Ronald Reagan

[Imran Siddiqui]

the stuff alleged in this report is PEANUTS compared to the average.

Translation: Since it ain't as much as Pinochet he's a good guy.

quite convenient to end the report right before elections were held.

Hey, so if Stalin decided to turn the country to 'elections' right before he died, he'd be alright? In the first few years of his administration, Torrijos was said to have committed "serious violations of basic human rights". That ain't good enough for you?

lets look at the conclusion. do you see anywhere "mass murdereing of political opponents" or "mass graves" or "institutionalized torture?" nope, because you are making a storm out of nothing.

"resulting in serious violations of basic human rights."

until you a) read the book and b) come up with a source not compromised as I have shown with your last guy, you have no choice but to accept Perkins' statements.

Why should I accept the statement of guy who I have no verification know jack or ****? I'd probably be better off listening to DanS. No evidence this Perkins idiot knows more than he does.

how does it feel to get used so thoroughly?

How does it feel to fall for leftist propaganda so easily? You are a Stalinist's dream. You read one book and fell for it hook, line, and sinker without even questioning any bit of it.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Translation: Since it ain't as much as Pinochet he's a good guy.

again, like i said, what he did was peanuts compared to the average of all third world country leaders. in fact, if you look at that time period of 9 years, and compare it to a 9 year span in the US, you will find many instances where the US has more human rights abuses in those 9 years then in panama.

Hey, so if Stalin decided to turn the country to 'elections' right before he died, he'd be alright? In the first few years of his administration, Torrijos was said to have committed "serious violations of basic human rights". That ain't good enough for you?

bad analogy - torrijos did not kill and imprison millions.

"resulting in serious violations of basic human rights."

no matter how you turn it around, you cant get away from the fact that

lets look at the conclusion. do you see anywhere "mass murdereing of political opponents" or "mass graves" or "institutionalized torture?" nope, because you are making a storm out of nothing.

Why should I accept the statement of guy who I have no verification know jack or ****? I'd probably be better off listening to DanS. No evidence this Perkins idiot knows more than he does.

just because YOU dont know about him does not mean he is wrong or uninformed.

How does it feel to fall for leftist propaganda so easily? You are a Stalinist's dream.

too bad i have a problem with authority.
you on the other hand is what the new american empire is being built on - the ignorance of the finer points of international relations, and the hope that with enough PR by the US companies, you will buy their point of view or get you to ignore it all together. they've been pretty succesful since there hasnt been an outcry in America.

[Imran Siddiqui]

bad analogy

"resulting in serious violations of basic human rights."

And that is from the OAS, not an organization with an adverse agenda here.

The amount of violation may not be numerically the same, but serious human rights violations existed, with numerous political opponents 'dissapearing'.

Like I said before, as long as he's not Pinochet, it's ok. As long as there is not 'mass' murder, or 'mass' graves, it's ok. As long as the political oppression, torture, and murder is not on such a mass level, it's alright.

Hell, if Bush started eliminating 20-30 Democratic leaders and torturing a few more. No biggie! He didn't engage in mass murder or mass graves or institutionalized torture! It's fine!

just because YOU dont know about him does not mean he is wrong or uninformed.

From Publisher's Weekly:

Perkins spent the 1970s working as an economic planner for an international consulting firm, a job that took him to exotic locales like Indonesia and Panama, helping wealthy corporations exploit developing nations as, he claims, a not entirely unwitting front for the National Security Agency. He says he was trained early in his career by a glamorous older woman as one of many "economic hit men" advancing the cause of corporate hegemony. He also says he has wanted to tell his story for the last two decades, but his shadowy masters have either bought him off or threatened him until now. The story as presented is implausible to say the least, offering so few details that Perkins often seems paranoid, and the simplistic political analysis doesn’t enhance his credibility. Despite the claim that his work left him wracked with guilt, the artless prose is emotionally flat and generally comes across as a personal crisis of conscience blown up to monstrous proportions, casting Perkins as a victim not only of his own neuroses over class and money but of dark forces beyond his control. His claim to have assisted the House of Saud in strengthening its ties to American power brokers may be timely enough to attract some attention, but the yarn he spins is ultimately unconvincing, except perhaps to conspiracy buffs.

And you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker!

[Lawrence of Arabia]

"resulting in serious violations of basic human rights."

And that is from the OAS, not an organization with an adverse agenda here.

The amount of violation may not be numerically the same, but serious human rights violations existed, with numerous political opponents 'dissapearing'.

right, a whole what, 14 political opponents disappeared? over a 9 year span? just over one a year? gimme a break.

Like I said before, as long as he's not Pinochet, it's ok. As long as there is not 'mass' murder, or 'mass' graves, it's ok. As long as the political oppression, torture, and murder is not on such a mass level, it's alright.

you see, the people of Chile hated pinochet (the majority) the majority of Panama not only loves Torrios, but its politicans strive to be compared to torrijos. seems to me that there were not massive human rights violations, and the report agrees.

Hell, if Bush started eliminating 20-30 Democratic leaders and torturing a few more. No biggie! He didn't engage in mass murder or mass graves or institutionalized torture! It's fine!

there you go again, comparing a 1st world industrialized country to a 3rd world ****hole. do you really think thats a good comparison, to say that if it happens in america its just as bad as if it happens out there?

And you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker!

thats your evidence? a book review? i can find many that praise the book and you know it. until you read it yourself, and draw your own conclusions, you cannot say anything about Perkins credibility.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

check out his website, www.johnperkins.org on 'about the author' at the bottom. his daughter is pretty hot

[Imran Siddiqui]

right, a whole what, 14 political opponents disappeared? over a 9 year span? just over one a year? gimme a break.

"resulting in serious violations of basic human rights."

You think that is a phrase just tossed around?

the majority of Panama not only loves Torrios, but its politicans strive to be compared to torrijos. seems to me that there were not massive human rights violations

The majority of the population of Cuba love Castro! The majority of the population of Palestine love Hamas! That HAS to mean there weren't human rights violations!

there you go again, comparing a 1st world industrialized country to a 3rd world ****hole. do you really think thats a good comparison, to say that if it happens in america its just as bad as if it happens out there?

Um... YEAH! Its because you give 3rd world countries a pass that bastards like Torrijos can get away with silencing political opposition.

thats your evidence? a book review? i can find many that praise the book and you know it. until you read it yourself, and draw your own conclusions, you cannot say anything about Perkins credibility.

I can say stuff about his credibility and will continue to call him a hack. You advanced him as the source. It is YOUR job to prove his reliability. I ain't going to take his words as the gospel on YOUR word.

I don't believe a word out of his mouth unless you can show me proof as to his reliability as a source.

And you didn't even take it with a grain of salt! That's the best part!

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
teh Reagan

one of the worst presidents in the history of the US. when he was done screwing the united states over we were morally and financially bankrupt.
Reagan did such great things as:

-slap tariffs on Korea and Bangladesh over textiles, even though he was a free trader
-sent marines to lebanon with no clear mission. 200 of them got blown up intheir beds
-****ed around in iran, nicaragua, panama, ecuador and presided over a CIA who killed off democractically elected officials in some of these countries
-spent billions on star wars - a defense system that makes america less safe and 20 years later we still dont have a working system
-got us invovled in afghanistan, and now its come back to bite us in the ass (see Osama)
-got us invovled with Saddam, and now its come back to bite us in the ass (see Saddam)
-single handedly created the problem we have now - terrorism.

Wow. You really are delusional. I'm not even a Reagan fan, but the vast majority of your charges are right out of "Conspiracy a-go-go". You don't have a problem with authority, you are simply and seriously paranoid. Things are bad enough in the real world without you making a mockery of the very real mistakes and malfeasance of the Reagan administration. This thread needs a sign that states:

You must be this sane to post on this thread

[Lawrence of Arabia]

"resulting in serious violations of basic human rights."

You think that is a phrase just tossed around?

yeah it is when the report makes no relative comparisons to other 3rd world countries.

The majority of the population of Cuba love Castro! The majority of the population of Palestine love Hamas! That HAS to mean there weren't human rights violations!

thats a lie. you have no source for that. meanwhile, i do have a source for my statement of people loving torrijos. comes from the US congress library.

From 1968 until his death in an airplane crash in 1981, General Torrijos dominated the Panamanian political scene. His influence, greater than that of any individual in the nation's history, did not end with his death. Since 1981, both military and civilian leaders have sought to wrap themselves in the mantle of Torrijismo, claiming to be the true heirs of the general's political and social heritage. As of the late 1980s, none had been particularly successful in this effort.

Um... YEAH! Its because you give 3rd world countries a pass that bastards like Torrijos can get away with silencing political opposition.

again, grow up. torrijos was a fly on the wall compared to others. if you go barking up that tree its because you have no idea how bad it gets out there. you dont reproach torrijos for being a human rights violator because he was one of the least 'violators' of them all.

I can say stuff about his credibility and will continue to call him a hack. You advanced him as the source. It is YOUR job to prove his reliability. I ain't going to take his words as the gospel on YOUR word.

what sort of crap is that? ive given a source, you need to either accept it or refute it, neither of which you have done at this time. it does not work the other way around, as much as it is the easy way out for you.

And you didn't even take it with a grain of salt! That's the best part!

aaaah, the assumption on your part. you dont think i struggled with this book? do you know how hard it was for me to finish it? do you know how many times i wanted to just put it down because it seemed so out there? well im glad i didnt because he wraps it up very nicely at the end. you see, i like patterns, and he showed me one, a disturbing one, that lends a lot of weight to his claims in the book. a pattern repeated again and again

[Imran Siddiqui]

yeah it is when the report makes no relative comparisons to other 3rd world countries.

It's from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES! I think they've dealt with other 3rd world Central American countries' human rights abuses

thats a lie. you have no source for that.

Open your eyes and look. Palestinians love Hamas, Cubans love Castro. They celebrate them in the streets. You want to say they are deluded? Go ahead. Being popular doesn't mean you are not guilty of the crimes you are accused!

torrijos was a fly on the wall compared to others.

Ah, so if you aren't as bad as the worst violators, that's ok. Jailing and torturing political dissidents? That's ok, because he didn't do it as much as tohers.

what sort of crap is that? ive given a source, you need to either accept it or refute it

No I don't. You have to prove your source is worth ****. What if I gave you a Rush Limbaugh book in response? What would be your response to that? Would you run out to read it so you may be able to 'refute it'?

Give me proof that his novelization is the truth. The burden is on you. Anyone can offer some BS book. I don't accept it.

That's how it works. The person offering the source has to provide the proof that it's a valid source.

Someone like Fez says his dad was an ambassador and this is what he said happened. Do you just accept it? Wouldn't you like to have some proof on the source? Man, you must be incredibly naive.


Like Sikander said, stop being paranoid and start getting sane.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia

Iraq: US supports Saddams baath party, he allows US companies to do what they want, he gets lots of weapons to fight Iran, but then gets out of control and the US can no longer control him. CIA fails, invasion the first time somewhat works. Saddam still doesnt play ball with the US, we invade again and finish the job.

Name one weapon system (you claim lots of weapons) that the U.S. supplied to Iraq. I was intimately aquainted with the Iraqi order of battle before and during the 1st Gulf War, and they simply didn't have any U.S. weapons systems. The vast majority of their armaments were Soviet with the balance being French.

Our "support" for Iraq extended no further than out desire to see the status quo ante prevail in their war with Iran. We supported whomever we thought needed help to keep them from losing the war over the course of a few years, mostly with intelligence. When that war ended so did our "friendly" relations with Iraq. The greatest crime the U.S. committed was that we didn't condemn Iraq when they used chemical weapons on the Iranians.

We never had any control over Iraq. In fact we barely had any influence over them at all, which was reasonable considering that we were only spoonfeeding them intel that served our purposes and were playing both sides of that conflict and they knew it. We had more hope of restoring at least reasonable relations with Iran at the time for the simple reason that our relations with Iraq had been horrible for decades. They were a Soviet client state during the cold war (hence their Soviet arsenal), virulently anti-Israeli, and well-known to support some of the most murderous terrorist groups known to that time. The only reason that we didn't want to see Saddam fall immediately was that we didn't want to risk the Iranians moving into the power vacuum that would have been created. The only reason that we fought the first gulf war was that we weren't going to allow Saddam to sit on 30+% of the worlds proven reserves with his sword at the throat of weaker states who controlled another 30%. Note that even then we did not overthrow his regime.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

It's from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES! I think they've dealt with other 3rd world Central American countries' human rights abuses

again, on this report, there is no indication on the relative condition of torrijos 'human right abuses' to other 3rd world leaders.

Open your eyes and look. Palestinians love Hamas, Cubans love Castro. They celebrate them in the streets. You want to say they are deluded? Go ahead. Being popular doesn't mean you are not guilty of the crimes you are accused!

hamas is a terrorist organization, not the head of any country. if cubans love castro so much why are they hitching rides on anything that can float to get to the US? being popular means you havnt committed massive 'human rights violations'

on a side note, i am unfamiliar with what castro has done with regard to human rights. do you have any sources?

[quote]
Ah, so if you aren't as bad as the worst violators, that's ok. Jailing and torturing political dissidents? That's ok, because he didn't do it as much as tohers.
[/quote[

again, you are lawyering up the situation. i never said that. i said that he is the one of the least abusing leaders in third world countries. that has nothing to do with 'not as bad as the worst violators' in fact its the complete opposite. when you are among the least, its ok. thats right. its called a gray area. theres a different bar for 3rd world countries.

No I don't. You have to prove your source is worth ****. What if I gave you a Rush Limbaugh book in response? What would be your response to that? Would you run out to read it so you may be able to 'refute it'?

go ahead, i dare you, gimee a rush limbaugh book about this and i would tear it to shreds in five minutes. if you cant disprove it, you have to accept it. would i run out and read it? maybe, maybe not. but i could also find another reputable source, or attack his backround, and use that to refute it.

Give me proof that his novelization is the truth. The burden is on you. Anyone can offer some BS book. I don't accept it.

That's how it works. The person offering the source has to provide the proof that it's a valid source.

im not gonna do your work for me. you either disprove it, or you accept it.

Wow. You really are delusional. I'm not even a Reagan fan, but the vast majority of your charges are right out of "Conspiracy a-go-go". You don't have a problem with authority, you are simply and seriously paranoid. Things are bad enough in the real world without you making a mockery of the very real mistakes and malfeasance of the Reagan administration. This thread needs a sign that states:

unfortunately, sikander hasnt provided any evidence; he is only disagreeing.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
We didn't train him specifically, but we did train many of his followers and co-thinkers.

We did precious little training of anyone, save for the relatively few Stinger AA missle operators. Pakistan did the lion's share of the training, Saudi Arabia did the lion's share of the foreign fighter recruiting and we supplied money, coordination and intelligence.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Reagan said it was possible to win a nuclear war and even joked once to reporters that he'd started one. TeH Reagan was a dispensationalist, and at that time, one of their beliefs was that the U.S. was God's instrument on Earth to destroy the atheist USSR and bring about Armeggedon. Fortunately for humanity, the Soviets surrendered instead.

Yes, Pharaoh eventually gave in as well. They all do.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Name one weapon system (you claim lots of weapons) that the U.S. supplied to Iraq. I was intimately aquainted with the Iraqi order of battle before and during the 1st Gulf War, and they simply didn't have any U.S. weapons systems. The vast majority of their armaments were Soviet with the balance being French.

well, heres the link http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/time.html

and heres the juicy bit

The main facts are no longer in dispute. In violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 (which outlaws chemical warfare), the Reagan-Bush administration authorized the sale of poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, from anthrax to bubonic plague, throughout the '80s. In 1982, while Saddam Hussein constructed his machinery of war, Reagan and Bush removed Iraq from the State Department list of terrorist states.

also

Subsequently, the Pentagon supplied logistical and military support; U.S. banks provided billions of dollars in credits; and the C.I.A., using a Chilean conduit, increased Saddam's supply of cluster bombs. U.S. companies also supplied steel tubes and chemical substances, the types of material for which the Security Council is now searching.

that last line is the best

[Lawrence of Arabia]

i dont seem so crazy anymore do i?