<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote><i>Originally posted by: <b>Solo</b></i>
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<br /><div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>I think George Bush was instructed to be as friendly as possible to the incoming Obama team, so he might win favor with him; because Obama is the only other chance of his freedom; because if he pardons himself and his administration, that will be a clear admission of guilt. Like I said earlier, I believe that Bush secretly voted for Obama, as McCain knows where all of Bush's skeletons are and in what closets, and with a democratic majority in Congress, McCain would be hard-pressed NOT to investigate war crimes.</end quote>
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<br />You do have that right as your opinion....However, I would think that since George Bush is an adult, and still the President, he would naturally show that courtesy and respect, not be told by someone (like his mommy?) to behave in such a manner.
<br />As for McCain(R.), I believed he was a more likely candidate (though even I wished for a Republican that had something more competitive to Obama), but the country would rather see a democrat in there, perhaps because they were thinking that the "Clinton(D.) Years " would bring it back, when in fact I beleive it was the Reagan Years (R.) that brought the economy to where it was during the Clinton(D.) Years...also there was much terrorist action in the Clinton (D.) years, all of which was ignored (i.e. the Yemen incident). However, the majority thought that a young, inexperienced president would do better...
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<br /><div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Now while it's true that the executive branch is only 1/3 of the power base, and the war was approved by Congress. The vote to authorize war was cast on the eve of the Congressional elections, and if a member of Congress did not vote to authorize it, they would have surely been voted out, and probably blacklisted for some time, not to mention all the stupid verbal gymanstical tactics used by the neo-cons to incite fear, calling the dems "Saddam lovers."</end quote>
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<br />Though I find this statement hard to believe, I've never heard anything about it. Also, I find it odd that it happened to coincide with the timing with a war already started in Afghanistan, if you are referring to the attack on Iraq. (You didn't exactly clarify what country in your first post, anyway). Oh, and out of the 200 some odd Congressmen, most of those who ok'd the attack were afraid of being called names? (sticks and stones...)
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<br /><div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>That's why I always believed that Preseident-elect Obama has the right judgment to lead, he opposed this war from the beginning, and if he was in the Senate at the time of the vote, all evidence leads to him opposing it.</end quote>
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<br />Again, you have your right to your opinion....I disagreed with the attack on Iraq, but I had no voice in the matter. And, what DID Obama do in opposition to the war, and why wasn't he in the Senate at that time? And wasn't he afraid to be called names?
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<br /><div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>...15 of the 19 skyjackers were Saudi raised and born, and none of them were affiliated with Saddam's Iraq. Thus, invading Iraq as a direct result of 9/11 is a bit like going to a department store to get your car serviced. After all, if you need blood drawn, you don't go to the Bon-Ton, do ya?</end quote>
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<br />Because you didn't clarify WHAT war or country we were talking about, I was referring to the 19 hijackers coming from an organization, run by Bin Ladin, isn't this fact accurate?! And, since it was an organization located in another country, my news feed indicated that there was diplomatic action taken, however the Al Queda was protecting Bin Ladin, thus giving the U.S. no choice in going after him...isn't this information correct as well?!
<br />And I don't like comparing apples to oranges, or going to a Department store (Like Sears) to get my car serviced. And sorry, I have no idea what a "Bon-Ton" is...
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<br /><div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Saying that the 19 men were part of an organization does not equal another country. Military action, IMO was the wrong decision; you don't send 100,000 US troops to take out an "organization." Logic only dictates that if you want to dissect a group, you take out the head honcho first, then the rest probably will fall like dominoes or go into hiding. Despite killing 100s of thousands of Iraqi citizens and thousands of US soliders, we have yet to find the man responsible for killing 3,000 US citizens. I am well aware of the innocent, civilian, US workers captured, but just because a handful of innocent US civilians, who were in a foreign nation, were captured does that mean it's right to punish the Iraqi people? The Iraqi people didn't behead anyone, it was Zarkawi's group.
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<br />Now I was fine with attacking Afghanistan, as Bin Laden, who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, was supposedly housed there. But why o why did the Bushneviks have to extend the US military might to Iraq? Please at least give me one good answer. And not the WMD answer, cause many other countries had them at the time. So why Iraq?</end quote>
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<br />I also disagreed with the attack on Iraq. However, I disagree with that fact that it is George Bush's fault, because his intelligence report was wrong, I'd say go to the source and have them tried for war crimes. However, there seems to be another factor in the Iraq war, and that is the understanding that Sadam was torturing and killing his own people.
<br />I can't give you "one good answer" because what I think as a good answer may seem inadequate to you, however what information I've gathered is that the U.S. found Sadam as a threat, and although I think they should've gone into Iraq during the Gulf War while they had the chance, someone thought it was necessary at the time when they went into Afghanistan. I also disagree that so many innocent lives were taken, but then, war is hell and there seems to be no way to sort the good from the bad, or they probably would. I guess having them all going online for multiplayer gaming doesn't fill their needs enough.
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<br /><div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Somehow I can't seem to connect the dots on how waterboarding, wiretapping, or piling tortured naked prisoners into a pyramid, equals "protecting our security", maybe you can shed some light on the subject.<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif" border="0"></end quote>
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<br />I'm not going to try and "connect your dots", because I'm not totally familiar with all the facts regarding the torturing, or what happened with the POW's. However, I am in agreement that any actions taken against the rules made in the Geneva Convention should be reprimanded, in other words, I think if they broke the rules they should be punished. I believe someone high enough in the military thought they could get away with it, or maybe didn't check the rules of engagement for POW under the Geneva Convention, but I disagree that this "neglect" went all the way up to the President. What does he have to gain by mistreating POW's?
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<br />As for the treatment of POW's equalling "protecting security", I never made the comparison, nor even mentioned it, so I don't know where you are getting it from, but I disagree with the wiretapping, unless it was done properly, like by a court order under the constitution to protect the rights of the innocent.
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<br />But then I mentioned "Innocent until proven guilty" in your aquisations regarding the President and his men, and you didn't even give recognition of that.
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<br />In this response and the previous, I'm only tring to point out the fact that the President of the United States wasn't the only part of the Government to be judged. I think there are areas where the President made poor choices, but then there are other "checks and balances" that's supposed to prevent it, and all of this is supposed to have the main idea that its for the country, and for freedom...again, count your blessings for the freedom you do have, including the freedom of speech! As well as your freedom of opinion, which I'm also taking the right to do.
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<br />However, with your topic pointing fingers irritated me enough to place my opinion in where I felt I would excercise my right to my opinion and observation and indicate there is another angle of what was observed, perhaps even a third angle at that since I'm not in the U.S. so I can see from another aspect.
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<br />So, even with the amount of time I took to reply to your opinion/aquisations, if you don't like it, that's your right, too. I'm just stating what I agree and disagree with, and why.
