Bush dodges a shoe attack!!

[Malaya1221]

offtopic:
and it's not hypocritical to stand behind a person you don't like and fight a war you don't agree?

btw, the journo is in jail and perhaps, getting some beating!:ouch:

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by Malaya1221

Gene, The Sultan of Spin...I don't deny that half of what you said are true but I don't believe US invaded Iraq to quench the oppressions...

I wanted people to imagine how it would feel if militant purist form of Islam, say Wahabbism, inspired some nations to invade the US and impose Islam upon us, THEIR version of Islam. There are many many different kinds of Islam, I know.

I don't myself know why the US invaded Iraq. I wish that it would end as soon as possible. We also ought to leave Afghanistan, and I think leaving Bosnia, Kosovo and a few others places is also in order.

As President Washington said in his farewell address -

"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it?

Gene

[tk-421]

Originally Posted by GeneW

"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it?

Cultivating peace cannot be a valid excuse to go to war. War will always bring more war. Peace is never really attained, either. It is like a light at the end of a tunnel. Sometimes you see it, sometimes you don't. But destroying the train that ultimately gets you to the light is not exactly the best way to accomplish actually getting there. Am I making any sense here?

I once read a quote that read: "Bombing for peace is like f*cking for virginity". I couldn't agree more.

Much , as always

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by tk-421

Cultivating peace cannot be a valid excuse to go to war. War will always bring more war. Peace is never really attained, either. It is like a light at the end of a tunnel. Sometimes you see it, sometimes you don't. But destroying the train that ultimately gets you to the light is not exactly the best way to accomplish actually getting there. Am I making any sense here?

I once read a quote that read: "Bombing for peace is like f*cking for virginity". I couldn't agree more.

Much , as always

I do not support the occupation of Iraq. I did not support the Iraq invasion in 2003. I did not support the Gulf War of 1991.

I supported a limited punitive expedition against Al Qaeda assets in Afghanistan for the 9/11 attacks. No invasion, no nation building and no other crap. Simply a gesture for a gesture - bombing several training centers and madrassas to rubble, messing with their finances and then moving on.

I did not support the bombings of Yugoslavia in 1999. I did not support ending "genocide" in Rwanda, Sudan, nor in Tibet.

The last operation that I did support, covert assistance to the Nicaraguan Resistance, I would not support today. We have no business interfering in the affairs of latin American people. We've meddled enough down there.

I cannot think of one operation that the US has done my life time that I'd support today.

I do support Ballistic Missile Defense since defense is a moral imperative of the state. I support the Reliable Replacement Warhead program (for a small number of units) and insist that we have some testing of this unit. For every RRW that the US makes we need to take several existing warheads out of the stockpile and convert them to reactor fuel. The idea of letting our stockpile degrade to uselessness is irresponsible and foolish.

I support a modest nuclear deterrent (both land based and sea borne) and a modest standing Army and Navy. Enough for defense not for nation building and other stupid exercises.

I think that the United States government needs to mind its own damn business and that the Wilsonian idea of "nation building" is foolishness. Woodrow Wilson couldn't do it right and neither can Bush, Obama or anyone else.

Gene

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by at3GG

If we simply pull out and leave, EVERYTHING we have done will be a waste, whether you like it or not. Everyone who has lost a mother, brother, husband or son will have lost in vain. For the record, I do not agree with us being in Iraq generally speaking, but we're there now and we need to finish the job .

We don't even have a clear direction from the Administration what "finish the job" means. A stable democracy in the Middle East?

Most Democracies are not stable - real boats rock.

If you mean no violence than how about US inner cities, which are about as violent as parts of Iraq? How about parts of other developing nations, say Brazil, which has ten times the murder rate of the US?

By any reasonable definition the US has either done as much as it can do or is supporting a puppet state that would collapse in a few weeks after we left. Our people are fighting and dying for this? We're squandering our tax money for this? Iraqi civilians who have no choice whatsoever are dying for this?

The United States has been in several interventions in the last 100 years.

We invaded Russia in 1918 to protect military supplies in Arkangel and to help the Czech Legion evacuate through Siberia. After a year or two, some casualties and a near mutiny by the staff, we left. The invasion helped the Commies win the war, as we supported their enemies the White Army. That's a good move - go in half assed and help the people who want to destroy you win the war.

The US invaded Haiti a century ago. No permanent government came from it.

The US invaded Nicaragua in the 1930s. The result was installing a bastard named Somoza, who was so oppressive that only the worst criminals could have stood up to him. Jimmy Carter decided to be nice and cut Somoza off at the knees, leaving these criminals in charge. The Sandinistas were criminals, Communists who regimented the people, massacred English speaking blacks along the mosquito coast (about thirty percent of them died during resettlement operations), and then the Contras came along.

The net result was a horrible civil war, purges, Cuban mercenaries training Nicaraguans and Salvadoran guerillas, and lots of awful reaction and counter reaction. Including a horrible genocide in Guatemala and a dirty war in El Salvador. To this day they're still fixing the mess down there.

We invaded Korea after we essentially invited the North to invade when Dean Atcheson said that the affairs of the Koreas did not concern us. Kim Sung Il got Stalin to okay the invasion and off they went. April Gillespie would do the same thing forty years late with Saddam Hussein.

We lost 30,000 guys, mostly in "See saw" wars with the Chinese while officers were out getting their tickets punched by "leading in combat" against fixed positions. Draftees were getting mauled in the process. Eisenhower threatened to go nuclear so the Chinese and Russians made Kim sign an armistice. They're still at war to this day.

What you may not have read in the history books is that the US used fire bombing raids against North Korea. By 1952 most of the population in North Korea were living in caves. Every city in the north was burned to the ground. Every one, and the US Air Force also burned Pusan South Korea to the ground too!

One in every five Koreans died during that war. One in five!!! No Gun Ri was a tiny sliver of the mayhem we caused over there.


The US occupied Viet Nam from 1954 until 1975. We took over from the French, who we screwed over by playing games with support at Dien Bien Phu and then showed them how Americans play. First we refused to hold democratic elections in our area, but the north held theirs and Ho Chi Minh won. We put in a strong man into our side of the 38 parallel.

The US tried Keynesian "pump priming" and crashed the economy by the early 1960s. Then we invaded in force. Then the Viet Namese dug in and resisted us. By 1975 we had 50,000 dead, had wasted two million Viet Namese and were no closer to success. Our irrational rules of engagement guaranteed a stalemate, but those boys with scrambled eggs sure did get their tickets punched, plus a lot of Defense Contractors made out like bandits over there.

We are not good at nation building. I'm sorry to say this, as I lost an uncle in Viet Nam and have quite a few friends who were dicked up in Viet Nam, the Gulf War and in Iraq. These guys got hurt to benefit someone, but it wasn't the people that they were supposed to be fighting for.

Sometimes you have to get up and walk away from the table, especially if you are not fixing to win, or worse, you don't even know what "win" means.

Originally Posted by at3GG

P.S If i had walked down the street and hit precious Obama with a shoe i would be sitting in a cell right now, and so far he's nothing more than a celebrity. You cant deny it.

Yeah, you would have been arrested and charged with assaulting a President elect. If you were not shot by his bodyguards.

Gene

[TheRealEnth]

does anyone notice the guy next to bush throughout the whole thing? I don't know who he is but.. He is calm throughout the whole thing.. He doesnt flinch with the shoe coming generally his way. He doesnt even give an expression regarding the shoe. Its like hes all chill about it as if it happens 24/7

[redyaris]

A shame the shoe launcher didnt make contact. And where was the Secret Service? Even they don't seem to care what happens to him now. They were very lucky shoe slinger didn't throw a grenade.

Anyway, what's more relevant is what he yelled to Bush.

"This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!"

"This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!"

We attacked a nation that did nothing to us. Thousands of Iraqi civilians dead for no justifiable reason. 'W' had a grudge against Saddam from before the time he took office for threatening his daddy. 9/11 was a convenient excuse to invade. All that the unprovoked attack on Iraq did was get over 3K US military personnel dead, greatly boosted worldwide terrorism recruiting numbers, and cost the US BILLIONS, all of which continue to this day. This is BILLIONS that could have gone to homeland security and economic programs to benefit suffering American citizens not iraqis.

Bush once again gets off scott free with no accountability for what he has done and stupidly just created yet another hero in the land where we were supposed to be welcomed with flowers. And we have one more month of 'leadership' under this moron whose final act is the complete destruction of our national economy in all sectors (housing/industrial/retail/financial).

http://www.bushslastday.com/

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by redyaris

We attacked a nation that did nothing to us. Thousands of Iraqi civilians dead for no justifiable reason. 'W' had a grudge against Saddam from before the time he took office for threatening his daddy.

You're ignoring the fact that the US has been doing warlike things to Iraq since 1991.

Recall "Operation Desert Fox", a bombing campaign carried on under UN approval to nail anti-aircraft sites. This happened under Clinton. Lots of other attacks occurred, sometimes daily.

The US helped break Iraq into three pieces. The Kurdish north and Shia south were under the "no fly" zones. The US dropped bombs almost daily, got into SAM duels with high tech anti-aircraft systems and finally were using "Concrete bombs" in order to minimize collateral damage.

Saddam was giving every suicide bomber's family in Israel a cash prize, about $25,000 dollars. That's a huge amount of money for a poor family. This blood money helped to fuel the suicide bombing campaign against the Israelis. So the Isrealis were pushing the US to do something.

Besides, as long as Iraq was under an embargo they could not sell ample amounts of oil at world prices. This helped to keep the price of oil higher. This pleased the Saudis and Kuwaitis, who were pumping out oil and doing arms deals with the US. Also pleased friends of Bill Clinton, such as Marc Rich, who made a killing helping Saddam break the embargo.

If you'll recall, in 1998 the Clinton Administration committed the US to "regime change" in Iraq.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Liberation_Act

From that time on it was a matter of time before the US did something. The 9/11 attacks provided an "excuse".

What nobody counted on was that the Iraqis would resist so well. The experience of the British in the 1920s was one much like what the US is experiencing now. The Iraqis were good guerrilla fighters back then, and they did not have Soviet style "partisan" training that they got as part of the "Saddam Fedayeen".

As the Good Book likes to say, "Pride goes before a fall".

Gene

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by DFA

I(and a really large group of people around the world, as weird as it might seem to some.) resent the ideas and leadership of one man only: George Bush. The man just has WAY too much blood on his hands, and has done unmesurable damage to our planet by turning his back on a bunch of environmental policies.

Don't put it all on Bush. I don't think well of him myself but please keep in mind that the US Congress handed him war powers authorization back in 2002. There were, and still are, a lot of "neo-Cons" who support nation building.

I'm curious - what sort of environmental policy is Bush supposed to back? Human caused global Warming has not been demonstrated from the data, and the computer models have been found to be faulty. The IPCC are a bunch of whores with PhDs who do not hew to sound scientific principles, but are more akin to the Catholic Church officials who criticized Galileo and Copernicus for their "heresy".

You can add me to your hate list if you wish - I oppose the Kyoto Treaty and the Poznan protocols. I hope that every person in the US who likes such non-sense suffers as a result, as many will.

What is tragic is how many people in the developing world will suffer as a result of Kyoto and Poznan. If you really think that the Carbon Tax proceeds are coming your way guess again. The wealthy will take most of them and live better and folks like yourself will be kept down.

Gene

[at3GG]

move to canada and stop complaining, honestly. Supporting a person who, along with his "council", who knows more about the situation than we could possibly imagine, even if I dont entriely agree with him, is not hypocritical. It is accepting that they do in fact know more about the situation then we do. One of these days people will realize that CNN and Fox know probably about 10% of whats ACTUALLY going on.

For the support and well wishes, I thank you sincerely. YW ....around the glode in...well 6 months but you get the idea!

[at3GG]

Also, i did not mean to make a point that i dislike Obama. Though I was for McCain, I honestly think Obama will do some good. Hopefully he will be great. The point I was making is that (call him President "elect" if you like) he still really isnt anybody. Hes the same as john travolta, in that he can address millions, but cant really do anything.....(yet of course).

[PetersRedYaris]

Originally Posted by at3GG

move to canada and stop complaining, honestly. Supporting a person who, along with his "council", who knows more about the situation than we could possibly imagine, even if I dont entriely agree with him, is not hypocritical. It is accepting that they do in fact know more about the situation then we do. One of these days people will realize that CNN and Fox know probably about 10% of whats ACTUALLY going on.

For the support and well wishes, I thank you sincerely. YW ....around the glode in...well 6 months but you get the idea!

Exactly... 2-3 years ago every headline was stated as the bloodiest day/week/month so far. Always, always, always, bad news... Now you hear nothing at all about the war because all is going well. Good news doesn't sell, it's bad or you don't get to know.

What's sad is this war could still be lost, not because the US is incapable, but because the majority of people have failed to produce the will to win. A country can't win if it's people don't stand behind it.

And peace would be great, but saddly, it will never happen. It's human nature, someone will always be greedy and take advantage. Maybe we should try and win terrorism over with love...

[YamilR]

Originally Posted by Malaya1221

offtopic:
and it's not hypocritical to stand behind a person you don't like and fight a war you don't agree?

btw, the journo is in jail and perhaps, getting some beating!:ouch:

We do not stand behind a person, We stand behind a whole country. Something you obviously don't have the cojones to do

[at3GG]

^ damn right

[jinxor]

I guess, for the decisions he made, he should have been man enough to take that shoe on his chest. I despise him for the fact that for something immaterial like oil, he killed so many innocent ppl in baghdad and much more dearer soldiers of the US/UK/ Australia.

[Malaya1221]

Originally Posted by YamilR

We do not stand behind a person, We stand behind a whole country. Something you obviously don't have the cojones to do

yes, because i learned my lessons and if this is how you measure manhood and patriotism then you're barking at the wrong tree, son!

if u want to make it personal then we can!

[Malaya1221]

Originally Posted by at3GG

^ damn right

think for yourself! be cool and be safe!

[YamilR]

Originally Posted by Malaya1221

yes, because i learned my lessons and if this is how you measure manhood and patriotism then you're barking at the wrong tree, son!

if u want to make it personal then we can!

That's fine. I'll take the watch while you polish your nails