OT: Saddam Hussein Arrested

rextorres · #1 December 15th, 2003, 04:35 AM

Thanks Fyron - If saying something is "Altruistic Crap" and lamenting that one can't voice his opinions because of the climate in America today is "hostile" then you have a very thin skin. I can point to a number of posting in this thread alone that are way more provocative than that.

Anyways, I thought you wrote that, "I do not have an opinion one way or another on many of these particular issues".

[ December 15, 2003, 02:39: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Fyron · #2 December 15th, 2003, 04:38 AM

If you don't see anything wrong with the way you have been posting, there is little I can do to help you.

CNCRaymond · #3 December 15th, 2003, 04:51 AM

I don't know what the record is for Posts in a single topic in one day is, but I feel this one has got to be in the contention. 96 Posts in less than 12 hours. Not bad. And we owe this all to the Capture of Saddam.

Again, congrats to the US military, There allies, and the Iraqi People.

geoschmo · #4 December 15th, 2003, 05:00 AM

Fyron and Rex I think both of you have made your good points and both of you have made statements that are over the line. Let's try to get the conversation off of who is hostile and who is not and get back to discussing the issues, or just drop it all together.

Try to find a way to disagree with the substance of each other's comments without critisizing the manner in which they are made.

Geoschmo

dogscoff · #5 December 15th, 2003, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Personally I am not convinced that Bush lied about Iraq's WMD's.

Blair definitely did. Anyone remember that plagiarised college thesis that had "Iraqi" search/replaced for "terrorist" and was then presented by the government as an "intelligence report"?

As for the Halliburton thing...There are a zillion sites out there tracking the tentacles of Bush's money, but on a slightly different note here's a link I like to post from time to time: http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/20...g_archive.html
Read the posting of August 28th for an interesting angle on the distribution of these rebuilding contracts. Spend a while reading some of the more recent Posts as well. As far as I'm concerned these Iraqi blogs are the only place for ppl like us to know what's actually going on inside the country.

geoschmo · #6 December 15th, 2003, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by dogscoff:
As for the Halliburton thing...There are a zillion sites out there tracking the tentacles of Bush's money,

Don't misunderstand me. I know full well that after the fact Haliburton is making a killing off of the contracts for Iraqi construction. This is a bit disturbing to me as well, however, it's not unheard of for people in powerful postions to have powerful friends. But the fact that Haliburton is benefitting from the war does not by itself prove that the war was started to benefit Haliburton. That's the accusation being made by many in opposition to the war. But I have seen nothing that comes cloes to proving it.

dogscoff · #7 December 15th, 2003, 05:25 PM

Quote:

But the fact that Haliburton is benefitting from the war does not by itself prove that the war was started to benefit Haliburton.

That's true, but you have to admit it doesn't look good. However, even if you give him the benefit of doubt it still looks like blatant corruption and war-profiteering- an impression any honest politician would surely go out of his way to avoid giving. I mean they didn't even allow open bidding on the contracts, it was just handed to Halliburton on a plate.

On it's own, I might be prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt on this issue, but it's not the first time Bush's integrity has been called convincingly into question- that affair a while back with the deregulation of power companies for example. Without wanting to open certain cans of worms again, I would also point to the Kyoto (non)treaty, and of course you have the 'irregularities' concerning his election in the first place.

Again, it all might just be a coincidence, after all if the evidence was sufficient he'd be impeached or locked up or shot or something. However the problem is that a corrupt politician won't generally leave easy-to-follow paper trails. Crooks hide the proof as best they can, and the more powerful the crook the more effectively they can hide it. So when it comes to heads of state and other figures like that, a big pile of circumstantial evidence is sometimes all we have to go on. Add to that my (initially reluctant- ah, to be young and naive again) belief that 95% of all politicians are corrupt, soulless, self-serving reptilian arsewipes anyway and you can see why I don't trust Bush. Sure, it's not fair and it wouldn't hold up in court, but it's what my gut says and in the end that's what I go with. If I believed he'd at least done what he'd done in the interests of his country, I could give him some small measure of credit, but I just can't believe it, there are too many coincidences.

Anyway, if Bush ever comes to my little town I've got some out-of-date eggs at home with his name on them.