Spain

RE: Polling

>Very good BoN.

Yes, great sloganeering.

>But will there actually be a election??

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The paranoia of some people is as sad as it is insane and hilarious.

>The dictatorship continues.

Only a pampered, effete, self-absorbed imbecile who has never known true oppression could call our country a "dicatorship." You're sitting here on a gay prostitution board saying whatever the fuck you want about our government and our country, and you do so with impunity. That doesn't happen in an actual dictatorship.

We just had a five month primary season where the Democratic candidates repeatedly voiced the most extreme accusations about the President as they could think of, and the media broadcast over and over. That doesn't happen in an actual dictatorship either.

You see yourself as a scared, weak little bitch whose weakness constantly renders you vulnerable to oppression. That's why you think you're living in a "dictatorship." But you ought not confuse your sick little neuroses with political opinions.

RE: Polling

Yes Dougie, this is just the start of what could be a really ugly period in our history. Remember, it was the State Dept. (former) that said the election would be suspended, not me. Hannity never asked him a follow-up question, and he didn't look suprised either.

RE: Polling

>Yes Dougie, this is just the start of what could be a really

>ugly period in our history.

I just hope there's a special place reserved for you in the new Auschwitz.

Remember, it was the State Dept.

>(former) that said the election would be suspended, not me.

Oh, well, then it must be true. If a former State Department official predicted it, then you can take it to the bank.

>Hannity never asked him a follow-up question, and he didn't

>look suprised either.

Well, that goes without saying. I'm sure Hannity is involved in the conspiracy to cancel the next election. In fact, he's probably helping right now to plan the terrorist attack that will cause that.

Do you hear that noise, Glutes? I think that's a federal agent knocking on your window, coming to "disappear" you for saying such slanderous things about our Government. Wouldn't you love that? Then, instead of getting to shriek stupidly about this fantasy you have of living in a dictatorship, you would get to be a REAL victim. That would increase your victim-martyr points massively, and you'd be so, so happy.

We are watching, Glutes.

RE: Polling

>That's almost the entirety of your post - nothing but

>platitutdes and slogans. And anyone who thinks that capturing

>Osama bin Laden will end terrorism or even significantly

>diminish it understands the world in Disney terms - like if

>you capture the big bad guy, the world lives in peace. Just

>inane.

If that's the case, then why did the MisAdminstration put so much importance on the capture of Saddam Hussein in their Iraq War (not to be confused with the separate War on Terror)?

>And if capturing OBL is so important because he causes

>terrorism, how is the failure to capture him Bush's fault?

>Since 9/11, there have been Al Qaeda attacks in Turkey, Saudi

>Arabia, Indonesia, Morocco, Jordan, Iraq and Spain, resulting

>in the deaths of enormous nubmers of citizens from those

>countries and others, most prominently Australia.

Between the Since and the , you wrote the answer to your question

>Why aren't the leaders of those countries responsible for

>capturing OBL? How could anyone say that Bush has the blood

>of the Madrid victims on his hands because he didn't capture

>OBL when none of these other countries did either? How truly

>fucking stupid.

How nice to see you attack the issue and not the person. I thought you Republcians were fine with the idea of us being the world's police force? Why aren't the leaders of countires wronged by Saddam Hussein responsible for removing him from power? Why did we have to do that when Saddam has never attacked our country and more importantly did no possess the capability to do so?

My heart goes out to any victim, of any nationality who has to die at the hands of fanatical nationalist and/or religious terrorists and dictators. What about the English and Irish at the hands of the IRA, the Germans and Italians at the hands of the Red Brigade, the Spanish at the hands of the Basque separtists, the Palestinians at the hands of Israel, the Israelis at the hands of the Palestinians, the back and forth slaughter between Pakistan and India, the Serbs and Bosnians, Chechens and Soviets, China, North Korea, El Salvador, Liberia, Cambodia ad nauseum and ad nauseum?

IMO, HB is right, the whole damned world seems to be gripped in a self-destructive act of genocide. Sounds a whole lot like the Book of Revelations to me. Maybe some huge warships from another planet will come along and blow up the whole fucking big blue marble!

RE: Polling

>Do you really not recognize the extent to which you think and

>speak in cliches:

Nothing wrong with cliches. They're the easiest way of getting simple ideas into the heads of idiots.

>And anyone who thinks that capturing

>Osama bin Laden will end terrorism or even significantly

>diminish it understands the world in Disney terms - like if

>you capture the big bad guy, the world lives in peace. Just

>inane.

I agree. That's why I thought it was so stupid when Bush told the nation that our goal is to get Osama "dead or alive."

>Why aren't the leaders of those countries responsible for

>capturing OBL?

Because those countries lack the economic and military power to get Pakistan to allow them to send troops into Pakistan to chase Osama around the countryside, that's why. Bush had to give the Pakistani dictator Musharraf $500 million borrowed from our Social Security Trust Fund to get him to let our troops in.

So we are now spending a fortune chasing Osama, a tyrant we once supported and who has now turned on us, and we are supporting another tyrant, Musharraf, whose own people hate him because he's viewed as our puppet and whose people will probably turn on us the minute they manage to get rid of him. What a great policy!

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

Spain to legalise gay unions

Ben Townley, Gay.com UK

Friday 19 March, 2004 11:41 | More from this date | Today's headlines

The incoming Spanish Prime Minister has announced that he will oversee the introduction of civil union legislation for same-sex couples.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who won the country's elections with a surprise majority last week, says the unions will not be called marriage, but will give similar rights to those currently received by heterosexual couples.

"We are going to present a bill to set gay unions on the same footing as marriage," Zapatero said in a TV interview.

"From a semantic point of view marriage may be a concept that does not cover this type of union, but it will have the same legal effects."

He was unable to give a time frame for the introduction of the new legislation, but its announcement has come as a shock for the staunchly Catholic country.

Zapatero's Socialist Party had expressed interest in unions at the start of the election campaign. They told voters that they would work to reduce discrimination against lesbians and gay people, as well as increase the legal standing of long term same-sex relationships.

The comments, made in January this year, angered the then Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and the ruling Popular Party, which called on Catholic voters to back them.

Additionally, the head of the country's Church, Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, stepped into the fray to claim the promise of equality is an "outrage" because gay families are "incapable by nature of having children". He added that such suggestions would precipitate the "collapse of the social security system".

Since coming to power last week, Zapatero has announced a string of big changes, including pulling Spanish forces out of Iraq, unless the United Nations takes over the country's management.

The war in Iraq was unpopular in the country and led to large protests in Madrid and Barcelona, but was supported by Aznar.

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

>Spain to legalise gay unions

So what?

If I thought that the Spanish were guilty of appeasing terrorists would the fact that their new government is legalizing gay unions change my mind? To suggest that it would or should is to suggest that gay men are every bit as self-centered and myopic in their view of the world as homophobes would like everyone to believe. Please grow up.

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

>>Spain to legalise gay unions

>

>So what?

>

>If I thought that the Spanish were guilty of appeasing

>terrorists would the fact that their new government is

>legalizing gay unions change my mind? To suggest that it

>would or should is to suggest that gay men are every bit as

>self-centered and myopic in their view of the world as

>homophobes would like everyone to believe. Please grow up.

Oh my God, I was going to respond to that juvenile post about gay unions in Spain by saying exactly what Woodlawn said above, and then saw that Woodlawn already wrote a post saying exactly that. This is still further proof that I do sometimes post here under the name "Woodlawn," as so many posters here have insightfully uncovered.

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

I'm constantly fascinated by the comments of people like Dougie and Woodie, who don't seem to have a clue about what people in other countries may actually think, feel and believe! I assume they think that the universe ends at the borders of the U.S. (or maybe of their own villages). They certainly show no signs of understanding that different peoples may actually believe different things!

As for the civil union proposal by the new Spanish prime minister, it isn't exactly a surprise. The more progressive regional governments of Spain have been moving forward in this direction during the past ten years, and it was only a matter of time before Aznar's Opus Dei Party was booted out of office and the national government also took up the issue. I'm sure the Catholic hierarchy is having apoplexy, but as in much of Europe the Church has lost much of its own influence, and this kind of invective won't help the Church regain its former influence. Not to mention that the shade of blue those churchmen turn in their fits of fury goes SO badly with the hot pink of their vestments! And Spaniards are drop-dead fashionable, if nothing else!

Meanwhile, Dougie and Woodlawn also are clueless about "appeasement" by the new Spanish government. The new government hasn't threatened to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq because that's what Al Qaeda wants. It's doing that because it's what the Spanish people want. Nearly 90% of them consistently opposed Spain's involvement in the Iraq war, and have been furious at Aznar for dragging the country into a war that such a vast majority opposed. But, in typically autocratic manner (Aznar represents the party that is the heir to the Franco dictatorship) he went right ahead, essentially saying "fuck you" to his electorate. Evidently he forgot that (unlike his buddy Bush) he was ELECTED to office and, in a parliamentary democracy, could be UNELECTED! Oops! The train bombings on 3/11 were just the straw that broke the camel's back. And the straw wasn't so much the bombing itself (which shocked the nation to its foundation) as Aznar's lying and manipulation to try to get everyone to believe that ETA was responsible, and not Arab terrorism. As a people only recently rid of a hateful dictatorship, Spaniards are highly attuned to behavior that looks autocratic and dictatorial, which is exactly the way Aznar was behaving immediately before the election. The Spanish voters, thank goodness, showed the world that they aren't manipulable fools and sent the Aznar crowd packing.

As for supporting democracy, Spain could teach the U.S. a few lessons. The day after the attacks ONE QUARTER of the nation's entire population was in the streets (some 11 million people) from one end of the country to the other, in solidarity with the victims, in rejection of terrorism, and in support of Spain's democratic constitution. When was the last time anything remotely similar happened in the U.S.? Not even after 9/11 was there such a civic outpouring in the U.S. In last Sunday's election, 75% of the eligible voters cast ballots, in large part as a message to the terrorists that NOTHING, including their bombs, can bring down Spain's democracy. Compare that to voter turnout in the U.S. Spain also offers its people inspiring democratic leadership in the person of King Juan Carlos I and the rest of its royal family, some of the most vibrant (and brilliantly well-written) press in the world today, and a kind of unity and pride in their nation and culture (in spite of being a highly diverse country ethnically, culturally and linguistically) sadly lacking in the U.S. these days.

In comparison, Dougie and Woodie, American "democracy," with its appointed President and its current war based on lies and deceit hardly occupies the moral or democratic high ground these days.

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

>I'm constantly fascinated by the comments of people like

>Dougie and Woodie, who don't seem to have a clue about what

>people in other countries may actually think, feel and

>believe! I assume they think that the universe ends at the

>borders of the U.S. (or maybe of their own villages). They

>certainly show no signs of understanding that different

>peoples may actually believe different things!

You are truly one of the most primitive and inane liberal caricatures I have ever encountered. Every stereotype of a psuedo-intellectual, cliche-spewing, U.S.-hating leftist oozes out of every post you write here. You think that because you moved to Rio in order to get as much Brazilian prostitute cock as you can makes you somehow bohemian and worldly. To describe your self-glorifying delusions is to illustrate their stupidity.

You have no idea how much I have travelled or what my exposure is to other countries and cultures. You have just convinced yourself that anyone who doesn't share your extreme leftist view of the world must, for that reason alone, be uneducated, isolated, provincial and dumb. That is the very definition of a bigoted viewpoint -- "anyone who disagrees with me politically is dumb and ethnocentric" -- and you exemplify bigotry in its purest form.

Worse, you are one of the most intellectually dishonest individuals I have ever had the misfortune of smelling on the Internet. You continuously spew the lie that Bush wasn't elected, but instead, was appointed, even though it has been proven conclusively by every major liberal media outlet that you worship that Bush would have been declared the winner in Florida EVEN IF the U.S. Supreme Court had affirmed, rather than reversed, the Florida Supreme Court's re-count order and that re-count had proceeded.

Simiarly, you keep saying that Anzar lost because 90% of the population opposed his war in Iraq, even though you know full well, because I and others recently pointed out to you, that Anzar's party was predicted by all polls to win before the 3/11 attacks. You say that the Spanish people voted for the Socialists because they were angry about being deceived rather than because they feared more attacks, even though you have no possible way of knowing what actaully motivated the Spanish to change their minds and vote against Anzar's party in light of the attacks.

That's because you don't care about facts or anything else other than trying to show yourself and others that you are more sensitive and internationalist and pseudo-sophisticated than they are. I know you will think that I am only saying this because I disagree with you or because you said bad things about me, but you shouldn't be so dismissive of it because it is just so true: you are a totally mediocre platitude who does nothing but spews the things you read in the Conventional Media Organs that you proudly said you read (NYT, CNN, BBC - WOW! what an intellect!) and then come here and mistake your mimicry for sophisticated, bohemian, worldly analysis.

As I said, you are a walking caricature of the mediocre, propagandized leftist who walks around thinking that your hated of the U.S. and worship of all things not-the-U.S. somehow makes you sophisticated and wise. It doesn't. It just makes you cliched and sad. And chasing Brazilian cock around the dirty depths of bathhouses until you croak - which is, unquestionably, your only destiny and "future" - doesn't make you any more exotic or interesting. It just likely makes you more disesaed. Or, at least, one can hope.

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

Got that little spew out of your system now? Or do you need another dose of ipecac?

Let's see: my sources of news come from countries in two hemispheres, in at least three different languages. Yours come straight from Rush Limbaugh? The RNC? Pat Robertson?

As for your international exposure, your postings here and in other threads expose you for the nativist ignoramus you really are. With respect to Spain, you wouldn't know paella from pulpo. Your assertions about the polling in Spain are absurd. First of all, polls have been know to lie, or just to be wrong or flawed. Second, polls don't elect public officials. Elections do. Third, my references to what influenced Spanish voters come directly from reading the Spanish-language press and watching hours of Televisión Española, which was on the air virtually round-the-clock with reporting on the bombing, its aftermath, and the elections. Public opposition in Spain to the country's involvement was a constant factor throughout the past year. In and of itself it may not have been enough to defeat the PP, but coupled with the bombings (which realized the worst fears of Spaniards that Aznar's adventure was going to make their country LESS secure, rather than more so) and the lying/manipulation, public opinion evidently crystalized against Aznar and the PP. 75% of the eligible voters turned out, and the margin of difference between the victorious PSOE and the PP was one your clay idol, the Shruboid, can only dream about and masturbate over! This analysis is basically what the Spanish press itself reports in the aftermath of the election.

As for being an appointed president, that's what Bush IS. NOBODY, including the liberal media you love to quote when it suits you (like the Devil quoting Scripture) knows for sure what the results of the Florida vote would have been if the U.S. Supreme Court hadn't interrupted the process of determining the results by the State of Florida, which was diligently sorting through the issues and trying to resolve the matter, and declaring Bush the winner by fiat. After that, it didn't MATTER what the actual results of the election were. What would you be saying now if the recount had turned out in Gore's favor after the Supremes anointed Bush?

The fact is that the U.S. suffered a judicial coup d'etat, ironically by a Supreme Court that allegedly is a champion of states rights yet which grossly interfered in an issue long held to be the responsibility of the states. However, even if Bush had won the election in Florida, by the numbers suggested by the media review of the election, he would still have been a MINORITY PRESIDENT who was roundly beaten in the popular vote by Al Gore. He had NO mandate at all, yet he's tried to lead the country into a gigantic reactionary counter-revolution and has had the great good luck of the 9/11 attacks and then his smoke-and-mirrors war in Iraq to be able to carry out his scurrilous program under the radar screen while people's attention has been focused elsewhere. Evidently you hoped that the same tactics would work in Spain, but the Spanish voters, thank G-d, are not as dumb or apathetic as their American counterparts. They saw through the falsehoods and gave Aznar and the PP what they deserved. G-d willing, the American voters will realize the danger they're in and do the same to Bush in November. Then you can just crawl back into your hole and sulk, while the rest of us try to get on with the job of rebuilding the U.S. and trying to create a more secure world. Bush's policies have demonstrably NOT worked. Whether Kerry would do better is open to debate, but at least he's an intelligent man with real experience in war and it's extremely doubtful he could do WORSE than Bush, who has to be the dimmest intellect to occupy the White House in living memory. (Maybe ever!)

Oh, and by the way, the saunas in Brazil have newspapers and cable TV with the international news channels in their lounges. So even in their depths, I can manage to stay well informed. More so than you in your cave. . . And unlike you, I can suck cock and listen to the news at the same time! :9

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

>Meanwhile, Dougie and Woodlawn also are clueless about

>"appeasement" by the new Spanish government.

Is it because of your poor reading comprehension skills that you had to drop out of law school? Any person with normal reading comp skills who reads my posts in this thread will have no difficulty figuring out that I have argued AGAINST the notion that the Spanish people are "appeasing" anyone by voting out the Aznar government.

What Doug and I DO agree about in this thread is the absurdity of suggesting that one's opinion of the Zapatero government's position on Iraq should be determined by whether they support gay unions.

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

>Any person with normal

>reading comp skills who reads my posts in this thread will

>have no difficulty figuring out that I have argued AGAINST the

>notion that the Spanish people are "appeasing" anyone by

>voting out the Aznar government.

My reading skills are actually pretty good, even if my neurons occasionaly go pfffft! I re-read the threads and you're right. Sorry, Woodie, for lumping you in with Dougie on the appeasement issue. You did say exactly the opposite.

>What Doug and I DO agree about in this thread is the absurdity

>of suggesting that one's opinion of the Zapatero government's

>position on Iraq should be determined by whether they support

>gay unions.

Well, I wouldn't link the two issues, either! But I'm certainly pleased that Zapatero's views on both issues are much more in line with my own than are either Aznar's or Bush's!

By the way, I've never seen anyone discuss it, but in Spanish "Aznar" looks and sounds very much like it could mean "donkey pasture" or "place where they keep/raise asses." His behavior certainly was in keeping, at times! Anybody have any etymological thoughts on this?

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

Trilingual:

I'm sorry, but I couldn't let your unfair statements about Doug stand.

Doug doesn't live in a cave, and he has vast cross-cultural experiences. His life in the trailer park, and his regular attendance at tractor pulls exposes him to the the culturally elite, at least in his mind. Unfortunately, the subtleties tend to fly right over his head. His spelling is quite sloppy, as he typically botches the names of people and places. I guess he doesn't consider them important enough to try to be accurate (current case in point: it's Aznar, not Anzar, Dougie). I'm sure if we could here is squeeky geeky voice, we'd probably here him say "nook-ya-lur", which is just his way of emulating his idol Dubya.

You are correct in saying that Bush is the dumbest motherfucker to ever hold the office of president, he makes Ronald Reagan look like a Rhodes scholar in comparison.

Dougie is very secretive about his sex life, but reliable sources say he bottoms for an inflatable Rush Limbaugh doll. Unfortunately for him, one of his old hound dogs bit off the doll's pecker, and the duct tape he had been stockpiling at the suggestion of the Department of Homeland Security wouldn't stop the air from leaking out. As a result, Dougie stays in a foul mood, and can only get an erection when he's violating the message center rules that say posters should attack the issue and not the person.

As much as Dougie considers himself superior to all others here and elsewhere, he won't be able to resist a reply. He never can.

By the way Dougie, why is your spelling so bad? Is spelling not a part of the GED exam these days? From the looks of your spelling inaccuracies, I doubt you got much further then that in your academic pursuits.

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

>I'm sure if we could here is squeeky geeky

>voice, we'd probably here him say "nook-ya-lur", which is just

>his way of emulating his idol Dubya.

Dougie and Dubya, why don't we have a same sex marriage in the Crawford Texas trailerpark?

"All bow to King George2 and Princess Dougie69"

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

LMFAO! You ACTUALLY have the AUDACITY to accuse Doug69 of attacking the person and not the issue, in violation of the rules of this site???? You are 1000 times more guilty of the violation of such stated rules than Doug69!!!!!!!!!!!

Why couldn't you respond to Doug69's more than logical point of view with a well-stated logical riposte? I can only assume it is because you are so full of hatred against others who disagree with your opinion???? As such, you have YET ONCE AGAIN!, responded with a vitriolic personal attack, because that is what your "type" does when confronted with facts that you can not logically dispute!!!

I'm a Democrat, I'm a liberal, but I ABSOULTELY CAN NOT STAND people like you, who purport to speak for all Democrats. Advocation of hatred and violence against others who disagree, imho, is not a principle of the Democratic Party, and once again, imho, we don't need you and your fellow hate spewing, intolerant fucks polluting the Party!

IMHO, Doug69 deserves a hell of a lot more respect than a hate-mongering person like you, even if he is 180 degrees opposite politically! You, imho, are A DISGRACE TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!!!!

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

Thanks for taking the time to write about me again, Bucky. I'd like to be able to say I will return the favor soon, but I could not conceive of any event in life that would cause me to take time from it to write a post about something as irrelevant and inconsequential as you. It's flattering, though, that you don't feel the same way about me.

There has been, and is still, a long-standing and well-known precept on Internet discussion boards that when one poster wishes to say something disparaging about another poster, but can't find anything meaningful, interesting, substantive, or worthwhile to say, the empty poster will resort to the Last Refuge of the Desperate: talking about the poster's spelling errors.

I see the wave of excitement and effort which generated your post written entirely about me ("I'm really going to give it to Doug this time!!!," he said, with seething rage), not the first time you have taken time from your life to write about me (and, by the way, shouldn't the fact that I never cared enough about BuckyXTC to write a whole post about you tell you something about the respective importance we have in each other's lives?). And yet, despite all this effort and rage, all you could muster was a handful of spelling errors and some of the tritest entries from the Book of 101 Interent Insults (I live in a trailer park - how scathing and insightful and hurtful!). It's right up there with "I think you forget to take your meds today" or "he's sitting in his mother's basement typing." Did you forget to include those?

Given that these painfully petty and cliched insults were all you could dribble out of your keyboard, don't you see why it is that no rational person could take what you wrote about me as anything other than a compliment?

>Doug doesn't live in a cave, and he has vast cross-cultural

>experiences. His life in the trailer park, and his regular

>attendance at tractor pulls exposes him to the the culturally

>elite, at least in his mind.

Gee, isn't the notion that anyone who rejects liberalism must be a drooling illiterate trailer-park resident exactly the sort of bigoted, steroetyped insult which liberals pretend they find offensive? Of course it is, but liberals are good and pure, so their bigotry is always excusable and even just.

>I'm sure if we could here is squeeky geeky

>voice, we'd probably here him say "nook-ya-lur", which is just

>his way of emulating his idol Dubya.

Yes, my idol is Dubya, the same person I've repeatedly said I would never vote for. Translation of Bucky: "My mind is too stifled and simplistic to grasp the concept that if someone doesn't echo the liberal party line over and over, it must mean that they are Sean Hannity. Stop trying to make me think that there are more than 2 options possible. My mind can't accomodate any more."

>You are correct in saying that Bush is the dumbest

>motherfucker to ever hold the office of president, he makes

>Ronald Reagan look like a Rhodes scholar in comparison.

What a coincidence that liberals think that the last 2 conservative Presidents are stupid. I'm sure that's just a big coincidence and has nothing to do with their ideology.

>As a result, Dougie stays in

>a foul mood, and can only get an erection when he's violating

>the message center rules that say posters should attack the

>issue and not the person.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As VaHawk pointed out - really in an excercise of observing the self-evident - Bucky writes a whole post that is about nothing other than me personally, and does so in the most disparaging way that he can conjure (which ain't much). IN THE VERY SAME POST, he then complains about violations of the message center rules that prohibit attacks on the person. This is why I come back to this Board - you see types of human behavior here that you can't really witness anywhere else.

>By the way Dougie, why is your spelling so bad? Is spelling

>not a part of the GED exam these days? From the looks of your

>spelling inaccuracies, I doubt you got much further then that

>in your academic pursuits.

I can certainly understand that if someone has no source of self-esteem in their lives, they will sieze on the fact that they stick their posts into some Word Processor program before posting on a prostitution board as a basis for believing that they are smart.

And I feel a little slimed by sinking to your level of sadness by even saying what I am about to say, and I also now I am about to make you this offer this with complete futility - because screetching loudmouths like you who run around the Internet making definitive statements despite knowing nothing about what you are talking about will never back up what you say when given the chance (just ask BoN, who for months run around insisting that I was FFF but refusing to take my bet about it) - but here it is anyway: anyone time you would like to wager something substantial on who between us has the more advanced educational achievements, you know where to find me. I will not be holding my breath.

Personally, I don't find the level of a person's educational achievements to be reflective of their intellect, as I know plenty of smart, uneducated people and even more stupid, highly educated ones. But you obviously think it's an important barometer, so whenever you are ready to test whether or not the statement you made about mine is true, just let me know and we can easily find out.

RE: Now how does appeasement look to you?

>Sorry, Woodie, for lumping you in with Dougie on the

>appeasement issue. You did say exactly the opposite.

Okay.

>By the way, I've never seen anyone discuss it, but in Spanish

>"Aznar" looks and sounds very much like it could mean "donkey

>pasture"

I don't see what that has to do with anything. I know little of Aznar and I don't know why he decided to back Bush on Iraq. Surely it is not a matter of simple Right-versus-Left ideology, since a center-right president in France and a socialist chancellor in Germany joined forces to oppose Bush on this issue.

If the Spanish people feel that invading Iraq has little or nothing to do with their concerns about terrorism, I find it hard to argue with that. With the recent revelations from Paul O'Neill and now Richard Clark, it seems more and more as though Bush has been trying to come up with an excuse to attack Iraq since long before 9/11. The whole thing reminds me of his tax cut policy. During the campaign he said we needed a tax cut because it was wrong for government to retain a large surplus. After the campaign and with the economy slowing he said we needed a tax cut to stimulate growth. When it appeared we might face a major oil price hike in 2001 he said we needed a tax cut to help people pay for gas. No matter what happens he says it's a reason to cut taxes. The same seems to be true with Iraq.

or "place where they keep/raise asses." His behavior

>certainly was in keeping, at times! Anybody have any

>etymological thoughts on this?

>

RE: Look HEAR, Bucky

>His spelling is quite

>sloppy, as he typically botches the names of people and

>places. I guess he doesn't consider them important enough to

>try to be accurate (current case in point: it's Aznar, not

>Anzar, Dougie). I'm sure if we could here is squeeky geeky

>voice, we'd probably here him say "nook-ya-lur", which is just

>his way of emulating his idol Dubya.

There was someone here who recently pointed out how much the God of the Internet must entertain himself by making absolutely sure that there is always - and I mean 100% of the time - some egregious, horrible spelling mistake or awful illiteracy in any post which is written by someone to ridicule the spelling of other people. It is ALWAYS the case that the person who writes a post mocking other's errors manages to include an error in the mocking post which is way more embarrassing and stupid than anything they are mocking.

And look what we have here, Bucky - this absolutely reliable principle strikes again. You go on and on about how I am a poor speller and therefore am uneducated and live in a trailer park and attend tractor pulls. You then express the wish "to here" my voice.

Now, certain things, like my spelling of Aznar, are clearly spelling errors, and while regrettable, they are really quite insignificant. But confusing two extremely basic words such as "here" and "hear" - for no reason other than that they sound alike - is a sign of some serious literacy problems. It's been a while in since I've been in the Second Grade, but isn't that where they teach that words can sound alike even though they are different?

You may want to take the time you spend writing posts about other people's spelling errors and find an editor to delete all of the illiteracies in your own post. This is particularly good advice when writing posts which have the only purpose of mocking the spelling of others. Because it's difficult to imagine anything more humiliating than writing such a post and exposing your own ignorance of such basic rules of the language.

Then again, perhaps the best advice is to simply recognize that when you want to say insulting things about another poster, but your brain is incapable of producing anything more substantive or interesting than a few spelling errors made by the poster, it is far better to quietly accept your limitations and not speak than it is to speak and reveal your limitations to the world.

RE: Iraq and Al Qaeda

>Al Qaeda obviously understands that our success in Iraq will

>be a huge blow to its goals, which is exactly why they're

>trying to prevent it. How ironic that so many people in this

>country try to deny the link that Al Qaeda so clearly

>recognizes.

I think there is one more point that should be made about this link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and I invite Doug's comments on it.

I'd agree that making Iraq a prosperous, democratic nation could sap the strength of the Islamist movement and thereby lessen support for Al Qaeda. If people elsewhere in the region see that the Iraqis can have prosperity and democracy at least some of them will start asking why they can't have it too, and that attitude is not compatible with the objectives of the Islamists, who preach that a nation's well-being can be insured only by strict adherence to Islamic traditions. The point is to create a positive alternative to Islamism, whereas at present the only alternative is a group of secular regimes that have delivered neither prosperity nor democracy. Anyone who listens to the pronouncements of prominent neocons like Perle and Wolfowitz has long been aware that they view this as the central reason for removing Saddam following 9/11.

My question is, why couldn't the same thing have been achieved by bringing prosperity and democracy to the Afghans? That is what Bush promised before the Afghan war, and since the defeat of the Taliban he has simply let that project languish in favor of the attack on Iraq. He has allowed the country to relapse into rule by warlords who are both tyrannical and corrupt, and who cannot be dislodged except by a concentration of forces that we do not have available in that country. In other words, attacking Iraq may be motivated by a desire to strike a blow against Islamism as a whole, but the same thing could have been achieved without another war.

RE: Iraq and Al Qaeda

It most certainly could have been done in Afghanistan, but as Richard Clarke is detailing, Shrubya was not interested in Afgahnistan, only Iraq. Remember, it wasn't an Afghani that tried to do in Poppy.

http://img.coxnewsweb.com/C/02/82/70/image_570822.gif

Blah, blah, blah.

Face it. The end of the world is near.

I came to Boston on the Acela just to show 'em I'm not scared.

(The only unfortunate thing about the Train in Spain blowing up on the plain, was that Courtney Love was not on it.)

The show is over folks. Enjoy the rest of the ride while you can and quit blaming people. Charlton Heston said it so many years ago: So it is written, so shall it be done. Or was that Yul Brenner?

No matter. Quit the silly bickering.

Have fun.

Mrs. Yahoo.

THE END.

__

The above written as a regular guy, not the owner of a website and has no official meaning, just unofficial BS.)

__

--garbo the hoo

RE: Iraq and Al Qaeda

>I think there is one more point that should be made about this

>link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and I invite Doug's comments

>on it.

Doug graciously accepts your kind invitation.

>I'd agree that making Iraq a prosperous, democratic nation

>could sap the strength of the Islamist movement and thereby

>lessen support for Al Qaeda. If people elsewhere in the

>region see that the Iraqis can have prosperity and democracy

>at least some of them will start asking why they can't have it

>too, and that attitude is not compatible with the objectives

>of the Islamists, who preach that a nation's well-being can be

>insured only by strict adherence to Islamic traditions.

I don't see how anyone can deny this. Indeed, it is already happening. There are increasing reports of dissident activities against the Baathist regime in Syria, as well as heightened democratic agitation in Iran, with numerous participants citing the activities in Iraq as inspiration. The LAST THING which Al Qaeda and their ilk wants are nations in the Muslim Middle East adopting Western-style democracies. The more successful we are in this regard, the more we undermine Al Qaeda, its recruitment efforts, and the level of support.

ALSO - as you, Woodlawn, frequently point out, a huge reason why there is so much intense anti-Americanism in that region is because our Government has, for decades, supported and propped up the most oppressive dictatorships imaginable. Reversing that trend - as we did in Iraq, by destroying the most brutal dictatorship in that region, which we previously supported - is absolutely vital to changing the perception of the United States among Muslims in that region.

>My question is, why couldn't the same thing have been achieved

>by bringing prosperity and democracy to the Afghans?

I think your point is valid in theory. Afghanistan is a country of Muslims, so if the goal is to overthrow a tryannical regime and replace it with a democratic one, why did we need the war in Iraq - why not just do that in Afghanistan.

There are, I think, lots of practical reasons why Afghanistan would not work nearly as effectively as Iraq to achieve this goal:

(1) In terms of civic institutions, infrastructure, resources, the general literacy and civiliations levels of the populations, etc., Iraq is miles and miles and miles ahead of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is an extraordinarly fractured, primitive, broken country, and has been for decades. By contrast, Iraq, although ruled for 30 years by a tyrant, has a much more advanced social and educational system. It is also the beneficiary of vast oil reserves which can provide a necessary financial oil for the enginge of rebuilding that country.

In other words, as hard as it is to create a prosperous democracy in Iraq, it is infinitely harder - maybe outright impossible - to do so in Afghanistan.

(2) Iraq is far, far more important to the Muslim world than Afghanistan ever has been. This is true not just for geographical reasons (Iraq is literally in the heart of the Middle East, not straddling the periphery), but also, more importantly, for historical ones.

Many Muslims see Iraq, accurately, as Mesopotamia, the seat of the Caliphate and the heart of Islam for centuries. Other then Mecca, I don't think there is any place with as much significance and influence for Muslims as Iraq. They pay far more attention, and are far more influenced, by what takes place in Iraq than what takes place in Afghanistan.

(3) It wasn't merely necessary to overthrown a dictator in the Middle East. It was necesasry to overthrow one who was seen as formidible - to show that the U.S. was willing to devote serious resources to bringing democracy to that region and, most importantly, to show Muslims in that region that no dictator was invulnerable.

Having us drive out the Taliban with the Northern Alliance as our proxy was not particularly impressive. But humiliating and destroying Saddam Hussein so thoroughly - who was perceived in the Middle East to be a formidible military threat - demonstrated to the Muslims in that region that no tyrant is so great that he can't be overthrown. That's why what we did in Iraq is giving courage to the dissidents in Syria and Iran - overthrowing a ragtag bunch of Afghans driving around in pick-up trucks doesn't make the point nearly as effectively.

(4) I think it is critically important that the U.S. not just overthrow a dictator but overthrow one whom we previously supported. We never supported the Taliban, so overthrowing that regime did not achieve that objective. But we did previously allign oureselves with Saddam, and so overthrowing him and replacing him with a democratically elected government can be cited to argue, credibly, that the U.S. is abandoning its prior practice, prevalent in every Administration of both parties, of supporting dictatorships in that region when it suits us. We still have a ways to go in that regard (see, e.g., Saudi Arabi and Egypt), but this is a very good start.

Having said all of that, I have no doubt that the Bush Administration's hellbent resolve to wage war on Iraq was motivated by lots of other factors unrelated to this one, some of which were legitimate, some of which were not. But in terms of the specific goal of undermining Al Qaeda by creating a democractic system in a crucial Muslim nation, I do not think that Afghanistan would have been nearly as valuable as Iraq was for these reasons.