Act Now!

'Out of Iraq'

posted by Peter Rothberg on 01/05/2006 @ 10:25pm

Attacks by suicide bombers killed as many as 130 people in Iraq yesterday, rekindling fears of a return to mass sectarian killings after a relative lull. At the same general time yesterday afternoon, a roadside bomb killed at least five American soldiers near Karbala, Iraq.

It's days like these that inspired grassroots organizers to plan more than 130 "Out of Iraq" events around the country to take place on January 7th. Most of the events are town hall forums featuring peace movement leaders, congressional staff, congressional and senatorial candidates, local elected officials and members of Congress, including Bobby Scott, Diane Watson, Jim McDermott, Adam Smith, Bob Filner, Martin Sabo, Jim Moran, Marty Meehan, and John Murtha.

Click here to find an event near you.

Click here for info on organizing an event yourself.

Download and pass out a flier.

Then, on January 9th, it's easy to take part in the National Call-In Day on Accountability. Progressive Democrats of America and the After Downing Street Coalition are asking concerned citizens to phone their members of Congress in their district offices on Monday urging them to join Cong. John Conyers and cosponsor three bills: H.Res.635 to create a select committee to investigate and to make recommendations on grounds for impeachment, H.Res.636 to censure Bush, and H.Res.637 to censure Cheney.

If you agree with Conyers that "there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice President and other high-ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration," then click here to call and email your elected reps.

Watch this space for continuing coverage of antiwar activities and use the comments field below to let us know about any antiwar events in your area.

Comments (200)

  1. Welcome back Peter; I almost always disagree with you but you are a throw back to my younger days so there is a certain nostalgia when reading your postings.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/05/2006 @ 11:46pm

  2. welcome back peter. with respect to LL, please never become an evangelical apologist for fascists.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/05/2006 @ 11:55pm

  3. Peter

    Welcome back, hope your holiday vacation was good.

    Now back to the into fray,

    "Attacks by suicide bombers killed as many as 130 people in Iraq today, rekindling fears of a return to mass sectarian killings after a relative lull. At the same general time this afternoon, a roadside bomb killed at least five American soldiers near Karbala, Iraq............It's days like these that inspired grassroots organizers

    Why cant they draw their inspiration from DEC 15 elections or something else? Are grassroots organizers praying for BAD news? I guess they really dont want us to succeed. Very disconcerting to think that the anit-war movement WANTS us to fail, though I must say I am not surprised.

    But you must admit it kind of punches a hole in the argument that many anti-war warriors who keep maintaining that they are not anit-american.

    Or maybe you didnt quite mean it that way?

    Posted by CPT at 01/06/2006 @ 07:48am

  4. "Click here to find an event near you.

    Click here for info on organizing an event yourself.

    Download and pass out a flier."

    Right.... I'll jump right on that.

    Todd

    Posted by Oksportsguy at 01/06/2006 @ 08:51am

  5. Welcome back, Mr Rothberg....

    like OKSPORT, sorry but...MORE "events", MORE "online petitions", MORE "National Whatever Days"?

    Fine with me, but don't we eventually need to judge the efficacy of a protest...by how effective it is or was?

    Posted by Mask at 01/06/2006 @ 09:42am

  6. Yes that's right MASK, don't every protest or raise your voice if you don't think it will make a difference. If the folks at the Boston Tea Party would have thought the same thing, then we'd all still be having tea time and speaking with funny accents.

    Looks like the Sunnis are about to call it quits on deomocracy since they didn't win enough seats in Parliment. They've turned their terrorists loose on the Iraqi population. Wow, it looks like that elections and force-fed democracy "work" after all!

    Posted by BlueTexan at 01/06/2006 @ 09:54am

  7. I guess it would be more efficient to pull together millions of dollars to pay off our government officials to get us out of Iraq, right? Who needs good old fashioned petitions, meetings and protests when you can just right checks?

    Posted by BlueTexan at 01/06/2006 @ 10:01am

  8. Bluetexan,

    That is a very valid point....money not votes are what has become important to our "elected" officials.

    In this case, the money pouring into politics in favor of the Iraq "war" from Halibourton, Lockheed and so forth is far more that "millions" so the good ol' Us of A will be "staying the course".

    Of course, we will not state the exact goals of what we want to accomplish in Iraq in any specific terms....lest the Halibourton's and Lockheeds get too complacent and stop the checks from rolling in.

    One of Abramoff's Indian tribes was paying Ambramoff $5,000,000/week......presumably they were doing it because Ambramoff had convinced them that his influence was worth $5,000,000 per week.

    In other words, Blue Texan, the bidding is already much higher than you and I can even dream!

    Posted by colmes at 01/06/2006 @ 10:16am

  9. Just think, if we little bitty citizens could save up our nickels and dimes, maybe one day we would all have enough to buy off a Senator for a week! No wonder "conservatives" are such push-overs for corporations, that's how they get their influence! Maybe they recognize as a single voter they will never be able to influence an issue, so they'll try to get corporations to do it for them by buying their products and standing up for the corporations when it comes time to defend their sorry actions.

    Posted by BlueTexan at 01/06/2006 @ 10:23am

  10. CPT "Why cant they draw their inspiration from DEC 15 elections or something else? Are grassroots organizers praying for BAD news? I guess they really dont want us to succeed. Very disconcerting to think that the anit-war movement WANTS us to fail, though I must say I am not surprised."

    It's not that the anti-war movement wants us to fail, is that they've concluded (with good reason) that the persistence in suicide bombings indicates that the war effort IS failing, that the military aspects of the counter-insurgency effort is a Sisyphusean endeavor. Further, there's only limited inspiration to draw from the elections. The fact that so many people voted is a good things but the results don't necessarily bode well. The main winners of the vote have been Shiite, Iran-aligned fundamentalists in the south (complete with their own death squads and torture rooms) and Kurdish de facto separatists in the north.

    Posted by brunowe at 01/06/2006 @ 10:30am

  11. CPT is too damn dumb to realize if you can't keep people alive in the coal mines, if you can't keep the levees from bursting and drowning a thousand people, when five thousand people plus are getting killed a year on the job, your national security is the least of your problems. Reasoning with him is an exercise in futility.

    Posted by Legba at 01/06/2006 @ 11:03am

  12. Why cant they draw their inspiration from DEC 15 elections or something else? Are grassroots organizers praying for BAD news? I guess they really dont want us to succeed. Very disconcerting to think that the anit-war movement WANTS us to fail, though I must say I am not surprised.

    But you must admit it kind of punches a hole in the argument that many anti-war warriors who keep maintaining that they are not anit-american.

    Or maybe you didnt quite mean it that way?

    Posted by CPT 01/06/2006 @ 07:48am | ignore this person

    ah yes - another shade of the "if yer not wit us yer agin us" mentality. bullshit.

    amazing how for years so many conservatives have ridiculed "liberals" for their crusading do-gooder mentality, a criticism not at all unwise - we all should understand that too strenuous an effort to create a utopia in this inherently corrupting and imperfect world results in dystopia. smack down one gopher and all too often poof! up pops another. yet self serving cynicism ever seeks to thereby claim that any concious effort on the part of humankind to better itself is doomed to failure, which is every bit as foolish as too strenuous an effort to create a utopia.

    now the ideologically crusading right has the gall to pretend to posses the will and capacity to utopianize the middle east and berates opponants of the war for their suspician of the motives, methodologies, and expectations of the neocons who equate said suspician with treason, and self serving malice. the same logic could be obversly applied to conservatives. i could impute a certain glee to right wingers every time a terrorist commits an act of hideous violence in that such acts serve as proof of the deadly nature and intent of our enemies and therefore serve as ammunition for conservatives in their assertions that opponants of the war are pollyanishly dangerous and should be silenced or at the very least marginalized for the sake of our security. what hypocrisy.

    that said i do not believe that any of the conservative posters here are necc. evil themselves (ok, maybe one or two....lol). in fact i believe that they, like so many others in our country, are basically decent folks whose very decency blinds them to the true nature of their (and unfortunately, in a strict sense, our) leaders, the neocons, which is self serving evil.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/06/2006 @ 11:08am

  13. Hey, Love Liberty, is that nostalgia you feel for the old days the same nostalgia you feel for John Kerry talking about asking who should be the last man to die for a mistake?

    Posted by nathanhale at 01/06/2006 @ 11:21am

  14. You God-forsaken, limp-wristed, Islamofascist, Clintonesque apologists make me wanna puke! Here you are whining when you could be doing something useful with your life like shooting a gay abortionist, or throttling suspected terrorists in your neighborhood.

    Huh...Whuh...where am I? Oh...sorry everyone. Was putting something together this morning that used 6 or so wingnuts...guess I must have scratched myself with one!

    Posted by leftofcenter at 01/06/2006 @ 11:23am

  15. I for one want the US to fail in its illegal war on the Iraqi people.

    I want the US to fail, so that it brings this misadventure to a close, for us anyway.

    I want us to fail if it brings the troops home, I don't want to read about another GI being blown up.

    I want the US to fail if it stops one more Iraqi family being killed by a "surgical" airstrike. these surgical airstrikes do not obey the hippocratic oath that surgeons try to follow: first, do no harm"

    I want the US to fail to prevent further illegal and immoral adventures in the future.

    I want the US to fail, so that the criminals who started that war will be discredited and banished from government

    I want that war to fail, so that we will pull out and again are able to honestly join our allies to pursue peaceful resolutions to conflicts, including that in Iraq.

    I want that war to fail so that we can pull back from the martial law types curbs on civil liberties.

    I want this war to fail so that we can persue true freedom and democracy, here at home and all over the world, but not at the point of a gun or 180,000 guns

    I want this war to fail, so that the Iraqis can assume responsibility for their own future, that they can enjoy the bounty of their own oil reserves, and create a better future no matter how painful that may be.

    I want this war to fail ,so that our children will not have to bear the finacial burden of it

    I want htis war to fail, so that we may regain the respect and admiration of the world.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 11:44am

  16. Hey, Love Liberty, is that nostalgia you feel for the old days the same nostalgia you feel for John Kerry talking about asking who should be the last man to die for a mistake?

    Posted by NATHANHALE 01/06/2006 @ 11:21am

    sorry NH,

    I have no nostalgia for Kerry; in that time when we were both members of VVAW, he was even more obnoxious than he is now.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/06/2006 @ 11:46am

  17. Yeah, forget principles Mask - wouldn't want to do anything but back "winner".

    And what makes you think the anti-war movement has not been effective to date? What about the shift it has helped caused in Congress? Yes, the war continues, but the tide has turned and is continuing to flow (even if not quick enough for some).

    Posted by Hman23 at 01/06/2006 @ 11:52am

  18. Because we 'failed' in Veitnam, the world wasn't totally behind us after 9/11-- was it? DUH. Now think real hard. What happened to turn most of the civilized world against us now? So do you think that if we 'fail' in Iraq that the world won't be with us if and when we need them in the future? DUH.

    Also: http://www.oliverwillis.com/2006/01/06/murtha-rides-again/

    Posted by Bushfools at 01/06/2006 @ 11:55am

  19. Love Liberty, such a placid response from a guy who used to think Kerry was responsible for the deaths of so many of your friends in Viet Nam...

    Posted by nathanhale at 01/06/2006 @ 12:04pm

  20. BLUETEX

    Odd you bring up the Boston Tea Party....for it took THREE YEARS after it, for the Declaration of Independence to be signed. AND, at the time of it, Benjamin Franklin said that he OPPOSED the action, thought it was wrong, and said the "Sons of Liberty" should repay the price of the tea...even offered to pay it himself.

    Posted by Mask at 01/06/2006 @ 12:07pm

  21. HMAN

    So the "protests" are what "shifted Congress"? and that "preceded" the public reaction over the continueing insurgency and Bush's low poll numbers?

    Sorry to burst the bubble, but there were LARGER and more substantial protests 2 years ago...and the "peace candidate" Dr. Dean lost the Dem nomination and John Kerry said he would "finish the job".

    And hard as it is for you to believe, but 2000 people (comprised mainly of "other issue" activists ((environmentalists, anti-globalists, anti-corporatists))) "fasting" in front of the White House every 4th Saturday afternoon.....does NOT win over a majority of the American people.

    Posted by Mask at 01/06/2006 @ 12:11pm

  22. CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. Dec. 16-18, 2005. Adults nationwide.

    "Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?" N=1,003, MoE ± 3

    _____________Approve__________Disapprove________Unsure

    12/16-18/05___37________________61______________2

    12/9-11/05____39________________59______________2

    11/11-13/05___35________________63______________2

    9/16-18/05____32________________67______________1

    9/8-11/05_____40________________58______________2

    8/28-30/05____40________________59______________1

    6/24-26/05____40________________58______________2

    5/20-22/05____40________________56______________4

    Still about to look for world wide numbers. Saw them a few months back.

    Posted by Bushfools at 01/06/2006 @ 12:22pm

  23. MASK, thanks for making my point even further. Since the war started about three years ago, then Iraq should be about wrapped up with getting their govenrment started and we should be leaving about now, right? Oh wait, that's not happening? Darn.

    So what if Ben Frankin was for the Tea Party or not. He must have finally realized the error of his ways.

    Posted by BlueTexan at 01/06/2006 @ 12:23pm

  24. MASK, it's ridiculous for you to keep talking about the majority of Americans who support the war. As of about 4 months ago, it doesn't exist. And it's not coming back. You can quibble about the intent of the protests and the mindset of the people if you want. Two years ago, it was "don't do this." Right now it's "we the shouldn't have done this." In a few months it will be "stop doing this."

    Posted by MyParadigm at 01/06/2006 @ 12:29pm

  25. The only real resolve here is to keep pressuring those in power with the opinions and wants of the people. Mask points to immediate change but in truth it takes time to load the camels back, no one protest will apply the pressure needed to create change.

    Yet here we are with a massing amount of conflicts the need for change is being put forth with more and more validity.

    We can't lay around and wait for change the more we spread the word sign the petitions call the reps the faster the truth comes out. It will only come with help from all sides. Yep even those who blog in support of gw and friends are doing their part by keeping the process alive by stirring the pot so to speak.

    This kettle is boiling it is only a matter of time till it blows.

    Posted by dycel8r at 01/06/2006 @ 12:30pm

  26. Should have been "we shouldn't have done this"

    Posted by MyParadigm at 01/06/2006 @ 12:31pm

  27. Allow me to join MASK in the wet blanket corner of this blog.

    I have not attended a protest in a number of years. I never felt as if they served a long-term goal (one day of news coverage, usually more about the number attending and counterprotests than about the substance of the issue). Some protesters seemed to me as if they were there for an outdoor party. Others, like me, who went to the protests seeking ideas to add to my own, went away uninspired.

    And since the MSM seems hellbent on covering whatever tawdry element might be present, they seem capable of doing more harm than good.

    I don't know the best way for a true grassroots effort to have an impact on the powers that be. But protests in parks or on roadsides don't appear to have the capacity to influence anyone. They might be necessary to keep certain people focused and galvanized, but one would hope that the facts of the issue would be sufficient.

    Added to this is the Abramoff scandal which makes abundantly clear just how influence in this country is directed. Though my congressboy squeaks that he was never asked to cast a vote in a particular way by those who pipelined thousands to him from Abramoff, he has a virtually perfect track record of following DeLay and Bush. Even the appearance of impropriety that most of us ordinary working stiffs are smart enough to shy away from is beyond the ability of him or his cohorts.

    Perhaps we could open a casino...

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 01/06/2006 @ 12:31pm

  28. I said that the ptests "helped" Mask. I did not say it was the only factor.

    Posted by Hman23 at 01/06/2006 @ 12:32pm

  29. Tj, what planet have you been on? Cindy Sheehan's protest had no effect? you, my friend are really mistaken on this one. and don't speak for the other people who do attend protest marches rallies etc, especially since by your report you haven't attended any. You are probably too young to remember the 60s marches on washington, but I'm not. I attended those marches, and they helped to turn the country around. I am proud to have helped end that war. don't sell yourself and others short. and enjoy your tete a tete with mask

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 12:45pm

  30. maybe we ask Pat Robertson to ask god to ask the 130 Iraqis killed yesterday if they drew a great deal of inspiration from the recent election there.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 12:47pm

  31. TJ, I bet it's cozy under that wet blanket

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 12:48pm

  32. I tend to agree about the protests not being overwhemingly effective. I think that bigger factors in public disillusionment are a combination of a lack of progress (US forces sweeping through the same areas, US forces not getting a diminution in casualties, no indication of the Iraqi military that were supposed to be training becoming effective) and the high expections raised by the invasion's supports. One can remember Ken Adelman using the phrase "cakewalk", Cheney saying that "we would be greeted as liberators", Wolfowitz saying that he couldn't imaging the occupation needing more troops than the invasion, Bush posing in front of the "Mission Accomplished" sign TWO YEARS AGO. I suspect they deluded themselves on this point as well as the American people. They did mainly just delude the American people on the WMD and their non-exsistence has contributed to declining public support.

    Posted by brunowe at 01/06/2006 @ 12:49pm

  33. JOHANNESROLF. I would argue that the protest movement re Vietnam didn't really get the strength to be a potent political factor until the Tet Offensive. Although that was a military victory for the US, the ability of the NVA/VC to launch it shattered all the "light at the end of the tunnel" stories and that was what started turning sentiment against the war. Even then, it wasn't an anti-war candidate who won at the convention in Chicago.

    Posted by brunowe at 01/06/2006 @ 12:52pm

  34. Those who believe that some retro Vietnam era massive protests will eventually lead to a similar action with Iraq and the war on terror seem to lack historical and socialogical perspective.

    What really caused the so-called success of the Vietnam protests? I would submit that it had to do more with the personal character weakness of Nixon and Johnson's emotional and mental fatigue. A stronger president with more personal conviction about the war like Bush has, is not swayed by these protests. Also Bush unlike Nixon and Johnson understands the numbers. Even if you get a million or 4 million people out in protests around the country, the numbers are insignificant. That is less than 1.5% of the population.

    In Other countries that would spark a change of government, but it won't do so here.

    Also, the left fails to understand the vast middle of America that is not faced with unstable governments, high rates of unemployment, low rates of home ownership, and who are for the most part, very happy with their way of life.

    The protest movements that operate with far more success in other nations are never going to see similar results in the US unless there is some significant change with regards to middle America, and someone in the presidency with less conviction than Bush.

    The only way that the current situation could change dramatically is if control of Congress changes in 2006. I agree that those who believe in failure could then affect their change by cutting off funding as directed by the War Powers Act of 1973.

    This should be an exciting year politically as both sides work hard to see their view become the controlling position.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/06/2006 @ 12:54pm

  35. Johannesrolf,

    Clarification: I think there are two different kinds of protests, ones like the Civil Rights marches or Cindy Sheehan's efforts that have as their focus people who have been personally victimized by the government. Then there are more general anti-war, pro-choice, anti-WTO protests that have an important issue to rally around but do not have the "face" or the compelling personal story that has become necessary for the media to cover the protest with something like sympathy. It sucks, but I think a certain amount of media savvy is necessary in this day and age.

    For example, years ago I participated in the march in DC against the first Gulf War that took place in the days before the war began. Obviously I believed in the cause, but the demonstration had virtually no impact because there was no victim to put before a microphone. Likewise in a pro-choice march in which I participated, it was loaded with celebrities, but what's a more effective image: Jane Fonda at the podium or a photo of an aborted fetus? The legalization of abortion has allowed the anti-choicers to claim victimhood status on behalf of the fetuses and they have been gaining traction.

    I support Cindy Sheehan's efforts but even they can only go so far. For every parent of a dead soldier who will blame Bush, there is a parent who considers his/her child to have been a hero in a noble cause. What Sheehan and others who have suffered as she has need now is that moment before Congress that the Jersey Wives got before the 9/11 Commission. Get Sheehan and the parents of Pat Tillman together, putting difficult questions to Congressmen, many of whom are now suspected of accepting dirty money--now that's a picture!

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 01/06/2006 @ 1:07pm

  36. LL your statement "A stronger president with more personal conviction about the war like Bush has, is not swayed by these protests."

    Time to take a good look at this pres his knees are getting mighty shakey. Just how many blunders , mis-statements, lies, greed will it take.

    This kettle is building quite a head the 06 elections will probably be the trigger.

    Lets vote for change in 06. The old adage a bird in hand well this bush we have is getting harder to find in this bush might be he gets squashed by it.

    Can god really create a rock so big that he himself cannot lift it? We are seeing a president who can!

    Posted by dycel8r at 01/06/2006 @ 1:12pm

  37. I will agree to disagree on this one, friends, I ask only that you do not disparage the efforts of those who ARE doing something, ineffective as it may seem to you. let the other side keep their corner on disparagement

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 1:13pm

  38. Posted by BLUETEXAN 01/06/2006 @ 12:23am

    So when was the Iraq War "Battle of Lexingon & Concord"? Murtha?

    and why do all but Feingold, of the Dems running for President in 2008 (especially HRC) still not back an "immediate" or even "quick" pull-out? Sounds like Patrick Henry and Sam Adams saying "Well, let's wait and see how this Stamp Act thing works out...not get all hot and bothered just yet!"

    Posted by Mask at 01/06/2006 @ 1:14pm

  39. In a few months it will be "stop doing this."

    Posted by MYPARADIGM 01/06/2006 @ 12:29am |

    See, MYPARA....I'd believe that....if we hadn't been hearing it for a year and a half!

    Posted by Mask at 01/06/2006 @ 1:16pm

  40. Absolutely, Johannesrolf! I just think I feel truly helpless right now, with so many issues that remain either unaddressed or poorly addressed by our elected nimrods. I with I had clear vision to see a way through the mess, clunk a few heads together, and get things straight. Even with the sorry-assed state of our deficit, war, poverty, ethics, etc., etc., I'm in too deep and dark of a place to imagine that the left has a realistic chance to demonstrate that its ideals are the antidote to our problems.

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 01/06/2006 @ 1:17pm

  41. It is not Bush we seek to sway by protests, he is brain dead and in any case he is the president in name only. the ones that are going to decide this thing are those in the center, the undecideds, the not so sures.

    in the sixties, I started out as a college student, at a progressive hotbed college, CCNY, thank god. coming from a military family I was enrolled in ROTC and had no discernable politics. It was rallies, marches, handbills, and the increasing war in Vietnam that turned me around. I dropped out of ROTC with help from a sympathetic professor, and had my draft notice the day after graduation, very efficient.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 1:21pm

  42. TJ, had you been at the last truly big march in Washington perhaps that helpless feeling might have gone away, if only for a few hours. to me that sea of likeminded humanity was a balm and a sign of hope. it was also nice to go on a busride with my neighbors and I made some new friends

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 1:23pm

  43. Posted by TJBEHRENS1 01/06/2006 @ 12:31am

    Plenty of water and wool comforters over here, TJ....help yourself!

    This is a MYTH of the Left, that is held in "some esteem" (like HMAN) or "totally believed" (like JOHANNES and the "Cindy Factor")...that is part of the ego-driven drivel of the Baby Boomers who protested Vietnam.

    They think THEY "stopped the war"...not the casualties, the higher taxes, the "loss" of Walter Cronkite, or just general news from VN....no, it was every group of 500-100,000 college students, Father Berrigan, and Abbie Hoffman saying "Hey, Hey, LBJ...How many kids have you killed today?" that pushed Nixon to run on his "secret plan" and Kissinger to try to find SOMETHING to negotiate in Paris.

    And the myth continues to today...that 2000-50,000 ACT-UP, NOW, Democracy Now, the Rainbow Coalition, and "Legalize Hemp" guys standing on the Mall in D.C. listening to Martin Sheen (the "real President") talk about "Iraq and multinationals" and Cindy Sheehan (odd name coincidence?...hmm?) say that Israel is running our foreign policy and Iraq insurgents are "freedom fighters"....are what drove the Bush and Iraq War poll numbers down among an electorate, evenly divided and still returning Bush and a GOP Congress to power in 2004, to say by 60-65% that they "think the war is a mistake".

    Yet....oddly, the COVERAGE of such protests appears on CSPAN, which has an audience slighly below QVC at 3am...or gets 20 seconds on the MSM, with a shot of some 65 year old hippie holding a "Bush's hands are dripping blood" sign or two 20-something girls with their "Nickelback" T-shirts holding a "Free Mumia" placard.

    Posted by Mask at 01/06/2006 @ 1:26pm

  44. Granted the numbers change a little from time to time but it's more often than not that a majority of the people in the US wish we'd never had gone into Iraq in the first place.

    CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. Dec. 16-18, 2005. Adults nationwide.

    "Next, we'd like to ask you some questions about Iraq. First: In view of the developments since we first sent our troops to Iraq, do you think the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, or not?" N=1,003, MoE ± 3

    _______________Made a Mistake______Did Not Make a Mistake_______Unsure

    12/16-18/05_________52______________________46___________________2

    12/9-11/05__________48______________________50___________________2

    11/11-13/05_________54______________________45___________________1

    10/28-30/05_________54______________________45___________________1

    10/21-23/05_________49______________________49___________________2

    9/16-18/05__________59______________________39___________________2

    9/8-11/05___________53______________________46___________________1

    8/28-30/05__________53______________________46___________________1

    8/5-7/05____________54______________________44___________________2

    7/22-24/05__________46______________________53___________________1

    6/24-26/05__________53______________________46___________________1

    Posted by Bushfools at 01/06/2006 @ 1:28pm

  45. Just a bunch of unwashed anti-american 1960's re-treads that have no ideas except to hate Bush. How inspiring you silly leftists are!!

    Posted by stupidlibz at 01/06/2006 @ 1:31pm

  46. TJ, had you been at the last truly big march in Washington perhaps that helpless feeling might have gone away, if only for a few hours. to me that sea of likeminded humanity was a balm and a sign of hope. it was also nice to go on a busride with my neighbors and I made some new friends

    Posted by JOHANNESROLF 01/06/2006 @ 1:23pm

    Johannes,

    I think your post provided an excellent illustration of what the protests actually accomplish. This is not to demean anyone's right to protest or their passion for a cause; However....

    I think your comments illustrate that the protests provide an emotional panacea for those in disagreement on an issue like the war in Iraq. I think that it provides a necessary outlet for the emotional stress that occurs when you find your position having no weight in the decision making process. It is healthy not only for individuals but for the democratic process.

    I actually appreciate your commentaries Johannes, they provide insight into what I consider a genuine classic pacifist liberal philosophy. That is meant as a compliment and I hope you read this.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/06/2006 @ 1:33pm

  47. Fooly, nice. I think these poll numbers should appear at the head of each thread, if only to prove the righties liars when they claim the country supports the war

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 1:37pm

  48. Lib polls only prove that the left are the professional liars

    Posted by stupidlibz at 01/06/2006 @ 1:42pm

  49. Mask:

    They think THEY "stopped the war"...not the casualties, the higher taxes, the "loss" of Walter Cronkite, or just general news from VN....

    Gee, Mask, do you think the protesters were talking about any of the things on your list?

    Posted by Hman23 at 01/06/2006 @ 1:45pm

  50. Protests in the US are pretty much pointless, almost as pointless as voting, since if voting actually changed anything, it'd be illegal. But here, you have true democracy in the streets. People come out in mass to protest this and that all the time. I was in Tegucigalpa, Honduras visiting a friend shortly after Katrina, and President Maduro upped the price of gasoline from 65 Lempiras (about $3.40) to something like 87 or 88 a gallon (about $4.50). This in a country where the average José makes about $900-$1000/year. Well, it didn't take more than a day for the people to strike, shutting down the major cities, airports, bus stations, taxis, everything. The whole country came to a halt. Needless to say, that cabrón Maduro, who had justified the rise due to Katrina, (which was total bullshit and the people knew it), dropped the prices back to 65 Lemp/gallon the next day, which is still high mind you, but when you have millions of people on the verge of starvation, it doesn't take much to get them amped up and ready for rebellion. Poverty is indeed a motor for revolution. We're just waiting for enough middle class folks in the US to fall into the lower class for the real protest to begin, the one that involves bullets and sabotage instead of slogans and banners.

    Posted by chimichenga at 01/06/2006 @ 1:47pm

  51. So, MASK, if A, B, C, D and E are the real reasons a war might "be stopped," protesters are still ineffective, even if they give a voice to A, B, C, D, and E. You've been posting here long enough to know that those against the war back it up with reasons; they don't just say "I am against the war" and are done with it.

    Posted by Hman23 at 01/06/2006 @ 1:52pm

  52. chimi, are advocating armed rebellion? a nation wide general strike might be a more modest start

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 1:54pm

  53. Well, I understand rebellion, because I've lived among so many people for so many years who have no dreams, who view themselves as being "fucked", who sing songs about how the earth is for the rich and heaven for the poor, ect. I believe people have a breaking point, and that you must fight fire with fire. Of course, when a brutal dictator, like say Pinochet, kills those who oppose him, it's OK. If the Sandinistas in the mid-70s went after government officials of the Somoza regime, it was unacceptable (and of course inviting Sandino himself out to dinner and shooting him in the 30s was fine). I'm not saying the US is barbaric towards its own people (to the rest of the world, yes), but when it hits its nadir (fascist police state), then you gotta do whatever it takes to bring it down. But yes, I believe in London's idea in the Iron Heel that all you need to do to fight the power is just cross your arms and do nothing. Bring the machine to a stop. Then you'll get their attention.

    Posted by chimichenga at 01/06/2006 @ 2:03pm

  54. Johanne,

    "I for one want the US to fail in its illegal war on the Iraqi people. "

    finally the truth comes out from a leftist.

    He wants us to fail in Iraq...

    Unfortuanatly for you dimwit we won't.

    We will stay there regardless of how many Americans are killed until the job is finished and Iraq is a democracy capable of deffending itself against Islamo-terrorists.

    And then...

    With any luck, the war on terror will continue to Iran, North Korea and Libya and anywhere else that terrorists live and train.

    Todd

    Posted by Oksportsguy at 01/06/2006 @ 2:05pm

  55. CHIMICH

    Pure democracy? Nah!! you get too much instability, thats what Our Founders didnt want.

    Viva La Revolucion!

    Posted by CPT at 01/06/2006 @ 2:05pm

  56. Chimi,

    " Poverty is indeed a motor for revolution. We're just waiting for enough middle class folks in the US to fall into the lower class for the real protest to begin, the one that involves bullets and sabotage instead of slogans and banners."

    And I'm sure you will be one of the poor (literally) bastards that start the protests with bullets and slogans is that right?

    Todd

    Posted by Oksportsguy at 01/06/2006 @ 2:07pm

  57. Todd,

    I'll be the guy who understands why your kids get killed by their own countrymen.

    Posted by chimichenga at 01/06/2006 @ 2:14pm

  58. Just a bunch of unwashed anti-american 1960's re-treads that have no ideas except to hate Bush. How inspiring you silly leftists are!!

    Posted by STUPIDLIBZ 01/06/2006 @ 1:31pm | ignore this person

    ok - your getting better now - no profanity. no ideas?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/06/2006 @ 2:39pm

  59. That will be when the "progessive liberals?" take power and start rounding up and imprisoning then executing all the Christians who refuse to worship at the liberal altar's of secular humanism! I think it is referred to as the last days or the great tribulation!

    Posted by RIO BRAVO 01/06/2006 @ 2:34pm | ignore this person

    COME THE RAPTURE, WE'LL HAVE THE WORLD TO OURSELVES!!!!!!! MOOHAHAHAHAHa!!!!

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/06/2006 @ 2:40pm

  60. CHIMI - perhaps some sort of absurd yet disruptive discordian low grade sabatoge?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/06/2006 @ 2:44pm

  61. RIO BRAVO,

    You people have no insight whatsoever. As we watch your country decline, lose legitimacy and credibility, rely on bullets to bolster it's slumping currency, become more feared and hated than followed and admired, losing jobs, declining wages, health care, full of uneducated children and impovershed seniors, ransacking the globe in murderous search of resources to fuel its greed-fueled prodigal way of life, spying, torturing, limiting free speech, ect. we see danger ahead, but also hope in that the changing of the US into a blatant plutocracy full of a few patricians and many plebians with no regard for the other 95% of humanity, will eventually ignite the fuse. That is, if China doesn't blow you guys clear to hell first. Afterall, if China decided tomorrow to turn its profits into euros, you'd sink. Or if they told you stay the fuck away from Iran or North Korea, you'd also take your rightful place and shrink away, because you are smaller than you think these days. I know you're being flippant, but surely you realize that China is overtaking and will overtake you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

    Posted by chimichenga at 01/06/2006 @ 2:45pm

  62. HMAN

    Actually a LOT of the "60s protestors" were talking about what a "great guy" Ho Chi Minh was and how it was a war to "enrich Dupont and Bell Helicopter"....sound familar?

    In point of fact, the "new" protestors (I use that quote, because apparently a LOT of them, demographically...are the OLD protestors) are WORSE than the "60s guys" were. For the reasons I listed, they start off on Iraq...go to "globalism"...then "environmental rape"...then "sexual exploitation"...then "hemp"....then "trans-gender issues".

    Posted by Mask at 01/06/2006 @ 2:55pm

  63. CHIMI

    again...maybe I missed it when you first signed on...

    Where do you live?

    Posted by Mask at 01/06/2006 @ 2:56pm

  64. Chimi,

    If you've been to China (and I don't mean Shanghai and Beijing which are not really China at all), you'll realize that although they hold the USA's debt and COULD sink the USA at any moment they wanted to.....frankly, they have bigger problems than world domination. Within the next 10 years China will have a massive revolution and we'll all be fucked.

    Unfortunately us big dicked American's don't see that we have better things to do than world domination, which is why we're in the debt that we are!

    Posted by colmes at 01/06/2006 @ 3:02pm

  65. colombia.

    chimichenga out. too many nice lookin ladies out on fridays for me to continue joshing around...

    Posted by chimichenga at 01/06/2006 @ 3:02pm

  66. I have heard much about China here. may I offer another view. the China US relationship is not only that they hold much if not most of our debt, but also that we are the largest market for their goods. so there is actually no way that they will destabilize the US by withdrawing their money or such, who would buy their goods? one thing I am sure of, the US hegemony will not last long, China is gaining on us rapidly, and I expect a bipolar world domination like during the cold war between the soviets and the US, russia will likely not be as big a player, despite their huge nuclear arsenal.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 3:14pm

  67. sorry to contribute to the off topic discussion, if anyone should be offended by that

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 3:17pm

  68. CHIMICHENGA "That is, if China doesn't blow you guys clear to hell first. Afterall, if China decided tomorrow to turn its profits into euros, you'd sink. Or if they told you stay the fuck away from Iran or North Korea, you'd also take your rightful place and shrink away, because you are smaller than you think these days. I know you're being flippant, but surely you realize that China is overtaking and will overtake you, and there's nothing you can do about it."

    In what century??? China's growth is prodigious but their GDP is only 1/6 of ours. Their economy also has a number of strains involving high rural unemployment and poverty (as opposed to the boom towns of the coast which have a labor shortage), strains on the infrastructure and a banking system riddled with bad loans. You are also seriously overestimating Chinese military strength. They could certainly make a credible threat re N. Korea but there isn't much they could do re Iran. Likewise, the EU would have something to say about a mass purchase of euros (which would push their currency up to the point where their exports would shrivel).

    As far as our genuine economic problems (wealth drifting towards the top, real income for the middle and lower classes stalled (or arguably dropping when increased health and education costs are taken into account), it's still interesting to note that we are 10/177 on the UN Human Development Index, not the best but considerably better than China, which at 75 is between the Philippines and Suriname or Honduras which is 116. Doesn't sound like the proletariat is going to be seizing the means of production any time soon.

    Posted by brunowe at 01/06/2006 @ 3:17pm

  69. Chimi is just a little dick leftist from a 3rd world country who has obviously got a real bad case of penis envy. His spew is a wide open window to leftist anti american thinking that haunts this blog.

    Posted by stupidlibz at 01/06/2006 @ 3:23pm

  70. Rio Bravo So perhaps you can explain why the word "God" isn't mentioned in the Constitution. Likewise, which part of the New Testament deals with separation of powers, representative government, federalism, an independent judiciary, mixed government, frequent Congressional elections, etc.?

    I can tell you that the Founders idea of a federal republic had some or its origin in Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws, and he doesn't mention the New Testament once in discussing it. Further, where in the Federalist Papers does NT come up, because I don't recall having come across it?

    Posted by brunowe at 01/06/2006 @ 3:24pm

  71. Oh, Stupidlibs has apparently come back as Stupidlibz, so he can outflank people's Ignore Lists.

    Posted by brunowe at 01/06/2006 @ 3:25pm

  72. Bruno,

    Don't ignore stupid....he's adding such weight to the discussion.....although I am still waiting for his answer to my question of 1:39PM from yesterday!

    Seems he has a bit of a problem with formulating actual answers.

    Posted by colmes at 01/06/2006 @ 3:29pm

  73. good posts Bruno, and that nutcase libswhatever has tried this before, in fact half of my ignores are that ignoramus, pathetic, and totally transparent

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 3:30pm

  74. RIO

    The leftwing attempt to pervert truth and replace it with obvious lies remains a part of the continual struggle that Christian conservatism is finding its voice and rising up against.

    That would be because the Christian conservatism is so focussed on perverting the truth and replacing it with religious dogma!

    Posted by leftofcenter at 01/06/2006 @ 3:38pm

  75. Bruno, Colmes, Johann

    Stupid is as stupid does...

    Posted by leftofcenter at 01/06/2006 @ 3:39pm

  76. "Stupid is as stupid does..."

    Perfect slogan for nitwit liberal politicians and thier followers in '06 & 08.

    Posted by stupidlibz at 01/06/2006 @ 3:43pm

  77. Financial Times

    Mr Bush also named Julie Myers as assistant secretary of homeland security for immigration and customs enforcement, despite earlier criticism that she did not have sufficient experience with immigration issues.

    Ms Myers, a former assistant secretary at the Commerce Department, is the niece of General Richard Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Her husband is the chief of staff to Michael Chertoff, homeland security secretary.

    ------------------------------------

    Wow what a "war" on terrorism old Bushie's fighting now huh!

    One of the most important positions in our fight against terrorism and we do a recess appointmnet of someone that Voinivich REPUBLICAN, said was UNQUALIFIED.

    I think this pretty much seals the argument that Bush and Cheney are NOT very interested in keeping us safe.

    Posted by colmes at 01/06/2006 @ 3:49pm

  78. Have we been attacked since 9/11??

    Case Closed

    Posted by stupidlibz at 01/06/2006 @ 3:51pm

  79. Rio posted:

    No amount of erroneous revision of historical fact designed to obscure the truth of the origin of the principles and sourse of the idealism of the nation's founders will ever obsticate the truth.

    No offense, Rio, but pretty much anything you wrote after this whale of a statement is profoundly bullshittish. This is the most complex display of highminded narrowmindedness I may ever have come across. "Historical fact" and "truth" are defined by whom? Stop with the absolutism and recognize that, as frightening as it might be, facts are nothing without interpretations and contexts and truth is something on the other side of "idealism" altogether.

    Humbug. Horsehockey. Pure poop. A disguise to intertwine your religion and your vision of our country. You want nothing to do with any "fact" or "truth" that interrupts your belief that this country is divine and that liberals are pissing in its churches. American history is not written in Biblical form. It is real and multifaceted (many facets are still being discovered) and you want it simple and pure. Just leave history alone and go worship something else.

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 01/06/2006 @ 3:59pm

  80. Stupid,

    If we had Gore 9/11 would never have happened.

    Too bad Bush was elected (alledgedly) and made us unsafe by never meeting with Richard Clark, not reading reports that say "Bin Laden to Attack", not reinfocing cockpit doors as had been suggested and not bothering to continue to pursue AQ / OBL as had been done by the previous Administration.

    The blood of 9/11 is on Bush's hands and he's not done yet.....look at that recess appointment!

    Posted by colmes at 01/06/2006 @ 4:00pm

  81. OK, the lowest point has been reached, the last line crossed. Don't need anymore convincing. I'm angry enough to march. There's tons of evidence that the BC BS regime lied us into war. (the cherry unpicked intel showing no WMD, removing inspectors, Downing St. memo, no plan to win peace, the political need to stay in constant state of war, letting OBL go, only 10 minutes with past Sec's/BS photo op, etc) There's tons more evidence that this BC BS regime isn't for WE THE PEOPLE, but rather for WE THE CORPORATE PROFITS. (the no bid contracts, fucked up tax code for off shore corporations/loop holes, no training for troops to hold prisoners/Abu Ghraib, Ok-ing TORTURE, Abramoff corporate bribery and phony GOP principles, etc) They see the US population as fodder to accomplish their goals. (no to little equipment to protect our troops, not enough troops to do the job, illegally spying on US citizens/ignoring constitution, ignoring pre-9/11 intel to prevent it, Katrina/levy death watch, total lack of competence in key areas, tax cuts for the rich/cuts to social services, etc) Thus, they either wish to enslave us in a media induced fantasy that allows them to monitor and manipulate us to do their bidding or believe we wish them to do just that by our wimpy to no show resistance. Don't be fooled by those that are already doing their bidding. Everyone that believes we're being screwed should be willing to voice outrage, write angry letters/email, make phone calls, and yes-- march. I for one am willing to march on DC WH and protest. I believe that a few thousand from my city alone would be willing take part as well. Here's to being ready and hoping that the BC BS regime doesn't get any lower . We are living in interesting times.

    Posted by Bushfools at 01/06/2006 @ 4:03pm

  82. hey Fooly, here's a nightmare, three more years of this

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 4:07pm

  83. "If we had Gore 9/11 would never have happened"

    You LIBS are truly delusional. It wouldnt have happened under Gore because of all that work against terrorism Clinton did the previous 8 years. Don't make me laugh. 9/11 happened BECAUSE B.J. was way too interested in other things(cigars & thongs). The fact that he let Bin-Laden get away 3 times proves Clinton/Gore were clueless and have the blood of 3000 Americans on thier hands. You detestable LIBS will not be trusted again for years with our national security. You are weaklings that need to be crushed like the grapes that you are

    Posted by stupidlibz at 01/06/2006 @ 4:09pm

  84. Mask, I think you are painting with a pretty broad brush. I am sure that SOME of the protesters fit into your categories of interests, but MOST stayed on topic in the 60's and the majority of TODAY'S anti-war adovates (while having their fair share of fringe issue seekers) address the real issues you mentioned before. Just take the posters here - I think it is fair to say that this is a good representative sample.

    Posted by Hman23 at 01/06/2006 @ 4:12pm

  85. Yes Colmes, I would like to say I look forward to the wingers' defense of the Myers appointment, but I think all we will hear is the sound of crickets on this one.

    Posted by Hman23 at 01/06/2006 @ 4:15pm

  86. What IS the record for most recess appointments by one president? Looks like he's on his way to 100 or more. Is there any end to the number of potential cronies in this administration?

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 01/06/2006 @ 4:36pm

  87. Stupid,

    Did Gore / Clinton pursue OBL?

    Yes.

    Did Bush?

    No.

    Did 9/11 happen on Clinton's watch?

    No.

    Did Bush do one thing from January 2001 to September 2001 in defense of this country from OBL?

    No.

    Case closed.

    Posted by colmes at 01/06/2006 @ 4:37pm

  88. what exactly did Clinton do to go after terrorism again...???

    How about some facts and no Lib delusional spin...

    Posted by fuclibs at 01/06/2006 @ 4:45pm

  89. What did Bush do?

    What is he doing appointing an unqualified crony to a very important anti terrorist post?

    He wants us to be attacked. He is ndoing a "heck of a job"!

    Posted by colmes at 01/06/2006 @ 4:50pm

  90. 1993 WTC bombing African Embassy Bombings Uss Cole Bombing quite a few others to mention. Quite a stellar Liberal example of Success. You must be so proud of B.J and his lovely wife Hillary Rotten. Clinton should be huing by his adultarous balls for letting Osama get away 3 times. Explain that away you liberal nitwit

    Posted by fuclibs at 01/06/2006 @ 4:52pm

  91. 1993 WTC bombing happened about two MONTHS after he was sworn in....NOT NINE MONTHS like 9/11!

    Others attacks not in the USA. If we are counting non USA anti USA terrorist attacks then 2005 was a new record buddy!

    One of the times "he let OBL get away" was he was in Monica depositions and therefore the Cruise missed by 45 minutes. It's a shame the Republican Congress was more concerned with a BJ than killing OBL.

    Posted by colmes at 01/06/2006 @ 4:57pm

  92. Yes Colmes, I would like to say I look forward to the wingers' defense of the Myers appointment, but I think all we will hear is the sound of crickets on this one.

    Posted by HMAN23 01/06/2006 @ 4:15pm

    I don't think you will hear much of a defense any time soon. Myers has been raked by many conservatives led by Michelle Malkin and National Review. My own personal observation is that from what I have read, she is marginally qualified at best (she has the minimum 5 years of law enforcement background including 2 as a Fed Prosecutor).

    What I see knowing Washington and this Admin is that Chertoff couldn't get the person he wanted to take the position so he is going to de facto run that department. Secondly, this department position is really just a career bureaucratic position, with the real management and enforcement at subtier levels. What an agressive and experienced career individual could bring to the position is a lot of pressure on Chertoff to incorporate recommended changes.

    We shall see what happens, but I think my observations are fairly accurate. The worst case scenario would be that the Admin is giving up on this area of Homeland Security and I don't think the GOP base will tolerate that.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/06/2006 @ 5:01pm

  93. LL:

    What I see knowing Washington and this Admin is that Chertoff couldn't get the person he wanted to take the position so he is going to de facto run that department.

    Can you expand on this a bit?

    Posted by Hman23 at 01/06/2006 @ 5:07pm

  94. RIO BRAVO

    Lengthy and completely non-responsive. I referred to basic structural aspects or our government and asked how you could tie them to Christian theology, you didn't provide one example. Likewise, you haven't explained how Montesquieu, Blackstone or Locke's arguments are theologically based. Where does freedom of speech or of the press show up in the Bible? All you've done is argue that the Founding Fathers were Christian, but you're argument that our Constitution can't be understood apart from a "Providential Chrstian world-view" isn't supported by anything you've said. As to the Supreme Court opinion, considering this is the same court that gave us Plessey v. Ferguson, I'd hestitate to trust their historical or moral judgement.

    Your Constitutional Convention argument is a case of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. The actual trade off was that the smaller states would get equal representation in one of the houses in return for revenue bills only being able to be originated in the other house, where the larger states would predominate. No proof of prayer being a factor in that compromise, in fact one would think that the fear of falling back onto the dysfunctional Articles of Confederation or, worse, splitting up into separate confederacies was a huge motivator. Likewise, you can hardly argue that the thirteen colonies ratification was the same as that of the thirteen tribes since the foundation of the separate colonies took place over a period of decades and as a result of different circumstances and is a pure coincidence.

    "Jefferson cited the fact that U.S. government ought not get involved in such events (Days of prayer, etc.) because such powers were retained by the states. This would completely run contrary to the contemporary ideas that there must be a purging any references of God or Christianity from the public sector. Jefferson sought no such thing"

    The only problem with that argument is that the same prohibitions now apply to the states as the 14th Amendment has been held to have made the 1st Amendment applicable to the states. Since having a prayer service in a school would be the equivalent or a day of prayer, it would seem that Jefferson's statement should now apply to the states not getting involved in such things either.

    Posted by brunowe at 01/06/2006 @ 5:17pm

  95. If the BC BS regime isn't booted out soon and still this country survives, I bet the BC BS regime will rate as the worst in US history, most killed, murdered, raped, tortured, ignored to death, most maimed, civil rights revoked, worse drop in real income for the poor, no minimum wage, no child labor left behind, less rich but richer, weakest remaining government to corporate control ever, military demolished and all pulled back to protect US borders from people trying to escape corporate dictatorship, no voting, no real news unless approved by corporate/government office, and of course the only way to find out, prove what really happened to the US democracy is to escape it, if you can get passed the monitoring of every step you take. So better to start stepping out now and protest while you still can…, IT'S A COOKBOOK!

    Posted by Bushfools at 01/06/2006 @ 5:22pm

  96. Oh no, not god again

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 5:26pm

  97. TJB

    re: "recess appts"

    The only time when George does anything is during recess. Sure must be fun to "play President" with all his schoolmates...uh, I mean cronies. Well, in this election cycle, maybe the school bell will ring and he'll have to come in and do some "cipherin" and such.

    Posted by leftofcenter at 01/06/2006 @ 5:32pm

  98. "One of the times "he let OBL get away" was he was in Monica depositions and therefore the Cruise missed by 45 minutes"

    Thats a hell of a stretch!! Because B.J. was in a grand jury lying his ass off somehow prevented him from getting Osama.

    Perfect example of why LIBERALS are totally incapable of being trusted with national security ever again.

    Posted by fuclibs at 01/06/2006 @ 5:33pm

  99. You suppose he sits in his sandbox with little army men and toy tanks making "bang-bang" noises while talking to Rumsfeld?

    Posted by leftofcenter at 01/06/2006 @ 5:33pm

  100. Hi Stupid!

    I see you've changed your underwear again...although I see you've crapped them already. Better change them again UFI / Stupid... / Aludra

    Posted by leftofcenter at 01/06/2006 @ 5:35pm

  101. I know....you're now........ Stupid_Fuc!

    Posted by leftofcenter at 01/06/2006 @ 5:36pm

  102. why do the intelligent people on this blog keep getting sucked into endless god discussions with our taleban christoids? why? they have nothing to contribute to the discussion, that Iraq thing is a disaster, their lies about Iraq have almost ALL been exposed as such, and they have nothing to offer. ignore the mofu...for heaven's sake, or at least for sanity's sake

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 5:37pm

  103. WARNING: TOTALLY UNRELATED TOPIC

    LL:

    It seems that the Congressional Research Service just issued a report concluding that Bush's NSA program is not "well grounded" in law. See http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Nonpartisan_arm_of_Congress_says_wir etaps_0106.html (URL too long).

    For some reason, I am having trouble with Raw Story's link to the actual report, so I have not read it. But, given our legal debate on this issue earlier in the week, I figured this would give us some weekend reading to see if it adds anything. I assume other sources will make it available at some point.

    If you get a chance to read it, I would welcome resuming our discussion.

    Posted by Hman23 at 01/06/2006 @ 5:38pm

  104. JR:

    I agree, people shouldn't fall for the bait set by the zealots.

    Posted by Hman23 at 01/06/2006 @ 5:39pm

  105. Saddam's Terror Training Camps What the documents captured from the former Iraqi regime reveal--and why they should all be made public.

    by Stephen F. Hayes 01/16/2006, Volume 011, Issue 17

    THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

    The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

    The photographs and documents on Iraqi training camps come from a collection of some 2 million "exploitable items" captured in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S. intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq War.

    The discovery of the information on jihadist training camps in Iraq would seem to have two major consequences: It exposes the flawed assumptions of the experts and U.S. intelligence officials who told us for years that a secularist like Saddam Hussein would never work with Islamic radicals, any more than such jihadists would work with an infidel like the Iraqi dictator. It also reminds us that valuable information remains buried in the mountain of documents recovered in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past four years.

    Nearly three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, only 50,000 of these 2 million "exploitable items" have been thoroughly examined. That's 2.5 percent. Despite the hard work of the individuals working on the "DOCEX" project, the process is not moving quickly enough, says Michael Tanji, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who helped lead the document exploitation effort for 18 months. "At this rate," he says, "if we continue to approach DOCEX in a linear fashion, our great-grandchildren will still be sorting through this stuff."

    Most of the 50,000 translated documents relate directly to weapons of mass destruction programs and scientists, since David Kay and his Iraq Survey Group--who were among the first to analyze the finds--considered those items top priority. "At first, if it wasn't WMD, it wasn't translated. It wasn't exploited," says a former military intelligence officer who worked on the documents in Iraq.

    Posted by fuclibs at 01/06/2006 @ 6:20pm

  106. "We had boxloads of Iraqi Intelligence records--their names, their jobs, all sorts of detailed information," says the former military intelligence officer. "In an insurgency, wouldn't that have been helpful?"

    How many of those unexploited documents might help us better understand the role of Iraq in supporting transregional terrorists? How many of those documents might provide important intelligence on the very people--Baathists, former regime officials, Saddam Fedayeen, foreign fighters trained in Iraq--that U.S. soldiers are fighting in Iraq today? Is what we don't know literally killing us?

    ON NOVEMBER 17, 2005, Michigan representative Pete Hoekstra wrote to John Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence. Hoekstra is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He provided Negroponte a list of 40 documents recovered in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan and asked to see them. The documents were translated or summarized, given titles by intelligence analysts in the field, and entered into a government database known as HARMONY. Most of them are unclassified.

    For several weeks, Hoekstra was promised a response. He finally got one on December 28, 2005, in a meeting with General Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of national intelligence. Hayden handed Hoekstra a letter from Negroponte that promised a response after January 1, 2006. Hoekstra took the letter, read it, and scribbled his terse response. "John--Unacceptable." Hoekstra told Hayden that he would expect to hear something before the end of the year. He didn't.

    "I can tell you that I'm reaching the point of extreme frustration," said Hoekstra, in a phone interview last Thursday. His exasperated tone made the claim unnecessary. "It's just an indication that rather than having a nimble, quick intelligence community that can respond quickly, it's still a lumbering bureaucracy that can't give the chairman of the intelligence committee answers relatively quickly. Forget quickly, they can't even give me answers slowly."

    On Friday, however, Hoekstra finally heard from Negroponte. The director of national intelligence told Hoekstra that he is committed to expedited the exploitation and release of the Iraqi documents. According to Hoekstra, Negroponte said: "I'm giving this as much attention as anything else on my plate to make this work."

    Other members of Congress--including Rep. Dana Rohrahacher and Senators Rick Santorum and Pat Roberts--also demanded more information from the Bush administration on the status of the vast document collection. Santorum and Hoekstra have raised the issue personally with President Bush. This external pressure triggered an internal debate at the highest levels of the administration. Following several weeks of debate, a consensus has emerged: The vast majority of the 2 million captured documents should be released publicly as soon as possible.

    Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has convened several meetings in recent weeks to discuss the Pentagon's role in expediting the release of the information. According to several sources familiar with his thinking, Rumsfeld is pushing aggressively for a massive dump of the captured documents. "He has a sense that public vetting of this information is likely to be as good an astringent as any other process we could develop," says Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita.

    The main worry, says DiRita, is that the mainstream press might cherry-pick documents and mischaracterize their meaning. "There is always the concern that people would be chasing a lot of information good or bad, and when the Times or the Post splashes a headline about some sensational-sounding document that would seem to 'prove' that sanctions were working, or that Saddam was just a misunderstood patriot, or some other nonsense, we'd spend a lot of time chasing around after it."

    This is a view many officials attributed to Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Steve Cambone. (Cambone, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed.) For months, Cambone has argued internally against expediting the release of the documents. "Cambone is the problem," says one former Bush administration official who wants the documents released. "He has blocked this every step of the way." In what is perhaps a sign of a changing dynamic within the administration, Cambone is now saying that he, like his boss, favors a broad document release.

    Although Hoekstra, too, has been pushing hard for the quick release of all of the documents, he is currently focusing his efforts simply on obtaining the 40 documents he asked for in November. "There comes a time when the talking has to stop and I get the documents. I requested these documents six weeks ago and I have not seen a single piece of paper yet."

    Is Hoekstra being unreasonable? I asked Michael Tanji, the former DOCEX official with the Defense Intelligence Agency, how long such a search might take. His answer: Not long. "The retrieval of a HARMONY document is a trivial thing assuming one has a serial number or enough keyword terms to narrow down a search [Hoekstra did]. If given the task when they walked in the door, one person should be able to retrieve 40 documents before lunch."

    Tanji should know. He left DIA last year as the chief of the media exploitation division in the office of document exploitation. Before that, he started and managed a digital forensics and intelligence fusion program that used the data obtained from DOCEX operations. He began his career as an Army signals intelligence [SIGINT] analyst. In all, Tanji has worked for 18 years in intelligence and dealt with various aspects of the media exploitation problem for about four years.

    We discussed the successes and failures of the DOCEX program, the relative lack of public attention to the project, and what steps might be taken to expedite the exploitation of the documents in the event the push to release all of the documents loses momentum.

    TWS: In what areas is the project succeeding? In what areas is the project failing?

    Tanji: The level of effort applied to the DOCEX problems in Iraq and Afghanistan to date is a testament to the will and work ethic of people in the intelligence community. They've managed to find a number of golden nuggets amongst a vast field of rock in what I would consider a respectable amount of time through sheer brute force. The flip side is that it is a brute-force effort. For a number of reasons--primarily time and resources--there has not been much opportunity to step back, think about a smarter way to solve the problem, and then apply various solutions. Inasmuch as we've won in Iraq and Saddam and his cronies are in the dock, now would be a good time to put some fresh minds on the problem of how you turn DOCEX into a meaningful and effective information-age intelligence tool.

    TWS: Why haven't we heard more about this project? Aren't most of the Iraqi documents unclassified?

    Tanji: Until a flood of captured material came rushing in after the start of Operation Enduring Freedom [in month 2001], DOCEX was a backwater; unglamorous, not terribly career enhancing, and from what I had heard always one step away from being mothballed.

    The classification of documents obtained for exploitation varies based on the nature of the way they were obtained and by whom. There are some agencies that tend to classify everything regardless of how it was acquired. I could not give you a ratio of unclassified to classified documents.

    In my opinion the silence associated with exploitation work is rooted in the nature of the work. In addition to being tedious and time consuming, it is usually done after the shooting is over. We place a higher value on intelligence information that comes to us before a conflict begins. Confirmation that we were right (or proof that we were wrong) after the fact is usually considered history. That some of this information may be dated doesn't mean it isn't still valuable.

    TWS: The project seems overwhelmed at the moment, with a mere 50,000 documents translated completely out of a total of 2 million. What steps, in your view, should be taken to expedite the process?

    Tanji: I couldn't say what the total take of documents or other forms of media is, though numbers in the millions are probably not far off.

    In a sense the exploitation process is what it is; you have to put eyes-on-paper (or a computer screen) to see what might be worth further translation or deeper analysis. It is a time-consuming process that has no adequate mechanical solution. Machine translation software is getting better, but it cannot best a qualified human linguist, of which we have very few.

    Tackling the computer media problem is a lot simpler in that computer language (binary) is universal, so searching for key words, phrases, and the names of significant personalities is fairly simple. Built to deal with large-scale data sets, a forensic computer system can rapidly separate wheat from chaff. The current drawback is that the computer forensics field is dominated by a law-enforcement mindset, which means the approach to the digital media problem is still very linear. As most of this material has come to us without any context ("hard drives found in Iraq" was a common label attached to captured media) that approach means our great-grandchildren will still be dealing with this problem.

    Dealing with the material as the large and nebulous data set that it is and applying a contextual appliqué after exploitation--in essence recreating the Iraqi networks as they were before Operation Iraqi Freedom began--would allow us to get at the most significant data rapidly for technical analysis, and allow for a political analysis to follow in short order. If I were looking for both a quick and powerful fix I'd get various DOE [Department of Energy] labs involved; they're used to dealing with large data sets and have done great work in the data mining and rendering fields.

    TWS: To read some of the reporting on Iraq, one might come away with the impression that Saddam Hussein was something of a benign (if not exactly benevolent) dictator who had no weapons of mass destruction and no connections to terrorism. Does the material you've seen support this conventional wisdom?

    Tanji: I am subject to a non-disclosure agreement, so I would rather not get into details. I will say that the intelligence community has scraped the surface of much of what has been captured in Iraq and in my view a great deal more deep digging is required. Critics of the war often complain about the lack of "proof"--a term that I had never heard used in the intelligence lexicon until we ousted Saddam--for going to war. There is really only one way to obtain "proof" and that is to carry out a thorough and detailed examination of what we've captured.

    TWS: I've spoken with several officials who have seen unclassified materials indicating the former Iraqi regime provided significant support--including funding and training--to transregional terrorists, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ansar al Islam, Algeria's GSPC, and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Did you see any of this?

    Tanji: My obligations under a nondisclosure agreement prevent me from getting into this kind of detail.

    Other officials familiar with the captured documents were less cautious. "As much as we overestimated WMD, it appears we underestimated [Saddam Hussein's] support for transregional terrorists," says one intelligence official.

    Speaking of Ansar al Islam, the al Qaeda-linked terrorist group that operated in northern Iraq, the former high-ranking military intelligence officer says: "There is no question about the fact that AI had reach into Baghdad. There was an intelligence connection between that group and the regime, a financial connection between that group and the regime, and there was an equipment connection. It may have been the case that the IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] support for AI was meant to operate against the [anti-Saddam] Kurds. But there is no question IIS was supporting AI."

    The official continued: "He used these groups because we was interested in extending his influence and extending the influence of Iraq. There are definite and absolute ties to terrorism. The evidence is there, especially at the network level. How high up in the government was it sanctioned? I can't tell you. I don't know whether it was run by Qusay or [Izzat Ibrahim] al Duri or someone else. I'm just not sure. But to say Iraq wasn't involved in terrorism is flat wrong."

    STILL, some insist on saying it. Since early November, Senator Carl Levin has been spotted around Washington waving a brief excerpt from a February 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency assessment of Iraq. The relevant passage reads: "Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control."

    Levin treats these two sentences as definitive proof that Bush administration officials knew that Saddam's regime was unlikely to work with Islamic fundamentalists and ignored the intelligence community's assessment to that effect. Levin apparently finds the passage so damning that he specifically requested it be declassified.

    Posted by fuclibs at 01/06/2006 @ 6:21pm

  107. Levin treats these two sentences as definitive proof that Bush administration officials knew that Saddam's regime was unlikely to work with Islamic fundamentalists and ignored the intelligence community's assessment to that effect. Levin apparently finds the passage so damning that he specifically requested it be declassified.

    I thought of Levin's two sentences frequently last Wednesday and Thursday as I sat in a Dallas courtroom listening to testimony in the deportation hearing of Ahmed Mohamed Barodi. I thought of Levin's sentences, for example, when Barodi proudly proclaimed his membership in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, and again when Barodi, dressed in loose-fitting blue prison garb, told Judge J. Anthony Rogers about the 21 days he spent in February 1982 training with other members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood at a camp in Iraq. The account he gave in the courtroom was slightly less alarming than the description of the camp he had provided in 1989, on his written application for political asylum in the United States. In that document, Barodi described the instruction he received in Iraq as "guerrilla warfare training." And in an interview in February 2005 with Detective Scott Carr and special agent Sam Montana, both from the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force, Barodi said that the Iraqi regime provided training in the use of firearms, rocket-propelled grenades, and document forgery.

    Barodi comes from Hama, the town in Syria that was leveled in 1982 by the armed forces of secular Syrian dictator Hafez Assad because it was home to radical Islamic terrorists who had agitated against his regime. The massacre took tens of thousands of lives, but some of the extremists got away.

    Many of the most radical Muslim Brotherhood refugees from Hama were welcomed next door--and trained--in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Spanish investigators believe that Ghasoub Ghalyoun, the man they have accused of conducting surveillance for the 9/11 attacks, who also has roots in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, was trained in an Iraqi terrorist camp in the early 1980s. Ghalyoun mentions this Iraqi training in a 2001 letter to the head of Syrian intelligence, in which he seeks reentry to Syria despite his long affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood.

    Reaching out to Islamic radicals was, in fact, one of the first moves Saddam Hussein made upon taking power in 1979. That he did not do it for ideological reasons is unimportant. As Barodi noted at last week's hearing, "He used us and we used him."

    Throughout the 1980s, including the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam cast himself as a holy warrior in his public rhetoric to counter the claims from Iran that he was an infidel. This posturing continued during and after the first Gulf war in 1990-91. Saddam famously ordered "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) added to the Iraqi flag. Internally, he launched "The Faith Campaign," which according to leading Saddam Hussein scholar Amatzia Baram included the imposition of sharia (Islamic law). According to Baram, "The Iraqi President initiated laws forbidding the public consumption of alcohol and introduced enhanced compulsory study of the Koran at all educational levels, including Baath Party branches."

    Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law who defected to Jordan in 1995, explained these changes in an interview with Rolf Ekeus, then head of the U.N. weapons inspection program. "The government of Iraq is instigating fundamentalism in the country," he said, adding, "Every party member has to pass a religious exam. They even stopped party meetings for prayers."

    And throughout the decade, the Iraqi regime sponsored "Popular Islamic Conferences" at the al Rashid Hotel that drew the most radical Islamists from throughout the region to Baghdad. Newsweek's Christopher Dickey, who covered one of those meetings in 1993, would later write: "Islamic radicals from all over the Middle East converged on Baghdad to show their solidarity with Iraq in the face of American aggression. One speaker praised the mujahed Saddam Hussein who is leading this nation against the nonbelievers. Everyone has a task to do, which is to go against the American state." Dickey continued:

    Every time I hear diplomats and politicians, whether in Washington or in the capitals of Europe, declare that Saddam Hussein is a "secular Baathist ideologue" who has nothing do with Islamists or terrorist calls to jihad, I think of that afternoon and I wonder what they're talking about. If that was not a fledgling Qaeda itself at the Rashid convention, it sure was Saddam's version of it.

    In the face of such evidence, Carl Levin and other critics of the Iraq war trumpet deeply flawed four-year-old DIA analyses. Shouldn't he instead use his influence as a senator to push for the release of Iraqi documents that will help establish what, exactly, the Iraqi regime was doing in the years before the U.S. invasion?

    Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.

    Posted by fuclibs at 01/06/2006 @ 6:23pm

  108. Fooly, "To Serve Man", make mine with a little Dijon.

    from our "the times, they are a changin'" department, latest poll, americans prefer a Democratic congress 49 to 36 %

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/06/2006 @ 6:29pm

  109. Guess who:

    "It seems to me that you're either getting raped by (the BC BS regime) while it's trying real hard the whole time to convince you that it's not doing what it's doing to you or you're liking it and pleasuring it right back to boot--now which is it? I prefer to take advantage of some good old self-defense training from way back and givin'em a swift kick in the nuts. Now that's a better self-empowering mode of behavior than Abramoff's technique. Heheheh, he's clamping down real hard on their carrot , if get my drift, makin'em sweat wondering if he's going to bite it right off. Heheheh, it's lot more degrading, but a hell of a lot more fun to sit back and watch knowing the whole time he is going to bite it right off and it's going to be hell of a lot easier to kick (the BC BS regime) in the nuts. Oh, hahahehaheh, cough, spit, hey, can you get me another cigar, a beer too?"

    Posted by Bushfools at 01/06/2006 @ 7:20pm

  110. I believe the occupation will continue in a different form: troops will be brought home to help Republicans get re-elected, but the U.S. will continue to hold the oil fields. That was the objective for the invasion anyway. Sectarian killing will increase. Hillary will still support the occupation and the aparthied wall in Israel. Most Democrats will support occupation, and fade into irrrelevance.

    Posted by philbq at 01/07/2006 @ 12:37am

  111. This is a MYTH of the Left, that is held in "some esteem" (like HMAN) or "totally believed" (like JOHANNES and the "Cindy Factor")...that is part of the ego-driven drivel of the Baby Boomers who protested Vietnam.

    They think THEY "stopped the war"...not the casualties, the higher taxes, the "loss" of Walter Cronkite, or just general news from VN....no, it was every group of 500-100,000 college students, Father Berrigan, and Abbie Hoffman saying "Hey, Hey, LBJ...How many kids have you killed today?" that pushed Nixon to run on his "secret plan" and Kissinger to try to find SOMETHING to negotiate in Paris.

    Posted by MASK 01/06/2006 @ 1:26pm

    Great, so then I guess you wingnuts will stop frothing at the mouth about those liberal commie anti-war protesters. They had nothing to do with the outcome of the Vietnam war. No harm… No Foul… It doesn't matter.

    At least until it becomes convenient to start bitching about those liberal commie anti-war protesters again.

    Policies for the moment right?

    Posted by Will C. at 01/07/2006 @ 03:13am

  112. Hey John MAASCH!

    I see you're back as stupidlibz again. And you knocked it off with the all caps. But, then that's how I caught you the last time.

    It's always those little slip ups that give a fool away.

    Posted by Will C. at 01/07/2006 @ 03:27am

  113. "Stupid is as stupid does..."

    Perfect slogan for nitwit liberal politicians and thier followers in '06 & 08.

    Posted by STUPIDLIBZ 01/06/2006 @ 3:43pm

    Ha Ha Ha Ha

    Thats a good one MAASCH! But, you should really go back to all caps though.

    It just gives it that extra ummf.

    Posted by Will C. at 01/07/2006 @ 03:30am

  114. by Stephen F. Hayes 01/16/2006, Volume 011, Issue 17

    Posted by FUCLIBS 01/06/2006 @ 6:20pm

    Not the guy who still believes we will find WMD in Iraq! That Stephan Hayes!

    That dude has been consumed by the Hamsterland Fantasy.

    It's the wheel for him.

    Posted by Will C. at 01/07/2006 @ 03:39am

  115. IBBEL.

    "now the ideologically crusading right has the gall to pretend to posses the will and capacity to utopianize the middle east and berates opponants of the war for their suspician of the motives, methodologies, and expectations of the neocons who equate said suspician with treason, and self serving malice."

    I for one want the US to fail in its illegal war on the Iraqi people.

    I want the US to fail, so that it brings this misadventure to a close, for us anyway.

    I want us to fail if it brings the troops home, I don't want to read about another GI being blown up.

    I want the US to fail if it stops one more Iraqi family being killed by a "surgical" airstrike. these surgical airstrikes do not obey the hippocratic oath that surgeons try to follow: first, do no harm"

    I want the US to fail to prevent further illegal and immoral adventures in the future.

    I want the US to fail, so that the criminals who started that war will be discredited and banished from government

    I want that war to fail, so that we will pull out and again are able to honestly join our allies to pursue peaceful resolutions to conflicts, including that in Iraq.

    I want that war to fail so that we can pull back from the martial law types curbs on civil liberties.

    I want this war to fail so that we can persue true freedom and democracy, here at home and all over the world, but not at the point of a gun or 180,000 guns

    I want this war to fail, so that the Iraqis can assume responsibility for their own future, that they can enjoy the bounty of their own oil reserves, and create a better future no matter how painful that may be.

    I want this war to fail ,so that our children will not have to bear the finacial burden of it

    I want htis war to fail, so that we may regain the respect and admiration of the world.

    Posted by JOHANNESROLF 01/06/2006 @ 11:44am | ignore this person

    You have to admit, that JOHANNES comment and others like it, provide could reason for questioning the motives of some liberals. Ironic that he/she posted this right after your post.

    Posted by CPT at 01/07/2006 @ 08:31am

  116. LEGBA

    "CPT is too damn dumb to realize if you can't keep people alive in the coal mines, if you can't keep the levees from bursting and drowning a thousand people, when five thousand people plus are getting killed a year on the job, your national security is the least of your problems. Reasoning with him is an exercise in futility.

    Posted by LEGBA 01/06/2006 @ 11:03am | ignore this person"

    Are you "too damn dumb" to realize the topic at hand here?

    Posted by CPT at 01/07/2006 @ 08:35am

  117. BRUNOWE

    It's not that the anti-war movement wants us to fail, is that they've concluded (with good reason) that the persistence in suicide bombings indicates that the war effort IS failing, that the military aspects of the counter-insurgency effort is a Sisyphusean endeavor. Further, there's only limited inspiration to draw from the elections. The fact that so many people voted is a good things but the results don't necessarily bode well. The main winners of the vote have been Shiite, Iran-aligned fundamentalists in the south (complete with their own death squads and torture rooms) and Kurdish de facto separatists in the north.

    Posted by BRUNOWE 01/06/2006 @ 10:30am | ignore this person

    You equate the violence in Iraq with failure? Isnt it funny, if not brazenly hypocritical that many liberals here have openly berated conservatives for hyping the terror threat in this country after the killed 3,000 americans, in one day, yet when it comes to IRAQ, every homicide bombing gives you more of reason to call it quits. Where jihadists kill 10 at a time.

    So which is it? If the terror threat is NOT a big deal, after 911 here, after all you guys are against the Patriot Act, against holding the GITMO terrorists, against domestic surveillence of those talking to AQ. Then why is it every homicide bombing in IRAQ, where 10 at a time are killed a reason to surrender, because after all "the military aspects of the counter-insurgency effort is a Sisyphusean endeavor."? Well excuse me it seems as if you are guilty of OVER-stating jihadists in IRAQ, after the number of IRAQIs who want us to succeed, far outnumbers those that dont.

    Can some liberal, any liberal explain the paradox in those positions?

    But thats ok, this above all things allows me to rightfully question liberal motives, as being anti-american hiding behind the 1st Amendment, if thats the case, fine. Admit it, Johanne has.

    Posted by CPT at 01/07/2006 @ 08:54am

  118. CPT:

    Violence in Iraq is due to the indigenous population lashing out at the occupying army, us. This will continue as long as our forces remain. 9-11 was an attack on the US soil, and was very out of the ordinary (some may say TOO out of the ordinary... and when juxtaposed with PNAC's website, the way it used to be, I might be swayed to agree with them). Hence, I don't foresee another 9-11 style attack occurring here (unless, of course, the plutocrats in power need to reinforce their grasp on the levers of power).

    That's the bottom line. One is due to our actions (invading and occupying an essentially defenseless country who had fallen into the wastebin of history) and the other is due to an arguably extremely coincidental set of events which, some might argue, could not be foreseen. Since we supposedly foresee possible terrorist plots now (thanks to the USAPATRIOT Act... yeah right), we have less to worry about now. We have successfully given up a little bit of liberty (ok, a lot) and we have gotten a little bit of security (in the form of peace of mind, only, imho).

    I recognize this response has gotten a little too cynical, but the bottom line is, the Iraqi situation can be fixed by leaving. The 9-11 type scenario will happen if it will happen. We have no control over it other than remaining vigilant, and by making sure we aren't doing things to other nations which make them angry enough to kill themselves.

    By the way, am I the only one who has noticed that suicide bombers are only produced by regions which are generally poor, and don't have access to expensive American weapons systems?

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/07/2006 @ 10:00am

  119. CPT:

    Oh, and where do you get your numbers regarding people in Iraq who want the US to succeed far outnumbering those who don't? I'm curious.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/07/2006 @ 10:01am

  120. JORCHIEM

    But all terrorists actions have essentially the same aim and use the same means to achieve it. That is to terror-ize and instill enough fear in the attacked party to facillitate the attainment of their political goal.

    Regardless of the sed reason for starting hostilities the means and aim of terrorists is universal. Hence, if we are "giving into them" by passing laws that restrict certain liberties, thereby gving them a victory of sorts, in America. Then we are at LEAST doing the same in advocating a premature withdrawal, from Iraq or Afghan.

    The Iraqi insurgency is made up of a variety of elements, foriegn fighters (AQ), baathists/rejectionists(Sunnis who resent us being there), and, these guys are often forgotten, a criminal element (that otherwise doesnt care, but sees an opprotunity for finicial gain by kidnapping westerns for ranson to the other two groups)

    "Oh, and where do you get your numbers regarding people in Iraq who want the US to succeed far outnumbering those who don't? I'm curious."

    From Gen Abizaid interview dated 31 Jan 05,

    "If you consider that the 10.7 million people who voted are trying to hold it together and you consider that there are 10,000 to 20,000 at the most actively trying to tear it apart, then I consider the prospect that this thing can be successful very high."

    Posted by CPT at 01/07/2006 @ 10:47am

  121. "But all terrorists actions have essentially the same aim and use the same means to achieve it. That is to terror-ize and instill enough fear in the attacked party to facillitate the attainment of their political goal."

    Posted by CPT 01/07/2006 @ 10:47am

    What you write SHOCKS me, yet fills me with AWE. Again and again you make such statements that denigrate the noble aims of our administration. We are different. We are not terrorists. Because we...um...have uniforms. Good looking ones, too. And we have a flag and big weapons and transport systems. And we have goals--I mean good goals, universally espoused...by a coaltion.

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 01/07/2006 @ 10:56am

  122. TJB

    Well, after all TJB that is what the Geneva covention says, that uniform, and a couple of other factors, make the difference between a lawful combatant and unlawful combatant.

    Posted by CPT at 01/07/2006 @ 11:01am

  123. More details about how the Pentagon is maintaining Wal-Mart-like standards for well-being in the workplace. Body armor that could have save lives and was available was, inexplicably, not sent to the troops in Iraq.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/07/politics/07armor.html?th&emc=th

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 01/07/2006 @ 11:03am

  124. CPT The issue re the insurgency is not the raw numbers but the lack of progress in them. Check out the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index. The monthly average of US fatalities was the same in 2005 as in 2004 while the numbers for Iraqi military and police have gone up. The estimated size of the insurgency has hovered between 15-20,000 for the last 1 1/2 years. Usually, if you're winning a war militarily, especially in the other side is in its "last throes", your fatalities will start dropping as the enemy falls apart and the size of the enemy's forces will also start dropping. And, as you'll recall, the issue was not just the numbers but also the political trends in Iraq which are moving towards a Kurdish de facto state in the north, an Iran-aligned Shiite theocracy in the south and a very violent Sunni rump in the middle. I defy you to find one Bushite who would consider that a success.

    One may, with perfect consistency, say that the war in Iraq (which you guys promised would be easy) is bogging down while the war on terror (an entirely different operation, as Iraq had nothing to to w/al-Qaida) is a big deal.

    Finally, being opposed to bad methods doesn't mean being opposed to dealing with Islamist terrorists.

    "If the terror threat is NOT a big deal, after 911 here, after all you guys are against the Patriot Act, against holding the GITMO terrorists, against domestic surveillence of those talking to AQ."

    The issue with the wiretaps isn't the surveillance per se but the fact that the Executive branch has bypassed the warrant process, it isn't the GITMO detention as the fact that there is no independent process for determing who is an "unlawful combatant" and who isn't. The way it's set up now, we only have the word of an administration that has been untruthful about WMD in Iraq and Iraqi WMD that the wiretaps are legitimate anti-terror surveillance and the GITMO detainees should be there. If we were a monarchy, that might be okay but for the executive branch to simply assume those powers is fundamentally anti-American.

    The idea that opposing unconstitutional Presidential power grabs is downplaying the importance of dealing w/al-Qaida is a complete non-sequitur. But is does make it easier for you to impugn the motives of anyone who disagrees with administration policy, which is the favorite card of people of your political alignment.

    Posted by brunowe at 01/07/2006 @ 11:14am

  125. CPT:

    It takes money to buy uniforms. Oh, and if I remember correctly, the Revolutionary Army didn't have uniforms. I guess as long as you're white it's ok to not have a uniform. but let a darkie try it, and he's "evil"! *GASP*

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/07/2006 @ 12:41pm

  126. CPT:

    In response to your assertion that the majority of Iraqis want us to succeed: here's what the Iraqis actually say

    "The survey was conducted by an Iraqi university research team that, for security reasons, was not told the data it compiled would be used by coalition forces. It reveals:

    • Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified - rising to 65 per cent in the British-controlled Maysan province;

    • 82 per cent are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops;

    • less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security;

    • 67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation;

    • 43 per cent of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened;

    • 72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces.

    The opinion poll, carried out in August, also debunks claims by both the US and British governments that the general well-being of the average Iraqi is improving in post-Saddam Iraq.

    The findings differ markedly from a survey carried out by the BBC in March 2004 in which the overwhelming consensus among the 2,500 Iraqis questioned was that life was good. More of those questioned supported the war than opposed it.

    Under the heading "Justification for Violent Attacks", the new poll shows that 65 per cent of people in Maysan province - one of the four provinces under British control - believe that attacks against coalition forces are justified.

    The report states that for Iraq as a whole, 45 per cent of people feel attacks are justified. In Basra, the proportion is reduced to 25 per cent.

    The report profiles those likely to carry out attacks against British and American troops as being "less than 26 years of age, more likely to want a job, more likely to have been looking for work in the last four weeks and less likely to have enough money even for their basic needs".

    Immediately after the war the coalition embarked on a campaign of reconstruction in which it hoped to improve the electricity supply and the quality of drinking water.

    That appears to have failed, with the poll showing that 71 per cent of people rarely get safe clean water, 47 per cent never have enough electricity, 70 per cent say their sewerage system rarely works and 40 per cent of southern Iraqis are unemployed.

    http://tinyurl.com/96vb8

    Posted by doumer at 01/07/2006 @ 1:14pm

  127. I never claimed that the protest against the Vietnam war stopped the war all by themselves, they helped stop the war. antiwar protests, even against wars that I would presumably have favored like WW2, have a long and honorable history in this country.

    the protesters against the vietnam war were not all college students and there were millions of them. armchair warriors such as Mask not withstanding, dissent starts with small numbers, whose influence grows in proportion with the justice of their cause

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/07/2006 @ 1:18pm

  128. Jorchy, "By the way, am I the only one who has noticed that suicide bombers are only produced by regions which are generally poor,"

    check the article in scientific american on suicide bombers, which shows that the bombers are mostly NOT poor and uneducated.

    you are of course correct that the suicide bombers are used by regimes which don't have access to helicopter gunships, 5000 pound bombs, etc, same goes for IEDs

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/07/2006 @ 1:30pm

  129. DOUMER

    Will quite frankly never heard of those polls, do know without question that the ONE poll that matter, the election DEC 15, had 10.5 million people , 70% of the electorate, voting FOR a govt that the US action in IRAQ brought about.

    Posted by CPT at 01/07/2006 @ 1:34pm

  130. Maasch, you are stupid libs and fuclibs? say it isn't so. I am devastated

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/07/2006 @ 1:36pm

  131. It seems that the Congressional Research Service just issued a report concluding that Bush's NSA program is not "well grounded" in law. See http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Nonpartisan_arm_of_Congress_says_wir etaps_0106.html (URL too long).

    For some reason, I am having trouble with Raw Story's link to the actual report, so I have not read it. But, given our legal debate on this issue earlier in the week, I figured this would give us some weekend reading to see if it adds anything. I assume other sources will make it available at some point.

    If you get a chance to read it, I would welcome resuming our discussion.

    Posted by HMAN23 01/06/2006 @ 5:38pm

    HM,

    I have read it and find it will have no real bearing on the outcome of this debate. It quotes 2 un-named lawyers who find shakey ground for the presidents claims. That should come as no surprise from a Congressional lawyer since Congress on this and other issues battles to assert their authority into Executive Branch authority.

    At this point, dissenters have to deal with the facts. the FISA Court of Review, Fed Appeals Courts, and SCOTUS have all either affirmed the Presidents position or declined to review the subject when presented the opportunity in the past.

    I do believe this will end up in SCOTUS for direct review and we shall then see what transpires.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/07/2006 @ 1:40pm

  132. JORCHIEM

    The second continental congress, established the Revolutionary army. As I said earlier, uniforms is but one element of a legit fighting force. They were accountable to the Congress and had a established chain of command with G. Washington at the head.

    Where is the jihadists, Declaration of Independence? or Manifesto? What alternative form of govt are they advocating? can anyone say with any REAL certainty? I know Johanne wants to legitimize them, but they themselves dont want to attempt to even try to legitimize themselves.

    Lastly who are the terrorists/jihadists accountable to, where can we go to lodge complaints? The US is, regardless of the cynical jibes, accountable. 35 Soldiers have faced disciplinary actions for misconduct in some form.

    Posted by CPT at 01/07/2006 @ 1:45pm

  133. The polling data that Doumer cites has been bandied about by the left ever since the London Telegraph and others released this news tidbit about a secret British Military poll. Any objective person would find this data suspect as best given what we do know about the who and how of it's being conducted.

    The survey was conducted by an Iraqi university research team that, for security reasons, was not told the data it compiled would be used by coalition forces. It reveals:

    No one has any access to the raw data, the specific questions, or where and when the polling was conducted.

    Yet the left cites this poll as if it were absolute. I find it rather empty and only serves to show a sense of desparation contempt for truth by some on the left.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/07/2006 @ 1:47pm

  134. JOHANNESROLF:

    I never said the bombers themselves were poor and uneducated. Quite to the contrary. The people who are willing to give their lives in the form of suicide bombing usually have a VERY good understanding of the realities of modern international politics. I was referring to the nation, or group, who does not have the blessing of Western capitalist regimes in the form of massive military subsidies, i.e. Israel to the tune of $2.7 billion per year ($90 billion in the past 50+ years), or Saudi Arabia in the form of drastically discounted weapons systems, or Mexico in the form of Blackhawk helicopters to fight the Zapatistas in Chiapas, etc. etc.

    Again, I just find it ironic

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/07/2006 @ 1:53pm

  135. LOVE LIBERTY:

    And we're supposed to consider numbers provided by the Bush junta any more believable?

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/07/2006 @ 1:54pm

  136. Jorcheim,

    As an addendum to CPT's remarks, there are some very damaging facts to the assertion by you and some others that the insurgents are a legitimate alternative to the current Iraqi government.

    1. Who are their leaders?

    2. Why do they constantly attack Iraqi civilians, especially women and children. I know they attack police and Iraqi military, but that is not their primary target.

    3. What alternative government have they proposed?

    4. What other nation has recognized them as a legitimate alternative to the current Iraqi government which has been recognized by the UN and the Arab League?

    5. If they are legitimate, why did 70% of the eligible voters in Iraq vote in support of the new Iraqi government?

    As has been amply demonstrated over the past 30 years in Israel, it does not take very many terrorists to wage a destructive war against the civilians and military in a nation. And no one would argue that Israel has a much better military and police for combatting terrorism internally, than Iraq or any other nation.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/07/2006 @ 1:56pm

  137. contrary to what our right wingers have claimed, polls show that americans DO favor judge approved snooping, another lie exposed

    great obit today of the soldier who rescued many vietnamese civilians from the My Lai massacre committed by US troops. a massacre for which only one soldier was charged. a most shameful episode in american history, unequalled until the torture of prisoners in our time.

    the whistleblower in this case should have received the congressional medal of honor

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/07/2006 @ 1:57pm

  138. Jorchy, I misunderstood that aspect of your post. still that article is a must read

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/07/2006 @ 1:58pm

  139. CPT:

    Again, you don't get it.

    You said:

    The second continental congress, established the Revolutionary army. As I said earlier, uniforms is but one element of a legit fighting force. They were accountable to the Congress and had a established chain of command with G. Washington at the head.

    My response:

    The revolutionary army was considered a terrorist element, and the crown dispatched forces to quell the illegal rebellion. Also, we received aid from outside sources by Spain and France. Funny how subjective the term "legitimate forces" is in your hands.

    You said:

    Where is the jihadists, Declaration of Independence? or Manifesto? What alternative form of govt are they advocating? can anyone say with any REAL certainty? I know Johanne wants to legitimize them, but they themselves dont want to attempt to even try to legitimize themselves.

    My response:

    Point taken. However, who said that the test for true legitimacy should be in the form of some political manifesto? I was under the impression that these people were simply fighting against American aggression and territorial/commodity aggrandizement. Plus, they do have a document which they reference... the Q'uran. And while their interpretation of that work shows about as much resemblance as the Bush regime's interpretation of the Constitution, they do, nevertheless, have a body of writings to reference.

    You said:

    Lastly who are the terrorists/jihadists accountable to, where can we go to lodge complaints? The US is, regardless of the cynical jibes, accountable. 35 Soldiers have faced disciplinary actions for misconduct in some form.

    My response:

    So the real issue you have is that these jihadists/terrorists don't kowtow to some higher secular power... hmmm... interesting. Perhaps these people just want freedom.

    And accountability? Perhaps you didn't hear about the German national we kidnapped and held illegally for 5 months in Afghanistan, being tortured because he was thought to be involved with AQ (it was found he wasn't). Or maybe you didn't hear about Abu Ghraib... we all know that story. Or perhaps the illegal wiretaps, in which the regime is circumventing securing warrants from a SECRET COURT!!! Wow, if that's accountability, I want none of it.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/07/2006 @ 2:04pm

  140. "I know Johanne wants to legitimize them,"

    you know nothing

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/07/2006 @ 2:08pm

  141. LOVE LIBERTY:

    Ok, you are not trying to use Israel as reasoning for defense against terrorism, are you? Seriously, think about this. The Balfour Memo set British policy to create a Jewish state in Palestine, essentially redrawing the map, stealing territory from the indigenous population there. Before Israel was established, Jews made up a small portino of the population there, and lived in peace. Since Israel was established, they have (under the urging of Ariel Sharon, among other, I might add) expanded into more territory which is not theirs. It's a lot like US manifest destiny. So you are saying that Palestinians don't have the right to fight against this territorial aggrandizement? On top of this, we supply Israel with the top of the line weapons they use, and the Palestinians have nothing... hence they use terrorism (or, guerilla warfare by proxy, as I like ot call it). The sooner you take a more objective view of history, the sooner you will understand why these people are pissed.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/07/2006 @ 2:10pm

  142. Words of wisdom:

    "The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed"

    George Orwell, 1984

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/07/2006 @ 2:12pm

  143. Jorchy, Jorchy, much too simple. much of that palestinian land was purchased from its arab owners, the % of jews in Palestine too is not accurately addressed in your short hand, but this is a separate discussion

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/07/2006 @ 2:16pm

  144. Posted by WILL C. 01/07/2006 @ 03:13am

    Sorry for late response.

    Actually, I never bitched about commie protestors...mostly because, as I pointed out, they were too silly to worry about.

    It's also the reason they're not taken serious by either their opponents in Washington (or as shown by Hillary and her "stand-offish" attitude towards Cindy Sheehan), by their "friends" in DC either.

    Only thing that matters is the poll numbers...and they're "bad" but not "as bad" as the hard-core anti-war crowd claims. Want to see their REAL impact, watch the politicians. They know the data that matters and act on it....and it's NEVER 4000 people who look like they came off a Dead tour with some Hollywood 2nd tier actors, gathering to buy "Not My President!" bumper stickers and "sweat-shop free" clothing on a Saturday afternoon.

    Posted by Mask at 01/07/2006 @ 2:23pm

  145. And we're supposed to consider numbers provided by the Bush junta any more believable?

    Posted by JORCHEIM 01/07/2006 @ 1:54pm

    Where did I cite Bush numbers? Try this BBC poll done in Iraq and published in Nov 2005. It even shows their weighting numbers.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/12_12_05_iraq_data.pdf

    Here are some interesting figures from the poll on how Iraqis feel:

    70.6% think their lives are either very good or quite good

    Only 30.1% said their lives are worse than before Spring 2003

    64.2% believe their lives will be better a year from now (2004 polling date)

    The data reveals that the obvious concern about security makes it a leading issue. However, 70% think security will be better a year from now.

    Contrary to leftwing naysaying about the US made things worse in Iraq, Iraqis seem to have a different opinion on many life essentials -here are 2 as an example;

    Only 27.5% said access to clean water is worse now than pre-War

    Only 21.2% said medical care is worse now

    On the negative side:

    While 46.2% think the US was right to invade, 50.3% say it was wrong.

    While 60% think the US should leave Iraq (and that is actually not a bad thing), only 25% think the US should leave now.

    I suggest that the BBC poll should be studied. It certainly revealed many interesting things to me and gave me more insight into what Iraqis are really thinking. It also provides indepth indicators into the polling data.

    We all can certainly disagree on whether the war was right, when we should leave, but we all should hear and respect the Iraqis themselves on these critical issues facing them.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/07/2006 @ 2:29pm

  146. Jorcheim,

    I was not relating Israel as to a cause of terrorism. I was merely noting how difficult it is for any nation to absolutely stop terrorism.

    I addressed the Palestinian issue yesterday in another thread. You are the one I politely suggest is ignoring history.

    The land of Israel belonged to the Jews for over 1200 years.

    There is no indigenous Palestinian people. They are comprised of nomadic Arabs, Bedouins, and other Arab refugees. Most settled there in the last 100 plus years. Some date back to the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in the 7th Century. This control switched back and forth until long held by the Ottoman Empire. But this was also, an outside force being an occupier until the British colonized the region.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/07/2006 @ 2:38pm

  147. LL,

    Massive and intersting poll, showing great diversity in opinion. It also shows that Iraqis are, in general, positive about the future and trusting mostly in their religious leaders. While a relatively small percentage say that some things are worse on some issues, as you indicated, than before the invasion, we are talking about a country that had been under some pretty stiff sanctions and was led by our Enemy No. 1--so this isn't much to feel good about.

    Thanks for pasting the link.

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 01/07/2006 @ 2:58pm

  148. TJ,

    Thanks for your comments. After reading through the poll, I found that it gave me a much clearer insight into the lives of the Iraqi people. I think that here in the US especially, we on both sides would do well to take a more serious look at what the Iraqi's themselves have to say; whether or not it agrees with conserative or liberal viewpoints.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/07/2006 @ 3:11pm

  149. LL: Much of the poll addresses projections for the future. These are nothing but projections, considering that things possibly could not get much worse save all-out civil war. The following is interesting as it relates to present conditions and sentiments:

    Question 4: Now thinking about how things are going, not for you personally, but for Iraq as a whole, how would you say things are going in our country overall these days?

    Very Good 14%

    Quite Good 30.4%

    Quite Bad 22.5%

    Very bad 30.0%

    Difficult to say 3.2%

    Question 5: Compared to our country as it was before the war in spring 2003, are things in Iraq overall much better, somewhat better...?

    Much better 21.5%

    Somewhat better 24.4%

    About the same 13.4%

    Somewhat worse 20.8%

    Much worse 17.9%

    Difficult to say 1.9%

    Question 6: From todays perspective and all things considered, was it absolutley right, somewhat right, somewhat wrong or absolutely wrong that US led coalition forces invaded Iraq in spring 2003?

    Absolutely right 18.6%

    Somewhat right 27.6%

    Somewhat wrong 17.2%

    Absolutley wrong 33.1%

    Difficult to say 3.5%

    To recap, in November 2005: 44.4% of Iraqis felt things were going well while 52.5% felt things were going badly.

    45.9% felt things were better than before March 2003 while 52.1% felt it was better before the invasion.

    46.2% felt the invasion was right while 50.3% felt it was wrong.

    Not quite overwhelming suppport is it LL?

    Posted by doumer at 01/07/2006 @ 3:19pm

  150. Doumer,

    I tried to indicate both positive and negative facts in my post taken from the poll. What I see is that you are unwilling unlike TJ to accept any of the positives of which there are many.

    That is why I posted the link to the data and recommended that people read the entire poll. It is also why I suggested that both liberals and conservatives should pay more attention to both the positive and negatives in the data.

    A little objectivity is good for the soul.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/07/2006 @ 3:26pm

  151. The one thing that was interesting was that 67% of the respondents had either a great deal or quite a lot (not sure what the difference is) of confidence in: their religious leaders, their police, and their army. A small percentage had confidence in either the US or UN. This is another indication that Iraq is ready for our withdrawal.

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 01/07/2006 @ 3:35pm

  152. TJ,

    I think this just reinforces what I was saying last year that I think the Iraq situation will progress in 2006 to a point where we will see a substantial draw down of the US presence. I think you will also see the UN start to become more engaged in Iraq. Although as you and others know, that isn't a priority of mine, nor is it because I have suddenly become a supporter of the UN. I think it will be the natural progression.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/07/2006 @ 3:38pm

  153. Ah yes, your interputation is correct! This is the degree of, and unfortunately the ultimate end of all hope that burns eternal in the heart of the unbeliever who has publicly rejected Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. You are to be congradulated for your perception of the truth!

    Posted by RIO BRAVO 01/06/2006 @ 2:48pm

    Ah! It's all becoming clearer.

    Why I didn't assume, that everyone who's ideas made no sense to me, would, ultimately end up disclosing that their world view is based on 2000 yr. old fairy tales.

    When y'all get a grip on reality, lets discuss how to make it a better reality for all.

    Eric

    Posted by malcontent3 at 01/07/2006 @ 3:49pm

  154. The idea that opposing unconstitutional Presidential power grabs is downplaying the importance of dealing w/al-Qaida is a complete non-sequitur. But is does make it easier for you to impugn the motives of anyone who disagrees with administration policy, which is the favorite card of people of your political alignment.

    Posted by BRUNOWE 01/07/2006 @ 11:14am

    Well put. Thank you.

    Eric

    Posted by malcontent3 at 01/07/2006 @ 4:03pm

  155. A little objectivity is good for the soul.

    Posted by LOVE LIBERTY 01/07/2006 @ 3:26pm

    Agreed LL. At the same time, the important question is whether Iraqis want coalition forces there. It is their country and if they say it's time to leave...then...it is.

    I think this question should have been put up as a referendum in the Dec elections. Judging by the poll discussed above, my guess is that Iraqis would have voted against continued occupation.

    Posted by doumer at 01/07/2006 @ 4:04pm

  156. LL:

    Now for some more objectivity.

    Here's a plan you can pass on to all the republican incumbents. Have Bush, Khalilzhad and curent Oil Minister Chalabi organize an Iraqi referendum, say in Septemebr 2006 asking a simple question: Coalition, in or out.

    I think we can surmise the outcome. Think about the advantages for republican support in November. Bush gets to declare "victory" without the blemish of having succumbed to "terrorists". After all, if a democratic and sovereign constituency speaks in a cohesive voice, who are we to object, right.

    Don't forget that we will probably have to leave behind Camp Victory and the 8 other Permanent Bases for the Iraqis. That should not be a problem, being that we so good at nation building and willing to help out a budding democracy.

    As an added bonus, the rest of the world will once again see us as righteous.

    What do you think LL?

    Posted by doumer at 01/07/2006 @ 4:24pm

  157. Doumer,

    If the Iraqi's want to have that kind of referendum, it is their perogative. The US has stated they will comply with the wishes of the Iraqi government and people. The subject poll though clearly indicated that overwhelmingly, the Iraqi people while wanting the US to leave do not feel that it should be now.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/07/2006 @ 4:44pm

  158. Off topic---but who cares.

    Tom "always acted in an ethical manner."DeLay steps down as majority leader.

    It's a good day!!!!!!

    Posted by doumer at 01/07/2006 @ 5:37pm

  159. DOUMER

    I agree its a good day for you and your kind.

    Delay did step aside, no doubt you guys will play this as proof of his guilt. And when he is ACQUITTED of Ronnie Earles' politically motivatied charges, most will shrug their shoulders, and say oh well, it served its purpose.

    Because in the world of politics perception is REALITY, its unfortunate, but the way of the world.

    Personally, never a huge fan of Delay, but having lived in Travis County for while, though not now, I despise Earle even more, the man is petty and vindicative and uses his office to settle political scores; with Dems as well as Reps. Ask Jim Maddox, fomer Texas Attorney General (DEM).

    JORCHIEM

    My friend, we will have to agree to disagree on this one as well. Though its always interesting to hear how some on the other side think.

    Posted by CPT at 01/07/2006 @ 7:27pm

  160. BRUNOWE

    "One may, with perfect consistency, say that the war in Iraq (which you guys promised would be easy) is bogging down while the war on terror (an entirely different operation, as Iraq had nothing to to w/al-Qaida) is a big deal."

    That does not answer the question I posed to you regarding the contradiction in positions.

    "The idea that opposing unconstitutional Presidential power grabs is downplaying the importance of dealing w/al-Qaida is a complete non-sequitur. But is does make it easier for you to impugn the motives of anyone who disagrees with administration policy, which is the favorite card of people of your political alignment."

    No not really, its statements like JOHANNE's on page 1 or 2 that says

    "I WANT THE U.S TO FAIL!"

    That allow those of my political persuasion to RIGHTFULLY question your motives.

    By the way you statement, is incorrect, I have said many times before the LEGAL question involved is highly contentious. As many legal experts that say what the President did was illegal, there are just as many that say it WAS legal. and judging by the almighty precedents of the Supreme Court, they will side, rightfully with the POTUS.

    And forgive my presumption, but I doubt that you would have had this much problem with it, if Clinton had done this, for the SAME reasons as Bush as stated.

    Posted by CPT at 01/07/2006 @ 7:40pm

  161. CPT: "Delay did step aside, no doubt you guys will play this as proof of his guilt. And when he is ACQUITTED of Ronnie Earles' politically motivatied charges, most will shrug their shoulders, and say oh well, it served its purpose."

    I never presume anyone's guilt. But if his track record is any indication, I think Earle is the least of DeLay's problems.

    Just the thought of him preparing to run in his district again is what really gives me many "disparaging thoughts".

    What is perhaps most despicable of all is his use of publically paid employees to track down and snoop on defiant legislators in the re-disticting kerfuffle. No excuse for this is there?

    Posted by doumer at 01/07/2006 @ 8:04pm

  162. "And forgive my presumption, but I doubt that you would have had this much problem with it, if Clinton had done this, for the SAME reasons as Bush as stated."

    Posted by CPT 01/07/2006 @ 7:40pm

    Clinton again? This gets so stale.

    Qucik question for you CPT. FISA records show that between 2001-2004, 5645 warrant requests were filed by the Bush administration. 5640 were approved. The five rejections were later ammended and given out after revision. Given this track record, why was it necessary for Bush to circumvent FISA altogether. Perhaps the warrant requests were illegal and would have not, unless ammended, been approved by FISA?

    You tell me. What was Bush hiding?

    Posted by doumer at 01/07/2006 @ 8:15pm

  163. Because it's not a contradiction. Your argument is as follows:

    "You equate the violence in Iraq with failure? Isnt it funny, if not brazenly hypocritical that many liberals here have openly berated conservatives for hyping the terror threat in this country after the killed 3,000 americans, in one day, yet when it comes to IRAQ, every homicide bombing gives you more of reason to call it quits. Where jihadists kill 10 at a time."

    This consists of saying that liberals say that the 3000 dead in 9/11 is overhyped while the "10 at a time" fatalities in Iraq is reason to leave. Firstly, the total numbers of dead in Iraq, if you count Iraqi civilians (which I suspect you don't), is actually higher than 3,000, but that's not the fatal problem with your argument.

    1) No one has accused the administration of overhyping the terror threat, only of unconstitutional methods in dealing with it and exploiting it to demonize its political adversaries and aggrandize executive power while neglecting legitimate precautions like making chemical plants more secure (remember that the 9/11 Commission alumni gave the administration mediocre grades on implementing their recommendations).

    2) The argument against Iraq is the lack of military and political progress (try looking at who got elected in Iraq, not just that there was a vote), not the raw numbers.

    To accuse liberals of treating larger numbers as less important than smaller numbers is to either ignore, or misrepresent, the arguments against the war. And let's not pretend that you only meant JohannesRolf when you were impugning motives.

    As to SCOTUS, don't forget the Hamdi case that held that foreigners can, in fact, challenge their status and have access to counsel. Re FISA, the FISA Court of Review (which is the only case that I've seen pro-Bush people on this issue rely on) made the mistake of relying on a case (Truong) that dealt with pre-FISA surveillance. The Supreme Court held the the Steel Seizure cases that inherent presidential power is at its lowest ebb once Congress has legislated on a subject. Consequently, that authority is now more restricted than pre-FISA and pre-FISA cases can't really be applied here, which is what the Court of Review did.

    Posted by brunowe at 01/07/2006 @ 8:26pm

  164. CPT:

    Why do you assume that just because someone disagrees with you, they are/were a fan of Clinton? I think Clinton perpetrated many crimes which should have landed him in jail (most of which were never mentioned by Ken Starr and his group of witchhunters). Had they really been on their game, they would have looked into the drug running through Mena, Arkansas, while he was governor, among many others. But that would have involved looking at rather unsavory aspects of the Bush family, Oliver North, the Reagan administration, etc. The bottom line is, you and your buddies here aren't truly serious about right and wrong... or delving into the filthy underbelly of American politics/finance/organized crime. You only want to throw comments like your Clinton comment out to try to obscure your "one-downs-manship"... "well, at least my guy didn't do so and so..." or this that or the other. You would be better served if you were at least honest enough with yourself to admit that.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/07/2006 @ 8:29pm

  165. Furthermore, as I have said numerous times on this blog, I believe there should be a considerably more detailed and in depth vetting and investigation process for all elected officials in Washington, both before and after election. The whole Energy Task Force, and Cheney's not making those details public wouldn't fly, nor would his refusal to divulge his health records. The same can be said about Clinton as well, and his refusal to come clean about Lewinsky.

    Why do you think that just because some people happen to be Democrats (not me, by the way) they are going to support or accept their candidate's dissembling or lying about some issue involving their position or their potential crimes? Is this your own guilty conscience speaking? Is this how you feel? It certainly sounds like you do.

    And we all know OKSPORTSGUY does... he's admitted his willingness to be morally and legally hypocritical. I just want to hear you finally admit it like he did a few weeks back.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/07/2006 @ 8:38pm

  166. JORCHIEM

    Obviously the Clinton comment doesnt apply to you, but there are some, who it does.

    Bush's action w/domestic surveillence, will be settled, but one cannot simply say, the action is illegal, Period. There is a disagreement in the interpertation of the law. As many legal experts who say it was illegal, there are just as many saying that it was within the bounds of Presidential authority. We will see

    Posted by CPT at 01/08/2006 @ 09:48am

  167. CPT:

    Actually, you are wrong. On this issue, the interpretation of the constitution is extremely clear. Here's the 4th amendment's full text. You be the judge.

    Amendment IV

    The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

    From my understanding of this, and a couple of my college law profs agree, warrantless wiretaps are illegal. Precedent supports this. Since the US relies not on codified law (Napoleonic France, Roman Empire, z.B.), but on precedent-based law, while we cannot say outright that there is no wiggle room here (just being honest here), precedent strongly supports the view that this behavior by the Bush administration is highly illegal, and does not fit the spirit of either the original intent of the bill of rights, or with subsequent legal cases.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/08/2006 @ 11:01am

  168. Another defining moment in the solution to this horror....(17 US soldiers, countless Iraqis dead this weekend alone)...was missed, and the media did nothing to point it out to the American public.

    MUST READ: GEORGE BUSH HOSTS A TEA PARTY! It's real,- you couldn't make this thing up..

    TEA PARTY [tvnewslies.org]

    Posted by Reg at 01/08/2006 @ 11:20am

  169. Jorcheim,

    Actually precedent is more in support of the president than your interpretation.

    The issue goes to a fundamental debate between some members of Congress and the position of every Administration (and as noted below, backed up by SCOTUS), that when in line with both the Primary Test and the Special Needs Test, no warrants are required by a president for intelligence gathering against foreign powers, even when it the wiretaps involve US Citizens. Below are the courts specific comments in this regard using your court references and others.

    As stated by the FISA Court of Review (Nov 2002)

    The distinction between ordinary criminal prosecutions and extraordinary situations underlies the Supreme Court's approval of entirely warrantless and even suspicionless searches that are designed to serve the government's "special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement." Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 653 (1995) (quoting Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted)) (random drug-testing of student athletes).32 Apprehending drunk drivers and securing the border constitute such unique interests beyond ordinary, general law enforcement. Id. at 654 (citing Michigan Dep't of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990), and United States v. Martinez- Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543 (1976)).

    US v US District Court on Wiretaps

    Powell in writing the majority opinion noted:

    Further, the instant case requires no judgment on the scope of the President's surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers, within or without this country.

    We emphasize, before concluding this opinion, the scope of our decision. As stated at the outset, this case involves only the domestic aspects of national security. We have not addressed, and express no opinion [407 U.S. 297, 322] as to, the issues which may be involved with respect to activities of foreign powers or their agents. 20 Nor does our decision rest on the language of 2511 (3) or any other section of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. That Act does not attempt to define or delineate the powers of the President to meet domestic threats to the national security.

    Veronica v Acton and Griffin v Wisconsin

    Where a search is undertaken by law enforcement officials to discover evidence of criminal wrongdoing, this Court has said that reasonableness generally requires the obtaining of a judicial warrant, Skinner, supra, at 619. Warrants cannot be issued, of course, without the showing of probable cause required by the Warrant Clause. But a warrant is not required to establish the reasonableness of all government searches; and when a warrant is not required (and the Warrant Clause therefore not applicable), probable cause is not invariably required either. A search unsupported by probable cause can be constitutional, we have said, "when special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the warrant and probable-cause requirement impracticable." Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987)

    Only the most hardcore leftwingers in the Democratic party are arguing this action is illegal. Just this morning, Congresswoman Jane Harmon (D-CA) acknowledged she supports the program and as a leading member of the House Intelligence Committee has been briefed periodically by the White House on this NSA activity.

    The Courts as shown above have affirmed repeatedly that in the case of National Security, if the primary purpose is intelligence gathering for the sake of preventing attacks on the US and it's citizens, no warrant is required.

    Unless someone can show that NSA was targeting US citizens, their is no legal stand. All the media and website rumors are just that. No one but NSA, other US intel agencies provided intel from these taps, the White House and those select members of Congress know the real truth.

    Most of what is spread right now is pure rumor and speculation from those who always assume the worst.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/08/2006 @ 3:36pm

  170. Most of what is spread right now is pure rumor and speculation from those who always assume the worst.

    Posted by LOVE LIBERTY 01/08/2006 @ 3:36pm | ignore this person

    Wingnuts, IOW

    Posted by skeletonman at 01/08/2006 @ 4:50pm

  171. Love Liberty The issue may not be the 4th Amendment (where I think you have a good case) as the FISA law. This set warrant requirements and the issue is does that bar the executive from doing surveillance outside its regime. The Executive has argued this based on the FISA Court of Review decision (see my criticism of same above) and the 9/11 resolution.

    Posted by brunowe at 01/08/2006 @ 5:47pm

  172. LOVE LIBERTY:

    Here's my response. John Dean is considerably more articulate than I on this issue. Since I personally don't approve of cutting and pasting or entire articles, I will paste only the link. I hope you will take the time to consider this article.

    http://writ.news. findlaw.com/dean/20051230.html [writ.news.findlaw.com]

    You said:

    Most of what is spread right now is pure rumor and speculation from those who always assume the worst.

    My response:

    Unfortunately, those of us who expect the worst about power, whether the ruling party happens to be Democrat or Republican, have been proven correct in our cynicism and doubt. From the lying to take this country to war, to the Orwellian doublespeak of the "Clear Skies" or "Healthy Forests" initiatives, our lack of credulity in the Bush administration in particular, and the power elite in general, has been reinforced.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/08/2006 @ 6:19pm

  173. TO "LOVE LIBERTY" aAND OTHERS WHO KNEEL AT THE THRONE OF BUSH -- There was a time when real conservatives existed who were opposed to concentrated presidential power. The Founding Fathers did not want an omnipotent executive who acted like an elected king. I am quite sure that Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and Paine would be shocked to hear Bush and his fanatical followers claim that anything Bush does to "fight the war on terror" is legal, and the president's power is unlimited. Real conservatives oppose government power, and would oppose a power-hungry creep like Bush. I guess there aren't too many conservatives left.

    Posted by philbq at 01/08/2006 @ 9:14pm

  174. FRANKGRITS:

    I am still not so sure 9/11 wasn't allowed to happen by the Bush administration. For me, proponderance of evidence in such matters is enough to cast a long shadow on the Bush administration, considering their track record heretofore. When juxtaposed with PNAC's website, which was endorsed by practically every player in the Bush administration (including his brother, Jeb, I might add), the circumstantial evidence is almost too much to deny. In all truth, until I see incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, I will assume Bush (or more likely, his immediate underlings, Cheney and Rumsfeld in particular) had his hands in the perpetration of that heinous crime.

    We are shuffling toward the edge of history, democracy to our backs and fascism facing us. My hope is we deviate from our current trajectory. My fear is that it is a long, hard road out of hell.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/08/2006 @ 9:38pm

  175. PHILBQ:

    The current crop of self-proclaimed conservatives don't have much use for real ideological or philisophical consistency or purity. It is much more important for them to be on the winning team than to be on the popular side of history (and by popular, I mean on the side of the people... not what is fashionable). It is the ultimate in the corporatisation of politics. Philisophical purity has been replaced with complete amorality with regards to right and wrong, and any attachment to those concepts are secondary to winning. It is their way, right or wrong. Don't do as they do, do as they say do. Anything that will make their control over the country more complete is fair game, even if it smacks of utter hypocrisy. Common sense and the concept of the universal utility has been replaced by the profit margin, above all other things. Without a sense of morality on their part, it becomes impossible to engage them on substantive issues of what should and should not be allowed in this country. Every issue becomes a means to an end. It is truly a sad day. And lovers of freedom mourn this fall from greatness with growing anger and frustration. Idealism will eventually win the day. But it will not be this day.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/08/2006 @ 9:46pm

  176. JORCHEIM -- I am a rational man, and I consider you to be the same. But when I look at the facts of 9/11, there is much that does not add up: The non-response by air power for hours after it was known by the airlines that there were highjackings going on, the collapse of the buildings,including Building 7 which was not hit by a plane(the collapses look like controlled demolitions). The damage to the Pentagon has no wreckage from a large airplane,etc. There is too much that doesn't add up. And of course, the Bush Gang used 9/11 to seize nearly total power, and claim unlimited authority. It is like the Reichstag Fire. Sherlock Holmes said" (I am paraphrasing)"When all other possibilities have been removed, what remains , no matter how unbelievable, is the truth." I have heard many critics of Bush claim for some time that the Bush Gang allowed and welcomed 9/11 to seize power...well, I doubted that, but I am starting to come around to the conspiracy theory. There is too much evidence to doubt it.

    Posted by philbq at 01/08/2006 @ 10:03pm

  177. PHILBQ:

    That is precisely my point. I am not looking for neough evidence to eliminate the shadow of doubt, as in a criminal case. I am talking preponderance of evidence, as in a civil trial. Hence my comments about being very hesitant to trust ANYTHING the Bush administration says. Believe me, I am with you on this issue.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/08/2006 @ 10:11pm

  178. JORCHEIM -- On the subject of sinister plots, read James Petras on the AIPAC/Bush officials(Feith,Wolfowitz,et all)spying for Israel connection. Read it at Counterpunch.org ---It shows the Bush Gang tolerance of spying and transfer of classified documents to Israel. And the coming campaign to attack Iran. Chilling...

    Posted by philbq at 01/08/2006 @ 10:48pm

  179. We are shuffling toward the edge of history, democracy to our backs and fascism facing us. My hope is we deviate from our current trajectory. My fear is that it is a long, hard road out of hell. Posted by JORCHEIM 01/08/2006 @ 9:38pm | ignore this person

    Jorcheim,

    I've been away from this blog for a while and will have only limited time to participate for the next few weeks, but when I read your post – partially copied above – I could only say "Bravo!" I have not read anything that sums up our current political crisis as succinctly and articulately as this phrase. Great job!

    There was a time when real conservatives existed who were opposed to concentrated presidential power…I guess there aren't too many conservatives left. Posted by PHILBQ 01/08/2006 @ 9:14pm | ignore this person

    Phil,

    You are correct. I've said before that most of the "righties" who post here are just garden-variety partisan hacks and reactionaries with a sprinkling of libertarians. Occasionally a real neocon will appear, but rarely do we see a genuine conservative. I believe we are at an historical junction where true conservatives and classical liberals are being compelled to join forces opposing this blatant power grab presently taking place by the Executive branch of our government.

    To succeed at restoring checks and balances and preserving our civil liberties, such a "grand coalition" must battle the enemy of our Constitution – the neoconservative brigand. The nexus of neocons within the executive branch is the Vice President's office. A safe place to be, the VP and his co-malevolent thugs normally escape the light of intense scrutiny normally visited upon the President while grabbing the levers of power. We are beginning to see perniciousness affect our country from their wicked attempt to impose a Pax Americana upon the world and an extra-constitutional government for us here at home.

    I am hopeful that Patrick Fitzgerald will crack Scooter Libby and the lights will come on in the VP's den of thieves. I am idealistic enough to hope that true conservatives and classical liberals will join a chorus of protest against the mugging of our constitution.

    Posted by seattlescribe at 01/09/2006 @ 02:16am

  180. ok, if protests are of no use, then what? write letters? what? hope? collect money to bribe lawmakers? the conservative peanut gallery predictably derides such efforts in their typical pro wrastlin' rant style, and even progressive posters are so cynically defeated they deride those who would protest.

    so what? what is to be done? what?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/09/2006 @ 08:36am

  181. TO "LOVE LIBERTY" (an ironic name for someone who condons warrantless spying on American citizens)---Regarding your lame desperate attempt to justify Bush illegal spying: from Senator Sam Brownback, Republican on the Intelligence Committee,"There was nothing in the resolution to use force in Iraq that gave the President a broad surveillance authority." If you were a real conservative, you would oppose the illegal power grab by Bush. But you are just a Republican propagandist.

    Posted by philbq at 01/09/2006 @ 09:17am

  182. LL:

    Unless someone can show that NSA was targeting US citizens, their is no legal stand.

    Bush's 2002 order authorized such surveillance on US citizens. He has admitted it. This is the whole point.

    Posted by Hman23 at 01/09/2006 @ 09:49am

  183. SEATTLESCRIBE:

    Thank you very much for the compliment. It is greatly appreciated.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/09/2006 @ 10:03am

  184. LOVE LIBERTY:

    HMAN23 is right on the money regarding Bush's admission of guilt. I will always remember his standing at the podium, stammering and tripping over his words being spoon-fed to him by his teleprompter (no doubt written for him, hence his unnatural speech patterns), trying to make the flimsy legal case for his authorization of warrantless wiretapping, via executive fiat.

    I guess Hamilton got his wish.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/09/2006 @ 10:07am

  185. HM,

    You don't have the information (nor do any of us) to make a determination that Bush ordered the targeting of US citizens. What you Philbq and so many others rely upon are the rumors, inuendos, and charges by ultra left conspiracy hacks.

    What has been acknowledged by Bush is that which has been consistently upheld by the courts; the executive branch has the legal authority to conduct warrantless taps on foreign powers and agents including communications with US citizens for the purposes of intelligence gathering. They may not do so for the purpose of criminal prosecution.

    You liberals may not like that answer, but you will have to take it up with SCOTUS and the FISA Court of Review who have ruled in the Executive Branch's favor.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/09/2006 @ 10:59am

  186. LL:

    You don't have the information (nor do any of us) to make a determination that Bush ordered the targeting of US citizens. What you Philbq and so many others rely upon are the rumors, inuendos, and charges by ultra left conspiracy hacks.

    What has been acknowledged by Bush is that which has been consistently upheld by the courts; the executive branch has the legal authority to conduct warrantless taps on foreign powers and agents including communications with US citizens for the purposes of intelligence gathering. They may not do so for the purpose of criminal prosecution.

    So, if Bush is doing what you say in your second paragraph, that is not "targeting?" Splitting hairs a bit, aren't we?

    Read the transcript of Bush's December 17, 2005 radio address. Although, he never said US citizens (he used the word "people with ties"), he clearly indicated that the NSA program is directed, in part, at US citizens. Bush also acknowledged the NY Times story, without denial.

    So, if you want to argue the legalities, fine, but don't insult my intelligence claiming US citizens were not under warrantless surveillance here. If that was truly the case, Bush would have just said so affirmatively, and there would be no controversy.

    Posted by Hman23 at 01/09/2006 @ 11:27am

  187. LL What has been acknowledged by Bush is that which has been consistently upheld by the courts; the executive branch has the legal authority to conduct warrantless taps on foreign powers and agents including communications with US citizens for the purposes of intelligence gathering. They may not do so for the purpose of criminal prosecution.

    You liberals may not like that answer, but you will have to take it up with SCOTUS and the FISA Court of Review who have ruled in the Executive Branch's favor.

    Re FISA, the FISA Court of Review (which is the only case that I've seen pro-Bush people on this issue rely on) made the mistake of relying on a case (Truong) that dealt with pre-FISA surveillance. The Supreme Court held the the Steel Seizure cases that inherent presidential power is at its lowest ebb once Congress has legislated on a subject. Consequently, that authority is now more restricted than pre-FISA and pre-FISA cases can't really be applied here, which is what the Court of Review did.

    Posted by brunowe at 01/09/2006 @ 12:06pm

  188. I'd like to add a link to a good analysis of the question on the Volokh Conspiracy website: http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_12_18-2005_12_24.shtml#11350 29722

    Posted by brunowe at 01/09/2006 @ 12:45pm

  189. BRUNOWE:

    You are right on the money, but don't expect much. LL and I had this out about a week ago on previous blogs.

    Posted by Hman23 at 01/09/2006 @ 1:53pm

  190. Meanwhile political junkies like LoveLiberty (obviously not) - LovemyCorporateSponsor is more apt and Mask- don't give a damn how many of our soldiers come home dead, disabled or screwed up from depleted Uranium. They want their war. For what? Kurds who won't fly the Iraq flag kicking arabs out of their militia to the North, Sunnis and Shiites killing people everyday because there are not enough troops to control Iraq. Oh yes, its peachy keen for these armchair warriors. Spending is completely out of control. Rumsfeld and co have authorized PMCs to fund 15,000 mercs (some of whom we have found don't even exist) at a rate three times what we pay our own troops while we can't afford body armor for them. Right wing nutjobs who could care less about the poor American kids fighting this war FOR them- for the corporations, for the Defense contractors and the Halliburtons and the Exxons. Its not about Defeat, you scurrilous subject changers- Its about the Middle East reverting to form no MATTER WHAT. We don't have enough money or Troops to fix Iraq. More of our troops are dying every day until enough REAL Americans demand that it stop! Mask and NACL are for Corrupt Republicans like Delay- They are FOR the Abramoff's and for Duke Cunninghams. They understand these types of cronies, sycophants and scumbags. They hate the hippies- They hate the people who care about the soldiers. They hate anyone who has morals about what is going on. Because they realize it means that we ARE better, if nothing else, because we do care. They want evil because THAT, they understand. Justification of the Hypocrites : http://spaces.msn.com/members/Risingsons/Blog/cns!1prPnzTehpqoOn5t3-SPCW kw!694.entry

    Posted by Fade at 01/09/2006 @ 5:49pm

  191. I thought all you lefties mellow out on weed or your favorite adult beverage. Must be a lot of repressed anger towards mommy.

    Posted by love liberty at 01/09/2006 @ 7:20pm

  192. Considering that Republicans control the legislative agenda, don’t you agree that we should pressure Republican campaign contributors with consumer boycotts in order to force them to go to the Republicans to get legislation that we want?

    If you agree then browse

    http://www.boycott-republicans.com

    search the net for the revolution for progressive legislation.

    Thank you.

    Where Republicans tread, innocent people end up dead.

    [cafepress.com]

    Raise the minimum wage to 10 dollars an hour. Tell your congressman and senators they must pass a minimum wage of 10 dollars an hour or you will continue to boycott every fast food restaurant except for Arby’s.

    Spread the word.

    Stop the confirmation of Judge Alito to the supreme court. Call your senators and thell them to vote against the confirmation of Samuel Alito or you will continue to boycott Dominos Pizza and Curves for women health clubs, two rabid supporters of anti abortion groups.

    Spread the word.

    Posted by maximus7 at 01/09/2006 @ 7:32pm

  193. maximus, u mean,

    http://www.boycott-republicans .com [boycott-republicans.com]

    hope that worked

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/09/2006 @ 9:39pm

  194. nope

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/09/2006 @ 9:39pm

  195. LOVE LIBERTY:

    Actually, I am visting my mom and dad right now in Texas. No repressed anger here. Perhaps you are using others as a medium to discuss your own personal issues. I could recommend a fantastic shrink.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/09/2006 @ 10:05pm

  196. Must be a lot of repressed anger towards mommy.

    Posted by LOVE LIBERTY 01/09/2006 @ 7:20pm

    we don't have incest for an outlet like you boys

    Posted by Will C. at 01/09/2006 @ 10:07pm

  197. LOVE LIBERTY:

    Regarding your post about there not being an indigenous population in Palestine. Um... buddy? That's why they are called Palestinians... I can just imagine you 150 years ago saying the same thing about Native Americans.

    Posted by jorcheim at 01/09/2006 @ 10:15pm

  198. the jews were called palestinians then, they lived in Palestine, that's why

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/09/2006 @ 10:34pm

  199. Bush tried very hard to talk the publisher and editor of the N.Y. Times out of printing the story about warrantless domestic spying. This behaviour indicates that the Bush Gang knew that a constitutional firestorm would result from the spying revelation. The terrorists already knew that the U.S. monitors all electronic communications. The Bush concern was that there would be widespread opposition to warrantless spying. And there is. Bush was lucky the Times sat on the story for a year. Who says the press is liberal?

    Posted by philbq at 01/10/2006 @ 12:34am

  200. Bush tried very hard to talk the publisher and editor of the N.Y. Times out of printing the story about warrantless domestic spying. This behaviour indicates that the Bush Gang knew that a constitutional firestorm would result from the spying revelation. The terrorists already knew that the U.S. monitors all electronic communications. The Bush concern was that there would be widespread opposition to warrantless spying. And there is. Bush was lucky the Times sat on the story for a year. Who says the press is liberal?

    Posted by PHILBQ 01/10/2006 @ 12:34am

    It's called National Security Phil! Blame the president for doing his job when the media wants to jeopardize the nation. I'm not surprised

    Posted by love liberty at 01/10/2006 @ 1:31pm

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