I hope I'm not the only one alarmed by the outrageous response to the upcoming ABC mini series "The Path to 9/11" by the Democrats. How do they constantly get away with their hypocritical platitudes? The very idea of Bill Clinton sending ABC a four page letter insisting that they remain true to the facts and challenging THEIR integrity is laughable. Where were the democrats when all of these ridiculous 9/11 conspiracy "documentaries" were produced? Normally I don't like to hit on partisan politics because both parties have serious problems (namely, that they're made up of politicians), but in this case the response is unilaterally Democrat.
Based on recent headlines, I think it's pretty easy to write my own Democratic Pary Platform:
1. The preservation of free speech (unless the speaker doesn't agree with you).
2. Preserving human rights (unless they're American soldiers or babies).
3. Defending (every country but the United States)
4. Protecting the border (of Mexico).
5. Prosecuting violators of the law (unless they're illegal Mexican immigrants).
The Democratic party is descending into madness. Am I the only one on ProgressiveU that sees this? While most of you seem to be writing posts about sex, drugs, and weight loss, our basic liberties are being challenged by a bunch of Clintonite goons.
...
It's not just democrats. It's former FBI agents, it's 9/11 commission members, it's people in the Bush administration, it's Bill O'Reily.
This isn't partisian poltiics we're playing. It's a push for truth.
Remember the Regan series? Conservatives got that show shut down for biasness and timing. Why is there a double standard against liberals?
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If a society is willing to give freedom for temporary security, they deserve neither.
Is it really a push for truth? Then why, in this glorious crusade for truth that the Democrats have suddenly embarked upon, did they not threaten producers like Michael Moore and "ask" them not to produce their documentaries because it contained disputed facts? If we blocked the airing of every controversial film because it contained disputed facts, how many documentaries do you think there would be? Since when is the presence of such things grounds for suppression? Based on what the Bill Clinton is saying networks most of the news media should be shut down for fabricating news and demonstrating outrageous bias. This isn't hard people.
Oh, and nobody seems to mention that none of the people who are whining about the documentary have even seen the whole thing. It's a five hour "docudrama" that is spread over five nights. The screening only featured the first hour, and the producers sent the second hour home with everyone on a DVD. How can they claim it's biased (as if that has anything to do with whether or not it should be aired) when they haven't even seen half of it?
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Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for an evening.
Light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
You don't need to see the whole series to see that it's clearly biased.
There are people across administrations who say there are scenes in this film that are flat out lies. Not disputed facts, total lies. We're talking about complete and utter fabrication. Even the producer says that parts of it are fabricated, but continues to say that the film corresponds directly with the 9/11 commission report when it clearly doesn't. In fact, some 3+ commission members have come out and stated this film does not at all have correspondance. Even some conservatives have said this film shouldn't be aired.
We can also state it's clearly biased because ABC refuses to give copies of the film to non-conservatives. Even obscure conservatives with obscure blgo views got a copy of the film, but Clinton and other nonconservatives didn't, simply because they weren't conservatives. Scholastic pulled 9/11 from it's guide curriculim because it was clearly biased.
What more profo do you need?
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If a society is willing to give freedom for temporary security, they deserve neither.
"Not disputed facts, total lies."
That didn't seem to make a difference when it came to Farenheit 9/11 or any of several 9/11 conspiracy "documentaries".
"Even the producer says that parts of it are fabricated"
I listened to an interview with the producer and I've listened to the news constantly. Nowhere at no time have I heard the producer saying this.
"but continues to say that the film corresponds directly with the 9/11 commission report when it clearly doesn't."
He never once said that it corresponds direcly with the 9/11 commission report. He said "The material for this film comes from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission's report, administration officials" and he goes on to name some other sources.
"In fact, some 3+ commission members have come out and stated this film does not at all have correspondance."
That doesn't surprise me. It's a bipartisan commission after all, meaning that there are democrats on it.
"You don't need to see the whole series to see that it's clearly biased."
Oh really? So if the first hour focuses on criticizing Bill Clinton and the second hour focuses on criticizing Bush (which the producer suggested was the case in an interview with Sean Hannity) is it still biased just because nobody bothered to watch the second hour? That's nonsense.
" because ABC refuses to give copies of the film to non-conservatives."
Um, they gave EVERYONE who attended the screening a copy of the second hour of the docudrama. Nobody has been given a copy of the whole movie. Even if this were the case, I wouldn't blame them after the rabid reaction they've gotten from the Democrats so far.
"Scholastic pulled 9/11 from it's guide curriculim because it was clearly biased."
You're missing the point. Since when has political bias been grounds for pulling a film off of the air? I would say that most documentaries about 9/11 are EXTREMELY biased against Bush, but you didnt' hear the Democrats whining about that.
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Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for an evening.
Light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Just a sidenote before I start: I like how you kept my comment about ocnservatvies out. Thanks for the chuckle.
As for the rest of it...
That didn't seem to make a difference when it came to Farenheit 9/11 or any of several 9/11 conspiracy "documentaries".
Show me the factual errors in Fahrenheit 9/11.
I listened to an interview with the producer and I've listened to the news constantly. Nowhere at no time have I heard the producer saying this.
Sorry. I meant the writer who worked on it. Totally my bad.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/accidents-occur/
He never once said that it corresponds direcly with the 9/11 commission report. He said "The material for this film comes from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission's report, administration officials" and he goes on to name some other sources.
This is one of those beloved "ORLY" moments.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/08/911-commissioners-abc/
That doesn't surprise me. It's a bipartisan commission after all, meaning that there are democrats on it.
Oh yeah, us terrorist democrats are out to end America. Stop with the kool-aid already.
Oh really? So if the first hour focuses on criticizing Bill Clinton and the second hour focuses on criticizing Bush (which the producer suggested was the case in an interview with Sean Hannity) is it still biased just because nobody bothered to watch the second hour? That's nonsense.
Does it? ABC has indicated it will whitewash the failiure on the Bush admin's part. Plus, the producer's a major conservative.
Um, they gave EVERYONE who attended the screening a copy of the second hour of the docudrama. Nobody has been given a copy of the whole movie. Even if this were the case, I wouldn't blame them after the rabid reaction they've gotten from the Democrats so far.
And they sent the film to obscure conservative bloggers. But when BILL CLINTON asked for it, he was denied. Review: Conservatives get film, nonconservatives burn in hell as usual. 'K.
You're missing the point. Since when has political bias been grounds for pulling a film off of the air? I would say that most documentaries about 9/11 are EXTREMELY biased against Bush, but you didnt' hear the Democrats whining about that.
Since when can a company purport that something is fact when it isn't? We wouldn't be half as pissed if ABC called it 'a dramatic view of 9/11' and not, as ABC put it "exactly how it happened." Documentaries aren't biased against Bush, they are simply stating what happened, and the facts happen not to work for Bush. It's like failing a test and claiming the teacher is biased against you because you failed and someone else didn't.
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If a society is willing to give freedom for temporary security, they deserve neither.
I don't think you're even listening to the news. The producer deliberately referred to the work as a "docudrama" meaning that some characters are composites, events are compressed etc. But so far I haven't heard one of the dissenters offer any kind of evidence to discredit the film. Bill Clinton has only said that it contains complete "lies", which is strange coming from a man who lied on numerous occasions while in office.
"Show me the factual errors in Fahrenheit 9/11."
Someone produced a whole documentary debuking the deceptions in Fahrenheit 9/11. http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm
So much for accuracy.
"Just a sidenote before I start: I like how you kept my comment about ocnservatvies out. Thanks for the chuckle."
I left it out because, of course, I can't argue with it. It's stupid for anyone to try to censor something just because it disagrees with their viewpoint (and it should be illegal). But in reference to recent history, one bull-crap documentary after another has gone completely untouched by conservatives, but finally when one comes out exposing the truth about the "fantastic" legacy of Bill Clinton liberals jump all over it.
But in all reality I'm not trying to debate the factuality of this film, I'm merely asking why censorship has suddenly become acceptable. I haven't heard any major media outlet even discuss this aspect of the story yet.
I've read up a little bit on the Reagan Documentary, but I can't find a whole lot of material about it. From what I have read, though, it does sound like a parallel situation.
*sigh* I suppose it comes down to the sad fact that both parties are worthless... there are good people in them, but as institutions they are corrupt. I just get so tired of all the people that praise Clinton and allege that his term was a "golden age" somehow. It's satasfying to finally see him exposed as a scum bag, if only for the sake of truth.
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Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for an evening.
Light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
I don't think you're even listening to the news. The producer deliberately referred to the work as a "docudrama" meaning that some characters are composites, events are compressed etc. But so far I haven't heard one of the dissenters offer any kind of evidence to discredit the film. Bill Clinton has only said that it contains complete "lies", which is strange coming from a man who lied on numerous occasions while in office.
I am listening. The Producer, and ABC, are calling it "exactly what happened." Our evidence lies in the fact that it's not just Clinton, it's a coutnerterrorism official, it's people who know their stuff. It's two guys who dropped out of the film because they were afraid it was factual garbage.
Someone produced a whole documentary debuking the deceptions in Fahrenheit 9/11. http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm
So much for accuracy.
K. I figured it had some.
I left it out because, of course, I can't argue with it. It's stupid for anyone to try to censor something just because it disagrees with their viewpoint (and it should be illegal). But in reference to recent history, one bull-crap documentary after another has gone completely untouched by conservatives, but finally when one comes out exposing the truth about the "fantastic" legacy of Bill Clinton liberals jump all over it.
Cite your source. As for Clinton's legacy: All conservatives remember is the Lewinsky Scandal: What about all the other things that occured that were positive?
But in all reality I'm not trying to debate the factuality of this film, I'm merely asking why censorship has suddenly become acceptable. I haven't heard any major media outlet even discuss this aspect of the story yet.
It's not censorship. It's lying flat out to the public, and passing off untruth as fact.
*sigh* I suppose it comes down to the sad fact that both parties are worthless... there are good people in them, but as institutions they are corrupt. I just get so tired of all the people that praise Clinton and allege that his term was a "golden age" somehow. It's satasfying to finally see him exposed as a scum bag, if only for the sake of truth.
Agreed, until you went to Clinton-bashing. Many liberals are disconnecting themselves from the democratic party because it is no longer servign our interests. We've noticed a greater occurance of kowtow from teh democrats to the republicans. That's not right at all, and clearly isn't in liberals' or Americans' interest.
As for Clinton havign issues, every presidency does. All of them. Even George Washington had his quirks. We complain about Bush because the issues in his presidency are worse than any other. His is the only presidency that saw greater production but lesser wage increases. His presidency saw, for the first time ever, there is MORE violent crime. For the first time in any presidency, high level jobs actually LOST value. The list goes on, and on. And on. It doesn't stop, really. That's why we're concerned. We want what's best for America. And most liberals are totally accepting of conservatives, as long as they be reasonable, and have similar goals. Liberals and conservatives are supposed to both have the same goal, but different ways of going about it. Both groups should have a goal of improving America, and makign America better. The difference lies in principles, and what exactly makes America better.
But Bush clearly doesn't work for such a goal; under his presidency, we've witnessed the worst overall country performance under any presidency, and his administration is factually to blame.
I agree we shouldn't be censoring, but we shouldn't be allowing major news networks to be tossing out lies while identifying them as fact. That's wrong.
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If a society is willing to give freedom for temporary security, they deserve neither.
"As for Clinton havign issues, every presidency does. All of them. Even George Washington had his quirks. We complain about Bush because the issues in his presidency are worse than any other. His is the only presidency that saw greater production but lesser wage increases. His presidency saw, for the first time ever, there is MORE violent crime. For the first time in any presidency, high level jobs actually LOST value. The list goes on, and on."
You seem to have overlooked some very important things in your accessment. You forget that right after Clinton inherited a recession, and virtually anything he did could have made the economy look great and essentially nullifying any economic performance attributed to him; shortly after he left office the tech bubble busted, a situation which G. W. inherited; our country suffered the worst terrorist attack in hour history; and that our country has fought two wars. Yet despite all of this, unemployment is at an all time low. Lower than it was even during the Clinton administration. The Dow Jones industrial average is now at 11,498.09, less than 300 points short of the all-time high (Shortly after Bush came to office the tech bubble busted and the Dow Jones fell to 9,605.85.) The truth is that Clinton was too much of a coward to take on the problems that faced him, leaving them to Bush to clean up. That's not to say that Clinton was the only one to blame, but the Democrats nead a major reality check when it comes to the Clinton years. Clinton was riding on an inflated economy, the result of heavy technology sector investment.
You can continue to argue the economic data with me, but I think you would simply discover that things aren't nearly as bad as everyone would have you think.
As for crime rates, check out this Bureau of Justic page http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm
"It's not censorship. It's lying flat out to the public, and passing off untruth as fact."
Once again, the point is (in an partisan world), who is to say what is the truth and what is not? Of course democrats are going to say that the path to 9/11 is a lie for political reasons (therefore rendering their testimony worthless) and of course the republicans are going to say it's all, or at least mostly, true (rendering their testimony worthless on the same basis). See what I mean?
"Liberals and conservatives are supposed to both have the same goal, but different ways of going about it. Both groups should have a goal of improving America, and makign America better. The difference lies in principles, and what exactly makes America better."
Then at least we're on the same page. It just seems like most Democrats hate America, based on their policy. Just look at it from my point of view. Every other day, for instance, Hillary Clinton seems to change her view on the war, depending on what is popular that day. I know that has actually made her unpopular among some Democrats. John Kerry is another case in point. He votes to go to war, then based on the very same information acuses Bush of lying to get us into it. John Mertha and other accuse our troops of "killing innocent civilians in cold blood" before they've even had a trial! Kerry also makes a the ridiculous statement that our troops are terrorizing Iraqi civilians in their beds at night and says that "Iraqis should be doing that". Democrats constantly accuse Bush of politicizing the war (thereby politicizing it themselves) because it apparently hasn't entered their heads that some people do things for the good of the country without thinking of the political ramifications. They constantly undermine the war by demoralizing our troops, voting down defense bills, then lying about it. Every time I turn around I hear Democrats doing nothing but bashing Bush and opposing things that are for the obvious good of the country, almost as if they take the opposite view of Bush and the republicans just to be disagreeable. How can any conservative come to the conclusion that democrats have the good of the country at heart? Obviously you do, but does that mean that the leaders of your party do? I'm asking this as a genuine question, from one American to another, and pleading for even one word of sanity out of the mouth of a Democrat. It would take a heart of gold to believe that any given Democrat in congress has the good of the country in mind.
Believe me, I don't like that fact. It's downright depressing. I wish I lived in a world where I knew everyone had the good of the country and mind, and even though we disagreed on policy we had the same goal at heart. That would be lovely, but it's simply not the case.
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Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for an evening.
Light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
You seem to have overlooked some very important things in your accessment. You forget that right after Clinton inherited a recession, and virtually anything he did could have made the economy look great and essentially nullifying any economic performance attributed to him; shortly after he left office the tech bubble busted, a situation which G. W. inherited; our country suffered the worst terrorist attack in hour history; and that our country has fought two wars. Yet despite all of this, unemployment is at an all time low. Lower than it was even during the Clinton administration. The Dow Jones industrial average is now at 11,498.09, less than 300 points short of the all-time high (Shortly after Bush came to office the tech bubble busted and the Dow Jones fell to 9,605.85.) The truth is that Clinton was too much of a coward to take on the problems that faced him, leaving them to Bush to clean up. That's not to say that Clinton was the only one to blame, but the Democrats nead a major reality check when it comes to the Clinton years. Clinton was riding on an inflated economy, the result of heavy technology sector investment.
I'll admit, the Clinton administration is a bit under the line for me (I wasn't even in middle school yet), so I try not to argue it for the most part.
Once again, the point is (in an partisan world), who is to say what is the truth and what is not? Of course democrats are going to say that the path to 9/11 is a lie for political reasons (therefore rendering their testimony worthless) and of course the republicans are going to say it's all, or at least mostly, true (rendering their testimony worthless on the same basis). See what I mean?
If it is democrats just doing it for party lines, why are conservatives taking a stand against it too? It DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS the 9/11 commission report (according to many conservative and liberal members of the commission), and yet ABC claims it isn't. If ABC wasn't clearly stating it was based on the 9/11 commission report falsely, and if they weren't claiming it was "exactly how it happened", we'd have no objections (at least a vast majority) except to say that this is indeed bad timing. I totally understand that it's september 11th and therefore there is a good logical reason to show it. But it's also near election time, and while it's not illegal, it could be morally reprehensible for a major news network to be showing a biased report intended to whitewash bush failiures (as the producers stated to conservatives).
Then at least we're on the same page. It just seems like most Democrats hate America, based on their policy. Just look at it from my point of view. Every other day, for instance, Hillary Clinton seems to change her view on the war, depending on what is popular that day. I know that has actually made her unpopular among some Democrats. John Kerry is another case in point. He votes to go to war, then based on the very same information acuses Bush of lying to get us into it. John Mertha and other accuse our troops of "killing innocent civilians in cold blood" before they've even had a trial! Kerry also makes a the ridiculous statement that our troops are terrorizing Iraqi civilians in their beds at night and says that "Iraqis should be doing that". Democrats constantly accuse Bush of politicizing the war (thereby politicizing it themselves) because it apparently hasn't entered their heads that some people do things for the good of the country without thinking of the political ramifications. They constantly undermine the war by demoralizing our troops, voting down defense bills, then lying about it. Every time I turn around I hear Democrats doing nothing but bashing Bush and opposing things that are for the obvious good of the country, almost as if they take the opposite view of Bush and the republicans just to be disagreeable. How can any conservative come to the conclusion that democrats have the good of the country at heart? Obviously you do, but does that mean that the leaders of your party do? I'm asking this as a genuine question, from one American to another, and pleading for even one word of sanity out of the mouth of a Democrat. It would take a heart of gold to believe that any given Democrat in congress has the good of the country in mind.
There are democrats that are reasonable. Ever hear of Senator Obama? Howard Dean (even though he didn't make it, he's still one of the candidates I'd love to see on the 2008 ballot)? Both very reasonable democrats.
I think neither party has interest in the people. I just spent a bit looking up election results, and found that in 2000, more than 3 MILLION people didn't vote for either republicans nor democrats. I imagine in '04 that increased, but I don't know, as I have thus far been unable to find clear statistics on 2004.
Hillary is a hairsplitter. I've got worse words for her, but I'd prefer not to mention them. Most people don't like her, regardless of party.
As for democrats having bad policy, I did say I didn't agree with most of their positions, didn't I? They've been ponying up to the republicans save for a few. All but a few senators voted for the flag burning amendment, something huge for me, because it's the FIRST TIME the constitution was used to TAKE AWAY rights. It luckily didn't pass, but it's alarming that it was considered and even championed by members in both parties. Even my home state democrat senator voted for it.
As I've been saying for the past few years...
Don't work around the system. Change the system.
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If a society is willing to give freedom for temporary security, they deserve neither.
"If it is democrats just doing it for party lines, why are conservatives taking a stand against it too? It DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS the 9/11 commission report (according to many conservative and liberal members of the commission), and yet ABC claims it isn't. If ABC wasn't clearly stating it was based on the 9/11 commission report falsely, and if they weren't claiming it was "exactly how it happened", we'd have no objections (at least a vast majority) except to say that this is indeed bad timing. I totally understand that it's september 11th and therefore there is a good logical reason to show it. But it's also near election time, and while it's not illegal, it could be morally reprehensible for a major news network to be showing a biased report intended to whitewash bush failiures (as the producers stated to conservatives)."
HAHAHAHAHAHA... *ahem* sorry...
Name one conservative who is taking a stand against the Path to 9/11. Yeah, I thought so. First of all, since when does being on a commission suddenly give politicians infallible credibility? Second of all, I did a search to see what 9/11 commissioners have said about the movie. I found quotes from five different commissioners. Of those five, four were democrats and one was independent. The one independent didn't even say that the film was inaccurate only that “I don’t think the facts are clear, whether it’s Sandy Berger, or whether it’s the head of the CIA, whether a line went dead. I think there are, I think there are a number of — they chose to portray it this way, but my memory of it is that it could have happened any number of ways.”
Gee, what a surprise.
Secondly, since when have there been any moral codes associated with elections? Running a politically biased film is never "morally reprehensible". Running an air liner into a building and killing 3000 innocent people is morally reprehensible. Running a politically biased film before an election is good campaign strategy. The Democrats are welcome to refute it. For the last four years one politically loaded liberal film has come out, it's about time for a conservative one to be aired. It's just another instance of "They can dish it out but they can't take it."
"There are democrats that are reasonable. Ever hear of Senator Obama? Howard Dean (even though he didn't make it, he's still one of the candidates I'd love to see on the 2008 ballot)? Both very reasonable democrats."
I'm pretty sure there's a reason why Howard Dean wasn't on the 2004 ballot and won't be on the 2008 ballot. The dude screamed uncontrollably during a speach in Iowa. I have a barrage of quotes here that would have shamed a 13th century peasant for their ignorance. He has called the president names and said that the U.S. can't win the war in Iraq (even though we already have. Saddam is toppled and his army scattered).
He're a classic quote:
"You think people can work all day and then pick up their kids at child care or wherever and get home and still manage to sandwich in an eight-hour vote? Well Republicans, I guess can do that. Because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives."
It doesn't take a genius to realize how stupid that statement is. How can you say that he's reasonable? He's an irresponsible, incontinent maniac.
"I think neither party has interest in the people. I just spent a bit looking up election results, and found that in 2000, more than 3 MILLION people didn't vote for either republicans nor democrats. I imagine in '04 that increased, but I don't know, as I have thus far been unable to find clear statistics on 2004."
I don't know about their motives, but democratic policy is certainly suspect. I'd say tax breaks are pretty good for the people, yet Democrats repeatedly vote them down. And don't try to tell me that the tax breaks were only for the rich. I wrote a whole post tearing down that propoganda. The democrats refuse to secure the border, showing a greater concern for the feelings of illegal immigrants than for the well-being of the country. Their responsibility is to do what's best for the country, not what's best for the illegal immigrants, and letting a deluge of unskilled labor is NOT good for the country on a number of levels. I'm not even going to get started on the war...
In a beautiful practical example, the Democrats, in the face of their typical self-righteous, "compassionate" rhetoric, voted down a bill to raise minimum wage (another piece of stupidity) simply because it gave estate tax breaks. So, in the Democratic logic, it is not a good idea to help the poor if it helps the rich in the process. Rather than helping both the rich and the poor (and by helping the rich they would have helped the poor indirectly) they decided it was better to help no-one. So much for reasonable democrats.
And, since when exactly have democrats aligned themselves with republicans?
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Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for an evening.
Light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
HAHAHAHAHAHA... *ahem* sorry...
Name one conservative who is taking a stand against the Path to 9/11. Yeah, I thought so. First of all, since when does being on a commission suddenly give politicians infallible credibility? Second of all, I did a search to see what 9/11 commissioners have said about the movie. I found quotes from five different commissioners. Of those five, four were democrats and one was independent. The one independent didn't even say that the film was inaccurate only that “I don’t think the facts are clear, whether it’s Sandy Berger, or whether it’s the head of the CIA, whether a line went dead. I think there are, I think there are a number of — they chose to portray it this way, but my memory of it is that it could have happened any number of ways.”
Here's a list of what some of the members have said: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/08/911-commissioners-abc/
And here are a few conservatives who spoke out:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/miniter-911/
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/bozell-edit/
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/accidents-occur/
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/05/clarke-blasts-abc/
Gee, what a surprise.
Secondly, since when have there been any moral codes associated with elections? Running a politically biased film is never "morally reprehensible". Running an air liner into a building and killing 3000 innocent people is morally reprehensible. Running a politically biased film before an election is good campaign strategy. The Democrats are welcome to refute it. For the last four years one politically loaded liberal film has come out, it's about time for a conservative one to be aired. It's just another instance of "They can dish it out but they can't take it."
Forgive me for my lack of explaination tonight, I'm not feeling very well. I said it 'may be' morally reprehensible. It is to me, as it is just before election time, and run by a very conservative director. As for liberal films - oh yes, they have come out, and very much have been criticized by conservatives, some to the point of calling them terrorists. Liberals are terrorists to the conservative media. Dissent is worse than blowing yourself up, according to this administration.
I'm pretty sure there's a reason why Howard Dean wasn't on the 2004 ballot and won't be on the 2008 ballot. The dude screamed uncontrollably during a speach in Iowa. I have a barrage of quotes here that would have shamed a 13th century peasant for their ignorance. He has called the president names and said that the U.S. can't win the war in Iraq (even though we already have. Saddam is toppled and his army scattered).
The reason he's not on the '04 ballot is not going for it. His ideas are exactly what America needs - not some boring old guy whose primary concern is big corporations - it's an exciting human being who can get a crowd excited to be American. That's something this country needs. And we haven't won the war in Iraq - victory requires withdraw and an occupational reduction. Show me where that is, eh?
In a beautiful practical example, the Democrats, in the face of their typical self-righteous, "compassionate" rhetoric, voted down a bill to raise minimum wage (another piece of stupidity) simply because it gave estate tax breaks. So, in the Democratic logic, it is not a good idea to help the poor if it helps the rich in the process. Rather than helping both the rich and the poor (and by helping the rich they would have helped the poor indirectly) they decided it was better to help no-one. So much for reasonable democrats.
The tax cut was for the SUPER-RICH. We're talking in the hundreds of VERY VERY rich people. The republicans attached it to the bill because they knew it'd never pass, the estate tax brings millions in to help our government. We can't be cutting millions in taxes because Paris Hilton needs a new purse to bring her poorly-fed dog into. As for supply-side economics, that's not worked thus far: Bush's tax cuts have done relatively little for the economy. Supply-Side economics is debunct for now. It's proven, though, that the more money people have, teh more they buy, and that fuels the economy.
And, since when exactly have democrats aligned themselves with republicans?
Since they've had ample opportunity to take Bush down, but chose not to.
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If a society is willing to give freedom for temporary security, they deserve neither.
Here's a list of what some of the members have said: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/08/911-commissioners-abc/
I know, that's the website I was talking about. Four of those five commissioners are democrats and one is an independent. Did you even read what I said or bother to look up those commissioners?
"http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/miniter-911/
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/bozell-edit/
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/accidents-occur/
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/05/clarke-blasts-abc/"
Okay, that's three nobodies (nobody I've ever even heard of anyway). Any more?
"Forgive me for my lack of explaination tonight, I'm not feeling very well. I said it 'may be' morally reprehensible. It is to me, as it is just before election time, and run by a very conservative director. As for liberal films - oh yes, they have come out, and very much have been criticized by conservatives, some to the point of calling them terrorists. Liberals are terrorists to the conservative media. Dissent is worse than blowing yourself up, according to this administration."
The problem isn't the dissent itself, it's that the democrats are so arrogant that they are willing to undermine the war effort and affect our defeat just because they don't agree with the war and they think it's illegitmiate, illegal, or what ever else. That is the height of arrogance: to make no allowance for the possibility that you're wrong, risking American lives in the process.
I know what you're going to say, though. You can try to say that the Republicans are being arrogant too, sending troops off to war, but there's a big difference: if the Republicans are wrong (meaning that there really was no threat in the middle east and that if we just leave these terrorists alone, they'll leave us alone) a few brave Americans will have lost their lives, and in the process we'll have destroyed two brutal dictatorships freeing millions of people and reestablished our claim as the world's greatest super power while restoring the respectful fear the world used to have for our military strength, making us safer from every kind of threat.
However, if the democrats are wrong, millions of American lives will be lost in one terrorist attack after another perpetrated by radical suicidal muslims armed with suitcase nukes.
"The reason he's not on the '04 ballot is not going for it. His ideas are exactly what America needs - not some boring old guy whose primary concern is big corporations - it's an exciting human being who can get a crowd excited to be American. That's something this country needs."
Howard Dean was getting people excited about being Democrats, not about being Americans, and anyone who has so little self control that he can't even supress a primordal scream in front of a televised press conference has no business being in congress, much less the whitehouse.
"And we haven't won the war in Iraq - victory requires withdraw and an occupational reduction. Show me where that is, eh?"
This shows a complete ignorance of history. Since when has a withdraw of troops followed a successful military campaign? Usually the mark of success in war is occupation of the defeated territory. It's called "conquest". And even if there have been a few instances of a conqering country withdrawing after victory, that's not the only measuring stick of victory. Our enemy was Saddam Hussein and his republican guard, one of the largest standing armies in the world. There is not a shred of what was once the republican guard left, and Saddam is being held on trial for crimes against humanity. I'd call that victory. The only way you can say that it's not victory is if you're a democrat who wants to discredit Bush and the Republicans. Sorry, that's the truth.
"The tax cut was for the SUPER-RICH. We're talking in the hundreds of VERY VERY rich people. The republicans attached it to the bill because they knew it'd never pass, the estate tax brings millions in to help our government. We can't be cutting millions in taxes because Paris Hilton needs a new purse to bring her poorly-fed dog into. As for supply-side economics, that's not worked thus far: Bush's tax cuts have done relatively little for the economy. Supply-Side economics is debunct for now. It's proven, though, that the more money people have, teh more they buy, and that fuels the economy."
I'm not sure where to begin with this statement. You start off by saying that the tax cut would help the rich. Near the end you say that money people have the better the economy. Therefore, by letting the rich keep more of their money, the economy would be better. You have just proved yourself wrong. I don't think I could have done that if I tried. In case you didnt' know, the top 50% richest Americans pay 96.54% of all income taxes, so what's wrong with giving them a tax break? The government doesn't NEED more money, it NEEDS to cut worthless programs and reduce social spending.
And I don't you've been listening to a thing I've said. The economy is better than it has ever been, yet you're still sitting there in your ignorance and saying that Bush's tax cuts didn't work, THEN contradicting yourself by saying that putting more money in the people's hands stimulates the economy.
By the way, what the heck do tax cuts have to do with supply side economics? Are you just throwing around big words hoping it will make you look more authoritative? Tax cuts = stimulated demand = demand-side economics.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for an evening.
Light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
The problem isn't the dissent itself, it's that the democrats are so arrogant that they are willing to undermine the war effort and affect our defeat just because they don't agree with the war and they think it's illegitmiate, illegal, or what ever else. That is the height of arrogance: to make no allowance for the possibility that you're wrong, risking American lives in the process.
They have reports, and several generals backing them. And they aren't risking lives. By that logic, Bush was risking lives when he sent troops to Iraq. Bush was risking lives by announcing his plans to monitor terrorists' bank accounts, and the Bush administration definetly risked lives when they strategically revealed a CIA agent's name.
I know what you're going to say, though. You can try to say that the Republicans are being arrogant too, sending troops off to war, but there's a big difference: if the Republicans are wrong (meaning that there really was no threat in the middle east and that if we just leave these terrorists alone, they'll leave us alone) a few brave Americans will have lost their lives, and in the process we'll have destroyed two brutal dictatorships freeing millions of people and reestablished our claim as the world's greatest super power while restoring the respectful fear the world used to have for our military strength, making us safer from every kind of threat.
Your logic sucks. There is indeed a big difference between sending Americans to war with intelligence that was known to be in question, and opposing such a move. And yes, you're going to say 'Oh, but your precious democrats voted for it.' Indeed they did, using intelligence Bush knew to be faulty. Powell is against the war now and calling for a change in it's direction, ie, away from 'stay the course' and to 'let us fight this with logic rather than blowing shit up and asking questions later'. How do you defend 'stay the course'? And when did I say Afghanistan was a bad idea? We retaliated and had full rights and support to do so, at least according to the gov't story. I won't get into that. And get this: Since you seem so concerned about Afghanistan, why don't you tell Bush to do something? The Taliban have resurfaced, and opium production is at it's highest levels ever. Bush doesn't think much about Afghanistan or Bin Laden. His words, not mine.
However, if the democrats are wrong, millions of American lives will be lost in one terrorist attack after another perpetrated by radical suicidal muslims armed with suitcase nukes.
...Or you could affiliate yourself with the policy we've had for years: Win the hearts and minds of the people instead of blowing them up. Then maybe we'd be making friends. Your foreign policy sucks.
____
If a society is willing to give freedom for temporary security, they deserve neither.
"They have reports, and several generals backing them. And they aren't risking lives. By that logic, Bush was risking lives when he sent troops to Iraq. Bush was risking lives by announcing his plans to monitor terrorists' bank accounts, and the Bush administration definetly risked lives when they strategically revealed a CIA agent's name."
If you were five years old your naiveness would be cute. If you'd been paying attention to the news you would know that the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak case revealed that Richard Armitage (who press corps personel universally consider a gossip) was actually responsible for leaking the name. And if I remember correctly, the financial tracking program was leaked by the New York Times, a liberal publication, not Bush. Bush said that we would track their finances but didn't say how. The New York Times revealed in great detail how we were tracking their finances, allowing them to find ways around it. Don't be a moron, I know you're smarter than this.
"Your logic sucks. There is indeed a big difference between sending Americans to war with intelligence that was known to be in question, and opposing such a move. And yes, you're going to say 'Oh, but your precious democrats voted for it.' Indeed they did, using intelligence Bush knew to be faulty. Powell is against the war now and calling for a change in it's direction, ie, away from 'stay the course' and to 'let us fight this with logic rather than blowing shit up and asking questions later'. How do you defend 'stay the course'? And when did I say Afghanistan was a bad idea? We retaliated and had full rights and support to do so, at least according to the gov't story. I won't get into that. And get this: Since you seem so concerned about Afghanistan, why don't you tell Bush to do something? The Taliban have resurfaced, and opium production is at it's highest levels ever. Bush doesn't think much about Afghanistan or Bin Laden. His words, not mine."
My logic sucks? You're the one who's not giving any kind of evidence for your claims. The burden of proof is on you. How was our intelligence faulty? If it was faulty, how do you know that Bush knew this? All he knows is what the intelligence agencies tell him, so if the intelligence he got was faulty he would have no way of knowing. That's logic, and you have none, which I think any objective observer of this conversation would corroborate. Colin Powell is a liberal, I don't care what he has to say. The doctrine of staying the course it crucial simply because if we leave now, Iraq would probably digress into complete civil war, making our effort virtually pointless. We have to stay until the job of nation building is done. This is axiomatic.
As far as Afghanistan goes, there is a NATO force in place now under the command of a British officer. What the heck does Bush have to do with it? And you're complaining about the production of poppy? Why don't you remark on all of the millions of dollars we have spent rebuilding Afghanistan, the hundreds of schools built, the hospitals constructed...? The List goes on and on. I'd say poppy production is relatively unimportant. Once their economy really gets churning they'll realize that there are better ways to make money and poppy production will fall.
"...Or you could affiliate yourself with the policy we've had for years: Win the hearts and minds of the people instead of blowing them up. Then maybe we'd be making friends. Your foreign policy sucks."
There is blood pouring out of my eyes. If I was going before congress to promote education reform I think I would produce you as evidence.
You are clueless. You don't understand who we are fighting. The Muslims HATE us. It's not just a simple dissagreement and dislike for us, it's a HATRED INBRED IN THEM FROM YOUTH. Their RELIGION teaches them TO KILL PEOPLE THAT DON'T AGREE WITH THEM. They hate us because we are not muslim and because of what comes out of Hollywood. Unless you're a religious person yourself you could never understand why. THEY BELIEVE THEIR RELIGION SINCERELY ENOUGH TO BLOW THEMSELVES UP AND YOU THINK WE CAN MAKE THEM STOP BY GIVING THEM MILK AND COOKIES AND "WINNING THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS?" Your brand of ignorance will destroy this country if it ever becomes wide spread.
If you still think we can appease them then go over to Palestine, tell them that you're an American, and try to give them bear hugs and handfulls of cash while they beat your body to a bloody pulp. You need to do some research on Islam, THEN come back and try to have an intelligent conversation. They don't care about human life, evident in their willingness to strap bombs on their men, women, and children, then go blow up shopping malls and train stations. If I could convince you of one thing it would be the reality of who we are up against.
Let me leave you with a question: in WWII do you think we could have stopped the war by "winning the hearts and minds" of the Nazis? If you answered yes, then I'm not even going to bother arguing with you anymore. Wake up and smell the coffee. History has proven that YOUR foreign policy sucks.
-----------------------------------------------------
Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for an evening.
Light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
If you were five years old your naiveness would be cute. If you'd been paying attention to the news you would know that the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak case revealed that Richard Armitage (who press corps personel universally consider a gossip) was actually responsible for leaking the name. And if I remember correctly, the financial tracking program was leaked by the New York Times, a liberal publication, not Bush. Bush said that we would track their finances but didn't say how. The New York Times revealed in great detail how we were tracking their finances, allowing them to find ways around it. Don't be a moron, I know you're smarter than this.
Bush stated we'd be tracking their finances. The New York Times just published that - they didn't present a security risks. The NYT is concerned about American citizens, and they run their controvercial stories through the administration frequently. The administration had no objections to this report.
My logic sucks? You're the one who's not giving any kind of evidence for your claims. The burden of proof is on you. How was our intelligence faulty? If it was faulty, how do you know that Bush knew this? All he knows is what the intelligence agencies tell him, so if the intelligence he got was faulty he would have no way of knowing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Intelligence_Commission
That's logic, and you have none, which I think any objective observer of this conversation would corroborate. Colin Powell is a liberal, I don't care what he has to say. The doctrine of staying the course it crucial simply because if we leave now, Iraq would probably digress into complete civil war, making our effort virtually pointless. We have to stay until the job of nation building is done. This is axiomatic.
OK, so any liberal at all saying anything is immediately assumed to be wrong, and the opposing conservative correct? You, sir, a close-minded jerk. I'm a firm believer that you can't be an American unless you are willing to hear both sides. As for Iraq: I didn't say 'leave'. 'Cut and Run' is not a real policy. Check out the Center for American Progress's report called Strategic Redeployment 2.0. That is my answer to Iraq.
You are clueless. You don't understand who we are fighting. The Muslims HATE us. It's not just a simple dissagreement and dislike for us, it's a HATRED INBRED IN THEM FROM YOUTH. Their RELIGION teaches them TO KILL PEOPLE THAT DON'T AGREE WITH THEM. They hate us because we are not muslim and because of what comes out of Hollywood. Unless you're a religious person yourself you could never understand why. THEY BELIEVE THEIR RELIGION SINCERELY ENOUGH TO BLOW THEMSELVES UP AND YOU THINK WE CAN MAKE THEM STOP BY GIVING THEM MILK AND COOKIES AND "WINNING THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS?" Your brand of ignorance will destroy this country if it ever becomes wide spread.
I don't think YOU understand who we are fighting, and, more importantly, WHO WE AREN'T FIGHTING. We aren't fighting Muslims exclusively, or at least, we shouldn't be. There are Muslims in America who love America, and are sometimes more patriotic than we are, that are totally great. They were beaten by Christian extremists after 9/11, but you know why they stayed in America? Because police in those areas didn't stand by, at least for the most part, and protected those Muslims because THEY ARE OUR CITIZENS. We aren't fighting a religious war, supposedly. Not all Muslims are terrorists - MOST MUSLIMS ARE PEACEFUL. I know several muslims who I speak to all the time. They are very friendly and well-mannered people. And perhaps you don't understand who we are fighting, either: Number of states in '01 that were prone to be terrorist breeding grounds: 17. Number now: 26. Your flagship administration's policies have FAILED, resulting in more terrorist states and less allies in the world. Bush's foreign policies have made Iraq a less safe country, and the world a less safe planet.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah spent the money it got from Iran not on weapons or more soldiers, but on building hospitals and repairing houses. You know what that got them? The world is considering taking Hezbollah off the terrorist list. The Lebanese back Hezbollah instead of the central government there. That's the result of 'winning the hearts and minds', snoopy. It's an actual positive result.
If you still think we can appease them then go over to Palestine, tell them that you're an American, and try to give them bear hugs and handfulls of cash while they beat your body to a bloody pulp. You need to do some research on Islam, THEN come back and try to have an intelligent conversation. They don't care about human life, evident in their willingness to strap bombs on their men, women, and children, then go blow up shopping malls and train stations. If I could convince you of one thing it would be the reality of who we are up against.
News flash, Snoopy: Christians have killed for god too. And they've done it with even greater brutality. Guess what? I'm not justifying terrorist actions, but these terrorists haven't crucified anyone. You're going to counter "Oh, Christianity isn't like that anymore.." Yeah, well, neither is Islam. Terrorists just use it to get members, they aren't actually Muslim. Why don't you do some research and talk to real muslims?
Let me leave you with a question: in WWII do you think we could have stopped the war by "winning the hearts and minds" of the Nazis? If you answered yes, then I'm not even going to bother arguing with you anymore. Wake up and smell the coffee. History has proven that YOUR foreign policy sucks.
Totally different war, totally different battleground. To draw comparison: Let's apply similar logic to the Spanish-American war and Iraq. You simply can't, because they are totally different wars for totally different objectives and with totally different strategies.
____
If a society is willing to give freedom for temporary security, they deserve neither.
"Bush stated we'd be tracking their finances. The New York Times just published that - they didn't present a security risks. The NYT is concerned about American citizens, and they run their controvercial stories through the administration frequently. The administration had no objections to this report."
Where have you been? Do a search on google, man. The New York Times totally blew the cover off of the program.
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Intelligence_Commission"
This article doesn't even prove your point. It says:
"The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction was a panel created by Executive Order 13328 signed by U.S. President George W. Bush in February of 2004. The impetus for the Commission lay with a public windstorm occasioned by statements, including those of Chief of the Iraq Survey Group David Kay, that the Intelligence Community had grossly erred in judging that Iraq had been developing WMD before the March 2003 start of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom.'"
In other words, the president established this panel because liberals democrats were whining that our intelligence was bad. Not on person has been able to explained to me exactly how our intelligence on Iraq was bad. Funny thing. For one thing, we DID find weapons of mass distruction. For another thing, there are several reports out now that weapons of mass distruction were transported out of Iraq long before we arrived, and we gave them plenty of time to do it. I don't know why that's so difficult to figure out.
"OK, so any liberal at all saying anything is immediately assumed to be wrong, and the opposing conservative correct? You, sir, a close-minded jerk. I'm a firm believer that you can't be an American unless you are willing to hear both sides. As for Iraq: I didn't say 'leave'. 'Cut and Run' is not a real policy. Check out the Center for American Progress's report called Strategic Redeployment 2.0. That is my answer to Iraq."
It's as simple as this. If someone (or a group of people) are constantly proven wrong when faced with historical evidence and logical scrutiny, the natural response would be to assume any further statements of theirs to be wrong. This is precisely the case with liberal ideology.
This report is interesting. First, where is your proof that we don't have enough troops in Iraq? Who decides how many troops are enough? That whole premise is politically loaded Democratic propoganda.
Second, the report says "Prevent U.S. troops from being caught in the middle of a civil war in Iraq." My question to you is, what the heck do you think we're trying to do there in the first place? The ranks of the Iraqi security forces are being bolstered every day. Recent reports indicate that U.S. troops are practically completely out of harms way, most of the dangerous operations now being carried out by Iraqi security forces or a joint force of US and Iraqi troops. My point is that we are already carrying out this part of the plan.
"Avert mass sectarian and ethnic cleansing in Iraq"
So I ask again: exactly how does one do this? I could write a wonderful plan for the world and say we're not doing things right. Watch: "I think we should end world hunger and all war. I think only smart people should be allowed to lead countries." My point here is that the afore-mentioned statement is nebulous, easily said but not easily done. This is the problem with the democrats. They spew all of these nebulous speculations on how to improve this or that, but the don't have any idea HOW to do it. I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the egg heads in washington.
I was going to continue my critique of this report, but the I realized that we're already doing most of it. It says what to do, which is blindingly obvious in the first place, but not how to do it. And you think this thing is some kind of brilliant plan. My favorite one was "Get those Iraqis fighting to end the occupation to lay down their arms". Duh.
It should be obvious that getting our troops out of Iraq has always been the plan, the difference between Bush and the Democrats in congress is that Bush wants to stay until the job is done and the Democrats want to leave now.
"I don't think YOU understand who we are fighting, and, more importantly, WHO WE AREN'T FIGHTING. We aren't fighting Muslims exclusively, or at least, we shouldn't be. There are Muslims in America who love America, and are sometimes more patriotic than we are, that are totally great. They were beaten by Christian extremists after 9/11, but you know why they stayed in America? Because police in those areas didn't stand by, at least for the most part, and protected those Muslims because THEY ARE OUR CITIZENS. We aren't fighting a religious war, supposedly. Not all Muslims are terrorists - MOST MUSLIMS ARE PEACEFUL. I know several muslims who I speak to all the time. They are very friendly and well-mannered people."
I never meant to imply that we are fighting muslims. We are fighting their belief system. The reason you know good muslims is because they aren't really muslim. Their own scriptures tell them over and over again to spread their beliefs by the sword. You can argue that all you want, but Mohammad himself was a brutal butcher. He demonstrated exactly what he meant in the Q'ran by putting it to action. Therefore any Muslim that is not violent is also not a real muslim. You need to do some research. By the way, I can't find any evidence that any muslim Americans were beaten by Christian Americans in the wake of 9/11, although it's not unlikely. But you'll notice that it wasn't a widespread movement.
This fact has always caused me to laugh when I hear people use the term "muslim extremists". That's like using the term "Christian extremists" to refer to the Catholic church: there are more Catholics than any other one Christian denomination. How could you call that etreme? Now, in the muslim world it's not quite that dramatic, but fully 1/8 of the muslims are Shiites, who are considered the voilent sect of Muslims. In other words, there is a reason why there are so many violent "extremist" muslims, because the correct interpretation of the Q'ran based on Mohammad himself leads to violence, and those who aren't violent simply value their lives more than their religion, aren't sincere, or just don't know the truth about what they believe, which is widespread among all religions in America because religion has taken such a back-seat in our society.
Here's another piece of evidence for this. The Christian religion is constantly attacked by non-Christians, mostly liberals, coincidentally, and yet, how many times have Christians rioted in the streets all over the world demanding the death of those who perpetrated the offence? On the other hand, every time even a slight insult against Islam is publicized, "peaceful" Muslims all over the world state violent riots and madly demand the death of the offender. There goes your peaceful muslim theory. You need to wake up.
"And perhaps you don't understand who we are fighting, either: Number of states in '01 that were prone to be terrorist breeding grounds: 17. Number now: 26. Your flagship administration's policies have FAILED, resulting in more terrorist states and less allies in the world. Bush's foreign policies have made Iraq a less safe country, and the world a less safe planet."
IF that's true, and somehow I doubt it, that statement is stupid for two reasons. The only way to know what states have terrorist cells is if we have found terrorist cells and know where they are. In order to do that we need to look for them. Could it be that the reason that there are more states that are prone to breeding terrorists is that we didn't KNOW about some of these terrorist cells and couldn't make an acurate estimate? Moreover, as I said before, to know this fact we would also have to know about these terrorist cells and where they operate, therefore they pose no threat anyway, and president Bush's anti-terrorist policies are working after all.
But that is a minor point. Other reason that statement is stupid is that, in war, the enemy has a tendency to recruit more soldiers in order to kill more of their enemy. I know it sounds CRAZY, but it's the truth!! Now, is it possible that before we attacked Afghanistan and Iraq there were quite a few muslims in the country that hated the US but not enough to join a terrorist cell and fight it, and that our attack on those two countries has compelled them to rally to defend their Muslim brethren who they perceive to be under attack?
But all of this is achademic. The fact is that we haven't been attacked since 9/11, therefore our policy is working. Our goal isn't simply to make the terrorists go away, it's to make Americans safe.
"Meanwhile, Hezbollah spent the money it got from Iran not on weapons or more soldiers, but on building hospitals and repairing houses. You know what that got them? The world is considering taking Hezbollah off the terrorist list. The Lebanese back Hezbollah instead of the central government there. That's the result of 'winning the hearts and minds', snoopy. It's an actual positive result."
The reason why this example is worthless should be obvious, but for some reason you miss a lot... Hezballah is a group of Muslims with the same belief system as the people of Lebanon. The reason they support Hezballah is because they are IDEOLOGICALLY ALIGNED WITH THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. The Muslims don't hate us and attack us because we don't give them money, or because they're financially downtrodden. The leaders of the terrorist organizations themselves are loaded with oil money (and no doubt expliot the plight of some Muslims to their ends) but the primary reason is that they view us as evil infadels. I know of at least two different FORMER TERRORISTS, one from the PLO named Walid Shoebat, who say that the reason they did what they did was because as small children they were taught that Christians and Jews were evil infidels and should be killed. Whether you believe it or not doens't matter, it's a fact. I'm just appalled by the arrogance of people who think we can appease terrorists with money and things like that in the face of former Muslims themselves who declare that you can't. The would know better than any of these stupid elitists in Washington.
"News flash, Snoopy: Christians have killed for god too. And they've done it with even greater brutality. Guess what? I'm not justifying terrorist actions, but these terrorists haven't crucified anyone. You're going to counter "Oh, Christianity isn't like that anymore.." Yeah, well, neither is Islam. Terrorists just use it to get members, they aren't actually Muslim. Why don't you do some research and talk to real muslims?"
Have you ever heard of Charles Martel? No, of course you haven't. Before the crusades were ever dreampt about by the corrupt Catholic church officials (who, by the way, did not in any way reflect the true Christian faith, as set forth by the New Testament), Muslims were invading and marauding across the globe. They made it as far as Spain by crossing the mediterranean from Africa, leaving a trail of death and "converts" who were forced to become muslims at sword point. Charles Martel, the King of the Franks, defeated the Muslim forces at the battle of Tours, halting their advance on Europe for hundreds of years to come. All of this happened just 100 years after the death of Mohammad. Once again, so much for a peaceful religion. In sharp contrast, 100 years after the death of Christ, Christians all over the Roman empire were being persecuted and brutalized, and through their fervorous sacrifice spreading the faith all over Europe throughout the dark ages. In other words, it took 1000 years for the Catholic church to pervert Christianity to the point that they could incite violence against Muslims.
Obviously Islam HASN'T changed, and neither has Christianity, which is as peaceful and compassionate today as it was 2000 years ago. Just look up quotes from the Quran. I found a whole webpage full of Unmistakably violent quotes pulled right from it.
I've offered one piece of evidence after another that the Muslim faith is fundamentally violent. What's it going to take to wake you up to the truth of what we're up against?
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Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for an evening.
Light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Intelligence_Commission"
This article doesn't even prove your point. It says:
"The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction was a panel created by Executive Order 13328 signed by U.S. President George W. Bush in February of 2004. The impetus for the Commission lay with a public windstorm occasioned by statements, including those of Chief of the Iraq Survey Group David Kay, that the Intelligence Community had grossly erred in judging that Iraq had been developing WMD before the March 2003 start of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom.'"
It also says "Regarding Iraq, the Commission concluded that the Intelligence Community was "dead wrong" in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and that this constituted a major intelligence failure. The Commission's report described in great detail the systemic analytical, collection, and dissemination flaws that led to the Community's erroneous assessments about Iraq's alleged WMD programs."
Funny thing. For one thing, we DID find weapons of mass distruction.
Oh? I heard nothign about this one, unless you mean those depleted stockpiles of nerve gas. The most it'd do is make you sick, the stuff was ancient. Enough to lose 2,500 soldiers and injuring 400,000?
It's as simple as this. If someone (or a group of people) are constantly proven wrong when faced with historical evidence and logical scrutiny, the natural response would be to assume any further statements of theirs to be wrong. This is precisely the case with liberal ideology.
So we're wrong about Global Warming, we were wrong about the minimum wage (liberals were the ones who pushed for it), companies helping insure workers, social security, veteran's benefits, etc (all issues that conservatives sometimes violently opposed)? That's intrigueing, considering according to the commission, your president was wrong about intelligence data, wrong about WMDs in Iraq, and has repeatedly been wrong in press releases, even AFTER they were called upon it. So, should we stop listening to the bush administration? According to you, yes.
This report is interesting. First, where is your proof that we don't have enough troops in Iraq? Who decides how many troops are enough? That whole premise is politically loaded Democratic propoganda.
My proof is several generals stating they don't have enough troops to do the job.
Second, the report says "Prevent U.S. troops from being caught in the middle of a civil war in Iraq." My question to you is, what the heck do you think we're trying to do there in the first place? The ranks of the Iraqi security forces are being bolstered every day. Recent reports indicate that U.S. troops are practically completely out of harms way, most of the dangerous operations now being carried out by Iraqi security forces or a joint force of US and Iraqi troops. My point is that we are already carrying out this part of the plan.
We also don't have access to intelligence data and have the resources those in charge do. We just have ideas. I'd be glad for you to come up with opposition to the points in Strategic Redeployment 2.0. Also, since you only read part of the document, I'll disregard further comments on it.
It should be obvious that getting our troops out of Iraq has always been the plan, the difference between Bush and the Democrats in congress is that Bush wants to stay until the job is done and the Democrats want to leave now.
Democrats want to stay in there too. Nobody is saying to leave now. Show me a democrat who supports leaving right now. Show me.
I never meant to imply that we are fighting muslims. We are fighting their belief system. The reason you know good muslims is because they aren't really muslim.
So the millions of Muslims who aren't terrorists aren't muslims either? That's a wild thing to go on about. I hope you have data to back that up.
Their own scriptures tell them over and over again to spread their beliefs by the sword. You can argue that all you want, but Mohammad himself was a brutal butcher. He demonstrated exactly what he meant in the Q'ran by putting it to action.
The bible states that women are to be ultimately subservient to men, that you shouldn't eat red meat, that you should live your entire life for god, etc. You're clearly not doing so.
Therefore any Muslim that is not violent is also not a real muslim. You need to do some research. By the way, I can't find any evidence that any muslim Americans were beaten by Christian Americans in the wake of 9/11, although it's not unlikely. But you'll notice that it wasn't a widespread movement.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/witn-j13.shtml
This fact has always caused me to laugh when I hear people use the term "muslim extremists". That's like using the term "Christian extremists" to refer to the Catholic church: there are more Catholics than any other one Christian denomination. How could you call that etreme? Now, in the muslim world it's not quite that dramatic, but fully 1/8 of the muslims are Shiites, who are considered the voilent sect of Muslims. In other words, there is a reason why there are so many violent "extremist" muslims, because the correct interpretation of the Q'ran based on Mohammad himself leads to violence, and those who aren't violent simply value their lives more than their religion, aren't sincere, or just don't know the truth about what they believe, which is widespread among all religions in America because religion has taken such a back-seat in our society.
There are extremists in all religions. Not ALL shiites are terrorists. Christians disregard parts of the bible all the time. Muslism can too. Times are different, and that's excuse all religionists use. Fact.
Here's another piece of evidence for this. The Christian religion is constantly attacked by non-Christians, mostly liberals, coincidentally, and yet, how many times have Christians rioted in the streets all over the world demanding the death of those who perpetrated the offence? On the other hand, every time even a slight insult against Islam is publicized, "peaceful" Muslims all over the world state violent riots and madly demand the death of the offender. There goes your peaceful muslim theory. You need to wake up.
They have a totally different culture. It's not so much a religion thing as it is a society/culture thing. You'd do the same thing if someone put a picture of jesus blowing up a building in the newspaper, wouldn't you?
IF that's true, and somehow I doubt it, that statement is stupid for two reasons. The only way to know what states have terrorist cells is if we have found terrorist cells and know where they are. In order to do that we need to look for them. Could it be that the reason that there are more states that are prone to breeding terrorists is that we didn't KNOW about some of these terrorist cells and couldn't make an acurate estimate? Moreover, as I said before, to know this fact we would also have to know about these terrorist cells and where they operate, therefore they pose no threat anyway, and president Bush's anti-terrorist policies are working after all.
'Tis true. http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/16/26/
It's counting states that back terrorism. We watched terrorists a lot before (remember the '97 bombing? That scared the shit out of people), so it's not like we're just now noticing them.
Now, is it possible that before we attacked Afghanistan and Iraq there were quite a few muslims in the country that hated the US but not enough to join a terrorist cell and fight it, and that our attack on those two countries has compelled them to rally to defend their Muslim brethren who they perceive to be under attack?
And therein lies my reasoning. We are perceived to be attacking Islam, because of the way the war is being fought. Had we gone about Iraq in the right way, we'd of nto be dealing with these issues. Cheney specifically told the generals that were planning the war that "The next one to mention post-war planning gets fired." That's not a very good policy if you ask me.
But all of this is achademic. The fact is that we haven't been attacked since 9/11, therefore our policy is working. Our goal isn't simply to make the terrorists go away, it's to make Americans safe.
Just because the enemy hasn't attacked doesn't mean our policy's working. There are more terrorists in the world. It's only a matter of time before the amount we underfund anti-terrorism projects becomes evidently a bad decision.
The reason why this example is worthless should be obvious, but for some reason you miss a lot... Hezballah is a group of Muslims with the same belief system as the people of Lebanon. The reason they support Hezballah is because they are IDEOLOGICALLY ALIGNED WITH THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.
And the rest of the world is joining them because they helped their people.
The Muslims don't hate us and attack us because we don't give them money, or because they're financially downtrodden. The leaders of the terrorist organizations themselves are loaded with oil money (and no doubt expliot the plight of some Muslims to their ends) but the primary reason is that they view us as evil infadels.
The primary reason for terrorists doing what they do lies in their name. And while you simplify it, yes, they do indeed hate us for not assisting them. We are quite happy to blow them all to hell, but we won't help them improve themselves, noooo, that'd be terr'ism.
Obviously Islam HASN'T changed, and neither has Christianity, which is as peaceful and compassionate today as it was 2000 years ago. Just look up quotes from the Quran. I found a whole webpage full of Unmistakably violent quotes pulled right from it.
Does compassion from christians include beating atheists to death?
I've offered one piece of evidence after another that the Muslim faith is fundamentally violent. What's it going to take to wake you up to the truth of what we're up against?
When you use real evidence that doesn't come from FOX news.
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If a society is willing to give freedom for temporary security, they deserve neither.
I suddenly remember why I quit posting on Progressive U for a while... it's a waste of time.
I've noticed that you have an aweful time staying on topic. You make some silly statement, I completely refute it then you change the subject.
There is at least one example of this in your reply.
It also says "Regarding Iraq, the Commission concluded that the Intelligence Community was "dead wrong" in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and that this constituted a major intelligence failure. The Commission's report described in great detail the systemic analytical, collection, and dissemination flaws that led to the Community's erroneous assessments about Iraq's alleged WMD programs."
*sigh* YOU HAVE MISSED THE POINT. You were saying that Bush KNEW the information is faulty, and your same precious infallible commission ALSO said that "The commission found "no indication" that political pressure had been applied to distort the Intelligence Community's assessments on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." Obviously you can't say that they were wrong about that part, because that would throw all of the commissions findings into question, and the allegation that our intelligence was faulty would be unfounded. So, if we are to take this report as gospel truth, George Bush didn't know the intelligence was faulty (if indeed it was faulty in the first place) and therefore your claim that he knew it was faulty was a ridiculous one, especially since you had apparently read this report. There goes your credibility.
Oh? I heard nothign about this one, unless you mean those depleted stockpiles of nerve gas. The most it'd do is make you sick, the stuff was ancient. Enough to lose 2,500 soldiers and injuring 400,000?
Once again, you're dodging the point. I just pointed out that we found WMDs, though certainly not all of them, and somehow you're trying to downplay this by saying they were "old". In order to be old they had to be manufactured by someone, and were, at one point, new. Combined with the knowledge that Saddam Hussein USED some of these WMDs on his own people, the conclusion that he was in possession of them follows naturally, if you have a shred of common sense. Whether they were new or old when they were found is completely irrelevant. Where there's smoke there's fire.
So we're wrong about Global Warming, we were wrong about the minimum wage (liberals were the ones who pushed for it), companies helping insure workers, social security, veteran's benefits, etc (all issues that conservatives sometimes violently opposed)? That's intrigueing, considering according to the commission, your president was wrong about intelligence data, wrong about WMDs in Iraq, and has repeatedly been wrong in press releases, even AFTER they were called upon it. So, should we stop listening to the bush administration? According to you, yes.
You're not even being rational. George Bush is not an intelligence agent. He can only know what he's told. Therefore IF he had faulty intelligence (which is by no means a proven fact), the blame lies with the CIA and NSA, not with George Bush. But in reality I was trying to explain why I look so narrowly upon the word of liberals, not try to convince you that they are always wrong. Besides, according to you we can make the terrorists and "extemist" muslims quit hating us if we give them money and bear hugs. They'll just "lay down their weapons" as that brilliant redeployment strategy suggested.
Democrats want to stay in there too. Nobody is saying to leave now. Show me a democrat who supports leaving right now. Show me.
Congress JUST voted down a Democrat bill to have all troops out of Iraq by July 1st, 2007 whether the Iraqi security forces were ready for it or not. That is CUT AND RUN: leaving before the job is done. And don't mince words like a juvenile, for an entire army, leaving in 6-8 months is NOW.
We also don't have access to intelligence data and have the resources those in charge do. We just have ideas. I'd be glad for you to come up with opposition to the points in Strategic Redeployment 2.0. Also, since you only read part of the document, I'll disregard further comments on it.
I'm not going to bother reading it in deapth because the whole report is baseless in the firsrt place. In case MoveOn.org forgot to mention it, shortly after the death of Al-Zarqawi, a document was found in his safe house that described how well U.S. policies were working to eliminate the resistance, saying that "time is now on their side". Our policies are working marvelously according to this document. And don't try to tell me it's a plant. The government could have planted it a long time ago rather than take the months of endless political backlash.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/06/15/D8I8LJBG0.html
I do agree with one thing in the report, though. We do need to turn our attention to Iran.
The bible states that women are to be ultimately subservient to men, that you shouldn't eat red meat, that you should live your entire life for god, etc. You're clearly not doing so.
First of all, what do you know about the Bible? Obviously nothing. Your critiques, therefore, hardly merrit consideration. However, the Bible does NOT make women "ultimately subservient to men". It is very clear that men and women should serve eachother. Women should be subject to the authority of men, but being under someone's authority is a whole lot different than merely being "subservient". By the same token, men are given great responsibilities toward women. Funny that more and more women are discovering that they don't really want to be career women like everyone has told them their entire lives. They're finding out they'd rather be full-time moms.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/10/nfam110.xml
That's a whole lot better than the Q'ran, which suggests that men beat their women if they even suspect them of haughtyness or rebelliousness toward them. Unclean meat and purification practices were purely for Jewish ceremonial reasons, and in the new testament God gave christians liberty to eat what were considered in Jewish tradition to be "unclean" meats. It's interesting to note that many of the ceremonial practices set for in the old testament seem eerily like sterilization protocol that would have prevented the spread of disease. Bacteria weren't even discovered until the 19th century... but that's another topic altogether. Finally, how exactly do you conclude that I'm not living my life "for God" as you so vaguely phrase it?
"http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/witn-j13.shtml"
You are the king of irrelevant external links. Nowhere in that article does it say anything about christians beating muslims. How long did you have to search on google to find this article that didn't even prove your point?
There are extremists in all religions. Not ALL shiites are terrorists.
YOU'RE NOT LISTENING. Yes, there are extremists in all religions, BUT THERE IS A DISPROPORTIONATE percentage of extremists within Islam compared to other religions. In fact, there is no comparison that can be drawn to other religions. There are millions and millions of violent muslims in the realm of Islam. How many "Christian" terrorists are there in the world? Two... three?
Christians disregard parts of the bible all the time. Muslism can too. Times are different, and that's excuse all religionists use. Fact.
You're changing the subject AND missing the point AGAIN. The point is not who disregards what, it's that if someone adhered as closely to the Q'ran as possible, they would end up as violent extremists, whereas if someone did the same with the Bible, you would get the exact opposite result. This why there are SO MANY violent muslims.
They have a totally different culture. It's not so much a religion thing as it is a society/culture thing. You'd do the same thing if someone put a picture of jesus blowing up a building in the newspaper, wouldn't you?
*shakes head* Last I checked, religion is PART of culture. Call my CRAZY. In fact, religion is one of the most fundamental parts of any culture. Do you think they just pulled their culture out of thin air? Their culture is a direct symptom of their religion!!! Just look at their laws: they come directly from the Q'ran. And you don't listen very well, do you? I just said that Jesus is constantly made fun of and disrespected in any number of ways in our society. Yet I haven't seen one Christian demand the death of those who who offend them. No, if a newspaper ran such a comic, the most I would do is write a letter to the editor telling him how shameful it was, not threatening to kill him.
'Tis true. http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/16/26/
Do you even bother to check the source of this information? It's some kind of humanitarian organization. They're not even accessing the success of the Bush administration's policies. If a government is toppled in some third-world country and it becomes a breeding ground for terrorists as a result, how is that Bush's fault?
"And therein lies my reasoning. We are perceived to be attacking Islam, because of the way the war is being fought. Had we gone about Iraq in the right way, we'd of nto be dealing with these issues. Cheney specifically told the generals that were planning the war that "The next one to mention post-war planning gets fired." That's not a very good policy if you ask me."
Exactly how do you fight a war the "right way", Mr. five-star General? Bush has made it clear in all of his speaches (he's a lot more diplomatic than I would be) that we are NOT fighting Islam, but islamic extremists. There's no way we could have prosecuted this war that would not be interpreted as an attack on Islam by some muslims. By the way, I can't find that quote quote by Cheney anywhere on the internet.
"Just because the enemy hasn't attacked doesn't mean our policy's working. There are more terrorists in the world. It's only a matter of time before the amount we underfund anti-terrorism projects becomes evidently a bad decision."
What? This doesn't even make sense. We haven't been attacked. Period. Who cares how many terrorists there are in the world as long as they can't successfully attack us? We're spending billions of dollars on counterterrorism projects. Who decides how much spending is enough? In case you haven't learned this in school yet, there isn't an infinite amount of money in the world. And, maybe it's just me, but the democrats are the ones trying to defeat every anti-terrorist measure that comes along...
And the rest of the world is joining them because they helped their people.
The rest of the world is joining them because the U.N. is fillied with a bunch of gullible morons, who, despite the fact that they have never solved anything, still believe that declaring a cease fire will ultimately end the fighting. You know what they say, Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. That's exactly what the U.N. is doing. They have no credibility. Moreover, the U.N. has demonstrated an anti-semitic bias ever since it was founded.
But once again, you're missing the whole point. The rest of the world is also not made up of muslims who hate Hezballah for deap-seated religious reasons. This isn't difficult stuff unless you're trying to be dense.
The primary reason for terrorists doing what they do lies in their name. And while you simplify it, yes, they do indeed hate us for not assisting them. We are quite happy to blow them all to hell, but we won't help them improve themselves, noooo, that'd be terr'ism.
WHAT DOES THEIR NAME HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?? Are you trying to sound ignorant? They're called terrorists because of what they do, they don't do what they do because they're called terrorists. Do I write because someone calls me a writer or do poeple call me a writer because I write. I can't believe I'm having to tell you this.
And to use your own words News Flash, Xbot, the world, including the U.S., sends millions of dollars in aid to any number of muslim countries. Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Jordan, and Indonesia are 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 13th, on the list of top recipients of U.S. foreign aid. This raises the question: WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???? YOU HAVE NO CREDIBILITY WHATSOEVER as far as I'm concerned.
Does compassion from christians include beating atheists to death?
No, which is precisely why it hasn't happened, as far as google is concerned. Your resort to making unfounded accusations proves better than the exchagne itself that you're losing this argument badly.
When you use real evidence that doesn't come from FOX news.
FYI, none of my information has come from fox news. You need to use real evidence that didn't come from some kooky liberal blogger somewhere. I can't count all of the times you sited some 2-bit blog to back up your arguments.
As far as I'm concerned, this argument is over. You're wasting my time and energy.
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Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for an evening.
Light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.