EPT2008 US Presidential Election - Page 25
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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baal
10708 Posts
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
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D10
Brazil3409 Posts
On October 20 2008 05:17 baal wrote: thats for anyone who believed that Obama was gong to change anything... Mr Powell just killed all your hope. Here is the change he will bring, the white house will no longer be ruled by white rich shoot first ask later america > u cowboys. Everything else, is just else. | ||
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KlaCkoN
Sweden1661 Posts
On October 20 2008 04:49 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_NMZv6Vfh8 omg <3 that man  | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France8078 Posts
On October 20 2008 04:49 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_NMZv6Vfh8 AAAAAAAAAlleluia | ||
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Servolisk
United States5241 Posts
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aRod
United States758 Posts
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dongfeng
731 Posts
btw i dont support either party i just thought it was interesting wordplay | ||
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mensrea
Canada5062 Posts
People like to highlight Powell's resignation from the Bush Administration as evidence of his moral fiber and his courage. This is pure bullshit. First of all, the man did not really resign - he was fired. Just ask Robert McNamara how such things work in the White House (although McNamara has said that he had deluded himself for many years into believing that he had actually resigned, before a close friend pointed out the obvious). Putting that technicality aside, here's what I think: if Powell were truly a man of moral convictions, he would have resigned in protest the moment it became clear in the aftermath of the 9-11 trauma that his boss was leading his nation to a mendacious and unjust war against Iraq. Instead, he became the front man for the Bush Doctrine, putting on a disingenuous show at the UN proclaiming before the world's cameras the discovery of irrefutable evidence (PowerPoint diagrams and satellite spyshots glaring in the background to add to the credibility of his presentation) that Saddam was in possession of nukes and of information of that dictator's imminent use of such armaments against American interests - all such assertions which have of course since been shown to be groundless figments of the Bush Administration's imagination. Then he hung on to his job before being basically pushed out by Rumsfeld and Cheney. What is so morally awesome about that? Would any of you naive imbeciles be as forgiving of any of Hitler's lieutenants who may have harbored misgivings about Der Fuhrer's leadership? To my mind, Robin Cook is a gentleman of far superior moral character than Colin Powell ever was. Don't know who he is? Cook used to be Powell's counterpart in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government. At the time of the Iraq invasion, Cook was senior Cabinet Minister and Leader of the House of Commons. He was also one of Tony Blair's closest friends and associates in government. At the apogee of Cook's political career, and on the eve of the Iraq invasion, Cook resigned from Tony Blair's government in protest over Britain's involvement. His resignation speech before the British House of Commons remains one of the most powerful condemnations of the 2003 military campaign against Iraq. Read it and educate yourself. This is what courage looks like, not some lame-ass dud like Powell. _____________________ Leader of the British House of Commons and seniour member of the cabinet, the Right Honourable Robin Cook: This is the first time for 20 years that I have addressed the House from the Back Benches. I must confess that I had forgotten how much better the view is from here. None of those 20 years were more enjoyable or more rewarding than the past two, in which I have had the immense privilege of serving this House as Leader of the House, which were made all the more enjoyable, Mr. Speaker, by the opportunity of working closely with you. It was frequently the necessity for me as Leader of the House to talk my way out of accusations that a statement had been preceded by a press interview. On this occasion I can say with complete confidence that no press interview has been given before this statement. I have chosen to address the House first on why I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support. The present Prime Minister is the most successful leader of the Labour party in my lifetime. I hope that he will continue to be the leader of our party, and I hope that he will continue to be successful. I have no sympathy with, and I will give no comfort to, those who want to use this crisis to displace him. I applaud the heroic efforts that the Prime Minister has made in trying to secure a second resolution. I do not think that anybody could have done better than the Foreign Secretary in working to get support for a second resolution within the Security Council. But the very intensity of those attempts underlines how important it was to succeed. Now that those attempts have failed, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was of no importance. France has been at the receiving end of bucketloads of commentary in recent days. It is not France alone that wants more time for inspections. Germany wants more time for inspections; Russia wants more time for inspections; indeed, at no time have we signed up even the minimum necessary to carry a second resolution. We delude ourselves if we think that the degree of international hostility is all the result of President Chirac. The reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading partner -- not NATO, not the European Union and, now, not the Security Council. To end up in such diplomatic weakness is a serious reverse. Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition. The US can afford to go it alone, but Britain is not a superpower. Our interests are best protected not by unilateral action but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules. Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened: the European Union is divided; the Security Council is in stalemate. Those are heavy casualties of a war in which a shot has yet to be fired. I have heard some parallels between military action in these circumstances and the military action that we took in Kosovo. There was no doubt about the multilateral support that we had for the action that we took in Kosovo. It was supported by NATO; it was supported by the European Union; it was supported by every single one of the seven neighbors in the region. France and Germany were our active allies. It is precisely because we have none of that support in this case that it was all the more important to get agreement in the Security Council as the last hope of demonstrating international agreement. The legal basis for our action in Kosovo was the need to respond to an urgent and compelling humanitarian crisis. Our difficulty in getting support this time is that neither the international community nor the British public is persuaded that there is an urgent and compelling reason for this military action in Iraq. The threshold for war should always be high. None of us can predict the death toll of civilians from the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq, but the US warning of a bombing campaign that will \"shock and awe\" makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at least in the thousands. I am confident that British servicemen and women will acquit themselves with professionalism and with courage. I hope that they all come back. I hope that Saddam, even now, will quit Baghdad and avert war, but it is false to argue that only those who support war support our troops. It is entirely legitimate to support our troops while seeking an alternative to the conflict that will put those troops at risk. Nor is it fair to accuse those of us who want longer for inspections of not having an alternative strategy. For four years as Foreign Secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment. Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq\'s nuclear weapons programme and halted Saddam\'s medium and long-range missiles programmes. Iraq\'s military strength is now less than half its size than at the time of the last Gulf war. Ironically, it is only because Iraq\'s military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam\'s forces are so weak, so demoralized and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days. We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat. Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term�namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target. It probably still has biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories. Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create? Why is it necessary to resort to war this week, while Saddam\'s ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked by the presence of UN inspectors? Only a couple of weeks ago, Hans Blix told the Security Council that the key remaining disarmament tasks could be completed within months. I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to complete disarmament, and that our patience is exhausted. Yet it is more than 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. We do not express the same impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply. I welcome the strong personal commitment that the Prime Minister has given to middle east peace, but Britain\'s positive role in the middle east does not redress the strong sense of injustice throughout the Muslim world at what it sees as one rule for the allies of the US and another rule for the rest. Nor is our credibility helped by the appearance that our partners in Washington are less interested in disarmament than they are in regime change in Iraq. That explains why any evidence that inspections may be showing progress is greeted in Washington not with satisfaction but with consternation: it reduces the case for war. What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops. The longer that I have served in this place, the greater the respect I have for the good sense and collective wisdom of the British people. On Iraq, I believe that the prevailing mood of the British people is sound. They do not doubt that Saddam is a brutal dictator, but they are not persuaded that he is a clear and present danger to Britain. They want inspections to be given a chance, and they suspect that they are being pushed too quickly into conflict by a US Administration with an agenda of its own. Above all, they are uneasy at Britain going out on a limb on a military adventure without a broader international coalition and against the hostility of many of our traditional allies. From the start of the present crisis, I have insisted, as Leader of the House, on the right of this place to vote on whether Britain should go to war. It has been a favorite theme of commentators that this House no longer occupies a central role in British politics. Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for this House to stop the commitment of troops in a war that has neither international agreement nor domestic support. I intend to join those tomorrow night who will vote against military action now. It is for that reason, and for that reason alone, and with a heavy heart, that I resign from the Government. (sustained applause) | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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cava
United States1035 Posts
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ambit!ous1
United States3662 Posts
who will become the one? | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
Watch Chris Matthews when Pat says it. | ||
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D10
Brazil3409 Posts
As I read in http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ recently, McCain is gonna hit a wall soon, when theres no one else that will vote for him, other than hardcore republicans. | ||
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Orome
Switzerland11984 Posts
On October 20 2008 09:37 mensrea wrote: Would any of you naive imbeciles be as forgiving of any of Hitler's lieutenants who may have harbored misgivings about Der Fuhrer's leadership? I agree with most of your post, but this an incredibly unnecessary insult, especially since the analogy you use to make your point is ridiculous. | ||
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Fzero
United States1503 Posts
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D10
Brazil3409 Posts
On October 20 2008 11:02 Orome wrote: I agree with most of your post, but this an incredibly unnecessary insult, especially since the analogy you use to make your point is ridiculous. I Would listen to Rommels endorsment anytime. | ||
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TeCh)PsylO
United States3552 Posts
Watch Chris Matthews when Pat says it He looks as if he is writing his masters thesis on race relations. This country does not know how to deal with race issues, and that is apparent every time the subject comes up. It is obvious that the RNC advocates have intellectually copped out of this race. These are the people that insinuate that he is a Muslim, and at the exact same time attack him for the minister of his Christian church. As to Mensrea's point, I think the fanfare of this endorsement(beyond the strict campaign implications) illustrates the lack of moral responsibility we place on our politicians, and the power of our votes. As a country, we are to ignorant and disconnected from reality to effectively use the power of our democracy. We saw the same thing illustrated throughout the debates every time McCain throws out Kissinger's name as the stamp of approval for his foreign policy, and nobody blinks an eye. How can "we" judge someones moral fiber when we don't have the information to judge? We have collectively absolved ourselves from our own role in our government, a point I don't even know how to address. | ||
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