Kucinich is a loon. An effing Loon, I tell you. - Page 3

Originally Posted by ShawnJ

We leave.

Comparing Democrats to OBL and to insurgents "dancing in the streets" isn't much of a difference, Jube

Originally Posted by Jubelum

Rep Wexler has a bit of a spine- I'd love to see the polls if the Democrats would ALL sound like this.

Originally Posted by Jubelum

We should not have gone, but now we are where we are, and should not leave in a way that will get a whole lot of of allies killed en masse.

Originally Posted by Jubelum

Have you thought through, for real, the consequences of "just leave." ?

Originally Posted by Jubelum

Do I need to review all of the common talking points that the two have in common? Oh please say yes. Please.

Originally Posted by @_@ Artman

And if he/they mentioned the permanent U.S. Military bases, the half-billion dollar, shiny, new, furnished swimming pool, shopping mall, food court of an U.S. Embassy we are building in Iraq too.

No?

Then another spineless, lying politician.

Originally Posted by Jubelum

Like Mookie Al Sadr is saying to the guys "oh my gosh- they are going to leave- just like we want them to... oh, no... please, please... we're concerned because you are doing exactly what we have been praying for. "

Originally Posted by Jubelum

Wow... a food court! I can't wait to take the kids. Luuuuuu-cy... get the kids in the Edsel, we're going to the REAL "Mall of the Americas"!

Originally Posted by Nightcrawler

According to US-law any war that the congress authorises or declares is legal, since there are no limitations to the US' souvereignity to lead wars as long as the congress agrees.

But there is an international law trying to reduce the occurrences of war, and the US is liable to that international law like all UN-members.

...all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Originally Posted by tonton

So even though leaving may be the right thing to do, we shouldn't leave because that's what some of them want us to do? So we should stay to spite them and not let them "win", meaning get what they want? You know, insane people think like that.

Originally Posted by tonton

So even though leaving may be the right thing to do, we shouldn't leave because that's what some of them want us to do? So we should stay to spite them and not let them "win", meaning get what they want? You know, insane people think like that.

Originally Posted by Jubelum

This particular war was not a war for oil. This was a war for the economic hegemony of the American dollar.

Faced with U.S. economic sanctions and a weak dollar, Tehran is demanding foreign energy companies do business in yen and euros, despite increasingly desperate need for investment.

In a deal announced last week, Japan’s Nippon Oil agreed to buy oil from Iran using yen instead of the traditional U.S. dollars. The agreement comes after years of Iranian efforts to shift its petroleum exports away from dollars and toward yen and euros.

With refineries in need of investment and vast natural gas deposits in need of foreign companies for development, Iran is trying every avenue to extricate itself from U.S. sanctions.

“In general, a key motivation is the U.S. informal sanctions pressure that the Treasury, and Undersecretary Levey in particular, put on banks not to do financial transactions with Iran. And increasingly designating banks with ties to certain Iranian entities as unable to perform the U-turn transactions for dollar-denominated transactions,” according to David Kirsch, the manager for market intelligence at the international energy consultancy PFC Energy.

U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey has been in charge of coordinating U.S. sanctions against Iran since 2004. In recent months the U.S. Treasury has increased pressure on foreign banks not to deal with Iran, including so-called U-turn transactions, which “allow U.S. banks to process payments involving Iran that begin and end with a non-Iranian foreign bank,” according to the U.S. Treasury.

Shifting to euros and yen allows Iran some relief.

“Overall it does lower some of their exposure to this successful yet informal pressure from the U.S.,” Kirsch said.

Originally Posted by @_@ Artman

I can't imagine that Iran doesn't realize that this move will result in us attacking them. I wonder what they have up their sleeve.

Originally Posted by tonton

I don't get these two paragraphs. They are contradictory. If US is bound by international law, as they are under Article VI:



Then as you claim, "any war that the congress authorises or declares" is NOT legal if it goes against international treaties to which the US is a signatory. There ARE limitations.

Originally Posted by segovius

One word: Russia

We've created a "Cost of Oil Counter," which keeps an annual running tally of oil consumed, money spent and global warming pollution generated.

Originally Posted by @_@ Artman

Spasiba!

For you all, take a peek at this

"Who Has the Oil" map which reapportions every country based on the size of their oil reserves.*

Originally Posted by Nightcrawler

LOL, that's a brilliant map, and it shows a clear correlation between these countries and US-military-bases around the globe.

Just compare that map with this map, that shows which countries host US-soldiers, which have military-bases, and with which the US is negotiating to build bases in, and which have none: http://respectsacredland.org/no-us-bases/draft3.jpg

The sheer amount of US-military bases around the globe even surprised me. That begs question which other states have military-bases outside their own borders?

I think Germany, France and Britain might have a few outside their borders, espescially those jointly used under the Nato-alliance, but apart from these mostly US-supervised european bases, who else has military bases outside its own borders?

Nightcrawler