As for Kerry I leave this link to a video that is the most confusing thing I have ever seen. Never before have I seen one person contradict himself so much. ENJOY.
http://www.kerryoniraq.com/

http://www.kerryoniraq.com/
 

Polls first, action later--always determined first by polls. It's no wonder the guy flip-flops as often as he does.

What I'd like to know is how does the guy stand up so straight when he has no spine.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by pennyearned:
Kerry is a typical democrat. 1.Wet index finger. 2. Hold slightly above head. 3. Determine wind direction and which side of finger is dry. 4. Make most popular dicision.

Polls first, action later--always determined first by polls. It's no wonder the guy flip-flops as often as he does.

What I'd like to know is how does the guy stand up so straight when he has no spine.

---

Broomstick.
Note his uncomfortable stride.

quote:

---

Originally posted by DiQuiRiesco:
Broomstick.
Note his uncomfortable stride.

---

Hay, lets help him out a little more. Now we know where we can store the AK's they're using in Iraq, right Glass.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by pennyearned:
Hay, lets help him out a little more. Now we know where we can store the AK's they're using in Iraq, right Glass.

---

Bush(Jeb, Cheny, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz) planned to attack Iraq before 911.... http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

poke around in there if you aren't already familiar with these documents.....
the only real question left to be answered is WHO suplied the fasle intel.....

the WORLD agreed???? what world are you living in????? that's why we are there without UN approvl....

the sanctions were working....as PROVEN by our own findings.....

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 08, 2004).]
 

[/B][/QUOTE]

What, with the help of France and Germany? The problem is the people weren't being helped at all. Saddam was the one with the money-lined pockets. Need another castle built? Just sell more oil to the French. Need another monument erected? More oil to the Germans.

Now I believe that Bush had a vendetta against Saddam for the proposed assassination attempt on Bush sr. Not a reason to go to war. But when the administration tried to enforce the resolutions to Saddam and he flipped us off, and had been for 14 years, what do we do? Pick up our cruise missiles and go home?
Fact is, if no weapons were even being produced then why not allow U.N. inspectors in and why kick them out when they were on the verge of finding something?

Those weapons will never be found--probably in Syria now. There is still no accounting for the weapons (mustard gas, resin,...)the inspectors DID find early on.

I agree we are in pickle here. Everyone says we had no strategy. No war goes as planned and strategies are altered based upon results. The fact and problem is this is a war the likes of which has never before been fought.

As long as attacks fail to happen here, I rule the war on terror a success. Lets hope it continues that way. Just tighten up those borders please.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
i guess that's my invitation to speak...LOL

Bush(Jeb, Cheny, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz) planned to attack Iraq before 911.... http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

poke around in there if you aren't already familiar with these documents.....
the only real question left to be answered is WHO suplied the fasle intel.....

the WORLD agreed???? what world are you living in????? that's why we are there without UN approvl....

the sanctions were working....as PROVEN by our own findings.....

---

ummm, the un approved this, they just did not have the backbone to follow it up...why? two veto's that why from two contries with a history that is just not flattering... the un made the resolution... if you are not going to back it up, what is the point of making it? there are 30-40 countries invloved not just us. they are members of the un (if not all at least the majority)...before the war almost every person interviewed said this has to be done, it is right... as it startd... this is the right thing to do... you ask------>the WORLD agreed???? (ANSWERED)

what world are you living in????? ----> what workd am I living in? the question is what world are you living it? the bleeding heart liberal media throws us smoke screens and you buy into it... the facts are there, this is just, it needed and the world agreed (until the had to act) Even Kerry said this... I have said it before and I will say it again, Kerry said any person who does not think that sadaam needed to be ousted does not belong in the white house (wrong war wrong place wrong time? please... think for yourself) (ANSWERED)

that's why we are there without UN approvl....---> Un approval? they approved it... but would not follow through, why? like I mentioned above, there are countries who are members of the un, but are self serving and refuse to do what needs to be done on a global scale. This is the kind of thought. It is like letting a fire burn your house down before admitting there is a problem. This has been going on for years... the un said it would take action, if he defied them again...and again... and again... and again... and again... and oh yeah guess what he did one more final time... thats right he diefied them again... then when it came down to it some countires were only for more retoric... again the un is there for a reason... it must be kept viable. (ANSWERED)

[This message has been edited by futuresobjective (edited October 08, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by futuresobjective (edited October 08, 2004).]
 

there were 4 countries that refused to approve it not two...

they even offered to help US after we invaded and Bush flipped them off.....

the sanctions worked....our OWN White House sponsored investigation CLEARLY sates that Saddam was out of the WMD biz entirely since at least 95........

the WMD intel appears to be from Allawi and Challabi...our choices for the new Iraq governmnet....

the "liberal Media " is another myth....

corporate America owns the "liberal media"
all of the media is liberal compared to FOX.....
Fox is Rupert Murdoch, from Australia..one of our coalition memebers..hmmmmm

and Fox was the station that PREMATURELY announced Bush the winner of the last election...BEFORE the polls closed...
Fox also has William Kristol on it's staff...he's the current manager of the New American Century and the editor of The Weekly Standard....

there's even MORE BAD news where those pages came from.....

the sad part here is that the very people that are supporting Bush right now are DECENT people for the most part, who just haven't done enough research to see what's really going on....

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 08, 2004).]
 

after that i have more...stuff from CONSERVATIVE think tanks that aren't very pro-Bush either....

the propaganda is thick and deep...
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
NO the UN did NOT APPROVE OUR INVASION OF IRAQ... we did it without them for a REASON

there were 4 countries that refused to approve it not two...

they even offered to help US after we invaded and Bush flipped them off.....

the sanctions worked....our OWN White House sponsored investigation CLEARLY sates that Saddam was out of the WMD biz entirely since at least 95........

the WMD intel appears to be from Allawi and Challabi...our choices for the new Iraq governmnet....

the "liberal Media " is another myth....

corporate America owns the "liberal media"
all of the media is liberal compared to FOX.....
Fox is Rupert Murdoch, from Australia..one of our coalition memebers..hmmmmm

and Fox was the station that PREMATURELY announced Bush the winner of the last election...BEFORE the polls closed...
Fox also has William Kristol on it's staff...he's the current manager of the New American Century and the editor of The Weekly Standard....

there's even MORE BAD news where those pages came from.....

the sad part here is that the very people that are supporting Bush right now are DECENT people for the most part, who just haven't done enough research to see what's really going on....

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 08, 2004).]

---

two of them had veto power, so it was two of them that prevented it. not four.

they offered to help bush because they wanted to make money off of a war they declined to enter (after they agreed they would). I would flip them off to. The only reason (IMVHO) they wanted in was for money.
the sanctions worked....our OWN White House sponsored investigation CLEARLY sates that Saddam was out of the WMD biz entirely since at least 95........

the WMD intel appears to be from Allawi and Challabi...our choices for the new Iraq governmnet....<-- there is clear evidence as there was then that although he might not be producing them, he kept the capability to do so. And it would have been very easy for him to start. That is old news, and has just been stated again. any media, liberal or conservative, as I have said puts out info that is skewed to one side... all I am saying is that it is hard to find the balance between all of it.

As for supporting Our President. I do. I try to find out as much as possible, as you do, and I support him in every action he has taken. I can say with a clear conscience that he has tried to do (IMVHO) what is best for this nation, based on the values and ethics (at the very least the majority of them) of our country.
 

i suggest that you review the most recent CIA reports, specifically ordered by the White House..
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them, a CIA report concludes.

In fact, the long-awaited report, authored by Charles Duelfer, who advises the director of central intelligence on Iraqi weapons, says Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.


 

another example of the propaganda machine at work...
 

SECURITY COUNCIL HOLDS FIRST DEBATE ON IRAQ SINCE START OF MILITARY ACTION;

SPEAKERS CALL FOR HALT TO AGGRESSION, IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL

Secretary-General Says Council Must Rediscover Its Unity of Purpose

The Security Council, holding its first debate on Iraq since hostilities began on 19 March, was called on to end the illegal aggression and demand the immediate withdrawal of invading forces, by an overwhelming majority of this afternoon’s 45 speakers.

Expressing regret that diplomacy had failed to resolve the question of Iraq’s disarmament, speakers emphasized that the current war, carried out without Council authorization, was a violation of international law and the United Nations Charter. Many stressed they could not understand how the Council could remain silent in the face of the aggression by two of its permanent members against another United Nations Member State.

lots of DIS-informationout there.....

but the spin in the US has been one of the most successful propaganda campaigns ever run......
this is what i am fighting...

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 08, 2004).]
 

so you see, it becomes quite clear that Bush was in a hurry to get Saddam out of Baghdad..i believe he gave him 48 hrs.....

William Kristol
The Washington Post
October 12, 2002

Has anyone had a better six weeks than George W. Bush? Just before Labor Day, the American people were uncertain about the need to act soon to remove Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration itself seemed to be in disarray. Senators and House members were objecting to a broad grant of authority to the president to use force. And our allies were even more unhappy than usual.

Then the president called in the congressional leadership, went to the United Nations and made his case. The country now supports him. His administration is at least publicly united behind him. He has won large bipartisan majorities in Congress. And he is likely to prevail in the U.N. Security Council.

What accounts for the president's success? Primarily it's the clarity, toughness and straightforwardness with which he has marshaled his arguments. There have been impressively serious and high-minded speeches, for example to the United Nations on Sept. 12 and in Cincinnati on Monday. There has been the release of information and the presentation of arguments, including the national security strategy in late September. And there have been the informal comments that have had real political punch, especially the not-so-veiled threat on Sept. 13 to Democrats standing for reelection that they could be accused of subordinating American security to the United Nations.

So the president has succeeded in explaining why Hussein must go, why time is not on our side, why deterrence can't be counted on, and why war is necessary. But now the president has to move from building support for a war to fighting a war. (The coming U.N. Security Council machinations are better understood as a prelude to war than as a real effort at persuasion.) The president now becomes a war leader, not merely -- though the "merely" is unfair -- a war mobilizer. He will have to demonstrate the skills described in his summer reading: Eliot Cohen's "Supreme Command" -- the ability to shape grand strategy and execute precise tactics in the fog of war.

This will require a change in the president's manner of speaking. He has benefited, in making the case for war, from an impressive clarity of presentation and lucidity of argument. But now his task is not to educate or persuade us. It is to defeat Saddam Hussein. And that will require the president, at times, to mislead rather than to clarify, to deceive rather than to explain.

The president's audience is no longer the American public, or even our allies. It is Hussein. Deceiving him as to the timing of the war and the manner of attack is crucial to success. We obviously cannot achieve real strategic surprise; Hussein knows an attack is likely. But tactical surprise remains possible and, especially given Hussein's arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, very much desirable, if we are to minimize casualties and risks.

So when the president seems to equivocate about whether war is inevitable, when he holds out hope for inspections, when he talks about giving peace one last chance, when he seems to invite coups and rebellions while implying this might prevent an American occupation, supporters of the president's policy shouldn't worry that he is losing focus or retreating from the moral and strategic clarity of the past six weeks.

The president's duty is no longer to make the case for war or to prepare the nation for a necessary war. It is to win it as quickly, as decisively and with as few casualties as possible. The case for war, over the past few weeks, required clarity and truth. Victory in war, over the next few weeks or months, will require using the fog of war -- creating that fog -- to keep Hussein off balance, wishful and confused.

William Kristol is editor of the Weekly Standard.

the Prez went around town and presented HIS intel...
that's what tipped the scales....
there are a few sentences that i would like to HIGHLIGHT....they are very pertinent...

And there have been the informal comments that have had real political punch, especially the not-so-veiled threat on Sept. 13 to Democrats standing for reelection that they could be accused of subordinating American security to the United Nations
the strong-arm.....hmmm this sounds familiar somehow....sorta like the global test?
too bad it was all lies huh?????

So when the president seems to equivocate about whether war is inevitable, when he holds out hope for inspections, when he talks about giving peace one last chance, when he seems to invite coups and rebellions while implying this might prevent an American occupation, supporters of the president's policy shouldn't worry that he is losing focus or retreating from the moral and strategic clarity of the past six weeks.

seems to equivocate????????

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 08, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 08, 2004).]
 

here's one for the guys that think the democrats are wimps.....LOL, NOT! we are all Americans
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-090602.htm

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 08, 2004).]
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
[b]the WMD intel appears to be from Allawi and Challabi...our choices for the new Iraq governmnet....<-- there is clear evidence as there was then that although he might not be producing them, he kept the capability to do so. And it would have been very easy for him to start. That is old news, and has just been stated again. any media, liberal or conservative, as I have said puts out info that is skewed to one side... all I am saying is that it is hard to find the balance between all of it.

I just got in, so I will either post to all your posts or some, depending how I feel after I have a smoke... but did he not retain the ability to start his program again? did he not keep every worker in plants where he was not producing those weapons in place? ... there might not have been any but he planned on it... at least in the opinions I have heard.
i suggest that you review the most recent CIA reports, specifically ordered by the White House..
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them, a CIA report concludes.

In fact, the long-awaited report, authored by Charles Duelfer, who advises the director of central intelligence on Iraqi weapons, says Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.
[/B]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
here's what the UN thought of our invasion....they called it ILLEGAL even then....
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/sc7705.doc.htm

[b]
SECURITY COUNCIL HOLDS FIRST DEBATE ON IRAQ SINCE START OF MILITARY ACTION;

SPEAKERS CALL FOR HALT TO AGGRESSION, IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL

Secretary-General Says Council Must Rediscover Its Unity of Purpose

The Security Council, holding its first debate on Iraq since hostilities began on 19 March, was called on to end the illegal aggression and demand the immediate withdrawal of invading forces, by an overwhelming majority of this afternoon’s 45 speakers.

Expressing regret that diplomacy had failed to resolve the question of Iraq’s disarmament, speakers emphasized that the current war, carried out without Council authorization, was a violation of international law and the United Nations Charter. Many stressed they could not understand how the Council could remain silent in the face of the aggression by two of its permanent members against another United Nations Member State.

lots of DIS-informationout there.....

but the spin in the US has been one of the most successful propaganda campaigns ever run......
this is what i am fighting...

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 08, 2004).][/B]

---

you can fight all you want... the facts remain the same. they voted to do something about it, when the time came... they would have ended up doing nothing... propaganda? I dont think so... I think it was just the truth that needed to be herad... if we did not go to it, nobody would have... the un called it illegal? How can they call something they approved to be illegal? they agreed they would do something? what do you think they meant? 12 more years of this nonsense? I dont take it that way... there was nothing else they can do. this was the only option left. sadaam did want to get his program up and running again... what do you think might have happened when he did? this in no way was illegal... nor should it be called that. We did not go in and take this country from them, we gave it to the people it belonged to... but there are so many spins that can be put on this its amazing... it all comes down to what one wants to believe...
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by futuresobjective:
you can fight all you want... the facts remain the same. they voted to do something about it, when the time came... they would have ended up doing nothing... propaganda? I dont think so... I think it was just the truth that needed to be herad... if we did not go to it, nobody would have... the un called it illegal? How can they call something they approved to be illegal? they agreed they would do something? what do you think they meant? 12 more years of this nonsense? I dont take it that way... there was nothing else they can do. this was the only option left. sadaam did want to get his program up and running again... what do you think might have happened when he did? this in no way was illegal... nor should it be called that. We did not go in and take this country from them, we gave it to the people it belonged to... but there are so many spins that can be put on this its amazing... it all comes down to what one wants to believe...

---

well, i see this belief thing all over futuresobjetive....

i agree with you, SOME people are going to see EXACTLY what they want to see....of course if they do that in the market, we call them losers......

you seem to WANT to believe that Bush had some authority to invade a third world country that can't defend itself.....
you can paint it whatever color you want --it's NAKED AGGRESSION......

the UN did not give US a green light...PERIOD and even Bush doesn't say that...you are just trying to justify supporting him in your own mind....i didn't say it was illegal, the UN does.....
YES the UN calls it illegal and if any other country had done this, WE would be calling it illegal for the same reasons...

if you step back from the emotions for just a second and look at it OBJECTIVELY, the best thing you can call it is pre-emptive surgery, kind of like getting your appendix out before you go spend a year in the Amazon jungle....i could use more tasteless medical analogies that would truly OFFEND Bush's constituency too...
read the UN PR's that i posted links to....WE broke the UN rules....it isn't opinion, even Bush won't argue that...

in my opinion, we are not very far from people expressing oppposing views, like i am doing here, losing that right as well....the rhetoric has already started..Bush said you can't talk bad about our war or the troops will suffer...
they are suffering already ---
yes they are doing a good job, but Bush and other high -ranking officials are clueless about what it means to be on the ground...and what their families are going thru...he cries with them (i'm gonna PUKE)--

i don't expect to change anybodies mind, i'm just trying to make sure people who vote for Bush know what they are voting for...
 

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said yesterday that he told US officials that Turkey would no longer cooperate with the US over Iraq if ethnic Turks continued to be harmed in US military operations against suspected insurgents in northern Iraq.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3493648

another coalition member bailing??????

this is the problem with going on our own...we are becoming the CHEESE.....

furthermore, this political issue is the REAL reason we didn't take Baghdad in the first Gulf War...
the Turks didn't/don't want the Kurds armed....

and the Turks were into the UN-Oil-For -Food as bad as anybody, if not worse....

 

WMD info was from chalabi?????

Germany, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel all had same info, all from chalabi???? hmmmm...

4 nations not 2???? Does anyone recall that the UN voted to unanimously support the sanctions calling for "serious Consequences" if sadam did not comply.

Does anyone think serious consequences where to give him millions more illegally from france and germany???? Obviously serious consequences meant bombings and war, Sadam chose not to comply.

Back to the 4/2, bush was very close to having a unanimous vote at the U.N for the war, that is a fact, when it became clear that only France was holding back, France anounced they would VETO. This is a bid deal because most folks in various countries did not support going in. There for those countries leaders would be in trouible with the populace if they voted with america. Why vote with if they will be vetoed anyways.
( in the beginning, other countries thought france would just abstain, but, they were thinking with their pockets)
No where in the U.N Resolution did it state only Serious consequences if we find WMD. It stated that Serious consequences were for non compliance. Hans Blix even stated that sadam DID NOT comply.

Hans Blix also stated that he thought sanctions would work. Who asked Hans that Question? no one. He was being payed a ton to do his job, and wanted to continue it.
What where the countries to do, oh Hans likes inspections, lets keep doing it...

come on... next we'll call bush a liar for using same intelligence as clinton.... this is ignorant.

Intelligence was wrong, from a minimum of 5 countries. Get of the chilabi stick. The same intelligence was wrong when they told bush and clinton that osama couldn't get us....

If sadam complies, no war.... pretty simple, why doesnt he comply, france while stealing and paying him millions hints they will veto. He laughs and sticks his finger up at the u.n.

I will smile they day his head rolls, i'd even give money to punt it.

[This message has been edited by keithsan (edited October 09, 2004).]
 

why???

don't you see how the intel thing works???

The intell was ALL generated from the same source Keith...that's the point....
this is why it's so suspect....
and it's the same thing said ALL over..so it DID come from the same source--no doubt shared....more circular logic....

just because it shows up all over the place doesn't mean that it is coroberated...it just means they all got the same RUMOR, and Challabi and Allawi are the sources named all over the place, but not by the CIA or MI6 directly YET.....

and since they have the MOST to gain from it, that's just more LINEAR logic....

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by
the president or any other public official... – Theodore Roosevelt. ...

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 09, 2004).]
 

[This message has been edited by timberman (edited October 09, 2004).]
 

Janie
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A41919-2002Sep19¬Found=true

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
keith drop me some links where the intel said Osama couldn't get US...cuz that's my next topic...the 911 commision has a lot of stuff that hasn't been brought up in this campaign yet......
Bush had intel on his desk.....it was PR'ed a while back, and it hasn't come up yet....
i think Kerry is saving that for the KNOCKOUT.....

---

the intel communtiy did look more overseas than in the US, but we had plenty of data collected, it just wasn't being analysed....
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by timberman:
Just because we haven't found wmd doesn't mean that they were never there. It only means that they are not there now or we haven't been able to find them. The possibility still remains that they could have been exported while waiting for the UN to guit stalling. The biggest mistake might have been to go to the UN. I know that will rattle the world society people but it true. Its true that these things can't be proven, but then again neither can it be proven that they don't and never did exist. That said, the question would have remained, "What to do with Saddam and Iraq?" Continue with no fly zones forever? Continue with sanctions forever, because Saddam wasn't about to change? Nor did he have to knowing now that Oil for Food was a big joke. If to continue these things how much would it cost the US cause we were paying for it? How much did it cost us over the last 12 years? How much were we willing to pay and for how long? Just something to think about.

[This message has been edited by timberman (edited October 09, 2004).]

---

i don't argue against those points Timberman.....
We know he has had them and used them...
The thing to keep in mind is the logostical problems with WMD....NONE of them are EZ to make or keep volatile......
say he had some disease like anthrax, most likely we would have seen an outbreak if he tried to Xport them cuz accidents ALWAYS happen...
i am amazed at how many people seem to think that bypassing the UN is a good thing....
i am not a big fan of the UN either, but we live on a planet, the world is getting smaller every day....

the times are changing fast, and if we are going to finish off the terrorists, we NEED to work as part of the world community, not spite it.....

we had a decent chance to STOP 911...the reason we didn't was because our US Govt. Agencies did not cooperate.......
Bush personifies the non-cooperative attitude, doesn't he????????
 

apple picking -LOL

Kathryn Jean Lopez: What did the Clinton administration know about Osama bin Laden and when did they know it?

Richard Miniter: One of the big myths about the Clinton years is that no one knew about bin Laden until Sept. 11, 2001. In fact, the bin Laden threat was recognized at the highest levels of the Clinton administration as early as 1993. What's more, bin Laden's attacks kept escalating throughout the Clinton administration; all told bin Laden was responsible for the deaths of 59 Americans on Clinton's watch.

President Clinton learned about bin Laden within months of being sworn into office. National Security Advisor Anthony Lake told me that he first heard the name Osama bin Laden in 1993 in relation to the World Trade Center attack. Lake briefed the president about bin Laden that same year.

In addition, starting in 1993, Rep. Bill McCollum (R., Fla.) repeatedly wrote to President Clinton and warned him and other administration officials about bin Laden and other Islamic terrorists. McCollum was the founder and chairman of the House Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and had developed a wealth of contacts among the mujihedeen in Afghanistan. Those sources, who regularly visited McCollum, informed him about bin Laden's training camps and evil ambitions.

Indeed, it is possible that Clinton and his national-security team learned of bin Laden even before the 1993 World Trade Center attack. My interviews and investigation revealed that bin Laden made his first attack on Americans was December 1992, a little more than a month after Clinton won the 1992 election. His target was 100 U.S. Marines housed in two towering Yemen hotels. Within hours, the CIA's counterterrorism center learned that the Yemen suspected a man named Osama bin Laden. (One of the arrested bombing suspects later escaped and was detained in a police sweep after al Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in 2000.) Lake says he doesn't remember briefing the president-elect about the attempted attack, but that he well might have.

So it is safe to conclude that Clinton knew about the threat posed by bin Laden since 1993, his first year in office

 

Miniter: In October 2000, al Qaeda bombed the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed in the blast. The USS Cole was almost sunk. In any ordinary administration, this would have been considered an act of war. After all, America entered the Spanish-American war and World War I when our ships were attacked.

Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke had ordered his staff to review existing intelligence in relation to the bombing of the USS Cole. After that review, he and Michael Sheehan, the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, were convinced it was the work of Osama bin Laden. The Pentagon had on-the-shelf, regularly updated and detailed strike plans for bin Laden's training camps and strongholds in Afghanistan.

At a meeting with Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Attorney General Janet Reno, and other staffers, Clarke was the only one in favor of retaliation against bin Laden. Reno thought retaliation might violate international law and was therefore against it. Tenet wanted to more definitive proof that bin Laden was behind the attack, although he personally thought he was. Albright was concerned about the reaction of world opinion to a retaliation against Muslims, and the impact it would have in the final days of the Clinton Middle East peace process. Cohen, according to Clarke, did not consider the Cole attack "sufficient provocation" for a military retaliation. Michael Sheehan was particularly surprised that the Pentagon did not want to act. He told Clarke: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"

Instead of destroying bin Laden's terrorist infrastructure and capabilities, President Clinton phoned twice phoned the president of Yemen demanding better cooperation between the FBI and the Yemeni security services. If Clarke's plan had been implemented, al Qaeda's infrastructure would have been demolished and bin Laden might well have been killed. Sept. 11, 2001 might have been just another sunny day.

Miniter: The Clinton administration was in the dark about the full extent of the bin Laden menace because the president's decision to treat the 1993 World Trade Center bombing as a crime. Once the FBI began a criminal investigation, it could not lawfully share its information with the CIA — without also having to share the same data with the accused terrorists. Woolsey told me about his frustration that he had less access to evidence from the World Trade Center bombing — the then-largest ever foreign terrorist attack on U.S soil — than any junior agent in the FBI's New York office.

Why did Clinton treat the attack as a law-enforcement matter? Several reasons. In the first few days, Clinton refused to believe that the towers had been bombed at all — even though the FBI made that determination within hours. He speculated a electrical transformer had exploded or a bank heist went bad.

More importantly, treating the bombing as a criminal matter was politically advantageous. A criminal matter is a relatively tidy process. It has the political benefit of insulating Clinton from consequences; after all, he was only following the law. He is not to blame if the terrorists were released on a "technicality" or if foreign nations refuse to honor our extradition requests. Oh well, he tried.

By contrast, if Clinton treated the bombing as the act of terrorism that it was, he would be assuming personal responsibility for a series of politically risky moves. Should he deploy the CIA or special forces to hunt down the perpetrators? What happens if the agents or soldiers die? What if they try to capture the terrorists and fail? One misstep and the media, Congress, and even the public might blame the president. So Clinton took the easy, safe way out, and called it a crime.

1. Did not follow-up on the attempted bombing of Aden marines in Yemen.

2. Shut the CIA out of the 1993 WTC bombing investigation, hamstringing their effort to capture bin Laden.

3. Had Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a key bin Laden lieutenant, slip through their fingers in Qatar.

4. Did not militarily react to the al Qaeda bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

5. Did not accept the Sudanese offer to turn bin Laden.

6. Did not follow-up on another offer from Sudan through a private back channel.

7. Objected to Northern Alliance efforts to assassinate bin Laden in Afghanistan.

8. Decided against using special forces to take down bin Laden in Afghanistan.

9. Did not take an opportunity to take into custody two al Qaeda operatives involved in the East African embassy bombings. In another little scoop, I am able to show that Sudan arrested these two terrorists and offered them to the FBI. The Clinton administration declined to pick them up and they were later allowed to return to Pakistan.

10. Ordered an ineffectual, token missile strike against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory.

11. Clumsily tipped off Pakistani officials sympathetic to bin Laden before a planned missile strike against bin Laden on August 20, 1998. Bin Laden left the camp with only minutes to spare.

12-14. Three times, Clinton hesitated or deferred in ordering missile strikes against bin Laden in 1999 and 2000.

15. When they finally launched and armed the Predator spy drone plane, which captured amazing live video images of bin Laden, the Clinton administration no longer had military assets in place to strike the archterrorist.

16. Did not order a retaliatory strike on bin Laden for the murderous attack on the USS Cole.

Osama bin Laden's wealth is overestimated. He had been financially drained during his years in Sudan and financing terrorist operations in dozens of countries, including training camps, bribes, etc., requires a large, constant cash flow. Saddam Hussein was unquestionably a generous financier of terrorism. Baghdad had a long history of funding terrorist campaigns in the bin Laden-allied region that straddles Iran and Pakistan known as Beluchistan. Documents found in Baghdad in April 2003 showed that Saddam funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden since the 1990s. Saddam openly funded the Iraqi Kurdish Group and its leader, Melan Krekar, admitted that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan. George Tenet testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iraq had provided training in forging documents and making bombs. Farouk Harazi, a senior officer in the Iraqi Mukhabarat reportedly offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq. Salah Suleiman, an Iraqi intelligence operative, was arrested in October 2000 near the Afghan border, apparently returning from a visit to bin Laden. One of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, Abdul Rahman Yasin, reportedly fled to Baghdad in 1994. Iraq ran an extensive intelligence hub in Khartoum; Sudanese intelligence officers told me about dozens of meeting between Iraqi Intel and bin Laden. Tellingly, reports that Mohamed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence agents in Prague several times in 2000 and 2001 have not been disproved.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
Keith, what does Clinton have to do with Iraq????
are you trying to show us that Clinton should not be president??????
the 911 commission has quite a bit of data in it...
sounds like you are ready to kill them all and let God sort them out.....

---

LOL- good point glass, was looking for something else and got carried away....

guess i'm off my game today....

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
Why is it that the CIA, the State Dept., the Pentagon(Rumsfeld himself) and the 911 commission CLEARLY all agree that Saddam had NOTHING to do with 911, and that any connection between the two is less than significant, and yet obvious Bush supporters conitnue to FABRICATE connections......
last night, Bush HIMSELF refused to acknowledge or claim any connection...

---

I think the connection that is made is to iraq and terrorism. Others have said there is a hint of a 9/11 connection or that it is implied....

Iraq had and supported terrorists. Fact. Other countries have more and support them more also. Fact. There are many more countries that need to be dealt with and fast. Fact.

Sometimes I do want to kill'em all and let god sortem out. If it prevented the death of me,family friends etc... then yes.

quote:

---

Originally posted by osubucks30:
If Clinton would of done the stuff BUSH has he would of been impeached.
Lets see which is worse lieing to America for personal matters or leading the nation to war on misleading info?

---

dont forget not going after the man who attacked your country on numerous occasions and then committed 9/11. or do we skip that because he did NOTHING.

[This message has been edited by keithsan (edited October 09, 2004).]
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by osubucks30:
Bush did nothing until after 9/11!! I don't understand why everyone thinks BUSH is so tuff?
ANY PRESIDENT WOULD HAVE RESPONDED TO THE ATTACK ON 9/11!!

---

wouldnt any pres. have responded to the cole bombings,

how about the 2 in africa, the first world trade center perhaps...

don't take it for granted. I was livid when we didn't respond to those other attacks. I just hoped things were going on behind the scenes that i wasn't privy to. but nothing....

[This message has been edited by keithsan (edited October 09, 2004).]
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
Keith Clinton did do something..he used Tomahawks..not particulrly effective, but it was what he could do at the time...
after 911, Bush had the world support, but he has squandered it..i don't like Kerry, but at least if WE vote Bush out. the WORLD might begin to TRUST US again......

---

are you telling me 5 tomahawks into some empty training camps and a pill factory in the sudan was ALL he could do....The world didn't trust us before bush nor after, they joined because after 9/11 they woulda looked like jerks, afterwards they can back off....and they did. back to their money stealing ways....go security council, real helpfull. now they don't want to threaten gov't in sudan, over oil?????

 

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29949

quote:

---

Originally posted by osubucks30:
Bush did nothing until after 9/11!! I don't understand why everyone thinks BUSH is so tuff?
ANY PRESIDENT WOULD HAVE RESPONDED TO THE ATTACK ON 9/11!!

---

Bush had been in office, what 230 days? Not to mention he didn't even have his cabinet togehter for very long--with the Florida debacle--counts, counts, and recounts, court crap and all other types of distractions.

The real question lies in the fact that Clinton did NOTHING for eight years despite repeated attacks--even on our soil, and numerous instances in which he could have had Bin laden in hand or dead and either did nothing or, is so used to doing a poll first, he couldn't decide.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by pennyearned:
Bush had been in office, what 230 days? Not to mention he didn't even have his cabinet togehter for very long--with the Florida debacle--counts, counts, and recounts, court crap and all other types of distractions.

The real question lies in the fact that Clinton did NOTHING for eight years despite repeated attacks--even on our soil, and numerous instances in which he could have had Bin laden in hand or dead and either did nothing or, is so used to doing a poll first, he couldn't decide.

---

Bush has now been in office for what 3 1/2 years?, and he still hasn't gotten bin laden....and instead, he's wasted 100Billion $ and thousands of lives to catch Saddam, and Saddam is still alive too.......
 

I'm a registered democrat...but I am not partisan to one side or the other.

Janie

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
WOW Clinton shouldn't be elected...BIG SHOCK....
guess what....we aren't deciding about Clinton !!!!!

---

one of the things that i find so disturbing right now is that as long as the teror attacks were overseas (even tho the Cole is US blood) nobody got that upset about a few terror attacks.....

now everybody is so upset, they are ready to do ANYTHING.... that's not going to win the war either....it's gonna make it worse...

i think Saudi Arabia needs to be taken to task in a very meaningful way....

they are the ones that cultured this plague....

The reason that so many people are upset now is because they attacked us on our own soil. It shouldn't make a difference if American interests were attacked here or overseas...the difference for many is the fact that the threat is staring them in the face by what happened on 9-11.

Like the current and the former president, I think most of us felt we were untouchable in the homeland...now we know that we are not.

They need to be doing something about border control and investigating how some of these passports are obtained.

We see all the chaous in Israel and how there are attacks on both sides there almost daily. At one time, most thought we weren't vulnerable to acts like this...but we are.

This probably started when the US didn't stick around to help out in Afganistan after the Soviets pulled out...but it exacerbated during the first Gulf War, when we set up bases in Saudi Arabia. The radical Islamic fundamentalists didn't want the "infidels" (Americans), on what they considered their sacred holy lands.

The Middle East is always going to be a mess in my opinion. I don't think democracy as we know it has a place there. I think we should finish the job in Iraq and get the heck out of there...no bases, no occupation, no peace keeping missions. Train their troops, help them to set up a functional government, and leave them alone.

If we feel there is a need to get involved in the affairs of another country, it should be because they impose a direct threat to us and the diplomatic resolutions fail to take the threat away.

I honestly think the UN has became obsolete, as the League of Nations eventually did. I think it needs a major overhaul and an unbiased investigation to get rid of the corruption and the scandal that has caused it's reputation to be damaged. If it can be proven that a country is a state sponsor of terrorism, they should be banned from the UN until they hand over the terrorists, and refuse to support terrorist acts....they shouldn't be allowed to import or export goods to other countries, and if they do or another country is buying or exporting goods to them, they should be banned also.

I don't believe in making innocent people suffer, but if these countries were froze from trading with the rest of the world, eventually, their own people would overthrow them, or they would be forced to comply with the will of the rest of the world. But that would take cooperation from other countries....unless they get hit by the terrorists, they will live in a dream world like we once did.

Janie

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
it's becoming pretty obvious they knew that there were going to be a lot more terror attacks.....the 911 report confirms that the CIA was doing it's job...

one of the things that i find so disturbing right now is that as long as the teror attacks were overseas (even tho the Cole is US blood) nobody got that upset about a few terror attacks.....

now everybody is so upset, they are ready to do ANYTHING.... that's not going to win the war either....it's gonna make it worse...

i think Saudi Arabia needs to be taken to task in a very meaningful way....

they are the ones that cultured this plague....

---

But now, at the request of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, TIA officials have confirmed that the flight did take place and have supplied details.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/09/Tampabay/TIA_now_verifies_flig.shtml
 

But if the truth is that they covered up for Saudis who were involved in some way with the terrorists, whoever is responsible should be deported to Saudi Arabia.

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
WOW! tear down the UN and start over....
that's kind of a new idea to me...i'd like to think we could recover from this...maybe i am being idealistic....
still Bush's arrogance isn't going to get us any new allies, and we are losing the ones we have....
check this out......by the way this is NOT part of the stuff mentioned in Far. 911
[b]
TIA now verifies flight of Saudis
The government has long denied that two days after the 9/11 attacks, the three were allowed to fly.
By JEAN HELLER, Times Staff Writer
Published June 9, 2004

TAMPA - Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left.

The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.

The Saudis then took another flight out of the country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane.

For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and have denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about its purpose.

But now, at the request of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, TIA officials have confirmed that the flight did take place and have supplied details.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/09/Tampabay/TIA_now_verifies_flig.shtml [/B]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
Keith Clinton did do something..he used Tomahawks..not particulrly effective, but it was what he could do at the time...
after 911, Bush had the world support, but he has squandered it..i don't like Kerry, but at least if WE vote Bush out. the WORLD might begin to TRUST US again......

---

That is the most insane statemtent I have ever heard.

 

quote:

---

Originally posted by futuresobjective:
That is the most insane statemtent I have ever heard.

---

you are deluding yourself into thinking we run the world FO....we don't.....we are the marketplace of the world.....

guess what...the markets have been dropping steadily this year because TRUST in US has been lost..plain and simple, grow up.....
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
you are deluding yourself into thinking we run the world FO....we don't.....we are the marketplace of the world.....

guess what...the markets have been dropping steadily this year because TRUST in US has been lost..plain and simple, grow up.....

---

I don't know about trust in the US. But I do understand that the EU for example wants to be mainly christian. And here we are bringing freedom to some muslim people. I think the EU, finds us mostly threatening financially for that reason alone. Look at it long term, not just for immediate gain. We took a risk, it will most likely pay off. They are trying to bluff us out of our hand. What they don't realize or are failing to admit, is that we will not fold on a bluff. Long term we stand to gain. They will be forced to enter realm again. Europe can not even identify itself, aside from saying that they are anti-American. How is that a way for countries to identify themselves? The fact that we have moved on issues that we value long term is what keeps us ahead of the pack. Wait two - three years and try to what you have just said again. I don't think we lead the world, I know we do. There is no other country that is so willing to place its arse on the line to back up its beliefs and values. This is why we have been the cause of so much peace, so much financial freedom, and religous freedoms not only in our own country but around the world. When the idea that the EU can be self dependent colapses, where do you think they will turn again? Turkey?

[This message has been edited by futuresobjective (edited October 11, 2004).]
 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: February 26, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Amazingly, John F. Kerry is portraying himself as a war hero.

The truth is that he gave aid and comfort to the enemy in the only war in which he ever participated.

And, worse yet, he is still giving aid and comfort to the enemy our nation faces today.

There are serious questions about Kerry's war record. He claims in recent interviews he enlisted in the Navy out of a sense of civic duty. Yet, in 1970, he told the Harvard Crimson he first appealed to the draft board to allow him to study in France for a year. Only after he was turned down did he enlist.

He served for a total of five months on that patrol boat he commanded, filming his own heroics every step of the way – films we will no doubt be treated to this presidential campaign season. He was awarded three purple hearts for mere scratches and opted to cut his tour of duty short as a result of those injuries.

But, for the moment, let's concede he was a "war hero" in Vietnam.

Benedict Arnold, too, was a bigger war hero during the American Revolution. Yet his name today is synonymous with treason because of his despicable, traitorous actions after those heroics.

So it should be with John F. Kerry.

Kerry gave aid and comfort to the communist enemy in Vietnam even while U.S. prisoners were being held and tortured, even while young men were dying on the battlefields.

Here's part of what he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee April 22, 1971:

Several months ago, in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit -- the emotions in the room, and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
They told stories that, at times, they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country ...

He told the committee that what really threatened the U.S. was "not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing."

"The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped," he said.

Kerry had no evidence of war crimes when he made that speech. If he did, he should have reported them. Instead, he accused the U.S. of a vague but ugly campaign of genocide against the Vietnamese because they were "oriental." It was all a lie. He told the Harvard Crimson, after his Vietnam experience, that he was an internationalist and believed the U.S. military should only be dispatched into combat by the United Nations – just what you want in a president of the United States.

Worse yet, Kerry is up to his old tricks again. But he is not just some angry young man today. He's the leading presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. And that makes it even more despicable that he is giving aid and comfort to an enemy far more insidious and dangerous to national security than the Vietnamese Communists.

Kerry voted unequivocally to authorize the war in Iraq. Then he decided he had been fooled and voted against authorizing the money needed to fight it. Now, as a presidential candidate he criticizes the war on a daily basis – once again while brave men are still on the battlefield risking their lives.

He says he doesn't want to repeat the Vietnam experience, but that's exactly what he is doing – pulling the rug out from under soldiers doing their duty in the war on terrorism and the liberation of Iraq, soldiers he himself voted to send there.

In 1971, he called on the Congress to stop the aid to our friends in Vietnam. He got his way and it led to a holocaust – to the killing fields. Now he's trying to do the same thing in Iraq.

Somehow this nation managed to survive eight years with a draft dodger serving as commander in chief. Can we survive four or eight years under a president who has betrayed his own country twice for the political limelight?
::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The truth about Kerry.
Sunday, December 14, 2003

John Forbes Kerry celebrated his 60th birthday three days ago.
Recently, he has lost some weight and developed an increasingly haggard appearance.

However, he still is articulate, with his graying dark hair immaculately groomed, even when riding his "Hog," his very own Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Kerry has catered to a craving for personal publicity since the days he pretended to throw away three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star he had been awarded while in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War
They weren't his; he borrowed others' medals to pitch.

But he still uses his service days as an excuse for his salty and profane language, recently spread out for the world to see in Rolling Stone. He often brags about his combat experience. But he avoids talking about the awards or his very obvious disrespect for Vietnam veterans and his support for communist Vietnam.

Sometimes Kerry recalls his days at Yale and Boston Law School, or the time he was a prosecuting attorney, a post that, with his service record, he parleyed into the Massachusetts' lieutenant governor's office. Two years was enough for him in that humble and inconspicuous job, and quick as a flash, he moved into the U.S. Senate.

For the past 19 years, Kerry has represented the Democrat voters of Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate. Now, he wants to be president.

Post-war rebel

After requesting a discharge so that he could run for Congress -- from Massachusetts in 1970 -- Kerry dropped out of that race when he found that he was destined to be a loser.

Then, Kerry found a new cause that already had been active for three years, and which he today claims as his own. This former naval officer abandoned his oath of office, joined up with the hard-communist left and now claims to have founded Vietnam Veterans Against the War, or (VVAW). He did attend their conference in February 1971 with Jane Fonda -- Hanoi Jane, their most successful promoter and fund-raiser.

The VVAW made its debut in 1967, in New York City at an anti-Vietnam war protest that was also planning the disruption of the 1968 Democratic Party National Convention in Chicago. By the spring of 1970, it numbered several hundred members and the organization had gone national.

All without John Kerry, who remained in Boston.

Kerry later arrived in Washington for an encampment to protest the war, and to provide evidence against his country on Capitol Hill, dressed in his fatigues. Much of the speech Kerry gave to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee painted his fellow GIs as brutal sadists.

He picked up on the testimony of one Marine Sgt. Scott Camil, who said the U.S. military had raped, cut off ears, heads and limbs and participated in many other atrocities. He said that he found the accounts of torture "shocking and irrefutable."

In the last week of April 1971, some 250,000 protesters were in Washington for massive protests against the draft and the war. They were preparing for their attack on the U.S.government on May 4, when they hoped to shut down the capital. Kerry was everywhere, now promoting the pro-communist People's Peace Treaty, drawn up in East Germany and developed by Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis. The treaty advocated the communist line to withdraw all U.S.troops from Vietnam and then negotiate with Hanoi for the release of our GIs who had been taken prisoner.

But Kerry lost his support base, even then, by playing both sides. He attacked the May Day rioters as criminals for the looting, tire-slashing and window-breaking.

Kerry turned himself from a nonentity into a national icon. Since then, he has married twice, and his partner today is Teresa Heinz Kerry, the widow of Pennsylvania's late Sen. John Heinz. Teresa, despite this marriage in 1995, is a very bright and accomplished woman who, notwithstanding her 65 years, would, without the encumbrance of her present husband, have had a remarkable career.

But it is John Kerry who has had a more than remarkable career.

As long ago as June 1971, a reporter for the Marxist Liberated Guardian described how Kerry was raising money from Wall Street's liberal elite, led by Edgar Bronfman, president of Seagram's Distillers, who gave $5,000 of 1971 money. The writer, a true Marxist, bemoaned that the donors had previously supported the Vietnam War, and wrote: "Most of these financiers of political movements are only interested in 'future access to the White House.' Does Kerry want to be in the White House someday? And if he were, how would he answer their calls?"

The Democrats of the left have waited 32 years to find out what makes John Kerry tick. Now, they are finding out the truth.

Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington-based British journalist and political observer.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Kerry Reenacted Vietnam Films?

July 28, 2004

Listen to Rush…
(...discuss Kerry's re-enactment of his apparent service in Vietnam)

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is a world exclusive on the Drudge Report, apparently. We know some of this is true. We know that John Kerry took an eight-millimeter camera -- he bought an eight-millimeter camera at a P.X. in -- Vietnam and filmed himself in "moments of valor." What we are learning now is that some of these moments of valor were reenacted. "A bombshell new book written by the man who took over John Kerry's swift boat charges that Kerry reenacted combat scenes for film while in Vietnam portraying himself as the hero in these scenes. The footage is at the center of a growing controversy in Boston, because the official convention video introducing Kerry is directed by a Steven Spielberg protege, James Moll, and some of the eight-millimeter footage that Kerry took himself, reenacted footage, may end up," in the movie tomorrow night. Secrecy surrounds this movie but "the Drudge Report's learned that Moll was given hours of Kerry's homemade eight-millimeter films.

"A naval officer in the upcoming book Unfit for Command says, "Kerry carried a home movie camera to record his exploits for later viewing. Kerry would revisit ambush locations for reenacting combat scenes where he would portray the hero catching it all on film." This is from this guy's book. "Kerry would take movies of himself walking around in combat gear, sometimes dressed as an infantryman, even though he was in the Navy, walking resolutely through the jungle. He even filmed mock interviews of himself narrating his exploits," this man claims. "A joke circulated among swiftboat people that Kerry left Vietnam early, not because he received three Purple Hearts, but because he'd recorded enough film of himself to take home for his planned political campaigns." Unfit for Command will be unleashed next month by Regnery publishers.
"The films shot by Kerry's own Super 8 millimeter hand-held movie camera have the grainy quality of home movies. The Boston Globe reported this in 1996 that the Kerry... and by the way, these home movies are legion. Journalists have been shown these home movies in Kerry's office, in his Senate office. You go in there and he will show you. He has shown journalists these home movies. "The Boston Globe reported eight years ago that the Kerry home movies reveal something indelible about the man who shot them." I'm just reading from the Boston Globe now, you people. "The Kerry home movies revealed something indelible about the man who shot them. The tall, thin, handsome naval officer seen striding through the reeds in flak jacket and helmet, hold aloft the captured B-40 rocket. The young man so unconscious of risk in the heat of battle, yet so focused on his future ambitions, that he would reenact the moment for film." Aha! So the Boston Globe in 1996 references reenactment.


"It is as if he had cast himself in the sequel to the experience of his hero, John F. Kennedy, on the PT-109," end quote from the Boston Globe. Thomas Vallely or Thomas Vallely, a fellow veteran one of Kerry's closest political advisors and friends says "John was thinking Camelot when he shot that film, absolutely." (Drudge) "New York Times bestselling author Lt. Col. Robert 'Buzz' Patterson in his new book Reckless Disregard, details one of the claimed Kerry reenactments for film: 'On February 28, 1969, now in charge of PCF 94 [the swift boat], Kerry came under fire from an enemy location on the shore. The crew's gunner returned fire, hitting and wounding the lone gunman. Kerry directed the boat to charge the enemy position. Beaching his boat, Kerry jumped off, chased the wounded insurgent behind a thatched hutch, and killed him. Kerry and his crew returned within days, armed with a Super 8 video camera he had purchased at the post exchange at Cam Ranh Bay, and reenacted the skirmish on film.'"

That is from Lieutenant Colonel Robert "Buzz" Patterson in his new book. I imagine what's going to happen now, now that this has come out, what's going to happen is that this director is going to go desperately searching through what he's put together to see if any of these reenactments actually are in the film and probably try to pull them out, would be my guess, or leave them in there, and everybody just deny this is what happened. Now alongside this, comes this from the American Spectator online today from their Prowler column: "Word circulating late Tuesday around the Fleet Center was that, hoping to emulate the dramatic entrance President Bill Clinton made to Staples Center in Los Angeles...Sen. John Kerry was planning a bofo entrance in Boston." It goes on to describe how Kerry was going to get on a water taxi, pretend it was a swift boat with his swift boat team, and navigate the dangerous waters of the Mekong Delta in the Boston Harbor and take Charlestown there, incurring perhaps enemy fire, but to reenact Kerry's time as a swift boat commander, and that just happened, and it was successful.

There was no enemy fire. We were watching this. We were doing play-by-play for those of you who didn't have TV. It was a successful mission. In fact, it didn't look to me like the Captain Kerry and his team were even dressed in military uniforms. I didn't see any arms and (program observer interruption) yeah, they renamed it "Charlietown." It's Charlestown where they went. I mean, you can see the natives were -- I mean, they loved Kerry this time. Holding up "Kerry for President" signs and "Bush is an Idiot." These kind of things out there. So it was a very successful mission today. Kerry and his old swift boat buddies commandeered a water taxi and not a shot was fired. Symbolism of how we're going to defeat Al-Qaeda, perhaps. Who knows what was contained in this brave and courageous mission. The only weapon that we saw was a microphone -- and again there was no enemy fire. Charlie was nowhere to be found. No "gooks." If there were "gooks," they were probably sent over to Manhattan somewhere, around Madison Square Garden, replaced by locals here who are very much in favor of the arrival of Captain Kerry.

Now, after this successful mission comes this little news. "According to a Kerry advance staffer, on the way back from Florida where Kerry spent part of Monday, the candidate saw a Brevard County sheriff's deputy who was part of his security motorcade crash his motorcycle." Now the source here is a Kerry advance staffer. "The motorcade containing Kerry continued on even after this motorcycle cop crashed. But according to the staffer, Kerry wanted to turn around. Kerry asked his handlers if there were news cameras around, and insisted if there were they had to go back to check on the officer so that they didn't look uncaring." Somebody said, "Yep, there are cameras," and Kerry said, "Well, we got to go back then, since there are cameras."
So the motorcade stopped, and in front of several cameras Kerry checked to see if Sergeant Eric Daddow of the Brevard County sheriff's office was ok, but the candidate didn't hang around to find out if the officer was badly injured. He was. Had a broken shoulder and serious scrapes all over his body from hitting the roadway. In any case, the photo-op was lost because of Kerry's decision to wear a sky-blue clean room suit while visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Kerry, according to the advance staffer, balked at wearing the suit, but when he saw his fellow senators Democrats Bill Nelson and Bob Graham as well as John Glenn getting into the suits, he couldn't avoid ending up in the now infamous photos" where he looks like a sperm swimming up a uterus. Of course the Kerry campaign has now said, "This is a dirty trick." They "didn't know there were going to be any cameras there," which is very strange, because in the pictures I've seen of Captain Kerry in the sperm suit, it looks like he's posing.

Doesn't it? It looks like he's got a nice smile on his face. I would be. If I'm dressed as a sperm swimming up a uterus, I'd be smiling there too. He's there, thumbs up, all this. How are things going, Senator? "Swimmingly well." Now they're charging it's a Rupert Murdoch dirty trick and that NASA leaked the photos to humiliate Captain Kerry! I mean, they posted them on their website. Come on. Can you believe it? Here's a guy trying to reenact a brave moment from his life acting afraid of NASA. These people, like any other government agency, have to get their funding. Of course this is a big deal. Presidential candidate comes to look at your astronaut school, and he dons the training gear of course you're going to post that, and they're turning this around and calling this a dirty trick.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Santa Ana, California. Hi, Mark. Welcome. Nice to have you with us.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Since 1998, dittos.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Teresa Heinz Kerry, and just generally when the Democrats speak, can they just say that they are great without mocking or making other people feel bad? Because when they say, when anybody ever has said, "They earned it the old-fashioned way," it's a back slap to other people. I mean, it's a backhanded compliment for other people.

RUSH: Weeeell, you're talking about the medals, what she said about Kerry winning his Purple Hearts.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: That's part and parcel of a campaign. They're supposed to sit there and rip the other guy. The thing that -- I understand your sensitivity to this because they can't say anything good about themselves without running somebody down. It would be one thing if they could simply sit there and say, "My guy's a good guy, got three Purple Hearts," but the fact that they have to then go on and point out, even if they subtly imply it, they're trying to say Bush was a war dodger, because he went to the National Guard. They can't get off of that. It's very childish, this whole business of one-upmanship by trying to put somebody else down.

CALLER: Did Bush win medals?

RUSH: No.

CALLER: So it can't be against Bush. To me, the way I took it is, again, Democrats, not pro-military, are mocking the current military, because they won it the old the old-fashioned way. The current people, they're all screwed. There's no way to win an honorable medal. I mean, that's the way I took it.

RUSH: That's a stretch. I think it's clearly aimed at Bush, the fact he has no medals.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: But there's also this. We know that Ter-AY-sa is defensive. She's demonstrated that this week. Now there's a story out there, and I've not made a big deal out of it, but others have. I've reported it, and I have read the quotes from the doctor that treated Kerry for the injury that gave him his third Purple Heart. It was nothing more than a scratch that a Band-Aid would fix. The story is, "Three Purple Hearts and you're outta of there." That was the rule. You get three Purple Hearts, get them out of there because you've done your duty. He had two Purple Hearts, and the story going around is he self-inflicted the third one with a minor, minor injury and he doctor saw it and he got a Purple Heart out of it and got out of Vietnam after six months. They know that story is out there. I think she's a little defensive about that. So they're trying to play up this Purple Heart business. I just find the whole thing amazing.
Here you have, of all things and people, the Democratic Party, trying to take the clock back 34 years to 1970 and turn this election into a referendum on how important the Vietnam War was because finally, after all these years, they think they've got a candidate who was a genuine war hero. You have to understand these people in the Democratic Party. They have chafed over the fact that they have this very pacifist image and they're very anti-military or soft on military action, and they haven't been able to produce anything. Dukakis was a classic example. He puts on a helmet, goes for a ride in a tank (video) and he becomes a national joke. That pretty much epitomized what the image the Democrats had when it comes to military and foreign policy issues. So. Here comes a war hero with three Purple Hearts, and think, "Finally. Tonight, tonight we've got one of our guys, a real war hero."

This is the party that tried to delegitimize the whole Vietnam conflict. Wasn't worth anything. Kerry himself did that. All of a sudden we're supposed to forget all that and go back and look at Vietnam as some heroic exercise -- which I think it was, but this is not the party that told us. This is the party that tried to demean those that fought that war. This is the party that tried to delegitimize that war. This is the party that didn't want any part of it and tried to redefine and shape American policy because of this war. They continue to do it today. Their attitude on the war in Iraq is just a replay of their attitude on the war in Vietnam. You go back and look at the things they said about Vietnam; they're saying the same things about Iraq. "We shouldn't do it. It's illegitimate. We're imperialistic." It's the same thing. It's no different. But yet they want to take a guy from that era and make him a war hero from a war they didn't even like!

So I think there's a little defensiveness here on the part of Teresa, but there's a slam at Bush, too. It is interesting to point out they just can't leave it when they say something nice about Kerry, or say something that's supposedly positive about him. They just can't leave it there, because it's not enough. They have to then go and try to delegitimize Bush at the same time. I think it's just, fundamentally, no class. If you had a group of friends and one friend started doing that to another, you wouldn't like it. You would think somebody is behaving with no class whatsoever. Well, this is no different other than people don't know Kerry personally. He may not be their friend, but it's still same operative philosophy here. It's just not a classy thing to do. I think that harping on it the way they are means that they're defensive about it, and the fact they have to keep reminding us means that people -- there's a reason they're doing this, folks.

You have to understand the role that focus groups and polling plays in the positioning and shaping of the candidate, much like this movie that they're trying to portray. It's all about Vietnam. Now if they haven't gotten the message that he was a Vietnam War hero out yet, and that's been one of their primary messages for the past -- what is this now? -- nine months then there's a problem. It's not sticking, and as I keep telling you, we get calls here from people, one last hour, wanted to just rip on Bush, a Kerry supporter, but we still don't get people calling us here telling us why they love Kerry. I don't think we've had one since this whole campaign got under way. Maybe one, but it's not more than that. We don't get people who can't wait for Kerry to be President because of X, Y, Z, A, B, C whatever , because of great things he's going to do for America. All we get from Kerry supporters is, "Bush sucks! Bush is a liar! Cheney!" or whatever, Halliburton. It's amazing. I think they're still defensive up there in Boston about their guy.

END TRANSCRIPT
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The Truth About Kerry's and Edwards' Special Interests
NewsMax.com Wires
Monday, Feb. 2, 2004
WASHINGTON – Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards are fond of telling voters they are spurning special-interest money during their White House bids, but voters beware. Their boasts hardly tell the whole story.
Sen. Kerry, who says he hasn't taken a dime of political action committee money for his presidential campaign, in fact ran a tax-exempt political committee that collected nearly a half million dollars directly from companies and labor unions just before those types of donations were outlawed in late 2002, tax records show.

Many of the biggest donors to that effort came from companies with direct interests before Kerry's Senate committee, and the Massachusetts Democrat spent much of the money laying groundwork in early presidential primary states, the records show.

Sen. Edwards, who tells voters he rejects donations to his presidential campaign from Washington lobbyists, took one donation in 2002 directly from a lobbying firm. He also collected more than $80,000 from people who aren't formally registered as lobbyists but nonetheless work for some of Washington's powerhouse firms.

Edwards also has accepted more than $150,000 worth of flights aboard the corporate jets of special interests, a helpful perk for a candidate crisscrossing the country that also allows the corporate provider to bend the ear of a White House aspirant.

'Up to Their Necks'

"They are both in up to their necks with special interest money," said Charles Lewis, head of Center for Public Integrity, a Washington watchdog group that recently published "The Buying of the President 2004," which tracks the sources of political money for the presidential hopefuls.

"This rhetoric has a rather hollow ring to it. It is hypocritical. They are splitting hairs when they say either, 'I don't take lobbyists' money' or 'I don't take from PACs' when both have received millions from special interests anyway," Lewis said.

Edwards' campaign declined Sunday to discuss the 2002 donation from a lobbying firm. Edwards' presidential fund-raising report "confirms Senator Edwards' policy of never having taken a dime from Washington lobbyists. Senator Edwards is proud of having the strongest campaign finance reform proposals of all the presidential candidates," spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said.

As his stock has risen after his surprise wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, Kerry has increasingly portrayed himself as free from special interests' money.

"I'm the only person in the United States Senate who has been elected four times who has voluntarily refused to ever take one dime of political action committee, special-interest money in my elections," Kerry said just last week.

Though technically correct, his boast omits the fact that he was one of the largest recipients of donations from individual lawyers and lobbyists among all senators and that he created a vehicle in 2002 to collect large checks directly from companies, labor unions and other special interests on the eve of his presidential bid.

Kerry collected more than $470,000 directly from companies and unions in 2002 for his Citizen Soldier Fund, and spent large amounts of it sowing goodwill in key primary states just before Congress banned the use of such "soft money" donations, according to records his group filed with the IRS.

Corporate 'Contributions'

More than $100,000 of those donations came from telecommunications and Internet companies that have had a direct interest in the work of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on which Kerry serves.

For instance, nearly every major cellular phone company donated to Kerry's committee, including AT&T Wireless ($7,500), Nextel ($5,000), Verizon Wireless ($5,000), T-Mobile ($5,000), and Cingular ($5,000). The head of Internet publishing giant International Data Group gave $50,000, and the chairman of the Google Web site chipped in $25,000.

Kerry turned those donations right around, distributing money for the fall 2002 elections to primary battleground states where his presidential campaign would eventually need help. He gave $40,000 to the Iowa Democratic Party, $39,650 to the New Hampshire Democratic Party, $20,000 to the Florida Democratic Party and $3,000 to the South Carolina Democratic Party.

As for Edwards ...

Edwards' claim that he hasn't accepted money from Washington lobbyists is technically true in that no person currently registered with Congress as a lobbyist has appeared yet on the donor rolls of his campaign.

But in 2002, Edwards created a tax-exempt political committee just like Kerry. The group, New American Optimists, reported in October 2002 a $3,333.50 donation from Ungaretti & Harris, a lobbying firm whose clients range from AirTran airlines to the Arthur Andersen accounting firm, according to its lobbying disclosure report to Congress.

That same committee collected hundreds of thousand of dollars from other special interests, ranging from $10,000 from AT&T to $550,000 from movie producer Steve Bing.

Furthermore, non-registered employees of Washington lobbying firms have given $82,000 directly to Edwards' campaign, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission records conducted by Lewis' Center for Public Integrity.

That money includes $2,000 from Vernon Jordan, long regarded as one of Washington's pre-eminent power brokers, as well as donations from employees of such famous Washington lobbying firms as Hogan & Hartson, Patton Boggs, Arnold & Porter and Skadden Arps.

The North Carolina Democrat also has another special-interest venue. He has flown across the country in corporate-owned planes, taking $138,000 worth of flights with the Dallas-based Baron and Budd law firm and at least $19,000 in flights with the Archer Daniels Midland agricultural company, his campaign reports show.

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---------- http://swift4.he.net/~swift4/index.php

Senator John Kerry has made his 4-month combat tour in Vietnam the centerpiece of his bid for the Presidency. His campaign jets a handful of veterans around the country, and trots them out at public appearances to sing his praises. John Kerry wants us to believe that these men represent all those he calls his "band of brothers."

But most combat veterans who served with John Kerry in Vietnam see him in a very different light.
Swift Vets and POWs for Truth has been formed to counter the false "war crimes" charges John Kerry repeatedly made against Vietnam veterans who served in our units and elsewhere, and to accurately portray Kerry's brief tour in Vietnam as a junior grade Lieutenant. We speak from personal experience -- our group includes men who served beside Kerry in combat as well as his commanders. Though we come from different backgrounds and hold varying political opinions, we agree on one thing: John Kerry misrepresented his record and ours in Vietnam and therefore exhibits serious flaws in character and lacks the potential to lead.

We regret the need to do this. Most Swift boat veterans would like nothing better than to support one of our own for America's highest office, regardless of whether he was running as a Democrat or a Republican. However, Kerry's phony war crimes charges, his exaggerated claims about his own service in Vietnam, and his deliberate misrepresentation of the nature and effectiveness of Swift boat operations compels us to step forward.

For more than thirty years, most Vietnam veterans kept silent as we were maligned as misfits, drug addicts, and baby killers. Now that a key creator of that poisonous image is seeking the Presidency we have resolved to end our silence.

The following transcript is taken from ABC's special June 30, 1971 broadcast of "The Dick Cavett Show," during which former Navy Lieutenant John Kerry represented Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He was opposed by fellow Navy veteran John O'Neill, representing Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace.

Streaming video of the debate is now available from C-SPAN.

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MR. CAVETT: The fact is I don't have an opening monologue tonight because the subject of the show is quite serious, and I figured why make it more serious with one of my monologues, so I thought I would just start in. You know, I guess, who my two guests are tonight: John Kerry and John O'Neill, and they belong to Vietnam Veterans Against the War on the one hand and Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace on the other.

Both of them have been on my shows in the past. Not together, however. We did two shows a couple of weeks back on Vietnam veterans, and we picked a group of Vietnam veterans to talk about their various problems. This is a very touchy subject, as you know. The whole subject of this incites people to extreme feelings. We had an unprecedented amount of mail about those two shows. We really did. You always say unprecedented, but it was finally in this case. And all kinds of opinions, and just to show you a sampling of some of the reaction to that – it has something to do with how we've done tonight's show.

These are excerpts from letters, but, "Congratulations on your thought provoking moving program with the Vietnam veterans. Excellent. A true public service."

Another one: "I'm writing in reference to June 11th show in which you had several Vietnam veterans as guests. I found the audience reaction to the young man from Anapolis disturbing as well as distracting. I did not agree with all he said, but I respect him for having the courage and conviction to express his own opinion as well as defend it. Perhaps he should have shouted out, interrupted more to be heard over the audience's unfavorable reactions, but it was obvious to me he did the best he could in view of the other mouths of competition."

"Congratulations on your recent conversations with the Vietnam vets. It was one of the most interesting programs I've heard on television, and very thoughtful."

"Dear Mr. Cavett, I'm a 51-year-old veteran of World War II Navy, and I'm one who thinks that Vietnam is a useless battleground."

There were other veterans who wrote in and said that it, of course, was not a useless battleground – is not.

Another lady writes, "This war began as a political war and continues so today with our men not allowed to fight and not backed by the full power nuclear of the nation. The horror of this futile and therefore immoral effort was written in their words" – meaning the men who were here – "and on their faces these two nights. How more just it would have been to spotlight the real villains, McNamara, Gilpatrick, Rostow, et cetera, the whiz kids so aptly indicted by Lieutenant Kerry in testimony before the Fulbright committee."

In another part of the letter she says, "I was filled with incredible revulsion watching this charade. Not revolted by these four men who gave service to their country, but by your exploitation of their futile position. How does it feel to be a latter-day Madame Lafarge? How long will you sit there and knit while your country's head is on the block?"

"Your show against Vietnam soldiers is a perfect example of your workers' bias and also of your New York audience. I know what Mr. Agnew is talking about."

"I commend you, Mr. Cavett, on not intruding your personal views and allowing the veterans to speak for themselves."

Another one: "I can't imagine who you think you are. How dare you be so biased as to put four people against one in favor of your opinion of the war."

"Bravo. Thank you for showing both sides of the Vietnam picture from returned veterans, and thank you for balancing the program with the gung-ho sentiments of Sharp and O'Neill and the anti-war eloquence of Mueller" – it's actually Muller – "and Pickara" (phonetic spelling).

One more. "I dislike the war. I know no one who wants war likes it; however, I'm fed up with biased programs. You are so unfair. I believe you are warped. It appears that Mr. O'Neill has more guts than you will ever hope to have. It might be more fair and more American to have an equal balance of opinion in the future, or is that too democratic for you?"

"I do hope when you have your confrontation between Mr. O'Neill and Mr. Kerry that you won't have the entire studio filled with Mr. Kerry's followers."

Another one registered his support for the young man from Germany [unintelligible].

Well, this indicates, obviously – I'm sorry everybody – not everybody, but a lot of people decided to take a political reaction to the show. We did not pick the fellows on that show to represent whether they were for or against Agnew, for example, or that sort of thing, but to hear their experiences.

Tonight however we do have a kind of opposition, definitely. There's one of each, for the people who like to count the number of guests.

The way this came about was Mr. Bruce Kessler of the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace challenged Mr. Kerry once in the newspapers about, oh, some weeks back, and I saw that and I offered them both time here. Mr. O'Neill has been picked as a spokesman for Mr. Kessler's group.

We have tried to be as absolutely fair as possible tonight because everybody is obviously uptight on that subject. The gentlemen will each have the same size chair, the same wattage and voltage of lighting, and a neutral makeup lady from Switzerland has been brought on.

So about the audience, both groups have asked for tickets and an absolutely equal number of tickets has been supplied to both groups and their followers, so the audience reaction is in the audience's hands.

I would caution them that 90 minutes is not all that long. It's really closer to 70 minutes of actual air time, and a lot of applause goes – a little goes a long way, so I don't want to muzzle you, but be cautioned in that way.

When we come back, I will introduce the two gentlemen to you tonight. First, you're about to learn something that may save your next vacation. Watch.

[Commercial break]

If you have just joined us, my two guests tonight are, as I said before, they've been on the program separately in the past. They're both veterans. One of them, John Kerry, belongs to Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and John O'Neill belongs to a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. Will you welcome them both, please.

This is John O'Neill and this is John Kerry, and I even think that we both asked you which profiles you favor equally.

We will actually start, because it was requested that we do this – this may seem ludicrous – with the flip of a coin because – this is not going to follow the actual outlines of a debate, but I thought it might be well for each of you fellows to start out with some statement of what your organization wants and is, if you'd like to do that.

Do you want to call it in the air?

MR. O'NEILL: Heads.

MR. CAVETT: All right. It's an absolute – it's a U.S. quarter, 1966. You got it.

MR. O'NEILL: I'll speak first.

MR. CAVETT: Okay.

MR. O'NEILL: Hopefully last, too.

I've come here today to speak for peace, a just and lasting peace, in Southeast Asia. There is no one in this country who likes war, least of all, those of us who fought in the Vietnam war. And it is in the spirit of ending that war in a rational manner that I would like to speak today. I think any rational man can see that the Vietnamization program of the president has done more to end this war than all the demonstrations and hate of the last 10 years in this country. When Mr. Kerry and I were in Vietnam there were 550,000 U.S. troops there. When Mr. Kerry marched down in April with his 900 embittered men to Washington, there were 284,000 troops there. When our own organization was formed in May, there were 245,000 troops there. Today there are 215,000, and by the time you see this show tonight, there will be 700 less.

When we were in Vietnam there were 87,000 marines in I-Corps. Today there are 900 in all of South Vietnam, and South Vietnam and I-Corps remain free. The unit we both served in in Vietnam, Coastal Division 11, the first naval combat unit in Vietnam, was one of the last naval combat units out of Vietnam last December. And the South Vietnamese who replaced us there are doing a fine job. They've won victories and they're suffered defeats as any army – as any army does.

But the main story has been that the strength of the North Vietnamese in I-Corps and other areas of that country, including the Mekong Delta where we both served, has been broken.

I think there are three things we can all agree on. First, we all want to see a speedy end to American involvement in Vietnam. Second, we all realize that if we come home from Vietnam leaving our POWs rotting in North Vietnamese jails, that we will leave the heart and soul of this country there also.

Finally, we all want to see the South Vietnamese have the type of government that they themselves freely choose. I suggest that it's time for an end to hate and disruption in this country. I suggest it's time for trust in this country. The same kind of trust we will need when the war in Vietnam is over to live with ourselves here.

I'd like to turn to a second issue. Mr. Kerry is the type of person who lives and survives only on the war weariness and fears of the American people. This is the same little man who on nationwide television in April spoke of, quote, "crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command," who was quoted in a prominent news magazine in May as saying, quote, "war crimes in Vietnam are the rule and not the exception," unquote. Who brought 50 veterans down to Washington to testify about alleged atrocities in April, the same 50 who after they had appeared on every major news network refused to provide any depositions or provide any details of any kind.

Never in the course of human events have so many been libeled by so few.

There were two and a half million of us who served there in Vietnam under the most severe restrictions in this nation's history. We have brought this war close to a close. We never engaged in mass bombing of population centers, as all nations did in World War II, and the reason we did not is because we are a moral people.

Fifty-five thousand Americans died there in Vietnam no matter what they thought about the war because they believed in this country, and those of us who survived came back to this country, by and large determined just to resume our normal lives after the disruption caused by war.

We encountered a variety of problems: unemployment, discrimination, other problems, and then we encountered the biggest problem of them all, the big lie by Mr. Kerry and his group, that we were either each individually war criminals or that we were collectively the executioners of a criminal policy.

You've seen that all before, guilt by association. If one or 50 or 150 veterans testify as to war crimes, then all two and a half million of us must be war criminals. That's the same as saying if one Jew or one black commits one murder in this country, then all the Jews and all of the blacks in this country must be murderers, and that is something that we must not stand for in this country.

We've all heard of Lieutenant Calley. He's accused of the murder of 102 civilians in Son Mai Lai, and the operations – and the law will operate in his case.

This man has attempted the murder of the reputations of two and a half million of us, including the 55,000 dead in Vietnam, and he will never be brought to justice. We can only seek justice and equity from the American people. Every man kills the thing he loves. By each let this be told: The brave man does it with the sword; the coward with the word.

Thank you.

MR. CAVETT: Mr. Kerry, I expect you do have something to say to that. We have a message however from Calgon. Here is how a bath can smooth and soften your skin, leaving you radiant and refreshed with Calgon Bath Oil Beads.

[Commercial Break]

MR. CAVETT: Before that break – and I must apologize for the fact that we do have to keep stopping. It's a commercial medium, and sometimes those things aren't going to mesh very well.

Now, John Kerry.

MR. KERRY: Wow. Well, there are so many things, really, to be said, and it's hard to find a place to start after a barrage like that.

I think, first of all, I'm somewhat surprised at the attitude of somebody who wore the same uniform as I did who served in the same military for the same kind, I hope, of patriotic reasons, and I really haven't come back to this country nor have Vietnam Veterans against the War come back to this country to try in any sense or in any form to show bitterness or to tear the country apart or to tear it down.

I think that what we're doing is we're trying in a sense to show where the country went wrong, and we believe that as veterans who took part in this war, we have nothing to gain by coming back here and talking about those things that have happened except to try and point the way to America, to try and say, "Here is where we went wrong and we've got to change." And I think that the attitude of the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace is really one sort of of my country, right or wrong, which is really on the intellectual level, I think, of saying my mother, drunk or sober.

And I think that just as when your mother is drunk, you take her and dry her out – God forbid that she is – you take your country, in the words of Senator Carl Schurz, who said, "My country, right or wrong. When right, keep it right; when wrong, put it right." And I think that that's what we veterans are trying to do.

On the question of Vietnamization, this is something which people can argue about for hours and hours. We've just heard it mentioned that it's succeeding, that the Marines have been withdrawing from the north. Well, just the other day Firebase Fuller was overrun and it took the United States to fly supplies in to take care of it. We hear that the Delta is pacified. Well, a few weeks ago the report came out that 54 naval bases and other bases, all the bases in the Delta, had been overrun in the first three months of 1971, and that the reason they were overrun was because in 22 cases sentries were asleep, in 22 cases there were quislings, people who gave up.

You can contest this question of Vietnamization right down the line. The question really is this: Is the United States of America determined to leave Vietnam, and if we are determined to leave Vietnam – which I believe the president has shown some indications of because he has withdrawn troops. We don't deny that. What we say is the troops can be withdrawn faster. What we say is the killing can stop tomorrow, and it can stop if the president of the United States will set a date certain for the withdrawal for all United States combat and advisory troops from South Vietnam. And that's really the major issue.

Now, on the question of war crimes, it's really only with the utmost consideration that we post this question. I don't think that any man comes back to this country to say that he raped or to say that he burned a village or to say that he wantonly destroyed crops or something for pleasure. I think that he does it at the risk of certain kinds of punishment, at the risks of injuring his own character which he has to live with, at the risks of the loss of his family and friends as a result of it, and he does it because he believes intensely that people have got to be educated about the devastation of this war.

We thought we were a moral country, yes, but we are now engaged in the most rampant bombing in the history of mankind. Since President Nixon has assumed office, we have dropped some 2,700,000 tons of bombs on Laos. That is more than we dropped in the entire Pacific and Atlantic theaters in the entire course of World War II. And I think the question of morality really has to enter in here, so I'd say that Vietnam Veterans Against the War are really trying to approach this from a most constructive point of view.

MR. CAVETT: You are both, actually, there each allowed five minutes, and you took a little less. Have you finished your opening statement?

MR. KERRY: No, I'd like to discuss everything possible.

MR. CAVETT: Yeah, right, but now you can both talk.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to comment on a number of things. Our attitude certainly isn't our country right or wrong. We were all 15 and 16 years old when we happened to get into the Vietnam war. What's so interesting about many of Mr. Kerry's backers including Clark Clifford, Roger Hillsman (phonetic spelling) and a number of others, is that they happen to be exactly the same people who sent us to Vietnam. We certainly, obviously, would never support this country if we felt it were wrong. We just feel we need a rational way out of Vietnam. As far as setting a date, that accomplishes nothing.

Finally, Mr. Kerry said that he didn't come here to show bitterness, he didn't feel bitter. He said in his statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22nd, he said, "We are angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country."

A second thing we object to with Mr. Kerry's organization is his attempt to represent himself as speaking for all veterans, which he clearly did in the same statement.

As far as the 54 bases overrun in the Delta, I can refer him to an article by John Paul Vann in U.S. News and World Report of June 1st which states that the number of incidents in that area is running about 20 per month compared to 120 per month two years ago.

I think that, clearly, the biggest question we're going to have to deal with is the moral question of war crimes. There's quite a difference between coming back to this country and putting on a sack and saying, confessing, "I committed war crimes" and running for the Congress of the United States from Massachusetts and saying, "Well, all three million of us committed war crimes," and I suggest that that's the question that Mr. Kerry and I should be talking about because that's precisely and exactly what he said.

MR. CAVETT: Well, let's talk about that. Did you see war crimes committed and –

MR. KERRY: Well, I have often talked about this subject. I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense that I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free fire zones and I did take part in harassment interdiction fire. I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these, I find out later on, these acts are contrary to the Hague and Geneva Conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the applications of the Nuremberg principles, is in fact guilty.

But we're not trying to find war criminals. That's not our purpose. It never has been. I have a letter here which I could read to you which we wrote to Washington D.C. in an effort to try and solve the problem of these war crimes, and we sent it to Senator Stennis, and we said, "On behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, we're writing to ask that the Senate Armed Services Committee immediately convene public hearings to examine the testimony presented by these veterans." May I go on?

Among the questions raised were charges. What we're looking for is an examination of our policy by people in this country, particularly by the leaders before they take young men who are the objects of that policy and try them rather than examine the policy at the highest level where it was in fact promulgated.

MR. O'NEILL: that's very interesting that you would say that, John. I've got an article right now. It's from the May 8, 1971, New York Times. It concerns some of the testimony. It concerns a Danny S. Notley (phonetic spelling), who apparently is a member of your organization. The Army pursued him all the way to Minnesota to try and get him to sign a deposition regarding the allegations of war crimes that he made, and he refused to, as have all 50 people that testified there and 150 that testified in Detroit, and so I suggest that if you're honest, you ought to finally produce the depositions after all of us waiting for two months.

The effect of what you've done hasn't been to prevent one or two Kerrys (sic). It's been to label two and a half million of us as – Calleys, not Kerrys, although they may be somewhat interchangeable at times.

That's precisely and exactly what you've done. And I think in honesty, as a just and decent human being, that you'd want to do that. I think there's something particularly pathetic about me having to appear on nationwide television and trade polished little phrases with you to defend the honor of the 55,000 people that died there, the two and a half million of us that served there. I think further that the justification that Hanoi uses for keeping our POWs is that they were engaged in criminal acts there, and I think that someone who comes out and says exactly the same thing could be doing nothing but serving those purposes, although I'm not – obviously those are not your intentions. There's no question about that.

MR. KERRY: We – the Vietnam Veterans Against the War – and I can't even pretend to speak for all the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, let alone speak for all the men who served in Vietnam, and neither in fact can anybody else pretend to speak for a majority. That's entirely in the impossible range. But what we're saying is – and the reason that some of these men have not signed depositions is very, very simple, and it's up to each individual. One reason is that specifically they are not looking to implicate other people. They haven't cited names of individuals involved because they don't want more Calleys. They don't want men to enter double jeopardy, to have to come back to the United States of America and be penalized for those things that they did that were the result of the mistakes and the bad decisions of their leaders.

MR. CAVETT: Uh-huh.

MR. KERRY: And the purpose of them not signing them is literally to call for an examination of policy and not scapegoats and to examine it from the President of the United States to General Westmoreland and others. And when they do that, then they will sign and then they will talk.

Now, there are individuals who are perfectly willing to sign. Nobody's ducking anything.

MR. O'NEILL: Well, who are they? Can you tell me that?

MR. KERRY: well, I have a friend who came all the way from Florida today, and if it's all right with you, he's here now. I'd be very happy to bring him on and let him make a deposition.

MR. O'NEILL: Well, I think just you and I. I've had the same experience of four against one before.

MR. KERRY: You've asked for depositions, and I have the man –

MR. O'NEILL: Yeah, and I'd like to see him sign a deposition after the show.

MR. KERRY: I think you've made a very, very serious charge.

MR. O'NEILL: That's absolutely correct, I have.

MR. KERRY: And there's a veteran here who's come all the way from Florida who, if you didn't mind, would come on television now with names, facts, dates, places, maps, coordinates, and he's be very willing to make it public.

[Pause]

MR. O'NEILL: I've just got two or three things to say. It's amazing, and it certainly is wonderful that you've finally produced someone after two months.

The second thing I have to say is the last time I came on the show, I appeared basically on a four-against-one format, and I prefer it one to one, but I'd certainly be interested in seeing him do that after the show, and I know the people of America would.

It's interesting that you happen to say that you don't claim to speak for all veterans. You said that before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, same testimony previously cited, "I'm here as one member of a group of a thousand, which is a very much – very – which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit here at this table, they would be here and have the same kind of testimony."

I'm here, John. I'm a veteran in this country. I'm here to say that's a lie.

MR. CAVETT: Uh –

MR. KERRY: May I answer that, please?

MR. CAVETT: You may, after this message, or we'll be in big trouble. We'll be right back.

Commercial Break]

MR. CAVETT: And we're back.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to finish my statement, if I could, Mr. Cavett. I think that it's highly interesting that Mr. Kerry has finally produced one person to sign a deposition after three months of accusing two and a half million of us of being war criminals. I suggest that if he produces another four or five hundred thousand depositions, that his charge might stand up. I think all he'd establish, even if the deposition is correct, is that he has one war criminal that belongs to his organization, and that's kind of pathetic.

Further, I'd like to go on –

MR. CAVETT: [Unintelligible]

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to go on and finish. I served in Coastal Division –

MR. CAVETT: It's easier if we don't jump to a second subject when one is on the table.

MR. KERRY: Well, as to my being a liar, I – in my testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee I did indeed say what he said. I said I represent one of the group of one thousand, which incidentally was one thousand at any one time. There were some two thousand who came through the whole time we were in Washington. And when I referred to the very much larger group within the country, I referred to our membership of our organization. I didn't say a majority; I didn't say all veterans; I said to a very much larger group, which is the some 20,000 members that we have in the country at this particular moment. And that was my reference there.

As to this question of who speaks for the majority and all this personal vindictiveness, I really think that that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about the question of this war and why it is continuing, why – [unintelligible] – and I really don't think it does just justice to those men who have to give up their lives or be maimed or something or are in Vietnam now to have two veterans of the war sit here and go at each other's throats. I really think we can do better justice to the issue than that, and the issue really is why can't we set a date. Mr. O'Neill has simply shrugged this off, saying that would be absurd.

I want to know why we can't set a date when we know that the prisoners will come home, when we know that people will stop being maimed for the most senseless purpose in the world, and when we know that that in fact can be a solution and release the forces of accommodation in Vietnam which will not be released as long as we are there and as long as we are helping the South Vietnamese.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd certainly like to talk on setting a date, but I suggest that we keep talking about the same two issues we have on the table. Once again from Mr. Kerry's testimony, that same committee, was written, "I understand from Adam Walinsky, your friend – It's interesting to see somebody that has a friend write about his experiences in Vietnam. I wouldn't –

MR. KERRY: How do you know that?

MR. O'NEILL: He says –

MR. KERRY: Wait, wait. How do you know that?

MR. O'NEILL: Well, Mr. Walinsky admitted it in Human Events, also in the Boston Globe.

MR. KERRY: Did you read Mr. Walinsky's letter yesterday [unintelligible]?

MR. O'NEILL: No, I did not.

MR. KERRY: Did you read his letter?

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to finish –

MR. KERRY: May I quote his letter – no.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to quote your speech, if that's satisfactory.

MR. KERRY: No wait. You've just made a charge.

MR. O'NEILL: "The country does not know it yet, but it has created a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and trade in violence who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped." I think that Mr. Kerry is trying to talk for something more than his little group of 20,000. I think that he was attempting to represent himself as representative of all of us.

Second, on the war crimes issue –

MR. CAVETT: Well, wait a minute. We're way past the thing there –

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to -

MR. CAVETT: – about whether or not your speeches were written for you or whether or not –

MR. KERRY: Somehow the group has suddenly jumped to 20,000 in the period of this –

MR. O'NEILL: Whose group has jumped to 20,000? Your group has, you mean?

MR. KERRY: The Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Two days ago in Leonard Lyons in New York – as a matter of fact, in answer to a charge made by the Vice President of the United States saying a Robert Kennedy speech writer had written my speech, I would be flattered to have one write my speech frankly, but in this letter he wrote to the Vice President, saying, "Dear Mr. Vice President, Thank you very much for insinuating that I wrote John Kerry's speech. I would have been proud to have done it, but I didn't; however, in the future please be sure to mention my name as it will – as it is sure to help me in my next election."

No, Adam Walinsky did not submit a draft to me and he did not write my speech. Now, as to the question –

MR. O'NEILL: I didn't say that, John. If I can quote Human Events of May 22nd, 1971 –

MR. KERRY: Can we move –

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to establish this point. "Former Robert F. Kennedy staffer, Adam Walinsky, acknowledged he had helped Kerry put together his eloquent presentation. Walinsky said that Kerry, the 1966 Yale class orator, was pretty darn good with words all by himself, but added he had a hand in drafting those parts of the Kerry address which were on television." I think it is a relatively minor point. It is your speech I disagree with, not with who wrote it.

My understanding is that's what he told a number of people. The same stories appeared over and over. I think that even more important is this point: You happen to feel that you're being vilified. I think you can imagine how the two and a half million of us whom you have vilified feel at this time.

MR. KERRY: You're speaking for two and a half million.

MR. O'NEILL: I'm speaking for myself now.

MR. KERRY: You're speaking for two and a half million.

MR. O'NEILL: I think, John, if you'd poll the American people instead of taking 75 – poll the veterans in this country instead of taking 75 to Bunker Hill, and you asked them the question, "Do you consider yourself a war criminal," you'd find out that I was speaking for very close to two and a half million.

MR. KERRY: That's very, very interesting. I – you're speaking for most of the guys in your division and everything else? They feel this way, you think.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd say that most of the veterans I have met. I am aware that you did solicit virtually everybody from Coastal Division 11. I had people calling me from all over the country whom you have called. You have financial resources above and beyond ours. And I don't know what results you happened to get. Do you mind telling me, how many people did you get from Coastal Division 11?

MR. KERRY: I didn't reach any, Mr. O'Neill, because I didn't call any personally and talk to any; however, I do have some friends who came back who did.

MR. O'NEILL: Apparently these members of your organization did.

MR. KERRY: Well, it's very strange. You see, I received a letter from one of them, impromptu, that said, "Dear John, about John O'Neill, I can't understand how he could possibly represent any majority whatsoever," and this is from somebody who served in your division with you at the same time. In fact, who turned over the last boat to the Vietnamese.

[Cross talk]

MR. O'NEILL: I should explain the background of this. There were 800 people that served in Coastal Division 11 over the course of the Vietnam war. I've received approximately 12 calls, the furthest away being from Honolulu, from people that your organization has contacted. Now, if you happen to read one letter, all I can say, it's like your organization. Everybody knows about the 10 percent that don't get the word, and your 20,000 make up about 1/20th of the 10 percent that don't get the word.

MR. KERRY: I think – I really think that this is exactly the point that I am trying to make, and that is that we have never purported to represent any majority, nor can Mr. O'Neill sit here and pretend to talk for two and a half million. He can talk for himself. And I think that this contest is ludicrous, that the points to be discussed are the questions of the war, and that's the issue we should get to, and I'd like to talk about that in a rational discussion.

MR. O'NEILL: I suggest it is time to move on. I'd like to make one last point, if I could. I think that Mr. Kerry's [unintelligible] to the American people –

MR. CAVETT: All right, but the world's favorite mother has some important news about bathtub safety. Watch. We'll be right back.
http://swift1.he.net/~swiftvet/index.php?topic=KerryONeill
 

o'neal was also very closely aligned with Nixon....Nixon invited him to the White House and encouraged O'neal to take on Kerry.....

i think you need to keep two things in mind tho...one is a guy named William Calley
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/myl_bcalleyhtml.htm

the other thing is a place called Kent State....

there are things in war that are always the same no mattter what war you are in.....

 

quote:

---

Originally posted by keithsan:
Election year, not sure whos going to win, when the market knows, either way, it will go up.

---

historically, the markets have been up for the year at election time 4 of 6 times that an incumbent has won....

so if the market doesn't get going up fast, Bush's odds drop to 1 in 3....LOL
 

Wed Oct 13, 8:19 AM ET Mideast - AFP

HATRA, Iraq (AFP) - Forensic experts digging for evidence against ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) have carried out their first full exhumation of a mass grave filled with the skeletons of scores of women and children, many shot in the back of the head.

"This is all women and children. We have taken in excess of 120 bodies out of there," US investigator Greg Kehoe said Wednesday as he stood over one of nine trenches piled with bones and scraps of clothes and jewelry near the northern Iraqi town of Hatra.

Among the dead are pregnant women, even a young boy still clutching his ball, whose bodies were ploughed into their earthen tombs by bulldozers.

"This is something in the time Ive been doing mass graves Ive never seen done before," said Kehoe, a lawyer who has also worked in the Balkans.

The bodies are believed to be those of hundreds of Kurds killed by Saddam's feared regime in a deadly campaign in 1987 and 1988, for which the toppled Iraqi leader is facing trial on charges of crimes against humanity.

"These bodies were just pushed in. It was all women and children. No men. All these people were executed with small arms fire... (It) includes pregnant woman," said Kehoe.

There are about 40 known mass graves in Iraq (news - web sites) containing possibly tens thousands of bodies dumped by Saddam's regime.

But exhumation has in many cases been a free-for-all, with relatives searching for loved ones in the early days after the fall of Baghdad accidentally destroying or tampering with evidence that could be used against Saddam.

Kehoe and a team of US, British and Iraqi forensic experts are now conducting full scientific exhumations to preserve hard evidence, uncovering the ghastly horrors of the old regime.

Saddam, who first appeared before a court in July, faces seven charges including the 1987-88 offensive that saw Kurdish villages razed in northern Iraq and the gassing of the village of Halabja, which left 5,000 people dead.

Kehoe said the Hatra grave was the first to be exhumed according to international standards since his appointment last December, but said his team hopes to work on another 10 sites.

"Were trying to meet international standards that have been accepted by courts throughout the world," Kehoe said.

"One woman when she was executed was carrying her two-year old child, shot in the back of the head. She was shot in the face," he said.

The former US prosecutor's voice cracked as he showed slides of some of the victims.

"This is a young boy with a ball, still holding onto the ball when we uncovered him... This is the little ball he was holding onto, you see his little arm right here, this little ball, this little arm, this little boy."

In the end, he hopes to be able to identify the bodies and return them to families.

"Everybody said never again after the Holocaust. The world wasnt listening. Thats how it happened again and again and again."

He said he thinks often about the piles of children's bones he has seen lying in the dirt.

"Sometimes, you go in there, you see soldiers, and it's not to justify it, but my God, little babies, women, with their children shot in the back of the head.. Why," he asked in a whisper.

Mr. Secretary General, Mr. President, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen: Thank you for the honor of addressing this general assembly.
Story Continues Below

The American people respect the idealism that gave life to this organization. And we respect the men and women of the U.N., who stand for peace and human rights in every part of the world. Welcome to New York City, and welcome to the United States of America.
During the past three years, I have addressed this General Assembly in a time of tragedy for my country, and in times of decision for all of us. Now we gather at a time of tremendous opportunity for the U.N., and for all peaceful nations. For decades, the circle of liberty, and security, and development has been expanding in our world. This progress has brought unity to Europe, and self-government to Latin America and Asia, and new hope to Africa. Now we have the historic chance to widen the circle even further, to fight radicalism and terror with justice and dignity and to achieve a true peace, founded on human freedom.

The United Nations and my country share the deepest commitments. Both the American Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaim the equal value and dignity of every human life. That dignity is honored by the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, protection of private property, free speech, equal justice and religious tolerance. That dignity is dishonored by oppression, corruption, tyranny, bigotry, terrorism, and all violence against the innocent.

And both of our founding documents affirm that this bright line between justice and injustice, between right and wrong, is the same in every age, and every culture, and every nation.

Wise governments also stand for these principles for very practical and realistic reasons. We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace. We know that oppressive governments support terror, while free governments fight the terrorists in their midst. We know that free peoples embrace progress and life, instead of becoming the recruits for murderous ideologies.

Every nation that wants peace will share the benefits of a freer world. And every nation that seeks peace has an obligation to help build that world. Eventually, there is no safe isolation from terror networks, or the failed states that shelter them, or outlaw regimes, or weapons of mass destruction. Eventually, there is no safety in looking away, seeking the quiet life by ignoring the struggles and oppression of others.

In this young century, our world needs a new definition of security. Our security is not merely found in spheres of influence, or some balance of power. The security of our world is found in the advancing rights of mankind.

These rights are advancing across the world, and across the world the enemies of human rights are responding with violence. Terrorists and their allies believe that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the American Bill of Rights, and every charter of liberty ever written, are lies, to be burned and destroyed and forgotten.

They believe that dictators should control every mind and tongue in the Middle East and beyond. They believe that suicide and torture and murder are fully justified to serve any goal they declare. And they act on their beliefs.

In the last year alone, terrorists have attacked police stations and banks and commuter trains and synagogues and a school filled with children. This month in Beslan we saw, once again, how the terrorists measure their success, in the death of the innocent, and in the pain of grieving families.

Svetlana Dzebisov was held hostage along with her son and her nephew. Her nephew did not survive. She recently visited the cemetery, and saw what she called the "little graves." She said, "I understand that there is evil in the world. But what have these little creatures done?"

Members of the United Nations: The Russian children did nothing to deserve such awful suffering and fright and death. The people of Madrid and Jerusalem and Istanbul and Baghdad have done nothing to deserve sudden and random murder. These acts violate the standards of justice in all cultures, and the principles of all religions.

All civilized nations are in this struggle together. And all must fight the murderers.

We are determined to destroy terror networks wherever they operate, and the United States is grateful to every nation that is helping to seize terrorist assets, track down their operatives and disrupt their plans.

We are determined to end the state sponsorship of terror, and my nation is grateful to all that participated in the liberation of Afghanistan.

We are determined to prevent proliferation, and to enforce the demands of the world, and my nation is grateful to the soldiers of many nations who have helped to deliver the Iraqi people from an outlaw dictator.

That dictator agreed in 1991, as a condition of a ceasefire, to fully comply with all Security Council resolutions, then ignored more than a decade of those resolutions. Finally, the Security Council promised serious consequences for his defiance. And the commitments we make must have meaning. When we say "serious consequences," for the sake of peace, there must be serious consequences. And so a coalition of nations enforced the just demands of the world.

Defending our ideals is vital, but it is not enough. Our broader mission as U.N. members is to apply these ideals to the great issues of our time. Our wider goal is to promote hope and progress as the alternatives to hatred and violence. Our great purpose is to build a better world beyond the war on terror.

Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have established a global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. In three years the contributing countries have funded projects in more than 90 countries, and pledged a total of 5.6 billion dollars to these efforts. America has undertaken a $15 billion effort to provide prevention, treatment, and humane care in nations afflicted by AIDS, placing a special focus on 15 countries where the need is most urgent. AIDS is the greatest health crisis of our time, and our unprecedented commitment will bring new hope to those who have walked too long in the shadow of death.

Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have joined together to confront the evil of trafficking in human beings. We are supporting organizations that rescue the victims, passing stronger anti-trafficking laws, and warning travelers that they will be held to account for supporting this modern form of slavery. Women and children should never be exploited for pleasure or greed, anywhere on earth.

Because we believe in human dignity, we should take seriously the protection of life from exploitation under any pretext. In this session, the U.N. will consider a resolution sponsored by Costa Rica calling for a comprehensive ban on human cloning. I support that resolution, and I urge all governments to affirm a basic ethical principle: no human life should ever be produced and destroyed for the benefit of another.

Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have changed the way we fight poverty, curb corruption and provide aid. In 2002 we created the Monterrey Consensus, a bold approach that links new aid from developed nations to real reform in developing ones. And through the Millennium Challenge Account, my nation is increasing our aid to developing nations that expand economic freedom and invest in the education and health of their own people.

Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have acted to lift the crushing burden of debt that limits the growth of developing economies, and holds millions of people in poverty. Since these efforts began in 1996, poor countries with the heaviest debt burdens have received more than 30 billion dollars of relief. And to prevent the build up of future debt, my country and other nations have agreed that international financial institutions should increasingly provide new aid in the form of grants rather than loans.

Because we believe in human dignity, the world must have more effective means to stabilize regions in turmoil, and to halt religious violence and ethnic cleansing. We must create permanent capabilities to respond to future crises.

The United States and Italy have proposed a Global Peace Operations Initiative. G-8 countries will train 75,000 peacekeepers, initially from Africa, so they can conduct operations on that continent and elsewhere. The countries of the G-8 will help this peacekeeping force with deployment and logistical needs.

'Stop the Killing in Darfur'

At this hour, the world is witnessing terrible suffering and horrible crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan, crimes my government has concluded are genocide. The United States played a key role in efforts to broker a cease-fire, and we are providing humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people.

Rwanda and Nigeria have deployed forces in Sudan to help improve security so aid can be delivered. The Security Council adopted a new Resolution that supports an expanded African Union force to help prevent further bloodshed, and urges the government of Sudan to stop flights by military aircraft in Darfur. We congratulate the members of the council on this timely and necessary action. And I call on the government of Sudan to honor the cease-fire it signed, and to stop the killing in Darfur.

Because we believe in human dignity, peaceful nations must stand for the advance of democracy. No other system of government has done more to protect minorities, to secure the rights of labor, to raise the status of women or to channel human energy to the pursuits of peace. We have witnessed the rise of democratic governments in predominantly Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish and Christian cultures.

Democratic institutions have taken root in modern societies, and in traditional societies. When it comes to the desire for liberty and justice, there is no clash of civilizations. People everywhere are capable of freedom, and worthy of freedom.

Finding the full promise of representative government takes time, as America has found in two centuries of debate and struggle. Nor is there only one form of representative government, because democracies, by definition, take on the unique character of the peoples that create them.

Yet this much we know with certainty: The desire for freedom resides in every heart. And that desire cannot be contained forever by prison walls or martial laws or secret police. Over time, and across the earth, freedom will find a way.

Freedom is finding a way in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we must continue to show our commitment to democracy in those nations. The liberty that many have won at a cost must be secured. As members of the United Nations, we all have a stake in the success of the world's newest democracies.

Not long ago, outlaw regimes in Baghdad and Kabul threatened the peace and sponsored terrorists. These regimes destabilized one of the world's most vital and most volatile regions. They brutalized their peoples, in defiance of all civilized norms.

Today, the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom. The governments that are rising will pose no threat to others. Instead of harboring terrorists, they are fighting terrorist groups. And this progress is good for the long term security of us all.

The Afghan people are showing extraordinary courage under difficult conditions. They are fighting to defend their nation from Taliban hold-outs, and helping to strike against terrorist killers. They are reviving their economy. They have adopted a constitution that protects the rights of all, while honoring their nation's most cherished traditions. More than 10 million Afghan citizens, over 4 million of them women, are now registered to vote in next month's presidential election. To any who would question whether Muslim societies can be democratic societies, the Afghan people are giving their answer.

Since the last meeting of this General Assembly, the people of Iraq have regained sovereignty. Today, in this hall, the prime minister of Iraq and his delegation represent a country that has rejoined the community of nations. The government of Prime Minister Allawi has earned the support of every nation that believes in self-determination and desires peace.

And under Security Council Resolutions 1511 and 1546, the world is providing that support. The U.N. and its member nations must respond to Prime Minister Allawi's request, and do more to help build an Iraq that is secure, democratic, federal and free.

A democratic Iraq has ruthless enemies, because terrorists know the stakes in that country. They know that a free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will be a decisive blow against their ambitions for that region. So a terrorist group associated with al-Qaida is now one of the main groups killing the innocent in Iraq today, conducting a campaign of bombings against civilians, and the beheadings of bound men.

Coalition forces now serving in Iraq are confronting the terrorists and foreign fighters, so peaceful nations around the world will never have to face them within our own borders. Our coalition is standing beside a growing Iraqi security force.

The NATO alliance is providing vital training to that force. More than 35 nations have contributed money and expertise to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. And as the Iraqi interim government moves toward national elections, officials from the United Nations are helping Iraqis build the infrastructure of democracy. These selfless people are doing heroic work and are carrying on the great legacy of Sergio de Mello.

As we have seen in other countries, one of the main terrorist goals is to undermine, disrupt and influence election outcomes. And we can expect terrorist attacks to escalate as Afghanistan and Iraq approach national elections.

The work ahead is demanding. But these difficulties will not shake our conviction that the future of Afghanistan and Iraq is a future of liberty.

'Advance of Freedom Always Carries a Cost'

The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat; it is to prevail. The advance of freedom always carries a cost, paid by the bravest among us.

America mourns the losses to our nation, and to many others. And today I assure every friend of Afghanistan and Iraq, and every enemy of liberty: We will stand with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq until their hopes of freedom and security are fulfilled.

These two nations will be a model for the broader Middle East, a region where millions have been denied basic human rights and simple justice.

For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused, oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. Oppression became common, but stability never arrived. We must take a different approach. We must help the reformers of the Middle East as they work for freedom and strive to build a community of peaceful, democratic nations.

This commitment to democratic reform is essential to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Peace will not be achieved by Palestinian rulers who intimidate opposition, tolerate corruption, and maintain ties to terrorist groups. The long-suffering Palestinian people deserve better. They deserve true leaders capable of creating and governing a free and peaceful Palestinian state.

Even after the setbacks and frustrations of recent months, good will and hard effort can achieve the promise of the roadmap to peace. Those who would lead a new Palestinian state should adopt peaceful means to achieve the rights of their people, and create the reformed institutions of a stable democracy.

Arab states should end incitement in their own media, cut off public and private funding for terrorism, and establish normal relations with Israel. Israel should impose a settlement freeze, dismantle unauthorized outposts, end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people and avoid any actions that prejudice final negotiations. And world leaders should withdraw all favor and support from any Palestinian ruler who fails his people and betrays their cause.

The democratic hopes we see growing in the Middle East are growing everywhere. In the words of the Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi: "We do not accept the notion that democracy is a Western value. To the contrary, democracy simply means good government rooted in responsibility, transparency, and accountability."

Here at the United Nations, you know this to be true. In recent years, this organization has helped create a new democracy in East Timor, and the U.N. has aided other nations in making the transition to self-rule.

Because I believe the advance of liberty is the path to both a safer and better world, today I propose establishing a Democracy Fund within the United Nations. This is a great calling for this great organization. The fund would help countries lay the foundations of democracy by instituting the rule of law, independent courts, a free press, political parties and trade unions. Money from the fund would also help set up voter precincts and polling places and support the work of election monitors.

To show our commitment to the new Democracy Fund, the United States will make an initial contribution, and I urge other nations to contribute as well.

Today I have outlined a broad agenda to advance human dignity and enhance the security of all of us. The defeat of terror, the protection of human rights, the spread of prosperity, the advance of democracy - these causes, these ideals call us to great work in the world. Each of us alone can only do so much. Together we can accomplish so much more.

History will honor the high ideals of this organization. The charter states them with clarity: to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

Let history also record that our generation of leaders followed through on these ideals, even in adversity. Let history show that in a decisive decade, members of the United Nations did not grow weary in our duties, or waver in meeting them.

I am confident that this young century will be liberty's century. I believe we will rise to this moment, because I know the character of so many nations and leaders represented here today. And I have faith in the transforming power of freedom.

Thank you.

His strongest suit is the bond he forged with the American people immediately following the terror attack on September 11th. Mr. Bush reacted the way most Americans reacted: with anger and a stark determination to right the wrong.

And he did, he dethroned the Taliban and sent Al Qaeda into the caves. That sequence of events provided Bush with an emotional attachment to the folks. Only two other American Presidents in my lifetime have had that: John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

George W. Bush is also a strong leader. He doesn't waffle around, and he isn't poll driven. He makes determinations and sticks to them. Some believe this is a minus, but I think a strong leader is a major plus in this time of terror.

So, the President's determination to stay the course could very much help him win re-election if the course is deemed successful. That's the hard part.

Also, Mr. Bush is seen as an honest man who espouses traditional values. That will shore up his conservative base, and even though he's a huge spender, the right-wing will not abandon him.

Finally in the plus department, the President is helped by those who are demonizing him. The criticism is so over the top in many quarters that legitimate questions about Bush's leadership are sometimes lost among all the vitriol.

The loony left's defamatory attacks persuade no one; they are simply shrill notes to the choir that already despises the President. Bush rarely responds to the grenades, wisely calculating that the excessive venom will turn off independent-thinking Americans.

And now for the downside. The President rarely shows his affable side, because he distrusts his ability to communicate. He cloisters himself behind iron gates when he should be holding town meetings and interacting with the people. When Mr. Bush speaks from the heart, he comes across well.

When he relies on canned speeches and statements, he looks like Don Knotts. He has good reason to distrust the press, but that doesn't mean he should avoid it. Mr. Bush's inaccessibility is a major drawback.

While the economy is picking up and will recede as a major campaign issue, the President has enormous problems in Iraq. He must acknowledge those difficulties and explain the mistakes his administration has made.

Mr. Bush continues to run a tightly controlled, closed shop. This will hurt him in a close election race. Americans will accept mistakes from a President, but they will not accept uncertainty. Bush's failure to get out in front of the administration's problems and define the payoff a stable Iraq will deliver is the biggest weapon the democrats have against him.

The President is generally disliked overseas and that's not good. He is portrayed in many places as an American chauvinist with a poor frame of reference. Thus, he is underestimated by prigs like Chirac and Schroeder.

The upside is that Mr. Bush is feared by the bad guys. Osama will not be visiting a Club Med anytime soon. But the President should make an attempt to be conciliatory to countries that might possibly help America down the road. He must swallow some pride, and if he doesn't, the country will suffer.

All in all, George W. Bush could go either way in the history books. If his Iraqi gamble pays off and worldwide terrorism is kept on the defensive, he will be well remembered. If Iraq degenerates into a fiasco, he'll sidle up alongside Lyndon Johnson.

Like him or not, the President is a man of strength and weakness. But the war on terror will define him, and that war is still to be determined.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Petrified Truth
Transforming fact into rumor.
« Khalid talking | Main | Machiavellian thoughts »
September 21, 2003
Reagan-Bush
Time magazine is running excerpts this week from a newly-published volume of Ronald Reagan's letters. The letters are worth reading in whole, so a copy of the book itself will be a good investment. Also interesting is the grudgingly positive commentary by the Time reporters, which pauses to compare Reagan with George W. Bush.

It has always been tempting to compare the two men, especially since the Bush shop keeps a 24-hour honor guard around the Reagan flame. The letters remind us that Bush and Reagan both rose as Governors of big states; both are Westerners to the core, vigorous, unabashed, plainspoken and dismissed as incurious. They were bracketed by tinkerers and tacticians: Carter, Bush pere and Clinton all worked the margins, looked for an opening. Reagan and Bush are by contrast radicals, risk takers, playing for keeps. It's almost part of the conservative catechism: Bush, as Reagan did, conveys the sense that he has had a full life apart from his political fortunes; both men give the impression that they could have run and lost and been content back at the ranch with their beloved wives, clearing brush, chopping wood, moving on. So with nothing to lose, they play for the whole table: overhaul the tax code, topple the evil empire, save the world from terrorism. Why settle for less?
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The Facts Show Increase of Jobs Under Bush
Paige McKenzie, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2004
The media and Democrats keep repeating it over and over: "2.3 million jobs lost" since President Bush took office. His could be the worst job record since before World War II, they claim.
One little problem: It's not true.

Not only has there been no net loss of jobs during the Bush administration, there has been a net gain, even with the devastation of 9/11. At least 2.4 million jobs have been created since the president took office, 2 million of those in 2003. The gains more than offset the losses.

While Democrats continue to beat their election-year drums about outsourcing, manufacturing losses, unemployment and slow growth in employment, America’s economy has been steadily creating jobs.

At least 366,000 jobs have been created in the last five months, over 100,000 of those in January, White House press secretary Scott McClellan has noted. And though the eight-month recession “officially” ended in November, economic indicators are surprising economists and pointing toward a take-off in the recovery.

The signs:

The 5.6 percent unemployment rate is the lowest in two years and below the average of the 1980s (7.3 percent) and '90s (5.8 percent), and still continues to drop.

The nation's economic output revealed the strongest quarterly growth in 20 years. The data for the fourth quarter of 2003 show that the civilian labor force rose by 333,000, while the number of unemployed in the labor force dropped by 575,000, and the number of so-called discouraged workers is less than .3 percent of the workforce, according to Paul Kersey of the Heritage Foundation.

Consumer spending grew between 4 percent and 5 percent last year, and real hourly earnings rose 1.5 percent. Real earnings have risen over the last three years.

Exports doubled to 19 percent in the fourth quarter, compared to less than 9 percent in the third.

The number of American workers is at an all-time high of 138.5 million, a level never before attained in U.S. history.

Jobless claims are 10 percent below the average of the last 25 years and still falling.

Hiring indices are up, even in manufacturing.

Productivity growth is extremely high.

Now the doomsayers are criticizing the validity of the unemployment rate, which at 5.6 percent does not fit their gloomy story.

Faulty Counting

The problem is the areas of biggest job growth are usually not even being counted at all.

Though 75 percent of jobs are created by small companies, according to the Small Business Administration, this sector’s entrepreneurial activity and the jobs it creates are left out by Washington bean counters when calculating official new job numbers.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does its Payroll Survey by phoning businesses to crunch the number of jobs that have been gained or lost. This is where Democrats grabbed onto their lifeline, the 2.3 million figure. Look only at the Payroll Survey, and there has been a gain of only 522,000 jobs since Bush took office.

But here’s the rub. The Household Survey is used to determine the unemployment rate and accounts for those who are self-employed, and small emerging businesses that might be overlooked by the Payroll Survey. But the number of U.S. firms isn’t static, and the "fixed list" used by the BLS for phoning established businesses does not reflect new entrepreneurial activity.

People are called at home and asked if they have jobs, or if they are in the market for a job. In contrast to the Payroll Survey, the Household Survey shows that 2.4 million jobs have been created so far during Bush's time in office.

As Economy.com writer Haseeb Ahmed recently wrote, "something is amiss in the [Payroll] survey."

Credit Where Credit Is Due

That’s not all. When doomsayers, and media spoiling for a fight in an election year, laughed at Bush’s prediction of 2.6 million new jobs this year, not everyone was scoffing.

Ahmed, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and others hardly batted an eye. Greenspan said it was "probably feasible" the economy would reach the Bush administration's forecast of adding 2.6 million jobs this year, provided growth continues and the productivity rate slows to more typically levels.

"I don't think it's 'Fantasyland,'" Greenspan said.

"I agree with him," said John Ryding, chief market economist at Bear Stearns. "I think that we will create 2.5 million, possibly more, jobs over the balance of the year."

Ahmed is convinced that "the revision patterns of the early-1990s recovery cycle" will be repeated. A total of 1.4 million job gains were revised upward to 2.9 million in the first 21 months after the end of the last recession, just after Bush Sr. was voted out of office.

Next: If elected, will John Kerry get credit for the jobs created under the Bush administration? And find out why so many workers are not being counted.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Friday, Oct. 8, 2004 3:56 p.m. EDT
Bremer: Bush Is Still Right About Iraq

Apparently tired of how the media establishment and its pet John Kerry have distorted his recent remarks on Iraq, former administrator L. Paul Bremer III has a column today in the worst offender, the New York Times.

Story Continues Below
Among his points:

"The press has been curiously reluctant to report my constant public support for the president's strategy in Iraq.
"I have been involved in the war on terrorism for two decades, and in my view no world leader has better understood the stakes in this global war than President Bush."

"The president was right when he concluded that Saddam Hussein was a menace who needed to be removed from power.
"He understands that our enemies are not confined to al-Qaida, and certainly not just to Osama bin Laden, who is probably trapped in his hide-out in Afghanistan.

"As the bipartisan 9/11 commission reported, there were contacts between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein's regime going back a decade. We will win the war against global terror only by staying on the offensive and confronting terrorists and state sponsors of terror - wherever they are.

"Right now, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Qaida ally, is a dangerous threat. He is in Iraq."

"Mr. Kerry is free to quote my comments about Iraq.
"But for the sake of honesty he should also point out that I have repeatedly said, including in all my speeches in recent weeks, that President Bush made a correct and courageous decision to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein's brutality, and that the president is correct to see the war in Iraq as a central front in the war on terrorism."
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2004 12:02 a.m. EDT
Iraqi Nuke Scientist: Saddam Had WMD Program

The Iraqi physicist who ran his country's uranium enrichment program says that Saddam Hussein continued to fund efforts to develop nuclear weapons right up until the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

"Saddam kept funding the IAEC [Iraq Atomic Energy Commission] from 1991 ... until the war in 2003," reveals Dr. Mahdi Obeidi in his new book, "The Bomb in My Garden."

While Saddam's nuclear program officially ended after the first Gulf War, the reality, says Dr. Obeidi, was far different.

"I was developing the centrifuge for the weapons" right through 1997, he now admits.

In an interview with WABC Radio's John Gambling, the Iraqi centrifuge scientist said he was ordered to keep his nuclear bombmaking research concealed from U.N. weapons inspectors.

And even after 1997 - when Saddam's nuke program went dormant - Obeidi says he continued to keep his centrifuge plans in safe storage - in a cardboard box buried beneath a lotus plant in his front yard.

"I had to maintain the program to the bitter end," Obeidi explained, saying his only other choice was death. All the while the Iraqi physicist was aware that he held the key to Saddam's continuing nuclear ambitions.

"The centrifuge is the single most dangerous piece of nuclear technology," he writes. "With advances in centrifuge technology, it is now possible to conceal a uranium enrichment program inside a single warehouse."

The nuke plans he buried included "the full set of blueprints, designs - everything to restart the centrifuge program - along with some critical components of the centrifuge."

Writes Dr. Obeidi:

"Would Saddam have tried to build nuclear weapons again? One can only imagine he would have. For the time being, however, the core knowledge for rebuilding the centrifuge program lay buried in my garden, waiting for the order from Qusay Hussein or his father."
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

none of it changes the fact that Bush invaded on "evidence" of WMD.....

he was wrong, he's been wrong about a lot of stuff...
and i believe the headlines after his last UN speech were

Bush demands U.N. help for Iraq

By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

the UN gave him the cold shoulder..

that's not the kind of leadership we need...
cuz the world ain't interested in Bush's demands...hasn't been for quite a while...

the GOP is getting desparate now......cuz the stabilization in the mid-east is not happening either...

remeber how Bush kept saying "it's a hard job"?

well after all the enemies he has made, it's gonna be a lot harder.....

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 13, 2004).]
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by tigertony:
Stabilization in the middle east is been on going since i was born.And will probably still be going on when i'm dead.Nobody wants to give an inch over there.So it will continue.

---

absolutely correct Tony.....
that is what Bush meant when he said we can't win the war on terror...only people don't want to hear that....everybody seems to have forgotten the WHOLE Iran story....

the Shah was our ally, a good ally....

i don't know how to tell everybody what we have to deal with there.....nobody really wants to hear it, and from what i see so far Bush didn't want to hear it either....we are in for a long tough struggle.....Bush thought he was going to have a freaking statue made of him.....DUHHHHH..........

 

I recall him saying this will be a long struggle....

Please, please no statues.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kate:
I look upon this election, as a spiritual battle! If these are the end times, as a lot of Christians believe, then who would you rather have as leader? Someone who is willing to share his faith,and the gospel to all four corners of the world, like it says in scripture, or someone who thinks that God is mentioned way too many times? How can you mention the creator of the universe, too many times? Do you vote for the light, or for the darkness? Do you sit in the middle? Just wanted to make you think! I know you guys probably just love waiting to see what I am going to type! lol!

---

its a good thing Bush has you on his side. At least you agree with him on Stem cell research.
 

[This message has been edited by futuresobjective (edited October 13, 2004).]
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by keithsan:
when did he say it would be quick and easy...

I recall him saying this will be a long struggle....

Please, please no statues.

---

he did it by his whole approach keith......
the embedded reporter thing???????
you don't think they did to show the world a bunch of dead bodies do you?????
it was a joke...ask anybody who knows anything about killing.....
 

[This message has been edited by tigertony (edited October 13, 2004).]
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
he did it by his whole approach keith......
the embedded reporter thing???????
you don't think they did to show the world a bunch of dead bodies do you?????
it was a joke...ask anybody who knows anything about killing.....

---

guess i'm not as synical as you, i like the idea of embedded reporting, the vietnam way didn't work....and this is a media driven culture.

But saying we're bringing tv cameras cuz this war is a joke is a really far reach, even for you.....

You see france crying after the report today....whaaaa, its not true.... we weren't bribed....we didn't tell sadam we would veto for him.....

maybe if they weren't bribed, the war doesn't happen cuz sadam complies....

duelfer report if you haven't read it...
http://www.foia.cia.gov/duelfer/Iraqs_WMD_Vol1.pdf
 

you don't remember what??????

i REMEMBER declarations of success all over the place by this guy....not just on the aircraft carrier......

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-06-05-bush-qatar_x.htm

and pay close attention to the part where you don't worry about WMD.....

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 13, 2004).]
 

there are so many MAJOR screw-ups i don't have time to list them....
it's been one after another..
from the same article]

Some allies worried when Bush went to war without U.N. approval that he would tackle future problems with a go-it-alone approach. The conduct of the Middle East summit may renew some of those questions: The "road map" peace plan was written by the United States, the European Union, United Nations and Russia, but only the United States was at the summit.

he is a lot more than unpopular in the rest of the world....
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by futuresobjective:
it was a success... that part of the op. then the hard work came... which he stated, time and time again

---

no no no.....

check the dates......6/5/2003
they thought we were gonna be pumping out all the oil we could want all year this year...

 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
he did it by his whole approach keith......
the embedded reporter thing???????
you don't think they did to show the world a bunch of dead bodies do you?????
it was a joke...ask anybody who knows anything about killing.....

---

i'm not---i'm just trying to show you the truth of the matter....

Poland was talking about pulling out...
Blair is in trouble at home....

the Aussies re-elected their conservative---BUT they are downunder anyway...
 

quote:

---

Glass you continue to impress me with your obviously intentional ability to avoid the obvious when it's reality. The embedded reporter idea was brilliant because it suceeded in showing the world in real-time how fast we cut through what was considered the best any arab nation could muster as far as a millitary force.
Yet again you are wrong.
Does it ever get old?

[/B]

---

LOL DQR they knew that from the first gulf war already----100hrs remember....fact is, that invasion was a cakewalk cuz Iraq was UNDEFENDED...sheesh

furthermore, as soon as things started looking the least bit bad the censors stepped right in......

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 13, 2004).]
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
LOL DQR they knew that from the first gulf war already----100hrs remember....fact is, that invasion was a cakewalk cuz Iraq was UNDEFENDED...sheesh

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 13, 2004).]

---

the whole thing is a pack of lies....

and i think YOU know it DQR.......

so does the rest of the world...
and they aren't impressed...

maybe Kaddaffi turned in his nuclear PLANS...LOL
and the Pakis SWEAR they will stop selling nuke stuff to N Korea and Iran LOL.....

Iran and N Korea weren't too impressed were they?

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 13, 2004).]
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
i agree with you somewhat DQR....
BUT
we were also trying to convince OURSELVES that we were not gonna have to get our hands WET

---

at least you admit it to be what it was....

a forced regime change cuz we wanted to....
not for self-defense...
fascism

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 13, 2004).]
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
So DQR at least you admit it to be what it was....

a forced regime change cuz we wanted to....

fascism....

---

obviously true???

we invaded a third world country?

for what? regime change??

and we did that on what moral authority?

oh yeah, the same moral authority the USSR invaded the Czechs with in the 60's, Afghanistan with in the 70's and the same one Germany used to take whatever it wanted?

and before you sart saying it's different cuz we are going to let them have elections....wait....

cuz they are gonna have the only democracy in the mid-east...except afgh. LOL
its an expirement and these guys thought the Iraqis wanted US LOL...........

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 13, 2004).]
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
[b]
A forced regime change because it had to be done. Do you regret topling Nazi Germany?
Was that also facism? You really must take time to rehearse these posts of yours. I do regret you haven't my improvisational abilities but we all have our good points.
Take your time, write out a few rough drafts, then procede with trying to refute what is obviously true.

obviously true???

we invaded a third world country?

for what? regime change??

and we did that on what moral authority?

oh yeah, the same moral authority the USSR invaded Afghanistan with in the 70's and the same one Germany used to take whatever it wanted?

and before you sart saying it's different cuz we are going to let them have elections....wait....
cuz they are gonna have the only democracy inthe mid-east...except afgh. LOL
its an expirement...........

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 13, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 13, 2004).][/B]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by DiQuiRiesco:
Seems to have worked in Germany and Japan.
Next failed atempt to refute reality please...

[/B]

---

interesting technique.....
you are presuming the same way Bush does....
i have not failed at anything just because you say so...LOL the GOP has beeen using this sick technique all campaign...
use facts, not rhetoric...

Japan and Germany attacked first..that's the Moral issue...

not only that, they had the capability to execute a war of aggression...that was our moral rudder.....not greed

Saddam never attacked US, he didn't have the capability.....
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
interesting technique.....
you are presuming the same way Bush does....
i have not failed at anything just because you say so...LOL the GOP has beeen using this sick technique all campaign...
use facts, not rhetoric...

Japan and Germany attacked first..that's the Moral issue...

not only that, they had the capability to execute a war of aggression...that was our moral rudder.....not greed

Saddam never attacked US, he didn't have the capability.....

---

But you state he HAS failed using the same technique..... what the war has failed, 2 years in.... what war isn't a mess at that point. hell go check out kosovo..or any war you pick... after WW2 10k killed in france and germany.... 10k! that was just the first year after the war...

 

the problem is simple....they didn't....

this is like shooting somebody on the front lawn cuz they look wrong......

the cops throw you in jail and you get sentenced to 20 to life......unlees the guy has a gun.....no gun?????
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
Keith, i am NOT anti-war...
Heck, if they had WMD....it would be fine..RIGHT?

the problem is simple....they didn't....

this is like shooting somebody on the front lawn cuz they look wrong......

the cops throw you in jail and you get sentenced to 20 to life......unlees the guy has a gun.....no gun?????

---

No, its like telling someone tell me why your on my lawn or i'll kill you. first you have received many warnings. you have yet to give an answer with full disclosure. If you continue to reply in this manner, i will be forced to remove you. You have the choice, decide well.....

wrong decision.

I never argue the wmd's part, i am for a very strong group of nations that backs up what they say. not threats that aren't backed up cuz little france has a free veto....the fact that no WMD's were found truly sucks and is very scary.

I am anti war! But, not when justified... as i feel this has been.

Now bombing iran tomorrow, which probably is a good idea, is not right, there is no warning, no broken sanctions no nothing, same for korea. Just showing up with an army sends the wrong message.

sadam was just ignorant at playing world poker. he had pocket deuces in france.... they don't hold much weight.

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
well FO a glance tells me i have seen and or heard all of that when it came out...

none of it changes the fact that Bush invaded on "evidence" of WMD.....

he was wrong, he's been wrong about a lot of stuff...
and i believe the headlines after his last UN speech were
[b]
Bush demands U.N. help for Iraq

By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

the UN gave him the cold shoulder..

that's not the kind of leadership we need...
cuz the world ain't interested in Bush's demands...hasn't been for quite a while...

the GOP is getting desparate now......cuz the stabilization in the mid-east is not happening either...

remeber how Bush kept saying "it's a hard job"?

well after all the enemies he has made, it's gonna be a lot harder.....

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 13, 2004).][/B]

---

this is like shooting somebody on the front lawn cuz they look wrong......

the cops throw you in jail and you get sentenced to 20 to life......unlees the guy has a gun.....no gun?????
::::::
my replies:
I could not disagree with you more.

:::::::::
Also do you think the ability to produce these weapons is any less of a threat than actually having them? Especially when considering the man who had control over the facilities, and has defied over and over again any resolution that the un passed, and someone who (most agree(d)) on wanted to start up the weapons program again.

I can not find any truth in the senator, everything he said tonight as far as the economy was either a stretch or a full straight out lie when basing it on his record. There is truth to what our President has been saying about his opponent.

[This message has been edited by futuresobjective (edited October 14, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by futuresobjective (edited October 14, 2004).]
 

[This message has been edited by futuresobjective (edited October 14, 2004).]
 

The problem is both times i saw it, it made my stomach turn as in "scumbag".

thats just my opinion...
 

i don't think it's going to change any votes.....unless there are some conservatives that didn't know????doubt it...

just something else to spit at each other over.....

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
i don't like it either, but after all the other mud that's been thrown?????

i don't think it's going to change any votes.....unless there are some conservatives that didn't know????doubt it...

just something else to spit at each other over.....

---

I don't think it will change any votes either. It is a different kind of mud though.
 

This is not a very nice thing to say, but it's the truth...that woman scares me more than anybody else.

One bad PMS day and she would nuke the pentagon.

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
i don't like it either, but after all the other mud that's been thrown?????

i don't think it's going to change any votes.....unless there are some conservatives that didn't know????doubt it...

just something else to spit at each other over.....

---

get this...if Bush wins...

Hillary will be running in 08...

if Kerry wins, Hillary won't be running, but Jeb might, which is just as bad...

i have NEVER voted for a single Democrat in my life.....

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 15, 2004).]
 

I knew you were a republican at one time, but I also know you are more than a little disenchanted with the current administration.

I was just joking around with you

Janie

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
NO, obviously, you haven't read enough of my posts.
Hillary scares me a lot....

get this...if Bush wins...

Hillary will be running in 08...

if Kerry wins, Hillary won't be running, but Jeb might, which is just as bad...

i have NEVER voted for a single Democrat in my life.....

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 15, 2004).]

---

this campaign has turned into a propaganda fest...so i am just trying to make sure nobody mistakes me for a

fascist-commy-pinko-socialist 12-year-old girl

...LOL
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by glassman:
i know you were havin' fun with me....

this campaign has turned into a propaganda fest...so i am just trying to make sure nobody mistakes me for a

fascist-commy-pinko-socialist 12-year-old girl

...LOL

---

quote:

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Originally posted by glassman:
NO, obviously, you haven't read enough of my posts.
Hillary scares me a lot....

get this...if Bush wins...

Hillary will be running in 08...

if Kerry wins, Hillary won't be running, but Jeb might, which is just as bad...

i have NEVER voted for a single Democrat in my life.....

[This message has been edited by glassman (edited October 15, 2004).]

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well, you are definitely not the poster child for the republican party.
 

October 14, 2004
Here's my guide to how to talk to a Kerry voter.
On the Arizona for Bush mailing list I participate in, I’m often the one who goes after the Kerry trolls. Despite my blog name, I’ve gotten a reputation for being the most civil responder. So here’s my guidelines for how to have a civil discussion with a Kerry voter.

First off, ask them to come up with 3 positive things to say about Kerry, without saying something negative about President Bush, and without mentioning Vietnam.

Most of them can’t. Sympathize with them, and then tell them:

It’s not a mystery why that’s hard to do. The fact is, Kerry’s is an empty suit. He looks good, but the reality is that he has no major accomplishments in his life since Vietnam. In the 20 years in the Senate, he’s only passed 6 laws, and one of them was to rename a building.