XPANDA, I don't know what they call you in CANADA, but down here we call you a letfy[not that it a bad thing] . You also couldn't be more wrong about leaving Iraq now. The people of Iraq didn't want us to leave in 1991 and if not for the terrorist this would have been a success. ALSO we aren't capturing terrorist in IRAQ we are killing them. Which is a good thing! BLAME SADDAM and the TERRORIST. If not for the terrorist Iraq would be up and running smoothly. Thats just the facts. MAY'N!
"We are Muslims We love peace, but peace on our terms"
- Thread starter Sam Odom
- Start date
X
xpanda
Guest
TONY MONTANA said:
I'm not a leftist. Just because I consider Bush to be a war monger, liar, and criminal, doesn't make me a de facto leftist. A Bush supporter is also not a rightie, but that's another discussion.
I have become, in large part by watching the events in Iraq unfold, anti-statist. One can't be anti-statist and be a leftist. I probably have more in common with your Libertarians than anything.
To be fair, though, if there WERE only two schools of political thought, I would take leftism over the new version of rightism any day. If I have to pay taxes, I'd rather see them go to individuals for food and shelter than to war machines. Save lives rather than take lives and all that other John Lennon kumbaya stuff.
dirty
EOG Master
I have tried to stay out of this Left wing controlled Political Forum the last week or so and I Assume you Communist and Socialist Freaks are fine with that
Gives you the Freedon you want to Further you Michael Moore approved Agenda
DAmn I am glad I can wake up every day and Know I can think for myself.....Than have to goto Moveon.org or Listen to Michael Moore to make my opinions about this world
If anyone in here Believes that Iraq had nothing to do with the Terrorists then that In itself shows your "ignorance" of the real World and what is really happening
Thank God for the Rest of the Country Revolting against the leftist and the Socialists in this country to give the Republicans 75% + status in this nation.......if it were not for the Big Cities....and the Race whores...That keep people Dumbed down and from not reaching thier God given Potential....Thier is not telling where this Country could be
This Country PUnishes' Success.....and If the Black person ever succeeds then the Race whore's like Jesse Jackson and Al sharpton always Ridicule them
Like Rice, Keys, Powell, Watts, Et al.....(only a few in the spotlight...Just a few you left wing freaks could recognize or maybe not)
If they get out of the Gheto then they are Cracker loving mutherfuckers to the RAce whores..... They didn't take advantage of the Opportunities that Our Great Nation and Government have Given them
I had a great talk with a Black Dude today and He was Bashing the Younger Crowd of today (he was 60 years old). He was bashing Black and White races for Not appreciating the Opportunity that this world...and Country gives them...But His exact words was "Why should they try????They get free handouts from the government...They have No Motivation to be successfull. They know that if they fuck up the Government is there to bail them OUt and they never try again since they live off Us the rest of thier life"
That is what is Fucked up about this Nation. It is not about Black and white....Take out the Race Whore's that keep this nation Dumbed down.... then every person has the Opportunity to be successfull
If you think Different you are Closeminded and are Ignorant about Life...
The Successful shouldn't have to support Failures in life......Your choices in life Determine your Success. And it has nothing to do with The Color of your skin.....The last time I checked Your Brain was not a Color
Gives you the Freedon you want to Further you Michael Moore approved Agenda
DAmn I am glad I can wake up every day and Know I can think for myself.....Than have to goto Moveon.org or Listen to Michael Moore to make my opinions about this world
If anyone in here Believes that Iraq had nothing to do with the Terrorists then that In itself shows your "ignorance" of the real World and what is really happening
Thank God for the Rest of the Country Revolting against the leftist and the Socialists in this country to give the Republicans 75% + status in this nation.......if it were not for the Big Cities....and the Race whores...That keep people Dumbed down and from not reaching thier God given Potential....Thier is not telling where this Country could be
This Country PUnishes' Success.....and If the Black person ever succeeds then the Race whore's like Jesse Jackson and Al sharpton always Ridicule them
Like Rice, Keys, Powell, Watts, Et al.....(only a few in the spotlight...Just a few you left wing freaks could recognize or maybe not)
If they get out of the Gheto then they are Cracker loving mutherfuckers to the RAce whores..... They didn't take advantage of the Opportunities that Our Great Nation and Government have Given them
I had a great talk with a Black Dude today and He was Bashing the Younger Crowd of today (he was 60 years old). He was bashing Black and White races for Not appreciating the Opportunity that this world...and Country gives them...But His exact words was "Why should they try????They get free handouts from the government...They have No Motivation to be successfull. They know that if they fuck up the Government is there to bail them OUt and they never try again since they live off Us the rest of thier life"
That is what is Fucked up about this Nation. It is not about Black and white....Take out the Race Whore's that keep this nation Dumbed down.... then every person has the Opportunity to be successfull
If you think Different you are Closeminded and are Ignorant about Life...
The Successful shouldn't have to support Failures in life......Your choices in life Determine your Success. And it has nothing to do with The Color of your skin.....The last time I checked Your Brain was not a Color
X
xpanda
Guest
You seemed to go on a bit of a rant there. Exactly who were you talking to and in response to what? Not sure what your domestic race relations have to do with the topic of this thread?
Oh, and btw, if you want credibility and expect your statement that people who disagree with you are 'dumbed down, brainwashed and ignorant' to carry any weight, you would do well to not call your dissenters communists and other fun stuff like that.
I think you oughtta stick around these parts for a wee bit. You'll find that not every anti-Bush poster is an idiot. Though in fairness, none of us can compete with the brainchild displayed in your last post.
Please, demonstrate the evidence that you surely have that Iraq was aiding and abetting terrorism in such an outwardly dangerous and vile way (say, helping them along with 9/11) that it warranted an attack on the country. I specifically ask for the 'outwardly dangerous' version of your evidence as probably nearly every country in the world has a terrorist living in it, has an organisation feeding them money, etc.
But obviously you have evidence that Saddam was directly and knowingly supporting the terrorists ... not only should you share that information with us, but I think it's your patriotic duty to take it to the White House, no???
Before you quote him, I have read all of Stephen Hayes' arguments, which aren't even believed by the powers-that-benefit in Washington.
So, please share your insight.
Oh, and btw, if you want credibility and expect your statement that people who disagree with you are 'dumbed down, brainwashed and ignorant' to carry any weight, you would do well to not call your dissenters communists and other fun stuff like that.
I think you oughtta stick around these parts for a wee bit. You'll find that not every anti-Bush poster is an idiot. Though in fairness, none of us can compete with the brainchild displayed in your last post.
Please, demonstrate the evidence that you surely have that Iraq was aiding and abetting terrorism in such an outwardly dangerous and vile way (say, helping them along with 9/11) that it warranted an attack on the country. I specifically ask for the 'outwardly dangerous' version of your evidence as probably nearly every country in the world has a terrorist living in it, has an organisation feeding them money, etc.
But obviously you have evidence that Saddam was directly and knowingly supporting the terrorists ... not only should you share that information with us, but I think it's your patriotic duty to take it to the White House, no???
Before you quote him, I have read all of Stephen Hayes' arguments, which aren't even believed by the powers-that-benefit in Washington.
So, please share your insight.
dirty
EOG Master
Here are 2 Articles Too much to let me copy and paste I tried. Sorry to seem like I was Ranting......Just come across that way sometimes
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/033jgqyi.asp
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/033jgqyi.asp
dirty
EOG Master
<!--StartFragment -->
<CENTER>Saddam and al Qaeda the link we've all missed; </CENTER>The conventional belief is that the Iraqi dictator and Bin Laden are still foes. Recent intelligence reports tell a different story
<CENTER>David Rose </CENTER>
<CENTER>The Evening Standard (London) Pg. 11 </CENTER>
<CENTER>December 9, 2002 </CENTER>
DESPITE their bitter divisions over possible war in Iraq, doves and many hawks on this side of the Atlantic share a common, often-stated belief: that there is "no evidence" of a link between Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and Saddam Hussein's regime. In London and Washington, the Foreign Office, MI6, the State Department and the CIA have been spinning this claim to reporters for more than a decade, long before the attacks of 11 September last year.
<TABLE cellPadding=20 width=200 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><HR>[size=+1]It is undisputed that Iraqi-sponsored assassins tried to kill George Bush senior on a visit to the Gulf in 1993. The same year, Abdul Rahman Yasin mixed and made the truck bomb which wrought destruction and killed six in the first New York World Trade Center attack - then coolly boarded a plane for Baghdad, where he still resides. [/size]<HR></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Constant repetition of an erroneous position does not, however, make it true. Having investigated the denial of an Iraqi connection for more than a year, I am convinced it is false. The strongest evidence comes from a surprising source - the files of those same intelligence agencies who have spent so long publicly playing this connection down. According to the conventional wisdom, Saddam is a "secular" dictator, whose loathing for Islamic fundamentalism is intense, while Bin Laden and his cohorts would like to kill the Iraqi president almost as much George W Bush.
All reports of a link can be disregarded on this ground alone.
Though they may get scant attention, some of the facts of Saddam's involvement with Islamic terrorism are not disputed. Hamas, the fundamentalist Palestinian group, whose gift to the world is the suicide bomb, has maintained a Baghdad office - funded by Saddam - for many years.
<TABLE cellPadding=20 width=200 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><HR>[size=+1]"In the Cold War," says one of them, "often you'd draw firm conclusions and make policy on the basis of just four or five reports. Here there are almost 100 separate examples of Iraq-al Qaeda co-operation going back to 1992." [/size]<HR></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
His intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, has a special department whose sole function is liaison with Hamas. In return, Hamas has praised Saddam extravagantly on its website and on paper.
SINCE his defeat in the Gulf War in 1991, Saddam's supposed secularism has looked decidedly thin.
Increasingly, he has relied on Islamist rhetoric in an attempt to rally the "Arab street". Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa justified its call for Muslims to kill American and Jewish civilians on the basis of a lengthy critique of US hostility towards "secular" Iraq.
It is also undisputed that Iraqi-sponsored assassins tried to kill George Bush senior on a visit to the Gulf in 1993. The same year, Abdul Rahman Yasin mixed and made the truck bomb which wrought destruction and killed six in the first New York World Trade Center attack - then coolly boarded a plane for Baghdad, where he still resides.
There is strong evidence that Ramzi Yousef, leader of both the 1993 New York bombing and a failed attempt two years later to down 12 American airliners over the Pacific, was an Iraqi intelligence officer. All this was known in the Nineties. Nevertheless, the "no connection" argument was rapidly becoming orthodoxy.
The 9/11 attacks were, selfevidently, a failure of intelligence: no one saw them coming. Awareness of this failure, and its possible consequences for individuals' careers, are the only reasons I can find for the wall of spin which the spooks have fed to the media almost ever since.
<TABLE cellPadding=20 width=200 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><HR>[size=+1]Not only had Havel not phoned Bush, the Czechs remained convinced that Atta did meet Al-Ani. They had been tracking him continuously because his predecessor had been caught red-handed - in a plot to detonate a terrorist bomb. [/size]<HR></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Iraq must have been more intensely spied upon than any other country throughout the 1990s. If the agencies missed a Saddam-al Qaeda connection, it might reasonably be argued, then many heads should roll.
My own doubts emerged more than a year ago, when a very senior CIA man told me that, contrary to the line his own colleagues were assiduously disseminating, there was evidence of an Iraq-al Qaeda link.
He confirmed a story I had been told by members of the anti-Saddam Iraqi National Congress - that two of the hijackers, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, had met Mukhabarat officers in the months before 9/11 in the United Arab Emirates.
This, he said, was part of a pattern of contact between Iraq and al Qaeda which went back years.
Yet the attempts to refute the link were feverish. The best known example is the strange case of the meetings in Prague between Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 plot's alleged leader, and Khalil Al-Ani, a Mukhabarat sabotage expert.
For at least the third time, The New York Times tried at the end of October to rebut the claim that the Prague meetings ever happened, reporting that the Czech President Vaclav Havel had phoned the White House to tell Bush that it was fiction.
Barely had the paper hit the streets before Havel's spokesman stated publicly that the story was a "fabrication".
Not only had Havel not phoned Bush, the Czechs remained convinced that Atta did meet Al-Ani. They had been tracking him continuously because his predecessor had been caught red-handed - in a plot to detonate a terrorist bomb.
As I reveal in Vanity Fair, earlier this year the Pentagon established a special intelligence unit to re-examine evidence of an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. After initially fighting the proposal, the CIA agreed to supply this unit with copies of its own reports going back 10 years. I have spoken to three senior officials who have seen its conclusions, which are striking.
"In the Cold War," says one of them, "often you'd draw firm conclusions and make policy on the basis of just four or five reports. Here there are almost 100 separate examples of Iraq-al Qaeda co-operation going back to 1992."
All these reports, says the official, were given the CIA's highest credibility rating - defined as information from a source which had proven reliable in the past.
At least one concerns Bin Laden personally, who is said to have spent weeks with a top Mukhabarat officer in Afghanistan in 1998.
THIS week, attention remains focused on the UN weapons inspectors, and the deadline for Iraq's declaration of any weapons of mass destruction. But the recent Security Council resolution also noted Iraq's failure to abandon support for international terror, as it had promised at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. If there were the political will - rather a big if, admittedly - this could constitute a casus belli every bit as legitimate as Iraqi possession of a nuclear weapon.
Ignoring Iraq's support for terror is a seductive proposition, which fits pleasingly with democracies' natural reluctance to wage war. But if we are serious about winning the war on terror, self-delusion is not an option.
An attempt to achieve regime change in Iraq would not be a distraction, but an integral part of the struggle.
<CENTER>Saddam and al Qaeda the link we've all missed; </CENTER>The conventional belief is that the Iraqi dictator and Bin Laden are still foes. Recent intelligence reports tell a different story
<CENTER>David Rose </CENTER>
<CENTER>The Evening Standard (London) Pg. 11 </CENTER>
<CENTER>December 9, 2002 </CENTER>
DESPITE their bitter divisions over possible war in Iraq, doves and many hawks on this side of the Atlantic share a common, often-stated belief: that there is "no evidence" of a link between Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and Saddam Hussein's regime. In London and Washington, the Foreign Office, MI6, the State Department and the CIA have been spinning this claim to reporters for more than a decade, long before the attacks of 11 September last year.
<TABLE cellPadding=20 width=200 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><HR>[size=+1]It is undisputed that Iraqi-sponsored assassins tried to kill George Bush senior on a visit to the Gulf in 1993. The same year, Abdul Rahman Yasin mixed and made the truck bomb which wrought destruction and killed six in the first New York World Trade Center attack - then coolly boarded a plane for Baghdad, where he still resides. [/size]<HR></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Constant repetition of an erroneous position does not, however, make it true. Having investigated the denial of an Iraqi connection for more than a year, I am convinced it is false. The strongest evidence comes from a surprising source - the files of those same intelligence agencies who have spent so long publicly playing this connection down. According to the conventional wisdom, Saddam is a "secular" dictator, whose loathing for Islamic fundamentalism is intense, while Bin Laden and his cohorts would like to kill the Iraqi president almost as much George W Bush.
All reports of a link can be disregarded on this ground alone.
Though they may get scant attention, some of the facts of Saddam's involvement with Islamic terrorism are not disputed. Hamas, the fundamentalist Palestinian group, whose gift to the world is the suicide bomb, has maintained a Baghdad office - funded by Saddam - for many years.
<TABLE cellPadding=20 width=200 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><HR>[size=+1]"In the Cold War," says one of them, "often you'd draw firm conclusions and make policy on the basis of just four or five reports. Here there are almost 100 separate examples of Iraq-al Qaeda co-operation going back to 1992." [/size]<HR></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
His intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, has a special department whose sole function is liaison with Hamas. In return, Hamas has praised Saddam extravagantly on its website and on paper.
SINCE his defeat in the Gulf War in 1991, Saddam's supposed secularism has looked decidedly thin.
Increasingly, he has relied on Islamist rhetoric in an attempt to rally the "Arab street". Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa justified its call for Muslims to kill American and Jewish civilians on the basis of a lengthy critique of US hostility towards "secular" Iraq.
It is also undisputed that Iraqi-sponsored assassins tried to kill George Bush senior on a visit to the Gulf in 1993. The same year, Abdul Rahman Yasin mixed and made the truck bomb which wrought destruction and killed six in the first New York World Trade Center attack - then coolly boarded a plane for Baghdad, where he still resides.
There is strong evidence that Ramzi Yousef, leader of both the 1993 New York bombing and a failed attempt two years later to down 12 American airliners over the Pacific, was an Iraqi intelligence officer. All this was known in the Nineties. Nevertheless, the "no connection" argument was rapidly becoming orthodoxy.
The 9/11 attacks were, selfevidently, a failure of intelligence: no one saw them coming. Awareness of this failure, and its possible consequences for individuals' careers, are the only reasons I can find for the wall of spin which the spooks have fed to the media almost ever since.
<TABLE cellPadding=20 width=200 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><HR>[size=+1]Not only had Havel not phoned Bush, the Czechs remained convinced that Atta did meet Al-Ani. They had been tracking him continuously because his predecessor had been caught red-handed - in a plot to detonate a terrorist bomb. [/size]<HR></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Iraq must have been more intensely spied upon than any other country throughout the 1990s. If the agencies missed a Saddam-al Qaeda connection, it might reasonably be argued, then many heads should roll.
My own doubts emerged more than a year ago, when a very senior CIA man told me that, contrary to the line his own colleagues were assiduously disseminating, there was evidence of an Iraq-al Qaeda link.
He confirmed a story I had been told by members of the anti-Saddam Iraqi National Congress - that two of the hijackers, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, had met Mukhabarat officers in the months before 9/11 in the United Arab Emirates.
This, he said, was part of a pattern of contact between Iraq and al Qaeda which went back years.
Yet the attempts to refute the link were feverish. The best known example is the strange case of the meetings in Prague between Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 plot's alleged leader, and Khalil Al-Ani, a Mukhabarat sabotage expert.
For at least the third time, The New York Times tried at the end of October to rebut the claim that the Prague meetings ever happened, reporting that the Czech President Vaclav Havel had phoned the White House to tell Bush that it was fiction.
Barely had the paper hit the streets before Havel's spokesman stated publicly that the story was a "fabrication".
Not only had Havel not phoned Bush, the Czechs remained convinced that Atta did meet Al-Ani. They had been tracking him continuously because his predecessor had been caught red-handed - in a plot to detonate a terrorist bomb.
As I reveal in Vanity Fair, earlier this year the Pentagon established a special intelligence unit to re-examine evidence of an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. After initially fighting the proposal, the CIA agreed to supply this unit with copies of its own reports going back 10 years. I have spoken to three senior officials who have seen its conclusions, which are striking.
"In the Cold War," says one of them, "often you'd draw firm conclusions and make policy on the basis of just four or five reports. Here there are almost 100 separate examples of Iraq-al Qaeda co-operation going back to 1992."
All these reports, says the official, were given the CIA's highest credibility rating - defined as information from a source which had proven reliable in the past.
At least one concerns Bin Laden personally, who is said to have spent weeks with a top Mukhabarat officer in Afghanistan in 1998.
THIS week, attention remains focused on the UN weapons inspectors, and the deadline for Iraq's declaration of any weapons of mass destruction. But the recent Security Council resolution also noted Iraq's failure to abandon support for international terror, as it had promised at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. If there were the political will - rather a big if, admittedly - this could constitute a casus belli every bit as legitimate as Iraqi possession of a nuclear weapon.
Ignoring Iraq's support for terror is a seductive proposition, which fits pleasingly with democracies' natural reluctance to wage war. But if we are serious about winning the war on terror, self-delusion is not an option.
An attempt to achieve regime change in Iraq would not be a distraction, but an integral part of the struggle.
X
xpanda
Guest
Dirty:
The first two articles you posted were written by Stephen Hayes. I've already read his book which has been widely discredited, even by members of the administration. The Weekly Standard is also a neoconservative plug machine. I actually get close to peeing my pants whenever they speak of the 'liberal media.' It's just so funny.
The third article isn't about AQ. Now, since the Iraq war was supposedly an extension of the Afghanistan war, how does Saddam's funding Hamas' survivors have anything to do with Al Qaeda or the US for that matter?
Also, if there were direct ties between AQ and Saddam, don't you think your administration would be running around like banshees telling everyone about it?
Lastly, from a strictly ideological perspective, how is Saddam's funding Hamas any more deplorable than the US funding Saddam when he gassed the Kurds? Seems to me that if the killing is being done by non-statesmen, we call it terrorism and that is really really bad, but if the killing is being done by statesmen, it's just geopolitics and good sense.
If we need to, we can get into a discussion of the US's knack for funding terrorism itself. Colombian warlords, Venezuelan thugs, Afghanistani terrorists vs. the Russians, etc. But just because your government does that, does not mean I would approve of another nation dropping bombs on your citizens.
The first two articles you posted were written by Stephen Hayes. I've already read his book which has been widely discredited, even by members of the administration. The Weekly Standard is also a neoconservative plug machine. I actually get close to peeing my pants whenever they speak of the 'liberal media.' It's just so funny.
The third article isn't about AQ. Now, since the Iraq war was supposedly an extension of the Afghanistan war, how does Saddam's funding Hamas' survivors have anything to do with Al Qaeda or the US for that matter?
Also, if there were direct ties between AQ and Saddam, don't you think your administration would be running around like banshees telling everyone about it?
Lastly, from a strictly ideological perspective, how is Saddam's funding Hamas any more deplorable than the US funding Saddam when he gassed the Kurds? Seems to me that if the killing is being done by non-statesmen, we call it terrorism and that is really really bad, but if the killing is being done by statesmen, it's just geopolitics and good sense.
If we need to, we can get into a discussion of the US's knack for funding terrorism itself. Colombian warlords, Venezuelan thugs, Afghanistani terrorists vs. the Russians, etc. But just because your government does that, does not mean I would approve of another nation dropping bombs on your citizens.
Corduroy
EOG Member
dirty said:
I'd be interested in knowing who goes to moveon.org and Michael Moore to get their opinions. Do you know? because I don't know anyone that does that. The way you describe it, I think that you think most on the left do that. If you do believe that, you've lost basically all credibility with me (not that you care).