Well, are you going to answer that question with any actual evidence?
Honestly, Shodan, I don’t see what your issue is with this. You appear to be complaining because Gore gave a speech at a major international conference where lots of other heads of state and similar bigwigs routinely give speeches. And you seem to be upset because he said some unflattering things about the United States that happened to be true.
If we don’t want Muslims to get upset over the US detaining and abusing Muslim foreigners for minor violations, ISTM that the best solution is for the US to stop doing that.
You sound as though you think that the really important issue isn’t whether we’re illegally mistreating people, but whether or not our political leaders are blabbing about it.
I don’t know, but it’s the same as what General Motors, Citigroup and Budget Rental Cars are paying him since those are some of the other sponsors of the event.
O’Reilly guesses it is in the six figures, but no hard data that I am aware of. O’Reilly also says that Gore’s people refused to provide any evidence of indiscriminate mass arrests of otherwise innocent Muslims.
What I can’t figure out is what Gore hopes to achieve by this. He is complaining about alleged religious discrimination to the Saudis, for heaven’s sake. Is he trying to put a stop to violence in the Islamic world with this nonsense? Or does he just need the money?
Do you have some reason to believe that the Saudi royal family, rather than the other conference attendees, are the principal target of his speech?
Is it conceivable that he was trying to demonstrate the virtues of openness and transparency in government - acknowledging flaws being the first step to rectifying them?
What is the acceptable threshold for arresting people based on their religion and or ethnicity, anyways?
The last line of the OP’s—um, your OP’s—linked article says that it hasn’t even been established whether there was any speaking fee:
But since any fool can find that information for themselves with a little googling, as for example in this 2003 Amnesty International report, why should “Gore’s people” have bothered?
Power to Gore for bringing up material that fanatics use to brainwash willing young suicide bombers eh. You seem to forget the terrorist do not care, hell they do not seem to even attempt, to take out there anger on real enemies. Just easy pickin’s.
It’s also nice to see how the bashes can come from Gore with immunity from the left on this board, but as soon as someone on the right try to incite anger from the past, all you see is smart ass remarks about it, well being in the past.
1200 hundred detained, and some possibly held in “unforgivable” conditions, but from his speech I would be thinking he was talking about an actual policy of detaining Muslims and abusing them, you know the message he was conveying by not being specific.
“Al Gore was responsible for the illegal detaining of blacks, in a process the administration went to court for, to allow the detention of blacks in Gitmo. This is unforgivable, the willful neglect of basic human rights of freedom.”
Sounds bad doesn’t it? But it is the truth. You can make anything seem much worse then it is. http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article.jsp?id=6&debateId=28&articleId=2867
Though it was nice to see Gore was present at the meetings, quietly listening to an oil exec complaining about the Bush plan to lessen the reliance on Saudi oil. Bush Basher first, Tree Hugger later.
If Bush hadn’t been elected President in 2000 and prior to 9/11 hadn’t detained all those innocent Muslims, invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, umm whatelse? 9/11 would not of happened? Oh wait none of those happened prior to 9/11 so, who was pulling this evil shit to incite the maniacs before 9/11?
Oh no, free speech is a great thing, using it to incite hatred, well as is the rights of the Aryan Nation, the KKK, and I guess Al Gore now, it is there right. I just didn’t think lumping him in with the group he is with now would of been right.
Cite for Gore inciting hatred please? The rest of your ‘argument,’ insofar as I can make sense of the grammar, appears to support my position. Much appreciated.
I shouldn’t have to point this out but the West has a history of screwing over the Middle East prior to 9/11. They’ve been pissed at us for years.
Telling the truth is never inciting hatred. It’s simply the truth. The United States did wrong, Gore called them on it.
He’s not the first to say so. He didn’t reveal previously classified or even unknown information, just repeated verifiable information.
Frankly, I don’t really care how the Muslim world reacts. The US shouldn’t do evil because it shouldn’t be doing evil. Anytime the nation violates the human rights of anyone, even a foreigner in violation of some immigration law, that’s one step further to them abusing me, so I cannot stand for it.
As for it inciting hatred, you have to be in a locked room, blindfolded and deaf not to know that this will be used for just that. As I stated in my previous post, anything can be said to sound worse then it is, by not using specifics and/or contorting it just enough for it to say what you want it to say, not what it meant.
Thats fine you can say about my lack of grammar etc. And even in the most heated debate I will not take offense to that. (And yes I do mean that. I try to correct my obvious mistakes, but often miss them)