USA Politics Thread - *No gun debate*

[EiZei 0]

I understand the guys shouldn't have their underwear showing but no g-strings..

So the guys should use g-strings instead?

[maximilien 0]

Strange atitude.

A country who give the rights to arm his citizens and give

such liberties and in same time don't tolerate some sort of fashion is an idiostism... A citizen is responsible of his acts and speech but his mode of clothing must be approved ?

lol, welcome to UTOPIA GATACA

[billybob2002 0]

I understand the guys shouldn't have their underwear showing but no g-strings..

So the guys should use g-strings instead?

Get my gun..

[theavonlady 2]

The Trouser Rebellion.

EDIT: Better yet - The Boxers Rebellion.

[kerosene 0]

Where would the law stand if you just stopped wearing underwear and let the crack of your arse show instead?

[ralphwiggum 6]

just another dumb law. soon to be nixed.

[theavonlady 2]

Where would the law stand if you just stopped wearing underwear

I assume you would be punished with a brief jail term.

[Duke_of_Ray 0]

Where would the law stand if you just stopped wearing underwear

I assume you would be punished with a brief jail term.

[ralphwiggum 6]

DOR, you've been here long enough to know the rules, yet you just can't behave. wait for PR sentencing.

[theavonlady 2]

DOR, you've been here long enough to know the rules, yet you just can't behave. wait for PR sentencing.

To be on-topic #1: Ralph, you caught DOR with his pants down.

To be on-topic #2: Here's Ronny!

An oversize display of the U.S. postage stamp that will honor

former President Ronald is seen in this Nov. 9, 2004 file

photo, in Simi Valley, Calif. The nation's 40th president joins

the list of people honored on a U.S. postage stamp

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2005 with special ceremonies across the

country. While a single site suffices for most new stamp

ceremonies, official events are being held at in Washington,

Simi Valley and Sacramento, Calif. and in Dixon, IL, Reagan's

childhood home. (AP Photo)

[theavonlady 2]

Quote[/b] ]

Teresa Heinz drops 'Kerry'

A campaign convenience is no more.

According to The Washington Times, Teresa Heinz, the erstwhile Teresa Heinz Kerry, has stopped using the last name of her husband, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, last year's Democrat presidential nominee.

Preceding its Women Who Make a Difference Awards dinner next month, the National Council for Research on Women is featuring "a conversation with Teresa Heinz," according to a release from the organization. The council failed to mention the final half of the Fox Chapel ketchup heiress' formerly elongated last name in several other references.

"I just checked and she no longer uses her (entire) last name; only during the (presidential) campaign did she use Kerry," campaign spokeswoman Tamara Rodriguez Reichberg said.

We suppose this means the Kerrys (er, make that Heinz and Kerry) will have to get their checks reprinted, but it's an expense they probably can afford.

[ralphwiggum 6]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/11/911.memo.reut/index.html

Quote[/b] ]WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A newly released memo warned the White House at the start of the Bush administration that al Qaeda represented a threat throughout the Islamic world, a warning that critics said went unheeded by President Bush until the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The memo dated January 25, 2001 -- five days after Bush took office -- was an essential feature of last year's hearings into intelligence failures before the attacks on New York and Washington. A copy of the document was posted on the National Security Archive Web site Thursday.

The memo, from former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke to then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, had been described during the hearings but its full contents had not been disclosed.

Clarke, a holdover from the Clinton administration, had requested an immediate meeting of top national security officials as soon as possible after Bush took office to discuss combating al Qaeda. He described the network as a threat with broad reach.

"Al Qaeda affects centrally our policies on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, North Africa and the GCC (Gulf Arab states). Leaders in Jordan and Saudi Arabia see al Qaeda as a direct threat to them," Clarke wrote.

"The strength of the network of organizations limits the scope of support friendly Arab regimes can give to a range of U.S. policies, including Iraq policy and the (Israeli-Palestinian) Peace Process. We would make a major error if we underestimated the challenge al Qaeda poses."

The memo also warned of overestimating the stability of moderate regional allies threatened by al Qaeda.

It recommended that the new administration urgently discuss the al Qaeda network, including the magnitude of the threat it posed and strategy for dealing with it.

The document was declassified April 7, 2004, one day before Rice's testimony before the September 11 commission. It was released recently by the National Security Council to the National Security Archive -- a private library of declassified U.S. documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The meeting on al Qaeda requested by Clarke did not take place until September 4, 2001.

[billybob2002 0]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/11/gulag.report/index.html

Quote[/b] ]

Official says hundreds of U.S. citizens likely died in gulags

Friday, February 11, 2005 Posted: 9:36 AM EST (1436 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. military service members may have been imprisoned and died in Soviet forced-labor camps during the 20th century, according to a Pentagon report to be released Friday.

Researchers for the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs have been investigating unconfirmed reports of Americans who were held prisoner in the so-called gulags.

"I personally would be comfortable saying that the number [of Americans held in the gulags during the Cold War and Korean War] is in the hundreds," said Norman Kass, executive secretary of the commission's U.S. section.

The Soviet gulag system remained strong until the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1953. But some camps remained in existence for years afterward.

Soviet authorities imprisoned millions who were considered "enemies of the state" and forced them to perform hard labor in the network of camps in remote areas of the country.

The publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago" in the early '70s focused the West's attention on the camps.

For more than a decade, Kass and his team have investigated dozens of reports about Americans spotted in the gulags.

"We have multiple lists of American servicemen missing and, of course, they are arranged by conflict," he said. "We have lists from World War II, from the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the various casualties during the Cold War."

Friday's 90-page Pentagon report is the fifth in a series of updates about the missing troops.

A separate internal Pentagon document has concluded "there is a high probability" that American citizens and U.S. and British prisoners of war died in the camps.

"We recognize that we may not be able to close a single page on the hundreds -- if I'm correct -- of people unaccounted for, but the importance of this program is the fact that we allow the process to go forward, and we draw attention to the importance of it, both for the nation and those in uniform who serve the nation," Kass said.

In one case, the daughter of a man imprisoned in a Siberian gulag told investigators in 2002 that her father had met an American named Stanley Warner. In 1957, another former prisoner reported having seen three U.S. soldiers there -- one of whom called himself Stanley Warner.

One roadblock to the U.S. efforts has been the Russian government's refusal to open its intelligence and security archives, Kass said in the report.

"To date, the results of these efforts have been less than encouraging," he said.

U.S. Defense Department officials are pressing the Russians open up these archives, hoping that documents could provide more information.

CNN's Barbara Starr contributed to this report.

I wonder what would of happened if this was bought out when the Soviet Union existed.

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]I wonder what would of happened if this was bought out when the Soviet Union existed.

I find it hard to believe that they didn't know....or certainly at least suspected.

[kerosene 0]

They had no problem looking the other way about p.o.w's still held after the end of the vietnam war, I dont think this would be very different.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]I wonder what would of happened if this was bought out when the Soviet Union existed.

I find it hard to believe that they didn't know....or certainly at least suspected.

Yeah, they probably suspected that. I wonder what the public reaction would had been if it was revealed that the Soviets had americans in the gulags.

(useless) It was no secret to the US government that some of the migs flown by NK during the Korean War were by the soviet pilots.

[EiZei 0]

503 is a drop in a sea of blood when considering the total amount of people killed in gulags.

[billybob2002 0]

503 is a drop in a sea of blood when considering the total amount of people killed in gulags.

Yeah but it has not come out in public before that some of dead were american and british servicemen.

[ralphwiggum 6]

http://www.cnn.com/2005....ex.html

Quote[/b] ]MUNICH, Germany (AP) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld struck a conciliatory tone at an international security conference, saying the American-European alliance could withstand its current differences and called for unified efforts to defeat terrorism and weapons proliferation.

Referring to his earlier critical description of European nations that opposed the Iraq war as "old Europe," he said, "That was old Rumsfeld," drawing laughs from the assembled officials.

"Our collective security depends on our cooperation and mutual respect and understanding," Rumsfeld said Saturday. Among those attending were U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and German Defense Minister Peter Struck.

Rumsfeld called for further cooperative efforts to counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.

"Our Atlantic alliance relationship has navigated through some choppy seas over the years. But we have always been able to resolve the toughest issues. That is because there is so much to unite us: common values, shared histories, and an abiding faith in democracy," Rumsfeld said.

The Pentagon chief said joint legal, diplomatic and intelligence efforts were crucial.

"By now it must be clear that one nation cannot defeat the extremists alone," Rumsfeld said.

"It will take the cooperation of many nations to stop the proliferation of dangerous weapons ... and it surely takes a community of nations to gather intelligence about extremist networks, to break up financial support lines, or to apprehend suspected terrorists," Rumsfeld said.

He added, "The military can only be part of the solution and it is always the last resort."

The secretary singled out France and Germany, two of the most vocal critics of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, for praise for their arrests of suspected Islamic extremists last month.

His description of France and Germany as part of "old Europe" caused bad blood in the run-up to the war.

Rumsfeld came out strongly against a suggestion to move away from NATO as the main vehicle for trans-Atlantic dialogue.

"NATO has a great deal of energy and vitality," Rumsfeld said. "I believe they are undertaking the kinds of reforms to bring the institution into the 21st century. The place to discuss trans-Atlantic issues clearly is NATO."

Struck opened the conference by suggesting a move away from NATO and proposing more direct coordination between the European Union and the United States.

The defense minister said NATO "is no longer the primary venue where trans-Atlantic partners discuss and coordinate strategies." He recommended forming a commission to study his idea.

De Hoop Scheffer, citing NATO missions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, said the alliance "has seen more change and transformation over the past three or four years than in the many decades before. Let's not say NATO is ill or terminally ill ... this alliance is very alive."

Rumsfeld's trip to Germany followed stops to France and Iraq in the past week. At a conference of NATO defense ministers in France, he advocated greater alliance participation in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He also said he believed that U.S. and European policy concerning Iran's nuclear ambitions were in accord. "There is not much daylight between the approach of the United States and the Europeans," Rumsfeld said.

The speech at the gathering of leading security officials was a late addition to Rumsfeld's agenda and came after German prosecutors decided not to investigate Rumsfeld on war crimes allegations.

Rumsfeld's aides did not say there was a direct link between the prosecutors' announcement and Rumsfeld's decision to attend the conference. But last week, Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon that the legal matter was one factor in considering whether to go to Munich.

The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit with German federal prosecutors in November charging that U.S. officials, including Rumsfeld, were responsible for acts of torture against detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

[bonko the sane 2]

http://masteroni.student.utwente.nl/hu.html

[nSe7eN 0]

http://masteroni.student.utwente.nl/hu.html

Very damn funny!

That remembers me of this quote!

In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.--Adlai Stevenson 1900-1965

And this picture!

Maybe in the future who knows!

[theavonlady 2]

http://masteroni.student.utwente.nl/hu.html  

LOL!

Quote[/b] ]Can you get chinese food in the Middle East?

Yes, sir.

[theavonlady 2]

Maybe in the future who knows!

You must be a native US citizen in order to qualify for presidential candidacy.

Sorry, Arnie!

[Sophion-Black 0]

What do you all think about Syria and Iran forming an aliance?

My opinion is much like the publics, they what to keep us out of there lands. but like i said... its like, not is. Iran and Syria may be in a deal to get nuclear weapons (i bet your all tired of that phrase). like today the Russains said that there was nuclear material that was "unaccounted for". if they really were worried then they would say "missing", its enough to make a nuclear missle (or something about those lines). but what bothers me most is that most people don't see whats going on.

1) The US said that Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea... (maybe others that i missed, i know i missed some) are "axis of evil".

2) The US didn't invade Iraq for the (lack) nuclear weapons, they attact because of a combonation. There is too much detail, and so little time so all you need to know is that Saudi Arabia is a country we are just itching to get at, but we can't because of their oil. Afganistan was a major hit to Al Queda, but there still out there. US history about post-war eras (WWII, Soviet Union was allies to the US. but not in the cold war. Afganistan was an ally to the US durring the cold war. now we just hit them into a pulp. Suadi Arabia was an ally for the first Persain Gulf War, now... this is still bieing writen). War is 90% politics.

3) North Korea is a country hot on the trails of getting nuclear weapons (still not confermed wether they do)

4) Iran <> North Korea - strong allies

5) Russia and Chechneya are at war, Iran and Syria know this very well.

6) Chances are: Syria will have nukes soon, surrounding Iraq and might point them right at them if the US succeed on building a strong Iraq (and unwitingly a nice ally too, which is the aim of the US)

7) Syria might pull out of the deal if we can just show some form of aggression to get them to second-guess the deal (like send US soldiers to heavily gaurd US embasees in Syria, and send a carrier force outside there borders in international waters)

[nSe7eN 0]

Maybe in the future who knows!

You must be a native US citizen in order to qualify for presidential candidacy.

Sorry, Arnie!

Actually that picture supposed to be funny just like that link!

I don’t have the right to qualify him for such responsibility And my f0okin post didn’t come near that I just predicted the future from my point of view , but I think he’s already qualified to be responsible for California stat!

What do you all think about Syria and Iran forming an aliance?

My opinion is much like the publics, they what to keep us out of there lands. but like i said... its like, not is. Iran and Syria may be in a deal to get nuclear weapons (i bet your all tired of that phrase). like today the Russains said that there was nuclear material that was "unaccounted for". if they really were worried then they would say "missing", its enough to make a nuclear missle (or something about those lines). but what bothers me most is that most people don't see whats going on.

1) The US said that Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea... (maybe others that i missed, i know i missed some) are "axis of evil".

2) The US didn't invade Iraq for the (lack) nuclear weapons, they attact because of a combonation. There is too much detail, and so little time so all you need to know is that Saudi Arabia is a country we are just itching to get at, but we can't because of their oil. Afganistan was a major hit to Al Queda, but there still out there. US history about post-war eras (WWII, Soviet Union was allies to the US. but not in the cold war. Afganistan was an ally to the US durring the cold war. now we just hit them into a pulp. Suadi Arabia was an ally for the first Persain Gulf War, now... this is still bieing writen). War is 90% politics.

3) North Korea is a country hot on the trails of getting nuclear weapons (still not confermed wether they do)

4) Iran <> North Korea - strong allies

5) Russia and Chechneya are at war, Iran and Syria know this very well.

6) Chances are: Syria will have nukes soon, surrounding Iraq and might point them right at them if the US succeed on building a strong Iraq (and unwitingly a nice ally too, which is the aim of the US)

7) Syria might pull out of the deal if we can just show some form of aggression to get them to second-guess the deal (like send US soldiers to heavily gaurd US embasees in Syria, and send a carrier force outside there borders in international waters)

Nuclear weapons in the wrong hands are a real nightmare!

Especially governments ruled by extremists, or the influence of religion!

It’s a little bit different for democratic governments!