The Atlas, Spider, Beerslug thread

[Atlas]

I thought this would be a funny thread. List all your funny pics here. I hate Bush so you know what I'll be posting.

http://www.president-bush.com/bushwisdom.jpg

[Atlas]

http://www.fringeunderground.com/images/dropdead/features/issue002/bush_worldleaders/georgebushtowar.jpg

[Atlas]

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/q/Y/bush_war_passion.jpg

[Atlas]

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/EE/images/uploads/birthplace_thumb.jpg

[Spider]

I will not engage in such childish behavior ....................... who am I kidding ?
here we go ;D
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushvaderseparated.htm

[Spider]

[Spider]

rofl

[Atlas]

http://web.mit.edu/margret/www/myndir/comics/bush_chimp.jpg

[clarker]

Atlas,

I think you need to post more pics of Kyla Cole. The Bevius and Butthead pic was funny. So was Spider's "What happened to Santa?"

[Montaq]

LABF once posted a pic of a sheep watching Bush on FoxNews. I loved that pic.

[clarker]

LABF once posted a pic of a sheep watching Bush on FoxNews. I loved that pic.I could see the humor in that. But as a Republican, I can honestly say that I haven't watch 5 minutes of Fox News.

I don't watch CNN either. I'm a MSNBC guy myself.

[Montaq]

I could see the humor in that. But as a Republican, I can honestly say that I haven't watch 5 minutes of Fox News.

I don't watch CNN either. I'm a MSNBC guy myself.

Oberman rules!

[clarker]

Oberman rules!I like Chris Matthews. Even though alot of his points of view and mine don't go together, he will grill either party if he thinks they are just giving the party line or have a really bad argument.

[Atlas]

Oberman rules!

Countdown was my favorite show. He rocks. I also like Chris Mathews and Lou Dobbs.

[Montaq]

I like Chris Matthews. Even though alot of his points of view and mine don't go together, he will grill either party if he thinks they are just giving the party line or have a really bad argument.

Like he did Zell Miller. ROFL! It was great that Miller showed what an idiot he is.

[clarker]

Like he did Zell Miller. ROFL! It was great that Miller showed what an idiot he is.Miller did sound like a fool, that is for sure. But not many Dems thought he was a idiot before he spoke at the Republican conv.

But he did sound like a giant idiot on Hardball. I don't think Chris try to embarrass him, though. He did that on his own.

[Montaq]

Miller did sound like a fool, that is for sure. But not many Dems thought he was a idiot before he spoke at the Republican conv.

But he did sound like a giant idiot on Hardball. I don't think Chris try to embarrass him, though. He did that on his own.

I don't think in Matthew's wildest dreams he could have expected that reaction.

[clarker]

I don't think in Matthew's wildest dreams he could have expected that reaction.I agree. No way he thought he would get that reaction. I watched that live and I was just stunned. I thought he had a good speech that night, a little over the top, but pretty good. He just killed his speech and his crediability(sp?) in one interveiw. I just couldn't believe that. It was crazy.

[Atlas]

I don't think in Matthew's wildest dreams he could have expected that reaction.


WOW I missed that. What are you talking about. What did Miller say???

[clarker]

WOW I missed that. What are you talking about. What did Miller say???He went nuts on Chris. Challenged him to a duel. Or at least he said he wished they were in they days when you could challenge some to a duel. With guns. Became a national joke.

[Hotrod]

This thread is worthy of chefs planet ;D

[Montaq]

WOW I missed that. What are you talking about. What did Miller say???

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5892840/

He challenged Matthews to a duel after the Republican Convention.

[Hotrod]

I will not engage in such childish behavior ....................... who am I kidding ?
here we go ;D
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushvaderseparated.htm

LOL ok that is kind of funny

[Montaq]

This thread is worthy of chefs planet ;D

Why, are 1000 RWNJ's going to start attacking anyone with liberal opinion?

[clarker]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5892840/

He challenged Matthews to a duel after the Republican Convention.
Montaq

Have you ever seen Saturday Night Live, when they do a Hardball skit with Miller on? It hurts my ribs I laugh so hard. The guy they have as Miller, his face turns K.C. Chiefs red and his veins in his neck look like they are going burst. I wish I had a clip, it is priceless.

[Hogan11]

WOW I missed that. What are you talking about. What did Miller say???

Miller had a personal grudge against Kerry and let it fly at the GOP Convention. Basically he showed the country his bitter senility and then confirmed it in his totally insane interview afterwards...thus closing out his 15 minutes of fame in the public consciousness, never to be heard from again.

The whole sad episode is destined to be a trivia question in the future.

[Montaq]

Montaq

Have you ever seen Saturday Night Live, when they do a Hardball skit with Miller on? It hurts my ribs I laugh so hard. The guy they have as Miller, his face turns K.C. Chiefs red and his veins in his neck look like they are going burst. I wish I had a clip, it is priceless.

I haven't seen it. Maybe I'll look for it online tonight.

[clarker]

I haven't seen it. Maybe I'll look for it online tonight.If you can find it, it is will well be worth your time. Too funny.

[Spider]

:gimme:

[Spider]

:dummy:

[Spider]

Miller had a personal grudge against Kerry and let it fly at the GOP Convention. Basically he showed the country his bitter senility and then confirmed it in his totally insane interview afterwards...thus closing out his 15 minutes of fame in the public consciousness, never to be heard from again.

The whole sad episode is destined to be a trivia question in the future.
LOL ......I thought Challenging Chris Mathews to a duel was funny , yet pathetic .....

[clarker]

LOL ......I thought Challenging Chris Mathews to a duel was funny , yet pathetic .....I felt bad for Chris. I don't think he knew what to do. He even try to tell Miller he was sorry for what ever pissed him off so bad but the guy was out of his gord by then.

After I got done laughing, I was pissed cause it was all anyone talked about instead of great speeches by Arnold and Rudi.

[Montaq]

:dummy:

There it is. I love that pic.

[Spider]

I felt bad for Chris. I don't think he knew what to do. He even try to tell Miller he was sorry for what ever pissed him off so bad but the guy was out of his gord by then.

After I got done laughing, I was pissed cause it was all anyone talked about instead of great speeches by Arnold and Rudi.
LOL . yeah but how often does a politian challenge a news guy to a duel ?

[Crushaholic]

Have you ever seen Saturday Night Live, when they do a Hardball skit with Miller on? It hurts my ribs I laugh so hard. The guy they have as Miller, his face turns K.C. Chiefs red and his veins in his neck look like they are going burst. I wish I had a clip, it is priceless.

I love his impersonation of Zell Miller. It's the same guy that plays Bush on SNL. I think his name is Will Forte. He's extremely talented.

[Spider]

:~ohyah!:

[clarker]

I love his impersonation of Zell Miller. It's the same guy that plays Bush on SNL. I think his name is Will Forte. He's extremely talented.He can't hold a candle to Will Farrell's Bush or Dana Carvey's Bush Sr. though, IMO.

But his Zell Miller impersonation cracks me up so much I have to leave the room so I can breath.

[bronco_diesel]

okay, that one really made me laugh.

[bronco_diesel]

okay, that one really made me laugh.


that was the "what happened to santa" one...

[Atlas]

I felt bad for Chris. I don't think he knew what to do. He even try to tell Miller he was sorry for what ever pissed him off so bad but the guy was out of his gord by then.

.

Damn I wish I would have seen it, I have never even heard it before.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_starwars_emperor.jpg

[Spider]

:militia:

[Bronco_Beerslug]

http://www.bushspeaks.com/img/a-shocking-gamble.gif

"You're probably wondering why somebody
who has been in politics is talking about
Social Security. After all, it's been called
the third rail of American politics. You grab
a hold of it, and you get electrified."
— G. W. Bush

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Still LMAO @ "catapult the propaganda."

My God, he really said that, didn't he?

What did we do to deserve this, Lord?

[Atlas]

http://bushspeaks.com/img/tsunami-bush.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_beerrun.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/3purp3mart.jpg

[Atlas]

http://www.bushisms.com/bushdui1.gif

[clarker]

http://www.bushisms.com/bushdui1.gifWhere is Teddy Kennedy's arrest record for getting drunk and drowning that chick? I want to post that one? :angel:

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

And one of my all-time favorites...

http://www.bartcop.com/g-i-blow.jpg

[Spider]

:~ohyah!:

[Atlas]

Where is Teddy Kennedy's arrest record for getting drunk and drowning that chick? I want to post that one? :angel:

Go ahead and post it. Don't be a sheep fight back here!!!!

[clarker]

:~ohyah!:Now that one is funny. :P

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

LOL

[clarker]

Go ahead and post it. Don't be a sheep fight back here!!!!I wouldn't know where to find it. I'm not sure there is one. I don't think they arrest Kennedy's in Mass. do they? I know they don't convict them for sure.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/saddam-sep.gif

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/monkey-marlboro.jpg

[Spider]

[quote=l.a. Broncos Fan]

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/one-d-drunk.jpg

[Atlas]

I wouldn't know where to find it. I'm not sure there is one. I don't think they arrest Kennedy's in Mass. do they? I know they don't convict them for sure.

Your right. He was never even named in the accident. Maybe one of the great cover ups of all time. Of course he is just a Senator so who cares.

Here is Dick Cheney's drunk driving citation.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/art/cheneydwi1.gif

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

[quote=l.a. Broncos Fan]

OMG!

That one fvcking slayed me!

Hilarious!

[clarker]

Your right. He was never even named in the accident. Maybe one of the great cover ups of all time. Of course he is just a Senator so who cares.

Here is Dick Cheney's drunk driving citation.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/art/cheneydwi1.gifSure he is only the a Senator, no one cares. Except for the dead girls family. I'm sure they have got over it by now right? Uhh

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/giant_monkey.jpg

[Spider]

If Lucas was a Republican

[Atlas]

Sure he is only the a Senator, no one cares. Except for the dead girls family. I'm sure they have got over it by now right? Uhh

Kennedy's a slimeball. I'll give you that. That drunken night killed his Presidency chances and I guess we can all be thankful for that.

[Spider]

:militia:

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/hell-game.jpg

[clarker]

Kennedy's a slimeball. I'll give you that. That drunken night killed his Presidency chances and I guess we can all be thankful for that.Well, anyways I don't want you to think I don't have a funny bone as they say, but when you put up Bush's DUI arrest it cracked me up. Because the most famous drunk driving person in politics has to be Teddy.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Kennedy's a slimeball. I'll give you that. That drunken night killed his Presidency chances and I guess we can all be thankful for that.

The difference:

It wouldn't have killed his presidency chances if he was a republican.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/bendover-w.jpg

[clarker]

The difference:

It wouldn't have killed his presidency chances if he was a republican.
The difference between Bush and Kennedy's drunk driving is that when Bush drank and drove a girl didn't end up dead at the bottom of a river.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The difference between Bush and Kennedy's drunk driving is that when Bush drank and drove a girl didn't end up dead at the bottom of a river.

My point was that an incident like Kennedy's wouldn't have hurt Shrubya's chances for president.

[Atlas]

The difference:

It wouldn't have killed his presidency chances if he was a republican.

HE would have repented to God or some ****. As long as your Pro Life you can kill as many people as you want.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

HE would have repented to God or some ****. As long as your Pro Life you can kill as many people as you want.

Exactly.

You can be an alcoholic, party your brains out until age 40, have a criminal conviction for drunk driving, be a wartime deserter, and still be 'elected' president if your name is "Bush."

[clarker]

HE would have repented to God or some ****. As long as your Pro Life you can kill as many people as you want.You can't guys can't be for real? For one thing your(LA) pissed that Kennedy couldn't be President because of this? Who cares about the dead girl right?

No way Bush is President if he did what Kennedy did. If you think that your either blinded by hate for Bush or just plain stupid.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

For one thing your(LA) pissed that Kennedy couldn't be President because of this?

Where the fvck did I say that?

No way Bush is President if he did what Kennedy did. If you think that your either blinded by hate for Bush or just plain stupid.

:bs:

Bush's cheerleaders and corporate donors have shown a willingness to ignore virtually everything the man has done wrong, so it's not an unreasonable assumption at all.

[clarker]

Where the fvck did I say that?



:bs:

Bush's cheerleaders and corporate donors have shown a willingness to ignore virtually everything the man has done wrong, so it's not an unreasonable assumption at all.You were just whinning that Bush would have got away with it and poor Kennedy couldn't be President after he drown some girl. That was your first thought. Not about the poor girl he drown.

You don't think corporations donate to Dems? Give me a break.

I voted for him twice, so I guess you would call me a Bush cheerleader. Believe me,(or not I really don't care) when I say if killed some one drinking and driving he would have not got my vote.

But the fact remains he didn't kill anyone, Fat ASS Drunken Kennedy did.

[Atlas]

You were just whinning that Bush would have got away with it and poor Kennedy couldn't be President after he drown some girl. That was your first thought. Not about the poor girl he drown.

You don't think corporations donate to Dems? Give me a break.

I voted for him twice, so I guess you would call me a Bush cheerleader. Believe me,(or not I really don't care) when I say if killed some one drinking and driving he would have not got my vote.

But the fact remains he didn't kill anyone, Fat ASS Drunken Kennedy did.

Hey Clarker I think your using the wrong example. I haven't heard one guy support Kennedy here. Don't be bitter.. be happy!!!!!!!

Hey Clarker Let's DANCE!!!!!!
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_dance_tabletop.jpg

[clarker]

Hey Clarker I think your using the wrong example. I haven't heard one guy support Kennedy here. Don't be bitter.. be happy!!!!!!!

Hey Clarker Let's DANCE!!!!!!
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_dance_tabletop.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I haven't heard one guy support Kennedy here.

Yep.

Clarker is hearing things that aren't there again.

[Atlas]

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_darthw.jpg

[Atlas]

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_emperor_dictator.jpg

[Atlas]

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_darthwbush.jpg

[Atlas]

http://www.bartcop.com/lyin-king-orange.gif

[Atlas]

http://www.bushisms.com/BushDrank1.jpg

[clarker]

http://www.bushisms.com/BushDrank1.jpgHe is looking at your avatar and saying "Holy Sh*t, she's hot!"

[Atlas]

He is looking at your avatar and saying "Holy Sh*t, she's hot!"

I love my avatar...... My wife is very jealous of Kyla..... I might have to move on and go to Ms. Zemanovo. I have this great one where Kyla is squirting whip creme on her naked breast... ahhh, it's great. The breast is totally covered with creme so you don't see anything but I don't think TJ would let it fly. It's great though.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

"Damn, I need a drink or a line of blow, like NOW!"
http://www.bartcop.com/bush-blinks.gif

[Spider]

I love my avatar...... My wife is very jealous of Kyla..... I might have to move on and go to Ms. Zemanovo. I have this great one where Kyla is squirting whip creme on her naked breast... ahhh, it's great. The breast is totally covered with creme so you don't see anything but I don't think TJ would let it fly. It's great though.
Dude , you are lucky , I am a Large man , but if my wife saw me with an Avatar like that she would shove the monitor and keybord so far up my ass , I would have to use a mirror to see , and fart to type ;D and she only wieghts 120 pounds

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Whoa - it's almost time for game 7 to start.

I'm pulling for the Spurs (whom I dislike) because I hate the Pistons!

:D

[Atlas]

http://www.kwaadbloed.be/grafix/47f314a84a17823fba92d097339c42f8.jpg

[Spider]

Whoa - it's almost time for game 7 to start.

I'm pulling for the Spurs (whom I dislike) because I hate the Pistons!

:D
Dude . you commie ....... Bush loving scandral ........ ;D
I cant cheer for the Spurs , Not after the disrespect they showed to the Nuggies after the nuggies lost ...............I dont like basketball , but damn ...... That Manu needed a foot put up his ass

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Dude . you commie ....... Bush loving scandral ........ ;D
I cant cheer for the Spurs , Not after the disrespect they showed to the Nuggies after the nuggies lost ...............I dont like basketball , but damn ...... That Manu needed a foot put up his ass

LOL

I know, dude.

As a Lakers fan, rooting for the Spurs is like being a Broncos fan and cheering for the Faiders, but I hate Detroit, so what do I do? ;D

[Spider]

LOL

I know, dude.

As a Lakers fan, rooting for the Spurs is like being a Broncos fan and cheering for the Faiders, but I hate Detroit, so what do I do? ;D
;D Just picture Bush getting all Happy a team from Texas won , and a team from a blue state lost ;D

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

;D Just picture Bush getting all Happy a team from Texas won , and a team from a blue state lost ;D

OK - that did it for me.

Go Pistons!

;)

[Spider]

OK - that did it for me.

Go Pistons!

;)
;D figured it would

[SoCalBronco]

wow...what a thread.

[clarker]

http://www.kwaadbloed.be/grafix/47f314a84a17823fba92d097339c42f8.jpgThe guy who drew this one is named Alex Ross. He is a great comic book artist. Which is not a put down. He does other stuff, but is most famous for his comic book art, which out of this world.

[Atlas]

Sticking with the Star Wars theme.

GW and Daddy on their way to a Raider game.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_darthvader.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

LOL

[Atlas]

Rove must GO

June 23, 2005
Rove: Not Just a Hypocrite, a Thug....And Explaining Durbin's Unnecessary Apology
Yesterday I wrote a column calling Karl Rove a hypocrite (see below). I was wrong. He's a super-hypocrite. In that column, I noted that Rove spoke at Washington College in Maryland in April and urged respect in political discourse. He said, "Commentators should answer arguments instead of impugning the motives of those with whom they disagree." But in an interview on Hardball on Tuesday, Rove said the Senate Democrats opposing the John Bolton nomination are "putting their commitment to politics above their commitment to doing what's right for the country." That is, he was impugning their motives, not answering their arguments.

That made him a hypocrite. But it gets worse. Yesterday, Rove spoke at a Conservative Party fundraiser in New York City and said,

Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers,

Really? Anyone care to cite "an offer of therapy"? I realize Rove was resorting to hyperbole. But he was again impugning motives and claiming Democrats are not committed to defending the United States. Is this how he fosters high-minded political discourse? Or was he just lying to those Washington College students when he called for more respectful political debate? You know the answer. I wonder if his libelous comments will draw the same attention in the media as, say, Howard Dean's inartful remarks about the GOP being a white, Christian party.

Rove, not satisfied with lying about liberals, also claimed that US troops overseas now faced greater risk because of the remarks of Senator Dick Durbin, who last week said interrogation practices at Guantanamo were befitting of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others." Rove huffed,

Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year? Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.

Here was yet more impugning of motives by Rove. And does anyone really believe that an insurgent hiding out in a Baghdad basement will listen to Al Jazeera and say to the guy next to him, "Ahmed, now I am really mad. Instead of taking the day off, let's go and blow up some American troops." The insurgents and jihadists hardly need any encouragement from an American member of Congress. Moreover, Durbin did nothing other than speak frankly about FBI reports that noted that interrogators at Guantanamo were using "torture techniques" and that described horrific conditions at the camp. Anyone who reads Durbin's full statement would see he was motivated by a deep concern about the conduct of interrogations at Gitmo and the potential harm to US national security these practices could cause. (Perhaps Rove ought to attack those FBI agents, too.) Last week, ABC News disclosed it had obtained minutes of a Pentagon meeting in early 2003 in which senior Defense Department officials expressed concern that interrogations at Guantanamo Bay might violate US anti-torture laws. I suppose these officials also are liberal wimps whose true motive is to undermine US national security and endanger the troops.

Rove was crassly exploiting the dustup over Durbin's remarks--a controversy ginned up by the rightwing attack machine. So, a conservative might ask, if Durbin's comments were fine and dandy, why did the senator from Illinois apologize? For days he did stick to his guns, explaining his remarks and not apologizing for them. But after talking to several Durbin aides I've concluded that Durbin was finally done in not by the foaming-at-the-mouth Republicans but by Richard Daley, the Democratic mayor of Illinois. When Daley on Tuesday called for Durbin, his political ally, to apologize, Durbin and his people freaked and worried that the minor wound inflicted by the GOP attack might become life-threatening. Daley had bought the Republican characterization of Durbin's remarks (US troops equals Nazis), and he told reporters, "If you really believe that those men and women in Guantanamo Bay are Nazis you better rethink what America is all about."

Daley's criticism shocked the Durbin people. Soon after that, Durbin decided to issue an apology. By creating so much noise and controversy that Daley felt compelled to assail his political friend, the Republicans and conservatives succeeded in forcing Durbin to apologize and admit a wrong that had not transpired. Once they had done that, Rove still found it useful to kick Durbin further and accuse him of harboring anti-US motives and engaging in traitorous conduct. Rove is not merely a hypocrite. He's a thug.

[Atlas]

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_ipod.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/jpg/22dips.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/prot-village_idiot.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/HistoryRepeats.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/bush_news.gif
http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/warning_911.jpg

[Atlas]

http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/bush_news.gif
http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/warning_911.jpg

ARRRRGGHHHHH................

[Atlas]

Rumsfeld says Iraqi Insurgency could go on for YEARS!!!

Rumsfeld: Iraq Insurgency Could Last Years By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jun 27, 2:01 AM ET



WASHINGTON - Insurgencies can go on for years.

The violence could even worsen as Iraqi officials draft a constitution and Iraqi citizens prepare to install a new government by the end of the year, Rumsfeld said in television interviews Sunday.

He and other senior military officials asked Americans to be patient and support their troops as the war progresses.

"It ebbs and flows," Rumsfeld told "Fox News Sunday." "The progress on the political side is so threatening to the insurgents that my guess is it could become more violent between now and the constitution referendum and the election in December."

Deadly attacks are a daily reality in Iraq, where an Associated Press count through Sunday showed 1,736 U.S. troops killed.

"That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years," Rumsfeld said. "Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency. We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency."

The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll shows public doubts about the war reaching a high point — with more than half saying that invading Iraq was a mistake.

Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, appealed for public support of the soldiers and their mission. "We don't need to fight this war looking over our shoulder worrying about the support back home," he said on CNN's "Late Edition."

The Sunday Times of London reported that U.S. officials recently met secretly with Iraqi insurgent commanders north of Baghdad to try to negotiate an end to the bloodshed.

Speaking generally, Rumsfeld told NBC's "Meet the Press" that those kind of meetings "go on all the time" and that Iraqis "will decide what their relationships with various elements of insurgents will be. We facilitate those from time to time."

Abizaid said U.S. and Iraqi officials "are looking for the right people in the Sunni community to talk to ... and clearly we know that the vast majority of the insurgents are from the Sunni Arab community. It makes sense to talk to them."

Echoing Rumsfeld, Abizaid made clear that "we're not going to compromise" with Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The contacts, the two said, were intended to make it easier for the Shiite-led government to reach out to minority Sunnis.

The strength of the violent opposition to the U.S.-led coalition since the invasion in March 2003 has raised questions about whether the Bush administration understood such a sustained reaction was possible.

Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he and other critics of President Bush's Iraq policy are determined to show their support for U.S. troops. At the same time, he said, "we're also determined to be constructive critics of the policies which not only sent them there, as unequipped, and without international support, and without plans for the aftermath."

Before the war, Vice President Dick Cheney predicted that Iraqis freed from Saddam Hussein's rule would greet Americans as liberators. Rumsfeld said Sunday he gave Bush a list of about 15 things "that could go terribly, terribly wrong before the war started."

He said they included Iraq's oil wells being set on fire; mass refugees and relocations; blown-up bridges; and a moat of oil around Baghdad, the capital.

"So a great many of the bad things that could have happened did not happen," Rumsfeld said.

Asked if his list included the possibility of such a strong insurgency, he said: "I don't remember whether that was on there, but certainly it was discussed."

Rumsfeld said Iraq's security forces have gained respect among Iraqis. He suggested insurgents' ability to kill in large numbers did not indicate a decline in public support for efforts by the U.S. and Iraqi governments or that political, economic or security progress has been lacking.

[Atlas]

Rumsfeld says Iraqi Insurgency could go on for YEARS!!!

Rumsfeld: Iraq Insurgency Could Last Years By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jun 27, 2:01 AM ET



WASHINGTON - Insurgencies can go on for years.

The violence could even worsen as Iraqi officials draft a constitution and Iraqi citizens prepare to install a new government by the end of the year, Rumsfeld said in television interviews Sunday.

He and other senior military officials asked Americans to be patient and support their troops as the war progresses.

"It ebbs and flows," Rumsfeld told "Fox News Sunday." "The progress on the political side is so threatening to the insurgents that my guess is it could become more violent between now and the constitution referendum and the election in December."

Deadly attacks are a daily reality in Iraq, where an Associated Press count through Sunday showed 1,736 U.S. troops killed.

"That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years," Rumsfeld said. "Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency. We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency."

The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll shows public doubts about the war reaching a high point — with more than half saying that invading Iraq was a mistake.

Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, appealed for public support of the soldiers and their mission. "We don't need to fight this war looking over our shoulder worrying about the support back home," he said on CNN's "Late Edition."

The Sunday Times of London reported that U.S. officials recently met secretly with Iraqi insurgent commanders north of Baghdad to try to negotiate an end to the bloodshed.

Speaking generally, Rumsfeld told NBC's "Meet the Press" that those kind of meetings "go on all the time" and that Iraqis "will decide what their relationships with various elements of insurgents will be. We facilitate those from time to time."

Abizaid said U.S. and Iraqi officials "are looking for the right people in the Sunni community to talk to ... and clearly we know that the vast majority of the insurgents are from the Sunni Arab community. It makes sense to talk to them."

Echoing Rumsfeld, Abizaid made clear that "we're not going to compromise" with Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The contacts, the two said, were intended to make it easier for the Shiite-led government to reach out to minority Sunnis.

The strength of the violent opposition to the U.S.-led coalition since the invasion in March 2003 has raised questions about whether the Bush administration understood such a sustained reaction was possible.

Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he and other critics of President Bush's Iraq policy are determined to show their support for U.S. troops. At the same time, he said, "we're also determined to be constructive critics of the policies which not only sent them there, as unequipped, and without international support, and without plans for the aftermath."

Before the war, Vice President Dick Cheney predicted that Iraqis freed from Saddam Hussein's rule would greet Americans as liberators. Rumsfeld said Sunday he gave Bush a list of about 15 things "that could go terribly, terribly wrong before the war started."

He said they included Iraq's oil wells being set on fire; mass refugees and relocations; blown-up bridges; and a moat of oil around Baghdad, the capital.

"So a great many of the bad things that could have happened did not happen," Rumsfeld said.

Asked if his list included the possibility of such a strong insurgency, he said: "I don't remember whether that was on there, but certainly it was discussed."

Rumsfeld said Iraq's security forces have gained respect among Iraqis. He suggested insurgents' ability to kill in large numbers did not indicate a decline in public support for efforts by the U.S. and Iraqi governments or that political, economic or security progress has been lacking.

I guess this tells us how long we should expect to be there. At least he isn't feeding us the sh_t that we are "making progress" or that "we are winning the war against the insurgents" It's going to be a long, VERY long process and many more Americans are going to die. Why fool ourselves about it.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Rumsfeld says Iraqi Insurgency could go on for YEARS!!!

???

But gee, didn't VP GoFyourself just finish assuring us that the insurgency was "in its last throes?"

What happened to that vaunted rethug "message discipline?"

rofl

Either the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, or this is just another instance of "controlled chaos" from the BFEE propaganda ministry.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Rumsfeld says Iraqi Insurgency could go on for YEARS!!!


Quotes

"It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

- Rummy the visionary prophet :pity:

http://www.usatoday.com/educate/war28-article.htm

[TheDave]

Hey LABF,

Do you still have that Extreme Jesus cartoon?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Hey LABF,

Do you still have that Extreme Jesus cartoon?

Ooops! I forgot to save it. :pity:

Wonder what thread it was on....?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/iraq-later-cheer.gif

[TheDave]

Ooops! I forgot to save it. :pity:

Wonder what thread it was on....?

Aww that's too bad... just something about Jesus packing an M-16 with a full belt of amo over each shoulder... Damn that was funny!

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Aww that's too bad... just something about Jesus packing an M-16 with a full belt of amo over each shoulder... Damn that was funny!

LOL

I'll try to track it down.

[Atlas]

Many Briton's thought push for was was illconcieved and illegal.


From Memos, Insights Into Ally's Doubts On Iraq War By Glenn Frankel, Washington Post Foreign Service
Tue Jun 28, 1:00 AM ET



LONDON -- In the spring of 2002, two weeks before British Prime Minister Tony Blair journeyed to Crawford, Tex., to meet with President Bush at his ranch about the escalating confrontation with Iraq, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sounded a prescient warning.


"The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few," Straw wrote in a March 25 memo to Blair stamped "Secret and Personal." "The risks are high, both for you and for the Government."


In public, British officials were declaring their solidarity with the Bush administration's calls for elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But Straw's memo and seven other secret documents disclosed in recent months by British journalist Michael Smith together reveal a much different picture. Behind the scenes, British officials believed the U.S. administration was already committed to a war that they feared was ill-conceived and illegal and could lead to disaster.


The documents indicate that the officials foresaw a host of problems that later would haunt both governments -- including thin intelligence about the nature of the Iraqi threat, weak public support for war and a lack of planning for the aftermath of military action. British cabinet ministers, Foreign Office diplomats, senior generals and intelligence service officials all weighed in with concerns and reservations. Yet they could not dissuade their counterparts in the Bush administration -- nor, indeed, their own leader -- from going forward.


"I think there is a real risk that the administration underestimates the difficulties," David Manning, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote to the prime minister on March 14, 2002, after he returned from meetings with Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, and her staff. "They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this does not mean they will necessarily avoid it."


A U.S. official with firsthand knowledge of the events said the concerns raised by British officials "played a useful role."


"Were they paid a tremendous amount of heed?" said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I think it's hard to say they were."


Critics of the Bush administration contend the documents -- including the now-famous Downing Street Memo of July 23, 2002 -- constitute proof that Bush made the decision to go to war at least eight months before it began, and that the subsequent diplomatic campaign at the United Nations was a charade, designed to convince the public that war was necessary, rather than an attempt to resolve the crisis peacefully. They contend the documents have not received the attention they deserve.

But beyond the question of whether they constitute a so-called smoking gun of evidence against the White House, the memos offer an intriguing look at what the top officials of the United States' chief ally were thinking, doing and fearing in the months before the war.


This article is based on those memos, supplemented by interviews with officials on both sides of the Atlantic -- none of whom was willing to be cited by name because of the sensitivity of the issue -- and written accounts. Spokesmen for the Foreign Office and the prime minister's office declined to comment but did not question the authenticity of the documents.


British concerns over the direction of Iraq policy began long before July 2002. By the end of January of that year, officials said, the British Embassy in Washington informed London that U.S. military planning for an invasion of Iraq had begun. The sense of alarm here increased after Bush, in his State of the Union address on Jan. 29, branded Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil" -- a phrase many people in Britain saw as bellicose and simplistic.


Blair did not share their view. His aides contend that in the days immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Blair saw Saddam Hussein's Iraq as a potential danger that needed to be dealt with. But the prime minister faced an entirely different set of obstacles, political and legal, than Bush did, including much stronger domestic opposition to war.


The first major British cabinet discussion on Iraq took place March 7, 2002, according to the memoirs of Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary who quotes several senior cabinet secretaries as raising questions about the war. "What has changed that suddenly gives us the legal right to take military action that we didn't have a few months ago?" demanded David Blunkett, one of Blair's closest political allies.


Blair defended his approach, Cook reported, by saying Britain's national interest lay in staying closely allied with the United States. "I tell you that we must steer close to America," Blair said, according to Cook. "If we don't, we lose our influence to shape what they do."


These themes would be repeated regularly in the first six Downing Street memos, composed between the March 7 cabinet meeting and Blair's trip to Crawford a month later.


The first memo was a 10-page options paper produced by the overseas and defense secretariat of the Cabinet Office the day after the cabinet meeting. It noted that British intelligence on Iraq was poor, that no legal justification currently existed for invasion and that removing Hussein's government "could involve nation building over many years." Still, it concluded: "Despite the considerable difficulties, the use of overriding force in a ground campaign is the only option that we can be confident will remove Saddam and bring Iraq back into the international community."


In his memo to Blair six days later, Manning wrote that "Bush has yet to find the answers to the big questions." The foreign policy adviser raised several matters, including "how to persuade international opinion that military action against Iraq is necessary and justified" and "what happens on the morning after?"

On March 22, Peter Ricketts, then political director of the Foreign Office, wrote to Straw that Blair could also "bring home to Bush some of the realities" and "help Bush make good decisions by telling him things his own machine probably isn't." Ricketts went on to warn that a military campaign would need "clear and compelling military objectives" and that regime change "does not stack up."

"Regime change which produced another Sunni General still in charge of an active Iraqi WMD program would be a bad outcome," Ricketts concluded.

At the Crawford summit, in April 2002, Bush and Blair discussed the prospect of going to war in the spring or fall of 2003. According to a Cabinet Office briefing paper prepared in July, Blair told Bush that "the U.K. would support military action to bring about regime change, provided that certain conditions were met: efforts had been made to construct a coalition/shape public opinion, the Israel-Palestine Crisis was quiescent, and the options for action to eliminate Iraq's WMD through U.N. weapons inspectors had been exhausted."

In a post-summit speech at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Tex., Blair offered a cryptic criticism of his own advisers. His commitment to democratic values, Blair said, "means that when America is fighting for those values, then, however tough, we fight with her -- no grandstanding, no offering implausible and impractical advice from the touchline."

"In the end, only Blair and Bush know what they said to each other at Crawford and what they agreed to," said a senior British official. "They spent a long time together with no one else around, which was most unusual."

After his return from Washington, officials and analysts say, Blair sought to unify the fractious elements within his government and party around a policy of coercive diplomacy. "Blair comes back from Crawford with a clear sense that the Americans are preparing for war," said Michael Clarke, director of the International Policy Institute at King's College, who met with policymakers at key points during the year. "But the British approach is slightly different -- that we are preparing for war as a means of forcing Iraq to comply so that we don't actually have to fight."

Several senior officials were dispatched to the United States for consultations. When they returned to London, a meeting was scheduled that produced two more secret documents. The first was a Cabinet Office briefing paper dated July 21 that expressed concern that stepped-up U.S. air raids inside Iraq created "the risk that military action is precipitated in an unplanned way."

The briefing paper also said that a Security Council resolution setting up the return of U.N. inspectors to Iraq could be drafted in a way that Hussein would find unacceptable. "It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject (because he is unwilling to accept unfettered access) and which would not be regarded as unreasonable by the international community," the memo reported.

On July 23, officials gathered at Blair's office. Among them were Straw; Manning; Richard Dearlove, chief of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency; Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon; Attorney General Peter Goldsmith; and Adm. Michael Boyce, chief of the Defense Staff.

Dearlove, a veteran intelligence operative with a reputation for being hard-nosed and ambitious, had just returned from a visit to Washington, where officials say he met with Rice and CIA Director George J. Tenet.

According to the July 23 memo, Dearlove reported "a perceptible shift in attitude" in Washington. "Military action was now seen as inevitable," the memo said, adding that the president's National Security Council "had no patience with the U.N. route." Dearlove also included the observation that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Straw, who was consulting daily with his American counterpart, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, reiterated that "it seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided," according to the memo. But, Straw added, "the case was thin." He urged the government to produce a plan for an ultimatum to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return to Iraq.

Blair had an ally in Powell, who was also counseling that another approach had to be made to the United Nations before an international coalition could be assembled to back the use of military force.

When Blair sat down with Bush at Camp David on Sept. 7, 2002, the president told him he had decided to seek a Security Council resolution demanding Iraqi compliance. Blair looked greatly relieved, according to Bob Woodward's book, "Plan of Attack," which was published last year. But then Bush looked Blair in the eye and warned that dealing with the Iraqi threat would still likely entail war.

"I'm with you," Blair replied, according to Woodward's book.

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began on March 20, 2003. Many inside the British policy establishment still feel angry and bruised about the invasion and its aftermath. Analysts say the leak of the documents shows the depth of those feelings.

"No doubt from the British point of view Iraq has been a strategic blunder -- not just a mistake, but a mistake that we're still paying for," said Clarke, of King's College. "Still, while no one in government would ever say it, the rationale from the British point of view is that our strategic relationship with the U.S. is more important than any single campaign we fight on its behalf. The basic calculation was: Right or wrong, it is in our interest to stand with the United States."

Staff writer Walter Pincus in Washington contributed to this report.

[Atlas]

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_abdullah_chaching.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_abdullah_chaching.jpg

rofl

^5

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/back-moving.jpg

[W*GS]

http://www.comics.com/editoons/payne/archive/payne-20050627.html

[W*GS]

http://www.comics.com/editoons/ariail/archive/ariail-20050617.html

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Ha ha ha.

W*GS is still playing defense for Team Smirk, eh?

http://www.bartcop.com/dark-ages.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

"History doesn't repeat, but sometimes it rhymes"

- Paraphrase of comments made by Mark Twain (American patriot and anti-imperialist)

http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/reichstag911.jpg

[W*GS]

Ha ha ha.

W*GS is still playing defense for Team Smirk, eh?

Your problem is that you can't handle a different opinion.

[W*GS]

The more you post Bush-Hitler comparisons, the more idiotic you are.

[Atlas]

http://www.comics.com/editoons/ariail/archive/ariail-20050617.html


The Gitmo one was pretty good. I must admit I don't have too much of a problem with Gitmo EXCEPT. When your trying to win the hearts of moderate Muslims across the world When you are saying this isn't a war on Islam then you have to show respect to these people's religion. Everytime we blunder this and the news gets out that we are disrespecting Muslim's or their religion it adds more ammuntion for the recruiters of Al Queda.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I must admit I don't have too much of a problem with Gitmo EXCEPT. When your trying to win the hearts of moderate Muslims across the world When you are saying this isn't a war on Islam then you have to show respect to these people's religion. Everytime we blunder this and the news gets out that we are disrespcting Muslim's or their religion it adds more ammuntion for the recruiters of Al Queda.

Yep.

Not to mention that the practice of locking people up indefinitely w/o either bringing charges against them or determining their innocense or guilt smacks more of Nazi Germany or Maoist China than America.

It also doesn't help BushCo's cause when it turns out that many of these same people aren't terrorists after all, e.g., when they are innocent civilians who have been sold out by Afghan warlords for the reward money, etc.

[Atlas]

How smart is our President? Does he even know what he is trying to say???

George W. Bush 1st President selected by the U.S. Supreme Court 2001-?

"Drug therapies are replacing a lot of medicines as we used to know it."

"It's one thing about insurance, that's a Washington term."

"I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun."

"If affirmative action means what I just described, what I'm for, then
I'm for it."

"Our priorities is our faith."

"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."

"I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well." Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2001

"You know I could run for governor but I'm basically a media creation. I've never done anything. I've worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But that's not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office." George W. Bush, 1989

"When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were," he said. "It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there." George W. Bush, Iowa Western Community College, Jan 21, 2000

"Redefining the role of the United States from enablers to keep the peace to enablers to keep the peace from peacekeepers is going to be an assignment." George W. Bush--Interview with the New York Times, Jan. 14, 2001

"The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants." George W. Bush, Interview with the New York Times, Jan. 14, 2001

"Laura and I really don't realize how bright our children is sometimes until we get an objective analysis." George W. Bush, CNBC, April 15, 2000

[TheDave]

Found it...

http://www.bartcop.com/xtreme-Jesus.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Found it...

http://www.bartcop.com/xtreme-Jesus.jpg

I already found it and started a new thread to bring it to your attention.

;D

[TheDave]

I already found it and started a new thread to bring it to your attention.

;D

Thanks man... I'm a little slow on the uptake lately!!!

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Thanks man... I'm a little slow on the uptake lately!!!

No problemski! ;D ^5

http://www.bartcop.com/chimp-think2.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/wolf-hippy-col-rep.JPG

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/fraud-monkey-zendaba1.jpg

[Atlas]

U.S. soldiers take women hostage

US accused of seizing Iraqi women to force fugitive relatives to give up

Rory Carroll in Baghdad
Monday April 11, 2005
The Guardian

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Thursday April 14 2005

In the report below, we neglected to mention the role of the Iraqi League, a UK-based human rights advocacy group. The Iraqi League is involved in documenting this and several other cases of alleged human rights violations.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

American forces were yesterday accused of violating international law by taking two Iraqi women hostage in a bungled effort to persuade fugitive male relatives to surrender.
US soldiers seized a mother and daughter from their home in Baghdad two weeks ago and allegedly left a note on the gate: "Be a man Muhammad Mukhlif and give yourself up and then we will release your sisters. Otherwise they will spend a long time in detention."

It was signed Bandit 6, apparently a military code, and gave a mobile phone number. When phoned by reporters an American soldier answered but he declined to take questions and hung up.

Salima al-Batawi, 60, and her daughter Aliya, 35, were blindfolded, handcuffed and driven away in a Humvee convoy on April 2, leaving the Arab Sunnis of Taji, a suburb north of the capital, incandescent.

Instead of surrendering, her three sons, Ahmad, Saddam and Arkan, alerted the media. None of them are called Muhammad, but it is believed that the note referred to Ahmad and that the Americans wanted all three brothers.

The brothers have spent time in Abu Ghraib jail, but have never been charged and say they are citrus farmers with no connection to the insurgency.

Lieutenant Colonel Clifford Kent, of the 3rd infantry division, said the women had been seized as suspected insurgents in their own right and not as a bargaining chip.

"We do not take hostages. Sources told us the women were present during meetings to plan attacks against coalition forces and that they had knowledge of terror cell leaders and the location of weapons caches in the area."

He said there was a separate inquiry into Bandit 6's note, which was handwritten in Arabic.

After six days in a US jail near Baghdad airport the women were released without charge but could be rearrested if implicated in an ongoing investigation, Lt Col Kent said.

Nicole Choueiry, of Amnesty International, said: "I do not think it is the first time. It is against international law to take civilians and use them as bargaining chips."

Detaining women has become an explosive issue in Iraq. A statement purportedly from the militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said a recent rocket attack by insurgents on Abu Ghraib was partly to avenge the incarceration of women.

US officials claim there are no longer any female inmates in a facility made notorious for abuses revealed last year, including evidence of sexual misconduct against women.

Back home yesterday, Mrs Batawi said Americans threatened to hold her until her sons surrendered but treated her and her daughter with respect. "They carried out a professional investigation. We found beds with clean sheets and copies of the Koran and bottles of water in a big room."

However, she felt humiliated being forced to wear an orange prison uniform without a headscarf and resented being asked whether she was Shia or Sunni.

A militant group said yesterday it kidnapped the deputy of the Pakistani chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, Malik Mohammad Javed. A separate group said it had captured and killed Basem Mohammed Kadem, a brigadier general in the Iraqi army.

[Atlas]

This one is hilarious. I wonder if the paper did this on purpose. You know "The Liberal media" conspiracy!!

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_saudi_prince_gay.jpg

[clarker]

This one is hilarious. I wonder if the paper did this on purpose. You know "The Liberal media" conspiracy!!

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_saudi_prince_gay.jpgThat is funny. If I were to protest on the behalf of gay marriages, I would use that for my poster. LOL

[Atlas]

That is funny. If I were to protest on the behalf of gay marriages, I would use that for my poster. LOL

That's a good point. I'm sure posters are being made up of it already.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

LOL

[Atlas]

More holding hand funnies.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_abdullah_thanks.jpg
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_dick_hands.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

LOL

http://www.bartcop.com/bfee-2-gitmo.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/golf-graves.jpg

[Atlas]

I don't really understand this one and it's pretty sick BUT that has never stopped me before.

Cheney's offspring burst from Bush's chest
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_cheney_offspring.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/hell-game.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/french-monkey.jpg

[Atlas]

http://www.bartcop.com/hell-game.jpg

LABF you GodDamn slacker!!!! You already posted this on #66!! I thought it looked familar. Get with the program will you. LOL

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

LABF you GodDamn slacker!!!! You already posted this on #66!! I thought it looked familar. Get with the program will you. LOL

:laugh:

Just call me "Mr. Short-Term Memory."

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/delusions041221.gif

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/friends-of-bush.jpg

[Atlas]

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_dailymirror_dumb_people.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/please-w-another.gif

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/support-r-cuts.jpg

[Atlas]

ACE IN THE HOLE
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/saddam_ace_in_the_hole.jpg

[Atlas]

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/timecover.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Atlas again.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/com_def.jpg

[Atlas]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Atlas again.

Hurry up and spread it!!!! LOL

[W*GS]

http://members.comics.com/editoons/varvel/archive/varvel-20050628.html

[Atlas]

http://members.comics.com/editoons/varvel/archive/varvel-20050628.html


Good one

http://members.comics.com/editoons/varvel/archive/images/varvel2061040050628.jpg

[Atlas]

http://www.graffiti.org/war/bush_sucks2004.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/bushmonkey2.gif

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/despair_stupidity.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/jackass_foreign_policy.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Darth W. Bush

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_darthwbush.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_revenge_twit.jpg

[Atlas]

Hey LA, Those were posted in the first couple of pages!! Slacker.

[Atlas]

Man, I put some fine work in here only for it to be erased.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Man, I put some fine work in here only for it to be erased.

I feel your pain, compadre.

;)

http://www.bartcop.com/impeach-spl.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/neocon_glue.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/pray-w-false.JPG

[Atlas]

That was a good one.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/canada_2.0.gif

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/E/b/gop_paging_dr_freud.jpg

[Rigs11]

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesH/spincity.jpg

[Rigs11]

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesH/catapult.jpg

[Rigs11]

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesG/gcoke.jpg

[Rigs11]

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesG/chlife.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesG/chlife.jpg

:laugh:

^5

That's right-wing "values" in a nutshell!

[Atlas]

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesG/chlife.jpg

Kill those "Evil-doers"!!

[Atlas]

http://www.bushwhackedusa.com/images/BWUSAFuneralAd2.jpg

[Atlas]

http://www.internetweekly.org/images/bush_vacation.jpg

[Atlas]

http://www.bongonews.com/StoryImages/liz_pam.jpg

[Atlas]

http://www.ethicalatheist.com/img/bush_my_god.jpghttp://www.ethicalatheist.com/img/bush_booze_cocaine.jpghttp://www.ethicalatheist.com/img/bush_jesusland.jpghttp://www.ethicalatheist.com/img/bush_bungle_wmd.jpghttp://www.ethicalatheist.com/img/bush_horsemen.jpghttp://www.ethicalatheist.com/img/bush_month_vacation.jpghttp://www.ethicalatheist.com/img/bush_zealots.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

LOL

^5

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/hell-bastard-nz.jpg

[Atlas]

http://thelastminute.typepad.com/blog/bush_action_figure.jpg

[Atlas]

http://www.gaehn.org/news/archiv/2004/images/international_terrorist_cheater_george-bush.pnghttp://www.nook-market.com/bizzazz_t/against-me_hey-george-bush.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/awol-prick.jpg

[24champ]

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesG/chlife.jpg

f****n racist!

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

*****n racist!

Is Diebold Boy a racist?

He's certainly America's greatest class warrior.

Turd Blossom and Diebold Boy's other handlers have been careful to appoint a few token minorities to cabinet positions in order to create an appearance of diversity, but I don't think the people of New Orleans have been fooled.

[24champ]

Is Diebold Boy a racist?

He's certainly America's greatest class warrior.

Turd Blossom and Diebold Boy's other handlers have been careful to appoint a few token minorities to cabinet positions in order to create an appearance of diversity, but I don't think the people of New Orleans have been fooled.
didnt you read mikey moores letter, he left those poor black people there because he doesnt like blacks. Its all bushies fault for this mess!

[gunns]

These are all great! Too bad I have no computer know how. Notice the no avatar.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

didnt you read mikey moores letter, he left those poor black people there because he doesnt like blacks. Its all bushies fault for this mess!

Well, Diebold Boy definitely doesn't give a rip about anyone who isn't rich, well-connected, or of use to him in some way or another, so that includes a lot of black folks - and they know it.

As for the mess, Bush didn't cause the hurricane, but his massive cuts to FEMA and to flood and hurricane preparedness funding for New Orleans (to say nothing of his abominable policies on global warming) certainly helped guarantee maximum body count and devistation.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

These are all great! Too bad I have no computer know how. Notice the no avatar.

You have a whole lot of folks here who are more than willing to share their computer knowledge, I'd wager. :)

[24champ]

Well, Diebold Boy definitely doesn't give a rip about anyone who isn't rich, well-connected, or of use to him in some way or another, so that includes a lot of black folks - and they know it.

As for the mess, Bush didn't cause the hurricane, but his massive cuts to FEMA and to flood and hurricane preparedness funding for New Orleans (to say nothing of his abominable policies on global warming) certainly helped guarantee maximum body count and devistation.

:puff:no dude Bush caused the Hurricane man, dont you get it? He heated up the waters and that strengthened the storm. I tell ya bush is destroying america, time to move to France or canada!!!!:drown:

[Spider]

:puff:no dude Bush caused the Hurricane man, dont you get it? He heated up the waters and that strengthened the storm. I tell ya bush is destroying america, time to move to France or canada!!!!:drown:
doesnt it get old carrying water for Bush ?
so many screw ups , so many excuses .you would think after while a guy would say , bush is an Idiot .......

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

:puff:no dude Bush caused the Hurricane man, dont you get it? He heated up the waters and that strengthened the storm.

I know you would like to claim that this is what liberals are saying, but, as usual, it's just silly rhetoric.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

doesnt it get old carrying water for Bush ?
so many screw ups , so many excuses .you would think after while a guy would say , bush is an Idiot .......

I have come to believe that those folks who are still carrying water for Bush are like kids in an f'd-up family who cannot come to grips with the fact that daddy is an abusive alcoholic.

If you've ever seen kids like these, you know that they will defend daddy and make excuses for his destructive behavior until the wheels fall off.

[Atlas]

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/Y/a/bush_ovaloffice_xmas.jpg

[Atlas]

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/9/b/bush_fixed_iraq.jpg

[Atlas]

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/v/b/bush_ss_scratch_gamble.jpg

[Atlas]

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_laura_imperial.jpg

[BKK]

http://www.bartcop.com/3purp3mart.jpg

I would rather have president who likes to party and kick some a** than a subversive traitor in time of war with a few fraudulenty earned medals. Fact.

[BKK]

http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/HistoryRepeats.jpg

The comparison is foolish and childish.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

I would rather have president who likes to party and kick some a** than a subversive traitor in time of war with a few fraudulenty earned medals. Fact.




http://www.allhatnocattle.net/bush_binladen_quote.jpg

[BKK]

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesG/chlife.jpg

This is our new reality, thanks to ossama.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

This is our new reality, thanks to ossama.
Are We Safer now? If U.S. Policy Persists, So Will the Danger
by Tom Maertens


MANKATO -- For 24 hours in recent days -- until he flip-flopped -- President Bush was on record as saying it might not be possible to win the war on terror.

One of the axioms of military strategy is "Know your enemy." Bush has claimed that terrorists attacked us because they "hate freedom." What they really hate is U.S. policies: our unquestioning support for Israel and its settlements in the Palestinian areas; the stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan; our support for repressive Arab governments, and our invasion of Iraq.

Arab public opinion mirrors these sentiments. A Zogby International poll recently showed that 98 percent of Egyptians hold a negative opinion of America, notwithstanding the $117 billion (in current dollars) of U.S. aid over the last 30 years. The disapproval rate in Saudi Arabia, a country we defended in the 1991 Gulf War, is 94 percent.
(CONTINUED)

http://tinyurl.com/9mcya


http://www.allhatnocattle.net/bush_binladen_quote.jpg

[gunns]

I would rather have president who likes to party and kick some a** than a subversive traitor in time of war with a few fraudulenty earned medals. Fact.

Well then you must not have liked half the troops in Vietnam. You probably shouldn't write about that which you obviously know NADA about. Fact.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I would rather have president who likes to party and kick some a** than a subversive traitor in time of war with a few fraudulenty earned medals. Fact.

http://img59.exs.cx/img59/2828/george_bush_uniform.jpg

We can clearly see that in this picture, George W. Bush is wearing an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award and a Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon, however, on line 24 of his ARG22 National Guard discharge form, George W. Bush has NO awards listed:

http://img47.exs.cx/img47/2624/BushANG22-box24.gif

Now, here in another picture where his father is pinning lieutenant bars on his shoulder, George W. Bush is again wearing the Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon:

http://img46.exs.cx/img46/1777/bush_farosonPRB290.jpg

So, in fairness we must give George W. Bush the benefit of the doubt here. Let's dig further and look at other records released by the Bush campaign team. Our next stop is a a Form AF11 dated May 16, 1971. You will note on this document Bush has already been promoted to First Lieutenant:

http://img56.exs.cx/img56/6365/AF11.jpg

All that is listed in this document is the Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon. The Air Force Outstanding Unit Award is not listed.

So, as you can see, BKK has everything bass-ackwards here.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The comparison is foolish and childish.

Only to those who are ignorant of history.

Do you even know what the reichstag fire was?

Probably not.

[gunns]

This is our new reality, thanks to ossama.

It was Osama that sent us to Iraq???

[Atlas]

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/bush_binladen_quote.jpg

WOW!! That's a good one.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

It was Osama that sent us to Iraq???

The court-appointed pinhead is Osama's most prolific recruiter in Iraq.

Just think: The smirking moron has hitherto spent more than half a trillion dollars of your money (not his rich friends' money, mind you) to create another Islamic theocracy (which will certainly align itself with Iran) where there was once a secular regime - a regime with zero tolerance for the likes of Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda.

[Play2win]

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/bush_binladen_quote.jpg
Who's the Flip-Flopper now?!?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/O/f/bush_imagine_that.jpg

[BKK]

Well then you must not have liked half the troops in Vietnam. You probably shouldn't write about that which you obviously know NADA about. Fact.

The troops in Nam did a fine job, our civilians just did not let them finish the job, sure there were many who did not like being there, but they did not as a majority. Very few actually, joined up with left wing wacko groups such as vets against the war and such, and actually met with the enemy in paris in clear violation of UCMJ, and an Officers COC as admitted by Kerry himself. I have served and yes, sometimes certain people fudge some lower tier ribbons, but you can not compare fudging marksmanship ribbons to Purple hearts and silver and bronze stars, that my freind is criminal behavior.

Kerry was in the same boat as Hanoi Jane, go ask a few Nam Vets how much they respect that b****

[Bronco_Beerslug]

The troops in Nam did a fine job, our civilians just did not let them finish the job, sure there were many who did not like being there, but they did not as a majority. Very few actually, joined up with left wing wacko groups such as vets against the war and such, and actually met with the enemy in paris in clear violation of UCMJ, and an Officers COC as admitted by Kerry himself. I have served and yes, sometimes certain people fudge some lower tier ribbons, but you can not compare fudging marksmanship ribbons to Purple hearts and silver and bronze stars, that my freind is criminal behavior.

Kerry was in the same boat as Hanoi Jane, go ask a few Nam Vets how much they respect that b****
Ignorance knows no bounds.

[Atlas]

The troops in Nam did a fine job, our civilians just did not let them finish the job, sure there were many who did not like being there, but they did not as a majority. Very few actually, joined up with left wing wacko groups such as vets against the war and such, and actually met with the enemy in paris in clear violation of UCMJ, and an Officers COC as admitted by Kerry himself. I have served and yes, sometimes certain people fudge some lower tier ribbons, but you can not compare fudging marksmanship ribbons to Purple hearts and silver and bronze stars, that my freind is criminal behavior.

Kerry was in the same boat as Hanoi Jane, go ask a few Nam Vets how much they respect that b****

Actually it wasn't the civilian war protestors that caused the war in Vietnam to fail it was the total ineptness of our government and the policies they enacted. I don't feel like getting into it but obviously you wouldn't understand.

[BKK]

Actually it wasn't the civilian war protestors that caused the war in Vietnam to fail it was the total ineptness of our government and the policies they enacted. I don't feel like getting into it but obviously you wouldn't understand.

No s***, anybody not in the military is civilian in my book.

[Rigs11]

I would rather have president who likes to party and kick some a** than a subversive traitor in time of war with a few fraudulenty earned medals. Fact.

This moron probably has a "support our troops" sticker on his 8mpg F350.If you're going to make such strong statement about kerry, at least have the brains to post a link or source that supports your "fact", otherwise you will be treated as a dumbass. :dummy:

[Rigs11]

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesH/cake.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

This moron probably has a "support our troops" sticker on his 8mpg F350.If you're going to make such strong statement about kerry, at least have the brains to post a link or source that supports your "fact", otherwise you will be treated as a dumbass. :dummy:

^5

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Rigs11 again.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/dubya-GFY-sticker.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/sacrifice-lib.jpg

[Atlas]

Christmas time at the Whitehouse.

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/Y/a/bush_ovaloffice_xmas.jpg

[BKK]

This moron probably has a "support our troops" sticker on his 8mpg F350.If you're going to make such strong statement about kerry, at least have the brains to post a link or source that supports your "fact", otherwise you will be treated as a dumbass. :dummy:

Try 11 mpg HEMI, but what the h*** does that have to do with the weasel Kerry? Yes I do support and have confidence in our troops to win this holy war of attrition. Many of us know we can not count on the likes of you to support them by seeing this thru to the end. you dont have the resolve, commitment or huevos to do that. Face it, this war will go on for another 10-20 years all around the globe if need be. We will not tuck our tails and pull out and apologize to the world for the next 10-20 years as you would have it.
We will perservere as a nation, despite sentiments as yours. I will not waste my time posting a "link" or "source" as it would be labeled from a right wing media outlet, just as I label any link posted from f***Bush.com or any other such nonsense as way left. The reality is you have your views and I have mine, so I will not waste my time anymore with the dip****s (yes, rigs11, you are one of them) on this spin forum. AMF

[Rigs11]

Try 11 mpg HEMI, but what the h*** does that have to do with the weasel Kerry? Yes I do support and have confidence in our troops to win this holy war of attrition. Many of us know we can not count on the likes of you to support them by seeing this thru to the end. you dont have the resolve, commitment or huevos to do that. Face it, this war will go on for another 10-20 years all around the globe if need be. We will not tuck our tails and pull out and apologize to the world for the next 10-20 years as you would have it.
We will perservere as a nation, despite sentiments as yours. I will not waste my time posting a "link" or "source" as it would be labeled from a right wing media outlet, just as I label any link posted from ****Bush.com or any other such nonsense as way left. The reality is you have your views and I have mine, so I will not waste my time anymore with the dip****s (yes, rigs11, you are one of them) on this spin forum. AMF

So you support the troops now but so easily dismiss Kerry as a traitor because he came back and spoke of atrocities commited in vietnam?You've been brainwashed by the Rove smearing campaing. So you support our troops until they speak out? How do you feel about those troops that spoke out about Abu graib? Are they traitors too?The real traitors are Bush and Cheney for never having served in the military and calling for the Rove smearing of Kerry who actually fought for this country.You will not post a link because you don't have any. Stick a fork in him boys.

[gunns]

The troops in Nam did a fine job, our civilians just did not let them finish the job, sure there were many who did not like being there, but they did not as a majority. Very few actually, joined up with left wing wacko groups such as vets against the war and such, and actually met with the enemy in paris in clear violation of UCMJ, and an Officers COC as admitted by Kerry himself. I have served and yes, sometimes certain people fudge some lower tier ribbons, but you can not compare fudging marksmanship ribbons to Purple hearts and silver and bronze stars, that my freind is criminal behavior.

Kerry was in the same boat as Hanoi Jane, go ask a few Nam Vets how much they respect that b****

I don't have to go ask a few Nam Vets. I was married to one. I also had 3 cousins that went and they all fell the same way. You are totally off base as to very few joining "left wing wacko groups". They are the one's that created them. I work with vets in my job and every one is against this war and protested the Vietnam war when they got home. They are against this war because it is another Vietnam and they see the futility they were put into in Vietnam. From the beginning they were never given a chance to win that war. They were proud of what they initially thought they were going for but realized all to soon it was a crap shoot. That they were not fighting for our freedom or the good old USA but a political tug of war.

Many of them suffer long lasting effects from the atrocities committed over there by them and their comrades. And then they were blasted by their government for doing what they were told to do. They are proud of being soldiers and participate in every armed forces event, but in no way to honor our government for putting them in a position to not win a war, not the civilians. Only one has a medal he received and it is a marksmanship medal. He says he keeps it to remind him of shooting his Lieutenant. Those medals mean nothing to them because they have been **** on by the government. Everything was about image and nothing about winning a war or taking care of the troops. Of course they hate the traitor Jane Fonda, she turned her back on them just like the government did. They were very sad at the reception they received when coming home but soon came to realize that it was their government and the way they presented them to the public that did that. They put a gun in their hands and then expected them to act like gentlemen.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I don't have to go ask a few Nam Vets. I was married to one. I also had 3 cousins that went and they all fell the same way. You are totally off base as to very few joining "left wing wacko groups". They are the one's that created them. I work with vets in my job and every one is against this war and protested the Vietnam war when they got home. They are against this war because it is another Vietnam and they see the futility they were put into in Vietnam. From the beginning they were never given a chance to win that war. They were proud of what they initially thought they were going for but realized all to soon it was a crap shoot. That they were not fighting for our freedom or the good old USA but a political tug of war.

Many of them suffer long lasting effects from the atrocities committed over there by them and their comrades. And then they were blasted by their government for doing what they were told to do. They are proud of being soldiers and participate in every armed forces event, but in no way to honor our government for putting them in a position to not win a war, not the civilians. Only one has a medal he received and it is a marksmanship medal. He says he keeps it to remind him of shooting his Lieutenant. Those medals mean nothing to them because they have been **** on by the government. Everything was about image and nothing about winning a war or taking care of the troops. Of course they hate the traitor Jane Fonda, she turned her back on them just like the government did. They were very sad at the reception they received when coming home but soon came to realize that it was their government and the way they presented them to the public that did that. They put a gun in their hands and then expected them to act like gentlemen.

:thumbsup:

Nice correction to the silly, right-wing revisionist history BKK keeps repeating to himself.

[gunns]

Try 11 mpg HEMI, but what the h*** does that have to do with the weasel Kerry? Yes I do support and have confidence in our troops to win this holy war of attrition. Many of us know we can not count on the likes of you to support them by seeing this thru to the end. you dont have the resolve, commitment or huevos to do that. Face it, this war will go on for another 10-20 years all around the globe if need be. We will not tuck our tails and pull out and apologize to the world for the next 10-20 years as you would have it.
We will perservere as a nation, despite sentiments as yours. I will not waste my time posting a "link" or "source" as it would be labeled from a right wing media outlet, just as I label any link posted from ****Bush.com or any other such nonsense as way left. The reality is you have your views and I have mine, so I will not waste my time anymore with the dip****s (yes, rigs11, you are one of them) on this spin forum. AMF

Holy war of attrition.....give me a break. Yeah I support the troops, what I don't support is the reason they are there. It has nothing to do with "holy war of attrition", WMD, or terrorists. This has to do with Bush's image. Just like the Vietnam war. Another lost cause that wasn't done right or where our so called leaders never learned about their enemy before going in.

Another 10-20 years? Are you ready to sacrifice that many more troops? Maybe it's you that doesn't support our troops, just the rah, rah, that goes along with having the power to march into a country and take over. Tell me how many loved ones have you sacrificed to this war of holy attrition? We will peservere as a nation? 62% of the nation wants the troops brought home, that this war is unwinnable. Seems that's dipping right into Bush's pool of backers. You won't spend any more time on this because you are wrong. Unbelievable, holy war of attrition.

[Atlas]

The conservatives in here that slam, Kerry are the same ones that slammed Ron Kovic.
He was a true American hero. Here is his story.





Ron Kovic is a Vietnam veteran, former Marine Corps sergeant and author of Born on the 4th of July. Mr. Kovic along with Oliver Stone was the co-screenwriter of the film BORN ON THE 4th of JULY released in December 1989. This Academy Award-winning motion picture starring Tom Cruise is based on the life of Ron Kovic.
Mr. Kovic served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War. He was paralyzed from his chest down in combat in Vietnam on Jan. 20, 1968. He has been paralyzed and in a wheelchair ever since. Mr. Kovic is an accomplished author and painter. He continues to work for peace.



In the spring of 2004 Akashic Books released Ron's novel BORN ON THE 4th of JULY. Read Ron Kovic's new introduction to this classic novel now celebrating it's 30th year in publication.

PEACEMAKER HERO:
RON KOVIC
by Nathaniel Moss

On July 15, 1976, Ron Kovic pulled his wheelchair into the gleaming lights of New York City's Madison Square Garden. The eyes of the entire country were focused on this intent young man, just turned 30 but wise beyond his years. Kovic was to address the Democratic National Convention, which had convened in New York to nominate Jimmy Carter for the presidency of the United States.
Kovic had a unique voice to share with the audience that evening. A veteran of the Vietnam War, Kovic had considered it his duty to serve his country. For his patriotism he was rewarded with a bullet in his spine, paralyzed from the chest down. Kovic had returned home not to a hero's welcome, but rather to neglect and indifference in America's veterans' hospitals as he began the long process of healing.


Ron was raised on the films of John Wayne and Audie Murphy, movies like The Sands of Iwo Jima and To Hell and Back. These films glamorized war. Kovic had learned that war wasn't all about heroism. It was scary and confusing, and sometimes you shot the wrong person, maybe even one of your own men. Ron learned that just because you gave your body to your country, that country would not necessarily recognize your sacrifice.

Who better to address a convention at which the wounds of the war in Vietnam were still open? Who better to speak for the men who out of conscience chose not to serve in the war? His credentials were unassailable. After all, how many men could say that they were born on the Fourth of July? Kovic could. He had already said it eloquently in a memoir by the same name published earlier in the year.

As Ron Kovic edged his wheelchair into the spotlight a hush fell over the crowd. He began with a poem he had written:
I am the living death
the memorial day on wheels
I am your Yankee Doodle Dandy
your John Wayne come home
your fourth of July firecracker
exploding in the grave
Kovic continued, and his words struck a chord. Time magazine described the scene as one of the few poignant moments at the convention and many in the audience were brought to tears. With just a few simple words, this quiet man with an eloquent voice presented a different kind of war hero: a hero of conscience, a hero of peace, in the great tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.


In the years to come, Ron became a passionate advocate for peace. He spoke out repeatedly against the poor conditions in America's veteran's hospitals. He protested the United States' support for the undemocratic government of El Salvador in the 1980s. Finally, in 1989, director Oliver Stone brought Ron's story to the attention of the world with his film, Born on the Fourth of July, starring Tom Cruise.

[Atlas]

Look at Mr. Kovics warning after 911.

Dear Friends,

My heart and soul weeps with everyone in America right now. I was deeply saddened by the terrible tragedy that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. I didn't sleep much again last night, as it's been for me, and I'm sure so many others since Tuesday. I wonder if we will ever sleep "normally" again? I have thought about it a lot and I am deeply disheartened by the blind patriotism, hatred and desire for revenge that I see growing more and more in this country each day. Resorting to violence and warfare is a great mistake. The painful anguish resulting from this senseless act of violence stirs in all of us a desire for swift retribution. I strongly believe that to move in this direction will lead us into a terrible and disastrous war which we, as a people and a nation, may never recover from. It is a dark and dangerous time in America, and I, in good conscience, will never support such an act of madness! We seem to have learned nothing from Vietnam, and those of us who have come to understand through great suffering the awful waste and deep immorality of war, are not being listened to. Those of us who have found that love and forgiveness are more powerful than hatred are not being heard. We remain invisible, isolated and alone, voices in the wilderness in a country that has truly gone mad. I encourage all of you to raise your voices on behalf of peace and non-violence everywhere. I love this country so much that I don't want to see it go through the senselessness and agony of war ever again.

With love and a sincere hope for peace!

Ron Kovic

[Atlas]

Here are what some people have said of Mr. Kovic.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Share your thoughts about Ron Kovic.
View the MY HERO Ron Kovic Guestbook.
Brian Sussman from New Rochelle wrote
My hero is Ron Kovic. I met Ron Kovic in Philosophy 101, at Hofstra University in January 1970, during my freshman year. Back then, Hofstra was one of the few colleges that was accessible to wheelchair- (and wheelbed-) bound students, and being on Long Island, Hofstra was convenient to Ron. He had been out of the vet's hospital about a year, at that time. I spent a number of hours talking with Ron over the next year or so, until he drove out West. He told me how he had volunteered for Vietnam twice, and how he was injured shortly before he was to leave Nam. We often talked about the war and politics. Ron also frequently talked about wheelchair basketball, which he often played.
As many times as he asked me to come to a game, I'm embarrassed to admit, I declined, as I thought it would be painful for me to watch, although I'm not quite sure why. I had last seen Ron about a week before he left New York. My own father is a W.W.II disabled vet, very injured, but not paraplegic. I had grown up rather politically conservative, a supporter of Nixon, Goldwater and of the Vietnam War. I had felt the only way to support the vets was to support the war.

Because of Ron's intelligent influence, I discovered that I didn't need to support the war, and could best support the veterans by protesting the war. By the time the colleges in the United States closed down early, in May 1970, in protest of the announced invasion of Cambodia, I found my politics had changed quite a bit. In that month, I recall standing next to Ron as we watched William Kunstler speak at Hofstra in protest of the war. By that time, only five months after meeting Ron, he had convinced me of my misguided politics and of the maliciousness of Vietnam, Cambodian and Laotian Wars. Ultimately this caused my politics to become more progressive in general.

Now, when our society has unfortunately become as conservative as I had once been, I have Ron Kovic to thank for improving my own outlook and greatly expanding the depth of my awareness as to what good government, citizenship and patriotism is really about. Thank you Ron, you're still my hero.


Marc Harris, a visitor to the MY HERO Guestbook, wrote that his heroes were all the men and women who fought in the Vietnam War
I think this because, in my opinion, the war was a waste of time and valuable lives. People were out fighting in a country far away just so we could be "big shots" and try to control the fate of the world. The men and women who were sent to fight in this war were forced to put there lives on the line, not to directly "defend" their country and not even for a cause in which the public supported. They were forced to kill elders and children for fear that they might be the "enemy". Those who did return after the war were not even commended for fighting in the war. I think these people are truly heroes because they were forced to take the "dirty" job no one else would. They gave their lives for a wrong cause and they didn't even have the choice.
Julia Cochrane of Port Townsend, Washington

I have many heroes in my life, but knowing Ron at Kent State created important memories and turning points in my life. Ron causes changes in those he meets because he is not disabled by his injury. He does not let the chair confine him. He is one of the most courageous people I have ever met. Ron, I marked the 30th anniversary of Kent watching Born on the 4th of July with the young people in my life. Hope you read this and are doing well. You are in my thoughts and my heart.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The conservatives in here that slam, Kerry are the same ones that slammed Ron Kovic.

Yep.

They are also the same false patriots and right-wing handjobs who smeared Max Cleland and who turned a blind eye to the vile smear campaign against John McCain during the GOP primaries in 2K.

Their only allegiance is to "Team GOP" - not America.

[gunns]

Love your avatar LA. One of the best concerts I've been to back in 72.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Love your avatar LA. One of the best concerts I've been to back in 72.

Thanks - I saw the band more times than I can remember back in the day.

Always great shows and great musicianship. :thumbsup:

[W*GS]

Just think: The smirking moron has hitherto spent more than half a trillion dollars of your money (not his rich friends' money, mind you) to create another Islamic theocracy (which will certainly align itself with Iran) where there was once a secular regime - a regime with zero tolerance for the likes of Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Would you want to live in a country under Saddam's rule?

[Rigs11]

Would you want to live in a country under Saddam's rule?

Is it that much better now?What happens if ex bathists get on the ballot and win the election? Then what?

[W*GS]

Is it that much better now?

The Iraqi people seem to think so.

Who's better placed to make that judgement? The Iraqi people or you?

What happens if ex bathists get on the ballot and win the election? Then what?

They'll not be likely to win.

The bigger problem is a division between the Sunnis, the Shias, and the Kurds.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Would you want to live in a country under Saddam's rule?

Your question should be directed to Iraqis - not to an American.

But since when has Bush or his cheerleaders (read: W*GS) ever cared about what the Iraqis wanted?

In any event, how is spending half a trillion dollars to replace the only secular regime in the region with an Islamic theocracy allied with Iran good for America's interests?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/tom-liberal-plot.jpg

[W*GS]

Your question should be directed to Iraqis - not to an American.

That sort of question has been addressed to the Iraqi people. You're a big fan of polls; why don't you find one and tell us the results?

In any event, how is spending half a trillion dollars to replace the only secular regime in the region with an Islamic theocracy allied with Iran good for America's interests?

Iraq is not (yet) an Islamic theocracy. Don't put your cart before that horse.

And secularism isn't the only way to measure the "worth" of a country's political system.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

No exit: Descending into hell with George W. Bush

The bodies of the mangled and bloated corpses are no where to be found on America's news programs. Like the countless dead in Iraq they're purged from the coverage and stripped from the public record. They've been replaced by the well-scrubbed visage of the Potemkin-president issuing his comforting words for his people.

"New Orleans will rise again," Bush crowed, invoking the worn phraseology of the slave era.

For a White House that prides itself on appearances and spends over $62 million per year on public relations firms; the Bush monologue on national TV was a dismal performance. His limp promises of restoration, all ringing with the same free-market timbre that has left Kabul and Baghdad in a shambles, fell well short of the mark. The ruinous affects of his tenure are now everywhere to be seen and even the media's impenetrable smokescreen seems to be lifting.

Disaster follows Bush like a shadow. It is the one inescapable fact that haunts his 58 years, and it should provide some meager relief for those who believe that he and his vile regime cannot be brought down.

Just look around; Iraq, Afghanistan, Enron, Cheney's energy-papers, the deficits, the courts, the UN, Israel-Palestine, New Orleans, the corporate corruption, the war profiteering, the incompetence, the lies; everything Bush touches is reduced to rubble. No institution, however protected, can withstand the onslaught of his withering company; the vast wreckage extends in every direction.

"Character is fate," Marcus Aurelius said; it is a straight line drawn from a man's birth to his final hour. Some men will fail in everything they do and there is no force in the universe that can alter their destiny.

Harken, Arbusto, Spectrum, the Texas Rangers and now the United States of America; all following the predictable downward spiral into the muck. The trajectory cannot be amended by simply putting down the bottle. Failure is an indelible blotch, like the mark of Cain, forever embossed on the soul of its victim. It's part of Bush's genetic code, as integral to the whole mechanism as the cocky drawl or the lumbering gait.

The Project for the New American Breakdown is headed for the political land-fill scuttled by its luckless wagon-master corporate-George.

The street scenes of submerged New Orleans, now littered with the unattended carcasses of blue-faced victims is the Bush legacy. It can be softened with the dulcet prose of the New York Times or air-brushed by the feigned compassion of TV anchormen, but the truth keeps popping its head up through the weeds revealing the devastation.

New Orleans won't go away; won't disappear "into that good night." America's beloved Southern port-o-call has been vanquished by neglect, pummeled by the erosion of its wetlands and the weakening of its levees. Now, the tens of thousands of refugees are fleeing the previously thriving metropolis much like the people of Falluja, Tal Afar and Samarra.

In Iraq the effects of Hurricane George can be seen throughout the Sunni heartland. Rumsfeld continues to storm through Iraq's underbelly like Tecumseh Sherman on his march to the sea leaving only tent cities and desolation behind. The relief agencies are simply overwhelmed by immensity of the human catastrophe. There's no way they'll be able to meet the people's needs.

Bush, of course, just shrugs off such sentimentality. What possible difference could their suffering make? Besides, there's no longer even a trace of a plan for Iraq, just the fiendish abuse of force and the drunken elation in slaughter.

None of it makes sense, nor should it. The nation is sinking in an ocean of hubris and delusion. Reason and decency have vanished into the desert sirocco; only the rapture of utter destruction persists.

There's no stopping this juggernaut. Washington's ruling elite are hell-bent to continue; flailing away at every obstacle in their murderous path. This week it's Iraq, next week it's Syria; what possible difference could it make? America won't be digging out after this orgy of terror anyway. Bush has led us to the brink. The economy is teetering, our alliances are crumbling, and the nation is ambling towards disaster. All the while, the Dear Leader has fixed his vision on the deepest part of the quicksand and trudges onward.

America won't dodge the Reaper this time.

"Character is fate". Our future is hopelessly shackled to the dwindling fortunes of our vacuous president, George Walker Bush.

- Mike Whitney

[Rigs11]

The Iraqi people seem to think so.

Who's better placed to make that judgement? The Iraqi people or you?



They'll not be likely to win.

The bigger problem is a division between the Sunnis, the Shias, and the Kurds.

The Iraqi people of course.Did the US goverment take this into account asking the IRaqi people before invading?Or is this another grand assumption that the admin made?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The Iraqi people of course.Did the US goverment take this into account asking the IRaqi people before invading?Or is this another grand assumption that the admin made?

Bingo.

The Iraqis didn't invite America to invade and occupy their country.

[Atlas]

Would you want to live in a country under Saddam's rule?


If I was an Iraqi I wouldn't want to live under George Bush's rule.

[Atlas]

That sort of question has been addressed to the Iraqi people. You're a big fan of polls; why don't you find one and tell us the results?

.

Here is your poll and like almost everything else..... your wrong.

SoCals link; http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001927572_iraqpoll13.html


Friday, May 14, 2004 - Page updated at 05:17 P.M.

82 percent of Iraqis oppose U.S. occupation

By Thomas E. Ricks
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Four out of five Iraqis report holding a negative view of the U.S. occupation authority and of coalition forces, according to a new poll conducted for the occupation authority.
In the poll, 80 percent of Iraqis surveyed reported a lack of confidence in the Coalition Provisional Authority, and 82 percent said they disapprove of the United States and allied militaries in Iraq.

Although comparative numbers from previous polls are not available, "generally speaking, the trend is downward," said Donald Hamilton, a senior counselor to civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer. The occupation authority has been commissioning such surveys in Iraq since late last year, he said. This one was taken in Baghdad and several other Iraqi cities in late March and early last month, before the surge in anti-coalition violence and the detainee-abuse scandal.

The findings appeared consistent with a poll taken about the same time by USA Today, CNN and Gallup, which found that 57 percent of Iraqis wanted foreign troops to leave immediately.

The new poll, which has not been released publicly, is a concern among occupation authority officials and in Washington, D.C., because the data provide evidence that the U.S. effort is not winning over Iraqi public opinion.

"How to ... win the hearts and minds of the people (in Iraq) is one of the things that we really have to work at," Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, head of Army intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. "I mean, that is the key to solving not only that problem but the rest of the problems in the Middle East."

Hamilton, who said he oversees public-opinion issues for Bremer, declined to provide the number of Iraqis surveyed or other methodological details but said in an e-mail that "polls here are generally reliable" and that the new findings were consistent with those of other polls.

The new data reflect the fact that "the occupation, and the occupation forces, are getting increasingly unpopular," said Jeffrey White, a former Middle East affairs analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency. "A lot of people, including me, have been getting very pessimistic."

Reflecting that trend, the proportion of Baghdad residents who reported worries about safety has increased steadily: 70 percent named security as the "most urgent issue," up from 50 percent in January, 60 percent in February and 65 percent in March.

Overall, 63 percent of those polled said security was the most urgent issue facing Iraq. In addition to Baghdad, the poll was conducted in the northern city of Mosul and the southern cities of Basra, Nasiriyah and Karbala. Some questions were asked in the troubled western Ramadi.

There were a few bright spots. Iraqi police received a 79 percent positive rating, the best of seven institutions about which questions were asked. The reformed Iraqi army was not far behind, with a 61 percent positive rating.

Those polled were broadly divided on who should appoint the interim government that is supposed to take over limited power at the end of next month. The largest group, 27 percent, said the Iraqi people should appoint the new leaders, while 23 percent said judges should. Only one-tenth of 1 percent said that the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council should name the government, which is supposed to run Iraq until elections are held next year. None said the occupation authority should.

Indicating a general skepticism of foreign involvement in their political future, 83 percent of those polled said that only Iraqis should be involved in supervising the 2005 elections.

[Atlas]

That sort of question has been addressed to the Iraqi people. You're a big fan of polls; why don't you find one and tell us the results?

.

Hey I found another poll. This is a great article but I doubt you'll read it because it gives you a true picture of what is happening. No sense letting reallity seep into your misinformation.

Posted 4/28/2004 3:32 PM Updated 4/30/2004 6:54 AM

SoCals linkl; http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-poll-cover_x.htm

U.S. soldiers man a checkpoint Wednesday in the center of Baghdad.
By Khalid Mohammed, AP

The nationwide survey, the most comprehensive look at Iraqi attitudes toward the occupation, was conducted in late March and early April. It reached nearly 3,500 Iraqis of every religious and ethnic group.

The poll shows that most continue to say the hardships suffered to depose Saddam Hussein were worth it. Half say they and their families are better off than they were under Saddam. And a strong majority say they are more free to worship and to speak. (Related item: Key findings)

But while they acknowledge benefits from dumping Saddam a year ago, Iraqis no longer see the presence of the American-led military as a plus. Asked whether they view the U.S.-led coalition as "liberators" or "occupiers," 71% of all respondents say "occupiers."

That figure reaches 81% if the separatist, pro-U.S. Kurdish minority in northern Iraq is not included. The negative characterization is just as high among the Shiite Muslims who were oppressed for decades by Saddam as it is among the Sunni Muslims who embraced him.

The growing negative attitude toward the Americans is also reflected in two related survey questions: 53% say they would feel less secure without the coalition in Iraq, but 57% say the foreign troops should leave anyway. Those answers were given before the current showdowns in Fallujah and Najaf between U.S. troops and guerrilla fighters.

The findings come as the U.S. administration is struggling to quell the insurgency and turn over limited sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government by the end of June. Interviews this week in Baghdad underscored the findings.

"I'm not ungrateful that they took away Saddam Hussein," says Salam Ahmed, 30, a Shiite businessman. "But the job is done. Thank you very much. See you later. Bye-bye."

'I would shoot ... right now'

Bearing the brunt of Iraqis' ill feeling: U.S. troops. The most visible symbol of the occupation, they are viewed by many Iraqis as uncaring, dangerous and lacking in respect for the country's people, religion and traditions.

POLL METHODOLOGY

The USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll of 3,444 Iraqis, the largest and most comprehensive poll in Iraq since last year’s invasion, was administered by the Pan Arab Research Center of Dubai.

Interviews were conducted between March 22 and April 2, with the exception of the governate of Sulaymaniya where interviews ran through April 9. All interviews were conducted in person in the respondent’s home, with an average interview length of 70 minutes. The cooperation rate — the percentage of those contacted who agreed to be interviewed — was 98%.

Two of the three governates in the predominantly Kurdish region, which has its own administrative agencies and has been largely independent from Baghdad for the past decade, did not participate in the poll. To have a full representation of Kurdish views in the poll, additional interviews in the third governate, Sulaymaniya, were conducted.

The margin of sampling error for the poll is +/- two percentage points.





The insurgents, by contrast, seem to be gaining broad acceptance, if not outright support. If the Kurds, who make up about 13% of the poll, are taken out of the equation, more than half of Iraqis say killing U.S. troops can be justified in at least some cases. But attacks against Iraqi police officers, who are U.S.-trained, are strongly condemned by the Iraqi people.

The Bush administration has contended that the growing resistance, which has killed at least 115 Americans this month, is the work of isolated cells of former regime members or religious fanatics, often from outside Iraq.

Iraqis interviewed in Baghdad say ordinary people have lost patience with the U.S. effort to crush the insurgency and rebuild Iraq.

"I would shoot at the Americans right now if I had the chance," says Abbas Kadhum Muia, 24, who owns a bicycle shop in Sadr City, a Shiite slum of 2 million people in Baghdad that was strongly anti-Saddam and once friendly to the Americans. "At the beginning ... there were no problems, but gradually they started to show disrespect (and) encroach on our rights, arresting people."

Sabah Yeldo, a Christian who owns a liquor store across town, says American failures have left the capital with higher crime and less-reliable services, including electricity. That is "making everybody look back and seriously consider having Saddam back again instead of the Americans."

In the multiethnic Baghdad area, where a Gallup Poll last summer of 1,178 residents permits a valid comparison, only 13% of the people now say the invasion of Iraq was morally justifiable. In the 2003 poll, more than twice that number saw it as the right thing to do.

Americans regard their men and women in uniform as liberators who are trying to help Iraq. But the Iraqis now see them as a threat and focus their anger on them.

"When they pass by on the street, we are curious, so we go out to look and they immediately point their gun at you," says Muia, the bicycle shop owner.

Except for the Kurds, such feelings are widely held. For example:

Two-thirds say soldiers in the U.S.-led coalition make no attempt to keep ordinary Iraqis from being killed or wounded during exchanges of gunfire.

58% say the soldiers conduct themselves badly or very badly.

60% say the troops show disrespect for Iraqi people in searches of their homes, and 42% say U.S. forces have shown disrespect toward mosques.

46% say the soldiers show a lack of respect for Iraqi women.

Only 11% of Iraqis say coalition forces are trying hard to restore basic services such as electricity and clean drinking water.

The Defense Department, which was shown the survey results Wednesday, said it doesn't respond to polls. But in a statement, it noted that Iraqis say their lives are getting better and said that the fact the poll could be taken indicated increased freedom in Iraq.

Secondhand information

That negative opinion of the behavior of the troops rarely is based on direct contact. Iraq is a country the size of California with a population of 25 million. Many areas are sparsely patrolled. Only 7% in the poll say they based their opinions on personal experience.

Instead, Iraqis get their information from others. For about a third, it's pan-Arabic television such as the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya satellite news channels. The networks frequently show scenes of U.S. forces shooting into Iraqi neighborhoods in hot spots such as Fallujah, an anti-American stronghold in the center of the country. (Related poll results: Baghdad: Then and now)

Although most Iraqis watch the local, U.S.-sponsored broadcast television station, which doesn't require a satellite dish, Iraqis in the poll say the Arab satellite networks are the most trusted and break the hottest stories. Few Iraqis trust Western networks such as CNN and the BBC.

More news is spread through that oldest delivery system: marketplace chatter. In the rumor mill, interviews indicate, every confrontation between Americans and Iraqis is portrayed as an assault on the Iraqi people, not on just a few lawless insurgents.

Jalal Abbas, 20, a student in Baghdad, says it's widely believed "that when soldiers search houses, they steal gold and money. And in our houses, people are taking special (precautions) to hide their money and gold for fear of them being stolen by U.S. soldiers."

GROWING RESENTMENT
"I'm not ungrateful they took away Saddam Hussein ... But the job is done." — Salam Ahmed, Shiite businessman





Najem Aboud Debib, 37, like many Shiites, says he feels deep disappointment now. The Shiites opposed Saddam, whose regime was dominated by Sunnis. A year ago, they welcomed the Americans and the freedom to exercise their brand of Islam without repression. Now, Aboud Debib says, "I'm sure they have no morals. ...They are something like Saddam Hussein. We are suffering under the same situation."

He'd welcome an American withdrawal but says he's sure U.S. troops will remain in Iraq for a long time. "The trouble is they (U.S. forces) cannot leave now and leave the job undone. They must go and complete the job and try to win the people again."

The negative opinion of the occupation does not mean most Iraqis want to see Saddam back in power. He is in U.S. custody, and four out of five Iraqis view him negatively, according to the poll. A little more than half have a negative view of President Bush.

Marines patrolling around Fallujah this week say they can feel the Iraqi anger every day, even when the two sides aren't shooting.

Marine Lance Cpl. Wes Monks, 23, of Springfield, Ore., says that as he drives around the restive, mostly Sunni city, he sees Iraqis with a knowing, "sarcastic smile. You see it every day. ... We're always the last one to find out when we run over a mine."

"I can see their point of view," says Marine Lance Cpl. Mathew Leifi, 20, of Orange, Calif. "If anyone rolled up on my street, I'd be pissed, too."

Kurds, the ethnic minority most closely allied with the United States, show strong support for Americans in the poll. About 97% say the invasion did more good than harm. And their pro-U.S. stance is obvious on other issues.

Everywhere else in Iraq, it's a different story. Not surprisingly, the Sunni strongholds that benefited most from Saddam's regime are the most negative in their opinion of the new Iraq. Fewer than 20% of people in those areas call the war's outcome positive.

Iraqis expected huge improvements in all aspects of their economy within weeks of Saddam's overthrow, and most say there have been at least some improvements. But a year after Bush declared major hostilities in Iraq over, the poll shows:

Nearly half of Iraqis still report long, frequent power blackouts.

Nearly a third lack clean drinking water much of the time.

Almost everywhere except in the Kurdish north, most people are afraid to leave their homes at night.

'You can't buy love'

In Baghdad, which has seen the most change — good and bad — since the war, residents say they can feel the boost to the economy that has come from foreign aid and the opening of the country's borders. While many say that they are earning far more than they did before the invasion, they yearn for the safety and stability of the past.

"The freedoms they gave us are satellite television, Thurayas (satellite telephones) and mobile telephones. And you can drive a car without a license," says Resha Namir, 20, a computer science major at Baghdad University. But "I can't even go out because I'm afraid that any minute we will die. The war was not worth it."

Some are more positive. Lauran Waliyah, 46, a restaurant manager and Christian who supported Saddam, says her experience with the Americans has been good. Once, when a madman with a knife entered her business, soldiers came to help, she says.

"It is unfair to ask for the departure of the U.S. troops," she says.

But the hostility reflected in the poll is a message that the troops understand, says Monks, the Marine lance corporal. "They don't want us here," he says. "They want to rebuild their own country. We're trying to Americanize their life. You can't buy love."

Soriano reported from Baghdad, Komarow from Washington.

Contributing: Jim Michaels in Fallujah

[Atlas]

That sort of question has been addressed to the Iraqi people. You're a big fan of polls; why don't you find one and tell us the results?

.

Seems pretty obvious that the a large majority of Iraqi's don't want us there. Here is another article.


What do Iraqis want? Iraqi attitudes on occupation, US withdrawal, governments, and quality of life

Project on Defense Alternatives
Compiled by Carl Conetta
01 February 2005

(This is a free-standing version of Appendix 1 from PDA Briefing Report #17, January 2005: The Iraqi election "bait and switch": faulty poll will not bring peace or US withdrawal.)

1. When Should Forces Leave?

February 2004: 33 percent want withdrawal within a year; 40 percent, withdrawal once an Iraqi government is in place; 27 percent, a longer or more open-ended stay. (Oxford Research International)

March-April 2004: 57 percent, "leave immediately"; 36 percent, "stay longer". (Gallup)

June 2004: 41 percent, "immediate withdrawal"; 45 percent, withdrawal after election of a permanent government; 10 percent, 2 years or longer. (Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society/CPA).

June 2004: 30 percent desire immediate withdrawal, 51 percent want withdrawal after a government is elected, 13 percent said that Coalition forces should remain until stability was achieved. (Iraq Centre for Research & Strategic Studies)

June 2004: 53 percent say leave now or "within a few months" or "until an Interim Government is in place" or "in six months to a year"; 33.5 percent allow "more than one year" or "until permanent government is in place"; 13.6 percent, even longer if necessary. (Oxford Research International)

January 2005: 82 percent of Sunni Arabs and 69 percent of Shiites favor US withdrawal ãeither immediately or after an elected government is in place.ä (Zogby)

2. Attitudes toward US forces

February 2004: 56.3 percent of Iraqis somewhat or strongly oppose the presence of Coalition forces in Iraq. "Strongly oppose" versus "strongly support" is 2.5-to-1. (Oxford Research International)

March-April 2004: 58 percent say US forces have behaved very or fairly badly; 34 percent say US forces have behaved very or fairly well. The ratio between those saying "very bad" and those saying "very well": 3-to-1. (Gallup/CNN/USA Today)

March-April 2004: 30 percent say that attacks on US forces were somewhat or completely justified; another 22 percent said they were sometimes justified. (Gallup/CNN/USA Today)

May 2004: 87 percent express little or no confidence in US coalition forces; 92 percent view coalition forces as occupiers, rather than liberators or peace keepers. (Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society/CPA)

June 2004: 67 percent of Iraqis strongly or somewhat oppose the presence of Coalition troops; 30 percent support. (Iraq Centre for Research & Strategic Studies)

June 2004: 58 percent of Iraqis somewhat or strongly oppose the presence of Coalition forces in Iraq. Strongly oppose versus strongly support is 3-to-1. (Oxford Research International)

June 2004: 70 percent say Coalition troops are an occupying or exploiting force; 30 percent say a liberating or peacekeeping force. (Oxford Research International)

June 2004: Invasion of Iraq was absolutely right say 13.2 percent; somewhat right, 27.6 percent; somewhat wrong, 25.7 percent; absolutely wrong, 33.5 percent. (Oxford Research International)

January 2005: 53 percent of Sunni Arabs say ongoing attacks are a legitimate form of resistance. (Zogby)

3. Attitudes toward the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi government

February 2004, Oxford: 31 percent express confidence in CPA, 69 percent do not. 43 percent express confidence in Iraqi government, 57.3 percent do not. (Oxford Research International)

March-April: 42 percent of Iraqis judge CPA behavior to be fairly or very bad; 25 percent say it was fairly or very good. The ratio between those saying "very bad" and those saying "very good" is 4-to-1. (Gallup/CNN/USA Today)

May 2004: 85 percent of Iraqis express little or no confidence in the CPA; 66 percent express little or no confidence in the Iraqi Governing Council. (Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society/CPA)

June 2004: 25.6 percent express confidence in CPA, 74.4 percent do not; 42.7 percent express confidence in IGC, 57.3 percent do not. (Oxford Research International)

October 2004: 55 percent say Interim Government does not represent the interests of people like them "very much" or "at all". Nearly 50 percent find the government to be ineffective; 43 percent find it to be effective - a sharp decline since the government took office in June 2004. (International Republican Institute.)

4. Is life better or worse?

March-April 2004: 46 percent say the US invasion has done more harm than good; 33 percent say more good. (Gallup)

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Memo to The O'W*GS Factor:

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/1405/70685401yc.gif

[W*GS]

Thanks, Atlas, for providing lots of information that is irrelevant to the question I had, which was "Would you want to live in a country under Saddam's rule?", not "Do you support the US occupation".

The Iraqis clearly do not like the occupation or the behavior of the troops. However, not many want a return to dictatorship.

'Nuff said.