Bush feeling heat after Saudi attacks

Taipei Times ^ | 5.16.03

[palmer]

And if Reagan and H.W. Bush hadn't supplied Saddam with arms we also might not be having this conversation.

They didn't.

[MinuteGal]

All Americans should get out of Saudiland, the not-so-Magic Kingdom.

I realize many of our folk and their families make their living there and I empathize.

It reminds me of the old Jack Benny hold-up bit, "your money or your life". The miserly Jack appears to take an eternity to make up his mind.

The American ex-pats in Saudi who were killed had plenty of warning and had to make up their minds.

They just took too long, like Jack.

Leni

[palmer]

I didn't see any U.S. weapons in Iraq, did you? If you did, what were they?

[palmer]

Here's just one of about a bazillion links refuting your terse argument

Actually many of the 9,170 links say we didn't supply arms. I didn't look at the one you pointed out, maybe you weren't being very critically minded when you picked it out?

[dirtboy]

Bush had almost two years in office to deal effectively with Osama before 9-11, and he didn't.

Clinton had two opportunities to either capture or kill bin Laden. He declined to act either time. He failed to take significant Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, the embassy bombings in 1998, or the Cole attack in 2000. The cruise missile attacks you mentioned were a pathetic joke that just got Al Qaeda mad at us, instead of fearful of us.

Go talk to someone who cares. Clinton has been demoted to the compost heap of history, and his followers join him there on a regular basis to bury their heads in the stinking morass of the Clinton legacy.

[dirtboy]

http://www.cascobayweekly.com

Ah, another smoking gun courtesy of a weekly "arts and entertainment" rag that devotes more staffers to taking orders for escort service classified ads than to writing newspaper articles. Quite the heavy artillery you got there - I'm sure Jayson Blair probably wrote something on this, perhaps you could provide a link to that for a more credible cite than the one you just provided.

[dirtboy]

rewrite after bad paste:

Clinton had two opportunities to either capture or kill bin Laden. He declined to act either time. He failed to take significant action after the intial WTC attack, the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, the embassy bombings in 1998, or the Cole attack in 2000. The cruise missile attacks you mentioned were a pathetic joke that just got Al Qaeda mad at us, instead of fearful of us.

[arasina]

Gee, doncha wonder what Graham and Feingold would have done if they were in Bush's boots? Complain and complain? Heck, neither of them is actually for battling terrorism! They just want to use this instance to badmouth our president!

[dirtboy]

How's a Congressional report for more credibility?

Hmm, who's the congressman?

As late as 1989 and 1990, according to a report from U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)

Kuchinich? Try again - he's as liberal, partisan and peacenik as they come.

U.S. companies, under permits from the first Bush administration, sent mustard gas materials, live cultures for bacteriological research, to Iraq.

We'd need to have far more information on what these permits entailed - info that is lacking here. They could simply be general export permits.

[dirtboy]

Once again, please provide more hard infomation - what exactly was involved politically with the permits to allow American companies to export to Iraq? How much State Department oversight was involved? I see a lot of thunder but little lightning in your posts so far.

[dirtboy]

I really, REALLY loved this level of nit-pick from the link you provided:

Mr Rumsfeld recently said that he had, at the December 1983 meeting, “cautioned” Saddam about the use of chemical weapons. That claim does not tally with a declassified State Department note of his meeting. A Pentagon spokesman later said that Mr Rumsfeld issued the caution to Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Foreign Minister.

Man, if you have to be that anal to make your point, what does that say about the point you are trying to make?

[1rudeboy]

But How's a Congressional report for more credibility?

Small point, but quoting from an article about a Congressional report is not the same as quoting from the report itself. One would think that someone who is familiar with the legal definition of "proximate cause" (wait, I take that back) would understand the distinction.

[dirtboy]

I think we would all benefit from being able to present stronger arguments using primary sources in the future.

A very sound sentiment, indeed.

[1rudeboy]

You could try Thomas, or contact Rep. Kucinich's office. I don't see what good it will do, since the exports to Iraq were legal and did not involve weaponized material . . . a point that the Left deliberately obscures.