He forgot Poland!

You want me to prove a negative? No. You all made the claim, you all provide the proof.

Hello, i said we paid to use their bases in gulf war 1 and were hoping to do so again in gulf war 2. No where in the world did i say it cost them 10 billion dollars for us to 'fly planes and use trucks.' The money we WOULD have given them would have offset the costs of the war.

They are a member of the coalition because they support the US either economically, militaristically, or in just general support. You seem to think that no one could agree with what the US does.

Maybe you have a hard time understanding what compensation is. We pay them for their service of letting us use their bases. By letting us use their bases, we offset the cost of war. Why do you think this is bribing and not compensation? Furthermore, we are continuing to talk about a country who REJECTED US MONEY!. So please, Make a list of people who we bribed and coerced and put forth some tangible proof.


as i said with my numbers, i used BBC numbers. When calculating my numbers, i used the high's of both. Do you actually READ?!

Dont ask me to prove a negative, you make a claim, you back it up. It is infantile and silly to throw out a claim and then ask somoene to prove its wrong. 'Prove joe bob didnt get abducted by aliens yesterday!" No, its stupid.

 

Just want to point out that there were many news stories during the build-up to the illegal invasion which described how MANY countries were threatened with withdrawal of aid or enticed with promises of aid and weapons (Pakistan is the best one of these that comes to mind - or Turkey, which was blatantly offered cash but declined due to the political disaster supporting this war would mean). As far as "proof," I'd think that these stories would come to mind for anyone who has watched, read, or listened to any news for the last 4 years, but I suppose I could look up old articles on it if it's really necessary.

 

please do, i'm curious what countries were threatened with withdrawl of aid.

edit: The ironic thing is, the two countries that have been mentioned(Turkey and Pakistan) did not join the coalition.

 

Exactly. You want me to prove bribery but when I show that countries are offered money for participation, you call it "compensation" or "incentives". Am I going to go on for ten more pages trying to get you to say the B word? No.

And twice you tried to pretend that the costs were related to military participation in the coalition while providing links that listed ONLY costs which would arise regardless of whether the country joined the coalition or not. So the country was offered money for participating to cover costs that would be incurred regardless of participation.

Funny that, since I already said that I agree with what the US does. I just accept that sometimes the US will "offer compensation" to help achieve diplomatic ends, whereas you are denying the obvious.

You see, you keep repeating this as if you had proved that the compensation was related to costs incurred by Turkey for particpating in the coalition. As I have said repeatedly, they do not, and links provided BY YOU prove my point. Even more bizarrely you are now trying to show us how the US would benefit from using the bases - as if that proves it wasn´t a bribe? WTF? All you are proving is value for money.

Yes, which is exactly why you are having such a struggle here. I proved you deliberately manipulated the calculation. One high was 4X higher than the minimum, the other was 15% higher. I guess you think that by repeating yourself over and over the dishonesty of this calculation somehow fades?

 

first off, you showed turkey, which didnt even join the coalition, so dont say you showed countries.

Secondly, where did i ever 'pretend' that the costs were only for the military use of the base? It was YOU who made the 'planes and trucks' statement.

Thirdly, you still seem to have a hard time understanding what compensation is. The War would have cost turkey money, the US offered money to help offset the cost in exchange for us using their base. Its a simple legal contract. I guess that is bribery though, we did offer money to use their bases. You can keep saying links i posted refuted myself, but they have refuted absolutely nothing. You need to remove your belief that i said we were paying to 'land planes and use trucks', when it was YOU who said that.

You proved i deliberately used wrong unmbers? Wtf, are you really this stupid? I also said how i got my figure...150(the high of americans), and 40(the high of the british). I left out ALL other countries, so i INFLATED the % that were americans. You seem to think i intentionally deflated the numbers. Again, you prove nothing. Furthermore, when i found another source of numbers, i CORRECTED the wrong numbers that i had relied on the BBC for. You are just being a tactless jerk here.

Lastly, we have gone over this a multitude of times and exhausted the shit on turkey. You said that youv'e shown that countries have 'accepted money.' Please document several countries who were bribed and coerced, or else i'm done here. I've had enough academic masturbation on arguing why a member who wasnt even part of the coalition somehow proves that this coalitoin was bribed and coerced...err, no more, thanks.

facts are your friend.

 

So i don't really want to get into this, but Kerry was not insulting the countries, he was making light of the fact that many who are in the "coalition of the willing" mostly were in fact very very unwilling at first. It took proding and coercing, and in some cases maybe even a bribe

bribe - payment made to a person in a position of trust to corrupt his judgment

Which means the US would ave given them somethig to change their mind. Which is what we could say happened with some of the countries.





Oh and here is another defenition.


Definition: \Tact\, n. [L. tactus a touching, touch, fr. tangere,tactum, to touch: cf. F. tact. See {Tangent}.]
3. Sensitive mental touch; peculiar skill or faculty; nice
perception or discernment; ready power of appreciating and
doing what is required by circumstances.
Synonyms: tactfulness Antonyms: tactlessness See Also: address, considerateness, consideration, delicacy, diplomacy, discreetness, finesse, savoir-faire, thoughtfulness

 

granted, now prove that the governments were unwilling first because they believed the action to be wrong and not because it would cause them financial harm(ala turkey). For example, france was an outspoken critic that war was bad, had we given them a ton of money to shut them up and had them join our side, then yes, that would be a bribe.


om·pen·sa·tion Audio pronunciation of "compensation" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kmpn-sshn)
n.

1. The act of compensating or the state of being compensated.
2. Something, such as money, given or received as payment or reparation, as for a service or loss.


edit: furthermore, i dont know how you can say he didnt denegrate our allies. He called countries like australia, italy, spain(at the time) britain, poland etc bribed and coerced. John Howard, Tony Blair, and Berlusconi(sp) especially took great risks backing us, and for them to be shit on and called bribed and coerced is flat out wrong for a man who wants to be president of this country.

I can just see kerry's first phone calls to these word leaders. "hey tony, i didnt really mean you were coerced into joining!" "Mr. Howard, thank you for risking your political career to back us, sorry i shat all over you in our elections..just political rhetoric, you know?".

 

What say you instead of me searching all over the internet for articles and such, lets take out the word BRIBE. Now what. Countries do not leap at the chance to go to war unless they feel strongly about it.. Was any country in our coalition from the moment we said we would invade Iraq? If so, the numbers are probably slim.

Im sure we had to do a good bit of coercing, compensating, and bribing to get some of these countries in with us.

 

britain and australia have been with us from day 1, as always.

Remember, ew didnt say we'd invade iraq until march 18th(i believe that was the day). By that time, the coalition was formed..so err..

 

Im sorry , who was in our coalition on March 18th, Megara.

 

Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan.

 

Now as grateful as I am sure we all are for them helping us out, do those look the like the nations of a great coalition to you? Doesnt that seem laughable? Afganistan is first on the list, I cannot tell you off the top of my head where Azerbaijan is or a few others, how many troops are we getting from the great armies of Ethiopia? Isn't Georgia just rebuilding still?

This is not insulting it is reality, how much help can a country like Ethiopia give to us when then are in massive debt and cannot even feed their people? Do you think they want to worry about he war in Iraq too?

Is it supposed to look good because he as alot of nations on the bill? nevermind what any of them can actually provide in the war.

 

the only really notable ones missing are canada/france/germany(a BIG three to be missing).

The point is, to mock places like australia and britain, and italy is just shameful.

 

Oh yes, lets not mock Italy even though its leader, Berlusconi, is as corrupt as the day is long and not only managed to railroad the country's judicial processes whilst under indictment for that very corruption, but only happens to also own essentially all the mainstream media outlets in the country.

A laudable example of democracy in your eyes no doubt Megara.

 

wtf? again, you make statements that have absolutely ZERO relevance to the topic at hand. I am convinced you like hearing yourself talk.

Italy should be praised for sticking by us in war, not shit on by a presidenial candidate who feels the need to use political rhetoric.

 

Actually its government should be equally condemned along without own and Britain's for waging a patently illegal war founded on lies of imminent threat.

Actually that should read, waging a patently illegal invasion and occupation. War in this case is a dubious if not altogether misapplied term.

 

Duckandmiss JUST explained to you that it is not insulting them, it is just the reality of the situation.

Of course you ignored it and continued in with the contention that we are "mocking" them.

Look, this was is an important issue, as is the coalition. The american public, and Kerry, and anyone else has the right to discuss and form their own opinion, as well as point out the flaws of the coalition.

Here is a lesson on propaganda for ya:
http://www.propagandacritic.com/articles/ct.wg.name.html

Name Calling:

"The name-calling technique links a person, or idea, to a negative symbol. The propagandist who uses this technique hopes that the audience will reject the person or the idea on the basis of the negative symbol, instead of looking at the available evidence.


What the Bush campaign is doing when attacking Kerry for this is simply name-calling. They are trying to use this to distract us from the reality of the situation, which Kerry is trying to present. The coalition IS weak. And more and more are pulling out. I mean, come on...Uzbekistan, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, etc...what is that??

 

i'm sorry, calling britain, australia, poland, and italy coerced and bribed isnt name calling...ok

I see we just wont agree on this one. I do agree that the coalition is not as strong as we want it to be. However, you can attack the weakness of the coalitoin without calling them bribed and coerced. Surprisingly, simple words like "i can build a better coalition than this man" suffice instead of going the extra yard and calling our allies bribed and coerced.

 

You are correct, a phrase like "a coalition of the bribed and coersed" could be propaganda as well.

But if I may take an excerpt from the link I just posted:

The name-calling technique was first identified by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) in 1938. According to the IPA, we should ask ourselves the following questions when we spot an example of name-calling.

• What does the name mean?
• Does the idea in question have a legitimate connection with the real meaning of the name?
• Is an idea that serves my best interests being dismissed through giving it a name I don't like?
• Leaving the name out of consideration, what are the merits of the idea itself?

It's my opinion that Kerry's statement is not far from the truth. But I am just one person. It is up to the entire public to decide if they like how Kerry put it, or if they thought he should use more tact. I guess we will see.

It's all about perspective. And no two persons are the same.

 

why do i think that peoples perspective will go right down party lines on this one?