America the Just

[ivbinconned]

wilagro I ask you again. Give us some constructive critisisim of Frums artical.

Just one point even, from IT, that you take issue with.

Come on...be brave, don't hide behind your sanctimonious, condisending retoric. Its un-becoming of a fine, tolerant, fair minded freedom loving "Canadain"!

With every word you write you confirm Frums argument. In our rush to be "different" we have become less free!

[FarmRanger]

Wilagro, if I thought Frum’s attacks were against all Canadians, I’d agree with you. His pointing out problems within our system of government will hopefully give rise to solutions. Spinning the facts, and shutting down ideas, because we don’t like the people who make them, is something we’ve seen too much of, and leads to worse problems. Can’t we discuss problems and solutions based on their merits?

You say he’s right wing like that’s a bad thing?! I happen to agree that some of the problems Frum listed are real and growing, and people on this forum would be happy to discuss any errors, or solutions you might have to offer?

[cowman]

Well first of all Sadam never had any nukes? And apparently he never had any weapons of mass destruction...just like the UN inspectors said? Again and again?
Sadam never tolerated Islamic extremists. He was a marxist who didn't want anything to do with religious fanatics.
He was a ruthless dictator and strongman who kept a diverse nation under his thumb? Maybe that is the only way possible in some of these countries? Yugoslavia might be a good example of what can happen to a country when the strong dictator(Tito) isn't around?
America has a tiger by the tail and can't let go and for what? Sadam did not pose any threat to the region after the Gulf war! Instead the USA has unified every crackpot terrorist in the world against them and as the bodies of American soldiers pile up they become even bolder? I suspect in the end the USA will be forced to cut and run like a dog with his tail between his legs? Vietnam all over again?

[dannytoro]

.....Well, I'll wade in again. Myself being a dual citizen of Canada and the USA, I'd have to say both countries have things they perform better at. For instance, Canada's education system is light years ahead of the USA. Over here Education has been in decline for over twenty years. Business of course is the USA cornerstone, our low tax base and over worked citizens do not ever seem to know what the "Experts" are talking about. Doom and Gloom is all they've said for as long as Dubya has been in office, yet every quarter seems a bit better then the last. The old git is going to look like a wizard after eight years, especially given the Dot.com bust and 9-11 , I have to admit that even though I've never voted for him. As far as governance overall, it seems like a worldwide malaise is everywhere. Coinfidence in government is not very high anywhere. Trade development, wow the Canadians are way out in front there, I can't wait to get back to Canada and try their great expertise to help my ideas. Nothing in the states is close. Taxes, Canada's taxes are way too high, or just high given some rural circumstances.Military? No question there, everyone knows what the US has. Canada is defaulting on NATO commitments they are so underfunded, for shame. Tolerance and social standing? Canada all the way. Enviroment? Canada tops again. Transport? America beats us like an un-wanted step child........Oh enough blather-lol

[cowman]

I usually get down to the States a couple of times a year if possible. Usually just to Montana as it is about a six hour drive to Great Falls.
I really enjoy the US and the way they do business! The people there have a very businesslike attitude. I don't think they are much different than Alberta in this regard?
Contrast that to Sakatchewan? I was astounded by the amount of "government businesses" in Saskatchewan and how when five o'clock rolls around everything shuts down! Quite an eye opener!
The roads in Montana can be atrocious! Fortunately the road to Great Falls is a very good highway...paid for by the Alberta government! Protectionist forces tried to limit access to Albertan products, citing truck size not measuring up to the road standards, so the Alberta government just said to hell with that and built a proper road!
Sort of took the wind out of their sails?

[ivbinconned]

Well cowman I am surprized. I doubt that YOU would look to the UN to back up ANYTHING or ANY other opinions you might have on ANY other subject. But when they back up your opinion about George Bush...wa-la they have credability!!

The UN never saw a dictator they didn't like. They where corrupt right to the top in the OIL-FOR-FOOD program with connections to the highest office in our country. Thus we are NOT involved in Iraq...BUT ARE elsewhere???

The US is invasion brought to an end this scam that the French government and its Canadian connections so enjoyed. It was not some GRAND PRINCIPLE that kept us out.

Go ahead and dislike Bush if you will but don't back up your bias by citing the UN.

That dog won't hunt.

[cowman]

Well I don't think I was backing up the UN just the inspectors? I think they were a pretty honorable bunch and I think the chief inspector was a Brit? The fact is they said there were NO weapons of mass destruction...and voila the US never found any!
Now the reason the USA invaded Iraq was to stop Sadam from having and using WMD? Later they had to morph that into "Sadam is an evil dictator who slaughtered the innocent", but only after they screwed up?
The facts show Sadam was basically powerless in the region. He did keep the bad boys honest in Iraq? No Al Quida bad boys when he was around?
Sadam got painted as a ruthless dictator, which he was, but Iraq also was light years ahead of most countries in regard to social programs and standard of living? Totally free health care and secondary education.

[ivbinconned]

Before I post the next two posts let me be clear. I do not belieave that the Bush administration is above reproach. This opinion is based on the FACT that we, the public, are faced with having to come to conclusions without having all the facts. That said, if I am forced to decide...I come down firmly on side of the US and its stated goals.

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11/28/05
By Michael Barone
The (Very) Big Lie

It is said that a big lie can work if it is repeated often enough. For weeks, leading Democrats have been hammering away at the Big Lie that George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Starting on Veterans Day, Bush, Dick Cheney, and others in the administration embarked on a "pushback," arguing that Bush--and many leading Democrats, including some now part of the Big Lie campaign--accurately characterized the intelligence at the time.
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Browse through an archive of columns by Michael Barone.

Bush, Cheney, and the administration have the truth on their side. Exhaustive and authoritative examinations of the prewar intelligence, by the bipartisan report of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004, by the Silberman-Robb commission in 2005, and by the British commission headed by Lord Butler, have established that U.S. intelligence agencies, and the intelligence organizations of leading countries like Britain, France, and Germany, believed that Saddam Hussein's regime was in possession of or developing weapons of mass destruction--chemical and biological weapons, which the regime had used before, and nuclear weapons, which it was working on in the 1980s.

To the charges that Bush "cherry-picked" intelligence, the commission cochaired by former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb found that the intelligence available to Bush but not to Congress was even more alarming than the intelligence Congress had. The Silberman-Robb panel also concluded, after a detailed investigation, that in no instance did Bush administration authorities pressure intelligence officials to alter their findings. Much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. But Bush didn't lie about it. Some Bush supporters argue that the pushback now is a mistake, because it prevents the administration from focusing on events going forward. But the damage to Bush's credibility is real, and he needs to repair it to speak credibly about the future. At the same time, we must remember that the United States and our allies did not go to war solely because of weapons of mass destruction. There were other reasons, which Bush articulated at the time and which have been vindicated by events.

One of them was to remove from power one of the most brutal regimes on Earth. Mainstream media have enjoyed focusing on isolated prison abuses by U.S. forces and, in the past week, by Iraqis. (Have the media ever focused so closely on prison conditions in our past wars?) But these abuses are nothing compared with what the Saddam Hussein regime did every day. **** rooms, prisoners fed into shredders, hundreds of mass graves: Do we really want to forget that the liberation of Iraq has vastly improved the lives of millions of people there?

Results. Another goal was to advance freedom and democracy in the Middle East--not just to help the people there but to change the mind-set of the region that produced the attacks of September 11. Before 2003, the dictators and authoritarian rulers of the region focused their peoples' inevitable discontent on the United States and Israel. Now the progress toward democracy in Iraq is leading Middle Easterners to concentrate on the question of how to build decent governments and decent societies. We can see the results--the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the first seriously contested elections in Egypt, Libya's giving up WMD s, the Jordanian protests against Abu Musab Zarqawi's recent suicide attacks, and even a bit of reform in Saudi Arabia. In Syria, the Washington Post' s David Ignatius reports, "People talk politics here with a passion I haven't heard since the 1980s in Eastern Europe. They're writing manifestos, dreaming of new political parties, trying to rehabilitate old ones from the 1950s."

Almost surely, none of this would have happened without the liberation of Iraq. And there democracy goes forward: Seventy-eight percent voted for the Constitution last month, and democratic parties are contesting the elections to be held next month. Against this backdrop, mainstream media headlined the call for U.S. withdrawal by Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who has long been skeptical of the war in Iraq. The propagators of the Big Lie against President Bush are trying to delegitimize not only him but also all the progress that has been made as a result of Iraq, progress both toward freedom for Middle Easterners and toward a Middle East that will no longer threaten the United States.
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Iraq had WMD, Nuclear capabilities [just lacked enriched uranimum] and thanks to the Oil for Palaces/chicks/terror program lots of money during the 1990s. So where is the WMD ?




Quote:
Tierney [bilingual former inspector]

In Iraq’s case, the lakes and rivers were the toilet, and Syria was the back door. Even though there was imagery showing an inordinate amount of traffic into Syria prior to the inspections, and there were other indicators of government control of commercial trucking that could be used to ship the weapons to Syria, from the ICs point of view, if there is no positive evidence that the movement occurred, it never happened. This conclusion is the consequence of confusing litigation with intelligence. Litigation depends on evidence, intelligence depends on indicators. Picture yourself as a German intelligence officer in Northern France in April 1944. When asked where will the Allies land, you reply “I would be happy to tell you when I have solid, legal proof, sir. We will have to wait until they actually land.” You won’t last very long. That officer would have to take in all the indicators, factor in deception, and make an assessment (this is a fancy intelligence word for an educated guess).

The Democrats understand the difference between the two concepts, but have no qualms about blurring the distinction for political gain. This is despicable. This has brought great harm to our nation’s credibility with our allies. A perfect example is Senator Levin waving deception by one single source, al-Libi, to try and convince us that this is evidence there was no connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, as though the entire argument rested on this one source. Senator Levin, and his media servants, think the public can’t read through his duplicity. He is plunging a dagger into the heart of his own country.

Could the assessments of Iraq’s weapons program been off? I am sure there were some marginal details that were incorrect, but on the matter of whether Iraq had a program, the error was not with the pre-war assessment, the error was with the weapons hunt.

I could speak at length about the problems with the weapons hunt. Mr. Hanson has an excellent article in “The American Thinker,” and Judith Miller, one of the few bright lights at the New York Times, did an article on the problems with the weapons hunt that I can corroborate from other sources. But if the Iraqi Survey Group had been manned by a thousand James Bonds, and every prop was where it should have been, I doubt the result would have been much different. The whole concept of international arms inspections puts too much advantage with the inspected country. Factor in the brutality used by the Baath Party, and it amounts to a winning combination for our opponents.

[cowman]

Perhaps you are right...or perhaps you shouldn't listen to so much propaganda?
I don't know...you could probably say the same to me?
Probably a majority of the American people do not support the continuing war in Iraq? Probably a good portion do not believe the Bush administration anymore? So I ask...why should we?
Somewhere down the road how will history view this war? You are probably old enough to remember Vietnam and all the BS that went on there? The propaganda, the heated debate, the idea "We must stop Communism"! What was accomplished? 50,000 dead boys, 2 million Vietnamese, an economy in shambles, an enriched arms industry and guess what....a communist nation of Vietnam! I would suggest that is where America is headed right now? Talk about dejavu!
Well Communism is sort of on the backburner these days, so I guess we need another enemy? Hey how about terrorism! An eternal perpetual enemy(ala 1984)...oh and by the way if we can get a spot of oil it would be nice?
Hey, lets go beat up on our old buddy Sadam(who we supported whole heartedly while he committed his most terrible atrocities)! We'll make him our enemy and rally the nation behind a great war so they won't ask how come we screwed up so bad with Osama(our other buddy)!
I wonder how history will treat Bush after the Americans come home with their tails between their legs?

[ivbinconned]

I don't think that you can point to Vietnam and suggest that it is a simular situation. I also don't know how you can conclude that IF they were wrong about Vietnam...they are always wrong!! All that proves is bias!

Your view I do know IS reinforced by CNN and the CBC which have little understanding of the terrorist mind set.

The Musslim believes that to get to glory he must live a good and honest life and do good works. Failing that, there is no provision for forgivness and grace. A dilemma...for which there is only one way out.

They believe that if they are martered in a jehad and kill infidels in the process then they can PASS "judgement" and go straight to glory. Thus the motivation to kill themselves.

The following can help put things in perspective and perhaps convince you that this is not a "Bush" issue...far from it! I will not post the whole artical but if you want to read more of it, I will.

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Commentary...
This war is for real
By Major General Vernon Chong, USAF, ret.

October 1, 2005

To get out of a difficulty, one usually must go through it. Our country is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII).

The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there are very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war, and even fewer who realize what losing really means.

First, let's examine a few basics:

1. When did the threat to us start?

Many will say September 11, 2001. The answer, as far as the United States is concerned, is 1979 – 22 years prior to September 2001 – with the following attacks on us:

Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979;
Beirut, Lebanon, Embassy, 1983;
Beirut, Lebanon, Marine Barracks, 1983;
Lockerbie, Scotland, Pan-Am flight to New York, 1988;
First New York World Trade Center attack, 1993;
Oklahoma City – Murrah Federal Building, 1995;
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Khobar Towers Military complex, 1996;
Nairobi, Kenya, U.S. Embassy, 1998;
Dares Salaam, Tanzania, U.S. Embassy, 1998;
Aden, Yemen, USS Cole, 2000;
New York, World Trade Center, 2001;
Pentagon, 2001;
Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Plane Crash, 2001

(Note that during the period from 1981 to 2001 there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide).

2. Why were we attacked?

Envy of our position, our success, and our freedoms.


The attacks happened during the administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush

We cannot fault either the Republicans or Democrats, as there were no provocations by any of the Presidents or their immediate predecessors, Presidents Ford or Carter.

Who were the attackers?
In each case, the attacks on the U.S. were carried out by Muslims.


What is the Muslim population of the World? 25 percent.

Isn't the Muslim Religion peaceful?
Hopefully, but that is really not material. There is no doubt that the predominently Christian population of Germany was peaceful, but under the dictatorial leadership of Hitler (who was also Christian), that made no difference. You either went along with the administration, or you were eliminated. There were 5 to 6 million Christians killed by the Nazis for political reasons (including 7,000 Polish priests).

Thus, almost the same number of Christians were killed by the Nazis, as the six million holocaust Jews who were killed by them, and we seldom heard of anything other than the Jewish atrocities.

Although Hitler kept the world focused on the Jews, he had no hesitancy about killing anyone who got in his way of exterminating the Jews, or of taking over the world – German, Christian, or any others.

Same with the Muslim terrorists. They focus the attention of the world on the U.S., but kill all in the way – their own people, or the Spanish, French, or anyone else. The point here, is that just like the peaceful Germans were of no protection to anyone from the Nazis, no matter how many peaceful Muslims there may be, they are no protection for us from the terrorist Muslim leaders, and what they are fanatically bent on doing – by their own pronouncements – killing all of us "infidels." I don't blame the peaceful Muslims. What would you do – if the choice was shut up, or die?


So who are we at war with?
There is no way we can honestly respond that it is anyone other than the Muslim terrorists. Trying to be politically correct, and avoid verbalizing this conclusion can well be fatal. There is no way to win, if you don't clearly recognize, and articulate who you are fighting.

So with that background, now to the two major questions:


Can we lose this war?

What does losing really mean?

[cowman]

Well I suspect the results will be the same as Vietnam?
I wonder why these Muslims hate America? I doubt it has anything to do with envy as they believe American materialism is evil?
Personally I believe it all comes down to American support for Isreal, as well as America interfering in their countries economies and politics.
It is a sad situation and the war in Iraq just made it worse. The US has overstepped their power and can't afford this garbage? How long can Bush ignore the calls to get out? Meanwhile Iran continues their march toward becoming a nuclear power. Sadam was a dictator but he wasn't a crazy nut like the boys running Iran? Those are the guys who would use a bomb because they thought it was the ticket to heaven?

[silverback]

So do you think it would be a good thing for Iran to have the bomb? What would the best thing be then? Leave them alone and hope they don't use it? Be nice to them so they don't? Who is going to stop them from using it?

I suppose the U.N. has enough b--ls and authority to convince them to be nice to their neighbors.