Clinton Aides said they warned Bush about 9/11 in 2000

[mabus]

Why didn't they tell the rest of the United States about this when Bush supposedly ignored them? I'm amazed how many people "knew" bin Laden would attack us BEFORE September 11, and decided not to say a damn thing....

..............................
Clinton Aides Plan to Tell Panel of Warning Bush Team on Qaeda
By PHILIP SHENON

Published: March 20, 2004

WASHINGTON, March 19 — Senior Clinton administration officials called to testify next week before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks say they are prepared to detail how they repeatedly warned their Bush administration counterparts in late 2000 that Al Qaeda posed the worst security threat facing the nation — and how the new administration was slow to act.

They said the warnings were delivered in urgent post-election intelligence briefings in December 2000 and January 2001 for Condoleezza Rice, who became Mr. Bush's national security adviser; Stephen Hadley, now Ms. Rice's deputy; and Philip D. Zelikow, a member of the Bush transition team, among others.

One official scheduled to testify, Richard A. Clarke, who was President Bill Clinton's counterterrorism coordinator, said in an interview that the warning about the Qaeda threat could not have been made more bluntly to the incoming Bush officials in intelligence briefings that he led.

At the time of the briefings, there was extensive evidence tying Al Qaeda to the bombing in Yemen two months earlier of an American warship, the Cole, in which 17 sailors were killed.

"It was very explicit," Mr. Clarke said of the warning given to the Bush administration officials. "Rice was briefed, and Hadley was briefed, and Zelikow sat in." Mr. Clarke served as Mr. Bush's counterterrorism chief in the early months of the administration, but after Sept. 11 was given a more limited portfolio as the president's cyberterrorism adviser.

The sworn testimony from the high-ranking Clinton administration officials — including Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and Samuel R. Berger, Mr. Clinton's national security adviser — is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

They are expected to testify along with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who will answer for the Bush administration, as well as George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence in both administrations.

While Clinton officials have offered similar accounts in the past, a new public review of how they warned Mr. Bush's aides about the need to deal quickly with the Qaeda threat could prove awkward to the White House, especially in the midst of a presidential campaign. But given the witnesses' prominence in the Clinton administration, supporters of Mr. Bush may see political motives in the testimony of some of them.

The testimony could also prove uncomfortable for the commission, since Mr. Zelikow is now the executive director of the bipartisan panel. And the Clinton administration officials can expect to come under tough questioning about their own performance in office and why they did not do more to respond to the terrorist threat in the late 1990's.

The White House does not dispute that intelligence briefings about the Qaeda threat occurred during the transition, and the commission has received extensive notes and other documentation from the White House and Clinton administration officials about what was discussed.

What is at issue, Clinton administration officials say, is whether their Bush administration counterparts acted on the warnings, and how quickly. The Clinton administration witnesses say they will offer details of the policy recommendations they made to the incoming Bush aides, but they would not discuss those details before the hearing.

"Until 9/11, counterterrorism was a very secondary issue at the Bush White House," said a senior Clinton official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Remember those first months? The White House was focused on tax cuts, not terrorism. We saw the budgets for counterterrorism programs being cut."

The White House rejects any suggestion that it failed to act on the threats of Qaeda terrorism before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The president and his team received briefings on the threat from Al Qaeda prior to taking office, and fighting terrorism became a top priority when this administration came into office," Sean McCormack, a White House spokesman, said. "We actively pursued the Clinton administration's policies on Al Qaeda until we could get into place a more comprehensive policy."

Mr. Zelikow, the director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia and a co-author of a 1995 book with Ms. Rice, has been the target of repeated criticism from some relatives of Sept. 11 victims. They have said his membership on the Bush transition team and his ties to Ms. Rice pose a serious conflict of interest for the commission, which is investigating intelligence and law-enforcement actions before the attacks.

Mr. Clarke said if Mr. Zelikow left any of the White House intelligence briefings in December 2000 and January 2001 without understanding the imminent threat posed by Al Qaeda, "he was deaf."

Mr. Zelikow said in an interview that he has recused himself from any part of the investigation that involves the transition, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. He said his participation in the Qaeda intelligence briefings was already well known. "The fact of what occurred in these briefings is not really disputed," he said.

Ms. Rice has refused a request to testify at the hearings next week, saying it would violate White House precedent for an incumbent national security adviser to appear in public at a hearing of what the White House considers a legislative body. She has given a private interview to several members of the commission.

The commission, known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was created by Congress in 2002 over the initial objections of the Bush administration.

Ms. Albright and Mr. Cohen declined to be interviewed about their testimony. Mr. Berger refused to discuss details of his testimony, saying only, "I intend to talk about what we did in the Clinton administration, as well as my recommendations for the future."

In the past, Mr. Berger has said that he and his staff organized the intelligence briefings in December 2000 at which Ms. Rice, Mr. Hadley and Mr. Zelikow were warned in detail about the Qaeda threat and that on his departure, he advised Ms. Rice that he believed the Bush administration would be forced to spend more time on dealing with Al Qaeda than on any other subject.

In his testimony, Mr. Clarke is also expected to discuss what he believed to be the Bush administration's determination to punish Saddam Hussein for the Sept. 11 attacks even though there was no evidence to tie the Iraqi president to Al Qaeda.

The issue is addressed in a new book by Mr. Clarke, and in an interview to promote the book on "60 Minutes" on CBS-TV scheduled for Sunday, Mr. Clarke said that the White House considered bombing Iraq in the hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, even when it became clear that Al Qaeda was responsible.

"I think they wanted to believe there was a connection, but the C.I.A. was sitting there, the F.B.I. was sitting there, saying, `We've looked at this issue for years — for years, we've looked, and there's just no connection,' " Mr. Clarke said. He recalled telling Defense Secretary Rumsfeld that "there are a lot of good targets in a lot of places, but Iraq had nothing to do" with the Sept. 11 attacks.

The White House has insisted that it acted aggressively throughout 2001 on the warnings to deal with the threat from Qaeda terrorists, and that there was an exhaustive staff review throughout the spring and summer, with a proposal ready for President Bush in early September to step up the government's efforts to destroy the terrorist network.

The Clinton administration witnesses may face difficult questions at the hearings about why they did not do more to deal with Qaeda immediately after the Cole attack and the discovery the previous winter that Qaeda terrorists had come close to coordinated attacks timed to the Dec. 31, 1999, festivities for the new millennium.

"There was no contemplation of any military action after the millennium plots, and there should have been," said Bob Kerrey, a Democratic member of the commission and a former senator from Nebraska.

"The Cole is even worse, because that was an attack on a military target," he said. "It was military against military. It was an Islamic army against our Navy. Just because you don't have a nation-state as your adversary doesn't mean you should not consider a declaration of war."

[Mitchell]

I was just about to post on this, but you beat me to it. This is further proof of just how inept a president this guy is. One further thing I would like to add. As we all know, there was no proof whatsoever that either Saddam or Iraq had anything to do with 9-11, yet Mr Bush seemed hell bent on starting a war with them, regardless. A war that has driven this country from a budget surplus, to one of the greatest deficits in our country's history. This, along with the weak economy during his administration, combined with his general poor leadership skills, and making things out to what he wants them to be, instead of what really is, are serious and compelling arguments as to why Mr Bush should not be re-elected come November. Essentially, the man dragged us into a war for no reason, other than to gain Iraq oil for his cronies, get contracts for Cheney's company, Halliberton, and wage a vendetta for what his inept father, President number 41, never took care of during his term in office. Bush blantantly lied to the American people by insisting Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and none have been found, a point Bush now brushes off to "our intelligence told us he had them" Bottom line, this man our "president" will say anything to attempt to sway the American people on his side, so he can get re-elected. Hopefully, the voters will see through this smokescreen when they go to the polls in November, and throw this president out. A president, I might add, who in addition to his war fiasco, has had a term where more American jobs, over 2 million, have been lost, and who has the worst record of job creation since Herbert Hoover. I ask-does anyone thimk Hoover should have been re-elected? While this is no depression like in the 1930s, we have the additional thing against Bush of his war. Hopefully, the voters will see the facts come November, want new leadership, and throw this guy out of office where he belongs.


Mitch

[Faramir]

I just sent this to Ray and others...I guess it's okay to put it here.

The Bush Administration has asked the Federal Communications Commission to require broadband service providers to introduce new architecture in their networks that would facilitate eavesdropping by law enforcement officials. The 85-page proposal was filed March 12 by the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Experts are saying that if it is approved, it could dramatically hinder both emerging and existing technologies.

ADVERTISEMENT


"This filing even says that the FBI should be able to approve any new technologies so that it can get what it wants when it tries to intercept things, which is pretty astounding," says Lara Flint, staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Implementing this kind of prior approval authority would have a serious effect on innovation in the United States." The FCC has issued a statement saying that it wants to receive comments on the proposal by mid-April. "I would guess there will be many comments filed," says Flint.

The proposal specifically calls for giving police easy access to all forms of "switched" Internet communications, including communications conducted over Voice-over-IP (VoIP) systems, instant messaging systems, and communications taking place over cable modem and DSL networks. The language of the proposal, which is posted online, implies that backdoors should be integrated in networked systems to allow law enforcement officials eavesdropping rights.





More Broadband




The proposal seeks to extend to broadband providers rules already in place for telecommunications providers under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which became law in 1994. The CALEA rules require police in many cases to seek court approval before engaging in wiretapping, but many of those limitations were circumvented by the Patriot Act, which Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Bush Administration got quick approval for in the wake of the September 11th attacks.

"Many of the VoIP providers are already working closely with law enforcement to make sure they can get what they need," says Flint. "The problem, though, is that the FBI shouldn"t be designing technology systems. They shouldn"t be going into the core of the Internet and rearchitecting things, which is what would hurt innovation."

When CALEA was enacted in 1994, telecommunications carriers relied on 'narrowband" technology," reads the text of the proposal. "When the current trend of IP convergence is complete, and most if not all forms of electronic communications are transmitted over a common IP core, CALEA will be of little value. The movement toward packet-based networks… has already progressed far enough to have a serious impact on law enforcement"s ability to perform authorized electronic surveillance."

Flint says the proposal would introduce substantial new compliance costs for broadband providers. The proposal"s text says it would "permit carriers to recover their CALEA implementation costs from their customers." "That even raises concerns over what kinds of costs customers might face in just simply getting Internet access," says Flint.

[primetime]

i'm not really into politics and if Bush gets re-elected fine. if Kerry gets elected, fine. do i agree with some of the stuff Bush has done? not all the time. to tell you the truth, it seems like there are MANY Presidents who know things and just dont do anything or say anything. Bush Jr. isnt the first.

but i am responding to this thread to make this comment. i have friends who served in the Marines, including the first Marine Battalion that entered Baghdad and he says the most frustrating thing fo rhim is why havent the US told the world that WMD were found? he said his battalion were there taking inventory of the stockpile of missiles armed with chemical agents. he says the CIA came in filmed everything and left. plus, a friend at work had a friend as well in the military, the Rangers to be exact who told him the same thing. WMD were found. but the question is, why dont we say anything? whatever the government is up to, we may never know. Clinton's aides kept saying that Al-Qaeda made threats but what did THEY do to stop them? so if they did nothing, why did Bush have to do something? this is all political that's all. granted Bush isnt the sharpest knife in the drawer, but do you really believe he is pulling all the strings? think about it......

[qjakal]

Originally posted by primetime
i'm not really into politics and if Bush gets re-elected fine. if Kerry gets elected, fine. do i agree with some of the stuff Bush has done? not all the time. to tell you the truth, it seems like there are MANY Presidents who know things and just dont do anything or say anything. Bush Jr. isnt the first.

The 2 attacks in 1993 that went completely unanswered spring to mind, and may have been the lynchpin for the planning process of 9-11..

but i am responding to this thread to make this comment. i have friends who served in the Marines, including the first Marine Battalion that entered Baghdad and he says the most frustrating thing for him is why haven't the US told the world that WMD were found? He said his battalion were there taking inventory of the stockpile of missiles armed with chemical agents.

There's a lot of unanswered questions, and these reports are starting to be more common. The current reply to that particular one is that these missiles did NOT represent an effective delivery system and hence classifying them as WMDs would be incorrect...*shrug*..they still were in existence though, so this process is a bit puzzling. Perhaps there are other compelling intelligence reports that in some way would make sense of holding back this info, but damned if I can think of a decent logical scenario.. Q

[MrMacphisto]

Primetime... The military is kind of a tricky institution to trust... on the one hand, I'm sure a Marine is privy to things seen that aren't shown to us as citizens, but on the other hand, a typical soldier in any part of the armed forces only gets to see part of the picture. Given the certain amount of "conditioning" that soldiers must undergo within the military, I'd be wary of any assumptions made during investigations made like the one you mentioned. If Rumsfeld and co. are still pushing hard about WMD, then surely evidence found that would support such claims would be revealed. No offense, but I think your friends might be more than a little bit confused. If Rumsfeld doesn't use this evidence himself, then surely the evidence doesn't exist. Why would Rumsfeld intentionally make himself look like a liar or fool?

[dskodj]

...and this is why I hate this country and am not proud to be an American..if I had the cashflow belive meeeeeeeeeee...I would move to another country in a heartbeat!

[Krokus]

....word. I hear you, dsk....I hear you.

[Neutron]

That provides you with an unprecedented standard of living and safety unpraralleled anywhere in the world. Lucky you have the freedom to post such a thought.

Funny thing is, These Clinton people knew all this, WHY didn't Clinton do anything about it?

You might want to read this EXCELLENT book called DEreliction Of Duty to see Clintons lackadaisical attitude towards national security.


Tron

[Krokus]

yep...moving soon from that safety and "standard of living". I couldn't be happier about it, either.

[Limeoutsider]

Originally posted by dskodj
...and this is why I hate this country and am not proud to be an American..if I had the cashflow belive meeeeeeeeeee...I would move to another country in a heartbeat! you'd stil have to pay taxes to this country

[dreamboy]

This is exactly what the Bushies are counting on; we don't ask questions or point out inconsistencies. Just let THEM keep on making the decisions for all us poor ol' folks; let them do the driving, while we go along for the ride with our eyes closed. That's pretty much what has gotten our country in the situation it's in right now.

[maniactickler]

Originally posted by dskodj
...and this is why I hate this country and am not proud to be an American..if I had the cashflow belive meeeeeeeeeee...I would move to another country in a heartbeat!

this is easily the greatest country on earth. its just the government that sucks and needs to be changed. ;)

[MrMacphisto]

*reads Tron's post and laughs inwardly* The less I say about this fool, the better...

As far as the great debate about the "greatest country on Earth" goes, think of it this way: what one person finds greatest is not necessarily what another finds greatest. I don't think the U.S. is the greatest place on Earth, but it's close. I think Canada is better, but that's another story altogether. Our freedoms are often taken for granted, but what else is new?

For once, I agree with maniac... the government really does suck and needs to change, and only the American people (and the electoral college and unscrupulous governors) can change that when this November rolls around. Hopefully, someone will get elected this time instead of bought.

[BOFH666]

Hey Neutron, something you said got me curious:


You Hate A Country that provides you with an unprecedented standard of living and safety unpraralleled anywhere in the world.


I was looking at the question of standards of living a while back when one of my friends was given a job offer over in the states and wasn't sure he wanted to move and we must have missed something. The reasoning we used is as folows, any chance you could have a look and see what it was?

Standard of living can of course be measured in many different ways, but the simplest way is to compare Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita between countries. However, looking at this data for, in this case, 2002 (we didn't have access to 2003 data at the time) was quite interesting.

1st – Luxemborg $50,676
2nd – Norway $37,197
3rd – USA $36,225
4th – Ireland $31,768
5th – Canada $30,781

(Figures taken from http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/donstat/econm_finnc/conjn_econm/compr_inter/pdf/pib-ang.pdf)

Of course using GDP to compare standards of living between two countries presents some serious problems, namely:

Failure of GDP per capita indicators to take into account the unevenness of income distribution.
Failure of GDP per capita indicators to take into account the differences in the level of spending on military goods between countries.
Failure of GDP per capita indicators to take into account the amount of non-marketed output or output that is produced and sold through the informal sectors.
Failure of GDP per capita indicators to take into account the differences in tastes, cultures and climates between different countries.
Failure of the exchange rate that is being used to make the comparison between two countries to reflect the purchasing power of the local currency in each country. In this case using the GDP expressed in terms of purchasing power parity may be more appropriate (and in fact was used in this instance).
Failure to take into account the different degrees of accuracy associated with the national income data collected in different countries.
Failure of GDP per capita to take different countries working conditions into account.

Though it does present an interesting picture nonetheless. A more comprehensive calculation of Standard of Living needs to take into account other aspects such as health care, education, distribution of income etc, and as we didn't want to spend the rest of our natural lives working it out, we used the United Nations Human Development Index, the latest version of which is available http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2003/pdf/hdr03_HDI.pdf

Looking at this data gives a very different picture indeed. The top seven:

1st – Norway
2nd – Iceland
3rd – Sweden
4th – Australia
5th – Netherlands
6th – Belgium
7th – USA

Looking deeper into those figures at some of the more specific items that make up the index made for depressing reading. Take the Human Poverty Index for example, in what we tend to think of as the First World (OECD, Central and Eastern Europe & CIS) Sweden was first, followed by Norway and Finland. The UK was 15th and the USA was 17th, an appaling result for both countries considering only 17 countries were given a ranking (the others are presented with statistics but no ranking).

The same trends continue in other areas too, the USA trailing China in average life expectancy (77.1 to 79.9 with Japan leading the way at 81.6 years), education (USA spending 4.8% of it's GDP compared to 6.8% in Norway, Saudi Arabia at 1st with 9.5%) and share of income (Richest 10% on 30.5% while the poorest have 1.8%, compared to 21.8% and 4.1% for Norway).

God knows what we missed, but there must have been something, any chance of a point in the right direction (a link would be helpful so I could pass it to me mate by the way).

[Sadistictickler]

Not even to mention the safety. At least I can go through a bad neighbourhood on a bicycle without gettin my ass shot or gettin robbed...

Well, lets just say the Clinton ppl DID do something with the information about Al-Qaeda, they told it to the new administration.

The FBI-thingy won't work, simply because ANY smart terrorist uses codes and other smart tricks to avoid being detected. If you and I agree that "Ï bought a new car last week" means I got the explosives for an attack, the FBI won't know shit. It's just totally naive and a ridiculous invasion of privacy. I'm gonna get a sattelite-connection as soon as it's available here...

[MrMacphisto]

Thank you, BOFH666.... The United Nations Human Development Index is a highly underused tool that very "accurately" provides a more relative view of the "greatest country on Earth."

Oh yeah, and Tron... what were you saying about the research incapabilities of our members?

[BOFH666]

Originally posted by dreamboy
This is exactly what the Bushies are counting on; we don't ask questions or point out inconsistencies. Just let THEM keep on making the decisions for all us poor ol' folks; let them do the driving, while we go along for the ride with our eyes closed. That's pretty much what has gotten our country in the situation it's in right now.

"All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations."

"They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening."

1984, George Orwell

[BOFH666]

Funny thing is, These Clinton people knew all this, WHY didn't Clinton do anything about it?


Quoted from http://www.onlinejournal.com/archive/04-19-02_Molson_-_Pt_2.pdf



In 1997, two things of note happened in Texas. Representatives of the Taliban,
which had recently consolidated its power over most of Afghanistan, came to Houston. They
were wined and dined by Unocal, one of the largest energy firms in the United States. Also, the
governor of Texas, George W. Bush, was pushing legislation which would allow him to store all
of his gubernatorial papers at his father’s presidential library, away from the archivists in Austin,
and be protected by the Federal Freedom of Information Act rather than Texas state law.

Unocal was hoping to construct an ambitious pipeline project which would transport Central
Asian oil to the Arabian Sea. Central Asia has what is estimated to be 30 percent of the world’s
proven oil reserves, second only to the Persian Gulf. Dick Cheney, who at the time was president
of Halliburton, was quoted in 1998 as saying, “I cannot think of a time when we have had a
region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically important as the Caspian.”

In 1998 after the U.S. Embassy bombings, talks with the Taliban were broken off. Then came the
attack on the USS Cole. President Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack on al-Qaeda camps in
Afghanistan. Despite a connection with al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden’s shadowy terrorist
organization, the FBI’s chief anti-terrorism investigator was prevented from properly
investigating the attack on the Cole. John O’Neill complained publicly that American and Saudi
oil interests prevented him from tracking down or properly investigating Osama bin Laden and
his network. He later resigned in protest.

Relations with the Taliban got considerably warmer after George W. Bush came to office. With a
cabinet of former oil executives and consultants, and bankrolled largely by energy companies,
such as Enron, Bush wanted to try to get negotiations back on track.

Much of what happened in those negotiations has been revealed by a book published in France,
entitled “Bin Laden: La Verite Interdite” (Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth). Its authors are
former French intelligence agent Jean-Charles Brisard and investigative journalist Guillame
Dasquie. They claim that the United States was negotiating with the Taliban up until August, just
before the attacks. According to the authors, in August, only one month before the attacks, one of
the negotiators warned the Taliban with the words, “either accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or
we’ll bury you in a carpet of bombs.” If their allegations are true, the words would prove an
eerily accurate prediction of the future.

In May 2001, as reported in the Los Angeles Times, the Bush administration gave the Taliban
government $43 million dollars, ostensibly to offset farmers’ losses for destroying their opium
crops in the War on Drugs. This was at a time when only three governments in the world
recognized the Taliban



I don't believe either the Clinton or Bush administrations can come out of this without blame, but to suggest that the Clinton administration did nothing about the threat posed by al-Qaeda is simply not supported by the evidence at hand. As for the question of why the outgoing Clinton administration didn't tell the rest of the world about this when Bush supposedly ignored them, two reasons spring to mind:

1)National Security. They were, presumably, bound by the requirements of their previous roles not to reveal anything that could be considered privileged information. They did their job, made their succesors aware of the problem and had to trust they would do the job correctly.
2)Quite simply, would they have been believed? Considering the state America was in following the election, any attempt to raise this as an issue without concrete proof including dates, times and names of those planning such an attack as 9/11, would more than likely have been dismissed by both the public and the Bush administration as a political ploy. If that were to happen the chances were the country would have been more at risk than ever as future warnings would have been treated with suspicion by the public as yet another round of the political game.

My belief is that it once Bush was in office it was his administrations responsibility to safeguard the USA from such an incident. The question is the same now as it was the moment after the attack occurred: “could they have known and should they have known?”

[MrMacphisto]

The information you presented about the Taliban/Bush connection fits in quite nicely with the fact that the Bush family and the Bin Laden family (not including Osama) are close. As I mentioned in another post, Osama is basically the black sheep of the Bin Laden family, but much evidence suggests he was (and probably still is) getting money from his family.

Whatever the case, this funding of the Taliban brings up a lot of issues. Were they really paying the Taliban for crop losses? Was there an offer being made other than an oil contract? As more evidence mounts about the ineffective decisions made surrounding the 9/11 attacks, some of the negligence begins to look intentional. After all, a national tragedy is the perfect scenario to implement invasive legislation and mind-numbing patriotism. Such a tragedy also justified entering Afghanistan and overthrowing the government. Perhaps, this was all done in pursuit of Central Asian oil. Halliburton still holds an awful lot of power in our government, and after attaining oil production in areas like Afghanistan, Iraq would be the perfect target for attaining more oil. It seems like maybe the Saudis and the oil corporations are pulling the world's strings these days....

[JPie1]

Originally posted by Mitchell
I was just about to post on this, but you beat me to it. This is further proof of just how inept a president this guy is. One further thing I would like to add. As we all know, there was no proof whatsoever that either Saddam or Iraq had anything to do with 9-11, yet Mr Bush seemed hell bent on starting a war with them, regardless. A war that has driven this country from a budget surplus, to one of the greatest deficits in our country's history. This, along with the weak economy during his administration, combined with his general poor leadership skills, and making things out to what he wants them to be, instead of what really is, are serious and compelling arguments as to why Mr Bush should not be re-elected come November. Essentially, the man dragged us into a war for no reason, other than to gain Iraq oil for his cronies, get contracts for Cheney's company, Halliberton, and wage a vendetta for what his inept father, President number 41, never took care of during his term in office. Bush blantantly lied to the American people by insisting Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and none have been found, a point Bush now brushes off to "our intelligence told us he had them" Bottom line, this man our "president" will say anything to attempt to sway the American people on his side, so he can get re-elected. Hopefully, the voters will see through this smokescreen when they go to the polls in November, and throw this president out. A president, I might add, who in addition to his war fiasco, has had a term where more American jobs, over 2 million, have been lost, and who has the worst record of job creation since Herbert Hoover. I ask-does anyone thimk Hoover should have been re-elected? While this is no depression like in the 1930s, we have the additional thing against Bush of his war. Hopefully, the voters will see the facts come November, want new leadership, and throw this guy out of office where he belongs.


Mitch


This is a very well stated opinion, one in which I totaly agree with. Now I am not a very politically minded person, nor am I a great debator and I admit that but Mitch is right that the Bush administration is best in pulling the wool over everyones eye's. Also I am not sticking my head out to say that any democratic administration is going to be perfect either. I think in general politics in this country and in many countries these days are self serving for the controlling party. I would love to see an up and up party come out and get elected and truly think about whats best for this country on a whole, not for the rich people, not for the poor people but for the country as a whole, aren't we supposed to be one country under god or under the banner of our flag. I hate all these sides and I hate all the corruption. I just want a happy, safe, great nation for my children to grow up in or am I just dreaming??

Judy

[Jason_F/M]

Ironic Richard Clark just released a book, did a 60 Min. interview (btw owned by the same parent company as the book publisher), and testified all in the course of a week. Did the mainstream media do any background on this guy? Did they just take his current statements on face value because they agree with the standard left-wing mainstream media position? It appears so as Richard Clark does not seem to be terribly consistant with his statements...

"""WASHINGTON — The following transcript documents a background briefing in early August 2002 by President Bush's former counterterrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke to a handful of reporters. In the conversation, cleared by the White House on Wednesday for distribution, Clarke describes the handover of intelligence from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration and the latter's decision to revise the U.S. approach to Al Qaeda. Clarke was named special adviser to the president for cyberspace security (note this is a demotion from his post under the CLinton admin..sour grapes perhaps?)in October 2001. He resigned from his post in January 2003.



RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.

Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office — issues like aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, changing our Pakistan policy -- uh, changing our policy toward Uzbekistan. And in January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.

And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.

And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.

The sixth point, the newly-appointed deputies — and you had to remember, the deputies didn't get into office until late March, early April. The deputies then tasked the development of the implementation details, uh, of these new decisions that they were endorsing, and sending out to the principals.

Over the course of the summer — last point — they developed implementation details, the principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance.

And then changed the strategy from one of rollback with Al Qaeda over the course of five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of Al Qaeda. That is in fact the timeline.

QUESTION: When was that presented to the president?

CLARKE: Well, the president was briefed throughout this process.

QUESTION: But when was the final September 4 document? (interrupted) Was that presented to the president?

CLARKE: The document went to the president on September 10, I think.

QUESTION: What is your response to the suggestion in the [Aug. 12, 2002] Time [magazine] article that the Bush administration was unwilling to take on board the suggestions made in the Clinton administration because of animus against the — general animus against the foreign policy?

CLARKE: I think if there was a general animus that clouded their vision, they might not have kept the same guy dealing with terrorism issue. This is the one issue where the National Security Council leadership decided continuity was important and kept the same guy around, the same team in place. That doesn't sound like animus against uh the previous team to me.

JIM ANGLE: You're saying that the Bush administration did not stop anything that the Clinton administration was doing while it was making these decisions, and by the end of the summer had increased money for covert action five-fold. Is that correct?

CLARKE: All of that's correct.

ANGLE: OK.

QUESTION: Are you saying now that there was not only a plan per se, presented by the transition team, but that it was nothing proactive that they had suggested?

CLARKE: Well, what I'm saying is, there are two things presented. One, what the existing strategy had been. And two, a series of issues — like aiding the Northern Alliance, changing Pakistan policy, changing Uzbek policy — that they had been unable to come to um, any new conclusions, um, from '98 on.

QUESTION: Was all of that from '98 on or was some of it ...

CLARKE: All of those issues were on the table from '98 on.

ANGLE: When in '98 were those presented?

CLARKE: In October of '98.

QUESTION: In response to the Embassy bombing?

CLARKE: Right, which was in September.

QUESTION: Were all of those issues part of alleged plan that was late December and the Clinton team decided not to pursue because it was too close to ...

CLARKE: There was never a plan, Andrea. What there was was these two things: One, a description of the existing strategy, which included a description of the threat. And two, those things which had been looked at over the course of two years, and which were still on the table.

QUESTION: So there was nothing that developed, no documents or no new plan of any sort?

CLARKE: There was no new plan.

QUESTION: No new strategy — I mean, I don't want to get into a semantics ...

CLARKE: Plan, strategy — there was no, nothing new.

QUESTION: 'Til late December, developing ...

CLARKE: What happened at the end of December was that the Clinton administration NSC principals committee met and once again looked at the strategy, and once again looked at the issues that they had brought, decided in the past to add to the strategy. But they did not at that point make any recommendations.

QUESTIONS: Had those issues evolved at all from October of '98 'til December of 2000?

CLARKE: Had they evolved? Um, not appreciably.

ANGLE: What was the problem? Why was it so difficult for the Clinton administration to make decisions on those issues?

CLARKE: Because they were tough issues. You know, take, for example, aiding the Northern Alliance. Um, people in the Northern Alliance had a, sort of bad track record. There were questions about the government, there were questions about drug-running, there was questions about whether or not in fact they would use the additional aid to go after Al Qaeda or not. Uh, and how would you stage a major new push in Uzbekistan or somebody else or Pakistan to cooperate?

One of the big problems was that Pakistan at the time was aiding the other side, was aiding the Taliban. And so, this would put, if we started aiding the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, this would have put us directly in opposition to the Pakistani government. These are not easy decisions.

ANGLE: And none of that really changed until we were attacked and then it was ...

CLARKE: No, that's not true. In the spring, the Bush administration changed — began to change Pakistani policy, um, by a dialogue that said we would be willing to lift sanctions. So we began to offer carrots, which made it possible for the Pakistanis, I think, to begin to realize that they could go down another path, which was to join us and to break away from the Taliban. So that's really how it started.

QUESTION: Had the Clinton administration in any of its work on this issue, in any of the findings or anything else, prepared for a call for the use of ground forces, special operations forces in any way? What did the Bush administration do with that if they had?

CLARKE: There was never a plan in the Clinton administration to use ground forces. The military was asked at a couple of points in the Clinton administration to think about it. Um, and they always came back and said it was not a good idea. There was never a plan to do that.

(Break in briefing details as reporters and Clarke go back and forth on how to source quotes from this backgrounder.)

ANGLE: So, just to finish up if we could then, so what you're saying is that there was no — one, there was no plan; two, there was no delay; and that actually the first changes since October of '98 were made in the spring months just after the administration came into office?

CLARKE: You got it. That's right.

QUESTION: It was not put into an action plan until September 4, signed off by the principals?

CLARKE: That's right.

QUESTION: I want to add though, that NSPD — the actual work on it began in early April.

CLARKE: There was a lot of in the first three NSPDs that were being worked in parallel.

ANGLE: Now the five-fold increase for the money in covert operations against Al Qaeda — did that actually go into effect when it was decided or was that a decision that happened in the next budget year or something?

CLARKE: Well, it was gonna go into effect in October, which was the next budget year, so it was a month away.

QUESTION: That actually got into the intelligence budget?

CLARKE: Yes it did.

QUESTION: Just to clarify, did that come up in April or later?

CLARKE: No, it came up in April and it was approved in principle and then went through the summer. And you know, the other thing to bear in mind is the shift from the rollback strategy to the elimination strategy. When President Bush told us in March to stop swatting at flies and just solve this problem, then that was the strategic direction that changed the NSPD from one of rollback to one of elimination.

QUESTION: Well can you clarify something? I've been told that he gave that direction at the end of May. Is that not correct?

CLARKE: No, it was March.

QUESTION: The elimination of Al Qaeda, get back to ground troops — now we haven't completely done that even with a substantial number of ground troops in Afghanistan. Was there, was the Bush administration contemplating without the provocation of September 11th moving troops into Afghanistan prior to that to go after Al Qaeda?

CLARKE: I can not try to speculate on that point. I don't know what we would have done.

QUESTION: In your judgment, is it possible to eliminate Al Qaeda without putting troops on the ground?

CLARKE: Uh, yeah, I think it was. I think it was. If we'd had Pakistani, Uzbek and Northern Alliance assistance. """

-end excerpt


So what do we make of this? Either Richard Clarke is lying now or was lying then. Either way, don't you think there are serious credibility questions?
Whatever your feelings about Bush, you have to admit there are some glaring inconsistancies in the statements made by Clarke.

[MrMacphisto]

There are plenty of "glaring inconsistencies" on the part of Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Colin Powell as well... I suppose the left-wing media is too busy hiding those under the repeated claims of CIA reports that implied the existence of weapons of mass destruction. Funny how they so thoroughly insist this, yet no evidence has been found. It seems rather odd, doesn't it?

[maniactickler]

your right jason. clarke is flip flopping more than kerry. just a disgruntled employee looking to bring down bush with lies and deceit.

[Haltickling]

I found an interesting article on that in the International Heral Tribune, written by Maureen Dowd from the NY Times: http://www.iht.com/articles/512029.html

Just a few additional infos... :rolleyes:

[BOFH666]

Originally posted by Jason_F/M
Ironic Richard Clark just released a book, did a 60 Min. interview (btw owned by the same parent company as the book publisher), and testified all in the course of a week. Did the mainstream media do any background on this guy? Did they just take his current statements on face value because they agree with the standard left-wing mainstream media position?

All media is biased, whether to the left or right is immaterial. Whatever your chosen supplier of news and whatever the story it will, inevitably, have its own agenda at work which will, intentionally or not, colour the facts presented. Of course this is most obvious when covering issues of politics, doubly so in a country such as the United States where the media outlets have vested commercial interests in reporting the news a certain way. As such the only way to obtain even the beginnings of an unbiased view is to use these reports only as starting points from which to gather more information on the subject and only then decide who, if anyone, is telling the truth.

Using this particular issue as an example, I personally believe that the Bush Administration knows, with absolute certainty, that the bulk of what Richard Clarke is currently saying is true and the reason for that belief is fairly simple. Where's the rebuttal? Instead of facts and solid evidence proving that the events and circumstances Mr Clarke is describing are false, the Bush Administration has instead launched a character assault to discredit him while being curiously reluctant to come forward with any solid evidence. Let's take some of the allegations as examples:

From an article at www.salon.com (http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room//index.html)


The White House, well into Plan C of this week's damage control, took the
extraordinary step Wednesday of outing Clarke as the source for a background
briefing he gave to reporters during the summer of 2002. In it, Clarke,
playing the role of the good soldier, complimented the administration for
its efforts to battle terrorism. Fox ran with the transcript, and other news
organizations followed.

While Clarke was testifying, Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice, who refuses to testify before the independent commission in public,
but can't seem to pass an open microphone this week without commenting on
the administration's efforts to fight terrorism, called reporters into her
office to highlight the discrepancy between Clarke's charges and his 2002
backgrounder. "There are two very different stories here," she said. "These
stories can't be reconciled."

Within hours, Republican commissioners on the 9/11 panel tried to make hay
out of the Fox scoop, with former Illinois governor James Thompson waving
around the Fox transcripts suggesting Clarke had been caught in a lie.
Clarke calmly explained: "I mean, what you're suggesting, perhaps, is that
as special assistant to the president of the United States when asked to
give a press backgrounder I should spend my time in that press backgrounder
criticizing him. I think that's somewhat of an unrealistic thing to expect."


Now obviously Salon has a 'liberal bias' (though some may argue that this is easily balanced out in this case by Fox's undoubted leanings to the right), but even so this raises a very good point. Aside from 'outing' Clarke as the source for the briefing (which is against the usual ground rules for such briefings) his answer to Mr Thompson is logical, and really what else could he have done?. Also, remember that in August 2002 Mr Clarke had been moved into the role of Special Adviser on Cyberspace Security and so was NOT giving this briefing as the White House Counter-terrorism adviser.

It's also far from the first time that this administration has issued personal attacks on those who attack the president. The list includes Gen. Eric Shinseki, who told Congress that postwar Iraq would require a massive presence of U.S. troops; former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who questioned Bush's use of U.S. intelligence; and Richard Foster, who differed with the White House on the cost of Bush's prescription drug plan.

Leading on from the fact that Mr Clarke was moved from his role as Counter-terrorism adviser, some have argued that this was a demotion, and that therefore this whole affair is born of bitterness towards the Bush administration. Taken from an interview with Mr Clarke on the 23rd March 2004 by www.salon.com ( http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/24/clarke/index.html)


Before Sept. 11, I was so frustrated with the way they were handling
terrorism that I had asked to be reassigned to a different job. And the job
I proposed was a job I helped to create -- a job to look at the nation's
vulnerability to cyber-attack. So that job was supposed to be one that I
went into on Oct. 1 [2001]; the actual transfer was delayed, of course,
because Sept. 11 intervened. But it's important to realize that I asked for
that transfer out of the counter-terrorism job before Sept. 11, out of
frustration with the Bush administration's handling of terrorism.


I have yet to see anyone in the Bush Administration deny this version of events. That same interview paints a very interesting picture of some of the other allegations made against Mr Clarke, such as:


Why did you write the book now? That's a question they raise. Did it occur
to you that this would be an election year and it would be especially
controversial because of that, and that these commission hearings were
coming up?

I wanted the book to come out much earlier, but the White House has a policy
of reviewing the text of all books written by former White House personnel
-- to review them for security reasons. And they actually took a very long
time to do that. This book could have come out much earlier. It's the White
House that decided when it would be published, not me. I turned it in toward
the end of last year, and even though there was nothing in it that was not
already obviously unclassified, they took a very, very long time.



Dr. Rice now says that your plans to "roll back" al-Qaida were not
aggressive enough for the Bush administration. How do you answer that, in
light of what we know about what they did and didn't do?

I just think it's funny that they can engage in this sort of "big lie"
approach to things. The plan that they adopted after Sept. 11 was the plan
that I had proposed in January [2001}. If my plan wasn't aggressive enough,
I suppose theirs wasn't either.



[Bush press secretary] Scott McClellan said he was deeply offended that you
suggested the Sept. 11 attacks could have been prevented, but I didn't hear
you say that.

I didn't say it. I said we'll never know, and I've said that over and over
again. We will never know. There were certainly some steps that, had they
been taken, would have perhaps resulted in the arrest of two of the
hijackers. But we'll never know whether that would have led to the arrests
of the others.



Is it true that you're a registered Republican, as someone told me
yesterday?

Well, I vote in Virginia, and you can't register as a Republican or a
Democrat in Virginia. The only way that anybody ever knows your party
affiliation in Virginia is when you vote in a primary, because you have to
ask for either a Republican or a Democratic ballot. And in the year 2000, I
voted in the Republican presidential primary. That's the only record in the
state of Virginia of my interest or allegiance.


So what we have here is a man who votes Republican, who's been in government service since the 1980's under both Democrat and Republican governments and who was trusted enough by the Bush Administration after the events of September 11th to have a plan he proposed eight months earlier put into action. One further point, he has been accused of saying what he's said to get a job with the Kerry Administration if the Democrats win the election in November. Taken from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/25/COMMISSION.TMP is an excerpt from this week's September 11 hearings:


"I worked for Ronald Reagan. . . . I worked for the first President Bush.
And he nominated me to the Senate as an assistant secretary of state, and I
worked in his White House, and I've worked for this President Bush. And I'm
not working for Sen. Kerry. . . . The White House has said that my book is
an audition for a high-level position in the Kerry campaign. So let me say
here, as I am under oath, that I will not accept any position in the Kerry
administration, should there be one -- on the record, under oath."


On the other hand we have the Bush Administration who have been remarkably obstructive when it comes to the incidents surrounding September 11th. The most obvious, and glaring, case being the current National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, refusing to testify in public before the commission. Whatever the reasons for this, it certainly cannot be time related considering the number of comments she has made to the media on this issue since the story broke.

And this, really, is the heart of the issue. While none of us are truly objective, attempt to take an impartial look at the situation and Clarke has presented a calm, rational argument, backed up by facts and clear, concise conclusions based on his opinions. Could these opinions be biased? Of course, but there is little concrete evidence to support that allegation. The accused meanwhile is responding with indignation, finger pointing and bluster with a remarkable lack of evidence to back them up. Considering this is the current government of the United States, if these allegations really were baseless surely they would have been proved as such by now...?

[MrMacphisto]

Well done... An exemplary demonstration of factual research... Jason, would you like to counter this? or perhaps, Maniac?

[Roseblossom]

Originally posted by MrMacphisto
Well done... An exemplary demonstration of factual research... Jason, would you like to counter this? or perhaps, Maniac?
still waiting... :rolleyes:

[maniactickler]

waiting for what? you could write a novel of so called facts. doesnt mean they are all true. hey, im not saying theres nothing truthful about what clarke said. but theres definately enough false hoods and twists to punch holes in his credibility. ive heard this guy made nothing but poor decisions with clinton and bush. like being part of running from the somalia fight like a bunch of cowards. perhaps theres a few truths to what he says, but i think in the end it will prove to be another political scam. liberals love to use smoke and mirrors. thats their specialty. chronic liars. they just toss out lie after lie and hope some of them stick. and some do. sometimes to me, it seems like they lie so frequently that they dont even realize they lie. its lie second nature to them. at any rate, november will tell everything. :o

[Haltickling]

Originally posted by maniactickler
... liberals love to use smoke and mirrors. thats their specialty. chronic liars. they just toss out lie after lie and hope some of them stick. and some do. sometimes to me, it seems like they lie so frequently that they dont even realize they lie. its lie second nature to them. at any rate, november will tell everything. :o
You mean that conservatives always tell the truth? That Bush & Co didn't lie? Dream on, boy!

The only thing that the November elections will tell is whose lies are more convincing... :rolleyes:

BTW, you've just disqualified yourself from any serious discussion. Instead of "punching the holes" with good arguments, you resorted to cheap insults.

[BOFH666]

Completely off topic I know, but something odd happened today while walking back from work. My route takes me through a housing estate and I happened across a group of young lads (how old I'm not sure, maybe ten or eleven I'd guess) playing football (soccer for our American friends) in the street. As I was walking towards them the game suddenly stopped and attention focused on two of the boys who were nose to nose. One, who was shaking with rage (I don’t know why) was facing another who stood calmly, quietly. I missed the start of the conversation, but as I got within earshot I caught the end of it:

Angry Kid: “My dad’s better than YOUR’S!”
Calm Kid: “Why?”
Angry Kid: “He IS!”
Calm Kid: “But WHY is he?”
Angry Kid: “He just IS!”
Calm Kid: “Why?”

There was a pause, and even from twenty feet away I saw the Angry Kid’s lip tremble, a pause… and then I heard “I’m not playing with you anymore!” as he grabbed the ball and turned to walk away, only to find his path blocked by the rest of the kids who said, almost as one “That’s not your ball.” Without a word he handed it over and ran into a nearby house while the rest of the kids carried on playing as before.

The weird part was, as I walked past his house, I saw him looking out the front window rather sadly with that peculiar expression you only ever seem to see on boys of that age, a mix of sadness and confusion at what had just happened, not realising that at some point you have to make the transition from knowing to explaining if you wish to win your battles. What surprised me was as I turned the corner, I heard a door slam, turned and saw him walk back to his friends, walk up to the calm kid and, though I couldn’t hear every word, apologise to him in a surprisingly eloquent manner before the game started again. It was almost like watching someone come of age in that one moment and I must admit I found it quite touching. Maybe there is hope for the younger generation after all.

Anyway, I’m back from my tangent, now where was I?

Originally posted by maniactickler
waiting for what? you could write a novel of so called facts. doesnt mean they are all true. hey, im not saying theres nothing truthful about what clarke said. but theres definately enough false hoods and twists to punch holes in his credibility. ive heard this guy made nothing but poor decisions with clinton and bush. like being part of running from the somalia fight like a bunch of cowards. perhaps theres a few truths to what he says, but i think in the end it will prove to be another political scam. liberals love to use smoke and mirrors. thats their specialty. chronic liars. they just toss out lie after lie and hope some of them stick. and some do. sometimes to me, it seems like they lie so frequently that they dont even realize they lie. its lie second nature to them. at any rate, november will tell everything. :o

Oh yes, facts and the need to write them down. This of course is only half the battle, the other (far more difficult) half is to get people to read and understand them. This seems to be a battle I’ve failed to win in this case, as if you’d read to the end you’d have seen that in fact Mr Clarke voted Republican in the last election, and that he has served under both Republican and Democrat governments. So I really wouldn’t classify him as a “Liberal”.

You’ve heard that he made nothing but poor decisions under Clinton and Bush? Wonderful, any chance of telling us where you heard this? I should point something out here, as I perhaps haven’t made my position clear in this matter regarding my ‘allegiances’. In short, I don’t have any in this particular debate, as I’m not American, nor am I living in the USA. I am a British citizen (Welsh if you want to be accurate, living in London) who is genuinely interested in world events and is keen to learn the truth about what happened on 9/11, and everything that came after. The information I’ve posted here is intended simply to present facts that may have been overlooked previously in the discussion. During the course of researching this issue the evidence suggests that Mr Clarke is telling the truth. But I’m always willing to accept I’m wrong, so please point me to somewhere presenting this evidence and let me form my opinion based on them.

I do need to thank you for one of the best, and funniest, mental images I’ve had all year:

“…love to use smoke and mirrors” – I just had this image of President Bush in full magicians outfit complete with top hat pulling back a curtain to proudly proclaim “THERE THEY ARE…” Only to see Cheney still placing the barrel marked “WMD – definitely NOT manufactured in the USA” in position on the stage.

Of course the funny was tempered almost immediately by the realisation that it would turn into month after month of “no no no, you didn’t see that, what you actually saw was the very last of the WMD’s being removed for redistribution… umm, we mean resale… umm we mean destruction at our ultra secret site so that… that… ummm, give us a minute… ah yes, so that terrorists couldn’t break in and steal them from the presentation ceremony. Look, over there, something shiny!”

Just to wrap up, looking through your post there's a few points I'd like to know more on, any chance you could give some examples or references?

"theres definately enough false hoods and twists to punch holes in his credibility" - examples please?

"ive heard this guy made nothing but poor decisions with clinton and bush" - again, some examples?

"liberals love to use smoke and mirrors. thats their specialty. chronic liars. they just toss out lie after lie and hope some of them stick." - Examples where the 'liberals' have used worse tactics than the 'conservatives'?

[maniactickler]

Two words....Rush Limbaugh. i know, i know, obviously his opinions are slanted to the right, but the main reason i listen to him is not mostly for his opinions, but when he points out the endless mistruths of the liberals which are never reported from the main stream media. and they are actual documented facts! im tired of slanted and biased news. the mainstream media and the democrats are bed buddies. id like to hear the real story. give him a chance for a few weeks. he just may make you see the light. :O

[BOFH666]

Tricky as I'm UK based but I'll see what I can track down of his opinions and give him a hearing. Though, and again remember this is coming from someone based in the UK, I always chuckle when I hear the US media refered to as being left-wing. Every time I see a news report from the states on a genuine political issue it always strikes me as more right-wing based, and that's if you ignore Fox (which is a comedy channel, right?).

I guess it's just a cultural thing, every time our news networks report on the 'Issue Of The Day' (if it's a big issue anyway) we usually end up with a good thirty minutes of every hour dedicated to that story with live reports, almost neutral reporting (facts first, and very little obvious slant from the reporter, to the point that most of the networks give a pretty similiar picture of events) and interviews with people from all sides of the debate.

Also not helping is the last big exposure I had to US News Reporting was during the attack on Iraq last year. When you see every channel running massivley Pro-War news pieces (complete with screen high 'OPERATION IRAQ FREEDOM' logos with eagle and flag imagery everywhere) and most networks simply skipping over reports that we in the UK were seeing as the top or second story you get a little sceptical at the claims of left-wing bias. But as I said, I'll give Rush a hearing, see what he's got to say.

[MrMacphisto]

Don't even bother with Limbaugh... he's a fucking idiot.

Alas, maniac earns his name yet again...

[maniactickler]

Originally posted by MrMacphisto
Don't even bother with Limbaugh... he's a fucking idiot.

Alas, maniac earns his name yet again...

seems i hit a nerve. the truth always hurts though.

[dreamboy]

Originally posted by maniactickler
seems i hit a nerve. the truth always hurts though.
You actually put 'truth' and 'Limbaugh' in the SAME thought?

:jester: :jester: :jester:

[maniactickler]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by dreamboy
You actually put 'truth' and 'Limbaugh' in the SAME thought?

:jester: :jester: :jester: [/QUOTE


sure do. hes a great american!

[MrMacphisto]

Yes, maniac... the truth does hit a nerve... but when someone like yourself so obviously avoids the truth, it hits more nerves. It's ok though, ultraconservatives like you are growing in number in this country. Maybe if enough of them piss the rest of us off enough, we can get rid of all of you in a nice bloody French Revolution-esque industrial class war.

[The Sean Man]

Limbaugh is an entertainer, nothing more. He takes information and 'interprets' it. Too many people think he has actual political experience, when all he is is a radio deejay with a 'political commentator' gimmick.

Art Bell though....now THERE'S a man who should be listened to:shake:

The Sean Man

[maniactickler]

Originally posted by MrMacphisto
Yes, maniac... the truth does hit a nerve... but when someone like yourself so obviously avoids the truth, it hits more nerves. It's ok though, ultraconservatives like you are growing in number in this country. Maybe if enough of them piss the rest of us off enough, we can get rid of all of you in a nice bloody French Revolution-esque industrial class war.


Im far from being an ultra conservative. i consider myself more of an anti liberal. the sooner we get rid of the cancer known as liberalism, the better off this country will be. we are slowing rotting from the inside out. all this bleeding heart, feel good, lets all hold hands in a circle, smoke dope and chant peace songs crap is ridiculous. while liberals may have good intentions, they arent based in reality. liberals live in a world of make believe. time to wake up and smell the roses!

[MrMacphisto]

Speaking of reality... Anti-liberal would generally imply very conservative. Peace, compassion, and tolerance are generally a better thing to support than war, poverty, and racism, right? I'll admit that my last post was anything but tolerant, but I suppose I'm only intolerant of those that are intolerant to me.

[maniactickler]

Originally posted by MrMacphisto
Speaking of reality... Anti-liberal would generally imply very conservative. Peace, compassion, and tolerance are generally a better thing to support than war, poverty, and racism, right? I'll admit that my last post was anything but tolerant, but I suppose I'm only intolerant of those that are intolerant to me.


There cant be peace without war. compassion is good, but not to the spineless extent that liberals take it to. there will always be poverty and racism. always has been, always will be. like i said, liberals arent living in the real world.

[natural tickler]

While I read this entire thread, one question kept popping in my head: Would it have mattered if either administration did anything about it? 9/11 would have happened no matter who did anything with this information. You see, the model of terrorism used to be that if you cut off the head the tail will wither. This application no longer exists. Cut off one head, and another will rise in it place. Each cell is now independent of the other. In this game its lose/lose no matter how you look at it. Do we want to lose little, or lose big? Yes, we lost 3,000 people on 9/11, true, but if this is a small sacrifice to end terrorism for good, then so be it. Rather a few thousand than a few million. Their intent is to wipe us all out completely. So while we are fingering the blame for 9/11, we should stop and realize thatit was gonna happen no matter what. You may disagree, and that's fine. The ultimate goal is to destroy all the terrorist cells, and we are on our way to do that, but if all of you thought we were gonna fight this war with little casualty, then that was unrealistic. There are gonna be losses, just have to minimize them. So for ultimate victory, you have to understand that a few have to die in order to save many. My 2 cents, returnable if unsatisfied:D

[maniactickler]

I think clinton dropped the ball on terrorism big time. letting osama go on numerous occasions. doing nothing with the other attacks. but i do think eventually, terrorism would have struck in some way or another. i do agree there. but i still feel a hell of alot safer with a republican in office. if Kerry gets in, the terrorists will be licking their chops.

[MrMacphisto]

Maniac, you have a talent for making up shit. Every post I read of yours is chock full of complete fallacies. Lemme guess, you get this shit from Limbaugh, Newsmax, or Fox News, don't ya? Let me clear up the bullshit you just posted about Clinton. If you do the research, you'll find that Clinton actually stepped up security in the ending months of his second term. He set everything up for Bush to protect us with and what did Bush do? He fucked it up, just like he did with the budget surplus we had. Stop making shit up and actually do some research for once.

[maniactickler]

Originally posted by MrMacphisto
Maniac, you have a talent for making up shit. Every post I read of yours is chock full of complete fallacies. Lemme guess, you get this shit from Limbaugh, Newsmax, or Fox News, don't ya? Let me clear up the bullshit you just posted about Clinton. If you do the research, you'll find that Clinton actually stepped up security in the ending months of his second term. He set everything up for Bush to protect us with and what did Bush do? He fucked it up, just like he did with the budget surplus we had. Stop making shit up and actually do some research for once.

Keep living in your liberal make believe world.

[BOFH666]

Two words....Rush Limbaugh. i know, i know, obviously his opinions are slanted to the right, but the main reason i listen to him is not mostly for his opinions, but when he points out the endless mistruths of the liberals which are never reported from the main stream media. and they are actual documented facts! im tired of slanted and biased news. the mainstream media and the democrats are bed buddies. id like to hear the real story. give him a chance for a few weeks. he just may make you see the light. :O


Well.... I did what I said I was gonna do and gave him a try. Can't listen to the radio shows as I'm in the UK but hunted down some transcripts and my god, this is what you call pointing out “the endless mistruths of the liberals”? Look, I said above I don't have any vested interests in this discussion, well beyond being a concerned citizen of the rest of the world, but this guy is surely considered a joke, albeit a handy one, by the current government of the United States, right?

Just some examples:


Now, the party out of power at this moment in time is the Democrats. They are not in power for specific reasons. There are specific reasons that a majority of Americans are voting against them


I hate to say this, but this was the first thing I read and it's complete, utter and total bovine excrement. The MAJORITY of Americans did NOT vote for Bush. Well, in truth the majority of Americans didn't vote for anyone as the turnout was only 51.3% and so with 48% of the vote each party had roughly 24.6% of the nation voting for them but you'd have to be SPECTACULARLY pedantic to point that out. But anyway, here's the result of the election in case anyone's forgotten:

Bush: Electoral Votes: 271, Popular Vote 50,456,169
Gore: Electoral Votes: 267, Popular Vote 50,996,116

Notice anything? Yep, it was Gore that received the majority of votes. So that blows that one out of the water.


They HATE war heroes! They always have. But now, they suddenly found one to call their own so they can run around trying to make you think they are the big HAWKS!. These people phonies. This is who they are.


This is just such a hideous generalization it makes me wonder how anyone can take him seriously. Remember those numbers above, that 50 million people voted Democrat? Well, if all Democrats hate war heroes, then BY DEFINITION all those 50 million voters must as well. And therefore all serving and retired members of the American armed forces are Republicans. Who'd have thunk it? I suddenly see why you need someone like this to uncover these revelations for the good of the American people... the majority of which he just insulted which might not be the best way to convert the unbelievers.

Oh, and a week later we get:


they now turn around and lead forth a nominee who claims to have been a hero


Well last week you yourself called him a war hero, and now he only CLAIMS to be one... wow, you need to fire your researchers for missing that crucial bit of evidence.



Now he's saying that going to the National Guard is no different than dodging the draft. He said this over the weekend. So not only is he hoping and seeking to denigrate Bush, he's hoping and seeking to denigrate the Guard


I love this quote, it should be in a textbook on misdirection. Leaving aside the fact the Republicans are attacking Kerry on his war record, to the point of falsifying photographic evidence, Kerry's quite right in what he was saying as that was EXACTLY what the opinion was of the National Guard during the Vietnam War. So why should it be in a textbook? Notice the deliberate attempt to mislead the listener into thinking that Kerry's talking about the National Guard as it is today, which is a VERY different entity than it was thirty years ago. And if you believe that I've got a lovely bridge to sell you...


"I can now begin to take credit for some things that happened on this program on Friday - A barnburner of a program," Rush declared on March 9. "You remember the program opened with some audio examples that we had found of families, certain family members, 9-11 victims, all saying the same things. And I cringed. I couldn't believe that the Democratic Party would sink this low, to exploit and capitalize on the misery and loss of families. But they did it. They found a way. In fact, they found some family members - and I'm going to say this - they found some family members who seemed to have more concern over who the president of this country is than over the sanctity of the loss of their own family members."
Limbaugh replayed an audio montage, featuring the voices of Sept. 11 widows Kristen Breitweiser and Monica Gabrielle, who, he warned, "are actually part of the Democratic Party machine."
VOICE I: I think for someone like President Bush who has not cooperated with this commission, who has stonewalled this commission.
VOICE II: This president and his administration blocked the creation of the commission, have stonewalled the commission.
VOICE I: If this was realistic from the morning of September 11th, it would show President Bush before a group of school children listening to them read, while the twin towers were burning.
VOICE II: If he wants to show a picture of 9-11 depicting what he was doing, it should be a picture of him sitting and reading in a classroom to school children. That's where he was on 9-11.
VOICE I: And we need to find out why 3,000 people were murdered on his watch.
VOICE II: Well, you know, this happened on his watch.
"This is two different women, and they appeared on four networks: CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and NBC, and they each have three phrases that they use verbatim," Rush explained. "These were prepared by Democratic campaign consultants. In fact, these women sound like campaign consultants, not grieving family members, and I was reluctant to make this charge; it's the first thing that crossed my mind. As I say, we've now learned all the organizational effort that's going on behind this and these people are indeed aligned with the Democratic Party. . .


This is sickening, and is what finally convinced me that this guy should be given the 5am to 5:05 shift on a rural radio station with a broadcasting range of about a mile. Up till this I thought he might have something to say but... One of these ladies and her sadly deceased husband voted for BUSH, not Gore ( have seen that in fact BOTH ladies were Republicans but haven't been able to find a direct quote to support that), the other had said, publicly, that their goal is a nonpartisan investigation into 9/11 and what went wrong, who (if anyone) is responsible and how it can be prevented from happening again. Yet this scumbag decided to turn it into a political point? And it's not the first time this sort of thing has happened from blatantly right wing media figures. I remember reading the transcript of The O'Reilly Factor with Jeremy Glick where Mr Glick, who had lost his father in 9/11 and was trying to make fair, well-reasoned points was simply humiliated, brutalized on national television to let some hack make his own political standpoint and demonstrate views that were, to use one of his own words, barbaric. It sickened me then and to see anyone acting this way instantly destroys any credibility they may have had with me.

So, final thoughts. The original question I asked was

“I’m always willing to accept I’m wrong, so please point me to somewhere presenting this evidence and let me form my opinion based on them. “

Rush Limbaugh was put forward as an example of someone to try, and I went in with an open mind. What I found was a mass of misdirection, disinformation and flat out ranting designed solely to appeal to a certain demographic of flag waving 'patriots' who refuse to open their eyes and form their own viewpoints preferring instead to follow the rantings of a blatantly right wing media figure. Because it's so much easier to let others think for you. Sorry, but I think I'll stick with Salon to give me actual factual information from a US perspective.

[BOFH666]

I think clinton dropped the ball on terrorism big time. letting osama go on numerous occasions. doing nothing with the other attacks. but i do think eventually, terrorism would have struck in some way or another. i do agree there. but i still feel a hell of alot safer with a republican in office. if Kerry gets in, the terrorists will be licking their chops.


You can think whatever you like, and everyone has the rights to their own opinions but that doesn't make them true. By the same argument neither are my opinions more valid than yours and I would never want to present them as such. However I suggest you read the following and possibly re-evaluate your views...

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/08/18_blumenthal.html

On June 21, 1995, Clinton had signed Presidential Decision Directive 39, the first U.S. Policy document of it kind. Never before had terrorism, or “asymmetric warfare,” in the language of the directive, received such urgent government attention in the United States. [...] Another document, PDD-62, designated him [Richard A. Clarke] the first person to hold the position of coordinator of counterterrorism.
Since the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in 1993, the President had proposed antiterrorism measures, only some of which had been approved by the Congress. And although after the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 many of his proposals were enacted, the Republican-dominated Congress, supported bu some civil libertarians, still refused to agree to roving wiretaps (on any phone used by a suspect) and identifying markers on explosive.
In August 1996, Clinton had delivered a major address on terrorism, which he called “the enemy of our generation,” and he signed a bill that levied sanctions against firms that did business in the energy sector with Iran or Libya. By then, Clarke was issuing warnings about Osama bin Ladon, then operating out of Sudan, a center for worldwide terrorism; but bin Laden was, thanks to U.S. Pressure, soon to be expelled and would move to Afghanistan as it fell under the control of the Taliban. At Clinton's instigation, federal programs virtually unknown before – to protect the nation's “critical infrastructure” and to curb weapons of mass destruction – received $3.6 billion over the next four years, and traditional counterterrorism funding was increased by 43 percent. Clinton in-sisted on spending whatever Clarke and the other intelligence agencies believed was necessary.
During this time Clinton became virtually obsessed with the dangers of bioterrorism, especially after a conversation he had with Dr J. Craig Venter, head of the institute for Genomic Research. [...] He held a secret roundtable of bioterrorism at the White House in April 1998 with intelligence experts and a group of scientists including Venter. Immediately after, he ordered the federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines.
[...]
Then came August 7, 1998 and al-Qaeda's bombings of the U.S. Embassies in East Africa. Clinton signed one secret presidential “finding” after another, authorizing a lethal campaign against bin Laden. The first approved covert action against bin Laden's network; then he signed three classified “memoranda of notification” that “authorized killing instead of capturing bin Laden, then added several of al-Qaeda's senior lieutenants, and finally approved the shooting down of private civilian aircraft on which they flew,” as The Washington Post laster reported.


There's a lot more at that link that covers Clinton's views and approach to fighting Terrorism, but let's move on to another source, the Washington Post article mentioned above.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A62725-2001Dec18&notFound=true

The Clinton administration ordered the Navy to maintain two Los Angeles-class attack submarines on permanent station in the nearest available waters, enabling the U.S. military to place Tomahawk cruise missiles on any target in Afghanistan within about six hours of receiving the order.
• Three times after Aug. 20, 1998, when Clinton ordered the only missile strike of his presidency against bin Laden's organization, the CIA came close enough to pinpointing bin Laden that Clinton authorized final preparations to launch. In each case, doubts about the intelligence aborted the mission.
• The CIA's directorate of operations recruited, trained, paid or equipped surrogate forces in Pakistan, Uzbekistan and among tribal militias inside Afghanistan, with the common purpose of capturing or killing bin Laden. The Pakistani channel, disclosed previously in The Washington Post, and its Uzbek counterpart, which has not been reported before, never bore fruit. Inside Afghanistan, tribal allies twice reported to their CIA handlers that they fought skirmishes with bin Laden's forces, but they inflicted no verified damage.
• Operatives of the CIA's Special Activities Division made at least one clandestine entry into Afghanistan in 1999. They prepared a desert airstrip to extract bin Laden, if captured, or to evacuate U.S. tribal allies, if cornered. The Special Collection Service, a joint project of the CIA and the National Security Agency, also slipped into Afghanistan to place listening devices within range of al Qaeda's tactical radios.
The lines Clinton opted not to cross continued to define U.S. policy in his successor's first eight months. Clinton stopped short of using more decisive military instruments, including U.S. ground forces, and declined to expand the reach of the war to the Taliban regime that hosted bin Laden and his fighters after 1996.
[...]

There is, even now, no satisfying answer to the central mystery of the Clinton administration's covert war. How is it possible that the president had intelligence good enough to launch missiles at bin Laden within 13 days of the embassy bombings, yet never had it again? Did the intelligence task grow that much harder, or did the president and his national security apparatus grow less tolerant of risk?
In Small Group meetings, Albright compared the hunt to one of those arcade games in which the player, tantalized, tries to grasp a coin with a claw controlled clumsily from outside. In light moments, some of the president's advisers began referring to the problem in terms of a picture puzzle for children: "Where's Waldo?"
"I can tell you where he's been, I can tell you where he's going," Tenet said in one such gathering, succinctly defining the requirements of "actionable" intelligence. "The problem is, can I tell you where he'll be for the next six to 10 hours?"
Within the limits of the military's operational plans, what Tenet had was not enough.
"We did on numerous occasions provide information on where we thought he was at any given moment, but it's impossible for anyone to tell you where someone is going to be with absolute certainty half a day away," said an intelligence official. "Cruise missiles are excellent weapons for shooting at fixed targets, but they're not so good at targets that have a mind of their own."
A person standing 100 yards away might survive the strike of a Tomahawk's standard warhead, officials said. And Clinton refused to authorize use of "area weapons" -- one is a warhead of cluster bombs -- that would have killed women and children around bin Laden.
The Joint Staff and especially the Navy, meanwhile, tired of driving circles under the Arabian Sea.
"There was a growing sense over time," said Brian Sheridan, who was assistant secretary of defense for special operations, that the national leadership should "get off the pot" and decide whether it had a target. "There was a great willingness to support the mission if the mission is going to be real, but otherwise, let's not disrupt normal mission and training cycles."


What follows is my opinion, and should not be interpreted as fact.

So should Clinton have gone in with the sort of ground attack we saw shortly after 9/11? Absolutely not. The simple fact is that you CANNOT treat terrorism like a conventional enemy. There is no country to defeat, no single place to attack and if you try conventional tactics all you do is create more terrorists. Don't believe me, here's a story from the BBC about an attack that happened just two days ago in Iraq:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3587931.stm

The US has condemned the killing and dismembering of four American civilian security contractors in Iraq.
The White House said it deplored the "horrific attacks" but vowed the US would not be deflected from its mission to bring democracy to Iraq.
The four were shot and burnt in their cars in Falluja, before a cheering crowd dismembered the corpses and hung two of them from a bridge.
[...]
Witnesses said the contractors were passing through Falluja in two four-wheel-drive vehicles when gunmen opened fire.
An angry crowd surrounded the cars, throwing stones and setting the vehicles ablaze.
The corpses were dragged from the wreckage and television pictures showed one burnt body being kicked and stamped on, while at least two were tied to cars and driven through the streets, witnesses said.
Adults and children hacked the bodies to pieces, before lynching two of the charred remains from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River.
One Iraqi held a sign underneath one of the bodies which read: "Falluja is the cemetery for Americans".


It's a horrific event, but READ this report carefully. These aren't imported terrorists as the White House claims, these are regular people who are beyond rational thought at what they see as an invasion. And from their point of view, they're right. This is how terrorism starts, with a hate that is, for whatever reason, justified in the eyes of the 'terrorist'. And here's the sad truth, Terrorism will ALWAYS be a part of our lives, as it only takes one terrorist to detonate a bomb made from simple, everyday items bought legally from one of a thousand locations. All the current US policy has done is shown a large number of people a massively superior military force rolling through their country and dictating how they shall run it. I'm not saying that getting rid of Sadam was a bad thing, but this was NOT the way to do it, and neither was the abandonment of Afghanistan as it descended into lawlessness in large parts of the country following the US invasion there.

Let's put this another way, Clinton saw the problem, learned about it, started the ball rolling on Terrorism and fought the war quietly, raising the issue over and over again but never panicking people and never stepping over the line from fighting terrorism to creating terrorists. Bush, on the other hand, reacted and the result is a vastly less secure world than we had on 9/12 and, according to some estimates, almost 5 times as many civilian deaths thanks to military action in Iraq and Afghanistan as died on 9/11. Looking just at those figures, and adopting an impartial viewpoint, who's the bigger criminal, the Terrorists or the “Coalition of the Willing”?

[BOFH666]

Keep living in your liberal make believe world.


Okay, seriously, this is ridiculous and, frankly, offensive. I do not agree with the wording MrMacphisto used here but I do agree with the sentiment. I've said before, and I'll say again, I have no vested political interest in this argument, and my opinions on political issues vary between left and right. But this was in reply to a simple (albeit aggressively phrased) request for you to present some evidence to back up your claims, to have a discussion if you will, rather than a shouting match.

Let me make this clear, every step of the way in this thread and others I've tried to present evidence to back up anything I've said, or to respond to very generalized statements such as, well, such as this one actually. I've attempted to be polite and courteous throughout and you've proved you're quite capable of responding in kind. Yet you keep falling back on this sort of personal attack, and quite honestly all it does is completely invalidate any credibility you may have. Which is a damn shame because I for one would like to actually debate these issues with people from both sides but this sort of thing really makes me wonder what the point is.

Just to give an example:


i consider myself more of an anti liberal. the sooner we get rid of the cancer known as liberalism, the better off this country will be. we are slowing rotting from the inside out. all this bleeding heart, feel good, lets all hold hands in a circle, smoke dope and chant peace songs crap is ridiculous. while liberals may have good intentions, they arent based in reality. liberals live in a world of make believe. time to wake up and smell the roses!


So 'liberals' live in a world of make believe? Taking the current US Government as an example of 'conservatives' then obviously in the real world:


Money grows on trees so there's no need to worry about that pesky ol' National Debt
It's perfectly alright to invade another country for reasons that prove false provided you've got a really BIG flag to wave about
Years of loyal service by your employees should in no way get in the way of sacrificing them on the altar of the Media when your neck is on the line.
You can exploit human tragedy as much as you want but expecting you to give answers in public as to what you were doing on that day is outrageous.
Facts and / or matters of public record are obviously liberal tools of spreading disinformation and should be ignored, or if at all possible, re-written as necessary
Building a Space-based weapon system of dubious use and even more dubious science is far more important than paying welfare benefits
Imprisoning people without trial in conditions that are described as inhumane is perfectly alright. After all they MAY be guilty of something, right?
If your civilians are killed it is perfectly acceptable to call anyone a traitor who raises a hand to ask about the vast number of civilians killed in retaliatory strikes against a country with no direct involvement to the original attack. In fact, why call them traitors, just ship them off to rot with the rest of your terrorists captives.
Backing out of environmental treaties is fine providing your buddies in the energy and manufacturing industries contributed enough to your campaign funds last time round.
Wining an election without winning the popular vote clearly gives you a mandate from the majority of the electorate.


And as I'm sure I've now been labeled a terrorist loving, commie supporting, republican hating, drug using, white-flag-of-surrender waving, limp wristed liberal whose been brain washed by the media and is even now rushing to buy a sniper rifle, airline ticket and map of Washington DC (including directions to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue from Assassination for Dummies) I might as well finish on a suitable song...


If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are Saudi,
And your alibi is shoddy,
And your tastes remain quite gaudy,
Bomb Iraq.

If you never were elected, bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, bomb Iraq.
If you think that SUVs,
Are the best thing since sliced cheese,
And your father you must please,
Bomb Iraq.

If the globe is quickly warming, bomb Iraq.
If the poor will soon be storming, bomb Iraq.
We assert that might makes right,
Burning oil is a delight,
For the empire we will fight,
Bomb Iraq.

If we have no allies with us, bomb Iraq.
If we think that someone's dissed us, bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections,
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions,
Bomb Iraq.

If corporate fraud is growin', bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin', bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain’t easy,
And your manhood’s getting queasy,
Bomb Iraq.

Fall in line and follow orders, bomb Iraq.
For our might now knows no borders, bomb Iraq.
Disagree? We’ll call it treason,
It's the make war not love season,
Even if we have no reason,
Bomb Iraq.


(To everyone else reading this thread, I apologize for feeding the troll, but when you've put the effort in to try and have a reasoned debate and get insulted over and over and..... over again somethings gotta give at some point, no?)

[maniactickler]

wow, you must have alot of spare time to do all tis writing. its funny how you only seem to find good things about liberals and never anything negative about them. i think if you wanted to do the research, you could find twice as many negatives with liberals than republicans. but i think thats something your not really interested in. and although there may be a few truths to what you say, ill still stick to my beliefs that liberalism is for the most part a crutch in our society. its the easy way out in life. you dont need to accomplish anything in life, just the idea of thinking about doing it and feeling good about it is enough to make liberals happy.

[Haltickling]

maniac, you have been asked several times to back your statements with facts, and each time you responded with primitive insults. People like you are fanatics with whom nobody should discuss. If you aren't capable of a sensitive, rational debate, why don't you just keep out of political discussions? BOFH said it right: You're just playing the troll, trying to instigate a primitive fist fight, only worthy of your own poor intellect.

That has nothing to do with your political opinion. It's your attitude. If I were still a mod, your insults would have been edited to zilch, suiting the actual content of your posts. Unfortunately, the mod squad here has more patience with you, consider yourself lucky.

BOFH, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Did you write that songtext yourself? If yes, it deserves a big applause (consider yourself applauded!). :cool:

[BOFH666]

A lot of spare time? No, not at all, but when something interestes me (as, in this case, the whole topic of Terrorism and America's response to it has) I'll find time to go read and learn about it. In this case, I usually try and set an hour a night aside to do some creative writing (just check the story forum for proof of that :D) and I simply put that on hold for a night or two.

The reason most of what I've written here is, as you put it, "good things about liberals" is that I have been responding SPECIFICALLY to what you have written. As you yourself pointed out, it does take time to research and write about a topic and if I was to cover every angle I'd never leave the house (which would piss off my Significant Other, my mates and my boss in order of importance). But as you've made the acusation let me see if I can defend myself:

First Post: Reply to the statement

"You Hate A Country that provides you with an unprecedented standard of living and safety unpraralleled anywhere in the world. "

with a request for clarification on how that view was established and supporting data that casts doubt on the original argument.

Second Post: Rephrasing of dreamboy's post proving once again that George Orwell was a psychic ;)

Third Post: Information to answer the question:

Funny thing is, These Clinton people knew all this, WHY didn't Clinton do anything about it?

along with some editorial based on that data.

Fourth Post: Answering the question:

Did the mainstream media do any background on this guy? Did they just take his current statements on face value because they agree with the standard left-wing mainstream media position?

with the asertation that all media is biased to one point of view or another. Using the current topic as an example of this bias and showing how, in this case, the view of the "right wing media" as represented by Fox has been proven to have glaring inconsistencies. Yes this can be argued as a left-wing view, but I submit it proves my original statement of all media being biased and the need to make individual conclusions.

Fifth and Sixth Posts: Fairly rambling posts, mainly requests for further information on statements that you yourself made, requests that I should point out you have not been willing or able to fulfill. Granted, as you said, writing these things takes time, but surely if you hold said views you know WHY you hold them and can therefore point to the evidence that formed those views, even if only in summary form in your own words? Also a request you did fill to provide examples of non-left media for comparison purposes.

Seventh Post: The results of several days giving the source you recomended a fair and impartial analysis. The analysis was posted and basically showed that, even to someone with fairly rudementary knowledge of the issues being discussed, the facts simply did not support his alergations. Make no mistake, if it had been a Left Wing Media Figure making similar attacks on Republican victims (oh, wait, they WERE Republican victims) of 9/11 I would have had the same reaction. For anyone to try to make political capital out of those directly affected by the event is tragic, for someone to do so just to boost ratings is deplorable and should result in the show being taken off the air, REGARDLESS of who said so.

Eight Post: Responding to the question:

I think clinton dropped the ball on terrorism big time

with evidence as to why this statement, as it stands, has little basis in reality. In point of fact, if you bothered to read the articles I link to, or for that matter the direct parts I quote, that there is criticism of the administration's handling of the situation, that the limits they set on acceptable risk were not attainable and that the military were growing incressingly frustrated with the situation. An editiorial included at the end asking the simple question "Who's the bigger criminal, those who kill 3,000 or those who kill 15,000", and a discussion on why I personally believe that bombing a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, and that had no WMD (or at least not in the state the world was told they did) only made the world a more dangerous place.

Ninth Post: Trying to explain with some degree of civilized behaviour and humour why constantly insulting people is not considered a good way to win your arguments. Also pointing out that if, in your own words, Liberals live in a world of make believe, then the Conservatives simply make believe a different world.

And you have no IDEA about liberalism being the easy way out if you consider me a liberal and that I take the easy way out. Let me make this ABSOLUTLEY clear to you, I live my life be the simple rule: Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You. You think this is the easy way out? Because I actually give a DAMN about what other human beings are going through over the last three weeks alone I've helped someone I haven't spoken to for three years find a job and sort her life out after she was made redundant. I've started the long, difficult but ultimatley worthwhile process of making a very special lass realise that not all men are arrogant, stuck up pricks (strangely enough the guy that caused that viewpoint liked insulting people instead of being civil as well). And RIGHT NOW I'm sitting here worrying myself sick that someone I've never met in person is going to pieces as she waits to hear if her mother is going to live through the night and trying anything and everything I can to help her out despite the fact she lives five thousand miles away. The easy way out? HOW DARE you suggest it's any such thing without the first clue what you're talking about.

Don't need to accomplish anytyhing? I've put myself through University to get my education, at twenty five I make more money than both my parents put together, I work anything from ten to fifteen hour days to make sure I do a good job and in order to try and succed in this business I've moved to the other side of the country from my parents, roots, everything I knew. You want to know what makes me feel good? Working my arse off to see a smile on someone's face - hell go look in the story archive of this very forum, want to know why I spend till two in the morning writing for this place? Simple, because I know people want to read what I come up with and that they enjoy doing so. I don't want thanks for it, even if only one person reads and enjoys it is reward enough.

I have spent more nights of my life on suicide watch than I care to think about. I have litteraly run around every road and side street in my home town looking for someone who'd just called and said they were going to jump. I have found good friends lying in their bed surrounded by empty asprin bottles with a suicide note in their hand. I have held good friends in my arms and watched their lives come apart then done my best to help put them back together. I have put my life on hold time after time after time to HELP other people, regardless of the situation or my own needs and desires. Frankly I've spent the last seven years, all of my adult life, taking everyone else on my shoulders because I care, and believe enough to want to help. And you think this is the easy option?

In future I suggest you consider actually taking part in a rational debate rather than shooting your damn mouth off, might not make you look like such a fool. Oh, and before you say "Liberals always lie" or something along those lines... Everything above is 100% true and if you don't believe it that's your perogative but I'd suggest keeping your opinions on that matter to yourself.

[BOFH666]

Originally posted by Haltickling
maniac, you have been asked several times to back your statements with facts, and each time you responded with primitive insults. People like you are fanatics with whom nobody should discuss. If you aren't capable of a sensitive, rational debate, why don't you just keep out of political discussions? BOFH said it right: You're just playing the troll, trying to instigate a primitive fist fight, only worthy of your own poor intellect.

That has nothing to do with your political opinion. It's your attitude. If I were still a mod, your insults would have been edited to zilch, suiting the actual content of your posts. Unfortunately, the mod squad here has more patience with you, consider yourself lucky.

BOFH, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Did you write that songtext yourself? If yes, it deserves a big applause (consider yourself applauded!). :cool:

*Woooooooo**Applause* Well said that man.... And no I can't claim credit for the song, 'twas done by someone else a year or two ago but it seems so damn prophetic doesn't it? :D Apparently it's a big hit in Canada, sung around the campfires as the goodless heathens outside the borders of freedom and justice plot their invasion using the dreaded hockey sticks of dreaded doom...

Sorry Hal, and everyone else, for the rambling post it's been a rough week, not that I mind as it was all for a good cause (and good people for that matter), but.... well, see the above post. Sorry for the rant everyone, Mods if you feel it needs it, edit or delete my previous post, as it's hardly rational debate and for that, and feeding the troll, I apologise.

[ticklebutton]

BOFH666, I'm enjoying your posts very much - you obviously care about these issues enough to do your research & then consider the info you find.

Carry on! And don't get discouraged if certain responses make you feel you're wasting your breath - there are plenty of us reading with great interest.

Button :bubble:

[Ghost2004]

As Tis late @ night on this side of the pond and the mind does not want to function properly , I'll save the politcal response for tomorrow when I am in the land of the living but I DO have to say., esp as an Expat yank( who can now see a bit better out of her country)

* applause* Bravo an INFORMED vocie of reason, who is not afraid to post what he thinks AND backs it up. On behalf of those of us who want to FIND OUT the truth and not beleive what we've been fed, thank you.

Ghostie

Political rant will follow when the brain is coherent

[Ghost2004]

[B]*Woooooooo**Applause* Well said that man.... And no I can't claim credit for the song, 'twas done by someone else a year or two ago but it seems so damn prophetic doesn't it? :D Apparently it's a big hit in Canada, sung around the campfires as the goodless heathens outside the borders of freedom and justice plot their invasion using the dreaded hockey sticks of dreaded doom...






:devil: :cool: :D

You've got that "aboot" right my lad! :P
Also heard on college and Uni campuises too

[BOFH666]

Originally posted by Ghost2004

*Woooooooo**Applause* Well said that man.... And no I can't claim credit for the song, 'twas done by someone else a year or two ago but it seems so damn prophetic doesn't it? :D Apparently it's a big hit in Canada, sung around the campfires as the goodless heathens outside the borders of freedom and justice plot their invasion using the dreaded hockey sticks of dreaded doom...



:devil: :cool: :D

You've got that "aboot" right my lad! :P
Also heard on college and Uni campuises too [/B]

No.... no that can't be right. Everyone knows that 'up north' education is done by staring at trees until a bird comes along and tries to have sex with a bee. Once that happens it's off to the Education Centre to have the eye-lids pinned open and commie recruiting videos played on endless repeat until they realise of their own free will that it's their mission in life to pollute the precious bodily fluids of patriots everywhere. I mean, look at them, they use their military for peace keeping, how can you trust a nation of such rampant socialism? It's why those that wuv freedom must be ever vigilant and support the new Canadian Monitoring System that will provide 24/7 satellite coverage of the entire country and track each and every hippie beatnik that lives north of the Greatest Country In The History Of The World...Ever. So all true lovers of freedom should salute and sing thusly:

Sheila(Kyle's mom):Times have changed,
our kids are getting worse
They won't obey their parents they just want to fart and curse
Mrs. Marsh: Should we blame the government? Ms. Cartman: Or blame society?
Boys fathers: Or should we blame the images on TV?

Sheila(Kyle's mom):No,blame Canada, blame Canada
With all their beedy little eyes have packed their heads so full of lies,
blame Canada, blame Canada,
we need to form a full assault its Canada's fault

Mrs. Marsh: Don't blame me for my son Stan he saw the darn cartoon and now hes of to join the klan
Ms. Cartman: And my boy Eric once had my picture on his shelf but now when I see him he tells me to fuck myself

Shelia: Well? Blame Canada, blame Canada,
it seems that everythings gone wrong since Canada came along,
blame Canada, blame Canada
Copy shop attendant:They're not even a real country anyway

Mrs. McCormick:My son could have been a doctor or a lawyer rich and true instead he burned up like a piggy on a barbecue
Crowd: Should we blame the matches? Should we blame the fire?
Or the doctors who allowed him to expire

Sheila: Heck no, blame Canada, blame Canada, with all their hockey hullabaloo
Ms. Cartman: And that bitch Ann Murray too
Everyone: Blame Canada, shame on Canada, for the smut we must stuff the trash we must stash laughter and fun must all be undone we must blame them and cause a fuss before somebody thinks of blaming us!

:D
(Note to the humor impaired, the above is a JOKE, not serious commentary)

[BOFH666]

Originally posted by ticklebutton
BOFH666, I'm enjoying your posts very much - you obviously care about these issues enough to do your research & then consider the info you find.

Carry on! And don't get discouraged if certain responses make you feel you're wasting your breath - there are plenty of us reading with great interest.

Button :bubble:

Carrying on! Actually, don't worry I ain't getting discouraged, just frustrated at an attitude I REALLY don't understand, but that's not going to stop me from satisfying intellectual curiosity ;) And thanks for the support, hopefully I'll stay interesting for you and anyone else that reads this stuff.

[maniactickler]

hey BOFH, got to hand it to you, your pretty good with words. (a liberal specialty) unfortunately im not. nor do i want to go back and do all kinds of research on all these issues. its not worth all the time and effort to do it anyway. no matter what is said here, it wont change anyones opin