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I'll put it on my "to read" list... kind of long at the moment since I'm so behind on everything.
and just like Gore didn't fight harder in 2000. That bothers me too.
your article is sadly lacking in any data or evidence that Kennedy's assertions aren't true. I've read documentation to back alot of it up and it isn't just about exit polls, that's just one piece of evidence.
glad you posted that...
mines high and I don't want to take those cholesterol lowering drugs...
but why haven't the insurance companies picked up on this???
I'm looking forward to it!
Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House. BY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.
<< excerpt only below... please read! I can't emphasize enough how important this issue is and how our democracy is being taken from us! >>
But what is most anomalous about the irregularities in 2004 was their decidedly partisan bent: Almost without exception they hurt John Kerry and benefited George Bush. After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004(12) -- more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes.(13) (See Ohio's Missing Votes) In what may be the single most astounding fact from the election, one in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to stem the unprecedented flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots.(14) And that doesn?t even take into account the troubling evidence of outright fraud, which indicates that upwards of 80,000 votes for Kerry were counted instead for Bush. That alone is a swing of more than 160,000 votes -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.(15)
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen
#msg-11536785
they didn't really care about planting a democracy... they just wanted to loot Iraq
I'd like to hear how you like it after your trip.
exactly... great quote.
It is curious that anyone who disagrees with The Decider is instantly labeled by you as "angry", "bitter", or must "hate".
people often project their own feelings onto others
great article!
just goes to show that they don't think for themselves and just follow idiots like O'Reilly... and, of course, O'Reilly made some lame excuse for why we should withdrawal that plays right into the right wing prejudices and stereotyping
what kind of car is that? 4 wheel drive?
yeah, but what an excuse
I certainly respect the opinion of a man like Murtha who served honorably that those two chicken hawks.
The attacks on Murtha are classic rovian tactics... don't address the issue... attack the person.
I thought Murtha handled it in a very sensible and understanding way. Guess some people would rather sweep issues under the rug than deal with them head on.
I'm just glad karma has caught up to her... waiting for it to catch up with the rest of them
whatever happened to Bush loyality... she must feel betrayed...
...and my jobless child shall dwell in my basement
forever.
lol
she sounds mental
sign of a truly bad manager/leader
yes.
I remember my Dad talking about how we were shipping the best and newest weapons to the Russian front (he witnessed it and actually complained because our guys were getting the second rate stuff)... that was the political part... or how Eisenhower had to balance all the prima donna generals for the invasion of Sicily or Normandy... or the delicate balance meeting the Russians in Germany...
for instance...
But Garner didn't think much of The Plan, he told me when we met a year later in Washington. He had other things on his mind. "You prevent epidemics, you start the food distribution program to prevent famine."
Seizing title and ownership of Iraq's oil fields was not on Garner's must-do list. He let that be known to Washington. "I don't think [Iraqis] need to go by the U.S. plan, I think that what we need to do is set an Iraqi government that represents the freely elected will of the people." He added, "It's their country, their oil."
it's not all about military.
that article is well worth repeating... I wish everyone would read it
oh no no no... there is much more to it than that. You don't think politics had a vital role in winning WWII? Building an alliance? having the support of the people?
yeap, and board moderators asleep at the wheel....
what's anti american is supporting a president who deceives to go to war, trashes the Geneva Convention, trashes the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, trahses the environment, erodes civil rights and consistent rips off the average american and gives to the mega rich upper crust.
poor baby lol
she should never hold office again
the crimes committed by this administration are appalling, yet the lack of action on the part of congress even more so... I still can't believe they've let Bush trash the Geneva Convention, trash the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, continue to bungle in Iraq, hand over the environment to the worst polluters, etc, etc...
very few have spoken out about these issues, these are a few that have stood out for me:
John Murtha
Barbara Boxer
Howard Dean
Ron Paul
I've been watching my congresswoman and providing her with plenty of input (via email or phone) about my views. so far, she's done a pretty good job and will probably get my vote again.
What I suggest is everyone check out the voting record of their representative on key issues and be sure to vote out anyone who hasn't performed as you would want them to. Even if you vote in someone that doesn't do much better, at least eventually they'll get the message that they won't last long if they ignore their constituents.
Also, it doesn't take any longer than writing a post on iHub, to write an email to your congress person.
yeap... although I'd bet some would still not see the light
I guess it's not surprising that those who have never accepted what happened in Vietnam aren't going to accept any of the truth behind Iraq.
By the time we pulled out of VietNam the war there was lost, ...
exactly. and exactly where we are now in Iraq.
But I don't buy the crap about the media turning public opinion against the war in Vietnam... I remember, it wasn't like that at all... sadly the tide turned when the body bags kept coming home and Daniel Ellsberg outted the lies behind the war.
UNREPORTED: THE ZARQAWI INVITATION
<< just for you in case you really believe we are in Iraq to save lives ... the looting of Iraq oil and assets >>
And Garner incurred their fury by getting carried away with the "democracy" idea: he called for quick elections -- within 90 days of the taking of Baghdad.
But Garner's 90-days-to-elections commitment ran straight into the oil sell-off program. Annex D of the plan indicated that would take at least 270 days -- at least 9 months.
by Greg Palast
They got him -- the big, bad, beheading berserker in Iraq. But, something's gone unreported in all the glee over getting Zarqawi … who invited him into Iraq in the first place?
If you prefer your fairy tales unsoiled by facts, read no further. If you want the uncomfortable truth, begin with this: A phone call to Baghdad to Saddam's Palace on the night of April 21, 2003. It was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on a secure line from Washington to General Jay Garner.
The General had arrives in Baghdad just hours before to take charge of the newly occupied nation. The message from Rumsfeld was not a heartwarming welcome. Rummy told Garner, Don't unpack, Jack -- you're fired.
What had Garner done? The many-starred general had been sent by the President himself to take charge of a deeply dangerous mission. Iraq was tense but relatively peaceful. Garner's job was to keep the peace and bring democracy.
Unfortunately for the general, he took the President at his word. But the general was wrong. "Peace" and "Democracy" were the slogans.
"My preference," Garner told me in his understated manner, "was to put the Iraqis in charge as soon as we can and do it in some form of elections."
But elections were not in The Plan.
The Plan was a 101-page document to guide the long-term future of the land we'd just conquered. There was nothing in it about democracy or elections or safety. There was, rather, a detailed schedule for selling off "all [Iraq's] state assets" -- and Iraq, that's just about everything -- "especially," said The Plan, "the oil and supporting industries." Especially the oil.
There was more than oil to sell off. The Plan included the sale of Iraq's banks, and weirdly, changing it's copyright laws and other odd items that made the plan look less like a program for Iraq to get on its feet than a program for corporate looting of the nation's assets. (And indeed, we discovered at BBC, behind many of the odder elements -- copyright and tax code changes -- was the hand of lobbyist Jack Abramoff's associate Grover Norquist.)
But Garner didn't think much of The Plan, he told me when we met a year later in Washington. He had other things on his mind. "You prevent epidemics, you start the food distribution program to prevent famine."
Seizing title and ownership of Iraq's oil fields was not on Garner's must-do list. He let that be known to Washington. "I don't think [Iraqis] need to go by the U.S. plan, I think that what we need to do is set an Iraqi government that represents the freely elected will of the people." He added, "It's their country … their oil."
Apparently, the Secretary of Defense disagreed. So did lobbyist Norquist. And Garner incurred their fury by getting carried away with the "democracy" idea: he called for quick elections -- within 90 days of the taking of Baghdad.
But Garner's 90-days-to-elections commitment ran straight into the oil sell-off program. Annex D of the plan indicated that would take at least 270 days -- at least 9 months.
Worse, Garner was brokering a truce between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. They were about to begin what Garner called a "Big Tent" meeting to hammer out the details and set the election date. He figured he had 90 days to get it done before the factions started slitting each other's throats.
But a quick election would mean the end of the state-asset sell-off plan: An Iraqi-controlled government would never go along with what would certainly amount to foreign corporations swallowing their entire economy. Especially the oil. Garner had spent years in Iraq, in charge of the Northern Kurdish zone and knew Iraqis well. He was certain that an asset-and-oil grab, "privatizations," would cause a sensitive population to take up the gun. "That's just one fight you don't want to take on right now."
But that's just the fight the neo-cons at Defense wanted. And in Rumsfeld's replacement for Garner, they had a man itching for the fight. Paul Bremer III had no experience on the ground in Iraq, but he had one unbeatable credential that Garner lacked: Bremer had served as Managing Director of Kissinger and Associates.
In April 2003, Bremer instituted democracy Bush style: he canceled elections and appointed the entire government himself. Two months later, Bremer ordered a halt to all municipal elections including the crucial vote to Shia seeking to select a mayor in the city of Najaf. The front-runner, moderate Shia Asad Sultan Abu Gilal warned, "If they don't give us freedom, what will we do? We have patience, but not for long." Local Shias formed the "Mahdi Army," and within a year, provoked by Bremer's shutting their paper, attacked and killed 21 U.S. soldiers.
The insurgency had begun. But Bremer's job was hardly over. There were Sunnis to go after. He issued "Order Number One: De-Ba'athification." In effect, this became "De-Sunni-fication."
Saddam's generals, mostly Sunnis, who had, we learned, secretly collaborated with the US invasion and now expected their reward found themselves hunted and arrested. Falah Aljibury, an Iraqi-born US resident who helped with the pre-invasion brokering, told me, "U.S. forces imprisoned all those we named as political leaders," who stopped Iraq's army from firing on U.S. troops.
Aljibury's main concern was that busting Iraqi collaborators and Ba'athist big shots was a gift "to the Wahabis," by which he meant the foreign insurgents, who now gained experienced military commanders, Sunnis, who now had no choice but to fight the US-installed regime or face arrest, ruin or death. They would soon link up with the Sunni-defending Wahabi, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was committed to destroying "Shia snakes."
And the oil fields? It was, Aljibury noted, when word got out about the plans to sell off the oil fields (thanks to loose lips of the US-appointed oil minister) that pipelines began to blow. Although he had been at the center of planning for invasion, Aljibury now saw the greed-crazed grab for the oil fields as the fuel for a civil war that would rip his country to pieces:
"Insurgents," he said, "and those who wanted to destabilize a new Iraq have used this as means of saying, 'Look, you're losing your country. You’re losing your leadership. You're losing all of your resources to a bunch of wealthy people. A bunch of billionaires in the world want to take you over and make your life miserable.' And we saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities, pipelines, of course, built on -- built on the premise that privatization [of oil] is coming."
General Garner, watching the insurgency unfold from the occupation authority's provocations, told me, in his understated manner, "I'm a believer that you don't want to end the day with more enemies than you started with."
But you can't have a war president without a war. And you can't have a war without enemies. "Bring 'em on," our Commander-in-Chief said. And Zarqawi answered the call.
**********
Greg Palast is the author of Armed Madhouse out this week from Penguin Dutton, from which this is adapted.
(from an email)
you really think we should have stay in Vietnam???
"I think we should pull out now and to hell with the consequences,"
I don't think that's correct. It's more like "we should turn Iraq over to the Iraqi's and remove our troops on a time table based on a firm belief that staying there longer will just cost more and more lives, not only of our troops, but of innocent Iraqis. Imagine we had pulled out of Vietnam years sooner how many lives would have been spared.
Many support troops, but not the war
Fifty-nine percent said the United States made a mistake in going to war, a new high and a significant jump from the 34 percent in December 2004.
By DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press Writer
21 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Support the troops, oppose the war. The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that many Americans perceive the alleged atrocities against Iraqi civilians by U.S. forces as isolated incidents while saying the U.S.-led invasion was a mistake, a disconnect that sets this conflict apart from Vietnam.
The survey of 1,003 adults was completed Wednesday, shortly before the announcement that U.S. airstrikes had killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq, and the Iraqi parliament's approval of candidates for ministers in charge of the army and police.
It remains to be seen how those events could affect opinion, especially among a public paying close attention to war dispatches.
Some 76 percent of those questioned said they were following reports about allegations that U.S. troops killed unarmed Iraqi civilians.
The military is investigating reports that a small number of Marines murdered 24 Iraqi civilians — including unarmed women and children — in the town of Haditha on Nov. 19. It also is conducting a probe of an incident in Hamdaniya following allegations that Marines pulled an unarmed Iraqi man from his home on April 26 and shot him to death without provocation.
Regardless of whether the allegations turn out to be true, 63 percent of those surveyed said they thought the killings of civilians were isolated incidents. That view was especially true among Americans over 35, whites and those living in the South, where the military has a strong presence.
"I think they're doing everything possible to avoid such things," said Christine Berchelmann, a retired nurse and Republican-leaning independent from San Antonio. "The people they are seeking out, they are in dwellings right in the middle of all these civilians. There are always going to be casualties."
Sixty-one percent in the survey said the military is doing all it can to avoid killing Iraqi civilians.
While the AP poll found that most Americans are willing to give U.S. troops the benefit of the doubt, their misgivings about the war and the prospect of Iraq establishing a stable, democratic government are growing.
Fifty-nine percent said the United States made a mistake in going to war, a new high and a significant jump from the 34 percent in December 2004.
"The biggest mistake was going into Iraq," said David Smith, 38, a salesman from Springfield, Mo., and Democrat who leans independent. "If hindsight was 20-20, they should have thought about the repercussions."
Despite President Bush's pronouncements about Iraq setting up a viable government, only 44 percent of those polled said it was likely they would see a stable government in Baghdad. It was a new low in the survey.
"I think this is the first time in recorded history where the American people wholeheartedly support the troops and support for the mission is waning," said Rep. Ike Skelton (news, bio, voting record) of Missouri, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
The 15-term lawmaker cited the greater involvement of the National Guard and Reserves in the war. Some 25,000 members of the Guard and Reserve are in Iraq among the 132,000 U.S. troops.
"People have a neighbor or a cousin," Skelton said.
During Vietnam, growing opposition to the war paralleled disenchantment with American forces, many of whom had been drafted to serve. The conflict dragged on more than a decade, some 58,000 Americans were killed and the U.S. departed Saigon in April 1975 as the communists prevailed.
Capturing the public consciousness during Vietnam was the My Lai massacre, in which U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of innocent civilians in 1968.
In Iraq, the military has relied on an all-volunteer force of trained professionals.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said it is possible to oppose the war but "nonetheless see the military as divorced from that. The military is our sons and daughters and, of course, we wouldn't systematically engage in something that defiles American values."
Rep. John Kline (news, bio, voting record), R-Minn., said he was not surprised by the view of the troops.
"These soldiers are the best we ever had. The American people understand it," said Kline, a member of the Armed Services Committee.
The survey also found that the war continues to take a toll on the public's opinion of Bush. Approval of the president was at 35 percent, essentially unchanged from his rating of 33 percent last month based on the poll's margin of error of 3 percentage points.
His handling of Iraq and foreign policy and the fight against terrorism hit new lows: Just 33 percent approved of his actions on Iraq and 39 percent on the commander in chief's fight against terrorism.
People had an even lower opinion of the Republican-controlled Congress. Only 24 percent approved of the way it's doing its job, essentially unchanged from last month but still a new low.
Fifty-two percent want Democrats to capture control of Congress in November, about the same as last month's poll.
___
Associated Press writer Will Lester contributed to this report.
___
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060609/ap_on_re_us/iraq_ap_poll_9
my congresswoman was among the nays
Republicans exploit this advantage with an instantaneous message machine that keeps them plugged into their backers and the broader electorate.
There's an excellent point in that article. It specifically reminded me of what they did to Dean in 2004. But how can the Dems compete against Murdock and the like? I think the internet is helping and is viable as a cost effective way to get the word out. IMO, the underlying problem is that many don't spend enough time paying attention to what's really going on and rely on TV news sound bites and respond to emotional propaganda. The dems need a charismatic leader that inspires.
gmta :)
just listening to the lies coming out of his mouth is torture