Not sure there is much difference...One says, "God said so" the other says, "forget God, I say so"...not much room for debate either way!

I also agree that our citizens should have constitutional rights.
So much blood has been shed to protect and preserve them.
Somerfrost quoted this: There is a price to pay for freedom and if we as individuals become unwilling to pay that price, our children will never know what it was like to live in a free society!
Unfortunately, that defines the current situation.
Do we compromise liberty and justice to those that exploit collective fear for a slim assurance of security? Are there other agendas that remain untold?
Of course, every day we send our children to school where they recite a pledge that states "with liberty and justice for all". If those words are empty due to current policies, then it can be surmised that there is no liberty, no justice, and alas, no freedom.
Our children deserve better.

you don't....there is nothing you can say that would sink in, they have a 'mandate from heaven'...part of our problem here is that we have leaders who feel the same way.

absolutely it's a huge mess, as i said above, iran is now rearing its ugly head, something that was considered as a threat in '91, but not four years ago. but some only see what they want to see, including this administration, who felt they could handle any eventuality.

but part of the problem is that as willing as the u.s. seems to be to jump in--we are not willing to stay in when we find we can't touch the bottom. rather than fighting the tide, too many are ready to proclaim the victim has drowned. we don't seem to have that same will as we've had in the past to fight til the finish, and to do things the right way, to see things thru. seems as soon as things start to get at all difficult, too many want to quit.
i'm not a quitter, i never thought this country would be thought as such, or as weak. but that belief is out there.

A little side note that I'd like to point out here- It's kinda related and not really. When watching a National Geographic special about 9/11, and the CNN Special "In the Footsteps of Bin Laden" reinforced this- Saddam and Bin Laden aren't and never were working with each other. If Al Queda is in Iraq, it came after the U.S. invaded. Why?

When Saddam invaded Kuwait in '90 or '91, and there was a threat that Saudi Arabia would be next, Bin Laden went to the Saudi Govt/kingdom/head-honchos to offer him and his Mujahadin to fight off Saddam. They had successfully driven the Soviets out of Afghanastan, and now Bin Laden wanted to defend his homeland. The Saudis rejected his offer, and instead enlisted the U.S. to drive out the Iraqis, and that's what actually started Bin Laden's hatred for the U.S. He was pissed that his own country rejected his offer to defend it... and since we were the "defenders", we ended up being hated by him for that reason.

I bring this up, because there's so many people I hear that say Saddam and Al Queda or Saddam and Bin Laden are working together bla bla bla bla. They never worked together and the 2 I think are in different sects of iIslam as well. Isn't Bin Laden Sunni and Saddam Shiite? Wasn't that one more reason why Saddam had to rule with such an Iron fist? He ruled with the religious MINORITY, eventhough the country's majority was Sunni.

Pretty much true...Saddam has links to terrorism, he did after all provide families of suicide bombers financial "rewards"...but Saddam was/is a pragmatist, he pretended to be a loyal follower of Islam when it suited him but his moral code somewhat destroyed that obvious charade. Al Queda was in Iraq before Saddam fell, but you are correct that he held them in check and would give more verbal support than anything...he played the "loyal follower" game!

You're right, except Saddam was/is Sunni and the majority are Shiite. Shiite's are much more fundamentalist than the Sunnis.

Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11; I feel our administration hoodwinked our country into backing the Iraq invasion. That said, Danzig is right on the money about the current situation-- we've been half-assing the Iraq thing all along (not the soldiers, of course, who are showing up and doing their jobs-- the people in charge of them). But I'm scared of what will happen to the region if we pull out as things are now-- destablize further? Massacres between Shiites and Sunnis? Women's rights going the way of the Taliban? I kind of feel like, we broke it; we bought it, you know? We started this for all the wrong reasons, but now I feel like we have to finish it, but not in the current fashion. As much because we owe it to the Iraqis now as because we owe it to ourselves. But where's the $$, the manpower, the leadership? Dear God, what a mess...

We were hoodwinked because the Bush family is in bed with the House of Saud. The House of Saud doesn't want bin Laden harmed and that's why a few months after 9/11, February 2006 to be exact, we pulled most of our special ops and CIA paramilitary troops out of the mountains of Afghanistan to focus on Saddam.


It's all smoke and mirrors. This "war on terror" shows the muslim world how weak we are. The majority of the hijackers were Saudis who were funded by bin Laden's Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda was protected by the Taliban. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. George Bush has ADHD and early stages of senility.


At least that's my opinion which is purely speculation splashed with a large dose of common sense.

Somerfrost,
I ususally agree with you, but a recent senate investigation asserted that there were no ties between Al Queda and Saddam. You'd be better off if you take a look at the Saudis, Packis, and other shia strongholds.
Here's the report:
No Qaeda-Saddam Links: Senate Report
by Stephen Collinson

WASHINGTON - Saddam Hussein had no ties with Al-Qaeda or slain operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before the Iraq war, according to a US Senate report, contradicting repeated claims by President George W. Bush.



A devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration's unrelenting, misleading and deceptive attempts to convince the American people that Saddam Hussein was linked with Al-Qaeda.

The assessment, by the Senate Intelligence Select Committee, also dismissed administration claims that Saddam had links with Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Zarqawi, killed in a US raid on June 7 after unleashing a string of attacks.

"Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted unsuccessfully to locate and capture Zarqawi, and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi," the report said.

Saddam had also repeatedly rebuffed requests for meetings from Al-Qaeda operatives, the report said.

Before, and after the 2003 invasion Bush administration leaders used purported ties between Iraq and terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda, as partial justification for the war.

On June 14, 2004, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney said : "Saddam Hussein was in power, overseeing one of the bloodiest regimes of the 20th century ... he had long-established ties with Al-Qaeda."

A day later, Bush was asked at the White House to name the best evidence for a link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.

"Zarqawi. Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to al-Qaeda affiliates and al-Qaeda," Bush said.

On August 21, this year, Bush said: "Imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, ... who had relations with Zarqawi."

The report also found that Iraq ended its nuclear program in 1991, and its ability to reconstitute it progressively declined after that date. The administration had claimed before the invasion of Iraq that the program had been restarted.

A second committee report released Friday probed the role of the exiled Iraqi National Congress in providing intelligence on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs, which was later discredited.

The Senate assessments immediately stoked a new row over the US drive to war with Iraq, ahead of November's crucial congressional elections.

"Todays reports show that the administrations repeated allegations of a past, present and future relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq were wrong and intended to exploit the deep sense of insecurity among Americans in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks," said Democratic Senator John (Jay) Rockefeller in a statement.

"The administration sought and succeeded in creating the false impression that al-Qaeda and Iraq presented a single unified threat to the United States," he said.

Another Democrat, Senator Carl Levin, said the report was "a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration's unrelenting, misleading and deceptive attempts to convince the American people that Saddam Hussein was linked with Al-Qaeda."

But White House spokesman Tony Snow, speaking before the report was released, said it contained "nothing new."

"It's, again, kind of re-litigating things that happened three years ago," he said.

"The president's stated concern this week, as you've seen, is to think, 'okay, we'll let people quibble over three years ago. The important thing to do is to figure out what you're doing tomorrow and the day after and the month after and the year after to make sure that this war on terror is won.'"

I don't believe Saddam had direct links to Al Qaeda but he did offer money to families of suicide bombers in Israel and gave at least verbal support to various groups attacking Israel, I think he was more in bed with the Syrians than anyone else. I do believe that elements of Al Qaeda existed in Iraq while he was in power. In that regard, he's not that different from the leaders of most Arab countries except for UAE and Quatar (Spelling?).

Somer,
Yes, he did provide money to suicide bombers. He also took all the weapons the US could provide when he ws involved in the war with Iran. This is very well documented. The US also supported the Shah. Remember him?
That alone antagonized many in the mideast.
As far as ties to Syria by Saddam, I know of no documentation.
If Genuine Risk or KYRose are interested, here's an interesting view:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0911-32.htm
Seems to me that people wish to cling to their beliefs, even when facts are presented.
Here come the bashers.
All I can say is read it, dispute it. Don't attack me.


Present facts that contradict those stated in the article, if you can.

The world is in a state of chaos and hatred.
I did not create these circumstaces. I only report them.
Good night and good luck.
DTS

[quote=Danzig2]so since hussein committed genocie 'a long time ago' that's ok?? and it wasn't that long ago, not that that matters. i'd image the family members of those killed feel like it was just yesterday, when it was after gulf one. really not so long ago after all.QUOTE]

No, it's not okay, but my point is why didn't we go over and attack Hussein then? Why is he being tried for those crimes now? Why didn't the U.S. do something then to liberate those people right after the genocide attacks?

Well, the clearest "evidence" of his Syrian ties to me is the fact that his family took refuge there. I think with Syria on his border, it makes sense that he would cultivate a relationship. The Shah was a dictator but highly secular and pro-western, he had turned Iran into a progressive culture where women were treated equally and there was reason for optimism, he was also brutal and unyielding to those who disagreed with his rule (hense the label of dictator), I think it was understandable that the US supported him, but obviously, in retrospect, a bad idea OR...we should have gone all the way and stopped that religious zealot from taking power. This was an example of not having a long term policy with spelled-out objectives in the region. Same for arming Saddam later when he fought Iran...you simply can't be all things to all people and we are paying a heavy price now!

we are still paying for our rotten foreign policy, based so many years on what russia did--excuse me, what the soviet union did. bin laden and those of his ilk accepted the help we gave them to rid their country of the soviets, but it did nothing as far as building an ally in the region. they hated us, they just used us as much as possible to rid them of the 'other' evil, the ussr. to them we were no less evil. same as the iran/iraq war. we used the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' kind of logic, it's what got saddam all those weapons (we knew he had wmd, he used them(gassed the kurds), we gave them to him) because rather than stay the hell out of it, we chose sides. not iran, because of the shah and again, the ussr...but iraq--just as evil as iran.

as far as whether iraq had any part in 9-11, and whether that was part of why we invaded iraq....seems to me that after 9-11, we've changed our mentality a bit. don't wait for them to hit first. see a danger, hit them. was iraq a danger? probably not so much as thought, certainly not as dangerous as iran....

problem is, after somalia, not reacting to the cole, etc...we've portrayed ourselves as weak. we let any goodwill from kuwait evaporate--what hurt us the most was encouraging the overthrow of saddam after gulf 1, and doing NOTHING to help those poor bastards that we led to believe we'd help. now they're dead. those who survived have no use, no respect for us.

that being said, our foreign policy should never be based on weakness, not on popularity. we won't ever truly be liked over there, not as long as we are allies of israel. but we need to earn back the respect we've lost. bush doesn't seem the one to do that....

If you're going to provide a link to some left-wing nonsense, you should at least find something that is well thought and has good arguments. This article is a joke. You say that facts are presented. There are no facts in there. There are opinions in there and the opinions are clearly wrong and there are facts that prove they are wrong.

For example, the author says that "Everyobody in government knows that the terrorists hate us because of our blind support of Israel, 'not because they hate our freedom.' "

The author has got to be kidding. First of all, there is nobody in governmet that thinks that. He claims that everyone in government thinks that. I would like to know which people in government think that. I have heard dozens of interviews with people in our government from both sides of the aisle and I don't know one person who shares this view. More importantly, Israel has very little to do with why the terrorists hate us. Bin Laden rarely discussed Israel before 9/11. The main thing he talked about was wanting us out of Saudi Arabia. Israel was never his issue. Today, terrorists are constantly threatening us saying that we must convert to Islam or they will kill us. That has nothing to do with Israel but everything to do with freedom, freedom of religion.

How could you post such nonsense. A 12 year old kid could beat this author in a debate. I like it when the author says, "The Bush administration has bungled the war on terror so badly that there are no real prospects of winning."

This is a stupid comment considering that the war on terror was in response to 9/11. One of the main objectives of the war on terror was to make sure that there would be no more terror attacks in the US. We know darn well that the terrorists have been doing everything in their power to attack us again, but our government has prevented them from doing so. There has not been one terrorist attack in this country since 9/11. The main objective of the war on terror was to prevent further attacks on our soil. So contrary to the contention of the genius author that the war on terror has been so badly bungled, the facts are that the war on terror has been incredibly successful and has thwarted every single terrorist plot to attack us again in the US. I'm not saying that our government hasn't made any mistakes. Sure they have made mistakes. I think there are lot of things that they could be doing better. But I certainly have to give them credit for being so successful in protecting the homeland from any more attacks. They've done a great job. The CIA, FBI, Dep. of Homeland security, etc. have all done great jobs.

If you are going to post any more articles, plese don't insult our intelligence. At least, post an article that makes some intelligent arguments.

The basic theme to this entire arguement is an old one. It really is about protecting individual rights and at the same time not infringing on the rights and safety of the public as a whole.

Difficult situations like terrorists who basically play on the freedom granted by this country make the above a terribly difficult problem.

I am happy there are people on both sides of the arguement debating this. But it is very interesting how the public is so fickle. Directly after 9/11, you had very little opposition to gtmo prisons or people being held improperly, people searched improperly, etc... Some of these individual horror stories of innocent people being held without due process or any other constituitional guarantee that are citizens of this country is troubling. But the cry does not really start until other events start going a bit sour. Bush was given carte blanche to erradicate threats and make this country safe. Some people saw way ahead of time what this would mean. Most did not complain until well after said event. I find this the most interesting part of the whole debate. The swaying that is shown very clearly in public opinion polls.

So clearly one of the problems this country faces, any democracy faces, is the public overreacting one way or another directly after an event. The event plays out over time, and the arguement that people make change. Very fickle country. It seems whomever or whatever is doing well in the polls is equated with doing the right thing. Now people are questioning so many more things than they ever would have if events had played out differently.

What suprises me is how little discussion there is on Afghanistan. Considered a just war by Europe and almost all Americans. We have won that war also but we are losing the political battle there. So as expected, many NATO allies are now questioning the whole idea in the first place, completely ignoring why we went in.

Most of the complaining about civil liberties is done for purely partisan reasons. I would say that 90% of the people complaining would not be complaining if the President was a democrat. By the same token, if a democrat was President, you would have a ton of republicans screaming that our civil liberties are being taken away. This is just your usual partisan nonsense.

The truth of the matter is that the government has no choice. If they catch some terrorist overseas and they confiscate his cell phone and computer and discover he has been in contact with people over here, our government has to investigate these people immediately. They can't take their time and hope to stumble upon something. They have to investigate these people vigorously. This may involve wiretaps and it may involve arresting these people before the investigation is complete. They don't have a choice. Would it be better to let them blow up a building first? I don't think so. By the way, I don't think the Constitution defined "probable cause". It talks about probable cause but I don't think it actually defines it. With the Patriot Act, they still have to have probable cause but the burden is not as high as it was in the past. Just because the burden is not as high, that does not mean that the Constitution has been violated in any way.

I have a question. Everyone seems to be forgetting that the World Trade Centers were attacked before...I think it was back in 1993. What did the U.S. do about that?

Bush has done some stuff that I think that he thinks is genuinely good for the country. I do not believe he is an evil man. But like some of our enemies, he is driven. But some of his administrations actions, things he truely believes are the right thing to do, are clearly on the boundaries of infringing upon individual's rights. Bush has clearly overstepped his executive boundaries in some cases. A conservative supreme court has already shot one of his attempts down, with conservatives going against his administration's contentions. I understand his frustration. He badly wants to protect the country and do what HE believes is right.

Example: If my daughter was murdered in a most cruel manner, and the accussed was found guilty, but because of evidence obtained illegally, the convicted had to be retried... Upon retrial, there was not enough evidence to convict.

I would personally devote my life to trying this individual myself. My life as a human would most likely end at this point. I most likely would not be able to function until justice was done. (I use most likely as I would probably have to be counseled at this point and I am pretty sure I am not Christ-like enough to handle myself) After justice, as I saw it, was done, I would then be prosecuted and probably spend my life in prison.

The bottom line: I did wrong. I would take matters into my own hands if I did not get justice, and this IS wrong. And I would and should suffer the consequences. As much sympathy as I might get from the general public, I would still be wrong. I am pretty sure (not trying to be macho but I would most likely try and kill the accussed), I would do something against the law and I should be punished.
I think Bush is presented with this type of dilemma, only he does not see what he is doing as skirting the law of the land. I think he badly wants to make things right. I do not believe he thinks what he is doing is wrong, even if the Supreme Court finds his administration's attempts to make the country safer unconstitutional, because it is what HE believes is right.

Very nice example. We found out who was behind it and brought some of them to justice. But we did not take on a whole country, like in the case of 9/11. Mainly because no country denied handing over any of the accussed. The Taliban who was ruling "party" in Afghanistan, refused us access to the training camps and individuals involved in the massacre and admitted harboring them. We asked the UN and Europeans to demand Afghanistan, run by the Taliban, to comply with our wishes. They flattly refused and even admitted to contributing to the disaster. The rest is history.

Thanks pgardn.

Brillantly put, pgardn. Simply brillant. From everyone's posts on here...I believe yours just hit closest to home.

Rupert,
The government does have choices. We gave them those choices. We voted for them which allowed them to sit up there and make those choices for us. Some have not been very good. Some have. We aren't going to solve the world's problems here, but talking about them is a start. Talk is good.

For the record, I'm not a democrat. I used to think that I was a Republican before I could vote. Before I could vote, I liked Dole and Bush. I wanted both of them to win their elections. However, when I became somewhat educated in the subject area because of a PS class and the wars, I decided that it was best not to be in any party.

The wars woke me up. I think it woke a lot of Americans up. I think that the U.S. reacted before they thought in regards to 9/11. I didn't know what was going on at the time because I was young and uneducated. Well, I became educated, and I look at the facts. You have to look beyond that party BS, and you have to take everything the media and the government say with a pound of salt because they are biased and they lie. It is very hard to decipher the truth from the lies.

This is a topic that you and I can agree to disagree on. I stand firm. If I am given some new information that contradicts my current stance, then I will change my opinion. However, from the evidence that I have seen from this post, I think that I need to stay the course that I am on. Pgardn put it best. The administration is on the verge of going too far, and I think that they have overstepped their boundaries in certain instances.

I too think this article may have been a little over the top because it went into the slippery slope fallacy (which could become a reality; nothing is guaranteed), but there is some real truth in it. I also looked at just who wrote the article. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and check out just who the author is. He's got some real credibility and people may should listen to him and consider what he is saying. That way, they will be prepared and won't be surprised if something like that does end up happening (I HOPE NOT). If this article isn't a wake up call, then nothing will be a wake up call.

Let me ask you something...Do you think that those two Americans should have been stripped of their Constitutional rights and held indefinitely without the right to a trial?
I would really like to know just what those two Americans did to deserve that. If anyone has any information, please inform me!

What about those two women who were handcuffed and strip searched? Was that right? Well, it infuriates me! It makes me want to go protest right in front of the White House with a great big poster saying that I am against the war! I want to see what they would do! That way, I would know whether or not the government did have too much power.
I do wish the article would have provided a little more detail as to what actually happened there. Does anyone know of any articles that related to this particular instance?

I take it that you are 100% Republican (please correct me if I'm wrong). I thought the author's argument was not particularly weak, and had some extremely valid points that are indeed FACTS and not opinions, although some were opinons, but not ALL. By the way Rupert, if you look, the author is/was in the governement.

Also, what our government says to us through TV is not known to be truthful 100% of the time. What they say on TV may be totally different from what they talk about amongst themselves.

I can't belive how badly they treated those two Americans. That was awful. You want to know what Jose Padilla did? He didn't do anything bad, he only was planning on detonating a "dirty bomb" in a major US city to try to kill a few-hundred thousand people. I can't believe they put him in jail for a few years. That's really harsh. This is a guy who is a member of Al Qaeda who went to a terrorist training-camp in Afghanistan to learn bomb-making so he could bomb a US city.

To answer your question, I have no problem with them holding Jose Padilla for 3 1/2 years. That's a lot better than he deserves. He should hae been put to death a long time ago.

That guy who wrote the article is an idiot. He said that everyone in government thinks that the reason that terrorists hate us is because of Israel. If he doesn't lose credibility with that statement, then I give up. He worked at the State Department. That is actually the mindset at the State Department. It's scary that they actually have some power and help make foreign policy. The State Department is completely incompetent and has been for many years. I'm glad that guy's article was published. It shows what the mindset is like over there.

With regard to the two women being strip-searched, I'm sure the author is telling us the whole story. Everyting else he said was so credible, I'm sure he's not trying to mislead us with a half-truth.

You are correct that you can't believe everything the government tells us. That author worked in the government and he is totally full of it. There actually is a lot of b.s. that comes from both parties. They will often only tell you one side of the story. With most of these things, you really do need to research things on your own or at least get both sides of the argument.

With regard to your question of whether I'm a 100% republican, the answer is no. I don't like either party. I disagree with both parties on many issues. In general, I think the republicans are the lesser of two evils.

With regard to protesting the war, you can protest all you want. Nothing will happen. There are protests all over the country. Nobody gets arrested as long as they obey the law.

just remember that even protests may not be real. apparently groups who have an agenda hire people for a few hours to carry signs. many are paid to be there 'protesting'!!

Wow, so you do think that Americans like Jose Padilla should be stripped of their Constitutional rights! Well, I believe in doing the right thing. And I believe the right thing is the U.S. Constitution. It is supposed to be the supreme law of this land. We must stay within its boundaries.

Amendment Six

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very glad that they caught Jose Padilla before he was able to execute his evil plot (THANK GOD), but I just believe that he should have had a right to a trial as the U.S. Constitution states.

Also, to not be a Republican, you sure are very derogatory towards leftists.

Also, people are arrested all the time even if they do obey the laws. Just ask the guy on death row that they found to be innocent due to a DNA analysis two hours before his execution!!!

The author of the article was very biased. However, you only acknowledged his biases and opinions. You did not even bother to acknowledge the clear-cut facts that he presented which are known to be true. Therefore, I am going to point them out…

Fact (reworded)
“Five years after 9/11, it's clear that the Bush administration's costly War on Terror has failed on one count. It has undermined our civil liberties. The world has always been dangerous. The direct cost of the war in Iraq, according to Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel economist, has already exceeded $1 trillion, including long-term veterans' care and similar costs. Along with the war has come enormous destruction and loss of life, and major damage to our international standing.”

Fact
“In the aftermath of 9/11, the administration succeeded in passing a version of an internal security law, called the USA Patriot Act. It permits secret arrests, sneak and peek searches, and obtaining bank, credit, library and Internet records, all without a warrant. The administration also instituted wiretaps and intercepts on millions of Americans' e-mail messages and phone calls without warrants, a program recently ruled unconstitutional by a federal court.”

Fact
“In 2005, Bush quietly created the National Clandestine Service, which authorizes the CIA to operate within the United States -- despite past abuses such as Operation Chaos -- and reinstituted domestic spying by the military through the Counter Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA), in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. He also created the National Security Service, putting elements of the FBI under his direct control, the closest we have had to a secret police agency in our 200-year history. The FBI now sends out 30,000 National Security Letters per year, demanding personal information without benefit of a warrant. It has imposed gag orders on every aspect of NSLs, making it illegal to reveal that one has been received.”

“Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union show that the government conducted surveillance on as many as 150 peaceful protest or social groups, including Greenpeace, Catholic Workers, and Quakers in Florida. The Bush administration has used the threat of terrorism to silence peaceful protest at public events. It has happened all over the country, including to two women in Cedar Rapids who were handcuffed, led off to jail and strip-searched for "disrupting" a Bush rally.”
I’m sure that these are facts, but I would like more information about them. What kind of surveillance was the government conducting? In what other instances has the Bush administration used the threat of terrorism to silence peaceful protest at public events? Was this the only reason those two women were led off to jail? The article didn't actually say that the two women were arrested or charged. If they did get charged, common sense tells me that it was some BS charge that they were disturbing the peace which would have probably not held up in a court of law.

Fact
“than the arrest of two American citizens, Jose Padilla and Yasir Hamdi, who were held for 3½ years in solitary confinement with no charges, no court appearance and no lawyer. The Bush administration declared them "enemy combatants" -- Enemies of the State -- and threw them in prison indefinitely.”

Fact
“For more than a decade, they have advocated attacking Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and even Saudi Arabia. The principal reason they wanted to invade Iraq was to eliminate any clandestine weapons-of-mass-destruction program.”

Fact (reworded)
“Their next target is Iran. The pretext is Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program.”

This may be a fact (I don’t know) (reworded)
“The terrorists hate us because of our blind support for Israel, not because they "hate our freedom."
I know that terrorists don’t hate us because of our freedom. A political scientist told me that they hate us because of our wealth and power which is why they attacked the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon. The World Trade Center is a significant symbol of our wealth, and the Pentagon is a significant symbol of our power. I have no idea if they also hate us because of our blind support of Israel.

Fact
“Such a wider war would further inflame the Middle East and provoke an even greater terrorist threat in response, with higher costs than we can now imagine -- including domestic costs.”

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0911-32.htm

There may be some other facts in this article, but I don’t have enough knowledge in those areas to have a clear opinion about it.

People here live in luxury and thus any country that doesn't gets the sympathetic "oh those poor people" bull****. It's extremely condescending. A soldier from this country who grew up, corn fed, in Kansas of course will be shocked and assaulted by the way people live or survive abroad. Some tolerate it. Some don't. I never felt the obligation to make the situation sound better than it is, but it should always be taken in perspective. But I'm sure that some of you will disagree, because of course you know better, and you've lived outside this country, and you've seen combat, or you have a Master's degree in basketweaving. You have people who hate Americans for breaking the sovereignty of the country and you had the rest of the populace who preferred the Americans

Jessica, The Constitution does not guarantee those rights during times of war. By the way, Padilla did have a lawyer. He may not have had access to a lawyer immediately, but he did get one. I don't think he waited anything close to 3 1/2 years to get one.

With regard to people being arrested that do obey the laws such as the guy you mentioned that was cleared by DNA, what does that have to do with President Bush? There have been plenty of innocent people that have been mistakenly arrested over the past 100 years. That has nothing to do with President Bush.

If you think the Patriot Act has taken away civil liberties, you can blame Congress. They wrote the Patriot Act. By the way, Congress does have the right to write laws. The Patriot Act was a bi-partisan piece of legislation. It passed by a vote of 450-0 or something like that. If you are against it, then you are pretty hopeless. Even the morons in congress to both the far-left and the far-right were in favor of it. It was absolutely necessary to pass that law.

With regard to the Iraq War, the author is right that the war has been incredibly expensive monetarily. He's right about that. The fact that it has been monetarily expensive does not necessarily mean that invading Iraq was a mistake. It may have been a mistake. I have serious questions about whether going to war with Iraq was a good idea or not. As of right now, it looks like it was a mistake.

You say that I am derogatory toward leftists. That is absolutely true if the leftist(in this case the author) has no regard for the truth and is intentinally trying to mislead readers with fasle statements and half-truths. the funny thing about the articles in commondreams is that they don't even attempt to be honest. They don't even try to give you the facts. they know they don't need to. They know who their audience is. They're just preaching to the choir. I don't like it when my intelligence is insulted like that by someone from the left or right. For example, my mom is very conservative and she will call me up and tell me something that is an obvious half-truth and I get annoyed. I don't care what someone's politics are. I just want them to be honest with me. I don't want half-truths or propaganda from either side.

Who has advocated attacking Saudi Arabia or Lebanon? Where did you come up with that?

With regards to why the terrorists hate us, they hate us for a number of reasons. The main thing they don't want to happen is for countries such as Iraq to be free like the United States. If there is freedom, then they can't force their religion on everyone. They want to force women to cover their faces. They want to force people to pray 5 times a day. They won't let you choose your religion. If you want to covert to Chritianity or any religion, you will be put to death.

There have certainly been negative consequences to our foreign policy but there have also been positive ones. Look at our relations with many of the countries in that region. Our relations are beter than ever with most Arab states. We have great relations with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Turkey, the new Iraqi government, Pakistan, Libya, etc.

Our relations are very poor with Iran but that has been the case for over 20 years. Our relations are not particularly good with Syria either.

In terms of our actions inflaming the masses in the Middle East, I would agree that that is true. But that's not totally our fault. Those people get nothing but propaganda over there and are not given the truth. The press constantly bashes us over there and intentionally misleads the masses.

I could care less about prisoners rights, i hope there are secret jails and holding facilities for these bastards in order to get information out of them. They probably do it mafia style, and stick icepicks in their balls, and put their heads in vices til their eyeballs pop out, just like what Joe Pesci did in Casino..lol "Charlie M!, you make me pop your eye out of your head for that mother****er"

Rupert, for a man who wants people to deal in the facts, you're not very careful about checking your own...

The Sixth Amendment does not contain an exception for wartime. There have been cases that have argued there is an implicit exception, but if you're a strict constructionist, it ain't technically in there.

The two main drafters of the PATRIOT Act were Ass't Attorney General Viet D. Dinh and future Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. I'd hardly call that "bi-partisan." And neither were Congressmembers when they drafted the PATRIOT Act.

Yes, it was passed with overwhelming support- 98-1 in the Senate and 357-66 in the House (100 Senators and 435 Representatives, for a total of 535 voting bodies. I guess some abstained. I'm uncertain where you got 450- please let me know if I'm wrong about the number of Reps we have). Many Representatives and Senators didn't even read the whole thing, since it was dropped on them fast and the vote brought up faster (doesn't excuse them for not reading it, but sure seems shifty on behalf of Bush & Co, eh? Where was the harm in letting people have time to read the darn thing before making them vote on it?). If they had read it, maybe they might have noticed provision 411, which makes any association with a terrorist EVEN IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW THE PERSON WAS A TERRORIST a deportable offense. How about that? Your coworker turns out to be an Islamic radical and suddenly you are shipped out of the country.

Sixteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, weren't they? As in "We have great relations with Saudi Arabia" Saudi Arabia? And most of those nations you list are not democracies, correct?

Speaking of the people "over there" getting propaganda and not the truth-- have you watched Fox News lately? Pot? Kettle. Have you met?

You're absolutely right to not want to accept opinion as fact, but it sometimes seems that you prefer to cut the right a break on facts and hold the left to a higher standard. And they should both be held to the same one (high). So be fair and balanced, why don' 'cha, since Fox News clearly won't be? :)

For everyone-- here's a link to Keith Olberman on 9/11-- he's become somewhat of a darling of the liberal blogosphere, which I find odd because he's hardly a liberal, but I guess in these right-winger times, a fair analysis seems like a left-leaning one...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=B_4ZmcPEcVY

But I'm still glad you're posting, Rupert-- it's no fun debating things when only like-minded people post (much as I love to read what they have to say). And Seattle-- dude, you crack me up. Nice "Casino" reference.

BTW, I was calling you neither a pot nor a kettle, Rupert (though I have nothing against cookware per se)-- I just find it funny when we in American yammer about propaganda in other nations...

I meant to deleate the part about the administration advocating attacking Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. I missed that. I don't know anything about that.

You said that people aren't arrested if they are obeying the law. Well, I found a ton of articles that say that the government has been arresting protesters unconstitutionally. Here are just a few...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...112302185.html

http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20050...5611-3029r.htm

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/...lders+kept+out

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316

Here are also some other articles on how people are starting to fight back. Even state attorney's are finding fault in the government and are starting to talk up about. The fact is that the government is infringing on our rights.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/A...s-Lawsuit.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/us/08liberties.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/op...c7a&ei=5087%0A

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/wa...8prexycnd.html

Also...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/us/12bush.html

How do you beat these people...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/wo.../12afghan.html

Here are the articles about the two women who were arrested at Cedar Rapids...they were teachers...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...otesters_x.htm

http://www.blogforiowa.com/blog/_arc.../7/136478.html

http://www.drudge.com/news/83680/arr...protesters-sue

Here is the Jose Padillo case...

http://www.chargepadilla.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%...d_terrorist%29

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...amiherald_news

He didn't do anything bad, he only was planning on detonating a "dirty bomb" in a major US city to try to kill a few-hundred thousand people.

This statement that you said earlier is very false. They have no evidence out that whatsoever as stated in the last link above.

are you taking some kind of class?

I think it's just the power of Google (at least in my case). It's the part that sucks; that it takes a fair amount of time to gather enough info to have an informed opinion. I think it's why we like to get fed info via cable news. It's easier. So is picking a horse by choosing which name you like best.

Where do you come up with this stuff? You say that the governmnet has been aresting protesters unconstitutionally? I clicked on a couple of your articles. I read the first 2 articles. Nowhere in the artciles does it say anything about people being arrested unconstitutionally. Quite to the contrary, it says the opposite. It says they were breaking the law and they were told they would be arrested if they did not disperse.

You say that it is false that Padilla planned on detonating a dirty bomb? I'd like to see where you came up with that. There are tons of witnesses that have said he was planning to do that and I believe he even admitted it himself. Granted the plan was in the very early stages and he hadn't obtained radioactive materials yet. Just because he wasn't charged with this specific plot, that does not mean that there was no such plot. They have a ton of things that they are charging him with. He will probably receive multiple lfe sentences. They don't need to charge him with that specific plan. They would rather charge with things that are even easier to prove.

There have been serial killers that murdered 40 people. They aren't always charged with all 40 murders. If the police have their strongest evidence in 20 of the cases and the guy is only charged in those 20 cases, it hardly mean that he is innocent in the other 20. That's basically the case with Padilla. They have such strong evidence against him on multiple charges that they probably won't charge him specifically with the "dirty bomb" plot because it was in the early stages and it is a harder case to prove than the other charges that will be brought against him.

I just checked the original vote on the Patriot Act. As you said it passed the Senate practically unanimously by a vote of 98-1. It passed the House by a vote of 357-66 as you said. That is pretty overwhelming and shows absolue bi-partisan support. I think that is nonsense that most Congressmen did not read it or were not aware of its contents. It was passed agian last year with a few minor chnages and it passed overwhelmingly with bi-partisan support. Your argumnet is ridiculous that the congressmen had no time to read it. How do you explain it passing so overwhelmingly last year after congressmen had 5 years to read it?

With regard to the media, you have it totally backwards. For years we had a media that was way left of center. I think the polls showed that over 90% of the media labeled themselves as liberal democrats. There was a huge liberal bias in the media. Now we have Fox News that is a little right of center, and you think that is awful. It's hilarious. Fox is no further right than the mainstream media has been to the left over the years. At least with Fox, all of their shows have guests from both sides. O'Reilly is definitely well right of center but he constantly brings on guests that are way left of center and debates them. What is wrong with that? Both sides get their say. Not only that, at least Fox News has plenty of liberal hosts and anchors. Geraldo is a democrat. Gretta is a democrat. Allan Colmes is a democrat. Name me a republican anchor at CBS, NBC, or ABC. There are so few republican reporters in the mainstream media that it is ridiculous.

I find it amusing that many liberals see Fox News as so far right-wing and yet they don't even recognize how left-wing the mainstream media is. You are so used to the left-wing media that when a news organization(Fox) comes along that is a little right of center, you think it's some crazy right-wing propaganda. It's hilarious.

By the way, if you're an American, you can't be deported for knowing a terrorist. I think you misunderstood that part. That only applies to people that are here on visas.

By the way, you are wrong about the Constitution. The Constitution specifically says that certain rights cannot be guaranteed during war time or emergencies.

The Constitution also states clearly how war can be declared.
Not that it's been followed since WW II.

Very well stated, Rupe.

Leftists can't tolerate the slightest dissent or criticism.

Just look at how Wee Willie Klinton and the mindless Klintonoids are squealing like greased pigs over a few scenes from a TV movie. And where are the howls of censorship from the usual leftist quarters?

Fifty years of absolute leftist media monopoly isn't enough for them. When AM radio turned to talk formats to keep from going out of business ... and right-wing hosts proved to be very popular ... again all we've heard is pig-squeals over reinstating the "fairness" doctrine in order to drive any and all right-wing commentary off the air.

And how about PBS and NPR ... funded by all taxpayers ... at least 50% of whom are rightists ... yet still spewing 100% leftist crapola for over 40 years. When a couple of right-leaning members were appointed to the board of directors ... again the lefties squealed and squealed.

Leftists are utterly bankrupt ... ever since their secular god ... the Soviet Union ... was thrown into the trash can by their nemesis ... Ronald Reagan ... these disillusioned lefties can think of nothing better to do ... than howl at the moon.

Just wait and see the screaming and gnashing that occurs when the cigars explode in their faces again this November.

Now that's entertainment!

I would be very happy to tell you where to put your cigar.
I'll even tell you how to light the fuse.
I'll watch. It should be very entertaining.
At least your budget will be spared the expense of all the preparation-h.
Hemmeroids?
What hemmeroids?
BOOM!

I'm not referring to anyone on this board, but I have found incredible hypocrisy amongst most liberals when it comes to civil rights, free speech, etc.

When a conservative speaker goes to a university to speak, the students will often times try to drown him out and not even allow him to speak. These are liberal students who are supposed to be in favor of free speech. In reality, they only want free speech for people they agree with.

In addition, what President was the biggest violator of people's civil rights? I'll give you a hint. He was the biggest liberal ever. It was FDR, who actually put Americans of Asian descent in internment camps during World War II.

I have this one friend who is a real liberal. He said that someone should kill Bill O'Reilly. It's amazing. My friend is a liberal yet he so desperately wants to silence O'Reilly that he wishes someone would kill him. My friend obviously does not belive in free speech even though he would claim that he absolutely does. The ironic thing is that O'Reilly is a big believer in free speech. O'Reilly is always brining people on his show who have the total opposite views and he debates them. Like O'Reilly, I like to let these idiots talk. The more they talk, they just end up making fools of themselves most of the time.