Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

The "administration" can get away with saying whatever they want to say (and have for many many decades) because,
who challenges them?? Even though there ARE some folks hanging
American flags off of their porches and chanting war songs:
war,war - yes, war,war - good, war, war - money$$$, war, war - necessary, war war - payback time -------------
I have yet to see one INTELLIGENT shred of evidence that some
american terrorist group (yes there are such things)didn't cause
the 9-11 disaster OR proof that those we prefer to blame DID
cause it. There WAS a time when all reputable authorities
hailed - as a proven fact, as total certainty, that this world was
FLAT. And all those who did not agree with the common thinking
were immediately considered crackpots & of dubious intelligence,
for not following the HERD. But, alas, they WERE very correct,
weren't they?? I find it hard to actually believe that there ARE
people out there, who feel that the UN, the many Americans and
all countries who DO NOT WANT WAR, WHO DO NOT FIND THIS
WAR JUSTIFIABLE are being way TOO HARD ON BUSH, Inc. !!!
Sir Bush & associates, have been quite busy plotting & figuring how
WE (the public) can be manipulated into believing that we NEED to
the spend vast amounts of OUR MONEY on a distant war, a war
that seems to many Americans & other world countries to be wrong
and unjustifiable.... What has Bush, Inc. done so far:
1. To push us into a war to protect Bush, Inc's. very own personal
financial agenda and concerns - but at the expense of YOU AND I.
2. He has a vice president who has conspiring, conflicts of interests
with a certain company(with whom he was
who just happened to WIN THE BID; to be fully ready, prepared,
AND on alert - to swiftly get to the oilfields, at a moment's notice -
to put out massive oil fires that Bush Inc. anticipates will happen
will happen, based upon the actions of the US government.
3. To begin the "bidding" and the reconstruction process in this
country we are currently plotting to destroy.
our money would be FAR better spent on other things.
I have a few opinions on what this money could best be
spent on - but nobody EVER asks me and I never get a
chance to vote on issues like: "Do you, american citizen
#243451194037 agree with concept of going to war?"
No one ever asks ME anything. And I have yet to find a
SINGLE AMERICAN CITIZEN WHO HAS BEEN POLLED
about such issues - EVER.
It is just altogether TOO easy for statements to read as
follows: The White House states that in the most recent
polls, the study clearly concludes that Americans are
in favor of Bush, and in favor of going to war (even
though it is OUR MONEY being spent to blow that country
to bits and then MORE OF OUR MONEY will then
be spent rebuilding what we are just now planning the
destruction of.

Babs, the most frightening and possibly dangerous thought of all is that, if following the trails leading to profit and power - and although racking brains for hours, it is possible to find many who lost but only one group of major beneficiaries on earth from 9/11.

On the other hand, it could all be incredibly helpful coincidence enabling the rapid achievement of many primary agendas. A much kinder alternative to pre-planned cunning and lack of morality 'almost' beyond belief?

John Webb - If you are attempting to imply that any American played a role in planning or carrying out the attacks of 9/11/01, please have the courage of your convictions and state as much straight out. This "I'm dancing around what everybody knows I mean and aren't I the clever one for doing it" nonsense is worthless. If you want to label someone a traitor step up and name him or them.

T.W., I was not trying to be clever, although it might have seemed that way. I certainly agree that no honorable American could have been involved.

I (and hopefully you) have no idea of the complete truth surrounding 9/11 and few others will for around thirty years, if ever. Everything we know is made up of what has been announced by politicians, circumstantial evidence, oddities and unanswered questions - much of which appears curious or in conflict with one another.

Yet, unlike almost all other major disasters, any kind of public inquiry or independent investigation into the worst atrocity in modern history has been ruled out. So, uninformed speculation and theories continue, more than one leading in horrifying directions - all of which could be ended so easily by an Administration with nothing to hide.

In the world of politics, in my experience, nothing can be trusted unless supported by rock hard evidence. You must have heard the saying "You can tell when a politician is lying, he has his mouth open".

I have no doubt about the source of the 9/11 attack. The evidence is clear. IMO there too many who are ready to turn it into an American conspiracy. In fact it would seem that they are hoping it was. However, for the Bush administration it was a trifecta. It is the basis for all Bush's success in getting his agenda through. Osama was Bush's savior.

I am not aware of this. I understood that there were to be investigations.

But let's be clear here, you're writing that--absent evidence to the contrary you are assuming that some in the US--and specifically some in power--were involved. Yes or No?

Lateral Thought!
It is now certain that in a few days time, we will enter probably the most one-sided war in history. Excellent from the view point of our forces but a little disappointing for the media as a source of public entertainment and advertising income.

Yet, had he hired a lateral thinker, Saddam could easily have prevented this war or even won it without firing a shot.

How? Ideas please?

John - You should consider starting a new discussion rather than asking a new question--on a completely different topic--in the middle of an existing one.

T.W., I was trying to lighten the mood by linking with more current actions by the Administration, whilst exercising a few imaginations.

John - And I think you should, just in a new discussion of your own making. Seems like a good question to me.

The President has just demanded that Saddam and his sons flee Iraq - leaving behind all their wives and children and creating an army of single mothers and orphans - without a shot being fired. What cruelty?

If only someone could issue the same ultimatum to George W?

Consider this (and just to annoy T.W. :wink: ), Osama bin Laden has been claiming wrongly for years that America is an evil imperialist power and a law unto itself.

Now the Bush Administration proceeds to prove him right to the whole of the Arab world, including Muslims and would-be terrorists everywhere by appointing themselves supreme arbiters of international law, without being elected (not that honest elections were ever essential to George ), overruling the opposition of nearly all Members of the United Nations and alienating most of our allies. "Everyone is wrong except me" has never been the best way to win friends and influence people.

The seeds of destruction are being progressively sown. Let us hope that not too many millions of innocents reap the harvest.

Earlier au1929 said "Osama was Bush's savior". It would seem that George is now returning the favor. In other words, with enemies like Bush, does Osama need friends?

You may have more of a point there than you've explicitly stated, John, given the actual cosy relationship of the bin Laden family and the Bushes. I wish the facts (this long-term interrelationships among them) could be presented more effectively.

Now you're just being obtuse. Bush did not require that they leave their families behind. Christ, why not complain that he didn't tell them to take their pets too?

Oh God! What about their houseplants??? Who will water them after Saddam and Sons leave??? :wink:

The Threat From Zimbabwe!
Is the Administration unconcerned by the terrible danger to future world peace posed by Zimbabwe

Intelligence sources have recently revealed that witch-doctors working for the evil tyrant President Mugabe have been secretly developing C.M.Ds (Curses of Mass Destruction) which may be intended for use against Western Nations.

It is believed that, in only a few years time, he will have developed Curses of sufficient power to achieve a serious threat to American security. There is clear and irrefutable evidence that Mugabe's henchmen have been seen outside their mud-huts dancing around camp-fires rattling strings of beads and muttering the most foul of profanities.

When is the President going to launch a preemptive strike against Zimbabwe, as he is doing against Iraq - and with equal justification?

I am reminded of the headlines that ran in the newspapers after Roosevelt declared war on the Axis soon after Pearl Harbor, and while the real WAR! headlines will be published in the next day or two, I mention them as a reminder of how far down the slippery slope we've come since those days as a nation. In 1941, beating the Axis was clearly the world's top priority, and so it was easy to declare a war, wrapped in the cloak of being on the side of liberty and freedom and all that was right.

And while winning the war was a good thing, winning the peace was the great thing. The goodwill of the USA was taken for granted, that we would try to use our newfound status as a superpower to enact positive change around the world. In addition to the rebuilding of the world with the Marshall plan, we sponsored the international conference that would grow into the United Nations.

Sadly, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, the arms race and various other world troubles blunted our ability and perhaps even our goodwill in many corners of the globe, but even in the darkest hours, it was always a given that we were right, and the Iron Curtain was wrong. As a lefty, I am always a bit sensitive and perhaps vulnerable to the criticism that the US was not the Grand City on the Hill that we have mythologized a bit as we write our own nostalgic view of history, but I maintain to this day that we are the Great Difference Engine that makes such a vision theoretically possible even in a time as troubling as this.

So, since I am an American, albeit a snarky and generally disrespectful one, this war becomes my war too, part of my identification as a citizen of the United States. I can stick my fingers in my ears and chant "la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la" until the cows come home, but this illegal invasion is here, and will no doubt shake the world, success or not, and the odds of success are pretty good. I am confident that the bombs, planes, guns and soldiers of the US Armed Forces will win handily, and many small, cowardly men in blue suits will arrogate to themselves their chickenhawk claim of victory while many men in green and tan fatigues will die in horrible ways so that they can do so. Such is the nature of war that old men declare them and young men die in them; this is not new or surprising.

But as an American I will, along with my nation, shoulder the aftermath as well. There are already a few certain outcomes based on what the world looks like today on the eve of war. The first certainty is that we will come out of this more hated than ever. Already, we have seen fit to tear asunder the authority of the United Nations and the military alliance of NATO, and to drive a wedge between ourselves and the nations most like us around the world who should and would be our allies to this day were we not governed by the autocratic, high-handed, low-minded, spoon-fed, incompetent, moralistic, jackbooted, zealous, illegitimate, venal, bloodthirsty men and women of the Bush Administration.

Bush can throw our economy in the toilet, pass all sorts of laws to invade our privacy, suck up to their friends in the corporate world, trade blood for oil and lives for imperialism, and I'll just take it all as best I can, and hope that the majority of Americans see it different when the next election comes around. All of those things are fixable and reversible.

But when they mess with the reservoir of American goodwill abroad, they are committing a crime against the next generation of Americans who will take up our cause in this world; they will find that our nation is untrusted, hated, despised, and basically looked upon contemptuously by the rest of the world. That is the curse that they are laying on all of us: the loss of our national birthright as the place where the Good is mined and exported. (The hell with you if you think I am being naive. The US isn't perfect, but it's still the best game in town.)

So, this war is upon us, and as it goes, we may have lost already after a fashion. But it's never too early to start planning the next battle. Soon, mercy willing, this little excursion to Iraq will be over and there is still a battle to fight: the removal of the Bush Administration from the White House. Accuse me of politicizing the war; **** you, I don't care. Everything in our American experience has shown us that a healthy and vigorous political arena is the very basis upon which we carve the building blocks of our nation. And as it goes, our nation is currently run by a cadre of lying, immoral, corrupt, fundamentalist, anti-freedom, job-destroying, economy-thrashing whores, and we shall hold them accountable.

The Bush Administration has set out to despoil our land, curtail our freedoms, eliminate our livelihoods, safeguard the superrich, trade soldiers for oil, corrupt nations abroad, control our reproductive rights, take away our privacy, politicize our legal system, criminalize our right to free speech, stock our courts with theocrats and dangerous reactionaries, destroy our Constitution and generally behave in a manner befitting a ruling oligarchy rather than the leaders of a democratic republic.

So yeah, rah-rah, support the troops, hope they come safe, and hope that the war goes well and all that.

But then, also, we'll re-double our efforts to undo what they have done. We'll hold the sons-a-bitches accountable for the damage they have done, and fight them every step of the way as they try to destroy the proud traditions of their country with their insane economic plans, draconian laws, and illegal activities. We shall continue to shine a light on their dark dealings, and go out there and win the bigger fight. Elections are how we express ourselves most effectively, so get out there and do your part in winning back our country from this momentary spasm of reactionaries and doomfreaks that snaked their way into power.

Now is the time for the real American patriot to show through. Every value that has made America better, greater, and stronger is our liberal heritage and we should go out and put this national nightmare out to pasture in 2004.

Perhaps I have not explained myself very eloquently but the best way to further the cause of peace and freedom is to beat these bastards like a bad piece of meat in 2004.

We have failed to curtail their warmongering for now, but we can curtail their plans permanently if we put them out of office in 18 short months. Keep your eyes on the prize, and don't let this war keep you from the larger picture about the economy, civil liberties, reproductive rights, freedom of speech, the environment, justice, tolerance, hope, faith and humanity; all of the issues where we are Right and they are Wrong.

I hate to sound alarmist, but the very future of our great country is at stake; their path leads to an era of darkness the likes of which I don't want to imagine.

If Bush gets re-elected in 2004, the sound you will hear will be the snap of the spine of the soul of our nation.

We can't let that happen.

By certain elements who wish nothing other than a chance to hate America more, this is quite certain. But you pretend that no Iraqi will be happy to be free of Saddam. You pretend that no one anywhere will be happy to have the threat Saddam poses gone from the world. You pretend that no one anywhere will breathe a little easier knowing that America has not only put the bad guys on notice, but is ready to follow through wherever and whenever the bad guys don't run and hide.

I don't doubt that some people here and abroad will hate America more no matter what. And you know what? I don't care. History is rife with examples of people and societies being hated for doing what was necessary and right. Being hated doesn't mean you are wrong. It just means someone hates you.

So to all you America haters out there: hold your impotent hatred close if it keeps you warm at night, but God help you if you let it move you to get in our way.

Congratulations, PDiddie, on a superb posting by a true patriot with the wisdom to know the difference between support for dangerous policies and total loyalty to his nation.

I might add that the Democrats (whoever they pick) should be prepared for the dirtiest battle in political history, because the Administration will not relinquish power without using every trick in the book and a few that are not (including the Supreme Court?).

I join in appreciation of PDiddie -- who always comes through! I recently read that, ironically, the Bush campaign figured (in 2000) that they would win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote and had a team of lawyers and PR folks lined up for months prepared to do battle after the vote to defeat Gore in the courts!