Here we go again...

[J316]

U.N. Nuclear Deadline for Iran Passes
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By GRAHAM BOWLEY and BRIAN KNOWLTON
Published: February 21, 2007
Unbowed by international pressure, Iranian leaders vowed to press ahead with the country’s controversial uranium-enrichment program, even as a United Nations-imposed deadline to shut the program down passes today.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today that Iran had a right to pursue nuclear technology and “will continue our work to reach our right in the shortest possible time,� according to the ISNA news agency. Speaking in Siahkal in northern Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad said, “

“Obtaining this technology is very important for our country’s development and honour.�

Even so, Iran’s breach of the deadline was unlikely to lead to swift action by the United Nations, because of a sense that the limited sanctions already imposed on Iran by the Security Council are working. Western diplomats in New York and Washington indicated today that Iran’s stance on the issue had become less truculent and more flexible.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to release a report this week, and perhaps as soon as today, detailing Iran’s compliance with the United Nations demands. The report is likely to highlight the steps Iran has taken in the face of international censure to master important aspects of nuclear technology.

The report may intensify the debate among western governments about whether to impose more punishing sanctions on Iran for defying the deadline. It could also deepen the debate within the Bush administration over whether and when to take military action against Iran.

Though Mr. Ahmadinejad took a hard line in his remarks today, he has also said in recent days that Iran was prepared to negotiate on the issue, and offered to shut down Iran’s uranium enrichment if Western countries did the same — a proposal that the Bush administration dismissed out of hand. But they said they still hoped that talks with Tehran could resume.

“Do you believe that’s a serious offer?� Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said today. “It’s pretty clear that the international community has said to the Iranians, ‘You can have nuclear power, but we don’t want you to have the ability to build nuclear weapons.’ And that is an offer we continue to make.�

The German government, which along with France and Britain has led negotiations with Iran on behalf of the European Union, held out hope today that the talks could still be reconvened, but only if Tehran first sends clear signals of its sincerity.

“Real, reliable signals of accommodation that actually allow us to find the way back to the negotiating table� are needed, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin after a meeting with the United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, The Associated Press reported.

“I am not giving up hope of succeeding in this,� Mr. Steinmeier told reporters, “but I say again and again that decisions are needed in Tehran itself.� Mr. Ban, in turn, urged Iran to comply fully with the Security Council resolution and to continue negotiating with the international community. The matter was of “very serious concern,� he said.

In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair warned today that Iran risked deeper isolation by continuing its nuclear activities, which “cannot be for civilian purposes.�

In comments to Parliament, Mr. Blair said the sanctions already imposed on Iran had led to clear signs of change in its position, and that Western nations wanted to pursue diplomatic engagement with Iran rather than any military action.

“We need to keep up the pressure, because it is a very dangerous and serious situation,� Mr. Blair said, according to a Bloomberg News report.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is in Berlin for a meeting of what is called “the Quartet� of nations and organizations seeking to mediate peace in the Middle East, said that she and her counterparts would confer on how to respond to Iran’s continued defiance.

American-led efforts to build pressure on Iran gained a prominent backer today when India announced that it had banned the export of anything that could assist the Iranian nuclear program.

The Indian trade ministry said in a statement that the country would prohibit the “direct or indirect export and import of all items, materials, equipment, goods and technology which could contribute to Iran’s enrichment-related, reprocessing or heavy water related activities,� The Associated Press reported from New Delhi.

In the past, India had resisted American calls to cut off shipments of gasoline from its refineries to Iran, and to halt work on a proposed natural-gas pipeline from Iranian gas fields to India through Pakistan.

In contrast to past instances, when the United States and other countries have cited Iran’s noncompliance as a reason for prompt international action, diplomats said today that the only political conversations now in progress about Iran are taking place within national governments, and that United Nations ambassadors in New York had not yet been asked to formulate ideas. They said that efforts to formulate a United Nations response to the broken deadline could not begin until next week at the earliest, and would probably take many weeks.

Iran has repeatedly insisted that it had a sovereign right to develop nuclear power for peaceful energy purposes, and therefore to enrich uranium. But the United States and other Western governments believe that Iran actually intends to build nuclear weapons. The Security Council voted in December to impose limited sanctions on Iran over its nuclear activities, but rather than adopt more wide-ranging measures, it set the deadline that expired today for Iran to shut the enrichment program down.

In Berlin, Ms. Rice found herself fending off Russian criticism of an American plan to install antimissile facilities in some Eastern European nations that could soon be within range of Iranian ballistic missiles — a prospect that would be vastly more threatening if Iran had nuclear warheads to arm the missiles with.

The United States wants to install antimissile launchers in Poland and a radar facility in the Czech Republic, two recent additions to NATO that were once Soviet satellite states. Russia has said that it regards the plan as a provocation and threat aimed at it, but Ms. Rice insisted today that the system was intended to block missiles from Iran or other rogue states, and posed no threat to Russia’s large arsenal, The A.P. reported.

“I think everyone understands that with a growing Iranian missile threat, which is quite pronounced, that there need to be ways to deal with that problem,� Ms. Rice was quoted as saying.

Iran said that they would not develop nuclear waopons. yeah right.

[lily]

Even so, Iran’s breach of the deadline was unlikely to lead to swift action by the United Nations, because of a sense that the limited sanctions already imposed on Iran by the Security Council are working. Western diplomats in New York and Washington indicated today that Iran’s stance on the issue had become less truculent and more flexible.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to release a report this week, and perhaps as soon as today, detailing Iran’s compliance with the United Nations demands. The report is likely to highlight the steps Iran has taken in the face of international censure to master important aspects of nuclear technology.

I'm not quite sure what the problem is, J316?

[BoogyMan]

When read carefully Lily, I don't think the comment you posted says what you think it does. Especially in light of the next paragraph that you missed adding to your quote.

The report may intensify the debate among western governments about whether to impose more punishing sanctions on Iran for defying the deadline. It could also deepen the debate within the Bush administration over whether and when to take military action against Iran.

When read in context the "detailing Iran's compliance" comment points to it's most likely lack of compliance, not the converse.

[ECW]

Sadly, this is a problem for the world because this sad sack administration ignored Iranian overtures three years ago to dismantle their nuclear program. This should have been a non-issue at this point had Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice done their jobs.

[potter]

Sadly, this is a problem for the world because this sad sack administration ignored Iranian overtures three years ago to dismantle their nuclear program. This should have been a non-issue at this point had Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice done their jobs.



They did do their job. Their job was to manipulate justification for an attack on Iran. This trio wants nothing more than an excuse to invade Iran. Why do you think they ignored the Iranian offer? If the UN councel does not react strongly enough I'm sure an "incident" will be manufactured to justify an attack.

Invading Iran once again lines the pockets of bushco and freinds.

[Elrathin]

Invading Iran once again lines the pockets of bushco and freinds.


Short of an Iran declared attack, I don't see congress giving him the power to invade Iran.

[potter]

Invading Iran once again lines the pockets of bushco and freinds.


Short of an Iran declared attack, I don't see congress giving him the power to invade Iran.


All it'll take is a CIA inspired incident with American casualties.

[BoogyMan]

Sadly, this is a problem for the world because this sad sack administration ignored Iranian overtures three years ago to dismantle their nuclear program. This should have been a non-issue at this point had Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice done their jobs.



They did do their job. Their job was to manipulate justification for an attack on Iran. This trio wants nothing more than an excuse to invade Iran. Why do you think they ignored the Iranian offer? If the UN councel does not react strongly enough I'm sure an "incident" will be manufactured to justify an attack.

Invading Iran once again lines the pockets of bushco and freinds.


After reading that article it shows little more than us having to depend on the good faith of a country whose people have been screeching "Death to America" since I was just a little kid. Even before Ahmadinejad they still had the Ayatollas who were radically anti American.

This trio wants nothing more than an excuse to invade Iran.

Got proof?

[potter]

Sadly, this is a problem for the world because this sad sack administration ignored Iranian overtures three years ago to dismantle their nuclear program. This should have been a non-issue at this point had Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice done their jobs.



They did do their job. Their job was to manipulate justification for an attack on Iran. This trio wants nothing more than an excuse to invade Iran.Â*Â*Why do you think they ignored the Iranian offer? If the UN councel does not react strongly enough I'm sure an "incident" will be manufactured to justify an attack.Â*Â*

Invading Iran once again lines the pockets of bushco and freinds.


After reading that article it shows little more thanÂ*Â*us having to depend on the good faith of a country whose people have been screeching "Death to America" since I was just a little kid.Â*Â*Even before Ahmadinejad they still had the Ayatollas who were radically anti American.

This trio wants nothing more than an excuse to invade Iran.

Got proof?


Well it only makes sense. Bush and his buddies in defense and oil had to have profited handsomely from the unmetered oil and all those weapons systems. I'm sure the'll want the gravy train to contunue. BTW, if it were the dems running this war I'd feel no differently so quit the GOP defensiveness OK? Nobody's attacking you or your party here.

[BoogyMan]

Well it only makes sense. Bush and his buddies in defense and oil had to have profited handsomely from the unmetered oil and all those weapons systems. I'm sure the'll want the gravy train to contunue. BTW, if it were the dems running this war I'd feel no differently so quit the GOP defensiveness OK? Nobody's attacking you or your party here.


I can appreciate your comment about your feeling the same way if the Democrats were running the war, but GOP defensiveness? You do understand that this is a debate site, correct? I get to have a viewpoint and I get to defend it. Surely we are not in a how dare you disagree with me situation?

The claim the the president went to war in order to enrich himself is asinine and baseless, and it mocks your position.

[Elrathin]

The claim the the president went to war in order to enrich himself is asinine and baseless, and it mocks your position.


So viewpoints other than your own are asinine and baseless now? Potter's position, while I may not agree with it, is quite plausible. Just because you don't like it does not make it asinine, nor baseless.

[BoogyMan]

The ideology is completely asinine. You know it, I know it.

[Elrathin]

The ideology is completely asinine. You know it, I know it.


Asinine? No more asinine than calling Kerry a traitor when he wasn't tried or convicted as one.

[BoogyMan]

The inability of the left to recognize a traitor has what to do with out discussion?

[Elrathin]

The inability of the left to recognize a traitor has what to do with out discussion?


LOL, thank you for proving my point. It is only asinine if you disagree with it.

So when is Kerry's trial for being a traitor Boogy?

[BoogyMan]

No, the ideology that the president went to war to enrich himself is STILL unproven, and still complete and utter tripe. :D

[Elrathin]

No, the ideology that the president went to war to enrich himself is STILL unproven, and still complete and utter tripe. :D


So is Kerry being a traitor but you have no problem calling him one. But then you just think your unproven and utter tripe is not asinine right?

[BoogyMan]

I will repeat it, slowly. The ideology that the president went to war to enrich himself is unproven tripe.

Lets have some proof of how George Bush has enriched himself from this war?

[Elrathin]

I will repeat it, slowly. The ideology that the president went to war to enrich himself is unproven tripe.

Lets have some proof of how George Bush has enriched himself from this war?


And the ideology that Kerry is a traitor is unproven tripe as well, yet you have no problem believing in that. So my point stands as above.

[BoogyMan]

You have no point other than trying to obfuscate a clear point originally being made El.

There is no proof that the president is trying to enrich himself by war, no proof whatsoever, other that the left's desire to try and tar him with it. Kerry however has on several occasions acted as if he were a male Jane Fonda. I know you will deny this as well and again try to steer the conversation into another tangent so, do as you wish. Obfuscation is not your friend, it mocks you and your arguments.

[potter]

No, the ideology that the president went to war to enrich himself is STILL unproven, and still complete and utter tripe. :D


Why?Â*Â*This is a capitalist nation, and both Cheney and Bush have spent their playing hard ball making money (or losing it) whatever it takes to make a buck is about the general rule and we all live by that.Â*Â*Why do you think Bush and Cheney are above this?

To say they just possibly cannot be capable of that is just as implausible as you seem to think my statement is.Â*Â*Crooks get away with crap all the time only because people think "it just isn't plausable that they would try to deceive me"

What kind of a fairy tale world do you live in where everyone is honest and above board? Especially when they hold so much power?

Bush and his family have been associated with the defense industry and oil for decades, the very industries profiting most from this war. If it walks like a duck....

[Elrathin]

it mocks you and your arguments.


And anytime you try to claim Kerry is a traitor even though he was NEVER tried nor convicted of one mocks your arguments about people saying things about Bush that aren't proven. Thank you for playing "who's the hypocrite" in your posts.

[BoogyMan]

Once again, avoiding Elrathin's obfuscate at all costs tactics. Show me where the president has enriched himself during this war? Until you can do so and do so definitively you are boxing the wind.

[potter]

Once again, avoiding Elrathin's obfuscate at all costs tactics.Â*Â*Show me where the president has enriched himself during this war?Â*Â*Until you can do so and do so definitively you are boxing the wind.


Well you know that's quite impossible since his financial and stock holding records are not open to the public, however Cheney has indeed made million on his Haliburton stock. The Bush family has always had ties to the defense industry. Like I said, if it walks like a duck...

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheneys_stock_options_rose_3281_last_1011.html

Cheney's Halliburton stock options rose 3,281% last year, senator finds
RAW STORY


Print This | Email This


An analysis released by a Democratic senator found that Vice President Dick Cheney's Halliburton stock options have risen 3,281 percent in the last year, RAW STORY can reveal.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asserts that Cheney's options -- worth $241,498 a year ago -- are now valued at more than $8 million. The former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged to give proceeds to charity.

[BoogyMan]

Once again, avoiding Elrathin's obfuscate at all costs tactics. Show me where the president has enriched himself during this war? Until you can do so and do so definitively you are boxing the wind.


Well you know that's quite impossible since his financial and stock holding records are not open to the public, however Cheney has indeed made million on his Haliburton stock. The Bush family has always had ties to the defense industry. Like I said, if it walks like a duck...

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheneys_stock_options_rose_3281_last_1011.html

Cheney's Halliburton stock options rose 3,281% last year, senator finds
RAW STORY


Print This | Email This


An analysis released by a Democratic senator found that Vice President Dick Cheney's Halliburton stock options have risen 3,281 percent in the last year, RAW STORY can reveal.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asserts that Cheney's options -- worth $241,498 a year ago -- are now valued at more than $8 million. The former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged to give proceeds to charity.


Raw story is hardly an objective source potter, you might as well post something from Michael Moore's site.

However, your own quote shows the sad nature of your attempt to substantiate your claim.

Cheney has pledged to give proceeds to charity.

As for your claims about Bush going to was to enrich himself, what you are saying is that you CANNOT substantiate it, right?

[potter]

Right, just like you can't substantiate that he's not profiting from it.

[Elrathin]

Once again, avoiding Elrathin's obfuscate at all costs tactics. Show me where the president has enriched himself during this war? Until you can do so and do so definitively you are boxing the wind.


Yes your "avoiding" tactics are quite profound I'll agree. You have yet to show Kerry's actions of being a tratior. Since he was NEVER convicted, nor tried as one.

To sum it up, you can't call the president something if you don't have proof.

But, you can call Kerry a traitor even though he has never been tried nor convicted of being one. Gotcha Boogy.

[BoogyMan]

Let me repeat my request hoping against hope that a substantive answer will be provided. Show me where the president has enriched himself during this war? Until you can do so and do so definitively you are boxing the wind.

[Elrathin]

Let me repeat my request hoping against hope that a substantive answer will be provided. Show me where the president has enriched himself during this war? Until you can do so and do so definitively you are boxing the wind.


Show me where it isn't plausible that the president could do that. That is all I have claimed in this thread regarding the president.

[BoogyMan]

Show me the money Elrathin! :D

[Elrathin]

Show me the money Elrathin! :D


While your comment was quite comedic, my point still stands :)

[BoogyMan]

You don't have anything near a point Elrathin, you have again tried to distract from the discussion as a method of derailing the topic. You need to show me where Bush has enriched himself.

[Elrathin]

You don't have anything near a point Elrathin, you have again tried to distract from the discussion as a method of derailing the topic. You need to show me where Bush has enriched himself.


I have shown your partisan rhetoric. You choose to tell others not to say something that isn't proven against the president, yet you yourself say something not proven about Kerry.

There is a word for that somewhere that begins with an H.

[J316]

it mocks you and your arguments.


And anytime you try to claim Kerry is a traitor even though he was NEVER tried nor convicted of one mocks your arguments about people saying things about Bush that aren't proven.Â*Â*Thank you for playing "who's the hypocrite" in your posts.


Look, I just think kerry is an idiot, like Dems think about Bush.

[J316]

Sadly, this is a problem for the world because this sad sack administration ignored Iranian overtures three years ago to dismantle their nuclear program. This should have been a non-issue at this point had Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice done their jobs.


Maybe they could have done thier jobs if you Libs diddn't get in the way.

[BoogyMan]

You don't have anything near a point Elrathin, you have again tried to distract from the discussion as a method of derailing the topic. You need to show me where Bush has enriched himself.


I have shown your partisan rhetoric. You choose to tell others not to say something that isn't proven against the president, yet you yourself say something not proven about Kerry.

There is a word for that somewhere that begins with an H.


You have shown you cannot debate is all that you have done El. I can point to actions by Kerry that would qualify him as a traitor. What evidence do you have the Bush has enriched himself by going to war? None. Zip. Zilch.

[Elrathin]

I can point to actions by Kerry that would qualify him as a traitor. What evidence do you have the Bush has enriched himself by going to war? None. Zip. Zilch.


If there was evidence of Kerry being a traitor, he would have been tried. Since not, its a bunch of BS, as your rhetoric that you have written.

All you have shown is you are partisan towards Kerry. Since he was not tried, nor convicted you have Zip, Zilch, Nada. Thanks for playing the partisan game.

[BoogyMan]

I can point to actions by Kerry that would qualify him as a traitor. What evidence do you have the Bush has enriched himself by going to war? None. Zip. Zilch.


If there was evidence of Kerry being a traitor, he would have been tried. Since not, its a bunch of BS, as your rhetoric that you have written.

All you have shown is you are partisan towards Kerry. Since he was not tried, nor convicted you have Zip, Zilch, Nada. Thanks for playing the partisan game.


The country has lost the desire to deal with men like Kerry and his ilk. Now back to the real issue, SHOW ME WHERE BUSH ENRICHED HIMSELF BY THE WAR.

[lily]

War profiteers (http://www.corporatepolicy.org/topics/topten2004list.htm)

BearingPoint

Critics find it ironic that BearingPoint, the former consulting division of
KPMG, received a $240 million contract in 2003 to help develop Iraq's
"competitive private sector," since it had a hand in the development of the
contract itself.

According to a March 22 report by AID's assistant inspector general Bruce
Crandlemire, "Bearing Point's extensive involvement in the development of
the Iraq economic reform program creates the appearance of unfair
competitive advantage in the contract award process."

BearingPoint spent five months helping USAID write the job specifications
and even sent some employees to Iraq to begin work before the contract was
awarded, while its competitors had only a week to read the specifications
and submit their own bids after final revisions were made.

"No company who writes the specs for a contract should get the contract,"
says Keith Ashdown, the vice president of Washington, DC-based Taxpayers for
Common Sense.

"BearingPoint was selected through a transparent and competitive bidding
process to undertake the challenging Economic Governance project in Iraq,"
says BearingPoint's John LaPlace. "We were pleased to be selected to lead
this work, just as we were pleased to be selected through competitive bids
to lead similar large reform efforts in Afghanistan, Montenegro, Kosovo and
other countries around the world."

Neither Crandlemire nor other critics have ever said that BearingPoint broke
the law. But the company's ties to the Bush administration (according to the
Center for Responsive Politics, BearingPoint employees gave $117,000 to the
2000 and 2004 Bush election campaigns, more than any other Iraq contractor)
is an example of "crony contracting" that undermines the legitimacy of those
who might claim to be working to establish competitive markets in the "newly
liberated" country.

BKSH & Associates

Chairman Charlie Black is an old Bush family friend and prominent Republican
lobbyist whose firm is affiliated with Burson Marsteller, the global public
relations giant. Black was a key player in the Bush/Cheney 2000 campaign and
together with his wife raised $100,000 for this year's reelection campaign.

BKSH clients with contracts in Iraq include Fluor International (whose
ex-chair Phillip Carroll was tapped to head Iraq's oil ministry after the
war, and whose board includes the wife of James Woolsey, the ex-CIA chief
who was sent by Paul Wolfowitz before the war to convince European leaders
of Saddam Hussein's ties to al Qaeda). Fluor has won joint contracts worth
up to $1.6 billion.

Another client is Cummins Engine, which has managed to sell its power
generators thanks to the country's broken infrastructure.

Most prominent among BKSH's clients, however, is the Iraqi National
Congress, whose leader Ahmed Chalabi was called the "George Washington of
Iraq" by certain Pentagon neoconservatives before his fall from grace.
BKSH's K. Riva Levinson was hired to handle the INC's U.S. public relations
strategy in 1999. Hired by U.S. taxpayers, that is: Until July 2003, the
company was paid $25,000 per month by the U.S. State Department to support
the INC.

BKSH has also represented other foreign governments, including Columbia and
Equatorial Guinea. In July, O'Dwyer's, the public relations industry trade
publication, reported that BKSH would represent the new government of Haiti
(established after a U.S.-supported coup that had thrown Jean Bertrand
Aristide out) "on a pro bono basis."

"We're not looking to make any money off these people," Black explained.
"It's a very poor country. We're just trying to do what we can to help out."

O'Dwyer's has also reported that Levinson is now representing Radio Sedaye
Iran (Radio Voice of Iran), a Beverly Hills-based network that advocates
regime change in Iran.

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin remains the king among war profiteers, raking in $21.9
billion in Pentagon contracts in 2003 alone. With satellites and planes,
missiles and IT systems, the company has profited from just about every
phase of the war except for the reconstruction. The company's stock has
tripled since 2000 to just over $60.

Lockheed is also helping Donald Rumsfeld develop a new tech-heavy integrated
global warfare system that the company promises will change transform the
nature of war. In fact, the large defense conglomerate's sophistication in
areas as diverse as space systems, aeronautics and IT will allow it to play
a leading role in the development of new weapons systems for decades to
come, including a planned highly-secure military Internet, a spaced-based
missile defense system and next-generation warplanes such as the F-22
(currently in production) and the Joint Strike Fighter F-35.

When it comes to defense policy, Lockheed's network of influence is
virtually unmatched. E.C. Aldridge Jr., the former undersecretary of defense
for acquisitions and procurement, gave final approval to begin building the
F-35 in 2001, a decision potentially worth $200 billion to the company.
Although he soon left the Pentagon to join Lockheed's board, Aldridge
continues to straddle the public-private divide: Rumsfeld appointed him to a
blue-ribbon panel to study advanced weapons systems.

Former Lockheed lobbyists and employees include the current secretary of the
Navy, Gordon England, secretary of transportation Norm Mineta (a former
Lockheed vice president) and Stephen J. Hadley, Bush's proposed successor to
Condoleeza Rice as his next national security advisor.

Lockheed is not only represented on various Pentagon advisory boards, but is
also tied to various influential think tanks. For example, Lockheed VP Bruce
Jackson (who helped draft the Republican foreign policy platform in 2000) is
a key player at the neo-conservative planning bastion known as the Project
for a New American Century.


Loral Satellite

In the buildup to the war the Pentagon bought up access to numerous
commercial satellites to bolster its own orbiting space fleet. U.S. armed
forces needed the extra spaced-based capacity to be able to transmit huge
amounts of data to planes (including unmanned Predator drones flown remotely
by pilots who may be halfway around the world), and guide missiles and
troops on the ground.

Industry experts say the war on terror literally saved some satellite
operators from bankruptcy. The Pentagon "is hovering up all the available
capacity" to supplement its three orbiting satellite fleets, Richard
DalBello, president of the Satellite Industry Association explained to the
Washington Post in 2003. The industry's other customers - broadcast networks
competing for satellite time - were left to scramble for the remaining
bandwidth.

Loral Space & Communications Chairman Bernard L. Schwartz is very tight with
the neoconservative hawks in the Bush administration's foreign policy ranks,
and is the principal funder of Blueprint, the newsletter of the Democratic
Leadership Council.

In the end, the profits from the war in Iraq didn't end up being as huge for
the industry as expected, and certainly weren't enough to compensate for a
sharp downturn in the commercial market. But more help may be on its way.
The Pentagon announced in November that it would create a new global
Intranet for the military that would take two decades and hundreds of
billions of dollars to build. Satellites, of course, will play a key part in
that integrated global weapons system.

[BoogyMan]

Yet Lily, having posted that you cannot show how the president has profited himself by the war in Iraq, nor that he went to war for that purpose.

[Elrathin]

The country has lost the desire to deal with men like Kerry and his ilk. Now back to the real issue, SHOW ME WHERE BUSH ENRICHED HIMSELF BY THE WAR.


In other words, he is NOT a traitor, but you like to call him that even though he was NEVER tried nor convicted of being one.

Now back to your question, SHOW ME WHERE I SAID BUSH ENRICHED HIMSELF BY THE WAR. I said it was PLAUSIBLE, look up the word. IT is not the same as an accusation.

[BoogyMan]

You were the one defending someone making the assertion El, not me.

[potter]

Boogyman, I admire your desire to maintain that Bush is innocent until proven guilty despite overwhemling curcumstantial evidence to the contrary.

The presumption of innocence until proven guilty is a lost concept in the country where any DA at any time will ignore all evidiece to the contrary to convict someone.

Good for you. But why do you only champoin Bush's innocence "until proven guilty" The US holds thousands of people in prison based only on heresay. The US tortures people based only on heresay.

Now we all know how untrustworthy politicians are, how they lie and cheat their way to the top. Yet you want us to maintain a mantle of innocence on politicians until they are proven guilty. Why not anyone else? We have guantanimo and prisons throughout Iraq where we're holding people based on heresay. What about their presumption of innocence?

Why do you pick and choose who should be presumed innocent until proven guilty?

[Elrathin]

You were the one defending someone making the assertion El, not me.


I defended it not being asinine Boogy and I said it was plausible. I never defended it as being FACT.

[BoogyMan]

Boogyman, I admire your desire to maintain that Bush is innocent until proven guilty despite overwhemling curcumstantial evidence to the contrary.

The presumption of innocence until proven guilty is a lost concept in the country where any DA at any time will ignore all evidiece to the contrary to convict someone.

Good for you. But why do you only champoin Bush's innocence "until proven guilty" The US holds thousands of people in prison based only on heresay. The US tortures people based only on heresay.

Now we all know how untrustworthy politicians are, how they lie and cheat their way to the top. Yet you want us to maintain a mantle of innocence on politicians until they are proven guilty. Why not anyone else? We have guantanimo and prisons throughout Iraq where we're holding people based on heresay. What about their presumption of innocence?

Why do you pick and choose who should be presumed innocent until proven guilty?


Potter, those who are picked up on the battlefield as combatants don't get that presumption of innocence. I am still waiting for you to prove your assertion that the president went to war to enrich himself.

[Harry01]

Boogyman, I admire your desire to maintain that Bush is innocent until proven guilty despite overwhemling curcumstantial evidence to the contrary.

The presumption of innocence until proven guilty is a lost concept in the country where any DA at any time will ignore all evidiece to the contrary to convict someone.

Good for you. But why do you only champoin Bush's innocence "until proven guilty" The US holds thousands of people in prison based only on heresay. The US tortures people based only on heresay.

Now we all know how untrustworthy politicians are, how they lie and cheat their way to the top. Yet you want us to maintain a mantle of innocence on politicians until they are proven guilty. Why not anyone else? We have guantanimo and prisons throughout Iraq where we're holding people based on heresay. What about their presumption of innocence?

Why do you pick and choose who should be presumed innocent until proven guilty?


WELL SAID!!!!!!!
And besides, if Bush is innocent before proven guilty then why does he state boldly that Iran is 100 percent guilty even though his pecieved evidence is currently a figment of his imagination? And on the Iraq debacle is it not well-known that it is the loyalists of Bush that are being given the sexy contracts of Iraq reconstruction? I am writing from far away Africa and i know this so i wonder how someone from close to the Bush regime would think the opposite.

[potter]

Boogyman, I admire your desire to maintain that Bush is innocent until proven guilty despite overwhemling curcumstantial evidence to the contrary.

The presumption of innocence until proven guilty is a lost concept in the country where any DA at any time will ignore all evidiece to the contrary to convict someone.

Good for you. But why do you only champoin Bush's innocence "until proven guilty" The US holds thousands of people in prison based only on heresay. The US tortures people based only on heresay.

Now we all know how untrustworthy politicians are, how they lie and cheat their way to the top. Yet you want us to maintain a mantle of innocence on politicians until they are proven guilty. Why not anyone else? We have guantanimo and prisons throughout Iraq where we're holding people based on heresay. What about their presumption of innocence?

Why do you pick and choose who should be presumed innocent until proven guilty?


Potter, those who are picked up on the battlefield as combatants don't get that presumption of innocence. I am still waiting for you to prove your assertion that the president went to war to enrich himself.



I'll use the same proof our government has that these folk are terrorists Boogy.

If someone invaded the US, would you just put your hands up and surrender? No, I would hope not. Then why would you expect these people to just up and surrender. perhaps they were defending themselves from an invading army.

[BoogyMan]

I'll use the same proof our government has that these folk are terrorists Boogy.

If someone invaded the US, would you just put your hands up and surrender? No, I would hope not. Then why would you expect these people to just up and surrender. perhaps they were defending themselves from an invading army.


In such an instance, they are combatants.

Now, prove your assertion that the president went to war to enrich himself.

[potter]

I'll use the same proof our government has that these folk are terrorists Boogy.

If someone invaded the US, would you just put your hands up and surrender? No, I would hope not. Then why would you expect these people to just up and surrender. perhaps they were defending themselves from an invading army.


In such an instance, they are combatants.

Now, prove your assertion that the president went to war to enrich himself.


Prove they are terrorists.

What about all the "paid for" prisoners we have, where we offered rewards for informants and then jailed all those people without evidence.

Consider our country, that we have the highest inmate population per capita in the world, condsidering fraud is rampant in this country, and considering there are few people you can really trust, you may go ahead and give the pres the benefit of the doubt. I will take in the character of America and assume him guilty of everything until he proves his innocence. Just like he has done to thousands of others.

I don't really care if you agree or not. Let the witch hunt begin.

[BoogyMan]

I'll use the same proof our government has that these folk are terrorists Boogy.

If someone invaded the US, would you just put your hands up and surrender? No, I would hope not. Then why would you expect these people to just up and surrender. perhaps they were defending themselves from an invading army.


In such an instance, they are combatants.

Now, prove your assertion that the president went to war to enrich himself.


Prove they are terrorists.


If picked up on the battle field they are combatants. Now back to your assertion, can you prove it?

[potter]

I'll use the same proof our government has that these folk are terrorists Boogy.

If someone invaded the US, would you just put your hands up and surrender? No, I would hope not. Then why would you expect these people to just up and surrender. perhaps they were defending themselves from an invading army.


In such an instance, they are combatants.

What about all the prisoners that were rounded up because they were turned in for a reward?

Now, prove your assertion that the president went to war to enrich himself.


Prove they are terrorists.


If picked up on the battle field they are combatants. Now back to your assertion, can you prove it?


What about all of the prisoners that were turned in for a reward?

[BoogyMan]

What about your ridiculous assertion that the president went to war to enrich himself?

[potter]

What about your ridiculous assertion that the president went to war to enrich himself?



That's not the point here Boogy as I made clear previously. The point is Bush has imprisoned hundreds, maybe thousands of people with no evidence they did anything. They aren't all combatants. Why must we presume innocence with Bush when he imprisons people indefinately based on heresay (or just because he don't like em") all the time?

I think there is plenty if "heresay" to judge Bush guilty just like all those he has in prison.

[BoogyMan]

That is exactly the point here potter. You were the one who made that ridiculous claim, and I have been trying to get you to substantiate it for quite some time now. The problem is, you cannot substantiate it and you know you cannot.

[Stoner]

I think there is plenty if "heresay" to judge Bush guilty just like all those he has in prison.


So when does Bush go on trial? I mean, afterall, he's guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, right?

[potter]

That is exactly the point here potter. You were the one who made that ridiculous claim, and I have been trying to get you to substantiate it for quite some time now. The problem is, you cannot substantiate it and you know you cannot.


Correct, just as Bush cannot substantiate that everyone he has imprisoned (and tortured) is guilty of anything.

But you give him a pass.

[NortheastCynic]

So I'm sorry, the argument is that because the President cannot justify some of his claims, then you, Potter, don't have to substantiate yours?

Mary Mother of God tell me that's not what you're saying.

-NC

[Stoner]

Mary Mother of God tell me that's not what you're saying.




Potter isn't doing well here on the forums. This is like the 8th thread he's been bent over and...well you've seen Deliverance.
http://planetsmilies.net/freak-smiley-9426.gif (http://planetsmilies.net)

[potter]

So I'm sorry, the argument is that because the President cannot justify some of his claims, then you, Potter, don't have to substantiate yours?

Mary Mother of God tell me that's not what you're saying.

-NC


No, my point is why is Bush, a known loser in all things, is presumed innocent and above reproach when you presume everyone else is guilty. I've already stated that NOBODY can prove Bush has profited (except maybe his accountant) even though it is a highly logical conclusion.

Why do you guys pick and choose what you want to digest in these posts? You all seem to read only what you want to read and ignore the rest.

[NortheastCynic]

No, my point is why is Bush, a known loser in all things,Okay let's stop here. A known loser in all things...except two gubernatorial and two Presidential elections. Okay, go on.

No, my point is why is Bush, a known loser in all things, is presumed innocent and above reproach when you presume everyone else is guilty.Well, I haven't presumed anyone guilty here so I'll allow someone who is to respond to this.

I've already stated that NOBODY can prove Bush has profited (except maybe his accountant) even though it is a highly logical conclusion.And why is it highly logical?

Why do you guys pick and choose what you want to digest in these posts? You all seem to read only what you want to read and ignore the rest. Ri-ght. My appologies, I simply thought that when you said: "You give him the benefit of the doubt" I assumed that that meant we should then give you the benefit of the doubt...Please forgive me.

-NC

[J316]

What about your ridiculous assertion that the president went to war to enrich himself?



That's not the point here Boogy as I made clear previously. The point is Bush has imprisoned hundreds, maybe thousands of people with no evidence they did anything. They aren't all combatants. Why must we presume innocence with Bush when he imprisons people indefinately based on heresay (or just because he don't like em") all the time?

I think there is plenty if "heresay" to judge Bush guilty just like all those he has in prison.


Just answer the question! i would like to hear the dems answer, if, that is, you have one?

[BoogyMan]

No, my point is why is Bush, a known loser in all things, is presumed innocent and above reproach when you presume everyone else is guilty. I've already stated that NOBODY can prove Bush has profited (except maybe his accountant) even though it is a highly logical conclusion.

Why do you guys pick and choose what you want to digest in these posts? You all seem to read only what you want to read and ignore the rest.


A known loser in all things? You do read DU don't you potter! LOLOLOLOL

You say you already stated that nobody could prove that Bush profited from the war, reading back through the thread I don't find you making such a reversal of your claim. Care to provide the post number?

I hope you will explain how it is "highly logical" to conclude that the president went to war to enrich himself.

[lily]

Just answer the question! i would like to hear the dems answer, if, that is, you have one?


Page 4 post number 39 gives just a short list of the war profiteers that got Bush into office. His benefit is the office he is now holding.

[BoogyMan]

Just answer the question! i would like to hear the dems answer, if, that is, you have one?


Page 4 post number 39 gives just a short list of the war profiteers that got Bush into office. His benefit is the office he is now holding.


Complete and utter hogwash, and still no answer.

[potter]

Just answer the question! i would like to hear the dems answer, if, that is, you have one?


Page 4 post number 39 gives just a short list of the war profiteers that got Bush into office. His benefit is the office he is now holding.


Complete and utter hogwash, and still no answer.



Why don't you ask a "dem" then?

From your POV...since every reason Bush gave to go to war was a lie, and my previous post quoting Cheny shows that even Cheney knew a democracy in Iraq would never happen, why do you think Bush went to war?

Why were the oil fields protected when nothing else was? Bush is an oil man right? Bush's family has always had strong ties to the oil and weapons industries, surprisingly the very industries that are profiting from this war.

If you feel it was to combat a concept (terrorism) do you think he's been successful considering many people are of the opinion he has only multiplied the number of "terrorist"?

And why did he pick Iraq? They were contained and not a threat. It would seem if he was serious about combatting terrorism he would have gone after the KSA where most of the terrorists that attacked this country came from.

And of course the mastermind Osama Bin Forgotten, why did Bush decide to let him go? Could it be his longstanding ties to the Bin Lauden family?

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0111-01.htm

The Barreling Bushes
Four generations of the dynasty have chased profits through cozy ties with Mideast leaders, spinning webs of conflicts of interest

by Kevin Phillips

WASHINGTON — Dynasties in American politics are dangerous. We saw it with the Kennedys, we may well see it with the Clintons and we're certainly seeing it with the Bushes. Between now and the November election, it's crucial that Americans come to understand how four generations of the current president's family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and personal financial links.

As early as 1964, George H.W. Bush, running for the U.S. Senate from Texas, was labeled by incumbent Democrat Ralph Yarborough as a hireling of the sheik of Kuwait, for whom Bush's company drilled offshore oil wells. Over the four decades since then, the ever-reaching Bushes have emerged as the first U.S. political clan to thoroughly entangle themselves with Middle Eastern royal families and oil money. The family even has links to the Bin Ladens — though not to family black sheep Osama bin Laden — going back to the 1970s.

How these unusual relationships helped bring about 9/11 and then distorted the U.S. response to Islamic terrorism requires thinking of the Bush family as a dynasty. The two Bush presidencies are inextricably linked by that dynasty.

The first family member lured by the Middle East's petroleum wealth was George W. Bush's great-grandfather, George H. Walker, a buccaneer who was president of Wall Street-based W.A. Harriman & Co. In the 1920s, Walker and his firm participated in rebuilding the Baku oil fields only a few hundred miles north of current-day Iraq. As senior director of Dresser Industries (now part of Halliburton), Walker's son-in-law Prescott Bush (George W. Bush's grandfather) became involved with the Middle East in the years after World War II. But it was George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, who forged the dynasty's strongest ties to the region.

George H.W. Bush was the first CIA director to come from the oil industry. He went on to became the first vice president — and then the first president — to have either an oil or CIA background. This helps to explain his persistent bent toward the Middle East, covert operations and rogue banks like the Abu Dhabi-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which came to be known by the nickname "Bank of Crooks and Criminals International." In each of the government offices he held, he encouraged CIA involvement in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries, and he pursued policies that helped make the Middle East into the world's primary destination for arms shipments.

Taking the CIA helm in January 1976, Bush cemented strong relations with the intelligence services of both Saudi Arabia and the shah of Iran. He worked closely with Kamal Adham, the head of Saudi intelligence, brother-in-law of King Faisal and an early BCCI insider. After leaving the CIA in January 1977, Bush became chairman of the executive committee of First International Bancshares and its British subsidiary, where, according to journalists Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin in their 1992 book "False Profits," Bush "traveled on the bank's behalf and sometimes marketed to international banks in London, including several Middle Eastern institutions."

Once in the White House, first as vice president to Ronald Reagan and later as president, George H.W. Bush was linked to at least two Middle East-centered scandals. It's never been entirely clear what Bush's connection was to the Iran-Contra affair, in which clandestine arms shipments to Iran, some BCCI-financed, helped illegally fund the operations of the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels in Nicaragua. But in 1992, special prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh asserted that Bush, despite his protestations, had indeed been "in the loop" on multiple illegal acts.

Much clearer was Bush's pivotal role, both as vice president and president, in "Iraqgate," the hidden aid provided by the U.S. and its military to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in its high-stakes war with Iran during the 1980s. The U.S. is known to have provided both biological cultures that could have been used for weapons and nuclear know-how to the regime, as well as conventional weapons. As ABC-TV broadcaster Ted Koppel put it in a June 1992 "Nightline" program after the 1991 Persian Gulf War: "It is becoming increasingly clear that George [H.W.] Bush, operating largely behind the scenes through the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into the aggressive power that the United States ultimately had to destroy."

During these years, Bush's four sons — George W., Jeb, Neil and Marvin — were following in the family footsteps, lining up business deals with Saudi, Kuwaiti and Bahraini moneymen and cozying up to BCCI. The Middle East was becoming a convenient family money spigot.

Eldest son George W. Bush made his first Middle East connection in the late 1970s with James Bath, a Texas businessmen who served as the North American representative for two rich Saudis (and Osama bin Laden relatives) — billionaire Salem bin Laden and banker and BCCI insider Khalid bin Mahfouz. Bath put $50,000 into Bush's 1979 Arbusto oil partnership, probably using Bin Laden-Bin Mahfouz funds.

In the late 1980s, after several failed oil ventures, the future 43rd president let the ailing oil business in which he was a major stockholder and chairman be bought out by another foreign-influenced operation, Harken Energy. The Wall Street Journal commented in 1991, "The mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding Harken Energy may prove nothing more than how ubiquitous the rogue bank's ties were. But the number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken — all since George W. Bush came on board — likewise raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son."

Other hints of cronyism came in 1990 when inexperienced Harken got a major contract to drill in the Persian Gulf for the government of Bahrain. Time magazine reporters Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne, in their book "The Outlaw Bank," concluded "that Mahfouz, or other BCCI players, must have had a hand in steering the oil-drilling contract to the president's son." The web entangling the Bush presidencies was already being spun.

Second son Jeb Bush, now the governor of Florida, spent most of his time in the early and mid-1980s hobnobbing with ex-Cuban intelligence officers, Nicaraguan Contras and others plugged into the lucrative orbit of Miami-area front groups for the CIA. But he too had some Middle East connections. Two of his business associates, Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya and Camilo Padreda, both indicted for financial dealings, were longtime associates of Middle Eastern arms dealer, BCCI investor and Iran-Contra figure Adnan Khashoggi. Prosecutors dropped the case against the two, and a federal judge ordered Padreda's name expunged from the record. But a few years later Padreda, a former Miami-Dade County GOP treasurer, was convicted of fraud over a federally insured housing development that Jeb Bush had helped to facilitate. Jeb Bush also socialized with Adbur Sakhia, the Miami BCCI branch chief and later its top U.S. official.

Neil Bush, most famous for the scandal surrounding the corrupt practices of Colorado's Silverado Savings & Loan, where he served as a director during the 1980s, also picked plums from Persian Gulf orchards. In 1993, after his father left the White House, Neil went to Kuwait with his parents, brother Marvin and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. When his father left, Neil stayed to lobby for business contracts, and after returning home evolved a set of lucrative relationships with Syrian-American businessman Jamal Daniel. One of their ventures, Ignite!, an educational software company, also included representatives of at least three ruling Persian Gulf families.

The Bush family's Middle Eastern commercial focus is further exemplified by Marvin, the youngest brother of the current president. From 1993 to 2000 he was a major shareholder, along with Mishal Youssef Saud al Sabah, a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, in the Kuwait-American Corp., which had holdings in several U.S. defense, aviation and industrial security companies.

George H.W. Bush's own Persian Gulf relationships kept expanding. While serving in the Reagan White House during the 1980s, he was known in the Middle East as "the Saudi vice president," and a New Yorker article last year described the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. as "almost a member of the [Bush] family." Indeed, many saw the 1991 Gulf War to expel Iraq from Kuwait as an outgrowth of Bush's close ties to the oil industry and to Persian Gulf royal families, who felt threatened by Saddam Hussein's expansionism.

After losing his bid for a second term as president, Bush joined up in 1993 with the Washington-based Carlyle Group. Under the leadership of ex-officials like Baker and former Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, Carlyle developed a specialty in buying defense companies and doubling or quadrupling their value. The ex-president not only became an investor in Carlyle, but a member of the company's Asia Advisory Board and a rainmaker who drummed up investors. Twelve rich Saudi families, including the Bin Ladens, were among them. In 2002, the Washington Post reported, "Saudis close to Prince Sultan, the Saudi defense minister … were encouraged to put money into Carlyle as a favor to the elder Bush." Bush retired from the company last October, and Baker, who lobbied U.S. allies last month to forgive Iraq's debt, remains a Carlyle senior counselor.

If the 1991 war with Iraq and its aftermath cemented the Bush ties with oil elites and royalty in the Middle East, it angered Islamic true believers and radicals. By the late 1990s, many of the Islamic insurgents who had been mobilized by the CIA and others to chase the Soviets out of Afghanistan were becoming increasingly anti-American. They found a kinship with Osama bin Laden, the renegade of his billionaire Saudi family, who was outraged at the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia.

When the U.S. launched a second war against Iraq in 2003 but failed to find weapons of mass destruction that Hussein was purported to have, international polls, especially those by the Washington-based Pew Center, charted a massive growth in anti-Bush and anti-American sentiment in Muslim parts of the world — an obvious boon to terrorist recruitment. Even before the war, some cynics had argued that Iraq was targeted to divert attention from the administration's failure to catch Osama bin Laden and stop Al Qaeda terrorism.

Bolder critics hinted that George W. Bush had sought to shift attention away from how his family's ties to the Bin Ladens and to rogue elements in the Middle East had crippled U.S. investigations in the months leading up to 9/11. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained that even when Congress released the mid-2003 intelligence reports on the origins of the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration heavily redacted a 28-page section dealing with the Saudis and other foreign governments, leading him to conclude, "There seems to be a systematic strategy of coddling and cover-up when it comes to the Saudis."

There is no evidence to suggest that the events of Sept. 11 could have been prevented or discovered ahead of time had someone other than a Bush been president. But there is certainly enough to suggest that the Bush dynasty's many decades of entanglement and money-hunting in the Middle East have created a major conflict of interest that deserves to be part of the 2004 political debate. No previous presidency has had anything remotely similar. Not one.

[potter]

Just answer the question! i would like to hear the dems answer, if, that is, you have one?


Page 4 post number 39 gives just a short list of the war profiteers that got Bush into office. His benefit is the office he is now holding.


Complete and utter hogwash, and still no answer.


You'll say that no matter what is posted. You will claim any source is some slanted liberal site. In short you will not accept anything posted no matter how well researched and documented as evidence so why bother?

You're part of the 29% aren't you? :D

[BoogyMan]

Just answer the question! i would like to hear the dems answer, if, that is, you have one?


Page 4 post number 39 gives just a short list of the war profiteers that got Bush into office. His benefit is the office he is now holding.


Complete and utter hogwash, and still no answer.


You'll say that no matter what is posted. You will claim any source is some slanted liberal site. In short you will not accept anything posted no matter how well researched and documented as evidence so why bother?

You're part of the 29% aren't you? :D


Potter, there is a difference between proof and op/ed conjecture. When you post PROOF that the president went to war to enrich himself, we can talk. All you have put up is op/ed and supposition from liberal sources.

You THINK that is why he went to war and you WANT to believe it because you DESPISE the man.

I would bet that you consider Hardball on MSNBC to be a news show as well don't you?

[J316]

Just answer the question! i would like to hear the dems answer, if, that is, you have one?


Page 4 post number 39 gives just a short list of the war profiteers that got Bush into office. His benefit is the office he is now holding.


Complete and utter hogwash, and still no answer.



Why don't you ask a "dem" then?

From your POV...since every reason Bush gave to go to war was a lie, and my previous post quoting Cheny shows that even Cheney knew a democracy in Iraq would never happen, why do you think Bush went to war?

Why were the oil fields protected when nothing else was? Bush is an oil man right? Bush's family has always had strong ties to the oil and weapons industries, surprisingly the very industries that are profiting from this war.
Hello? What makes senc? look back on any war that required machines and I bet These Industries profited the most. Prove me wrong.

If you feel it was to combat a concept (terrorism) do you think he's been successful considering many people are of the opinion he has only multiplied the number of "terrorist"?
we actually destroyed the al quida organization so bad that it is just a network of terrorists. if anything, the terrorists are deminishing. However, this can change in 2008.

And why did he pick Iraq? They were contained and not a threat. It would seem if he was serious about combatting terrorism he would have gone after the KSA where most of the terrorists that attacked this country came from.
he picked iraq beacause of two things.
1. Saddam Houseinn had weopons of mass destruction.
2.there was a massive Al Quida training camp in Iraq AND afganistan. this is how we found out about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

And of course the mastermind Osama Bin Forgotten, why did Bush decide to let him go? Could it be his longstanding ties to the Bin Lauden family?
Osama has not been forgotten.Osama is hiding somewhere, and the people who are getting his news feed won't tell us where he is. it is taking longer than I would like, however.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0111-01.htm

The Barreling Bushes
Four generations of the dynasty have chased profits through cozy ties with Mideast leaders, spinning webs of conflicts of interest

by Kevin Phillips

WASHINGTON — Dynasties in American politics are dangerous. We saw it with the Kennedys, we may well see it with the Clintons and we're certainly seeing it with the Bushes. Between now and the November election, it's crucial that Americans come to understand how four generations of the current president's family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and personal financial links.

As early as 1964, George H.W. Bush, running for the U.S. Senate from Texas, was labeled by incumbent Democrat Ralph Yarborough as a hireling of the sheik of Kuwait, for whom Bush's company drilled offshore oil wells. Over the four decades since then, the ever-reaching Bushes have emerged as the first U.S. political clan to thoroughly entangle themselves with Middle Eastern royal families and oil money. The family even has links to the Bin Ladens — though not to family black sheep Osama bin Laden — going back to the 1970s.

How these unusual relationships helped bring about 9/11 and then distorted the U.S. response to Islamic terrorism requires thinking of the Bush family as a dynasty. The two Bush presidencies are inextricably linked by that dynasty.

The first family member lured by the Middle East's petroleum wealth was George W. Bush's great-grandfather, George H. Walker, a buccaneer who was president of Wall Street-based W.A. Harriman & Co. In the 1920s, Walker and his firm participated in rebuilding the Baku oil fields only a few hundred miles north of current-day Iraq. As senior director of Dresser Industries (now part of Halliburton), Walker's son-in-law Prescott Bush (George W. Bush's grandfather) became involved with the Middle East in the years after World War II. But it was George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, who forged the dynasty's strongest ties to the region.

George H.W. Bush was the first CIA director to come from the oil industry. He went on to became the first vice president — and then the first president — to have either an oil or CIA background. This helps to explain his persistent bent toward the Middle East, covert operations and rogue banks like the Abu Dhabi-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which came to be known by the nickname "Bank of Crooks and Criminals International." In each of the government offices he held, he encouraged CIA involvement in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries, and he pursued policies that helped make the Middle East into the world's primary destination for arms shipments.

Taking the CIA helm in January 1976, Bush cemented strong relations with the intelligence services of both Saudi Arabia and the shah of Iran. He worked closely with Kamal Adham, the head of Saudi intelligence, brother-in-law of King Faisal and an early BCCI insider. After leaving the CIA in January 1977, Bush became chairman of the executive committee of First International Bancshares and its British subsidiary, where, according to journalists Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin in their 1992 book "False Profits," Bush "traveled on the bank's behalf and sometimes marketed to international banks in London, including several Middle Eastern institutions."

Once in the White House, first as vice president to Ronald Reagan and later as president, George H.W. Bush was linked to at least two Middle East-centered scandals. It's never been entirely clear what Bush's connection was to the Iran-Contra affair, in which clandestine arms shipments to Iran, some BCCI-financed, helped illegally fund the operations of the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels in Nicaragua. But in 1992, special prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh asserted that Bush, despite his protestations, had indeed been "in the loop" on multiple illegal acts.

Much clearer was Bush's pivotal role, both as vice president and president, in "Iraqgate," the hidden aid provided by the U.S. and its military to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in its high-stakes war with Iran during the 1980s. The U.S. is known to have provided both biological cultures that could have been used for weapons and nuclear know-how to the regime, as well as conventional weapons. As ABC-TV broadcaster Ted Koppel put it in a June 1992 "Nightline" program after the 1991 Persian Gulf War: "It is becoming increasingly clear that George [H.W.] Bush, operating largely behind the scenes through the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into the aggressive power that the United States ultimately had to destroy."

During these years, Bush's four sons — George W., Jeb, Neil and Marvin — were following in the family footsteps, lining up business deals with Saudi, Kuwaiti and Bahraini moneymen and cozying up to BCCI. The Middle East was becoming a convenient family money spigot.

Eldest son George W. Bush made his first Middle East connection in the late 1970s with James Bath, a Texas businessmen who served as the North American representative for two rich Saudis (and Osama bin Laden relatives) — billionaire Salem bin Laden and banker and BCCI insider Khalid bin Mahfouz. Bath put $50,000 into Bush's 1979 Arbusto oil partnership, probably using Bin Laden-Bin Mahfouz funds.

In the late 1980s, after several failed oil ventures, the future 43rd president let the ailing oil business in which he was a major stockholder and chairman be bought out by another foreign-influenced operation, Harken Energy. The Wall Street Journal commented in 1991, "The mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding Harken Energy may prove nothing more than how ubiquitous the rogue bank's ties were. But the number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken — all since George W. Bush came on board — likewise raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son."

Other hints of cronyism came in 1990 when inexperienced Harken got a major contract to drill in the Persian Gulf for the government of Bahrain. Time magazine reporters Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne, in their book "The Outlaw Bank," concluded "that Mahfouz, or other BCCI players, must have had a hand in steering the oil-drilling contract to the president's son." The web entangling the Bush presidencies was already being spun.

Second son Jeb Bush, now the governor of Florida, spent most of his time in the early and mid-1980s hobnobbing with ex-Cuban intelligence officers, Nicaraguan Contras and others plugged into the lucrative orbit of Miami-area front groups for the CIA. But he too had some Middle East connections. Two of his business associates, Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya and Camilo Padreda, both indicted for financial dealings, were longtime associates of Middle Eastern arms dealer, BCCI investor and Iran-Contra figure Adnan Khashoggi. Prosecutors dropped the case against the two, and a federal judge ordered Padreda's name expunged from the record. But a few years later Padreda, a former Miami-Dade County GOP treasurer, was convicted of fraud over a federally insured housing development that Jeb Bush had helped to facilitate. Jeb Bush also socialized with Adbur Sakhia, the Miami BCCI branch chief and later its top U.S. official.

Neil Bush, most famous for the scandal surrounding the corrupt practices of Colorado's Silverado Savings & Loan, where he served as a director during the 1980s, also picked plums from Persian Gulf orchards. In 1993, after his father left the White House, Neil went to Kuwait with his parents, brother Marvin and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. When his father left, Neil stayed to lobby for business contracts, and after returning home evolved a set of lucrative relationships with Syrian-American businessman Jamal Daniel. One of their ventures, Ignite!, an educational software company, also included representatives of at least three ruling Persian Gulf families.

The Bush family's Middle Eastern commercial focus is further exemplified by Marvin, the youngest brother of the current president. From 1993 to 2000 he was a major shareholder, along with Mishal Youssef Saud al Sabah, a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, in the Kuwait-American Corp., which had holdings in several U.S. defense, aviation and industrial security companies.

George H.W. Bush's own Persian Gulf relationships kept expanding. While serving in the Reagan White House during the 1980s, he was known in the Middle East as "the Saudi vice president," and a New Yorker article last year described the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. as "almost a member of the [Bush] family." Indeed, many saw the 1991 Gulf War to expel Iraq from Kuwait as an outgrowth of Bush's close ties to the oil industry and to Persian Gulf royal families, who felt threatened by Saddam Hussein's expansionism.

After losing his bid for a second term as president, Bush joined up in 1993 with the Washington-based Carlyle Group. Under the leadership of ex-officials like Baker and former Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, Carlyle developed a specialty in buying defense companies and doubling or quadrupling their value. The ex-president not only became an investor in Carlyle, but a member of the company's Asia Advisory Board and a rainmaker who drummed up investors. Twelve rich Saudi families, including the Bin Ladens, were among them. In 2002, the Washington Post reported, "Saudis close to Prince Sultan, the Saudi defense minister … were encouraged to put money into Carlyle as a favor to the elder Bush." Bush retired from the company last October, and Baker, who lobbied U.S. allies last month to forgive Iraq's debt, remains a Carlyle senior counselor.

If the 1991 war with Iraq and its aftermath cemented the Bush ties with oil elites and royalty in the Middle East, it angered Islamic true believers and radicals. By the late 1990s, many of the Islamic insurgents who had been mobilized by the CIA and others to chase the Soviets out of Afghanistan were becoming increasingly anti-American. They found a kinship with Osama bin Laden, the renegade of his billionaire Saudi family, who was outraged at the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia.

When the U.S. launched a second war against Iraq in 2003 but failed to find weapons of mass destruction that Hussein was purported to have, international polls, especially those by the Washington-based Pew Center, charted a massive growth in anti-Bush and anti-American sentiment in Muslim parts of the world — an obvious boon to terrorist recruitment. Even before the war, some cynics had argued that Iraq was targeted to divert attention from the administration's failure to catch Osama bin Laden and stop Al Qaeda terrorism.

Bolder critics hinted that George W. Bush had sought to shift attention away from how his family's ties to the Bin Ladens and to rogue elements in the Middle East had crippled U.S. investigations in the months leading up to 9/11. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained that even when Congress released the mid-2003 intelligence reports on the origins of the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration heavily redacted a 28-page section dealing with the Saudis and other foreign governments, leading him to conclude, "There seems to be a systematic strategy of coddling and cover-up when it comes to the Saudis."

There is no evidence to suggest that the events of Sept. 11 could have been prevented or discovered ahead of time had someone other than a Bush been president. But there is certainly enough to suggest that the Bush dynasty's many decades of entanglement and money-hunting in the Middle East have created a major conflict of interest that deserves to be part of the 2004 political debate. No previous presidency has had anything remotely similar. Not one.

All I see here is bush bashing. you and the democrats HATE Bush with a Passion. I am sure you would like him to be tied to a tree and say "Ready,Aim,FIRE!!"

[potter]

Of course. Any critisim of Bush, or any republican for that matter is just bashing, no matter what evidence is presented, no matter what history is presented, no matter how shady they seem, no matter how many investigations they stifle, no matter how many records they seal to hide their actions. One must always assume any republican innocent until proven guilty.

And one must assume all democrats guilty of any whispered lie.

Gotch ya.

I'll let you get back to your daily Coulter/Limbaugh/fox fix now.

[J316]

I really do not understand what sugnificance his CIA background and oil industry company has anything to do with his presidency. you would think that being with the CIA would be an attribute. And he would not have gone to war because of oil if he already ownes rigs in Iraq and the Middle East.

[BoogyMan]

Of course. Any critisim of Bush, or any republican for that matter is just bashing, no matter what evidence is presented, no matter what history is presented, no matter how shady they seem, no matter how many investigations they stifle, no matter how many records they seal to hide their actions. One must always assume any republican innocent until proven guilty.

And one must assume all democrats guilty of any whispered lie.

Gotch ya.

I'll let you get back to your daily Coulter/Limbaugh/fox fix now.


There is a difference between criticism and the slobbering rants you have posted so far. Start using reputable sources and reasoned commentary, leaving the DU level rants behind, and we can talk.

[Elrathin]

Boogy, you can criticize someone without bringing proof, it's called an opinion.

[BoogyMan]

Boogy, you can criticize someone without bringing proof, it's called an opinion.


I will be quoting this back to you in the very near future, I am sure El. :D

The point was that sources that were completely unhinged WERE being used to try and substantiate his ranting.

[Elrathin]

I will be quoting this back to you in the very near future, I am sure El. :D


Doubtful, I have always said people can have opinions, it's when they try to say they are facts that I bust them on it.


The point was that sources that were completely unhinged WERE being used to try and substantiate his ranting.


Boogy, the same can be said of you and your Kerry comments as well. If Kerry was a traitor, he would have been tried and convicted. Yet, you still call him a traitor. It's a pot calling the kettle black moment. You are both wrong, but neither of you will admit it.

[BoogyMan]

I will be quoting this back to you in the very near future, I am sure El. :D


Doubtful, I have always said people can have opinions, it's when they try to say they are facts that I bust them on it.


The point was that sources that were completely unhinged WERE being used to try and substantiate his ranting.


Boogy, the same can be said of you and your Kerry comments as well. If Kerry was a traitor, he would have been tried and convicted. Yet, you still call him a traitor. It's a pot calling the kettle black moment. You are both wrong, but neither of you will admit it.


I didn't think that I would be getting to quote your commentary back to you so quickly El. :D

I get to have my opinion that Kerry is a traitor, right?

Potter, however, is trying to substantiate his claims with sources that cannot be considered by any stretch of the imagination to be non-partisan. I would have thought that you could see that, unless you are only going to reject sources when someone posts an abject conservative source.

[Elrathin]

I get to have my opinion that Kerry is a traitor, right?

Yes, as an opinion, but not as fact.


Potter, however, is trying to substantiate his claims with sources that cannot be considered by any stretch of the imagination to be non-partisan. I would have thought that you could see that, unless you are only going to reject sources when someone posts an abject conservative source.


What part of you are both wrong did you not get?

[BoogyMan]

Potter, however, is trying to substantiate his claims with sources that cannot be considered by any stretch of the imagination to be non-partisan. I would have thought that you could see that, unless you are only going to reject sources when someone posts an abject conservative source.


What part of you are both wrong did you not get?


Now that is just funny.

[Elrathin]

Now that is just funny.


Why?

[BoogyMan]

Now that is just funny.


Why?


Potter posts thusly:

Of course. Any critisim of Bush, or any republican for that matter is just bashing, no matter what evidence is presented, no matter what history is presented, no matter how shady they seem, no matter how many investigations they stifle, no matter how many records they seal to hide their actions. One must always assume any republican innocent until proven guilty.

And one must assume all democrats guilty of any whispered lie.

Gotch ya.

I'll let you get back to your daily Coulter/Limbaugh/fox fix now.

To which I respond:

There is a difference between criticism and the slobbering rants you have posted so far. Start using reputable sources and reasoned commentary, leaving the DU level rants behind, and we can talk.

This is where you chimed in and our discussion began. Potter has been sourcing his commentary from commondreams.org and rawstory.com. I naturally object to these sources and you come in and tell me that I am wrong for so doing?

What would you say if I sourced my commentary from rushlimbaugh.com, michellemalkin.com, or littlegreenfootballs.com? I am sure that you would object and I would not say that you are wrong for objecting as those kinds of sources, like commondreams and rawstory, are one sided.

[Elrathin]

This is where you chimed in and our discussion began. Potter has been sourcing his commentary from commondreams.org and rawstory.com. I naturally object to these sources and you come in and tell me that I am wrong for so doing?

Um I also chimed in saying that you kept repeating that Kerry was a traitor as fact. That is why I said you were both wrong, however, you neither of you will admit it.

I was saying you were wrong on calling Kerry a traitor (even though he wasn't tried nor convicted) and Potter was wrong in saying what he said about Bush as fact because it hasn't been proven yet.

Hence my you are both wrong, but neither of you will admit it and the pot calling the kettle black because you call Kerry a traitor even though he hasn't been tried nor convicted as one.


What would you say if I sourced my commentary from rushlimbaugh.com, michellemalkin.com, or littlegreenfootballs.com? I am sure that you would object and I would not say that you are wrong for objecting as those kinds of sources, like commondreams and rawstory, are one sided.


Read my above comment, I never said the source was credible. All I said in regards is that his conclusions were PLAUSIBLE, that is not the same as fact. Just as your comments that Kerry is a traitor is PLAUSIBLE, but is not fact.

[BoogyMan]

El, I see what you are saying. I thought you were standing up for those sources and appreciate your clarification.

I chimed in with my belief that Kerry is a traitor and you ran with it to make a point, but I don't remember stating it definitively. In post 36 I posted thusly:

I can point to actions by Kerry that would qualify him as a traitor. What evidence do you have the Bush has enriched himself by going to war? None. Zip. Zilch.

and in post 38:

The country has lost the desire to deal with men like Kerry and his ilk.

You want me to say that I am wrong for an opinion?

[lily]

I really do not understand what sugnificance his CIA background and oil industry company has anything to do with his presidency. you would think that being with the CIA would be an attribute. And he would not have gone to war because of oil if he already ownes rigs in Iraq and the Middle East.



I think you got your Bushes mixed up.

[Elrathin]

I chimed in with my belief that Kerry is a traitor and you ran with it to make a point, but I don't remember stating it definitively. In post 36 I posted thusly:

I can point to actions by Kerry that would qualify him as a traitor. What evidence do you have the Bush has enriched himself by going to war? None. Zip. Zilch.

You want me to say that I am wrong for an opinion?


Boogy, by stating that you can point to actions by Kerry that would qualify him as a traitor is saying he is one as fact. There is no opinion there in that statement.

You THINK it would qualify him as a traitor, but those actions obviously do not qualify him as a traitor or he would have been tried and convicted of it. The statement you made is saying that his action qualify him as a traitor. If you would have said you THINK it would qualify him as a traitor I have no problems with that although I don't agree with it.

Again, opinions are ok even if I don't agree with them, but when you say it qualifies someone as a traitor, that is stating fact not opinion and in this case it is wrong.

[BoogyMan]

Boogy, by stating that you can point to actions by Kerry that would qualify him as a traitor is saying he is one as fact. There is no opinion there in that statement.

Nah, you have it wrong Elrathin. It means that I can point to things the man has done that I consider to be worthy of his earning to charge of traitor. Nothing more, nothing less. It is MY view.

You THINK it would qualify him as a traitor, but those actions obviously do not qualify him as a traitor or he would have been tried and convicted of it. The statement you made is saying that his action qualify him as a traitor. If you would have said you THINK it would qualify him as a traitor I have no problems with that although I don't agree with it.

As I pointed out in my recitation of my own commentary, the U.S. doesn't have the stomach to deal with such topics. I can only speak for myself and I find the man worthy of the title of traitor, you do not. I am, however, entitled to speak my mind as are you. That is what makes free speech so wonderful.

Again, opinions are ok even if I don't agree with them, but when you say it qualifies someone as a traitor, that is stating fact not opinion and in this case it is wrong.


It isn't stating fact El, it is stating my opinion. I wish you could see that.

[J316]

I am starting to think there are to many presidents and candidates with the same name.