Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Sandman on June 08, 2004, 11:41:22 PM
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20040609/ap_on_re_mi_ea/un_iraq_040609004018
One step closer to bringing our troops home?
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seems pretty good to me... seems like Bush is keeping his word... again.
Wonder why anyone listens to the french and germans in this matter anyway? Funny part was france taking credit for most of the ideas in the resolution.
lazs
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There is a light...I just hope it isn't the train's headlights.
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A Positive Step in Iraq (http://www.postwritersgroup.com/archives/krau0603.htm)
Good piece. Sometimes Krauthammer is over the top, but I think he's about right on in this one.
A few days after my encounter with that MacArthur quotation, I read a brilliant and impassioned article by the eminent British military historian, John Keegan, skewering the commonplace and ahistorical idea -- claiming World War II as a model -- that wars end cleanly, neatly and completely. Keegan's article (London Daily Telegraph, June 1) detailed the bloody aftermath that continued for years after MacArthur's words on the battleship Missouri.
Keegan's larger point was contemporary, however. "The British and American media retail with evident satisfaction every scrap of information" -- bad war news, coalition soldiers' misconduct -- that "undermines any expectation by readers and viewers of a successful outcome to the Iraqi involvement." The fact that transition from the coalition conquest of last April 9 to whatever new Iraq emerges will be difficult and bloody and contentious is the historical norm, argues Keegan, and yet it has been used by critics to discredit both the war and Bush and Blair for having undertaken it.
It's progress. To quote another Brit, "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." "
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I would love to see G'Dubya figure out a way to pressure France and Russia to forgive the debt owed by Iraq to them. We dumped a bunch of money to do the job, they should too... since they're so concerned and all for the Iraqi people......
That would be peeerrrrfect.
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Originally posted by mosgood
I would love to see G'Dubya figure out a way to pressure France and Russia to forgive the debt owed by Iraq to them. We dumped a bunch of money to do the job, they should too... since they're so concerned and all for the Iraqi people......
That would be peeerrrrfect.
You started the mess - you pay.
If you want us to forgive the debts to Iraq (BTW, mostly debts for oil equipment, not weapons as you are told on TV) - then we expect everyone else to forgive our debts. I think it's fair enough.
Now it looks like any looney in White House starts a stupid war, and the whole world should pay for his toy-soldiers game.
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Originally posted by Sandman
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20040609/ap_on_re_mi_ea/un_iraq_040609004018
One step closer to bringing our troops home?
problem with lights at the end of tunnels is that sometimes they're just the light of an approaching train.
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Boroda anyone who loaned money to Iraq should have know that they wouldn't be able to pay and would be begging for loan forgiveness.
I mean, it's just like someone loaning money to Russia for pete's sake.
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Originally posted by Toad
Boroda anyone who loaned money to Iraq should have know that they wouldn't be able to pay and would be begging for loan forgiveness.
I mean, it's just like someone loaning money to Russia for pete's sake.
You mean that supplying them with oil equipment was a bad investment? You mean the world's biggest oil exporter couldn't afford to pay it's debts?
BTW, Russian gold and hard currency stock is now about two times bigger then our debts. What about the US of A? You still want the money from what's left from the lend-lease debt, and USSR is the only country that had to actually pay for the lend-lease, looks like we are more rich then the UK and others?
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Originally posted by _Schadenfreude_
problem with lights at the end of tunnels is that sometimes they're just the light of an approaching train.
Is there an echo in here?
;) :p
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Originally posted by Curval
Is there an echo in here?
;) :p
There would be if you were in a tunnel...
But what I think is that the problem with the light at the end of the tunnel usually means that there's an oncoming train heading towards you.
Ravs
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There is a light at the end of the tunnel, no thanks to the UnNecessary.
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Originally posted by ravells
There would be if you were in a tunnel...
But what I think is that the problem with the light at the end of the tunnel usually means that there's an oncoming train heading towards you.
Ravs
lol
My, we are all so clever today. ;)
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Originally posted by Boroda
You started the mess - you pay.
If you want us to forgive the debts to Iraq (BTW, mostly debts for oil equipment, not weapons as you are told on TV) - then we expect everyone else to forgive our debts. I think it's fair enough.
Hmmm.... so you think Russia should be concidered a third world country and needs to bailed out of their own mess to huh??
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lol...nice try Boroda.
Every time Russia reneges on it's debt obligations the markets fart causing all kinds of people to lose money. Happens once a year, at least.
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Originally posted by AKIron
There is a light at the end of the tunnel, no thanks to the UnNecessary.
Very true. why, if it weren't for the Bush administration taking the lead in this situation, we wouldn't even be in this tunnel, let alone squinting ahead to see a little light. what wonderful progress we've made.
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Is there a train at the end of that tunnel??
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
Very true. why, if it weren't for the Bush administration taking the lead in this situation, we wouldn't even be in this tunnel, let alone squinting ahead to see a little light. what wonderful progress we've made.
Taking action is always riskier than sitting on yer bellybutton and playing with cigars. More rewarding too.
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No Dude,
It's a train at the end of the tunnel.
Ravs
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There IS an end to the tunnel. If there is a train between here and there we'll just have to push it aside.
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and how much are we gonna pay haliburton to do that?
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What if there is a mirror in the tunnel which is simply reflecting back the entrance?
Will we have to retrace our steps?
Ravs
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lmao ravells!! hehehehe
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You make it sound like Halliburton is some evil greedy entity that is controlling the US government. There is a well established and closely guarded bidding process which Halliburton won fairly for much of the reconstruction being done in Iraq. It is the American way.
Halliburton employs something like 85,000 Americans. Sure, some of them are greedy and have no respect for the law, just like in every other company or any sampling taken from the street.
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Originally posted by ravells
What if there is a mirror in the tunnel which is simply reflecting back the entrance?
Will we have to retrace our steps?
Ravs
Hell no, we have shovels. ;)
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Originally posted by AKIron
Hell no, we have shovels. ;)
Shovels! Well don't come crying to me, when you fall down a big hole with a Balrog biting your arse. You need a big shiny elven sword, mate, not a bloody shovel!
No use whining that you should have taken the pass of Caradras once you're plunging to your doom with only a shovel for protection. No sir.
Tunnels. Dangerous things, tunnels.
Ravs
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If the train comes down the tunnel and hits Ravs, but no-one sees or hears it, is the gunk remaining on the tracks, and immediate surroundings his...or just a metaphysical representation of him?
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Originally posted by Curval
If the train comes down the tunnel and hits Ravs, but no-one sees or hears it, is the gunk remaining on the tracks, and immediate surroundings his...or just a metaphysical representation of him?
I will have found my way out of the tunnel. Which is more than I can say for you lot!
Ravs
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Originally posted by AKIron
There is a well established and closely guarded bidding process which Halliburton won fairly for much of the reconstruction being done in Iraq.
would you have a link for that? any info on what the competing bids where from other (losing) companies?
as to how fairly they competed? our VP was their CEO up until 2000 (funny how whitehouse.gov missed this info in his bio), and is still a major share-holder.
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Originally posted by ravells
Shovels! Well don't come crying to me, when you fall down a big hole with a Balrog biting your arse. You need a big shiny elven sword, mate, not a bloody shovel!
No use whining that you should have taken the pass of Caradras once you're plunging to your doom with only a shovel for protection. No sir.
Tunnels. Dangerous things, tunnels.
Ravs
How about a magic shovel? ;)
(http://www.inettek.com/stuff/shovel.jpg)
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Originally posted by Curval
lol...nice try Boroda.
Every time Russia reneges on it's debt obligations the markets fart causing all kinds of people to lose money. Happens once a year, at least.
Nice try Curval.
Reneges on it's debt obligations? Tell me when there was the last time we refused to pay our debts? Once a year? All kinds of people?
You have to understand that the stock and obligations market is a soap bubble. It's all very wrong. In fact the people who want to earn money on speculating at this market deserve to lose it all. Sorry, it's my own very humble opinion.
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Originally posted by AKIron
How about a magic shovel? ;)
(http://www.inettek.com/stuff/shovel.jpg)
By George! I think you've cracked it!!!
Ravs
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
would you have a link for that? any info on what the competing bids where from other (losing) companies?
as to how fairly they competed? our VP was their CEO up until 2000 (funny how whitehouse.gov missed this info in his bio), and is still a major share-holder.
For starters: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001838589_iraqdig17.html
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You still want the money from what's left from the lend-lease debt, and USSR is the only country that had to actually pay for the lend-lease, looks like we are more rich then the UK and others?
Britain had to pay for lend lease supplies too.
The payments have been made 48 times since 1950, with two more remaining before 2006, when the debt will finally be clear.
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Originally posted by Nashwan
Britain had to pay for lend lease supplies too.
The payments have been made 48 times since 1950, with two more remaining before 2006, when the debt will finally be clear.
UK recieved goods for 30+ billion dollars. USSR recieved less then 10 billion. Yet the Soviet payments were bigger then British.
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More info on Iraq reconstruction contract bidders: http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/business/US/iraqreconstruction_030422.html
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Toad I think its two seperate issues.
Yes it is expected to have turmoil before normalcy in Iraq. I dont think that its so strange that people expect less turmoil from what is a non defensive discresionary invasion that is supposed to be in aid of the people of Iraq, then they do from legitimate acts of defence.
Because with WMD and links to terrror gone as issues all we are left with is "we did it for the people of Iraq". So the length and depth of the pain inflicted is a very signifigant issue with this war. More so then with others. Keegan apperently doenst see that.
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so they competed and won a bid for $1.2 B
they where also given a $7 B no-bid contract before the war was even started. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/25/60minutes/main551091.shtml)
I find it a major conflict of interest to have the VP of our country as a major shareholder in a company that is receiving huge profits from the actions of this administration. especially when much of those profits are received through no-bid contracts.
these conflicts, combined with Halliburtons generosity to the Bush campaign during the 2000 election, and the fluidness of the reason(s) why this war was necessary, should alarm anyone who is paying attention.
that kind of blind trust isn't healthy for our nation.
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Originally posted by Pongo
Toad I think its two seperate issues.
Yes it is expected to have turmoil before normalcy in Iraq. I dont think that its so strange that people expect less turmoil from what is a non defensive discresionary invasion that is supposed to be in aid of the people of Iraq, then they do from legitimate acts of defence.
Because with WMD and links to terrror gone as issues all we are left with is "we did it for the people of Iraq". So the length and depth of the pain inflicted is a very signifigant issue with this war. More so then with others. Keegan apperently doenst see that.
WMDs and links to terror gone? Difficult to have dialog when assumptions so radically differ.
How do you dismiss this as not support for terrorism?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2846365.stm
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Not some of them
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20040609/6270289s.htm
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Originally posted by AKIron
WMDs and links to terror gone? [/url]
In order for something to be declared "gone," there must first be proof of its existence.
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The light in the tunnel comes from the Little Engine that Couldn't, whose tracks were laid by the Russians and whose engineer is named Jacques. Its boiler is too big and its wheels are too small. While it huffs and puffs mightily it does not produce enough power to depart the station with its load of Saddam sympathizers, creaky pseudo-intellectual socialistic apologizers, and angry hanging-chad Democrats.
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Originally posted by Red Tail 444
In order for something to be declared "gone," there must first be proof of its existence.
You mean like this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3722255.stm
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Originally posted by Boroda
USSR is the only country that had to actually pay for the lend-lease, looks like we are more rich then the UK and others?
Actually, I was referring to stuff like this:
Local Currency Debt Of the 202 sovereigns covered in the survey, Standard & Poor's has identified 19 issuers, 9.4% of the total that have defaulted on their local currency obligations since 1975 (see tables 4 and 5). Recent defaulters include Argentina (2002), Dominican Republic (1981-2001), Ecuador (1999), Madagascar (2002), Mongolia (1997-2000), the Russian Federation (1998-1999), and Ukraine (1998-2000).
Russia's default on US$39 billion of Russian ruble debt stands out because of its size: it was the largest local currency default by a sovereign since Brazil's default on about the equivalent of US$62 billion in 1990.
Longstanding defaults that continued in 2002 include those by Angola (1992-2002) and the Solomon Islands (1995-2002). Brazil and Venezuela defaulted at least twice on their local currency debt over the survey period; and Argentina three times. As in previous years, the 2002
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There sure are lights along the tunnel..
(http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~har/usr1/sanfrancisco/tunnel.gif)
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Originally posted by Toad
Actually, I was referring to stuff like this:
Toad, if someone invested into "state obligations" that offered profit of 40-50% a year - they could understand that they can loose their money.
I agree that 1998 crisis was horrible. Mostly for Russians, not for foreigners. Frankly speaking - I don't understand why people who arranged that "panama" are still free and not in jail forever.
But I insist that Russia pays all it's debts and pays them in time.
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Originally posted by Boroda
Toad, if someone invested into "state obligations" that offered profit of 40-50% a year - they could understand that they can loose their money.
I agree that 1998 crisis was horrible. Mostly for Russians, not for foreigners. Frankly speaking - I don't understand why people who arranged that "panama" are still free and not in jail forever.
But I insist that Russia pays all it's debts and pays them in time.
Uhh... don't you mean "On time...?" cause in time means... whenever....
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Originally posted by mosgood
Uhh... don't you mean "On time...?" cause in time means... whenever....
I meant "as scheduled". Sorry :) Sometimes I use direct translations from Russian expressions :)
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Originally posted by mosgood
Uhh... don't you mean "On time...?" cause in time means... whenever....
If you pay an obligation 'On time', didnt you pay it 'In time'?? geeesss
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Originally posted by TheDudeDVant
If you pay an obligation 'On time', didnt you pay it 'In time'?? geeesss
that's right. "In time" also can mean.. whenever....
you know this..... gees
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Wrong again, Boroda, no matter how much you might "insist".
That clip was from here:
Sovereign Defaults: Moving Higher Again in 2003? (http://www.emta.org/keyper/sov2003.pdf)
That is "Sovereign" as in
Defaults by sovereign governments are rising again--...
....Russia's default on US$39 billion of Russian ruble debt stands out because of its size: it was the largest local currency default by a sovereign[/u][/color] since Brazil's default on about the equivalent of US$62 billion in 1990
So, you see, the SOVEREIGN GOVERNMENT of RUSSIA defaulted.
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Originally posted by Toad
So, you see, the SOVEREIGN GOVERNMENT of RUSSIA defaulted.
Toad, this details are beyond my knowledge of English. :(
I said that the "default" didn't mean our refusal to pay for the international debts. We pay for the credits we have taken. Our beloved government (may it rot in hell) dropped the $/ruble exchange rate so it could pay for the "state treasury obligations" that were priced in rubles, so 90% of Russian citizens have lost all their savings.
Again: if someone expects to get 50% profit yearly - he should be prepared to lose his money. It's a "risky investment". And it was ME and MY PEOPLE who paid for this games. :mad:
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It's real simple. The Sovereign Government fo the Russian Federation failed to pay what it owed.
Can't put it any simpler than that.
Sidebar: Defining Sovereign Defaults Standard & Poor's generally defines default as the failure to meet a principal or interest payment on the due date (or within the specified grace period) contained in the original terms of the debt issue.
Questions can arise, however, when applying this definition to different types of sovereign obligations. In the sovereign default survey, each issuer's debt is considered in default in any of the following circumstances:
For local and foreign currency bonds, notes, and bills, when either scheduled debt service is not paid on the due date, or an exchange offer of new debt contains terms less favorable than the original issue;
For central bank currency, when notes are converted into new currency of less than equivalent face value; and
For bank loans, when either scheduled debt service is not paid on the due date, or a rescheduling of principal and/or interest is agreed to by creditors at less favorable terms than the original loan. Such rescheduling agreements covering short- and long-term bank debt are considered defaults even where, for legal or regulatory reasons, creditors deem forced rollover of principal to be voluntary.
In addition, many rescheduled sovereign bank loans are ultimately extinguished at a discount from their original face value. Typical deals have included exchange offers (such as those linked to the issuance of Brady bonds), debt/equity swaps related to government privatization programs, and/or buybacks for cash.
Standard & Poor's considers such transactions as defaults because they contain terms less favorable than the original obligation.
Each sovereign in default at any point during the year is included (along with the U.S. dollar equivalent of its debt then in default) in the annual issuer totals.
For example, in June 2002, Moldova failed to repay an outstanding foreign currency bond at maturity. Subsequently, in August, investors exchanged the defaulted bond for a new seven-year bond. As a result, Moldova is counted in the 2002 issuer default totals, but--assuming the government maintains normal debt service going forward--it will not be counted among sovereign issuers in default in 2003.
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Lies and propaganda Toad. Lies and propaganda.
Instead of the stock market we should go to a planned economy. That would be fair and would work well.:rolleyes:
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I now think the tunnel is a cyclotron and we'll never get out of it.
:(
Ravs
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At least it's not a food processor!
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Originally posted by Hawklore
There sure are lights along the tunnel..
(http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~har/usr1/sanfrancisco/tunnel.gif)
How ironic to pick a picture of an endless tunnel.. Was kinda my original thought of the situation.. lol
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Originally posted by Toad
At least it's not a food processor!
That was Stalingrad.
Ravs
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
would you have a link for that? any info on what the competing bids where from other (losing) companies?
as to how fairly they competed? our VP was their CEO up until 2000 (funny how whitehouse.gov missed this info in his bio), and is still a major share-holder.
If you can prove foul play, then do it....your black chopper approach to anything the Bush Admin does is silly.
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That might be a reasonable response if we were not talking about one of the most obvios conflicts of interest in history.
No black helicopter ride is neccesary to see that a man that is the CEO of a company one year and then becomes the prime proponent the next year of a war whose only value is to inflate the profits of said company is in a confict of interest.
I mean really. Conspiracy theorists wont even touch this one. Its so far into fact from theory thats its booring to them.
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Ah! The light at the end of the tunnel was a glinting pot of gold?
Ravs
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Originally posted by ravells
Ah! The light at the end of the tunnel was a glinting pot of gold?
Ravs
or was the tunnel really just a mine-shaft all along?
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
so they competed and won a bid for $1.2 B
they where also given a $7 B no-bid contract before the war was even started. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/25/60minutes/main551091.shtml)
I find it a major conflict of interest to have the VP of our country as a major shareholder in a company that is receiving huge profits from the actions of this administration. especially when much of those profits are received through no-bid contracts.
these conflicts, combined with Halliburtons generosity to the Bush campaign during the 2000 election, and the fluidness of the reason(s) why this war was necessary, should alarm anyone who is paying attention.
that kind of blind trust isn't healthy for our nation.
would you rather have somone who is less capable of doing the job?
I still dont see why you librals get your pink panties in a bunch overthis. If they were the only bidder on the contract and didnt win NEITHER WOULD ANYONE ELSE CAUSE THEY DIDNT BID ON IT. You librals would not care if a US soldier had in adequate facilities or died because they did not have the support they needed if it meant hurting the president or the country. here is a great example of your precious single bidder contract winner aleged conflict of interest.
When I was in Kuwait (a year ago) we had Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) taking care of most of the service support we needed (food, laundry facilities, generators, AC for the sleep tents, etc). KBR is a subsidiary of Halliburton.
While not perfect, they did a pretty good job of trying to help us whatever and whenever they could. If a generator went down (which was often, they didn't like 135 degree heat) they would be there right away to attempt repairs. Our clothes were cleaned pretty well (we only had two uniforms, the turn around was less than two days-really good for us).
One of the things that really impressed me about KBR was the food service. After the 'major combat' portion of the war was over and the SCUDS stopped falling on our camp they went all out to improve the food at the place. I remember nights when we got steaks, shrimp, lobster tail, they tried to make the food as palatable as they could, they brought in non-alcoholic beer for the troops, and the ice cream bar they set up would have given Baskin Robbins a run for its money.
Any soldier will tell you that one of biggest morale pick me ups is decent food and KBR did an outstanding job trying to keep us well fed.
Funny thing happened. All this whinning about Haliburton and KBR caused the Government to change contractors for sevices on Camp Wolf (and other places I have been told). The food quality dropped right into the toilet, as did the laundry point, the support for our AC and generators and everything else. As far as I know the money spent was identical.
Strange though, the soldiers ended up suffering over all this infighting. Now whom should I blame? I don't blame Dick Cheney. As far as I was concerned he did the soldiers a favor by working for Halliburton We got decent service and we appreciated it.
I've heard the same story from fellow Marines in the sandbox right now who are experiencing the same damn thing.
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Originally posted by Boroda
Again: if someone expects to get 50% profit yearly - he should be prepared to lose his money. It's a "risky investment". And it was ME and MY PEOPLE who paid for this games. :mad:
Rather be part of the Third Reich?
They tought you well in USSR schools comrade!
Oil drilling equip. not weapons very good comrade we can even call them Mig-25 oil pumps.
I really like the line about the cold war "you did not win, we lost it our self" your about ready to run for office please fill out your Democratic party application.
Your stuff is old and tired and you have no power here, now be off!
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Originally posted by Scootter
Your stuff is old and tired and you have no power here, now be off!
pffft...
After you.
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If they were the only bidder on the contract and didn't win NEITHER WOULD ANYONE ELSE CAUSE THEY DIDNT BID ON IT.
did you read the link? it doesn't say they where the only company to bid. it says it was a no-bid contract.
No-bid means that no bids where taken. nobody else could compete because nobody else new there was anything to compete for.
no matter how fast you spin it, that means the Bush administration gave the contract to Halliburton without soliciting bids from any other contractors. anybody who can't/won't see a conflict in using this type of system for awarding contracts to a company for whom the VP was CEO until the election is just hiding their head in the sand.
in fact the deal was made before the war started and wasn't announced publicly until later.
how could anybody else bid on a job that was hidden from them until Halliburton had the deal inked?
as a matter of fact Halliburton is a major player in the war for profit industry. and while I don't think they would have it as sweet as they do now, they would still make a lot of profit off this war, even if they competed fairly (there are many jobs that they just have a lot more experience at). I find it a conflict of interest for any top gov't official to own interests in companies who make a significant portion of their profits from war.
how much crying would their be if Kerry gets elected and awards a no-bid contract to his wifes company to provide ketchup for our school lunches at $2 a serving? (and at least in this scenario no Americans would have to die for them to steal from our treasury)
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
did you read the link? it doesn't say they where the only company to bid. it says it was a no-bid contract.
No-bid means that no bids where taken. nobody else could compete because nobody else new there was anything to compete for.
no matter how fast you spin it, that means the Bush administration gave the contract to Halliburton without soliciting bids from any other contractors. anybody who can't/won't see a conflict in using this type of system for awarding contracts to a company for whom the VP was CEO until the election is just hiding their head in the sand.
in fact the deal was made before the war started and wasn't announced publicly until later.
how could anybody else bid on a job that was hidden from them until Halliburton had the deal inked?
as a matter of fact Halliburton is a major player in the war for profit industry. and while I don't think they would have it as sweet as they do now, they would still make a lot of profit off this war, even if they competed fairly (there are many jobs that they just have a lot more experience at). I find it a conflict of interest for any top gov't official to own interests in companies who make a significant portion of their profits from war.
how much crying would their be if Kerry gets elected and awards a no-bid contract to his wifes company to provide ketchup for our school lunches at $2 a serving? (and at least in this scenario no Americans would have to die for them to steal from our treasury)
If you're referring to the link I posted it stated that the Army Corps of Engineers said there was no need to rebid that particular requirement as it was covered by a previous competitively bid contract.
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I'll take any good news. We can't sit and question the past, what is done is done, you can never unring a bell. And don't worry, if it is a train, we'll drop a cookie on it. But I still think every cent to rebuild should come from sales of their oil, and not one tax dollar. They sit on the biggest reserves in the world, they don't need our money.
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Boroda, question for ya lad... Are you a communist, or is the avatar some kind of symbol for your being Russian and harkening back to "better" days for Russia? Just curious;)
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Originally posted by AKIron
If you're referring to the link I posted it stated that the Army Corps of Engineers said there was no need to rebid that particular requirement as it was covered by a previous competitively bid contract.
no, I quoted gunslinger because I was replying to his post, so to stay on topic I refered to the link that he was talking about (and had quoted).
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Originally posted by Scootter
Rather be part of the Third Reich?
They tought you well in USSR schools comrade!
Oil drilling equip. not weapons very good comrade we can even call them Mig-25 oil pumps.
I really like the line about the cold war "you did not win, we lost it our self" your about ready to run for office please fill out your Democratic party application.
Your stuff is old and tired and you have no power here, now be off!
Well, while my country lost 27 million lives fighting nazism - American bomber crews that bombed Germany had industrial objects where American capital invested marked on the flight maps so they couldn't destroy them accidentaly... This is about "third reich".
Again: I said "most of Iraqi debt to Russia is for oil equipment". And most of this debt was made while Saddam was America's best friend, in the 70s, when he was killing Iraqi communists with steam rollers...
There is no difference between your two major parties, they even share the same name, only in different languages.
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Originally posted by Stang
Boroda, question for ya lad... Are you a communist, or is the avatar some kind of symbol for your being Russian and harkening back to "better" days for Russia? Just curious;)
It is mostly to piss off people like... you know like whom ;)
I am not a communist and never voted for them. Hammer and a Sickle is an international symbol of Labour.
Did you see the movie "Mortal Combat"? They have a character there, a bearded guy in a fur hat with a red star, who fights with hammer and a sickle :) Some peoplethink it's Russian traditional weapons :)
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Umm..Boroda,
The Russians did the same thing when they overran Eastern Germany. Stalin ordered that certain industrial areas should not be destroyed because they were "gold" to the Soviets.
It makes sense not to destroy something you will need after the war is won...no?
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Originally posted by Sixpence
We can't sit and question the past, what is done is done, you can never unring a bell.
So.... when voting you'll consider all the things both candidates are gonna do in the future instead?? ;)
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Originally posted by Boroda
Well, while my country lost 27 million lives fighting nazism - American bomber crews that bombed Germany had industrial objects where American capital invested marked on the flight maps so they couldn't destroy them accidentaly... This is about "third reich".
Again: I said "most of Iraqi debt to Russia is for oil equipment". And most of this debt was made while Saddam was America's best friend, in the 70s, when he was killing Iraqi communists with steam rollers...
There is no difference between your two major parties, they even share the same name, only in different languages.
Dude, you are such a drama queen. Bringing up WW2 ...... Again another oppurtunity for the Russians to screw up and lose 27 million lives.
And about bombing strategic industrial targets......
If you want to compare apples to apples, maybe you should instead talk about 27 million communist lives fighting nazism to Afghani's fighting the (screwed up)communist invasion.... yet AGAIN another oppurtunity for Russia to screw up....
Boroda, for a guy that lives in a country that can't take a piss without screwing it up, you sure like to complain about America a lot. Is it really as simple as jealousy?
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Originally posted by Curval
Umm..Boroda,
The Russians did the same thing when they overran Eastern Germany. Stalin ordered that certain industrial areas should not be destroyed because they were "gold" to the Soviets.
It makes sense not to destroy something you will need after the war is won...no?
Everything usefull in Soviet occupation zone was bombed by "allied" air force. They still say they burned Dresden "by Soviet request"... :rolleyes:
USSR didn't have strong strategic aviation.
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Originally posted by mosgood
Dude, you are such a drama queen. Bringing up WW2 ...... Again another oppurtunity for the Russians to screw up and lose 27 million lives.
And about bombing strategic industrial targets......
If you want to compare apples to apples, maybe you should instead talk about 27 million communist lives fighting nazism to Afghani's fighting the (screwed up)communist invasion.... yet AGAIN another oppurtunity for Russia to screw up....
Boroda, for a guy that lives in a country that can't take a piss without screwing it up, you sure like to complain about America a lot. Is it really as simple as jealousy?
Communist lives? Yeah, all Russians are communists, everyone knows that. Even one of my Grand-Uncles, who was a Cossak officer in WWI and volunteered as a private in 1941 must have been a commie... Oh, sorry, he survived...
Communist invasion?... Compared to your recent heroic deeds in Yugoslavia and Iraq it was nothing more then a completely justified assistance to legaly elected government. BTW, things went in a peacefull way in Afghanistan until you started to support "freedom fighters" (terrorists in current terms). I have to repeat: starting an Afghani adventure was stupidity, but withdrawing troops was a crime. All we got was the same war inside Soviet borders. And now your regime does it's best to make it continue. Read another thread about drug connection...
So far US is a champion in screwing things up. We lack American grand scale, we can't afford military adventures like you. BTW, Iraq is smaller then Afghanistan, and you have 3 times more troops there then USSR had in Afghan. Still you can't get any comparable results.
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
did you read the link? it doesn't say they where the only company to bid. it says it was a no-bid contract.
No-bid means that no bids where taken. nobody else could compete because nobody else new there was anything to compete for.
no matter how fast you spin it, that means the Bush administration gave the contract to Halliburton without soliciting bids from any other contractors. anybody who can't/won't see a conflict in using this type of system for awarding contracts to a company for whom the VP was CEO until the election is just hiding their head in the sand.
in fact the deal was made before the war started and wasn't announced publicly until later.
how could anybody else bid on a job that was hidden from them until Halliburton had the deal inked?
as a matter of fact Halliburton is a major player in the war for profit industry. and while I don't think they would have it as sweet as they do now, they would still make a lot of profit off this war, even if they competed fairly (there are many jobs that they just have a lot more experience at). I find it a conflict of interest for any top gov't official to own interests in companies who make a significant portion of their profits from war.
how much crying would their be if Kerry gets elected and awards a no-bid contract to his wifes company to provide ketchup for our school lunches at $2 a serving? (and at least in this scenario no Americans would have to die for them to steal from our treasury)
so if haliburton or any other company buys all the katchup for the troops from heinz that would be wrong because kerry is a senetor.
How bout this concept. Providing the best possible services for our troops in combat??????????
When I worked for the federal govt "no bid contracts" usually ment there was no one else available to do the job properly. I hoestly dont know if cheny still owns stock in the company but your whole "war for profit" statement is a little off the mark. Haliburton and it's subsidiaries have been providing services for the military overseas LONG befor cheny ever got elected.
Fact is things are getting better in Iraq.....I am thrilled of that fact because it means our troops can come home soon......not because it iritates librals like yourself. I see more librals that get happy when things go bad cause it gives them more ammo to back up their pure hatred of Pres. Bush.
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Gunslinger... do you think that if a Senior Politician has a substantial financial interest in a company which will benefit from a war in which that politician is going to play a key role, he is in a conflict of interest and should either sell his shares or resign his position in the government?
I think so (although the precise wording of the regulation would be a devil to draft).
Although the Policitian would not necessarily let his personal financial interests influece his decision making on behalf of the country, for his own credibility he must not be put in the position where the question can be asked of him.
I don't know the answer to this, but are there regulations relating to this in the US? I think in the UK the interest has to be declared but that is all.
Ravs
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capt... all government agencies all the way down to city level have a bid process that is written out. there is a "sole supplier" clause that allows for timely filling of the contract when there is no company but one that is capable of doing the job in an emergency or even a timely manner.
The way it works is that either bids are taken or not.. companies are allowed to submit proposals and explanations on how they would do the job and a group of "experts" review the propossals and rate them. If one is rated head and shoulders above the others or... the others do not meet the conditions, say, they can't really do the work in the time frame laid out.... then there is no "bid" process.
no real evil deal going on here... a commitee of people whos job would be affected went with the company they knew could get the job done and cause them the least amount of headaches.
lazs
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Originally posted by Boroda
Everything usefull in Soviet occupation zone was bombed by "allied" air force. They still say they burned Dresden "by Soviet request"... :rolleyes:
USSR didn't have strong strategic aviation.
To say "everything useful was bombed by allied air force" is nonesense. That is a sweeping generalisation that you have absorbed by those who have told you that this was the case. It is simply quite wrong.
I don't know enough about the bombing of Dresden to comment on that issue, but it is a completely different issue than what we are talking about, please stick to the point.
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Originally posted by Curval
To say "everything useful was bombed by allied air force" is nonesense. That is a sweeping generalisation that you have absorbed by those who have told you that this was the case. It is simply quite wrong.
I don't know enough about the bombing of Dresden to comment on that issue, but it is a completely different issue than what we are talking about, please stick to the point.
Sorry, I have to exaggerate so you can understand what I say :)
"Allies" eagerly bombed industrial objects that were clearly inside Soviet occupation zone, and it's a fact.
In Yalta gen. Antonov, Chief of General Staff, proposed allied air forces to bomb railway stations and hubs to make German troop movement from one front to another more difficult. Now this reasonable proposal is used to blame Russians for things like demolition of Dresden.
Harry Truman expressed the US politics in WWII in 1940. Sorry, it's your country's history :(
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Originally posted by Boroda
Sorry, I have to exaggerate so you can understand what I say :)
"Allies" eagerly bombed industrial objects that were clearly inside Soviet occupation zone, and it's a fact.
So what? Taking a look with hindsight, seems to me it was a good idea. Someone saw the conflict on the horizon and wanted to get a head start. No that you've lost, your just a sore loser.
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Originally posted by mosgood
So what? Taking a look with hindsight, seems to me it was a good idea. Someone saw the conflict on the horizon and wanted to get a head start. No that you've lost, your just a sore loser.
I love American way of thinking that war is nothing more then business.
Everything was not "on the horizon", it was planned from the very begining. Truman said it in 1940, as I mentioned above.
Unfortunately, the US of A was the only country that actually "won" WWII, and this "victory" have brought this provincial country that didn't have any history or culture to the superpower status. "Look, that foolish Russians lost 27 million people and didn't make any profit like we did!"...
I may be a loser, but you are nothing but a moral freak. Sorry for you.
You should thank Soviet government for not taking Reagan's stupid "joke" too seriously. At least we didn't elect mentaly disabled people for presidents. And re-elect them only a few months after they show such brilliant examples of "sence of humor".
Sorry everyone, I start to get off the rocker myself. Hard to speak with people who's moral principles are non-existant from my barbaric, uncivilized Asian-bolshevik-on-his-shaggy-mount point of view.
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Originally posted by Boroda
Sorry, it's your country's history :(
No...no it isn't at all.
I am not American.
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Originally posted by Curval
No...no it isn't at all.
I am not American.
Do you think I can apologize so I'll not offend anyone? ;)
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Originally posted by Boroda
Do you think I can apologize so I'll not offend anyone? ;)
I don't think you've offended anyone here yet Boroda. You'll have to try harder. :p
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You're so full of it Boroda.
Claiming to have the moral high ground, doesnt magicaly make it so. Example.. claiming that the USSR was only occupying soveriegn nations in Eastern Europe take hold the imperialist monsters at bay.
Let me ask you this.....
IF the USSR would have "WON" the cold war, do you think that it would have become some benign superpower and NOT have begun consuming every country it could, to feed it's socialist system? Live and let live would have been the policies of the day eh? (is this an admitance that the U.S. is doing the same? I think that there's a good argument to say yes)
You keep talking about how you hate your own government, and then blame the U.S. for standing up to it OR even have policies for defeating it? Laz makes a good point..... how many walls do you see keeping americans inside our country? How many people given a choice, in your country would move to the U.S. in a heart beat? The system of government that our country spent a lot of money and resources keeping at bay, had to build walls to keep a population from deserting. Athletes, scholars, scientist, pilots.... your government had to hold it's own human resource base hostage. But the U.S. was the aggressor? I say good, thank GOD your government lost the cold war.
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Originally posted by Boroda
Do you think I can apologize so I'll not offend anyone? ;)
lol...tough to answer that one. ;)
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Originally posted by mosgood
You're so full of it Boroda.
Claiming to have the moral high ground, doesnt magicaly make it so. Example.. claiming that the USSR was only occupying soveriegn nations in Eastern Europe take hold the imperialist monsters at bay.
If you still believe in your government's peacefull intentions after discussing that "we begin bombing in five minutes" quote - I pity you. Your government was planning a nuclear attack on USSR since 1946. It's a fact.
Originally posted by mosgood
Let me ask you this.....
IF the USSR would have "WON" the cold war, do you think that it would have become some benign superpower and NOT have begun consuming every country it could, to feed it's socialist system? Live and let live would have been the policies of the day eh? (is this an admitance that the U.S. is doing the same? I think that there's a good argument to say yes)
I already said that IMHO if USSR have "won" the cold war (that was impossible anyway), it couldn't be better then the current situation when US is the only superpower. It's a matter of balance. Power corrupts.
Originally posted by mosgood
You keep talking about how you hate your own government, and then blame the U.S. for standing up to it OR even have policies for defeating it? Laz makes a good point..... how many walls do you see keeping americans inside our country? How many people given a choice, in your country would move to the U.S. in a heart beat? The system of government that our country spent a lot of money and resources keeping at bay, had to build walls to keep a population from deserting. Athletes, scholars, scientist, pilots.... your government had to hold it's own human resource base hostage. But the U.S. was the aggressor? I say good, thank GOD your government lost the cold war.
The "walls" you talk about were useless. Don't you think that people who didn't want to live here could be forced to stay? Iw they were - then they didn't want to leave. Don't you know that in 70s-80s expulsion was a common punishment for dissidents?...
You obviously can't see the difference between Soviet government and the gang of crooks that are Russian government and Big Business now.
And no, I don't want to go back to Soviet times.
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Originally posted by Boroda
If you still believe in your government's peacefull intentions after discussing that "we begin bombing in five minutes" quote - I pity you. Your government was planning a nuclear attack on USSR since 1946. It's a fact.
I never said we had peaceful intentions. Kinda dumb to build a bunch of nuclear bombs and then say we have no intentions of using them. If RR scared the crap out of you with that statement, than good for him. If he made you think that he was mad and gave your government an additional "moment of pause" that he was prepared to NOT have peaceful intentions, if needed. Than good for him. That joke was brilliance. (unlike my spelling)
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Originally posted by ravells
Gunslinger... do you think that if a Senior Politician has a substantial financial interest in a company which will benefit from a war in which that politician is going to play a key role, he is in a conflict of interest and should either sell his shares or resign his position in the government?
I think so (although the precise wording of the regulation would be a devil to draft).
Although the Policitian would not necessarily let his personal financial interests influece his decision making on behalf of the country, for his own credibility he must not be put in the position where the question can be asked of him.
I don't know the answer to this, but are there regulations relating to this in the US? I think in the UK the interest has to be declared but that is all.
Ravs
Rav I completly agree w/ you except when it is in fact the BEST rescource available. If a senior polotician had shares in a body armor company (and you know they are poring millions of dollars into them) and our troops needed them would it be prudent to say we can not select the best manufacturer cause of a conflict of interest.
Now I have to admit ignorance here, I do not for sure know if cheny still has mass amounts of shares in haliburton but I still think the best company should be selected to do the job. Forcing him to sell his shares is another story.
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Originally posted by mosgood
I never said we had peaceful intentions. Kinda dumb to build a bunch of nuclear bombs and then say we have no intentions of using them. If RR scared the crap out of you with that statement, than good for him. If he made you think that he was mad and gave your government an additional "moment of pause" that he was prepared to NOT have peaceful intentions, if needed. Than good for him. That joke was brilliance. (unlike my spelling)
Don't you understand that such a joke was supposed to scare the crap out of Americans?...
:rolleyes:
Looks like our logics, ethics and common sence are situated in different planes :(
What I really fail to understand is "Kinda dumb to build a bunch of nuclear bombs and then say we have no intentions of using them.". If your leaders really thought it is smart to use nuclear weapons so the money spent on building them will not be lost - they must be isolated from society. Any thought of using nuclear weapons for real is insane.
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
Rav I completly agree w/ you except when it is in fact the BEST rescource available. If a senior polotician had shares in a body armor company (and you know they are poring millions of dollars into them) and our troops needed them would it be prudent to say we can not select the best manufacturer cause of a conflict of interest.
Now I have to admit ignorance here, I do not for sure know if cheny still has mass amounts of shares in haliburton but I still think the best company should be selected to do the job. Forcing him to sell his shares is another story.
but the point you're missing here is even if they where the best contractor to do the job. and even if they bid completely fairly. he owns a a substantial piece of and upto 2002 was CEO of a company that makes huge profits if our country goes to war.
the conflict of interest can manifest itself on more than one level. first there is giving his company an edge in what should be fair compitition, another way this conflict can manifested itself is that we find ourselves in a war that seems to only be in the best interest of companies who make money off of war.
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Originally posted by Boroda
Don't you understand that such a joke was supposed to scare the crap out of Americans?...
No... i don't understand that. I understand that it was a joke. And if it was intended to scare anyone... it would have been the USSR. RR was NOT serious about that.... of course. Hell, a lot of americans found it funny... and a lot of Russians didn't. Sounds well played because it DID scare the crap out of you. Just like our nuclear weapons were made to do. Get it?????
Originally posted by Boroda
What I really fail to understand is "Kinda dumb to build a bunch of nuclear bombs and then say we have no intentions of using them.". If your leaders really thought it is smart to use nuclear weapons so the money spent on building them will not be lost - they must be isolated from society. Any thought of using nuclear weapons for real is insane.
The weapons were built for deterance. Same as for your side. That deterance would have evaporated IF the USSR was positive the U.S. would never, under any circumstances, use them. Personaly, I think that both sides are capable of using them. (us of course... we did) But it's all about creating "fear" in the other guy that the other side was capable of blowing them away. The USSR government WAS feared and thought of as MAD in the U.S. and most people DID believe that they were evil. This played in the USSR's favor as well for deterance.
Saber rattling
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Originally posted by mosgood
Dude, you are such a drama queen. Bringing up WW2 ...... Again another oppurtunity for the Russians to screw up and lose 27 million lives.
And about bombing strategic industrial targets......
If you want to compare apples to apples, maybe you should instead talk about 27 million communist lives fighting nazism to Afghani's fighting the (screwed up)communist invasion.... yet AGAIN another oppurtunity for Russia to screw up....
Boroda, for a guy that lives in a country that can't take a piss without screwing it up, you sure like to complain about America a lot. Is it really as simple as jealousy?
If it wasn't for those 27 million Russian lives (whether communist or not) we'd all be speaking German right about now.
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Maybe. Maybe not.
Given the fact they couldn't get across the Channel when only a greatly weakened Britain opposed them, I'm thinking "not".
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That's a good point! And what I said might be construed as disrespectful to them. That was NOT indended. I was refering to the USSR's poor choice of freinds that caught them off guard.
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Originally posted by mosgood
That's a good point! And what I said might be construed as disrespectful to them. That was NOT indended. I was refering to the USSR's poor choice of freinds that caught them off guard.
Understood
:aok
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
but the point you're missing here is even if they where the best contractor to do the job. and even if they bid completely fairly. he owns a a substantial piece of and upto 2002 was CEO of a company that makes huge profits if our country goes to war.
the conflict of interest can manifest itself on more than one level. first there is giving his company an edge in what should be fair compitition, another way this conflict can manifested itself is that we find ourselves in a war that seems to only be in the best interest of companies who make money off of war.
So does the VP still own a good share of haliburton?
If so you'd rather our troops have substandard service/equipment wich may endanger them than have a "potential" conflict of interest?
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No, Gunslinger.
If there IS a conflict then the person who has shares and is on the board ought to resign. It still means that the troops get good kit and it means that person who was on the board gets some credibility.
Ravs
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OMG SCANDLE SCANDLE SCANDLE!
First the competition issue. Last year, as administration officials made plans for war in Iraq, they were greatly concerned that Saddam Hussein would set fire to his country's oil fields, just as retreating Iraqi troops had done in Kuwait at the end of the first Gulf War. That, military planners knew, would result in a huge economic and environmental disaster. "The model we were looking at was what the Iraqis had done in Kuwait at the end of the Gulf War," says Lt. Col. Eugene Pawlik, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers. "We had to consider the possibility that the Iraqis would set that many or more wells on fire in Iraq and what it would take for us to throw a maximum response at a maximum destruction scenario."
Last November, the Corps assigned Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), which has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton since the 1960s, to do a classified study of potential damage and repairs in the Iraqi oil fields. Contrary to Waxman's assertion, the work was done under a competitively awarded contract system known as the U.S. Army Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP. The LOGCAP system came about because of the military's need to perform complex jobs — peacekeeping in Bosnia, intervention in Haiti — on sometimes very short notice. In such situations, American troops require lots of logistical support; camps have to be built, utilities have to be supplied, food has to be cooked. By the early 1990s, as the size of the active-duty force shrank, the Pentagon began to "outsource" much of that work, that is, pay civilian contractors to do it rather than tie up soldiers with non-essential tasks. Instead of going through a months-long competitive-bidding process for each job, the military came up with LOGCAP.
LOGCAP is, in effect, a multi-year supercontract. In it, the Army makes a deal with a single contractor, in this case Halliburton, to perform a wide range of unspecified services during emergency situations in the future. The last competition for LOGCAP came in 2001, when Halliburton won the contract over several other bidders. Thus, when the oil-field study was needed, Corps officials say, Halliburton was the natural place to turn. "To invite other contractors to compete to perform a highly classified requirement that Kellogg Brown & Root was already under a competitively awarded contract to perform would have been a wasteful duplication of effort," Corps commander Lt. Gen. Robert Flowers wrote to Waxman in April.
In February 2003, with the study done, the Corps of Engineers decided to issue a contract to actually execute the plan that KBR had drawn up for dealing with problems in the Iraqi oil fields. At the end of that month, Army headquarters authorized the Corps to issue a sole-source contract to KBR. (The assignment seemed logical for another reason: Halliburton/KBR put out 350 oil-well fires in Kuwait after the first Gulf War.) "Only KBR, the contractor that developed the complex, classified contingency plans, could commence implementing them on extremely short notice," Flowers wrote Waxman. "The timing was driven by Central Command's operational requirement to have support available in advance of possibly imminent hostilities." Flowers added that the contract was always intended as a temporary "bridge" to a more permanent contract that would be offered for competitive bidding.
In 1997, when LOGCAP was again put up for bid, Halliburton/Brown & Root lost the competition to another contractor, Dyncorp. But the Clinton Defense Department, rather than switch from Halliburton to Dyncorp, elected to award a separate, sole-source contract to Halliburton/Brown & Root to continue its work in the Balkans. According to a later GAO study, the Army made the choice because 1) Brown & Root had already acquired extensive knowledge of how to work in the area; 2) the company "had demonstrated the ability to support the operation"; and 3) changing contractors would have been costly. The Army's sole-source Bosnia contract with Brown & Root lasted until 1999. At that time, the Clinton Defense Department conducted full-scale competitive bidding for a new contract. The winner was . . . Halliburton/Brown & Root. The company continued its work in Bosnia uninterrupted.
That work received favorable notices throughout the Clinton administration. For example, Vice President Al Gore's National Performance Review mentioned Halliburton's performance in its Report on Reinventing the Department of Defense, issued in September 1996. In a section titled "Outsourcing of Logistics Allows Combat Troops to Stick to Basics," Gore's reinventing-government team favorably mentioned LOGCAP, the cost-plus-award system, and Brown & Root, which the report said provided "basic life support services — food, water, sanitation, shelter, and laundry; and the full realm of logistics services — transportation, electrical, hazardous materials collection and disposal, fuel delivery, airfield and seaport operations, and road maintenance."
In 2001, after the Bush administration came into office, the giant LOGCAP contract expired again and another competition was held. Once again, Halliburton won the contract, and it was under that arrangement that the Iraqi-oilfield analysis was done. As the record shows, Halliburton won big government contracts under the Clinton administration, and it won big government contracts under the Bush administration. The only difference between the two is that Henry Waxman is making allegations of favoritism in the Bush administration, while he appeared untroubled by the issue during the Clinton years.
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Wow - you wrote that yourself Gunslinger? You've got a real gift!
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nope its a compliation of research from alot of different sources Nash ;)
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Actually it's just a rearanged version of a single National Review article.
But I guess that makes you the author somehow.
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
So does the VP still own a good share of haliburton?
If so you'd rather our troops have substandard service/equipment wich may endanger them than have a "potential" conflict of interest?
he does.
no I'd rather this administration hadn't sent our troops overseas to generate bussines for companies owned by members of that administration.
the issue is not just about who gets these contracts, it is about who set up the situation (read as war), that would make these contracts available?
last extimate I heard we where planing to spend about $25 billion by the end of next year on rebuilding Iraq. it's no secret that even in a fair competition Halliburton will win a large share of that. and then on top of that $25B there is the money they make off of suport services for our troops.
now how much would the VPs company(and the VP personally) have made if we had done as most of the world (and the US) had thought we should and stayed the hell out of Iraq?
again we have no reasons yet given for the war in Iraq. or at least none that will hold up to more than a few minutes of serious scrutiny, or that was our responsability to under-take.
we are losing men and throwing good money after bad and the only ones gaining own shares in these war-for-proffit companies, and of them Halliburton is one of the biggest, and a signifigant part of it is owned by the VP. that is the conflict of interest.
we could have acomplished the same thing if we'd have just gave them the keys to Fort knox and a fork-lift. at least that way we would still have about 850 good Americans still walking this earth with us.
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
so they competed and won a bid for $1.2 B
they where also given a $7 B no-bid contract before the war was even started. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/25/60minutes/main551091.shtml)
I find it a major conflict of interest to have the VP of our country as a major shareholder in a company that is receiving huge profits from the actions of this administration. especially when much of those profits are received through no-bid contracts.
these conflicts, combined with Halliburtons generosity to the Bush campaign during the 2000 election, and the fluidness of the reason(s) why this war was necessary, should alarm anyone who is paying attention.
that kind of blind trust isn't healthy for our nation.
I've already posted this about 4 times, so once again, for those who were not paying attention:
Haliburton was awarded several (bordering on a couple of dozen) no bid contracts by THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION throughout the entire 8 years of that administration.
Why is it we should now exclude a company that has provided required services for the country for decades, in high risk, high security locations and conditions, with or without bids, when often there is no other truly viable company to do the job?
We've already had a soldier (you know, those guys who went overseas and fought, those guys who the idiot frothing at the mouth liberals pretend to be so concerned with) tell us how he and his comrades suffered because a Haliburton subsidiary was given the bums rush because of this bu!!ch!t witchhunt, and replaced with a basically incompetent competitor that did not serve the troops and their needs half as well.
So the truth is, for decades, Haliburton and their subsidiaries have served their country, regardless of the sitting administration, with both bid and no bid contracts. It was perfectly okay for this to go on for the previous administration, but the current administration should be forbidden to use the most qualified company, just as previous administrations have, for the same jobs, under the same type of contracts, and under the same conditions. That is BRILLIANT!!!!
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Captain Virgil Hilts,
Well said. :aok However, even if they see your point I don't think they are going to concede the point...if that makes sense.
Regards, Shuckins/Leggern
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How does that relate to the conflict of interest?
Hows about if Cheney owned mass amounts of shares in some gigantic road construction company, and upon his becoming VP alluhvasudden all these road expansion projects started happening?
Maybe the roads needed work. And maybe Cheney's company was the best for the job. Or, maybe they didn't and maybe Cheney's company wasn't. Who knows?
IMHO, anyone who stands to profit from war should not be allowed a position to create one.
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The black helicopters are here!!!!!!!
How truly absurd is the notion that Iraq was invaded to provide lucrative no bid contracts for Haliburton?
Get real folks. That has got to be the most absurd line of unadulterated horsech!t I have ever heard.
Let's see here, we have a President with one of the highest ratings in history after the first year of action after 11 September 2001, and a company already providing services for armed forces all over the world and getting lucrative contracts to continue this service. But this extremely popular and successful President and his administration decide to take 18 months leading up to a very controversial, expensive, dangerous, and deadly war. And they do this just so that Haliburton can win huge lucrative contracts.
And you believe Iraq was invaded to make Cheney rich.
:rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl
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Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
How truly absurd is the notion that Iraq was invaded to provide lucrative no bid contracts for Haliburton?
Laff all ya want. Absurd reason for going to war? You really wanna go there? Hows about you giving us the non-absurd reason? Your "extremely popular presisident" struck out there. So go ahead and give us the non-absurd reason, wiseguy.
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But this extremely popular and successful President and his administration decide to take 18 months leading up to a very controversial, expensive, dangerous, and deadly war. And they do this just so that Halliburton can win huge lucrative contracts.
And you believe Iraq was invaded to make Cheney rich.
finally, now you're catching up with the rest of the country.
you see some people where a little faster on the uptake, which accounts for a formerly extremely popular president, not being quite so extremely popular anymore.
I didn't vote for the man the fist time around, and I don't think he's good for our country. but after 9/11, we traced the alquada terrorists to Afghanistan and had to invade. I supported that(as most of the country did), and supported Bush, he seemed to be making good decisions.
then they got on to the idea of invading Iraq. or more accurately they decided to start talking publicly about their plans to invade Iraq.
they saw money to be made and thought they could just toss it in with the whole 'war on terror' package. I guess they figured we where to stupid to tell one rag-head from another, and would cheer them on without wondering why we where fighting them.
it worked on a lot of people, but some Americans had been paying enough attention to ask why we where going after Iraq.
we got a bunch of different answers, not many made sense and when they fell apart this administration just pulled a new reason out of their ass.
for the billionth time, let go through some of them again-
1. it's because they won't cooperate with the UN and follow UN resolutions.
A: thats the UN's job to enforce UN resolutions. and the UN doesn't want us to go in. you can't go against someones wishes and say your actions are in support of them. so reason #1 is BS
2. they have WMD that are an immediate threat to our countries security.
A: they haven't been found. much of the 'proof' that they where there at the time of invasion was found to be unreliable or just plain fabricated. had they actually had them and were ready to use them, why didn't they use them on us when we invaded? SH faces a good chance of execution as it is, he had nothing to lose by using these weapons to try and keep his country.
if you use the argument that he didn't because he was afraid of our reaction, then that would cancel out the whole argument of them being a threat to our security, since he was afraid to use them on us.
to sum up reason #2 is BS
3. SH is a evil man and should be taken out of office.
A: simply put it's not our job. our politicians are elected to look after the best interest of America, not Iraq. policing other peoples gov'ts is that countries business, not ours. worst case scenario the UN can deal with it.
sum up reason #3- it is not our war to fight.
4. this administration ran this war for private reasons, mostly relating to profit. the war sold to America was just a scam to pull it off. they used it as a way to drain our Treasury and the only Americans to see any benefit are those who make money off of war. good men died, wifes are widows, children are fatherless, families separated and members of this administration and their buddy's are richer.
A: and your well thought out reason why this isn't possible is ":rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl "
well at least you thought it through :rolleyes:
-
Would you listen if I did?
Once more. Bush said after 11 September 2001: "ANY nation supporting terrorism will be a candidate for regime change".
Now, read here: http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/murdocksaddamarticle.pdf
and tell me afterwards how Saddam Hussien's regime was not one of the most constant, consistent, and dedicated backers of terrorism world wide, especially against the United States.
Or, if your are too lazy or otherwise unwilling to go to the article, I'll make an attempt to bring it to you.
-
Their opposition to Bush has forced a lot of democratic liberals to say something that I never thought I'd hear them say ... "I am not my brother's keeper."
-
“Inever believed in the link between Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden,
al Qaeda, and Islamist terrorism,” former Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright flatly declared in an October 21 essay published in Australia’s
Melbourne Herald Sun.i
“Iraq was not a breeding ground for terrorism. Our invasion has made it
one,” said Senator Ted Kennedy (D–Massachusetts) on October 16. “We were
told Iraq was attracting terrorists from al Qaeda. It was not.”ii
As President Bush continues to lead America’s involvement in Iraq, he
increasingly is being forced to confront those who dismiss Saddam Hussein’s ties
to terrorism and, thus, belittle a key rationale for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Bush’s
critics wield a flimsy and disingenuous argument that nonetheless enjoys growing
appeal among a largely hostile press corps. Hussein did not personally order the
September 11 attacks, the fuzzy logic goes, hence he has no significant ties to terrorists,
especially al Qaeda. Consequently, the Iraq war was launched under
bogus assumptions, and, therefore, Bush should be defeated in November 2004.
West Virginia’s Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ranking
Democrat, exemplified this thinking recently when he told the Los Angeles Times
that Iraq’s alleged al Qaeda ties were “tenuous at best and not compelling.”iii In a
September 16 editorial, the L.A. Times slammed Vice President Dick Cheney for
making “sweeping, unproven claims about Saddam Hussein’s connections to terrorism.”
On August 7, former vice president Albert Gore stated flatly, “The evidence
now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin
Laden at all.”iv
All of these claims about a lack of ties between Hussein and terrorists, however,
are untrue, and it is important that debate on this vital issue be informed
by facts. The president
and his national
security team should
devote entire
speeches and publications—
complete with
names, documents,
and visuals, including
the faces of terrorists
and their innocent
victims—to remind
Americans and the
world that Baathist
Iraq was a general
store for terrorists,
complete with cash,
training, lodging, and
medical attention.
Indeed, this magazine
article could serve as a model for the kinds of communications
that the administration regularly should generate
to set the record straight about Hussein and terrorism and
reassert the reasons behind the Iraq mission.
Such an effort to reinvigorate U.S. public diplomacy on
Iraq should be easy. After all, the evidence of Hussein’s
cooperation with and support for global terrorists is abundant
and increasing, to wit:
Saddam Hussein’s Habitual Support for Terrorists
Both supporters and opponents of Islamic terror have provided
abundant evidence of Hussein’s aid for a wide array
of terrorists. Consider the following.
• Hussein paid bonuses of up to $25,000 to the families
of Palestinian homicide bombers.
“President Saddam Hussein has recently told the head of
the Palestinian political office, Faroq al Kaddoumi, his decision
to raise the sum granted to each family of the martyrs of
the Palestinian uprising to $25,000 instead of $10,000,”
Iraq’s former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, announced
at a Baghdad meeting of Arab politicians and businessmen
on March 11, 2002, Reuters reported two days later.v
Mahmoud Besharat, who the White House says disbursed
these funds across the West Bank, gratefully said,
“You would have to ask President Saddam why he is being
so generous. But he is a revolutionary and he wants this
distinguished struggle, the intifada, to continue.”vi
Such largesse poured forth until the eve of the Iraq war.
As Knight-Ridder’s Carol Rosenberg reported from
Gaza City last March 13: “In a graduation-style ceremony
Wednesday, the families of 22 Palestinians killed fighting
Israelis received checks for $10,000 or more, certificates of
appreciation and a kiss on each cheek—compliments of
Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.” She added: “The certificates
declared the gift from President Saddam Hussein; the checks
were cut at a Gaza branch of the Cairo-Amman bank.”
This festivity, attended by some 400 people and organized
by the then-Baghdad-backed Arab Liberation Front,
occurred March 12, just eight days before American-led
troops crossed the Iraqi frontier.vii
Hussein’s patronage of Palestinian terror proved fatally
fruitful. Between the March 11, 2002, increase in cash incentives
to $25,000 and the March 20, 2003, launch of
Operation Iraqi Freedom, 28 homicide bombers injured
1,209 people and killed 223 more, including 12 Americans.viii
• According to the U.S. State Department’s May 21,
2002, report on Patterns of Global Terrorism,ix the Abu
Nidal Organization (ANO), the Arab Liberation Front,
Hamas, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the Mujahedin-e-
Khalq Organization, and the Palestine Liberation Front
all operated offices or bases in Hussein’s Iraq. Hussein’s
hospitality toward these mass murderers directly violated
United Nations Security Council Resolution 687,
which prohibited him from granting safe haven to or
otherwise sponsoring terrorists.
• Key terrorists enjoyed Hussein’s warmth, some so
recently that Coalition
forces subsequently found
them alive and well and
living in Iraq. Among
them:
• U.S. Special Forces
nabbed Abu Abbas last
April 14 just outside
Baghdad. Abbas masterminded
the October 7–9,
1985, Achille Lauro
cruise ship hijacking in
which Abbas’s men shot
passenger Leon
Klinghoffer, a 69-year
old Manhattan retiree,
then rolled him, wheelchair
and all, into the
Mediterranean. Abbas
briefly was in Italian custody
at the time, but was
released that October 12
because he possessed an
Iraqi diplomatic passport.
Since 2000, Abbas resided in Baghdad, still under Saddam
Hussein’s protection.x
• Khala Khadr al Salahat, a member of
the ANO, surrendered to the First
Marine Division in Baghdad on April 18.
As the Sunday Times of London reported
on August 25, 2002, a Palestinian
source said that al Salahat and Nidal
had furnished Libyan agents the Semtex
bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103
over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December
21, 1988, killing 259 on board and 11
on the ground. The 189 Americans murdered
on the sabotaged Boeing 747
included 35 Syracuse University students
who had spent the fall semester in
Scotland and were heading home for
the holidays.xi
• Before fatally shooting himself in the
head with four bullets on August 16,
2002, as straight-faced Baathist officials
claimed, Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal
(born Sabri al Banna) had lived in Iraq
since at least 1999. As the Associated
Press’s Sameer N. Yacoub reported on
August 21, 2002, the Beirut office of the
ANO said that he entered Iraq “with the
full knowledge and preparations of the
Iraqi authorities.”xii Nidal’s attacks in 20
countries killed 407 people and
wounded 788 more, the U.S. State
Department calculates. Among other
atrocities, an ANO-planted bomb
exploded on a TWA airliner as it flew
from Israel to Greece on September 8, 1974. The jet
was destroyed over the Ionian Sea, killing all 88 people
on board.xiii
• Coalition troops have shut down at least three terrorist
training camps in Iraq, including a base approximately
15 miles southeast of Baghdad, called Salman Pak.xiv
Before the war, numerous Iraqi defectors had said that
the camp featured a passenger jet on which terrorists
sharpened their air piracy skills.xv
“There have been several confirmed sightings of Islamic
fundamentalists from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Gulf states
being trained in terror tactics at the Iraqi intelligence camp
at Salman Pak,” said Khidir Hamza, Iraq’s former nuclearweapons
chief, in sworn testimony before the U.S. Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on July 31, 2002. “The training
involved assassination, explosions, and hijacking.”xvi
“This camp is specialized in exporting terrorism to the
whole world,” former Iraqi army captain Sabah Khodada
told PBS’s Frontline TV program in an October 14, 2001
interview.xvii Khodada, who worked at Salman Pak, said,
“Training includes hijacking and kidnapping of airplanes,
trains, public buses, and planting explosives in cities . . . how
to prepare for suicidal operations.” Khodada added, “We saw
people getting trained to hijack airplanes. . . . They are even
trained how to use utensils for food, like forks and knives
provided in the plane.” A map of the camp that Khodada
drew from memory for Frontline closely matches satellite
photos of Salman Pak, further bolstering his credibility.xviii
These facts clearly disprove the above-quoted statements
by Senator Kennedy and the Los Angeles Times and
similar claims made by others. The Bush administration
could advance American interests by busing a few dozen foreign
correspondents and their camera crews from the bar of
Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel to Salman Pak for a guided tour.
Network news footage of that might open a few eyes.
-
rofl... the Hudson Institute?
My turn:
:rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl
-
Saddam Hussein’s al Qaeda Connections
As for Hussein’s supposedly imaginary ties to al Qaeda, consider
these disturbing facts:
• The Philippine government expelled Hisham al
Hussein, the second secretary at Iraq’s Manila embassy,
on February 13, 2003. Cell phone records indicate that
the Iraqi diplomat had spoken with Abu Madja and
Hamsiraji Sali, leaders of Abu Sayyaf, just before and
just after their al Qaeda-allied Islamic militant group
conducted an attack in Zamboanga City. Abu Sayyaf’s
nail-filled bomb exploded on October 2, 2002, injuring
23 individuals and killing two Filipinos and U.S. Special
Forces Sergeant First Class Mark Wayne Jackson, age
40. As Dan Murphy wrote in the Christian Science
Monitor last February 26, those phone records bolster
Sali’s claim in a November 2002 TV interview that the
Iraqi diplomat had offered these Muslim extremists
Baghdad’s help with joint missions.xix
• The Weekly Standard’s intrepid reporter Stephen F.
Hayes noted in the magazine’s July 11, 2003, issue that
the official Babylon Daily Political Newspaper published
by Hussein’s eldest son, Uday, had revealed a terrorist connection
in what it called a “List of Honor” published a few months
earlier.xx The paper’s November 14, 2002, edition gave the
names and titles of 600 leading Iraqis and included the following
passage: “Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, intelligence offi-
cer responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama
bin Laden group at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan.” That name,
Hayes wrote, “matches that of Iraq’s then-ambassador to
Islamabad.”
Carter-appointed federal appeals judge Gilbert S. Merritt discovered
this document in Baghdad while helping rebuild Iraq’s
legal system. He wrote in the June 25 issue of the Tennessean
that two of his Iraqi colleagues remember secret police agents
removing that embarrassing edition from newsstands and con-
fiscating copies of it from private homes.xxi The paper was not
published for the next 10 days. Judge Merritt theorized that the
“impulsive and somewhat unbalanced” Uday may have showcased
these dedicated Baathists to “make them more loyal and
supportive of the regime” as war
loomed.
• Abu Musab al Zarqawi, formerly
the director of an al Qaeda training
base in Afghanistan, fled to
Iraq after being injured as the
Taliban fell. He received medical
care and convalesced for two
months in Baghdad. He then
opened an Ansar al Islam terrorist
training camp in northern Iraq
and arranged the October 2002
assassination of U.S. diplomat
Lawrence Foley in Amman,
Jordan.
• Although Iraqi Ramzi Yousef,
ringleader of the February 26,
1993, World Trade Center (WTC)
bombing plot, fled the United
States on Pakistani papers, he
came to America on an Iraqi passport.
• As Richard Miniter, author of this
year’s bestseller Losing bin Laden,
reported on September 25, 2003,
on the Tech Central Station webpage,
“U.S. forces recently discovered
a cache of documents in
Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown,
which shows Iraq gave [al Qaeda
member] Mr. [Abdul Rahman] Yasin both a house and a
monthly salary.” The Indiana-born, Iraqi-reared Yasin had been
charged in August 1993 for mixing the chemicals in the bomb
that exploded beneath One World Trade Center, killing six and
injuring 1,042 individuals.xxii Indicted by federal prosecutors as
a conspirator in the WTC bomb plot, Yasin is on the FBI’s Most-
Wanted Terrorists list.xxiii ABC News confirmed, on July 27,
1994, that Yasin had returned to Baghdad, where he traveled
freely and visited his father’s home almost daily.xxiv
• Near Iraq’s border with Syria last April 25, U.S. troops captured
Farouk Hijazi, Hussein’s former ambassador to Turkey and suspected
liaison between Iraq and al Qaeda. Under interrogation,
Stephen Hayes reports, Hijazi “admitted meeting with senior al
Qaeda leaders at Saddam’s behest in 1994.”xxv
• While sifting through the Mukhabarat’s bombed ruins last April
26, the Toronto Star’s Mitch Potter, the
London Daily Telegraph’s Inigo Gilmore, and
their translator discovered a memo in the
intelligence service’s accounting department.
Dated February 19, 1998, and marked “Top
Secret and Urgent,” the document said that
the agency would pay “all the travel and hotel
expenses inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of
the message from bin Laden and to convey to
his envoy an oral message from us to bin
Laden, the Saudi opposition leader, about the
future of our relationship with him, and to
achieve a direct meeting with him.” The
memo’s three references to bin Laden were
obscured crudely with correction fluid.xxvi
These facts directly refute the claims of
Senator Rockefeller and Secretary Albright mentioned
at the top of this article. The ties between
Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda are clear and compelling.
Despite the White House’s inexplicable insistence
to the contrary, tantalizing clues suggest that
Saddam Hussein’s jaw might not have dropped to
the floor when fireballs erupted from the Twin
Towers two years ago.
• His Salman Pak terror camp taught terrorists
how to hijack passenger jets with cutlery, as
noted earlier.
• On January 5, 2000, Ahmad Hikmat Shakir—
an Iraqi VIP facilitator reportedly dispatched
from Baghdad’s embassy in Malaysia—greeted
Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi at Kuala
Lampur’s airport, where he worked. He then
escorted them to a local hotel, where these
September 11 hijackers met with 9-11 conspirators
Ramzi bin al Shibh and Tawfiz al Atash.
Five days later, according to Stephen Hayes,
Shakir disappeared. He was arrested in Qatar
on September 17, 2001, six days after al
Midhar and al Hamzi slammed American
Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, killing
216 people. Soon after he was apprehended,
authorities discovered documents on Shakir’s
person and in his apartment connecting him to
the 1993 WTC bomb plot and “Operation
Bojinka,” al Qaeda’s 1995 plan to blow up 12
jets simultaneously over the Pacific.xxvii
• Although the Bush administration has
expressed doubts, the Czech government
stands by its claim that September 11 leader
Mohamed Atta met in Prague in April 2001
with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim al Ani, an Iraqi
diplomat/intelligence agent. In a February 24
letter to James Beasley Jr., a Philadelphia
lawyer who represents the families of two
Twin Towers casualties, Czech UN Ambassador
Hynek Kmonicek embraced an October 26,
2001, statement by Czech Interior Minister Stanislav
Gross:
In this moment we can confirm, that during the
next stay of Mr. Muhammad [sic] Atta in the
Czech Republic, there was the contact with the
official of the Iraqi intelligence, Mr. Al Ani,
Ahmed Khalin Ibrahim Samir, who was on 22nd
April 2001 expelled from the Czech Republic on
the basis of activities which were not compatible
with the diplomatic status.”xxviii
Al Ani was expelled two weeks after the suspected
meeting with Atta for apparently hostile surveillance of
Radio Free Europe’s Prague headquarters. That building
also happened to house America’s anti-Baathist station,
Radio Free Iraq. The Czech government continues
to claim, in short, that the 9-11 mastermind Atta met
with at least one Iraqi intelligence official in the
months during which the attacks were orchestrated.
• A Clinton-appointed Manhattan federal judge, Harold
Baer, ordered Hussein, his ousted regime, Osama bin
Laden, and others to pay $104 million in damages to
the families of George Eric Smith and Timothy Soulas
(clients of Beasley, the aforementioned attorney), both
of whom were killed in the Twin Towers along with
2,750 others. “I conclude that plaintiffs have shown,
albeit barely, ‘by evidence satisfactory to the court’ that
Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al
Qaeda,” Baer ruled. An airtight case? Perhaps not, but
the court found that there was sufficient evidence to tie
Saddam Hussein to the September 11 attacks and
secure a May 7 federal judgment against him.xxix
If one takes the time to connect these dots—as is the
professional duty of journalists and politicians who address
this matter—a clear portrait emerges of Saddam Hussein as
a sugar daddy to global terrorists including al Qaeda and
even the 9-11 conspirators. As Americans grow increasingly
restless about Washington’s continuing military presence in
Iraq, to say nothing of what people think overseas, the
administration ought to paint this picture. So why won’t
they?
-
One Bush administration communications specialist told me
that the government is bashful about all of this because
these links are difficult to prove. And indeed they are. But
prosecuting the informational battle in the War on Terrorism
is not like prosecuting a Mafia don, which typically requires
rock-solid exhibits such as wiretap intercepts, hidden-camera
footage, DNA samples, and the testimony of deep-cover
“Mob rats.” On the contrary, it is important to emphasize, as
strongly as possible, that the United States need not—and in
fact should not—hold itself to courtroom standards of evidence
except when appearing before domestic or international
judges. The administration merely has to demonstrate
its claims and refute those of its opponents, not convict
Saddam Hussein before a jury of his peers.
Moreover, those who argue that Hussein was no terror
master do not hold themselves to such lofty standards of
proof, as the examples noted earlier demonstrate. The
appropriate standard of evidence, then, to be entirely fair to
both sides in this controversy, is not that of a trial, but
rather that of a hearing on whether a criminal suspect
should be indicted. In this respect, the “prosecution” defi-
nitely has a prima facie case that Hussein’s Iraq indeed was
a haven for terrorists until the moment U.S. troops invaded.
Terrorist attacks, of course, are meant to be at least as
shadowy as Cosa Nostra hit jobs. Although this makes
metaphysical proof elusive, it is possible
to reach reliable conclusions about
such matters, even conclusions solid
enough to justify military intervention.
Hence, the White House and its
relevant agencies owe it to the
American people to highlight what
they know about Saddam Hussein and
terrorism, even if some (though not
all) of this damning evidence is only
circumstantial.
Assuming that he wishes to influence
domestic and global opinion,
President Bush and his administration
immediately should guide Americans
and the world through these sometimes-
murky specifics and identify the
patterns and conclusions that have
arisen. Although the former Iraqi dictator
never may endure a courtroom
cross-examination, plenty of evidence
clearly exists in the public record (and
more should be declassified) to con-
firm that Saddam Hussein’s ouster,
Iraq’s liberation, and its current rehabilitation
were and are vital phases of
the continuing War on Terrorism. An
American failure in Iraq, conversely,
could reinstate the ancien regime and
restore Iraq’s status as Terror Central
Station.
President Bush and his top advisers
urgently need to present this case,
not haphazardly, but systematically
and in as comprehensive, well-documented,
and well-illustrated a fashion
as their vast resources will allow.
New York commentator Deroy
Murdock is a columnist with the
Scripps Howard News Service and a
Senior Fellow with the Atlas Economic
Research Foundation in Fairfax,
Virginia. This piece amplifies an earlier
version on National Review Online.
-
Capt Apothy with all his libralism would still rather see US GIs killed in action because of poor equipment than a possible conflict of interest w/ the VP. Nope you havnt said it but you havnt denied it either. You let your cold hatred of the pres. get in the way of morals and better judgment. I really wish librals could take their blinders off for a minute every now and then.
I see more librals now quaking in their boots because the war in Iraq is actually going better....a better Iraq might equal four more years of Bush....and they'd rather see it the other way around.
When I read in the paper the other day that the Marines lost the battle of Faluja (spelling) I knew it was over for them. They have resorted to re-writing history as it happens just to suit their needs. Its tragic that these Americans think this way but oh well...that's them.
-
Originally posted by Nash
rofl... the Hudson Institute?
My turn:
:rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl
Okay hotshot, you're so damned smart, prove it all wrong. Come on, show us your dazzling brilliance. Prove the article is false. Can you? Show us how your souces are better. Show us how they prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq for the express purpose of awarding lucrative contracts to Cheney Haliburton and its subsidiaries. Prove it. Back your baseless paranoid assumptions and theories up with something you seem to be EXTREMELY short on. FACTS
Show us, if you can, that Saddam Hussien was NOT exactly what the article says he was. And that there was no need to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussien because he was supporting terrorism.
And the article is just found at the Hudson Institue. It was originally written for the National Review Online.
Oh, by the way, did you READ the article, or did you just dismiss it out of hand because YOU don't LIKE the source?
-
Yeah, I read it. And I laughed.
This is your big link to terrorism? This paper? These guys are loony tunes. You prolly don't know it and just found the pdf particularly, erm, "tantalizing". In any event, (just between you and me), you shouldn't be the guy mentioning tinfoil hats.
"Despite the White House’s inexplicable insistence to the contrary, tantalizing clues suggest that Saddam Hussein’s jaw might not have dropped to the floor when fireballs erupted from the Twin Towers two years ago."
Hussein's jaw might not have dropped?!! OMG do you know what this means?!?!!!
Neither do I.
"One Bush administration communications specialist told me
that the government is bashful about all of this because
these links are difficult to prove."
But you beg to differ onnacount of this paper? If Bush had a link, he'd be whoring it. He aint, you and these nutjobs are, and well, it's funny dude.
-
Originally posted by capt. apathy
finally, now you're catching up with the rest of the country.
you see some people where a little faster on the uptake, which accounts for a formerly extremely popular president, not being quite so extremely popular anymore.
I didn't vote for the man the fist time around, and I don't think he's good for our country. but after 9/11, we traced the alquada terrorists to Afghanistan and had to invade. I supported that(as most of the country did), and supported Bush, he seemed to be making good decisions.
then they got on to the idea of invading Iraq. or more accurately they decided to start talking publicly about their plans to invade Iraq.
they saw money to be made and thought they could just toss it in with the whole 'war on terror' package. I guess they figured we where to stupid to tell one rag-head from another, and would cheer them on without wondering why we where fighting them.
it worked on a lot of people, but some Americans had been paying enough attention to ask why we where going after Iraq.
we got a bunch of different answers, not many made sense and when they fell apart this administration just pulled a new reason out of their ass.
for the billionth time, let go through some of them again-
1. it's because they won't cooperate with the UN and follow UN resolutions.
A: thats the UN's job to enforce UN resolutions. and the UN doesn't want us to go in. you can't go against someones wishes and say your actions are in support of them. so reason #1 is BS
2. they have WMD that are an immediate threat to our countries security.
A: they haven't been found. much of the 'proof' that they where there at the time of invasion was found to be unreliable or just plain fabricated. had they actually had them and were ready to use them, why didn't they use them on us when we invaded? SH faces a good chance of execution as it is, he had nothing to lose by using these weapons to try and keep his country.
if you use the argument that he didn't because he was afraid of our reaction, then that would cancel out the whole argument of them being a threat to our security, since he was afraid to use them on us.
to sum up reason #2 is BS
3. SH is a evil man and should be taken out of office.
A: simply put it's not our job. our politicians are elected to look after the best interest of America, not Iraq. policing other peoples gov'ts is that countries business, not ours. worst case scenario the UN can deal with it.
sum up reason #3- it is not our war to fight.
4. this administration ran this war for private reasons, mostly relating to profit. the war sold to America was just a scam to pull it off. they used it as a way to drain our Treasury and the only Americans to see any benefit are those who make money off of war. good men died, wifes are widows, children are fatherless, families separated and members of this administration and their buddy's are richer.
A: and your well thought out reason why this isn't possible is ":rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl "
well at least you thought it through :rolleyes:
I never said it was not possible. I said the idea was absurd and ludicrous.
You however, propose that it is not only possible, but that you believe it to be the truth.
However, for all your baseless accusations and assumptions, you provide no FACTS. You provide no hard evidence that Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq for the express purpose of of ripping off the United States citizens and enriching Cheney Haliburton.
Now, since CLINTON went into the nasty mess in Europe (yeah, you know the one) WITHOUT UN AUTHORIZATION and then awarded Cheney Haliburton several lucrative no bid contracts, then it would be just as easy to accuse CLINTON and GORE of doing what you accuse Bush and Cheney of, by merely inferring that Cheney Haliburton, being as crooked and greedy as you claim they are, greased the right palms in the Clinton-Gore administration.
See, it is just as easy to make accusations that are unfounded and baseless so long as you don't have to back them up with FACTS.
So, why don't you provide some FACTS to PROVE that Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq to award lucrative no bid contracts to Haliburton? That is, if you have some.
-
Originally posted by Gunslinger
Capt Apothy with all his libralism would still rather see US GIs killed in action because of poor equipment than a possible conflict of interest w/ the VP. Nope you havnt said it but you havnt denied it either. You let your cold hatred of the pres. get in the way of morals and better judgment.
really did you read this thread.
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Gunslinger
So does the VP still own a good share of haliburton?
If so you'd rather our troops have substandard service/equipment wich may endanger them than have a "potential" conflict of interest?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
he does.
no I'd rather this administration hadn't sent our troops overseas to generate business for companies owned by members of that administration.
you asked 2 questions
the first I answered "he does"
for the second I relied 'no' ( that's a denial, for for anyone who may be lagging behind in reading comprehension)
and explained how I'd have preferred he avoid a conflict of interest. or if the war was really necessary he could have sold his shares before taking this route.
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Some of these guys should limit themselves to one question at a time.
When they ask more, they tend to jumble up alla answers into some kind of personal affront of jihad anti-amreekan blasphemist librahl zombieist proportions.
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Originally posted by Nash
Yeah, I read it. And I laughed.
This is your big link to terrorism? This paper? These guys are loony tunes. You prolly don't know it and just found the pdf particularly, erm, "tantalizing". In any event, (just between you and me), you shouldn't be the guy mentioning tinfoil hats.
[/b]
That is your opinion. You may or may not be right. PROVE it wrong. Calling them names PROVES NOTHING. Like I said, you and captain apathy are trumpeting this paranoid theory that Iraq was invaded for the express purpose of awarding lucrative contracts to Haliburton, but you offer NO PROOF, and NO FACTS to support the theory.
You call the article false, and say it was written by 'loony tunes". But you offer ZERO proof to refute what was written. Got any proof of what you say? The article quotes reliable sources from multiple sides of the arguement, including Clinton Secretary of State Albright.
"Despite the White House’s inexplicable insistence to the contrary, tantalizing clues suggest that Saddam Hussein’s jaw might not have dropped to the floor when fireballs erupted from the Twin Towers two years ago."
Hussein's jaw might not have dropped?!! OMG do you know what this means?!?!!!
Neither do I.
Pretty simple, even you should be able to figure out the guy is saying Saddam Hussien was not surprised when it happened.
"One Bush administration communications specialist told me
that the government is bashful about all of this because
these links are difficult to prove."
But you beg to differ onnacount of this paper? If Bush had a link, he'd be whoring it. He aint, you and these nutjobs are, and well, it's funny dude. [/B]
Like I said, PROVE the article false. Prove the guys who wrote it are "nut jobs". Offer published articles with compelling evidence to refute what is in the article. At the very least. And while you're at it, offer published articles showing facts that prove your position that Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq for the express purpose of awarding Haliburton lucrative no bid contracts, in order to rip off the citizens of the United States, at the expense of the lives of U.S. servicemen. Go ahead, I'd like to read them.
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wow. Thanks for carrying the torch, Nash.
I am not worthy!
Ravs
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
really did you read this thread.
you asked 2 questions
the first I answered "he does"
for the second I relied 'no' ( that's a denial, for for anyone who may be lagging behind in reading comprehension)
and explained how I'd have preferred he avoid a conflict of interest. or if the war was really necessary he could have sold his shares before taking this route.
so your answer is you'd rather them not be there in the first place.....BUT THEY ARE THERE and haliburton is the best company around to provide them service AND THEY'VE BEEN DOING IT SINCE CLINTON and before.
So NOW you say you want cheney to sell his shares....So this fuss isnt about the big bad evil corporation at all its about Cheney. I see clearly now thank you
and you still havnt stated you'd rather the troops have the best equipment and services possible even if there is a "possible conflict of intrest"
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No Gunslinger.
People who have a personal financial interest in corporations should not be in that conflicting position.
It's really easy. Sell your shares and get out so you can be seen to be working for the intersts of your country and not your own.
It's not that difficult a concept, surely?
Ravs
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Well I would LIKE to prove all that to you, CVH, but wouldn't ya know it the batteries died on my wire taps.
pfffft...
I ain't "trumpeting this paranoid theory that Iraq was invaded for the express purpose of awarding lucrative contracts to Haliburton."
But that doesn't seem to stop you from refuting it. There's a word for that style of argument.
Fact: The reasons given for the Iraq invasion turned out to be BS.
Fact: Cheney is making a boatload of money off this war.
Are we okay with these facts so far?
Good. Now, I aint drawing any conclusions. What I'm saying is:
Anyone who stands to profit from war should not be allowed a position to create one.
If this were the case, you wouldn't now be in the unenviable position of citing ridiculous articles to prop up a position that not even your popular leaders will touch, for the express purpose of knocking down a position that nobody is taking in the first place.
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SNAP!
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Originally posted by ravells
No Gunslinger.
People who have a personal financial interest in corporations should not be in that conflicting position.
It's really easy. Sell your shares and get out so you can be seen to be working for the intersts of your country and not your own.
It's not that difficult a concept, surely?
Ravs
so because he has shares in the company the troops should not have the best possible service and equipment?
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NO!
For GODS SAKE! HE should get the hell out of the company!
Ravs
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Originally posted by ravells
NO!
For GODS SAKE! HE should get the hell out of the company!
Ravs
NOT ONE OF YOU HAVE ANSWERED A SIMPLE QUESTION?
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You'd LIKE to prove it but you CAN'T.
You cannot even bring anything that refutes an article you claim was written by "nut jobs", and that I should be ashamed of citing.
If you cannot offer any proof to refute anything, why should I feel my position is "unenviable"?
I'll grant you that it would be difficult to prove your charges against Bush and Cheney along with Haliburton.
So, that part of it aside, you still have shown nothing to refute the article's statements regarding Saddam Hussien's backing of terrorism. Why? You repeatedly state that it was written by "nut jobs" but you provide no facts to prove it wrong. Again, PROVE IT. If it is a load of crap written by "nut jobs", surely a person of your supposedly intimidating intellect should be able to destroy it with "the truth" with little or no effort. Come on, share your amazing intellect and all those facts you have to prove the article is nothing more than the mindless ravings of "nut jobs".
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um...what was the question?
ravs
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Originally posted by ravells
For GODS SAKE! HE should get the hell out of the company!Ravs
Better yet, donate the profits to the widows. Who is this guy and why does he get to win from all this misery?
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
so because he has shares in the company the troops should not have the best possible service and equipment?
you can't possibly be this slow and still manage to get your computer to the internet.
so at this point I gotta figure you know this war is a travesty, and that you've just been trolling, you got me nice catch.
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Yeah like I'm going to give my life to orphans, Nash.
I'm only asking for second best
Ravs
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Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
So, that part of it aside, you still have shown nothing to refute the article's statements regarding Saddam Hussien's backing of terrorism. Why? You repeatedly state that it was written by "nut jobs" but you provide no facts to prove it wrong. Again, PROVE IT. If it is a load of crap written by "nut jobs", surely a person of your supposedly intimidating intellect should be able to destroy it with "the truth" with little or no effort. Come on, share your amazing intellect and all those facts you have to prove the article is nothing more than the mindless ravings of "nut jobs".
there is no need to refute it. he has backed terrorists to one degree or another. we have supported terrorists(wasn't it the US who provided training to Bin Laden in the 80's ?). Saudi Arabia has supported terrorists, just about every country in the mid-east has supported terrorists. and many of them had much more direct ties to our attacks.
if Bush intends to overthrow every gov't who has supported terrorists he should really announce his plans for WW3 before the next election. the American public should be allowed to take that into account before going to the polls. and once he's done with the rest of the world what is he gonna do about us and our ties? well to be fair he's already made a pretty good run at making our America suffer.
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CVH,
You cite some article. You put faith in it as proof. Then you say that in order to refute it, I must also post some proof. I don't have to go quite so far into the realm of quack as you to also cite "proof". And lots of it.
Would it be proof of anything? Nah.
So get over this reliance on proof. Unless we are there with our Nikons and mini-cassetes we don't have any, you or I.
"There are known knowns and known unknowns". - Rummy
Again, there are two things we do know. I mentioned them above. They obviously trouble you, as they cannot be refuted by any think tank of whatever slant.
You should be right pissed off at having to sound like a nutjob for the purposes of defending crooks that might even be innocent of this.
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He already said, about two and a half years ago, that any nation that supported terrorism was subject to be a candidate for regime change. So he's already announced his plans to topple governments that support terrorism. Maybe you missed it. You know, the "Axis of Evil". Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. I think Iraq was at the top of the list. He started with the country he stated since the beginning of the war on terror to be the prime candidate for regime change. Seems like he stated his plan a while back, and stuck to it.
I seem to remember everyone squawling about Reagan calling the Soviet Union "the Evil Empire", and Reagan sticking to his guns and going ahead with his plans to defeat the Soviet Union.
Kind of like they all squawled about Bush and his "Axis of Evil" speech. Not that Bush is anything close to Reagan. But he stuck to what he said and took on Saddam and Iraq, with help from our Allies like the British and others.
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"Maybe you missed it. You know, the "Axis of Evil".
A Canadian speechwriter wrote the Bush "Axis of Evil" SOTU speech. Coined the term. Take that for what it's worth. :)
So it's doctrine that, no matter how ridiculous the premise, nor how hypocritical the practise, yer lot cling to.
You're either with us or against us.
Here's a riddle: I'm with ya here, against ya there. What am I?
Reality. Wanna fight about it?
Please don't try to use SOTU speeches for anything more than what they are.
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Originally posted by Nash
CVH,
You cite some article. You put faith in it as proof. Then you say that in order to refute it, I must also post some proof. I don't have to go quite so far into the realm of quack as you to also cite "proof". And lots of it.
Would it be proof of anything? Nah.
So get over this reliance on proof. Unless we are there with our Nikons and mini-cassetes we don't have any, you or I.
"There are known knowns and known unknowns". - Rummy
Again, there are two things we do know. I mentioned them above. They obviously trouble you, as they cannot be refuted by any think tank of whatever slant.
You should be right pissed off at having to sound like a nutjob for the purposes of defending crooks that might even be innocent of this.
I'm not the least pissed off. I really don't give a damn if you or other great minds here think I sound like a nut job. Confirms to me that I'm on the right track.
What you said does not trouble me. You simply do not understand.
1. I don't give a damn how much money Haliburton makes working for the government. And I do not care if Cheney owns a major part of the stock in Haliburton. This does not trouble me.
2. I figured all along that the Weapons of Mass Distraction would have been moved in one way or another before we invaded. Especailly given that we gave them about 18 months to do it. I figured Saddam would sell them, and attempt to bug out. I also counted on the fact that he and his sons were severely delusional in their belief that they'd survive and escape to enjoy the proceeds.
I just want to see what it is you are basing your arguement against that article on, other than your preconcieved notions and your bias against that side of the arguement. Is that too much to ask?
Hey, I gave you a free pass on the accusations against Bush and Cheney regarding the supposed invasion of Iraq simply to make Haliburton and Cheney richer. Really hard to prove. I grant you that.
But I really thought you'd at least offer something to refute that Saddam harbored and supported all of those terrorists. Because if you don't, then I am satisfied that preventing Saddam from offering support to those he already had, and those he would in the future, is reason enough for the invasion.
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He already said, about two and a half years ago, that any nation that supported terrorism was subject to be a candidate for regime change.
cool, so can we expect him to keep his word and bow out of the elections? we could really use a regime change.
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Sadly, I suspect that the terrorists are going to try to effect 'regime change' in emerica just before their elections.
ala Spain
Ravs
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
you can't possibly be this slow and still manage to get your computer to the internet.
so at this point I gotta figure you know this war is a travesty, and that you've just been trolling, you got me nice catch.
yea yea yea....I read your post...."you'd rather cheny not be involved w/ haliburton"
But the question is simple.....Do you want US troops to have the best possible equipment and services?
Its simple....you can type yes....or you can type no.
Yet you have avoided that question like the plague.....Funny thing is if Al Gore was president and Joe Liberman had stock in a body armor company none of this would even matter. No one would ask him to sell his stock.
Its a simple question yet you do not answer it
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Originally posted by ravells
Sadly, I suspect that the terrorists are going to try to effect 'regime change' in emerica just before their elections.
ala Spain
Ravs
Kerry had better hope not.
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
cool, so can we expect him to keep his word and bow out of the elections? we could really use a regime change.
Good luck. :rolleyes: :rofl
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Well let's see what happens.
They seem to specialise in elections.
ravs
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In light of your "harbouring terrorists" position, can you tell me why Iraq was invaded instead of Saudi Arabia, the nationality of the 9/11 terrorists? Iraq harbours more terrorists than the Saudis?
Or how about the phat checks Hussein wrote to the Palestinean suicide bombers. Why not attack the Palestinean suicide bombers themselves?
If you give me one of them "well we gotta start somewhere, look out world!" answers I'm gonna hurl.
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Good luck.
ya, I know. I didn't really believe him either.
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Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
But this extremely popular and successful President
Not anymore he's not....
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=5395116
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You're up early Shaden
what gives?
Ravs
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Originally posted by Nash
In light of your "harbouring terrorists" position, can you tell me why Iraq was invaded instead of Saudi Arabia, the nationality of the 9/11 terrorists? Iraq harbours more terrorists than the Saudis?
Or how about the phat checks Hussein wrote to the Palestinean suicide bombers. Why not attack the Palestinean suicide bombers themselves?
If you give me one of them "well we gotta start somewhere, look out world!" answers I'm gonna hurl.
Iraq refused to cooperate in the war on terror. The hijackers were Saudis, as is OBL. However, the Saudis are at least making some sort of effort to cooperate in the war on terror. How sincere and competent that effort is, is in fact subject of great question. OBL is a sworn enemy of the Saudi royal family. He's even an outcast to his own Saudi family.
While OBL is himself a disenchanted Saudi, and is in fact PNG in Saudi Arabia, and he recruits other disenchanted Saudis, he is supposedly still operating in AFGHANISTAN. Hardly a sound reason to invade Saudi Arabia.
If the hijackers were Muslims from Norway (just an example, not a knock on Norway) would it then be a valid option to invade Norway, even though the base of operations was not in Norway, but the perps were citizens of Norway? This is the rationale you provide to invade Saudi Arabia as opposed to Iraq, and it really doesn't hold up.
Considering that the U.S. is attempting to broker peace between the Israelis and the "Palestinians", we could hardly just drop into Israel and "Palestine" and go after "Palestinian" terrorists. That would be a little too obvious an example of taking one side or the other, leaving no grey area from which to negotiate. Besides, the Israelis are doing a pretty good job on the leaders of the terror groups that run the bombing operations. Witness their recent successful attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.
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Originally posted by _Schadenfreude_
Not anymore he's not....
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=5395116
LOL. Polls. Often the most useless of all misinformation. Just find the poll you like that fits your position and run with it. You can find a poll to fit any view if you look long enough.
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Same with think tank papers. Yet it's supposed to actually mean something when ya parrot them.
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so apothy....I'm too slow to run the internet yet you cannot answer a simple question....Hmmmm...must be those libral defense mechanisms kicking in
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Originally posted by Nash
Same with think tank papers. Yet it's supposed to actually mean something when ya parrot them.
Especially when someone who does not like what they say thinks so, but refuses to offer a shred of evidence to disprove them.
Except for the fact that the article in question was not written for the think tank, and offers a laundry list of sources for quotes and facts. But the person claiming that it is the work of "nut jobs" offers nothing to counter any of it.
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This whole proof thing of yours is nuts.
Here's bullet 3 of your so-called proof:
"Key terrorists enjoyed Hussein’s warmth, some so recently that Coalition forces subsequently found them alive and well and living in Iraq."
What IS that?
Now I gotta come up with proof to dispute that?
Okay, I say that sources close to Hussein indicate that he is indeed NOT a warm man. Cold even, some suggest.
Prove me wrong.
This is retarded.
Yours isn't proof. Nor would mine be. I'll not waste the effort in parroting BS to refute your BS.
There are known knowns, and known unknowns. I dislike the guy who came up with this Straussian shuffle but it does make sense.
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You can only call it Bravo Sierra because you seem to be incapable of refuting any of it.
It fits perfectly well with my position that Saddam Hussien was supporting terrorism actively and with serious resources and effort. Those people were there, and the entire world knows who they are or were, and what they were guilty of. And that fits perfectly with my position that removal of Saddam Hussien was justified in my opinion on the basis of his massive and concerted support and harboring of terrorists.
See I think that if you could offer some proof to me that those people were not there, they did not commit those terrorists acts, and Saddam Hussien did not invite them, welcome them, harbor them, and support them, then I'd have to rethink my position that the invasion was justified.
I'm simply looking for your side of the arguement that refutes the article with facts, and gives me reason to rethink my position.
Why you offer none, and continually refuse to do so, is beyond me.
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Why I offer no rebuttle is because frankly, I'm over it.
This crap, all of it, has been beaten to death here... and why you have the impression that anything I say would stand out as some kind of fresh perspective or shocking new Truth is beyond me. But...
Here's the weirdness:
"It fits perfectly well with my position...."
"And that fits perfectly with my position that ..."
Get over your sweet self. It fits well with your position? Dude - it CREATED your position!
Are you telling me you have some personal mid-east terrorist experience that these articles accurately depict?
No... You read these articles, came up with a position based on them, then use the same articles to support your position.
A joke. And you call it proof.
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Wrong again. It DID NOT create my position. The article is fairly recent compared to my position, which predates 11 September 2001, and in fact dates back almost to the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in August of 1991.
My position goes as far back as the first Bush administration. It has been confirmed by several sources since then. It has been my position that Saddam Hussien supported and supplied terrorism in a very active manner for well over a decade.
So get over yourself, your assumption is again false. You don't know nearly as much about my position and the reasons behind it as you think you do.
Do I have personal experience in the Middle East? No, I do not. An injury from football ended any hopes I held of a military career before it could begin. As such, I'm also not a likely candidate for a position in the intelligence agencies either, since they nearly universally require military background for any positions I was interested in.
Do YOU have any personal experience in the Middle East? If not, then you have no better personal basis for your position than I have for mine.
I do not claim to be omnipotent. You may actually have read something that I have not that would give me reason to at least reconsider my position in part or in whole. But you offer none. Too bad.
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What is your experience of the Middle East, Virgil?
Yes, VIRGIL....man on little strings?
What is your experience of the middle east, eh? Couldn't even get into the oxymoron which is military Intelligence?
I have personal experience of the middle east, so address your questions to me, you .. you..... thunderbirds puppet.
hah
ravs
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Originally posted by ravells
What is your experience of the Middle East, Virgil?
Yes, VIRGIL....man on little strings?
What is your experience of the middle east, eh? Couldn't even get into the oxymoron which is military Intelligence?
I have personal experience of the middle east, so address your questions to me, you .. you..... thunderbirds puppet.
hah
ravs
Only what people I know who have been there and or were born there tell me. I once had several friends who came over from Jordan in 1979. They were regulars at my shop, and spoke of the region often. However, since they LEFT Jordan to come here, their views could easily be tinted or slanted. I also have friends who are or were in the military and who have been there or are now. Some rotate in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan on a very regular basis.
I never tried to get into military intelligence. Like I said, I was ineligible for military service due to an injury. What I said was that since I could not get into the military, I also could not get into one of the intelligence agencies since they almost universally require military service as a prerequisite for positions I was interested in.
Yes, I'm aware of your ties to the Middle East, although currently I do not remember exactly what country you were originally from.
Enjoy your current state of inebriation.
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Actually Virgil, I have no ties to the middle east
I'm just pissed (and enjoying it). But thanks for the exposition
hah
Ravs
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
so apothy....I'm too slow to run the internet yet you cannot answer a simple question....Hmmmm...must be those libral defense mechanisms kicking in
sorry to have argued with someone who obviously has a reading disability(whether medical or chemically induced). I have answered your question on more than one occasion and specifically said you "weren't to slow to get to the net".
you seem to take in information as you'd like to see it, instead of what it actually is. this could go a long way toward explaining why you hold the opinions you do.
but please, continue to repeat your argument loudly and often. at this rate, you're complete inability to read and absorb the written word, is doing more to strengthen my position than anything I could say.
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Originally posted by ravells
Actually Virgil, I have no ties to the middle east
I'm just pissed (and enjoying it). But thanks for the exposition
hah
Ravs
Oh, I could have sworn I read in one of your posts that you were of Arab descent, and had left that area and moved to Britain.
I take it you mean pissed as in the British slang term for drunk. That I knew already.
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Originally posted by ravells
You're up early Shaden
what gives?
Ravs
I get in early in summer - leave at 4.00pm so am up at 5.00 and at the office at 7.00.....hehe we're expecting a merger anouncement any day now.....damn Bayer are looking awfully keen.
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
sorry to have argued with someone who obviously has a reading disability(whether medical or chemically induced). I have answered your question on more than one occasion and specifically said you "weren't to slow to get to the net".
you seem to take in information as you'd like to see it, instead of what it actually is. this could go a long way toward explaining why you hold the opinions you do.
but please, continue to repeat your argument loudly and often. at this rate, you're complete inability to read and absorb the written word, is doing more to strengthen my position than anything I could say.
No you have dodged the question like you are dodging it now. But that's ok.....it's in your nature
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Ok, last time for the truly simple minded
About 1/3 of the way down on the 3rd page of posts in this thread you ask your questions-
Quote________________________ __________
So does the VP still own a good share of haliburton?
If so you'd rather our troops have substandard service/equipment wich may endanger them than have a "potential" conflict of interest?
_____________________________
6 posts down from that I answer both of your questions
the first I answer “he does”
and the second I answer “NO”
13 posts later you again posted your line of crap and said I hadn’t answered your question.
4 posts later(and on the next page) I replied to that post, I quoted your post and your original questions in a futile attempt at not leaving you confused.
Then I again repeated my answers
#1 “he does”
#2 “NO”
I then repeated my answer to your questions again, and then, at this point doubting your ability to understand the written word, I went further to explain to you that the word ‘NO’ in response to your question was a denial.
4 more posts down and you reply, included in the reply was the quote from my above thread, in that quote was again my answer to your question and an explanation of what the word ‘no’ means. And go on to say that I haven’t answered your question with the wording you would prefer.
4 posts later you ask your 2nd question again, this time to Ravells
2 posts later you post “NOT ONE OF YOU HAVE ANSWERED A SIMPLE QUESTION?”
4 posts down I state my doubts as to the sincerity of your argument, since it’s now been answered several times yet you pretend not to see the answers-
“you can't possibly be this slow and still manage to get your computer to the internet.
so at this point I gotta figure you know this war is a travesty, and that you've just been trolling, you got me nice catch.”
8 posts later you post again that I have avoided the question (at this point I have answered it twice, posted a couple quotes in which it was answered, and even explained to you where it was answered at what the answer meant)
10 posts later in response to yourself I guess you posted-
” so apothy....I'm too slow to run the internet yet you cannot answer a simple question....Hmmmm...must be those libral defense mechanisms kicking in”
so 9 later I did stop answering your question. I just pointed out how you seem to see what you want and miss what you don’t want to see. You seem to be the one who has some sort of defense mechanism. No problem though, I can see where the ability to hide from the truth would be real handy if you felt the need to back this administration.
And 3 posts later you again accuse me of dodging the question when in fact it was you who was dodging the answer.
At this point my answer to your questions have been posted or quoted at least 4 times by me and a few by times by you (yes, you actually quoted my answers in posts where you said I didn’t answer your question)
I don’t expect everyone to hold the same opinions I have, and enjoy a decent argument, but in this case it’s like explaining algebra to a 2yr old.
You are either to simple minded to grasp the language of your own country, or intentionally obtuse. Either way you’re a waste of my time.
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no I'd rather this administration hadn't sent our troops overseas to generate bussines for companies owned by members of that administration
I take it back. You are saying that because you think the administration is getting rich off of war a substandard company needs to be hired or cheny cut his ties.
That is an answer but it means you would rather short change the troops. Haliburton isnt just invovled in Iraq.....they've been doing this sort of thing long befor Bush/Cheny.
If you would have said "NO, I want our troops to have the best possible gear" that would have been an answer.
THis is yet another example of a libral focusing soley on iraq.....this isnt all just about Iraq.
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GD apathy! you sumed most of an entire thread in one post! I feel your pain but take it easy on him man!! :lol :lol :lol
No ill-will meant gunslinger, but apathy's post was damn funny!!