Thanx,
prove to me that the reasons are what you say. The fact is, you can't (i know thats your point). And i can't prove its got anything to do with greed or conspiracy either. And as you say, this is a huge probablem.
I agree, that it could be a huge array of reasons which culminated in the Iraq war. Who will ever really know?
What concerns me more, or just as much as the overwhelming number of people who dont give a damn, is the precedent that the coalition has estabilished.
By ignoring the UN (i know its a spent force, but thats another issue) the Coalition have set up a precedent for anyone to follow. Regardless of the justification for war, and whether i agree with it or not, this, for me, is the main issue.
Question .... if the constitution were written today, would/should it include the right to bear nuclear ams?
Those who are "saved by the blurd'o'the lamb." of course.
Well, that gag points to a level of political opportunism and disengenuity which ought to startle more people than it does. A winning science mission, and Bush grabs onto the coattails. Anybody here think Bush has ever cracked a book on any related matter? Or think he gushes to Laura at night about the extraordinary engineering feats these guys pulled off, or about ANYTHING related to the scientific and intellectual puzzles these boys are so passionate regarding? Had the mission not succeeded...silence.
You guys really have to get rid of this hollow jerk.
Want more? Just say when ....
Abit dated but read on then repeat after me ... DAYYYUUUMM
Quote:
The Big Guys Work For The Carlyle Group
What exactly does it do?
To find out, we peeked down the rabbit hole.
FORTUNE Monday, March 18, 2002
By Melanie Warner
Are you the sort of person who believes in conspiracies--the Trilateral Commission secretly runs the world, that sort of thing? Well, then, here's a company for you. The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C., buyout firm, is one of the nation's largest defense contractors. It has billions of dollars at its disposal and employs a few important people. Maybe you've heard of them: former Secretary of State Jim Baker, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, and former White House budget director Dick Darman. Wait, we're just getting warmed up. William Kennard, who recently headed the FCC, and Arthur Levitt, who just left the SEC, also work for Carlyle. As do former British Prime Minister John Major and former Philippines President Fidel Ramos. Let's see, are we forgetting anyone? Oh, right, former President George Herbert Walker Bush is on the payroll too.
The firm also has about a dozen investors from Saudi Arabia, including, until recently, the bin Laden family. Yes, those bin Ladens. Is it any wonder that Internet sites with names like paranoiamagazine.com are rife with stories about Carlyle's shadowy, corrupt global network? And it's not just wackos. "Be careful," a tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley wrote in an e-mail when he learned I was doing a story on Carlyle. "The rabbit hole runs really deep on this one.''
Leaving aside the conspiracies for a moment, what exactly does the Carlyle Group do? Start with the basics: It's one of the world's largest and most powerful private-equity investment firms, meaning it buys and sells privately held companies and divisions of large public companies for big profits. Founded in 1987 (and named after the favorite New York hotel of the firm's first investors, the Mellon family), Carlyle has raised a total of $14 billion from investors in just the past five years--more than any other private-equity firm has attracted in the same period, except the Blackstone Group and CSFB Private Equity. Profits, too, have been pretty terrific. Not counting the standard 20% cut that goes to Carlyle's partners and managing directors, the firm's average annual rate of return has been 36%.
Continued ...
From Australia's ABC:
Bush wanted Iraqi invasion 'from the start'
Former US treasury secretary Paul O'Neill says in a new book that President George W Bush entered office in January 2001 intent on invading Iraq and was in search of a way to go about it.
Mr O'Neill, fired in December 2002 as part of a shake-up of Mr Bush's economic team, has become the first major insider of the Bush administration to launch an attack on the President.
He likened Mr Bush at Cabinet meetings to "a blind man in a room full of deaf people," he said in excerpts from a CBS interview to promote a book by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty.
To go to war, Mr Bush used the argument that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had to be stopped in the post-September 11 world.
The weapons have never been found.
"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," Mr O'Neill said in the CBS 60 Minutes program interview scheduled to be aired on Sunday.
"For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the US has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap," Mr O'Neill said.
CBS released excerpts from the interview on Friday and Saturday.
The former treasury secretary and other White House insiders gave Mr Suskind documents that in the first three months of 2001 revealed the Bush administration was examining military options for removing Saddam Hussein, CBS said.
"There are memos, one of them marked 'secret' says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq'," Mr Suskind told CBS.
Another Pentagon document entitled "Foreign suitors for Iraqi Oil Field Contracts" talks about contractors from 40 countries and which ones have interest in Iraq, Mr Suskind said.
Mr O'Neill was also quoted in the book as saying the President was determined to find a reason to go to war and he was surprised nobody on the National Security Council questioned why Iraq should be invaded.
"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it," Mr O'Neill said.
"The President saying 'go find me a way to do this'."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan rejected Mr O'Neill's remarks.
"We appreciate his service, while we're not in the business of doing book reviews, it appears that the world according to Mr O'Neill is more about trying to justify his own opinions than looking at the reality of the results we are achieving on behalf of the American people," Mr McClellan said on Saturday.
Mr O'Neill also said the President did not ask him a single question during their first one-on-one meeting, which lasted an hour.
The President's lack of engagement left his advisers with "little more than hunches about what the president might think," Mr O'Neil told 60 Minutes.
Mr Suskind's book, whose full title is The Price of Loyalty: George W Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, uses interviews with Mr O'Neill, dozens of White House insiders and 19,000 documents provided by Mr O'Neill.
Mr O'Neill, who was fired due to disagreements over tax cuts, spent a difficult two years in Washington, joining the Bush administration with a background as a no-nonsense corporate executive.
(Sorry if this story has already been posted)
deb
Nope, you were the first to link it, and I came visiting to do the very same. This ought to be a good '60 Minutes' show.
Note also the Pentagon paper on what corporations were interested in Iraq oil contracts...and what are the chances Cheney's Energy Commission minutes aren't pregnant with this happy little item.
We've had two honest looks into this administration now, DiIulio and O'Neil, both conservatives, and both revealing a pretty despicable operation.
I cannot believe these guys - how ready they are to lie through their teeth about SO MUCH while holding their intentions and actions up as examples of freedom, democracy and responsible moral governance. Nor can I believe the people here who support them.
Well, I referred to that yesterday on another thread (
here).
Still wondering, how little attraction this gets.
Walter
60 Minutes is still, I believe, the most watched news show in the US, so this will gain attention. And it will hit the papers and news shows at the start of the week which is precisely what administrations seek to avoid (if a negative item).
Wonder?
Here's an example of why so many Americans believe the crap fed to them by huksters in the Govt and other huksters.
Dubya and the gang repeated many times that Saddam supports terrorists. They indirectly spoke of Saddam in relation to 911. Never did they say that Saddam was directly or even indirectly responsible for 911. Yet around 60% of Americans thought that Saddam was directly involved with 911.
Dubya said on TV that there was not evidence linking Saddam to 911 about 2years after 911. A poll was done after that statement and and around 40% still believed that Saddam was directly involved.
Brainwashing works!!!
pistoff
I know what you mean. But 'brainwashing' is one of those metaphors that confuses at least as much as it clarifies.
Exactly how the result you speak of above was achieved (60+ percent of Americans believing, falsely, the connection) ought to be where we concentrate our curiosity. You point to repetition in your post, and that sure seems key. That's an old marketing truth, and these boys are very slick and effective at marketing (it's Rove's profession, in fact). There are Hollywood people aboard too, adding their expertise with sets and camera work and visual presentation.
This is stuff we, as citizens, have to keep on top of. In the same manner that an education in logic and rhetoric has, for 2500 years, served citizens as a bullshit detecting tool, some familiarity with media will serve the same ends for us now.
Remember when the Ollie North trial was ongoing, and it took a while for folks to understand why Ollie just looked sort of trustworthy. It was something as simple as camera angle - the news camera was set much lower than head-height and thus gave the impression of a large father-figure.
Bush's crowd builds huge and elaborate sets to backdrop many of his speeches. They plunk him regularly in front of fresh-faced young soldiers who cheer him and wave little flags. Or the top gun trick.
To a population increasingly bombarded by the 'language' of presentation and marketing, this stuff can be quite invisible. Anything we can do to make the tricks visible for just what they are (absolutely hollow of meaning) is a good thing.
In my teaching practicum (grade 5,6,7 class), I built my main project around student film-making, and the rationale for this project was to increase their awareness of precisely this stuff.
At least things are going well in the other colony ... sarcastic sob huh.
Violence claims nine more lives in Afghanistan
Sun 11 January, 2004 05:51
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - At least nine people were killed and three wounded in two separate incidents of violence in southern Afghanistan, officials say.
Five Afghan soldiers were killed and three wounded in clashes with drug smugglers on Saturday near a government post in a remote area of the province of Kandahar bordering Pakistan, said Mohammad Anas, deputy governor of the province.
The troops were killed after they tried to stop the smugglers from trafficking drugs into Pakistan, a key export source for Afghan narcotics.
In another incident on Saturday, four Taliban were killed in a clash with Afghan troops in the province of Helmand while they were planting land mines on a road often used by government soldiers, a spokesman for the provincial governor said.
Violence, including twin bomb blasts on Tuesday in Kandahar, has killed 51 people and wounded several dozen in less than a week in southern Afghanistan, underlining growing insecurity.
More than 450 people including militants, Afghan troops, civilians, aid workers and more than 12 members of U.S.-led troops have been killed since August in violence largely blamed on the Taliban.
U.S. backed President Hamid Karzai vowed on Saturday that the violence would not deter him from rebuilding Afghanistan, battered by 23 years of invasion and civil strife.
These guys are just begging to be pre-empted ........ but then what if they call our debt ...... I'll call Baker .... no, Rove, no, poppy ....
Quote:
China: U.S. must back off
Sunday, January 11, 2004 Posted: 8:07 AM EST (1307 GMT)
Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators marched through Hong Kong on January 1.
HONG KONG, China -- China has asked the United States to "stop interfering" in its internal affairs, following calls by Washington for more democracy in Hong Kong.
Responding to comments from U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, China's official Xinhua news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan as saying Beijing opposes any other government interfering in the affairs of Hong Kong.
He also warned Washington not to jeopardize Sino-American ties, nor do anything that would harm the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong, amid growing calls for democracy from both within and outside the former British colony.
"Hong Kong affairs (are) an internal issue of China, and the Chinese government firmly opposes any foreign government interference in the affairs of Hong Kong in any form," Xinhua said, paraphrasing Kong.
It quoted Kong as saying that "Hong Kong's political structure must develop in a gradual and orderly manner."
Since 1997 Hong Kong has been a special Chinese administrative region governed under the "one country, two systems" principle.
Its constitution, the Basic Law, gives the city a high degree of autonomy under Chinese rule. Under the law, the territory could theoretically enjoy full democracy by 2007, the year when unpopular Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's term expires.
But the constitution also says Beijing has final say over any electoral changes.
In his annual policy speech on Wednesday, Tung skirted growing demands for democratic reform, disappointing activists in the territory who had hoped he would launch public consultations early this year.
Instead, Tung said any consultations on democracy would be with Beijing first, and said he would establish a task force to consult with Chinese leaders.
Reacting to the moves, Boucher said Friday Washington had "strong support for democracy through electoral reform and universal suffrage in Hong Kong," saying that would stimulate the territory's economic development.
"Our belief is in democracy," Boucher said at a briefing in Washington. "The Hong Kong people and the Hong Kong government need to start addressing this issue."
He said the United States wanted to make sure the people of Hong Kong "get their choice to design their system that's appropriate for them." He added: "We care a lot about the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong."
Around half a million people rallied in July, and a smaller number on January 1, demanding political change in a city where the chief executive is handpicked by an election committee loyal to Beijing and only half the legislature is directly elected.
But China's leaders are worried that calls for more voting power in the city will spill over to the mainland.
Were folks aware that the present US peace-time armed forces count nearly 10X of what they were prior to WW II?
News
The other side of the issue regarding what people believe that is happening or not is that the Media, which is often incorrectly labeled "liberal", does not report certain things.
Example: the Bush family dyansty. The facts have been on the Net for a long time, yet scant info. has been on the commercial news media. A lot of political info. is never reported or under reported while the news media focuses on more entertaining items regarding celebs, scandals, &/or violence. Part of keeping the public ignorant. I'm not suggesting that there is a conspiracy of media,merely stating that mostly the news media is fixated on sensationalism and entertainment.
