A letter to Kerry

[Ranger12 53]

ranger this isn't a political campaign brother. i'm not campaigning for or against bush. we're having a discussion of the factors leading up to our occupation of iraq. i said a few posts back that if we'd stated that we were going into iraq for human rights then this discussion wouldn't be necessary.

i'll tell you what one of my REPUBLICAN friends told me the other day. saddam didn't pose a threat to america b/c all guys like him want is to rule his country. he's obsessed with running his country and he'd do anything to assure that he remained in control. he'd kill his brother if it would keep him at the seat of power. attack american soil is not going to keep him in power. cuba isn't threat to america. north korea isn't a threat to america. neither was iraq.

and that came from a guy who voted for dole and bush and is about to vote for bush again. and ranger, you do not ASSUME someone has something b/c the president of united states cannot ASSUME anything. you know. you're the most powerful man in the world, and as they say, assumption is mother of error. that kind of power, you can't be wrong on things like this. i'm not blaming 9/11 on bush. no one could've predicted that i don't care what anyone says. it's called "unprecedented" for a reason. i do blame bush for rushing into a war that we had no business starting on the grounds he stated.

You say it is not a polilical campaign against Bush, but yet you are spewing the same politicized rhetoric that the liberals are saying about the war. Please tell me what the difference is?

[mcgufcm 4,109]

really? same stuff? so a TON of dems are saying bush wasn't to blame for 9/11. all democrats are saying that huh? if you think so, so be it.

and no, saddam wasn't a threat to american soil. was a threat to israel? maybe, but he's never directly attacked them. i'm not apoligizing for saddam. he's nuts, and the world is a better place without guys like him; i'm just saying we went about it for all the wrong reasons. and right now, i don't think your family is any safer than it was pre-iraq. we did a great thing in afghanistan. did we do a morally correct thing in iraq? probably, time will tell. when the dust settles it may be worse. but we did it for all the wrong reasons. you can say wmds weren't the whole reason, but i didn't hear the british prime minister or colin powell reference much else. they vaguely said iraq was funding terrorist cells... take those out. anyone and everyone would have jumped on that bandwagon. all i asked for was honesty. and i didn't get it.

oh and try taking, "i thought the speed limit was 70. it's not my fault i didn't know" into court. see how far that gets you. ignorance with negative impact on society is the same as lying in america.

[Ranger12 53]

Again, were we supposed to wait for him to do something on American soil before we did something.

Who are you talking about, Saddam or Hitler?

I was talking about Saddam TA, but I guess I could have talked about both. You have to wonder what would have happened if Hitler would not have been defeated. We probably woud not have the British for allies, which would have changed alot of our history since WWII.

MCGUFCM, I thought you said it was not political, but your last post sure sounded political to me. Again, you sound just like a politicized democrat getting hung up on the WMDs and trying ot blame Bush, instead of seeing the fact and evil man is no longer in power. Spin it all you want, but the fact is that Saddam had WMDs at one and he went against UN sanctions by not letting inspectors in. This was cause enough to make every suspicious of him, including all the liberals who are know doing a 180 from their previous documented comments. Hindsight is 20/20, but if we would have, and we could still, find WMDs, then you will see them do another 180 and try to see the believed Saddam had them this whole time. I am surprised these guys are not continually getting dizzy and sick from all the waffling and spinning the do.

[MDM4AU 337]

was a threat to israel? maybe, but he's never directly attacked them

Don't forget the scuds in the Gulf War.

[mcgufcm 4,109]

true, honestly slipped my mind. so yeah, he attacked israel.

***Again, you sound just like a politicized democrat getting hung up on the WMDs and trying ot blame Bush, instead of seeing the fact and evil man is no longer in power. ***

if you feel like reviewing the posts on this topic, i've never once said bush was to blame for 9/11. i contend that he is to blame for lying, but then again, i thought clinton was to blame for that too. i suppose you want one to be guilty and the other not? who's the political man now?

i've also never once said that saddam was not an evil man. i've simply stated that we didn't have to trick people into expelling him. we could have easily claimed this as a human rights mission. we could have said the failure to compile with the UN was the reason... but we didn't. we said "they have wmds and we can prove it." when we didn't prove it, republicans basically said "screw you guys! what you don't want iraqis to be free??? you think saddam should have been left in power???" what is that? it wasn't the issue. the issue is the lying.

i was just watching fox news (wow, i know... that must be tough for you to believe that i watch fox news), and the guy on hannity and colmes was screaming at a rep for john kerry. why? he questioned him on the issue of whether kerry threw his own medals on the steps in DC in 1971. he said "this is an important issue for me b/c it gets at the heart of whether kerry is an honest man." then why was bush given a free pass on your station for lying about his reasons to invade iraq?

i am not saying the final product of expunging saddam is bad. but just b/c your lie worked out well that doesn't make lying okay. that's all i'm saying. sorry if you don't agree with that, but that's the crazy way i look at the world. lying is wrong.

[Tiger Al 0]

we said "they have wmds and we can prove it." when we didn't prove it, republicans basically said "screw you guys! what you don't want iraqis to be free??? you think saddam should have been left in power???" what is that?

Don't you recognize a bait and switch when you see one??? Shady car salesman use it all the time, too.

Again, were we supposed to wait for him (Saddam) to do something on American soil before we did something.

What exactly was he going to do something with?

you sound just like a politicized democrat getting hung up on the WMDs and trying ot blame Bush

You're marching to the beat of this administration very well. The pattern is...make a dishonest statement, deny it for a few weeks and then claim that anyone who remembers the lie is looking in the past when we should be looking ahead.

Do you guys wear brown shirts?

[Tigermike 3,657]

What exactly was he going to do something with?

How about money Al. Sodom paid suicide murders and their families. He funded terrorists training camps. With all the money he was getting from the United Nations oil for food scam, there is no telling what he might have been able to fund. But one thing is for sure, he won't now will he?

[Tiger Al 0]

What exactly was he going to do something with?

How about money Al. Sodom paid suicide murders and their families. He funded terrorists training camps. With all the money he was getting from the United Nations oil for food scam, there is no telling what he might have been able to fund. But one thing is for sure, he won't now will he?

Sounds good but it doesn't work...the camps were being run in the US/UK controlled area in northern Iraq. The money went to Hamas who has never attacked any US entities. Their beef is with Israel. If the war on terror is to be fought like the war on drugs then the result will be the same. As long as there is a demand for terrorists there will always be someone who can and will meet that demand. Let's address the demand side as well. I realize it isn't as sexy as blowing things up, but I think it would get results and it wouldn't alienate our friends and allies in the world.

[channonc 466]

How about money Al. Sodom paid suicide murders and their families. He funded terrorists training camps.

Ok, so does Saudi Arabia, and so far this administration still pretends like they are the greatest allies in the ME. Are you saying that we need to attack them too?

The Middle East is full of hatred toward Israel and America. "Liberating" them won't change that one bit.

[Tigermike 3,657]

And none of them have changed their minds have they? Libya has seen the light so to speak, Pakistan has seemingly turned around, the citizens of Iran are pushing for reform, Syria knows it needs to clean up. But nothing good or of lasting value has come from this administration has it? You democrats are right if Kerry had been president we would not be in a war in Iraq. We would be fighting in Atlanta, Chicago, Dearborn, Philadelphia, San Francisco.

[CCTAU 3,454]

How about money Al. Sodom paid suicide murders and their families. He funded terrorists training camps.

Ok, so does Saudi Arabia, and so far this administration still pretends like they are the greatest allies in the ME. Are you saying that we need to attack them too?

The Middle East is full of hatred toward Israel and America. "Liberating" them won't change that one bit.

I'm not so sure it has been established that the Saudi government funds terrorists. Some of its citizens maybe. They are as wealthy as many governments. BUT Sadaam was a state government which makes it a little different. I'm not defending the Saudi's. I think we should squoosh them like bugs. But the situation is different.

[channonc 466]

How about money Al. Sodom paid suicide murders and their families. He funded terrorists training camps.

Ok, so does Saudi Arabia, and so far this administration still pretends like they are the greatest allies in the ME. Are you saying that we need to attack them too?

The Middle East is full of hatred toward Israel and America. "Liberating" them won't change that one bit.

I'm not so sure it has been established that the Saudi government funds terrorists. Some of its citizens maybe. They are as wealthy as many governments. BUT Sadaam was a state government which makes it a little different. I'm not defending the Saudi's. I think we should squoosh them like bugs. But the situation is different.

Are you really sure about that CCTAU? In 2002, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, released this:

Who Pays for Palestinian Terror?

By Matthew Levitt, senior fellow in terrorism studies

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Weekly Standard, August 25, 2003

Just three days before Palestinian terrorists violated the Palestinian-Israeli cease-fire with a pair of suicide bombings an hour apart, Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas denied that sources in Saudi Arabia fund Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas. Following meetings with Saudi Arabia's King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah in Jeddah, Abbas told reporters on August 9 that "Saudi financial assistance to needy Palestinians goes through the Palestinian Authority and not to militant groups."

Not so.  Unfortunately, Abbas's blanket exoneration of the Saudis indicates that, instead of addressing the problem of Palestinian terrorist groups seeking to undermine the peace process and their continued funding by Saudi benefactors, Palestinian leaders are now following the Saudi practice of denial.

Long after the identities of the September 11 hijackers were known, Saudi interior minister Prince Nayef continued to question whether 15 of the 19 hijackers were indeed Saudis. In an interview with the Arabic language weekly 'Ain al Yaqeen on November 29, 2002, Prince Nayef stated, "We put big question marks and ask who committed the events of September 11 and who benefited from them. Who benefited from [the] events of 9/11? I think they [the Zionists] are behind these events."

Saudi diplomats from Berlin to Los Angeles, as well as Saudi-funded religious organizations from Cambodia to Mauritania, have fallen within the purview of continuing international investigations of terrorism. Nonetheless, Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal responded to the redaction of 28 pages in the congressional report on the 9/11 attacks by insisting that Saudi Arabia is "an active and strong ally in the war on terrorism" and dismissing suspicion that Saudi individuals may have assisted the hijackers as "misguided speculation . . . born of poorly disguised malicious intent."

Prime Minister Abbas knows better. In December 2000, long before his appointment as prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas wrote a letter to Prince Salman, governor of Riyadh, complaining about Saudi funding of Palestinian terrorism. When Israeli forces raided the West Bank in Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002, they uncovered Abbas's letter, marked "personal," in which he noted that "the Saudi committee responsible for transferring the contributions to beneficiaries is sending large sums to radical committees and associations including the Islamic Association [al Jamiah al Islamiah] which belongs to Hamas, the al Salah Association, and brothers belonging to the Jihad in all areas."

Similarly, when Israeli forces raided the Tulkarm Charity Committee, they found material lauding Hamas suicide attacks and records showing the International Islamic Relief Organization, a Saudi charity deeply involved in terror financing, had donated at least $280,000 to the Tulkarm Charity Committee and other Palestinian organizations linked to Hamas. Israeli authorities found that many of the checks made out to Hamas organizations were drawn from the corporate account of al Rajhi Banking and Investment at Chase Bank. Several charitable and banking institutions tied to the al Rajhi banking family (including the SAAR Foundation in Northern Virginia) are under investigation as terrorist fronts.

In another example, Israeli authorities arrested Osama Zohadi Hamed Karika, a Hamas operative, as he attempted to leave Gaza via the Rafah border crossing in December 2001. Karika was found with documents detailing the development of the Qassam rockets Hamas has been shooting from Gaza into Israel in the last few years. He admitted under questioning that he was on his way to Saudi Arabia to brief unidentified persons on the development of the rockets and to obtain their funding for the project. Before his arrest, Karika had already made one successful trip to Saudi Arabia, where he had secured initial funding for the Qassam rocket program.

Not all such funding comes from organizations. In October 2002, Treasury Department undersecretary for enforcement Jimmy Gurule traveled to Europe armed with a list of "about a dozen of al Qaeda's principal financial backers, most of them wealthy Saudis." Gurule went to present his European counterparts with "specific information on selective, high-impact targets" in an effort to have them "designated terrorist financiers and have their assets blocked." Many of these individuals also fund Hamas, prompting Gurule to press his European counterparts "to reconsider the common European and official E.U. distinction made between political or social wings and military or terrorist wings of organizations such as Hamas."

Also in October 2002 -- the very month the Saudis released a new statement detailing their purported efforts to combat terrorist financing -- Crown Prince Abdullah personally invited Hamas leader Khaled Mishal to Saudi Arabia to attend a conference of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. The assembly, it should be noted, enjoys close ties to the royal family and has come under increased scrutiny for its own suspected ties to terrorist elements.

Responding to this week's suicide bombings, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan called dismantling Palestinian terror networks "the highest priority." And in an interview on Egyptian television, Secretary of State Powell criticized Hamas for stressing the temporary nature of the three-month cease-fire. Powell continued: "It is time to end the use of terror as a way of achieving a political objective. It's part of the solution for the Middle East. It's also part of the global campaign against terrorism."

If the administration means what Powell said, it will not be distracted from the issue of Saudi funding. The latest Hamas and Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade suicide bombings demonstrate once again that such groups cannot be co-opted. Indeed, between the money they have received from their Saudi backers and the opportunity the current cease-fire has provided them to regroup and rearm, Palestinian terrorist groups are if anything better funded and more capable now than they were before. So curbing their Saudi funding is more urgent than ever.

LINK

This even appeared in the Weekly Standard, a magazine I would hardly call liberal. Like I said, even the Saudis are funding terrorism and this administration has only slapped their hands.

[Tiger Al 0]

Wow, the leader of Saudi Arabia invites the leader of Hamas to a conference!

Channon, I will have to disagree with one point you made:

even the Saudis are funding terrorism and this administration has only slapped their hands.

When this legally appointed administration let a plane full of bin Ladens slip out of this country on 9/11, it gave the Saudis a full high five, not just a hand slap! Remember, with this group, it's not what you did but who you know.

[CCTAU 3,454]

Still hasn't been "established." As in proven. We all know that there are inproprieties in how the Saudi government has handled this. But they have not openly stood up and defied us like Sadaam did.

[channonc 466]

Please provide an example of Saddam "openly defying us." All I can gather from Saddam is deception and lies. I don't call that open defiance. But I would be interested in any articles you have seen to the contrary.

[Tiger Al 0]

Still hasn't been "established." As in proven. We all know that there are inproprieties in how the Saudi government has handled this. But they have not openly stood up and defied us like Sadaam did.

That sounds like the thief giving the the cop a cut makes it legal. Same situation with Iraq under Reagan/Bush/Quayle. He gasses Iranians and Kurds but, because he is our puppet, we look the other way.

[CCTAU 3,454]

Please provide an example of Saddam "openly defying us." All I can gather from Saddam is deception and lies. I don't call that open defiance. But I would be interested in any articles you have seen to the contrary.

Every time he defied the inspections and requests for documentation about his weapons, he openly defied us. He sure as hell wasn't openly defying the UN. He had already bought off 3 of the big five. So that was definitely spitting in the USs face. Sorry if you still can't see it that way. I know that sKerry is trying to get all liberals to worship at the UNs feet, but it ain't happening.

[Tigermike 3,657]

Sounds good but it doesn't work...the camps were being run in the US/UK controlled area in northern Iraq. The money went to Hamas who has never attacked any US entities. Their beef is with Israel. If the war on terror is to be fought like the war on drugs then the result will be the same. As long as there is a demand for terrorists there will always be someone who can and will meet that demand. Let's address the demand side as well. I realize it isn't as sexy as blowing things up, but I think it would get results and it wouldn't alienate our friends and allies in the world.

Abbas eventually made his way to Iraq where he was believed to be a conduit for Saddam Hussein's payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Abbas was captured by U.S. forces in a raid in Iraq on April 15, 2003. He died on March 9, 2004, at the age of 56 in U.S. custody in Iraq.

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Mabbas.html

[Tiger Al 0]

Sounds good but it doesn't work...the camps were being run in the US/UK controlled area in northern Iraq. The money went to Hamas who has never attacked any US entities. Their beef is with Israel. If the war on terror is to be fought like the war on drugs then the result will be the same. As long as there is a demand for terrorists there will always be someone who can and will meet that demand. Let's address the demand side as well. I realize it isn't as sexy as blowing things up, but I think it would get results and it wouldn't alienate our friends and allies in the world.

Abbas eventually made his way to Iraq where he was believed to be a conduit for Saddam Hussein's payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Abbas was captured by U.S. forces in a raid in Iraq on April 15, 2003. He died on March 9, 2004, at the age of 56 in U.S. custody in Iraq.

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Mabbas.html

Point???

[Tigermike 3,657]

Sounds good but it doesn't work...the camps were being run in the US/UK controlled area in northern Iraq. The money went to Hamas who has never attacked any US entities. Their beef is with Israel. If the war on terror is to be fought like the war on drugs then the result will be the same. As long as there is a demand for terrorists there will always be someone who can and will meet that demand. Let's address the demand side as well. I realize it isn't as sexy as blowing things up, but I think it would get results and it wouldn't alienate our friends and allies in the world.

Abbas eventually made his way to Iraq where he was believed to be a conduit for Saddam Hussein's payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Abbas was captured by U.S. forces in a raid in Iraq on April 15, 2003. He died on March 9, 2004, at the age of 56 in U.S. custody in Iraq.

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Mabbas.html

Point???

The point is and I think you know it, I said money, and you said "Sounds good but it doesn't work..." I provided information of Sodom using money for terrorist activities. That is the only point.

[Tiger Al 0]

The "sounds good but it doesn't work" part only applied to my point on camps. I didn't get your point because Abbas was involved with Hamas, so I doubted that you were merely reinforcing that point either.