Who Will You Vote For..?

I'm not saying it would shatter the economy, I just thought you were underestimating how much 7% of the economy really is.
Oh, sorry about that. I couldn't think of a word between hurt and shatter, I guess.

Bush is going to drive this country to war again & to the ground after that. He has already requested an addl 75 bil (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/26/iraq.spending.ap/index.html) for the dept. of defense (DOD). What do you think this money is being spent on...? Special interests groups linked to the Presidents Admin. will indirectly see this money.

Did you know that the Saudis have 1 trillion dollars in our banks & if they ever decided to remove it our economy would be shattered. Call it what you want, but I call it extortion.


Regardless of the accuracy of this figure and w/out regard to the uniformity of these investments (i.e. assume "the Saudis" will w/draw or keep their investments as a unit and not act independently of each other) - Is it your contention that the Saudis are actually contemplating w/drawing these sums? Or are threatening to do so if we do not act in their interest? If so, what effect do you expect the election of Kerry to have? Will he a) continue to act under the threat of w/drawal? or b) refuse to do so and have the Saudis w/draw the funds, thus "shattering" the US economy?

As for the additional expenses, Kerry has promised to send an additional 40,000 men to Iraq. Hmmm, pay more to build infrastructure - Send more americans to be killed. Tough choice.

great post JR ;)

just like to point out as far as vietnam, we won militarily... it was a war where we weren't allowed to take out supply trails, weren't allowed to stop border crossings, weren't willing to fight (draftees forced to fight), etc...

When we went in i really thought it was rushed because bush had a vendetta against saddam (who tried to kill his father)... but i really believe he wanted to get rid of saddam for because of some moral sense of righteousness than any nefarious intents...

unlike korea, saddam had killed massive amounts of its own civillian population (with a potential WoMD (chemical gas), had invaded foreign countries, and had tried to kill foreign leaders... there were places in iraq that terrorist camps could exist, they (at one point) had a very very large military for the population and a massive system of secret police and toture, and had continued to buy military gear and support against sanctions... human rights and sanctions violations aside, they did possess a legitimate military threat to all neighboring countries...

they problem we have now is that rebuilding an occupied country is hard, especially without the support of the local population (and besides japan and the phillipines (both supportive populations), our track record is BAD)... and if we pull out now, there's a huge chance of anarchy followed by either another tyrant or a militant islamic state, both vitriolic in their hatred of the US... (ie, will have gone from bad to worse)... its not like we can just pull out and pretend it never happened.

in north korea, they are starving their ppl, most do not have electricity...the average height for a person is nearly a foot less than in south korea because of the malnutrition. all of the food goes to the army. the dictator there is arguable more insane than sadaam was. Also, people dont seem to get that sadaam and osama bin ladin are total opposites. sadaam is secular, and osama is a radical muslim. that is huge, because everything osama did was for his religion, and in defense of his god. one could argue that WE, america harbor terrorists, albeit unintentionally (by living in our towns, staying in our hospitals, etc.). Just because they are within borders, does not mean that we are supporting them...

in north korea, they are starving their ppl, most do not have electricity...the average height for a person is nearly a foot less than in south korea because of the malnutrition. all of the food goes to the army. the dictator there is arguable more insane than sadaam was. Also, people dont seem to get that sadaam and osama bin ladin are total opposites. sadaam is secular, and osama is a radical muslim. that is huge, because everything osama did was for his religion, and in defense of his god.

Like someone else said, N Korea is being backed by China, who just happens to have a few billion people right next to N Korea, along w/ weapons. If something happens there, that will be a huge mess (exponentially worse than anything you could imagine Iraq being at the moment).

one could argue that WE, america harbor terrorists, albeit unintentionally (by living in our towns, staying in our hospitals, etc.). Just because they are within borders, does not mean that we are supporting them...

We are actively trying to catch the terrorists, while Saddam was not.

in north korea, they are starving their ppl, most do not have electricity...the average height for a person is nearly a foot less than in south korea because of the malnutrition. all of the food goes to the army. the dictator there is arguable more insane than sadaam was. Also, people dont seem to get that sadaam and osama bin ladin are total opposites. sadaam is secular, and osama is a radical muslim. that is huge, because everything osama did was for his religion, and in defense of his god. one could argue that WE, america harbor terrorists, albeit unintentionally (by living in our towns, staying in our hospitals, etc.). Just because they are within borders, does not mean that we are supporting them...


And your point about N. Korea is ...? They are a threat to world stability b/c of their horrible economic conditions? That we should invade even though the country is incapable of supporting any sort of sustained offensive?

Yes.. Saddam, originally and through the Baathists, was a secular ruler. In his final years, however, SH played heavily on his Sunni origins and invoked Allah as a political prop. Certainly, whether driven there by UN sanctions or through political opportunism, SH was beginning to develop contacts with Al Queada in the lead up to the US invasion.

Finally, it is absurd to equate the presence of terrorists in america as "harboring them". While SH may not have been an active supporter of Al Queada, he most assuredly did play the "hear no evil, see no evil" routine with terrorists living in his borders. Unlike most allied countries, SH did expel terrorists within his own borders or to prosecute them.

As a word of advice, I suggest that, if you do know the location of any al-queada operatives, you turn them over to your local authorities.

i was just saying that that guys' argument did not prove anything because north korea was just as bad in that regerd. he said that sadaam was killing his own ppl, and in north korea they are basically doin the same...thats my point

i was just saying that that guys' argument did not prove anything because north korea was just as bad in that regerd. he said that sadaam was killing his own ppl, and in north korea they are basically doin the same...thats my point

Well, not quite... We said that SH had used WMD's on his own population which, to my knowledge and despite its otherwise terrible human rights issues, N.Korea has not done.

More importantly - the use of WMD's on his own population and lack of basic human rights was only one part of the equation presented by SH's Iraq. Importantly, prior to the invasion, SH had demonstrated his willingness to make war on other countries in the region. Further, in doing so, he was once again willing to deploy and use WMD's. As I said earlier, N.Korea has demonstrated none of these last characteristics.

So while, yes, there are similarities between SH's Iraq and the current situation in N.Korea - There are also significant differences as to the threat posed by each. To point to the similarities, while ignoring the differences, and proclaim our logic faulty is, itself, false logic.

All your post does is highlight Bush's diplomatic flexibility and his ability to deal appropriately with the threats presented by differing situations (LOL, Okay - I just threw that in there to make Matty and the rest of you lefties gag!):stop:

Did you know that the Saudis have 1 trillion dollars in our banks & if they ever decided to remove it our economy would be shattered. Call it what you want, but I call it extortion.

you know who has even more of our money? the japanese... lots and lots of countries invest heavily in the US because of its stability... I don't really see anyone taking out that kind of money because they'd lose all the compounded interest collection, the transfer would be a total PitA, and there's no gaurantee the next holder will be any better...

the economy of such things as buying and selling goods would generally be unaffected, since this is bank money the most likely effects would be higher car and home loan rates (and could affect corporate borrowing, but companies operating on profit wouldn't be hit too badly)...

Big C, i never said osama and saddam were EVER in cahoots... and again, N korea is horrible on human rights, but it has not made war on neighboring countries or used WMDs, has not broken war sanctions to buy military equipment, and has not TRIED TO KILL AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT etc...

Saddam presented a much clearer and immediate military threat, whether the invasion was justified or not is up for debate, but iraq has been (in near history) a much greater overt threat, whereas korea has just talked the talk...

READ THIS & REALIZE

Sage Francis - Make Shift Patroit Lyrics

Makeshift Patriot
The Flag Shop Is Out Of Stock
Hang Myself...Half Mast

Makeshift Patriot
The Flag Shop is Out of Stock
I hang myself...via live telecast

Coming live from my own funeral...the beautiful weather offered
a nice shine
Which is suitable for a full view of a forever altered skyline
It's times like these I freestyle biased opinions every other
sentence
My journalistic ethics slip when I pass them off as objective
'Don't gimme that ethical shit.'
I've got exclusive, explicit images to present to impressionable
American kids
And it's time to show this world how big our edifice is!

That's exactly what they attacked when a typically dark skinned
Disney villain
Used civilians against civilians and charged the trojan horses
into our buildings
Using commercial aviation as instruments of destruction
Pregnant women couldn't protect their children
Wheelchairs were stairway obstructions
Now I have to back petal...from the shower of glass and metal
Wondering how after it settles we'll find who provided power to
radical rebels
The Melting Pot seems to be calling the kettle black when it
boils over
But only on our own soil so the little boy holds a toy soldier..
And waits for the suit and tie to come home. We won't wait 'til
he's older
Before we destroy hopes for a colder war to end
'Now get a close up of his head...'

Makeshift Patriot
The Flag Shop Is Out Of Stock
Hang Myself...Half Mast

Makeshift Patriot
The Flag Shop is Out of Stock
I hang myself while the stock markets crash

The city is covered in inches of muck
I see some other pictures of victims are up
Grieving mothers are thinking their children are stuck
Leaping lovers are making decisions to jump
While holding hands...to escape the brutal heat
Sometimes in groups of the three
The fall out goes far beyond the toxic cloud where people look
like debris
But all they saw after all was said...beyond the talking heads

Was bloody dust with legs looking like the walking dead calling
for meds
Hospitals are overwhelmed. volunteers need to go the hell home
Moments of silence for fire fighters were interupted by cell
phones
Who's going to make that call to increase an unknown death toll?
It's the one we rally behind
He's got a megaphone...and he's promising to make heads roll
So we cheer him on, but asbestos is affecting our breath control
The less we know...the more they fabricate...the easier it is to
sell souls
An addictive 24 hour candle light vigil in TV's
Freedom WILL be defended...at the cost of civil liberties
Viewers are glued to television screens
Stuck... cause lots of things seem too sick
I use opportunities to pluck heart strings for theme music

I'll show you which culture to punp your fist at and what foot
is right to kiss
We don't know who the culprit is yet...but he looks like this
We know who the heros are. Not the xenophobes who act hard
'We taught that dog to squat.
How dare he do that shit in our own back yard!'

They happened to scar our financial state and char our landscape
Can you count how many times so far I ran back this same damn
tape?
While a camera man creates news and shoves it down our throats
on the West Bank
With a 10 second clip put on constant loop to provoke US angst

So get your tanks and load your guns and hold your sons in a
family huddle
Because even if we win this tug of war and even the
score...humanity struggles
There's a desperate need of blood for what's been uncovered
under the rubble
Some of them dug for answers in the mess...but the rest were
looking for trouble

Makeshift Patriot
The Flag Shop Is Out Of Stock
Hang Myself...Half Mast

Makeshift Patriot
The Flag Shop is Out of Stock
I hang myself, don't waive your rights with your flags