Another great idea by the US government

[gekko]

Originally Posted by GiMpY-wAnNaBe

hmm, never looked at many of those things in that way.... stupid CNN *muttering*

Hope you're not getting the wrong impression about CNN. CNN should only be reporting the facts, and leave you to form your own opinions about it. Now most news stations on TV are full of programs that bring in people to have political discussions. Those people will try to get their message across, but it will likely only show one side of the issue. CNN itself should never be suggesting anything about a war with Iran, but someone who comes on CNN may. It's his/her opinion, but they doesn't speak for the government, and they are likely only telling one side of the issue. The other problem with those shows, which was made very apparent when making the case for Iraq, is that they make the issue seem very cut and dry, and they never are. There are many things which are important, but will never make it into those short segments. Everything goes much deeper, but that stuff is usually left out of TV.

Anyway, before I get into a long rant on how I hate the media, I'll get back to the point. Someone who goes on CNN may think we're going to war with Iran, but there are many out there who also think that we won't. Don't start blaming Bush for something that someone on CNN is predicting. The White House handles each situation differently, and they have never said they plan to attack Iran. There's nothing wrong with watching CNN, but be sure to listen to both sides of the issue, because the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle. CNN's website is a much better place for information, if you want to avoid so much of the editorial, but they will only report what is new. For a better understanding of the whole situation, past, present and future, magazines like TIME, US News & World Report, and The Atlantic Monthly usually do a better job of giving you a more in-depth look at the situation, and not just what is currently going on.

[GameMaster]

I agree with gekko, I think the idea is creative and it also promotes America's youth to let loose secrets in exchange for financial incentives. It's a win-win situation.

[gekko]

Well I stumbled upon a few other articles, for anyone interested.

First, we have a follow-up on the article. The plan has been canceled, and it seems many were unaware of it. Surprise, surprise.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp.../terror_market

Next up, the San Francisco Chronicle has an article on it, which explains it much better. Still can't say I support it, but the article does clear some things up, and explains the basis behind it. I might even go so far and say it's a decent idea on paper, but it would never work in the real world.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...9/MN126930.DTL

And last but not least, this isn't the Pentagon's only experiment involving the stock market. A grant was given to MarTek (Market Technology Systems) to develop these markets. Currently they have demo markets on the Homeland Security threat level, and the spread of SARS.

[Vampyr]

Originally Posted by gekko

I was just jokingly saying that I look at each issue differently. I side with the Republicans more often than not, but there are many issues where I side with the Democrats. This isn't a me against you issue, I disagreed with you there cause I think you were wrong there, doesn't mean I do now, nor do I see this issue being divided on party lines. Two Democrats oppose it, I don't see the Republicans supporting it. Even the Republican-controlled Senate wants to cut funding to the project.

Your right. Only most of the time I agree with Democrats, but then every now and then one of them will com along and do something stupid that just makes me shake my head. People seem to think our entire government and political beliefs can be broken down into a couple of parties. Not going to happen, people are too diverse.

For this particular program, I don't think it should've ever been made avaliable to the public. I think it should've been displayed amongst the research groups, and maybe tried something different using the basic idea, or file it away. What scares me is that they planned to register next week, if I remember correctly. It progressed way too far.

Yeah, thats what I was saying. They were stupid for even announcing this idea had been run through there head.

It was a Pentagon research group, Bush isn't running it. I haven't heard Bush support it either.

Yeah, neither have I. Some people seem to think that Bush has a major influence on EVERYTHING that happens in America. Hes not smart enough for that, no one is. People seem to forget that we have a Senate, a house of representatives, sepreme court, cabinets, etc.

[Stonecutter]

Being pro-anything that deals with gambling, I don't have a problem with the government setting up a betting service.

But imagine if there were some european country with a "predict american leaders deaths" gambling ring going on. There would be so much outrage from politicians in the US. I'm sure there will be outrage abroad, however. This, like about 99% of the things the government is doing to "fight terrorism" will actually encourage more terrorism.

Now, if you really want to take some steps to stop terrorism, you could do something like.....oh.... I don't know.... maybe.... STOP GIVING MONEY/SUPPORT TO ISRAEL!

But that'll never happen...

[Bond]

This keeps interest up. So it is a smart idea.

And I wouldn't be proud to be a Democrat right now. You have one huge image problem.

[Jewels]

Originally Posted by Jason1

That seems very stupid.

i would have to agree with him on this one..

[Vampyr]

Originally Posted by Bond

This keeps interest up. So it is a smart idea.

Im not even going to coment on that.

And I wouldn't be proud to be a Democrat right now. You have one huge image problem.

Whatever, man. Ill be proud of whatever the hell I want to be proud of.

[Bond]

Originally Posted by Vampyr

Im not even going to coment on that.

Terrorists are proven to attack when least expected. If you keep public interest up in the war against terrorism people will remain vigilant and it will be less likely that there will be a terrorist attack. It's an extremely simple concept.

I posted on another thread, the one about saddams sons confirmed dead, that America is doing stupid things that they dont have buisiness doing. Many people there forceably disagreed with me. Lets see them defend this.

Please do not turn this one of those "us vs. you" kind of things. We all of have our own unique opinions and that would be senseless.

And gekko is right about CNN. They should only report the facts, and not be opinionated in that regard. I still prefer newspapers over news channels. And there's a pretty low possibility that we could wage war with Iran. There will most likely be an uprising against the current government instead. Bet CNN didn't tell you that, eh gimpy?

[GiMpY-wAnNaBe]

Originally Posted by Bond

Terrorists are proven to attack when least expected. If you keep public interest up in the war against terrorism people will remain vigilant and it will be less likely that there will be a terrorist attack. It's an extremely simple concept.


Please do not turn this one of those "us vs. you" kind of things. We all of have our own unique opinions and that would be senseless.

And gekko is right about CNN. They should only report the facts, and not be opinionated in that regard. I still prefer newspapers over news channels. And there's a pretty low possibility that we could wage war with Iran. There will most likely be an uprising against the current government instead. Bet CNN didn't tell you that, eh gimpy?

nope, they actually failed to mention that, , but you have to admit the current US government is having quite a few of unhappy citizens on its hands. not to mention global citizens, although i don't blame bush for everything, i do blame him for supporting a lot of things like a war Iraq, i mean, he hasn't found the weapons, yet he still persists they ARE there, not they MIGHT be there. In my mind the possibility that they are there doesn't exist, I don't think its all bushes fault, i just think the current government is corrupt.

[gekko]

Originally Posted by GiMpY-wAnNaBe

nope, they actually failed to mention that, , but you have to admit the current US government is having quite a few of unhappy citizens on its hands. not to mention global citizens, although i don't blame bush for everything, i do blame him for supporting a lot of things like a war Iraq, i mean, he hasn't found the weapons, yet he still persists they ARE there, not they MIGHT be there. In my mind the possibility that they are there doesn't exist, I don't think its all bushes fault, i just think the current government is corrupt.

The US government will always has unhappy citizens on its hands. It doesn't matter what administration, there are a lot of people who won't like it. Even with Reagan, where he won every state except Minnesota Funny though, Mondale can beat Reagan in this state, but can't beat Coleman for a Senate seat. Haha Back on track, making global citizens happy is not the responsibility of the US government. Being anti-Bush may have helped Germany's president win the election, but Germans don't vote in the US. People will always hate the US, the issue changes, but it's always there.

Now, on to WMD. The CIA had incredibly poor human intelligence in Iraq to actually tell us where these things are. The CIA has many problems these days, and not having human intelligence makes it really hard to find weapons. Saddam has been successfully hiding weapons for 12 years, in other words, he's an expert. See, what I find funny is that the very people who are worried about finding weapons are the ones who made it this difficult in the first place. Ideally, we should've attacked Iraq, without ever sending an inspector. Catch them offgaurd, before they have a chance to get all their defenses setup, and weapons hidden. But of course, lovely politicians don't think that way. So instead, Bush agrees to send back inspectors. If they can't do their job in a decade, how can anybody expect them to do any better in a couple months? Of course, they still didn't agree to the terms, where they could go anywhere. All interviews were done with an Iraqi government official there waiting to kill them, that's a lot of help. Oh, and let's not forget they were kept out of private homes. When the inspectors wanted to go into an Army base, they were told they couldn't. Of course, it didn't really make the headlines. Thank you media.

Anyway, inspectors are still given a guided tour of Iraq, come up with nothing. Only gives Saddam more time to hide them, and prepare. So then we take them out, and wait while we debate in the UN forever. Well that's great. Now we have no one in the country, and he is free to begin hiding these weapons wherever he chooses. He also gets time to stick the Fedayeen in with regular units to make the fighting harder than it ever should've been.

So where are they? Good question. At the end of the war we had only checked a third of the sites we knew about. Right now, we have over 7 miles of paper work recorvered, that they need to examine, which is a very slow process. Lack of human intelligence means we're stuck relying on people telling us where they are, and since we just now killed the kiddies, and big papa is still out there, I wouldn't expect to many Iraqis to be speaking quite yet. Common sense will tell you they exist. Throughout this process there have been many things found that help prove that they exist. Everything's there except the actual weapon, which they don't have for no reason. You don't by bullets if you don't have the gun. Finding those will be a lengthy process, and they are probably in some deep underground bunker that we don't know about, and only a few people would be able to point out.

As for Bush, he shouldn't ever say that there might not be there. As a leader, he needs to be confident. When people look to their leader, they want someone who can make a decision and stand behind it, and not crumble under pressure.

All government is corrupt, however, you need to be careful when you look at it that way. Everyone has their own personal agendas that they work for, and politicians are conceaned about the party, and not the people. Politics has a role in everything, unfortunately. But you take it way too far. Would the United States ever attack a country for oil? No. Would the United States give a construction deal to Halliburton over an equally-qualified company? Probably. Would the United States go to war to give Halliburton a job? No.

[Bond]

We must go over the same simple points over and over and over and over.

[Professor S]

Ok, I'm going to post on this finally. Some will be repetitive of what I have said on earlier threads, but since some people don't like to listen when the things that are said don't agree with their ideaology, I will repeat them:

The following are FACT

Weapons of Mass Destruction

1) Anti-War people love to scream about how we haven't found anything. Legally we didn't NEED to find anything. The responsibility was on Iraq to provide proof of the weapons destruction or storage that accounted for all listed from 1998, when the UN found illicit weapons. They were to provide this proof or face "serious consequences". I blame the UN for the vagueness in their decree.

Iraq never attempted to be concillatory to the UN inspectors, as admitted by Hans Blix. This makes Iraq in violation of the UN order. Please keep in mind that the two biggest opposing views on the war came from France, who has a track record of purchasing re-sold food and medicine from Iraq's Oil for Food program which was intended for the Iraqi people and had clandestine Oil contracts with Iraw during the embargo, AND Russia who were discovered to have been actively selling arms to Iraq even while the war was going on. Conflict of interest anyone?

Bottomline: By letter interational law Iraq was in violation of the UN, not just the US's views.

BTW, illegal weapons were found all over the place, just not chemical or biological. Think Al Samoud 2 missiles. By having these alone they are in physical breach.

2) Chemical and Biological Trailers and Beans OH MY - There have been many tons of Beans used to make Risin (sp?) gas in Iraq. Can these beans be used for food purposes? Yes, but considering that Iraq was reselling food and medicine from the Oil for Food program to fund their military, this makes no sense. Same could be said for the trailers, but there are several flaws in believing these trailers were used for food.

a) Why a Trailer? If producing food in a trailer is so efficient and cost effective, why don't wee see Keebler making cookies in them? The fact is it makes no sense to make food out of several trailers. If Iraq was maaking food, they would have had a central processing center and then used those trucks and trains to distribute the goods. Lets use common sense here.

b) Fermentation Tanks - Each trailer had fermentation tanks. Unless the Iraqi government was making Bean Beer, there is no other use for them besides producing chemical weapons.

3) Where Did All Those Weapons Go? - Do you really think that any government who wished to prove themselves as legitimate in front of the world audience would destroy over 1,000 tons of chemical and biological weapons in 4 years and NOT HAVE A SINGLE RECORD SHOWING THAT THEY WERE DESTROYED NOR HAVE PROOF THAT ANY INSTALLATION WAS USED TO DESTROY THEM????? Once again we fall back to the common sense issue.

Argue semantics all you like, but both the letter of the law and common sense back the United State's involvement in Iraq.

[Vampyr]

Originally Posted by Bond

We must go over the same simple points over and over and over and over.

WHAT!? Im agreeing with Bond! Seems impossible...

Seriously, we did the whole "going to Iraq was stupid" debate before.

[Bond]

Originally Posted by Vampyr

WHAT!? Im agreeing with Bond! Seems impossible...

Seriously, we did the whole "going to Iraq was stupid" debate before.

Er, that's not really what I meant. I meant that some people still think going to war was the wrong thing to do. It's been proven time and time again that it was the right thing to do. Look what Strangler posted, that alone is enough to go to war. Facts are on our side of the issue. If you won't listen to them it's pointless to discuss with a wall. Maybe that was what you meant, oh well... sorry if it was.

And for the record Hans Blix is a ****ing idiot who didn't want to find any weapons so he could keep his job.