Throwing Shoes

Well, now you know what Saddam was keeping the lid on til President Shrub decided to
outdo his Daddy, aided and abetted by the Born-Again Cretin Blair.
 
I would have liked to have seen Bush catch one of those and throw it back and get the guy right between the eyes. Then all the Bush haters could have said how cruel Bush is to assult someone as innocent as a reporter for the extremist. I think ANY American that is not insulted by the way OUR president was treated should live where they don't allow such behavior. By the way, we are still in Japan and Germany and that war ended in 1945. Is our presence there still in our interest?
 
We really don't need to be the leader of the world, just walk softly and carry a big stick.

There are really two issues here. The War in Iraq is one, but the US also has troops in something like 130 other countries. We're told the need to "project power" stems from the need to "protect American interests abroad." What does that mean?

Part of it is stabilizing regimes in countries which export things we use, such as oil. If we weren't involved in the middle east, how volatile might oil prices become? If Iran could shut down tanker shipping at will, how much would you pay at the pump?

The free-market enthusiast in me says we should let the oil companies take on their own risks, and if gasoline prices fluctuate wildly as a result, let 'em. If we get sick enough of it, all these new technolgies will suddenly become competitive. There will be costs to the economy, but probably less than the taxes to support military intervention.

The American people would prefer the inefficiency of the current plan because it's easier and requires less personal effort, IMHO.

We also have bases throughout Europe. Why? Because as much as we talk about being "leader of the free world" as a burden, it also enables you to make the rules.

Wouldn't it be interesting to see what would happen to socialist economies if we pulled our troops out and let them fund their own national defense? If their way of life is so much better, shouldn't they be motivated to pay to preserve it themselves?

The US can't keep maintaining an empire on borrowed money forever. I'm both concerned and fascinated by what the next couple decades will bring.
 
What will be funny is, if America liberates Iraq, then like when England did the same to India. Then all the Iraqes will be able to get an American passport, and come streaming over in their thousands.:boink:
 
No. Our presence in Japan, germany and any other foreign country is not required. The sky is not falling on what the US does or does not do.
JW Wright
 
I was impressed with how quick the Pres dodged it!


I've enjoyed several good chuckles/ laughs since about 0500 this morning; reason being the op/ ed cartoon in my morning rag.

President Bush is standing at the lectern, wearing a catchers gear; mask and chest protector and he's saying..."and now, I'll be happy to take your questions."

I wish I could use my scanner so's I could post it for y'all.

Yeah, I'm a Republican but I can still laugh at a good cartoon. :D


Cheers :)
 
HobbyCad, it was an irony about the journalist.
Dale Young . . .you can´t be serious man . . .
But this last days of Shrubster we are going to see how pittyfull the whole saga was.
Better go dig the Foruns since the first election . . .
Heron
 
The shoe-throwing incident was disrespectful to say the least, but in the long run I think this will be regarded as one of the more defining moments in Bush's legacy. It really brings home the stark contrast between what we Americans were originally told to expect by our President ("..we'll be greeted as liberators"), and the way in which the Iraqis view the situation. To quote the shoe-thrower -- "This is your farewell kiss, you dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

For those of you who think this incident merely shows what a bunch of ungrateful pigs the Iraqis are -- realize that there probably aren't too many Iraqis who were sad to see Saddam taken down. But at what cost? 100,000 civilian deaths? 5 years of chaos? Is your freedom worth the lives of your entire family? If we'd explained to the Iraqi people ahead of time what their "freedom" would actually look like and what it was going to cost, I think most would have told us no thanks.

Hopefully we'll all be a bit wiser next time the chicken-hawks start calling for the "liberation" of another evil-doer country.
 
Well said, Iven.
Personally, I blame Tony Blair more than some.
His participation gave an air of legitimacy to an illegal invasion of a sovereign state.
Without Blair, I dont believe W could have gone to war.
Hopefully Obama will make a better leader.
 
Somewhere in Youtube it must be a video showing Blair saying on TV that he personally saw the proof Iraq had AMDs.
After watching one of the main senators in the USA, point is finger at the Prez and saying out loud, you are lying and misleading the nation and no one went to jail . . .all was lost . . .you may call that politics but I see something else . . .
He had a hard on for Saddam and the pupeteers for money, so they let him loose and this is the result.
Again . . .go back way back and find the evidence . . .the plot still going.
We did not have any Oil Barons living here, so we went to alternate fuel without any constraints and today the USA, the nation that needs the most, is way behind in that field.
I feel for you . . .
Heron
 
I'm still amazed that the Americans didn't just plant a small nuke in some underground bunker in Iraq to support their wmd theory. :tape:
 
Anybody notice the journalist that threw the shoe has described his behavior as an ugly act and asked to be pardoned? He could face two year in jail.

To put it in before & after comparison terms;

a. One reporter throws a shoe, and then says his behavior is bad.

b. thousands gassed, executed into ditches, own military run over by tanks, torture camps, cabinet members shot - including relatives, a bluntly vocalized goal of WMD (just a few of the highlights of Saddam). Where is the liberal's concern for quality & saving of life or is the concern only superficial and actually self centered?
 
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If you only knew ....

If you only knew ....

The cia tried to plant a whole bunch of such ordinance early on during the ground war. One such mission was intercepted by our military and I forget the exact number, something like a dozen or 2 agents got vaporized.

Friendly fire has it benefits.

That is the problem with running covert ops in a war zone. Too late to tell friend from foe until some one from high up gives some one down low a butt chewing.


Jr has a lot of practice from dodging things from his wife I am sure.





I'm still amazed that the Americans didn't just plant a small nuke in some underground bunker in Iraq to support their wmd theory. :tape:
 
We recovered plenty of WMD material without having to plant anything.

Tim, just curious, would you mind giving us some examples of the PLENTY of WMD materials recovered?

Not bashing anyone's country, or people, only trying to find out if my info is wrong.

In my book, a spanner that is used to tighten the fuse of a nuclear bomb, is not a WMD. A tube that can be used to pipe heavy water, is not a nuclear reactor. A bag of Sulphur is not gunpowder. A physical bomb, or a physical reactor, or a stack of precursor chemicals already mixed together, now there are some WMD's.

Regards,

Francois
 
For starters:

6-21-2006
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) announced Wednesday the finding of over 500 munitions or weapons of mass destruction, specifically “sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles,” in Iraq.
Reading from unclassified portions of a document developed by the U.S. intelligence community, Santorum said, “Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.”
According to Santorum, “That means in addition to the 500, there are filled and unfilled munitions still believed to exist within the country.”
Reading from the document, Santorum added, “Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the Black Market. Use of these weapons by terrorist or insurgent groups would have implications for coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside of Iraq cannot be ruled out. The most likely munitions remaining are sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles. And I underscore filled.”
Santorum said the “purity of the agents inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives and environmental storage conditions.”
While acknowledging that the agents “degrade over time,” the document said that the chemicals “remain hazardous and potentially lethal.”
The media has reported that “insurgents and Iraqi groups” want to “acquire and use chemical weapons,” Santorum noted.

The Pennsylvania senator called the finding “incredibly” significant.

“The idea that, as my colleagues have repeatedly said in this debate on the other side of the aisle, that there are no weapons of mass destruction is in fact false,” Santorum said. “We have found over 500 weapons of mass destruction and in fact have found that there are additional chemical weapons still in the country.”

July 7, 2008
Here's a story you may have missed over the long holiday weekend: 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium worth tens of millions of dollars were shipped out of Iraq to Canada. The material was transported in 37 military flights in 3,500 secure barrels, according to the Associated Press........
http://www.nysun.com/editorials/iraqs-yellowcake/81328/
 
...and guess who sold Saddam the chemical weapons years before the first gulf war, the then Donald Rumsfeldt and his defence gang !! A FACT that can be researched. It was meant to be used against the Iranians, in the days when Saddam was a friend of the US. Remember the saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend !! So don't blame Saddam for having something that the US gave him, or claim it to be WMD's "discovered", something the US new exactly he had. The disaster is the story is, the scumbag Saddam did not need them against the Iranians, so he eventually used them against the Kurds.

The yellowcake stuff, again, it's a precursor chemical, that "could" be used to make weapons grade uranium, that then "could" be used to make a WMD. NO WAY a WMD find, again something the US knew about, but mislead the public that is was already in WMD form. Your tubing in your rotorcraft "could", "could", "could", so you have a WMD !! If the inspectors found anything closer to the last step, yes, I would agree with you. The case studies were always "feasable", due to "informants" that wanted to get into the US's favor, but never lead to "actual" finds. They lied through their teeth. Just as the US backed new regime leaders, then changed over to other leaders, when the ones first selected fell out of favor.

What about the tubing from Niger story, Karl Rove and the CIA operative story, another WMD "creation".

Listen here guy's, Saddam was a douchebag, but don't pull claims from the air, just to validate the invasion. Find other reasons to do that. Who was that gung-ho US CIA operator-turned-weapons-inspector, that at first was the "be-all" of weapons inspectors. He hunted high and low, in the end, he "turned against" the search for WMD program, publicly declaring it a failure, nothing found!!

Regards,

Francois
 
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