|
|
Re: let's get political
|
Logged in as: Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic:
none
|
|
Login  | |
|
Re: let's get political - October 14, 2004 10:10:00 AM
|
|
|
Jeep
Posts: 353
Joined: March 28, 2003
From: USA
Status: offline
|
Submitted without comment to Diane's post-
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5335853/site/newsweek/
<>
The innuendo is greatest, of course, in Moore’s dealings with the matter of the departing Saudis flown out of the United States in the days after the September 11 terror attacks. Much has already been written about these flights, especially the film’s implication that figures with possible knowledge of the terrorist attacks were allowed to leave the country without adequate FBI screening—a notion that has been essentially rejected by the 9/11 commission. The 9/11 commission found that the FBI screened the Saudi passengers, ran their names through federal databases, interviewed 30 of them and asked many of them “detailed questions." “Nobody of interest to the FBI with regard to the 9/11 investigation was allowed to leave the country,” the commission stated. New information about a flight from Tampa, Florida late on Sept. 13 seems mostly a red herring: The flight didn’t take any Saudis out of the United States. It was a domestic flight to Lexington, Kentucky that took place after the Tampa airport had already reopened.(You can read Unger’s letter to Newsweek on this point, as well as our reply, by clicking here.
It is true that there are still some in the FBI who had questions about the flights-and wish more care had been taken to examine the passengers. But the film’s basic point—that the flights represented perhaps the supreme example of the Saudi government’s influence in the Bush White House-is almost impossible to defend. Why? Because while the film claims—correctly—that the “White House” approved the flights, it fails to note who exactly in the White House did so. It wasn’t the president, or the vice president or anybody else supposedly corrupted by Saudi oil money. It was Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism czar who was a holdover from the Clinton administration and who has since turned into a fierce Bush critic. Clarke has publicly testified that he gave the greenlight—conditioned on FBI clearance.
“I thought the flights were correct,” Clarke told ABC News last week. “The Saudis had reasonable fear that they might be the subject of vigilante attacks in the United States after 9/11. And there is no evidence even to this date that any of the people who left on those flights were people of interest to the FBI.” Like much else relevant to the issues Moore raises, Clarke’s reasons for approving the flights—and his thoughts on them today—won’t be found in “Fahrenheit 9/11,” nor in any of the ample material now being churned out by the film-maker’s “war room” to defend his provocative, if flawed, movie.
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - October 14, 2004 10:56:00 AM
|
|
|
Diane
Posts: 1507
Joined: March 9, 2001
From: Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Status: online
|
It's good to have more info out here and elsewhere about these issues, so thank you to Jeep for the link to Newsweek's attempt to further explore the issues raised by Michael Moore and others.
I wonder what someone of the calibre of Seymour Hersh would have to say about the planes, and about something else that was raised in the doc: i.e.: as an ex-president, Bush senior has access to daily CIA briefings. All ex-presidents have this privilege, yet it seems only Bush senior is ever interested in exercising it.
Here's an article (among many, written by a large number of people) available on Moore's website:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=213
This one caught my eye, because of Hersh's credibility as outlined within the article.
Diane
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - October 15, 2004 6:13:00 AM
|
|
|
chiroortho
Posts: 655
Joined: February 18, 2004
Status: offline
|
An interesting political phenomenon which seems to reflect human nature is the fact that we (myself included) tend to overlook the flaws and mistakes of 'our guys' while at the same time emphasizing the flaws and mistakes of 'the other guys'. Us versus them.
As I'm sure you've all observed, the partisans on TV can and do frequently defend the indefensible with regard to the candidates that they support, both Republican and Democrat.
_____________________________
Greg Priest, DC, DABCO
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - October 15, 2004 1:15:00 PM
|
|
|
SJBird55
Posts: 2438
Joined: May 10, 2004
From: Michigan
Status: offline
|
I've been reading along... the other thing we all forget is how overwhelming a position of "President" just has to be. How does anyone effectively make decisons on such a wide array of issues - from economics to medical to education to international to agricultural to environmental...? (I mean, we as a profession and as individuals within our own profession argue over direct access and DPT.) How can a President easily have the capability to ensure that decisions are made for the best for everyone? A President can't - there are too many of us. As we citizens live our lives, our needs and our focus and what's important to us changes probably with each decade of life. And then when you toss in all the various lobbyists and the politics of it all and who has the money, how does anything ever get done fairly? I think of my history classes and Washington and Lincoln and Roosevelt... I'm not going to say it was easy then, but the media, internet, and the whole scheme of how intertwined we are in the world now a days is just so different. I don't think that anyone in the office of President is going to be loved by all.
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - October 16, 2004 1:22:00 AM
|
|
|
Jeep
Posts: 353
Joined: March 28, 2003
From: USA
Status: offline
|
RE: Seymour Hersh
http://www.nationalreview.com/babbin/babbin200409170630.asp
September 17, 2004,
Abu Ghraib’s Kitty Kelley
Seymour Hersh serves up fiction in Chain of Command.
Seymour Hersh doesn't like George W. Bush's America, Don Rumsfeld's Pentagon, the war we're in, or the way we're fighting it. Promoting his new book, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, Hersh is trying to lay the blame for the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse problem directly at Rumsfeld's feet. But Hersh has apparently invented what he could not discover; this once-distinguished journalist is working awfully hard to become the Kitty Kelley of Abu Ghraib.
When the title "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist" is appended to someone's name, it inevitably adds a measure of credibility he may not otherwise deserve. Hersh justly won his Pulitzer for reporting the My Lai massacre over 30 years ago. In recent years, however, his "investigative" reporting has produced more fiction than fact, more rant than reason. Hersh can be duped rather easily — that is, when he's not just making stuff up. Chain of Command needs to be examined in the context of Hersh's track record, which is simply awful.
Only six years ago was Hersh's most famous — and embarrassing — venture in duplicity. Hersh's near-meltdown experience was caused by his anxious acceptance of a bunch of forged documents purporting to be proof of a love affair between President Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. Fortunately for Hersh, his publisher managed better than Dan Rather's bosses: Just before the hit-piece bio of JFK came out, Hersh was forced to pull a revelatory chapter because the documents were obvious forgeries. (They bore, for example, zip codes in addresses years before zip codes came into being.) Hersh still managed to have the Kennedys both controlled by the mob, and controlling the mob (on alternate days, perhaps). Then he wrote that President Kennedy had endorsed the CIA assassination of a Congolese dictator two days before Kennedy was inaugurated. Then he wrote that Israel's nuclear weapons were used to blackmail the U.S. into supporting Israeli security. And then, and then...
Hersh's Chain of Command seems to return to the scene of his first and biggest success: war crimes. But this time facts and logic are rather scarce. Ever since the Pentagon released the news of the investigation of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib in January 2004, Hersh has been taking credit for "breaking" the story. Now, in his new book, he's arguing that since late 2002, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice have met and made decisions that amounted to ordering the prisoner abuses that later occurred at Abu Ghraib.
Hersh — on Meet the Press last Sunday and CNN Tuesday night — has tried to make a case that prisoner interrogations at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 weren't producing enough intelligence to satisfy the Pentagon. (That all changed in March 2003 when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was caught, and commenced singing like a canary.) Hersh says that the reason the interrogations weren't producing sufficiently is that the prisoners were being severely abused. Logic fails Hersh at this point. Hersh wants us to believe that Rumsfeld — faced with the failure of abusive interrogations at Guantanamo — decided to solve the problem by spreading the practice of abuse to Iraq. Huh?
Since May, Hersh has been pushing the story of a top-secret program, known by the code name "Copper Green," which he alleged had two functions. First, it was to send American operatives in to capture (or kill) high-value terrorist targets wherever they might be. (If there's a problem with that, I can't think of it.) Second, Hersh says, Copper Green "...encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq."
The Pentagon denies there's any program called "Copper Green." Yeah, whatever. Code-word programs were created with that game in mind. But the Pentagon's denial of "Copper Green" is not game-playing. The Pentagon issued a statement that said, "...no responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have authorized or condoned the abuses seen at Abu Ghraib." When the Pentagon says that, it's telling the congressionally auditable truth. And that's not all that's wrong with the song Hersh is singing.
According to Hersh, in late 2002 a CIA analyst visited the prisoner-detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and came back with a shocking report of prisoner abuse. According to Hersh, the analyst came back with a "blistering" report that worked its way up to Condoleezza Rice's desk. Hersh says she held several meetings about it, and asked Rumsfeld to do something about it. But Rice denies ignoring any warnings on prisoner abuse, and doesn't recall any such meetings. What's more, intelligence-community sources told me Tuesday that the CIA is so angry at Hersh's fabrication that it may release a statement about it. (Apparently neither the analyst's activity on the trip nor his report of the trip bear any resemblance to Hersh's sensational account.)
There's still more wrong with what Hersh is saying. Former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger's panel investigated Defense Department operations of prisoner-detention facilities and, according to his statement on August 24, "...received total cooperation from the [Defense] department." In that same statement, Schlesinger said it plainly:
There was no policy of abuse; quite the contrary. Senior officials repeatedly said that in Iraq, Geneva regulations would apply. In Afghanistan and Guantanamo, it was quite different, but even there, it was said, following the President's directive, that all activity should be consistent with the Geneva Accord.
Hersh's book is a smear against the Defense Department in general, and Secretary Rumsfeld in particular. But just as it echoes Vietnam in the "no-exit-strategy" argument, it also echoes John Kerry's 1971 "atrocities" testimony to the Senate. Hersh is saying, in effect, that prisoner abuse was commonplace, and well-known to the highest levels of command. Just as Kerry did in 1971, Hersh is now libeling each of the soldiers who have served in the war against terrorists and the nations that support them. Anyone who ever took a prisoner is touched by this calumny.
Americans — counting those who have served more than one tour of duty there — have served about 400,000 tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. In those 400,000 tours, they have captured about 50,000 prisoners. About 30,000 of them were held long enough to be given a detainee number.
In handling the 50,000, there have been only about 300 allegations of abuse. Many of them were at the point of capture. (When someone doesn't drop a weapon when you order him to, you can: a) kill him; b) give his jaw the benefit of your rifle's butt; or c) let him shoot you. Most American soldiers choose "b.")
Of the 300 allegations of abuse, only some 66 of them are substantiated. They are being investigated and prosecuted. Those numbers represent such a small fraction of the people who have fought — and are fighting — this war, it is tempting to say it is negligible. But it's not. It's a redundant proof that our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen are not war criminals. With very few exceptions these young people are true to American values even in the worst and most dangerous circumstances.
Hersh's beef — like that of the rest of the Blame America First crowd — is that we're choosing to war against those who first chose to war with us. He thinks America has made the world a more dangerous place by invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Yes, we have, Mr. Hersh. It's a much more dangerous place for terrorists, and it's going to stay that way at least as long as Dubya, Dick, and Big Dog Rumsfeld have any say in the matter.
* * *
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - October 16, 2004 5:24:00 AM
|
|
|
Diane
Posts: 1507
Joined: March 9, 2001
From: Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Status: online
|
Hmmnn.. sounds a bit spinned. Like c-ortho says, spin everywhere. Doesn't matter, go vote.
I found this one quite interesting:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=220
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - October 16, 2004 6:37:00 AM
|
|
|
Jeep
Posts: 353
Joined: March 28, 2003
From: USA
Status: offline
|
Yeah-
I thought twice about that particular reference- however- then, thought, well michael moore is SO far left- something a bit right is the only way to balance it!!
Diane- Can you please find sources other than michael morre to support your position? I find him to be a meglomaniac with a personal agrandizing agenda. Just about any other source would have more credibility. You seem to quote him as your ONLY source. I think that is not the best. He has an agenda, that is in his be$t intere$t.
As for Mr. Hersh, It seems he he became recognized for his vietnam reporting, and has now resorted to/lowered himself to, "National Enquirer"(read questionable/sensational/unethical) methods, to try to recapture the "WOW" factor. It is really very sad.(ref. "Dark side of Camelot"). He is now more drivien by "celebrity"/"stirring the pot" than by what is "true". Very sad indeed- A talent corrupted by the desire for "celebrity".
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - October 16, 2004 7:17:00 AM
|
|
|
Diane
Posts: 1507
Joined: March 9, 2001
From: Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Status: online
|
Actually Jeep, I can't help myself, I'm a Moore fan. I'm fascinated by his style. I admit I'm not too deep into the whole thing, all the various sources etc, I just like MM's attitude; I like that he hands out new underwear and packets of instant noodles to people who promise to vote for the first time. He makes me laugh, which is a lot more placeboic than most scare-based rants are from south of my border; he seems to be waking many US voters up out a deep lethargy, where they
1. expect someone else to do things for them instead of getting busy and creating a fresh version of democracy, or
2. don't think they matter or that their vote counts.
He's waking them up by making them laugh and feel good about themselves again. He's being a good therapist. And yes, he has opinions that rankle right wingie dingie people, and they find him a pain in the backside..
Apparently the R party in Michigan (I think..) tried to lay charges against him, of "vote-buying"... he laughed and called it "Noodlegate".. It was apparently not taken very seriously by anyone in charge in the state.
By the way, he doesn't keep any of his fees for speaking engagements, (E.g.: "Slacker Uprising Tour") etc., they are turned back into donations for various charities, and production costs for his next film, presumably the next great oscar or Caanes award winning documentary.. btw did you know the military funds violent Hollywood movies? Now there's a form of propaganda/sensory bombardment/numbing we could do with less of..
I hear Oprah did a show on getting out to vote to preserve women's rights, that was quite partisan.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=225
Can't help it Jeep, I like MM and in most of the articles he posts I find plenty of truth when I weigh them against my own political convictions (left of your own probably.)
But I promise not to post any more of his stuff here. I think I made my point and more would be point-less.
Cheers,
Diane
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - October 24, 2004 9:46:00 AM
|
|
|
chiroortho
Posts: 655
Joined: February 18, 2004
Status: offline
|
And to think that the liberals decry the 'politics of personal destruction'.
How sad that this information is viewed as being legitimate by intelligent human beings.
President Bush is no more a nazi sympathizer than Senator Kerry is F-r-e-n-c-h.
_____________________________
Greg Priest, DC, DABCO
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - October 24, 2004 10:18:00 AM
|
|
|
Diane
Posts: 1507
Joined: March 9, 2001
From: Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Status: online
|
The article doesn't say he is. If people bother to read this article before "reactionary-ing", they will learn this in paragraph one:
[QUOTE]After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his "enemy national" partners.[/QUOTE]It's the grandfather who stands accused, not the current president. In 1942, the US gov't seized all his assets, but compensated him (and others in the same situation) with 1.5 million dollars. Not bad. Then 10 years later, Prescott (the grandpa) ran for senate and the whole Nazi thingo was buried. The article is about lack of media integrity, actually. Facts themselves will always be preserved somehow.
Diane
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - October 25, 2004 7:37:00 AM
|
|
|
chiroortho
Posts: 655
Joined: February 18, 2004
Status: offline
|
The implication is, I think, intended to be that President Bush is to be held accountable for the actions of his progenitor. Otherwise, why bring it up?
For all I know, Senator Kerry's grandfather may have been a card-carrying member of the KKK, or a sergeant in the Waffen SS. I wouldn't hold that against Senator Kerry any more than I would think that reasonable people would attribute President Bush's ancestry's activities to him.
_____________________________
Greg Priest, DC, DABCO
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - November 2, 2004 9:01:00 AM
|
|
|
TLB
Posts: 353
Joined: September 13, 2002
From: Arizona
Status: offline
|
Diane,
Just wondering if you made it safely across the border to get your illegal vote in today? Let us know how it went.
_____________________________
Todd
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - November 2, 2004 9:23:00 AM
|
|
|
Diane
Posts: 1507
Joined: March 9, 2001
From: Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Status: online
|
Ha! Wish I could. But alas, I have other plans for today, including minding my own ( Canadian PT) business.
But thanks for contacting me. I received this in my mailbox today, and am glad for an opportunity to pass it on:
[QUOTE]November 2, 2004 -- Election Day
Friends,
In addition to your local MoveOn/ACT/Dem Party HQ still needing help at this hour, to make calls and go door to door (call them now or just leave the house and go down to their office and volunteer!), each of us can do something at this very moment that could tip the election -- and we don't even have to leave our chairs. Pull out your cell phone as you are reading this and go to your cell address book on your phone. Now just go down the list of your family and friends, one by one, hit the green "OK/Send" button and call each of them up. Ask them if they've already voted and, if not, gently remind them that you need them to vote today. It's just a quick call to say "hi" and "PLEASE get to the polls as soon as possible." Ask them if they need any help with a ride or watching the kids or whatever. Offer to take them yourselves. Take them to lunch or dinner afterward. If they don’t know where to go to vote, they (or you) can find out by calling 1-866-OUR-VOTE or going to http://www.michaelmoore.com/takeaction/vote/wheretovote.php.
We are hours away from what we hope will be the good news about President-elect Kerry. But it won't happen unless each of us puts everything we can into every minute we have left. I'm in Tallahassee this morning, and Cleveland this afternoon. I won't stop ‘till the last polls have closed. I promised Lila Lipscomb, the mother from Flint who lost her son in Iraq, that I would do whatever I could to honor her son's last wish in his last letter home to her from the battlefield in Iraq: "What in the world is wrong with George 'TRYING TO BE LIKE HIS DAD' Bush? He got us out here for nothing whatsoever. I am so furious right now mama. I really hope they do not re-elect that fool honestly."
Please join me, wherever you are in this great country, and make Sgt. Michael Pedersen's last request to us, the American people, become a reality. We owe it to him and to the rest of the world.
Yours,
Michael Moore[/QUOTE]
|
|
|
|
|
Re: let's get political - November 2, 2004 9:48:00 AM
|
|
|
TLB
Posts: 353
Joined: September 13, 2002
From: Arizona
Status: offline
|
Diane, your a good sport and good luck with the business. As for Michael Moore, well I won't go there.
_____________________________
Todd
|
|
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
 Post New Thread
 Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts |
|
0.094
|
Printable Version
All Forums >> [RehabEdge Forum] >> Open Forum >> Re: let's get political 
