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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (11117)	5/24/2004 10:53:07 PM
From: Ron	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes: Our Darkest Days Are Here May 23, 2004 (CBS) The following is a weekly 60 Minutes commentary by CBS News Correspondent Andy Rooney. If you were going to make a list of the great times in American history, you'd start with the day in 1492, when Columbus got here. The Revolution when we won our independence would be on the list. Beating Hitler. Putting Americans on the moon. We've had a lot of great days. Our darkest days up until now have been things like presidential assassinations, the stock market crash in 1929, Pearl Harbor, and 9-11, of course. The day the world learned that American soldiers had tortured Iraqi prisoners belongs high on the list of worst things that ever happened to our country. It's a black mark that will be in the history books in a hundred languages for as long as there are history books. I hate to think of it. The image of one bad young woman with a naked man on a leash did more to damage America's reputation than all the good things we've done over the years ever helped our reputation. What were the secrets they were trying to get from captured Iraqis? What important information did that poor devil on the leash have that he wouldn't have given to anyone in exchange for a crust of bread or a sip of water? Where were your officers? If someone told you to do it, tell us who told you. If your officers were told – we should know who told them. One general said our guards were "untrained." Well, untrained at what? Being human beings? Did the man who chopped off Nicholas Berg's head do it because he was untrained? The guards who tortured prisoners are faced with a year in prison. Well, great. A year for destroying our reputation as decent people. I don't want them in prison, anyway. We shouldn't have to feed them. Take away their right to call themselves American - that's what I’d do. You aren't one of us. Get out. We don't want you. Find yourself another country or a desert island somewhere. If the order came from someone higher up, take him with you. In the history of the world, several great civilizations that seemed immortal have deteriorated and died. I don't want to seem dramatic tonight, but I've lived a long while, and for the first time in my life, I have this faint, faraway fear that it could happen to us here in America as it happened to the Greek and Roman civilizations. Too many Americans don't understand what we have here, or how to keep it. I worry for my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren. I want them to have what I've had, and I sense it slipping away. Have a nice day.

To: epicure who wrote (11117)	5/25/2004 4:24:38 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

Re: Since the communist countries are free* their weapons technology and scientists are for sale, and their banks are free to launder money for criminals...* Ah! Those damn communist countries are terrible, aren't they? Tue., May 25, 2004 Sivan 5, 5764 Former minister suspected of trying to defraud Czech banks By Roni Singer, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service Former minister Gonen Segev, who was indicted earlier this month on suspicion of smuggling of Ecstasy tablets from the Netherlands to Israel, is now also being investigated for allegedly defrauding Czech banks by depositing forged checks. Tel Aviv police announced on Tuesday morning that it expects to receive additional information from Interpol during the coming days for its investigation into the new allegations against Segev, who served as energy minister in Yitzhak Rabin's government in the 1990s. Segev, a pediatrician by profession, claims he thought the five-kilogram package contained M&M chocolates. His cousin Moshe Verner and attorney Ariel Friedman are also suspected of being involved in the drug-smuggling. Initially, Segev said the person who gave him the package was known to him only by his first name. He later changed his version and said his cousin had given him the sweets. Later, Segev said a man named Ariel Friedman, a Haifa attorney who is also under arrest in connection with the affair, had asked him to deliver the sweets to his wife. haaretz.com

To: epicure who wrote (11117)	5/25/2004 9:28:22 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

the rise of global terrorism is partly the result of these interesting variants of freedom- then the free countries of the world have been negatively impacted. Sounds like you're saying terrorism is to a large extent a reactionary movement opposed to the advance of new un-traditional freedoms in mideastern societies - like freedom for women, freedom of religion for all, separation of mosque and state, etc. I agree. You have a point there. We've seen such a terrorist group before in our own country fighting against advances of other once un-traditional freedoms - the Ku Klux Klan. However, I think we'd all agree that the advance of freedom is the right side of history we ought to be on. Since the communist countries are free* their weapons technology and scientists are for sale, and their banks are free to launder money for criminals- including many terrorist organizations.* Surely, you're not arguing the fall of Communism was a bad thing and shouldn't have happened? Yes, freedom can be abused and despotic police states can do a good job controlling crime. But I'd also observe that back in the old days, Soviet scientists and technologists were working on weapons designed expressly to destroy us. Now such scientists have, and in the future will have much more, opportunities for profitable commercial applications of their skills.