Dr. Guy if you haven't followed any of my other posts, I suggest you poke a round a little, my comments are many, honest and rational. I've never used the word hate, in any of my post towards Bush. I was undecided until Oct. 20th. I spent the last 2 months of my life trying to make an informed decision. I chose to support Kerry, because his plans were aimed solidly at affecting middle class Americans, I am middle class and will be until the end of this presidential term. But none of that matters to me now.

The majority has spoken, and Bush has my support. Just as I supported him last time, through his many vacations before 9/11 and his remarkable leadership immediately following 9/11. I supported him in the invasion of Iraq, because I believed him when he came on TV and said they had the intelligence that proved to him with out a doubt that Saddam had WMD. I believed his administration and trusted that they were doing their jobs, getting the best intelligence in the world about what was going on over in Iraq.

Obviously, he didn't have great intelligence, and the rest of the world was right, there were no WMD. The sanctions were working, and more than anything Saddam was bluffing and posturing to make his nation look strong enough to its enemies to avoid an altercation not with the US and it's allies, but with Iran. There were no workable nuclear facilities, and Saddam was not a source of revenue for terrorists. Nor was his country a safe haven for terrorist activities, until now.

I will not back Bush blindly this time, nor will I criticize him without reason. I am willing to see if his plan will work, but I believe that the deficit will climb and healthcare cost will ruin the small businesses in the US, and those two factors will cripple the US economy in the years to come. I hope not, but I have a feeling we are in for a long 4 years. I know for a fact that if health care costs are ignored for 4 more years my company and many like it will lose their benefits. If he attacks this problem, and solves it my applause will be among the loudest.

Dr. guy, I'm displeased and angered that you would say I hate Bush. I made a painstaking decision over my vote. And while I think Bush is the stronger of the two on Homeland Security, I think Kerry would affect me more positively on domestic issues. I also think Bush is too much of a maverick for my tastes on foreign diplomacy. In the end that's what I based my decision on. But I don't hate him. In fact I'd rather have him over the house for a BBQ than I would Kerry. And frankly, this is one of the reasons I dislike Republicans, I find Republicans entirely too pompous and assuming. I think most of you are incredibly ignorant of the issues, and completely blind to anyone one else’s opinion, much like your leader.

I sat down with both Republicans and Democrats as a registered Patriot, and frankly the Democrats are much more civil and open for discussion than most of the Republicans. Not all but most, perhaps the most enlightening person I talked politics with was a Republican. An Aeronautical Engineer I work with. He's very right wing, and very upper class, very enlightening, and made his point very eloquently countering my arguments and making sound arguments for Bush all while admitting some of Bush's weaknesses. We talked at length several times without so much as a single hard feeling or harsh criticism of each other. But he was the lone calm voice. Even as an undecided talking to other republicans, I felt like a punching bag. The Democrats seemed to understand their candidates plans better than Republicans understood Bush's. I don't think the Democrats understood Bush’s very well, and only marginally more than Republicans understood Kerry's.

Most republicans think Kerry is:
Pro Abortion - he’s pro choice, because he doesn't think that it's fair to legislate his beliefs on anyone else
Pro Gay Marriage - again doesn't think that legislating the beliefs of the majority against the minority is a wise thing to do.
A Flip Flopper - His votes in the Senate for and against the war were contrary, not because he changed his mind, but because he gave the President the power to declare war once diplomatic options were exhausted, he then voted against the funding in an effort to get the President to continue diplomatic means. And if anyone cared to look into those speeches for themselves they would have seen that.

Excerpt:
"Let there be no doubt or confusion about where we stand on this. I will support a multilateral effort to disarm (Hussein) by force, if we ever exhaust ... other options, ... If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out."


"Congressional action on this resolution is not the end of our national debate on how best to disarm Iraq, nor does it mean we have exhausted all of our peaceful options to achieve this goal.''

Even Bush AGREED with Kerry's stance on this. "If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force,'' Bush said in September 2002. "It's a chance for Congress to say, 'we support the administration's ability to keep the peace.' That's what this is all about.''

We all know by now the famous:
"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,'' - Kerry voted for reducing tax cuts for those who earn more than $300,000, that amendment was removed and the bill was brought up again . He voted against the $87 billion by adding to the deficit. Kerry has been a staunch spend as you go supporter his entire career.

The republicans blended all of this into one giant flip-flop but in actuality this was several individual items, that Bush's campaign managers harped on so frequently and captured their POV so eloquently with sound bites that Kerry couldn't shake it. Bush did the same thing against Gore in 2000 on different issues, and his father tried the same with the Term Waffle back in 92 against Clinton

By who? You?

How didn’t they work?

The Sanctions worked. One of the most effective tactics used during the Clinton administration was letting the Iraqis, build their questionable factories, and labs waiting until they were almost finished then bomb them into ruble. It was done 11 times during his administration. It worked it ate up their money and time.

NO WMD
NO Nuclear Program
No Link to Al Qaeda
The staff report said that bin Laden "explored possible cooperation with Iraq" while in Sudan through 1996, but that "Iraq apparently never responded" to a bin Laden request for help in 1994. The commission cited reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda after bin Laden went to Afghanistan in 1996, adding, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

You were Bullsh*ted just like the rest of us Kemo Sabe.

The real reason we are in Iraq?
So that we can pull the troops out of the Muslim Holy Lands in Saudi Arabia, and move the bases to Iraq, therefore eliminating one of the prerequisites set up by bin Laden to halt terrorist threats. To protect our interests in Israe and keep a military presence near Iran.

The comments come after the French government on Monday formally denounced as unsubstantiated the allegations in a recent report by Charles Duelfer, America's chief weapons inspector, that businesses and officials in France accepted bribes from Saddam Hussein's regime.
.
The report, which was published on the Central Intelligence Agency's Web site on Oct. 7, says dozens of individuals - most of them in France, Russia and China - received oil vouchers from Iraq that allowed them to buy oil and then resell it at a profit.
.
"It's regrettable that the Duelfer report advances accusations that are not at all confirmed - and the report recognizes that," said Hervé Ladsous, Barnier's spokesman.
.
Toward the end of the report, a footnote acknowledges that none of the allegations had been verified.
.
The UN's oil-for-food program, which came into effect in late 1996 and lasted until November 2003, was designed to ease Iraq's access to vital civilian goods during the sanctions regime imposed on the country after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
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Since January of this year, allegations of corruption against companies, government officials and UN employees have multiplied in the international press.
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The Duelfer report has added tension to a relationship strained ever since France became the most vocal opponent to the U.S.-led war in Iraq last year.
.
According to the French Foreign Ministry, Duelfer went outside his mandate, which was to assess whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or weapons programs, in making corruption allegations. That task falls to Volcker, one official said.
.
Diplomats also rejected the idea, floated in the media before the war and now back in vogue with the Duelfer report, that France tried to protect Iraq from war because it had big contracts and exports at stake.
.
They point out that out of the $3 billion in "French contracts" under the oil-for-food program mentioned by the report, more than $634 million went to French subsidiaries of American multinationals.
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General Electric won deals worth $445 million and Halliburton $127 million. About $300 million went to the subsidiaries of British companies.
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"There are several American and British companies that used their French subsidiaries to get access to the Iraqi market," the official said. "It's absurd to suggest that we didn't want the war because of commercial interests in Iraq."
.PARIS France is making classified documents available to investigators of suspected fraud in the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq in an attempt to refute allegations by a U.S. arms inspector that French companies abused the system, diplomats said Tuesday.
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Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve who is now heading the UN investigation, in a private meeting earlier this month that he would be given full access to France's oil-for-food paper trail.
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Barnier also said that Volcker could interview any individuals involved in the contracts, said one official at the Foreign Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
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"We are completely open to this investigation - anything he wants from us he will get," the Foreign Ministry official said. "It's in everybody's interest that this is cleared up."
.
The comments come after the French government on Monday formally denounced as unsubstantiated the allegations in a recent report by Charles Duelfer, America's chief weapons inspector, that businesses and officials in France accepted bribes from Saddam Hussein's regime.
.
The report, which was published on the Central Intelligence Agency's Web site on Oct. 7, says dozens of individuals - most of them in France, Russia and China - received oil vouchers from Iraq that allowed them to buy oil and then resell it at a profit.
.
"It's regrettable that the Duelfer report advances accusations that are not at all confirmed - and the report recognizes that," said Hervé Ladsous, Barnier's spokesman.
.
Toward the end of the report, a footnote acknowledges that none of the allegations had been verified Emphasis mine.

Regardless, the sanctions were to prevent Saddam from selling oil and buying WMD, rebuilding his nuclear program. The oil for Food program was to allow Saddam to sell limited amounts of oil to provide food and other necessities to his people. Saddam skimmed off the top more than 1.8 Billion Dollars.

Resolution 687 maintained the sanctions first imposed against Iraq in response to the invasion of Kuwait, until Iraq stop producing WMD, and destroyed any WMD still in their arsenal, and Saddam was removed from power. I think everyone will admit the first 2 conditions were met. No WMD have been found, and countless records have shown that in the mid 90's the arsenal was destroyed, Inspectors both before and after the war have verified this. The administration did not believe this to be true, prior to the Second Gulf War, but now it seems that it was.

Saddam continued to thumb his nose at the UN, US and UK by not allowing them to verify this through inspection until right before the Second Gulf War. At that point he was letting the inspectors do their job, grudgingly, and why not he was making a killing skimming off the top of the Oil for Food program. As the inspectors came up empty time and time again, finding nothing, despite the administration insists that there were illegal programs being run in Iraq, the administration ordered the Inspectors out of Iraq. Link

"I should note that in recent weeks, possibly as a result of increasing pressure by the international community, Iraq has been more forthcoming in its cooperation with the IAEA," he said, adding that inspectors still have found no evidence that Saddam Hussein has revived his nuclear program.

Link

The sanctions had kept Iraq from continuing their programs.

Link

Iraq however had to continue posturing themselves as dangerous to protect themselves from their enemies, especially Iran, and Israel.

Iran is next almost assuredly, Colin Powell has already made it known that he wants Iran at the meetings in Egypt, later this month, and any failure to stop enriching uranium will result in UN Security Council action. In fact Colin Powell as backed off his planned retirement in order to see the Elections in Iraq through to the finish and stabilize the region.

What do you think stabilize the region means?

It's time to get a little more information about the Middle east and our policies there over the last 50 or so years.


Here's an article from someone who went to Israel and came back with a very different opion that she went with:
Link

Another article show US Backing of Iraq during the Iran Iraq war. Not also that there is mention of supply Iran as well.

Link

Playing both sides? How deep was the hole Bush Sr. dug?
Link

drmiler - you've got to be kidding.

Or this one: Link This is most likely one of the best..

April 18, 2004, 11:36 p.m.
Oil-for-Terror?

The claims in this article were proven unsubstantiated by the 9-11 Commission. They were thoroughly investigate and found to be a complete fabrication. The Oil for Food fiasco, is about other countries and corporations lining their pockets, not Saddam skirting the sanctions.

One of the other articles talks about saddam using the money he procured through the OFF program to buy weapons? What weapons? There were no new conventional or non conventional weapons encountered during the march to Bahgdad, it was all reminents from the Iran Iraq war.

The proof is all around you. You were snowed by this administration, it's OK to admit it. I have. I was a supporter for the invasion. And in most regards I still am, but I don't like the way he failed to create an exit strategy, or make a plan "win the peace". Mostly I don't like being lied to, and that's what happened. They weren't wrong. They didn't suffer from the largest lapse in intellegence in US history, they told the public what it needed to hear in order to pursue it's own agenda.

I don't like Bush's Maverick Mentality. I think it's dangerous. He's not really doing anything progressive to prevent nuclear prolifferation. How easy would it be for Bush , the CIA and NSA to start their own Terrorist Organization and buy up all of the Nuclear material laying around, gathering evidence along the way in order to close the door on the problem. Don't tell me it can't be done, hell his father used the same tactics in the Iran Contra scheme.

How much more simple can it be????

There are no WMD in Iraq nor were they pursuing them..
There was no Link to al Qaeda.
The documentation of the destruction of their arsenal, was not satisfactory for the administration and prompted the invaision.

So unless you willing to tell me that you still believe there are unfound WMD in Iraq, or secret WMD labs that we still haven't found and definitive links to al Qaeda, then the sanctions whose whole purpose was to force Saddam to relinquish or destroy his WMD and the persuit of WMD worked.

Yes it is a fact. I know because I looked it up on the internet, a web site called Janes, heard the media reports during the invasion, and unlike you I am not too closed minded to believe that Bush's administration might have something other than the humanitarian liberation Iraq, on their agenda.

If they had better weapons don't you think they'd have used them?

You are one of the blind Bush Minions. You've got to start thinking for yourself. Politics isn't sports; it is neither admirable, nor acceptable to "root" for your team. Bush supporters are generally the least willing to accept anything their leader says is anything but the truth. If he told you that Canada was sneaking weapons over the boarder and arming gangs in order to take over the country you'd believe him.

Your leader is a liar and not even a good one, but he doesn't have to worry about getting caught because you Blind Bush Minions are willing to accept it when he says he never said those things. He's not very bright either, and has made some huge gaffs, the biggest being his stance on WMD in Iraq. Again the Blind Bush Minions let him off the hook time and time again.

what always interests me about this.....

Why do ppl rush and run to believe, support, and argue the case for the Frenchies, but are so quick to accuse the President of every dastardly deed that could be committed in a dark alley.....?

Reply #10 By: Cappy1507 - 11/7/2004 4:47:42 PM
Yes it is a fact. I know because I looked it up on the internet, a web site called Janes, heard the media reports during the invasion, and unlike you I am not too closed minded to believe that Bush's administration might have something other than the humanitarian liberation Iraq, on their agenda.

If they had better weapons don't you think they'd have used them?

You are one of the blind Bush Minions. You've got to start thinking for yourself. Politics isn't sports; it is neither admirable, nor acceptable to "root" for your team. Bush supporters are generally the least willing to accept anything their leader says is anything but the truth. If he told you that Canada was sneaking weapons over the boarder and arming gangs in order to take over the country you'd believe him.

Your leader is a liar and not even a good one, but he doesn't have to worry about getting caught because you Blind Bush Minions are willing to accept it when he says he never said those things. He's not very bright either, and has made some huge gaffs, the biggest being his stance on WMD in Iraq. Again the Blind Bush Minions let him off the hook time and time again.


It is more than obvious that your original post was not genuine. Just comments for the sake of worthless chatter.