Kerry's global test

[straffo]

I don't know of any DieAz but when searching I've found this text : http://www.ku.edu/carrie/specoll/AFS/library/AFShist/AFS2c.htm

Comming from this site : http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/memoir/AFShist/AFSTC.htm

[eagl]

Straffo,

We drove past it I think...  It was only a 2 day tour really so we drove past a lot of things.  I'm looking forward to spending about a week or so there so we can really SEE all these great places instead of drive up, look inside and around, take photo, hop back onto bus before bus driver gets another ticket for being British.

Honestly, a french cop was set up in an intersection and every british car or tour bus that drove through got stopped and thoroughly inspected including all paperwork.  Our bus driver had forgotten to fill in a line on some permit or another and he got fined over 100 euro after getting waved over for a random inspection in this intersection.  When he said it was stupid because it's something he was supposed to fill in, not even something an official would fill in, he got fined another 100 euro for backtalking the officer.  As we sat there watching all this happening (it took over half an hour because the cop pretended he didn't know english so the driver had to ask some random french citizen to translate, even though later on the cop spoke it very fluently) we watched a half dozen french cops stop every single car with brit plates or UK markings, 2 more brit tour buses, while letting go every single vehicle that wasn't british.

It would have been funny if we weren't sad to see our tour guide lose most of his comission right there on the spot.  At least we weren't the poor guy in the car who got his car emptied, frisked, etc. all because he seemed to be missing a bit of paperwork.  I don't know how much he shelled out to get let loose but he literally emptied his wallet, 3 different types of currency, into the cop's outstretched hand as everyone watched.  Some other poor guy got to watch his car get towed for some reason we never could figure out since he was a well dressed dude driving a nice but not-quite-new car.  The cops were at this intersection for most of the day shaking down tourists.  I don't know what they were doing there but in our case, they got 200 euro because our driver missed one little bit of writing on a permit and without raising his voice (I was there, heard the whole thing) got fined for backtalking an officer who was pretending to not speak english.  If I recall correctly, that was in front of the old opera house or something like that.

Anyhow, Paris was nice and we can't wait to go back, but I'm not carrying any cash with me, don't plan on driving at all, and if I see any cops I'll seek shelter in the nearest building until they leave

[Rolex]

I agree that Paris is a magnificently beautiful city and I trust you'll enjoy Versailles your next trip. The Parisians can sure be a little frosty and superior though. Kind of like a city filled with Martlet, Ripsnort and others who just happened to have been born in France instead of choosing to be born in America, as they did.

[J_A_B]

"The only time he talked about the city actually getting damaged though was an inadvertant bombing by a lone allied bomber during WWII that hit one or another historic landmark while the Germans occupied Paris. "

Surprising he didn't mention the specially-made "paris guns" the Germans used in WW1.  The guns caused some damage and a couple hundred deaths.   Makes for the interesting kind of tidbit tour guides are usually fond of.

J_A_B

[lazs2]

I have met toad and he is not the least bit frosty or superior even when the situation is such that he could be (like talking about aircraft and pilots)...   I would hope that a toad raised anywhere in the world would still be... well... a toad.

rolex, you on the other hand come off as extremely smug and superior with very little reason that I can see.

lazs

[SOB]

Yeah, I've never met Toad IRL, but he doesn't seem that way here on the BB.

[Toad]

Well, I like frosty cold beer and I also like superior Scotch. Maybe that's what he was talking about.

[Rolex]

Toad likes superior scotch? Sorry, Toad. I'll edit the post now to delete your name.

[Glas]

Originally posted by NUKE
What is fundimentally wrong with your view on the Iraq war is that you tie it to that fact that we have not found WMD.

What people like you will never understand is, at the time, EVERYBODY assumed Iraq had them. Russia, France, the UN...EVERYONE. Russia even passed on intelligence to Bush saying that Iraq was planning attacks against America. The CIA told Bush Iraq has WMD, "it's a slam dunk"
 

Do you actually believe what you wrote above?!  FYI Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell both said immediately prior to 9/11 (Powell in Feb '01, Rice in August '01) that Iraq had no WMD whatsoever, and had no prospect of getting them because the sanctions were working.

So did the CIA lie?  Or the US administration?  IMO both, since both clearly knew that Iraq had no WMD.



Btw I dont give a toss if everyone else in the whole world thought Iraq had WMDs.  The fact is, the US knew they didnt.  Knew enough for 2 of the top people in the US govt to come out and categorically state they never had them.  But still attacked.

How many more lies?

[Glas]

And as someone else pointed out earlier, please dont give the excuse about him mass murdering his own people.  It was the US that had given him the weapons to do it!  What the hell did you think he was going to do with them?!

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by SOB
If mass graves and oppresive/homocidal dictators are the reason to send our citizens into harms way, then we've got a looooong road ahead of us.  

Bear in mind these mass graves were from 1991-92, I don't think we supplied Saddam the weapons, glas.

Agreed. We certainly do have a long road ahead.. We intervened in the Balkans, and we have HERE[/b] as well....

The head of the unit, Greg Kehoe, who has seen more than his share of horrors in places such as the Balkans, couldn’t believe what he saw.

"I’ve never seen women and children executed, defenseless people executed in this fashion," he said. "I mean, you look at a young woman holding her 2-year-old child with a gunshot wound to the back of the head. I can’t find any reason to justify that."

Some of these people were opponents of the regime, gunned down after an uprising against Saddam in 1991 and then dumped in big trenches. Women and civilians were also among the victims.

Beyond the visual impression, though, it is the smell that I will never forget. The bodies had been underground for over 10 years, but you could still feel the rot of the past. The remainder and reminder of life, snuffed out by a horrendous regime.

[DREDIOCK]

"We will go after the terrorists and the countries that support terror" GWB

Dunno what the problem is, he has said it all along.

I've always been in favor of going into Iraq. For whatever reason. WMD's,Terrorism, Oil (yes oil) or as I've said seveal times "because its tuesday".

I've always seen it as a deal with it now or deal with it later but sooner or later we are gonna have to deal with it.

Now me personally I'd rather deal with it now then later. I've never beleived containment would work in this saituation just as it hasnt worked in North Korea.

[straffo]

For the cop story ... I've never been annoyed by the cops in 15 year driving but I'm not brit

I heard some cops where acting pretty badly with the English tourist but I've never seen that myself. I'm however surprised by the fine usualy it's 90 € not 100 and the fine you can have by backtalking to a policeman is not decided by the cops but by a judge.
 
I think it was not the cops but more the "douanes" they usually behave like that and are full of a**hole