Justice

I don't think that is the goal of most of the Islamist terrorists--at least they don't want to "convert" the US. Muslim society has historically been more tolerant of minority religions than Christian society. Um... Historically doesn't add up to much at the moment. If we look at things like the Talibans destruction of Buddhist Statues and other intolerence shown from Muslim countries (and many foreign Muslims in general; see France) to Hebrews, it gets entirely thrown out of the water. You can't argue that Islam today is more tolerant than Christian Society today. Perhaps a while ago, but not today.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1030-23.htm Point in case, there's a lot of questions surrounding that, since it comes out around 85,000 more than any other study done today. I'd seriously stop using that until there's some confirmation with another study, otherwise it's just an extemely bad outlier. The best ones put it around 15,000. Of course, we are talking about commondreams.org, here, so it really doesn't surprise me that you'd take their word over just about everyone else out there. Also, I find it quite laughable that the author blames the 34 deaths of children not on bombers, but on coalition forces. It'[s all about American Imperialism and all that, not those glorious freedom fighters who love to target the bourgeois running the country.

To be completely honest, though, 1 and 3 don't bother me at all. 1 is stupid, but I doubt it's authenticity and frankly, it's just a bunch of diehards showing how much they support the President. Until they are forcing people to take them, this is a pretty dumb story. 3 is just stupid as well. The guy comes in with a "No Billionaire left behind" pin. Of COURSE they aren't gonna let him in. Hell, he's also got the whole 'Young Rebel' thing going for him. He didn't pay for a ticket, so that doesn't , mean he's losing anything, and the guy definitely looked as though he was gonna cause shit. "Ask him a few questions" generally means shouting accusations when it comes down to anyone from the opposition coming to a rally. I also don't believe his 'sniper' claim. This kid looks like he was trying to start shit, and failing that, he just embellished his failure to the newspaper. 2, though, does hit me a bit. It's sad that something like this happened, and it does disappoint me. Of course, though, these events are true for either side. I've been ganged-up by a bunch of "Students for Kerry" before for supporting the President, so please don't try to claim these are party exclusive.

If only you were Kerry's Campaign manager. Then this election would be so much easier for us Conservatives to win.

Uh... The Tigers won it in 1984, dude. In case you weren't watching, the Red Sox just won Oh, shit, I misread it. I thought he said that the Tigers HAD a longer drought than the BoSox and I was like "... Huh?" Damn it.

Uh... The Tigers won it in 1984, dude.

Percent of children below the poverty level 1970 14.9% 1975 16.8 1980 19.5 1985 20.1 1990 19.9 1992 21.1 Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, P60-185. When Reagan starting scaling back the programs look what happened. Eh, that's not necessarily true. Don't ignore the massive stagnation of the late 70's. Notice that it levels out after Reagan takes office rather than increasing.

It's the end of the world as we know it...

If you choose to ignore the writing on the wall.... I wouldn't call this writing on the wall, really. More of a toddler's crayon drawing, really. What are you talking about? Muslims worldwide are condeming the acts of these terrorists. No offense, but condemning is really lip-service. There has been little action by the foreign Muslim community as a whole to really back up that claim. Yeah, they just tie up black guys to their vans and drag them across dirt roads. And Christianity and beheadings do indeed have an historical background. Um.... that's not technically a Christian thing, bud. Racism isn't inherent in Christianity. Of course, I guess I'm missing the reasoning why a racist religion would EVER admit so many blacks into their community. Nice try at twisting the facts, though! *Thumbs up* Well, at least now I can now add bigotry in the long list of reasons not to take you seriously. You truly are ignorant if you have that kind of view on the Muslim world. ' Because that isn't bigoted at all (Especially being an incorrect reference). I don't agree with the initial statement, but you look stupider for your previous statement and then trying to take the moral highground. Eh... I wouldn't say we support them as much as we support what we thought was the lesser of two evils at the time. Of course, you generally don't have a better solution to these problems, so rant all you want but understand that sometimes there isn't an alternative. And no, I'm sure you aren't trying to justify all the islamic extremists. I mean, that New World Order video only wrote off 9/11 as a response to American Imperialism and World Dominance. That's pretty big condemnation, eh? He thought you were British, apparently. I kinda figured you were one of those crazy leftist Ontario boys who kept electing Liberals to slide your government into a quagmire. And why would we ever want America Jr? Of course, countries like North Vietnam, Cambodia, and North Korea REALLY benefited from Communism, eh? You are just as guilty at revising history here. You lack the understanding that when many of these things happened, Communist regiemes were killing off their populations at a pretty damn startling rate. You act as though all these countries were doing so excellently under their current leaders or that they were these great places. The US (Via Roosevelt addition to the Monroe Doctrine) went into it's own backyard to stop shit like that from happening. If you are going to try an analyze why the US intervined so many times to stop Communist regiemes from forming, look at the Communist regiemes at the time and tell me that you would REALLY want those in your backyard... Considering the gassing of the Kurds started after we sort of stopped our aid, I'd say yes. But you probably didn't know that. The difference between France and the US, since you haven't caught it yet, is that we didn't deal with him after he did all his incredibly horrible shit. France continued to long after, and even throughout sactioning. Question, and an honest one: Which dictators outside of Saudi Arabia do we currently support and endorse? Perhaps I'm not really informed, but I don't remember really being hot on dictators since the Cold War. Which is exactly why the US hasn't reaped any of the benefits yet. Or maybe I'm really missing where we are... *Waits for 'Corporate Moneypigs response* w00t @ raping the land while having no effect on the economy! Oh, and question: How can we do anything humanitarian for any country in your eyes if there are resources? Seriously, if we go into Darfur, you'd probably claim we were going after the diamonds. If we intervined in Middle Earth, you'd probably say "NO BLOOD FOR MITHRIL!". Seriously, just because Iraq has oil does NOT mean that it's the only reason we went in. Not... really. The point is that the Shah had flaws, but he was the best person we could put in power. There was no one else in the pool that would be any better than he was. Unless you have a magic candidate in there somewhere... Point is, the US can only put people who can assume power. We can't put in some magical leader who does everything right; we have to work with what we have, who could do better, despite flaws. Of course, you seem to think that we can place just about ANYONE in power, which really isn't true. We want the countries to succeed; why else would we do that? If it's for investment purposes, like you think, why would we honestly want them to fail like you seem to think? A stable, free country is the best for capitalism, if you didn't notice. Milosevic would probably be the biggest irritation, since it still isn't assured that he'll be convicted of anything. I'm going out to get some food, but seriously, you should consider looking for something other than massive conspiracies in everything political. Plus, your incredible bias against the US really makes it hard to take you seriously.

Sadly, they haven't found any actual PROOF of election fraud. When that happens, call me. Otherwise, it's just people whining because they didn't win the election. Seriously, when did all the political parties in the world turn into such bitches? God help us if we can't have an election that calls for a special recount somewhere...

Well, that's not true. The British dealt with the IRA on their home turf. Russia has taken a pretty militant stand in Chechnya as well. The same with France and the Algerians. Spain had a terrorist attack on their soil, but they simply capitulated and ran off. Note also that many of these are domestic terrorists; terrorists that are within ones own borders. This is much different than us. We are truly the only country on Earth that deals with the threat of terrorist who come from THOUSANDS of miles away. You can't fight when you lack any sort of staging point near where these people are. It's not that we think we are 'special', it's just that ours is a much different case, and I hope you honestly understand that. ...? Are you serious? Our policy on Israel is what got us INTO this whole thing. To think that their whole policy doesn't shape world politics is wrong because it shapes out policies and the policies of many other countries. Secondly, once again they are dealing with domestic terrorism. I don't think you really understand how different foreign and domestic terroism are when it comes down to the logistics of fighting them.

Well, while your theory of a 'lone article' pretaining to the issue was debunked, of course believing that such a story could hold some merit would prove contradictory to Iraq's 'democratic' puppet regieme, so i'm not surprised it gets no sold. Either way, it's a matter of opinion on how much of this story we want to believe, obviously there will be some bias given our political differences. Huh? What are you talking about? It's the exact same article for each one, basically. The report was given to one reporter and was never able to be confirmed. It doesn't matter how many different papers report it, since in all essence each article has the exact same info (or lack thereof). Two shady witnesses who refuse to reveal their identity does not a very believable story make. But hey, it appeared all over for about a day befoer the press dropped it, right? That makes for something... right? ... Jesus, is it that hard to say "We are fighting for a democratic Iraq?" Of course the objective changes after we won the ground war; rebuilding is a much different process than simple fighting. I wouldn't call that 'ever-changing' objective. Perhaps I don't see many more objectives outside "Helping stabilize Iraq to become a functioning democracy". Maybe you could name a few of them that wouldn't fall under that one? See, this is hilarious. The justification for removing Saddam was completely justified by WMDs at the time: No other agency in the world said that Saddam didn't have weapons pre-war. If you can find something that says so, please, bring it up. I doubt you will, though. Most of the info itself came from the UN and their previous inspections. So... I suppose that we were the murders back in WWII, right? And Korea? And Kosovo? Yeah... that makes sense. No, wait, it doesn't. Murder isn't simply murder. The death of a human being during war to save a civilian life, in the minds of most normal people, is a completely justifiable thing. The fact that you can't see that a soldier killing an insurgent isn't murder is idiotic, nor that you don't understand that accidents that occur during war aren't murder either shows how out of touch with reality you really are: If someone on a slick highway accidentally lost control and hit another car, killing someone, are they truly a murder? No. No intent and there was no control over the incident. The same can be said many, many times in war: Through no fault of their own, soldiers may inadvertantly kill a civilian. Faulty intelligence on a bombing run, accidentally shooting someone who suddenly pops out of a car with a camera mistaking it for an RPG. Seriously, if you call those murder, then I honestly can't take you seriously anymore. ? The Iraqis are having the first democratic elections ever. Many Iraqis believe while it may be hard right now, that in the long run Iraq will be much better off than it was before under Saddam. The Iraqis believe they are honestly on a better path than they were before. I bolded the one part because that's basically a lie. Many of the insurgents right now are foreigners from other countries. The Iraqi insurgents themselves have been fighting us the entire time. To say that they cheered when we brought down Saddam and then turned on us isn't very true at all: If they are fighting against us now, they likely supported Saddam before or was from out of country. How have we benefitted? Have we been pipping oil to an 'undisclosed location' this entire time? We haven't benefitted. If anyone, the Iraqi people have benefitted more than the US as a whole. That's reassuring, because you frankly are horrible at making arguments. Yeah, I know. That's generally why I DON'T believe you. I'm sorry, I've have the wool pulled over my eyes this entire time. Yes, I'm not a free thinker, I'm yet another capitalist slave owned by the corporations and sold at business meetings. Thank you oh so very much for such an enlightenment. Or, maybe, I'm not. Maybe you are too concerned with finding some sort of underlying conspiracy with your inane views that you've truly lost your grasp on the reality of the situation. Your hatred of America is pretty damn obvious, and it really colors your views pretty badly. You know that the 'knee-jerk reaction' quote IS a knee-jerk reaction, right? Probably not, but lets continue anyways. Yeah, I'll remember that you were right all along when I'm in my food line serving the man. Thanks a bunch! Of course, that's you using your hatred of the Bush administration to completely twist whatever honest intentions for good completely out of it. You watch so many of your own propaganda that you have to believe that obviously Cheney and the rest are trying to subvert the world to a consumer-slave economy when, perhaps, they would rather the US actively use their military and policy power to better the world. Naw, too much of a stretch, eh? Then why do you CONSTANTLY tell me this? Now that you've completely twisted it so that it lacks the basis of truth anymore, yeah, I'd say so. Then again, you think that Michael Moore makes good points, ask us to debunk it, do so, and then simply scan the article dismissively saying 'I'm sure it's the same stuff' without actually READING it. Who doesn't want to see here? It's not as though you haven't taken anything that could have a very shady accuracy and used it for your own needs. Oh wait, this entire thread has examples of that. My bad. Yeah, I'll live in dream world while you fight the man! Go, freedom fighter, go! No, wait... You're the one living in the dream world. A world where all the people who think differently of you obviously have been brainwashed by the government, where the United States always is doing something wrong and is hiding ulterior motives in some darkened room, and that the ultimate objective for the Bush Administration is to subvert the world into a bunch of slaves. Does this not sound a bit out there? Seriously, where is fk_teale when you need him...

I do find it somewhat funny that a large majority of those sites are Australian. At any rate, the story died in about 2 days because the claim is based on two eye witnesses who we know nothing about (And therefore makes it hard for me to trust their motives or even the culpability of them actually WITNESSING such a crime) and nothing else. If they could offer up like, some actual proof, I'd be okay. Of course, that has yet to happen. *Awaits conspiratorial response about other witnesses being hushed up* See, I love this. Once again, you try using flawed logic. So, apparently, fighting a war immediately makes us human rights offenders. I can understand that people die in war, but just because we wage war (Or, just bomb third world countries for fun, as you delightfully pointed out) does not mean that we are human rights offenders. In all honesty, it's stupidity: We go in and stop Saddam, a huge human rights villian, and we are suddenly as bad as he is? What? Seriously, with the massive scandals in the UN dealing with Iraq (That you seem to love to ignore when talking about the huge imperialistic hegemony that the US is apparently forcing upon the world), how else could we have resolved the situation? Saddam hadn't changed since the Gulf War: The Duelfur report tells us this NUMEROUS times. How else are we supposed to deal with him, especially when he has puppets like Russia and France on the Security Council for him? This is insane. With all your babblings of a New World Order and that the World should have a say in our politics, you honestly seem to have no grasp of how things actually work in the reality and how things are actually done. To tell you the truth, you are becoming pretty cliche.

See: Florida 2000 U.S. Presidential Election. See: Chicago, Illinois is more accurate. or The Valley, Texas, circa 1948 (LBJ was such a bastard ) SAY THAT TO MY FACE, YA LITTLE PISSANT MIZZURA BOY~!!!

I'd give you a tin-foil hate, but I'm sure you're already wearing one. The only salient point I can attack in the Allawi one: There is so little information and proof on that rumor, how can you really believe it? How do you know it was in cold blood? Seriously, if they were caught fighting against coalition forces and admit to it, that's treason, punishable by death. The article in question (If I remember it well enough, since it was pretty damn vague) never said if there was already a trial or not, nor did they actually have proof that it happened. But hey, it already satisfies two criteria to be used as a fact by C-Bacon: 1) Is incredibly vague and quite possibly not true 2) It's obviously showing the attrocities committed by the new Iraqi government and the coalition (Mind you, none of this EVER happened before. It's all the American's fault, really). And you wonder why the hell no one takes you seriously.

See: Florida 2000 U.S. Presidential Election. See: Chicago, Illinois is more accurate.

NoCal, if the terrorists were on our own soil, we wouldn't HAVE to invade another country. Sadly, that isn't the case, hence the difference. oh ok, so THAT is why we invaded...........IRAQ!?! Because Saddam didn't financially support terrorists, didn't have training camps in his country, didn't call for American interests to be attacked, didn't try to assassinate a former President... Whatever happened to the left giving two shits about human rights? -=Mike I dunno there is about 1100 human's rights that no longer exist because of this mess in Iraq, not to mention the innocent civilian lives that are written off and not reported by the news. Yeah, because pulling numbers out of your ass is really the way to win the argument. Are you trying to say that Saddam was better on Human Rights than we are? Is that your honest opinion there? Of course not, but I hope you aren't being silly enough to suggest our government gives two shits about human rights abroad. I think we care about it more than many, many other countries in the world today. Far more than many of your buddies in Europe, at least. And again, where the hell is this figure coming from? Did you seriously just pull it out of your ass or what, because I honestly can't believe we are denying 1100 different human rights (Hell, are there that many specific ones, or are you getting to stupid ones like 'Denying people the right to play NBA 2K5' or something?).

NoCal, if the terrorists were on our own soil, we wouldn't HAVE to invade another country. Sadly, that isn't the case, hence the difference. oh ok, so THAT is why we invaded...........IRAQ!?! Because Saddam didn't financially support terrorists, didn't have training camps in his country, didn't call for American interests to be attacked, didn't try to assassinate a former President... Whatever happened to the left giving two shits about human rights? -=Mike I dunno there is about 1100 human's rights that no longer exist because of this mess in Iraq, not to mention the innocent civilian lives that are written off and not reported by the news. Yeah, because pulling numbers out of your ass is really the way to win the argument. Are you trying to say that Saddam was better on Human Rights than we are? Is that your honest opinion there?

NoCal, if the terrorists were on our own soil, we wouldn't HAVE to invade another country. Sadly, that isn't the case, hence the difference.

If only Sharon WERE Darth Vader. Imagine the Peace Talks... "You know, Ariel, sorry about all those suicide bombin-AAGGGGGGCK~!" *Chokes out Yassir* "Appology accepted, Mr. Arafat."

They strike again!

World domination is a very large stretch. Ask yourself why Islamic fundamentalists have this mind set in the first place (in relation to the West). That's the root of the problem. Bush decaling "They hate freedom" dosen't cut it. I don't think it's a stretch at all. They are obviously looking to make their fundamental style of Islam the dominant religion on the Earth. They are religious fundamentalists; that's what they do. Since their religion calls for government to be almost synonamous with the Mosque, I'd say they are after World Domination. They might use different terms, but essentially that's their ultimate goal. Fanaticism was there long before frustration. I'd say you are wrong on that count. I'll say that their actions do have frustration to do with them, but they are more a result of an intolerant and extreme ideology than anything else. Frustration isn't exactly the proper term to describe their mindset. Fanatical is the better and more accurate term, because it more properly expresses the unwillingness to compromise and the illogic behind much of their hatred. See, this is very flawed reasoning. Osama and Al Qaeda became prominent because of the support for Fundamentalist Islam and it's extremist teachings. The US is hardly responsible for it's creation. They weren't exactly 'funded' by the US; the Mujahadeen and the general Afghan people were. To say that we were funding Al Qaeda is to say that the Marine Corp is responsible for Lee Harvey Oswald. You are ignoring the personal choice and responsibility of the members, which is critical when looking at organizations like this. These people weren't pushed into their beliefs by the US; many of them already were fundamentalists and fanatics. The US just happened to be the biggest guy around when they started to form. See, the problem is that this is what we thought back in the Clinton Administration. We can counter it on a case by case basis and try small actions in an effort to cut their effectiveness. It didn't work; the WTC, the embassy bombings in Tanzania, and, in the end, 9/11. Small actions aren't enough. Police actions aren't enough. The entire flaw in the 'counter-terrorist' strategy is that by waiting for them (Which is what you are doing most of the time) cut down your effective reaction time to nil; it's like trying to catch the punch of a prize-fighter. You can't simply win a boxing match from blocking and trying to counter-punch. You have to throw some punches yourself. Overall, counter-terrorism is simply a remedy for the symptoms of terror, not the disease. The root of it is in the governments and the ideology of the Middle East. This has to change, and for that to happen, governments have to change. Governments with more freedom for free thought and religion have to appear so that we can breed tolerance and rationality rather than fanaticism and blind hate. We need direct action against states like Iraq who promote hatred against the West, who fund people like Hamas, who rules his people with an iron fist, to start the process. We need to get to the cause of this, rather than just addressing the effects. See, I'll tell you right now that 'taking away our imperialistic tendencies' won't work. We are the most powerful nation in the world; any action, whether diplomatic or not can be twisted into an imperialistic plot. "Imperialistic" is perhaps the most overused buzz word from the far left, and it irritates the hell out of me. Any action can be imperialistic, it only needs to be written in the right context, and don't think that they won't find the proper context to fit their needs. This action also is basically capitulation. What 'imperialistic tendencies' do you want to eliminate? Do you want us to leave Saudi Arabia like they want, to leave Israel like they want? They'll see it as a victory, a rallying call to push the US further. You think that they only want the US out of the region. In reality, they want the world to conform to their belief system, and if we give them an inch they will assuredly take a mile in blood.

Well, they do intend to try and conditions for the dominance of one form of Radical Islam. "Killing or converting all infidels" is definitely in their M.O, and that definitely sounds like a plan to dominate the world. No, there is a difference between 'frustration' and 'fanaticism'. Frustration is what the Quebecois have towards the Canadian Government. That is not the same thing as the fanaticism that radical Islamics have towards the West. Trying to argue that is just a sad case of moral relativism. Saddam was in place long before us, and his continued stay was more the result of Russian and French weapons deals that gave him the power to pacify his people than American Foriegn policy placing and keeping him in power. Osama... Well, Russian and then Saudi policy actually created him. First the War in Afganistan put him in as a rebel leader and then the Saudis pleading for our help and his objections created him. It was passive on our part and active on theirs if we really want to place blame, though I don't think any of them are truly responsible for him. They would flourish anyways. By not taking any true decisive action in the Middle East, they could easily claim that the Americans are too fearful to try to invade, and still many would flock to what they thought was a winning cause. In all honesty, after 9/11, after it became something serious, there will always be people joining the Terrorist cause. But, and I ask this respectfully, what sort of policy pre-Iraq do you think would decrease the rate of Terror growth or at least have it slow down? I would really like to hear an honest answer from you because I am very curious. Then again, many of their Saudi connections were renounced. They had more connections to Afganistan than Saudi Arabia by a long shot. And, frankly, outside of less funding for Israel I doubt most active actions would be looked upon with resentment in the world. As long as you don't compare it to Vietnam.

He desires to compromise to reinforce our troops in Iraq. Will it work? Maybe, maybe not. But I don't see Bush with a better plan to get us out of Iraq. With who? What allies? Give me countries that will come on board with Kerry as President that won't with Bush. Kerry has already verbally lashed out at our current allies enough, so let's hear him produce some of his own. Overblown talking point. He's said he won't hesitate to protect our nation without allies if needed. Global Test refers to cases of nation building. Bah, sure. He hasn't shown me ANYTHING that says he would. He's all about "Striking back with great force" after an attack, coalition building, and all that jazz. Hell, with new findings from the Duellfur Report, one wonders if letting weapons inspectors and sactions work are really the brightest stances.