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State of the Union

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by Schmika, Jan 31, 2006.

  1. JackDodge

    JackDodge Gold Member

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    And if we were given the facts in the first place by the administration, our conclusions would be more complete. The thing that has worried me from day one of George's invasion of Iraq is that he IS doing the best thing for this country. We just don't know what the real reason is.
     
  2. tripp

    tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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    Right dude. Whatever. You asked and I gave you an axample. Then you whine about it and say that I'm spiining opinion into fact. A complete load of bullshit. And yes, the Germans weren't convinced. They were in Afghanistan and guess what, they committed troops.

    And public perception is HUGE. No, it shouldn't and obviously doesn't affect our foreign policy.

    Without interpretation and analysis FACTs are completely worthless, Squid. Case in point:

    FACT: Japan released all Chinese POWs at the end of WW2.

    To that my response is: Yes, they released all 56 of them.

    You obviously have a bias when arguing with your precisous, bloody facts so drop the holier than thou attitude. It's very tedious.

    Where in this thread have I not been balanced? I pointed out Afghanistan as being a situation where convincing arguments were made. At no point did the Iraq situation generate that level of conscensus. "Old Europe" disagreed with us. "New Europe" has been more cooperative. There was much more division and bickering over the Iraq issue. That's what I pointed out. Don't cry about it because you didn't get the answer that you wanted.

    :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry:
     
  3. malorn

    malorn Senior Member

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    Its funny how many of today's lead attackers also were quoted at one-time or another about Iraq having wmd's. Clinton, gore, kerry, the list goes on and on, all of whom using the best available intelligence, decided it was very likely that Saddam had wmd's at his disposal.

    I support Bush as our president but as I stated earlier am not fond of many of his policies, but to try and hang him out to dry for acting on intelligence that at one point in time was widely agreed upon, that is not right.
     
  4. malorn

    malorn Senior Member

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    Probably a factor in the Chinese decision to not rush in to buy toyota's.

    Maybe the prisoners just got lost.

    Some of you continue to go on and on about 'brutality' at abu garib? Prisoners were humilited in some relativley 'isolated' incidents, doesn't look like quite such a big deal in light of tripps earlier statement.
     
  5. LaughingMan

    LaughingMan Active Member

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    I think you don't understand the argument about Bush's intelligence about Iraq. It doesn't matter what intelligence was widely agreed upon at the time... the accusation is of cherry picking of WMD information inside the administration and sweeping under the rug information that denied WMD... they'd already decided to go to war either subconsciously or consciously, according to that argument.

    The President, being at the top of the executive branch, has access to much more information than the Senate or the House. Moreover, the administration is very much responsible for how it postured this information.

    I agree it's somewhat pointless to talk about this as it won't change a thing one way or another... and that we should focus on the present and the future, but the whole intelligence debacle has contributed to a souring of the Bush administration's reputation in my mind... they are far to secretive about how they make these decisions, and i'd be less likely to trust them from this point forward.
     
  6. Mystery Squid

    Mystery Squid Junior Member

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    Excluding attempting to fix the problem within the Gov itself, this is what I propose for average Joe's, people like all of us here:

    Off the top of my head...

    Create a centralized forum that consists of nothing but agreed upon credible data sources.
    Drop prejudices and political correctness.
    Assemble theories arguments, etc, and put them to a vote, if necessary.
    Translate this concept into voting power....

    Of course, I am well aware that's easier said then done, but it's a start...
     
  7. tripp

    tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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    Most of them got lost alright. They lost their heads or were the victims of "medical" research.

    There's no question that what's going on in Iraq is benign compared to other events in history. No question. However, that doesn't make them right either.

    But now we digress. Oh wait, we did that a long time ago.
     
  8. malorn

    malorn Senior Member

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    Great idea, but i think this may be our first point of contention. :(
     
  9. LaughingMan

    LaughingMan Active Member

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    Bah. This is another example of you trying to place some kind of value on our outrage.

    You know what your statement looks like malorn? It looks like you're saying "we shouldn't make a fuss about any torture going on until it exceeds the gruesomeness and evil of all torture in history."

    THAT is bullshit... i'm sorry. We have the right to be outraged about things like abu graib because it is against the idea that this nation and its people have made huge strides in tolerance... just because it's smaller than all of the suffering in human history doesn't justify you trying to minimize it.

    This would be the same as you saying "number of soldiers killed in Iraq shouldn't be even acknowledged because MILLIONS died in WWII."

    Times change, my friend... and you must keep it all in context... the times!
     
  10. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    The difference, with Clinton for example, is that he didn't use the issue of WMD as an excuse to go to war. I was against going to war with Iraq when I believed that there were WMD. I watched every word of Colin Powell's testimony to the UN and I trusted that what he said was true and factual and I believed that his evidence had been vetted and was fact. I totally believed that Iraq/Sadaam possessed WMD. I did NOT believe they were an imminent threat to the US or any of it's allies. I did NOT believe that efforts at diplomacy and containment had been exhausted. I did NOT believe that Iraq was the biggest threat to the US. I did NOT believe that the human rights violations of Iraq were any worse than they are in China, N. Korea, Sudan, Syria, and a dozen other countries in the world. I did NOT believe that the terror threat out of Iraq was any greater than that of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Iran...it probably was greater than that out of Afganistan by that time.

    My arguements are not Bush Bashing and have not changed with any political winds or thanks to Michael Moore, Jane Fonda or CNN. My arguements are my own, arrived at with my own brain (that may be the rate limiting factor here :huh: ) based upon all reasonable information I can find.

    I've never suggested we pull out of Iraq. We can't and won't and shouldn't.
    I have suggested that we did a lot of things wrong, we are continuing to do a lot of things wrong and I acknowledge that we're doing some things right as well.

    I would, right now, still be critical of Bush's decision to go into Iraq even if we'd have found massive stockpiles of WMD.
     
  11. malorn

    malorn Senior Member

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    How many Chinese POW's were 'tested', etc by the imperial army?
     
  12. KTPhil

    KTPhil Active Member

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    "Clinton, gore, kerry, the list goes on and on,"

    Yeah, but how many of THEM went to war, caused thousands of American soldiers to die, killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, and spend hundreds of billions of dollars based on this information?

    (insert sound of crickets)

    What a wimp of a President to blame "bad intelligence" on others. HE made the decision. HE is Commander in Chief. HE doesn't get to blame others for HIS mistakes. Instead he whines to mommy that he got bad information. How embarassing. Is that why he dresses up and poses on aircraft carriers, to compensate?
     
  13. malorn

    malorn Senior Member

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    I disagree with your initial position about Iraq, but I do respect it none-the-less. You have outlined solid positions and ideas besides, 'Bush is a liar' and 'Bush is an idiot' so all of the administrations policies must be wrong.
     
  14. tripp

    tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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    Don't have the numbers in front of me. I can tell you that probably hundreds of thousands if not millions were beheaded.

    Probably a couple of times more than the 250,000 Phillipinos we killed from 1898 - 1902 after we liberated the phillipines from the brutality of their spanish overlords.
     
  15. malorn

    malorn Senior Member

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    I agree with you, bush was the only one of that group with the intestinal fortitude to do what he believes was the right thing. No polls, no focus groups, just a tough decision. Bugs you doesn't it. ;)
     
  16. LaughingMan

    LaughingMan Active Member

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    While you see intestinal fortitude or "balls".... I see recklessness and hubris.
     
  17. tripp

    tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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    Actually, the polls were in his favor.
     
  18. Mystery Squid

    Mystery Squid Junior Member

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    I did mention within another post that you, in fact, did answer the question, but interjected your own "caveat", as I called it.

    Look at this statement you made:

    It's clearly geared towards the concept of more non-support than either France or Germany. C'mon tripp, that's a statement PRAVDA would make so you could see it in the right light...
     
  19. malorn

    malorn Senior Member

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    i guess we see the world through glasses of a different shade and that is ok. YOu are civil about it and have good arguements. :) Maggieddd on the other hand....
     
  20. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    That, truely, is the rub I think. We get distracted in these arguements by tossing epithets. But the real issue is whether you feel the end justified going in.

    To me I look at a country like Cambodia. I saw a travel show the other day discussing the horrid atrocities of the Camer Rouge....You know what. I never got a hint that that level of genocide...or whatever it was...had occured from taking history in HS or College.

    Where in the hell was the US when all THAT was going down? One could fairly argue that taking out Sadaam was a preemptive strike to avoid just that kind of situation. But the arguement falls apart when you look at the other atrocities/genocide and violations of human rights occuring all around the world that we choose to wear blinders to....why's that do you think? There's no diplomacy going on to try to stop it. All the other crap going on keeps it out of the press, for the most part.

    Are we going to be the police of the world or are we not. If we are, if that's what we want to do with our military might and our tax money then I guess we have a darn good reason to be in Iraq.

    If we don't want to be the police of the world or to have our children dying for those causes or to spend our tax money on those causes then we really should not have gone into Iraq to start with.

    Our world police needs to be defined and a stand taken and a message sent to all that this will be the policy of the USA.