Thread: United States of BOO!

Excepts from Michael Moore's book which I have.
p96
Americans are rarely targets of international terrorism, and almost never on U.S. soil.
In the year 2000, your chance as an American of being killed in a terrorist attack in the United States was exactly zero. In 2002, your chance of dying in a terrorist incident was, again, ZERO. And in 2003, as of this writing, the total number of people to die in the United States from acts of terror? Zero. Even in the tragic year of 2001, your chance as an American of dying in an act of terrorism in this country was 1 in 100,000.
In 2001, you had a greater chance of dying from the flu or pneumonia (1 in 4,500), from taking your own life (1 in 9,200), being a homicide victim (1 in 14,000), or riding in a car (1 in 6,500).
p97
We have come to believe that we are in harm's way, that any of us anywhere in this vast country could die at any time. Never mind that the chances of that happening are virtually nil. A mass psychosis has gripped the country; I'm part of it, you're part of it, and even high-ranking generals ' who now weep openly are part of it.
p101
Why has our government gone to such absurd lengths to convince us our lives are in danger? The answer is nothing short of their feverish desire to rule the world, first by controlling us, and then, in turn, getting us to support their efforts to dominate the rest of the planet. Sounds crazy, huh? It reads more like a movie script, doesn't it? But Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft/Wall Street/Fortune 500 see this post-September-1 1-America-in-fear as their moment- a moment handed to them by fate, via the terrorists-to seize the reins and ram the USA down the throats of any people in the world who dare question who is number one...
They know that real Americans are not into dominating anyone, so they have to sell it to us in fancy packaging-and that package is FEAR. In order to properly scare us, they need a big, bad enemy. Once the Soviet Union disappeared, Bush Sr. couldn't figure it out. Before he knew it, Clinton had given him the boot. The right wing was out in the cold, but they had eight long years to plot their return.
To their rescue came a high-powered political think-tank, The Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which argued that America should have but one goal: an unchallengeable, military-imposed, U.S.-run world.
They took their first step on January 26, 1998, in an open letter to President Clinton. PNAC neoconservatives Paul Wolfowitz and William Kristol, along with Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle, warned that the policy of containing Iraq was "dangerously inadequate" and the aim of U.S. foreign policy must be "removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power."
When Bush Jr. seized power in 2000, he turned the Pentagon over to this radical right-wing nut group. After September 11, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz (now Rumsfeld's deputy secretary of defense), and the war crowd immediately pushed an attack on Iraq as one of the first actions in the new Permanent War Against Terror. Their next act: rush through a $400 BILLION defense budget, including $70 billion for new weapons.
Because of September 11, Wolfowitz and his right-wing hawk buddies had found the enemy they could sell to the public. Former Clinton CIA director James Woolsey joined in, declaring that World War IV had begun (the Cold War being "WWIII"). By this thinking, the "War on Terror" would be unilateral and without limits; it could last as long as the Cold War (fifty years) or longer, maybe forever. And if you don't believe me, maybe Donald Rumsfeld can convince you: "[I]t undoubtedly will prove to be a lot more like a cold war than a hot war," Rummy said. "If you think about it, in the Cold War it took fifty years, plus or minus. It did not involve major battles. It involved continuous pressure.... It strikes me that that might be a more appropriate way to think about what we are up against here."
Wow-a war without end. If you get the people to believe this, they'll let you do anything, just as long as it's in the name of protecting them. This is Bush's version of the old mafia protection racket. There's somebody out there who's gonna mess you up. Osama, he did it! Saddam, he did it! Those crazy ayatollahs, they might do it! North Korea, they could do it! Hello, PLO! We'll protect you, just give us all your money and all your rights. And keep our trap shut!
p103
How many of our freedoms and our children are we willing to sacrifice just so [neoconservative hawks] ... can line their pockets with all the money that can be made from a terrified nation and a permanent war?
p103
It is my firm belief that Bush and his cronies (especially Attorney General John Ashcroft) have only one goal in mind: To scare the bejesus out of us so that whatever bill they want passed, whatever powers they want Congress to give them, we will happily hand it over.
p104
Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold was the only true patriot in the Senate that day, casting the sole dissenting vote [against the USA Patriot Act] as he stood and spoke these eloquent words:
There have been periods in our nation's history when civil liberties have taken a backseat to what appeared at the same time to be the legitimate exigencies of war. Our national consciousness still bears the stain and the scars of those events: The Alien and Sedition Acts, the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, the internment of Japanese-Americans, German-Americans, and Italian-Americans during World War II, the blacklisting of supposed communist sympathizers during the McCarthy era, and the surveillance and harassment of antiwar protestors, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during the Vietnam War. We must not allow these pieces of our past to become prologue.
p104
The "Patriot" act is as un-American as Mein Kampf.
p106
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, few members of Congress actually read the final version of the [USA Patriot Act] act. It was perhaps the most reckless and irresponsible action our Congress has ever taken.
p109
The Bush administration has never let the law limit its bigger goals. Bush maintains that he has the inherent power as commander in chief-i.e., without any basis in the laws of our country-to label anyone an "enemy combatant," then lock them up and throw away the key. According to this novel approach-a wholesale violation of international law and everything this country stands for-an enemy combatant is a person with no legal rights whatsoever.
p111
Six hundred and eighty people-including three children ages thirteen to sixteen-are incarcerated there [Guantanamo Bay] indefinitely. No charges, no sentence to serve, no lawyers, no nothing. Is it any wonder there have been 28 suicide attempts among those imprisoned there?

We need protection from our own multi-millionaire, corporate terrorists, the ones who rip off our old-age pensions, destroy the environment, deplete irreplaceable fossil fuels in the name of profit, deny us our right to universal health care, take peoples' jobs away whenever the mood hits them. What do you call a 19 percent increase in the homeless and the hungry from 2001 to 2002? Are these not acts of terrorism? Do they not cost lives? Is it not all part of a calculated plan to inflict pain on the poor and the working poor, just so that a few rich men can get even richer?
We have our own "terrorists" to deal with, and we need our entire focus returned to them so that we can one day live in a country where the people once again pick the president, a country where the wealthy learn that they have to pay for their actions. A free country, a safe country, a peaceful country that genuinely shares its riches with the less fortunate around the world, a country that believes in everyone getting a fair shake, and where fear is seen as the only thing we truly need to fear.

How to Stop Terrorism
p122
Five percent of the world's population (that's us) use up 25 percent of the entire world's energy resources, and the well off 16 percent, mostly the U.S., Europe, and Japan, use up 80 percent of the world's goods.
p124
When they kill civilians we call it terrorism. But we drop bombs on Iraq, and more than 6,000 Iraqi civilians are slaughtered. We then apologize for the "spillover." Al Qaeda bombs the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 3,000 are slaughtered, and it's terrorism. But what right did we have to drop bombs on Iraq's civilian population? Were those civilians threatening any of our lives? I thought the only time you can take another's life is when they are about to take yours-or did I miss something somewhere?
p125
Only after we smash every atom bomb into depleted uranium ploughshares will we have the right to tell North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel, and the rest that THEY don't need such weapons.
p126
1984 by George Orwell
"The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought."
"All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations."
"They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening."
"The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their slave. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw him into prison, or they could take his job away and starve him to death. When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap and address him as "Sir."
p127
Remember that lesson about treating people the way you would like to be treated? It still works! When you treat people well, 99.9 percent of the time they respond in kind. What if our entire foreign policy was based on that novel concept? What if we were known as the country that sought first to help people instead of seeking first to exploit them for their labor or their natural resources? What if we were known as the country that shared its incredible wealth-shared it even to the point where it might mean that we go without some of the luxuries we're accustomed to? How would the poor and desperate around the globe feel toward us then? Wouldn't this reduce our chances of being victims of terrorist attacks? Wouldn't it be a better world to live in all around? Isn't it the right thing to do?
p128
The only true security comes from ensuring that all people, here and around the globe, are able to meet their basic needs and dream of a better life. At the very least, we have to make damn sure we are not the ones robbing them of that dream.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From "Dude, Where's My Country?"

sounds just like the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto! Maybe he could move to Cuba...fat undisciplined slobs are welcomed there!

Gadhafi shoots down an American plane filled with college students, but now I guess he'd rather have those sweet oil deals that Cheney's been hawking.

Originally Posted by Blackleaf

Excepts from Michael Moore's book which I have.
p96
Americans are rarely targets of international terrorism, and almost never on U.S. soil.
In the year 2000, your chance as an American of being killed in a terrorist attack in the United States was exactly zero. In 2002, your chance of dying in a terrorist incident was, again, ZERO. And in 2003, as of this writing, the total number of people to die in the United States from acts of terror? Zero. Even in the tragic year of 2001, your chance as an American of dying in an act of terrorism in this country was 1 in 100,000.
In 2001, you had a greater chance of dying from the flu or pneumonia (1 in 4,500), from taking your own life (1 in 9,200), being a homicide victim (1 in 14,000), or riding in a car (1 in 6,500).
p97
We have come to believe that we are in harm's way, that any of us anywhere in this vast country could die at any time. Never mind that the chances of that happening are virtually nil. A mass psychosis has gripped the country; I'm part of it, you're part of it, and even high-ranking generals ' who now weep openly are part of it.
p101
Why has our government gone to such absurd lengths to convince us our lives are in danger? The answer is nothing short of their feverish desire to rule the world, first by controlling us, and then, in turn, getting us to support their efforts to dominate the rest of the planet. Sounds crazy, huh? It reads more like a movie script, doesn't it? But Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft/Wall Street/Fortune 500 see this post-September-1 1-America-in-fear as their moment- a moment handed to them by fate, via the terrorists-to seize the reins and ram the USA down the throats of any people in the world who dare question who is number one...
They know that real Americans are not into dominating anyone, so they have to sell it to us in fancy packaging-and that package is FEAR. In order to properly scare us, they need a big, bad enemy. Once the Soviet Union disappeared, Bush Sr. couldn't figure it out. Before he knew it, Clinton had given him the boot. The right wing was out in the cold, but they had eight long years to plot their return.
To their rescue came a high-powered political think-tank, The Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which argued that America should have but one goal: an unchallengeable, military-imposed, U.S.-run world.
They took their first step on January 26, 1998, in an open letter to President Clinton. PNAC neoconservatives Paul Wolfowitz and William Kristol, along with Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle, warned that the policy of containing Iraq was "dangerously inadequate" and the aim of U.S. foreign policy must be "removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power."
When Bush Jr. seized power in 2000, he turned the Pentagon over to this radical right-wing nut group. After September 11, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz (now Rumsfeld's deputy secretary of defense), and the war crowd immediately pushed an attack on Iraq as one of the first actions in the new Permanent War Against Terror. Their next act: rush through a $400 BILLION defense budget, including $70 billion for new weapons.
Because of September 11, Wolfowitz and his right-wing hawk buddies had found the enemy they could sell to the public. Former Clinton CIA director James Woolsey joined in, declaring that World War IV had begun (the Cold War being "WWIII"). By this thinking, the "War on Terror" would be unilateral and without limits; it could last as long as the Cold War (fifty years) or longer, maybe forever. And if you don't believe me, maybe Donald Rumsfeld can convince you: "[I]t undoubtedly will prove to be a lot more like a cold war than a hot war," Rummy said. "If you think about it, in the Cold War it took fifty years, plus or minus. It did not involve major battles. It involved continuous pressure.... It strikes me that that might be a more appropriate way to think about what we are up against here."
Wow-a war without end. If you get the people to believe this, they'll let you do anything, just as long as it's in the name of protecting them. This is Bush's version of the old mafia protection racket. There's somebody out there who's gonna mess you up. Osama, he did it! Saddam, he did it! Those crazy ayatollahs, they might do it! North Korea, they could do it! Hello, PLO! We'll protect you, just give us all your money and all your rights. And keep our trap shut!
p103
How many of our freedoms and our children are we willing to sacrifice just so [neoconservative hawks] ... can line their pockets with all the money that can be made from a terrified nation and a permanent war?
p103
It is my firm belief that Bush and his cronies (especially Attorney General John Ashcroft) have only one goal in mind: To scare the bejesus out of us so that whatever bill they want passed, whatever powers they want Congress to give them, we will happily hand it over.
p104
Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold was the only true patriot in the Senate that day, casting the sole dissenting vote [against the USA Patriot Act] as he stood and spoke these eloquent words:
There have been periods in our nation's history when civil liberties have taken a backseat to what appeared at the same time to be the legitimate exigencies of war. Our national consciousness still bears the stain and the scars of those events: The Alien and Sedition Acts, the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, the internment of Japanese-Americans, German-Americans, and Italian-Americans during World War II, the blacklisting of supposed communist sympathizers during the McCarthy era, and the surveillance and harassment of antiwar protestors, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during the Vietnam War. We must not allow these pieces of our past to become prologue.
p104
The "Patriot" act is as un-American as Mein Kampf.
p106
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, few members of Congress actually read the final version of the [USA Patriot Act] act. It was perhaps the most reckless and irresponsible action our Congress has ever taken.
p109
The Bush administration has never let the law limit its bigger goals. Bush maintains that he has the inherent power as commander in chief-i.e., without any basis in the laws of our country-to label anyone an "enemy combatant," then lock them up and throw away the key. According to this novel approach-a wholesale violation of international law and everything this country stands for-an enemy combatant is a person with no legal rights whatsoever.
p111
Six hundred and eighty people-including three children ages thirteen to sixteen-are incarcerated there [Guantanamo Bay] indefinitely. No charges, no sentence to serve, no lawyers, no nothing. Is it any wonder there have been 28 suicide attempts among those imprisoned there?

The only problem is that the alternative is John Kerry who still says he thinks the war in Iraq should have happened, only with U.N. approval. So you go from a president who wants to take over the world to a international organization that pretty much wants to do the same thing.

Originally Posted by partofme

The only problem is that the alternative is John Kerry who still says he thinks the war in Iraq should have happened, only with U.N. approval. So you go from a president who wants to take over the world to a international organization that pretty much wants to do the same thing.

If we would have gone through the normal UN processes, the war probably would have never happened. Bush kicked the inspectors out because he knew they wouldn't find anything to justify his war.

Originally Posted by Bert Juneau

If we would have gone through the normal UN processes, the war probably would have never happened. Bush kicked the inspectors out because he knew they wouldn't find anything to justify his war.

Don't let something like "facts" get in the way of your "HAte-Bush"- "blame-republicans" screed.

As good logicians are wont to note, the existence of a thing is indisputable proof of its possibility. That said, a whole lot of people have a whole lot of 'splaining to do about their categorical claims that deposed Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction and didn't collude with Jihadi terrorists. Not that we expect them to 'fess up for being wrong -- being anti-American means never having to say you're sorry.

For, lo, we now have demonstrable evidence of Jihadi terrorists and WMD in Iraq. We now have confirmation of the very confluence that President Bush cited a half year before hostilities commenced as the "gravest danger in the war on terror" -- which formed the rationale for taking the war with Jihadistan into Iraq. A 155-millimeter howitzer shell, part of an improvised explosive device, exploded Saturday in Iraq. The IED contained 3 to 4 liters of sarin gas, a deadly nerve agent; two U.S. soldiers were exposed while attempting to disarm the bomb and were treated. An IED discovered a couple of weeks ago was confirmed to contain mustard gas. A "perfume factory" also recently exploded, apparently rigged to self-destruct around unauthorized entrants. Other "dual use" chemicals have been uncovered suspiciously near military facilities -- calling into serious question whether these were dedicated to peaceful civilian purposes only.

Of course, these small quantities of WMD constitute only what Saddam's minions failed to hide or export to Syria prior to the Allied invasion. In October 2002, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi WMD estimated that Saddam had from 100 to 500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents.

Our staff analysts remain convinced that unknown quantities of chemical and biological WMD, and components of Saddam's nuclear WMD, were spirited out of Iraq well in advance of the anticipated Allied invasion. This belief is consistent with our analysis in October of 2002 that the UN Security Council's foot-dragging provided a large window for Saddam to export some of his biological and nuclear WMD. At that time, this column reported that it would be unlikely Allied Forces would discover Iraq's WMD stores in Iraq, noting, "There are substantial intelligence estimates that Iraq shipped some or all of its biological stockpiles and nuclear WMD components through Syria to Lebanon's heavily fortified Bekaa Valley."

Indeed, as reported here three weeks ago, some of the chemical WMD discovered during the thwarting of a planned al-Qa'ida attack in Jordan appear to have come from Syria. But given that Syria does not possess the technology to produce such chemicals, one can reasonably conclude (unless you are the Demo-nominee for president) that this cache was compliments of Iraq, by way of Syria.

So, that mindless Left-mantra, "Saddam didn't have WMD," has, again, been thoroughly discredited. More to the point, though, if these WMD escaped detection and were used against coalition troops, isn't it very likely there are more?

And last week the world witnessed a masked man, self-identified in a videotape and now confirmed to be al-Qa'ida terror chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, butchering an American citizen (link to the article "Scripting the execution of Nicholas Berg" at http://federalist.com/alexander/ ). This Jihadi leader -- in Iraq -- intended the propaganda snuff film to rally potential allies to jihad, to cow Iraqi fence-sitters into deeper neutrality, and to demoralize those opposing Jihadi objectives. Like the WMD discovered this week, al-Zarqawi was in Iraq long before coalition forces launched Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In his State of the Union Address on September 28, 2003, the President identified "the gravest danger facing America and the world" as "outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons" and "could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation."

President Bush made the case: "Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack. ... Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and abets terrorists, including members of al-Qa'ida. Secretly, without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own."

And as for another Left-chant, "The threat wasn't imminent," the President explicitly argued that intelligence couldn't guarantee such finely calibrated assessments: "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late."

This week Lt. Gen. Patrick Hughes (Ret.), now with the Department of Homeland Security, offered the analysis that the Jihadis would prefer to attack here within the U.S. using chemical or biological weapons, or possibly a "dirty bomb" laced with nuclear contaminants. He specifically mentioned anthrax, as it was successfully used just after the 9/11 assaults, and ricin, planned for use by terror suspects picked up in other locales.

As far as apologies owed, you may recall the screed mere days ago of Los Angeles Times Editor John Carroll, who disdainfully dismissed non-Leftmedia types as "pseudo-journalists." Carroll stated, "You may be familiar with a study published last October on the public misconceptions about the war in Iraq. One of those misconceptions was that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction had been found. Another was that links had been proven between Iraq and al-Qa'ida."

For Mr. Carroll's edification: When WMD explode, they most definitely become found. And when al-Qa'ida videotape themselves in Iraq claiming to be at the essential battleground, they most definitely prove a link.