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Would Kerry do a better job countering terrorism (pg. 4)
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| DaveSZ |
| Wes Clark, and John McCain's endorsement is enough to convince me. |
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| Ondrayce |
| I think that someone with war experience, would be a better war time president. Not someone who did whatever they could to keep from going to Vietnam. But I'm (B) not (U) implicating (S) anyone (H) specific. |
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| DaveSZ |
| quote: | Originally posted by DaveSZ
Wes Clark, and John McCain's endorsement is enough to convince me. |
This man's opinion is worth even more:
Mr Clarke is bi-partisan, having been originally appointed by Richard Nixon and promoted/kept through Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...rism_adviser_14
| quote: |
Ex-Aide Says Bush Doing 'Terrible Job'
2 hours, 39 minutes ago Add White House - AP to My Yahoo!
By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism coordinator, accuses the Bush administration of failing to recognize the al-Qaida threat before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and then manipulating America into war with Iraq (news - web sites) with dangerous consequences.
He accuses Bush of doing "a terrible job on the war against terrorism."
Clarke, who is expected to testify Tuesday before a federal panel reviewing the attacks, writes in a new book going on sale Monday that Bush and his Cabinet were preoccupied during the early months of his presidency with some of the same Cold War issues that had faced his father's administration.
"It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier," Clarke told CBS for an interview Sunday on its "60 Minutes" program.
CBS' corporate parent, Viacom Inc., owns Simon & Schuster, publisher for Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies."
Clarke acknowledges that, "there's a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too." He said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) on Jan. 24, 2001, asking "urgently" for a Cabinet-level meeting "to deal with the impending al-Qaida attack." Months later, in April, Clarke met with deputy cabinet secretaries, and the conversation turned to Iraq.
"I'm sure I'll be criticized for lots of things, and I'm sure they'll launch their dogs on me," Clarke said. "But frankly I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something."
The Associated Press first reported in June 2002 that Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions.
The last of those two meetings occurred Sept. 4 as the security council put finishing touches on a proposed national security policy review for the president. That review was finished Sept. 10 and was awaiting Bush's approval when the first plane struck the World Trade Center.
Almost immediately after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Clarke said the president asked him directly to find whether Iraq was involved in the suicide hijackings.
"Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said, 'Iraq did this,'" said Clarke, who told the president that U.S. intelligence agencies had never found a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida.
"He came back at me and said, 'Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection,' and in a very intimidating way," Clarke said.
CBS said it asked Stephen Hadley, Rice's deputy on the national security council, about the incident, and Hadley said: "We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the president ever occurred."
CBS responded to Hadley that it found two people it did not identify who recounted the incident independently, and one of them witnessed the conversation.
"I stand on what I said," Hadley told CBS, "but the point I think we're missing in this is, of course the president wanted to know if there was any evidence linking Iraq to 9-11."
Clarke also harshly criticizes Bush over his decision to invade Iraq, saying it helped brew a new wave of anti-American sentiment among supporters of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).
"Bin Laden had been saying for years, 'America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country.' This is part of his propaganda," Clarke said. "So what did we do after 9/11? We invade ... and occupy an oil-rich Arab country, which was doing nothing to threaten us."
Clarke retired early in 2003 after 30 years in government service. He was among the longest-serving White House staffers, transferred in from the State Department in 1992 to deal with threats from terrorism and narcotics.
Clarke previously led the government's secretive Counterterrorism and Security Group, made up of senior officials from the FBI (news - web sites), CIA (news - web sites), Justice Department (news - web sites) and armed services, who met several times each week to discuss foreign threats.
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
Economic freedom is not the same as economic equality as the former paves the way for the rich and wealthy to dominate, whereas the latter gives everyone an equal footing in society. "Economic freedom" however, has a nice ring to it that actually sounds like it is for the good, which is a belief that our ruling elites are only too happy to promote... |
Economic equality sounds good ... that is if you are of the mind that everyone is entitled to equality in status as opposed to equality in footing. |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ondrayce
I think that someone with war experience, would be a better war time president. Not someone who did whatever they could to keep from going to Vietnam. But I'm (B) not (U) implicating (S) anyone (H) specific. |
Are you talking about Bush or Clinton???:conf:
Yeah, Kerry's three and half month stint in Vietnam really qualifies him, not to mention his inability to take a stance on an issue without flip-flopping and changing his stance when he sees it to be politically fitting.
| quote: | | "I've met with foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly, but boy, they look at you and say: 'You've got to win this. You've got to beat this guy. We need a new policy.' Things like that." |
| quote: | | Yes. I have had conversations with leaders, yes, recently. That's not your business, it's mine. I've met with foreign leaders for any (inaudible) purpose - I never said that. What I said was that I have heard from people who are leaders elsewhere in the world who don't appreciate the Bush administration approach and would love to see a change in the leadership of the United States. I'm talking our allies, I'm talking about people who were our friends nine months ago, I'm talking about people who ought to be at our side in Iraq and aren't because this administration has pushed them away in its arrogance, that's what I'm talking about. Are you a registered Republican? Are you a Republican? You answer the question. That's not an answer. Did you vote for George Bush? Did you vote for George Bush? Thank you. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
Are you talking about Bush or Clinton???:conf:
Yeah, Kerry's three and half month stint in Vietnam really qualifies him, not to mention his inability to take a stance on an issue without flip-flopping and changing his stance when he sees it to be politically fitting. |
A three and a half month "stint" and yet, during that brief period of time, he managed to earn 3 purple hearts, a silver star, and a bronze star ... whereas hardly anybody can even remembered bush being around for his 6 years of guard duty service? I love how the republicans were so quick to bash Clinton for his draft dodging, yet they so readily dismiss active duty service and deployment in a war as being a negligible experience.
And just to clear up any confusion, while Kerry was only in Vietname for serveral months, he was enlisted in the military since February of 1966 and was finally discharged in 1970. Initially, he was stationed on a relatively safe destroyer, but later volunteered for Swift boat duty. If anything, his dedication to duty in the face of life threatening danger is something to be commended, and I most certainly have more respect for the decisions he has made as a younger man than Bush's at the time. |
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| George Smiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Economic equality sounds good ... that is if you are of the mind that everyone is entitled to equality in status as opposed to equality in footing. |
Could you explain to me please, how you have come to the conclusion that economic equality means an entitlement to equality in status but not an equal footing? |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
Could you explain to me please, how you have come to the conclusion that economic equality means an entitlement to equality in status but not an equal footing? |
Perhaps you should first explain to me what you meant by economic equality ;) |
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| George Smiley |
By all means, tho I do find it a little strange that you had already commented on the term even before, apparently, you knew what it meant! :p
It basically means that everybody has the same oppertunity as everybody has the same level of wealth. Altho political equality enshrines in law everybody's right to have the same oppertunity, it is meaningless unless everybody can afford the same oppertunities (eg. health care, education, etc) |
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| Shakka |
Forgive me for stirring the pot a bit.
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
A three and a half month "stint" and yet, during that brief period of time, he managed to earn 3 purple hearts, a silver star, and a bronze star ... whereas hardly anybody can even remembered bush being around for his 6 years of guard duty service? I love how the republicans were so quick to bash Clinton for his draft dodging, yet they so readily dismiss active duty service and deployment in a war as being a negligible experience. |
Why won't he release his medical records then? I've heard several reports that have claimed Kerry got a purple heart for something pretty minor. But I will say it takes balls to go into a warzone so I'm not going to dwell on the matter of what he actually did while he was over there--though what he did when he got home wasn't exactly worth writing home about either.
Tell me this: Why is it that when Clinton was running, his service record was so readily dismissed by Democrats when Republicans brought it to the forefront and now Democrats are all up in arms over Bush's service (He may have been in the national guard, but he didn't dodge the draft). Suddenly the Dems want to focus only on the fact that Kerry was in Vietnam and therefore would be a great president. Why didn't service matter in 1992 but now it's the only thing that counts in 2004? The only thing Kerry can brag about is the fact that he was in Vietnam. Hell, it seems like more and more of the cornerstone of his campaign! |
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| DaveSZ |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
not to mention his inability to take a stance on an issue without flip-flopping and changing his stance when he sees it to be politically fitting. |
You mean like how W told us we wouldn't be nation building under his leadership in 2000?
:conf:
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
A three and a half month "stint" and yet, during that brief period of time, he managed to earn 3 purple hearts, a silver star, and a bronze star ... whereas hardly anybody can even remembered bush being around for his 6 years of guard duty service? I love how the republicans were so quick to bash Clinton for his draft dodging, yet they so readily dismiss active duty service and deployment in a war as being a negligible experience.
And just to clear up any confusion, while Kerry was only in Vietname for serveral months, he was enlisted in the military since February of 1966 and was finally discharged in 1970. Initially, he was stationed on a relatively safe destroyer, but later volunteered for Swift boat duty. If anything, his dedication to duty in the face of life threatening danger is something to be commended, and I most certainly have more respect for the decisions he has made as a younger man than Bush's at the time. |
Let's see what they say about General Clark if he's on the ticket lol.
:haha: |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
By all means, tho I do find it a little strange that you had already commented on the term even before, apparently, you knew what it meant! :p
It basically means that everybody has the same oppertunity as everybody has the same level of wealth. Altho political equality enshrines in law everybody's right to have the same oppertunity, it is meaningless unless everybody can afford the same oppertunities (eg. health care, education, etc) |
Ah ok. Allow me to clarify my original statement. While I'm most certainly of the opinion that people should have the equality in opportunity, or as close to it as reasonably possible, I most certainly do not regard an equality in status (outside of opportunity) as being particularly fair. |
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