9/11 Chair Says Attack was Preventable

xpanda · Dec 18, 2003

Senditin:

Lol at 'briefly' elaborate on my dislike for Bush. In truth, my extreme dislike of him came in the wake of the UN snub followed by the Iraq invasion. But there are other things about him that I find unnerving.

Policies:
National Security Strategy
The Patriot Act
Pro-death penalty
Military preoccupation
Bungled international relations
Anti-abortion
Anti-gay marriage, adoptions, and partner benefits, even opposes 'Employee Non-discrimination Act' and gays in the military
Platformed on increases in defense spending (platform issues, that, I am sure, have snowballed of late.)
Faith-based government programs

Personal;
Inarticulate
Son of the 'other one'
Oil industry link
Blank expressions ... unsettling
Track record in Texas (esp. where death penalty is concerned.)
'Alleged' rigging of Florida votes

I think he is a loose cannon who believes that running the American government is not unlike playing a game of Risk. I think he is a very scary human being, with far too much power at his disposal that he is more than willing to use. I am very aware that he will likely win the next election, and I can only hope that something dramatic happens in the next eleven months to sway voters.

lander · Dec 18, 2003

Off topic, but it has always bewildered me how can truly be pro-choice and anti-death penalty.

xpanda · Dec 18, 2003

Fair enough, but shouldn't that statement work in the reverse as well? My opposition to the death penalty (and it's not sweeping, for what it's worth) is in my belief that the justice system is fallible. Not going to get into a pro-choice debate here.

FloydGondolli · Dec 18, 2003

Being Pro-Life and Pro Death Penalty are not conflicting.

One could believe that if life begins at conception then an abortion is the murder of an INNOCENT child, while also believing it is just to execute a 100% GUILTY person who has taken another person's life.

I am Pro-Choice (with some restrictions like late term and parental notification for minors) and I am Pro Death Penalty but only in certain cases (the two snipers for example - abosolutley no doubt of guilt).

As for deterrence, I reject the anti-death penalty advocates argument that the death penalty has no deterrent effect. The death penalty certainly deters the individual who is executed from ever killing again. Those sentenced to Life Without Parole often kill again in prison because they have nothing to lose.

"Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man." - The Dude, 1998

SENDITIN · Dec 18, 2003

Not much ammo there Miss Panda on the personal side of Bush...He's bad because he's the son of a past President?...He's bad because he worked in the oil industry?...He's bad because he "rigged" votes in Florida?...

He's no slick Willy when speaking but I do believe he's down to earth, honest and moral...you won't find him getting BJ's in the oval office...and you should also judge leaders by who they surround themselves with..and on that score he gets an A+.

lander · Dec 18, 2003

I don't think the reverse is contrained to the same theory for the reasoning of crime warrants death, in certain cases.

It's a matter of innocence.

lander · Dec 18, 2003

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote">quote:<HR>Originally posted by SENDITIN:
Not much ammo there Miss Panda on the personal side of Bush...He's bad because he's the son of a past President?...He's bad because he worked in the oil industry?...He's bad because he "rigged" votes in Florida?...

He's no slick Willy when speaking but I do believe he's down to earth, honest and moral...you won't find him getting BJ's in the oval office...and you should also judge leaders by who they surround themselves with..and on that score he gets an A+.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Although adultery sickens me, it is infinately less evil than the crime of murder. Bush not only set the state record for executions, but he is solely responsible for the murder of 9,000+ Iraqi civilians.

He has destroyed most of our foreign relations, he has washed the deficit into unimaginable amounts with his irresponsible reckless spending and he is a modern-day Joseph McCarty with his "un-patriotic" labeling of dissenting politicians.

xpanda · Dec 18, 2003

Senditin: first, didn't think my opinion of Bush was limited to the things you rebutted, and they are not at the top of the list, either. I don't agree with his politics, or his political persona, but what really got me ired was his stance on Iraq. You asked to briefly describe what I didn't like about him, without talking about the war, so I did just that. As for him not getting BJs in the oval office ... can you guarantee that? Besides, I'd imagine that the majority of past leaders (pick the country, name the leader, I'm not sure it would matter) use their power as a means to attract sexual favours. I'd call that a man thing. The only person with grounds to freak out about adulterous behaviour is his wife. And, for what it's worth, I think Hillary should have left the bastard.

Floyd: I don't believe in abortion after the first trimester, if that gives you an idea of where I believe that 'life' begins. As for the death penalty, I can agree that if a convict is 100% guilty of an unimaginable crime (take Paul Bernardo in Canada for example, where we actually have him on tape) then so be it. Unfortunately it is rare to have completely irrefutable evidence that can guarantee 100% guilt. One only needs to be found guilty 'beyond a reasonable doubt' and I'd suggest that quite often the competence of legal counsel (to name but one reason) can limit the ability of a defendent to refute the evidence against him or her. Besides, it's not Bush's simple advocation of the death penalty that bothers me as much as it the sheer numbers that were executed under his jurisdiction when he was Governor.

Oceans11 · Dec 18, 2003

strange cultural stuff...

blowjobs?=bad
a nice bit of blow?=bad
blow some cash with internet gambling?=bad
buy a hand cannon that can blow away a rhino?=no problem bud, thats freedom

nearly forgot
blow an entire country all to hell?=liberation

[This message was edited by eek on December 18, 2003 at 07:57 PM.]

SENDITIN · Dec 18, 2003

So George Bush is responsible for 9000 Iraqi civilian deaths. It's nice to show your concern for the Iraqi people here Lander...but please point to your posts over the past years on the possibly hundreds of thousands of murders at Sadaam's hands. Should we have just asked nicely for him to stop? How come polls are showing the Iraqi people support our involvement? Aren't they the only ones who count?

xpanda · Dec 18, 2003

If I walk into your home and pee all over your carpet, should I then be given kudos for having the decency to rent a steam cleaner or should you be right in your assertion that I shouldn't have pissed on your carpet in the first place?

Nobody will deny that Saddam was an evil moster who wreaked havoc on his own citizens, but the moral indignance of the very political party who supported him, ad nauseum, is objectionable at best, and repugnant at worst.

Of course Saddam should have been stopped. The question is, why now? Why not fifteen or twenty years ago, when the US administration knew outright was he was doing? Taking credit for ending the reign of a tyrant who, in many ways, was made stronger by years of US military and economic support, is hypocrisy at its finest.

D2bets · Dec 18, 2003

Alert" This issue is going to be on Nightline tonight. Keane will be the sole guest on the show. Let's see what he has to say.

PatPatriot · Dec 18, 2003

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote">quote:<HR> If I walk into your home and pee all over your carpet, should I then be given kudos for having the decency to rent a steam cleaner or should you be right in your assertion that I shouldn't have pissed on your carpet in the first place?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

X..I'd have to see it myself,then make a determination.

jimbutorac · Dec 18, 2003

Pat,

LOL, good luck making the determination.

But I do see her point. If I trained a pit bull to be an attack dog and then the dog attacked an innocent child and I came to the rescue to pull the pit bull off, wouldn't you think I'd be a little disengenuous to claim that I saved the kid without admitting I trained the pit bull in the first place?

Look, I'm no America basher, but I think the whole world would find it more believable if our message was soemthing to the effect of:

"You know, we screwed up. We channeled aid to saddam during his war against Iran cause we perceived Iran to be the bigger threat. Turns out Saddam betrayed our trust and used it to benefit himself to the detriment of many of his own citizens and subsequently defied international law. After repeated warning, we have come to you, the international community to request that we take action".

Instead, we presented bogus evidence of Al Queda - saddam links, bogus evidence of WMD and originally told the world that we had right to attack anyone we wanted if we believed it to be in our self-defense. And we did this as the world's only superpower.

In my mind, it's not hard to see why we squandered all the goodwill the majority of the world showed towards us after 9/11.

Anyways, the only reason I'm ranting this late at nite is deep down I'm po'd you got Pats playoffs tickets and I don't.

Phaedrus · Dec 18, 2003

posted by Mudbone :
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote">quote:<HR>
Look, I'm no America basher, but I think the whole world would find it more believable if our message was soemthing to the effect of:

"You know, we screwed up. We channeled aid to saddam during his war against Iran cause we perceived Iran to be the bigger threat. Turns out Saddam betrayed our trust and used it to benefit himself to the detriment of many of his own citizens and subsequently defied international law. After repeated warning, we have come to you, the international community to request that we take action".
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

(emphasis added)

That would need some amendment to the effect that Hussein did not "betray our trust;" on the contrary we betrayed his by surreptiously providing arms to the Iranians while supporting Saddam publicly. It is astounding to me that so few people ever consider what effect on Hussein's attitude the "arms for hostages" deal must have had, right in the middle of an eight-year, hideously brutal war between Iraq and Iran.

Phaedrus

PatPatriot · Dec 18, 2003

Hey Mud, I think thats a good reply.But the international community also believed there wmd's...There were 17 UN resolutions!!! For Sadass to comly to.
The french, germans and russians were up to their ass in finacial dealings with them..So who thumbed their nose at who??
Saddam supported anybody that would like to do harm to us.

GrandSlam+ · Dec 18, 2003

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Mudbone:
"You know, we screwed up. We channeled aid to saddam during his war against Iran cause we perceived Iran to be the bigger threat. Turns out Saddam betrayed our trust and used it to benefit himself to the detriment of many of his own citizens and subsequently defied international law. After repeated warning, we have come to you, the international community to request that we take action".
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

More wrong information from the left. Please, guys, do a bit more research from objective sources before spouting out falsehoods. It doesn't do your side much good to be so wrong so much of the time. Here are the figures as to which countries were supplying Iraq with its military hardware during the Iraq/Iran war.

USSR: 57%
France 13%
China 12%
Czeckoslovakia 7%
Poland 4%
Brazil 2%
Egypt 1%
Romania 1%
Denmark 1%
Libya 1%
USA 1%

http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html

[This message was edited by Grand Slam on December 19, 2003 at 01:11 AM.]

Igetp2s · Dec 19, 2003

"but he is solely responsible for the murder of 9,000+ Iraqi civilians."

I love Lander's sudden supposed concern for Iraqis. Besides the difficulty in actually getting a sound estimate of the number of death's in Iraq, he couldn't care less when tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed, kidnapped, raped, and tortured by Saddam.

So, Lander, since the war should obviously not have been waged out of concern for Iraqi lives, how exactly should Saddam's killing have been stopped? I am anxiously waiting an answer.

jimbutorac · Dec 19, 2003

GS,

Good info. Makes a statement like I talked about even better cause you say, "in fairness, we weren't alone in supporting Iraq, in fact we were just small part of it".