President

[AlKilyu]

I'd rather it went to that then wasted on the "Oil for Food" program or some other waste like that. Tell me tax money (paid by those who hold jobs to anyone lining to bitch) wasn't wasted during the Clinton administration, a man I voted for and touted as being in the same fraternity as me.

Hopefully you all watched the "Oil for Food: Blood Money" show on FoxNews. If not, do a Google on (and use quotes when doing so) "Oil for Food" and watch how many times the word "scandel" comes up. The U.S. is innocent there, and when the official congressional report is released in spring of '05, many will eat their words.

You think that Bush is leading now, if that report were published now, they end the race ASAP due to overwhelming support for him. But, unlike Dan Rather, congress wishes to get ALL the facts and confirm them before releasing anything.

[Bicth_in-the_Basement666]

seeing as how bush wants me to go to war im gonna have to say kerry but in general i think wacthing all the muckraking is quite amusing so i usally go for the guy who makes the other one look more like a smuck than the other

hope that doesent piss any of you who care off wasent trying to if i did

[AlKilyu]

It's okay Bexxle, while I don't agree with your opinion, it's nice to see you back.

[.BatteryPoison.]

Fucking Hilarious*


(for republicans)

[AlKilyu]

Like I said TStone do a search on it.

Watch FoxNews if they re-run it or go to their website.

Or wait until springtime when it will be officially released.

I don't think we benifited, if we did not as much as other countries did.

Oddly enough, those who benifited the most were those same countries that protested us going back into Iraq.

You're right on those numbers, he himself netted 10 billion, and those on the take knew this.

Did I mention .batterypoison.'s greatness yet?

[MrMaelstrom]

We all follow the news we agree with. that show us things the way we want to see them.

Please watch Fox news as much as you like. But please do notice the bias in it and take a look at unbiased reporting (where you can find it) or watch something that's biased in the opposite direction.

There are facts and there are opinionsand there is hearsay. There's a difference between them all, but it's hard to notice if you don't look for it.

Look for it.

Why do I get a Reagan deja vu when faced with Bush? How long will it take us to see the PRESENT damage to admit it was a mistake?
Why do the leaders that mostly unite a nation most usually take it exactly where it shouldn't go, or should, but in a different manner altogether?

[OmmadDawn]

So a couple weeks ago, before the flu came and kicked my ass, I complained about Alkilyu passing on a joke about Kerry about him being indecisive. I used the word "Hitlerite" and he and Empty_Purple_Stars made some complaints.

So, yes, I feel the jokes about Kerry being "indecisive" are propaganda. I believe some arm of the Republican Party (like the American Enterprise Institute) has hired people and payed them to:
1) come up with a key slander against Kerry to use in their propaganda campaign
2) hire writers to create jokes to spread through the culture, reinforcing it
3) have the networks pressure the talk show hosts into repeating the jokes

And it isn't something they haven't done before. "Al Gore is a robot" "Mondale's a wimp". I complained about these being playground shenanigans, and they are.

I don't understand why somebody like Alkilyu, who is cool in other ways, spends time listening to Fox News which outright admits what they spew is propaganda, not news, and repeating canned jokes aimed to create an unrealistic picture of the Democratic candidate.

I think such tactics are revolting, and don't understand why this kind of immaturity doesn't make everyone sick with embarrassment.

On top of that, having to make up stuff about Kerry is really pitiful, when the current president is such a retard he can't speak in public without a prewritten speech, he can't answer any questions that aren't on a list, he can't speak to the public outside of a military base, he can't see or hear any protestors, he can't testify in Congress under oath or without his puppet-master Cheney sitting with him, he's clearly a military deserter, and both he and Cheney showed overt cowardice during the 9/11 attacks.

How they can even attempt to make fun of the candidate running against them when they so clearly, in public record, have holes in their own personality and leadership you could sail an aircraft carrier through. Well, it just demonstrates that none of their own behavior matters, as long as the Great American Bubba buys it, and Bubba buys it out of willful and intentional ignorance and denial of everything that's gone on these last years. I'm just disappointed as hell to see Alkilyu and others sitting right next to Bubba.

More about the "Hitler" reference later.

[punkirony]

I know that this isn't an opion, but I'd totally vote for my man Bill Clinton.

[TeapotScar]

Hmm, reading these threads, I always just feel so sad about the huge gap between Republicans and Democrats. Obviously we disagree...

This question goes out to those of both parties: If you *had* to vote for a political figurehead of the opposite party, who would it be?

I'll go first:

AlKilyu in '04!!!!!!

Haha seriously though- McCain wasn't bad.

[AlKilyu]

Originally Posted by OmmadDawn

I don't understand why somebody like Alkilyu, who is cool in other ways, spends time listening to Fox News which outright admits what they spew is propaganda, not news, and repeating canned jokes aimed to create an unrealistic picture of the Democratic candidate.

Unbiased reporting, you're not used to it so it's foreign to you. You give me cold hard facts, proof, that what you said above is true.

I think such tactics are revolting, and don't understand why this kind of immaturity doesn't make everyone sick with embarrassment.

Like name calling and putting down those who don't agree with you as 'immature' and 'revolting'.

On top of that, having to make up stuff about Kerry is really pitiful,

What's been made up? Again, proof.

when the current president is such a retard

Nice. So not only do you resort to name calling, you are so un-PC as to use a term that would offend the mentally handicapped.

he can't speak in public without a prewritten speech

No every other politician goes off memory, including Kerry.

he can't answer any questions that aren't on a list, he can't speak to the public outside of a military base, he can't see or hear any protestors, he can't testify in Congress under oath or without his puppet-master Cheney sitting with him, he's clearly a military deserter

More name calling. Once more, proof, provide it.

and both he and Cheney showed overt cowardice during the 9/11 attacks.

That's not worth retorting. Too easy, there must be a trap.

How they can even attempt to make fun of the candidate running against them when they so clearly, in public record, have holes in their own personality and leadership you could sail an aircraft carrier through. Well, it just demonstrates that none of their own behavior matters, as long as the Great American Bubba buys it, and Bubba buys it out of willful and intentional ignorance and denial of everything that's gone on these last years. I'm just disappointed as hell to see Alkilyu and others sitting right next to Bubba.

So I'm ignorant, eh?

I cannot tell you how honored that I dissapoint you and others like you. Fucking swelling with pride at this very moment. Unlike you and others (by others I don't mean other Kerry supporters or Teapot) I came into this with no bias and studied unbiased sources. Who is your source of news, CBS?!

More about the "Hitler" reference later.

Save your breath. The only time you open your mouth as of late is to change feet.

[AlKilyu]

Originally Posted by TeapotScar

Hmm, reading these threads, I always just feel so sad about the huge gap between Republicans and Democrats. Obviously we disagree...

This question goes out to those of both parties: If you *had* to vote for a political figurehead of the opposite party, who would it be?

I'll go first:

AlKilyu in '04!!!!!!

Haha seriously though- McCain wasn't bad.

Heh sorry Teapot, I came in here to see what you had posted and saw the above.

You'd be my running mate, and uh...I think you know where I'm goin with that...

Hmm...while he is not running as of late, I like how Newt cleaned up our debt and things in general there for awhile. Or Lieberman. Hmm...that's a good question...eh...Lieberman.

[skoteinh]

You know that I am not from the US, and maybe somebody would say that I shouldn't talk about this, because Greece is sooooo far away, but here's what I think:

Bush in my opinion should go. I don't know this guy Kerry, but he can't be worse than Bush. George W. has done so much damage across the globe and if he stays I'm sure he'll do more. All this crap about freedom and protecting the rights of the innocent is not convincing. Ask the people of Afghanistan and Irak.

Ok, I'm not saying that Osama and Saddam are saints, but I believe that we should help people resolve their own problems and not throw bombs that destroy their cities and kill children, overthrow their rulers and cause chaos and civil wars.

Terrorism is just wrong but should we follow the "eye for an eye" logic?

And apart from that, how about Kyoto? I think it's time the Government of the United States took steps towards respecting the environment, recycling, protecting the forests and not throwing so much energy out the window. I hope the next president will do something about that, because it is not something that affects just the people that live in the US, but all of us.

Please, don't start throwing things at me *ducks* it's just my opinion...

[Bicth_in-the_Basement666]

Personally i could give a shit for where your from i belive your right but i wouldent hold my breath about our next prez doing something useful.

[AlKilyu]

Originally Posted by skoteinh

You know that I am not from the US

Originally Posted by skoteinh

I don't know this guy Kerry, but he can't be worse than Bush

I hear this constantly and like Neo in the Matrix, I can hold my hand out and make the bullets drop, then flare my nostrils.

Not saying you don't have a point (but here you don't) or that your opinion as a whole doesn't matter (you can't vote so it does not) just that...well...eh...*yawn*...hey look something shiny!

[skoteinh]

oh well, I thought that everybody was free to post their thoughts around here... but it seems that some people have a tendency to just try and intimidate anybody that has a different opinion than theirs. :roll:

and something else: if one sustains that their country is the only superpower in the world and therefore is justified when it makes decisions that affect other peoples countries, maybe they should think that, whether they like it or not, that gives the right to anybody on this earth to have an opinion and express it.

P.S. again, it was just an opinion, and to make things clear: I have nothing against the states whatsoever. The last thing I want is to start an argument, so from now on I will not post anything on this or any relevant thread.

[Deadhymn]

well, we get the chance to watch them debate Iraq tonight. Should be fun to watch Kerry try and remember what he's said about the issue publicly so far, so he can appear consistent for once....

[TeapotScar]

http://develnet.org/ThisAndThat/Dadd...veToAttackIraq

I have no words...funny, but sad.

[AlKilyu]

Iraq's nuclear program

While the final report from Charles Duelfer, the top American inspector of Iraq's covert weapons programs, won't be released for a few weeks, the portions that have already been made public touch on many of the experiences I had while working as the head of Saddam Hussein's nuclear centrifuge program. Now that I am living in the United States, I hope to answer some of the most important questions that remain.
What was really going on in Iraq before the American invasion last year? Iraq's nuclear weapons program was on the threshold of success before the 1991 invasion of Kuwait - there is no doubt in my mind that we could have produced dozens of nuclear weapons within a few years - but was stopped in its tracks by UN weapons inspectors after the Gulf war and was never restarted. During the 1990s, the inspectors discovered all of the laboratories, machines and materials we had used in the nuclear program, and all were destroyed or otherwise incapacitated.
By 1998, when Saddam Hussein evicted the weapons inspectors from Iraq, all that was left was the dangerous knowledge of hundreds of scientists and the blueprints and prototype parts for the centrifuge, which I had buried under a tree in my garden.
In addition to the inspections, the sanctions that were put in place by the United Nations after the Gulf war made reconstituting the program impossible. During the 1980s, we had relied heavily on the international black market for equipment and technology; the sanctions closed that avenue.
Another factor in the mothballing of the program was that Saddam was profiting handsomely from the UN oil-for-food program, building palaces around the country with the money he skimmed. I think he didn't want to risk losing this revenue stream by trying to restart a secret weapons program.
Over the course of the 1990s, most of the scientists from the nuclear program switched to working on civilian projects or in conventional-weapons production, and the idea of building a nuclear bomb became a vague dream from another era.
So, how could the West have made such a mistaken assessment of the nuclear program before the invasion last year? Even to those of us who knew better, it's fairly easy to see how observers got the wrong impression. First, there was Saddam's history. He had demonstrated his desire for nuclear weapons since the late 1970s, when Iraqi scientists began making progress on a nuclear reactor. He had used chemical weapons against his own people and against Iran during the 1980s.
After the 1991 war, he had tried to hide his programs in weapons of mass destruction for as long as possible (he even kept my identity secret from weapons inspectors until 1995). It would have been hard not to suspect him of trying to develop such weapons again.
The Western intelligence services and policy makers, however, overlooked some obvious clues. One was the defection and death of Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, who was in charge of the unconventional weapons programs in the 1980s.
As my boss, Kamel was a brutal taskmaster who forced us to work under impossible deadlines and was the motivating force for our nuclear effort. The drive for nuclear weapons began in earnest when he rose to a position of power in 1987. He placed a detail of 20 fearsome security men on the premises of our centrifuge lab, and my staff and I worked wonders just to stay out of his dungeons. But after he defected to Jordan in 1995, and then returned months later only to be assassinated by his father-in-law's henchmen, the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs lost their top promoter.
In addition, the West never understood the delusional nature of Saddam's mind. By 2002, when the United States and Britain were threatening war, he had lost touch with the reality of his diminished military might.
By that time I had been promoted to director of projects for the country's entire military-industrial complex, and I witnessed firsthand the fantasy world in which he was living. He backed mythic but hopeless projects, like one for a long-range missile that was completely unrealistic considering the constraints of international sanctions.
The director of another struggling missile project, when called upon to give a progress report, recited a poem in the dictator's honor instead. Not only did he not go to prison, Saddam applauded him.
By 2003, as the American invasion loomed, the tyrant was alternately working on his next trashy novel and giving lunatic orders like burning oil around Baghdad to "hide" the city from bombing attacks. Unbelievably, one of my final assignments was to prepare a 10-year plan for military-industrial works, even as tens of thousands of troops were gathering for invasion.
To the end, Saddam kept alive the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission, staffed by junior scientists involved in research completely unrelated to nuclear weapons, just so he could maintain the illusion in his mind that he had a nuclear program. Sort of like the emperor with no clothes, he fooled himself into believing he was armed and dangerous. But unlike that fairy-tale ruler, Saddam fooled the rest of the world as well.
Was Iraq a potential threat to the United States and the world? Threat is always a matter of perception, but our nuclear program could have been reinstituted at the snap of Saddam's fingers. The sanctions and the lucrative oil-for-food program had served as powerful deterrents, but world events - like Iran's current efforts to step up its nuclear ambitions - might well have changed the situation.
Iraqi scientists had the knowledge and the designs needed to jumpstart the program if necessary. And there is no question that we could have done so very quickly. In the late 1980s, we put together the most efficient covert nuclear program the world has ever seen. In about three years, we gained the ability to enrich uranium and nearly become a nuclear threat; we built an effective centrifuge from scratch, even though we started with no knowledge of centrifuge technology. Had Saddam ordered it and the world looked the other way, we might have shaved months if not years off our previous efforts.
So what now? The dictator may be gone, but that doesn't mean the nuclear problem is behind us. Even under the watchful eyes of Saddam's security services, there were worries that our scientists might escape to other countries or sell their knowledge to the highest bidder. This expertise is even more valuable today, with nuclear technology ever more available on the black market and a proliferation of peaceful energy programs around the globe that use equipment easily converted to military use.
Hundreds of my former staff members and fellow scientists possess knowledge that could be useful to a rogue nation eager for a covert nuclear weapons program. The vast majority are technicians who, like the rest of us, care first about their families and their livelihoods.
It is vital that the United States ensure they get good and constructive jobs in postwar Iraq. The most accomplished of my former colleagues could be brought, at least temporarily, to the West and placed at universities, research labs and private companies.
The United States invaded Iraq in part to end what it saw as a nuclear danger. It is now vital to reduce the chance of Iraq's dangerous knowledge spilling outside of its borders. The nuclear dangers facing the world are growing, not decreasing. My hope is that the Iraqi example can help people understand how best to deal with this threat.

Mahdi Obeidi is the author of "The Bomb in My Garden: The Secrets of Saddam's Nuclear Mastermind." Kurt Pitzer, who collaborated on the book, assisted with this article.


In posting that I am concieding that there might not have been WMND (no sarin? then how'd they get what they have now?) but this article is fair and balanced from someone who was there and understands how the world was fooled, even if he thinks that Sadam's son-in-law being murdered was a "clue"...

[edible_eye]

ah, skote -

don't go away just because of that. differing of opinions goes both ways. don't slam the door on relevant threads just because your opinion wasn't wholly embraced.

i say - stick out that chest (please), take a deep breath and voice what you will. if someone agrees, fine. if someone disagrees, fine. but don't shut down just because a voice of dissent sounded off.

- mark

[AlKilyu]

...and don't blame others because you either don't want to or can't argue your points. No one here tried to intimidate you or anyone else. If you have issues they are your own.

It is really popular, especially amongst certain foreign posters to bash the U.S. and it's goverment. God forbid someone stick up for either, or that they go after much worse countries with equal ferver.

It's the people in a crowd that feel the safest. When called out to explain their fews is when you really see if they have anything behind what they say.

If you say something here it's gonna be questioned, and unlike MOST of the others, EE and I will not resort to name calling or infering you are an "idiot" for your views.

Who else can say that?

[edible_eye]

true dat, yo

*thumping chest with fist*
*extending peace sign sideways*

[skoteinh]

If you put it that way... you're right.

I just felt like an unwanted outsider for a moment... personal issues were indeed behind my reaction. And being a goth has something to do with it as well :roll:

I should have realized that it wasn't a personal attack, it's just that I am relatively new here and thought I didn't "fit in".

Thank you AlKilyu and EE for your encouragement!

AlKilyu: I will continue bashing the U.S. and it's government at will, complete with arguments, as I am sure you would ours if you knew or cared about what's happenning in our political field! :P

[Bicth_in-the_Basement666]

did any one wacth the debate last nite i meant to but screaming childeren demand attion and i had to help them get thier home work done.

(think's about her 2 nieces and brother and how evil they can be when the put thier minds to it)

[AlKilyu]

Originally Posted by skoteinh

if you knew or cared about what's happenning in our political field! :P

Nope.

[TeapotScar]

Originally Posted by Bicth_in-the_Basement666

did any one wacth the debate last nite i meant to but screaming childeren demand attion and i had to help them get thier home work done.

(think's about her 2 nieces and brother and how evil they can be when the put thier minds to it)

More importantly, did anyone watch the daily show's coverage of it? Fucking hilarious.

http://www.comedycentral.com/mp/play...ines/9040.html