Bush a Genius Says NY Times

FreeDuck,
Again, I never said that what happened in Lebanon was linked to Iraq. This would be even more absurd to me than linking it to Ukraine. Now I also seem to have made the same error of misreading your post, and rushing into believing that you meant to say something different. Nevertheless, I only agree on the fact that both issues (Leb. and Ukr. that is) have both a global scale and an international aspect, which is the only common ground between both. As for the rest of both situtations, they stand completely different in terms of history, political parties involved, intrests and so on.

Magginkat wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Magginkat wrote:

I've lost count of how many times I have produced all the public information that shows what a corrupt thug george bu$h is and I have long since learned that what righties like you don't want to see,

How many counts does a newbie have before s/he isn't a newbie anymor?

And that proves what? I've been a member here since shortly after this forum was started.

I don't post much because of the people like the ones in this thread who are holier than thou, self-righteous, know it all, & total bu$h butt kissers. I've never seen any politician that I would support without question as many seem to do with Bu$h.

It's depressing enough to see the constant approval and excuse making for a man that I consider a total moron or as I posted earlier on, an idiot savant. His concentration is totally on meaness, killing, stealing, & lying, just to mention his worst traits, all the while convincing total fools that he is a Christian.

A strange new religion has taken over this land, thanks to king george.
It condones, even cheers for the murdering, lying, stealing, etc. Don't you find it the least bit hypocritical that while all this is going on these same fools are screaming to post the ten commandments in government buildings.

And george bu$h is a brazen coward. He keeps himself in his bubble, surrounded by an army of security, while sending these soldiers to fight for his brazen lies.

No one who opposes his insanity is allowed to hold a sign up where his Royal 'Lyness' can see it.

That's why I don't post much or often. The hypocrisy & the worship of a moron is enough to gag a maggot.

Well then, if you don't post much, you should be able to count the number of posts supporting the claims that you say you supported wouldn't you think?

McGentrix,
I don't think it has anything to do with Iraq, and would really like to hear why it is that you think so. What is happening now in Lebanon is due to the assasination of the former prime minister, and a people who has had enough of Syrian opression that he needs to shout it loud and let it be heard. Whether or not had there be a war in Iraq or a giant pink elephant flying over lake mississsippi, you can be sure that what happened in Lebanon would have happened either way.

CLAIM:
"Taking on gang life will be one part of a broader outreach to at-risk youth, which involves parents and pastors, coaches and community leaders, in programs ranging from literacy to sports."
- President Bush's State of the Union promise to focus on ending gang activity, 2/2/05

FACT:
"Law enforcers say Bush budget cuts would hamper anti-gang efforts…ecause it proposed to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to state and local programs that help troubled kids and anti-gang efforts."
- Knight Ridder, 3/2/05

Well then, if you don't post much, you should be able to count the number of posts supporting the claims that you say you supported wouldn't you think?

Say one thing, do another. It's the Buscho(tm) way!

I'm still not seeing Iraq as a catalyst. The assassination was a catalyst. Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon was a catalyst (removing any legitimate reason for Syrian troops to be there). I'm just not seeing a direct connection with Iraq.

FreeDuck wrote:

I'm still not seeing Iraq as a catalyst. The assassination was a catalyst. Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon was a catalyst (removing any legitimate reason for Syrian troops to be there). I'm just not seeing a direct connection with Iraq.

I don't expect you ever will, FD. Many people do, though.

Ticomaya wrote:

FreeDuck wrote:

I'm still not seeing Iraq as a catalyst. The assassination was a catalyst. Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon was a catalyst (removing any legitimate reason for Syrian troops to be there). I'm just not seeing a direct connection with Iraq.

I don't expect you ever will, FD. Many people do, though.

Wow. That was a stunningly enlightening argument. I can see the light. Yes, yes, that must be it. It's all because of the Iraq war. Thank you, Tico, for showing me the way.

I guess it's kind of obvious that I was hoping someone would try to convince me, not just say "you don't but others do". I'm going to give you the second "duh" of the day. I'm really curious exactly how you think that the Iraq war triggered the current events in Lebanon. And a few backup facts would be handy too.

Try opening your eyes, because I'm not going to try to paint a picture for you. You will only see what you wish to see, and will believe only what you want to believe. If you don't see that the elections in Afghanistan and Iraq have added greatly to the possibilities of progress on Bush's goal of nurturing democracy in the ME region, you never will. I don't think you have an open mind here, FD. Please don't act like you do.

Ticomaya wrote:

Try opening your eyes, because I'm not going to try to paint a picture for you. You will only see what you wish to see, and will believe only what you want to believe. If you don't see that the elections in Afghanistan and Iraq have added greatly to the possibilities of progress on Bush's goal of nurturing democracy in the ME region, you never will. I don't think you have an open mind here, FD. Please don't act like you do.

Yet another stunning argument.

Tico, regardless what you think about whether or not I have an open mind, this thesis that you've just forwarded is not exactly self-evident. Specifically, we were speaking of Lebanon (which is different than what you've just said) and whether Iraq was a catalyst for it. I'm not the only one that is not convinced that Iraq was a catalyst for the events in Lebanon.

I don't believe I could get away with throwing something out there like, "Bush is a criminal and a cokehead and he's running this country into the ground" without making a compelling argument and trying to prove that it was well founded. And if I responded to your queries for a better explanation by saying "if you don't see it now you never will" I'm quite sure you'd do your duty and mock me for participating in a discussion where the objective is to exchange ideas. As well as make a note not to ever seriously consider anything I had to say in the future.

Wrong, but I might not consider your argument for anything more than what it was. And what it wouldn't be doing is persuading me. That's not my goal here, as I think I've mentioned a couple of times now.

Democracy is on the march in the ME.

You know why I think it's happening. Now ... please tell me why you think it's happening.

Ticomaya wrote:

Wrong, but I might not consider your argument for anything more than what it was. And what it wouldn't be doing is persuading me. That's not my goal here, as I think I've mentioned a couple of times now.

Ok, so why respond to a post that wasn't directed to you?

And if I responded to your queries for a better explanation by saying "if you don't see it now you never will" I'm quite sure you'd do your duty and mock me for participating in a discussion where the objective is to exchange ideas. As well as make a note not to ever seriously consider anything I had to say in the future.

Wrong, but I might not consider your argument for anything more than what it was. And what it wouldn't be doing is persuading me. That's not my goal here, as I think I've mentioned a couple of times now.

Tico wrote:

Democracy is on the march in the ME.

That's interesting. What exactly do you mean.

The Arabs' Berlin Wall has crumbled
By Mark Steyn
(Filed: 01/03/2005)

Three years ago - April 6 2002, if you want to rummage through the old Spectators in the attic - I wrote: "The stability junkies in the EU, UN and elsewhere have, as usual, missed the point. The Middle East is too stable. So, if you had to pick only one regime to topple, why not Iraq? Once you've got rid of the ruling gang, it's the West's best shot at incubating a reasonably non-insane polity. That's why the unravelling of the Middle East has to start not in the West Bank but in Baghdad."

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I don't like to say I told you so. But, actually, I do like to say I told you so. What I don't like to do is the obligatory false self-deprecatory thing to mitigate against the insufferableness of my saying I told you so. But nevertheless I did.

Consider just the past couple of days' news: not the ever more desperate depravity of the floundering "insurgency", but the real popular Arab resistance the car-bombers and the head-hackers are flailing against: the Saudi foreign minister, who by remarkable coincidence goes by the name of Prince Saud, told Newsweek that women would be voting in the next Saudi election. "That is going to be good for the election," he said, "because I think women are more sensible voters than men."

Four-time Egyptian election winner - and with 90 per cent of the vote! - President Mubarak announced that next polling day he wouldn't mind an opponent. Ordering his stenographer to change the constitution to permit the first multi-choice presidential elections in Egyptian history, His Excellency said the country would benefit from "more freedom and democracy". The state-run TV network hailed the president's speech as a "historical decision in the nation's 7,000-year-old march toward democracy". After 7,000 years on the march, they're barely out of the parking lot, so Mubarak's move is, as they say, a step in the right direction.

Meanwhile in Damascus, Boy Assad, having badly overplayed his hand in Lebanon and after months of denying that he was harbouring any refugee Saddamites, suddenly discovered that - wouldja believe it? - Saddam's brother and 29 other bigshot Baghdad Baathists were holed up in north-eastern Syria, and promptly handed them over to the Iraqi government.

And, for perhaps the most remarkable development, consider this report from Mohammed Ballas of Associated Press: "Palestinians expressed anger on Saturday at an overnight suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed four Israelis and threatened a fragile truce, a departure from former times when they welcomed attacks on their Israeli foes."

No disrespect to Associated Press, but I was disinclined to take their word for it. However, Charles Johnson, whose Little Green Footballs website has done an invaluable job these past three years presenting the ugly truth about Palestinian death-cultism, reported that he went hunting around the internet for the usual photographs of deliriously happy Gazans dancing in the street and handing out sweets to celebrate the latest addition to the pile of Jew corpses - and, to his surprise, couldn't find any.

Why is all this happening? Answer: January 30. Don't take my word for it, listen to Walid Jumblatt, big-time Lebanese Druze leader and a man of impeccable anti-American credentials: "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Berlin Wall has fallen."

Just so. Left to their own devices, the House of Saud - which demanded all US female air-traffic controllers be stood down for Crown Prince Abdullah's flight to the Bush ranch in Crawford - would stick to their traditional line that Wahhabi women have no place in a voting booth; instead, they have to dress like a voting booth - a big black impenetrable curtain with a little slot to drop your ballot through. Likewise, Hosni Mubarak has no desire to take part in campaign debates with Hosno Name-Recognition. Boy Assad has no desire to hand over his co-Baathists to the Great Satan's puppets in Baghdad.

But none of them has much of a choice. In the space of a month, the Iraq election has become the prism through which all other events in the region are seen.

Assad's regime knocks off a troublemaker in Lebanon. Big deal. They've done it a gazillion times. But this time the streets are full of demonstrators demanding an end to Syrian occupation.

A suicide bomber kills four Jews. So what's new? But this time the Palestinians decline to celebrate. And some even question whether being a delivery system for plastic explosives is really all life has to offer, even on the West Bank.

Mubarak announces the arrest of an opposition leader. Like, who cares? The jails are full of 'em. But this time Condi Rice cancels her visit and the Egyptian government notices that its annual cheque from Washington is a month late.

Three years ago, those of us in favour of destabilising the Middle East didn't have to be far-sighted geniuses: it was a win/win proposition. As Sam Goldwyn said, I'm sick of the old clichés, bring me some new clichés. The old clichés - Pan-Arabism, Baathism, Islamism, Arafatism - brought us the sewer that led to September 11. The new clichés could hardly be worse. Even if the old thug-for-life had merely been replaced by a new thug-for-life, the latter would come to power in the wake of the cautionary tale of the former.

But some of us - notably US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz - thought things would go a lot better than that. Wolfowitz was right, and so was Bush, and the Left, who were wrong about the Berlin Wall, were wrong again, the only difference being that this time they were joined in the dunce's corner of history by far too many British Tories. No surprise there. The EU's political establishment doesn't trust its own people, so why would they trust anybody else's? Bush trusts the American people, and he's happy to extend the same courtesy to the Iraqi people, the Syrian people, the Iranian people, etc.

Prof Glenn Reynolds, America's Instapundit, observes that "democratisation is a process, not an event". Far too often, it's treated like an event: ship in the monitors, hold the election, get it approved by Jimmy Carter and the UN, and that's it. Doesn't work like that. What's happening in the Middle East is the start of a long-delayed process. Eight million Iraqis did more for the Arab world on January 30 than 7,000 years of Mubarak-pace marching.

Ticomaya wrote:

Wrong, but I might not consider your argument for anything more than what it was. And what it wouldn't be doing is persuading me. That's not my goal here, as I think I've mentioned a couple of times now.

Ok, so why respond to a post that wasn't directed to you?

FreeDuck wrote:

I'm still not seeing Iraq as a catalyst. The assassination was a catalyst. Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon was a catalyst (removing any legitimate reason for Syrian troops to be there). I'm just not seeing a direct connection with Iraq.

I don't expect you ever will, FD. Many people do, though.

Lebanese people marching in defiance of Syrian seeking "freedom, independence and sovereignty"; democratic election reforms in Saudi Arabia; kifaya movement in Egypt (real elections).

Here's an editorial you might find interesting:

<editorial snipped>

Duke of Lancaster wrote:

well, considering that naïve newbie over there, maggin, I doubt she'll ever be something higher than a NEWBIE :wink:

I don't know your previous name here, but you perhaps didn't notice (if you've joined just recently as indicated) that these 'ranks' really only are related to the number of posts.

Egypt, Saudi, France, Germany join the US in demanding the Syria leave Lebanon.