Ah Keith, you clearly missed the question mark, for I posed it
as a question, so perhaps its you who should not drink :)

The consequences of George's anti family planning policy in the
third world, when on the first day of his presidency,he reintroduced
the "gag rule", was not a "minor related issue", but a major
one. Hundreds of thousands of women die in the third world,
due to lack of family planning services, botched illegal
abortions, etc. etc.

Had he actually had the intelligence to do something about it,
one might see him in a different light. But nope, his solution
was to preach abstinence. Never mind all the deaths, never mind
the misery, never mind the suffering, never mind the hunger.

Did you read the URL, about the effects in just Ethiopia?

Now either you are ignorant about all the problems in the
third world caused by this kind of policy, or you see it as
a "minor related issue", or you will concede that once again
George showed shocking judgement

Hey mongrel,

don't address me again until you've apologised for your blatant slur,

*Now either you are ignorant about all the problems in the
third world caused by this kind of policy, or you see it as
a "minor related issue", or you will concede that once again
George showed shocking judgement*

Ah Keith, I did not think that you could answer my question,
so easier to just try and shoot the messenger!

The Weekend Australian magazine of the 20th, carried an
interesting story about Melinda Gates and the Gates Foundation.

With the kind of innovative work they are doing, there is
some hope for third world women. They regularly took
a pop at Pepfar, George's fund, for putting Xtian Right
morality ahead of saving lives. That is exactly my point.

Interesting that the BBC are holding a debate, the question
being if George was the worst prez in the last 50 years.
I doubt if too many would disagree.

worst president in the last 50 years? why stop there? it's not a question of whether he's worse than eisenhower, kennedy, johnson, nixon, ford, carter, reagan, bush1, clinton. that is blindingly obvious.

he may not be the worst president ever, but whether he is or not is definitely the appropriate question to ask. it's a question of whether he's worse than the truly awful: buchanan, harding, andrew johnson, fillmore.

Paul wrote, "Yes we all know you have major problems with ANY event which isn't a conspiracy."

In fact, Paul, I completely accepted the US Government explanation until about 18 months ago, when friend sent me a DVD about 9/11. As a result I committed myself to begin to seriously think about it. Only some time in September this year, not long after I started the "9/11 Truth" forum at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#53344was my mind firmly made up.

So, five and a half years of largely unquestioning acceptance of the Official Conspiracy Theory would hardly qualify me as someone who "(has) major problems with ANY event which isn't a conspiracy" I would have thought.

I am not actually proud of the fact that it took me so long to wake up to what had happened, but at least, if nothing else, it should demonstrate that your charge that I have a propensity to uncritically accept conspiracy theories is groundless.

---

Paul wrote, "I notice you were unable to answer most of my questions from my previous post."

I consider a lot of your questions quite stupid and not worth the time it would take me to respond, but if others disagree, then I will have to wear their judgements, won't I?

---

Paul wrote, "Would you like to explain how the ALL POWERFUL and ALL KNOWING US Gov't couldn't find weapons of mass destruction in IRAQ? ..."

This nonsense non-argument has already been put in the "9/11 Truth Forum" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#46642 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#46642 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#48438 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#48471
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#48488

... and has been dealt with at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#48483
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#48489
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#48513
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#48541

(if anyone wants to follow that argument backwards and forwards, use the search string 'WMD')

Paul wrote, "For example, take Dagget's loony attempts to blame the US for the behaviour of Iraqi looters in the National Museum. Another case of blame anybody but the person responsible."

The US was warned by scholars that the destruction of the Museum and archives was likely and urged that steps be taken to prevent that, but their warnings were ignored. Naomi Klein argues compellingly in "The Shock Doctrine" (pp336-337) that this was intentional.

Paul wrote, "... a shorter trial limited the scope for Saddam to use the witness stand, with all the world's cameras watching, to rally Baathists and destabilise Iraq as much as he could."

The point remains, if he was never tried for killing all those people the US claim that he did, then what firm evidence is there that he did?

Which of the 2 million said to have died during his reign, if that figure is to be believed, were personally caused by him and which were caused by others?

The point is not to deny that Hussein was a brutal dictator. The point is to get the issue into perspective and, also, get some idea of how many lives, if any, would have been lost if an invasion had not occurred.

As most of the worst human rights violations had occurred in the 1980's or in the immediate wake of the First Gulf war when the US deliberately declined to help the Shiites and Kurds, then it seems likely that the numbers that would have been saved by the 2003 invasion would have been very few indeed and far fewer than the million plus that have died as a result of the invasion according to some very credible sources (http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/).

Paul expects us to believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al cared at all human rights violations in Hussein's Iraq when US sponsored regimes in Central America to give just one example, were at least as brutal.

I think that that is drawing a very long bow.