Politics, religion: was 2008 Elections...? - enter at your own risk

[Dominic Cochran]

Also, it's ONLY our GDP that even keeps us in the top 20.

We rank 21st in literacy.

38th in life expectancy.

Scary and embarassing.

 

[Joel Kaye]

Thats your interpretation, and what you wanted to hear. How many suiside bombers have blown up a Starbucks, a bus, a train, a movie theater, or night club in the US.

Not one, It isn't luck Buba.

Exactly. It hasn't happened because there was never a real threat. If the threat was real the first thing that would have happened is the borders and ports would have been secured. It's 6 years later now and any terrorist still can make a mad dash across the border...

There was simply never a real threat to America. 19 dudes with boxcutters (mostly Saudi's) and our own airplanes. That's all it was. If they had nukes they would have used 'em.

Saddam was a sworn enemy of Osama's. Gotta remember, Saddam was secular and Osama is a religious fanatic. The only WMD's Saddam ever used were one's the were Made in the USA and sold by Reagan/Bush. Now why would we sell WMD if we didn't want him to use them? (and he used them on rebels in his own country... kinda like Lincoln used everything he had against rebels in his own country)

At least Clinton actually caught and jailed the guys who bombed the WTC in '93. Osama is still out there...

 

[Russ McDonald]

The truth is that Cheney and EVERY Republican pundit like Hannity and Limbaugh have done everything they could to associate 9-11 and Iraq.

Now the President, subsequent to the invasion of Iraq has admitted that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. Many Americans who hear that quote for the first time are still stunned today when they hear it.

70% of Americans believed that Iraq had something to do with 9-11 when we invaded Iraq. Why? The Bush administration did nothing to fix that misperception. They encouraged their mouthpieces in the media to promote the idea. The omission of the Truth is NOT the Truth.

Also - administration officials said before the war that the cost of the Iraq war to the American people would be 2 Billion dollars. The rest would come from Iraq oil revenues. Iraq is capable of producing about $20 billion a year when at full capacity. Bush spent 1 trillion dollars. We could have just bought it all for the next 100 years... but it's not really about the oil. That wouldn't maximize profits. Fighting a war and raising oil prices maximizes profits. World record oil profits right now.

In WWII it was against the law to profit on the war. Harry Truman was made President largely in how he went after war profiteers. That was a real war and he was a more honest man.

Really... there's no defending this guy. Even my most hardcore Republican friends have figured out Bush is no Republican.

First

administration officials said before the war that the cost of the Iraq war to the American people would be 2 Billion dollars. The rest would come from Iraq oil revenues. This is also a myth. Who said it and where is a quote to back it up. I have yet had anyone who I have challenged to find it. (if you do PM me with it I have an open mind)

The list you provided is just as long for any administration I voted for Clinton. His list of is just as long if not longer.

WMD in Iraq is a fact, The BBC has reported extensively about it. 3900 hundred pound of highly enriched uranium the kind used in the construction of nuclear weapons was pulled out of Iraq. Hiroshima was destroyed with just under 40 pounds. Over 1.4 million pounds of yellow cake Uranium was removed from the country. Senator Santorum sub comity came out with a report that over 600 round of various chemical weapons had been found. Not one Democrat on that comity denied the findings.

In April or May of 2004 a artillery shell containing nerve gas was used in a roadside bomb. They terrorist did know it was a chemical round because it was painted to look like a regular shell. These are facts. I know you may think the BBC is a just a mouth piece for the Bush administration. I do not.

You sit down with a calculator and you look at the cost of WW2 in todays dollars then come talk to me. To try to do so with out the adjustment is an apples to oranges argument. In the terms of blood in WW2 we lost more in one day than we have lost in 6 years of combat.

Please do not trod out that bullshit number of 650,000 dead innocent civilians. The UN has even said that is grossly exaggerated.

As I have said I am not a Bush Fan. But I can assure you there is no one on this forum or on this planet that has more information about the treats this nation faces then the Person who sits behind the desk in the Oval office.

Even if we had a WW2 style retool of our energy infrastructure it would still be years, before we would be free from oil. So what happens in that region of the world effects us everyday in every way. What do think would happen if on tuesday Iran closed the straights in the persian gulf. How many people lives would be destroyed. How may people would freeze to death in there homes, who depend on fuel oil.

It's the difference between looking at the world as it is, not at the way we all wish it could be. The world is not full of compassionate and fair minded people like you and I. We face an enemy who doesn't care who is the white house republican or democrat, man or woman. They don't hate us because of what we do, they hate us because of who we are. We believe that you can choose your faith, or no faith at all. We believe that women are equals to pursue their lives as they see fit. We believe in free will.

It doesn't matter that their dark vision of the world will never become a reality. All that matters is the body count that it will take to defeat them. The longer it takes for the world to realize that there in no middle ground the higher that number will be.

The question I ask all those who think that George Bush is the Devil. Is how many innocent american civilians have to die in single attack, 10,000, 50,000, 1,000,000, 10,000,000 before you would go as far as he did.

I wonder what would have happened if Gore (whom I voted for) had made the same choices as Bush did, if you would have had the same point of view. I think not.

 

[Matthew Rogers]

It's a load of horse patooey. Sure there are people who want to kill americans and establish a world islamic regime. Sure they're a serious threat that needs to be dealt with militarily and diplomatically. But the concept that they're this threat to our way of life is complete and utter bullshit. More than 17,000 people died in traffic accidents involving alcohol in 2002. *That's* what I call a threat to my way of life being killed by an idiot with a bud light.

The only threat to our constitution comes from the over zealous headline grabbing constitutional terrorism from within. Which at every step has been met with cheers and patriotic songs.

It doesn't take very many people to bring our country to a standstill. In fact, it only took 19 people to kill 3,000 people in a hour...

Actually, I'm glad you brought that up about drunk drivers... Why do so many people complain about the war and death, but are silent about DD's? Seems like DD is much easier to fix, and will actually impact more lives.

You honestly trust the guy serving you burgers at McDonalds to manage his money wisely? Please. Most people don't have the foggiest clue how to invest, save for retirement--most won't if they aren't forced to. Then we have homeles destitutes wandering about taking up tax money and social services. People who are good with money... make a lot of money. That's their reward. Social Security is a government enforced policy to ensure that people at least put away the bare minimum to stay independent if at all possible.

I have a problem with feeling sorry for people who are stupid--at least stupid more than once. What we have created over the past 70 years is a culture of foolishness. Why aren't we teaching our children to be responsible with their money (of course, that means that parents would have to be responsible.) I believe that people should be responsible for their actions and the government shouldn't enforce that. What did people do from 1776 until the 1930's?....

Matthew

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

http://imdb.com/title/tt0102138/

 

[number6]

First

administration officials said before the war that the cost of the Iraq war to the American people would be 2 Billion dollars. The rest would come from Iraq oil revenues. This is also a myth. Who said it and where is a quote to back it up. I have yet had anyone who I have challenged to find it. (if you do PM me with it I have an open mind)

The list you provided is just as long for any administration I voted for Clinton. His list of is just as long if not longer.

WMD in Iraq is a fact, The BBC has reported extensively about it. 3900 hundred pound of highly enriched uranium the kind used in the construction of nuclear weapons was pulled out of Iraq. Hiroshima was destroyed with just under 40 pounds. Over 1.4 million pounds of yellow cake Uranium was removed from the country. Senator Santorum sub comity came out with a report that over 600 round of various chemical weapons had been found. Not one Democrat on that comity denied the findings.

In April or May of 2004 a artillery shell containing nerve gas was used in a roadside bomb. They terrorist did know it was a chemical round because it was painted to look like a regular shell. These are facts. I know you may think the BBC is a just a mouth piece for the Bush administration. I do not.

You sit down with a calculator and you look at the cost of WW2 in todays dollars then come talk to me. To try to do so with out the adjustment is an apples to oranges argument. In the terms of blood in WW2 we lost more in one day than we have lost in 6 years of combat.

Please do not trod out that bullshit number of 650,000 dead innocent civilians. The UN has even said that is grossly exaggerated.

As I have said I am not a Bush Fan. But I can assure you there is no one on this forum or on this planet that has more information about the treats this nation faces then the Person who sits behind the desk in the Oval office.

Even if we had a WW2 style retool of our energy infrastructure it would still be years, before we would be free from oil. So what happens in that region of the world effects us everyday in every way. What do think would happen if on tuesday Iran closed the straights in the persian gulf. How many people lives would be destroyed. How may people would freeze to death in there homes, who depend on fuel oil.

It's the difference between looking at the world as it is, not at the way we all wish it could be. The world is not full of compassionate and fair minded people like you and I. We face an enemy who doesn't care who is the white house republican or democrat, man or woman. They don't hate us because of what we do, they hate us because of who we are. We believe that you can choose your faith, or no faith at all. We believe that women are equals to pursue their lives as they see fit. We believe in free will.

It doesn't matter that their dark vision of the world will never become a reality. All that matters is the body count that it will take to defeat them. The longer it takes for the world to realize that there in no middle ground the higher that number will be.

The question I ask all those who think that George Bush is the Devil. Is how many innocent american civilians have to die in single attack, 10,000, 50,000, 1,000,000, 10,000,000 before you would go as far as he did.

I wonder what would have happened if Gore (whom I voted for) had made the same choices as Bush did, if you would have had the same point of view. I think not.

Haven't been reading all the long posts, but started reading this one and couldn't put it doun! A good read.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

If a terrorist wants to bring us to a stand still it takes:

A sniper rifle. 1000 subsonic rounds. A silencer.

Spread 20 terrorists around 10 major cities and 10 terrorists who are mobile in small to medium towns.

Snipe 10 people. Stop move on.

30 days later you've got 3000 people dead and the entire country locked in their homes not going to work.

How do you stop that? You can't. What are we going to do setup a laser perimeter across the entire norther border? I know we're going to try to stop the southern border but that won't stop a small boat sneaking through in the dead of night.

It takes so few people to cause mass hysteria, fear and panic that defending against it is impossible. We should take actions to defend against real threats (nuclear proliferation etc etc) and shore up our funding where it'll do some good.

I'm a pragmatist. If Tax cuts actually boosted the economy and "trickled down" I would be throwing a little rally/parade every day of the week. It's not that simple. Reagan's tax cuts resulted in massive economic down turns. Bush's tax cuts resulted in huge economic down turns.

Did we not learn anything from the complete boondogle of the "Chicago Boys" in south america? Libertarian/Republican super-capitalism was given a structured and rigorous chance to succeed. It's the closest you could possibly get to a long term scientific study on the effects of free-market deregulation and it resulted in the complete self destruction of the economy.

If the USSR is a case study of the failure of communism, Chile was a case study in deregulated, unregulated enterprise.


For some reason Americans believe in "Innocent until proven guilty" except when it comes to foreigners... How many americans would have to die before I acted like Bush? How many innocent Iraqis are going to die? It's certainly been more than.... the 0 that Iraqi terrorists have carried out on American targets.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I did come across this old CNN Money article from 2003:

http://money.cnn.com/2003/03/17/news/economy/war_cost/index.htm
In September 2002, former Bush economic adviser Larry Lindsey said war could cost between $100 billion and $200 billion, speculation that was immediately dismissed by White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels.

There are some charts here showing the past estimates:
http://www.usiraqprocon.org/bin/pro...mmand=viewone&op=t&id=6&rnd=625.8173069242939

A 2006 MSNBC article on the cost of the war:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11880954
U.S. direct spending on the war in Iraq already has surpassed the upper bound of Lindsey's upper bound, and most economists attribute billions more in indirect costs to the war effort. Even if the U.S. exits Iraq within another three years, total direct and indirect costs to U.S. taxpayers will likely by more than $400 billion, and one estimate puts the total economic impact at up to $2 trillion.

Back in 2002, the White House was quick to distance itself from Lindsey's view. Mitch Daniels, director of the White House budget office, quickly called the estimate "very, very high." Lindsey himself was dismissed in a shake-up of the White House economic team later that year, and in January 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the budget office had come up with "a number that's something under $50 billion." He and other officials expressed optimism that Iraq itself would help shoulder the cost once the world market was reopened to its rich supply of oil.

--

So looking around at the past news online, it looks like the administration was initially trying to claim under 50 billion for cost of the war. I think the current figure is now around 400 billion, a pretty big difference!

 

[Joel Kaye]

administration officials said before the war that the cost of the Iraq war to the American people would be 2 Billion dollars. The rest would come from Iraq oil revenues. This is also a myth. Who said it and where is a quote to back it up. I have yet had anyone who I have challenged to find it. (if you do PM me with it I have an open mind)

1.7 Billion was the cost of rebuilding Iraq before the war that was sold to the American people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoFO-fbV7fY

"Before the war began, the White House turned the dogs loose on anyone who predicted that the war could cost just that much. When Bush's chief economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, said the war might cost between $100 billion and $200 billion, the White House decried that as "very, very high." Lindsey was out of a job a few months later. When the Army chief of staff, General Eric Shinseki, worried out loud before the war that several hundred thousand troops might be needed to win and keep the peace, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz bayed that Shinseki was "wildly off the mark."

Right after the war started, Wolfowitz proclaimed in a House hearing, "When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government and the international community. . . . The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 billion and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years."

A month later, Andrew Natsios, the head of the US Agency for International Development, said American taxpayers would not pay more than $1.7 billion in reconstruction costs. "$1.7 billion is the limit," he said on ABC's "Nightline."

Clearly the evidence that the cost of this war was massively misrepresented can NOT be in doubt. There is NO argument there and that's the point. The Bush team will say literally anything they need to in order to get what they want. I could actually find many more examples of them lying to the American people if I cared. Anyone who still supports Bush today either thinks lying about literally everything is OK or they just don't care what the guy does and will like him regardless.

We could go ON AND ON:
Remember - Donald Rumsfeld famously said to U.S. troops before the war that he didn't know how long they would be in Iraq - 6 days, 6 weeks... I doubt 6 months. 6 years wasn't even on his radar. It's hard to imagine how these guys could have been so wrong when George Bush's own father AND Stormin' Norman Schwartzkopf from Iraq War I BOTH outlined what would have happened if we invaded Baghdad. They predicted EXACTLY what we have now.

We KNEW this was going to be difficult but Bush and Rumsfeld either were outrageously stupid or lied. One or the other.


Bush forced the first General retire when he recommended MANY more troops than Rumsfeld wanted. Bush has constantly IGNORED military recommendations and run this war his own way and that is in part why it has failed.

Lastly, Clinton did bad things. He signed Nafta. He got a blow job and lied about it. Clinton gave us a surplus. Clinton gave Monica a surplus too. He bombed an aspirin factory and may have done it to draw attention away from his investigations. The guy was pretty bad. But NOTHING like the Bush administration. To compare the two is silly. It's not honest IMHO.

Lying a country into a war that could have been avoided is the single greatest SIN a President can commit against his people. Bush did it. How anyone can defend him that has honestly, with an open mind, researched in depth how his decisions were made is beyond me. I don't think most people have.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrPhjMcQL40&feature=related

There you go Mr. Open Minded. Are you going to fight the facts? That's what I think too many Republicans do. I think they fight facts and defend their faith despite what reality presents them with.

 

[Russ McDonald]

Exactly. It hasn't happened because there was never a real threat. If the threat was real the first thing that would have happened is the borders and ports would have been secured. It's 6 years later now and any terrorist still can make a mad dash across the border...

There was simply never a real threat to America. 19 dudes with boxcutters (mostly Saudi's) and our own airplanes. That's all it was. If they had nukes they would have used 'em.

Saddam was a sworn enemy of Osama's. Gotta remember, Saddam was secular and Osama is a religious fanatic. The only WMD's Saddam ever used were one's the were Made in the USA and sold by Reagan/Bush. Now why would we sell WMD if we didn't want him to use them? (and he used them on rebels in his own countery... kinda like Lincoln used everything he had against rebels in his own country)

At least Clinton actually caught and jailed the guys who bombed the WTC in '93. Osama is still out there...

Clinton was offered Osama on a silver plater by the Sudan. I have the mp3 of him talking about it. He passed. This was way before 911. He didn't think he was a threat either. You need to pull your head out of your ass.

I shudder to think what your answer to the question I posed in the previous post would be.

You mention torture before. If I had the information that would mean the difference between life and death of someone you loved, and I wouldn't tell you what it was. Would you leave the room with your ideals interacted or would you grab a bucket of water.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

This lively debate has been going on pretty well without name-calling until now but it will be closed if it turns into that, so don't get personal.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

It doesn't matter that their dark vision of the world will never become a reality. All that matters is the body count that it will take to defeat them. The longer it takes for the world to realize that there in no middle ground the higher that number will be.

The question I ask all those who think that George Bush is the Devil. Is how many innocent american civilians have to die in single attack, 10,000, 50,000, 1,000,000, 10,000,000 before you would go as far as he did.

I wonder what would have happened if Gore (whom I voted for) had made the same choices as Bush did, if you would have had the same point of view. I think not.

What about not hunting them down and killing them. Sure it feels great to shoot a terrorist. One less terrorist! But then you've got 5 pissed off cousins. I would rather have one nutcase terrorist than 5 pissed off family members.

The sooner the world realizes we *can't* just kill all of them and that this is a problem that can't be solved by violence the sooner we can actually solve it. (Don't get me wrong I'm a strong believer in violence solving tough problems but likeyou said the only way to stop them is to kill every single one of them... and that's not exactly economically, morally or realisticaly feasible.)

P.S. If you have free will I challenge you to truly change your opinion on something that you care about. Hate democracy for a day. I look forward to seeing how successful you are.

 

[Russ McDonald]

If a terrorist wants to bring us to a stand still it takes:

A sniper rifle. 1000 subsonic rounds. A silencer.

Spread 20 terrorists around 10 major cities and 10 terrorists who are mobile in small to medium towns.

Snipe 10 people. Stop move on.

30 days later you've got 3000 people dead and the entire country locked in their homes not going to work.

How do you stop that? You can't. What are we going to do setup a laser perimeter across the entire norther border? I know we're going to try to stop the southern border but that won't stop a small boat sneaking through in the dead of night.

It takes so few people to cause mass hysteria, fear and panic that defending against it is impossible. We should take actions to defend against real threats (nuclear proliferation etc etc) and shore up our funding where it'll do some good.

I'm a pragmatist. If Tax cuts actually boosted the economy and "trickled down" I would be throwing a little rally/parade every day of the week. It's not that simple. Reagan's tax cuts resulted in massive economic down turns. Bush's tax cuts resulted in huge economic down turns.

Did we not learn anything from the complete boondogle of the "Chicago Boys" in south america? Libertarian/Republican super-capitalism was given a structured and rigorous chance to succeed. It's the closest you could possibly get to a long term scientific study on the effects of free-market deregulation and it resulted in the complete self destruction of the economy.

If the USSR is a case study of the failure of communism, Chile was a case study in deregulated, unregulated enterprise.


For some reason Americans believe in "Innocent until proven guilty" except when it comes to foreigners... How many americans would have to die before I acted like Bush? How many innocent Iraqis are going to die? It's certainly been more than.... the 0 that Iraqi terrorists have carried out on American targets.

Is this the same Iraqi that that face death and mortar attacks when they went to vote, to establish their democracy. A constitution they wrote contrary to another myth that we and the British wrote it.

 

[Dominic Cochran]

Clinton was offered Osama on a silver plater by the Sudan. I have the mp3 of him talking about it. He passed. This was way before 911. He didn't think he was a threat either.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/clinton.htm

Sure, you're right, Clinton didn't think Bin Laden was a threat. lol

You need to pull your head out of your ass.

And so the descent will begin. Well played sir.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

What did people do from 1776 until the 1930's?....

Matthew

Starved, froze, crawled through the mud, beat their children, exploited the poor, died of the flu, let old people wander the streets, used orphans as cheap labor, forced people to work in extremely dangerous environments, commited genocide on the local inhabitants (including germ warfare), used chemical weapons agains their enemies, killed homosexuals,minorities and adulterers with somewhat impunity...

Happy times!

 

[Russ McDonald]

What about not hunting them down and killing them. Sure it feels great to shoot a terrorist. One less terrorist! But then you've got 5 pissed off cousins. I would rather have one nutcase terrorist than 5 pissed off family members.

The sooner the world realizes we *can't* just kill all of them and that this is a problem that can't be solved by violence the sooner we can actually solve it. (Don't get me wrong I'm a strong believer in violence solving tough problems but likeyou said the only way to stop them is to kill every single one of them... and that's not exactly economically, morally or realisticaly feasible.)

P.S. If you have free will I challenge you to truly change your opinion on something that you care about. Hate democracy for a day. I look forward to seeing how successful you are.

Again you see the conflict only the way you want to see it. I'm a vet I have allot of friends in country. Believe me we aren't getting the whole story. the vast majority of the guys I know, see the change in Anbar is spreading it just takes time. Our guys aren't just killing people far from it...

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Is this the same Iraqi that that face death and mortar attacks when they went to vote, to establish their democracy. A constitution they wrote contrary to another myth that we and the British wrote it.

WHAT! We can't count terrorist attacks in Iraq *AFTER* the war.

The question you asked was "How would you have acted if you were Bush. How many deaths would it have taken before you did what he did."

reference:

The question I ask all those who think that George Bush is the Devil. Is how many innocent american civilians have to die in single attack, 10,000, 50,000, 1,000,000, 10,000,000 before you would go as far as he did.

How many americans would have to die before I acted like Bush? How many innocent Iraqis are going to die? It's certainly been more than.... the 0 that Iraqi terrorists have carried out on American targets.

*BEFORE* The war there were 0 Iraqi terrorist attacks on US targets. Therefore that's a terrible argument for going to war.


P.S. I supported in theory the concept of invading Iraq. I didn't accept the rationality at the time, or the means by which they were planning to execute it.

 

[vincelucero]

If you haven't seen this, check it out. Say what you will about it but it definitely shows the power of editing. Mind changing.

http://zeitgeistmovie.com/

 

[Curran Giddens]

If you haven't seen this, check it out. Say what you will about it but it definitely shows the power of editing. Mind changing.

http://zeitgeistmovie.com/

One of my favorite Docs.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/iraq_billions200710

I wonder what happened to $9B of the $12B in US currency that was shipped to Iraq. All told, the Fed shipped 281 million individual banknotes, in bricks weighing a total of 363 tons.

No wonder Bush doesn't want to publish the M3 money supply numbers anymore....

 

[Joel Kaye]

Clinton was offered Osama on a silver plater by the Sudan.

And you know why he didn't bomb him? Because Osama was with the Royal Family of Dubai and Clinton would have killed all of them too.

Dubai is the country Halliburton is now HQ'd in. A Dubai company is who Bush wanted to sell port security to.

If you do a little more research you'd find out that the NUMBER ONE THING the Clinton administration WARNED BUSH to be concerned about was Osama Bin Laden.

" NEW YORK - Former President Bill Clinton warned President George W. Bush before he left office in 2001 that Osama bin Laden was the biggest security threat the United States faced, Clinton said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a luncheon sponsored by the History Channel, Clinton said he discussed security issues with Bush in his "exit interview," a formal and often candid meeting between a sitting president and the president-elect.

"In his campaign, Bush had said he thought the biggest security issue was Iraq and a national missile defense," Clinton said. "I told him that in my opinion, the biggest security problem was Osama bin Laden."


Remember the U.S.S. Cole? Well evidence that Osama was behind it didn't come out until George Bush had taken office. But he chose to ignore and not go after Osama.

In fact - Condoleeza Rice focused on missile defense and had never even used the word terrorist in any national defense meeting before 9-11. Google the undelivered Rice speech intended to be given ON 9-11. Reportedly, there is no mention of Osama or terrorism.

If Gore was President he would have been after Osama Bin Laden. That's the plain, simple truth as the facts indicate. OR Osama is still alive because there's a deeper conspiracy. Remember, Osama Bin Laden was trained by the CIA under George Bush Sr.

You knew that, right?

And NO, I would not torture because I know that torture more often than not leads to inaccurate information. That and I don't want America to become what we are fighting against.

When we become what we hate we have lost and they have won.