Silly Gaviani, liberals never make points!Quote:
Originally posted by Gaviani
And when the liberal makes no points, we need to have the presence of mind and courage to stand up and say, "The liberal makes no points!"
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Silly Gaviani, liberals never make points!Quote:
Originally posted by Gaviani
And when the liberal makes no points, we need to have the presence of mind and courage to stand up and say, "The liberal makes no points!"
Kestra, all this proves is that you are willing to exercise your first amendment rights to be an ideological nuisance at the expense of the blood and sweat of your family and friends. It makes you no less open to criticism and argument should you say something stupid and/or arguable.Quote:
And Bramond, I do know what I'm talking about, but you're entitled to think whatever you like. I have family and friends who have been in combat, so I don't have to take any bullshit from anybody, nor will I.
Further, if I were you, I would be hideously embarassed to say something like "I know people who have been in combat, so I'm not going to take your shit", but maybe that's just because I'm in the military and realize how absolutely ridiculous that sounds.
You do not get a "Get Out of Someone Pointing Out My Baseless Arguments Free" card for every person you've ever met who has had a weapon fired at them in anger.
Kestra, I am going to give you a free piece of advice about making a convincing argument: Actually read what quotes says and read the sources from which you are quoting.
You have cited snippits of things and say "look this is what they say." The reality is that if you read your quotes they do not claim to say what you said.
I'll give use these quotes as an example:
The first is a statement similar to ones that have been made by the president and administration officals. Because you did not give us a person at the state depart or a time it was said, just the website, I'll give you the benifit of the doubt that your quote is true and accurate.Quote:
“We have never claimed that Saddam Hussein ... had either direction or control of 9/11.” [Source: DOS Web site]
Fact:
President Bush sent a letter to Congress on 3/19/03 saying that the Iraq war was permitted specifically under legislation that authorized force against “nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.” - Globalsecurity.org
The second is a citation of a letter in line with the authorizing resolution required by the War Powers act. (Here is the resolution text and here is the president's letter.
The resolution empowers the president not only to those organizations or states who are connected to 9/11 directly, but also recognizes the broader issues with the war on terrorism. The second half of the sentance you site reads: "or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." Furthermore, the letter the president sent is not an explanitory document. He is sending the letter as legally required notice to legislators so they are made aware of the deployment. Finally, the resolution gives the president the perogative (as is his constitutional right under the constitution) to make these decisions as to regards to this use of force.
In regards to the letter you sight itself, it actually reads in section (2): acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. This paralells with what the resolutions says. Gee, go figure. You mean he didn't have to link 9/11 and Iraq to act according to the law. And whoa, this means the policy wasn't about going after 9/11 attackers but the general problem of terrorism. Whoa there goes that Bush Doctrine and that preemptive strike issue again.
Furthermore, the president has laid out contacts between terrorist organizations and Iraq. He need not make any more of than that to meet the needs of the authorizing legislation.
If you do not see the error of your technique, I'll use another quote of yours.
I did you a favor and looked up these quotes completely.Quote:
Condi Rice
Nobody ever said that it was going to be the next year [that Iraq acquires nuclear weapons]." [Source: PBS Web site]
Fact:
"[Iraq] could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." - President George W. Bush, 10/7/02
For Dr. Rice's go
here .
For the President's go here . Oh, I compliment you on this choice as its the Cincinnati speach. This is my home town and was all to proud when he gave it.
I'll deal with the Cincinnati speach first because I am more familiar with it. The president actually said: "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed" Interesting you left off the conditional parts that are needed to make the result true. Furthermore, if you go through this speach, it details a broader set of issues. The nuclear question is not even addreseed until the final parts of the speech after he has made several other key points in regards to terrorist contacts and other security issues associated with Iraq. So if you take Dr. Rice's statement as completely true, you will see in fact that she said is true.
But, now lets actually lets look at what she said. Your quote is from an interview on The News Hour interview. She said: "Nobody ever said that it was going to be the next year, but the question was that if it was possible that he might have one by the end of the decade, and if it was possible, as the national intelligence estimate said, that if he acquired fissile material, it might be far sooner than that. Was that a threat that you could allow to sit unanswered?" Wow, actually when expanded to the entire quote, these two statements actually aren't fudging at all. THey are consistent. Holy Crapoly.
You need to think and read. You are sloppy and insulting and just spewing falsehoods--not to mention that you make logical errors I don't have the energy or inclination to correct.
So do us a favor, come armed to the fight please with stuff you have read not whatever web site you got your quick wit from.
there certainly are a lot of "if"s in your quotes and statements.
How many of them have been proven?
I stand by my original statements, it's not what you know, but what you can prove, and the onus of proof is on this administration.
The chemical threat has not been proven, nor has the potential nuclear threat.
"Just trust us" no longer works for this administration.
And by the way, I dish it out, and I can take it.
Thing is Kestra. I demonstrate to you the mistakes of both argument and your citing sources. Yet over and over again you stick your fingers in your ears like a little kid, spin around going--- I'm not llistening, I'm not listening. Your point all along has been the administration has said Iraq was part of the 9/11 plot and they are a bunch of liars. Yet when shown over and over and over, and may I say over, again that has never been the case, you insist it was.
You claim this adminstration should show the relationship between OBL. They have. You claim they have associated 9/11 to Saddam Huessin. They have not. You claim they have said Saddam Huessin would have a bomb in a year. They did not. You claim that they are inconcistent. THey are not.
You say you can dish it out, then please do. Dish something out that is based on fact and truth. Dish something out that shows that you have control of the issue and that you are not just some rhetoric spewing hatemonger.
For the record, I haven't had the time to read this whole thread yet, I would just like to point out two things.
1) One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter
2) What's the difference between our attack on Iraq and the "terrorist" attack on 9-11? Both actions were pre-emptive, both actions were spurred by a fear of what would happen if no action was taken, the only difference is that the U.S. had the ability to follow through.
This is moral relativism at its absolute worst. Furthermore, it is wholly inaccurate. You have equated in the first sentence efforts of popular revolutionary fronts with 'terrorism.' The purpose of a terrorism is to cause political change not through popular efforts, but target politically sensitive targets with such force as to illicit fear and change in other party. Terrorists are not interested in gaining popular support or wide ranging rights of the population, they are interested in what they believe is an evil world that must conform to the minorities desires. A freedom fighter is a person with much broader issues. They are concerned with oppression and condition of their people. You can claim they are the same thing, but they are far from it.Quote:
Originally posted by Mushii
1) One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter
2) What's the difference between our attack on Iraq and the "terrorist" attack on 9-11? Both actions were pre-emptive, both actions were spurred by a fear of what would happen if no action was taken, the only difference is that the U.S. had the ability to follow through.
In the second, you claim that 9/11 was a preemptive strike relative in value to the war in Iraq. This is so horrifically misplaced. The terrorists attacked both a civilian target and a military target if you wish to use the analogy. Their desire was to kill and cause harm to people indiscriminately. There desire was to bring death to as many people regardless of their association to the underlying regime or government. The war in Iraq is a classic example of a war against a government and effort depose its leadership and to replace it with a domestic, non-hostile government. The people who have been targeted (and to an amazing efficiency given the nature of war) have been the combatant themselves. While all war has civilian casualty, they are not the targets of the war effort. We are talking two different views of life and one is very much a strike against innocent actors, while the other is a political fight that has goals and directive that try to limit harm to people. To equate these two acts as the same and only different because the US can follow through is horrendous.
I don't know, let's, say, call it the intentional targetting of a massive civilian population with as much musterable force as possible versus the intentional exclusion of non-combatants from casualty to the maximum plausible extent of current military technology.Quote:
2) What's the difference between our attack on Iraq and the "terrorist" attack on 9-11? Both actions were pre-emptive, both actions were spurred by a fear of what would happen if no action was taken, the only difference is that the U.S. had the ability to follow through.
You know.
To start with.
Just prior to the invasion of Iraq in March of last year, more than two-thirds of the public believed that Iraq was directly involved in the attacks on this country. I don't remember Bush or Cheney doing anything to correct the public of this idea.
Confronted with the point that the 9/11 Commission's report last week asserts no credible evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between the two, Cheney tries to escape, saying that the 9/11 Commission is wrong, he knows more secret stuff than it does but can't get into specifics.
This is something this administration continues to do, they know better than anyone else, but can't talk about it.
Is this supposed to re-assure us? One would think that by making such claims, the administration would have all their evidence to show the 911 commission right then and there.
What Bush and Cheney are doing is what they have been doing since the summer of 2002 -- confusing the concepts of war in Iraq and war on terrorism. In fact, Bush and Cheney have always made it a point to emphasize that their concept of a nation at war is defined as a war against terror -- almost never Iraq.
His initial line is that the press hates them, because it is confusing an important issue, that the absence of any information linking the former Iraqi regime to the 9/11 attacks is not the same as any assertion that there was no "tie" between Osama bin Laden's murderous organization and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
The administration has already spent six months trying to avoid the truth that, again contrary to its assertions, Iraq had no stockpiled, ready-to-use weapons of mass destruction at the time of the invasion. They wouldn't give UN inspectors more time, only to turn around down the road saying that their own inspectors have to have more time. Rumsfeld tells the press
that they'll probably find what they're looking for by finding a guy
who knows a guy who'll lead them to what they're seeking. This goes beyond lame and pathetic.
This administration with all it's inquries, scandals, and commissions, have done nothing to leave me to believe that they
know what they are doing. They're fumbling from one screw up to the next, keeping Powell and Rice around, and Ari Fleischer before that to explain away their screw ups.
He has said thre is no connection. He said it before the war. The interest in going to war was NEVER about any connecition to the attacks of 9/11. The policy of the country was to attack before being attacked. And how many times does he have to say it before he made it clear. He is also the president of the united states! He has a job of meeting a broad agenda of things. If he never says, something why does he have to explain someone else. And even when he has, peopel don't listen. So what is your point... he should go for the 3-4 time to correct the record because you don't want to read the entire paper.Quote:
Originally posted by kestra
Just prior to the invasion of Iraq in March of last year, more than two-thirds of the public believed that Iraq was directly involved in the attacks on this country. I don't remember Bush or Cheney doing anything to correct the public of this idea.
First the information you are sighting from last week is from at a staff report and therefore is draft. A draft goes through many changes before it is final. Second, it is not what the draft says or the commisioners have. On Meet the Press just yesterday, commionerss have said that its only in reference to 9/11 attacks. Furthermore, they show in that same draft numberous contacts between OBL, Al-Qeada and Iraq. It makes the conclusion though that the per the commissions mandate (the 9/11 atacks) there was no relationship. Even the commisioners have said they are NOT in conflict with anything the administration has said.Quote:
Originally posted by kestra Confronted with the point that the 9/11 Commission's report last week asserts no credible evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between the two, Cheney tries to escape, saying that the 9/11 Commission is wrong, he knows more secret stuff than it does but can't get into specifics.[/B]
Finally, how can the administration avoid the truth when they keep telling you what you want to hear. He tells you himself, through his surrogates, through his speaches, that there is no connection. What the hell do you want? He's already done what you are talking about.
SIght anything from the adminstration that proves your point. Please.