destruction
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Posts posted by destruction
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So in your opinion its OK for Secret Service to waste resources and time on some kid who took a picture of himself with a Bush picture with a thumbs down? Just because of some Walmart loser?
Or are you saying lame to that Walmart employee's actions?
IMHO, this post & the poster are a whole lot about nothing!Nothing from nothing, leaves NOTHING!
My advise to that ball of naval lint posing as "destruction" is.......
I could give 3 craps about his pseudo-outrage.
Translation:
I condemn the actions of the teenager and praise the actions of the Walmart employee because freedom of expression is anti American and must be outlawed and to do this we must revoke the Constitution. We must welcome dictatorship over democracy. -
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yea this thread is gay
the only purpose it serves is to further demonstrate how much of an ignoramus you are
Ignoramus for what? Exercising the first amendment rights?
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President,right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."Theodore RooseveltSource:"Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star",May 7, 1918 -
So in your opinion its OK for Secret Service to waste resources and time on some kid who took a picture of himself with a Bush picture with a thumbs down? Just because of some Walmart loser?
Or are you saying lame to that Walmart employee's actions?
He's saying "lame" for the kid who exercised his first amendment rights.
I bet DrLogic would hate it if he was told what to say, what and how to think, how to feel, what kind of pictures or posters to draw or make the same way he believes people should be told how and what to think, say and express themselves. In other words, FALL IN LINE AND OBEY! DO AS YOU'RE TOLD! Never mind your free concience. Let us think for you because WE KNOW WHAT'S BEST FOR YOU!
He believes nobody is allowed to criticize the AWESOME George W. Bush. If you do, you are a terrorist and you hate America. He believes that Bush is America and America is Bush which is comparable to a quote by Goebbels, "Germany is Hitler, Hitler is Germany."
He believes nobody is allowed to criticize a US president unless he or she is a democrat or any other party except Republican.
He believes everyone MUST rally behind Bush and surrender their constitutional right to dissent and the right to their criticism of him.
Democracy is too good for him. He prefers dictatorship.
He lionizes Bush as being absoultely invincible, perfect in every way and no matter what he does, even if it shreads the very fabric of this country is perfectly ok. Comparable of those who were loyal to Hitler.
Typical of him. After all, he's the one who threatened me on this very forum.
He says I hate? Hate what? Who? When he's the one who has been trolling this board with racist retorts toward the hurricane victims because of their race and their financial statusus and I'm the one who hates... He's stuck in reverse logiclly.
He accuses others of hate when he is throwing the racist hate around himself.
Then he tells me to strap a bomb on myself, mecca is that way, etc... indicating of course his hatred toward islamic Arab people then making me out to be a terrorist simply because I disagree with him. We know this is the simple minded logic of those who attempt to force others to blindly follow their insane twisted agendas or else. In other words, another form of suppression of ones' right to express themselves no matter how diverse the opinion.
In other words, to him, freedom of speech only applies to those who agree directly with him otherwise it is revoked when you disagree with him.
I have been printing his (and other CP members) posts. You're not among the members involved in the printings. Dr Logic, headpusher, eccentricmofo and igloo (your buddy) are the players.
I have printed his threat and I also have the link. Read the last paragraph.
http://bbs.clubplanet.com/showpost.php?p=2840581&postcount=8
Here is the printed version.
http://bbs.clubplanet.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=41406&d=1128568749
I have more from him I have printed in a nicely arranged stack.
Since the CP staff conveniently ignored the first report I sent concerning this threat by him, I just sent them another report on this same threat and it's not pretty what I wrote this time. Come to find out, you're a mod. How come you or any of the other mods haven't taken any corrective action against him for this?
You know something else? He likes to hang out in politicalteen.net yet he's 31. A 31 year old man in a site for teens. Something's gotta to be wrong with that picture. It would not even surprise me that he has illegal child porn on his hard drive. I'm willing to bet he's a paedophile who hangs out in teen and kiddie chats soliciting sex to minors.
PS. You were right about the elderly lady in New Orleans with the gun who got arrested in the video. My mistake. I overlooked that part of the newsclip.
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Q&A: Judging Saddam Hussein
NPR.org, October 18, 2005 · Saddam Hussein is on trial for crimes alleged to have been committed during his rule in Iraq, which lasted from 1979 to 2003. The trial will not bear any clear resemblance to an American trial, or even to recent international war crimes tribunals.
What is he charged with?
Initially, Saddam Hussein and seven other members of his former government will be charged with crimes relating to a 1982 attack on the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad. It is alleged that the defendants were responsible for the deaths of 143 people, an act of reprisal for the attempted assassination of Saddam as his convoy drove through the mostly Shiite town on July 8, 1982.
The exact charges against Saddam and his co-defendants will not be known until they are read in court. Investigating Judge Raid Juhi told reporters in Baghdad that the charges would focus on the areas of "crimes of premeditated murder, forced expulsion of residents, torture and forced disappearances of individuals."
Iraqi leaders, and their American advisers, selected the low-profile Dujail incident as the tribunal's first case against Saddam because it was relatively easy to put together and, they believe, has a high probability of producing a conviction.
What is the significance of the trial?
The significance is twofold. First, this is a chance to see justice done, or revenge meeted out, for the millions of Iraqis affected directly and indirectly by the terror tactics of Saddam's government.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, this is a chance for Iraq to prove to itself, and others, that it can function as a society under the rule of law, rather than a society under the rule of the gun.
Iraq has a reputation in the Arab world of requiring a strong hand in government to hold society together. A successful trial of Saddam and his former liutenants would be a symbolic victory in efforts to prove otherwise.
Where will the trial be, and under what kind of security?
The trial takes place in a heavily guarded Baghdad courtroom inside the Green Zone, where the Iraqi government and the U.S. embassy are located. The defendants are expected to sit together, perhaps behind protective glass.
The identities of many of those involved in the trial, including prosecutors and witnesses, may be shielded to avoid reprisals from Saddam loyalists.
Who is prosecuting him?
A team of prosecutors from the Iraqi Special Tribunal will argue the case against Saddam. The tribunal was set up by Americans, but is now run by the elected Iraqi government and staffed by Iraqis.
This trial, and ones to follow, are unusual in that they are being run by Iraqis, not outsiders. Most tribunals like this since World War II have been run by occupying powers or international organizations.
Prosecutors, and other tribunal staff members, were trained for the proceedings by members of the International Bar Association, among others.
Who is defending him?
Iraqi lawyer Khalil Dulaimi is Saddam's primary lawyer. All of the seven co-defendants have at least one lawyer representing them. At one point Saddam had 1,500 lawyers on his side. He fired them in August 2005 and is now relying on a much smaller legal team.
Dulaimi is working with London-based lawyer Abdel-Haq Alani. They have sought to delay the start of the trial and have publicly challenged the court's competence. Although the start date of the trial has not been moved, it is believed that the defense will ask for, and receive, a delay after proceedings begin. The adjournment could last 15 days, or longer.
A number of international advisers are also associated with Saddam's defense team. Ramsey Clark, a U.S. attorney general in the 1960s, Mahathir Mohamad, the former prime minister of Malaysia, and Aysha Moammar Ghadafi, a law professor and the daughter of Libyan leader Moammar Ghadafi, are all working with Saddam's primary lawyers.
Saddam's daughter Raghad Saddam Hussein -- who has no legal training -- is overseeing the defense team.
Who is judging him?
A five-judge panel will listen to the evidence and produce a verdict. There is no jury. The chief judge will ask questions.
U.S. officials say the Iraqi judges have received special training from American, British and Australian experts. They may also receive international assistance during the proceedings.
How long is the trial expected to last?
The length of the trial is not set. It is believed that there will be a recess of at least two weeks a day or two after the trial begins.
There is an extensive appeal process available to Saddam and the other defendants if they are convicted.
What access will the news media have to the trial?
Reporters will be able to watch the proceedings in the courtroom, and some photography will be allowed. No plans have been announced for allowing TV coverage in the courtroom. If TV crews are allowed in, it is likely to occur once the proceedings are well under way.
Saddam's lawyers have been talking to the press in the run-up to the trial, as have American officials supporting the current Iraqi government.
Do everyday Iraqis show any interest in the trial?
The trial is of significant interest to two groups of Iraqis. Iraqis who have been touched by the former government's heavy hand are eagerly looking for justice.
Many in the Sunni Arab minority, the group Saddam came from and favored, are fearful that this trial will be the first act of revenge by the Kurds and Shiite majority against their former oppressors.
What happens if he's convicted?
He could face the death penalty, or imprisonment. There is an extensive appeals process. Any execution would take place within 30 days of the final appeal being exhausted.
If he's not convicted?
He would likely be tried on other charges.
Will there be other Saddam trials after this?
Regardless of the verdict, the trial is expected to be the first of about a dozen involving crimes allegedly committed by Saddam and others in the regime during their 23-year rule.
These include the 1988 gassing of up to 5,000 Kurds in Halabja and the bloody 1991 suppression of a Shiite uprising in the south after a U.S.-led coalition drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4961686
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THE WORLD
U.S. Killed Civilians in Airstrike, Iraqis Say
By Solomon Moore, Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD — American fighter jets and attack helicopters killed about 20 Iraqi civilians and injured 15 other people, including women and children, during an anti-insurgent operation in the western city of Ramadi, local police and a doctor who treated the wounded said Monday.
The city, 60 miles west of Baghdad, has been the site of a major U.S. offensive, and fighting escalated four days ago, residents said. On Saturday, five U.S. soldiers died in Ramadi when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle. U.S. forces said they launched three airstrikes in the area Sunday, killing 70 suspected insurgents.
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Ramadi Police Capt. Ali Salem, however, said a number of those slain were civilians.
"An American aircraft yesterday bombed a crowd of people that were gathering around a U.S. military vehicle that was destroyed by gunmen earlier in the clashes," he said Monday. "We transported at least 17 dead people and many more injured ones to Ramadi General Hospital."
Army Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, a U.S. military spokesman, said American authorities had "no confirmation or information that there were any civilians involved. We were going after insurgents using precision-guided munitions. We take great care at all times to ensure that we target only valid, legitimate targets."
Since fall 2004, U.S. forces have battled insurgents in Ramadi and other cities in Al Anbar province, a sparsely populated region inhabited largely by Sunni Arabs that borders Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. As the rest of Iraq voted relatively peacefully Saturday for a new constitution, U.S. and Iraqi sources reported intense fighting in Ramadi.
Ramadi Police Capt. Mohammed Sarhan said insurgents used "heavy weapons like mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns…. The U.S. used artillery, and airplanes bombed some of these places. This is the reason for the civilian casualties."
The American military said two of Sunday's airstrikes involved jet fighters, and one used helicopters.
An F-15 fighter launched the first strike at 1:25 p.m., after an aviator saw approximately 20 men park vehicles near the crater caused by the earlier roadside attack on U.S. troops. In a statement, the military said the men were planting another explosive device, prompting an aviator to release a laser-guided bomb, "resulting in the death of terrorists on the ground."
About six hours later, military officials said, insurgents fired on a Cobra helicopter, which responded with a volley of powerful machine-gun blasts, killing about 10 suspected insurgents.
The last airstrike took place at 8 p.m., the military said, after F/A-18 crew members dropped a bomb on a suspected insurgent safe house, killing approximately 40 people inside.
Dr. Ayad Duleimi, who treated the wounded at Ramadi General Hospital, said he saw at least 35 civilian casualties.
"The U.S. forces killed 20 civilians and injured another 15, including women and children, when they bombed the city of Ramadi," Duleimi said. "The injured are in critical condition, and some of them were transferred to other hospitals."
Associated Press Television News video showed that the dead in the last airstrike included two children and a woman. Other footage showed two children among the injured.
Boylan said that "insurgents, at times, will try to hide in and among the civilian populations." But he added that "at this time, to the best of our knowledge, this was strictly a military target. We have seen in the past propaganda claiming that whenever we go after targets in urban areas we kill civilians, which turns out to be false."
Meanwhile Monday, an Iraqi political party alleged that U.S. troops had attacked the convoy of a deputy provincial governor Friday in Diyala province east of Baghdad, killing two of his bodyguards and injuring three others. The Iraqi Islamic Party, a leading Sunni bloc, said Awf Rahomi's convoy was attacked near a U.S. military base.
"This bad incident, like others that have affected hundreds of lives and dozens of our members, shows the U.S. forces' disregard for our lives and the way they shoot without regard to the ramifications," the party said in a statement. "The IIP denounces these insane practices and demands that the occupation forces apologize and compensate the families of those killed and injured."
A U.S. military spokesman contacted Monday said he had not heard about the incident.
In other violence, the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq posted a video on the Internet showing the execution of an Iraqi security contractor.
The footage, titled "Application of Divine Judgment on a Contractor Working for the Crusaders," begins with a camera shot of the man's identity papers, including a contractor card and gun permit. The name on the document is Mahmoud Alwan Hussein.
The next scene shows a man lying prone with his hands bound behind his back. He cranes his neck to see a man with black pants and black tennis shoes. The executioner's face is outside the frame and not visible, but his AK-47 can be seen pointing at the captive's head.
The gunman fires twice, killing the bound man.
The posting came a day after U.S.-led coalition forces announced they had captured Yasir Khudr Muhammad Jasim Karbali, aka Abu Dijana, an Al Qaeda in Iraq member allegedly responsible for posting insurgent propaganda on the Internet.
U.S. forces said in a statement that Abu Dijana would be notified before insurgent attacks and dispatch cameramen to record the attacks, military sources said.
It was unclear whether the video posted Monday was made before or after Abu Dijana's capture.
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Fraud cited as poll results challenged
By AP
BAGHDAD -- Election workers will audit results showing unexpected ratios of "yes" to "no" votes from some parts of Iraq in the country's landmark referendum on the draft constitution, officials said yesterday.
The U.S. military said, meanwhile, its warplanes and helicopters bombed two western villages Sunday, killing an estimated 70 militants near a site where five American soldiers died in a roadside blast. Residents said at least 39 of the dead were civilians.
Word of the unexpected results came as Sunni Arab legislator Meshaan al-Jubouri claimed fraud had occurred in Saturday's election, including instances of voting in hotly contested regions by pro-constitution Shiites from other areas. His comments echoed those from other Sunni officials over the weekend.
Iraq's electoral commission said numbers from most provinces "were unusually high according to the international standards" and so would "require us to recheck, compare and audit them."
The commission said it would take random samples from ballot boxes to check the results.
An official with knowledge of the election process said that in some areas the ratio of "yes" to "no" votes seemed far higher or lower than would be expected. The official cautioned it was too early to say whether the figures were incorrect or what caused the unusual results.
The commission and the official did not say what regions had the curious returns.
Voting was believed to have been highly polarized between Sunni Arabs, who largely oppose the charter, and Shiites and Kurds, who supported it. The main electoral battlegrounds were provinces with mixed populations, two of which went strongly "yes."
The province of Diyala, for example, is believed to have a slight Sunni Arab majority. But reports from electoral officials there on Sunday reported a 70-per-cent "yes" vote and a 20-per-cent "no."
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/International/2005/10/18/1266904-sun.html
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For Bono, U2 concerts are for rock fans, not political friends
Singer distances himself from move by candidates to use sold-out shows as fundraisers
By PATRICK D. HEALY
New York Times
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton may be holding a $2,500-a-person fundraiser at a U2 concert on Wednesday, and her husband may be best buds with Bono, but do not assume that the band's political celebrity is endorsing New York's celebrity politician.
A close associate of Bono's took the unusual step this week of disassociating the band from a trend in Washington: candidates using access to sold-out concerts to woo major donors.
The move came after a Web site, NewsMax.com, reported that U2 was "teaming up" with another senator, Rick Santorum, R-Pa., for a thousand-dollar-a-seat concert in Philadelphia on Sunday. Santorum's office responded that the story was incorrect: The senator has bought only 66 seats, which supporters can repurchase for the higher price.
Yet erroneous reports continued on the Internet and cable television, prompting an advocacy group that was founded by Bono and others — Debt AIDS Trade Africa — to release a statement distancing the performers from these fundraising events.
"If any political fundraising events take place at a U2 concert, it is without the involvement or knowledge of DATA, U2 or Bono," Jamie Drummond, executive director of DATA, said in the statement. "U2 concerts are categorically not fundraisers for any politician; they are rock concerts for U2 fans."
The original NewsMax article drew attention in part because Santorum is a conservative Republican facing a tough fight for re-election next year, and he and the politically progressive singer might not seem a natural fit. But Bono has worked with many conservatives, including former Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and Santorum, on efforts to prevent the global spread of HIV, according to a Santorum spokesman.
Officials with Clinton's campaign declined to comment. Requests to interview Bono were not granted. A spokesman for DATA, Christopher Lagan, said he did not know if the group's statement was Bono's idea.
The statement has stirred conversations in some circles because Bono has mixed politics and celebrity himself in hopes of influencing Africa policy.
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Rush worried 'all night' over Bono's 'mistress'
Limbaugh clears air after rock-star allegation, retraction
Posted: October 15, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Radio giant Rush Limbaugh may have lost some sleep this week after stating, and then retracting, on the air that Irish rock star Bono had a mistress.
"I worried about this all night long," Limbaugh said yesterday during his national broadcast. "I don't like saying things about people that aren't true."
The original remark came during Tuesday's program during discussion about Bono being named the No. 1 "ubersexual" alive, as reported by WorldNetDaily.
According to advertising giant JWT, ubersexuals are men who embrace the positive aspects of their masculinity such as confidence, leadership, passion and compassion, without giving in to the stereotypes that give guys a bad name, including disrespect toward women, emotional emptiness, complete ignorance of anything cultural outside of sports, beer, burgers, and athletic shoes.
With U2's lead singer Bono (whose real name is Paul Hewson) topping the list, Limbaugh noted, "He also has a mistress! They conveniently leave that out. That his wife knows about. She's cool with it. I guess that's part of being an ubersexual."
Bono is married to Ali Hewson, and the couple from Dublin have four children.
Within minutes of making the mistress statement, Limbaugh issued an on-air retraction, explaining:
OK, it's half mea culpa time and half going to cover my bets the other way time. The person who confided in me long ago about the extramarital status of the rock 'n' roll super crooner Bono has just now sent me a clarifying note saying, "Ah, maybe that was just speculation. I wouldn't say it on the air." I said, "Well, thanks for telling me this so many years ago definitively." But nevertheless I will retract it since I personally don't know it and frankly, I can't imagine anybody...It's rock 'n' roll. I can't imagine anybody being surprised, but that's compounding my error, and so I take that back, too.The story about the mistress allegation was picked up by the, which noted, "U2's publicist told us: 'This is so absurd it doesn't deserve a response. However, Bono and [bandmate] Edge have been spending a lot of time together in New York lately.'"The paper never mentioned Limbaugh's immediate retraction, prompting Rush to contact the paper."I asked [the Post], 'Hey, you left out the fact I retracted this.' They said, 'We don't want to continue the story.' I said, 'OK, fine.'"A woman from Chicago seeking an explanation about the incident told Limbaugh yesterday, "You were talking about [the mistress] like it was common knowledge.""I thought it was," responded Limbaugh. "I got caught in the whole thing about using unidentified sources, except my sources are not unidentified, I know them. But I got caught up here, you're exactly right. I just I assumed, 'Hey, it's rock 'n' roll,' you know? But since I don't know it, I retracted it within minutes, and I feel bad about it. I feel terrible about it."Previous story: -
NUFF SAID!
drop dead.
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fuck no.
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shut up
AND DIE
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How rude! That's us; you can blame parents
October 15, 2005
BY DONNA CASSATA
WASHINGTON -- Americans' fast-paced, high-tech existence has taken a toll on civility.
From road rage in the morning commute to high decibel cell phone conversations that ruin dinner out, men and women behaving badly have become the hallmark of a hurry-up world. An increasing informality -- flip-flops at the White House -- combined with self-absorbed communication gadgets and a demand for instant gratification have strained common courtesies to the breaking point.
''All of these things lead to a world with more stress, more chances for people to be rude to each other,'' said Peter Post, a descendent of etiquette expert Emily Post and an instructor on business manners through the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vt.
In some cases, the harried single parent has replaced the traditional nuclear family, and there's little time to teach the basics of polite living, Post said.
Worse in urban areas
A slippage in manners is obvious to many Americans. Nearly 70 percent questioned in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll said people are ruder than they were 20 or 30 years ago. The trend is noticed in large and small places alike, although more urban people report bad manners, 74 percent, than do people in rural areas, 67 percent.
Peggy Newfield, founder and president of Personal Best, said the generation that came of age in the times-a-changin' 1960s and 1970s are now parents who don't stress the importance of manners, such as opening a door for a woman.
So it was no surprise to Newfield that those children wouldn't understand how impolite it was to wear flip-flops to a White House meeting with the president -- as some members of the Northwestern women's lacrosse team did in summer.
A whopping 93 percent in the AP-Ipsos poll faulted parents for failing to teach their children well.
''Parents are very much to blame,'' Newfield said. ''And the media.''
Sulking athletes and boorish celebrities grab the headlines while television and Hollywood often glorify crude behavior.
Few willing to admit it
Nearly everyone has a story of the rude or the crude, but fewer are willing to fess up to boorish behavior themselves.
Only 13 percent in the poll would admit to making an obscene gesture while driving; only 8 percent said they had used their cell phones in a loud or annoying manner around others. But 37 percent in the survey of 1,001 adults questioned Aug. 22-23 said they had used a swear word in public.
Yvette Sienkiewicz, 41, of Wilmington, Del., recalled in frustration how a bigger boy cut in front of her 8-year-old son as he waited in line to play a game at the local Chuck E. Cheese.
''It wasn't my thing to say something to the little boy,'' said Sienkiewicz, who remembered that the adult accompanying the child never acknowledged what he had done. In the AP-Ipsos poll, 38 percent said they have asked someone to stop behaving rudely.
AP
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BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLICANS
(Feel free to sing along!)
Mine Eyes have seen the bungling of that stumbling moron Bush;
he has blathered all the drivel that the neo-cons can push;
he has lost sight of all reason 'cause his head is up his tush;
The Doofus marches on.
I have heard him butcher syntax like a kindergarten fool;
There is warranted suspicion that he never went to school;
Should we fault him for the policies - or is he just their tool?
The lies keep piling on.
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
His wreckage will live on.
I have seen him cut the taxes of the billionaires' lone heir;
As he spends another zillion on an aircraft carrier;
Let the smokestacks keep polluting - do we really need clean air?
The surplus is now gone.
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Your safety net is gone!
Now he's got a mighty hankerin' to bomb a prostrate state;
Though the whole world knows its crazy - and the U.N. says to wait;
When he doesn't have the evidence, "We must prevaricate."
Diplomacy is done!
Oh, a trumped-up war is excellent; we have no moral bounds;
Should the reasons be disputed, we'll just make up other grounds;
Enraging several billions - to his brainlessness redounds;
The Doofus marches on!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
THIS .... DOOOO .... FUSS .... MAR...CHES....ON!
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11 Iraqi War Myths
The primary mission of TROP is to document and publicize the violence that takes place in the name of Islam each day. It is not to defend coalition action in Iraq or make political endorsements. We wrote the following article as a means of responding to the large number of inquiries and challenges that we receive concerning Iraq.
Outrageous claims are often made in the Islamic world and even in the West concerning what is taking place in Iraq. The more misguided believe there to be some sort of crusade against Muslims, as if all of the Muslim-Americans have been killed off and fresh blood is needed overseas. In fact, not a single Muslim has lost their life in America to any sort of revenge attack since 9/11. Other foolish conspiracy theories and fabrications have been repeated so often that they have settled as fact in the minds of the misinformed. These echo with violent repercussions in Iraq, so correcting such myths can only save lives.
With this in mind, we present (and hopefully discredit) the 11 biggest myths of Iraq:
Americans have killed 100,000 Iraqi Civilians
Insurgents only want an end to the “Occupationâ€
Fighting Terrorism Simply Creates More Terrorists.
The War is based on a lie. Bush Lied about WMD’s
The Insurgents are Freedom Fighters, in the Spirit of 1776
500,000 Iraqi Children Perished under American-supported UN Sanctions
Iraq is a Winner for U.S. Democrats
“They†are Insurgents, not Terrorists
Anti-War Activists are truly Motivated by the Human Cost of War
1) Americans have killed 100,000 Iraqi Civilians
The most immediate cause for suspicion of the claim that 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed by coalition troops is that this number materialized half-way through the war and has stayed unchanged in the year since, indicating that either it’s own proponents have little confidence in the figure, or that about 200 civilians really were dying each day from a genocidal pinpoint campaign that somehow evaporated overnight.
Iraq is not an inaccessible backwater. It has a modern communications infrastructure, as well as hospitals and morgues. It is simply unfeasible that 200 civilians could die everyday from violence that was undirected at them without the media finding out about it. The group Iraqbodycount.net, for example, meticulously traces news sources for any death, from which it (presumably) culls redundancy and then posts the totals. It found that there were a little over “7,000 civilian†deaths from the “effects of war†(mostly at the hands of freedom fighting terrorists) during the most intense stages of conflict. Even this statistic is highly exaggerated, since the enemy there is not known to fight in uniform. In all probability, the immense effort of coalition forces to avoid civilian casualties was quite successful and the true number is between 2,000 and 3,000, perhaps lower.
So where did the figure of 100,000 come from? It was created from a popular interpretation of an article appearing in The Lancet in October 2004, in which an anti-war researcher surveyed an outrageously tiny sample of households that were disproportionately located in the violent Sunni triangle. The survey did not rely on any means of verification, nor did it define terms that would preclude deaths at the hands of the terrorists. This last part is important because in the month of July, 2005, for example, terrorists killed over 600 Iraqi civilians while Americans killed none.
So woefully unreliable was The Lancet survey that it actually begrudged a 92% margin of error - meaning that its conclusions could be closer to 8,000 deaths, which would put it in line with other news sources, although it is doubtful that many of these could be attributed to cluster bomb mishaps, since such incidents were both rare and highly publicized.
The figure of 100,000 civilian deaths is not employed out of accuracy, but rather expediency. Public sympathy can be manipulated by arbitrarily inflating the number of civilians killed in the conflict. It obscures the fact that nearly all of the deaths of innocents are occurring at the hands of the very people that coalition forces are trying to stop, as well as the fact that the civilian death rate was far higher under Saddam, and would be much worse in a future without a stable security force to support the democratic government.
2) Insurgents only want an end to the “Occupationâ€
According to this myth, the insurgents are so repulsed by the presence of foreign troops in their country that they are forced by conscience to take up arms and kill fellow Iraqis by the hundreds each month. If the Americans were gone, then the “insurgency†would evaporate and these Iraqis would respect their democratically elected government.
In the first place, these would have to be extremely dimwitted insurgents, since their own murderous rampage is the sole reason that American troops remain. The democratic Iraqi government is clearly working toward self-sufficiency, but its efforts are being undermined exclusively by the terrorists, hence the need for external support. Clearly, there are ulterior motives involved that are not as palatable to Western tastes.
The impartial observer will also note that the “insurgency†is conspicuously and curiously limited to 20% of the country (the so-called “Sunni Triangleâ€) even though all of Iraq is technically under “occupation.†Why isn’t the resistance spread evenly – if it is truly an Iraqi insurgency, and not merely a Sunni ploy to regain hegemony under the guise of freedom (or the banner of Jihad)?
In fact, virtually all of the suicide bombers (who cause the most damage) are not Iraqis at all.
The “al-Qaeda in Iraq†leader, al-Zarqawi, has declared war on the Shia majority in remarkable disregard for Sunni Iraqis, who have benefited from the impressive patience shown by the Shia and Kurdish groups that outnumber them four to one. Perhaps al-Zarqawi has such little concern for anyone in Iraq because he is from Jordan, and has no personal stake in the welfare of either side.
Though anti-war and anti-American propagandists search desperately for appealing terminology that will legitimize the violence, the fact remains that the vast majority of Iraqis have chosen to live peaceably under their own chosen democratic government
3) Fighting Terrorism Simply Creates More Terrorists.
There is some merit to the argument that it doesn’t take much to inspire the holy warriors of Islam to suicide bombings and other acts of violence in the name of Jihad. The very fact that many of these misguided Muslims can be manipulated into leaving a country such as Syria, where the dictator has willfully slaughtered tens of thousands of suspected Islamic fundamentalists to retain power over the years, only to travel to Iraq and engage in the slaughter of innocent Muslims (who haven’t completed the Haj) is pretty good evidence of just how vulnerable Islamic radicals are to the misinformation tactics of secular puppet masters.
Still, al-Qaeda had no problem attracting thousands to its training camps well before America started fighting back in the war on terror, and it is a fact that these sociopaths have to live somewhere. If no country feels that it can safely harbor terrorists without facing severe consequences, then their numbers will naturally shrink.
Since America made terrorism a defense issue, rather than a legal matter, and began building allies in the battle, totalitarian regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq have been overthrown and replaced by democracies. The world is no longer threatened by Saddam Hussein, or forced into guessing games regarding his WMD programs. Syria has been pressured into ending a very brutal occupation of Lebanon, and elections have been held there, as well as in Egypt. Libya has given up its WMD program and surrendered its stockpiles. Islamic terrorists are under pressure across the globe now from Pakistan to the Philippines.
There is no perfect solution to terrorism, but the passive approach taken in the 1990’s obviously has far greater consequences for citizens in the West. Our policy of non-confrontation and appeasement was rewarded with successively bolder attacks against military, diplomatic, and civilian targets, culminating in the loss of 3,000 innocents on 9/11.
For 1400 years, Islamic terrorists have always found reasons for hating and killing unsubmissive infidels, in keeping with the teachings of their religion. No amount of appeasement will ever change this.
4) The War was About Oil
There are two flavors to this argument. The first was popular before the war, and held that the United States would invade Iraq and take the oil. Given that this hasn’t happened, and that the Americans are helping to rebuild Iraq (against “insurgent†attempts to thwart the process by destroying pipelines and terrorizing the population), this is no longer believed by anyone except the most hopeless anti-American conspiracy nuts.
The more reasonable version of the argument is that America’s only interest in Iraq is to see that the country’s oil reaches the international market. The problem with this theory is that the only thing keeping Iraqi oil off the market prior to the war was American-supported sanctions.
The sanctions wouldn’t have been there if Americans were only interested in oil. Nor would America have gone to war over oil, since it would have been far easier to simply drop the sanctions… if oil was really the issue.
5) The War is based on a lie. Bush Lied about WMD’s
George W. Bush never claimed to have been to Iraq. Rather, both he and Tony Blair deferred to intelligence reports and, at the same time, complained that their sources were limited by the fact that Saddam would not allow inspections under the agreements that ended the Gulf War; nor would he respect numerous UN mandates to allow unrestricted monitoring.
Though rare, there are some in the world who allege that Bush knew the reports were wrong (in some mysterious fashion), but went to war under false pretenses anyway. This would certainly qualify as a lie, but it also defies common sense and probably speaks to the ignorance, delusion, or dishonesty of the person making such an assertion.
For obvious reasons, first-term American Presidents do not send troops into combat over a primary justification that they know will be proven false before the next election. Neither do second-term Presidents for that matter, since the fallout would have devastating consequences for their political party, to say nothing of the breach of ethics.
Ironically, those most critical of America over the relative absence of WMDs also happen to have been the most sympathetic toward Saddam’s manipulative shell games that made the war necessary in the first place. Their shallow and unbalanced moralizing gave the dictator confidence that the American President would never follow through with his threats to hold his government accountable under the WMD inspections agreements that it signed. He never believed that he would wind up in a spider hole or on trial.
Had the world united against Saddam Hussein and required that he honor international law, then the war would never have happened and the good people of Iraq would still be living under his sublime and gentle hand.
6) The Insurgents are Freedom Fighters, in the Spirit of 1776
This belief has its roots in the multicultural mindset that compels many Westerners to interpret the actions of non-Westerners through a vocabulary that implies moral equivalence between all social groups. Since Americans don’t kill for religious purposes or to satisfy the craving of a murderous minority that wants to reclaim autocratic power, it therefore follows that our enemy’s motives must be unrelated to these interests as well.
Disingenuousness is a critical ingredient for proponents of this position. They must remain intentionally naïve to the true motives of the terrorists, disregarding the call to Jihad, for example (which obviously inspires the suicide bombers) while drawing attention to the portion of insurgent propaganda that is designed to appeal to Western sensibilities.
The reality in Iraq is that the insurgency leadership is merely an element of the old regime that is sheltered by small pockets of the Sunni community. They cynically use Islamic theology to inspire fellow Sunnis from outside Iraq to join the “Jihad.†Since the Sunnis benefited disproportionately under Saddam Hussein (at the expense of 80% of the Iraqi population) many are sympathetic to the true motives of the terror leaders, which is to reestablish the sort of tyrannical rule that worked to their narrow advantage in the past.
True political freedom in the form of democratic rule is obviously antithetical to the interests of this minority, so they employ the most barbaric tactics to undermine the constitution and thwart the people’s efforts to define their own government. They aren’t fighting for freedom, but rather for minority rule and subjugation. This makes them the polar opposite of the American Revolutionary.
There are true freedom fighters in Iraq, of course. They are the tens of thousands of police and Iraqi soldiers who take enormous risk each day to keep their democratic government in power. Unfortunately, their sacrifice doesn’t serve the political interests or the romantic needs of the critics, so the same sympathy is not extended to them as to their homicidal foes.
7) 500,000 Iraqi Children Perished under American-supported UN Sanctions
The fact that this number originated with Saddam’s government while it was engaged in the very process of building nearly one hundred opulent palaces for the dictator in various parts of the country makes it extremely problematic. If the government had the wealth to pursue such idle pretensions, then it certainly could have afforded medical supplies for children, particularly since the money came from the “oil-for-food†program. Obviously Saddam had other priorities, which were beyond the control of the U.S. government.
Before taking Saddam Hussein’s statistics at face value, consider the source. One of the few promises that he ever kept was when he told that the wife of one of his ministers that he would return her husband to her after the woman begged him. His minister had been arrested and tortured after daring to suggest in a cabinet meeting that perhaps Saddam should step aside temporarily in 1982 as a political ploy, then resume power after the international objective (of peace with Iran) was established. The man’s body was chopped into pieces and delivered to his wife in a black canvas bag the day after she begged for his return.
The Americans can’t force a dictator to provide for the welfare of his people, although they can topple him from power rather than praise or condone his behavior, as the “humanitarians†were doing. It is extremely curious that the very people claiming to be most concerned about the plight of children under sanctions should be most “horrified†over the effort to remove the man responsible for the suffering.
Suspicious as well is that those who rely on the unsubstantiated figure of “500,000 deaths from sanctions†also happen to show the least concern over the tens of billions that were skimmed out of the oil-for-food program in the form of bribes from Saddam. This is because the lives of these children are only as valuable as their usefulness to the anti-American cause.
8) Iraq is a Winner for U.S. Democrats
Democrats have certainly tried their best to capitalize on the natural ambivalence that often accompanies modern wars waged by Western powers, realizing that they benefit from their own efforts to make Iraq unpopular. Comparing American soldiers to Nazis and wildly extrapolating every misstep of the war from Abu Ghraib to a “mishandling†of the Qur’an has had a demoralizing effect both on those fighting in uniform and the resolve of the American public. Iraqis are now suffering in ways the Afghans are not; despite the common presence of supporting troops.
The potential political reward from a successful insurgency has seduced some Democrats into disingenuously assisting the enemy. Ted Kennedy, for example, virtually fed the radical cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, talking points about Vietnam in the spring of 2004, even as the religious leader was engaged in a murderous uprising that left hundreds dead.
In fact, the shadow strategy is to frame the war in verbal terms that are often used retrospectively to describe Vietnam, where America faced an enemy that merely wanted to subjugate and kill the locals and their immediate neighbors, rather than wage global Jihad against infidels. Vietnam was a loser for a divided America, and if Democrats can successfully associate the two conflicts in the nation’s consciousness, then Iraq will be a loser as well – both for us, the Iraqis, and the hopes of pro-reform advocates in the Middle East.
So, on the surface this would appear to be a winning issue for Democrats. But wait… The party rejected an anti-war candidate in 2004 for one who voted in favor of the war. In all likelihood, the 2008 Democratic nominee for President will also be someone who supported the war and refuses to articulate an “exit strategy.†Even prominent party leaders such as Harry Reid have scoffed at the notion of “timetables†for removing troops – rightly explaining that it would merely encourage the enemy.
The problem for Democrats is that their murky opposition to the war is fueled only by the success of terrorists, usually in the form of barbaric and cowardly attacks. Retreat in the face of terrorism may have short-term electoral benefits, but it will merely strengthen the general impression that Democrats are soft on terror, and this will not be good for the party in the long run… nor for the rest of the world.
9) “They†are Insurgents, not Terrorists
The word “insurgent†is a loaded term that confers legitimacy since it is neutrally defined as “one who opposes authority.†It is broad enough to apply to any American who votes for the Green Party, for example, as well as the citizen who bombs a government building in Oklahoma City in the middle of the day.
Obviously, it is intellectually dishonest to categorize Ralph Nader loyalists alongside those who use violence to overthrow a democratically elected government, so narrower terminology is not just appropriate, but morally imperative.
We modestly suggest that those who commit violent acts of terror against a democratic government and its citizens be known as terrorists.
10) Anti-War Activists are truly Motivated by the Human Cost of War.
Anti-war activists often pretend that the killing in Iraq began the moment American bombs started falling, and will end the minute coalition troops leave the country, but mass graves uncovered from the Saddam era, and present-day terror attacks against ordinary Iraqis are clear indicators of the odd mixture of insincerity and ignorance that characterizes the “peace movement.â€
In fact, true sympathy for the Iraqi people would have to run pretty thin among those pressing for the premature removal of peacekeeping forces. Leaving innocent people exposed and vulnerable to the forces of terror or a bloody civil war hardly qualifies as a humane gesture. Neither did these activists appear visibly moved by the plight of more than 300,000 missing and murdered Iraqis under the Baathist regime.
Obviously, the language of compassion is a mere artifice for deeper political and social motives, which can be anything from anti-American bigotry to the complex insecurity in the Muslim world toward free and open societies. Just as the lives of tens of millions in the gulags of the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Vietnam and Africa were inconsequential to the anti-Western Left, so would the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis be to today’s generation of “useful idiots.â€
11) Iraq is a Disaster.
The terror attacks in Iraq provide an excuse for political opportunists to label the country a “disaster.†This, in turn, inspires more violence and weakens the resolve of those fighting the terrorists.
Apart from the terror, Iraq is a stable country where educational and economic opportunity is now afforded to the 80% of the population that was denied basic rights under the dictatorship. Schools are open; electricity and clean water are reaching new areas; and the torture chambers and rape rooms have been closed. Oil is flowing, and the revenue is not being skimmed away from the people via corrupt practices as it was under Saddam. A free and open democracy now exists at the heart of the Arab world, which means long-term regional stability as surrounding countries are pressured into democratic and human rights reform.
Iraqis have been given an enormous opportunity to benefit from the overthrow of tyranny, and American blood has been shed to make it so. The only thing that will squander the opportunity and make the sacrifice in vein is if the terrorists win.
Criminals and Fedayeen have been killing about 500 Iraqis a month over the last year – mainly police and other security forces. Each high-profile attack invites sanctimonious hand wringing from opportunists, who are assisted by the media’s natural inclination toward bad news. When attention is isolated on acts of violence, their significance becomes exaggerated and context is lost.
But let’s put the numbers in perspective…
Eighteen times as many Americans die from alcohol-related incidents. In fact, the death rate from terror in Iraq is about eight times lower than the number of Americans dying from tobacco-related causes even taking the population disparity into account. This is also true for obesity-related mortality, which is poised to overtake smoking as the top cause of preventable death.
The residents of fourteen of the eighteen Iraqi provinces enjoy a much lower crime rate than nearly any American city, and the other four provinces average fewer murders than New York City’s worst year under David Dinkins.
Though the number of Iraqis dying from terror attacks is both tragic and preventable, it is almost incomparable to the number of those killed under Saddam. The people in the West who use the attacks for their own propaganda purposes (in exactly the way that the terrorists intend) are playing directly into the hands of those whose intention is to turn Iraq (and the Middle East) into a genuine disaster that will have enormous consequences for the rest of us.
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"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt
So your personal attacks which comes with every post you make really points out how insecure you really are. I will not respond to any post you make which include personal insults from this point on. A civil person should be able to have a debate without resorting to personal insults.
Grow the fuck up.
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Time for Anti-War Movement to Escalate Efforts — Build on Success ???????
I guess the only thing left now is for you to change into your jammies, put a towel on your head and become a suicide bomber.
C'mon,,,You can do it! If there's anything you're good for it's gotta be that!
I've just had an epiphany! That's it Scooter! You've found your calling! Somewhere in da' sky there are 72 virgins waiting for you to pop their hymens.......
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt
So your personal attacks which comes with every post you make really points out how insecure you really are. I will not respond to any post you make which include personal insults from this point on. A civil person should be able to have a debate without resorting to personal insults.
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...and America.
Wal-Mart Turns in Student’s Anti-Bush Photo, Secret Service Investigates Him
By Matthew Rothschild
October 4, 2005
Selina Jarvis is the chair of the social studies department at Currituck County High School in North Carolina, and she is not used to having the Secret Service question her or one of her students.
But that’s what happened on September 20.
Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class “to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights,” she says. One student “had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb’s down sign with his own hand next to the President’s picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster.”
According to Jarvis, the student, who remains anonymous, was just doing his assignment, illustrating the right to dissent.
But over at the Kitty Hawk Wal-Mart, where the student took his film to be developed, this right is evidently suspect.
An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called the Kitty Hawk police on the student. And the Kitty Hawk police turned the matter over to the Secret Service.
On Tuesday, September 20, the Secret Service came to Currituck High.“At 1:35, the student came to me and told me that the Secret Service had taken his poster,” Jarvis says. “I didn’t believe him at first. But they had come into my room when I wasn’t there and had taken his poster, which was in a stack with all the others.”
She says the student was upset.
“He was nervous, he was scared, and his parents were out of town on business,” says Jarvis.
She, too, had to talk to the Secret Service.
“Halfway through my afternoon class, the assistant principal got me out of class and took me to the office conference room,” she says. “Two men from the Secret Service were there. They asked me what I knew about the student. I told them he was a great kid, that he was in the homecoming court, and that he’d never been in any trouble.”
Then they got down to his poster.
“They asked me, didn’t I think that it was suspicious,” she recalls. “I said no, it was a Bill of Rights project!”
At the end of the meeting, they told her the incident “would be interpreted by the U.S. attorney, who would decide whether the student could be indicted,” she says.
The student was not indicted, and the Secret Service did not pursue the case further.
“I blame Wal-Mart more than anybody,” she says. “I was really disgusted with them. But everyone was using poor judgment, from Wal-Mart up to the Secret Service.”
A person in the photo department at the Wal-Mart in Kitty Hawk said, “You have to call either the home office or the authorities to get any information about that.”
Jacquie Young, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart at company headquarters, did not provide comment within a 24-hour period.
Sharon Davenport of the Kitty Hawk Police Department said, “We just handed it over” to the Secret Service. “No investigative report was filed.”
Jonathan Scherry, spokesman for the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., said, “We certainly respect artistic freedom, but we also have the responsibility to look into incidents when necessary. In this case, it was brought to our attention from a private citizen, a photo lab employee.”
Jarvis uses one word to describe the whole incident: “ridiculous.”
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stinummumoc! The whole bunch of you should join the military, then you can embrace the appreciation of the definition of freedom. Not all things that happen are President Bush's fault. He is the President, and he has appointed cabinet members who dictate, advise, and consent to war. These members design, scheme, and direct the war, and as if that weren't enough... they also protect you from being lynched.
Too bad Bush can't keep the troops from being "lynched". This is how he "supports" our troops:
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Bush Teleconference With Soldiers Staged
By DEB RIECHMANN
The Associated Press
Friday, October 14, 2005; 1:49 AM
WASHINGTON -- It was billed as a conversation with U.S. troops, but the questions President Bush asked on a teleconference call Thursday were choreographed to match his goals for the war in Iraq and Saturday's vote on a new Iraqi constitution.
"This is an important time," Allison Barber, deputy assistant defense secretary, said, coaching the soldiers before Bush arrived. "The president is looking forward to having just a conversation with you."
Barber said the president was interested in three topics: the overall security situation in Iraq, security preparations for the weekend vote and efforts to train Iraqi troops.
As she spoke in Washington, a live shot of 10 soldiers from the Army's 42nd Infantry Division and one Iraqi soldier was beamed into the Eisenhower Executive Office Building from Tikrit _ the birthplace of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
"I'm going to ask somebody to grab those two water bottles against the wall and move them out of the camera shot for me," Barber said.
A brief rehearsal ensued.
"OK, so let's just walk through this," Barber said. "Captain Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?"
"Captain Smith," Kennedy said.
"Captain. Smith? You take the mike and you hand it to whom?" she asked.
"Captain Kennedy," the soldier replied.
And so it went.
"If the question comes up about partnering _ how often do we train with the Iraqi military _ who does he go to?" Barber asked.
"That's going to go to Captain Pratt," one of the soldiers said.
"And then if we're going to talk a little bit about the folks in Tikrit _ the hometown _ and how they're handling the political process, who are we going to give that to?" she asked.
Before he took questions, Bush thanked the soldiers for serving and reassured them that the U.S. would not pull out of Iraq until the mission was complete.
"So long as I'm the president, we're never going to back down, we're never going to give in, we'll never accept anything less than total victory," Bush said.
The president told them twice that the American people were behind them.
"You've got tremendous support here at home," Bush said.
Less than 40 percent in an AP-Ipsos poll taken in October said they approved of the way Bush was handling Iraq. Just over half of the public now say the Iraq war was a mistake.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday's event was coordinated with the Defense Department but that the troops were expressing their own thoughts. With satellite feeds, coordination often is needed to overcome technological challenges, such as delays, he said.
"I think all they were doing was talking to the troops and letting them know what to expect," he said, adding that the president wanted to talk with troops on the ground who have firsthand knowledge about the situation.
The soldiers all gave Bush an upbeat view of the situation.
The president also got praise from the Iraqi soldier who was part of the chat.
"Thank you very much for everything," he gushed. "I like you."
On preparations for the vote, 1st Lt. Gregg Murphy of Tennessee said: "Sir, we are prepared to do whatever it takes to make this thing a success. ... Back in January, when we were preparing for that election, we had to lead the way. We set up the coordination, we made the plan. We're really happy to see, during the preparation for this one, sir, they're doing everything."
On the training of Iraqi security forces, Master Sgt. Corine Lombardo from Scotia, N.Y., said to Bush: "I can tell you over the past 10 months, we've seen a tremendous increase in the capabilities and the confidences of our Iraqi security force partners. ... Over the next month, we anticipate seeing at least one-third of those Iraqi forces conducting independent operations."
Lombardo told the president that she was in New York City on Nov. 11, 2001, when Bush attended an event recognizing soldiers for their recovery and rescue efforts at Ground Zero. She said the troops began the fight against terrorism in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and were proud to continue it in Iraq.
"I thought you looked familiar," Bush said, and then joked: "I probably look familiar to you, too."
Paul Rieckhoff, director of the New York-based Operation Truth, an advocacy group for U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, denounced the event as a "carefully scripted publicity stunt." Five of the 10 U.S. troops involved were officers, he said.
"If he wants the real opinions of the troops, he can't do it in a nationally televised teleconference," Rieckhoff said. "He needs to be talking to the boots on the ground and that's not a bunch of captains."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101301361_pf.html
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lol
dat's da' troofisis!
When Bush picked Cheney, Rumy, Powell, etc.....He was too stupid, so he needed help.
When he picks unknowns,,,,,ahhh,,,,,fugedaboutit....
Some people just don't have the mental capacity to understand "big people" issues. Leave Scooter in the playpen. Don't bother cleaning his pamper. Let him marinate in his "poopy"....
LOL
Translation:
I'll hire someone whose only qualification is a janitor to reperesent me as my defense attorney. Sounds like a plan to me.
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lol
dat's da' troofisis!
When Bush picked Cheney, Rumy, Powell, etc.....He was too stupid, so he needed help.
When he picks unknowns,,,,,ahhh,,,,,fugedaboutit....
Some people just don't have the mental capacity to understand "big people" issues. Leave Scooter in the playpen. Don't bother cleaning his pamper. Let him marinate in his "poopy"....
LOL
Translation:
I'll hire someone whose only qualification is a janitor to represent me as my defense attorney. Sounds like a plan to me.
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Bush's pick faces a revolt by the right
BY TIMOTHY M. PHELPS
WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF
October 14, 2005
WASHINGTON - For years conservative and liberal legal groups have been gearing up for the biggest battle over a Supreme Court nomination since 1987, when Robert Bork's appointment was defeated in the Senate.
But the nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers by President George W. Bush has turned that battle on its head, with many conservatives feeling betrayed and coming out in opposition while Democrats scratch their heads on the sidelines, wondering what to do.
Never before in modern times has a Supreme Court nomination been in serious jeopardy from the nominee's own party, but that appears to be the case today.
Eleven days after Bush proudly announced the nomination of his longtime friend and lawyer, it is not clear that she has the support of even a majority of the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee. The Republicans' staffers are said to be opposed.
A number of conservatives have come out against her, and some are working against the nomination as hard as if Miers were the reincarnation of liberal Justice William Brennan, who retired in 1990.
The Drudge Report, a conservative Web site more used to exposing the real or imagined sins of liberals and Democrats, yesterday bannered a report on "hidden testimony" by Miers in a lawsuit in 1990 when she was on the Dallas City Council.
Miers said then that she did not belong to the Federalist Society, a now-powerful organization of conservative lawyers intent on moving the judiciary to the right, because it was "politically charged," according to the Web site. But Miers was less critical of liberal organizations like the NAACP.
Members or close allies of the Federalist Society were among those thought to be under consideration by Bush for the court, and some are among those most appalled by Miers' selection.
The objections of her conservative opponents are twofold. One, they say, is that her only qualification is her friendship with Bush, because as a corporate lawyer and counsel to governor and now President Bush she has not often faced fundamental issues of constitutional law. The other is that they are not sure how committed the former Democrat is to their cause, because she has no judicial or other record to go on.
"This president ought to appoint someone with stellar qualifications and proven intellect who can fully participate in the discussions of these issues," said one prominent Federalist Society member close to the White House who did not want to be identified.
He said Miers did "corporate litigation but didn't try many cases in court. There must be 100,000 people like that out there." The nomination appears to be heading for "a train wreck," he said.
Patrick McGuigan, an Oklahoma official who led confirmation battles for conservatives in Washington in the 1990s, said that Republican presidents going back to Dwight Eisenhower have made the mistake of putting people of unproven ideology on the court only to have them turn out to be liberals, like Brennan, appointed by Eisenhower, and current Justice David Souter, appointed by Bush's father.
Bush has appealed to conservatives to "trust me" that he knows how Miers will vote, and also cited her religion as a reason he picked her. Miers belongs to a conservative Evangelical congregation in Dallas.
This appeal has worked with some influential conservative religious figures, like Pat Robertson and James Dobson, who are supporting her, splitting the conservative movement.
Senate Democrats and liberal judicial groups admit to being unsure whether to take Bush at his word and therefore oppose Miers, or to agree with conservatives that she is a closet moderate and therefore support her.
Nan Aron of the liberal Alliance for Justice said the nomination "has the feeling of approaching some tripping point after an avalanche of statements going after Miers and even Laura Bush," who praised Miers on Wednesday. "It's a free-for-all."
She said "there is not much to go on" in Miers' record but that there are some clues that she might be a moderate. Aron said she is suspicious that the White House wants to cow Democrats by making them think they will get someone worse if they oppose Miers.
One Democratic senator who asked not to be named said the Democrats, who control only 45 votes, can still defeat another nominee if Miers is withdrawn in favor of some of the judges favored by conservatives.
Asked if he would support Miers, he said, "I have no idea what I'm going to do. There are some people so weak they will do whatever [Justice Antonin] Scalia wants or whatever they think Bush wants."
He said some Senate conservatives appear to relish a fight over the vacancy created by the resignation of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a swing vote on the court.
"They want a big fight. They think they can convince America to be anti-choice and that government is evil," he said. "Bush and [political adviser Karl] Rove realize that's just not going to happen." Bush, he said, is "trying to thread the needle" by picking someone without a record and trying to reassure the hard right.
Conservative groups have long waited to avenge the defeat of Ronald Reagan's nomination of Bork in 1987 and with Republican control of the White House and the Senate looked forward to this key nomination - because of O'Connor's swing vote - to do it.
Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
Arrest warrant issued for DeLay
in Useless Blabber
Posted
Arrest warrant issued for DeLay
A routine step before court appearance
Wednesday, October 19, 2005; Posted: 3:19 p.m. EDT (19:19 GMT)
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- A Texas court issued a warrant Wednesday for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to appear for booking, where he is likely to face the fingerprinting and photo mug shot he had hoped to avoid.
Bail was initially set at $10,000 as a routine step before his first court appearance on conspiracy and money laundering charges. Travis County court officials said DeLay was ordered to appear at the Fort Bend County jail for booking.
The warrant was "a matter of routine and bond will be posted," DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin said.
The lawyer declined to say when DeLay would surrender to authorities but said the lawmaker would make his first court appearance Friday morning.
The charges against the Texas Republican stem from allegations that a DeLay-founded Texas political committee funneled corporate money into state GOP legislative races through the National Republican Party. Texas law prohibits use of corporate money to elect state candidates.
DeLay is charged with conspiracy to violate state election laws and money laundering, felony counts that triggered House Republican rules that forced him to step aside as majority leader.
Two separate indictments charge that DeLay and two political associates had the money distributed to state legislative candidates in a roundabout way -- sending it from the political action committee in Texas to the Republican National Committee in Washington and finally back to candidates' campaigns.
DeLay has denied wrongdoing.
The effort had major political consequences, first by helping Republicans take control of the Texas Legislature in the 2002 elections. The Legislature then redrew congressional boundaries according to a DeLay-inspired plan, took command of the state's U.S. House delegation and helped the GOP retain its U.S. House majority.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/19/delay.indictment.ap/index.html