A soldier's viewpoint

[Undertoad]

Scott Ritter's buddy got paid a lot of bribes in the food for oil program, and Ritter did completely fail to explain why he solicited sex from a 16-year-old in a Burger King. These facts are not irrelevant to trying to figure out what's really going on.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I'd very much like to Bin Ladin nailed, but I wonder how important that is now. Of course the revenge would be sweet, but is he as big a player as he was.

There is no statute of limitations on murder of 2600 people. Maybe we should also forget about the massacre of 7500 people in Srebrenica, Bosnia. At least we are still conducting searches for and seeking the arrest of those responsible.

from the BBC World Service on 28 July 2004
Forensic experts are due to open what is believed to be the largest mass grave ever found in Bosnia. The grave is thought to contain up to 700 Muslim men and boys killed after the fall of Srebrenica to Bosnian Serb forces in 1995.

Responsible people never stop going after mass murders. Slobodan Milosevic trial is ongoing since 2002 and was expected to complete in 2004. Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are also to be captured and prosecuted. The alternative was previously noted: a nationalist revival.

If rule of law means anything, then the US must go after bin Laden. What is the alternative? Do we prosecute Saddam for those crimes?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Scott Ritter's buddy got paid a lot of bribes in the food for oil program, and Ritter did completely fail to explain why he solicited sex from a 16-year-old in a Burger King. These facts are not irrelevant to trying to figure out what's really going on.

And that proves that weapons of mass destruction existed? That is proof that the aluminum tubes were for uranium centrifuges? What you post is about as relevant as Lookout123's repeated claims that Gen Franks did not have a mini-explosion. Again nonsense posted to obfuscate the facts - that George Jr is an incompetant president. When do we go after bin Laden? Why is Iraq about terrorism when secular governments are the enemy of terrorist?

This is about being responsible to the troops. Those troops signed up to defend America - not promote a lying presidents political agenda.

Its called focusing on real problems - a president who does not read his memos. A president who let bin Laden go free. A president who cannot make his own decisions without first being told by Cheney, Rice, Rove, etc what to do. A president that has subverted 40+ years of diplomatic work. A president that subverts science. A president that makes adversaries even of our allies.

Where does Scott Ridder's sex life or the actions of a friend have anything to do with this. All this from the same person who outrightly ignored technical facts to say those alunumim tubes were for weapons of mass destruction? UT, you had facts that said otherwise. You denied those facts to support a lying president. You said Scott Ridder was wrong because of sex allegations (nothing proven) and allegations of a friend. At what point do we go back to the real issues and use relevant facts? At what point do you use real facts to defend this president?

Fact - this president lied like we have not seen since Richard Nixon. Fact - this president is so incompetant as to sit there for seven minutes - did nothing - after being told "America is under attack". I ask many others what they would have done. Everyone - literally everyone - says they would have gotten up out of that chair and left the room. George Jr, "god's choose president", could not do that? Those are facts that go right to the issue (without being sexed up). This president is not just incompetant. He is dangerous. He has literally subverted in only four years what took American diplomacy to accomplish in 40. This from major American diplomats dating back to the Nixon administration. This president subverts science - from tens of American Nobel prize winners. Where did I once mention anyone's sex life? Its called keeping the facts relevant.

You must post those allegations to promote the lies of George Jr just as you posted only George Jr progaganda about those aluminum tubes. Those allgetons remain as credible as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Is that were you got those allegations? Allegations posted to support and defend a lying president. I am not reading them in responsible news sources. Using sex to defame the president's critics? When do you use same to defame the Jersey girls? This is the stuff I would expect from sleazy politicians. Are they your news sources? Is that why you could not concede those outright lies about aluminum tubes? You are a supporter of George Jr. Can you even answer those hard questions? When are we going after bin Laden? No, instead we have unproven allegations of Scott Ridder's sex life. Its called relevance and credibility.

[Undertoad]

"Incompetent" is not spelled with an "a". (I only go after spelling when it's ironic.)

Ritter's woes don't prove anything except that he is, at best, an unreliable witness not to be trusted, regardless of whether he is right or wrong. I wasn't the one who put him in that position... he did that to himself.

Lastly I have not been a W supporter for some time now and regularly point this out to you. Your repeated insistent ignorance on this matter is really annoying at this point. Do you not have anything more substantial?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Scott Ritter's buddy got paid a lot of bribes in the food for oil program, and Ritter did completely fail to explain why he solicited sex from a 16-year-old in a Burger King. These facts are not irrelevant to trying to figure out what's really going on.

More news from Fox and Rush Limbaugh? Only allegations, unproven, that have no relevance to the president's lies. When do we go after bin Laden? A relevant question, without sex allegations, that George Jr supporters avoid.

[Undertoad]

Had to go back to my own post of early last year to remember the details. Funny how you people accused me of getting the details from Fox back then, too. A year and a half and it's the same old shit and only getting older. Newsnight is a CNN program:

Originally Posted by me

I don't take Hannity's word for anything. I watched Ritter commit media suicide on Aaron Brown/Newsnight. It was pathetic and sad. He had every opportunity to give an explanation. He whiffed badly and he knew exactly what he was doing.

There was an agreement to seal the records. The arrest happened well before Ritter's current interests in upsetting the apple cart. The leak of the arrest is what is convenient, not the actual arrest. Ritter's response was that it shouldn't have been leaked. He refused to explain anything further than that.

Mr. Brown patiently explained that Ritter had no legal reason to stay quiet about the events and that if he didn't give an explanation he would become a non-entity. Mr. Ritter stuck to his approach, and that was that. His credibility is near zero.

[Undertoad]

Had to go back to my own post of early this year to remember the details...

Originally Posted by me again

Following up the original post, it turns out that one of Saddam's benefactors was a guy named Shakir Alkhalaji, who financed an anti-war film produced by former WMD inspector and anti-war activist Scott Ritter.

http://windsofchange.net/archives/004539.html

Ritter if you recall is the one former WMD inspector who claimed that Saddam did not have any WMDs and that the US would lose the war and that it wasn't really that big of a deal that there was a children's prison in Baghdad.

One out of three ain't bad, but now we know for sure that his film was paid for out of Saddam's Oil-for-Food program.

If nothing else, I hope that the oil contract money list puts Madeline Albright's old comments about the sanctions in a fine perspective. Her comments were that the sanctions led to the death of 500,000 Iraqi children and many leftists have taken that claim to mean that the US is indirectly responsible (as many leftists seek to believe that the US is indirectly responsible for everything bad that happens in the world).

Well no. Against the will of the UN, and right out from under their noses, some of the oil-for-food program for those kids went to financing pro-Saddam films made in America. And a ton more of it went to international blackmail to keep the regime in power.

Do any leftists, or tw, now want to hold the UN or Scott Ritter, or at least Hussein himself, responsible for at least some those deaths?

[Undertoad]

What these add up to is: it doesn't really matter that Ritter was right, even if he was right on the basis of fact; his status as a Hussein bribee and non-denyment of internet sex predatordom makes him extremely suspect. No intellgent, unemotional evaluator of facts would take him seriously.

Originally Posted by tw

Responsible people never stop going after mass murders.

Good, let's send George W. Bush Jr. to the head of the "most wanted" list. In the 6 month period from April, 2004 when it first started keeping statistics through Sept 19, 2004, the Iraqui interim government estimates that 3,487 Iraqui civilians have been killed and an additional 13,720 were injured. For every one US military casualty, there are TEN CIVILIAN casualties.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9753603.htm

This is only for one 6 month interval. The actual number of civilian casualties is far higher. George Jr. has quite a bit of human blood on his hands, and his only response is to whine plaintatively that we didn't know Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction until we went in there. Unacceptable!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by tw

There is no statute of limitations on murder of 2600 people. Maybe we should also forget about the massacre of 7500 people in Srebrenica, Bosnia. At least we are still conducting searches for and seeking the arrest of those responsible. Responsible people never stop going after mass murders. Slobodan Milosevic trial is ongoing since 2002 and was expected to complete in 2004. Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are also to be captured and prosecuted. The alternative was previously noted: a nationalist revival.

If rule of law means anything, then the US must go after bin Laden. What is the alternative? Do we prosecute Saddam for those crimes?

You misunderstand my remarks, TW. I'm not suggesting we let him skate, or even let him have a moments peace. I'm questioning where he ranks on the most dangerous list, which is reality, as opposed to the most wanted list, which is largely political. I'd be glad to put two in his head,.....without a trial.

So those seven minutes of not authorizing fighter pilots to go 'weapons free' is not important? Seven minutes just sitting in a FL classroom, doing nothing; waiting to be told what to do while "America is under attack".

You put "America is under attack", in quotation marks. That would imply that those were the exact words Bush heard at the beginning of the 7 minutes in question. Is that correct?


btw-Personal attacks on Lookout won't convince anyone and reduce your credibility. Never try to teach a pig to sing.

[lookout123]

well, i thought i could do the impossible and i was wrong. i honestly thought i could get the great and all knowing tw to admit that he might have made an honest mistake with his "facts". foolish me. instead you brush aside my request for some sort of documentation and lash out in a personal manner. rather than posting some supporting documentation for your claims at the beginning of this thread you keep stating over and over how bush is the devil.

you disregard the post where i pointed out that i don't disagree with much of what you say. but you obviously are agitated because i still want to know where you got your proof of Franks' explosion. you reply by putting words in my mouth and attempting to portray me as a bush sycophant.

up until this point, although i disagreed with your views, i respected your ability to research and work with facts. i may have given you too much credit.

i acquiesce. here and now i throw in the towel in this little shit throwing contest. you may continue to insult me if you choose. i feel no sting from the insults of one who i don't respect.

[Undertoad]

Mari, the story counts insurgents as civilians. Nothing to see here, it's media bias.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Mari, the story counts insurgents as civilians. Nothing to see here, it's media bias.

If there are that many insurgents, then things are even worse than the news has reported. But then, these are the same statements made in Vietnam times. It was called body counts. If they were dead, then they must be VC. Certainly the press lies when they said "We had to burn the village to save it" and "We have met the enemy and he is us". Thirty some years later, with so many not then alive to watch the news, then another president can use the same lies all over again.

Either the number of insurgents has increased sharply, or the number of civilians killed is increasing. Which is it?

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

You put "America is under attack", in quotation marks. That would imply that those were the exact words Bush heard at the beginning of the 7 minutes in question. Is that correct?

From the 9/11 Commission:
The President was seated in a classroom when,at 9:05, Andrew Card whispered to him: “A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack.” ... The President remained in the classroom for another five to seven minutes, while the children continued reading. He then returned to a holding room shortly before 9:15, where he was briefed by staff and saw television coverage.

This president has been lying to us even when he told us we need an anti-missile system to protect rogue nations and terrorists. Right - bin Laden will launch missiles just like Chevy Chase (Spys Like Us).

George Jr's reasons for sitting in that FL classroom and not even asking one question is a classic example. He did get up so that he could "project strength and calm". Nice try. To "project strength and calm", he should have asked, "Who's in charge". Then maybe fighter pilots would have been given permission to protect America. George Jr did as he does so often - wait for Cheney to tell him what to do and say. He could not get in touch with Cheney until when? 9:55. Between 9:15 and 9:54, the president and his advisors could not even decide what to do or where to go! Of course. Cheney was not contacted until 9:55. So they sat around until a Secret Service agent and other little people demanded they take off (at 9:54) - and decide where to go later. Just sitting around waiting to be told by Cheney what to do? Read the report. Note the times.

George Jr lied. He said he was projecting strength and calm. In reality, he was waiting for someone to tell him what to do; same as his his Principles Meetings are conducted. Even there among Cabinet Officers, George Jr is handed a script as to how the meeting will be conducted. Staged is a better description.

He sat there in that FL chair waiting to be told what to do after hearing "America is under attack." We want him as president? No wonder Lookout123 fears to answer hard questions. Better to obfuscate when the president's action cannot be defended and his reasons are so often lies. He sat there for seven minutes, doing nothing, after being told "America is under attack". It is but classic example of how this president makes decisions.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Mari, the story counts insurgents as civilians. Nothing to see here, it's media bias.

The Pentagon says it has no plans to assess the number of Iraqi civilians killed http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer. Well, that leaves a rather large vacumn just dying to be filled, now, doesn't it?

"Nowadays civilian casualties, and even specific incidents, can have a strategic effect on a conflict out of all proportion to their size, especially in an age of instant video transmission around the world," says military analyst Marcus Corbin of the Center for Defense Information in Washington. "If the Defense Department doesn't have its own estimates, even if [only] a broad range, it cedes the territory to opponents who may use wildly inflated estimates, which may unfortunately be readily believed by gullible foreign populations." http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0331/p15s01-wogi.html

These "opponents" include such wild eyed splinter groups as these:
Human rights watch http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/10/iraq102103.htm
Amnesty International http://electroniciraq.net/cgi-bin/ar...iew.cgi/10/597
The Vatican http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=32380
Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0522/p01s02-woiq.html
And of course entities like these:
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
http://civilians.info/iraq/

Gee, nobody like us. I wonder why? OK, let's say that the entire rest of the world is filled with an unreasoning hatred of the US, and the damn left wing media inflates civilian casualities all out of proportion. Here's my question to you: Since the Pentagon itself does not deign to estimate civilian casualities, upon what basis do you make your assumption that the majority of those killed were actively fighting for the other side? There are no grounds for you to assume that the civilians were actually enemy fighters. We have nothing to go by except reports from the Iraqi interim government, the Red Cross, and other international agencies like Amnesty International. Most telling of all, why on earth would the VATICAN express concern? These are not good church going Catholics we're talking about being killed here, but Muslim infidels. Why would the Pope wish to risk antagonizing American Catholics (who give a nice chunk of money to the Church) for the sake of a groundless expression of concern? The boys at the Vatican aren't stupid (remember the Jesuits?). They are not going to be influenced by every flimsy rumor that comes along. On what do you base your comment of media bias other than possibly some belief that we're the good guys and a few anecdotal stories about a nice old man with a bomb?