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Subject: 
Re: Help me with the math
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Fri, 10 Sep 2004 00:24:43 GMT
Viewed: 
1159 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:


   I believe that the Bush administration believed he had them (WoMD) and could at any time make them available to al-Qaeda. That was the source of the immediacy, not that some attack was imminent.

That would be included in what I said. However, there are no WoMD and no Al Qaeda connections. Bush can believe what he wants, but I am saying he should be held accountable for his mistakes.

  
  
   He could actually be dead. If he weren’t, why remain so silent? If he were, why acknowledge that your great leader was killed? Who knows.

You accept that lame explanation? You are satisfied with that? A shrug of the shoulders and the thousands of dead rest easier and you can salve your conscience about supporting Bush?

Do you have a better explanation of the disappearance of OBL because I’m all eyes.

He just released a new claim that America is about to retreat out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Seems pretty active for a dead guy. He’s released any number of statements that our intelligence people have pronounced as real, so I’m not sure why you are taking this stonewall approach.


  
  
  
   Where has our international respect and standing gone?

What international respect and standing? From the UK? From France? From Russia? From Germany? From Poland?

I’ll take that as you agree with my point.

Then you’d be wrong.

I was merely provoking a more thorough explanation.

  
Respect scale: Have it = Yes, Have not = No, Didn’t have it before, doesn’t have it now = NO
  • UK yes
  • France no NO
  • Russia yes
  • Germany no
  • Poland yes

I’m not sure you got any of those right.

  
When you say “international standing”, about which countries are you speaking?

The majority of the planet.


   Er, wouldn’t that make Chelsea the anti-Christ? :-)

It would make their son the anti-christ. Since they don’t have one, we are off the hook.


  
  
  
   I said “may”. That carries with it the implication that it may not. You have assumed incorrectly. I am not convinced that they are up to something, but I certainly won’t exonerate them. I can see reason for people to be suspicious of their motivations.

Well then why mention it? It’s idle speculation.

Think it through: What you are saying is if anything is not 100% certain, it shouldn’t be mentioned. I wouldn’t call it “idle” in any case.

Okay, but you are only relying on your deep-seated hatred of Bush for your theory-- not a very rational basis...

No, I’m relying on my brain to connect two texas oil men and a country with a lot of oil, as is the rest of the world. As did you below - so actually, I’m relying on you to shoot your own argument down. :-)


  
  
   Even though you realize that I may not have realized that you realize that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are happy SH is gone, you have failed to realize that, given the choice of us leaving and thereby creating a power vacuum, or us staying until they can fill the vacuum, the overwhelming majority of Iraqis would prefer the latter.

On what basis do you claim that?

HO! Called out on that one, eh? Well, to be honest, I have only heard of individual Iraqis expressing this sentiment, but I think it would be the rational attitude to take were I an Iraqi myself. I will poke around for further justification.

Dave cited the opposite, but feel free to poke.


  
  
   Not “hand in hand”. More like “you scrub my hairy back and I’ll comb your moustache.” Certainly he didn’t tolerate power grabs from within his populace. He made unholy alliances with OBL types who furthered his own pet causes-- terror against Jews (thus gaining him status in the Muslim world) and attacks against the hated US.

9/11 Commision report found no connection between hairy back and combed moustache. No Al Qaeda connection.

No organized connection, but there were associations. These were not completely disconnected groups.

You seem to have a source that the 9/11 Commision did not. They were very emphatic on this point: No connections.


  
  
   I only dodged because I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Is this some reference to MM’s F911? You are assuming of course that he somehow knew who even perpetrated the attacks initially. My brother-in-law lived 2 blocks from the WTC and watched the second plane fly into tower 2-- his initial reaction was that something had gone haywire with the transponders atop the Trade Towers and that planes were being drawn into them. Crazy maybe, but it illustrates that, at the time, nobody knew what the hell was going on. Why suppose that the attack was limited to NY and DC alone?

Read the 9/11 commision’s report. Bush did squat. Nothing. Nada. Despite numerous warnings, he took no proactive measures. I keep talking about proactive measures and you keep talking about reactive things. Basically, Bush sat around doing nothing, ignoring increasing signs of what was coming. How can you say Bush is brilliant by any standard of the word when he was completely unprepared in the face of his own subordinates’ warnings?

Sure, when you read that report you think “D’uh”, of course that would happen. The report even acknowledges the 20/20 hindsight of its findings. But to say that Bush should have picked up on all of the warning signs and only 8 months into his presidency-- that is totally unfair.

Shoulda stayed out of the kitchen if he couldn’t stand the heat. The commison, by the way, bent over backwards trying to avoid 20/20 hindsight judgments.

  
  
  
Even with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight-- what brilliant action would suggest he to have done?

Read the 9/11 commisions findings.

Well, Bruce, it took many men many months and many million $$$ to gather that information-- how unfair to expect a new administration to be on top of that. Why wasn’t that information assembled by Clinton? I think it is more than fair to hold the officeholder for the previous 8 years a little more accountable than Bush!

Not particularly unfair at all. Bush had enough to go on. And Clinton, for the umpteenth time, is not running for re-election. Quit using him as the universal excuse.


  
  
   And you are talking crazy. Do you honestly believe that he could have done something to prevent 9-11?

Read the 9/11 commision’s report. Yes. We could have.

Dodge. We are talking about Bush personally, not our country.

Dodge back at ya: they were including Bush in that, specifically and by name.

  
  
   Remember, the whole thing was planned long before he even came to office.... Seems to me that Clinton should have pursued the matter more vigorously after the first attack on the WTC!

Clinton is not running for re-election. Clinton was not on watch when the World trade Center was destroyed.

How convenient!

How the heck is it convenient? Forgive me, but that seems to be one of the most incredibly stupid comments I have seen.

  
   Clinton is not responsible for allowing bin Laden to go unpunished for three years.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? Clinton was offered OBL’s head on a platter and he refused it!!!! I’d like to hear your spin on that one!

Clinton wasn’t in office when the World Trade Center was destroyed (I mean, that’s all I have been talking about, and the three year date should have been a Real Big Clue even if you weren’t paying attention).

I’d like to hear you spin on that one, but it appears you are going to dodge it forever so I doubt I will.

  
   Bush ignored all the warning signs regardless of what Clinton did or did not do. Using Clinton as the universal excuse is about the lamest defense there is.

I agree that blaming former adminstrations is generally a bogus play, but in this instance, laying this whole debacle at the feet of Bush is just insane. If Gore had been elected, he’d being going after Clinton! :-)

And I’d be holding Gore accountable just like I’m holding Bush accountable.

  
  
  
  
  
   just like he didn’t have an ounce of forethought about how to handle Iraq once Saddam was booted.

Please cite for me one article where someone predicted the outcome of SH’s deposition.

I take it you don’t realize you just made my point for me?

I wouldn’t know because I have no idea what your point is!

Clearly, or you wouldn’t have supported my point by stating that no one made any predictions when I claimed that they didn’t try.

  
  
   That George W Bush can’t predict the future???? What kind of a silly indictment is that???

Funny, I figured it out.

In what way. No stop. Tell me now what will happen next and what should be done about it:-)

What would that have to do with expecting Bush to think out the ramifications of his actions?


  
  
  
   I thought I was saying point blank that Bush has wasted resources, time, and energy into a wild goose chase instead on concentrating on the task at hand.

Why in the world would you think that the 2 would be mutually exclusive?

Why in the world would you think that we have unlimited resources?

Where in the world did you get that idea?

No, where in the world did you get that idea? For the two goals not to conflict, there must be enough resources to cover both without one taking from the other. Do they conflict? Do I see the head of Osama bin Laden before me? Of course they conflict.

  
   Haven’t you noticed they have resorted to refusing enlistment endings? Do we have an endless pocketbook? Do we endless trained personnel? Do we have unlimited equipment?

No (increase incentives). No. No. No.

See what I mean? You are making my point for me.


  
   How many years did you say that the WTC attack took? Disrupting the attacks and ending the attacks are two different things.

So are you implying that OBL is safe somewhere plotting his next attack on his own terms?

I don’t think you understand the word “imply”. Once again, I’m point-blank telling you that that is the case. If he isn’t, then what in the world are we fighting about?


  
  
   Again, we have a big army. I think that they can walk and chew gum at the same time. I can’t believe that you believe that Bush isn’t doing every single thing he can to capture OBL. Look at it from a re-election POV-- finding OBL would virtually ensure victory in November!

You do realize that you are agreeing that Bush is an idiot with that statement? :-)

The argument relating the US intelligence failures to locate OBL and President Bush’s mental acuity is specious.

Perhaps if he had used the resources that he diverted to Iraq, he would have found Osama and have the election in hand. IBduisoht.


  
  
   What he did wasn’t stupid. You may disagree with what he did, but he has protected US soil from terrorism for 3 years and has acted to insure the flow of oil to protect our economy and our way of life. I’d say that’s what a President should do. He defended our country.

Ahhhh, oil. Allow me to cut and paste from way up there at the top of this message:

JOHN: Why are we still meeting resistance in Iraq? All we want to do is help the Iraqis set up a government that insures freedom for her people and leave! What is wrong with that????

Green-Eyed Devil’s Advocate: that may not be all Bush and Cheney are attempting to do.

Thank you for supporting my point.

Thank you for providing my daily dosage of innuendo laced with conspiracy theory:-d

No, thank you!


  
  
   Taking the war to the terrorists was bold. I’d rather fight them “there” with our military than here with our civilians.

That decision wasn’t exactly rocket science.

Ha, Clinton (the Rhode scholar) didn’t figure that one out. Gore wouldn’t have had the kahonas to do it, either.

Clinton didn’t lose the World Trade Center and 3000 civilians in a single go. Neither did Gore. And at least Gore showed up in Viet Nam, so Bush is only brave with others’ cajones (or were you trying to say he was the Big Kahuna? Spanish or Hawaiian?).

-->Bruce<--



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Help me with the math
 
(...) Fair enough. (...) Okay. But I reserve the right to have you eat magpie and admit you were wrrrrr if they turn up in Syria or somewhere:-) (...) Check (URL) this> out. (...) And his triumphs, I presume. Fair enough. (...) Why no video? (...) (20 years ago, 10-Sep-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
  Re: Help me with the math
 
(...) I'm usually wrong about how to reason with John, so maybe I should just shut up. But would it make things easier if those of us who think that Bush was seriously negligent in his handling of the intelligence regarding the 9/11 attack admitted (...) (20 years ago, 10-Sep-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Help me with the math
 
(...) I believe that the Bush administration believed he had them and could at any time make them available to al-Qaeda. That was the source of the immediacy, not that some attack was imminent. (...) Do you have a better explanation of the (...) (20 years ago, 9-Sep-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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