Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

That may be a good reason, at least within, like, the purely amoral realm of strategic realpolitik, but hardly a good justification, towards, say, international law - or the electorate, for that matter.

I mean, what this rationale, by itself, comes down to - if I get it right - is:

"We are going to overthrow you - not because you yourself did anything bad to us in particular, but because some of your neighbours did. You see, because some of your neighbours are pulling dangerous fundamentalist stunts, we need to install an alternative to the kind of example they set. And since its so much easier to install it in your country - what, since you're not actually inclined or related to any of their fundamentalist stuff, than in their owncountries, we're just gonna overthrow you instead - and that way kinda work our way generally in their direction. We do hope you understand."



This one made me smile. Did anyone notice the word choice here? "Modern" weapons, whoa! You see, the alleged trade in nuclear weapon material was shown to be fictitious, and the alleged passing on of WMD was never proven in the least, so - "modern weapons", instead - Saddam traded modern weapons. That must be a reasonable ground for invasion if anything is.



See the logic of argument 1). As in: we have a problem with country A (and forget the oil, what about 9/11 and almost all its perpetrators being Saudi?) - but because we are too cowardly or opportunistic to actually tackle country A, we're just going to invade country B instead, cause it happens to be next door - and since it hasnt got many allies, we were kinda hoping we could get away with it.



"Proliferation of WMD", of course, implying the ongoing sale of WMD by Iraq - even tho it apparently didnt even have any. The possibility of which had been underlined by the countries that opposed the war precisely because of that.



Fair enough.



Because of course, nothing is going to stem the rise of Islamists as much as replacing a militantly secular dictatorship and its locked borders with the inherent instability of a transitional stage of semi-guerrilla warfare, political mobilisation and porous borders.



Though its true the other countries took France's and Germany's lead, it would be fair to at least indicate that of all the nations in the Security Council, only a handful supported the US in the matter. Thats quite a large majority that was going to vote against UN agreement with the war - including countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. And of course much of the UN officials (Kofi Annan, the weapon inspectors themselves, etc), too.

I musta missed this one in Powell's speech to the the UN. Hmm. not there.
Musta have been in one of speechs by George, or maybe just Condi talking on "Face the Nation." Nope. I know there was a resolution passed signed by Clinton, because Rumsfeld been shopping that around all morning on the newstalk shows, but if they offered it up a year ago it must have drowned out by the talk about avoiding what could become an imminent threat. Coulda shoulda woulda.

Well, anyway, it's a good one and we can use it next week to invade, not in any order, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, The Arab Emirates, Iran and Jordan, or......drumroll.......... Kuwait. (cymbal splash)!

Why must people keep following the switching of justification for the pre-emptive attack on Iraq? IT WAS WRONG FOR THE ALL THE JUSTIFICATIONS USED BY THIS ADMINISTRATION. Yes, hind sight is 20/20: that's the very reasons why we know now all the reasons used were/are wrong. 1. No WMD's, 2. No al Qaida connection, 3. Saddam was contained, and therefore posed no threat to his neighbors or to the American People, 4. Osama is still creating terrorism in the world, 5. Osama and Saudi Arabia are responsible for nine-eleven, 6. The US does not have the right to replace all the bad leaders of this world, and force democracy on them, 7. We are losing our military and billions of tax dollars that were not at risk before nine-eleven, 8. It has become a more dangerous world, 9. We have lost the trust of many of our former allies, and 10. No matter how much we wish to be the world's policemen or it's savior from lack of food, medicine, and health care, it's an impossible task for five percent of the world population that live in the US to accomplish it. Charity begins at home; our children and citizens have many needs. Without the best education, and health care for all our citizens, we become less competitive in the world marketplace, and our standard of living will decrease. I have a huge problem when our tax dollars are building schools in Iraq, while our children attend schools that are fire and earthquake hazards, sports and music are being cut out of the curriculum, and teachers must buy school supplies to teach their students, because the schools can't afford to.

Yea! ci !!

President George W. Bush Speaks

"My views are one that speaks to freedom."-Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2004


"The illiteracy level of our children are appalling."-Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004


-Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2004

has anyone else noticed the similarities between Bush's comments, and Engrish?Engrish.com

I'll bring a couple of matched duelling potato-pistols to SF. The Canadian armed services can spare them and we ought to settle this finally.

I'll volunteer to be the caller of "ready, set, fire!"

Spuds.

At forty paces.

Dawn, at the Golden Gate Bridge.

What drama.

Bring your cameras!

I think it may be more like

"Ready, Fire, Aim'

I think it's more like "fire, aim, ready."

Nimh,

You evoke views of national strategy and of the effectiveness of agreed international law that strike me as both naive and unrealistic. Certainly none of the European great powers followed them when they had the power to make a difference. On what basis do you require more of us than you achieved yourselves when you were able?

Certainlty Europe today is preoccupied with the legalisms and negotiation processes attendant to the development and expansion of the European Union. Perhaps that has clouded the minds of Europeans concerning the general level of political development in the world. The fact is the legal processes that are so effective in resolving many European disputes are quite impossible in most of the rest of the world, and certainly not in those regions that are now directly challenging the West.

The relative power of the United States today is a direct result of the foolishness of the European great powers in the decade preceeding WWI and of the century of European led war and revolution it unleashed. Indeed we are still faced with some elements of that legacy.

The poverty and lack of social and political development in Africa has many causes, including the foolish choices made by the first generation of political leaders there. However we should not fail to note the contribution of European colonial exploitation and repression. Much is made of the recent generosity of European governments to African nations, but I doubt that they will ever give back even a small portion of what was stolen in earlier periods.

The current distemper of the Moslem world is chiefly a result of centuries of European domination, colonialism and exploitation. As recently as about 50 years ago (when did the Dutch leave Indonesia?) the majority of the Moslem population in the world lived under European political rule. The unstable fuse in the Middle East Israel/Palestine is likewise a legacy of European oppression, duplicity, and hypocricy. From the deliberate dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, to the duplicitous promises made to both Zionists and Arabs, to the indifference of European nations to the fate of their surviving Jews after WWII (the euphamism in the late '40s for no longer welcome Jews was "displaced persons"), in all of this - Europe and Europe alone created the present mess in Palestine.

Now tired Old Europe wants to hide behind the legalisms that work only where there is stability, let the U.S. deal with their legacy, and criticize us from the sidelines. I sometimes think it would be better for the United States to abandon its security gurantees for Europe and let you deal with your Moslem neighbors yourselves. Perhaps you could rely on international law to protect yourselves.

In fact the basic elements of strategy tell one to deal with his enemies in the order in which it is convenient and effective, and not in the order in which one may rank the threat they produce. Iran is still a problem with respect to nuclear weapons, but Libya is abandoning a program which we have tracked for over two decades. North Korea is doing what it earlier said it would never do - engaged with its neighbors in multilateral talks about its weapons. Some of this is indeed traceable to the Iraq intervention.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/15/politics/15VIDE.html?ei=5062&en=54335bbfb5679db0&ex=1079931600&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&position



GW's goose is soooooooooo cooked. I'm tellin ya......you heard it first from Lola!

the righties will come up with an excuse.

The last few paragraph's from Lola's link provided above. My emphasis in bold, red.
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"As such, the videos have drawn criticism from some news media ethicists, who consider them to be at odds with journalism's mission to verify independently the claims of corporations and governments.

Government agencies have also produced such videos for years, often on subjects like teenage smoking and the dangers of using steroids. But the Medicare materials wander into more controversial territory.

Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, expressed disbelief that any television stations would present the Medicare videos as real news segments, considering the current debate about the merits of the new law.

"Those to me are just the next thing to fraud," Mr. Kovach said. "It's running a paid advertisement in the heart of a news program."


Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting for this article."

http://slate.msn.com/id/2097087/

What, you mean like WELFARE?

I think the intention is to begin deployment now in order to have critical elements of the system already in place as said system is improved/perfected. This will ensure that we benefit from the system sooner rather than later.

Lt Gen Kadish Statement to Senate Armed Services Committee on Missile Defense Program and Fiscal Year 2005 Budget

The most important paragraph from the above post.
**********
"Yet, except by sheer luck, these interceptors will not be able to shoot down enemy missiles. Or, to put it more precisely, Bush is starting to deploy very expensive weapons without the slightest bit of evidence that they have any chance of working."

**********
Bush has gone mad! He's blowing money like a drunken sailor, and nobody is stopping this crazy person.