the notion that Americas involvement in Iraq is "creating" terrorists

[akyron]

The UN has already come out and stated they did not give the US authorization to act unilaterally. It wasn't Bush's call.

Ok so bring on the impeachment. I wont hold my breath.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by akyron:
Ok so bring on the impeachment. I wont hold my breath.

You win! I have no comeback for a nuetered Congress.

 

[akyron]

You win! I have no comeback for a nuetered Congress.

Get real. Republicans hate his guts as much as anybody for wounding their chances at reelection and voting themselves payraises again.

If they could charge the president with anything they would.

 

[Billo_Really]

CIA: Osama Helped Bush in '04
By Robert Parry July 4, 2006

On Oct. 29, 2004, just four days before the U.S. presidential election, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden released a videotape denouncing George W. Bush. Some Bush supporters quickly spun the diatribe as “Osama’s endorsement of John Kerry.” But behind the walls of the CIA, analysts had concluded the opposite: that bin-Laden was trying to help Bush gain a second term.

This stunning CIA disclosure is tucked away in a brief passage near the end of Ron Suskind’s The One Percent Doctrine, which draws heavily from CIA insiders. Suskind wrote that the CIA analysts based their troubling assessment on classified information, but the analysts still puzzled over exactly why bin-Laden wanted Bush to stay in office.

According to Suskind’s book, CIA analysts had spent years “parsing each expressed word of the al-Qaeda leader and his deputy, [Ayman] Zawahiri. What they’d learned over nearly a decade is that bin-Laden speaks only for strategic reasons. …

“Their [the CIA’s] assessments, at day’s end, are a distillate of the kind of secret, internal conversations that the American public [was] not sanctioned to hear: strategic analysis. Today’s conclusion: bin-Laden’s message was clearly designed to assist the President’s reelection.

“At the five o’clock meeting, [deputy CIA director] John McLaughlin opened the issue with the consensus view: ‘Bin-Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President.’”

McLaughlin’s comment drew nods from CIA officers at the table. Jami Miscik, CIA deputy associate director for intelligence, suggested that the al-Qaeda founder may have come to Bush’s aid because bin-Laden felt threatened by the rise in Iraq of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; bin-Laden might have thought his leadership would be diminished if Bush lost the White House and their “eye-to-eye struggle” ended.

But the CIA analysts also felt that bin-Laden might have recognized how Bush’s policies – including the Guantanamo prison camp, the Abu Ghraib scandal and the endless bloodshed in Iraq – were serving al-Qaeda’s strategic goals for recruiting a new generation of jihadists.

By demanding an American surrender, bin-Laden knew U.S. voters would instinctively want to fight. That way bin-Laden helped ensure that George W. Bush would stay in power, would continue his clumsy “war on terror” – and would drive thousands of new recruits into al-Qaeda’s welcoming arms.

http://consortiumnews.com/2006/070306.html

Like I said, George Bush is al Qaeda's Man of the Year!

 

[akyron]

Like I said, George Bush is al Qaeda's Man of the Year!

I agree Osama wants confrontation.
One of his flaws I have noted is not recognizing when he has bitten off more than he can chew.

ie Afghanistan then Iraq

Expecting the play dead policies of the 90s really bit him.

He got his "thousands" of recruits when Islamic regimes released them and handed them plane tickets to the pakistan mountains and Iraq borders.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by akyron:
Get real. Republicans hate his guts as much as anybody for wounding their chances at reelection and voting themselves payraises again.

If they could charge the president with anything they would.

Get real! You are completely delusional if your trying to infer, up until recently, a hostile Congress towards the President. They have rubber-stamped practically everything he did. With a few exceptions, they were nothing more than "yes" men.

Congress has let the nation down by letting this rogue President trample all over our Constitutional rights, make this nation the most hated on earth and allowed him to get away with powers his office does not Constitutionally have.

Only within the past few months have they started to wake up. Which you should do as well.

Get real! You are too funny...

 

[akyron]

Get real! You are completely delusional if your trying to infer, up until recently, a hostile Congress towards the President. They have rubber-stamped practically everything he did. With a few exceptions, they were nothing more than "yes" men.

Congress has let the nation down by letting this rogue President trample all over our Constitutional rights, make this nation the most hated on earth and allowed him to get away with powers his office does not Constitutionally have.

Only within the past few months have they started to wake up. Which you should do as well.

Get real! You are too funny...

If they can find any wrong doing they would and should charge him immediately.

I wont hold my breath waiting. Not liking him isnt a crime ....yet.


massive sale at frys today btw. many dvds are 5 bucks or so. I wanted to pick up 3 kings among other things.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by akyron:
If they can find any wrong doing they would and should charge him immediately.

I wont hold my breath waiting.


massive sale at frys today btw. many dvds are 5 bucks or so. I wanted to pick up 3 kings among other things.

I went through a lot of emotions watching 3 Kings. I went from laughing hysterically to getting really pissed off to being very sad and back to laughing hysterically. Some of those scenes are classics.

• Like when Troy Barlow is being tortured and his interrogator asks him, "So what's wrong with Michael Jackson?" And Troy looks up and goes, "What?"
• Or when he's sifting through all those cell phones, finds one that works, calls his wife in Arizona, and she in turn calls his XO in the Saudi desert.... the look on his face when he realizes he just got Troy's position from his wife....too funny.
• Or when their driving to that one outpost that thinks it's Saddam that's coming, they all start running for their lives, then the camera goes back to inside the limo and their listening to Chicago!

That movie is a classic.

 

[akyron]

[*]Or when their driving to that one outpost that thinks it's Saddam that's coming, they all start running for their lives, then the camera goes back to inside the limo and their listening to Chicago!
[/LIST]That movie is a classic.

Sgt. Troy Barlow: Conrad, you've washed your hands like ten times.
Conrad Vig: Lord knows what kind of vermin live in the butt of a Dune Coon.
Chief Elgin: Why do you let this cracker hang around with you, man?
Sgt. Troy Barlow: He's all right, man. He's from a group home in Dallas. He's got no high school.
Conrad Vig: Don't tell people that.
Chief Elgin: I don't care if he's from Johannesburg. I don't want to hear Dune Coon or Sand ****** from him or anybody else.
Conrad Vig: Captain uses those terms.
Sgt. Troy Barlow: That's not the point, Conrad. The point is that Towel Head and Camel Jockey are perfectly good substitutes.
Chief Elgin: Exactly!


Adriana Cruz: I don't want him walking away from me, going to other reporters, and giving away my stories.
Archie Gates: What stories? You don't have any stories.
Adriana Cruz: You don't ****in' tell people that.


I like the part where they say Saddams coming and is going to kill everyone and the outpost flees too.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by akyron:
Sgt. Troy Barlow: Conrad, you've washed your hands like ten times.
Conrad Vig: Lord knows what kind of vermin live in the butt of a Dune Coon.
Chief Elgin: Why do you let this cracker hang around with you, man?
Sgt. Troy Barlow: He's all right, man. He's from a group home in Dallas. He's got no high school.
Conrad Vig: Don't tell people that.
Chief Elgin: I don't care if he's from Johannesburg. I don't want to hear Dune Coon or Sand ****** from him or anybody else.
Conrad Vig: Captain uses those terms.
Sgt. Troy Barlow: That's not the point, Conrad. The point is that Towel Head and Camel Jockey are perfectly good substitutes.
Chief Elgin: Exactly!


Adriana Cruz: I don't want him walking away from me, going to other reporters, and giving away my stories.
Archie Gates: What stories? You don't have any stories.
Adriana Cruz: You don't ****in' tell people that.

Even the start of the movie is strangely funny, "Are we still shooting?"

Originally posted by akyron:
I like the part where they say Saddams coming and is going to kill everyone and the outpost flees too.

That's what I was talking about. Then you back inside the limo and all you hear is Peter Ceteira singing....

"if you leave me now,
it'll take away the biggest part of me
woo woo woo woo....

 

[EHatem]

I think he's right when he says that Congress would investigate this president if they thought he was doing anything wrong. I mean, look at how they treated the last president. Has Bush honestly done anything worse than say the Travelgate investigation of Hillary Clinton? I mean, that probably cost the government thousands of dollars. So to suggest that this Congress would turn a blind eye to say, just for the sake of argument, handing millions of dollars to a company that was run by, oh I don't know, let's say the Vice President. That works. And let's say that even as the GAO continuely says that this fictitious company is overbilling the government and, in some cases, out right stealing from the government Congress would just continue to smile and write the checks? Never happen. Not with the party that is dedicated to keeping spending down and keeping budgets in check.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by EHatem
I think he's right when he says that Congress would investigate this president if they thought he was doing anything wrong. I mean, look at how they treated the last president. Has Bush honestly done anything worse than say the Travelgate investigation of Hillary Clinton? I mean, that probably cost the government thousands of dollars. So to suggest that this Congress would turn a blind eye to say, just for the sake of argument, handing millions of dollars to a company that was run by, oh I don't know, let's say the Vice President. That works. And let's say that even as the GAO continuely says that this fictitious company is overbilling the government and, in some cases, out right stealing from the government Congress would just continue to smile and write the checks? Never happen. Not with the party that is dedicated to keeping spending down and keeping budgets in check.

"Has Bush honestly done anything worse..."

Well, if we are going to be honest with ourselves, yes, he's done a lot worse. Here's the short list:

• Wire-tapping without a warrant seven months before 9-11.
• Disregarding the CIA warning about UBL "determined to strike inside the US."
• Just sitting their reading a childrens book after being notified that our nation was under attack.
• Starting a war 9 months before receiving authorization from Congress.
• Attacking a nation that had done nothing to us.
• Making a nation (that barely has running water and electricity) out to be a threat to the US.
• Saying he knew where WMD's were, when he didn't know.
• Saying he was going to fire whomever outed Valerie Plame, when it was him all along.
• Saying he was just monitoring international calls, when he was obtaining phone records of 200 million Americans.
• Saying he had a right to torture anyone he felt like.
• Saying he could hold people indefinately without charges.
• Invading a sovereign nation while violating every relative international law in existance.

If were going to look at this honestly, Clinton told a lie about a sex act in the Oral Office and got impeached. Bush told several lies that resulted in the deaths of over 52,500 people and made us the most hated nation on earth.

So I ask you, do you really think he hasn't done anything worse?

 

[akyron]

just for the sake of argument, handing millions of dollars to a company that was run by, oh I don't know, let's say the Vice President. That works. And let's say that even as the GAO continuely says that this fictitious company is overbilling the government and, in some cases, out right stealing from the government Congress would just continue to smile and write the checks? Never happen. Not with the party that is dedicated to keeping spending down and keeping budgets in check.

I realize you are attempting to be sarcastic in some way but are you saying The vice president is accepting congressional bribes while fronting a fictitious company at this time?

 

[akyron]

"Has Bush honestly done anything worse..."

Well, if we are going to be honest with ourselves, yes, he's done a lot worse. Here's the short list:

• Wire-tapping without a warrant seven months before 9-11.
• Disregarding the CIA warning about UBL "determined to strike inside the US."
• Just sitting their reading a childrens book after being notified that our nation was under attack.
• Starting a war 9 months before receiving authorization from Congress.
• Attacking a nation that had done nothing to us.
• Making a nation (that barely has running water and electricity) out to be a threat to the US.
• Saying he knew where WMD's were, when he didn't know.
• Saying he was going to fire whomever outed Valerie Plame, when it was him all along.
• Saying he was just monitoring international calls, when he was obtaining phone records of 200 million Americans.
• Saying he had a right to torture anyone he felt like.
• Saying he could hold people indefinately without charges.
• Invading a sovereign nation while violating every relative international law in existance.

If were going to look at this honestly, Clinton told a lie about a sex act in the Oral Office and got impeached. Bush told several lies that resulted in the deaths of over 52,500 people and made us the most hated nation on earth.

So I ask you, do you really think he hasn't done anything worse?

Prove it then charge him with wrongdoing if you can.
Good hunting.
That is all.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by akyron:
Prove it then charge him with wrongdoing if you can.
Good hunting.
That is all.

Hey buddie, what's up, bra!

Haven't heard from you in awhile.
Nice to see your still alive and well.
Ya'll be cool!

 

[EHatem]

I realize you are attempting to be sarcastic in some way but are you saying The vice president is accepting congressional bribes while fronting a fictitious company at this time?

Legally speaking? No. That isn't a bribe by definition. Just major ethical violations and abuses of power. Probably a host of laws being broken by using his influence to better a company he still owns stock in. Probably some violations in how the contract was given since they didn't put it up for grabs to see who could do the job at a better price. They just said Haliburton was the only company who could do everything they wanted done. Not that three companies could have done all the jobs cheaper mind you. But then as the requirements are all under presidential priviledge seal, not much we can do about seeing exactly what laws were broken. Just like the energy scandal, the NSA phone tapping scandal, or any of the other scandals the Justice Department "investigated" only to be told the paperwork they needed was either presidential priviledge or top secret. Fancy that.

 

[akyron]

Legally speaking? No.

All right. Next.

 

[EHatem]

Yep. Thank God it's not bribery.

 

[akyron]

Yep. Thank God it's not bribery.

If you have evidence of wrongdoing please feel free to charge and put them all in jail. Otherwise its just registers as a waste of air and we already have plenty of foulness clogging up the court systems time and money. More is on the way courtesy of the Supreme Court.

Empty complaints are like ******* everyones got one (at least. Some have two) and they all stink like ****.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by EHatem
...not much we can do about seeing exactly what laws were broken.

The Public Contracts Code states that when you use public money you must have competitive bidding. How about that one?

 

[akyron]

The Public Contracts Code states that when you use public money you must have competitive bidding. How about that one?

Spank em.


Government Contracting

Haliburton barely made the top 20 contractors btw in terms of money spent. It was #1 in growth however.

Competitive and non competitive bidding were considered on a case by case basis. I think all contracts should be fully competitive and there should be no monopoly contracts whatsoever. If only one contractor can do the job we have a serious problem.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by akyron:
If only one contractor can do the job we have a serious problem.

Were in agreement here.

BTW, my stance on this is a little bitter sweet since I spent four years working for Fluor Corp. ('79-'83) and they are one of the companies Halliburton sub's out too. Sometimes I ask myself the question, "Would I be so against Halliburton contracts if I was still working at Fluor?"

I'm not going to answer that. At least not to you.

 

[akyron]

Were in agreement here.

BTW, my stance on this is a little bitter sweet since I spent four years working for Fluor Corp. ('79-'83) and they are one of the companies Halliburton sub's out too. Sometimes I ask myself the question, "Would I be so against Halliburton contracts if I was still working at Fluor?"

I'm not going to answer that. At least not to you.

I used to work for Haliburton indirectly as well....EDS 94-2000

 

[EHatem]

Haliburton barely made the top 20 contractors btw in terms of money spent. It was #1 in growth however.

Competitive and non competitive bidding were considered on a case by case basis. I think all contracts should be fully competitive and there should be no monopoly contracts whatsoever. If only one contractor can do the job we have a serious problem.

According to your own article that you pointed us to, in 2000 Haliburton was the 28th largest federal contractor earning 763 million dollars. In 2005 it had jumped to the 6th largest federal contractor earning nearly 6 billion dollars. Halliburton is even out performing the defence contractors at this point. So, um, not quite sure where you got the barely making the top 20 in contractors.

I will agree with your second point though. As well as point out that the two biggest government expeditures over the last 12 months have been the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the Katrina aftermath. And look who got a big portion of both. At some point the sheer volume of coincidences should add up to something.

 

[akyron]

According to your own article that you pointed us to, in 2000 Haliburton was the 28th largest federal contractor earning 763 million dollars. In 2005 it had jumped to the 6th largest federal contractor earning nearly 6 billion dollars. Halliburton is even out performing the defence contractors at this point. So, um, not quite sure where you got the barely making the top 20 in contractors.

I will agree with your second point though. As well as point out that the two biggest government expeditures over the last 12 months have been the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the Katrina aftermath. And look who got a big portion of both. At some point the sheer volume of coincidences should add up to something.

same article

It was 20th in 2000

6th now.

Fastest growing 2000-2005

top 5 are
Lockheed Martin
Boeing
Northrop Grumman
Raytheon
General Dynamics

I saw some advance video where they are experimenting with brain activated controls. "Look ma no hands" the next step is complete wireless remote control.