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Date Posted: 18:24:15 03/29/04 Mon
Author: mt. healthy mountaineer
Subject: Re: Are you guys buying this stuff?
In reply to: stu 's message, "Re: Are you guys buying this stuff?" on 15:37:25 03/29/04 Mon

STU: Okay, I did make one mistake. Osama was never my buddy. He was a friend and business associate of the Bush family. I'm not going to waste my time proving it to you. Look into it. You have the internet.

Here's what I found -ignoring the oodles of sites that claim Bush is somehow in the opium business with Osama and the site that claims Wesley clark is somehow involved too - but wait it has charts to prove it! Anyway, from Americanfreepress.net:

Osama's oldest brother invested in George's startup oil company in the late 1970s by way of an investment bank.

That's it.

But wait - its Osama's brother. Surely, they must be close! Yes, probably as close as you can be considering the following situation:

"When the family patriarch, Sheik Mohammed bin Laden, died in 1968, he left an industrial and financial empire and a progeny of 54 sons and daughters, the fruit of a number of wives. In 1972, Salem bin Laden, the oldest son, took over the estate as his father's successor, with the assistance of several brothers.

Considering Osama was 13 when his dad died I doubt he and his oldest brother were terribly close.

As for the famed bin Laden family plane trips, they are disconcerting, but perhaps you should find them less so when you discover that Richard Clarke gave them the okay to leave.

I'll refer you to the source of my information, www.snopes.com. It is a tremendous Urban Legend debunking site. One of the longest passages I've seen on the site concerns these bin Laden family flights. The site I'm referring to is: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flight.htm

Turns out your version is only partially true...

STU: "I know it is easier to simply demonize your enemy instead of trying to understand him. So you are of the "They are evil and they hate us because of our freedom" ilk?

I have no idea why bin Laden hates us. Neither does most of his own family. All I know is he has publicly stated his emphatic hatred for us and his willingness to kill us all. The only thing I've heard that comes close to an explanation is on one of his videos he said he'd kill us all unless we all converted to Islam. Perhaps that is his motivation. I assume he also hates our culture and freedom but that is merely assumption to fill in the blanks. I know he hates you more than me. Why? He is an orthodox Muslim and I as a Christian would be accorded a modicum of respect as a "person of the book" - christians are assumed to be misguided Muslims (in a way). You, on the other hand, as an avowed Atheist would be merely an unbeliever and accorded no respect. Sorry. If it gets to that point, post a message and I'll try to put in a good word for you!


Lets take your Hitler example. Everyone always loves to talk about Hitler. So you think he was inherently evil?
What about the rest of the people in Germany at the time? All of them were spawns of the devil?

To answer them all (in order): No, No, No.

Did Hitler do evil things? yes.

Did the German people? yes.

Were they devil-spawn? No. Us humans can do it pretty much without the aid of devil-spawn.

Cannot go there myself. Seems kind of ridiculous. Perhaps if their country had not been so utterly devestated after the first World War, Hitler would never have come to power. In fact, I'm sure of it.

Ah. So devestation causes evil dictatorships. So, after World War II Germany was thoroughly devestated - billions of dollars of more damage and millions of more lives lost than in World War I. So, that explains the ruthless dictatorships that arose in Post-WWII Germany. What?!?!? No, ruthless dictatorships? Thriving democracies at local and national levels? Surely you jest.

Your argument excuses evil by blaming it on circumstances.

You see, when you do not attempt to understand, you become just like those you hate. Germans are evil?

Hope not- I'm German."

STU: What is the difference between a soldier and a terrorist? I would aver that it is the size and power of the institution to which he belongs. It's much like the difference between a cult and a religion.

Stu, the difference are vast, but if you honestly look at a terrorist and a US navy seaman as the same thing than you have an "interesting" outlook on life.

Cults and religions are different as well, but your dictionary must be at the shop this week.

The U.S does not have to resort to "terrorism" to further its agenda. It has the largest military in the world.

No, we do not. That would be China (approx. 5 times our size according to PBS and the Guiness Book). According to a book called the Top 10 of everything, the US has the 6th largest army. We do have the largest defense budget, although to be fair, a dollar will stretch farther in China than it will here so a more accurate idea of how militarized a country is would be what percentage of its GNP it spends on its military, and we don't come close.

In fact, our military budget is more than that of all of the rest of the world's countries combined. Lets look at this for a second. We went to war against Iraq because they supposedly had weapons of mass destruction (which they did not.) If this is a good enough reason to go to war, then any other country in the world would be justified in going to war against the U.S.

Someone pointed this out to Rumsfeld and noted that France has about the same amount of non-nuclear WMD as Iraq was thought to have (note: not just Bush thought this, but so did Clinton, Richard Clarke, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the British, the Saudis, the Iranians and the UN security council). Rumsfeld pointed out that the French haven't had a recent history of using their WMD on their own (i.e. the Kurds) or their neighbors (i.e. Iran). If they had, we'd certainly be justified in taking them away from them.

If I own a gun and never use it in anger, am I threatening anyone. My grandfather has owned a rifle since he could carry one and he's never had to have been disarmed. On the other hand, would you give the Unabomber a gun?

We have more WMD than any other country.

About the same as Russia - less if you count bio-weapons. Then again, I may not be accurate since the Russians can't seem to keep their hands on the darn things! It seems that terror-supporting nations like Iran keep trying to buy them!

Of course, Afghanistan cannot declare war against us. The idea is ludicrous.

Really? Eleven Afghan-sponsored terrorists killed more Americans in one day than the entire Japanese navy did in Pearl Harbor. They killed more Americans in one day than the Germans did on D-Day. Sounds to me like they were pretty effective.

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