Bush Destroyed a Dictator. Clinton Installed One.

[BeAChooser]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB123197784199983615-lMyQjAxMDI5MzExNTkxNzU3Wj.html


As President George W. Bush prepares to leave office amid a media chorus of reproach and derision, there is at least one comparison with his predecessor that speaks greatly in his favor. Mr. Bush removed the most ruthless dictator of his day, Saddam Hussein, thereby offering Iraqi citizens the possibility of self-rule. Bill Clinton's analogous achievement in the Middle East was to help install Yasser Arafat, the greatest terrorist of his day, as head of a proto-Palestinian state.


Good point. In fact, Bush policy toppled two dictatorships.

[DC]

Bush supported the Installment of Dictator Pedro Carmona. But the brave Venezuelan didnt take it and the people brought back theyr democraticly elected President.

[DC]

the most ruthless dictator of his day, Saddam Hussein

Dictator Kim is much worse.

but has no oil....

[Redtail]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB123197784199983615-lMyQjAxMDI5MzExNTkxNzU3Wj.html



Good point. In fact, Bush policy toppled two dictatorships.

Who put Saddam in charge?

[Cavemonster]

The CIA aided in installing Saddam's party to power back in 1963, partly in order to have allies against communism in the area.

He became commander in chief in 1979.

[DC]

the enemy of my enemy is my friend politics didnt work to well.

[Cavemonster]

I imagine Clinton could have toppled a whole bunch of dictators if he didn't care about leaving the countries involved better places or how much it would cost in lives, money we can't afford to spend and world opinion and support.

He did a pretty good cost/benefit analysis I'd say.

[godless dave]

Right, because determining how countries other than the US are governed is the job of the US president.


And just to nitpick, Arafat was elected (in elections that were free, unlike Vladimir Putin, who has a ruthless side). And Saddam was no more ruthless than the dictator of Korea, with Mugabe in Zimbabwe coming in third. Not that any of that's relevant, since overthrowing foreign dictatorships is not the job of the US military.

[DC]

I think for the OP, Dictator means, not Pro-US.

[Cavemonster]

Right, because determining how countries other than the US are governed is the job of the US president.


And just to nitpick, Arafat was elected (in elections that were free, unlike Vladimir Putin, who has a ruthless side). And Saddam was no more ruthless than the dictator of Korea, with Mugabe in Zimbabwe coming in third. Not that any of that's relevant, since overthrowing foreign dictatorships is not the job of the US military.

That's right, overthrowing foreign leaders is strictly the job of the CIA.

[leftysergeant]

Arafat already had a following.

Only our capitalists had any interest in what's-his-name in Venezuela.

Nobody but our capitalists wanted that pile of sludge Pinochet.

Sorry, you cannot wipe out the record that the Republicans have always held for installing worthless vermin as heads of other states.

[jj]

It's interesting to note the extremes of dishonesty that are required in order to attempt to justify a thread title like the one above.

It is even more remarkable that only a religion that allowed "true believers" to do anything and be forgiven would support such a performance.

[tomwaits]

It's time to move on...
It's time to get goin...
What lies ahead I have no way of knowin...

[jamrat]

Sixty million people liberated from tyranny. Thousands, possibly millions of African lives saved. Untold millions saved the trouble of explaining cigars, sodomy and stained dresses to their young daughters. ("I don't care what the president does Honey, cigars do not belong in the vagina.")

Way to go you inarticulate, drunken frat boy.

[ParrotPirate]

Are you suggesting Clinton is inarticulate,Jamrat? I'm just asking,since W seems to be the one who can barely speak coherently most days.

[jamrat]

Nope.

[BeAChooser]

the people brought back theyr democraticly elected President.

There's a little history concerning Hugo Chavez that you curiously forgot to mention. Here's the rest of the story.

First, back in 1992 Carlos Andres Perez was the duly elected President of Venezuela (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Andrés_Pérez). That year, Lieutenant-Colonel Hugo Chavez led a military coup that tried to topple Perez. It failed and resulted in Chavez's arrest and incarceration for two years. So don't get so high and mighty about Chavez being toppled (temporarily) in a similar coup attempt (if coup is even a proper description of what happened) while he was President (if that is even a proper description of his behavior at the time).

True, Chavez was elected President in 1998 (on promises of wealth redistribution ... sound familiar?). But in 1999 the constitution was rewritten extending the term of President to 6 years. Then in August of that year a "judicial state of emergency" and a "legislative state of emergency" were declared. The first gave Chavez the power to remove judges and the second left a seven man committee (Chavez's people) in charge of legislative functions ... and barred Congress from meeting. The reality is that Chavez ruled by decree until November 2001. In short, he began to act like a dictator, doing such things as seizing private lands and redistributing them to small farmers.

In April 2002 protests broke out, involving as many as half a million people demanding the immediate resignation of Chavez. His popularity ratings at that time were below 30 percent after he repeatedly accused business leaders, labor, the news media and even Roman Catholic Church of conspiring to unseat him. Just days before the "coup", Chavez had declared he'd remain president until 2021 (sounds a little like a dictator, wouldn't you say?).

When hundreds of thousands of protestors marched on the Presidential Palace, Chavez ordered the military and his civilian gunmen to open fire on them. The military refused the order but Chavez's gunmen fired repeatedly, killing over a dozen and wounding hundreds. Chaos reigned. Chavez ordered five Caracas television stations off the air. That's when the military stepped in and forced Chávez to leave the capitol and resign.

Note that the military did not put one of it's own into power. This wasn't a military coup in that sense. Instead, to fill the vacuum left in the civilian government by Chavez's resignation, Pedro Carmona, head of the nation's largest business association and who had been one of the original protest's organizers, stepped forward and said he would head a transitional government. Then, Carmona acted even more like a dictator, dissolving Congress and canceling the Constitution. This caused the army to withdraw their support of him, which opened the door for Chavez to return to power just a few days later.

But that didn't end the unrest. Chavez continued to act in many ways like a dictator. In February of 2003, more than three million signatures of private citizens were gathered calling for a referendum on whether Chávez should remain in power. The petition was declared invalid on a technicality. Then in August 2004 a second petition was organized, garnering 3.5 million signatures. A referendum was held (Chavez won), but there were enough irregularities to make one suspicious.

In any case, to solidify his control of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, Chávez passed legislation in May 2003 to increase the number of Supreme Court Justices from 20 to 32. Appointing those and another 5 vacant posts, Chavez had a clear majority of supporters in the judicial branch of the government. He also allowed for the appointment of 32 reserve justices, all of which were loyal to him. Is this not the action of a dictator?

What other signs do we have that Chavez is a dictator and not the mild mannered, innocent, democrat-minded President that you paint him to be? Well ... for starters, a year ago, Venezuela's Congress approved a measure that would let Chavez enact laws by decree. Chávez said he would use the new power to nationalise the largest telecommunications company and the electricity sector, as well as impose more control on the oil and natural gas industries. Comment?

[BeAChooser]

Who put Saddam in charge?

It wasn't Bush Jr. In fact, it wasn't Bush Sr, either.

[Safe-Keeper]

I imagine Clinton could have toppled a whole bunch of dictators if he didn't care about leaving the countries involved better places or how much it would cost in lives, money we can't afford to spend and world opinion and support.I'm sure they are very happy they now live in one of the world's least peaceful countries, surrounded by military checkpoints, military forces, suicide bombers, chaos and civil war.

Telling the UN and us nations opposing the war to go **** ourselves when we opposed the invasion was another stroke of genius. I just love anti-Americans and I'm incredibly grateful their fire has now got more fuel than they could burn in a century's time:rolleyes:.

Bill Clinton's analogous achievement in the Middle East was to help install Yasser Arafat, the greatest terrorist of his day, as head of a proto-Palestinian state.Isn't democracy a bitch. We should've learned when they voted for Hitler down in Germany:p.

[DC]

There's a little history concerning Hugo Chavez that you curiously forgot to mention. Here's the rest of the story.
I didnt forget to mention it, there are several threads about Venezuela and Chavez. this point is brought up everytime. no problem debating it.

First, back in 1992 Carlos Andres Perez was the duly elected President of Venezuela (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Andrés_Pérez). That year, Lieutenant-Colonel Hugo Chavez led a military coup that tried to topple Perez. It failed and resulted in Chavez's arrest and incarceration for two years. So don't get so high and mighty about Chavez being toppled (temporarily) in a similar coup attempt (if coup is even a proper description of what happened) while he was President (if that is even a proper description of his behavior at the time).
yes Perez was elected. But you forgot to mention that Perez is the one that implemented the free market policies and privatisation whish led to even more poverty among the poor people, that was then about 70% of the population.
in the Riots, Perez ordered to shoot the demonstrators. 1000's died. also known as the Caracazo. This led then to a formation of people in the Army that didnt want to go along with that bloodpath anymore, and they conspired to liberate the venezuelan people.
the coup attempt failed, and Chavez gave up very quickly, demanding to speak to his people on TV, and asked to give up and drop the arms. to prevent more blood. He then went to Jail, he took full responcibility for the coup.
while he was in Jail, a group from inside the Army tried it again and failed.

but the most important thig about it is. The Venezuelan people who was scared of the army, saw, that they have alot people in the Army that will protect them

they went to the streets and demanded Perez to step down, the National Assembly did indeed act on it, and Perez had to step down.

The guy that took his place, freed Chavez, who was a national hero.
the people wanted a new Republic, the 5th one, because the 4th fialed.


True, Chavez was elected President in 1998 (on promises of wealth redistribution ... sound familiar?). But in 1999 the constitution was rewritten extending the term of President to 6 years. Then in August of that year a "judicial state of emergency" and a "legislative state of emergency" were declared. The first gave Chavez the power to remove judges and the second left a seven man committee (Chavez's people) in charge of legislative functions ... and barred Congress from meeting. The reality is that Chavez ruled by decree until November 2001. In short, he began to act like a dictator, doing such things as seizing private lands and redistributing them to small farmers.
Chavez promised alot more than just redistributing wealth (yes i know Obama said the same, but he is not a socialist like Chavez, propably)
Chavez also promised to change the constitution, creat a new democratic system.

so once he was President, he called for a National Constitutional assembly to work out a new constitution, they did. with alot participation of Venezuelan people. and finally they all agreed (even Opposition people was in that assembly, COPEI and AD for example)
the people had then time to studiy the new constitution and then vote for or against it, in free elections.
they overwhelmingly agreed to the new Bolivarian Constitution. which created a Direct Democraty with more rights for the people and independence for the states in the Republic.
While he had "dictator" power, he did use it as promised to bring quickly the changes the Venezuelans desired.
Also did the National Assembly grant him those powers, back then with alot AD and COPEI members in the National assembly.


In April 2002 protests broke out, involving as many as half a million people demanding the immediate resignation of Chavez. His popularity ratings at that time were below 30 percent after he repeatedly accused business leaders, labor, the news media and even Roman Catholic Church of conspiring to unseat him. Just days before the "coup", Chavez had declared he'd remain president until 2021 (sounds a little like a dictator, wouldn't you say?).

can you show me evidence of his decleration of president till 2021?
never heard that.



When hundreds of thousands of protestors marched on the Presidential Palace, Chavez ordered the military and his civilian gunmen to open fire on them. The military refused the order but Chavez's gunmen fired repeatedly, killing over a dozen and wounding hundreds. Chaos reigned. Chavez ordered five Caracas television stations off the air. That's when the military stepped in and forced Chávez to leave the capitol and resign.


NO that is not what happened.
CIA documents contradict it and also the witnesses in the Trial admited other things than you claim here.

It is now known that the Snipers are from the Opposition and had backing from the US. the USA was fully informed.

the whole thing was staged.
the opposition lead its protesters to miraflores, and they knew a Pro Chavez rally is going on there. so confrontation was close, the army acted as a buffer between the 2 groups. suddenly the snipers start killing innocent people.
the Private media then showed Chavez supporters that shot back in direction of the snipers, and claimed Chavez supporters kill innicent protestors.

this was proven in the Trial, the plotters admited US involvment.
also the CIA documents debunk your claims, and the CIA even knew it before it happened,

www.venezuelafoia.info

take a look at the documents


Note that the military did not put one of it's own into power. This wasn't a military coup in that sense. Instead, to fill the vacuum left in the civilian government by Chavez's resignation, Pedro Carmona, head of the nation's largest business association and who had been one of the original protest's organizers, stepped forward and said he would head a transitional government. Then, Carmona acted even more like a dictator, dissolving Congress and canceling the Constitution. This caused the army to withdraw their support of him, which opened the door for Chavez to return to power just a few days later.
what brought the Army to withdraw the support was, that they started learning wath really took place, and especialy once again, the Venezuelan people went to Miraflores and demanded back theyr president.

the US installed regime then fled, without forgeting to get the money from the save in miraflores....


But that didn't end the unrest. Chavez continued to act in many ways like a dictator. In February of 2003, more than three million signatures of private citizens were gathered calling for a referendum on whether Chávez should remain in power. The petition was declared invalid on a technicality. Then in August 2004 a second petition was organized, garnering 3.5 million signatures. A referendum was held (Chavez won), but there were enough irregularities to make one suspicious.

oh lol? not even the Venezuelan opposition claims fraud, nor did any of the international organisations that overviewed the electens and votes for the referendum.


In any case, to solidify his control of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, Chávez passed legislation in May 2003 to increase the number of Supreme Court Justices from 20 to 32. Appointing those and another 5 vacant posts, Chavez had a clear majority of supporters in the judicial branch of the government. He also allowed for the appointment of 32 reserve justices, all of which were loyal to him. Is this not the action of a dictator?


yes Chavez fullfilled another of his promisses, to fight the Coruption. And the number if Judges has been increased. But he didnt have to lonely say about who gets the job, it was done the same way it is done in the USA. the Presidnet picks them, and the National assembly confirms or rejects.


What other signs do we have that Chavez is a dictator and not the mild mannered, innocent, democrat-minded President that you paint him to be? Well ... for starters, a year ago, Venezuela's Congress approved a measure that would let Chavez enact laws by decree. Chávez said he would use the new power to nationalise the largest telecommunications company and the electricity sector, as well as impose more control on the oil and natural gas industries. Comment?

comment? that was what he promied to the people that voted for him.
did you know that he lost alot support from Chavistas because he didnt do it fast enough? Or that the communist party PCV splited from PSUV because they think Chavez is not radical enough? they would have abused the decrees to nationalise alot more than Chavez promised.

but be prepared, the Nationalising in Venezuela is not done yet, more will follow, and i fully support it.

First get your facts straight.

and while Bush is a herofor you for toppeling Saddam, for the majority of venezuelans , Chavez is a hero for the coup attempt and the new Constitution.

Would it not have been Chavez, another one of the Bolivariona Movement would have done it. But they are happy with Chavez, and we should respect it.

[DC]

Caracas, January 3, 2008, (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez granted amnesty on Monday to a number of opposition leaders connected to the shortlived military coup against his government in April 2002 and a two month oil industry shutdown which caused an estimated $10 billion dollars damage to the economy and ended in January 2003.

Chavez said he hoped the amnesty decree would “send a message to the country that we can live together despite our differences.”

http://globalvoicescensored.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/venezuela-chavez-grants-amnesty-for-2002-coup-participants-plus-video-and-interview-with-fidel/

[Grizzly Bear]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB123197784199983615-lMyQjAxMDI5MzExNTkxNzU3Wj.html



Good point. In fact, Bush policy toppled two dictatorships.

That remains to be seen, as many dictators tend to be elected into power, not just installed as puppet governments. The success of the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein will be determined by what happens after our troops leave the regions. Although it's true Bush Jr removed Saddam, the intentions behind going in that region, for good or for bad intentions has made it unpopular in his political image. These regions can still revert if conditions are conducive to it.


Arafat already had a following.
Only our capitalists had any interest in what's-his-name in Venezuela.
Care to substantiate?
Hasn't Venezuela been crippled in the past by strikes organized by its own citizens? Haven't Human rights groups shown concern for his abuse of human rights? It seems concerns over his presidency in Venezuela are broader than "Only our capitalists"

Nobody but our capitalists wanted that pile of sludge Pinochet.

Care to substantiate the bolded?

Sorry, you cannot wipe out the record that the Republicans have always held for installing worthless vermin as heads of other states.

Just like Bush got into a quagmire in Iraq, Johnson managed to get himself into a quagmire with Vietnam trying to contain the spread communism. Democrats and Republicans alike can never rub off the stains from their shoes, as history points out. I'm not stuck in such a staunch political confirmation bias as to pin the blame on one political party. Some of the same procedures that went into planting governments during the cold war era led exactly to many of the radical movements we have today that are biting us all in the ass, and not all of these policies originated from republican hands, politics is an acid bath... an

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

Stuff about Chavez


So what? Chavez was still elected, and until you present clear evidence that there was fraud it's insane to remove the man from power. Guilty until proven innocent?

And in response to the OP, are you honestly saying it is the job of the United States to remove dictators? And if that's the case why doesn't the US simply remove every government who doesn't govern as the US deems fit?

True, Chavez was elected President in 1998 (on promises of wealth redistribution ... sound familiar?).

Wooish statement that Obama will become a dictator or is like a dictator -- so noted.

[BeAChooser]

can you show me evidence of his decleration of president till 2021?
never heard that.


Sure ...

http://www.france24.com/en/20081201-chavez-aims-be-president-untill-2021-venezuela-constitutional-amendment


AFP) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday announced he was seeking a constitutional amendment to allow himself to seek reelection again, saying he hoped to lead the OPEC nation until 2021.

Chavez said he was directing his ruling United Socialist party (PSUV) to seek a "constitutional amendment and reelection of the president of the republic" saying he was "ready (to govern) through 2021."

... snip ...

"I am ready, and if I am healthy, God willing, I will be with you until 2019, until 2021," added the 54-year-old Chavez, seeking to propel the oil-rich but poverty-plagued country's institutional socialism to over two decades long.


http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1863197,00.html


Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has given his rubber-stamp National Assembly the green light to fashion yet another constitutional referendum on whether presidential term limits should be eliminated in the western hemisphere's largest oil producer. "We're going to achieve it," the left-wing Chávez declared to thousands of supporters in Caracas on Sunday. "We're going to demonstrate who rules in Venezuela. If God gives me life and health, I will be with you until 2021" — the bicentennial of Venezuela's independence from Spain. "Uh-ah, Chávez no se va," he sang: "Chávez isn't leaving."

[BeAChooser]

Just like Bush got into a quagmire in Iraq

I don't view a 5-7 year war that we've now effectively won a "quagmire". :)

[Skeptic Ginger]

I see Rupert Murdoch's purchase of the WSJ is taking that paper the way of Faux News.

[leftysergeant]

I don't view a 5-7 year war that we've now effectively won a "quagmire". :)

Depends on how you define "winning."

Do you realize that we have been in Iraq longer than we were in WWII?

When WWII ended, the battles ended.

When are the battles going to end in Iraq?

[BeAChooser]

Do you realize that we have been in Iraq longer than we were in WWII?

Do you realize we ended WWII by destroying nearly every German and Japanese city and even dropped a couple nuclear bombs?

When WWII ended, the battles ended.

This isn't WWII but a different kind of war. And maybe the battles haven't ended because we haven't yet attacked the sources supplying the insurgents. Like Iran. In WWII any country that helped the Axis was not spared.

When are the battles going to end in Iraq?

Iraq is going to turn into a police action against the remnents of terrorists. Our involvement in that will be minimal.

Tell me, are you suggesting that all insurgencies are unbeatable? Should we just surrender to islamofanatic movements everywhere?

[cwalner]

Do you realize we ended WWII by destroying nearly every German and Japanese city and even dropped a couple nuclear bombs?
While its easy to call such tactics barbaric, that kind of display of overwhelming force (both the nukes in Japan and the firebombing in Germany)ultimately spared many more lives than it took (both on our side and on the German/Japanese side) by convincing a defeated enemy to surrender rather than force a fight to the last man.



This isn't WWII but a different kind of war. And maybe the battles haven't ended because we haven't yet attacked the sources supplying the insurgents. Like Iran. In WWII any country that helped the Axis was not spared.
which questions your previous statment that the war is 'effectively won'



Iraq is going to turn into a police action against the remnents of terrorists. Our involvement in that will be minimal.

Tell me, are you suggesting that all insurgencies are unbeatable? Should we just surrender to islamofanatic movements everywhere?
no, he was questioning your claim of the war in Iraq being 'effectively won' since the fighting is still ongoing.

[BeAChooser]

While its easy to call such tactics barbaric

I didn't suggest that. All I'm trying to do is clarify LeftySergeant's views. Perhaps he's the one you should really be directing your comment towards.

which questions your previous statment that the war is 'effectively won'

No, it only suggests the WOT isn't won. But the *battle* for Iraq is effectively won, provided we don't now throw that victory away with a premature and haphazard withdrawal.

no, he was questioning your claim of the war in Iraq being 'effectively won' since the fighting is still ongoing.

But then by definition insurgencies cannot be won and we should just surrender?

We are fighting a different kind of opponent than the ones we faced in WWII. Meaning the definition of "won" perhaps has to change? Perhaps Iraq's problem will become a police action, like I suggested already, in which case cops and lawyers will deal with whatever "fighting" remains. Sort of like how we deal with our gang problem here in the US. And isn't that what democrats have been striving for ... to turn the WOT over to lawyers? :D

[cwalner]

I'm sorry BAC, but you stumped me. I just have no freaking idea how to respond to your last post. My brain hurts every time I try to parse the logic of it.

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

This isn't WWII but a different kind of war.

Namely in that it was a war.

And maybe the battles haven't ended because we haven't yet attacked the sources supplying the insurgents. Like Iran.

Or, you know, the rest of the Middle East. I wonder when our assault into Saudia Arabia begins.

In WWII any country that helped the Axis was not spared.

Yep! Which is why we attacked Spain during Worl...errr....

Iraq is going to turn into a police action against the remnents of terrorists. Our involvement in that will be minimal.

One can only hope!

Tell me, are you suggesting that all insurgencies are unbeatable? Should we just surrender to islamofanatic movements everywhere?

They certainly are not unbeatable, I don't know if that's what lefty was suggesting. But let me ask you this. Are you suggesting we invade every nation with Islamofanatics?

[Grizzly Bear]

I don't view a 5-7 year war that we've now effectively won a "quagmire". :)
I wasn't really talking about the war itself as much as I was about the popularity and the effect it had on the political standing of Bush and LBJ.

They certainly are not unbeatable, I don't know if that's what lefty was suggesting. But let me ask you this. Are you suggesting we invade every nation with Islamofanatics?

The main problem is that we aren't really fighting a country, we're fighting an ideology with no set borders and one that isn't necessarily centralized, which is what I believe you're alluding to. They aren't unbeatable, but their motivations for fighting are different from those of a centralized political entity making up a country; in all likely hood even if Iraq is a success they will still be active. I actually tend to agree with BEA on the withdrawal issue because of that, as that'll likely have a significant impact on the results.

[BeAChooser]

Namely in that it was a war.

Don't delude yourself into thinking the WOT isn't a war. Dictionaries define war thus: "A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties." Don't think that just because we haven't said "I declare war on you" there isn't a state of war.


Or, you know, the rest of the Middle East. I wonder when our assault into Saudia Arabia begins.

Well there can be no denying that Syria and elements in Pakistan have and are playing a role in this conflict. As for Saudi Arabia, the fact is al-qaeda is trying to topple the government. Their government appears to be acting to stop them (which is in our interests), keep the oil flowing (which is in our interests) ... and matters appear to be relatively under control at the moment.


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
In WWII any country that helped the Axis was not spared.

Yep! Which is why we attacked Spain during Worl...errr....


It was in the interest of the allies at the time not to expand the war to Spain ... sort of like our situation with Saudi Arabia. The allies didn't want to see Spain become a full blown participant in the shooting war and it would have had Stalin or us declared war on Spain over it's relatively minor support of the Axis. After the war concluded, however, did you notice how quickly Spain was isolated? So in the end, they weren't spared either.

Are you suggesting we invade every nation with Islamofanatics?

Obviously not. But every state whose leaders openly applaud them, who support terrorism, and who helps train and supply them ... well perhaps the answer is yes. Surely your solution isn't to ignore such countries and let them become an incubator for more 9/11-type terrorist acts? Much like Afghanistan was. Much like Iraq was becoming at the time of the invasion.

[Safe-Keeper]

It was in the interest of the allies at the time not to expand the war to Spain ... sort of like our situation with Saudi Arabia.So countries supporting the Axis were spared.

After the war concluded, however, did you notice how quickly Spain was isolated? So in the end, they weren't spared either.
Shoehorning.

I don't view a 5-7 year war that we've now effectively won a "quagmire". :) So you'll soon be removing the Patriot Act, detaining of people without a fair trial, and other ridiculously authoritarian anti-terror measures, then? Wonderful:D!

No, it only suggests the WOT isn't won. But the *battle* for Iraq is effectively wonDunno how you can see that, and I don't consider it much of a victory when Afghanistan is now a deadlier battlefield than Iraq.

Obviously not. But every state whose leaders openly applaud them, who support terrorism, and who helps train and supply them ... well perhaps the answer is yes. Surely your solution isn't to ignore such countries and let them become an incubator for more 9/11-type terrorist acts? Much like Afghanistan was. Much like Iraq was becoming at the time of the invasion. Seeing how well this kind of Rambo "invade'em all!" attitude worked in the Cold War, and how well the US is remembered for, say, Vietnam, I applaud your insight and look at Bush's departure from office with great sadness. Now we're probably going to have to act our age and use diplomacy with those damned (sneer) foreigners, and it'll probably end with this 'peace' thing that those damned liberal bastards keep talking about. [/sarcasm]

[BeAChooser]

I wasn't really talking about the war itself as much as I was about the popularity and the effect it had on the political standing of Bush and LBJ.

A key difference is that we will be leaving Iraq victorious (provided Obama doesn't screw it up) so that years from now Bush and his war will be seen in an entirely different light than LBJ and his war.

The main problem is that we aren't really fighting a country, we're fighting an ideology with no set borders and one that isn't necessarily centralized, which is what I believe you're alluding to.

But al-qaeda is not above using countries to meet it's goals. Afghanistan. And yes, Iraq. In fact, al-qaeda leadership even communicated with one another about the need to win in Iraq ... to have a place from which to operate, train and grow. So in that sense, we are fighting countries that allow that to happen. And now, of course, Pakistan is part of the problem. Even Obama seems to see that (he even suggested invading).

I don't think it's wise to give up on fighting terrorism just because they might move to another location if we beat them in one. We just have to keep pushing until there is no where friendly they can go.

in all likely hood even if Iraq is a success they will still be active.

Fine. As long as Iraq's government is actively fighting them and not allowing them to control and operate from a portion of the country.

[BeAChooser]

So countries supporting the Axis were spared.

No, I think history shows that countries that supported the Axis were not spared. Spain paid a heavy price for that support in the end and it wasn't until Franco died that it bloomed.


Quote:
I don't view a 5-7 year war that we've now effectively won a "quagmire".

So you'll soon be removing the Patriot Act, detaining of people without a fair trial, and other ridiculously authoritarian anti-terror measures, then?


You seem to be confused about the difference between the WOT and the war in Iraq. As well as a bunch of other things. :D

Seeing how well this kind of Rambo "invade'em all!" attitude worked in the Cold War

That's not at all a fair description of the Cold War. And the Cold War was yet another kind of conflict, entirely different from WWII and what we are fighting now.

and how well the US is remembered for, say, Vietnam,

But we lost Vietnam (although it did accomplish some things).

I applaud your insight and look at Bush's departure from office with great sadness. [/sarcasm]

We'll see how you feel about Obama 4 years from now. :D

[DC]

Sure ...

http://www.france24.com/en/20081201-chavez-aims-be-president-untill-2021-venezuela-constitutional-amendment



http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1863197,00.html

you claimed:

Just days before the "coup", Chavez had declared he'd remain president until 2021

the coup was 11. April 2002.

You link to news from Dezember 2008, where he is talking about the Referendum.....

nice try

[BeAChooser]

You link to news from Dezember 2008, where he is talking about the Referendum.....


My mistake. (Wasn't deliberate.)

But tell me, if he wasn't a dictator in 2002, then is he now? Even if it's by the will of the people? (Isn't that what dictators always claim?) ;)

Or maybe as Time magazine pointed out, Chavez is just inventing a new category for what he his:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1653937,00.html


Already, every member of the National Assembly is a Chavez ally — which is largely thanks, however, to the opposition's boneheaded boycott of the last parliamentary elections — as is just about every Supreme Court justice. As a result, keeping Chavez in power until 2021 (his stated goal, the 200th anniversary of Venezuelan independence) if not longer could eventually make him, by default, a kind of "democratator," a democratically elected dictator. At the very least, says Jones, "it's bound to set off some alarms about the constructs of democratic government."

[DC]

My mistake. (Wasn't deliberate.)

But tell me, if he wasn't a dictator in 2002, then is he now? Even if it's by the will of the people? (Isn't that what dictators always claim?) ;)

Or maybe as Time magazine pointed out, Chavez is just inventing a new category for what he his:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1653937,00.html

No he is not.

Well i guess the International Organisations that are monitoring the Venezuelan elections and referendums are all chavistas.

Well since today there are indeed alot allys, as the Communists Party and the PSUV was able to solve their problems with eachother, the communists think Chavez is not radical enough :)

But indeed i think that is a good point, i think Venezuela needs a regulation so one party cannot dominate so much.

but in this case it is the oppositions fault. they claimed election fraud and was not able to prove anything or even give indications, even those international monitoring groups sayd they didnt see any fraud.
then the Opposition decyded to boycott the elections for parliament.....

[Pardalis]

In fact, Bush policy toppled two dictatorships.

I'd say three, maybe four.

Kaddafi got in line after 2003, and North Korea seems much more cooperative now than before.

[RobRoy]

I'd say three, maybe four.

Kaddafi got in line after 2003, and North Korea seems much more cooperative now than before.

I assume you mean Muammar al-Gaddafi (Gaddafi). Not to defend the dictator, but he "got in line" much sooner than that. In 1999, while Clinton was still president, he began talks with the United States (http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2004/0309middleeast_indyk.aspx) to allow international inspection of Lybia's weapons program. Around that same time he made a forceful statement regarding fighting Al-Qaeda. The inspection offer was generally ignored as the Lockerbie bombing took precedence. Basically, the sanctions imposed on Lybia for the past seveal decades have actually worked, his old allies in Africa weren't willing to back him, Lybia's material wealth has been slipping away. Gaddafi has been willing to "get in line" for a long time. The Bush Administration just had the good fortune of being around when Lybia offered its WMD program for dismantlement for further lifting of sanctions along an already pre-determined course.

I haven't been keeping close tabs on North Korea, but as I recall, they've made offers to the U.S. and the U.N. Security Council and then defaulted on them for any number of reasons. I'm not certain the Bush Administration made them "much more cooperative", but I'd be willing to listen to any evidence you have.

ETA: A quick Google search turned up Clinton and Japan taking North Korea to task for several issues. Some talk about abductees, and also this hour-old article from North Korea (http://www.isria.info/en/diplo_23january2009_x11.htm). My favorite line:

Ri Yong Chol, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League, said: If the enemy dare flout with our inviolable dignity and sovereignty, millions of our youth will crush the traitor group at one blow with the revolutionary sledge hammer which has been forged for more than a half century and totally uproot the hindrance to national reunification in this land.

Again, I could be wrong about this, and their "sledge hammer" rhetoric, so your evidence would be appreciated.

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

Don't delude yourself into thinking the WOT isn't a war. Dictionaries define war thus: "A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties." Don't think that just because we haven't said "I declare war on you" there isn't a state of war.

The problem I have with the Wars on X is that X is very often vaguely defined and in many cases ignored. I would argue that the United States is not actively at war with any foreign government but is rather combating insurgencies from various militia organizations who may or may not support the existence of any modern state. And I would also argue there are forms of terrorism that the US is completely willing to ignore or side with. So I don't believe this is a war because unlike actual war we haven't defined any specific nation, state, or party we're at war with. Making it little more than a propoganda term. Who exactly is the United States at war with? If the term is to be believed we're attempting to go to war with an idea.


It was in the interest of the allies at the time not to expand the war to Spain ... sort of like our situation with Saudi Arabia. The allies didn't want to see Spain become a full blown participant in the shooting war and it would have had Stalin or us declared war on Spain over it's relatively minor support of the Axis. After the war concluded, however, did you notice how quickly Spain was isolated? So in the end, they weren't spared either.

We received much help from groups within Spain that were opposed to Franco, in my opinion the allies abandoned them to Franco. But as Safe said nations that supported the Axis were indeed spared. Franco certainly was anyways.

Obviously not. But every state whose leaders openly applaud them, who support terrorism, and who helps train and supply them ... well perhaps the answer is yes.

Well I suppose I should make clear the folly of attempting to destroy an idea with bombs.

Surely your solution isn't to ignore such countries and let them become an incubator for more 9/11-type terrorist acts? Much like Afghanistan was. Much like Iraq was becoming at the time of the invasion.

It certainly is not. If there is actionable intelligence of a group plotting an attack on the United States we have a compelling interest to intervene and destroy or capture that element.

[BeAChooser]

I would argue that the United States is not actively at war with any foreign government

Why do you think war can only be waged against "governments"?

And I would also argue there are forms of terrorism that the US is completely willing to ignore or side with.

Perhaps. Do you have some examples?

So I don't believe this is a war because unlike actual war we haven't defined any specific nation, state, or party we're at war with.

Untrue. We have defined a specific party. It's called al-Qaeda and those affiliated with it. We even know who their #1, #2 and #3 leaders (of the moment) are.

If the term is to be believed we're attempting to go to war with an idea.

Would you have been satisfied if they'd labeled it the War on Al Qaeda?

We received much help from groups within Spain that were opposed to Franco, in my opinion the allies abandoned them to Franco.

Beside the point.

But as Safe said nations that supported the Axis were indeed spared. Franco certainly was anyways.

Franco and Spain paid a price for adopting a pro-Axis but non belligerent position during the early years of the war. After 1943, Franco moved to complete neutrality. As for the price he paid, Spain wasn't allowed to join the UN. Spain was isolated (only Portugal and a few Latin American countries maintained relations). Plus there was an embargo for many years after the war.

Well I suppose I should make clear the folly of attempting to destroy an idea with bombs.

How about defending an idea ... say democracy?

It certainly is not. If there is actionable intelligence of a group plotting an attack on the United States we have a compelling interest to intervene and destroy or capture that element.

So given that al-Qaeda openly declared war on the US in the 1996-1998 timeframe and conducted multiple attacks on US interests abroad prior to 9/11, you'd have been in favor of attacking the camps that al-Qaeda set up in Afghanistan and killing/capturing it's leaders? In other words, something more than what Clinton ordered? Likewise, you'd have been in favor of taking out al-Qaeda's camps in Iraq prior to its invasion by whatever means necessary (i.e., boots on the ground even if Saddam objected)?

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

Why do you think war can only be waged against "governments"?

I don't recall saying that.

Perhaps. Do you have so me examples?

Perhaps someone else can shed more light on this but didn't the Bay of Pigs Invasion involve training anti-Communist terrorists for the purpose of invading Cuba and taking down the Castro government. Unless I'm mistaken, Brigade 2506 included CORU founder Orlando Bosch who was described as a terrorist by the FBI?

Untrue. We have defined a specific party. It's called al-Qaeda and those affiliated with it. We even know who their #1, #2 and #3 leaders (of the moment) are.

Would you have been satisfied if they'd labeled it the War on Al Qaeda?

That would appear to at least be a more accurate label.

Franco and Spain paid a price for adopting a pro-Axis but non belligerent position during the early years of the war. After 1943, Franco moved to complete neutrality. As for the price he paid, Spain wasn't allowed to join the UN. Spain was isolated (only Portugal and a few Latin American countries maintained relations). Plus there was an embargo for many years after the war.

I'm aware of the price Spain paid, but I'm curious what the leader of their government paid.

How about defending an idea ... say democracy?

Democracy is worth defending, certainly. But wouldn't it be prudent to win those majority over rather than kill them?

So given that al-Qaeda openly declared war on the US in the 1996-1998 timeframe and conducted multiple attacks on US interests abroad prior to 9/11, you'd have been in favor of attacking the camps that al-Qaeda set up in Afghanistan and killing/capturing it's leaders? In other words, something more than what Clinton ordered? Likewise, you'd have been in favor of taking out al-Qaeda's camps in Iraq prior to its invasion by whatever means necessary (i.e., boots on the ground even if Saddam objected)?

I'm by no means a fan of Clinton's foreign policy. But yes, when al-Qaeda declared war on the US and attacked us the US had a compelling interest to kill/capture their leadership. Again I would support this, as a matter of prudence I would say offer Saddam the chance to remove them himself and if he refused then invade. Assuming al-Qaeda posed a significant threat in Iraq of course.

[BeAChooser]

I don't recall saying that.

Good.

Perhaps someone else can shed more light on this but didn't the Bay of Pigs Invasion involve training anti-Communist terrorists for the purpose of invading Cuba and taking down the Castro government. Unless I'm mistaken, Brigade 2506 included CORU founder Orlando Bosch who was described as a terrorist by the FBI?

Is it possible to commit terrorism against an acknowledged terrorist state on the orders of a Democrat administration?

That would appear to at least be a more accurate label.

I would agree.

I'm aware of the price Spain paid, but I'm curious what the leader of their government paid.

But Franco was Spain. Isn't that the very definition of a dictator? But maybe you are right. Maybe we should have unleashed Patton on the Spanish after Germany's surrender. Just on principle. :)

Democracy is worth defending, certainly. But wouldn't it be prudent to win those majority over rather than kill them?

But that's exactly what we've done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Again I would support this, as a matter of prudence I would say offer Saddam the chance to remove them himself and if he refused then invade.

We did ask him. In fact, he was informed that al-Zarqawi was in his country (in Baghdad no less) and was asked to turn him over to Jordan (who had an outstanding warrant for murder). Nothing happened except a short time later al-Zarqawi left Baghdad for Northern Iraq.

Assuming al-Qaeda posed a significant threat in Iraq of course.

What would you call significant? We know that al-Zarqawi met with a few fellow terrorists in Baghdad (during that time Jordan was asking Saddam to capture and turn him over to them). They planned a terrorist attack in Jordan against the US embassy and Jordanian Intelligence community. A few years later (after the invasion), the terrorists were caught in Jordan with the vehicles, bombs and chemicals they were going to use in the attack.

Experts said that had they been successful in carrying out the attack, they might have killed everyone in the US embassy, plenty in the government buildings and a few TENS OF THOUSANDS of innocent Jordanians in the surrounding area. It was to be that kind of attack. Is that significant enough?

Of course, the problem is that if we hadn't invaded, it might have succeeded. Because we only learned about the attack when Jordan caught the terrorists after they entered the country ... and perhaps they caught them only because we'd found materials in Iraq after the invasion pointing to it (note that at one point we captured al-Zarqawi portable computer).

[Pardalis]

I assume you mean Muammar al-Gaddafi (Gaddafi).

Yeah, sorry about that, in French we write his name with a K. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouammar_Kadhafi

:o

Not to defend the dictator, but he "got in line" much sooner than that. In 1999, while Clinton was still president, he began talks with the United States (http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2004/0309middleeast_indyk.aspx) to allow international inspection of Lybia's weapons program. Around that same time he made a forceful statement regarding fighting Al-Qaeda. The inspection offer was generally ignored as the Lockerbie bombing took precedence. Basically, the sanctions imposed on Lybia for the past seveal decades have actually worked, his old allies in Africa weren't willing to back him, Lybia's material wealth has been slipping away. Gaddafi has been willing to "get in line" for a long time. The Bush Administration just had the good fortune of being around when Lybia offered its WMD program for dismantlement for further lifting of sanctions along an already pre-determined course.All the way up to 2001 they were having dealings with Khan. Just like Saddam, they were acting like they were compliant, but in secret they were continuing their program.

http://www.fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/32007.pdf

It really was the war that sealed the deal for Libya. They dismantled all of their stockpile (actually, more than expected) on december 19 2003, the invasion started in march of that year. They gave more than the intelligence had told the US to be sure no invasion would be required.

I haven't been keeping close tabs on North Korea, but as I recall, they've made offers to the U.S. and the U.N. Security Council and then defaulted on them for any number of reasons. I'm not certain the Bush Administration made them "much more cooperative", but I'd be willing to listen to any evidence you have.

ETA: A quick Google search turned up Clinton and Japan taking North Korea to task for several issues. Yes, again, Clinton was all talk, but no results, NK continued its program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-party_talks

The Iraq war worked as a deterrent, it showed them what could happen if they continued. It's again no coincidence that the "six party talks" started in August 2003.

Overall, these two states were doing the same thing Iraq had been doing for years, they were screwing with the rest of the world, playing games by appearing to be compliant and willing to change, and at the same time they continued their programs under our nose. The Iraq war at least convinced them that the US wasn't going to play that game no more.

[GreNME]

We are fighting a different kind of opponent than the ones we faced in WWII. Meaning the definition of "won" perhaps has to change?

You ever see Kung Pow: Enter the Fist? You're laying some real Wimp-Lo logic down right there.

Clinton was able to finish his military fights-- and I can't wait to hear the confirmation bias used to marginalize the military actions in Clinton's years (again)-- as well as capture Ramsi Yousef. This is in contrast to Bush, who leaves two unfinished wars and Osama bin Laden un-captured.

And the violence in Iraq? Yeah, always judged by the year prior, but never by further back than that-- never giving the indication that the number of overall deaths hasn't decreased, just the number of American ones. 2007 was a perfect example of that kind of creative accounting to judge whether the war was being "won" or not. Also, great job leaving out the biggest deciding detail of the Sunni 'Awakening'-- the pallets of cash used in bribes from the US to the Sunni leaders in order for them to stop fighting us. Paying bribes isn't appeasement, but leaving the fight is surrender-- right, perfectly logical.

On the other hand, neither of them paid much attention to atrocities in nations on the African continent. There are other diplomatic and policy failures they both shared. Both had national security failures, though the Bush failures were worse in terms of casualties and arguably worse in terms of scale, but it would be difficult to claim one had any better record than the other on that mark.

Frankly, these revisionist attempts to set up a straw man argument against Democrats in general in order to try and salvage the record of the Bush administration are getting tired and progressively desperate. Why not just go all the way in the direction of the typical LGF commentaries and start comparing Bush to Reagan already? Why go through the weak-kneed "but, but, Clinton!" phase of your canonization argument?

[BeAChooser]

Clinton was able to finish his military fights

Yeah? What fights would those be? And how did he finish them ... by walking away or by having his military deliberately bomb innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure to force a surrender?

as well as capture Ramsi Yousef

First of all, Clinton had very little to do with his capture. Yousef started a fire in a Manilla apartment and had to flee. He left behind a computer that led to his arrest in Pakistan a month later. It's not as if Clinton had to pursue Yousef to the ends of the earth. And what did Clinton actually learn from his captive? Apparently nothing. Or at least he didn't act on what he learned. In 1995 Laurie Mylroie, an advisor to Clinton in 1992, argued that Yousef was an Iraqi intelligence agent, sent to America to exact revenge for the Gulf War. Did Clinton do anything about that? Or did Clinton allow another of the WTC bombers to escape and find a safe haven in Iraq, where he lived in a house supplied by the Iraqi government and on a Iraqi government stipend. Mylroie testified before the 9/11 Commission, presenting the evidence she gathered that Yousef was a Iraqi agent. Unlike Clinton, Bush listened and did something about that continuing threat. You realize, don't you, that tapes captured after the invasion of Iraq contain conversations between Saddam and his closest advisors in the mid to late 90's that prove he and his circle of advisors still considered themselves to be at war with the US. They even discussed the use of WMD against American targets on those tapes. Iraq was a ticking time bomb which thankfully Bush has now defused.


And the violence in Iraq? Yeah, always judged by the year prior, but never by further back than that-- never giving the indication that the number of overall deaths hasn't decreased, just the number of American ones.


This is either a baldfaced lie or a demonstration of ignorance regarding the facts. Indications (even from groups that don't like Bush or his policies) is that the overall number of deaths have decreased markedly as a result of the successful surge.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/surge-2008/


With only a few days of 2008 remaining, the year so far has seen another 8,315–9,028 civilian deaths added to the IBC database. This compares to 25,774–27,599 deaths reported in 2006, and 22,671–24,295 in 2007. This is a substantial drop on the preceding two years: on a per-day rate, it represents a reduction from 76 per day (2006) and 67 per day (2007) to 25 per day in 2008.



Frankly, these revisionist attempts to set up a straw man argument against Democrats in general in order to try and salvage the record of the Bush administration are getting tired and progressively desperate.

I'm not desperate at all. I'm telling the same story I've told for nearly a decade now. And this is no strawman argument. Just some facts that you folks seem to find inconvenient truths. :D

[GreNME]

The reality distortion field is strong with this one.

Oh, don't worry, Bush's administration still has Clinton's beaten in terms of civilian deaths caused, but perhaps you aren't aware of the American military campaigns during Clinton's presidency because they were part of NATO actions (except for Clinton's mobilization of 60,000 troops in 1994 to make Hussein back off Kuwait again). As for your comment about "bomb innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure to force a surrender," my only guess of your bringing that up would be two-fold: 1. the fact that Serbia was bombed using cluster bombs, after which moves were made further limiting their use (under Clinton's administration; and 2. the fact that such tactics have bitten the Bush admin's strategies in the ass in Iraq.

As for Yousef being an Iraqi agent-- are you serious? You really need to reach that far in order to try to pull your "but, but, Clinton!" game into sounding somewhat like an argument that Clinton is somehow responsible for 9/11? Gee, since Yousef has now converted the Christianity and is (relatively) peacefully serving out his sentence, perhaps your incredible hindsight could find some verification or at least any kind of shred of proof of such a ridiculous claim by coming up with a single shred of evidence that Yousef has given any such information since his conversion. After all, since the Iraqi leadership and Hussein were definitely [i]not on good terms with al Qaeda, with bin Laden, or with KSM, you've got a whole lot of burden of proof before wild nonsense like you're trying to argue can be taken seriously. You may as well be spouting nonsensical conspiracy theory with those kinds of confirmation bias laden remarks.

As for your 'analysis' of the iraqbodycount.org link, you pretty much personify the creative accounting I talked about. Yes, 2008 was indeed the first year where the number of civilian deaths actually were lower than the initial numbers in 2003. However, you make the mistake of using correlation as causation to assert why this is so. This is naturally convenient since the 'Sunni Awakening'-- in other words, the beginning of US payouts to Sunni militias, many of whom included the very insurgents we were fighting-- began in earnest before the surge ever happened. It's very possible to use the surge numbers to show an increase in security at US-occupied locations, but the decrease in violence happened because the US was paying off those who were previously performing the violence in the first place. Heck, with that kind of appeasement, Jimmy Carter would be proud.

What you did miss, however, were the years preceding September of 2007. If you'd like to just go back and check your iraqbodycount.org source yourself, you'll find that each successive year since 2003 has seen increased death tolls (nearly doubled in 2004), yet all I recall hearing from the Bush administration is that things are going well in Iraq and that we are winning the war. Gee, I suppose that like a stopped clock they can eventually claim a numbers victory as long as they keep claiming the same "things are working" message, right? Nevermind that Malaki is currently arresting leaders and members of the Sunni Awakening movement and that relations between the Iraqi government and the Awakening groups are becoming more strained-- let's just keep trying to twist numbers and partisan BS in order to claim moral superiority over that other side of the aisle.

So, BAC, in all honesty I'm still not convinced you're arguing with even the slightest of acknowledgment that you may not be presenting the entire picture. It seems you're makiong an argument where the goal is to win through partisan quips and creatively shaving contextual facts away instead of reaching the most factual and clear picture of what's being discussed. All in all, you don't seem to be presenting even the slighted bit of good faith toward historical accuracy and instead are making politically-based arguments for "your guy" over, well, the only "other guy" you can from the other side of the political aisle (Clinton).

But, by all means, don't let me stop you from trying to convince me otherwise. I certainly can be convinced that you're not just playing partisan political game and that you're actually presenting a thesis based on historical fact. Granted, you have a great deal of work ahead of you to substantiate that thesis and provide supporting documentation, but you shouldn't let that stop you. ;)

[BeAChooser]

Bush's administration still has Clinton's beaten in terms of civilian deaths caused

But unlike the Bush administration, the Clinton administration deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure as a means of ending the war. As a matter of POLICY.

but perhaps you aren't aware of the American military campaigns during Clinton's presidency because they were part of NATO actions

You think we didn't effectively control NATO during those years? :rolleyes:

As for your comment about "bomb[ing] innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure to force a surrender," my only guess of your bringing that up would be two-fold

The use of cluster bombs is not what I was referring to, sir.

No, what I'm referring to is the fact that the US (/NATO, just to make you happy) bombed schools, hospitals, irrigation networks, bridges, markets, residential neighborhoods, power plants, heating plants, gas stations, and factories turning out such products as farming equipment, cigarettes, sugar products and baby food. After attacking a bridge deep in Serbia (far from Kosovo) causing civilian cars to fall into the river, they went back and attacked the rescue workers even though they were clearly identified as such. They attacked columns of refugees multiple times and then lied about the incidents at news conferences. Or consider the bombing of Radio Television Serbia (RTS) on April 22. NATO spokesman Jamie Shea had stated on April 12 that "television and radio towers are only struck if they are integrated into military facilities." But RTS studios played no military role. Bombing RTS was a war crime which resulted in the deaths of at least sixteen civilians. And they bombed that station because it's reporters were taking folks to the sites of other US/NATO war crimes (like the bombing of the refugee convoy) and exposing NATO's dishonesty. But once again US/NATO's behavior was excused because it was claimed the Serbs were "cleansing" Kosovo ... when in fact they weren't ... when in fact the supposed genocide used to justify the war was a lie.

And be honest with yourself, GreNME. The US/NATO forces were NOT winning the war against Serbia's military. They knew that if they had to invade Kosovo on the ground (which was coming if the air campaign failed), the number of dead US/NATO soldiers would be phenomenal. This was not going to be a walk over. The Serb military was tough, dug in and ready for any invaders. The road network was not up to the task of sustaining an invasion. There were only a few corridors through which to attack. Instead of air campaign destroying the Serb military in Kosovo as the US/NATO had told the public was the case, Serbian forces in Kosovo (over 40,000 strong it turned out) were nearly unscathed. In fact, only 14 tanks (out of over 250) were actually lost. We all saw video of the Serb army pulling out after the ceasefire, their heads held high and in numbers and with equipment that shocked everyone. The Serbs even flew jet fighter after jet fighter out of an underground airfield that NATO bombed repeatedly (and claimed to have destroyed). Yes indeed, the body bags would have been stacked high. And Clinton knew it.

The truth is that the media bought the Clinton administration's genocide lie, so in their minds we could do anything we wanted to those nasty Serbs. And they told the public that. Here's what Thomas Friedman said in a New York Times article on 4/23/99:


Let's at least have a real air war. The idea that people are still holding rock concerts in Belgrade, or going out for Sunday merry-go-round rides, while their fellow Serbs are "cleansing" Kosovo, is outrageous. It should be lights out in Belgrade: Every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted. Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too.


Here's what that populist Bill O'Reilly said on 4/26/99:


If NATO is not able to wear down this Milosevic in the next few weeks, I believe that we have to go in there and drop leaflets on Belgrade and other cities and say, "Listen, you guys have got to move because we're now going to come in and we're going to just level your country. The whole infrastructure is going." Rather than put ground forces at risk where we're going to see 5,000 Americans dead, I would rather destroy their infrastructure, totally destroy it. Any target is OK. I'd warn the people, just as we did with Japan, that it's coming, you've got to get out of there, OK, but I would level that country so that there would be nothing moving--no cars, no trains, nothing.


The Clinton administration, US military and NATO saw that "opinion" as a green light, and went to war on Serbia's civilian population. The Wall Street Journal reported on April 27 that NATO had decided to attack "political, rather than just military, targets in Serbia." The Philadelphia Inquirer on May 21 reported that NATO generals said "Just focussing on fielded forces is not enough ... . The people have to get to the point that their lights are turned off, their bridges are blocked so they can't get to work." Notice that the reason for destroying bridges wasn't to prevent military movements but take away a civilian's job. And they used the same logic to go after water supplies. By late May, only 30 percent of Belgrade's 2 million people had running water, and the city was down to 10 percent of its water reserves. No wonder the Serbs surrendered.

Just look at the disparity in causualties. At a time when NATO estimated Serb military casualties were in the "hundreds", NATO had killed far more civilians ... by some estimates 1500. As I noted, in the third week of the war they went after water and electrical power, not with the intent of hurting the military but with the clear intent of depriving the civilian population. On April 25, the Washington Times reported that NATO planned to hit "power generation plants and water systems, taking the war directly to civilians." This was by definition a war crime ... but one nearly everyone on our side excused because of the claimed genocide being committed by those nasty Serbs.

Let's talk about that. When Clinton announced the air attacks, he said that he was doing so because Serbs were "moving from village to village, shelling civilians and torching their houses." NATO was attacking to "protect thousands of people in Kosovo from a mounting military offensive." But the truth is that the Serb offensive in Kosovo began well AFTER the NATO air attacks began. Even the US State Department admitted as much in late March when it said that Serb forces "dramatically increased the scope and pace of their efforts, moving away from selective targeting of towns and regions suspected of KLA sympathies." The truth is the mass expulsion of Kosovo Albanians began AFTER the bombing campaign, and in irony of ironies, many of those refugees that fled Kosovo to Albanian camps (which was painted in the Western media and by the Clinton administration as proof of Serb genocide) said that the reason they left Kosovo was BECAUSE OF THE BOMBING.

The hypocrisy of the Bush hating democrats is that they see nothing wrong with the War on Kosovo ... because it was Clinton's war. Even though it was less authorized by the UN than even the War in Iraq. Even though the war was clearly forced on Serbia with conditions that NO country would have accepted. Even though Clinton lied (there was no genocide) and people died. Even though the US and NATO deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure. Even though the US/NATO military lost the conflict with tiny Serbia's military. Even though the end result was real ethnic cleansing (this time conducted by our new allies, the KLA). Even though the democracy movement in Serbia was actually hurt by the bombing. Even though despite Clinton saying "I do not intend to put our troops in Kosovo to fight a war" that's exactly what his planners were busy preparing to do. Even though NATO itself admitted after the war that the Yugoslav 3rd Army could have held out for weeks or even months. Even though we are still in Kosovo despite promises by Clinton to be out by Christmas years and years ago. The hypocrisy of the Bush hating, Clinton loving legions is starkly evident in Kosovo. Clinton's supporters should just be thankful that Milosevic was not Saddam and willing to fight the mother of all battles. Because this would have been just that.

As for Yousef being an Iraqi agent-- are you serious?

As Mylroie noted in her presentation to the 9/11 commission, "there were Iraqis all around the fringe" of the WTC bombing plot. Yousef entered the US using an Iraqi passport. He was known among the New York fundamentalists as "Rashid, the Iraqi". When he arrived in the US, he stayed at the New Jersey apartment of Musab Yasin, an Iraqi. Mohammed Salameh, a Palestinian fundamentalist, left a trail of phone calls to Iraq. Abdul Rahman Yasin (brother of Musab) arrived in the US directly from Baghdad and returned there immediately after the bombing (and stayed there until our invasion, whereabouts now unknown). He was given a safe haven with government housing and a stipend, even though he was sought by the US government because he'd been indicted. And this all happened at a time that we now know (because of the audio tapes of conversations between Saddam and his staff that were captured after the invasion) that Iraq's government considered itself at war with the United States (despite the cease-fire agreement).

After all, since the Iraqi leadership and Hussein were definitely not on good terms with al Qaeda, with bin Laden, or with KSM

Really?

http://www.nationalreview.com/images/mural3.jpg

An Iraqi intelligence document describes a February 1995 meeting between Saddam's agents and Osama bin Laden. During that meeting, bin Laden offered to conduct "joint operations" with Iraq. Saddam subsequently ordered his aides to "develop the relationship" with the al-Qaida leader.

A fax, sent on June 6, 2001, shows conclusively that Saddam's government provided financial aid to Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf is an al-Qaida offshoot co-founded by bin Laden's brother-in-law.

Another document discovered in Iraq is a letter written by a member of Saddam's Intelligence apparatus on 9/15/2001 (shortly after 9/11). It relates a conversation between an Iraqi intelligence source and a Taliban Afghani Consul. In the conversation the Afghani Consul spoke of a relationship between Iraq and Osama Bin Laden prior to 9/11/2001, and that the United States was aware of such a relationship and that there is a potential of US strikes against Iraq and Afghanistan. Connect the dots. The Taliban went out of its way to warn Saddam that the US would retaliate against Iraq once we got the proof together of their collaboration. And the same people who sheltered and sponsored bin Laden immediately contacted Saddam after the attacks for coordination. That shows a working relationship.

There's more. A Iraqi document in November 2001, addressed to the Security Board at the office of the Presidency in Iraq, reports "there is a group of Iraqi and Saudi Arabians numbering around 3,000 who have gone in an unofficial capacity to Afghanistan and have joined the mujahidin to fight with and aid them in defeating the American Zionist Imperialist attack". This clearly indicates that Iraq was being used as a transit/launch point for jihadis, including Iraqis, who wanted to go join the forces of Osama Bin Laden. And it doesn't appear that Iraq did ANYTHING to curtail such movements. Just as they did nothing to apprehend and curtail the movements of al-Zarqawi and his al-Qaeda associates.

Here's what the CIA said in a 2002 document:


The presence of al-Qa'ida militants on Iraqi soil poses many questions. We are uncertain to what extent Baghdad is actively complicit in this use of its territory by al-Qa'ida operatives for safehaven and transit. Given the pervasive presence of Iraq's security apparatus, it would be difficult for al-Qa'ida operatives to maintain an active, long-term presence in Iraq without alerting the authorities or without at least their acquiescence.


:)

As for your 'analysis' of the iraqbodycount.org link, you pretty much personify the creative accounting I talked about. Yes, 2008 was indeed the first year where the number of civilian deaths actually were lower than the initial numbers in 2003. However, you make the mistake of using correlation as causation to assert why this is so.

It's not a mistake I alone make. Even Obama appears to have accepted this causation. That sort of leaves you high and dry, doesn't it? Especially since your claim was that the "overall deaths hasn't decreased, just the number of American ones". Are you backing off on that claim now? :D


What you did miss, however, were the years preceding September of 2007. If you'd like to just go back and check your iraqbodycount.org source yourself, you'll find that each successive year since 2003 has seen increased death tolls

Or are you just into moving the goal posts with strawmen? I didn't suggest that death tolls were on a downward trend before the surge. I merely noted that the new strategy seems to have changed the dynamic in Iraq such that al-qaeda and the militants are now on the ropes with every indication being that the war is actually won (even though fighting continues).

Nevermind that Malaki is currently arresting leaders and members of the Sunni Awakening movement and that relations between the Iraqi government and the Awakening groups are becoming more strained

Well I guess that Obama's problem now. Good thing he and Malaki are such good friends and in such total agreement on things. :) By the way, where did Obama stand on the Sunni Awakening movement back in January of 2007? :D

So, BAC, in all honesty I'm still not convinced you're arguing with even the slightest of acknowledgment that you may not be presenting the entire picture. It seems you're makiong an argument where the goal is to win through partisan quips and creatively shaving contextual facts away instead of reaching the most factual and clear picture of what's being discussed. All in all, you don't seem to be presenting even the slighted bit of good faith toward historical accuracy and instead are making politically-based arguments for "your guy" over, well, the only "other guy" you can from the other side of the political aisle (Clinton).

How odd. I have the same doubts about you. ;)

[GreNME]

But unlike the Bush administration, the Clinton administration deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure as a means of ending the war. As a matter of POLICY.

Amazing claims require amazing evidence. Have any?

You think we didn't effectively control NATO during those years? :rolleyes:

Actually, I think the opposite: that the US military was at the forefront of most NATO and UN operations. However, unlike the Bush presidency, prior to 2001 the US often worked with NATO and the UN, not in spite of them.

The use of cluster bombs is not what I was referring to, sir.

No, what I'm referring to is the fact that the US (/NATO, just to make you happy) bombed schools, hospitals, irrigation networks, bridges, markets, residential neighborhoods, power plants, heating plants, gas stations, and factories turning out such products as farming equipment, cigarettes, sugar products and baby food.

And I suppose you have proof to back this up, right? No, of course not...

After attacking a bridge deep in Serbia (far from Kosovo) causing civilian cars to fall into the river, they went back and attacked the rescue workers even though they were clearly identified as such. They attacked columns of refugees multiple times and then lied about the incidents at news conferences. Or consider the bombing of Radio Television Serbia (RTS) on April 22. NATO spokesman Jamie Shea had stated on April 12 that "television and radio towers are only struck if they are integrated into military facilities." But RTS studios played no military role. Bombing RTS was a war crime which resulted in the deaths of at least sixteen civilians. And they bombed that station because it's reporters were taking folks to the sites of other US/NATO war crimes (like the bombing of the refugee convoy) and exposing NATO's dishonesty. But once again US/NATO's behavior was excused because it was claimed the Serbs were "cleansing" Kosovo ... when in fact they weren't ... when in fact the supposed genocide used to justify the war was a lie.

Ahh, are you actually claiming the ethnic cleansing wasn't happening (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/balkans/stories/cohen051699.htm) more (http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2001/kosovo/undword-03.htm), and that the couple of out-of-context incidents you one-sidedly mention are actually how it happened? Was Milosevic not guilty as well? Oh, of course you're saying that, because you have to support your claim that Clinton was evil and stupid.

And be honest with yourself, GreNME. The US/NATO forces were NOT winning the war against Serbia's military. They knew that if they had to invade Kosovo on the ground (which was coming if the air campaign failed), the number of dead US/NATO soldiers would be phenomenal.

Yes, much like the Iraq War, yet that's exactly the type of incorrect move Bush took anyway in Iraq.

This was not going to be a walk over. The Serb military was tough, dug in and ready for any invaders. The road network was not up to the task of sustaining an invasion. There were only a few corridors through which to attack.

Which is why they chose an air campaign.

Instead of air campaign destroying the Serb military in Kosovo as the US/NATO had told the public was the case, Serbian forces in Kosovo (over 40,000 strong it turned out) were nearly unscathed. In fact, only 14 tanks (out of over 250) were actually lost. We all saw video of the Serb army pulling out after the ceasefire, their heads held high and in numbers and with equipment that shocked everyone. The Serbs even flew jet fighter after jet fighter out of an underground airfield that NATO bombed repeatedly (and claimed to have destroyed).

You should let us all know what planet you're living on, because on the planet Earth the base you mention (Zeljava (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDeljava_Air_Base)) was indeed destroyed by NATO forces. In fact, it's an off-roading Serbian visiting spot for civilians and the intrepid tourist now (translated link (http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.naj-naj.info%2Fzeljava%2F&sl=sr&tl=en&history_state0=)). Yup, the NATO bombardments were useless (http://members.fortunecity.com/arisak/Z3.jpg). :rolleyes:

The truth is that the media bought the Clinton administration's genocide lie, so in their minds we could do anything we wanted to those nasty Serbs.

Clinton called it ethnic cleansing linky (http://www.cnn.com/US/9903/23/u.s.kosovo.04/) and compared it to the genocide from WWII of the Jews. Your attempts to twist things around are making your reality distortion field show even more blatantly. You sound like you're getting your material from Alex Jones' Infowars website at this point.

The Clinton administration, US military and NATO saw that "opinion" as a green light, and went to war on Serbia's civilian population. The Wall Street Journal reported on April 27 that NATO had decided to attack "political, rather than just military, targets in Serbia." The Philadelphia Inquirer on May 21 reported that NATO generals said "Just focussing on fielded forces is not enough ... . The people have to get to the point that their lights are turned off, their bridges are blocked so they can't get to work." Notice that the reason for destroying bridges wasn't to prevent military movements but take away a civilian's job. And they used the same logic to go after water supplies. By late May, only 30 percent of Belgrade's 2 million people had running water, and the city was down to 10 percent of its water reserves. No wonder the Serbs surrendered.

Just look at the disparity in causualties. At a time when NATO estimated Serb military casualties were in the "hundreds", NATO had killed far more civilians ... by some estimates 1500. As I noted, in the third week of the war they went after water and electrical power, not with the intent of hurting the military but with the clear intent of depriving the civilian population. On April 25, the Washington Times reported that NATO planned to hit "power generation plants and water systems, taking the war directly to civilians." This was by definition a war crime ... but one nearly everyone on our side excused because of the claimed genocide being committed by those nasty Serbs.

Do you really want to compare that with Baghdad, which six years on still doesn't even have a consistently clean water or electric supply and a civilian death toll measured in the hundreds of thousands? Again, your reality distortion knows few boundaries when it comes to defending your confirmation bias.

Let's talk about that. When Clinton announced the air attacks, he said that he was doing so because Serbs were "moving from village to village, shelling civilians and torching their houses." NATO was attacking to "protect thousands of people in Kosovo from a mounting military offensive." But the truth is that the Serb offensive in Kosovo began well AFTER the NATO air attacks began. Even the US State Department admitted as much in late March when it said that Serb forces "dramatically increased the scope and pace of their efforts, moving away from selective targeting of towns and regions suspected of KLA sympathies." The truth is the mass expulsion of Kosovo Albanians began AFTER the bombing campaign, and in irony of ironies, many of those refugees that fled Kosovo to Albanian camps (which was painted in the Western media and by the Clinton administration as proof of Serb genocide) said that the reason they left Kosovo was BECAUSE OF THE BOMBING.

You're not even trying now. Even your own quotes indicate that the ethnic cleansing in the form of driving out Albanians was already happening, and that UN/NATO intervention caused the Serbs to increase their pace.

The hypocrisy of the Bush hating democrats is that they see nothing wrong with the War on Kosovo ... because it was Clinton's war. Even though it was less authorized by the UN than even the War in Iraq. Even though the war was clearly forced on Serbia with conditions that NO country would have accepted. Even though Clinton lied (there was no genocide) and people died. Even though the US and NATO deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure. Even though the US/NATO military lost the conflict with tiny Serbia's military. Even though the end result was real ethnic cleansing (this time conducted by our new allies, the KLA). Even though the democracy movement in Serbia was actually hurt by the bombing. Even though despite Clinton saying "I do not intend to put our troops in Kosovo to fight a war" that's exactly what his planners were busy preparing to do. Even though NATO itself admitted after the war that the Yugoslav 3rd Army could have held out for weeks or even months. Even though we are still in Kosovo despite promises by Clinton to be out by Christmas years and years ago. The hypocrisy of the Bush hating, Clinton loving legions is starkly evident in Kosovo. Clinton's supporters should just be thankful that Milosevic was not Saddam and willing to fight the mother of all battles. Because this would have been just that.

Hello there, strawman. If you really wanted to know, I found plenty wrong with the Kosovo war, particularly because it resulted in the returning Albanians turned right around and started chasing out Serbs when they returned. Things were made no better for the effort except for removing the political leaders that had promoted the ethnic cleansing of Albanians. If nothing else, the problems with the Kosovo war should have been a warning to the Bush administration, yet Cheney and friends asserted that we would be "greeted as liberators" and made up false claims of veracity about WMD to rush the nation into war.

As Mylroie noted in her presentation to the 9/11 commission, "there were Iraqis all around the fringe" of the WTC bombing plot. Yousef entered the US using an Iraqi passport. He was known among the New York fundamentalists as "Rashid, the Iraqi". When he arrived in the US, he stayed at the New Jersey apartment of Musab Yasin, an Iraqi. Mohammed Salameh, a Palestinian fundamentalist, left a trail of phone calls to Iraq. Abdul Rahman Yasin (brother of Musab) arrived in the US directly from Baghdad and returned there immediately after the bombing (and stayed there until our invasion, whereabouts now unknown). He was given a safe haven with government housing and a stipend, even though he was sought by the US government because he'd been indicted. And this all happened at a time that we now know (because of the audio tapes of conversations between Saddam and his staff that were captured after the invasion) that Iraq's government considered itself at war with the United States (despite the cease-fire agreement).

Hello there, quote-mining. Yasin (Musab) was an Iraqi expatriate, and whether the government of Iraq considered itself "at war with the United States" or not had more to do with the fact that we were the ones who chased Saddam back into Iraq from Kuwait and established the no-fly zone.

After all, since the Iraqi leadership and Hussein were definitely not on good terms with al Qaeda, with bin Laden, or with KSM
Really?

http://www.nationalreview.com/images/mural3.jpg

Saddam's pleasure that the US was attacked aside, exactly what are you pointing out?

An Iraqi intelligence document describes a February 1995 meeting between Saddam's agents and Osama bin Laden. During that meeting, bin Laden offered to conduct "joint operations" with Iraq. Saddam subsequently ordered his aides to "develop the relationship" with the al-Qaida leader.

You forgot the subsequent chasing bin Laden out of Iraq and asking him to never come back. Why would you leave out that bit? Oh, because it contradicts your "Iraq was part of 9/11" conspiracy theory.

A fax, sent on June 6, 2001, shows conclusively that Saddam's government provided financial aid to Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf is an al-Qaida offshoot co-founded by bin Laden's brother-in-law.

I'm calling BS there. You're going to have to substantiate that a whole lot more than just claiming it.

Another document discovered in Iraq is a letter written by a member of Saddam's Intelligence apparatus on 9/15/2001 (shortly after 9/11). It relates a conversation between an Iraqi intelligence source and a Taliban Afghani Consul. In the conversation the Afghani Consul spoke of a relationship between Iraq and Osama Bin Laden prior to 9/11/2001, and that the United States was aware of such a relationship and that there is a potential of US strikes against Iraq and Afghanistan. Connect the dots. The Taliban went out of its way to warn Saddam that the US would retaliate against Iraq once we got the proof together of their collaboration. And the same people who sheltered and sponsored bin Laden immediately contacted Saddam after the attacks for coordination. That shows a working relationship.

You actually said "connect the dots" there! Comedy gold! As soon as you show any substantiated "dots" to connect, we can go ahead and try to "connect" them for you.

There's more. A Iraqi document in November 2001, addressed to the Security Board at the office of the Presidency in Iraq, reports "there is a group of Iraqi and Saudi Arabians numbering around 3,000 who have gone in an unofficial capacity to Afghanistan and have joined the mujahidin to fight with and aid them in defeating the American Zionist Imperialist attack". This clearly indicates that Iraq was being used as a transit/launch point for jihadis, including Iraqis, who wanted to go join the forces of Osama Bin Laden. And it doesn't appear that Iraq did ANYTHING to curtail such movements.

No, it shows that Iraqis and Saudis were leaving their country to go fight in Afghanistan. Why didn't we invade Saudi Arabia as well?

Just as they did nothing to apprehend and curtail the movements of al-Zarqawi and his al-Qaeda associates.

Zarqawi was fleeing from the Iraqi government in the Kurdish region. Exactly how was that "doing nothing" on Hussein's part? He wanted to kill the guy, and Zarqawi held mutual feelings.

Here's what the CIA said in a 2002 document:The presence of al-Qa'ida militants on Iraqi soil poses many questions. We are uncertain to what extent Baghdad is actively complicit in this use of its territory by al-Qa'ida operatives for safehaven and transit. Given the pervasive presence of Iraq's security apparatus, it would be difficult for al-Qa'ida operatives to maintain an active, long-term presence in Iraq without alerting the authorities or without at least their acquiescence.

:)

Are these the same CIA documents that were later considered to have been doctored to meet the Bush administration's preconceived conclusions? Sorry, but you're going to need to cite which documents you're using a little better for contextual reasons.

It's not a mistake I alone make. Even Obama appears to have accepted this causation. That sort of leaves you high and dry, doesn't it? Especially since your claim was that the "overall deaths hasn't decreased, just the number of American ones". Are you backing off on that claim now? :D

Why should I back off it? The creative accounting is apparent, and both Human Rights Watch and the Iraq Body Count website concur. All Obama said was that the surge apparently worked, and almost every time he mentioned it when campaigning he included the Awakening movement.

Or are you just into moving the goal posts with strawmen? I didn't suggest that death tolls were on a downward trend before the surge. I merely noted that the new strategy seems to have changed the dynamic in Iraq such that al-qaeda and the militants are now on the ropes with every indication being that the war is actually won (even though fighting continues).

You "merely" noted no such thing. You instead decided that the end of 2007-- nearly four years after the war started and nearly four years after the "Mission Accomplished" BS-- was a good place to start arguing that things were getting better. After pointing out the creative accounting, I also pointed out that the escalation in poor relations between the Awakening movement Sunnis and the Iraqi government are heating back up. And what do you have to say about it?

Well I guess that Obama's problem now.

Yep, pretty typical for the Bush administration. Create the mess, then leave it for the next guy to try and clean up. Great forward thinking right there.

Good thing he and Malaki are such good friends and in such total agreement on things. :) By the way, where did Obama stand on the Sunni Awakening movement back in January of 2007? :D

Hmm, it looks like both McCain and Obama agreed that the Awakening movement had a large part of it. From the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/us/politics/24check.html?_r=2&ref=politics&oref=slogin): "“Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others,” Mr. McCain said. “And it began the Anbar Awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.”

The Obama campaign was quick to note that the Anbar Awakening began in the fall of 2006, several months before President Bush even announced the troop escalation strategy, which became known as the surge."

It looks, however, to also show that Obama has been the only one of the two to point out that the Awakening began before the surge was even brought up by Bush.

But hey, it's all President Obama's problem now, right? Nevermind the American lives at risk over there or the constant fighting and added instability caused by the invasion, or the fact that the country is again heading toward what could be a civil war over the ham-fisted attempts of the previous administration to polish a turd. It's Obama's problem, so now you can sit back and enjoy the mayhem without having to use your reality distortion field to twist it into a victory for your political partisan hackery.

How odd. I have the same doubts about you. ;)

Let me guess: you're rubber and I'm glue. Anything I say bounces off of you and sticks to me. Right?

I do think I'm about done feeding your trolling, though. Have fun in your conspiracy-filled, self-righteous world where the only facts that matter are the ones you can cook up looking at events through a filter.

[BeAChooser]

Amazing claims require amazing evidence. Have any?

What? You fail to even read my post? I offered specific cases. Let's see if you offer any response to them other than outright dismissing or ignoring them. :)

Actually, I think the opposite: that the US military was at the forefront of most NATO and UN operations.

Exactly. Which seems to be an admission counter to your initial point. :)

No, what I'm referring to is the fact that the US (/NATO, just to make you happy) bombed schools, hospitals, irrigation networks, bridges, markets, residential neighborhoods, power plants, heating plants, gas stations, and factories turning out such products as farming equipment, cigarettes, sugar products and baby food.

And I suppose you have proof to back this up, right? No, of course not...

What? Did you simply miss all the reports and pictures of this carnage? Where in the world have you been the past decade? Were you too busy campaigning for the democrat candidate ... Gore, Kerry, Clinton and Obama ... to keep up? Is that the reason you are so far out of touch with reality?

http://www.antic.org/Weblog/2006/01/dark-clouds-of-nato.html


Appendix 7.3 to the "Assessment of Environmental Impact of Military Activities During the Yugoslavia Conflict - Preliminary Findings, June 1999" contains a list of 105 "Industrial Targets in Yugoslavia before June 5, 1999". Item 28 reads:

"Agricultural and food processing plant and a cow breeding farm with 220 milk cows 'Pester' in Sjenica have been destroyed."

Less than 60% of the targets have anything remotely to do with the military. Shoe factories, cigarette factories, a factory for the production and assembly of computer printers. Many food processing and meat processing plants.

... snip ...

The Assessment was prepared by The Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe, a reputable NGO. It was commissioned by the European Commission DG-XI (Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection). The contract awarded bears the number B7-8110/99/61783/MAR/XI.1


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/war-in-the-balkans-serbia--belgrades-new-bunker-mentality-1097606.html


War in the Balkans: Serbia - Belgrade's new bunker mentality

Robert Fisk in Belgrade
Wednesday, 2 June 1999

... snip ...

Nato, of course, bombed the tobacco factories more than a month ago. Like Ososlija, I hadn't taken a shower yesterday. The power cuts have stopped the water supply again. My taps roar at me like a sick lion and the red plastic bucket on my balcony collects an inch of grey rainwater from Belgrade's polluted skies; definitely not for brushing my teeth, maybe just enough to flush the toilet. No power, no water, no cigarettes.


http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/02/news/mn-33305


NATO Bombs Civilian Bus, Causing Scenes of Horror
By Paul Watson

A NATO airstrike blew a civilian bus in half Saturday afternoon on a bridge in this Kosovo village, killing at least 24 people and critically wounding 16 others.

At least four of the victims were ethnic Albanian children who had boarded the southbound bus in the Serbian province at Podujevo, a once-deserted town six miles up the road where more than 50,000 refugees had returned only 11 days earlier.

... snip ...

As ambulances raced to and from the bus’ burning wreckage, half of which fell about 60 feet to a riverbank below, a fighter-bomber struck again with two bombs that hit a short bridge at Jug Bogdan, about two miles away.

A small group of journalists was about 300 yards from the second bridge when a bomb exploded in a ball of orange flame. They watched another detonation minutes later when an ambulance was trying to cross.

... snip ...

Because NATO’s bombing campaign has destroyed oil refineries and fuel storage depots across Yugoslavia, most buses are running full of passengers who might have made their trips in cars if gas wasn’t being rationed.


http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/62/306.html


NATO's Latest Target: Yugoslavia's Economy

By Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, Sunday 25 April 1999

... snip ...

While NATO air attacks have not loosened the Yugoslav military's stranglehold on the Serbian province of Kosovo and its ethnic Albanian inhabitants, they have devastated targets ranging from the country's two biggest oil refineries, in Pancevo and Novi Sad, to the Zastava factory at Kragujevac, which produced the Yugo car and employed some 15,000 workers. The bombing has cut all but one of the bridges across the Danube River, severely limiting communication between the agricultural region of Vojvodina in the north and the rest of Yugoslavia.

Other targets have included chemical, drug, cigarette, shoe and light aircraft factories, as well as TV transmitters, railway stations and airports.

... snip ...

On April 12, NATO warplanes attacked a heating plant on the edge of the town, reducing it to a smoldering heap of rubble and twisted metal. They went on to hit the region's biggest factory, the October 14 plant, which produced bulldozers, excavators and other heavy machinery. What was left standing was destroyed in a second raid three days later.

“This was the biggest heavy machinery plant in the Balkans,” said Nebojsa Toskovic, the factory's deputy general manager, as he took reporters on a guided tour of the ruins. “Without machinery from this factory, the country will be unable to reconstruct all the bridges and everything else that has been destroyed by NATO.”

NATO officials contend that the October 14 plant was producing military materials and was therefore a legitimate target, but they have not produced conclusive evidence to support their claim.

... snip ...

People here fail to see how the destruction of the October 14 factory in Krusevac and the nearby heating plant will help advance NATO war aims in Kosovo. Some suspect that the factory was destroyed simply because it was an easy target. It is much easier to hit a fixed target like a factory or a bridge than to go after security forces in Kosovo, who are well hidden and constantly on the move.

“Nobody can understand why our plant was hit,” said Radoslav Savic, director of the coal-fired heating plant, which supplies heat to 50,000 people. “We were not a military target. There was not a single gram of oil inside the plant. The only purpose is to make our people suffer.”


http://www.reason.com/news/show/35714.html


Collective Guilt

Jacob Sullum | May 12, 1999

... snip ...

Early on, NATO bombed factories that made cars, appliances, and heavy construction equipment. All were said to produce munitions as well--claims that should taken with a grain of salt, especially given the Clinton administration’s failure to back up its assertion that the Sudanese pharmaceutical plant it destroyed last year was making ingredients for chemical weapons.

In any case, NATO has also bombed industrial targets, including a cigarette factory, that could not reasonably be considered part of Milosevic’s war machine. Such attacks, we’re told, are aimed at destroying the property of Milosevic’s cronies, thereby undermining his support.

NATO has bombed bridges, highways, and railroads in Belgrade and throughout the country, saying they could be used to move troops and tanks. If that sounds reasonable to you, consider how you would feel if a foreign power offered the same rationale for destroying the Golden Gate Bridge or Interstate 10.

NATO has knocked out Yugoslavia’s oil refineries, because the military uses gasoline. It has hit electrical transformers, leaving Belgrade and other parts of Serbia in darkness, because the military uses electricity. By the same logic, NATO could start targeting farms--soldiers have to eat, after all. Perhaps this explains the attacks on fertilizer plants.

... snip ...

NATO has refrained from bombing the White Palace, Milosevic’s ceremonial residence, partly because it contains a Rembrandt on loan from the National Museum. But it has not hesitated to bomb TV studios and government buildings in the middle of Belgrade, knowing that such attacks would kill civilians who had nothing to do with "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo.


http://members.tripod.com/Balkania/resources/legal/complaint.html


4.3.3 Amongst other, from March 24th, 1999 until May 1, 1999, NATO's political and military leadership and personnel have willfully and wantonly destroyed the following commercial and industrial facilities that cater to civilian needs:

• The Galenika pharmaceutical plant in Belgrade
• The Dvadeset Prvi Maj industrial complex in Rakovica
• The Machine building plant Industrija Motora Rakovica in Racovica
• The Jugstroj factory in Rakovica
• The Frigostroj factory in Rakovica
• The Lola Utva agricultural aircraft factory in Pancevo
• The Zdravlje pharmaceutical plant in Leskovac
• The Sloboda white goods factory in Cacak
• The Din tobacco plant in Nis
• The Electronska industrija factory in Nis
• The Jastrebac machine industry in Nis
• The Beograd rail company facilities in Nis.
• The Construction material depot Ogrev Invest in Nis
• The production line of the Nis tobacco factory in Nis
• The Elekrtrotehna warehouse in Nis
• The Fidelinka food storage facility in Nis
• The company So Produckt's office buildings in Nis.
• The Velafarm pharmaceutical facilities in Nis
• The Kopaonik general merchandise depot in Nis
• The Zastava car factory in Kragujevac
• The 14 Oktobar machine factory in Krusevac
• The Metalac metal factory production line in Kursumilja
• The Krusik holding corporation in Valjevo
• Cikonizacija in Novi Sad
• Technogas in Novi Sad
• Novograp in Novi Sad
• Gumins in Novi Sad
• Albus in Novi Sad
• Petar Drapsin in Novi Sad
• Motins in Novi Sad
• Izolacija in Novi Sad
• Novokabel in Novi Sad
• Istra fittings facotry in Kula
• The port of Bogojevo
• The Div cigarette factory in Vranje
• The Nova Jugoslavija printers in Vranje
• The Simpo Furniture factory in Vranje
• The Jumko textile industry in Vranje
• The 27. November wood processing complex in Raska
• The Pipe factory in Urosevac
• The Milan Blagojevic chemical plant in Lucani
• The Plastics factory in Pristina
• The Cotton yarn factory in Pristina
• The Shock absorber factory in Pristina
• The Surface coal mine in Belacevac
• The Binacka Morava hydro construction company in Gnjilane
• The Cigarette manufacturing facility in Gnjilane
• The Battery factory in Gnjilane
• The Dijana shoe factory in Sremska Mitrovica
• over 250 commercial and craft shops in Djakovica

Most of these facilities have been bombed and re-bombed again and again to ensure absolute devastation. By example, the Milan Blagojevic chemical plant in Lucani has been hit on four separate occasion with a number of missiles each time.

... snip ...

4.3.5 From March 24th, 1999 until May 1, 1999, NATO's political and military leaders and responsible NATO personnel have willfully and wantonly destroyed the following eighteen refineries and warehouses of raw material and chemicals with catastrophic consequence to the environment not only of Yugoslavia but the Balkan region as a whole. They include:

• Fuel Storage Tanks in Lipovica whose explosion resulted in the burning of the Lipovica forest (March 26, 1999)
• Beopetrol storage in Belgrade (April 4, 1999)
• Beopetrol storage in Bogutovac (April 4 and 24 1999)
• Fuel storage of the Boiler Plant in Novi Beograd (April 4, 1999)
• Prvra Iskra chemical plant in Baric (April 16, 1999)
• Oil Refinery in Pancevo (April 4, 16, 1999)
• DP HIP Petrohemija Petrochemical industry in Pancevo (April 14-15, 1999)
• Jugopetrol installations in Smederevo (April 4 and 13,1999)
• Thermo electrical power station/boiler plant in Novi Sad (April 5, 1999)
• Oil Refinery in Novi Sad (April 5 and 6, 1999)
• Jugopetrol storage in Sombor (April 7, 1999)
• Naftagas promet fuel storage near Sombor (April 5, 1999)
• Naftagas warehouse between Conoplje and Kljaicevo
• Beopetrol fuel storage in Pristina (April 7, 1999)
• Jugopetrol warehouse in Pristina (April 12, 1999)
• Jugopetrol petrol station in Pristina (April 13, 1999)
• Fuel depot in Gruua, near Kragujevac

Even if, by some stretch of the imagination, some of these targets can be termed "legitimate" military targets due to the purported military potential of some of their facilities, NATO forces, more often than not, did not chose to "strategically" eliminate those questionable facilities, but opted instead to completely level the entire operation. The Novi Sad refinery, for example, has been targeted again and again, and hit by over thirty missiles, since the NATO aggression commenced. The Jugopetrol warehouse in Zdravcici has been hit on three separate occasions. It had already been leveled by the two earlier attacks. A third attack served no purpose. NATO's strategy is not aimed at impairing these structures to preclude their potential utility, but rather to completely and unjustifiably obliterate them.

4.3.6 From March 24th, 1999 until May 1, 1999, NATO's political and military leadership and its responsible personnel have willfully and wantonly devastated agricultural facilities not justified by military necessity. The following are included amongst the agricultural facilities destroyed:

• PIK Kopaonik in Kursumlija
• PIK Mladost in Gnijlane
• Malizgan agricultural complex in Dolac
• Djuro Stugar agricultural complex in Kula
• Agricultural, food processing and cow-breeding farm in Pester, Sjenica

By what stretch of the imagination can 220 milk cows and hectares of crop be deemed "legitimate military targets?"

4.3.7 NATO's missiles have also visited vast destruction on the nation's hospitals and health care institutions. From March 24th, 1999 until May 1, 1999, NATO's political and military leadership and its responsible personnel have willfully and wantonly damaged the following health facilities, vital for the civilian population, especially at a time of war:

• the Dr. Lazar Lazarevic Neuropsychiatric Hospital and Central Pharmacy of the Emergency Center in Belgrade
• the Sveti Sava hospital in Belgrade
• Army Medical Academy in Belgrade
• Gynecological Hospital and Maternity Ward at the Belgrade Clinical Centre
• Health Care Center in Rakovica
• Hospital and Medical Center in Leskovac
• Geriatric Center in Leskovac
• Hospital and Poly-clinic in Nis
• General Hospital in Djakovica
• City Hospital in Novi Sad
• Medical Center and Ambulance Center in Aleksinac
• Medical Center in Kraljevo
• Dispensary on Mt. Zlatibor
• City Hospital in Valjevo
• Krusik dispensary in Valjevo
• Hospital for treatment of Dystrophia in Novi Pazar
• Health Care Center in Kursumilja.
• the Dragisa Misovic Clinical Hospital Center in Belgrade (April 27th)

In addition to the above, the facilities used by the Red Cross and other international humanitarian and health organizations in Novi Pazar were damaged by NATO attacks.

... snip ...

4.5.1 NATO's political and military leadership and its responsible personnel have demonstrated a marked disregard for Serbia's historical and religious heritage by targeting and destroying religious and historic landmarks that serve as an integral part of Serb national and religious heritage and history. UNESCO's ICOMOS has identified 12 historical monuments in Kosovo, central Serbia and Vojvodina that have been totally destroyed by the NATO air raids and 39 which have sustained substantial damages, many of which are listed on UNESCO World Heritage list. From March 24th, 1999 to May 1st, 1999, the following medieval monasteries and religious shrines, amongst others, have sustained serious damages as a result of the NATO air raids:

• The Gracanica Monastery (14th century) (bombed on March 24th and April 6, 1999).
• The Rakovica Monastery (17th century) (bombed on March 29, 1999)
• The Church in Jelasnica near Surdulica
• The 13th century Pec Patriarchate (bombed on April 1, 1999).
• The Monastery of the Church of St. George in Petrovardin built in 1714
• The Monastery of the Holy Mother (12th century) in Kosanica, Kursumlija
• The Monastery of St. Nicholas (12th centruy) in Kursumlija
• The Monastery of St. Archangel Gabriel in Zemun
• The Roman Catholic Church St. Antonio in Djakovica
• The Orthodox Cemetery in Gnjilane
• The monuments in Bogutovac
• The Kadinjaca memorial complex
• The Vojlovica monasater near Pancevo
• The iconostasis of the Hopovo monastery
• The Orthodox cemetery in Pristina
• The St. Archangel Michael Monastery in Rakovica
• The St. Marko Orthodox Church in Belgrade
• The Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church in Belgrade


http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1422&fuseaction=topics.publications&doc_id=8576&group_id=7427


On March 24, 1999, NATO attacked Serbia and bombed it for two and half months. Around two thousand civilians were killed - a figure most often quoted locally and probably realistic. Milosevic's regime quoted a figure of five thousand, NATO of five hundred. There is more agreement about the number of Serbian soldiers (both in the military service and the reservists) and policemen killed - seven hundred and two hundred respectively. ... snip ... Inflicting "moderate" suffering on the civilian population suited NATO planners - the suffering would be used to break the population's will to resist and force it to rise up against Milosevic. This is also the reason behind the selection of targets without any military significance: factories producing cigarettes, cars, vacuum cleaners, artificial fertilizers, or state and military buildings which are primarily administrative and representative buildings, rather than command centers. Without any justification or rationale, NATO bombs also destroyed bridges in Novi Sad, the capital of Vojvodina, and an important cultural center often referred to as the "Serbian Athens."


Is that enough evidence this occurred? :D


Ahh, are you actually claiming the ethnic cleansing wasn't happening more, and that the couple of out-of-context incidents you one-sidedly mention are actually how it happened?

Clearly, you aren't making any real attempt to know what I'm claiming ... you're just trying to score points by parsing words ala Clinton. Maybe this will give you a clue ... from the above link:


There are numerous proofs that there was no ethnic cleansing in Kosovo before the bombing. The existence of ethnic cleansing was not mentioned in the reports of either journalists or diplomats, and there were no camps of Kosovar Albanian refugees in either Albania or Macedonia prior to the bombing. Last but not least, the Hague tribunal indicted Milosevic only for the crimes committed in Kosovo during the bombing, and not before it.


:D

Was Milosevic not guilty as well?

Did I say that ... or imply it? No. Seems that strawmen are the best arguments you can come up with now. Perhaps the only arguments you actually have in defense of the above war crimes. :)

And what did you accomplish with all that bombing. Again, from the above link:


Instead of a multi-ethnic democracy which the NATO leaders promised and president Clinton insisted America was fighting for, the Kosovo Liberation Army, which had been armed and brought to power by NATO, expelled almost all non-Albanians from Kosovo: Serbs, Montenegrins, South Slav Muslims, Roma gypsies, Turks, and others. Over 200,000 Serbs escaped into Serbia proper and joined over half a million Serbian refugees from Croatia and Bosnia.

In Pristina alone there had been around 40,000 Serbs - now there are several hundred left. In the beginning of January 2000, in the center of Pristina, a mob celebrating the Albanian national holiday, "the day of the flag," lynched an elderly Serbian professor who had also taught in the United States. This incident is just an example of several which occur on a routine basis in front of 40,000 NATO-led troops armed with the most modern weapons. Carl Bildt, the special representative of the general secretary of the United Nations for the Balkans and the former prime minister of the Swedish government, considers the situation in Kosovo to be worse than it ever was in Bosnia and that the most brutal methods of ethnic cleansing were used.


:D


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
And be honest with yourself, GreNME. The US/NATO forces were NOT winning the war against Serbia's military. They knew that if they had to invade Kosovo on the ground (which was coming if the air campaign failed), the number of dead US/NATO soldiers would be phenomenal.

Yes, much like the Iraq War, yet that's exactly the type of incorrect move Bush took anyway in Iraq.


Unlike Kosovo, Iraq must be seen in the context of a far larger war ... the War On Terror. We haven't been fighting just Iraqi holdouts of Saddam's regime but al-Qaeda and Iranian backed militants who have streamed into the country by the thousands as part of their war against the west. And they've died by the thousands too. They are dead terrorists who if they hadn't confronted our soldiers on this battle field would likely have confronted us elsewhere ... perhaps on ground which would be even lest amenable to our side ... where we wouldn't be able to employ our resources nearly as effectively ... where American civilians and other nations civilians would have died by the thousands.

You falsely and foolishly assume that had we not invaded Iraq, no American soldiers or Americans would be dead. That is a red herring. An unfounded assumption. On the contrary, we would probably still have seen thousands of US dead. And those deaths might have accomplished very little towards actually winning the WOT. Whereas our soldiers in Iraq are for the most part very proud of what they've accomplished ... something that you apparently cannot grasp due to your apparent hatred of all things Bush.


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
This was not going to be a walk over. The Serb military was tough, dug in and ready for any invaders. The road network was not up to the task of sustaining an invasion. There were only a few corridors through which to attack.

Which is why they chose an air campaign.


Which only worked because it was aimed at the civilian population ... a war crime. Read the history. It's clear that up to the moment Serbia waved the white flag, Clinton and NATO were planning to invade and soon. Preparations were underway to do so. So my point stands. Had Clinton and NATO not been willing to violate the Geneva Conventions, body bags would have filled the planes returning to the US. You should be glad that Clinton didn't face a Saddam who cared nothing about his civilian populace. Instead he faced an opponent who did care and caved because he ascertained that NATO was clearly willing to destroy all civilian infrastructure in Serbia and kill tens of thousands of more innocents "just to win" ... Geneva Conventions be damned.


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
The Serbs even flew jet fighter after jet fighter out of an underground airfield that NATO bombed repeatedly (and claimed to have destroyed).

You should let us all know what planet you're living on, because on the planet Earth the base you mention (Zeljava) was indeed destroyed by NATO forces.

I notice you're just going to ignore the fact that the Serbian army left Kosovo in good order with a strength in excess of what the US/NATO thought was in Kosovo originally. I notice you're just going to ignore the complete ineffectiveness of the air campaign against those forces. For example, NATO claimed to have destroyed hundreds of tanks. When they only destroyed 13. And most of those were destroyed by the KLA, not NATO. :)

But the best part is I wasn't talking about Zeljava Air Base anyway. That's in Croatia. I was talking about the underground airport in Pristina, Kosovo. You do know the difference between the two places, don't you? And by the way, had you bothered to read the link YOU provided, you would have read this regarding Zeljava: "In the course of its withdrawal, the Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA) destroyed the airport by filling and igniting the explosive positions that were in-built during the construction phase of the base and as part of base design. To prevent any possible future use of the complex and preclude any advantage to an opposing party the Military of Serbian Krajina finalized its demolition in 1992 by setting off an additional 56 tons of explosives." So even it wasn't destroyed by NATO. ROTFLOL!

Now this is the air base you should have known I was actually talking about:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/kosovo-peace-deal-nato-faces-russians-at-pristina-1099783.html


The airport - which doubles as the Yugoslavian military airbase of Slatina - is one of the most sophisticated in Yugoslavia, with underground runways and an impenetrable bunker system for military headquarters. Six MiG-21 jets were successfully sheltered there throughout Nato's bombardment; all flew out to northern Serbia on Friday.


And don't think NATO didn't try to destroy it. They surely did. And as a further embarrassment to the US and NATO (and YOU):

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:MIjD6lb7or0J:www.aeronautics.ru/nws001/thetimes002.htm+pristina+slatina+nato+underground&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us


Russians 'raced to Pristina secrets'

FROM TOM WALKER AT SLATINA AIRFIELD, PRISTINA

"RUSSIA'S initial dash to Kosovo may have had less to do with politics than with the protection of military secrets in underground hangars at Pristina's Slatina airport, it was suggested yesterday. The 270 soldiers who embarrassed Nato by beating alliance forces to the Kosovo capital returned to Bosnia yesterday as mysteriously as they had arrived. The airfield was one of the jewels in the crown of the late President Tito's formidable defence network.

... snip ...

Sources at Jane's Defence Weekly speculated yesterday that the Russians may have had an interest in keeping Nato nations away from Slatina while the hangars and storage areas were cleared. The sources suggested that Slatina could have housed air defence and missile systems unfamiliar to the West that had been recently sold or hired to Belgrade in breach of sanctions.

Among the hardware the Yugoslav Army may have had inside the underground facility are SA10 surface-to-air missiles and a Czech-designed triangulation device, known as "Tamara", capable of tracking Stealth aircraft.

An RAF officer in the British sector of Slatina said that during the first few days of Russian control, "the stuff was pouring out of here". The officer, who was allowed into the Russian sector of the base only days ago, said Slatina was one of the most impressive military facilities he had seen.


:D

Clinton called it ethnic cleansing linky and compared it to the genocide from WWII of the Jews.

Which was a totally false comparison as the facts that came out of Kosovo during and after the war amply prove. Prior to hostilities, US defense secretary William Cohen claimed "we've now seen about 100,000 military-aged men missing . . . they may have been murdered". David Scheffer, the US ambassador-at-large for war crimes, announced that as many as "225,000 ethnic Albanian men aged between 14 and 59" may have been killed." And what did they find after the war? Well first, NATO reported that 2000 people had been killed in Kosovo on all sides in the year prior to bombing. The Wall Street Journal published the results of its own investigation. They didn't find "huge killing fields" but a "pattern is of scattered killings (mostly) in areas where the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army had been active". And the International War Crimes Tribunal (basically a NATO body) announced that the final count of bodies in Kosovo's "mass graves" was 2,788. However note even this number includes combatants on both sides and Serbs and others (like Romas) murdered by the KLA. Clinton lied, people died.

And since then? As John Pilger wrote back in 2004, "Kosovo today is a violent, criminalised, UN-administered "free market" in drugs and prostitution; unemployment is 65 per cent. More than 200,000 Serbs, Roma, Bosniaks, Turks, Croats and Jews have been ethnically cleansed by the KLA, with NATO forces standing by. KLA hit squads have burned, looted or demolished 85 Orthodox churches and monasteries, according to the UN. The courts are venal. "You shot an 89-year-old Serb grandmother?" mocked a UN narcotics officer. "Good for you. Get out of jail."

So don't preach to me about ethnic cleansing because you don't have a leg to stand on, sir. :D


Do you really want to compare that with Baghdad, which six years on still doesn't even have a consistently clean water or electric supply and a civilian death toll measured in the hundreds of thousands? Again, your reality distortion knows few boundaries when it comes to defending your confirmation bias.


ROTFLOL! First of all, one of the chief complaints by civilians in Kosova today, a decade after Clinton's war, are the frequent electrical blackouts (http://www.kim.sr.gov.yu/cms/item/news/en.html?view=story&id=9634&sectionId=11 ). And water? As http://www.emwis.net/thematicdirs/news/snews687424 notes: "Many regions of Kosovo suffer from water scarcity and poor drinking water quality respectively." As http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:894f_arnSnwJ:www.osce.org/item/32394.html+kosovo+water+quality&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us notes: "In the summer of 2007, the Municipal Teams of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo (OSCE) reported on human rights and community issues with regard to severe water shortages throughout Kosovo, raising serious concerns on the supply and access to water for all communities."

And again, for the n-th time, the difference between what happened in Serbia and Bush Jr's Iraq War is that in Iraq civilian infrastructure has NOT being deliberately targeted as a means of winning the war ... like it was in Serbia. In Iraq our forces have gone to great lengths, often even endangering themselves, to avoid damage to civilian infrastructure and civilians. And since the invasion in Iraq, we have spent countless billions trying to repair the damage done before the war due to Saddam's neglect, and done since by those elements (such as al-Qaeda and the Iranian backed militia) who are most of responsible for the great loss of life in Iraq since the invasion (and that's not us).

Even your own quotes indicate that the ethnic cleansing in the form of driving out Albanians was already happening, and that UN/NATO intervention caused the Serbs to increase their pace.

No, that's not what my quotes indicate. I tell you what, YOU prove that ethnic cleansing was occurring in any significant way in Kosovo before the war. I bet the only sources you can offer are ones that I can prove are totally inaccurate as to the situation in the country before the invasion. Challenge. :D

And while I wait for your response, here's something from folks who don't like Bush's War in Iraq (so you can't claim they are Bush toadies):

http://www.counterpunch.org/germanmemo.html


------ Translator's Notes ------

As in the case of the Clinton Administration, the present regime in Germany, specifically Joschka Fischer's Foreign Office, has justified its intervention in Kosovo by pointing to a "humanitarian catastrophe," "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" occurring there, especially in the months immediately preceding the NATO attack. The following internal documents from Fischer's ministry and from various regional Administrative Courts in Germany spanning the year before the start of NATO's air attacks, attest that criteria of ethnic cleansing and genocide were not met. The Foreign Office documents were responses to the courts' needs in deciding the status of Kosovo-Albanian refugees in Germany. Although one might in these cases suppose a bias in favor of downplaying a humanitarian catastrophe in order to limit refugees, it nevertheless remains highly significant that the Foreign Office, in contrast to its public assertion of ethnic cleansing and genocide in justifying NATO intervention, privately continued to deny their existence as Yugoslav policy in this crucial period. And this continued to be their assessment even in March of this year. Thus these documents tend to show that stopping genocide was not the reason the German government, and by implication NATO, intervened in Kosovo, and that genocide (as understood in German and international law) in Kosovo did not precede NATO bombardment, at least not from early 1998 through March, 1999, but is a product of it.


Here's another source:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=625


Former OSCE Observer Speaks Out
No evidence of genocide or ethnic cleansing in Kosovo


Now let's see what you come up with. :D


Hello there, quote-mining.


Your comment is simply a tactic to avoid addressing the facts that I noted. Quote-mining or not, facts are facts. Facts that you don't appear to really want to face ... or address. :D

Yasin (Musab) was an Iraqi expatriate

Which automatically makes him innocent? :rolleyes:

Do you know the name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir? He provided logistical assistance to at least one, and maybe two, of the 9/11 hijackers. Do you know that before the WTC bombing, he received a phone call from the apartment rented by Musab Yasin, an apartment used as a safehouse by the WTC bombers. When Shakir was arrested shortly after the 9/11 attacks, he had on him contact information for ... guess who ... Musab Yasin. And by the way, Shakir was another Iraqi. And one more fact you might have overlooked. Musab also fled to Iraq after the bombing. Just an "expatriate"? How gullible are you?

and whether the government of Iraq considered itself "at war with the United States" or not had more to do with the fact that we were the ones who chased Saddam back into Iraq from Kuwait and established the no-fly zone.


Oh yes ... blame us. :rolleyes: So typical of Bush haters.


You forgot the subsequent chasing bin Laden out of Iraq and asking him to never come back.


Proof of that claim? Or are you just making things up now?


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
A fax, sent on June 6, 2001, shows conclusively that Saddam's government provided financial aid to Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf is an al-Qaida offshoot co-founded by bin Laden's brother-in-law.

I'm calling BS there. You're going to have to substantiate that a whole lot more than just claiming it.


Fine. But I can see you were too lazy to use your web browser before responding. :D

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/011/990ieqmb.asp


Saddam's Philippines
Terror Connection
And other revelations from the Iraqi regime files.
by Stephen F. Hayes
03/27/2006

SADDAM HUSSEIN'S REGIME PROVIDED FINANCIAL support to Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group founded by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law in the Philippines in the late 1990s, according to documents captured in postwar Iraq. An eight-page fax dated June 6, 2001, and sent from the Iraqi ambassador in Manila to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, provides an update on Abu Sayyaf kidnappings and indicates that the Iraqi regime was providing the group with money to purchase weapons. The Iraqi regime suspended its support--temporarily, it seems--after high-profile kidnappings, including of Americans, focused international attention on the terrorist group.


Now it's your turn to back up the BS you offered about "chasing bin Laden out of Iraq and asking him to never come back". :D

You actually said "connect the dots" there! Comedy gold! As soon as you show any substantiated "dots" to connect, we can go ahead and try to "connect" them for you.

I can see I wasted my time thinking logic might be your *forte*.

No, it shows that Iraqis and Saudis were leaving their country to go fight in Afghanistan. Why didn't we invade Saudi Arabia as well?

Because unlike Saddam, the leaders of Saudi Arabia were actually busy fighting and killing al-Qaeda members.

Zarqawi was fleeing from the Iraqi government in the Kurdish region.

What proof do you have that al-Zarqawi was "fleeing" the Iraqi government (and he was in Baghdad at the time, not in any Kurdish area). Isn't it curious that soon after Saddam was notified that he was in Baghdad, al-Zarqawi left for *up north*. One might think he was tipped off.

He wanted to kill the guy

What proof do you have of that claim? None. Captured documents show that when Saddam's police actually captured a known associate of al-Zarqawi, Saddam himself ordered him released ... even though the officers who caught him said he was guilty of the crimes for which he was charged. The fact is that al-Zarqawi appears to have operated freely in Iraq for years. He even was treated for injuries sustained in Afghanistan in one of Saddam's private hospitals (and those weren't easy to get into).

Are these the same CIA documents that were later considered to have been doctored to meet the Bush administration's preconceived conclusions?

No. But nice red herring.

The 2006 Senate report that included the statement I quoted and that you imply was doctored in some way (and you haven't proven any CIA document was doctored) also said this:


The Committee concluded in 2004 that the CIA reasonably assessed that al-Qa'ida or associated operatives were present in 2002 in Baghdad and in Kurdish controlled northeastern Iraq. The Committee noted that the CIA approached the issue of safehaven by describing the presence of al-Qa'ida and individuals associated with Ansar al-Islam-mainly the al-Zarqawi network-and explaining why the IRaqi regime likely knew of their presence in Baghdad and Kurdish areas.


And that report was criticized for being biased against republicans. :D


Why should I back off it?


Because you were outright wrong in your initial claim? You think none of us have noticed you now trying to move the goal posts? :D

All Obama said was that the surge apparently worked

Not back in January of 2007. Then he said the surge wouldn't work (and even Joe Biden told him he was wrong at the time). But he didn't listen and continued to insist we withdraw. And had Congress passed the bill he authored back then, the US would have had combat troops out of Iraq in March of 2008, just about the time the gains from the surge were starting to be noticed by the mainstream media. Of course then those gains would never have taken place and we really would have lost the war. Even after Obama admitted that the surge was working, he still said that even had he known that would be the case back in January 2007, he would still have been against the surge and for immediate withdrawal. Stuck on stupid. Now we'll just wait to see if his current advisors can get him out of that rut.

You instead decided that the end of 2007-- nearly four years after the war started and nearly four years after the "Mission Accomplished" BS-- was a good place to start arguing that things were getting better.

Only because everyone else agrees that about that time the benefits of the surge (which was first implimented in late 2006) started to become so apparent that even our liberally biased mainstream media and stuck on stupid Obama couldn't ignore it.

I also pointed out that the escalation in poor relations between the Awakening movement Sunnis and the Iraqi government are heating back up. And what do you have to say about it?

The NYTimes was warning us about this back in August of 2008 (and even before). Here we are nearly 6 months later and what dire things have happened? Nothing that I can see. Can you link us to any recent article on this supposed continuing crisis? And do you even understand the reasons why Iraq's government might not want the Awakening movement to remain a military force in Iraq? :D

By the way, where did Obama stand on the Sunni Awakening movement back in January of 2007?

Hmm, it looks like both McCain and Obama agreed that the Awakening movement had a large part of it.

No, I want to know what Obama thought of the Awakening movement back in January of 2007. Not what he thinks of it now. Can you tell us?

The Obama campaign was quick to note that the Anbar Awakening began in the fall of 2006, several months before President Bush even announced the troop escalation strategy, which became known as the surge."


This just shows a lack of understanding of what the surge was. The surge was more than just adding a few troops to the mix. Adding troops was merely one element of a much larger strategy laid out by Patreaus and his staff for turning the tide in Iraq. A strategy that Obama back in 2007 said would not work. Period.

It's Obama's problem, so now you can sit back and enjoy the mayhem without having to use your reality distortion field to twist it into a victory for your political partisan hackery.

Sorry but it's you folks that made Obama out to be the second coming with all the answers during the campaign. And right now all I can do is sit back. But no, I won't enjoy the mayhem. I've still got my fingers crossed that Obama will listen to the smart guys in our military and defense department rather than those at moveon.org.

I do think I'm about done feeding your trolling, though. Have fun in your conspiracy-filled, self-righteous world where the only facts that matter are the ones you can cook up looking at events through a filter.

ta ta. I was wondering how long it would take before you ran.

:D
__________________

[moon1969]

Bush supported the Installment of Dictator Pedro Carmona. But the brave Venezuelan didnt take it and the people brought back theyr democraticly elected President.




If Chavez is a democrat then why do the venezuelans call Chavez by the name Chaburro? :D Do you know what the word Chaburro means? :)

[moon1969]

The CIA aided in installing Saddam's party to power back in 1963, partly in order to have allies against communism in the area.

He became commander in chief in 1979.






So are you a pro-communist? Did you know that Augusto Pinochet saved Chile from communism. Pinochet was not Suharto. I think it was the Soviet Union who helped Saddam. Saddam was a secular sunni muslim so he really doesn"t sound like somebody who was anti-communist.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Are you trying to say a person's religion dictates their view of a preferred economic system?

[Skeptic Ginger]

If this were an honest discussion, a 'dictator' would be judged by how the population fared under his rule rather than whether or not said dictator cooperated with corporate America (which is the basis for the American government's political/military decisions when it comes to supporting or opposing a foreign government).

'Friendly' Dictators, Third World Traveler, 1995 (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html)
Abacha, General Sani ----------------------------Nigeria
Amin, Idi ------------------------------------------Uganda
Banzer, Colonel Hugo ---------------------------Bolivia
Batista, Fulgencio --------------------------------Cuba
Bolkiah, Sir Hassanal ----------------------------Brunei
Botha, P.W. ---------------------------------------South Africa
Branco, General Humberto ---------------------Brazil
Cedras, Raoul -------------------------------------Haiti
Cerezo, Vinicio -----------------------------------Guatemala
Chiang Kai-Shek ---------------------------------Taiwan
Cordova, Roberto Suazo ------------------------Honduras
Christiani, Alfredo -------------------------------El Salvador
Diem, Ngo Dihn ---------------------------------Vietnam
Doe, General Samuel ----------------------------Liberia
Duvalier, Francois --------------------------------Haiti
Duvalier, Jean Claude-----------------------------Haiti
Fahd bin'Abdul-'Aziz, King ---------------------Saudi Arabia
Franco, General Francisco -----------------------Spain
Hitler, Adolf ---------------------------------------Germany
Hassan II-------------------------------------------Morocco
Marcos, Ferdinand -------------------------------Philippines
Martinez, General Maximiliano Hernandez ---El Salvador
Mobutu Sese Seko -------------------------------Zaire
Noriega, General Manuel ------------------------Panama
Ozal, Turgut --------------------------------------Turkey
Pahlevi, Shah Mohammed Reza ---------------Iran
Papadopoulos, George --------------------------Greece
Park Chung Hee ---------------------------------South Korea
Pinochet, General Augusto ---------------------Chile
Pol Pot---------------------------------------------Cambodia
Rabuka, General Sitiveni ------------------------Fiji
Montt, General Efrain Rios ---------------------Guatemala
Salassie, Halie ------------------------------------Ethiopia
Salazar, Antonio de Oliveira --------------------Portugal
Somoza, Anastasio Jr. --------------------------Nicaragua
Somoza, Anastasio, Sr. -------------------------Nicaragua
Smith, Ian ----------------------------------------Rhodesia
Stroessner, Alfredo -----------------------------Paraguay
Suharto, General ---------------------------------Indonesia
Trujillo, Rafael Leonidas -----------------------Dominican Republic
Videla, General Jorge Rafael ------------------Argentina
Zia Ul-Haq, Mohammed ----------------------PakistanGo to the link to see just how well the populations fared under these American government supported dictators. :rolleyes:

Here's another short history lesson the Neocons and other right wingers passing this Bush v Clinton comparison around the Internet forums and blogs would do well to look at: Why Do They Hate Us So Much? (http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/WhyTheWorldHatesUs.htm)

I will give the right wingers one thing, however, I'm not sure Democrats and Republicans have been that far apart on these foreign policies over the years. The 50s and earlier, however, was before the age of enlightenment which came with the Vietnam protests and US civil rights movement. Since that time, Carter might have shifted US government policy had he been a more effective President. Clinton did a lot of things right but he was by no means a revolutionary when it came to addressing foreign policy. (Deregulation during the Clinton era has also led to unhealthy media consolidation and did little to ward off the current recession/depression.) The rest of the Presidents since Vietnam have been Republicans with no qualms putting corporate profits over human rights when it came to foreign policy.


As for Clinton "installing" Arafat, what nonsense. Whoever wrote that piece was either incredibly uninformed or blatantly dishonest about the last half century of Middle East history, specifically, history of the PLO, Arafat and Israel.

Here's an excerpt from ABC News Online's "Timeline: The life of Yasser Arafat": (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200411/s1241371.htm)1993 - At the White House, Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin make history with a handshake, sealing the outline for limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza under an interim peace accord secretly negotiated in Oslo, Norway.

1994 - Arafat returns in triumph to Gaza and takes over as head of Palestinian Authority.

1995 - In Washington, Arafat and Rabin sign an interim agreement setting the stage for Israeli redeployment in the West Bank. Later in the year, Rabin is assassinated by an ultra-nationalist Jewish gunman.

1996 - Arafat elected as Palestinian Authority president in West Bank and Gaza elections. He launches a crackdown on Hamas Islamic militants after waves of suicide attacks.

1997 - Palestinians sign a deal with the government of right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the long-delayed handover of most of Hebron. After that, peacemaking grinds to a halt.

1998 - Arafat and Netanyahu sign Wye River deal for phased Israeli withdrawals from West Bank. Netanyahu freezes it after two months, saying Arafat has not met security conditions.

1999 - Arafat signs a deal with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak setting a September 2000 deadline for a final peace treaty.

2000 - Peace talks collapse. Palestinians start second Intifada after then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon visits disputed Jerusalem holy site. Israel says the violence was planned beforehand.

Here's USA Today's version (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-11-10-arafat-timeline_x.htm):Sept. 13, 1993: Israel and PLO sign accord on Palestinian autonomy in Oslo, Norway, giving Arafat control of most of Gaza Strip and 27% of West Bank. Arafat shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on White House lawn.

July 1, 1994: Returning from exile, a triumphant Arafat sets foot on Palestinian soil for the first time in 26 years.

Dec. 10, 1994: Arafat wins Nobel Peace Prize, along with Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

Nov. 9, 1995: Arafat makes first visit to Israel in secret trip to offer condolences to Rabin's widow, five days after Rabin's assassination by ultranationalist Jew.

Jan. 20, 1996: Arafat elected president of Palestinian Authority in first Palestinian elections.

Jan. 15, 1997: Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sign accord on Israeli pullout from 80% of West Bank city of Hebron.

Oct. 23, 1998: Israeli and Palestinian leaders meeting at Wye River, Md., agree on interim land-for-peace deal on West Bank.

July 11, 2000: Seeking final peace deal, U.S. President Bill Clinton convenes "Camp David II" and sequesters Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat for nine days. Afterward, White House declares summit failure.

Even Fox new's timeline (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136880,00.html) makes no mention of Clinton "installing Arafat":Sept. 13, 1993: Israel and PLO sign accord on Palestinian autonomy in Oslo, Norway, giving Arafat control of most of Gaza Strip and 27 percent of West Bank. Arafat shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on White House lawn.

— July 1, 1994: Returning from exile, a triumphant Arafat sets foot on Palestinian soil for the first time in 26 years.

— Dec. 10, 1994: Arafat wins Nobel Peace Prize, along with Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

— Nov. 4, 1995: Ultranationalist Jew assassinates Rabin at peace rally in Tel Aviv, Israel.

— Nov. 9, 1995: Arafat makes first visit to Israel in secret trip to offer condolences to Rabin's widow.

— Jan. 20, 1996: Arafat elected president of Palestinian Authority in first Palestinian elections.

— Jan. 15, 1997: Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sign accord on Israeli pullout from 80 percent of West Bank city of Hebron.

— Oct. 23, 1998: Israeli and Palestinian leaders meeting at Wye River, Md., agree on interim land-for-peace deal on West Bank.

— July 11, 2000: Seeking final peace deal, President Clinton convenes "Camp David II" and sequesters Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat for nine days. Afterward, White House declares summit failure.

— Sept. 28, 2000: Israel's then opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, visits Jerusalem shrine holy to Jews and Muslims, leading to clashes that escalate into second Palestinian uprising.

How that becomes, "Clinton installed Arafat", is more than just a stretch. Not to mention comparing Saddam to Arafat. That's quite a stretch as well.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Rereading the OP opinion piece passed off here as historical fact, perhaps I should have posted the history time line prior to 1993 rather than after. Just who, pray tell was Clinton supposed to invite to the White House to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement?

The author of the opinion piece claims everything bad about the Israeli Palestinian conflict is therefore due to Clinton. Unbelievable. Are we to also conclude W's immediate dropping of the ball in 2000 regarding the Middle East peace negotiations made the world safer?

That this is the reality for these far right fanatics is really sad.

[DC]

If Chavez is a democrat then why do the venezuelans call Chavez by the name Chaburro? :D Do you know what the word Chaburro means? :)

i doubt the majoriy calls him that way. And even if, aslong most people do vote for him, he seems to be theyr most loved Chaburro.

[DC]

So are you a pro-communist? Did you know that Augusto Pinochet saved Chile from communism. Pinochet was not Suharto. I think it was the Soviet Union who helped Saddam. Saddam was a secular sunni muslim so he really doesn"t sound like somebody who was anti-communist.

saved from communism? Pinochets way to save them from communism and Dictatoship was killing them and a Dictatorship......

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yep. Spreading that Democracy, that is unless the leader the people elect doesn't suit the US.

Pinochet's Chile (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/pinochet/overview.htm)Allende, head of the Popular Unity coalition including Socialists, Communists, Radicals, and dissident Christian Democrats, had won a narrow victory in Chile's 1970 presidential election. As the first avowedly Marxist elected chief of state in the Western Hemisphere, his election set off alarms for democratic governments and military regimes in the region. His socialist government made drastic changes in economic policy, including agrarian reform and nationalization of banks and copper mines....

...The Chilean military, aided by training and financing from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, gained absolute control of the country in less than a week. The new regime waged raids, executions, "disappearances" and the arrest and torture of thousands of Chilean citizens - establishing a climate of fear and intimidation that would remain for years to come.

The victims of the persecution spanned the population: indigenous peoples, the Catholic Church, the rural community with labor unions, former government officials and leftist political parties facing the fiercest repression. More people were killed in the four months following the coup (through December 1973) than in any other year of the dictatorship. According to Amnesty International and the U.N. Human Rights Commission, 250,000 people were detained for political reasons during this period.

The regime also closed down the National Congress and the Constitutional Tribunal and burned the voter registration rolls. In 1974 , the secret police, DINA, was officially recognized.

[leftysergeant]

So are you a pro-communist? Did you know that Augusto Pinochet saved Chile from communism.

Like a lion saves a gazelle from being eaten by a cheeta.

The only unfortunate thing about the death of Pinochet is that it did not come on a gallows side-by-side with Milton Friedman.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ooooh, Lefty, a man after my own heart. :D

[Pardalis]

If this were an honest discussion, a 'dictator' would be judged by how the population fared under his rule rather than whether or not said dictator cooperated with corporate America (which is the basis for the American government's political/military decisions when it comes to supporting or opposing a foreign government).

'Friendly' Dictators, Third World Traveler, 1995 (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html)Go to the link to see just how well the populations fared under these American government supported dictators. :rolleyes:

Adolf Hitler? WTF?

A world war is not enough for you? Thanks for defecating on the grave of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died in Normandie and all over Europe.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Adolf Hitler? WTF?

A world war is not enough for you? Thanks for defecating on the grave of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died in Normandie and all over Europe.Apparently you didn't bother to read why Hitler was on that list. I suggest you look before you make such poor assumptions. Maybe those hundreds of thousands of dead would never have occurred had Americans not been making such a profit off Hitler's war machine prior to 1940.

[Pardalis]

Apparently you didn't bother to read why Hitler was on that list. I suggest you look before you make such poor assumptions. Maybe those hundreds of thousands of dead would never have occurred had Americans not been making such a profit off Hitler's war machine prior to 1940.

Actually, I did, and it doesn't state that the US government found Hitler a "friendly dictator".

Maybe I need new glasses, pinko ones?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Despite the fact we clearly fought against Hitler in the end (as we did Saddam) the US corporate community actually did collaborate with Hitler prior to the war. Not many like to discuss it.

Trading with the Enemy: the Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949 (http://www.amazon.com/Trading-Enemy-Nazi-American-Money-1933-1949/dp/0595431666)

Excerpts from the book (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Trading_Enemy_excerpts.html)

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar)

"Helping Hitler: Nazi support from the U.S." (http://www.karenlyster.com/hitler.html) Ignore the font and background on this web page. The summaries are worth a gander.

Support for Hitler (or Fascism) in the United States (http://radicalreference.info/node/460)

I'm not vouching for every detail here but certainly profit making was an important consideration just as it always is when it comes to wars and picking dictators to ignore the behavior of. And where there is big money, there is government influence.


BTW, "friendly dictator" was facetious.

[Pardalis]

Despite the fact we clearly fought against Hitler in the end (as we did Saddam) the US corporate community actually did collaborate with Hitler prior to the war. Not many like to discuss it.

So, the "US corporate community" (whatever that means) = US government?

[autumn1971]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB123197784199983615-lMyQjAxMDI5MzExNTkxNzU3Wj.html



Good point. In fact, Bush policy toppled two dictatorships.
And when he left office, he eliminated a third.

[Pardalis]

And when he left office, he eliminated a third.

A dictator who leaves office (democratically, no less)? Doesn't make much sense does it?

Another one of those... :rolleyes: Why don't you move to North Korea and learn what a real dictatorship is like?

[autumn1971]

A dictator who leaves office (democratically, no less)? Doesn't make much sense does it?

Another one of those... :rolleyes: Why don't you move to North Korea and learn what a real dictatorship is like?
I was actually praising Bush for his decision to leave office peacefully. Given his and his advisors ideas about the US Constitution, I have no doubt that his decision to leave was one he made himself, without any concern for democracy or law.
My guess is that somebody just said that the lease was up.

[Pardalis]

I was actually praising Bush for his decision to leave office peacefully. Given his and his advisors ideas about the US Constitution, I have no doubt that his decision to leave was one he made himself, without any concern for democracy or law. My guess is that somebody just said that the lease was up.

Utter nonsense.

You have absolutely no evidence that he pondered an alternative, a "coup" of somekind.

It wasn't a "decision", he abided by democracy, no matter how you hate him and his politics.

[autumn1971]

Utter nonsense.

You have absolutely no evidence that he pondered an alternative, a "coup" of somekind.

It wasn't a "decision", he abided by democracy, no matter how you hate him and his politics.
All right, you got me. I just saw the OP and decided that I needed to get a little jab in. At least admit that the jab would have been good, had it happened a week or so ago. You called me on a joke that was stale,and I responded with snark.
I grudgingly admit that George W. Bush left office because it was the lawful and proper thing to do.
I hereby rescind my sense of humor (if I ever get divorced, my wife will still get half).

[Skeptic Ginger]

So, the "US corporate community" (whatever that means) = US government?Unfortunately, yes.

[Pardalis]

Unfortunately, yes.

No. Your communism is showing.

[Skeptic Ginger]

No. Your communism is showing.Since I'm not the least bit in favor of a communist economic system, your assessment is obviously wrong.

Are you seriously claiming big money and big corporations do not have considerable influence in government decisions?

[Skeptic Ginger]

duplicate

[BeAChooser]

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

So you want to condemn folks for the sins of their fathers? For helping Nazis? Fine. But to be fair, let's also condemn Joseph P Kennedy's progeny (Joe Jr, John, Robert, Edward, Teddy, Jean, Eunice) and their grandchildren (such as Caroline).

Joseph Kennedy Sr. was a Nazi sympathizer and collaborator. He was America's ambassador to England in 1938 when he engaged in discussions with the Nazi Ambassador (without approval from the State Department) and told him President Roosevelt was the victim of "Jewish influence". He told him that America only wanted friendly relations with Hitler. The Nazi ambassador in turn told his government that Kennedy was "Germany's best friend" in London.

He supported Chamberlain's appeasement policy. When war broke out, he argued against sending aid to Britain. "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here," he wrote in the Boston Sunday Globe on November 10, 1940. As the bombs fell on England and the Nazis invaded Europe, Kennedy Sr repeatedly stated his belief that the war was not about saving democracy from Nacism or Fascism. Shortly afterwords, he was prudently removed from his ambassadorship.

He took other actions that were pro-Nazi during that time. He brokered a deal between Rockefeller's Standard Oil and Germany's I.G. Farben to share patents, royalties, and deals during the war. He urged William Randolph Hearst to help Hitler improve his image in the United states, which Hearst tried to do. Joe Sr (and Joe Jr) was aware of the Nazi treatment of Jews (and others) and didn't care. Indeed, he used his strong financial ties in Hollywood to order many of the leading screenwriters to not write anything about the Nazi concentration camps.

So will you join me in condemning all the Kennedys, skeptigirl? :)

[Dragon-Master]

Namely in that it was a war.

All wars should be treated and looked at differently, especially in different eras.



Or, you know, the rest of the Middle East. I wonder when our assault into Saudia Arabia begins.

When ever it is deemed so appropriate.



Yep! Which is why we attacked Spain during Worl...errr....

Um...errr....Spain was Neutral.




They certainly are not unbeatable, I don't know if that's what lefty was suggesting. But let me ask you this. Are you suggesting we invade every nation with Islamofanatics?

No.

[Dragon-Master]

I'm aware of the price Spain paid, but I'm curious what the leader of their government paid.

So what about the many government leaders of the Balkans that sided with Hitler? See the point is, we were after Nazis leadership for war crimes, because we had the evidence of it. With Franco(spain)we have no added evidence he was involved in holocaust and war crimes on other nations. Yes Franco gave verbal support to some of the otehr fascist causes, but in no way was involved with the other Europeans affairs. So it is moot point on Spain, because they were not allies in helping Hitler and Italy. Sorry this argument is irrelevent.



Democracy is worth defending, certainly. But wouldn't it be prudent to win those majority over rather than kill them?

You do not think this happens when US soldiers help rebuild or fix up neglectant structures? Or when they help rebuild schools after what the suicide bombers and Iraqi military destroyed as they were beaten back by US forces? Seriously...



I'm by no means a fan of Clinton's foreign policy. But yes, when al-Qaeda declared war on the US and attacked us the US had a compelling interest to kill/capture their leadership. Again I would support this, as a matter of prudence I would say offer Saddam the chance to remove them himself and if he refused then invade. Assuming al-Qaeda posed a significant threat in Iraq of course.

He did refuse. Infact he refused the US to do a lot of actions to regulate his weapons research. Remember resolution after resolution?

[Dragon-Master]

Since I'm not the least bit in favor of a communist economic system, your assessment is obviously wrong.

Are you seriously claiming big money and big corporations do not have considerable influence in government decisions?

Is that why you are defending these dictators? You got to be joking....:rolleyes:

[Skeptic Ginger]

So you want to condemn folks for the sins of their fathers? ....Having trouble following the line of discussion?

He was a dog. Dogs are cute. My dog is black. I like Jack Black movies.... :rolleyes:

[Skeptic Ginger]

Is that why you are defending these dictators? You got to be joking....:rolleyes:Your post doesn't even make any sense.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I see Rupert Murdoch's purchase of the WSJ is taking that paper the way of Faux News.

You probably missed this word: "opinion".


Those of us who actually subscribe to this paper have noticed no difference.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Apparently you didn't bother to read why Hitler was on that list. I suggest you look before you make such poor assumptions. Maybe those hundreds of thousands of dead would never have occurred had Americans not been making such a profit off Hitler's war machine prior to 1940.

What color is the sky in your world?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

So, the "US corporate community" (whatever that means) = US government?

In Skeptigirl's world, yes. Sort of. Corporations = the government only some of the time. Corporations = Evil, the rest of the time.

Yes, it's silly. But it's not polite to laugh.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Unfortunately, yes.

Nope. I own a corporation. I am not the government. Ergo, your assertion that corporations = government is demonstrably wrong.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Does the word, context, mean anything to you, TCS?

I thought not.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Does the word, context, mean anything to you, TCS?

I thought not.

So your argument is this: Corporations are the government, except when they aren't.

Ummmm.....yeah. :rolleyes:

[Skeptic Ginger]

Context: Corporations have considerable influence on government decisions and therefore can act as governments by proxy.

[gumboot]

What you did miss, however, were the years preceding September of 2007. If you'd like to just go back and check your iraqbodycount.org source yourself, you'll find that each successive year since 2003 has seen increased death tolls (nearly doubled in 2004), yet all I recall hearing from the Bush administration is that things are going well in Iraq and that we are winning the war.


WTF?

You're completely wrong. In the six years thus far of the Iraq War, there have been only two years that the civilian death toll increased each year - 2005 and 2006.

As for "nearly doubled in 2004"... um, no, the death toll actually decreased in 2004.

The graph is at the end of this page. (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/surge-2008/)

If one were to try and establish a trend from the Iraq War, it would be for the death toll to decrease, not increase.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Context: Corporations have considerable influence on government decisions and therefore can act as governments by proxy.

Context: I own a corporation. You're saying I have considerable influence on government decisions and can act as a government by proxy??

I wish I would have known this. There are a few decisions I would have reversed. What if I want to reverse a decision, but GE doesn't? Is there any sort of "Council of Corporate Elders" to decide these things? If there is, I bet it's really, really sooper sekrit.

[Pardalis]

Context: Corporations have considerable influence on government decisions and therefore can act as governments by proxy.

I can't believe a self-described "critical thinker" said this without noticing the fallacy.

[Almo]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB123197784199983615-lMyQjAxMDI5MzExNTkxNzU3Wj.html


As President George W. Bush prepares to leave office amid a media chorus of reproach and derision, there is at least one comparison with his predecessor that speaks greatly in his favor. Mr. Bush removed the most ruthless dictator of his day, Saddam Hussein, thereby offering Iraqi citizens the possibility of self-rule.

Good point. In fact, Bush policy toppled two dictatorships.

I do not agree with the statement in bold. Counter example: Kim Jong Il.

[BeAChooser]

I do not agree with the statement in bold. Counter example: Kim Jong Il.

Fair enough. However, a good case can be also be made that Bush was far tougher on Kim Jong Il than Clinton. In fact, Clinton took actions that helped prop up Kim Jong Il's regime ... and helped in his quest for nuclear weapons. Bush, on the other hand, stopped those activities (and aid) and labeled North Korea a member of the "axis of evil".

[gumboot]

I do not agree with the statement in bold. Counter example: Kim Jong Il.


While Kim Jong Il is no doubt completely bat-guano crazy, I don't think we have a very good grasp at all of how ruthless the guy was.

In contrast we have ample documentation of precisely how ruthless and murderous Saddam was.