Losman-McGahee-Evans Posted January 10, 2005 Author Posted January 10, 2005 I think it's disingenuous at the least to say Saudi's stable. It's like pressure cooker. A thin vaneer of control overlapping a roiling trouble. We, simply put, MUST put down this rebellion by the Sunnis no matter the method or cost. Half-jokingly, I've advocated the Roman method many a time. Now I'm not quite so joking. The Iraqis had a chance to work with us instead of against us. Now it's time for the iron fist. The velvet glove is simply beyond those people's capacity to understand at this point. 200671[/snapback] You would advocate the Roman method? In other words you support entertainingpeoplewith the gruesome death of the unwanted members of socirty? As far as being forced to using an iron fist it is not that we were forced. It's because we have failed in our mission due to incompetence and this is an act of desperation. The Iraqis did work with us but we made things worse. In fact if you add the numbers of Iraqis killed by Bush I and now under Bush II it surpasses any estimate of those that were killed under Saddam.
DC Tom Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 In fact if you add the numbers of Iraqis killed by Bush I and now under Bush II it surpasses any estimate of those that were killed under Saddam. 200772[/snapback] Not. Even. Remotely.
Losman-McGahee-Evans Posted January 10, 2005 Author Posted January 10, 2005 Not. Even. Remotely. 200775[/snapback] According to IRC over 125,000 were killed during Gulf I and conservative estimates for civilian deaths during Gulf II are put at 100-120,000. Find me anything that says that Saddam murdered over 250,000 of his own people. Anytihng from a reputable source (Drudge need not apply here.).
DC Tom Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 According to IRC over 125,000 were killed during Gulf I and conservative estimates for civilian deaths during Gulf II are put at 100-120,000. Find me anything that says that Saddam murdered over 250,000 of his own people. Anytihng from a reputable source (Drudge need not apply here.). 200791[/snapback] The head of the Judicial Department's Iraq War Crimes department, who was also in charge of the US Army's Mass Graves Investigation, and a former homocide prosecutor, has personally told me (over dinner, on my birthday) that just the mass graves he visited in the Baghdad area alone totalled over 600k bodies, at least six graves and 30k bodies of which were from early 2003. I've seen pictures...they're gruesome as hell. I'd consider the homocide prosecutor responsible for investigating the crimes a reliable source...but of course, I can't link to him, so... The wife and I are seeing him and his fiancee again within the next month (before he goes back to Iraq for another tour)...if you have any questions on the matter you want to ask, I can certainly pose them to him.
Losman-McGahee-Evans Posted January 10, 2005 Author Posted January 10, 2005 Soon? Sad to say, we're already there. Just ask AD. 200558[/snapback] I have to disagree there. My party is so far right, so religiously driven that I believe we are on the verge of splitting which would essentially make us a third party. We are also being led by some of the most corrupt people government has ever elected on a path that is trying to lock us down into power. In reality America will rebel against us using our failures and when the Democrats retake government we will be on the outside looking in becuase of our success in gaming the system to keep US in power. While the Democratic Party has shifted so far to the middle it now represents the moderate Republicans like myself it is not being driving by religious ideology and fiscal irresponsibility.
Losman-McGahee-Evans Posted January 10, 2005 Author Posted January 10, 2005 The head of the Judicial Department's Iraq War Crimes department, who was also in charge of the US Army's Mass Graves Investigation, and a former homocide prosecutor, has personally told me (over dinner, on my birthday) that just the mass graves he visited in the Baghdad area alone totalled over 600k bodies, at least six graves and 30k bodies of which were from early 2003. I've seen pictures...they're gruesome as hell. I'd consider the homocide prosecutor responsible for investigating the crimes a reliable source...but of course, I can't link to him, so... The wife and I are seeing him and his fiancee again within the next month (before he goes back to Iraq for another tour)...if you have any questions on the matter you want to ask, I can certainly pose them to him. 200814[/snapback] I would also consider it a reliable source if you will provide me a link to this claim made by his organization. I do know for a fact via my son that many of these mass graves were mis-identified as the work of Saddam when in fact they were mass graves of Iranian bodies from Iran-Iraq war. Do you know where I can find a lnk to this claim?
DC Tom Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 We are also being led by some of the most corrupt people government has ever elected on a path that is trying to lock us down into power.200816[/snapback] The Clintons? Seriously, history shows that corruption is usually systemic rather than individual. I have a tough choice blaming the corrupt bastards for a system that elects them...
Losman-McGahee-Evans Posted January 10, 2005 Author Posted January 10, 2005 The Clintons? Seriously, history shows that corruption is usually systemic rather than individual. I have a tough choice blaming the corrupt bastards for a system that elects them... 200828[/snapback] The fact that the Bush administration has more convicted felons in it's adminsitration than any other in our nation's history trumps the Clinton's. i'm mostly speaking to the abuse of power such as DeLay attempting to re-write the ethics rules, etc.
nobody Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 I have to disagree there. My party is so far right, so religiously driven that I believe we are on the verge of splitting which would essentially make us a third party. We are also being led by some of the most corrupt people government has ever elected on a path that is trying to lock us down into power. In reality America will rebel against us using our failures and when the Democrats retake government we will be on the outside looking in becuase of our success in gaming the system to keep US in power. While the Democratic Party has shifted so far to the middle it now represents the moderate Republicans like myself it is not being driving by religious ideology and fiscal irresponsibility. 200816[/snapback] You are giving the dems too much credit. Currently they are not being driven by religious ideology but that is the trend when you listen to their leaders.
Losman-McGahee-Evans Posted January 10, 2005 Author Posted January 10, 2005 You are giving the dems too much credit. Currently they are not being driven by religious ideology but that is the trend when you listen to their leaders. 200835[/snapback] There is a big difference in trend and actually doing it. i'm not talking about the future, i'm talking about the present.
Losman-McGahee-Evans Posted January 10, 2005 Author Posted January 10, 2005 The Clintons? Seriously, history shows that corruption is usually systemic rather than individual. I have a tough choice blaming the corrupt bastards for a system that elects them... 200828[/snapback] Let me give an example of what I'm talking about and why my party is headed toward being a semi-permanent minority if we do not change the leadership within it. Just read this article: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...0,4175164.story It's about Rehnquist criticizing politicians such as Tom DeLay for threatening impeachment of judges who disagree with them. We are piling things like this up at a very rapid rate and when the time comes they are going to destroy this great party. Because the voters will see US for what THEY are : corrupt, un-American and immoral.
DC Tom Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 I would also consider it a reliable source if you will provide me a link to this claim made by his organization. I do know for a fact via my son that many of these mass graves were mis-identified as the work of Saddam when in fact they were mass graves of Iranian bodies from Iran-Iraq war. Do you know where I can find a lnk to this claim? 200825[/snapback] No. Neither his unit in Iraq nor his Department at DOJ maintains a web site detailing their ongoing investigations. It's actually something I've bitched about to a few people I know: this administration's constant determination to keep everything a closely held secret ultimately does them quite a bit of harm in the public eye. This administration's biggest handicap is by FAR marketing; they might have sold the Iraq War on its merits (though not to me) had they bothered to pick any concrete set of merits whatsoever, their North Korea policy is constantly misrepresented in the media through the media's sheer ignorance of what that policy actually is, the GWOT is now widely seen as a smoke screen because they can't sell it outside their color-coded risk levels. But I digress... Anyhow, given that the guy's a forensic expert, however...was your son (may he rest in peace)? Considering the official designation - for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are: the civilian clothes, the single bullet holes in the base of the skulls, the handcuffs, and the sheer unlikelihood of transporting 600k bodies from the Iran border to Baghdad for mass burial - is that they're mass graves of Iraqi civilians, according to someone with experience in forensics and murder investigations, I would have to give his statements a little more credence than your son's...particularly given I have no idea what he did over there.
DC Tom Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 The fact that the Bush administration has more convicted felons in it's adminsitration than any other in our nation's history trumps the Clinton's. i'm mostly speaking to the abuse of power such as DeLay attempting to re-write the ethics rules, etc. 200833[/snapback] But DeLay's a joke...or at least he would be, if he didn't have so much power. I actually have no problem rewriting the ethics rules, as they're vague and non-specific enough to be useless. But I have a serious problem rewriting them for the purpose of whitewashing Tom DeLay...just as I had a serious problem when they created to slap around Democrats. Partisan politics just gets in the way of real work.
Alaska Darin Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 As a Republican my beliefs are based in less government and opposing huge pork barrel spending by Democrats. This is what the party opposed and what I identify with to this day. The current form of ideology steering my party is supporting the obscence, wasteful use of taxpayer dollars (SS reform - 2 trillion at least, Medicare reform - 8.1 trillion, making tax cuts permanent that benefit only the wealthy - 11 trillion) and pork barrel spending is out of control. We as a party have indeed lost this mantle to the Democrats according to all 6 exit polls from the most recent election. They now (According to the American voters) are the party of fiscal responsibility and the party that they most trust in the handling of the economy. To their credit they balanced the budget through the deficit reduction act of 93 and we failed to get onboard with pay-as-you-go rules and we are now getting hit over the head with it. The worst thing that could happen is SS reform being passed as our achievement. Why? Because it's an argument based upon a lie and when you must lie to the American people in order to gain support for something odds are you're argument is fatally flawed. If this happens we as a party will get hit hard when the true cost of destroying SS is realized. Same goes for the medicare reform that takes effect in 2006. Like I said I'm a REAL Republican, not a Bush-Republican. 200576[/snapback] Oh, OK. As long as we're using polls to determine what's actually true then your argument has merit. I guess if the same lie is repeated enough time, there must be some truth to it. Neither of these parties is the least bit fiscally responsible. Quite the contrary. Neither is the least bit interested in limiting the size and scope of government (Reagan, to his credit made minor inroads but mostly it was rhetoric because Congress bipartisanly resists major change and has for years) regardless of what they campaign on. As far as the Deficit reduction, that was nothing more than dumb blind luck, coupled with the stars lining up, some Enron style accounting, and mass media buy in. The choice between political parties is currently either the evil or the stupid. Go America!
Losman-McGahee-Evans Posted January 10, 2005 Author Posted January 10, 2005 Oh, OK. As long as we're using polls to determine what's actually true then your argument has merit. I guess if the same lie is repeated enough time, there must be some truth to it. Neither of these parties is the least bit fiscally responsible. Quite the contrary. Neither is the least bit interested in limiting the size and scope of government (Reagan, to his credit made minor inroads but mostly it was rhetoric because Congress bipartisanly resists major change and has for years) regardless of what they campaign on. As far as the Deficit reduction, that was nothing more than dumb blind luck, coupled with the stars lining up, some Enron style accounting, and mass media buy in. The choice between political parties is currently either the evil or the stupid. Go America! 200881[/snapback] One exit poll being inaccurate I'll give you but not all six. Never. The rest of your argument is opinion being misrepresented as fact. Either way i'll just agree to disagree.
Alaska Darin Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 One exit poll being inaccurate I'll give you but not all six. Never. The rest of your argument is opinion being misrepresented as fact. Either way i'll just agree to disagree. 200887[/snapback] Exit polls simply mean people are willing to take the media's perception as reality. That's a real shocker. You can call it opinion but there is more than enough evidence to the contrary to support it. Pretending the any policy the government put forth led to the flattening of global energy prices, the dawn of the information age, or the resulting economic boom when the 2 factors were added together is pure folly. I guess the government didn't benefit from the ridiculous overvaluing of the stock market and the significant increase in the size and scope of the investor class due to same? Huge capital gains revenues? Nah... I won't even go into the well known practice of the government stealing money from Social Security to pay for programs (because who can argue with an exit poll?), only returning IOUs that'll never be paid. On that subject I'll use Al Gore's favorite term: LOCKBOX. I wonder why he kept harping on that?
GG Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 One exit poll being inaccurate I'll give you but not all six. Never. The rest of your argument is opinion being misrepresented as fact. Either way i'll just agree to disagree. 200887[/snapback] My condolences for your loss. But if the exit polls were stated exactly how you phrased them, I wouldn't doubt that 6 of them would say that the REP's spending is out of control. However, absent the minor detail like the DEM platform on those same issues (if there really truly was one, other than We're not Bush) you wouldn't be cavalier about ceding the fiscal mantle to the DEMs. Yes, Social Security transition costs are going to cost $2 trillion. But, I'm glad someone has the balls to bring out the issue in the open and finally put a dollar amount on some of the obligations. That $2 trillion is paltry compared to the $100 trillion in real SS & medical obligations that you'll never read about. The reason that the DEMs are the party of fiscal responsibility in your eyes is because they're very good in not telling you exactly how much their programs will cost. Or let me rephrase that, they're very good in not telling you how much the programs will cost to the next generation.
blzrul Posted January 11, 2005 Posted January 11, 2005 The reason that the DEMs are the party of fiscal responsibility in your eyes is because they're very good in not telling you exactly how much their programs will cost. Or let me rephrase that, they're very good in not telling you how much the programs will cost to the next generation. 200906[/snapback] Unlike the REPS who were totally honest about that little self-funding event in Iraq, the rebuilding of which bombed out shell of a country is supposed to be paid for with oil from the pipeline they keep blowing up?
gmac17 Posted January 11, 2005 Posted January 11, 2005 (Drudge need not apply here.). Ah yes, I promise I won't bring up any of those stories that Drudge writes. BECAUSE HE ALMOST NEVER WRITES STORIES. Have you ever been to the site? He puts up links. A few times per month he gets some sort of scoop, which is almost always provided to him ahead of time by the new source in order to generate buzz. a few times a year he'll break a supposed story, some of which go one to be proven wrong like the Kerry Intern story or whats his name beating his wife. reminds me of the time that blzrule pastes something that came from drudge, I point it out, she says it couldn't have come from drudge because he would never write anything like that and then she ignores my posts for a week while I pestered her about it. ha.
GG Posted January 11, 2005 Posted January 11, 2005 Unlike the REPS who were totally honest about that little self-funding event in Iraq, the rebuilding of which bombed out shell of a country is supposed to be paid for with oil from the pipeline they keep blowing up? 201026[/snapback] The only reason I respond your convoluted points is a hope that there are readers who will may be interested in quick results of your easily refuted logic. CBO Estimate In its estimates, CBO also analyzed the suggested possibility that proceeds from sales of Iraqi oil could be used to offset the costs of rebuilding damaged infrastructure and occupation of Iraq. CBO found this idea not to be a reasonable option ... And this little tidbit from a source that's hardly been on Bush's side. Iterestingly, it has the following very deceptive quote about projecting the cost Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Congress that no accurate estimate of the cost of the war could yet be made. "I am reluctant to try to predict anything about what the cost of a possible conflict in Iraq would be, or what the possible cost of reconstructing and stabilizing that country afterwards might be," he said. Just, as an aside, the article does highlight Wolfowitz's wildly off-the mark estimate on the need for post-Saddam US troop presence, so I'm waiting for you to weave it into the thread.
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