The UN, US and Iraq IV

Do I really want to check out that scattergun link? Nah....

So, Irreverence towards religion is not part of the TOS? Thanks for the information. Therefore, in honor of Hobibit, the author of the Jesus and his ma, Mrs. Christ, may I then offer- much better than the Arab's criminal bloodletter and scumbag- Mohammed.

Give us a break Italgato!

My religion's better than your religion yah boo playground stuff


Timber,

My assessment of Scott Ritter is that he is an American patriot (Bush voter...disillusioned) who by his own admission lacks tact and sometimes shoots his mouth off, but that his fundamental honesty and desire to do what is right remains undiminished.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomber drove through the gates of police station in northeast Baghdad and detonated an explosive Thursday morning, killing eight people and injuring 28, police and the U.S. military said. The car's driver and a passenger also died in the blast.
Latest headlines:
· Bush Launches PR Campaign for Iraq Policy
AP - 26 minutes ago
Outside Baghdad, a 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a U.S. convoy. U.S. Central Command said the soldier died from wounds received in the attack at 2 a.m. Thursday in Baqouba, 30 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Also Thursday, a Spanish military attache was shot to death by a group of men as he was opening his front door, Spain's Foreign Ministry said. Jose Antonio Bernal Gomez was an air force sergeant attached to Spain's National Intelligence Center, according to a ministry statement.

The true gato shines forth ..... how easily idiocy is disquised as genius

Tell me whatd I say
get down jimmy browwwwwwwwwn

Is that what the disguise was?

:wink:

WASHINGTON -- Bush administration officials scrambled yesterday to downplay the disclosure by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld that he was not briefed about a White House effort to coordinate the stabilization of Iraq and Afghanistan. But national security specialists said the incident indicates that Rumsfeld's influence is waning.
Speaking Tuesday morning to a group of foreign reporters in Colorado Springs, Rumsfeld said that he had not been told about the new organization before its creation. He downplayed its importance and expressed surprise that it was receiving attention and that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had discussed it with the media.

Defense specialists said Rumsfeld's remarks were striking not simply as an uncharacteristic glimpse into the tight-lipped administration, but for the fact that the secretary, whose public popularity has ebbed recently, was left out of the decision-making loop.

Italgato is welcome to pursue his acquisition of rope in disregard of the fact the weight of that rope threatens the structural integrity of the scaffold door on which he stands.

Being out of the loop could be the kiss of death.

Is Condi Gaslighting Rummy?
October 9, 2003
By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

It's easy to see why the Bush crowd is getting so tetchy.

The itch to ditch officials who fritter away the public
trust is growing, as Arnold and his broom bear down on
Sacramento.

And we know now that our first pre-emptive war was launched
basically because Iraq had . . . a vial of Botox?

Just about the scariest thing the weapons hunter David Kay
could come up with was a vial of live botulinum, hidden in
the home of an Iraqi biological weapons scientist.

This has very dire implications for Beverly Hills and the
East Side of Manhattan, areas awash in vials of Botox, the
botulinum toxin that can either be turned into a deadly
biological weapon or a pricey wrinkle smoother.

And it may have dire implications for the Pentagon and
White House if Americans come to believe that their trust
was betrayed when the president and his team spread the
impressions that Saddam was about to blow us up and that he
was behind the 9/11 attacks.

It doesn't help to have a
former-NATO-commander-turned-presidential-contender running
around telling the country that the Bush dream team is a
bunch of dunces. Or a
former-diplomat-turned-angry-husband-of-an-outed-spy
running around telling the country that the Bush dream team
is a bunch of backstabbing lawbreakers who are dead wrong
on Iraq.

The administration that never let you see it sweat is
sweating, as two of its control freaks openly tug over
control. The president's foreign policy duenna and his
grumpy grampy over at the Pentagon are suddenly mud
wrestling.

Women who are discouraged at the ascension of Conan the
Barbarian in Cal-ee-fornia can take heart. In this
delicious gender-bender, Condoleezza Rice triumphs as the
macho infighter, driving Rummy into a diva-like meltdown.

The trigger was Monday's coverage of the Iraq Stabilization
Group (a.k.a. Fat Chance Group); the group is a desperate
bid to get a grip on Baghdad before the campaign starts by
transferring power for postwar Iraq from the Pentagon to
the national security adviser's office inside the White
House.

Condi used a trick she learned from Rummy: pre-emption. She
outflanked the famous Washington infighter by talking about
the new alignment to The New York Times before he had a
chance to object.

It was the first time the chesty defense czar - who had
tried to freeze out the softies at State, which the
Pentagon sneeringly refers to as "the Department of Nice" -
had been downgraded by the president and outmaneuvered by a
colleague.

"And because he is a cantankerous egomaniac," one longtime
Rummy watcher said, "he compounded his own problems by
acknowledging it in public, further undermining his own
stature."

President Bush clearly realizes that Mr. Rumsfeld and Paul
Wolfowitz have gotten him into a fine mess. He wants his
trusted Mother Hen, as he calls Condi, the woman who
probably spends as much time with him as Laura - weekends
at Camp David, vacations at the ranch, workouts at the gym
- to make it all better. This will be the first time Ms.
Rice, a Soviet expert who has functioned mostly so far as
First Chum, will have her reputation on the line.

Some Republicans worry that it's risky to move
accountability for postwar Iraq closer to the Oval Office
because then there's no one else to blame.

In a meeting with foreign reporters on Tuesday in Colorado
Springs, Rummy made no effort to mask his displeasure,
saying he had not been consulted, even though Condi said he
had, and cattily referring to the "little committees" of
the N.S.C. When a German broadcast reporter pressed the
defense secretary, he hissed: "I said I don't know. Isn't
that clear? You don't understand English?"

One of Rumsfeld's Rules is: "Avoid public spats. When a
Department argues with other government agencies in the
press, it reduces the President's options." Hmm.

Maybe Rummy hasn't brushed up lately on the Washington
rulebook he wrote in the 1970's - after his stints as
President Gerald Ford's chief of staff and secretary of
defense. Otherwise, he might have recalled this Rumsfeld
rule before he bullied the world and ripped up Iraq: "It is
easier to get into something than to get out of it."


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/opinion/09DOWD.html?ex=1066706737&ei=1&en=f12bbc22ea7492b8

There is little if any revelation in that a given pundit holds a given position on any given issue. What I find of more interest than what any pundit may opine is what, and why, a given member may think about that pundit's statement. I would prefer original thought to mere groupthink. As opposed to merely repeating an opinion with which one agrees, I feel it would be more contributory to discourse and exchange of idea to actually discuss one's own ideas, comparing and contrasting those ideas to those of pundits and other members alike. Critical thought calls for criticism. Criticism may be either positive or negative. Parroting is merely parroting. I may be in error here, but it is my perception, without doing a full review and tally, that the left-leaning members tend more to parroting than to critical analysis. Like I say, that may not be the case, but it sure seems that way to me.

Well,

timber, We're all waiting for your critical analysis.

Again, without doing a thorough review and tally, it seems to me that the "Cut-and-paste" of opinion pieces and other editorialisms, as opposed to hard "who-what-where-how-when" news and raw data, is practiced more by the left-leaning members than by the right-leaning members. And again, its just an impression I have, nothing I have analyzed. It is entirely possible I am mistaken. It is an opinion, nothing more, and while I have no intent or desire to re-read tens of thousands of posts to assemble and analyze the requisite data, anyone else who cares is welcome to do so.

Okeay, proving that timber is right. :wink:


The (pdf) report on the following link shows that the news media in general, but some news sources more than others, have done a lousy job of conveying basic facts about the war:

Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War (Dialup Warning: Large download; 23 page PDF file added by timber :wink: )

Don't see how that article that makes your point, Walter; it deals with public misperception of thje Iraq matter as a function of media preferrence. Intersting, thoughj, even if it itself exhibited something of an editorial bias, IMO. Of course, conclusions, whether derived from valid data or not (and I do not question the data pre3sented nor the methodologies of obtaining an correlating it), often reflect editorial bias. It remains none the less a scholarly study of the effect of media bias on public perception. It points out to me the error and folly of relying heavily on any one news source, and of accepting editorializing as "News". Thanks for the link, though ... it was a good article.

Tell me if I am paraphrasing correctly:

It is better to ignore a more learned opinion and pass on your own less learned opinion. Unless of course you are omnipotent to the point of understand fully every aspect of every issue.

I, while able to read an article and determine whether or not it expresses my view or at least approximates it, can appreciate the value of 'cut and paste'. After all, isn't the exchange of information what it is all about ..... not self aggrandizement

I'm really not sure what timber is trying to get at. We all get the same information from whatever media we have access to, and we make our own considered opinion about them. I hear both good news and bad news from and about Iraq. Some leans to the right, and others lean to the left. As in real personal life experience, it's somewhat similar to what we get about Iraq. I'm not sure what timber is trying to imply. I'm sure we can see bias in almost all political articles, and we'll agree or disagree depending on our own bias.

I am so sorry but I could have sworn that Hobibit posted the comment concerning Christ and his mother Mrs. Jesus. If he did not, I apologize profusely. If he did, I volunteer to erase my comment if he will erase his( which was prior to mine)>