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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (63496)	8/24/2004 8:26:33 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793800

"Maybe this time" I wonder if Reuters just reissues this article with a new date line every day. Iraq issues fresh warning to Mehdi Army Iraq's interim Defence Minister has warned Shiite rebels besieged in Najaf's Imam Ali shrine to surrender or face an attack later today that would "wipe them out". The ultimatum is the latest in a series of threats by the US-backed Government to the Mehdi Army militia loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The militia has been fighting US marines around the shrine for three weeks. Defence Minister Hazim al-Shalaan has told a news conference at a US military base outside Najaf that Iraqi forces would reach the doors of the shrine this evening and control it. He says if the Mehdi Army do not throw down their weapons, they would be wiped out. --Reuters

To: LindyBill who wrote (63496)	8/24/2004 8:42:47 AM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793800

Bill, Swifty backlash is inevitable as moderates and independents begin to see this in nixonian dirty trix terms, whether the underlying facts are true or not. So for bushes sake it should start to fade before the convention. Mike and the boys can always still talk about this at the barbeque but if they are serious about winning they will realize that they have gained all they can. Now for Kerry, Brooks makes the point today that kerry is more attractive as the passionate war hero returnee testifying before congress. If you watch the performance without the cut and paste job, he sounds far more reasonable in his criticism. He says clearly he saw no atrocities apart from free fire zones that he now (then) believes are violation of the geneva convention but the real atrocities were those talked about in detroit. Mai Lai did happen and once again I say that it was be really strange if Mai Lai was the only instance of atrocities on both sides. It was a vicious war. Mike's attacks on me have brought be back to that time. I went looking for a letter that a buddy who was serving had written me. He was a helicopter gunner and died in a car accident years after he returned. I didnt find the letter but i do clearly remember him bragging about shooting villagers from his helicopter and i remember thinking then about what had happened to my buddy. There was every implication in what he wrote that the target was not discriminate and any villager in the street that day in that village was to be treated as VC. When he returned he never talked about his service. As i remember it and this is real hazy he marched with us against the war and he was full of hatered for the govt he felt had taken advantage of and used him. War is hell and vietnam was worse than most. No one was really watching in the same way we are watched today. Can you imagine a buddhist temple being spared in a najaf like situation? I guess kerry and the swiftys have opened up old wounds. I blame both but i cannot deny that i am somehow thinking differently since those first ads came out. And when i warn bush and co. about a backlash, i have to accept the fact that i might be one of those backlashers myself even if kerry throws like a girl. Mike PS Brooks also points out that young folks, unfamiliar with Vietnam but familiar with iraq might look at kerrys testimony as heroic.

To: LindyBill who wrote (63496)	8/24/2004 3:00:22 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793800

Some votes in the middle may. I think our best bet is that the Swift Vets are now getting enough money to keep the needle in Kerry. And he can't stand it They are reminding everyone of his testimony, which had been forgotten by most people. I vaguely remember that the testimony was very shocking at the time - surely a decorated vet wouldn't say such things about his own service if they weren't true? How could the American army behave like that? and with the anti-war movement in full flower, few media voices were disposed to be critical.

To: LindyBill who wrote (63496)	8/24/2004 6:52:50 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 793800

Podoretz hit it out of the park with this..... ....Well, one of the charges hurled by the Swift Boat Veterans has thrown Kerry for a loop. They unearthed Kerry's claim to have driven his boat into Cambodia at Christmastime 1968, ferrying a CIA operative on an illegal mission and getting a mysterious hat from that operative as a keepsake in the process. He wasn't in Cambodia during Christmas 1968, and he almost certainly wasn't there at any other time. How can I be sure? Consider the history. In 1973, Kerry was a leader of the anti-war movement. That same year, the American Left went nuts when the Nixon administration admitted it had secretly invaded Cambodia in 1969 and 1970 to roust out Communist fighters. It's hard to overstate just how big an issue this was in 1973. Cambodia was officially a neutral country, and it was the contention of the anti-war movement that any movement across Cambodia's borders constituted a violation of international law. If Kerry is to be believed, then this leader of the anti- war movement remained silent in 1973 when he could have spoken out about how he was ordered to violate Cambodian neutrality as early as 1968. Which is why Kerry is not to be believed on this matter.....