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

[Russ McDonald]

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.

Look I new it would be a long battle, no one in the administration said anything different. you cant even tell what going to happen to you in your life in the next week let alone the next year. No one can. You expect a level of perfection in a situation that has so many dynamics, and the enemy has a vote too. Remember the allies in ww2 thought it would be over by Christmas after D-Day.

Bush never said Iraq was involved in 911.

Clinton, Bush, and the 14 members of UN security council believed in WMD in Iraq. Turns out the only thing they got wrong was a stock pile issue. He maybe wrong but, thats far from a lie.

 

[vincelucero]

oh, it doesn't really get good till the second part. and it's long too.

 

[Curran Giddens]

oh, it doesn't really get good till the second part. and it's long too.

yeah, part 1 about religion is pretty boring. I have to recommend skipping that part.

At least it leaves someone the opportunity to make an even better docu....

 

[Joel Kaye]

He maybe wrong but, thats far from a lie.

I think the facts don't support your case. Rumsfeld clearly told the troops he didn't think it would take 6 months. That's a fact.

70% of Americans believed Iraq was involved in 9-11. That didn't happen by accident. It was orchestrated.

Bush said he'd fire anyone who was involved with outing Valeria Plame. He certainly lied about that.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Oh dear lord I had almost forgotten about Missile Defense. Reagan said a lot of things and then quite often took a rational course of action behinds the scenes. Talk tough, negotiate quietly. It's almost like Bush read all the press releases but not the history books on what Reagan actually ended up doing. Even on taxes Reagan eventually had to come around and roll back some of his more extravagent cuts.

Reagan wants missile defense. Bush wants missile defense. Reagan is smart enough (I think) to realize it's hopeless and pretty much a huge waste of money but does force the soviet union to try and match expenditures. Bush just knows Reagan talked about Missile Defense and buys into the misinformation.

There is so much misinformation spread about during the reagan years which was directed at the soviet union that has somehow stuck at home. That's the danger of propaganda. It can be hard to get out of your nice linens.

 

[Russ McDonald]

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.

I was wonder when the black helicopters would start taking off.

If there is deep conspiracy, would it have been infinitely easier to load the black helicopters with chemical weapons, put them in some bunker in Anbar just after the invasion invite the world to see.

How old are you, must be young. You must not have a child because I can think of no parent that would not grab the bucket with childs life on the line.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

My father actually worked on the cruise missile program during the Reagan Adminstration for the DoD... I remember asking him about the "Star Wars" program and he said it was a boondoggle, a money pit designed to funnel money into private defense companies that had backed Reagan's campaign. Very few people felt it was a rational thing to spend money on with any probability of success.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

How old are you, must be young. You must not have a child because I can think of no parent that would not crab the bucket with childs life on the line.

Please refrain from these sorts of emotionally loaded arguments. No one is for having their loved ones tortured and killed so this line of argument is not particularly helpful or practical. You can't reduce the issue of the War in Iraq to "if you're against the war... you must be for having your child or wife tortured or murdered." That would mean that over half this country actually wants their children and spouses tortured and killed, and we know that's not true. The situation is not as simplistic as that.

Common sense would tell you that there are alternative options in fighting terrorism than the ones that the Bush Administration chose. Maybe the alternatives wouldn't have worked, that's a separate argument.

The argument against torture isn't "if you're not for torture, then you want the terrorists to kill your family". Again, reductive to the point of impracticality. Many experts say that torture is not an effective way of gathering accurate intelligence. Plus you can't really object to an enemy of war torturing prisoners if you practice the same tactics, so you end up putting your own troops in greater danger. Plus, frankly, it's beneath us. And it's not just me saying this, it's Republicans like John McCain.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

How old are you, must be young. You must not have a child because I can think of no parent that would not grab the bucket with childs life on the line.

Most parents would also grab a shotgun if they had a likely suspect in their child's murder. There is a reason we have a court of law. If a million people were in eminent danger then you can *DECIDE* to break the law and face the consequences.

The danger to our society from suspending habeus corpus for instance is dramatically greater than the threat of getting blown up by a terrorist. People are going to die in terrorists attacks. People are going to get mugged. Eventually there's a point where stopping it is more damaging than the people we let die.

There's a sure fire cure for cancer that most people don't approve of... I'll give you a hint it involves tanks full of hydrochloric acid.

Edit:
David I see you're also a fan of the slowly evolving post.

Sometimes I wonder if 30 different people didn't read 30 different versions of my posts.

 

[Dominic Cochran]

How old are you, must be young. You must not have a child because I can think of no parent that would not grab the bucket with childs life on the line.

This is typical of the simplistic thinking that has our country in so much trouble.

 

[Russ McDonald]

Please refrain from these sorts of emotionally loaded arguments. No one is for having their loved ones tortured and killed so this line of argument is not particularly helpful or practical. You can't reduce the issue of the War in Iraq to "if you're against the war... you must be for having your child or wife tortured or murdered." That would mean that over half this country actually wants their children and spouses tortured and killed, and we know that's not true. The situation is not as simplistic as that.

Slow down Dave

That is a gross mis-representation of what I said. The point is we love are ethical high horse, but when it comes down to it if the lives of those we personally connected with, are in mortal danger the overwhelming majority would do what ever we had to do to save their life.

If the president could stop a Nuke from going off in LA by waterbording a terrorist, but chose not to, and 300,000 people were vaporized. What do do think would happen. How pissed off would you be. This is a real possibility.

What do you think would happen in this country if that became a reality.

 

[number6]

Someone called Republicans simple-minded in their approach earlier...don't remember who and don't care, so I guess that makes me more aligned with the Republicans. Not my chosen label, though.

Terrorism. Not knowing if the person standing next to you or your friend or family member is willing to die in order to kill you, your friend, your family member. You can't tell by looking at them either because they may look like you, your friend, your family member.

Why do people become terrorists? Probably because they have been indoctrinated in a philosophy that uses people for guided missiles.

How do you stop that philosophy from growing? By confronting it head on in the Philippines, Maylasia, Indonesia, Africa, the Middle East, South America etc.

I believe this administration has given us the best antidote to terrorism that we could have hoped for, and I wouldn't be surprised if the people of Iraq do not raise a statue to G. Bush in a hundred years or so, much like Japan has done to O. A. Deming for changing their country through productivity.

I know there are many who see things differently, but if you can convince your mind to look 5, 10 years into the future, maybe you will not be so angry with how things have gone the past 7 years.

I wonder, if Gore had won, would we have the RED one now? Every small occurence affects everything that comes after.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

You're sort of missing the point -- the waterboarded terrorist won't necessarily tell you the truth, and now you've committed an immoral, unethical, and probably illegal act just to get a possible lie from someone. What is it they say about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions? And what is they say about working smarter, not harder?

I'd prefer the government used effective 21st Century investigation techniques in the pursuit of the safety of this country, not ineffective 13th Century techniques just to get questionable information from some guy who might say anything to stop being tortured.

No one wants to get killed, but it would be nice to live in a country that you could be proud of for standing up for what's right, not descending into barbarism. It would be nice to keep America a country worth fighting for.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

If I were faced with the choice in some completely contrived situation where I had to kill my best friend and then myself in order to save millions--I would do it. But that doesn't mean we should condone such actions.

There would also be consequences. If someone commits a crime for the sake of saving the country, there would be investigations. Imagine if Bush shot someone in the head in the Oval Office and claimed he did it to save millions of lives -- there would be a trial, investigations, lots and lots of questions... Well, torturing someone with the excuse that they were saving millions should get the same level of scrutiny, not swept under the rug of "national security". When crimes are being committed by our own government supposedly for our own good -- and torture is a crime -- then it's up to us to be skeptical and call them out on it. Because going back to the Magna Carta, there is this basic principle that no man is above the law, including the President.

I'm sorry Gavin -- I hit "edit" when I meant to hit "reply" and I edited your post rather than post my own! The problem with being given the powers of a moderator I guess...

David Mullen, ASC

 

[David Birdy]

Hate to break it to everyone...

A few years back...(maybe 50 years or 150 years) the government in the USA stopped being for the people and started being for the people in the government...
Modern day Lobbyist are nothing more than well polished bag men.
We are seeing a broken system full of greed and dirty politics !
Put this system back on track by making lobby contributions illegal with jail time for violators.....o yeah...don't forget to enforce the laws you put on the books!

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

There would also be consequences. If someone commits a crime for the sake of saving the country, there would be investigations. Imagine if Bush shot someone in the head in the Oval Office and claimed he did it to save millions of lives -- there would be a trial, investigations, lots and lots of questions... Well, torturing someone with the excuse that they were saving millions should get the same level of scrutiny, not swept under the rug of "national security". When crimes are being committed by our own government supposedly for our own good -- and torture is a crime -- then it's up to us to be skeptical and call them out on it. Because going back to the Magna Carta, there is this basic principle that no man is above the law, including the President.

I'm sorry Gavin -- I hit "edit" when I meant to hit "reply" and I edited your post rather than post my own! The problem with being given the powers of a moderator I guess...

David Mullen, ASC

No problem That's a better post anyway. The idea is what's important regardless of the author.

The only thing that I would add back on from the original is that throughout history every side has believed it's on the side of justice and progress. On every side of every conflict you had people who believed that their actions were bettering the world. The Holocaust was a desperate act to save the world from the plotting dirty jews who were going to steal all of the world's wealth and culture leaving us as subserviant pawns in their hands to do as they please. Which while historically wrong and misguided isn't what made the nazi's notorious. It was the immoral and inhuman treatment of their enemy which was so incredibly detestable.

There is a chance that Muhammed did come. Allah is God. His laws still stand and we're all grossly violating his will. In which case the 'crazy' fundamentalists are actually bettering the world by bringing down this incredibly powerful evil cultural institution eroding Islamic ideals. Muslims have no less evidence to prove their position than Christians and yet many believers feel that awkwardly (and often incorrectly) injecting Christian dogma into politics is acceptable (case in point "Abortion is Murder guy").

- Gavin (really me!)

 

[Russ McDonald]

I'd prefer the government used effective 21st Century investigation techniques in the pursuit of the safety of this country, not ineffective 13th Century techniques just to get questionable information from some guy who might say anything to stop being tortured.

What if this doesn't work?

This naive perception that this stuff is ineffective is contrary to truth. LINK

I have friends that are from the world of Special Ops, this is how it is done.
LINK

If your choice becomes the President, and they are left with no choice to save American lives, and is successful. Will you call for his impeachment?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

This argument is becoming circular because we are working from different basic premises, so we will never agree on conclusions.

I believe torture is immoral and medieval, and our government should not be engaged in it. So while one could come up with some extremely unlikely scenario where torturing may save lives, I cannot on principle condone it as an interrogation practice. People have to operate with some sense of what's right or wrong in their lives or else risk becoming soulless, even sociopathic. I also don't think the end justifies the means, but I'm not an absolutist either. But I'd rather discuss what's probable instead of extreme cases of possibility.

Obviously you have your own interpretation of events and know what's right or wrong too, but we are not working from the same basic premises.

 

[number6]

People are throwing the word "crime" around pretty freely on this thread. Isn't that decision a judicial one, and not one to be determined by an individual member of the vast public?

 

[Poi Boy]

War doesn't solve anything, pure and simple. Going into Iraq was a huge mistake compounded by terrible planning at the top. The mind bogling amounts of money spent however could do far reaching good in the world and at home. That is how you fight terrorism, by improving the lot of humanity not with water boarding.
Aloha
-A