Patrick’s Rants

We have hit 1000 dead US troops in Iraq. Do you feel any safer? Sure Saddam has been captured, Ossama is being hidden until just before the election for Bush’s saving grace just before time to walk into the polls and “pull the lever” on the new President. But do you feel safer? Is the US safer now that Saddam is out of power?
I personally don’t think so. Saddam has never been linked to attacks in the US or any attacks on US citizens anywhere in the world other than when we were at war.
It’s just smoke and mirrors.

I have been messing around with RSS for well over a day. I’m no further along than when I started. And why isn’t there a decent plugin for a site?

Reggae rapping elephants on the beach. Hmm… this commercial is probably entertaining to kids, but I keep thinking about all the Jamaicans that I knew in South Florida. None of them ever mentioned elephants in Jamaica. Elephants are indigenous to Africa and Asia, not the Carribean.

1. Scrawny, geeky looking office worker sitting in front of the printer…
   [Announcer]: You did the impossible. You crunched an incredible amount of data…
   [Enter the coworkers carrying the bottle from the water cooler who pour it all over you and your report while they dance around in some insane celebration, oblivious to the fact that your printer is plugged into the wall and water conducts electricity]
2. Under performing Administrative Assistant presents a report in the board room…
   For some reason, whether it’s the ink on the paper, someone put a tack in her chair, or she she simply forgot she was at her day job, she jumps on the table and starts dancing around like she’s on South Beach and had too much to drink.
3. [Open on massive office party- no really at the office, someone appearing to be the boss walks in]:
   Boss: What’s going on?
   IT geek: We just rolled out Active Directory. Blah, blah, trees, blah, nodes
   [Somehow the whole company is excited about this move...]

I’m sure there is no need to remind anyone that on September 11, 2001, four planes were hijacked with the express intent of striking in the United States. Two were arguably extremely successful, causing the ultimate collapse of the World Trade Center, thousands of deaths, and the unprecedented closure of the financial markets in the United States. One other struck the Pentagon and the final plane was crashed either directly by the passengers or as recently released transcripts seem to indicate, by the hijackers because they couldn’t fight off all the plane’s passengers. Whether this can be considered an act of war or not is debatable. After all the acts have been traced back to Osama Bin Laden and Al Quaeda, these are not leaders of countries or any government.

Sadly, although the United States has pursued Osama and his henchmen, creating a new, different and, by most standards, better government in Afghanistan, we have strayed extremely far off course.

First and foremost we have not captured nor slain Osama Bin Laden (August 23, 2004). There are those who float the cynical theory that we have already captured him and he is being secretly held until a politically advantageous time for the Bush reelection effort. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen.

Second, Bush has managed to turn this into a war against Saddam Hussein. Saddam has thumbed his nose at the world, murdered (allegedly) thousands of his own countrymen using banned weapons, and hauled citizens out of their homes in the middle of the night to never be seen again. Elections were a joke: everyone turned out under fear of death and Saddam always received 100% of the vote. Saddam Hussein needed to be removed from power, now free Iraqi’s- at least some of them- will tell you life is better for them.
So what’s the problem?

George W. Bush sent Colin Powell to the United Nations to argue the case for war. The reason? Weapons of Mass Destruction. Scary things like anthrax, nerve gas, and even nuclear weapons. Materials being purchased in Africa that are only used for refining plutonium into weapons grade nuclear material, photos of air fields and missiles that could or would be used to launch weapons at other countries in the middle east. Never mind that Iraq was publicly declaring they had no WMDs, had submitted hundreds or thousands of documents refuting the existance of WMDs, we have to date (August 23, 2004) not found any WMDs, our intelligence was flawed at best, or at worst made up to satisfy Dick Cheney’s requests of the CIA, North Korea was flexing its muscles by declaring they had nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States, and Libya was much more advanced in their weapons programs than anyone knew.
Libya did agree to dismantle all of their weapons programs [CNN.com] with many perceiving this to be a result of the war in Iraq. True or not, this is generally viewed as a move in the right direction and the United Nations has lifted sanctions against Libya.

The citizens of the United States, and the world were lied to. Whether Saddam is so clever that he hid his weapons where we can’t find them, destroyed them just before the US invaded, or didn’t have what we were told that he had is irrelevant. We invaded a sovereign country under the guise of our “War on Terror”. It is not part of the “War on Terror” no matter how many times Fox News uses the logo when talking about Iraq. The war in Iraq detracts from our hunt for Osama, alienates us to many, many countries around the world and diverts much needed resources from the US so that companies such as Dick Cheney’s ‘former’ company Haliburton can ‘earn’ illegally high margins on products and services.

Bush says that even knowing what he knows today, he would still invade Iraq because the world is now a ’safer place’. My theory is that he knew all along what we know today. There are no WMDs in Iraq. The world is not a safer place today. It is more dangerous. The borders of Iraq are wide open and our ‘enemies’ are pouring in. Bill Maher made a fantastic observation on Larry King on July 22, 2004,

“…Saddam Hussein would never have allowed a terrorist base in his country, because they were a power rival to him. Dictators never allow a power rival in their country. There was no terrorism in Iraq before this war. Now there is.” [CNN.com]

It’s time we refocused on the real “War on Terror” and resumed our search for Osama.

RNC Convention 2004

Just when I thought I had heard everything here comes Gov George Pataki at the Republican National Convention. Even with Zell Miller, spraying like a rabid dog, spit flying from his mouth looking, as Michael Moore puts it, like Freddy Kreuger at a camp for girls, the most outrageous statements that I heard came out of the mouth of New York state’s governor.

George Pataki defends and even justifies the war in Iraq with one simple, outrageous and egregious statement.

“On September 11th in New York we learned that in the hands of a monster, a box cutter is a weapon of mass destruction. And Saddam Hussein was a monster - a walking, talking weapon of mass destruction,” Pataki said.

Excuse me?! First, did he not watch the footage like we all did stuck to our TVs in disbelief? I saw airplanes, taken over by religeous zealous, used as flying bombs flown into and even through the twin towers of the World Trade Center. I saw the Pentagon on fire where an airplane had been crashed into it. I remember walking my kids to school, talking very little about the things that we had seen on TV that morning, going about my normal activities on a day that was far from normal.

Here’s what I didn’t see. I didn’t see any flying box cutters, there were no fanatics shaving and cutting the sides of the buildings that eventually collapsed killing thousands. There were no Al Qaeda members standing on the street throwing box cutters at the twin towers. His comment is the same as saying one can commit vehicular manslaughter with the clicker that pops open the trunk of your car. If box cutters are WMDs, then watch out, I’m sure that I have at least 3 or 4 in my house alone. Send in the Marines.

Bottom line Mr. Pataki has taken what should have been a noble mission of removing weapons that have the capability of killing hundreds of thousands of people from Iraq and turning it into the Saturday Night Live episode where “proof” of Saddam’s weapons programs are presented: a two cup glass measuring cup and a spatula. How is it that a box cutter can be called a weapon of mass destruction? The box cutters were a means to an end. They were used to kill pilots and flight attendants. They were not directly used to bring concrete, glass and steel down into a pile of rubble.