OT: Saddam Hussein Arrested

[CNCRaymond]

I don't know what the record is for Posts in a single topic in one day is, but I feel this one has got to be in the contention. 96 Posts in less than 12 hours. Not bad. And we owe this all to the Capture of Saddam.

Again, congrats to the US military, There allies, and the Iraqi People.

[geoschmo]

Fyron and Rex I think both of you have made your good points and both of you have made statements that are over the line. Let's try to get the conversation off of who is hostile and who is not and get back to discussing the issues, or just drop it all together.

Try to find a way to disagree with the substance of each other's comments without critisizing the manner in which they are made.

Geoschmo

[dogscoff]

Personally I am not convinced that Bush lied about Iraq's WMD's.

Blair definitely did. Anyone remember that plagiarised college thesis that had "Iraqi" search/replaced for "terrorist" and was then presented by the government as an "intelligence report"?

As for the Halliburton thing...There are a zillion sites out there tracking the tentacles of Bush's money, but on a slightly different note here's a link I like to post from time to time: http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/20...g_archive.html
Read the posting of August 28th for an interesting angle on the distribution of these rebuilding contracts. Spend a while reading some of the more recent Posts as well. As far as I'm concerned these Iraqi blogs are the only place for ppl like us to know what's actually going on inside the country.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
As for the Halliburton thing...There are a zillion sites out there tracking the tentacles of Bush's money,

Don't misunderstand me. I know full well that after the fact Haliburton is making a killing off of the contracts for Iraqi construction. This is a bit disturbing to me as well, however, it's not unheard of for people in powerful postions to have powerful friends. But the fact that Haliburton is benefitting from the war does not by itself prove that the war was started to benefit Haliburton. That's the accusation being made by many in opposition to the war. But I have seen nothing that comes cloes to proving it.

[dogscoff]

But the fact that Haliburton is benefitting from the war does not by itself prove that the war was started to benefit Haliburton.

That's true, but you have to admit it doesn't look good. However, even if you give him the benefit of doubt it still looks like blatant corruption and war-profiteering- an impression any honest politician would surely go out of his way to avoid giving. I mean they didn't even allow open bidding on the contracts, it was just handed to Halliburton on a plate.

On it's own, I might be prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt on this issue, but it's not the first time Bush's integrity has been called convincingly into question- that affair a while back with the deregulation of power companies for example. Without wanting to open certain cans of worms again, I would also point to the Kyoto (non)treaty, and of course you have the 'irregularities' concerning his election in the first place.

Again, it all might just be a coincidence, after all if the evidence was sufficient he'd be impeached or locked up or shot or something. However the problem is that a corrupt politician won't generally leave easy-to-follow paper trails. Crooks hide the proof as best they can, and the more powerful the crook the more effectively they can hide it. So when it comes to heads of state and other figures like that, a big pile of circumstantial evidence is sometimes all we have to go on. Add to that my (initially reluctant- ah, to be young and naive again) belief that 95% of all politicians are corrupt, soulless, self-serving reptilian arsewipes anyway and you can see why I don't trust Bush. Sure, it's not fair and it wouldn't hold up in court, but it's what my gut says and in the end that's what I go with. If I believed he'd at least done what he'd done in the interests of his country, I could give him some small measure of credit, but I just can't believe it, there are too many coincidences.

Anyway, if Bush ever comes to my little town I've got some out-of-date eggs at home with his name on them.

[Karibu]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
If someone were to prove that Bush knew that Iraq had no legitimate WMD threat and that the war was only intended to line the pockets of Haliburton then I would say that goes way beyond propaganda. Propaganda is lying to gain tactical advantage over the enemy. This would be lying to your own people to cover up presidential malfeseance of a tremendous scale.

Geoschmo

Heh, this makes me remember one small scale (internationally insignificant) scandal here in Finland. We had a parliament election a year ago here in Finland. It is also about changing our government, for the biggest party in our parliament will have the authority to form new government (our government is then changed every 6 years). During the Last weeks of election campaign the 2 biggest parties (social democrats and bourgeois party) had a bloody fight over people's votes and the leader of bourgeois party got into possession of one secret document about our government's discussion of USA about Iraq war.

She knew that it would be very risky to publish it, for if published, it could bring victory to her party but could also cost her political career (publishing classified information is always invetigated). She decided to publish that she had such information and what it was, but would not reveal the source and actually lied about it (she claimed she got it "accidentally"). Her party won the parliament election, partially because of that, ans she was elected as prime minister. But little after election the investigation started and she could no longer hide her source. Also it became apparent that she had lied about things during election. I don't bore you with the details, but after less than 6 months as prime minister she resigned (othervise government would have collapsed) and the people were offered few other political heads in a plate along with her.

What was the point? Lying can get you only so far. And eventually, you have to face the consequences of your actions.

[mottlee]

Good, Bad or Indifferent I my self am glad he is defanetly out of power, call me a "Flag Waver" that is fine by me! That is one of the things we (USA) stand for is the freedom of speach, written or other wise. I my self I am pro military and do think it is a "Good" thing to serve your country, and weather you beleave in the WMD's or not a VERY BAD man is no longer a threat to the rest of the World and for that we can sleep better at night!

(just my $.02)