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To: abstract who wrote (60140)	12/24/2003 1:42:12 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

First point..... 'It isn't so much the "factual" accuracy of your statements, as much as you have facts and I have opinions. You have a political ideology. I have ideas." And that has not been lost on me at all. In fact it's quite revealing. I form my opinions by first analyzing as many facts on issues, etc, as possible. With political opinions, I read speeches, listen to positions from all sides & read a wide assortment of views & reactions to the issues, events, etc. I consider facts & accuracy to be paramount when doing so. Dishonesty, inaccuracy, lies & deceit will quickly turn me off. Why? Because I do not have an inflexible political ideology, contrary to your faulty assertion. I am willing to change my opinion as time & events unfold. I do not pledge my allegiance to politicians or political ideologies. The more truthful, honest & accurate a politician turns out to be, the more I am willing to listen to & seriously consider their POV. Those who turn out to be consistently partisan, deceitful & dishonest earn my most sincere contempt. And I won't defend an indefensible political ideology when time & events expose it to be wrong. I have noted that you & others have opinions too. However most of what I see from the more left leaning crowd are sweeping generalities along with vague assumptions, yet few specifics or factual evidence is offered to support these "opinions". What few assertions that have been made have been thoroughly refuted with factually accurate rebuttals from me in our discussions. Yet, it sure seems to me that you are sure I am wrong in spite of, "the "factual" accuracy of (my) statements", because, as you have so eloquently stated, you "have ideas".

To: abstract who wrote (60140)	12/24/2003 2:01:43 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

Next point....... "I want to have a discussion. You want to "challenge" me. I have "inappropriate perceptions." You "accurately label a person." You have a "plethora of factual information."" I must disagree. We have been having a discussion. Perhaps it is more of a debate. I have challenged what I see are inaccuracies, false assumptions, misperceptions & false assertions by providing "plethora of factual information." to prove my points. That is fair game in a discussion. If you disagree, please point to each specific instance & state your case. It is, after all, an ongoing discussion. If I use "plethora of factual information" to prove someone lied, is calling them a liar an inappropriate or inaccurate label? If I can factually establish that someone not only lied more than once, but that they did so for purely partisan reasons regarding an issue pertinent to the war in Iraq; Is it not accurate to call that person treacherous? Since, in these instances, these people showed utter contempt for the truth publically, what is an appropriate "label" to use? Or are labels worse than the acts that caused these accurate labels to be applied?

To: abstract who wrote (60140)	12/24/2003 2:07:21 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

Third point..... "I think I'm starting to notice a trend here. I am always wrong. You are always right.",/i> Well, we do agree on something! <GGG> If you think I am wrong about something, please point to each specific issue & state your case. These sweeping generalities make for fantastic sound bites, but prove absolutely nothing. That is a fact.

To: abstract who wrote (60140)	12/24/2003 2:48:50 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

4th point..... "And there are those you espouse. I have never seen you question Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz. Not sure about Condoleeza Rice or Colin Powell; you don't seem to mention them very often." First, I am not in complete agreement with or attached to any politician. That is a fact. Your sweeping generalities won't work with me. Further, you didn't mention Lieberman or Zell Miller, ET AL, whom I have found myself in agreement with in on many issues. How about the fact that I voted for Clinton for his first term? If you look close, you will find that I haven't espoused, taken up and supported as a cause or become attached to any politician. What you will see is that I have taken particular issue against politicians & the liberal media & their shocking bias, lies, deceit, obstructionism & anti- war rhetoric. I'll freely admit I have supported the Bush Administration in the war on terror. Does that mean I agree with them on every issue? Does it even mean I am 100% in agreement with every action taken or word spoken in regard to the war on terror? Now where exactly have I espoused Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz other than on the war on terror? I'd like specifics with links that establish I espouse these people.

To: abstract who wrote (60140)	12/24/2003 3:17:49 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

One more point...... "Tell me how you respond to this item:" Per your link, it's a breaking story..... Well, I don't exactly see which claim from the SOTUA they are talking about anywhere. However, I'll assume it's the uranium issue....... .....In the speech Jan. 28, President Bush cited British intelligence in asserting that Hussein had tried to buy uranium from an unnamed country in Africa. The White House later said the claim should not have been made...... As far as I know, the British still stand by their claim. This is but one of many reasons used to prove that Saddam failed to adhere to the Gulf War cease fire agreement & the ensuing 17 UN resolutions. Almost every reason cited by the Bush Administration has turned out to be legitimate & accurate. Not bad when relying on the best "estimates" of our intelligence agencies. And there is absolutely no doubt that Saddam violated those resolutions for more than a decade. Then there's the links to terrorist organizations. Let's not forget that Saddam did have a brutal, repressive regime (also stated by the Admin frequently prior to the war). <font size=4> So, the Bush Admin fessed up that the uranium issue wasn't appropriate to mention in the SOTUA (not that it wasn't true) & the British still assert it is true. I'm not overly concerned thus far. I don't expect the President to get everything 100% right on issues like this. I understand that gathering intelligence is not a precise science. I do expect them to be substantially right however. IMO, they were. So what exactly is your point? Are you asserting that this is a lie by Bush? Should we Impeach? Was the war completely wrong because of this? Please enlighten me specifically what this means to you.

To: abstract who wrote (60140)	12/24/2003 4:02:23 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

Another point..... RE: the statement in the State of the Union Adderss (SOTUA)..... "I said "As for Bush et al lying, I don't see what their motivation was. Lying would be too transparent a transgression. On the other hand, I can accept that they were hasty and stupidly relied on poor intelligence, or merely the self-conditioned power of wishful thinking."..... .....Now, I'm not saying it was wrong to go after Saddam, but I am saying, that if you are going to risk antagonizing the vast majority of people on our planet your logic better be damned tight, and ours clearly and embarrassingly wasn't. Furthermore, I still contend that covert action would have been smarter with unequivocally better results." Sorry, but this one point does not prove your point at all IMO. You are demanding absolute perfection in an imperfect world. The preponderance of evidence supports that the war was legitimate & justifiable. I do expect partisan politicians, the anti-war & anti-Bush crowds to play this up for all it's worth & then some. But is it really anywhere as big as they will try to make it out to be? As I already stated, overall there wasn't poor intelligence & the uranium issue may have been inappropriate to mention in the SOTUA, but that doesn't mean it was an inaccurate allegation (it was accurate per the British). Intelligence gathering is rarely 100% (See a very relevant article below). Most of what the Bush Admin alleged has turned out to be accurate. I've provided you a plethora of factual evidence about this already. I don't see how this is evidence of the Bush Admin relying on, "hasty and stupidly relied on poor intelligence". We are talking about one single point out of many & it's not like the war hinged on this point alone (just like the false assertion that WMD's alone was the ONLY reason to go to war). Heck, Clinton made a far worse mistake if this is your criteria (see article blinked below). IMO, the White House should share blame with the CIA for allowing the questionable material about the uranium into the speech. Besides, didn't Hussein already have a stockpile of the same illegal uranium in violation of UN sanctions? Sorry, but you are making a mountain out of a mole hill here IMO. __________________________________________________________ <font size=4> The Clinton View of Iraq-al Qaeda Ties<font size=3> Message 19619772

To: abstract who wrote (60140)	12/24/2003 4:46:31 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 65232

Very interesting points..... "You post between 10 and 20 posts a day. In over 10,000 posts, never once have I seen you say you were wrong, or that some other poster changed your mind, or taught you something, though I will proudly admit that I haven't read the vast majority of what you publish." I've been wrong & admitted it. And you aren't the first to broach the subject. Here are a few examples I could find...... Message 18691753 Message 18830325 Message 18827213 Message 18858836 Message 18876674 Message 18881467 I believe those links also establish that I have also learned from others & they have changed my mind. FWIW, I rarely find folks ever admit they were wrong in all walks of life. And when it comes to politics, even in the face of overwhelming irrefutable facts proving them 100% wrong, I've watched many folks inflexibly cling to their faulty POV's & become verbally abusive as well. You seemed to have singled me out as an unusual person who never admits he was wrong (inappropriately). Why is that? Here are a few people who I have learned from &/or have sincere respect for. I'll let you decide if it is a worthy group or not. Like the list above, it is not all inclusive or necessarily in any particular order, just a few folks who come to mind at this late hour...... sullie6 RR Cactus Jack Dealer Murrey Walker Voltaire Jim Willie CB LindyBill lurqer Nadine Carroll unclewest Zeev Hed Susan G elpolvo claptonsguitar AllansAlias Boplicity KLP Dalin invictus Shack moenmac Ghostrider mph Original Mad Dog

To: abstract who wrote (60140)	12/24/2003 4:49:25 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

What is your point? "Have Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, or Wolfowitz ever been wrong?" Yes, many times.

To: abstract who wrote (60140)	12/24/2003 4:51:31 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

One final point..... "I look at various subjects and posters to learn. Why are you here?" I'm here for many reasons. Among them, to learn, to teach & every now & then to make a point or two. <ggg>

To: abstract who wrote (60140)	12/24/2003 5:38:43 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

U.S.-Russia Team Seizes Uranium At Bulgaria Plant Material Was Potent Enough for Bomb By Peter Baker Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, December 24, 2003; Page A10 MOSCOW, Dec. 23 -- An international team of nuclear specialists backed by armed security units swooped into a shuttered Bulgarian reactor and recovered 37 pounds of highly enriched uranium in a secretive operation intended to forestall nuclear terrorism, U.S. officials said Tuesday. The elaborately planned mission, which was organized with the cooperation of Bulgarian authorities, removed nearly enough uranium to make a small nuclear bomb, the officials said. The material was sent by plane on Tuesday to a Russian facility where it will be converted into a form that cannot be used for weapons, they said. It was the third time since last year that U.S. and Russian authorities have teamed up to retrieve highly enriched uranium from Soviet-era facilities in an effort to keep such material from falling into the hands of terrorists or rogue states. Experts worry that such caches of uranium scattered in obscure corners of the former Soviet Union and its satellite states represent one of the most vulnerable sources of fissile material for would-be bomb-makers. "Proliferation of nuclear materials is a worldwide problem and requires a worldwide solution," Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in a statement. "We must not allow terrorists and others with bad intentions to acquire deadly material, and the Department of Energy will continue doing its part." U.S. authorities have begun stepping up such joint operations with the Russians. In August 2002, a team from the two countries retrieved 100 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from an aging reactor in Yugoslavia. The second seizure of uranium took place three months ago, when 30 pounds was removed from a facility in Romania. "We hope that you'll be seeing this more frequently," Paul M. Longsworth, the Energy Department's deputy administrator for nuclear nonproliferation, said Tuesday. In conjunction with the Russians and the International Atomic Energy Agency, U.S. officials have developed a schedule to recover all Soviet-originated highly enriched uranium and return it to Russia by the end of 2005 for safekeeping and conversion, Longsworth said. After last year's mission in Yugoslavia, the State Department compiled a list of 24 other foreign reactors that use weapons-grade nuclear fuel, some in old and poorly guarded facilities. "We're certainly going in the right direction, although one might prefer speedier development," said Alexander Pikayev, a nuclear nonproliferation scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center, a research institute here. "But it takes time. . . . Such problems cannot be solved overnight." The complexity of the Bulgarian operation demonstrated the challenges involved. Officials focused on a Soviet-designed, two-megawatt research reactor built in 1959 at the Institute of Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy in the capital, Sofia. The reactor was closed in 1989, and the nuclear fuel assemblies have been stored ever since. An IAEA team, accompanied by U.S. and Russian nuclear engineers, removed seals from storage containers and verified the contents before the material was loaded into four special canisters provided by the Russian government. The U. S. government paid the $400,000 bill for the mission. The operation took 48 hours, and special units of the Bulgarian domestic police took responsibility for securing the facility and transporting the uranium to the airport at Gorna Oryahovitsa, about 100 miles northeast of Sofia. The uranium taken from the Sofia facility was 36 percent enriched, which scientists consider usable in nuclear weapons but not the most potent form called weapons-grade, which refers to uranium enriched 90 percent or more. Still, because it has not been irradiated, officials said, the Bulgarian material would be particularly attractive to outlaw elements. "It's quite useful to a terrorist," said Longsworth. "You can handle it without protection." The uranium was flown aboard a Russian AN-12 cargo plane to Dimitrovgrad, in the Volga region of Ulyanovsk about 520 miles southeast of Moscow. A facility there, which is undergoing comprehensive upgrades due to be finished in the next couple of months, will blend down the uranium until it can no longer be used in a nuclear weapon, officials said. At that point, it could be sold for use in commercial nuclear power plants, officials said. The Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy was closed Tuesday evening and no one answered telephone calls seeking comment. A spokeswoman at the Bulgarian Embassy in Washington said she was not able to discuss the operation. washingtonpost.com