LowerCaseRepublican

John Kerry and George W. Bush are both corporate whores, neo-conservatives advocating wars all over the globe and destructive policies for the American pubic. The one thing that John Kerry has that George W. Bush doesn't is an ability to not horribly butcher the English language.

Only water and beer in my fridge. (Warsteiner and Pabst Blue Ribbon)

Cheddar Cheese Pretzel Combos. Oh sweet sassy Jeebus.

Ten Things I Hate About You

From what I've been told, criminals whose victims were women/children, really get harassed/beaten in prison by other inmates. I don't know how much validity there is to that, but for assholes like that guy death would be too easy. (A reason I'm anti-capital punishment)

1. No 2. No 3. Depends on the week 4. Optimus Prime > the Pussies in GI Joe 5. No

http://www.logcabin.org/logcabin/press_090804.html

Little Green Footballs! They are amusing. That site really dislikes my friend Adam for being part of the International Solidarity Movement and being Jewish and wanting to take a trip to Israel. (Don't really know why but they were trying to get him taken off the trip he was going on with a bunch of other people) Sorry for that aside, as for the documents...there is a definite possibility that this document could be forged. Does that mean all the 2 dozen that the Pentagon turned over via FOIA/AP lawsuit are fakes? Possibly. But as winodj said, it doesn't change the fact that he didn't live up to the demands of the Guard that he didn't get punished for it.

I was reading part of the PATRIOT Act (for a class in Crises of Political Tolerance) and part of it struck me and I had to read it a few times over. One of the definitions of "terrorism" in the document is the following: `(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; `(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or `(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping Now, I know I am going to get flamed for this but this definition fits so much of US policy right now. From Cheney's statement that was an inuendo that a vote for Kerry means we'll get hit with more terror attacks to previous Congressmen saying a vote against Bush is a vote for bin Laden...this definition is quite open ended and could quite easily be applied to US domestic policy and foreign policy as well as the policy of many other states. And who is to say what is intimidating and what's not? It could be that a mass gathering of hundreds of thousands of people peacefully could be perceived as "intimidating" and therefore they would be "terrorists" by this definition? Intimidation and coercion of a population is so broad...they could use the draconian measures of the bill punishment wise to apply to any criminal or group of people that they believe is a threat to power and therefore intimidating (even if the group is non-violent). It's an interesting thing that I wanted to bring to peoples' attention.

I'm sure they'll get plenty of that in prison.

With a government that brought us such fun programs as COINTELPRO, I'd rather not have cameras monitoring peoples' movements.

I4E, I gotta go to class (damn quiz) and get some reading done at the library but I'll post some PNAC expose info when I get back...but here's a few. http://pnac.info/ Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) also had a really kick-ass speech in Congress entitled "Neo-Conned": http://www.thelibertycommittee.org/neo-conned.htm is the transcript. http://www.oldamericancentury.org/ has profiles of the major PNAC players Oddly enough, PNAC took the statement about needing a "Pearl Harbor like attack" out of their statement of principles on their site. The following is from the UK Guardian in an article by John Pilger: Perle is one of the founders of the Project for the New American Century, the PNAC. Other founders include Dick Cheney, now vice-president, Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence secretary, I Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, William J Bennett, Reagan's education secretary, and Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's ambassador to Afghanistan. These are the modern chartists of American terrorism. The PNAC's seminal report, Rebuilding America's Defences: strategy, forces and resources for a new century, was a blueprint of American aims in all but name. Two years ago it recommended an increase in arms-spending by $48bn so that Washington could "fight and win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars". This has happened. It said the United States should develop "bunker-buster" nuclear weapons and make "star wars" a national priority. This is happening. It said that, in the event of Bush taking power, Iraq should be a target. And so it is. As for Iraq's alleged "weapons of mass destruction", these were dismissed, in so many words, as a convenient excuse, which it is. "While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification," it says, "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." How has this grand strategy been implemented? A series of articles in the Washington Post, co-authored by Bob Woodward of Watergate fame and based on long interviews with senior members of the Bush administration, reveals how 11 September was manipulated. On the morning of 12 September 2001, without any evidence of who the hijackers were, Rumsfeld demanded that the US attack Iraq. According to Woodward, Rumsfeld told a cabinet meeting that Iraq should be "a principal target of the first round in the war against terrorism". Iraq was temporarily spared only because Colin Powell, the secretary of state, persuaded Bush that "public opinion has to be prepared before a move against Iraq is possible". Afghanistan was chosen as the softer option. If Jonathan Steele's estimate in the Guardian is correct, some 20,000 people in Afghanistan paid the price of this debate with their lives. Time and again, 11 September is described as an "opportunity". In last April's New Yorker, the investigative reporter Nicholas Lemann wrote that Bush's most senior adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told him she had called together senior members of the National Security Council and asked them "to think about 'how do you capitalise on these opportunities'", which she compared with those of "1945 to 1947": the start of the cold war. Since 11 September, America has established bases at the gateways to all the major sources of fossil fuels, especially central Asia. The Unocal oil company is to build a pipeline across Afghanistan. Bush has scrapped the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, the war crimes provisions of the International Criminal Court and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. He has said he will use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states "if necessary". Under cover of propaganda about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the Bush regime is developing new weapons of mass destruction that undermine international treaties on biological and chemical warfare. In the Los Angeles Times, the military analyst William Arkin describes a secret army set up by Donald Rumsfeld, similar to those run by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and which Congress outlawed. This "super-intelligence support activity" will bring together the "CIA and military covert action, information warfare, and deception". According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld, the new organisation, known by its Orwellian moniker as the Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group, or P2OG, will provoke terrorist attacks which would then require "counter-attack" by the United States on countries "harbouring the terrorists". In other words, innocent people will be killed by the United States. This is reminiscent of Operation Northwoods, the plan put to President Kennedy by his military chiefs for a phoney terrorist campaign - complete with bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans - as justification for an invasion of Cuba. Kennedy rejected it. He was assassinated a few months later. Now Rumsfeld has resurrected Northwoods, but with resources undreamt of in 1963 and with no global rival to invite caution. You have to keep reminding yourself this is not fantasy: that truly dangerous men, such as Perle and Rumsfeld and Cheney, have power. The thread running through their ruminations is the importance of the media: "the prioritised task of bringing on board journalists of repute to accept our position". "Our position" is code for lying. Certainly, as a journalist, I have never known official lying to be more pervasive than today. We may laugh at the vacuities in Tony Blair's "Iraq dossier" and Jack Straw's inept lie that Iraq has developed a nuclear bomb (which his minions rushed to "explain"). But the more insidious lies, justifying an unprovoked attack on Iraq and linking it to would-be terrorists who are said to lurk in every Tube station, are routinely channelled as news. They are not news; they are black propaganda. This corruption makes journalists and broadcasters mere ventriloquists' dummies. An attack on a nation of 22 million suffering people is discussed by liberal commentators as if it were a subject at an academic seminar, at which pieces can be pushed around a map, as the old imperialists used to do. The issue for these humanitarians is not primarily the brutality of modern imperial domination, but how "bad" Saddam Hussein is. There is no admission that their decision to join the war party further seals the fate of perhaps thousands of innocent Iraqis condemned to wait on America's international death row. Their doublethink will not work. You cannot support murderous piracy in the name of humanitarianism. Moreover, the extremes of American fundamentalism that we now face have been staring at us for too long for those of good heart and sense not to recognise them. It should also be noted that many members of the PNAC think tank also have ties to defense contractors and weapons manufacturers, so excuse the pun, they are making a killing money-wise in these wars being waged.

Nice loaded question, 420. 1. George W. Bush from the 2000 debate: "And so I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building." Flip-flopper. 2. The Project for a New American Century (PNAC), an organization founded by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Richard Perle and other members of the administration has been calling for the invasion of Iraq since 1997 to make it a tactical pivot to a) control oil supplies and B) give a military base of operations for future wars against Syria, Iran, etc. (Their original plan called for the US invasion of over 60 countries) 3. As for turning them into a "democracy", would that be the shutting down of al Sadr's newspaper just because the US didn't like what it was saying or would that be the shutting down of al-Jazeera because they didn't like what it was saying (some freedom of speech, huh?) or would it be the arresting of, according to the BBC, approx. 70-90% innocent people and throwing them into prison indefinitely until the US finds out if they are of any worth intelligence wise (most people arrested for traffic violations and other small offenses) or would it be the democratic values of the US trying to hand pick the candidates for the elections instead of letting a "free Iraq" choose who they want as their leader? The deposing of Saddam Hussein has just led to greater increased terrorism, terrorist threats and greater anti-US sentiment. (not to mention, a bulk of our troops are bogged down in an area for a very long period of time). If the US was serious about helping out 3rd world nations, then why make the case on WMD? It went from "Weapons of Mass Destruction" to "Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs" to "Weapons of Mass Destruction Related Programs" to "Weapons of Mass Destruction Related Program Activities"...What in the blue f*** is a "Weapons of Mass Destruction Related Program Activity"? As Nuke has told me numerous times, the US does not have an effective "post-war" plan for Iraq and that the troops had no idea what the f*** they are doing there post-war. Perhaps reading a book called "War is a Racket", by one of the most highly decorated Marines (Major General Smedley Butler) will open your eyes to the military industrial complex which Eisenhower warned us about. And another good article by a retired special forces master sargeant: http://www.counterpunch.org/goff11142003.html

Grass

Nuke, it's called a joke. Lighten the f*** up.

Night of the Living Dead

Not the best Republican...just one that didn't have much to lose getting their ass kicked in a landslide by Obama (Obama was up approx. 20 pts. on Ryan before Ryan dropped out)

Roger & Me

Thanks, Kap. All corrected. Now as for what you'd have to give up: Everything fun.

If what Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson said was true about homosexuals, ACLU, etc. being behind the reasons for 9/11 happening then could one use the same logic to say that these hurricanes are God's revenge on Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris for their voter fraud that gave Florida to Bush?

Admins, is there a way to fix up my accidental f***-up and put WSF's original post in? Damn eating cookies and trying to click on Quote.

OH f***. Sorry bout that WSF. I meant to hit quote and not edit. Goddamnit.

An interesting take... http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=16...9-06&do_alert=0 Terrorists who seized a school in North Ossetia's Beslan, September 1, were receiving orders from abroad throughout the three suspense-laden days, says Aslanbek Aslakhanov, President Vladimir Putin's adviser for North Caucasian affairs. --snip-- Aslanbek Aslakhanov, a Chechen, was on the site throughout the tragedy, and contacted the gang on the telephone. "The men were certainly not Chechens. When I spoke Chechen with them, they said they couldn't make out a word. 'Speak Russian,' they told me. Well, I did as they wished, though I speak Russian with a Caucasian accent," he said in his TV interview. [emphasis mine]

Pre-war there was no tie with AQ and Iraq having a direct relationship. After Bush's ill-conceived war, membership in AQ has increased and more anti-US sentiment around the globe has flourished. That's not exactly "winning" the war on terror. From the San Francisco Chronicle: "Killing him [bin Laden] is not a silver bullet," said James Jay Carafano, a senior fellow and defense expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. "Cutting off the head can be significant, but I wouldn't argue that it will stop the threat or end the war on terror. We should disabuse people of that notion." The bin Laden who was described in the Sept. 11 commission's report as a hands-on commander -- running training camps, receiving oaths of allegiance, personally selecting some of the hijackers and arguing over the precise timing of the attack -- has been driven underground by U.S. forces. He is now believed to be somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Nonetheless, experts say, he serves as a highly effective symbol of defiance motivating what is now a global terrorist movement, not a single organization with a clear membership and a structure. Bin Laden, partly through his image and partly through the tapes he has smuggled out, inspires attacks rather than plots them, and his power appears to have grown, with or without his active participation. "This is no longer about bin Laden," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, which recently organized surveys of public opinion throughout the Arab world. "Bin Laden has become a symbol, a metaphor. It's now much, much bigger than one person or one group. He's become a symbol of a feeling that they can strike America -- that it is honorable." Bin Laden's power to motivate would-be terrorists might only be increased by his capture or killing, which could make him a martyr, experts say. In other words, bin Laden may be more influential not because he has more control over his old organization but because he has less. "Bin Laden is now an inspiration for a social movement that is run from the bottom up, not from the top down, like the old al Qaeda," said Marc Sageman, a former CIA operative who ran groups of mujahedeen guerrillas in Afghanistan against the Soviets. "It has changed the game completely. In a way, we have defeated al Qaeda, but that doesn't mean we won. The global jihad is alive and well, and it has been strengthened by our own policies." Sageman, now a professor of forensic psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book, "Understanding Terror Networks," added: "It's irrelevant where bin Laden is. It doesn't matter anymore." "What the U.S. has succeeded in eliminating was the 2001 al Qaeda leadership," said Sageman. "But that's not what is leading the movement now." -- Thinking that the Iraq war is making America safer is absolutely laughable. It has just caused our troops to be engaged in a quagmire for the long term and vastly increased reasons for terrorists to attack us again which is a very disheartening f***ing situation.