Political leanings

[alan1chef]

I don't respond to your crap because it is crap.

[smuttleydfs]

(alan1chef @ Aug. 09 2009,02:52) I don't respond to your crap because it is crap.

Which is exactly why spanking you over your pathetic right wing "crap" rants is damned enjoyable!!!!

The reich wing mantra is to take a couple of shots off the liberal bow and then duck and cover under their mama's skirts and you are no different wannabechief. You whine about "name calling" then do so yourself. You have such a limited mentality that the only way you can post anything is to copy and paste from your reich wing websites and let anorexic ann, oxycotin rush, and hapless hannity do your thinking for you........much like the current attempts by the pathetic reich wing to disrupt town hall meetings and public forums by loading them up with "protesters" whose entire mission is not to peacefully protest but to be as loud and as belligerent as they can be. Look at these "protesters" they are all poor white trailer park trash and it has been verified a considerable amount of these are recruited by the reich wing. That is how pathetic you and your reich wing cronies are are becoming. You are the butts of jokes on the late night comedy talk shows and with stand ups throughout the country. Your party has been overwhelmed by the white racists and christian radicals in the country............sorry wannabechief but those are not the foundations our great country were founded under.

Thats why I continue to spank you and your views. Get original and provide some original thoughts and you might gain some respect from me and fellow liberals.

Until then.............

[strocube]

We knew the monkey boy was a dangerous tool, but then you read stuff like this and you realize it was even worse than you could've imagined. FUCK!
Come to think of it, the French should've gone totally public with this to discredit this cretin and make him and the planned invasion objects of global ridicule.

[i]
Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible€™s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.

Honest. This isn€™t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their €œcommon faith€ (Christianity) and told him: €œGog and Magog are at work in the Middle East€¦. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled€¦. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people€™s enemies before a New Age begins.€

This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its €œcoalition of the willing€ to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush€™s call and €œwondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.€

After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn€™t comply with Bush€™s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to €œturn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,€ and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, €œand fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.€

In 2007, Dr. Romer recounted Bush€™s strange behavior in Lausanne University€™s review, Allez Savoir. A French-language Swiss newspaper, Le Matin Dimanche, printed a sarcastic account titled: €œWhen President George W. Bush Saw the Prophesies of the Bible Coming to Pass.€ France€™s La Liberte likewise spoofed it under the headline €œA Small Scoop on Bush, Chirac, God, Gog and Magog.€ But other news media missed the amazing report.

Subsequently, ex-President Chirac confirmed the nutty event in a long interview with French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice, who tells the tale in his new book, Si Vous le Répétez, Je Démentirai (If You Repeat it, I Will Deny), released in March by the publisher Plon.

Oddly, mainstream media are ignoring this alarming revelation that Bush may have been half-cracked when he started his Iraq war. My own paper, The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, is the only U.S. newspaper to report it so far. Canada€™s Toronto Star recounted the story, calling it a €œstranger-than-fiction disclosure €¦ which suggests that apocalyptic fervor may have held sway within the walls of the White House.€ Fortunately, online commentary sites are spreading the news, filling the press void.

The French revelation jibes with other known aspects of Bush€™s renowned evangelical certitude. For example, a few months after his phone call to Chirac, Bush attended a 2003 summit in Egypt. The Palestinian foreign minister later said the American president told him he was €œon a mission from God€ to defeat Iraq. At that time, the White House called this claim €œabsurd.€

Recently, GQ magazine revealed that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld attached warlike Bible verses and Iraq battle photos to war reports he hand-delivered to Bush. One declared: €œPut on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.€

It€™s awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who €œgot saved.€ He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars.

For six years, Americans really haven€™t known why he launched the unnecessary Iraq attack. Official pretexts turned out to be baseless. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction after all, and wasn€™t in league with terrorists, as the White House alleged. Collapse of his asserted reasons led to speculation about hidden motives: Was the invasion loosed to gain control of Iraq€™s oil€”or to protect Israel€”or to complete Bush€™s father€™s vendetta against the late dictator Saddam Hussein? Nobody ever found an answer.

Now, added to the other suspicions, comes the goofy possibility that abstruse, supernatural, idiotic, laughable Bible prophecies were a factor. This casts an ominous pall over the needless war that has killed more than four thousand young Americans and cost U.S. taxpayers perhaps $1 trillion.

James A. Haught is the editor of the Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)

[pacman]

Fabulous...              The truth is coming out...        

Now let's see O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter, Gingrich, Limbaugh & all the other flag-waving idiots try to explain this. I knew there had to be more to this invasion.

A trillion dollars...        what a fuckin' wanker...      

[Lefty]

I differ my friend. To me there is nothing worth laughing about regarding GW Bush. What Strocube posted just reiterates how totally wacked in the head GW is.
People who fell for his 2002/early 03 Attack Iraq propaganda should be ashamed of themselves, as should anyone STUPID enough to have EVER voted for this putrid disgusting CHICKENHAWK scum.

When you see someone so dangerous occupying the White House for those 8 yrs, I would wonder where the hell is John Wilkes Booth now that we really need him? The only problem with that though is Dickless Cheney is equally diabolical and not nearly as simple minded which would have made a Cheney presidency even more scary than the Dubya debacle.

Yeah, the truth is now coming out, though it was always there for anyone with eyes and a normally functioning brain.

I cannot laugh at the trillion he spent in Iraq. He is at the very least a wanker of the highest order, but so are all the fucking congressmen who voted for his defense(offense) budgets.

People who know me personally, like PigDogg, know I am very peaceful person, but my God I'd love to kick Rush and Hannity square in the belly.

[Torurot]

Gentlemen, we can have a "left" "right" discussion without all the name calling, even if Al does have some weird views!

[Tomcat]

They only appear weird because you dont agree with him. I doubt if Al is a loner..it always seems that anyone who is not remotely Liberal is some kind of idiot

[Torurot]

From warincontext.org

So time is ticking away on Iran? Let€™s stop the clock
http://www.thenational.ae/apps....080
Tony Karon

* Last Updated: August 08. 2009 11:24PM UAE / August 8. 2009 7:24PM GMT

The clock is ticking on Iran, or so we€™re told. But whose clock, and what exactly is it timing? Obama administration officials say Iran has until September to respond to the US offer to negotiate over its nuclear programme or face what the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, calls €œcrippling sanctions€. But what exactly is being demanded of Iran, and what is being offered? And what if those sanctions don€™t change its stance?

@body arnhem:Iran insists that its programme is entirely for peaceful energy production, and that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons. But €“ and this is perhaps the crucial point in the conversation €“ it very much insists that as a signatory of the Non Proliferation Treaty, it does, in fact, have the right to enrich uranium, and has no intention of surrendering that right. That, moreover, is not only the position of the hardline Ahmadinejad government, but also of its pragmatic and reformist rivals who continue to challenge the legitimacy of the president€™s reelection.

The US and its allies believe Iran is using the cover of a civilian nuclear energy programme to put in place many of the key elements of a bomb, particularly the ability to enrich uranium. The Non Proliferation Treaty allows its signatories (including Iran) to enrich uranium as reactor fuel, under monitoring by the International Atomic Energy to ensure that it is not enriched to weapons grade. According to the US Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, the US intelligence community believes Iran won€™t have the technical capacity to produce weapons-grade material until 2013; that its leaders have not taken a political decision to create a bomb; and that they won€™t do so as long as their programme remains under international scrutiny.

Some Iranian officials have signalled a willingness to negotiate over mechanisms to allay international fears by strengthening safeguards against Iran€™s uranium enrichment capacity being used for weaponisation, but they have not been prepared to surrender the principle that enrichment is their right.

A few days before Iran€™s recent election debacle, Senator John Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, dismissed as €œridiculous€ the Bush administration€™s demand that Iran forgo uranium enrichment. €œThey have a right to peaceful nuclear power and to enrichment for that purpose,€ he said.

But that is not, of course, what Mrs Clinton has been saying on the question of enrichment. So adopting Mr Kerry€™s approach would indicate to Iran that the US had moved its position, and might encourage more flexibility (or, some might argue, more defiance) from Tehran.

Either way, Iran€™s turbulent domestic political situation, in which a weakened president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has to establish a new governing consensus, militates against engaging in a politically tricky search for a compromise on the nuclear issue right away. Unfortunately, the same may be true for the Obama administration: it would have been a lot easier to be flexible with Mir Hossein Mousavi than with Mr Ahmadinejad. The advice from most Iran analysts is that the US should simply wait for the dust to settle before pressing for engagement, and should avoid taking steps that could harm the prospects for political change in Tehran.

Advocates of sanctions say they would give teeth to Mr Obama€™s negotiation offer, by showing Iran that there will be immediate and escalating consequences for failure to heed western demands. Currently under discussion are measures to pressure third countries to stop supplying petrol to Iran (almost half its consumption of petroleum products is imported).

But despite the tough talk, the options are limited. Russia and China are not convinced that Iran represents a nuclear weapons threat, and their own interests in Iran will prompt them to block UN action. And the US would struggle to prevent Iran from beating a boycott via Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. The Iraq experience is a reminder that sanctions typically strengthen the hand of an autocratic regime and immobilise the middle class most likely to oppose it, by making everyone more dependent on the state for essential resources.

Iran at the best of times responds badly to threats, ultimatums and deadlines, and it€™s difficult to imagine even the new wave of sanctions being contemplated by the US changing Tehran€™s position.

But if the US is committed to escalating pressure to force Iran to back down, what next? A naval blockade? The Iranians would treat it as an act of war, and respond in some nasty, asymmetrical way. And then what? A military strike on Iran€™s nuclear facilities? That would certainly start a war, with unpredictable and potentially catastrophic consequences throughout the Middle East, and wouldn€™t even necessarily end Iran€™s pursuit of nuclear capacity.

Those who advocate that Mr Obama tie his diplomatic outreach to tight deadlines that trigger new sanctions are committing the US to a path of ever-escalating pressure that could easily drag him into a war he would prefer to avoid. The only real argument being advanced for imposing new sanctions on Iran is the idea that if the US fails to show progress in its diplomatic effort to limit Iran€™s nuclear ambitions by the end of this year, Israel will take matters into its own hands and launch a military strike.

But Washington will restrain Israel from taking actions that will prejudice US security, and allowing the Israeli leadership€™s more alarmist reading of the situation to set the clock for Washington€™s dealings with Iran could leave Mr Obama in a very uncomfortable place.

Tony Karon is a New York-based analyst who blogs at rootlesscosmopolitan.com

[pacman]

(Lefty @ Aug. 10 2009,12:10) I differ my friend. To me there is nothing worth laughing about regarding GW Bush.

My intention wasn't to make fun of the position of the POTUS. I just cracked up at the image of GW quoting the Old Testament to Chirac.

Old Jacques must have hung up the phone wondering what the fuck he was on about.

I bet Oliver Stone wished he knew this story before he filmed "W". It would have been the icing on the cake.

[Lefty]

I agree to a degree. The image of Dubya quoting scripture to Chirac would be funny,  if it weren't so sad and disgusting.

I think we would be better off if we only elected atheists to be president. Not sure we can survive any more religious and superstition fanatics.

Totally agree about Stone and the movie. I'd have loved to seen him include that aspect in the film.

[Torurot]

Doom & Gloom, or just the facts?? This is quite a long detailed article.

Green Shoots or Scorched Earth?
Bulletins From Clunkerville
http://counterpunch.org/whitney08142009.html
By MIKE WHITNEY Weekend Edition August 14-16, 2009

Is the economy really recovering or is it all just hype?

Here's what we know. The Fed doesn't drop rates to zero unless its facing a 5 alarm fire and needs to pull out all the stops. The idea is to flood the markets with liquidity in order to avoid a complete financial meltdown. It's a last-ditch maneuver and the Fed does not take it lightly.

The Fed initiated its zero interest rate policy, ZIRP, eight months ago (December 16 2008) and hasn't raised rates since. In the meantime, Fed chair Ben Bernanke has pumped huge amounts of money into the financial
system using thoroughly-untested and unconventional means. No one knows whether Bernanke can roll up his multi-trillion dollar lending facilities or not (and avoid Zimbabwe-like hyperinflation) because no one has ever created similar programs. It's all "make-it-up-as-you-go"
policymaking. What we do know, however, is that the Fed intends to keep rates at rock-bottom for the foreseeable future, which means that the lights are all still blinking red.

Here's an excerpt from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on Wednesday: .......

[alan1chef]

Regarding Iran....doesn't anyone here think it is highly unusual for one of the largest oil producers on the planet to suddenly want to produce nuclear power? Have all of you forgotten the images from the hostage experience and failed rescue during Carter's time? Do you really think that Iran has changed much since then, because I don't, and I don't see any evidence of any change that would make me ever want to consider trusting them one bit.

[Torurot]

That's because you didn't look too hard. Iran has the RIGHT to make nuclear power just like the US does. Can you explain the difference? Which country(s) has recently invaded a number of defenseless counties. Answer... NOT Iran! Why is it OK for Israel to have both nuclear power, and nuclear weapons? The USA??

Oil is more valuable sold to the US and other countries rather than using it to make electricity when "cheap" nuclear can be used to make electricity. Is it OK for the USA to use nuclear power to make electricity, when it has it's own oil supplies? Al, explain why the US CIA interfered in Iranian democracy, explain "Iran/Contra", and on and on. The "Great Satan" has rather a lot to answer for don't you think!

Concerned about Iran, no I'm not!

[manarak]

Iran has the RIGHT to make nuclear power just like the US does.

Yes that is true.

And now my duplicity - which most westerners around me here cannot understand - comes into play:

While it is the right of Iran to make nuclear weapons, I would have no remorse in bombing their facilities.
Yes it is an act of war, yes it is imperialistic.

I will not say Iran has no right to have nuclear weapons, I say they can try as long as they want - they are free to do as they please!

But I'll level their facilities to the ground regularly.

Call it "Realpolitik" if you want.
It is a game about power. This is the way it is played.
All the UN and G8 and other summits are just a show for the masses, and a way of gradually increase the pressure on Iran to show them that yes, the US (or Israel) are serious about bombing the facilities, and thus giving Iran a chance of stepping back from their nuclear program.
I am sure all the diplomats are scratching their heads to find a way to make Iran abandon the program and at the same time making Ahmadinejad look like a winner... a liar's game. I hate liars.

What I cannot approve are all the lies that are being told.
The US are hypocrits, they lie, they wage war unprovoked for profit and they torture, etc.
So do a number of other countries.
The USA play the game for their advantage. And so do a number of other countries.

The US have "allies" which they tend to exploit less than their enemies.
The "Axis of Evil" are countries which try to solidify their power by developing weapons to discourage other countries from attacking them (especially the USA, but also Russia).
India and Pakistan did it earlier.

Just put the record straight and don't believe all the propaganda.


It is the way it is - and we get to watch, hear and read only the lies our western governments and the USA want us to know.

Did you ever notice how the news are fundamentally different in other countries that are not within the "western world"?
To get a balanced view of news, one should get newspapers from Moscow, Beijing, Bangkok, Brazil, Dubai and India. And watch Al-Djazeera a little. Al Djazeera really does a good job most of the time.

[Torurot]

Manarak
Iran has made it clear it is NOT making a bomb.  The IAEA or what ever letter combination they are using this month agrees, as they inspect all the facilities.  Does the USA and Israel allow such inspections?

You have no right to bomb them, if you do then no surprise if the "blow back" for the "West" is severe and deserved.  Better buy some oil shares cause the price is going beyond stratospheric.

When do you think the USA will allow weapons inspectors into ALL it's own nuclear and biological/chemical facilities for the purposes of inspection, to ensure compliance with all international treaties that the USA has signed up to.  

What, you say you just saw a flock of flying pink pigs go past??  

Al Jazera's Malaysia Asia hub in KL is (or was) run by a New Zealand WOMAN. Al Jazera at least provides balance of the quality that Fox (the spin begins here) cannot.