Free Republic

not getting their point, nor any of these hindsight critics.
Both the executive branch and Democrats in the senate request an NIE from Tenet, prior to the JR vote. despite claims of minimized dissent in unclassified versions, it key judgements were clear. It’s preposterous to expect lawmakers to discard 90 pages of a report, and its ultimate conclusions, and latch onto a minority dissent paragraph on a minor issue on page 58.
Due to the intelligence reform act of 1980 neither branch could have undue influence on the content of that NIE, as each pout in a request and they have by law independent conduits for intelligence finished products-and cannot view raw intel.
The use of this war to forward democrats agenda makes me want to puke. On a war critic. Sure it’s been ugly. People got hurt. Died. More so because some told Iraq’s insurgents the soldiers were there on lies.
Joe Wilson was the single bridge from bad intel to just plain lies, and it’s obvious he did it for a career change. From civil servant to politician. Young men and women died for his treachery, and Kerry’s.
Of course Bush was litle better, he allowed it and the “finding WMD is everything” whiners to cast aspersion on the whole mission.

He had to. Dems demanded a wholesale pullout in early summer ‘03. Remember “we’re not occupiers, give them back their soveriegnty!”

Uh-huh. With Saddam loose and France, China and Russia eager to reinstate drilling contracts, and us needing a shooting gallery for Al Qaeda?

Make us look feeble, hapless, “we’re only staying as long as they NEED us to!”

I remember them saying we were unable to keep the IED’s off of a 5 mile stretch of the Baghdad highway- most important blacktop in the country, green zone to Saddam int’l. I knew the whole thing was sandbagged from that day on. My ass, we had UAV’s in the air 7/24 overhead, if a gopher pops his head up we knew about it. Let alone some 15 yo boy buggering Iraqi dirtbag digging a hole and burying a bomb.

The world would never let us sit on top of all that oil after such an ass kicking on Saddam. However, look feeble, inept, like we were too hapless to do any better, and even America is the victim, lied to by Bush who goes home in 2009.

Masterful. I think it’s obvious Dems tried to tank the war for a platform in 2004. Question is, was Bush in full cooperation? We’ll never know, he told woodward. It goes from God, to George, to Bob, to us. Dick’s in there somewhere.

Everyone knows all this now, right?

(I know this is an OLLLD story, but what the hell, no argument worth having is too late!)
So do you think Marvin was allowed to use HIS property as HE saw fit, when the building of this concrete plant went in next to his existing business? Doesn’t such a plant, when it goes through the planning and permit stages, have to submit reports on how its operation will affect existing residents and businesses? Why do they do that?
When Marvin opened his muffler shop the cement plant wasn’t there- indeed it COULD NOT have been because it wasnt zoned for that usage. Until the mayor and town council altered the zoning with a variance, which doomed Heemeyer’s muffler shop because it cut off access for his customers and choked it with dust and pollution.
Would it have been a problem if they opened a giant muffler shop next door or another business compatible with existing zoning ordnances? Doubtful. The mayor and town council altered the zoning for a big wallet, obviously bigger than Marvin’s, and let the chips fall where they may, and fall they did.

This isn’t just to you, I just replied to what I saw was one of the last eloquent and intelligent replies to American Centurian. Why? Because he’s more or less correct, but it needs expanding upon.
Iraqis hate dogs. They kick them, abuse them, and a puppy born there is in for a cruel short life. More relevant is that soldiers are charged with security in a certain area, and if there are numerous stray dogs running around, and they are going to be starving-they will follow the marines around excitedly yelping, etc, as the soldiers carry food for sustainance. This puts them at extreme risk on patrols for having their presence given away to ambushing insurgents. Since Americans love dogs the situation could quickly get out of hand as the stray population exponentially increased and the dogs learned that the guys in uniforms not only don’t kick you, they might even feed you. They sure smell good, not like those poor Iraqis.
To the point, some soldiers have told me that part of their duty is having to kill young dogs before they mature and breed. Sometimes dozens a week, if they don’t the dogs put them at extreme risk.
We send these men to another part of the world and sit and judge them as if they are living across the street. We see him laughing and this makes us assume the only reason to kill that puppy was for wanton fun. Yet we can’t imagine the challenge to our civility it must be to have to kill a handful of puppies because it’s the best thing for them, and for your own safety.
How do we know how many stray dogs his unit killed this month?
Ever see a TV news story on a large disaster, and EMT’s are on a long shift picking up body parts- and are seen smiling and joking? Victims families get enraged, but don’t understand it’s not only their work, but also their human defense mechanism against mental anguish.
It’s a once in a lifetime tragedy for them but the EMTs do it all day. Often they go home and sob later.
So it was pretty dumb to put it on you tube. He was wrong.
We are equally wrong to sit here in the comfort and luxury of a world where most puppies get love and food, and say “I love my dog therefore Motari is a cruel bastard”.
The military has a policy in Iraq to shoot and kill stray dogs found on any base. Did you know that? The puppy doesn’t care if Motari was laughing or crying, and I can’t say for sure but Motari’s video might even be interpreted as a message to us at home, albeit unintentional, that he’s sick of having to kill puppies in that dungfly infested land of crazy muslims who would rather bugger 15 yo boys than their wives. Think about that message when that clip plays.
“Look, America. This is how little they value life here. Here is what we gotta do every day here. Yesterday I shot one, day before used a shovel, maybe I’ll just toss this one. All in a days work, I’ll hope to hell when I return home I leave this part of me here”.
I doubt the puppy suffered any more than if he was killed by a bullet- which the troops are short on, and it’s a lot cleaner than leaving blood and brains all over the rocks for disease to be spread- and again a gunshot draws attention to the patrol.

Don’t ever forget, these men are in a war and everything we know in the safety and comfort of home they are helping secure, may not apply. They may have to kill another of God’s creatures to return safely. That creature being something we know at home to be fuzzy and warm, is irrelevant.

So in summary my main point is we assume he killed it for fun and that’s merely because we expect a different attitude when you kill something That assumption is unfair and wrong because he kills or sees killing very frequently. Laughing doesn’t indicate he is inhumane, it might mean he is merely human and dealing with a repulsive task.

One of the most annoying discussion topics I encounter on liberal message boards is “worst president ever” threads naming Richard M. Nixon. I was only ages 6-11 during his tenure but I as most non-leftist Americans do, remember him to be probably one of the most effective administrators in government of the 20th century. To think they dragged him down and ruined the man over the perception of his dishonesty- the country went along with it because by golly, they would clean up Washington politics once and for all!
We had no idea what a good thing we had and kicked him to the curb.
I didn’t think much about Dick Nixon until one Sunday morning I happened to be up and Meet the Press was on, must have been around 1987 or so. It was not long before his death, and at the time IIRC the Gipper was giving some rather embarrassing performances on Capital Hill, not to cast aspersion on him but he wasn’t too sharp with his defense on Iran-Contra.
A young Tim Russert was guest hosting and had a long interview with the former President and it was both a treat and very sad at the same time. His mind was like walking into a library with every question Russert asked, Nixon’s brilliance, especially in foreign policy, was incredible. I say sad because while Reagan was a great motivator, and inspiring speech giver, I felt if Nixon had been getting grilled on Capital Hill he would be the one embarrassing them. Sharp as a tack.
What struck me was the impression I got of Nixon’s character. I’d almost been taken by his critics’ revisionist impression of him as a dishonest, fearful little man but he was both humble and confident, and above all sincere.
The last thing Russert asked was what his greatest regret of his career was. You might expect “that I didn’t tell the truth right away” or “that I didn’t fight the charges” or some variance of such a selfish hope to repeal a mistake, salvaging his humiliation. No, he said it was his failure to assertively take command of the situation in Vietnam and immediately bomb Hanoi, in defiance of Congress. Had he done so, he said, he would have saved countless thousands of lives of both US soldiers and Vietnamese citizens, a mistake he said that weighed heavy on him since he left office and would until he died.

I thought that was a very selfless thing to hold as your biggest regret, considering his career’s end.

(sorry about the length, thought I’d share a little respect for a man who rarely gets any)

One of their biggest assets to the end of their buildup was an indirect gift from the previous leftist disaster at 1600 Penn.... the Panama Canal is as good as theirs right now.

While Fox holds a special niche for pissing off the left and giving us the TONE of news the right likes to hear, I read their web news as my home page daily and IMO they have no high ground as truth tellers. An example would be their straight from the AP wires coverage of the Libby/Plame/Wilson matter, incredulously describing Wilson as becoming targeted by the White House for his “criticism of the administration’s Iraq policy”. It’s no stretch to decribe the media as having a “liberal” bias, but the fact that treasonous opportunist hasn’t been called to walk the plank for attempting to fabricate a scandal to unseat an active commander in chief with boots on the ground is a crime in itself. It’s not to be found anywhere in the media, save a piece from Matt Continetti at the Weekly Standard. It seems with the War in Iraq and Wilson, telling the truth kills the story for the lot ‘o them. Not sure how they arrive at the logic in sitting on Chinagate, though mere mention of it by myself in the past in internet forums brought responses best described as sneering rage for mere hint of aspersion cast upon their pariah.

Don’t forget half the population or thereabouts of San Diego, we’re ex military who got out and stayed. You guys may have to take the bay area since that’s far enough we might miss the weekly Chargers football loss, but we’ll have no problem securing Lost Anjeeleez.
There’s a pretty strong protestwarrior faction here, it was funny a couple years back when Sheehan’s touring group tried to disrupt Bush staying in Coronado with their “support the troops by making them run home” message.
Much of the group that outnumbered and outclassed them were active duty military on their own time in civvies.
Duncan Hunter is also East County’s favorite son.

More to the subject, what this guy is up to is the same crap they’ve been pulling on the war- a voiciferous,childish and whining minority is so bent on getting their way they have become an outright facist movement- If you don’t share their hate they hate you, even if you once shared some views if you aren’t rabidly attacking they eat you like some cannibals eating their own. Look at what they did to Lieberman.
There’s so many now and they have rewritten so much recent history I often wonder if this is a bad dream. The other day I was over at Wikipedia on the Iraq war page and complete opinion and venomous speculation is now passed off as fact but moderate editors seem to have just... given... in. Didn’t use to be that way.
This Harvard jackhole has no idea who the nominee will be, the election is a year and nearly 2 months away, yet he talks like any republican winning is armageddon.

As for saying Clinton was the smartest, that is not the same as supporting him. Intelligence simply makes a guy like Clinton more dangerous.

I look at Clinton's "talents" like this: He has constituants bent over with a pine cone up the tookas and no KY, and they're thanking him asking for another because it feels so good. Sometimes knowing Bush can only keep one train of thought on the tracks at once is comforting.

I both agree and disagree. I mean I’m no economist, but it seems to me Clinton balanced the budget on the short term revenues gained by so many American factories shutting down and taking their patents and manufacturing knowledge with them to Asia. Stockholders of these companies held onto their shares just long enough to cash in their dividends as the profits soared and they lived off the good name of former USA made products, selling off before most folks realized all that was left of a healthy company was an import/export office in an industrial park somewhere.
Those stockholders paid capital gains taxes, right?
Conversely Bush may be spending like the drunken sailor on liberty, but hasn’t the bulk of it been on military endeavors that were the result of Clinton’s procrastinating problems onto the next administration? Not to mention I believe 9/11 had long term effects on the
Clinton created consumer driven economy we really are in denial in accepting the severity of.

I’m not trying to gloss over Shrub’s shortcomings as much as rationalize that the hell this handbasket headed to was here no matter who carried it the last 7 years.

Anyway if you take the part of the equation of the cost of Iraq against the deficit it’s pretty absurd to think of a downside. Given the “alignment of the planets” present as Saddam was scheming with Chirac and others to wrestle oil commerce hegemony from petrodollar to petroeuro, the way I understand it we simply retained the ability to pay for Iraq the same way we paid for Vietnam:

Just print more money as developing nations need it to pay for oil.

Alan and Andrea are probably painfully aware of the Clinton body count, around 85 and counting. Seems people with stories to tell about the Clintons suddenly develop bouts of extreme depression and commit suicide, or get in bizarre fatal accidents just before they go public. Or in the case of Ron Brown, there is a bizarre accident and several witnesses kill themselves afterwards.
As for why they land on their feet, I can think of no explanation other than the willfully dishonest and self flagellating qualities of those who vote for them.

Can we keep these gangsters out in 2008? Please?

Hey guys, I’m going to possibly offer the singular argument that can finally bury this issue once and for all, it just came to me.

---

Mother Nature (or God, if you like) gave us copulation as a means for procreation, not for something to pass the time. As humans created societies, they developed MARRIAGE so that we had something which raised us above the mentality of monkeys or rabbits and procreating with no responsibility to care for those offspring.

---

If you got a girl pregnant you married her. Gays are not saddled with such a burden,and thus do not need marriage. Marriage is a long standing institution without which society would be burdened with countless bastard children and single mothers.

What do you think?

Thank you for a splendid reply, you sre s veritable cornucopia of information. I’m sorry to admit half the reason I added the war question was to satisfy a curiosity that your expansive knowledge on financial matters was that of a one trick pony, but it seems you are well rounded. Impressed by your knowledge of the economy, I truly wanted to get your take on the war, I don’t ask that of many people. Within your accounts I find much validation confirming what I know and find a few things I didn’t.
Perhaps I can return the favor in a small way, even though you more than answered the curveball question factually, you didn’t quite nail the little known but damn sure should be by the left point:

http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/11/01/981101-in.htm

when clinton signed the Iraqi liberation act of 1998,it cited direct payment to the Iraqi National Congress of $3 million dollars, for:

As required
by the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for FY 1998 (Public Law
105-174), the Department of State submitted a report to the Congress on
plans to establish a program to support the democratic opposition. My
Administration, as required by that statute, has also begun to implement
a program to compile information regarding allegations of genocide,
crimes against humanity, and war crimes by Iraq’s current leaders as a
step towards bringing to justice those directly responsible for such
acts.

and goes on to include eliminsting WMD with that. Notice that he said to collect information on ALLEGATIONS, not that any of it was true?

Finally if you look at that link you will see Clinton passed the mike to Chalabi himself to make a statement.

Yet you won’t see this repeated by anyone today. Public law, that the press calling it “Bush’s war” can’t find.

My take condensed is that Bush simply inherited US policy thst was fast tracked after 9/11, and Dems were lock step, I’d even say they egged him on, to do the job Clinton wouldn’t. After a highly successful invasion, they realized they might as well stay home in November 2004 but came up with a plan to #1, completely distance themselves from any responsibility, then #2, tank the sucker.
Enter Joe Wilson whose damage was enormous, being the first to cross the huge chasm between innocent presentation of faulty intel, to an insider stating they knew it was wrong.
The damage was so bad because just weeks later Bush went to Europe to ask NATO for help on the ground, and all they wanted to talk about was lies and yellowcake. Remember he didn’t just write an op-ed in a magazine, that op-ed was a CYA backing away from all his embellishments and lies told to over two dozen media outlets.

Cheers, and mucho respect.

Is there any doubt that the Dummycrabs are completely obsessed with their “I hate myself for being American” self flagellation? Now, by criminalizing self defense they just move a step closer to making us all gutless and spineless as they are.
“Come rob me. I won’t put up a fight, and I deserve it anyway”.

Oh yeah, feel free to copy, modify, reword or add to that and use any part of it as your own. I think it would be cool to see it condensed to a page by someone whose closing skills debate wise are better than mine and periodically bounced around the internet’s leftist strongholds.

tag.

petition is good.

note, another solid way to support this cause is something I do, rather than the preferred company of reasonable folks like freepers, hit the enemy wherever I see them and intelligently and factually challenge their most core beliefs. Several of them are very easy.

“Bush lied to go to war” or “it wasn’t the war on terror until we made it so”

Joint resolution is the only official justification acceptable outlining the cause for war, and you know what? It contains not one lie, nor anything proven false after the fact.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

No claims of stockpiles at that time nor need to find any.

Terrorism, or the war on terrorism- INTERNATIONAL terrorism, is mentioned at least a half dozen times.

And Proof:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/03/13/wsad13.xml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2846365.stm

those two are nonpartisan, this leans right but is more detailed yet fully sourced. Avoid Salman Pak claim, that may be false.

http://www.husseinandterror.com

Finally this is rather amazing this is never discussed.This proves Saddam wasn’t just a sponsor, he WAS himself a terrorist:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-04-12-suicide-vests_x.htm

His personal guards hid those before the war.

You will infuriate any group of haters because you have facts that are irrefutable. I avoid returning insults if I can.

It seems like a small deal, and don’t plan on winning any arguments or changing minds, but that’s not important. These vermin tend to gravitate in pockets of the net where they seek comfort writing their own history.
Factual Claim: Saddam Hussein was the most blatant and conspicuous state sponsor of international terrorism in the world in 2002. Nobody else ran an announement on Al Jazeera. Over 120 bounties for “martyrs” were paid from 2000-2003.

First response you will hear is “Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11”. Reply that nobody said they did, and thank you but you elect leaders with the vision to pursue the next terrorists, not chase ghost of the dead. (arresting and prosecuting successful suicide bombers is a decidedly ineffective tactic.

Our troops removed that. Haters want to deny them due credit. We can stop that.

Thank You for reading.

Before I concede rather than risk looking silly discussing matters I may be a mile over my head with, please offer me the benefit of an education so that in accepting loss, I may glean knowledge for my trouble:

“As of 2003, the United States accounted for 36.4% of patents internationally and gained 2 percentage points from its level in 1995 (34.4%). The proportion of patents originating from Europe and Japan has tended to decrease, losing more than 1 percentage point between 1995 and 2003 (to 30.3% and 25.7% respectively in 2003). China’s was 0.3%, bested by Korea at 1.4%, Canada at 1.3%, Australia at 0.8% and little Israel @ 0.7%”

Does China renumerate American patent, copyright and name licensing fees to their US owners for goods they sell here? How about goods produced in Chaina but sold internationally?

“The rise of the service sector is not “at the expense of the manufacturing sector”. The reality is that while some workers lose steel jobs and move to McDonald’s, the larger trend is higher-paying service-sector jobs squeezing out lower-paid manufacturing jobs.”

I would still disagree with that scenario. I think factory jobs pay much better, if the blame should go not to Clinton so be it. I further think we have transformed from a producer society to a consumer one.

Finally, tell me this:

Did we invade Iraq because:

#1 you couldn’t seriously prosecute the war on terror with Saddam left blatantly defying us,it was about the spanking.

#2 we were so worried about WMD in the hands of Al Qaeda, even with the slim evidence, we thought it was worth the international ire.

#3 we didn’t want to have to clean up the mess we knew he’d make when sanctions ended.

#4 Saddam’s ties to international terrorism.

#5 other?

and if you will indulge me kindly:

Why is it sheer insanity when a liberal tells me Capital Hill Dems were duped by Bush over the JR, and particularly that Cheney “stovepiped” intel from INC stooge “curveball”(among others) and it’s Bush’s war?

Thank you in advance.

“They deny the domino effect yet forget we were grabbing swaths of dominoes from around the planet to stop their fall. The effect of Vietnam on the cold war therefore wasn’t just symbolic, or idealism, it was vital and tangible.”

I don’t think it was so cryptic to warrant the response given nor the interpretation its author was leftist.

Make up your mind, will you? Your repeated criticism of me was leftist talking points, which is silly- not lack of a cohesive point. I pride myself for nearly five years of finding little pockets of the internet where the flaming liberals of America are destroying the fabric of my country promoting their lies as truth, and presenting facts whether they like them or not. Newshounds is a notorious leftist stomping ground, they banned me from their inner forums and stickied a thread about me when I infuriated them standing my ground exposing Joe Wilson's lies.
Maybe straying from the comfort of FR would do you some good,you know your stuff, you would do a greater service to your beliefs if you were surrounded by the enemy, rather than yes men. That's why you don't see me much here, and it seems to me you were so hungry for a fight you mistakenly assumed I was a Dummycrab. The enemy is out there, there are millions of wannabe Rosie O'Donnells behind their monitors hating away. Newshounds is a great place to start.

Didn't think I needed one, in the heat of the discussion a couple of other posters asked about his record. I found what I could and offered it. Surely it isn't out of line to bring facts if I'm not spamming walls 'O' text?

It would be easier for me to concede on mere face value your explanations of matters I am not well versed on, if your replies weren't so far off base in other posts where I am. One thing you are wrong about right off is calling me a troll. A troll doesn't stand and defend his position.

Your "balance" still has other nations flowing goods into our shores, and nations flowing capital into our shores for investment. What it does not have is much going back out in exchange is payment for those goods unless you are drawing upon the investment dollars and that is a good old fashioned Ponzi scheme. I'll humbly admit you appear to eclipse my knowledge in financial matters but the math still doesn't add up, and it's not as if the "petrodollars" system is something I pulled out if my ass. Many experts who disagree with it as a cause for war still recognize the underlying theories.

As for Clinton, it's no secret to ANYone but you I guess that during his tenure millions upon millions of manufacturing sector employment positions transferred to the servce sector, for a variety of reasons. NAFTA was a mexican pit stop for factories to actually go to Asia. Chinagate involved manufacturing KNOW HOW as well as machine tools and hi tech computer technology. He did not give them a fish he taught them how to fish! He allowed technology and industrial processes, patents, etc, to be handed to them and here are a couple pieces of evidence:

Patent numbers used to appear on every product. Now they are almost irrelevent.

99 cent stores were almost unheard of before 1992, though we've brought up the Chinese standard of living they're nearly gone. I'm going to guess you probably aren't much younger than my 45 years and you remember when you chose to buy American products. We don't get that choice anymore, America makes nothing.

I would stand on the position that the Clinton years saw, due to his policies above and below the table, the end of US manufacturing capability that may indeed have been decades along already. We are now surely a nation of consumers not producers. (will continue after lunch)