Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (168305)	4/22/2003 10:56:33 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572220

Neocons are more dangerous to the US than Saddam ever was. Saddam was a paper tiger. Neocons are threatening to reap their selfish rewards at the expense of everyone else, freeze our economy, damage our democracy and shatter our valuable friendships around the planet. They also couldn't give a damn about the environment, health or education. We let them have their war, even supported them, because they told us Saddam had WMD's and was an imminent danger. They used 9-11 to convince us. But they lied. And now they dont even have a post-war plan or anyone to police that huge country. And what about OR country? Will Bushies ever spend ten minutes worrying about us? 9-11 seems to have gone to their mad egos like some addictive drug. They are on their own dark high dreaming dreams people like Napoleon and Hitler dreamt. And now they want to try and blame Powell for their failures and stab him in the back. He was their only good fair man. I frankly think the White House has lost its collective mind. Either that of they're the most rabid pack of far right individuals to ever seize power in this country. Either way, they have to go.

To: i-node who wrote (168305)	4/22/2003 11:17:01 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572220

The NY Times Chest Banging, Here and There By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON — There's nothing scarier than conservatives in transports of social and political engineering. The Republicans strain to appear diffident in Iraq, not wanting to be cast as overbearing imperialists. (Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the new American viceroy, affects a Dockers look while meeting Arabs in jackets and ties.) The Bushies pretend that we don't want an all-access pass to Iraqi bases (we do); that we are not interested in influencing the disposition of Iraqi oil (we are); that we will stay out of Iraqi politics, even if they go fundamentalist (we won't); and that we will leave Iraq soon (we can't.) <Even as they stifle their Pax Americana impulses in Iraq, the imperialists swagger with a Pox Americana at home. Karl Rove has broken creative new ground in appalling political opportunism by pushing back the Republican national convention in New York City to September 2004, the latest date for a convention in the party's history and only days away from you-know-when. Mr. Rove envisions merging the Madison Square Garden party with the 9/11 anniversary commemorations into one big national security lollapalooza. Perhaps President Bush should just skip the pretense of the Garden and give his acceptance speech at ground zero. In another red-meat moment, Rick Santorum, the obnoxious Pennsylvania senator who is No. 3 in the G.O.P., equated homosexuality with incest, bigamy and polygamy. "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality," he told The A.P. "That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be." Even Mr. Santorum's old mentor, Newt Gingrich, felt emboldened to slither back on stage with a proposal to eviscerate the State Department. After vowing to reshape the American character when he became speaker in '94, Mr. Gingrich ultimately faced ethics questions and criticism for having an extramarital affair with a young Congressional aide after pushing for Bill Clinton's impeachment over his extramarital affair with a young White House aide. He stepped down in '98. The man who once depicted himself as an "Arouser of Those who Form Civilization" stepped back yesterday into a clash of civilizations between the Pentagon and the State Department. In remarks at the Temple of Triumphalism here (the American Enterprise Institute), Mr. Gingrich denounced Colin Powell's domain as a "broken bureaucracy of red tape and excuses" and demanded it be "transformed," like Rummy's. He attacked Mr. Powell for announcing that he would visit (rather than bomb) Damascus and for the prewar failure of diplomacy with Turkey — conveniently ignoring the fact that it was the Pentagon hawk Paul Wolfowitz who had tried and failed to talk turkey with Turkey. Rummy, who has taken on a Mars-like glow among carnivorous conservatives who crave more and more red meat, circulated a Kubrickian memo on North Korea, according to The Times's David Sanger. While Mr. Powell pressed for diplomatic talks in China to help de-escalate tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, Rummy's memo suggested that the U.S. and China gang up on the crazed Kim Jong Il to force a regime change. Even as the conservatives thump their chests in Washington, they have gotten a little nervous watching throngs of men flogging their chests bloody in Karbala. Their cooly rational schemes for establishing 18th-century-style democracy have run up against the 8th-century practices of Islam. The Bushies were unpleasantly surprised by the sudden muscularity of the Shiite clerics in southern Iraq. According to The Times's Douglas Jehl, Iranian-trained operatives have crossed into southern Iraq to help the Shiites who are demanding a state like Iran's. Administration officials have whispered other fears to reporters — that some of the weapons of mass destruction may have been removed to sell on the terrorism black market, accelerating the proliferation they had hoped to prevent. Or that Saddam loyalists are sneaking back into the government, waiting for the Americans, with their short attention spans, to pull out. As long as those Baathists haven't seen Americans triumphantly digging up Saddam's corpse, or his W.M.D., they can always hope.

To: i-node who wrote (168305)	4/22/2003 11:27:40 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572220

The NY Times THE IRAQIS As Baghdad Awaits Aid, Feeling Grows Against U.S. By JANE PERLEZ with MARC LACEY AGHDAD, Iraq, April 22 — Islamic religious passions long suppressed under Saddam Hussein escalated today in Karbala, a city holy to the country's majority Shiites, while here in the capital Iraqis awaited material help from the United States but were wary of American political influence. The leader of the interim United States civilian authority, Jay Garner, a retired lieutenant general, visited Kurdish strongholds in northern Iraq, including Sulaimaniya. He was welcomed with gratitude for the relief effort he led 12 years ago to help Kurds after Mr. Hussein crushed a 1991 uprising in the region.But with security still only marginal in large parts of the country and even in some neighborhoods in Baghdad, some of General Garner's American subordinates were unable to travel to Baghdad today to start work on the reconstruction of the country. Iraqi workers in Baghdad were left to try to straighten out their bombed and looted offices, but there was little they could do.Some aid from neighboring countries began trickling in, and at the United Nations in New York, France unexpectedly proposed that "civilian sanctions" imposed against Mr. Hussein's government be suspended.President Bush called last week for an end to United Nations sanctions, but today Russia made clear that it would support lifting them only if United Nations arms inspectors were allowed back into Iraq to check for banned weapons. The Bush administration said it saw no need for the quick return of the inspectors. The political uncertainty and turbulence were strongest today in Iraq's restive south, where beneath the religious frenzy of a holy day ran an undercurrent of political maneuvering by various religious groups competing for control of Iraq's Shiites. The religious rivals are united on one point: their opposition to American influence in Iraqi affairs.In the cities of Najaf and Basra, as well as in Karbala, Iran has planted agents to promote friendly Shiite clerics and advance Iranian interests, according to defense and other United States government officials. In Baghdad today, there was a sense of expectation mixed with unease as employees of the former government waited for the American help they had been promised. At the 12-story Ministry of Health, the managers of the public health services have been cleaning up after looters for the last four days, and waiting. In general, the civil service professionals interviewed today said they were skeptical of American intentions, and in some cases there were expressions of hostility. Most were angry at the United States military for failing to protect their buildings from looting. They were astonished, they said, that the Oil Ministry had been so heavily protected by the American military while others were left unprotected and ransacked by the looters.Some blamed the United States for the destruction of the very institutions that the Americans are supposed to help restart. "The Americans want to stay the longest period of time possible; they want to sell their goods and services," said Ghassan Abda Razak al-Obaidy, a dentist who had rushed to the empty Health Ministry for advice on finding treatment for his wounded wife. "It's a war of money." "Freedom is the only thing I've touched," he added. "I have to eat. I have to treat my wife." On the 11th floor of the Health Ministry, computers had been stripped from desks, fax machines were gone, and files were strewn across the floors. Black and white portraits of Mr. Hussein as a young man still hung above the desks. Despite the havoc, Dr. Naira Alwaqafi, 60, the head of maternal child health, said she and her colleagues would prefer to revive things themselves. They need practical help: security, computers and fax links, she said, but they did not want an American overlord." We have done our job in a good manner during the sanctions," she said. "There was no health catastrophe because of our efforts." Dr. Alwaqafi said an army officer, Maj. Joseph Bird, who visited on Monday, had promised to "support and not take over."Did she and her colleagues believe him?"I don't know," replied Dr. Nawar Majid Abawi, the director of the immunization programs. She said she was most concerned about a breakdown in the polio prevention campaign because of the war.