Third Party & Independents: Archives

David:

Lets take your points and look at them:

Russia makes its own decisions. When they opposed Bush regarding Iraq, I didn’t hear your complaints about how they were following the lead of France or Germany. Now they have seemingly decided to try a different course of action, and you immediately try to pin blame on Bush. A bit cynical, but we’ll allow you that comfort.

Bush called for an end to ALL 527 ads, while Kerry wanted only ONE group silenced. And now you blame Bush for this? The SBVT has been very effective, but then again, so has MoveOn.org etc. They are all legal, but they also are all drowning out the voice of the “regular” American, who does not have the power of their megaphone.
They should all go, or none should go, but the idiotic idea that only anti-Democratic groups should be silenced is…well, just idiotic.

Deficit—-its obviously bad, and both parties pander to their constituents while in office. Both sides need to rein in their spending, and its more a Republican issue right now, as they hold more power.

Assault weapons—this is a political tactic, from what I see. And Dems in various parts of the country are doing the same thing, so as not to incur the wrath of the NRA. Shows primarily how lobbying perverts our political process. Note also how Kerry is being seen with guns in his campaign stops, in a blatant attempt to appeal to gun votes.

Attacks simply cannot be prevented in total, but by pursuing aggressive policies, we can limit them. I believe Bush is on the right track here, and I understand you disagree. The logic is tough though, since it requires a long range view. The fact that no attacks have occurred does not mean the policies are working. If there is an attack in the near future, it does not mean the policies are NOT working. Of course, this is where the less intelligent mind kneejerks to a conclusion, but the reality is that a longer range viewpoint is required.

David, I have gotten on Stephen for what I consider to be a very partisan viewpoint. Americans can have different opinions on candidates, but should NOT hold them to different standards.

That is what you appear to be doing here, when you blame Bush for Russian activities and such. Some of your criticism is fair, though.

Despite the efforts of various parties to link the Chechen rebels to a global war on terror, it doesn’t really work. They aren’t part of a big ideological or religious crusade. They just want to be independent from Russia. Good article here.

While I don’t condone their rephrensible tactics for a minute, their goal is reasonable. This may be a situation where it really does make sense to negotiate with terrorists.

David—

Great thought provoking article. I think it’s safe to say that those on the right who will vote for four more years of Bush and his crooked Administration have closed their minds to any argument or fact that might sully their beloved Christian Warrior. And they have turned their backs on the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights. They are now just words to help justify their individual aspirations over the good of the whole. Who in their right mind can really justify owning an assault rifle?

All great civilizations through the ages have fallen first from within as their political system became untenable, and their lust for material good and personal gratification eclipsed the general welfare. And then from without as others sensing weakness struck. An over simplification but…Rome fell this way after almost 1000 years of dominance; at the rate we are going we’ll be lucky to last another 100 years without imploding.

Sadly, well have only ourselves to blame for our inattention to the founding principles of our nation. We The People no longer seem to care what American stands for as long as “I” the individual is left alone to pursuer material wealth at any cost to family, community, or country. The United States may have won the Cold War, but at what price to the American experiment?

Joe, David wasn’t condemning Russia simply for following other countries’ leads — he was condemning Russia specifically for opening the door to pre-emptive military action “anywhere” they want. You are comparing apples to oranges when you liken Russia’s agreement with France etc’s re: America’s pre-emption strategy with Russia’s agreement with the USA re: our pre-emption strategy. The two positions aren’t analogous, they are in fact diametrically opposed. This is simply Russia flip-flopping choosing whatever doctrine that is most convenient for them strategically at any given time. Before the Iraq invasion, however, Russia didn’t have as much room to wiggle on this. Now they have philosophical and geopolitical firm ground for the aforementioned “we can attack anywhere we want” strategy. Thanks to Bush. Is this not clear to you?

More importantly, do you actually agree with Putin that Russia should be permitted to invade anyone they choose if they suspect there to be terrorists there? For example Afghanistan? Uzbekistan? Iraq? Saudi Arabia? Pakistan?

Don’t you think that allowing Putin to do this is insane? What if China says there are terrorists in Taiwan or Nepal? Do the geopolitical ramifications of Bush’s reckless advocacy of pre-emptive invasion do not frighten you?

If you agree with Putin, then you are being ideologically consistent (pre-emption is legitimate for anybody) but you are disagreeing with Bush, who would almost certainly oppose Russia invading or making incursions anywhere. We already opppose Russia making incursions into Chechnya!

-Cf

We all believe in preemption. The only argument is when it is valid to use it. Bush didn’t invent preemption; he didn’t teach the Russians how to do it and what al Queda did could not be called preemption. Preemption implies that you neutralize a gathering threat. The al Queda attacks were not designed to neutralize American power or prevent its exercise. If anything, they were meant to provoke greater involvement.

We have to give up the idea that people like Osama bin Laden attack us mainly because of what we do or even what we are. They attack us because of themselves. They see us as part of their drama and attacks are meant to radicalize and solidify the base of their own supporters. Ask yourself what could we give al Queda that would stop their attacks. The answer is nothing. They make few specific demands and the general ones are unreasonable. The U.S. should get all the way out of the Middle East? And don’t forget that Osama is still holding a grudge about what he calls the “Andalusia debacle.” If you don’t recognize this recent event, it may be because it happened the same year Columbus sailed to America – 1492. Andalusia refers to Muslim Spain. Spain, you see, is part of the sacred lands infidels should vacate, according to Osama. Even the most fervent blame America first people can’t lay that one on us.

By the way, the Bush national security policy was not really a radical departure from previous American behavior. Take a look at it (http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html)

Jack, we invaded and totally dismantled a sovereign nation with little evidence to justify it and little international support to boot. It is a radical departure from previous American behavior. It is unprecedented.

You are correct that other nations do it, though. It’s just that the other nations who do it have always been the bad guys.

-Cf

Jack, I should add that besides your insinuation that the Iraq invasion wasn’t abnormal for the United States, there is nothing else in your post that I disagree with.

I’m not sure what you were driving at - were you trying to disagree with somebody? Are you suggesting that there are WatchBloggers who think we should negotiate with Al Qaeda? Did anyone say that they thought that the September 11 attacks were legitimate or justified?

What are you trying to say?

-Cf

Chris:

Get a grip, friend. I referred to how David said that Russia “followed Bush’s and Al Queda’s lead”. And as I stated, Russia makes its own decisions.

You try to paint pre-emption as a new strategy. But it isnt. The US has had pre-emptive strategies long before Bush came along. I believe we invaded Grenada, not exactly one of the world’s premier powers, and certainly not a threat to the United States.

We sent troops to Kosovo and Bosnia, and troops are still there. I suppose you could call this an occupation if you choose, and you certainly would HAVE to call it pre-emptive, since there was no attack on the US. There was a humanitarian crisis there, and I agreed at the time that we should go there. But to suggest that it wasnt pre-emptive would be silly.

Lets turn to recent history and look at Operation Desert Fox in 1998. We pre-emptively bombed Iraq for 4 days. The only difference between ODF and the current war is the scope of military action, since both were obviously pre-emptive. Feel free to read the full transcript of Clinton’s speech, or just peruse the excerpt below. It will become clear (unless you simply choose not to believe what Clinton said) that pre-emption was the strategy employed. So, Chris, enough with the huffing and puffing about Bush’s pre-emption strategies and all—-it just doesnt hold water.

This situation presents a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere…If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors; he will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them. Because we are acting today, it is less likely that we will face these dangers in the future.

Aggression and preemption are not the same things. We Americans have long been blessed by wide oceans and weak neighbors. We didn’t have to worry so much about gathering storms because we had time to react before they broke on our shores. Even after the catastrophic attack on Pearl Harbor, we had time to build up forces. (Also credit Franklin Roosevelt’s pre-war policies. He certainly would be accused of “planning a war” in today’s climate.) September 11 showed that we no longer had that kind of time to wait. (I don’t say Saddam was linked to September 11. Only that incident heightened our awareness of our general vulnerability.)

I don’t mourn the loss of Saddam’s Iraq. I know there are still bad guys around, but just because you can’t do everything does not mean you have to do nothing. Iraq’s government openly praised the September 11th attacks on America. In fact, Saddam described his country as at war with the U.S. on several occasion and technically he was in violation of the cease fire at the end of Gulf I. He was clearly a threat to the U.S. and its friends.

A lot has been made of the fact that we didn’t find WMD. In a risky world, you have to address the maximum risk with the largest margin of error. We had a reasonable belief that Saddam possessed WMD and the treat of WMD was the trigger for action, but it was not the only good reason. In his address to the UN in 2002, President Bush told the UN several things Saddam could do to make peace. They were:
·forswear, disclose, and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles, and all related material. - (We didn’t find WMD, but Saddam refused to forswear them or disclose what he had done with what he had.)
·end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it, as all states are required to do by U.N. Security Council resolutions. (Saddam openly paid the families of suicide bombers and sheltered know terrorists until he was overthrown.)
·cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi’a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans, and others, again as required by Security Council resolutions. (Saddam didn’t.)
·release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown. It will return the remains of any who are deceased, return stolen property, accept liability for losses resulting from the invasion of Kuwait, and fully cooperate with international efforts to resolve these issues, as required by Security Council resolutions. (No again)
·end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. It will accept U.N. administration of funds from that program, to ensure that the money is used fairly and promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people. (Nope)

So with WMD, we are mistaking the trigger with the cause. You can disagree with the points President Bush made, but they are not invalidated by the WMD situation.

Chris

Sorry to answer after another post. I write between doing my “real work” and sometimes it interferes with my blogging.

What I was trying to address was the first part of the original post

“al-Queda viewed western influence as a threat to their way of life. Thus, they preemptively struck the N.Y. Tower in 1991, the USS Cole, and the Twin Towers, Pentagon, and airline passengers in 2001. Seemed like a good strategy to President Bush and Dick Cheney. The President said we knew Iraq had WMD, and following al-Queda’s preemptive strike policy he ordered our military to invade and occupy Iraq. Following Bush’s and al-Queda’s lead …”

I don’t think that al Queda was trying to preempt anything in the sense we use the word and I don’t think that Russia was following our lead.

I will try to be more clear about which posts I am responding to.

> You try to paint pre-emption as a new strategy. But
> it isnt. The US has had pre-emptive strategies long
> before Bush came along. I believe we invaded Grenada,
> not exactly one of the world’s premier powers, and
> certainly not a threat to the United States.

I never said that pre-emption was new. I said that it was a new thing that “we invaded and totally dismantled a sovereign nation with little evidence to justify it and little international support”. That’s pretty new.

And by the way, Grenada had the advantage, at least, of being a relatvely insignificant country within our immediate sphere of influence, thus invasion didn’t risk significant negative international response. Grenada is three hundred times smaller than Iraq, we had a coalition from six other Carribean nations, the invasion was over in a matter of days, we left the country within two months … so again you’re comparing apples to oranges.

Anyway, I don’t get why you guys keep (at least lately) saying that pre-emption isn’t new. Doesn’t that undermine the idea that Bush takes a bold new approach to things? Or are you guys backing down from that and trying to say that Bush was simply doing what any American President would have done?

-Cf

jbod, your argument that if you throw apples and oranges into the barrel and call it a barrel of apples doesn’t hold up. Invasion on humanitarian grounds where a nation has lost its government for all intents and purposes regarding fostering law and order is a completely separate and different issue from preemptive strike policy based on perceived threat.

You are correct that nations have always reserved the right, and legally so under domestic and international law, to exercise preemptory attacks, WHERE A THREAT IS IMMINENT. The standard has been the the preemptive nation must have a preponderance of evidence that an imminent attack is building against it.

The Bush administration has redefined preemptory attack standard by establishing and defending its right to invade a sovereign nation without a preponderance of evidence that an imminent attack is building and without proving the case afterward. Thus setting the stage for other nations to use our example as justification for preemptory attack based on conjectured and unproven evidence of imminent attack. It would indeed be easy enough for China to establish some unproveable evidence that Taiwan is threatening the mainland and use that as justification for its long awaited and planned for invasion of Taiwan.

Would the U.S. have logical, moral, or legal ground to object based on its invasion of Iraq and the history of that act? No. Not in the view of the international community. Perhaps that is why 30 out of 35 of our allies polled are backing Kerry for President and opposing Bush. The international community perceives Bush policy and docrine as a slippery slope toward world destabilization and establishing a doctrinal breeding ground for rapid growth of wars and conflicts throughout the world.

The rapid growth of terrorist acts throughout the world is bad enough without lowering the threshholds to international preemptive invasions and attacks based on conjecture and manufactured or flatly false evidence.

Mr. Martin said: “Sadly, well have only ourselves to blame for our inattention to the founding principles of our nation. We The People no longer seem to care what American stands for as long as “I” the individual is left alone to pursuer material wealth at any cost to family, community, or country. The United States may have won the Cold War, but at what price to the American experiment?”

That is exactly what precipitated the fall of Ancient Greece at its zenith. The word “I” replaced the word “we” and the Spartans got no help from the citizenry to defend against invasion.

Sorry, Jack. I didn’t see that you were referring to David’s original post! Silly me, my bad. David’s analogy that Al Qaeda was practicing “pre-emption” is kind of weird, I agree with you there.

That said, I hope you are right about Russia not following our lead. Their rhetoric, however, sure makes it sound like they have every intention of following the Bush blueprint to the letter.

-Cf

CF and Jack, a few references have been made to my statement regarding al-Queda’s rationale for attacking the U.S. over these last 13 to 14 years.

The concept is simple and defensible. Human behavior is motivated. al-Queda had a motive. OBL and a number of fundamentalist Muslims have preached that western influence in the Middle East is undermining the culture of Middle Eastern Islamic states. By definition, preemption is a response designed to deter an encroaching threat or coming event. A slew of experts have written extensively on this subject. Hence, al-Queda’s attacks upon the U.S. are motivated by the desire to deter western influence and diminishment of Islamic culture in the Middle Eastern Islamic states. Hence their attacks, regardless of the effect or logic or appropriateness toward their ends, constitute a preemptive attack motivated to slow, stall, or reverse western influence upon their nations.

David, then doesn’t that mean that few wars aren’t pre-emptive? Unless a country is invading a smaller country out of sheer greed, you could say that any attack is pre-emptive. The definition has little usefuleness at all if we don’t restrict it a to the “imminent threat” criteria that some have mentioned before. A semantic point, but an important one.

Also, putting semantics aside and looking at it rhetorically: Even with your definition, I don’t agree that Al Qaeda’s actions on Sept 11 are analogous to our invasion of Iraq in any way, and I wonder if you can see how the analogy can be seen as offensive. I opposed the invasion of Iraq, but I hardly agree that 9/11 was analogous.

-Cf

Bingo! Give CF a cigar! You hit the nail on the head. That is exactly and precisely why I defined Bush’s preemptive attack on Iraq as following the lead of al-Queda’s preemptive attack. Neither had imminent threat as a basis. And both were deserving of international condemnation. Oddly enough, al-Queda’s preemptive attacks were largely condemned internationally. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was questioned and challenged by the international community (though not wholeheartedly condemned due to general agreement that Hussein posed a long term future threat to regional nations which is why the containment policy was put in place by Bush 1.)

al-Queda’s “preemptive” attacks upon the west and the U.S. were no more justified by imminent threat than was Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

on the whole..we as americans are a reationary lot.

we dont fix anything until it breaks.

social security, medicare, budget, homeland security, you name it…until it is in the crapper or something huge happens to it, americans are happy to ignore a looming problem….much like we ignore a slight pain in our side for months until we finally go to the doctor and find out we have cancer…

so then the problem is this….we react to the opposite extreme, taking away civil liberties, spying on our own people, attacking countries that had nothing to do with 9/11, etc…

i look at countries like israel and even great britain who have lived with terrorist attacks for years, and how they deal with it, and wonder if we would not be better off refocusing on making our ports and borders more secure.
homeland security is still underfunded, and in my opinion, funding the wrong programs. i would rather they know what is coming into our ports (which right now they don’t) than keep track of american citizen’s library records….

an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure….

but by acting as a reactionary country, we set the example for other countries to “take the initiative”….and we have a potentially disastrous problem looming over our heads….which in turn, we will ignore till it bites us on the ass.

rob said: “homeland security is still underfunded, and in my opinion, funding the wrong programs.”

I absolutely agree. We spend 200 billion on Iraq and 20 billion on homeland defense? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me.

I mean, if I received an anonymous threat in the mail saying “I am coming to kill you and your family”, I ask myself, how would I spend my money? Would I spend my money on Private Eye’s to try and find this person among 294 million other people, or would I first buy a perimeter alarm for my property, install an alarm system on my doors and windows, and security cameras aimed at the entrance points to my property? It is like a no brainer. I would FIRST spend my money on intrusion detection and then spend what I have left over on trying to find out who is coming.

It is absurd to argue that with our advanced technology we cannot monitor every inch of our borders. We can. There is just no political will or insight to move in that direction.

David

I think it misses the meaning of preemptive. You preempt to stop something from happening BEFORE it happens. Otherwise it’s not preemption; it’s reaction or maybe revenge. America wasn’t about to do the things OBL was unhappy about; the West had been on the offensive (by his reasoning) since well before the 1492 expulsion of the Moors from Spain. The U.S. is just the latest in a long line. Even for someone with such a lazy-paced view of history as OBL, it is a little late to preempt what has been going on for more than half a millennium.

I don’t think you can ascribe any standard geopolitical motives to OBL. When we try to understand him with our own logic, we fail. OBL has a fantasy to reverse the verdict of history and return to a fabled time before the decline of Islamic Civilization. In that respect, he is like the Nazis (without their understanding or realpolitik) who wanted to return to a society that never really existed. In both cases, in order to do that, some people have to be eliminated. For Nazi it was Jews (among others). For OBL it is us (among others). How could the Jews have persuaded the Nazis not to attack them? About the same way we can persuade OBL not to attack us as long as he has the power to do so.

jack, OBL’s plans are motivated, by definition of his being of the human species. What motivates is not factual history, but, perceived events. It does not matter what happened in the 15th century.

What likely motivated OBL was Israel and the U.S. backing, support, and umbrella the U.S. provided. What likely motivates his rhetoric is the commercialization taking place in Saudi Arabia which OBL witnessed first hand in his life and his recruits now witness throughout the Middle East with globalization of markets and producers led by western economies and now Eastern economies as well. When Middle Eastern countries tapped oil and entered the global marketplace, the simple ways of life, religion, and cultural activities of Islamic life in the Middle East from nomadic tribes to agricultural communities began to change fundamentally.

We had a similar reaction here in the U.S. by those who long for the more traditional values, pace of life, and culturally rich activities like barn raising, which we enjoyed back in the days of a more agricultural economy. Many on the religious right for example are still fighting mass marketing media of ideas and values given rise by our new technological society.

OBL is a member of the human species and (like most members of non-human species also) he has a motive for doing what he is doing. That doesn’t explain much. Human nature says a stimulus will provoke a response, but it doesn’t predict what that response will be and it doesn’t mean the response is right, useful or acceptable by others. Culture, experience, chance and individual personality determine the higher patterns of behavior.

OBL’s actions are immoral and illogical. Put more analytically, they are unlikely to produce the result he desires. He badly miscalculated when he attacked on 9/11 and he was surprised by the ferocity of the U.S. response. I doubt he understand us any better than we understand him. I know people say that he has us exactly where he wants us. Where is that exactly? Before 9/11 he was able to organize almost with impunity. Now much of his organization is killed or captured. He has not been able to mount a successful follow up attack in the U.S. Sure, the Arab street is inflamed, but when can you remember when it wasn’t inflamed? He probably didn’t anticipate our invasion of Iraq at all, so we can’t give him credit or blame for what is happening there.

Eventually terrorists get lucky, and this can happen at any time, but it could not have been OBL’s goal to make everything harder for himself and his organization. From any geopolitical point of view, his actions just don’t make sense. That is why I fall back on the fantasy ideology. OBL does not think as we do. Like Hitler in his bunker, OBL sits in his cave and gives order to imaginary operatives. His time frame is “sometime”; his location is “somewhere.” Don’t get me wrong; he is a horrible, dangerous man. But he is horrible and dangerous NOT because of his clear vision and strategic sense, but because he lacks them. His destruction is wanton. It will not achieve his strategic goals, It can hurt us and kill our people, which seems to be his tactical goal, but it can’t defeat us. As long as he can find pathetic losers who are willing to die in order to kill others for the promise of being able to molest 70+ virgins in paradise, he is dangerous. But let’s not assume he is acting to preempt or even to defend.

Jack, your entire argument regarding OBL motive is based on personal conjecture. My argument is based on a number of think tanks and analysts who are widely published on the internet.

Try Townhall or Christian Century article which states:

In a 1996 letter, bin Laden spoke of a collective duty to strike against the U.S. presence in the Arabian peninsula. Muslims, bin Laden wrote, should put aside their differences and join in a communal resistance to oppression. But by 1998, the judgment was that the crisis had reached the level of an emergency.

Let us try to keep this discussion in the realm of facts and supporting evidence instead of conjecture based on gut feeling, hairs on the back of the neck, etc. etc. (Crimson Tide, the movie :-D)

When it comes to OBL we don’t have many facts and supporting evidence. It is a fact (or at least reported that) that he has complained repeatedly about the Andalusia debacle of 1492 and the fall of the Caliph in Istanbul after WWI. That indicates something of his mindset.

He attacks the U.S. in a showy fashion evidently to create terror, but then has no follow up attacks to exploit what panic he has created. That indicates something of his lack of strategic vision.

His followers evidently believe that they will be rewarded in paradise for murdering people indiscriminately. That indicates something of their delusion.

The articles you refer don’t contradict this. In fact, they paint an even better picture of a man blinded by hate. For example, if he is interested in the plight of the Bosnians or Kosovars, he should support the U.S., at least locally. If he bothered to ask the Kosovars or Muslims in Bosnia what they thought of the U.S., he would be surprised to find general support and admiration for us.

Remember that the U.S. fought a traditionally “Christian” country to protect Muslims in the very recent past.

To repeat, OBL is attacking us for his own reasons. They have little in common with our ideas of preemption or territorial defense and unfortunately there is nothing we can do to stop his attacks short of eliminating or crippling him and most of his organization.

Well, Jack, I can only quote and reference. I can’t force you to consider the merit of the direct quote from OBL or other evidence. So, I guess our debate has come to a natural end.

I would agree he has his own reasons. Many personal I am sure. But, he and his followers also have motives common to virtually all groups who fight change, as outlined in the links I provided.

We must address those motives as well as hunt them down. Reason: for each one we hunt down, we create a martyr who will motivate many more to follow in their footsteps. The war will not be won taking individual members out, only battles. The war will be won when we understand, address or otherwise neutralize the motivation that drives recruitment. To ascribe his actions to “hate” simply and completely ignores the battlefields upon which the war will be won, and limits our fight to battles which can go on in perpetuity.

David

The references and quotes are fine, but they don’t prove, or even support the point you make in the first paragraph of the posting. They indicate that OBL is very angry and upset and that he wants to drive the infidel out of all Muslim lands. They also indicate that OBL believes that the infidels have already acted to occupy Muslim lands and humiliate Muslims. The sources DO NOT indicate that OBL thinks or has reason to think of what he is doing as preemptive. What he is doing also would not be preemptive in the way the word is commonly understood nor is it similar to the way the U.S. National Security Strategy uses the concept. You can’t preempt after something has taken place. After the enemy makes the move you can retaliate, react, take revenge or run away, but preemption is no longer an option. It just is a definitional thing.

Jack, the west does not own, govern, or dominate culture in most Middle Eastern Islamic nations, yet. That is preemptive! It is indeed a definitional thing and you just refuse to see it, apparently.

I think David made excellent points here.

Russia, in my opinion has as much right to invade Saudi Arabia as we have to invade Iraq. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE have funded the Chechen rebellion.

For that matter, I am still somewhat perplexed that we invaded Iraq rather than Saudi Arabia or even Pakistan. Both countries had more to do with 911 than Iraq. Saudi Arabia is the seed for the Wahabi extremeist.

Did Bush simply choose a near by weakling to put a scare into the Saudis? Why hasn’t any Republican condemned Saudi Arabia? Where is the outcry against them for both 911 and the School in Beslan? Is Saudi Arabia quelling any of the terror they have launched upon the world? Who’s profiting most from the elevated oil prices, due to the instabilities that abound from this country? Is America silently condoning terror? Should Russia strike?

It certainly makes you wonder about the House of Saud, House of Bush connection.

David,
The title sounds like a parent. This would go along with Bush’s policies and ideas.

JBD,
The 527’s are a joke! I just wish the FCC would hold their sponser to the same standard of Janet Jackson. I mean get real. There has to be something called truth in advertisment. We hold corporation responsible by law. Shouldn’t our politic be held as well. $5 million should be a good fine for each broadcast.

Deficit: Yes America is in debt, but haven’t you been listening to the economists. If America does not come up with a legitment economical plan we will be put on the IMF warning list. So both candidates lose big points in my book. Without a complete overhaul of our economic machine into “a run to the top model,” our economy will one day quit.

Assault Riffles: The Republican lead Congress is letting the law laspe to keep Bush from signing it because Bush said he would if the congress would only send him the bill. NOT! Although I do not believe in gun control, I believe ever sane person should own one. But, I must put my foot down on this political move. With the country at war with terrorists and this republican lead nation is going to allow stores and shows to sell them. Are they freaking nuts!!! Maybe we might want just to give the terrorist the bullets for free.

Policies will not make us safe alone. Congress has to completely redesign our intellegent system. Unless they combine military and federal law enforcement intellegents together with action teams to hunt down the problems and a strong real unberla support than we will always be able to be attacked. Mexican border has to be shut down.

As far as a long range view for terrorist. Does Bush have any idea on what it is really going to take himself?

The reason I told David the title sounded like a parent is Bush still thinks his “People” will protect him. If politices are still politics of the 70’s than Bush and this country is in for a real rude awakening.

Henry:

The problem is that there is a lot of truth in what the 527’s are saying. There is also a lot of inaccuracy, and slanted opinion.

But it would be tough to prove they are lying. For instance, the SBVT has opinions on what happened, and they have eyewitnesses who dispute Kerry’s version. How do you PROVE an opinion to be a lie, and how do you show that one witness is lying and another isnt? The burden of proof becomes virtually impossible.

So too for things like Miahael Moore’s movie. He puts many facts in, but through skillful editing, he makes those facts appear to tell a different story—one that fits his opinion. Does this make him a liar?? Nope, just a skillful editor of movies, rather than a maker of documentaries.

So, in the end, I doubt you could prove that there are actual lies in the ads etc. There are slanted unfair attacks, but I dont think they qualify as outright lies in a court of law.

JBD,
As a child of the 70’s I grew up holding my elders to this is right; this is wrong. Although I know the younger generations take this right for granted, but we had a saying “Right is Right, Wrong is Wrong, Gray is your opinion and we all know what that is.”

What our media, FCC, and election broads need to do is to hold our Special Interest groups to the facts. These facts are made up of all space and time combining (reality); therefore, the use of any fact by a SI group needs to show it in it’s full content.

You may have your opinion (one side of the coin) and I may have my opinion (the other side of the cion) But, the third side of the coin is the cold hard facts. By forcing all SI groups to make their arguments based on the entire fact of space and time rather than a “sound bite” you do what we are doing here. Holding people accountable for their remarks when you make them.

Greg, better pray Pakistan and India don’t adopt the Bush/Putin strategy over terrorism, or we will all be wiping the nuclear dust from our windshields.

On second thought, so many of the world’s problems would be resolved if we could reduce its population by half or more. Food, water, shelter, and heat would become central focus again, and billions would give up imported consumeables in exchange for a gallon of uncontaminated water, or low rad. beets. People would focus on local regional issues and have no need to fuss about what they are doing in some other country. Globalization would be dead as a door nail, and feudalism could again become the staple for law and order.

Simple solution to simpler living. We can literally preempt our way to a simpler, and maybe even better world. I agree, let’s give it a shot.