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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (181011)	1/31/2006 7:48:29 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The unemployment rate is 25~30% for 2005 according to the CIA: Hell, the unemployment rate of Saudi Arabia is around 30% (though no one really knows except the SA govt)!! I have a friend who was working in Kenya.. they have 60% unemployment there!! And I think it would be fair to say that in the majority of Arab countries the unemployment rater is at least 15-20%... But are they lining up to join THEIR militaries? Hell, would they be lining up while possessing the knowledge that they would likely be involved in close combat?? You should more fair, and less denigrating as to the reasons they join the military. Because under Saddam, the Iraqi army was upwards of 400,000 men. The reports I've read state that the Kurdish units are just biding time collecting pay until the civil war. Great. We'll have armed both sides. Again. No surprise there. They want a Kurdish enclave and are the major proponents for creating a Federalized Iraq, with Kurdistan having their own autonomy. And since the Kurds were brutalized under the Ba'thists, they are never going to put aside their right to defend themselves. And consequently, the Kurdish areas are relatively peaceful and properous. Some fellow Americans who would travel up in that region were telling me that they reallly didn't worry about IEDs or snipers because the Kurds had the place pretty well locked down. Three years on and the death toll keeps mounting. And you think that death toll will decrease if the US "bugs out" and leaves the various factions to raise the violence to full-fledged civil war? What makes you believe FEWER people are going to die in such an event? And are you willing to bear the responsibility for being the person who unleashed that massive killing?? Yes... I believe you are. Just make sure you put it in writing so we can hold you to the same accountability that you hold the administration to. Hawk

To: Bilow who wrote (181011)	1/31/2006 10:42:41 AM
From: Keith Feral	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

As far as great debates go, the discussion here with you and Hawk is one of the best. You are starting to make some huge points, not that anyone is keeping score. However, you have a great point of view that none of the liberal bashers are intellectually gifted enough to make. I'm not even really sure where you are going with your analysis, except to challenge the degenerating position of the US in Iraq. Of course, our purpose in Iraq is destined to diminish over time. Maybe Murtha has more sense than we gave him credit. We owe it to the Iraqis to help them in the transition. However, we have to program our reduction of troops independent of the violence in Iraq, which is quite simply a fact of life at this point. It's like the same of the chicken and the egg? What is going to happen first, are we going to reduce some of the troops or are the insurgents going to stop the suicide bombing?

To: Bilow who wrote (181011)	1/31/2006 3:30:04 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Powell, Tenet, others told Bush he was breaking the law by ordering NSA spying By DOUG THOMPSON Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue Jan 31, 2006, 09:06 capitolhillblue.com Top-level administration officials four years ago told President George W. Bush he as “breaking the law” by ordering the National Security Agency to spy on Americans and warned the President that his actions could bring his administration down. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet and others begged Bush to reconsider his executive order giving the NSA authority to wiretap phone calls and monitor emails of American citizens but their pleas fell on deaf ears. “Mr. President, I fear you are heading down a course that could doom your administration,” Powell told Bush in a meeting in early 2002. “I urge you to reconsider.” Powell also argued against Bush’s plans to turn Pentagon spies loose on American antiwar groups, saying “such actions don’t belong in America.” Powell wasn’t the only one worried about the legality of wiretaps. Then deputy attorney general James D. Comey, acting as attorney general while John Ashcroft was hospitalized, refused to sign off on Bush’s executive order, prompting then White House Counsel, and now attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, to visit Ashcroft at his hospital bed in a failed attempt to get the AG to overturn his deputy. Ashcroft, however, stood by Comey and told Gonzales that he could not condone the spying, even though he had authored the controversial, and rights-robbing, USA Patriot Act. “This is not legal and the President is exceeding his authority,” Ashcroft said. “Jim (Comey) is right to oppose it.” Then CIA director George Tenet, in a stormy meeting with Bush, told the President that use of the NSA to spy on Americans was a direct violation of the agency’s charter. “This is illegal and a flagrant misuse of the agency and its technology,” Tenet said. Those who opposed Bush on his actions, which the President claimed were justified under his powers as a “wartime commander-in-chief,” are no longer part of the administration. Bush fired Tenet (publicly, the CIA direction was allowed to resign). Powell and Ashcroft resigned shortly after Bush began his second term. Comey quit in disgust. Those privy to the contentious White House meetings where all tried in vain to talk Bush out of his reckless course of action say the President’s allies in using the NSA to spy on Americans were Vice President Dick Cheney and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, the man Bush tapped to replace Ashcroft. Powell, top aides say privately, considering resigning early in Bush’s first term because of what he considered the President’s “reckless and irresponsible actions,” but stayed on because he still felt he could play a moderating role with the extremists in the administration. “As a career soldier, Gen. Powell felt a duty to serve is country even when that service meant answering to those he considered wrong,” says a longtime aide who served with the general at the State Department as well as when Powell chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “He was a moral man trapped in an immoral nest of vipers.”