US AND THEM: US, UN & Iraq, version 8.0

My signature line is: I bet certainty is impossible and probability suffices to govern belief and action. One sees things from a much different perspective at an altitude of 45,000 feet.

That is not a "specification" of where I'm at. That is merely the highest location from where I evolved my perspective that: I bet certainty is impossible and probability suffices to govern belief and action.

Tryit! You'll like it! :wink:

Emphasis is added by me.

Lest we forget again:


Now please don't forget:

So what happens if a civil war does break out in Iraq with any given combination of the three factions currently in play .... who would the U.S. put their military might behind?

Shia, Sunni, or Kurd

The vote for tomorrow only creates a federation. The big question for Iraq is whether the federation will eventually transform itself into a unified country. Unlikely - IMHO.

Am I living in a Kafka book? This just gets nuttier and nuttier.

HOORAY!

December 15, 2005
House Defies Bush and Backs McCain on Detainee Torture
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 - In an unusual bipartisan rebuke to the Bush administration, the House on Wednesday overwhelmingly endorsed Senator John McCain's measure to bar cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners in American custody anywhere in the world.

Although the vote was nonbinding, it put the Republican-controlled House on record in support of Mr. McCain's provision for the first time, at the very moment when the senator, a Republican, is at a crucial stage of tense negotiations with the White House, which strongly opposes his measure.

The vote also likely represents the lone opportunity that House members will have to express their sentiments on Mr. McCain's legislation. The Senate approved the measure in October, 90 to 9, as part of a military spending bill. But until Wednesday, the House Republican leadership had sought to avoid a direct vote on the measure to avoid embarrassing the White House.

The vote was on a motion to instruct House negotiators, who had just been appointed to work out differences between the House and Senate spending bills, to accept the Senate position on the McCain amendment.

The House bill, providing $453 billion for military programs, has no provision like Mr. McCain's, but if the negotiators follow these instructions to the letter, the final bill passed by Congress will.

The House vote was 308 to 122, with 107 Republicans lining up along with almost every Democrat behind Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who sponsored Mr. McCain's language and who has become anathema to the administration on any legislative measure related to Iraq since his call last month to withdraw American troops from Iraq in six months.

"Torture does not help us win the hearts and minds of the people it's used against," Mr. Murtha said on the House floor. "Congress is obligated to speak out."

Unlike the tumultuous three-hour debate that Mr. Murtha's Iraq-related measure provoked last month, this measure met with just 10 minutes of statements to a nearly empty House chamber.

Mr. Murtha, a former Marine colonel who is the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said Mr. McCain's legislation was essential to standardizing American interrogation methods and sending a clear signal to the world that the United States condemned the abusive treatment of detainees.

"If we allow torture in any form," Mr. Murtha said, "we abandon our honor."

Representative C. W. Bill Young of Florida, head of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, was one of 121 Republicans who voted against Mr. McCain's language. One Democrat, Jim Marshall of Georgia, voted against it; 200 Democrats and one independent supported it.

Mr. Young was quick to point out that he was in no way endorsing torture as an interrogation technique, but said he opposed the measure because it wrongly bestowed the full protections of the Constitution to terrorists and tied the hands of Congressional negotiators.

Another Republican who voted against the measure, Representative Todd Tiahrt of Kansas, said he opposed it because he said laws already barred torture and abusive treatment.

"It's absolutely unnecessary," said Mr. Tiahrt, who is on the House Intelligence Committee.

It was unclear what effects the vote would have on the negotiations between Mr. McCain and President Bush's national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, and on the Congressional negotiators for the two military bills now in conference committee. A spokeswoman for the Arizona senator, Eileen McMenamin, said Wednesday night that he had no comment on the vote.

"I don't think it will have any effect on the negotiations," Mr. Young said.

But Mr. Murtha said the vote bolstered his previous assertions that the military spending bill would include Mr. McCain's provision after the conference committee completed its work.

"It's going to be in there, period," Mr. Murtha said after the vote.

Earlier in the day, Senator Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican who is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, echoed Mr. Murtha's prediction, telling reporters that Mr. McCain "wants it in there, and I think it will stay in there."

The negotiations over the provision intensified on Wednesday. Early in the morning, Mr. McCain met in his office with Mr. Hadley. When asked whether the two had narrowed their differences, Mr. McCain told reporters: "We're still talking. We'll get this resolved one way or another. We have the votes."

Mr. McCain also attended the weekly Senate Republican policy lunch on Wednesday, but senators who attended the private gathering said that Mr. McCain did not address his colleagues and that the subject of his amendment did not come up.

After the lunch, however, Mr. McCain was mobbed by reporters seeking comment on his talks with Mr. Hadley. Mr. McCain was uncharacteristically tight lipped, saying he did not want to discuss details of the continuing discussions.

Two Senate Republican colleagues who voted for Mr. McCain's measure in October said Wednesday it was important for Congress to back the language.

"We need to have clear guidance, in law, that makes it very clear that inhumane treatment of detainees in American captivity is absolutely unacceptable," Susan Collins of Maine said. "This problem is hurting us around the world. It's contrary to our values, and we simply must have this as part of the final bill."

Senator John Thune of South Dakota said: "Because it has become such a high-profile issue here of late, not only around the country but around the world, I think it's in our best interests to address it. A strong unequivocal statement that we don't apply or tolerate torture in any form is probably right now a good thing to do."

Bush's speech today at the Wildrow Wilson International Center again claimed that congress saw the same intelligence he saw. Some vehemently disagree:

Bush Resurrects False Claim That Congress Had "Same Intelligence" On Iraq

His lies continue...

If the president lied LIKE CLINTON DID, The president should be impeached. Apparently, the House and Senate is not calling for his impeachment. The only people that call for impeachement are the marginal left wing kooks.

I will remind Cicerone Imposter of the legal definition of a LIE!


Source-Black's Law Dictionary-"An Intentional Statement of an untruth designed to mislead another"

I am sure that Cicerone Imposter knows that in any impeachment or court trial, It must be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that a statement was INTENTIONAL, WAS INDEED AN UNTRUTH AND KNOWN TO BE AN UNTRUTH AND WAS DESIGNED TO MISLEAD ANOTHER.

When Cicerone Imposter can gather clear evidence that any of the President's statements meet those criteria BEYOND THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT, he can then say there is evidence for impeachment.

Otherwise, he can say, as the left wing keeps saying- President Bush is lying or President Bush was lying.

I can say, of course, Senator Reid is lying or Senator Kennedy is lying or Senator Biden is lying.
Talk is cheap. Evidence is scarce.

There is no question that we have wimpy democrats who are more concerned with keeping their positions than doing what is right. It was only when public sentiment starting to change that they have now started to come out with all this stuff. Having said, this is a republican controlled congress, the chances of impeachment are nil. Your whole argument is a strawman argument.

There has been shown plenty of evidence with links on this forum which shed some light on how the administration was not straight forward with the American people or the UN when they were gunning for the war. They stretched the truth in some cases or didn't include dissenting intelligence while they were making definitive statements in other cases.

As for the elections, I think we just have to wait a few week or months to see how it all goes to know what kind of effect it has on the country.

Results from a new poll in Iraq:




related article in TIME

Oxford Research International (uk) ltd

Mortkat, Can you get this through your thick skull? When Clinton lied, he lied about a personal sexual encounter that hurt only he, his wife, and daughter. When Bush lies, it hurts everybody in this world. Your inability to see the difference is a glaring misconception about lies that are limited to one family and lies that hurts the whole world.

Wake up from your stupor.

Wrong. Clinton's lies did not hurt just him, his wife, and daughter. In fact, his lies were designed to NOT hurt him, his wife, or his daughter. His lies hurt everybody in this country, because it announced, "It's okay to lie under oath. The President does."

It seems it is you who has the misconception about the damage Clinton's lies did.


On the other hand, Bush didn't lie.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051215/ap_on_go_co/congress_detainees

Of course he did.

Cycloptichorn

I'd ask for proof, but I already know you don't have any. You're just expressing your wild fantasies again.

Here's just one:



That's a flat-out lie.

Of course, I'm sure you will say it wasn't a lie.

Cycloptichorn

Where's your proof that Clinton lied? He was acquitted in the senate from the charges of perjury. He was only charged with contempt of court from the Paula Jones case, not perjury. There has been offered proof here about the intelligence that the Bush administration ignored which didn't fit in with their agenda. They didn't share those dissenting views with the public when they were making their case for war. Those are the lies which we are talking about. Perhaps lied is the wrong word, but to make it short, it fits.

If Bush just admits that they stretched the truth for the Iraq war, then I would be satisfied just like I was satisfied when Clinton admitted before the whole world that he misled his family and the American people concerning his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

That's a statement. That is not proof that it's a lie.

Prove it's a lie.




Well of course I would. But your prediction of my response doesn't prove it to be a lie either.