(Untitled)

[darrelx]

From The president's speech this morning:

...
Over the years these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence -- the Israeli presence on the West Bank, or the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, or the defeat of the Taliban, or the Crusades of a thousand years ago. In fact, we're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed

Comments

[jbriggs]

Its not a real war, Congress didn't declare one.

There are a bazzilion justifications for people holding greivances vs. the United States, beginning with the Monroe Doctrine and accelerated by the policys of Woodrow Wilson and every President since.

The only justification our long-winded president can possibly have for continuing this debacle is to raise the spectre of Bugbears and keep the population clamoring for protection from same, and in so doing reduce the liberty of all free thinking Americans.

History shows that Charles Martel's victory at Poitoers in 732 A.D. put a stop to the advance of the radical ideology with inalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world.

From outside our borders it sure looks like we're the ones promoting a radical ideology with inalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world.Lets all hope that the indictments of Delay, Libby, and Rove lead to further ones against Frist, and the impeachment, trial and conviction of Cheney and Bush, so to let

[darrelx]

Lets all hope that the indictments of Delay, Libby, and Rove lead to further ones against Frist, and the impeachment, trial and conviction of Cheney and Bush
...

Yes, let's have a weak and probably illegal indictment that resulted from the politically motivated vendetta of an overzealous prosecutor fuel the fires of hatred and ignorance. Let's have Grand Jury decisions, of which the evidence presented is not even available for review by the defense, and where the Jury foreman when interviewed said that he made up his mind before hearing the evidence... Yes, let's have that dictate our hatred against Bush and his cronies.

DeLay's indictment is a joke. The charge he was indicted for was for something that happened PRIOR to the statute that made it illegal went into effect... assuming that he actually did what was claimed, it wasn't even illegal at the time. His indictment will be overturned very soon now... just watch.

, so to let the Real Republicans (of the party I was proud to call my own) cast off the dictums of the Religious

[bovil]

Any prosecutor worth his salt could indict a ham sandwich.

Last week's indictment is pretty much worthless, as you point out the now-illegal activity happened before the law was in effect. It doesn't matter that there are copies of the checks showing the transfers happened in evidence.

This weeks' money-laundering indictment isn't worthless, and is supported by more ethically damning evidence that DeLay and Blunt constructed party fundraisers that were designed to raise more money than specified while diverting the unreported surplus to Blunt's son's campaign and DeLay's wife's consulting business.

[darrelx]

DeLay finds it interesting that Ronnie Earle, the proscutor heading the witch-hunt against him in Travis County, Texas, is himself apparently guilty of accepting the same kind of contributions that he accuses DeLay of accepting.

Indictments are easy to get because there is little or no defense opportunity. Indictments are not proof of wrong-doing, just that a Grand Jury was convinced that there *might* be something to look into.

[featherlady_jt]

I would rate that speech to be right alongside the one made by PM Tony Blair shortly after the attacks in London. Both were passionate and very well executed.

Watch the news... I'm hearing murmerings of the discovery of plans for Al-Queda IED's in NY subways. The information was spilled during an interrogation, and the NYPD cannot discount it yet.

Heck, I'm listening to the roar of aircraft in the midst of troop rotations from the nearby post as I type this.

[esprix]

Going after Osama bin Laden? Check. Right with ya.

Invading Iraq? Hmmm. Not so much.

[featherlady_jt]

From all that I've read, the Crusades were actually more of a counter-attack, a response to the Islamic invasion in Europe that began shortly after the death of Muhammad. Back then, there was a full-scale Islamic takeover in Spain, France, etc. that threatened Europe as a whole.

[darrelx]

and history repeats itself...

[darrelx]

I guess my one question is, how do we know when we've won?

It's a frightening prospect, but in my opinion we may never *know* when we've won. Before that time comes, we may never know how to judge what winning is. Have we won when Iraq is stable? Have we won when all the al qaeda cells have been destroyed? Have we won when Iraq doesn't need our military assistance to police their own people? These are all goals, and yes, any one of them might be the deciding factor in determining when the war has been won, but only at the time that they occur can the war as a whole be judged "over" or not.

To me, the more important question to ask is where would we be without the War on Terror? I don't know the answer to that one, either, and it scares me equally... but I do believe that action is more appropriate than inaction. Without the War on Terror, 9/11 (which was a sequel to the USS Cole bombing, not the start of the war) probably would have been followed with increasingly worse attacks. The zealots behind the bombings would not have

[asimovberlioz]

So where are the WMDs already?

[darrelx]

Probably in Jordan and/or Syria, or buried in the desert (Iraw is a big place... we can't search *all* of it) or maybe they actually were disposed of and Saddam neglected to have evidence of that happening.

Regardless of the fact that few WMDs have been discovered, they WERE there, and it wasn't just the U.S. GOP that was saying so. John Kerry agreed that going into Iraq was the right thing to do at the time.