Kerry's war record Vs Bush's

Scrat

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You may "take" any "it" you wish. In fact, I fully expect you to intentionally take from what I wrote anything except what I meant.

You seem to be getting paranoid. I only "took" it the way you wrote it.

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dyslexia wrote:

the more the talking heads bring up Kerry and his war record, the more questions pop up regarding Bush. One would think that letting dead war horses fade away would be in everyone's best interest.

Why? Did the allegations of Clinton's infidelities logically call Dole's fidelity into question? No, of course not. What you are describing is not a logical link but one born of dirty politics and desperation. Kerry served his country and then spoke against the war; an exercise of his right to free speech. People are entitled to disagree with his choice to do so and to hold it against him. (I don't.)

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there I go again thinking I have some understanding of the masses. I was thinking that most are really just kinda sick and tired of hearing about both Kerry and Bush re their military service and that it does neither any good by advancing/continuing the debate.
sorry.

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Tantor wrote:

The Bush's are good war presidents, certainly much better than JFK and LBJ, who screwed up the wars they fought.

hobitbob wrote:

However, like LBJ, he has started a war for no good reason.

Ahem, Bob, do you recall the 17 or 18 or however many UN resolutions Saddam defied, the ones he agreed to as a result of his war of aggression against Kuwait? Do you liberals believe that tyrannies like Saddam's Iraq should be excluded from compliance with such UN resolutions, that they should not be enforced? I might also note that during the US enforcement of the No Fly zones Iraq launched more than 600 attacks on our aircraft. Saddam also tried to assassinate former President Bush Sr in Kuwait in an attempt to intimidate the US. Iraq also supported the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, if not sponsored it, and very likely supported and/or sponsored the Sep 11 attack.

Those are provocations.

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And Clinton, holy cow. He screwed up a little humanitarian mission in Somalia. You really can't improve on the Bush's if you need to fight a war.

hobitbob wrote:

So, where was the "need to fight a war" in IRaq?

In addition to the provocations listed above, Iraq was a dangerous nexus between Islam jihadis, WMDs, and nukes. It was only a matter of time before more attacks would have been launched from Iraq against America. You might note that Pakistan has been selling atom bomb secrets to the bad guys. It doesn't take much imagination to see Saddam renewing his atom program with help from the Pakistanis.

And of course, there is the moral justification of ending a vicious tyranny that killed a million people through war and torture and executions.

However, if the morally obtuse Left had its way, Uday would still be feeding victims into the plastic shredder and feeding fish with their remains, Saddam would still be bulldozing out new mass graves, and all of Iraq's neighbors would be at risk of another insane war of aggression.

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It does matter to me what Bush did thirty years ago. To be blunt, Bush in his twenties sounds like a headstrong knucklehead who needed a good kick in the pants every other day. However, he did join the military when it was very unpopular to do so.

hobitbob wrote:

Er...actually, he joined the Texas ANG, a unit extremely unlikely to ever see combat, and did so thanks to strings pulled by his father.

Er...actually the Texas Air National Guard is the military, part of the Air Force which is part of the Department of Defense. It's pretty amusing to hear ignorant lefties insist that the Guard is not part of the military. Exactly what civilian organization do you think the US government allows to fly armed fighters around America? Take all the time you need to answer.

And by the way, Guard fighter squadrons were deployed to SEA. Detachments of F-102s were deployed to SEA. So there's another lefty myth shot to hell.

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Bush did not take some time-serving job in the military either like Gore or Dukakis, but a very demanding job in a dangerous profession: flying tactical jets. Even in peacetime, there is a steady drip of deaths just going out to the range and back. You can get killed just walking away from the jet.

hobitbob wrote:

Of course, he racked up the minimum number of hours possible, and put in less than a full year of flight time when he got to his unit, before blagging off.

The whole point of the Guard is to maintain a minimum number of hours to remain proficient. The Guard is a form of military reserve to be called upon when the active Air Force is heavily engaged in a war. The idea of the Guard is to keep a lot of guys minimally current in the jet so they can activated rather than take two years to train an operational pilot.

That said, I would be interested to know why you think the Guard should fly a full schedule.

Bush flew a lot his first year in his operational squadron, which is what you would expect. He had the misfortune, flying-wise, to enter the Air Force when the Vietnam War was winding down, backflushing pilots into the States. The Air Force had way more pilots than it needed, assigning many to fly desks and thousands more were just laid off, RIFed. His squadron was just about to convert to F-100s right about the time of the end of his obligation. If he was going to leave and the TANG had plenty of experienced pilots to replace him, it made sense for the Air Force to cut him loose early. Also, in 1973, the Arab oil crisis drove gas prices through the roof, having the effect of driving flight hours available in fighters in the USAF down.

However, the liberals who seek to slander Bush are ignorant of this history. That's why their opinion deserves no respect.

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Just being in the military gives you a perspective and values that make you a more effective commander. You are more likely to value the lives of those military people and less likely to think of them as chess pieces in a political game, as Clinton did.

hobitbob wrote:

"Bring'em'on." Sure seems like he values military lives to me.....

That's right. It's much better to take on the bad guys on their turf, not ours. For example, it is much better to engage the foreign jihadis who want to kill American infidels in Iraq with our heavily armed and armored soldiers rather than to let them engage our unarmed stewardesses on airline flights in America. Our soldiers can fight back. Our stewardesses can not.

And I might remind you, the 500 guys we have lost in Iraq are less than the 3000 we lost from the attacks on our home ground on Sep 11.

Tantor

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[quote="And I might remind you, the 500 guys we have lost in Iraq are less than the 3000 we lost from the attacks on our home ground on Sep 11.

Tantor[/quote]

And 9/11 has what to do with Iraq?

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Breslin's Nonsense

hobitbob wrote:

Draft Dodger President

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Jimmy Breslin
A Dodger Not A Warrior

February 15, 2004

There can be no dispute that George Bush attended some drills in the Texas Air National Guard in the first four months of 1972. By then, there were 56,000 dead Americans and the air losses in Vietnam continued. It isn't difficult to count Bush's days on duty in the Texas Guard because he wasn't present so many times. Only 26 days. If George Bush had been a milkman, children would have starved.

A bogus analogy. A milkman needs to deliver his milk everyday. A pilot does not need to fly every day, even in a regular Air Force squadron, to maintain his currency. Many staff officers in the regular Air Force fly a couple times each month to stay proficient. That is the strategy for the entire Guard, to maintain a minimum level of proficiency so as to maintain a reserve pool of pilots at the cheapest cost, maximizing the combat punch of the tactical air force.

It's a good thing lefty columnists like Breslin do not command the fighter force lest they operate it like a dairy.

Breslin wrote:

He believes he is a warrior president. He is not. He is a war dodger. He confuses himself with George Patton, and proudly passes a National Guard record around all over America.

Breslin should tell it to the Taliban and Iraq. Bush conducted very successful wars against Afghanistan and Iraq at a very cheap cost in American lives. Also, the cockpit of a fighter jet is not a very good place to hide from a war. That's why all those lefties departed for Canada instead of clamoring to find a fighter cockpit to hide in.

Breslin wrote:

There was a cheap argument between the hack flacks in the White House and the Pekingese of the Press over whether Bush attended a dentist one day. Yes! He certainly was in the dentist's chair.
Give him the silver Medal for Molars!

Here is a classic example of the Left moving the goalposts. First, they claim that Bush never showed up in Alabama. Now, when the evidence is indisputable that he did attend drills in Alabama, they ridicule the fact that he showed up. It's an intellectually dishonest argument.

And by the way, anyone who volunteered to put on the uniform in the 1960s was taking sides in a time when anyone in uniform was routinely villified and abused. Even security cops in grocery stores received insults from the Unwashed Left, as if they had anything to do in Vietnam.

Breslin wrote:

On George Bush's last paid day in the Texas Air National Guard, on April 16, 1972, the air war in Vietnam had turned furious, Richard Nixon had ordered large strikes against North Vietnam, the first since 1967.

None of these strikes were made in F-102s, the jet Lt. Bush flew.

Let me point out that none of the F-4 pilots sitting alert in Ramstein AB, Germany on April 16, 1972 were involved in the air strikes against North Vietnam. Does that mean they were dodging the war? The C-130 pilots in Vietnam did not participate in the strikes against the North. Were they avoiding the war?

The fact is that even in a large war, the majority of people serving in the military never see combat. However, even if you are sitting in the reserve, you are contributing to the military effort.

It's fallacious reasoning to pick out a battle and argue that if you weren't in it, you were dodging it.

Breslin wrote:

On Bush's last day, front pages had a photo of Maj. Gale Albert Despiegler, just captured after being shot down over Quang Binh, North Vietnam. Despiegler would be in the same prison with John McCain, who was to spend 5 1/2 years of torture in a Hanoi jail. McCain tried suicide twice.

Does that mean that any pilot who was not in the Hanoi Hilton was dodging the war? That would include the majority of the pilots who actually fought in Vietnam. Most of the pilots who flew into Route Pack Six were not captured. Does that make them war dodgers?

This is another piece of cheap rhetoric, waving the bloody shirt.

Breslin wrote:

In their name today, George Bush is in command of a war, something that he knows absolutely nothing about, and because of this many are being killed and many, many more wounded.

Where did Bush claim to be fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of Maj. Gale Albert Despiegler and John McCain. This is flatly untrue.

If Bush doesn't know anything about commanding in war, how did we win? Why did we suffer such low casualties if he didn't know what he was doing?

This is a classic example of the fictional parallel universe in which the Left dwells, a dark place where the light of reality does not intrude.

Breslin wrote:

Bush was far from the fight on April 16, 1972. In the war he evaded, United States fliers raided Haiphong with eight-engine B-52s that fly slower than the speed of sound and dropped enormous amounts of bomb tonnage in long patterns. This made the B-52s vulnerable to surface-to-air missiles. The jet fighters, smoked lightning, flew near the B-52s to attract the fire from the ground. The North Vietnamese fired 200 missiles and thousands of rounds of anti-aircraft shells.

Bush did not fly B-52s. He flew F-102s. Breslin seems to be arguing that Bush should cross-train into B-52s to fight in Vietnam. He did not fly F-4s either.

F-4s did not fly close to B-52s in Vietnam. That is an obsolete WWII tactic. It simply would have made it easier for commie radar to see the bomber mass through the jamming. Instead of highlighting the force they are protecting, they are roaming in the middle distance to head off enemy fighter threats. Fighters flying escort even in WWII did not attempt to draw fire from the ground.

I point this out to demonstrate that the Left simply makes things up as they go.

Breslin wrote:

....
United States communiques said that four American aircraft, a Navy jet and three Air Force fighter bombers were downed in raids against military targets around Haiphong. Another United States communique said the pilot of a Navy Corsair was rescued at sea, but the two crewmen of an Air Force F-105 Thunderchief were missing.

Still another United States communique said the pilot of a Navy Corsair was rescued at sea, but the two crewmen of an Air Force F-105 Thunderchief were missing. The communique also said a helicopter and a medical evacuation helicopter were shot down north of Saigon.

Bush was not in the Navy and so never flew a Corsair. He did not fly 105s. He did not fly helicopters. He flew F-102s. Breslin seems to be arguing that if anyone did anything brave in Vietnam, everyone else in the military who was not directly involved is a war dodger.

Breslin wrote:

Whether this was part of the communique about four planes missing or was about two more losses, is unsure. What we're sure of is that, on April 16, Bush was training to lead his country in war by packing his bags in Texas and moving to Alabama, and that pretty much ended his fighting career although he did wage war on cavities in that dentist's chair at Maxwell Field, Ala.

What matters is that Bush was in the National Guard in Texas through all the days from Jan. 1 until April 16 because he was dodging the war in Vietnam. At that time, if you were in the Guard, you were not called for Vietnam.

This is a shameless lefty lie. Guardsmen were called up for Vietnam, fought in it, and died in it. Four Guard fighter groups were activated and deployed to Vietnam. Detachments of F-102s, the jet Bush flew, were deployed to Vietnam.

Breslin wrote:

Some people used National Guard, or college, or marriage, or conscientious objector, or moving to Canada to evade. Bush used the Guard. Today, National Guard troops are being activated and sent to Iraq. In Bush's time, the Guard was safe as an apartment in Paris.

More lies. Bush's squadron was called up in every war from WWII forward except for Vietnam. If you visit the TANG museum in Austin, you can see the enemy weaponry they brought home as trophies and view the photos of their aircraft in action.

Flying a fighter is far from being as safe as a Parisian apartment. The reality is that flying a fighter close to the ground, close to other aircraft, and carrying explosives is unsafe. My experience, which is typical, is that you will lose one friend per year in accidents, usually training accidents at the beginning of your career. That is confirmed by the experience of the TANG, which lost six pilots during the career of Lt. Bush's contemporaries, including one during Bush's tour.

I'd be interested to know how many people in a Parisian apartment Breslin thinks collided with another Parisian apartment and burst into flames. How many Parisian apartment dwellers set a knob wrong and were hurled into a mountain at 450 knots? How many Parisians launch air to air missiles from their bedroom windows? Would that be considered unsafe? How many Parisians broke their spine bailing out of their apartments when the jet engine they keep in the kitchen threw a compressor blade? How many Parisians had to deadstick their apartment in when they lost hydraulics?

Breslin's Paris argument demonstrates the Left's comprehensive ignorance of the military, of tactical aviation, and of the character of Bush's TANG service.

Breslin wrote:

And now, he sends people to get killed in Iraq. That he has no right to do this doesn't seem to enter his mind. He dodged the war, rebuffed any chance to go to war, and yet shamelessly, preposterously, without any idea of what he is doing, and without an ounce of personal uneasiness, sends young people to die in a war.

Actually, Saddam's violation of the many UN resolutions does give us the right to enforce them. So does Saddam's attack on former President Bush and the WTC in 1993.

Bush did not dodge the war. It's not like he faked an illness to get a draft exemption and then went skiing for a year. Anybody in a fighter cockpit anywhere in the tactical air force could have been activated and deployed to Vietnam. Had the Soviets deployed bombers to North Vietnam, you bet that F-102s would have been activated and sent. And contrary to Breslin's nonsense about rebuffing any chance to go to war, Bush volunteered for the program that deployed Guard F-102s to SEA.

As far as Bush not knowing what he is doing in war, why do we keep winning wars under him? If he didn't know what he was doing, shouldn't we be losing? After all, we conquered Iraq in a month with a few dozen dead. When Iran and Iraq fought, it took eight years and a million dead before they called it a draw. That's an example of not knowing what you are doing in war.

This argument demonstrates the ignorance of history of the Left. Nor is this ancient history but the current history anyone could pick up if say people like Breslin read their own paper.

Breslin wrote:

Has there ever been a president who seems less bothered by young dead than George Bush?

Is there any Lefty who seem less bothered by irresponsible rhetoric than Breslin? Come to think about it, slander is the preferred tactic of the Left. This is an example of the same.

Breslin wrote:

The picture of him playing soldier suit on an aircraft carrier, the helmet under his arm as if he just got back from a run over Baghdad, marks him as exceedingly dangerous. The guy could actually believe he is a warrior.

If you have been trained to fly an F-102 fighter interceptor, you are a warrior. When Bush landed on the aircraft carrier, it wasn't his first time in a flight suit. It demonstrated that he supported the military as opposed to loathing it, the preferred position of the Democrats as exemplified by Clinton. That needed to be reversed dramatically.

Breslin wrote:

We have a commander in chief who made sure he missed all action for his country and now, without knowing what he is doing, plays war with other people's lives. Look at our casualties every day in Iraq since Bush declared the fighting over, sometime last year.

This is not a play war. Those six hundred attacks the Iraqis made on our aircraft patrolling the UN No Fly Zone were not pretend attacks. Those foreign jihadis hoping to murder American infidels in Iraq are not playing around. If it wasn't easier to fight infidels in Iraq, they'd be making their way to America to murder more people drinking coffee in their offices.

I've looked very carefully at the casualties in this war in the Mideast and I have notice that none of them are stewardesses with their thoats slit, none were families taking their kids to Disneyworld, none of them were pulverized by a building falling on them, none of them were bathed in aviation gas and set alight. In short, none of them were American civilians murdered in America.

Tantor

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Of course, none of the 11th September hijackers had any tie to Iraq, but perhaps this is inconvenient for you to consider. I would also love to know what evidence you have that we "won" the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Last time I checked, they were still in progress. Like any other elephant, you seem best at making noise and stomping the ground, rather than actually accomplishing anything useful. Smile

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Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

Tantor wrote:

And I might remind you, the 500 guys we have lost in Iraq are less than the 3000 we lost from the attacks on our home ground on Sep 11.

Tantor

And 9/11 has what to do with Iraq?

Iraq supported the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of that attack, was working with false identity papers supplied to him by Iraq. He posed as a Kuwaiti resident who had disappeared, probably killed, along with his family during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. They also supplied him with personal details to make his legend more believable. His partner, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, helped manage the finances for that attack and was the mastermind of the Sep 11 attacks. You can find out more about the details in Laurie Mylroie's book: "Saddam, A Study In Revenge."

Mohammed Atta, the leader of the hijacking team, met with an Iraqi intel agent at least two times in Praque. The US intelligence community says he was paid by Iraq after one visit. They go on to say that they think there were two other unconfirmed meetings. This came out a couple months ago when a fifty point paper from the US intel community to Congress was released to the press.

A brigadier in the Iraq intel service reports that he served in a secret commando school at Salman Pak, where Iraqi commandos trained on the fuselage of a Boeing airliner to hijack passenger jets with knives. He goes on to report that there was a secret school within the secret school that trained foreigners, whom he reports to be Islamic fundamentalists. That sounds awfully suspicious to me.

In the days immediately prior to Sep 11, Saddam places his military on Alert G, the highest state of alert since the Gulf War in 2001. He retreated to a bunker in Tikrit. His wives, who hate each other, were stashed together in another bunker. You can read about it in the prologue of the book, "Saddam, King Of Terror", by Con Coughlin.

There is also a history of covert contacts between Iraq's intel service and Al Qaeda.

Tantor

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Some things to think about:
Iraq under Hussein was a Stalinist secular totalitarianism. Religious extermists were not tolerated. Osama bin-Laden issued several fatwa calling for the assasination of Hussein, and the overthrow of his government.

The only hint of co-operation between the 11th September hijackers and Iraq was the supposed meeting in the Czech republic; a meeting that is invalidated by the presence of Atta person in Florida at the time, and denial by the Czech intelligence service that the meeting ever took place.

You are displaying poor reasoning skills and have ceased to be entertaining. If you tighten up your research skills, you just might become diverting again.

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hobitbob wrote:

Of course, none of the 11th September hijackers had any tie to Iraq, but perhaps this is inconvenient for you to consider. I would also love to know what evidence you have that we "won" the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Last time I checked, they were still in progress. Like any other elephant, you seem best at making noise and stomping the ground, rather than actually accomplishing anything useful.

As I have pointed out in the previous post, the operational mastermind of the Sep 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is tied with Ramzi Yousef, who received support for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center from Iraq. This is perhaps inconvenient for you to consider.

We won the war in Afghanistan because Al Qaeda can not use it to launch attacks on America. Their network of training camps has been swept clean. That was the whole point of taking the Taliban down in Afghanistan. This seems pretty clear to most people. However, I'd be interested to hear your opinion as to why all those Taliban guys with the big black turbans aren't running Afghanistan anymore? Please feel free to offer your alternate explanation why Bin Laden does not have free reign around Afghanistan anymore.

Likewise, organized military opposition in Iraq collapsed. The guerrillas left are militarily insignificant. There were only a few thousand at the beginning and the reports from their cells are that they have suffered heavy losses. The guerrilla war is failing, as the recent letter from a leader of the Al Qaeda related jihadis attests. In general, guerrilla actions fail, especially in urban areas. Iraq is particularly unsuited to guerrilla warfare. In all military history, guerrillas have only defeated a standing army once: the Afghans defeated the Soviets, but then only with huge foreign support in funds and technology. The Iraqi guerrillas have no such support and are being whittled down to nothing.

It appears that you are so focused on your liberal rhetoric that plain facts in front of your face are difficult to see.

Tantor

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Tantor wrote:

As I have pointed out in the previous post, the operational mastermind of the Sep 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is tied with Ramzi Yousef, who received support for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center from Iraq. This is perhaps inconvenient for you to consider.

I have yet to see any evidence of this connection outside of the rhetoric of those like yourself. Therefore I tend to doubt its veracity.

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We won the war in Afghanistan because Al Qaeda can not use it to launch attacks on America. Their network of training camps has been swept clean. That was the whole point of taking the Taliban down in Afghanistan. This seems pretty clear to most people. However, I'd be interested to hear your opinion as to why all those Taliban guys with the big black turbans aren't running Afghanistan anymore? Please feel free to offer your alternate explanation why Bin Laden does not have free reign around Afghanistan anymore.

The Taliban has been removed from Kabul (mostly), but has free reign in the rest of Afghanistan. There are still daily clashes betweeen US and Taliban forces, with associated US casualties. I hardly call this evidence of a war haveing been won.

Al-Quaeda, on the other hand, seems to have regrouped nicely since the events of the summer of 2001.

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Likewise, organized military opposition in Iraq collapsed. The guerrillas left are militarily insignificant.

A "militarily insignificant" force is not one which can essentially strike wherever and whenever they choose. The 'insignificant force" you speak of pushed the US body count to 544 this week.

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There were only a few thousand at the beginning and the reports from their cells are that they have suffered heavy losses.

Insurgency requires not that one wins, but that the other guy loses. This seems to be what is occurring. The US (the other guy) is losing.

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The guerrilla war is failing, as the recent letter from a leader of the Al Qaeda related jihadis attests.

I somehow doubt anyone but you draws this conclusion from this letter. I would like to know where you came by this collosal example of foolishness.

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In general, guerrilla actions fail, especially in urban areas. Iraq is particularly unsuited to guerrilla warfare. In all military history, guerrillas have only defeated a standing army once: the Afghans defeated the Soviets, but then only with huge foreign support in funds and technology. The Iraqi guerrillas have no such support and are being whittled down to nothing.

Guerillas have defeated standing armies in the latter half of the twentieth century in China, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Tunisia, Algeria, and several LAtin American countries whose names escape me at the moment.

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It appears that you are so focused on your liberal rhetoric that plain facts in front of your face are difficult to see.

Tantor

How nice. This shows how little rhetorical skill you possess.

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hobitbob wrote:

Some things to think about:
Iraq under Hussein was a Stalinist secular totalitarianism. Religious extermists were not tolerated. Osama bin-Laden issued several fatwa calling for the assasination of Hussein, and the overthrow of his government.

Saddam was a very pragmatic guy, perfectly willing to work with anyone who furthered his goals. If Saddam did not tolerate religious extremists, why did he host the Ayotallay Khomeini in Iraq during the Shah's reign. Saddam was perfectly willing to tacitly support Khomeini when he was whipping up Shiite fervor against the Shah. That's because Iran was the traditional enemy of Iraq and Saddam was willing to use whatever was at hand to harm the Iranians. You can't get much more of a religious extremist than Khomeini.

However, you don't know this because you haven't done your homework on Saddam, Iraq, or the Islamic crazies. You are merely mooing the liberal party line. I continue to be amused by liberals who think that parroting the party line makes them more informed than actually studying a subject.

hobitbob wrote:

The only hint of co-operation between the 11th September hijackers and Iraq was the supposed meeting in the Czech republic; a meeting that is invalidated by the presence of Atta person in Florida at the time, and denial by the Czech intelligence service that the meeting ever took place.

Wrong. The FBI originally said that they had car rental records that proved Atta was in Florida. That has since been proven false. Atta did not even get his license until after his Prague meeting. The FBI's position now is that they have no evidence that Atta went to Prague. That is different from having evidence that Atta was in Florida. They have no evidence of Atta being anywhere else during the Prague meeting.

Czech intel and the Czech government still support the Prague meeting, contrary to your assertion to the contrary. There was an initial refutation by a Czech government source, since retracted, but that was well over a year ago.

As I have pointed out in my previous post, the US intel community reported to Congress this winter that Atta met an Iraqi intel agent in Prague twice for sure, probably twice more, and got paid. This is the conclusion they came to after the FBI and Czech data were analyzed.

You are in error because you have not kept up with this story. If you limit your sources to the Left, you'll never be well informed.

hobitbob wrote:

You are displaying poor reasoning skills and have ceased to be entertaining. If you tighten up your research skills, you just might become diverting again.

A classic example of liberal arrogance. You have not done your homework, yet you fervently believe that you are better informed because, well, its what all the other liberals are saying. You simply recite the orthodox liberal position like a dull political partisan.

Tantor

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Tantor wrote:

Saddam was a very pragmatic guy, perfectly willing to work with anyone who furthered his goals. If Saddam did not tolerate religious extremists, why did he host the Ayotallay Khomeini in Iraq during the Shah's reign. Saddam was perfectly willing to tacitly support Khomeini when he was whipping up Shiite fervor against the Shah. That's because Iran was the traditional enemy of Iraq and Saddam was willing to use whatever was at hand to harm the Iranians. You can't get much more of a religious extremist than Khomeini.

Actually, if you do some research, you may find that Khomeni prior to assuming power in Iran was quite the player of Realpolitik. In addidtion, I doubt Hussein allowed him any real freedom of movement or contact with many people. You have to realize that Iraq was a majority Shia state, ruled by Snunis and Christians.

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However, you don't know this because you haven't done your homework on Saddam, Iraq, or the Islamic crazies. You are merely mooing the liberal party line. I continue to be amused by liberals who think that parroting the party line makes them more informed than actually studying a subject.

How true, you know me so well. You see that my having spent the first eleven years of my life in Libya, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, my fluency in Arabis, Farsi, and Urdu, and my studies of Islam, as well as my frequent trips to the Near East make me completely unqualified to discuss the subject. Rolling Eyes

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Wrong. The FBI originally said that they had car rental records that proved Atta was in Florida. That has since been proven false. Atta did not even get his license until after his Prague meeting. The FBI's position now is that they have no evidence that Atta went to Prague. That is different from having evidence that Atta was in Florida. They have no evidence of Atta being anywhere else during the Prague meeting.

A Refutation of your arguement
Again
and again

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Czech intel and the Czech government still support the Prague meeting, contrary to your assertion to the contrary. There was an initial refutation by a Czech government source, since retracted, but that was well over a year ago.

Please do some reasearch, you will find your error.

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As I have pointed out in my previous post, the US intel community reported to Congress this winter that Atta met an Iraqi intel agent in Prague twice for sure, probably twice more, and got paid. This is the conclusion they came to after the FBI and Czech data were analyzed.

You are in error because you have not kept up with this story. If you limit your sources to the Left, you'll never be well informed.

Yup, I guess I should avoid those "Lefty" sources like the Washington Post, BBC, Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung, Suddeutsche Zeitung, LE Monde, Japan Times, Jordan Times, Mainichi Shinbun, Christian Science Moniter, and those notriously leftist rags Foriegn Affairs, the Fletcher Forum of International Affairs, World Policy Journal, Washington Quarterly, Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Arab Studies Journals, etc... Wink

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A classic example of liberal arrogance. You have not done your homework, yet you fervently believe that you are better informed because, well, its what all the other liberals are saying. You simply recite the orthodox liberal position like a dull political partisan.

Tantor

No, I know I'm better informed than you because of the sources I read.

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From the Beeb:Bush flaunts false information
Wanted: Some way to link Iraq to al-Quaeda
the Fallacy of Yusef's Iraqui Passport
Hijacker did not meet Iraqi agent
This should be a good start for you.

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hobitbob wrote:

Tantor wrote:

As I have pointed out in the previous post, the operational mastermind of the Sep 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is tied with Ramzi Yousef, who received support for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center from Iraq. This is perhaps inconvenient for you to consider.

I have yet to see any evidence of this connection outside of the rhetoric of those like yourself. Therefore I tend to doubt its veracity.

Read Laurie Mylroie's book, "Saddam, A Study In Revenge." It's boring, but she walks you through the Yousef-Iraq connection.

You're not going to see any evidence of the connection if you only read liberal media. You'll have to expand your intellectual intake outside the liberal box to include facts that don't fit it. Of course, that requires skepticism of the liberal position, which you lack.

Yousef arrived in America with identity papers saying he was Abdul Basit of Kuwait, papers that obviously were supplied by Iraq intel. He had phone numbers of people who had attended Basit's high school who lived in the States. When he was building the bomb and setting up his escape, he was calling Basit's school mates and convincing them he was Basit. He convinced one dumb one who was living in Texas that they had a school tie, although the guy didn't remember Basit. Yousef talked him into driving the truck into the WTC. The dumb guy thought he was delivering soap.

Tantor wrote:

We won the war in Afghanistan because Al Qaeda can not use it to launch attacks on America. Their network of training camps has been swept clean. That was the whole point of taking the Taliban down in Afghanistan. This seems pretty clear to most people. However, I'd be interested to hear your opinion as to why all those Taliban guys with the big black turbans aren't running Afghanistan anymore? Please feel free to offer your alternate explanation why Bin Laden does not have free reign around Afghanistan anymore.

hobitbob wrote:

The Taliban has been removed from Kabul (mostly), but has free reign in the rest of Afghanistan. There are still daily clashes betweeen US and Taliban forces, with associated US casualties. I hardly call this evidence of a war haveing been won.

Our purpose was to remove Al Qaeda from Afghanistan. That has been accomplished. We don't need to kill every Taliban in Afghanistan, just prevent them from setting up bed and breakfasts for Al Qaeda. That's done. Al Qaeda will not launch any more attacks on America from Afghanistan. The occasional clashes with the Taliban come from our probes into the border regions that may hold Osama and his cronies and from attacks on NGO workers. I might remind you that Afghanistan is not exactly a Quaker paradise. Armed clashes are a way of life there.

However, if you think the Taliban control Afghanistan, why aren't they in the capital, leading a victory parade in Kabul? I suspect that Quagmirists like you would claim the Taliban won if one our guys got a hangnail in Kabul.

hobitbob wrote:

Al-Quaeda, on the other hand, seems to have regrouped nicely since the events of the summer of 2001.

What planet are you living on? We have captured or killed about half their leadership, destroyed their network of camps in Afghanistan, cut their funds. They have been beaten back to their home, Saudi Arabia. Their attacks there have elicited a harsh response from the Saudi monarchy.

If Al Qaeda is regrouping, why haven't we been attacked again? Is Manhattan smoking right now? Was there another Sep 11 attack that I missed?

Quote:

Likewise, organized military opposition in Iraq collapsed. The guerrillas left are militarily insignificant.

hobitbob wrote:

A "militarily insignificant" force is not one which can essentially strike wherever and whenever they choose. The 'insignificant force" you speak of pushed the US body count to 544 this week.

False. They don't strike anywhere in Iraq. They are limited to the Tikriti area, about 15% of the country. That is area held by the Sunni minority. The Shiite majority who hold the majority of the country do not support the guerrillas. The entire guerrilla campaign is losing air, slowly slowing down.

As wars go, 544 dead is a very small number, unless you're one of them. You need to read some history to get some perspective on war and casualty rates. A week of combat in Vietnam might generate 500 dead. Losing a soldier per day is not going to stop any organized army. An army loses about that many from traffic accidents.

Tantor wrote:

There were only a few thousand at the beginning and the reports from their cells are that they have suffered heavy losses.

hobitbob wrote:

Insurgency requires not that one wins, but that the other guy loses. This seems to be what is occurring. The US (the other guy) is losing.

Huh? Guerrillas win by not winning? Are you smoking dope while you're typing this nonsense? If the army of occupation kills most of the guerrillas in your cell, you lose.

We kill anywhere from five to ten guerrillas for every soldier we lose. The guerrillas can not sustain that rate of loss.

Tantor wrote:

The guerrilla war is failing, as the recent letter from a leader of the Al Qaeda related jihadis attests.

hobitbob wrote:

I somehow doubt anyone but you draws this conclusion from this letter. I would like to know where you came by this collosal example of foolishness.

Well, if you followed the news you'd find quite a few people who drew the same conclusion, even liberals. If you had read the letter in full, you can see where the jihadi leader is pessimistic about the future, flatly stately that he fears for the future. He points out his big losses, the lack of support from the locals, the unsuitability of the terrain to support guerrilla actions, the improving intelligence of the Americans, and the American determination to stay. Did you skip over that part?

Why don't you go read these primary sources instead of going off half-cocked?

Tantor wrote:

In general, guerrilla actions fail, especially in urban areas. Iraq is particularly unsuited to guerrilla warfare. In all military history, guerrillas have only defeated a standing army once: the Afghans defeated the Soviets, but then only with huge foreign support in funds and technology. The Iraqi guerrillas have no such support and are being whittled down to nothing.

hobitbob wrote:

Guerillas have defeated standing armies in the latter half of the twentieth century in China, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Tunisia, Algeria, and several LAtin American countries whose names escape me at the moment.

Pure nonsense. You can spew nonsense faster than I can rebut it so let me fish out the two biggest chunks.

The guerrillas in Vietnam never defeated the US forces there nor the South Vietnamese. When the guerrillas did attack en masse during the Tet Offensive, they were not just beaten but exterminated. The North did not win until 1975, after the US had mostly left, when they invaded the South with a conventional army with tanks and air support. They won because the Soviets and Chinese fully supplied their army while the US cut off supplies to the South. The army with the most beans and bullets wins.

Likewise, Mao's guerrillas never conquered China. If you read Mao's "On Guerrilla Warfare" you will read Mao implicitly admitting that you can not beat a standing army with guerrillas. The whole point of organizing guerrillas was to methodically organize a standing army that can beat your enemy's standing army. It was the People's Army that conquered China, not Communist guerrillas.

Tantor

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hobitbob wrote:

From the Beeb:Bush flaunts false information
Wanted: Some way to link Iraq to al-Quaeda
the Fallacy of Yusef's Iraqui Passport
Hijacker did not meet Iraqi agent
This should be a good start for you.

I have already read all this stuff in one form or another. Hobbit, does it bother you that you are forming your opinion based on "facts" from BBC, which is now on the edge of being dismantled by the British government for its lack of objectivity? No wonder you hold such demonstrably wrong positions when you are scarfing them up from a virulently anti-American source, one that plays fast and loose with the facts. The BBC was reporting that the US Army was nowhere near the Baghdad airport when we were taking it over, that we were not even in Baghdad when our tanks were flying down its streets.

Bush believing that Iraq was behind Sep 11 and stating there is no evidence to support are not inconsistent. There is no picture of Atta meeting the Iraqi intel agent in Prague. It's based on an eyewitness report. At least that's the evidence that is public. Likewise, there is no evidence that Iraqis gave Yousef his Kuwaiti identity, even though it's the only likely explanation. It's pretty common to know who committed a crime and yet not have the evidence to prove it.

I don't believe Yousef left the US on an Iraqi passport. As Mylroie explains it, he had a slew of false passports. He took off from Europe on a European passport, I think, and presented an Iraqi passport upon landing in America and asked for political asylum. I could be wrong about the Iraqi passport. That got him through customs so that he could disappear in America on his new identity as Abdul Basit. He framed his travelling buddy so that he would provide a distraction at customs. Another innocent dupe.

However, none of this addresses the Abdul Basit legend the Iraqis gave him.

Your link that says the Czech president doesn't believe the Prague meeting is nearly two years old from October 2002. That supports my account of the evolution of this story that it was disputed by some in the Czech government and later supported. The Czech intel service and the government support the account of Atta Prague meeting.

This is all old stuff from a disreputable source. You should be embarassed to present this as support.

Tantor

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Tantor wrote:

Saddam was a very pragmatic guy, perfectly willing to work with anyone who furthered his goals. If Saddam did not tolerate religious extremists, why did he host the Ayotallay Khomeini in Iraq during the Shah's reign. Saddam was perfectly willing to tacitly support Khomeini when he was whipping up Shiite fervor against the Shah. That's because Iran was the traditional enemy of Iraq and Saddam was willing to use whatever was at hand to harm the Iranians. You can't get much more of a religious extremist than Khomeini.

hobitbob wrote:

Actually, if you do some research, you may find that Khomeni prior to assuming power in Iran was quite the player of Realpolitik. In addidtion, I doubt Hussein allowed him any real freedom of movement or contact with many people. You have to realize that Iraq was a majority Shia state, ruled by Snunis and Christians.

So then you concede that Saddam did have Khomeini in the country, something you said could not happen because Saddam did not tolerate religious extremists. Your orginal point was that Saddam could not be an ally of Al Qaeda because he never deals with religious extremists. So we have dispensed with that false argument of yours.

Quote:

However, you don't know this because you haven't done your homework on Saddam, Iraq, or the Islamic crazies. You are merely mooing the liberal party line. I continue to be amused by liberals who think that parroting the party line makes them more informed than actually studying a subject.

hobitbob wrote:

How true, you know me so well. You see that my having spent the first eleven years of my life in Libya, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, my fluency in Arabis, Farsi, and Urdu, and my studies of Islam, as well as my frequent trips to the Near East make me completely unqualified to discuss the subject.

I don't see any evidence in your arguments of any special knowledge of the Middle East, not even of second-hand knowledge. I just don't believe your resume.

Quote:

Wrong. The FBI originally said that they had car rental records that proved Atta was in Florida. That has since been proven false. Atta did not even get his license until after his Prague meeting. The FBI's position now is that they have no evidence that Atta went to Prague. That is different from having evidence that Atta was in Florida. They have no evidence of Atta being anywhere else during the Prague meeting.

hobitbob wrote:

A Refutation of your arguement
Again
and again

None of these links addresses the FBI assertion that they have evidence of Atta in Florida during his Prague meeting. Stop wasting my time with irrelevant links.

Tantor wrote:

Czech intel and the Czech government still support the Prague meeting, contrary to your assertion to the contrary. There was an initial refutation by a Czech government source, since retracted, but that was well over a year ago.

hobitbob wrote:

Please do some reasearch, you will find your error.

More arrogance from a liberal who has not done his homework. If there was an error, you should be able to demonstrate it. You can't because you can find no error.

Here is a link that details the history of the Prague meeting as it was asserted and denied and asserted again:

http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/2002question/prague.htm

Unlike your "research" these links actually work and address the issue. The bottom line: Czech intel says Atta met the Iraqi in Prague.

Tantor wrote:

As I have pointed out in my previous post, the US intel community reported to Congress this winter that Atta met an Iraqi intel agent in Prague twice for sure, probably twice more, and got paid. This is the conclusion they came to after the FBI and Czech data were analyzed.

You are in error because you have not kept up with this story. If you limit your sources to the Left, you'll never be well informed.

Tantor wrote:

Yup, I guess I should avoid those "Lefty" sources like the Washington Post, BBC, Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung, Suddeutsche Zeitung, LE Monde, Japan Times, Jordan Times, Mainichi Shinbun, Christian Science Moniter, and those notriously leftist rags Foriegn Affairs, the Fletcher Forum of International Affairs, World Policy Journal, Washington Quarterly, Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Arab Studies Journals, etc...
.

I don't see any evidence that you have read any of those. You certainly don't quote from them. I think you just pasted together a list of papers and magazines. Also, you're just not very well informed. Had you read these, you would have facts to back up your positions. Your positions are all the predictable positions of a typical liberal college graduate in his twenties who goes along with his liberal pals, not those of an experienced and well-read world traveller, as you pose.

This is the kind of stunt a sophomore pulls to BS other sophomores.

Tantor

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Thanks to A2K that I can read such refreshing posts!

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Walter

Quite something, is it not.

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In Tantors world a lefty or liberal is a euphemism for dumb ass and unpatriotic american.

From the lips of a lefty liberal it seems that Tantor would not believe the statement the sky is blue, and not only would this statement become false it would become a purposeful deception.

Any news source presenting an alternative opinion to his own is disreputable re his statement regarding the BBC. I would offer that perhaps the BBC is being dismantled (if that occurs) for not towing the party line well enough to suit the government. Very nasty.

In any case, how does one debate with this type of Sgt. Fury wannabe? You might as well debate the merits of Ozzy with Jerry Falwell. Confused

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Kerry's war record Vs Bush's

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