2. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/6/2002 6:40:23 PM
3. Cellar Door - 9/6/2002 7:53:00 PM
Goerge W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Ann Coulter should be sent to Iraq immediately. Their mission? To kill Saddam Hussein.
Should be a snap.
4. joezan - 9/6/2002 9:48:50 PM
Well, I feel as if I've just bought a new house, and my schlumpy neighbors from down the road have already been here, drinking up all my beer and farting on my new couch.
Nevertheless, what better way to start a thread about Iraq than with a couple of photos of the man that Iraq is all about?
The one link I've added so far - Tales of the Tyrant - is an excellent Atlantic piece that looks into the weird world of the man himself. As the author, Mark Bowden, asks:
What does Saddam Hussein see in himself that no one else in the world seems to see? The answer is perhaps best revealed by the intimate details of the Iraqi leader's daily life.
Much of it is stuff most of us already knew, or have heard dribs and drabs of. But context is everything, and in the present context, one has to ask himself after reading the article whether Saddam hasn't expected something like this for a very long time.
5. jexster - 9/6/2002 11:11:37 PM
Imbecile to Issue Ultimatum TO THE WORLD!
How bout a big FUCK YOU.
Who the hell does this guy think he is anyway?
Mutha fucka can't even speak.
6. jexster - 9/6/2002 11:12:14 PM
Yo Zan...what IS your name?
7. jexster - 9/6/2002 11:21:43 PM
8. robertjayb - 9/6/2002 11:26:56 PM
The big Push: Man workin' hard, closing the deals...(NYTimes)
"President Bush spoke with world leaders in back-to-back phone calls that lasted 30 minutes altogether."
Thirty minutes! A man with true grit. Good job he does all that running. 
...steely gaze, firm grip. Whatta guy...
9. jexster - 9/6/2002 11:37:14 PM
And they told him to go fuck Bevo
10. jexster - 9/6/2002 11:40:48 PM
And they told him to go fuck Bevo
11. jexster - 9/6/2002 11:57:54 PM
And they told him to go fuck Bevo...
The War to Make Bush Believable and Stop From Laughing At Him:
FAQ's
1. I have heard Jexster refer frequently to Bevo. What in the hell is he talking about?
UT's legendary mascot is named Bevo. A true Texas longhorn tradition present during all UT games under the protection of the Silver Spurs.
This is what Bevo looks like. 
2. I have heard Our Maximum Leader say that Saddam Hussein "crawfishes". What in the hell is he talking about?
Its hard to say what that blithering idiot had in mind. That is why the whole world is laughing at him.
Crawfish walk backwards, a description more aptly applied to Bush, not Saddam.
This is what a crawfish looks like. To eat it you firstt separate the tail from the body. Then you suck the slime out of the head 
12. jexster - 9/7/2002 12:02:07 AM
JUST WAR
IN THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH - EWTN
2306 Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defense available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risks of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death. [Cf. Vatican II, Guadium et spes 78, 5]
13. Cellar Door - 9/7/2002 12:04:55 AM
Saddam Bad
Bush Good
(repeat ad infinitum)
14. jexster - 9/7/2002 12:09:13 AM
Fall 2002
Pax Christi USA
Iraq Peace Pledge/Iraq Pledge of Resistance
Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9)
15. jexster - 9/7/2002 12:21:41 AM
Good Cllr I see you've gotten your hands on a copy of "Self-Hypnosis For the Brain Dead: Analgesic for Those In Agony of Thought - Republican National Committee"
16. ronski - 9/7/2002 12:22:09 AM
When neighbors fart on your new couch, at least there's Febreze.
When the JexsterBorg engulfs a new thread, there's no hope of removing the stench.
17. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/7/2002 8:31:03 AM
18. joezan - 9/7/2002 9:33:48 AM
Here is a link to the WP article jex linked up-thread, minus caps, underlines, exclamation points and swear words.
It seems as though GW may have found a way to at least make it look like he's going to play along, which is at first disconcerting (to me).
The dominant view within the administration is that the time for inspections has passed and that ultimately Hussein, who has barred inspectors since 1998, will have to be forcibly deposed. But White House officials have been persuaded that working through the United Nations, for the moment at least, is advisable and may ultimately facilitate military action.
But reading between the lines, I believe he has actually trumped the euros, UN, etc; in effect, he's saying Ok - inspections before invasion...BUT...we're gonna go whole-hog - on MY terms. (Knowing full well, of course, that Saddam will never agree to anything beyond the original terms - if he agrees to anything at all).
And when Saddam refuses, GW can say "See - we tried going the inspections route."
19. jexster - 9/7/2002 9:53:28 AM
He's lost Z...he can't even put together a coherent sentence.
GWB is a geopoltical incompetent. His decision apparatus is out of control. Because he hasn't the temperament, experience or intellect to match the strong personalities of his decision making team, the decision process has become an anarchy where the power to decide has now moved from inside the administration to newspapers, pundits, and other domestic and foreign political leaders. That is the end stage of a bureaucratic political disaster, and this is a bureaucratic political bumble that is without precedent in US history.
He stumbled consistently and repeatedly. He is lost.
That is why this:
PRESIDENT BUSH and Tony Blair ran into a wall of international opposition to their proposed military action against Iraq yesterday, after world leaders from Paris to Moscow and Beijing urged them to shelve their plans.
Wall of Opposition Meets Ball of Confusion
20. jexster - 9/7/2002 9:55:39 AM
The problem is he doesn't have "his" terms. We saw this happen in a far lower stakes, far less pressured environment last Spring when Powell convinced him to get tough on the middle east. That wasn't the Sharon/Kristol agenda and they took care of "his terms" in short order. Now Powell has struck back. But there are more players in the game now....
21. jexster - 9/7/2002 10:16:43 AM
- Ultimata are for adversaries not allies
= You cannot convince anyone that you are serious about inspections or Saddam's threat when everyone knows cause you have told them
22. jexster - 9/7/2002 10:22:01 AM
Pigshit lookin for a pretext - Any wonder those nations allegedly "at risk" oppose the effort to "save them?
No wonder at all not one bit.
Moussa said Arab states were seeking a diplomatic solution and had already helped bring Iraqi and U.N. officials together.
The ministerial resolutions on Iraq also called for lifting U.N. sanctions, an "interlinked and scheduled implementation of all the requirements of the Security Council resolutions," and a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.
Speaking to reporters on his way out, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri accused Israel of possessing weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear and other weapons.
Moussa accused the world community of double standards, complaining that while it insisted Iraq obey U.N. resolutions, it failed to measure Israel by the same yardstick concerning its occupation of Palestinian territory.
23. jexster - 9/7/2002 10:24:14 AM
24. jexster - 9/7/2002 10:30:21 AM Domestically, whipping up a froth of fear from what remains of 9-1-1 torments is all that backstops Bush's adventure (outside the usual suspects on thee lunatic fringe - we know you're out there).....that support ebbs with each passing day and will totally crumble once the invasion begins.... 25. jexster - 9/7/2002 10:33:48 AM Lunatic Fringe 26. jexster - 9/7/2002 10:52:16 AM The Politics and Process of Policy Making 101 - Today's Lesson - Spin Don't Stop Spun - Out of Control 27. jexster - 9/7/2002 10:52:58 AM An eye for an eye 28. jexster - 9/7/2002 11:09:17 AM Crawfish Walk Backwards - Blair to Push Coercive Inspection Compromise - Daily Telegraph 29. jexster - 9/7/2002 11:36:34 AM 30. Cellar Door - 9/7/2002 11:38:13 AM 31. jexster - 9/7/2002 1:07:49 PM If you're going to moderate a thread Z-legion, have the balls to set a current email address. 32. jexster - 9/7/2002 1:09:07 PM --- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- 33. OhioSTOPAS - 9/7/2002 1:16:33 PM Re Message # 12: I liked Bush's description of Saddam as "crawfishing". 34. OhioSTOPAS - 9/7/2002 1:17:11 PM Jex, your toys are screwing up another thread. 35. jexster - 9/7/2002 1:23:36 PM 36. RustlerPike - 9/7/2002 1:26:49 PM Jexs: 37. Cellar Door - 9/7/2002 1:29:40 PM That's the whine of a right-winger losing an argument. 38. jexster - 9/7/2002 2:16:38 PM Why thank you RP, didn't know you cared and since you asked: 39. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/7/2002 6:40:45 PM Impressive resume, good Jexter. 40. joezan - 9/7/2002 10:16:52 PM I am a noted moral theologian whose arguments are now being advanced by a Jewess and US Senator 41. joezan - 9/7/2002 10:28:02 PM [From the link in the butterbar]: 42. joezan - 9/7/2002 10:29:20 PM [...continued] 43. joezan - 9/7/2002 10:41:24 PM The man the US is expected to deal with: 44. joezan - 9/7/2002 10:42:16 PM Saddam was silent for a moment, drawing thoughtfully on his cigar. 45. concerned - 9/8/2002 1:54:28 AM Damme! Jexster, Al Qaeda acolyte, sounds just like Sodamn Insane. 46. concerned - 9/8/2002 3:47:24 AM Saddam weapons are 'a very real threat to Britain', warns Tony Blair 47. concerned - 9/8/2002 3:50:42 AM 48. concerned - 9/8/2002 3:56:15 AM CellDoor's mantra: 49. concerned - 9/8/2002 4:07:15 AM Is another war with Saddam inevitable? 50. concerned - 9/8/2002 4:08:26 AM 'Course, that would piss off the 'hate Bush', 'love Saddam' Lefties no end. 51. wonkers2 - 9/8/2002 7:51:49 AM I'm not aware of any Saddam supporters in the U.S., lefty or righty. Plenty of both question Bush's ill-considered shift from our tried and true deter/contain policy which worked for fifty years against real enemies to one of pre-emptive first strikes against little pissant countries like Iraq. One of these days somebody will write the inside story of how that occurred, i.e, how the speechwriter, fed by Cheney, Perle, Rumsfeld, et al, stuck the words in front of the little monkey and got him to read them out loud in public. Somehow, it seems to me, it should take a little more than that to change our central defense policy. 52. robertjayb - 9/8/2002 1:28:46 PM Bushies crawfishing on assertions about Iraq...(MSNBC) 53. RustlerPike - 9/8/2002 1:36:05 PM When one man shouted that he was innocent, Saddam shouted back, "Itla! Itla!" "Get out! Get out!" (Weeks later, after secret trials, Saddam had the mouths of the accused taped shut so that they could utter no troublesome last words before their firing squads.) When all of the sixty "traitors" had been removed, Saddam again took the podium and wiped tears from his eyes as he repeated the names of those who had betrayed him. 54. Cellar Door - 9/8/2002 1:49:12 PM Outside of enjoying his performance in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut I have never had anything positive to say about Saddam Hussein. 55. robertjayb - 9/8/2002 3:32:56 PM WHITE HOUSE ADMITS ERROR 56. robertjayb - 9/8/2002 3:41:10 PM Loud assertions are not evidence, particularly when they are false... 57. Cellar Door - 9/8/2002 4:30:53 PM Time to hit the video store again! 58. RustlerPike - 9/8/2002 8:55:44 PM Well, like I said, Sharon's spokesman told me the war was scheduled for January-February. I believe he said something about elections in November making an earlier date impossible. 59. RustlerPike - 9/8/2002 8:55:49 PM Well, like I said, Sharon's spokesman told me the war was scheduled for January-February. I believe he said something about elections in November making an earlier date impossible. 60. RustlerPike - 9/8/2002 8:56:50 PM I figured I'd say that twice, in case you didn't hear me the first time. 61. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/8/2002 9:17:28 PM 62. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/8/2002 9:27:20 PM ÇáÕÍÇÝ 63. jexster - 9/8/2002 9:28:09 PM LONDON, Sept. 6 — As a child, Lois Greenough spent nights in air-raid shelters, a raincoat thrown over her pajamas, during the Battle of Britain in World War II. At 68, she has seen enough of wartime aggression to know that she does not want to be on the side of the aggressor. 64. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/8/2002 9:30:11 PM Translation for those not as multilinginial as the good doctor: 65. jexster - 9/8/2002 9:33:03 PM Tony Blair and President George W Bush have agreed to topple Saddam Hussein by military means even if the United Nations does not pass a Security Council resolution authorising the use of force. 66. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/8/2002 9:39:16 PM A third open letter from Saddam Hussein to the peoples of the United States, Western peoples and governments. 67. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/8/2002 9:39:37 PM 68. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/8/2002 9:39:57 PM 69. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/8/2002 9:40:13 PM 70. jexster - 9/8/2002 9:42:36 PM SCOTT RITTER, a former American arms inspector, told the Iraqi parliament yesterday that President Bush was “on the verge of making an historical mistake” in threatening to depose Saddam Hussein. 71. judithathome - 9/8/2002 9:45:42 PM Well, he's going to be charged with being a traitor. Hope he likes living over there...I'd bet he's not allowed nack in this country. 72. judithathome - 9/8/2002 9:46:23 PM nack=back...must be reading too much XTC. 73. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/8/2002 9:49:22 PM 74. joezan - 9/8/2002 9:49:45 PM Hey Doc...you keep a collection of Saddam fashion photo links, or what? 76. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/8/2002 9:50:03 PM Error -2147217900 :[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'post_text', table 'themote.dbo.post'; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails. 77. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/8/2002 9:51:22 PM The good doctor shall try to scan such a portraiture to oblige your polite request. 78. joezan - 9/8/2002 9:57:27 PM Judith: 79. jexster - 9/8/2002 9:58:59 PM Americans increasingly doubt that their government has done enough to protect them against terrorist attacks and are convinced, despite misgivings, that there will be a war against Iraq, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows. Majorities do not want war without Congressional and allied support first and a clear explanation from President Bush ( news - web sites). 80. joezan - 9/8/2002 9:59:30 PM ...In fact, look for Ritter to be making many more such appearances in the coming months - make hay while the sun shines, you know? 81. joezan - 9/8/2002 10:05:29 PM XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUNDAY SEPT 08, 2002 19:58:02 ET XXXXX 82. joezan - 9/8/2002 10:06:12 PM Lampsos claims Saddam uses an herbal relaxation mask to try to reduce wrinkles, dyes his hair 83. joezan - 9/8/2002 10:08:38 PM Whiskey on the rocks? 84. ronski - 9/8/2002 10:10:19 PM Charming. 85. joezan - 9/8/2002 10:15:05 PM Well, like I keep on saying - Iraq is just the first on the list (second, if you count Afghanistan).) 86. jexster - 9/8/2002 10:16:11 PM JAH - Traitor to what? To the War to Make Bush Believable? 87. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 9/8/2002 11:08:12 PM And more good and noble Jesters, by god! 88. jexster - 9/8/2002 11:20:44 PM Ritter's been on Saddam's payroll for quite some time - 89. jexster - 9/8/2002 11:32:47 PM Message # 81 90. jexster - 9/8/2002 11:59:25 PM Redneck Let's Fly Yet Another Nasty Green Loogie Out of Pickup Window 91. jexster - 9/9/2002 12:12:45 AM Just war theory is probably the most influential perspective on the ethics of war and peace. Though many of its themes were of Platonic origin, the Just War Theory's first exponent was St. Augustine of Hippo in the Fifth Century. Eight hundred years later, St. Thomas Acquinas further systematized the concept. Hugo Grotius, was the foremost exponent among the "secular" philosophers. 92. jexster - 9/9/2002 12:14:41 AM From "Catholic Teaching on Peace and War" (Diocese of Austin) 93. jexster - 9/9/2002 12:17:13 AM In the Second Vatican Council document “Pastoral Constitution in the Modern World” (Gaudium et Spes), the bishops of the whole Church wrote the following: 94. jexster - 9/9/2002 12:21:11 AM In the Second Vatican Council document “Pastoral Constitution in the Modern World” (Gaudium et Spes), the bishops of the whole Church wrote the following: 95. jexster - 9/9/2002 12:21:46 AM All those who enter the military service in loyalty to their country should look upon themselves as the custodians of the security and freedom of their fellow countrymen; and when they carry out their duty properly, they are contributing to the maintenance of peace.” (No. 79) 96. jexster - 9/9/2002 12:22:38 AM Proportionality: in the conduct of hostilities, efforts must be made to attain military objectives with no more force than is militarily necessary and to avoid disproportionate collateral damage to civilian life and property; 97. jexster - 9/9/2002 12:25:47 AM The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgement of those who have responsibility for the common good.” 98. jexster - 9/9/2002 12:50:33 AM My letter to DiFi "barely coherent email missives" (by the way Zan do you know what "missive" means or did you think that redundancies make you sound "intelligent"?) 99. jexster - 9/9/2002 12:52:03 AM 100. jexster - 9/9/2002 12:55:29 AM Please note that Bush's promise to "consult" with the UN and Congress is insufficient. You must not be a party to any consultation without a sure and certain committment that the Administration will seek not only congressional approval but Security Council sanction for any Bush schemes to enforce UN resolutions. 101. jexster - 9/9/2002 2:06:52 AM We'll close with a vocabulary exercise... 102. jexster - 9/9/2002 2:14:22 AM 9Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ 10He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; 12and the unclean spirits begged him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’ 13So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea 103. jexster - 9/9/2002 3:06:08 AM Is Zinni "on Sadaam's Payroll", Numbnuts? 104. concerned - 9/9/2002 3:21:23 AM The Times Online: Iraq Must Be Dealt With 105. jexster - 9/9/2002 3:53:41 AM Proponents of this adventure cannot, have not, and will not be able to muster other than the flimiest, most transparent justifications for their misbegotten course. 106. concerned - 9/9/2002 4:20:30 AM What would it take to change your mind, Jex? A Democrat president? 107. jexster - 9/9/2002 7:42:00 AM That would help...but we might start with more modest approach...an elected one.. 108. jexster - 9/9/2002 8:09:22 AM For the record, I do not rule out coercive options. I think deposited b4 in RP's urinal my "plan" for Iraq. 109. Cellar Door - 9/9/2002 11:19:05 AM MWO says: 110. Cellar Door - 9/9/2002 11:19:39 AM But as NBC reports, and the Washington Post confirms, the U.N. report in question emphatically did NOT say what Bush claimed it did. 111. Cellar Door - 9/9/2002 11:20:07 AM Sources in London tell MWO that Prime Minister Blair, who fell for the ruse, has been "very embarrassed" by the incident. 112. Cellar Door - 9/9/2002 11:20:20 AM 113. jexster - 9/9/2002 12:09:47 PM - the threatened damage must be lasting, grave, and certain; 114. jexster - 9/9/2002 12:14:19 PM Cllr...I am happy to see you speakin out against bullshit that piles up daily outta the Office of Strategery...this really smells 115. jexster - 9/9/2002 7:30:24 PM OpEd: Europe's choices IHT 116. Edmund Dantes - 9/9/2002 8:13:28 PM "If you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He's already demonstrated a willingness to use these weapons. He poison-gassed his own people. He used poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors. This man has no compunction about killing lots and lots of people. So [the Clinton administration's Operation Desert Fox, or massive four-day bombing of Iraq] is a way to save lives and to save the stability and peace of a region of the world that is important to the peace and security of the entire world." 117. Edmund Dantes - 9/9/2002 8:14:22 PM "Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction....If Saddam defies the world, and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors; he will make war on his own people; and mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them. Because we're acting today, it is less likely that we will face these dangers in the future." 118. Edmund Dantes - 9/9/2002 8:19:01 PM So the question is, did Bill & Al solve the problem forever by bombing Iraq for four days in 1998? That is, in 1998, which was seven years after the Gulf War and with the inspector program in place, Bill & Al thought Saddam was so close to getting WMD that they couldn't even wait until after Ramadan to bomb him. 119. Edmund Dantes - 9/9/2002 8:19:34 PM International Institute for Strategic Studies 120. jexster - 9/9/2002 8:35:31 PM Not quite right there Ed...perhaps you should read the report again... 121. jexster - 9/9/2002 8:35:45 PM 122. jexster - 9/9/2002 8:40:29 PM So the question is, did Bill & Al solve the problem forever by bombing Iraq for four days in 1998? 123. jexster - 9/9/2002 8:45:13 PM The Bushies have been talking "threat" so loud and so long without anything new to back up this sudden discovery, that its almost like they are talking to themselves...in fact talking themselves into war... 124. Edmund Dantes - 9/9/2002 8:53:12 PM Not quite right there Ed...perhaps you should read the report again... 125. RustlerPike - 9/9/2002 9:00:06 PM Jexster is right. You shouldn't go to war against Saddam unless there is absolute proof that he possesses WMD and that they work. 126. Edmund Dantes - 9/9/2002 9:05:35 PM 1. What is the problem? 127. ronski - 9/9/2002 9:17:20 PM Pike is right. None of this inventing of grievances, like Sudetenland and Danzig. 128. Cellar Door - 9/9/2002 9:42:09 PM "If impeachment made it impossible for Clinton to do his job protecting the national security of the United States, he should have resigned. In contrast, he insisted it was not affecting his ability to do his job, and he in fact carried out several military operations with the timing suspect because of how they appeared to be attempts to distract from impeachment." 129. Edmund Dantes - 9/9/2002 10:06:36 PM Competence requires resignation for fear of "suspect timing." 130. joezan - 9/9/2002 11:43:14 PM 1. missive: A written message; a letter 131. Cellar Door - 9/10/2002 12:48:06 AM "Again, no. I have and have never had any real interest in Whitewater" 132. Cellar Door - 9/10/2002 12:49:43 AM "at least not as much interest as you have in the driving record of the "FIRST LADY" when she was a 17 year old." 133. concerned - 9/10/2002 1:14:12 AM More bad news for Jexster: Jacques Chirac moving toward removing Iraqi Madman dictator 134. concerned - 9/10/2002 1:25:18 AM excerpted: 135. RustlerPike - 9/10/2002 2:17:39 AM Joe: 136. concerned - 9/10/2002 2:23:22 AM Who says nationalism is RW? There's more cases in point on the Left. 137. alistairconnor - 9/10/2002 6:14:31 AM Intriguingly, Chirac's position has not been reported today in France. 138. wonkers2 - 9/10/2002 8:43:12 AM There are two very long front page articles on the 9/11 attack and al Qaida in today's NYT. 139. Wombat - 9/10/2002 8:59:11 AM Chirac has provided Bush with the methodology for bringing Europe and reluctant allies behind him, and giving a move against Iraq both the cause and the legitimacy it currently lacks. Bush would be an idiot not to follow that path, even if the delay means that he will reap no short-term political benefit. 140. wonkers2 - 9/10/2002 10:23:33 AM 141. wonkers2 - 9/10/2002 10:24:57 AM I missed Chirac's methodology for bringing our allies along. What does he suggest? 142. Marc-Albert - 9/10/2002 10:42:54 AM "Chirac has provided Bush with the methodology for bringing Europe and reluctant allies behind him" 143. alistairconnor - 9/10/2002 10:50:37 AM Scoop : 144. joezan - 9/10/2002 10:53:22 AM ...and then, CHECKMATE. 145. alistairconnor - 9/10/2002 11:02:12 AM I believe that several European nations might end up on board if there were to be a Security Council mandate. They really have little choice. If the US is going to go ahead anyway, as it appears... well, it's Europe which is left with handling the mess. Kurdish refugees can walk to France or Germany if they have to. 146. PelleNilsson - 9/10/2002 11:28:12 AM I still find it difficult to believe that Jordan will take part in an attack. However, the news of unusually heavy US/British bomb raids in western Iraq last week takes on new significance. There is a military airfield there at a place called H3 (a pumping station on the defunct Iraq-Jordan pipeline) which could serve as a bridgehead for the US. 147. Wombat - 9/10/2002 12:01:59 PM If Iraq refuses to accept the Security Council's ultimatum on inspections, then any attack would not be preemptive, but in response to a violation of a UN resolution (Iraq has been in violation of them since the Gulf War ended, but never mind...) 148. jexster - 9/10/2002 12:24:52 PM It remains to be seen whether T. Friedman's Declaration of the PantyWaist's Victory over the Forces of Krustified Klownish KhickenHawk Darkness is correct or premature. 149. jexster - 9/10/2002 1:14:00 PM He came to office largely ignorant of foreign affairs. His team split immediately—and deeply—after his Inauguration into two fiercely divided camps, and is already scarred by the pitched battles between the conservative wing, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, and the pragmatists under Secretary of State Colin Powell 150. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/10/2002 1:22:20 PM 151. jexster - 9/10/2002 1:24:12 PM Zan is such pathetic Old Glorified Moron... 152. jexster - 9/10/2002 1:25:27 PM Bush By the Balls 153. jexster - 9/10/2002 1:26:08 PM What a fear mongering clown...total loss of control...pathetic 154. jexster - 9/10/2002 1:49:07 PM 155. jexster - 9/10/2002 2:19:51 PM Since learning from Zan that the 1600 year old Catholic Moral Teaching on Just War is "wacky lefty", I decided to investigate what if anything might be more mainstream, anything thing besides "Saddam uses viagra" 156. jexster - 9/10/2002 2:23:56 PM As BoyBlunder takes the stage...ask yourselves... 157. robertjayb - 9/10/2002 2:38:15 PM 158. OhioSTOPAS - 9/10/2002 3:07:05 PM I don't know. While good, I think Prime Minister Blair's speech could have been improved with a few colloquialisms. 159. ronski - 9/10/2002 4:09:41 PM Of course there are crawfish (crayfish) in England. 160. wonkers2 - 9/10/2002 6:09:45 PM Jex, Are you sure "Satan's Filthy Little Secret" is a parody? Tampons are probably illegal as well as immoral in a bunch of countries. I can remember when selling condoms was illegal in Connecticut thanks to the power of the Roman Catholic church. 161. jexster - 9/10/2002 8:55:25 PM Speaking of JoeZ, Satan, and tampons... 162. jexster - 9/10/2002 9:44:59 PM 163. PelleNilsson - 9/11/2002 2:34:48 AM From The Economist: 164. concerned - 9/11/2002 2:46:33 AM Btw, the Rice quite is an excellent thread header blurb. 165. concerned - 9/11/2002 2:46:41 AM Btw, the Rice quote is an excellent thread header blurb. 166. concerned - 9/11/2002 2:53:02 AM Joe - could you please delete 164 and this post? TIA. 167. jexster - 9/11/2002 12:11:00 PM WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 ? Senior intelligence officials acknowledged today that the government had not compiled an updated, cross-agency assessment of Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capacities, although the Bush administration is pressing for a quick statement of support for military action against Saddam Hussein. 168. jexster - 9/11/2002 12:11:29 PM the Rice quite is an excellent thread header blurb. 169. jexster - 9/11/2002 12:20:07 PM [C] AIRO, Sept. 10 — Anger at the United States, embedded in the belief that the Bush administration lends unstinting support to Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, is at an unparalleled high across the Arab world, according to analysts and diplomats in the region. 170. jexster - 9/11/2002 12:22:01 PM They talked bitterly of the United States behaving like an 18th-century imperial power with policies based on racism and gunpowder. The main difference between the United States today and the marauding forces of Genghis Khan was that Washington was able to project its power all over the globe, said one person who was interviewed who insisted on anonymity. 171. RustlerPike - 9/11/2002 2:45:09 PM Pelle: 172. PelleNilsson - 9/11/2002 2:58:52 PM No, it's incurable. But it's good for you. 173. JJBiener - 9/11/2002 3:05:30 PM Pike - There must be some kind of pill you can take when you start feeling European - isn't there? 174. Wombat - 9/11/2002 3:07:49 PM And remember, the enema of my enema is my friend. 175. jonesatlaw - 9/11/2002 3:15:54 PM Lets see, we contain Stalin, and all the other Soviets for half a century with the threat of a overwhelming strategic counter strike. We know that they have sophisticated ICBMs, with some of them MIRV'd. All with heavy throw weights, sufficient to compensate for their poorer accuracy compared to American missles. They also have balistic missle subs with hulls which allow them to dive deeper than our subs, patrolling off our coasts. 176. thoughtful - 9/11/2002 3:17:19 PM From the New Yorker: 177. thoughtful - 9/11/2002 3:17:59 PM toy check 178. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/11/2002 4:13:13 PM 179. jexster - 9/11/2002 9:09:26 PM 180. jexster - 9/11/2002 9:11:08 PM E-mail missive is redundant Joey 181. jexster - 9/11/2002 9:15:15 PM and BTW case I never mentioned it I know all about how Senators & Congressthings deal with email missives as well as letter missives...having read/answered a few myself back in the days when they used green eyeshades and quills to answer letter missives...we didn't have email missives back then... 182. jexster - 9/11/2002 9:24:22 PM Message # 133 183. jexster - 9/11/2002 9:29:01 PM it's Bush and Blair on one side and all the others on the other side. Which is slightly different. 184. jexster - 9/11/2002 9:29:46 PM Do you need any help understanding that? 185. jexster - 9/11/2002 9:36:43 PM Congressional Democrats said yesterday that classified briefings by President Bush's top advisers have failed to make a compelling case for quick military action against Iraq, and several leaders said Congress should wait until after the November elections before voting to authorize a strike against Saddam Hussein's regime. 186. jexster - 9/11/2002 9:38:18 PM "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." --- Condoleezza Rice 187. jexster - 9/11/2002 9:51:20 PM In a letter to Bush yesterday, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Sen. Richard G. Lugar ( R-Ind.) wrote: "There is not consensus on many critical questions" about the use of force in Iraq. 188. jexster - 9/11/2002 10:01:09 PM 189. jexster - 9/11/2002 10:09:30 PM Since only TD seems to believe that this UN gambit that Chirac is pressing is real (not even Chirac believes otherwise)..the rest of can appreciate this from the DailyT 190. jexster - 9/11/2002 10:11:26 PM The only real question about international support for the War to Make Bush Believable is not how many allies the Boy Blunder will gain, but whether he will lose the only real ally he has. I am not talking about the Izzies. I am talking about Blair. 191. jexster - 9/11/2002 10:18:33 PM Marc-Albert.. 192. jexster - 9/11/2002 10:49:55 PM L'etendard sanglant est levee 193. jexster - 9/11/2002 10:55:50 PM One British official insisted, however, that Mr Powell was still "in the driving seat", because Mr Bush had "bought the Powell-Blair line" that it was essential to go to the United Nations before unleashing war on Saddam Hussein. 194. jexster - 9/11/2002 11:07:14 PM April 19 2002 195. Edmund Dantes - 9/11/2002 11:11:04 PM By my count jexster made 84 out of the first 194 posts in this thread, including the 16 posts in a row prior to this. 196. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/11/2002 11:24:37 PM From another site: 197. ronski - 9/11/2002 11:41:10 PM Nobody with an ounce of brains has ever suggested the Islamists hate our cell phones. 198. ronski - 9/11/2002 11:45:23 PM Eddie, 199. joezan - 9/12/2002 12:22:58 AM My very thoughts, people. 200. concerned - 9/12/2002 12:27:06 AM Re. 188 - 201. concerned - 9/12/2002 12:29:14 AM Pelle: 202. sakonige - 9/12/2002 1:24:12 AM I'll post replies to Jexster if that will make you feel better. 203. sakonige - 9/12/2002 1:25:04 AM He's about the only contributor to this site I read anymore, anyway. 204. concerned - 9/12/2002 1:34:15 AM Re. 202 - 205. alistairconnor - 9/12/2002 4:28:43 AM No, Jex, the French position does seem to be shifting significantly. Alain Juppé broke a taboo this morning, saying stern things to the effect that "we" must be prepared to take coercive action against Saddam... He's clearly Chirac's pilot fish on this. I have a feeling that the propaganda machine is going to kick in shortly, just like for Gulf War I, using the 9/11 emotion to legitimize Gulf War II. 206. jexster - 9/12/2002 10:01:22 AM
ASHINGTON, Sept. 6 — President Bush called the leaders of Russia, China and France today to seek their support as he tried to build an international coalition against Saddam Hussein, but he appeared, in his initial approaches, to have made little headway in convincing them that the need for action was urgent.
Advertisement
Soon after his talk with Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, the Kremlin spokesman said Mr. Putin had expressed "serious doubts that there are grounds for the use of force in connection with Iraq from the standpoint of international law or from a political standpoint."
France's president, Jacques Chirac, insisted anew that any military action had to come with the approval of the United Nations. Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, said after meeting with Mr. Chirac that "it would be unwise to attack Iraq now."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/international/middleeast/07PREX.html target=New>Dazed & Confused
George Bush is a geopolitical incompetent. He has allowed a clique of hawks to induce him to take a position on invading Iraq from which he cannot extract himself, one that will have nothing but negative consequences for the United States - and the rest of the world. He will find himself badly hurt politically, perhaps fatally. And he will rapidly diminish the already declining power of the US in the world.
Bush has no choice. He will invade Iraq. He has made clear the Middle East crisis will not deter him from this. Quite the opposite. And we shall all live with the consequences
Lunatic Fringe
I know you're out there
You're in hiding
And you hold your meetings
We can hear you coming
We know what you're after
We're wise to you this time
We won't let you kill the laughter
Lunatic Fringe
In the twilight's last gleaming
This is open season
But you won't get too far
We know you've got to blame someone
For your own confusion
But we're on guard this time
Against your final solution
We can hear you coming
(We can hear you coming)
No you're not going to win this time
We can hear the footsteps
(We can hear the footsteps)
Way out along the walkway
Lunatic Fringe
We know you're out there
But in these new dark ages
There will still be light
An eye for an eye
Well, before you go under
Can you feel the resistance
Can you feel the...thunder
Hypothesis: Message # 19
Key Republican Busts Bush's Balls
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of a key intelligence committee in the U.S. Congress said on Saturday that the United States must deal with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites) like a malignant cancer.
"The long history of Saddam's activities puts us very much on alert that we have to deal with him. And it's a little bit like a cancer. When you know you've got a malignancy, it's better to get at it sooner rather than later," said Rep. Porter Goss, the influential chairman of the House of Representatives Select Intelligence Committee.
In a transcript of CNN's Novak Hunt & Shields program, Goss, a Florida Republican, said he did not know "the full extent" of Iraq's development of nuclear weapons.
"We know that efforts are being made, but I'm going to have to leave it to the president of the United States to go into the levels that he wishes to discuss ... publicly," he said.
Well, before you go under
Can you feel the resistance
Can you feel the...thunder
History has called us, George W. Bush likes to say, but what if history has already moved on?
As a senior Bush adviser bluntly declared earlier this year: 'The way to win international acceptance is to win. That's called diplomacy: winning.' If other countries get restive, U.S. officials say, who cares? Even ganged up, they will be weaker than the U.S. alone...A presidency based on moral principles requires consistency, and Bush has not always displayed it. He calls for democracy in Iraq and Palestine-but not in such U.S.-friendly autocracies as Saudi Arabia. He is an avowed free-trader, but he has boosted domestic farm subsidies and protectionist tariffs on foreign steel... Many of these Republicans were surprised in January when Bush's strategist Karl Rove said the g.o.p. will make the President's 'handling of the war on terrorism the centerpiece' of its plan to win back the Senate and keep the House in November...No man who lost the popular vote can ignore his re-election (sic) for very long..."
History Moves On - Bush Stumbles Along - Wag the Puppy (Time Magazine)
Catholic Teaching on Peace and War - Diocese of AUSTIN http://www.austindiocese.org/Sept11/war-and-peace_1.htm
Pax Christi USA http://www.paxchristiusa.org/
Pax Christi International http://www.paxchristi.net/body_index.html
The Presiding Bishop's statement
on military action against Iraq - Episcopal Church News Service
Why Bush will go to war on Iraq By Immanuel Wallerstein
April 19 2002 http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/18/1019020682608.html
The Eagle Has Crash Landed - Immanuel Wallerstein - Foreign Policy Magazine http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_julyaug_2002/wallerstein.html
From Defense & The National Interest
Is Egypt in Play & Why is it the Prize? August 16, 2002 http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/comments/c457.htm
Werther Report: Is Preemption a Nuclear Schlieffen Plan? July 20, 2002 Comment: #453 http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/comments/c453.htm
The Guardian - Special Report on Iraq http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/0,2759,423009,00.html
(reason: 554 delivery error: dd Sorry your message to zanfo58@yahoo.com cannot be delivered. This account has been disabled or discontinued [#102]. - mta562.mail.yahoo.com)
JoeZ - Permanent & fatal errors, brain disabled, balls discontinued
But in the same sentence he saed Saddam has "wheedled out of agreements". When has Saddam ever "wheedled"? I assume the President meant "WEASELED out . . ."
Lunatic Fringe - Red Ryder - MIDI
Are you, like, even partly employed?
I am a full time student:
Econ 311- Econ Stats I
Public Administration 720 - Microeconomics
Econ 505 - Public Finance
Econ 535 - Urban Economics
I am a partime lawyer - Sole practitioner with one current dispute against one of the top 10 SF law firms
I am a noted moral theologian whose arguments are now being advanced by a Jewess and US Senator
I am an incisive political commentator who correctly predicted, among other things, the current BumbleFuck From DC
And when I have time, I maintain a casual e-mail relationship with a retired planning adjutant to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff; demolish any and all arguments advanced on behalf of the War to Make Bush Believable; exorcise JoeZan’s legion; give Ronski gas - all with a delightful multi-media environment
And you RP?
Sit on a hillside breaking wind; play with your GoyToy; keep careful books of account for your 15 minutes of fame and grouse about how women have castrated you.
I miss anything?
Lifetime learning, tis the motto of yours truly.
(Yawn)
Jex advances every wacked out lefty theory here in The Mote - some admittedly rather...original (ahem), touches them up some, and then copies them into barely coherent email missives which he then spends part of his 18 hours a day of playtime sending off to any and every elected official in America.
One Senator happens to say something jex had also said (as if these guys ever read their email), and jex promotes himself to Senior Advisor.
BTW, all - sorry if my lack of email addy has inconvenienced anyone - I'm getting it fixed with Ms.No as I type.
On July 18, 1979, he invited all the members of the Revolutionary Command Council and hundreds of other party leaders to a conference hall in Baghdad. He had a video camera running in the back of the hall to record the event for posterity. Wearing his military uniform, he walked slowly to the lectern and stood behind two microphones, gesturing with a big cigar. His body and broad face seemed weighted down with sadness. There had been a betrayal, he said. A Syrian plot. There were traitors among them. Then Saddam took a seat, and Muhyi Abd al-Hussein Mashhadi, the secretary-general of the Command Council, appeared from behind a curtain to confess his own involvement in the putsch. He had been secretly arrested and tortured days before; now he spilled out dates, times, and places where the plotters had met. Then he started naming names. As he fingered members of the audience one by one, armed guards grabbed the accused and escorted them from the hall.
When one man shouted that he was innocent, Saddam shouted back, "Itla! Itla!"—"Get out! Get out!" (Weeks later, after secret trials, Saddam had the mouths of the accused taped shut so that they could utter no troublesome last words before their firing squads.) When all of the sixty "traitors" had been removed, Saddam again took the podium and wiped tears from his eyes as he repeated the names of those who had betrayed him. Some in the audience, too, were crying—perhaps out of fear. This chilling performance had the desired effect. Everyone in the hall now understood exactly how things would work in Iraq from that day forward. The audience rose and began clapping, first in small groups and finally as one. The session ended with cheers and laughter. The remaining "leaders"—about 300 in all—left the hall shaken, grateful to have avoided the fate of their colleagues, and certain that one man now controlled the destiny of their entire nation. Videotapes of the purge were circulated throughout the country.
...Together Saddam and al-Ali had a meeting with the new Foreign Minister of Iran. Four years earlier Saddam had made a surprise concession to the soon-to-be-deposed Shah, reaching an agreement on navigation in the Shatt-al-Arab, a sixty-mile strait formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as they flow into the Persian Gulf. Both countries had long claimed the strait. In 1979...relations between the two countries were again strained, and the waters of the Shatt-al-Arab were a potential flash point. Both countries still claimed ownership of two small islands in the strait, which were then controlled by Iran.
But al-Ali was surprised by the tone of the discussions in Cuba. The Iranian representatives were especially agreeable, and Saddam seemed to be in an excellent mood. After the meeting al-Ali strolled with Saddam in a garden outside the meeting hall. They sat on a bench as Saddam lit a big cigar.
"Well, Salah, I see you are thinking of something," Saddam said. "What are you thinking about?" "I am thinking about the meeting we just had, Mr. President. I am very happy. I'm very happy that these small problems will be solved. I'm so happy that they took advantage of this chance to meet with you and not one of your ministers, because with you being here we can avoid another problem with them. We are neighbors. We are poor people. We don't need another war. We need to rebuild our countries, not tear them down."
"Salah, how long have you been a diplomat now?" he asked.
"About ten years."
"Do you realize, Salah, how much you have changed?"
"How, Mr. President?"
"How should we solve our problems with Iran? Iran took our lands. They are controlling the Shatt-al-Arab, our big river. How can meetings and discussions solve a problem like this? Do you know why they decided to meet with us here, Salah? They are weak is why they are talking with us. If they were strong there would be no need to talk. So this gives us an opportunity, an opportunity that only comes along once in a century. We have an opportunity here to recapture our territories and regain control of our river."
That was when al-Ali realized that Saddam had just been playing with the Iranians, and that Iraq was going to go to war. Saddam had no interest in diplomacy. To him, statecraft was just a game whose object was to outmaneuver one's enemies. Someone like al-Ali was there to maintain a pretense, to help size up the situation, to look for openings, and to lull foes into a false sense of security. Within a year the Iran-Iraq war began.
It ended horrifically, eight years later, with hundreds of thousands of Iranians and Iraqis dead. To a visitor in Baghdad the year after the war ended, it seemed that every other man on the street was missing a limb. The country had been devastated. The war had cost Iraq billions. Saddam claimed to have regained control of the Shatt-al-Arab. Despite the huge losses, he was giddy with victory. By 1987 his army, swelled by compulsory service and modern Western armaments, was the fourth largest in the world. He had an arsenal of Scud missiles, a sophisticated nuclear-weapons program under way, and deadly chemical and biological weapons in development. He immediately began planning more conquest.
How many 9/11's or worse would it take for the likes of Jexster to get off his 'hate Bush' schtick? More than is humanly conscionable, that's for sure.
An Islamic Stalin with plenty of US Lefty supporters.
Sodamn good asshole.
Bush bad.
'Course he's always said that...so what else is new?
it'd be a very good thing worthy of much praise if GWB could transition Iraq to a Democracy without a full scale conflict, of course.
Seeking to build a case Saturday that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, President Bush cited a satellite photograph and a report by the U.N. atomic energy agency as evidence of Iraq’s impending rearmament. But in response to a report by NBC News, a senior administration official acknowledged Saturday night that the U.N. report drew no such conclusion, and a spokesman for the U.N. agency said the photograph had been misinterpreted.
Oh my goodness! Mistakes were made. What a shame that these things happen. But it's only war and peace we're talking about here. Not S.E.X.
I saw that video.
And connie is well aware of this.
A senior White House official acknowledged Saturday night that the 1998 report did not say what Bush claimed. “What happened was, we formed our own conclusions based on the report,” (i.e., we're making it up) the official told NBC News’ Norah O’Donnell.
...a spokesman for the U.N. agency, disputed Bush’s and Blair’s assessment of the satellite photograph, which was first publicized Friday. Contrary to news service reports, there was no specific photo or building that aroused suspicions, he told Windrem.
The photograph in question was not U.N. intelligence imaging but simply a picture from a commercial satellite imaging company, he said. 
򋂊 8/9/2002
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"If Tony Blair wants to go to war, he should go himself, and not send any troops in,"
Like many Britons, Ms. Greenough by turns feels puzzled, outraged and fearful of the consequences of Britain's growing importance in President Bush's anti-Iraq plans. She feels that events have spun quickly out of control, that Mr. Blair has overstepped his mandate and that Britain is in danger of joining a conflict its people do not support.
Opposition Growing to Blair Stand on Iraq
Why Iraq Rejects Stupid US Sanctions?
President Saddam Hussein has said: "In brief, the U.S plan is an implicit or explicit admission that the embargo, which the evildoers have imposed in the misbelief of placing Iraq under the category of those obeying orders, has failed to achieve its intended political target.
At a Cabinet meeting on May 21, 2001, President Hussein said, "we will reject the so-called smart sanctions, which are more stupid than their predecessors, just as we did when rejecting all that could encroach upon Iraq's dignity, honour, independence and the meanings it has fought for throughout history."
The President described the plan as "a kick of a dying mule which we should beware of, but it will miss its target, God willing."
Deputy Prime Minister and Acting Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz said at a meeting with the Arab ambassadors accredited to Iraq on May 21, 2001, "the United States, having realized that the embargo is falling apart, has resorted to the smart sanctions ploy with the specific aim of regaining control of the region's affairs and imposing its will at the expense of the interests of all parties and friends dealing with Iraq.
At a meeting with editors-in-chief of local newspapers and media on May 23, 2001, Tariq Aziz said, "the so-called smart sanctions are more stupid than the sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990. All that has been said to the effect that the plan will ease Iraqi people's suffering, is a sheer lie. In all its attempts, the U.S administration has one aim in mind, to deny Iraq access to many equipment and items that may contribute to the country's advancement and sustain local industry."
Aziz also said, "the U.S draft will not take effect for two reasons, Iraq's will and rejective stand on the one hand, and its regional, Arab and international position with all its political and economic elements. Besides
The decision, taken at a summit at Camp David, the presidential retreat 60 miles from Washington, commits Britain to an almost certain war that could be launched before Christmas
Daily Telegraph
Mr Ritter called on Iraq to prove that it was no longer capable of producing weapons of mass destruction by opening itself to inspections.
In what appeared to be a propaganda coup for Saddam,Mr Ritter, who resigned from the United Nations weapons inspection team in 1998, told the Iraqi deputies that it was his own Government that was bringing the world to the brink of disaster, not theirs. “My country seems to be on the verge of making an historical mistake set forth on a policy of unilateral intervention that runs contrary to the letter and intent of the UN Charter”.
He said: “The rhetoric of fear that is disseminated by my Government has not, to date, been backed by hard facts that substantiate any allegations that Iraq is today in possession of weapons of mass destruction or has links to terror groups responsible for September 11 attacks on the United States.“Bush and Blair are gearing up to go to war on Iraq based on unsubstantiated allegations that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. The Bush Administration itself has said repeatedly that, while they call for the return of inspectors, this will not prevent them from continuing to seek regime change in Iraq. So my timing is designed precisely to expose the hypocrisy of the Bush position.”
During the nearly seven years that the UN was permitted to conduct inspections, Iraq had been certified as being disarmed to a 90-95 per cent level, he said. Mr Ritter, who served in the US Marines during the 1991 Gulf War, headed visits to several sensitive sites in Iraq that led to tense stand-offs with the Iraqi authorities.
”
Times of London
Personally, I like the Saddam in fedora, overcoat, and big fat cigar shots - looks like he should be the Mayor of New York.
You got any like that?
in insert_post
executing EXEC ins_post 150, 999, 'Dr.XavierTColtrane', NULL
Ritter's been on Saddam's payroll for quite some time -which, when you think about it, is Saddam's real pr coup.
In any case, if he hasn't been charged by now, it ain't gonna happen.
...of course, Mr. Ritter's status as a free agent will necessarily change once hostilities have increased sufficiently.
One year after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon ( news - web sites), about half of the public said the Bush administration did not have a clear plan to fight terrorism, and nearly as many said they felt somewhat uneasy and not safe from another terrorist attack.
A quarter of the public, but a third of those in the Northeast, said they feared an attack in their area. One American in 10 said the administration had made "a lot of progress" in eliminating terrorist threats from nations besides Afghanistan ( news - web sites).
The survey portrayed a hesitant nation with a sense of inevitability and little of the eager combativeness that surrounded the reaction to the bombing of terrorist targets in Afghanistan last year. A large majority said it expected the American forces to "end up fighting against Iraq."
One-fourth said Iraq presented such a grave threat that the United States should act now, while two-thirds said the nation needed to wait for support from its allies 
Nyt 
ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: SADDAM SEX, USES VIAGRA, SAYS MISTRESS
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein needs help in the bedroom, ABC NEWS is set to report in an
exclusive interview with his alleged mistress.
The Dictator of Baghdad may not be all the man he's cracked up to be, reporter Claire Shipman
will reveal -- he uses Viagra for sex sessions!
The provocative interview is to be aired nationally this week.
Shipman traveled to a safe house in the hills of Lebanon for the big
exclusive with Parisoula Lampsos.
Lampsos says she saw Hussein on almost a daily basis for years and is
able to provide unique insight into what the dictator was saying,
thinking and feeling behind closed doors.
Not to mention his physical prowess in bed.
Claire Shipman goes where few network reporters have gone before -- and
zeros in on Saddam's sexual appetites.
On Saddam's use of Viagra:
LAMPSOS:
He took sometime.
SHIPMAN:
He took Viagra.
LAMPSOS:
Yeah, sometimes, yes.
SHIPMAN:
And did it help? Did he think it helped him?
LAMPSOS:
Yes, of course...
SHIPMAN:
Was he affectionate?
LAMPSOS:
Yeah. He was tender, he was warm, he was nice.
SHIPMAN:
Did he force you to have sex with him?
LAMPSOS:
Saddam, he don't need to force anybody. Because...you are afraid, you are afraid to say no....
I was with him because I was afraid of him...
SHIPMAN:
What is Saddam Hussein's favorite drink?
LAMPSOS:
Whiskey...on the rocks with ice.
and likes to wear suits by Pierre Cardin.
Lampsos now wears a veil to disguise herself on the street because she fears retribution for
telling her story, which will air Thursday on ABC's PRIMETIME [10 PM ET/9 PM CT].
shipman's interview is more than Sex Journalism.
Lampsos, 54, who left Iraq a year ago, not only offers stories of the Iraqi dictator's personal
life that she says few others know, but tells of his alleged effort to have his oldest son
killed, his take on President George W. Bush, his extreme vanity and love of American films and
music.
Lampsos tells Shipman how Saddam's favorite movie is the GODFATHER. And his favorite song is
"Strangers in the Night."
SHIPMAN:
He likes Frank Sinatra?
LAMPSOS:
Yeah
SHIPMAN:
And would he play it, would he dance to that?
LAMPSOS:
Sometimes.
Lampsos says Saddam swims almost every day, drinks milk and honey in the morning and his
favorite food for dinner is fresh gazelle. She says he raises and nurtures the gazelles -- and
then handpicks each one to be slaughtered for his meal.
Hussein met Osama bin Laden on two occasions and gave money to the al Qaeda leader in 1996,
Lampos explains to the cameras.
Frank Sinatra?
Fedoras with long overcoats?
Maybe he is planning on running for Mayor of New York?
Expressing pleasure at meeting the man who made Kurdish children watch their mothers die and Kurdish mothers watch their children die hideous deaths from biological warfare.
Let's hear it for Arab solidarity!
The man is a patriot for speaking Truth to Power. More than a little controversial & confrontational in his approach, but the substance of his remarks is beyond reproach.
When the bodybags start coming home; when we're stuck for 10-20 years running Iraq behind some puppet facade; when it costs us $100 billion for the War for Little Napoleon's Big Mouth; when we've lost all influence in the Middle East; when the conservative ME regimes fall to a frenzy of Muslim radicalism; when Muslim countries balk at providing the intelligence and police work that we need to fight the REAL WAR on TERRORISM, and when we taste the first hellish fruit of the brave new world of pre-emptive war -
We'll be wishing that there were more Scott Ritters; James Bakers; Brent Scowcroft's, and Chuck Hagels.
Iraq is not paying Ritter. Ritter has testified twice before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If he literally was "on Saddam's payroll", he would have had to register as an agent of a foreign government in order to lobby Congress and testify.
Fucking illuminating.
Jex advances every wacked out lefty theory here in The Mote - some admittedly rather...original (ahem), touches them up some, and then copies them into barely coherent email missives which he then spends part of his 18 hours a day of playtime sending off to any and every elected official in America.
One Senator happens to say something jex had also said (as if these guys ever read their email), and jex promotes himself to Senior Advisor.
Must have had a special on instant ad hominem mix at Walmart this weekend.
The Christian Doctrine of Just War, "a wacko lefty idea" is it? To a fundamentalist, it probably is.
Time for a few lessons I see.
Many of the rules developed by the just war tradition have since been codified into contemporary international laws governing armed conflict, such as The Hague and Geneva Conventions. The tradition has thus been doubly influential, dominating both moral and legal discourse surrounding war.
Oct. 12, 2001
The foundation of Catholic Social Teaching is the sanctity of human life. This principle guided the earliest followers of Jesus to a position of pacifism, or rejection of violence, as a means for resolving conflict. By the fourth century, Christianity was no longer persecuted, but was the official religion of the Roman Empire, an empire that was now crumbling. In the face of the aggressive attacks of the Vandals on his community, St. Augustine of Hippo articulated a theology that developed into what is known as the “just war” theory, or conditions under which Christians would be justified in taking up arms.
What St. Augustine began was continued and refined by St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. His just war principles could be summarized as:
“war must be declared by the authority of the state;
there must be a just cause; the intention must be just;
war must be the last resort;
only right means may be employed in the conduct of war;
there must be a reasonable hope of victory;
the good to be achieved must outweigh the evils of war.”
(from What Are They Saying about Peace and War, by Thomas A Shannon, Paulist Press, 1983)
“War of course, has not ceased to be part of the human scene. As long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed. State leaders and all who share the burdens of public administration have the duty to defend the interests of their people and to conduct such grave matters with a deep sense of responsibility. However, it is one thing to wage a war of self-defense; it is quite another to seek to impose domination on another nation. The possession of war potential does not justify the use of force for political or military objectives. Nor does the mere fact that war has unfortunately broken out mean that all is fair between the warring parties.
All those who enter the military service in loyalty to their country should look upon themselves as the custodians of the security and freedom of their fellow countrymen; and when they carry out their duty properly, they are contributing to the maintenance of peace.” (No. 79)
“War of course, has not ceased to be part of the human scene. As long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed. State leaders and all who share the burdens of public administration have the duty to defend the interests of their people and to conduct such grave matters with a deep sense of responsibility. However, it is one thing to wage a war of self-defense; it is quite another to seek to impose domination on another nation. The possession of war potential does not justify the use of force for political or military objectives. Nor does the mere fact that war has unfortunately broken out mean that all is fair between the warring parties.
The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” addresses the issues of peace and war in articles 2302-2317. Specifically in article 2309, the Catechism outlines “the strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force… At one and the same time:
The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave and certain;
All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
There must be serious prospects of success;
The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluation of this condition.
Right Intention: even in the midst of conflict, the aim of political and military leaders must be peace with justice, so that acts of vengeance and indiscriminate violence, whether by individuals, military units or governments, are forbidden.” (The Harvest of Justice is Sown in Peace)
The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” addresses the issues of peace and war in articles 2302-2317. Specifically in article 2309, the Catechism outlines “the strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force… At one and the same time:
Probability of Success: arms may not be used in a futile cause or in a case where disproportionate measures are required to achieve success;
Proportionality: the overall destruction expected from the use of force must be outweighed by the good to be achieved;
Last Resort: force may be used only after all peaceful alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted.
These criteria (jus ad bellum), taken as a whole, must be satisfied in order to override the strong presumption against the use of force. Second, the just war tradition seeks also to curb the violence of war through restraint on armed combat between the contending parties by imposing the following moral standards (jus in bello) for the conduct of armed conflict:
Noncombatant Immunity: civilians may not be the object of direct attack, and military personnel must take due care to avoid and minimize indirect harm to civilians; (The Harvest of Justice is Sown in Peace - Natl Conference of Catholic Bishops
These criteria (jus ad bellum), taken as a whole, must be satisfied in order to override the strong presumption against the use of force. Second, the just war tradition seeks also to curb the violence of war through restraint on armed combat between the contending parties by imposing the following moral standards (jus in bello) for the conduct of armed conflict.
Dear Senator Feinstein:
In recent weeks, several prominent Republicans, among them Brent Scowcroft, your colleague Dick Armey, Lawrence Eagleburger, and James Baker have boldly and decisively spoken out against Bush plans to invade Iraq. Over that same period, prominent Democrats have remained embarrasingly silent. As a Democrat and constituent I am ashamed, and I am angry.
Over the next days and weeks, you will be meeting the President and leading House deliberations. I urge you in the strongest terms to speak out; to put Bush his proof, and to examine justifications that have thus far amounted to nothing more than deceptiive pretexts for a gravely immoral adventurism.
The consequences for the US and the world should Bush's schemes remain unchecked are grave indeed. Perhaps you read Immanuel Wallerstein's OpEd in Los Angeles Times last April. His opening parapaph has, in the event, turn out to be eerily prophetic:
"George Bush is a geopolitical incompetent. He has allowed a clique of hawks to induce him to take a position on invading Iraq from which he cannot extract himself, one that will have nothing but negative consequences for the United States - and the rest of the world. He will find himself badly hurt politically, perhaps fatally. And he will rapidly diminish the already declining power of the US in the world."
No citizen, no representative can have anything to do with any unprovoked, preemptive invasion of a sovereign nation unless the following criteria met. In no case, has the Bush admistration advanced a justification for war that comes close to satisfying a single one.
The criteria are for just war are:
- the threatened damage must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- the prospects of success must be significant;
- the use of arms must not produce evils graver than the evil to be eliminated, and
- the decision for war must be made by legitimate authority, in this case, both the United States Congress and the Security Council of the United Nations.
As the decision for war is yours, so too the responsibity for its consequences.
Thank you very much.
"Barely coherent" you say? "Wacko left theory" you say? "On Saddam's payroll" you say?
Turns out you don't SAY much of anything Zan.
1. missive: A written message; a letter
2. redundant: 1. Exceeding what is necessary or natural; superfluous. 2. Needlessly wordy or repetitive in expression: a student paper filled with redundant phrases
And my deepest apologies for the Moral Theologian to DiFi remark. I am so insensitive at times. That bit of self-deprecating sarcasm flew from the keyboard, right over JoeZ's head. Arms flailing, sputum spewing, Joe it was so humiliating.
So for abusive cruelty towards the mentally infirm...definitions for JoeZ..
Sarcasm:1. A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound. 2. A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.
self-deprecating: Tending to undervalue oneself and one's abilities
Moron: 1. A stupid person; a dolt.
2. Psychology A person of mild mental retardation having a mental age of from 7 to 12 years and generally having communication and social skills enabling some degree of academic or vocational education.
And I promise you Joey...No more sarcasm....[Moron]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Middle East envoy retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni urged caution on Sunday in dealing with Iraq, saying the potential impact of military action on Israel, relationships with key allies and the war on terrorism had to be carefully weighed.
"We've got enough wolves on the sled to shoot; let's not be popping some off in the woodline if we don't need to, unless we're absolutely sure it's necessary," Zinni added.
Zinni warned that a military strike could further complicate the stalled efforts to end Israeli-Palestinian violence and could distract attention and drain resources from the business of ensuring stability in Afghanistan ( news - web sites).
The United States should also weigh carefully the possible impact of its action on relationships with regional allies and on a struggle between conservatives and reformers in Iran.
"When you commit this nation to military action, do it right. Make sure we understand the effects not only here at home, but over there," Zinni said, adding that articulating a cogent case for intervention was also vital for the U.S. soldiers who would risk their lives in such a mission.
"There's a hell of a good reason why generals are cautious ... Politicians make mistakes, soldiers pay for those mistakes with their blood,"
And Scott Ritter should get the Medal of Freedom for discharging his patriotic duty with such vigor and courage.
Pigshit in search of a pretext, crackpot Zan, gas mask and musket at the ready, prepares to meet Jesus in the air (a profound Pauline passage that the Teletubby Killin Zan-Talibans made profane).
Zinni makes a prudential-geopolitical case against the War to Believe in Bush. I have spent some time on the Just War Theory lately, and will spend more. I intend to set the facts against the Just War doctrine requirements in detail.
It is also useful to examine the decision for war, and the decision whether and how to oppose it once hostilities have begun, through other models such as international law, international politics and economics, domestic issues, and military tactics/strategy.
What is striking how dismally the ChickenHawk case fares on careful examination under ANY of these paradigms. No matter the decisional frame, the choice for war or against is rarely clear. This is the exception that proves the rule.
If you doubt this, test the arguments yourselves and see. The next time you hear Bush or Cheney or read your favorite commentator or listen to a Sunday Talking Head Hour, sift through what is being said, measure against rigorous criteria of any stripe.
If you wonder at the public's overwhelming and growing doubts, if you cannot quite understand why it is that the vast majority here and abroad do not believe that Bush has offered sufficient justification, well the answer is really quite simple - this is pigshit in search of a pretext.
Hell The Baron of the Bunk-port wouldn't have screwed this up either...and last I heard, he was still a card-carrying Republican , though Billy Kristol, General Secty of the Conintern, is, I understand, trying remedy that little problem.
No TD, as one who supported GWI (against REAL lefties not the demons in Zan's feeble mind), the equities were balanced. Judging the debate back then as dispassionately as possible, as one might judge a Moot Court or forensic competition, neither side of the GWI debate enjoyed such a commanding and compelling advantage. Starkly stated, Rose presented a far stronger case against the Kosovo War than any ChickenHawk has articulated thus far and likely ever will.
Never in US history, other than I guess the Spanish American War, have war proponents advanced such an inconsisent, fear filled, emotionally overwrought, factually insupportable, logically infirm, morally damnable, more transparently pretextual arguments nor done so with such appalling political ineptitude.
Mind you, this is an analytical hypothesis, an exerise in comparative history, as "objective" as any history can be, yet nonetheless convincing and I think readily established. In Just War theory for instance, the measures are specific and the value premises are clear. The hypothesis: We never done seen shit like this befo - not who had the better argument.
briefly
- Deploy 50,000 or so troops, plus air, and an armored division less than 100,000 costs shared somehow.
- UN inspectors back by a time certain
- If refused or if Blix and Co determine substantial interference with mission then
- Coercive inspections....we take Basra, set up a base hold their oil hostage US/Brit/allies just take Blix's Boys wherever the fuck they want to go.
Trouble is Bush cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. He has only one thing in mind. There aren't alternative policy choices in play only con jobs that fool no one, not even Zan fer chrissakes! There aren't any policy choices because Bush in steady hemmoraghe has lost all control of his internal political processes. And its all a vicious circle for political impotence makes policy less potent which in turn..and so on.
Boy Americans sure were on to somethin when we didn't elect that numbskull.
The George W. Bush Administration is today embroiled in what may be the greatest scandal yet in its brief history -- successfully getting support from Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair for an imminent attack of Iraq on the basis of a blatantly phony reading of intelligence photographs and of an old report from U.N. atomic energy agency.
"I don't know what more evidence we need," Bush said, brandishing the photos in front of the British leader, and claiming that the 1998 U.N. report said that Saddam Hussein was six months away from building nuclear weapons.
Blair fell for it.
As for the photos, there was and is, contrary to news reports, no specific building that caused any concern, according to the U.N. agency that released the pictures. Although the photos -- taken by a commercial enterprise -- show new construction, there is NO evidence that it is related to new nuclear-related operations in Iraq.
In preparations for Bush's September 12 speech to the U.N., the Administration appears to have taken a leaf from the Cuban missile crisis forty years ago, when Ambassador Adlai Stevenson provided incontrovertible proof from intelligence photographs that the Soviets had placed nuclear weapons in Cuba.
But Stevenson's photos were authentic, undoctored, and clear proof.
The Bush photos have no clear proof of anything. The Bushies are just making it up!
In Washington, expert observers pointed out that the shill bears the fingerprints of Vice President Dick Cheney. Last month, Cheney delivered a hawkish speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, charging that only an attack on Iraq right now would rid the world of the Hussein menace. Now, say observers, Cheney and his supporters may be trying to find whatever evidence they can, and skew it if necessary, to back up his case.
"Look, Dick Cheney cooked the books when he was head of Halliburton," one expert, who declined to be identified for this article, said. "Now he's cooking the photos on Iraq. Looks like Cheney's work."
The scandal is all the more worrisome because it confuses the legitimate concerns about Hussein. There is no question that the Iraqi leader possesses some weapons of mass destruction, which he has deployed in the past. But trying to sway world opinion about Hussein with phony reports and trumped-up "evidence" only makes the search for the terrible truth about Hussein more difficult -- and only makes the world, as well as the American people, more wary than ever of the secretive, mendacity-prone Bush team.
Instead of George W. Bush's Cuban Missile Crisis, it's beginning to look like his Gulf of Tonkin -- a phony pretext for going to war right away. The precedent is disastrous.
In Washington, veteran observers have suggested that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee might now have no choice but to investigate this incident thoroughly -- to get to the bottom of how and why the Bush Administration used doctored reports and misleading photographic evidence to try and push its case.
Not since the Vietnam era has any White House created such a huge credibility gap as the George W. Bush Administration has. But whereas it took the country -- and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee --several years before they woke up to the official lying about Vietnam, the truth about the Bush Administration's lying has begun to be exposed before the first shot is fired.
Capitol Hill veterans tell MWO that Senator Joe Biden is, or at least ought to be, outraged at this shocker. Not only does it affect the current crisis over Iraq -- it badly compromises the credibility of the United States on all issues of global concern
"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice ( news - web sites) said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition
The Problem CondoGirl
Is that for the first time in its history, a moron with a Napoleon complex is about to plunge this country into war because of another's bad thoughts...
a war to pre-empt an attack with weapons Sadaam doesn't have;
that he may never get;
that he cannot effectively deliver;
that even if he were to get the weapons and the delivery system, he could not use without assuring national incineration;
all in country that is patrolled by US/Brit warplanes; whose economy is near collapse, that can't afford to replace treads on its tanks;
to preempt a threat that those nation said to be most at risk do not support;
Led by a nest of chickenhawks who keep changing their bullshit.
The problem condogirl is that you are a good argument against affirmative action
Why when walk around campus these days to I get this funny feelin a song pops in my head "Look What's happnin on the street gotta revolution, got to revolution?" (at least when brain not otherwise occupied with purty boys)
Is it my second childhood, some midlife menopausal mess?
One of them acid flashbacks They used to warn us about b4 we "liberated" Them?
PARIS The United States has talked itself into a war with Iraq
SALMAN PAK, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq allowed Western reporters on Monday to accompany former U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter to a facility allegedly used for training "terrorists
"This is the place that is going to cause a war. This is the site that the Bush administration is citing as a proof that the Iraqi government has a connection with (Osama bin Laden ( news -web sites)'s) al Qaeda," Ritter said.
"There are those who are affiliated with the Bush administration who continue to perpetrate a lie. You don't go to war based on a lie," Scott Ritter
Fairly says it all wouldn't you agree Joe-Bob-Boy
Al Gore, 1998
Bill Clinton, explaining Operation Desert Fox (which happened to occur on the eve of the impeachment vote, December 16, 1998)
Now it's five years since that and we haven't had any inspections at all.
Any chance Saddam might be back in business?
The International Center for Strategic Studies thinks so.
Now we're going to launch an unprovoked aggressive war not because of a threat but because of a desire?
So the question is next pretext?
Lets put some lipstick on this pig
LONDON, Sept. 9 — Saddam Hussein has substantial stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and the capacity to expand production of them on short notice, but Iraq will be unable to build a nuclear weapon for years unless it obtains radioactive material on the black market, a leading security affairs research organization said today.
The group, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which is based in London, said that while there remained many doubts about the quantities and capabilities of Mr. Hussein's war matériel, there was no question that his government's priority was developing weapons of mass destruction.
"War, sanctions and inspections have reversed and retarded but not eliminated Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and long-range missile capacity, nor removed Baghdad's enduring interest in developing these capabilities," John Chipman, the institute director, said at a news conference.
NyT
ISS
Disregard for the moment the accuracy of the President's implication that Josef Stalin was less bloodthirsty than today's crop of tyrants, or that his possession of a nuclear arsenal was somehow more benign in comparison. We may even pass over, with no more than an embarrassed cough, the notion that hundreds of nuclear weapons, the largest land army in the world, and the industrial base of half Eurasia in the possession of a man who murdered 20 million of his countrymen was somehow less a threat to U.S. national existence than fugitives in caves and safe houses, an Iraqi mafioso whose own national airspace is closely patrolled by U.S. military aircraft, or a lunatic on the northern half of the Korean peninsula whose citizens vary their starvation diet of grass and tree bark with U.S. food aid.
Wrong question.
Right questions
1. What is the problem?
2. Does it justify pre-emptive war
3. Should Clinton have followed up the bombing with, as I suggested then, what is now being called the "coercive inspection option"
4. Could he have done so in 1999 while the Reapers were busy impeaching him and Slobo was busy with mass murder in Kosovo?
5. Could he have done so to strains of wag the dog in 2000?
6. And back full circle, so what?
Cut the crap...
Sadaam is less of a threat today than he was in 1991 and MORE of a threat, thanks to Bush bungling today than he was a year ago.
And in any event less a threat to peace than the 1/2 wit in chief.
You disagree that the report indicates a belief that Saddam is back in business?
I refer you to
In conclusion, war, sanctions and inspections have reversed and retarded, but not eliminated Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and long range missile capacities, nor have they removed Baghdad’s enduring interest in developing these capacities. The retention of WMD capacities by Iraq is self-evidently the core objective of the regime, for it has sacrificed all other domestic and foreign policy goals to this singular aim....A reasonable net assessment is that Iraq has no nuclear weapons but could build one quickly if it acquired sufficient fissile material. It has extensive biological weapons capabilities and a smaller chemical weapons stockpile....Sooner or later, it seems likely that the current Iraqi regime will eventually achieve its objectives.
Just what do you think the report says?
But just one little mushroom cloud over Herzliya and that guy is toast. Just one, you hear me?
An aggressive, militaristic, antidemocratic regime bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
2. Does it justify pre-emptive war
Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Madeline Albright, Sandy Berger, and many Democratic senators thought so in late 1998.
3. Should Clinton have followed up the bombing with, as I suggested then, what is now being called the "coercive inspection option"
Whatever Bubba should have, would have, or could have done are all certainly the "wrong question" now.
4. Could he have done so in 1999 while the Reapers were busy impeaching him and Slobo was busy with mass murder in Kosovo?
Again, the failure of Clinton to pursue this or that policy in 1999 is irrelevant to helping us make a decision today. In actuality, however, Saddam Hussein has killed more people and represents a greater threat to American interests than Milosevic ever did. If impeachment made it impossible for Clinton to do his job protecting the national security of the United States, he should have resigned. In contrast, he insisted it was not affecting his ability to do his job, and he in fact carried out several military operations with the timing suspect because of how they appeared to be attempts to distract from impeachment.
5. Could he have done so to strains of wag the dog in 2000?
Eh...what happened in 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997? (Oh yeah, Bill was busy getting his rocks off.) In any case, you're crawfishing away from the "wrong question" because you don't want to answer it. You're explaining why Bubba didn't finish the job in 1998, rather than why he thought it was imperative to take (practically) unilateral action in 1998 when inspectors were in the country, but five years later without inspections we should just sit tight.
We want to see Israelis and Americans incinerated first, and the living envy the dead, before we even think of removing Saddam.
International norms require this.
Not to mention the New York Times.
This statement takes my breath away! Competence requires resignation for fear of "suspect timing."
Face it, if Clinton had a cure for AIDS you would have said "he's just doing it to draw attention away from Whitewater!"
You people are FUCKING PATHETIC!
No. You were capable of copying and pasting the quotation. Demonstrate that you're also capable of reading and responding to what it actually said, rather than an imaginary statement against which you'd prefer to argue.
Being unable to do one's job is by definition incompetence.
If Clinton had a cure for AIDS you would have said "he's just doing it to draw attention away from Whitewater!"
Again, no. I have and have never had any real interest in Whitewater--at least not as much interest as you have in the driving record of the "FIRST LADY" when she was a 17 year old.
My preference in the context of this topic especially is to discuss Iraq, not Whitewater or Monica or Clinton's dick or whether he's gay or whatever else you wish to drag out of the closet.
To that end, I repeat: "Why did leading Democrats think it was imperative to take (practically) unilateral action in 1998 when inspectors were in the country, but five years later without inspections we should just sit tight?"
2. redundant: 1. Exceeding what is necessary or natural; superfluous.
2. Needlessly wordy or repetitive in expression: a student paper filled with redundant phrases.
Email missive, bonehead, is not only perfectly proper English -in this and most cases for the purpose of distinguishing said missive from the traditional hard-copy - it is also quite a common phrase. Google it - 22,000 entries.
And as for your just war preaching...listen - I'll gladly admit to being a rabid hawk on Iraq, Syria, Iran, Saudi, and any number of other sovereign countries that mean us no good but simply haven't figured out yet how to screw us good. I admit it: I want them blasted just on GPs. But I have a long, long way to go before I even approach the level of damn-the-just-war bloodthirst you displayed during Clinton's Balkan adventures, or the maniacal glee you ejaculated all over this fine forum at every "Slerb" death, be it intentional or collateral.
Just War, my ass.
So bite me, jasper.
By the way - how about that Condo, huh?: "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
LIAR!
Ah yes, cold-blooded murder as a "youthful indiscretion."
Downing Street suggested that Mr Blair's case had been strengthened by the publication of a detailed report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a leading think-tank in London.
The institute said that Iraq had almost certainly stepped up its weapons programme since expelling UN inspectors four years ago.
It confirmed that Iraq could be only months from building a nuclear bomb if it could smuggle in weapons-grade material. Alternatively, it could take several years to make its own such material.
If Saddam is militarily deposed in the near future, it appears that Jexster's wish for an Iraqi caused nuclear incident will be stymied.
Jexster may have gloated over Serb deaths, but he did not gloat over them in a right-wing fascistic-nationalistic Neanderthal fashion, but rather in an intellectual way. The spittle was dripping to the left and it was refined.
In any case, Chirac is all gesticulation and no substance. What he says is of little practical consequence.
The first is a detailed description of the origin and evolution over two years of the 9/11 plot and its principal participants and their links to Osama bin Laden. Several of the planners and directors of the operation are still on the loose and presumably capable of mounting more attacks.
The second article assesses the current location and strength of Al Qaida. It reports that after fleeing Afghanistan Al Qaida remains scattered throughout south Asia and the Middle East, "creating a terrorist diaspora of deep concern to American counterterrorist officials. After trying to set up a base in Pakistan Al Qaida operatives are returning to Afghanistan and may have been responsible for the recent assassination attempt on Karzai and the car bombing in Kabul last Thursday. The returning Al Qaida thus pose a serious threat to the Karzai government. On the positive side, financial support for al Qaida has diminished post-9/11. Some backers have said they didn't sign up for anything like 9-11, according to U.S. intelligence sources.
My conclusions from reading the articles are (1) Yes, there continues to be a serious terrorism threat against the U.S., domestically and around the world; (2)The principal threat is from the remains of the Osama bin Laden organization, not from Iraq; (3) Stabilizing Afghanistan and rooting out the remaining and returning al Qaida there remains a formidable task; (4) Despite the Bush-Cheney PR campaign there is little evidence linking Iraq to link 9-11; and (4) It therefore makes little sense to distract our focus from the principal threat (Al Qaida) by attacking Iraq before the task we began in Afghanistan after 9-11 is completed and while the Israeli-Palestine hostilities continue.
Whatever your take on Iraq, the articles provide a wealth of fascinating detail on 9-11 and Al Qaida.
Not really. Chancelor Shroeder's opposition to a preemptive attack against Iraq is is not likely to change even if the French "methodology" (a UN imprimatur) is adopted.
The French position is rather transparent. France remains a military as well as a diplomatic midget... unless it gets the Security Council involved, where par hasard it still enjoys a veto quite incommensurable to its weight in the real world. For 21st century France, the UN Security Council is about all it's left to her to play grosspolitik.
Maybe the Shroeder government position would be closer to the French "methodology" if Germany also had veto privilege on the Security Council...
That said, I don't think that the non involvement of the UN constitutes the main objection around the World to a preemptive attack. Rather, it's skepticisism regarding the seriousness of the threat posed by Hussein.
Furthermore, this time around, a Security Council imprimatur will not allow to build up a "coalition" like last time. France, Canada, Germany etc have already said they won't supply any troops or money. Therefore, the US, the terrorist target par excellence, will be on its own with or without a UN backing. Since it will be doing all the fighting and dying the US may as well avoid the UN quagmire.
U.S. forces have been quietly filtering into Iraq for more than three months. To date, American and Turkish special forces have gained control of 15% of Iraqi soil - mostly in the north where they are poised at a point 20 kilometers from Iraq's two most northern oil cities of Mosul and Kirkuk together with pro-American Kurdish and Turkman paramilitary groups.
(...)
Since August 5, the way for an American advance into Iraq is also clear from the south. Therefore, the general contours of the next US-UK move take shape.
A combined U.S.-Turkish force, backed by local tribal groups, will complete the capture of northern Iraq and its oil cities.
The combined U.S.-Jordanian force will advance on Baghdad and Tikrit.
The heavy military and armoured units massed on the Kuwait-Iraq frontier will advance north in two heads - one forking off to the east and heading for Basra, while the other makes for Shiite towns of Najef and Karbala on the Baghdad highway.
If the former, then enter the Great Gray Lady of DC Thinque Tanques...
Two recent articles merit attention. CAVEAT-The views expressed are those of the Brookings Institution, and not necessarily those of Cmndr. BabaJex who happens to think they are full of shit in some important respects but one hell of an improvement over the regnant lunatics in the Bush BumbleFuck Administration.
Getting Serious About Iraq "Survival", Autumn 2002
Philip H. Gordon, Senior Fellow and Director, Center on the United States and France
Michael E. O'Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies
Martin S. Indyk, Senior Fellow and Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
The Iraq Ulitmatum Slate, September 9, 2002
Is it Time or is it Jex, JoeZ? 
Quoting CondoRice's Mushroom Cloud crap..
Or maybe he's not so dumb...maybe he is laughing the most of the rest of the world.
If Bibi, BillyK and Arik Can Do It,
Why Not PantyWaist and Portugal????
Crash and burn
WASHINGTON (AP) - Portugal's prime minister cautioned President Bush ( news - web sites) Tuesday against acting alone on Iraq, as the White House press secretary said the United States would help bring "stability and peace" if Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites) were toppled.
AP Photo
Reuters Photo
Slideshow: Iraq and Saddam Hussein
Cheney: Risk of Inaction Too Great
(AP Video)
Blair And Bush Have 'Shared Determination'
(Reuters)
9/11
Special Coverage
News, features,
photos and more.
Go there now.
Sitting down with Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barosso, Bush warned of "the dire possibilities that outlaw regimes will develop weapons of mass destruction and (link) with terrorist organizations, or use them on their own against countries that love freedom, countries such as Portugal."
Iraq Calls on Arabs to Confront U.S.
Tue Sep 10,11:40 AM ET
By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - In Iraq's most belligerent remarks in the current standoff with Washington, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan urged all Arabs on Tuesday to confront the United States, its people and its property by any means.
The comments stopped short of explicitly calling on Arabs to attack Americans but underlined Iraq's drive to sway world — and particularly Middle Eastern — opinion behind it against U.S. threats of a possible strike to oust Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites).
His comments came as Saudi Arabia joined European countries on Tuesday in saying Washington should work through the United Nations ( news - web sites) to contain any possible Iraqi threat.
It's not Schröder and I on one side, and Bush and Blair on the other; it's Bush and Blair on one side and all the others on the other side Jacques Chirac
The results of my research into the strange netherworld of the chickenfried crackpot
Tampons: Satan's Filthy Little Secret
- Is this but the latest in a long string of manufactured armadillo shit?
if not then remember the Gospel According to Gen Zinni -> The Moron still must deal with ALQ and stop manufacturing crap about threats from Iraq
Although there aren't (I don't think) any crawfish in England, I think Blair could get his point across by calling Saddam Hussein a "googly-bowling chucker."
'Don't worry. We've got a plan. We purposefully let the Iraq issue stay in no-man's-land for a while. But we know what we're doing.' That's what senior people at the White House tell me," the Reverend Lou Sheldon, the chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, informs me while we're waiting for sandwiches. (It pays to favor the Capitol Hill deli fancied by a leader of the religious right.) "I sure hope so," he adds.
Boy Blunder at the UN: The Charade b4 the Crusade
EMINENT Americans visiting Europe recently often seem to find themselves in a state of bewilderment, almost as if they had stumbled into some sort of parallel universe. “We in America think of September 11th as an event that changed the world,” says Bill Kristol, editor of the neo-conservative Weekly Standard, “but the Europeans seem to regard it as an event that changed America.” Robert Kagan, author of a much-applauded article on the gulf between Europe and America, comments that “American policymakers find it hard to believe, but leading officials in Europe worry more about how the US might mishandle the problem of Iraq—by undertaking unilateral or extra-legal military action—than they worry about Iraq itself.”
The Economist concludes that these observations are "broadly accurate", an assessment I would agree with.
But European opinion can be swayed, I think, if the US, the UK and France introduces a toughly worded ultimatum in the Security Council (Chirac seemed to open up for that possibility the other day). It will not matter very much if it is ultimately vetoed by Russia. Europeans know that Russia plays its own murky games in the region.
Next Pretext Please
The resolve of President Bush to use force against Iraq, they say, compounds the antagonism, which is expressed with particularly unvarnished dismay in Egypt and neighboring Jordan, Washington's crucial Arab allies.
More than in previous bouts of anti-Americanism in the region, the anger permeates all strata of society, especially among the educated, and is tinged, people acknowledge, with disillusionment at their own long-entrenched American-backed leadership
Find that Pretext, Send in the Boy Blunder 
There must be some kind of pill you can take when you start feeling European - isn't there?
Yes, a strong laxative. If that doesn't work try an enema.
But Sadam Hussein, who had NO ICBMs, has a relatively small number of IRBMs with a reach no father than the middle east, and who has never delivered a nuclear or chemical weapon with one, we can't contain? We have aircraft flying armed reconaisance over two thirds of his country's airspace, a embargo against military imports [which is less effective than we would like, I would grant you] in the no fly zones there are opposition groups in the wings waiting to slit Hussein's throat given the chance, and this guy we can't contain?
Hussein must go, but many of the reasons to get rid of him, would be reasons to get rid of some of our allies. Hussein is a ruthless dictator who abuses women, and minorities. He has no respect for human rights, or of the rights of neigbboring countries. He has invaded his neighbors more than once, starting wider wars. But then again, we can say the same thing about Syria, and Egypt.
. One side maintains that war is necessary because it is the only way to prevent Saddam Hussein from obtaining nuclear and biological "weapons of mass destruction" and then using them, either directly or, more likely, by supplying them to undeterrable terrorists. And it argues that the toppling of the Iraqi regime would precipitate a cascade of democratization throughout the Arab and Muslim world, beginning with Iran and Syria but eventually encompassing Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and a future Palestinian state as well. The other side argues that war, no matter how victorious in the first instance, could end by making the region and the world more dangerous than before. It would risk the collapse of the delicate but ongoing global system of anti-terror police work and information sharing; the overthrow of acceptable regimes in an arc stretching from Jordan to Pakistan, which already possesses a nuclear arsenal; the widening of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the enthronement of preëmption as a prerogative of power, not only in the Middle East but also in places like the Hindu Kush and the straits of Taiwan; and a long and expensive occupation of Iraq that diverts vast quantities of American resources, military and otherwise, into a nation-building enterprise that might succeed mainly in provoking, and providing targets for, new terrorism.
letter missive is redundant Joey...
Those who write on shit house walls
Roll their shit in little balls
those who read these lines of wit
eat those little balls of shit.
from a bathroom wall graffitti missive
God TD day late, dollar short ... again?!?!?!
That's been Chirac's position for at least 6 months or more.
Why don't you read what he said instead of what a hawk brit newspaper said he said?
EXCERPTS
Interview With Jacques Chirac - New York Times
MONDAY(!) 09.09.02
A It's not Schröder and I on one side, and Bush and Blair on the other; it's Bush and Blair on one side and all the others on the other side. Which is slightly different. And as far as I know the European Union clearly stated that it was against any unilateral action. . . . Jacques Chirac
And refer also to our corn pone crackpot cum moderator's post missive and to the same effect Bush At the UN: Charade Before the Crusade
Get it?
Got it?
Good!
Now get this...
Senior Bush administration officials have given Iraq's pursuit of nuclear weapons as the main argument that the United States must act now to oust President Hussein, before the Iraqi leader acquires nuclear arms and alters the strategic balance in the Persian Gulf.
But the administration has not yet prepared what is called a national intelligence estimate, the intelligence community's most definitive written judgment on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. The document contains the coordinated intelligence assessments from the Pentagon, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and other government entities and any significant dissenting views
Be happy to send you an email missive
"I know of no information that the threat is so imminent from Iraq" that Congress cannot wait until January to vote on a resolution, said Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee. "I did not hear anything today that was different about [Hussein's] capabilities," save a few "embellishments."
You hidin somethin from U.S. TD, or is this all just pigshit in search of pretext, peut etre?
I realize the pressing national interest of killing tens of thousands of Iraqis and maybe a thousand or so young US servicemen in the War to Make Bush Believable, but this nuke talk is causing Ronski to break out in hives.
what a sad & sick bunch
Which of course is why Bush wants to steamroller this War for Believability through the congress b4 the election...cause afterwards, when the defense assessment is finished, it will be clear that this is all a charade...
Or does anyone think that postponing the crusades a month would jeopardize anything?
L'Irak appelle à frapper ses "agresseurs"
Tandis que Washington intensifie ses manœuvres diplomatiques, le président Saddam Hussein poursuit sa politique du tout ou rien. Estimant avoir été dépouillé des armes de destruction massive, il considère que l'ONU doit lever ses sanctions vis-à-vis de l'Irak.
Mireille Mathieu, La Dame d'Avignon, chante La Marseillaise, TomasD'asshole [MP3]
Before a shot had been fired, Colin Powell lost his battle
Que veut cette horde d'esclaves
De traîtres, de rois conjurés?
Pour qui ces ignobles entraves
Ces fers dès longtemps préparés?
Français, pour nous, ah! quel outrage
Quels transports il doit exciter?
Liberte, liberte cherie...Combats avec tes défenseurs!
The view from down under...
Bush Imperils World Peace & Democracy 
A War Record Littered with Lies
It is difficult to know whether this was partly wishful thinking or unadulterated spin
I dunno the Brit official but I know TDaschole....
George Bush is a geopolitical incompetent. He has allowed a clique of hawks to induce him to take a position on invading Iraq from which he cannot extract himself, one that will have nothing but negative consequences for the United States - and the rest of the world. He will find himself badly hurt politically, perhaps fatally. And he will rapidly diminish the already declining power of the US in the world.
"Don't worry. We've got a plan. We purposefully let the Iraq issue stay in no-man's-land for a while. But we know what we're doing, That's what senior people at the White House tell me....I sure hope so," the Reverend Lou Sheldon, the chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition
"One year later, and people still think we were attacked because Osama was jealous of our cellphones. To me, this is like the dickhead popular kid in high school who thought everybody hated him because he's sexy and has a nice car. No Bif, we hate you because you beat us up and stole our lunch money in Junior High."
(Kyria Abrahams)
They love our technology, and have used it extensively. They have the weird idea that they can marry modern technology with benighted, dark-ages theocracy.
And no Americans beat up any Arabs and stole their lunch money, that I know of.
I think it is probably hopeless.
Jexster's mental problem, some sort of uncontrolled or inadequately medicated mania, will probably destroy this site. Who the hell wishes to wade through all these gobs of crap he throws up?
A shame.
Here's a novel idea, jex: You post an idea or two, then wait for someone to reply. I know what you're thinking - No one ever replies to my Mote missives - they just make fun of me. So I make up for quality with quantity.
But that's just stinkin' thinkin', jex.
I'm sure everyone will agree, if instead of posting barely coherent faux headline after faux headline, complete with links and html screw-ups, if you took the time - the two fucking hours, for instance, that it took you to post the mess above - if you just used that time to condense all this junk down to one or two focused posts, not only would you find that more people would seriously debate you, but you'd probably gain a lot more respect for yourself.
Let's give it a try, ok?
Jexster's kinda guy. Where's that photo where Saddam was grabbing some scared shitless kid's head during the gulf war?
There must be some kind of pill you can take when you start feeling European - isn't there?
A couple generations down the road, it'll be 'feeling Islamic' in Sweden.
sakonige -
You'd be doing jexster a favor if you posted to him regularly.
It looks to me as if Western European leaders have understood that it is impossible to hold Bush back, and that they will push for a UN mandate in order to try to contain the damage as far as possible.
Germany is the sticking point : Schröder is clearly not going along for the ride. He's up for re-election in ten days. He was generally considered to be heading for defeat, but that may be turning around -- talk of war may well help him, as German opinion is strongly against an intervention in Iraq, even with a UN mandate.
Message from William Parcher: "Thanks to your work we have isolated the bomb to the East Coast"
Scott Ritter on "Today"
207. jexster - 9/12/2002 10:03:00 AM
Annan to Bush - Keep Your Steer Shit in Texus - No Unilateral Action Agains Iraq
208. jexster - 9/12/2002 10:09:50 AM
Boy Blunder's Adventurism Sets Off 3-way Struggle for Northern Iraqi Oil
209. jexster - 9/12/2002 10:24:01 AM
Ritter kicks butt!
Q: "I recently interviewed Iraqi ambassador....who said there were no scud missiles, no chem/bio etc, are you saying you believe him"
Ritter: "Hell no. I don't believe what any Eye-raqi tells me"
210. jexster - 9/12/2002 10:26:45 AM
Preacher Man Bush last night..."the light shines in darkness"
Lection
