Scott Ritter on Foxnews

“The Shah's death squads were a real fun bunch.”

“Hey, I was trying to join in on the thread guys. LOL! Rule #1: never take me seriously.”

“""Hey, I was trying to join in on the thread guys. LOL! Rule #1: never take me seriously."....."

Even more so when his buddies get back into town and he needs some rehab on his charater.”

“Seems to me jj's post just shows how hard the Bush folks tried to discredit people who were telling the truth about Ira”

“Seems to me jj's post just shows how hard the Bush folks tried to discredit people who were telling the truth about Ira”

“oops

Seems to me jj's post just shows how hard the Bush folks tried to discredit people who were telling the truth about Iraq and wmds.”

“Tell and quote a lie enough times, it becomes truth to the uninformed American masses.”

“I dunno if Ritter was guilty or not, either way, it's very strange how the case was sealed with an eye to dismissal.

What is amazing is how quickly personal attacks were developed against these vocal critics.”

“Like I said above, ped. It's the Right's side of the aisle to jump on anything that comes out against them. The best defense, is a good offense. Go on the attack, to take away from the issues at hand, thus sway the "swing" voters to your favor.

This is what we have become. Instead of being able to debate Democracy in a civil tounge, as our Founding Fathers would have wanted it to, we must resort the the high-paced, MTV style of marketing and attack in order to sway the swing voters.

Same cite as before.”

“lagtis' comments about founding fathers not wanting this type of marketing and attacks is so far off base.

The first contested election in our history (John Adams' election) featured such partisan media coverage, intrigue and ugliness that it resulted in the "Alien and Sedition Acts" which make the "Patriot Act" look like a new age bill of rights. Newspaper editors were actualy jailed for publishing comments deemed anti-government. When you talk about "stealing and election," you should be talking about Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. The recounts have happened a number of times; get over it, Bush won in each recount.

My point is that janyone who jumps on a soap box and starts griping about "right wing conspiracies" or "left wing media bias" need to pick up a history book and understand that this is the nature of party politics, alwaqys has been, always will be.

For the reocrd, I'm a right-leaning Libertarian. I think that the Pariot Act is an unconstitutional threat to our civil liberties and should be abolished immediately.

I also think that those who equate Abu-Gharib with hostage beheadings and decades of torture, murder and tyranny under Hussein just have their heads up their arses.

So, stop #&%!$ing and start a revolution...insist that your elected leaders actually abide by the constitution.”

“WoW! cm2, my new favorite poster.

I love a goot revolution.

But really, you bring good points, but it was the intention of the Founding Fathers for the people to be able to discuss politics with out negitive discord in the begining. Thus, the reasoning behind simple things like Caucasses.

Respectfully, what you cited was the beginging of what we have now and what has happened through out or inception as a country, I fully agree. Yep, you are correct that it started way back then, however, the population was quite smaller back then, and the process was slower. In support of what you say, How about when "what's his face" (sorry, drawing a blank in the face of mass educational duties), hired "cryers" to go about the land, claiming that Jefferson was dead in every part, but Jeffersons.

One of the first "smear" campaingns?

Thanks for adding a lively voice. I love a fisty Liberterian!”

“>WoW! cm2, my new favorite poster

awww shucks! I'm feeling the love...I've been lurking for a while but that was the first post.

This thread caught me as I'm finishing up David McCullough's biography of John Adams, it's a great read, especially with all that's happening these days. So many parrallels to what's happening today, like, about half the country wanted war with France (Fedralists) and the other half (Republicans) wanted to snuggle up with them. There's also some great fiction covering the time period by a guy named David Nevins.

Hey....just a funny thought. Does anyone actually talk about hiking on this board? Heading out to begin my attack on the AT (section by section) this weekend...Springer to Woody Gap.”

“>hired \\\"cryers\\\" to go about the land, claiming that Jefferson was dead in every part, but Jeffersons.


Modern day version? How about media pundits "calling" an election before the polls close thus discouraging voters from showing up at all? (and before you think I'm saying Bush stole anything, refer to my post above) (parenthetical phrase #2.....and btw, don't forget that the media idiots called Florida for the DEMS while voting was in progress)”

“goot point, cm2. in the moore film, he cites that it was the fox network that called the election in bushs favor, after all the other networks called it for bush. then the other networks backtracked. it was a friend of jeb, if i'm not miss taken that did that. in the movie, they show tge two bushes, george and jeb on a plane, with gw looking at jeb and sating to the camera, "we'll win florida, you can take that to the bank". a very interesting indeed.”

“Come on lagtis....here I thought we could have a great debate based on reasonably well thought out philosophy and our understanding of the facts...and you "cite" Roger Moore's film?

That's like quoting Ken raving about the new Barbie-Mobile in Car and Driver; just not relevant to any reasonable discourse.

I'm from Lansing, MI where there's a bunch of GM factories and remember that idiot's rants against GM (Roger and Me) back in the day when he actually had some valid points, but ever since that Bowling for Columbine diatribe and this latest propaganda, he's lost any ounce of credibility he's ever pretended to have.”

“Well, I'm not trying to "quote him", I cite him because the footage in the film is creditible, IMHO. They way the footage is put together is biased.

I'm not leaning on him y any means; I aint that dumb, just trying to point out another thing in the line of conversation on the topic as it pertained to issues in the election.

I'm writing on tow different threads on this board, all the while listening to a feed in my left ear of a doc that's being shown on the left cost only, while taking to the people on the other line with my right.

Multi-tasking at it finest! I took a couple of seconds post this to ya, undivided attention. That's why I had no caps.

This is not an excuse, but an explanation on why I'm getting a "one track" when it comes to this subject. Too much "Moore" on the brain.”

““Seems to me jj's post just shows how hard the Bush folks tried to discredit people who were telling the truth about Iraq and wmds."

Ped, doesn’t it seem strange though that Ritter was saying over and over that there were WMD unaccounted for as far back as 98, so Klinton bombs them, and Ritter didn’t change his story until the Bush admin, going on the exact same intell as Klinton wanted to go in and finish it once and for all and all of a sudden he’s acting like Saddam is Mother Teresa?”

“There is a difference between saying WMD are unaccounted for and saying there are definitely active viable WMDs.

Everyone knew Iraq had developed and used chemical weapons - only the worst Saddam stooges and dupes could doubt that. For wahatever reason Iraq never gave a full documented accounting with proof as to what happened to them, again reasonable people don't doubt that.

What UN inspectors, Ritter and others (including me) doubted was that Iraq had major stockpiles of viable WMD.”

“"Everyone knew Iraq had developed and used chemical weapons - only the worst Saddam stooges and dupes could doubt that....."

Yep and months before the 9/11 attacks, Powell and Condi came out and said that Saddam didn't have any WMD.

I remember very clearly around tha time of "one last chance" that Saddam did in fact issue a reposrt to the UN per his WMD porgrams. I verly clearly remember that it was dissmissed as being too wordy, and garbage. Well, now that we are in hindsight area, what was really in the report? Could it have been dismissed because it would have stood in our why during the rush to war?

This is a long shot, but would nayone here have any idea where we could look at that report?

So, it would appear that”

“Well, when does a WMD become a threat? Is anything less than a stockpile dangerous? The simple fact remains that Iraq did not fulfill their obligations to the UN as outlined in the cease fire agreement leaving the world not knowing EXACTLY what they had and how much of it they did have. Anything anyone guessed would have been speculation and more than likely inaccurate. Don’t get me wrong here, I have said all along I didn’t like the switching of reasoning for going in. Standing up and saying the Iraqi regime is a brutal criminal regime, they have given 12 years of defiance to their resolutions and their time was up. I would have preferred seeing us just go hog wild active in the UN and just bully the shlt out of the UN and force THEM to act on their own resolutions.”

“I don't think the 12,000 pages were ever made public, laqtis. Heck, Congress had to fight just to see it. But why do you want to see it? Are you some kind of Saddam sympathizer?


Remember the rhetoric we were being fed back then:

"President Bush has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction... Iraq says they don't. You can choose who you want to believe."

"The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and vocally as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it."

-- Ari Fleischer, December 5, 2002”

“They aren’t the only one swho were saying it V.

Sep 6, 2002: "If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement, even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act."


Oct 9, 2002: "I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."


Oct 9, 2002: "The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for 4 years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation."


Oct 9, 2002: The Iraqi regime's record over the decade leaves little doubt that Saddam Hussein wants to retain his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and to expand it to include nuclear weapons. We cannot allow him to prevail in that quest.


Jan 23, 2003: "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."

Dec 15, 2003: "Iraq may not be the war on terror itself, but it is critical to the outcome of the war on terror, and therefore any advance in Iraq is an advance forward in that..."

-John sKerry”

“"Are you some kind of Saddam sympathizer?...."


Well, I've been called worse!

Not a looking for anything else other than conidering the other sides (Sadddam) point at this juncture. I'd like to see what was claimed as being garbage and why the report was dismissed.


As I've sadi before, I get teh feeling Saddam played the US and teh Brits. Remember, Saddam had comversations with Slobo before he went bye-bye. I wouldn't doubt the point that they conversed about dupping the West. Saddam ain't a dumb man.”

“god damn it.

Spell check --

spell check--”

“Lets face it. WMDs were just a pretext for starting a war they'd already decided was going to happen.
They played up the threat and sold war to the American people on it.
They painted themselves into a corner by deciding that they wanted war first, and that they had to do it in a certain time frame to allow things to be cleared up for the next election.
It they had bided their time, waited until fall to start the war, having worked harder at the UN, the situation would have been very different to how it is now.
I was in favor of the war as once you draw a line in the sand, you can't shake from holding firm to it.
The question should be where, when and why they chose that particular place for the line, which left them no choice but to invade when they did, without support from the united nations.

And with WMDs. You may say that the ends justifies the means - but almost anything can be justified in those terms.
When a pretext for war is found to be completely wrong then I think someone should pay for it. No one has. There's been no accountability for these failures, as there should be, high up in the administration.
The final accountability may come if Bush is deposed in November, which is looking increasingly likely.”

“"They played up the threat and sold war to the American people on it...."

Hey, they sold it to the Brits too!”

“yep, Blair did the same in Britain. The only thing helping him is the lack of an effective opposition. He deserves to pay for it too. And he may do in time. Though he seems to be a little more teflon than GW.”

“Something like 80 percent of the population in the UK was against sending troops to Iraq. Unlike the U.S. at that time where about 80 percent of the population were all for sending troops to Iraq. Of course, those numbers have changed dramatically in the states. I guess people really, really wanted to trust Dumbya, didn't they...”

“I still don't see why anyone would.

What did he ever do to inspire trust?”

“absolutely nothing. in fact, a majority would probably say he started his presidency as a criminal. of course, we apparently have a nation with a sizeable population of idiots as well who didn't ask for a shred of proof before invading a sovereign nation, sooo...”

“oh yeah, I remember... the proof would've been a mushroom cloud! We can't wait for THAT. A solid year passes and the new line of crap is "We never said there was an imminent threat."

It would be funny --- but for the waste of resources and the loss of so many lives.”

“I'm going to go and stock up on the duct tape and sheet plastic! Just in case...”

“What color is the current alert?

Somehow I've lost track....”

“The current color is, ...

A rainbow. Run and hide. The sky is falling!”

“Chartreuse?”

“Pink!”

“Commie pink!”

“Other than rant on a message board, is anyone on this list actually doing something to affect the change you claim to want?

Instead of spouting hyperbole, are working for a candidate? registered to vote? calling your congressman (do you know who your congressman is?)?

Too many of us take the freedoms, priveleges and prosperity we enjoy in this natio for granted. We forget that along with the benefits comes a huge responsibility. It's not enough to spout and shout, though that is your right. Each of us needs to take an active part in ensuring that our rights and freedoms are protected. The fact that so few of us Americans actually vote is an absolute travesty.

It doesn't matter if you're a Dem, Republican, Libertarian, Communist or other flavor...do your part to support your country.

For you Bush bashers and peace-niks out there, remember that your right to call us conservative types lying thieves (and worse) was born of a bloody revolution against a tyrannical power.

While I'm not crazy about a war, I think that an effort to bring liberty and self-rule to an oppressed people is a noble goal. Before you go spouting off about "GW is just doing for the oil and Haliburton" or "The US is the tyrant!" remember Colin Powell's comment that whenever the US has fought on foreign soil to liberate others, the only land we've ever asked for was to bury our dead.

I've carried a rifle for my country, and I thank God I never had to use it. But we as a nation need to be reminded that hundreds of thousands of patriots have served and died to provide us AND THE REST OF THE WORLD with the lives we enjoy today. I feel for the families who've lost loved ones in Iraq, but we must keep the perspective that freedom and liberty are not cheap. We've accomplished a heck of a lot in a short time with a minimal cost . ~1,000 lives in Iraq vs. 50,000 at Gettysburg alone is a good way to put some perspective on the debate.

I've kind of rambled here....I apologize. My point is that we all need to:

- shut up and do something
- value your freedom
- have some perspective

And notice I didn't even need to call anyone an idiot or a**hole to do it...funny how a point can be made without shouting.”

“Man, please, LOL

You're going to get that carpal tunneling thing if you're not careful.”

“Many people are "doing something about it". Many people are also posting on sites like this. It is possible to do both.”

“>Man, please, LOL

ahh. you're right. Another freedom I enjoy as a Business Owner/Oppressor of Little People is the right say, "#&%!$ it, let's go fishing."

I am now officially off the soap box.

cheers,”

“Glad to meet you, fellow business owner.”