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Originally posted by shakran
Vague terrorist threats. Anyone wonder why the terrorist threat level keeps going to orange, and then nothing happens? We don't even hear about any arrests of potential terrorists during these elevated warning periods. And remember, the intelligence agencies that are releasing the data that causes the administration to elevate the terrorist threat level are the same intelligence agencies that Bush & Co. are currently blaming for the WMD fiasco in Iraq.
And speaking of WMD's, where in hell are they? We were told by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, and others, that Iraq had them, that they would use them against us, and if we didn't attack we were all gonna be in a world of hurt soon. All this despite the fact that nearly every other country on the planet told us that there was no reason to suspect Sadaam had them, that we were jumping the gun, and that the attack was unwarranted.
Of course, those countries that did tell us that, and who chose not to involve themselves in an immoral act of war perpetrated by the United States, were promptly ridiculed by America. France comes to mind here. Freedom toast, Freedom fries, etc, were all asinine and childish ways of trying to get back at France for standing up for what it believed in. Even the president, the most powerful man in the world, and the public face of our country, engaged in this juvenile behavior when he allowed freedom toast to be served on Air Force One. French's Mustard had to release a statement swearing the company is not based in France, and the company still saw a reduction in sales during the France-bashing. Did the American people rally against this kindergarten display? Heck no, they participated in it. The mob mentality took over and we forgot that America stands for freedom of expression. Despite that lofty principal, we bashed France for months for expressing itself.
Now that we're in Iraq, and we've seen WMD's are not there, we also begin to see that the United States has no exit strategy. Why? Because Bush wanted to beat up Sadaam, and he didn't want to plan any further.
We have a president who not only avoids informing himself of world events, but who brags about it! The man came straight out and said he does not read the newspapers or listen to the news, preferring instead for his close advisors to inform him of what's happening. A president who does not keep himself informed is a president who is at best easily manipulated and is so badly misinformed that he cannot possibly make good decisions even if he wants to.
On to today's issue, the constitution is meant to define liberties, not restrict freedom. George Bush is supporting an amendment that would not only restrict freedom, but in fact would be at its core no different than the segregation of black people was. It is a discriminatory amendment that targets gays for the express purpose of restricting their freedom. It's another case of "if you don't hold the same beliefs as your government, your freedom gets taken away from you."
This legislation goes against the fundamental principals of our country. All people are created equal. Equal protection under the law. This amendment would protect marriage only for heterosexual people - that's not equal protection.
During the cold war we were told that Communist Russia was the evil empire because its government denied basic liberties to its citizens. Our government has started on the path to denying those same liberties, which forced me to wonder why we consider communism so dangerous when we ourselves are staring the same type of danger in the face and are doing basically nothing about it.
Hope that clears some stuff up.
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1)Its tough to gauge threats from Terrorists. If a flood of conversing between terrorists cells takes place the US takes every and all threats seriously. Thats a strategy employed by the terrorists. If they get us to chase a ghost and do something else they succeed(sp), if we elevate our levels and further hurt our economy they succeed even if they don't act. So what are you suggesting we just let them talk and not act on threats and intelligence?
2) WMD's weren't found. But go figure the WMD's that we knew Saddam had such as 26000 liters of anthrax, are still not declared and found. Iraq did have on going WMD programs, they weren't allowed to, they had precusors for WMD's, they weren't allowed to have those, they supported terrorism, and they had various illegal munitions in their possession that were sold to them by the French and Russians.
And then you talk about other countries not getting on board with us as if they were taking the high road and being moral. Countries like France, Russia, and Germany were only protecting their interests, their illegal bids on oil contracts, their illegal weapons for oil deals, and their lucrative military contracts. Plus they got to try and check American power, which France has been trying to do time and time again. And for the record, going into the war just about every country had intelligence saying the samething as us, that Saddam had weapons, even the French and UN people. They just had no fucking stones, all they wanted to do was slap him on the wrist and push some more bullshit resolutions for him to willingly and knowingly disobey.
Not to mention, we've been in Iraq for not even a year and your bitching about not having an exit strategy. That's rich. You know you can't build up an Arab nation that hasn't ever known democracy and expect them to be self sufficent in less then a year of being liberated. It makes it even mroe complicated that you have 3 ethnic factions, several religious factions, and foreign infultrators in the mix trying to stir things up.
3) Why should Bush have to listen to what the media says? Frankly I'm glad Bush isn't a pollster like Clinton. He's a man of conviction and I respect that. You can be fairly certain that Bush gets the news and about 10x and indepth coverage about. Just because he doesn't get news of world events from the NEw York times doesn't mean he doesn't get it. It's ridiculous that you would even bitch about that.