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nakona
Lieutenant
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
Posts: 242
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 Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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Sparky -
If you are naive enough to think that Saddam had no relationship with Al Queda, that's fine with me. Your disbelief does not alter reality.
Even the head of the 9/11 commission said that GWB was correct in that they had a relationship, the commission simply couldn't say what that relationship might be, because it was outside their purview and they didn't uncover sufficient evidence that they considered credible to support the idea that Saddam was directly connected to 9/11.
As to whether or not Saddam actually was connected to that specific attack, I suspect he was not.
Not in the sense that he planned and drove it. In fact, I suspect that on 9/11, the thought that ran through his mind was something along the lines of:
"Those ÅSSHOLES! They didn't tell me they were going to do THAT! Oh man... I am fµcked! That crazy-åss cracka in the White House is going to invade for sure! And where the hell am I gonna hide these goddåmned chemical weapons?!? I swear, I'm gonna kick Bin laden's åss the next time I see him..."
Now, like I said...
You are free to believe or disbelieve what you want.
But if I were you, instead of coming here and trying to convince your betters (IMHO - vets are superior to civillians), I'd suggest you go back to DU (which is where you came from) and try to figure out how you are going to stop the Bill Clinton from handing the election to GWB so that his wife can run in 2008.
Not that you'll be able to stop him, but it'll be fun to watch you try. 
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Doc Jerry
Commander
Joined: 28 May 2004
Posts: 339
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 12:11 am Post subject: Sparky, another drive-by AH |
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| Sparky, another drive-by AH, who thinks he knows the answers and just can't handle the truth. |
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sparky
Former Member
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 546
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 12:28 am Post subject: |
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| The "moderators" would put you on notice for saying that if you were liberal. Edited by Moderator: Questions or comments to management are to be done by PM, This is your 3rd warning today Sparkler. Your "Timer's chain is getting short again!" |
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sparky
Former Member
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 546
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 12:33 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Also tell me what does it mean to you to 'support our troups'(sic).... ? |
Not throwing them into a war on fraudulent reasons would be a good place to start.
I'll take the 9/11 Commission's conclusion in Salman Pak (i.e., it isn't worth mentioning) over anyone's opinion here. You know, someone should tell you, but it just sounds like supporters of Salman Pak Saddam-9/11 link just want to concoct reasons for a war that didn't have a legitimate rationale.
Funny thing is, there was an entire chorus saying all of this before we invaded. |
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rbshirley
Founder
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 394
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 1:26 am Post subject: |
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| sparky wrote: |
On Sunday June 20, 2004:
It says quite a bit about a man ... [Yadda Yadda ad nauseam]
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Kerry got it wrong when he was the leader of the VVAW.
You have it wrong now. The ONLY pertinent way to state that is a follows:
It says quite a bit about a man that during those years when others were
in the jungle, on a river, taking shrapnel and taking risks, that he instead
was in a meeting with the enemies of those soldiers, whose result was to
produce propaganda in the media and Congress that would deceive the
country into believing that hundreds of thousands would NOT perish if the
United States just walked away from its obligations in South East Asia.
But there was no shame for that man. Instead he is today revered in the
War Crimes Museum in HCM City for helping win the political war for the
Communists. That was terribly wrong then. He is terribly wrong today.
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sparky
Former Member
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 546
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 3:03 am Post subject: |
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"This is your 3rd warning today Sparkler"
Sorry, I wasn't aware that I couldn't ask questions about forum rules in this (presumably) public forum. Nor have I seen my other two warnings.
Edited my Moderator: That's 4 today Sparky! Your quote above is BS. You've been warned and banned previously for exactly the same behavior. You've been warned and banned in PM's and in the open forum!
You are now banned for 24 hours starting from the time of this post. This is your 2nd 24 hour ban. If you post in this forum again in the next 24 hours your posts will be deleted and you will be permanently banned.
Get serious about what you're doing here! If you want to debate that's welcome and you've been granted the opportunity. It's only when you question the rules of this forum that you've been banned.
3 Strikes and you're out! Got It ? |
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LewWaters
Admin
Joined: 18 May 2004
Posts: 4042
Location: Washington State
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 4:44 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I'll take the 9/11 Commission's conclusion in Salman Pak (i.e., it isn't worth mentioning) over anyone's opinion here. |
Sparky, will you also take their conslusion about an Iraqi Al Qeada connection, since that was all that was ever claimed?
| Quote: | Jim Thompson former governor of Illinois and member of the 9-11 Commission: When asked by Soledad O’Brien on CNNs Good Morning America on 18 June 2004: "So we hear from both President Bush and Dick Cheney clearly there was a relationship. Does your report contradict what the White House is saying?" Thompson answered: Not at all. In fact, the report says that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are correct. It's a little mystifying to me why some elements of the press have tried to stir this up as a big controversy and a big point of contradiction because there is none. We said there's no evidence to support the notion that Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein collaborated together to produce 9/11. President Bush said that weeks ago. He said it again yesterday. The vice president said it again yesterday. I said it again yesterday in television interviews. What we did I say was there were contacts between Al-Qaeda and the Iraqi administration of Saddam Hussein, and the president has said there were contacts. The vice president has said there were contacts. They may be in possession of information about contacts beyond those that we found, I don't know. That wasn't any of our business. Our business was 9/11. So there is no controversy; there's no contradiction, and this is not an issue.
Chairman of the 9-11 Commission Tom Kean: “Were there contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq? Yes. Some of them are shadowy, but there’s no question they were there.”
Lee Hamilton, Democrat Vice Chairman of the 9-11 Commission: "I must say I have trouble understanding the flak over this. The Vice President is saying, I think, that there were connections between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government. We don't disagree with that. What we have said is just what [Republican co-chairman Tom Kean] just said: We don't have any evidence of a cooperative or collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein's government and al Qaeda with regard to the attacks on the United States. So it seems to me that sharp differences that the press has drawn, that the media has drawn, are not that apparent to me." |
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GoophyDog
PO1
Joined: 10 Jun 2004
Posts: 480
Location: Washington - The Evergreen State
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 7:55 am Post subject: |
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| sparky wrote: |
Not throwing them into a war on fraudulent reasons would be a good place to start. Next, supporting our troops doesn't mean I have to believe a half-baked conspiracy theory that not even BushCorp Inc has tried to use, at least officially.
I'll take the 9/11 Commission's conclusion in Salman Pak (i.e., it isn't worth mentioning) over anyone's opinion here. You know, someone should tell you, but it just sounds like supporters of Salman Pak Saddam-9/11 link just want to concoct reasons for a war that didn't have a legitimate rationale.
Funny thing is, there was an entire chorus saying all of this before we invaded. |
Okay, the horse is dead but I'll beat it one more time:
1) Fraudulent reasons: Identify one fraudulent statement, include the source. When doing so, research the statement and be sure to check if it wasn't echoed by both sides of the aisle. I recommend going back to at least 1999 since a majority of the intel prior to 9/11 was established under the Democrat administration. (Its going to be hard to do since Pres. Clinton cut the intel budget so severly.)
Note 1: if you mention WMD and the fact that massive stockpiles have not been found you lose - that intel was based on collections by several nations including our own - again dating back to pre-Bush. AND was evaluated by BOTH sides of the aisle in BOTH houses before they cast their vote. (Something people seem to forget.)
Referring to point 1 - NO ONE has yet found any quote or source indicating the current administration or even "unnamed sources within the administration" has ever said Iraq was linked to 9/11.
Note 2: Supporting our troops is not just lip service. It means taking the time to see what the mainstream media is not showing. Schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure being rebuilt that had been allowed to crumble since 1990. A whole islamic sect is now allowed to worship in the open, go on pilgrimage and otherwise compete for jobs in the public sector; something they haven't been able to do for over a decade.
2) Show by source, quote or otherwise that the hijackers of 9/11 were trained at Salman Pak. For that matter, show by source, quote or otherwise that any of the handlers of the hijackers were trained at Salman Pak.
If you can meet either of these two points with hard facts and verifiable sources I will put a Kerry banner in my front yard.
Bonus question: Prove that Sadam Husein and Iraq had never supported terrorist organizations, funded suicide bombers in Palistine or conducted activities that placed U.S. citizens in danger and I will then vote for Kerry.
Double Bonus, the Daily Double! Show by hard facts, and verifiable sources that the Sadam Husein's regime NEVER used, developed or even experimented with WMD and by golly, I'll even campaign for Kerry.
Until then I suggest you go back to watching the daily pablum feed in front of the idiot box because you certainly will not be able to understand anything of more import than the 15 second sound bite.
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Why ask? Because it needs asking. |
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nakona
Lieutenant
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
Posts: 242
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 12:45 pm Post subject: |
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| sparky wrote: | | Quote: | | Also tell me what does it mean to you to 'support our troups'(sic).... ? |
Not throwing them into a war on fraudulent reasons would be a good place to start. |
As an American Citizen, protected by the Bill of Rights in general and the first Amendment in particular, you have the absolute right to say that you think the reasons for war were fraudulent.
However, that neither makes it true, nor obligates anyone to agree with you.
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fortdixlover
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 1476
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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| nakona wrote: | Sparky -
If you are naive enough to think that Saddam had no relationship with Al Queda, that's fine with me. Your disbelief does not alter reality.
Even the head of the 9/11 commission said that GWB was correct in that they had a relationship, the commission simply couldn't say what that relationship might be, because it was outside their purview and they didn't uncover sufficient evidence that they considered credible to support the idea that Saddam was directly connected to 9/11.
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Mangling the 9/11 Commission's Report
By Thomas Patrick Carroll
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 21, 2004
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13866
The contrast is stark.
On the one hand we have the 9/11 Commission’s latest report, Overview of the Enemy, a detailed history of al Qaeda. Like the Commission’s other public statements, it’s informative and worth reading.
On the other, there is the response to the report from the mass media. Here we find a truly astounding conceptual mess, even when measured against the Fourth Estate’s own generously self-forgiving standards.
Dan Froomkin of The Washington Post nicely sums up this intellectual bus plunge. “Yesterday,” Froomkin wrote on 17 June, “a staff report from the Sept. 11 commission concluded that there was ‘no collaborative relationship’ between Iraq and al Qaeda. And this morning, pretty much every mainstream media outlet in the world concludes that this knocks down one of the Bush administration's few still-standing justifications for the war in Iraq.”
Perhaps the most eloquent distillation of this ubiquitous tripe comes to us courtesy of the editorial board at The New York Times. “Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last year,” say the editors, “the most plainly dishonest was his effort to link his war of choice with the battle against terrorists worldwide.” Why is that? According to The Times, it is because the Commission report reveals “there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda.”
This editorial demonstrates, beyond the slightest doubt, that The New York Times comprehends neither the purpose of the 9/11 Commission nor the nature of the Islamist threat.
What the 9/11 Commission does
President Bush charted the 9/11 Commission to investigate al Qaeda’s attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon — how they did it, how we reacted, why it wasn’t prevented, and what defensive measures we might take in the future. Its area of investigation is specific and historical. While the Commission is making some general observations, most of its reports are (and will continue to be) narrow and technical — or at least as narrow as one can be when dealing with the labyrinthine bureaucracies of the U.S. government.
What the Commission is not doing is strategic analysis. For the 9/11 Commission, the questions are not about the Jihadist threat, or about terrorism per se. They are about al Qaeda, the World Trade Center, and what went wrong with our defenses on 11 September.
By failing to grasp that the Commission is focused on the specific, historical actions of a single organization, The Times makes the first of two big mistakes. Even if the editors were correct about there being no link between al Qaeda and Iraq (and they aren’t), it still would not follow that Operation Iraqi Freedom had nothing to do with “the battle against terrorists worldwide.”
Again, the 9/11 Commission is investigating the circumstances of a particular attack by a specific Jihadist organization. Its technical findings are relevant to the broader strategic questions about global Jihadism, but they are not the same thing. The Times goes seriously awry when it conflates the two.
This brings us to the second, and most fundamental, problem with the opinions coming out of The Times and allied critics — i.e., the confusion of al Qaeda, a specific terrorist organization, with the threat from radical Islamism as a whole.
The Real Enemy
The 9/11 Commission’s Overview of the Enemy starts in 1980, when al Qaeda’s precursor organizations were forming to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. But as momentous as these events were, they form only a single chapter in the modern Jihadist story.
The Muslims of the Middle East spent most of the 20th Century trying to find meaning and pride in a world dominated by the Christian West. Many of the early post-WW I monarchs were overthrown in military coups and replaced by brutal martial regimes, all promising to restore past glories and gain new respect. These were the years of Arab Nationalism and Arab Socialism, the time of Gamal Abd al-Nasser and of strategic alliances with the Soviet Union.
The dreams of Arab Nationalism and Socialism ended in failure, but with the Iranian revolution in 1979 a new ideology arose to take their place — Islamic Fundamentalism. Iran’s radical Shi’a ideology was soon matched, and even surpassed, by the virulent Sunni Wahhabism that shot out of Saudi Arabia, propelled across the region and around the world by billions in oil money from the House of Saud.
It is these two main strains of Islamic fundamentalism (one Shi’a, the other Sunni), plus numerous off-shoots and minor cohorts, that constitute the foundation of the terrorist threat we face today. Al Qaeda is part of it, but only a part. If al Qaeda as an organization were to disappear tomorrow, the threat would remain essentially the same.
With this broader perspective, it is clear how Iraq fits in. Al Qaeda connection or not, Saddam was comfortably in bed with the terrorists, both of the new Islamist variety (e.g., his cash payments to the families of Hamas ‘martyrs’ on the West Bank) and of the older secular flavor, e.g., allowing Abu Abbas and the Palestine Liberation Front to live and operate in Baghdad.
The Iraq Occupation and the War on Terror
But the connection between Operation Iraqi Freedom and the fight against terror goes deeper still.
The single greatest catalyst and enabler for violent Islamic fundamentalism, including al Qaeda itself, is Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabist causes it supports.
But what can we do about Saudi Arabia? We can’t boycott Saudi oil; our own economy would sink. We can’t invade Saudi territory, given the Kingdom’s control of Mecca and Medina. So, how do we pressure the Saudis? How do we force them to straighten up and stop exporting their vicious Wahhabism?
One excellent way is to do just what we have done — powerfully insert tens of thousands of American combat troops into Iraq, just north of the Saudi border. Such a display wonderfully focuses the mind. And in fact, one basic reason we occupied Iraq was precisely to compel the states of the region to change their behavior, with Saudi Arabia near the top of the list.
And guess what? The pressure is doing its work. It’s no fun being a Saudi today, and that’s good. Our presence in Iraq, coupled with stern diplomacy, is pushing the House of Saud to confront and rein in the Kingdom’s Wahhabist class.
It’s a dangerous game, but one we must play.
Mr. Carroll is a former officer in the Clandestine Service of the CIA. Email: carroll@meib.org. |
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Jeremy Eaton
Seaman Apprentice
Joined: 08 May 2004
Posts: 90
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| Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 1:28 am Post subject: Re: Sparky, another drive-by AH |
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| Doc Jerry wrote: | | Sparky, another drive-by AH, who thinks he knows the answers and just can't handle the truth. |
I find this so ironic, after half of Sparky's posts have been edited. |
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War Dog
Captain
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 517
Location: Below Birmingham Alabama
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| Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 1:41 am Post subject: |
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Jeremy, Sparky was warned more than multiple times in private PM's by the Moderators concerning post's he was making. He was told numerous time to edit his posts, or the Moderators would do it. He refused to cooperate or do what he was told to do to stay within the rules here. Therefore, his posts were edited to confirm with the rules here. If you violate the rules here, we will send you PM's too, edit your posts, and if necessary impose 24 hour bans on you, and if you should continue to disregard what the Moderators have told you, you will be history too. After all, if you do not like the rules here, you can always go to other boards on the internet where they will ban you for far more than we do here.
It's Way Past Time For The Gloves To Come Off!
FRIGGIN WAR WOOF!
_________________
"When people are in trouble, they call the cops.
When cops need help, they call the K-9 unit." |
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Jeremy Eaton
Seaman Apprentice
Joined: 08 May 2004
Posts: 90
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| Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 12:08 pm Post subject: |
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| War Dog wrote: | | Jeremy, Sparky was warned more than multiple times in private PM's by the Moderators concerning post's he was making. He was told numerous time to edit his posts, or the Moderators would do it. |
So far I've witnessed Sparky being respectful, and making well informed posts including links. My own posts have suffered unjust treatment as well. If obeying "the rules" means allowing the forum to decend into a cesspool of it's own illusions, half-truths, biases, and predjudices, then fine - okay. I'm cool with that. Just so long as we aren't fooling anybody who doesn't want to be fooled. If the purpose of the board is to further develop and deepen the disscussion, well maybe that's a little too democratic. We'll leave that to people who seek first to understand and second to act, shall we? You are entitled to your opinion
Here's one from a goddam peace-loving hippie commie liberal:
''What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?''
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948), "Non-Violence in Peace and War"
Here's a good 'un:
''Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.''
-From The Art of War
''How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.''
-Adolph Hitler |
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nakona
Lieutenant
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
Posts: 242
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| Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:48 pm Post subject: |
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Jeremy -
Consider, just for a moment, the POSSIBILITY that you are wrong.
What would that mean?
_________________
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hist/student
Lieutenant
Joined: 09 May 2004
Posts: 243
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| Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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retracted
Last edited by hist/student on Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:41 am; edited 1 time in total |
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