Ha. The 'pact' has worked for thirty years, through all kinds of problems, but if we wait indefinitely, something will break it. Maybe when rising oceans put half the countries involved under water? Hardly 'proof'.

I guess if your point had been that extremists hate negotiation, preferring to blow things up and kill people, that might have been supportable by the evidence. Certainly Cheney and co. are scrabbling around desperately trying to find some excuse for bombing Iran before they leave office. There's no profit to be made from peace talks.

The Saudi peace proposal of 2002 (and 2005) proposes that 'all Arab states might offer Israel normal relations and recognise it as a state in the region', in return for a retreat to 1967 borders. Apparently, 26% of Israelis support a return to the 1967 borders. Are 26% of Israelis suicidally crazy? What do you know about the situation that they don't? Obviously extremists - by definition - on all sides don't like compromises but why should they be given the power of veto, the final say?

quote:

Originally posted by newnickname:


I guess if your point had been that extremists hate negotiation, preferring to blow things up and kill people, that might have been supportable by the evidence. Certainly Cheney and co. are scrabbling around desperately trying to find some excuse for bombing Iran before they leave office. There's no profit to be made from peace talks.

I could not have put it any better myself because that is certainly true about Muslim extremeists. As far as I'm concerned we should go ahead, bomb Iran & be done with them, move on to the next enemy.

As for the agreement between Israel & Egypt, sure it has lasted for 30 years. But in a very fragile state. 92% of the people in Egypt still considers Israel an enemy.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3322428,00.html

And as recently as 2 years ago, the peace agreement was in jeopardy.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&c...d=2&article_id=73592

"As far as I'm concerned we should go ahead, bomb Iran & be done with them, move on to the next enemy."

Do we do this before or after we accomplish the missions (whatever they were) in Iraq and Afghanistan? Either way, after Iran, could we please find Osama bin Laden? A few or us are still POed at what he did. I realize that some don't think he is important now, but just humor us.

"And as recently as 2 years ago, the peace agreement was in jeopardy."

And it held, it would seem. Yet somehow, your logic dictates that a 30 year peace means a war is coming. We should really be worried about Great Britain, in that case. That peace is almost 200 years old. The situation is critical, huh, LR.

How to Win Friends and Influence People:

quote:

As far as I'm concerned we should go ahead, bomb Iran & be done with them, move on to the next enemy."

Let's bomb Iran now. Why bother to discover how much is bluster for home consumption (all of it) and how much is serious threat (none of it)? Attacking Iraq made the world safe from terrorism (though nobody told the intending suicide bomber who blew himself up in a restaurant in Exeter, England, last week. Not, I take it, a story which made much news in America. After all, American news is only concerned with matters that impact American citizens, 'in the flesh' as it were, something which may explain a lot about both her foreign policy and who and what her citizens vote for)

And the next enemy is.....? Pick a country. Pakistan might be a start. Or North Korea. Or Israel. Israel has 150 nuclear warheads, according to President Carter, and has been quick to attack other countries (which is, of course, self defence).

quote:

Originally posted by FredPuli:


And the next enemy is.....? Pick a country. Pakistan might be a start. Or North Korea. Or Israel. Israel has 150 nuclear warheads, according to President Carter, and has been quick to attack other countries (which is, of course, self defence).

When Barack Obama becomes President, Pakistan had better watch out

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/20/mccain-obama-battle-over_n_87591.html

"When Barack Obama becomes President, Pakistan had better watch out"

Why is that, LR? If it is because McCain says that Obama said he would bomb Pakistan, we only have to wait until McCain changes his position, don't we? If, however, you say that because Obama said that he would bomb Pakistan, please provide a quote with source from Obama that shows he said he'd bomb Pakistan.

Having said all that, I have to point out that, according to the article, we have already started bombing Pakistan. Further, since what little information we have about bin Laden indicates he is either in Pakistan or Afghanistan, some of us would like to see the guy behind 9/11 brought to justice. (I realize that not every American has that wish. It's just the ones who didn't like the attacks made on the US that haven't forgotten who was behind them and who wasn't.)

quote:

Originally posted by Lighteningrodd:

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
If, however, you say that because Obama said that he would bomb Pakistan, please provide a quote with source from Obama that shows he said he'd bomb Pakistan.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0132206420070801

Please note, LR, that that is what the liberal (?) press call a "nuanced reply" Obama does not do 'putting one's foot in it' or 'U-turns' or 'flip-flops' , he does "nuanced replies" . Even Fox News talks, without irony or sarcasm, of "nuanced replies" from Obama, so he is good at it, whatever it is.

From LR'S link -

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said.

Not quite what McCain has been saying and LR implying. In fact, it is what the US has been doing for at least the last 2 presidents. (3 out of the last 4, if you count Reagan's bombing of Libya) I don't think saying in public what has been known policy for quite a while is giving away information to an enemy. It's not like he is saying "In 30 days, we are going to bomb your country," is it? (I love the guys who still claim that Saddam had WMDs, but got them out before we invaded, but don't see that publicly scheduling that invasion allowed time for the alleged WMDs to be moved to WhoKnowsWhere. But bush is an honorable and wise man who is doing a fine job.)

You are picking at straws DG. You asked for something & I gave it to you.

As for your statement about Saddam having WMD's, I shall remind you of something...AGAIN...

Who said it first??? Was it President Bush??? No it was not. This was an issue long before he was even determined to be the 2000 Presidential candidate. But you and many others are so oriented towards Bush bashing, you tend to forget & ignore the original ground work that was already in place before Bush even came to office as POTUS.

And DG go right ahead & give me your usual nasty angry retorts because you can't stand the truth. You can't stand the fact several Democrats originally advocated & even voted for action in Iraq. And to this day you and several others still like to push the myth that Bush lied about WMD's in Iraq. When the facts are he based it on the same information those who preceded him had. The big difference being is that Bush had the cajones to take action where those before him wouldn't.

But you want to know what really burns me up about the Democrat Party. Many of these very same people who originally advocated action in Iraq, turn right around changing position. The purpose being pure politics. Well the Democrats got what they wanted. They got their power bac in Congress, not that they've done much with it. They sure have disappointed their anti-war constuents. But yet they are poised to gain more seats come November. Not a good thing in my opinion but when the Republicans don't put up much of a fight, they don't deserve to gain any either.

As for the Presidential election, no matter who wins in November, the Democrats are assured of occupying the White House.

Refresh my memory, LR - When did Clinton invade Iraq based on false evidence? Oh, wait! He didn't! It was bush who invaded, wasn't it? bush started a war with Iraq. You on the Right keep trying to blame someone else, when the facts clearly show that bush started that war; it's bush's war. Please don't show how little you understand by blaming previous administrations or Congress. Clinton didn't invade Iraq. HW Bush didn't invade Iraq. Reagan not only didn't invade Iraq, but he gave Saddam the chemicals with which he gassed the Kurds. Saddam was Reagan's (and Rummy's) buddy, remember? Congress did not declare war on Iraq; that vote was to give bush the authority to use his own judgment (certainly a mistake, considering the quality of the mind making that judgment). bush and his supporters own this war. The lives lost are on their heads.

As far as Obama's comment, he said what he said, and not what you or McCain say he said. Your own link shows that. Blow smoke and put up mirrors, but the facts remain. Were you one who complained that Obama was saying that McCain said the war would last 100 years? Yet now you want to (not too) subtly change Obama's words. (If I remember correctly, you were also one of those saying that the WMDs left Iraq just before the invasion, ignoring the fact that someone let Saddam know when that invasion was going to start. Smart guy, huh?) You keep trying to change both history and your own principles to suit your current position. That generally doesn't work when your words are in print.

Principles and ethics are best when they are relatively stable. Shifting them around makes one seem more like McCain making a campaign speech. ("The Religious Right is dangerous" ..."No, wait, I need them! Let me kiss up to them, make speeches at their gatherings." ..."Oops! Some of their words got out to the public! I have to denounce them now. But I'll talk to them and they'll understand that I really like them, despite what I say."..."Torture is evil, and not what America is about." "Torture is OK with me, just change the definition, OK?"..."bush's tax cuts are bad!"..."Oops! I need the rich guys who benefited most from those tax cuts. SO they must be good!") Kissing up to the RR, supporting things he railed against when he sees he needs the votes, promising to appoint judges based on political positions rather than Constitutional knowledge (Shades of Clarence Thomas!), wanting to continue a war that we cannot win while ignoring the war we should be fighting - Nope, not a Democrat. Much worse! A Republican, and an old one at that who sees this as his last chance.

What's worse than a tax and spend Democrat? A don't tax and spend more Republican, and we've had one for almost 8 years. How's that national debt doing under your bud george?

By the way...where is Osama?

So who is "Blow smoke and putting up mirrors" here. I would suggest if theperson who made that comment wants to know, he should take a good hard look in the mirror himself.

Did Bill Clinton invade Iraq on so-called false information??? No but I certainly recall a couple of times he ordered bombs dropped there for the purpose of diverting the news media from his own personal scandals. I would consider that much worse. Bush invaded Iraq on long time accepted information. And yes I STILL advocate the position Saddam Hussein had ample opportunity to get rid of illegal WMD's he possessed. Nothing has come out to convince me otherwise.

Now if you are going to try to nail me as a John McCain fan, it will not work. I do not care for him, I'm not voting for him. If I wanted to vote for a Democrat, then I would cross party lines to do so.

On the subject of torture, if that's what it takes to extract information from a prisoner to save lives of our soldiers & innocent civilians, then so be it. We owe them that much.

As for tax cuts, they did not cause the deficit. On the contrary the tax cuts generated more revenue into the treasury.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/budget/wm1549.cfm

And how is it we are in a "war we cannot win". Its a good thing the country didn't feel like this in WW I or WW II. We might be speaking German right now. But the Democrat Party has suckered so many people into thinking we can't win. This is the mood they want for the country, for their own benefit. But if they gain control of the White House and gain more Congressional seats, I'm not worried. And why is that. History seems to repeat itself. The 1994 off-year elections could happen all over again.

As for Osama, I take it you are still chasing a dead man. He certainly hasn't made any TV appearances in quite a while.

From a link above:

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said.

The Illinois Democrat is trying to convince Americans he has the foreign policy heft to be president after a rival candidate, New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton, questioned his readiness to be commander in chief."

That's disappointing - particularly if Obama is "talking tough" in order to win votes. At least Obama is talking about bombing specific terrorist targets, on the basis of intelligence (not random countries on sexed-up half-truths), but the idea that bombing in Pakistan will help any doesn't represent "change".

From another link above:

'Nationalism, for example, makes it near impossible for Pakistan to agree to what the Americans and NATO allies would like -- permission to pursue Taliban and al-Qaida fighters across the border from Afghanistan.

Instead, Washington has been using Predator drone aircraft armed with missiles to make remote-control attacks on suspected militants' hideouts.

Alongside nationalism, another difficulty for NATO is that the Taliban are not seen in Pakistan as an altogether bad thing.'

Unauthorised bombing in Pakistan is just going to worsen that bigger picture, and the bigger picture is what needs to change if the extremists are to be properly defeated.

The idea that you can bomb places and people, then "be done with them and move on" is staggeringly naive. It's a Hollywood perception of reality. Obama had offered some hope of a different approach, but if he's already drifting towards the stupidly counter-productive militaristic consensus that seems to exist among the powers that be in the US, I guess it was false hope.

"Did Bill Clinton invade Iraq on so-called false information??? No but I certainly recall a couple of times he ordered bombs dropped there for the purpose of diverting the news media from his own personal scandals."

I love it. Clinton gets blamed for not doing anything about Saddam or terrorists, and when it is shown that he did something, the response is that his reasons weren't the right ones. SO, no matter what he did, he was wrong. Good line of thinking, LR. Think anyone will buy it?

"And yes I STILL advocate the position Saddam Hussein had ample opportunity to get rid of illegal WMD's he possessed."

So then, if those alleged WMDs (which,by the way, have been seen far less than bin Laden) get used by some terrorist organization, we can blame bush for giving Saddam warning about the surprise attack? Or is it OK for bush to do that, but not OK for a Democrat to say that if a terrorist is hiding in a country and that country does nothing about it, we will, just as we have ben doing? Please explain the apparently lack of consistency.

"Its a good thing the country didn't feel like this in WW I or WW II. We might be speaking German right now."

uh...you do understand that the Kaiser realy had no plans to cross the Atlantic, don't you? Surely, at some point, you studied world history. And we were attacked by Japan in WWII and Germany sunk several of our ships before war was declared. Further, you do realize that Germany declared war on the US before the US declared war on Germany, don't you? So really, bush's war in Iraq has little in common (with regard to causes and starts) with WWi or WWII. Trying to make links there is either debate tactic designed to draw attention away from the facts of the topic by waving the bloody shirt, or it is just a lack of knowledge about the causes of the three wars.

"As for Osama, I take it you are still chasing a dead man. He certainly hasn't made any TV appearances in quite a while."

Funny, you claim to know about WMDs that have yet to be seen, but deny the existence of someone who has been seen, and recently. (Do you have an X Files poster that says "I Want to Believe"?) However, if I use your "logic", I have to worry about Andy Griffith. He hasn't made any TV appearances in quite a while either. Did I miss his funeral?

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_more_soldiers...g_bill_clintons.html

Just ran across this bit of information on factcheck. An interesting bit of information that certainly surprised me. During the Clinton years it shows we had 13,417 military deaths. As of that writing, 9,016 for the Bush years. While the U.S. was not involved in any wars during the Clinton years there were terror attacks on the following:

1993 - The first World Trade Center bombing
1996 - Khobar Towers bombing - Saudi Arabia
1998 - U.S. Embassy bombings Kenya/Tanzania
2000 - USS Cole Bombing - Yemen

The case can certainly be made had Clinton taken decisive action on the groups responsible for these actions, perhaps 9-11 might have never happened. We willo never really know.



DG: "So then, if those alleged WMDs (which,by the way, have been seen far less than bin Laden) get used by some terrorist organization, we can blame bush for giving Saddam warning about the surprise attack? Or is it OK for bush to do that, but not OK for a Democrat to say that if a terrorist is hiding in a country and that country does nothing about it, we will, just as we have ben doing? Please explain the apparently lack of consistency."

Saddam did have warning. The invasion of Iraq was debated at the United Nations for a year before it took place. As for Barack Obama making his comment, it is fair game to criticize. If a Republican candidate made the same statement, you would be all over him.

As for your WW I & WW II history lesson, I am a little confused. Are you suggesting the U.S. should have stayed out of those wars too

As for looking for Osama bin Laden, whatever grave or cave he is RIPing in, I also recall years ago, many people thought Adolph Hitler was hiding in South America someplace. Argentina seem to be a popular country for German refugees. Maybe you might find Osama there

As for Andy Griffith, I didn't know he was involved in any of these terror attacks. It certainly changes my perspective of him

Er, Lighteningrodd, you might want to scroll down that 'factcheck' page a bit further.

I guess there are countless 'what if's that might have prevented 9/11. Certainly a big one would have been the US's choosing not to arm and support Afghanistan "Freedom Fighters" and their extremist allies. Predictably, blowing things up and killing people led to more and more blowing up of things and killing of people.

Bush's creation of an unstable and failed state in Iraq has done nothing to prevent terrorism - in fact he has arguably made the world a more dangerous place with his 'decisive action'. Bush's response to 9/11 - to invade Iraq for no good reason, and to lose so much opportunity for international cooperation on defeating al Qaeda - was criminally stupid.

This has been an interesting thread that has made people think.

I still think Obama will have to answer why he believes the President of the United States should negotiate without pre-conditions - an action that his Democratic primary opponents called irresponsible and naive. I heard no outcry at that time.

Sure, we are negotiating all of the time, just not at the Presidential level. Before Nixon negotiated with China, there were 135 diplomatic meetings to clear the way.

Dorian, my friend, one of those Nobel prize winners was also one of the most violent men of the 20th century, Yasser Arafat.

He was the founder and leader of several terrorist groups, he tried to overthrow several governments, his group "Black September" destroyed Lebanon, and he ended his life as a terrorist.

Rather than just dropping names, try to think of the people who no longer exist as a result of this Peace Laureate who murdered before, during and after the so-called negotiations.

The only way to negotiate with blood-thirsty animals is from the other side of a jail cell window.

"The only way to negotiate with blood-thirsty animals is from the other side of a jail cell window."

How is that working out so far? Maybe the UK should have tried that in Northern Ireland. (Oh wait, they did at first, didn't they?)

Basically, you are saying that every US president since Truman (and maybe him) has done it wrong.