Ah, back to the ‘why now’ question. Anyone see anything in that speech that suggested tomorrow had to be the deadline?
My asshole neighbor had this mean old dog. He would sick the dog on the neighborhood kids. I’m a parent now, so I’m concerned about this. I haven’t seen the dog in a couple years, and the neighbor said the dog died.
I asked for proof that the dog died, but he had none. He said he threw out the cremation receipt. I sent my wife over to inspect his place under the pretext of asking for sugar, but I think my neighbor knows why she was there, so he hid the dog.
I looked in the back yard and saw no poop. I think the neighbor must have moved the poop around in the night so I wouldn’t see it.
The other day, I saw my neighbor come home with some bowls. Bowls can be used to feed dogs. Also, I saw him last weekend with some rope. Rope can be used to tie up dogs.
Last night, I heard a dog bark. I didn’t check to see where the barking was coming from exactly, but I KNOW he must have that damn dog and it’s threatening my child!
I’m calling the COPS!
What’s silly about it? Saddam kills civilians with disguised troops. Those predisposed to blaming the US, blame the US. International pressure mounts against the US. In Saddam’s mind it’s brilliant.
Geez. You folks, Olentzero, ask for a cite. One is provided. Then, rather than admit you missed a news story, you mention the source and wish it was a better one. If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a thousand times.
Who am I? Am I FDR? Well, I can’t strike Germany, because, well,the US military is puny.
Am I the UK+France? Well, if I’ve got hindsight, then yeah, because the entire Wehrmacht is on the other side of Germany. But that’s a no brainer.
I miss plenty of news stories. Big deal, we all do. That one just doesn’t have much to it except one guy who says “I know what he’s doing and why but I won’t tell you how I know.” Sorry, that’s not convincing enough for me.
“sigh” 
Some people just don’t get it.
Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons. Nobody even tries to deny that anymore.
Saddam Hussein has biological weapons. Ditto.
Saddam Hussein has used these weapons on his own people. This is documented fact.
Saddam Hussein hates the United States.
Saddam Hussein has known ties with terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda. (for those who don’t realize, he’s giving money to the families of suicide bombers.)
Now, let’s use a little something called “inductive reasoning”. I understand that logic is nearly impossible for the liberal left, who prefer to think with their gonads (a la Bill Clinton) or their emotions (a la movie stars), but let’s try to use the ol’ gray matter for once, shall we?
Hm…Saddam Hussein has WMD (oh, by the way, he’s stopped denying that he ever had them. Now he used to have them, but got rid of them. Right…) and wants to hurt the US. He knows of a bunch of people who’d be real happy to take his WMD and use them to hurt the US. Okay, folks, who needs this picture spelled out any more clearly?
Now, as I mentioned in another thread, I’m in the National Guard. Over 1/2 of our state’s Guard has been called to active duty. It’s highly likely that I’ll be called up soon. I’m not thrilled with the idea of leaving my family and going half-way around the world to fight and possibly die. But I would rather give my life in such a conflict, than to act the coward and say “Let’s not go to war. It might hurt.” Because the next thing we know, instead of airliners flying into buildings, it’ll be NBC (Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical) weapons being used on an entire city. Think it can’t be done? Then you haven’t seen some of the stuff that I’ve been briefed on, friend.
And that’s completely ignoring the moral issue of going to the rescue of all those people that Saddam Hussein is continuing to murder while testing his WMD.
As my favorite author, Robert A. Heinlein once said:Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
And that Newsweek article’s even worse. It mentions the uniform item once, in its lead-in and nowhere else. Hell, the CNN article had more information than that.
As opposed to, say, the US servicemen and -women, as well as their family members, who were exposed to depleted uranium dust from US/UN munitions?
Well, as you said earlier:
Well, that would make the most sense, wouldn’t it? Leaving him alone would undermine both stratagems you mention, since they’re both possible responses to our imminent attack.
To join the analogy fray, if you and your neighbor don’t get along, and the crazy fuck lays all sorts of traps for you in his yard, then what should you do?
a) Go running up to his door with a knife in your hand; or
b) leave him alone.
[hijacking my own thread]
BTW, WTF is the bit with “homicide bomber” where “suicide bomber” is meant? If I throw a bomb at you that kills you, but I’ve shielded myself from its explosion, I’m a ‘homicide’ bomber, if you will. But if I strap a bomb to my waist, and set it off when I’ve just run up to you, I’m a suicide bomber. In either case, I’ve killed you; in the second instance, I’ve killed myself as well.
Fox News is run by illiterates. :mad:
[/hijack]
[MP&HG]
You don’t vote for a king.
[/MP&HG]
Just because that bit of shrubbery has access to more information than I do, doesn’t mean he’s being straight with the American people. There’s absolutely no reason I should substitute his judgment for mine.
I am not saying he’s being straight with you, RTFirefly. Heck, I think he’s holding out on us. That still doesnt matter. What we dont know disqualifies from the decision making. When we do know what GW Shrub knows,then would be the time to dispute him.
Hm…what do you do for a living? I assume that you are probably good at it, and a professional (adhering to professional standards). I don’t know what you do, but for analogy’s sake, let’s just say that you were a thorasic surgeon.
Now, if you were getting ready to open up somebody’s chest and commence open-heart surgery, would you value the opinion of a plumber? He’s intelligent as you are, correct? “Ah, but he hasn’t your years of training”, you say. This would be true.
President Bush has surrounded himself with some of the most intelligent, well-versed people in the world. As a member of the military for almost two decades, I have the utmost respect for Colin Powell. All of the other folks who advise President Bush are likewise intelligent, well educated experts in their fields.
where do you get off thinking that an armchair quarterback like yourself has an opinion that’s anywhere near as accurate as theirs?
I’ll tell you what, bub. When my mother-in-law was having her triple bypass, she had a surgeon, not a plumber. And I’m glad that we have experts handling this conflict, instead of the peanut gallery.
Wrong. What I said (sure enough, the link to the OP still works) is that “[t]hat allows us free rein to attack pretty much anyone”.
What the Bush Doctrine provides is justification on demand for a pre-emptive strike when one is in the mood.
All this means is that he doesn’t want to attack Canada.
Well, I’m just going by what I heard him say, and read in the transcript. Bush is the ultimate authority on the opinions and beliefs of George Dubya Bush.
Bush said it, I believe it, that settles it.
So your source is the US central command? You’ll need another cite then, this is hardly a disinterested party. The US central commmand can and will use disinformation strategies as part of it’s war effort.
The smart money says this is a lie designed to privide them a level of denyability in case they happen to accidently commit an atrocity.
As an officer in our armed forces, I personally and professionally take serious offense at that remark. That is not how we operate. If somebody in our armed forces were to commit an atrocity, accidentally or not, we would prosecute him/her in a court martial in accordance with the Law of War and the Geneva Convention.
I cannot stress strongly enough, how much training and professionalism we instill in our troops for just such a situation, and your thought is thoroughly repugnant and evil.
This is yet another case of an idiot without a clue making judgements on something of which he has absolutely no knowledge whatsoever.
Everything, particularly the notion that anyone could possibly think thousands of Arabic-speaking men in American uniforms and shooting Shiite civilians in front of al Jazeera cameras were anything other than Saddamites. Stoopid in the extreme, and a sad commentary on the credulity of the American press and public that anyone could possibly believe it.
Speaking of which:
Love it or leave it, commie.
Tejota if you think the idea that dressing iraqi soldiers in US uniforms and killing civilians for a photo-op is far-fetched then how do you feel about this:
Dress up some Iraqi’s in jumpsuits with the words “Baby Milk Plant” (in English) emblazoned on the back. Film them carrying around milk bottles in a half-bombed out “factory” and release the film to news agencies saying the US is bombing plants that bottle milk for babies.
First of all, Bush doesn’t have the right to withhold his ‘real’ reasons for going to war from the American People. If you posit that he is doing so, then that is all by itself grounds for impeachment.
But more importantly, while we can’t know the content of his private briefings. We can know a great deal about what they don’t say.
Whatever else is in those briefings, if they are factual, then they can’t contradict what is known to be true about Iraq. Furthermore, we can can know that if Bush is making wise decisions based on hidden information, those decisions will be consistent with each other and with the hidden information.
For instance, if we posit that Saddam aready has nukes, then we can see how this would be a reason to consider him an immediate threat. But at the same time, we would know that Saddam would have the power to completely destroy any mass concentration of US troops in or around Iraq. (i.e. that the cost of this war is going to be far higher than Bush has led us to believe).
So, we can rule out the possiblity that Bush has hidden information that Saddam has deliverable WMD in meaningful quanties by the mere fact that Bush is so confident of minimal US casualties.
One can proceed to demolish ALL of the supposed justifications for war on the basis of hidden information in a similar fashion. unless one presumes that Bush is using his hidden information incompetently.
Finally, I should point out that everyone here at the SMDB is smarter than Bush; better read, and more curious about the world and willing to work hard to acquire knowledge than he is. We are all qualified to judge his work, and find it lacking.
The evidence for his incompentence is everwhere, all you have to do is stop engaging in wishful thinking and see.
I knew I had seen it on MSNBC, but I couldn’t find it again. Thanks Beagle.
A quote from the article:
Well, at least you know it’s true now. While the Newsweek article didn’t expound much on it, it pretty clearly stated that Saddam has troops dressed in US Army uniforms. Or maybe the Newsweek correspondent is lying about seeing the fedayeen dressed in US uniforms. Are you, minty, and Tejota all making that claim?
I’d rather not join the analogy fray, thanks. 
Check your facts dude. It turns out that that really was a milk plant. So why the uniforms in english? I dunno, maybe they were worried about getting bombed? :rolleyes: