Who says you can't have some good, clean fun with indecency? Fox thinks so, and to prove it, the net's toontoon skeinskein "Family Guy""Family Guy" made the FCC anti-indecency squad the unpixilated butt of its Nov. 6 episode.
In the episode, a "wardrobe malfunction" during a live telecast of the Emmys causes the FCC to censor all the favefave shows of family guy Peter Griffin. "The Dick Van Dyke Show," for example, becomes "The (bleep) Van (bleep) Show."
So Peter starts his own TV station and, with the help of his talking dog Brian, creates edgy programming that prompts the FCC to shut down his station and start telling him how to live.
According to net synopsis, Peter and family then "take matters into their own hands and head to Washington, D.C., to fight for their right to enjoy fart jokes again."
OK, maybe the fun's not so clean, but consider the episode's origins.
"Family Guy" was canceled in 2002, but DVD sales were so strong that Fox execs brought the show back last spring. In the interim, however, indecency complaints -- and FCC fines -- skyrocketed, particularly after Janet JacksonJanet Jackson flashed the world during the 2004 Super Bowl.
"A lot of things we did before, we now couldn't do," says "Guy""Guy" exec producer David GoodmanDavid Goodman. "But we didn't really know what we could do." Guidelines from both the FCC and net's standards & practices were vague at best. "All we knew was that defecating seemed to be a big problem."
Is Goodman worried the FCC might not have a sense of humor about itself?
"It'd be the greatest compliment of all if they actually watched us and fined us," he says, laughing. "We'd know we'd gotten their attention."
It reminds me of something I read in national Lampoon many years ago about Ted Turner buying up old TV shows and repackaging them, such as "Lassie" as "That Fuckin' Dog!", after a court or someone determined that one could say "fuck" if it was used as an interjective instread of refering to having sex. On the downside, they couldn't figure out how to repackage "I Dream of Jeanie" because the title "I Dream of Fuckin' Jeanie" was ambiguous.
Ha. Can't wait to see this episode. As a loyal Family Guy watcher, I've had just about enough of the FCC....it's going to be interesting to see if they "fight back."
That was one of the funniest episodes this season. I loved the beginning with the Naked Gun parody. As soon as I heard the music when Stewie appeared, I knew it was gonna be a Naked Gun Parody. It's great to see Stewie bike through the Shining, Doom, Star Wars, and run Homer over. I bet the creators of the Simpsons will try and sue Family Guy for that. Haha.
Did you catch the Family Guy reference at the end of the Simpsons? I think the two shows can get along well enough. And if they can't that's even better. A little good natured tension never hurt.
"Good natured"? I hear the Simpson's writers are always bitching about how Family Guy steals their ideas and aren't as well-educated as them on their DVD commentaries...
1) Family Guy ripped off another Simpson's joke last night. Maybe the FG newsgroup has it up in a re-cap.
2) Your right wing signature is hilarious. Your heroes crushed a third world country on false pretences, and then messed it up so bad that it can hardly be called a victory... body bags don't keep pilling up after a real victory.
After the end of WWII, not a single Allied soldier died in combat in the occupied countries. Not a single soldier. However, in Iraq, many Allied solders are dying every week (usually every day). If you call that a "victory", even though it's still clearly continuing, then you must have a very strange dictionary. It's almost as if you're letting your hatred of Muslims, and your unwavering love of your country (like a dog for its master) cloud your judgement.... how strange.
You're doing yourself no favours posting obvious bollocks in your signature, fyi. It just makes you come off ignorant and ill-informed. I shouldn't have to demonstrate why your assertion of the "liberal media" (owned by weapons manufacturers and communications conglomerates - rarely "liberal" industries) and "Angry Left" (read: Informed left, hence the anger) are right about the Iraq war. The fact the insurgents are fighting even more shows the "ooh they'll greet us with flowers and handjobs" spin Rumsfeld et al gave us is bullshit. If you don't think Iraq is a quagmire, you really need to read the dictionary definition. Apparently they don't at Fox News Channel.
I have taken my own advice. I wouldn't be trying to help you if I didn't. I can't be held responsible that through some quirk of your personality, you haven't realised that spouting what others say without thinking about it objectively is NOT a good thing, and never leads anywhere good. That's not my fault. Your parents must not have taught you about objectivity. I blame them for your childish and self-serving attitude towards facts.
The fact you switch between "islam is bad" signatures and "iraq is going well" reinforces how little you know about both Islam and Iraq. Fantastic stuff.
Our Troops Must Stay BY JOE LIEBERMAN Tuesday, November 29, 2005 12:01 a.m.
I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn. Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress.
There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly. People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect it.
It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are intent on stopping this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos that will allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as the base for their fanatical war-making. We are fighting on the side of the 27 million because the outcome of this war is critically important to the security and freedom of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American national and economic security priority.
Before going to Iraq last week, I visited Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israel has been the only genuine democracy in the region, but it is now getting some welcome company from the Iraqis and Palestinians who are in the midst of robust national legislative election campaigns, the Lebanese who have risen up in proud self-determination after the Hariri assassination to eject their Syrian occupiers (the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militias should be next), and the Kuwaitis, Egyptians and Saudis who have taken steps to open up their governments more broadly to their people. In my meeting with the thoughtful prime minister of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, he declared with justifiable pride that his country now has the most open, democratic political system in the Arab world. He is right. In the face of terrorist threats and escalating violence, eight million Iraqis voted for their interim national government in January, almost 10 million participated in the referendum on their new constitution in October, and even more than that are expected to vote in the elections for a full-term government on Dec. 15. Every time the 27 million Iraqis have been given the chance since Saddam was overthrown, they have voted for self-government and hope over the violence and hatred the 10,000 terrorists offer them. Most encouraging has been the behavior of the Sunni community, which, when disappointed by the proposed constitution, registered to vote and went to the polls instead of taking up arms and going to the streets. Last week, I was thrilled to see a vigorous political campaign, and a large number of independent television stations and newspapers covering it.
None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.
The leaders of Iraq's duly elected government understand this, and they asked me for reassurance about America's commitment. The question is whether the American people and enough of their representatives in Congress from both parties understand this. I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November's elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead.
Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.
The leaders of America's military and diplomatic forces in Iraq, Gen. George Casey and Ambassador Zal Khalilzad, have a clear and compelling vision of our mission there. It is to create the environment in which Iraqi democracy, security and prosperity can take hold and the Iraqis themselves can defend their political progress against those 10,000 terrorists who would take it from them.
Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq? Yes we do. And it is important to make it clear to the American people that the plan has not remained stubbornly still but has changed over the years. Mistakes, some of them big, were made after Saddam was removed, and no one who supports the war should hesitate to admit that; but we have learned from those mistakes and, in characteristic American fashion, from what has worked and not worked on the ground. The administration's recent use of the banner "clear, hold and build" accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last week. We are now embedding a core of coalition forces in every Iraqi fighting unit, which makes each unit more effective and acts as a multiplier of our forces. Progress in "clearing" and "holding" is being made. The Sixth Infantry Division of the Iraqi Security Forces now controls and polices more than one-third of Baghdad on its own. Coalition and Iraqi forces have together cleared the previously terrorist-controlled cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Tal Afar, and most of the border with Syria. Those areas are now being "held" secure by the Iraqi military themselves. Iraqi and coalition forces are jointly carrying out a mission to clear Ramadi, now the most dangerous city in Al-Anbar province at the west end of the Sunni Triangle.
Nationwide, American military leaders estimate that about one-third of the approximately 100,000 members of the Iraqi military are able to "lead the fight" themselves with logistical support from the U.S., and that that number should double by next year. If that happens, American military forces could begin a drawdown in numbers proportional to the increasing self-sufficiency of the Iraqi forces in 2006. If all goes well, I believe we can have a much smaller American military presence there by the end of 2006 or in 2007, but it is also likely that our presence will need to be significant in Iraq or nearby for years to come.
The economic reconstruction of Iraq has gone slower than it should have, and too much money has been wasted or stolen. Ambassador Khalilzad is now implementing reform that has worked in Afghanistan--Provincial Reconstruction Teams, composed of American economic and political experts, working in partnership in each of Iraq's 18 provinces with its elected leadership, civil service and the private sector. That is the "build" part of the "clear, hold and build" strategy, and so is the work American and international teams are doing to professionalize national and provincial governmental agencies in Iraq.
These are new ideas that are working and changing the reality on the ground, which is undoubtedly why the Iraqi people are optimistic about their future--and why the American people should be, too.
I cannot say enough about the U.S. Army and Marines who are carrying most of the fight for us in Iraq. They are courageous, smart, effective, innovative, very honorable and very proud. After a Thanksgiving meal with a great group of Marines at Camp Fallujah in western Iraq, I asked their commander whether the morale of his troops had been hurt by the growing public dissent in America over the war in Iraq. His answer was insightful, instructive and inspirational: "I would guess that if the opposition and division at home go on a lot longer and get a lot deeper it might have some effect, but, Senator, my Marines are motivated by their devotion to each other and the cause, not by political debates." Thank you, General. That is a powerful, needed message for the rest of America and its political leadership at this critical moment in our nation's history. Semper Fi.
Mr. Lieberman is a Democratic senator from Connecticut.
So you're using one man's account as "proof" you're right? You really don't have a clue if you think that's going to sway anyone, or even detract the slightest from the clear evidence that Iraq is sliding into violent, bloody anarchy. Fantastic. You're showing how easily lead people like you are.
BY MICHAEL RUBIN Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:01 a.m.
Iraqis will go to the polls tomorrow for the third time this year. Their actions mark both a triumph for the Iraqi people and a warning for Arab autocrats. Not only has the Iraqi march toward democracy proved naysayers wrong, but Iraqis' growing embrace of democracy demonstrates the wisdom of staying the course. Iraqis are changing political culture. Howard Dean and John Murtha may believe that the U.S. military has lost. Brent Scowcroft may think Arab democracy a pipe dream. They are mistaken. The greatest impediment to progress in the Arab world is not terrorism or Islamism; both are recent phenomena. Rather, it is lack of accountability. Instead of accepting responsibility for lack of progress, many Arab regimes blame outsiders. In 2002, the U.N.'s Arab Development Report found that the Arab region has the lowest value of all regions of the world for "voice and accountability." In his seminal article "Why Arabs Lose Wars," Col. Norvell De Atkine, an observer of Arab military training, found that "taking responsibility . . . rarely occurs." Arab soldiers seldom admit, let alone learn from, mistakes. In recent discussions with U.S. diplomats and military officials, Iraqi insurgents and former regime elements say that order can be restored only with the empowerment of the former officer corps. They speak of the army's glories but, under Saddam Hussein, triumphs were limited to parades and posturing.
Western scholars have long idealized Iraq's--and even the Baath Party's--past. Some suggest that, at least under Saddam's early leadership, Iraq was a paragon of affluence and stability. In "The Future of Iraq," for example, British scholars Liam Anderson and Gareth Stansfield write that "Regardless of the oppressive (or 'evil') nature of the regime . . . in the economic and social sphere its achievements were truly impressive." They are not alone, but rather project a common myth. The reality is quite different: Saddam's rule was marked by uninterrupted decline. According to Patrick Clawson, the International Monetary Fund's desk officer for Iraq at the time, Iraq's standard of living declined to about one-quarter of its peak from the time Saddam took power. In the same period, Iraq went from being among the least corrupt Arab state to among the most. It is important to recognize the truth, especially as the resolve of our politicians wavers. There should be no whitewashing of history. Excuses can be made to absolve Saddam of responsibility. Multiple wars and sanctions contributed to the decline, but the failure to recover was the result of mismanagement and misallocation. The cavernous marble palace, confiscated by coalition forces to serve as the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, was built almost entirely under sanctions. Oil for Food money disappeared into foreign accounts. Saddam did not take responsibility for his failings: Iraq's travails were not his fault, but rather the result of internal disloyalty or outside plots. Tens of thousands ended up in mass graves so that the leader could save face. Margins of election victory hovering near 99% completed the illusion. Rather than defend the Iraqi people, Western peace activists amplified the dictator's rhetoric. The Baath Party should be held responsible for its record. And today it is. Saddam sits behind bars. De-Baathification remains popular among many Iraqis, even as they debate the nuance of its implementation.
The coalition's ouster of Saddam may have created a template for change, but it is Iraqis who have pressed forward to hold not only Saddam, but also subsequent politicians, to account. On June 28, 2004, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer appointed Iyad Allawi as interim prime minister. Mr. Allawi, a former Baathist, was a favorite of the U.S., British and Jordanian intelligence services. He projected an image of strong leadership to an Iraqi audience craving security. He promised to jumpstart reconstruction. But he failed. Corruption exploded. Iraqis blamed his empowerment of senior Baathists for the spread of insurgency and decline in security. Furthermore, he treated U.S. diplomats, not Iraqis, as his most important constituency. He campaigned surrounded by American security agents. Iraqis had enough. On Jan. 30, millions braved bombs to bounce him from office. Even with the trappings of incumbency--media coverage and a bully pulpit for his campaign--he barely mustered 14%. As Egyptians, Libyans, Tunisians and Syrians watched with envy, Iraqis held a failed incumbent to account.
They will do it again tomorrow. Like Mr. Allawi, current Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has failed. Local humor is telling. A popular Baghdad joke tells of how he walks into his office to find a rooster, dog and donkey. "I'm here to wake you up so you can do your job," the rooster crows. "I'm here to provide security," the dog barks. "Why are you here?" Jaafari asks the donkey. "I don't know. I'm no different from you," the donkey brays.
Under Saddam, and in other Arab autocracies, such jokes were dangerous. But in the new Iraq, the public translates its mood into action. Mr. Jaafari may try to blame his failings on others, but hundreds of newspapers, and a proliferating network of radio stations and TV networks, will not allow him. Ash-Sharqiya has won wide audiences with its political satire. Iraqi editorial cartoonists are merciless. Those surrounding Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani may give a lukewarm endorsement to the United Iraqi Alliance religious slate, but the clerical leadership realizes that they cannot push too hard. Iraqis may respect religion, but they are not willing to forgive militia abuse, even in the name of religion. The Shiite slate may still win a plurality, but its returns will decline. So too will that of the Kurdish list, as disgust with Masud Barzani's conflation of business and politics is escalating.
Even some insurgents have come to realize the power of democracy. I traveled to Jordan last month to meet a senior insurgent leader and unrepentant Baathist. He conceded that "resistance" activities had hurt too many Iraqis and turned many in the hotbed Sunni province of al-Anbar against them. Sunni Arab groups that last year placed their hope for empowerment on U.S. or Arab League intercession recognize that their best hope for empowerment is through the ballot box, not boycotts and bombs.
The process of democratization may be messy--but it is working. Iraqis are frustrated with their situation but, unlike elsewhere in the Arab world, they can now hold their government to account. In Brent Scowcroft's world of realpolitik, Arab regimes are unaccountable to their people. There are no constituents. Hatred festers, and autocrats blame outsiders. Instability and, in the case of the Arab world, a half century of intermittent warfare results. In the face of stagnant government and corruption, Tunisians, Egyptians and Palestinians have turned toward Islamic radicals who seek to restrict freedom and promote terror. But Iraqis have an alternative. Their vote has meaning. Arab regimes expect citizens to serve the ruler. But in Iraq, voters insist that politicians serve the people.
Mr. Rubin, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, is an American Enterprise Institute scholar.
People voting does not mean "democracy". People voting does not mean everything's OK. The massive amount of people in Iraq with no idea who they voted for demonstrates that an election does not make a democracy - heck - Saddam had elections too - was that a democracy? Of course not.
The Iraqis are only voting to get the US out. So, it seems the message isn't "democracy works", but "The US will get you so pissed off with it that you'll try and beat it at its own game". The catalyst here wasn't an unwaivering urge for Iraq to be free, but to get the US troops off Iraqi soil. Fair enough to me.
The day the violence stops in Iraq and the last US soldier leaves, Iraq will be free. Having some puppet government bending over backwards to teabag US policy looks like freedom, yes, but it isn't. Maybe you and your buddies should stop SEEING what's going on, and start KNOWING. You're only getting a tiny fraction of the picture, namely that which you see on Fox et al.
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 17:18:02 -0500, Flip Wilson wrote:
Protecting interests is one thing. Lying about the reasons for going to war is another.
Had Bush come out and said this was about oil and the country backed him on it, I'd call it Democracy (more or less) and accept it as the will of the people.
But that's not what happened. Bush lied to the country and falsely claimed an Al Qaida link to Iraq and cited non-existent weapons of mass destruction the justification for a pre-emptive war on an oil-rich country.
Clinton lied, and no-one lost their life of was even slightly hurt. Bush, however, has been speaking out of his ass for years trying to get into Iraq.
The ISG (the US gov't team on the ground in Iraq) said that Saddam didn't have WMDs. He didn't move them anywhere. It showed that the UN sanctions were doing exactly what they should have - stopping Saddam from developing WMDs.
No, you're just guessing. As there's no proof of your assertion, it just makes you look rather ridiculous for making it. :)
Clinton did lie, but it wasn't about anything important. No countries got attacked because Clinton lied. In fact, Clinton lied about something some republicans have since admitted they shouldn't have done. Blowjobs are simply not important, no matter who's doing what to whom.
Every single fucking time he mentions 9/11 and Iraq in the same sentance. That's clearly lying out of his ass, as there are no connections between Al Qaida and Iraq (at least until we invaded).
It was the ISG report. The big one. The one the republicans said would vindicate the president's stance on Iraq. You really can't remember? It was massive, massive news when it came out. I'll find it for you, since your memory is so bad :):
"NuQ" wrote in message news:43bc2194$0$59201$[email]...
What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Did we invade Saddam then? No - so it's a moot point. Bush pulled the spectre of WMDs out of his ass and actually invaded. Now I bet you think that's OK, though, don't you?
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear," Clinton said. "We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors."
We can only go by the evidence. Clinton said Saddam had them. The US invaded, found no WMD, therfore Clinton lied, right?
NuQ" wrote in message news:43c321e9$0$84787$[email]...
So Clinton says something in 1998, and five years later it's demonstrated to be untrue at that very second. That's not exactly conclusive proof that he was lying. The ISG demonstrated that Saddam did have a WMD programme active during the 90s, and that it was being systematically destroyed by the UN sanctions. As it was, it's very likely Saddam DID have WMDs, or at least an active programme, in 1998. Though when it came for Bush to invade, the sanctions had destroyed the programme, as the ISG admitted.
So if that's the best you've got, you don't have a hope.
"NuQ" wrote in message news:43bd618d$0$28519$[email]...
Then why wasn't he impeached for that? Why was the best thing the republicans could find out about him some jizz on a blue dress? I mean, that's hardly going to topple the nation.
"NuQ" wrote in message news:43c322ef$0$46938$[email]...
As you haven't proved Saddam didn't have WMDs in 1998 (which the ISG suggests is unlikely), you can't demonstrate anything. Judging Saddam's WMD programme in 1998 by what was found, after 5 years of harsh sanctions, is specious reasoning.
Bush saying "He has WMDs", then less than a month later the ISG says "He didn't have WMDs" - that's lying. He made an assertion, which was immediately proven to be totally, 100% incorrect. Clinton's comment, which didn't even cause anyone to lose a life (unlike Bush's) was made 5 years before the invasion. How Clinton can be a bad guy and Bush be sqeaky-clean is beyond me.
So those democrats actually thought what Bush, the CIA and the pentagon were saying was real. Unfortunately for those democrats, they'd been told incorrect information. I don't see how you can blame them for trusting the president and US intelligence. And, before those, the next comment is back in 1998, which is 5 years before the invasion. Judging their statements from the situation on the ground 5 years later is a clear indication of bias and ridiculously self-serving logic. In fact, there isn't a shred of evidence claiming those democrats were lying in 1998.
Why aren't you so outraged about Bush and his lot lying? Why is that slipping by unnoticed when you're screaming for Clinton's blood? :)
You are giving everyone a pass because they were given faulty information except Bush. When it comes to Bush you slap the lie tag on him, but with everyone else you don't want to use that tag. You can't have it both ways.
"NuQ" wrote in message news:mrfxf.311691$[email]...
No, it's called accountability. If Bush takes the country to war, or even makes minute fiscal adjustments, based on information, he is accountable should that information prove to be incorrect. That's his job. I can't believe I have to explain that to someone. Otherwise, what's to stop him just pulling "facts" out of his ass, and each time they're proved wrong, just look bashful and say "but I didn't know it was false!"? Exactly - nothing. It's a tenet of democracy. You are in power both when it suits you and when it doesn't.
The Democrats simply believed the President. They did what was being pleaded of them by the grief-stricken US people, and equally grief-stricken Republicans, all looking for an answer as to why they were attacked at home. Bush betrayed that trust, quite simply. The accountability lies at his feet, and his feet only. That's why he's the President.
Ever heard the expression "the buck stops here"? Bush is where "here" is ;)
Not only did they believe the president, they believed the intelligence reports provided to them by the CIA. The president's word was not the single source of information for Congress.
They did what was being
No one is arguing that the buck doesn't stop with Bush. Of course it does. Your original point was that Bush lied not about his accountability.
"NuQ" wrote in message news:43cd3d58$0$82473$[email]...
No, but it sealed the deal. Who would think the President would pass them bunk information as if it was fact? Especially information that would have severe ramifications for a host of countries and millions of people.
He did lie. He is accountable for that lie. It's that simple :)
"Blastrou" wrote in message news:dogt38$e4l$[email]...
Seriously - that's why he's so angry on TV. You'd be pretty pissed if you had hundreds of mobile chemical weapons labs and countless nuclear-armed scuds stuck up your ass.
Then where's the satellite imagery of the massive (and they would be massive) trucks used to smuggle the weapons? The US has the most advanced spy satellite system in the world, and could easily track such objects moving over the desert. But they didn't. They didn't see a single thing. And, if you read the ISG findings, you'll see that the UN's sanctions had the desired effect, and crippled any chance Saddam had of even making WMDs, which the ISG also shows he didn't want to.
But then that doesn't fit in with your "Bush = Valiant cowboy for freedom / Saddam = Evil Stalinesque despot with WMDs coming out his ass" view, so feel free to deny any and every point in this post, as I'm sure you will.
Oh, and bear in mind that the ISG was appointed by the Bush administration, so the fact they came out with such a damning report should show you there's no partisan motive behind it.
What terrorists ? BTW You still haven't answered my point about the oil not being yours. Have you no answer but the obvious "yes, the US are thieves who don't mind murdering people for oil or money" ?
Sure - start the next round of tit-for-tat attacks. The US started this mess by ruining the middle east. By removing the first democratically-elected leader in Iran, and placing the Shah in power, the US paved the road for fundamentalism to sweep across Iran, then Iraq, and indeed most of the middle east. But then you don't believe that. You think the "dirrrrty A-Rabs" started this, I'm sure. They didn't. US imperialism and desire for oil started this decades ago, and the problems will be here for decades to come.
Can't you see the terrorists are just behaving like the US does? They're pissed off with a country's actions, and regardless of whether attacking them is legal, ethically justified, or even a good idea, they go straight ahead and attack. Just like the US does on a regular basis.