A disgusting vat of filth that no self-respecting intelligent person would wade into.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by nononono
Remember all that talk about winning hearts and minds? Same goes here. If our troops are commonly referred to as "torturers," soon enough we all start thinking it's probably at least somewhat true. And if we believe that of ourselves, and consequently don't trust our military, that certainly helps the enemy.

So we should all keep our mouths shut about abu Ghraib and Gitmo?

Maybe, somewhere along the line, if we stand up for our values and put more effort into reconstruction and Civ-Ops, we'll send a stronger positive message. It is the Bush Administration that chooses to violate our values in Gitmo, thumb their nose at the world, and then complain that we have a bad image.

[SlaveNoMore]

Adder
Right. 'Cause the way to win hearts and minds to deny any inappropriate conduct (no matter how damning the evidence) rather than recognizing the problem and taking action to stop the conduct (see, e.g. Lyndee (sp?) England).

But again, who has been running around "commonly referr[ing]" to our troops as torturers?

Um. DailyKos? The Huff Post? The NYT? Dick Durbin? Barney Frank? The UN? Amnesty International?

[SlaveNoMore]

Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
So we should all keep our mouths shut about abu Ghraib and Gitmo?

Maybe, somewhere along the line, if we stand up for our values and put more effort into reconstruction and Civ-Ops, we'll send a stronger positive message. It is the Bush Administration that chooses to violate our values in Gitmo, thumb their nose at the world, and then complain that we have a bad image.

Gitmo has been established many times over as Camp Cupcake.

By even suggesting Gitmo in this context, you are proving my point.

[Adder]

Originally posted by nononono
Did I suggest we pretend there are no outliers, or that people who act inappropriately should be hidden or not punished?

As to your last question, I'm not jumping into your dispute.

You have an interesting way of not jumping (that is, by jumping in).

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Hundreds of pages of translated documents show that the Hussein government had open ties and dealings with Al Qaeda members - which is not the same as saying Iraq was responsible for 9/11, which, again, the Bush government never did.

But hey, "bush lied, people died" sounds a lot better, and makes for a great bumper sticker.

You think if we did a search of the CIA's archives we'd find they had less or more contact with Al Queda than Iraq did during the past 20 years?

The Saudis give money to AQ. The Somalis harbor AQ. Pakistan harbors AQ. Of all the justifications for attacking Iraq, the AQ link is the worst by a considerable distance.

"Bush Lied, People Died" is an idiot simplification. The proper response is to ask the speaker to give his regards to Cinday Sheehan.

"Iraq had ties to AQ" is a cynical attempt to create the impression of a conspiracy where none existed. The proper response is "So what?"

[SlaveNoMore]

Adder
It has been a very long time since I had a science class...

Actually, if you were still in high school 20 years after Vietnam, then no, it hasn't.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
She was first elected to the Senate in 2000, and re-elected in November 2006. Her Presidential inauguration will be in January, 2009.

How is that not a full term?

S_A_M

SAM, you're better than this. Her lies to and flim-flamming of the electorate are shameless and in the name of the one thing, her acension to power as a proxy for her RedChinese overlourds. I warned the people of NY and they ignored me.....if nothing else, Pirro was a lot easier on the eyes. I pray America is not so drunk on the plantation kool-aid that we can't save ourselves from this menace.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
It has been a very long time since I had a science class, but I'm not sure that there is much variation in the volume of water according to its temperature. Anyone take fluid dynamic (or wish to google)?

I agree. I was responding to someone who claimed that the oceans had not risen because the cool water from the melt made the water in the oceans denser.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
The Speech George Bush Should Make Tuesday Night

Exclusive to PJM by Jules Crittenden

--
Don’t bother standing up or clapping, any of you. I already know who won the election, and I know how you feel.

I come before you tonight not to make amends, not to make it good, curry any favor or find any middle ground.

I am, more or less, a lame duck. You’ve had your 100 hours of party time. I know. I won’t get any legislation passed without some major bottom-kissing. Maybe something on illegal aliens. That health insurance thing I’ll be talking about later tonight is pretty much for show. I know it isn’t going anywhere. A proposal to raise middle-class taxes for a healthcare plan you don’t even want? What was I thinking?

None of that really matters. Not now. Those are peacetime issues we’ve been bickering about for a long time, and I don’t expect we’ll resolve them anytime soon.

So what is the best thing I can do tonight? I can tell you the truth. What none of you want to hear. What you’ve been stopping your ears to. The ugly truth.

The State of the Union is a disaster. I did my best, but I made mistakes, and my best wasn’t good enough.

We went to war without building up our army, and now, I am trying to make up for that.

But that is not the disaster.

The disaster is that you, Congress and the American people, do not care to fight.

ADVERTISEMENT
Faced with a fundamental challenge to our own security, to everything we believe in, to the world order to peace and security for which we and our parents fought so hard for so many years, you now want to pretend like none of these threats are real. You want to surrender to the evil I have been telling you about. An evil that, unchecked, can consume large parts of the world and threatens to usher in a dark age.

You didn’t like it when I talked about evil. Sounded too simple, too uncompromising, too moralistic. Too … biblical.

I don’t know what else you call people who fly passenger jets into office buildings; who rape women in front of their husbands and children, and execute their opponents in acid baths; who seek to spread tyrannical and archaic religious regimes that enslave women and stifle fundamental freedoms. Who want to dominate the world’s primary oil fields with nuclear weapons.

I call it evil. Works for me.

I’ve heard all the comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam. George Bush’s Vietnam. The myopia is astonishing, even for me, George Bush, who you all think just isn’t that smart. But I learned something in school: People who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Didn’t you learn anything from Vietnam? Didn’t you see what happened when your predecessors in Congress, disgruntled and responding to public opinion polls just like you are, voted repeatedly to undermine an ally that was fighting for its survival and making headway against evil? There, I’ve said it again. Millions of people were murdered or imprisoned.

And then, those who wished us ill … the evil-doers … evil, evil evil … took advantage of our weakness.

The Soviet Union, evil personified, invaded Afghanistan, knowing we’d do nothing about it. Iran defied all international norms, took our sovereign embassy and held our people hostage for 444 days. They knew we’d do nothing about it. It was a massive humiliation we have been paying for with our own precious blood ever since.

Where do you think this war we are now engaged in started, anyway? Just ask Osama bin Laden, veteran of the Afghan war against the Soviets, what lesson he learned from two decades of American appeasement and withdrawal in the face of provocation.

Now, you want to negotiate with two of the world’s primary sponsors of terrorism, who are directly involved in support of the terrorists who murder our soldiers. You want to make an arrangement by which we will exit Iraq, and leave it to them. To loot, to murder, to fight over, while the rest of the world’s evil regimes look on, see our weakness, and plot their own moves.

You can try that, with resolutions, by cutting spending for troops in the field, as you seek the short-term satisfaction of withdrawal. But I remain President of the United States, and as long as I am, I will be no lame duck in this fight.

I will engage evil directly where I find it, in Iraq and in Iran. With an aggressive and ruthless new strategy and a plan to build our army as we should have a long time ago, I will show the American people that we can fight and we can win. I expect that the American people, though misled by their press and many of their elected representatives, will see results and will get it. Because the American people are a people who in the end don’t give up, don’t stop fighting, refuse to lose, and will choose to win. I have faith in them.

Oh, there’s another one of those words you don’t like.

A nation that is not willing to fight for what it believes in, for its place in the world, is not worthy of its own ideals. But that is not America. I now intend to help America restore its faith in itself. By fighting this necessary fight that we cannot afford to lose.

So … are you with me, or against us?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jules Crittenden is an editor and columnist for the Boston Herald.
Crittenden’s web page is at Forward Movement.

link

222222222222222222!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:partytime :partytime :partytime :partytime

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
You missed my point compoletely. These stories are like many others I have read. Saying the polar ice caps have been melting and that the oceans will rise. But if the ice caps have been melting shouldn't the oceans have already risen? All over the world the oceans should have inched up somewhat if what they say is true. If we are going to get flooded because of melting ice caps and they have already melted significantly shouldn't have the flooding already started all over the world?

Yes cold water is denser, but warm water is less dense and global warming should have warmed up all the water. All this warmer water would more than make up the little water that has ust melted. And the pressure on the sea bed floor has lready been significant. I can't imagine there is much more give.

Here's a survey on the subject: the conclusion is that over the twentieth century, the rise has been at a rate of about 2 mm per year (that rate would get us a one meter rise over 5 centuries). The question is not whether we are in a period of melting and rise, but is the rise accelerating or will it accelerate?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
I didn't suggest it - Jules Crittenden did.

And I believe he's talking about our ongoing "War on Terror" - which is actually a war against Islamofascism, or the "Clash of the Civilizations" you prefer - of which the current war in Iraq is a part.

The problem with this argument is that Hussein was a repressor of Radical islam. He was a secular dictator.

If you make the argument that Iraq is part of the greater war on Islamofascism, you leave yourself open to the rebuttal, "Yes, because you deposed the strongman in charge of the country and made it so."

At that point, you get stuck spinning your wheels with the "we had a moral need to liberate the Iraqis." That's a non-starter (See: Darfur). At that point, a cynic might use the "better the war be in Iraq than the US" argument, otherwise known as the "flypaper" defense. The problem with that is you kinda piss off the world community when you make that admission, and you tell the soldiers' families "Yep, your son/husband/daughter is basically bait."

W bet and lost. It's a debacle. We're stuck staying the course, but W's got no moral high ground for any of his arguments. The truth is he created a pile of shit so bad we're stuck with it forever.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
You think if we did a search of the CIA's archives we'd find they had less or more contact with Al Queda than Iraq did during the past 20 years?

The Saudis give money to AQ. The Somalis harbor AQ. Pakistan harbors AQ. Of all the justifications for attacking Iraq, the AQ link is the worst by a considerable distance.

"Bush Lied, People Died" is an idiot simplification. The proper response is to ask the speaker to give his regards to Cinday Sheehan.

"Iraq had ties to AQ" is a cynical attempt to create the impression of a conspiracy where none existed. The proper response is "So what?"

Generally, I agree, but you ignore the important use of "Bush Lied, People Died" to annoy Slave, Penske, et al.

[Adder]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
You think if we did a search of the CIA's archives we'd find they had less or more contact with Al Queda than Iraq did during the past 20 years?

The Saudis give money to AQ. The Somalis harbor AQ. Pakistan harbors AQ. Of all the justifications for attacking Iraq, the AQ link is the worst by a considerable distance.

"Bush Lied, People Died" is an idiot simplification. The proper response is to ask the speaker to give his regards to Cinday Sheehan.

"Iraq had ties to AQ" is a cynical attempt to create the impression of a conspiracy where none existed. The proper response is "So what?"

Well said.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
The problem with this argument is that Hussein was a repressor of Radical islam. He was a secular dictator.

If you make the argument that Iraq is part of the greater war on Islamofascism, you leave yourself open to the rebuttal, "Yes, because you deposed the strongman in charge of the country and made it so."

At that point, you get stuck spinning your wheels with the "we had a moral need to liberate the Iraqis." That's a non-starter (See: Darfur). At that point, a cynic might use the "better the war be in Iraq than the US" argument, otherwise known as the "flypaper" defense. The problem with that is you kinda piss off the world community when you make that admission, and you tell the soldiers' families "Yep, your son/husband/daughter is basically bait.

Besides, the real flypaper is in Pakistan, where the Pakistanis have 80,000 troops chasing real al Qaida operatives and their allies in Waziristan, rather than mostly fighting sectarians who are looking to change the local balance of power.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
So we should all keep our mouths shut about abu Ghraib and Gitmo?

Why not? You keep yoiur mouth shut above prison rape. You keep your mouth shut about racist police brutality and oppression in most of urban America, which is controlled by Dems. The limo libs here and at large keep their mouths shut about the racist oppression of the public school systems that they suppourt in urban America, all the while sending their kids to private school.

Why pick one topic of oppressiion and single it out? Especially one that is in war zone half a world away? Why do the liberals hate their fellow countrymen and the concept of freedom and human rights for Americans?