Confused skankweirdall and stinkpalm. Every so sorry. Move along. Nothing to see here.
It’s worth a million bucks and a green card to rat out Saddam. Nothing to stop you. All gravy, no consequences…and nobody comes forward? Why?
And I’m dogged if this isn’t the tenth time Fox has cried “Wolf!”
Coldfire I’ll admit we may have gotten off on the wrong foot but let me just say something here. I saw where you posted earlier you were born in '73. I was born in '57. I think we can agree that besides the fact we come from two different countries, we also come from two different mind sets.
My dad served in Japan in WWII, I was drafted during the Vietnam war. I didn’t like that and fortunately I never went. My oldest son is on a carrier in the gulf right now. Most Americans are proud to serve their country and proud of their county. I’m glad for the Iraqi people. I hope we turn their country back over to them very soon. I see nothing wrong with GWB trying to sell this war to the rest of the world or to us in any way that he thought he could. As long as it truly results in the fall of Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi people are free to live as they choose. I don’t give a crap about WoMD as I said earlier. The anti-war crowd has already hinted they think the US will plant them. So that has effectively made it a moot point. I’m also of the opinion that since it was the US that helped SH get to power in the first place it’s our duty to take him down. His brutal regime is a matter of history. And that is what was important to me. I don’t care if WoMD was the primary reason, I didn’t know we had to assign an importance factor to them. There were many reasons to take him down but quite frankly, I only care about one.
Truce?
Sam, why? I really believe that NPR is far further to the left than FOX is to the right. I’ve never even heard the pretense of lip-service to balance that you see on “Hannity and Combes” on “All Things Considered” which gleefully spews left-wing propaganda without any hint of impartiality.
And the people I’ve seen frothing at the mouth about “Faux News” seem to be stunningly quiet about NPR. I’ll happily admit that FOX has a right-of-center slant. If you’re willing to admit the left-of-center bias about NPR, then we’ve got common ground and I’ll agree that my characterization doesn’t apply to you.
And, IMO, your “Fuhrer” comment was way beneath you.
Fenris
Fox even retracted the story:
I am detecting a slight whiff of sarcasm here, but this brings up an excellent point. Here a the SDMB we are (rightfully) prone to the rallying cry of “CITE!” I would love to see a list of news organizations that are considered unbiased and fair. This would do me a world of good, as I am actually quite interested in keeping up on events, and only having to fight my own lenses and biases.
skankweirdall, there’s no war between us, so there’s no need for truce. The sentiment is appreciated, though, and it goes both ways.
Before you suggest out mind sets are different, it might be an idea to read at least the first post in this thread, as it will tell you that I’m not a pacifist per se. What I object to, is this:
That’s too wide a brush, I do believe. I’m certainly in the anti-war camp, and I certainly believe GWB has been disingenious in his argumentation for this war. But I do NOT per definition assume that any WMD’s that may be found now that Saddam is gone will be planted by the Allied Forces: in fact, the notion that Iraq does have WMD’s is not an implausible one, as evindenced by the UN inspections that were finally underway again when GWB decided it was taking too long for his political horizon. If you’re 100% sure Iraq has no WMD’s, then why inspect, right?
Your remarks about Americans being proud of their country are duly noted: I think that indeed makes us a little different, as partiotism to the extent that it exists in the US is pretty rare over here.
BTW, you say you were drafted for 'Nam. Did they draft as late as 1974/1975? Seems a bit stupid seeing as how they largely withdrew troops in 1973. Not saying you’re lying, mind you, it just surprised me.
Coldfire- *FWIW, I’ve never ruled out the possibility of Iraq having WMD’s, but the “evidence” the US has put forth so far (remember that far-fetched presentation Colin Powell gave to the UN, of which half of the so-called proof was later declared fraudulent?) has been very, very thin. *
So does anyone know if any sites shown in Powell’s photos are under American control? Funny I haven’t heard anything about it.
From Demostylus’ link:
If this is true (note the disclaimer), then it’s a fucking embarrasment. Surely, these troops are instructed on what a UN seal looks like, should they come across any previously inspected sites?
Mindboggling. It really is. No one’s going to argue with the fact that the US has the strongest army in the world. But if they keep this shit up, no one’s going to contest the notion that it certainly isn’t the smartest army in the world. Sheesh.
My feeling is, Bush probably has less than fully wholesome reasons for attacking Iraq, but it still needed to be done. Saddam’s regime was very brutal, no one can seriously dispute that fact. And we know he had bio and chem weapons in the past, there’s no reason to assume he didn’t have them more recently. UN inspectors are not very forceful about inspecting areas that Saddam doesn’t want inspected.
Well, sturmhauke, it now possibly looks like those UN inspectors managed to seal off materials that at least potentially could be used to produce WMD’s. Seems they weren’t that ineffective after all, then.
Fenris. We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.
You bring up shows on NPR that tend to go into depth about current events. I don’t always listen to them(never heard Hannity and Combes, personally). I thought we were simply talking about the 5 minutes of hard news that a station broadcasts at the top of the hour. If we could limit it to that, then you might understand my upsetness with your NPR characterization. And I’d be surprised if you would defend FOX’s sensationalist news headlines.
I agree that my use of “fuhrer” was stupid and hurt my thread. Mea culpa. Might have been that fifth beer.
I just hope that we don’t have a new outbreak of the Clinton disease. But, we have to wait a while to see if the disease was contagious, and if GWB and Rummy got infected.
First it was Clinton declaring for the camera “I did not have sex with that woman.”
That lie cost him a lot, simply because it was a lie.
GWB now protests for the camera “I know that Saddam has WoMD.”
It’s starting to look like a creative use of the truth, but it’s too early to know. Still, if they had hard intelligence about the existence of WoMD, surely the proof would be in the news by now.
Poor choice of words, we were still issued draft cards and had to register. As I said I didn’t have to go anywhere, but there were still people there (troops?, support personel? I don’t remember) up 'till 75 and the fall of Saigon. It’s been 30 years and alot of good drugs since then so my memory is probably heavily tainted.
Sorry I se what I did wrong. It should have read “I was to be drafted”. I’m not used to not being able to edit my posts. I’ll get the hang of it someday.
I don’t know that there are any. EVERYONE has biases and lenses. The companies that own the various news outlets have agendas, the actual on-screen personalities have agendas and the sponsors of the news have agendas. I think the only hope is to get a wide range of news from a variety of sources in the hopes that bias plus bias equals balance.
However, the thing that infuriates me is when I hear the claim that someone/thing that’s obviously biased pretend to be balanced.
The New York Times does slant way to the left. The Rocky Mountain News (to name a local one) to the right. It bugs me to no end when they pretend that they’re not.
I happily admit to cringing whenever I hear Bill O’Reilly describe his show as a “No Spin Zone”…his whole damn show is an editorial column: it’s all spin. I can get some valueable stuff from it and he has great guests, but it’s hardly “spin-free”. Bill Mahr’s “Politically Incorrect” was equally cringeworthy as it was about as smarmily politically correct as could be and his pretense that he was “neutral” was as laughable as O’Reilly’s (and the three liberals-one conservative format that they used is equally as annoying on Hannity and Combes when it’s reversed.)
I read somewhere on the SDMB that European papers come right out and actually admit to their biases. One knows that if one wants the (I dunno) socialist slant on the news, you pick up paper “A”. If one wants the (for instance) fascist slant, one picks up paper “B”, Paper “C” is for the Conservative party and Paper “D” is the Labour paper. And they don’t try to pretend to be anything other than what they are. I think that’s a system (if it’s true) that would be a refreshing change.
Fenris
Hold up a second, skanky. How did you get drafted into the United States armed forces if you were born in 1957?
I was born in 1955, which means I turned 18 in 1973. IIRC, the draft ended in 1973. Eighteen year-olds were still required to register for the draft. Sequence numbers were still drawn, my birthdate was # 63, which was the only time it was under 200.
I’ve got a nice crisp $20 Canadian bill here for anyone who’s willing to wager that we’ll find WMD in Iraq within the next month.
George Bush said that this war is being waged because, A) Saddam has WMD, and B) Saddam has connections to terrorist groups including al-Qaida.
I believe that, after the smoke clears from this war and the U.S. has time to talk to people and inspect places (ESPECIALLY Tikrit), they’ll find WMD. AND, they’ll find connections to al-Qaida.
So, anyone willing to take the bet? $20 Canadian, that WMD are found within one month. I bet they will be. You can bet that they won’t be.
The one caveat I would add is that, since the U.S. claims that there were armed convoys going into Syria in the days leading up to the war, the WMD may have been moved there. In which case, I’ll bet the U.S. comes up with very credible evidence showing exactly where it is, and will come up with plenty of Iraqis involved in the production of WMD since the sanctions were put into place.
But the real action may be in Tikrit. That’s Saddam’s stronghold. It makes a lot of sense that WMD programs would be based there.
Sorry skank I didn’t see either of your corrections.
I meant, “I’ve got a nice crisp $20 bill for anyone willing to wager that WMD WON’T be found in Iraq within the next month”.