Stop the War

�

The Refugees Unleashed Forum Index -> News U.S. Canadian, Dutch and worldwide

Stop the War - Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Next

View previous topic :: View next topic

olympic

Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 11:47 pm

yankee-in-france wrote:

Pax, I think it is because of an illogical perception that citizens who need help are lazy and unproductive and their plight is the result of their personal failures. Those people do not take into account people who are seriously ill, physically or mentally, through no fault of their own. They do not take into account that good people sometimes exercise bad judgment and given a bit of help will pull themselves up again. They are blind to everyone else's problems. Of course, there are freeloaders but they aren't the majority.

I am clueless as to why people would prefer funding the military-industrial complex over improving life for Americans whether it is health care or infrastructure repairs or replacement, but I think they might be misguided and think that it will increase their net worth and that is very important to them.

right on!

Joined: 18 Dec 2006
Posts: 1662

olympic

Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 11:55 pm

in one year, will the american people repeal or enhance the patriot act?

are we going to smite down the continued dissolution of our constitution, or will we think for ourselves and vote with our conscience?

Joined: 18 Dec 2006
Posts: 1662

pax

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 1:24 pm

I'm urging my Congressmen and Senators to repeal the Patriot Act. We can protect ourselves without overbroad intrusions into the average citizen's privacy. The Justice Department pressuring internet service providers for personal information on all their clients tipped the balance for me to believe the Patriot Act should be repealed.

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16085
Location: Wish You Were Here

dithers

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 2:37 pm

pax wrote:

Are you for or against the methods of the RIAA when it comes to gathering info from a downloader's ISP?

Are you for or against random roadblocks that are set up to find drunken drivers and/or non-seatbelt use violators?

What individual privacy have you lost under the Patriot Act? More specifically, what rights have you lost that you've personally noticed or that have impacted your life?

Pax wrote: We can protect ourselves without overbroad intrusions into the average citizen's privacy

Rather than simply opining that we we can protect with ourselves with other methods, what do you suggest as an alternative? Where's the meat? It's easy to say something but quite another to offer a workable alternative.

Please don't resort to your usual response and tell me to look it up myself.

Pretty in Blonde

Joined: 17 Apr 2006
Posts: 3468

Need2Know

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 3:32 pm

Many of the most constitutionally offensive measures in the Act are not limited to terrorist offenses, but apply to any criminal activity. In fact, some of the new police powers could be applied even to those engaging in peaceful protest against government policies. The bill as written defines terrorism as acts intended “to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.” Under this broad definition, a scuffle at an otherwise peaceful pro-life demonstration might subject attendees to a federal investigation. We have seen abuses of law enforcement authority in the past to harass individuals or organizations with unpopular political views. Congress has given future administrations a tool to investigate pro-life or gun rights organizations on the grounds that fringe members of such groups advocate violence.

The Patriot Act waters down the Fourth amendment by expanding the federal government's ability to use wiretaps without judicial oversight. The requirement of a search warrant and probable cause strikes a balance between effective law enforcement and civil liberties. Any attempt to dilute the warrant requirement threatens innocent citizens with a loss of their liberty. This is particularly true of provisions that allow for issuance of nationwide search warrants that are not specific to any given location, nor subject to any local judicial oversight.

The Act makes it far easier for the government to monitor your internet usage by adopting a lower standard than probable cause for intercepting e-mails and internet communications. I wonder how my Congress would feel if all of their e-mail headings and the names of the web sites they visited were available to law enforcement upon a showing of mere “relevance.”

N2K

Joined: 06 Jul 2006
Posts: 8924

dithers

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 4:28 pm

N2K wrote:

Quote:

Many of the most constitutionally offensive measures in the Act are not limited to terrorist offenses, but apply to any criminal activity

Say what?? Did you misspeak or am I missing something here?

Pretty in Blonde

Joined: 17 Apr 2006
Posts: 3468

Need2Know

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 4:32 pm

dithers wrote:

N2K wrote:

Quote:

Many of the most constitutionally offensive measures in the Act are not limited to terrorist offenses, but apply to any criminal activity

Say what?? Did you misspeak or am I missing something here?

No, I did not, the meaning is that the government can use the Act's broad definition for any allegation of criminal activity and they then bypass the restrictions against abuse of police powers.

The bill as written defines terrorism as acts intended “to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.”

N2K

Joined: 06 Jul 2006
Posts: 8924

pax

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 6:37 pm

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16085
Location: Wish You Were Here

dithers

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 3:35 pm

You guys need to cross that bridge into the 21st century. While I don't think we should cede privileges willy-nilly - by the same token to think we can always live in the George Washington/Thomas Jefferson/Ben Franklin age is foolish. Things change.

Quote:

Intel Official: Say Goodbye to Privacy

Nov 11, 11:39 AM (ET)

WASHINGTON (AP) - A top intelligence official says it is time people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people's private communications and financial information.

Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act.

Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S.

The original law required a court order for any surveillance conducted on U.S. soil, to protect Americans' privacy. The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering.

The most contentious issue in the new legislation is whether to shield telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly giving the government access to people's private e-mails and phone calls without a court order between 2001 and 2007.

Some lawmakers, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appear reluctant to grant immunity. Suits might be the only way to determine how far the government has burrowed into people's privacy without court permission.

The committee is expected to decide this week whether its version of the bill will protect telecommunications companies.

The central witness in a California lawsuit against AT&T says the government is vacuuming up billions of e-mails and phone calls as they pass through an AT&T switching station in San Francisco.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, helped connect a device in 2003 that he says diverted and copied onto a government supercomputer every call, e-mail, and Internet site access on AT&T lines.

Pretty in Blonde

Joined: 17 Apr 2006
Posts: 3468

pax

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 11:47 pm

Interesting article Dithers, thanks. Reasonable minds can disagree, and still live in the same century.

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16085
Location: Wish You Were Here

pax

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 1:51 am

The other day, U.S. Catholic bishops described the situation in Iraq as "unacceptable" and urged the withdrawal of troops as quickly as possible.

That's a Catholic withdrawal method I endorse. Laughing

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16085
Location: Wish You Were Here

tulsad

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 2:00 am

pax wrote:

I take it you're Catholic? Laughing Fit 1

Sparkly Tree

Joined: 19 Aug 2006
Posts: 10139

pax

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 5:41 pm

Any news on ending the war?

No? Back to where's waldo.

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16085
Location: Wish You Were Here

pax

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 1:22 pm

From salon.com:

Why Bush's troop surge won't save Iraq

The influx of U.S. troops brought a relative lull in violence -- but the failing state remains in political chaos and is headed for collapse.

By Juan Cole

Dec. 4, 2007 | Appearing on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia gave some needed perspective on the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq. Webb, a Vietnam veteran and former secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, recently returned from a visit to Iraq. He said that it was inaccurate to attribute the recent reduction in violence entirely to Bush's troop escalation. Moreover, Webb said that any security improvements in Iraq would only help if accompanied by political progress. He criticized the administration for "the failure for the last five years to match the quality of our military performance with robust regional diplomacy."

Webb was correct to point out that the only truly good news to come from Iraq would be good news regarding the political landscape. And there, Iraq is still beset with problems. In recent days, parts of northern Iraq have been invaded by Turkey, an ally of the United States. In Baghdad, Sunni members of parliament staged a walkout to defend their leader, whose bodyguards were implicated in fashioning car bombs. Proposed legislation reducing sanctions against Sunni Arabs who once belonged to the Baath Party nearly produced a riot in parliament. Meanwhile, Britain and Australia, among Bush's few remaining allies with combat troops in Iraq, are planning to depart in 2008, raising questions about security in the key southern port city of Basra, the major route for the country's lucrative oil exports.

What the recent publicity about the "success" of the troop surge has ignored is this: The Bush administration has downplayed the collapsing political situation in Iraq by directing the public's attention to fluctuating numbers of civilians killed. While there have been some relative gains in security recently, even there the picture remains dubious. The Iraqi ministry of health, long known for cooking the books, says that a few hundred Iraqis were killed in political violence in November. However, independent observers such as Iraq Body Count cite a much higher number -- some 1,100 civilians killed in Iraq in November. They reported that bombings and assassinations accounted for 63 persons on Saturday, the first day of December, alone.

Indeed, the "good news" of a lull in violence is relative at best. In fact, Iraq's overall death rate makes it among the worst civil conflicts in the world. Even if one accepted the official Iraqi government statistics, the average number of Iraqi deaths directly attributable to political violence in the past three full months has been around 700 per month. That pace, if maintained, would work out to about 8,400 deaths a year. (I am citing the kind of war statistics produced by passive information gathering such as in newspapers. Using a more comprehensive public health study such as the one that appeared in the Lancet last year, which takes into account deaths from criminal violence and insecurity generally, would result in much higher numbers.) In all of Northern Ireland's troubles over 30 years, only about 3,000 persons are thought to have been killed. In Kashmir since 1989, some 40,000 to 90,000 persons have been killed in communal and guerrilla violence; if we take the higher number, that's roughly 419 killed per month. Perhaps only Somalia and Sudan witness killings on that scale, and no one would say that "good news" is coming out of either of those places.

The current "good news" campaign from the Bush administration regarding the troop surge is only the latest in a long history of whitewashing the war since the 2003 invasion. First, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld denied that there was massive looting following the fall of Baghdad. Then he denied that there was a rising guerrilla war. Then, after the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani maneuvered an unwilling Bush administration into holding relatively free elections, the victory of Shiite fundamentalists close to Iran was obscured by the "purple thumb" good news campaign. That is, the administration focused on the democratic process and relative success of the voting, diverting attention from the bad news that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq had taken over.

Later, it was good news when the Iraqi parliament produced a theocratic constitution with all the weaknesses of the U.S. Articles of Confederation, even though all three Sunni-majority provinces rejected it in the subsequent referendum. What was in the constitution was not important, only that it existed. The Bush administration has heralded any number of such "milestones" reached, but not whether they led to worthwhile results.

Obscured by these "milestones" is that the orgy of violence in Iraq has displaced 2 million persons abroad and another 2 million internally, and left tens of thousands dead. But now the "good news" is that the guerrillas appear not to have been able to keep up the pace of violence characteristic of 2006 and early 2007, even if the pace they maintain today is horrific.

Moreover, the relative reduction in violence is artificial and probably cannot endure. Blast walls enclose once posh Baghdad districts like Adhamiya, but although they keep out death squads they also keep out the customers that shopkeepers depend on. When a Baghdad pet market was bombed recently, it was revealed that the US military had banned vehicles in its vicinity for some time, but allowed cars to drive there again just a few days before the bombing. Vehicle bans are effective, but not practical in the medium or long term. When they end, what will prevent the bombs from returning?

Recent political developments have been ominous on multiple fronts. On Saturday, Turkey says it launched an attack inside Iraq on positions of the radical Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which is on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations. The Turkish press reported that 100 Turkish special operations troops went into Iraq. In short, there was a small invasion. Turkey charges that PKK guerrillas have conducted cross-border raids, killing dozens of Turkish troops. Turkey is a NATO ally of the United States -- but the Iraqi Kurds are virtually the only firm friends Washington has in Iraq, so the Bush administration is now caught between the anvil and the fire.

In Baghdad, politics are a mess. Critics of Bush's policy complain that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite fundamentalist, has not reached out with sufficient vigor to Sunni Arabs to seek reconciliation. In fact, the situation is far worse than that.

The case of one Sunni Arab leader is emblematic: On Saturday, the members of the Iraqi Accord Front in parliament staged a mass walkout, charging that the U.S. military had put their leader, Adnan Dulaimi, under house arrest. In Tikrit, a Sunni Arab city north of Baghdad known as Saddam Hussein's hometown, hundreds of citizens demonstrated on behalf of Dulaimi. The boycott ended on Sunday when U.S. troops brought Dulaimi to the Al-Rashid Hotel in the Green Zone, so that he could be safe enough to attend parliament.

The bizarre dispute had begun Thursday night when U.S. forces were investigating violence against members of the local "Awakening Council," tribal fighters paid by the Americans to fight radical jihadis. (This is the strategy the U.S. has used with some success in the Anbar province.) U.S. troops traced the cars used in the attack to Dulaimi's compound, then found a rigged-up car bomb nearby, to which one of Dulaimi's guards had the key. The U.S. military detained some 40 of the Sunni leader's bodyguards, as well has his son, Makki.

On Sunday, the Iraqi government charged that chemical tests showed that seven of Dulaimi's bodyguards had been handling explosives. The most charitable interpretation one could put on the evidence released so far is that a terror ring was operating among Dulaimi's bodyguards without his knowledge. If that were so, it would suggest a shocking lack of judgment on his part. Or, as he himself suggested, it is not impossible that the rogue guards were planning to assassinate Dulaimi himself; several prominent Sunni Arab politicians have been attacked by their own security guards.

But of the three possibilities -- that Dulaimi or his son is actively implicated in political violence; that unbeknownst to him, his mansion was being used for bomb making; or that his household had been infiltrated by radical Sunni fundamentalists intent on killing him -- none qualifies remotely as the type of "good news" for which Bush's supporters are looking.

The bloc in parliament that Dulaimi leads had withdrawn this summer from the so-called national unity government of al-Maliki, with its six cabinet ministers resigning. Al-Maliki for a while declined to accept their resignations, then abruptly accused them of absenteeism and dismissed them, depriving them of pensions and perquisites. Then he attempted to appoint other Sunnis to his cabinet, from the tribal Awakening Councils that are on the U.S. payroll, but parliamentarians complained that these individuals had not been elected to office.

The Iraqi Accord Front comprises Sunni Arabs who until recently had been willing to serve in al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government. They have shown no inclination to rejoin him. The tribal Awakening Councils in al-Anbar Province and elsewhere have turned against the Salafi jihadis (who sometimes style themselves "al-Qaida," though they have no direct ties to Osama bin Laden). But most of their members are still deeply distrustful of the al-Maliki government, which they tend to view as Iranian. (Iranians are also Shiites, but unlike Iraqis do not speak Arabic.)

There are other signs that efforts toward political reconciliation are failing miserably. A significant element in the Sunni guerrilla movement around Mosul is the Izzat al-Duri faction of the Baath Party, which also has support in Baghdad neighborhoods such as Adhamiya. In a quest to mollify these guerrillas and their sympathizers and bring them in from the cold, the Bush administration has pressed the al-Maliki government to pass legislation softening the decrees that excluded tens of thousands of former Baath Party members from government employment. But when the cabinet presented such a bill to parliament last week, deputies loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr banged their desks and disrupted the proceedings. Parliament adjourned with shouting and scuffling. Indeed, there is some question about whether a measure so repugnant to the Shiite and Kurdish blocs in parliament has much chance of being passed.

In the deep south at Basra -- in the past cited as a more stable part of the country -- aides of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraqi Shiites, have complained of a wave of some 200 assassinations. Security is not good in the city, with Shiite militias and tribal forces often battling one another for control of petroleum smuggling. Basra Province contains Iraq's only ports, and it exports most of Iraq's petroleum. The main guarantors of security in Basra and surrounding provinces had been the British, who are now leaving. By March, plans to diminish the number of British troops will leave only 2,500 of them at Basra airport, and some members of the British parliament are now worried that those troops will become increasingly vulnerable to attack as Britain's overall troop level dwindles. The 500 Australian combat troops in southern Iraq will also leave by next summer, according to newly elected Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

The lack of virtually any good political news from around the country is what drives the war boosters to cite death statistics. Obviously, the people of al-Anbar Province are tired of their young men being blown up by Saudi and Moroccan jihadis, and they have mobilized to stop the foreigners. But no one is arguing that al-Anbar's roughly 1 million predominantly Sunni citizens have suddenly become enamored of the Shiite government in Baghdad. Nor has the strategy of using local Awakening Councils to combat the so-called forces of al-Qaida been nearly as successful in Diyala Province, which is mixed, with Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

Obviously, if the U.S. military wants to stop car bombings by banning vehicular traffic to certain markets, it can do so, especially using thousands of extra troops concentrated in specific areas. But although there has been a relative lull in violence in the U.S.-reinforced Baghdad, the U.S. military acknowledges that the Iraqi capital is still a very dangerous place. One question is whether the violence will explode again when U.S. forces inevitably withdraw. But the far more important question is this: How much longer can Iraq limp along as a failing state before it really begins to collapse?

Salon contributor Juan Cole is a professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan and the author of "Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East."

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16085
Location: Wish You Were Here

Need2Know

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 1:49 pm

Does this sound familiar? And the Bush administration believes they have any credibility left?

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US intelligence community said in a new report Monday that Iran halted its nuclear weapons drive in 2003 and that US charges about Tehran's atomic goals have been overblown for at least two years.

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) raised fresh questions about the White House's battered credibility on a matter of war and peace five years after the US drive to invade Iraq based on dire, but false, warnings.

In October, US President George W. Bush raised the specters of "World War III" or a "nuclear holocaust" if Iran gets an atomic arsenal and wrongly claimed that Tehran had openly "proclaimed" its desire for one.

The NIE, the consensus view of all 16 US spy agencies, said it was unclear whether Iran sought nuclear arms and that halting its still-dormant program suggested greater susceptibility to global pressure than had been thought.

The report said that Iran appears "less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005" and concluded that "the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests that Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously."

It also cautioned that the Islamic republic was keeping its nuclear options open, still bucked international demands to freeze uranium enrichment, and that Tehran could have the technical ability to make a nuclear weapon sometime between 2010 and 2015.

"But we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons," cautioned declassified findings of the the estimate, which starkly contradicted a 2005 NIE's conclusions.

The findings provided ammunition to both sides in the international dispute over the best approach to Iran, and were were expected to fuel rather than quench the often bitter US debate over Iran policy ahead of the November 2008 presidential elections.

US national security adviser Stephen Hadley said he hoped that Russia and China would not stiffen their opposition to imposing further sanctions on Iran.

"There's going to be a tendency of a lot of people to say: 'The problem's less bad than we thought, let's relax,'" said Hadley. "Our view is that would be a mistake."

China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi held a round of telephone diplomacy with EU and US counterparts, his ministry said Tuesday, after the US report was published.

Yang held talks with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana late Monday and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice early Tuesday, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

"The Chinese side is willing to continue to make efforts to appropriately resolve the Iranian nuclear issue," the statement quoted Yang as telling Solana in the late-night telephone call.

At a White House briefing, Hadley flatly denied any escalation in US rhetoric on Iran and insisted that the NIE proved that "we have the right strategy" of stepping up international pressure.

"The bottom line is that for that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran with diplomatic isolation, United Nations sanctions and with other financial pressure. And Iran has to decide that it wants to negotiate a solution," he said.

But the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, said that the estimate proved that "the intelligence community has learned its lessons from the Iraq debacle.

"It has issued judgments that break sharply with its own previous assessments, and they reflect a real difference from the views espoused by top administration officials," he said in a statement.

And Senate Democratic Majority leader Harry Reid called on Bush to emulate former Republican president Ronald Reagan's dialogue with the Soviet Union, pushing for "a surge of diplomacy" with Tehran.

The NIE cited "high confidence" that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program in late 2003 and "moderate confidence" that it had not restarted as of mid-2007.

"Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously," it said.

The report found that "the earliest possible date" Iran could have enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon was late 2009, "but that this is very unlikely."

The NIE judged with "moderate confidence" that Iran would be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon "sometime during the 2010-2015 timeframe," with the US State Department saying not before 2013.

Iran denies Western charges that it seeks nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic energy program, and has drawn UN sanctions for refusing to freeze its uranium enrichment, which can yield materials for a nuclear bomb.

Washington recently slapped unilateral sanctions on Iran, and has been pushing for a third round from the United Nations.

N2K

Joined: 06 Jul 2006
Posts: 8924

pax

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 9:12 pm

What's sad is that it hurts our national security when the Commander In Chief has cried wolf so many times that few take him seriously.

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16085
Location: Wish You Were Here

yankee-in-france

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 8:09 am

pax wrote:

What's sad is that it hurts our national security when the Commander In Chief has cried wolf so many times that few take him seriously.

I agree, but was he ever really taken seriously by many people? We can only be glad that he has but a year left of a dismal second term and perhaps Congress can reign him in on increasing any more debt.

YIF

Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 6599
Location: France

yankee-in-france

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 8:55 am

dithers wrote:

Are you for or against the methods of the RIAA when it comes to gathering info from a downloader's ISP?

Against.

Are you for or against random roadblocks that are set up to find drunken drivers and/or non-seatbelt use violators?

Against.

What individual privacy have you lost under the Patriot Act?

I agree with Pax's comments and would add that none of us know whether we have lost individual privacy. The government is not going to send us a note that they have invaded our privacy with an unwarranted search and that they now have a list of every book taken out on our library cards or every movie rented from Blockbuster.

More specifically, what rights have you lost that you've personally noticed or that have impacted your life?

I do not believe in a big-brother state in any shape or form. With the continued dilution of our rights, that state now exists and it does not bode well for the future.

Pax wrote: We can protect ourselves without overbroad intrusions into the average citizen's privacy

Rather than simply opining that we we can protect with ourselves with other methods, what do you suggest as an alternative? Where's the meat? It's easy to say something but quite another to offer a workable alternative.

Please don't resort to your usual response and tell me to look it up myself.

I again agree with Pax's suggestion. The redrafting can certainly be accomplished without trampling on our rights and still protecting our country.

Off topic, I know but I cannot resist.

Yes, we ALL live in the 21st century. Is it not the time for us to realize that when our forefathers gave us the right constitutionally to bear arms that it was a different time -- a time when law enforcement was yet to be organized -- and that armed civilians were law enforcement of those days?

Isn't it amazing that there are people in the 21st century that believe that our forefathers would have given 300,000,000 people the right to buy at will automatic weapons, uzis, and handguns! Those men were not crazy, but we are.

Sorry for the off-topic rant.

YIF

Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 6599
Location: France

olympic

Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 11:05 pm

if we got bad leaders, we only got ourselves to blame

we're small people. they don't pay attention to us."

believing in the force of many, mass boycotts of gas companies and holding politicians accountable, is where its at.

"our country was founded by people who stood up for what's right," today, we don't stand up for nothing..... we fall for anything, as long as it's easy.

"i say we all have to work together to clean it all up."

Joined: 18 Dec 2006
Posts: 1662

pax

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 1:25 am

I wonder how others feel about the ability of the next President to end the war in the most effective and safe manner. I'd say Obama, Clinton, McCain, Romney in that order. It will take moderate people in Congress. We need to boot warmongers out of office, imo.

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16085
Location: Wish You Were Here

Phantom

Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 10:37 am

pax wrote:

Why are we in Iraq?

Subject: This is sobering. Needs to be read by both Democrats and Republicans alike!

This one is from the guy who had his finger on the nuclear trigger for three years as head of our defense and response complex buried under Cheyenne Mountain at Colorado Springs . He was the only person who could initiate a nuclear attack after advising the sitting president of a missile launch by our enemies and our need to respond. No political or civilian type in the US had more knowledge about day to day military actions around the world. Everyone should find quiet time to read this. John R. (Jack) Farrington Major General, USAF (Retired)

_________________________________________

Middle East Imperative

I re cently wrote about the war in Iraq and the larger war against radical Islam, eliciting a number of responses. Let me try and put this conflict in proper perspective. Understand, the current battle we are engaged in is much bigger than just Iraq . What happens in the next year will affect this country and how our kids and grandkids live throughout their lifetime, and beyond.. Radical Islam has been attacking the West since the seventh century. They have been defeated in the past and decimated to the point of taking hundreds of years to recover. But they can never be totally defeated. Their birth rates are so far beyond civilized world rates that in time they recover and attempt to dominate again.

There are eight terror-sponsoring countries that make up the grand threat to the West. Two , Saudi Arabia and Pakistan , just need firm pressure from the West to make major reforms. They need to decide who they are really going to support and c o mmit to that support. That answer is simple. They both will support who they ?think will hang in there until the end, and win. We are not sending very good signals in that direction right now, thanks to the Democrats.

The other six, Afghanistan , Iraq , Iran , Syria , North Korea and Libya will require regime change or a major policy shift. Now, let's look more closely.

Afghanistan and Iraq have both had regime changes, but are being fueled by outsiders from Syria and Iran . We have scared Gaddafi's pants off, and he has given up his quest for nuclear weapons, so I don't think Libya is now a threat.

North Korea (the non-Islamic threat) can be handled diplomatically by buying them off. They are starving. That leaves Syria and Iran . Syria is like a frightened puppy. Without the support of Iran they will join the stronger side. So where does that leave us? Sooner, or later, we are going to be forced to confront Iran, and i t better be before they gain nuclear capability.

In 1989 I served as a Command Director inside the Cheyenne Mountain complex located in Colorado Springs , Colorado for almost three years. My job there was to observe (through classified means) every missile shot anywhere in the world and assess if it was a threat to the US or Canada . If any shot was threatening to either nation I had only minutes to advise the President, as he had only minutes to respond.

I watched Iran and Iraq shoot missiles at each other every day, and all day long, for months. They killed hundreds of thousands of their people. Know why? They were fighting for control of the Middle East and that enormous oil supply.

At that time, they were preoccupied with their internal problems and could care less about toppling the west. Oil prices were fairly stable and we could not see an immediate threat. Well, the worst part of what we have done as a nation in Ir aq is to do away with the military capability of one of those nations. Now, Iran has a clear field to dominate the Middle East, since Iraq is no longer a threat to them. They have turned their attention to the only other threat to their dominance, they are convinced they will win, because the US is so divided, and the Democrat s (who now control Congress and may control the Presidency in 2008) have openly said we are pulling out.

Do you have any idea what will happen if the entire Middle East turns their support to Iran , which they will obviously do if we pull out? It is not the price of oil we will have to worry about. ?Oil WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE to this country at any price. I personally would vote for any presidential candidate who did what JFK did with the space program---declare a goal to bring this country to total energy independence in a decade.

Yes, it is about oil. The economy in this country will totally die if that Mid dle East supply is cut off right now. It will not be a recession. It will be a depression that will make 1929 look like the 'good-old-days'. The bottom line here is simple. If Iran is forced to fall in line, the fighting in Iraq will end over night, and the nightmare will be over.

One way or another, Iran must be forced to join modern times and the global community. It may mean a real war---if so, now is the time, before we face a nuclear Iran with the capacity to destroy Israel and begin a new ice age.

I urge you to read the book 'END GAME' by two of our best Middle East experts, true American patriots and retired military generals, Paul Vallely and Tom McInerney. They are our finest, and totally honest in their assessment of why victory in the Middle East is so important, and how it can be won. Proceeds for the book go directly to memorial fund for our fallen soldiers who served the country during the war on terror. You can find tha t book by going to the internet through Stand-up America at http://www.ospreyradio.us/ or http://www.rightalk.com/.

On the other hand, we have several very angry retired generals today, who evidently have not achieved their lofty goals, and insist on ranting and raving about the war. They are wrong, and doing the country great harm by giving a certain political party reason to use them as experts to back their anti-war claims.

You may be one of those who believe nothing could ever be terrible enough to support our going to war. If that is the case I should stop here, as that level of thinking approaches mental disability in this day and age. It is right up the re w ith alien abductions and high altitude seeding through government aircraft contrails. I helped produced those contrails for almost 30 years, and I can assure you we were not seeding the atmosphere.. The human race is a war-like population, and if a country is not willing to protect itself, it deserves the consequences. Nuff-said!!!

Now, my last comments will get to the nerve. They will be on politics.. I am not a Republican. And, George Bush has made enough mistakes as President to insure my feelings about that for the rest of my life. However, the Democratic Party has moved so far left, they have made me support those farther to the right. I am a ?conservative who totally supports the Constitution of this country. The only difference between the United States and the South American, third world, dictator infested and ever-changing South American governments, is our US Constitution.

This Republic (note I did not say Democracy ) is the longest standing the world has ever known, but it is vulnerable. It would take so little to change it through economic upheaval. There was a time when politicians could disagree, but still work together. We are past that time, and that is the initial step toward the downfall of our form of government. ?I think that many view Bush-hating as payback time. The Republicans hated the Clinton 's and now the Democrats hate Bush. So, both parties are putting their hate toward willingness to do anything for political dominance to include lying and always taking the opposite stand just for the sake of being opposed.

JUST HOW GOOD IS THAT FOR OUR COUNTRY?

In my lifetime, after serving in uniform for President's Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush I have a pretty good feel for which party supported our military, and what military life was like under each of their terms. And, let me assure you that times were b est u nder the Republicans. Service under Jimmy Carter was devastating for all branches of the military. And, Ronald Regan was truly a salvation. You can choose to listen to enriched newscasters, and foolish people like John Murtha (he is no war hero), Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Michael Moore, Jane Fonda , Harry Reid, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and on-and-on to include the true fools in Hollywood if you like. If you do, your conclusions will be totally wrong.

The reason that I write, appear on radio talk shows, and do everything I can to denounce those people is simple. THEY ARE PUTTING THEIR THIRST FOR POLITICAL POWER AND QUEST FOR VICTORY IN 2008 ABOVE WHAT IS BEST FOR THIS COUNTRY. I cannot abide that. ?Pelosi clearly defied the Logan Act by going to Syria , which should have lead to imprisonment of three years and a heavy fine.

Jane Fonda did more to prolong the Vietnam war longer than any other human be ing (a s acknowledged by Ho Chi Minh in his writing before he died). She truly should have been indicted for treason, along with her radical husband, Tom Hayden, and forced to pay the consequences.

This country has started to soften by not enforcing its laws, which is another indication of a Republic about to fall. All Democrats, along with the Hollywood elite, are sending us headlong into a total defeat in the Middle East, which will finally give Iran total dominance in the region. A lack of oil in the near future will be the final straw that dooms this Republic. However, if we refuse to let this happen and really get serious about an energy self-sufficiency program, this can be avoided. I am afraid, however, that we are going in the opposite direction.

If we elect Hillary Clinton and a Democrat-controlled congress, and they carry through with allowing Iran to take control of the Middle East, continue to refuse development of nuclear energy, refuse to allow drilling for new oil, and continue to do nothing but oppose everything Bush, it will be over in terms of what we view as the good life in the USA .

Now, do I think that all who do not support the war are un-American -- of course not. They just do not understand the importance of total victory in that region.

Another failure of George Bush is his inability to explain to the American people why we are there, and why we MUST win. By the way, it is not a war. It is martial law that is under attack by Iranian and Syrian outside influences, and there is a difference.

So, what do I believe? What is the bottom line? I will simply say that the Democratic Party has fielded the foulest, power hungry, anti-country, self absorbed group of individuals that I have observed in my lifetime. Our educational system is partially to blame for allowing the mass of America to be taken in by this group.

To win wars, you m ust put boots on the ground. When you put boots on the ground, soldiers are going to die. A President must make the war decision wisely, and insure that the cause is right before using his last political option. However, CONTROLLING IRAN AND DEMOCRATIZING THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE ONLY CHOICE IF WE ARE HELL-BENT ON DEPENDING ON THEM FOR OUR FUTURE ENERGY NEEDS.

'I'll tell you what war is all about, you've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting.' Gen. Curtis LeMay

Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end

Phantom

Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:03 am

"Victory at all cost; Victory in spite of all terror. Victory no matter how long and how hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival."

Winston Churchill, May 13, 1940

Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end

justamom

Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:53 am

pax wrote:

I think MCCain would be most trusted to pull us out considering his background as a POW. Not to mention hes a republican and for some reason this time around the repubs put someone up front that anyone can stand behind. Hes a decent guy and almost an Independant. Sincce the repubs got us into it Id like to see them get us out of it.

justaMILF

Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 6604
Location: in a cute farmhouse

pax

Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:42 pm

justamom wrote:

How does McCain plan to end the war and reduce the deficit while making permanent tax cuts for the rich?

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16085
Location: Wish You Were Here

dithers

Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:47 pm

pax wrote:

How does McCain plan to end the war and reduce the deficit while making permanent tax cuts for the rich?

Who do you consider to be the rich?

Pretty in Blonde

Joined: 17 Apr 2006
Posts: 3468

Display posts from previous:

	The Refugees Unleashed Forum Index -> News U.S. Canadian, Dutch and worldwide	All times are GMT - 5 Hours Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Next
Page 3 of 7

Jump to:

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

�