LowerCaseRepublican

As my paternal grandmother once told me -- Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 9, 2005 -> 11:58 AM) Throw the problems with the Air Force Academy in there, and you almost wonder if the thin air is taking too much oxygen out of peoples brains up there... It definitely got to Denny Neagle. He paid for the most expensive road head ever to be performed.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 9, 2005 -> 11:25 AM) So if I say I have no opinion on KipWellsFan, I am giving you permission to kick his ass? Just because someone wants to stay out of a problem, that doesn't mean they would sit by when someone attacks them. To me that means fix the problems yourselfs, not start a war. And I always thought the reason for Iraq war one was because Iraq invaded Kuwait. The rest of that stuff was secondary. The Iraqis went to the US to make sure that there was going to be no form of reprisal on behalf of the US. The statemen was a virtual green light and made sure that there was no confusion, Glaspie stated: "James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphesize this instruction." In the meeting, the Iraqi delegation essentially laid out the fact that they were definitely thinking about the idea of going to invade Kuwait. But after the war was started, GHWB blocked all possibilities for a negotiated solution. He rejected Iraq's offer to withdraw from Kuwait in exchange for convening a Middle East peace conference. Yes, it was mainly a face saving measure on the behalf of Iraq -- but still rejected & war used as a diplomatic club by our country as well. I think the reason behind going to war in 1990-1991 was to get rid of what GHWB called the "Vietnam Syndrome" so negotiations went out the window and interventionalism was on the menu. And who can forget the infamous Kissinger quote "Oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs." There is a good book about the PR campaign of Gulf War I by Sheldon Rampton and James Stauber called "Weapons of Mass Deception". They write a lot of books about deceptive advertising efforts, misuse of statistics in all sorts of realms. Its a very interesting and well researched read.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Mar 9, 2005 -> 11:33 AM) Oh hell people. Iraq is a strategically important country in this day and time. The British and the Americans have a history of placing themselves in strategically important locations. In this case, you have both oil and proximity to Isreal involved. We are also putting ourselves between China-Russia and Isreal. This is a repeat of the history of the English speaking peoples. Look at the big brain on YASNY! From Justin Raimondo (Libertarian writer...) They were in the saddle in the entire period leading up to the invasion and conquest of Iraq, a period that reached a weird climax with the famous Power Point presentation sponsored by the Defense Policy Board formerly chaired by uber-hawk Richard Perle, at which Laurent Murawiec, a former longtime associate of Lyndon LaRouche, declared: * Iraq is the tactical pivot * Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot * Egypt the prize Murawiec urged that we threaten to incinerate Medina and Mecca, eventually take over Saudi Arabia, and move to subjugate the entire Middle East. Slate columnist Jack Shafer scoffed, at the time, that "it sounds a tad loopy, even by Dr. Strangelove standards," but today, as a concerted propaganda campaign by elements within the U.S. government targeting the Saudis, the Syrians, and the Iranians is well underway, it looks like Dr. Strangelove is still riding high in this administration – even if he hasn't quite yet won the day. Since the American "victory" unraveled, along with the case for war, the neocons have run for cover – but they haven't retreated. Far from it. American policy in the Middle East is running on two tracks, the official administration track of implementing an orderly exit strategy, and the neocon track, which is rapidly propelling us into an armed conflict with Iran, Syria, and Lebanon; in short, with Israel's remaining enemies in the region.

QUOTE(TheBigHurt35 @ Mar 9, 2005 -> 11:18 AM) OK, then how about Saddam's rap sheet of human rights violations, his repeated violations of UN resolutions, etc.? Sticking up for Saddam, eh? Boy, you really have gone off the deep end! What country has the most UN resolutons passed against it? (Hint hint: It's flag is blue and white and has a Star of David on it) When are we invading them? Oh I forgot, we arm them with billions in aid. And remember, with the invasion of Iraq by the US/UK -- the rationale seems to be this: it will take complete ignoring of the UN to show Saddam that he must comply with the UN. And I'm not defending Saddam's regime. I am simply saying that I don't like a person in authority that he didn't earn lies to me. I don't like people of any political party pissing on my leg & telling me its raining. There was no threat to US national interest that necessitated an invasion of Iraq.

QUOTE(TheBigHurt35 @ Mar 9, 2005 -> 10:57 AM) Yeah, and that reason was that Saddam was broke because of the war with Iran. No sane person would use "slant drilling on our land" as a reason for invasion. No sane person would use "WMD" as a reason for an ivasion either saying they knew where they were (had satellite images and everything tracking the movements) -- and then not be able to find them. And what country got Iraq into the Iraq-Iran war in the first place, intensified the fighting & armed the Hell out of a bloodthirsty dictator? Oh yeah -- the Reaganistas in the US. If a country can't get out of debt -- war solves problems. It worked for FDR to get out of the Great Depression (the historical record shows fairly certain now that we knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor) & the war economy in Germany got it out of the Depression. And btw, nice job cherry picking the post instead of going after the fact that much of the "facts" behind the justification for Gulf War I were complete and total BS.

Actually the historical record shows that the 1991 Gulf War was started by Kuwaiti companies slant drilling into Iraqi oil fields and depressing the price of oil by overproducing over the OPEC quotas. This made it impossible to get out from the Iraq-Iran war debt. Not saying it justifies the invasion -- but there was a reason he did what he did. Not to mention that April Glaspie (US ambassador to Iraq) told Hussein that the US (via Baker's command) had "no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts" like the Kuwait border dispute, and Hussein understood this to mean US non-involvement should Iraq pursue military resolution of conflict. (This was stated in the summer of 1990 -- 5 days before the invasion, FYI) And much of the case for the Iraq war (part 1 in 1990-1991) was debunked BS. Take, for example, the claims that Iraqi armies were throwing babies out of incubators. It was found out that the Kuwaitis had purchased a PR firm to promote these claims -- yet they did not have one iota of evidence to back them up: http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 9, 2005 -> 10:33 AM) Queen Prawn, ChiSoxyGirl, and I believe Steff, all weighed in on this. It's more than 1 person, and almost universal among our regular female contributors. I didn't read one lady stand up for calling the journalist a b****. So is it more mature and polite to dismiss their concerns or call them whiney? You decide. I would rather be a gentleman and find another way to describe a woman who I disagree with. You mean calling them a dyke, right Tex? (oozing with sarcasm)

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Mar 9, 2005 -> 01:04 AM) Having an attitude like that and personally attacking everyone just because they disagree with your confrontational attitude and views isn't going to get you far around here or anywhere on a message board. (..... waiting to be told "you know what") You know what DBAHO... Shag, they're telling you what you should do here because we're moderators and don't want to see you get suspended/banned. But if you want to continue with such behavior, feel quite free. Just don't say we didn't warn you first.

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Mar 8, 2005 -> 10:13 PM) I don't think it is fishing too much. Imagine the situation if Condi was working for a Democratic president, and the letter was written by someone like Tony Blair. Jessie Jackson would be creamin his jeans at all the anticipated airtime he would be getting, demanding resignations, reparations and appropriations! Al Sharpton would be knocking Jessie over to get to the cameras first. Dorothy Tillman would be demanding that we stop importing British television on any cable system broadcast in Chicago, and want to investigate the British's ties to slavery before we could watch Monty Python again. Julian Bond, would decry the secret cabal of neocons working with outside influences to keep the black man down. All over something as 'slight' as this. Evil, And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/EL05Aa04.html -- BigHurt, making strides from authoritarianism, my ass. The House of Saud has tons of blood on its hands. There is just no huge anti-Saud PR effort like there was to build up the Iraq war showing off what the House of Saud has done.

QUOTE(TheBigHurt35 @ Mar 8, 2005 -> 08:37 PM) So, how would have Haliburton known that KBR violated those laws? The SEC didn't know until just recently and it was allegedly going on since the mid-80's. The people who voilated the laws at KBR should be held accountable. Unless these laws were violated after the Haliburton purchase, Haliburton has nothing to do with it. And what would this "investigative work" shown? For all we know, Arthur Anderson was cooking KBR's books. Until someone can show me some concrete evidence that Haliburton actually DID SOMETHING ILLEGAL, this is just a partisan witch hunt. Yes, the SEC with its Bush appointees is on a partisan witch hunt.

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ Mar 8, 2005 -> 03:49 PM) If you do consider that showing a spine then that's fine. But they're only going ot attract left and far left. Moderate and moderate left may not agree with it. They're losing ground in the House and Senate quickly, now's not the time to try to go far left. A lot of the country is sick of politics as it is. I think that's because the way that the debate has been framed in this country that there are only two ways to go about issues in this country. There's a great piece in "America the Book": "The candidate can choose one of two platforms, but remember - no substitutions. For example, do you support universal health care? Then you must also want a ban on assault weapons. Pro-limited government? Congratulations, you are also anti-abortion. Luckily, all human opinion falls neatly into one of the two clearly defined camps. Thus, the two-party system elegantly reflects the bichromatic rainbow that is American political thought." This simple "Well if you agree with X, you have to agree with Y, Z and A" crap is a disservice to actual debate.

http://halliburtonwatch.org/news/bid_rigging.html In a filing with the SEC, the company said "information has been uncovered" that former employees of KBR "may have engaged in coordinated bidding with one or more competitors on certain foreign construction projects and that such coordination possibly began as early as the mid-1980s...." "Coordinating" with competitors to secure contracts with foreign governments is anticompetitive and a violation of U.S. antitrust law. The practice, known as "bid rigging," is punishable by criminal fines and denial of future contracts with the U.S. government. KBR became a subidiary of Halliburton in 1998 when Cheney orchestrated the merger with Dresser Industries. Not a swipe @ Cheney since KBR didn't get in the Halliburton boat until '98 but still interesting corporate crime watch nonetheless.

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ Mar 8, 2005 -> 02:07 PM) I don't have a problem with what Joe's doing either. McCain is a prime example for the republicans. I'm honestly not trying to diss the Democrats here, but when they appointed Howard Dean as chairman, to me, they're showing no signs of trying to win moderate voters. They are just showing signs of having a spine in their party since right now its more shaky than cafeteria Jell-O. I really try not to vote for offices based on party but rather on individual candidates running for whatever office -- since both parties seem to be populated with people who care about campaign donations & who is filling their pockets than what John and Jane Q. Public really want.

Yeah -- the Dems here really piss me off especially when there is so much to legitimately gripe at Lieberman about like his wanting to develop a council to make sure live rock concerts are not what he deems "obscene" for adults to go watch, etc.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 8, 2005 -> 10:12 AM) So that blows the whole "the US tried to kill her because of the ransom" theory out of the water.... If this is true. I wonder how much of that is truth -- and how much of that could be to foment more anger/hate of the US. Cuz with more infighting, Italy could leave the coalition of the willing & leave Iraq. If what they are saying is true, then it blows that theory out of the water -- however, it could be that they are simply doing it to try to get more chaos going on in Iraq.

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Mar 7, 2005 -> 11:01 PM) "On this score, you might want to explore the concept of the 'Responsibility to Protect' while you're in Ottawa. It's a Canadian idea born out of the recent experience of Kosovo and informed by the many horrific examples of inhumanity over the last half-century. Many Canadians feel it has a lot more relevance to providing real human security in the world than missile defence ever will." If you are so damn willing to 'protect' after the 'many horrific examples of inhumanity', why do you have such a bug up your ass about helping out in Iraq? Were there not attrocities happening there? Were there not mass graves? Was Saddam not gassing and killing his own people? Was Saddam not starving his people while building palaces of gold? And before you even start in with 'NO WMD's', that shouldn't matter, not if you really wanted to 'Protect'. Get off your f***ing high horse you arragont little pissant country and do something that matters. "I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House ..." do I sense a bit of veiled racism here? Or is it ok because Condi is a conservative? Yeah fighting in Afghanistan where terrorists actually were. Totally not doing anything. http://www.canada.com/national/features/af...stan/index.html

QUOTE(soxman352000 @ Mar 7, 2005 -> 10:57 PM) Like that f***ing Physco in Colorado who said the victims in the WTC were little Ikeman Dare I say somebody missed a few days in school for spelling and grammar? I keed I keed.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/03/07/irish/ Excellent article about the centennial of the Irish republican political party, Sinn Fein. Tiocfaidh Ar La!

I don't like she's saying it without a lot of evidence for the claim either. But as more information comes out (i.e. the secret service agents discounting the initial US explanation), it just makes the US look worse and worse. It doesn't justify her claims at all but with the already suspect PR image of the US in the world stage, we can't afford more egg on our face getting busted in having eyewitnesses discount our statements. Instead of the government releasing an erroneous statement, take the time to develop a factual one.

During a press-conference shortly after the liberation of his girlfriend Giuliana Sgrena, the famous journalist for Il Manifesto who was kidnapped and held hostage in Iraq for nearly a month, Piero Scolari had this to say: "It's like an hallucination, all of this is like an hallucination. Giuliana risked her lifed, they could have killed her. And I don't mean Iraqi criminal gangs but American soldiers. We are in the hands of madmen. We can't stay another minute longer down there. They fired more than 300-400 rounds on the car that was taking Giuliana to the airport... they were like madmen, our agents down there said, immediately after the shooting stopped. Complete insanity. They killed Nicola Calipari, an extraordinary man, a special person. Nicola died in order to save Giuliana, he shielded her with his body." While the precise details of the shooting still remain unclear, and an angry Premier Silvio Berlusconi is demanding that the Bush administration conduct a thorough investigation to ensure that "someone assumes the responsibility for what has happened here," According to l'Unità, Scolari stated: "The Americans shut down the cell phones of our agents who were with Giuliana. They shut them off while they [the agents] were speaking with Silvio Berlusconi, they prevented the emergency medical technicians from approaching the wounded," Scolari recounts, basing himself on the eyewitness testimony of the Italian secret service agents at the scene. But how is it possible that all this was allowed to happen? In that moment I shouted at the premier [berlusconi] that your war is to blame for this. This war is madness and these are the results that it produces." Scolari dismisses as ridiculous the official story-line that has been circulating in US military circles that "the car was driving at full speed toward the American check point" where the shooting took place. "Giuliana and the other people who were there told me that the American attack was completely unjustified. They had allerted the whole chain of command, the Italian troops were awaiting them at the airport. Any yet, they fired 300, 400 rounds. Why?" -- So according to Italian secret service agents, the US cut off the cell phones & that Italian soldiers were waiting at the airport as well. It seems that the testimonials of the Italian secret service agents at the scene are in direct conflict with the Pentagon story. And excuse me if I am skeptical of a Pentagon that earlier in this war tried to give us the heroic tale of Jessica Lynch -- and their story flew in the face of what actually happened. Now Italian Secret Service agents are backing the story produced by the journalist, so it kind of puts a damper on the "commie b****" theory regarding this case. Cuz Burlusconi can be called a lot of things but definitely not a Communist.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 7, 2005 -> 08:02 PM) Daniel Pearl, and all civilians in the war zone, ignored repeated warnings from the terrorists that they would be executing people. Not saying it is fair, or not, just pointing out that warnings do not excuse behavior. Go back to Russia with the rest of the Commies, okay Stalin?!

QUOTE(TheBigHurt35 @ Mar 7, 2005 -> 06:46 PM) Yes, it was ridiculous. I said "shot" and, if you had a grasp on the facts, you would've known that Daniel Pearl was beheaded. I also don't recall Pearl ignoring warnings from U.S. soldiers to stop as he was driving though a checkpoint. Again, comparing a brutal, pre-meditated murder to a collateral damage casualty due to miscommunication is nothing short of asinine. Ridiculous are the people who give credence to this commie b**** and her "America tried to murder me" bulls*** for the sake of making Bush look bad. I'm not giving credence to "this commie b****" (cunning strategy of demeaning the messenger rather than the message) -- I'm simply going off what you said. If a journalist is injured in a war zone, people should not be concerned since they are in a war zone after all and the threat of harm comes with the territory. I'm just taking what you said about journalists getting in harm's way & then b****ing when they get hurt to its logical conclusion. No double standards when one standard will work just fine. And if you've read my previous posts in this thread -- its this sort of "Well she's just a commie b****" attitude that is making the world image of the US look like complete s***. This whole "America is never wrong!" attitude is childish and asinine. God forbid we apologize for making a mistake.

/golf clap Guinness

QUOTE(TheBigHurt35 @ Mar 7, 2005 -> 05:14 PM) Wow, the anti-Americans are out in full force today. :rolly Daniel Pearl was brutally murdered by terrorists. The Italian passenger in this case was shot accidentally and it was just as likely the fault of his own people as it was the U.S troops. So, no, your comparison is completely ridiculous. No -- your statement was that when journalists get killed/injured in a war zone, there should not be outrage. So no, my comparison adding Daniel Pearl was not ridiculous. The only thing ridiculous in this thread is calling anybody who doesn't blindly follow the Bushies as "anti-American".