mporter wrote: Thank You, OCCOM BILL, with all of the left wing liberals on these posts, it is rare to get someone agreeing with you. However, I am not looking for agreement as much as I am looking for proof and verification. I find the postings of people who do not live in the USA who feel that they know all about our country most insulting.
I am sure that none of them REALLY know the spirit of John Galt, who you wisely include in your posts. Most of the liberals from outside the USA, as you may have gathered hate the USA with an unreasoning fury, probably based on envy.
Again, OCCOM BILL- Thanks.
Politically, we appear to see eye to eye on the war, the direction it's taken us and the terrible consequences that would likely result from retreat.
We also appear to be outnumbered by the liberal thinkers on this site. I don't see this as a reason to "choose sides", and won't. Our reasoning parallel ends somewhere between the aforementioned similarities and where your partisan rhetoric and bigotry of foreigners begins. I have yet to feel the cold shoulder of hatred from any non-U.S. person on this site. Indeed; some of the finest thinkers I've encountered are both liberal and non-U.S. citizens. You may remember I responded to this once before
here.
You strike me as a very well informed individual; one I could probably learn a great deal from as, I have no doubt, hundred if not thousands of your students have. I look forward to reading your political insights but will not be learning any disdain for my fellow earthlings who happen to reside in other countries. Please let me know if I'm off base and I'll either clarify or apologize.
ican711nm wrote: None of the foregoing presidents have removed (i.e., exterminated or incarcerated) that sliver. So far, only Bush 43 has taken action to try and remove that sliver. Perhaps his action will succeed; perhaps it won't. However, one thing we have learned is that attempting to contain rather than remove that sliver has not worked.
Well stated Ican! It is because of near identical reasoning that Bush, despite my reservations, will likely receive my vote. Success would be nice. But an effort is mandatory. In a world where technology has out distanced humanity and the press reports every move; waiting for bastards like Saddam and Kim is tantamount to waiting for a known serial killer to kill again and retreat is an announcement that we lack the resolve to see our convictions through. Sometimes you have to kill the killer. It's ugly, distasteful and sometimes cruel work
but it's work that needs to be done.
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=590392004
Foxy denied this wedding party had been attacked by the US.
Here's a report of broadcast video proof.
McTag, It seems to this observor that it matters not one twit to the neocons that so many are included in the colateral damage stats. They only worry about the political outcry, and not the lives lost. It started when the US attacked Iraq, and killed over 10,000 innocent men, women and children. We never hear of those deaths by the current political leaders or the media. The current administration will never understand humanity or humility.
I don't know if
Foxy is your nickname for me, but I'll assume it is.
Yes, I said I was skeptical about children being out and about among a gathering of people at 2:35a.m.. If I were the US military, I'd also be skeptical, especially with weapons allegedly being fired by members at the gathering.
Assuming the above reference news report is valid, the US military made a tragic mistake thinking these people were TMM. The problem continually faced by the US military is who are innocents and who are TMM. When in doubt, they are prone to kill first and ask questions later. Why not? They don't want to be killed by the TMM anymore than you and I. There will probably be many more such tragedies. The TMM are not dressed as combatants, are often disguised as innocent women and children, are often bomb laden women and children, defile holy places with their combatants, deliberately behead and otherwise kill innocents, and all the while blame it on the US. Past failures by the Iraqis as well as the rest of all the rest of us to remove the TMM when the cost would have been far fewer lives, is a current cost we all must share in to remove the TMM whether we like it or not.
cicerone imposter wrote:McTag, It seems to this observor that it matters not one twit to the neocons that so many are included in the colateral damage stats.
You are clearly not a competent observer. Those you call neocons are not all neocons. No matter, most of us, neocons and non-neocons, whatever you want to call us, are genuinely afraid of subsequently joining the 9/11/2001 collateral damage ourselves, or seeing those we love joining that collateral damage. We see the only practical solution to end our fears is to remove the TMM from the world's population. We also see that to accomplish this many of us will have to die or be maimed in the effort. We also see that many others who are not the TMM will also have to die or be maimed in the effort as well. This is typical of a world war that cannot be avoided simply by a refusal to participate.
Unfortunately we all, westerners, easterners and middle easterners alike, have waited far too long to take the action required to end this world-wide cultural plague. Waiting longer will merely increase the total price in lives of removing the TMM. Advocating waiting longer and/or waiting longer is by far the greater evil.
Iraq war hits Bush ratings in new poll
2 hours, 49 minutes ago Add Politics - AFP to My Yahoo!
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Battered by the Iraq (news - web sites) war, President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s public approval rating has hit an all-time low in his presidency, according to a new CBS poll.
Forty-one percent of the American public approve of the job Bush is doing as president, while 52 percent disapprove.
Two weeks ago, 44 percent approved and a year ago the figure was two-thirds.
Sixty-one percent of the 1,113 people asked disapproved of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, while just 34 percent approve.
The poll also said 65 percent of Americans now feel the country is heading in the wrong direction, matching the highest number in CBS News Polls, which began asking the question in the mid-1980's. Only 30 percent said the United States was headed in the right direction.
In April 2003, 56 percent of Americans felt the country was headed in the right direction.
The last time the percentage that said the country was on the wrong track was as high was in November 1994. Then, Republicans swept into control of both houses of Congress for the first time in decades.
Bush faces a presidential election on November 2, the same day as elections for Congress.
Iraq and the economy are the two top issues for voters in this election, said the poll. Twenty-five percent mentioned the economy and jobs and 26 percent said Iraq.
Interesting: Woodruff is interviewing Dan Senor, the coalition leader who says Iraqi's will not "control" US troops after June 30, but calls it a "partnership." They have all their language figured out before the "turnover."
That is not new info c.i.
They never were going to "control" our troops.
Brand X, You evidently have no idea what sovereignty means.
It means, "they better damn do what we say or we will bomb the living hell out of them, capture and torture those that survive - By God!"
cicerone imposter wrote:Brand X, You evidently have no idea what sovereignty means.
I infer that Brand X doesn't require any education on the meaning of the word
sovereignty, but you (and BillW) do.
So here I go again.
www.m-w.com
Quote:Main Entry: sov·er·eign·ty
Variant(s): also sov·ran·ty /-tE/
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
Etymology: Middle English soverainte, from Middle French soveraineté, from Old French, from soverain
1 obsolete : supreme excellence or an example of it
2 a : supreme power especially over a body politic b : freedom from external control : AUTONOMY c : controlling influence
3 : one that is sovereign; especially : an autonomous state
Main Entry: popular sovereignty
Function: noun
1 : a doctrine in political theory that government is created by and subject to the will of the people
2 : a pre-Civil War doctrine asserting the right of the people living in a newly organized territory to decide by vote of their territorial legislature whether or not slavery would be permitted there
From the above definitions, I infer that the Iraqi people are the popular sovereigns of their own lands and troops, and the US people are the popular sovereigns over their own lands and troops. So when the Iraqi people want the US troops to leave, they will leave. Such control as the Iraqis shall have over US troops in the meantime shall be determined by a mutually agreed negotiated treaty between the US elected government and the Iraqi elected Government. Until such control of resident US troops is agreed to in such a treaty, the Iraqis will have no such control.
New UN Resolution Gives Broad Powers to U.S. Troops
2 hours, 10 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Evelyn Leopold and Steve Holland
UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Britain asked U.N. members on Monday to endorse a hand-over of power to a new Iraqi interim government but proposed U.S. troops could "take all measures" to keep order.
Special Coverage
The draft U.N. Security Council resolution, which asks for support for a U.S.-led multinational force, however, gives no date for the withdrawal of foreign troops.
It is also silent on the future of U.S. prisons and Iraqi control over its own forces.
An interim government drawn from Iraq (news - web sites)'s various religious and ethnic communities is expected to be formed in the next week or so, with help from U.N. Iraq envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. No vote is expected until Brahimi reports back to the council.
The resolution, presented to the council, would support the formation of a "sovereign interim government" to take office by June 30. It says that government would "assume the responsibility and authority for governing a sovereign Iraq."
"This resolution marks a new phase in the transition to democracy for Iraq. It recognizes the end of the occupation and the beginning of sovereignty for the Iraqi people," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
The measure would give Iraq's new ministers control of oil revenues but keep an international audit board for a year to check on expenditures, in order to encourage foreign investments.
The draft emerged as President Bush (news - web sites) prepared to deliver a televised speech on Monday mapping out his plans for Iraq, where attacks on occupying forces have thrown into doubt prospects for a peaceful transfer to democratic rule.
Bush, who will make the speech at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, has seen his approval ratings slip to the mid-to-low 40 percent range.
Iraqi leaders and some Security Council members, notably France and Germany which opposed the war, have pressed Bush to ensure the new Baghdad government is given real independence.
French diplomats immediately said the resolution should have an expiry date for U.S. troops in Iraq, unless the Iraqis ask them to stay.
U.S. deputy ambassador James Cunningham said the 130,000 American troops would go if an Iraqi government asked them to and that Iraqi control over its own forces would be the subject of a letter between the U.S. government and the new Iraqi leaders. France said that should be part of the resolution.
The daily bloodshed, including the deaths of two British security guards outside the U.S.-led administration's headquarters in Baghdad on Monday, means few Iraqi leaders are anxious to see U.S. troops leave.
Home to the world's second biggest oil reserves, Iraq's hopes for prosperity have been dimmed by turmoil. That point was underscored when a fire, possibly caused by sabotage struck a pipeline near Kirkuk, the main city in the northern oil fields.
WEDDING VIDEO
Widespread dismay at U.S. military tactics has been heightened by a scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners and, in the past few days, by controversy over a U.S. air strike that local people said massacred a wedding party in the desert.
New video footage showing the wedding celebrations raised more questions, but U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the raid had targeted foreign guerrillas near the Syrian border.
"At this point we have seen nothing that causes us to change our minds. But we need to get as much evidence as possible and see where the investigation takes us," said Kimmitt. The U.S. military says about 40 people were killed.
American officials said they could not rule out that a wedding or some other celebration was taking place in the area the day before. It said troops found no signs of a wedding in the wreckage left at the remote hamlet of Mogr al-Deeb.
Kimmitt said earlier six women were killed.
Top U.N. human rights official Bertrand Ramcharan said even if some of those at the house in Mogr al-Deeb were involved in criminal activity, that was no excuse for the "carnage."
A recent opinion poll showed only seven percent of Iraqis still view U.S. troops as liberators. More than 40 percent said they would feel safer if U.S. forces left now.
"They will give us a president like Yasser Arafat (news - web sites), a president in name but with no power," said Hussein Ibrahim, 22, a Baghdad university student.
"After a year's experience, people know where power lies," said Iraq analyst Mustafa Alani. "If the new 'sovereign' entity does not have the authority to protect its citizens from U.S. arrest, it will have no credibility in the eyes of Iraqis."
This from The Australian:
our news.com.au network Source: AFP
back PRINT-FRIENDLY VERSION EMAIL THIS STORY
Iran 'may have duped US into war'
From correspondents in London
May 25, 2004
US officials suspect Iran duped the US into invading Iraq by slipping bogus intelligence to Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC), The Guardian newspaper reported today.
"Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq," it said in a front-page dispatch from Washington.
Quoting a US intelligence official, whom it did not name, The Guardian said Chalabi's intelligence chief Ara Kariim Habibi had been a paid by Iranian agent for several years, "passing intelligence in both directions".
"It's pretty clear that Iranians had us for breakfast, lunch and dinner," it quoted an intelligence source in Washington as saying. "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the US for several years through Chalabi."
A US official said on Friday the US was investigating evidence Chalabi gave sensitive information to Tehran, after authorities last week raided INC offices and Chalabi's home in Baghdad, seizing documents, computers, personal belongings and weapons.
Chalabi, whose INC was a Pentagon favourite and a prime source for intelligence about Saddam Hussein's regime, strongly denied in weekend media interviews that he passed sensitive US secrets to Tehran
Whats a pound of flesh going for nowadays?
Quote:Death toll now 10 times 9/11 From correspondents in Baghdad May 25, 2004
MORE than 5500 Iraqis died violently in just Baghdad and three provinces in the first 12 months of the US-led occupation, according to a survey by international news agency Associated Press.
The toll from both criminal and political violence ran dramatically higher than violent deaths before the war, AP reported yesterday, citing morgue statistics.
There were no reliable figures for places such as Fallujah and Najaf, that had seen heavy fighting since early April. Indeed, there is no precise death toll for Iraq as a whole, nor is there a breakdown of deaths caused by the different sorts of attacks.
But the AP survey of morgues in Baghdad and the provinces of Karbala, Kirkuk and Tikrit found 5558 violent deaths recorded from May 1, 2003, when US President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat operations, to April 30.
The survey was not a comprehensive compilation of the nationwide death toll, but was a sampling intended to assess the levels of violence. Figures for violent deaths in the months before the war showed a far lower rate.
That does not mean Iraq is a more dangerous place than during Saddam Hussein's regime. At least 300,000 people were murdered by security forces and buried in mass graves during his 23-year rule, US officials say, and human rights workers put the number closer to 500,000.
Even so, the morgue figures, which exclude trauma deaths from accidents such as car crashes and falls, highlight the insecurity Iraqis feel from the criminal and political violence, and underline the challenges facing coalition forces.
In Baghdad, a city of about 5.6 million, 4279 people were recorded killed in the 12 months to April 30, according to figures provided by Kais Hassan, director of statistics at Baghdad's Medico-Legal Institute, which administers the city's morgues.
The figure does not include most people killed in terrorist bombings, when the cause of death is obvious so bodies are usually not taken to the morgue, but given directly to victims' families. Also, the bodies of killed fighters from militia groups such as Mehdi Army are rarely taken to morgues.
The death toll recorded by the Baghdad morgue was an average of 357 violent deaths each month from May through April. That contrasts with an average of 14 a month for 2002, Mr Hassan said.
The toll translates into an annual homicide rate of about 76 killings for every 100,000 people. By comparison, Bogota, Colombia, reported 39 homicides per 100,000 people in 2002, while New York City had about 7.5 per 100,000 last year.
Iraq's neighbour, Jordan, with a population a little less than Baghdad's, recorded about 2.4 homicides per 100,000 in 2003.
Other morgues visited by AP reporters also reported big increases in violent deaths. In Karbala, population 1.5 million, 663 people were killed from May to April, or an average of 55 a month, compared with one a month in 2002.
Tikrit, population 650,000, recorded 205 deaths in the same period, or an average of 17 a month. Morgue official Najat Khorshid Sa'id said no one died from violence in 2002. In Kirkuk, a population of 1.5 million people, 401 people were killed, or an average of 34 a month, compared with three a month in 2002.
The Associated Press
SOURCE
Now that all of us have put in our .02c worth of opinion on what might happen in Iraq after June 30, all we need to do is sit back and wait for the results. If things work out well, Bush gets reelected, but if it goes badly, Bush loses in November. The interesting part of this turnover is the fact that with the Iraqi's rule over their own country, what happens when the three tribes engage in a revolutionary war? Who will the US support?
If things work out well, Bush gets re-elected, but if it goes badly, Bush loses in November, says: Cicerone Imposter.
I must really inform Cicerone Imposter that Mr. Dlowan has indicated that there is a need for DEFINITION. Mr. Dlowan demanded that there be a definition of "sovereignty". I agreed.
I am very much afraid that Mr. Cicerone Imposter must give some definitions. His comments are really much much too general.
What does "things work out well" mean? Who defines it. I am sure that even if the Iraqis elected General Sanchez as Prime Minister in January, crabby viragoes like Maureen Dowd would declare that "Things have not turned out well"
Does Cicerone Imposter really think that Rush Limbaugh would not interpret a military assault on the Baghdad headquarters of the new Iraqi government by insurgents as "ultimately to the Coalition's advantage?
The bottom line is November 2nd. At this time, the polls show that Bush and Kerry are neck and neck.
Inasmuch as most people do not even begin to think about the elections until after Labor Day, I am very much afraid that Cicerone Imposter's comments are almost meaningless.
For the record; the off shore casinos still have Bush favored 6 to 5... and they are usually right. That's 140 to get 100 on Bush or even money on Kerry. I can recommend a reputable book if you like.
mporter, Only two things matter to the US electorate; Iraq and the economy. If things work out well, it means the Iraq problem and the economy are good enough for the electorate to reelect Bush.
OCCOM BILL-Thanks for the information. My father always told me that I should never bet against the professional bookies. He said that they do not include emotion in their calculations--only as many hard facts as they can find.
I am sure that you realize, OCCOM BILL, that the business of the news media is to create controversy and to sell papers; magazines and TV time.
I have been reading about the abuses at Abu prison for weeks now.
However, an article by Mark Steyn, syndicated columnist in the Sun Times- Chicago- Sunday May 23rd - P. 39A reveals that:
"There are some 8,000 towns and villages in the country. How many do you hear about on the news? For a week, its all Fallujah all the time. Then it's Najaf, and nada for anywhere else. Currently, 90 percent of Iraqi coverage is about one lousy building, AbuGhraib. So what's going on in the other 7,997 dots on the map? In the Shia province of Dhi Qar, a couple of hundred miles southwest of Baghdad, 16 of the biggest 20 cities plus many smaller towns wil have elected councils by June.
These were the first free elections in Dhi Qar's history and "In almost every case, secular independents and representatives of nonreligious parties did better than the Islamists" That assessment is from the anti-war, anti-Bush anti Blair Euro-lefities at the Guardian, by the way."
end of quote
and, OCCOM BILL, a story which has not gotten a lot of play was featured in today's Chicago Tribune.
Eight Iraqis who had their right hands cut off and were tattooed on their foreheads for the infamous crime of "using American currency" by Saddam Hussein received new robotic prosthesis in Houston Texas. They did not pay for these operations.
Saddam had the ritual cutting off of the right hands video taped but no news outlet would show this video. Apparently, naked Iraqis being placed in a pile; Iraqis being sexually abused; Iraqis being beaten are horrible, horrible, horrible--and they are.
So what was done?
l. Court martials for the guilty
2. Reparations for the Iraqis who "suffered" will, I am sure, be forthcoming
and
unknown to many. our countrymen, the very very large majority of whom operate under law and are five hundred times more compassionate and law abiding than SaddamHussein and his cronies, work hard to give Iraqis back their right hands and, oh yes, to give Iraqis back thier ears which had been amputed by Saddam's goons.
But, would you believe it, OCCOM BILL, somehow, since we in the USA are all saintly and free from sin, the entire Country is labeled as an abomination by the crafty fundamentalist insurgents inIraq; the cheese eaters in France who would still be living under Hitler if we had not saved thier hides; and the unrepentant Nazi types in Germany.
Some partisan left wingers will tell any lie and smother the truth about replacement of hands, replacement of ears, new schools, new roads, irrigation and electricity, in order to denigrate a president who has had the good sense not to place a cigar in a young intern's pudenda, instead of paying attention to the Sudanese pleas to take Osama off thier hands.
Really, Cicerone Imposter?
How do you know that?
Only two things matter to the US electorate?
Do you have some evidence for that statement?
What about the Greens who are voting for Nader mainly because of his stance concerning the environment.
I hope I will be allowed to point out that the very astute Dlowan indicated that there must be DEFINITIONS MADE.
You have not defined. You made a statement without giving any evidence.
If you can prove that ONLY two things matter to the US electorate, I'll accpet it, but please be warned, words mean things-
ONLY
TWO
THINGS
MATTER TO THE US ELECTORATE.
Please provide evidence that this is true.
