Pls share with us where Firedman wrote that Iraq was attacked because Bush was really pissed-off and just wanted to kick a bunch of ass.
Umm...how about the gassed Kurds? How about raped and murdered Kuwaitis? How about the payments to families of Palistinean suicide bombers? If you don't see that as terrorism, or support of it, there's not much point in debate.
That may be genocide or warcrimes, but it does not equal support of terrorism. The families of suicide bombers connection I already addressed above.
OK, I guess you're making up your own definition of "terrorism" then...here's the definition from dictionary.com: "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons." Again, you're making up your own definition of "support." Even if we accept the premise that the thought of his/her family receiving a payment never actually went through the mind of a suicide bomber (which seems pretty far-fetched IMO), what do you think the INTENT of these payments was?
Note that by this definition the whole war in Iraq is an act of terrorism. This is one of the main reasons why so many around the world are calling this war a war crime. Note that their terrorists have called this administration terrorists, and they have used that to justify their attacks. And again, clearly by this definition this administration has and is committing terrorist acts. Note also that if we’re saying that terrorism is an appropriate response to terrorism, then the 9/11 attacks have just been justified and we’ve entered into an infinite loop where this will go on for ever, terrorism begetting terrorism, etc.
The money was not meant to encourage suicide bombers or it would have been a suicide bomber fund. Instead it was a fund set up to go to Palestinian martyrs. The majority of money in that fund went to the families of innocent Palestinian civilians who were killed by Israelis. The majority of Palestinians killed in the conflict are not suicide bombers. The fund that was set up did also consider suicide bombers to be martyrs, and thus their families also received the money. But they were not even close to the largest recipients of money from that fund. If the intent was to encourage suicide bombers the fund would have been set up to go exclusively to those families. I'm not making up my own definition for support. As for the definition of terrorism which you used, almost any military action could be seen as terrorism, so I wasn't using that definition. I was referring to terrorism as being the intentional target of civilians to wage a campaign of terror, and disruption. There is a reason why there are war crimes, and genocide. I do believe that Hussein is guilty of that. I actually also think that is a higher crime than that of terrorism.
heheh...Kurds are iraqi's its friggin madman sadam who got rid of them....one of my best friends a kurd....trust me they are a tribe in iraq....that's kind of being a dictator is all about...they are shi**y to their own people.....but terrorism...hahah....now that's funny..the kuwait thing was an invasion..army led...now THAT IS terrorism ???..its shows where you get your info from...and the palestine link.... he PAID SUICIDE BOMBERS!!!...that's BS i don't know where you got that sh*t from....its true a lot of arab countries give money to palestine....though not for suicide purposes...its kinda obligatory to pay... go get rid of all the arab governments then noboy denies they give money...but to say to support suicide bombers is BS.
<a HREF="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/03/25/1017004766310.html?oneclick=true">Saddam stokes war with suicide bomber cash</a> <i> Saddam stokes war with suicide bomber cash March 26 2002 The Iraqi leader's payments to the families of dead Palestinian terrorists means more trouble for Yasser Arafat, writes Paul McGeough in the West Bank. The hall was packed and the intake of breath was audible as a special announcement was made to the war widows of the West Bank - Saddam Hussein would pay $US25,000 ($47,000) to the family of each suicide bomber as an enticement for others to volunteer for martyrdom in the name of the Palestinian people. The men at the top table then opened Saddam's chequebook and, as the names of 47 martyrs were called, family representatives went up to sign for cheques written in US dollars. Those of two suicide bombers were the first to be paid the new rate of $US25,000 and those whose relatives had died in other clashes with the Israeli military were given $US10,000 each. The $US500,000 doled out in this impoverished community yesterday means that the besieged Iraqi leader now has contributed more than $US10 million to grieving Palestinian families since the new intifada began 18 months ago. But the timing of this clear signal that Saddam is stoking the Middle East conflict with his new $US15,000 bonus to encourage more suicide bombers - and exclusive pictures from the distribution ceremony, which was attended by the Herald - could make it more difficult for the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, to manage his already strained relationship with the United States. Because the Palestinians and the Israelis have been unable to agree to a ceasefire during the US-brokered talks that began in Jerusalem two weeks ago, Mr Arafat may be denied an opportunity to put the Palestinian case directly to the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney. As well, the Israelis have yet to decide if they will lift Mr Arafat's effective house arrest to allow him to travel to Beirut for this week's summit of Arab leaders that is to discuss a Saudi Arabian plan to end the crisis. And now, the US and Israel will have the opportunity to accuse Mr Arafat of being in the embrace of two of President Bush's three "axis of evil" countries, Iraq and Iran. The New York Times reported on Saturday the suspicion of US and Israeli intelligence agencies that Mr Arafat had developed an alliance with Iran to import weapons worth millions of dollars to be used by Palestinian fighters. Mr Arafat has denied any knowledge of a recent shipment of Iranian arms seized by the Israelis on its way to Palestine. But he may be hard pressed to deny knowledge of a public ceremony on his own territory, during which supporters of Saddam handed out $US500,000 and encouraged others to become suicide bombers with the blessing of the Iraqi leader. The US will also be keen to use Saddam's provocative intrusion into the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as another reason for its planned military strike against him. Yesterday's ceremony at Tulkarm, about 90 kilometres north of Jerusalem, was the first public distribution organised by the Arab Liberation Front, a small PLO faction closely aligned with Saddam's Ba'ath Party. Previously, the cheques were delivered privately by officials of the front to the homes of martyr families. A senior front official, Ma'amoon Tayeh, said that the extra $US15,000 was to encourage more Palestinians to volunteer as suicide bombers to help "confirm the legitimacy of our national questions". He said: "Saddam Hussein considers Palestine to be a governate of Iraq and he thinks the same of the Palestinian martyrs as he does of Iraqi martyrs - they all are martyrs for the whole Arab nation." Dr Hassan Khraisheh, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council who told the crowd he had just returned from a solidarity conference in Baghdad, said some families believed the money should be sent back to Iraq because of the hardships imposed by sanctions; others used the money to " buy weapons to defend Palestine". Later, he praised Iraq as the only Arab country officially donating to the Palestinian cause. "The Saudis used to give $US4000 to the martyrs, but now it depends on public donations. "Saddam Hussein's $US25,000 is a message to those who might offer themselves as martyrs that their families will be supported ..."</i>
The concept of terrorism revolves around being a non-state actor. That's why it says organization or group.
Al Qaeda is certainly in Iraq now. They went there because of the war. As far as Saddam being a sponsor of terrorism, he did this opportunistically, as a PR ploy in the Arab world. He made those statements for show, just like his firing of scuds at Israel in the Gulf War. He is not a radical Islamisist and had no real interest in their cause. He was secular and had a “Christian” cabinet minister. His interest was in protecting and advancing his own power, so it doesn’t make sense that he would have sponsored terrorism, and I doubt that any of the terrorist groups would have had anything to do with him either. And again, if he was in bed with any of these guys you’d think that they would have at least done him the favour of getting him, and presumably his money, out of the country. The claim to be pro democracy may well be central to neocon ideology, but I don’t think that it is much of a consideration in practice, and I don’t think that it is much of a consideration for this administration in particular. Even Reagan’s administration tried to overthrow a democratically elected government in Nicaragua, and they allied themselves with Saddam Hussein himself, as well as many other non-democratic and brutal leaders who they felt they could control. And yet when they were dealing with an enemy, like the USSR, they trot out the democracy card. Clearly their priority was NOT really democracy, and neither did they let democracy get in the way of furthering their own perceived interests. They were even prepared to overthrow democratically elected governments. Algeria is another place where a democratically elected government was overthrown, but off the top of my head I can’t remember how much the US was involved in that. Algeria is an important example to pay attention to, however, because it was a country where a radical Islamic government was democratically elected. Depending on how radicalized the majority of the voting electorate in Iraq become, this could well happen there too. W.r.t this administration, they could have addressed the Saudi Arabian problem, a non-democratic country with strong ties to terrorism. This is a neighbour to Iraq. Instead, we hear nothing about democratising SA and yet we’re asked to believe that democratising the ME was the motive for going into Iraq!? Just how dumb do they think we are? Perhaps a better question would be, do they believe that this line will work on a significant percentage of the American electorate? Almost no one outside the US would believe that the Neocons are motivated by a will to spread democracy. Heck, the US has one of the weakest democracies in the world. If the Neocons wanted to advance democracy they would start at home, wouldn’t they? They would look at reforming the US system to make it more representative of the people and more relevant to the people and thereby increase the voter turnout by 20% -30%. I very much doubt that the Neocons would be interested in doing that.
Jeez, Grizz. Your Anti-American venom is really overexaggerating things. The US has the one of the weakest democracies in the world? All other nations agree with this? Saying things like this really hurts your credibility.
I've noticed a lot of Canadians on different message boards have these attitudes. Not sure why. They sure have some strong feelings about us.
To state the obvious, Iraq is a state too. Further, the Palestinians are a people whose state was taken away from them. The have an elected government. There are a lot of people who believe that their actions are the actions of a state, which by your definition would preclude them from being terrorist acts. We’re just playing with words with definitions like this, and word games essentially never address the real issues.
This is a simple, well know fact. It’s not anti-American venom at all. Your voter turnout for Presidential elections hovers around 50%, roughly 20% below the average of most first world democracies. You system essentially precludes anyone who isn’t a multi-millionaire from running. Consequently your elected body is not representative of your population, and tends to represent the old boy establishment. And this, I suspect, has a lot to do with why they are so out of touch with the changing world around them. Your system is much less representative that any other democracy I can think of. In Canada teachers and farmers, for example, can run and do run and get elected. If this is news to you then I’m surprised. I’ll dig up some stats for you shortly.
Here’s a site that will let you compare: http://www.idea.int/vt/index.cfm And before you mention it, yes, Canada had, before our last election, two elections with a very low voter turnout. There are several reason for this, but the point I’ll make here is that that was a major concern for us and we instituted changes to our electoral system shortly thereafter. ---- Canadian Political Financing Reform From Susan Munroe, Your Guide to Canada Online. Legislation to reform the financing of the Canadian electoral system Legislation to reform how political parties and candidates are financed in Canada was introduced in the House of Commons on January 29, 2003. The political financing legislation is a key part of the ethics action plan announced by Prime Minister Chretien in May 2002. The Prime Minister has made it very clear that he considers this an important piece of legislation. The political financing legislation is meant to improve fairness and transparency in the Canadian electoral system, and to avoid undue influence or the perception of undue influence on politicians. Core to the legislation is the banning of political donations from corporations and unions, and an increase in the public funding of political expenses to offset the loss in revenue. Here are the main elements of the political financing legislation. Some compromises on the details are expected before the bill reaches a final vote in the House of Commons. Ban political donations from corporations and unions The political financing legislation would allow only individual Canadian citizens and permanent residents to make financial donations to registered political parties, candidates, constituency associations, and leadership and nomination candidates. Corporations, trade unions and associations would not be allowed to make contributions to a registered political party or to a leadership candidate. They could still contribute a small amount of up to $1000 total to party candidates, nomination contestants or constituency associations. Limit the size of political donations from individuals Contributions from individuals would have an annual limit of $10,000 for each party. Registration of constituency associations Constituency associations, called electoral district associations in the legislation, would be required to register with Elections Canada and report annually. Only registered electoral district associations would be able to accept contributions, provide goods and services or transfer funds to a candidate or party, Each electoral district association would have an auditor and a financial agent. Regulation of nomination and leadership campaigns Spending limits currently apply to candidates and political parties during election campaigns. The political financing legislation would add spending limits to candidates for party riding nominations too. Imposing spending and contribution limits at the nomination level of the electoral process might make it easier for members of disadvantaged groups, like women, to run for office. The political financing legislation also introduces some controls on party leadership races, which often raise and spend large amounts of money, much of which is financed by income tax receipts. The bill does not impose spending limits, but political parties must notify Elections Canada of a leadership campaign, and party leadership candidates would be required to register with Elections Canada and report on amounts and sources of contributions Increase in public financing of the political system To make up for the shortfall in funding that would be caused by the ban on political donations from corporations and unions, the political financing legislation raises the reimbursement rate for the election expenses of registered political parties from 22.5 percent to 50 percent. The legislation also lowers the percentage of votes that a candidate must get in his riding to be eligible for reimbursement of election expenses to 10 percent from 15 percent. The political financing legislation would give an annual allowance to registered political parties of $1.50 for every vote they received in the previous general election. The political financing legislation would also amend the Income Tax Act to increase tax credits for political donations by individuals. http://canadaonline.about.com/cs/govtethics/a/polfinancebill.htm I think a similar reform in your country would go a long way toward re-democratising the US.
Yeah, Clinton, Reagan, and Carter sure were "good old boys." All of them were underdogs. I don't think you know what you are talking about.
Whether or not someone was an underdog in an election has nothing to do with whether they came from, or were substantially supported by, the wealthy ruling class. Your comment makes no sense. Further, I notice that you have avoided addressing the information I gave you. I’ll take that to mean you have no answer for that either.
My point in saying they were underogs was that neither Carter, Reagan, or Clinton were part of the "wealthy ruling class." How on earth you could come to that conclusion is beyond me. I mean, I don't even know who would be a part of that ruling class. Would you put Bill Gates in that class? Warren Buffet? Those guys are among our richest, but they don't "rule" in any sense of the word. Your coment makes no sense. Also, you are aware that Canada has been ruled by the same left of center ruling class the past several decades, right? How is that democracy? Shouldn't there be actual debates between differing points of view? We actually have that in America. "Consequently your elected body is not representative of your population, and tends to represent the old boy establishment. " That's just false. Please source this "fact," in particular the statement that it is "not representative." Are right wingers properly represented in proportion to the population in the ruling class of Canada?
Let's see: Paul Martin Lawyer...check Executive...check CEO...check Millionaire...check Jean Chretien Lawyer...check Executive...check Millionaire...check
