This is exactly why nobody trusts Bush

[Crazy Cooter]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10303175/
I hate linking to MSN articles.  They go and change them constantly.  Anyhow, Pakistan claimed they shot the missle that supposedly got a top Al-Qaida guy.  Now it looks like it was the US.  But the White House won't confirm it was our drone.  Why not?  If it was them, good.  If it was us, good.  Why make people wait?  There was just a big to-do on O'Reilly about reporters not saying enough "good" things.  It's tough when nobody wants to admit it was us (or them) that did it.

Then there's the "secret prison" stuff with all the flights around the EU:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10316560/
"Masri was held for five months largely because the head of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center's al Qaeda unit "believed he was someone else," one former CIA official said. "She didn't really know. She just had a hunch.""
...
"CIA officials stress that apprehensions and renditions are among the most sure-fire ways to take potential terrorists out of circulation quickly."
...
"To carry out its mission, the CTC relies on its Rendition Group, made up of case officers, paramilitaries, analysts and psychologists. Their job is to figure out how to snatch someone off a city street, or a remote hillside, or a secluded corner of an airport where local authorities wait.

Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA's own covert prisons -- referred to in classified documents as "black sites," which at various times have been operated in eight countries, including several in Eastern Europe."

Hello KGB 

Our response?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4497006.stm
"According to media reports in both the US and UK, Ms Rice will tell European allies to "back off" over the issue."
...
On Sunday, President Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley told US networks that Ms Rice would address the issue "in a comprehensive way".

""We comply with US law, we respect the sovereignty of the countries with which we deal, and we do not move people around the world so that they can be tortured," Mr Hadley told Fox News Sunday."

The rest of the article outlines how many flights are believed to have been used to move prisoners etc.  I just don't understand how we intend to tell our "allies" to pretty much F-off and then expect them to help us.  I think we're really painting ourselves into a corner here.

[brophog]

Are you new? The United States not claiming/lying/denying/etcetera that they did or did not do something. I'm outraged.

 

If you want to play blame games and ignore the fact that this is common U.S. policy and not isolated to Bush, then go ahead. Politics is a bunch of finger pointing and hypocrites anyhow and it takes one to stand behind ANY president or canidate.

Either that or Alzheimers.....

[Bones]

I really just wanted an excuse to post this picture....

[brophog]

Does that chick have a mustache?

[Dexter]

If you want to play blame games and ignore the fact that this is common U.S. policy and not isolated to Bush, then go ahead.

Do you think the people suffering this care whether its bushes or americas policy? Does it make it any more or less wrong??

[danny_galaga]

i had a bit of bush on saturday. more brazilian though than bush. I found it quite trustworthy...

[ChadTower]

Oh noes, elected politicians are doing bad things... it can't possibly be something that happens anywhere except here.

[Crazy Cooter]

I just don't understand the "holier than thou" approach that seems so prevelant lately.  What would we be saying to Germany if they started flying people around and making pitstops here?  I'm not saying we should tell everyone everything, but if we're bring people that are terrorists into other countries, we should be telling them.  Otherwise they're just going to throw us out.  If I was Germany, I'd tell us to close base and leave.  We'd do it to them.

And Rice... what a moron.  Is she trying to get us into more conflicts?

[ChadTower]

Rice is doing exactly what she is told to do.

[Thenasty]

Bill Clinton likes being in between BUSHES 

[ChadTower]

Did you spend all afternoon on that one? 

[Dartful Dodger]

If I was Germany, I'd tell us to close base and leave.

[Crazy Cooter]

Germany isn't going to let us do whatever we want in their country and not answer questions when they ask about it.  Other nations feel the same way.  If we keep up this attitude that whoever doesn't like what we do can stop hanging out with us, we'll be by ourselves pretty soon.

[Dartful Dodger]

Germany isn't going to let us do whatever we want in their country and not answer questions when they ask about it.

[ChadTower]

If we keep up this attitude that whoever doesn't like what we do can stop hanging out with us, we'll be by ourselves pretty soon.

We'd be better off focusing our resources internally anyway.  This policing the whole damn world act is getting old and our own country is going to the toilet while we try and 'save' a sand dune on the other side of the planet.

[fredster]

The US is the most influential country in the world Cooter.  Other countries may complain, but they can't do without us.  We hold up the free markets all over the world.

Nobody is going to abandon us.  They may not support us in war, but you bet they will economically.  We hold 'em by their pocketbooks.

If we were to suddenly stop buying German cars, their economy would collapse pretty fast.  Same with Japan. 

[ChadTower]

Yeah, you convince all the self entitled idiots to stop buying German cars.

The problem with that theory is that you can't implement a governmental solution.  You can't just tell independent corporations to stop importing German cars.

[Dexter]

If I was Germany, I'd tell us to close base and leave.

[ChadTower]

We should, really, just close up and come home.  Let France defend Europe if needed.

[Dexter]

Definitely. I think losing one war at a time is enough for any empire 

[ChadTower]

We haven't lost the Iraq war.  We have clearly won the war.

It is the occupation that we have lost.

[Dexter]

We haven't lost the Iraq war.

[Crazy Cooter]

If we keep up this attitude that whoever doesn't like what we do can stop hanging out with us, we'll be by ourselves pretty soon.

We'd be better off focusing our resources internally anyway.  This policing the whole damn world act is getting old and our own country is going to the toilet while we try and 'save' a sand dune on the other side of the planet.

I agree.

fredster, we don't hold up anything anymore with our economy.  Unless you're talking about our massive trade and budget deficit.  That's hardly anything to brag about: http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2005/20051202/default.htm
Look at how many countries have got rid of their bias towards holding the American dollar.  It isn't worth keeping in their coffers anymore.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1366578,00.html
"Japan is warning the White House that there will be 'enormous capital flight' from the dollar if the Bush administration maintains its laissez-faire approach to the mounting currency crisis.
...adding that Japan would be calling on its fellow G7 governments to demand the US deal with the massive fiscal deficit that has helped to prompt the dollar's decline."

G7 is a group of the "top" 7 countries that act to keep their money at the top of the heap.  It's the US, Canada, Japan, Russia, and a handful of Europeans.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/bline/2005/11/14/stories/2005111401461200.htm
" FACED with increasing US interest rates, India's holdings of dollar-denominated securities are witnessing sharp depreciation.

India holds at least $17.6 billion worth of US dollar-denominated securities of its $144-billion foreign exchange reserve. Most of the securities holdings are in the form of US treasuries.
...
Moreover, banking sources said that Indian institutions and the RBI have been moving out of the US treasury securities holding more in the form of deposits with other central banks, the Bank for International Settlements, multi-currency deposits with commercial banks to offset the impact of depreciation on the investment earnings."

Nobody wants our money.  If they don't buy our treasury bonds, who is going to loan us the money to finance our budget deficit?  We have to offer them a higher interest rate.  Which means we fall deeper in debt faster.

This link is from March of this year:
http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20050318-fri.html
"But the message from overseas is that this game is just about over.  One by one, Asian central banks -- America

[ChadTower]

Pfft, I never cared about Democracy in Iraq.

We DID bring freedom to Iraq, complete and total freedom.