Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 06/29/05 8:13 am:

Hi Guys:

I was referring to the very last 10 seconds of his speech when he said something about our great military. His eyes welled up and he got all soppy.

Am I the only one who saw that?

excon

Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 06/29/05 8:24 am:

Hello again:

The pres say's that we're fighting them over there, so that we don't have to fight them over here.

If I was a terrorist and had my choice of fighting Americans in Iraq or going to the US to fight civilians, I'd go to the US (where I could watch a movie between bombings). If they CAN come over here, why don't they?

Isn't that argument salacious?

excon

Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 06/29/05 8:43 am:
No ex, I saw it - in fact with my really cool satellite DVR I backed it up to make sure my wife saw it, too :)

I don't know about salacious, "arousing or appealing to sexual desire or imagination," but I'm sure some see it as fallacious or specious.

I would think these terrorists know that they could not come here to fight and win, not to mention this is also to them about driving "the crusaders...occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places" as bin Laden says. But as the goal of the Jihadists is world domination, the submission to Islam of everyone, it makes sense to me to defeat this evil before it spreads any further.

Steve

Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 06/29/05 9:00 am:

Hello Its:

How do you know such big words down in Texas? I thought the biggest word y'all knew was pick-up.

excon

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 06/29/05 9:07 am:
I do not think it a 'specious' argument at all. 9-11 happened because our guard was down ;because a series of provocations were not answered .Each attack brought them closer to our shores . An embassy attack here ;a barracks attack their ;a naval vessel attacked and damaged ;the weak response to the 1st WTC attack all led Islamo-nazis to conclude that our toughest response would be a day or two of tomahawk attacks .

The Dems. are howling about Bush linking Iraq to 9-11 again ,but they are wrong and he is right. The evidence is indesputable that Saddam not only sponsored terrorism but had at least an understanding with bin Laden.

.Andrew McCarthy details some of them today :

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir — the Iraqi Intelligence operative who facilitated a 9/11 hijacker into Malaysia and was in attendance at the Kuala Lampur meeting with two of the hijackers, and other conspirators, at what is roundly acknowledged to be the initial 9/11 planning session in January 2000? Who was arrested after the 9/11 attacks in possession of contact information for several known terrorists? Who managed to make his way out of Jordanian custody over our objections after the 9/11 attacks because of special pleading by Saddam’s regime?

Saddam's intelligence agency's efforts to recruit jihadists to bomb Radio Free Europe in Prague in the late 1990's?

Mohammed Atta's unexplained visits to Prague in 2000, and his alleged visit there in April 2001 which — notwithstanding the 9/11 Commission's dismissal of it (based on interviewing exactly zero relevant witnesses) — the Czechs have not retracted?

The Clinton Justice Department's allegation in a 1998 indictment (two months before the embassy bombings) against bin Laden, to wit: In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.

Seized Iraq Intelligence Service records indicating that Saddam's henchmen regarded bin Laden as an asset as early as 1992?

Saddam's hosting of al Qaeda No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri beginning in the early 1990’s, and reports of a large payment of money to Zawahiri in 1998?

Saddam’s ten years of harboring of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin?

Iraqi Intelligence Service operatives being dispatched to meet with bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 (the year of bin Laden’s fatwa demanding the killing of all Americans, as well as the embassy bombings)?

Saddam’s official press lionizing bin Laden as “an Arab and Islamic hero” following the 1998 embassy bombing attacks?

The continued insistence of high-ranking Clinton administration officials to the 9/11 Commission that the 1998 retaliatory strikes (after the embassy bombings) against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory were justified because the factory was a chemical weapons hub tied to Iraq and bin Laden?

Top Clinton administration counterterrorism official Richard Clarke’s assertions, based on intelligence reports in 1999, that Saddam had offered bin Laden asylum after the embassy bombings, and Clarke’s memo to then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, advising him not to fly U-2 missions against bin Laden in Afghanistan because he might be tipped off by Pakistani Intelligence, and “[a]rmed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad”? (See 9/11 Commission Final Report, p. 134 & n.135.)

Terror master Abu Musab Zarqawi's choice to boogie to Baghdad of all places when he needed surgery after fighting American forces in Afghanistan in 2001?

Saddam's Intelligence Service running a training camp at Salman Pak, were terrorists were instructed in tactics for assassination, kidnapping and hijacking?

Former CIA Director George Tenet’s October 7, 2002 letter to Congress, which asserted:

Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.

We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade.

Credible information indicates that Iraq and Al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression.

Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.

We have credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.

Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of relationship with Al Qaeda suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action.


other confirming links include (all reported before the Bush Presidency )

http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1999/01/990127-in.htm by Laurie Mylorie (formerly Clinton terrorist tzar)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,798270,00.html (by Guardian UK )

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,314700,00.html (by Guardian UK)

and from Saddam's favorite network ..CNN came this in 1999

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against the Western powers. http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9902/13/afghan.binladen/

Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 06/29/05 9:15 am:
ex,

The biggest word we know is "dadgummit" :)

Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 06/29/05 10:27 am:
tom,

I don't think it a specious, fallacious or salacious argument - it makes sense to me.

Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 06/29/05 11:14 am:

Guys:

Ok, it's a fellatio argument - I know what that means.

excon