Politics As Usual

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
Such behavior is not usually seen in countries with a healthy respect for the rule of law...

And why, pray tell, is that? Either the PC answer or the non-PC answer is acceptable.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
And why, pray tell, is that? Either the PC answer or the non-PC answer is acceptable.

You must have skipped Philosophy 101. Cf. Hobbes, T., Leviathan (1651); Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason (1788).

See also just about any moral or political philosophy written in the last 500 years.

[SlaveNoMore]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
You must have skipped Philosophy 101. Cf. Hobbes, T., Leviathan (1651); Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason (1788).

See also just about any moral or political philosophy written in the last 500 years.

Whiff. As usual.

This behavior is seen all the time - especially in Middle Eastern Muslim countries where there is no general respect for the rule of law.

Repeat. And why, pray tell, is that? Either the PC answer or the non-PC answer is acceptable.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
And why, pray tell, is that? Either the PC answer or the non-PC answer is acceptable.

I guess I was thinking that in countries where people have internalized the need to follow the rules, they are more likely to follow the rules even when they would otherwise like to kill someone. Countries that have internalized the rule of law also are usually better at accommodating dissent.

In other countries, it's hard to introduce the rule of law because people are used to resolving their differences outside the legal system.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

I've been waiting for someone to debunk Cheney's renewed claims about the so-called ties between Iraq and Al Qaida -- Larry Davis's line about this is the best one I've seen so far -- and I guess the job fell to the NYT's editorial page, though I'm sure there'll be others:

Show Us the Proof

Published: June 19, 2004

When the commission studying the 9/11 terrorist attacks refuted the Bush administration's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, we suggested that President Bush apologize for using these claims to help win Americans' support for the invasion of Iraq. We did not really expect that to happen. But we were surprised by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not only brushed aside the panel's findings and questioned its expertise, but they are also trying to rewrite history.

Mr. Bush said the 9/11 panel had actually confirmed his contention that there were "ties" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said his administration had never connected Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Both statements are wrong.

Before the war, Mr. Bush spoke of far more than vague "ties" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said Iraq had provided Al Qaeda with weapons training, bomb-making expertise and a base in Iraq. On Feb. 8, 2003, Mr. Bush said that "an Al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990's for help in acquiring poisons and gases." The 9/11 panel's report, as well as news articles, indicate that these things never happened.

Mr. Cheney said yesterday that the "evidence is overwhelming" of an Iraq-Qaeda axis and that there had been a "whole series of high-level contacts" between them. The 9/11 panel said a senior Iraqi intelligence officer made three visits to Sudan in the early 1990's, meeting with Osama bin Laden once in 1994. It said Osama bin Laden had asked for "space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded." The panel cited reports of further contacts after Osama bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in 1996, but said there was no working relationship. As far as the public record is concerned, then, Mr. Cheney's "longstanding ties" amount to one confirmed meeting, after which the Iraq government did not help Al Qaeda. By those standards, the United States has longstanding ties to North Korea.

Mr. Bush has also used a terrorist named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush used to refer to Mr. Zarqawi as a "senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner" who was in Baghdad working with the Iraqi government. But the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, told the Senate earlier this year that Mr. Zarqawi did not work with the Hussein regime, nor under the direction of Al Qaeda.

When it comes to 9/11, someone in the Bush administration has indeed drawn the connection to Iraq: the vice president. Mr. Cheney has repeatedly referred to reports that Mohamed Atta met in Prague in April 2001 with an Iraqi intelligence agent. He told Tim Russert of NBC on Dec. 9, 2001, that this report has "been pretty well confirmed." If so, no one seems to have informed the C.I.A., the Czech government or the 9/11 commission, which said it did not appear to be true. Yet Mr. Cheney cited it, again, on Thursday night on CNBC.

Mr. Cheney said he had lots of documents to prove his claims. We have heard that before, but Mr. Cheney always seems too pressed for time or too concerned about secrets to share them. Last September, Mr. Cheney's adviser, Mary Matalin, explained to The Washington Post that Mr. Cheney had access to lots of secret stuff. She said he had to "tiptoe through the land mines of what's sayable and not sayable" to the public, but that "his job is to connect the dots."

The message, if we hear it properly, is that when it comes to this critical issue, the vice president is not prepared to offer any evidence beyond the flimsy-to-nonexistent arguments he has used in the past, but he wants us to trust him when he says there's more behind the screen. So far, when it comes to Iraq, blind faith in this administration has been a losing strategy.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
The impressionable college student bloc isn't enough to carry Kerry. I don't see this movie changing too many minds, and those it motivates to vote are people Bush never had a chance with anyway. I love Moore's stuff, but I view it as salacious pseudo-fiction. I wouldn't take a thimble full of his statistics or "facts" to the bank.

go see the TImes (or life) of Harvey Milk, or Thin Blue LIne or...those are documentaries. Moore makes puff pieces to support his fantasies. This one sounds like his rants after the election and ignores his 9/12 rants (we're too blame)

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Chalabi.

saw a PBS interview with the guy incharge of the UN's oil for food investigation. He admits billions were skimmed. He admits there were people in the UN involved. Will it be KOfi's relatives? the French? The Russians? It will be someone, turns out its not "interesting" in the way we use the word here.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Whiff. As usual.

This behavior is seen all the time - especially in Middle Eastern Muslim countries where there is no general respect for the rule of law.

Repeat. And why, pray tell, is that? Either the PC answer or the non-PC answer is acceptable.

Haven't read Hobbes or Kant, aye?

To paraphrase Kant, and I'll use a somewhat older text here: you should do unto others as you would have them do. If that simple statement isn't enough, try Hobbes, if you don't behave in a civilized manner, and sink to other's level, you give up the very idea of civilization.

Do you really need some kind of explanation as to why it is bad to torture people?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Putin in October, 2002:

• Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we have not received any such information from our partners as yet. This fact has also been supported by the information sent by the CIA to the US Congress.

C'mon Ty. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Putin was commenting only on the former, not the latter.

And now, if you'll pardon me, I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
C'mon Ty. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Putin was commenting only on the former, not the latter.

And now, if you'll pardon me, I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date.

STP

[sgtclub]

NYT Brutalizes Clinton book:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/bo...rint&position=

[SlaveNoMore]

Greedy,Greedy
Haven't read Hobbes or Kant, aye?

To paraphrase Kant, and I'll use a somewhat older text here: you should do unto others as you would have them do. If that simple statement isn't enough, try Hobbes, if you don't behave in a civilized manner, and sink to other's level, you give up the very idea of civilization.

Do you really need some kind of explanation as to why it is bad to torture people?

Strike two.

Feel free to keep enlightening us with your simple-minded Philosophy 101 notes, though.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by sgtclub
NYT Brutalizes Clinton book:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/bo...rint&position=

This part at the end:

And yet the former president's account of his life, read in this post-9/11 day, feels strangely like an artifact from a distant, more innocent era.

Lies about sex and real estate, partisan rancor over "character issues" (not over weapons of mass destruction or pre-emptive war), psychobabble mea culpas, and tabloid wrangles over stained dresses all seem like pressing matters from another galaxy, far, far away.

is so true. Doesn't it seem like ages ago? My mood is so different now than it was back then. Sure I hated Clinton, but I felt safe in America and safe traveling to Europe. 9/11 changed all that.

[Dave]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Why would it destroy it, as opposed to merely poisoning further the system as it stands? Do you really want a string of tell-all movies timed to coincide with elections, purporting to reveal the policy missteps, or perhaps even personal moral errors, of the candidates?

Instead of 30 second attack ads you'll have 2 hour attack movies.

I'm really looking forward to the half-hour attack sitcoms, personally. Especially if they're sponsored by Levitra, Cialis or Viagra.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Not Me
This part at the end:



is so true. Doesn't it seem like ages ago? My mood is so different now than it was back then. Sure I hated Clinton, but I felt safe in America and safe traveling to Europe. 9/11 changed all that.

8 years of peace and prosperity are a bitch.