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Old 05-29-2005, 08:46 PM   #1
Neil Mick
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The "smoking gun" memo

I guess I'd better choose my words carefully, here: or Michael Neal will come on and hound me for three pages!

Well, simply put: here it is, proof positive that all the talk of all other methods of dealing with Hussein were exhausted, and BushCo was dead set on enacting regime-change as int'l policy...a clear violation of international law, bigtime. Worse, BushCo "fixed" the facts and intel to shift US and int'l opinion.

Worst of all (for me), no plans were made for the post-invasion. Concerns of occupying a nation of starving ppl out of work? I can almost hear it now: "We don't do body-counts: so why should we worry about food-lines?"

Curious, how silent the supposed "leftwing bias'd" media is on this political hot-potato, isn't it? Well, we'll see. I'm sure they're too busy reading their copies of Mao's Red Book, to take notice. Give them time.

The secret Downing Street memo
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02

Quote:
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
Quote:
"We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq. But if Saddam Hussein does not disarm peacefully, he will be disarmed by force"
- George W. Bush,
Radio Address Mar. 8, 2003

"I think that that presumes there's some kind of imminent war plan. As I said, I have no timetable."

- George W. Bush,
Aug. 10, 2002 while golfing

Thoughts? Could this be the end of Little W?

Also, you can click here to sign a petition demanding that the President answer questions originally posed by Conyers and 88 other members of Congress in a similar letter dated May 5, 2005.

Last edited by Neil Mick : 05-29-2005 at 08:53 PM.
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Old 05-30-2005, 01:13 AM   #2
DustinAcuff
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

First I'd like to say that this is NOT intended as an attack on you.
You cannot cut and paste things out of chronological order (legitimately) because you lose credibility and cannot blame the past on the future. It makes no sense!
If I recall correctly, the major basis for the WMD chaos was the the UN weapons inspectors DID find an empty delivery device (only one mind you) for a biological or chemical agent.
On the WMD I cannot say if they are now, or were ever in Iraq. But I can say that Saddam giving the UN inspectors the run around for years (Clinton, W) about when and where they could inspect does add weight to the idea that he might have something.
Would you rather act with the information you had in the intrest of protecting your home and be wrong, or not act on information you did have because you feared you might be wrong and then lose your life because you did not act?
I will back you if you say that Bush needs to come foward, admit he made an oops, apoligize, and rectify the situation. But just attacking Bush day in and day out seems useless. Fact of the matter is that the majority of Americans (not by much) voted for Bush over Kerry. You have to suffer until the next election. Honestly, if I woke up after election day and Kerry was going to be the next president, I would back him 100%, and I voted for Bush.
Neil I would like to see you present some real possible solutions taking into account the current situation rather than ranting about how it got to be this way. What paths do you see out of this mess?

Last edited by DustinAcuff : 05-30-2005 at 01:17 AM.
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Old 05-30-2005, 05:42 AM   #3
feck
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Hi people,

This whole issue confuses me, in the fact that I, in my humble, uninformed opinion does not understand why SH is being held.

On what grounds are the American authorities holding this man?
What charges can they bring against him?
What countries supplied him with arms and ammunition while sanctions were being held against his country?

On the argument that he killed so many Kurds after the last war, wouldn't any country do the same when factions inside your own country side with invaders and try to attack you? Let me just say i do not condone any acts of violence.
More importantly in this respect why did the administration of that time leave these people to die, when they originally asked and promised them liberty in creating chaos within the country to help the invading force topple this man.
Will SH be executed for his crimes(whatever they may be?), or will he be sentenced to serve some time and then released?
If SH ever becomes a free man, would he be allowed to return to his own country?
What would happen if the people of this country wanted him to return to his former capacity as head of state?


We as the people who have held this man captive already for over ten years in his own country since the last war, now tell the world that we were scared that he could mount or conspire to mount attacks against our countries, is this believable?

And lastly my most confusing thought on all this is this, why is it that we attacked two countries and killed thousands in those countries on the basis of what happened on 9/11, when 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia?

Sorry if this has thrown this discussion somewhere else, but i just wanted to vent something off my chest.

feck
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Old 05-30-2005, 10:34 AM   #4
makuchg
 
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

He's being held by the American's for the Iraqis. He is charged with crimes agains humanity for GASSING the kurds. Killing them is one thing (and it is against the geneva convention to willfully kill non-combatants), but use of chemical weapons on them was way wrong. The Iraqis are trying him, not the Americans.

Gregory Makuch
Wandering Ronin
Spring Hill, FL
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Old 05-30-2005, 10:38 AM   #5
Amir Krause
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Angry Don't support wrong doings just because you disagree with the war

Not to express my opinion on the whole subject, since I am not well informed here. I would like to strongly object to the following argument:
feck:
Quote:
On the argument that he killed so many Kurds after the last war, wouldn't any country do the same when factions inside your own country side with invaders and try to attack you
Sorry, but one must not accept any justification for any party who is intentionally attacking civilians, even if the said party is a government. I could accept an attack on guerrilla fighters in which civilians were killed since the government could not apprehend them, or something of similar nature. But your statement makes multiple genocide's around the world legitimate.

I hope that one you read the sentence on it's own, you would find out you disagree with it yourself.

Amir
P.S.
Personally, I would have preferred this war not to happen, assuming one could have promised me Iraq would remain without WMD in the future.
This war was very frightening here, and people were requested to prepare gas masks and shelters.
But, if one is to assume without this war, the supervision over Iraq plan for arming itself with WMD would have stopped in a few years. And Iraq would have then got some such weapons, then perhaps this war was not for naught.
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Old 05-30-2005, 12:53 PM   #6
Efe Yucemen
 
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Hi Everyone,

I think the simple fact is that the US is detaining Saddam because they can, and because he is still an important symbol for the iraqis.

Thats also why they leaked photos of him in detention, to break morale and show him weak and hopeless.

Its hard for people from the west to comprehend why any Iraqi would still want Saddam around after all he's done. Its got a lot to do with national pride and a sense of historical purpose, of destiny. Invasion is a hard thing to swallow.

As for the reprehensible things he has done I dont think its really the issue here. Nobodys picking a fight with Mugabe or with Kim Jong Il. I think at the end of the day the President fiugred Saddam was a major pain and was practically living on borrowed time since gulf war I anyway. He had to go.

cheers
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Old 05-30-2005, 01:12 PM   #7
feck
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Hi Amir,

Sorry if this has offended you or anyone else on this website.
I did not mean for this statement to take offense with anyone, its easy for people like myself and others to comfatably comment on this situation from the comfort of an armchair thousands of miles away, but an does that stop me from expressing opinions?

Anyway the way i tried to put this across is that in the first war i had heard that the americans had made a pact with the kurds and other minorities to help with creating chaos among the iraqi national forces to help ease the invasion of baghdad. When they agreed the americans suddenly decided not to pursue SH to the ultimated goal of capturing him, why i do not know. The way i understand it is that after the war SH took revenge on these people by killing them through gas attacks, why did the americans not intervene in that genocide? Why did the world want to intervene in a mult-billion dollar war against someone who had invaded another country and killed how many? does anyone know?, and yet when thousands are being killed we do nothing about it.

Now remember SH went around telling his country that he had successfully booted out the invading horde (us), what on earth did we think he was going to do to the people we asked to help us in our battle plans.

Also if everyone keeps banging on about WMD's in iraq and the potential threats these could cause as justification for invasion, why is it when North Korea uses and has utilized WMD's nothing is done?
Anyway who are we as apparently the leaders of the western world to say that we are the only ones allowed to have and use WMD's?, when we clearly keep devising, producing and selling these things to other countries.

My analogy to all this is if you give a gun to a four-year old with loaded bullets, even if you tell them not to use it, if you leave the room for however long, and then the child kills someone, who is to blame?

Sorry but does arms dealing in any form, do any good what so ever?
I for one would like to see all forms of arms dealing banned accross the world. Maybe this is a utopian view, but is it not acheivable?

Anyway sorry again Amir for any offense, that was honestly not my intention.

feck
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Old 05-30-2005, 05:07 PM   #8
DustinAcuff
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Darren, in response to your question about why we went after Iraq but not Korea, here is my opinon on what I understand to be the case.

Generally, true or not, Bush/majority of Americans, feel that if Saddam aquired WMDs that he WOULD use them. Maybe on USA, maybe on Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel (most likely?). Any way you split it we were worried that if he did have WMDs he would use them. There was also very little preventing us from going (See Korea below).

Korea is a slightly diffrent story. USA has intrests all around Korea. S. Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Russia (?). If Kim Jong used a wmd on a neighboring country it would cause serious problems. He MUST hit a US intrest or China or Russia. If he hit S.Korea the radiation would likely do some pretty ugly things to him as well. They probably wont use the WMDs they have due to location. The US cant go after them for the same reason, more or less. If we go into N.Korea it could offend China or Russia and start a very very ugly chain of events. This is one area where UN or NATO might be better for the job.
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Old 05-30-2005, 05:54 PM   #9
Neil Mick
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Quote:
Dustin Acuff wrote:
First I'd like to say that this is NOT intended as an attack on you.
You cannot cut and paste things out of chronological order (legitimately) because you lose credibility and cannot blame the past on the future. It makes no sense!
Sorry you feel that way. Since you're the only one who seems to: I am taking your critique with a grain of salt.

I cut n paste the way I did to document when and how Bush lied, when he said that he "has no timetable" to attack, and that he's "doing everything he can" to avoid war, when in actuality he had plans to invade almost as soon as he was elected.

Quote:
If I recall correctly, the major basis for the WMD chaos was the the UN weapons inspectors DID find an empty delivery device (only one mind you) for a biological or chemical agent.
On the WMD I cannot say if they are now, or were ever in Iraq. But I can say that Saddam giving the UN inspectors the run around for years (Clinton, W) about when and where they could inspect does add weight to the idea that he might have something.
Sorry, but not in my book. Hussein played the same bluffing-game as Kruschev during the Cold War. The US thought Kruschev had many more nuc's because of his belligerent stance.

Hussein probably hoped to do the same thing--stave off a US invasion, because everyone knows that the US only invades non-nuclear countries (thus, no N.Korea, your apologies notwithstanding).

Quote:
Would you rather act with the information you had in the intrest of protecting your home and be wrong, or not act on information you did have because you feared you might be wrong and then lose your life because you did not act?
Now that all depends upon my decided course of action, doesn't it? If, say: I were convinced that my neighbor is a psychopathic mass-murderer and I decide to take the law into my own hands: then I would sorely regret my choice later, if my actions resulted in an innocent person's death.

Quote:
back you if you say that Bush needs to come foward, admit he made an oops, apoligize, and rectify the situation. But just attacking Bush day in and day out seems useless.
Not if he's a criminal who has not received due justice.

Quote:
the matter is that the majority of Americans (not by much) voted for Bush over Kerry.
If you think that Bush was elected over Kerry because American's support the war: then I have some bridges to sell you.

American's voted Bush over Kerry because Kerry offered nothing that Bush wasn't also offering. Both candidates were pro-war, and both favored continuance of the occupation.

Quote:
if I woke up after election day and Kerry was going to be the next president, I would back him 100%, and I voted for Bush.
How nice for you. I wouldn't: and I did not vote for either Bush, or Kerry.

Quote:
Neil I would like to see you present some real possible solutions taking into account the current situation rather than ranting about how it got to be this way. What paths do you see out of this mess?
OK, you want my solution? Here it is:

1. US out of Iraq. Yesterday.
2. Complete transparency in US gov't. Turn over all relevant records to an independent commission, whose chief investigator will decide which US leaders are subject to citement for violations in US and int'l law.
3. Turn over all reparations owed to Iraq.
4. Complete repudiation of the current US foreign policy (as stated in 2002).

Sorry you feel that this is nothing but Bush-bashing, Justin: but so long as an international criminal is allowed to continue on with his crimes, then I will continue to protest, to rail, and to call for change. If you want to talk "patriotism:" then it's my patriotic duty to protest; and to be simply compliant is betraying the freedoms granted in the Constitution. Bad things happen, when good people do nothing.

But back to the main point of the thread:

The memo documents how BushCo actively planned a military option as far back as July, 2002. Weapons inspections, as far as BushCo was concerned: were irrelevant. Even intel showing that he had no wmd, was irrelevant.

This is a big violation of international law, which means that soldiers fighting in Iraq can justifiably disobey orders, or they themselves may someday find themselves on charges, where, to put it in W's words: "'just following orders' will not be an adequate defence."

Curiously, BushCo has been silent over this whole memo, and the so-called "Left-biased" media echo-chamber has given this very little airplay. Now, gosh: I wonder why? Could it be that the gov't's actions such as those taken on Newsweek have had a chilling effect? You decide.

Last edited by Neil Mick : 05-30-2005 at 06:09 PM.
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Old 05-30-2005, 06:14 PM   #10
Neil Mick
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Quote:
feck:Anyway who are we as apparently the leaders of the western world to say that we are the only ones allowed to have and use WMD's?, when we clearly keep devising, producing and selling these things to other countries.
Worse, our politician's are undermining the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. How will we decide who is a threat (or not) when the NPT is defanged?

Quote:
My analogy to all this is if you give a gun to a four-year old with loaded bullets, even if you tell them not to use it, if you leave the room for however long, and then the child kills someone, who is to blame?
Yes, good point. And, what if that 4-yr-old is a known mass-murderer? Is it all OK, if the arms-dealers later decide that said mass-murderer is not their friend, anymore?

Quote:
Sorry but does arms dealing in any form, do any good what so ever?
I for one would like to see all forms of arms dealing banned accross the world.
Yes, I agree: and who is the largest dealer of large and small arms in the world? Begins with a "U"...next letter is an "S"...
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Old 05-30-2005, 06:44 PM   #11
Neil Mick
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

But in rereading this, let me try a different tack. Prehaps that this will make more sense, if I go line-by-line.

Quote:
Dustin Acuff wrote:
You cannot cut and paste things out of chronological order (legitimately) because you lose credibility and cannot blame the past on the future. It makes no sense!
I cut and paste to bring together items of relevance. The main article is linked to "The Secret Downing Street Memo." Just click on the text and you can read the full article.

Read through it and get back to me if you have further questions.

Quote:
If I recall correctly, the major basis for the WMD chaos was the the UN weapons inspectors DID find an empty delivery device (only one mind you) for a biological or chemical agent.
No. Blix was cautiously optimistic in his last report. He said that "more work is needed." Illegally, the US went around the Sec Council, and decided on its own to invade Iraq, against the tenets of the UN Charter.

Quote:
On the WMD I cannot say if they are now, or were ever in Iraq.
Well, our government certainly can: according to them, there are now no wmd's in Iraq. And, every other independent investigator has stated that there never were, past 1991.

I hope that that is more clear.
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Old 06-01-2005, 02:29 AM   #12
Amir Krause
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Quote:
Darren Paul wrote:
Hi Amir,

Sorry if this has offended you or anyone else on this website.
I did not mean for this statement to take offense with anyone, its easy for people like myself and others to comfatably comment on this situation from the comfort of an armchair thousands of miles away, but an does that stop me from expressing opinions?

feck

Darren

I simply read your post and noticed the sentence I quoted, which rang bells in my stomach. Recently I celebrated Passover, and in the Agada and Tora, one can find the "Egyptians" said the same thing about the Jews before deciding to kill all male sons. Later in history, the same argument has been used numerous times against the Jewish people. And, to my sorrow, in recent times, I have heard some right wing extremists in the Israeli community, raising the same argument in favor of deporting and killing Palestinians. I was happy to notice the great resistance that suggestion has raised, and the demonstrations that were held against that movement (their name in Hebrew was "Kach") when it seemed to gain some power (they were a small minority, even among the right wing, and are much smaller today).


I fully agree with the historical analysis you wrote. And I do not object to the logic behind it. It was only that specific sentence I had to disapprove of, since it seemed to support rather then condone the moral of killing innocent civilians just because someone suspects their loyalty to some cause or country, and fears they may oppose him in the future.
Reading your latter posts, I am sure you do not hold such views, and had no intention of supporting them. I apologize if you felt accused of anything.

Amir
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Old 06-02-2005, 02:41 PM   #13
feck
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Thanks Amir.

Darren
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Old 06-02-2005, 06:10 PM   #14
Neil Mick
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

The significance of the memo grows in relevance, while the Bush Administration (and the media) remains silent, with no response to the damning evidence. Perhaps, they figure if they ignore it enough: it will go away.

Even Fox has come out with a story on the media silence (notice the spin at the end):

Downing Street Memo Mostly Ignored in U.S.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Quote:
WASHINGTON — A British government memo that critics say proves the Bush administration manipulated evidence about weapons of mass destruction in order to carry out a plan to overthrow Saddam Hussein has received little attention in the mainstream media, frustrating opponents of the Iraq war.
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Old 06-02-2005, 08:52 PM   #15
DustinAcuff
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Neil, In this instance I actually agree with you. Bush wanted to remove SH and divised a way to do so. This was accomplished through clear misinformation to the public via PR crap. I agree with all that 100%.

But I am not going to say he was wrong in what he did just because he found a way to do something that there was no support for to begin with. That is American capitolism at its best..

It kind of boils down to why was what he did wrong. Ex. The people who founded America are called patriots today but were called criminals and radicals at the time.

What do you think the influence of W will be over the next 100 years Neil?
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Old 06-03-2005, 07:17 PM   #16
Neil Mick
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Quote:
Dustin Acuff wrote:
Neil, In this instance I actually agree with you. Bush wanted to remove SH and divised a way to do so. This was accomplished through clear misinformation to the public via PR crap. I agree with all that 100%.

But I am not going to say he was wrong in what he did just because he found a way to do something that there was no support for to begin with. That is American capitolism at its best..

It kind of boils down to why was what he did wrong. Ex. The people who founded America are called patriots today but were called criminals and radicals at the time.
To answer your question, you have to look at whom declares a wrongdoing. To take your example: the ppl calling the patriots criminals were mostly the British aristocracy and Parliament.

The ppl who call W's invasion wrong were a wide cross-section of ppl: US diplomats, generals, intelligence experts, not to mention the huge protests that occurred one month before the invasion (which Bush dismissed as a "focus group").

I have a few litmus tests I apply for international policies and actions. One of them is the simple maxim: "the ends do not justify the means." If you look back at history at every single brutal action taken by a dictatorial regime: each time the brutalizing leader has a rationale, or apology, his actions (and it almost always is a "he"). Some of them were honestly good reasons. But in the end, ppl die, often horribly and unnecessarily, in spite of "good reasons."

Quote:
What do you think the influence of W will be over the next 100 years Neil?
You got an hour?

But in short: I think that the effects of W on the US and the world are profound and set the world back 100+ years, in terms of peace and int'l community-building.

IMO, if there even IS a US (or a world) in 100 years (at least, as a recognizable democracy/ corporate plutocracy), we'll be either colossally lucky, or colossally adaptive. The way I see it: the US is like a freight train that has gone over the rails and is speeding quickly toward a cliff of no return. When we hit bottom: there's no reset button: that's it...game over.

We have no viable alternative ideas for fuel, other than spend more and the rule of military fiat. A recent study has shown that we have the technology to enable existing cars to get 40mpg, reducing about 30% of our consumption of fossil fuel. Instead, W decides that we need to despoil the Arctic, for "national security."

The dictates of the Non Proliferation Treaty don't seem to bother W overmuch, either. BushCo seems hell-bent on applying a 20th C solution to a 21st C problem: "missile defence," and "star wars." We are on hair-trigger alert, which means that anytime W feels it appropriate, thousands of missiles targeting Russian and European cities will be launched.

Social issues: unemployment, literacy (No Child Left Unfunded, etc), social medicine...forget it. W just doesn't want to know about it. His first act in office was to sign a ban on funding to clinics around the world that even mention the "a"-word. Trouble is, those clinics supply much-needed resources to women with other medical needs, not just abortion.

In almost every respect: W is bad news for everyone, except wealthy investors. And in 100 years, his legacy will still be felt, if we're even around as a "dominant" species. Even if his actions had no effects around the world: he sets a very bad precedent for future President's to follow.

Last edited by Neil Mick : 06-03-2005 at 07:26 PM.
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Old 06-04-2005, 12:56 AM   #17
DustinAcuff
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Just because a wide variety of people say something is wrong. Right is right even if no one believes it. I am not saying Bush is right, but I am saying that if you want to see what is really going on (IMHO) you need to set aside all social and political bias and look at the cold hard facts not the little boys crying wolf. My point here is while it is entirely possible that Bush is the most destructive president we have had in the last 100 years, it is also possible that he is looking beyond the diplomatic chains that we got locked on. Just because what the president does is not popular does not mean anything. USA has always been considered second rate and second class in Europe. What else is new?

The "ends do not justify the means" only works in hindsight. When everything works out okay, then it was a brilliant idea. When it does not, it was a bad idea.

I disagree about W's actions setting the world back 100 years on ANY subject. He simply does not wield that kind of power. His powers ultimately boil down to rearranging the Supreme Court and telling the troops where to go. If he was causing nearly as much havoc as you seem to believe then why has there been no talk about impeachment? At best Bush is a figurehead with the nuclear football. The kind of powers you are attributing to him would only work in the complete absence of checks and balances, which we thankfully still have.

Fact is Bush is a gnat in the ointment of the rest of the world at the moment. Diplomacy is still working. War is the failure of diplomacy. Diplomacy failed with Iraq (as Bush saw it) and war started. If diplomacy were not still working then someone would be threatening war with us.

As to my own question of the long term impact on Bush, here is the nutshell. Dunno why we went to Iraq, but I do understand why we are still there. It is economic. Yes, it is probably about oil. The world, not the US, cannot afford for Iraq to go through a long bloody revolution. If the oil stays in the ground the other countries suffer. Each country (dominantly European) who is a major importer of oil from Iraq wont get the supply of oil it needs. This slows down transportation, production, it may kill off some of the workers.. When those countries suffer and no longer contribute to the global marketplace, everyone's economy goes down. If we can stabilize Iraq just enough to get the oil flowing then the global economy remains status quo. As a nation that has long ago outgrown self-sufficiency, our job MUST be to look out for the global economy. When farmers in Peru, Chile and Bangladesh stop producing because they have an epidemic of influenza, it hurts people here.

The relevance of the global economy directly influences all the other issues you named. Only by maintaining economic prosperity (not Bush or Clinton's fault by the way) can we create time to solve the long term problems.

On fuel, Yeah, we have the technology to make all cars get 40mpg, but is it cost effective in the real world. If it costs 5k per car (that is figuring the governmental costs, mechanic fees, parts fee, cost of the part, as well as the different conversion kits that have to be made to adapt to each model and year) and gas is still 2.70 a gallon, then how long will it take to pay for itself.

On alternative fuels, where do you propose we get the technology from? I can agree that if enough capital were available we do have the technology, but what about cost effectiveness? Nobody will mass produce something that costs 50,000 to make (figuring research and design costs from previous years, parts cost, new facility costs, etc) that everyone needs because NOBODY WOULD BUY IT. You make any form of new technology and you are going to have to phase it in over 25 years.

On social issues: unemployment, literacy, etc. When you let the US Federal or State government manage ANYTHING may I repeat ANYTHING they fail. Unemployment is high for a number of reasons, but most dominantly we are in the down side of the economic prosperity we had in the 90s. I'd venture a guess and say that the .com industry employed a large majority of the people who took the jobs of those who are unemployed now. Another big cause is outsourcing to other countries like Mexico and India (nothing against either country). It will take a few years, but it will right itself here in a few more years when technology produces more jobs as the market seeks to remain filled. Not an issue that needs social attention. People who complain that they are unemployed because they refuse to get a haircut and a new set of clothes and wont take that job that Taco Bell offered them aren't unemployed, they are lazy. I know lots of them.

Illiteracy is a problem that does need to be tackled, but not buy dumping money into public education. I just got out. It was a failure. I'm not conservative or liberal on this issue, I'm an economist. If schools and teachers are not being productive in their task to make students literate, then fire them and get in new people. Don't give them millions of dollars to fix problems that are inherently part of the system that they have created and cannot be solved (i.e. the useless teachers who have been there for the last 20 years and have 15 more to go before they can retire and don't care anymore).

I'm curious, what do the clinics in question offer besides abortion? And why is it that these clinics don't simply stop offering abortion to secure their funding?

The far ranging impacts of Bush are precisely zero! When he is gone, the next president will probably undue some of the thing that W did. That is pretty normal. There will be some turnovers in key places. Life will go on as if the worst thing Bush did was nothing more than a hiccup in the evolution of our country. Countries don't evolve 4 years at a time, they evolve over generations, half-centuries and centuries. Look back 4 years ago and it is pretty much the same, look back 10 years, pretty much the same, look back 20 and things start happening.

Unless the US does something extremely drastic (attack China) we should be around for quite a while longer. As long as diplomacy holds we have no reason to crumble if for no other reason than it takes too much work to create a new country or territory in its place. No one country has that kind of power now to do something like that on that large of a scale. We can barely keep Iraq barely going.
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Old 06-04-2005, 06:03 PM   #18
Neil Mick
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Whoah, Dustin. This is getting a little far afield of the topic. But, I will respond to a few points, just to clarify:

Quote:
Dustin Acuff wrote:
Just because a wide variety of people say something is wrong. Right is right even if no one believes it.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. "Right" is relative to societal expectations. Polygamy is "right" for some societies; wrong for others.

And, I am talking more about obeying int'l law, versus being "right."

Let's just suppose that conservative religious leaders in Iran decide that Bush is a terrorist, and that he exerts undue influence over the US gov't. Is it "right" for them to invade, to "extract" him? With very little logical leaps, this was the same argument used to invade Afghanistan.

Or, let's take the idea of "pre-emptive strike," a principle that has no precedent in int'l law. If it's OK for one country to attack another because the latter has intentions to attack the former: then I guess that it was OK for the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor, in 1941. After all, the Japanese gov't had way more evidence of US intervention (the papers were bragging about how war with Japan was imminent), than the US did of Iraq's intentions to attack them.

Simply put, you can't have it both ways. If the US wants to go about the world with no concern for laws, then don't be surprised if it comes back to haunt us.

Quote:
I am not saying Bush is right, but I am saying that if you want to see what is really going on (IMHO) you need to set aside all social and political bias and look at the cold hard facts not the little boys crying wolf.
Sorry, I don't agree. Who is crying wolf, is almost as important as the who is the wolf.

Quote:
My point here is while it is entirely possible that Bush is the most destructive president we have had in the last 100 years, it is also possible that he is looking beyond the diplomatic chains that we got locked on.
If he walks, talks and acts like a criminal, yet proclaims his innocence (shades of Nixon!): then he probably is a criminal.

Quote:
Just because what the president does is not popular does not mean anything. USA has always been considered second rate and second class in Europe. What else is new?
Quite a lot, actually. I have never seen such a low in our credibility, ever. And yes, it does matter. When we cry human rights violations in Cuba yet we let Uzbekistan and Indonesia slide because we like them: then our outcry is given less credence.

Quote:
If he was causing nearly as much havoc as you seem to believe then why has there been no talk about impeachment?
Hello? Who has a dominant faction in Congress? It certainly isn't the Greens... An impeachment is whispered in the wings (this guy makes Clinton look saintly), but will it pass?

I wouldn't bet on it.


Quote:
At best Bush is a figurehead with the nuclear football. The kind of powers you are attributing to him would only work in the complete absence of checks and balances, which we thankfully still have.
I could easily document the number of changes his Administration ha made, but it would take waay too long. Books are written on how profound are the changes BushCo (note, the term is plural. One man did not make all of these changes) is making to our gov't, to society, and to the world.

You ignore these changes at your peril.

Quote:
On fuel, Yeah, we have the technology to make all cars get 40mpg, but is it cost effective in the real world. If it costs 5k per car (that is figuring the governmental costs, mechanic fees, parts fee, cost of the part, as well as the different conversion kits that have to be made to adapt to each model and year) and gas is still 2.70 a gallon, then how long will it take to pay for itself.
We seem to have hundreds of billions to pour into an illegal war: I think we can afford the pittance it would take to convert the cars to more efficient mileage.

Face it, if it's all about getting fuel: then it only makes sense to conserve. Pumping out vehicles with a 12mph capacity is beyond stupid, it suggests that some ppl are making money on our consumption, and those ppl are the real constituents of the Bush Presidency.

Quote:
On alternative fuels, where do you propose we get the technology from? I can agree that if enough capital were available we do have the technology, but what about cost effectiveness?
Please, we spend trillions (and decades) on a fraud of an anti-missile system that doesn't work: I think we can afford a little more on finding a solution to a more immediate problem.
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Old 06-04-2005, 10:51 PM   #19
DustinAcuff
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

You are right, I guess we will just have to disagree in some spots. Sorry I knocked the ball way out of the court, but I believe that my questions/responses did have some validity on the subject at hand since you specifically asked "Thoughts? Could this be the end of Little W?"

I realize that almost all logic is two sided. I disagree that just because pop. opinion says no it is wrong. I also think that you a bit confuzed about where the billions and trillions of dollars the US spends comes from and how it gets there.

But none of that is relavent to the topic at hand where as the "end of Little W?" and "100 years" were/was/is/will be.
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Old 06-05-2005, 12:30 AM   #20
Neil Mick
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Quote:
Dustin Acuff wrote:
I disagree that just because pop. opinion says no it is wrong.
It's not about "popular opinion:" it's about a legal action, or an illegal one.

Quote:
I also think that you a bit confuzed about where the billions and trillions of dollars the US spends comes from and how it gets there.
"Star Wars" easily cost that much. It was began in the Reagan era, and has received way too much funding, since (and no, I am not referring to the movie).

Quote:
But none of that is relavent to the topic at hand where as the "end of Little W?" and "100 years" were/was/is/will be.
Not sure where you got the 100 years thing.

But, the "smoking gun" memo is damning evidence about BushCo's lies and plans, pre-invasion. You can rationalize all you want, but ppl died, over a pack of lies. Sugarcoat it all you want, but that fact remains. And, they are still dying.
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Old 06-05-2005, 11:10 AM   #21
Thomas Ambrose
 
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Is this the end of W? I doubt it.

Love him or hate him, he is both popular and unpopular. He has a pretty even number of political allies and enemies. Each side will take what they will out of the situation. As previously stated, but I am not sure who by, but the logic will be two sided, and each side will only accept the half of it that is favorable to their cause. This is the way the political system of this country works, and also explains why there are failures across the board, with 100% blame and 0% accountability, on both sides, regardless of which one is in power at any given time.

This is the way this nations's politics have worked, at least for my short life (25years) and I have no reason to believe it will change soon. The only difference between now and earlier (in my experience at least) is the growing distance between the two sides, and the increased animosity between them. No single side is responsible for this, and both are willingly following this trend.

On the topic of Bush's impact on the future, I doubt it will be as far reaching as people fear. Bush has made several changes that are drastic, I agree. So did Clinton during his time. Whethor you love or hate Bush and/or Clinton, you can agree that many of Clinton's changes have been "undone" by the Bush administration, for better or worse. Once Bush's second term is finished, his policy changes will be decreased, the degree will depend on the ideology of the next administation and the changes in public opinion.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts and observations. I feel so non-partisan, or maybe anti-partisan
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Old 06-05-2005, 02:36 PM   #22
Neil Mick
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

Quote:
Thomas Ambrose wrote:
or maybe anti-partisan
Better than feeling anti-pasti-san.
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Old 06-12-2005, 02:15 PM   #23
Neil Mick
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Re: The "smoking gun" memo

But, back to the central theme of the thread:

I was just thinking of one of my litmus tests for the Downing Street Memo--how would I feel if this memo surfaced in the Administration of a President with whom I agree (say, Dennis Kucinich? Actually, Kucinich did not support an immediate withdrawal, but he's a lot closer to my political views, than Bush)?

OK, so a memo surfaces implicating Kucinich in a predetermined decision to invade Iraq and to "fix" the intelligence, to bring it in line with this decision. Firstly, I wouldn't believe it. Such a course of action is contradictory to the stated goals of Kucinich.

But, I would want full disclosure and discussion in the press. And, IMO: the press is the true culprit in this debacle. Most ppl understand that this war was based upon lies and "cherry-picked" intel. It is the responsibility of the press to give a full review of the particulars of this war. They have been asleep at the switch, from the word "go." Antiwar sentiments were given little airtime from the beginning; and now this memo is practically ignored, by the mainstream.

Even if Kucinich were President (and as culpable as Bush): I would want this Memo to be given the full media-time it deserves.
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