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In Reply to: Re: This is what I mean - the details matter to me posted by not impressed on April 11, 2003 at 08:06:50:
I don't thihk you're talking out of your ass. Not everything you said was rhetoric. Some of it was.
"Rhetoric" is not my favorite discredit buzz word, sorry it's become that way.
What you said was pasive was not passive. "Rhetoric is a favorite word used these days to discredit people" would have been passive.
Funny how you think of "Some people buy into the mass-consumption stuff Bush throws out." as pure rhetoric. It wasn't. It was an observation from my perpective that audiences cheer and applaud when he speaks, while I have a hard time keeping a straight face. Maybe I have a twisted sense of humor, but I can't take him seriously, forgive me.
No, so you don't have to take it personally and accuse me of getting my info from the tabloids either. Sorry it turned out that way.
I already said the $ figure didn't matter in the sense that it was still supprting terrorism, but I guess I need to repeat that here.
The present nation state of Israel was formed in 1948. Saddam came to power with the Baath party in 1958. Iraq went to the Soviets to get armed, so it could stand against British designs on their territory. Yes, Saddam supported terrorism, but in 1982, Ronald Reagan took Iraq off the list of countries supporting terrorism, because it was fighting Iran. The US was already aware chemical warfare was used against the Iranians throughout the Reagan adminsitration which ended in 1988. When the Iran/Iraq war ended, Bush sr. came in on the Republican platform, and continued the policies of Reagan, up until the invasion of Kuwait, when things abruptly changed for Saddam.
Again it wasn't rhetoric, it is a proven historical fact that war unites congress and ups the polls. Look into Gallup, Newsweek, etc. Will you buy into it if university studies came up with that result too, or is that now part of the European liberal socialist movement and probably flawed in some way to show American presidents might have discovered and used this phenomenon?
Reading your points about Clinton, you'd never think he took any military action, but if you check he did order air strikes on Iraq several times in the no-fly zones, he did order military action in other states as well. He wasn't just a Hollywood suck up, but was pretty knowledgeable in the subjects about which he spoke. Granted, he was also slick: "I have never broken the laws of this country, (only the laws of the UK when I smoked dope)", "I have never had sex with that woman, (oral sex is not sex, and I used a cigar)" I know you're all serious and everything, but I laugh at all this coming from the president f the USA, and I don't think it' weakenng my moral fiber or something. ( I do agree he was fucked up in many ways, OK?)
I agree with you about "fluff today being passed off as sound reasoning", and coming from the "learned people who claim to be the elite and have the best critical thinking skills on the planet." I said before, I am my own thinker as much as I can help it. I don't get my info from one source or one typical source. I talk to Iraqi Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Israelis, UN people, Americans, Brits, Europeans, Russians, etc, and I try to pay attention to details and look behind the distractions of the news blitz.
Agree completely with "And details matter, yes, but it depends on what and whether the details are a product of spin or important pieces left out so as to make it sound one way or another."
If you find out any information about the UN embargos that I left out, please do share it with me, as I find all this very interesting, and I'm learning everyday.
Well I said before I could shut up. I'm ready to stop threatening everyone with my alternative views. I'm tired of this. But I thought you deserved a reply anyway.
What are you having for dinner tonight?
