I (finally!) answered Robert here. Hopefully it won't be another week before I'm able to do something.
3 comments:
Anonymous
said...
My problem, btw, with our being in Iraq is not that we’re there at all -- your videos made it very clear that Democrats in years past have seen the threat for what it was and have called it such, so Bush is not a fool for saying that good could and would come from toppling Saddam -- but rather that we’re there when we should be focused elsewhere for reasons directly related to those who attacked us.
I find this amazing. AQ was our problem, we said that any nation giving aid or comfort to AQ would be dealt with. The Anti-war crowds chant that AQ was not in Iraq. Really?
The information that the media leaves out about these Iraq Al-Qaeda links, these stories always leave out the 1998 trip that Ayman al-Zawahiri made to Baghdad and received $300,000 from either Saddam himself, or someone right underneath him, and this has been confirmed by a couple Clinton officials, including Buzz Patterson. Another note that hasn't really been mentioned by anyone in the media is that hundreds of members of Saddam's regime, including a lot of his top guys like Izzat Al-Douri, have admitted working with Zarqawi and Al-Qaeda since the invasion and hundreds of them have been caught.
If you think that the mainstream media are going to report that, you're crazy. That's not the template. That's not the action line of the story. The action line is Cheney lied. Cheney made it up. Here's what we are being asked to believe. In 1997, '98, '99, 2000, 2001, Al-Qaeda was in Singapore. Al-Qaeda was in Indonesia. Al-Qaeda was in Florida. Al-Qaeda was in Minnesota. Al-Qaeda was in Arizona, taking flying lessons out there and living amongst us. (They went to Vegas, just to get a little debauchery in before meeting the 73 virgins,) Anyway, Al-Qaeda was in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda was in Jordan. Al-Qaeda was in Egypt. Al-Qaeda was in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda was in Iran. Al-Qaeda was -- well, they were everywhere! Al-Qaeda was everywhere, except Iraq. They had the world surrounded, but they were not in Iraq! That's what we're to believe. The action line is: Cheney lied. They are not going to report it. In fact, they're going to do their best to disabuse the notion that Al-Qaeda had a presence in Iraq, which they did.
Saddam may have been a threat, but there were other fish to fry in Afghanistan w/the Taliban, yet Cheney (even in his VP debate in 2000!) mentioned Iraq more than anything else…and he’s certainly made his ambition to go there a reality, in spite of higher priorities at the time…)
See above.
Actually…obstruction of justice, or the refusal to be completely transparent with the legislative branch when inquiries are made regarding executive action is grounds for impeachment…like, oh, say, pardoning members of your party and/or administration who’ve been convicted of wrongdoing or refusing to submit subpoenaed emails
The presidential power to pardon is granted under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution.
"The President ... shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment."
No standards, and only one limitation -- no pardons for the impeached. Now you are for upholding the Constitution, will you submit to the constitution on this issue? This was a witch hunt. America should be ashamed that it allowed this “special” prosecutor to ignore his mission — finding out who blabbed to Bob Novak that Joe Wilson’s wife was CIA — and instead the prosecutor went after Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. Richard Armitage, who actually leaked the information, walked. Disgusting Yet, you want to hang President Bush for exercising his right afforded him by the constitution. Maybe democrats would be so hard on Bush if he followed in Clinton's footsteps and sold pardons for people who did a whole hell of a whole lot worse things than lie under oath about a non-crime. BTW, just for the record, Libby wasn't pardoned, his sentence was commuted, big difference.
OK…he’s not a liar outright, but I would say he's incompetent as a war planner, blind to the real priorities this country has to face in the wake of 9/11, and above all, he’s not answering to Congress (nor does he feel he needs to) in how he's conducting this controversial and scarily and tragically wayward war.
No, he is answering congress, but neither you nor congress like the answers.
kidnapping folks and deporting them to countries where they know they’ll be tortured, torturing POWs
Do you think that our GI's who have been captured by AQ have been given new bibles? Fed western style food? Granted access to exercise yards? Given new prayer ropes to use? Given access to the Red Cross? You look at their bodies and then you look at the terrorists we capture and torture and tell me we are just the same as AQ. What is the difference between AQ and us on this issue? They kill their POW's, and theirs live to go and fight another day when they are released.
http://tinyurl.com/ynnj5v
Bottom line is this: when there’s an incursion on our rights a la Patriot Act/Intelligence Gathering, we have the right to demand a reason why this is being done. Bush refuses to give us this; he refuses to give any reason beyond “it’s necessary in our fight against terror -- trust us!”
Well, what other reason do you want? That we are useing them in the fight against teenage obesity? Is it not about terrorism? What would be a legit excuse for you? None would be. So why do you expect to get a answer when you will not accept any answer in the first place?
Now, if I may inject something here regarding the irony of the whole impeach Bush crowd and those who are leading it. I find it ironic that those who appeal to the constitution in order to make their case are the very same people who seek to trample it under foot withy regards to political speech. Lets play a game called did you know.
Did you know that Kucinich supported legislation to surpress conservative speech on the radio air waves? He wants to reinstate the fairness doctrine.
http://tinyurl.com/34r7k9
Did you know that Diane Feinstein also thinks that talk radio is too one sided and the government needs to step in to make things fair. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhVxZt8l49Q
Did you know John Kerry also wants the fairness doctrine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pwU0FygLlY
Amazing that the very people who want to impeach Bush based upon the constitution also want to regulate speech which fly's in the face of the constitution.
The following wasn't posted at The Onion.com. It was posted and ran in the, brace yourself, The New York Times. T
he men who wrote the piece, Michael E. O’Hanlon & Kenneth M. Pollack, both who are not republicans and in their own words; "As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with."
Prepair for the left wing to go nuclear and throw these traitors under the bus in 3....2....1....
A few money quotes
VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.
After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.
Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.
In Ramadi, for example, we talked with an outstanding Marine captain whose company was living in harmony in a complex with a (largely Sunni) Iraqi police company and a (largely Shiite) Iraqi Army unit. He and his men had built an Arab-style living room, where he met with the local Sunni sheiks — all formerly allies of Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups — who were now competing to secure his friendship.
A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.
These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last six months Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans for security and help. The most important and best-known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than six months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best (outside the Kurdish areas). Today the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor.
"So why do you expect to get a answer when you will not accept any answer in the first place?"
A question I could very well ask you, since you are firmly and aggressively in Bush's camp on these issues.
Let me just say that, as I said, my case has been made, and there's not a lot more to be said on either end, since we seem to have different priorities in this conflict: I'm more interested in preserving right to privacy (issues that you haven't really addressed, because); you're more interested in pursuing a conflict you deem critical to our fight against the 9/11 attacks and Al-Q. Fine. But each of us looks at the other's priority and does not deem it nearly as crucial as our own pet objectives. For this reason--along with the fact that you have degenerated into speaking with the condescending tone of rhetoric you decried in the first post ("Lets play a game called did you know," "Prepair [sic] for the left wing to go nuclear and throw these traitors under the bus in 3....2....1....")--I find it rather pointless to continue this.
I hesitate to pull troops out, since Al-Q has become a real, threatening presence in Iraq, even if it wasn't before, but our tactics need to show long-term results. It's "a war we might just win," but this would mean hanging on to these areas we've cleared...something we haven't been able to do upon moving to other areas of Iraq; the formerly cleared areas get retaken by Al-Q as soon as our thinly-spread troops move on...
...sigh...I'm engaging this again, I know...
...all the above to say this: my reasons for wanting Bush and Cheney out have little (if anything) to do with the fact that we are in Iraq. You can't impeach for poor judgment and/or timing. I'm more about the fact that their illegal (though it's not out and out called such) surveillance of the American people, detaining of Americans for trumped-up reasons, refusal to testify before congressional inquiries and a general attitude of executive privilege and cover-up (which, again, is expanded on very well in the videos if you've bothered to view them) is more than enough reason to impeach them, if only to send the message that the executive branch has gotten WAY too overreaching in its scope and needs to be curtailed.
Like I said...I don't think you'd want a Democratic president to have that kind of unquestioned power. I don't want ANY president to have it.
3 comments:
My problem, btw, with our being in Iraq is not that we’re there at all -- your videos made it very clear that Democrats in years past have seen the threat for what it was and have called it such, so Bush is not a fool for saying that good could and would come from toppling Saddam -- but rather that we’re there when we should be focused elsewhere for reasons directly related to those who attacked us.
I find this amazing. AQ was our problem, we said that any nation giving aid or comfort to AQ would be dealt with. The Anti-war crowds chant that AQ was not in Iraq. Really?
The information that the media leaves out about these Iraq Al-Qaeda links, these stories always leave out the 1998 trip that Ayman al-Zawahiri made to Baghdad and received $300,000 from either Saddam himself, or someone right underneath him, and this has been confirmed by a couple Clinton officials, including Buzz Patterson. Another note that hasn't really been mentioned by anyone in the media is that hundreds of members of Saddam's regime, including a lot of his top guys like Izzat Al-Douri, have admitted working with Zarqawi and Al-Qaeda since the invasion and hundreds of them have been caught.
If you think that the mainstream media are going to report that, you're crazy. That's not the template. That's not the action line of the story. The action line is Cheney lied. Cheney made it up. Here's what we are being asked to believe. In 1997, '98, '99, 2000, 2001, Al-Qaeda was in Singapore. Al-Qaeda was in Indonesia. Al-Qaeda was in Florida. Al-Qaeda was in Minnesota. Al-Qaeda was in Arizona, taking flying lessons out there and living amongst us. (They went to Vegas, just to get a little debauchery in before meeting the 73 virgins,) Anyway, Al-Qaeda was in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda was in Jordan. Al-Qaeda was in Egypt. Al-Qaeda was in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda was in Iran. Al-Qaeda was -- well, they were everywhere! Al-Qaeda was everywhere, except Iraq. They had the world surrounded, but they were not in Iraq! That's what we're to believe. The action line is: Cheney lied. They are not going to report it. In fact, they're going to do their best to disabuse the notion that Al-Qaeda had a presence in Iraq, which they did.
Saddam may have been a threat, but there were other fish to fry in Afghanistan w/the Taliban, yet Cheney (even in his VP debate in 2000!) mentioned Iraq more than anything else…and he’s certainly made his ambition to go there a reality, in spite of higher priorities at the time…)
See above.
Actually…obstruction of justice, or the refusal to be completely transparent with the legislative branch when inquiries are made regarding executive action is grounds for impeachment…like, oh, say, pardoning members of your party and/or administration who’ve been convicted of wrongdoing or refusing to submit subpoenaed emails
The presidential power to pardon is granted under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution.
"The President ... shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment."
No standards, and only one limitation -- no pardons for the impeached. Now you are for upholding the Constitution, will you submit to the constitution on this issue? This was a witch hunt. America should be ashamed that it allowed this “special” prosecutor to ignore his mission — finding out who blabbed to Bob Novak that Joe Wilson’s wife was CIA — and instead the prosecutor went after Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. Richard Armitage, who actually leaked the information, walked. Disgusting Yet, you want to hang President Bush for exercising his right afforded him by the constitution. Maybe democrats would be so hard on Bush if he followed in Clinton's footsteps and sold pardons for people who did a whole hell of a whole lot worse things than lie under oath about a non-crime. BTW, just for the record, Libby wasn't pardoned, his sentence was commuted, big difference.
OK…he’s not a liar outright, but I would say he's incompetent as a war planner, blind to the real priorities this country has to face in the wake of 9/11, and above all, he’s not answering to Congress (nor does he feel he needs to) in how he's conducting this controversial and scarily and tragically wayward war.
No, he is answering congress, but neither you nor congress like the answers.
kidnapping folks and deporting them to countries where they know they’ll be tortured, torturing POWs
Do you think that our GI's who have been captured by AQ have been given new bibles? Fed western style food? Granted access to exercise yards? Given new prayer ropes to use? Given access to the Red Cross? You look at their bodies and then you look at the terrorists we capture and torture and tell me we are just the same as AQ. What is the difference between AQ and us on this issue? They kill their POW's, and theirs live to go and fight another day when they are released.
http://tinyurl.com/ynnj5v
Bottom line is this: when there’s an incursion on our rights a la Patriot Act/Intelligence Gathering, we have the right to demand a reason why this is being done. Bush refuses to give us this; he refuses to give any reason beyond “it’s necessary in our fight against terror -- trust us!”
Well, what other reason do you want? That we are useing them in the fight against teenage obesity? Is it not about terrorism? What would be a legit excuse for you? None would be. So why do you expect to get a answer when you will not accept any answer in the first place?
Now, if I may inject something here regarding the irony of the whole impeach Bush crowd and those who are leading it. I find it ironic that those who appeal to the constitution in order to make their case are the very same people who seek to trample it under foot withy regards to political speech. Lets play a game called did you know.
Did you know that Kucinich supported legislation to surpress conservative speech on the radio air waves? He wants to reinstate the fairness doctrine.
http://tinyurl.com/34r7k9
Did you know that Diane Feinstein also thinks that talk radio is too one sided and the government needs to step in to make things fair.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhVxZt8l49Q
Did you know John Kerry also wants the fairness doctrine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pwU0FygLlY
Amazing that the very people who want to impeach Bush based upon the constitution also want to regulate speech which fly's in the face of the constitution.
The following wasn't posted at The Onion.com. It was posted and ran in the, brace yourself, The New York Times. T
he men who wrote the piece, Michael E. O’Hanlon & Kenneth M. Pollack, both who are not republicans and in their own words; "As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with."
Prepair for the left wing to go nuclear and throw these traitors under the bus in 3....2....1....
A few money quotes
VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.
After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.
Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.
In Ramadi, for example, we talked with an outstanding Marine captain whose company was living in harmony in a complex with a (largely Sunni) Iraqi police company and a (largely Shiite) Iraqi Army unit. He and his men had built an Arab-style living room, where he met with the local Sunni sheiks — all formerly allies of Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups — who were now competing to secure his friendship.
A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.
These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last six months Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans for security and help. The most important and best-known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than six months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best (outside the Kurdish areas). Today the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor.
A war we might just win.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/opinion/30pollack.html?_r=1
Robert,
"So why do you expect to get a answer when you will not accept any answer in the first place?"
A question I could very well ask you, since you are firmly and aggressively in Bush's camp on these issues.
Let me just say that, as I said, my case has been made, and there's not a lot more to be said on either end, since we seem to have different priorities in this conflict: I'm more interested in preserving right to privacy (issues that you haven't really addressed, because); you're more interested in pursuing a conflict you deem critical to our fight against the 9/11 attacks and Al-Q. Fine. But each of us looks at the other's priority and does not deem it nearly as crucial as our own pet objectives. For this reason--along with the fact that you have degenerated into speaking with the condescending tone of rhetoric you decried in the first post ("Lets play a game called did you know," "Prepair [sic] for the left wing to go nuclear and throw these traitors under the bus in 3....2....1....")--I find it rather pointless to continue this.
I hesitate to pull troops out, since Al-Q has become a real, threatening presence in Iraq, even if it wasn't before, but our tactics need to show long-term results. It's "a war we might just win," but this would mean hanging on to these areas we've cleared...something we haven't been able to do upon moving to other areas of Iraq; the formerly cleared areas get retaken by Al-Q as soon as our thinly-spread troops move on...
...sigh...I'm engaging this again, I know...
...all the above to say this: my reasons for wanting Bush and Cheney out have little (if anything) to do with the fact that we are in Iraq. You can't impeach for poor judgment and/or timing. I'm more about the fact that their illegal (though it's not out and out called such) surveillance of the American people, detaining of Americans for trumped-up reasons, refusal to testify before congressional inquiries and a general attitude of executive privilege and cover-up (which, again, is expanded on very well in the videos if you've bothered to view them) is more than enough reason to impeach them, if only to send the message that the executive branch has gotten WAY too overreaching in its scope and needs to be curtailed.
Like I said...I don't think you'd want a Democratic president to have that kind of unquestioned power. I don't want ANY president to have it.
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