More Bad News for Kerry

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur
So, that makes us welcome guests?

Someone comes into your home, throws out the abusive spouse, breaks a fews things in the process. Now you daughter is no longer being raped This person starts making repairs right away, leaving things in better condition than before. They offer to stay and help out until you can get back on your feet

fixed your post

Yeah...more ignoring of the facts there.

How about responding with something a bit less childish?

My description was far more accurate then yours.

 

[conjur]

No, it's not.

My post was a fairly accurate analogy to what the U.S. has done in Iraq since March 2003.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur
No, it's not.

My was a fairly accurate analogy to what the U.S. has done in Iraq since March 2003.

Your statement is not accurate.

 

[conjur]

Oh?

The U.S. didn't go into Iraq, killing thousands of civilians, murdering and raping prisoners, and destroying its infrastructure?

I'm sorry. I guess I must have been misinterpreting the events of the past 15 months.

 

[Skitzer]

Originally posted by: conjur
Oh?

The U.S. didn't go into Iraq, killing thousands of civilians, murdering and raping prisoners, and destroying its infrastructure?

I'm sorry. I guess I must have been misinterpreting the events of the past 15 months.

Are you serious???!!! You got anything at all to back up these allegations?
Prisoners "murdered and raped"
Iraqi infrastructure "destroyed"

...... I must have missed those (or was this a well kept secret?) Help me out here.

 

[chess9]

Skitzer:

If you ask Conjur for a link you might get 20 of them! Be careful what you wish for. 🙂

-Robert

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur
Oh?

The U.S. didn't go into Iraq, killing thousands of civilians, murdering and raping prisoners, and destroying its infrastructure?

I'm sorry. I guess I must have been misinterpreting the events of the past 15 months.

Yes there were innocent civilians that were killed(not intentional)
I dont know of any prinsoner rapes, but the abuse is under investigation and people are being taken to court now.
Infrastructure was destroyed and is being put back in better condition than it was before. Ie more power is being generated today than prewar....

 

[cumhail]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo

Originally posted by: HardWarrior
How is this bad news for Kerry? Bush calls the UN useless because it didn't back his war. He runs back a year later begging for help and election-year cover. If you've got a memory and don't drink major party Kool-Aid it's bad for Bush.

Please provide a link where Bush calls the UN Useless

The buzzword was "relevant/irrelevant," which they used more or less to mean useful/useless insofar as the UN failing to sanction the war rendered them irrelevant and resulted in the US decided it didn't matter if the resolution(s) passed or not.

Here goes:

Bush in a Speech:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030210.html
And the inspectors have gone to Iraq, and it is clear that not only is Saddam Hussein deceiving, it is clear he's not disarming. And so you'll see us over the next short period of time, working with friends and allies and the United Nations to bring that body along. And it's a moment of truth for the United Nations. The United Nations gets to decide, shortly, whether or not it is going to be relevant, in terms of keeping the peace, whether or not its words mean anything.

They did not vote in support, thereby deciding, apparently, that they're not relevant (def.: having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand).

Ari Fleischer, Bush's Press Secretary:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030310-8.html
And the focus is, as the President has said, will the United Nations Security Council be relevant? There's another point to be made, and that is: will the United Nations Security Council be effective? Will they be effective in stopping proliferators from obtaining weapons? If they're not effective, then the world has to examine these issues carefully to find the best means of finding an effective solution...
<snip>
Because I think that this will require a period of assessment to determine, when the President talked about the relevance of the United Nations Security Council, and if it is not able to act and be relevant or effective, then I think that people would look at that issue, in terms of relevance and effectiveness. I have just not heard any discussion about that, dealing with dollars.

Unless you honestly believe the President's press secretaries have a right to speak their own mind and don't make sanctioned statements, this qualifies.

Ari Fleischer, Bush's Press Secretary:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030221-2.html
Q: Ari, would it be fair to say that the President believes this second resolution is the United Nations' last chance to prove its relevance? I mean, judging from what you've said, that's what you're saying.

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, given the fact that this is, in reality, the 18th resolution, the President does not think there needs to be a 19th. So this is a very important moment for the United Nations Security Council to decide whether or not it will act.

But wait, there's more... and bear in mind we're going backwards in time with these quotes.

Ari Fleischer, Bush's Press Secretary:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030219-4.html
MR. FLEISCHER: I think, just quote the words. I've never used the words, "aggressively" or "take a leading role." I said that the President has said that it's important to have a meaningful United Nations Security Council, and that the President believes that it is important to go to the Security Council. We will offer a resolution this week or next, and I've made no predictions about what the outcome of that would be. I've said the President believes that ultimately the United Nations will want to be relevant and want to have an effective role. That remains his hope. That's what I've said. Those are the words that I've used.

There are your links,

cumhail

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Skitzer

Originally posted by: conjur
Oh?

The U.S. didn't go into Iraq, killing thousands of civilians, murdering and raping prisoners, and destroying its infrastructure?

I'm sorry. I guess I must have been misinterpreting the events of the past 15 months.

Are you serious???!!! You got anything at all to back up these allegations?
Prisoners "murdered and raped"
Iraqi infrastructure "destroyed"

...... I must have missed those (or was this a well kept secret?) Help me out here.

I'll assume you've been living in a cave for the last year:

http://www.change-links.org/fiskSunday.htm

In 1991, the Americans struck the refineries, the electricity grid, the water pipes, communications.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/law/2002/1112dual.htm

UNICEF has thoroughly documented and as an independent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine warned 19 months after the Gulf War, the damage caused by the bombing has led to a 11-year long, monthly death toll of 5,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5.

The leading cause of death for those babies is not malnourishment but water-borne diseases due to the bombing of Iraq's civilian infrastructure. What makes the pro-sanctions argument so intellectually dishonest is that war planners don't even deny this.

Check out page 26 of the May 1998 U.S. Air Force Doctrine Document 2-1.2. "The electrical attacks proved extremely effective...The loss of electricity shut down the capital's water treatment plants and led to a public health crisis from raw sewage dumped in the Tigris River."

Lt. Col. Kenneth Rizer, in the May 2001 issue of "Air &amp; Space Power Chronicles," elaborates on the strategic effectiveness of the bombings, acknowledging it has caused a massive epidemic of water-borne diseases that killed "100,000 civilians and a doubling of the infant mortality rate."

To Rizer's credit, not only does he discuss the bombing of dual-use targets in the context of the Just War Ethic and international law, he has the guts to ask the tough questions, unlike the chickenhawks.

"Given such effects on non-combatants, are electrical power facilities legitimate military targets? Must air campaign planners weigh these indirect effects in their target selection process?"

http://www.parapundit.com/archives/001155.html (2003)

U.S. military officials have insisted that coalition forces did not knowingly bomb any significant part of Iraq's electrical infrastructure. Matti said no other plant directors in Baghdad have reported taking a direct hit, but he said they reported that the bombing campaign had damaged the country's highly sensitive transmission grid.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17812-2004May11_4.html

General Taguba, on page 16 of your report, you state, "I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts," and you list a whole number of those acts.

Among them, videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees; forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; forcing groups of male detainees -- and I will insert -- paraphrasing here -- certain sexual acts while being photographed and videotaped; a male M.P. guard having sex with a female detainee; using military dogs without muzzles to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in one case biting and severely injuring a detainee; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broomstick; using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting the detainee.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&amp;sid=a7iAJUFuRHaE&amp;refer=top_world_news

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the abuse of prisoners may evolve into a scandal about rape and murder as pictures and videos surface that are more graphic than those shown in the last week on television and published in newspapers.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&amp;sid=ak57aLQHo2b8&amp;refer=us

A U.S. Army report detailed actual and threatened rapes of inmates, and probes also are under way into the deaths of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and other military-run prisons. Six soldiers are under criminal investigation in the abuse, and six officers have been reprimanded.

Since December 2002, the military has investigated the deaths of 25 detainees in detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 10 other incidents of possible prisoner abuse, Acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee said today.

Twelve of the deaths were due to natural or undetermined causes, one was justifiable homicide and two were homicides, he said. The 10 other deaths remain under investigation, Brownlee said. Another 42 cases of possible misconduct against civilians outside detention facilities are being probed, he said.

Deaths of civilians:
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm



Also:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=52&amp;threadid=1305083&amp;enterthread=y

 

[Klixxer]

I will vote against any German leader who is for sending troops under any flag to Iraq without renegotiating the contracts. We are not USA's lapdogs.

THIS, however does not mean anything more than that the resolution passed and if you read the resolution, it does not say anything about UN sending troops.

 

[Klixxer]

Originally posted by: Skitzer

Originally posted by: conjur
Oh?

The U.S. didn't go into Iraq, killing thousands of civilians, murdering and raping prisoners, and destroying its infrastructure?

I'm sorry. I guess I must have been misinterpreting the events of the past 15 months.

Are you serious???!!! You got anything at all to back up these allegations?
Prisoners "murdered and raped"
Iraqi infrastructure "destroyed"

...... I must have missed those (or was this a well kept secret?) Help me out here.

Do a search on this forum, on google or whatever searchengine you use, you will find it and then you will probably dismiss the source since it is the "liberal media conspiracy" who are trying to twist the truth.

Prisoners in Abu Ghraib were tortured, beaten to death (that would be murder) and raped, for what? Not so they would tell anyone anything, they did it for fun and as punishment. 70-90% of those were innocent civilians, they basically rounded up and arrested villages, over 25% have been released during the last two weeks.

Of course the infrastructure was destroyed, what did you think would happen when they tried to destroy the roads and the power plants?

 

[heartsurgeon]

as i predicted inone of my earlier posts...Bush is now asking NATO to play a bigger role in Iraq..you can expectthe Iraqi's to ask this as well.

the europeans will have to cooperate..

yep, as they use to say on that TV show (which one was it? the one with Mr. T)..'it's great when a plan comes together!"

 

[conjur]

It's something Bush should have asked at least...oh....a YEAR ago!!

 

[SuperTool]

Originally posted by: heartsurgeon
as i predicted inone of my earlier posts...Bush is now asking NATO to play a bigger role in Iraq..you can expectthe Iraqi's to ask this as well.

the europeans will have to cooperate..

Why?

 

[chess9]

SuperTool:

Yes, HS is correct about that. The Europeans would look petty and vindictive now if they didn't come on board. Bush reeled them in big time. 🙂

By the way, I also think this is bad news for Kerry. If Bush had failed to bring the U.N. into the Iraq equation the people on the fence would have been less likely to vote for him, IMHO.

If the economy keeps up the steam its had for the last few months and Iraq doesn't blow up in his face, I'd say Bush is a mortal lock to win.

-Robert

 

[SuperTool]

I don't think the Europeans will constribute substantially to the Iraqi effort. Approving a UN resolution is one thing, but sending troops is another.

 

[cumhail]

Originally posted by: chess9
SuperTool:

Yes, HS is correct about that. The Europeans would look petty and vindictive now if they didn't come on board. Bush reeled them in big time. 🙂

By the way, I also think this is bad news for Kerry. If Bush had failed to bring the U.N. into the Iraq equation the people on the fence would have been less likely to vote for him, IMHO.

If the economy keeps up the steam its had for the last few months and Iraq doesn't blow up in his face, I'd say Bush is a mortal lock to win.

-Robert

In their place, I'd have risked looking petty and vindictive, I think. The administration, and many American Citizens, spat upon a great many long-time allies, equated their daring to have an opinion contrary to ours with treachery, dredged up old stereotypes, came up with silly names for them and even, inexplicably, for foods that have little to nothing to do with them, labelled the only unified world body as irrelevant unless it sanctioned the US' position in any and all scenarios, and came off as being downright racist, jingoist, and chauvenist. After all that, I think history would have forgiven some measure of pettiness in return.

 

[Jeff7]

I love how Kerry is picked on for "waffling" on issues. Bush has turned around completely - first he doesn't want the UN involved at all. Now it's like he needs them. And then there's his constantly shifting reasons for the war on Iraq. The lastest one - taking out dicators. Well, there's plenty of other brutal dictators in the world (the ruling family of Saudi Arabia isn't too hot either) that we could take out too. But we haven't got any business interests in those countries, so why bother, right?

 

[MonkeyK]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
I love how Kerry is picked on for "waffling" on issues. Bush has turned around completely - first he doesn't want the UN involved at all. Now it's like he needs them.

What are you talking about? He always wanted the UN involved, he just wasn't going to wait for them.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: MonkeyK

Originally posted by: Jeff7
I love how Kerry is picked on for "waffling" on issues. Bush has turned around completely - first he doesn't want the UN involved at all. Now it's like he needs them.

What are you talking about? He always wanted the UN involved, he just wasn't going to wait for them.

Oh? I recall Bush saying the UN would not have a hand in the reconstruction of Iraq...or something close to that effect.

Bush essentially spat in the faces of the UN members last year and now comes running back with his tail between his legs because it's an election year. Do you honestly think Bush would be courting the UN if his job wasn't on the line?

 

[irwincur]

Truthfully this news is rather worthless. Who cares if the UN is involved, they were involved, and they left after a single attack. They are really offering nothing new at this point - like they wouldn't have recognized Iraq. Give me a break, this is international politics at its apex. Nothing means anything, and there is still no committment. Like we really need one.

Iraq is not the Vietnam that the left thinks it is. Iraq has actually been the most successful modern military engagement and occupation in modern (even ancient) history. The numbers and stats speak for themselves. With or without the UN it looks as if Iraq is on the right road, because of the coalition, not because of the now supportive naysayers and pundits. France and Germany just want money and cover. Money to make up for what they lost in illegal arms and oil agreements, and cover for their embarrassing and highly illegal trade activities, including avoiding the Oil for Food program while making these illegal trades.


As a matter of fact I would rather have the UN as far away from this as possible. After all, the UN has never been part of a success - they are probably jsut going to screw this up and run. Like usual.

 

[classy]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
Here is the link

Perhaps this is a sign of a new beginning on foreign relations for Mr. Bush.

It has been Kerry who has been pushing for greater UN involvement not Bush.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: MonkeyK

Originally posted by: Jeff7
I love how Kerry is picked on for "waffling" on issues. Bush has turned around completely - first he doesn't want the UN involved at all. Now it's like he needs them.

What are you talking about? He always wanted the UN involved, he just wasn't going to wait for them.

Oh? I recall Bush saying the UN would not have a hand in the reconstruction of Iraq...or something close to that effect.

Bush essentially spat in the faces of the UN members last year and now comes running back with his tail between his legs because it's an election year. Do you honestly think Bush would be courting the UN if his job wasn't on the line?

He said the UN could have a hand in the reconstruction, but not control.

 

[conjur]

Well, I remember at one point Bush wasn't going to allow bids from companies from other countries....something...but seems it was related to the UN.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur
Well, I remember at one point Bush wasn't going to allow bids from companies from other countries....something...but seems it was related to the UN.

The UN wanted to control how US funds were going to go for reconstruction and the US did not want that. The US did not care how other countries spent their money towards reconstruction of Iraq.

Not really related at all.