Are we on the same page?

When, where and by who?

If you are talking about Koresh’s relationship with a 14 year old woman, I found the notion of him sleeping with his 63 year old landlady utterly disturbing (considering she was older than his mother).

“Abuse” is a great word, the ultimate label. In scrapped attempt at a book “Child porn – the pinnacle of hatred”, where I attempt to define absolute prejudice, a relatively senior police officer interviewed, described ‘child sex crime as worse than murder’. Yet if you look at the reality of those “crimes”, it is rare that a juvenille is not complicit in proceedings, with the exception of abductions. I came to the conclusion after YEARS OF RESEARCH, that those supporting the general notion of child abuse (not including abduction) use the term protect when they mean prosecute. I find it fascinating to see judgements when all sexual parties are underage. Who is the victim and who is the rapist, now that is the question?….LOL

Federal law enforcement officers were in good faith honourably executing their sworn duty, attempting to serve lawful court approved arrest warrants, and were met with deadly force. The validity of the underlying sworn testimony, which was the cause of the warrants being issued, is not germane. The place to determine that is in the US Court System.

In both Waco and Ruby Ridge, armed rebellion was chosen over peaceful resolution in a Federal Court System that at the time, still adhered to due process of law. The government overreacted, but the blame for the initiation of the deadly conflict is not theirs.

The NSA Archives has the “Memorandum of Conversation with Zhou Enlai, 20 June 1972“. (3.13 MB PDF File) available for download. The Vietnam part can be found on pp 27-37. It was “a particularly loquacious day” for Dr. Kissinger (his own words, last page).

Dr. K drew China an ‘effin diagram for a decent interval between US disengagement in Vietnam and the N. Vietnamese takeover of it. This should be better known.

A scanned and marked-up to html version, suitable for copying text directly is available.

The “Worst President” and His Management Claims

A BUZZFLASH PERSPECTIVE
Submitted by Maureen Farrell

There’s another Bush-embracing e-mail making the rounds. History buff and scrupled Republican Richard Harden of Huntington Beach, CA and Professor Cary de Wit, of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, are fighting ignorance with fact.

Your readers may be familiar with the e-mail, which (at least if information about its origin is accurate) is actually a letter to the editor from a Durham, NC newspaper.

But, in case they need a quick rebuttal:

>

From Richard Harden: “That is not perspective, it is distortion. Unfortunately, cold truth doesn’t travel as well as entertaining fiction but if this response could travel back up the e-mail chain to the author of the original misinformation, we might all be spared further nonsense.

Letter: “We didn’t start the war on terror. Try to remember, it was started by terrorists BEFORE 9/11.”

Richard Harden: “Indeed it was and not a one of the perpetrators of any of those acts of terrorism against us was an Iraqi or a member of the Taliban.

I will not address the ‘casualty count’ as a measure of the success or failure of Presidents except to say that if that were the only criteria, then Coolidge might be our best and Lincoln our worst.

On to the history!

Letter: “Germany never attacked us: Japan did.”

Richard Harden: “That’s true, and FDR never tried to convince us it was the Germans! Within a few days, Hitler declared war on the U.S. then we declared war on Germany.

Letter: “Truman finished that war and started one in Korea, North Korea never attacked us.”

Richard Harden: “Harry Truman did finish WWII but he hardly started the Korean War. Soviet-armed North Korean armies poured over the internationally-recognized border into an unprepared South Korea. There were so few U.S. troops there available that it was seriously considered abandoning the Korean Peninsula. The war was fought by and authorized by the United Nations.”

Letter: “John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.”

Richard Harden: “Again, President Kennedy did not start the Vietnam war. It was a continuation of the civil war that followed the French withdrawal.

Letter: “Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire.”

Richard Harden: “Hard to argue there. But this is history in 20-20 hindsight. What were his options? Could he realistically have allowed the North Vietnamese to take over South Vietnam in 1965?”

Letter: “Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent,”

Richard Harden: “That conflict was fought by NATO within NATO’s operational area, i.e. Europe. As supporters of this ill-starred war in Iraq can attest, the French have rarely consented to anything the Americans have done since D-Day!

Letter: “Bush has liberated two countries,”

Richard Harden: “‘Liberated’ maybe. Occupied, definitely. We now have massive Army forces in those two countries. National Guard men and women have been torn from their lives here and sent to fight shadowy enemies in these countries with no end in sight. The cost cannot yet be counted. Recruiting for our armed forces is understandably down.”

Letter: “Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home”

Richard Harden : “Nor do we bother charging the 600 people we hold without legal recourse of any kind in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Most of them are probably dangerous people but if so, let’s prove it openly. By the way, nobody has been convicted of any crime related the World Trade Center attacks. Good detective work there, Mr. Bush.”

Letter: “Worst president in history? Come on!”

Richard Harden: “Come on indeed.” — rdh

From Prof. Cary de Wit:

“The original author conflates the invasion of Iraq with the ‘War on Terror.’ Most liberals don’t.

The Taliban may have been crushed, but it has sprung back with a vengeance, and women in Afghanistan are hardly feeling liberated.

Regional tribal warlords rule most of the country, and opium production is up to pre-Taliban levels.

There were UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors in North Korea until Bush called Kim Jong Il a pygmy and named NK to the Axis of Evil. NK then kicked them out. As far as I know, NK hasn’t allowed inspectors in since.

Bush didn’t put nuke inspectors in Iran or Libya, the UN IAEA did.

Libya’s cooperation with IAEA is credited by most of the people involved (not politicians or the press) to long-term, persistent diplomacy and delicate negotiations over the past decade. By the way, it’s spelled Libya, not “Lybia.”

The IAEA is the same agency that Bush and Cheney attempted to discredit
during the runnup to the Iraq invasion because the IAEA Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei, stated that there was no credible evidence that Iraq had nuclear weapons or had reconstituted any of it’s pre-1990 nuclear programs.

Other than that, I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Harden.”

A BUZZFLASH PERSPECTIVE

Then invaded Iraq, allowing the Taliban to regroup, and it now controls half of Afghanistan…

crippled al-Qaida,

then made a big recruiting poster, attracting more and more people to the terrorists’ cause…even creating a new terrorist group — Al-Quaeda in Mesopotamia– which didn’t exist prior to the invasion of Iraq

put nuclear inspectors in … North Korea
without firing a shot,

who were there during the Clinton administration

and captured a terrorist who
slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.

Who, according to Gen. Colin Powell, “has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.” (February, 2001)

Then invaded Iraq, allowing the Taliban to regroup, and it now controls half of Afghanistan…

crippled al-Qaida,

then made a big recruiting poster, attracting more and more people to the terrorists’ cause…even creating a new terrorist group — Al-Quaeda in Mesopotamia– which didn’t exist prior to the invasion of Iraq

put nuclear inspectors in … North Korea
without firing a shot,

who were there during the Clinton administration

and captured a terrorist who
slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.

Who, according to Gen. Colin Powell, was “has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.” (February, 2001)

Democracy cannot survive under the current regime, and unless we put up a strong fight and start actively protesting and make our voices heard, we are in mortal danger of losing our republic.

What continues to be disturbing is the uptick in propoganda and false history flooding the media from BushCo, as they attempt denial to erase their failures.

It’s the double bookkeeping on Iran intelligence, and the dangerous cadre of Israeli Right Wingnuts that surround Bush and set the terrible events in motion that we’ve seen and hope aren’t repeated before Bush leaves office.

Desperation coupled with fierce resolve from this fanatical cabal of NeoCons is still a danger and threat to our democracy.

There are many democrats who’ve been hypnotized by repetitive GOP spin as I unfortunately hear them repeating garbage about Rose Law firm records,etc., and a great many other lies about Hillary and other democrats.

Then, Germany declared war on US.

I could go on and on as the right wing noise machine has spun it all. Clinton went into Bosnia with NATO support and forces, etc., etc.

Americans can be fooled as long as they remain lazy and uninformed. Google should help them with their homework, and it’s a lot easier to do than my civics and history studies were in the 40′s and 50′s.

This pack of lies and distortions doesn’t surprise me, and it’s just disgusting that after 2 stolen elections we still have to fight off these disturbing untruths and propoganda. Rovian hubris and manipulation are both horrible and humorous, except that tragically there are those that still believe him.

Lots of great answers.
jo6pac

Not a single person I have interviewed can give a coherent answer on why the Dravidians were so destructive, beyond name-calling the self professed (and clearly in need of help) Messiah David Koresh.

thinker, fascinating. what is the you do?

do you have anything to add re: were the kids being sexually abused? (/snark/ of course if the gvt. kills you that stops the abuse. not exactly a fair trade.)

anything you care to say about the 3/4 atf agents who were the only feds to die and who had been clinton bodyguards in arkansas?

i’m curious. was wesley clark at ft. hood at this time and did he have any role here?

one thing everybody should know is that when you investigate these things there are tons of lies and things that reflect poorly of the gvt. koresh often left the compound. to go jogging. to do errands in town. if the feds wanted to arrest him easily they could have.

http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/1147.cfm

To condense John’s fine utterences into some harmony, a quick internet search revealed a single simple link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_history_events

No wonder the religious right don’t want wikipedia around! Although, saddly, even that place is starting to suffer from “political correctness”. But I tell you, United States Military History events is one of the biggest pages on the internet.
I mean, prior to 1840 they have had skirmishes in Mexico, the Falkland Islands (WTF) and Indonesia. Too busy killin’ off the native Indians to concetrate on anything else. And then came the Civil War….hmmm right after the Mexican American War. Actually, Japan, China, Fiji, Utah!!! came between Mexico and the Civil War. OK most of these were minor skirmishes by modern standards. Spannish-American, Philipine-American were highlights in continued agressive behaviour in Asia and South America right until the First World War – a War that the Americans took an enormous amount of credit for not a lot. More agression against China until World War 2. Now I must add that not only was FDR a Corporate whore and engaged a War based on the previous template (the difference with this war that some funds found their way into German coffers), but some believe that Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour was known well before time (similar to the modern debarcle called 911). Few have had the courage to delve any deeper, but it seems the US did the usual and entered a conflict for baseless reasons.

Well, I’m gettin’ outta puff. But again John has neglected to mention the alarm bells raised to Trumann on Communist influences in Vietnam in 1949 by the then leader. What did Trumann do? Nuttin’ of course. Instead he decided to lose the Korean War traditional in American style (we won, er lost). Then we had Cuba, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Cambodia, Laos (too minor). I know LBJ had a cement business, but I know he was a good man underneath. Why was Kennedy assassinated? Was he going to do the unthinkable and pull out of Vietnam? Then of course we had Lebanon, Iran, Lybia, Lebanon again and El Salvador somewhere in the mix. Grenada, Honduras, Panama & we haven’t even considered CIA run campaigns.

Yes John is right. If NATO had not backed Clinton he would have gone ahead alone. Albright & Reno are definitive evidence that witches exist in the Democrat camp as well. Waco was one of the greatest travesties legimised by the “justice system” on the basis of everything foul. Even Stalin would have been appalled at the wanton lack of rights given to the those poor people who were a scapegoat for social ignorance.

Not a single person I have interviewed can give a coherent answer on why the Dravidians were so destructive, beyond name-calling the self professed (and clearly in need of help) Messiah David Koresh.

Yes there is a clear parallel between the 100,000 annual gun related killings in the US and the trivial numbers that are perishing in order to keep the oil safe. What is your priority American government, to nuriture or to kill your people? You may mention Stalin or Hitler as examples of great tyranny beyond the imagination. But both Hitler and Stalin were clear on their objectives, while the US preaches Global civilisation while pointing a gun. The visible lack of scruples have sought out the beast within.

Can the leopard change its spots?