Shokan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?nav=hptop_tb

Who didn't see this coming a mile away?

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Dragonlich

Well... Saddam only let the inspectors go into Iraq after the US threatened to attack. As more and more pressure was applied, Iraq started to cooperate more and more. However, they still didn't allow everything, and the inspectors were still not able to verify the destruction of Saddam's WMD left-overs... Ergo, Saddam did not cooperate *enough* with the inspections, and there was no reason to belief he would do so in the future.

there.

Phaenx

You have the skills of a great political ninja Dragonlich, I shall beat you to a thread one day!

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Macheath

What was that Dragonlich, the Rummy Two Step or the Condoleeza Tango?

Dragonlich

Maxheath: That was reality talking... Or do you care to dispute any of those claims?

Macheath

In terms of the reality of the words spewing out of the US President's mouth, if George W. Bush thought Saddam had not cooperated *enough* with inspectors, as you stated, why did he not say - "Saddam Hussein let the inspectors in, but he wouldn't cooperate with them enough." instead of saying - Saddam Hussein had "a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

I thought conservatives were meant to be the "straight talking" ones.

Dragonlich

Macheath: because Bush is a moron?

(FYI, I do not support Bush personally: nobody *that* ignorant should be leading any country whatsoever. I do support his decision to attack Iraq, for various reasons.)

seretogis

To say that Saddam let the inspectors in would be suggesting that he let them in of his own free will -- not in the face of an attack by the US. I don't think that there is a problem with what he said, and justification for the war was found as soon as we opened up one of his mass graves. The only people that have a problem with this are sore-loser Democrats and media personalities that were hoping for more American casualties.

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Sparhawk

I'm sure that was your intent, but that is INCREDIBLY offensive.

Dragonlich

I'm with Sparhawk on this: Democrats and media personalities (usually) did not want *any* casualties at all.

The only people that really did want US casualties are (some of) the anti-American morons all over the planet. You know, the guys that applaud every attack against the "American invaders", and only focus on the negative aspects of the war (dead babies), without looking at the positive ones (freedom to protest those dead babies), or even dismissing the "Saddam was bad" arguments by saying it was all propaganda.

And contrary to what you may think, these guys aren't just located in the Muslim world; many a Westerner feels the same for some reason. Usually one can explain this by pointing at the Islamic roots of immigrants (and accompanying bias), but some people just want to blame the US for anything bad, which means that anyone fighting the US is necessarily good, no matter what they do or how they do it. You know, the type of guy that says: "9-11? That was because of our foreign policy, man! We have to pull back our troops and give the terrorists what they want; then they'll stop blowing us up!" --- I have but one thing to say to these guys: Hitler vs Chamberlain, Munich, 1938; look it up.

/rant

Daval

I love the mindless sheep who will follow a leader regardless of how much they were lied too.

I supported the removal of Saddam Hussein.

However, I do not support the Presidents bullying and foreign policy. Every single week leading up to the way he would spew untruths and change the reasoning for the war hoping to get international backing. Failing that he just said fuck em and invaded anyways.

The US has been severely lost a lot of respect by his actions.

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sportsrule101

Dragonlich talking amazing logical = very cool

I always knew there was a smart democrat in the world
Suddam accomplished all that he could, he played the media like a banjo.
Still is.

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seretogis

I did not intend to suggest that all Democrats and media personalities were hoping for more US casualties, just that those who are bitter that Bush is president want to see him fail regardless of how many lives are lost in the process. There are people on both sides of the aisle who exist only to tear down the other, with no regard to those caught in the middle. If you find those people offensive (and who wouldn't?), don't associate with them.

The war on Iraq has been very successful so far as far as friendly and civilian casualties go. This fact, however, won't stop the major networks from essentially pumping their fists in the air every day that a friendly dies in a car crash in Iraq and blaming Bush for it.

Once again, I completely agree with you here, though I think that "many a Westerner feels the same for some reason" is largely due to network media coverage. I don't have cable, all I have is local/network television and the top story every day is essentially "another US soldier dies in Iraq, is Bush to blame?" If Hillary were in charge right now in the same situation you would hear the same argument from the other side.

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

seretogis

baaahh?

I love the mindless people who will believe whatever the pretty lady on the TV tells them. Foreign policy is not black and white, and decisions which are made based upon hundreds-of-page documents can not adequately be summed up into 7 second sound bytes.

Why? According to Al Jazeera he was a nice guy that would never hurt a fly, and he would never even consider using WMDs. 100% of his people absolutely love him, and he received 100% of the vote at his last election. Why would you want him removed?

It sounds to me like you are ashamed that the US is the top dog in the world at the moment and that the UN has been proven to not work as flawlessly as Utopians imagined. Bush jumped through the UN bureaocratic hoops and the French essentially broke the system by absolutely refusing to listen to what Powell and the US had to say. It didn't matter, they were voting "No NO No" regardless. If you experience something like that (I have at my old job, thanks to the Boss's unqualified son having too much power) you lose respect for the system itself and you strike off on your own.

Did you expect the US, the world power, currently run by a Texan (), to back down and say "oh, you don't care? Alrighty, we'll just forget it all then."? If so, you are seriously disillusioned. Regardless of what party, race, gender is in the White House, I expect them to not back down to terrorists, the French, French terrorists, or looney North Koreans.

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

Sparhawk

So there are some democrats and media personalities hoping for more casualties? Please 'out' them, so we can all deride them together. Otherwise, please retract your statement.

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"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

rat

[edited] hit the submit button without thinking, lost train of thought, couldn't find it again. please delete [/edited]

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seretogis

LINK

..and a tiny quote from Accuracy in Media's faq:

From the above information one can draw a conclusion that "the media", which is admittedly anti-freedom in many respects and most definitely anti-war, a dramatic failure in the war on Iraq would have been a godsend, and in a sick sense, appreciated.

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

Sparhawk

Seretogis,

These are the opinions of a group of individuals regarding the media as a whole. And the information you posted, while interesting, supports no such conclusions. Indeed, I'd like to see any media personality representing himself as anti-freedom.

I find it interesting that your cynicism-bordering-on-paranoia doesn't extend itself to the current administration. You doubt the motivation and the words of everyone and take nothing at face value, unless it comes out in a white house press release.

Very odd.

__________________
"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

samcat

Interesting how the initial question gets lost in the rush to attack. The initial statement was that Bush is , to put it mildly, stretching the truth. This discussion morphs into an attack on liberal media, the Democrats, al-Jazeera, the French, and on and on ad nauseam.
Get back to the point: Bush lied through his teeth, lots of Iraqis - military and not-so military got killed, a bunch of fine young British and American men were killed and are continuing to get killed, and all for some lying bunch of knuckleheads who are inventing retroactive justifications. For shame.

Kadath

This post was brought to you by the letter S, which stands for both seretogis and strawman.


So don't challenge the president's foreign policy, you just don't understand it! But I understood Clinton's policies, and they were moronic!

So our choices here are agree with Bush or agree with Al Jazeera? What happened to the grey?

Yeah, I can see the parallels between nepotism in a (likely small) business and, oh, say, world affairs. I think you've got a good handle on things from Bush's perspective based on your life experience. In fact, you're just like him, a maverick hero who won't let politics get in the way of what's right! I think you need to get a bid for office going.

But we WILL back down to special interest groups, right? It's all about the dollars. If the "French terrorists" (seriously, I can't tell how much you believe and how much is diversionary nonsense) dropped a hundred million into Bush's re-election fund, I doubt we'd catch them. And, uh, what are we doing about the NKs? Is Kim Jong Il still oppressing his people, building nuclear weapons, generally being a terrible despotic lunatic? We're sure in....Liberia...right now, aren't we?

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oldman2003

My turn to stand on the pedestal. First let me say that I have a step brother located in Iraq. He is a captain in the Rangers and has been in Baghdad since the day one. Before that some other very hot spots that he can’t talk about. His mother is worried sick about him. Goes months without hearing a word if he is alive or dead. Because of the nature of his work, he is unable to call, email or otherwise give away his location. I am telling you this to say I support our troops and know the danger there are in. However…..

(This is for the American readers) I am sick of this bullshit mudslinging and name-calling. It doesn’t matter if we are Democratic or Republican. We are Americans and we are in trouble. The shit is hitting the fan behind closed doors in the Senate right now. We have duty to ourselves to learn as much as possible as to how we got here and the most Humane way to fix the problems. It is my personal belief we have been lied to, deceived, and treated with contempt by our leaders. I respect each of you and know your personal beliefs are as strong as and not the same as mine. But Damn It! Aren’t we supposed to leave this country, this world better then it was left to us? What about or children and grandchildren? Don’t they have a right to pursue a good life and happiness? Are we going to leave them with a mess; broken relationships, fear of people who look at the world differently than we do? We have to take responsibility of where we are and ask the rest of the world community to help us fix the problems in Iraq. Just because we live in a geographic location that happens to offer the easiest living on the planet, doesn’t mean we are better then our brothers and sisters in hot spots in other geographic locations. My God people wake up! Don’t just listen to hearsay, serf the net and look what is going on. Validate the stories you read by checking the sources. Show our leaders how it is done. Try to learn why other people hate us. Try to learn what each of us can do no matter how small it may seem to stop the downward spiral into mass self-destruction!

Thank you for reading this and allowing me to speak my mind.

Lebell

Well said oldman2003.

While I may not agree 100% with your conclusions, I appreciate the sentiment that we work better together than apart.

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seretogis

The idea that Bush purposely deceived the American public and our allies to attack Iraq is not a fact. Treating it as one does not make it so.

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perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

seretogis

<3

I didn't suggest that you shouldn't challenge the President's foreign policy, or that you can't understand it. I merely stated that the seven second sound-bytes popular on network television news are not an objective representation of the truth.

By the "grey", do you mean waiting another 12 years while more innocent people die at Hussein's hands? Perhaps we should wait until Iraqi tanks are rolling through Kuwait again.

Actually, I worked for a multinational Fortune 500 marketing agency, but I appreciate the condescending comments nonetheless. I also find it mildly amusing that you ignored the rest of that paragraph in order to take a personal shot at me.


First off, I meant delusional, not disillusioned. However, disillusioned is what I am becoming after replying to the same regurgitated discussions on this board, so perhaps it was a Freudian slip.

Zacarias Moussaoui is a 33 year old Frenchman, who was a self-proclaimed member of al Qaeda, and the first person indicted in relation to the 9/11 attacks. He (and pals, I'm sure) was who I was referring to, but his name isn't the easiest to remember how to spell.

As for special interest groups, I'm really not sure how that is related to this thread, but thanks anyways. We should be focused more on working with China/Japan/South Korea to deal with NK than starting a new campaign in Liberia, but you can thank the media for that.

LINK

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

fnaqzna

We are talking about the same media that made the entire war possible by selling it on the nightly news, are we not?

This is also the same media that made millions with the embedded reporters.

..but that's okay... it's your story... make it as big as you want.

The_Dude

can somebody post the article?? i'm not in the mood to sign up

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