If we claim to be a nation of laws, then

• Guantanamo General Tells Story of the Hidden Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - ms
  • I agree with you......(sm) - good grief
  • If we claim to be a nation of laws, then - sm
  • Good!!! They need to close Gitmo (sm) - Just the big bad
    • They should all be held accountable s/m - penny

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As an outsider, I could give you another perspective and one not nearly so dire as yours.  However, I also realise that my view is slanted as I simply adore this country and Americans in general.  In short, given the information at his disposal, George Bush’s decision to oust Saddam looks altogether reasonable--though, again, not necessarily right. To argue otherwise demonstrates both ignorance and bad faith. So what are we to make of the downward spiral of sectarian mayhem that is currently drawing Iraq into the abyss? The violence seems senseless to us . . . but perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps our enemies recognize that the great exploitable weakness of the American military is that, in the wake of Vietnam, the American public’s grasp of geo-politics runs only as deep as the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind.” This is a weakness every bit as real, and every bit as deadly, as a missile with a faulty guidance system or a tank that stalls in its tracks--and it will remain a real weakness until the American public is knocked upside the head a sufficient number of times to outgrow it. What the degeneration of the mission in Iraq indicates most profoundly is that one 9/11 was not enough to crack through the platitudes of the late 1960s--which are deeply embedded in the universities, television networks and editorial pages of major newspapers. There remains, in such circles, the delusion that the jihadists are ultimately live and let live types, that totalitarian Islam will eventually just peter out, that the principles of the European Enlightenment will simply dawn on a billion Muslims without us cramming them down their throats.This may in the end prove the deadliest error in geo-political judgment Americans have ever made. Members of the genocidally well-meaning baby-boom generation will likely go to their graves believing they “gave peace a chance,” having spared themselves the anguish of killing hundreds of thousand Muslims . . .  and likely bequeathed to their children and grandchildren the anguish of killing scores of millions. 

It's just a device used by the neocons to keep the attention of the stifled.  They know that the repressed loonies in the county slobber over anything pertaining to sex.  Just look at O'Reilly.  Nearly every night he has some story about prostitutes, strip clubs, girls gone wild -- he is complaining how horrible it is, yet they always have tapes behind him of half-naked coeds grinding away.  If it is so horrible, must we see the tapes over and over?

Yes, this country does have laws that protect citizens from being murdered.

A "citizen" is defined someone who "is born or naturalized in the United States."

Fetuses, embryos, etc. aren't born or naturalized.  The issue of when life begins is akin to the "chicken/egg" question and will never be answered to the satisfaction of everyone.  It relies mostly on religious views, and one's religious views shouldn't be forced on someone else who may not believe the same.

Again, I believe in minding my own business and NOT judging someone who may have or has had an abortion because it's none of my business.

If you don't believe in abortion, then I guess the simplest answer is:  Don't have one.

A president, vice president and most/all members of congress and the senate get to go to safe places in case of attack or threat of attack. It's the way the government can keep going in case of an emergency.

Don't post something you know nothing about. Come to this board with FACTS. That's what this board is supposed to be about.

Tillman didn't talk about why he went into the service to anyone.  We will have to assume that what his mother is saying is true.  Has the wife spoken out?  I would think if he told his deepest heart's secrets, it would be to her.  She was his high school sweetheart.  Here's a snippet from a Newsweek article. 

He joined the service just after a honeymoon to Bora Bora with his high-school sweetheart, Marie. He and a younger brother, Kevin, slipped off to enlist in Denver, where they could avoid publicity. Kevin, who gave up a budding minor-league baseball career, remains in the Army. Pat Tillman wanted no attention, no glory, for joining the rank and file. He didn't want to be singled out from his brothers and sisters in the military, says former Cardinals coach Dave McGinnis. Tillman apparently had made a pact with his family to stay silent about his service, a promise they have kept. They have gathered to grieve inside the comfortable family home in a leafy enclave of San Jose.

His was no simple case of patriotism; Tillman was never known as a flag-waver. His agent, Frank Bauer, told reporters he had suspected that Tillman might quit to teach or to practice law like his father, Patrick Sr., but not to join the military. Snyder, his college coach, said Tillman never used the word patriotism when he explained his plans to enlist. He just seemed to think something had to be done. When players asked why he enlisted, he didn't want to talk about it. McGinnis says there were reasons Pat said he had that he didn't want to divulge, and the coach respected his view and his right to make his own path. Tillman had always been different. When he joined the pros, he rode a bicycle to practice because he didn't own a car. He refused to buy a cell phone. A sports publicist at Arizona State once described him as a surfer dude.

It seems his mother decided the pact no longer had any merit.  Personally, I see another Cindy Sheehan, disobeying her son's wishes. 

Obama was VOTED in, not 'given' the job as President...You know, I cannot believe some of the things tht come from the brains and out of the miouths oif some indivuduals.  This is indeed a historic moment; that I am in agreement with, and I also agree that 170M for the Inaguration was excessive but I will tell you what I find even more excessive - the lying, stealing criminal former administration who ripped of the American people (regardless of political affilation) and basically thummed their noses at us because they felt and still feel they are above the law.  The former president  and his administration didn't give a durn about the economy and reputation of this country  do you truly believe that they cared whether you, your  husbands, sons and other relatives lost their jobs and homes?  Do you really think they were concerned about whether YOU have enough to retire on after dutifully putting away funds in your 401k?  I don't think so.  They gutted us and left us twisting in the wind; and while we worry about how we are going to pay the light bill and have enough to buy grioceries let alone our mortgage - they dine well and live like kings, their families and frineds in their inner circles do not have to concern themselves with such mundane issues...why would they?  Their gods are Franklin, Harrison, Grant, et al.WE PAID FOR IT and will be for years to come.

Now that would be an improvement.  This country was not founded on christianity or any other relgion.  I agree that Obama was downplaying religion, but I also believe that that is exactly what he needed to do.  Bush turned this whole mess into a big "us against them" mentality...."us" meaning christians.  I believe Obama had to negate this idea by downplaying religion, thus deflating the whole notion that we are in a religious war (which is exactly what Bush wanted and subsequently turned it into.)

What I find really interesting is the idea that you insinuate that we MUST be identified as a nation by a specific religion.  Since we are talking about this in the context of politics, exactly why is it you feel we MUST be seen by the world as a "god-fearing" nation?  What would be the benefits of that?

I found this article on Oprah's website and thought this excerpt was powerful on the anti-child abuse/molestation movement.  The underlined areas are links, please help out with this as you can.

*This is a full circle moment for me. For me to have been raped at 9 years old … this is so big and so gratifying that I now get to put people behind bars who did to me what they've been doing to other children. This is it. And so I am going to spend my own resources, and I am going to work with law enforcement, and I'm going to change, with your help, the laws in this country state by state by state by state.

We are not going to be a country that talks the talk about how we care about children, and then we let these people back out on the street. It's Joseph Duncan all over again. We have got to let Shasta Groene and all the others be the last children. Let their lives not have been in vain. Let's stand up, and change the laws.

Take a look at these accused child molester profiles, and see if you can be the next person to put a fugitive behind bars.*

This isn’t new (it’s from May), but it’s the first I saw it. I found it interesting but not surprising.  Our Veterans deserve much better.

Appearing yesterday at the Arlington National Cemetery to honor generations of sacrifices by American servicemen and women, President Bush said, "At our national cemetery, we take comfort from knowing that the men and women who are serving freedom's cause understand their purpose and its price." Yet the reality has been that the administration that most recently has sent those men and women to fight for freedom's cause has failed for live up to government's age-old promise to "care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan."

BUSH'S 2006 VA BUDGET HITS VETERANS HARD: President Bush's 2006 budget proposal included legislation that would raise veterans' premiums more than 100 percent on prescription drugs and add an annual $250 enrollment fee for veterans who want care for conditions not directly caused by military service and who generally earn more than $25,000 a year. The administration has recommended these same proposals in each of the past few years, only to have them beaten back by Congress each time. The user fee would increase costs for nearly 2 million veterans nationwide.

WAR VETERANS EXCLUDED FROM COST OF WAR ON TERROR: Conservatives in Congress rebuffed an effort to include $2 billion in emergency money for veterans' health care in the recently passed $82 billion Iraq war supplemental. The president's request increased the VA budget a mere 2.7 percent (including the increased co-pays and enrollment fees), hardly sufficient to deal with an expected influx of Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans in the coming years. Nearly 28,000 soldiers who served in Iraq and were discharged have already sought care at a VA facility. Of the nearly 245,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan already discharged from service, 12,422 have been in VA counseling centers for readjustment problems and symptoms associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. VA Secretary Jim Nicholson has said the budget circumstances are not "dire," yet Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Larry Craig (R-ID) was forced to increase the 2006 budget request by $1 billion. Dave Autry, a spokesman for the Disabled American Veterans, said, "Vets are owed a debt and the government has said they are eligible for health care. The government needs to pay for it. It's a continuing cost of our national defense."

BUSH WANTS TO SHUT DOWN VETERANS HOSPITAL IN HIS OWN BACKYARD: Veterans in Bush's backyard, near his ranch in Crawford, Texas, are protesting his administration's decision to close a VA hospital in their town. "It would be, in my opinion, a tragic mistake to shut down our hospital, especially during a time of war when tomorrow's veterans are in harm's way today," said U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Waco). In May 2004, then-VA Secretary Anthony Principi announced he would be closing three veterans hospitals nationwide and partially closing eight others. For his work, Principi was rewarded with an appointment to the chairmanship of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission.

VETERANS GROUPS SLAM BUSH BUDGET: More than 300,000 veterans' claims are pending before the VA, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and the number of claims pending for more than six months rose from 47,000 in 2003 to 75,000 at the end of March 2005. The deteriorating condition of VA health care has elicited plenty of criticism. The American Legion called Bush's budget "the wrong message at the wrong time to the wrong constituency." The Vietnam Veterans of America said the budget did a "disservice to those of us who donned the uniform to defend the rights, principles, and freedoms that we hold dear." And the Veterans of Foreign Wars decried Bush's decision as "especially shameful during a time of war."