Black Dog

You're assuming media coverage has any affect on people's voting choices. And that the negative coverage of Bush, the war-startin', draft-dodgin', defecit-buildin' incumbent was unjustified.

Fascinating. You and Newsmax claim the Times reported the existence of WMD stiockpiles, yet there's no link to a story, no article title or reporter cited and no way to verify anything. So you'll have to do better than NewsMax.I did, however, find this article from today that talks about the looting of Iraqi facilities.Article? No stockpiles. No evidence of an active program. Just equpiment that may or may not be usable in a WMD program. You're really grasping at straws.

I'm restricting my criticsm here to US personel in Iraq. That's a far cry from generalizing about a entire religion. Did you look at the links I posted about checkpoints? The point is that not everyone knows the rules, nor can you expect everyone to react according to the "rules" even if they are aware. Of course, the surest way to solve these problems is to get the U.S. out of Iraq.

Again: what was the UN suppossed to do? It can't respond on its own nor can it compel its member to act. It was the members, not the organization, that dithered. Again: "it" can't act alone. It's not like it has a stabnding army that it can deploy. The UN, and th eUNSC in particular, is only as effective as its members allow it to be. So what we need is a renewed committment to multilateralism by the world's powers. Trouble is: how do you ensur ethat such a force is acting in the best interests of the people. I could see such a force being easily corrupted by the political influence of its member nations. remember this, too: it was the interference of western nations, often acting with the best of intentions, that created many of the developing world's problems (Belgium's excrabation of tribal tensions in Rwanada is a prime example)

Interesting: Troops Who Fired on Freed Italian Journalist Were Security for Negroponte

But rember: the Taliban enjoyed a lot of popular suport in the post-Soviet period because they brought stability to the country...something the U.S. has been unable to acheive. Those greiveances I listed are AL Qaeda's. Te Iraqi insurgency is not Al Qaeda, but predominatly ex-Baathist Sunnis.

Well, we have a litany of U.S. "mistakes" to base such conclusions upon. It doesn't appear that we are talking about a roadbock with a big gate and guardhouse. It's unclear as to whether it was a checkpoint or a patrol that shot up the car (apparently, it's common practice to park a Humvee across the road and hey presto! instant checkpoint). The checkpoints. We do know they cleared several checkpoints just prior to the incident. By the way, if "everybody knows" about the ROE, then why does this stuff keep happening? I mean, if you were a suicide bombe rand you came onto a checkpoint when you know such things tend to result in bullet-riddled cars, would you hit the gas or drive up to the checkpoint all nice and then BOOM!? Actually, its mostly Iraqis who are paying for their lives.

My point is taht westerners tend to think of the two as seperate. The people on teh other side do not, which make sit very difficult to prosecute a war on terror and win people over to your side. -U.S. support for Israel that keeps Palestinians in the Israelis' thrall -U.S and other Western troops on the Arabian peninsula -U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan -U.S. support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants -U.S. pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low -U.S. support for apostate, corrupt, and often tyrannical Muslim governments

Again: how is that the UN's fault. Othe rnations could have stepped up. But they didn't. The U.S. failed. France failed. We failed. So, as I said, Rwanada was a universal failure of the international conmmunity. The UN is only as potent as its members allow it to be. It can't act on its own. So the failures of the UN are all universal failures. That's not to say the institution doesn't need reform: it does. But to use the failures of the whole world to decry the priciple of multilateralism (not that that is what you are doing, mind you) is wrongheaded.

That's becaus eof regressive taxation measures such as the GST, PSTs, healthcare preimums etc, which are part of a bid to shift taxes to the bottom end of the scale. Think scrapping the CBC.CRTC would change any of that?

How do you know for sure? What we have is the word of the Americans (in who's best interest it is to portray this as an acident and not negligence) and the Italians. Certainly, mistakes and accidents happen in a war zone, but to me, the whole "scared soldiers with their lives on the line with a split second to act" is a convienient, catch all excuse for trigger happy grunts.

I don't think the people of Afghanistan were stoked about the war against the Soviets. Interesting, too, that many of the vicious "warlords" that rule over most of that country also oppossed the Soviets. But from an Islamist perspctive, both invasions are the same: imperialist, western aggression against the followers of Islam. remember, OBL and his cohorts believe they are fighting a defensive war agsints western encroachment.

This demonstrates a key omission from the structural bias theory, which is that the very nature of the media today lends itself to certain biases right off the bat. We live in an age of multinational media conglomorates. The huge costs required to buy and run a news outlet ensures that it is the wealthy and/or the political elite (your Izzy Aspers, your Rupert Murdochs etc.) who control the news. They set the agenda to suit their own interests. So while you'll get the odd individual reporter or editor expressing their own personal bias, the underlying ideaology of today's mass-market media is decidedly corporatist.

If you're a cop and you're called to a murder scene, but there's no body, no blood, no weapon, no signs of a struggle, nothing: would you still conclude that a murder had occurred? Anyway, I think we're on the same page at this point.

Uh... they already are. Meth, crack, coke: you name it, organized crime has its fingers in the pie. Legalizing weed would knock out one of their revenue streams, which they would have to make up. But if weed were legalized, cops wouldn't have to botehr expending resources and tiem busting "mom and pop" marijuana operations and focus on the harder, actuallly dangerous drugs.

Wit: so how is this the UN's fault? I think we shoul look at the lessons of the universal failure of the international community in Rwanada rather than just using it as a stick to beat the UN with. As oppossed to those first-world superpowers with their own agenda? I'm curious to know how Russia and Frances undermining of the oil-for-food program or the U.S.'s unilateralism (how about naming anti-UN huckster John Bolton as ambassador to the UN?) are indicative of a group of nations who are really committed to working together to make the world better?

You're asking to prove a negative. That's impossible. We can, however, usr the best information available to formulate an assessment. And I think the evidence is pretty clear. As far as your court analogy goes, in court, the onus is on the accusser to prove guilt. So if this were a ourt, Iraq would walk. What about the "leap of faith" required to beleive there are/were weapons? Surely there must be some solid evidence available to support that claim. yet neraly every one of the Busha dmin's claims on WMDs have been proven wrong. So where does that leave us? This is a much more interesting subject than WMD. While the U.S. was not directly responsible for AL Qaeda, they did play midwife by supporting the naescent radical Islamist movement in Afghanistan against the Soviets (interestingly enough, the U.S. now finds themselves in a similar situation in Afghanistan today). What's more, the U.S.'s actions in the war on terror have done more to boost AQ's cause than Osama could have dreamed.

C'mon, say it: "I. Was. Wrong." You can do it! As for your Syria story, you might want to keep this in mind: "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." (not "won't get fooled again.")

Ah, but perhaps they influenced them by accident. For example, suppose Mommy spent a little too much time teaching little Timmy the value of good grooming. Or perhaps parents let little Sally play with her big brothers GI. Joe's instead of Barbie's Dream Home. You don't know what subtle, insidious things negligent parents could do to give their children The Gay.

Um...Dan Rather, Micheal Moore et al are not the one's clinging to a bizarre version of reality where Iraq had WMD. You are. You can try and change the subject, but the fact is, all the evidence shows Iraq had no WMD and no programs to produce them. I understand that nobody likes to admit they are wrong, but jeez: suck it up.

You know, it's standard procedure to check a source before running off at the mouth about it. You obviously haven't read the report, but that's a direct quote from the its Key Findings. Don't believe me? Look it up yourself. The link is in the post you quoted earlier. In fact: here's a direct link.

No I mean Charles Duefler, the man in charge of the United States' weapons hunt. The man who's report I've been quoting from for the past zillion posts. That would be the same report which contradicts your NewsMax (talk about reliable sources) by concluding Why are you people still fighting this battle?

Well, yeah. It's called "deterrence". And the problem with sabre rattling (like, oh, say, calling a country part of an "axis of evil") is that these nations say to themselves "Hey, they're coming for us, and the only way we'll be able to deter them is by getting nukes." So, BMD is a band-aid to cover up diplomatic failures.

TRhat would indicate he's being threatened, right? But my understanding of BMD is that it's to protect the States in the event that a "rogue" nation attacks first. In otehr words, if the U.S wanted to pull a regime change in North korea, then yeah, he might use a nuke. But then I would expect the use of a nuke would have to be strategic. for example, why hit L.A., when you can wipe out your attacker's forces? Does NK even have the ability to hit North America?

Because they've been through the country with a fine tooth comb. They reviewed documents and interviewed captured regime officials and completed extensive field work. All evidence points not to Saddam hiding weapons, but to him not having weapons in the first place. Perhaps what he was trying to hide was teh fact that he didn't have any WMD. Think about it: Saddam believed WMD was a strong deterrent (especially against Iran) and a source of pride. He also felt that WMD would make him a force in the region. Now, if UN inspections were allowed and showed Iraq was clean, it would disgrace Saddam and expose his regime as a paper tiger, thus opening it up to external and internal threats. Your analysis, while sound in its basic logic, is tainted by your preconceptions and (our) decidedly western way of thinking.