Could Gore have f*cked us anywhere near as bad as Bush has?

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I know that serious allegations were made against President Clinton that he had something to do with Foster's death, that he "sold" the Lincoln bedroom to the highest bidder, etc., etc. None of the charges had much, if any substance. President Clinton wasn't treated any more roughly by partisans of the opposition than previous Presidents.

emphasis mine.

This is just sad. It's complete denial of the facts in evidence. Whether it was Travelgate or Filegate or some other trumped up deal, the vilification of Bill Clinton both as a person and a President was a daily event for the right wing media. Was Rush on vacation for you that whole time? Novak out to lunch? Wall Street Journal on hiatus? FoxNews...nevermind.

And where was such treatment as pertains W's father, unless you are counting Saturday Night Live as being ill-used? Even during Ronald Reagan's last days in office, when he was 'confused' and couldn't remember negotiating with a terrorist nation for the release of American hostages by giving them armaments in exchange, did the Democrats resort to the kind of daily assaults Bill Clinton endured. Have you read David Brock's book? I say again and I want to you think about this: the attacks on Clinton were an attempted coup d'etat. Not just politics as usual, and you know it or you are in denial.

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And, more to the point at no time did the criticisms of President Clinton come close to the levels of hatred we've come to expect expressed against this President, all who support him, and the Republican Party as a whole.

Okay, maybe not denial. Complete memory loss.

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Neither during the Carter nor Clinton Administrations did Republican partisans so routinely call the American People stupid, ignorant, etc., etc. for electing the opposition. The left and zealous partisans of the Democratic party seem to have no respect at all for any opinion that disagrees with them.

The American people, or People as you would have it, have been had. They have been conned by a bunch of slickers who have sold them a diet of "Family Values" while fattening their top two per cent friends on tax cuts. Karl Rove and his ilk spread just enough God, Gays and Guns while making sure that the Swift-boaters were working hard to get the 51 percent. (I'll bet you thought those Swifties were just doing their patriotic duty. duh.) What we got was a couple of oil-executives with their own army. A dangerous situation as it turns out because they believe the same pap as you:

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Iraq, situated in the heart of the Middle-East, {is} the center of gravity for the radical Islamic terrorist movement.

That, my dear friend, is patently false and you know it. Hezbollah, Hamas and Al Queda members must have a good belly laugh everytime they hear some duped, yes-duped-, American regurgitate that pap. It is a fiction promoted by this administration who, when asked to produce evidence of any terrorist activity by Iraq prior to our invasion, could only mumble about some checks that were sent by Saddam to some suicide bombers families in Gaza. The center of gravity... more like the center of the short attention span of this administration.

You've thrown in with the wrong bunch of cowboys, Asherman, but now they've got you on that short lead and with that even shorter memory sense of what went on only a few years ago, I don't see anyway of keeping them from taking you where ever they want you to go.

Joe(Happy Trails.)Nation

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"Iraq, situated in the heart of the Middle-East, {is} the center of gravity for the radical Islamic terrorist movement."

It probably is.....now.

One hears it has become a magnet, and a training ground more sophisticated than any before it.

"Mission accomplished" indeed.

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Asherman wrote

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Because I believe it. Alright, folks think I'm naive and too attached to "old fashioned" ideas and virtues

If you believe as stated. How can you possibly still have faith in the lying bag of $hit in the White House? Regarding what Gore would have done we can only conjecture. However, there is no doubt about what he would not have done. He would not have embroiled the US in the quagmire called the Iraq war. Nor would he have consistently have lied to the American public.

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Asherman wrote

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I don't believe that supporting our troops in the field is advanced by calling them murders, or showing them in their moments of weakness under fire. No, I don't think that if Gore had been elected that I, at least, would have become foul mouthed and so partisan as to call for his eminent removal from office.

Neither do I. The murderers, the true murderers, those with the blood of our troops on their hands sit in the seat of power. The White house.

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Asherman wrote.

Quote:

Iraq, situated in the heart of the Middle-East, the center of gravity for the radical Islamic terrorist movement.

I am sure you know better. If anything religion was suppressed by Saddam. The true exporter of Islamic radicalism is our friend and ally Saudi Arabia.

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Generals say too little, too late

Back when Hugh Shelton was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he sent all 17 of his four-star generals "Dereliction of Duty" by H.R. McMaster. The book charges that the U.S. military let dishonest and inept civilians from the President on down lead the nation into a war (Vietnam) that it then fought unsuccessfully. Shelton vowed this would not happen again.We all know the cliche about generals fighting the last war. In Iraq it is not the tactics that were duplicated, but the tendency of the military to keep its mouth shut. Shelton, who retired in 2001, cannot be blamed for this and maybe no one but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld can. Still, the fact remains that the U.S. fought a war many of its military leaders thought was unnecessary, unwise, predicated on false assumptions and incompetently managed. And no one really spoke up.

Now, some have - from retirement. Three former .senior officers have called for Rumsfeld to be sacked. The most recent is Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, who does not stop at faulting Rumsfeld, but blames himself as well. He joins Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who commanded the training of Iraqi security forces and who has also called on President Bush to fire Rumsfeld.

The third retired four-star general is Anthony Zinni, a Marine with vast experience in the Middle East. He goes further than (merely) recommending Rumsfeld's political defenestration. He also strongly suggests that something is broken in the American military, that its priorities are misplaced. Too many senior officers put their careers first and candor or honesty second.

Zinni would be the first to concede that it is not easy for military men to express their own opinions. "There are certainly generals out there who don't like me speaking out," Zinni told me.

The military has a constitutional duty and a solemn obligation to its troops to be candid with the American people. Yet in testimony before Congress and in statements from the field and elsewhere, all we get are ridiculously optimistic assessments, no calls for more troops and no suggestion that Rumsfeld and Bush were mismanaging the war.

In several ways - some obvious, some not - the war in Iraq has been likened to Vietnam. Maybe this sense of déj ... vu is felt most keenly at the Pentagon. There, it must be Vietnam all over again - another asinine strategy, another duplicitous civilian leadership, more conformity and careerism and, of course, more unnecessary loss of life.

Rumsfeld famously came to the Pentagon to reform it. Instead, as we are coming to realize, he broke it, and H.R. McMaster, now a colonel in Iraq, has at least one more book in him.

Unfortunately, he can use the same title.

The Buck stops at the oval office or should have. Bush has lead this nation to the brink of disaster. And unfortunately has over two more years to make more mischief

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It seems I wasn't clear. Iraq IS situated in the heart of the Middle East, AND the Middle Easter is the center of gravity for radical Islamic terrorism.

Murder is the intentional and unlawful killing of one human being by another. The deaths resulting from the legal actions of our military, or the President, do not meet the Corpus Delecti. If you, or anyone else, could bring a True Bill that U.S. efforts in Iraq are, or were, illegal then you would have grounds for impeachment. Congress has not made the indictment, because they can not establish reason to believe that any of the President's actions regarding Iraq were illegal, or unConstitutional. Nor, do the American People (I cap. People often because it is the People who are soveriegn here, not the Democrats nor Republicans), or they would have voted for the Democratic candidate and platform in the last presidental election. The People are not stupid dupes easily misled. The People can, and do make mistakes, but those mistakes are as well-intentioned as those from almost any President in our history.

Do I still have faith in the President? Yes, I do. The President is not the brightest bulb in the pack, but I believe he is sincere and has acted uniformily for what he regards as the good of the nation, and in complaince with his Presidential oath and Constitutional duties. I'm certain he has made mistakes and failed to perfectly know all the consequences of his policies, but that is only human. The President has a droll way of expressing himself, but so did Andy Jackson, Lincoln, and Truman. I see no reason for treating the Presidency without at least minimal respect for the Office.

When I said that President Clinton was treated no worse than previous Presidents, I was referring to the whole lot. Almost any President one can name was reviled, slandered and libeled against by their opponents. The lies and distortions regarding some Presidents lasted from decades or longer for some Presidents. However, it seems to me that only in this administrations have has the vitrol gotten out of control. Perhaps it hasn't. Seldom have partisans of the opposition party called for the ouster of a President by any means, including force. Accusations of crimes comparable to Hitler and Stalin have not been heard from so many, so often, or so loudly. Personal attacks on the President started during Washington's Administration, and the patent lies and falsehoods spread by Jefferson's minions gave rise to the Sedition Act which called for criticism of elected officials be true. That turned out to be a terrible law However, knowing the frustration honest men must feel when targeted by unfair accusations that would be libel or slander to a private citizen is understandable.

In times past, partisans of the political parties knew better than to call the American People stupid, easily duped and led astray by the Pied Piper. T me it seems foolish to suppose that you can persuade voters to vote for your candidate and platform by calling them stupid and ignorant fools who should shut up and follow the lead of celebrities and comsmopolitans who know better what should be done. Oh well, you can try that strategy as long as you wish and the People will continue to vote for those who treat them and their values with a modicum of respect.

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Asherman, if you believe Bush has been attacked any more viciously than Clinton, you have been reading too many blogs or internet forums.

Tell me, was A2K around during Clinton? How popular were internet blogs?

In my opinion, you are reacting to something that wasn't even a factor when Clinton was president.

And just in case you still don't believe that both sides are equally crude and vicious, go look at some of Gungasnake's posts.

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Asherman wrote:

Surely, you aren't one of the loonies who believe that Bush concocted 9/11 as part of some grand conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution and conquer the world! quote]

No, but it was a heaven-sent oppurtunity for him. Now he had an excuse to invade Iraq. After getting over the initial "frozen" state of inaction while sitting in the classroom after being notified of the attacks on the World Trade Center, he must have felt as if being bathed in a warm glow. The invastion of Iraq was his number one priority when he first took office; battling terrorism was his last despite being informed by the outgoing Clinton Administration that it should be his first. When the attacks occurred he could use them as a reason to oust Hussein even though he had not the slightest connection to Al Queda.

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Asherman writes, forgetting perhaps one of Lincoln's most famous quotes:

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In times past, partisans of the political parties knew better than to call the American People stupid, easily duped and led astray by the Pied Piper.

Quote:

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)
16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

It also why the current President has approval ratings in the high 30's.

But, of course, W is not done fooling us yet. With his mission accomplished, major success,cakewalk to destiny in Iraq up to it's hubs in desert dust, he had turned his attention span to Iran. Anyone who wants to have a good night's sleep should not under any circumstances read Seymour Hersh's article in this week's New Yorker:
THE IRAN PLANS.

It is deja vu all over again only this time the mushroom cloud will be of our making. George W. Bush fully intends to use nuclear weapons against Iran. I read this one short section on the train home tonight and it made me physically ill:

In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat. A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, who did not take part in the meetings but has discussed their content with his colleagues, told me that there had been "no formal briefings," because "they're reluctant to brief the minority. They're doing the Senate, somewhat selectively."

The House member said that no one in the meetings "is really objecting" to the talk of war. "The people they're briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?" (Iran is building facilities underground.) "There's no pressure from Congress" not to take military action, the House member added. "The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it." Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, "The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision."

I looked at those words "messianic vision" for a long time. I understand what they mean: either George achieves his destiny in Iran or he kills us all.

Joe(a fool, but not all the time)Nation

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Anon-Voter wrote:

Talk about a total CaCa overload!! I'm starting to think McGentrix is Asherman in disguise!!

Anon

Wow! That's a real compliment! Thank you.

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McGentrix wrote:

Anon-Voter wrote:
Talk about a total CaCa overload!! I'm starting to think McGentrix is Asherman in disguise!!

Anon

Wow! That's a real compliment! Thank you.

Yea, I should apologize to Ash for that, he isn't a coward.

Anon

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Anon-Voter wrote:

McGentrix wrote:
Anon-Voter wrote:
Talk about a total CaCa overload!! I'm starting to think McGentrix is Asherman in disguise!!

Anon

Wow! That's a real compliment! Thank you.

Yea, I should apologize to Ash for that, he isn't a coward.

Anon

That's true. He is a very smart, well-spoken man. He doesn't need to hide behind vacuous insults to make his points.

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McGentrix wrote:

Anon-Voter wrote:
McGentrix wrote:
Anon-Voter wrote:
Talk about a total CaCa overload!! I'm starting to think McGentrix is Asherman in disguise!!

Anon

Wow! That's a real compliment! Thank you.

Yea, I should apologize to Ash for that, he isn't a coward.

Anon

That's true. He is a very smart, well-spoken man. He doesn't need to hide behind vacuous insults to make his points.

And he is no coward, either!

Anon

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Asherman wrote:

Iraq IS situated in the heart of the Middle East, AND the Middle Easter is the center of gravity for radical Islamic terrorism

Thanks for clearing up your confusion, Asherman.

So, because Iraq is situated in the heart of the Middle East, and the Middle East is the center of gravity for radical Islamic terrorism, it was ripe for direct action even when Iraq had little to nothing to do with radical Islamic terrorism?

That is convoluted, psychopathological thinking, Asherman. The US used a country that had little to nothing to do with radical Islamic terrorism and made it the center thereof. And then the US says it did it for both the US' security, and the Iraqis' freedom. That is out and out psychotic.

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Yupper. It's mighty crazy, alright...

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I disagree with the statement that it's the center of radical Islamic terrorists. Iraq is in the mist of a civil war. Islamic terrorists are part of the equation but by no means all of it.

It's Sunni vs Shiites, with a little Al Quaeda thrown in.

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Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Situation in Iraq could not be worse

By PATRICK COCKBURN
GUEST COLUMNIST

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A cruel and bloody civil war has started in Iraq, a country that President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair promised to free from fear and establish democracy. I have been visiting Iraq since 1978, but for the first time, I am becoming convinced that the country will not survive.
Three suicide bombers disguised themselves as women Friday and, with explosives hidden by long black cloaks, killed 79 people and wounded more than 160 when they blew themselves up in a Shiite mosque in the capital. One bomber came through the women's security checkpoint at the Buratha mosque in northern Baghdad and detonated explosives just as worshippers were leaving at the end of Friday prayers.

Two other bombers took advantage of the confusion to blow themselves up a few seconds later, killing the people who were trying to escape.

The savage attack, the worst in months, came almost exactly on the third anniversary of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by American and British armies on April 9, 2003. The war was portrayed at the time as freeing Iraqis from fear, but Iraqi officials have told The Independent that at least 100 people are being killed in Baghdad every day.

The slaughter of Shiite Muslims in the Buratha mosque probably will lead to revenge attacks against Sunni Arabs whose community harbors the Salafi and Jihadi fanatics, who see the Shiites as heretics. Ever since the bombing of the al-Askari Shrine in Samara on Feb. 22, the Shiite militias have retaliated whenever Shiites are killed.

The bombing of the mosque, a religious complex linked to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, pushes Iraq well down the road to outright civil war between Sunni and Shiite Arabs. Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, the preacher in the Buratha mosque, declared: "The Shiite are the target and it's a sectarian act. There is nothing to justify this act but black sectarian hatred."

Men screamed in anger and fear as they rolled the bodies of the dead onto wooden carts so they could be loaded into ambulances. "This is a cowardly act. Every time I see these bloody scenes it tears apart my heart," said Jawwad Kathim, a fireman.

It was the worst sectarian bombing for four months. The day before a car bomb exploded near the Shiite shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, killing 13 people.

"My house is opposite to the mosque and when we heard the first blast I ran to make sure that my father, who was praying there, was safe," Naba Mohsin said. "When I entered the mosque a second huge blast occurred and I saw a big blast with flames. I want to know if my father is alive."

I have been covering the war in Iraq ever since it began three years ago and I have never seen the situation so grim. More than a week ago, I was in the northern city of Mosul, protected by 3,000 Kurdish soldiers, but even so it was considered too dangerous to send out patrols in daytime. It is safer at night because of a curfew.

In March alone, the U.S. military said 1,313 people were killed in sectarian attacks. Many bodies, buried in pits or thrown in the rivers, are never found.

The real figure is probably twice as high. All over the country people are on the move as Sunnis and Shiites flee each other's areas.

I was in Lebanon at the start of the civil war in 1975. Baghdad today resembles Beirut then. People are being murdered solely because of their religious identity. A friend called to say he had a problem because his two half brothers had been born in Fallujah, the Sunni Muslim stronghold, and this was on their identity cards. If they were picked up by Shiite militiamen, a glance at their place of birth alone could get them killed.

Fleeing one danger in Baghdad, it is easy to become victim of another.

The friend had taken his mother and two sisters to the passport office in Baghdad so they could leave the country. While they were there, a bomb went off, killing 25 policemen outside and breaking his sister's leg.

Now the family cannot leave because his sister is in the hospital and his mother is too frightened to return to get a new passport.

Bush and Blair have for the past three years continually understated the gravity of what is taking place. It has been frustrating as a journalist to hear them claim that much of Iraq is peaceful when we could not prove them wrong without being killed or kidnapped. The capture of Saddam in 2003, the handover of sovereignty in 2004, the elections and new constitution in 2005 have all been oversold to the outside world as signs of progress.

The formation of a national unity government in Iraq is now being presented as an antidote to the violence. "Terrorists love a vacuum," said British Defense Secretary John Reid, citing his experience in Northern Ireland. But one Iraqi official remarked that the three main communities -- Sunni, Shiite and Kurds -- do not hate one another because they do not have a government, but rather they do not have a government because they already hate one another.

The coalition of Iraqi religious parties, the United Iraqi Alliance, won almost half the seats in the 275-member parliament in the election on Dec.15. They fear the United States and Britain are trying to break up the Shiite coalition. This is why they have resisted demands for Ibrahim al-Jaafari to stand down as prime minister. Even if a national unity government is formed, it will control very little. The army and police take their orders from the leaders of their own communities.

Three years ago, when Saddam's statue was toppled, Iraqis were promised their lives would get better. Instead Iraq has become the most dangerous place in the world.

Patrick Cockburn writes for The Independent in Britain.

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Want to know what this war is costing us?

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Yeah, the inter-Iraqi war is more along political/cultural lines, to a large extent fanatical surely, and I agree, the radical islamist terrorism is a peripheral thing. The US' invasion and occupation did allow a lot of islamists to stream into Iraq, though, and influence Iraqi Sunni fanaticism. On NPR there was an interview with an Iraqi, and he referred to the "Wahabis," the Iraqi term for any Islamist fanatic.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5334802

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You lads are making me blush ... oh well

Anon, I wasn't confused, though it seems others were. The confusion may have been because my writing wasn't sufficiently clear. I hope that I cleared that up. However, Xingu still doesn't seem to understand that the Middle-East is the heart-land of radical Islamic terrorism. Iraq just happens to be located in the center of the Middle-East.

"So, because Iraq is situated in the heart of the Middle East, and the Middle East is the center of gravity for radical Islamic terrorism, it was ripe for direct action even when Iraq had little to nothing to do with radical Islamic terrorism?"

You've really twisted my words and clear meaning in this statement. As you've restated my position it is a logical fallacy, ic hoc, ergo proper hoc. I didn't say that and for my position to be restated in such a manner really is a Straw Man.

What I said was that a state of War already existed with Iraq that had been suspended by a conditional cease-fire. Iraq violated the conditions of the cease-fire in major ways repeatedly for over a decade. Saddam fostered the belief that he had terror weapons in violation of the cease-fire conditions, or that he soon would have such weapons. A large part of the world with as good intelligence sources as were available, believed Saddam. Saddam openly supported terrorists and paid bounties to the families of suicide bombers. There was even some indications that Al Quida operatives were welcome and operations inside Iraq. Much of that intelligence turned out to be mistaken later, but at the time seemed plausible to reasonable analysts. Iraq was repeatedly warned to mend its ways, and was given numerous opportunities to forestall intervention. Saddam didn't believe that this American President might actually carry out his promises to intervene militarily. Wrong, answer Saddam.

Iraq's geographical location, and the potential to accomplish several objectives at one time, made it a military priority in the region. Saddam left unattended to would constitute a distraction from the larger effort to combat international radical Islamic terrorism. With Saddam eliminated, the Iraqi People could be freed of a brutal dictator. and his destabilizing threat to neighboring states and Israel would be removed. Any forbidden weapons could be destroyed and kept from the hands of terrorists. The possible benefits of helping create an open, tolerant nation in the midst of a region where the radical Islamic movement regarded themselves as invulnerable would be invaluable in the larger war against terrorism. A free Iraq would be a wedge would be driven between Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia ... and without ever violating any of those sovereign countries. I think the Administration underestimated how fiercely Iran, Syria and the radical Islamic Movement would fight to prevent establishment of such a government in the heart of a region they regard as their own.

I don't believe that Iraq is even close to a real civil war. What I see is the remainder of the Saddam's old Ba'athist Party united with the most radical Islamic clerics in the country joined by "volunteers" from Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia who are determined to prevent establishment of an open democratic Iraqi government. I believe that most Iraqi citizens would prefer democracy and a moderate and tolerant Islam, but that their wishes are frustrated by continual violence and terrorism directed against any effort to build a government not controlled by the old guard and those who hold the most despotic notions of Islamic Law. Anyone who wants a tolerant secular government is targeted for murder. The willingness of the radicals to bomb children in the end will make them even less acceptable to the general population. In spite of the terror, I believe the Iraqi government is becoming stronger and in time will be able to stand alone ... a beacon of hope in a region that has in the past been dominated by sectarian hatred.

I know that you don't agree with this analysis, and will dispute what I regard as the facts. I don't expect you to change your mind, but I would hope that you at least will leave your mind open to the possiblility that this analysis is possible, and that people who hold it are just as sincere in their beliefs as you are.

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Could Gore have f*cked us anywhere near as bad as Bush has?

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