<p>did someone say something? was there a question? or just name calling?</p>
<p>remember, you call names, it shows you have no real ideas and will be ignored</p>
<p>Golani! So nice of you to join us! However, if you want to sit at the grownup table, you have to behave. Those are the rules. No name calling allowed.</p>
<p>The Totalitarian Left: cigarettes, transfats, WORDS…</p>
<p>To be perfectly fair you must approach what I said from a logical position. After reading your posts over a long period of time I came to the conlcusion that some of you are idiots or very hateful people. When I see a desk, I call it a desk. When I see a lamp, I call it a lamp because thats what they are. Its not name calling when I refer to a board with 4 legs as a desk. So that is why i called you what I did. At a certain ponit I realized there was simply nothing else to say. The irrationality and and hate towards America and this government cannot be explained by anything other than stupidity. Instead of jabbering here about the NIE document which you obviously did not read, even though you posted extensively about it is just another bit of evidence to support what I and alot of other people think. Here is another example. You believe, in all honesty and sincerity, the George W. Bush controls gas prices. There is no shred of evidence to prove that. There is nothing, yet you believe it. You don’t seem to comprehend that if Bush in fact controlled gas prices he would not wait till 2 months before elections to let them drop. He, in fact, would rather have the gas prices be low for 6 years. Its just plain and simple logic. There is nothing else to it. Not to mention that I am not disproving any evidence you have that says Bush is controlling gas prices, I am merely telling you that no politician in this world will do something that would hurt them politically like keep gas prices high. You also seem to plug your ears when someone tells you, perhaps, that OPEC is meeting soon to discuss the constriction of the oil supply. When you turn on the news today and here how the Dow is at a six year high and the SP 500 is at a 5 year high and NASDAQ is risign even higher than expected, you people, in your twisted and possibly oxygen deprived brain, will somehow decide that this is Bush’s doing because it is almost November and thus the start of the mid-year elections. Its plain stupidity. I cannot see how a sane person can say the things you do. There really must be something wrong wiht you. And I know I am going to get criticized and possibly and even hopefuly banned, I know that many people in this forum will agree with what I am saying even though they will not admit it for obvious reasons. I honestly cannot explain your wild theories anyother way but stupidity. Plain and simple. I respond to you the same way I would respond to someone who would tell me that 9/11 was an inside job. Those people are IDIOTS.</p>
<p>I don’t know if you noticed (or care to notice), but this forum is not about the NIE?</p>
<p>fundingfather: “Well, if you define success from an Iraqi perspective of being better off now than under Saddam, yes it was a success.”</p>
<pre><code>They found 40 mutilated bodies today in Iraq. I hear things like this on the news all the time. I won’t argue that Saddam was evil, but how is the current situation better? It looks to me like our invasion opened the gates of endless hell over there.
</code></pre>
<p>rite because it certaintly was not mentioned numerous times by both conservatives and liberals? Learn how to process information in a linear way in your brain</p>
<p>Did someone say he is a bigger Idiot than me?</p>
<p>Hindoo, if you look at the polling results, a significant majority of the people think that things actually are better off now than under Saddam. Kind of tells you how bad things were under Saddam, doesn’t it.</p>
<p>fundingfather–I saw a CNN poll from March of 2004 showing that Iraqis did, indeed, believe they were better off with Saddam gone. I was looking for a more recent poll, but haven’t found one. With the dramatic rise over the past two years of indiscriminate suicide attacks, kidnappings, murders, bombings, mutilations of police and civilians, religious fanaticism, etc., etc., I’m wondering if that 2004 opinion poll would still hold true.</p>
<p>“Hindoo, if you look at the polling results, a significant majority of the people think that things actually are better off now than under Saddam. Kind of tells you how bad things were under Saddam, doesn’t it.”</p>
<p>And, now that they’ve experienced the U.S. post-Saddam Hussein, they have concluded that the proper thing to do is to kill Americans - by double the number of 2 1/2 years ago. And they still want us out IMMEDIATELY. Now that is the real story. </p>
<p>The WAR ended three years ago. Now they want us out - and they approve of killing us if we don’t leave. Look at the long term…if the number of people who think it proper to kill Americans has doubled in 2 1/2 years, what’s it going to be two years out?</p>
<p>No trick questions, Mini. New math gets people every time.</p>
<p>Hindoo, I linked to this poll earlier in the thread. It is VERY recent:
<a href=“http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/sep06/Iraq_Sep06_rpt.pdf[/url]”>http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/sep06/Iraq_Sep06_rpt.pdf</a></p>
<p>It is a very interesting read with both good news (Iraqis - especially Kurds and Shia feel that they are much better off now than under Saddam; they support a central governemnt and want to eliminate the militias; they strongly disapprove of Al Qaeda and bin Laden, they have greater support for the moderate Sistani than the radical al Sadr and generally do not favor intervention from Iran). The bad news is that indeed they are growing weary of the coalition troops in a combat role (but are supportive of the US troops in their training role as well as their support in bringing back the infrastructure.)</p>
<p>It’s interesting that you would choose a university poll over the view of your own State Department (which also has trends over years), although there are plenty of reasons not to believe her Royal Mendaciousness.</p>
<p>There is no evidence that suggests Iraqis approve of Coalition forces in a support role while the military is not being withdrawn. They approve of killing Americans, period, and at double the rate they did 2 1/2 years ago.</p>
<p>Mini, please provide a link to the State Dept. poll which contradicts anything in the WorldOpinion poll. When you have done so, we can discuss this further.</p>
<p>Fundingfather, I have to applaud you: you have outdone yourself in seeing a stinking pile of manure as proof of a gift pony this time. Here are the key findings of the poll you cite:
</p>
<p>What you see as some kind of ratification of the war - the fact that 61% of Iraqs feel that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth the sacrifice - actually breaks down this way: 89% of the Sunnis say it wasn’t, while among Shias, the majority saying that was worth it has slipped from 98 percent to 75 percent, while among the Kurds it has dropped from 91 percent to 81 percent. Which boils down to: the guys who were in control under Saddam are unhappy he’s gone; the guys who were out of power are glad. Duh.</p>
<p>kluge,</p>
<p>Please pay attention to what was written previously before you decide to jump in and start sniping. Other than the sniping, your summary is pretty much what I have been saying all along and certainly doesn’t refute the notion that what the US did for the oppressed Kurds and Shia could be viewed as a “success” from their viewpoint. Get it? I doubt it, but what else is new with the kluge snipe machine.</p>
<p>I doubt that any Iraqi, no matter what their affiliation, would agree that the ensuing sectarian violence, or the “low level civil war” was really a great outcome…or a “success”.</p>
<p>Given the current situation, it isn’t a wonder that ALL Iraqi, again, regardless of their specific sectarian affiliation, want the US out now.</p>
<p>FF:
There’s nothing in the survey to support that statement. 61% feel that Saddam’s ouster was “worth the hardships”; 39% don’t. Most of the people who were out of power think the ouster was worth the price, most of the people who were in power think it wasn’t. Like I said: duh. There was no question regarding whether they were “much better off” than before; in fact 52% feel that the country is going in “the wrong direction.” There are really two things this survey shows: (1) The Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds are all bitterly opposed to each other, and their opinion of our overthrow of Saddam Hussein depends on which side they were on vis-a-vis his government; and (2) Just about the only thing they all agree on is that they want us to leave, and are okay with killing our soldiers until we do.</p>
<p>Somehow I have a hard time seeing this as a “good news-bad news” situation. It’s more of a “bad news-worse news” scenario.</p>
<p>kluge when seeing a pony out in the yard: “where’s the pile of manure that you expect me to clean up.”</p>