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Don't blame me, I'm just the messenger. -
I don't know who will win but I sure hope Kerry comes up with SOME kind of platform.
I hate to go into the voting booth only knowing what one side stands for...
We're quoting Bill Maher?!?!?
Let me go see if I can dig up some Rodney Dangerfield quotes...that should prove as legitimate in a political discussion, right?
Let's go see what Al Frankin and Dennis Miller have to say...or maybe Will Farrell
Those SNL folks sure know their stuff.Comment
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Take a look at this site.
Total American lives lost since War began = 1,034
Total Coalition Casualties = 135
Now go to the Iraqi Casualties here
We don't have an exact figure, just a Minimum and a Maximum. 12,800 and 14,800 respectively.
Perhaps you and bren both we're bad at math, or maybe its me. In which case, perhaps you can show me where you get 90% from 1,169 deaths. That is American and Coalition included.
Like I said, I didn't even need to look these numbers up, and yet your calling me naive??
So your implying that BUSH had all of those documents In front of him when he made the descision to go to Iraq. Your saying that Bush blatently lied to the American public?? What about all the facilities that were used for their obvious manufacturing. How often must we have this argument??I think your wrong, and neither of us can prove our point to the other. Because there is conflicting evidence. Regardless, if Bush had all of this information, then so did Kerry.ALL the evidence pointed to Saddam having WMDs? Have you seen the Senate Commission's findings on this? This isn't even close to correct -- there was loads of contrary evidence. It was just ignored.
Further, the suggestion that any member of congress has the same authority as the commander-in-chief with regard to the decision to actually go to war is, I think, a little naive.
This whole Iraq thing, and the obvious revisionist history that is being created by the Bush adminstration to justify going in there, leaves me with no trust in anything Bush says:
"We're going to Iraq to disarm Saddam of his stash of WMDs!"
"We went to Iraq because of his ties to Al Qaeda."
"Uh, we went to Iraq because Saddam needed to go..."
Anyone other than me think that Bush had every intention of going to Iraq from the moment he was elected, and was just looking for an excuse?
I've said it before, Congress decides if we go to war, NOT BUSH. Perhaps you see it that Kerry only had a fraction of the say, fair enough. He still had his say and he still decided to go to Iraq, so did he make that descision with the same information in hand???
Yes I've read all the documents, and I still think Saddam HAD WMD. Key word being had, I don't know where they are now, perhaps the CIA does, perhaps they don't. Nobody knows.
Still, its my personal belief that anybody who has seen the various facilities in and around Iraq and Syria and still believe that none of them were being used to create WMD is much more naive.
Take a look here.
That site has satalite images of facilities strewn around both countires. Those images show that those facilites were still being used after 2002, and after 9/11. So your implying that all of these people just stopped after 9/11?? If anything, they've taken a break. They're letting things die down a bit. Those biological and chemical weapons do exist. Whether you think so or not."The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." - Tacitus (55-117 A.D.)
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."
- Thomas JeffersonComment
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Civic, I think we've got a breakdown in communication here -- I'm not talking about total lives lost during the war, I'm talking about total American lives lost during the war as compared to our allies, i.e., America is bearing the brunt of this war when it comes to loss of human life (and financially, as an aside). Bush talks about this broad coalition of forces, but ultimately it is the US that is at the helm and, accordingly, suffering the most losses in raw numbers (not to take anything away from those solidiers from other countries who have died as well).Take a look at this site.
Total American lives lost since War began = 1,034
Total Coalition Casualties = 135
Now go to the Iraqi Casualties here
We don't have an exact figure, just a Minimum and a Maximum. 12,800 and 14,800 respectively.
Perhaps you and bren both we're bad at math, or maybe its me. In which case, perhaps you can show me where you get 90% from 1,169 deaths. That is American and Coalition included.
And by the way, 1,034 is 88% of 1,169. In fairness, that isn't quite 90%, so I guess ya got me there.
Do I think Bush lied outright? No. Do I think he said things that were deceptive? Yes.
The most recent news on the WMD front, including that from our very own Sec'y of State, is that the sanctions were evidently working, and that Iraq had not restarted its WMD programs. Yeah, Iraq obviously did produce WMDs at one time, but all indications are that they haven't in the last few years. As for those images, without having independent knowledge of what the hell those things are, I don't know what those images depict. Do you?
With that said, I think we've been around and around on this enough for me to agree that neither of us is going to convince the other of anything. I say Bush was just looking for an excuse to go into Iraq to get the guy that his dad couldn't get, you say there were WMDs. Tom-a-to. Tom-aa-to. Potato. Pot-aa-to. Lets call the whole thing off!Comment
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Re: Any guesses who will win the election?
I had to put my money on it, I would say GWB will win. Why? Because the election will come down to Florida, Ohio, and Penn, and I believe GWB will edge out JFK in those states...Comment
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What are you talking about Toasty, read the original post by Bren, he says and I quote. "over 90% of the cost and human life lost has been US."
Besides the obvious gramatical errors, what that comment says, whether he implyed it this way or not, is that 90% of the lives lost in Iraq were American. Between 12,000 and 14,000 Iraqies lost their lives. And 1,000 American's have lost their's. I'm not talking abotu coalition, thats why I asked if he "MEANT" allied, even though he said US lives. I don't see where he said anything about coalition or what have you. I don't even know why you felt it necessary to come in and pretend to understand that you "assume" he meant coalition lives. Taking all the lives lost in Iraq will probably be around 15,000, right ???? So how is 1,000 90% of 15,000. I think your the one thats misunderstood what I tried to say.
Toasty, I respect you, more then any other blatent liberally biased member who posts regularly in this politics fourm. But, dude. Seriously, if the Secretary of State decided that the sanctians were working, why was there so much interferance on the inspection front??? Sometimes I wonder if your even thinking logically about this WMD thing. Saddam was disallowing the inspections to take place, and/or making it extremely difficult for them to take place."The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." - Tacitus (55-117 A.D.)
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."
- Thomas JeffersonComment
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Yeah, I don't know why I felt like I needed to chime in on that, either. I guess I assumed that's what bren meant becuase it would be completely boneheaded to intentionally suggest that 90% of all human life that has been lost in Iraq has been US, but I did think the point that I assumed was being made was a valid one, that the US is bearing the brunt of this war, notwithstanding the massive coalition of forces that purportedly exist.
There could be a host of reasons:
1. Saddam is a megalomaniac.
2. Saddam enjoys thumbing his nose at the world.
3. Saddam is a moron.
4. Saddam is a prick.
Obviously, there is some overlap here. I personally think number 1 is the most likely (although I think the others are probably true as well), but the point is that it does not necessarily follow that just because he was being obstructionist that he was, in fact, hiding WMDs. I don't put it past him to say to the world, "this is my country, and you fuckers aren't going to tell me what I can and can't do in my country" on principle alone. As an aside, I think that type of bravado alone would have justified going in to dethrone him -- I just would have liked to have known that's why we were going.
Back when we were going to war, I trusted the president and his adminstration and believed that there were, in fact, WMDs. Now it seems pretty clear there were not, and there is significant evidence that there should have at least been serious doubt about this before we went in there. My understanding is that the initial draft of the report outlining the case for war in Iraq was objective and set forth both the evidence for and against the idea that there were WMDs in Iraq. The final version omitted any suggestion that it was anything other than a slam dunk, and made subtle changes to the verbiage which had the effect of changing statements of impression and opinion to statements of fact -- a huge, huge difference.
Somewhere along the chain of command, someone royally fucked up. If I were Bush and that happened on my watch, heads would roll. Instead, kudos have been liberally passed out. This is incomprehensible to me, and leaves me with little trust in Bush as a leader -- the only rational explanation I can come up with is that Bush wanted to go to Iraq, and the fact that these folks gave him an excuse to do so is a positive thing in his eyes; ergo, what should have been a housecleaning of the intel department became a love-in.Comment
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You are right, somewhere around 90% of the casualties from the coalition. As it was suggested, it would be totally boneheaded of me to suggest it would be 90% of all casualties. I was working from sources that didn't consider enemy and innocent casualties. There are many more innocent and enemy combatants that have died, which is a very sad truth and one of the reasons I opposed the war before it even started.And shite. I didn't even notice this ballocks. Your saying 90% of the lives lost in Iraq were allied, or just American lives?? Either way I can guarentee your stats are WAYYYYY off. I don't even have to look the numbers up, but it would probably be even more the other way around. Like 5% of the lives lost were Americn. Where the hell do you get off??
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Re: Any guesses who will win the election?
I agree with Toasty that Bush was looking to get rid of Saddam. I'll state those reasons in a moment. For many reasons, but let's go through this again.
Bush had at the time faulty evidence that Iraq was attempting to obtain or had WMDs. Now, let's remember at the time, 9/11/01 had recently happened and the general public was scared of another horrible terrorist attack. The President's duty is to protect the people of the United States. No way were we or Bush going to let 9/11 happen again if we could help it. Don't forget that Bush tried diplomatically through the UN to get Saddam to let the weapons inspectors in, but only on Saddam's terms. France and other European countries would not approve the use of force to impose the UN sanctions. The popular Gulf war liberated Kuwait, but we were right back in almost the same situation again 10 years later. And waiting on the international community wasn't something America and Bush was waiting on.
My point is that Saddam is to blame. If he had let the weapons inspectors do their job and not invade his neighboring countries and kill his citizens then there wouldn't be a need to invade Iraq.
Since Bush, America's CEO, made a bad decision then people or him should suffer the consequences. Tenet "resigned" and I think others in the adminstration should have resigned. Those who provided the faulty evidence should be fire or forced to resign.
As I mentioned, there are other reasons for Saddam out of power. Our close relationship with the Saudis and the oil trade. Oil is central to the world economy. Plus, any country that attempts to assassinate our President should be attacked. That alone is grounds for war.
In the long run, Saddam out of power will be a good thing. It may take awhile to settle things down in Iraq, but it's better that he's out of power.Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake - Napoleon BonaparteComment
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"when you go to the dentist to get your wisdom teeth pulled out and you wake up after the operation with your pants unzipped, that means you dont have to pay the bill".Comment
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Re: Any guesses who will win the election?
Bush will win, but not after a shit load, and I mean a shit load of lawyers trying to recount or file any kind of lawsuit that says voters were disenfranchised here there, blacks, military folk, gays, whatever. This will be the lamest and sadest election ever in terms of petty lawsuits and motions for recount all over the place, get ready because if it sucked in 2000, it's going to suck even more this time. Hopefully the shadow goverment kicks in and blows this shit out of the water, that would be cool....mmmm.
I say Bush is going to win because I believe the odds (take a look at what the Vegas Odds are for the 2004 Presidential Election) have been against kerry almost the entire time and I think they will stay that way, at least that's what my gut tells me.
Here'swhat Vegas is saying at the moment:
"George W. Bush (R) favored over John F. Kerry (D), 15 to 14 (51.7% chance; upgraded Sept. 18 from 51% chance; upgraded Sept. 4 from 50.5% chance) "Comment
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