For all those who said the current power is all that matters, heres the new poll. :)
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For all those who said the current power is all that matters, heres the new poll. :)
I think Bush is doing a great job. He is cutting taxes, he is following through with the war on terror, and he is doing a good job with national security. He should certainly get a second term.
Bush is doing great but should speed the terrorism process
ClintonisaGayWad: If you had done any research you would of known that Clinton did a lot of things to stop terrorism. Bush F'd it up before September 11th by ignoring Clinton's advisors that had been warning him and his advisors about an impending attack on the USA by terrorists.
And about Bush Jr: He has lied to the American public, cheated in polls, gave huge tax cuts to the top 1% of Americans, so I would like to hear why you think he is a good or great president.
Also, no offence, but your poll is so biased to your opinion that it makes Bush look liberal in comparison. ;)
Sorry man, but I must disagree with those statements about Clinton. He had numerous opportunities to have Osama's head handed to him, one of them by the Sudanese government. What thanks did the Sudanese get? Cruise missles into one of their medicine factories...lovely...Quote:
Originally posted here by CXGJarrod
ClintonisaGayWad: If you had done any research you would of known that Clinton did a lot of things to stop terrorism. Bush F'd it up before September 11th by ignoring Clinton's advisors that had been warning him and his advisors about an impending attack on the USA by terrorists.
And about Bush Jr: He has lied to the American public, cheated in polls, gave huge tax cuts to the top 1% of Americans, so I would like to hear why you think he is a good or great president.
Also, no offence, but your poll is so biased to your opinion that it makes Bush look liberal in comparison. ;)
What did Clinton do to Al Queda after the first trade center bombing?
What about after the Kobar Towers ?
What about the USS Cole?
What about after the second bombing in Saudi?
What about after the embassies in Africa?
What about after getting their ass handed to them in Somalia?
Yep, what a stalwart fighter of terrorism...I am sure he nearly killed Osama by making him laugh too hard.
As far as the poll goes, that is some bogus crap. If you want to have a poll, give real options and not this contrived stuff that attempts to mold opinions in one direction or another.
And before you go thinking I am a big Bush Jr. supporter think again. Yes, I supported him when he sent troops to Afghanistan, long overdue IMHO. I didn't really feel like it was the right time to invade Iraq, but didn't feel strongly enough about it to get too upset; however, I look at the Justice Department run by Ashcroft and I want to puke. I see government power expandingly rapidly, I see people blindly giving up their freedoms for the promise of security (brings to mind a quote from one of our founding fathers about people giving up their freedom for security will have neither). I see the Bush administration arrogantly ignoring public request for information about what they are up to (be it negotiations for energy policy, Iraq, reconstruction, etc). I am also irritated that obviously there was no serious effort to plan for the reconstruction of Iraq and a prompt withdrawal of troops. Now the US taxpayer is saddled with a massive debt and soldiers die daily. I see this country rapidly turning into a nanny style, government knows best police state, and apparently not enough are paying attention to do anything about it...
Couple this country going to a police state with Bush apparently never meeting a dollar he doesn't want to spend, and he has lost my vote and has precious little time to earn it back.
/nebulus
You beat me to it man. :)Quote:
He had numerous opportunities to have Osama's head handed to him, one of them by the Sudanese government.
I think Bush is a terrific President!
God forbid the American people trade him in for another President like Clinton just like they did his daddy! Sad really.
At least Bush has a enough guts to fight for our ****ing freedom and safety. Damn liberal pansies.
Hi,
Just a few thoughts from a European. What we know about US politics is probably highly limited and coloured by our media coverage. That is probably even more distorted by our politicians, and their "spin doctors" (professional liars, to the uninitiated).
I find it difficult to make valid comparisons between administrations, given that they have generally operated in different circumstances? You can quite easily judge the current administration against its election promises...............but you did that with the last one, and they are no longer there ( and can anyone name me any administration that kept its word apart from Joe Stalin in Russia?) My point is that a lot of things have changed very rapidly in the last three US Administrations? .........opening up of the former Iron Curtain, China, nuclear proliferation. 9/11?
I strongly suspect that the average European sees no real difference between Mr Bush and Mr Clinton?. There has been improved co-operation on cybercrimes like child pornography, drug trafficking, etc., but that I put down to improved technology, rather than any political initiative.
The military technology with which we went into the second Gulf War was far superior to the first...............we actually could do it without the bodybags? The circumstances had changed.
I have a message for "clintonsucks" :D
A sentence in the English language requires a subject, an object, and a verb. The subject "does the verb" to the object. I, out of due respect to the American legal process, am prepared to accept the testimony of Monica Lewinsky :cool:
Take care, and God Bless
Lets see bush has faild to get binladen, faild to get husain and has told the terrorists of the world that you can hit america with no major repocusions...ya he did a great job.
Im sure if the 1500 Iraqi and 3800 Afghanistani civilians who died during US invasions were alive today, they would disagree with you clintonsucks...
nebulus200: I will try to get links for you tonight, (as my notes are at home) but the Clinton administration had everything set up for the BUsh administration to kick more @ss on terrorism. Bush and his advisors thought that the Clinton administration was too paranoid about terrorism and the "impending attack on US interests." Bush had a request for more money for antiterrorism efforts on his desk on September 10th (which he denied this request). All I am trying to say is that Bush, (Pre-September 11th) did jack **** to fight terrorism. And now that he is finally "fighting terrorism" by invading countries, he lies to the American public about the reasons for going into Iraq.
This in my opinion, does not make a good or great president.
Do you enjoy spouting lies or are you just missinformed?Quote:
Originally posted here by nebulus200
Sorry man, but I must disagree with those statements about Clinton. He had numerous opportunities to have Osama's head handed to him, one of them by the Sudanese government. What thanks did the Sudanese get? Cruise missles into one of their medicine factories...lovely...
/nebulus
the suadnaeese goverment never had osama, they never knew where he was...a privet citizan lied to the us, claimed that he was a representitive for that goverment and wanted to trade binladen for money....we didn't beleive the tool, which turned out to be the correct decision.
What war on terror? When did people last check out the american definition of terrorism, and then thought of what the US has done lately [and not so lately?]. Or how many know of the UN sanctions against the US? It's all a question of perspective...
What are the UN sanctions against the US?
Bballad, I am under the impression that on several occasions Osama was offered to Clinton and his staff but they couldn't find a way to legally grab him. No fault on their own. You could argue many things but to come out and say after 9/11 that "I told you so" after TWO terms in office is pure BS on my plate.
Bush is the biggest moron I've seen lately
Here is the basic definition of "terrorism"
Quote:
No one definition of terrorism has gained universal acceptance. For the purposes of this report, however, we have chosen the definition of terrorism contained in Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d). That statute contains the following definitions:
The term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant (1) targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.
The term "international terrorism" means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country.
The term "terrorist group" means any group practicing, or that has significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism.
The US Government has employed this definition of terrorism for statistical and analytical purposes since 1983. Domestic terrorism is probably a more widespread phenomenon than international terrorism. Because international terrorism has a direct impact on US interests, it is the primary focus of this report. However, the report also describes, but does not provide statistics on, significant developments in domestic terrorism.
(1) For purposes of this definition, the term "noncombatant" is interpreted to include, in addition to civilians, military personnel who at the time of the incident are unarmed and/or not on duty. For example, in past reports we have listed as terrorist incidents the murders of the following US military personnel: Col. James Rowe, killed in Manila in April 1989; Capt. William Nordeen, US defense attache killed in Athens in June 1988; the two servicemen killed in the La Belle disco bombing in West Berlin in April 1986; and the four off-duty US Embassy Marine guards killed in a cafe in El Salvador in June 1985. We also consider as acts of terrorism attacks on military installations or on armed military personnel when a state of military hostilities does not exist at the site, such as bombings against US bases in Europe, the Philippines, or elsewhere.
Note
Adverse mention in this report of individual members of any political, social, ethnic, religious, or national group is not meant to imply that all members of that group are terrorists. Indeed, terrorists represent a small minority of dedicated, often fanatical, individuals in most such groups. It is those small groups - and their actions - that are the subject of this report.
Furthermore, terrorist acts are part of a larger phenomenon of politically inspired violence, and at times the line between the two can become difficult to draw. To relate terrorist events to the larger context, and to give a feel for the conflicts that spawn violence, this report will discuss terrorist acts as well as other violent incidents that are not necessarily international terrorism.
Where are the weapons of mass destruction again? We have seem to have lost them in our intelligence dept...
From what Ihave seen the closest we have ever come to binladen was when the saudies kicked him out.Quote:
Originally posted here by RoadClosed
What are the UN sanctions against the US?
Bballad, I am under the impression that on several occasions Osama was offered to Clinton and his staff but they couldn't find a way to legally grab him. No fault on their own. You could argue many things but to come out and say after 9/11 that "I told you so" after TWO terms in office is pure BS on my plate.
We missed by a few hours with clintons cruse missel attack, and the military under bush had him in the sites of a preditor but no one pulled the trigger(ok they had a car that they where 90% sure had him in it in their sights.). He has never been in custady, especaly not in the sudan, more over the man who offered him up in sudan had no ability to negotiate for that goverment. The "we had binladen, but refused to take him into custady" argument is a straw man.
I have been trying to find unpainted recallection of the events of the 90's since this whole thing has been of interest that Clinton blames 9/11 on Bush's unreaction to Bills warnings. I found a book from a Belgian based journalist that has some interesting reading. I have only searched on ecxcerpts and review but I found this interview of the author. Here are some quotes. Sorry for the legth but I didn't want to cut words.
Quote:
On March 3, 1996, U.S. ambassador to Sudan, Tim Carney, Director of East African Affairs at the State Department, David Shinn, and a member of the CIA's directorate of operations' Africa division met with Sudan's then-Minister of State for Defense Elfatih Erwa in a Rosslyn, Virginia hotel room. Item number two on the CIA's list of demands was to provide information about Osama bin Laden. Five days later, Erwa met with the CIA officer and offered more than information. He offered to arrest and turn over bin Laden himself. Two years earlier, the Sudan had turned over the infamous terrorist, Carlos the Jackal to the French. He now sits in a French prison. Sudan wanted to repeat that scenario with bin Laden in the starring role.
Clinton administration officials have offered various explanations for not taking the Sudanese offer. One argument is that an offer was never made. But the same officials are on the record as saying the offer was "not serious." Even a supposedly non-serious offer is an offer. Another argument is that the Sudanese had not come through on a prior request so this offer could not be trusted. But, as Ambassador Tim Carney had argued at the time, even if you believe that, why not call their bluff and ask for bin Laden?
The Clinton administration simply did not want the responsibility of taking Osama bin Laden into custody. Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger is on the record as saying: "The FBI did not believe we had enough evidence to indict bin Laden at that time and therefore opposed bringing him to the United States." Even if that was true — and it wasn't — the U.S. could have turned bin Laden over to Yemen or Libya, both of which had valid warrants for his arrest stemming from terrorist activities in those countries. Given the legal systems of those two countries, Osama would have soon ceased to be a threat to anyone.
After months of debating how to respond to the Sudanese offer, the Clinton administration simply asked Sudan to deport him. Where to? Ambassador Carney told me what he told the Sudanese: "Anywhere but Somalia."
In May 1996 bin Laden was welcomed into Afghanistan by the Taliban. It could not have been a better haven for Osama bin Laden.
Steven Simon, Clinton's counterterrorism director on the National Security Council thought that kicking bin Laden out of Sudan would benefit U.S. security since "It's going to take him a while to reconstitute, and that screws him up and buys time." Buys time? Oh yeah, 1996 was an election year and team Clinton did not want to deal with bin Laden until after it was safely reelected.
Interesting but worng,binladen left sudan in 94 or 95, more over they never had him in custady, the man who clamed they did was not a sudanese offical...so how would we have gotten him then?
Bbalad said:
Why don't you try to find one man in an area consisting of over 14 major countries with hundreds of supporters willing to hide him and open fire on you dressed in civilian clothes if you get anywhere near him? It's not too easy, even with an army. At least Bush is doing something about it, unlike all the other hippies in the world with their demonstrations and human shielding and whatnot. As for the claim that he has shown the world that you can attack America and there won't be any consequences, he, not Clinton, has sent an army over there to find the terrorists and has succeeded in catching many of the major people under binladen and saddam. Your claim is bogus.Quote:
Lets see bush has faild to get binladen, faild to get husain and has told the terrorists of the world that you can hit america with no major repocusions
there is mention in the book passages of a private contact from Sudan that didn't pan out, but that was later... but if you throw Sudan out all together there are some interesting other passages. The author recaps several events and lists real contacts inside and outside governments circles. It's interesting.
Here is more:
Just because you know about a threat doesn't mean you can do anything about it but, my take on it all is summed up here by the author.Quote:
President Clinton learned about bin Laden within months of being sworn into office. National Security Advisor Anthony Lake told me that he first heard the name Osama bin Laden in 1993 in relation to the World Trade Center attack. Lake briefed the president about bin Laden that same year.
In addition, starting in 1993, Rep. Bill McCollum (R., Fla.) repeatedly wrote to President Clinton and warned him and other administration officials about bin Laden and other Islamic terrorists. McCollum was the founder and chairman of the House Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and had developed a wealth of contacts among the mujihedeen in Afghanistan. Those sources, who regularly visited McCollum, informed him about bin Laden's training camps and evil ambitions.
Indeed, it is possible that Clinton and his national-security team learned of bin Laden even before the 1993 World Trade Center attack. My interviews and investigation revealed that bin Laden made his first attack on Americans was December 1992, a little more than a month after Clinton won the 1992 election. His target was 100 U.S. Marines housed in two towering Yemen hotels. Within hours, the CIA's counterterrorism center learned that the Yemen suspected a man named Osama bin Laden. (One of the arrested bombing suspects later escaped and was detained in a police sweep after al Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in 2000.) Lake says he doesn't remember briefing the president-elect about the attempted attack, but that he well might have.
So it is safe to conclude that Clinton knew about the threat posed by bin Laden since 1993, his first year in office.
Quote:
Here's a rundown. The Clinton administration:
1. Did not follow-up on the attempted bombing of Aden marines in Yemen.
2. Shut the CIA out of the 1993 WTC bombing investigation, hamstringing their effort to capture bin Laden.
3. Had Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a key bin Laden lieutenant, slip through their fingers in Qatar.
4. Did not militarily react to the al Qaeda bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
5. Did not accept the Sudanese offer to turn bin Laden.
6. Did not follow-up on another offer from Sudan through a private back channel.
7. Objected to Northern Alliance efforts to assassinate bin Laden in Afghanistan.
8. Decided against using special forces to take down bin Laden in Afghanistan.
9. Did not take an opportunity to take into custody two al Qaeda operatives involved in the East African embassy bombings. In another little scoop, I am able to show that Sudan arrested these two terrorists and offered them to the FBI. The Clinton administration declined to pick them up and they were later allowed to return to Pakistan.
10. Ordered an ineffectual, token missile strike against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory.
11. Clumsily tipped off Pakistani officials sympathetic to bin Laden before a planned missile strike against bin Laden on August 20, 1998. Bin Laden left the camp with only minutes to spare.
12-14. Three times, Clinton hesitated or deferred in ordering missile strikes against bin Laden in 1999 and 2000.
15. When they finally launched and armed the Predator spy drone plane, which captured amazing live video images of bin Laden, the Clinton administration no longer had military assets in place to strike the archterrorist.
16. Did not order a retaliatory strike on bin Laden for the murderous attack on the USS Cole.
Here is anoteher source not related to the book...
From the International Herald Tribune
Quote:
Saudis Balked at Accepting U.S. Plan
WASHINGTON The government of Sudan, using a back channel direct from its president to the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States, offered in the early spring of 1996 to arrest Osama bin Laden and place him in custody in Saudi Arabia, according to officials and former officials in all three countries.
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The Clinton administration struggled to find a way to accept the offer in secret contacts that stretched from a meeting at hotel in Arlington, Virginia, on March 3, 1996, to a fax that closed the door on the effort 10 weeks later.
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Unable to persuade the Saudis to accept Mr. bin Laden, and lacking a case to indict him in U.S. courts, the Clinton administration finally gave up on the capture.
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Sudan expelled Mr. bin Laden on May 18, 1996, to Afghanistan. From there, he is thought to have planned and financed the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the near-destruction of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen last year and the devastation in New York and Washington on Sept. 11.
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"Had we been able to roll up bin Laden then, it would have made a significant difference," said a U.S. government official with responsibilities, then and now, in counterterrorism.
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"We probably never would have seen a Sept. 11. We would still have had networks of Sunni Islamic extremists of the sort we're dealing with here, and there would still have been terrorist attacks fomented by those folks. But there would not have been as many resources devoted to their activities, and there would not have been a single voice that so effectively articulated grievances and won support for violence."
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Clinton administration officials maintain emphatically that they had no such option against Mr. bin Laden in 1996. In the legal, political and intelligence environment then, they said, there was no choice but to allow him to leave Sudan unmolested.
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"In the United States, we have this thing called the Constitution, so to bring him here is to bring him into the justice system," said Samuel Berger, who was deputy national security adviser then. "I don't think that was our first choice. Our first choice was to send him some place where justice is more" - he paused a moment, then continued - "streamlined."
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Three officials in the Clinton administration said they hoped - one described it as "a fantasy" - that the Saudi monarch, King Fahd, would order Mr. bin Laden's swift beheading, as he had done for four conspirators after a June 1995 bombing in Riyadh.
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But Mr. Berger and Steven Simon, then director for counterterrorism for the National Security Council, said the White House considered it valuable in itself to force Mr. bin Laden out of Sudan, thus tearing him away from his extensive network of businesses, investments and training camps.
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Conflicting policy agendas on several other fronts contributed to the missed opportunity to capture Mr. bin Laden, according to a dozen participants.
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The Clinton administration was riven by differences on whether to engage Sudan's government or isolate it, a situation that influenced judgments about the sincerity of the offer. In the Saudi-American relationship, policymakers diverged on how much priority to give to counterterrorism over other interests, such as support for the ailing Israeli-Palestinian talks and enforcement of the no-flight zone in Iraq.
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And there were the beginnings of debate, intensified lately, on whether the United States wanted to indict and try Mr. bin Laden or to treat him as a combatant in an underground war.
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The Sudanese offer had its roots in a dinner at the Khartoum home of Sudan's foreign minister, Ali Othman Taha. It was Feb. 6, 1996, the last night in the country for the U.S. ambassador, Timothy Carney, before evacuating the U.S. Embassy on orders from Washington. Paul Quaglia, then the CIA station chief in Khartoum, had led a campaign to pull out all Americans after he and his staff came under aggressive surveillance and twice had to fend off attacks, one with a knife and one with claw hammers.
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Mr. Carney and David Shinn, then chief of the State Department's East Africa desk, considered the security threat "bogus," as Mr. Shinn described it. Washington's dominant decision-makers on Sudan had lost interest in engagement, preparing plans to isolate and undermine the regime.
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One factor in Washington's hostility was an intelligence tip that Sudan planned to assassinate President Bill Clinton's national security adviser, Anthony Lake, the most visible administration critic of Khartoum. Most U.S. analysts came to believe later that it had been a false alarm.
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On Feb. 6, 1996, Mr. Taha, the foreign minister, asked Mr. Carney and Mr. Shinn what his country could do to dissuade Washington from the view, expressed not long before by Madeleine Albright, then the chief U.S. delegate to the United Nations, that Sudan was responsible for "continued sponsorship of international terror."
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Mr. Carney and Mr. Shinn had a long list. Mr. bin Laden, as they both recalled, was near the top. Mr. Taha mostly listened. He raised no objection to the request for Mr. bin Laden's expulsion, though he did not agree to it that night. On March 3, 1996, Sudan's defense minister, Major General Elfatih Erwa, arrived at the Hyatt Arlington. Mr. Carney and Mr. Shinn were waiting for him, but the meeting was run by covert operatives from the CIA's Africa division. In a document dated March 8, 1996, the Americans spelled out their demands. Titled "Measures Sudan Can Take to Improve Relations with the United States," it asked for six things. Second on the list - just after an angry enumeration of attacks on the CIA station in Khartoum - was Osama bin Laden.
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"Provide us with names, dates of arrival, departure and destination and passport data on mujahidin that Usama Bin Laden has brought into Sudan," the document demanded.
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During the next several weeks, General Erwa raised the stakes. The Sudanese security services, he said, would happily keep close watch on Mr. bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the government was prepared to place him in custody and hand him over, though to whom was ambiguous.
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Susan Rice, then senior director for Africa on the National Security Council, remembers being intrigued with but deeply skeptical of the Sudanese offer. And unlike Mr. Berger and Mr. Simon, Ms. Rice argued that mere expulsion from Sudan was not enough.
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"We wanted them to hand him over to a responsible external authority," she said. "We didn't want them to just let him disappear into the ether."
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Mr. Lake and Secretary of State Warren Christopher were briefed, colleagues said, on efforts to persuade the Saudi government to take Mr. bin Laden.
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The Saudi idea had some logic, since Mr. bin Laden had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, denouncing the House of Saud as corrupt. Riyadh had expelled Mr. bin Laden in 1991 and stripped him of his citizenship in 1994, but it wanted no part of jailing or executing him, apparently fearing a backlash from militant opponents of the government.
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Some American diplomats said the White House did not press the Saudis very hard.
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Resigned to Mr. bin Laden's departure from Sudan, some officials raised the possibility of shooting down his chartered aircraft, but the idea was never seriously pursued because Mr. bin Laden had not been linked to a dead American, and it was inconceivable that Mr. Clinton would sign the "lethal finding" necessary under the circumstances.
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"In the end they said, 'Just ask him to leave the country. Just don't let him go to Somalia,'" General Erwa said in an interview. "We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they said, 'Let him.'" On May 15, 1996, Mr. Taha, the foreign minister, sent a fax to Mr. Carney in Nairobi, giving up on the transfer of custody. Sudan's government had asked Mr. bin Laden to leave the country, Mr. Taha wrote, and he would be free to go.
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Mr. Carney faxed back a question: Would Mr. bin Laden retain his access and control to the millions of dollars of assets he had built up in Sudan?
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Mr. Taha gave no reply before Mr. bin Laden chartered a plane three days later for his trip to Afghanistan.
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Subsequent analysis by U.S. intelligence suggests that Mr. bin Laden managed to access the Sudanese assets from his new redoubt in Afghanistan.
I will come back to this point, it happens that I am moving house so all my books have already been transported to the new address.Quote:
Hell yeah bush is a good president.
People are complaining, Hes not lowering taxes, hes not doing this, hes not doig what he promised etc etc.
Well they have to understand, that it takes a while to get things going right when you had somebdoy in there that screwed everything up.
God you Americans and your politics. Do it the Irish way and just hate them all or at least take some of the power from one man, especially when its George Bush. Although he does make me laugh when he makes those speeches on Sky News and I know just have the feeling he's laughing at everyone, kinda like 'I'm the most powerful man in the world, ME!'
Damn straight, cheyenne1212. Just look at this thread and see how badly Clinton messed America up.Quote:
Originally posted here by cheyenne1212
Hell yeah bush is a good president.
People are complaining, Hes not lowering taxes, hes not doing this, hes not doig what he promised etc etc.
Well they have to understand, that it takes a while to get things going right when you had somebdoy in there that screwed everything up.
http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=250175
Just something that is a perfect example of what kind of president Bush jr. is:
Until now, Bush was opposed to the Israelian wall (a wall Israel is building to "keep the Palestinian terrorists out"). Even Bush must have read WWII history. Make that "must have had someone read it to him". Bush even threatened to not allow a 9 billion dollar loan to the Israeli's. Elections must be coming up, because Bush decided that all of a sudden he's not opposed to the wall anymore. By now, the wall totally isolates 12,000 Palestinians, and cuts off another 72,000 from the only income they have: their land.
The Jewish-American lobby has done her job again.
OK, I know, that's what politics is all about... too bad there's a story like this in the news every single week: a cover-up, straight-forward lies, violation of international agreements,...
The term Janus-door comes into mind.
I don't recall anything official about Bush supporting the Israel wall? In fact he has denounced most of what Israel has been doing including sanctions. That's a tough call. I don't think Israel should just let their children stand by and be bombed even if you argue that their entire territory is not legitimate. I agree a wall is not an answer and I contend it’s being built out of fear and is not very sensible. However, this violent exchange has been going on for decades and maybe attacks by Hezbollah recently could have persuaded the current administration one way or another but I haven’t seen any official word that Bush supports the wall.
We all know what walls can do to cultures. Berlin is an example but in recent times, so are Northern Ireland and the Peace Wall. Did the wall stop violence in Ireland? Possibly, but it does nothing to heal the cultures. I said it's a tough call because what do you do when 2 sides of a culture absolutely refuse to STOP killing one another. Bush’s lack of pressure on Palestine could be viewed as indirect support for Israel and his lack of pressure on Israel could be viewed as support for the wall, which has been under construction for some time now. Some argue both and even that Bush is not neutral enough. It’s a crazy problem and I agree Bush does send a mixed message about it by denouncing it but not backing up anything. The US is biased toward Israel, I agree there as well. Perhaps if the Palestine’s stop bombing bus stations for any length of time that would change? Any decisive move in any direction will result in outrage and dissatisfaction by multiple entities.
As for us “Americans and our Politics” - it’s a big country with a lot of government and a lot of people and a lot of hot air. :)
Quote:
Financial Times October 25
The US has dropped its opposition to Israel's construction of security barriers through the West Bank and is involved in detailed negotiations over the winding route of walls, fences and ditches that has divided communities and disrupted the lives of thousands of Palestinians.
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Israeli officials said the US had specifically approved parts of the fence and wall built on the north-west fringes of the West Bank that have left 13 Palestinian villages and nearly 12,000 people virtually marooned on the Israeli-occupied side.
So what? I say they should add a few more feet of concrete and make that sucker a few feet thicker while they’re at it!
Who the hell wants some deranged terrorist blowing up their children? Or wants some stupid bastard blowing up their bar mitzvah?
Not only should they build that fence, but it should be electrified to keep the scum terrorist out of their land for good. For those of you who have forgotten, Israel is fighting terror! These are not all harmless folks on the other side of that fence you know!
If the Palestinians want jobs, then why don't they make their own? They choose to keep a dumb ass like Arafat in office; he spends all of their money on himself and terror. This seems to be what they enjoy. He is a terrorist and they like to keep terrorist as their leader. They have gotten what they deserved. It's a wonder that the Israelis let any of those bastards inside their land to begin with.
Eat **** terrorist!
Interesting;
No wonder I haven't seen anything, I was at a weekend long Halloween party. I read that and wonder what exactly Bush is thinking in regard to the new leadership on the Palestine side.
It says that US pressure to Israel has had a very limited impact and they continue to build it. Maybe the thinking is; if we can't force them to stop it then maybe the wall will have a better route through the city with US intervention. Apparently Israel is not caving on the issue. A pre-1967 route would predate Israeli occupation, which is an interesting twist. The wall is a bad thing, and so is the weekly barrage of suicide bombing and retaliation attacks and torn apart cease fires. It appears as though Israel has called our bluff? And perhaps said “we aren’t stopping so now what?”
The state department is still denying dropping support, but usually good inside sources are reliable. We live in a democracy and the Jewish people have a strong voice, unfortunately I am not always in tune with that voice. The wall will most likely stop the violence but at a cost to isolation of 2 very different cultures.
The Israeli/Palestine thing has gone on since I was a tiny child and never a month has gone by without something going on over there. They have actually come a long way from the beginning. But does it have to end with a wall dividing two cultures? Bush is only the latest president confronting a 36 year old conflict.
Paulie,
my point was not about the Palestinian-Israelian cause. My point is that Bush changes his opinion every time he can make money/votes out of it. Before October 25, Bush was opposed to the wall (primarily thanks to foreign pressure). Now he doesn't mind the wall anymore.
And I have to remind you that the land I'm talking about is Palestinian land, not Israelian (1967 agreements). Even Israeli officials will admit that the land is Palestinian. Bush admitted it. Nobody would care if the Israeli's would decide to build a wall on their own property. This issue is major because the territory is officially Palestinian.
I also have to remind you that Sharon - not Arafat - is the one facing international trial for deeds of terrorism. We both know that Arafat is just as much a terrorist as Sharon is, but they both have things on their palmares that are considered warcrimes and terrorist activities.
Remember Sabra Shatila?
Eat **** terrorists? Sure... both of them should eat ****.
Perhaps a wall is the best answer when yu consider the alternatives to the situation. I see very few solutions, since Israel will not stop targeting terrorists until the Hammas and the other terrorist groups stop targeting innocent civilians, which is extremely unlikely to occur. Yes, Isreal kills plenty of innocent civilians itself, but they are not the primary targets. These are the solutions I forsee:
1. Build the wall and guard it until the Palestine Authority fixes it's own internal problems with terrorism.
2. Build the wall and guard it until the Palestine Authority declares war against the Nation of Israel. - Results in Israel wiping Palestine off the map.
3. Don't build the wall, let the bombings continue unheeded. - Results in Israel wiping Palestine off the map.
What do you do when your children are fighting? You separate them and put them in the corner to let them contemplate the reprecussions of their actions. Why not let Israel build the "corner/wall"? Nothing else has worked.
Ok, let's say that I except your premise for second. Who is the man who continues in terror, Sharon or Arafat?Quote:
We both know that Arafat is just as much a terrorist as Sharon is
I'll help you out, Arafat!
Like I said: nobody would have a problem with Israel building a wall on their own property. There is another nice example of a wall like this: the one between the US and Mexico. I don't hear anyone complain about that, and why not? Because the wall is on US territory. Don't you think it would be wrong if the US would build that wall on the Mexican side of the border?Quote:
Why not let Israel build the "corner/wall"?
And Paulie: it's a vicious circle... Palestinian terrorists kill some Israeli's, the Israeli's kill some Palestinians in revenge (most of the time it's a 10 to 1 ratio, but anyways).
You only call the Palestinians terrorists, I call them both terrorists...
Would you call yourself a terrorist if Canada would invade the US by building a wall on its territory, and you would go to Canada to kill some Canadians? Or would you call yourself a freedom fighter...?
I am with you negative, the border has been disputed since 1967. That border has been under Isrealu modification for 36 years. But what if this was true and the US is shifting focus on keeping the border as close as possible to the pre-1967 route? I quote the artical you posted.
Quote:
... Israel itself. Officials insist the Bush administration is seeking to keep the barrier close to the pre-1967 border.
Why is it that hearly every reply to this question seems to centre around war? The question originally posed was whether or not Bush Jr. is a good president. Somehow the conversation then got shifted to whether or not the invasion of Iraq was justified, and then to a Palestine-Israel wall. Funny how people associate Bush with war.
Speaking as a Canadian, I am glad the Americans ousted Saddam. And Bin Laden. And Mobutu. The world is a better place without them. I just wish the American government would stop lying to its people. Where are the weapons of mass destruction which were the entire justification for the war in the first place? I don't believe there were any. Since 9/11 Americans have been in a crusade mode, making it possible to justify almost any war to Americans with the right propaganda. These attacks were simply used as an excuse for a war the government had always wanted to start. If you want to know whether the war in Iraq is justified or not, then answer to yourlelft why we are fighting it. It obviously wasn't fought over weapons of mass destruction. So why are we fighting it?
Iraq is a very strategically important nation in the world, both for its geographic location and for its natural resources. This is very good for the Iraqi people, as it has eventually led to the occupation of thier contry by government which does not gas them. Serbia was bombed for the same reasons Iraq was. How many people can remember the name of the president before he was ousted by the US? How many people are following his trial in the Hague? I'll bet you had a really strong opinion about what's his name three years ago. Funny how most people don't remember him anymore now that a more interesting war has started. How many people can even remember what that war was fought over? If you can't remember it three years later, it probably wasn't fought for a good reason.
But that point aside, the Mediterranean is a safer and better place without him. The world is a safer and more stable place without him, and the same is true of Saddam Hussein. We live in a better world now without him. However, the desire to make the world a better place is not a good enough reason anymore. Now you must be stopping the production of nukes or suicide bombers to justify a war; feeding a country isn't enough (I know there are a lot of starving Iraqis right now, but they'll be far better off in 5 years than they would have been with Hussein). Like I said earlier, it's lucky for the Iraqis that Amercans get oil and control of the Persian gulf in return for ousting Saddam, just like the Amercans got a safe shipping route through the Meditteranean for ousting... what's his name?
As for whether or not Bush is a good president, the only thing I can think of that he has done which is not directly attributable to the economic climate or the state of the world in which he governs is the Patriot Act, a desperate grab for power by a government without the intellectual resources to think of a better solution than limiting its peoples' freedoms. It was enacted with by using the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to justify its necessity, a tactic which I find deplorable. It is on this one facet alone that I oppose the Bush government, not only for its foriegn policy but also for its national security policy as well.
(Milosevic)
You hit a point. Most Americans get their political thinking from the network news broadcast or highly biased internet locations. If it's not on TV chances are they won't have an opinion or care about it. That's why I bring up the media a lot. Yugoslavia has been mentioned before on AO but you are right. I bet a poll of people strictly outspoken opponents or proponents in the entire Serbian affair, have no clue about Slobodan or even where Serbia is on a map and the relation to the political landscape that was shaped during the conflict.
The constant reply is about "WAR" because a weapon of mass destruction is a media buzzword right now and a lot of Americans are force fed thought through television. Half the people I know can't name the top 4 positions in the United States government while at the same time spouting the latest popular news snippet and chewing what they believe is democracy or lack of depending on the slant. In a nutshell... clueless.
Nice point of view and post Striek.
dont u think that bush also sucks . he is the biggest sucker in the world
he s fighting where no fight is required . in iraq they had no wmd's & still bush shown them the hell
the ****ing pakis alwaya kills lots of people & there is no reaction there
so so he is a sucker & biggest of all
Lets look at who has the most to gain by the terrorists continued actions, Arafat coninues to controll his littel fifdom tenuasly as long as they act, as soon as they stop he very well may lose power. Sharon continuies to controll his fifdom as long as they act, as soon as the terrorist threat is gone he and the rest of the hardliners lose power....hum it seems that neither side has a vested interest in peace, untill taht changes israle should not get our suport.Quote:
Originally posted here by paulie walnuts
Ok, let's say that I except your premise for second. Who is the man who continues in terror, Sharon or Arafat?
I'll help you out, Arafat!
question for the conservatives, you are for smaller goverment and less govermental intervention in your privet life correct? Then how can you support a administration that has expanded the goverment, striped you of your privacy and freedom, and attempted to insert goverment controlled religion into schools and nonprofit organizations?