True, neither you nor I can see the future from here/now. But the results thus far are not looking so good. The last three years have had twice as many terrorist attacks worldwide as the preceeding three years to that (ie 0-3 years Bush/Iraq policy 2X attacks vs 4-6 years Clinton era bomb/contain/defang/debilitate). Muslims worldwide have a much more angry view of the US post-Iraq invasion. I don’t give a rat’s behind about what the Arab street thinks, but I do care if they are so pissed off that they collectively fly themselves into our buildngs and cities, I hope you do to. And want to do something constructive about it. Our current policy in the middle east is a mess.

In calling Democrats Dimocrats, you’re prestating your bias, which doesn’t lead me to believe that you’re at all impartial, and (IMO) it ultimately hurts your argument. Further, when you state that you are a staunch conservative Rebublican, it make me question your bias even further. In being ’staunch’, it shows that you don’t question the ideals which you have adopted. Why wouldn’t you question these ideals? Party lines change with the times (for example, the Republican party was more akin to the modern Libertarian party 30-40 years ago). Perhaps you should seriously consider what your political priorities are. Maybe you’ll find a party that you actually like better.

I don’t deny that Democrat regularly push their agenda using hate, fear mongering, conspiracy theories, bashing, and smearing. However, if you look closely at the Republican party, this is standard faire for them as well. It is a telling sign of how politics in the United States works. If you are as against these policies as you claim, perhaps you aren’t as a staunch Republican as you thought you were.

Oh, and whether or not you agreed with Kerry’s plan, it was freely avalible to anyone on his website all along. Blackmail? That sounds like conspiracy to me, no?

Enkidu,

In all fairness (while American still sounds like a total jackass), IMO judging Bush’s foreign policy as a failure it totally premature. Since Iraq was a long-term bigger-picture kind of thing, we won’t know for 15 years or so. That was the whole point — that ‘planting the seed of democracy’ would stabalize the entire region and allow us to trade safely and reliably. (Yeah, the WMD thing was bullshit, but read the neocon creedo…they wanted to invade Iraq and turn them into a democratic poster boy). I think that the Iraq thing may actually work (and I hope it does — for the many lives at stake now, and for the many lives already lost). For me, the real question is whether or not the ends justify the means. And in my opinion, they don’t.

-Ethan

and did you read anything at all that I wrote?

every single one of TeacherVet’s “we found teh WMDzzz!!!” was balderdash, horsehockey, pigspit, bullshit, or as we reality based carbon life forms sometimes have the balls to put it: lies.

You have added nothing to the debate, nothing but your hate and belief in a failed president. A failed foriegn policy. A failed economic policy (unless u are über rich of course).

“66% of Americans think president bush is doing a poor job handling the war in Iraq, while the other 34% think that adam and eve rode dinosaurs to church.”

I would hazard to say you are in the lower few percentile of that 34…

I am simply amazed how you liberals continually and constantly defend Saddam Hussein. It is amazing to me… mind-boggling.

It is amazing that the entire foundation of the Dimocrat party is based on hate, fear mongering, conspiracy theories, bashing, and smearing. So many haters and attacks, yet no solutions to offer. NONE. Why not contribute to making the country better instead of attacking..

Example: John Kerry “I do have a plan for our future in Iraq. Elect me President and then I will tell you what it is…” (I mean c’mon.. what a crock of shit… blackmailing the American public? what a pathetic loser - literally)

The Dimocrat party is in for rough times and are totally disconnected from the majority of the American public. No solutions whatsover, nothing to contribute to improving anything. You are just so focused on hate and bringing down the current administration, you have lost sight of the future.

In my opinion, I want to thank you. Keep doing what you are doing. You are doing great. Hats off to Michael Moore, Barabara Streisand, Al Sharpton, The Dixie Chicks, Hollywood and the other freaks. You have helped us win the election in my opinion. Barbara Boxer and the other loony-left-wing nutjobs.. you’re doing great! Keep it up.

I honestly feel sorry for the true Dems that really care about the country instead of hollywood and lunacy as these nutjobs do. Unfortunately, it is what it is..

Keep up the good work!! As a staunch Conservative Republican I can honestly say that I pray each night that Hillary Clinton is chosen to run for president in ‘08… it will be another guaranteed win for us while the Dims will stand mouth ajar, scratching their heads on that cold November morn wondering what went wrong.

Thanks again Libbys!!! Better enjoy your scandals while you can, get your laughs in now, live it up while you can… Cause in Nov’08 its going to be just like last election… boo-hoo

suckers…

point the first:
1.77 tons may not be all that much? I have seen numbers as high as 55,000 tons of crap we hauled out of Libya (credit due, 1 pt for all American POTUSs). Probably mostly reactor bits, lots of low level contaminated dross, but surely tons of eUr… job well done for getting them to cough it all up.

point the second:
http://www.boozman.house.gov/UploadedFiles/IRAQ%20-%20Weapons%20Threat,%20Compliance,%20Sanctions,%20and%20U.S.%20Policy.pdf

10 minutes of google searching does NOT make me an expert, but it sure seems like when I pull a US government doc (no authentication, so could be an extremely elaborate hoax? not) which clearly states that Iraq had multiple nuke programs before GW1 (and probably some they tried to get away with after), that as of Jan 2002 “As they had for the past three years, IAEA inspectors verified that several tons of uranium remained sealed” blah blah blah. (page CRS-5 not quite half way down)

So let me get this straight… we went to war to remove 2 tons of kinda somewhat enriched uranium that we sorta already had under IAEA seal. And knew where it was. Knew it wasn’t being made into a bomb. Knew we could take it out of there for any reason. Knew.

Here is what I know: that list of stuff Saddam and his ilk seem to desire so much makes me soil my armor. So… how best to wipe out the possibility of making a bad situation worse? Recklessly invade? No. If our case was so strong, we should have patiently built a real coalition of the neighboring countries and the rest of the world (see GW1). Unseating a tyrant is good. How we did it was bad imho. Do you really think we are defeating bin Laden and his craziness by invading Iraq? Tis a bold move to change the balance of power in the Middle East. We just shifted it more toward Iran (who IS trying to make a nuke, and IS trying to destroy US and Israel, and IS working with elements of al-Quieda). HFS. I wonder how Democratic (ooops, I mean Republican!) reforms are going in Saudia Arabia and Pakistan? Thank goodness those folks love us or we’d be in quite the pickle!

A fine mess you’ve gotten us in George.

Hey it’s Monday. But I thought I should re-correct myslef as it seems points can be rebuffed or ignored for a spelling/grammatical error.

I think those 34% are the same people who buy crusty old grilled cheeses that have mold stains that resemble the Virgin Mary.

I don’t see any refuting from the right, other than baseless allegations.

So, when is this bastard going to be impeached? What is his approval rating at? The last time I saw it was something like 34% Strongly Disspapprove of his performance. Oh, if only this was a year ago.

If there ever was a time - or more reasons - it is now!

treehugger and ethanp laid into TV with much more fiery rhetoric than I ever levelled against your BS. TV has remained on the whole polite and batted back any spurious or heated ‘profiling’ of stereotypes with admirable wit, wisdom and patience. Sure he is full of bull on the “we found teh WMDz!!!” thing, but he IS trying to communicate. You? not so much…

A pean to Wang Weilin is a call to common decency. To the brotherhood of all man. To courage. To real heroes instead of stunts in flightsuits (I could put it more crudely, but don’t want to bruise your delicate hot-house-flower-like sensibilities, goodness me o my no).

When I use the words your Great Patriot (Darth Cheney), please note that its just a direct quote from the floor of the US Senate. ;-)

Having said that, I’m still going to have you give your presentation a “C.” You’ve done good research, and you make several good points, but you marginalize yourself by descending too far into unseemly hyperbole that casts the attention away from your arguments. No, I haven’t addressed your WMD debunking, but you’ve made it too easy for me not to by miring your good points in a morass of foolish generalizations that becomes deeper the more agitated you become. You’ve made it too hard to see the merit of your argument through the smoke of your firey rhetoric and aided and abetted me in turning what had been a serious debate into a silly argument over which political party is the most genocidal. Right wing bullshit merchants do this to people on the radio all day and that, JBC, is the danger of succumbing to the heat of the moment.

You believe we have found WMDs eh? Well, every single point made by TV that I have researched thus far has been bullshit. The 1.77 tons of eUr are good to take out of circulation. Score a point there, but take half a point for it not being a WMD. Not in a weapons format. Not wrapped around dirty bombs. And I haven’t dug any deeper on that point thus far.

Where is all that giga-death that u folks have been blathering about for all these years? A 1 minute google-check of the next item in TV’s list is also BS, the 80 tons of missing mustard agent. Out of 3080 tons they are missing 80 tons from GW1. We haven’t found this stuff… so how in the world can you say this is evidence that we found WMDs? More belief, less fact mmmmmm vote R in ‘06 and get more of the same!

You haven’t addressed any of the WMD debunking thus far and seem to take special pleasure in making stupid remarks about me, my family and friends. Go fuck yourself leftasshole.

And yeah, maybe you could seize control of the short bus that takes you to and fro and run over some lie-bral scum. You seem fully capable of that kind of hate. Go back to reading your leftbehind fantasy series and leave reality to those who can cope with it.

How many “right-wingers” do you know, and where in the world did you meet them? I was a Republican for most of my adult life and, as much as I dislike the current direction of the party, I don’t know that I have met any genocidal racists at the party functions I went to. Do you meet these people at some sort of AA or therapy meeting? (I don’t mean to pry, but the issues with your father raise a red flag.) Do you attend a lot of extreme metal concerts or gun shows? Do you sell blood often? Would you describe your community, or your father’s, as a “compound?” Genocidal racists seem to be a fairly marginalized group nowadays, and I would assume that most of us would have go well out of our way to meet as many of them as you seem to encounter on what seems to be a regular basis.

As far as the tank thing goes, I can’t speak for TV or Cowboy, but I wouldn’t be much of a threat in a tank because I can’t even drive a stick and, while I don’t know enough about armored vehicles to say with any certainty, I’m pretty sure they don’t come with automatic transmission standard. After reading some of what you’ve written here, I certainly hope that you can’t drive a stick either - or that you at least never get ahold of a tank. I might be crossing the street with some groceries when the big red “R” on my forehead starts flashing.

It isn’t paranoia that nearly every right winger I know is for genocide…
that even my Father is a Republican racist…
or that you are full of shit…

yeah, my wrap up on the Chinese tank guy as an exemplar of human courage and integrity sure was full of hate. I’ll tell you something I hadn’t thought of when reading that article on Wang Weilin: there were indeed TWO heroes in that picture. Wang and the driver of that lead tank. He refused to run over his countryman. I have the saddest feeling that if leftbehind or TV or cowboy or just about any right winger I know would have been driving that tank and it would have been Chicago or Kansas City, you would have gleefully run over that liberal scum and laughed.

- I haven’t googled the 1.77 m tons of enriched uranium (yellow cake?)
was it declared? was it medical waste? cast off from their research reactors? when was it produced? the article specifically says it was not in a weapons feasible (fissible?) format. That is from the BBC. I think we can call that one a fact. Not factually WMD except in your fevered nightmares.
- so where are those war heads?
- 1500 gallons of chemicals AFTER we invaded
- I count one mustard gas projectile, also not used as a WMD
- so where are those 80 tons of mustard gas? on NYC hot dogs?
- our gov lies to us. So now we in the business of punishing liars in other countries? wow… get yer gun oiled up TV, cuz u gots lots o killin to do

As to being satisfied that there aren’t any WMDs you are completely wrong. I wish we would have found the tons of A, the gigaliters of B, the nukular C, but we haven’t. Basically all you have is a couple old artillery shells from GW1 and 1.77 tons of enriched uranium. I’ll be digging in a bit deeper to find out where that EU came from (maybe spend what - another ten minutes googling the answers? - I doubt you have done much more than reguritate the freeper pablum that keeps you whingers in your torpid state of un-belief in reality).

Basically you have spewed a bunch of half-truths and lies. Expecting that no one would actually check any of your bullshit. Well sir, I did check and you were wrong on every single item I have checked so far (haven’t finished with the list as the kids wanted to take Mom out to Crapplebees for her birthday).

But to get back to first principles, lets say its post-9/11 and Saddam is still in power. We suspect that he has some WMDs left over or some stuff he might be working on double super duper top secret background (just like Karl!). So lets say he DOES have these things in the quantities we feared. So how do we proceed on the best course to disarm this thug? We ratcheted up the inspections to be any time any place any where. We found nothing. With the best leads from defectors, CIA millions (ROCKSTAR bling didn’t buy jack except this stupid fookin war) and international intelligence agencies. If he really had all this crap we should have FOUND some of it. We haven’t. And instead of patiently building a true multinational coalition we go in with the Brits and a handful of other nations. And how many democratic Arab regimes? Errr none. In GW1 even the Iranians kept their noses out of it and nearly every Arab/Muslim country in the world supported us. Except the PLO. So instead of using the enormous feeling of solidarity with America after 9/11, cowboy george has to gitiyup and get it done. But only half-assed. We are breeding way more hatred in Iraq than we are building freedom. After all the hundreds of billions spent, after 2000+ men and women of the USA lie dead and about 10x wounded, after tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead and perhaps 10x more wounded (I know they sure love their new freedom [from legs]), is it really worth it? No. After 9/11 we could have removed Saddam with a well aimed fart and some diplomacy.

You and your cabal of half-truth neo-con chest thumping, flag draping, bloody shirt waving fucktards are making my children’s future more dangerous. To quote your hero Darth Cheney “go fuck yourself!”

so where are these gigatons of death?
they seem to have slipped your iron grip
from powell’s speech:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html
this link is from whitehouse.gov (I can see how you might question its veracity)
or
if you care to peruse a debunking of the powell song and dance please read all of this:
http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1971092

“Iraq declared 8,500 liters of anthrax, but UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters.

Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents. If we consider just one category of missing weaponry–6,500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq war–UNMOVIC says the amount of chemical agent in them would be in the order of 1,000 tons. These quantities of chemical weapons are now unaccounted for.

Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.

Iraq’s record on chemical weapons is replete with lies. It took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent, VX. A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons.”

in summation, where IS all this stuff???

“Heat of the Moment” - not just a hit for the band, Asia.

My reading of your cut/paste news clip reveals several examples that do, indeed, bolster my point that Saddam continued to shelter various weapons of mass destruction. Hans Blix describes rockets that are “designed to carry chemical weapons”…more turn up later…all were destroyed…all of what? Stuff that was supposedly destroyed in 1991? Charles Duelfer is still not willing to avow that there are no more “still-concealed” stockpiles. Duelfer mentions “former experts in the WMD program - an acknowledgement of the existence of such a program. Several points have not been “shredded”:

- 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium.
- “Harmless” warheads, supposedly destroyed during 7 years of UN inspections, buried to avoid detection. Why was it necessary to bury them?
- 1,500 gallons of chemical agents.
- David Kay’s mustard gas projectiles.
- 80 tons of mustard gas unaccounted for.
- “Not a lie if you’re ordered to lie.” Ordered to lied about what…nothing?

There are still lots of unanswered questions about Saddam’s WMD program. The UN inspection teams couldn’t find everything in many years of searching, and our guys certainly haven’t searched the entire country while dodging bullets, both in Iraq and at home, for 2 1/2 years. You folks are all satisfied, convinced that nothing else is buried in a vast desert, but I’m still doubtful. Saddam had a long history of deception, denial, and hiding stuff - including himself.

Political registration of klan members? I don’t know - but you might try asking Robert Byrd. He and almost all of the guys who opposed the civil rights movement in past decades were what, Republicans?

give me a break
your examples have been a joke thus far

I’ll debunk or give you credit for any reality that you might glance upon (since your orbit seems a bit to the right of Pluto). So far we have 1.77 tons of enriched uranium that I haven’t completely debunked… every other point is hogwash.

Since u bring up the klan, I wonder if they register as Rs or Ds, hmmmmm. Maybe they checked “nuts” instead. Rioters should simmer down. Doesn’t do much for your cause.

I have a pic on the side of my second mac’s CRT of that guy from Tienamen Sq who stopped a column of tanks while clutching not a molotov, but his groceries. On that pic I lettered the word COURAGE.

Now THAT is a hero.

I wish I knew his name (here google, here boy, just one more! come on!)
gooood boy!
http://www.answers.com/topic/tank-man

Wang Weilin, I salute you every single day.

enkidu, the entire Pincus article, after the introductory phrase, seems to bolster my point. Saddam illegally manipulated and frustrated the UN inspections to such a degree that his efforts only served to confirm suspicions that he was hiding something.

It’s funny that the entire premise of the Poles was debunked by the very people who are constantly charged with lying by the anti-Bush crowd, the Coalition Press Information Center, an arm of “Bush’s War” machine. In fact, every time a WMD find is debunked, it is done by folks who represent the Bush administration. How do you find it possible to believe pathological liars? (end sarc)

Reading the Bush speech, I can’t find where he said “the war was about oil.” That’s a neat spin on his words, though. The article paraphrases his comments: “protection of the country’s vast oil fields, which he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists.” After an appetite-whetting headline, that’s the only mention of oil in the entire rambling, disjointed article. The terrorist extremists would love to destroy the oil fields–and Iraq’s infrastructure–not control them. Operation Iraqi Freedom–protection of their primary export product is primary, but it was certainly not given as a reason for the war.

Having just watched news coverage of violent riots by hooded patriots in Argentina….it could have been an early 20th-century Klan march. It must warm the hearts of the “peaceful” crowd, knowing that their goals are identical. A proud moment in world history.

only problem?
lets say u r mr. hadji haj, international terrorist (nutty as a 12lb fruitcake)
you have a few of these things on hand (hypothetically)
do you:

A) use it in a roadside bomb (chance of massive casualties, near zero)
B) lob it into the green zone (hello CNN!)

Use your noodle folks, if mr haj KNEW he had a bona fide bad ass WMD, he would have used it as such! Instead the results were so poor that the two guys from the ordinance team were sickened, but not killed (thank goodness/god/take your pick).

The Iraqi WMD declaration stated they didn’t know where every single shell might be (since it seemed they mixed em in with regular HE artillery rounds [now THATS insane]). Some were misplaced - I bet some were hidden too. Are you sure we have em all?

Same goes for your mustard gas attack - that shell wasn’t known to be a WMD by the nasty creeps who would have loved nothing more than to use it against us (as a WMD).

Now these shaped charge “IEDs” from Iran (mb), thats some serious sh!t for our men and women over there. But we stuck our noses into it, lets hope we can pull back and still have a face.