| To: Chas. who wrote (3307) | 1/14/2004 5:04:46 PM | | From: Hawkmoon | | | | How do you debate a guy that rationalizes and equates the USAs support of Israel as a parallel to Frances support of Iraq specifically Saddam Hussein and cannot see the difference.........
The fact that they have to rely upon bluster and delusional rhetoric is evidence enough that they have essentially admitted that they know they are wrong (but are too proud to admit it), or are too ignorant and biased to hold an objective and analytical debate..
Hawk |
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| To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (3298) | 1/14/2004 5:26:47 PM | | From: lorne | | | | gus. Ya figure the holy islam clerics will start using kindergarten bombers next? I mean who would ever suspect 4 and 5 year old kids?
Hamas Vows Escalation After Using Female Bomber
abcnews.go.com
Jan. 14 — GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinian militant group Hamas said it used a woman suicide bomber for the first time on Wednesday to counter Israeli security precautions and vowed to escalate attacks in a more than three-year-old uprising.
"For the first time (Hamas) used a female fighter and not a male fighter and that was a new development in resistance against the enemy," Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told Reuters, referring to a bomber who struck at Erez crossing point on the Gaza Strip boundary with Israel, killing four Israelis.
Hamas and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, jointly claimed responsibility for the attack, identifying the bomber as a 22-year-old mother of two from Gaza City.
The Brigades and Hamas' kindred group Islamic Jihad have used women bombers in the past.
Witnesses said Wednesday's bomber set off a metal detector at a terminal used to screen Palestinian labourers en route to Erez industrial zone. She told soldiers she had a metal splint in her leg and then detonated her explosives, witnesses said.
"Resistance will escalate against this enemy (Israel) until they leave our land and homeland," Yassin said.
Sworn to Israel's destruction, Hamas has spearheaded a Palestinian uprising that erupted in the West Bank and Gaza in September 2000. Its attacks have tapered off in recent months, a fact Israeli officials attribute to army crackdowns in the occupied territories. |
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| To: ChinuSFO who wrote (3306) | 1/14/2004 5:50:52 PM | | From: lorne | | | | Dean urged Clinton to take unilateral action in Bosnia
By Steve Komarow, USA TODAY
1/14/2004 7:17 AM
usatoday.com
Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean, a strong critic of what he calls President Bush's unilateral approach to foreign policy, urged President Clinton to act unilaterally and enter the war in Bosnia in 1995. (Related item: Text of letter)
"I have reluctantly concluded that the efforts of the United States and NATO in Bosnia are a complete failure," he wrote, citing reports of genocide during the Bosnian civil war. "If we ignore these behaviors ... our moral fiber as a people becomes weakened. ... We must take unilateral action."
The July 19, 1995, letter, obtained by USA TODAY, was written on Dean's official stationery as Vermont governor. The language appears to contradict Dean's core complaint that President Bush has followed a unilateral foreign policy, instead of a multilateral approach that relies on consultation and joint action with allies. He has repeatedly attacked Bush's decision to invade Iraq.
"I think getting rid of Saddam Hussein is a wonderful thing," he saidlast month. "But the question is, is it a good idea to send 135,000 troops unilaterally to do it?"
In the 1995 letter, Dean argued for unilateral action in Bosnia on moral grounds. "As the Catholic Church and others lost credibility during the Holocaust for not speaking out, so will the United States lose credibility," he wrote.
The civil war in the former Yugoslavia gave rise to war crimes and mass murders not seen in the West since World War II. U.N. peacekeeping had failed, but the Clinton administration was undecided on whether to take military action.
Dean told Clinton that America had to intervene alone because the United Nations and NATO were unable to act effectively. He called for Clinton to bomb the Bosnian Serbs and supply arms to the Bosnian Muslims. He opposed using American ground troops.
Clinton eventually won approval from NATO but not the United Nations for a limited bombing campaign that led to peace talks and a NATO peacekeeping force at the end of 1995. About 3,000 U.S. troops are in Bosnia today.
Dean's support for the war in Bosnia is one of several examples he uses to differentiate himself from Democrats who oppose virtually all international intervention. His advisers say his stance has remained consistent over the years: A humanitarian crisis of the scale that occurred in Bosnia should trigger an armed intervention. So, too, would an attack or imminent attack on the United States.
The word "imminent" is key to differentiating Dean's policy from the president's decision to invade Iraq, said Jeremy Ben-Ami, policy director for Dean's campaign.
Bush "sold the war on the basis of an imminent threat to U.S. security, and that has now been shown to be false," Ben-Ami said. Since the threat from Iraq was not imminent, the administration could not properly justify the war, he said.
However, when Bush laid out the case for the war in his 2003 State of the Union address, he said the United States should not wait for an imminent threat.
"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent," Bush said. "Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein ... is not an option." |
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| To: Hawkmoon who wrote (3311) | 1/14/2004 9:28:11 PM | | From: ChinuSFO | | | | Hawk, what you say reminds me what the White House is saying about Paul O'neill. I am not equating my abilities to that of Paul O'neill. Instead it is the pattern of behavior of you folks to bash anybody who speak out. Now folks like you cry out loud in public of how much you folks love the military, how much the troops need to be supported, patriotism yaadi, yaadi yaada. But here is an interesting article. You read this and form your own opinion. I know you are ex military and would be curious to know what you think of the behavior of one of your own kind.
Suicide rate among soldiers up in Iraq
Pentagon dispatched assessment team to study matterThe Associated Press
Updated: 10:54 a.m. ET Jan. 14, 2004WASHINGTON - The Army’s suicide rate in Iraq has been about a third higher than past rates for troops during peacetime, the Pentagon’s top doctor said Wednesday.
........continued at msnbc.msn.com |
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| To: Chas. who wrote (3307) | 1/14/2004 9:34:59 PM | | From: ChinuSFO | | | | Today we have quarterly earnings reports from bellweather companies in the High tech and biotech companies. Even though they beat analysts' expectation, the after hours trades indicate a sell off. Wonder why?
Do you think that the White House claim that the economy is improving raised the expectations of the common investor and when they see what the figures are they see the White House claim as a false claim.
So Bush wants to have his head in the cloud with a trip to the Moon and Mars. Since Americans would start fleeing to the Moon supposedly in search of oil, there would be a shortage of workers. Hence they can come in from Mexico. And guess what. They will now be entitled to free counselling for marriage. Well if they are gay then they are not going to be eligible for that sort of a Federal assistance. WOW, great Bush domestic policies. |
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| To: lorne who wrote (3299) | 1/15/2004 4:09:13 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | Re: Like I have been saying it's all about religion.
From YOUR point of view, it is, indeed, all about religion... Keep in mind, however, that, over here in "Ol'Europe", we've swung over to a post-Christian worldview. So we are "very concerned" about the American's freakish twist of mind --not about our Muslim immigrants. Our churches are empty, the worthiest ones are basically used as touristic venues for Japanese and Americans.... And we're nonplussed by the American religiosity: the Jimmy Swaggarts sweating and crying before a crowd of thousands of Jesus freaks... amidst chants and prayers "my Lord!... Jesus! I'm a sinner!!" This is just a pathetic spectacle to us... G.W. Bush starts all his White House meetings with a prayer?!? Ridiculous....
From our viewpoint here in Europe, you Yanks are just a bunch of Jesus freaks who're ready to torch the whole planet for the sake of that "Mr Jesus" of yours.... That's basically why you're currently messing around in Iraq --you're on a "holy mission" to keep Jerusalem in Judeo-Protestant custody... As that nutcase Boykin put it, Muslims are just a bunch of idol worshippers who have no right whatsoever over the holy city. We used to call that a CRUSADE. Now, what's driving you mad is that we, Europeans, no longer play that silly Jesus game --you crazy bigots are on your own.... fighting the Muslims. Oh, sure, we do have a few Jesus freaks left, we do have a coupla pocket warmongers: Spain's Aznar and Italy's Berlusconi. But public opinion in both Spain and Italy is much closer to France's and Germany's than to the US's, anyway. Public opinion in Spain and Italy opposed the US crusade in Iraq.
Now, that doesn't mean we don't have any problem with Arab/Muslim immigrants. As I said, Europe has difficulties co-opting ethnic minorities... Europe leans towards the Brazilian segregative model ("racismo cordial" and all that...) not the US co-optative model. That means that the challenge for Europe is mainly socio-economic, not religious. The religious spin stems from the fact that Europe's Arab outcasts use Islam as a survival kit of sorts. Fifty years ago, the jobless and the immigrants used to resort to Marxism to rationalize their predicament... Today, North African youths rely on their religious heritage instead.
Gus |
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| To: Hawkmoon who wrote (3309) | 1/15/2004 4:37:07 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | Re: Bolshevik uprising in Germany in 1943?? LOL!!!
In the spring of 1944, a Soviet invasion of Germany became a real possibility, as Soviet troops pursued the retreating German army. Hitler ordered the citizens of Germany to destroy anything that the enemy could put to good use. Embittered by defeats, he later turned against the Germans themselves. 'If the German people lose the war, then they will have proved themselves unworthy of me.'
Hitler suffered his greatest military setback of the war in the summer of 1944. More destructive by far than the D-Day landings, Stalin's Operation Bagration in Belorussia eliminated three times more German army divisions than the Allies did in Normandy. Hitler retaliated by demanding specific divisions of the German army stand fast to the last man - the very tactic that Stalin had deployed so disastrously in the early days of the war. Defeat for Germany was only months away.
Final victory came for Russia when Soviet soldiers hoisted the red flag over the Berlin Reichstag in April 1945. The occupying troops celebrated, some indulging in the rape and murder of German citizens. When Stalin was told how some of the Red Army soldiers were treating German refugees, he is reported to say: 'We lecture our soldiers too much; let them have some initiative.'
"Vladlen Anchishkin, a Soviet battery commander on the 1st Ukrainian Front, sums up the horror of the whole event, when he tells how he took personal revenge on German soldiers: 'I can admit it now, I was in such a state, I was in such a frenzy. I said, 'Bring them here for an interrogation' and I had a knife, and I cut him. I cut a lot of them. I thought, 'You wanted to kill me, now it's your turn.'
bbc.co.uk |
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| To: lorne who wrote (3299) | 1/15/2004 4:58:44 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | Tokenism a la francaise....
Appointment of Arab prefect fans French angst over affirmative action
Elaine Sciolino/NYT
Thursday, January 15, 2004
PARIS Has Aissa Dermouche been given the job of prefect of the Jura region near the Swiss border because of affirmative action or because he is the best candidate for the job?
The appointment Wednesday of the 57-year-old Algerian-born business school director makes him the only prefect who is foreign-born or Muslim in all of France. But it was announced without fanfare along with others at the weekly Council of Ministers meeting.
After all, affirmative action or "positive discrimination" as it is called here is not supposed to exist in a country that does not identify people by national origin in the national census and is not supposed to gather data according to race, religion or ethnicity. Affirmative action has traditionally been seen as an ill-conceived American invention that celebrates differences and encourages divisions.
But in a television debate last November, the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, broke a political taboo and touched off a fierce public debate by arguing in favor of the practice to help raise Muslims out of suburban ghettos and give them a place in French society.
Since then, the French government has found itself caught between the impulse to respond to the needs of its large ethnic Arab and Muslim population while at the same time rejecting any practice that threatens the French republican ideal of equality.
"There are parts of France and categories of French citizen who have loaded on their heads so many handicaps that if we do not help them more than we help others, they will never escape," Sarkozy, who is said to harbor presidential ambitions, said in a debate at the Political Studies Institute in Paris earlier this month.
During a meeting with high school students in Tunisia last December, President Jacques Chirac said that discrimination is not positive and that it was not "acceptable" to "appoint people based on their origins."
Then last Friday, during a reception for the press in Paris, Chirac said that he had told his ministers last July that they had to come up with a candidate as prefect from "immigrant origins."
Otherwise, he would not approve any new appointments, he said.
And the Elysée Palace announced last week that someone of "immigrant origin" was to be named a prefect.
On Wednesday, however, in a statement released from his office, Chirac said that the nomination was based on "a basic republican principle - that top civil service appointments are based on the recognition of merit, whatever the origins of the persons involved." Sensitive to the fact that the expression "positive discrimination" is a loaded one, French officials are struggling to come up with alternatives. Sarkozy on Wednesday proposed that it be replaced with the words "republican voluntarism." He did not define the phrase, which conceivably could be interpreted to mean the granting of jobs and educational opportunities to further the cause of the French republic.
In an interview with Europe 1 radio last November, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said he preferred the term "positive mobilization," adding, "The idea that there are good forms of discrimination on the one hand and bad ones on the other might be seen as a confused notion."
Despite the center-right government's official position against affirmative action, there are exceptions.
In his debate earlier this month, Sarkozy made that point, saying, "When we create quotas for the disabled, when we pass a law so that half the people on party lists at elections are women, when we set up economic and educational priority zones, what is that if not positive discrimination?"
A constitutional law passed in June 2000 requires political parties to support 50 percent of candidates from each sex in several types of elections, including elections in cities of more than 3,500 inhabitants, some senatorial elections and regional and European Parliament elections.
Although the first Muslim prefect was appointed in 1942, few Muslims have been appointed prefect or sub-prefect despite France's growing Arab and Muslim population. (Although there are no official figures, there are an estimated 5 million Muslims in France, about 8 percent of the population.) Dermouche, a chevalier of the Legion of Honor and of the National Order of Merit, came to France when he was 18. He has headed the Audencia school of management, one of the selective "grandes écoles" where France trains its elite, since 1989.
In a telephone interview from Nantes, Dermouche called his appointment "a great honor" and a "great pleasure to serve the state," but declined to speculate on why he was chosen. "I wouldn't attempt to analyze the decisions that have motivated my nomination," he said. He also declined to say whether he favored affirmative action, saying, "I can't cast judgment, which would be a political judgment, on positive discrimination." The New York Times
iht.com |
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| To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (3316) | 1/15/2004 9:07:37 AM | | From: ChinuSFO | | | | Gus, well said. The Pat Robertson's gang has taken over the White House. Gangs landed up during the Florida recount in Florida and raped democracy. They yelled and hemmed during the recount. Those same bandits landed up at the Supreme court. And now they have raped the country. There are no jobs in middle America, neither there are jobs on the coast.
Religious fanatics continue to spread the fear of terrorism amongst the American. And they are such sissies that they themselves fear to say that it is religion that they are fighting for.
The American voting public was right in 2000 when they voted in the majority for Gore instead of for Bush. But the thugs and bandits stole the elections. This time though the American public will come out and give a resounding verdict. Zogby poll indicates that Kerry has pulled ahead in Iowa. Clark continues to gain in NH. All this goes to indicate that the people are interested and alert. They want a new face in the White House. And those thugs are running shit scared calling names for all those who oppose them. Now, one of their own kind, Pual O'Neill is a traitor, a liar, someone who is mentally deranged etc. etc. There behavior kind of reminds you of the treatment meted out to the Gulags.
The Americans are proud of their democratic system too. You may see polls indicating that Bush will beat any of the contenders hollow. Don't be fooled by such numbers. They would want to give their President as close to 4 years as possible. But then watch what happens after June 2004 as the elction in November 2004 nears. |
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| To: Chas. who wrote (3307) | 1/15/2004 11:52:51 AM | | From: ChinuSFO | | | | Go debate the Autralians, one of America's allies!!
Bush goes for Mars, and re-election
By Rodney Dalton, New York correspondent
January 16, 2004
ASPIRING "to carry astronauts beyond our orbit to other worlds", George W.Bush yesterday challenged NASA to land a human on the moon as early as 2015 and establish a base to reach Mars.
....continued at theaustralian.news.com.au |
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