[jweave23]

Originally Posted by VanillaGorilla

JW I was asking you if a D was in the white house and the exact same thing was going on if you think the Democrats would be saying the same things and acting the same way , not if they were in the Whitehouse would they have handled the situation differently.

Ok, I must be confused then. What EXACTLY do you want me to answer? Do I feel that the Democrats would be saying WHAT exact same things, regarding WHICH issue? I'm not trying to skirt the issue, I'm just not sure of what you're looking for here?

Originally Posted by VanillaGorilla

So if the definition of sheep is someone who blindly follows a group of people or an ideology, what does the statement you wrote about liberals say. Are you telling me that you believe that they are just the good guys who "are simply asking: what is best for America, what is the smart thing to do, do we have all the information to justify making such leaps in foreign policy" and that politics such as taking back control of the white house , congress, and senate have nothing to do with it what so ever?

If you are asking if I am what I defined to be a "sheep" to the liberal party, well I would (of course) say no. How many people want to say that they are blind followers? If that's what you are looking for you will not get it with me, regardless of how I feel about these issues. There certainly are some issues on the conservative side of the fence I may agree with, it just happens that basically none exist in this discussion. I certainly side with liberal points of view 95% of the time, but am not opposed to any logic that makes sense to me.

Originally Posted by VanillaGorilla

That's not what you originally said. You said "the war on Iraq was a lie and a stretch, not much to do with 9/11 at all, but certainly a good smoke screen for going in". The way you worded it implies that they lied deliberately to go into Iraq. If you believed that they had bad intelligence they didn't lie.

Let me clarify. I believe that their certainly was some bad intelligence (this seems to be less and less arguable as time goes by, by both R & D). What I have a problem with is the way it was handled. The "lie" to me was telling Americans that Iraq is a definite threat to the United States, and this threat is so great that it justifies removing a political party and reforming a political system for a country. From what I have read and seen, even if we go by the bad intelligence, the follow up was shoddy at best to verify by our own efforts (and gain approval) for further UN verification. Some might say Iraq was a "threat" by the dictator's nature, past actions on others, and attitude towards the US, but if this threat was incapable of or simply did not possess the the necessary resources and equipment to constitute an immediate hostile threat....I feel we were lied to, based upon bad intelligence. I suppose I use the word "lie" generously here, in that I should say "deceptive or cloudy reasoning" for the invasion of Iraq. I agree that Saddamn needed to fall, but not for the reasons we were made to believe.

Originally Posted by VanillaGorilla

There is no direct evidence but some circumstantial evidence. There are several intelligence reports indication that there was an Iraq / Al Qaeda link. Some of our own Intel. reports show that there was a link between them for ten years or so. Czech intelligence have stated publicly that they have information that Iraq helped finance Mohamed Atta and they he met with Iraqi intelligence at least once. On top of this a few people have come forward reporting that some of the 9-11 terrorist had lesions on their skin. These reports came from a doctor and a pharmacist. Anyway I wrote a whole report about this for school but way to long to go into much more detail than that.

That's fine and well, but circumstantial evidence isn't good enough for me (and many others) when we are spending billions and billions of dollars and watching Marines and other armed forces get slowly picked off, compounded with the fast growing (and possibly very strong future) hostility towards Amercians that quite possibly could have IMO been lessened by employing other tactics leading up to this invasion.

Originally Posted by VanillaGorilla

Unfortunately the people that are going to pay the price for this is our troops. If this starts to happen I would support turning Iraq into a giant parking lot.

I agree with this statement for once, lol.

[VanillaGorilla]

[IMG]http://[/IMG] Here is that story for anyone that is interested http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/11-....cgi.4689.html
I could add many more news stories including democratic activist going into ballett boxes with people who could'nt speak english and telling them how to vote. There are reports of either people braggining about voting for Gore more than once or reports from voters getting more than one ballett but it doesn't have much to do about Iraq. Anyway, this subject seems to be comming up allot lately so maybe we should start another thread.
Did you guys see the new democratic party logo

[jweave23]

Originally Posted by VanillaGorilla

JW I can post several links pointing to the opposite, that Bush didn't steal the election, that it was Gore's intention to steal the election, and that there were wide spread issues of vote fraud going on by democrats. Why didn't Gore want a recount of the whole state instead of just heavily democratic districts and why did he want to throw out absentee ballets from our military? In one story a democrat activist was caught with a voting machine in his car. Guess where that story was? It was on ABC's website. Guess if the report made it on to any TV news. It didn't. Media Bias what's that?

I think we are at an impasse here. Either way you look at it, the election was not fair to anyone....candidates or especially the US citizens. I still firmly believe (evidenced primarily by the links I gave) that Bush absolutely stole the election, apparently you do not. I'm not sure of your points (especially with no sources provided), but anyone reading the links would have one hell of a time saying those arguments are unfounded. What I will not tolerate is people making quick jabs that are meant to be taken as inarguable, when in fact they are quite arguable.

[VanillaGorilla]

Ok, I must be confused then. What EXACTLY do you want me to answer? Do I feel that the Democrats would be saying WHAT exact same things, regarding WHICH issue? I'm not trying to skirt the issue, I'm just not sure of what you're looking for here?

My original question was if Bush was a Democrat instead of a republican and everything else was the same would the democrats be attacking him like they are, IE calling him a lair, that the war was concocted in Texas, it's about oil, that he deliberately mislead the country to go to war ect.

If you are asking if I am what I defined to be a "sheep" to the liberal party

What I am saying is that you accused anyone who supports the war a sheep but you indicated you believe that liberals are just basically the good guys looking out for the country. If you honestly believe that partisan politics have nothing to do with this at best shows one dimensional thinking at worst shows that you believe what ever the dems say which is ironic seeing you just called war supporters sheep.

I believe that their certainly was some bad intelligence (this seems to be less and less arguable as time goes by, by both R & D). What I have a problem with is the way it was handled. The "lie" to me was telling Americans that Iraq is a definite threat to the United States,I feel we were lied to, based upon bad intelligence. I suppose I use the word "lie" generously here, in that I should say "deceptive or cloudy reasoning" for the invasion of Iraq.

If that's what you believe than you shouldn't be using the word lie. A lie means to deliberate deceive somebody. You just said that you don't believe that they did that. Having receive shoddy evidence or cloudy reasoning doesn't fit the definition of a lie and when you say that what you are telling people is that you believe that the evil republics deliberately didn't tell the truth to go get us into a war. We were also getting intelligence from England say Iraq had WMD's so it's not just us. Now let my ask you a question that I had as a hypothetical one in one of my earlier posts. You are the president of the US after 9-11. You advisers tell you that there is a 50/50 chance that Sadam will have the capability to have suite case nukes in 2 months. What would you do?

the follow up was shoddy at best to verify by our own efforts (and gain approval) for further UN verification.

The UN is a bunch of bureaucratic socialists. If we waited for their approval we would still be waiting. What would happen if they did have suite case nukes and we waited for the UN? Sadam was in violation of the UN's own resolution for years and they did nothing about it. Sadam could have cooperated but he chose not to. The United States should not have to ask permission from the UN to do any thing. What many people don't understand is the lets ask the UN mentality shows the radical Islamic terrorist that we are weak as does fighting a war with a politically correct mentality. If we are getting fired upon by terrorist in a mosk we should bomb the hell out of the mosk not worry about who's feeling will be hurt. This mentality opens us up for even more attacks.

That's fine and well, but circumstantial evidence isn't good enough for me (and many others)

The problem is that the structure of Al Qaeda is very difficult to fight. We have to use unconventional warfare. They could be any where. The US or England. One thing we do know is that they come from the middle east. After 9-11 we needed to send them a message that you don't F with us.

compounded with the fast growing (and possibly very strong future) hostility towards Americans that quite possibly could have IMO been lessened by employing other tactics leading up to this invasion.

They hate us and want us all to die. They will send their own children strapped with explosives to kill us. The only thing they understand is strength. I don't know of any more tactics that would have worked.
Did you support Bill Clinton going into Bosnia?

[VanillaGorilla]

I think we are at an impasse here. Either way you look at it, the election was not fair to anyone....candidates or especially the US citizens. I still firmly believe (evidenced primarily by the links I gave) that Bush absolutely stole the election, apparently you do not. I'm not sure of your points (especially with no sources provided), but anyone reading the links would have one hell of a time saying those arguments are unfounded. What I will not tolerate is people making quick jabs that are meant to be taken as inarguable, when in fact they are quite arguable.

You mean like the quick jab you made on the other thread about Bush not being elected? JW my point was that I can post credible links the show just the opposite than what you posted. You seem to believe that democrats are the good guys and republicans are the bad ones. That's great but your belief system is going to skew any facts showing the opposite of what you believe. There have been several major news papers that have done a recount and Bush won in it. Aside from the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Times the papers want Bush to loose in a recount. Off the top of my head I think it was the Washington Post that did one of them and they sure as hell are not Bush fans. I posted an article that came from ABC news of a democratic activist caught with a votomatic machine in his car. Now what do you suppose he was doing with it or going to do with it? I asked you this before but I'll ask it again.......Why did Gore want military votes not to be counted and why didn't he simply ask for a recount of the whole state instead of democratic counties if democrats are the good guys looking out for us average citizens? I can post more links if you want but start another thread about it.

[VanillaGorilla]

Sorry about the new DNC logo I couldn't resist.

[PC1]

Originally Posted by jweave23

Yet again a completely ignorant misinterpretation of the facts, some of which which may be found here:

One of the best articles I've seen (peer reviewed journal):
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_10/wiggins/

More opionated, but still valid:
http://www.perkel.com/politics/gore/internet.htm

Spin, spin and more spin.

In Gore's own words,

" During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

Nonsense. He had nothing to do with it is the bottom line.

I've also heard the sound byte rebroadcasted. The bottom line is he's full of **** and had nothing whatsoever to do with it's inception or creation, period.

The very link you quote should be a source of embarrassment to your cause.

[PC1]

Originally Posted by jweave23

I also agree that very few peple will ever change or alter their political philosophies, at least not without serious time involved (years and years).

With that said, after I read your post it is quite apparent that you believe Bush did not "steal" the election. I disagree, here are some others that do as well (I don't necessarily expect you to read/view them all, but nonetheless the points brought up in each are quite valid):

http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/...lpress.column/

http://www.ericblumrich.com/gta.html

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=29&row=1

http://www.mindprod.com/election.html

Opinions are like noses bro, everyone has one

The first and second links are old and rendered worthless in light of the manual recounts that since have been performed by the Times, Tribune, etc. Or didn't you feel that small detail was worth mentioning?

The third was taking too long to load for me with a 56K dialup so I bailed out on it.

The fourth suggests that we shouldn't be holding elections via electoral college. Easy to complain about the rules AFTER one loses the game, isn't it?

Why then, didn't the democrats complain about it PRIOR to the election if they felt the electoral college was unfair? THe obvious answer, they didn't have any problems with the electoral college until after the election.

Hillary Clinton was complaining about the electoral college around the time of inauguration and made the statement publicly that something needed to be done about it........ has she proposed ANY legislation to follow up on that since she's been in office? No,she has not.

Have any democrats proposed legislation to abolish the electoral college since the presidential election? If they have, then please, enlighten me because I haven't heard about it and I follow current events just about daily bro.

Just a bunch of blah, blah, blah sour grapes.

Bottom line: (Which you didn't address of course)...... Independently, several newspapers subsequent to the SJC decision took up the cause to do a manual recount of the Florida counties Gore wanted to challenge, and in each instance, Bush wins, Gore loses......PERIOD. Get over it already. The guy who won the election is living in the White House.

[VanillaGorilla]

Started a new thread on the 2000 pres. el. The 2000 presidential Election 4 years later

[VanillaGorilla]

I messed up the link I posted on the abc news story. Any way I went back and edited it so it works now.

[VanillaGorilla]

Allot of the talk on here has been mainly about if we should have gone into Iraq in the first place. We are in Iraq and seeing that we go back in time there isn't much that can be done about that. The question I have is what should we do now? If someone has the perspective of being against the war, would you pull our troops out immediately?
The problem with this is the minute we leave, the whole area will go to hell more than it all ready is. Someone equal to or worse than Sadam would probably take control eventually and there is the possibility that the whole situation could spread out of Iraq into other countries gradually involving most of the middle east. My personal opinion on the matter is I supported going into Iraq but I don't support how we are fighting the war.
To me( I am sure there are people on this board that knows a hell of allot more than I do on this subject), it looks like we are being to politically correct in fighting the war. If someone is shooting at us from a mosk than we should blow it up or at least shoot back. If there is an area where terrorist frequently take pot shots at our troops we bomb the place to hell before we send in troops again. I think the president and the military has the duty to make sure that they did every thing they can to protect our troops. This has to take president over nation building, civilian casualties, and or being afraid of what the press will write about you( if it's a republican in office it doesn't matter what you do they will still be against you).
Mike Barnicle recently wrote an article in the Boston Herald called "There's nothing worse' than that knock on the door". I was going to post it but I waited too long and you have to pay to read it now. The premise of the article was that what you have a loved one at war and they knock on your door to tell you that they were killed it cuts through all of the political BS . All you know or think about is that they aren't with us anymore. I think the question that we should be asking is are we doing everything we can to make sure that our troops come home safely?

[VanillaGorilla]

Boston Herald


April 8, 2004

`There's nothing worse' than that knock on the door


Author: Mike Barnicle

When the knock came, all politics along with any element of debate surrounding Iraq disappeared and David McPhillips was standing there, his wife and daughter asleep upstairs, staring at five Marines on his front step, knowing without being told that his boy was dead.
It was exactly one year ago when 1st Lt. Brian McPhillips, 25 years old, out of BC High, Providence College and Pembroke, assigned to the 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marines, was killed as America made its way toward Baghdad.

"It's the most haunting memory of my life," David McPhillips said yesterday. "I can't get it out of my mind.

"It was early, about 5 a.m., and they were pounding on the door. They weren't knocking. They were pounding, trying to wake us up. And when I looked out and saw them, well . . . I knew enough to know they don't come to your house to tell you your son's been wounded."

The father sat in his office at a rental car agency near Logan International Airport. He wore a wounded face with a broken heart and was surrounded by his son: pictures of him in uniform on the desk, on a computer screen-saver, more pictures of Brian as a boy at places like Gettysburg and Yankee Stadium.

Now, all across the country, at least a dozen more families are receiving visits from casualty officers assigned the awful duty of telling a parent or a spouse that someone so young, so brave, so admired and loved will not be coming home.

This war is leaking death across the land, all the way from places like Pembroke and North Providence to the Pacific, leaving increasing numbers of people like David McPhillips as casualties; the next of kin like a collection of walking wounded drifting through a minefield of grief and memory. Every day.

"The grieving process is eternal," David McPhillips said. "The year has gone by slowly, really slow. Christmas. His birthday. Where were we a year ago? When did I last talk to my son? It's tough.

"But in a way, I know Brian is forever. There's a scholarship in his name at BC High. Normally it takes five years to raise $50,000. We've raised $100,000 already. Some boy will go to BC High for four years, free, because of Brian.

"There are memorials at Providence College, at BC High. There's going to be one in Concord where Brian was born. And just this morning, here at work, we had about 40 people up at the memorial to Brian. Did you see it?"

On the road outside David McPhillips office, an American flag flew at half-staff. The flag pole is in a small grotto surrounded by a foot-high stone wall shaped like a half moon. In front of the flag pole there is a black marble headstone. It reads: "In Loving Memory of 1st Lt. Brian M. McPhillips, USMC, Jan 25, 1978 - April 4, 2003."

And when the father shuts his eyes, he sure does see his handsome son in uniform, but he also sees him sitting in the front seat of the old man's car as David McPhillips drove the boy to BC High each morning at 7 and picked him up every afternoon about 6. He sees him at a ballpark and in the kitchen and - in the father's mind's eye - sees him always smiling and happy, forever young.

"The governor came to Brian's funeral. The state police shut down 128 for the procession. There were 135 cars going to the cemetery. My son was a war hero. I think about all the poor parents who lose a child, a car hitting a tree, and they don't have anything to console them like that.

"Then I think about all the parents who will get that knock on the door this week," David McPhillips said. "There's nothing worse. Nothing. It's something you never forget and never get over."


Mbarnicle@bostonherald.com. Barnicle's radio show airs weekdays at 10 a.m. on 96.9 WTTK-FM.










Copyright 2004 Boston Herald
Record Number: 101D7E1EB31DEBDF

[Jeff]

OT


http://jibjab.com/

Hey Vanilla, per your avatar
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/lebowski.html - The dude abides

[VanillaGorilla]

Hey Vanilla, per your avatar
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/lebowski.html - The dude abides

LOL I wish I could add some of the sounds on here.