Some words from Bill O'Reilly
"If Cindy Sheehan is really about getting the troops out of Iraq, why isn't she traveling to Washington to stand outside Hillary Clinton's home? The senator supports the war. Will Ms. Sheehan go to Nantucket and stand outside John Kerry's beach house? He isn't a cut and run club member.
So it's obvious Cindy Sheehan has become a political player, who's primary concern is embarrassing the president. She is no longer just a protestor. I don't think she ever has been, by the way."
You have got to hate those mothers who lose their children in war and get angry about it. The right wants to be real careful here, they would have been smart to ignore this story but instead they risk alienating a core constituency, parents.
So it's obvious Cindy Sheehan has become a political player, who's primary concern is embarrassing the president. She is no longer just a protestor. I don't think she ever has been, by the way."
You have got to hate those mothers who lose their children in war and get angry about it. The right wants to be real careful here, they would have been smart to ignore this story but instead they risk alienating a core constituency, parents.
posted by mochi at 7:38 AM
34 Comments:
She is protesting against Israel being in Palestine? What I don't understand is that she had her day in front of the camera, she had her say, she made a full statement about her position on the Iraq war, why is she still there? I agree with Bill, it smacks to me of politics--
-Jack
My wife and I were discussing this last night. It's the Ms. Sheehan who is beginning to alienate parents. I'm of the opinion that her son was an adult when he decided to join the army, and had even more understanding when he re-enlisted after the Iraq campaign began. His mother is completely disrespecting his decisions. I feel bad for this guy. I would hate it if I gave my life for my country and my mother spit all over that sacrifice. She may not believe in the war, but her son did.
She's gone beyond grieving to politicking. She's called Bush a terrorist, she's commenting on Israel and Palestine, she's gone over the line of grieving mother. If she wants to embroil herself in politics beyond her son's death she shouldn't expect to be able to use her dead son as a shield.
Harsh? Yes. But she's thrust herself into the middle of this, she can easily take herself out of it.
Where is the line for a grieving mother if the President lied to lead the country into war? You do know this is the case right? You are aware of what's going down with Rovegate, and the Downing Street Memo? These demonstrate that this administration knew that Iraq wasn't the threat they claimed.
This makes Casey's "choice" moot. His loyalty was misused. This is what Sheehan is angry about, and she has every right to this anger.
It's funny how people say this is about politics. Of course it is. What the hell did you think it was about? She is one woman trying to get this administration stand up and take responsibility for its actions, and she is using the only weapon she has.
It just kills me how Rightwingers whine about Cindy "using" her dead son, when they have used the 911 victims to achieve their ends. Seriously people... open your freakin eyes.
Bill O'Reilly is absolutely terrible. I mean really, really terrible. He's almost as bad Ann Coulter. Those douche bags never have anything constructive to say. Every once in a while Bill will make a valid point, but those are few and far between. The guy is a total numb nut. Ann Coulter, however, has never made a valid point in her life. She's a moron. At least the pundits on the left who make outrageous claims are generally entertaining. Watching the folks on the right is like listening to TV static with the volume way up. It's unbearable.
Hey Rusty. You seem to have an old copy of the Democrat's Talking Points Memo. You are yet another Lefty who seems to have gone to the Clinton School of Definitions. You see, a "lie" is when someone knows a statement is false but tries to pass it off as the truth.
I understand where you're coming from. You think Bush "lied" when he said Iraq had WMD's. You think the so-called Downing Street memos prove that. (They don't, actually.) Unfortunately, it was not just the U.S. and England who believed Sodom had WMD's. The Clinton administration, as well as many prominent democrats in Congress, believed it. And not because of what Bush said, but because they had access to the same intelligence information.
Was the intelligence apparently faulty? Yes. Does that make Bush's statements (and those of Clinton, Kerry, et al) lies? No.
As for the so-called Downing Street memos. They have been called into serious question. Funny how they went nowhere, isn't it?
As for "Rovegate", nothing to see here, move along. That dog won't hunt either. Wilson is, in case you need an example, actually is a liar. He said documents were forgeries when he had never seen them. He claims that Iraq did not try to buy yellowcake from Niger when it really did.
You know all this, right? Well, you would if you expanded your horizons a little and stopped getting all your news from the Democratic Underground.
It obviates the rest of your comment.
At least the pundits on the left who make outrageous claims are generally entertaining.
But at least Coulter is easier on the eyes than the far left pundits.
Personally I don't find her attractive, but to each his own.
Not even in comparison to the far left? Wow.
Ann Coulter is not good looking.
Ok, to keep this from degenerating any further...
I feel I need to respond to Rusty Iron and any other person who wants to maintain that Bush lied, etc.
If one wants truth its readily available, and usually not always on blogs or ideological websites.
RI, I offer you the following links (plus there are hundreds more if you have time) that should enlighten you. Not one of them are from a "conservative rag", but from sources that the "left" would find very credible.
There are two kinds of people in the world, the ignorant and the willfully ignorant. The first group can be excused and even commended if they make efforts to improve, the later are not worth anyone's time to discuss with. I suspect you may fall into the first category, because you took the initiative to read the post and write a response. (This is not meant as an insult). Hope the following links provide perspective:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/interviews/khodada.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/interviews/khodada.html
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,591439,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2759653.stm
http://hrw.org/doc/?t=mideast_pub&c=iraq
http://www.state.gov/p/nea/disarm/
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110002994
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/scud_info/scud_info_refs/n41en172/iraq.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/maps/satindex.htm
http://www.intelmessages.org/Messages/National_Security/wwwboard/messages/1672.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12227453&method=full&siteid=50143
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/09/02/iraq.weapons/index.html
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002252
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020907-iraq1.htm
http://www.state.gov/www/regions/nea/iraq_white_paper.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2002%2F08%2F25%2Fwnidal25.xml
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/archive/article/0,,4296646,00.html
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jwit/jwit020823_1_n.shtml
http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/1997/issue4/jv1n4a1.html
P.S. I would be interested in if you maintain your position after reading these links. Let me know.
Regards,
-Jack
I'd like to bring it back to the toilet.
Jack I got the intelligent design DVD. Thanks!
Smorg!
I think you found evidence that Anne is really a man!
-Jack
Mochi,
You're welcome! It is fairly entertaining to begin with but becomes a bit of a yawner toward the end. Food for thought anyway.
Smorg, that's just gross! "She's a man, baby!"
Before getting into the other stuff, just a thought on the "Bush lied" issue. Bush lied about more than the WMD's. He (and his whole gang) lied about Saddam Hussein's connection with Al Qaeda, he lied about the threat of Iraq, he lied his ass off and as far as the WMD's go, he said they had absolute proof they existed, and then said that they had actually been found. That is not "bad intelligence", it is an absolute lie. Don't try to twist this into a little semantic error. He and Cheney said, in no uncertain terms, that they had absolute proof. Lies, all lies.
Read the links, Shea. They do a very good job at connecting Al Queda and Iraq. Very good job...
They also verify WMD and WMD programs, something that only the left seems to know nothing about.
Also...
We'll chat after you have read up on them.
Did you know that there was an Al Queda terrorist training camp 25 km from Baghdad?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/interviews/khodada.html
which all turned out to be true.
Hmm...Where do you get your "facts", Shea?
-Jack
"Bush lied, people died"
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3.htm
There was a relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq, but it had nothing to do with Saddam. The alliance was with the Kurds in the north. Rememeber the same Kurds the US supported and protected during the overthrow of Saddam? There is no link between the secular and sectarian groups, they have no common vision or purpose. If this really was a war on terror we would have supported Saddam's government in attacking the Kurdish north. Just like we now support the dictatorship of Musharraf in Pakistan.
BBC 2002
Seriously, is no one else disturbed by Coulter's adam's apple? I am convinced she has a penis, there I said it- it just takes balls to be so blatant a liar. I would give Michelle Malkin a go before Coulter anyday.
No, none at all, Mochi...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2002%2F08%2F25%2Fwnidal25.xml
-Jack
This article doesn't make sense.
"While in Baghdad, Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri al-Banna, came under pressure from Saddam to help train groups of al-Qa'eda fighters who moved to northern Iraq after fleeing Afghanistan. Saddam also wanted Abu Nidal to carry out attacks against the US and its allies.
When Abu Nidal refused, Saddam ordered his intelligence chiefs to assassinate him. He was shot dead last weekend when Iraqi security forces burst into his apartment in central Baghdad. The body was taken to the hospital where he had had cancer treatment."
Hussein had no control over northern Iraq, it was and still is controlled by Kurds.
Read this.
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/academic/intrel/research/cstpv/pdffiles/USA%20TODbaby.pdf
Shea, got a link to a quote of Bush saying he had "absolute proof" of WMD existence? I'll be surprised if you can find one that doesn't say something like "all our intelligence resources indicate ... backed up by foreign/ally intelligence resources".
And you accuse me of making stuff up?
And Shea seems to know this, but for the others - how to hyper-link an article:
The "greater than" and "less than" symbols are used to enclose HTML, or Hyper Text Markup Language: ">" and "<".
To link an article use the following code:
[a href="copy and post complete url address inside these quotes"]type name of link here[/a]
Now, just replace those brackets with the corresponding greater than and less than symbol < or > and your link is good to go.
Sean,
I provide the link, at least you can cut and paste it into the browser. Ha!
Just kidding. Thanks for the tip.
-Jack
Mochi,
What about the training camp in Salman Pak? 25K south of Bahgdad is not in Kurd territory. I think that to say that Al Queda's relationship with Iraq had nothing to do with Saddam is a little naive and also somewhat of a dodge. Bin Laden peddles influence throughout the middle east. What makes you think that Saddam would be immune?
Geez, here you go if you want more:
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040624-112921-3401r.htm
Plus there are thousands more, Mochi. There are so many articles denying and affirming a Saddam and Al Queda link. The "sectarian" argument smacks of a little bit idealistic. Saddam used whoever he could regardless of what they believe.
The problem is that one believes what one chooses and that isn't always what's right. Just because someone WANTS to believe something doesn't make it true. Then taking that assumption and turning it around to make accusations just discredits the accuser.
This is what I'm getting at. There is TOO much conflicting evidence for anyone to come to the "substantiated" and "factual" statements they are making. I have never denied one the right to look like a fool, only cautioned them from it. This "Bush lied" stuff is purely political and purely ideological--to say otherwise is to accept delusion.
Given the mountains of evidence both pro and con, I refuse to lie to myself and I continue to maintain my position of "I don't know".
"There is no greater deceit than self-deceit" -Jack
From the same newspaper.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html
I know, Mochi, which is exactly my point! (I read this article today as a matter of fact). Who knows what to believe, who knows what articles are politically motivated? We ALL know that the 9/11 committee was a huge exercise in hilarity that no clear thinking person would take seriously. As a matter of fact, my primary question I asked anyone who followed it what it accomplished and everyone had to admit that it was a forum for political grandstanding that yielded a big fat zero. Now the veracity of the 9/11 commission is being called into question. (Just now?)
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8985244/
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8932844/
Am I making sense? Can you say that there is no Al Queda/Saddam/Iraq link? Can you say there is?
The answer is no to both. It is only the omniscient ideology gods who can come to such absolutes, Mochi and I don't think you or I qualify as one of those.
-Jack
Oh, and btw, even if after the fact we find that there were no ties between Al-Q and Iraq we still have LOADS of information and intelligence out there that indicates there was. My point is that if Bush acted on this intelligence at the time this does not make him a liar, mistaken maybe, but not a liar. Just like the WMD issue. There are multiple reports out there from the UN, the Clinton Administration, world intelligence agencies that indicate Saddam possessed and had the capabilities of producing WMDs.
http://www.iraqwatch.org/wmd/iraqarticle2pg1.pdf
Only the kook lefties of the world deny their existence.
-Jack
Oh, and back to the original post:
Cindy is in no way politically driven:
"Sheehan made at an anti-war rally at San Francisco State University in April: "I'm going all over the country telling moms: 'This country is not worth dying for.' If we're attacked, we would all go out. We'd all take whatever we had. I'd take my rolling pin and I'd beat the attackers over the head with it. But we were not attacked by Iraq. We might not even have been attacked by Osama bin Laden if 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through . . .
Were these just the ravings of a distraught mother, who in the same speech called President Bush a terrorist and accused the United States of using nuclear weapons in Iraq? Sheehan made her odd remarks at a rally for attorney Lynne Stewart, who represented the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and was convicted earlier this year of providing material support for terrorism when she acted as a conduit for terrorist instructions from her client Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Interestingly, of the journalists who have canonized Sheehan, none has seen fit to report her earlier remarks or her advocacy on behalf of Stewart."
Yep, no political motivation there, just a grieving mother...
-Jack
Mochi, from the article you pointed to:
A Bush campaign spokesman countered that Kerry himself has said Hussein "supported and harbored terrorist groups." And Cheney's spokesman pointed to a 2002 letter written by CIA Director George J. Tenet stating that "we have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda going back a decade" and "credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression." Cheney's office also pointed to a 2003 Tenet statement calling Zarqawi "a senior al Qaeda terrorist associate."
That's called "intelligence information". That's what Bush based his decisions and statements on. Even Kerry was in agreement. To say Bush lied about these things is incredibly naive, and itself misleading.
Huh? When did I say Bush lied?
Hey Mochi!
Thats what I was saying about you and I. We are not that ideologic that we will stick our neck out on such assertions. You have never said Bush lied, I just hear that from a lot of people.
P.S. As I have always said, I am a NL fan!
There were indeed numerous times Bush said, "Hes got em," about the weapons. It wasnt I think, or I feel- it was a confident statement. But still, I need to read all these articles again, I need to backtrack here. This all took place in 01 and 02, I was in college, not too into politics. I knew what was going on in the world but I didnt think critically about it. I did indeed go on my friends radio show when I was a junior at Fairfield University and told the audience of 12 people that we should invade Iraq and get that bastard out of there. My mind has just been wobbling back and forth about this, but war definitely sucks terribly.
You're right, you never said "Bush lied". You did link to articles, however, that purport to refute intelligence failures and (the articles) make inferences that the statements made by our intelligence officials were known to be wrong. So while you didn't say "Bush lied", it seemed to me you were linking to many articles that said "Bush lied". Sorry for the confusion.
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