Re: Mars in their eyes

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> >   Indeed, things aren't great. I'm not really sure what can be done about
> > it however. Are they worse than the Taliban? I'd really love to see a
> > poll that would reveal what Afghans prefer.
>
> Why not an election?  Dooohhhh - the one scheduled for 2004 has been
> "indefinitely" postponed.

  Well, yeah, that's bad. As long as the UN should be handling this kind of 
stuff, as the world seems to want, why isn't it?

> But you have not proven they knew they were "terrorists", as opposed to
> "freedom fighters" - such as the ones supported by the US, and ones trained
> in the US, and ones trained by the US.

  I don't know, maybe because pretty much everyone already knew that they 
were? From the U.S.S. Cole to bin Laden's 1998 Fatwah directed at the United 
States, the Taliban should have been able to figure it out.

> There still is no connection - if you think there is one please show one,
> not a speculation, a real connection.  What they knew, when, etc.

  I doubt you can ever build a perfect connection, but there are lots of links 
too numerous to mention and I really don't have the time or initiative to go 
find them all again. Do some searching and you will find many many articles 
with links. Consider the near arrest by the German government of one of the 
roommates of the terrorist cell in Hamburg. Consider the large sums of cash 
coming from Qatar apparently from al-Qaeda's mysterious financier (name lost 
on me). Consider released bin Laden tapes that seem to at the very least 
suggest bin Laden was expecting the attack to happen.

> > > Beyond that, where is the proof that bin Laden was behind 9/11?  We
> > > know
> >
> >   The fact that he accepted responsiblity, IIRC,
>
> NO, YOU DO NOT RECALL CORRECTLY.  I am sick of these wrong statements -

  Bin Laden released a message shortly after 9/11. Are you sure he didn't even 
indirectly claim responsiblity at the time? I sure thought he did. At any 
rate, the inferrential evidence, about the best thing you can get on 
terrorists is quite strong. Do you have an evidence that al-Qaeda *wouldn't* 
do an attack like 9/11? 

  For that matter, what about the reports of failed CIA/FBI intelligence 
suggesting the agencies were aware of things before 9/11 but didn't take them 
seriously enough? Shouldn't that add some credibility to the al-Qaeda 
connection? I hardly suspect the government fabricated such things as reports 
that show their incompetence.

>
> > and the fact that the
> > hijackers had al-Qaeda connections, including traveling to Afghanistan in
> > the late 90's and being associated with a known al-Qaeda-linked mosque in
> > Germany would seem to do the trick.
>
> That is too idiotic to believe.  They also traveled to the US.  At this
> point I truly question if you being intellectually honest or are just
> arguing.  B/c if you make up this kind of crap I don't even care to debate
 
  Is this your typical argumentative style in the real world? I'm arguing from 
a much more mainstream view, you should know I'm not making this stuff up. 
And if you don't, you clearly have spent too much time studying conspiracies 
and not enough studying the more accepted views to see if they might actually 
make sense.

> with you anymore. From your argument Germany is also responsible, as is the
> US, as well as any other country the perps at some point in their life
> travelled to, obtained funding in, etc.

  You missed my point. They travelled to Afghanistan. Why would they travel to 
Afghanistan? Why do most people later associated with terrorism or thought to 
be terrorists travel to a country with very little to offer? Quite possibly 
to go to al-Qaeda's camps. Why did all of the terrorists "lose" their visas 
after returning if everythign was innocent and fine?

> And while I'm at it, please answer the question I asked in the Star Wars
> thread re: what you would do if Europe said it would militarize space and
> shoot down US satellites if we deployed them.  A full, honest answer,
> please.  I am sick of evasions and inventing things :-((.  Your evidence
> above is laughably weak and you want to justify a war for it!

  Listen, I'm not trying to build a water tight case, I'm giving you snippets. 
I don't have months to dedicate to the study of this. You said recently that 
you are immersing yourself in all of this for at least a month... I don't 
have that luxury so I can't build a court case in a few minutes. I can 
present some evidence that sounds reasonable quite quickly.

   I'm sick of evidence you don't like, opinions you don't agree with, and so 
forth being called either propaganda or fabrications that I've made 
(tarnishing, however little, most unfairly my reputation as someone that 
doesn't fabricate things). This is a personal attack, make no bones about it, 
and I do consider it as such.

   At any rate, if you read that NON-OFFICIAL opinion piece about the 
militarization of space, or at least your article on it, it would appear that 
allies would not be shot out of space at all... at worst, rogue nations' 
space weapons would be.


> >   The problem is that all of this doesn't fit together into a clear
> > picture. For example: let's say that the Bushes were linked to the Nazis.
> > How does that help?
>
> It doesn't have to help or hurt, just admit it.  And how it matters:  it
> has everything to do with that family and its values.

  It hurts because you are taking two very contradictory views and saying the 
same people hold them. That doesn't make sense.

> > After all, the nation that the Bushes are most often attacked for
> > siding with is Israel! Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but since when did
> > Nazis support an independent country for Jews?
>
> That is not a relevant question.  Prescott Bush, AFAIK, had no hatred for
> Jews (nor did IBM for that matter, despite providing the computers for
> Auschwitz), they were interested in profits and the fact of genocide was
> not something which prevented their investment (or, in the case of Bush,
> the US being at war with Germany).

  So what Prescott Bush did should be held against George W. Bush? Surely 
that's a bad argument unless you are sure that everyone in your family as a 
perfectly clean record that you would be proud to be judged by.

> No, this time maybe he is willing to kill all the Arabs instead of all the
> Jews.  Why do you think Prescott was particularly hateful of Jews, that he
> would invest in IG Farben and be the Nazis' banker?  I don't think he was,
> I think the Bush Crime Family is amoral / Machiavellian.

  So, seriously here, you think the Bush family has some kind of amoral gene 
that is spread from generation to generation?

> I don't see any conflicting evidence.  The fact that Prescott Bush was in
> bed with the Nazis is uncontroverted, and if you think it is, please point
> to the evidence.

  I'm not arguing with that either way, I don't know the evidence. I'm arguing 
with its relevency to the current issues in any way other than throwing mud 
at Bushes that weren't involved or even alive when this Bush did that.

  -Tim

- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy R. Butler       Universal Networks      www.uninet.info
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