Interesting photo

[Bill Glasheen]

This should get the U.S. critics in a tizzie...




It reads: right to left, as follows:

The Sir, The President, The Combat-Leading, The Jihad-Espousing,
Saddam Hussein, May Allah Preserve and Nourish Him.

Inside the seal behind the cigar, it says:

Our God and Theirs, Preserve Saddam and Iraq.

The two symbols that are sort of round on either side of the script at the bottom
are the arabic calligraphic equivalent of the writer's word art, like taggers' graffiti.


Source: littlegreenfootballs.com

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

By the way, it is what it is...

- Bill

[RACastanet]

Ugh!

Another good one... If you watched the news clips, at one of the places where the USA was distributing relief aid you may have seen a local wearing an Osama Bin Ladin tee shirt. I hope something like that appears in print news so I can post it. Keep an eye out for it.

Rich

[Panther]

... at one of the places where the USA was distributing relief aid you may have seen a local wearing an Osama Bin Ladin tee shirt.

UN officials calling the US "stingy" (we've given over 1/3 of the disaster aid funds for years and we're on the way to giving above and beyond that this time), yet what countries sent us disaster aid after Florida was devastated with four large hurricanes? None... What countries sent us disaster aid when the entire mid-section of the country was flooded out a few years back? None... The rest of the world likes to say they have no respect for us anymore, well that's fine. Kick the UN out of the US and get the US out of the UN. That's some prime real estate in NYC that could be used for our own citizens... (And make the UN pay all the parking violations they've racked up!) Then, stop all the foreign aid. Everyone here complains about the national debt & deficit when we're sending major cash reserves overseas to folks who are ungrateful and sworn to work for our demise... Let's keep our money here. The "oil for food" scandal has destroyed any credibility that Anan or the UN have or will have for a very long time. They're a bunch of corrupt, anti-American, SOBs...

And this painting looks like perfect evidence in the case to execute Saddam for complicity in the 9/11 attacks.

[IJ]

Agreed that there are a lot of ungrateful thugs out there. Some thoughts:

1) A painting (done by whom?) doesn't prove Saddam did anything. There is no evidence he is linked to 9/11, period. This is despite Bush's best efforts to find anything (for example, commissioning an investigation immediately after 9/11 to investigate the link (appropriate) and then unilaterally rejecting their conclusion there was none (not appropriate)). Even if he was responsible for the painting, people claim responsibility for bombings all the time in israel they didn't do. They'll execute him for something else, don't worry.

2) 150,000 people are dead because of the tsunami and many more are at risk. There are anti american losers in some of those areas AND in florida, I should point out--and we helped the latter. I wouldn't let a t shirt stand between thousands and thousands of other people who feel aligned with the West and are at risk because of a few people. Among these, for example, are the members of the world's largest democracy, India, for whom we've recently not been very polite (refusing without comment to execute the white collar criminals responsible for the Bhopal disaster which killed many thousands and continues to kill). Besides, we're all aware that negative opinions of the US harm us. (more specifically, the teenage and young adult soldiers who are getting blown up more and more often as we chatter on the forums). I fail to see how deliberately letting a bunch of innocent people die is going to improve THAT situation.

3) Yes, no one sent us disaster aid. However, we are the richest nation on earth and these are some of the poorest.

4) Yes, we did offer to give 1/3 of what we spend each day in Iraq to aid the tsunami victims. Somehow the UK managed to scrape together more than that by themselves. Stingy is a relative term.

5) The world has a lot of flaws and we think of ourselves as a quality nation. Appropriately so! So let's stop comparing ourselves to their poor standards. It matters not if our prisoners are better treated than the terrorists' prisoners. Or if countries we lack respect for give less (often, more proportionately) than us. Let's compare ourselves to our standards.

[RACastanet]

Ian said: "refusing without comment to execute the white collar criminals responsible for the Bhopal disaster which killed many thousands and continues to kill)."

A very important fact is often left out of this PC complaint... The disaster was not due to negligence. A former disgruntled employee - an Indian national as I recall - went into the plant and sabatoged a valve knowing full well he was releasing a very deadly product into the air in a crowded area. That is the reason the release occured, not because of UC officials. I do not believe anyone in the US is to blame, unless building the factory is a crime.

Rich

[Bill Glasheen]

A few comments...

Note my second post...

By the way, it is what it is...

I meant what I said. It is an interesting picture that - by itself - proves nothing.
With other information, however, we can begin to make a case that Saddam was
complicit in the events around 9/11. For example, al-Zarqawi - a man trained
by al qaeda in Afghanistan in chemical and gas warfare, left Afghanistan for Iraq
BEFORE the U.S. invaded Iraq. We knew he was there. He unfortunately fled the
Iraqi al qaeda camp before we got there. I posted a detailed article on it elsewhere
on this very forum. There was a great debate as to whether or not we would or should
take him out before invading. We chose not to because we were attempting to
put a coalition together, and didn't want to piss off potential allies.

As it turns out, we should have taken the camp out... With 20/20 hindsight, it's
obvious we made a mistake letting him get loose in the country. So... did Saddam
not know about this camp? I find it hard to believe he knew nothing about it.

No, there never will be a smoking gun that'll make the anti-Iraq war folks happy
enough. But more and more stuff is mounting that shows that Saddam and a whole
host of bad guys were just a little too cozy with each other.

There is no evidence he is linked to 9/11, period. This is
despite Bush's best efforts to find anything (for example, commissioning an
investigation immediately after 9/11 to investigate the link (appropriate) and then
unilaterally rejecting their conclusion there was none (not appropriate)).

Show me where Bush said Saddam was linked to 9/11. That never was a stated reason
for entering the country.

But he DID promise to follow those terrorists wherever they went, and hold governments
accountable who harbored them. And that is completely appropriate. Remember...
this is an enemy without a country, and an enemy without borders.

One final note... India has refused ALL aid for the tsunami disaster. They want to
make a statement about their economic status in the world today, and they do not
want other countries and governments sticking their noses in their business. It's
related to years of colonial rule under the British.

And I say good for them!

But we should back them up whenever they ask! They are good people.

- Bill

[Panther]

U.S. Tsunami Aid Going to al Qaida-Linked Group
Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

Friday, Jan. 7, 2005 7:32 a.m. EST

Some of the massive U.S. aid package earmarked for Indonesian tsunami
victims is going to a radical Muslim group with direct ties to al Qaida,
including at least one terrorist leader who is accused of helping the 9/11
hijackers.

The radical Muslim group Laskar Mujahidin has reportedly dispatched 200
of its members to the hard-hit provincial capital of Banda Aceh, where they
were seen Thursday unloading truckloads of aid at the military airport
there.

According to terrorism experts in the region, Laskar Mujahidin has links to
terror groups outside Indonesia, including al Qaida, the Associated Press
reported Friday.

The group was once headed by Abu Bakar Bashir, an Islamic cleric now on
trial as an alleged leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, the AP said. Some Jemaah
Islamiyah members are believed to have helped the kamikaze hijackers
who killed 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11.

Laskar Mujahidin also accepted aid offered by an emissary of Osama bin
Laden, according terrorism expert Sidney Jones.

At a camp set up by the group, a sign was spotted Thursday that
read, "Islamic Law Enforcement."

In a report two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, the New York Times reported
that Indonesia played host to a number of terrorist groups allied with bin
Laden.

"Since the attacks on Sept. 11, radical Islamic fringe groups here among
the 210 million people of largely Muslim Indonesia have been threatening
holy war against the United States and against Americans who live here,"
the Times said.

"Their appeals to Muslim solidarity have fired hundreds of young men with
a passion to fight to defend Afghanistan, many of them unemployed and
aimless in the broken economy.

"The United States Embassy said today that gangs of young men had
begun carrying out what they call sweeps in several cities, looking for
Americans to expel. The embassy said Americans and American interests
had been threatened.

"One of the angry young would-be warriors who marched through the rain
here today with masks and headbands chanting, 'Go to hell America.'"

But in the midst of the tsunami relief efforts, it's Laskar Mujahidin that has
raised the most concern. The group's al Qaida ties have other aid groups
working to help tsunami victims afraid of being seen with Americans.

"Our teams are told that they should not fly in American army helicopters,
since we're concerned that they could be a particular target," said Michel
Brugiere, director of the French medical group Doctors of the World.

(link to original story):
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/1/7/73549.shtml


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The U.S. government has pledged an initial $350 million in aid. Currently
being reported in the mainstream media, private contributions
from the U.S. have surpassed $325 million. (the UN can kiss our "stingy"
butts...)

Personally, I'd like to see more private U.S. contributions going to OUR
men and women serving overseas and to the families left behind...
especially those families who have lost loved ones or those who have
come home with devastating injuries. (Current death benefit in the U.S.
military is $12,500 ... that's it.) One place to donate that has been
suggested is: http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org

[John Tipler]

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain

Uncovered: The War on Iraq

For better or for worse, conservatives have convinced themselves that they can write off a film like Fahrenheit 9/11, but how can they possibly dispute a film like this?

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise to any soul that has paid a modicum of attention to national or international affairs in the past two years, but we never did find those darned weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Which, of course, would be highly inconvenient for the Bush administration were it not for the fact that they seem to have skillfully allowed so many of us to forget that this was our original rationale for pre-emptively attacking Iraq and engaging them in war. In the 18 months that have passed since we first attacked Baghdad, many of us have been rather deliberately duped into believing that America actually went into Iraq to liberate its people and spread freedom and democracy to the Middle East. Which is a noble aim, no doubt, but it was hardly our original intent, and certainly not the initial reason the administration gave us for waging a pre-emptive war in a hostile region.

"His regime has an active program to acquire and develop nuclear weapons and let there be no doubt about it." - Donald Rumsfeld

"And we believe he has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons." - Dick Cheney

"I don't know anybody that I can think of that has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons." - Donald Rumsfeld

We were told repeatedly, over and over, ad naseum, that Saddam Hussein and Iraq posed an "imminent threat" to our national security. That he had weapons of mass destruction, both nuclear and chemical. That he could pass these weapons to terrorists anxious to strike us, or that he could quite possibly use them himself, launching attack within "45 minutes" if necessary (according to George W. Bush himself). Thus, I hardly blame the average American for getting out of the way during the administration's march to war; after all, they worked long and hard, day in and day out, to scare the living crap out of you. If you believed it, you're hardly alone. If you still believe it, though, well that's another matter entirely. The information is out there. We were wrong. It would have been hard for us to have been much wronger. Yet watching the recent RNC, it's as if none of this ever happened, as if America is some noble warrior fighting to spread peace and freedom to a people long oppressed. As if that is what any of this started out to be.

"The danger to our country is grave. The danger to our country is growing. The Iraqi Regime possesses biological and chemical weapons. And according to the British Government, the Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order were given." - George Bush, January 2003

Which is precisely where a film like Uncovered: The War on Iraq comes in. Produced and directed by Robert Greenwald (the man behind the recent FOX expose, Outfoxed), Uncovered painstakingly reminds us of just how misled we, as a nation, truly were. How the administration duly trotted out Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, and Powell to remind us of the grave and massive danger we were in. How they uttered phrases like "nuclear weapons" and "mushroom cloud" enough to scare us into believing we could be devastatingly attacked at any moment. How they forcefully rammed home, time and again, a connection between September 11th and Iraq/Hussein that simply wasn't there. But don't take my word for it, or even Greenwald's. For, in easily the film's best decision, he decides to let the experts do the talking.

"Around the weapons programs, if a weapons program exist, you are going to find people, people engaged in the production, the technology, engineering and design. People involved in protecting the weapons, people prepared in moving them, and people involved in preparing to use the weapons. We found none of that." - David Kay, Former US Weapons Inspector

The talking heads that fill documentaries, especially the more obviously left-leaning ones such as this, must often be taken with a grain of salt. Often they have personal axes to grind or find their credentials rather favorably trumped up. However, in Uncovered, that is simply not the case. In a strange, but ultimately powerful move, the filmmaker decides to parade all of the film's talking heads out in front of us in the very beginning, one after the other, calmly stating their qualifications. And we ain't talkin 'bout some White House janitors or Assistants to the Assistant to the Assistment of the Interns here either. Rather, we are presented with respected Congressmen, long time CIA and State Department officials, ambassadors to the Middle East, and decorated military officials; men and women who would seem to have some idea what they were talking about. And talk they do.

Which, if anything, is the weakness of a film like Uncovered. For, while it is endlessly informative and engaging to those looking for such things in this most important of political times, it is hardly an "entertaining movie" in the conventional sense, much more PBS than HBO. It's a film that holds the administration's feet to the fire, calmly using news footage and interviews to remind everyone involved (and by that, I mean America), "Hey, remember when you/they said this?" Watching it, you find yourself shaking your head, wondering how in the world they got away with this, wondering how September 11th was so horribly exploited by a neo-con administration chomping at the bit to attack Saddam Hussein, paying large sums of money to hear the evidence, though false, that they so badly wanted to hear and then proceeding to gravely warn all of us about the mobile weapon labs and huge stockpiles of horrific WMDs that they undoubtedly possessed, telling us they knew where the weapons were and warning us that if we didn't support their views that we had somehow forgotten the lessons of 9/11.

"We know for a fact there are weapons there." - Ari Fleisher, White House Press Secretary

"It is somewhat puzzling, I think, that you can have a hundred percent certainty about the weapons of mass destruction's existence and zero certainty about where they are." - Dr. Hans Blix, Former Chief UN Weapons Inspector

"We know where they are, they’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." - Donald Rumsfeld

In a fictional movie, a Dr. Strangelove-type satire, say, this would all be incredibly funny. That it isn't, that all of this really happened, is hardly a laughing matter. Watching Uncovered is one way of recalling exactly what the current administration hopes you will forget come election time. It doesn't resort to lies, distortions, or even trick editing. It doesn't spin the facts or twist the words of our leaders. Rather, it presents them and then offers commentary on what they've said from people in a position to know the administration's veracity. From a point by point dissection of both Bush's State of the Union warnings in 2003 to a similar dismantling of the "intelligence" Colin Powell used to present our case for war to the UN, Uncovered reaches down the memory hole, holds everything up in right front of you again, and demands both your attention and consideration. No matter which way you voted - Right, Left, Conservative, Liberal, Red State, Blue State, Independent, Undecided, Green, or anything else you can come up with - you need to see this film.

"There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it and that’s just a fact." - Donald Rumsfeld

[IJ]

To clarify, I was editing my message and "execute" was left in my mind where I meant to be typing "extradite." They haven't even been tried! Promise it's not a freudian slip. Anyway, the sabotage theory managed to elude the authors of a 4 page salon.com article on the matter recently, but I would be interested in learning more about it if there was a source. The article on salon DID cite good evidence that the plant was known to be a major risk and building such a risk (giving a disgruntled employee the power to kill 10s of thousands!) is a crime in my mind. Would you leave GE blameless if they build a nuclear reactor that would melt down if one mad employee turned one valve??

I'll happily agree no tsunami aid should go to Al Qaida. What're we gonna do, not aid at all because there are bad apples? Oversee the aid as best you can AND make sure it also serves as a good will message from the USA to the muslims in the area. (reminds me of the scene in "The ugly American" where the commies took credit for an american aid shipment because the americans who showed up with it were too disorganized to have a translator or know what was going on).

I said Bush did his darndest to find a link and disbelieved the available evidence when it didn't suit his theory. Ref: Salon.com article on the anti terror czar who was correcting some misperceptions about the 9/11 events (HE allowed the Bin Ladens out of the country early; BUSH refused to believe the evidence against SH complicity in 9/11). SOMEHOW, and I refuse to believe this was a happy coincidence, the news coverage and government statements about 9/11 and Iraq managed to convince 50% of Americans polled that Saddam was linked and this was a good reason to support the invasion. This supports the view that Bush gave the misimpression and certainly failed to correct the misimpression there was a link.

US aid has increased as time has gone on; the statements about stinginess were made when our initial offer was 1/3 of our daily Iraq expenditures and = to 35 million.

[Bill Glasheen]

John

It isn't very ethical of you to drop something like this in a post,
and then not give credit where credit is due.

This was written by someone else. It can be found here.

Epinions.com

It's also obvious that this was all about promoting a film.

And with the language ("neoconservative" is a big clue), we can pick up the obvious
bias of the film reviewer.

I'll just make a few comments.

We were told repeatedly, over and over, ad naseum, that Saddam Hussein and Iraq
posed an "imminent threat" to our national security.

He did.

That he had weapons of mass destruction, both nuclear and chemical.

EVERYONE'S intelligence said so. Even French and German and Russian intelligence.

Hussein went out of his way to make the world believe he had this. It is debatable
why he did so. We can speculate... It may have had something to do with his attempt
to appear strong and pro Arab in his world. It may have been to keep the Iranians
at bay. After all, he killed a million of them in the Iran/Iraq war, and many of them
with chemical weapons. Why appear weak to your worst enemy at your border?

We'll all never know for sure what the deal was.

That he could pass these weapons to terrorists anxious to strike us

Again, al-Zarqawi - an al qaeda chemical and biological weapons specialist trained
by bin Laden - already was in northern Iraq and had set up a training camp.
So with Hussein's history of making and using these weapons, you're going to tell
us that this shouldn't concern us?

or that he could quite possibly use them himself, launching attack within "45 minutes"
if necessary (according to George W. Bush himself).

"possibly" turned out not to be a "certainty."

Thus, I hardly blame the average American for getting out of the way during
the administration's march to war; after all, they worked long and hard, day in and
day out, to scare the living crap out of you.

You don't go to war without developing a belief in mission. And wishy washy doesn't
cut it for the 18 to 26 year olds out there on the front lines. That's a fact of war - period.
I can give you references if you doubt the need to face an enemy with such conviction.

If you believed it, you're hardly alone. If you still believe it, though, well that's another
matter entirely. The information is out there. We were wrong.

About what? About the fact that Hussein violated thirteen (13) U.N. edicts?
That he violated the surrender treaty that he signed after the first Iraqi war? That
he repeatedly shot at U.S. and British planes protecting the "no fly" zones? (An act
of war by itself...) That the UN., France, Russia, China, and Germany had turned the
"oil for food" program into one that lined their pockets, helped Hussein build palaces,
and starved the Iraqi people?

We were not right about everything. What a surprise!! But then we hardly
knew the depth of how badly we were being screwed in the name of "international
consensus."

It would have been hard for us to have been much wronger.

Do I critique the grammer, or perhaps the fact that this is getting a bit tiring?

Yet watching the recent RNC....

Yaaaawwwwnnnn.

Michael Moore was more fun. At least he had a flair to his bias...

- Bill

[Panther]

John

It isn't very ethical of you to drop something like this in a post,
and then not give credit where credit is due.

This was written by someone else.

The author who wrote that epinions review is named Chad... Perhaps "John Tipler" is just a Nom de Plume... Weeeeellllll.... maybe... could be...

Then again, perhaps using someone else's writings is a way for someone to come in with a single post and not give themselves away with their own distinct writing style... maybe... could be...

Who knows...

[Bill Glasheen]

Yea. Who knows?

Too bad we dummies don't know how to track something like that...

- Bill

[RACastanet]

"Ian said: "Would you leave GE blameless if they build a nuclear reactor that would melt down if one mad employee turned one valve??"

Well, that depends.

Chernoble was caused by an over ambitious employee trying to impress his bosses. It took more than just turning one valve but he set the whole disaster in motion by deliberately violating safety rules. The design may have been poor, but safeguards were not put in place to prevent a knowledgeable person from bypassing the safeties.

Three Mile Island in Harrisburg was a combination of errors by operators and some equipment failures that prevented a recovery from a runaway. Westinghouse Electric designed and built that reactor but the courts ultimately decided that the fault was a result of power company employees., not negligent design.

As for dangerous manufacturing sites in the US, they are everywhere. I have decades of engineering experience in the design, build and running of smokestack type industries. I have seen some really horrible accidents caused by an error by an individual (industrial accidents are almost always a result of human error).

Paper Mills use chlorine gas under high pressure. One wrong valve will cause a catastrophe. Steel and aluminum mill use molten metal. Chemical plants use 100% pure acids and caustics. One wrong or stupid move by a careless employee gets it going. A disgruntled employee can do serious evil. It is just not possible to build enough redundancy or safety features into a process to prevent deliberate evil or maximum stupidity. Should we relocate all plants so they are far from people? What would PETA say?

A few days ago a railroad accident killed 8 or more people and sickened many more. A train with chlorine tankers derailed because a track switch was in the wrong position. These switches do not switch themselves. They are big and heavy! This was either railroad negligence or an act of sabotage. Railroads have thousands of unmonitored manually operated switch tracks. Who is at fault? Trains run through cities... should we reroute them all?

When the Union Carbide plant blew GE studied it closely. We may have supplied electrical components or controls in that plant or ones like it in the US. Anyone in the industrial business went out to look at local plants to see if a risk was associated with GE products. We ultimately found out that the result was a deliberate action by a local employee. I do not know if he was ever found or prosecuted.

Rich

[IJ]

I don't buy it. Is this employee theory published, anywhere? And the degree of risk in my mind is unacceptable. It AT LEAST merits trial which is all India asked for. Believe me, if these guys killed tens of thousands of Americans, or I dare to say western europeans, they'd have been tried.

"An explosion inside the Union Carbide factory had sent 27 tons of methyl isocyanate gas wafting over the city's shantytowns."

One knob to release 27 TONS of poison? I mean, one employee can cause a fire at any job site. But rarely are they granted the power to kill 16 world trade centers worth of innocent lives!

"Even though Union Carbide's own safety experts had warned two years before of a "serious potential for sizable releases of toxic materials," the managers of the Bhopal factory had no system in place to warn and evacuate residents in the event of an emergency."

They knew it could happen and made no changes.

"Bhopal thus ranks as the single deadliest industrial disaster of the modern environmental era. With a death toll of approximately 22,000, it has killed more people than the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, did. And its victims are still dying today, 20 years later. An additional 100,000 continue to suffer chronic, largely untreatable diseases of the lungs, eyes and blood. Meanwhile, a new generation in Bhopal endures an epidemic of infertility and grotesque birth defects, including missing palates and fingers growing out of shoulders, in part because of continuing contamination of the groundwater."

C'mon--a disaster of this magnitude can't be dismissed by blaming it on a single employee. There is too much evidence that the company ignored its own safety data, failed to provide a warning system, denied that the gas was even that dangerous even as the villagers were dying, and now, claims to have had its liability evaporate because they were bought out by Dow. Please don't tell me you would find this behavior excusable on American soil.

(Quotes from www.salon.com)