An Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan

Originally Posted by SVXtra

Where was the Bush administration's sense of responsibility to provide accurate information about WMD in Iraq to Congress and to the nation?
Where was CIA director George Tenant's sense of responsibility to provide accurate information to congress about WMD?

[halistan]

While often known for NOT reading the newspaper, George W. Bush was indeed doing so. While flying back to Washington President Bush was reading a newspaper and came across a headline that read "12 Brazilian Soldiers Killed." He shook his head at the sad news, turned to his aid and asked, "Dick, Exactly how many is a Brazilion".

[Royal Tiger]

First off photo chopping the invasion of Iwo Jima and the raising of the American flag while the control of the island was still in doubt is down right wrong. Bipa, you sure have alot of strong opinions about this country for someone who isn't even a citizen here. I'm curious why. And SVXtra, why do you feel the need to try and provoke people to fire back at your comments? I'm sorry you are so bitter about being drafted, but those of us who volunteered know the risks and accepted them when we signed. I'm waiting for you and Bipa to get the photo chop of Bush and Cheney gang raping a 24 year old mother of 6 who is waiting for her hard earned welfare check in New Orleans. Don't you have other more useful things to do?

[Noir]

Originally Posted by Tigershark

Bipa, you sure have alot of strong opinions about this country for someone who isn't even a citizen here. I'm curious why.

unfortunately, there's quite a few people that are quite opinionated against the our great country that aren't citizens.

worry not, one day we'll show em. the maple leaf will fall before our stars and stripes.

[Landshark]

blame Canadia!

they better pipe down up there, or its invadin' time.

[Red SVX 92]

Originally Posted by Shadow248

Nah man...didn't you hear? He knew all of this before the war. He also knows where Osama is, he just doesn't feel like telling anybody right now. I think we should vote for SVXtra in the next election. He clearly knows how to run this country better than the men who do it now, so that's good enough for me.

You idiot... that's not how it is... Didn't ya hear? Dubya already captured OBL two months after 9/11... he was just keeping him in the freezer til 'round election time, then he'd bring OBL's guantanamo'd ass out from the freezer and get the presses rolling about OBL's capture, right before the elections, so his approval rating would skyrocket and he'd take the election by a landslide!

Oh wait... the election's passed? Doh! What happened to this conspiracy theory then? I thought this was a confident report based on Democratic Party classified intelligence! Those damn intelligence failures!

[Red SVX 92]

Originally Posted by Noir

unfortunately, there's quite a few people that are quite opinionated against the our great country that aren't citizens.

worry not, one day we'll show em. the maple leaf will fall before our stars and stripes.

Has dubya revoked Michael Moore's citizenship yet? I betcha he could using one of 'em newfangled Homeland Security Laws!

[Red SVX 92]

Originally Posted by Tigershark

First off photo chopping the invasion of Iwo Jima and the raising of the American flag while the control of the island was still in doubt is down right wrong.

Isn't it unrealistic to expect someone who's never seen war up close or been in the military to respect the military's history and traditions?

I'm waiting for you and Bipa to get the photo chop of Bush and Cheney gang raping a 24 year old mother of 6 who is waiting for her hard earned welfare check in New Orleans. Don't you have other more useful things to do?

You forgot to mention, black 24 year old mother of 6. The Rev. Jesse Jackson will sue your ass for forgetting that it's all about race!

[Red SVX 92]

Originally Posted by halistan

While often known for NOT reading the newspaper, George W. Bush was indeed doing so. While flying back to Washington President Bush was reading a newspaper and came across a headline that read "12 Brazilian Soldiers Killed." He shook his head at the sad news, turned to his aid and asked, "Dick, Exactly how many is a Brazilion".

LOL!

[Red SVX 92]

Originally Posted by Shadow248

As I said before, get yourself a REAL candidate, then talk. All this energy you spend complaining about GWB could be put into finding a man who is capable of defining his stance on something, I mean anything really. If the democrats could define their stance on stances, that would be a monumental accomplishment.

They woulda sent Howard Dean, but he actually had an opinion on something.

IBTL

Darn thing is locking up on me again... this is my "brazillionth" try... going without any real quotes this time

Originally Quoted by Tigershark
First off photo chopping the invasion of Iwo Jima and the raising of the American flag while the control of the island was still in doubt is down right wrong. Bipa, you sure have alot of strong opinions about this country for someone who isn't even a citizen here. I'm curious why. And SVXtra, why do you feel the need to try and provoke people to fire back at your comments? I'm sorry you are so bitter about being drafted, but those of us who volunteered know the risks and accepted them when we signed. I'm waiting for you and Bipa to get the photo chop of Bush and Cheney gang raping a 24 year old mother of 6 who is waiting for her hard earned welfare check in New Orleans. Don't you have other more useful things to do?
END QUOTE

Well, I could say I was bored but that's only partly true.
First off, free speech includes photo chopping, as long as you don't claim it is an original. Also called parody.
Secondly, it took maybe 5 seconds to find the photo so I didn't waste much time finding it and posting it here. See for yourself. Go to Google.com. Type in mcdonalds iraq for your search parameters. 4th on the list is:
Soldiers Raise McDonalds Arch in Iraq - Funny War Picture
US soldiers raise a McDonals arch in Iraq in this parody of the famed Iwo Jima flag-raising.
politicalhumor.about.com/ library/images/bliraqmcdonalds.htm - 23k - Cached - Similar pages

You score brownie points for correctly identifying the original as the famous flag raising in Iwo Jima. Now THAT was a true liberating force - the US armed forces during WWII. (absolutely no sarcasm or irony here, just admiration! one of my personal heroes is actually Gen. Patton - rough, tough, and got the job done. Later was in charge of Bavaria and I admire his style in getting the region back in shape. Wanted to re-arm the Germans and keep going against the CCCP. My kinda guy! We can talk more about him in another thread if you wish.) (oh, see my prevous GWB quote for the reference that irritated me and got me going.)

Since the USA has strong opinions about everything going on outside its own borders, surely those outside its borders have the right to reciprocate and have strong opinions about what goes on inside its borders. Call it free trade, or reciprocity. I'm actually more amazed that so many US citizens couldn't care less about politics in general, and US foreign policy in particular, since their lives could and arguably have become at risk because of it.

I've also gotten extremely tired of constantly being mistaken for being "American" since moving to Europe. Seems that for some strange reason, many Europeans think that "America" is actually a continent (more truthfully - two! ), and haven't heard that the USA has hijacked the name to apply exclusively to the USA. So in self-defence, I have had to learn a lot about current USA policy if only to be able to make clear the differences between USA and Canada. You guys haven't been making my life very easy.

And I'm all out of Canadian patches and pins, since it seems every US student or traveller I meet wants to sew on a Canadian flag or Maple Leaf on their backpack. I'm gonna have to stock up again next trip home.

As for the rape photo, you're going to have to search and find one yourself. Not my style. I post photos and comics that actually tie into what either I or someone else here on this thread is/was writing about.

About those who volunteer knowing the risks, see my earlier post regarding this topic. I'm not going to repeat myself.

Finally, I can't resist this one, which ties into newspaper reading and the curiousity quotient of the average reader. (gosh, do I really have to start explaining the comics and their relevance?)

Former aide: Powell WMD speech 'lowest point in my life'

(CNN) -- A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "the lowest point" in his life.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."

Wilkerson is one of several insiders interviewed for the CNN Presents documentary "Dead Wrong -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown." The program pieced together the events leading up to the mistaken WMD intelligence that was presented to the public. A presidential commission that investigated the pre-war WMD intelligence found much of it to be "dead wrong."

Powell's speech, delivered on February 5, 2003, made the case for the war by presenting U.S. intelligence that purported to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Wilkerson says the information in Powell's presentation initially came from a document he described as "sort of a Chinese menu" that was provided by the White House.

"(Powell) came through the door ... and he had in his hands a sheaf of papers, and he said, 'This is what I've got to present at the United Nations according to the White House, and you need to look at it,'" Wilkerson says in the program. "It was anything but an intelligence document. It was, as some people characterized it later, sort of a Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose."

Wilkerson and Powell spent four days and nights in a CIA conference room with then-Director George Tenet and other top officials trying to ensure the accuracy of the presentation, Wilkerson says.

"There was no way the Secretary of State was going to read off a script about serious matters of intelligence that could lead to war when the script was basically un-sourced," Wilkerson says.

In one dramatic accusation in his speech, Powell showed slides alleging that Saddam had bio-weapons labs mounted on trucks that would be almost impossible to find.

"In fact, Secretary Powell was not told that one of the sources he was given as a source of this information had indeed been flagged by the Defense Intelligence Agency as a liar, a fabricator," says David Kay, who served as the CIA's chief weapons inspector in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. That source, an Iraqi defector who had never been debriefed by the CIA, was known within the intelligence community as "Curveball."

After searching Iraq for several months across the summer of 2003, Kay began e-mailing Tenet to tell him the WMD evidence was falling apart. At one point, Wilkerson says, Tenet called Powell to tell him the claims about mobile bio-weapons labs were apparently not true.

"George actually did call the Secretary, and said, 'I'm really sorry to have to tell you. We don't believe there were any mobile labs for making biological weapons,'" Wilkerson says in the documentary. "This was the third or fourth telephone call. And I think it's fair to say the Secretary and Mr. Tenet, at that point, ceased being close. I mean, you can be sincere and you can be honest and you can believe what you're telling the Secretary. But three or four times on substantive issues like that? It's difficult to maintain any warm feelings."


Some of you here who obviously know little or nothing about the Bush administration intentionally misleading our nation and the rest of the world on Iraqi WMD as a prelude to war really should watch the well researched documentary "Dead Wrong-Inside an Intelligence Meltdown." The program pieced together the events leading up to the dozens of mistaken WMD intelligence short comings and out-right lies of the Bush administration, CIA and State Dept.


And isn't George Tenent the same former director of the CIA who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom [this nations highest civilian honor] from President Bush soon after resigning his post?


http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/19/powell.un/

Originally Posted by Red SVX 92

Isn't it unrealistic to expect someone who's never seen war up close or been in the military to respect the military's history and traditions?

Err... you talking about me?.... or G.W. Bush?!

[Royal Tiger]

As a student of history in addition to being a veteran, I should get bonus brownie points for knowing that photo was actaully the SECOND flag raising in Iwo. Thanks for being clear and non insulting. I asked a clear question and you answered without sarcasim or nastiness. Thank you. That has grown in short supply recently. As for the rape thing, that was in response to the horrible Bush fishing photo. But that wasn't your post. So I hope you didn't include the two together.