Pro/Forums - Bush or Kerry: slam the US!

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- - Bush or Kerry: slam the US! (http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=10677)

Quote:

Originally Posted by nexxo

Don't feel the need to hold back. First (for clarification), I'm Dutch. Second, I agree with everything you say (you may notice in my history lesson I refer to the UK and the Netherlands when it comes to passing out the blame. When it comes to colonial history, the Dutch can pride themselves on being particularly cruel and abusive --most "efficient" slave traders, last ones to give this up, pulling off some serious war crimes in Indonesia after we were liberated from German occupation --I guess the Nazis taught us well).

My point was that our nations are all to blame. We are not swooping in like heros to save the Iraqis from oppression and bring them the shining light of democracy; the best we can say is that we are trying to clean up our shitty mess that we created in the first place, and that we share a good bit of responsibility for those mediapathic pictures of mass graves. So let's stop pretending that we are such good guys, and that the Iraqis are so grateful to us, and have no reason whatsoever to hate our guts.

Certainly, America did turn a blind eye to many things during the cold war. Something that none of us is very proud of as Bill pointed out in his earlier post. However, that does not make us bad guys for taking a stand on freedom now. As far as the average Iraqi is concerned...they are happy we removed Saddam and much of the problems you see right now are due to outside insurgence.

The pictures I posted are all from the cameras of the people in my unit. Since it is the digital camera era, we all swapped photos. All the pictures were taken over several months. What most amazes me is that several seconds of footage on the news trump’s guys coming back and telling you things are not as bad as the news makes them out to be. Moreover, if they show you pictures you still don’t believe it.

You would think people would be a little more sophisticated and realize the news organizations have an agenda. It is not a right or left, liberal or conservative agenda, it is to sensationalize events so you tune in or read the article so they can make money.

LOL News organizations = ratings/money. Anyone remember the toppling of the Saddam statue? Remember how the Iraqi's were having some fun with that? Remember the beginning of that clip and the end of that news clip? Did you know there was a nice gun battle for a few hours inbetween that was cut out of that whole clip or selectively cut out to sensationalize that event?

I appreciate that, but the people who go there to fight and try and rebuild the country are subjective too. They believe in what they're doing --they have to, otherwise why put yourself in the middle of it-- and have a set of beliefs and predispositions that made them sign up in the first place. Don't think I don't respect your courage or your convictions, but you are not more objective than the press.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nexxo

As a point of interest, did you know Saddam used weapons sold to him by the US to do that? US Shipments to Iraq went on even after Saddam ordered the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, in which at least 5000 men, women and children died. The atrocity, which shocked the world, took place in March 1988 but a month later the components and materials of weapons of mass destruction were continuing to arrive in Baghdad from the US.

Make no mistake. For a decade we nurtured the monster that we later felt forced to slay, and his victims will still remember who fed him.

Let's see what else we sold him:

The U.S. was officially neutral regarding the Iran-Iraq war, and claimed that it armed neither side. Iran depended on U.S.-origin weapons, however, and sought them from Israel, Europe, Asia, and South America. Iraq started the war with a large Soviet-supplied arsenal, but needed additional weaponry as the conflict wore on.

By mid-1982, Iraq was on the defensive against Iranian human-wave attacks. Having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, the US began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism. (It had been included several years earlier because of ties with several Palestinian nationalist groups, not Islamicists sharing the worldview of Al-Qaeda.)

But it was Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Baghdad which opened of the floodgates during 1985-90 for lucrative U.S. weapons exports--some $1.5 billion worth-- including chemical/biological and nuclear weapons equipment and technology, along with critical components for missile delivery systems for all of the above. Some 771 weapons export licenses for Iraq were approved during this six year period by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Iraq received massive external financial support from the Gulf states, and assistance through loan programs from the U.S. The White House and State Department pressured the Export-Import Bank to provide Iraq with financing, to enhance its credit standing and enable it to obtain loans from other international financial institutions. The U.S. restored formal relations with Iraq in November 1984, but the U.S. had begun, several years earlier, to provide it with intelligence and military support (in secret and contrary to this country's official neutrality) in accordance with policy directives from President Ronald Reagan.

Reports by the US Senate's committee on banking, housing and urban affairs -- which oversees American exports policy -- reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.

Classified US Defense Department documents show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxine can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas.

The Senate committee's reports on 'US Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual-Use Exports to Iraq', undertaken in 1992 in the wake of the Gulf war, give the date and destination of all US exports. The reports show, for example, that on May 2, 1986, two batches of bacillus anthracis -- the micro-organism that causes anthrax -- were shipped to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, along with two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, the agent that causes deadly botulism poisoning.

One batch each of salmonella and E coli were shipped to the Iraqi State Company for Drug Industries on August 31, 1987. Other shipments went from the US to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission on July 11, 1988; the Department of Biology at the University of Basrah in November 1989; the Department of Microbiology at Baghdad University in June 1985; the Ministry of Health in April 1985 and Officers' City, a military complex in Baghdad, in March and April 1986.

Iraq has deployed Israeli-developed, sold-to-China, then sold-to-Iraq PL-8 missiles in the no-fly zones. A Chilean arms manufacturer sold Saddam deadly cluster bombs--reportedly with technical assistance from U.S. companies, The US allowed Sarkis to sell Hughes and Bell helicopters. The U.S. government approved the sale after Iraq promised that they would only be used for civilian purposes, but the helicopters were used as transportation during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Same with US-sold military trucks. Eighteen American corporations provided Saudi Arabia with military hardware which included TOW missiles. The Saudis then delivered MK-84 2,000 pound bombs to Iraq in violation of the Arms Export Control Act. And former US officials report that both Israel and the Dutch company Delft made unauthorized sales of US thermal-imaging tank sights to, among others, China. The sights were installed on China's 69 MOD-2 tanks, some of which were sold to Iraq. It's a small world after all...

Nobody pitched a fit during El Salvador. All to fight the Communist at the time. Yes it came that close to American borders. Russian Communist during that time had this thing for taking over countries that couldn't stand on their own. Middle East was a prime target for them after UK got done taking what they could get out of them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nexxo

I'd have to say your wrong. You havn't been there and these guys have first hand experience that wasn't selectively fed to them by the media.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nexxo

You're right I'm truly guilty of believing that every man woman and child on this earth deserves the blessings of liberty…I am an American they brain wash us like that :dome:

Hey Hey Hey, Do blame me for bad facts, I just copied and pasted from the Email. I liked the shock value.

Any ideas on my church voting area conundrum?

By the look of some of the replies in this thread , It Makes me think they are just narrow minded and are not capable comprehending the biger picture in the world :/

The Age of Liberty

http://www.nationalreview.com/commen...0410150826.asp

The pictures from IRAQ that you won't see in the NEWS

http://www.pbase.com/kburch/the_pict...ee_in_the_news

PS: I wont let you know who i,m voting for ,Thats a private matter , But i can tell you this, It wont be Kerry or nader :p

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gulp35

Hey Hey Hey, Do blame me for bad facts, I just copied and pasted from the Email. I liked the shock value.

Any ideas on my church voting area conundrum?

Don’t worry that is in a church. In many small towns, the local church was traditionally the only "public" building. Just go vote and be sure to read the directions carefully :)

what about the public school that is 5min. away apposed to the church that is 10min. ?

whole lotta propaganda in those schools, gotta be careful
but in a church - pure unadulterated gospel

I got a free quantum mechanics lesson in a Louisiana Baptist church once. Preacher went on and on about the uncertainty of scientists as proven by Heisenberg. I told the preacher afterwards that if he could master physical chemistry without ever even opening a book that I was sure I could do the same thing with Christianity and that I wouldn't be needing his services in the future.

have to love deductive reasoning
too cool pH

You guys are too much...

Nice post nOv1c3, I obviously agree with the Paul Kengor article.

Speaking about the news media and the election coverage:

Wow John Stewart was on Crossfire today and ripped pretty much everyone in the mainstream news media a new one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTV.com (lol)

Jon Stewart Bitchslaps CNN's 'Crossfire' Show
10.15.2004 6:43 PM EDT

In what could well be the strangest and most refreshing media moment of the election season, "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart turned up on a live broadcast of CNN's "Crossfire" Friday and accused the mainstream media — and his hosts in particular — of being soft and failing to do their duty as journalists to keep politicians and the political process honest.

Reaching well outside his usual youthful "Daily Show" demo, Stewart took to "Crossfire" to promote his new book, "America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction" (see "Jon Stewart Writes A History Textbook That — At Last! — Features Nudity"), but instead of pushing the tome, Stewart used his time to verbally slap the network and the media for being "dishonest" and "doing a disservice" to the American public. After co-host Tucker Carlson suggested that Stewart went easy on Senator John Kerry when the candidate was a guest on "The Daily Show," Stewart unloaded on "Crossfire," calling hosts Carlson and Paul Begala "partisan hacks" and chiding them for not raising the level of discourse on their show beyond sloganeering.

"What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery," Stewart said. "You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.

"I watch your show every day, and it kills me. It's so painful to watch," Stewart added as it became apparent that the comedian was not joking. He went on to hammer the network, and the media in general, for its coverage of the presidential debates. Stewart said it was a disservice to viewers to immediately seek reaction from campaign insiders and presidential cheerleaders following the debates, noting that the debates' famed "Spin Alley" should be called "Deception Lane."

"The thing is, we need your help," Stewart said. "Right now, you're helping the politicians and the corporations and we're left out there to mow our lawns."

While the audience seemed to be behind Stewart, Begala and Carlson were both taken aback. The hosts tried to feed Stewart set-up lines hoping to draw him into a more light-hearted shtick, but Stewart stayed on point and hammered away at the show, the hosts, and the state of political journalism. Carlson grew increasingly frustrated, at first noting that the segment wasn't "funny," and later verbally sparring with the comedian.

"You're not very much fun," Carlson said. "Do you like lecture people like this, or do you come over to their house and sit and lecture them; they're not doing the right thing, that they're missing their opportunities, evading their responsibilities?"

"If I think they are," Stewart retorted.

The conversation reached its most heated moment when Carlson said to Stewart, "I do think you're more fun on your show," to which Stewart replied, "You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show."

"That went great," Stewart could be heard sarcastically saying as the show went off the air (a transcript of the show is available on CNN.com).

I have a 96mb avi file I can upload if people want to watch talking heads from the left and the right get toasted. It was like a forum flame war in real life

I'd like to see where everyone places on the political compass test... See one of my previous posts or search "Political Compass" in google. I placed right near Ghandi

that john stewart thing is awesome mail me it a "the.lipster [at] gmail.com"

5.00/-5.60 (Libertarian right just as you'd expect). Some of those questions are a little arbitrary though in the USA. For example I agree with a local or state government having the right to tax citizens to fund a museum (if the local people approve it then why not?) but I don't see that as a legitimate function of the US federal govt.

I am uploading a compressed version of that crossfire episode now. It should be done in about 5-6 minutes. It's the most surprising things I have ever seen on tv this year (Janet Jackson's nipple excluded). You can find it at:

http://phaestus.procooling.com/stewart-crossfire/

Don't spread the link outside of the Proforums too widely; I don't want to eat up all the site's bandwidth hosting this 36mb file to the world at large.

What compression does that clip use ph?... It comes out all strange coloured, like someone ran a solarize filter on it...

looks fine to me (thanks ph)

but poor jon stewart, he seems to have good intentions, he had a slightly hard time getting his point across to the fast-talking hosts though

I honestly haven't watched the 36mb one; I grabbed a 100mb avi that I figured was a bit to big to put up on the web for general consumption. I thought Jon got his point across very well in the beginning; he used the spin doctor approach of "talking points" very well in the first half.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lothar5150

You're right I'm truly guilty of believing that every man woman and child on this earth deserves the blessings of liberty…I am an American they brain wash us like that :dome:

No, you're only brainwashed into believing that was actually our agenda for going into Iraq. :dome:

***I just read 9 pages of posts, and I really don't want to go back through them all to get exact quotes. I will try to paraphrase as accurately as I can***

"Japan attacked us, yet we attacked Germany"
--Lothar

That is really not an accurate conclusion to make. First, Japan and Germany were official allies in a war. By attacking Germany we were hurting Japan and helping allies that could in turn help us later with Japan. Second, German U-boats had a bad habit of knowingly sinking US merchant ships, and civilian passenger liners withe US citizens on board.

--In response to the discussion of weather it was a good or bad idea to go into Iraq.

I think that it was right to go in and take out Saddam, but unfortunately, we did it for all the wrong reasons and with the wrong guy in charge. I think it is obvious that bush didn't go in because he gives a shit about the people of Iraq. If he gave a shit, he wouldn't have given 2 bullshit reasons for going in before he settled on "We did it to bring freedom to the poor people of Iraq." He also would have gone into other places such as Korea, Sudan, a bunch of shitty African countries, Iran, and his buddies in Saudi Arabia.

I whole heartedly agree that we need to fight for the rights of people in countries lead by dictators, but we need to do it right. We need to plan for a way to bring order and stability after to the country after we topple the dictator.

Also we need global support if we want to go and forcibly spread democracy thought the world. I am not referring to the UN. I agree that the UN is a piece of shit. Any organization that can appoint Sudan as head of human rights council deserves to spend eternity licking the underside of my left testicle after I spent all day outside in the shitty hot and humid Florida sun. I think it's safe to say, **** the UN. What I am saying, wouldn't it be nice if an international force of other "Free and democratic " countries, such as England, Canada, Germany, Australia, etc., all banded together and went around the world kicking dictator ass. Now what I am saying is much different than the "coalition of willing" that bush claims to have maid. When the US is supplying the main force, and other countries throw in a couple hundred troops here and there, that is not a coalition. That is a ploy, at best.

In terms of whats best, left, right, libertarian, liberal, conservative, etc. I think they are all wrong. It is dumb to think that our world is so black and white that one of these polar, one sided groups can be right. The truth is, we live in a world made up of shades of gray. I believe the solution is to find a happy medium. Sure, no one will be absolutely happy, but they won't be all pissed either. What we need to do is find compromises that maybe wont make the diehard extremists happy, but will satisfy the vast majority of the population. Compromise is really a good idea, The Constitution is full of it.

I strongly believe that government should not get too large and that it has no business directing morality and invading peoples personal lives. However I find the libertarian party just too extreme and far off. Theres a fine line between freedom and anarchy. Unfortunately, they are so far away from the line, that they can't even see it.

PH, I loved that clip from crosstalk. I have been a fan of the Daily Show for a long time, and I love John Stewart. I think it's a sad state of affairs when a comedy show provides better coverage of politicians than "reputable" news organizations.

I took that political compass test thing and I think it's quite cool. I scored -3.00/-4.92. Although, I agree with PH that some of those questions were a little arbitrary. I found the one about first generation immigrants being able to assimilate particularly hard to answer. In my opinion, it doesn't matter what generation a person is. The deciding factor in assimilation is age. The younger the person is when he is introduced to a new culture/country, the easier it is for him to be assimilated. For example, I have found that it has been much much easier for me to adapt to American culture than it has for my parents, even though we are both 1st gen. immigrants.

Now, as far as the original question that launched this thread. This will be the first time that I vote, and I'm really not sure yet who I'm going to vote for, but I'm leaning toward Nader right now. Although I think his foreign policy is shit, I do agree with his domestic. Theres that compromise I was talking about. I think his domestic policy takes all the good aspects of the libertarians, like protecting civil liberties, without going for any of their crazy shit, like turning the country upside down on its ass and giving corporations free reign to do whatever.

I'd like to close by saying that I know it seems like I just rambled on and on, but I tried to answer 9 pages of shit in one post. It's not easy. Also, please take into account that I wrote all this between 6 and 7 AM after a night of no sleep. And if you think this is bad, just wait until tonight when I'm good and drunk. Theres nothing that makes me feel more proud as an American than having access to lots and lots of free hard liquor. Would frats be considdered liberal political organizations, since their constantly giving out free alcaholic handouts? I don't think so, i mean after all, I'm entiteld :-).

Also, since the political compass showed that I am so much like the Dali Lama, let it be known that from here on in I shall be known as, and referred to as, His Holiness the Super Art.

yeah turns out it was a new wmv acceleration 'feature' that didn't quite work out the way it should have.
All fixed now

Thanks for the link pH, I was searching all over the net last night trying to find that clip.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nexxo

No, you're only brainwashed into believing that was actually our agenda for going into Iraq. :dome:

You are absolutely right I am a brain washed into think it was for that reason…Just like my grandfather was brainwashed into think the Nazis where bad and needed to be removed from Europe. You know many very prominent Americans wanted us to stay our of WW2. Just image the world if they had got there way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by superart

You are right, the point is as I stated above. Many very popular Americas wanted us to stay out of WW2. The lend lease program was extremely controversial and may people thought the Germans were justified in sinking our merchant ships with war material on board. The wisdom of the time was to stop sending war material to England and remain out of another European War.

Many people made the economic arguments ageist the war as well…this is for big business that have investments in Europe etc ect….It’s great stuff I high recommend reading about American foreign policy 1932 to 1942. You get to see how many arguments are just retreads.

in fairness, FDR got involved in ww2 by sending infrastructure to Britain and putting us on a clear path to wr with germany even though the us people and congress were opposed to it. That's similar to Iraq/Bush in some ways (doing what he thought was best w/o care or regard for being truthful to US populace). We'll have to see if it was the wise choice.

Isolationism doesn't work (we tried that over the objections of Wilson after ww1 right?); world consensus doesn't seem to work (see the continent of Africa in last 10-15 years under the guidance of UN forces); the only foreign strategy I can call a success is that of Reagan.

is it not one of the responsibilities of leadership to also do that which is necessary and correct, even and also when an ignorant/uninformed/misinformed populace does not 'support' such ?

but such did not prevail in Vietnam, and the same 'anti' group is trying again