ironporer

Yeah yeah, just blame it on the Nigers. Ever since that darn Emancipation Proclamation and the whole civil rights thing 100 years later the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket.

Ridski

I think he means Niger, and Italian intel.

There's a book about it, called Collusion, by Italian journalists Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo. There's a transcript of the Bill Moyer's Journal interview with Carlo Bonini here.

To summarize, freelance Italian spy utilizes an Italian intelligence mole in the Niger embassy in Rome to help forge documentation that Iraq has been seeking yellow-cake uranium from Niger. He sells this to the Italian intelligence agency, and to the British. Berlusconi brings this information with him to the US, hoping it will help relations with the US. The US checks the information with Britain, Britain says they also have this information. Bush goes walks out into the State of the Union address and says, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

And boom goes the dynamite.

I've heard other reports that claim that Iraqi agents were in Niger looking for uranium, which I wouldn't totally discount. However, I was in a Ferarri dealership, too, a couple of weeks back, but I wasn't going to get one.

cpltony: If it were impossible for a conversation to go anywhere based on opposing viewpoints, nothing would ever be accomplished. Minds would never be changed. The world would be still be in the dark ages. Please don't be disheartened the hyperbole. I'd welcome a discussion about General Petraeus and his new anti-insurgency doctrine.

Thydney

I wonder if you noticed how he sucessfully wants to keep the squaddies there because it will turn to rat shit again

paddingtongreen

In fairness, Petraeus is doing what should have been done in the beginning. As soon as the hot war was over, the retired generals were being told by their former colleagues, that the occupation forces were to use the Malaya model. Unfortunately things were so screwed up that they tried the Viet Nam model instead, with the same results as the original.

In the Malaya model, you calculate how much territory you can protect, administer and police. You pick where to start and use that area to train additional people to take and secure additional territory, and so on. At the same time, you send trained guerilla forces into the unsecured territory, to out terrorize the terrorists ( the Brits used the SAS in Malaya, that's partly where they got their reputation). When the people are secure, they are your friends, and you gain more friends as you expand the safe zone.

Petreaus is now using a modified Malaya model.

All it needs is for the Iraqi government to sign on; but they ain't going to.

Ridski

Exactly. Petraeus actually wrote a book about the differences in the success of the Malaya model vs. the failure of the Vietnam model. Eating Soup With A Knife, I think it was called. And he and former Lt. Gen. Nagl wrote the new manual on counter-insurgency. I think that, implemented at the right time, we wouldn't be in anywhere near the mess we're in right now. At the moment, though, it does look like it's too little, too late.

bugman

huckabee seems interested in altering the constitution so that it somehow fits in with 'biblical law', im not sure what that means but the closest equivalent to that could be found in perhaps saudi or iran.

very worrying. i suppose it would mean something like evolution wouldnt be taught in schools thus disabling peoples ability to understand (not just remember facts) biology, homosexuality would be made illegal, maybe no work on the sabbath, sounds far fetched, well hopefully it is but theres a great many hucksters who would love it like that.

bugman

[QUOTE=BritGuyTN;5894898]Its also a vote for someone who doesn't believe in dinosaurs

QUOTE]

actually i think hucky does believe dinosaurs existed but only recently and with people, he also likely believes t rex (for example) was a vegetarian until the fall of adam, and then they became carnivorous and ate people, it was adams fault.

people are thinking im joking yes? I'm serious, thats what those anitievolutionist young earth creationist believe, its a very, very worrying scenario when what you are told when you are 3 years old by your grandma and priest can trump everything your qualified tutors and centuries of research suggest otherwise, its rather like the mental equivalent of living in iran or 500 years ago generally.

fatbrit

Or Oklahoma...

paddingtongreen

He later explained that the contexts were, only man to woman marriage, and abortion, and nothing else.

Of course, our development continues and we can "grow" from our previously held positions to new ones whenever we want.

I still think he is staying in to boost his fees for speaking engagements.

Tracym

[QUOTE=bugman;5941382] I adore one of my friend's responses - when her mil insisted (to her young daughter) that evolution was false:

" I BELIEVE I was an amoeba!!!!"

bugman

[QUOTE=Tracym;5941490] im not going to indulge in any evolution debates on here or even mention it again but unfortunately those who deny evolution or the process by which it happened, ie darwins theory (oh my god, did i say the word 'theory') of natural selection do NOT understand what it is, they never actually know what it is they dont believe, they tend to mention monkeys, slime and complex eyes and whatever other creationist nonsense they have been exposed to. They are not in a position to object but they feel they have some knowing authority to do so.

lets just say that its the equivalent of me, who knows nothing of flight engineering seeing a jumbo jet on the ground and shouting with some delusional authority:

'fly, no way, too heavy, BIG, gravity, cant, dont believe, just cant be true, metal heavier than air'

then seeing it fly and then simply closing my eyes, covering my ears and shouting 'i dont see it, i dont believe it, no, no, no'

but then getting on the next one and enjoying its benefits anyway.

bugman.

bugman

[QUOTE=Tracym;5941490] hahah, and at our single cell stage after fertilisation there isnt much between us and them!!

Thydney

I bet all those people shouted 'I told you so' when the BA jet 'landed' the other week

bugman

hahah, yes thats the mentality.

lapin_windstar

I'm not sure he knows what it means either, and he probably doesn't care. It's all grandstanding and gesture politics - he can talk as much he likes about banning abortion, teaching heterosexuality in schools, or censoring Hollywood, because there's not the slightest chance that it will ever happen. He knows that the constitutional, legal and political barriers to those policies ever being pushed through are insurmountable, and that if he were ever elected, there would be other things to do. All he's doing is waving a big flag to the Christian fundamentalist right and saying, "helloooooooo, I'm one of you!!!!!!!!!!!"