This has been all but proven as much as it can reasonably be done on an internet forum. The Bush is a good guy crowd has done a LOT to deny the evidence, claim it's been debunked, etc.
Reasonable evidence would include perjury charges, especially with a currently unfriendly house.
I mean even from the time when it was announced that Saddam was going to nuke america, from sources within the intelligence community showed conflicting information on the subject. So, The only question left to determine whether or not Bush lied was proving that he HAD all the information and and stated that Iraq had nukes anyway.
The problem is that the conflicting information was in doubt, since many politicians before the presidency were calling for action against Iraq using the same standard.
Allright, here's the deal : If his lying was considered a BAD thing then he would have been demoted or fired from his position... that he has kept his job is an insinuation that the administration supported a known liar.
Again, if there is rock solid proof he lied, that's fine, but we are in speculation period at the moment, and I give the "accused" the benefit of the doubt without hard evidence to the contrary, I applied the same standard to the Blogojevich/Obama argument against some in my own party.
No, not 'interrogation techniques' but 'enhanced interrogation'. Which in a government memo was essentially defined as : Anything up to the line which would be called torture without actually being torture. Again this is a conflictng situation since Bush supports enhanced interrogations, but not torture, meanwhile waterboarding IS considered to be an act of torture.... where do you draw the line?
As far as these prisoners go, I don't, not if it saves one soldier or civilian.
Regardless of the legality of the administration Bush has successfully created a divide in the US. Between those that feel that the constitution and our rule of law is of utmost importance to protect, and another who feels that it's the security and 'prosperity' of the US as a country that deserves to be protected.... so, what's more important : the people of the country or the ideals that are meant to guide the direction of our country.
If this is the first administration people are bringing the constitutional protection argument into then we have already lost the battle on that one, it has been violated since at least the late 18 hundreds.
I'm going to side-step this question... I mean ideally all humans should be protected and guaranteed at least a basic level of respect and protection against abuses I see this accurately as being an ideal. The only real problem I have with this 'enemy combatant' definition is that on paper it sounds fair... but we are attacking groups that are NOT based on the country in which the war is fought.... (kinda like having a war with mexico as example where mexican americans would be joining the fight... how do you make the distinction between an 'enemy combatant' and a 'pow'?
It's hard because they aren't in fact soldiers of any state, but are engaged in para-military style attacks on various countries, if there is a better answer than enemy combatant I will listen.
If an enemy combatant gets a military uniform, does that protect him?
Technically yes, realistically, since they don't have a nation signed into the Geneva conventions, probably not.
If a venezuelan in this circumstance joins the fight, does that mean that he is forfeiting his status of being a citizen of that country?
Possibly, depending on that country's laws to the effect, I really couldn't answer this one honestly
If there is an american anti-war protestor that comes along, since he isn't 'supporting our soldiers' can he also be deemed to be an enemy combatant??
Not on it's face, as long as it is protected speech and doesn't surpass that, if said war protester gave aid and comfort to the enemy, then yes, that could be considered treason
You're right I did over-simplify.... but the point being the over-time all the funds of this contract gets syphoned to the bigger companies... but then taxpayers are left holding the bag for the debt generated. To put it simply : the profits of war are privatized while the costs are socialized. Noone wants to admit the increase of tax burden that is left for the citizens to take on. That is why we shouldn't be so eager to go to war.
This is true, but the fact is we overspend in general as a country. One problem is unconstitutional v. constitutional spending, defense is mandated in the constitution whereas social programs are supposed to be prohibited, neither of the two have been efficiently done in our modern history, the military must be given what they need, however many on both sides have buddies in the defense industry and will supply expensive yet less than worthwile equipment because their buddies get an economic boost, this needs to be reigned in, not just in defense and infrastructure spending, but across the board.
I'm not talking about 'stagnant rates of pay' due to union contracts... I'm saying that while a doctor today has seen an increase in pay between 150-250% over the past 50 years the COSTS of products has increased in the 1000's of percent over the same time frame. Factors NOT considered in the measures of inflation that we see reported (using tactics like 'people buy cheaper alternatives more now so let's use this cheaper alternative to measure', etc)
It's all part of the same problem, it's a system in need of a fix, a legally proper one.
I actually think I'm in agreement with you that socialism has wrecked our economy... but does this mean that you were also against the banker bailout, which for all intents and purposes was a 'socialist' move??
Absolutely, the market would have worked itself out, it would have been painful, but efficient.
This illustrates our differences in opinion.... while I know that war stimulates the economy (like a band-aid over gaping wound)... that this factor makes it so easy to go to war at least in some respects DOES invalidate the 'justification' used to start them.
Yes, the validity of some of our wars can be questioned, Iraq is up for debate, I believe it would have happened anyway, but the timing is fair game. I don't think it necessarily makes it easier to justify a war to the public, but could see how some of our politicians would exploit a war to spur an economy for their economic legacy. This is in no way meant to say this administration went to this war for that reason, I will wait for the historians to piece it together.
Thank you for at least conceding that much. I would appreciate a bit of clarification as to some of the things where the president seems to have gotten a 'pass' where he should not have?
The above mentioned bail out bill for one, the automaker bailout also comes to mind, I don't think he was hammered nearly hard enough for the immigration debate, and overall his spending was attrocious. I can't think of some of the other issues at the moment, but those readily come to mind.
LOL, for the record, I've repeated that approximately a dozen times on this site, and you were the first to address that point. So again, thanks. In my defense though, I have made an attempt to minimizing the 'unsubstantiated' claims (although I'm not very eager to source the same point repeatedly.... which leads to some claims being called that without necessarily being so)
You bring some pretty good firepower to the debate, the problem is with some posters that bring the most partisan garbage out there, I will accept things stated as opinion, but not opinion stated as fact.
You're right, it's not impossible... but it's also not a stretch to say that the connection was emphasized without saying it, maybe overemphasized, either way is speculation at best.
I have no doubt Saddam helped Al-Quaida to prosper and survive. He didn't necessarily have anything to do with 9/11, but one could argue(devil's advocate) that he facilitated in a small part the people who pulled off the attacks. It really is a speculation issue however, I can fully concede that.
No, it's not proof of anything other than that in a 'democracy' you'd expect that such low-support would be deemed reason enough to remove the guy from power. Know what I mean, do a bad job and you LOSE YOUR JOB type of thing. That there is so little discussion of impeachment (other than Kucinich, I'm not sure how many other times it's been brought up officially.) implies that the president is doing a 'good job' (regardless of the trememdous lack of support).
This particular president got hammered daily for eight years, I am curious to see what the approval ratings would have been without the daily attacks, we can never know, I don't think he was a great president, but certainly not the evil idiot he was portrayed to be.
You are right, and while that makes any sort of video evidence on this site 'inadmissable'. Since even a copy of 'raw footage' can be accused of being edited... however, wouldn't the type of editing your referring to be apparent to the trained eye?
Not necessarily, really depends on how carefully someone pays attention to "jump cuts" which is a fancy way of saying the scenes don't synch up in a way that would portray a natural flow of events, things like body movement/word matches, etc. Setting up a video argument in the manner I described is tricky, but when someone is purposefully trying to make someone look a certain way they seem to find all the time in the world.
I'm just saying it's one thing to show a video, and you come up and say that it's been edited without any further comment, a time index of where editing is evident, or something to base the claim on beyond the assertion that you don't trust it because it's not the raw video?
Don't get me wrong, video is a powerful thing, I just don't like when people use it exclusively to make a point, also, time stamps on many cameras and tracking code can deactivated, plus, with digital editing equipment much is possible.
But you ARE asserting that it's fake with no evidence, so as much as I might like you, I'm not asking for much, just something to show that THIS video had been edited in such a way. A time index of showing that the video had been altered (a frame skip, or something)
Not saying it's fake, only that the credibility is suspect automatically so other evidence should be used in support of it. I would really have to look at the video for a while, frame by frame, and have software handy with a freeze/slow feature to be able to process it fully.
It turns out that I wasn't really referring to you on this, but many times valid points do get brushed aside in that manner. In the same way that you told us that no video evidence that can be presented on this site can be used as evidence of anything on this site (if not intentionally by implication). On some issues, these points had been 'debunked' by opinion alone... so while you may not be purposely included in this, there are a great deal of neo-con supporters that DO engage in these things.
Again, video evidence is fine, but needs other supporting evidence else it is subject to questions about the validity.
While I do agree that a discredited point is not a valid one, it's also important to question the means in which it had been discredited.
I wouldn't expect anything less.