U.N. Tough Act to Follow
Posted September 24th, 2006 by Chip Bok
Click Image to Enlarge.
The U.N. Security Council deadline for Iran to stop enriching uranium passed on August 31.
Time for sanctions? It's show time.
Posted September 24th, 2006 by Chip Bok
Click Image to Enlarge.
The U.N. Security Council deadline for Iran to stop enriching uranium passed on August 31.
Time for sanctions? It's show time.
Bokbluster is proudly powered by
WordPress
Entries (RSS)
and Comments (RSS).
Bad Behavior has blocked 514 access attempts in the last 7 days.
September 24th, 2006 at 7:08 am
Givng the Iranians a deadline….GOOD!!
Giving the Iraqis a deadline…….BAD!!
September 24th, 2006 at 7:20 am
The UN gave Iran a deadline to stop nuclear efforts.
Iraq is no longer trying to have nuclear weapons, big difference.
It would be criminal to pull out our troops before Iraq is ready to handle it's internal warfare. The terrorists would just wait for the pullout.
September 24th, 2006 at 9:31 am
It would appear to me and some other folks that the terrorists are pretty busy right now in Iraq. How could leaving be that much worse?
September 24th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Back to dictatorship.
September 24th, 2006 at 6:58 pm
And that would be worse for whom?
September 24th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
seriously, slope, do you know anything about world affairs? did you, for example, see the latest report that there is now more torture in iraq then during the reign of saddam? i mean, in the constantly moving goalpost that is the rationale for us to invade a country that had never attacked us, the last one was "saddam was a brutal dictator who had torture rooms!!"
so, from what one can gather, we freed iraq from a torturer so they could torture each other more!
or maybe you saw the article about how our OWN NIE says that we are making MORE terrorists than we could ever hope to kill or capture by our ridiculous adventure in iraq?
look, slope, you don't have to defend this guy or his party. it's not like rooting for the browns, it really isn't. these rich bastards don't care one lick for you. all they want is your vote at best or to just shut up and watch more tv so they can do what they want at worst. you can say "no!" it's not like sports. the dems aren't the steelers. they are normal people who are your neighbors and co-workers. if you stopped and maybe talked with them and asked yourself why is iraq going so badly or why have my wages not even kept up with inflation? these are more important than bok or limbaugh or anyone else of that ilk. they make more money then you most likely. they laugh at you behind your back cuz they make you and your kin go fight their wars why they enjot tax cuts.
just think about it, eh?
September 24th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
"there is now more torture in iraq then during the reign of saddam? "
No I sure haven't seen this report. If you believe that, you're hopeless.
September 25th, 2006 at 3:51 am
Apparently Slope if you ask Mr. Bush, not all dictators are bad.
Bush's buddy Musharraf in Pakistan…. he's a dictator, but he's OUR dictator… you know… a warm and friendly despot.
And for Christ's Sake Slope, KJ is talking about the National Intelligence Estimate, an assesment made by America's 16 intelligence agencies. Turn off O'Reilly and read the damn newspaper once in awhile. Who is the hopeless one here?
September 25th, 2006 at 5:20 am
"Bush's buddy Musharraf in Pakistan…. he's a dictator, but he's OUR dictator… you know… a warm and friendly despot."
I know as far as you are concerned the USA is always wrong.
September 25th, 2006 at 5:59 am
I'm afraid "As far as you know" isn't much to go on Slope.
Your statement was in effect that a dictatorship was worse than
a civil war. I was merely pointing out the problem with your statement.
As I told someone else here, if you're looking for a soulmate try
eHarmony.
And finally, if I didn't love my country, I wouldn't bother to argue politics.
My loyalty is to my country and the Constitution…. not the current administration, or any other for that matter. Your blind faith serves no one.
September 25th, 2006 at 6:34 am
Nice try but he was in office in 1999.
Pervez Musharraf (Urdu: پرويز مشرف; born August 11, 1943 in Delhi, India) is currently the President of Pakistan and the Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistani military. He took power on October 12, 1999 after a coup d'état and assumed the title of President of Pakistan on June 20, 2001
I believe Clinton was president then so he must be Clinton's dictator buddy.
September 25th, 2006 at 7:02 am
"And for Christ's Sake Slope, KJ is talking about the National Intelligence Estimate, an assesment made by America's 16 intelligence agencies. Turn off O'Reilly and read the damn newspaper once in awhile. Who is the hopeless one here?"
When you ASSUME, you make an a** out of you and me. I don't watch O'Reilly.
Another example of classifled information being leaked to the press by your leftists buddies without all the facts.
"The White House issued a written rebuttal that argued administration officials have been making some of the same arguments as in the intelligence estimate. A White House strategy booklet released this month described the terrorists as more dispersed and less centralized and still a threat to the United States.
Bush himself said on Sept. 5 that "terrorist danger remains" and the broader terrorist movement is becoming more spread out and self-directed. He also quoted Osama bin Laden describing Iraq as the central battlefield in the fight against terrorism."
I know that you can't be bothered with the truth, just your distortions and lies.
September 25th, 2006 at 8:01 am
Trying to be balanced here… In Matt Lauer's interview with Musharraf this morning, it was mentioned that Mush believed invading Iraq would increase terrorism. When Lauer asked if Bush was therefore responsible for raising the terrorism level in the world, Mush responded "I'd rather not look back in time, but discuss the present and the future (paraphrase)." The purpose of the interview was supposedly to promote his memoirs. Kind of tough to write memoirs without a look back, huh?
Addressing the prior comments, though, it is easy to see that the premise for the Iraq invasion was flawed. But, to use Musharraf's logic, you can only look at the present and future now. I don't buy a difficult to prove report that torture is more prevalent now than under Saddam. The genocide of the Kurds alone seems to invalidate that claim. My guess is that genocide is probably as bad as torture, don't you?
Given that the "WMD" and terrorism link was bogus, would torture and genocide be enough of a reason to invade? Dunno. I'll bet European Jews of the 30's and 40's could answer, though.
September 25th, 2006 at 8:48 am
Ramrod makes sense. If the justifcation to invade Iraq had been to end torture and or genocide, then those reasons should have been presented to Congress, the UN, and the American public and there could have been a referendum or a vote. That we're in Iraq now to end torture and spread democracy was only floated out there after the original reasons were discredited.
No Republicans I know, and I know a lot of them, were crying about the plight of the Iraqi people and their lack of democracy in the ten years before the Bush gambit. To claim now that this is the reason we went into Iraq sounds all warm and fuzzy but it's a rational of last resort and a claim the neocons have backed into. The sad truth for the Iraqis is that most people in this country of any political persuasion truthfully give a rat's ass about their (the Iraqis) situation.
Bush will continue to refuse to leave Iraq for one simple reason:
As long as he stays, then his foreign policy play can't be called
a failure since there will still be technically be time left on the clock. Bush knows full well that if he leaves office and we're still
over there, then Iraq becomes someone elses problem, even if a
Republican president is elected in 2008. If Iraq collapses after that, well then it can be blamed on any number of folks.
September 25th, 2006 at 10:10 am
You make a lot of sense too, Mencken.
In fact you've got me wondering whether, if there's more torture in Iraq now, we should invade again? Maybe we could have whatever's left of our reserves take on the troops we have there now. That way, Bush and Rummy could win the war either way!
September 25th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
well, i tried to appeal to your higher sense of self, slope but it appears, like the administration on so many levels, i have failed.
you believe what you want, clearly, whether you have evidence to the contrary put in front of you. i didn't write the report and, this is important, I HATE THAT THERE IS MORE TORTURE IN IRAQ NOW,OK? i wish that were not the case. i really do! again, why do you insist on backing everything these people do??? i voted for clinton but hated some of the things he did but people of your ilk, slope, seem to back bush and co. no matter what. why is this? he is not your kin. he is just a man, who is full of all the faults as any other. it's not wrong to demand some accountability from your elected officials! why can't you admit he's made some mistakes. it doesn't make you or he a less of a man. what kind of issues does one have to have to follow any leader or administration so blindly?
i hope you will take this post to heart and try to answer some of my questions, if you would.
September 25th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Why did you not acknowledge your mistake:
"Nice try but he was in office in 1999.
Pervez Musharraf (Urdu: پرويز مشرف; born August 11, 1943 in Delhi, India) is currently the President of Pakistan and the Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistani military. He took power on October 12, 1999 after a coup d'état and assumed the title of President of Pakistan on June 20, 2001
I believe Clinton was president then so he must be Clinton's dictator buddy
And the answer is that you never will even when stopped cold Too bad.
September 25th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
ok, look slope, last chance. if clinton did something WRONG or BAD, we who are democrats do NOT say it's ok because we voted for him, ok? so, bringing up clinton as a rebuttal is a very silly thing to do. address the concerns raised by the people on this board. this is not a GAME. people are DYING EVERY GODDAMN DAY IN IRAQ! do you get that? why do you continue to play silly tit-for-tat. this is not a game. it's life or death.
oh, and do recall how his own party turned on LBJ because he lied and drew us further into the quagmire that was vietnam? why won't the current president's party do the same sort of noble thing? the repubs are risking losing for the next generation if they continue to tie themselves to bush. he is a lead albatross that will drag the whole party to the bottom. trust me, repubs are already set to lose the west the same way the dems lost the south in the 60's. the numbers are not shaping up well for the modern repubs and their stubborn refusal to rebuke their unbelievably stubborn president and do the right thing will doom them.
September 26th, 2006 at 12:40 am
kj, did you miss this??
"Bush's buddy Musharraf in Pakistan…. he's a dictator, but he's OUR dictator… you know… a warm and friendly despot."
I simply pointed out that Clinton was president when Musharraf went into office so how can he be Bush's buddy? You libs are constantly making off the wall anti Bush statements and then get upset when you are confronted with the real facts. I've said many times that leberal dems are too emotional and that was proved by Clinton in the TV interview when he lost it.
September 26th, 2006 at 11:22 am
This says it all so well.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/09/bill_clinton_play_it_as_it_lie.html
September 26th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
I don't think Mush became buddies with the USA until after 9/11. He was too busy fighting the Indians in Kashmir.
September 26th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
hey slope, did you MISS MY WHOLE GODDAMNED POST? i don't care what dictator the u.s government is sucking up to now or then.
i give up. i tried to appeal to you as an american, not as a partisian but you merely parrot right-wing talking points in response.
i am sad for you, slope and for my country. i feel no sense of pride when generals appear before memebers of congress yesterday and go through the litany of what rumsfeld did wrong and how it cost us lives. or how this admin. has underfunded the VA by 3 billion dolaars. jesus, the VA? can't we all agree that we should take care of our troops no matter what party is in power?
how do you explain the lack of congressional oversight on the war? how do you explain that this congress has met less than any in the last century? it is YOUR party in power, slope! explain why they did those things!
you appear to be a very weak man, slope and i know that pres. bush is. god help us all…
September 26th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
kj, you sound like that lunatic head of the Democrat Party.
Following is a list of all the attacks on the USA since 9-11:
September 26th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/26/060926231203.q6d2gwnv.html
September 27th, 2006 at 7:30 am
yes, slope, and i have a rock here that keeps tigers away from ohio. you haven't seen any tigers in ohio, have you? any tiger attacks? nope, so CLEARLY my rock is working!
September 27th, 2006 at 7:37 am
oh, and btw, your comment on the underfunding of the veterans admin was very compelling. oh wait, you didn't comment on it at all! you didn't take the time to respond why congress has underfunded the VA, which one would think, ALL AMERICANS REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL PERSUASION would be in favor of FUNDING FULLY! after all, we all support the troops, don't we? and of course we don't just give lip service to that ideal. of course we don't just have magnets or bumper stickers on our cars that say 'support the troops' and then not fund the VA to help these troops when they come home?
i'm sure you just missed that part of my post, slope,so i anxiuosly await your next post where i'm sure you will agree with me on this important issue that ALL americans can agree on.
September 27th, 2006 at 7:39 am
oh and btw, look it up in the dictionary, the proper grammatical term is DEMOCRATIC PARTY. surely as a conservative, you MUST care about the proper use of grammar and the english language?
jesus…
September 27th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Is that you, Mr. Clinton?
September 27th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
"oh and btw, look it up in the dictionary, the proper grammatical term is DEMOCRATIC PARTY. surely as a conservative, you MUST care about the proper use of grammar and the english language"
You look it up. Democrat is in the dictionary as one of the political parties.
September 27th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
As far as the VA is concerned,increasing the budget for the VA was somthing President Bush did immediatly after taking office.
http://www.va.gov/pressrel/budgt02.htm
Why wasn't it increased prior to is taking office?
September 27th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
what a surprise! a "fact-check" by a right-winger that's wrong!
from dictionary.com: 4. (initial capital letter) Politics. a. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the Democratic party
look under "democratic," dummy…
and wow, bush did it 6 years ago, so, well he never has to do it again, right? THERE'S A WAR GOING ON, in case you didn't notice! so hence the need for the VA to be FULLY FUNDED NOW is very important, see? the republican lead govnt. has NOT done it. why? just give me a reason why not.
September 27th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
Copied from the dictionary:
Democrat
a member of the Democratic Party
So you allow that President Bush increased he VA budget in 2001 but you carefully ignore my question on when his precessor increased the VA budget. As I recall, Clinton was downsizing the military and not increasing anythng. As for your name calling I'm beginning to wonder if I am respoding to a 10 year old.
September 27th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Here's the answer that you won't give:
Bush is being accused of slashing the budget for Veterans Affairs. Win Without War claims that Bush is going to cut $25 billion from the VA's budget over the next 10 years. Well, that's only $2.5 billion a year, and many of the WW-II and Korean veterans will have passed on. So that might make some demographic sense. However, let's have a look at these budget numbers and see what the truth really is about Bush's shocking budget cuts for veterans.
Let's go straight to the horse's mouth, so to speak, the Office of Budget, Dept of Veterans Affairs.
This summary PDF file contains the following
General 2004 Budget Highlights Summary • The 2004 President’s budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides approximately $63.6 billion for veterans’ benefits and services: $30.2 billion in discretionary funding and $33.4 billion for entitlements.
Wow. That's alot of money. Then it goes on to say
The request for discretionary programs
provides $3.2 billion (with collections) or 11.9 percent, over last year’s funding
level.
Hmm… Voices against War says the VA is being cut by $25 billion, and the VA says they're getting $3.2 billion more than they were before.
The same summary for the 2003 budget said
2003 Budget Highlights Summary The 2003 President’s budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides approximately $56.6 billion for veterans’ benefits and services: $26.4 billion for discretionary programs (without medical care collections) and $30.1 billion for entitlements
.
Hmm…. So we were spending $56.6 billion, and if we took $25 billion away from that, we get $63.6 billion, not $31.6 billion that we were taught to expect using conventional second grade mathematics. Normally a simpleton like me would say that $63.6 billion is $7 billion more than $56.6 billion, but obviously I'm mistaken or all those enlightened liberals wouldn't be calling it a drastic cut.
The 2003 budget document also says
By including the additional funding for new initiatives, the total discretionary increase is $2.6 billion, or 11 percent. With an expected increase in medical care collections of approximately $400 million, this brings the total discretionary increase to $3.1 billion, or 12.2 percent.
So the 2003 proposed Veterans Affairs' budget was much larger, by 11 to 12 percent, than the 2002 spending levels.
So what was the VA budget like under Clinton? Well this VA news release on their 1999 budget says
Expanded access to quality health care, increases in funding for research and education benefits, and the opening of four national cemeteries in the next two years are included in the President's proposed 1999 budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
VA's 1999 budget will provide authority of approximately $42.8 billion and outlays of $43.2 billion for the department. It includes funding for benefits and services for the country's more than 25 million veterans and approximately 44 million family members.
Hmm… The 2004 figure of $63.6 billion is 1.47 times more than the $43.2 billion figure of 1999. A difference of $20.4 billion dollars.
September 27th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/26/060926231203.q6d2gwnv.html
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/27/D8KDBNE80.html
September 27th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
ok, slope, you said "kj, you sound like that lunatic head of the Democrat Party."
then today you say "Copied from the dictionary:
Democrat
a member of the Democratic Party."
in other words, when one refers to the Party it is called the DEMOCRATIC PARTY, not DEMOCRAT PARTY. yet you used the former and then tried to prove me wrong by siting the latter. ok, if you're not a dummy, what does one call a person who makes a very obvious, dumb mistake?
and, strange how all your source work comes from a right-wing site. brilliant.
here's what the HEAD of the VFW said about the issue we are discussing in a little rag called the WASHINGTON POST: "Without proper funding, the secretary is never going to get [the backlog] down, so what he has done is to make the tough business decision," said Bob Wallace, executive director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "If they can't take care of them, it's unconscionable to let them continue to enroll. The real bad guys in this is the Congress because they haven't fully funded the VA."
so, the guy from the VFW agrees with me. and btw, i never said it was all bush's fault. i said it was the republican controled govt., which includes congress.
September 28th, 2006 at 1:09 am
I would never, under any circustances, refer to a democrat as being democratic!!
Whatever, you and Mencken and your liberal buddies need to get together and have a circle jerk.
September 28th, 2006 at 1:50 am
Looks like Musharraf doesn't have any buddies:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/world/asia/28prexy.html?hp&ex=1159416000&en=0bab0a71e3fcbf3f&ei=5094&partner=homepage
September 28th, 2006 at 3:11 am
As an observer, it appears to me that kj and Mencken are one and the same.
September 28th, 2006 at 6:26 am
The same in ideology only. I think kj and slope need to get a room.
September 28th, 2006 at 6:43 am
Dick Morris worked for Clinton and shold know.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/9/7/203153.shtml
September 28th, 2006 at 8:26 am
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
slope gets caught being proved an idiot and then just says…ummm…nothing!
freakin' priceless…
anyway, i would remind one and all that i tried to appeal to slope as american, not as a partisian and talk about the war and the VA, etc in my earlier posts. but he didn't want to do that and i'll admit, in my frustration i have gotten more acerbic with him in my responses. sorry if the rest of you dainty flowers have been offended by it. ever heard the phrase "politics is a contact sport?"
btw, when will you people learn that poltical consultants like morris, gergen, et al will work for ANYONE? all they care about is money. that's all D.C. cares about and they are laughing at all of us while we argue and talk about "our teams" while they steal our treasury blind. we're truly the "useful idiots…"
September 28th, 2006 at 10:51 am
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
slope gets caught being proved an idiot and then just says…ummm…nothing!
freakin' priceless"
The only person you could prove anything to is yourself, certainly not me. I've countered everything you post with facts and you come back changing the subject.
September 28th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
ok, last chance, slope. you said "democrat party" but YOUR OWN dictionary def. ( as well as mine) said DEMOCRATIC PARTY. you were wrong and, best of all, you proved YOURSELF wrong.
and funny, you didn't touch as all what the HEAD GUY at the VFW said. but maybe you don't support the troops?
this is my last post on this stuff. both the subject and you have grown tiresome. you're a right-wing goofball who can't, like most right-wing goofballs, have an honest discussion about politics. you are entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts!
the FACT is that congress, which last i checked was run by a republican majority, has failed to fully fund the VA. and the head of the VFW said so. not ME, not some LIBERAL website but a former military man.
September 28th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
Suggest that you watch TV and listen to the people refer to democrats.
I too am a vetran of the military and the Clinton administration decimated the military including the VA. The Bush adminstration has increased both. It was there in my post but you go into denial when reading what is against your anti Bush sickness.
September 29th, 2006 at 6:59 am
It would seem to me that the anti-Bush sickness is affecting about
6 out of 10 Americans these days.
September 29th, 2006 at 8:36 am
my god, slope, it is amazing how far you will go to avoid the question. the question is WHY IS THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESS AND ADMIN. NOT FULLY FUNDING THE VA? simple. the head of the VFW says it is so. do you disagree?
oh, and it is beyond hilarious when you right-wingers go into the "bush hating" speech! haha! jesus, you're STILL blaming clinton for EVERYTHING! hahaha! you guys hated him with the fury of a thousand white-hot suns! yet you wanna lecture us about bush-hating…man, you zombies will never cease to amaze me. and guess what? for all the right-wing lies about clinton (oh and there were many) his numbers NEVER got as low as bush's! it must make you right-winger's heads explode! hahaha!
on a serious note, if you really are a vet, i thank you for your service to this country.
September 29th, 2006 at 9:03 am
With all due respect, isn't the head of the VFW supposed to say the VA isn't fully funded, no matter how much funding the agency receives? Lobbying for more money is part of his job description.
September 29th, 2006 at 10:06 am
"lobbying for more money," you say? wow, way to support the troops, larry.
how typical of the right-wing. all talk, no money. just like they under-funded "no child left behind." all talk, no money. everything is a PR campaign…
hey, larry, ALL veterans deserve everything promised them, ok? and if the VA is underfunded, that we ALL should be ashamed of out government. jesus, i assumed we could all at least agree on taking care of our troops. but just goes to show how wrong a guy can be…
September 29th, 2006 at 11:03 am
I never said we shouldn't fully fund the VA, kj. By the way, have you ever heard of a majuscule?
September 29th, 2006 at 11:15 am
larry, clearly you know nothing about the internet. the protocol for all e-mail and comments is NOT to use majuscule. the early users of the internet decided this and i'm going along with. nice try at a snark, though. keep trying…
and please enlighten us, what WERE you saying about the underfunding the VA? it seemed like you were intimating that the VA shouldn't be fully funded.
September 29th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
No one would argue it shouldn't be "fully funded," whatever that means. The only point I'm trying to make is the "head" of the VFW, whoever that is, is probably expected to work for veterans rights, veterans benefits, etc., so he'll always say the VA is underfunded. You can't raise money or even protect what you've got if you say you've got enough already.
In any case, I'd sure like to hear more about what our early Internet fathers had to say about grammar and e-mail. And are you familiar with the musical preferences of the first iPod users as well?
September 29th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
sorry, larry, you're not even as intersting as slope and that is a low bar…
October 1st, 2006 at 2:25 am
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2383229,00.html