BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 Aug 04 - 05:25 PM

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Twenty-five heavily armed foreigners holed up inside the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf have rigged it with explosives and are threatening to blow up the building if attacked, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said Sunday in a written statement.

link

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 Aug 04 - 12:13 PM

A stronger mandate than the UN....


link

A contingent of Rwandan troops is in Sudan to protect about 80 African Union cease-fire monitors in the crisis-torn Darfur region.

The Rwandans, who arrived on Sunday as part of an African Union (AU) force, are the first international troops deployed to the region where tens of thousands of people have been killed in ethnic violence.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame said on Saturday his soldiers would also intervene to protect civilians in danger.

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 01:23 PM

The Bush administration is wrong in not acting in Sudan.

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 12:27 PM

But no criticism from you against the Bush administration for holding up aid to Sudan? Would you be calling the Liberals/Democrats in this forum hypocrites if they didn't criticize a Democrat administration under similar circumstances?

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 06:08 AM

"beardedbruce, it wasn't all that long ago that you were accusing everyone who didn't holler for the US to take some kind of action in Sudan a hypocrite. "

"I don't know why you would think that an absence of discussion on any of these subjects by me in this forum would be indicative of anything whatever. "



Except that my post of 09 Aug 04 - 07:32 AM does bring up the Sudan...

I am STILL calling for action on Sudan- regardless of the liberal/conservative fight over who is to blame.

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 06:04 AM

UN protection?

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: Bo Vandenberg
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 03:52 AM

This is from the 10th but I find it clearly characteristic:

Stunning Court victory for Dolphin Protection
http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?objid=D1D1366D000000FE4998DC6C00A94036


"In a 51-page decision handed down today, Federal District Court Judge Henderson rebuked the Bush Administration, stating that: "(T)he record convincingly demonstrates that the Secretary (of Commerce) nonetheless proceeded to sacrifice the integrity of the decision-making process by disregarding the best available scientific evidence in favor of political and diplomatic considerations."

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 04:08 PM

And CarolC, where have I changed?

I don't know. How do you feel about this development from Nerd:

"(2) Liberals aren't silent! Congress has declared this a genocide and it is the Bush Administration that has balked at using that language, which would legally force the US to act."

I have not seen any comments from you about the Sudan lately...

So? You also haven't seen any comments from me about the situation in Iraq, or the situation in Afghanistan or Guantanamo or North Korea or any number of other ongoing problematic situations. I don't know why you would think that an absence of discussion on any of these subjects by me in this forum would be indicative of anything whatever.

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 03:04 PM

And CarolC, where have I changed? I have not seen any comments from you about the Sudan lately...


I have never said that the Bush administration did things according to what I wanted.

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 03:01 PM

beardedbruce, it wasn't all that long ago that you were accusing everyone who didn't holler for the US to take some kind of action in Sudan a hypocrite.

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: Nerd
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 02:29 PM

bb,

Ridiculous!

(1) Revealing the name of the captive in no way convinced anyone that the terror alert was reasonable, so it was a stupid thing to do, regardless of whether you actually believe that Bush has done ANYTHING out of pressure from liberals.
(2) Liberals aren't silent! Congress has declared this a genocide and it is the Bush Administration that has balked at using that language, which would legally force the US to act.
(3) How did liberals screw up? The mission was not accomplished, so it was a lie to say it was. The fact that Tommy Franks has spoken up merely shows that Bush needs protection against his own stupidity. (By the way, I thought Bush was the proud commander in chief. That means he didn't have to do what Tommy Franks said. The buck stopped with HIM--and he screwed up.)

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 02:18 PM

Nerd,

Perhaps I could say

(1) Liberals screwed up by insisting on more information on the reason for the terror alert.
(2) Liberals still silent on the need to involve the US in another conflict.
(3) Liberals screwed up in making fun of Bush for following a suggestion to honor the troops.

... But I am NOT saying that- I am presenting these stories for you to draw whatever conclusions you want.

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news (9-Aug-04)
From: Nerd
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 02:08 PM

So what you're saying, bb is

(1) Bush Administration screwed up in releasing terrorist information
(2) Bush Administration still not doing all it can in Sudan
(3) Bush Administration (but not Bush himself) screwed up in saying "Mission Accomplished" when it was not accomplished.

Or is that too much baggage?

Also, does anyone else think it is at least slightly funny that the militias in Sudan are called Janjaweed? Doesn't this sound more like a doobie than an army? I know the topic is terribly serious, and I don't want to make a joke out of it, but Janjaweed?

Okay, enough from me...

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 07:25 AM

Sorry, but aren't we encouraged to add to existing threads rather than create a multiplicity of them?

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 05:45 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Retired Gen. Tommy Franks tried to take the blame Monday for President Bush's much-criticized comments declaring an end to major combat in Iraq more than a year ago.

"That's my fault, that George W. Bush said what he said on the first of May of last year, just because I asked him to," said Franks, former commander of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

CNN story



Keith:

These are stories that relate to past and ongoing threads. I have put them here to present the information without all the baggage that has been accumulated on the threads, where political viewpiont seems to have over-ruled any consideration of the facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 08:35 AM

No need to reprint news here Bruce, most of us can get CNN or similar.

Subject: RE: BS: Today's news
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 07:32 AM

"According to USAID, there could be 300,000 people dead in Darfur by the end of the year, and that's if aid gets to them rapidly.

"If aid does not get there quickly, USAID is warning that a million people could die in Darfur by the end of this year. So the need to get the Sudanese government to react and to end this is very, very urgent right now," Armanpour said.

Aid agencies estimate about 2 million people are in urgent need of food and medical aid.

The 18-month conflict in Sudan began when black African factions in Darfur rose up against the Sudanese government, claiming discrimination in the distribution of scarce resources in the large, arid region.

Since then, government-backed Arab militias, called Janjaweed, have gone on a rampage, destroying villages, killing and raping.

As many as 30,000 people have been killed, and 1 million people have been forced to flee their homes.

Arab countries, meanwhile, on Sunday said the Sudanese government needed more time to end the crisis in Darfur.

The 22-member Arab League, which held an emergency meeting Sunday in Cairo, Egypt to discuss the Sudan situation, also rejected "threats of military intervention in the region or imposing any sanctions on Sudan," AP reports.


CNN story

Subject: BS: Today's news
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 07:26 AM

The effort by U.S. officials to justify raising the terror alert level last week may have shut down an important source of information that has already led to a series of al Qaeda arrests, Pakistani intelligence sources say. Until U.S. officials leaked the arrest of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan to reporters, Pakistan had been using him in a sting operation to track down al Qaeda operatives around the world, the sources said.

CNN story