idrankwhat

yes, start with Al Jazeera, the Palestinian TV and maybe the Iranian news agency, i'm sure they'll match your "balanced" views better. Israel is not poor, but it is the victim of ongoing terrorism. i'm pretty sure that most countries would be a lot less forgiving if their towns were bombarded endlessly like those near the border with gaza. Try the BBC. And for the record, how would you feel if Canada controlled all travel of our interstate highways, had armed check points every few miles, bulldozed our corn fields and our homes at will, killed your neighbors while they were sitting on the beach and your family because they "looked like they were threatening", and cut off all of our money flow because they didn't like Bush being president? I'll bet you might even be pissed off enough to throw a few rocks. Israel "says" they want peace. But they continue to occupy land that is not theirs and while the Palestinians do lob their primative rockets into Israel, Israel basically gets a free pass from the world community when they attack with gunships and tanks. Within the last few weeks Israel has killed ten times as many Palestinians as the other way around.

Still awaiting your answer... The silence is deafening. So you're saying there are "degrees" of bad/illegal behavior?

If by "throwing the first punch" you mean manipulating the politics in the region so that it's favorable to US interests, then yes.

Publically vow to do it? No. Actually doing it on a daily basis? Yes. lmfao @ this statement. The only reason israel still exists is they actively pursue those who are responsible for planning and carrying out attacks against their citizens. Then again I guess they should just let people bomb and shoot them. After all, the whole dont fight back thing worked for so many others............. Well, since the American press generally does a poor job of providing any balance in this debate, I guess I can't blame you for thinking that Israel is the poor, poor, freedom fighting victim of Palestinian terrorist abuse. There are other sources out there if you're interested.

I'm not sure, but I think you answered your first question in your second statement.

Right. So it just ends with not just you having sand in your face but both of you losing a few teeth, having a few broken bones and ribs, shedding a lot of blood... Besides, this isn't a very christian attitude. I remember reading something about "an eye for an eye" being bad and if my memory serves me right, there was something about "offering the other cheek" too. Didn't you get the memo? There's a new Jesus in town! http://www.cafepress.com/buy/rifle+jesus/-/pv_design_details/pg_1/id_11811344/opt_/fpt_/c_/hlv_t

Before we revise history any further I thought I'd take this opportunity to throw out a reminder. Saddam was cooperating with the weapons inspectors. Even the inspectors didn't want to leave. Not that that was why were went there but that's another old thread.

HAHA! so they would have you believe. He followed ohio election law to exacting standards..... Yea. He's a real stand up guy. Besides all the other crap he pulled in 2004 now he's the chief election official AND a gubernatorial candidate. Anyone else see the obvious problem?

I care, because it's 2006 and this shit is still going on. Blackwell, in Ohio, is impeding voter registration and the Diebold machines STILL have serious security flaws. As for Hillary, I'm just curious. What exactly scares you about the idea?

As long as you agree that it might not, we might be able to discuss things. My general take on the issue is that it's 2006 and we should be able to able to count votes accurately. Also, any election official who is caught trying to manipulate voting machines, be that messing with the software, the ballots or distributing the machines in a manner that favors one demographic over another, should be shot.

Publically vow to do it? No. Actually doing it on a daily basis? Yes.

Until someone in the Justice dept. decided that going to the judge for a warrant was unnecessary and the delay was a threat to national security, oh....and doesn't bother to notify anyone of the change. But that would NEVER happen would it?

Thanks for continuing to reinforce my point.

You nailed it. Reading would involve thinking, which might lead to verification of the claims....or it might not. But it would involve thought and many are content to let someone else do that for them. Being one of the people who can't get a receipt for my vote because my county uses one of those Diebold magic boxes, and having already read up on this stuff and seen video of how voting machines were distrubuted in Ohio as well as other "irregularities", I think it was a combination of good old fashioned election fraud and a little software trickery. I was also in one of those states who was "too close to call" for quite a while, within 2-3% for most of the day. Then the "official results" came in and it was closer to 10%. No big surprise in my state but the margin explosion caught my eye. And just for all you naysayers, I'd expect you to be saying the same thing I just said if Kerry had won and the President of Diebold had sworn to do everything in his power to ensure a win for Kerry. Question, is it unreasonable to expect a paper trail for your vote?

Thanks. My nose needed a coffee douche!

I'd settle for Bush converting to Republican.

Especially considering that we're paying for them. Think about it. I believe that the figure is seven pharmaceutical lobbyists per congressman. My guess is that each one is making at least $300K per year. Not only do we pick up their tab through high drug costs but we also use taxpayer money to subsidize the industry. We're getting hit from both sides!

Personally I don't agree with the policy of destabilizing and restabilizing countries through war and conflict, often with a significant loss of life, so that we can create an atmosphere that is condusive to American profitability. I certainly want us to succeed but not by spilling blood. I also think that most of the American public would feel the same way. I think the administration realized this and instead of telling the world that we were implementing the PNAC plan they decided to use the attacks of 9/11 to cultivate an atmosphere of fear which allowed some to be convinced that Saddam was an immediate threat that had to be dealt with, for our security. The placing of 9/11 and Iraq together in the same sentences...repeatedly, over and over again, was no accident. But regarding your question about planning, what I want is the "actual plan" of transforming the middle east to be brought before congress and the American people so that they/we can give the yea or nay on whether to proceed or not. As it turned out the debate was over WMD's and terrorism, the scary candy coating of the real issue.

I do not agree with the "we left Afghanistan" statement as we are still there. Just because some thind to few troops are there doesn't make it true. My beef there is that we left 15 thousand troops there, where bin Laden and the Taliban still are, and sent 130-150 thousand to Iraq, which as I was trying to point out, was a goal of this administration before 9/11. The about oil BS was always premised on the Bushs oil buddies want the oil and profits Bull shit. From Cheney's energy task force meeting in 2001. The "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" documents caught my eye. http://www.judicialwatch.org/iraqi-oil-maps.shtml Security is security regardless of the details and if I remember right (but I can't find it right now) the issue of the oil and the world economy was brought up. Yea, that was from the PNAC documents Nation building is more complicated however, most of the time I have heard this was in the context of the "New World Order" consperacy crap. Of cousrs ousting SH starts "Nation Building" but in what context do you mean Nation Building? The PNAC's stated goals and Bush's repeated references to transforming the middle east Most of your points (to me anyway) start from premises that I do not accept but I am enjoying learning from your point of view. Trading different viewpoints sure beats the hell out of reducing the argument to name calling.

Yes our leadership did tell us Iraq was a threat and I still to this day believe that was a correcrt assesment. 911 remain a dam good reason to take on terror where ever it is. We left the battle with terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan so that we could send ten times as many troops into Iraq, a non-terrorist, non-threat. Even if you see Iraq as a potential future threat there's no sense in abandoning Afghanistan's reality. I do not believe the "nation building" retoric That rhetoric came directly from Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc. Why would you not believe their own words? and I believe (since we are not taking over the oil industry in that country) that protecting resources vital to world, not just US security is damed important. So why didn't we say that when we were trying to sell the war to the American public? To the contrary, we repeatedly were told that "it's not about oil". That's why I consider the misleading as undisputable.

I thought we went over this yesterday, and I did back it up. But I'll ask this question anyway. Did our leadership tell us that we were going to war in Iraq because they posed a threat to us, constantly invoking 9/11 as the backdrop, or did they tell us that we were going to war in Iraq because we were embarking on a nation building exercise in order to create a US friendly, stable government so that Israel would be more secure and that Iraq's oil resources wouldn't fall into the hands of a government that we don't like?

Your programming is apparently complete. If you're interested in learning more about what's going on over there then throw out all of your pre-conceptions of Israel and Palestine and start reading the history here. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_israel_palestinians/maps/html/default.stm Then start reading then news articles objectively.

I know. And you're not alone. And while the US public continues to be fed misinformation as to why we're over there I'll assume that there's no chance that we're going to bring our troops home, we'll continue to alienate allies, continue to decline in world opinion, spend more money that we don't have, and be less safe. My bet is that if we brought an honest debate out into the public forum, we would change course.

Who was the aggressor in 1967, when Israel kicked the shit out Egypt. They had decided Israel didn't deserve to exist and tried to push them into the sea. All land captured by Israel during that war belonged to them. To the victor go the spoils. Wrong. The international community does not recognize this assertion nor does Israel claim it. Only the Israelies on the far right believe that, you know, the one's who killed their own leader because he was trying to make peace The Palestinians are a miserable bunch of cry babies. Both people live on the same piece of desert, yet the Jews have a functioning economy and society. Why can't the Palestinians do the same with what they've got? Do you think that if we sent the Palestinians $12 million dollars PER DAY and provided them with military hardware and the promise of international security that they might be a little bit better off?

What are you talking about? Haven't you heard Bush? "The American people are safer".....say it with me now.....The American people are safer, the American people are safer......