words of wisdom from Teddy Kennedy

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/op...dt09202003.htm



In interviews Thursday, Sen. Ted Kennedy said of the war in Iraq, "There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud.''
To charge that President Bush put American men and women in harm's way in Iraq, that lives were lost because this war would be ``good politically'' for the Republican Party is so obscene, so gross that if Kennedy can't substantiate that charge (and how could he possibly?), he ought to be driven out of politics.
Kennedy followed that charge with one that is just as grotesque. He said a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office showed that only about $2.5 billion of the $4 billion being spent monthly on the Iraq war could be accounted for by the Bush administration. Then he added, ``My belief is this money is being shuffled all around to these political leaders in all parts of the world, bribing them to send in troops.''
Bribing them? As in money under the table? Or did Kennedy mean the sort of congressional tit-for-tat bribery that the senator has raised to an art form during his political career?
Unlike the Democratic presidential candidates who must ultimately be held accountable for their rhetoric on the Iraq war and its conduct by the Bush administration, Kennedy obviously feels free to give vent to any looney-tune accusation or conspiracy theory that comes to mind.
There is responsible political criticism at a time when American troops are still engaged on foreign soil, and then there is the kind that Kennedy has indulged in. In doing so he has done a grave disservice to those troops, to his party and to the people of Massachusetts he purports to represent.

[BLUEHAWK]

Larry -
If he's gonna say stuff like that then he needs to SHOW his proof.

I myself do long for someone in the administration to sit down, on TV preferably, with all americans and explain in thorough detail about some of these issues that keep coming up. That's my only complaint.

But, to assert a kind of criminality of the president is pretty far out there... election rhetoric.

As we on PF know better than anyone, probably, once the battles have been joined, then the discussion must shift. I do not have the slightest doubt in my mind that the American Enterprise Institute and Project for The New American Century had way too much hand in forming the way in which the Iraq war was presented to us. However...the president did not lie to anyone, and the middle east will always be better off without Saddam. I do wish that his removal, with the Baathists, had been THE reason given for the war. It would've been sufficient, and a helluva lot less complicated to explain after tha fact.

We are, in my opinion, facing a similar situation in North Korea, with a criminal head of state, and about 200 or so (according to an article in The New Yorker 9/18/03) of his sychophants. We don't need to justify anything there on the basis of nukes or anything other than ridding the planet of Kim Jong Il and "juche".

[the humper]

Think Korea was handled on the previous site or am I confused!!
SF
NC

[BLUEHAWK]

Humper -
No, not confused... I simply wanted to mention Korea in this context because the two situations are similar in the way in which one was and the other is likely to be explained and justified.

[MORTARDUDE]

If you think North Korea and Iraq have any similarities you have failed to take into account the following.

1) The North Korean leadership and military are fanatics in every sense of the word. They are the only ones in North Korean who get three square meals a day. The Iraqi military compared to them was almost non-existent.

2) The North Koreans have had 50 years to turn their country into a fortress.

3) The North Koreans have nukes...and we know it.

4) If we attacked North Korea they would obliterate Seoul and devastate as much of South Korea as they could.

5) All and all it is a nightmare...nothing like Iraq... and there is no oil...

Larry

[HARDCORE]

Gents & Ladies -

Don't you find it even a wee bit amusing when either political party accuses to the other of tossing stones from inside of their own - little icing-glass houses?

The words fraud, lie, sham, collusion, and even bull shit, were coined, in my opinion, within the body politics!!

Truth to a few in government is something that is always expected of the other fellow, but rarely handed out as change!!

I didn't swim away from that place!

I didn't inhale!

I didn't steal that election!

I am here to serve the needs and will of the people!

"Splendid sounding phrases, one and all, but alas, all to often as hollow as the head of a "John" when caught in the act by a "Dickless-Tracy" (opinion)!!

"The first casualty when war (or anything else for that matter) comes - is truth!" A quote by Hiram Johnson, 1917 in the U.S. Senate....
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Wenn Gott in seiner Rechten alle Wahrhret und in seiner Linken den einzigen, immer regen trieb nach Wahrheit, obgleich mit dem Zusatz, mich immer und ewig zu irren, verschlossen hielte und sprache zu mir: Wahle! ich fiele ihm mit Demut in seine Like und sagte: Vater, giev! Die reine Wahrheit ist ja doch nur fur Dich allein.

TRANSLATION:

If God were to hold out enclosed in His right hand all Truth, and in His left hand just the active search for Truth, though with the condition that I (or we) should ever err therein, and should say to me: Choose! I should humbly take His left hand and say: Father! give me this one; absolute Truth belongs to Thee alone!
G. E. Lessing (1729-1781)
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So you see, if those in politics often lie like Hell, they would have an excuse (one of many) readily at hand! It being that "Truth Belongs To God Alone!"

*Nay says I, truth "SHOULD" belong to us all, for when governments lie, people die!!

VERITAS

[Keith_Hixson]

I thought that:

Words of Wisdom and Ted Kennedy was an:


Oxymoron

Keith

[BLUEHAWK]

Larry, Keith & HC

I know the similarity is imperfect, but I see some ways in which it exists and ought to be taken account of, along the lines of Larry's listiing above:

> Iraqi and N. Korean leaders and military were/are fanatics... at one time the Iraqi military was substantial in SIZE, too. I realize that N. Korea's military is vast (larger than our own, I believe), but we know (don't we?) that size isn't everything... because preparedness, equipment, morale all play into the plan.

> If anything is true in the New Yorker article I mentioned (Sept 8th issue), then N. Korea has had more than 50 years to establish its stronghold, though Saddam's Baathists too had at least a generation to do the same, and did it quite thoroughly I'd say.

> Though N. Korea does have some kind of nukes, and might be inclined to use them (out of desperation?), other knowledgeable people on the Korean forum have suggested that those weapons could readily be neutralized quickly in time of sudden first strike, the country thrown into chaos and with it the military if the strike were of sufficient scale and brutality.

> N. Korea, again as predicted by other PF members, would most probably attack, in some way, Seoul, at least in the event of a first strike, especially if the strike failed or was poorly planned. Some regard that eventuality as a necessary risk in order to rid Korea of Kim(s) and "Juche", help reunify the nation, and put a positive turn on the hard-fought armistice. Not being privy to the precise nature of the potential enemy's arsenal or command and control systems, nor of any order of battle as may have been already conceptualized by DOD, it is impossible to know with certainty exactly how much damage N. Korea might be able to do in the south. Of one thing we can be fairly sure, feeding a vast army in the field would be extremely difficult for N. Korea, given the condition of their agricultural systems and their having been shunned by most of the world.

> No, there is no oil in N. Korea that I am aware of. However, the strategic significance of the Korean penninsula probably has as much weight today as it did in 1950, and it was (I assume) the strategic value of Iraq as much as its oil that motivated people to attack it over the past 15 or so years.

> Yes, it IS a nightmare, but I believe it is fair to state that our government is sizing that situation up very closely these days... "Axis of Evil" and all that. I don't doubt their intentions one bit... so am merely seeing if there is anything to be optimistic about should an invasion be launched.

I realize the tactics would differ considerably. But it appears that this government places fairly equivalent value on Iraq and North Korea (among other nations), and probably for similar reasons of international policy.

As for Teddy, I will hand him that he has tried throughout his career to stand up for the little guy in this country in a certain way, fairly steadfastly. Why he was allowed to remain in office following Chappaquidick remains a mystery, but is not the only one of its kind in american history. Most of what he is saying today has more to do with rallying the dem troops, is my guess. It ain't gonna work, is another guess.

[MORTARDUDE]

Teddy Kennedy is a bloated, corpulent, addled buffoon, who has
fed at the public trough ( read : our hard earned tax dollars ) with all the other liberal Senators and Congressmen far, far too long. What ever good he has done over the years had been far outweighed by the drivel he is oft known to speak, and all the piss-poor legislation he has helped pass....Oh, did I say he got away with murder ?

Larry

[HARDCORE]

"A nation may not always survive in the midst of enemies, but it will certainly evaporate in the absense of them! And such is the stuff that many unsure governments are made of!"

Hardcore - 2003

VERITAS