North Korea has come out in support of John Kerry.

I didn't hear that Kerry has named the leaders who want him as pres yet. Thanks for the info

PM: It would be FAR easier to list those who support Bush. Let's see now after aleinating almost all the world, whos left on our side. Oh yeah, Britan and Spain. Oops, scratch Spain. Who's next. Blair, then Bush.

You're right Dave. Cause ya still can't name any for Kerry except maybe…N. Korea, any terrorist country. And well, now that Spain is a Socialist country you can add them. Have it your way, well too be a Socialist country and you'll be much happier…

But as usual for you, Never can answer a question and never stay on point…
Lets hug Osoma dave

So you either like Bush, or love Osama?

Brilliant.........as usual. :rolleyes:

sorry dan. that was little humor. a little to much for ya i guess, as usual.

Dan, with your superior intellect please explain to the knuckle draggers how you came up with that??? Genius

At least you recognize a superior intellect when you see it.

Humor on a Monday? Preposterous!

Well, you did say I was brilliant!

So far, you're brilliant and I'm a genius.

Not too bad for a Monday morning if you ask me.

LOL

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Pmartin:
[QB]
But as usual for you, Never can answer a question and never stay on point
[/QUOTE

PM: I try to stay away from these discussions because some folks can't seem to understand that you can disagree with someone without character attacks.

If you will carefully read the posts before mine you will see THERE WAS NO QUESTION! How am I supposed to answer a question that was not asked? I wasn’t attempting to answer a question - because none was asked.

As far as staying on point, the point was that many world leaders are unhappy with Bush. If anyone denies that they simply aren't paying attention. Who supports Kerry? I can't answer that. No world leader would ever consider coming out and supporting a sitting president’s opponent. That would be crazy. To try to get Kerry to tell us who they are is simply disingenuous.

I think I was 100% on point. An example of straying off the point would be to try, even with humor, to equate a dislike for our president’s policies, with somehow liking Osaka. For the record, I think Osama is one of the most evil humans that ever lived. I also think we would have him now if we dedicated half the resources to that we did to a war and occupation that most of the world does not support.

Oh we'll get him soon enough. It's all just a matter of timing. Of course if a few more Americans die in the meantime, well, that's politics for ya.

I actually asked my friend about this whole thing when he got back from Baghdad a lil bit ago. A few points he made:
1) Don't join the Army unless you are willing to get hurt; even die.
2) Liberals don't belong in the Army.... They're never willing to fight.

Now I am only 17, which for many of you makes any point I make mute. However, since the only two Presidents I can remember are Clinton and Bush, I'll stick with Bush.

Curtis

JFK and I had a great laugh over that one.

Geez, pretty lucky my wife and I both were able to hide in the Army for 20 years each without being discovered. Who'd a thunk?

If you really believe Bush has done more for the military compared to Clinton, you better go do a little more research, Ranger. Retirees have this bad habit of really paying attention to what the administration is doing to veterans. Let me just say, it ain't good.

Dan - I don't suppose Kerry would appreciate that comment much either (especially compared to his opponent's war record) although he was just in the Navy.

Wasn't Kerry one of the Village People? I mean...

Nah what he was referring to was all the people who are screaming bloody murder about FIVE HUNDRED men and women dying. That is, unfortunately, a fairly small price to pay for what has been, and what is being, accomplished by our occupation.

Also a topic of conversation was how American troops were fleeing to Canada, with claims such as, "I didn't sign up for this!" When you enlist, you sign away for life for that many years. Complete subordination is required. If they had fled from George Washington's army, he would have had them hung.

Curtis

The ball is rolling Kerry's way folks.

He receives endorsements by more and more world leaders every day.

First it was only Iran...

Then came socialist Spain...

Then North Korea...

And Now...

Didn't you study journalism? I'm pretty sure I know what you're trying to say, but I think you wrote it bass-ackwards. I'm hoping you're not suggesting that they should have paid a higher price...

Also, another way to look at it is this: we now know that all the reasons given for invading Iraq were false. That has been well documented and is matter of fact, even to the current administration. Therefore, if cooler heads would have prevailed and outside experts actually listened to, then we wouldn't have invaded. Ergo, we wouldn't have nearly 600 American families grieving the loss of loved ones, countless thousands of young veterans maimed and crippled for life, nor would we have wasted $100 billion for something that was not pertinent to the safety and security of the United States.

And that's not counting the thousand upon thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, or the perfect breeding ground for terrorists we've created.

You are absolutely correct that a soldier signs his or her life away to uphold the constitution, obey the orders of those appointed over them, and defend the nation against all enemies, foriegn and domestic. So when the Commander in Chief sacrifices a soldier's life for questionable motives through deceit and dishonesty, it shows despicable contempt for that soldier's life.

The smart soldier asks, "Why are we being sent to die in Iraq when the real enemy is in Afganistan?"

People need to get off this notion that a soldier is nothing but a number who's life is irrelevant and he doesn't mind dieing. He's still a damn human.

Here's a question or two for ya..Do you think appeasing terrorists works? Do you think you can get along with terrorists? And finally if you were a terrorist who would you rather have as president? Kerry or Bush?

Yeah I know. But he didn't lack guts. I was going to make some wise-ass crack about liberals being smart enough to get in the Navy or Air Force, but that would be dissing Army guys and I'm just not going to do that........and I don't want our Army's finest looking to thump my noggin' either.


.

Right, guess who would prefer Kerry (who has stated he will take a law-enforcement approach to terrorism) over Bush (who takes the military approach) for president?

(hint: initials are OBL)

I take it you got that statement straight from the horse's mouth Slab? (Hint: initials OBL)

I'm guessing the first two questions were rhetorical, so for the third, if I were a terrorist I would prefer Bush in office. He keeps the Jihad alive by giving reason for more terrorists to sacrifice themselves to Allah for - which they believe is - guaranteed entry into Heaven.

By that line of thinking GoH, The terrorists must REALLY of loved having our last Demo Pres in office then... A whole lot of them go to meet Allah at the expense of American and other innocent lives. So, again by your rationalization, it would seem they would love to see another Demo in office???

Here were four one way tickets

Khobar Towers June 25, 1996
U.S. Embassy Attack 1998
Bombing of the USS Cole October 12, 2000
First World Trade Center Bombing February 26, 1993

Here is a pretty inertesting site. From what I have read NON-partisan InfoPlease

4Salt, No, not from the horse's mouth. I am just making the ASSUMPTION that OBL does NOT want to get caught by the U.S.

Please let me know if you think this assumption is faulty.

For the most part we already have him.

Bush is just waiting for the cameras to arrive so he can chase him across the White House lawn and parade his capture.

Bush Took My Job, Killed My Sons

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak my mind. I lost my job this past year. When Clinton was president I was secure and prosperous, but in the last year, we had to close our operations. We simply could not compete with foreign labor. This foreign labor worked for low pay under very bad conditions. They worked very long shifts, and many even died on the job. This competition could hardly be called "fair." I was
forced out of the place where I had worked for 34 years. Not a single government program was there to help me. How can Bush call himself
"compassionate"?

Far worse, I lost two of my sons in Bush's evil war in Iraq. They gave their lives for their country, and for what? So that Bush's oil buddies
can get rich.

My pain of losing my sons is indescribable. While it is trivial next to the loss of my sons, I regret to say that I also lost my home. I simply have nothing left.

How can Bush call himself a Christian when he neglects people like me? I am a senior citizen with various medical problems. I'm not in a position where I can begin a new career. I was reduced to the point where I had to live in a hole in a ground, all because of President Bush. And when the authorities found me there, did they have any compassion for my misfortune and ailments? No, I was arrested.

Mr. Bush, I dare you to look me in the face and tell me you are a compassionate man! I dare you to look me in the face and tell me you are
a Christian! If I had any money left, I would donate it to the Democrat Party. If Al Gore had been elected in 2000 I would still have a job, a
home, and most importantly, my dear sons!

Regards,


Saddam Hussein

Oh no I looked behind the curtain
:p

I heard Kerry is holding Bin Ladden in his basement. :p

Ya they are playing spinner

Not true, that's why the terrorists would rather have Bush in office. Fox news reported this morning that the number of terrorists attack in the world since Bush took office has risen substantially. They gave a percentage, which I remember being high, but I can't remember the exact number.

Many more terrorists are finding the rationale and motivation for martyrdom with our current administration.

That's a pretty safe assumption! I was just kidding you about how you got the "OBL prefers Kerry" part.

Now if I remember right... And I may be wrong so if youre gonna shoot all this down thats fine.

1) UN is supposed to have unlimited access to inspect Iraq.
2) Iraq kicks UN out of highly suspect areas, posting armed gaurds. This is allowed when Clinton is in office.
3) Iraq says they'll let UN in as Bush begins his efforts to get rid of Houssein
4) Iraq again kicks UN out
5) America invades.

I THOUGHT that was the way it played out. Maybe my mind mixed that all up.

I hope the increase in terror is linked to the fact that we many countries in the world have declared all out war on them. I hope engaging them in the short run will prove to be the right thing to do in the long run. I have to admit that I believe that appeasing them allowed them to gain tremendous power worldwide. Thinking we can negotiate with people who truly believe that we are all infidels and need to be exterminated. I prefer facing them head on as we are attempting to do as opposed to hoping they will like us if we leave them alone.

It's certainly a tough call. It's extremely difficult to fight this kind of battle. As you can see by the violence directed at US troops currently in Iraq, it takes relatively few enemy combatants to cause a great deal of instability in the area. The same is true for Al Qaeda cells. They are diffcult to track because they aren't organized or centralized. You saw how we walked through Iraq's conventional forces........but now they have become much more dificult to identify and thereby harder to eliminate.

Terrorists have the same thing going for them. Just think the next time you're out driving around how easy it would be to wreak havoc in this country........because we are free to roam and go relatively unrestricted. One dude with a shoulder-fired missile, and 250 people and an airliner go up in flames. Now orchestrate that in a dozen US cities on the same day, and it's Sept. 11th again. The results would be disastrous. And that's just the kind of punch they want to give us.....right in the pocketbook.

The only way you can possibly prevent this kind of stuff is by complete control and surveillance by the government. I think the simple nature of our free society makes it impossible to completely eradicate terrorists. We can make life much more difficult on them, but I get the feeling there will always be terrorists.

I think we could go a long way towards making ourselves safer by improving our own awareness. You think terrorists are going to try to use planes as missiles again? I doubt it.....we're wise to them. But there are glaring weaknesses across the country that we, as citizens, should be keeping an eye on. We're too big a country for the government to keep their eyes on all of it.

It's kinda like a big hornet's nest on your property. Do you go stir them up and chance getting the crap stung out of you and hope you can wipe out the hive...........or do you just let them be and live with getting stung once in a while? I've tried both methods.......still not sure which one is the best option.

"It takes money to make money."
"It takes war to make peace."

I dunno, I think they fit.

Most Americans are infidels. An infidel is simply a "non-believer" or non-islamic person. You are correct that groups like Al-Quida believe that exterminating all infidels is a #1 priority. They believe the Coran clearly tells them this.

That is the kind of mindset we are dealing with.

Dan S says Ther may possibly be some other ways to fight terrorism.

tighten security on airlines
fingerprint and build files on non-Americans entering USA
Monitor questionable emails and phone communications
Take the war to them as opposed to fighting on our soil.
This is not a war that has an exit plan nor a war zone, It is in fact WW3 a battle of good vs. evil.

We had better figure it out They want to kill us.

I heard that lady that was running for president the other night talking about how bad our terrorism alert levels were. She said that we (Bush admin.) were going about it all wrong and by raising terror alerts that we were terrorising our own people. "They don't do that in Isreal and they have been dealing with terror for years"

And in Ireland this St. Patrick's Day they have learned to stay away from large gatherings to insure there safety.

As the Sonics used to say "Not in our house "

Life in America changed on Sept. 11

Only because a bunch of cowards got their panties in a wad. I am more afraid of getting hit by a drunk driver then I am of getting hurt in a terrorist attack.

It's all scare tactics to help get the people behind the war.

Close, but not entirely true. Since you felt compelled to bring up Clinton again, give him credit where credit is due.

2.5 After Iraq kicks out inspectors, Clinton sends in bombers and destroys Iraq's ability to produce weapons. This is confirmed by David Kay's testimony.

#4 is wrong. Bush pulled out the inspectors because he thought them incompetent and he was invading come hell or high water.

Your other comment about war creating peace is cute, but naive. Any student of the Middle East can see that war has been their way of life since time immortal. They are not like us; they have different values and mores in life. What seems rational to us is ridiculous to them.

Dan makes great thoughtful points. We've been at "war" with terra (as Bush calls it) for almost three years now. Have we made any progress? What have we really accomplished? If you truly think America is safer now than before, you've got your head in the sand.

There's an old American saying, "Where there's a will, there's a way." I worry that Bush is instilling more will in the terrorists and they'll find a way. He seems to be exasperating the situation exponentially. Even Rumsfeld has questioned, "... are we creating more terrorists than we can defeat?"

I don't know. Sometimes I think we're better off just leaving the Middle East completely, to include Israel, and let them have it all. Like the bee hive analogy; you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone.

Exactly

wow, who was the coward? The ragheads that cut the stewardess' throats with a box cutters and crashed jets into a buildings full of inocent men , women and children? or.....you tell me

And if you are afraid of being hit by a drunk driver perhaps you should follow the behavior you suggested earlier in referring to dealing with terror and just stay off the road and out of their way.

Papa

In my opinion the cowards were the politicians for throwing America into a frenzy over an attack by a few idiots. When the L.A. riots occurred did we go on national alert? No because we did not need to scare society into going to war.

The point I was trying to make with the drunk drivers is that I am in no way shape or form afraid of being hurt in a terrorist attack and that the media plays us into being afraid so we will say, Go Bush and support his actions.

As for staying off the road and out of a drunk's way, I will in no way shape or form alter my routine/habits out of fear, but that is just me. Sure there is a threat of being tagged by a drunk heading out to hit the river at 3:00 a.m. but that is a chance you take living life. Just like living in the most powerful Democratic and dominant Society on earth we take a chance we may piss someone off along the way. When we play the bully on the block, we are bound to get kicked in the shin once and a while.

yeah right, the media is all over supporting GWB!


GP and Wabowhunter I hope you got my backside covered :rolleyes:

Lead?????? What????Apples to apples and oranges to oranges...

I guess you're calling Rudolph Guliani a coward, John Kerry, and the Bush admin cowards.

You don't think that having airplanes taking out a couple buildings is reason for a frenzy??? Shall we wait for a Nuke to take out a city?? You should tell that to the people of NY. Now, I don't really think that Gold Bar is on anyone's hit list so you are probably safe there. As far as the LA riots were concerned. The NG was called in and the Gov at the time did issue a state of emergency and call up guard members. (Don't understand why that was even brought into the conversation) Should we go to war with California, is that you implication? As far as drunk drivers, I will be the first to tell you that they scare the hell out of me. I change plans, avoid driving and even being out on certain holidays and certain times of night due to them. I will try and take anything I can personally control that may inflict pain and hurt on my family. There has been a war going on against drunk driving for sometime now, look how the laws have changed for them. When the laws started getting stricter you were hearing a lot of the same grips you are now...Infringing on rights, govt getting into personal business....


I guess there is sort of a simularity between the two though. Neither is a situation where there will be a winner. All you can do with both is hope to contain and make it as hard as possible for either action to be accomplished. Were always gonna have drunks and there is always gonna be someone pi$$ed of at America as long as we have the ball. One more thing, there will always be some wacked out politician that thinks they have the best idea on how to resolve both...

They supported him because the media allowed Bush to twist the intelligence without questioning it.

Until recently the press did not realize that the Bush administration was lying to them.

Pamartin

Well at least Kerry and Bush.

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Papa

They controlled the media see below:

A war story I wish I'd written
By HARVEY RICE

The realization that the first anniversary of the U.S. invasion Iraq invasion was drawing near awakened memories I had buried since covering the war. They summoned a measure of resentment, frustration and even guilt.

Those feelings were sharpened by recent revelations raising the possibility that the rationale for the war was cynically manufactured by the Bush administration from selected, wildly inaccurate intelligence.

I was a witness to, and in a sense a participant in, the most concerted, successful attempt by our government to control war coverage in our history.

And it went off with barely a whimper from the men and women of the media.

The Chronicle had sent me to Doha, Qatar, where I was to cover the war from the headquarters of U.S. Central Command at Camp as Sayliyah.

Hundreds of reporters from all over the world flocked to the $1 million press center at the base, believing that this is where they would get a daily briefing{<>} on the progress of the war.

Reporters with combat units could only view a fragment of the story. The press briefers at Central Command would give the overview.

At least that's what everyone thought.

Reality intruded the day the war began. I was among a mob of reporters watching the opening salvos of the war on a bank of television sets in the press center.

I turned to the press officer nearest me, who was surrounded by reporters peppering him with questions. "No comment," he told incredulous reporters."We don't want to endanger the troops."

Could he at least acknowledge that the war had begun?

"No comment."

When it was pointed out that we were watching the invasion of Iraq on television, he was unmoved.

Gradually, it dawned on me that the military had herded us into the press center so that we could be kept away from information.

The press center was sealed off from the rest of the base, and access was controlled by armed guards. A reporter's contact with military personnel of any rank was {<>}controlled by a press officer.

All military personnel, except the press officers, were restricted to the base, so there was no opportunity, as in past wars, for reporters to meet officers or enlisted men for candid appraisals of the fighting as it unfolded.{<>}

The entire anti-information campaign was run by a Texan named Jim Wilkinson, a Republican political operative who once worked for former U.S. Rep. Dick Armey.

Wilkinson, now communications deputy for National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, was one of a score of Republican operatives who descended on Florida during the balloting recount in the 2000 presidential campaign. Wilkinson also helped sell the impression that Al Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet."

Despite his penchant for desert camouflage uniforms and military jargon, Wilkinson, a civilian, was essentially a political commissar who controlled information about the war as if he were running{<>} an election campaign.

His assignment was to keep the operation "on message."

Wilkinson once called a{<>} staff meeting to praise the 42 press officers for keeping reporters away from news of any sort, one of the press officers revealed.

Of the daily news briefing at the base, Kevin Diaz, a reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, said, "It was a political briefing from beginning to end. They never intended to give us the X's and the O's."

Michael Wolff, a columnist for New York magazine, drew hearty applause from reporters when he asked Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, one of the command's chief spokesmen, during a briefing why we should attend when so little information was forthcoming.

Every reporter I knew concurred with the evaluation of the press center that appeared in Wolff's next column: "It takes about 48 hours to understand that information is probably more freely available at any other place in the world than it is here.

"At the end of the 48 hours, you realize that you know significantly less than when you arrived, and that you're losing more sense of the larger picture by the hour. Eventually, you'll know nothing."

The contrast with the British military spokesmen was profound. They readily gave me and other reporters as many details as they could verify about British clashes with Iraqi units. U.S. press officials steadfastly refused to give a shred of information about American units outside the briefings.

"In reality, we had two different styles of news media management," Group Capt. Al Lockwood, the British army spokesman at Central Command, told the Guardian newspaper. "I feel fortunate to have been part of the U.K. one."

The British gave me one of my few scoops, admitting that an uprising in Iraqi-held city of Basra had fizzled.

Wilkinson waited until three days after the war began before throwing out a few scraps of information.

On the afternoon of the third day, Gen. Tommy Franks, the man in charge of running the war, gave the first briefing to a press corps thirsting for news.

They were disappointed. Franks spoke in generalities and gave little information about the progress of the invasion.

"All in this room should remain convinced that what we say from this podium -- myself or my staff -- or what we say from the various press centers associated with this coalition, will be absolute truth as we know it," Franks told us.

Yet he began the briefing with a half-truth.

The United States had entered its second war with Iraq without the support of the United Nations and with a much smaller coalition than the first war. In a clear attempt to hype the perception of support for the war, Franks told the briefing that 52 nations were represented at Central Command.

He neglected to say that many of those 52 nations were supporting U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, not Iraq. And many of them were stridently opposed to the invasion.

And that's where my guilt comes in.

In retrospect, I realize now that I should have filed a story the first day of the war saying that no information was coming from Central Command.

Although most reporters individually treated the press operation with the disdain it so richly deserved, there were no stories revealing it for what it was.

There were no publishers making angry phone calls to the Pentagon or the White House -- no letters, no outrage.

In this, we all failed the American public.


Rice is a reporter for the Houston Chronicle.

Oh, I must not remember right, thanks for correcting me

I must have mixed things up... I did think that the inspectors had been met by armed gaurds, so Bush pulled them out and invaded...

As for how much safer it is here...

It is just as dangerous for you to walk down the streets now as it was 5 years ago... Just a lot more dangerous for a terrorist to walk down that street with you.

Just my two cents

Curtis

I guess they kick some more women and children in the shins in Bagdad

Goharly,

I agree with your comment about leaving Israel alone. The US's one sided support of Israel, over the years, is coming back to bite us. However, now we're in too deep to just turn away. Except to the point of considering this issue in the next election, I think the focus needs to start turning to what are we going to do now rather than reliving whether we should have gone into Iraq.....