MonteZuma

Indeed Ducky. Many of the actions taken by governments in the name of national security and border protection around the world have cost billions and generated heat, but not much substance.

What is wrong with Canada's immigration laws and border security?

LOL I'm glad the newsgroup has brave people like you to 'deal with the situation'. Do you play with your GI Joe figurines while you read the subspace forums? Haha

Yeah, considering one of Kerry's running points is our economy is the worst it has been in centuries, this has to be true! Man, I sure am glad that this war brought us back to the booming economy of the 90's!! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Read what I wrote about short term deficits to stimulate the economy. The thing about Iraq is that there are also potential economic gains to be made as a result of securing the Iraqi oil supply and forcing Iraq to renege on contracts that Hussein selectively made with non-US companies and industries. Whether or not this will work is another thing. Bush and his government have stuffed up before. I'm sure that, if given the chance, they will stuff up again. etc

WTF is bauchilism? lol Are you suffering from dyslexia? Wow. Hussein was a dictator that "wanted most of all to do things his way". Your powers of observation are impressive. The fact that Saddam Hussein was a rogue dictator is an established fact. Thanks for sharing that with us Captain Obvious. I think you mean 'denigrate'. LOL! Irony! Seriosly though [heh], a war can increase federal deficit and stimulate the economy at the same time. In fact governments often deliberately, temporarily run up a deficit to do just that. But thefact is, *you* can't tell the difference between a fact and an opinion. Have you ever actually attempted to objectively analyse news events and develop an opinion? Or do you just regurgitate someone else's so-called 'facts'? If you had any comprehension skills whatsoever you'd understand that when I say that I am giving 'my take' on an issue I am actually giving an opinion. You can take it or leave it. And i'd suggest that one day you actually try and state an opinion of your own. Go on! You can do it! Instead, what you do, is come back with a range of insults that make you look ignorant, closed-minded and just plain dumb. You dodged most of the points that I raised and filled your post with a few lame and oversimplified comments about economics, China, WW2 and the formation of the UN which have virtually nothing to do with the issues at hand. Heh Fun.

What would you like them to do? Single-handedly invade Iran? Send all of their muslims to Syria for 'questioning'? I'd throw the question back to you and ask what you think they *should* be doing?

At the time of the 9/11 attacks, Canada accepted any and all international flights bound for the US, despite US fears that some might be carrying terrorists. Vicarious enough for you? Canada also made a sizable contribution to the International Security !@#$%^&*istance Force in Afghanistan. Just because a government refuses to offer direct military !@#$%^&*istance in Iraq doesn't mean that they aren't helping protect the US against terrorism. The sooner the US realises this the better off we'll be.

Information is starting to come out about how corrupt the operation was. Bribes abounded and the majority of the cash went into Saddam's hands instead of food in the peoples mouths. The last 2 years of the program they allowed Saddam to draft the "shopping list" himself, if that gives you any clues as to what the program really did. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm not sure that it is correct to say that this is an emerging story. It seems to me that the Oil for Food 'scandal' story dies in the arse every time it is raised - probably because most of the claims against the UN were exaggerated, out of context or blatant untruths. In any case, speaking generally, I find it remarkable that it is very easy to get people to believe that the US government lied about a plane hitting the pentagon, and yet people don't think that it is possible that the US government concocts or encourages false allegations against the UN to discredit it in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. Its time for a friggin reality check. My take on the so-called corruption relating to the Oil for Food program is that Hussein gave preferential treatment to countries or producer organisations that were percieved as being less hostile. US companies lost favour with Hussein's regime and were excluded from many contracts. Now the US producer organisations are trying to claw back their markets. One way that they are doing this is by casting aspersions against foreign producers. The US government doesn't mind this. One reason for going to war was to boost the US economy. If they can do this and denegrate the Un at the same time all is good. -*BAD WORD*-. I should write a PhD on this stuff too! BUT....The fact remains, most European citizens (setting aside politicians and others who you say might have benefited from the oil for food program) didn't think that a war in Iraq was justifiable, despite the so-called evidence put forward by Blair and Bush - and despite bombardment of their news services by CNN and Fox. And to claim that this is because of anti-americanism is stupid. Most people in Europe supported the war in Afghanistan. Most people everywhere in the western world were shocked by what happened to the US on 11 Sept 2001. The anti-american at!@#$%^&*ude developed because of Bush and his gung ho and irrational stance on Iraq.

The US does not have the right to send people to third countries to be tortured.

...and Elvis Presley is working as a checkout chick in Boise. Jesus.

He was taken to Syria to be interrogated using methods that are illegal in the US (ie torture). There was no mutual agreement with Canada. The process is called "rendering". The people that authorise this activity should be punished for crimes against humanity.

I don't see the connection?

People were questioning the "intel" before the invasion. Remember Bush and Blair's lame attempts to hoodwink the Europeans et al at the UN by presenting so-called 'evidence' that Hussein was an imminent(sp?) threat? They didn't buy it then. They were right. Opposition parties and opposition leaders don't have access to the same intel that governments and presidents do. I reckon congress made a mistake trusting the president. He misled congress and he misled the world.

Nice Vile. Thanks for the thesis link.

I can handle boredom. The simple things in life are the best. http://images.indymedia.org/imc/washingtondc/go-usa.jpg

Perhaps the essential difference is jingoism?

I am so tempted. The world is going to -*BAD WORD*- in a hand basket. The only sane place left is New Zealand.

WTF? Are you serious? I don't trust papers or politicians 100%, but, save for the editorial sections, a respected broadsheet newspaper's reputation is built upon it's objective analysis and summary of news events. If they make stuff up people don't buy their papers. They have at least as much stake in the truth as politicians do. I'd trust a respected political commentator or reporter to tell the truth in a newspaper article than I would trust a politician's election campaign speech.

Given that the US supported the Taliban and the mastermind behind the the destruction of the WTC and damage to the Pentagon and the loss of 4 American airliners and thousands of US lives and then the need to invade Afghanistan to get rid of them, I'd say the US got burned in Afghanistan pretty bad. The situation in Iraq is similar. The US supported a maniacal dictator and now it has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives to get rid of him. Yes. The US got burned. The media should have focussed on this in more detail. I think the claims that this has put more pressure on middle eastern countries are exaggerated. Libya caved in long before the invasion. I can't think of any dangerous middle eastern country that has caved in significantly? Maybe you can point one out for me? The only seriously dangerous rogue state at the moment is North Korea, and if anything, they became more steadfast because of the invasion. Nobody thought that Hussein's government was a democracy. I disagree.

I hope you are right about the 'insurgents'. As for the bright future of democracy in Iraq, do you have any examples from history that support this?

I thought that we invaded Iraq as part of the 'War on Terror'? Heh. The links between terrorism and Iraq are tenuous indeed.

You are too quick to jump to conclusions. Virtually everybody, everywhere supports the war on terror. If Kerry is elected, which is probably unlikely, the war will be faught very differently. In both instances, the US intervened to support it's own political agenda - not because it wanted to 'help' Iraq or Afghanistan. Both times the US got burned - badly. Both times the world would have been better off if the US worked with the UN - or just butted out altogether. The lesson that should be learned here is that the US should pick it's fights more carefully. Operation Iraqi Freedom will probably go down in history as yet another stuff-up. The US sometimes does fantastic things. But sometimes it stuffs up - monumentally. I'd like to see the proportion of -*BAD WORD*-ups decrease.

For all of Saddam's faults, there have been worse places to live and and worse dictators in the world. An Iraqi civil war could leave Iraqis even worse off than they were then and are now. An authoritarian theocracy would be worse for the average Iraqi than a dictatorship led by Saddam. There is no guarantee whatsoever that peace, freedom and democracy will take off in Iraq, and there is no guarantee that Iraqis will be better off.

Pres Bush is quite possibly the exact opposite... His views might be entirely different to those of the populist party(ies) in the US, but GWB is very much a modern populist. His views on taxes, economics and war are geared towards ordinary, unsophisticated people.

How do you suppose Jimmy Carter could have stopped North Korea developing a nuclear program? North Korea has always been under the wing of the Chinese. You think that Carter shouldn't have been awarded a peace prize because North Korea have a nuclear agenda? Is that really the best argument you can come up with? Heh.