Iranian report

[southsider2k5]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4405830/

[DBAHO]

I saw a report he'd been captured in Pakistan last nite as well.

[Rex Kickass]

It wouldn't surprise me if he was captured. Or they are close. Or they are trying to bluff him out. Who knows.

[HuskyCaucasian]

It wouldn't surprise me if he was captured.

He'll get "captured" in August or so. Always helps to make a "capture" around election time.

[WillieHarris2]

ya bring back osama 3 years after u started looking, oh what do u know its election year.

[1549]

ya bring back osama 3 years after u started looking, oh what do u know its election year.

I may be misinterpreting your post, but if you are implying that Bush would wait until election time to announce a capture, I think you are wrong.

 

Any delay would have more to do with security than the election.

[HuskyCaucasian]

Any delay would have more to do with security than the election.

I dont think so personally. I knwo it is bad that it has been 3 years and we havent gotten him yet. But it never hurt to appeal to the dumb people of the US and say "HEY! Re-elect me! I caught the man who killed your brother and sisters, mothers and fathers."

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

I dont think so personally. I knwo it is bad that it has been 3 years and we havent gotten him yet. But it never hurt to appeal to the dumb people of the US and say "HEY! Re-elect me! I caught the man who killed your brother and sisters, mothers and fathers."

You leftists crack me up. You b**** cause we havent gotten him yet and call Bush weak on national security yet now that we may be closing in it's all part of an election year ploy. Go to the store, my friend, and buy yourself a clue.

[soxman352000]

:finger Shut the hell up you left wing bastards

:dips*** :fyou

[israel4ever]

:finger Shut the hell up you left wing bastards

:dips***  :fyou   

Let me ask you a question...since Bush has been President, has ANYTHING in the US improved?

 

If so, explain.

 

I see a f***ed up economy, a trashed environmental "policy", increased unemployment, less civil rights for US citizens/residents, etc.

 

But, the richest 1-5% of the population has definitely benefitted from the Bush Presidency!!!

[southsider2k5]

Let me ask you a question...since Bush has been President, has ANYTHING in the US improved?

 

If so, explain.

 

I see a f***ed up economy, a trashed environmental "policy", increased unemployment, less civil rights for US citizens/residents, etc.

 

But,  the richest 1-5% of the population has definitely benefitted from the Bush Presidency!!!

And let me ask you a question, how would a different president have done any better?

[YASNY]

Let me ask you a question...since Bush has been President, has ANYTHING in the US improved?

 

If so, explain.

 

I see a f***ed up economy, a trashed environmental "policy", increased unemployment, less civil rights for US citizens/residents, etc.

 

But,  the richest 1-5% of the population has definitely benefitted from the Bush Presidency!!!

Yes. The liberals are all pissed off.

[moochpuppy]

I'll hug your elephant if you kiss my ass.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

And let me ask you a question, how would a different president have done any better?

SS24K, a different President might have done a few things differently. While I can only suggest the hypothetical, here are a few things that came to my mind.

 

*Actually have a meeting of the bin Laden task force that was created before 9/11 (Bush/Cheney created one but never had it meet nor read any of the material that was presented to it; it just sat on the desk)

*Listen to intelligence of our staunch allies like the Israeli Mossad who told us in January and into August that Al Qaeda was planning on using planes as bombs. (Sure, the argument can be made too that the US should have had some idea that this would be a tactic since 1995 when Clinton and the FBI uncovered project Bojinka)

*Create better airplanes like El Al Airlines pre or even post 9/11. There can be a bomb on those suckers and it might not even down the plane. Plus there is no door to allow passengers into the cockpit. They also have a badass security process instead of TSA (Thousands Standing Around) ramping up all the unnecessary parts of security for the US. They even have a plain clothed trained sky marshal (one trained in breaking up hijackings) on every flight. They even have a decompression chamber that simulates high altitudes so if there is an altitude triggered bomb, it goes off there with nobody getting hurt. They have 2 bulletproof doors on the plane to protect the pilots as well.

*Ashcroft wouldn't have been appointed most likely and new attorney general might not have pushed for the PATRIOT Act. The Justice Department has been asking for those sorts of privileges for years but finally got them in the post-9/11 hysterics since sanity wasn't exactly something on the menu...And we wouldn't have spent $8,000 to cover up the breast of a statue

*The PNAC gang of Perle, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney etc. wouldn't have received as much power to dictate foreign policy manuevers. As Michael Medved (right wing pundit) said: "Americans must ascribe to prevention and protection, not punishment." Another President could have started ending our dependence on foreign oil...or even oil altogether.

*Another President could hold companies accountable for emissions. Bush's policy grandfathered a lot of plants and also has gutted the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Another President would possibly have not done that or even enacted anti-global warming policies (President Bush thinks global warming does not exist before anyone asks)

*Another President, post 9/11 could have created a well trained federal law enforcement agency in airport security (like many European countries have) that is paid well enough instead of the average dirt poor wages of most workers in the US and actually know what they're looking for so people don't have to wait as long, etc. This actually did come up but it was vehemently blocked by Bush and the House Republicans because it would interfere with private company profits in airport security.

*Another President might not have had preventative detentions, arresting people without charges and holding them until further notice etc. I think we learned our lesson in WW II with the camps for Japanese citizens that this is not effective. Ascribing to the Geneva Convention and other international law would also be effective.

*Use the money of military aid to Israel (don't get angry anybody...if they want the same amount of money that they would get from us, according to Prof. Henry Thompson of Auburn Univ., they would just have to raise the income tax on their own people 5% a year. They can still have the money, they'd just be providing it instead of the US) Then we can use that money and go to old Soviet republics, Pakistan etc. that are starving yet sitting on tons of old Cold War weapons. Why not use the money to buy the weapons up and blow them up so they can't be used? People get money to get fed and they don't have weapons to f*** us up.

*Assuming any President would have gone after Afghanistan post 9/11, we should rebuild the country with roads, schools etc. Give them food that is actually part of the cultural palatte when we drop food. Do the same for Iraq, the old Soviet republics etc. Post WW I, we didn't aid Germany and their anger etc. was transformed into the election of Hitler into power. Another President might spend more than .01% of our GNP on foreign aid. We will be more secure when the rest of the world is not in poverty so we can get nice running shoes, etc. Madrasas are fundamentalist Muslim Wahabbi schools. They take in all students, give them food etc. and teach them the radical fundamentalist version of Islam. These are incredibly popular and have been multiplying faster than Starbucks in the Middle East. This is because the public school systems there have been gutted so more money could go to their military and paying of the World Bank/IMF debts. Spending US foreign aid to rebuild their public school systems might effectively shut down the Madrasas.

*Another US president could but tougher sanctions on US corporations that use sweatshops (i.e. Nike, Gap, etc.) in foreign lands. The Alien Tort Claims Act is a good start but having the US actively go after these companies could cause a decrease in anti-American sentiment.

 

Those are just a few ideas that came to my head. Granted some of them are pie in the sky, but since the entire thing is hypothetical with another President being in office, I thought of any and all critiques.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

You leftists crack me up.  You b**** cause we havent gotten him yet and call Bush weak on national security yet now that we may be closing in it's all part of an election year ploy.  Go to the store, my friend, and buy yourself a clue.

Bush is weak on national security. Overextending American forces and doing something that he said he would not do ("nationbuilding")

 

http://www.comedycentral.com/mp/play.php?p...t/jon_7131.html

 

President Bush vs Governor Bush debate...It's just the fact that right after 9/11 Bush said: The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number-one priority and we will not rest until we find him."

2001 Sep 13

 

then only a few months later....

 

"I don't know where Osama bin Laden is and I am truly not that concerned about him."

Brady briefing room, 2002 Mar 13

 

So, not concerned about catching the guy who had 3000+ Americans murdered? That seems pretty lax on national security to me.

 

I find myself agreeing with hardline right winger Pat Buchanan when he says:

 

"How can all our meddling not fail to spark some horrible retribution .... Have we not suffered enough - from Pan Am 103, to the World Trade Center, to the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam - not to know that interventionism is the incubator of terrorism. Or will it take some cataclysmic atrocity on U.S. soil to awaken our global gamesmen to the going price of empire?

 

America today faces a choice of destinies. We can choose to be a peacemaker of the world, or its policeman who goes about night-sticking troublemakers until we, too, find ourselves in some bloody brawl we cannot handle...Either America finds an exit strategy from empire, or we lose our republic.

 

The war Netanyahu and the neo cons want, with the United States and Israel fighting all of the radical Islamic states, is the war bin Laden wants, the war his murderers hoped to ignite when they sent those airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

 

Where in the Constitution is the president empowered to "toss dictators aside"? And if it took 150,000 U.S. soldiers to toss Saddam aside, how many troops do Frum and Perle think it will take to occupy the capital of a nation three times as large and populous and toss the ayatollah aside? How many dead and wounded would our war hawks consider an acceptable price for being rid of the mullahs?

 

Only great conceit could inspire a dream of armed world hegemony. The ideology of benevolent American empire and global democracy dresses up a voracious appetite for power. It signifies the ascent to power of a new kind of American, one profoundly at odds with that older type who aspired to modesty and self-restraint."

 

I agree with some traditional Republican values but the neo-conservative movement makes me sick to my stomach.

[southsider2k5]

This was a good well thought out post. Let me answer what I think to some of it.

 

 

Actually have a meeting of the bin Laden task force that was created before 9/11 (Bush/Cheney created one but never had it meet nor read any of the material that was presented to it; it just sat on the desk)

 

The problem with picking out one report is how much of that stuff really can be digested and acted upon. I have read that each intellegence report has a probablity of occurence or truth. I would be curious how high or low that was. Also so much of this info was left over from the last Admin, how seriously is this group supposed to take it, when the previous group obviously did nothing about it.

 

*Listen to intelligence of our staunch allies like the Israeli Mossad who told us in January and into August that Al Qaeda was planning on using planes as bombs. (Sure, the argument can be made too that the US should have had some idea that this would be a tactic since 1995 when Clinton and the FBI uncovered project Bojinka)

 

Bascially I would say the same things as above, except even more skeptically, because Israel would have much more of a possible ulterior motive here.

 

*Create better airplanes like El Al Airlines pre or even post 9/11.  There can be a bomb on those suckers and it might not even down the plane.  Plus there is no door to allow passengers into the cockpit.  They also have a badass security process instead of TSA (Thousands Standing Around) ramping up all the unnecessary parts of security for the US.  They even have a plain clothed trained sky marshal (one trained in breaking up hijackings) on every flight.  They even have a decompression chamber that simulates high altitudes so if there is an altitude triggered bomb, it goes off there with nobody getting hurt.  They have 2 bulletproof doors on the plane to protect the pilots as well.

 

IMO improvements in airline plane safety should have been contingent upon the airlines accepting the post 9-11 security guarentees. With the extra costs of gasoline I don't know how much of this would have been possible without bankrupting more airlines and putting them out of business, but more precautions should have been taken to date. But there is a balance that has to be struck otherwise the extra costs cripple the nations travel infrastucture and unemploy many many more people.

 

*Ashcroft wouldn't have been appointed most likely and new attorney general might not have pushed for the PATRIOT Act.  The Justice Department has been asking for those sorts of privileges for years but finally got them in the post-9/11 hysterics since sanity wasn't exactly something on the menu...And we wouldn't have spent $8,000 to cover up the breast of a statue   

 

I don't like Ashcroft at all. Most of the Patriot Act is garbage. But the question becomes, how many lives are worth freedom? Would you be willing to let you or your family die, because info that could have stopped a terrorist act, isn't accessible to the government. Because of my view of the constitution, I believe that our freedom is more important.

 

*The PNAC gang of Perle, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney etc. wouldn't have received as much power to dictate foreign policy manuevers. As Michael Medved (right wing pundit) said: "Americans must ascribe to prevention and protection, not punishment." Another President could have started ending our dependence on foreign oil...or even oil altogether.

 

Who was the last President who didn't depend on committees of people for policy advice? Would you rather see just the President pouring through all that info all by himself and trying to form a cohesive policy? As for fossil fuels, that is a whole nother arguement. As long as the auto lobby is as strong as it is, we will never get anywhere. That doesn't matter who the President is.

[southsider2k5]

*Another President could hold companies accountable for emissions. Bush's policy grandfathered a lot of plants and also has gutted the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Another President would possibly have not done that or even enacted anti-global warming policies (President Bush thinks global warming does not exist before anyone asks)

 

Bush sucks on the enviornment. But give someone like Al Gore 4 years in the white house along with a simpathetic congress and they will destroy our economy by making it so expensive to do business in the US, that overseas job flight will be inevitable to less restrictive and costly areas. There is a progressive middle ground that is ignored in all of the rhetoric.

 

*Another President, post 9/11 could have created a well trained federal law enforcement agency in airport security (like many European countries have) that is paid well enough instead of the average dirt poor wages of most workers in the US and actually know what they're looking for so people don't have to wait as long, etc. This actually did come up but it was vehemently blocked by Bush and the House Republicans because it would interfere with private company profits in airport security.

 

Wages for airport security have gone way up. As have the cost of traveling. Look at all of the extra taxes that we now pay to support all of the new and more expensive hires. But that being said, too much stuff still happens involving airport security. Too many things get through. I would say that from now on, with the airlines knowing what kind of enviornment we exsist in, let the airlines be sued if something else happens. If they don't take adequate steps to protect passengers, let them be responsible for it. The problem is once again the possibility exsists of bankrupting the airline system and grounding our air traffic system.

 

*Another President might not have had preventative detentions, arresting people without charges and holding them until further notice etc. I think we learned our lesson in WW II with the camps for Japanese citizens that this is not effective. Ascribing to the Geneva Convention and other international law would also be effective.

 

No American citizen should be able to be held in the US without charges or a lawyer. Period.

 

 

*Use the money of military aid to Israel (don't get angry anybody...if they want the same amount of money that they would get from us, according to Prof. Henry Thompson of Auburn Univ., they would just have to raise the income tax on their own people 5% a year. They can still have the money, they'd just be providing it instead of the US) Then we can use that money and go to old Soviet republics, Pakistan etc. that are starving yet sitting on tons of old Cold War weapons. Why not use the money to buy the weapons up and blow them up so they can't be used? People get money to get fed and they don't have weapons to f*** us up.

 

Why should Israelis foreign aid be any different than any of our other allies? Why single them out? Why wouldn't you take from everyone's aid? Doesn't everyone benefit from the destruction of WMD's? Why should Israel pay for it singularly?

 

*Assuming any President would have gone after Afghanistan post 9/11, we should rebuild the country with roads, schools etc. Give them food that is actually part of the cultural palatte when we drop food. Do the same for Iraq, the old Soviet republics etc. Post WW I, we didn't aid Germany and their anger etc. was transformed into the election of Hitler into power. Another President might spend more than .01% of our GNP on foreign aid. We will be more secure when the rest of the world is not in poverty so we can get nice running shoes, etc. Madrasas are fundamentalist Muslim Wahabbi schools. They take in all students, give them food etc. and teach them the radical fundamentalist version of Islam. These are incredibly popular and have been multiplying faster than Starbucks in the Middle East. This is because the public school systems there have been gutted so more money could go to their military and paying of the World Bank/IMF debts. Spending US foreign aid to rebuild their public school systems might effectively shut down the Madrasas.

 

No arguements from me there. Rebuilding infrastructure is the most visable way to show that we are helping a country.

*Another US president could but tougher sanctions on US corporations that use sweatshops (i.e. Nike, Gap, etc.) in foreign lands. The Alien Tort Claims Act is a good start but having the US actively go after these companies could cause a decrease in anti-American sentiment.

 

Where does other countries responsibilities for their own borders come in? You would want to US to enforce laws in another country? That is not up to us as a government to decide. That decesion should be made by either the country that the sweatshops are in, or by the consumers not to buy that product.

[israel4ever]

SS24K, a different President might have done a few things differently. While I can only suggest the hypothetical, here are a few things that came to my mind.

 

*Actually have a meeting of the bin Laden task force that was created before 9/11 (Bush/Cheney created one but never had it meet nor read any of the material that was presented to it; it just sat on the desk)

*Listen to intelligence of our staunch allies like the Israeli Mossad who told us in January and into August that Al Qaeda was planning on using planes as bombs. (Sure, the argument can be made too that the US should have had some idea that this would be a tactic since 1995 when Clinton and the FBI uncovered project Bojinka)

*Create better airplanes like El Al Airlines pre or even post 9/11.  There can be a bomb on those suckers and it might not even down the plane.  Plus there is no door to allow passengers into the cockpit.  They also have a badass security process instead of TSA (Thousands Standing Around) ramping up all the unnecessary parts of security for the US.  They even have a plain clothed trained sky marshal (one trained in breaking up hijackings) on every flight.  They even have a decompression chamber that simulates high altitudes so if there is an altitude triggered bomb, it goes off there with nobody getting hurt.  They have 2 bulletproof doors on the plane to protect the pilots as well.

*Ashcroft wouldn't have been appointed most likely and new attorney general might not have pushed for the PATRIOT Act.  The Justice Department has been asking for those sorts of privileges for years but finally got them in the post-9/11 hysterics since sanity wasn't exactly something on the menu...And we wouldn't have spent $8,000 to cover up the breast of a statue   

*The PNAC gang of Perle, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney etc. wouldn't have received as much power to dictate foreign policy manuevers. As Michael Medved (right wing pundit) said: "Americans must ascribe to prevention and protection, not punishment." Another President could have started ending our dependence on foreign oil...or even oil altogether.

*Another President could hold companies accountable for emissions.  Bush's policy grandfathered a lot of plants and also has gutted the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.  Another President would possibly have not done that or even enacted anti-global warming policies (President Bush thinks global warming does not exist before anyone asks)

*Another President, post 9/11 could have created a well trained federal law enforcement agency in airport security (like many European countries have) that is paid well enough instead of the average dirt poor wages of most workers in the US and actually know what they're looking for so people don't have to wait as long, etc.  This actually did come up but it was vehemently blocked by Bush and the House Republicans because it would interfere with private company profits in airport security.

*Another President might not have had preventative detentions, arresting people without charges and holding them until further notice etc.  I think we learned our lesson in WW II with the camps for Japanese citizens that this is not effective.  Ascribing to the Geneva Convention and other international law would also be effective.

*Use the money of military aid to Israel (don't get angry anybody...if they want the same amount of money that they would get from us, according to Prof. Henry Thompson of Auburn Univ., they would just have to raise the income tax on their own people 5% a year.  They can still have the money, they'd just be providing it instead of the US)  Then we can use that money and go to old Soviet republics, Pakistan etc. that are starving yet sitting on tons of old Cold War weapons.  Why not use the money to buy the weapons up and blow them up so they can't be used?  People get money to get fed and they don't have weapons to f*** us up.

*Assuming any President would have gone after Afghanistan post 9/11, we should rebuild the country with roads, schools etc.  Give them food that is actually part of the cultural palatte when we drop food. Do the same for Iraq, the old Soviet republics etc.  Post WW I, we didn't aid Germany and their anger etc. was transformed into the election of Hitler into power. Another President might spend more than .01% of our GNP on foreign aid.  We will be more secure when the rest of the world is not in poverty so we can get nice running shoes, etc.  Madrasas are fundamentalist Muslim Wahabbi schools.  They take in all students, give them food etc. and teach them the radical fundamentalist version of Islam.  These are incredibly popular and have been multiplying faster than Starbucks in the Middle East.  This is because the public school systems there have been gutted so more money could go to their military and paying of the World Bank/IMF debts.  Spending US foreign aid to rebuild their public school systems might effectively shut down the Madrasas.

*Another US president could but tougher sanctions on US corporations that use sweatshops (i.e. Nike, Gap, etc.) in foreign lands.  The Alien Tort Claims Act is a good start but having the US actively go after these companies could cause a decrease in anti-American sentiment.

 

Those are just a few ideas that came to my head.  Granted some of them are pie in the sky, but since the entire thing is hypothetical with another President being in office, I thought of any and all critiques.

Ya had me 100% Apu, then you lost me! Let me explain your hypocrasy.

 

In one paragraph, you (rightfully) call Israel our staunch ally, and to paraphrase, say that we could have prevented 9/11 had we heeded Israel's warnings/Intel.

 

Then later on, you say we should stop sending financial support to Israel?!? They are the ONLY US ALLY IN THE MIDDLE EAST, AND THE ONLY DEMOCRACY AS WELL!

 

How about the US stop sending any aid to the "Palestinians" since all the money we send in aid winds up lining Arafat's pockets and/or funding terrorism???