are you deliberately trying to poke holes in what's left of your credibility?

newsmax.com?

you've gotta be kidding.

they make foxnews look like moveon.org.

Wow, he catches himself in the next breath, and you're still all over him. Not very forgiving, are you?

I mean, it took Bush a whole year to repeal his steel tariffs, and those were somewhat more than just words.

Yes yes, lets all complain about fox news. After all, CNN, the bastion of truth has so accurately reported the news.

I really think its time people stop complaining about fox's supposed slant. CNN won't even call a terrorist a terrorist. When they covered the condi rice testimony, they acted like it was her choice not to testify under oath, ignoring 200+ years of precedence for executive privilege. Don't even get me started on our supposed paper or "record" the New York Times.

If Newsmax says it, it's probably true. Kerry's apologist mindset has been well documented over the years (starting with his actions following the vietnam war).

ah yes, the 'liberal' media argument...it still ignores the ultra-uber-partisan nature of newsmax.

Those interested in interpreting for themselves what Kerry had to say can hear the interview at www.npr.org.

it still ignores the ultra-uber-partisan nature of newsmax.

No doubt that Newsmax has a major conservative slant. Any site selling Bush/Cheney 2004 fleece jackets is not trying very hard to conceal its leanings. The question remains, is this tru?

David

david, the very headline of the story does just what we were talking about yesterday: the headline "Praises Muslim Terrorist Leader", is a twisted synopsis of what actually happened.

"Praises Muslim Terrorist Leader..."


Sorry for sounding ignorant here but I'm not sure where this headline is from.

David

right from the main page of newsmax.com

"Kerry's Worst Gaffe Ever - Praises Muslim Terrorist Leader"

it's big, bold & red.

Thanks for pointing that out. Truthfully, I missed that headline. I agree with you that it's totally misleading.

David

I am writing to comment on closing down a legitimate voice in Iraq-- Moqtada Al-Sadr. I never thought I would be writing to an American, reminding them that free speech is a fundamental part of a democracy. Speech doesn't hurt: shutting down the speech is what causes the violence. Sadr was held and released, because he hasn't killed anyone. Yes, he's very against the Americans in his country, but that's his right to state, and by the way, we are still killing Iraqis and arresting them, and we are holding (indefinately) 10-12000 men in Bagdad. Are all of them guilty? I spoke with an American soldier guarding the prison that told me most are CURFEW violators. So, which is bothering you: the fact that Iraqi's may not want your form of democracy--if indeed they even feel that Americans that shut down newspapers and arrest and hold them indefinately. The criticism that Al-Sadr is getting also comes from a government who is trying to silence him (probably not the best PR for democracy). Is allowing his voice such a wrong thing? Noone else in Europe agrees with Americans being in Iraq either, but we don't shut their newpapers--and plenty of them would love to oust the Americans from Iraq and completely disagee that the UN shouldn't be leading this war--not the US. By the way, some here in Europe label G. Bush a terrorist, but you don't accept that thinking, do you? Some Iraqi's are sick and tired of the U.S. in their country because they've been the receipients of no food and water and electricity for too long, and having been the recipients of bombs, you can't really blame them. There is a "voice" that doesn't want us there, and I can tell you, read your history book if you think shutting off voices is a wise thing. As an American married to an Arab, I can tell you that there's a reason Arabs don't entirely trust Americans. There's a long history, and if you care to go read news outside your country, you will find out about why--American newspapers seem to have a leash on them these days. Thank God not everyone is shutting down newspapers.

krista cole rocks!

you are one brave chick. i have never heard (or seen) it put so blunt and to the point.

jack e. jett

So, let me get this straight, you're all arguing over who can quote from the most effective propaganda outlet.

Or, since it is clearly a lie, the worst propaganda outlet.

So, the debate is between who is a sack of lying shit, and who is a lying sack of shit.

Is allowing his voice such a wrong thing?

Krista, Moqtada Al-Sadr is Iraq's version of Al Capone, a violent thug who sees Hussein's ouster as an opportunity to become the "Grand Ayatollah" of Iraq.

So, in order to get to that goal, he's LIED about coalition actions in Iraq, he MURDERED a fellow cleric, he ATTEMPTED TO MURDER Iraq's most senior cleric, and he is, right now, actively encouraging violence that has caused the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqi civilians. If this is how you define the term "legitimate voice," then no wonder the Middle East has so many problems.

Thanks for your comments.

David

David,

Firstly, I didn't say Al-Sadr was a legitimate voice, but a voice--legit or not. What I did hope to say is that closing newspapers doesn't shut voices, Al-Sadr's included, and incidently, is a famous tactic of Shiites themselves. They will just open one across the street the following day, under a different name (and have been for years)until someone arrests or kills them--neither or which credits us in a fragile environment. You say, but "Al-Sadr incites people to violence using the press and has killed people?" Then why did we let him go when we had him last week--if he broke law and did all the things which you have just described he did! You should be calling for an arrest and trial then, not worrying about closing his newspaper! What is the real reason Bush is worried about this guy? (there is one,keep reading).

Secondly, you should be aware that many in the European press are calling Mr. Bush a "killer" and want him put on trial too? (wild as it may sound) in an int'l court, T. Blair included. Is that a proper characterization of those men?Would you buy their presses' argument that "they've killed--or encouraged others to do so." Again, the Shiites use the same worn out argument.

What is new is that Iraqis will undoubtedly be reminded that closing newspapers is exactly what Sadaam did to them. Sadamm decided, eventually, he would just have to wipe them out--and if Bush carries on with attacking Najaff today, Shiites' most holy city in Iraq, despite warnings from his own military advisors that it's not a good idea, guess who he's going to kill: The same voices that Saddam tried to silence/arrest/wipe out! THE SHIITES! Ask youself if that's smart!

Maybe instead of shutting Mr. Al-Sadr's paper, they would have been better off to have translated it and read it to find out why America is seen as such a traitor to the Shi'ites--in both Iran and Iraq.(no, it's not about 70 virgins and ruling the world with Islam).

If you care about the freedom of Iraq, I challenge you--no--DARE you--to read about the reasons behind America's problems with Shiites,written by a NY Times correspondent, entitled, "All the Shah's Men: the Roots of Terrorism in the Middle East." Any Iranian I've ever met has shared the same story with me, and I used to think it was just propaganda until it broke in our own press at the discovery of the CIA file.

Rather than close the press in Iraq, I would call on American leaders to open the CIA files fom the Coup in 1956, which supposedly deposed the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran--a subject which led to the Shi'ites original claim to legitimacy in Iran. It would completely stun the Shiites. What would they complain about then? That we were still hiding something?

I have spoken with Shi'ites right here in London, and if I can get it, so can others, and I'm an American female, who deeply opposes their religious theology. Open your eyes, don't EVER close the press!

Krista,

Here is what you said in your first post:

I am writing to comment on closing down a legitimate voice in Iraq-- Moqtada Al-Sadr.

Now you say:

I didn't say Al-Sadr was a legitimate voice, but a voice--legit or not.

Which is it?

As for what Europeans think of Bush, was there a US President that Europeans DID like? While Clinton was in office, he was not well liked by Europeans either. In the end, it doesn't matter, I don't care much about how Europeans see President Bush, I care very much that the President makes sure that we have no more 9/11s here in the States.

I think what you need to do is take a very close look at the developing scandal related to the UN "Oil-For-Food" program. By all accounts, Saddam was paying off officials in France, Germany, Russia, and elsewhere, and skimmed about 10 billion dollars from the money that was supposed to go towards feeding his people. So, Saddam built palaces while his people starved and, at the same time, he lined the wallets of UN and European officials in return for promises of support for his regime.

And who got the blame for starving Iraqis? The US of course! Not because we had anything to do with it, but because we were a convenient excuse. Lets move on.

You say:

...closing newspapers is exactly what Sadaam did to them.

Actually, I seriously doubt that Saddam ever allowed any newspapers to open in the first place, much less have to close them down. Any thought that there was a "free press" in Iraq under Saddam is a joke. Furthermore, Iraqi is not yet a free and self-governing nation yet. There is no reason to allow Sadr to incite violence when we are trying to create stability.

What do I think should be done in Falujah and Najaf? I think we should, if necessary, level those towns and crush any insurgency immediately. While we wait, Syrians and Iranians are crossing the borders to join with Sadr's forces to attempt to fight the US. We need to take away any hope they might have of winning, or even of protracting the war for any length of time. I predict that, within a week, US troops will crush the insurgents and restore peace to those areas. Iranians and Syrians, as well as Saddam loyalists who are siding with Sadr right now, must understand that Iraq will be a free nation and they have no hope of stopping it.

I think Bush has made spent too much time trying to talk when we should have sent in many more troops to Iraq and forcibly disarmed all the militias in the first place. Thugs, criminals, and followers of ex-tyrants have no business sporting AK-47s.

Thanks.

David

The words "legitimate voice" were not my own coined terms, but those of John Kerry, which you quoted. The quotes were left off my note, so it should read: I am writing to comment on "a legitimate voice..."

Firstly, your calls to "level those towns" are calls to kill, are they not? Now, who's calling for the killing: you or Al-Sadr! You use the word "insurgents." Do you realize the world is laughing at America for using such words to describe people who don't want you in their country? America could find "insurgents" in Britain. Would you advocate leveling London?

Secondly, do we have any Shiite Muslims or Iranians on this chat!? Where are you! Speak up!

On Europe: You are right. Don't listen to them. That way, when you find Europe allied with the Mid-East pretty soon, you will be alone, isolated, and confused as to how it happened. I won't, because I already see it happening. Europe doesn't share your interest, and they have a colonizing past, so they already know how successful cramming their Western ideas down others' throats in the name of "democracy," "civilization" and "enlightenment are!" Europe is only there to rebuild Iraq(read: contracts). When the fighting erupts again (and it has), my guess is they will start pulling out one by one, because they know you don't really care about their opinion/past ally-ship!

58 Diplomats from Britain to almost every Mid-East country from Israel to Saudi, wrote to T.Blair yesterday, and it broke headlines in London with the following:

"To describe resistance as led by terrorists, fanatics and foreigners is neither convincing nor helpful."

"The Iraqis killed by coaltion forces probably total 10-15000 (it is a desgrace that the coalition forces themselves appear to have no estimate), and the number killed in the last month in Falluja alone is apparently several hundred including many civilian men, women and children." Are these all terroists? Insurgents? Foreigners?

Meanwhile... this appeared in our press today, from Lee Gordon, in Falluga (Int'l Press):

"It was when I saw little Ali's ruined body that I stopped being just a reporter and became a true embed. The secene was a makeshift field hospital in Falluga." (A missile was fired at the hospital). "Four year old Ali is lying in a cot... bleeding from a horrific groin wound."

These are the insurgents of which you speak?

Why don't you move to Iraq? Or, considering things, as you say, are bad now, why didn't you EVER move to Iraq? Truth is the U.S. murders people, and Iraqis murder people as well. But, for the U.S. perhaps its not an everyday thing, whereas in Iraq it was/is. You can complain about human nature all you want, but you cant change it. Just be glad you have internet access, and there are people willing to waste their time in the desert for you to enjoy it.

Right. The US's terrorists are fighting and invading to keep us online. Tell them don't do me any favors. I didn't ask them to take up arms, and I don't approve. It is not my "war."

It IS your war though, simply because you are an American Citizen, and America is at war. You might not approve, might not support those politicians that got us into the mess, but it is "your war" just the same. Be grateful you don't have to carry it out, in fact you really have no reason to complain since the war is not affecting you in any real way at all. The point being: we might have an idiot, some would say a dictator (which shows a complete lack of understanding of our government), in office but the point is we chose him and in a few years he will be gone. Saddam Hussein and his ilk are there for life. Again, the bottom line is that while you might not like it your actions agree that its better to be here than there. Hey, I am sure Saddam would have blown your head off if you threw your pissy fit under his regime.

I didn't vote for Bush, so let's stop with the "we" shit, okay? (Didn't vote for Gore either, but that's another story.) And since the figures I've heard were that only 51% of the registered voters cast a ballot in 2000 (making it approximately 25-26% that voted for Bush), there's a lot of "we's" that didn't want him. And since the supposed dangers of Saddam's regime seem to have been wildly overstated (if not outright LIES), we didn't need to invade Iraq at this point. Perhaps we could have saved a few Spanish lives if we had concentrated on the real dangers we face in the world.
And if someone wants to bring up the argument that the Iraqis are better off, they'd have been better off if we hadn't set Saddam up in power in the first place, and given him his starter set of chemical/biological weapons. Killed his own people? So are we going after Pinochet next, or are we going to continue to protect him from justice? And how is destablizing a secular (though dictatorial) society better, when it has created a situation that opens that society (and possibly the entire region) to the increasingly likelihood of an all-out religious civil war that will kill thousands if not millions? Is Bush trying to bring on Armageddon?

sergio sergio sergio

"Why don't you move to Iraq?" Or, considering things, as you say, are bad now, why didn't you EVER move to Iraq?"

I think that you make her point by making such irrational comments like the one above.

Krista Cole is a voice that we NEED to hear. A viewpoint we must think about.

I saw an Iraqi mother on TV yesterday asking American women how they would feel if they know one of their children were in that prison. It is an image I will never be able to get out of my mind.

Sergio, before you tell me to leave the United States, I have already. I live in Texas.

jack e. jett

Funny, I am stationed in Texas.

You, rather subtlely, managed to sidestep my point, so I will restate it as clearly as I can: I do not claim the U.S. to be morally superior nation by any means, but the point is that you enjoy a certain freedom here that is not present elsewhere. So, slamming the U.S. while propping up other nations is ridiculous. However, does this mean we should be complacent with the situation here? No. Our culture (if you can even use the word) is in a state of decay. I propose fixing that not by ripping at U.S. but rather by affirming the good things of this country over those bad things that have crept in and have resulted in such atrocities like what is going on in Iraq. Is anyone seriously surprised at whats going on? (sarcasm) Wow! Our soldiers are having sex with each other, sodimizing prisoners, and getting it all on tape. How is that different from whats going on here at home? The soldiers charged with these crimes claim they werent properly trained for their mission... excuse me? I would think the committing of such acts would cry out against their human nature. Again, the point is that human dignity is attack here, so who cares about the Iraqis? What is wrong with sticking a glowing stick up someguy's rectum? Is it that he didn't consent? Is there something wrong with sticking things in rectums in general? There are bigger questions here.

Unfortunately, there is a "we". The "we" of American Citizenry. That's the way democracy works; sometimes you dont get what you want. You don't complain about the system you just have to realize thats the way it works and work harder next time. I didn't like it when Clinton lied to the nation either. Then again, the whole WMD thing is being severly skewed here; Bush acted out of the same intelligence that the Clinton administration was throwing around for years. It was Clinton who first brought up the issue of Saddam having WMD. But, no one knows that, which makes things complicated.

Another thing to consider is what kind of right we have to go into other nations, for whatever reason. Our government is based on consent, right? So...shouldn't Saddam have consented before we invaded? I know it sounds silly but the point is that you can't "make" people democratic if they don't want to be. Personally, if Bush had said "We want oil, we gonna take it" that would have been better than "We need to free the world of dictators." The WMD argument was more legit, but thats fallen through. So, why are we there? I think that is what Bush and co. are realizing and *hopefully* the turn over in June will go well. (Yeah right)