Originally posted by Ulujain LOL, you're sourcing a Torygraph written article. Mods, move this one to Spam ASAP.
What's a Torygraph?
Its basically a newspaaper that supports the Tory Party otherwise known as conservatives. Basically tehy are vied as the wellspring of political backward looking thinking like the republicans are the source of evill.
The French surrendered under much more favorable circumstances than that of the Alamo. That is once again a baseless comparison. And that is admirable, and I don't believe I ever said that all Fench were cowards. They just tend to do cowardly things more often than others.
No . The French where utterly and totally defeated. Crushed. Unlike the Alamo there was no chance of rescue or reinforcements.
You misunderstand the scale of their defeat. We ran off, they had nowhere to run.
They have a consistent history of honoring their alliances even when it means placing themselves at loggerheads with a vastly superior foe. They had more balls than your lot in WW2, and they still have them now. I won't do your soldiers the disservice of explaining your own reputation for bravery. They don't deserve it either.
In WW2 France wouldn't let you take over their territory and you didn't like that. They stood up to you.
They had the balls to speak out about the Invasion of Iraq and stand against it. No one else did. Everyone else just cowered before America's will.
And therein lies the root of your dislike. They dare to stand up to you, just as they dared to stand up to Hitler, and you will call them by whatever insult you think you can get to stick for their arrogance.
When the time comes France stands up for it's allies. They are a brave and honorable people.France has stood up to you. France has stood up for you. France is standing up for you. Perhaps when you are brave enough to stand up for yourselves they can stand down. Until that day you would be well advised to honour them.
And therein lies the root of your dislike. They dare to stand up to you, just as they dared to stand up to Hitler, and you will call them by whatever insult you think you can get to stick for their arrogance.
Boom headshot. So true. And you can't say the French (and the Germans and Belgians) weren't right by saying "it's not a good idea to invade Iraq for the reasons you have and the way in which you will invade them isn't all that smart either."
Originally posted by LostGrace Why does almost everyone in the USA hate the French?
How about the hate of the US by France?
The most common view in France of the US: 'The Bush administration is composed of dangerous and corrupted cheaters who took power illegitimately in November 2000.' this hate of the US, and especially of Bush, pushed most in France to accept lies as facts.
First, there was no state lie: Bush did not lie on purpose to the American people and world opinion concerning Iraq. All testimonies point out that the fear of WMD was real inside the Administration. Considering Saddam's past history with WMDs and UN reports in 1998, it was very logical to assess that Iraq was still in possession of forbidden weapons. The CIA's mistake was to present a 'slam dunk' case while truth was more complex. So in this specific instance, Bush made a major political error but DID NOT LIE.
Secondly, regarding the Niger uranium claim which President Bush mentioned in his State of the Union speech in January 2003, Tertrais underlines that the British Judge Hutton showed that this fact was indeed included in some British Secret Service MI6 reports. The Iraqi officer who supplied this information is of good faith and clearly identified. So in this matter, mistake, maybe, but again NO LIE.
Iraq really was pursuing a ballistic missile and biological weapons program. It is false to say that nothing was found in Iraq. From the Kay report, people only remember the sentence: 'We were all wrong,' whereas it is filled with facts proving Iraq's numerous lies. Even if the threat was not imminent, the Bush administration's case was really based on the idea that the US could not afford to wait for a threat to materialize to act. So once again, NO LIE.
Concerning the IraqAl Qaeda link, let's remember that the Bush Administration never said that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attacks. So, even if there is still a controversy about the factual links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, Bush did not lie and never based his case for war on this premise. Nonetheless, Iraq's current Prime Minister Allawi affirmed in June that Saddam's regime had extensive contacts with al Qaeda. Regarding the project to bring democracy to the Greater Middle East, President Bush has always said that the Iraq War was part of attaining this objective. Thus it is absurd to say that the invasion of Iraq was programmed for a long time and that the Bush Administration was just waiting for an excuse. It is important to remember that since 1998's Iraq Liberation Act signed by Clinton, regime change in Iraq was the goal of the USA. There would have been no war in Iraq if September 11 did not occur...
OOOhhh...this is a good one
Another canard is that the Bush administration is controlled by neocons. None of the top five people in the government Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld is a neocon. Neocons have been also critical of some Bush policies concerning the nonpreparedness of the afterwar in Iraq, and of Saudi Arabia's relationship with our country. There is no neocon conspiracy behind the Iraq campaign.
Last, regarding the commercial contracts in Iraq, it is not totally illogical that they were given to the leaders in their field: i.e. Halliburton for oil services and Bechtel for construction. Of course it is not surprising that Bush has had deep connections to these firms considering his background.
Thanks to the 3 billion USD granted by the US to Kurdistan, the Kurdish economy is booming. Wages have in average been multiplied by ten, inflation is moderate and unemployment is almost zero. Health expenditures have been multiplied by 30 and infantile mortality has plummeted, thanks to a massive vaccination campaign. Water, oil and power have been restored to good levels. Kurds have never been freer and we are grateful to the Coalition for their efforts.
Even though there are plenty of reasons to criticize the US regarding Iraq, it is unfair to add wrong ones. Bush's enemies in the US and France are guilty of precisely what they accuse Bush of: lying to advance their political agenda. In their case, everything is good, even lies or halftruths to present Bush as the devil himself.
It is troubling that most positive stories about Iraq do not make it to the US media, which rather likes to depict the US action as negative, unfruitful and unpopular in the Iraqi street.
Thanks to the French press, which we cannot accuse of being proBush, to say the least, we know what is really happening in Iraq. It feels good to also see the benefits of the US intervention in Iraq.
Originally posted by daeandor Why did you revive this thread with such a lame post lostgrace?
The 'hatred for the French' stems from years of ingratitude by either side (US / Fr) for the efforts the other side played during significant wars. It's simple. And it is not merely the USA's fault, the French have been similarly "anti-American." Their media has been vehemently anti-American for years, no different than in the US.
Hating the French is overrated anyway.
Well, I was once told not to make a new post if there was a old one of the same topic.
But I am not gonna get into your stupid blame game. As far as I am concerned you can go suck a ... nevermind. You get the point.
What? You resurrected an old thread for no reason other than to stir up the same lame arguments as before. My point was that your 'old one of the same topic' had already covered all that needed to be said. And what blame game? Suck a what? I don't get the point because you don't have one.
Originally posted by LostGrace Why does almost everyone in the USA hate the French?
How about the hate of the US by France?
The most common view in France of the US: 'The Bush administration is composed of dangerous and corrupted cheaters who took power illegitimately in November 2000.' this hate of the US, and especially of Bush, pushed most in France to accept lies as facts.
First, there was no state lie: Bush did not lie on purpose to the American people and world opinion concerning Iraq. All testimonies point out that the fear of WMD was real inside the Administration. Considering Saddam's past history with WMDs and UN reports in 1998, it was very logical to assess that Iraq was still in possession of forbidden weapons. The CIA's mistake was to present a 'slam dunk' case while truth was more complex. So in this specific instance, Bush made a major political error but DID NOT LIE.
Secondly, regarding the Niger uranium claim which President Bush mentioned in his State of the Union speech in January 2003, Tertrais underlines that the British Judge Hutton showed that this fact was indeed included in some British Secret Service MI6 reports. The Iraqi officer who supplied this information is of good faith and clearly identified. So in this matter, mistake, maybe, but again NO LIE.
Iraq really was pursuing a ballistic missile and biological weapons program. It is false to say that nothing was found in Iraq. From the Kay report, people only remember the sentence: 'We were all wrong,' whereas it is filled with facts proving Iraq's numerous lies. Even if the threat was not imminent, the Bush administration's case was really based on the idea that the US could not afford to wait for a threat to materialize to act. So once again, NO LIE.
Concerning the IraqAl Qaeda link, let's remember that the Bush Administration never said that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attacks. So, even if there is still a controversy about the factual links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, Bush did not lie and never based his case for war on this premise. Nonetheless, Iraq's current Prime Minister Allawi affirmed in June that Saddam's regime had extensive contacts with al Qaeda. Regarding the project to bring democracy to the Greater Middle East, President Bush has always said that the Iraq War was part of attaining this objective. Thus it is absurd to say that the invasion of Iraq was programmed for a long time and that the Bush Administration was just waiting for an excuse. It is important to remember that since 1998's Iraq Liberation Act signed by Clinton, regime change in Iraq was the goal of the USA. There would have been no war in Iraq if September 11 did not occur...
OOOhhh...this is a good one
Another canard is that the Bush administration is controlled by neocons. None of the top five people in the government Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld is a neocon. Neocons have been also critical of some Bush policies concerning the nonpreparedness of the afterwar in Iraq, and of Saudi Arabia's relationship with our country. There is no neocon conspiracy behind the Iraq campaign.
Last, regarding the commercial contracts in Iraq, it is not totally illogical that they were given to the leaders in their field: i.e. Halliburton for oil services and Bechtel for construction. Of course it is not surprising that Bush has had deep connections to these firms considering his background.
Thanks to the 3 billion USD granted by the US to Kurdistan, the Kurdish economy is booming. Wages have in average been multiplied by ten, inflation is moderate and unemployment is almost zero. Health expenditures have been multiplied by 30 and infantile mortality has plummeted, thanks to a massive vaccination campaign. Water, oil and power have been restored to good levels. Kurds have never been freer and we are grateful to the Coalition for their efforts.
Even though there are plenty of reasons to criticize the US regarding Iraq, it is unfair to add wrong ones. Bush's enemies in the US and France are guilty of precisely what they accuse Bush of: lying to advance their political agenda. In their case, everything is good, even lies or halftruths to present Bush as the devil himself.
It is troubling that most positive stories about Iraq do not make it to the US media, which rather likes to depict the US action as negative, unfruitful and unpopular in the Iraqi street.
Thanks to the French press, which we cannot accuse of being proBush, to say the least, we know what is really happening in Iraq. It feels good to also see the benefits of the US intervention in Iraq.
There were no WMD, WMD was an excuse not a reason. The decision had already been made long before they wished to convince the U.N.
While people did beleieve Saddam had a WMD capacity, they did not believe he had one that was a threat. The Uranium intelligence was always stated to be a forgery by British intelligence, right from day one.
No WMD were found. None.
The evidence took us all by surprise, we had all expected a limited WMD program of some variety, even if it wasn't ever going to be a serious one. I think we were all a bit surprised when he turned out to have been in full compliance.
Still it's not like he didn't mention it often enough. The benefit of hindsight.
Bush lied, he willfully and deliberately overstated the intelligence on WMD, Uranium and all the rest. He didn't "kind of lie" or tell a "half truth", he didn't "not understand his briefings". He lied. He is a politician and the head of the armed forces. He lied. Not to have done so on the eve of an invasion would have been remiss in his duties.
Iraq's prime minitster Allawi hadn't been anywhere near Iraq in 20 years. He lived in the U.S. He has as everybit as much inside knowledge about Saddams government as your local baker does. He is a U.S. stooge. He has no grounding in Iraq. Remove his U.S. bodyguards and his "own people" will kill him. He says what you tell him to say because he needs you to keep him and his family alive.
There are no links between Saddam and Al Quaeda. Bush lied. After September the 11th anytime he made the Al Quaeda connection, he got his way.
Bushes democratisation ambitions towards the Middle East is totally lunatic. If Osama bin Laden wished to convert the U.S.A. to Sharia law, he would be saner than Bush. That moronic ambition has already cost us Iraq, Palestine and probably Lebanon so far. Why on earth do you keep applauding?
Whatever else you can say about Bush, foreign policy is his total blind spot. He is off the deep end. Clueless in charge of a massive military at the head of an angry country that wants to fight. Desperate to start WW3. Topple every government in the Middle East, the Axis of Evil. He is a fucking dangerous nutjob. And that's coming from a fellow Bush fan.
3 Billion USD to the Kurds and autonomy have strengthed their position and greatly increased the number of terrorist attacks they have been commiting on our NATO allies Turkey. Another nail in NATO's coffin. Turkey was the single biggest contributor to NATO, good luck getting any help out of them now. Before Saddam ever dropped WMD on the Kurds, we did. They are a pain in the arse.
The French press can move around in Iraq much more freely than coalition press and most positive stories from Iraq, don't make it to any media not just yours. They are rather more flooded with all the tales of genocide.
I agree that many people who attack Bush, particualry internally to the U.S. (less so externally) do so out of political Agenda. His oppositon will always take any excuse to try and make shit stick to him. Outside of the U.S., he is less politically relevant. People tend to say what they think because it's what they really think a lot more. Associating him with bad stuff, won't get the Democrats elected where they live, associating him with good stuff won't keep the Republicans in power where they live. They are free to speak without bias.
Frances stated ambition towards the U.S. is to form an alliance capable of coercing restraint. They do not believe it is healthy for the world to have "only one superpower". The less self restraint the U.S. shows (and predictably after September the eleventh it hasn't been showing very much), the more pressing a concern this has become.
I believe the former head of weapons inspection in Iraq during the late 90's, early 2000's, Scott Ritter ( i hope i spelled his name correctly), he basically gave a speech at my university stating that Iraq did not have the technological capabilities for WMD. He did not just say they didn't have it, he went painstakingly over the science and technology required to have it and Iraq didn't have the capability to do it.
He knew as others did that the excuse was a lie.
I went to college Republican but left Democratic haha. Then again I don't agree with this bullshit political system anyway. Therefore I'm not republican or democratic, i am a hybrid of the two. When I vote, I essentially vote as if i'm a patriot of the world and not just of the US. Then again, I usually go to vote to find out that I'm not registered in my hometown . . . go go go me on being a retard.
Either way,
For those who believe in religion, the real terrorists will get their due, whoever they may be and if you don't believe in religion then you shouldn't concern yourself with what I type as you'll be in oblivian (or you better hope so lol). I feel it's time for some Hood's Golden Egg Nog .
Cryomatrix
Catch me streaming at twitch.tv/cryomatrix You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
There were no WMD, WMD was an excuse not a reason. No WMD were found. None.
1. The evidence took us all by surprise, we had all expected a limited WMD program of some variety, even if it wasn't ever going to be a serious one. I think we were all a bit surprised when he turned out to have been in full compliance.
Still it's not like he didn't mention it often enough. The benefit of hindsight.
Bush lied, he willfully and deliberately overstated the intelligence on WMD, Uranium and all the rest. He didn't "kind of lie" or tell a "half truth", he didn't "not understand his briefings". He lied. He is a politician and the head of the armed forces. He lied. Not to have done so on the eve of an invasion would have been remiss in his duties.
2. Iraq's prime minitster Allawi hadn't been anywhere near Iraq in 20 years. He lived in the U.S. He has as everybit as much inside knowledge about Saddams government as your local baker does. He is a U.S. stooge. He has no grounding in Iraq. Remove his U.S. bodyguards and his "own people" will kill him. He says what you tell him to say because he needs you to keep him and his family alive.
There are no links between Saddam and Al Quaeda. Bush lied. After September the 11th anytime he made the Al Quaeda connection, he got his way.
Oh please......quit sucking up to the media. Bush had every right to attack Iraq and stop this dictator from developing these weapons.
1. The U.S. effort to track down Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction had a better success than what was reported. The news received little attention from the major media, and the president's critics continue to insist that "no weapons" have been found.
The Iraq Survey Group, ISG, whose intelligence analysts are managed by Charles Duelfer, a former State Department official and deputy chief of the U.N.-led arms-inspection teams, has found "hundreds of cases of activities that were prohibited" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior administration official tells Insight.
"There is a long list of charges made by the U.S. that have been confirmed, but none of this seems to mean anything because the weapons that were unaccounted for by the United Nations remain unaccounted for."
Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress that the evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed Saddam's regime was in "material violation" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the last of 17 resolutions that promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not make a complete disclosure of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a verifiable manner.
A prison laboratory complex that may have been used for human testing of BW agents and "that Iraqi officials working to prepare the U.N. inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the U.N." Why was Saddam interested in testing biological-warfare agents on humans if he didn't have a biological-weapons program?
"Reference strains" of a wide variety of biological-weapons agents were found beneath the sink in the home of a prominent Iraqi BW scientist. "We thought it was a big deal," a senior administration official said. "But it has been written off [by the press] as a sort of 'starter set.'"
New research on BW-applicable agents, brucella and Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin that were not declared to the United Nations.
A line of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, or drones, "not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 kilometers [311 miles], 350 kilometers [217 miles] beyond the permissible limit."
"Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited Scud-variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the U.N."
"Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] -- well beyond the 150-kilometer-range limit [93 miles] imposed by the U.N. Missiles of a 1,000-kilometer range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets throughout the Middle East, including Ankara [Turkey], Cairo [Egypt] and Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emirates]."
In addition, through interviews with Iraqi scientists, seized documents and other evidence, the ISG learned the Iraqi government had made "clandestine attempts between late 1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300-kilometer-range [807 miles] ballistic missiles -- probably the No Dong -- 300-kilometer-range [186 miles] antiship cruise missiles and other prohibited military equipment," Kay reported.
If bush didnt do anything and this guy launched.............he would be the bad guy anyways, but with the blood of thousands and maybe millions on his hands. Bush did the right thing..........100%
Oh...and as far as Saddam and Al Quaeda? Think again my friend.
2. The CIA has confirmed, in interviews with detainees and informants it finds highly credible, that al Qaeda's Number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, met with Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad in 1992 and 1998. More disturbing, according to an administration official familiar with briefings the CIA has given President Bush, the Agency has "irrefutable evidence" that the Iraqi regime paid Zawahiri $300,000 in 1998, around the time his Islamic Jihad was merging with al Qaeda. "It's a lock," says this source. Other administration officials are a bit more circumspect, noting that the intelligence may have come from a single source. Still, four sources spread across the national security hierarchy have confirmed the payment.
IF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION had been out to hype the threat from an al Qaeda-Saddam link, it stands to reason that it would have used every shred of incriminating evidence at its disposal. Instead, the administration was restrained in its use of available intelligence. What the Bush administration left out is in some ways as revealing as what it included.
* Iraqi defectors had been saying for years that Saddam's regime trained "non-Iraqi Arab terrorists" at a camp in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. U.N. inspectors had confirmed the camp's existence, including the presence of a Boeing 707. Defectors say the plane was used to train hijackers; the Iraqi regime said it was used in counterterrorism training. Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi Army, worked at Salman Pak. In October 2001, he told PBS's "Frontline" about what went on there. "Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism. . . . All this training is directly toward attacking American targets, and American interests."
Go ahead and bash Bush, but for me? I would have done the same thing he did with the evidence he had, but I wouldnt have been so merciful. The Iraq government was a menace to the world. It needed to be destroyed.
So why didn't Bush attack the "other" dictator that's been developing WMD, making threats everywhere and actually fired missiles in an act of provocation over a sovereign nation?
Oh, this dictator actually starves millions of his people too.
Kim Jong-il - a bigger threat to the world than Saddam ever was. Saddam, for all of his ways, was actually an enlightened man compared to the backward way some of his neighbours run their sheikdoms.
Still, it sounds like Bush is playing Selective Dictator Removal. Makes sense, as North Korea is a far more formidable opponent.
Originally posted by outfctrl Didnt see where Korea is playing footsies with al Qaeda like Sadaam did.
You believe that shit, do you? All Arabs and Muslims are the same, are they? They're all in bed with each other, are they? If they were, there'd be no Western civilisation; they would've united and destroyed Christendom a long time ago.
Bin Laden and al Qaeda are Salafists, fundamentalist Sunnis that want to purge Islam of all innovation and non-canon beliefs. That includes secular Arab nations like Iraq. Iraq is also what, 80% Shi'ite and the Salafism as practiced by Bin Laden views them as heretics.
This connection theory is all tenuous spin. Bin Lade nhas repeatedly stated he wanted to see Saddam, Bashar al-Assad and any other secular Muslim wiped from the face of the Earth.
Anyway, re: WMD. Saddam wasn't even close to having a nuclear capability. Not even way close. The Dear Leader exploded a device a few months back. He's the biggest threat to the world, not Saddam. He has the biggest stick of any fruitcake out there and one day he'll probably use it.
Originally posted by outfctrl Didnt see where Korea is playing footsies with al Qaeda like Sadaam did.
I have to agree. Kim is just a whiny, closet fag with a bad Elvis impersonator wig. He screams, kicks, and yells. That's it. Although I do think that once we can get out of Iraq, North Korea should have our attention. Also, Kim always threatening to launch N. Korean warheads gives us something Saddam didn't. The right for a full nuclear reprisal.
Oh please......quit sucking up to the media. Bush had every right to attack Iraq and stop this dictator from developing these weapons.
You mistake me for someone anti Iraq war.
I'm not adverse to invading Iraq. But you should understand, that Iraq possed no threat to us or the region. There was no connection to Al Quaeda. We did not think he had WMD of any significance or the ability to get any.
We knew he had nothing to "launch".
CIA informants are largely from exiles who hadn't been in Iraq for 20 years, they said what they were asked to say or what they thought we wanted to hear in return for money. Like Bush's detractors in America, they have a political agenda and would say anything bad about Saddam in the hope that the shit would stick. Hardly the first place I would be looking for credable witness.
The Bush administration did use every shred of evidence to link Al Quaeda and WMD. Shreds of evidence were all it could find, and it deliberately and willfully ignored all of the rest of the large amount of evidence provided and the context that it received said shreds of evidence in.
In some cases, such as the Uranium export documents, it clearly went so far as to actually fabricate that evidence.
All the Al Quaeda and WMD nonsense was essentially fabricated to shore up domestic and U.N. opinion. It's nothing short of a lie. Some people will want to tell you that the administration really believed it, or that the intelligence reflects the stories they told. This is not true. Your leader lied to you. It's not the first time, it won't be the last, he is a politician, not a saint. It goes with the job.
Originally posted by Ulujain So why didn't Bush attack the "other" dictator that's been developing WMD, making threats everywhere and actually fired missiles in an act of provocation over a sovereign nation? Oh, this dictator actually starves millions of his people too. Kim Jong-il - a bigger threat to the world than Saddam ever was. Saddam, for all of his ways, was actually an enlightened man compared to the backward way some of his neighbours run their sheikdoms. Still, it sounds like Bush is playing Selective Dictator Removal. Makes sense, as North Korea is a far more formidable opponent.
Because he would lose.
He can't attack Iraq style because the North Koreans would nuke his invasion force as it staged. He can't isolate N. Korea from it's allies because Russia and China prefer having North Korea on their borders to having the U.S. on their borders. He can't incite a rebellion because the North Koreans fanatacially adore their divine president in a way his own people don't feel about him. His only viable option is a strategic nuclear strike. WW3. Is it really worth it? N.Korea doesn't have the range to retalioate directly against the U.S., but it could devastate America's second largest market and investors in Japan for example.
All the democratic leaders hate Kim. Kim's people love him almost exclusively. The best they can get is 45% of their electorates. They hate him. Really deep down humiliated hatred. He shows up their inadaquecies and they can't stand it. They call him evil and oppressive, they say he does this that and the other to manipulate his people by force. The truth is, he doesn't have to. His country has been under seige on a war footing for 50 years. They have become uber patriots out of circumstance. A circumstance those same democratic leaders are mostly responsable for maintaining. They hate him. They will insult and denigrate him at any and every opportunity. It is their agenda to undermine him.
North Koreans starve because they are under siege. You can blame Kim, but every wartime leader faced with the same scenario has done the same. In WW2 the people of Britain starved while the government spent money on weapons too, Germany did the same when her time came. Sometimes hunger is not the greatest threat a people faces.
Comments
Europe unites in hatred of French
umm........is this true?LOL, you're sourcing a Torygraph written article. Mods, move this one to Spam ASAP.
Nickname for the Daily Telegraph...
Its basically a newspaaper that supports the Tory Party otherwise known as conservatives. Basically tehy are vied as the wellspring of political backward looking thinking like the republicans are the source of evill.
It's the English daily broadsheet that I read everyday.
It's owned by the same guy who owns The New York Times and the Jerusalem post.
No . The French where utterly and totally defeated. Crushed. Unlike the Alamo there was no chance of rescue or reinforcements.
You misunderstand the scale of their defeat. We ran off, they had nowhere to run.
They have a consistent history of honoring their alliances even when it means placing themselves at loggerheads with a vastly superior foe. They had more balls than your lot in WW2, and they still have them now. I won't do your soldiers the disservice of explaining your own reputation for bravery. They don't deserve it either.
In WW2 France wouldn't let you take over their territory and you didn't like that. They stood up to you.
They had the balls to speak out about the Invasion of Iraq and stand against it. No one else did. Everyone else just cowered before America's will.
And therein lies the root of your dislike. They dare to stand up to you, just as they dared to stand up to Hitler, and you will call them by whatever insult you think you can get to stick for their arrogance.
When the time comes France stands up for it's allies. They are a brave and honorable people.France has stood up to you. France has stood up for you. France is standing up for you. Perhaps when you are brave enough to stand up for yourselves they can stand down. Until that day you would be well advised to honour them.
Boom headshot. So true. And you can't say the French (and the Germans and Belgians) weren't right by saying "it's not a good idea to invade Iraq for the reasons you have and the way in which you will invade them isn't all that smart either."
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How about the hate of the US by France?
The most common view in France of the US: 'The Bush administration is composed of dangerous and corrupted cheaters who took power illegitimately in November 2000.' this hate of the US, and especially of Bush, pushed most in France to accept lies as facts.
First, there was no state lie: Bush did not lie on purpose to the American people and world opinion concerning Iraq. All testimonies point out that the fear of WMD was real inside the Administration. Considering Saddam's past history with WMDs and UN reports in 1998, it was very logical to assess that Iraq was still in possession of forbidden weapons. The CIA's mistake was to present a 'slam dunk' case while truth was more complex.
So in this specific instance, Bush made a major political error but DID NOT LIE.
Secondly, regarding the Niger uranium claim which President Bush mentioned in his State of the Union speech in January 2003, Tertrais underlines that the British Judge Hutton showed that this fact was indeed included in some British Secret Service MI6 reports. The Iraqi officer who supplied this information is of good faith and clearly identified. So in this matter, mistake, maybe, but again NO LIE.
Iraq really was pursuing a ballistic missile and biological weapons program. It is false to say that nothing was found in Iraq. From the Kay report, people only remember the sentence: 'We were all wrong,' whereas it is filled with facts proving Iraq's numerous lies. Even if the threat was not imminent, the Bush administration's case was really based on the idea that the US could not afford to wait for a threat to materialize to act. So once again, NO LIE.
Concerning the IraqAl Qaeda link, let's remember that the Bush Administration never said that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attacks. So, even if there is still a controversy about the factual links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, Bush did not lie and never based his case for war on this premise. Nonetheless, Iraq's current Prime Minister Allawi affirmed in June that Saddam's regime had extensive contacts with al Qaeda.
Regarding the project to bring democracy to the Greater Middle East, President Bush has always said that the Iraq War was part of attaining this objective. Thus it is absurd to say that the invasion of Iraq was programmed for a long time and that the Bush Administration was just waiting for an excuse. It is important to remember that since 1998's Iraq Liberation Act signed by Clinton, regime change in Iraq was the goal of the USA. There would have been no war in Iraq if September 11 did not occur...
OOOhhh...this is a good one
Another canard is that the Bush administration is controlled by neocons. None of the top five people in the government Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld is a neocon. Neocons have been also critical of some Bush policies concerning the nonpreparedness of the afterwar in Iraq, and of Saudi Arabia's relationship with our country. There is no neocon conspiracy behind the Iraq campaign.
Last, regarding the commercial contracts in Iraq, it is not totally illogical that they were given to the leaders in their field: i.e. Halliburton for oil services and Bechtel for construction. Of course it is not surprising that Bush has had deep connections to these firms considering his background.
Thanks to the 3 billion USD granted by the US to Kurdistan, the Kurdish economy is booming. Wages have in average been multiplied by ten, inflation is moderate and unemployment is almost zero. Health expenditures have been multiplied by 30 and infantile mortality has plummeted, thanks to a massive vaccination campaign. Water, oil and power have been restored to good levels. Kurds have never been freer and we are grateful to the Coalition for their efforts.
Even though there are plenty of reasons to criticize the US regarding Iraq, it is unfair to add wrong ones. Bush's enemies in the US and France are guilty of precisely what they accuse Bush of: lying to advance their political agenda. In their case, everything is good, even lies or halftruths to present Bush as the devil himself.
It is troubling that most positive stories about Iraq do not make it to the US media, which rather likes to depict the US action as negative, unfruitful and unpopular in the Iraqi street.
Thanks to the French press, which we cannot accuse of being proBush, to say the least, we know what is really happening in Iraq. It feels good to also see the benefits of the US intervention in Iraq.
So it's all about the money.
Same for the US.
But this aint no reason to start hating each other.
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nevermind
==========================
I hate the anamosities other countries have for other countries for what they do.........we all are people,
why cant we all get along
it sux
Sorry, I am a little drujnk....too mucch tequila
But I am not gonna get into your stupid blame game. As far as I am concerned you can go suck a ... nevermind. You get the point.
What? You resurrected an old thread for no reason other than to stir up the same lame arguments as before. My point was that your 'old one of the same topic' had already covered all that needed to be said. And what blame game? Suck a what? I don't get the point because you don't have one.
That's only half french women. The other half use them a little more... 'freely' than most... Those are the french women that I can abide...
Germany's worse for women ignoring the razor if you ask me...
That's so hilarious coming from you.
But I love you too, man. And tequila.
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How about the hate of the US by France?
The most common view in France of the US: 'The Bush administration is composed of dangerous and corrupted cheaters who took power illegitimately in November 2000.' this hate of the US, and especially of Bush, pushed most in France to accept lies as facts.
First, there was no state lie: Bush did not lie on purpose to the American people and world opinion concerning Iraq. All testimonies point out that the fear of WMD was real inside the Administration. Considering Saddam's past history with WMDs and UN reports in 1998, it was very logical to assess that Iraq was still in possession of forbidden weapons. The CIA's mistake was to present a 'slam dunk' case while truth was more complex.
So in this specific instance, Bush made a major political error but DID NOT LIE.
Secondly, regarding the Niger uranium claim which President Bush mentioned in his State of the Union speech in January 2003, Tertrais underlines that the British Judge Hutton showed that this fact was indeed included in some British Secret Service MI6 reports. The Iraqi officer who supplied this information is of good faith and clearly identified. So in this matter, mistake, maybe, but again NO LIE.
Iraq really was pursuing a ballistic missile and biological weapons program. It is false to say that nothing was found in Iraq. From the Kay report, people only remember the sentence: 'We were all wrong,' whereas it is filled with facts proving Iraq's numerous lies. Even if the threat was not imminent, the Bush administration's case was really based on the idea that the US could not afford to wait for a threat to materialize to act. So once again, NO LIE.
Concerning the IraqAl Qaeda link, let's remember that the Bush Administration never said that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attacks. So, even if there is still a controversy about the factual links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, Bush did not lie and never based his case for war on this premise. Nonetheless, Iraq's current Prime Minister Allawi affirmed in June that Saddam's regime had extensive contacts with al Qaeda.
Regarding the project to bring democracy to the Greater Middle East, President Bush has always said that the Iraq War was part of attaining this objective. Thus it is absurd to say that the invasion of Iraq was programmed for a long time and that the Bush Administration was just waiting for an excuse. It is important to remember that since 1998's Iraq Liberation Act signed by Clinton, regime change in Iraq was the goal of the USA. There would have been no war in Iraq if September 11 did not occur...
OOOhhh...this is a good one
Another canard is that the Bush administration is controlled by neocons. None of the top five people in the government Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld is a neocon. Neocons have been also critical of some Bush policies concerning the nonpreparedness of the afterwar in Iraq, and of Saudi Arabia's relationship with our country. There is no neocon conspiracy behind the Iraq campaign.
Last, regarding the commercial contracts in Iraq, it is not totally illogical that they were given to the leaders in their field: i.e. Halliburton for oil services and Bechtel for construction. Of course it is not surprising that Bush has had deep connections to these firms considering his background.
Thanks to the 3 billion USD granted by the US to Kurdistan, the Kurdish economy is booming. Wages have in average been multiplied by ten, inflation is moderate and unemployment is almost zero. Health expenditures have been multiplied by 30 and infantile mortality has plummeted, thanks to a massive vaccination campaign. Water, oil and power have been restored to good levels. Kurds have never been freer and we are grateful to the Coalition for their efforts.
Even though there are plenty of reasons to criticize the US regarding Iraq, it is unfair to add wrong ones. Bush's enemies in the US and France are guilty of precisely what they accuse Bush of: lying to advance their political agenda. In their case, everything is good, even lies or halftruths to present Bush as the devil himself.
It is troubling that most positive stories about Iraq do not make it to the US media, which rather likes to depict the US action as negative, unfruitful and unpopular in the Iraqi street.
Thanks to the French press, which we cannot accuse of being proBush, to say the least, we know what is really happening in Iraq. It feels good to also see the benefits of the US intervention in Iraq.
There were no WMD, WMD was an excuse not a reason. The decision had already been made long before they wished to convince the U.N.
While people did beleieve Saddam had a WMD capacity, they did not believe he had one that was a threat. The Uranium intelligence was always stated to be a forgery by British intelligence, right from day one.
No WMD were found. None.
The evidence took us all by surprise, we had all expected a limited WMD program of some variety, even if it wasn't ever going to be a serious one. I think we were all a bit surprised when he turned out to have been in full compliance.
Still it's not like he didn't mention it often enough. The benefit of hindsight.
Bush lied, he willfully and deliberately overstated the intelligence on WMD, Uranium and all the rest. He didn't "kind of lie" or tell a "half truth", he didn't "not understand his briefings". He lied. He is a politician and the head of the armed forces. He lied. Not to have done so on the eve of an invasion would have been remiss in his duties.
Iraq's prime minitster Allawi hadn't been anywhere near Iraq in 20 years. He lived in the U.S. He has as everybit as much inside knowledge about Saddams government as your local baker does. He is a U.S. stooge. He has no grounding in Iraq. Remove his U.S. bodyguards and his "own people" will kill him. He says what you tell him to say because he needs you to keep him and his family alive.
There are no links between Saddam and Al Quaeda. Bush lied. After September the 11th anytime he made the Al Quaeda connection, he got his way.
Bushes democratisation ambitions towards the Middle East is totally lunatic. If Osama bin Laden wished to convert the U.S.A. to Sharia law, he would be saner than Bush. That moronic ambition has already cost us Iraq, Palestine and probably Lebanon so far. Why on earth do you keep applauding?
Whatever else you can say about Bush, foreign policy is his total blind spot. He is off the deep end. Clueless in charge of a massive military at the head of an angry country that wants to fight. Desperate to start WW3. Topple every government in the Middle East, the Axis of Evil. He is a fucking dangerous nutjob. And that's coming from a fellow Bush fan.
3 Billion USD to the Kurds and autonomy have strengthed their position and greatly increased the number of terrorist attacks they have been commiting on our NATO allies Turkey. Another nail in NATO's coffin. Turkey was the single biggest contributor to NATO, good luck getting any help out of them now. Before Saddam ever dropped WMD on the Kurds, we did. They are a pain in the arse.
The French press can move around in Iraq much more freely than coalition press and most positive stories from Iraq, don't make it to any media not just yours. They are rather more flooded with all the tales of genocide.
I agree that many people who attack Bush, particualry internally to the U.S. (less so externally) do so out of political Agenda. His oppositon will always take any excuse to try and make shit stick to him. Outside of the U.S., he is less politically relevant. People tend to say what they think because it's what they really think a lot more. Associating him with bad stuff, won't get the Democrats elected where they live, associating him with good stuff won't keep the Republicans in power where they live. They are free to speak without bias.
Frances stated ambition towards the U.S. is to form an alliance capable of coercing restraint. They do not believe it is healthy for the world to have "only one superpower". The less self restraint the U.S. shows (and predictably after September the eleventh it hasn't been showing very much), the more pressing a concern this has become.
Just to add something.
I believe the former head of weapons inspection in Iraq during the late 90's, early 2000's, Scott Ritter ( i hope i spelled his name correctly), he basically gave a speech at my university stating that Iraq did not have the technological capabilities for WMD. He did not just say they didn't have it, he went painstakingly over the science and technology required to have it and Iraq didn't have the capability to do it.
He knew as others did that the excuse was a lie.
I went to college Republican but left Democratic haha. Then again I don't agree with this bullshit political system anyway. Therefore I'm not republican or democratic, i am a hybrid of the two. When I vote, I essentially vote as if i'm a patriot of the world and not just of the US. Then again, I usually go to vote to find out that I'm not registered in my hometown . . . go go go me on being a retard.
Either way,
For those who believe in religion, the real terrorists will get their due, whoever they may be and if you don't believe in religion then you shouldn't concern yourself with what I type as you'll be in oblivian (or you better hope so lol). I feel it's time for some Hood's Golden Egg Nog
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Oh please......quit sucking up to the media. Bush had every right to attack Iraq and stop this dictator from developing these weapons.
1. The U.S. effort to track down Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction had a better success than what was reported. The news received little attention from the major media, and the president's critics continue to insist that "no weapons" have been found.
The Iraq Survey Group, ISG, whose intelligence analysts are managed by Charles Duelfer, a former State Department official and deputy chief of the U.N.-led arms-inspection teams, has found "hundreds of cases of activities that were prohibited" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior administration official tells Insight.
"There is a long list of charges made by the U.S. that have been confirmed, but none of this seems to mean anything because the weapons that were unaccounted for by the United Nations remain unaccounted for."
Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress that the evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed Saddam's regime was in "material violation" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the last of 17 resolutions that promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not make a complete disclosure of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a verifiable manner.
In addition, through interviews with Iraqi scientists, seized documents and other evidence, the ISG learned the Iraqi government had made "clandestine attempts between late 1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300-kilometer-range [807 miles] ballistic missiles -- probably the No Dong -- 300-kilometer-range [186 miles] antiship cruise missiles and other prohibited military equipment," Kay reported.
If bush didnt do anything and this guy launched.............he would be the bad guy anyways, but with the blood of thousands and maybe millions on his hands. Bush did the right thing..........100%
Oh...and as far as Saddam and Al Quaeda? Think again my friend.
2. The CIA has confirmed, in interviews with detainees and informants it finds highly credible, that al Qaeda's Number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, met with Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad in 1992 and 1998. More disturbing, according to an administration official familiar with briefings the CIA has given President Bush, the Agency has "irrefutable evidence" that the Iraqi regime paid Zawahiri $300,000 in 1998, around the time his Islamic Jihad was merging with al Qaeda. "It's a lock," says this source. Other administration officials are a bit more circumspect, noting that the intelligence may have come from a single source. Still, four sources spread across the national security hierarchy have confirmed the payment.
IF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION had been out to hype the threat from an al Qaeda-Saddam link, it stands to reason that it would have used every shred of incriminating evidence at its disposal. Instead, the administration was restrained in its use of available intelligence. What the Bush administration left out is in some ways as revealing as what it included.
* Iraqi defectors had been saying for years that Saddam's regime trained "non-Iraqi Arab terrorists" at a camp in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. U.N. inspectors had confirmed the camp's existence, including the presence of a Boeing 707. Defectors say the plane was used to train hijackers; the Iraqi regime said it was used in counterterrorism training. Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi Army, worked at Salman Pak. In October 2001, he told PBS's "Frontline" about what went on there. "Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism. . . . All this training is directly toward attacking American targets, and American interests."
Go ahead and bash Bush, but for me? I would have done the same thing he did with the evidence he had, but I wouldnt have been so merciful. The Iraq government was a menace to the world. It needed to be destroyed.
So why didn't Bush attack the "other" dictator that's been developing WMD, making threats everywhere and actually fired missiles in an act of provocation over a sovereign nation?
Oh, this dictator actually starves millions of his people too.
Kim Jong-il - a bigger threat to the world than Saddam ever was. Saddam, for all of his ways, was actually an enlightened man compared to the backward way some of his neighbours run their sheikdoms.
Still, it sounds like Bush is playing Selective Dictator Removal. Makes sense, as North Korea is a far more formidable opponent.
You believe that shit, do you? All Arabs and Muslims are the same, are they? They're all in bed with each other, are they? If they were, there'd be no Western civilisation; they would've united and destroyed Christendom a long time ago.
Bin Laden and al Qaeda are Salafists, fundamentalist Sunnis that want to purge Islam of all innovation and non-canon beliefs. That includes secular Arab nations like Iraq. Iraq is also what, 80% Shi'ite and the Salafism as practiced by Bin Laden views them as heretics.
This connection theory is all tenuous spin. Bin Lade nhas repeatedly stated he wanted to see Saddam, Bashar al-Assad and any other secular Muslim wiped from the face of the Earth.
Anyway, re: WMD. Saddam wasn't even close to having a nuclear capability. Not even way close. The Dear Leader exploded a device a few months back. He's the biggest threat to the world, not Saddam. He has the biggest stick of any fruitcake out there and one day he'll probably use it.
Oh please......quit sucking up to the media. Bush had every right to attack Iraq and stop this dictator from developing these weapons.
You mistake me for someone anti Iraq war.
I'm not adverse to invading Iraq. But you should understand, that Iraq possed no threat to us or the region. There was no connection to Al Quaeda. We did not think he had WMD of any significance or the ability to get any.
We knew he had nothing to "launch".
CIA informants are largely from exiles who hadn't been in Iraq for 20 years, they said what they were asked to say or what they thought we wanted to hear in return for money. Like Bush's detractors in America, they have a political agenda and would say anything bad about Saddam in the hope that the shit would stick. Hardly the first place I would be looking for credable witness.
The Bush administration did use every shred of evidence to link Al Quaeda and WMD. Shreds of evidence were all it could find, and it deliberately and willfully ignored all of the rest of the large amount of evidence provided and the context that it received said shreds of evidence in.
In some cases, such as the Uranium export documents, it clearly went so far as to actually fabricate that evidence.
All the Al Quaeda and WMD nonsense was essentially fabricated to shore up domestic and U.N. opinion. It's nothing short of a lie. Some people will want to tell you that the administration really believed it, or that the intelligence reflects the stories they told. This is not true. Your leader lied to you. It's not the first time, it won't be the last, he is a politician, not a saint. It goes with the job.
Because he would lose.
He can't attack Iraq style because the North Koreans would nuke his invasion force as it staged. He can't isolate N. Korea from it's allies because Russia and China prefer having North Korea on their borders to having the U.S. on their borders. He can't incite a rebellion because the North Koreans fanatacially adore their divine president in a way his own people don't feel about him. His only viable option is a strategic nuclear strike. WW3. Is it really worth it? N.Korea doesn't have the range to retalioate directly against the U.S., but it could devastate America's second largest market and investors in Japan for example.
All the democratic leaders hate Kim. Kim's people love him almost exclusively. The best they can get is 45% of their electorates. They hate him. Really deep down humiliated hatred. He shows up their inadaquecies and they can't stand it. They call him evil and oppressive, they say he does this that and the other to manipulate his people by force. The truth is, he doesn't have to. His country has been under seige on a war footing for 50 years. They have become uber patriots out of circumstance. A circumstance those same democratic leaders are mostly responsable for maintaining. They hate him. They will insult and denigrate him at any and every opportunity. It is their agenda to undermine him.
North Koreans starve because they are under siege. You can blame Kim, but every wartime leader faced with the same scenario has done the same. In WW2 the people of Britain starved while the government spent money on weapons too, Germany did the same when her time came. Sometimes hunger is not the greatest threat a people faces.