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 : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kevin Rose who wrote (458781)	9/15/2003 12:58:43 AM
From: Dan B.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Re: "No admission" Well, that is sad, because the ATF did raid the home by land and air, as their first action, just as I said all along(and you incorrectly denied). Re: "Wrong. If an officer pulls you over, and thinks you are a menance, then he has every right (and duty) to arm himself." I agree, and so what? I didn't say otherwise, and wouldn't. Can't you distinguish between your example, and mine? Re: "Your 'offensive guns' is an odd statement; is there a difference between a 'defensive' gun and an 'offensive' gun? You are betraying your leanings with such statements." I don't know what leanings you think I'm betraying, but your analysis is odd considering that I actually wrote "offensive guns-drawn manner AND shooting first," as I recall. If your officer approaches my car SHOOTING at me, while talking later, I'm entitled to feel I'm dealing with a madman acting outside of the constitution(particularly if I know I'm innocent of having done or intending harm), and have a right to defend myself against him. You need to check what facts are known of this case, AND brush up on the laws of this country. Of course officers have the right to defend themselves when fired upon. Surely you noticed that when the officers quit shooting, the Davidians quit too! Why was that? Why DIDN'T they finish what they purportedly started(Logical answer: The ATF shot first - though this may never be known)? Re: "In negotiations with a madman who, as you admit, is 'holding hostages', you'll say what needs to be said to save lives." I didn't "admit" that Koresh was holding hostages, as you apparently fabricate above. Perhaps you culled that from one of the sources I've quoted, but not from me. Furthermore, if you think that pretending your men didn't have guns in the helicopters when your "madman" obviously saw otherwise, was a something said to save lives, I'm sure I'd hate to have you for a hostage negotiator in my town. Fact is, you don't know that Koresh killed himself and "all" his followers. In fact, he COULDN'T have killed all his followers, as children in there died from the Tear Gas the FBI filled the place with. That's just the sad reality, intentional or not, Tear Gas having been thought to be a reasonable substance to use in the circumstances or not. By the by, do you say they were Koresh followers? Or, were they followers turned unwilling hostages, who despite their "hostage" status never-the-less fired at the ATF agents without being shot at first, only to quit firing when the ATF quit firing? Do you have ANY evidence to back up your assertion that Koresh never had any intention of letting his people live? I think not. Dan B

To: Kevin Rose who wrote (458781)	9/15/2003 5:55:30 AM
From: GST	Respond to of 769670

Straw urged Blair not to go to war on Iraq, claims new book Sun Sep 14,12:48 PM ET LONDON (AFP) - Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a last-minute plea to Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) not to go to war on Iraq (news - web sites), but the plea was rejected, a new book serialised in the Mail on Sunday claims. According to the book, Straw sent a memo to the prime minister days before the conflict broke out in March, urging him to tell US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) that Britain would offer moral and political support, but no combat troops. But Blair rejected the advice, and demanded an assurance that Straw would support the war despite his reservations, says the book by political journalist John Kampfner, entitled "Blair's Wars", to be published on September 22. Neither the Foreign Office nor Blair's office would make any comment on the claim, saying only: "We have nothing to say about that." Straw is one of Blair's most loyal allies and was one of the staunchest supporters of the Iraq war in public, regularly appearing before the cameras to argue that it was the right course to take. According to excerpts in the right-wing Mail on Sunday, Kampfner's book also alleges that Blair had secretly agreed to go to war as early as April 2002, when he had a summit with Bush at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas. And it claims that Blair himself had doubts about intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction which formed the basis of his justification for war, and had received evidence that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s chemical and biological weapons capability was actually diminishing. According to Kampfner, Straw confronted the prime minister on his return from an eve-of-war summit with Bush in the Azores on March 16. He sent Blair a personal minute warning that going to war without an explicit United Nations (news - web sites) resolution would be damaging for Britain, the book says. Instead, Straw suggested Blair could offer to deploy British troops for peacekeeping and reconstruction work after the end of the conflict. But he was told his intervention had come too late and war was now certain. Kampfner, who is political editor of the New Statesman magazine, wrote that Blair asked Straw "to clarify whether or not he would support the war, now that it was definitely going to happen. "Straw said he would. They agreed to put the issue behind them. Having expressed his reservations and seen them rejected, Straw fell firmly into line, arguing the case for war with as much vigour as anyone else." The allegations in the book follow the revelation in a parliamentary report last week that Blair overruled advice from intelligence chiefs that war on Iraq could increase the likelihood of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists. story.news.yahoo.com