Terror in the US in June of '04

[Zyne]

Maybe the Thing about terror today is that they've got us: We want to be safe more than we want to be free, and our leaders aren't afraid to use that insecurity against us for their personal gain. Some on the left say, Bush should have seen and stopped the attacks; elect us instead and you'll be safe. Some on the right say, consistency, too many rights; keep us in power and take those rights away and you'll be safe. Meanwhile, we mere mortals all make choices about who is the lesser of whatever it is we're supposed to be voting against.

[GreNME]

Just another example of why extremes should be avoided like the plague. That's why I look like a lefty-bleeding-heart to the extreme right and a goose-stepping gestapo to the extreme left.

[Zyne]

"Goose stepping gestapo"? Is that one of those regional things, like 'raining like you're pissing on a flat rock'?

[BannaOj]

:rolleyes: It's possible my sarcasm meter isn't working after the hellish day I've had.

The goose step was the formal miltary march of the Nazis of which the Gestapo was part...

AJ

[Grey Area]

Regional. As in Germany, 1939.

Quite a lot like today in America, actually....

[PatrickDarwinPoyfair]

The above post really pisses me off.

And people ask why I don't hang at Hatrack anymore.

Eslaine, grow up.

You might not like the current administration, you might not like their record on issues. But to equate life in the US with Nazi Germany is about as stupid as you can get.

Tell you what. When we start herding up Jews and sending them to concentration camps I'll listen to what you have to say. Until then, I'd rather listen to my own farts. At least they have substance.

[Zyne]

Call me nuts, but does "Hatrack, Hatrack" not just lend itself to being set (with additions) to the "Fishheads, Fishheads" song?

xoxoxo, Z--took a fish head out to see a movie. didn't have to pay to get it in!

[GreNME]

Hat-rack, Hat-rack, moderation sucks
Hat-rack, Hat-rack, little firetrucks

Vi-sit the Hat-rack for a fun-ny time,
if they don't like you, they won't even say bye.

They let the psy-chos run safely and free,
but don't have the guts to admit why they banned me.

Hat-rack, Hat-rack, moderation sucks
Hat-rack, Hat-rack, little firetrucks

Whee!

http://www.hat.net/album/south_america/patagonia/026_santiago/04_estacion_mapocho/11290124_fish_heads.jpg

[Kama]

http://www.cammyk.republika.pl/hug.gif

[Lalito]

Excellent point, Pat. The US can't possibly start imitating a totalitarian state until we start killing Jews.

Why... This may well mean we'll be free forever!

[Rakeesh]

Why don't we do this then, Eddie?

You list the ways in which America is now like Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, and we'll put them under the microscope.

Because obviously, incarceration of a miniscule minority of a small minority of the population, while unpleasant and disagreeable, isn't nearly enough. Nor is the un-American attack so commonly mentioned, made almost exclusively by right-wing assholes and not the government anyway.

[GreNME]

Completely ignoring Eddie's painfully poor hyperbole, there are things that are worth pointing out where things are happening to give an impression of us in a pseudo-fascist light. Nothing even close to true fascism, though, and it's not like we are under any dictator's thumb. And I agree with Pat that comparing the current administration to Hitler and Nazi Germany of the 1940's is not only ridiculous hyperbole, but also minimalizes the absolute atrocity of the Nazi Party.

I mean, come on guys. We can complain about the foibles of the current administration without comparing them to the recent century's closest thing to Satan.

For example: We have more than half a million troops stationed throughout the world, and instead of pulling from those numbers to bolster our 130,000 in Iraq, we're recalling retired and discharged soldiers (http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/29/iraq.reserves.ap/index.html) to go there. Ri-di-cu-lous.

[Grey Area]

Sorry, these are the jokes people!

Didn't mean to step on your sore spot. Don't take me seriously.

And grow up? Rich comin' from you.

[PatrickDarwinPoyfair]

Nevermind.

You're right eslaine. I'm ridicously immature. You win.

[PatrickDarwinPoyfair]

Oh and thanks little Eddie.

**tousles Eddies hair**

[Grey Area]

See, there you go proving that you're no more mature than I.

(didn't really expect it.)

Again: what I'm really sorry for is the overused cliche'

[pod]

okay here's the thing. The Bush admin is behaving in a scary nazi like manner in some regards. They've attempted the most disturbing power grab -ever- in the history of the executive branch. That's very nazi like. Killing habeas corpus? That's creepy. Looks like they think torture's okay too, that's creepy as well. They're clearly profiling according to ethnicity and region of birth. They've unilaterally perpetrated a war without clear justification (because again, besides the fact that Saddam Hussien was a really bad guy, there was no eminant threat, ties to al qaeda, or weapons of mass distruction).

While the Bush admin ideologically is not nazi like, their are some characteristics that are common to both types of extremism. But then again, you may as well compare them to Julius Caesar and the Spanish Inquisition. The germans who i know point out that they have laws which prevent power grabs, which ironically the US made them install when rebuilding the German government. Now the tables have turned, and the administration in the US has made the power grab, and the germans are the ones to denounce it.

[David Bowles]

No al-Qaeda and Iraq relationship? Read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/25/politics...artner=USERLAND (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/25/politics/25TERR.html?ex=1403496000&en=d9a3d1aa68140e2c&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND)

No WMD? Who's to say we just haven't found them (they could be anywhere, including Syria):

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/26/iraq.duelfer/

[GreNME]

Originally posted by David Bowles@Jul 4 2004, 02:49 PM
No al-Qaeda and Iraq relationship? Read:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2004Jun16.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html)


There, I fixed that link for you. ;)

The 9-11 commission already looked into those meetings in Sudan. Nothing came from them. Yes, Iraq was known to speak against and allow the speaking against Saudi Arabia, but not because al Qaeda told them to. And that seems to be the only example of "results" in the link you gave. So, I fixed it with a more correct one.

:P

No WMD? Who's to say we just haven't found them (they could be anywhere, including Syria):

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/26/iraq.duelfer/

Here's an interesting quote:"We have found one. We don't know if that means there are more," Duelfer said. "We don't know if that means they are making their way into hands of those who would use them against the coalition. But certainly, it is important, because there were not supposed to be any."
Not supposed to be any, eh? Even though these were from the Iran/Iraq war that we not only knew about, but sent Rumsfeld over to Baghdad more than once to show support for Iraq during the Reagan?

For example, Rumsy says (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21517-2004Jul1.html):"Now these are weapons that we always knew Saddam Hussein had that he had not declared, and they have tested them and I have not seen them and I have not tested them, but they believe that they are correct that these, in fact, were undeclared chemical weapons -- sarin and mustard gas -- quite lethal and that is a discovery that just occurred within the last period of days," Rumsfeld said, according to a transcript of the interview released by the Pentagon on Thursday.
Unlike Duelfer, at least Rumsfeld is admitting we knew they were there. What he is not admitting is where they got them. Think back... Regan era... weapons... Iran... North... scandals...

;)

[David Bowles]

Right. I'm just pointing out that it is false to say there were no WMD in Iraq. I'm not particularly interested in propping up Bush's exaggerations.

[pod]

I'd just like to point out that if what the NYTimes article discusses constitutes a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, then the US is similarly complicit in the 9/11 attacks (in fact, doubly complicit, as we provided material support through Iraq as well, all those many years ago).

And here's another NYTimes article for you about the Senate Select committe's findings on the CIA's lack of information on Iraqi WMD, as well as the fact that they neglected to inform the US that "The Central Intelligence Agency was told by relatives of Iraqi scientists before the war that Baghdad's programs to develop unconventional weapons had been abandoned, but the C.I.A. failed to give that information to President Bush, even as he publicly warned of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's illicit weapons, according to government officials."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/06/politics/06INTE.html?hp

:P

[GreNME]

David, I think the issue is not whether there are any weapons over there, it's whether there are any "huge stockpiles" over there, like we were told, given reports and satellite photos of, and given intelligence reports on. There's an incredible difference between a few sarin warheads that are 20 years old and hardly work (the one that went off malfunctioned and was fairly inefficient for its payload), and the stockpiles of fresh bio-loaded missiles and carriers we were informed that were there.

And I have a hard time believing that they'd have made their way to Syria. Travelling north like that would have risked them falling into the hands of two groups that would have been expressly Bad for Iraq™—namely the Kurdish tribes just slightly to the east and Turkish interests who keep a close watch on the northern Iraq border. And to be honest, I don't think I'd be comfortable with them having those weapons, either. :P

[pod]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/07/politics/07panel.html

You know, i really loath dick cheney.

Time and time again he's proven how arrogant, conniving, devious, and duplicitous he is.

The thing that takes the cake, and i even have to applaude him for how evilly brilliant this was, was privatizing the military under Hdub, going and becoming the CEO of a company that the military relies so heavily upon, that this company now has complete leverage over the military, and then going and becoming VP for W (interesting, as he was in charge of the VP selection process), an administration that starts wars with dubious premisses. Then, during the "reconstruction" of iraq, lo and behold, Cheney's company, and this is the brilliant part, is the only company capable of performing the jobs that Cheney outsourced as Secretary of Defense! So, they get no bid contracts in order to screw the american public out of our tax dollars. Soon we discover that they've been cheating us out of our money! Amazing, gee who would have seen that coming? A company that has no outside economic pressures (so much for captialism, competition, or fairness), no pressures from governmental bodies, and no oversight for the public, while performing jobs on behalf of the US tax payers.

Eisenhower warned us. Too bad no one listened. And we're paying for it in every conceivable manner. Reputation, financially, in the blood of our citizens, whatever political currency we might have had internationally.

They should place a picture of dick cheney next to the definition of "Conflict of Interest".

[David Bowles]

Dude, Cheney divested himself of Halliburton stock upon accepting the VP slot. He's got a fixed-worth compensation package (like a million a year) from them, but they're hardly "Cheney's company" anymore.

[GreNME]

More like a few million a year. But yes, he took what basically amounts to as a severence package when he took the position of veep. However, the nepotism going on is really unmistakable.

[pod]

Dude, that's great, that's the way the game is played. You have to dump your open assets in the company or there'd be hell to pay. I'm not interested what the motive is, Cheney benefited from what he did before he became Veep. What's stopping Cheney from joining back up after he's out of office?

[GreNME]

Nothing, Ted, except that it wouldn't give him any better yields. The whole point is not that these guys are making direct money from each other. That isn't how things even work in just the business realm alone. What they do is position themselves separately to be in the most favorable position available, so that others can do the same later, so that others can return favors, and so on and so forth.

Both major parties do it to nauseating levels. However, this administration is unapologetically doing it without even pretending to any objectivity.

[pod]

John, as i said before, its not about direct monietary returns. Quid pro quo can be so much more nebulous. Who's to say that Cheney didn't already make his money and now he's just following through? Who's to say that Cheney wasn't just helping out his mates, and not expecting rewards? The point isn't that Cheney is profiteering off of what's happening. Its that they've got such a blatantly clear conflict of interest. the irony here is that the administration that prides itself on the security of the nation seems to enjoy outsourcing to entities that are over seen extremely poorly. Once again, it comes down to the choice between the Bush Admin being incapable of any sort of foresight or the bush admin intentionally trying to fuck over the american public.

Everyone underestimated them in the last election, i don't doubht their foresight.

Once again, we're the ones getting screwed here. There's a pattern that's developed. You'll note, the Cheney energy task force with the companies that were creating artifical shortages to fuck over the general public? Then there were no bid contracts to Haliburton and its subsidearies, which were once again, oh look, fucking over the general public.

Why was this? No governmental oversight! How odd! You'd think that free market capitalists would, you know, find out whether they're getting what they paid for. It's only wise business sense. (of course then again, looking at Bush's sucess at running companies...)

I don't care what cheney gets out of it. All that's clear is that the bush administration won't even feign the facade of doing what's best for the general public. I'm sick of living in a country run by kakistocrats.

[David Bowles]

fuck over the american public

How, specifically, have you and me been fucked over by this, assuming that you and John and Zyne and everyone else on this forum are right and Bush/Cheney have deliberately given their buddies access to the rebuilding of Iraq?

And clarify the energy thing... I'm not totally sure I understand what you believe happened... "artificial shortages"? Splain thyself.

[Zyne]

Sometimes, it seems, that an entity can be so wrong, so stupid, so callous and so short sighted that there is no reasonable position which can be taken except for: The entity is malicious. Is the Bush administration malicious? I think so. Like pod said, "There's a pattern that's developed." I can't just ignore that.

The Halliburton contracts, from my pov, fuck us over specifically because they were awarded secretly, to insiders, and they're overpriced and put us further in debt. We have law upon law about government contracts and bidding and public disclosure and all that because we, as a people, have decided that a transparent government is a good thing. The way the Halliburton contracts were awarded flies in the face of these laws--it might have been illegal, I don't know--and, as insult to injury, puts us further in debt. Civillians doing soldiers jobs for 5xs the pay. We should be ashamed.

FWIW, I cannot believe I am going to go vote AGAINST a candidate. That kind of thing is anathematic to the way I think we ought to vote.

[pod]

How we've been damaged can be a complex issue, depending on the notion of damaged you'd like to concider.

I'll put it two ways. Though i don't pay terribly much in taxes, (and thus can't complain in a substantive manner that my personal money is being put to poor use) i can easily point out that the money being lost to Bush/Cheney's follies would be much better spent in a number of ways, i think this can be said for a good deal of legislation passed through congress, HOWEVER, congress at least has the excuse that they have the problem of group-think and a legislative process that allows for any meaningful bill to be mutilated to such a degree that the initial and final bills bear little resemblance. The Bush administration has no such excuse. They were the single entity given what is for all intents and purposes a blank check from congress. Regardless of what noises the democrats in congress make, the republican controlled congress isn't going to do anything about misuses of funds.

Next, no bid contracts hurts the US simply in terms of capitalist economics, we've heard time and time again from people on the ground in Iraq, the US tax payers are not, repeat in no way saving money by hiring contractors to do work in Iraq. In fact, we're paying alot more! (imagine that, people don't like working in war zones, and security is expensive, it's economic pressures at work! hmmm, why was it that we had an army again? oh right, for security...) Monopolies are bad for free market economies.

As for the energy thing? There are taped phone conversations (i've heard them myself) of one enron employee calling a supervisor at a power plant, and asking him to take the plant off-line to drive down supply, and then joking about how much they're screwing the american public. This indicates two things, that they did in fact generate artifical shortages (again, competition good, monopoly baaaad), and they were doing it with the intent to screw the californian public.

This is the same corporate entity that very likely sat on Dick Cheney's energy task force (although, since Cheney has fought disclosure tooth and nail, i can't say conclusively), the same energy task force which 'advised' the Bush/Cheney administration on what sort of energy policy the US needed.

There's an -extremely- good program on NPR (either Next Big Thing or This American Life, i can't remember) about the civilians working in Iraq which highlights many of the problems with what the US has created in Iraq. The problem is totally wide spread, they had created a wild west. They had toppled the previous power structure with out a plan for how to reassert control over the country, and then farmed 'security' out to firms which had no oversight. There was one case that i think was particularly alarming in its description. A security firm which had rented out a hotel, somehow thought the hotel was under attack (maybe it was from shots further away, or from a wedding or soemthing), so they just began shooting out from the hotel, the other members of the security firm thought that the hotel was under attack because of all the gunfire going out from the building, and so everyone turned out and started shooting. They expended several thousand rounds, just out into the buildings and streets outside the hotel, and when the smoke cleared, there hadn't been shooting at anything in particular. What came of it? Nothing. US Government didn't do anything, Iraqi government doesn't really have the power to do anything, the company is free from any sort of official conduct of behavior. They can do anything they want. And we're the ones who brought them there and funded them to do whatever they want.

Doesn't that freak you out at all? It's not just that Bush/Cheney's mates are getting all the dough, its not just favoritism, we're being robbed blind. Hell we're not even being robbed blind, we're being mugged by the Bush administration, who were never forthright in their assessments of how much the war was going to cost (going so far as to actively surpress dissenting opinions in the GAO), refusing to answer questions in congress, going so far as to return to congress again for more money outside of the funding that has already been put aside for funding the reconstruction.

Anyway, a case for how we've been hurt doesn't even have to go into the details of how iraq has hurt us. I've said there are better things the money funneled into iraq could have been used for (again since the markup for contracts in Iraq have definitivelly been attributed to security costs), so all i have to ask is, how has the war in Iraq helped us? Security? No... that's not it. Economic returns? Oh, no that's not it either. Oh i know, we've won the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Wait... we haven't seem to have done that either. What about strengthening the ties between ourselves and our allies? You know, i can't shake this feeling that we've really been fleeced.