Mantus

That would be incorect.

Ustwo

There do seem to be multiple interpretations of the no fly zones.

GHB decided to put some teeth in resolution 688 which I can understand would be debated by members of the UN and international community that only like the UN to sound like it does something rather then actually do it, but I stand corrected that it was not a mandate. That was an error on my part.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

spindles

ha ha ha ha ha ha hhhaaaaaaa. I hardly rate the non ability to own a gun as equaling slavery. I can't say I'm unhappy about you never visiting Australia.

__________________
who hid my keyboard's PANIC button?

Elphaba

I want to interject that there is more than an "us vs. them" in US politics, or at least there should be in any reasonable discussion. There is a Republican party that isn't supportive of the Neocons of the present administration. There is a Democratic party that is moderate (ala Clinton) that furthers fiscal responsibility and cuts welfare fraud. We, on the forum seem to have chosen the two extremes of our political parties when in fact a moderate middle is present for both parties.

Would it be too naive and pollyanna-like of me to ask that extreme positions take one small step toward the middle when posting to this forum?

Ustwo

You are asking people to water down their own opinions and pretend to be something they are not?

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Elphaba

Ustwo

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

analog

iflyadash8

Why don't you just go ahead and kill it then since the children are being so bad. Or don't you have the balls? I'm sick of having to watch over my shoulder everytime I post on this board for fear of the all mighty "ban button." That's the only kind of power you have and you absolutely get off on it. This is why I won't give up cash for this site. I can pay money and be regulated and babysat like I'm a child somewhere else. I can even do it for free. And even no one else will say it for fear of being alienaited, I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

Go ahead and ban me, have a good jolly doing it, as I've been lurking for a while, but I've grown tired of the back and forth bickering and "moderation."

As Requested.....see you in Six Months.....Maybe

Marvelous Marv

Then let's rephrase it. I'll be the government. I'd like to buy your house. I'll decide what to pay you for it. You won't be allowed to buy another.

Was your house confiscated, or not?



Let's analyze that statement, too.

What is being advocated is that defenseless people be allowed to protect their lives and property against the (well documented) increase in crime brought about by gun confiscations.

It is neither moral nor proper for the wishes of the majority to endanger the lives and property of the minority.

Mantus

I think it would be more ideal to ask people to shift their opinion of others on this forum a small step towards the middle.

Elphaba

Agreed, and that had been my intention, though not stated clearly enough. Taking a small step in the shoe's of another, if you will.

shakran

This is a topic for another debate, but with globalization I personally think it's rather a mistake to have such a big distinction between the two anymore. Our domestic policy of minimum wage effects Japanese businesses that build factories here, for instance. But that's for another thread.

I agree with you that if their government is harboring and funding terrorists who intend to attack our country, we should do something about it.

But I don't agree with you that Iraq fit that criteria. And even if it sorta did, there are plenty of other targets that fit it better. Saudi Arabia for one.

So while I agree that we need to stop those who would hurt us, I disagree with your idea that we are currently doing that.


Need I remind you that our whole conflict with Hussein started when our current president's dad got annoyed with Iraq for invading Kuwait?





Again, no argument there. But Iraq hadn't done that. And that crap about shooting at planes in the no fly zones is NOT an act of war against us. That's a retaliation to an act of war on our part. Look at it this way. If Russia started overflying Washington DC with MiGs and backfire bombers, don't you think we'd probably be inclined to shoot at them? We first invaded Iraq, decimated its military, then proceeded to fly our war machines over their soil. They had every right to retaliate, futile though the gesture might be.


A careful read of my post will tell you that I was making it clear that YOU are not the only one using this tactic, that you did not invent it, and in fact that you are merely parroting it. In other words, I'm deflecting most of the blame off of you and on to the leaders of your party.

Elphaba

I'm not sure this is the right topic to place this article, but it is a liberal summation of our current state of affairs. I would agree that if we blink we may miss something.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/070705Y.shtml

Interesting Times
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 07 July 2005

Many an ancient lord's last words have been, "You can't kill me because I've got magic aaargh."
-- Terry Pratchett

The British are getting ready to evacuate their military forces from Iraq and send them to Afghanistan. Anyone who thinks the Afghan war has been won and is over needs to think again. 54 American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan in the last six months alone, compared to 52 in all of last year. While this number does not compare to the 1,748 US troops killed in Iraq, the two-fold increase in casualties over half a year is noteworthy. Taliban and al Qaeda fighters occupy caves, villages and mountain passes along the Pakistan border, and regional experts believe their presence will require an indefinite American military presence in that country.

Meanwhile, the war in Iraq burns on while Bush's biggest ally is preparing to haul stakes. US military forces are so stretched that Reservists who last saw action in Vietnam are being called back into service. Poverty within the Iraqi populace has become so severe that citizens are selling their kidneys on the black market for long dollars. It is a booming trade; some 5,000 Iraqis suffer from a variety of renal diseases caused by decades of sanction-created dirty water and lack of medicine, so kidneys are worth their weight in gold on the Iraqi street.

Alberto Gonzales looks to be the next Supreme Court Justice, a choice that will cause progressives to grind their teeth because he argued in favor of torture, and will cause the Evangelical Right to lose its collective mind because he is not "solid" on the issue of abortion. If Gonzales does in fact become the nominee, the stage will be set for a two-pronged assault on the White House from the Left and, more importantly, from the far Right.

Matthew Cooper is going to testify, and Judy Miller is going to jail. Cooper, the reporter from Time Magazine who received the leak regarding CIA agent Valerie Plame, was staring down the barrel of confinement until he folded and agreed to cooperate with Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation. This comes on the heels of the revelation that White House consigliore Karl Rove was one of Cooper's sources on this matter. Rove's attorney has claimed Karl did not "knowingly" expose Plame, but Cooper's testimony may rip that shroud down the middle.

Miller, a reporter for the New York Times, is being fitted for a prison jumper and will sit in a cell until she changes her mind about cooperating with Fitzgerald. Miller, it should be noted, is being touted as some kind of martyr for the First Amendment and the need for journalists to protect their sources. She is, to be blunt, a crappy poster-child for this all-important requirement, and this situation augers toward the creation of odd legal precedent. Miller is not merely protecting a source, but is protecting a criminal who violated national security in order to exact political revenge ordered by the White House. The lawyers involved are certainly going to earn their fees trying to thread this particular needle.

One thing is sure: Whoever leaked Plame's name is having a bad day. Be it Rove or Cheney confidant Lewis Libby or some other unknown actor, the fact that Cooper is singing to a Grand Jury raises the specter of charges coming down for perjury and obstruction of justice at a minimum, with treason lurking at the far side of things.

The fellow on the arm of Ms. Plame, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, smells the brimstone on the wind. Reached for comment regarding the imprisonment of Miller, Wilson stated, "The sentencing of Judith Miller to jail for refusing to disclose her sources is the direct result of the culture of unaccountability that infects the Bush White House from top to bottom. President Bush's refusal to enforce his own call for full cooperation with the Special Counsel has brought us to this point."

"Clearly," continued Wilson, "the conspiracy to cover up the web of lies that underpinned the invasion of Iraq is more important to the White House than coming clean on a serious breach of national security. Thus has Ms. Miller joined my wife, Valerie, and her twenty years of service to this nation as collateral damage in the smear campaign launched when I had the temerity to challenge the President on his assertion that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from Africa. The real victims of this cover-up, which may have turned criminal, are the Congress, the Constitution and, most tragically, the Americans and Iraqis who have paid the ultimate price for Bush's folly."

Indeed.

Maybe ten thousand times in the last few years, someone has stated with profound assurance that the Bush administration is in trouble, that the hammer is coming down, that some form of accountability is in the offing. Maybe ten thousand times, these predictions have turned out to be wrong. Nowadays, it takes a special kind of fool to think this White House can be easily cashiered for its gross violations, lies and flat-out crimes.

But it is getting awfully crowded around here. Bush's numbers are still cratering, the nation has stopped buying into the idea that he is some kind of Great Protector, the Brits are bugging out of the chaos in Iraq, Afghanistan is heating up, the Jesus Brigades on Bush's right flank are preparing to wig out unless they get some kind of Falwell clone onto the court, and one of the journalists used to destroy the career of a CIA operative who worked to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction is cooperating with a prosecutor.

And then there's this from Dan Froomkin, published by the Washington Post: "More than four in 10 Americans, according to a recent Zogby poll, say that if President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment ... The impeachment question was part of a Zogby International poll conducted early last week, and released on Thursday. It found that Bush's job approval ratings had slipped a point from the previous week, to 43 percent. But the jaw-dropper was that 42 percent said they would favor impeachment proceedings if it is found that the president misled the nation about his reasons for going to war with Iraq."

Don't blink this week. You might miss something.

Tophat665

Oh my. Couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. Coming on the heels of the whiff of the ghost of the possibility of Karl Rove in an orange jumpsuit, that may be the first morale booster for the left since before the media slaughtered Howard Dean and someone posted www. johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com.

Maybe, just maybe, next mid terms....

Well, like I said about Rove, I'm not going to heat the tar up yet, but it's definitely time to start stocking up on feathers.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Elphaba

I certainly must have blinked because this is the first I have read of the Brit's pulling out of Iraq to shore up Afghanistan. Has anyone else heard of this?

(If this is drifting too far off topic, please let me know).

host

Elphaba,

I posted these in my looooong post on pg.2 in the "attack in London" thread as
support for my theory that it was "time" for a domestic "terrorist" attack to restore the "resolve" of constituents increasingly unhappy with Bush and Blair's 'war"..............

Mephisto2

That analogy is complete nonesense.

No. It is neither moral nor proper that the selfish interests of the minority go against the public will of the MAJORITY.

Or have you forgotten or abandoned the concept of democracy?


Mr Mephisto