jbg

I think that whether or not Iraq had WMD's their threats justified action.

How did the the U.S. compel Diefenbaker? I can not find convincing evidence that it was compulsion as opposed to just a business deal. It looks like Canadians were screwed over by their own government. I am an American who thinks we should have bought the Avro. The problem may well have been that without American purchasing power the project didn't have a large enough market to justify the cost.

This is a case for making CBC purely an educational channel, for Shakespeare plays and the like.

They were funding different terror efforts aimed at the US and more frequently its allies. Further, they constantly verbalized a threat of use of chemical weapons and WMD's. Even if they didn't have the capability the threat of same cannot be ignored and an unenforced, paper UN resolution is not enough.

Link to article about destination of your Pakistan earthquake aid. Isn't it amazing how skillfully they seek our money when disaster strikes. All those pitiful, miserable people waving their arms for help, for aid. Look where it all goes. Isn't it a pity? =================================================================== August 14, 2006 Pakistani Charity Under Scrutiny in Plot By DEXTER FILKINS and SOUAD MEKHENNET LONDON, Aug. 13 — British and Pakistani investigators are trying to determine whether the group of Britons suspected of plotting to blow up as many as 10 commercial airliners may have received money raised for earthquake relief by a Pakistani charity that is a front for an Islamic militant group. The charity, Jamaat ud Dawa, which is active in the mosques of Britain’s largest cities, played a significant role in carrying out relief efforts after last October’s earthquake in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. *snip* British and Pakistani investigators are looking into the possibility that the group, whose name means the Association of the Call to Righteousness, passed the earthquake donations raised in British mosques to the plotters, according to two people familiar with the investigation. One former Pakistani official close to the intelligence officials there said Jamaat ud Dawa provided the money that was to be used to buy plane tickets for the suspects to conduct a practice run as well as the attacks themselves. The money is believed to have come directly from the group’s network in Britain and was not sent from Pakistan, the former official said. *snip* The details of the suspected plot to blow up the airliners began to emerge Thursday, when the police in Britain detained 24 people. The authorities said the suspects, most of them British-born young men of Pakistani descent, intended to smuggle liquid-based explosives onto 9 or 10 commercial airliners headed for the United States and detonate them as they approached. British officials said the plot, had it been successful, could have killed thousands. *snip* It has called for holy war against the United States, India and Israel. Although it has avoided direct association with Al Qaeda, links between the groups have often surfaced. Abu Zubaida, the senior Qaeda member captured by Pakistani forces in the city Faisalabad in 2002, was found hiding in a safe house for Lashkar-e-Taiba. Don Van Natta contributed reporting from New Jersey for this article.

<heh> I cross back and forth. I am pretty conservative fiscally but fairly liberal socially. Social issues are ones where I'm fairly far to the left. I'm in favor of a woman's right to abortion in first three months of pregnancy. I would be more in favor of SSM (I'm against it now) if some of the issues as same sex divorces, rights of creditors, impact on insurance rates and on rent control systems were considered. Those positions put me well to Chow and Layton's positions.

And Pollard is a great example of what happens when someone snooping through records goes over the line.

<heh> Israel has used banking records to find out who in the American government could be turned to give them intelligence. Wasn't aware of that. Link?

I have no idea. I'm new to the Board, but you'll find me to the left of the NDP on most issues, on some to the left of Pol Pot.

Would you be okay with a foreign country looking at your back records? Any of the core English-speaking democracies, i.e. Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand or Israel, no problem.

Does that mean all our bank records should be examined by the U.S. government? http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/14082006/2/nati...nk-records.html I have a question. I'm an American and I value my freedom. Nothing could be more boring than my banking records. If someone wants to read it whose only interest is in finding out if I'm a criminal, why not?

What other areas are you extremely liberal on? Aside from the Middle East and the UN what areas might you find me not extremely liberal on?

I like Harper, so I'd love Rae to win Leadership.

You used to be a Marxist? Well, I used to be extremely liberal. Some people still think I am.

I am not a so-con. I am a neo-con. Thank you for the compliment of reproducing my entire long post to say that.

All wars entail some loss of civil liberty. This is a war, not of Bush's or the US's choosing.

In Afghanistan's case, they might just rely on opium. Good point, actually. I'll have to give that one some thought. However, that works better for the farmers and middlemen. Government types like nice, easy checks without the risk to life of collection.

That's a different issue. Military matters and foreign policy matters often demand the personal involvement of the highest elected offical?

I don't think you get the any nation to agree to become dependent. I don't have any idea how it would work or if it could work. How about a nice, clean, aid cutoff as an incentive? Not very much fun governing a nation without a source of baksheesh.

Before I go point by point, try using e-mail stripper (link) on your posts. They'd take up much less space. Can you name me one system that has produced more wealth for a greater percentage of the people? Can you show me one totalitarian system that did not greatly enrich its rulers? The Berlin blockade? The brutal suppression of rebellions, by Soviet troops, in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968), and pressure on Poland (1981) to do the same? I am pro-choice to a limited extent. Has anyone thought through the effects of SSM on rights of creditors, insurance, rent controls? What about same sex divorces? What are the rules there? For some yes, for many it is a choice. When the US put in welfare reform in 1995, the rates for abortion, premarital sex, and crime began plummeting. Maybe this serves people's idea of justice. Tin foil hat material Yeah right. There's absolutely zero chance that a bureaucracy accountable to no one, like the UN, will spend money on faceless, voiceless people waving their arms in misery. The so-cons sure got that one wrong.

Trouble with that approach is that putting the RDF in action would be a difficult decision, politically. If independence were offically abridged it would be much easier. Also, this and many countries should be taken out of the UN since in no economic or real sense are they independent.

The appropriate Cabinet minister showed up. Isn't it appropriate for the portfolio holder, not the PM, to be at that kind of conference?

Did the terrorists have families? I thought they were a bunch of unmarried 20-somethings living in cheap apartments. In any case, 19 guys with boxcutters and a minimal amount of skill pulled off the worst terrorist act in history. The U.S. could have bombed Florida, Germany, and even Saudi Arabia in response, but that probably wouldn't have made them more secure. Brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers are potential people who would know what their relative was doing and might not be crazy about it, unless bought off.

May be the strategy, but since any Afgan forces will represent largely their tribe, it's a course not without practical difficulties.

BUMP