Point of order: Bush was not ELECTED president, he was installed as president thanks to a corrupt Republican Supreme Court and illegal activities by a Florida govt. headed by his brother Jeb. He belongs in a jail cell, not the White House.
Did any of the counts in Florida come out with Gore winning the election?
Yes, the one conducted by a research team bformed by a tribunal of newspapers. Naturally, the Florida state govt. finds itself unable to count Democratic votes.
Left left left left.
Now that you can shove your 5 times in one paragraph in your ass,
About this:
“How does it help us to needlessly trash our international reputation, rather than working with other countries to try other options first?”
You mean the UN, of course.
Read this comment coming from a poster on another board I visited. It was rather tongue and cheek but pretty much sums up “other options” .
"Is it just me or are we (and more especially - Europeans) starting to sound like a dumb girlfriend who won’t leave a jerk boyfriend? “Oh, I know he’ll change. Just give him one more chance. Seriously, I swear, if he lies just one more time, then I’ll dump him. No no no … I swear, this is the last time … he cheats again and I’m leaving him. Just one more time … ONE MORE TIME!”
Hey Jr, this aint no fuckin’ english litmus test. Go back to remembering the days when bandaids on your glasses and skid marks in your pants kept you from getting laid, ok?
FF: “Oh, I know he’ll change. Just give him one more chance.”
Where do you get the idea that the anti-war position is based on any belief that Saddam Hussein is somehow going to turn into some kind of good guy? That’s bullshit.
What it’s based on is the belief that a unilateral invasion of Iraq is probably going to create many more problems than it solves, for everybody concerned. Hussein may be an evil bastard, but according to consistent past performance he’s a containable and deterrable evil bastard. He does not pose a realistic threat to us or to his neighbors that justifies our invading his country and killing his people. Certainly, his people and his neighbors don’t want us to invade Iraq, and it seems to me that their opinions ought to count for something.
Rosy scenarios about quickly replacing Hussein with a US-friendly democratic government so everybody will be happy and free should be looked at very, very skeptically. There is likely to be prolonged conflict with revolutionary-Islamist rebels in the eastern mountains, and the government the Iraqis end up with could very well be just as oppressive as the current one, in addition to being much more supportive of Islamic-extremist terrorism. Don’t kid yourself that Afghanistan is a counterexemplary success story, either: outside of the immediate area of Kabul, things are as bad for the average Afghani as they were under the Taliban.
A US invasion of Iraq can’t be counted on to accomplish anything except kill a lot of people and antagonize millions of Muslims who think we’re just being imperialist, as well as violating international law. You don’t have to have optimistic delusions about Hussein to recognize that an invasion is unlikely to make things better and could easily make them much, much worse.
Why is it that I detect a sneer when you say UN? Rush must think the UN is just a bunch of liberals trying to push us around.
No, actually, I meant other countries. More specifically, other countries with whom we really need to have good relations. These countries include France, Germany, Russia, China, Spain, Italy, and England. Having good relations with these countries is very important, both economically and for help in the fight against terrorism.
Note that the last three are also on your list of countries whose governments are willing to voice support for our war with Iraq. While this may be true, their populations, however, are strongly against it, and this sentiment will infect future governments and future foreign policy. So, even if the current governments voice support, this doesn’t mean our reputation within that country isn’t still being damaged.
And what are we gaining by throwing away all the goodwill and support we enjoyed after 9/11? Why, not having to waste time with any more inspections! That could delay the war by months! Or, even worse, solve the problem without even getting to go to war at all.
**
The reason this is a stupid analogy is that no one is arguing that we just sit passively and hope Saddam will spontaneously become a nice man. What people are arguing is that if there is no evidence of an immediate threat to the U.S., then it is far smarter and safer to take our time. The end result may well be war, but at least we look like a country that takes invading other countries seriously, and tries to avoid it if at all possible.
By the way, this is really quite a gem. Note for the future: it’s good to know what words like “litmus test” actually mean before you use them to insult others.
Regarding Spain: a couple of cabinet ministers have already voiced their fears that the governing party is going to pay a dear price in the next elections for the unconditional support to the USA and it seems the party may begin to splinter. It seems some in that party want to get off before the debacle begins.
Well, The Onion worked out the Gulf War as a pint of American blood for every 60 million gallons or crude.
I know what it means , dumsnut, I also know what it is to acknowlege what someone says and and act like I didn’t , like a panty waist limp dick half whit.
Thank you for displaying your limitations while grunting in effort to show mine.
Go back to sleep.
"These countries include France, "
Oh?? So, this is our challenge, eh?
What about this?
In attempting to understand France’s behavior over the issue of war with Iraq, there is little question but that strategic, economic and geopolitical considerations are dominant drivers. However, in order to understand the details of French behavior, it is also important to understand a not really unknown but oddly neglected aspect of French policy: the personal relationship between French President Jacques Chirac and Saddam Hussein.
The relationship dates back to late 1974, when then-French Premier Chirac traveled to Baghdad and met the No. 2 man in the Iraqi government, Vice President Saddam Hussein. During that visit, Chirac and Hussein conducted negotiations on a range of issues, the most important of these being Iraq’s purchase of nuclear reactors.
In September 1975, Hussein traveled to Paris, where Chirac personally gave him a tour of a French nuclear plant. During that visit, Chirac said, “Iraq is in the process of beginning a coherent nuclear program and France wants to associate herself with that effort in the field of reactors.” France sold two reactors to Iraq, with the agreement signed during Hussein’s visit. The Iraqis purchased a 70-megawatt reactor, along with six charges of 26 points of uranium enriched to 93 percent – in other words, enough weapons-grade uranium to produce three to four nuclear devices. Baghdad also purchased a one-megawatt research reactor, and France agreed to train 600 Iraqi nuclear technicians and scientists – the core of Iraq’s nuclear capability today.
Other dimensions of the relationship were decided on during this visit and implemented in the months afterward. France agreed to sell Iraq $1.5 billion worth of weapons – including the integrated air defense system that was destroyed by the United States in 1991, about 60 Mirage F1 fighter planes, surface-to-air missiles and advanced electronics. The Iraqis, for their part, agreed to sell France $70 million worth of oil.
During this period, Chirac and Hussein formed what Chirac called a close personal relationship. As the New York Times put it in a 1986 report about Chirac’s attempt to return to the premiership, the French official “has said many times that he is a personal friend of Saddam Hussein of Iraq.” In 1987, the Manchester Guardian Weekly quoted Chirac as saying that he was “truly fascinated by Saddam Hussein since 1974.” Whatever personal chemistry there might have been between the two leaders obviously remained in place a decade later, and clearly was not simply linked to the deals of 1974-75. Politicians and businessmen move on; they don’t linger the way Chirac did.
Partly because of the breadth of the relationship Chirac and Hussein had created in a relatively short period of time and the obvious warmth of their personal ties, there was intense speculation about the less visible aspects of the relationship. For example, one unsubstantiated rumor that still can be heard in places like Beirut was that Hussein helped to finance Chirac’s run for mayor of Paris in 1977, after he lost the French premiership. Another, equally unsubstantiated rumor was that Hussein had skimmed funds from the huge amounts of money that were being moved around, and that he did so with Chirac’s full knowledge. There are endless rumors, all unproven and perhaps all scurrilous, about the relationship. Some of these might have been moved by malice, but they also are powered by the unfathomability of the relationship and by Chirac’s willingness to publicly affirm it. It reached the point that Iranians referred to Chirac as “Shah-Iraq” and Israelis spoke of the Osirak reactor as “O-Chirac.”
Indeed, as recently as last week, a Stratfor source in Lebanon reasserted these claims as if they were incontestable. Innuendo has become reality.
Former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who held office at the time of the negotiations with Iraq, said in 1984 that the deal “came out of an agreement that was not negotiated in Paris and therefore did not originate with the president of the republic.” Under the odd French constitution, it is conceivable that the president of the republic wouldn’t know what the premier of France had negotiated – but on a deal of this scale, this would be unlikely, unless the deal in fact had been negotiated between Chirac and Hussein in the dark and presented as a fait accompli.
There is some evidence for this notion. Earlier, when Giscard d’Estaing found out about the deal – and particularly about the sale of 93 percent uranium – he had ordered the French nuclear research facility at Saclay to develop an alternative that would take care of Iraq’s legitimate needs, but without supplying weapons-grade uranium. The product, called “caramel,” was only 3 percent enriched but entirely suitable to non-weapons needs. The French made the offer, which Iraq declined.
By 1986, Chirac clearly had decided to change his image. In preparation for the 1988 presidential elections, Chirac let it be known that he never had anything to do with the sale of the Osirak reactor. In an interview with an Israeli newspaper, he said, “It wasn’t me who negotiated the construction of Osirak with Baghdad. The negotiation was led by my minister of industry in very close collaboration with Giscard d’Estaing.” He went on to say, “I never took part in these negotiations. I never discussed the subject with Saddam Hussein. The fact is that I did not find out about the affair until very late.”
Obviously, Chirac was contradicting what he had said publicly in 1975. More to the point, he also was not making a great deal of sense in claiming that his minister of industry – who at that time was Michel d’Ornano – had negotiated a deal as large as this one. That is true even if one assumes the absurd, which was that the nuclear deal was a stand-alone and not linked to the arms and oil deals or to a broader strategic relationship. In fact, d’Ornano claimed that he didn’t even make the trip to Iraq with Chirac in 1974, let alone act as the prime negotiator. Everything he did was in conjunction with Chirac.
In 1981, the Israelis destroyed the Iraqi reactor in an air attack. There were rumors – which were denied – that the French government was offering to rebuild the reactor. In August 1987, French satirical and muckraking magazine, “Le Canard Enchaine” published excerpts of a letter from Chirac to Hussein – dated June 24, 1987, and hand-delivered by Trade Minister Michel Noir – which the magazine claimed indicated that he was negotiating to rebuild the Iraqi reactor. The letter says nothing about nuclear reactors, but it does say that Chirac hopes for an agreement “on the negotiation which you know about,” and it speaks of the “cooperation launched more than 12 years ago under our personal joint initiative, in this capital district for the sovereignty, independence and security of your country.” In the letter, Chirac also, once again, referred to Hussein as “my dear friend.”
Chirac and the government confirmed that the letter was genuine. They denied that it referred to rebuilding a nuclear reactor. The letter speaks merely of the agreements relating to “an essential chapter in Franco-Iraqi relations, both in the present circumstances and in the future.” Chirac claimed that any attempt to link the letter to the reconstruction of the nuclear facility was a “ridiculous invention.” Assuming Chirac’s sincerity, this leaves open the question of what the “essential chapter” refers to and why, instead of specifying the subject, Chirac resorted to a circumlocution like “negotiation which you know about.”
Only two possible conclusions can be drawn from this letter: Chirac either was trying, in the midst of the Iran-Iraq war and after his denial of involvement in the first place, to rebuild Iraq’s nuclear capability, or he wasn’t. And if he wasn’t, what was he doing that required such complex language, clearly intended for deniability if revealed? No ordinary state-to-state relationship would require a combination of affection, recollection of long history and promise for the future without mentioning the subject. If we concede to Chirac that it had nothing to do with nuclear reactors, then the mystery actually deepens.
It is unfair to tag Chirac with the rumors that have trailed him in his relations with Hussein. It is fair to say, however, that Chirac has created a circumstance for breeding rumors. The issues raised here were all well known at one time and place. When they are laid end-to-end, a mystery arises. What affair was being discussed in the letter delivered by Michel Noir? If not nuclear reactors, then what was referenced but never mentioned specifically in Chirac’s letter to his “dear friend” Hussein?
Whatever the answer, it is clear that the relationship between Chirac and Hussein is long and complex, and not altogether easy to understand. That relationship does not, by itself, explain all of France’s policies toward Iraq or its stance toward a war between the United States and Iraq. But at the same time, it is inconceivable that this relationship has no effect on Chirac’s personal decision-making process. There is an intensity to Chirac’s Iraq policy that simply may signify the remnants of an old, warm friendship gone bad, or that may have a different origin. In any case, it is a reality that cannot be ignored and that must be taken into account in understanding the French leader’s behavior.
Rush.
Remember Professor Sami Al-Arian?
Yea, he was a victim, right? A victim of character assassination, right?
I’m personally tired of having a building of reality drop on our heads in this country so some fucking over educated lazy idiot can “analyze” what a building dropping on us means.
Fuck it, you half whit dumsnut, let it all turn to shit, let the UN and all of the “Countries of greater strength and wisdom” convince us to stuff our hands under our asses, just so you can say I “I told you so” to one Bush family member.
Idiots
If this was happening under the Clinton term he would be a fucking hero.
This whole anti war blat is nothing more than anti Bush, and that is what makes you pathetic.
Don’t get me started on that issue.
When Ashcroft tore up the First Amendment, it apparently didn’t get much press coverage – seeing as how you don’t think that it applies any longer that American citizens can express their views on what their country is proposing to do, and “petition their government for a redress of grievances” – would you be so kind as to explain, in detail, when and where this Constitutional right was removed?
And, JFTR, I know a woman who is opposed to this war. She was in Iraq since Bush’s call for an invasion if Saddam doesn’t stop the BS. Her goals were twofold: (1) see if there is any way in which interior political pressure can be put on Saddam to comply with the UN resolutions – a more or less forlorn hope in that dictatorship, but one that did need to be checked out; and (2) to find out where humanitarian aid be sent with the greatest chance of having it do any good for suffering people, after an attack.
And, by the way, this is not some fucking football game – it’s real live war. People I know and care a lot about are going to be over there fighting for the U.S., and probably a few of them will be killed or seriously wounded. If there’s a way to pull this off without going to war, we ought to be looking for it.
If and when we do go to war, I’d hope that every decent American will back our troops. But the time for people who oppose it is now – because we live in a representative republic, where the people who govern us are chosen by the people and answerable to them.
…ummm, where did you get that information from? Do you have permission to reproduce it?
I read on a Rush Limbaugh site, now I’m reading your version.
And the Colorful Phrase of the Day is half whit dumsnut.
Would that give me a “Left Behind”?
And I see your counting skills match your typing skills.
“Hey, I used an apostrophe and my paper turned blue!”**
If it makes you feel better about yourself to envision me like that, go right ahead, Cletus. You can even pretend that you used to beat me up for my lunch money.**
**So the person quoting Rush Limbaugh claims it’s pathetic to spend a lot of time complaining about how the President’s policies are ruining the country?
“Excuse me, Mr. Pot? Mr. Kettle’s on the phone – something about coordinating wardrobes?”
Ah, another one of the brainwashed millions, eh? War is just pointless and serves no purpose at all. The only reason that many of our conflicts exist, is because we didn’t help other countries when they needed it, thus they have every right to hate what the US stands for. As far as Saddam goes, he’s just a scapegoat that the US uses anytime it has a problem.
Other countries have a right to hate the US because the US didn’t help them when they needed it? Even the US wasn’t responsible for their plight in the first place? 
What about Afhganestan? Didn’t we use them to fight against the Russians during the Cold War and even supply them with weapons? I also believe that after the Russians destoryed a great deal of the country, we didn’t even help them one bit to rebuild or anything.
Ruining the country? LOL…yea, ok.
Go back to sleep.