f13.net

So far I want to slap the shit out of both of them. I am a bit surprised at how acrimonious it is so early.

CRIPPLE FIGHT!!!

So far I want to slap the shit out of both of them. I am a bit surprised at how acrimonious it is so early.

CRIPPLE FIGHT!!!

One other thing I will say about Bush, the "it's hard work" almost comes off as an excuse. It IS hard work, but saying it that many times really was kind of sad, like a child whining when you ask them to do something. It's hard work, but it's your fucking job. YOU'RE THE PRESIDENT, SHUT UP ABOUT HOW HARD IT IS ALREADY!

Yeah, it was repetitive, but I didn't quite take it the same way you did. I just saw it as him saying to Kerry, "Listen Bud, I'm doing what anyone possibly can. You're not going to get even half the shit you've promised to do accomplished."

You guys really need another party or two.

That's funny, since I'm in the Libertarian party and whatnot. We don't need more parties, we need less people with their heads in the sand or brainwashed by the media.

Then give people the following options on the ballot:
Vote Republican: name of candidate
Vote Democrat: name of candidate
Vote neither: I hate both and this two party system sucks.

I would be willing to bet that a HUGE majority of people would pick the third option.

Compulsory voting so politicians have to cater to everyone and preferential voting so you can list the candidates you like in order from best to worst.  

There's a reason that voting is voluntary, and along with the right to vote comes the right NOT TO VOTE.  It's kind of part and parcel of living in a freedom-based society; the government not coercing it's citizens.

The "world" may be safer without Hussein, but Iraq sure isn't, because the US still has no cogent plan for how to secure that country without being an occupier.

Question for those that know does Canada, New Zealand, the UK have compulsory voting?

IWhat was really disheartening about the Bush side and his supporters is how much they continually attempt to hammer home points that are factually shaky at best.

Even though every single link between AQ and Iraq has been discredited at the worst and tenuous at best.

That's a LONG, LONG way from supporting Muhammed Atta and the 19 pilots.

The fact that Iraq is now one big recruiting/training ground for the terrorists of tommorow makes me feel that Im less safe. I hope I'm proven wrong, really I do.

That being said, I'm more worried about economic issues, social issues, and domestic issues which are all taking the backseat right now.

Therefore, the US shouldn't have attacked Germany or Italy or Japan, because that just made them recruit/train more soldiers.

The theme of the debate was foreign policy.

On the Daily Show's coverage, they spoke with Guiliani (sic), a man I respect. Rudy tried to continually make the case that Iraq had something to do with 9-11, and thus for that reason, it was a justifiable target in the war on terror.

Wrong.  If you actually READ the 9/11 report, the links between AQ and Iraq are well-documented.  No evidence of an operational collaborative relationship at the time of the war, to be sure, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  The evidence we do have tells us that the two were interested in working together, and there were numerous contacts and links between them.  Plus, terrorism is more than just AQ; Iraq has been assisting and harboring non-AQ terrorists for years.

What they will effect is my life at home. Their policies on the Patriot Act, the treatment of Homeland Security, the job market, social issues, etc.

Completely different time, situation, culture. Enough with the stupid comparisons.

Please to prove that.

Bin Ladin was also willing to explore possibilities for cooperation with Iraq, even though Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had never had an Islamist agenda—save for his opportunistic pose as a defender of the faithful against “Crusaders” during the Gulf War of 1991. Moreover, Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army.53
To protect his own ties with Iraq,Turabi reportedly brokered an agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting activities against Saddam. Bin Ladin apparently honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he continued to aid a group of Islamist extremists operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of Baghdad’s control. In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin’s help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime  tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.54
With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Ladin himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request.55 As described below, the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections.

There is also evidence that around this time Bin Ladin sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime, offering some cooperation. None are  reported to have received a significant response.According to one report, Saddam Hussein’s efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay clear of Bin Ladin.74
In mid-1998, the situation reversed; it was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative. In March 1998, after Bin Ladin’s public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence.
In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin’s Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis. In 1998, Iraq was under intensifying U.S. pressure, which culminated in a series of large air attacks in December.75
Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides’ hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.76

Though intelligence gave no clear indication of what might be afoot, some intelligence reports mentioned chemical weapons, pointing toward work at a camp in southern Afghanistan called Derunta.On November 4, 1998, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed its indictment of Bin Ladin, charging him with conspiracy to attack U.S. defense installations. The indictment also charged that al Qaeda had allied itself with Sudan, Iran, and Hezbollah.The original sealed indictment had added that al Qaeda had “reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.”109 This passage led Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to Berger that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was “probably a direct result of the Iraq–Al Qida agreement.” Clarke added that VX precursor traces found near al Shifa were the “exact formula used by Iraq.”110This language about al Qaeda’s “understanding” with Iraq had been dropped, however, when a superseding indictment was filed in November 1998.111

In February 1999,Allen proposed flying a U-2 mission over Afghanistan to build a baseline of intelligence outside the areas where the tribals had coverage. Clarke was nervous about such a mission because he continued to fear that Bin Ladin might leave for someplace less accessible.He wrote Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin Ladin’s having met with Iraqi officials, who “may have offered him asylum.” Other intelligence sources said that some Taliban leaders, though not Mullah Omar, had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq. If Bin Ladin actually moved to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Hussein’s service, and it would be “virtually impossible” to find him. Better to get Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, Clarke declared.134 Berger suggested sending one U-2 flight,but Clarke opposed even this. It would require Pakistani approval, he wrote; and “Pak[istan’s] intel[ligence service] is in bed with” Bin Ladin and would warn him that the United States was getting ready for a bombing campaign: “Armed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad.”135Though told also by Bruce Riedel of the NSC staff that Saddam Hussein wanted Bin Ladin in Baghdad,Berger conditionally authorized a single U-2 flight.Allen meanwhile had found other ways of getting the information he wanted. So the U-2 flight never occurred.136

 Frankly, everything I've read says that AQ fucking hated Saddamn almost as badly as he did the US.

 If there is no evidence of an operational collaborative relationship, that means THEY WERE NOT WORKING TOGETHER. That's all you need right there. They weren't working together.

Bzzt.

No the reason is so that white middle aged men of the same two parties can be voted in over and over again. Wake up and smell the coffee.

Do you liberals want it spelled out for you, we went after Iraq (not Saudi Arabia or N. Korea) because we KNEW we could whomp their ass and make a statement to the middle east at the same time plus get economic benefits of possible oil deals. That's the reasoning. Not WMDs, not vendettas, not any of the BS that both extremes have tried pinning on the situation. Someone needed an asswhooping and we doled it out because it was easy to do, and at the time many people were for it.

Umm, Paelos, perhaps I have my sarcasm filter set too high, but that's exactly what "we liberals" have been saying the whole time.

Did you READ what you quoted.

The level of "cooperation" between Bin Laden and Iraq was no larger than the level of cooperation between Bin Laden and Iran, Saudi-Arabia, Afghanistan, the Sudan,  Pakistan (our ally?), etc etc etc. In fact, it's smaller than those.

Hey Bruce, remember a certain speech from Bin Laden about that 9/11 attacks. WHERE HE SAYS HIMSELF HE DISLIKES SADDAM AND THE GOVERNMENT OF IRAQ?

Is that what you call "liberal media." Nice, I didn't know that Bin Laden wrote for the Village Voice on the side. Man gets around.

All your sad quotes come down to this: At various points when it was convenient for one side or the other, they talked a bit about doing something but then didn't. Yay! Mostly it comes down to agreeing to leave each other alone, rather than actively attack each other.

If you want to play the "let's attack people who were responsible for 9/11" game Iraq is a very poor target. If you want to play "let's attack people who bolster Bin Laden" Iraq is STILL A POOR TARGET.

That's is what is dishonest about you people chanting over and over that Saddam and Bin Laden are in bed. Bin Laden was much more involved with and supported by a lot of other places, none of which we are attacking.

"No, that's not all you need right there. There is evidence they WANTED to work together, that they were TRYING to work together, and that Hussein WAS working with OTHER terrorists. We don't know if he ever did work with AQ on an operation, but it's very possible he did or would have had we not stopped him. "

That's fucking pathetic. There are plenty of places that didn't just "want" or "try" to work with Bin Laden, they WERE WITHOUT A DOUBT working with Bin Laden. And for them it isn't just "possible" they would have worked with AQ, they WERE.

If you want to say that Iraq "cooperated" with AQ that's fine (as long as you qualify it to not be "operation" cooperation, also known as "actual cooperation", as long as you acknowledge that plenty of other places cooperated MUCH MORE DIRECTLY AND TO A MUCH LARGER EXTENT.

If you can't acknowledge that, please shut up already. You aren't lobbying to attack Iraq, because your logic suits a lot of places NOT named Iraq much better. If your list is based on terrorist and AQ support and cooperation, Iraq is far down on the list.

Gee, does "prioritization" mean anything to you? Apparently not. GUYS SOME OFFICIALS IN IRAQ THOUGHT ABOUT MAYBE WORKING WITH AQ AT SOME POINT MAYBE, AND WERE REJECTED BUT THEY MAYBE ARE THINKING ABOUT IT AGAIN LETS ATTACK!!!11111!!!111

Edit: Let me point out the stupidty of quoting a report where most of the most "damning" evidence comes from Richard Clarke, who your hatchet men have tried to discredit as a "bitter, jealous old man." And we all know what Clarke thinks about how the Bush administration has handled things. Next time you are going to quote someone, don't quote someone that clearly and vehemently disagrees with you.

It's extremely sad that on one hand you can dismiss Clarke while making it personal, then trot him out later as "evidence" to support your position when we all know he DOESN'T support it.

It's not just said, it's very dishonest.

"In the aftermath of Sept. 11, President Bush ordered his then top anti-terrorism adviser to look for a link between Iraq and the attacks, despite being told there didn't seem to be one.

The charge comes from the adviser, Richard Clarke, in an exclusive interview on 60 Minutes. "

Oops. Your source material disagrees with your conclusions!

Quick, come up with a terrible analogy to Germany for the win!

Then give people the following options on the ballot:
Vote Republican: name of candidate
Vote Democrat: name of candidate
Vote neither: I hate both and this two party system sucks.

I would be willing to bet that a HUGE majority of people would pick the third option.

Personally, I couldn't bring myself to watch the debate much. I think I'm just too emotionally involved in this Presidential Election.

I see Bush Jr. denying Kerry's accusations and the basic premise I stick to is, "Bush Jr. screwed up a lot and now he's in denial in an attempt to save his political career."

CRIPPLE FIGHT!!!

Yeah, compulsory voting is a keen idea.  Why, all the third world dictatorships are doing it!

What a jackass idea that is.  Let's force people who aren't politically motivated, aren't up on the issues, and are resentful of being forced to the polls or made to pay a fine pull the lever for leader of their country!  Fucking genius, that is.

There's a reason that voting is voluntary, and along with the right to vote comes the right NOT TO VOTE.  It's kind of part and parcel of living in a freedom-based society; the government not coercing it's citizens.

Jeez, let's boil it down to plain and simple:

Bush was PWNED last night.  Can an incumbent Commander in Chief stutter and stammer, stare off into nowhere, and backtrack on arguments any worse that he did?

No he wasn't. I'm not a supporter of Kerry and if Bush were 'PWNED' like you said, it would mean that Kerry said something that piqued my interest. He didn't. He said the same old shit we've heard a thousand times - but this time he had a time limit. Whoopty fucking doo. Waste of 90 minutes of my life and confirmation that whoever wins this fall, we lose.

But then it's not really important either, the American system works well enough.

A lot of people are laughing.

If you actually required mandatory voting, and made the polls much more easily accessed, while at the same time providing an option to "vote for no one", there by exercising your right to "not vote", you would get a much clearer idea of exactly where the "majority" of the US stands.

I guess the simple question however would be. Does the US government election ballot already have an option for "None of the Above", or are you forced to pick someones candidate?

The War on Terror is not just about AQ.  Democrats want to make it that, because that way they think they can just kill UBL and declare victory and bring all the troops home.  This demonstrates their fundamental inability to understand the nature of the terrorist threat the entire world faces.

Bruce

Oh please, don't tell me you actually buy into all this fear-mongering. Terrorism is nothing new. It's been going on since the dawn of time, just like crime, and is not a threat capable of growing very large. The only reason we have a hair up our collective butts about it right now is because one group of terrorists got lucky and were remarkably successful in their stunt (911).

Now in 2004 terrorism is just a buzz word being used by Bush as a personal strong-point to play to in his bid to retain power and continue to serve the corporate interests who support him as a politician.

The idea that we are interested in fighting global terrorism is just a convenient justification for the Iraq war.

But even if your assessment of motives is correct, then I have to decide whether I want a guy who I think is doing the right things motivated for the wrong reasons, or the guy who I think is doing the wrong things motivated by other, perhaps better, reasons.

The War on Terror will be about as effective, in the long run, as the "War on Drugs." You know, that great big military-style effort Bush 1 started to cut down the drug epidemic in this country? What did that accmplish?

The War on Drugs was started by Nixon, not by Bush 41.

Wrong. If you actually READ the 9/11 report, the links between AQ and Iraq are well-documented. No evidence of an operational collaborative relationship at the time of the war, to be sure, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The evidence we do have tells us that the two were interested in working together, and there were numerous contacts and links between them. Plus, terrorism is more than just AQ; Iraq has been assisting and harboring non-AQ terrorists for years.

God, I love Nixon for sooooooo many reasons. None of which have to do with what he might have done 'right' as president.

Iraq has never done anything of consequence to support AQ.  They may have talked at a couple points.  Big fucking deal.

Not to mention that the US is the group who trained and funded AQ leadership to start with, which is far more concrete collaboration than we've ever found from Iraq.  Where are we on the axis of evil?

 GEORGE W. BUSH MADE FEDERAL FUNDING FOR STEM CELL RESEARCH LEGAL.  That's right.  Before Bush, under the *Democrat* Clinton, federal funding for it was ILLEGAL.  

The lack of connections between Iraq and AQ would be no big deal had that talking point not been hammered home repeatedly by our president as one of the reasons we had to pre-emptively invade a country that was no threat to us.

And then repeatedly hammered home even after it was shown that such a connection was about as close as two random Arabs passing each other on a very wide street and waving.

Also, we taught them how to blow shit up. We didn't teach them that they should only use these tools to blow particular shit up. While you can build a gun to shoot many things, you can't control who or what said gun fires at.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Clinton isn't running for office is he? Should I put that in all caps. Fact: CLINTON IS NOT IN FACT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT.

More liberal rewriting of history.  The President did not hammer home repeatedly that Iraq and AQ were working together to do anything.  

Way to insult the entire Arab world, by claiming any random Arab would willingly harbor UBL and try to work with him to attack the United States, as Iraq would have.

And here you see typical liberal thinking again as it applies to gun control.  People aren't bad; it's the guns that are bad.  Don't give people guns and you don't have to worry about where they might shoot it!

   THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
The Boston Globe
Cheney link of Iraq, 9/11 challenged

By Anne E. Kornblut and Bryan Bender , Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, 9/16/2003

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney, anxious to defend the White House foreign policy amid ongoing violence in Iraq, stunned intelligence analysts and even members of his own administration this week by failing to dismiss a widely discredited claim: that Saddam Hussein might have played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Evidence of a connection, if any exists, has never been made public. Details that Cheney cited to make the case that the Iraqi dictator had ties to Al Qaeda have been dismissed by the CIA as having no basis, according to analysts and officials. Even before the war in Iraq, most Bush officials did not explicitly state that Iraq had a part in the attack on the United States two years ago.

But Cheney left that possibility wide open in a nationally televised interview two days ago, claiming that the administration is learning "more and more" about connections between Al Qaeda and Iraq before the Sept. 11 attacks. The statement surprised some analysts and officials who have reviewed intelligence reports from Iraq.

Democrats sharply attacked him for exaggerating the threat Iraq posed before the war.

"There is no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11," Senator Bob Graham, a Democrat running for president, said in an interview last night. "There was no such relationship."

A senior foreign policy adviser to Howard Dean, the Democratic front-runner, said it is "totally inappropriate for the vice president to continue making these allegations without bringing forward" any proof.

Cheney and his representatives declined to comment on the vice president's statements. But the comments also surprised some in the intelligence community who are already simmering over the way the administration utilized intelligence reports to strengthen the case for the war last winter.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism specialist, said that Cheney's "willingness to use speculation and conjecture as facts in public presentations is appalling. It's astounding."

In particular, current intelligence officials reiterated yesterday that a reported Prague visit in April 2001 between Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi agent had been discounted by the CIA, which sent former agency Director James R. Woolsey to investigate the claim. Woolsey did not find any evidence to confirm the report, officials said, and President Bush did not include it in the case for war in his State of the Union address last January.

But Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press," cited the report of the meeting as possible evidence of an Iraq-Al Qaeda link and said it was neither confirmed nor discredited, saying

: "We've never been able to develop any more of that yet, either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don't know."

Multiple intelligence officials said that the Prague meeting, purported to be between Atta and senior Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, was dismissed almost immediately after it was reported by Czech officials in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and has since been discredited further.

The CIA reported to Congress last year that it could not substantiate the claim, while American records indicate Atta was in Virginia Beach, Va., at the time, the officials said yesterday. Indeed, two intelligence officials said yesterday that Ani himself, now in US custody, has also refuted the report. The Czech government has also distanced itself from its original claim.

A senior defense official with access to high-level intelligence reports expressed confusion yesterday over the vice president's decision to reair charges that have been dropped by almost everyone else. "There isn't any new intelligence that would precipitate anything like this," the official said, speaking on condition he not be named.

Nonetheless, 69 percent of Americans believe that Hussein probably had a part in attacking the United States, according to a recent Washington Post poll. And Democratic senators have charged that the White House is fanning the misperception by mentioning Hussein and the Sept. 11 attacks in ways that suggest a link.

Bush administration officials insisted yesterday that they are learning more about various Iraqi connections with Al Qaeda. They said there is evidence suggesting a meeting took place between the head of Iraqi intelligence and Osama bin Laden in Sudan in the mid-1990s; another purported meeting was said to take place in Afghanistan, and during it Iraqi officials offered to provide chemical and biological weapons training, according to officials who have read transcripts of interrogations with Al Qaeda detainees.

But there is no evidence proving the Iraqi regime knew about or took part in the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush officials said.

Former senator Max Cleland, who is a member of the national commission investigating the attacks, said yesterday that classified documents he has reviewed on the subject weaken, rather than strengthen, administration assertions that Hussein's regime may have been allied with Al Qaeda.

"The vice president trying to justify some connection is ludicrous," he said.

Nonetheless, Cheney, in the "Meet the Press" interview Sunday, insisted that the United States is learning more about the links between Al Qaeda and Hussein.

"We learn more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s," Cheney said, "that it involved training, for example, on [biological and chemical weapons], that Al Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems."

The claims are based on a prewar allegation by a "senior terrorist operative," who said he overheard an Al Qaeda agent speak of a mission to seek biological or chemical weapons training in Iraq, according to Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement to the United Nations in February.

But intelligence specialists told the Globe last August that they have never confirmed that the training took place, or identified where it could have taken place. "The general public just doesn't have any independent way of weighing what is said," Cannistraro, the former CIA counterterrorism specialist, said. "If you repeat it enough times . . . then people become convinced it's the truth."
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
© Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
census

Bush said, in the debates, that we attacked Iraq because "they" attacked us. Then he said he knew we were attacked by Bin-Laden, but stood by his statement. The Bush people just don't draw a distinction.

LEHRER: Mr. President, new question. Two minutes. Does the Iraq experience make it more likely or less likely that you would take the United States into another preemptive military action?

BUSH: I would hope I never have to. I understand how hard it is to commit troops. Never wanted to commit troops. When I was running -- when we had the debate in 2000, never dreamt I’d be doing that.

But the enemy attacked us, Jim, and I have a solemn duty to protect the American people, to do everything I can to protect us.

I think that by speaking clearly and doing what we say and not sending mixed messages, it is less likely we’ll ever have to use troops.

But a president must always be willing to use troops. It must -- as a last resort.

I was hopeful diplomacy would work in Iraq. It was falling apart. There was no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was hoping that the world would turn a blind eye.

And if he had been in power, in other words, if we would have said, "Let the inspectors work, or let’s, you know, hope to talk him out. Maybe an 18th resolution would work," he would have been stronger and tougher, and the world would have been a lot worse off. There’s just no doubt in my mind we would rue the day, had Saddam Hussein been in power.

So we use diplomacy every chance we get, believe me. And I would hope to never have to use force.

But by speaking clearly and sending messages that we mean what we say, we’ve affected the world in a positive way.

Look at Libya. Libya was a threat. Libya is now peacefully dismantling its weapons programs.

Libya understood that America and others will enforce doctrine and that the world is better for it.

So to answer your question, I would hope we never have to. I think by acting firmly and decisively, it will mean it is less likely we have to use force.

I wasn't aware stem cell research was advanced as it is now, back in 1992 and 1996.

I'm just curious how in Bruce's mind, that no connections between Iraq and AQ means that in fact, they had connections.

Yes he did. State of the Union. EVERY SINGLE ADMINISTRATION PRESS CONFERENCE AFTER THAT. He even mentioned it in the fucking debates. He's still trying to claim they are connected.

Wow, way to not even read what I wrote, or understand analogy. Would it make any difference if I said the closeness of the connection was the same as two random black men or two random Puerto Ricans instead of Arabs. Ass.

Strangely enough, if people aren't given guns, you really don't have to worry about them shooting each other with guns.

They might pick up a knife and stab each other. I realize that the fine art of metaphor is lost on a retarded troll such as yourself, but surely you can see that training a group of Islamic fundamentalists who put their religion above even their own lives and then expecting to be able to exert control over their targets is folly.

These people were slavering, drooling fanatics with an itch to kill whatever moved if they thought Allah said it should die, and not only did we give them guns, we trained them in the most effective covert tactics we could. The rabid dog who we trained to bite genitals off is now trying to bite our genitals off. How strange.

Had they been left to deal with the Russian attack in their own manner, perhaps they'd have been less successful. Perhaps not. Perhaps they wouldn't have seen our abandonment of their doctrine as us being exactly what we were, chessmasters using pawns for our own ends. I'm in no way saying that the terrorists are justified; just that we are reaping what we have sown.

Unfortunately, the real bastards behind all this aren't reaping; just the little innocent people who like to work in skyrise office buildings for the American Dream.

Tenuous connections or not- I still have yet to see a concrete reason why Bush/Cheney/Rummy decided to abandon Afghanistan (and the fight against the Al Qaeda strongholds and Bin Laden) in favor of attacking another nation altogether.

They didn't.  The USA is quite capable of multitasking.  You might just as well ask why we didn't re-institute the draft and pour 2 million men into Afghanistan until Bin Laden was caught.  Obviously they applied what they felt was the most appropriate level of forces at the right times and places according to the risk vs. reward, etc.
 
Bruce

I am asking why they took 90% of the troops out of Afghanistan before A) the country was secure and not locked into pockets of civil way and B) before Bin Laden and his cronies were killed or captured.

The answer is pretty obvious: because they felt that the country was secure enough, and his cronies were killed or captured enough, that only a 10% force was appropriate.  The risk-reward ratio may figure into it too; i.e. we could have used more troops in Afghanistan but at the time it seemed like those troops are better deployed stopping Saddam's WMD before terrorists get ahold of them.

It's entirely fair to ask "Is that enough?"  But the same question could be asked when there were 10 times the number: "Is that enough?"  The point is that question has very little to do with the how many troops were sent to Iraq.  The question of "Why send troops to Iraq instead of Afghanistan" presupposes within the question that we should have more troops in Afghanistan.  Indeed, why not ask, "Why do we have troops in Germany and South Korea when we could have them in Afghanistan and Iraq?"  Yet when the Bush administration contemplates such a realignment of troops, Liberals complain!  Shocking!



It's called "strategery".  You might as well ask why FDR fought a 2 front war when he didn't "have" to.  And the answer is because it seemed like the best course of action at the time.  It takes a mindset that is predisposed against such wars to conclude that minimizing the number is therefore always the correct choice.



We didn't leave Afghanistan, we're still focused on both targets, and the reasons for going into Iraq have always been multiple and have never changed.

Bruce

Bush looked like what he is, a trained monkey who's out of his depth in any situation where he isn't reciting a stump speech or reading from an autocue.

How comfortable do you think you'd feel, being in the hands of a media that, almost unanimously, hates you and your previous four years of life?  As has been said many times, give him a more relaxed environment and he comes off more presidential.

It's funny, in high school they ask you to write stupid essays about famous leaders. Did they do something special, or did they just benefit from circumstances?

Bruce is officially too stupid to take seriously. What does a picture of the president with a megaphone prove? That he can turn on a megaphone?

Bush looked like what he is, a trained monkey who's out of his depth in any situation where he isn't reciting a stump speech or reading from an autocue.

Since Bush appeared to be IN his depth in that picture, and where he wasn't reciting a stump speech nor reading from an autocue, Gromski's statement is incorrect.  If Gromski had simply left it at "Wow, Bush didn't look so hot at the debates", I wouldn't have said anything.  But his personal zeal for exagerration led him to make a false claim.

Since Bush appeared to be IN his depth in that picture, and where he wasn't reciting a stump speech nor reading from an autocue, Gromski's statement is incorrect. If Gromski had simply left it at "Wow, Bush didn't look so hot at the debates", I wouldn't have said anything. But his personal zeal for exagerration led him to make a false claim.

I think everyone in the thread other than you understands that the English language is based on connotations and got the connotation.

Except you never claimed "Oh, no, I meant something else in that connontation."

In fact, you still haven't.

  For all we know in that very photo Bush was saying "is this thing on?"

If indeed your theory is correct, and Bush is simply doing these things motivated by other means in order to accomplish other ends, it does not matter to me.  Because I believe they are still accomplishing the things that are also part of my ideal.

Obviously it's a big enough deal to people like HaemishM and the loony left-wing, who deny that there were any connections between Iraq and AQ.

And then left them high and dry when the USSR ran home. Stupid, yes, but hardly evil.

The US "had connections" with AQ.  That itself doesn't mean anything at all.  What's important is what the nature of the connections were, and in the case of Iraq and AQ, they were irrelevant.

Nice way to change the debate again.  HE SAID THEY ARE CONNECTED.  I SAID THEY ARE CONNECTED.  THE 9/11 COMISSION SAID THEY WERE CONNECTED.  You're the only one claiming there was no connection.  Furthermore you're implying that Bush OVERSTATED the connection, saying all the time that they were working together, which he did not.

But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship

Wow...that was really impressive. Did you go to the Bush Administration "Vomit Forth the Talking Points Without Saying Anything" symposium, or was it a correspondence course?

That's what the "hard work" comments were about......it's a lot easier to believe Kerry when he says "I'll do XYZ" than it is to actually do it. Even Kerry takes the position that Bush did the right thing, he just disagrees with *HOW* Bush went about it. It's only natural, sensible, and correct for Bush to point out that "it's not that easy in practice" when Kerry suggests a solution that seems ridiculously simple, obvious, and achievable in the span of a 15 second sound byte. The solution for Iraq is the perfect example of this, as their plans are virtually identical.

My opinion of Bush's record as president (as well as his administration):

1) Lowered world opinion of the US to all-time low
2) Pissed off numerous allies with stubborn, self-righteous arrogance
3) Expressed his support for a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage
4) Cut taxes in such a manner that the most wealthy reap a lion's share of the benefits, in order to stimulate the economy's growth... said growth is still stunted, weakly growing at best
5) Provided no clear plan for stabilizing either Iraq or Afghanistan in any sort of timely fashion
6) Refused to admit mistakes
7) Raised, yes RAISED government spending while also cutting taxes, to the point that our government's budget will be running on a larger deficit than ever for many, many years; some of those new government programs went without funding, such as "No Child Left Behind Act"

That's just what I can remember off the top of my head.

Without any context what you wrote above makes zero sense.

You attacked someone by resorting to extreme literalism, I am pointing out that your statement fails the same application of that literalism, and that we aren't interested in extreme literalism.

Can someone explain to me the whole stem cell research issue? I haven't found an article that pieces the whole thing together yet but the best i have is:

They both support stem cell research in general and will provide federal funding to it. Where they differ is only in embryonic stem cell research with Kerry in favor and Bush opposed.


Does that sum it up or am I missing something? As a cancer survivor this is an important issue to my wife but I really don't think she understands the full issue. The problem is I don't understand it that well myself so can't quite explain it to her.

His motivation wasn't some abstract mental process.  It guided the execution.  And the execution was so intentionally risky and destructive that it alone is reason enough to fire the man for poor judgement in his strategic deliberations and his choice of advisors.

The US "had connections" with AQ.

That itself doesn't mean anything at all.  What's important is what the nature of the connections were, and in the case of Iraq and AQ, they were irrelevant.

no one actually saying that they decided to work together.

The 9/11 report you quoted, the very pieces you are using as evidence to say that AQ and Iraq were connected says that they had NO COLLABORATIVE OPERATIONAL RELATIONSHIP.

Kerry's plan seems to be 'forge a new alliance'...  who, aside from those already allied with us, does he think he can get to join?  France and Germany have both stated they will not join in, no matter who the president is next year.  Kerry claims that Bush has shattered alliances, while his sister is in Austrailia, who's allied with us more than even Britain, campaigning for a candidate who wants Austrailia to break away from the US, like Spain did.

I don't believe it is ethical to CREATE a human embryo for the sole purpose of destroying it.

Yes, and the 9/11 report I quoted documents that THEY WERE CONNECTED. Collaborative operational relationship is an evaluation of the strength of the relatiionship. How many times do we have to go over this? Are you to stupid to see there's a distinction here?

I knew this guy once. We talked from time to time. We have mutual friends. A few times we even made plans to work on some things together, but circumstances changed so they never really materialized. Might we work together in the future if something comes up? Yes. Is there a "collaborative operational relationship" between us? No. Are we connected? Yes. Might we work together in the future? Yes. If someone claimed there was no connection between us, would that someone be a moron? Yes.

*snip* because two guys sent representatives to talk with each other and determine it was best not to work together on two (?) occations and that makes it all worthwhile and mean something.

No offense man, but I get fucking sick of hearing this bullshit response. Does anyone rip on Bush's detractors for taking Kerry's talking points?

Collaborative operational relationship is an evaluation of the strength of the relatiionship. How many times do we have to go over this?

Because really, all this stuff is a minor dick-measuring contest at this point. Saddam had ties to terrorism, aided terrorists, was in material breach of UN 1441, and was believed to be an imminent threat to our national security.

Again, I'm still waiting for YOU to admit that your statement was literally false, and you were simply exagerrating to increase the emotional impact of your statement in order to illustrate a point.

On the Oprah Winfrey show (11/1/02), talking about the Michigan bank that offered long-guns as gifts, Moore says: "What happened to giving out toasters, you know? I'd never heard of anybody killed by a toaster, you know?"

But, surprise!, once again, Moore is wrong, you know? The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (8/30/02) reports a woman who used a rolled-up newspaper and toaster to light a cigarette started a fire that killed her mentally ill adult daughter. The Irish Times (2/28/02) reports that in Cork, in 1997, one homeless man murdered another homeless man by hitting him in the head with a toaster. And the Philippine Daily Inquirer (8/28/01) tells of a young woman who saw her toaster on fire, threw water on it and was electrocuted instantly.

Indeed, Kerry has gone on the badmouth the very allies we DO have, calling them the "coalition of the coerced and the bribed".  Nice, John; have you been taking diplomacy lessons from me???  And then he goes on to call the new leader of Iraq a puppet... yeah, that'll really get the allies to rally around Iraq!

It's a fascinating issue, even for a guy that generally doesn't care much for science like myself. I'll say that I don't agree with Bush's stance....but to go the other route and simply open the floodgates is something i would object to even more.

I'm "connected" to my next door neighbors.  Spoken with them only a couple times.  How likely is it that police would get me executed and confiscate my property just because he went on a killing spree at his work?  How many times do we have to go over the fact that just because you talk with someone doesn't mean you're equally guilty as they for everything they do for the rest of their life?

Which would be all well and good as an argument against our reason for going to war, if we had gone into Iraq for the purpose of avenging 9/11.

Again, I'm still waiting for YOU to admit that your statement was literally false, and you were simply exagerrating to increase the emotional impact of your statement in order to illustrate a point.

If your neighbor seemed to be willing to offer you safe haven if the police came looking for you, or if some of your conversations were discussions on killin sprees on mutually agreeable targets? I suspect the Police would be very interested in arresting you.

That's where the argument breaks down; where do you think these disposable embryos came from in the first place?  That is, fertility clinics purposefully create multiple zygotes for each patient.  Part of that is a limitation of the techniques they use, and the difficulty in making just one viable zygote, so to compensate they make a batch of them.  

However, if you hold that it is unethical to create embryos knowing that you will dispose of them, then you must also argue that the techniques that these fertility clinics use to create "spares" is also unethical.

Therefore, there should not be any spares lying around for scientific use.  Further, allowing spares to be donated/sold to embryotic research puts pressure on the clinics to maintain a high number of zygotes per fertility attempt, since they are the only supplier.  This creates a motive for them to not only "accidentally" create additional zygotes as a byproduct of the process, but to be proactive in the effort.

Except that the UN is full of a) people profiting from the sanctions placed on Iraq b) weak willed countries who would rather piss fire into a vat of gasoline than fight, and c) held in check by France whos record on war speaks for itself.

By who? Who exactly believed he was an imminent threat? I didn't. Neither did the CIA, or the Pentagon.

Yes, and the 9/11 report I quoted documents that THEY WERE CONNECTED.  Collaborative operational relationship is an evaluation of the strength of the relatiionship.  How many times do we have to go over this?  Are you to stupid to see there's a distinction here?

I knew this guy once.  We talked from time to time.  We have mutual friends.  A few times we even made plans to work on some things together, but circumstances changed so they never really materialized.  Might we work together in the future if something comes up?  Yes.  Is there a "collaborative operational relationship" between us?  No.  Are we connected?  Yes.  Might we work together in the future?  Yes.  If someone claimed there was no connection between us, would that someone be a moron?  Yes.

Bruce

How about Russia's Vladimir Putin?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1155802/posts

And before you go attacking Free Republic as being biased, that's an AP story.

When you go into a fertility clinic, you go in with the intent of creating a human being. You don't go in saying "cmon honey, let's go destroy some embryos today".

Is this the part where I play Bush and say that we don't base our foriegn policy on the whims of other countries?

Personally I would go with our own intelligence, that includes the info from Putin, rather than Putin on his own. If we thought that information was compelling and reliable, that would have shown up in our own intelligence.

Our own intelligence did not consider Iraq an imminent threat. Agree or disagree?

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Personally I would go with our own intelligence, that includes the info from Putin, rather than Putin on his own. If we thought that information was compelling and reliable, that would have shown up in our own intelligence.

If part of your standards are that it's unethical to create an embryo with the intent of destroying it, then a fertility clinic is unethical.

it's an unfortunate side effect, not the core intention.

I didn't make the original statement, so you'll have to keep waiting.

Only if it was those ideas were agreed upon,

and even then with limitation.  I certainly wouldn't be executed.

Yes, if you augment your first claim with the moral justification of "the ends justify the means", it's a moral act and logically consistant.

That's a red herring. Saddam hasn't been executed yet, either.

Compare that to embryos created for the purpose of harvesting stem cells.....they are not created with the intent of creating a living human being. It is done with the ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that the embryo WILL BE destroyed.

It is also done with the idea that another human life might be saved by the research done.

So are you implying then that serious issues can all be reduced to little blurbs depicting a world of only black & white aspects, Roac?

It is also done with the idea that another human life might be saved by the research done.

Universal agreement is not a requirement.

That's a red herring. Saddam hasn't been executed yet, either.

Hell, if fetus brains yielded some potentially life-saving material, I'd be all for harvesting the brains of aborted fetuses....but I wouldn't go advocating that we impregnate women for the sole purpose of producing that material. Sorry to be so graphic, but that's the parallel.

Hell, if fetus brains yielded some potentially life-saving material, I'd be all for harvesting the brains of aborted fetuses....but I wouldn't go advocating that we impregnate women for the sole purpose of producing that material.

Each one of those eggs is fertilized with the intention of creating a living human being.
...
It is done with the ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that the embryo WILL BE destroyed.
...
If you cannot see a difference, then subtlety is absolutely beyond you.

Each one of those eggs is fertilized with the intention of creating a living human being. It is done with the knowledge that the embryo may later be destroyed.

Compare that to embryos created for the purpose of harvesting stem cells.....they are not created with the intent of creating a living human being. It is done with the ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that the embryo WILL BE destroyed.

If you cannot see a difference, then subtlety is absolutely beyond you.

See, now *THAT* deals with "do the ends justify the means?". Roac, I hope you're taking notes here. There's a quiz at the end.

I don't get why taking cells that are eventually discarded naturally from the body (through nocturnal emissions for sperm, through menstruation for eggs) and combining them to assist in groundbreaking medical research is a bad thing.

People die of alot of things, I think the more important thing to do is lessen deaths at human hands, than prevent death at nature's hands.

I would, however, respect a politician who chose A side. Going into it halfhearted is just plain wrong. Either you're killing thousands of babies, or you're unnecessarily delaying the saving of lives.

Nebu, please enlighten us. Start a new thread with some links and/or boiled down layman's talk about the real benefits of stem cell research.

Remember, edumacate your damn self. Or edumacate us too.

I'm not talking about the original statement; I'm talking about your statement.

Still waiting.

I know you like to flame, but seriously.  Stop and thinkThe process requires that multiple eggs be fertilized, whih a near certainty that there will be more than one, and that only one will be used in fertilization.  When the procedure is carried out, it is carried out with the intent that multiple zygotes will come into being, one will be used in fertilization, and all the rest WILL BE destroyed.

People attach some sort of significance to what happens to that combination after a few months.  Something about being more than the sum of its parts.  Go figure.

What chance does each individual embryo created at a fertility clinic have of becoming a human being? I'll give you a hint.... it is >0.

What chance does each individual embryo created for the sole purpose of acquiring stem cells have of becoming a human being? 0.

Bonus points for those that recognized the difference between 0 and >0 a few pages ago. The > makes all the moral and ethical difference in the world, IMO.

It isn't the creation of a slave race of children from which organs and the like are harvested (although that might be a good master villain plot for a movie); it is simply utilizing all the tools available instead of handcuffing progress.

So, once the parents have the child or children they want, and don't want any more, what happens to the remaining embryos?  When they make the decision to not use the remaining ones, are they guilty of putting those embryos into the "0" category?  Is that an ethical thing to do?  It's the same line.  Is crossing it one way alright, and another way bad?   Is it ok for the parents to make that decision?  If it is, why isn't it also up to them what happens to the embryos afterwards?  If it's not, why allow the procedure at all?

"They are being destroyed anyway" is not a valid argument because they didn't just fall from the sky. If we decide that destroying embros is wrong, then the creation of it has to stop, completely. That includes IVF embryos.

If 20 embryos are created for an IVF couple, what are the chances that every single one is going to grow into a child? 0

/end shameless and thinly veiled reason to post pic of my new baby boy

Just use the left over fertility zygotes. There are lots of them going to waste (I personally have 15 on ice that won't be used).

BTW, since we are on the subject, the very IVF process you are talking about produced THIS:

http://home.comcast.net/~brianandjulie/Alec.html

/end shameless and thinly veiled reason to post pic of my new baby boy

Bonus points for those that recognized the difference between 0 and >0 a few pages ago.

The fact that I have to spell it out says that yes, indeed, the subtlety of the position is lost on you.

If it is created in a laboratory, it is never going to become bigger than the sum of it parts.

You may not have noticed where I stated that your view is akin to "the ends justify the means".  You stated that the "0" case is an immoral one, and I predicted that any morality would, to you, be worth any measure of immorality - they're justified by the end goal.

So if I was right in stating where your argument was going a couple pages back, why did you get all pissy about it?

If you believe it is the same line, and crossing it is the same, no matter how you do it....well, enjoy life as a pacifist vegan pro-lifer I guess.

/end shameless and thinly veiled reason to post pic of my new baby boy

Neither one of those goals requires that we intentionally create a human embryo for the sole purpose of destroying that embryo. You see the intentional creation, and the intentional destruction.....what you miss (or choose to ignore) is EVERYTHING between those events.

There is of course the third path, the spiritual/philosophical path, but that's even more controversial than religion.  Mainly because it comes across as New Age crap.  That's too bad because I think it's the path most rewarding to examine.  Of course it also leads to Soylent Green... ;-)

As for Popular Science, I honestly haven't read it often enough to make an informed opinion.  I read Science, Nature, JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association, and the NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine) for my broad look at current science.

Still, that leaves the significant life judgement - individual cells react to pain and stimuli but we can't argue they have a soul because we've agreed to ignore the religious arguments.  Dicing up zygotes then is no more unethical then eating a fresh green salad.  Carrots may well be self-aware at some level but we don't spend a lot of time agonizing over the pain we inflict on the well-ordered bio-system that is the adult carrot.

And the angel of the Lord came unto me,
snatching me up from my
place of slumber,
and took me on high,
and higher still until we
moved in the spaces betwixt the air itself.
and he bore me unto a
vast farmland of our own midwest,
and as we descended cries of
impending doom rose from the soil.
one thousand, nay, a million
voices full of fear.
and terror possessed me then.
and I begged,

"Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?"
And the angel said unto me,
"These are the cries of the carrots,
the cries of the carrots.
You see, reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day
and to them it is the holocaust."
And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat
like the tears of one millions terrified brothers
and roared,
"Hear me now,
I have seen the light,
they have a consciousness,
they have a life,
they have a soul.
damn you!
let the rabbits wear glasses,
save our brothers...can I get an amen?
can I get a hallelujah? thank you, Jesus.

life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on...
this is necessary

The people who have been born after being "created" in a laboratory would tend to disagree with you.

This is where science as a belief system fails, because it cannot define what differentiates life from non-life.

Whereas the religious argument can just define life as being different from non-life in that there is a "soul."

Science can't believe in a soul, because it cannot prove or disprove a soul.

And why should I believe something that can't be proven? I'm not an idiot you know!

And why should I believe something that can't be proven? I'm not an idiot you know!

On the other hand, why disbelieve something that can't be disproven?

You've got some crazy double-negatives going there chum.

Just use the left over fertility zygotes. There are lots of them going to waste (I personally have 15 on ice that won't be used).

BTW, since we are on the subject, the very IVF process you are talking about produced THIS:

http://home.comcast.net/~brianandjulie/Alec.html

You don't get it. I don't consider the destruction of embryos immoral....at all.

I don't believe it is ethical to CREATE a human embryo for the sole purpose of destroying it.

the logical extension is that life is immanent and all cells are divine sparks.

Nor is there any loss ascribed to sperms or eggs that perish.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Let the heathen spill theirs
On the dusty ground.
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't be found.


Every sperm is wanted.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.


Hindu, Taoist, Mormon,
Spill theirs just anywhere,
But God loves those who treat their
Semen with more care.

The fact of the matter is the bible doesn't define whether a fetus has a soul.

Although in one nice part God commands Abraham to murder his own infant.

And why should I believe something that can't be proven? I'm not an idiot you know!

I know being rational is difficult, and you love your life as a troll, but come on.

"Here's your sign."

Headlines today: No WMD, no WMD programs, sanctions were working fine.

The massive report does say, however, that Iraq worked hard to cheat on United Nations-imposed sanctions and retain the capability to resume production of weapons of mass destruction at some time in the future.

"[Saddam] wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when sanctions were lifted," a summary of the report says.

Science can't believe in a soul, because it cannot prove or disprove a soul.

As any creationist will gleefully tell you, evolution hasn't been rigorously proven as fact, but most educated people do still believe in it.  

But science can explain how life works without needing for there to be a soul or anything mystical

Let's note what this means:
1) No WMD stockpiles in his possession at the time of the invasion
2) No active WMD programs at the time of the invasion
3) He did have the capability to produce WMD

At this point, you aren't even trying to discuss the matter.

Do you see it yet? It's the predetermination of failure.

3) He did have the capability to produce WMD

I shouldn't have even brought up the bible. As stated above, I believe what can be proven, not what is written in lore.

The trauma of people telling me God will send me to hell because I don't believe in him still leaves a stark bitterness in my mouth. Seriously, they should class that as child abuse. Stopping. Now.

3) He did have the capability to produce WMD

But hey, the US knows better than the UN anyhow, right?

It is logically impossible for all of the following to be true:

0. Evil exists.
1. God is omnipotent.
2. God is wholly good/loving/etc.
3. We have free will.

I also don't care too much beyond being curious in a "why is the sky blue?" kind of way.
...
I also dislike it when people give "reasons" without logic/reason/explanation behind it

...and who's "original words" have been distorted by translations, interpretations, and out-and-out manipulation by people seeking to use said words.

So what's the deal with self awareness again?

Or just sleep. Or, you know, are we saying the big bang was the beginning now or not? It seems to change from week to week.

Science knows jack and shit about the big questions of life. All it knows is what it doesn't know and a series of amusing parlor tricks.

Science knows jack and shit about the big questions of life. All it knows is what it doesn't know and a series of amusing parlor tricks.

3 is not true. He did not have the capability to produce WMD. He had the capability to restart the programs, which could THEN produce WMD.

He didn't have the capability, but he was capable of getting the capability. Is that what we call an imminent threat?

The fact is, the santions were working. Lack of WMD and WMD programs are proof of that.

Edit: "and Bush's crowd has been saying he was in material breach and had the capability to produce WMD in response for quite some time as well"

But, that's not all it said. Bush went on national TV and said he was confident the WMD existed and would be found. He didn't say what we would find was some facilities in disrepair that could be all polished up if sanctions were lifted.

You can't pretend the administration has taken the same position on this the whole time. Remember how our troops were supposed to be careful because the Iraqis were getting ready to release chemical weapons near Bahgdad?

If by the "Bush crowd" you mean "Geoge Bush on national television" your statement is incorrect. That's not disputable, the transcipts are available.

Anyone who looks at that report and still thinks Saddam was an "iminent threat to the US" as stated by the Bush administration over and over is really not looking at the report from anything other than jaundiced eyes.

I feel sorry that people try to fill it with spouses, children, friends, family, drugs, sex, liquor, or even intellectual pursuits when that only leaves them wanting more.

The reason we went into Iraq is because the neo-conservatives like Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and others feel that American Imperialism is a better long-term strategic initiative than trying to deal fairly with the rest of the world.

When you contradict yourself worse than even Bush spin campaigns portray Kerry, there's not much left to discuss.  You've said you're both fine and not fine with the exact same scenario, and my whole gripe with you to start with is that you're not being rational in your arguments.  WTG.

I do; you don't.  IVF procedures predetermine failure; when you follow that procedure, you are all but absolutely certain that there will be multiple otherwise viable embryos that will be proactivcely destroyed

and you have in this paragraph defined failure as "create a human embryo when it is predetermined that it will fail."  If the procedure were such that it would constantly create single embryos until there was a healthy, viable one, the matter would be different; but as it stands, the procedure involves purposefully creating embryos for destruction.

The inconsistancy goes away if your stance is that the value of success imeasurably outweighs the cost of the loss, but every time I offer up that out you balk at it.  Or it goes away if your stance is that destruction of embryos is not immoral, and you won't take that out either.  Instead you rant about predetermination of failure in the same way a gambling addict talks about beating the house.  It's a logical fallacy - you're going to lose, and the house knows you're going to lose.  The gambler will swear he's got it beat, but it just shows he doesn't know too much about numbers.

I believe there is a God because I can feel his guiding force in my life. I don't believe in simple fate, circumstance, or luck. I don't think the interconnected universe just happened to be tossed together so well on a mathematical random change that even the best minds can't explain it. Some will say religion is for people who fear the unknown. I say there is a God shaped hole in everyone that they try to fill with a lot of stuff that doesn't fit. I feel sorry that people try to fill it with spouses, children, friends, family, drugs, sex, liquor, or even intellectual pursuits when that only leaves them wanting more.

I could never have peace in a Godless world, despite the ideals of the "moral atheist." Or as Dostoyevsky put it, "Anything is permissible if there is no God."

Yet another reason why creationists are idoits.

The question that I'd like answered is: Why the rush to war?  What was it that they expected to happen if we had waited (and researched) another 6 months to go to war?

The reason we went into Iraq is because the neo-conservatives like Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and others feel that American Imperialism is a better long-term strategic initiative than trying to deal fairly with the rest of the world.

And no I don't sit in my room clutching a Bible, if you bothered to read the page attached to my sig you might learn a lot more about what I truly believe about the current church and Christianity in general.

Based on that intelligence, and the warnings from Putin, the administration felt we couldn't afford to wait.

If you want to do something, it's not all that hard to create/find a reason.  Then again, I believe that war is something used only when all other means have been exhausted (and I mean exhausted).  The 17 or 18 prior times that Saddam failed to comply with UN sanctions for inspection produce no immediate threat.

What is the SPECIFIC DATA that signals that this was the proper time for action.

Why not after lack of compliance at request 3?

Why not after lack of compliance toward request 30?  They cite "threat" but don't seem to have much concrete to back it up.

Did they find battle plans indicating a date planned for the release of these biological weapons?  Was Saddam amassing an army for the invasion of the United States?  I just haven't seen compelling evidence beyond conjecture and hypothesis.  I need a little more than that before I start killing thousands of people and risking the lives of thousands of my own.

The Dead Sea scrolls are a famous example that demonstrate there has been almost no distortion across millenia of recopying and retranslating the material, but it is not alone.  Other examples are the Jewish culture itself; mistelling an OT story, for cultures who even today do not have written traditions, carries with it severe social penalty.  Despite having an oral tradition, their retelling matches with written traditions.

There is of course a drift, and there's a whole discipline within literary science that looks at situations like this, and can compare for example, Jewish traditions with mythological cultures, note the "rate of change" at least in abstract, and suggest or cite cultural/linguistical reasons why.  But again, as Toonces did, it's far easier to be an apathetic critic about something instead of learning about it.

But after interrogating top Iraqi officials and reading thousands of regime documents, Mr Duelfer's investigators could find "no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of [weapons of mass destruction] after sanctions".

Nor could his 1700 experts find any "identifiable group of WMD policy makers or planners separate from Saddam" who were working on reviving the program if sanctions were lifted.

We shouldn't even be discussing WMD or links to Al Qaeda at all, they were red herrings from the start.  We should be discussing whether or not neo-con foreign policy is good policy or not.

Taking out dictatorships that are overtly hostile to the US and replacing them with democracies, through force if necessary?  Yeah, I'd say that's a great policy.

Bruce, I know that given another glance that you'll see the problems with this statement yourself.

Now, it's true that the above policy is no panacea.  A democratic country can still be a threat to your country, and you may still have to go to war with it.  But it is still right that they be free.  Only a person with warped liberal views who don't believe in protecting essential liberties but instead believe in a general, communal "social good" where it is okay for some to suffer for the benefit of others would believe otherwise.

Bruce

So you're saying that Nixon had warped liberal views?  When the CIA undermined the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende and replaced it with a military junta?

yes its more a question of whether invading said country is the best way to bring about democracy.  

I personally believe that war can be justified for humanitarian reasons in the event of genocide or something similar.

The only thing that makes them idiots, in my mind, is their refusal to believe something with as much backing as evolution simply because it can't be 100% proven.  Anyone who requires absolute proof for belief, and still holds belief in something, is an idiot, because there's no absolute proof of anything.  In reality, someone who claims to require absolute proof just has a twisted definition of "proof".  And you'll see those people on both sides of any given issue.  They're all idiots.  Every single one.  And if you claim intellectual or moral superiority because you think your leaps of faith are more valid than the other guy's, you're the biggest idiot of all.

Did they believe that Saddam was going to launch a nulcear threat within 6 months? Did they believe that he was going to use bioterrorism to attack the US?

I for one don't feel that this administration has been honest about its intentions.

on the whole in the past 10-15 years the number of democratic regimes has increased significantly without anyone needing to invade countries to change their regimes.

Btw the US government is still supporting Coups in democratic states now - eg against Chavez in Venzuela (failed) and Aristide in Haiti (succeeded)

The immoral part IMO is the CREATION WITH PREDETERMINATION OF FAILURE, not the destruction itself.

Each indvidual embryo in IVF is fertilized with a possibility that *THAT ONE COULD BE THE ONE* to develop into a human being....that's what I've argued all along. That's a possibility that would not exist for *ANY* embryos manufactured for the harvesting of stem cells.

When people get most of their doses of religeon by what their scripture teacher, sunday school teacher, priest, parents, grandparents, and/or friends tell them about what they have read/heard it tends to garble the message no-matter how accurate the words in the books. Unfortunately it doesn't stop them from stating "facts" as if God Himself spoke through their lips, instead of what they heard from a friend who heard it from a priest, who pulled parts of the bible for use in getting across the point he wanted to preach.

and at the time when Sadam WAS committing genocide, gasing the kurds, the US supported him.

The justification for the war has changed about 5 times. For a long time we were saying "WMD", then we started saying "WMD Programs." We later came up with the whole "free Iraq" angle, and are now to "we have nothing specific really, but the world is better off."

I wonder how many people would have been for the invasion if the justification had been then what it is now. No WMD, no WMD programs, no AQ - Iraq connection.

If we really just want to make the world a better place, we should go into Darfur no? What is the latest estimate, that the dead could reach 200,000?

So you wouldn't mind if Sadr was elected in January, started making anti-American threats and re-established WMD and nuclear programs?

Right, that makes so much more sense.  Because it would be moral to generate a batch of n embryos with the intent that one may be used in fertilization, change your mind, and have them for breakfast.  Or to make a batch of them, stick them on ice with the intent that some day you'll want them, then decide against.  Or if continuing the original intent is the only moral option, you're still left with the ability to create a batch of a few hundred of the things each go, use what's neccessary for implantation, and donate the rest to science.

You may try to argue my above paragraph, regarding creating a huge batch, by saying there's a moral imperitive to also limit the batch size; but this is where that is lost.  The fact is that they could fertilize only one egg at a time.  The only reason they don't is cost; fertilization then implantation costs money, and each step introduces a fairly high degree of risk to the embryo.

Lots of things can happen; even most natural pregnancies end up self-aborting because of genetic defects with the newly created embryo, with the embryo failing to adhere to the uteran wall, or detatching from it at a later date.  The failure rate for even natural pregnancy is quite high, and this is before you add in the challenges of artificial procedures.

So instead, batches are made.  The goal is to create enough so that the probability of a viable embryo is a fair bit greater than one, and that carries with it the certainty that there will be predetermination of failure.

Yes, got it.  That is logically equivalent to stating that many embryos will be created with the foreknowledge that all beyond one are created with the intent that they will be destroyed, hence created with predetermination of failure.  You're using a special case of the gambler's fallacy (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/gamblers-fallacy.html), by confusing prediction and probability.  If creation with predetermination of failure is immoral, and the whole point of the process of creating multiple embryos is to set the probability of success to greater than 1, then it also sets the statistical predetermination of failure at n - 1, with n > 1.  Probability and statistics demands that if you affirm the predetermined [statistical] certainty of success, you must also affirm the predetermined certainty of failure.  To claim one and deny the other is irrational and illogical.

The justification for the war has changed about 5 times. For a long time we were saying "WMD", then we started saying "WMD Programs." We later came up with the whole "free Iraq" angle, and are now to "we have nothing specific really, but the world is better off."

I wonder how many people would have been for the invasion if the justification had been then what it is now. No WMD, no WMD programs, no AQ - Iraq connection.

If we really just want to make the world a better place, we should go into Darfur no? What is the latest estimate, that the dead could reach 200,000?

No shit we never should have gotten in bed with her. Lot of good it does us to bitch about it now.

Hardly anyone said it WAS an immediate threat.  Just that it was a threat, and a growing threat, and we should act on it sooner rather than later.

About to occur; impending: in imminent danger.

do you REALLY want to wait until he's holding a loaded gun at your head to do anything?  No, my friend, it is TOO LATE then.

The difference stems from 9/11.  (Yes, Iraq probably wasn't involved in 9/11.  That's not the point, now hush.)  Before 9/11, we had very little compelling evidence of an actual plan by UBL to attack the WTC in the US.  But we did know he was threatening us.  We did know he was a terrorist.  We did know he had attacked US forces outside the US in the past.  But there was nothing but "conjecture and hypothesis" that he was currently executing a plan to attack the US.  We knew his desire, but aside from a few FBI leads that were not being followed up due to other problems, very little that was concrete.  And yet we found out that inaction was not the appropriate response; that hoping and waiting until we got something more concrete may result in the deaths of thousands of innocent civillians.

So now we're presented with a similar situation in Iraq.  The same intelligence which thought UBL was a general threat, but nothing specific, is now telling us Iraq is a general threat, but nothing specific.

How long should you tolerate a bad guy on your block?  We tolerated Hussein for far too long, and just because we can't prove he wasn't going to attack us right at that moment doesn't mean he was wrong to be taken out.

If you people really think Hussein wasn't a threat because he didn't have these weapons, and that the war was a mistake, why don't you advocate letting him out of jail and restoring him to power?  That's the logical conclusion.  "Oh no," you say, "Hussein was a bad guy!"  But not bad enough to invade and put in jail, right?  That's why you wanted more sanctions and inspectors and diplomacy, right?  So that means you want him back in power, right?  No?  Then shut the fuck up, you fucking hypocrites, and stop damaging our foreign policy for the purpose of scoring political points in an election cycle.

But I never said continuing the original intent was the only moral option.

You're offering an alternative that is impractical, and potentially dangerous for the embryos and the mother...

As long as the statistical possibility exists for the IVF procedure to produce NO viable embryos (which is the case), the probability cannot exceed 1.

It is not statistically certain to do so, which is the gaping hole in your argument.

there is no statistical certainty of success or failure

Except, of course, there was an AQ-Iraq connection

and we thought there was WMD because Hussein was actively trying to make people think he had WMD

and we know he had a program to make more WMD once sanctions were lifted.

Arguing against someone entrnched in dogma is pointless. For an example, see the religious debates in this thread making my point for me.

There is nothing more dangerous for the embryo by going at it one at a time as opposed to in batch, and IVF offers effectively no risk to the mother whatsoever, except that it may not take.

The probability of success cannot exceed one; the probable number of viable embryos can, and most certainly does, exceed one.

If I flip a coin three times, I am statistically certain to come up heads at least once.  Not certain; I could wind up with three tails, but statistically it's in the bag.  With four coins, my statistical success rate is expected to be 2 (notice, > 1).  My individual probability of success is about 94% (.94, or < 1).  Anything over 50% is statistical certainty; this is why the houses in Vegas have so much money.  Success is predetermined.

Statistical certainty is precisely what the field of statistics describes (or else notes that there is not enough information available to make a determination).  With enough data, it will tell you with statistical certainty (that is, over the long term) what will happen.  It is as much a scientific, factual truth as listing the formula for gravity.

The problem is that religion carries certain... I can't think of a word, but people are more likely to believe something about it because they feel they should and would be unfaithful not to take it on faith

Way to ignore sample size in all of that. Really. The certainty you speak of only applies given a large enough sample.

I did not say statistical certainty does not exist, it does not exist in this case.

This is symptomatic of culture, not religion.  Orthodox religion (Jewish/Christian/Muslem/Buddhism/Hinduism/etc) is intellectual in nature and places intellectual requirements on the followers.  In the orthodox sense, faith is roughly defined as "continuing to uphold your beliefs AFTER you have come to a rational acceptance and understanding of them, despite any current difficult situations." Meaning, faith means not giving up just because the going gets tough.  Some religions take the intellectual component farther than others; for example, Judaic religion has fairly solid foundations in history, while Hinduism does not (it is more an extention of older mythologies).  

The problem enters when you have lazy followers who don't want to learn anything beyond the soundbytes.  They can't answer why you should believe in God/Jesus/Buddah, or discuss even modest points, let alone the fine details.  They often make up assumtions about how the religion works to fill gaps in knowledge,  When these gaps are pointed out, they often retort with "God works in mysterious ways" type comments.  The listener assumes, rightly, that the talker doesn't know what they're talking about.  After meeting enough people like this, they assume the religion must be the source of the problem, likely without realizing that people do the same thing with most aspects of their lives.  

For religion, this aspect has been given the name of "spirituality".  It's just a way to spin ignorance into something socially acceptable (at least, within that religion's social circles).  Within politics, it's "party line politics" or something similar.  For ethics, it's "moral relavism".  In every case the issue is the same; you have a social pressure acting on the individual to think in a certain way that is contrary to rational thought, almost certainly because of social or individual gain.  The least of which is social identity; you get to be "part of the team".  People will claim to be spiritual because they want to be on the "in crowd" of religious circles, but don't want to exert the effort to do it right, and lets the followers have some sense of power over their eternal destiny.  In politics, groups have power; blind support for your party leads to a more powerful party, at the cost of ignoring whether that power will be used justly.  For ethics, it means turning either moral absolutism (if you accept this line of thought) or a discussion of the balancing of total group vs individual gains and losses (game theory) into a ping pong match of personal or social circle justification of action.  All of them, at a minimum, suffer from the logical fallacy of special pleading - that is, I want it to be right so I'll make a reason for it to be right.

Ultimately, this leads to the lay meaning of faith, in contrast to the orthodox one above, which can also be called "blind faith".  This is acceptance of something without a logical rationalization behind it.  Since with religion there comes to be a double use of the word (the orthodox and lay varieties), it is at once commonly used and misused.  The visibility of this problem may be higher with religion, but it is no different than many other aspects of Human life.

Hmmm, actually I see the religous "debate" as going more sideways than anything else. The only person to flat-out state a solid belief didn't even directly argue against those who said they disagreed with his belief (like me :P). I think you mean the IVF/stem cell/embryo discussion. That's going no-where, fast.

And now we've hit a new low by DEFINING LIBERAL

Aren't you people ashamed of yourselves yet?

And now we've hit a new low by DEFINING LIBERAL

Aren't you people ashamed of yourselves yet?

And now we've hit a new low by DEFINING LIBERAL

Aren't you people ashamed of yourselves yet?

Tell me people weren't using "liberal" as a label with negative connotation to mean "liberal extremists" and I'll feel some shame for ever posting it.

One of the reasons that the above is especially relevant with religion is that people are often born into it.

Some religions also have the whole believe or be eternally damned aspect that cultures lack.

And this is different from people using the label "conservative"... how, exactly?  "Oh, well, that's because conservatives really are extremists!"  Uh-huh.

Of course I'd MIND, and if he continued to threaten us we'd have to invade again.  But it's still morally superior to have a democratically elected government than a dictatorship.  As I said before, freedom is not a panacea.

And now we've hit a new low by DEFINING LIBERAL

Aren't you people ashamed of yourselves yet?

There is no need of sample size in the coin toss case; the purpose of a sample size is to determine what the individual chance of an item's outcome is.  That is, measuring sample size is to work backward down to a itemized probability; once you have the itemized probability you can use basic math to work forward to predict outcomes.  Once you have that statistically valid probability, your prediction is guaranteed, and the long term outcome predetermined.  These are things defined in statistical science.

That claim makes as much sense as an argument for a flat Earth.  Statistical certainty exists in any scenario which has a statistically verified sample size and probability.

So they can have a democracy, as long as it is one we approve of. Wow, you're right, those neocons are very high-minded.

I like how it is morally superior to have democacy then invade them, but morally ambivalent to let 200,000 flat out die.

On my scale, saving 200,000 people is morally superior to "you guys can have a democracy, but elect the wrong people and we'll invade again." Call me crazy...

 stuff

I'm just glad these children were here to hear such authentic frontier gibberish.