Daiwa

Reply to Anatomy of a Smear, Part 2 in Current Events JoeUser Forums

As has been clarified in other threads on this topic, the allegation is hogwash. The only logical and tenable explanation for the missing explosives is that they were removed by Saddam during the month prior to the invasion and stashed in mosques & grade schools, just like he's done before. Doesn't anyone else remember all the footage of the huge weapons caches in schools & mosques right after the invasion? Where the hell did that stuff come from?

Reply to NEWS: Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished from Site in Iraq in Politics JoeUser Forums

This whole accusation has been exposed for the unfounded NYT BS hatchet job that it is. That's even more up to date. There is no evidence, not even circumstantial evidence, that 380 tons of explosives which were present & accounted for after the facility came under American control have been spirited out from under our noses by terrorists & insurgents to be used against us. That notion is complete hogwash. The NYT & CBS, practically

Reply to Shredding the Geneva Conventions: US 'Disappears' Prisoners in Politics JoeUser Forums

I guess my take on it is too "nuanced" for you, blogic. Cheers, Daiwa

Reply to Impeach Bush for the lack of security in Iraq in Politics JoeUser Forums

Nice try at diversionary tactics, COL Gene, but ineffective. You & blogic, in your eagerness to Gore Bush, jumped into the water without bothering to check its depth. We now know that the NYT article is another failed hatchet job. Here are the updated facts. The IAEA "warned" the US, not before the invasion , but in May 2003 just days before the US inspectors (inspecting for WMD, BTW) arrived, only to find that the expl

Reply to Impeach Bush for the lack of security in Iraq in Politics JoeUser Forums

COL - There aren't enough soldiers in the US, Russian, German and French armies combined to seal or secure the borders of California, where the insurgency in San Jose is a little easier to manage, let alone Iraq. Well, perhaps there could be if we took all of them off duty elsewhere, not too realistic a proposition. Despite all the hyperventilating over the NYT article, what explosives or weapons went missing when is not yet

Reply to Shredding the Geneva Conventions: US 'Disappears' Prisoners in Politics JoeUser Forums

The problem is, most of us don't really know in what circumstances the Convention applies. After all, it was written and signed during a time when only nations could mount armies, before anyone had any clue that such ad hoc entities as al Qaeda could conduct a war. We've tended to mix together Iraqi soldiers with ad hoc terrorists and just assumed that the Convention applies to both when there is no actual basis for that assumption. We're dealing wi

Reply to Missing Explosives: Criticizing Bush is Attack on Troops in Politics JoeUser Forums

If criticism of Bush is a capital offense, there's gonna be a lot of dead people soon. And blogic, you need to stop hyperventilating. "After days of silence..."? Come on. I'd like to see the full quote, since I doubt you've given us the complete picture or that Bush is either blaming the troops or accusing Kerry of blaming the troops. This is still, I'm afraid, a manufactured controversy - we have no proof of what we

Reply to Endorsement Shock: Iraq Hawk Christopher Hitchens for Kerry in Politics JoeUser Forums

That's a rather backhanded "endorsement" of Kerry. More of a slam at both of them than anything else. You should read the entire statement, not just blogic's selective sound bite. Cheers, Daiwa

Reply to Conservative Kerry Endorsements Will Be 2008 Headache in Politics JoeUser Forums

You're such a hopeless romantic, blogic. I like that in a person. Cheers, Daiwa

Reply to Incompetence...Who's Bush or the Media in Politics JoeUser Forums

Sounds like the next tack is going to be "George W. Bush waited far too long to go into Iraq. This looting could have been prevented had we secured those weapons sooner. Oh, no... wait a minute... weren't we saying he rushed to war?" You know what I think we'll ultimately find out? That Saddam moved those explosives or, more likely, sold them out from under the IAEA's nose. That's a far more logical and tenable hypothesis than that

Reply to The Kerry Tide: Newspapers Usually Endorse Repubs for Prez in Politics JoeUser Forums

Fair statement,but the recovery could have been more robust had the tax cuts been spread out more. I appreciate the fair label, but to use a topical phrase: "No Monday-morning quarterback has ever won a game." Cheers, Daiwa

Reply to Anatomy of a Smear, Part 2 in Current Events JoeUser Forums

T_Bone - The reporter in question (Dana Lewis) isn't backing off his story, stating unequivocally that he was familiar with IAEA tags & found no such tags or seals on any of the large number of bunkers he personally observed & filmed, & NBC re-iterated their reporting today. And I've learned that nothing the NYT prints ever turns out to be quite what it purports to be. It will all shake out, but there is a far greater likelihood that the exp

Reply to The Kerry Tide: Newspapers Usually Endorse Repubs for Prez in Politics JoeUser Forums

That terpfan1980 gets an insightful from me. Succint & coherent. Cheers, Daiwa

Reply to NEWS: Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished from Site in Iraq in Politics JoeUser Forums

There's enough explosives missing for years worth of suicide bombs and roadside bombs. How do you explain to the family of a US soldier killed by a bomb that the material for that bomb had been taggd and locked away by UN inspectors, but the US didn't bother guarding it? The only reporter (Dana Lewis) w

Reply to Cultural Diversity in Politics JoeUser Forums

iamheather - iamimpressed. Intolerant snobbery is the hard underbelly of liberalism, which continues to find its most conducive culture medium in our universities. Cheers, Daiwa

Reply to The Kerry Tide: Newspapers Usually Endorse Repubs for Prez in Politics JoeUser Forums

You can wish all you want, blogic. What this shows is how far out of touch the print media have become. We are such a country of ingrates, sometimes. Despite unprecedented trauma to our economy from the aftershocks of 9/11 and the bursting of the tech stock bubble which devastated a huge sector of our economy, not to mention the corporate collapses of Enron, Worldcom, Arthur Andersen and others, we have had a remarkable recovery, nothing sho

Reply to Anatomy of a Smear, Part 2 in Current Events JoeUser Forums

If this was ever news, it was news 18 months ago . The IAEA states only that spot checks were done @ al Qaqaa in the weeks prior to the invasion, so the exact amount of explosive material present just prior to the invasion cannot be known with certainty. NBC reported at the time that none of the IAEA-tagged explosive materials were present when the ammo dump was first inspected - a whole buch of stuff was gone

Reply to Anatomy of a Smear, Part 2 in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Surprised? I think not. Increased violence in Iraq during the run-up to the election (maybe even here) has been predicted all along, so should not be played in the press as somehow shocking. Blaring old news as if it were new News is one of the few tactics left to them, I guess. Anything they can think of to cast Bush in a negative light, they will do, pure & simple. They are on a jihad, after all. The increase in mainstream press

Reply to Biil O'Rielly's favorite commercial. Kerry voters need not a in Politics JoeUser Forums

Myrrander, I don't think ignorance applies to Ann. Cheers, Daiwa

Reply to Beyond the Call of Duty:Halliburton Whistleblower Suppressed in Politics JoeUser Forums

SiRMetMan - No offense intended, but your comment suggests you don't have a real understanding of the law or the role judges play in our system. Cheers, Daiwa

Reply to Another person who thinks Kerry will lose. in Politics JoeUser Forums

This "Republican robot" as Myrrander likes to call us could have been persuaded to vote for Joe Lieberman and, given the relentless ABB bias of the mainstream media and what has transpired since Kerry locked up the nomination, I think Lieberman would have won handily. His nomination would have eliminated the war on terror as a campaign issue, since they are in fundamental agreement there

Reply to Beyond the Call of Duty:Halliburton Whistleblower Suppressed in Politics JoeUser Forums

Sadly, noone's cornered the market on double standards. However, knowing that the Halliburton contracts are a political hot potato, knowing how there is always at least one such "whistleblower" who objects to or opposes practically everything a government agency does, and knowing how people like blogic would twist any explanation or facts into a convoluted pretzel no matter the justification for awarding the contracts in t

Reply to A Tale of Two Countries: How Bush Helped Make the Flu Crisis in Politics JoeUser Forums

The flu matters. When Bush ignores three and half years of warnings from his own government, that matters. Bush needs to stop passing the buck. And you need to move on, blogic (pardon the pun). This is so old & lame by now. I can't believe you're still coming back to this. Your statistics, by the way

Reply to A Tale of Two Countries: How Bush Helped Make the Flu Crisis in Politics JoeUser Forums

Scare tactics don't bother me, from either side, and their use is not disqualifying. I'm perfectly capable of deciding for myself what I should be afraid of. In this case, a rampant flu epidemic is low on my list of fears. Cheers, Daiwa

Reply to Election Eve Surprise in Politics JoeUser Forums

The other problem with the arguments about what has resulted in the growth of al Qaeda recruitment is that we'll never know whether 9/11 all by itself would have served the same purpose and you can bet the farm that the terrorists themselves will say that recruiting has been helped by the Afghanistan & Iraq wars - it's assinine to think otherwise as they will use any argument to get a leg up against those who would fight or challenge them. They know f