THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I'll even throw you a soft lob: what data do you base your rapidly increasing numbers of Iraqi voters upon? Cycloptichorn

My Data from What Am! If you listen up and ask the right questions, you will get darn near the same answers.

However, I bet you won't be satisfied with that answer and probably not with this one either!

George Washington failed many times before succeeding with the help of French and American troops.

Abraham Lincoln failed many times before succeeding with the help of American troops.

Woodrow Wilson failed many times before succeeding with the help of British, Dutch, Belgian, French and American troops.

Franklin Roosevelt failed many times before succeeding with the help of Australian, New Zealand, British, Dutch, Belgian, French and American troops.

Harry Truman failed many times before succeeding with the help of Palestinian Jew, and American troops.

John Kennedy failed many times before succeeding with the help of the world's scientists, engineers, and aviators.

George Bush (43) having failed many times will succeed with the help of Afghanistan, Iraq, Australian, New Zealand, British, and American troops.

What all did they succeed in doing, or what all will they succeed in doing?

1. Establishing and securing American democracy; and,
2. Securing American democracy; and,
3. Securing Australian, New Zealand, British, Dutch, Belgian, and French democracy; and,
4. Establishing and securing German and Japanese democracy; and,
5. Establishing and securing Israel democracy; and,
6. Establishing and securing Afghanistan and Iraq democracy; and,
7. Establising multiple round trips to the moon.

Not bad, for government work--lose some, win some, and be sure to win the big ones!

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Once again, what is What Am! ? Link or be damned!

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Once again, what is What Am! ? Link or be damned! Cycloptichorn

What is What Am? Shocked

Surely you jest!

On second thought I think you don't jest!

What Am is Reality!

If you are unable to discern reality, it's probably because you don't listen up and because you don't ask the right questions. Rolling Eyes

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Basically, then, what I previously thought has been confirmed: you're pulling numbers straight out of your ass. Therefore; you are relegated to irrelevancy.

You've really fallen from your previous status of respected poster in a lot of people's minds, what with this inanity that you consider reality.

Cycloptichorn

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Kara wrote:

dlowan, no link?

I heard it on the radio driving home from work, Kara - there isn't a link!!

I am not sure why you thought there would be?

The program played various bits of reporting from Iraq - and analysed it re content, as part of a broader discussion on foreign correspondents and the quality of such reporting.

The Fox one just stood out as utterly appalling, and I was stunned. I had assumed, when people spoke of it, that it would be similar to our Murdoch station here - but it made our urdoch reports look good. Which is often hard to do - they go always for sensation over content - but there is some content.

The only content in the FOx one was that American troops were travelling towards Baghdad quite fast. The rest was sheer hype and hyper-nationalist stuff about the attack on Iraq and the nobility of the mood at home.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Basically, then, what I previously thought has been confirmed: you're pulling numbers straight out of your ass. Therefore; you are relegated to irrelevancy.

I thought we had already clarified that the appropriate word was not revelent... Laughing

Cycloptichorn wrote:

You've really fallen from your previous status of respected poster in a lot of people's minds, what with this inanity that you consider reality.

There you go thinking you are the designated representative of "a lot of people's minds" again. Laughing

Pitied are the fools who would give you a limited durable power of attorney to represent their thoughts. Laughing

I'm having trouble believing even one such dolt exists.

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As for the first part,

Quote:

One entry found for irrelevancy.

Main Entry: ir·rel·e·van·cy
Pronunciation: -v&n(t)-sE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -cies
: IRRELEVANCE

www.m-w.com

As for the second part, you wouldn't believe the things that get said over PM about you hawks. Don't be so quick to discount the fact that there are dolts out there. In fact, I'm looking at a picture of a dolt right now! With a big triangle of cheese on his head....

Too bad about the ol' pack this year BTW Smile

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Basically, then, what I previously thought has been confirmed: you're pulling numbers straight out of your ass. Therefore; you are relegated to irrelevancy. You've really fallen from your previous status of respected poster in a lot of people's minds, what with this inanity that you consider reality. Cycloptichorn

I gave three answers. You apparently do not like any of them.

1. I stated in my first post projecting voter turnout in Iraq: I am posting my day dreams just like many bluenecks here are posting their daydreams. I bet my day dreams are true and the bluenecks' day dreams are false.

2. I get my data from What Am.

3. I get my intuition from US history.

With regard to your day dream:

Quote:

You've really fallen from your previous status of respected poster in a lot of people's minds, what with this inanity that you consider reality.

My concern for the truth of your daydream rests strictly on whose "people's minds" comprise "a lot of people's minds." Only if I respect those "peoples minds" enough would I then be concerned.

There is a significant point to my voter turnout daydream projections that you have not yet discerned. However, discernment of that point on your own is required, since others here have already achieved that on their own, and since it is now obvious to me that you cannot really learn it by any lecturing I or others might provide.

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dlowan, now that I think about it, I don't know why I thought there might be a link. I was curious and wanted to hear what you were talking about.

Fox news probably does have the same type of market share in the US that the Murdock station does in Australia. But the triumphalism after we trashed Baghdad was not limited to those kind of stations; it was everywhere. Remember Mission Accomplished?

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Ah - but Kara, I was speaking of the quality of reporting - this was from an "embedded" reporter - normally foreign correspondents have, I think, a reputation for at least conveying information - not rhetoric. This was before Baghdad fell.

Wasn't "Mission Acomplished" just White House folderol? One expects that from politicians.

Hmm - the Murdoch television station is quite popular here.

I wonder if there is a way I can access more Fox broadcasts? I have seen you guys fight about Fox - but NOW I am interested.

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Pssssssst Cyclo...........

Bevo is going to be at the Black Tie and Boots Inaugural Ball tonight (sans boots LOL)!

Get ready to send your letters of protest to both UT and PETA, dear.

Hook 'em!

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Cyclops. I'd define revelent for you but M-W doesn't provide one and the one I've been thinking of lately would probably constitute a TOS violation. Oh, and I think I'm probably quite aware of what gets said via pansy-tag and am none too concerned about it. (shhh or they might blackball you) :wink: "I'm the most wanted man on my island, except I'm not on my island, of course. Mores the pity.":wink:

http://braveheart.misto.cz/_MAIL_/stephen/stephen11.jpg

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FOX aint all bad D. They cover the things the alphabets won't... and let's face it. O'reilly can be pretty funny. So can Hannity. Fair and balanced? Laughing

Perhaps not... but they're no worse than CBS. The fact that they hire right wing hammers gets them more bad press than they deserve. I'm curious, do you get Al Jazeera there?

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This came to me in an email from Sojourners, which is a progressive christian organization - it - like most churches in America, I gather, opposes, for instance, the war in Iraq.

( If you want ti get an idea of them, if you don't know them, hare are a couple of important sites: http://www.sojo.net/
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/People/spok/serials/sojourners.html )

(Wikipedia says: Sojourners is a Christian magazine, and a religious community based in Washington, D.C.. Though it has promoted itself with the slogan "Not from the Left, not from the Right, but from the Spirit", the magazine's content is generally left-leaning in political outlook, and is probably the most widely read publication among Christian progressives in the United States. Its founder and editor is Jim Wallis. )

So - as I said, this was sent to me in am email from this organisation:

The "Democracy Option" disappears in Iraq
by David Batstone

The Pentagon is clearly worried about a deepening quagmire in Iraq. Nearly two years after the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, the presence of U.S. forces does not appear to be moving Iraq toward a stable, civic society. A frustrated Pentagon is exploring new strategies.

Newsweek magazine reported last week that Pentagon insiders are touting a plan code-named the "Salvador Option." The plan refers to the secret support of the Reagan administration in the 1980s for hit squads in El Salvador that targeted rebel militia and their civilian sympathizers. Many Pentagon conservatives credit these so-called "death squads" with turning the tide against a strong revolutionary movement in El Salvador.

I worked in human rights in Central America for nearly 12 years. My tenure began in the early 1980s when I launched and then ran a non-governmental group concerned with economic and community development.

Death squads roamed freely in El Salvador and Guatemala at the time. In these two countries alone, they assassinated or "disappeared" more than 150,000 civilians. They targeted anyone - church pastors, literacy teachers, community development workers - who appeared to support social reform.

My organization arranged for volunteers from the United States to live with civilians threatened by the death squads. Our effort was successful because the death squads were made up largely of members of the military or police working clandestinely. They realized that brazenly killing civilians through official channels would threaten U.S. aid. More risky still would be the murder of U.S. citizens - the temporary cessation of U.S. military aid to El Salvador after the rape and murder of four U.S. religious women in 1980 proved that point.

All the same, I witnessed countless cases of military abuse. The security units regularly justified the murder of civilian suspects as a necessary defense in the fight against "terrorists." The military acted as judge, jury, and executioner. The police worked hand in hand with the military. The police investigated community leaders working for social change during the day, and would turn that information over to the army hit squads who made the civilians "disappear" in the middle of the night.

How chilling that the Pentagon is seriously considering a plan to take us back to those dark days. According to Newsweek, "the Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support, and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria...."

The Pentagon's affinity for a "Salvadoran Option" in Iraq appears consistent with its broader shift to promote a strong state security apparatus internationally in the fight against terrorism. In a summit of Latin American defense ministers held in Quito, Ecuador, in late 2004, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld unveiled his campaign to reverse nearly two decades of military reform in Latin America. Though the summit went largely unreported in the U.S. media, we may look back at it in years to come as a significant watershed for American foreign policy.

Central to Rumsfeld's Quito doctrine is the re-integration of the military and police, reversing a major reform objective in the hemisphere during the last two decades. Both U.S. and Latin American human rights agencies deem that separation of powers necessary to bring military activity under civilian accountability.

During the drafting of the final summit statement, the Canadian delegation tried to salvage the gains for civilian freedoms once absent in the region's former security states. Backed by Brazil and Chile, the Canadian defense ministry introduced language that would reaffirm a commitment to international human rights and civil protections. The Pentagon team, however, successfully blocked this corrective from being added to the summit's final documents.

The nostalgia for the military strongmen of Latin America appears to be growing in Washington. Is it merely coincidence that President Bush appointed Elliot Abrams in mid-2003 to be his senior advisor on the Middle East? Abrams was a key player in the crafting of Reagan's "Salvador Option" in Central America. When confronted in the mid-'80s with a United Nations report that the vast majority of "atrocities in El Salvador's civil war were committed by Reagan-assisted death squads," Abrams energetically defended U.S. foreign policy: "The administration's record on El Salvador is one of fabulous achievements." Abrams soon thereafter was convicted of lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair, only to be pardoned five years later by President George H.W. Bush.

The invasion of Iraq was sold to the American public as a necessary means to arrest the spread of terrorism. We were told that Saddam Hussein could no longer be allowed to deploy security forces to terrorize the Iraqi people and eliminate movements for democratic reform. Yet here we are today, two years later, and the United States is on the verge of initiating its own death squads. I wonder at what point over the past two years we gave up on the "Democracy Option" in Iraq?

I know about the Reagan government supported death squads - what I am wondering if other people know of any information about this?

What do people think of this possibility?

Edit: Ba da bing! Here is the actual Newsweek article itself:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/

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OCCOM BILL wrote:

FOX aint all bad D. They cover the things the alphabets won't... and let's face it. O'reilly can be pretty funny. So can Hannity. Fair and balanced? Perhaps not... but they're no worse than CBS. The fact that they hire right wing hammers gets them more bad press than they deserve. I'm curious, do you get Al Jazeera there?

Not on TV.

Why?

I get Al Jazeera.net written updates - not (as I did to my shame!!) to be confused with Aljazeera.com.

Are you comparing their reporting with FoX???!!!!!!!

I can assure you the print version is nothing like what I have witnessed of Fox!!!!!

I know that they air all sorts of views - including extremist ones - on their TV - generally followed by alternative commentary.

There has, I heard on the radiom recently, been a documentary made on Al Jazeera, which is supposed to be very interesting.

I look forward to seeing it.

The more daring and independent news services we have in the Middle East the better, I think.

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Was just curious. Fox is not as one-sided as Al Jazeera. But, the same people who bash Fox generally stand up for Al Jazeera. Strange.

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Quote:

The more daring and independent news services we have in the Middle East the better, I think.

Many here in the U.S. think that what you think to be daring and independent (and obviously you admire) is getting our soldiers killed in Iraq.

And you do know who recently hired Jim Wallis, right?

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Fair and balanced :wink: :wink:

Quote:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 18, 2004

Judge: Reporters not liable for lawyer fees
Copyright Times Publishing Co. Aug 19, 2004

Two investigative reporters who accused their bosses in a lawsuit of distorting their story about growth hormones in milk won't have to pay nearly $2-million in attorneys' fees to a local Fox affiliate, a judge ruled Wednesday.

After a two-hour hearing, Hillsborough Circuit Judge Vivian Maye ruled that Jane Akre and Steve Wilson filed their 1998 lawsuit against WTVT-Ch. 13 in good faith. As the case proceeded through the court system, judges agreed it had enough merit to go to trial, Maye said. And a jury ruled, at least in part, in Akre's favor, even though that decision was later overturned by an appeals court, Maye noted.

The station had asked for nearly $2-million in attorneys' fees and costs. Maye will rule later on whether to grant Fox's request for about $37,000 in court costs.

The judge did grant the station $18,412 for costs related to the appeal and reserved ruling on another $43,747 in other appeals costs. Still, the judge's decision Wednesday largely let Akre and Wilson off the hook.

"Yes, it's nice not to have nearly $2-million in fees hanging over us anymore," Akre said after the hearing.

The station could appeal the ruling.

Akre and Wilson, who are married, brought national credentials to WTVT-Ch. 13 when they were hired in 1996. Each had more than 20 years of experience - Wilson was an Emmy-winning alumnus of Inside Edition, and Akre spent time at CNN.

The conflict began in 1997 while the pair worked on a story about bovine growth hormone, or BGH, a controversial substance manufactured by the Monsanto Corp.

Wilson and Akre sued the station after they were released early from their contracts in 1997. They claimed station management and lawyers buckled to pressure from Monsanto Corp. to distort their story. The station did not air the couple's report.

Fox has long maintained that it never asked Wilson and Akre to lie in their story. The station says the two refused to be objective and were fired for insubordination.

In August 2000, a jury awarded Akre $425,000, saying the station retaliated against her for threatening to blow the whistle on a false or distorted news report. The same jury decided the station had not wronged Wilson.

The station appealed the $425,000 award. Florida's Second District Court of Appeal eventually overturned the decision, saying Akre failed to show the station violated any state laws.

The appeals court said Akre's threat to report the station's actions to the Federal Communications Commission didn't deserve protection under the state whistle blower statute.

The station used that ruling to go after the nearly $2-million in fees. In some cases, the winning party can collect their attorneys' fees and court costs from the other side.

Graham Brink can be reached at (813) 226-3365 or [email protected].

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dlowan, I posted a piece here a week or two ago about the Pentagon considering the death-squad idea. The issue received little press in this country. Maybe, after Abu Ghraib, no one can be shocked anymore. In fact, I wonder if we have become so rich and complacent that the "outrage" factor has been bred out of us.

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This made me smile this morning Smile

Quote:

I also saw a tv interview with President Bush when I was at the cafe the other night. I dont know what it was, but it was an interview with him and his wife by an old woman. He seems to be a simple man. He is not very elegant, and this is why many people criticize him. However, he is not the monster that some make him to be in the media. He doesnt seem like it to me. Many people claim he had ulterior motives for invading Iraq, outside of helping Iraqis. Whether this is true or not, I dont know. And I dont think it is proper or even worthwhile to wonder if we have no evidence. The interview struck me because he seemed comitted to having American involvement in Iraq until our democracy is set up. For that I am thankful.

The above was written a couple days ago by a young man in Iraq who shares his optimistic thoughts with us on his blog, Democracy in Iraq. I always get a kick out of their views of us through the media of TV and laughed out loud when I realized the "old woman" he was referring to is Barbara Walters!!! LOL...she would be incensed Smile

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THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

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