molson_golden2002

Wow! Sounds like a real soap opera!

So in other words, its a civil war

Glad you chimed in. Iraq is done. Its gone, there really is no Iraq. Its three seperate regions that hate and mistrust each other. On top of that the educated middle class has fled, there are few people to do the important thinking jobs a modern society needs. So stay there trying to get the country to function is a really bad idea that will just get more GIs killed and waste national treasure Will it become a 'terrorist haven'? Who knows, but we can't stay there forever. Guess we will have to keep tabs on the place, but in the end, the Iraqis will have to settle what type of country they want to have by themselves. And maybe the idea of using diplomacy might actually help us keep tabs on terrorsits in the region. Dump this problem on our kids, and energy dependence, and the national debt with the retiring baby boomers, and global warming and and and

Pen might be mighter than the sword, but local leaders have a hell of a lot more sway over Iraqis than does CNN or any other network. It's laughable that CNN is a major reason the insurgency and civil war are happening. Total cop out. Me? Reading your posts in an adversarial manner? I just treat you like you treat me.

Tail wagging the Dog? http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2007...sts-to-use.html Israeli general suggests to use Azerbaijan's airbases in strike against Iran 02 January 2007 [01:20] - Today.Az In a stark statement published on Saturday Brigadier General Oded Tira observed, "President Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran. As an American strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help him pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and US newspaper editors. We need to do this in order to turn the Iranian issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure." Because of the dramatic loss of political power of the Bush-Cheney administration, General Tira urges the Israel Lobby to, "turn to Hillary Clinton and other potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party so that they support immediate action by Bush against Iran." In another move designed to strengthen Bush politically, General Tira urges the Israel Lobby to exert its influence on European countries so that, "Bush will not be isolated in the international arena again." As if all of that Israel-lobbying in America and Europe were not enough, General Tira proposes an even more aggressive political tactic, "We must clandestinely cooperate with Saudi Arabia so that it also persuades the US to strike Iran. For our part, we must prepare an independent military strike by coordinating flights in Iraqi airspace with the US. We should also coordinate with Azerbaijan the use of airbases in its territory and also enlist the support of the Azeri minority in Iran. In addition, we must immediately start preparing for an Iranian response to an attack." Based on the urgency of General Tira's extraordinary pleas, it is immediately apparent that he has been shocked by the turn of political events inside America. By this time, he has learned from official US sources that the long-anticipated attack against Iran has been shelved because of tectonic shifts in American politics. Apparently, General Tira did not realize that President Bush has become the most deeply unpopular president in American history and that it was his subservience to the dictates of the Israel Lobby and its demands for wars against Iraq and Iran that led him into the political prison where he now finds himself isolated and impotent. Neither does General Tira realize that the Republican Party is no longer unified in its support of President Bush's deeply unpopular war in Iraq or his plans for expanding the war by a sustained bombing campaign against Iran. Since General Tira did not publish any remarks about the Iraq Study Group headed by former US Secretary of State, James Baker, he may be oblivious to the political facts now in place in 2007 America. Instead of the bipartisan commitment to broaden Bush's unpopular war as General Tira proposes, there is now a broadening bipartisan movement to reign in the US losses in Iraq. No major American politician has voiced any enthusiasm for broadening Bush's war into Iran as General Tira beseeches the US to do. General Tira's outburst suggests that the official channels for news and the analysis of public affairs in Israel are not working as efficiently as they should in the 21st century. Perhaps, someone should provide the General with a subscription to Ha'aretz and the International Herald Tribune for starters.

I don't think GOP threw the election, they just lost. But the 'surge' is looking like an even bigger farse every day. They are not even sending enough troops to do what General Petraeus said needs to be done to quiet an insurgency. No where even close, actually. Perhaps macho Bush just wants to play tough, using the troops, with Congress. Raise the stakes so they have to stop him, and then he can claim he had the formula for victory but the liberal stopped him from succeeding.

Ya, it's my fault the Duke Lacrosse bull sh-- happened. A case I know absolutely nothing about, and one I care about even less. Maybe you should start a thread on it to discuss with the many people who worship you here

A politician grandstanding? No!

Spitzer didn't committ robbery, he issued fines. You got a problem with fines? You and Darin could start a new political party which preaches the virtues of a government that runs without revenue. Have fun! Who went to jail? Damn few, but who writes the laws? On one hand you argue that no one went to jail, on the other hand you say the fines are theft. Nice to have it both ways. Late trading is legal? http://www.sec.gov/answers/latetrading.htm Are you really this stupid?

Democracy is a B word, ain't it? Iraq has a free press, you know. If you are going to fight a war to extend, among other things, freedom of the press, then you better be ready for it. And stop making CNN out to be some type of all powerful opinion maker, they are not. They didn't lose this fiasco, it was lost before it started. You can't put together a non-nation with democratic institutions. The three sections of Iraq can only be held together by force. This was a failure from the time it was on the drawing board. CNN is not putting the troops in danger, the people who sent them there are. It's pretty pathetic of you trying to blame this on the news media. You claim to be an extremly independent thinker, but in reality you just take the basic GOP/Bush talking points and change them around a little bit and out comes a different version of the same argument: Its the medias fault! Grow up! And I never said "I support the troops" I don't "support" them any more than I support a janitor at the local school. I support them as human beings who are being exploited for their bravery. They should be brought home so they can enjoy their lives, not stationed on a street corner next to al-Sadr's militia men "guarding" something. If you idea of 'supporting' them is to leave them in that fvcking worthless hell hole then you really need to look in the mirror. And last point, I have every fvcking right to discuss this topic. Just because you went to a funeral of a soldier you knew gives you no more "right" than anybody else to discuss this topic. Democracy sucks, don't it?

Nope, I figure you didn't support this great 'liberal' experiment, but you have complained about the lack of media coverage of the 'progress' and generally have a knee jerk reaction to any criticism of the war, except when you blame it on liberal extravagence. So, I posted something showing the darest side of the war the media barely metions--flag drapped caskets? What flag drapped caskets?--and you reacted predictably, downplaying it. Americans love the cliff notes of war, not the longer real version.

Sure, we should cut taxes and let the soldiers buy private health insurance. Close Walter Reed and the VA. Reminds me of the day this war started. The GOP controlled House passed a resolution praising the soldiers....and President Bush!! for their bravery. Later that night they cut funding for the VA! What fvcking a** holes! You may consider taxes to help the wounded soldiers theft, I call it social justice.

Looks like the plan will be to flood Baghdad with new troops, station them on street corners and then to search house to house arresting young men and hauling them off to American jails, or worse, shiite torture rooms. Here is the Iraqi PM: "We are full aware that implementing the plan will lead to some harassment to all of beloved Baghdad's residents, but we are confident that they fully understand the brutal terrorist attacks Iraq faces." Bush has appointed a new general who implemented this strategy in Mosul, a city roughly 1/7 the size of Baghdad. Wolf Blitzer on CNN said that it was successful there until our troops were pulled out for other areas and the place fell apart again. Also, Mosul is mostly Kurdish, unlike Baghdad which is largely Shiite with a lot of ethniclly cleansed Sunnis. McCain is warning of many new casualties while the strategy is implemented, but says it will work in the end because the Iraqis will feel safe to go to work, won't have to rely on the militias for protection and economic activity would flower all under the steady eye our boys in uniform. One wonders why the American Enterprise Institute authors of this plan think the Iraqis will suddendly become uncorrupted administrators of a government no one trusts. And corruption is a key componet of all this. Can't have a government function with too much corruption. Also, these American troops will go out into Baghdad with Iraqi troops who probably are agents of the militias. That's a disaster waiting to happen. God speed

Nothing to say, yet again?

Don't know the exact numbers, no. You win some you lose some

Nope, you are the idiot. Obvioulsy you get your 'news' directly from Rush Limbo. Your slant on this issuse proves that. It's pretty laughable of you to imply that Spitzer is somehow anti-business. Corruption in buisiness hurts everyone, including business in general. Transparancy, fair play, level playing field all encourage competition. Aside from his major victories over organized crime, he has also helped punish corporations for deliberatly misleading investors--you do agree having confidence in the system is important?-- and practices like late trading which enriched the few well connected at the expense of others. And BTW, OJ was innocent?

Right, you wrote that we should all weigh the facts then you turn around and ask why I would post some facts that need to be weighed And furthermore, that the government is screwed up does not mean that it cannot solve major problems we face, and indeed needs to solve them

I agree with you. The reason I posted it is to show the GOP problem of catering too much to the Southern Social Conservatives. It could be a decade long problem, or not, but will be interesting to see play out. I will love to see how McCain tip toes around garnering support from the South and looking like a moderate later

No! It's a cakewalk, remember? Not surprised you would want to kick it down to the cliff notes and leave out the real details of what is happening to our troops. Progress indeed!

http://www.antiwar.com/glantz/?articleid=10262 Beefing up the border? We can't even do that here. Or more of the same with no results. Two men a day from one doctor losing their genitals: On New Year's Eve, the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq passed 3,000. By Tuesday, the death toll had reached 3,004 – 31 more than died in the Sep. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But the number of injured has far outstripped the dead, with the Veterans Administration reporting that more than 150,000 veterans of the Iraq war are receiving disability benefits. Advances in military technology are keeping the death rate much lower than during the Vietnam War and World War Two, Dr. Col. Vito Imbascini, an urologist and state surgeon with the California Army National Guard, told IPS, but soldiers who survive attacks are often severely disabled for life. "If you lost an arm or a leg in Vietnam, you were also tremendously injured in your chest and abdomen, which were not protected by the armor plates back then," he said. "Now, your heart and chest and lungs and heart are protected by armor, leaving only your extremities exposed." Dr. Imbascini just returned from a four-month deployment to Germany, where he treated the worst of the U.S. war wounded. He said that an extremely high number of wounded soldiers are coming home with their arms or legs amputated. Imbascini said he amputated the genitals of one or two men every day. "I walk into the operating room and the general surgeons are doing their work and there is the body of this Navy SEAL, which is a physical specimen to behold," he told IPS. "And his abdomen is open, they're exploring both intestines. He's missing both legs below the knee, one arm is blown off, he's got incisions on his thighs to relieve the pressure on the parts of the legs that are hopefully gonna survive and there's genital injuries, and you just want to cry." According to documents obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, 25 percent of veterans of the "global war on terror" have filed disability compensation and pension benefit claims with the Veterans Benefits Administration. One is a Jul. 20, 2006, document titled "Compensation and Pension Benefit Activity Among Veterans of the Global War on Terrorism," which shows that 152,669 veterans filed disability claims after fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. Of the more than 100,000 claims granted, Veterans Administration records show at least 1,502 veterans have been compensated as 100 percent disabled. Pentagon studies show that 12 percent of soldiers who have served in Iraq suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The group Veterans for America, formerly the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, estimates 70,000 Iraq war veterans have gone to the VA for mental health care. New guidelines released by the Pentagon released last month allow commanders to redeploy soldiers suffering from traumatic stress disorders. According to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, servicemembers with "a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual symptoms do not impair duty performance" may be considered for duty downrange. It lists post-traumatic stress disorder as a "treatable" problem. "As a layman and a former soldier I think that's ridiculous," Steve Robinson, the director of Veterans Affairs for Veterans for America, told IPS. "If I've got a soldier who's on Ambien to go to sleep and Seroquel and Qanapin and all kinds of other psychotropic meds, I don't want them to have a weapon in their hand and to be part of my team because they're a risk to themselves and to others," he said. "But apparently, the military has its own view of how well a soldier can function under those conditions and is gambling that they can be successful." Robinson said problems with the policy are already starting to arise. On Christmas, for example, Army Reservist James Dean barricaded himself in his father's home with several weapons and threatened to kill himself. After a 14-hour standoff with authorities, Dean was killed by a police officer after he aimed a gun at another officer, authorities told the Washington Post. Veterans for America's Robinson told IPS that Dean, who had already served 18 months in Afghanistan, had been diagnosed with PTSD. He had just been informed that his unit would be sent to Iraq on Jan. 14. "We call that suicide by cop," Robinson said. After his death, Dean's friends told the Washington Post that the reservist enjoyed hunting and fishing but had lost much of his enthusiasm for life when he found out that he was being deployed to Iraq. "When Congress comes back in session we're looking forward to accountability hearings," Robinson said. "We want to see veterans helped in the first 100 hours of the new session. We want to see the word 'veteran' somewhere in that first hundred hours." Robinson says his organization has also documented the existence of at least 1,000 homeless veterans of the Iraq war. "We need to get on top of the problem of homelessness," he said. "It's too soon to be seeing homelessness. I want to be seeing a commitment from the Democratic Congress to dealing with the war and the needs of the soldiers in the first hundred hours of them coming to power."

That works both ways, maybe its you who is wrong, very wrong. But we won't find that out because you only speak in generalities

I'm happy with molson, no need for much else. I like a Guiness once and a while, Sam Adams is awful and I see no need to explore new beers when the one I drink I enjoy.

It's one step above cheap beer

Perhaps you could, well, you know, be specific, or semi-specific, or give even a slight hint about what you disagree with. I mean make an argument of some sort. Maybe the problem is that you can't. Is that it? Not smart enough?

Why change the subject? He was still going after criminals. And for your information, you do not spend money on lawyers only if you are going to trail. They do other things to prevent prosecution. I take it you are defending Darin's argument that this guy was simply going after big business for the sake of going after them. Bootlickers generally take this point of view. Please tell us how he was simply picking on corporations