is mccain too old?

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lbj
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is mccain too old?

Post by lbj »

mccain has made a number of verbal blunders lately. misspeaking about sunnis and shiites, czechoslovakia, iran iraq borders to name a few. these dont seem significant to me, just slips of the tongue anyone can make. but today he showed that he does not know when, how and why the sunni awakening started by crediting the surge for its birth. this is more than a slip of the tongue. it shows a lack of knowledge about some of the most basic facts of the war in iraq. does anyone feel comfortable with him being commander in chief?
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No Way.....

Post by Joe Ribaudo »

lbj,

Hell no, I don't feel comfortable with McCain. Have to figure this country would be much better off with someone like Obama. Twenty years with a spiritual advisor who hates America. Married to a woman who thinks this country is a terrible place to grow up in and ready to tax us until we have nothing left to give. That's my guy.

I have always wondered what you folks consider a worthy cause for going to war. Should we be in Afghanistan? When is there ever enough justification to attack any other country on earth? Is there ever enough reason? Can any of you provide a list of what you would go to war over?

What cause is worth the life of a single American?

Thanks in advance,

Joe Ribaudo
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Post by lbj »

we should have been in afghanistan when the taliban destroyed the buddahs. we never should have gone into iraq. not the first time and not the second time. nothing but oil there.

we would be much safer is sadam was still in power. he is the one who kept iran in check. god i miss the pre bush days when we had a president who could read.

saudi arabia would be a good country to bomb. most of the 9/11 were saudis, none were iraqi. saudi arabia is a repressive fundamentalist islamic regime that funds terrorists.
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War Mongers.......

Post by Joe Ribaudo »

lbj,

I see. You would go to war, knowing that innocent people die in any war, over some stone Buddahs in a rock wall, but nothing that Sadam did rises quite to that piss-off level. 8O

Thank you for your response to my question.

Joe Ribaudo
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Post by lbj »

joe,

sure, by definition innocent people die in war. those are the only deaths that matter. dead soldiers dont matter. its their profession and their choice.

those buddahs were much more important than any of sadams bad actions. the buddahs were a world treasure that belonged to everyone. they were a part of humanity's past just as the pyramids in eqypt, mexico and peru, and the indian cliff dwellings in the southwest. anyone who destroys such historical pieces of human endeavor will have no problem killing anything or anyone. sadam gassed the kurds but he was not fanatical enough to destroy the gardens of babylon or the twin towers. had we attacked the taliban before they downed the buddahs the twins would be still standing.

i dont love war but i am not afraid of it either. if i go to war it will be only after there is proof that it is necessary. i sure as hell wont spill a drop of anyones blood for a barrel of oil.
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Bad Actions?

Post by Joe Ribaudo »

lbj,

"those buddahs were much more important than any of sadams bad actions"

I understand what you are saying here. My question is: Is there any limit to those "bad actions" where people and their suffering and deaths become more important than "world treasures"?

I am not sure how many barrels of oil we have realized from this war, but something tells me it has cost us a tad more than we have received.

IMHO, there were plenty of reasons for going to war against Saddam, without considering those that are strategic or economic.

So are you saying that you would go to war for those Buddahs before going to war for the following "bad actions"?:

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printa ... 2C0CA355A1}

How Many People Has Saddam Killed?

By John F. Burns
The New York Times | 1/27/2003



N the unlit blackness of an October night, it took a flashlight to pick them out: rust-colored butchers' hooks, 20 or more, each four or five feet long, aligned in rows along the ceiling of a large hangar-like building. In the grimmest fortress in Iraq's gulag, on the desert floor 20 miles west of Baghdad, this appeared to be the grimmest corner of all, the place of mass hangings that have been a documented part of life under Saddam Hussein.

At one end of the building at Abu Ghraib prison, a whipping wind gusted through open doors. At the far end, the flashlight picked out a windowed space that appeared to function as a control room. Baggy trousers of the kind worn by many Iraqi men were scattered at the edges of the concrete floor. Some were soiled, as if worn in the last, humiliating moments of a condemned man's life.

The United States is facing a new turning point in its plans to go to war to topple Mr. Hussein, with additional American troops heading for the Persian Gulf, while France and Germany lead the international opposition. But the pressure President Bush has applied already has created chances to peer into the darkest recesses of Iraqi life.

In the past two months, United Nations weapons inspections, mandated by American insistence that Mr. Hussein's pursuit of banned weapons be halted, have ranged widely across the country. But before this became the international community's only goal, Mr. Bush was also attacking Mr. Hussein as a murdering tyrant. It was this accusation that led the Iraqi leader to virtually empty his prisons on Oct. 20, giving Western reporters, admitted that day to Abu Ghraib, a first-hand glimpse of the slaughterhouse the country has become.

In the end, if an American-led invasion ousts Mr. Hussein, and especially if an attack is launched without convincing proof that Iraq is still harboring forbidden arms, history may judge that the stronger case was the one that needed no inspectors to confirm: that Saddam Hussein, in his 23 years in power, plunged this country into a bloodbath of medieval proportions, and exported some of that terror to his neighbors.

Reporters who were swept along with tens of thousands of near-hysterical Iraqis through Abu Ghraib's high steel gates were there because Mr. Hussein, stung by Mr. Bush's condemnation, had declared an amnesty for tens of thousands of prisoners, including many who had served long sentences for political crimes. Afterward, it emerged that little of long-term significance had changed that day. Within a month, Iraqis began to speak of wide-scale re-arrests, and officials were whispering that Abu Ghraib, which had held at least 20,000 prisoners, was filling up again.

Like other dictators who wrote bloody chapters in 20th-century history, Mr. Hussein was primed for violence by early childhood. Born into the murderous clan culture of a village that lived off piracy on the Tigris River, he was harshly beaten by a brutal stepfather. In 1959, at age 22, he made his start in politics as one of the gunmen who botched an attempt to assassinate Iraq's first military ruler, Abdel Karim Kassem.

Since then, Mr. Hussein's has been a tale of terror that scholars have compared to that of Stalin, whom the Iraqi leader is said to revere, even if his own brutalities have played out on a small scale. Stalin killed 20 million of his own people, historians have concluded. Even on a proportional basis, his crimes far surpass Mr. Hussein's, but figures of a million dead Iraqis, in war and through terror, may not be far from the mark, in a country of 22 million people.

Where the comparison seems closest is in the regime's mercilessly sadistic character. Iraq has its gulag of prisons, dungeons and torture chambers — some of them acknowledged, like Abu Ghraib, and as many more disguised as hotels, sports centers and other innocent-sounding places. It has its overlapping secret-police agencies, and its culture of betrayal, with family members denouncing each other, and offices and factories becoming hives of perfidy.

"Enemies of the state" are eliminated, and their spouses, adult children and even cousins are often tortured and killed along with them.

Mr. Hussein even uses Stalinist maxims, including what an Iraqi defector identified as one of the dictator's favorites: "If there is a person, then there is a problem. If there is no person, then there is no problem."

There are rituals to make the end as terrible as possible, not only for the victims but for those who survive. After seizing power in July 1979, Mr. Hussein handed weapons to surviving members of the ruling elite, then joined them in personally executing 22 comrades who had dared to oppose his ascent.

The terror is self-compounding, with the state's power reinforced by stories that relatives of the victims pale to tell — of fingernail-extracting, eye-gouging, genital-shocking and bucket-drowning. Secret police rape prisoners' wives and daughters to force confessions and denunciations. There are assassinations, in Iraq and abroad, and, ultimately, the gallows, the firing squads and the pistol shots to the head.

DOING the arithmetic is an imprecise venture. The largest number of deaths attributable to Mr. Hussein's regime resulted from the war between Iraq and Iran between 1980 and 1988, which was launched by Mr. Hussein. Iraq says its own toll was 500,000, and Iran's reckoning ranges upward of 300,000. Then there are the casualties in the wake of Iraq's 1990 occupation of Kuwait. Iraq's official toll from American bombing in that war is 100,000 — surely a gross exaggeration — but nobody contests that thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians were killed in the American campaign to oust Mr. Hussein's forces from Kuwait. In addition, 1,000 Kuwaitis died during the fighting and occupation in their country.

Casualties from Iraq's gulag are harder to estimate. Accounts collected by Western human rights groups from Iraqi émigrés and defectors have suggested that the number of those who have "disappeared" into the hands of the secret police, never to be heard from again, could be 200,000. As long as Mr. Hussein remains in power, figures like these will be uncheckable, but the huge toll is palpable nonetheless.

Just as in Stalin's Russia, the machinery of death is mostly invisible, except for the effects it works on those brushed by it — in the loss of relatives and friends, and in the universal terror that others have of falling into the abyss. If anybody wants to know what terror looks like, its face is visible every day on every street of Iraq.

"Minders," the men who watch visiting reporters day and night, are supposedly drawn from among the regime's harder men. But even they break down, hands shaking, eyes brimming, voices desperate, when reporters ask ordinary Iraqis edgy questions about Mr. Hussein.

"You have killed me, and killed my family," one minder said after a photographer for The New York Times made unauthorized photographs of an exhibition of statues of the Iraqi dictator during a November visit to Baghdad's College of Fine Arts. In recent years, the inexorable nature of Iraq's horrors have been demonstrated by new campaigns bearing the special hallmark of Mr. Hussein. In 1999, a complaint about prison overcrowding led to an instruction from the Iraqi leader for a "prison cleansing" drive. This resulted, according to human rights groups, in hundreds, and possibly thousands, of executions.

Using a satanic arithmetic, prison governors worked out how many prisoners would have to be hanged to bring the numbers down to stipulated levels, even taking into account the time remaining in the inmates' sentences. As 20 and 30 prisoners at a time were executed at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, warders trailed through cities like Baghdad, "selling" exemption from execution to shocked families, according to people in Iraq who said they had spoken to relatives of those involved. Bribes of money, furniture, cars and even property titles brought only temporary stays.

More recently, according to Iraqis who fled to Jordan and other neighboring countries, scores of women have been executed under a new twist in a "return to faith" campaign proclaimed by Mr. Hussein. Aimed at bolstering his support across the Islamic world, the campaign led early on to a ban on drinking alcohol in public. Then, some time in the last two years, it widened to include the public killing of accused prostitutes.

Often, the executions have been carried out by the Fedayeen Saddam, a paramilitary group headed by Mr. Hussein's oldest son, 38-year-old Uday. These men, masked and clad in black, make the women kneel in busy city squares, along crowded sidewalks, or in neighborhood plots, then behead them with swords. The families of some victims have claimed they were innocent of any crime save that of criticizing Mr. Hussein.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Thank you for your response,

Joe Ribaudo
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935 LIES

Post by lazarus »

Study: Bush, aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war

WASHINGTON (CNN)
-- President Bush and his top aides publicly made 935 false statements about the security risk posed by Iraq in the two years following September 11, 2001, according to a study released Tuesday by two nonprofit journalism groups.

"In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003," reads an overview of the examination, conducted by the Center for Public Integrity and its affiliated group, the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

According to the study, Bush and seven top officials -- including Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice -- made 935 false statements about Iraq during those two years.

The study was based on a searchable database compiled of primary sources, such as official government transcripts and speeches.

George W. Bush personally made 260 false statements about Iraqi wmd’s and al Qaeda, in the lead-up to the invasion.



Joe,
you know the drill.

Your roll is to deny the truth. Tell more lies to defend the transgressions of a bunch of other liars, who like yourself, also suffer from greed and blood-lust.

Don't let the truth get in your way.

Brad
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"Pissed off"?

Post by lazarus »

If we are to believe Joe based on his own statements, getting "pissed off" is a good enough reason to kill strangers in another country.

Read it and weep, folks...
he wrote it, not me. :roll:


Brad
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Clueless Jackass

Post by lazarus »

Joe,

let me explain what a clueless jackass your are...

You have allowed terrorists to determine our day of mourning... 9/11. Every year the terrorists win. They celebrate their victory on 9/11, and you even run it up the flagpole for them. Thanks!.

You have also allowed these terrorists to choose the location for our hallowed ground. (WTC). We don't even get to make our own choices. You have allowed them to make those choices for us. Thanks again!


Personally, I will not use fear as an excuse for hatred. That's Joe's terrain. LBJ was correct in stating there were no Iraqis or Afghans involved in 9/11. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi, and yet we are threatening Iran? There were no Iranians either.

Fuck Joe, and his bullshit propaganda. It doesn't take a genius to size up a warmonger like Joe. He's just an evil piece of shit.

Brad
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935 LIES

Post by lazarus »

Bush, aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush and his top aides publicly made 935 false statements about the security risk posed by Iraq in the two years following September 11, 2001, according to a study released Tuesday.

"In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003," reads an overview of the examination, conducted by the Center for Public Integrity and its affiliated group, the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

According to the study, Bush and seven top officials -- including Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice -- made 935 false statements about Iraq during those two years.

The study was based on a searchable database compiled of primary sources, such as official government transcripts and speeches.

George W. Bush personally made 260 false statements about Iraqi wmd’s and al Qaeda, in the lead-up to the invasion.


Joe,
care to go for #936?


Bring it on!
Brad
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Post by lbj »

joe

its more important to go to war for the buddahs because anyone who will destroy a world treasure will destroy anyone that does not bear homage to their creed.

as to where i would go to war to help the suffering dafur comes to mind. greater suffering there than in sadams iraq but i dont see any us troops heading to sudan. saudi arabia would be another good place to go to war. look at what they do to their women. when a woman is raped she is the criminal and she is the one punished. they are fond of honor killing also. what kind of a man murders his daughter because she dares to disagree with him?? the scum deserves to die. china is another good place to bomb. no freedom there and plenty of slave labor to put american workers out of good paying jobs into walmart and macdonalds.

zimbabwe is another place that could use our troops to bring freedom to the people.

talking about fighting for freedom, we invaded iraq the first time to bring freedom to kuwait. guess what. we won the war that time but there is still no freedom in kuwait.

america did not make a cent from iraqi oil but exxon and haliburton sure did.

how come the right is so blind to the damage bush done to america? if clinton done to us what bush did, the right wingers would be lynching him by his balls.
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How Much?

Post by Joe Ribaudo »

lbj,

You are really starting to sound like a "war monger".

How much has Haliburton made from Iraqi oil? Did they just start making money during George Bushe's Presidency?

Have to go along with you about your comparison of President Bush, to President Clinton. Clinton never made any false statements, that's for sure. Well......there was that pill factory.

Joe Ribaudo
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Remember when "timetable" was a dirty word for Rep

Post by lazarus »

Remember when "timetable" was a dirty word for Republicans?

In a Friday interview, John McCain, R-Ariz., called 16 months "a pretty good timetable" for withdrawal from Iraq.

Back in January of this year, John McCain pilloried Mitt Romney for encouraging President Bush in April 2007 to develop a private "series of timetables and milestones" for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

"Timetables was the buzzword for those that wanted to get out," McCain scolded Romney at a Jan. 30 debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif.
How the (time)tables have turned.

During a Friday interview with CNN, McCain called a 16-month withdrawal from Iraq "a pretty good timetable."

That answer came when McCain was asked by Wolf Blitzer about the Iraqi prime minister's recent description of a 16-month timetable as "the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

Barack Obama, of course, has long favored a 16-month timetable for withdrawal.
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Joe the Joke

Post by lazarus »

lbj

have you noticed how quickly Joe attacked you?

That's all Joe knows how to do. He is good for nothing else. He is a waste of life.


Brad
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Obama

Post by lazarus »

European residents certainly evince a strong sentiment in favor of Obama winning the U.S. presidency -- much higher than the pro-Obama sentiment here at home. Gallup polling shows that residents of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom by very large margins would rather see Obama win instead of McCain.


McCain has repeatedly made a fool of himself lately...
just the kind of clueless warmonger Joe wants for president.

Joe,
how old were you when your mind started failing?


Brad
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Joe the Joke (Joe Bravado)

Post by lazarus »

First National Bank, the state's largest locally based bank and a specialist in lower-quality mortgages, was closed by regulators Friday, a victim of problem loans and the lingering real-estate slump.

The bank failure will cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s insurance fund an estimated $862 million.


Joe,
thanks for fucking up our country, scumbag!

You and Bush are one of a kind...
blood brothers, so to speak.


Brad
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The Price of War

Post by lazarus »

Joe,

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, White House budget director Mitch Daniels estimated the war would cost $50 billion to $60 billion.

A new report by the Congressional Research Service estimates the U.S. has spent $648 billion so far, and the war is far from over.

Is it normal for republicans like yourself to be this far removed from reality?

Go ahead…
say it isn’t so.


Brad
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Democratic Values--an E-mail from a Soldier in the Zone

Post by Somehiker »

MY MEETING (ALMOST) WITH OBAMA

I had a first hand view of Barrack Obama's "fact finding" mission, when he passed through this base.

While I can't name it, it's one of the largest air bases in the region, with up to 8000 troops (depending on influxes and transients in mobilization/demobilization status), mostly Airmen and Soldiers, but some Marines, Sailors, Koreans, Japanese, Aussies, Brits, US Civil Service, contractors including KBR, Blackwater and Halliburton, among others in the news. The overwhelming majority of all of these are professional, courteous and disciplined. Problems are rare.

Casualties are also rare. This base has a large hospital for evacuation—twenty plus beds. I have yet to see a casualty in one, though I am told there are about three evacuations a week through this region, of which two on average are things like sports injuries, vehicle accidents or duty related falls and such. You can tell from the news that the war is going well. The ghouls are now focusing on Afghanistan, since there is no blood to type with here.

This oped is of course subjective and limited, but I will try to present the facts as I saw them. I wasn't able to see much, which makes a point all by itself.

When his plane arrived (also containing Senators Reed and Hagel, but the news has hardly mentioned them), there was a "ramp freeze." This means if you are on the flight line, and not directly involved with the event in question, you stay where you are and don't move. For a combat flight arriving or departing, this takes about ten minutes, and involves the active runway and crossing taxiways only. For Obama's flight, this took 90 minutes, during which time a variety of military missions came grinding to a halt. Obviously, this visit was important, right?

95% of base wanted nothing to do with him. I have met three troops who support him, and literally hundreds who regard him as a buffoon, a charlatan, a hindrance to their mission or a flat out enemy of progress. Even when the rumors were publicly admitted, almost no one left their duty sections to try to see him, unless they were officers whose presence was officially required.

Mister Obama's motorcade drove up from the flight line and entered the dining hall toward the end of lunch time. Diners were chased out and told to make other arrangements for food, in the middle of the duty day.

Now, there are close to 8000 troops on the base and its nearby satellites. No one came up from the Army side (except perhaps a few ranking officers). The airbase resumed operation, once he cleared the flightline, as if nothing had happened. The dining hall holds about 300 people and was not full. The troops did not want to meet him and the feeling was apparently mutual. In attendance, besides the Official Entourage, were the base's senior officers, some support personnel, and a very few carefully vetted supporters who'd made special arrangements. No photos were allowed. No question and answer with the troops. No real acknowledgment that the troops existed.

Obama left around 1530, during the Muslim Call to Prayer, so he's not a practicing Muslim. He was in a convoy guarded by (so I'm told) both State Department and Secret Service Personnel.

Less than three hours…

Within 48 hours he was in Afghanistan. It takes most troops longer than that to in-process and get cleared on safety, threats, policies and such. Yet he somehow made a strategic summary by not talking to anyone and not seeing anything.

Twenty-four hours after that, he was in Kuwait, back here, and then home, so fast we didn't even know he arrived the second time at this base.

I can't imagine any officer of the few he met told him anything other than what they tell the troops, and what their own leadership at the Pentagon tell them—we're winning. Our troops are stomping the guts out of the insurgency. The surge worked and is working. If the insurgents have to divert to Afghanistan, it means they can't fight in Iraq anymore. We should not change the rules and retreat with the enemy on the ropes as we did in Vietnam. We should finish kicking their teeth in. The Iraqi government now controls 10 of 18 provinces, with US assistance in the rest. Let us win the war. 90% of the troops I know, even those opposed to the war, say that is the way to win. Victory comes from winning, not from "change." In fact, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is on record as opposing Obama's strategic theory.

Since he obviously knew in advance that's what they'd tell him, and since he didn't care to talk to the troops (we're told by the Left that the troops are horrified, shocked, forced to commit atrocities with tears in their eyes, distraught, burned out, fed up with losing, etc) and find out how they feel, and was barely in country long enough to need a shower and a change of clothes, we can only call this for what it is.

A disgraceful PR stunt, using the troops as a platform for his ego and campaign.

In comparison, I've seen four star generals and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on this base. They each held an all ranks call, met with and briefed the personnel, and took questions on every subject from tour length to uniform design to rules of engagement to weapon choice to long term policy, from the newest airmen to the senior NCO with TEN 120-180 day tours since Sep 11. It's very clear they want to know what the troops think, and to keep them informed of events. It's equally clear mister Obama does not.

From here we must move to my op part of the oped.

Obama clearly doesn't care about the troops, doesn't care about America, doesn't care about anything except hearing his own voice and the chance to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue…From where he'll bring us the proven Democratic wartime leadership of Bosnia and the Balkans (US forces still there), Somalia (US forces prevailed despite being ill equipped by executive order, and taking heavy casualties), Haiti (what were we doing there again?), Desert One (oops?), Vietnam (where we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory), Korea (still there), WWI, and the fluke success of WWII won by such wonderful liberal notions as concentration camps for Japanese Americans, nukes, FBI investigations of waitresses who dated soldiers in case they were "morally corrupt" and the (valid) occupation of and continued presence in Italy, Japan and Germany for 60 years, which they are conveniently pretending won't happen with Iraq.

That's not "change." That's "failure we can do without."


The troops fighting on the front lines are furious with him. They aren't there for a "photo op", they are there serving a mission. Our author writes: Victory comes from winning, not from "change." How very true. Victory is our to be had if we just hold fast to our convictions and plans. If we stay the course in Iraq and do a surge in Afghanistan we will win in the end. Obama's way is the way of Code Pink and other traitorous groups. It is the way of defeat and humiliation of our troops. It spits on the graves of those brave men and women who have died for this nation in those far away places. It dishonors the men and women who have served and continue to serve this nation. As this author so plainly writes:

That's not "change." That's "failure we can do without."
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Post by Somehiker »

Update to previous post:
The officer who wrote this piece has since been disciplined for making public political statements.Army officials claim that certain claims made by the officer were not factual---eg.Obama played basketball in Kuwait,not Iraq as the letter claimed,and that the secrecy of the trip explained the absence of welcoming troops....SH.
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Post by pippinwhitepaws »

people who believe propaganda find it easy to denounce the truth.

three days after 9-11 bush made his only true statement at ground zero....'we are not going to tell you the truth..'
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Post by lbj »

joe, i am a war monger when it comes to perpetrators of genocide. i choose my wars carefully and i dont rely on any political leader to choose my wars for me.

from what i can see todays american conservatives have their leaders choose the wars and consider it unpatriotic, even treasonous to questions their leaders. with that attitude the us would still be a british colony.

re your clinton - bush lie comment i dont know what you mean.

laz, i dont feel joe is attacking me. maybe i am just thick skinned. i think he is attacking what he sees as my liberal point of view. but i am a nihilist not a liberal. to me american liberals are centrist conservatives. there are no liberal politicians in the us. perhaps the closest to a liberal is kucinich.
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lbj

Post by lazarus »

lbj
strong post.

What's ironic, is that I have never thought of myself as a liberal either. Until recently I never voted party... only people and issues. I never gave a damn which party supported which bill.

However, I agree with your assessment of the manner in which republicans are willing to lock step with their leaders, regardless of issue or ethics. Honestly, I refused to vote for Al Gore because I felt his wife violated the constitution with the PMRC. I refused to support Hillary because she gave Bush war powers without doing the research. I did mine, and I knew the truth. She had no excuse.

Unfortunately, I have determined that I cannot vote for any republican for the very reason you articulated. The GOP has become quite fascist and dangerously self serving. It's not about America... it's about a republican stronghold. It should never be about the party. Bush has huge nerve calling himself a uniter. Democrats were barred from rallies, and federal jobs were purged of democrats. That is not "for the people".

Bush has stated that we are either with him or with the terrorists. This is the essence of propaganda. It's the equivalent of insisting we are either Celtics fans or Lakers fans. I'm neither.

'Terrorist' is just a word representing an idea. I don't buy into the 'war against terror' any more than I would buy into a war against angst. It's only a catch phrase. It's like fighting the 'cold war' against the 'commies'.
It's idiotic. Communism is not intrinsically evil. However, just like any union, business, or government, communism is easily exploitable. Likewise, not every raghead in the middle East is some crazed 'terrorist'. Indeed, there are killers in Iraq who are not so called 'terrorists. They're just killers.

By the same token, some just want the unwelcome interlopers to get out. They can't be blamed for defending themselves against nuts with guns. Again, this does not qualify them as terrorists... just people who want their lives back.

Following WW2, Japanese interrogators were imprisoned for water-boarding US captives. This was done at the insistence of the US. Now, only a half century later, we have decided it's okay after all.

Joe forgets both sides of any conflict think they are the good guys. Obviously, those soldiers who murdered Jews were following orders. As Joe stated, thank God there are people willing to kill the bad guys. Hitler despised the Jews. He believed they were the bad guys.

It's never as neat and clean as the turn of a phrase. It's downright stupid to substitute platitudes for fact. Example: I don't know how many times I've heard people say "the very definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results". I call that 'practice'. Any musician, artist or you name it, can tell you that it takes repetition to get it right. You cannot rely on stupid, half wit platitudes to get the job done. You don't dare the enemy to "bring it on".

This is where the Bush administration failed on a grand scale. They have caused enormous damage the the fabric of this country. We are hanging by a thread. Of course, Bush and his gang should be held accountable. If they have committed no crimes, you would think they would desire to clear their names sooner rather than later. Declaring every memo and every shoe nail a matter of national security is absurd.

I have not forgotten how Bush supporters berated anyone and everyone who questioned the invasion of Iraq. I have not forgotten how the Dixie Chicks were abused. I was abused too. I had one guy accuse me of secretly being a terrorist and and a satanist because I insisted all was not as we were being told. I had one lady tell me Bush was right and Christ was wrong... whatever it took to justify their blood-lust.

In closing, I am reminded of proverbs...

"Pride cometh before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall".

We let our pride get the best of our judgment. It was a costly mistake.



Brad
lazarus
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Old and in the way

Post by lazarus »

As for John McCain and the age issue, I can't really say with any certainty, as I have never been that old. We should be asking someone with experience on the subject, like Joe, for instance.

Joe,
how old were you when your mind first began to fail?

Speaking of Joe...
he just hasn't been on target much lately. He seems hopelessly adrift. He reminds me of some old, near sighted rodeo clown who is no longer able to distinguish between the bronco and the bull. He jumps out of his little barrel just long enough to shout and wave his arms about before returning to the relative security of his barrel. Like any rodeo clown, he really isn't good for anything other than distraction and a few laughs. Good news, Joe...
you've reached the bottom of the barrel.


Brad
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Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2004 7:14 am

US Soldiers Murder Innocent Civilians

Post by lazarus »

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Investigators have determined three Iraqi civilians were unarmed and attacking no one when U.S. soldiers fatally shot them in western Baghdad last month, the U.S. military said Sunday.

U.S. military officials initially said at least one of the three Iraqis, who were riding in a car approaching the soldiers, started shooting, and that the soldiers returned fire. The military also initially said a weapon was later found in the car, and bullet holes were found in two of the soldiers' humvees.

But an investigation found the soldiers shot and killed three "law abiding citizens of Iraq," and that no weapon was found in the vehicle, a military release stated.


Joe wants you to believe this sort of conduct relates only to a few bad apples. Of course, one bad apple spoils the whole bunch, and that is precisely what has occurred, whether Joe likes it or not.


Brad
lbj
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Post by lbj »

john gave in interview to a miami based radio station union radio. i cant see any explanation for his answers except mental deterioration due to age or a medical condition. not too long ago he would never have given such nonsensical answers to such a simple question. in a way i truly feel sorry for him. its never pleasant to see anyone loosing his mind. can anyone give a different explanation for johns apparent disassociation with reality.

Here is the transcript of the radio interview:

QUESTION: Senator, finally, let's talk about Spain. If you're elected president, would you be willing to invite President Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero to the White House to meet with you?

MCCAIN: I would be willing meet, uh, with those leaders who our friends [sic] and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion, and by the way, President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very very tough fight against the drug cartels. I'm glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan. I intend to move forward with relations, and invite as many of them as I can, those leaders, to the White House.

QUESTION: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government, to the president itself?

MCCAIN: I don't, you know, honestly I have to look at relations and the situations and the priorities, but I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America.

QUESTION: So you have to wait and see if he's willing to meet with you, or you'll be able to do it in the White House?

MCCAIN: Well again I don't, all I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us, and standing up to those who are not, and that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America, and the entire region.

QUESTION: Okay... what about Europe I'm talking about the President of Spain?

MCCAIN: What about me what?

QUESTION: Okay... are you willing to meet with him if you are elected president?

MCCAIN: I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom, and I will stand up to those that do not.
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