Osama and the Taliban

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Post by Bubba » Apr 13th 2003, 8:43 am

Even if the vague assertion that "the Taliban was funded for years by the US" is true, that doesn't make Moore's claims factual. Moore gave both a dollar amount and a time frame: $245 million in 2000-2001. If that is not factually true, then the best that can be said about Michael Moore is that he is sloppy in his research.
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Post by mglenn » Apr 14th 2003, 11:19 am

JPP13 wrote:...that the Taliban was funded for years by the US. Thats a fact. We gave Osame bin laden millions
The Taliban was never funded by the US. We provided small arms and training through CIA opperations to the Afghans during the 80's to fight the Soviets in their attempt to prop up a government that was no better than Saddams in the way it treated its civilians in order to maintain control. The Taliban came to power in 1994 at which point the Soviets and the CIA were long gone.

As for Osama... his hatred of the US stems from the first Gulf war when he drafted a plan to protect Saudi Arabia from Iraq invasion. This plan involved a well planned set of ditches and trenches to force the Iraqis to abandon their tanks and as such lose most of their power and logistic support while invading. The Saudi government instead opted to allow the US to bring in troops and hear lies the three main reasons for Osama's Hatred:

1. His own people rejected his idea's, and instead favored the infidels!

2. It allowed the infidels to step foot on the most holy of islamic soil. The Home of Mecca!

3. Once a military base was setup in Saudi Arabia Osama knew that the infidels would never leave.

Osama's connection to the Taliban comes in 96' when leaving Africa and returning to the Middle East his own family disowns him and he is arrested and the US is asked if they want him for terrorist attacks on Marine Bases and American Embassies that he was believed to have helped plan and carry out. Clinton refused to prosocute him and he fled to Afghanastan and offered them millions in protection money.

The Bin Laden family is a very wealthy and respected family in Saudi Arabia where they own and operate the largest construction company in the middle east. So if you were going to build anything in the middle east, like say a military base, you would more than likely contract the with the Bin Ladens for some of that construction. So the claims of a connection between the Bush's and or the US government are not as evil as they are protrayed. Its kinda like saying that since you own a car and bought gas for your car that you supported Enron and as such are responsible for ripping off thousands of people of their lifesavings.
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Post by starbug » Apr 14th 2003, 11:43 am

mglenn wrote: The Taliban was never funded by the US.
MAYBE not (though I reserve judgment and I rather think it depends how you define 'funding'). I think that even if you give money with an express 'innocent' purpose to an evil organisation, you're still funding their less laudable aims because the money you give to be spent in one category frees up their budget, allowing them to redirect money in to the 'making bombs that kill people' categories. Thus in a sense you're 'funding' terrorism even though you don't intend to kill someone yourself.

However, NorAid certainly was, and as a direct result, the IRA had more money to make bombs and fund missions that killed people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/1562217.stm

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Post by fnordboy » Apr 14th 2003, 3:38 pm

The way I look at it is, if the Left wants to argue that (and buying SUVs), than the Right needs to accept it or stop arguing that buying drugs supports terrorism.

Simple as that.

I enjoy Moore's work, though I take everything he says with a grain of salt. He has his own agenda just like everyone else.

Like I have said earlier I don't necessarily agree with everything he says and does. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy him. I am reading his book, Stupid White Men, now and I laugh, cringe in fear, and roll my eyes equally throughout the thing.

edit: need to proofread my posts :oops:, i flipped the arguments

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Post by JPP13 » Apr 14th 2003, 5:52 pm

mglenn, I really like this site, and your work here on it...so I'm only going to reply one last time on this topic.

I don't expect anyone to take my word for anything, but all of these facts are readily available on the web. The Congressional Record is the easiest place to start.

The US gave the Taliban 6 BILLION dollars, starting in the 80s. As recently as May 2001, the US gave the Taliban 43 million dollars. Thats serious money for a country with a GNP not much beyond that. Is that support? You decide. The camps that we blew up following 9/11? We built them.

As late as August 2001, Bush/Cheney (read 'Big Oil') was ignoring their own intelligence services and negotiating with the Taliban (and by extension bin laden) to build an oil pipeline through Northern Afghanistan.

Thats what makes Moore so great. The TV media is so controlled by the far right that these stories are not discussed. But of course if the President was a Democrat, and he received oral sex, well hold the presses.

Of course its nothing new for a politician to have strange bedfellows. In the 80's, at the request of the Reagan Administration a private business man orchestarted the sale of mustard gas, nerve gas and other chemical weapons to a dictator in the Middle East. The dictator? Saddam Hussein. The businessman? Donald Rumsfeld. Yeah, the same Donald Rumsfeld.

I mention that to again stress why I like Michael Moore. Since the media is so far right, anything he does seems so shocking because its so otherwise ignored.

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Post by TomSpeed » Apr 14th 2003, 10:27 pm

There a couple maxims in politics. One is "Everyone is biased." Another one is "The friends you have today might very well be your enemies tomorrow." I have no doubt that all media and movie producers slant things to get their points across. I also have no doubt that Americans at one time funded Saddam, the Taliban, and Bin Laden because it was in our leader's interests to do so. Did they make right or wrong choices? Well, there's another maxim in politics -- "Nothing is black and white. Everything is just various shades of gray."
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Post by Bubba » Apr 15th 2003, 7:43 am

JPP13, surely you jest about Bowling for Columbine being ignored by the mainstream press. It was covered by pretty much every major paper and magazine -- not to mention the Oscars.

And the suggestion that, presumably, CNN and the NY Times protect Bush and give him a free pass because he's a Republican is a little dumbfounding. I believe the reason they don't pick up and run with Moore's claims has more to do with the fact that they tend to not be very true.

Time magazine and ABC News are indeed to the left of America's middle of the road, much as Rush Limbaugh and National Review are to the right. It's true they're to the right of Michael Moore, but that indicates Moore's extremism, not Time's conservative slant.
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Post by mglenn » Apr 15th 2003, 10:29 am

First off JPP13 I'm not trying to be a prick, just havin a discussion with you. If you feel I'm wrong please feel free so say so.

Second: This thread is way out there for MSCL.COM. And I feel I need to make it clear that the views I express are solely mine and do not in anyway speak for the rest of the team. I can all but assure you that there are a few members who would disagree with me.

Third: if you or I or anyone else is getting angery reading this or the other political thread then we need to step back and take a breath. We are all friends here and I'm sure we can rationally discuss this with out getting nasty.

Fourth: If I have insulted you I appologize.

OK now on to the meat! :D
The US gave the Taliban 6 BILLION dollars, starting in the 80s.
The Taliban was not created until 1994. I'm confused on how the US gave money to a government that did not exist? In the 80's we provided small arms and some training to the Mujihadin to fight the soviets and ther puppet leader Najibullah.

Side note from : http://www.thedenverchannel.com/sh/news ... 30904.html
Najibullah's secret police, and their KGB masters, murdered tens of thousands of political opponents by having them slowly frozen in special refrigerators, burned with gasoline, electrocuted, eyes gouged out, flayed, thrown into tubs of acid, or buried alive.
Bush/Cheney ... negotiating with the Taliban (and by extension bin laden) to build an oil pipeline through Northern Afghanistan.
First off the Taliban did not directly support Bin Laden or any terrorist group (well besides their own police force). Bin Laden payed the Taliban to ignore him and his training grounds. Which is why we attacked and removed the Taliban after 9/11 because those camps were a clear and present danger to the US. We asked them to allow us into remove them and the refused we told them we were coming in anyway and they said they would fight us. "New Government Time!"

So which is it? Are we allowed to interfere when a government is oppressing its poeple or not? If we give them aid we are supporting them. If we support the rebels we are supporting something just as bad. If we invade we're the maverick cowboy. Isolation ain't gonna work! we are the big kid on the block and there will always be someone wanting to take our place, they will pick a fight with us whether or not we want it.

The TV media is so controlled by the far right that these stories are not discussed. But of course if the President was a Democrat, and he received oral sex, well hold the presses.
This one just astonds me! Dan Rather a compassionate conservative??? Weeks of anti war protest coverage as 70% of america supports the war.
First we're are failing, then we don't have enough troops, then we're replanning, then we're winning to easy, then we're attacking journalist on purpose, then its the looting... all this in two weeks!!!! Can you even imagine reporting like this after D-Day. We hadn't even broken out of the beachhead and the port we had secured was destroyed at the end of June 3 weeks after the invasion.

The other thing was that while Bill was issuing that "Pole Tax". The Taliban was coming to power, because he had force the CIA out. Saddam was busy kicking out the weapons inspectors. The World Trade Centers were being bombed the first time with no responce from the US government. Oh and who can forget the best one were he decided that getting Osama extradited would be too much of a hassle... after all whats a few marines and some embassies in the desert, right?

Not to mention my personal favorite of personally restricting the use of Spector Gunships during the 93' raid in Mog that lead to the downing of two Blackhawks and the death of 18 american soldiers. (Spector Gunships are C-130 cargo aircraft that have two howitzers and 4 mini-guns firing 4000 to 9000 rounds a minute all with computer targeting. Disigned for close air support of troops.) All of which lead to our pulling out of Somolia. Hmmm I wonder what kinda message that sent to the world. Kill some americans and they will leave you alone??? If killing 18 made them leave Somalia I bet killing 3000 will make them leave the Middle east all together!!!

And what was the media covering during all this? Well we had experts discussing things like what the meaning of "is" is.

You point out all these actions that took place in the 80's but what you fail to add is the context. The Vietnam war had not been over for much more than 5 years. The last thing the US wanted to do was get involved directly in another war. So instead we tryed operating under the philosophy of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and provided some support to these groups. But in Saddams case maybe you've forgotten the little issue of the Iranians holding americans hostage? Not wanting to get involved in a war, supporting Saddam seemed to be the best option we had. But I would like to point out that when we fought Saddam we were fighting against AK-47's, T-55 and T-72 tanks... hmm for all the support we gave him he sure had alot of Soviet equipment.

I'm not saying that the right decisions were made in the 80's, but when put in context they were the only options we really had. We also layed into Isreal for bombing Saddams reactor too. Something we realize now was a good thing.

So now instead of making those same mistakes we are getting directly involved and attempting to bring stability to the middle east which they have proven they can not do.

So we have tried indirect involvement, we tried no involvement, so now were trying direct involvement.... What I fail to see from the left is any suggestion of what will work. Instead all I ever hear is doom and gloom. Of course I've never seen any of this come to pass.
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Post by JPP13 » Apr 15th 2003, 3:45 pm

I only prefaced my remarks so that you realized I'm not bent all out of shape - I don't get mad at message boards. :)

I never said Bowling for Columbine was ignored by the media. What I did say was that the stories I referenced were.

I wish to address some urban myths. First, the myth that bin laden was under arrest and Clinton refused extradition. He was NEVER in custody and offered to Clinton, who refused to take him. Myth. Never happened. But its a story that the far right Clinton-haters have so often referred to that the fact that it is untrue has been forgotten.

What IS true is that in the final days of his presidency, Clinton attempted to advise Bush of intelligence reports regarding bin Laden and the Taliban. Bush chose to ignore that, seeking to distance himself from all Clinton policies. Instead he went about negotiating a pipeline to help out his Big Oil brethren. Thats the facts.

Another urban myth that the right loves to lob around is the myth of the left-wing media. I hear it everyday. But take a good long honest look around the TV dial. Limbaugh. Bill O'Reilly. Savage Nation. CNBC. Moneyline. FoxNews. Hell, even CBS has its own military experts on.

In the past, it was true. But as more and more media outlets became subsidiaries of large corporations (Clear Channel, etc), the interests of the media became the interests of big Business. And we know who's interests the Corporations (ie "Kenny Boy" and the rest) support.

An example. This nation was paralyzed with news stories for over a year as the right wing sex police pursued its 7 year investigation. Over Whitewater, to start. Well, I defy ANYONE to look at the fact of Whitewater, and then look at the facts of Haarken and Haliburton - and then tell me where's the outrage and the calls for Independent Counsels? Where is the investigation into the insider trading, and the fact that Bush never filed his SEC forms? Where is the investigation into Cheney's meeting with Ken Lay, which was at the start of the fraudulent California Energy Crisis? I've heard Clinton referred to by Limbaugh as a draft dodger on many occasions - where are the stories about Bush being AWOL for 18 months? And the fact that he disappeared the day of his random drug test?
Where is the investigation into the mysterious phone calls on election night between katharine Harris and Bush? Calls they both at first denied existed?

I bring these questions up to show the bias of the media. The far right bias, which the far right will never acknowledge, because the myth of the left wing media gets them all in an uproar.


I think I'm so far off topic now I can't get back on. I'd just urge anyone to look at the facts themselves, and draw your own conclusions.

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Post by JPP13 » Apr 15th 2003, 4:29 pm

Now, here's some facts as to what Clinton actually did try to accomplish (when not being hounded by right wing wackos). Contrast this to Bush's pre-9/11 coddling of the Taliban.

On 26 February 1993, a car loaded with 1,200 pounds of explosives blew up in a parking garage under the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring about a thousand others. The blast did not, as its planners intended, bring down the towers -- that was finally accomplished by flying two hijacked airliners into the twin towers on the morning of 11 September 2001.
Four followers of the Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman were captured, convicted of the World Trade Center bombing in March 1994, and sentenced to 240 years in prison each. The purported mastermind of the plot, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, was captured in 1995, convicted of the bombing in November 1997, and also sentenced to 240 years in prison. One additional suspect fled the U.S. and is believed to be living in Baghdad.


On 13 November 1995, a bomb was set off in a van parked in front of an American-run military training center in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh, killing five Americans and two Indians. Saudi Arabian authorities arrested four Saudi nationals whom they claim confessed to the bombings, but U.S. officials were denied permission to see or question the suspects before they were convicted and beheaded in May 1996.

On 25 June 1996, a booby-trapped truck loaded with 5,000 pounds of explosives was exploded outside the Khobar Towers apartment complex which housed United States military personnel in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing nineteen Americans and wounding about three hundred others. Once again, the U.S. investigation was hampered by the refusal of Saudi officials to allow the FBI to question suspects.
On 21 June 2001, just before the American statute of limitations would have expired, a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicted thirteen Saudis and an unidentified Lebanese chemist for the Khobar Towers bombing. The suspects remain in Saudi custody, beyond the reach of the American justice system. (Saudi Arabia has no extradition treaty with the U.S.)


On 7 August 1998, powerful car bombs exploded minutes apart outside the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 people and wounding about 5,000 others. Four participants with ties to Osama bin Laden were captured, convicted in U.S. federal court, and sentenced to life in prison without parole in October 2001. Fourteen other suspects indicted in the case remain at large, and three more are fighting extradition in London.

On 12 October 2000, two suicide bombers detonated an explosives-laden skiff next to the USS Cole while it was refueling in Aden, Yemen, blasting a hole in the ship that killed 17 sailors and injured 37 others. No suspects have yet been arrested or indicted. The investigation has been hampered by the refusal of Yemini officials to allow FBI agents access to Yemeni nationals and other suspects in custody in Yemen.
(The USS Cole bombing occurred one month before the 2000 presidential election, so even under the best of circumstances it was unlikely that the investigation could have been completed before the end of President Clinton's term of office three months later.)

In August 1998, President Clinton ordered missile strikes against targets in Afghanistan in an effort to hit Osama bin Laden, who had been linked to the embassy bombings in Africa (and was later connected to the attack on the USS Cole). The missiles reportedly missed bin Laden by a few hours, and Clinton was widely criticized by many who claimed he had ordered the strikes primarily to draw attention away from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. As John F. Harris wrote in The Washington Post:


In August 1998, when [Clinton] ordered missile strikes in an effort to kill Osama bin Laden, there was widespread speculation -- from such people as Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) -- that he was acting precipitously to draw attention away from the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal, then at full boil. Some said he was mistaken for personalizing the terrorism struggle so much around bin Laden. And when he ordered the closing of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House after domestic terrorism in Oklahoma City, some Republicans accused him of hysteria.
. . . the federal budget on anti-terror activities tripled during Clinton's watch, to about $6.7 billion. After the effort to kill bin Laden with missiles in August 1998 failed -- he had apparently left a training camp in Afghanistan a few hours earlier -- recent news reports have detailed numerous other instances, as late as December 2000, when Clinton was on the verge of unleashing the military again. In each case, the White House chose not to act because of uncertainty that intelligence was good enough to find bin Laden, and concern that a failed attack would only enhance his stature in the Arab world.

. . . people maintain Clinton should have adapted Bush's policy promising that regimes that harbor terrorism will be treated as severely as terrorists themselves, and threatening to evict the Taliban from power in Afghanistan unless leaders meet his demands to produce bin Laden and associates. But Clinton aides said such a policy -- potentially involving a full-scale war in central Asia -- was not plausible before politics the world over became transformed by one of history's most lethal acts of terrorism.

Clinton's former national security adviser, Samuel R. Berger . . . said there [was] little prospect . . . that Pakistan would have helped the United States wage war against bin Laden or the Taliban in 1998, even after such outrages as the bombing of U.S. embassies overseas.






The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/rumors/clinton.htm

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Post by mglenn » Apr 15th 2003, 5:22 pm

The UK Sunday Times does not have older stories online but here is a link to a copy: http://www.angelfire.com/md2/Ldotvets/Bubba_94.html

The above details the 3 times Clinton refused to followup on offers to extradite Bin Laden.

I'll post more later as I have to run now. But I'll leave you with this quote:
Everything was more important than fighting terrorism. Political correctness, civil liberties concerns, fear of offending the administration's supporters, Janet Reno's objections, considerations of cost, worries about racial profiling and, in the second term, surviving impeachment, all came before fighting terrorism.
- Dick Morris, New York Post, Jan. 2, 2002
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Post by JPP13 » Apr 15th 2003, 6:17 pm

"Oh and who can forget the best one were he decided that getting Osama extradited would be too much of a hassle... after all whats a few marines and some embassies in the desert, right? "

Your own cite disputes your assertion. He needed to be ARRESTED, then extradited. You forgot to mention that little step. Clinton did launch a series of cruise missiles at him though. And the source of your story is a discredited Sudanese hack.

I wonder why the right wing media ignores this story though....????? --


AN INTRIGUING new book, just published in France, details the curiously amicable relationship between the regime of U.S. President George W. Bush and Afghanistan's Taliban, a relationship that turned hostile only after the terror attacks of Sept. 11.

Ben Laden: La Verité Interdite (Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth) is written by former French spook Jean-Charles Brisard and journalist Guillaume Dasquie. Both are said to be plugged into the murky world of intelligence. During his time with French intelligence, Brisard was regarded as something of an expert on bin Laden's finances.

The nub of their argument is that the Bush regime's attitude toward the Taliban - and even to bin Laden - was driven by the new president's fixation on energy. A stable regime in Afghanistan would allow construction of an oil and gas pipeline from the former Soviet republics in Central Asia to Pakistan and the sea. And initially, Washington's best bet for a stable regime in Afghanistan was the Taliban.

From February, when the Taliban first offered to extradite bin Laden in exchange for U.S. recognition, until August when negotiations stalled, the Bush administration and the government it later labelled a terrorist regime got along just fine.

Indeed, the book quotes John O'Neill, a former director of anti-terrorism for the Federal Bureau of Investigation as complaining that American and Saudi oil interests acting through the U.S. State Department kept interfering with efforts to track down bin Laden.
-----

hmmmm - Bush/Cheney putting Big Oil interests first? Who'd a thunk it. So it seems it was BUSH who wouldn't extradite bin laden. Bet you won't hear that on Fox News.

The Bottom Line Truth is this - We had 8 years of peace and prosperity under Clinton. This drives the Right Wing NUTS. The mere mention of it causes them to convulse. Bush, in his bid to set up his buddies, has ruined the economy as he tries to ram home one tax cut after another for the wealthy socialites he grew up with. If not for the patriotic pride after 9/11, Bush's approval rating would be in the toilet and Cheney would be indicted for his role in Haliburton and the Enron/California "Energy Crunch".

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Post by Bubba » Apr 15th 2003, 6:28 pm

Another urban myth that the right loves to lob around is the myth of the left-wing media. I hear it everyday. But take a good long honest look around the TV dial. Limbaugh. Bill O'Reilly. Savage Nation. CNBC. Moneyline. FoxNews. Hell, even CBS has its own military experts on.

Certainly, the media is no longer as monolithically liberal as it once was, but the existence of Rush does not prove that NPR, CNN, ABC News, the NY Times, the LA Times, Newsweek and Time are less liberal than they were, that they're no longer liberal, or that they were never liberal to begin with.

(The fact remains: with the exception of perhaps Fox News, no other network is as consistently conservative as CNN and NPR are consistently liberal. Bringing up individuals as counter-examples nearly proves the point.)

And having military experts makes it impossible for CBS News to have a liberal slant? I don't see how that works -- particularly when these so-called experts have consistently predicted (and hoped?) that things would go very badly for the Bush Administration.

I wonder, what media service would you call middle-of-the-road?


AN INTRIGUING new book, just published in France, details the curiously amicable relationship between the regime of U.S. President George W. Bush and Afghanistan's Taliban, a relationship that turned hostile only after the terror attacks of Sept. 11.

Published in France? You don't say!


The Bottom Line Truth is this - We had 8 years of peace and prosperity under Clinton.

If you want to call terrorist attacks on our embassies, barracks, a US ship, and the first WTC bombing peaceful, sure.


This drives the Right Wing NUTS. The mere mention of it causes them to convulse. Bush, in his bid to set up his buddies, has ruined the economy as he tries to ram home one tax cut after another for the wealthy socialites he grew up with.

A) Tax cuts don't ruin an economy. See also: Reagan.

B) Not enough of Bush's tax cuts have gone into effect to have actually made a difference.


If not for the patriotic pride after 9/11, Bush's approval rating would be in the toilet and Cheney would be indicted for his role in Haliburton and the Enron/California "Energy Crunch".

Funny, then, how none of the controversies stuck on Bush and Cheney even prior to 9/11.
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Post by mglenn » Apr 15th 2003, 6:56 pm

But take a good long honest look around the TV dial. Limbaugh. Bill O'Reilly. Savage Nation. CNBC. Moneyline. FoxNews. Hell, even CBS has its own military experts on.
But yet if you watch and listen to CNN, Dan Rather, Peter Arnet, Peter Jennings and others you can see the leftist undertones in their questions and editoralizing.

The reason you are seeing more of the Right on TV these days is because FoxNews is kicking the crap out of the other networks in neilson ratings. People want to see it, and if the those networks continue to lose viewers they lose advertising dollars.

NPR tried to do a story on how Clear Channel was staging all the Rally for Americas that were taking place. They dropped the story when they couldn't get any evidence that they had anything to do with them other than some of their radio personalities, such as Glenn Beck, being there!

Now as far as Clinton's war on terror you said it yourself that all he did was arrest them, save for the cruise missle attack which many believe was wagging the dog to draw attention away from the sex scandels, which as you can see did nothing to stop the terrorists.

From your own dates no more than two years passed between terrorist strikes. On the otherhand Bush's policy of carrying a big stick and usinging it and we have had no major terrorist attacks since 9/11.

These groups are willing to send there "soldiers" to die in suicide attacks, so do you really believe that they care when a few of these lowly "soldiers" are arrested and put in jail. No! But now that we are attacking the leadership they are busy protecting their own ass instead of planning attacks on us.

Also once we stabilize Iraq and start to reverse the poverty trend in the arab world we will see even less terrorist, because its easy to convince a guy with no job and no options to attack the country he is told is the reason for his situation and that indoing so he will be rewarded both in heaven and his family will be taken care of. On the otherhand if he has a job and is living and taking care of his family its much harder to sell him on such outragious actions.
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Post by fnordboy » Apr 16th 2003, 3:22 am

JPP13 wrote:BTW, before you try and hang the socialist tag on me, a few thoughts. I have a degree in economics and I'm an attorney for a large corporation.
PINKO! :wink:

Anywhoo, JPP I am mostly on your side on this discussion, but really the media is not primarily right. The majority of major news networks definitely lean to the left, granted it may not be as left as most on the left would like but it is left of center. And nowadays if you question the regime..err..government too much you get the label of an unpatriotic, unamerican commie. So it really isn't surprising that they are walking on some eggshells.

Fox News of course is a whole 'nother story.

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