oooops...I meant a liberal. My bad :-) I scheduled a time with mr liberal and this is his list of excuses followed by responses to tell what really happened.
Now, The Facts.
We were supposed to meet YESTERDAY. But....he never showed.
ACTUALLY>>>I DID SHOW ...at 5pm like I said I would. YOU were nowhere to be found!
And you know why? Because he IGNORED my post of acceptance, FAILED to respond, all the while....CONTINUING to post. Again....IGNORING my own post.
ACTUALLY>>>>I told you I was going to be working...unlike you...and couldn't be there til 5pm. I don't check my email all the time at work because again...I work...unlike you!
I CONFIRMED with the pussy PRIOR to 12 noon. Thru out the whole afternoon he CONTINUED to post....NEVER responding to me. EVER.
ACTUALLY>>>>>see above point
HE pussied out!!!!
ACTUALLY>>>>I wasn't the one who didn't show!
In additiom, HE posted yesterday suggesting a soccer field in Magnolia. That post originated from "Seattle". However, this evening's post originated from....."OLYMPIA"! So like dumbfuck Bush, who invaded Iraq per 9/11...instead of Saudi Arabia (17 of 19 hijackers were FROM THERE!)....our pussy poster has a problem with geography.
ACTUALLY>>>>I randomly pick the local geographic area knowing that it will all get posted Under the larger Seattle-Tacoma part. Partly so that it takes you longer to flag some of the posts:-)
It's pretty simple: He's as gutless as those he supports. It's really not about politics as this point: I'm just trying to eradicate shitty DNA. HIS.
But, He WON'T show!
ACTUALLY>>>>>Again...you're the one who didn't show!
* Location: it's true...fascist lib flagged it
* Location: fascist liberal coward keeps flagging
* Location: fascist liberal coward keeps flagging
* Location: fascist liberal coward keeps flagging
* Location: fascist liberal coward keeps flagging
* Location: hi FLAG FAGGOT! how are ya!?
* Location: hey flag fag...can't answer huh?
* Location: is little flag fag afraid of the truth?
* Location: is little flag fag afraid of the truth?
Obama-mania is getting out of hand. Full-grown and well-educated men—from swooning Andrew Sullivan to the entire staff of GQ magazine—are developing “man crushes” on Barack Obama, going weak in the knees for his immaculately pressed suits, oratorical skills, and shameless hope-mongering.
“I’ve never wanted anyone more than I want you,” warbles Obama Girl in a song called “I Got a Crush on Obama,” which has been viewed over 6 million times on YouTube. Celebs are queuing up to fall at his feet. “My heart belongs to Barack,” says Scarlett Johansson. There’s a palpable whiff of semi-religious hysteria at Obama rallies. As Joel Stein wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Obamaphilia has gotten creepy,” and its “fanatical” adherents are starting to embarrass themselves.
Actually, it’s worse than that: they are deluding themselves. Many Democrats have become so goggle-eyed, so insanely convinced that Obama is the savior of American politics (potentially rescuing both the Democratic Party from political ruin and America herself from the decadence and violence of the Bush era), that they are beginning to suffer political hallucinations. They fantasize that he is pure and righteous, a miracle-worker who, in a pique of rage, will overturn the conventions of neocon-ruled America.
The blind hope in Obama-as-messiah is most clearly expressed in the widespread delusion that he would be a “president of peace,” welcomed by a world eager to bury the warmongering ways of the office’s former occupant and renew its respect for America. Columnist Michael Kinsley praised Obama’s “valuable experience … as what you might call a ‘world man’—Kenyan father, American mother, four formative years living in Indonesia, more years in the ethnic stew of Hawaii, middle name of Hussein, and so on—in an increasingly globalized world.” But from my sedate Obamarama-free home in London, I’m not cheered by the prospect of this “world man” in the White House. Rather, I see him for what he is—or for what he threatens to become. Having never been stirred by the sight of Obama giving an MLK-style speech on the need for change, I can only take the candidates at their words. And Obama’s words are ominous indeed.
President Obama would be a warmonger. He would be a wide-eyed, zealous interventionist who would not think twice about using America’s “military muscle” (his words) to overthrow “rogue states” and to suppress America’s enemies, real and imagined. He would go farther even than President Bush in transforming the globe into America’s backyard and staffing it with spies and soldiers. He would relish the “American mission” to police the world and topple tyrannical regimes.
After eight years of Bush’s military meddling in the Middle East, if you want more war, vote Obama.
Two myths must be exploded: first, that Barack Obama was a principled and passionate opponent of the war in Iraq; second, that if he were installed in the White House he would resist the temptation to launch new wars and would instead usher in an era of peace.
Iraq is the Obamabots’ favorite faultline in the clash of the two Democrat contenders: Clinton supported the invasion and Obama opposed it. An open-and-shut case of one candidate being “for the war” and the other being “against the war,” right? Not quite. Obama’s position over the past five years has been strikingly similar to Clinton’s. And that ought to be an issue of serious concern for Obama’s army of acolytes and the peace protesters who have latched on to his campaign because, as Jeff Taylor pointed out in Counterpunch, “Clinton herself provides no substantive alternative to the neoconservative philosophy of the Bush administration.” Obama is little different from Clinton, and Clinton is little different from Bush.
Obama’s campaign frequently invokes his 2002 “speech against the war,” but very rarely quotes directly from it. Why? Because this mysterious speech—which has become the stuff of legend in Obamaphilic circles, talked about but rarely read—is a pro-war tirade. Yes, Obama described the planned invasion of Iraq as “dumb” and “rash,” but his overriding concern—expressed repetitively throughout the speech—was that the Bush administration was damaging the legitimate case for American-made wars of intervention and potentially making it harder for future administrations (Democratic, for example) to send soldiers around the world to depose unfriendly regimes.
Obama gave the speech at an antiwar rally in Chicago in October 2002. Perhaps nervous about being seen at a gathering of critics of American military intervention, he straight away outlined his pro-war credentials: “Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances.” He reiterated his non-opposition to war another four times in the 921-word speech.
Then Obama went to Washington, where he obediently voted to fund the war in Iraq and opposed the withdrawal of American troops. In 2004, he even talked about sending more troops to Iraq to stabilize the country—he had the idea of a surge before the Bushies did. When he and Hillary Clinton had a chance to enact Sen. Russ Feingold’s measure ordering Bush to withdraw most U.S. troops from Iraq by July 1, 2007, both voted no. Both senators also voted against a June 2006 amendment proposed by John Kerry for the redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq. It wasn’t until May 2007 that Clinton and Obama voted to cut off funds.
It is a myth, pure bunkum, that Obama is a brave anti-warrior. He made a brief speech in 2002—peppered with reminders of his generally pro-war leanings—and then, like Clinton, used his muscle in the Senate to fund the war and extend its bloody duration. It is only during the past year, as he has thrown himself into the presidential race, that Obama has decided to pose as a long-standing, level-headed critic. As Taylor argues, “An adept politician, Obama began emphasizing his ‘anti-war’ stance as the war became increasingly unpopular among Democrats across the country and he began gearing up for the 2008 presidential campaign.”
But there is more going on here than Iraq-related opportunism. If elected president, Obama would make it a priority to smash the argument for non-interventionism and to rehabilitate America’s imperial mission to right the wrongs of the world.
His main beef with the war in Iraq is not that it has failed in its stated objectives, fomented terror, and killed thousands, but rather that it has made the American people skeptical about military intervention. “There is one … place where our mistakes in Iraq have cost us dearly, and that is the loss of our government’s credibility with the American people,” he says. Citing a Pew Survey that found that 42 percent of Americans agree that the U.S. should “mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own,” Obama retorted, “We cannot afford to be a country of isolationists right now. … We need to maintain a strong foreign policy, relentless in pursuing our enemies and hopeful in promoting our values around the world.”
Those foolishly cheering Obama’s promise to bring the war in Iraq to a “responsible end” should recognize why he is planning this: not to liberate Iraq but rather to liberate the interventionist project from the “Iraqi distraction” and rebuild America’s military sufficiently to send its forces to hotspots around the globe. In a long piece for Foreign Affairs in July/August 2007, he argued, “After Iraq, we may be tempted to turn inward. That would be a mistake. The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew. We must bring the war to a responsible end and then renew our leadership—military, diplomatic, moral—to confront new threats and capitalize on new opportunities.” He calls for adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 to the Marine Corps and vastly expanding their mission. “[D]eposing a dictator and setting up a ballot box” is not enough: Obama wants $50 billion to promote “sustainable democracy,” a gauzy scheme that aims to “build healthy and educated communities, reduce poverty, develop markets, and generate wealth.”
Yet for all his focus on the “politics of hope,” when it comes to outlining his program of international interventionism, Obama parrots precisely the Bush regime’s panic-packed arguments about the horrendous threats facing America. Paying tribute to earlier battles against fascism and Soviet communism, Obama said last year, “This century’s threats are at least as dangerous and in some ways more complex than those we have confronted in the past. They come from weapons that can kill on a mass scale and from global terrorists who respond to alienation or perceived injustice with murderous nihilism. They come from rogue states allied to terrorists and from rising powers that could challenge both America and the international foundation of liberal democracy.” Here, Obama the celebrated new Democrat sounds startlingly like the clapped-out dinosaurs of the neocon project. Like them, he compares today’s shoddy and stateless terror networks to the powerful regimes of fascist Germany and Soviet Russia. And like them he suggests that America is threatened by “weapons that can kill on a mass scale”—a dark hint at the much feared “dirty nuke,” the existence of which has never been established, either in al-Qaeda’s caves or in the nuclear facilities of Iran.
Besides plagiarizing the Bush regime’s book of fear-mongering, Obama embraces two other aspects of Bushite foreign policy: unilateralism and pre-emption. He argues, “No president should ever hesitate to use force—unilaterally if necessary—to protect ourselves and our vital interests when we are attacked or imminently threatened.”
Those expecting the age of Obama to bring a repudiation of the Bush agenda hope in vain. In a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last April he said, “We have heard much over the last six years about how America’s larger purpose in the world is to promote the spread of freedom.” The anticipated twist never came. “I agree,” Obama told the crowd. Turns out we haven’t done enough to mold the world in America’s image: “America must lead by reaching out to all those living disconnected lives of despair in the world’s forgotten corners.”
Making Bush’s foreign policy look nearly as “humble” as initially promised, Obama declared that America’s security is “inextricably linked to the security of all people,” opining that flu-stricken Indonesian chickens and Latin American corruption put Americans at risk. No, they don’t. Obama’s stress on how everything is interconnected not only sets up the United States to intervene everywhere, but it makes any coherent strategy impossible. If every problem is an American problem, how would Obama set priorities or address one crisis instead of another? It’s a question he hasn’t begun to answer.
Neoconservatives are only too happy to fill in the blank. In a Washington Post column entitled “Obama the Interventionist,” Robert Kagan celebrated the repudiation of the realist consensus: “Obama’s speech … was pure John Kennedy, without a trace of John Mearsheimer.” In 1996, Kagan co-wrote with Bill Kristol a Foreign Affairs essay entitled “Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy,” which argued that U.S. foreign policy should seek to preserve “American hegemony” so that we can continue to fulfill our “responsibility to lead the world.” Obama has updated this outlook in PC, Democrat-friendly lingo: “The mission of the U.S. is to provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity.” Little wonder that Kagan sees in Obama a kindred spirit: “Obama believes the world yearns to follow us,” he writes. “Personally, I like it.”
If President Obama pursued a neocon foreign policy, only with a touch more East Coast-style diplomacy than was ever employed by the Stetson-wearing Bush, that would be bad enough. But he might actually be worse than the neocons.
Obama continually criticizes the Bush administration for pursuing its interests on the international stage instead of spreading “values” and “principles.” He says Iraq was a war based “not on principle but on politics.” Yet if there could be anything worse than the Bush foreign policy, it would be Obama’s principled meddling. At least interventions driven by narrow interests and politics have some kind of endpoint: when the interest has been protected or the political goal realized, the intervention might come to an end. Obama, by contrast, inflamed by his self-defined “values” and motivated by a vision of good versus evil in which it is America’s role to lead the world toward its “common humanity,” would be more reckless and unwieldy than Bush ever was. There is nothing quite so dangerous as a well-armed leader convinced that he has an historic moral purpose on the world stage.
Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address wouldn’t require much work: George W. Bush delivered the first draft in 2005.
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you sound just like those two idiots MCBUSH the surge ( actually escelation of troops) wasn't just based on bring down the violence it was based on several fators such as #1.setting up a non-corrupt goverment that could run its self (hasn't happened) #2. setting a social services system for the people ( hasn't happened #3. supposed to set-up a non-corrupt political voting system.... and many more the surge wasnt just set up to bring down the violence that was a small part and just because a small part has worked so far does not equal success... ESPECIALLY FOR A WAR WE NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN.....
Same old crap!
Among the many distortions, misrepresentations and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.
What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.
Nevertheless, I want to take one more shot at exposing it for the lie that it itself really is. Although doing so will require going over ground that I and many others have covered before, I hope that revisiting this well-trodden terrain may also serve to refresh memories that have grown dim, to clarify thoughts that have grown confused, and to revive outrage that has grown commensurately dulled.
The main "lie" that George W. Bush is accused of telling us is that Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, or WMD as they have invariably come to be called. From this followed the subsidiary "lie" that Iraq under Saddam's regime posed a two-edged mortal threat. On the one hand, we were informed, there was a distinct (or even "imminent") possibility that Saddam himself would use these weapons against us or our allies; and on the other hand, there was the still more dangerous possibility that he would supply them to terrorists like those who had already attacked us on 9/11 and to whom he was linked.
1. Improving Primary Health Care: USAID is helping strengthen essential primary health care services throughout Iraq.
In 2005 alone, USAID-supported emergency campaigns immunized 98 percent of Iraqi children between 1-5 years old (3.62 million) against measles, mumps, and rubella,
Also in 2005, USAID immunized 97 percent of Iraqi children under five (4.56 million) against polio.
In all, USAID partners have trained more than 2,500 primary health care workers to expand access to essential primary health care services.
2. Expanding Access to Electricity: In 2002, Baghdad had access to electricity 24 hours a day; the rest of Iraq was limited to 3-6 hours.
Currently, all 18 governorates receive nearly 14 hours of electricity daily, an incredible improvement for a country emerging from decades of conflict and little investment.
USAID efforts have added 1,400 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity to the national electrical grid, expanding access to 4.2 million Iraqis throughout most of Iraq.
3. Providing Potable Water: Many parts of Iraq had no access to or provision of clean potable water. Indeed many of Iraq's waterways were contaminated with refuse and sewage.
Over 4 million Iraqis who had no clean drinking water in 2002 now have safe, potable water piped to their homes following USAID efforts to refurbish water treatment plants in 15 cities.
USAID is also providing plant-level operations and maintenance (O&M) training at major water and wastewater plants nationwide to ensure that these plants remain functioning.
4. Restoring Sewage Systems: Before 2003, Iraq's cities suffered from inadequate sewage systems; backed up sewage created pools in neighborhoods or emptied directly into nearby rivers.
Today, USAID's rehabilitated sewage treatment plants throughout Iraq process a total of 339.7 million gallons daily.
These plants alone provide 7.2 million urban Iraqis - over a quarter of the national population - access to functioning, waterborne sewage, greatly improving sanitation and contributing to a decrease in waterborne disease.
5. Improving Local Governance and Community Development: Iraqi democracy must prove itself through service delivery and community-based solutions to local problems.
With USAID assistance, representative provincial and municipal governments are more capable of delivering essential services to their constituents.
Countrywide, more than 670 community action groups focused on civic education, women's advocacy, and anti-corruption have been supported by USAID.
Working through local NGOs, USAID has implemented 4,672 quick impact projects throughout Iraq, providing short-term employment and restoration of basic services.
6. Connecting Iraq to the Global Economy: The private sector is the engine for sustainable job creation and economic growth. To help guide policy reform, USAID's Investor Roadmap analyzes constraints to investment.
Iraq's Investment Promotion Agency was recently established with USAID assistance, and will serve as a resource to international investors.
USAID worked with the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to develop a Competitiveness Study, helping integrate efforts to create a robust private sector that fosters job creation.
USAID programs assist Iraq's MoF, Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology (COSIT), and Iraq's Central Bank in meeting their International Monetary Fund (IMF) requirements. This $19 million technical assistance effort is expected to return to Iraq $480 million in the IMF Standby Agreement by December 2005 as well as debt forgiveness of $27 billion from the Paris Club by March 2006.
Working with the MoF, USAID introduced the new dinar currency to promote national unity and a sound functioning monetary policy. Currently, 4.62 trillon new Iraqi dinars are in circulation in Iraq.
7. Expanding Political Inclusion and Expression: USAID assistance has helped prepare Iraq for two national elections, numerous provincial and municipal elections, and the Constitutional Referendum of October 15.
In preparation for the January 2005 election, USAID helped the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) establish a voter registration system, and worked with the UN on improving balloting procedures.
USAID-supported NGOs distributed election materials, helped televise debates, and led over 22,000 town meetings to educate Iraqi voters.
USAID and a local NGO trained over 8,000 election monitors.
Current efforts are preparing 15,000 elections monitors for the December 15, 2005 elections.
8. Supporting the New Iraqi Constitution: The January 2005 Interim Government election put into place a National Assembly to frame a constitution emphasizing democracy and the rule of law.
USAID partners provided constitutional specialists to the Drafting Committee while input from over 111,000 national surveys kept the Committee in touch with national sentiment.
The Iraqi Women's National Coalition, supported by USAID, developed a 10-point statement adopted in the constitution.
A USAID-supported NGO televised debates and distributed information. Nearly 9,500 monitors, trained by USAID partners, helped ensure a successful constitutional referendum.
9. Transforming Primary Education: USAID assistance has helped Iraq move away from rote learning methodology in decrepit, unsanitary classrooms to interactive learning in rehabilitated buildings.
Since 2003, USAID has rehabilitated nearly 3,000 schools.
Over 20 million new textbooks have been supplied by USAID (8.6 million) and UNESCO (12 million).
By 2006, more than 133,000 primary school teachers - a third of Iraq's educators in all - will have received training and technical assistance.
Already, the most recent primary school enrollment numbers show a 19 percent increase from pre-war levels.
10. Restoring Excellence in Higher Education: The USAID Higher Education and Development (HEAD) Program brings together five American and 10 Iraqi universities to help reestablish academic excellence in Iraq's higher education system.
Since January 2004, more than 1,500 Iraqi faculty and students have participated in workshops, trainings, conferences, and courses in Iraq, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States.
University facilities -libraries, computer and science laboratories, lecture halls, and buildings - have been rehabilitated at colleges throughout the country.
A mini-grant program supports new, innovative research throughout the country. In addition, books and electronic resources have been provided to university libraries.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for more than 40 years. For more information on USAID's Iraq program, please visit www.usaid.gov/iraq.
As I have said many times this is a crucial moment in world history. We are at the cross roads of a new era in the battle of righteousness over evil. The forces have gathered together in a last ditch effort to destabilize the area, in an effort to prevent our success in freeing a nation, perhaps a region, of people from the evil forces of dictatorship, tyranny, domination, oppression, subjugation, despotism, and repression.
I am appalled at the report that many Americans feel it is time to pull out and return to protect our borders from the evil forces of terrorism. Are we going to allow these forces to win? Are we going to run back with our tail between our legs? No, if it takes a second surge so be it!
What ever it takes.
To hide our heads in the sand ignoring these forces that would desire to hold us captive in the cages of our own fears? Do any of you believe they will stop in their resolve and conviction to overthrow us, to dethrone us, to continue through hatred to desire our lives?
Do we have the luxury of isolationism? Is not our very economy tied to this world we live in, interconnected with all other countries? Do we allow these forces to continue to control the hearts and minds of these people, with their daily dose of lies, deceit, hatred, and corruption? (coming from terror groups and Liberals alike) Where do we draw the line and say enough is enough? Do we allow these forces to hold the life blood of the world hostage?
What do we tell our fellow Americans already killed by these very forces? What do we tell their families, that we really didn't believe in what we were doing, we really weren't committed to the people of the world in insuring that every human being can live in freedom without repression and subjugation? That we really don't believe in the words of our vary constitution that it is the inalienable right of all men to be free.
I have said all along that the improvements in Afghanistan & Iraq could get worse and need more work before we are done. The pieces of the puzzle were all there, with the forces of evil gathering their supporters daily and strengthening their ranks with insurgents from all over the region. There has been no shortage of money, weapons, corruption and criminals. There is much to be gained by our failure to stabilize Iraq & Afghanistan. There are many groups who would benefit in power, position, and wealth, by our departure & I am sure they appreciate the help of Dems here in our own country.
The stage was set by Saddam himself before his regime was toppled, as his supporters, his secret services, his displaced Fedayeen and Baath Party members, and terrorists were given weapons and money and sent out west to wage war against us. They have now found strength in gathering their numbers in the few hiding places they have left.
There were many groups displaced by our success in dethroning Saddam, who were part of Saddam's evil reign, supported and funded by him. There are many groups who took their livelihood from him, rewarded for their own evil acts of repression and domination. Now, with the borders having been opened since the war began, new insurgent forces have arrived from all surrounding countries in an effort to prevent us from accomplishing our goals.
We must all understand that these small groups do not represent the desires of the majority of the Iraqi people. The silent, less active, majorities of Iraqi people, who welcome our presence, are intimidated by these evil forces and live in fear they will be killed if they resist. They know what fear is, having lived with it for thirty or more years under the rule of Saddam. In the past they have allowed them selves to be subjected to these forces, having given up their will to seemingly stronger foes, not willing to take extreme measures to fight against them.
I encourage you all to take a look at this site and join in defending the idea of a secure Jewish state. Not all Muslims hate Israel!
"Who Are We?
We are Arabs and Moslems who believe:
* We can support Israel and still support the Palestinian people. Supporting one does not cancel support for the other.
* We can support the State of Israel and the Jewish religion and still treasure our Arab and Islamic culture.
* There are many Jews and Israelis who freely express compassion and support for the Palestinians. We Arabs also express reciprocal compassion and support.
* The existence of the State of Israel is a fact that we accept.
* Israel is a legitimate state that is not a threat but an asset in the Middle East.
* Every major World religion has a center of gravity. Islam has Mecca, and Judaism certainly deserves its presence in Israel and Jerusalem.
* Diversity is a virtue not only in the USA, but would be beneficial around the world. We support a diverse Middle East with protection for human rights, respect and equality under the law to all minorities, including Jews and Christians.
* Palestinians have several options but are deprived from exercising them because of their leadership, the Arab League and surrounding Arab and Moslem countries who have other goals besides seeing Palestinians live in harmony with Israel.
* If Palestinians want democracy they can start practicing it now.
* It will benefit Arabs to end the boycott of Israel.
* We can resolve our conflicts using non-violent means. Sending our young people on suicide/homicide missions as a form of Jihad is a distortion of Islam. We can do better.
* We are appalled by the horrific act of terror against the USA on 9/11/2001.
* It will be better for Arabs when the Arab media ends the incitement and misinformation that result in Arab street rage and violence. We support the Arab media providing coverage of ways that people of all religions are and can live together in harmony.
* We are eager to see major reformation in how Islam is taught and channeled to bring out the best in Moslems and contribute to the uplifting of the human spirit and advancement of civilization.
* We believe in freedom to choose or change one’s Religion.
* We cherish and acknowledge the beauty and contributions of the Middle East culture, but recognize that the Arab/Moslem world is in desperate need of constructive self-criticism and reform.
* We seek dialogue with Israel. We invite you to join us on a path of love.
We are NOT:
* Anti-Islam, Anti-Arab, confrontational or hateful.
We remember with deep sadness and respect the brave Arabs, known and unknown, who were killed or severely punished for promoting peace with Israel; a special thanks to President Anwar Sadat of Egypt who was killed at the hands of Militant and Radical Islamists after he signed the peace treaty with Israel.
We salute and commend Arab and Moslem writers, scholars and speakers, who found the strength, commitment and honesty in their hearts to speak out in support of Israel. We thank you for being the pioneers that you are and for holding such sophisticated and advanced views in the realm of Arab and Moslem thinking. You are inspiring us all.
ARABS AND MOSLEMS WHO WISH TO POST THEIR VIEWS IN SUPPORT OF ISRAEL CAN DO SO BY EMAILING US. WE WILL THEN POST THEM ANONYMOUSLY, IF THEY WISH. Please send all correspondence to: nonie@arabsforisrael.com"
The "wall" between counterintelligence and criminal investigations was a key impediment to terrorism probes before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bill Clinton and his administration systematically undermined America’s national security by emasculating the U.S. military and the nation’s intelligence agencies, these acts were mostly intended to be a snub of Republican desires but hurt America in the process.
Clinton allowed the FBI to be handcuffed in its investigations of Islamic terrorists -- by blocking initiatives that violated no Constitutional or other legal structure.
During Clinton's two terms in office, Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States five times and terrorists killed US citizens on at least four different occasions including the first bombing of the World Trade Center, the attacks on Khobar Towers, our embassies in East Africa, and the USS Cole.
Failing to catch Bin Laden is where Clinton is historically most vulnerable. Whether or not Clinton tried as hard as he could, the cruel, objective fact of history is that Bin Laden and his al Qaeda emerged on Clinton's watch. He failed to nip it in the bud, and it has now blossomed into a malignant worldwide danger.
Clinton’s Role in America’s Worst Disaster demonstrates, the events of September 11 not only were predictable after eight years of Clinton, but they also could have been prevented.
Clinton was into it up to his eyeballs. Playing footsie with the Chinese under the table then HIDING the evidence by blocking intelligence
Ashcroft said there were other problems with the Clinton administration's approach to the war on terror, saying that the FBI's information technology "architecture" had been starved in the previous decade
President Bush, relied on information from a CIA director appointed by Bill Clinton, an FBI still largely staffed by Clinton holdovers. Information disputed by neither Germany nor France decided America's security required Saddam’s removal from power.
While working in the Justice Department during the Clinton administration in 1995, Jamie Gorlick (Justice Dept) wrote a memo that contained instructions for officials to keep counterintelligence "more clearly separate" from criminal intelligence.
A 1995 memo written by 9/11 Commission Member Jamie Gorelick, in her former role as the second in command at the Justice Department, revealed her actions in establishing the heightened 'wall' prohibiting the sharing of intelligence information and criminal information
Attorney General John Ashcroft released the declassified 1995 memo from Gorelick containing instructions that "more clearly separate" He said the "wall" between counterintelligence and criminal investigations was a key impediment to terrorism probes before the Sept. 11 attacks.
We had 50 Years of Dem's Cutting Intelligence...Senator Kerry, two years after the attack on the World Trade Center, introduced a bill to cut the overall intelligence budget by one-and-a-half billion dollars.
The decay of the ruthless regime-topplers of the 1970s turned into a bunch of desk-jockeys watching television and monitoring e-mails from outer space is the result of a remorseless quarter-century emasculation at the hands of Congressional Democrats.
Tenet said that it would take another half-decade to rebuild the CIA.
Kerry was on the Intelligence committee. Out of 49 meetings, Kerry missed 38.
Kerry and Edwards are BOTH members of the senate intelligence committee. They got the same intelligence as Bush, and came to the same conclusion. Their conclusion changed when he needed to win Democratic primaries. Let's not play games, ok?
Senator Edwards, as part of the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, told the press he wanted to know which Bush administration officials were aware that intelligence indicating Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Africa was questionable. Edward had to know by that time that Wilson had lied as the Senate report finally indicated.
On July 9th, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued its report on the CIA's prewar intelligence on Iraq. The SSCI concluded that:
Kerry made Wilson a foreign policy adviser for his campaign, Nice!
Wilson's charges against President Bush last year were big news. But the fact that government investigations in two countries have concluded that it was Wilson who was lying apparently isn't news at all.
As a result of the Clinton adminstration, the CIA could not operate in the US and the FBI was bound by our court system. Both were forbidden to share information. It took an attack like 9/11 to even allow a president to create such a thing as the Department of Homeland Security
The CIA warned as early as 1995 that Islamic extremists were likely to attack U.S. aviation, Washington landmarks or Wall Street and by 1997 had identified Osama bin Laden as an emerging threat on U.S. soil prevented..
In October 2002, CIA sent a written assessment to the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham (D), they had 10 years' worth of "solid reporting" on a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
The toughest criticism is aimed at the FBI and the CIA. The 911 commission says poor information sharing and intelligence analysis were key failures that contributed to the plot.
Retired Gen. Tommy Franks believes the U.S. invested too much in electronic spy surveillance and not enough in spies. "We can't send a Princeton-educated New York lawyer to infiltrate al-Qaeda. To get information, we have to marry the devil or at least employ him. You have to deal."
The US didnt do a whole lot to combat terrorism and it got us the WTC bombing in 1993... the USS Cole bombing....the Kobar Towers bombing...the two US Embassies in Africa blown up and 9/11
The State Department (run by Dems) is responsible for immigration. Any questions?.
Because the last thing McCain wants is for anyone to bring up how he denounced America’s fighting men and women and compared them to Genghis Khan. Oh wait, that was John Kerry. But McCain doesn’t need people bringing up how ridiculous he would look in any sort of military environment. Oh wait, that was Michael Dukakis.
Well at least he doesn’t have to worry about people talking about all his radical, America-hating friends.
Oh wait. That’s Barack Obama.
This year’s Democratic Party How Dare You Question My Patriotism Pageant is a little more clever than usual. Rather than simply whining about imaginary assaults on his patriotism, Obama vows not to attack the patriotism of a man who endured torture for five years at the hands of sadistic Communist thugs rather than sell out his country.
Next week, Obama will promise not to criticize McCain’s radical, America-hating pastor. After that, he’ll promise not to bring up the fact that McCain was only elected to the Senate four years ago.
Democrats don’t like to talk about patriotism, but they can’t help themselves. And by declaring his intention not to talk about patriotism – unless, of course, someone “attacks” his – Obama demonstrates his exceptional ability to have it both ways.
There is a difference between being unpatriotic, which I don’t think Obama is, and being defensive about your patriotism, which Obama clearly is. He’s defensive about it for the same reason most Democrats are. They consider themselves patriotic according to their definition, but they’re uncomfortable with the way most Americans express their patriotism. (its that control thing they have about everything)
Obama said what most liberals think when he explained why he stopped wearing a flag pin shortly after 9/11. His tortured explanation is the stuff of legends:
“You know, the truth is, is that right after 9/11, I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we were talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest. Instead, I'm going to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.” (what?)
Consider what Obama reveals in that one statement. First, he thinks people who display traditional symbols of their love of the country are fake. Second, he sees some sort of irresolvable conflict between displaying symbols and speaking on issues. Speak on issues, good. Wear a flag pin, bad. What if you want to do both? No good, says Obama. Real patriotism means doing it Obama’s way.(its that control thing they have about everything) Third, there would appear to be no room within Obama’s definition of patriotism for people who quietly go about their service to the country. He only has use for people who “speak out,” and any mention of those who quietly serve – particularly in the military – is noticeably absent.
Shortly after 9/11, I witnessed a very liberal professional colleague getting upset at “all the flag-waving stuff” that was going on. This person thought pretty much the same way Obama does. “Flag-waving stuff” is for people who suffer the delusion that America is perfect. Enlightened liberals, firmly convinced of their country’s devastating flaws, have little use for such expressions.(its that control thing they have about everything)
If liberals want to define love of their country as being willing to criticize it in order to make it better, fine by me. Maybe they had harsh fathers who never thought anything they did was good enough either.(its that control thing they have about everything)
But the fact is that John McCain, when given a chance to prove his love of his country with action, did so heroically. If Barack Obama wants to declare himself patriotic, I’ll take his word for it. McCain doesn’t have to identify himself as a patriot. He’s proven it by giving more for his country than most people could ever dream of. And when picking a president, it matters to me that a man would give that much for his country. McCain should talk about it. It’s important.
So why does Obama not want to talk about patriotism? Because he doesn’t have to be unpatriotic for McCain to clean his clock on the issue. So Obama, who likes to make the rules for the campaign,(its that control thing they have about everything) declared it off limits for either to talk about the other’s patriotism.
But remember, Democrats imagine attacks on their patriotism where none exist. The next time McCain or one of his supporters mentions McCain’s POW experience, it wouldn’t be shocking to see Obama infer an attack and reply with outraged indignation.
Contrary to the image they try to project, liberals are less compassionate and more selfish than conservatives, according to a new book by Peter Schweizer.
Drawing on extensive attitude surveys, Schweizer’s “Makers and Takers: Why Conservatives Work Harder, Feel Happier, Have Closer Families, Take Fewer Drugs, Give More Generously, Value Honesty More, Are Less Materialistic and Envious, Whine Less . . . and Even Hug Their Children More Than Liberals,” which comes out this week, says liberals are much more likely than conservatives to think about themselves first and are less willing to make sacrifices for others. [Editor's Note: Get Peter Schweizer's book. Go here now.]
Some 71 percent of conservatives say they have an obligation to care for a seriously injured spouse or parent, compared with 46 percent for liberals. Asked if they would endure all things for the one they love, 55 percent of conservatives say yes, compared with 26 percent of liberals.
Equally revealing, liberals are far more likely to say they are depressed and to view the world bleakly. Schweizer attributes that to an attitude that they and those around them are victims and helpless unless the government intervenes.
In answer to a question from Newsmax, Schweizer says that may help explain why liberal politicians and reporters tend to see everything with pessimism, from the economy to the war on terror and the war in Iraq.
Schweizer says the media and liberal professors have successfully obscured these differences by painting a picture of conservatives as mean-spirited. He quotes one professor as saying that conservatives embrace the “unimpeded pursuit of self-interest” to get what they want and that as children, they were insecure and whiny.
Conservatives are selfish, Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s former labor secretary, has said, and “they pander to the worst of us.”
Sen. Charles Schumer said on Bill Maher’s HBO show “Real Time,” “There are some, you know, there are some anti-Semites in this county, but most of them would vote Republican anyway.”
Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean has said conservatives and Republicans are “evil,” “corrupt,” brain-dead,” and “not very nice people” who have “never made an honest living in their lives.”
If Schweizer’s book is a ground-breaker, it also raises the question of why Schweizer’s findings may come as a surprise even to conservatives. Schweizer cites ample evidence that the media have ignored good news about conservatives and have helped perpetuate the myth that liberals are more compassionate and caring.
Katie Couric has said that during the Reagan era, "greed and materialism was the norm.” Alan Colmes of Fox News’ "Hannity & Colmes" has said that “Jesus was a liberal” because he was much more generous with limited resources than a conservative would be.
Liberals Perpetuate the Myth
“The media have perpetuated these myths about conservatives over the years,” Schweizer tells Newsmax. “And the media were very comfortable passing these things along because they conformed to their world view."
Drawing on hard polling data, Schweizer demonstrates that the truth is quite the opposite. In doing so, he explodes more myths than firecrackers on the Fourth of July.
In fact, Schweizer writes, self-described liberals and Democrats, who profess to be tolerant, are much more likely to embrace stereotypes of Jews than conservatives or Republicans. Some 45 percent of self-described “strong” Democrats or liberals agree with the statement that Jews are inordinately rich and money-driven, compared with 36 percent of strong Republicans and conservatives.
Schweizer cites similar research to show that even when they are in the same income brackets, liberals are far more likely to complain about their jobs, families, neighbors, health, and their relative wealth than conservatives.
Liberals are much more likely to say that money is important to them, according to the surveys Schweizer cites. They are two and a half times more likely to be resentful of others’ success and 50 percent more likely to be jealous of other people’s good luck. Conservatives are much more likely than liberals to spend time with their families, hug their children, and be close to their parents.
Liberals tend to work less hard and are more likely than conservatives to embrace leisure time as desirable. When asked if competition is good, those who defined themselves as very liberal say yes only 14 percent of the time, compared with 43 percent for conservatives.
Liberals are more likely to say that truth is something that is “relative.” When asked if they believe in ghosts, 42 percent of liberals say they do, compared with 25 percent of conservatives. Liberals are more likely to say that’s it’s OK to be dishonest or deceptive, cheat on taxes, keep money that doesn’t belong to them, and sell a used car with a faulty transmission to a family member.
Overall, conservatives are more satisfied with their lives, their professions, and their health compared with liberals of the same age and income level.
Schweizer balances these findings with a few issues where liberals come out ahead. He says liberals are more likely than conservatives to be open to new experiences in travel, art, and music. But Schweizer exposes hypocrisy at the core of liberal beliefs. While liberals claim to be compassionate and to care about the poor, conservatives are much more likely to donate their time and money to charitable causes.
When Reich ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, his tax returns revealed income of more than $1 million, but he contributed just $2,714 to charity, or less than 0.3 percent.
Ned Lamont, the anti-war Democrat who ran against Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, is worth $200 million and made $2.8 million in 2005. He has talked about the need to raise taxes because the wealthy are not doing enough to help those in need. Yet in 2005, he donated only $5,385 to charity, or less than 0.2 percent of his income.
In contrast, George Bush gave 10 percent of his income to charity in 2005. In 2005, Barack Obama made $1.7 million, or 2.5 times what Bush made that year, but gave the same amount to charity as Bush did. That same year, Dick Cheney gave away 77 percent of his income to charity.
Proud Conservatives
While Schweizer does not address attitudes about national security (the subject of his next book), he says liberals are more concerned about what others think than conservatives. When asked what is most important to prepare a child for life, 40 percent of liberals listed “being popular” among them, compared with 24 percent of conservatives.
On the other hand, conservatives were more likely to say one of their main goals in life is to “make my parents proud.” Presumably, those who are more concerned about what others think are more likely to be concerned about criticism of firm national security policies.
Finally, liberals try to paint conservatives as dumb — Clark Clifford called Ronald Reagan an “amiable dunce.” Schweizer shows that while John Kerry scored in the 91st percentile on a military IQ test, George Bush scored in the 95th percentile. Contrary to misrepresentations in the media, Bush also had slightly higher grades at Yale than Kerry.
Schweizer attributes liberals’ bleaker outlook on life to their deep-seated victim mentality.
This feeds a view that they cannot help themselves and encourages them to be passive. They are far more likely to say that luck or fate plays a role in their lives, as opposed to citing the need to take action themselves.
The victim mentality, in turn, makes them more likely to become depressed, suffer from a nervous breakdown, attempt suicide, be chronically angry, throw something in a fit of anger, seek revenge, and have a bleak outlook on life in general.
In one survey, 34 percent of liberals said the problems of life were just too big to cope with, compared with 19 percent of conservatives.
“Liberals often feel overwhelmed by life’s problems because they are waiting for the government to fix them,” Schweizer says. “”When it doesn’t, liberals blame others (and ‘society’) for their misfortune.” Thus, liberalism “often damages its own adherents the most,” Schweitzer says.
“Modern liberal ideas consistently encourage bad habits and destructive behavioral tendencies,” says Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Schweizer says liberalism is appealing because it gives lip service to lofty ideals but demands little action. Liberalism considers as noble those who complain about personal difficulties and display anger or denounce our “money-making culture,” but liberalism does not stress taking personal responsibility and action.
Thus, “While liberals tend to be much more fixated on money, they convince themselves that if they hold the belief that our society is too obsessed by money, the money culture doesn’t influence them adversely the way that it does other people,” Schweizer says.
“Modern liberalism is a wonderful tool to kind of avoid having to make much change in your life,” Schweizer says. “It’s kind of in my mind the equivalent to carbon offsets. You don’t need to change anything in your life, you simply have to sort of stamp this document or pay this minor price, and the problems in your life just sort of go away.”
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via
e-mail. Go here now.
I choke on my words...But it looks like France has become less stupid than America.
a couple points from following article:
1) They are DEPORTING ILLEGALS!
2) People MUST LEARN FRENCH to immigrate there!
France: No Mass Legalizing of Immigrants
The Associated Press
Updated: 4:27 p.m. PT May 21, 2007
PARIS - France's new immigration minister ruled out the possibility of legalizing undocumented immigrants on masse, saying Monday that government policy would be firm and pragmatic.
Brice Hortefeux heads the Ministry of Immigration and National Identity _ newly created by President Nicolas Sarkozy to manage the inflow of immigrants and protect French values and cohesion.
"We have to put aside massive legalization. It doesn't work and it penalizes, even immigrants," Hortefeux said on Europe 1 radio. Policy, he added, would be guided by "firmness and humanism" with "lots of pragmatism."
He said he planned to adhere to the policy of deporting illegal immigrants from France. The number of deportees was expected to reach some 25,000 this year, and Hortefeux said he would ensure that figure was reached.
The conservative Sarkozy, elected president May 6, had reached out to the anti-immigration far-right to capture votes, rankling some of his own allies by creating the new immigration ministry. Critics have said the government should not mix immigration with national identity.
Hortefeux said he would meet shortly with officials from the hotel and restaurant industries, which rely heavily on immigrants.
Hortefeux also said he would not question a long-standing policy of "family grouping," which allows immigrants in France to bring their families here. But he indicated, as Sarkozy has, that the policy may be modified to ensure the integration of those who join relatives in France.
"It must be carried out in respect for the dignity of those who want to come and (in a way) that favors their integration," he said.
Our party has nominated a candidate who has, at various times in the past six years, opposed tax cuts, opposed Alaska oil drilling, called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay, railed against corporations and sponsored legislation to limit political speech
Many conservatives have abandoned the Republican Party and John McCain, figuring a Democratic president would be no worse.
But conservatives who believe this are wrong. I do understand this movement! Conservatives see their own interests served by an inevitable disaster occurring on the Democrats’ watch. The problem with this is that you hurt the country in the process, and any movement whose interests don’t agree with those of the country is not a movement to which I want to be a part.
Many defend this position by claiming there is little discernable difference between John McCain and his Democratic rivals. This is simply absurd. McCain is not as conservative as I would like the Republican nominee to be, but he favors extending the Bush tax cuts, (should be a no brainier) victory in Iraq, (again a no brainier) consumer-empowering health care reforms and strict-constructionist judges. It is entirely possible, that McCain will cave on some or all of these when faced with a Democratic majority in Congress. I’ll still take the guy who will try to do some of the right things, in spite of the odds, rather than the one who will quite likely succeed at doing the wrong things.
If conservatives don’t like being denied the chance to support one of their own for president, they should consider what the conservative movement has done in recent years to earn that chance.
For all the correctness of conservative thinking, conservative leaders have not pushed, and grassroots leaders have not embraced, applications of conservative thinking to better the real lives of real Americans, yes Liberals the problem is not from what the conservative leadership has done but from not going far enough.
We controlled the White House and both houses of Congress for the first six years of this millennium, and hardly accomplished any of the agenda we had touted for the better part of 40 years. This is hard to admit, but it is true: An awful lot of those failed Republican congressmen were not moderates. They were conservatives who didn’t have the guts to govern according to their principles.
I have no doubt that conservative answers are the best answers to just about every political question. How can America defend its security? How can we maintain strong economic growth? How can we help those in poverty? How can we better prepare the workforce for the challenges of the future? How can we promote a more moral nation? How can we bring financial sanity to twisted economic sectors like health care?
On the merits, conservatives win every one of these arguments. yet conservatives are frustrated that the Republican Party runs from these principles in order to win. They have bought into the successful Democratic policy of tell them what they want to hear to get the vote and then do what ever you want!
Conservatives are usually content to focus on the necessity of a strong military, the need for low taxes, opposition to abortion and the growing anti-American tendencies of those on the left. That’s fine as far as it goes, but with government’s tentacles in so many facets of our society, non-ideological people (i.e. almost everyone) have grown accustomed to associating societal solutions with government action.
If the conservative response is “solve your own problems” – and perhaps it should be – this still calls for the outlining of a positive conservative vision. This sort of vision has to illustrate how a lean, limited government helps foster a society in which people can take action to improve their own lives, and in which government does not take the lead, but has your back.
Simply embracing correct opinions does not give you the right to govern, or even to lead your party. Conservatives need to make the case, not just for what’s wrong with liberalism, but for why a government operating according to conservative principles means a better life for all Americans. And the next time they get the chance, unlike the last time, they have to actually govern in that fashion.
Among the many distortions, misrepresentations and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.
What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.
Nevertheless, I want to take one more shot at exposing it for the lie that it itself really is. Although doing so will require going over ground that I and many others have covered before, I hope that revisiting this well-trodden terrain may also serve to refresh memories that have grown dim, to clarify thoughts that have grown confused, and to revive outrage that has grown commensurately dulled.
The main "lie" that George W. Bush is accused of telling us is that Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, or WMD as they have invariably come to be called. From this followed the subsidiary "lie" that Iraq under Saddam's regime posed a two-edged mortal threat. On the one hand, we were informed, there was a distinct (or even "imminent") possibility that Saddam himself would use these weapons against us or our allies; and on the other hand, there was the still more dangerous possibility that he would supply them to terrorists like those who had already attacked us on 9/11 and to whom he was linked.
This entire scenario of purported deceit was given a new lease on life by the indictment in late October of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Libby stands accused of making false statements to the FBI and of committing perjury in testifying before a grand jury that had been convened to find out who in the Bush administration had "outed" Valerie Plame, a CIA agent married to the retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The supposed purpose of leaking this classified information to the press was to retaliate against Mr. Wilson for having "debunked" (in his words) "the lies that led to war."
Now, as it happens, Mr. Libby was not charged with having outed Ms. Plame but only with having lied about when and from whom he first learned that she worked for the CIA. Moreover, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor who brought the indictment against him, made a point of emphasizing that "this indictment is not about the war":
This indictment is not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel.
This is simply an indictment that says, in a national-security investigation about the compromise of a CIA officer's identity that may have taken place in the context of a very heated debate over the war, whether some person--a person, Mr. Libby--lied or not.
No matter. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, spoke for a host of other opponents of the war in insisting:
This case is bigger than the leak of classified information. It is about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president.
Yet even stipulating--which I do only for the sake of argument--that no weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq in the period leading up to the invasion, it defies all reason to think that Mr. Bush was lying when he asserted that they did. To lie means to say something one knows to be false. But it is as close to certainty as we can get that Mr. Bush believed in the truth of what he was saying about WMD in Iraq.
How indeed could it have been otherwise? George Tenet, his own CIA director, assured him that the case was "a slam dunk." This phrase would later become notorious, but in using it, Mr. Tenet had the backing of all 15 agencies involved in gathering intelligence for the United States. In the National Intelligence Estimate of 2002, where their collective views were summarized, one of the conclusions offered with "high confidence" was that "Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions."
The intelligence agencies of Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Israel and--yes--France all agreed with this judgment. And even Hans Blix--who headed the U.N. team of inspectors trying to determine whether Saddam had complied with the demands of the Security Council that he get rid of the weapons of mass destruction he was known to have had in the past--lent further credibility to the case in a report he issued only a few months before the invasion:
The discovery of a number of 122-mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km [105 miles] southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. . . . They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.
So where did they go? no sign of them being destroyed, we know they were there. they are somewhere, Hmmmmm Just over the border?
It certainly would be like "attacking Thailand if Cambodia bombed us." But then, it would be just as incredulous to believe that the Iraq War was directly related to 9/11. Only an insane individual or a moron could come up with that kind of logic; but you seem to have done it.
Just think for a second, I know you are a liberal but try just the same.
We are at war with terror...with me so far?
Terror has no single country...ok keep up!
Terror has many countries, but no direct affiliation with any specific one.
Iraq Had Terror Ties
More and more seemingly isolated news stories and emerging documents are eroding the popular myth that Saddam Hussein had no connections to Islam fascist terrorists. These revelations undermine war critics' efforts to whitewash Baghdad's brutal regime — such as when Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid declared: "There was [sic] no terrorists in Iraq." Likewise, Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) describes a "nonexistent relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein."
Reid, Levin, and others who dismiss the Baathist-terrorist nexus would struggle to do so if the Bush administration unveiled the evidence tying Hussein to Osama bin Laden and other extremists. President Bush immediately should release papers discussed in the January 9 Newsweek and the January 16 Weekly Standard.
A declassified 2002 Pentagon presentation attained by Newsweek's Mark Hosenball offers fresh details on a suspected April 8-9, 2001, meeting in Prague between September 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) station chief Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani. "No other intelligence reporting contradicts that [deleted] report," the heavily redacted document states. It adds: "During one visit, al-Ani ordered IIS finance officer to issue funds to Atta." According to one slide, "Atta also reportedly met with Iraqi Charge d'Affaires Hussein Kanaan." Also: "Several workers at Prague airport identified Atta following 9/11 and remember him traveling with his brother Farhan Atta."
A slide headlined "High-Level Contacts, 1990 – 2002" lists numerous meetings and communications among bin Laden, his deputies, and top Iraqi officials. In 1999, the presentation says, "al-Qaida established operational training camp in northern Iraq; also reports of Iraq training terrorists at Salman Pak," a military base 20 miles south of Baghdad. In 2000, "According to CIA 'fragmentary reporting points to possible Iraqi involvement' in bombing USS Cole in October."
Among the document's "Findings": "Some indications of possible Iraqi coordination with al Qaida specifically related to 9/11."
Is this all fabricated? How much of this presentation is true? Releasing all 60 or so slides for public inspection would help sort this out.
The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes talked to 11 federal officials before concluding that documents U.S. troops captured in Iraq prove that "the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion." Hayes reports, "Secret training took place primarily at three camps — in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak — and was directed by elite Iraqi military units." Al Qaeda-affiliated Muslim fanatics, such as Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army, were among the 8,000 or so murderers instructed between 1999 and 2002.
Handwritten notes, typed forms, computer discs, videos, and other "exploitable items" confirm Hussein's philanthropy of terror, Hayes says. But America has translated only some 2.5 percent of this huge cache. Federal officials barely discuss what they have learned. Even unclassified papers remain unavailable. Absurd. Having studied some of these artifacts, one intelligence expert says: "As much as we overestimated WMD, it appears we underestimated [Hussein's] support for transregional terrorists."
Asked by Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R., Mich.) to release some texts, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte reportedly told the House Intelligence chairman: "I'm giving this as much attention as anything else on my plate to make this work."
Earlier this month, Hayes writes, federal immigration judge Anthony Rogers decided to deport Ahmad Mohammed Barodi, a 41-year-old Arlington, Tex., convenience-store owner. Barodi testified in a January 4-5 hearing that he entered America in 1989 on a phony Syrian passport furnished by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (SMB), an Islamic terror group. He admitted to smuggling bogus passports into Saudi Arabia for SMB. According to Justice Department records cited by KTVT, CBS's Dallas station, the SMB sent Barodi to a "21-day guerrilla warfare training camp" in Iraq in 1982, "with the approval of Saddam Hussein." The document adds: "Barodi advised that the Iraqi government provided all of the training aids consisting of RPG's (rocket propelled grenades), firearms and the facility."
But, skeptics sputter, secular Saddam Hussein never would work with Osama bin Laden or other Islamic zealots. This argument foolishly ignores popularly elected Franklin Roosevelt's alliance with genocidal dictator Josef Stalin to smash Adolf Hitler. Similarly, republican revolutionary George Washington and super-monarch Louis XVI collaborated to defeat Britain's King George III. Why wouldn't Hussein and bin Laden similarly conspire to foil the Great Satan?
Moreover, the Butcher of Baghdad was not as secular as the "no-connection" crowd insists. He added "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great") to the Iraqi flag just before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He also began to pray publicly to bolster his "mosque-cred." Hayes cites a "SENSITIVE" August 22, 1995, UNSCOM interview with Hussein Kamel, the tyrant's son-in-law who defected to Jordan that year. Kamel told U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus, "The Government of Iraq is instigating fundamentalism in the country . . . Now Baath Party members have to pass a religious exam." He added: "They even stopped party meetings for prayers."
Meanwhile, Dick Cheney gave Hayes a boost Wednesday. As the vice president told radio host Tony Snow: "Steve Hayes is of the view — and I think he's correct — that a lot of those documents that were captured over there that have not yet been evaluated offer additional evidence that, in fact, there was a relationship that stretched over many years between Saddam Hussein and the al Qaeda organization."
To its enormous detriment, Cheney's comments notwithstanding, the administration has been nearly silent about Hussein's decades of collusion with Islamic terrorists. The worry, White House aides tell me, is that revealing these ties would generate media criticism and anti-war catcalls. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita told Hayes that some reporters might discover exculpatory material among these papers, then "we'd spend a lot of time chasing around after it."
That risk does not excuse paralysis. If the president wrote MoveOn.org a $10,000 check, they would denounce his penmanship. Bush's detractors never stop complaining, so the administration simply should make its case. If handed the keys to Fort Knox, don't worry that someone might whine about the wallpaper. Grab the gold.
Administration officials also should remember that the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal resembled an eccentric one-woman show when reporter Claudia Rosett began exposing it. Then the documents tumbled out. Rosett was vindicated — and how! Worldwide probes, resignations, and criminal arrests followed as the contours of this $21 billion shakedown became clear.
Pakistan must do more on its side of the border with Afghanistan to combat terrorist extremists, U.S. defense leaders said Friday during a conference with Internet journalists and bloggers.
"We're seeing a greater number of insurgents and foreign fighters flowing across the border with Pakistan, unmolested and unhindered," Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during the news conference. "This movement needs to stop."
Mullen, who recently returned from a trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, said all involved with operations on the border must do a better job of policing the region and eliminating the extremists' safe havens in Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas that are launching pads for attacks on coalition forces. The most recent example was an attack on a coalition and Afghan military outpost in Wanat, in which nine soldiers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team were killed.
"We either find ways to work better together or we fail to secure a better future for the people we've all pledged to protect," Mullen said. "We can and must do better."
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said there is no question that the absence of pressure on the Pakistani side of the border is creating an opportunity for more terrorists to cross and launch attacks.
"There are efforts under way to try and improve that on both the Pakistani side and on the Afghan and coalition side," he said. "There is a real need to do something on the Pakistani side of the border to bring pressure to bear on the Taliban and some of these other violent groups."
Gates and Mullen said the enemy in Afghanistan has grown bolder, they have become more desperate because of the losses they have seen in Iraq, they are trying to become more sophisticated and more diverse. They also said the enemy is taking advantage of the safe havens to train and plan attacks. Mullen said that doing something about the situation was the main message he delivered to all leaders he met in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The new Pakistani government needs to face the reality that it faces a security challenge of its own from these groups, Gates said. The number of terrorist attacks inside Pakistan has doubled in a year, he noted.
"One of the things that is really important is the civilian government gaining a full appreciation of the magnitude and reality of the danger to them posed by these groups and the lack of control or the lack of pressure in the FATA and in the Northwest Province," the secretary said. "So it seems to me the first thing is for the Pakistanis to have a clear understanding of what's happening. We can make a contribution there. And then, ... as I've said before, we are ready, willing and able to help them in any way we can."
Defense Department officials are looking closely at sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. President Bush said the United States would like to send three brigade combat teams to Afghanistan in fiscal 2009. "I think that we are clearly working very hard to see if there are opportunities to send additional forces sooner rather than later," Gates said. "No decisions have been made; no recommendations have been made."
Gates said a need clearly exists to provide additional forces. Commanders in Afghanistan are looking within Afghanistan to see how to reposition the forces they have. The French, for example, are sending a 700-man battalion to Regional Command East that could free up U.S. troops for action elsewhere in Afghanistan.
Gates indicated that military planners are looking at a variety of options on how to respond to the need for more troops.
It happens to all of us, Liberal teaching crammed down your throat. But at sometime you have to grow up & look around and realize that you don't need to be dependant on someone to take care of you. You don't need to give away your money and freedom in exchange for some mediocre Government program.
Control your on life produce more than enough and be a blessing to somebody else.
anyone placing a pro republican add is wasting (there)? time.
The U.S., the Iraqis and what’s left of the British are on the verge of a definitive and total victory in Iraq. Not to put too fine a point on it, but let’s go ahead and say what is clear to anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention: We’ve won the war in Iraq, We’ve won. We’ve routed Al Qaeda.
I am sure you are not happy to hear it, but we won!
What are the specific benchmarks laid out?
(You can make the connection between a goal and a benchmark can't you?)
Experts say the benchmarks range in specificity and achievability. They include Eliminate Sadam, Reaching an agreement on the status of Kirkuk, meeting certain economic criteria like a targeted annual growth, and reducing subsidies on energy and food, which cost Iraq’s economy roughly $11 billion per year, according to the Iraq Study Group. But the most-discussed benchmarks include:
Holding provincial elections. Because Sunnis mostly boycotted December 2005 provincial elections, local governments are primarily dominated by Shiites in the south and center and Kurds in the north. The Bush administration has pushed the Shiite-led government to hold fresh elections at the local level to reverse this imbalance, allow a Sunni buy-in, and pave the way toward greater reconciliation. The law was one of three slated for passage in February 2008, but stalemate within Iraq’s presidency council sent the measure back to parliament for retooling, where progress won’t come easily (AP). “The biggest challenge ahead of us is the provincial elections law,” said Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, speaker of Iraq’s Council of Representatives.
Passage of oil revenue-sharing law. An oil law drafted in February 2007, as this Backgrounder outlines, has left Iraq’s leaders bitterly divided. It has drawn criticisms from Iraq’s Sunnis, who prefer a stronger role for the central government, and from Kurds, who prefer a stronger role for the regional authorities. The majority Shiites have sought to mollify the Sunnis by keeping control of Iraq’s oil sector in Baghdad, not the provinces. Most of Iraq’s oil rests in the Kurdish north or Shiite south, not in the Sunni heartland. The role of outside investors, classification of old versus new oil fields, and details on how oil revenues would be distributed also remains unsettled—though oil money is being distributed as part of Iraq’s annual budget.
Reversal of de-Baathification laws. The Iraqi parliament passed the Justice and Accountability Law on January 12, 2008, clearing the way for an estimated thirty-thousand low-ranking ex-Baathists to return to public life. The law also allowed some party members to collect pensions. But some Sunnis argue the law has made matters worse for them by opening the door to federal prosecution, barring top-ranking officials from regaining jobs, and restricting former Saddam security forces from reintegration. The drive to rescind de-Baathification laws was part of a larger effort to make constitutional concessions to minority groups like Sunni Arabs.
Amending Iraq’s constitution. The Sunnis favor an amendment to stanch the formal breakup of Iraq into regional states divided along sectarian lines. They fear the Shiites will seek a federal state in the south modeled along the lines of Iraqi Kurdistan, which would cut into the Sunnis’ share of political power and revenue. But the amendment process is purposefully difficult, says Nathan Brown, an Islamic legal scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. To change the document, the Iraqi parliament must first form a committee, which then proposes a package of amendments. Next, the parliament votes on the amendments as a package, not individually, and this requires a simple majority. If passed, the bloc of amendments must then win approval from the public in a nationwide referendum, requiring two-thirds approval from at least three of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. “[The system’s] structured so that the constitution will not develop significant changes,” Brown says.
Spending of reconstruction funds. One benchmark is the fair distribution across the country’s provinces and various ethnic groups of $10 billion in Iraqi reconstruction funds, as allocated in the Iraqi government’s budget. The monies are aimed at building infrastructure, improving services, and creating jobs for all Iraqis, but parliament cannot agree on how to equitably disperse the funds. “It's hard for the central government to get out of Baghdad and out of the Green Zone and move things ahead,” says Frederick D. Barton, co-director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ post-conflict reconstruction project. He says the easiest way to distribute aid quickly across ethnic lines is to tie it to education or home-improvement funds but that hasn't been done in Iraq. A January 2008 Congressional Research Service report (PDF) notes that Iraqis spent about 4.5 percent of the $10 billion as of August 2007; an additional $13 billion was added to the 2008 budget. Yet some U.S. lawmakers remain wary of Iraqis’ accounting. Senators Carl Levin (D-MI), and John Warner (R-VA), have called for an audit into how Iraq is spending it oil profits (NYT).
Other measures: Two bright spots for Iraq’s government came on February 13, 2008, with the passage of an annual budget ($48 billion) and another provision allowing limited amnesty for detainees in Iraqi custody. The Bush administration, which has lobbied hard for political progress, praised the actions. “There is still much important work ahead for the people of Iraq and their government,” the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said in a joint statement with the U.S. military. “Nevertheless, today’s legislative actions reflect a significant commitment to address important issues and find political bases on which to move forward.”
Democrats and Chuck Hagel did everything they could to turn Iraq into Vietnam. They tried to create a political environment in which the skill and execution of the troops would make no difference. But the comparison never worked. We did, after all, depose Saddam. And we did, after all, limit American combat deaths to less than 10 percent the number suffered in Vietnam. Iraq was simply not the Vietnam sequel they wanted it to be.
Wake up we have won, I know that this is not what the Liberals wanted..But we won!
Your silly post: Dontcha hate cute little Republican political slogans that come back to bite you in the ass?
To wit: Dumbya's "flip-flop" comments.
Obama hs been saying for the past 2+ years that we need to get out of Iraq. He presented/promoted a timeline for withdrawal.
Even Iraq's own leadership, al Maliki, WANTED us out!
But dumb ol' George....he's the "decider"! Except when he decides to FLIP-FLOP, and agrees with both the Democratic candidate and his supposed "ally".
NOW George has changed his tune!!!
"Bush agrees to set Iraq timeline"
By McClatchy Newspapers and The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The United States and Iraq have agreed to a "general time horizon" for further reductions of U.S. combat troops in Iraq, the White House said Friday, the first time the Bush administration has agreed to set any kind of timeline for troop withdrawals.
The agreement appears to be a political favor to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, but the White House said it wasn't a reversal of President Bush's long opposition to any fixed schedule for troop reductions, including the veto of bills that included timetables for withdrawal."
THE VETO??? George's VETO? Hahahahahha!!!!!
George Bush, Gutless, Flip-Floppin' Fuck.
Petraeus said "They're not going to abandon Iraq. They're not going to write it off. None of that," he said. "But what they certainly may do is start to provide some of those resources that would have come to Iraq to Pakistan, possibly Afghanistan."
He said there are signs that foreign fighters recruited by al-Qaida to do battle in Iraq are being diverted to the largely ungoverned areas in Pakistan from which the fighters can cross into Afghanistan. U.S. officials have pressed Pakistan for more than a year to halt the cross-border infiltration. It remains a major worry not only for the war in Afghanistan but also for Pakistan's stability.
Discussing al-Qaida in cautious terms, Petraeus said he is not certain of the reliability of the intelligence information about the terrorist network's latest thinking. He was adamant, however, that until now al-Qaida has seen Iraq as its best opportunity for establishing a militant Islamic state closer to the Persian Gulf.
"That could be under review," Petraeus said. "We do think they are considering what should be the main effort."
He offered a mostly upbeat assessment of conditions in Iraq just weeks before he is to make a recommendation on whether to further reduce U.S. troop levels. Petraeus said the country is showing fresh signs of promise not only on the security front, where insurgent attacks are down sharply, but also politically.
He applauded the latest evidence of movement toward reconciliation by Sunnis and Shiites — the announcement Saturday that Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political bloc had ended a nearly yearlong boycott of the Shiite-led government.
"It's a very important step forward," Petraeus said after an aide interrupted the AP interview to deliver the news. The general flashed a wide smile and instructed the aide to pass along his congratulations to top government officials, who have come under enormous pressure from U.S. officials to reconcile.
Petraeus declined to say what he might recommend to President Bush regarding further U.S. troops reductions. The assessment, he said, is based on a range of factors, including the prospects for Iraqi government approval of legislation required before provincial elections can be held this fall.
He would not talk about specific troop levels later this year. But the enthusiasm of Petraeus's description of security, political and even economic progress in 2008 gave the impression he may be inclined to tell Bush that fewer than the current 15 combat brigades will be needed by year's end.
Petraeus said he was encouraged at the possibility of al-Qaida reconsidering Iraq as its highest priority war front.
This information, while unconfirmed, parallels reports that fewer foreign fighters are joining the insurgency in Iraq.
"We do know the foreign fighter flow into Iraq has been reduced very substantially," he said. From a peak of 80 to 100 foreign fighters entering Iraq each month, the total has dropped as low as 20 per month, he said.
He attributed the decline to a combination of factors. They include the intense U.S. and Iraqi military operations against al-Qaida in Baghdad, Mosul and elsewhere, and stronger actions by neighboring countries to prevent militants from crossing into Iraqi territory. He mentioned Saudi Arabia as an example.
The other main source of violence in Iraq over the past year — Shiite militia extremists — also has been curbed. Petraeus said that whether leaders of those Shiite groups, who fled in many cases to Iran, end up returning to fight for control of such Baghdad sections as Sadr City will be a critical bellwether.
"This will be very important because it will be an indicator of whether Iran intends to start a new chapter in its relationship with Iraq, or not," he said.
Petraeus said Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, got an encouraging response when he traveled recently to Tehran to express concern about the role of Iranian-supported Shiite extremists in Iraq.
We’ve won. We’ve routed Al Qaeda. We’ve turned back Iranian attempts to fuel an insurgency. We’ve given the constitutionally elected government time to build its own security forces and develop governing consensus – and it has done so.
The United States set out to eliminate a threat and establish a democratic beachhead in the Middle East. We are going to succeed.
In retrospect, our success seems quite unremarkable. The United States military does not lose wars. U.S. politicians can turn military success into ultimate defeat, as they did in Vietnam. The U.S. can and does make strategic errors and suffer tragic setbacks – including loss of life – as a result.
But we don’t lose. Not when the military is free to do its job and the civilian commanders in Washington are committed to the effort. So it seems amazing now to ponder how many Americans were sure the war effort had failed. It’s astounding to realize that the majority leader of the United States Senate declared just over a year ago, “This war is lost,” and paid virtually no price politically for doing so.
I disagree: I say WE'VE been lucky ever since....because the Dept. of Homeland (In)-Security is a bloated joke. As in...2%/max. of all shipping containers, originating from overseas are even X-rayed, inspected, etc.
Think a terrorist could do something with a 40ft. shipping container? Think millions of them per year inbound to the USA afford "opportunity"?
Think an under-funded/under-staffed US Border Patrol provides "opportunity"?
Yep, 9/11 might've been just "bad luck"...but the fact remains, it's THE president in power that gets the blame. Or credit. And the fact remains, IF you want to credit Bush for "protefting" us....then you can also blame him for the biggest fuck-up ever as commander-in-chief...because PROTECTING THE HOMELAND...is his #1 JOB.
ASK the families of the New Yorkers at the WTC towers, or those family members who lost their own....in a PA. field. Or, the Pentagon?
Obama hs been saying for the past 2+ years that we need to get out of Iraq. He presented/promoted a timeline for withdrawal.
Even Iraq's own leadership, al Maliki, WANTED us out!
But dumb ol' George....he's the "decider"! Except when he decides to FLIP-FLOP, and agrees with both the Democratic candidate and his supposed "ally".
NOW George has changed his tune!!!
"Bush agrees to set Iraq timeline"
By McClatchy Newspapers and The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The United States and Iraq have agreed to a "general time horizon" for further reductions of U.S. combat troops in Iraq, the White House said Friday, the first time the Bush administration has agreed to set any kind of timeline for troop withdrawals.
The agreement appears to be a political favor to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, but the White House said it wasn't a reversal of President Bush's long opposition to any fixed schedule for troop reductions, including the veto of bills that included timetables for withdrawal."
THE VETO??? George's VETO? Hahahahahha!!!!!
George Bush, Gutless, Flip-Floppin' Fuck.