NationStates Jolt Archive

---Post deleted by NationStates Moderators---

I don't need to be a sore loser.

You're a bad enough winner for the both of us :)

Have you done any research on the recount in Florida? I doubt it. You're speaking about something you know nothing about.

And of course, since you're opinion is what the entire world believes in, nobody thinks Bush is a bad president. No, they're all poor losers. THat's right, there's over hundreds of poor losers in the US dedicated to hating Bush , and their only reasoning is because "he won the election"

OR Bush is a total idiot and people dislike him rightfully so... because of his own words and actions...

WOW. I'm, I'm, I'm Psychic. I had a premonition that I would see the word Sore losers in this thread, AND I WAS RIGHT.

Fear me, David blaine. Soon this whole god forsaken planet will be eating out of my hand.

These is no need to surry the word theory with this. Cal it a rant, and a poorly written one at that.

CBS, CNN and ABC went back after the election to do their own count for every vote and Bush still won Florida by 300 votes. They didn't broadcast it everywhere, but if you were paying attention, you saw it. I'm still searching for that article right now, but until I find it... trust me :wink:

Anyway, what's done is done. Live with it and look forward to the next election where (hopefully) Floridians and every other state will go vote early and Florida will have up-to-date election machines. No more chads! lol

Well, I think your partially right, but it doesnt matter, you still give conservatives a bad name.
Make a new nation, then re-word your post ;)

Bush is so crooked that it's unbelievable. Besides, how can you say democrats are ssore losers when Republicans tried to get the president impeached. Republicans find it necessary to try to expose extramarital affairs, but they shut up when you ask"where was Bush in the 70's?" AWOL people, that's right Awol. Moreover, Oily Hands said it doesn't matter how many votes you get. Hey, we are supposedly a democracy...voting counts in democracy. That and Gore won by 400,000 votes or so. But the Republicans enjoy cheating, as the election of 1876 proves. We shoiuld have had a president Tilden rather than Rutherford B. Hayes. The Electoral college was put in because of the high amount of ignorant people in our country, so the educated could make the important decisions. It should only be based on sovereignty now, because they system is outdated.
If Reagan was so good,why were so many people jobless, the economy in ruin, and why was he almost killed? Because to put it nicely he was an actor politics were not his strong point.

Here's the question: is it spmeone's job to remove tyrants from power, and if so, should we have ulterior motives when doing such?


As for Iraq being a part of the "war on terror," I'm going to tell you right now that the prison torcure scandals are going to do a LOT more then just make us look bad. Our popularity in the arab world just got shot to hell.

As if they didn't "hate" us already. How long have these people lived the way they do? Thousands of years, with a few exceptions to the new technology (like cell phones for businesses) popping up everywhere. Anyway, did anyone notice that there was no attempt to cover any of the prison abuse thing up? That shows that the people in charge want the best for the Iraqis. And before you sarcastically post something like "yeah, torturing them is the best thing" just know that these people are in prison for a reason and if we need inromation from them, we're getting it.

Don't make me come down there.....

CBS, CNN and ABC went back after the election to do their own count for every vote and Bush still won Florida by 300 votes. They didn't broadcast it everywhere, but if you were paying attention, you saw it. I'm still searching for that article right now, but until I find it... trust me :wink:

of course, since a 300 vote margin is well below the margin of error for counting that many votes, all that proves is that florida was a tie.

1) you HAVE to be joking. There was a HUGE attempt to cover up the prison scandel.

2) torcure(sp?) is not permissable in international law. Are you telling me it's ok to break the law?

3) if God came down here, he'd just groan in irritation at how stupid people are. That can be translated both ways, so don't even bother making a snappy retort on it :p

My theory about why liberals hate Bush to a degree that surpasses the hatred they have for terrorists.All stared when Bush deafeted the moron himself Al Gore. Put simply their sore losers. That demanded for a recount when they new they lost. Maybe someone should of told Gore that its not the number of people that voted for you in the country but its the number of votes you get per state and if you win a state you get the electorial votes from that state.Im expecting some left wing propaganda on how Bush cheated but remember try not to be sore losers. God bless Ronald Reagan.

If you do not stop trolling, you will be deleted.


http://www.satanstephen.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/DrChaotica.jpg (http://www.satanstephen.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/taunt1.mp3)
Myrth
Ruler of the Cosmos
Forum Moderator

I don't hate Bush............

I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really.........don't like him too much!!!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

My theory about why liberals hate Bush to a degree that surpasses the hatred they have for terrorists.All stared when Bush deafeted the moron himself Al Gore. Put simply their sore losers. That demanded for a recount when they new they lost. Maybe someone should of told Gore that its not the number of people that voted for you in the country but its the number of votes you get per state and if you win a state you get the electorial votes from that state.Im expecting some left wing propaganda on how Bush cheated but remember try not to be sore losers. God bless Ronald Reagan.
What would have happened if Bush hadn't won?

The US would have an extra $200 Billion in the bank to spend on her citizen's.

Probably 800 less dead US soldiers.

Probably 3 or 4 thousand less injured troops.

ZERO dead Iraqis.

NO tortured prisoners.

NO claims about botched CIA and FBI findings.

NO smearing an ex CIA agent (blown cover)

Gore probably would have carried on in the Clinton tradition and ended up with a surplus.

Perhaps the attack on WTC might not have happened (Bush/Bin Laden connection).

IF the attack on WTC had happened perhaps Gore would have attacked Afghanistan and ACTUALLY captured Bin Laden, instead of running off to Iraq, and wasting precious human resources in an ill conceived war.

Gore probably wouldn't have squandered the worldwide goodwill afforded the US after the attack on the WTC.

I don't picture Gore ever saying...."either you are with us or you are against us".

Perhaps Gore would be polishing his 2nd term speech right about now.

America would still be looked upon favourably by the rest of the world.

This is only pure speculation, but it looks a whole lot better than the BUSH reality??

You know, you could be more of a troll, Oily, but you'd have to strap a bridge to your back.

What would have happened if Bush hadn't won?

ZERO dead Iraqis.

You continue in the tradition of those who propped up the murderous regimes of the Khmer Rouge and the Soviet Union. "ZERO"???

From Bill Whittle at Eject! Eject! Eject! (http://www.ejectejecteject.com/):
Take the number of people Saddam has murdered in unmarked graves – at least 300,000 and rising, and add to that the number of his own conscripts he has killed in wars against Iran and the various coalition forces deployed against him.

No less than a million Iraqis have died at his hands. No less than that, surely.

In the twenty-five years or so that he had absolute power, that averages to 40,000 men, women and children a year – no less.

This past year, despite the number of casualties we inflicted, there were perhaps thirty thousand Iraqis who were not killed because we invaded that country. Next year there will be forty thousand more – forty thousand who will survive, and have children, and grandchildren, because we did what we did in 2003. And the year after that, another forty thousand will live. Ten years from now, which in the world of our critics might have been year three of Uday or Qusay’s reign, there will be five hundred thousand people alive – because of us. Because of what we did. Because of what we are fighting and dying to do today.

Let's highball and say that because of American, British, and Polish intervention, 10,000 Iraqis died that wouldn't have.

That's 30,000 less than would have died otherwise in the last year.

Read more here: The Pyramid of Skulls: How Saddam Hussein Came to Power (http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/4637/terr37a.html)

What would have happened if Bush hadn't won?

ZERO dead Iraqis.

You continue in the tradition of those who propped up the murderous regimes of the Khmer Rouge and the Soviet Union. "ZERO"???

From Bill Whittle at Eject! Eject! Eject! (http://www.ejectejecteject.com/):
Take the number of people Saddam has murdered in unmarked graves – at least 300,000 and rising, and add to that the number of his own conscripts he has killed in wars against Iran and the various coalition forces deployed against him.

No less than a million Iraqis have died at his hands. No less than that, surely.

In the twenty-five years or so that he had absolute power, that averages to 40,000 men, women and children a year – no less.

This past year, despite the number of casualties we inflicted, there were perhaps thirty thousand Iraqis who were not killed because we invaded that country. Next year there will be forty thousand more – forty thousand who will survive, and have children, and grandchildren, because we did what we did in 2003. And the year after that, another forty thousand will live. Ten years from now, which in the world of our critics might have been year three of Uday or Qusay’s reign, there will be five hundred thousand people alive – because of us. Because of what we did. Because of what we are fighting and dying to do today.

Let's highball and say that because of American, British, and Polish intervention, 10,000 Iraqis died that wouldn't have.

That's 30,000 less than would have died otherwise in the last year.

Read more here: The Pyramid of Skulls: How Saddam Hussein Came to Power (http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/4637/terr37a.html)

Well, Bush has only had four years. I'm sure if we gave him twenty some odd years in power he could put Saddam's numbers to shame. :roll:

thats not why

liberals hate bush because there liberal

What the hell has averages got to do with anything?

Saddam was doing no large amount of oppressing in the last years of his government.

You continue in the tradition of those who propped up the murderous regimes of the Khmer Rouge and the Soviet Union. "ZERO"???
No less than a million Iraqis have died at his hands. No less than that, surely.

Let's highball and say that because of American, British, and Polish intervention, 10,000 Iraqis died that wouldn't have.

That's 30,000 less than would have died otherwise in the last year.
How many Iraqi lives do you estimate would have been saved if America and Britain hadn't helped him to power (and then armed him in the war against Iran) in the first place? For that matter, how many lives would have been saved if the CIA hadn't trained Bin Laden?

thats not why

liberals hate bush because there liberal

The word your looking for is "they're". You also might want to check out "that's" and possibly find a good reference for proper capitalization and punctuation.

You continue in the tradition of those who propped up the murderous regimes of the Khmer Rouge and the Soviet Union. "ZERO"???
No less than a million Iraqis have died at his hands. No less than that, surely.

Let's highball and say that because of American, British, and Polish intervention, 10,000 Iraqis died that wouldn't have.

That's 30,000 less than would have died otherwise in the last year.
How many Iraqi lives do you estimate would have been saved if America and Britain hadn't helped him to power (and then armed him in the war against Iran) in the first place? For that matter, how many lives would have been saved if the CIA hadn't trained Bin Laden?
All valid points of consideration.

Additionally, how many Iranians were gassed by Saddam with supplies from his US and UK friends? Saddam looks like the bad guy because he used them, while all the backdoor agents slither away.

How many Iraqis were killed in the double cross? The suppling of Iran with weapons (Iran/Contra).

Additionally, how many Iranians were gassed by Saddam with supplies from his US and UK friends? Saddam looks like the bad guy because he used them, while all the backdoor agents slither away.
Not quite as many as the ill-conceived sanctions, which were the left's answer to Saddam kicking out inspectors.

You continue in the tradition of those who propped up the murderous regimes of the Khmer Rouge and the Soviet Union. "ZERO"???
No less than a million Iraqis have died at his hands. No less than that, surely.

Let's highball and say that because of American, British, and Polish intervention, 10,000 Iraqis died that wouldn't have.

That's 30,000 less than would have died otherwise in the last year.
How many Iraqi lives do you estimate would have been saved if America and Britain hadn't helped him to power (and then armed him in the war against Iran) in the first place? For that matter, how many lives would have been saved if the CIA hadn't trained Bin Laden?

In response to query #1:
Probably the same number of people that would've died had the Iranians continued their Jihadist campaign against the other secular nations of the Middle East, which was their overall goal. Of course, as we all know, the Ayatollah Khomeini was so much more of a humanitarian than Saddam Hussein. Also, you failed to mention that we withdrew aid from Iraq in 1988 after Hussein ordered the gassing of the Kurds.

In response to query #2:
I laugh every time I hear "the CIA trained bin Laden". I really do find it humorous because it immeditately betrays a certain degree of ignorance on the part of the individual making the argument. What degree of training did OBL receive that instructed him to attack embassies, Khobar Towers and slam airliners into American tourist attractions? Certainly you couldn't be referring to our operations in Afghanistan and the Mujahadeen. Because, as we all know (with just a little bit of study) that prior to 1984, the Mujahadeen were losing horribly in Afghanistan despite initial successes against the Soviet trained Afghan puppet army. Had they [the USSR] been successful, it would've gotten the Soviets yet another step closer to realizing their dream of a port on the Indian Ocean (Pakistan was next in line) and India was already a large recipient of Soviet military aid. It wouldn't have taken much pressure for them to play ball thus turning South Central Asia into another Eastern Europe. But I digress, for the Mujahadeen to once again seize the advantage, we provided them with shoulder-launched Stinger missiles with which to destroy low-flying Soviet Mi-24 gunships, SU-25 and MIG-27 aircraft that had been giving their ground forces the advantage of close air support. Horses have a real hard time outrunning helicopters and fighters. After deliveries of the Stinger missiles, the tide began turning as Soviet and Afghan aircraft began operating at altitudes that were inconsistent with providing CAS. The problem you see, was not one of tactics. The Afghans have a long-standing tradition of being fierce guerilla fighters (just ask the British). But those pesky Mi-24 Hinds and SU-25 Frogfoots were the advantage the Soviets were counting on (as we did in Vietnam). Further arms shipments included automatic weapons (mostly Soviet bloc as ammo was plentiful) from Pakistani arms dealers, to replace the Mujahadeen's outdated stocks of Lee Enfields and to supplement weapons they had captured from the Afghan army and the Soviets. LITTLE TRAINING WAS PROVIDED outside of the use of the Stinger missiles and how to best employ RPG's against Soviet armor. None of the training the Mujahadeen or OBL received EVER included tactics used by Al Queda in perpetrating the attacks on 9/11, the embassy bombings, the USS Cole or others. These attacks are consistent with terrorist training received from and conducted in nations such as Libya, Syria and...uh oh...Iran.

But if you must regurgitate the line that the CIA trained Bin Laden, please qualify your statement otherwise you might appear uninformed to someone who knows what he's talking about.

---Post deleted by NationStates Moderators---

Look here Mr. President!! How many times do I have to tell you?
If you keep shooting that rifle off in the air like that, our trained pilots will think this is an Iraqi wedding down here and bomb us good.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/images/jan2001/bush_hunting.jpg

Look here Mr. President!! How many times do I have to tell you?
If you keep shooting that rifle off in the air like that, our trained pilots will think this is an Iraqi wedding down here and bomb us good.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/images/jan2001/bush_hunting.jpg

Nah....He doesn't appear to be standing in the middle of the empty desert near the Syrian border. And I don't happen to see any RPG's or DsHK 12.7mm heavy machine guns....so it can't be an A-typical Iraqi "wedding party", at least not the sort we've eliminated recently.

Not to mention the fact that the President is holding a shotgun...not a rifle. :roll:

why did Oily get deated?

Yes, let's address the CIA-Osama connection.

After leaving Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan, by 1984, bin Laden was in charge of a front organization called Maktab al-Khidamar (the MAK). The MAK supplied money, arms and fighters to the Afghani resistance of the Soviet invasion. This much is straight from bin Laden's public CIA bio.

However, there is already an interesting connection. The MAK was being fed by Pakistan's state security service, the Inter-Service Intelligence agency. The ISS was in turn the conduit through which the CIA funneled funds (between $6 and $20 billion dollars parcelled out between 1978 and 1992) and training to thwart the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. in 1986, CIA chief William Casey supported the ISI initiative to recruit fundamentalist muslims from around the world. Between 1982 and 1992, over 100,000 Islamic fundamentalists went to Pakistan to join the Afghani jihad.

According to John Cooley, a journalist with US ABC and author of Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorisim, fundamentalist muslims recruited in the United States for the jihad were sent to Camp Perry, a CIA spy-training camp in Virginia. Here, Afghans, Arabs from Egypt and Jordan, and a few American Muslims were taught "sabotage skills." This came home to roost, according to the November 1st, 1998, British Independent, when one of those charged in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ali Mohammed, had trained bin Laden's operatives in 1989. These operatives were recruited in Brooklyn, given paramilitary training around New York and then sent to Afghanistan to join Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's jihad (more on him in a bit). This was part of a Washinton approved plan code named "Operation Cyclone".

Mohammed's students included El Sayyid Nosair, who killed the Israeli Rabbi Meir Kahane and plotted with others to bomb landmarks around New York, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

Another member of "Operation Cyclone" may have been Egyptian Shiekh Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was also jailed for the 1993 WTC bombing. Abdel-Rahman entered the US in 1990 with the CIA's approval.

According to the Independent, a confidential CIA report concluded that the agency was "partly culpable" for the WTC bombing.

An interesting fact is that Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe broadcast Islamic fundamentalist tirades all across Central Asia. Mind you, while they were praising fundamental Islamics, they were also condemning the Islamic uprising that toppled the Shah in Iran in 1979. No one seemed much bothered by the contradiction at the time, though.

The US's mujaheddin leader of choice was one of the most extreme Islamic fundamentalists, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar was a "freedom fighter," not a terrorist, who earned a reputation for throwing acid in the faces of Islamic women who didn't wear veils in the 1970s.

While bin Laden wasn't the leader of the resistance in Afghanistan, the CIA found him and other Arab fighters to be their prime allies because they were, at least at the time, one-dimensionally anti-Soviet.

There is no question that the CIA new who bin Laden was and what he was about. Milt Bearden, the CIA station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, said in an interview in the January 24th, 2000, New Yorker about bin Laden, "Did I know that he was out there? Yes, I did ... [Guys like] bin Laden were bringing $20-$25 million a month from other Saudis and Gulf Arabs to underwrite the war. And that is a lot of money. It's an extra $200-$300 million a year. And this is what bin Laden did."

In 1986, drawing on his family's construction empire, bin Laden brought heavy equipment into Afghanistan and constructed "training camps" with the collaboration of the ISI and the CIA, who called them "terrorist universities." The CIA armed bin Laden's mujaheddin figheters and Pakistan, the US and the UK all supplied military training.

Tom Carew, a British SAS soldier who fought for the mujaheddin, told the British Obersver in August of 2000, "The Americans were keen to teach the Afghans the techniques of urban terrorism — car bombing and so on — so that they could strike at the Russians in major towns ... Many of them are now using their knowledge and expertise to wage war on everything they hate."

Bin Laden was a close associate of Hekmatyar who's faction took Kabul in 1992 and rained US supplied missiles on the city, killing over 2,000 civilians, until the new government made him prime minister.

Hekmatyar was also infamous for his opium dealing and it's odd that the CIA backing of the mujaheddin coincided with a huge upswing in heroin trafficking. By 1994, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was the world's single largest source of heroin, supplying 60% of heroin users in the US.

By the end of the Afghani war, bin Laden returned to his rich family construction business in Saudi Arabia and was actually something of a hero to the Saudis. What was going on behind the scenes was much more interesting.

In 1988, bin Laden had split from The MAK and formed his own group, al-Qaeda, and took many of the more extreme members of the MAK with him. He simply continued to do what he had been doing in Afghanistan at the asking of the ISI and CIA for the past 4 years--recruit, train and fund mercenaries. These Afghanis, as the Arab vets were known as, later appeared behind many of the emerging violent Islamic groups around the globe, such as the GIA in Algeria, the Gamat Ismalia in Egypt and the Shiite militants in Saudi Arabia. All of these organizations claimed many lives and property dollars. And all received training and supplies from, guess who? The CIA.

Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda only became "terrorists" when he fell out with the Saudi royal family over the US stationing some 540,000 troops in Saudi Arabia following the Kuwait invasion. When many of these troops stayed in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War, Bin Laden took on a new enemy, the US. He already knew how to fight this kind of war because he had been fighting it all during the 80s, except then he was working for us against the U.S.S.R. When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in September of 1994, Bin Laden was there with facilities, soldiers and funds as well as training camps, all of which he offered to the new religious regime.

In defence of this, proponents pointed to the Cold War mentality and intelligence of a fracturing infrastructure in the Soviet Union. Senator Orrin Hatch, who at the time served as a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the committee in charge of making these decisions, said, "It was worth it."

Yes, let's address the CIA-Osama connection.

After leaving Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan, by 1984, bin Laden was in charge of a front organization called Maktab al-Khidamar (the MAK). The MAK supplied money, arms and fighters to the Afghani resistance of the Soviet invasion. This much is straight from bin Laden's public CIA bio.

However, there is already an interesting connection. The MAK was being fed by Pakistan's state security service, the Inter-Service Intelligence agency. The ISS was in turn the conduit through which the CIA funneled funds (between $6 and $20 billion dollars parcelled out between 1978 and 1992) and training to thwart the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. in 1986, CIA chief William Casey supported the ISI initiative to recruit fundamentalist muslims from around the world. Between 1982 and 1992, over 100,000 Islamic fundamentalists went to Pakistan to join the Afghani jihad.

According to John Cooley, a journalist with US ABC and author of Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorisim, fundamentalist muslims recruited in the United States for the jihad were sent to Camp Perry, a CIA spy-training camp in Virginia. Here, Afghans, Arabs from Egypt and Jordan, and a few American Muslims were taught "sabotage skills." This came home to roost, according to the November 1st, 1998, British Independent, when one of those charged in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ali Mohammed, had trained bin Laden's operatives in 1989. These operatives were recruited in Brooklyn, given paramilitary training around New York and then sent to Afghanistan to join Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's jihad (more on him in a bit). This was part of a Washinton approved plan code named "Operation Cyclone".

Mohammed's students included El Sayyid Nosair, who killed the Israeli Rabbi Meir Kahane and plotted with others to bomb landmarks around New York, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

Another member of "Operation Cyclone" may have been Egyptian Shiekh Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was also jailed for the 1993 WTC bombing. Abdel-Rahman entered the US in 1990 with the CIA's approval.

According to the Independent, a confidential CIA report concluded that the agency was "partly culpable" for the WTC bombing.

An interesting fact is that Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe broadcast Islamic fundamentalist tirades all across Central Asia. Mind you, while they were praising fundamental Islamics, they were also condemning the Islamic uprising that toppled the Shah in Iran in 1979. No one seemed much bothered by the contradiction at the time, though.

The US's mujaheddin leader of choice was one of the most extreme Islamic fundamentalists, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar was a "freedom fighter," not a terrorist, who earned a reputation for throwing acid in the faces of Islamic women who didn't wear veils in the 1970s.

While bin Laden wasn't the leader of the resistance in Afghanistan, the CIA found him and other Arab fighters to be their prime allies because they were, at least at the time, one-dimensionally anti-Soviet.

There is no question that the CIA new who bin Laden was and what he was about. Milt Bearden, the CIA station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, said in an interview in the January 24th, 2000, New Yorker about bin Laden, "Did I know that he was out there? Yes, I did ... [Guys like] bin Laden were bringing $20-$25 million a month from other Saudis and Gulf Arabs to underwrite the war. And that is a lot of money. It's an extra $200-$300 million a year. And this is what bin Laden did."

In 1986, drawing on his family's construction empire, bin Laden brought heavy equipment into Afghanistan and constructed "training camps" with the collaboration of the ISI and the CIA, who called them "terrorist universities." The CIA armed bin Laden's mujaheddin figheters and Pakistan, the US and the UK all supplied military training.

Tom Carew, a British SAS soldier who fought for the mujaheddin, told the British Obersver in August of 2000, "The Americans were keen to teach the Afghans the techniques of urban terrorism — car bombing and so on — so that they could strike at the Russians in major towns ... Many of them are now using their knowledge and expertise to wage war on everything they hate."

Bin Laden was a close associate of Hekmatyar who's faction took Kabul in 1992 and rained US supplied missiles on the city, killing over 2,000 civilians, until the new government made him prime minister.

Hekmatyar was also infamous for his opium dealing and it's odd that the CIA backing of the mujaheddin coincided with a huge upswing in heroin trafficking. By 1994, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was the world's single largest source of heroin, supplying 60% of heroin users in the US.

By the end of the Afghani war, bin Laden returned to his rich family construction business in Saudi Arabia and was actually something of a hero to the Saudis. What was going on behind the scenes was much more interesting.

In 1988, bin Laden had split from The MAK and formed his own group, al-Qaeda, and took many of the more extreme members of the MAK with him. He simply continued to do what he had been doing in Afghanistan at the asking of the ISI and CIA for the past 4 years--recruit, train and fund mercenaries. These Afghanis, as the Arab vets were known as, later appeared behind many of the emerging violent Islamic groups around the globe, such as the GIA in Algeria, the Gamat Ismalia in Egypt and the Shiite militants in Saudi Arabia. All of these organizations claimed many lives and property dollars. And all received training and supplies from, guess who? The CIA.

Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda only became "terrorists" when he fell out with the Saudi royal family over the US stationing some 540,000 troops in Saudi Arabia following the Kuwait invasion. When many of these troops stayed in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War, Bin Laden took on a new enemy, the US. He already knew how to fight this kind of war because he had been fighting it all during the 80s, except then he was working for us against the U.S.S.R. When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in September of 1994, Bin Laden was there with facilities, soldiers and funds as well as training camps, all of which he offered to the new religious regime.

In defence of this, proponents pointed to the Cold War mentality and intelligence of a fracturing infrastructure in the Soviet Union. Senator Orrin Hatch, who at the time served as a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the committee in charge of making these decisions, said, "It was worth it."

Much of information you have shown from the book you have quoted here has been proven to be either erroneous or deliberately falsifed. Regardless of the quantity you have provided here, none of it refutes my arguments. To an overwhelming degree, the training received by the Mujahadeen was as previously stated, on tactical, battlefield basis. Furthermore, Tom Carew, whom you quote above has has well demonstrated that his facts are either incorrect or falsified. For example, he makes simple mistakes in the nomenclature of soviet equipment, labeling a ZSU-23 as a "three-barrel, 50-calibre machine gun, usually arranged in groups of two, three or four, and it's fearsome." The very name includes "23" which refers to the 23mm auto-cannons on the ZSU...not 50 caliber. Furthermore, ZSU is an abbreviation for Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka-self-propelled anti-aircraft gun. According to Carew's descriptions, these guns are not self-propelled. One wonders how an SAS man could make such an error when, speaking from my own military experience and study, detail is essential especially when it comes to the weapons at yours and your enemy's disposal. Carew has made similar errors in articles he has published in such rags as the UK Guardian I might add, which makes what he has to say, and his credentials automatically suspect.

Nice try though.

Not quite as many as the ill-conceived sanctions, which were the left's answer to Saddam kicking out inspectors.

Find me one example that Saddam ever kicked out the inspectors! He never did, they left. Another myth people seem to believe as truth because it's be said often enough. Yet, still not true. He never kicked them out, not once.

So are you dismissing all of Berkylvania's points, Yavastakia? Bringing the old smoke-fire maxim in won't be much good in a court of law I know, but really what are we discussing here? Beside a classic conservative-liberal argument in which both sides roll out their favourite grievances, there is one basic underlying question.

How trustworthy are the people who wield power?

I guess my answer is hardly at all. Be it the Bush clan, for whom Jeb disqualified many potential Democrat voters who merely shared the same name as known criminals, or the shadowy suits of the CIA. Whatever the details are, is it not almost certain that they were involved in meddling in the political affairs of the middle east, and that if they had not, many fundamentalists would not have cause to take issue with the US? You may argue that the Soviet war machine needed to be stopped, but perhaps someone would like to elaborate for me on the role of the US in the decline of communism in Europe and eventually the fall of the USSR?

Carew has made similar errors in articles he has published in such rags as the UK Guardian I might add, which makes what he has to say, and his credentials automatically suspect.


The UK Guardian is far from being a 'rag'. Daily Mail - yes, Mirror - yes, Sun - yes, Express - yes. I could go on...

The Guardian is, generally speaking, very reliable. Careful with who you start tarring.

DP

DP

Much of information you have shown from the book you have quoted here has been proven to be either erroneous or deliberately falsifed. Regardless of the quantity you have provided here, none of it refutes my arguments.

Again, I ask you, where have these things been rebuked? I wasn't particularly interested in refuting your specific arguments. They may very well be true on a case by case basis, but that doesn't invalidate the overall charge. Furthermore, I am not a military person (as a Quaker, far from it) so I don't possess the specialized knowledge you obviously do about weapons nomenclature.


To an overwhelming degree, the training received by the Mujahadeen was as previously stated, on tactical, battlefield basis.

Your source for this? Everything I found in my research (which I will admit is still preliminary) indicates both tactical training was given as well as the "sabotage skills" like those taught at Camp Perry.


Furthermore, Tom Carew, whom you quote above has has well demonstrated that his facts are either incorrect or falsified. For example, he makes simple mistakes in the nomenclature of soviet equipment, labeling a ZSU-23 as a "three-barrel, 50-calibre machine gun, usually arranged in groups of two, three or four, and it's fearsome." The very name includes "23" which refers to the 23mm auto-cannons on the ZSU...not 50 caliber. Furthermore, ZSU is an abbreviation for Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka-self-propelled anti-aircraft gun. According to Carew's descriptions, these guns are not self-propelled. One wonders how an SAS man could make such an error when, speaking from my own military experience and study, detail is essential especially when it comes to the weapons at yours and your enemy's disposal. Carew has made similar errors in articles he has published in such rags as the UK Guardian I might add, which makes what he has to say, and his credentials automatically suspect.

You're saying this but again you're asking me to take it on faith. I'm not willing to do that. Show me specific instances of proof and not things you have heard. Provide cites like I did so I can read them and decide for myself.

Also, this argument does nothing to refute the majority of factual connections and admissions about this situation. Carew may indeed be wrong or mistaken, but that doesn't bring the case down on itself. I threw Carew's comment in more for color than for the underpinning of any inportant argument.

I have a better question... maybe somebody out there can answer it...

Why do conservatives hate America's constitutional democracy?

Why do they act like any disagreement with their positions is treason? Do they think we'd be better in a one-party system?

Why is it an impeachable offence to lie to Congress (as if it's any of their business) about who's been under a liberal president's desk and perfectly acceptable to lie in the SotU Address, to Congress, to the U.N., and to the employers - the voters - about non-existant "solid intel" about reasons for declaring war?

Why is it acceptable for a conservative talk radio host (Limbough) to praise the actions of people who fire guns at the White House of a liberal administration, and even to call them "patriots", but when peaceful protesters wish to demonstrate their views to "their" "president", they are baracaded 100 yards or more away in a "free speach zone"?

Wasn't the entire U.S.A. supposed to be a free speach zone?

Why was Bush Jr. so sure that Saddam had WMDs? Could it be because Bush Sr. and Mr. Rumsfeld had kept all the receipts?

Why are Saddam's actions against Iran and the Kurds taken as a justification to have invaded Iraq when we had no problems with the ways they used the weapon systems that we sold them until they invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi? And why do conservatives tend to react to this question by accusing those who pose it of not caring about the genocides that their tax dollars subsidized?

Why do so many 20-somethings who still had their thumbs in their mouths during the 1980s think that their momma's spoon fed conservative histories of those times have any relation to the actual "facts on the ground"?



Conservatives act like true (U.S.) American patriotism is all about going to church and not questioning their leaders and pledging their hearts to a peice of cloth. None of these things have anything to do with true patriotism. True patriotism is about the people's right to use their freedoms, to speak freely whether we approve of their views or not, to be considered innocent until proven guilty by legal means, and to that end to have certain rights when accused. True patriotism does not limit free speach to designated zones, nor does it exempt accusations of the most heinous and capital of crimes from affording the accused all of their constitutional rights. True patriots truly believe that those who are willing to give up liberty for security deserve neither.

I have heard some few conservatives that I actually respect greatly. Unfortunately most seem to be real posers when it comes to patriotism and respect for the rule of law and the constitution. Like those who slobber after any hot fad, they have no clue about the old school.

They are Masters of symbolism and of innuendo, but from the way they demonize anyone who speaks against their views and actions, it should be clear to any sane thinking American that they are the enemies of America and to freedom, more insidious that Al Queida because Al Queida does not AFAICT pretend to be anything that it is not.

But these people claim to be the sole representitives of "true" Americans, and it goes far beyond just saying that they are right and that those who disagree are wrong. Ironically, their very insistance that those who disagree with their vision are the enemies of America is the very thing that wins them that dubious honor. They worship a peice of cloth and a paper that grants all the right to speak and believe as each so chooses, while all the while demonizing any with a different vision as traitors. And it is the latter that makes them the treasonous ones.



- Rev. A.J. Harris

From Bill Whittle at Eject! Eject! Eject! (http://www.ejectejecteject.com/):
Take the number of people Saddam has murdered in unmarked graves – at least 300,000 and rising, and add to that the number of his own conscripts he has killed in wars against Iran and the various coalition forces deployed against him.

No less than a million Iraqis have died at his hands. No less than that, surely.

In the twenty-five years or so that he had absolute power, that averages to 40,000 men, women and children a year – no less.

This past year, despite the number of casualties we inflicted, there were perhaps thirty thousand Iraqis who were not killed because we invaded that country. Next year there will be forty thousand more – forty thousand who will survive, and have children, and grandchildren, because we did what we did in 2003. And the year after that, another forty thousand will live. Ten years from now, which in the world of our critics might have been year three of Uday or Qusay’s reign, there will be five hundred thousand people alive – because of us. Because of what we did. Because of what we are fighting and dying to do today.

Let's highball and say that because of American, British, and Polish intervention, 10,000 Iraqis died that wouldn't have.

That's 30,000 less than would have died otherwise in the last year.

you are counting war deaths against him to come up with an 'average yearly death rate'? that seems a bit disingenuous - they will tend to boost the average up quite significantly over the relatively short term. for example, in war deaths alone fdr 'killed' an average of about 24,000 americans a year, every year of his presidency.

Not quite as many as the ill-conceived sanctions, which were the left's answer to Saddam kicking out inspectors.

Find me one example that Saddam ever kicked out the inspectors! He never did, they left. Another myth people seem to believe as truth because it's be said often enough. Yet, still not true. He never kicked them out, not once.

Your right my bad. They left after the report on noncompliance by Butler.

Much of information you have shown from the book you have quoted here has been proven to be either erroneous or deliberately falsifed. Regardless of the quantity you have provided here, none of it refutes my arguments.

Again, I ask you, where have these things been rebuked? I wasn't particularly interested in refuting your specific arguments. They may very well be true on a case by case basis, but that doesn't invalidate the overall charge. Furthermore, I am not a military person (as a Quaker, far from it) so I don't possess the specialized knowledge you obviously do about weapons nomenclature.


To an overwhelming degree, the training received by the Mujahadeen was as previously stated, on tactical, battlefield basis.

Your source for this? Everything I found in my research (which I will admit is still preliminary) indicates both tactical training was given as well as the "sabotage skills" like those taught at Camp Perry.


Furthermore, Tom Carew, whom you quote above has has well demonstrated that his facts are either incorrect or falsified. For example, he makes simple mistakes in the nomenclature of soviet equipment, labeling a ZSU-23 as a "three-barrel, 50-calibre machine gun, usually arranged in groups of two, three or four, and it's fearsome." The very name includes "23" which refers to the 23mm auto-cannons on the ZSU...not 50 caliber. Furthermore, ZSU is an abbreviation for Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka-self-propelled anti-aircraft gun. According to Carew's descriptions, these guns are not self-propelled. One wonders how an SAS man could make such an error when, speaking from my own military experience and study, detail is essential especially when it comes to the weapons at yours and your enemy's disposal. Carew has made similar errors in articles he has published in such rags as the UK Guardian I might add, which makes what he has to say, and his credentials automatically suspect.

You're saying this but again you're asking me to take it on faith. I'm not willing to do that. Show me specific instances of proof and not things you have heard. Provide cites like I did so I can read them and decide for myself.

Also, this argument does nothing to refute the majority of factual connections and admissions about this situation. Carew may indeed be wrong or mistaken, but that doesn't bring the case down on itself. I threw Carew's comment in more for color than for the underpinning of any inportant argument.

Carew's quote above and the term ZSU-23 seperately and compare the information for yourself. I'm not trying to convince you of anything but I'll let the evidence speak for itself.

The rest of my point needs only logic to be applied. The Soviets did not pull out of Afghanistan because of a few car bombs and sabotage.

The following is passage from the book Flashpoint written by one of its authors, Ken Guest who is a former Royal Marine Commando and a contributer to many documentaries and publications on the Middle East.

When Britain ruled India, many of her officers had been firmly convinced that one day, the Russians would come. Thirty-two years after the last British sentry guarding the Khyber Pass had packed up his kit bag and gone home, they were finally proved correct: on December 24th, 1979 President Amin was assassinated by Soviet Special Forces spearheading the the Russian invasion. The Russians hastily recalled the exiled Afghan communist Barbrak Kamal into Amin's still-warm shows as the next president and Afghnistan slid into all-out guerilla warfare against the Russian presence.

In 1979 the Cold War was still a reality. The consensus of Western opinion in the wake of the Christmas Eve invasion was that Kabul was not the ultimate objective: observers feared that it was a stepping stone in the old Russian dream of warm-water ports on the Indian Ocean. In 1919, Leon Trotsky had told the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, "The road to Paris and London lies through the towns of Afghanistan, the Punjab and Bengal."

(From further down the page)

Although it was partly sponsored by Pakistan, which supplied both limited training and some arms, the largest single source of modern weaponry for the Mujahadeen was the Afgan Army itself. Sometimes, arms were seized by force, but far more came from deserting Afghan soldiers who abandoned the government cause in their thousands. The Mujahadeen were even able to obtain limited numbers of weapons from Soviet Forces. The Russians made the mistake of sending Islamic troops (conscripted from Soviet Central Asia) to Afghanistan in the belief that they would be more acceptable to the Afghans.

(On the Afghans "training" versus the Soviet's tactics)

The Afghans possesed one further asset-the hostile landscape of their homeland. The Russian forces were ill-prepared for what they encountered in Afghanistan...In this strange environment, they were reluctant to deploy far from their armored personnel carriers. When they did, they lacked the fitness required to operate efficently in mountainous terrain. On incursions into Mujahadeen controlled territory, the Russians often made use of their Afghan Army allies as a casualty sponge to spearpoint their offensives....

Around the major towns, heavily armed Afghan Sardonoy (Paramilitary Police) kept the urban landscape under control.

Without regurgitating the book verbatim, Guest does refer to combat/attacks within Kabul itself but this took place primarily in 1980-81...before any "formal" training might have been rpovided by the west. By 1984, it was too dangerous for them to conduct attacks within Kabul and I'm assuming, within other population centers as well.

Guest cites works written by both Russian and Afghan commanders on both sides and makes no mention of CIA "training" in any capacity. If any were received as you previously claimed, it was obviously too miniscule to affect the outcome and should be listed as the footnote that it is.


http://www.afghan-web.com/history/articles/ussr.html
(From the above website)
Economically speaking, the cost of the war varies, according to the varying Soviet figures, but the most agreeable figure is given as $8.2 billion per year. As for casualties, it too is an arguable topic, due to the strict censorship of the Soviet Union. The official 15,000 dead is a gross underestimation. Experts agree that at least 40,000 - 50,000 Soviets lost their lives in action, besides the wounded, suicides, and murders. The ultimate political cost, however, was at least the breakup of the surface glaze which had hidden much of the internal decay for decades. This, in part, would not have been possible without the great contributions of communicational technology which became at the disposal of the populace [mostly after the Afghan War, i.e. fax machines and the free and uncensored Media (due to Glastnos)], all of which were capable of reporting the slightest news around the world and all over the USSR.

How many Iraqi lives do you estimate would have been saved if America and Britain hadn't helped him to power (and then armed him in the war against Iran) in the first place? For that matter, how many lives would have been saved if the CIA hadn't trained Bin Laden?
I don't know. Lots.

So what? So some guys 40 years ago helped the wrong guys, and the rest of us should just live with it (or die with it)? Or if you make a mess, shouldn't you clean it up?

American and Britain (actually France mostly) did not order and conduct the mass murder and torture of Iraqis. Saddam and his gang did. The industrial shredders that people were fed into are gone. People are no longer getting their hands amputated for resistance to the regime. Nobody is being dressed up as Superman and thrown off buildings. Uday and Qusay aren't cruising for women to rape.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

No, not some guys. It is more or less the same guys or in most cases the idealogical forefathers of the guys in power today.

thats not why

liberals hate bush because there liberal

Let's parse that sentence correctly:

People hate Bush because they're intelligent.

Like him or hate him, it really doesnt matter.
Bush's record speaks volumes about the man
Far better than anyone else ever could.
All you have to do is take a look at his performance in office, and realize what a failure this president has become.
If Bush were being graded, he would receive an "F". The economy is still down. The jobless rate is still overblown. The war is going badly, although the outcome is, and always was, never in question.
Global support from 9/11 is gone, and America is not liked by most right now.
Hes put us into a huge deficit, after being handed a huge surplus.
Taken more time off than any President...

The list just keeps going on.....

I have no feelings about Bush the man.....but Bush the President, is a good candidate for "Worst President Ever."

Not quite as many as the ill-conceived sanctions, which were the left's answer to Saddam kicking out inspectors.

Find me one example that Saddam ever kicked out the inspectors! He never did, they left. Another myth people seem to believe as truth because it's be said often enough. Yet, still not true. He never kicked them out, not once.

Your right my bad. They left after the report on noncompliance by Butler.

Yes, they basically left in protest because Saddam was giving them the run around, however he never actually asked them to leave. It's a common myth. Don't feel bad, a lot of people believe he kicked them out.

[quote="BackwoodsSquatches"]Like him or hate him, it really doesnt matter.
Bush's record speaks volumes about the man
Far better than anyone else ever could.
All you have to do is take a look at his performance in office, and realize what a failure this president has become.
If Bush were being graded, he would receive an "F". The economy is still down. The jobless rate is still overblown. The war is going badly, although the outcome is, and always was, never in question.
Global support from 9/11 is gone, and America is not liked by most right now.
Hes put us into a huge deficit, after being handed a huge surplus.
Taken more time off than any President...

The list just keeps going on.....

I have no feelings about Bush the man.....but Bush th

One hundred mistakes bush has made.
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=64326

Here's a nice movie about him
http://ericblumrich.com/quicktime/disclaimer.mov