton" bumper stickers coming out two months before the man even took office? Oddly enough, I don't recall seeing any "Impeach Bush" bumper stickers in December 2000...

As for Iraq, as I've said before, the controlling principle here is, "You broke it, you bought it." Before our troops went in (liberating/invading, depending on your own beliefs), we could still walk away without losing anything more than face. Now, however, now that we've torn up the countryside and removed their government and generally screwed the place up worse than Jersey, abandoning Iraq to its fate would lose us any pretense of morality we may have had. It would be the act of thoughtless, uncaring cowards - and as little as I think of most of those in the upper echelons of US powermongering today, I don't think that applies even to them, much less to any of us here. It is our responsibility, one we can neither evade nor deny, to return the Cradle of Civilization to a state somewhat less resembling the anteroom of Hell - since we took it there in the first place. I could wish this had never fallen to us; however, Uncle Walt to the contrary, wishing won't make it so.

Jerome wrote: "One thing I have to say with all this talk about the Republican Attack Machine is that there is no mention of the Democratic Attack Machine."

Karen responded: "That's because any Dem Attack Machine has been pretty ineffective. We had our last president investigated almost from the time he entered office for business and moral issues while the so-called-liberal press egged them on. Bush had many shady dealings that have NOT been exonerated by the SEC, even though his spin is that they have, but where is the investigation?"

What’s my opinion? Well, if either party has an organized, bona fide political "attack machine," then shame on them. Such an entity is a colossal waste of time and money. I didn't like the incessant attacks against Clinton, and I don't like them against Bush. Such partisan attacks keep everyone in Washington from doing what they are supposed to be doing, that is, running the government. It's a tough enough job already without all the partisan sideshows that keep popping up. Personally, I find the whole process disgusting.

As far as the press giving Bush a free ride, that's baloney. The media leans to the left, and has done so for more than 40 years. Bush has been hammered mercilessly since the first day he set foot in office. He has been depicted as an idiot, a liar, a parrot for shadowy special interest groups, and an incompetent leader -- just like every Republican president since Gerald Ford. Before him, Richard Nixon was hammered just as hard, but as it turned out, justifiably so.

The reason the media hasn't raised more of a fuss than they already have regarding Bush is because they haven't found anything significant enough to make a big fuss about. But believe me, there are plenty of reporters digging for dirt every single day -- just like they do with every president -- Democratic or Republican. And if something concrete is out there, they'll find it eventually.

Russ Maheras

Want a peak at the RAM? Want to see how it worked with concrete or less then concrete facts? Try David Brock's Blinded by the Right. Now, I'll also be the first to say that you should take most of what's in there with at least a few grains of salt. This is a book that was written to say, "hey, before now, everything I've written has been politically motivated and was a lie but this time is differnt."
But even if you only take it as about half true, it doesn't paint a pretty picture.

"John Kerry wants to raise the gas tax. Just something for you Bush haters to ponder. The unemployment rate is the same as Bill Clinton's 2nd term in office. Just something for you Bush haters to ponder. Bill Clinton gave a report to congress during his 2nd administration stating Hussein had weopons of mass destruction. just something for you Bush haters to ponder. John Kerry, in a letter to Bill Clinton said congress would approve a preemptive strike against Iraq if Clinton ordered one. Just something for you Bush haters to ponder at. Do some research before you go jump all over someone."

What is it about the Bushies that on the one hand they bash Clinton relentlessly, and on the other hand pull up examples of things he said and did as excuses/precedent for Bush's actions? Haven't *any* of them twigged to the notion that you can't have it both ways?

By the way, search as you might, you won't find anything from me that wildly endorses either Clinton or Kerry. Do some research before you jump all over someone.

PAD

"As for Iraq, as I've said before, the controlling principle here is, "You broke it, you bought it." Before our troops went in (liberating/invading, depending on your own beliefs), we could still walk away without losing anything more than face. Now, however, now that we've torn up the countryside and removed their government and generally screwed the place up worse than Jersey, abandoning Iraq to its fate would lose us any pretense of morality we may have had. It would be the act of thoughtless, uncaring cowards - and as little as I think of most of those in the upper echelons of US powermongering today, I don't think that applies even to them, much less to any of us here. It is our responsibility, one we can neither evade nor deny, to return the Cradle of Civilization to a state somewhat less resembling the anteroom of Hell - since we took it there in the first place. I could wish this had never fallen to us; however, Uncle Walt to the contrary, wishing won't make it so."

Dear Lord, this is incredible. It really, truly is.

Reading this in a vacuum, one would never guess that the former ruler of Iraq was a ruthless dictator. That the people of Iraq had no freedoms. They lived in fear of murder, torture, and oppression on a daily basis. Saddam Hussein used WMDs against his own people. His regime abused and raped women. Tortured and murdered parents in front of their own children.

And now, because we have gone in and removed this evil piece of filth and are attempting to liberate this country, we are considered the bad guys? The "anteroom of Hell"? Iraq was already that. Or haven't we found enough mass graves for you to reach that conclusion yet?

This idea that Iraq was some kind of decent place that existed in peace and harmony until we went in and destroyed it is total, unadulterated nonsense. Actually, my personal standards won't let me use the real word that describes it. Iraq wasn't already "broken?" In what sense? As far as treating people without a shred of dignity and respect, it was humming along just fine.

I do share your viewpoint that we need to stay as long as is necessary to finish the job we started is right on. But the idea that Iraq was fine before we showed up is ludicrous. If you really believe that it's not, would you object to our troops cleaning up Saddam and returning him to power? If not, why? Everything was fine until we "broke it." Until we "generally screwed the place up worse than Jersey." Why not put everything back the way that we found it?

On a lighter note, and guaranteed to anger those of you on the right:
There was a bumper sticker out for George the 1st that said "Annoy the media, re-elect George Bush"

I think we need one now that says "Annoy the media, re-elect Al Gore"

And that the media has been liberal for the past 40 years? Please, look at the evidence. The conservatives have been crying liberal bias for the past 40 years. Now it is an accepted "fact". But if you watch the news or read the papers any time a reporter attempts to report anything negative on the right, you hear the same cry. I wish we had more truth out there, but I'm thinking that all we hear is the spin. Now the left is trying to catch up with their own spin on the facts. I want a press that is interested in finding out what happened, not what the politicians say happened. I don't believe we are hearing enough of any story to base competant opinions on almost anything. This is aimed at both sides, by the way.

Tim,
No one is saying that Iraq was a good place to be before the war. What we are saying is we had no business going in there and now we can't leave because our presence has royally screwed up the area and if we go, it will get worse. This does not mean all was good before. Our being there has not improved life to a high quality there, just created a different discontent.

I am also tired of hearing how we "liberated the Iraqi people" That was not the reason we went there and they are only "free" to develop an American style democracy. That is not liberation, that is occupation.

Mr. Butler, have you read anything written by Iraqis? Not stooges of Saddam's, nor flunkies of the humorously-named "Governing" Council, but genuine Iraqi citizens? Here's a clue - start with "Where is Raed?" (dear_raed.blogspot.com), and follow his links to other posts in the Iraqi Blogosphere.

No, Saddam was not a decent human being. Hell, he only qualifies as "human" on the technicality of genetic coincidence - in any meaningful sense, he's a vicious, psychotic animal. HOWEVER - under Saddam Insane's rule, while the people did have to live in fear of his sons, and his brownshirts, at least the fear they lived in was leavened with running water, electricity, and relatively peaceful cities (hard to be anything else, when getting out of line gets you shot...).

Now, they still live in fear, this time of al-Sadr's pet bloodthirsty fascists, random street thuggery, and the occasional home invasion from a group of uniformed men with whom no one present shares a language (and no, "body language" is not "universal" - one culture's nod is another culture's peremptory jerk of a chin). Were our troops to leave now, the Iraqi people would be far worse off than they were before. Before, they knew where their threats were coming from, and could dodge them with greater ease. Before, they didn't have to wonder where their next drink was coming from. Before, they could put petrol in their autos without having to wonder how much of the liquid involved was kerosene, or some similarly useless, less expensive fluid. Before, no one hid in fear of stray rounds flying through walls or windows.

No, Iraq under Saddam was not exactly a Paradise, especially for the Kurds or the swamp Arabs - but neither is it a Paradise today. If we want to be able to leave that nation and still look in our collective mirror, we must leave it better than it was - not worse. Yes, "worse" is a stage which must be passed through, just as an ill-set limb must be rebroken in order to be mended afresh. Let us not break the patient's leg, then wander off, convinced it will knit itself somehow.

Karen,

To say that we "broke" Iraq is to say that it wasn't broke before. To say that it wasn't all good before is to say that there was some good before. To say that we screwed up Iraq is to say that it wasn't screwed up before.

All of that is baloney. Since forcing Saddam out, we have made great strides in restoring the infrastructure and the society of Iraq. No, things are not stable everywhere. A lot of Saddam's thugs are there still fighting. But whether you accept it or not, the end goal that we are striving for is the liberation of this country. That's something to be proud of.

The reason we went there was to depose a dictator and disarm a regime. Mission accomplished. Now, if we were truly the bad guys, we could just set up a perimeter around Iraq and let the place degenerate into mass chaos. But we're the good guys. We are trying to build something better there.

Did you read my last posts? I am not arguing that Saddam was a good leader. I am saying that we went in for WMD's. There was no humanitarian talk when Bush pushed this war. Mission NOT accomplished. If it were our troops would be on the next plane out. That area is destablized and won't get better for a nice long while. We should NOT be trying to build something better. That is for the Iraqi peopleto, with our help since we messed up the infrastructure. We are NOT liberaters right now. We are occupiers. And we had NO business going in there at all. The reasons we were told were lies and though getting rid of Saddam is a good thing, it was not for us to do.

Karen wrote: "I am also tired of hearing how we 'liberated the Iraqi people' That was not the reason we went there and they are only 'free' to develop an American style democracy. That is not liberation, that is occupation."

Using your logic, then we've been "occupying" Germany, Italy and Japan since World War II, and South Korea since the Korean War. I guess none of those countries will ever willingly adopt U.S.-style democracies. Oh, that's right, they all did. Not only do they all have successful U.S.-style democracies, they have all prospered -- in most cases, beyond anyone's wildest expectations. And it may surprise you, but the majority of people in those countries don't mind at all that we still have bases there. Why? Because having U.S. bases in these countries not only lowers their defense budgets considerably, the U.S. bases pump hundreds of millions of dollars each year into their economies.

Russ Maheras

Russ,

Couldn't agree more. And to think that until we destroyed the infrastructure of Berlin, the people had access to food and water and the trains ran on time. Sure, Hitler was a bad guy, but at least the country was stable and the infrastructure was intact.

And then we went in and messed everything up. And then we occupied and freed the people of a ruthless dictator. Man, we are evil.

Karen,

It's funny how absolutely no one in the world doubted the existence of WMDs until it became politically expedient to do so. They were there. There's no doubt of it. Hussein wasn't evil AND stupid. I highly doubt he would let his regime get blown out of existence for something that wasn't there. And don't forget, he's used them in the past.

Let's say you're right though. They weren't there. If that's the case, it's an error based on faulty intelligence. Not a lie. Know the difference.

"The reasons we were told were lies and though getting rid of Saddam is a good thing, it was not for us to do."

Then whose job would it be? The Iraqi people had tried multiple times before, and Saddam cheerfully crushed every uprising. We could have armed them, perhaps, but doing that has gotten us into trouble a number of times in the past with other countries. For whatever harm may have come to the Iraqi people through this war, without it Saddam would have remained in power until he died of old age.

Russ,
I was stationed in Germany with the USAF. A lot of people in all those countries do NOT want us there. Many bases have protesters at the gates year round. And we hardly occupy those countries. We are not the government and The 2 world wars were not just us and our decision to invade. The enemy at that time was going out and conquering other countries. Hardly the same threat level as Iraq. The intelligiance was not as faulty as we wer led to belive, but manipulated by the current administration. Going out of their way to tweak the facts is not an error. It is a lie.

Gorginfoogle,
It is arrogant to think this decision should have been only ours. We live in a world with others. We do not have to be the bully. We could have used diplomacy to get others on board, but we told the rest of the world we knew better and did it on our own. We do not know best. No wonder so many countries an allies find us so distasteful now.

Karen,
1.)I would really like to read your thoughts on the U.N. scandal involving the almighty U.N. and our infallible "allies" France and Russia. Amazing the same people who seem to jump on Halliburton at every turn are silent on this historic and absolutely disgusting scandal.

2.)Also, these people are free for the first time in years, perhaps forever. Do you really think filling the power vacuum and getting them to work together would be easy?

3.) Yes, partisanship is a two-way street. I realize that. But I always give credit where it is due. I feel it was beyond silly for the GOP to not give Clinton one iota of credit for the longest peacetime expansion in history. I credit him for gathering enough of a coalition together to pass his initial budget.I also give him credit for going against his base and signing welfare reform, NAFTA - the same way I gave Bush the Father credit for going against his base and passing the Americans With Disabilities Act and his tax increase.
Is ther ANYTHING Bush the Son has done that you agree with? I listed some things in an earlier post that I would think you would agree with him on: more federal funding for public education, more federal funding for the arts, campaign finance reform, to name just a few/

4.) Seeing as how Syria and Iran are helping the insurgents in Iraq, is it not logical to assume they see a victory by us as a threat? And that we are accomplishing some good?

5.) Also, considering the previous point, is it that far-fetched that the WMD are in Syria?

Jerome,
1) The UN is a world hope. Yes, it is not perfect, but neither is our government. Just because some of us focus on Haliburton does not mean we approve of other scandals. But I must also admit that I am not as informed on this scandal as I could be, so don't feel I can comment on it.

2)No, I never thought it would be easy. I feel it is not our place to forcie them to think and act only in a manner we feel appropriate. I don't think we should have been there in the first place, and have been saying this since the war was first brought up. (Which is a rebuttal to a poster who thinks those of us against the war only jumped on the bandwagon when no WMS's were found)

3)Thank-you for giving credit to Clinton. It's nice to hear that he did some good from someone not liberal. I agree that he did a lot of good, although I certainly didn't agree with ALL his policies. Bush, on the other hand has passed a few bills that I agree with, such as education, but has not funded them. Now states are stuck with new rules and no way to pay for them. But the majority of the things he has done has been so harmful to this country that it is going to take a long time to come back. Be it the deficit, job loss, or damage to the environment.

4 & 5) That whole part of the world would be more than happy if we fell off the face of the earth, with the exception of Israel. Syria and Iran have their own agendas, whether they think they can get a piece of the oil or they just want to make things as difficult as they can for us.

"Couldn't agree more. And to think that until we destroyed the infrastructure of Berlin, the people had access to food and water and the trains ran on time. Sure, Hitler was a bad guy, but at least the country was stable and the infrastructure was intact.

And then we went in and messed everything up. And then we occupied and freed the people of a ruthless dictator."

And then our troops STAYED there and helped the locals rebuild their smashed infrastructure (try looking up the Marshall Plan). Similarly, it matters not whether you think the war in Iraq was justified or not (I don't, but that's bygones) - we are now obligated, by our OWN principles, to rebuild what we destroyed.

Tim (may I call you Tim?), this is an example of the "binary thinking" I cited in another thread. Apparently, to judge from your posts, there are only two positions to take:

1) Saddam Hussein was the greatest threat since Adolf Hitler, we had to remove him, and now we have to teach the locals how to govern themselves properly.

2) The war in Iraq was an unwarranted intrusion, and we need to recall all troops immediately.

Since I have referred to the war as being (IMO) unjustified, you seem to leap to the conclusion that I must therefore want our troops out. Nothing could be further from the truth. I feel that we have taken on the awesome duty of shepherding the people of Iraq through the times of chaos and anarchy that our own actions caused, so that they can emerge later as a free, proud, and independent nation, ruled by the principles that they choose. I hope powerfully that they choose to reject radical Islam, as history seems to show us that it's a piss-poor way to run a country, but if they insist in it, we should permit them the experiment - with aid standing by in case it works out as poorly as usual.

Incidentally, Bush Jr has not provided more funding for education - his "No Child Left Behind" policies call for certain mandatory changes to all school systems, but do not provide the funding to make those changes happen. That, however, is a whole 'nother argument, one I choose not to indulge in further in this thread.

Karen,
If you want to learn more about the UN/"allies" scandal, which almost no one - not even FOX or CNN -is covering up to this point, check out NYPost.com. They have had many articles and editorials on the subject in the past week. It really has me disgusted, and I have really lost whatever respect I had for the UN and/or France, which was already minimal at best.
I would be anxious to get an informed reaction from you, since i always respect your opinions even when we fundamentally disagree.

Karen wrote: "I was stationed in Germany with the USAF. A lot of people in all those countries do NOT want us there. Many bases have protesters at the gates year round. And we hardly occupy those countries."

First of all, people protest outside of almost all military bases, not only in Germany, but England, Japan, Korea and also right here in the United States. That is there right, but as I said in my previous post, they do NOT represent the majority opinion. At Kadena Air Base, on Okinawa, the only time we usually had protesters outside the gate is when B-52 bombers flew in for a typhoon evacuation from Guam. The rest of the time, things were fine. The same goes for when I was stationed in England, and South Korea. Sometimes we'd have protesters, but most of the time, the local nationals went about their business, and we went about ours. I lived off base for a total of 4 1/2 years when I was stationed overseas, and never once had an incident. Over the years, I've heard some horror stories about incidents in various overseas locations, and I'm sure with the current Iraq situation there is more protest activity now. But such incidents are the exception. And despite the German goverment's stance last year regarding the war in Iraq, I know for a fact that many German government officials still want our remaining bases to stay in Germany. As I said, this is for both security and economic reasons. It's a symbiotic relationship, and fulfills the national interests of both countries.

Problems usually arise both here and abroad when hard core protesters get frustrated and destructive because they feel no one is listening to their point of view. They just don't understand why everyone in their country is not taking to the streets for their cause. But the reality of the situation is the majority of people don't agree with their extremist ideas. Most people -- even in Iraq -- do not condon the destruction and violence caused by this vocal minority.

In the past 60 years or so, the U.S. military has had the role as occupying force in dozens of instances following military conflicts. Yet in NO instance in this recent span of history has the U.S. attempted to permanently grab land from anyone. In some cases, we were an occupying force for more than a decade. But once the local goverment stabilized, we turned everything back over to them. If they want the U.S. military completely gone, as did France in 1966, then we leave for good. I do not see us doing anything differently in Iraq, regardless of which party's candidate is sitting in the White House.

Russ Maheras

Pad,
Wow, of all the statements up there, you picked 2 of mine to rip. In a sick way, I'm honored :-)

Hey,
I never said YOU endorsed Kerry or Clinton. What I said was a response to the posts that came before that were saying "oh i hate bush & kerry's better" & that may be true,who am i to say, but, i sure as hell don't want to pay more taxes. Gasoline is getting more expensive & the last thing we need is someone putting more taxes in the damn thing. Call me selfish.

& by the way, what's up w/ calling me a "BUSHIE"?
What are you, like 10. You didn't see me calling you a "DEMONcrat". C'mon, we're adults here, no need for name calling.

Oh & i love your stuff. Fallen Angel is like my Favorite series out there. Keep it up. It's awesome. Bendis is over rated. You da man! (even if you call me a "BUSHIE"

Joe V.

"As far as the press giving Bush a free ride, that's baloney."

Maybe not a free ride, but given the far less severe level of scrutiny for lapses with far greater consequence than Clinton's, I'd say at the very least he's been charged off-peak rates.

PAD

"Of course, the hostages were finally freed - the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated and they knew they wouldn't be able to screw with us anymore."

Yeah. Startling coincidence that. Couldn't have anything to do with a backdoor deal in place to keep the hostages there until Carter was out of office...

PAD

"And now, because we have gone in and removed this evil piece of filth and are attempting to liberate this country, we are considered the bad guys?"

There. Right there, that's the basic disconnect.

It's not "this" country. It's "their" country.

We unilaterally decided to go in and depose this evil piece of filth--who is ever so much worse than every other EPOF in the world, apparently--and now we won't leave. We won't leave THEIR country. We attacked in such a way that bringing in manpower more constructively suited toward nation building (something Bush swore in 2000 we shouldn't be in the business of) is problematic at best--which displays a horrifying lack of foresight--and now we are seen as occupiers and conquerors, motivated not out of concern for the Iraqi people, but for the Iraqi oil.

It's like we're a SWAT team that captured a guy holding a family hostage...and then moved into the family's house, started eating out of their fridge, redecorating the living room, looking over their tax returns, deciding they need to live on a tighter budget, and then bringing in a team of accountants to implement their new lifestyle. And the family's frantically going, "Get the damned SWAT team out of there or someone's gonna get hurt."

PAD

Joe V sez:
Hey,
I never said YOU endorsed Kerry or Clinton. What I said was a response to the posts that came before that were saying "oh i hate bush & kerry's better" & that may be true,who am i to say, but, i sure as hell don't want to pay more taxes. Gasoline is getting more expensive & the last thing we need is someone putting more taxes in the damn thing. Call me selfish.

OK, you're selfish.

The problem with this argument is that, in reality, the government now DESPERATETLY needs revenue. In 4 years, we've gone from the first surplus in a long while to the largest deficit in history. Guess what two events created that? I'll give you a hint: One was under Bush's control, one wasn't.

The tax cuts are far more damaging to the federal budget than 9/11, mainly because we were going to have active armed forces anyway. Sure, the military spending might not have increased the way it did had 9/11 not happened, but there were going to be American soldiers overseas. However, the tax cuts basically cut revenue to the bone. The tax cuts are across the board, but they're also difficult to get back, because the layman always thinks that his taxes were never lowered in the first place, when in fact, they were.

If Kerry (or Bush, whom I have no reason to think he won't take back the tax cuts), were to raise taxes somewhere else (like raising gas prices), take a good guess what money you'll be using to pay that? Yes, that's right, money from the tax cut. So, in reality, things balance out. Except that people will complain about paying 10 cents per gallon more for gas than before the stupid gas tax, while not noticing the 4 cents per hour more they get with each paycheck because of the tax cut. For those of you not fluent in math, this equates to $1.60 more for a 16-gallon tank, while the cut gives you -- presto change-o -- $1.60 more in your 40-hour work week paycheck. It all balances out.

PAD,
See, this is what drives me crazy. This talking point about how "we won't leave". If you want to argue we shouldn't have gone in the first place, fine. I strongly disagree, but fine. But the ideas that once we ousted Saddam that we should just leave the Iraqi people to "their" country is unbelievably simplistic. There is a power vacuum and it would be filled by people who would waste no time in tearing each other to pieces. You seem resigned to the possibility of an Iraqi civil war. As if it would be no big deal. As if the majority of Iraqi people - after a lifetime of oppression - can just automatically step up and run things. We are HELPING them and doing our best to prevent fanatics from taking over.
It was never "their" country, it was "Saddam's" country. In time, it will truly be "their" country. Until then, we are helping them along and protecting the majority.
Honestly, PAD, if you think the majority of Iraqi people see us as occupiers, you are mistaken. I have yet to see nationwide uprisings. It is a bunch of fanatics with the backing of Iran and Syria (because they're scared of a free Iraq.)
How would you "leave" and still protect the Iraqi people, PAD? Just curious.

PAD,
Oh, and you're right about a backroom deal to keep the hostages "until Carter was out of office." Why would they care? Because they didn't FEAR Carter, that's why. If Carter was reelected, those hostages would at best have stayed there until January 1985, and at worst been killed.
As a President, Carter made a good peanut farmer. He was an appeaser through and through.

PAD,
Finally (for now), in regards to our "unilateral" approach, it is ironic that critics of it such as yourself have not once mentioned the scandal brewing in which it has been revealed that Saddam skimmed billions off oil sales that were to be used for medicine and other humanitarian ends for "his" people (hey! It was THEIR country, right?) to build palaces. The "sacred, infallible" United Nations turned a blind eye even though they knew what was going on and our wonderful, all-important "allies" France and russia received kickbacks so as not to intervene.
And this and is the institution and countries you feel we should ask permission from to defend ourselves as we see fit. These paragons of virtue?
Please get serious sometime soon.

Jerome, after you finish insulting people, providing us with what-if scenerios that would have happened had something have gone differently, and telling us what is going to happen in the future...... can I borrow your crystal ball?

Fred,
1.)Who did I insult? And if it was another poster - which is not my intention - don't you think they're big enough to say so themselves?

2.) What crystal ball? What are you talking about?

If you want to argue a specific point I made, please do so. If not, please allow the other posters and myself to continue challenging - and sometime enlightening - each other with our points of view.

Jerome:
>>1.)Who did I insult? And if it was another poster - which is not my intention - don't you think they're big enough to say so themselves?

I don't know. I don't know them. I do know that your posts are abrasive. Rereading this thread makes that pretty clear. I have noticed that the number of replies, including mine since your initial stick-poking, that you are receiving has grown less with every one of your illogical rants.

>>If you want to argue a specific point I made, please do so. If not, please allow the other posters and myself to continue challenging - and sometime enlightening - each other with our points of view.

I'm not stopping you from interacting with others.

Challenging and enlightenment come only when listening is occurring. It ain't happenin' on both ends here.

Al Franken was being interviewed last night and made a statement about the difference between the love that democrats have for their country and the love shown by republicans for their country. Republicans love their country like a little boy loves his moomy. Challengeor insult her and he throws a tantrum, missing the point. Democrats love it like someone in a mature, adult relationship. I'm not registered with either party, but it certainly is amusing and appears to have a bit of truth to it.

"Since I have referred to the war as being (IMO) unjustified, you seem to leap to the conclusion that I must therefore want our troops out."

No, that's not it at all. We're on the same page with the troops staying there. What I object to is your contention that everything was fine in Iraq until we showed up.

"There. Right there, that's the basic disconnect.

"It's not "this" country. It's "their" country."

A distinction without a difference. The fact that I used "this" instead of "their" is not some sinister implication on my part that the Iraqi people don't own their own country.

"We unilaterally decided to go in and depose this evil piece of filth--who is ever so much worse than every other EPOF in the world, apparently--and now we won't leave. We won't leave THEIR country. We attacked in such a way that bringing in manpower more constructively suited toward nation building (something Bush swore in 2000 we shouldn't be in the business of) is problematic at best--which displays a horrifying lack of foresight--and now we are seen as occupiers and conquerors, motivated not out of concern for the Iraqi people, but for the Iraqi oil."

If we cut and run now, every liberal out there would climb on his high horse and (rightly) point out what a horror show it would be to leave Iraq in the state it is now. Do you really just want us to pull out right now? Leave it the way it is?

That's not a very wise thing to do.

"It's like we're a SWAT team that captured a guy holding a family hostage...and then moved into the family's house, started eating out of their fridge, redecorating the living room, looking over their tax returns, deciding they need to live on a tighter budget, and then bringing in a team of accountants to implement their new lifestyle. And the family's frantically going, 'Get the damned SWAT team out of there or someone's gonna get hurt.'"

You left out a litte bit in your analogy. Prior to the SWAT Team showing up, a terrorist lived in the house. He was systematically killing members of the family, raping the women, torturing the men, and abusing the children. The SWAT Team came in and got rid of the guy. Now they're trying to teach the family how to have a normal life and live in freedom. A couple of the family members object, but overall, the SWAT Team has helped the family out a lot and are accepted by most in the family. However, the family is getting restless and wants them out as soon as possible. Understandably so.

That's a much closer analogy to what's happening in Iraq.

In the past 60 years or so, the U.S. military has had the role as occupying force in dozens of instances following military conflicts.

So, what's the next country on Bush's list of "humanitarian missions"?

Somalia? Any other African nation that has seen more violence and bloodshed than Iraq in the last 25 years?

Or did the list begin and end with Iraq?

I'm guessing it's the latter.

As for putting Saddam in power, the US gov't is the one that supported the bastard when supporting the other side (Iran) might have removed him from power.

This whole war was about WMD. And until we find them, which, regardless of what you think, hasn't happened, then this war is one giant crock of sh*t pouring out of Bush's mouth.

Hmm.

Did anybody get called a traitor to their country under Clinton's watch for wanting him impeached? for not wanting our military in places like Somalia?

Do you really just want us to pull out right now? Leave it the way it is?

No, but the HUGE problems remains that, instead of trying to justify this damn stupid war to begin with, conservatives sit there and point their fingers going "Well, we're there, deal with it".

That's not a wise thing to do either, but it's exactly how things have gone for the last year.

"No, but the HUGE problems remains that, instead of trying to justify this damn stupid war to begin with, conservatives sit there and point their fingers going 'Well, we're there, deal with it'.

"That's not a wise thing to do either, but it's exactly how things have gone for the last year."

What would you be looking for in terms of justification? What could be said that would cause you to say, "Okay, I buy it. We're justified for fighting in Iraq."

What would you be looking for in terms of justification? What could be said that would cause you to say, "Okay, I buy it. We're justified for fighting in Iraq."

How about the supposed reason we went there in the first place: WMD.

How about finding those?

And finding proof that there was imminent danger of Saddam actually using them against us or his neighbors?

Because, after all, those were the first excuses for this war. Not reasons, excuses.
And those didn't stay the big exucses for long.

Hell, the Bush Administration has changed their story so many times on Iraq I can't keep them straight. Bush was probably confused after the 2nd change in excuses.

Let me ask this:

We have N Korea physically threatening us, and, at worst, Saddam gives us the finger.

What sort of justification do some of you want for us to invade N Korea? A country which has given us far more provocation for such an action than Iraq.

Why aren't we invading N Korea tomorrow?

Is it because we're scared or what? Or is the War on Terror so focused upon Iraq that we don't have time for N Korea (or bin Laden for that matter) regardless of what they may be planning?

People are so ass-backwards over their trying to justify going to Iraq that it boggles the mind.

We have plenty of evidence for WMDs in Iraq. We have intelligence that he had them. He's used them in the past. (How's that for evidence that he was an imminent threat to his neighbors?) He refused to allow UN inspectors in to confirm that he didn't have them.

We didn't find the weapons themselves, but to say that there's no evidence or even that he didn't have them is fantasy. The most likely scenario is that he hid them someplace where we haven't found them yet. We know that he had them and he couldn't or wouldn't produce evidence that he destroyed them.

This whole screaming about lack of justification rests on one idea - Saddam wasn't as bad a guy as conservatives (and everyone else prior to Bush) say he was. Well, that's pretty goofy. Saddam was a terrorist and and a despot. His people are better off that he's gone, his neighbors are better off that he's gone, and I think our country is safer without him in power.

As for North Korea, are you really advocating an attack on that country? Well, I don't agree with that, but if you want to argue in favor of it, I'll listen.

I see liberals being so disingenuous on this. They yell about how there's no justification for Iraq knowing full well that they won't accept any justification for it. In their minds, there's no possible justification. If Saddam had plans on the board for attacking us and was initiating those plans, they would still complain because they hate Bush more than Hussein. And then they turn around and criticise Bush for not attacking North Korea knowing full well that he's not going to do it and they wouldn't support it anyway.

As for North Korea, are you really advocating an attack on that country? Well, I don't agree with that, but if you want to argue in favor of it, I'll listen.

Why aren't you in favor of it?

They're ignoring us, threatening us, publically claiming they have WMD. Their leaders are despots and terrorists.

Based on your justifications for attacking Iraq, I see no reason to NOT go after N Korea.

But, wait, they might resist!

Heaven forbid.

No wonder our gov't didn't see that coming in Iraq.

Heaven friggin forbid somebody resist us. So much for a soft target, eh?

So much for the war on terrorism, for certain.

Yeah, I definitely like wars where there's a better chance of more of our troops getting killed. Right.

You've got two enemies. One has nuclear weapons and one is developing nuclear weapons. The former is a tougher opponent. You have a decided strength advantage over the latter. With the former, you have to worry about nukes. With the latter, you can head off any nuke programs and remove a dictator in a relatively short amount of time. Straw that breaks the camels back - you have intelligence linking the latter to a group of terrorists that recently murdered 3000 of your citizens.

Gee, I know tactically who should be attacked and who should be approached in other ways. Unless you want to see more of our troops killed. But then, I'm not advocating war with North Korea. You are. Care to justify it?

(BTW - How can they ignore us and threaten us at the same time??????)

Jerome and PAD,

Look at the logic of that line of thought of yours. The terrorists feared Reagan but thought Carter was a wuss. So they did a deal that put a guy they "feared" into power and made certain that the guy they "didn't fear" and would let them do whatever they wanted was voted out. Whereas they could have helped put Carter back in the White House with an October release of the hostages and gone on to do, by your accounts of events J, anything they wanted.
I've always felt that that Oliver Stoned version of the 1980 election events was a bit goofy. No real logic involved.

Interesting that no one has taken up the poster who was speaking about his basketballs scattered in California.

I'm of the opinion that if the terrorists want to follow the US, fine (by the way, I thought the opinion in Iraq of the US was diminishing, and THAT was leading to the "insurgent attacks". Which is it? Are Iraqis tired of the US and fighting back, or are terrorists flocking there from all over and running this "insurgency"?).

The US pulls out of Iraq in June, as scheduled. Next stop. Syria.

We find some Iraqi WMDs, not to mention Syria's. We fight a "growing insurgency" there, pull out, and stop in Saudi Arabia next.

By the time it's all done, we will have tracked the terrorists down, or led them into the mother of all ambushes, and the entire Mid-east becomes the 51st star on our flag.

Care to justify it?

Who says they're ignoring us? It's our gov't that prefers to ignore them.

And why the hell should we try diplomacy with N Korea when the Bush Admin. wouldn't bother with Iraq?

The Bush Admin wouldn't know diplomacy if it smacked them upside the head.

But, it doesn't matter what I say. By the same reasons that the Bush Administration has attacked Iraq, they've already justified an attack on N. Korea.

The same goes for a preemtive first strike.

I con't need to justify it. Or advocate it. It's already been done.

And since when does the Bush Admin give a damn about the lives of troops either?

I should add...

Here's a hypothetical for you.

If the ends justify the means, would it matter how many troops we lose? THat seems to be the thining of the Bush Admin.

So, we lose a few hundred troops to a country that poses no thread.

But we can't lose troops to a country that can and has threatened to send actual, existing nukes at us?

I mean, if it keeps millions of our people from getting killed, isn't it worth going after N Korea? Can we really afford to ignore this threat?

Apparently we can. Let's hope it doesn't cost us, eh?

"Who says they're ignoring us? It's our gov't that prefers to ignore them."

You said they're ignoring us. Go back and read what you wrote.

Aw forget it. Here's what you wrote -

"They're ignoring us, threatening us, publically claiming they have WMD. Their leaders are despots and terrorists."

You clearly have them ignoring us and threatening us simultaneously. A pretty good trick.

"And why the hell should we try diplomacy with N Korea when the Bush Admin. wouldn't bother with Iraq?"

Um....because they're two different nations and two different set of circumstances? I'm just guessing here......

You sound like a real warhawk. Still waiting to hear you justify your desire to attack North Korea. I've never advocated that. Nor has the Bush administration.

"The Bush Admin wouldn't know diplomacy if it smacked them upside the head."

O------kay.

"But, it doesn't matter what I say. By the same reasons that the Bush Administration has attacked Iraq, they've already justified an attack on N. Korea."

Better and better. So, you want to attack North Korea and you're looking at the Bush Administration as justification?

I thought you didn't even like the Bush Administration.

"The same goes for a preemtive first strike.

"I con't need to justify it. Or advocate it. It's already been done."

If you say so. But I haven't heard anything remotely resembling a justification.

"And since when does the Bush Admin give a damn about the lives of troops either?"

I would say since day one. Do I win a prize now?

"I should add...

"Here's a hypothetical for you.

"If the ends justify the means, would it matter how many troops we lose?"

Since the end clearly does not justify the means, your entire hypothetical is based on a false assumption. However, if you continue to be gung-ho to get into an armed conflict with North Korea, I suggest you contact John Kerry and press him to adopt your point of view. I don't think he's going to, though.

You clearly have them ignoring us and threatening us simultaneously. A pretty good trick

Fine, I'll admit to my poorly worded sentence as my mistake for the month. I won't bother with my greatest faults though. :)

They are ignoring our demands to disarm, yet turning around and threatening to attack us. Either way...

I'm just guessing here......

You'd have to be to make sense of what the Bush Administration is doing. Hell, I think they're just guessing as they go.

I thought you didn't even like the Bush Administration.

Nope. But the same bull they are throwing at us as the reasoning for going to war with Iraq is just being ignored when it comes to N. Korea.
And neither the people or media doesn't give a damn either.

I'm just going to sit here and press the issue. If the excuses are good enough for Iraq, they're more than good enough for N. Korea.
But, of course, Bush is so full of it you can't tell which end it comes out of more.

Jerome,
I went to research the articles you suggested. The NY Post charges to read full articles. I can't believe any newspaper would charge for old news! Anyway, I searched for UN stories and got 10 pages of things that did not look like what you were talking about. If you have a link you can send me with the info, I will gladly read it and get back to you, but I rarely buy things of the internet. I'm very paranoid about ID theft. I didn't even look to see how much they would charge. :) But I'd like to thank you for the kind words you said about me. I know my opinions are pretty set on a number of things, but I still like to think I have an open enough mind to change with facts I trust.

PAD wrote: "Maybe not a free ride, but given the far less severe level of scrutiny for lapses with far greater consequence than Clinton's, I'd say at the very least he's been charged off-peak rates."

Well, that may just boil down to perception then. Let's take a look at columnist Paul Krugman of the New York Times. Six months ago, I didn't know him from Adam. I had absolutely no opinion of his work at all. But another comic book writer whose opinion I listen to and respect stuck a couple of links to Krugman's NYT columns up on his Web site. So I read them. Both columns hammered Bush (including one that I knew had at least one wrong element in it). Curious, I went to Krugman's Web site and started reading his NYT column archives, which go back to about the last year of the Clinton administration. Every single column I've read regarding Bush (and they are legion) has been negative and scathing in its criticism -- even when Bush was just a CANDIDATE. Now what the heck is that all about? The NYT not only strongly influences most newspapers across the country, it strongly influences all the major television news shows as well. So here you have this constant NYT drumbeat about Bush of "scum, scum, scum, scum," a couple of times a week for YEARS in one of the most influential media outlets in the world, and you say the media is giving Bush a free pass? Personally, after going numb reading so many of Krugman's negative columns, I doubt I can ever read ANYTHING he writes in the future and believe there is even a tiny chance it might have some objectivity to it. It's absolutely, positively insane!

Russ Maheras

You are talking about one columnist. What about all the journalists out there who harped on Clinton without any evidence? They even picked up stories from the Drudge report, when he isn't a journalist, but has proven to be a rumor monger. Very little of what he wrote has panned out, but all the major newspapers jumped on the bandwagon. The stories were also picked up by the networks. But I guess that was OK because Clinton was a Democrat. The mild (in comparison) criticism of Bush is just awful though, because he doesn't deserve it? All public officials should be put under public scrutiny. Not just those you don't like.

"Nope. But the same bull they are throwing at us as the reasoning for going to war with Iraq is just being ignored when it comes to N. Korea.
And neither the people or media doesn't give a damn either."

Putting back on my serious hat for a moment (My last response was pretty heavily laced with sarcasm. You showed great self-restraint in not responding in kind. Very admirable.), the two situations are obviously very different in many respects. The very presence of nuclear weapons, our military history in Korea, and the politics of the region differentiate the two situations. With all due respect, only the most grossly simplistic analysis (or a blantantly political motive) would insist on treating them the same. The Bush Administration is showing great wisdom in not treating the two situations alike.

So much for their not knowing diplomacy if it hit them in the head. Quite the contrary, they called this one correctly, despite the catcalls of war mongers on the left. And let's be honest here - no one wants to go to war with North Korea. This is all just playing politics.

"Nope. But the same bull they are throwing at us as the reasoning for going to war with Iraq is just being ignored when it comes to N. Korea.
And neither the people or media doesn't give a damn either."

i think thats because koreans make lousy tv of the week villains.

arabs however...

The Bush Administration is showing great wisdom in not treating the two situations alike.

See, the problem is that for all the great "wisdom" shown with N Korea (which I agree with you on, actually), they've shown complete idiocy with the rest of the world, particularly Iraq.

despite the catcalls of war mongers on the left.

Come again?

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but Bush is a Republican. The Bush Administration is full of Republicans.

The Bush Administration is the one that pushed for the war in Iraq.

How exactly does this make liberals "war mongerers"?

"See, the problem is that for all the great "wisdom" shown with N Korea (which I agree with you on, actually), they've shown complete idiocy with the rest of the world, particularly Iraq."

Your opinion. Mine is that the Bush Administration is generally doing the right thing from a foreign policy standpoint. In Iraq, they are absolutely, completely, unreservedly correct in throwing out Hussein and fighting the battle there and at home to successfully secure freedom for the Iraqis. The domestic battle is unfortunate but necessary I guess in these times when people put such a high price on partisan politics.

"The Bush Administration is the one that pushed for the war in Iraq."

I would say that Saddam pushed for it. He certainly had lots of opportunities to avoid it. His misfortune was coming up against a president who wasn't content to throw a couple of ineffectual patroit missles to make himself look good.

"How exactly does this make liberals 'war mongerers'?"

No one on the Right that I know of is screaming for war with North Korea. I hear all of that coming from the Left. You've mentioned it in almost every post. If that's not what you want, stop talking about it and start talking about what you do want.

Karen wote: "You are talking about one columnist. What about all the journalists out there who harped on Clinton without any evidence? They even picked up stories from the Drudge report, when he isn't a journalist, but has proven to be a rumor monger. Very little of what he wrote has panned out, but all the major newspapers jumped on the bandwagon. The stories were also picked up by the networks. But I guess that was OK because Clinton was a Democrat. The mild (in comparison) criticism of Bush is just awful though, because he doesn't deserve it? All public officials should be put under public scrutiny. Not just those you don't like."

Like film stars, not all newspaper columnists are created equal. A columnist for the New York Times has far more national and international influence than scores of columnists from lesser, local newspapers. As I said, the NYT drives the news like no other U.S. newspaper, and over time, may also drive the thought processes and agendas of many of the columnists from those smaller newspapers. To say Krugman is "just one columnist," is like saying, as actors go, Harrison Ford has no more influence inside and outside the film industry than Pauly Shore.

In my opinion, the unfairness to Clinton was no different than it currently is for Bush, and I said so in one of my previous posts. Much of the unfair criticism for both men is/has been partisan driven, and, as I said before, the partisan stuff is a huge waste of time and money, distracting the government from its real job, which is supposed to be running the country, ensuring domestic security, etc. I will say that at times, it seemed as if Clinton was his own worst enemy -- something that surprised the hell out of me more than once, especially considering his impressive educational pedigree.

Russ Maheras

No one on the Right that I know of is screaming for war with North Korea.

Uhuh. And yet, everybody on the right was screaming for war in Iraq, regardless of the consequences.

Yeah, that makes liberals the war mongers. Right, yep, perfect logic there.

In case you've missed it, the point I'm trying to make is that every rationalization used in Iraq can easily be used in N. Korea.

But no, you don't see republicans screaming for war in N. Korea.

And since I don't think the current administration knows what the hell diplomacy is, it can only mean that Iraq is a soft target that was picked up from the start.
We were going to bomb Iraq regardless of what Saddam did.

I mean, for crying out loud, it's been a year, and there are NO WMD. Heaven forbid, he might have actually gotten rid of them!

"In case you've missed it, the point I'm trying to make is that every rationalization used in Iraq can easily be used in N. Korea."

And in case you've missed it, I've already pointed out that the two situations are totally dissimilar and I've already described why the situations are dissimilar. Either you can't understand or you won't understand. But really, it's a pretty obvious point.

"But no, you don't see republicans screaming for war in N. Korea."

Of course not. That would be foolish. Which is why I'm betting you see a lot of Democrats complaining that we're not at war with North Korea.

"And since I don't think the current administration knows what the hell diplomacy is, it can only mean that Iraq is a soft target that was picked up from the start."

Sheesh. Would you make up your mind. You already said that you agreed with the administration's diplomatic approach to North Korea. Now you say they don't know what diplomacy is. As for Iraq being a soft target, there's a word for that - strategy. Don't fight a war unless you're confident you can win. There's nothing wrong and a lot right with that.

"We were going to bomb Iraq regardless of what Saddam did."

Yeah, like support terrorism, defy the UN, oppress and murder his own people, try to kill a former president, etc. etc. etc. You act like the guy was just minding his own business and doing nothing wrong.

The question is not why we bombed him. It's why we didn't bomb him sooner.

"I mean, for crying out loud, it's been a year, and there are NO WMD. Heaven forbid, he might have actually gotten rid of them!"

He didn't destroy them. He would have proved it if he did.

Big difference between North Korea and Iraq, We KNOW N. Korea has nukes.

Saudi Arabia funds more terrorists than Iraq ever did yet we're leaving them alone....

Bladestar,
Good point on Saudi Arabia. One thing that DOES make me upset about Bush is how chummy his family seems with the Saudi royal family.
Wouldn't object if we took them out too.

About N Korea, maybe we should fight 1 war @ a time. We commited to Iraq, we can't do much about N Korea yet. As great as our military is, 2 wars is 2 much (pun intended)

Joe

Joe V.

One war at a time? Think hard. Bush blew that one. We're fighting at least two.

About N Korea, maybe we should fight 1 war @ a time. We commited to Iraq, we can't do much about N Korea yet. As great as our military is, 2 wars is 2 much (pun intended)

Apparently you've forgot about a rather large chunk of land known as Afghanistan then.