| To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (150641) | 11/2/2004 5:18:16 PM | | From: Win Smith | | | | and everywhere in the Middle East the terrorists are praying for a Bush loss.
Utter and complete BS. You can call the moderator on me if you want, but I find it utterly ridiculous that I'm always getting berated for incivility and other alleged high crimes and misdemeanors, and you consistently put out nonsense like this as if it actually means something. "Remarkable contributions", indeed. Do you put on a Cheney sneer while you're typing garbage like that? |
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| To: TimF who wrote (150664) | 11/2/2004 5:21:13 PM | | From: Michael Watkins | | | | Its all over but the shouting, but to respond:
Searching a particular dump or even searching ammo dumps in general isn't even planned at the level of the president.
NO ONE has suggested that the President is responsible for setting targets or developing the minutia of specific battle plans.
But the President IS responsible for the overall war plan, which importantly includes setting goals.
* IF the goal was to secure arms and components of "weapons of mass destruction" from getting in the hands of terrorists,
* THEN then the war plan had better have specific provision for achieving those goals.
Clearly the war plan, which the President approved as is his responsibility to do so, did not take into account the requirements necessary to achieve those goals.
This should strike any observant citizen as very odd, since the entire rationale for going to war was "to secure weapons of mass destruction" lest they get in the hands of terrorists.
If the war plan doesn't speak to the primary goal, we can take the next leap of logic and start to believe that the war was called for reasons, purposes and goals other than what was stated at the outset.
Which is where we are now.
Hopefully Bush will be an ex-president soon and we can have inquiries to get to the bottom of things. |
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| To: TimF who wrote (150667) | 11/2/2004 5:31:08 PM | | From: Michael Watkins | | | | The explosives in question would not normally qualify as weapons of mass destruction.
The explosives in question were important enough to warrant IAEA monitoring. The explosives in question have specific utility in the production of nuclear weapons, advanced or not. They were not secured.
The facility, Al Qa Qaa, was a principle manufacturing site for all sorts of arms-related components, and included what had been their nuclear research facility. It was not secured.
A facility containing old Uranium stores (acquired decades prior, and inventoried) was broken into, materials dumped out by looters looking for interesting things. It was not secured.
A facility containing viruses - the equivalent of Centers for Disease Control - was looted. It was not secured.
And on the list goes.
Get with the picture - the Al Qa Qaa explosives issue was not the only evidence that there was no actual overarching plan to secure materials which could be used as terrorist weapons or weapons of mass destruction.
No, instead there is a very clear picture demonstrating that securing potential WMD sites was not the primary goal of the mission.
Since the war was ostensibly all about WMD - components or finished products, yet no plan was put in place to quickly secure WMD components or finished products, then what was the war for?
I can't wait for the inquiries and indictments. I will bring the popcorn. |
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| To: Sun Tzu who wrote (150668) | 11/2/2004 5:39:46 PM | | From: Nadine Carroll | | | | | Easier than that, ST. I just read the Middle East press, Palestinian and otherwise. The Middle East is a place where 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' and Bush is their enemy. It's very simple logic. A few Wahabbis have said that Bush makes the better enemy, but the majority of the Palestinian terrrorists and various jihadis who have given endorsements want what is bad for their enemy Bush. If he goes down, they can claim they did it. Osama bin Laden just threatened every state that votes for Bush, why do you think is fellow jihadis would be so different? |
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| To: Win Smith who wrote (150665) | 11/2/2004 5:41:54 PM | | From: Nadine Carroll | | | | | As usual, Win, you a full of shit with no more supporting evidence than your own righteous indignation. Osama bin Laden just threatened every state that votes for Bush (having picked up his talking points from Michael Moore) and you're going to pretend that the jihadis want a continuation of the policies of their biggest enemy. |
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| To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (150670) | 11/2/2004 5:44:46 PM | | From: Sun Tzu | | | | Middle East sees benefits of Bush
There is surprising support for a second Bush term in Iran and the Arab world, writes Brian Whitaker
Friday October 29, 2004
President Bush's election campaign received support from an unusual quarter last week when Hasan Rowhani, head of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, said that four more years of George W would be good for Iran. Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was asked about the Bush-Kerry contest at a meeting with journalists a couple of weeks ago (before he was taken ill) and replied: "It makes no difference."
In London, the consensus among Arab ambassadors - though they don't say so publicly - is that keeping Bush in the White House would be preferable to starting afresh with Kerry.
Such views are probably not what most people would expect to hear. Bush denounced Iran in his famous "axis of evil" speech and has been making hostile noises about it ever since. He has cold-shouldered Arafat and more or less washed his hands of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. More generally, as far as the Arab world is concerned, he has spared no effort to make himself the most unpopular American president ever.
Disliking Bush is one thing, but working up enthusiasm for Kerry is another - and there's little sign of that in the Middle East. What interests Arabs most is America's attitude towards the Palestinian people. Although the US under a President Kerry might be expected to re-engage in the peace process, Kerry's emphatically-declared support for Israel does not inspire Arabs with hopes of an even-handed approach.
Also pointing in Bush's favour is the popular Arab view that second-term American presidents are better placed to take a firm line with Israel than first-term presidents. The theory is that in their second term they no longer need to please the Israeli lobby in the US because they cannot seek re-election again. Although the examples of Jimmy Carter and George Bush Sr tend to disprove this theory, it's widely believed nevertheless. Bush gains, too, from the argument that says it's best to stay with the devil you know. Arab politicians and diplomats are fond of the status quo (look how long most of them have had their jobs) and, after four years adjusting to life under Bush, they would rather not embark on a new learning curve now with Kerry.
In any case, the influential Egyptian daily, al-Ahram, sees no substantial difference between Bush and Kerry, and has declared its support for Ralph Nader (of Lebanese descent), describing him as the only candidate who "responds to Arab-American interests and positions on Palestine, Iraq, civil liberties and world-wide respect for international law".
While agreeing that there may be little difference between Bush and Kerry on Israeli-Palestinian policy, Albert Aghazerian, a Palestinian-Armenian historian, detects a difference in their general attitude.
"It's a difference regarding people who have taken it upon themselves to act as if they are the liberators of the world," he said in an interview with the web magazine Bitter Lemons. "For all his faults, I don't think Kerry will ignore the lessons that we have learnt throughout history. The Bush people think they have a self-righteous justification to go and change the course of things. This messianic spirit, I think, is less in Kerry than it is in Bush ... I believe that Bush has broken the basic rules of common sense ... it has to do with this messianic approach."
Bush's messianic view, some argue, will bring more polarisation in the Middle East if he gets a second term, simultaneously benefiting the most impatient reformers and the Islamist militants: the reformers will be encouraged by continuing US pressure on Arab regimes, while al-Qaida and its likes will look to Bush for further help with their recruiting.
There are various other sectional interests that could gain from keeping Bush in the White House. Bush's relaxed environmental policies benefit the oil-producing countries (as do the current high oil prices). Bush is less likely than Kerry to trouble Arab governments with complaints about human rights, so long as they continue to fight terrorism, and there are many Lebanese who welcome American efforts to stop Syria interfering in Lebanon's affairs.
As far as Iraq and the presidential election is concerned, the most Machiavellian view was set out recently in the Jordan Times. On the assumption that the war is unwinnable, the writer suggested that electing Kerry now will allow the neoconservatives to blame him for American failure in Iraq and to insist that everything would have worked out fine if only Bush had been given a bit longer:
"Many on the American right still believe that the Vietnam war could have been won if only the spineless traitors of the left had not weakened American 'resolve' - and they say this even though Richard Nixon, who was elected on a promise to end the Vietnam war and presided over the whole latter phase of it, was a Republican. What could they do with a lost war on a Democratic president's watch?"
Far better, then, to keep Bush in power and make him reap the whirlwind. The Iraq quagmire may also explain why Hasan Rowhani and some other Iranian officials (though not, by any means, all of them) would like Bush to have a second term. So long as the US is bogged down in Iraq, it cannot seriously contemplate toppling the regime in Iran - or, for that matter, in Syria. Prospects for the US remaining bogged down look rather better under Bush than Kerry.
Some in the Iranian government also think Bush has begun to realise that his hostile policies towards Iran are unlikely to succeed and is therefore likely to adopt a more realistic approach if elected for a second term. If the dominant view of the Bush-Kerry contest in the Middle East is one of overwhelming cynicism, the picture among Arab-Americans - who do, after all, have a say in the outcome - is rather different.
Despite Bush's effort to woo them with a with a message of greetings for Ramadan ("Americans who practise the Islamic faith enrich our society ... Laura joins me in sending our best wishes"), they overwhelmingly support Kerry.
A recent poll of Arab-American voters in four of the states where they are most numerous - Michigan, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania - showed 54% backing Kerry and only 28% backing Bush, with the rest undecided or supporting Nader.
Arab Americans, though, have different priorities from Arabs in the Middle East. For them, the most important factor in deciding who to vote for is the American economy, followed by terrorism/national security, according to the poll. Iraq came fourth in their list of important issues, and Israeli-Palestinian issues only eighth.
The poll was conducted by Zogby International, a Washington-based firm whose boss, John Zogby, is from a prominent Arab-American family. Last week John Zogby's brother, James, who is president of the Arab American Institute, wrote an article for al-Ahram Weekly explaining why he would be voting for Kerry.
"The last four years have had a devastating effect on our nation," he wrote. "They have tested our national unity and our sense of mission. The Bush administration has pursued domestic and foreign policies that have been both neglectful and reckless. Because of reckless tax cuts a record surplus was turned into record deficits."
Turning to the benefits of electing Kerry and his running-mate John Edwards, he continued: "Whatever differences I may have with them, I know that they will pursue diplomacy over unilateral military pre-emption. They can be better trusted to find a way out of Iraq than the arrogant crew that got us into that mess in the first place.
"They will protect our civil liberties ... and they will make the pursuit of an Israeli-Palestinian peace a priority rather than a neglected afterthought."
Optimistic words. But we shall have to wait a few more days to see if Kerry gets a chance to prove them wrong or right.
guardian.co.uk |
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| To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (150671) | 11/2/2004 5:49:22 PM | | From: Win Smith | | | | Ewwww, bad words. Do you want to do the full Cheney and insert the F word too while you're at it? I guess that would be your job as local grand arbiter.
The "evidence" line is, of course, always ironic when used by W's true believers, but that's another story. You made the ridiculous assertion, I'd say that, conventionally, it's your job to present the "evidence" that terrorists are praying against Bush. |
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