I thought they voted for him over Hilary because Hilary is so obviously nuts. I can't stand her. Can't stand the way she hides behind her husband one minute then tries to play the "headstrong woman" the next. Every time she gets 'serious' she looks either crazy or like she's going to cry.



<shrugs>
Honestly. I thought that's why.
Ahk

Yep.

Fair enough. Thank you sir.

Hats off to Fortaleza! Happy B-day bud!





Ahk

No that's not what I said. The generals and the Iraqis get the credit and the admin gets the blame. For 2-3 years they didnt listen to a word the generals said, often dismissed them if they said something they didn't like, (like asking for more troops), and when they finally did start listening that's when things started to turn around. The reason Iraq seems to be settling down is because of the Iraqis themselves and because of the Generals. It is not because of the plans/programs and outright delusional thinking that the mission in Iraq started with. As I said from the American standpoint it is the Generals, not the deluded thinking of the Bush admin that is working here. That and the Iraqis themselves.

As I siad, all civil conflicts or racial strife do eventually calm down and peter out. Do we credit the Admin for this very basic sociological truth? The only thing you can credit the Admin with at this point is serendipity. I would give credit for 'staying the course', but realistically what else were they going to do?

Are you saying neue regel that you haven't noticed a change ever since Rumsfeld was out, and since about a year before the surge that now instead of the Admin telling the Generals what's-what and crapping on them any time they say something the admin doesn't like, now the generals doing the telling and the admin is finally doing some listening. Boom! and low and behold it starting to work. It was the same thing in Afghanistan. They tried to tell the generals it was all wrapped up there but the generals knew better. Now the Admin keeps their hands out of it. Their dreamy dream delusions of just walking into Iraq and changing everything in 6 months is a long forgotten memory to some of you.

Or are you trying to say that assuming the troops would be greeted as heroes or implementing Abu Garib or assigning a 22-year old to be the Iraqi Minister of the Interior is what led us to the timidly positive results we are seeing today? Even the surge wasn't the Admin's idea. The generals were demending more troops for a year before they got 'em.

We can kick this around all day but imagine if a city is being devistated by a hurricane and their plan is to do nothing and let it blow over. Well naturally the hurricane will blow over eventually but do we credit the administration for that?

The Admins original plan failed. Simple as that and the generals are pulling their collective ass outta the fire now. Hasn't been the first time...the last time was Clinton. Did the Admin tell all of you that the plan was to hang out in Iraq for 5 years of civil violence and car bombs and dead coaltion soldiers until such time as they deem it alright to throw in the "surge' of troops the generals were screaming for from day one? Were they just biding their time with a fake plan until the timing was right to pull it all out of the bag with someone elses ideas? No. They had a plan and it failed and they had no idea what else to do until they started really listening to even their own people.


Cheers Neue,
Ahk

That's not the problem. The problem people trying to imply that any good news coming out of Iraq is because "we were right all along", which is BS. The Admin was wrong all along. If Iraq "turns out ok" it would be ultimate BS to claim the admin was responsible for it.




Ahk

Unfortunatly yes. They've created a situation where the current admin 'wins' if anything comes about in Iraq other than a recreation of the final days of Vietnam. This was a mistake on their part because now the definition of 'success' is wide open for interpretation. Truth is it's way too late to call this a 'success' based on the original idea.

-The US was not welcomed with open arms.

-Assigning 22-year old post grads who had never left the country for positions like minister of the interior, etc. was NOT a good idea. It was beyond stupid actually and well within the bounds of completely delusional.
 
-Abu Garib was NOT a success and probably cost the US many lives and helped promote the rise of al Qaeda and overall anti-Coalition violence incredibly. Put bluntly: You can gaurentee that many coalition solders are dead now who would still be alive if it weren't for Abu Garib. There is no measurement for that kind of damage.

After all, any civil war or ethnic conflict will peter out eventually, so hanging around until that happens is not a success but rather serendipity.

Benchmarks or not; silly word games or not; the admin is still responsible for promoting the idea that Iraq was connected to 9/11 and al Qaeda.
--- (yes they did -- you people who are going to come here to dispute this are crazy or game players. One minute you'll deny the admin worked hard to promote this false idea, then the next minute you'll be digging up obscure intel reports that essentially mean nothing in an attempt to justify promoting the idea as true and not false. IOW you don't know whether to disagree and 'prove' the Admin "didn't" promote a false story or to try and back it up as the liegitimate story. They lied. Period.)


Meanwhile 15 of 18 is still a fail, this isn't a high school test, they are benchmarks and all benchmarks ne3ed to be met or it's a fail. yet because the democrats have cosistantly warned about future distaster the present disaster has been forgotten.
Remember the surge did not come about because of Iraq 'success'.
It's kind of like being warned against playing craps because you'll loose all you money. So you lose everything but $10 and then start a 'winning streak' of 2-3 rolls and say, "See? Told you I'd win.". You didn't win. If you break even you'll be lucky because there is nothing to gaurentee you Iraq won't be a terrorism hotbed in 10-20 years instead of a 'we-love-Americans' democracy.
You lost a lot of ground and when you finally got rid of Rumsfeld and kept your delusional Republican noses out of it and let the Generals do what they do best and stayed out of their way all of a sudden you start seing some 'success' (although 'less disaster' would be more accurate). But it's not a 'success' and if anything it proves the Admins original day-dream approach to Iraq as false.


I also find it interesting the article does not tell us exactly what benchmarks have 'succeeded'. If I'm wwrong about that please point it out.



Ahk

Naw, that's just average for here Neo

The guy was an idiot. This is an idiot government elected solely by the fact that Canadians finally got sick of Liberal dynasty.

So where are they? I'm sorry but it seems obvious that nothing statistical coming out of Iran can be trusted. This is the country with "no homosexuals' remember?


Well that's all fine and dandy but you're going to be posting for years before you convince me that the story I posted from Iran is anything besides typical. You know I'm not going to run out an hunt down 100 similar stories to 'prove' that, but then you also know I could. This is far from an isolated incident. I'm not trying to vilify all Iran but bullshit is bullshit. Totally different subject but I wouldn't execute a 'tard either.

You say it was 'unfortunate' for the family but it was the 'family' that raped her. Anyone living in a society like that who looks off to the US and is tempted to chastise them because of what they figure 'sounds like' a high rape rate is straight up crazy. I'll take a society o 'sluts' and unplanned teenage pregnancy over a society where the males, essentially, may rape women on any baloney excuse (basically on a whim) any day.


More to the point, supposedly they have the death penalty for rape and yet it goes on all the time, whereas North America (and Europe for that matter) have a consistently dropping rate of rape because of the aggressive evolution of prosecution these countries engage. Further how come with all the rape the only executions going on there are journalists and teenage homosexuals?

Some interesting quotes of superior Iranian Justice:

http://rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=392

Mmmmm. Just-deli-licious! I mean they left the house accompanied by their 'boyfriends' so they wouldnt be put to death for 'sluttery' and then if they are raped well we all know what'll happen then right? They'll be executed. If they resist being raped what happens? They'll be executed. S'fair cop. Seriously medieval witch trials were fairer.

IMO it is a ridiculous lie on the part of Iran when they say they 'execute rapists'. They do not. They use 'rape' as an excuse to execute when they like. It is a society that uses instituted rape as part of it's 'family values'. All Iranian men, powerful or poor, have complete rights to do whatever the hell they want to women, even their mothers. In Afghanistan for example they at least have some reverence for motherhood and the work women do within the society.


Ahk

While I'm at it penitent has been banned for being Untouchables. We let him hang long enough to see he's up to his usual propaganda/trolling crap.




Ahk

gibberish. First off you scoff at the idea of comparing statistics but that's the only good statistics are for. Y'see statistics are used for relative analysis whihc means 1 solitary statistic alone is meaningless unless you have others to compare with. If you say the US has a rape rate of 1.3 every minute we have no idea if that it a high rate or a low rate per capita relative to other countries that have the death penalty for it. If you do not understand the purpose of statistics then do not post them.

Next I asked you to answer this simple question: why does the US need implement the death penalty when rates have already dropped 85% in the last 20 years?

You skirted this question even though it directly relates to your contention that the US should employ the DP like they do in other countries in order to curb the number of rapes. But those other countries do not necessarily have a lower rape rates, especially India, but instead a lower rate of reported rapes and next to no reliable statistics for which to compare. This is another issue you refuse to face but instead need to banter, insult and flame.

You shouldn't even really be here at all, and since you're obviosuly up to your old habit of trying to use IAP as a platform for your useless propaganda you will again get dissappeared starting now. Not to mention I won't put up with a breath of rude treatment from you towards Jericoacoara who is about the only guy left who's polite to you.

bye. until we meet again.

Ahk

Charles whatever-his-name-is has been suspended for trolling. He will be reinstated in two weeks or whenver he's brought up properly. Whichever comes first.

Yeah but it doesn't. Congress aproved a war measures act. They did not 'approve' 22-year old post graduates who have never been outside the US to act as the interm Iraqi Secretary of the Interior. They did not approve Abu Garib.

Now, more to the point of your absolute NEED to change what people say before you can muster even a bad argument against it: Did Irwin ever deny Congress approved the bill as you said he did?

yes or no?


Wrong. Just more of your bullshit and bluster. You haven't presented one single non-sequitur argument here ever.


Again: you don't have an argument so you need to try an insult. All you have a lot of running off at the mouth. You do realize that when you speak like this you aren't getting to anyone like I'm sure you tell yourself you are, instead all you are doing by demonstrating that you have nothing more than a foul mouth and a poor upbringing.

I've had enough of you. G'bye.


Ahk

This is what happens if most of the countries where rape is punishable by death:

http://www.iranian.ws/cgi-bin/iran_news/exec/view.cgi/1/696

The fact is these countries punish a lot of things with the death penalty and it just doesnt seem to matter. The rapes are usually unreported. We have no idea how many are raped both on the street or in jail.

Meanwhile rape rates  in the US and the West in general because the conviction rate is way up and women are not afraid to report them. Thusly we have the statistic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800610.html?nav=rss_print

So the US doesnt need the death penalty for this they just having to keep doing what they're doing: Convicting and not attacking the victim.

Whoops! Here goes another unreported rape in Iran.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4295111.stm

Seems clear that if you're a woman in Iran and you're raped you just keep your mouth shut and dont report it. Kinda makes the death penalty useless.



Ahk

No. 1.3 women each minute that get reported. You know why? Because they aren't going to get wiped, killed, imprisoned or dishonored if they do report it. You can wave that statistic around all you like but you have no reliable statistics from other countries who do use the death penalty for these crimes to compare with.

Subsequently it's just a stat. Perhaps 2 get raped every minute in Gaza or 3 get raped every minute in Saud, or 4 in Iran. We just don';t know do we? Because they close their eyes to that stuff and dont report it or treat it seriously or compile stats on it.  But considering countries like these are not as forthright or honest with their statistics anyways...
your stat on the US is meaningless.

Now I asked a straight question and either you're smart enough to answer it or you're just a propaganda-bot:

WHY HAVE RAPE RATES IN THE US DROPPED CONSISTENTLY OVER THE PAST 2 DECADES WITHOUT THE DEATH PENALTY?

Don't just answer with a bunch of blah blah blah. Answer the fucking question Untouchables or I'm pulling your plug again. No more games. I'll give you a hint: CSI is a really popular program.



Ahk