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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:09 PM
Original message
What it would take for me to believe in LIHOP
Edited on Sun Dec-07-03 03:09 PM by durutti
Find me one example of a modern liberal democratic government (or faction(s) within such a government) that has worked to either deliberately allow or to cause the killings of large numbers of its civilians (not soldiers or government officials) in order to further that government's or faction's agenda.

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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:11 PM
Response to Original message
1. If Jesus Christ came back and proclaimed LIHOP
I'd still ask to see the wounds in His side.
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RedSock Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:15 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. ???
reading ellsberg's "Secrets/pentagon papers":

what about the dem and rep presidents (5 total) who kept the vietnam war going for deacdes although each one of them knew all along it was pointless.

leaving aside all the vietnam dead, they sent tens of thousands of american men to their deaths knowing the war was unwinnable the entire time.
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:16 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. Again
I said: not soldiers.
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dpibel Donating Member (898 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:54 PM
Response to Reply #5
31. Why the soldier exclusion?
I'm not aware that people in the military are there to die at the discretion of the rulers, or to prop up the rulers' prestige or political standing.

Last I heard, American soldiers are still American citizens; their civil rights have some limitations, but I don't think they become some sort of disposable toys just by virtue of joining the military.

So why is it that you will be shocked, horrified, and convinced by evidence of rulers doing great evil to their own civilian population, but utterly dismiss them killing soldiers for none but political reasons?
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:09 PM
Response to Reply #31
42. Because
Governments send soldiers to die needlessly in wars all the time. To them (and to most people), killing soldiers is less morally culpable than killing civilians.
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papau Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 10:08 PM
Response to Reply #3
91. Putin's War By Sergei Kovalev may explain why LIHOP is "thinkable"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/04/60minutes/main586841.shtml
60 Minutes

When watching the 60 minutes story on how Bush puts out Iraq lies that rest of media hide - I got to thinking about C-spans take on a book on Russia's way to win elections – at least in 2000 - and wondering if 60 minutes next show will reveal Putins 2000 election as an interesting and possible interesting lead-in to 911 - something that taught Bush a lot?

In any case 60 minutes tonight was an amazing tale that other networks will ignore - traitors (Baathist murders chosen by Bush) in power, heroes arrested and held with out charges or contact with anyone (Bush seems to like this procedure) and all that is known is that the heroes objected to putting Saddam's torturers and murderers - the Baathists - back in power - and indeed had been selected by their local community as "city councilors" so as to bring that message to Bush and Bremer - so off to prison they go. From the report:


"Even though Ambassador Paul Bremer is on record saying that no high-ranking members of Saddam's old Baath Party will hold power in Iraq, in Karbala, the U.S. government is cooperating with Gen. Abud and has put him in charge of a well-armed force – even though he is a Baathist.

“The decision is Mr. Bremer's. He's the decision maker and he can make an exception,” says Abud.

Neither Ambassador Bremer nor the Marines would discuss any aspect of their role in Karbala."

Seems Bush lies to us and the US media - except for 60 minutes - lies or chooses to not tell us.

When you combine this with the C-span discussion of the way Putin got power in Russia in 2000 - by having the new KGB plant bombs in apartments, killing hundreds, and claiming that the Chet's rebels had done the evil - thereby getting the strong leader vote. It makes Bush's need to hide 911 info very interesting. But the Putin control of the media after it was proven that he and friends had faked the terror - because the next apartment bomb did not go off, the found the terrorist called home to the KGB to ask instructions and were told to get out of town the best they could - and when the shit hits the fan, Putin's replacement as head of the KGB admits everything and says it was an exercise in seeing if the town had good homeland security - and that the town did great!

And this "a fake terrorist were really KGG" story is known throughout Russia and Europe, and our media has said nothing.

Do you think they are afraid that if we saw that Putin was ready to kill thousands to win an election - and did - and got away with it - in 2000, we might think Bush might follow the same plan in 2001 - say on 9/11/2001?

Nah- unthinkable.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/04/60minutes/main586841.shtml

60 Minutes
I believe the c-span discussion of Putin's FSB(the new KGB)
and use of fake FSB terrorist to committ killings so Putin's vote was larger in 2000 was actually a discussion of this book.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/225

Putin's War
By Sergei Kovalev


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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 05:04 PM
Response to Reply #1
60. How in the world can they show photo's/names of hi-jackers 24 hrs later
if they didn't know who they were...were not on the passenger list (fact)...and the excuse if they had a fake ID...

I guess they must me using Ms Cleo on a good day...

I guess when they were able to quickly zero in on the florida flight school the next day and took away the file cabinets (never released)..when they didn't know which school they "trained in"

Again..Ms Cleo?

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arewethereyet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:14 PM
Response to Original message
2. don't know if this qualifies as large or the rest
but the Palestinian Authority has been doing a bang up job of it.
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:23 PM
Response to Reply #2
9. Not even close.
First of all, the Palestinian Authority isn't even a state. Under Oslo, it became the Israeli government's subcontractor. Nowadays, it's more or less powerless.

Secondly, I wouldn't really call it liberal democratic. It's more of an authoritarian state with elements of democracy (or a democratic state with elements of authoritarianism, depending on how you look at it.) There's really no fair chance for the opposition.

Third, I'd like to know when, where, and how the Palestinian Authority has ever killed or allowed to be killed large numbers of Palestinian Arabs.
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arewethereyet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:31 PM
Response to Reply #9
14. they encourage their people to be violent and kill themselves
I would think that might qualify
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:01 PM
Response to Reply #14
35. Not really.
Not anymore than volunteering for military service qualifies as encouraging people to "be violent and kill themselves".

Most of the suicide bombings are perpetrated by Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad, enemies of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority.

By this standard, the Israeli government -- which requires almost all Jewish citizens to serve in the military --is guilty of the same thing.
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Malikshah Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:04 PM
Response to Reply #2
38. Go do some research
and stop relying on surface level analysis. There's so much more to the story w/ the PA whether one supports it or not.

the facile statements aren't productive.
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RandomKoolzip Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:16 PM
Response to Original message
4. The Tuskeegee experiments
n/t
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:32 PM
Response to Reply #4
17. About Tuskegee
This is the only example I could think of that even came close to my criteria. One problem, though...

The Tuskegee experiments were conducted on poor Southern blacks. It was psychologically admissable for the powers that be to do terrible things to them, because they were perceived as "the Other", not true Americans. I think racism played a large part in the decision to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well.

9/11, on the other hand, killed mostly white Americans.
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ClassWarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:07 PM
Response to Reply #17
41. Do you believe for one minute...
...that the people GW Bush and Dick Cheney represent don't think of us as "the Other," as not true Americans?? We're just the worker bees. They're the new American aristocracy.

It always takes some kind of objectification for something as horrible as this to happen.

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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:11 PM
Response to Reply #41
46. The Pentagon
Didn't the wife of a Congressman die in the Pentagon? She hardly qualified as a "worker bee".
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ClassWarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:15 PM
Response to Reply #46
48. "Collateral damage"
n/t
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ClassWarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:11 PM
Response to Reply #17
45. And let's not forget...
...that Germany's government was a liberal democracy when Hitler assumed power.
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Kellanved Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:59 PM
Response to Reply #45
59. not really
The German Republic wasn't supported by the majority of Germans. Many wanted the Kaiser back, others wanted the Communist revolution - the Republic had few defenders. Those who styled themselves (Zentrum Party, now named CDU) as "Germany's Defenders" helped Hitler into power.
The Weimar Republic was in trouble from the start. It never was a stable democracy - except maybe during a few years in the 20s.
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drfemoe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 07:54 PM
Response to Reply #17
82. "The Others"
I guess this 'exception' (racism) would disqualify the death penalty as qualifying for proof that a liberal democracy ..

... has worked to either deliberately allow or to cause the killings of large numbers of its civilians ...
to advance their agenda?

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RainDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 01:23 AM
Response to Reply #17
100. 9-11 killed mostly white americans?
are you sure? where are your numbers for this?

I recall seeing people from all races in those photos which ran day after day in the NYTimes.

in addition, maybe people who knew and allowed an event to occur did not anticipate that the towers would fall and would kill so many people.

whatever the case, I'm sure the people who are not white (and male) would find your criteria insulting, and I would like to remind you that Bush had no problem executing a white female in Texas who had had a conversion and who was ministering to other prisoners.

he is on record, in fact, as mocking her request for clemency.

but she doesn't count because she's "the other" I assume...
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ComerPerro Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:21 PM
Response to Original message
6. Just consider this
How has 9/11 benifitted Bush?
Too many ways to count.

How has 9/11 hurt Bush?
Not at all.

And then of course there are the countless warnings we recieved from all over the world, the fact that Ashcroft stopped flying commerical in August of 2001 due to a "security risk", the administrations absolute refusal to let 9/11 be properly investigated, Cheney's closed-door energy meetings, the millions in foreign aid given to the Taliban by the administration in summer of 2001, Bush's order to back off the bin Laden investigations, Condi's denial of ever being given a plan to strike al Qaeda by the Clinton administration in response to the Cole bombing, the numerous ties between the Bush family and the bin Ladens, the numerous ties between the Bushes and Saudi Arabia, the entire agenda of PNAC, the way the administration is using perpetual war to push fascism and jingoism, Bush's jokes about "the trifecta" and "that's a terrible pilot", Bush's approval ratings at the beginning of September 2001 as compared the year following, relentless attacks on anyone who questions what Bush knew, the censored pages in the 9/11 report that allegedly dsecribe Saudi Arabia's involvement, the obvious lies and inconsistancies about "we never thought they would use those airplanes to kill" despite the fact that a training simulation for a commercial jet hitting a building was being run at the Pentagon that morning, and Bush's all out willingness to lie to and decieve the American people about matters as important as reasons for war and nuclear weapons.

Gee, I guess you are right. There is no reason to believe in LIHOP.
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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:22 PM
Response to Original message
7. "liberal democratic government"?
This is how you would describe Bush's regime?
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:26 PM
Response to Reply #7
10. Yes.
Although the philosophy of Republican Party hardly qualifies as democratic, the U.S. is still a liberal democratic state.

I don't mean "liberal democratic" as in left-of-center. A liberal democracy is a republic or indirect democracy, in which property rights are protected.
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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:33 PM
Response to Reply #10
19. I assumed that's what you meant,
but I think the republic is dead, and its liberal democracy a jesting ghost.
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meow mix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:23 PM
Response to Original message
8. i kinda figure..
that it got outta hand.
(having new york get blown up)
and they didnt really HAVE to intend for any deaths.

just some hostages (maybe a couple dead)
no biggie, just enough to get things rolling.

except it turned into something else. ooooops!
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ComerPerro Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:29 PM
Response to Reply #8
13. Hostages wouldn't have been enough
They needed a "spectacular attack" in order to scare the shit out of Joe Sixpack and have him rushing off to buy an American flag, and then wave it like his life depended on it.

Standard hijackings wouldn't have given them the same jingoistic bullshit we are seeing now.

They needed at least 1,000 innocent civilians to die.
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meow mix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:56 PM
Response to Reply #13
32. yeah
i considered that too.. not sure what to do with it heh.

maybe its just easier for me to see it as bumbling rather than orchestrating.
just cause they seem like such bumblers! i guess. =)
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KayLaw Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:27 PM
Response to Original message
11. Why liberal and democratic?
Isn't Bush more of a fascist? I'm thinking Hitler and the Reichstag fires.
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:35 PM
Response to Reply #11
20. Not "liberal and democratic".
"Liberal democratic" -- the form of government that we have, just like every other Western industrialized country. Call it a republic or an indirect democracy if you want.
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KayLaw Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:45 PM
Response to Reply #20
25. Sorry
I just don't think Bush respects our democracy.
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rumguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:28 PM
Response to Original message
12. I'm not a firm believer in LIHOP but how do you explain
Edited on Sun Dec-07-03 03:31 PM by rumguy
the warnings they got, that evidently weren't acted on? And the delayed response to what happened on 9/11? I mean evidently Bush knew that the WTC had been HIT WITH AN AIRLINER as he headed into that Florida school. Wouldn't his first thought have been terrorism, given the previous warnings? And he did nothing.

The jets that didn't get up until it was to late. What about that? I remember that they got jets up to intercept pro golfer Payne Stewarts jet when it depressurized, causing everyone on board to pass out. And that was in the heartland, not on the East Coast.

Also, evidently certain protocol, well established protocol were not followed that day regarding high jackings....

How do you explain these things?

Read the Complaint in the suit recently filed by a 9/11 widow alleging LIHOP, or at least gross negligence.

I don't necessarily believe in LIHOP...somedays I seriously wonder about it though...but I do want answers.
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:37 PM
Response to Reply #12
21. All good questions.
But it's impossible for you, I, or anyone else to know for sure. You have to figure that there are many, many things that we don't know, and probably won't know until decades from now, when the documents are declassified -- if ever.

Just because the official story is full of holes doesn't mean we should jump to assume they LIHOP.
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rumguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:56 PM
Response to Reply #21
33. there comes a point where negligence itself becomes a form
of LIHOP. A collective form of negligence where tough questions were avoided...and solutions were not put foward in time...they didn't have to get in a room and say "ok, this is gonna be good" - all they had to do was not directly address the impending issues - almost a form of deliberate sleep-walking - deliberate because certain people knew it would be a political windfall for them....
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instantkarma Donating Member (489 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 07:55 PM
Response to Reply #21
83. There are many, many things
we know we don't know. There are many, many more things we don't know we don't know... I'm currently working on finding out the things I don't know I know. and I know I know that.

Seriously, to me believing in LIHOP or MIHOP doesn't mean a hill of beans. I simply consider that it is possible.
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KayLaw Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:40 PM
Response to Reply #12
23. Yes
There should be a thorough investigation. If my family openly admitted we would sure be able to do a lot better if so-and-so were killed at our place of work, then we suddenly and surprisingly, we took long leave of absenses, and, indeed, so-and-so was killed, we would be investigated. It's all very suspicious.
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jiacinto Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:31 PM
Response to Original message
15. What it would take for me
A smoking gun--someone in the Bush administration who cleary would have proof of that. Something more than the idiocy that the LIHOP/MIHOP promoters are DU put here on a daily basis.
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rumguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:33 PM
Response to Reply #15
18. Some of it is idiocy...but I dare you to read the Complaint
recently filed by a 9/11 widow. I dare you to read that and not at least wonder about LIHOP.
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Timefortruth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 07:24 PM
Response to Reply #15
80. Condi did say they knew there were plans for
hijacking but they thought they would be the traditional kind of hijacking. Ashcroft knew of the threat and stopped flying commerical.

If you are waiting for a confession you will never be satisified.
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FDRrocks Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:32 PM
Response to Original message
16. I've heard of Operation Northwoods...
I know it was never done. But it seems to fit the bill.
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:39 PM
Response to Reply #16
22. Doesn't even fit the bill.
Edited on Sun Dec-07-03 03:39 PM by durutti
Northwoods was a plan to target American soldiers or Cuban immigrants -- not WASP American civilians.

Some also suspect that Northwoods never existed, but that the records documenting it were Israeli plants.
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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:45 PM
Response to Reply #22
26. That you would say this:
"Some also suspect that Northwoods never existed, but that the records documenting it were Israeli plants.

tells me nothing could convince you of LIHOP.
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:51 PM
Response to Reply #26
29. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I personally believe that the Northwoods documents are genuine. But skepticism is important.
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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:02 PM
Response to Reply #29
36. Skepticism is important. I wonder whether you aren't skeptical enough.
You concede the official story is "full of holes," yet are more skeptical of LIHOP than the extraordinary claims of the Bush administration. You're giving a huge benefit of the doubt to the government. What has it done to deserve it?

FYI for any interested, here's a pdf of the Northwoods document from the National Security Archive of George Washington University:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/doc1.pdf
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RainDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:05 PM
Response to Reply #29
39. Northwoods was not just army
the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed killing civilians, too, at least according to Bamford and ABC news.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but you are wrong when you say the only targets in the U.S. were army...who happen to be citizens, last time I checked...

I don't know if it was LIHOP or not, but I do believe that the Bush gang is Machiavellian enough to do such a thing.

On the other hand...if it was simply gross incompetence on that day, why hasn't anyone taken responsibility and why wasn't anyone fired?

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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:07 PM
Response to Reply #39
40. Reread my original post.
I said civilians. Soldiers are citizens, but not civilians.

And I didn't say Northwoods was a plan to kill only soldiers. It was a plan to kill soldiers and/or Cuban immigrants.
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maggrwaggr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 12:53 AM
Response to Reply #29
96. the official explanation is what's extraordinary
What Bush has done, and done repeatedly, is to lie to us.

If you question the lies, you're called a "conspiracy theorist".

Yet he continues to lie constantly, even about stupid little things, like his trip to Iraq.

It's working quite well for him.

In my researching of 9/11, I've realized that LIHOP or MIHOP is a way more plausible explanation of what happened than the "official story".

Do we "know?" No. We don't know shit, that's the problem.

We do know that Bush is hiding a LOT of information. Why would he hide it? To cover his ass.

I just want the truth. LIHOP and MIHOP are both equally plausible, the official story stinks to high heaven.
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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:10 PM
Response to Reply #22
44. A quote from Northwoods:
"We could develop a communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington."

What part of this exempts "WASP American civilians"?

And are you suggesting now that only crimes committed against WASP Americans are to count? Your original post spoke about targeting "civilians (not soldiers or government officials)," so why now remove Cuban immigrants from the civilian list?
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:23 PM
Response to Reply #44
53. Because
As I noted previously, those in power tended to characterize immigrants and minorities as "the Other", and not "real" Americans.
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RainDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 01:11 AM
Response to Reply #53
98. this is total b.s.
you have heard of more than one example on this thread and you make exceptions to them all based upon a criteria you choose.

we are all "the other" to the Bush gang, in case you haven't realized, unless we are one of Bush's corporate pimps.

his every action as president has demonstrated this.

oh, but I've got another one for you...

in the months following the anthrax attacks, Bush refused to use his clout to break the patent on cipro so that generic makers could bring this antibiotic to market too--which would have resulted in enough cipro for Americans 17 months earlier than would have been possible if Bayer alone were to produce it.

In addition, by allowing generic cipro, Bush could have saved taxpayers 8 billion dollars.

He refused to do this so that Bayer could maximize its profits.

on the other hand, Canada did break the patent when it thought its citizens were at risk of an anthrax attack.

of course, Bush may have known that the anthrax attacker was one of his own, while Canada did not...and in that case you would have one portion of the govt conspiring to kill another part along with members of the press, too.

...and whatever happened to that anthrax terrorist investigation?

...and why has the FBI refused to release records to help the man who id-ed the writer of Primary Colors long before anyone else did, who has done some linguistic analysis of the writer of the anthrax letter threats, but who has been stymied repeatedly by the FBI?

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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:41 PM
Response to Original message
24. partial list of US government atrocities upon American civilians
Including:

1940 Four hundred prisoners in Chicago are infected with Malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust.

1950 Department of Defense begins plans to detonate nuclear weapons in desert areas and monitor downwind residents for medical problems and mortality rates. In an experiment to determine how susceptible an American city would be to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of bacteria from ships over San Francisco. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in order to test the extent of infection. Many residents become ill with pneumonia-like symptoms. Department of Defense begins open air tests using disease-producing bacteria and viruses. Tests last through 1969 and there is concern that people in the surrounding areas have been exposed.

1953 U.S. military releases clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide gas over Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, the Monocacy River Valley in Maryland, and Leesburg, Virginia. Their intent is to determine how efficiently they could disperse chemical agents. Joint Army - Navy - CIA experiments are conducted in which tens of thousands fo people in New York and San Francisco are exposed to the airborne germs Serratia marcescens and Bacillus glogigii. CIA initiates Project MKULTRA. This is an eleven year research program designed to produce and test drugs and biological agents that would be used for mind control and behavior modification. Six of the sub projects involved testing the agents on unwitting human beings.

1965 Prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia are subjected to dioxin, the highly toxic chemical component of Agent Orange used in Viet Nam. The men are later studied for development of cancer, which indicates that Agent Orange had been a suspected carcinogen all along.

http://www.umedia.com/MediaMike/GovAtrocities.html
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:47 PM
Response to Reply #24
27. Thanks
Edited on Sun Dec-07-03 04:02 PM by durutti
This is the kind of stuff I was looking for. But see post #17. The same criticism applies in most cases.
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RainDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:10 PM
Response to Reply #27
43. Infecting the Tuskeegee black males
to study the effects of...was it VD?

The use of LSD on agents who were not warned ahead of time that they were human guinea pigs, and the death of one man in the agency, and the lies about the same.

oh, maybe this doesn't rise to the level of what you want, but what about the plan by members of the DuPont family, people in the J.P. Morgan biz empire, and others who planned to assassinate FDR and establish a fascist regime with a figurehead, Gen. Smedley Butler?

He of course outed them and testified before the House on this very issue.

Of course, that's just one man...the leader of their country, so that wouldn't rise to your level of evidence, since one man in his position is nothing compared to 3000 hitherto unnameless people working in a high rise in NYC.
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proud patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:50 PM
Response to Original message
28. DDT sprayed on children in swimming pools
Also the exposure of people to radiation
and never telling them about it .

A few years ago a lawsuit was settled about it too.

I would also like to say the word Reichstag
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:21 PM
Response to Reply #28
51. Reichstag?
Did the Reichstag fire even kill anyone?
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stevedeshazer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 05:07 PM
Response to Reply #51
61. The Reichstag fire was the beginning of the killings of MILLIONS n/t
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ClassWarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:52 PM
Response to Original message
30. Do you doubt that evil people would kill to gain power or money?
If so, that's a bit too idealistic - even for me.

Go listen to Randi Rhodes' show from this Thursday, 12/04/03. It's archived at www.whiterosesociety.org. She builds quite the case starting in the second hour.
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proud patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 03:57 PM
Response to Original message
34. I would also like to add Native Americans to the list
Our goverment has betrayed and slaughtered them
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:03 PM
Response to Reply #34
37. See post #17.
n/t
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proud patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:21 PM
Response to Reply #37
52. The DDT was sprayed on White kids in Nebraska in the 50s
My mother in law was one of the children sprayed .
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BringEmOn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:47 PM
Response to Reply #37
56. "Psychologically admissable?"
"The Tuskegee experiments were conducted on poor Southern blacks. It was psychologically admissable for the powers that be to do terrible things to them, because they were perceived as "the Other", not true Americans. I think racism played a large part in the decision to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well.

9/11, on the other hand, killed mostly white Americans."

You have got to be kidding. What group of human beings, let alone a liberal democracy, would allow the killing of their citizens, regardless of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, or religious belief? By who's standards is it "psychologically admissable" to do terrible things to them?

Why are the majority of people killed on 9-11 white? Are the vast majority of people of the New York City area predominantly white? Maybe they only hired whites?

If the 9-11 hijackers, whoever they were, had crashed their planes into black intercity neighborhoods, would the average beer drinking, Confederate flag waving, Fox News watching, minority hating, homophobic, moronic Bush apologist American be enraged enough to support Bush's open ended imperialistic war on the rest of the world?

I suppose some people can't see the forest for the white sheets.
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:51 PM
Response to Reply #56
58. You're right.
Racism doesn't exist.
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BringEmOn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 05:09 PM
Response to Reply #58
62. Oh, Jeez
"Racism doesn't exist."

In the mind of a Bush apologist.
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 05:16 PM
Response to Reply #62
63. I was being sarcastic.
You're the one who was implying that it doesn't.

There was no outrage over the MOVE bombing in the 1980s. About a decade later, there was no end to the outrage over Waco.
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BringEmOn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 05:24 PM
Response to Reply #63
65. Waco
doesn't meet your criteria?
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 06:19 PM
Response to Reply #65
73. That's not what I said.
Look up the MOVE bombing that happened in Philadelphia years back. Compare it with Waco.

One happened mostly to white people, and there was mass outrage (as there should have been). The other happened to mostly black people, and there was no outrage.

The same goes for Columbine vs. inner city school shootings.
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BringEmOn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 07:59 PM
Response to Reply #73
84. Exactly my point
In a nation with a political environment such as ours, it would take a calculated number of deaths (deaths of mostly whites) to enrage the right wing, snuff dipping, Schmidt beer drinking, flag waving, Walmart shopping, SUV driving, racial epithet using, Rush Limbaugh worshipping, Bible thumping sheeple, and unfortunately, a lot of uninformed people, enough to support unilateral pre-emptive military attacks on mostly unarmed nations (brown people)who just happen to have oil under their sand and to accept the erosion of their constitutional rights in the name of fighting terrorism.

It's not proof positive that the Bush Crime Family MIHOP, LIHOP, or was involved at any other level. As long as they resist any independent investigation and continue to blatantly lie about nearly every other thing, and as long as they continue to profit economically and politically from 9-11, they leave themselves open to speculation.

BTW, I don't know where you got the idea that I don't think racism exists. I'm a member of a minority group from Eastern Washington...I'm very familiar with racism and all extremes of right wing ideology.
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BringEmOn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 05:18 PM
Response to Reply #37
64. Native Americans
don't meet his criteria for human, either.
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Must_B_Free Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:14 PM
Response to Original message
47. MK Ultra
See the 1977 congressional hearings for details
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markses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:19 PM
Response to Original message
49. When is this bullshit question gonna die?
First of all, I should say that I don't believe in LIHOP, MIHOP, or even IHOP. I believe there was gross incompetence by the Bush administration in the months leading up to 9/11, and a good deal of incompetence that morning, but I don't suscribe to the intentionality of it. And I was in Lower Manhattan that morning - saw the first plane hit from Chambers, was at broadway and Wall Street when the second plane hit and, since I stupidly went south toward my work, was down there for the collapses, and breathed in a good deal of the north and south towers - both that morning and in the subsequent several months, since I still worked downtown. So, I'll probably die of cancer from the fucking thing. In any case:

1) You've asked this same question 4 times now in GD, clearly for the purpose of stroking your ego on your Northwoods knowledge. It is ego stroke bait and little more. We have a place for 9/11 ego-stroking. It's the fucking 9/11 Military Affairs and terrorism forum, in Foreign Affairs. Why don't you take the kooky palooky there with the rest of the wackiness?

2) Even supposing there was some value to this question other shooting down Operation Northwoods, you act as if the only way we make knowledge is through induction. What are the precedents? What are the precedents? Jesus, my man - if the only way you believe something happened is by demonstration of precedents, you must be often fucking surprised!

3) Even if we limit it to precedents, your conditions for what constitutes a precedent is so restrictive that nothing will satisfy. Tuskegee? Oh, no, you see, that's the Other. Cuban emigres? Well, not really, since they are not technically citizens.

Why don't you get it over with and just restrict it perfectly: "On what occasion prior to 9/11 did the Bush administration allow four passenger planes to be hijacked and crash - three into occupied structures?" That way, you can get the same answer you want over and over without all the FUCKING wasted time of response.

(/rant)
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:34 PM
Response to Reply #49
55. So eloquently put!
1) You've asked this same question 4 times now in GD, clearly for the purpose of stroking your ego on your Northwoods knowledge. It is ego stroke bait and little more. We have a place for 9/11 ego-stroking. It's the fucking 9/11 Military Affairs and terrorism forum, in Foreign Affairs. Why don't you take the kooky palooky there with the rest of the wackiness?

I've asked many other questions about LIHOP in GD. This might have been one of them; I really can't remember.

In any case, I'm actually sincerely interested in hearing a convincing case for LIHOP. I think that pretty much the only way we can reverse the righward shift we've seen since 9/11 is by popularizing the idea of LIHOP. But I don't think that it's something that should be popularized if there isn't good reason to think that it's true.

And my ego doesn't need stroked, especially not by people I'll never meet in real life. If you're really that bothered by people using facts and reason to argue important topics, Free Republic might suit you better.

3) Even if we limit it to precedents, your conditions for what constitutes a precedent is so restrictive that nothing will satisfy. Tuskegee? Oh, no, you see, that's the Other. Cuban emigres? Well, not really, since they are not technically citizens.

Take a psychology class, or read Milgram's Obedience to Authority. These are relevant points. Again, if you're interested in flip-answers to everything, there's a Web site that's much better suited to you.


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markses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 06:29 PM
Response to Reply #55
77. You were expecting Cicero for your useless prattling?
Or maybe Quintilian?



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number6 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:19 PM
Response to Original message
50. where's a modern liberal democratic government ...?
is there one on this planet ???
USA is half way to a complete police state..

I Believe LIHOP ,but I can't prove it.

Find me one example of a modern liberal democratic government - period
....that hasn't been corrupted...
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BringEmOn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:48 PM
Response to Reply #50
57. Amen!
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bpilgrim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 04:23 PM
Response to Original message
54. so you would never know the first time it happened
until afterwords...

but anyways there are NUMEROUS examples of not only our goverment but others that have conducted many experiments on their civilians and soilders to advance their agenda ie. nuclear testing, drug, and psycologicalwhich have caused large cases of death and deabilitation.

then there is perl harbor which is well documented and i just posted a thread on...

then you have Operation Northwoods which was rejected only at the very top by JFK

and NOW we have 911

that is just in our country and i am sure there are even more examples especially from other countries and it brings to mind one of my favorite quotes 'the only thing new in this world is the history you don't know' TRUMAN

it also reminds me of the fact that there has never in histroy een a steel building that has collapsed to fire - at least that i am aware of and in keeping with the quote above i am all ears if anyone has an example they can link to :hi:

here's a partially steel construced building that remained standing even after the most extreme fires and tempertures ever experianced by a building on earth...


more...
http://leonardfrank.com/Worldheritage/Hiroshima.html

peace


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RBHam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 05:33 PM
Response to Original message
66. Putin is using false flag terror in Russia
Wake up! It's the oldest trick in the book. Wasn't it just SO convenient for Putin that a recent "Chechen terrorist" attack occurred just TWO days before their Parliamentary elections?

Remember that Bush looked into Putin's soul.

And found a kindred spirit.

Here's some truth for you.

"The Chechen War and bin Laden's Nukes"
by J. R. Nyquist


“Evidence of the number of nuclear weapons purchased by the Chechens for bin Laden varies between ‘a few’ (Russian intelligence) to ‘more than twenty’ (conservative Arab intelligence services). Most of the weapons were purchased in four former Soviet states – Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Russia. These weapons are a mix of suitcase bombs and tactical warhead bombs. An Arab nuclear scientist, a Western-educated expert who worked for Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program before he became Islamist, supervised the acquisition process for bin Laden and now runs the program for him. He is assisted by five Muslim Turkoman nuclear experts and a team of engineers and technicians, all of them Central Asian Muslims, whom they brought with them.”

YOSSEF BODANKSY, director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare
(from p. 330 of his 1999 book Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America)

A reader of this column recently wrote to say he’d shown How to Bring Down a Superpower to a friend. The friend was not impressed and said I was nuts for suggesting that Russia stirred up the Chechen and Afghan conflicts to facilitate the creation of a deniable terrorist proxy. “I generally skim by those unlikely conclusions myself,” wrote the reader, “because I think your basic message is right on target.” He added, “But you don’t have to make Russia in control of more world events than need be.”

The reader went on to ask what proof there is that Russia set up Chechen terrorists or Afghan terrorists as proxies. In games of mixed chance and skill the players (and those who analyze play) rarely have absolute proof of anything. Since deception is part of the game and proof is always obscured by lies, the good players develop an intuitive understanding of how the game works. Using fragments of information a good player quickly recognizes the pattern behind his opponent’s moves. Only in this way can he adjust his counter-moves. Viewed from this standpoint, there are some fascinating stories that have come out of Afghanistan and Chechnya in recent years. And there are a few highly suggestive facts. The most widely acknowledged fact is that Kremlin oligarch Boris Berezovsky gave the al Qaeda-connected Chechen terrorist leader Shamil Basayev $1 million prior to the 1999 Dagestan incursion that triggered the latest Chechen conflict.

more...
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2002/0709.htm
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RBHam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 05:48 PM
Response to Reply #66
67. Is Russia considered a "modern Liberal democracy"?
just wonderin'...
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 06:17 PM
Response to Reply #67
72. I would say so, yes.
n/t
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RBHam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 06:19 PM
Response to Reply #72
74. Your "example" is then Russia
Staging terror attacks that help one consolidate one's power.
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RainDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 01:02 AM
Response to Reply #74
97. Didn't Russia use a "valium-like" weapon
against people last year, and ended up killing so many of them?

Or have I missed this on this thread?
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spooky3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 05:56 PM
Response to Original message
68. Could someone please spell out what LIHOP abbreviates?
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RBHam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 06:00 PM
Response to Reply #68
70. Let It Happen On Purpose
nt
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spooky3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 07:04 PM
Response to Reply #70
78. thank you!
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Hailtothechimp Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 05:56 PM
Response to Original message
69. Just watch the Booker elementary video on 9/11
It's all the proof I needed to believe LIHOP. Bush's actions are totally at odds with how someone who did not know this was coming would behave.
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RBHam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 06:06 PM
Response to Original message
71. The real start of the war on terror
And other stuff the fake "critics" ignore

There's a key fact that is being completely ignored in the overall "critique" of the terrorism in America:
the terrorist bombing campaign in Russia in 1999.
Here's the piece from my website on this, with a mainstream source:

"Vladimir Putin, head of the FSB (i.e. the KGB) was appointed Russian prime minister on
August 9th of that year (1999). On 25th August, Moscow journalist Alexander Zhilin wrote
that a plan with the codename "Storm in Moscow" was being hatched in the Kremlin
involving terrorist attacks against the Moscow population. On August 31, the first bomb
blew apart a Moscow shopping centre. Throughout September 1999 a series of bombings
targeted civilian apartment buildings, killing hundreds of people. An Islamic terrorist
group was blamed (one which no-one had heard of before - the Russian secret services,
so complacent, having not even bothered to create it). This allowed Putin to reignite the
war in Chechnya, and to grab power at home, becoming President the following year,
and quietly suffocating Russia's already ridiculous democracy. The western media felt
able to suggest the obvious - that Russian intelligence were behind the bombings. It is
because there are such striking similarities with the subsequent American developments
that Russia's model equivalent has had to be magically forgotten.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_449000/449325.stm "

These attacks have been ignored by all the critics of the official "911" story, but they are
very helpful in understanding what is going on.
The current US imperial expansion is a consequence of the collapse of Russia's
empire.The US is moving into areas it couldn't previously get into - the Middle East, the
Balkans, the Caspian Basin. At the same time Russia is trying to hang on to as much
control of its former satellites as it can. It was Russia that first staged terror attacks for
this purpose, soon followed by the US.
As I write this, Russia is extending its own "war on terror" into Georgia, to US
displeasure. Behind the united front against terrorism is a struggle over the rich pickings
from the collapse of an empire, with terrorism used as the justification for invasion, and
also for military occupation of countries around the the ones that are actually being
attacked.
One advantage of drawing attention to Russia's parallel terror war is that, since it is
obviously the work of their "security services", and the western media were themselves
talking about this fact, it undermines the compulsory unthinkableness of the truth about
the US equivalent.

more...
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2002/09/39996.html
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Bridget Burke Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 06:21 PM
Response to Original message
75. Other Socialists believe in it
You are the one, aren't you, who said he would no longer vote Democratic but only for Socialists?

Here's a bit from the World Socialist Web Site: "The Bush administration has been plunged into a major political crisis following press reports that Bush was briefed on the danger of a terrorist attack involving the hijacking of US airliners more than a month before September 11. Despite the warning, delivered in an intelligence briefing last August, the White House took no action to forestall the deadliest terrorist action in US history, or to warn the public."

www.wsws.org/articles/2002/may2002/bush-m18.shtml

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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 09:40 PM
Response to Reply #75
86. So?
The SEP is one socialist group among many, and not one that's well-regarded among the rest of the left. They have many bizarre positions.

The whole basis of Marxism is the critical, concrete, scientific evaluation of events based on available evidence -- not slavish devotion to any group.

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Bridget Burke Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 06:37 AM
Response to Reply #86
107. So, which subset of Socialist are you?
You did claim you were abandoning the Democrats & voting Socialist in the future. Which party will be getting your vote? By understanding where you're coming from, we can communicate better.

Your question on this thread seems to indicate that a "modern, liberal, democratic government" would be far above doing anything as nasty as letting a few hijackers do their thing. Have you regained your faith in the system?

Or will you just continue to vote Republican as you have all along?
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RBHam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 06:23 PM
Response to Original message
76. Trust me
The neo-con/christian deconstructionist elite view most New Yorkers and Californians as the enemy. New York and California are extremely Liberal and are bastions of dissent. The Bob Jones types would shed few tears over using their deaths for political gain.

San Francisco is next if Bush's poll numbers keep dropping and it becomes obvious that even fixed voting machines won't help him steal the next election too.
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 09:40 PM
Response to Reply #76
87. Interesting point.
n/t
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Timefortruth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 07:18 PM
Response to Original message
79. LIHOP doesn’t necessarily mean that they knew where,
when, how and who. It only means they knew that there would be a hijacking attack and didn’t stop it for political reasons. That much is abundantly clear, how much more than that they actually had is anyone’s guess.
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papau Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 10:13 PM
Response to Reply #79
92. Putin's War By Sergei Kovalev may explain why LIHOP is "thinkable"
I caught the C-span discussion - which implied that Putin's "MIHOP" was true - the c-span discussion of Putin's FSB(the new KGB)
and use of fake FSB terrorist to committ killings so Putin's vote was larger was actually a discussion of this book.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/225

Putin's War
By Sergei Kovalev




The bombs used in apartments that blew up used the same chemical as the bomb that failed to go off.

The bomb that failed to go off used a standard FSB (new KGB) / Russian Army issued time unit.

The "terrorists" are admitted to being FSB - only Putin claims they were testing Homeland Security.

Putin needed votes - and the apartments blown up by "terrorists" gave him the election.

Those are the known facts. No one has said in Russia that Putin ordered those folks killed and to make it look like terrorists. But then then have not said anything about Bush and LIHOP in the US media, either.

There is no confession by Putin that he used the FSB for election purposes - and the FSB does not confess to killing the folks in the apartments - indeed it was "terrorists" that did the killing per Putin and the FSB .... and the Russian media.


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KG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 07:40 PM
Response to Original message
81. an important point is missed in your quaification.
i have no doubts the the RW looneys in this admin., led by cheney, would coldly sacrifice thousands of civilian lives to advance their agenda. the working class slob is as nothing to them.

that being said, the RW looneys aren't really the 'gov't'.,(to me that would imply careerists). they are corporatist CEO's that have part time jobs in this adminstration and are using their positions to advance the interests of the multi-national corps on whose boards they use to occupy a chair.
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 09:41 PM
Response to Reply #81
88. Most people in government are.
n/t
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Q Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 08:08 PM
Response to Original message
85. You don't WANT to believe...
Edited on Sun Dec-07-03 08:19 PM by Q
...and put roadblocks in the way to make sure no one can convince you. Have you ever heard of an unprecedented event?

- Study the evidence and believe your own eyes. In fact...you haven't presented a case to support your own claims...yet expect others to jump through hoops with supporting evidence.

- Believe or don't believe. Who really cares at this point in time? The Bushies have been successful in pulling off a coup and lying this country into war. Their continued success depends on people just like you.
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 10:06 PM
Response to Reply #85
90. That's ridiculous.
Edited on Sun Dec-07-03 10:29 PM by durutti
...and put roadblocks in the way to make sure no one can convince you. Have you ever heard of an unprecedented event?

Sure. But the lack of a precedent certainly makes it less believable.

I actually do want to believe in LIHOP, for various reasons. But I can't if the evidence is not there.

- Study the evidence and believe your own eyes. In fact...you haven't presented a case to support your own claims...yet expect others to jump through hoops with supporting evidence.

I haven't made any claims. I'm agnostic regarding the whole affair.

What do you want me to prove? That Bush didn't have foreknowledge? You can't prove a negative.

However, I have noticed that a lot of DUers seem to rely on evidence that has been debunked, from less-than-reliable sources.

For example: bin Laden's family members weren't flown out of the country without being interrogated. They were interrogated and flowing around within the country.

The FBI has closed its investigation into supposedly unusual stock market trading before the attacks, and found no evidence of foreknowledge.

The allegations that the U.S. threatened to invade Afghanistan before 9/11 are just that -- allegations, and not very substantial ones, according to Americans and Russians who were present when the threat was supposedly made.

These and many more allegations are debunked at this site: http://mckinneysucks.blogspot.com/

This blogger uses sources both left and right to refute LIHOP.




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Timefortruth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 10:27 PM
Response to Reply #90
93. The FBI dismissed the trading issue without comment.
How can anyone have faith in that?

Please address my point that LIHOP does not necessarily meant that the PANCers knew exactly what was going to happen and when. Rather they knew that a hijacking was planned but did not work vigorously to avoid it due to political motivations. They may not have known the details, but they certainly knew something was up, by their own admission.

You must be aware of the publicly released information. Condi says they knew to expect hijacking, Ashcroft stops flying commercial. That isn’t paranoid, it is what all agree happened.
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 06:30 AM
Response to Reply #93
106. the Govt monitors those trades through "Promis Software" they knew the
puts being placed on airlines etc...that's why they monitor the markets...for intelligence...they knew.

Furhtermore, they could have traced the trades...but stopped.
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dpibel Donating Member (898 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 04:32 AM
Response to Reply #90
101. I went there
I read a hefty chunk of this guy's blog.

"Debunk" is a bit of an overstatement of what he does. He cherry-picks and spins as much as any conspiracist.

One of the great flaws, IMHO, in online arguments on many contentious subjects, this one included is the confusion between evidence and proof.

Outside mathematics and (sometimes) science, absolute proof is rare. Which leaves us dealing with more legalistic issues, not least of which is standard of proof. In criminal trials, the standard is beyond reasonable doubt; in civil cases, it's more likely than not. The first requires being convinced that there's no reasonable explanation consistent with the evidence other than guilt. The latter requires only that the likelihood of the claim asserted is greater than 50%.

To me, it's a bit of a cart/horse problem to talk in terms of proof (in this instance, to my limited mind, anyway, the claim of "debunked" implies that the blogger has met some burden of proof) when we don't even know what standard of proof we're applying.

There's also the matter of quality and quantity of evidence. What I see, generally, is a game defined mostly as "if I can find a piece of evidence, regardless of quality, that contravenes your piece of evidence, I win." That makes little sense to me.

Frankly, on this particular issue, I'm ill equipped to judge, on the merits of the individuals, the opinions of David Corn (cited by your blogger) or Michael Ruppert (hated by your blogger) or your blogger. That any of them can marshall some set of facts and make an argument from them is utterly unremarkable. None of them prove anything. They make their arguments. You're free to evaluate the quantity and quality of their evidence; you're free to apply your own standards to the quality of their analysis. But none of them can very convincingly tell me that they've proven anything.

I'm a skeptic, but I'm a pretty agnostic one. I think there are a lot of things that don't add up, but I think even more that the information available is so spotty that it's almost impossible to know anything for sure.

I'm pretty sure of this: an administration that wanted to make large steps toward laying the matter to rest would have investigated the events of Sept. 11, 2001 at least as thoroughly as, say, Pearl Harbor, or the Kennedy assassination, or, for that matter, any ordinary plane crash or building collapse.

That no such investigation has taken place rather naturally raises questions. It's almost a truism that those who have nothing to hide don't spend a lot of time hiding things.

But the truth is, there's no widespread questioning of the events; the questions are mainly asked on the internet, which represents a very small segment of the population. I don't know why people aren't more curious about it--trauma and revulsion at the ugly possibilities, I suppose--but they're not.
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RainDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 04:58 AM
Response to Reply #101
102. unansweredquestions.com
Go to Paul Thompson's site for an excellent compilation of questions about events which are cited from mainstream sources about events which occurred before, during, and after 9-11.

www.unansweredquestions.com

fwiw, David Corn is a columnist for The Nation magazine, which has been in existence for a loooong time.

Corn was also the journalist who first brought forward the criminal nature of the issue of the outing of a CIA agent involved in the hunt for WMD by someone "at the highest levels of the administration" when the bush gang wanted to discredit ambassador Joe Wilson, (the agent's husband) who debunked their Niger uranium claim in a piece in the NYTimes.

He is a credible journalist, imo, and far, far more credible than Krauthammer or Safire or any of the propgandists working for Bush.



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dpibel Donating Member (898 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 05:14 AM
Response to Reply #102
104. Thanks
I'm actually reasonably well-versed in the theories; I've followed the argument from the get-go.

I was mainly addressing Durutti's assertions about the debunking site. I mentioned Corn because Durutti made the assertion that the blogger relies on both left and right sources, although Corn was the only arguably leftist source I could find. I know who Corn is; it doesn't really help much with my point, which is, no matter how smart, or previously reliable Corn is, he has at hand very little to support his arguments.

In fact, he really doesn't bother himself much with anything except ad hominem attacks; he declared at the beginning of the controversy that he knew the US government would never harm its own citizens. Since he declared his conclusion very soon after the event, I don't credit him with being any less biased or more reliable than much of anyone else.

Interesting that you should mention Corn on the Plame affair. One piece of evidence he cites for knowing for certain that 9/11 was done by Ay-rab bad guys is that he spent a long time researching some piece (don't remember if it was an article or a book) involving the CIA, and he got to be good pals with some CIA people, and he once asked one of his CIA buds if the CIA would ever kill and American citizen and his spook pal looked at him with an admixture of shock and horror and assured Dave that they would never, never, ever do such a thing. QED, per D. Corn.
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RainDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 06:26 AM
Response to Reply #104
105. Was for info only
from the way I read your post, I thought that you were unaware of Corn's identity.

excuse me for the misunderstanding.

No one can absolutely prove or disprove, I totally agree. People can infer from available information and from the way their knowledge of the actions of those in power and how a person "reads" those actions to reach an opinion which has not yet proven or disproven.

As far as the "no American would do that..." I totally understand this thinking because that moment was so horrific, no one would want to have to think that someone in one's own govt could or would do such a thing.

Many, many journalists/commentators had such reactions...reacting to the event rather than the people in power at this time...reacting as humans, rather than as reporters.

The same thing can be said of the Kennedy assassination. And imo, that issue has not been fully vetted either, because of so many documents which have not yet been made available, among other things.

but it seems pretty likely that David Ferrie was involved with Oswald in some sort of action, and he was also connected to other forces in this society who vehemently hated Kennedy. The south, and notably Dallas, at that time were considered dangerous places for any liberal, too...Fullbright, tho he was from Arkansas, admitted he was afraid to go there and tried to discourage Kennedy from doing so, as well. In fact, there were several warnings to Kennedy not to go to Dallas.

And again, with 9-11, as with The Warren Commission, we have a seemingly rubber stamp committee which will only go so far, but will protect the powers that be if anything might point to some level of corruption within the power structure of American govt.

One day, who knows, maybe when everyone alive now is long gone, and hoping that the human race survives itself for that long, information will be available which will lead historians to make educated guesses.

And some of that information will come from those who have tried to figure out what happened and posted that information on the internet.

Actually, I come across people all the time who do not go online who think that the Bush junta was complicit in the attacks. They don't present all the evidence that you see online, of course.

But you will not find this information in mainstream newspapers in America...just as you still do not hear, nor did you at the time, about the plot to assassinate FDR, even tho that is part of the Congressional record via a House investigation.

Nor will you find mainstream papers who, at the time, were willing or able to reveal the big truths about Iran/Contra, but who did discount publications who did write about it. Robert Parry's career was severely impacted by his investigative reporting into the issue, and it seems his eyes were open to the collaborative nature of the mainstream press with the power structure.


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Q Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 06:45 AM
Response to Reply #90
108. I frankly don't care what you believe...
Edited on Mon Dec-08-03 06:47 AM by Q
...and if you want to be a sucker for the powers that be...go for it. You'd think that after three years of Bush* you would be tired of being treated like a chump.

- You claim to be "agnostic" about the 'whole affair'...but that's difficult to believe considering the benefit of doubt you're willing to give to what has been PROVEN to be the most corrupt administration in history.

- I'm not going to waste my time arguing with your naivete...or worse yet...your appeasement and enabling of known criminals. How you could believe ANYTHING they say after their lies that drove this nation to war is beyond me.

- And how DARE you link me to a website called 'mckinneysucks'. This pretty much exposes your motivation. You're insulting my intelligence and the families of the victims of 9-11. You should be ashamed.
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RainDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 09:49 PM
Response to Original message
89. Anti-civil rights pols, Hooverville...
southern politicians who actively opposed integration and allowed their thugs to kill blacks simply because they wanted to be treated as equal citizens.

lynchings without trials.

this was common treatment in areas of the south and had the tacit if not outright approval of racist politicians.

...there were so many incidents of black being falsely accused of crimes and executed based upon the false testimony of whites simply because of the color of each person's skin.

or how about Bush willingly executing people in Texas, knowing, in more than one case, that a man's innocence was more likely than not? (there is a recent article on this subject...don't have the citation handy)

how about Hooverville? In that case, men who had served as soldiers in WW2 were camping out across from the White House asking for their promised pay after they completed their service (and when the war was over)

Soldiers went in to the camp to break it up and killed at least one of their fellow citizens.



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Timefortruth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 10:34 PM
Response to Reply #89
95. This is a false dilemma.
One does not have to be proved for the other to be true. They are unrelated issues, to insist that the first be shown for the second to be reality misstates the arguments.
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RainDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 01:17 AM
Response to Reply #95
99. agreed
however, the thread has a good purpose in that it jogs the memory and educates about various abuses which have actually occurred.

Whether the person who started the thread chooses to believe anything or not really doesn't matter.

History is replete with examples of Brutuses and Borgias and the students of Machiavelli and there is no reason to believe, based upon recent events, that power still does not corrupt, nor that absolute power does not corrupt absolutely.

what's amazing to me and most of the rest of the world is how incredibly naive and gullible Americans are about the machinations of their own govt.
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Eloriel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-07-03 10:29 PM
Response to Original message
94. Operation Northwoods
Surely others have already mentioned that (I haven't read the thread).

But that wasn't necessary for me. It was enough that he stole a national election AND that they fought tooth and nail, even threatening Daschle, to prevent any investigation. Not to mention no fighters. And the stocks -- puts on United, etc.

There's lots more.

Incl. the PNAC plan which specifically calls for a Pearl Harbor-like event in order to fulfill it. And we are busily fulfilling it as we speak.

Eloriel
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RainDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 05:05 AM
Response to Original message
103. of course, this won't apply to your standard, but
there is also the issue of Kissinger and his crimes...

Read The Trial of Henry Kissinger, by Christopher Hitchens.

Kissinger met with the prez of South Vietnam in Paris after the Vietnamese had essentially brokered a peace accord and told the South Vietnamese prez that if he would wait, he would get a better deal under Nixon.

And so he waited. Humphrey could not benefit from the brokered peace, and would instead be associated with a failure to fix the mess in Vietnam.

In the meantime, Nixon won, Kissinger got to be the power behind the throne, and 20,0000 more Americans died until five years later, when the South Vietnamese accepted the peace deal which was THE SAME TERMS THAT WERE AVAILABLE before Kissinger manipulated his way into power with the blood of 20,000 additional American lives on his hands.
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Pocho Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 07:54 AM
Response to Original message
109. PLEASE DON'T EVER SAY THAT
Cowed member of the Paper Bag Society, DU Chapter
"They're crazy, not me. All's nice. I want it to be"

Certainly no conspiracies here. All reasonably explained

JFK, Jack Ruby, Hale Boggs, Warren Commission, CIA, Martin King, Malcom X, Bobby Kennedy, Abby Hoffman, FBI, John Lennon, Fred Hampton, Che, Contras, Iran, Echelon, John Jr., Osama, Touch screen voting, Nov.2000, 18,181, Skull & Bones, 9/11, Anthrax, Wellstone, NSA, Nov.2002, DLC, Saddam, WMD, Dr Kelly, Arnold.
(Earn PBS Blindy Points by adding others which tin hatters see as conspiracies but which we know are just a normal coincidental part of life.)
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rman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-08-03 10:26 AM
Response to Original message
110. why a liberal government? Bush isn't liberal

Nero set Rome on fire and blamed the Christians.
Hitler set the Reichstag on fire and blamed the Communists.

Hitler came to power during a democracy, so did Bush. (Next thing you know there'll be RW-ers proclaiming Democracy = Hitlerism = Bad.)

And what if such a LIHOP or MIHOP did happen before? By itself that doesn't prove that Bush did LIHOP.

If you'd take the time to do some digging you'll find plenty of circumstantial evidence for LIHOP. That by itself also doesn't prove anything, but it should warrant investigation. Yet investigation is being hampered and certain findings are being covered up (28 pages missing from the report -detailing financial ties between Bush, Bin Laden family and terrorists).

You are aware that there are some really bad bad people in this world? What makes you think such people could not be in a position of political power?


the one stop for info on 9-11:
http://cooperativeresearch.org/
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