Never saw it when he was v.p.
Never saw it when he was campaigning for president.
Never saw it period.
David Barouh (COUNTERPUNCH) calls the myth into question:
One persistent justification for “lesser evil” voting, the continuing vilification of Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign, and the relevance of that justification for this coming election is the notion that but for Nader’s candidacy, Al Gore would have been president instead of George W. Bush, and that “we would not have had Iraq.” What this notion is based on is a mystery, especially given the virtual certitude with which it is asserted. But aside from the impossibility of knowing the outcome of an event that didn’t happen, what evidence there is indicates that it’s not true, that had Gore been elected president, he would indeed have undertaken that disastrous invasion.
On September 23, 2002 in San Francisco, six months prior to the Iraq invasion, Gore gave a major address in which he roundly criticized “the course of action recommended by President Bush” and offered his alternatives. Yet for all his criticism, Gore supported in principle Bush’s determination to invade Iraq.
Gore criticized Bush’s timing in changing the focus of the “War on Terror” away from Afghanistan, Bush’s belligerence, and his distain for the European allies, but then said this:
Nevertheless, Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction.Why? Because…
Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power. Moreover, no international law can prevent the United States from taking actions to protect its vital interests, when it is manifestly clear that there is a choice to be made between law and survival.
Gore clearly accepts the claim of Iraq’s WMDs, and offers a legal justification for an invasion.
Agreed.
Like many, he appeared to later oppose it because Bully Boy Bush was pulling it off.
Not because he thought it was wrong.
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Thursday, August 18, 2016. We look at racism and sexism in the US presidential elections, Moqtada makes a major statement, and much more.
Racism and sexism, when do they matter?
When Democrats run a woman or when they run a man of color.
That becomes more and move obvious.
Democratic websites like DAILY KOS rightly earned their racist images in the '00s prior to Barack Obama declaring his intention to seek the Democratic Party's primary nomination.
If you doubt it, check their archives.
Look for an incident like Teri Schiavo (first time her name has appeared here). Rev. Jesse Jackson came out on the 'wrong' side and oh did his race suddenly matter as 'lefties' rushed to tear him apart.
And now Hillary's running so the same group of 'lefties' who tore her apart in 2008 not for her beliefs or actions but for her gender are suddenly running around screaming "sexism!" at everything.
Last night, Betty took on the idiot NEWSWEEK 'writer' who penned the latest cry of sexism "Of course it was a White girl #WhiteKnowItAll."
Where was the idiot in 2008?
I know where Betty was -- she was calling out sexism.
Her site had been a comic online novel up until that year's primaries. All the sexist attacks made her drop that format completely to take on the sexism.
So Betty really doesn't need to hear from some spoiled and vapid little girl dithering on about so-called sexism.
In 2008, Marie Cocco was the only journalist regularly calling out the non-stop sexism:
Sorry vapid NEWSWEEK writer, you were no where to be found.
In 2008, as Barack's speech writer posed groping a cut out of Hillary, Dee Dee Myers pointed out in "Favreau's Sexist Photo Is No Laughing Matter" (Vanity Fair):
What's bugging me is his intention. He isn't putting his hand on her "chest," as most of the articles and conversations about the picture have euphemistically referred to it. Rather, his hand--cupped just so--is clearly intended to signal that he’s groping her breast. And why? Surely, not to signal he finds her attractive. Au contraire. It’s an act of deliberate humiliation. Of disempowerment. Of denigration.
And it disgusts me.
And what happened?
Jon Favreau went on to the White House. He gave a private apology to Hillary.
And Hillary accepted it.
I'm sorry?
You claim your campaign in 2008 and today is about women?
You claim that you will be an inspirational figure.
And yet this sexism doesn't require an apology to women, just to you?
Oh, Queen Bee.
Anyway, where was our NEWSWEEK idiot then?
No where to be found.
And they never are, not when it counts.
And all this is brought up because of Gideon Resnick's frat boy piece at THE DAILY BEAST entitled "The Wilde Beliefs of Ajamu Baraka, Jill Stein's Green Party Running Mate."
If you think the African-American male is crazy, call him "crazy."
But "wild"?
As in "savage."
Seems to me that the slovenly frat boy Resnick is knowingly playing with coded language.
Little Giddy tries the smear by association tactic.
For example, he says Kevin Barrett is a "Holocaust denier."
Is he?
I don't know.
Apologies to Kevin if that's not accurate.
What does that have to do with Ajamu?
Ajumu contributed an essay to a book edited by Kevin.
I don't have time for additional writing (or even this writing) but if I knew Kevin and he had asked me for a chapter, I would have contributed. I only know him from PACIFICA RADIO and the topic of the Holocaust has never been addressed in any of his appearances.
I'm not real big on smear by association to begin with.
Giddy then stops sniffing his arm pit long enough to attack COUNTERPUNCH -- that website has always presented a wide range of opinions and has always had more worth reading that THE DAILY BEAST could ever hope for. But how strange that this website and newsletter -- started by Ken Silverstein, the late Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair -- which has published millions -- yes, millions -- of articles is cherry picked for one 'mean to Israel' piece by Little Giddy.
Little Giddy clearly wants to take a moment from picking at his ass crack and then sniffing his fingers -- a break at least long enough to go after the African-American man who has "wild" thoughts.
Thoughts clearly are the real crime.
How dare, Little Giddy huffs as though he can't quite squeeze that turd out of his butt, this African-American man question claims -- why this "reportedly" is what happened -- according to the CIA.
Then with a loud plop, Little Giddy suddenly ends his rambling.
You've heard of the pajama blogger?
With Little Giddy, we've just me the toilet blogger.
Remember to wash your hands, Little Giddy.
Baraka was on CNN last night with Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein. One of the topics raised was the Middle East. Rebecca Savransky (THE HILL) reports:
"We need a new kind of offensive in the Middle East, because bombing terrorism and shooting terrorism is not quelling terrorism. It's only fanning the flames of terrorism, the misery and the poverty that drive terrorism," Stein said Wednesday during a CNN town hall.
"We are calling for a new kind of offensive, a peace offensive for the Middle East, that begins with a weapons embargo."
Stein said the U.S. and its allies are supplying the majority of the weapons to the fighting forces in the Middle East, so the country can initiate a weapons embargo.
Stein said that ISIS does not meet the threshold of posing an "imminent threat" that calls for use of force. She said the terrorist group is "not about to launch a major attack against our country."
Maybe the next time Little Giddy feels a major bowel movement coming on, he could tackle what Jill's calling for?
Anna Giaritelli (WASHINGTON EXAMINER) picks her own nits over Iraq:
Green Party nominee Jill Stein claimed during a Wednesday night town hall that U.S. forces killed 1 million people during the Iraq War and occupation.
"Since 2001 we have killed a million people in Iraq alone, which is not winning us the hearts and minds in the Middle East," Stein told an audience member during the CNN town hall.
Really, Jill said US forces did that?
Strange, Anna, because your quote does not support that.
If she said it and you're quoting her, you should have quoted those remarks.
"We" is not US forces.
"We" is the US led war on Iraq which began in 2003 and, before Bully Boy Bush left the White House, had already resulted in the deaths -- per the study published by the medical journal THE LANCET -- of over a million Iraqis.
That study was carried out in the same manner the United Nations carries out its own.
The Bully Boy Bush White House rushed to discredit it but in scientific circles it has not been discredited. Among the left it has not been discredited.
Excuse me, let me speak for the true left.
Those of us in the true left accept that scientific study.
Some of the 'left' which only adopts positions to attack the GOP may no longer accept the study since Bully Boy Bush is no longer in office -- you know, the way they were outraged by illegal spying under Bully Boy Bush but are okay with even more invasive illegal spying under Barack?
And please don't state the IRAQ BODY COUNT again unless you're going to note (a) as we have how it changed numbers at the request of the State Dept and (b) where it gets its funding.
Thanks, Anna.
In the real world, there's a major moment of news:
In their statement, Human Rights Watch notes:
State and non-state actors in Iraq should heed the prominent Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s July 2016 statement banning violence against those who do not conform to gender norms.
Since early 2009, Human Rights Watch has documented kidnappings, executions, and torture by militia groups, including al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, of gay men and men perceived to be gay. The killings have continued unabated.
“Finally, the head of one of the groups whose members have carried out serious abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Iraq is condemning these heinous attacks,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. “We hope this will change behavior in successors to the Mahdi Army and other ranks, and spur the government to hold accountable those who commit these crimes.”
A Human Rights Watch report found that in early 2009, Iraqi militia members began a wide-reaching campaign of extrajudicial executions, kidnappings, and torture of men suspected of homosexual conduct, or of not conforming to masculine gender norms, and that Iraq authorities did nothing to stop the killings. The killings began in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, a Mahdi Army stronghold, and were then replicated by members of militia groups in many cities across Iraq. Mahdi Army spokesmen promoted fear about the “third sex” and the “feminization” of Iraqi men, as well as suggesting that militia action was the remedy.
In 2012, militia members opened a second wave of attacks on people categorized as part of the “emo” subculture, styles that critics associated with heavy metal music, and rap. In early February 2012, signs and fliers appeared in the Baghdad neighborhoods of Sadr City, Hayy al-Habibiyya, and Hayy al-‘Amil that threatened people by name with “the wrath of god” unless they cut their hair short, concealed their tattoos, maintained “complete manhood,” and stopped wearing so-called “satanic clothing.” Similar posters appeared in other neighborhoods, also listing names.
Is Moqtada sincere?
Who knows but the statement itself is news.
Mike's "Important story at ICH" went up this morning and the following community sites updated:
iraq
Racism and sexism, when do they matter?
When Democrats run a woman or when they run a man of color.
That becomes more and move obvious.
Democratic websites like DAILY KOS rightly earned their racist images in the '00s prior to Barack Obama declaring his intention to seek the Democratic Party's primary nomination.
If you doubt it, check their archives.
Look for an incident like Teri Schiavo (first time her name has appeared here). Rev. Jesse Jackson came out on the 'wrong' side and oh did his race suddenly matter as 'lefties' rushed to tear him apart.
And now Hillary's running so the same group of 'lefties' who tore her apart in 2008 not for her beliefs or actions but for her gender are suddenly running around screaming "sexism!" at everything.
Last night, Betty took on the idiot NEWSWEEK 'writer' who penned the latest cry of sexism "Of course it was a White girl #WhiteKnowItAll."
Where was the idiot in 2008?
I know where Betty was -- she was calling out sexism.
Her site had been a comic online novel up until that year's primaries. All the sexist attacks made her drop that format completely to take on the sexism.
So Betty really doesn't need to hear from some spoiled and vapid little girl dithering on about so-called sexism.
In 2008, Marie Cocco was the only journalist regularly calling out the non-stop sexism:
But I do wonder why a candidate [Barack Obama] praised for his rhetorical gifts talks about women in the way that he does. During the primary campaign, he said Hillary Clinton launched political attacks on him "periodically, when she's feeling down." He called a Detroit reporter "sweetie" when she was trying to ask him about job creation. Now he has incorporated a myth created by the right -- that women who seek late-term abortions should not be allowed to do so if they are "feeling blue" -- into his own lexicon. And this is enough to make me see red.
Sorry vapid NEWSWEEK writer, you were no where to be found.
In 2008, as Barack's speech writer posed groping a cut out of Hillary, Dee Dee Myers pointed out in "Favreau's Sexist Photo Is No Laughing Matter" (Vanity Fair):
What's bugging me is his intention. He isn't putting his hand on her "chest," as most of the articles and conversations about the picture have euphemistically referred to it. Rather, his hand--cupped just so--is clearly intended to signal that he’s groping her breast. And why? Surely, not to signal he finds her attractive. Au contraire. It’s an act of deliberate humiliation. Of disempowerment. Of denigration.
And it disgusts me.
And what happened?
Jon Favreau went on to the White House. He gave a private apology to Hillary.
And Hillary accepted it.
I'm sorry?
You claim your campaign in 2008 and today is about women?
You claim that you will be an inspirational figure.
And yet this sexism doesn't require an apology to women, just to you?
Oh, Queen Bee.
Anyway, where was our NEWSWEEK idiot then?
No where to be found.
And they never are, not when it counts.
And all this is brought up because of Gideon Resnick's frat boy piece at THE DAILY BEAST entitled "The Wilde Beliefs of Ajamu Baraka, Jill Stein's Green Party Running Mate."
If you think the African-American male is crazy, call him "crazy."
But "wild"?
As in "savage."
Seems to me that the slovenly frat boy Resnick is knowingly playing with coded language.
Little Giddy tries the smear by association tactic.
For example, he says Kevin Barrett is a "Holocaust denier."
Is he?
I don't know.
Apologies to Kevin if that's not accurate.
What does that have to do with Ajamu?
Ajumu contributed an essay to a book edited by Kevin.
I don't have time for additional writing (or even this writing) but if I knew Kevin and he had asked me for a chapter, I would have contributed. I only know him from PACIFICA RADIO and the topic of the Holocaust has never been addressed in any of his appearances.
I'm not real big on smear by association to begin with.
Giddy then stops sniffing his arm pit long enough to attack COUNTERPUNCH -- that website has always presented a wide range of opinions and has always had more worth reading that THE DAILY BEAST could ever hope for. But how strange that this website and newsletter -- started by Ken Silverstein, the late Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair -- which has published millions -- yes, millions -- of articles is cherry picked for one 'mean to Israel' piece by Little Giddy.
Little Giddy clearly wants to take a moment from picking at his ass crack and then sniffing his fingers -- a break at least long enough to go after the African-American man who has "wild" thoughts.
Thoughts clearly are the real crime.
How dare, Little Giddy huffs as though he can't quite squeeze that turd out of his butt, this African-American man question claims -- why this "reportedly" is what happened -- according to the CIA.
Then with a loud plop, Little Giddy suddenly ends his rambling.
You've heard of the pajama blogger?
With Little Giddy, we've just me the toilet blogger.
Remember to wash your hands, Little Giddy.
Baraka was on CNN last night with Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein. One of the topics raised was the Middle East. Rebecca Savransky (THE HILL) reports:
"We need a new kind of offensive in the Middle East, because bombing terrorism and shooting terrorism is not quelling terrorism. It's only fanning the flames of terrorism, the misery and the poverty that drive terrorism," Stein said Wednesday during a CNN town hall.
"We are calling for a new kind of offensive, a peace offensive for the Middle East, that begins with a weapons embargo."
Stein said the U.S. and its allies are supplying the majority of the weapons to the fighting forces in the Middle East, so the country can initiate a weapons embargo.
Stein said that ISIS does not meet the threshold of posing an "imminent threat" that calls for use of force. She said the terrorist group is "not about to launch a major attack against our country."
Maybe the next time Little Giddy feels a major bowel movement coming on, he could tackle what Jill's calling for?
Anna Giaritelli (WASHINGTON EXAMINER) picks her own nits over Iraq:
Green Party nominee Jill Stein claimed during a Wednesday night town hall that U.S. forces killed 1 million people during the Iraq War and occupation.
"Since 2001 we have killed a million people in Iraq alone, which is not winning us the hearts and minds in the Middle East," Stein told an audience member during the CNN town hall.
Really, Jill said US forces did that?
Strange, Anna, because your quote does not support that.
If she said it and you're quoting her, you should have quoted those remarks.
"We" is not US forces.
"We" is the US led war on Iraq which began in 2003 and, before Bully Boy Bush left the White House, had already resulted in the deaths -- per the study published by the medical journal THE LANCET -- of over a million Iraqis.
That study was carried out in the same manner the United Nations carries out its own.
The Bully Boy Bush White House rushed to discredit it but in scientific circles it has not been discredited. Among the left it has not been discredited.
Excuse me, let me speak for the true left.
Those of us in the true left accept that scientific study.
Some of the 'left' which only adopts positions to attack the GOP may no longer accept the study since Bully Boy Bush is no longer in office -- you know, the way they were outraged by illegal spying under Bully Boy Bush but are okay with even more invasive illegal spying under Barack?
And please don't state the IRAQ BODY COUNT again unless you're going to note (a) as we have how it changed numbers at the request of the State Dept and (b) where it gets its funding.
Thanks, Anna.
In the real world, there's a major moment of news:
Ian Birrell
A step forward: Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has called for end to violence against LGBT people in Iraq
In their statement, Human Rights Watch notes:
State and non-state actors in Iraq should heed the prominent Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s July 2016 statement banning violence against those who do not conform to gender norms.
Since early 2009, Human Rights Watch has documented kidnappings, executions, and torture by militia groups, including al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, of gay men and men perceived to be gay. The killings have continued unabated.
“Finally, the head of one of the groups whose members have carried out serious abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Iraq is condemning these heinous attacks,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. “We hope this will change behavior in successors to the Mahdi Army and other ranks, and spur the government to hold accountable those who commit these crimes.”
A Human Rights Watch report found that in early 2009, Iraqi militia members began a wide-reaching campaign of extrajudicial executions, kidnappings, and torture of men suspected of homosexual conduct, or of not conforming to masculine gender norms, and that Iraq authorities did nothing to stop the killings. The killings began in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, a Mahdi Army stronghold, and were then replicated by members of militia groups in many cities across Iraq. Mahdi Army spokesmen promoted fear about the “third sex” and the “feminization” of Iraqi men, as well as suggesting that militia action was the remedy.
In 2012, militia members opened a second wave of attacks on people categorized as part of the “emo” subculture, styles that critics associated with heavy metal music, and rap. In early February 2012, signs and fliers appeared in the Baghdad neighborhoods of Sadr City, Hayy al-Habibiyya, and Hayy al-‘Amil that threatened people by name with “the wrath of god” unless they cut their hair short, concealed their tattoos, maintained “complete manhood,” and stopped wearing so-called “satanic clothing.” Similar posters appeared in other neighborhoods, also listing names.
Is Moqtada sincere?
Who knows but the statement itself is news.
Mike's "Important story at ICH" went up this morning and the following community sites updated:
iraq
