Here is a quote from the UK Observer from June 15, 2003. regarding the use of the mobile labs:

The conclusion by biological weapons experts working for the British Government is an embarrassment for the Prime Minister, who has claimed that the discovery of the labs proved that Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction and justified the case for going to war against Saddam Hussein.

Instead, a British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the trailers in Iraq, told The Observer last week: 'They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were - facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.'

Hey Steve,
Ya wanna buy some swampland...
Daniel

Daniel
I see you are convinced Saddam was up to no good in those mobile labs. You have "faith" in Bush then. Well, even Colin Powell will tell you the labs weren't biological labs, he says he was wrong in making that claim. You are in a shrinking minority. Jump off the boat before it sinks!

-The Iraq Documents--

Steve d, what would be the point in buying up all kinds of mobile lab equipment if they were just making hydrogen for weather balloons? Doesn't that seem like alot of money to be spending on such an endeavour? Perhaps Saddam was simply interested in the weather, but why not just buy stationary equipment to produce the hydrogen, wouldn't it be cheaper? And why buy so much of the equipment, did they really need that many weather balloons put up out in the desert?

Lets play devil's advocate. Hypothetically, lets rule out any possible use of these labs for biological weapons creation purposes, and lets also say he didn't need a whole bunch of weather balloons. What would you be doing with all that hydrogen production capability, and why would you want it to be mobile so it could be hid in the desert?

I know you'll probably accuse me of "having 'faith' in Bush" or being part of his "cabal" or something for simply asking you to engage in a little critical thinking, but it might be more constructive to ask questions "Why did they need so much of this equipment, and what was it being used for?" instead of something along the lines of "Some scientist said it couldn't be used for biological weapons" and asking no more questions of the matter.

Am I correct in hazarding a guess that you don't really care about information as to what Saddam might have been doing, unless if it happens to discredit President Bush or Prime Minister Blair?

Yes Steve I still believe there were weapons of mass destruction. Just because there are various agents and agencies at work using "weapons of mass confusion" doesn't mean that there were no WMD. There are pictues on the net of Iraqi mig jets buried in the sand that had been covered over with plastic and buried 10 feet deep to be recovered later. The American military dug them out. It is a big desert, perhaps the WMD are buried there too.
There are credible reports continuing to come out of the area that trucks with WMD aboard fled Iraq for Syria and Iran as the war began.
Hmmm, faith in Bush or faith in Sadaam and his sons? I'll side with Bush. I think Bush did the best he could with the intel that he had available. Right decision or wrong decision, I don't know, history will be the judge of that. At least Bush and Blair made a decision. Strike one more regime of tyrants off the list!
Perhaps you had a better solution Steve. Oh ya, trust in the UN...Bush or the UN Hmmm, I'll side with Bush. With all the "Oil for Food" corruption that was taking place through the auspicis of the UN to the tune of billions of dollars. The UN is corrupt, weak and indecisive. Left to the UN, Sadaam and his sons would still be repressing the Iraqi people, raping the women at will and killing off anyone that dared speak for freedom or democracy.
Now about that swampland...
Daniel

Well, I tend to go along with Kate about not feeding the trolls. However for once, let's do what the lefties do, namely, jump from one argument to another.

Putting aside possible mobile WMD laboratories, let's talk about something definite. There ARE over 300 identified mass burial sites in Iraq. Nobody, including international forensic experts, disputes their existence.

The one mass grave site that most struck me most in my reading was one in northern Iraq, in Kurdish territory. There were approx. 250 graves, each with one woman and each with one or more small children. Each skeleton of a woman or small child had a single bullet hole in the skull.

Does our favorite lefty troll have an opinion on that? Or would he prefer changing the subject back to Evil Moron Bush, yadda, yadda?

The leftist trolls are a waste of time. They're closed-minded and cannot think for themselves, nor do they want to.

The live in a fantastical, utopian world in which all they have to do is talk with and be nice to the evil tyrants of the world and there'll be peace.

Neville Chamberlain and his ideological followers believed the very same thing about Hitler... and history proved them DEAD wrong.

No point engaging the leftist trolls. They cannot be turned... probably too far gone already, except for a minority of them who'll come over to the side of the right on their own when they see the truth for themselves and accept it.

BTW, I wonder how many clicked on the link to Captain's Quarters? He debunked the hydrogen-for-balloons theory.

What'll the left believe next? That Michael Jackson is perfectly sane? Oh, probably... as they believe Cindy Seehan is perfectly sane. And Howard Dean. And Paul Martin... wherever he is... not in the House of Commons, for sure.

it is unbelievable and frightening that neo-cons are still trying to defend the Iraq war. Stay away from the purple juice. Bush lied and is a mo-ron. Get over it.

It's curious to me that years after the fact there is still need for justification for the Iraqi invasion. Whether there were WMDs there or not, the larger issue needing resolution seems to be that considerable segments of the American public are still oppossed to it and the polls remain pretty much split on the issue....no such civil reluctance existed in WW1 or WWII or Korea.

Successful or not, neccessary or not, the Iraq war/occupation was not acheived through a decisive mandate from the public.....the need for intervention supporters to consistantly reassure us this was a right move by grasping at every straw of justification is begining to wear thin ...that is if we are completely honest with ourselves.

More fake Hussein Documents. Big deal. Nobody believes this stuff. Nobody believes the good Captain, either.

More fake Hussein Documents. Big deal. Nobody believes this stuff. Nobody believes the good Captain, either.

I apologise to all for highlighting this troll's post from another thread,but I believe it is too valuable a tool for all to witness(including myself)the utter waste of bandwidth in trying to enlighten them:

"How do we deal with Iran?
If I were President I would send the Secretary of State to talk to Iranian leaders. I would offer to end the trade embargo on Iran. I would offer ongoing dialogue and respect. In return I would ask them to hold off on developing nuclear capabilities until we see how well this new relationship works.
Once both sides get to know each other each becomes less suspicious, paranoid and is more open to suggestion and reason.
Historically, trade has opened up cultures and made them more open to outside ideas as well as goods. If it is change we want then it is more surely developed by dialogue than by the big freeze or worse, attack."
Posted by: steve d. at May 14, 2006 01:42 AM

How freakin' naive can someone over the age of 10 be?Where I enjoy a good back-and-forth with someone of a different opinion on things,I do expect more intelligent understanding of a jihad than my 8 year old daughter could muster.

Kate,I am the last one to condone censoring someone's voice,but it is becoming ridiculous how this one-track troll is trying to commandeer EVERY thread on this site.In fact,he is no longer as much of a troll as a virus!

I'm starting to believe SDA actually stands for Steve D is Assinine!(Steve you are very welcome for this extra attention that you crave so much)

Hey steve. Put a housecoat on and go upstairs and make your mother breakfast. It's Mothers Day.

Hahaha, I like it when Kate makes a post about two things no sane person can reasonably support anymore: Iraq and Bush. It's sort of like watching Tiger Woods slice a drive into the rough and reminds us that even the best among us are human. As for Captain's Quarters, last week he claimed that the UN is nothing more than a cover for some world pedophile conspiracy. I'm no fan of the UN, but that absoutely crossed the line of reasonable and civil debate. Those who support Bush and his PNAC fantasy are not only on the wrong side of history but on the wrong side of America. The Bush administration's foreign policy is not in America's interest and it's time to hold the last of the Bush supporters to account for that.

I'd say to the leftist trolls: At least Bush is smarter than you guys. Smart enough to be President. Kerry wasn't, and HE's smarter than you leftist trolls. So quit smokin' the dope, ye dopes, and start using your noodles. Not THOSE noodles; you use those enough... I mean the noodles that are your brains!

Bah!

Very, very sorry about that outburst against the trolls, Kate, but seeing as you're away, I thought perhaps they needed to be warned, and the good people needed a reminder to not feed them, as we shouldn't feed the bears, else they'll eventually eat us up...

Over and out... stuff to go do...

Gentlemen
I am sorry if a difference of opinion is upsetting. I know perfect agreement is comforting even soothing but that is not reality.
Getting elected doesn't make you best or right.
Those that are intransigent in the face of failure are sad and dangerous. Bush's policy in Iraq is a complete failure on every level. What is his alternate plan? He has none.
America's Iran policy is a miserable failure. By the way their policy since 1979 has been to isolate them with a no trade policy. You know, make them knuckle under, like Castro, uh no, not like Castro but like most of the South American nations used to do. It's been 27 years of plan "a" in Iran. The question is "hows it workin'for ya?" Not so much? Is there a plan "B"? Attack? Provoke more jihad? Convince every Arab on earth you hate them and are after them? Good plan. If you aim to keep the war on terror going for another fifty years. Its good for the Military Industrial Complex but is it good for McDonalds? Not so much. America Inc. being blown up all over the world? You want to incite that? Are you sure? Is there no other way?

The UN is almost literally owned by the members of the security council. After WWII, America was the protector against communism. America got exactly what it wanted in the UN. Now the other members are expressing themselves more freely and are not agreeing with the US as much. It is interesting that the two countries that suffered most in the last two world wars are most hesitant to use military power now.

Saddam Hussein was paranoid most dictators are, they have to be to stay in power. He maintained respect through military might. After the first gulf war he was virtually stripped of this military capability. He was embargoed so he wasn't going to re-militarize anytime soon. The only thing he had left was his enemies believing he had WMD. Part of the bluster to keep enemies at bay could have been these mobile labs. That is why George Tenet said Iraq would be a "slam dunk" they knew the emperor had no clothes.

Democracy: The God That Failed

"Likewise, is contemporary America wealthier because of higher taxes and more regulations or in spite of them? That is, would America be even more prosperous if taxes and regulations had remained at their nineteenth-century levels?
...
My theoretical interpretation is entirely different. It involves the shattering of three historical myths. The first and most fundamental is the myth that the emergence of states out of a prior, non-statist order has caused subsequent economic and civilizational progress. In fact, theory dictates that any progress must have occurred in spite – not because – of the institution of a state.
...
The second myth concerns the historic transition from absolute monarchies to democratic states. Not only do neoconservatives interpret this development as progress; there is near-universal agreement that democracy represents an advance over monarchy and is the cause of economic and moral progress. This interpretation is curious in light of the fact that democracy has been the fountainhead of every form of socialism: of (European) democratic socialism and (American) liberalism and neo-conservatism as well as of international (Soviet) socialism, (Italian) fascism, and national (Nazi) socialism. More importantly, however, theory contradicts this interpretation; whereas both monarchies and democracies are deficient as states, democracy is worse than monarchy.
...
In particular, democracy is seen as promoting an increase in the social rate of time preference (present-orientation) or the "infantilization" of society. It results in continually increased taxes, paper money and paper money inflation, an unending flood of legislation, and a steadily growing "public" debt. By the same token, democracy leads to lower savings, increased legal uncertainty, moral relativism, lawlessness, and crime. Further, democracy is a tool for wealth and income confiscation and redistribution. It involves the legislative "taking" of the property of some – the haves of something – and the "giving" of it to others – the have-nots of things. And since it is presumably something valuable that is being redistributed – of which the haves have too much and the have-nots too little – any such redistribution implies that the incentive to be of value or produce something valuable is systematically reduced. In other words, the proportion of not-so-good people and not-so-good personal traits, habits, and forms of conduct and appearance will increase, and life in society will become increasingly unpleasant.
...
Finally, the third myth shattered is the belief that there is no alternative to Western welfare-democracies a la US. Again, theory demonstrates otherwise. First, this belief is false because the modern welfare-state is not a "stable" economic system. It is bound to collapse under its own parasitic weight, much like Russian-style socialism imploded a decade ago. More importantly, however, an economically stable alternative to democracy exists. The term I propose for this alternative is "natural order."

www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe4.html

BTW,Happy Mother's Day to all those who qualify!

I will never understand why the left are so outraged that no WMDs have been found yet in Iraq.

If Hussein had them and dared to use them (again) we could have seen almost 3 thousand dead American soldiers in a few hours instead of in a few years.

I can only to assume our own left wingers (the so called loyal opposition) are disappointed.

Why do lefties always assume that they are the majority in their thinking??!! Are they taking polls or something??! At the time of the last UN security council resolution regarding Iraq (the 16th I believe), the resolution ordered Sadaam Hussein to prove that he had destroyed all of his WMD or face invasion, there was absolute consensus among all nations at the time that he did, indeed, have WMD (especially since he had used them against the Kurds in the past), that fact was simply NOT in dispute. The fact that Hussein never complied with this resolution is what prompted the U.S. invasion. (I don't count handing over hundreds of thousands of useless documents as compliance). Obviously (to me anyway), Hussein managed to get rid of the WMD by either hiding them in the dessert or shipping them off to Iran and Syria before the invasion - why is this so hard for anyone to believe?? Why do some people prefer to believe Hussein over George Bush? Why do some people continue to blame Bush when all Hussein had to do to avoid this war was come clean about the WMD? It's totally beyond my comprehsion how twisted these people must be to side with terrorists over the U.S. - our friend and neighbour and one of the few countries who has actually helped liberate many in this world from tyranny. This is the thanks they get? I understand the U.S. made some mistakes regarding Iraq (they should have maybe waited a little while so they could have reallocated some additional troops from Afghanistan to Iraq so that they would have had sufficient troops for invastion). And now the same left are screaming about Dafur - all I can say is the only explanation for this bizarre attitude is brain damage!! Dafur is just another Iraq (without the WMD)!

How does that quote go "Those who don't learn from History.... are destined to repeat it" Or words to that effect. I'm constantly amazed at the rantings of the moon-bat from the left that drible inanely here. Their ancestors were probably the people that didn't believe Nazi Germany had the capability of building a war machine or the the will to use it. In 1936 the keel to the biggest ship in the world was put down and the French, British, and American navies despite having their inspectors on site failed to realize that between them they did not have a battleship in their navies of comparable size. So much for inspectors. Jump ahead 60 years and we have a vocal group of leftists that are vehement in their denouncement of the Bush administration for its attitude in attacking Saddam because of suspected WMD. Nazi Germany allowed inspectors (naval engineers and naval attaches) to inspect the building of the Bismark, Saddam was hiding in the desert. something for the Moonbats to think about if they are open-minded about it enough to try. Perhaps if the leaders of the 1930's had acted with the same dispatch as the Bush and Blair administrations, WWII might have only been a footnote in the annals of the Twentieth Century.

Do not feed the trolls!

Everyone knows that when the WMD are found we can be sure Bush and Harper planted them. sarcasm off/

Happy Mother's Day to those who are or have mothers and condolances to steve d.'s mom. We know she tried to raise her son right.

Right and Left are one and the same: socialism/fascism are Siamese twins; same body with two heads, yes, with two heads sharing one tongue: same message.

Socialism is fascism; fascism is socialism.

Cindy Sheehan and Lew Rockwell have collided; the left moonbats and the right moonbats have fornicated and brought forth Cindy and Lew's abortions: "zenon" and "steve d." and et al. ...

The left moonbats and the right moonbats are one and the same. They are aliens from Uranus; trolls from Uranus. ... Do Not Feed The Trolls. ....

The Right's Left Turn

By Jacob Laksin
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 5, 2005

Excerpt:

And no wonder. With its foam-flecked denunciations of the United States for “the evil of imperialism, the immorality of enslaving a foreign people, the malice of colonialism, and the intolerable brutality of authoritarianism,” its paranoiac allusions to a dissent-crushing “state,” and its unelaborated call for “resistance,” Rockwell’s speech could have been given by any of the more literate ringleaders of the anti-war left.

It might be supposed that Rockwell’s base of operations, LewRockwell.com, a gathering ground for a querulous cult of libertarian-anarchist true-believers, would be less amenable to the APJC’s members. On the contrary, a left-wing extremist would find much to admire among the site’s standard fare. Rockwell describes it as “unapologetically idiosyncratic.” That is putting it mildly. Although occasionally plumping for some eccentric ventures—LewRockwell.com is an enthusiastic supporter of the cause of the Confederate South—the default mode of the site is unsubtle ant-Americanism clothed in the garb of “anti-state” libertarianism.

Certainly that’s Rockwell’s stock-in-trade. In the disturbed worldview of Rockwell and his ideology-blinkered acolytes, the U.S. government, far from representing the democratic consensus of the American people, is the world’s most oppressive regime. “We are talking about the greatest centralized power on the globe, the world's largest, most well-armed, and most dangerous government, the only government to have ever used nuclear weapons against civilians and the government that has invaded more countries than any other in modern times,” complained Rockwell in June of 2004. Rockwell was still stuck on that theme one year later, even going so far as to endorse the caricature of America as the avatar of the Evil Empire. “Americans need to face the reality that most of the world sees our nation as the new evil empire, and many people in the Gulf region are dedicated to making sure that the Iraq War is the last hurrah for American militarism,” he wrote in June of 2005. “How tragic to admit that the analogy is not entirely implausible.”

Rockwell’s underlings are even more candid about their contempt for the U.S. The American-led war in Iraq has afforded them the occasion to vent their hostility. For evidence, one need look no further than a December 2004 entry on LewRockwell.com’s blog by contributor Mike Rogers. In the course of cheering the terrorist holdouts in Fallujah, Rogers put up a picture of a bombed-out American tank. In case the message was too muddled, Rogers appended it with a caption: “A toast to the defeat of the evil empire - A prayer for the poor fallen souls.” One might have been forgiven for wondering whether the poor souls in question were American troops or the terrorist diehards responsible for their deaths.

More explicit still was LewRockwell.com columnist Karen Kwiatkowski. In a June 2005 column entitled “Unleashing the Resistance,” Kwiatkowski issued a blanket endorsement of the terrorist insurgency in Iraq. “They don’t understand everything that is happening, but most Iraqis have decided to pursue one or more of the countless paths of resistance to the state. All are qualified to resist. None are excluded.” Not only that at, but Kwiatkowski advised American opponents of U.S. foreign policy to take their cues from the insurgents: “We might take a lesson from the growing Iraqi insurgency and the response of that nation nearly destroyed by our pretext-laden invasion and the American neo-Jacobin possession of that country,” she wrote. Kwiatkowski declined to offer specifics. She noted, however, that “my gentle thoughts are increasingly turning to murder.”

In common with the more unhinged elements of the far left, LewRockwell.com is committed to propagating the notion that the U.S. is in the grip of a fascist government. Again, Rockwell himself is among the more ardent spokesmen for that view. His political opponents, he insists, are “fascisti,” while anyone with the temerity to voice support for American policies is dismissed as one of the “storm troopers of the regime.” As for the 62 million Americans who voted to reelect George W. Bush, they are—you guessed it—the proponents of “red-state fascism.” Lest such comments be dismissed as mere overheated sloganeering, Rockwell stresses that this “not just rhetoric.” Rather, Rockwell urges his readers “to recognize that fascism is a reality, not just a smear term.” ...
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19727

When Hussein used the WMD on the Kurds don't forget who his biggest ally was, America. If you haven't seen pictures of Rumsfeld shaking hand with Saddam in the mid 80's then you should look it up. It is certain to be on the internet. So the USA was supplying Saddam with weaponry before they weren't.

Hussein was not a threat to the US. He was a threat to no one. He was defeated, embargoed and monitored. They knew he had no military bite and no way to deliver any WMD he might have saved.
Even when he did have WMD and the means to deliver it in the first gulf war he didn't.
Most of the world knew that the US was using any excuse it could to attack Iraq. That is why there were protests all over the world prior to the war. Americans were the only people polled who supported the war(70%).
You don't support friends right or wrong. You support them when they are right and give em hell when they are wrong.

Antenor
Talk about history repeating itself. America invaded what is now Canada but were British colonies in 1812. They fully expected to be greeted as liberators. Sound familiar?

Steve D, don't let warped wingnuts such as Chicken Sentinel get to you. They would be destitute without their phantasms of conservative certitude, moral rectitude and intellectual superiority.

You are trying to challenge their fantasies with facts, which marks you as a "leftist troll" and danger. Wear the "moonbat" label proudly as a distinction from that crowd!

The documents that Captain's Quarter's is commenting on can be found here:

http://70.168.46.200/

At the top of the site is a disclaimer that says this:

"The US Government has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy of the information contained therein, or the quality of any translations, when available."

He has never got confirmation as to whether these are legitimate documents. With this latest posting, there is no real proof that these units were used for biological weapons. The comments are full of assumptions and accusations, but no one has any real proof. In fact, the Captain himself states:

"Nothing in this document says anything explicit about chemical or biological weapons."

This is followed with a very large "however," after which he rolls out his theory - this is not proof.

You guys can call me a troll or whatever, but there has to be some standard of proof here. If a liberal posted something using this level of proof arguing against WMD's, you would rip them to shreds (and rightfully so).

Troll said: "Wear the "moonbat" label proudly as a distinction from that crowd!"

The left liberal trolls/moonbats love/condone their thugs and murderers: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Kim, Mugabe, Ahmajihad, ... Saddam, et al.

Buruma attributes the left's approbation of thugs and murderers to "radical Third Worldism." He writes:

The common element of radical Third Worldism is an obsession with American power, as though the US were so intrinsically evil that any enemy of the US must be our friend, from Mao to Kim Jong-il, from Fidel Castro to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And if our “friends” shower us with flattery, asking us to attend conferences and sit on advisory boards, so much the better. ...
powerlineblog.com

Antenor,

you state in your post of 12.45 to-day that, as an example of the failure of inspection, in Nazi Germany -

"In 1936 the keel to the biggest ship in the world was put down and the French, British, and American navies despite having their inspectors on site failed to realize that between them they did not have a battleship in their navies of comparable size."

Accustomed as I am to the Right playing fast and loose with facts and history when it suits a purpose, would you mind telling me the construction number, name or whatever designation you may have for this monster ship? I do have a published list of all keels laid and vessels constructed for the German Navy between 1921 and 31 August 1939, so this fact will be easy to verify.

The fact of the matter is everyone knew in the 70's that supporting Saddam against the Ayatollah Khomeini was a dubious prospect at best but the lesser of the evils of letting the Imans in the middle east begin to take over the middle east begining with Iraq. Their ultimate goal back then was to destroy Isreal.

Iran has alway been a far larger and greater threat than Iraq. Iraq was the buffer. The problem being that Saddam was a brutal vile man witb no compunction for killing maiming or torturing anyone who defied him. He was aggresive and imperilistic with his own designs on the middle east.

Amercian foriegn policy after WW2 was a dervative of MAD they tried to keep everything in balance which of course over time either failed or came back and bit them in the ass. They attempted to support those regimes friendly to America in regions that where trouble spots. In order to maintain a balance of power.

The middle east being a 1500 year old trouble spot for the West Bush took a bold new approach. The straw that broke the camels back being 9/11. With Iran after 20 years going Imperialistic again Saddam just plain crazy and evil the American looked for a new approach.

The Marshall plan was the blueprint. Rebuild a failed state. Make it democratic make it so the middle class was safe and prosperous.

To say Iraq failed is utter nonsense these guys are trying to rebuild a country form the ground up in just a few years. A endevour that took decades to occur in the west.

Should this modified Marshall plan work and it appears it may, as in Europe it tends to spread to other parts of the region. Folks become more interested in growing their own lives than following someone who either through fear or poverty commands their attention and gives them their marching orders as it where.

Already other states the Saudi Arabia and Egypt are feeling the pressure to move toward Democracy and freer more open states.

If you are a Cleric used to commanding total control over peoples lives this is not a good thing. Therefore you are going to throw everything you got a trying to make it fail because if it succeeds you are just another guy in a mosque.

So the I would expect that as Iraq moves closer to Democracy and freedom you will see increased fear and panic from the Imans to shut it down. This will show up in increased violence.

At some point it will burn itself out. People will go enough of this nonsense we want to live out lives in peace and worship our God in the same manner.

They will become more engrossed in their own lives after seeing increased prosperity and peace in Iraq. It will spread and maybe just maybe the greatest hurdle to world peace will have been overcome.

However they got there its worth a shot a stopping 1500 years of war.

At last, some good news for the left moonbat trolls:

Maddas says he is ready to die. ...

More: Saddam's keel was laid "in the land between the rivers". Da proof is da proof here:
http://www.magisociety.com/saddamhussein.htm

THE BIRTH CHART OF
SADDAM HUSSEIN

March 30, 2003

The country of modern day Iraq is where the biblical Babylonia used to be. Babylonia means the "land between two rivers" and it is in that land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that was the birthplace of astrology. To this day, astrology is a deep tradition in Iraq. One of astrology's greatest adherents is Saddam Hussein. During the months leading up to the Gulf War, many newspapers in countries that border Iraq joked about how Saddam Hussein kept changing his astrologers.

With that as background, it should be obvious that Saddam Hussein, who has lied about almost everything else, has also lied about his birth date. Saddam Hussein was not born on April 28, 1937 as he claims. He was actually born one year earlier.

The Magi Society has clear proof of this in our possession. (Our website was also the first to unequivocally and clearly give the correct birth date for Osama Bin Laden less than a week after the 9/11 attack. Many e-mailers doubted us but we have been vindicated since that time; we were correct.)...

Freerepublic.com:

Saddam the Poet Ready for Hangman ("I am Ready to Die," He Tells His Lawyer)
Posted by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
On 05/14/2006 10:09:37 AM PDT · 19 replies · 183+ views

Times Online ^ | 05/14/2006 | Widiane Moussa
THE former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has resigned himself to being sent to the gallows. “I am ready to die,” he told his lawyer and confidante in an interview in his Baghdad prison. “I am not scared of execution.” Saddam is expected to return to court tomorrow for the resumption of a chaotic trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity that has lasted almost seven months. “I do not attend this trial to spare my life,” he said. “I attend it to defend Iraq.” Saddam, who refuses all visits from his family, was talking to Bushra Khalil, a...

I"m speculating that Antenor is talking about either the Bismarck, the Tirpitz or both.

Hmm... I think Agitfact is clever to project the tactics of the left onto their conservative opponents, slandering us as playing fast and loose with facts and with history while Agitfact knows full well it's the left that has mastered this form of dishonesty with a view to political gain. This is the hallmark of "liberalism". This is how they won four consecutive elections. Pure, unadulterated, lying Machiavellianism.

The Canadian people are increasingly seeing the truth, which is that the left not only lies, but that they also falsely accuse regular folks like us conservatives of all sorts of dishonesties to detract from their own obfuscation and wool-pulling.

Forget about it, Agitfact. The tables have turned and Canadians prefer hard truth to the lies that used to give them false comfort in you guys.

Apparently the Leftists in the crowd are quite comfortable leaving an administration in power that runs its citizens through wood chippers.

I'm not surprised the left claims Iraq is a disaster, but it sickens me that it makes them so happy when they talk about that possibity. I would think elementary human compassion would cause a person to want this effort to succeed, despite hatred for Bush. But I've never hated that much, so I suppose I underestimate the crippling effect it can have on one's intellect and humanity.

Agitfact
Thanks. I am quite used to it. In fact I come to this conservative site to see what conservatives are thinking about and to give my views which are usually, but not always, an alternate view. Some people have no tolerance for opposing views I understand that. But others are at least thinking and have taken some time to seek information. Its all good. It is nice that Kate is broadminded enough to let me express myself. I think she knows I am sincere and not just mean and intolerant.

Amazing how in denial are leftists.

They claim that conservatives are intolerant of opposing viewpoints. Yet leftists don't tolerate any viewpoint that doesn't conform to their dogmatic politically correct views. This isn't debatable; everyone with their eyes, ears and minds open knows this.

The new tactic of the left to go back to using gross generalizations about conservatives that have already been soundly and thoroughly debunked isn't going to work. Canadians have become wise to the left, so I would suggest that leftists instead start being honest. They should prove their claims rather than just making them and then demonizing those who have a different idea to offer.

As we've seen with the Liberal Party of Canada, the left still hasn't learned why it has lost the respect and trust of the Canadian people. So all ye leftists, please continue doing what you're doing. Your words will consequently fall upon deaf ears.

We don't want the left telling us what to think anymore. We've already been there and know better.

Sentinel - do you ever engage in debate, or just slander of the left? Why not engage my criticism of Captain's Quarter's documents? Why do you insisit instead of making the same rants over and over about people who disagree with your point of view. I read this site each and every day and everytime someone disagrees with the majority, instead of getting engaged, they get dismissed and subjected to rants about the left. What are you afraid of? If you are so sure of your position - back it up with facts.

Hey Steve,
Ya wanna buy some swampland...
Daniel

Why would Steve want to buy some swampland that Bush suckered you into buying?

Bruce, Thanks for the back up I very seldom indulge in trying to educate the liberal left as their heads are so far in the sand or elsewhere they are incapable of listening. As to the invasion of Canada or Upper Canada that was referred to, if it hadn't have been for the self armed militia of the time we'd all be singing "Yankee Doodle" today, another reason why we should not submit to the liberal gun registry.

Bruce, forgot to mention the keel for the Bismark was laid at the Blohm and Voss, ship yards in Hamburg 1936. The Tirpitz was not constructed until after the war had started. Some people on the left, mainly in the MSM don't yet know how to google as a method of research, that is why I don't go out of my way to indulge them.

If CQ's knowledge of Irag is any simlar to his knowledge of Canada (several miles to his north), look out! Anyone remmeber his "coverage" of the last Canadian election? I thought the WMD fantasy had been kissed goodnight and put to bed some time ago. Now, we're on to gun control! It's going to be a long tedious summer!

Andy

I have a friend in Iraq who is working as a private security contractor there, in Baghdad. He says that the situation there is not as bad as it seems to be described in the media. According to him, there are hot spots, mainly in the Sunni triangle,and those are obviously the principal focus of the media. But he also says that life seems to be getting better for the locals, most of those he met are quite happy Saddam has gone.

I haven't been there, don't know the situation for myself, just repeating what he says.

steve d.

Just for the record I generally find your comments quite interesting. After all, if everyone here agreed, it would be a little boring. I visit a few of the left-wing blogs on occasion and am usually treated with courtesy...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060514/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_wmd_trailers_2

"Much sought after for his expertise, Barton served on the U.N. Iraq arms inspection teams of 1991-98 and 2002-03. After the U.S. invasion, he was an aide to chief U.S. inspector Charles Duelfer."

And your comments, Antenor, about the inspectors being on-site at the shipyards bring up an intersting question. How could supposedly qualified people mistake a keel etc for what I think became a warship in excess of 50000 tonnes for a ship within the conditions of Versailles?
Or did the allies know and just didn't care any more?

Peter D., I wasn't addressing you. The above was merely a reminder to not feed trolls and a counter to the leftist self-assuredness being pretentiously flaunted. It was so ludicrous I felt there needed to be a countervailing position. That's all.

I think the Iraq issue has already been argued to death. The relevant fact is that Saddam had thumbed his nose at the world for twelve years, defying the UN and causing reasonable people to fear he had WMDs by refusing to allow weapons inspectors unfettered access. Moreover, he was a terrible butcher of many, denying the most fundamental of human rights and dignity to all and invading other nations. There was no doubt he was and would've again been a threat. All sorts of evidence (eg., former Iraqi generals) is available for your viewing out there should you try to search for it, that the WMDs were transported into Syria prior to the latest war.

Further, I would suggest that we admit that we have different values: I believe that sometimes there needs to be war to defend freedom, democracy, the rule of law and human rights from those who threaten them (Hitler, Hirohito, USSR, Saddam, Bin Laden, Arafat, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jung II...) and you believe that all we need to do is talk to them and be nice to them and they'll be nice to us...

I'm getting tired of hearing the left go on and on, saying the same stuff every day, doing more and more bizarre things to try and get attention. We got their point... they're just carrying on like a broken record and we're tuning them out. The war happened. Democracy has already happened in Iraq. Good things are happening. Sure, there's "insurgent" violence and all, but it's dissipating all the time, notwithstanding all the MSM coverage of the negatives and ignorance of the positives.

And I make no apologies whatsoever for my hits against the left. You guys brought it upon yourselves; no doubt about it. I didn't imagine it, nor did anyone tell me to think so. I listened to and watched you guys for years with an open mind, going along only to find that the real world simply doesn't match your claims about it. No one with an independent, active brain is going to surrender to your dogmas and so on.

I am surrounded by leftists. I'm a conservative in a leftist world, so I know you people extremely well... in fact, I used to be one of you, except... I'm immune to indoctrination. Ask yourself if you truly think for yourself or if you go along with what your peers say just so they'll accept you. Do you conform out of fear of rejection? Do you have the self esteem and self confidence to be independent and focus on the relentless pursuit of the truth? Or are you addicted to "being part of the crowd" no matter how much it might diminish you as a sovereign individual?

Good night, Peter D.

Antenor,

I guessed that you would be referring to the battleships "Bismarck" and "Tirpitz." The "Bismarck" was construction no. 509, keel laid 1 Jul 36, launched 14 Feb 40, commissioned 24 Aug 40, and displaced 41,700 tons. The "Tirpitz" (no. 128)had her keel laid on 2 Nov 36, was launched on 1 Apr 39, commissioned on 25 Feb 41, and displaced 42,900 tons. Don't quite follow your point about those ships proving inspection failure in Iraq, but I am getting used to points being stretched in the bogosphere.

By the way, where do you think the facts (and interpretations)for your fast-food research in "Google" come form? The authoritative text on German inter-war naval plans is Jost Duelffer's "Weimar, Hitler und die Marine: Reichspolitik und Flottenbau 1920 bis 1939" (Duesseldorf, 1973) whose annex on construction data I used.

Agitfact, are you really Cliff Clavin from "Cheers"? The resemblance is uncanny... walking around spewing what may be facts...

Couldn't help myself there... :)

Oh, BTW, a professor of mine once declared: "Understanding is more important than facts".

I agree with him. Facts are good, but too many obsess over facts whilst failing to understand their meaning/relevance to things.

Mark Steyn
To connect the dots, you have to see the dots

May 14, 2006

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Here are two news stories from the end of last week. The first one you may have heard about. As "The Today Show's" Matt Lauer put it:

"Does the government have your number? This morning a shocking new report that the National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans."

The second story comes from the United Kingdom and what with Lauer's hyperventilating you may have missed it. It was the official report into the July 7 bus and Tube bombings. As The Times of London summarized the conclusions:

"Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the bomb cell, had come to the attention of MI5 [Britain's domestic intelligence agency] on five occasions but had never been pursued as a serious suspect . . .

"A lack of communication between police Special Branch units, MI5 and other agencies had hampered the intelligence-gathering operation;

"There was a lack of co-operation with foreign intelligence services and inadequate intelligence coverage in . . ."

Etc., etc., ad nauseam.

So there are now two basic templates in terrorism media coverage:

Template A (note to editors: to be used after every terrorist atrocity): "Angry family members, experts and opposition politicians demand to know why complacent government didn't connect the dots."

Template B (note to editors: to be used in the run-up to the next terrorist atrocity): "Shocking new report leaked to New York Times for Pulitzer Prize Leak Of The Year Award nomination reveals that paranoid government officials are trying to connect the dots! See pages 3,4,6,7,8, 13-37."

How do you connect the dots?

"How do you connect the dots? To take one example of what we're up against, two days before 9/11, a very brave man, the anti-Taliban resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, was assassinated in Afghanistan by killers posing as journalists. His murderers were Algerians traveling on Belgian passports who'd arrived in that part of the world on visas issued by the Pakistani High Commission in the United Kingdom. That's three more countries than many Americans have visited. The jihadists are not "primitives". They're part of a sophisticated network: They travel the world, see interesting places, meet interesting people -- and kill them. They're as globalized as McDonald's -- but, on the whole, they fill in less paperwork. They're very good at compartmentalizing operations: They don't leave footprints, just a toeprint in Country A in Time Zone B and another toe in Country E in Time Zone K. You have to sift through millions of dots to discern two that might be worth connecting....."
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn14.html
via newsbeat1.com

For all Bush-haters, self-righteous in their venom and convinced that President Bush deliberately lied about Iraq and WMDs, here are some interesting quotes from some interesting people:

Clinton in 1998 (when he bombed Iraq): “If he [Saddam]refuses or continues to evade his obligations through more tactics of delay and deception, he and he alone will be to blame for the consequences. … Now, let’s imagine the future. What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction…? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal.”

Al Gore: “If you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He’s already demonstrated a willingness to use these weapons. He poison-gassed his own people. He used poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors. This man has no compunction about killing lots and lots of people. So this is a way to save lives and to save the stability and peace of a region of the world that is important to the peace and security of the entire world.”

Then Liberal MP Lloyd Axworthy spoke to the world press about Canada’s support for Clinton’s military strikes against Iraq, and Jean Chretien said, “Saddam Hussein has brought this crisis on himself.”

The UN did not support these strikes (gasp! Canada supported the US without UN approval, under a LIBERAL gov't). Chretien addressed Parliament in 1998 with these words, “[T]he choice is clear. It is a choice dictated by the responsibilities of international citizenship, by the demands of international security and an understanding of the history of the world in this century.”

Really, with such beliefs in the existence of Saddam’s WMDs presented so eloquently by beloved politicians of the political left, despite UN disapproval, what was a Republican President of the U.S. to believe after his country was attacked on September 11, 2001? What are we all to believe?

Sentinel, it's like this. Given facts, we can discuss their meaning and implications, and try to reach understanding. But when we are dealing with facts that do not correspond to reality, that are tendentious/leading, that are falsehoods, assumptions, opinions or conclusions that are traded as facts, what do we discuss, what meaning could we deduce, and what understanding could result?

Ignoring or denying facts permits interpretations and conclusions desired to achieve an end, not the interpretations and conclusions warranted by the given facts. That's why I try to "spew" or interject facts, to keep discussion realistic and deductions logical.

As I've said before, in most of the tirades on this site (including yours!) one could replace "Left" with "Right" without affecting the
validity or truth value of what is said. Merely keeping partisan prayer-wheels in motion does not foster "meaning/understanding."

"Oh, BTW, a professor of mine once declared: "Understanding is more important than facts".

I agree with him. Facts are good, but too many obsess over facts whilst failing to understand their meaning/relevance to things."

If you don't know the facts, how can you understand what is really going on? Without real, substantiated facts, you are basing your understanding on what you perceive to be true, not what actually is.

With CQ, they are basing their understanding of things on documents that may or may not be real and taking them as definitive proof. With the current case, the document says nothing about biological weapons, but individuals are making assumptions, some educated, and again, taking it as definitive proof, mostly because it reinforces their worldview. That document proves nothing - and again I state, if the tables were turned and liberals/lefts/whoever were using the same type of document as definitive proof you would rightfully challenge it - so why not apply those same standards to your own evidence?

"And I make no apologies whatsoever for my hits against the left. You guys brought it upon yourselves; no doubt about it. I didn't imagine it, nor did anyone tell me to think so. I listened to and watched you guys for years with an open mind, going along only to find that the real world simply doesn't match your claims about it. No one with an independent, active brain is going to surrender to your dogmas and so on.

I am surrounded by leftists. I'm a conservative in a leftist world, so I know you people extremely well... in fact, I used to be one of you, except... I'm immune to indoctrination. Ask yourself if you truly think for yourself or if you go along with what your peers say just so they'll accept you. Do you conform out of fear of rejection? Do you have the self esteem and self confidence to be independent and focus on the relentless pursuit of the truth? Or are you addicted to "being part of the crowd" no matter how much it might diminish you as a sovereign individual?"

What good does it do you to dismiss people from "the left" with such a broad stroke? You are assuming that I don't think for myself, that I'm not independent etc... without knowing one thing about who I am or how I arrived at my particular view of how things are. You just assume and dismiss because that is easier than actually dealing with what people who disagree with you have to say. I find it chilling that a rather large segment of the population can be so easily dismissed by you as wrong. What powers do you have that enabled you to figure it all out? And how can you be so sure that you are right?

agitfact:

I thing the point he was making about the battleships is that under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was limited to building ships, especially warships, of (I believe) 30000 tonnes displacement or less.

And since the treaty of V. carried with it the right of the "allies" to inspect new ship construction, I think that it is fair to accept the analogy he advanced about the Germans in '36 to th3e inspectors in Iraq.

No-one is saying that the situations are identical, but I think the analogy he drew to the two situations qualifies as fair comment.

Oh, and by the way, Agitfact, it took me about 3 minutes in a google search to obtain the same information about the keels laid as you imparted above.

Speaking of WMD...
The eye opened last Knight.
http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20060514/630000000020060514083841E1.html

Agitfact and Peter D.: I would say precisely the same of yourselves.

And, gimme a break. The left isn't famous for offering concretely proven facts, nor does it care for same when it is offered. The left merely shouts down those who don't brainlessly toe the leftist party line and slanders them.

So you think it's a "fact" that Saddam didn't have WMDs? That the UN weapons inspectors claim to have found none? So what? It is possible, probable and very believable that Saddam got rid of them in the long runup to the war. Why would he leave them lying around? Why give Bush his legitimization?

And you complain that I dismiss leftists out of hand? Sorry, you've no right as long as you're a member of the group labelled "leftist"-- for your bunch is well-known for dismissing opposing points of view as "right-wing", "myopic", "narrow-worldview", "mean-spirited" and even far worse.

Stop complaining until your peers stop with their demagoguic behavior. That's why regular folk don't bother to dialogue with leftists much anymore... we tried, but encountered little else but bigotry and being shouted down while trying to present our facts and rationales, explaining why we take our positions. We were summarily dismissed by self-righteous leftists. Why put up with it?

You guys simply brought it upon yourselves, yet you complain now that we've decided to hold up a mirror to y'all?

The sheer chutzpah!

" Biological agent for military use is relatively simple to produce. There is reason to believe that the Iraqis possess a mobile BW agent production facility, consisting of three to five semi-trailers, containing fermentors and processing equipment. The equipment for use in these mobile facilities probably came from the Italian OLSA company and the Swiss firm Chemap."

Scott Ritter, " Endgame, Solving the Iraq Crisis, " published 1999, Page 235.

Let's dispense with the nonsense that the belief Saddam possessed a mobile bio-weapons manufacturing capability was invented by the Bush administration. I never cease to be amazed at the ability of the " Bush lied " crowd to ignore near identical " lies " from their own most prominent standard bearers like Ritter.

If anyone thinks the above mentioned quote is an isolated example, I'll be happy to provide a Ritter passage concerning his views on the danger posed by Iraq's nuclear aspirations. It's as alarming as anything said by the Bush administration on the subject, and I guarantee that any objective critic of regime change will never view the " Niger uranium " controversy in the same light again.

Bruce, spend another three minutes on the Anglo- German Naval Treaty, its background, negotiations and abrogation.

Chicken Sentinel, what was the point of your 3:50 AM rant? It didn't contain as much as a factoid.

Sentinel - first off, I do not consider myself part of any group (left or otherwise). Unfortunatley, the weekly "leftist" meetings have been cancelled and I can no more control them as you can control conservatives all over the blogosphere. I am an individual who came to my worldview thru experience. You can dismiss me as a leftist, but that would be just as useless as me dismissing you as a conservative and holding you responsible for the actions of all others.

"So you think it's a "fact" that Saddam didn't have WMDs? That the UN weapons inspectors claim to have found none? So what? It is possible, probable and very believable that Saddam got rid of them in the long runup to the war. Why would he leave them lying around? Why give Bush his legitimization?"

I don't know that it is a fact, but I have seen no legitimate evidence to show that he did still have it. You can say it is possible, probably and very believable that he got rid of them but where is the proof? And no, CQ's work doesn't constitute evidence for the reasons I stated before.

Left liberals, moonbats, trolls, and Chomsky: lovers of Nazis and Islamist jihad terrorists. ...

Noam Chomsky's Love Affair with Nazis-An axis of evil with Hezbollah.
Posted by SJackson
On 05/15/2006 7:15:38 AM PDT · 9 replies · 129+ views

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | May 15, 2006 | David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin
Rarely has the world been afforded such a clear glimpse into the unholy alliance between Islamic extremists and secular radicals in the West. That’s exactly what it got last week when the foremost Imam of the radical Left, Noam Chomsky, bestowed his blessings on the world’s largest terrorist army, the Shiite jihad outfit sponsored by Iran and known as Hezbollah (“Party of God.”) Following a meeting with Hassan Nasrallah, the Lebanese terrorist group’s “secretary general,” Chomsky announced his support for Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm. Then, in an echo of Nasrallah’s recent declaration that President Bush is the world’s top “terrorist,”...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1632432/posts

Hitting the wall, again and again... monnbats, liberals, leftists.... hit the wall, again and again.

Definition of insanity; repeat, repeat, repeat... same result... repeat... same.... rep... sa... r.. s..... ...

Rush Limbaugh and Liberalism’s Fatal Flaw
The American Thinker ^ | May 15, 2006 | Vasko Kohlmayer

Posted on 05/15/2006 5:36:17 AM PDT by Quilla

One of the Left’s great agonies and frustrations of the past fifteen years has been its abortive quest to field a counterpart to Rush Limbaugh. Fully cognizant of the massive damage inflicted on it by talk radio, a number of contenders placed bids to mount a counterattack. To their bitter dismay, they all came to grief despite the great hype and hope that surrounded each successive attempt.

A decade and a half worth of feverish effort thus produced no headway, not even a single nationally viable liberal host. With nothing to show for, the time has surely come to ask the obvious question: Why?

Why have liberals failed to make any inroads in talk radio? And why has their failure been so complete?

It surely cannot be due to a lack of trying or will, since they have done everything they could to prop up their hopefuls, even to the point of raising donations in this consummately commercial medium. All to no avail.

But rather than to reevaluate their obviously failing approach, they stubbornly carry on in the same way with predicable results. Again and again they run headlong into the same wall, each crash more pathetic and embarrassing than the one before. So bad things have gotten that most recently they placed their bets on Al Sharpton, hoping that the kooky reverend would carry their water on national airways. A futile dream if there ever were one. Rather than pursuing vain hopes, liberals would do much better to take a pause and search for the root cause of their fiasco.

Any such effort would have to begin with a hard look at the format in which they are trying to succeed.

In the type of political talk show invented by Rush Limbaugh, the host openly takes an ideological stance (conservative or liberal) and then applies it to the issues of the day during his hours on the air. What this in effect amounts to is in-depth analysis of current affairs from a specific political point of view.

The key to success in this kind of enterprise is the host’s ability to articulate his positions in a logical and cogent manner. This is because most people will not listen for very long to an analysis-driven program if the analysis itself does not make rational sense. ... more
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1632393/posts

Hey maz2. Did you read the Chomsky article you posted? How many quotes can you find in the article attributed to him? I find some partial quotes from books he has written (though no complete sentences) but nothing else, certainly no quotes showing that he "announced his support for Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm." Or am I missing part of the text here?

Deb, in her post quotes Clinton, Gore, Axworthy and Chretien (the latter also telling parliament that Canada should be prepared to help invade Iraq, if and when our good friend Clinton decides) on their belief that Saddam had WMD's. Futher, both Kennedy, Kerry and Liberal candidate Ignatieff fully supported Bush at the outset of this war.

It's easy enough for the filth on the left to lay blame now of course. Yet it only proves one thing - the hypocrisy of those on the left who only operate on prejudice, never on principle.

Having forgotten Hitler's persecution of the Jews, and the appeasement if not outright support by leftists for the Nazi's prior to the war - they choose to go down that road again. Steve d in his call for appeasement towards Iran, is a good example. Every day there is more of this kind of 'solidarity' with radical Islam being proudly and publicly paraded by worldwide leftists - who find more in common with irrational evil than rational thought.

Why London Mayor Livingston's and politician Galloway's chumminess with England's most radical Imam's, despite the bombings and murder of innocent British citizens? Or how about the arch-leftist Chavez's recent 'state' visit to London sponsored by Livingston? What is this other than childish displays of siding with and supporting anybody, no matter how decrepid, as long as they're against the US?

These. dear trolls are facts. And whether through naivety, or outright evil - the implications of leftist thought and behaviour is what most of us on the right stand against.

The natural end result of socialism:

"neat cursive", "Mauthausen concentration camp", "Genickschuss",: Death.

Nazi: Socialist....

The National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

Nazi records of day-to-day hell to open to researchers
SF Gate | 5-15-06 | Colin Nickerson

Posted on 05/15/2006 8:02:45 AM PDT by SJackson

The death books seem utterly ordinary, their covers inscribed with neither swastikas nor other frightening Nazi symbols. They are just the black-and-white, cardboard-covered composition books that generations of schoolchildren have used for handwriting practice. And, indeed, every entry is in neat cursive.

On April 20, 1942, the commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria approved the special killing of 300 prisoners to mark the Fuehrer's birthday. The execution list runs for pages, each individual receiving a single line -- name, date of birth, place of birth, inmate number, and an epitaph, "By order of R.S.H.A. shot," the acronym for the Central Office for Security of the Reich.

The cause of death for each was a single bullet to the base of the skull: Genickschuss -- neck shot. The executions on that spring day occurred at two-minute intervals. Every snap of the firing pin was duly noted in fussy script in the Totenbuch, or death book, for 1942-43. The birthday celebration murders started at 11:20 a.m.

11:22. Neck shot.

11:24. Neck shot.

11:26. Neck shot.

Later this month, after years of pressure from Holocaust scholars, Jewish groups, and the U.S. government, the immense terror trove at the Red Cross' International Tracing Service are expected to be opened to historians and other researchers for the first time.

"There is extraordinary material in Bad Arolsen on the functioning and structure of the camps and slave labor systems," said Johannes Houwink ten Cate, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. "It's one of the largest collections of historical documents from World War II, enough to keep scholars busy for generations."

Perhaps most shocking about the Bad Arolsen files is the way the most horrific atrocities are detailed in ho-hum bureaucratic language.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1632467/posts

I find it interesting that there seems only to be two opinions of GW Bush...either he's the best president the USA ever had or he's the worst.

Personally, I suspect that, as it always seems, the truth lies somewhere in the middle...he was probably just like any other politician (lying, power-hungry thief) but had 9/11 thrust upon him and, as a result, he HAD to make tough (dare I say even noble) world-shaking decisions that's probably fair to say has produced mixed results.

I refuse to believe he is either saint or demon...he's just some less-than-noble guy that has had to wrestle nobly with horrifyingly evil circumstances. I refuse to believe there was some over-arching conspiracy on his or the American government's part to "set up" Hussein and tear him down to get at his oil.

I believe that the US takes whatever side of an issue that best supports the US, whether that is noble or despicable. They supported Iraq when it suited them for their own selfish purposes and now they are quashing them for their own "selfish" purposes (not to say that opposing the world-domination approach of the Islamists is selfish and not to denigrate their actions by attaching anything negative about the word "selfish"... them's just the facts of human nature). I believe that most humans and all nations, even the US, act primarily in their own interests, with the concepts of nobility or compassion or justice coming in well down the list.

Therefore, I cannot entirely support the apparently extreme attitude of Canadian Sentinel toward Bush (am I reading too much in to your support of Bush?) and I certainly cannot support the extreme attitude of the "leftist trolls" who denounce Bush...nor do I believe anyone should.

Suffice it to say that I believe that Bush and the US are fair more saintly than demonic.

Oops, sorry, Canadian Sentinel...in hindsight, I probably shouldn't have singled you out...please accept my apologies. ET and others have made their fair share of "Bush the Good" comments, too.

Everybody was crowding the edges of the political spectrum, but no one seems to take the middle road. I'm a middle of the road kinda guy (which isn't necessarily complimentary at all), so I thought I should try to throw in a bit of balance/perspective (or some semblance thereof).

If you stop to think about it,this site is a damn good reflection of our national political system.There is so much posturing and blind defense of ideologies going on that rhetoric is trumping accuracy at almost every turn.It is not so much about sharing views as it is about winning!(Understandable given we are all human and these can be very emotional topics.)

I cannot expect a liberal to understand what it has been like to grow up a conservative westerner,being repeatedly dismissed as racist,redneck,un-Canadian,etc,etc with NO apologies from the rest of our beloved country.Nor can I understand how most liberals feel about their being called "thieves" or how they could possibly want more of the last 13 yrs back on parliament hill.(Really,I don't get it,not even a little bit!)
There is however,one current topic in our partisan approaches that appears clearly defining and seemingly consistent across Canada and to a degree,North America;

Righties like to bash ;
The Left
Terrorists
Extreme Muslims
Any country harboring terrorists

Lefties like to bash;
The Right
George Bush
America

Not that both sides don't have valid arguments,but the dilema this creates(remember my opening paragraph)is that by default,righties end up defending America and lefties(inadvertantly or not)endup up defending terrorists.

All other ideologies aside,I know which side my conscience will ALLOW me to support.What about yours?

Irwin Daisy said: "And whether through naivety, or outright evil - the implications of leftist thought and behaviour is what most of us on the right stand against."

'We were abandoned' (Canadian Snipers)
Macleans ^ | May 15, 2005 | MICHAEL FRISCOLANTI

Posted on 05/15/2006 7:51:44 AM PDT by fanfan

An elite unit of snipers went from standouts to outcasts -- victims, many say, of a witch hunt driven by jealousy and fear

Lying low beside the rifle, his stomach touching the ground, Cpl. Rob Furlong concentrated hard on his breathing. In, out. In, out. In, out. Deep, but not too deep. Slow, but not too slow. The tiniest twitch -- a heavy exhale, perhaps, or a breath held one second too long -- could jerk his weapon ever so slightly, turning a sure hit into a narrow miss. In the sniping world, where one shot should always equal one kill, steady breathing is just as crucial as steady aim.

On that March afternoon in 2002, Cpl. Furlong squinted through the scope of his McMillan Tac-50, a sleek bolt-action rifle almost as long as he is. In his crosshairs were three men, each lugging weapons toward an al-Qaeda mortar nest high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Master Cpl. Tim McMeekin, hunkered behind his fellow sniper, saw the same trio through the lens of his Vector, a binocular-like device that uses a laser to pinpoint targets thousands of metres away. Speaking quietly, both soldiers agreed on the obvious: take out the biggest threat first, in this case the man in the middle carrying the RPK machine gun. According to the Vector, he was exactly 2,430 m away -- nearly 2 1/2 kilometres.

A Newfoundland boy with pale blue eyes and a chiselled frame, Furlong adjusted the elevation knob on his scope, the barrel of his gun pointing higher and higher with each turn. He knew the routine, had practised it a thousand times back at the base in Edmonton. The farther away the target, the higher the rifle should point. Wind blowing to the left? Aim slightly right. Most snipers will tell you it's not much different than a golfer and his caddie lining up a long putt. Calculation. Instinct. And a little bit of luck. "You can teach a certain amount of it," Furlong says. "But there is a large percentage that you must have naturally. A good shooter is born. You can't teach someone to be a good shot if they don't naturally have it."

The 26-year-old stared through the scope, his left finger tickling the trigger. In, out. In, out. Behind him, McMeekin gazed through his Vector, reconfirming the precise distance one last time. "Stand by," Furlong said.

The first shot missed. A second round missed too, but not by much. It pierced the man's backpack. "They had no fear," Furlong recalls of his target. "They didn't run. I guess they've just been engaged so many times." He immediately reloaded the chamber and lined up his rifle for a third try, checking to make sure his grip was flawless. Furlong knew exactly why that second shot missed; instead of following a perfectly straight line, he had squeezed the trigger a tiny smidgen to one side. Even a fraction of a millimetre can make a huge difference on the other end -- in this case, the difference between a man's knapsack and his heart.

"Stand by," Furlong said again. Another loud pop echoed through the valley, sending a .50-calibre shell -- rocket-shaped, almost as long as a beer bottle -- slicing through the Afghan sky. Four seconds later, it tore into the man's torso, ripping apart his insides.

By that point, Rob Furlong, Tim McMeekin and three other Canadian sharpshooters -- Graham Ragsdale, Arron Perry and Dennis Eason -- had spent nearly a week in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan's Shahikot Valley, reaching out and touching the enemy from distances even they had never trained for. But that shot was something special. Rob Furlong had just killed another human being from 2,430 m, the rough equivalent of standing at Toronto's CN Tower and hitting a target near Bloor Street. It was -- and still is -- the longest-ever recorded kill by a sniper in combat, surpassing the mark of 2,250 m set by U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Hathcock during the Vietnam War. ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1632457/posts

maz2,

You as well as Daisey and Sentinnel speak like there's some king of the left that's unhatching all these leftist plots.

This is the highest form of rightist trolldom and moonbatism. Has someone been slipping lysergic acid diethylamide in your holier than thou water?

BTW the left's answer to that drug addict degenerate Rush Limbaugh has had a radio talk show for more than 25 years and is alive and well. He recently was forced to move to satellite radio because of constant attempts to silence him. Yes that's correct, right-wing free speech is an oxymoron.

Just tuned in to see what had happened over night and read your post CO. Very aptly put. One of the reasons that I don't indulge the trolls is because they have been subjected for most of their lives to brainwashing by MSM, Liberal based education, and a Liberal government that has promised them everything and failed to deliver. There are a few who are still able to think rationally but very few. I could go on and cite examples until the cows come home but to what end? I do enjoy the discourse at times. Thanks for keeping the topics hot Kate.

"Rush Limbaugh has had a radio talk show for more than 25 years ... He recently was forced to move to satellite radio because of constant attempts to silence him. "

Gee, David I think there is a problem here.
Either-
1. My Suzuki came equipted with Statelite radio, that works when I push the AM button.
2. Bellingham AM 790 is broadcasting Rush illegaly.
3. You are mistaken.

Which is it?

Aahhhh I see people are still trying to sell this idea that those "Mobile Labs" were WMD labs, LOL.

Please people, even the Bush Adminstration is trying to sell that line of bullshit anymore, and it turns out that they knew it was bullshit when they were pushing that line as well.

Have a read people
Ex-WMD Inspector: Politics Quashed Facts

"...Liberal based education and a Liberal government that has promised them everything and failed to deliver."

Proof:

Spelling mistakes aside. Even 'trolldom and moonbatism' could be overlooked. But, "BTW the left's answer to that drug addict degenerate Rush Limbaugh has had a radio talk show for more than 25 years and is alive and well." ?????

"He recently was forced to move to satellite radio..."??????

Team Lefty, now with super intellect David Brown in goal.

As for Rush Limbaugh, I happened to have read something in Ann Coulter's "How To Talk To a Liberal" this morning to the effect that Limbaugh is on a ten-year, multimilliondollar contract. $300 million bucks, if I remember correctly.

I think the left is making stuff up.

"Drug addict"? Limbaugh had had back surgery and was taking a prescription for the pain. How does that make him a "drug addict degenerate?"

More leftist slander. Just as I warned earlier...

Oops... my bad... I might have slipped and accidentally dropped a peanut for a troll... I better stop now before I get in hot H2O with Kate, and I'd suggest the same for everyone as well... be careful with the trolls!

I've never listened to Rush but my understanding was he had a medical condition severe enough to require prescription painkillers and it caused an addiction, so he's now labelled a "drug addict degenerate" by a tin-hat moonbat poster.

Note the lefty defense, going on lately, of the Ontario health minister and his admission of drug use on the gay party scene in years past. There's lots of lefty posts on the internet explaining why there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but one leftigoof has taken the time to pop over here to SDA and call Rush Limbaugh a "drug addict degenerate". Tres amusant...

Canadian Sentinel: Support for Bush is less than 30% in the USA and probably half that here in Canada. Thus it is logical to assume that there are many conservatives right here at SDA who understand Bush is an extremely bad president, by any reasonable measure.

I am a deeeeeep blue conservative; I and many others think - know - that Bush is a disaster of a president. But knock yourself out; you're only hurting your own credibility at this point. For example, trying to talk your way out of this:

"Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.

Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials. The CIA asked for an FBI investigation of leaks of classified information following those reports."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/

...will only make you look foolish. Why not join us REAL conservatives who don't think the Bush agenda of illegal immigration and adding $2 trillion to the debt is such a bright idea? No real conservative or libertarian can reasonably support THIS president. In fact, I mark anybody who supports GWB as a statist.

Bob said: "In fact, I mark anybody who supports GWB as a statist."

Socialism/communism is statist. Tsk, tsk,...
It's called central planning..

Statist: The practice or doctrine of giving a centralized government control over economic planning and policy. Dictionary.com

Central abortion planning....?

End of liberal state predicted as conservatives have more children

Socially conservative individuals, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Sikh, tend to produce more children, who are also socially conservative. By the sheer weight of numbers, the end result is a more socially conservative society.
nealenews

To Canadian Sentinel,I have yet to see a poster with leftist opinions on this site who hasn't been labelled a "troll" be they rabid or not.
Now to all,maybe,just maybe,some people here could benefit from some debate training.We cannot really claim to be "open-minded" on a topic until we have been put in the position of arguing for a POV we do not agree with.(You also may discover the true power of spin over fact when you can successfully defeat your own beliefs,but I digress.)

I know some of these trolls only exist to"get off"on riling others as it seems they do not even try to make an honest point,just punch as many hot buttons as possible.But some who have put together coherent arguments,even if I disagree completely,are attacked and ridiculed until they resort to same.Is no one else here tiring of the amount of over-the-top rhetoric printed in the 'guise of legitimate arguments?

When you look at it,both sides conduct themselves in a very similar manner in these forums,using sarcasm,insults,rhetoric,even hatred in the face of an argument they do not like.(Hell,I've done it myself)As a matter of fact,I don't see a lot of us conducting ourselves with much more decorum than Question Period or a schoolyard dustup(I know you are,but what am I?).
Anywho,even as a proud conservative I guess my "hypocracy" meter maxes out when I witness some really far-out-there righties accusing far-out-there lefties of being extreme and of a bunkered mentality.
Okay,I promise to put away my soapbox now.

What is wrong with Question Period? Every once in awhile we see the same story of a teacher who brings her students to observe QP and is "SHOCKED" and "APPALLED" by the behaviour.

We argue in parliament so that we do not fight in combat in the streets.

I have been impressed with PM Harpers responses. Some comments rise above others. Sifting the wheat from the chaff.

The problem is when statements are made, quotes are quoted and facts that are taken out of context are made as if the gospel truth. Many lefties do this yet will not admit wrongdoing. A right leaning blog should be outing this info.
enough

Seems a few folks above think I believe that the current US president is awesome and perfect and couldn't be better.

Really... precisely what have I written in this thread to make anyone with a sharp mind believe I worship Mr. Bush?

All I meant is that I support the War On Jihad and Mr. Bush's decision to remove Saddam. Does that mean I think that the UAE/Ports thing was a good idea? No. Does that mean I agree that illegal aliens should be encouraged to stay in and come into America? No.

But looking at the alternatives... think John Kerry and Howard Dean... if I were American I sure as hell wouldn't vote Democrat, regardless of whatever errors in judgement Mr. Bush may make. At least he keeps his pants on and doesn't drive drunk...

Until another Republican takes his place in a couple of years, I would suggest folks not bash his courageous fighting of Islamist tyrants, for demonizing the leader of the Free World while he's trying to do something (not nearly enough, though) about the threat from Islam will only embolden the Islamic Jihadists.

Of course, I wish he were even more hawkish... like Reagan. We really must start to call China on its imperialistic aims and its accelerating military buildup, as if preparing for world domination...

Bob, don't worry... the Sentinel is indeed conservative. Perhaps you've no idea how much so... if that's the case, then start reading my blog. Just click on my moniker below...

agitfact ... my favorite historian/logical fallacies bud.

Construction #'s ? Holy smokes - you've taken "can't see the forest for the trees" to a whole new level ... can't see the tree for the bark.

I would have thought a historian would have pointed out:

1) The analogy with the inspectors is incorrect. When the British found out that the TOV was violated - they appeased the Germans with the Anglo- German Naval Treaty.

2) With the generous allocations that the Brits gave Germany - the Germans were not able to build as many ships as they could have, under the terms, by the time war broke out.

3) The Brits didn't inform their Allies, the French, about this new Treaty.

4) All political parties decided staying in power/getting power was more important than protecting the nation (the LW peace movement was strong).

5) The more important issue was air parity. The Germans could hide planes easier than ships.

6) There was a huge increase in civil aviation and gliding in Germany (also military German pilot training in Russia).

7) About the same time as the Anglo- German Naval Treaty was inked, Hitler told the Brits he had already reached air parity.

8) The best information the inspectors/intelligence could give the British government on the German air force indicated the Brits were much ahead.

9) I would have thought a historian would have said the air parity would have been a much better (and deadlier) analogy.

Given your responses, can you really blame people having more faith in Google than LW historians?

I do not entirely agree with Observer's 7.06 comments, but there's a great deal of sense there. So, let's show Kate the consideration of acting a bit more civil in what is in effect her livingroom. Acting like uncivilized barbarians reflects poorly on our host.

Sentinel's 7.33 post is one of the more sensible things I've read on the American issue - it properly picks up on the "what are the alternatives issue." This is clearly why the "shining knight" defense of GWB is used by so many. While I don't agree with it, it does make for rhetorical (NOT a bad word) simplicity. Bush is clearly (acting like) a "big gov't" conservative, and has thus surrendered the intellectual and policy strengths of the classic conservative position. This is costing the GOP and may end up giving the Democrats control in '06/'08. Fortunately, here in Canada, the Conservative party appears cognizant of the dangers, although how policy plays out in practise with increasing strength in Quebec remains to be seen.

One of the problems conservatives (on both sides of the border) face is that mud always shows up better on cleaner clothes. The "progressives" (I'll include members on both sides of the political divide) are so bespattered that dealing with any single behaviour/belief (unless utterly brazen/idiotic) just doesn't get one anywhere.

Bottom line: too many people are far too short-sighted, selfish, and comfortable to assert conservative positions on most issues - it requires effort and sacrifice.

As for trolls: we're on the horns of a dilemma here - Here's a classic proverb from the good book (Proverbs 26: 4 & 5) "Answer not a fool according to his folly, let you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes."

Yup - there' recently been a lot of "foolish" conservatives trying to deal with liberal "wisdom".

Per Ardua Ad Astra... Through Struggle To The Stars. Motto of the Royal Air Force.

News Release
Canada's Air Force set to host an "enhanced" MAPLE FLAG

NR 05-06 - May 15, 2006

4 WING COLD LAKE, Alta. – Exercise MAPLE FLAG XXXIX (MF 39), one of the largest coalition exercises in the world, will begin next week at 4 Wing Cold Lake, for the first time featuring an enhanced scenario.

The enhanced MAPLE FLAG (MF) will be held during Period 1 of MF 39 (14 to 26 May) and will see an increased involvement from Canadian Forces – air and ground components while maintaining the integrity of training for international participants. A CP-140 Aurora, CC-130 Hercules, CH-146 Griffon and land forces will be incorporated into the MF scenario while concurrently exercising the reach-back capability of the 1 Canadian Air Division Air Operations Centre. MF 39 will also host Camp Medley, a 250-person support camp, as a proof of concept exercise for the Air Force’s new Mission Support Readiness initiative.

“Increasing the scope of MAPLE FLAG 39 provides an unprecedented training opportunity for Canada’s Air Force,” said Major General Charlie Bouchard, Commander 1 Canadian Air Division/Canadian NORAD Region. “This allows us to maintain interoperability with our allies while demonstrating greater integration of the Canadian Forces within a scenario reflecting today’s unpredictable threat environment.”

MF 39 will run from 14 May and 23 June 2006 and will be divided into three two-week periods. During each of the three periods, forces from Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden, the United States, the United Kingdom and NATO will engage in a simulated, 10-day coalition air campaign. The exercise will also host Brazil, Poland, Greece, Egypt, Singapore and Oman as part of the International Observer Program. more ...
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/newsroom/view_news_e.asp?id=1923

Enough,I understand you are happy with the status quo,but many good Canadians find the catcalling,buffoonery,mocking,lying,posturing and general assinine behavior that goes on in parliament completely unprofessional and unneccessary.
BTW,thanks for reading my post,completely missing the message and then proving my point.I express my own thoughts on blind partisanship,you choose a single comment about parliament to rebut,THEN you manage to turn it into a chance to compliment Harper,slag the left then defend the conservative movement in two tiny paragraphs.
Very well done!

Making a list, checking it twice....

Bad Canadians find the ...... elevating, uplifting, educational, the essence of free speech, the essential spirit of parliamentary discourse, the quintessence of the human spirit; argumentation moderated by the Speaker. On with the "buffoonery". More.. Enjoy! ...

"...but many good Canadians find the catcalling,buffoonery,mocking,lying,posturing and general assinine behavior that goes on in parliament completely unprofessional and unneccessary."

Here is asininity galore: check the list...

No sign yet of Iraq war syndrome, says study
Posted by voletti
On 05/15/2006 6:53:39 PM PDT

Daily Times Pakistan ^ | 5/15/06 | AFP
LONDON: Doctors monitoring British troops in the Iraq war reported that so far they see no repeat of the notorious yet elusive condition known as Gulf War Syndrome, which surfaced after the 1991 conflict. In a study published online by the British journal The Lancet, health experts from King’s College, London asked a cross-section of male British military personnel deployed to Iraq, and counterparts who were not sent to the conflict, to fill in questionnaires. The 50-question checklist asked if the respondent had suffered from fatigue, sleeping problems, joint stiffness, night sweats, forgetfulness, dizziness, stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting or other...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/browse

Potshots in various directions -

1. Maz2 (at 11:05 AM): "In the type of political talk show invented by Rush Limbaugh, the host openly takes an ideological stance (conservative or liberal) and then applies it to the issues of the day ... What this in effect amounts to is in-depth analysis of current affairs from a specific political point of view."

In fact, Maz, what it amounts to is "cooking the books," picking and/or bending the evidence to suit your ideological viewpoint and pre-determined conclusions. It stays in the realm of propaganda, has nothing to do with truth or integrity, and would make Dr.Goebbels proud. Not my idea of a font of knowledge and wisdom.

2. Irwin Daisy (at 12:03 PM): "... filth on the left ..."

Please let me know what term of endearment would be appropriate but still acceptable in reply.

3. Antenor (at 12:49): "One of the reasons that I don't indulge the trolls is because they have been subjected for most of their lives to brainwashing by MSM, Liberal based education, and a Liberal government that has promised them everything and failed to deliver. There are a few who are still able to think rationally but very few. I could go on and cite examples until the cows come home but to what end?"

You know, Antenor, a bit of evidence for any of the above broad sweeps of tar might help raise your comments into the realm of meaning.

4. Canadian Observer - don't get off your soapbox. There are issues that could and should be discussed rationally. They even surface on SDA now and then, but most of the effort is wasted in shouting, complaining or flinging dirt in the ideological sandbox. It may make the converted feel good, but does nothing to commend the conservative cause to the uncommitted. If I were a Liberal, I'd beg some posters to keep up the good work. Since I'm not, I appreciate your and all efforts (Hassle's for instance) to introduce light as well as heat into local discussions.

Henry,Agitfact,I can't explain it,I'm just in a "devil's advocate" mood today!Thanks for taking time to consider my points,whether you agree or not,we all need to stop periodically and step back from the battles to see exactly where we find ourselves.
A pearl of wisdom we should ALL remember:

NOTHING is black or white.

Ural, is there a separate blog where you and I can debate the history of the Second World War?

Let me refine the issue here. Hitler/Germany bad. Hussein/Iraq/Iran bad. Therefore, beef up case for desired action in Iraq/Iran by any and all analogies to Hitler/Germany. This propaganda ploy may satisfy some simpletons, but it is barking up the wrong tree (to stick to your woods analogy.)

I'd be happy to debate the war aims and strategies of the major powers, as well as the events of WWII, but not on SDA.

By the way, Ural, one reason I am not a historian (LW or otherwise) is that I realized that history is not a science, but the handmaiden of politics.

Canadian Observer,

"NOTHING is black or white."

20 some years ago I was living in Australia (Canberra). We went to celebrate Australia Day at Lake Burley Griffin. The park we were in had signs every few feet on the lake wall that said "No Diving - shallow rocks" or something to that effect.

The day was interrupted by ambulances coming in a picking up someone that dived. Over the next few weeks we learned that he had broken his neck on rocks, he was going to live, and he was a quadriplegic.

It can be argued that not all places on Lake Burley Griffin have rocks, not everyone that dives will break their necks, he could have broken his neck some other way that day, etc.

But somehow it still seems a little bit black and white to me.

ural,interesting analogy but being "a little black and white" is like being "a little pregnant".In fact I do believe that ANYTHING can be manipulated to a point where right or wrong cannot be universally determined.Just give a good lawyer an opportunity like this to demonstrate a "great vastness of grey".Likewise,someone may believe something to their very core,but that does not make them right and puts no onus on the rest of us to agree.
Anyways,the point I've been trying to remind people of today is to simply take time to consider the opposing view(no matter how distasteful that seems) or I guarantee you will never discover the holes in your own arguments.
Oh,and ural,in honor of my bro' still living down under. Goodonya mate!

catcalling,buffoonery,mocking,lying,posturing and general assinine behavior that goes on in parliament completely unprofessional and unneccessary.

How do you wish people to discuss matters? I want some passion. I want MPs to care about matters that affect us all. I want truth and integrity too.

I vehemently disagree with Layton and his ilk. I am sick of the Liberal thieves. I want the people i trust to rid us of the lies, to shed light on the fallacies they speak.

It is not a high school debate.
enough

agitfact,

I could set up a blog ... but I think it would go boring real fast.

The historian stuff ... I thought you claimed you were one ... I have been wrong before.

Although I read history, it's about 4 or 5 on my interest list.

I am a "pattern recognition" person ... I can't think of anything more stable than human thought.

"handmaiden of politics" maybe ... it's getting tougher for anyone to hide anything ... it all shows up. Sometime after I'm dead I suspect the world will find out why GB Sr. didn't go into Baghdad.

As far as SDA and my comments are concerned - I'll leave it up to Kate to slap me.

enough,you are correct,it is most definitely NOT a high school debate.If it were,speakers would not be interrupted,taunted,booed,talked over or otherwise disrespected.The speaker would not be permitted to go off topic,attack his opponent,use purposely misleading claims,or lay on the rhetorical charm.
Only one person is allowed to speak at a time,and your opponents do not offer a rebuttal until they have digested your arguments and can counter them with an intelligent response.
When finished,everyone witnessing has a clear idea of exactly what each each side believes and their logic for these conclusions.
But then,they are just kids.

For the umpteenth time, I come to Kate's blog for some interesting perspectives (and not all agree) to the right. If I wanted to hear the same old left arguments, I would turn on the CBC. I hear the opinion from the left everywhere. If I haven't heard the opinion yet, I can guess in 99.9% of situations, that it will be opposite of mine. This is not because I label myself "conservative" or even "right wing". It is because, in my experience, I read and listen and learn, form an opinion, and low and behold, it is opposite of the left. Blogs are gaining a following because, in Canada, there aren't many forums that aren't "influenced" by socialistic thinking.

So, you on the left, if you want to bring up an original thought or point, it will be considered. If you want to come and reiterate the CBC's viewpoint, save it. I, for one, am tired of it. I don't always agree fully with Kate but she definitely brings a different and thought provoking light to situations - hence her huge following. If you continue to quote the same old MSM stories from a socialistic viewpoint and visit this blog, then you had better get a thicker skin.

Canadian Observer,

"Just give a good lawyer an opportunity like this to demonstrate a "great vastness of grey"."

Too true. A city in CA gets sued by someone who jumps of a pier that says "Don't jump from this pier" - then sues the city and wins.

The result is piers getting taken down. The universally accepted thought is we can't protect ourselves from stupid and the law. More power to the SCC.

Ural, don't know why you thought I was a historian. I only will admit to having spent enough school and grad school time studying history to know my way around the field. I continue to have a lifetime interest in it, especially in war, with emphasis on WWII and Vietnam. And I have absolutely no problem with your comments.

My resistance to flogging details on SDA is that it would be a mug's game in the wrong forum, with issues tried in a court of public opinion without rules of evidence. Bruce, our retired RCMP, will know all about the value of court proceedings without rules of evidence.

agitfact,

Upon careful consideration of your comment towards what I said in my post - "the filth on the left" still works for me. However, if I cared at all about the left's politically correct laundering of language and thought - perhaps if I was a politician on camera - I might stand chastised and corrected. Thankfully, that's not the case, nor representative of the truth.

POISON FOR THE CHILDREN
Goebbels and his wife decided to follow Hitler in death. They did not spare their six children. Magda Goebbels herself poured cyanide into the mouths of her sleeping sons and daughters, then the couple killed themselves. This story is known in every schoolbook. Rohus Misch says that Goebbels had a chance to save the children. A day before the murders, the well-known aviatrix Hanna Ratch was there, she had flown in to 'save the fuhrer'. She told Magda Goebbels: 'If you want to stay here, that's your business, but I can fly out with your children'. Mrs. Goebbels, however, answered harshly: 'The children will stay with me'.

Hmmmmmm, those Goebbels sure sound like the Limbaughs and the rest of those talk show right wingnuts ok. Cut from the same cloth and using the same methods to "cook the books" according to agitfact who supposedly studied history in grad school.

agitfact,

I don't know where I got the historian impression - you have just told me I'm wrong ... I've been wrong before.

I also agree flogging details is somewhat of a mugs game. I think some of the folks on this site actually have a desire to learn. Some of them may also want to develop an understanding of the wars we have gone through.

My criticism of you - has every to do with your presentation. You may well be the best informed person on WWII on this site (and many others). I think you had an opportunity to point the poster in the right direction, and you didn't. I got to this thread real late ... but I could see the poster had an incorrect analogy and would pull the wrong 2 ships (the ones German "legally" built) ... so did you.

I know that if I see something that tweaks my interest, I will try to find out more ... I know lots won't. Just hoping that that you will aim your posts to those willing to find out more.

Long Live Free Iraq!

Long Live George Bush, POTUS!

Sunni & Shi'ites Agree on New Goverment to be

presented Saturday!

(Bush Victory! - FoxNews)

Posted by xzins
On 05/17/2006 6:16:04 AM PDT

Freerepublic.com