Richie

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  44

  Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 wins top award at the Cannes film fest

  by Realist in

  1. social
  2. current

  cannes, france (reuters) - u.s. director michael moore's ``fahrenheit 9/11'' won the top award at the cannes film festival saturday.. thanking the jury headed by cult director quentin tarantino, moore said: ``you will ensure that the american people will see this movie.

  '' moore's win capped a politically charged festival, with documentaries and films reflecting troubled times and french show-business workers staging demonstrations and sit-ins to protest against cuts in their welfare benefits..

  nice!

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  Richie
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  44

  Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 wins top award at the Cannes film fest

  by Realist in

  1. social
  2. current

  cannes, france (reuters) - u.s. director michael moore's ``fahrenheit 9/11'' won the top award at the cannes film festival saturday.. thanking the jury headed by cult director quentin tarantino, moore said: ``you will ensure that the american people will see this movie.

  '' moore's win capped a politically charged festival, with documentaries and films reflecting troubled times and french show-business workers staging demonstrations and sit-ins to protest against cuts in their welfare benefits..

  nice!

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  Richie

  Michael Moore hates the President and everything he stands for and this is clearly portrayed in many of his movies, especially Fahrenheit 9/11. The Cannes Festival is a very prestigious film festival and we know that for some time France has become anti-American, particularly anti-Bush, so it gives France some satisfaction that Michael Moore's movie won, even though the jury wasn't French.......

  Now I only hope that the American Lance Armstrong will win the Tour de France for the 6th consecutive time, and if that happens, it will be an all-time record ever.....lol

  Richie :*)
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  44

  Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 wins top award at the Cannes film fest

  by Realist in

  1. social
  2. current

  cannes, france (reuters) - u.s. director michael moore's ``fahrenheit 9/11'' won the top award at the cannes film festival saturday.. thanking the jury headed by cult director quentin tarantino, moore said: ``you will ensure that the american people will see this movie.

  '' moore's win capped a politically charged festival, with documentaries and films reflecting troubled times and french show-business workers staging demonstrations and sit-ins to protest against cuts in their welfare benefits..

  nice!

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  Richie

  I could not resist making a post about Michael Moore!

  France hates America

  Michael Moore hates America.

  Michael Moore makes a movie that is nothing less than a character assassination of President Bush during a war and an attack on our country . He also posts insane anti-Bush rants on his web site on a weekly basis.

  How do you think the French will react?

  You got it, give him the Best Film award at the Cannes Film Festival!

  Michael Moore made an anti-capitalist film (Roger and Me) and has made millions off of capitalism.

  Michael Moore made an anti gun film (Bowling for Columbine) and has armed guards around him 24/7.

  Do you see a pattern?

  Now he is about to release his newest lie filled rant on how he hates America and our President. It will no doubt contain the same sound and video byte editing, staged scenes and outright lies that we have all come to expect from the liberal wacko.

  In the movie Roger and Me, Moore tried desperately to get an interview with the CEO of General Motors. The film basically criticized Roger Smith for cutting 30,000 jobs (I guess going out of business and losing all the jobs at GM would have been better) and the fact that Smith would not give Moore an interview.

  In a move that proves that Michael Moore is a complete hypocrite, Michael Wilson is making a movie and has repeatedly tried to get an interview with Moore. Guess who won't answer Wilson's calls?

  Michael Wilson's film is appropriately entitled "Michael Moore Hates America". Instead of focusing on negative things it will show us how great America is and what an utter idiot and hypocrite that Michael "The Hutt" Moore is.

  Michael Moore, ever the ultra pessimist, has still refused to be interviewed for the upcoming film.

  Michael Moore's film will be received as all the other planned bash Bush media has, it will be embraced by the left and ignored by everyone else. So far the mass media attack has only helped Bush in the polls. I am willing to bet Moore's film is worth 2-3 points for Bush.

  Time will tell.

  Posted by The American Patriot
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  8

  Was Tehran Snickering While Chimpy was Smirking?

  by SixofNine in

  1. social
  2. current

  cnn just showed it...that will stir the pot.

  article:.

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,2763,1224075,00.html .

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  Richie

  Interesting reading on Chalabi:

  MAY 21, 2004: THE CHALABI RAID (from National Review Online)

  The huge news of the morning ? the raid on Ahmed Chalabi?s offices and home in Iraq ? interrupts everything, including yesterday?s half-finished piece on Irshad Manji. I?ll be back to that, but now let?s deal with the headlines.

  I won?t link to all the triumphant cackling over Chalabi?s troubles: there?s just too much of it. You can go to the Google news bar, enter ?Chalabi? and ?neocons? and spend a whole morning on it.

  Let me just offer this one generalized response to it, speaking not as some kind of neocon hierophant, but just for myself:

  I?ve met Ahmed Chalabi some four or five times over the years. Each time I was impressed by his intellect and his professed commitment to liberal democracy.

  Beyond my personal impressions, it is simply a fact that he managed in the 1990s to build an anti-Saddam coalition, the Iraqi National Congress, that drew representation from Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, and Kurds; and across the ideological spectrum from religious leaders and from communists. It seemed to me that if Chalabi could achieve consensus within the bitterly fractious Iraqi exile community, he might well be able to do something that many foreign-policy experts thought impossible: govern Iraq without the use of murderous violence.

  That said, after 9/11, I would have supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein even if Saddam?s killers had succeeded in assassinating Chalabi before I ever heard of him.

  Saddam Hussein was a menace to the United States and to the region. After 9/11, the risk of leaving him in power to wreak mischief was simply intolerable. Saddam had to go ? for the same reasons that the mullahs of Iran still have to go. Americans can no longer casually accept that major Middle Eastern countries will be controlled by regimes that promote terror and seek weapons of mass death. That is the Bush doctrine. It was right when it was announced on September 20, 2001, and it remains right today.

  Nobody I knew ever argued: Chalabi needs a country to run; let?s go overthrow Saddam for him. They argued; Saddam is a threat to the United States. He must go. And since we do not want to leave behind only rubble ? since we would like to leave behind a functioning, decent, and more democratic state - Chalabi looks like the most promising candidate to replace Saddam, at least at the start.

  The job that Chalabi?s supporters envisioned for him was not ?president of Iraq.? It was ?provisional president of Iraq.? We saw him playing the role that DeGaulle played in France in 1944: providing some troops and putting a national face on an international intervention. As with DeGaulle, it was always possible that the Iraqis would dismiss him as soon as the provisional period ended: remember, DeGaulle lost power in 1945, seemingly forever. That possibility was understood and accepted: Chalabi?s supporters supported him because they thought he was the best available path to a more democratic future for Iraq ? but it was that more democratic future, not him personally, to which they were ultimately committed.

  There is one more preliminary that has to be dealt with ? what we might call the Fritz Hollings question: Was Chalabi supported because of his large promises about Israel? Again I can only speak for myself. I am a supporter of Israel, a strong supporter. I never heard Chalabi speak about Israel, though I was aware that he was supposed to have said some romantic things about possibly someday reopening the oil pipeline from Iraq?s northern fields to Haifa in Israel. My reaction? I didn?t believe him. Chalabi exuded a strong nostalgia for the more humane and tolerant Iraq that he claimed to remember from his youth. I understood the pipeline fancy in those terms: as a yearning for a more civilized Middle East, free from the murderousness and crazed anti-semitism that has gripped it since the 1970s. But did I think Chalabi would ever have the political strength inside Iraq to make good on the pipeline fancy? No I did not. I believed that if he ever succeeded in coming to power, he would have difficulties enough on his hands without being a leader in the task of making peace with Israel. In the supremely unlikely event that he ever asked me for advice on the matter, I would have told him: Just make a better Iraq. That will be service enough for all the people of the Middle East, Israel included.

  OK. Now to the headlines.

  What are we to think of this raid?

  Chalabi?s many enemies and detractors have let loose a huge swirling mass of innuendo and conjecture about what exactly the raiders were looking for. Was Chalabi plotting a coup? Was he leaking secrets to Iranian terrorists? Was he embezzling money or counterfeiting currency? It is puzzling to me that the same people who refuse to believe the US government when it says its forces hit a terrorist safe house, not a wedding partner, are all credulity when anonymous sources inside that same government declare that Ahmed Chalabi is the center of a vast sinister conspiracy.

  Chalabi?s friends have meanwhile responded with conjectures of their own: that the CPA has done a deal with Lakhdar Brahimi and the United Nations. It is Chalabi more than anyone who has exposed the full magnitude of the UN oil-for-food scandal, including possible involvement of Kofi Annan?s son ? the UN is determined to shut the investigation done, and these days the US government is eager to placate the UN.

  These are all mysteries. Let me deal instead with certainties. Leave to one side for a moment, the most insane of the rumors: the coup, the terrorists. Let?s deal with the allegations that have been sourced to the CPA not to the Baghdad street.

  Suppose it turns out to be true that Chalabi has been building a patronage empire. Suppose individuals close to him have been positioning themselves to get rich in the new Iraq ? hell, suppose he himself is the ?crook? that his detractors always say he is.

  Here?s my question: When did America?s standards for our Middle Eastern allies get so excruciatingly high? How can it be that former Republican Guard generals, and terrorist-subsidizing Saudi monarchs, a this-time-I?m really going straight Col. Qaddafi, and even the nuke-making mullahs themselves have all become acceptable interlocuters ? but Chalabi?s offense of putting his nephews into important jobs has suddenly become intolerable?

  Iraq is a difficult place to govern. We always knew that. Since the British cleared out, the country has been held together in one of two ways: by violence on a horrific scale or by patronage and deal-making in a nearly equally grand scale. Chalabi is deal-maker. If that?s the reason for excluding him from the future government of the country, it?s a foolish one.

  I mentioned Charles de Gaulle. In some ways, historical analogies have been the bane of the whole war on terror. This war is not World War II, not the Civil War, not the Cold War. It is its own thing, and analogies can be deceptive far more often than they are enlightening. But let me propose not an analogy, but a comparison.

  The intensity of the hatred now unleashed in the direction of Chalabi (and maybe even more his American sympathizers) from liberal-minded people in the press and the government has in my memory and reading been equaled only once before: and that once was in the 1950s, when Chiang Kai-shek and the ?China lobby? got the same kind of press that the Ahmed Chalabi and the ?neocons? now receive.

  And some of that bad press may even have been deserved. Chiang Kai-shek was a very flawed person who ran a very flawed state. The ?China lobby? did often put exaggerated faith in Chiang and was sometimes too ready to excuse his wrongdoing. That said: in the light of history, Chiang?s offenses ? real as they were ? dwindle to nothing in comparison to the evil against which he fought. The errors of Chiang?s supporters ? consequential as they were ? dwindle to nearly nothing in comparison to the errors of those Americans who condoned or denied the horrors of Maoism. And in the end, out of all of Chiang?s misdeeds, there emerged a decent democratic state on the island of Taiwan. The China lobby looks pretty wise in the light of history. Kind of noble too. Judgment?s still out on those of us who sympathized with Ahmed Chalabi and the INC. But we await history?s verdict with confidence.
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  12

  OK, I found a reason to vote for Kerry.

  by JeffT in

  1. social
  2. current

  or maybe two reasons.

  shoot, link didn't work.

  go to yahoo news and check out the photo section.

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  Richie
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  34

  Bushworld

  by Realist in

  1. social
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  the orwellian olsens

  by maureen dowd

  published: april 25, 2004 .

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  Richie

  John Kerry is the only guy who can flip-flop about owning an SUV.

  Were POWs Left Behind at the end of the War in Southeast Asia? Here's what John Kerry's had to say.... Pick One....

  "We know they did not die after 1973 but earlier. That is progress." Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) former chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW and MIA Affairs Floor Speech to the U.S. Senate advocating lifting the trade embargo against Vietnam, January 27, 1994

  OR

  "It was our belief that some were left behind, particularly in Laos." Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) former chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW and MIA Affairs Meet the Press Dec. 1, 2002

  Did John Kerry accuse soldiers in Vietman of committing war crimes on a daily basis? Here's John Kerry's had to say.... Pick One....

  I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.... They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country. John Kerry Senate Foreign Relations Committee April 1971

  OR

  WOODRUFF: Two other very quick things, Senator. One is, it's been reported that, well you're aware of this, Vietnam veterans upset with the fact that when you came back from the war, you went to Capitol Hill, and you testified in so many words against the kinds of things that U.S. soldiers were doing over there... KERRY: Yes, I did. WOODRUFF: To the Vietnamese. KERRY: Yes, I did. WOODRUFF: They are saying, in effect, you were accusing American troops of war crimes. KERRY: No, I was accusing American leaders of abandoning the troops. And if you read what I said, it is very clearly an indictment of leadership. I said to the Senate, where is the leadership of our country? And it's the leaders who are responsible, not the soldiers. I never said that. I've always fought for the soldiers. John Kerry CNN Interview February 19. 2004

  Was John Kerry for or against the 87 Billion Dollar support package for Iraq? The Kerry Vote and what he says today..... Pick One....

  John Kerry's Senate Vote....... No!

  OR

  "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." John Kerry Town Hall Meeting West Va. March 2004

  Where does John Kerry really stand on Cuba? The Kerry Vote and what he says today..... Pick One....

  John Kerry's Senate Vote on the Helm Burton bill No!

  OR

  ''I'm pretty tough on Castro, because I think he's running one of the last vestiges of a Stalinist secret police government in the world,'' Kerry told WPLG-ABC 10 reporter Michael Putney in an interview to be aired at 11:30 this morning. Then, reaching back eight years to one of the more significant efforts to toughen sanctions on the communist island, Kerry volunteered: ``And I voted for the Helms-Burton legislation to be tough on companies that deal with him. It seemed the correct answer in a year in which Democratic strategists think they can make a play for at least a portion of the important Cuban-American vote -- as they did in 1996 when more than three in 10 backed President Clinton's reelection after he signed the sanctions measure written by Sen. Jesse Helms and Rep. Dan Burton. There is only one problem: Kerry voted against it."

  Miami Herald Mar. 14, 2004 By Peter Wallsten
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  22

  Religious Extremists Will be the End of Us!

  by Greenpalmtreestillmine in

  1. social
  2. current

  the islamic religious extremists are destroying their people.

  just as the christian right in the u.s. is more interested in it's own needs and wants than that of the country itself.

  so too the islamic extremists want what they want regardless of the consequences to their country or their people.. ironically, osama the ultimate islamic extremist decided to attack the u.s. at just the moment when a christian right extremist was in power.. if christ's man gets elected maybe christ will decide to strike another country in the middle east and if osama survives maybe allah will decide to attack the u.s. again.

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  Richie

  
  Dealing in Death The West is weak because it respects life? Too bad.
  By Steven Stalinsky

  
  

  I n the war on terrorism, major battles from early Islamic history serve as inspiration for those fighting against the West. As al Qaeda associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi beheaded American Nicholas Berg in Iraq last week, he asked, "Is it not time for you [Muslims] to take the path of jihad and carry the sword of the Prophet of prophets?... The Prophet, the most merciful, ordered [his army] to strike the necks of some prisoners in [the battle of] Badr and to kill them... And he set a good example for us. As for you, Bush, dog of the Christians, anticipate what will harm you... And you will only get shroud after shroud and coffin after coffin slaughtered in this manner."

  Another chapter from early Islamic history ? serving as a lesson for today's Muslims at war against the West ? is the concept of the love of death. This originated at the Battle of Qadisiyya in the year 636, when the commander of the Muslim forces, Khalid ibn Al-Walid, sent an emissary with a message from Caliph Abu Bakr to the Persian commander, Khosru. The message stated: "You [Khosru and his people] should convert to Islam, and then you will be safe, for if you don't, you should know that I have come to you with an army of men that love death, as you love life." This account is recited in today's Muslim sermons, newspapers, and textbooks.

  In his speech of March 19, 2004, President Bush referred to this concept: "On a tape claiming responsibility for the atrocities in Madrid, a man is heard to say, 'We choose death, while you choose life.'... It is a mindset that rejoices in suicide, incites murder, and celebrates every death we mourn. And we who stand on the other side of the line must be equally clear and certain of our convictions. We do love life.... We believe in the values that uphold the dignity of life, tolerance, and freedom, and the right of conscience. And we know that this way of life is worth defending. There is no neutral ground ? no neutral ground ? in the fight between civilization and terror, because there is no neutral ground between good and evil, freedom and slavery, and life and death."

  Leading Muslim clerics often refer to the love of death. Chief Palestinian Authority cleric Mufti Sheikh Ikrimeh Sabri stated, "We tell them, in as much as you love life, the Muslim loves death and martyrdom. There is a great difference between he who loves the hereafter and he who loves this world. The Muslim loves death and [strives for] martyrdom." Saudi Sheikh Abd Al-Muhsin Al-Qassem in Al-Madina added: "The Jews preached permissiveness and corruption, as they hid behind false slogans like freedom and equality, humanism and brotherhood... They are cowards in battle... they flee from death and fear fighting... They love life."

  Former head of the Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee Sheikh Atiyyah Saqr was asked the following question in an online chat room on March 22, 2004: "What, according to the Koran, are the Jews' main characteristics and qualities?" He explained one of their worst traits: "Cowardice and love for this worldly life are undisputable traits [of the Jews]." Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah revealed in an interview after the recent prisoner swap between Israel and his group: "We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death."

  Abdallah Al-Naggar, a religious columnist for the Egyptian government daily Al-Gumhuriya, has written about the differences between a "Muslim believer's" approach to death and that of his non-Muslim enemies: "The believers in Allah rightly do not dread their enemies and do not fear [waging a] jihad, because they see jihad as a profitable bargain, selling their lives to Allah [to get paradise in return]. Their enemies protect their [own] lives, as criminals do. [Allah] has already said about them: 'You will find that they are the people who protect their [own] life more than anyone else.'... The believers do not fear the enemy [during] the struggle and do not protect their lives. Allah has promised them one of two good things: [either] victory or martyrdom.... Yet their enemies protect [their] lives like a miser protects his money. They do not give [their lives] easily; they do not enter into battles seeking martyrdom; they do not act in order [to attain] martyrdom. This is the secret of the believers' victory over their enemies ? though the believers are few and the polytheists many, with advanced weaponry and equipment."

  Liberal Egyptian playwright Ali Salem mocked articles such as those by Al-Naggar in the Arab media. In a satiric column published in the London daily Al-Hayat, Salem sarcastically suggested opening a kindergarten to teach terrorist values: "You will easily notice that they love life, and that is the weak point that we will exploit. We, in contrast, love death and protect it. Do not believe that Allah created life for us to live, build, and enjoy. [No,] Allah created us to test our ability to rebel against life, to despise it, and to get rid of it at the earliest opportunity. Each and every one of you must seek out your first chance to die ? but you must not die for free...You must know, dear children, that our martyrs gain entry to Paradise, while their dead are [sentenced] to the fires of Hell. These idiots do not believe in Paradise, in the fires of Hell, or in the Day of Judgment." Tunisian intellectual Al-Afif Al-Akhdar asked in an article for the liberal Arabic-language website www.elaph.com: "Why do expressions of tolerance, moderation, rationalism, compromise, and negotiation horrify us [Muslims], but [when we hear] fervent cries for vengeance, we all dance the war dance?... Why do other people love life, while we love death and violence, slaughter and suicide, and [even] call it heroism and martyrdom?"

  As the war on terror continues, the voices coming from the Arab and Muslim world celebrating death over life have been heard more often than those criticizing this philosophy. An editorial in the Lebanese Daily Star on May 13, 2004, warned of what might happen if this issue is not addressed: "The region's kings, princes, and presidents need to learn a valuable lesson from this abhorrent incident: that fractured societies produce real-life theaters of shame like the Berg murder in a systemic manner, and that similar fractures are infecting their own societies. If the Berg beheading does not catapult the region's leaders from the world of lethargy to the world of vigorous action to establish law and order in their own societies ? and beginning with themselves ? then they will be considerably weakened.... What more is needed to galvanize Arab leaders into action? Today, a man named Berg was put to the sword; tomorrow, it could be the Arab nation torn asunder by the same savagery."
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  72

  Oops, is that WMD we just Found in Iraq????????

  by Leolaia in

  1. social
  2. current

  http://www.reuters.com/newsarticle.jhtml?type=topnews&storyid=5166415

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  Richie

  "One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is the bottom line." President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

  "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program". President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

  "We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions(including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspected Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter sent to President Clinton, signed by Sen. Carl Levin, Tom Dashle, John Kerry, and others. Oct. 9, 1998

  "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

  "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

  "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Sept. 27, 2002

  "I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-if necessary-to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our country." Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA), Oct. 9, 2002

  "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorist, including al Qaeda members..it is clear, however, that if left unchecked. Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Oct. 10, 2002

  "We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), Dec. 8, 2002

  "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime...He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation...and now he is calculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction...So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..." Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA), Jan. 23, 2003

  ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS...

  "Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." - Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

  "He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten time since 1983." - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb18,1998

  "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." - Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Dec. 16, 1998

  "Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." > - Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

  "There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." - Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D- FL,) and others, December 5, 2001

  "We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." - Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Sept. 19, 2002

  "The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." - Sen. Robert Byrd (D- WV), Oct. 3, 2002

  "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years .... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Oct 10, 2002

  "He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" - Rep. Henry Waxman (D- CA), Oct. 10, 2002
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  32

  They are playing the Iraq abuse video's all over British tv

  by Brummie in

  1. social
  2. current

  i had hoped the pics would have been faked, the terrorists must be over the moon

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  Richie

  This is an article from Victor Davis Hanson (from the National Review Online):

  May 21, 2004, 8:30 a.m. Season of Apologies It?s time for reckless critics to own up

  P resident Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld were both asked to apologize recently for the illegal and amoral behavior of a few miscreant soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. They did so without qualifications, despite the fact the military had itself uncovered the transgressions and already prepared a blistering indictment of such reprehensible acts. Media scrutiny was intense; a general has already been removed from command; court trials are scheduled; and more resignations, demotions, and jail time loom.

  But since we are in the season of apologies, we might as well continue it to the bitter end. Here I do not mean the buffoons like Michael Moore whose remorse would be as spurious as the original slander was lunatic, but rather serious commentators and statesmen who have crossed the line and need to step back. So here it goes.

  Ted Kennedy is the senior U.S. senator from Massachusetts. He wields enormous influence and has appointed himself as surrogate spokesman for the Democratic opposition. Yet here is how he recently weighed in about Abu Ghraib: "Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management ? U.S. management."

  This slander is both untrue and dangerous at a time when thousands of Americans are under fire in the field from commandos and criminals without uniforms who often pose as innocent civilians. The slur, pompously and publicly aired, is a morally reprehensible pronouncement in almost every way imaginable inasmuch as Saddam murdered tens of thousands with the full sanction of the Iraqi state apparatus. In contrast, a few rogue U.S. soldiers may have tortured and sexually humiliated some Iraqi prisoners ? evoking audit and censure at the highest levels of "U.S. management" and inevitable court martial for those directly involved. There is no evidence that the "torture chambers" that disemboweled, shredded, and hung prisoners on meat hooks are now "reopened" for similar procedures on orders of the American government.

  Mr. Kennedy should apologize. His reckless and feeble attempts at moral equivalence are wrong in matters of magnitude, government responsibility, and public disclosure, remorse, and accountability. Worse still, his silly comments ? printed around the Arab world ? suggest to the those on the battlefield that a high-ranking official of their own American government believes that his own soldiers are fighting for a cause no different from that which murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

  Thomas L. Friedman is the chief New York Times columnist now writing about foreign affairs. Millions at home and abroad read what he writes, and trust him to be both sober and judicious in his criticism. We have all read him with profit at times. But in a particularly angry opinion editorial on May 13 he leveled the following baffling charge: "I know this is hard to believe, but the Pentagon crew hated Colin Powell, and wanted to see him humiliated 10 times more than Saddam."

  That charge is simply untrue, and is nearly as reckless as Mr. Kennedy's remarks. Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides do not "hate" Mr. Powell. No one has expressed such venom. But what is truly reprehensible is to imply that officials of the United States government wished far worse for their own decorated Secretary of State than they did for a mass murderer with whom they were then currently at war. Once more such a malicious remark will do untold damage abroad. If Mr. Friedman cannot produce a reputable source or direct quotation for such an unfortunate attribution that borders on character assassination, he should apologize for being both wrong and incendiary.

  So far we know as much about the Oil-for-Food mess as we do the Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal. Other than the sensational pictorial evidence from the prisons, the only difference in the respective ongoing audits is that the U.S. military is fully investigating its own while the U.N. is stonewalling. But if dozens of Iraqis may have been humiliated and perhaps even tortured by renegade American soldiers, tens of thousands of women and children faced starvation while corrupt U.N. officials at the highest levels knew about billions of needed dollars in illegal kickbacks skimmed off hand-in-glove with a mass murderer.

  So far Kofi Annan ? whose own son, Kojo, was at one time associated with the Swiss Cotecna consortium involved in the shameful profiteering ? has not apologized to the Iraqi people. He should. Again, his agency's wrongdoing did not result in humiliation for some, but probably cost the lives of thousands while under his watch.

  What is going on? The months of April and May have been surreal ? scandals at Abu Ghraib, decapitations and desecrations of those killed from Gaza to Iraq, and insurrections in Fallujah and Najaf. The shock of the unexpected has led to hysteria and cheap TV moralizing by critics of the war, fueled by election-year politics at home, apparent embarrassment for some erstwhile supporters of the intervention who are angry that democracy in Iraq has not appeared fully-formed out of the head of Zeus, and a certain amnesia about the recent dark history of the United Nations.

  Yet there are historical forces still in play that bode well for Iraq ? aid pouring in, oil revenues increasing, Iraqi autonomy nearing, and radical terrorists failing to win public support ? all of which we are ignoring amid the successive 24-hour media barrages. The combat deaths of 700 soldiers are tragic. We in our postwar confusion have also made a number of mistakes: not storming into the Sunni Triangle at war's end, not shooting the first 500 looters that started the mass rampage of theft, not keeping some of the Iraqi army units intact, not bulldozing down Saddam Hussein's notorious prisons, not immediately putting at war's end Iraqi officials into the public arena, not storming Fallujah, and not destroying al Sadr and his militias last spring.

  Still, in just a year the worst mass murderer in recent history is gone and a consensual government is scheduled to assume power in his place in just a few weeks. Postwar Iraq is not a cratered Dresden or the rubble of Stalingrad ? it is seeing power, water, and fuel production at or above prewar levels. For all the recent mishaps, two truths still remain about Iraq ? each time the American military forcibly takes on the insurrectionists, it wins; and each time local elections are held, moderate Iraqis, not Islamic radicals, have won.

  So let us calm down and let events play out. If it were not an election year, Mr. Kennedy would dare not say such reprehensible things. In two or three months when there is a legitimate Iraqi government in power, Mr. Friedman may not wish to level such absurd charges. And when the truth comes out about the U.N.'s past role in Iraq, both Iraqis and Americans may not be so ready to entrust the new democracy's future to an agency that has not only done little to save Bosnians or Rwandans, but over the past decade may well have done much to harm Iraqis.

  But in the meantime, let these who have transgressed all join the president and the secretary of defense and say they are sorry for what they have recklessly said and the untold harm that they have done.
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  They are playing the Iraq abuse video's all over British tv

  by Brummie in

  1. social
  2. current

  i had hoped the pics would have been faked, the terrorists must be over the moon

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  Richie

  You never hear of the oil-for-food scandal, except on FoxNews of course. But nowhere else in the media do I see coverage of this huge scandal, where Saddam Hussein was bribing high ranking officials with billions (not millions) of dollars! Can you now see the reason why countries like Russia, France, Germany were so against the invasion into Iraq and show so much resistance against the USA? It becomes clearer every day?..

  Richie :*)