Well, CarnalK, you’ll be happy to know my little scenario is falling apart right before my eyes. The dollar is hovering at unchanged, give or take a little on either side, and so is oil, fercryinoutloud (actually +.30 cents, according to the screen I’m looking at right now), which was down a cool 4 bucks overnight, according to the talking heads.
Looks like Saddam’s capture is being taken as a nonevent. Maybe I’ll be wrong about the election too? Hmmm…
Huh? Nobody here thinks that the US has given up on the search for bin Laden. We’re not banging on desks because–try to imagine–most of us TRUST THE PROFESSIONALS who are looking and know that they’re doing their best. We’re more patient than we’re given credit for and even the most hawkish know that killing the children in the houses of the civilan neighborhood bin Laden has doubtless secreted himself in, that being the way of his cowardly kind, on the soil of a tenuous ally, may not be the best way to do things.
And what did the search for Saddam have to do with bin Laden anyway? We can multitask. We can have more than one national goal and look for more than one murdering bastard at a time.
I fully agree with that. I just wish your government would have communicated the two matters as unrelated as well. Rather, they deliberately insinuated the two were somehow related, thereby shifting the focus from the hard-to-catch-really-scary-guy to the easy-to-overthrow-army-with-possible-WMD’s-and-definite-shitloads-of-oil. And bonus, they caught the dictator, too! Ticker tape parade, woohoo, God bless America, yadda yadda. A lot of people perhaps even believe this is somehow payback for 9/11.
Meanwhile, no progress on the hunt for the guy that really brought down the two towers. I ask again, am I reading the wrong sources? I read zero, zilch, fuck all, about Bin Laden these days. How many “professionals” do you need to convince Pakistan to let you comb out 40 square miles?
Oh, sure, you’re right. There was a tip. But it’s possible there were lots of tips. Maybe even thousands of tips. And it’s possible that a significant percentage of them were deliberately deceptive, misleading, outdated, or just plain inaccurate. Family members especially might mislead you unless they just have an ax to grind or for some reason value the money more than their own culture and tribal ties. I still think they did a pretty good job.
Waving $25 million around makes it a whole lot easier to do a “good job”.
Some of the cash Saddam and his boys pilfered from the national bank was new (if not all of it). We had the serial numbers. It’s use was being closely tracked.
Just another of the tools allowing us to close in.
Oh you were seriously asking? 
Well first I wouldn’t label people who voted for Bush as morons, just those who still blindly support him. I’ll admit that I was happy when Bush won, I didn’t think too much of him, but I thought he had some good people around him. I thought he might be a bit more of a straight shooting guy, but most importantly, I can’t stand whiney Al Gore. So Bush to me started off, like any pres, with a clean slate.
I’ve thought long and hard about this situation, and I don’t know what angers me the most. To be honest, it’s a toss up between squandering the good will of the post 9/11 world, and the politicizing of this whole “war on terror” by both Dems and Repubs. Ironically as I type this, I think I’ve figured out what stinks the most about this situation. What it has brought out in people. It goes without saying that this is one of the most complex ordeals (on the geopolitical side) the world has dealt with in recent times. There are so many dynamics in play, yet it’s been reduced (at least in the US POV) to us (the coalition) versus the “evildoers”. This is an extension of something that always irked me about politics, that you had to stick to your side, even if the other side had a good idea. If they have a good idea, you stonewall it, because you don’t want them to take credit for it. So now we have this black and white, US vs. them situation on so many different levels. Dems Versus Repubs versus the French versus the terrorists, and every is 100% right, and if you aren’t with me, you are with them. So here I am adding my two cents to this fucked up blob of whatever, and wondering if anyone else thinks the piggybank is full too.
This situation has brought out the worst in a lot of people, and fear we won’t ever be headed back to civility.
I do have to say that I think Bush is one of the most dangerous men involved here, and nothing will improve until he is out, but as always YMMV.
Ahunter3 was recently torn a new one for a comment he made, but sadly I find myself agreeing with him. I don’t know if finding SH made the situation better or worse.
I really don’t know who all these people who keep telling the pollsters Iraq and 9/11 were related ARE. I mean, I know some pretty dumb people and nobody’s ever said there’s a link at all to me. I have to say I think, judging from the Beeb and Skynews, the Yurpeen media has exaggerated this idea.
Sounds like it wasn’t so much tips, as info obtained from interrogations.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/12/15/sprj.nirq.saddam.reward/index.html
regardingthe guys who happened to be third-row center shouting “Death to Saddam”.
So far, Coldie, the news sources on Google just call them “several Iraqi’s” or even “Iraqi reporters”. They were like third-row center, in perfect position to show them, Bremer, and the plasma TV with Saddam getting lice-inspected. At least one photographer was taking pictures of them.
Wolf Blitzer on CNN has been positively beaming since yesterday. He too could be described as a “reporter” or “Rovian machination” despite the lack of a pay stub signed by Herr Karl Rove.
I’m with AHunter3 when he says:
Everything is not cool. Not by a long fucking shot.
Amen.
I respectfully offer for your consideration the large number of people (I’ll call them that for courtesy’s sake) in this thread, on this board, and marching in the demonstrations, who act as if convinced that Utopia is just around the corner…if only that fascist idiot Bush isn’t re-elected next year.
Aside from the “secure some oil supplies” bit (IMAO, chanting “No blood for oil!” is the last refuge of a scoundrel) I agree. But, as I say, let’s establish some ground rules here:
[list=1]
[li]ObL is a vicious, bigoted thug. That will remain true even if a UNSC resolution to that effect fails to pass.[/li][li]Mullah Omar is a vicious, bigoted thug who granted sanctuary to other vicious, bigoted thugs. That will remain true no matter how many people are shocked, shocked that the U.S. would invade a sovereign nation like Afghanistan…or Pakistan.[/li][li]Musharraf is a vicious, bigoted thug. An inept thug, granted, but still a thug. I would allow him a bolthole, where he can indulge himself with his millions and mistresses, on the theory that he’d act like any rat if cornered, and it’s better for me to lose my lunch than for others to lose their lives. That bolthole should not be the presidency of Pakistan, however.[/li][li]ISI is, to a good approximation, comprised of vicious, bigoted thugs. Pleas that they’re acting in the service of the State, or for the greater glory of Allah, fall on deaf ears around here.[/li][li]“Using military force” translates to “killing people and breaking things”. Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that we agree on the nobility of the mission, what level of violence is then tolerable? I suggest that the first video of a Pakistani child being hit by American fire does not mean that that level has been exceeded. I leave to you to debate those who do.[/li][li]A popular – and largely successful – tactic used by watermelons in the past few decades is to attack an energy source, assuring us that there is an alternative…only to attack that alternative in turn. If the U.S. should turn aside from Iraq to hunt down ObL – or to take out Kim Il Jong, or Robert Mugabe, or <insert name of hated foreign dictator>, we’re not going to see that tactic in the debate, agreed?[/li][/list=1]
I agree. I know of no one, nobody, who thinks “the hijackers were Iraqis” or whatever. The two issues are mutually exclusive, with the possibility of both being part-and-parcel of some wider pan-Islamic agenda or something…that may be where the pollsters come up with the idea that the two are related. If so, that’s the extent of it.
So…the problem goes away once he’s incarcerated in NY?
Possibly. It might also make it a whole lot easier for every nutjob and desperado in Iraq to crawl out of the woodwork and offer a “tip” which is nothing more than a wild guess, making the task harder. Some of the tips might even have been contradictory.
Yes, the problem of Osama Bin Laden goes away when he’s incarcerated in solitary confinement and has all communication with the world cut off.
He is tougher to replace then the network is, that’s for damn sure. Care to explain how replacing someone who has spend decades building up a their terrorist infrastructure, and has hundreds of millions of dollars is not a big deal? OBL has some big expensive time invested shoes to fill.
First off, World Eater, thanks for your elaboration. I’m trying to get the picture, somewhat. It’s not a pretty picture, but it helps to understand. The US is one of my favourite countries, and the people of the US deserve a much better reputation than they’re often granted. Yet, the behaviour I rail against here reinforces all those ugly stereotypes to (realtive) outsiders like myself, especially without a proper context. Thank you for providing one.
Maybe the European media are exaggerating this - God knows most Euro media like a bit of Republican bashing every now and then. But my impression’s not just from Euro media. There have been plenty of threads on these boards devoted to the peculiar choice of words when GWB was speaking about Iraq “harboring terrorists”, or words to that effect. Exaggerated or not, the Bush administration did insinuatue a connection between Iraq and the War on Terror, and they did not make any effort to distinguish between your run-of-the-mill Baathist, who happens to be anti-American, and therefore -obviously :rolleyes:- is a terrorist, and the real creepy fucks like OBL. And undeniably, a fair share of the American public took it hook, line and sinker: they’re convinced Saddam had something to do with 9/11. Bush et al used the public’s post-9/11 anger, and carefully redirected it to a more convenient target. It seems that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth. Unfortunately.
Akatsukami said:
I don’t know who you’re referring to, but I hope it’s not me. While I certainly would cheer rather loudly should Bush lose the 2004 elections, far be it from me to state that should such an event occur, the world would be a better place all of a sudden. I do feel that another 4 years of GWB in the White House benefits no one, least of all the American people. I don’t know if that’s what you were getting at, but there you have it.
You’ll note that I did not chant “No blood for oil!”. Just as you label that extreme end of the spectrum “the last refuge of the scoundrel”, I label the assumption that this war had nothing to do with oil as hopelessly naive. I’m not saying you support that particular notion, but then again, neither do I support what you suggested I had said.
Agreed on both descriptions. Here’s my point, though. Do you honestly think the US would have caught as much flack for going after OBL as it did for invading Iraq? Not a lot of countries objected to the military actions in Afghanistan, certainly not allies like France and Germany. The attacks on NYC and Washington affected us all, and the US would practically have been given carte blanche by the Western World had they pursued Bin Laden into Pakistan, even if the latter country objected. Yes, it would have constituted the invasion of a sovereign nation. And no, it would not have gotten a UN mandate, either. But it sure as hell would have been understood.
It’s incredibly hard for us to decide what level of violence, or what number of casualties, are tolerable. And I won’t engage in that sort of armchair diplomacy. And no, I wouldn’t withdraw all support at the first sight of a dead Pakistani kid, sad as the instance may be.
Although all your examples are downright bastards in their own right, you won’t see such an approach from me. I’m merely baffled by the relative silence surrounding Bin Laden. That’s all.
Here’s a picture of one of the Iraqi Journalists shouting “Death to Saddam” at Viceroy Bremer’s so-called press conference:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?g=events/ts/121403saddamcapture&a=&tmpl=sl&e=274
The story has marched on: So far we’ve heard of a “spider-hole”, Saddam had $750,000 in cash, a pistol, identified himself and tried to negotiate. In Breaking News, Fox just reported the American soldiers “were about” to toss in a grenade. They did not shout, “Fuck you, Kaiser Wil” as was earlier reported. Rather, they quipped: “Greetings and Salutations from Kaiser Bush.”
It’s unclear if Saddam had 3 million jobs, an exit strategy for Iraq, Osama’s whereabouts or information on the Anthrax terrorist in the hole. :b
Good grief. Executioner, buy this man a couple of beers!
Wow. I’m surprised he has shoes.
He didn’t exactly have to work for the money, he had it anyway, and he probably didn’t have to work very hard building up an “infrastructure.” I’m not sure there is such a thing, just a loosely-organized system of people of people (arms dealers, people who run camps) who may work together. There’s seemingly no shortage of people willing to explode for eternal reward. And no end to the other people who would support them in it financially. You can find the same al-qaeda rhetoric in London nowadays, and I’m sure no one wants to hold a London mosque responsible for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv…what exactly is so fascinating about this one man, that doesn’t apply to possibly hundreds of others?
Well how many other cartoonishly evil guys are out there with global connections and $300,000,000 in their coffers? I didn’t say he was irreplaceable, just that whoever follows him has some big flip-flops to fill.
Not a lot of guys have 20 million or so lying around to buy some plutonium, and that’s what sets him apart from the small fishes.
I don’t think that’s fair. Cowboys work hard for a living. 