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jonfan
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Embryonic Stem cell research has caused tumors in Labotory animals. The world is really moving into a scary place.
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Valke2
Guest
there was a recent report that found 650,000 Iraqis had died (that statistically would not have died) since the occupation
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Digger71
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I was speaking tongue in cheek, that is true. Well spotted.
But really I dont see any personal bias is saying that conservatism is a force that cares only for conservatives. It is essentially (in its socio-political form) about using any means available to protect the conservative from experiences that challenge the conservatives understanding of their own experiences of life. Conservatism is essentially a philosophy born from personal insecurity.
I was watching a TV program when a conservative counsellor spent a week with the arch-nemesis, gypsy travellers. She really could see how happy they were, and simply insisted that this meant they would be happier living in a bricks and mortar house with hot running water (living with the enemy, BBC 1, years ago).
The perversion involved was a sight to behold.
But truthfully, I have never heard a conservative person actually comprehand any real understanding of situations, emotions or complexity. All experience is perverted to explain why they are always right, regardless of the evidence. And when the evidence comes out 100% against teir point of view they say “it is still wrong because…” and ping-pong about.
Is this different to liberals?
Hmm…lets see. if it happened that gay marriage, group mariage and polygamy became legal…would that force you to do any of these things?
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jonfan
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Valke are you saying the US killed 650,000 people?
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GregoryPalamas
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I see that the two people receiving the most attention here write as if they are trolls. I bow out.
CDL
CDL
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Valke2
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i’M NO fan of Bush. But I think Rumsfeld is more than a scapgoat. He really screwed up the post-war Iraq strategy. Specifically, he didn’t have one or press for one.
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Valke2
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I am saying that 650,000 more people in Iraq died as a result of hte US invasion, whether to disease, coalition fighitng, insurgecny, then would have otherwise died, according to the recent census taken. And a large portion of those casualties stemmed from coalition forces.
We dropped 50,000 bombs on Iraq alone. It’s is not hard to imagine that we are responsible for a huge amount of casualties.
I’ll look for a link to the report on the numbers and hopefully post it in a few.
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Valke2
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what’s a “troll”?
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Valke2
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breitbart.com/news/2006/10/10/D8KM6GL80.html here’s a link to the study that concludes 655,000 people in Iraq have died due to the war.
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exoflare
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dosdog
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exoflare
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I say they are meaningless labels, because they only thing they tell you for sure is what word a person likes to use to describe themself. Again, everything in that first paragraph I quoted above was an ad-hominem. And besides, it is only your subjective point of view. I would be just as correct if I said the same thing about liberals, because it all boils down to my opinion of what I perceive them as.
As for the gay marriage, group marriage, polygamy, etc… of course you’re not forced to do any of that. But why is that important, and how does it even relate to the topic?
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a_cermak
Guest
And even if that study is off by incredible percentages, it’s still a lot of people. Heck, the insurgents and terrorists (different folks–bomb a wedding party or funeral you’re a terrorist; bomb a US or Iraqi gov’t facility you’re an insurgent) kill around 50 or more a day these days. Pretty soon that starts to add up. Saddam wasn’t a Prince of a human being or anything but his mass killing days were largely behind him and he did exercise a monopoly on violence in his nation (an important part of sovereignty). So those 50 people a day would likely not have died under Saddam. Then you start to add in the other casualties, people in the wrong place at the wrong time when US bombs hit too close to them, people just killed because they ticked off the wrong person and you can largely kill with impunity at the moment, Shia militia on Shia militia violence, Sunni vs the world violence, Kurdish vs Turkmen vs Arab violence up in Kirkuk…
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jonfan
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Those who have questioned the United States in this moment, I would argue, are living only in the moment. They have neither remembered the past nor imagined the future.
So first, let’s just take a step back and consider why meeting the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is important to our security in the new era we are entering.
This is a time of tremendous promise for America. The superpower confrontation has ended; on every continent democracy is securing for more and more people the basic freedoms we Americans have come to take for granted. Bit by bit the information age is chipping away at the barriers economic, political and social that once kept people locked in and freedom and prosperity locked out.
But for all our promise, all our opportunity, people in this room know very well that this is not a time free from peril, especially as a result of reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals.
We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They feed on the free flow of information and technology. They actually take advantage of the freer movement of people, information and ideas.
And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.
There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us.
Bill Clinton
Feb. 17, 1998
cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/17/transcripts/clinton.iraq/
So first, let’s just take a step back and consider why meeting the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is important to our security in the new era we are entering.
This is a time of tremendous promise for America. The superpower confrontation has ended; on every continent democracy is securing for more and more people the basic freedoms we Americans have come to take for granted. Bit by bit the information age is chipping away at the barriers economic, political and social that once kept people locked in and freedom and prosperity locked out.
But for all our promise, all our opportunity, people in this room know very well that this is not a time free from peril, especially as a result of reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals.
We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They feed on the free flow of information and technology. They actually take advantage of the freer movement of people, information and ideas.
And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.
There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us.
Bill Clinton
Feb. 17, 1998
cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/17/transcripts/clinton.iraq/
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a_cermak
Guest
A really ugly dude under a bridge who wants a fee to pass (perhaps a pre-cursor to today’s tollways).
Or, and more relevantly, a person who is on a discussion group oriented one way politically who argues the other side.
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Sixtus
Guest
Pray that whoever is elected will not only know the bible but will live by it 
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Valke2
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The people who conducted the study were on NPR the other day explaining their methods. I have to say that they were very convincing. IMO, it was not the invasion itself that caused so many of these deaths but the failure of the US to provide adequate security and to give the IRaqis what they needed to get their infrastruture up and running. Going in without a coming out strategy is really inexcusable in a post-vietnam US.
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Valke2
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Well, I will admit that I live under a bridge.
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Steadfast
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I think Rummy is the sacrifical lamb.
The downscaling and eventual pull out will begin under Gates.
This way Rummy will be gone without having to explain how he totally jackmonkeyed the whole thing and the new guy can broker a solution and Bush can salvage himself some legacy.
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Valke2
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How did Saddam threaten the security of the United States? ANd if so, does that justify invading a country? The problem with this administration isn’t so much how it lied to the country and invaded Iraq based on false or no evidence. The problem is that it never planned for what to do after we got there. And we are living with the result. IMO, nothing that we have accomplished in Iraq has done anything to increase the security of the United States. It has, however, increased the power and influence of Iran.
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