Saddam Got??

[kintaro 0]

Bravo! 5 stars indeed!

 

 

Now, shouldn't we really stay focused on that shave they gave Sadam? Seems really important.

[grungy-gonads 54]

Yes. I think they were being very culturally sensitive when they left on his caterpillar mustachio. Bravo.

[Roger's head 0]

GLad they got him.

[MistaSparkle 0]

This is, unfortunately, a short term win for bush/blair. Yea it's a good thing he's caught, but now lets see if he gets put on trial and reveals what everyone already knows. That there were never any stockpiles of "WMD."

 

Amazing how US/UK went to Iraq under the pretext of eliminating an "imminent threat," and now all you hear is we're there to "liberate" the iraqi people (albeit, with a puppet government).

[bobby12 0]

In addition to Saddam looking very pityful with a beard, he also resembled Santa Claus which is surely a Bad Thing given the time of year. ;-)

 

But seriously I thought it was really sly and despicable how they shaved him so he matches the 'crazy evil dictator Saddam' that we have had rammed down our throats for so long.

 

I am totally with Ocean11 on this one, at least in terms of how we should be aware of how one sided and propaganda-filled our media is.

[enderzero 0]

For all any of us know he might have requested to be shaved. Saying he was shaved to match the evil dictator look is just worthless conjecture.

[HoTRoD 2]

Agree with enderzero there, thats just silly.

[Ocean11 0]

Yeah they had to shave it off in case his WMD were in there.

 

(ender, I wish you hadn't pooed on that line of conspiracy. I was interested to see where that was coming from and going to. )

[yodel 0]

Why didn't he shoot himself when he knew he was caught??

[Markie 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by yodel:
Why didn't he shoot himself when he knew he was caught??

I have it from a very reliable source that he really wanted to but there were no guns in his hole, there being only enough space to hide all his WMD which, Saddam being the nice guy he is, decided also not to use so as not to hurt any innocent third parties, especially the U.S. G.I.s.

[rachael 0]

Ah, that's it!

 

Obviously a nice guy then.

[bobby12 0]

If they didnt shave Saddam, he would have looked to some extent like a different person. The US clearly wants him to look exactly the same as the bad guy they have been ramming down our throats for so long. Also, he looked quite pitiable with the beard, which is the last thing the US wants. For those reasons, I think they shaved him.

[Dims 0]

Wonder if the US will let him grow it back. He certainly had "the mother of all beards".

[barry 0]

I don't think you should be making light of such a serious subject.

[Ocean11 0]

That's a bizarre obsession with his beard.

 

Here's the leader of a sovereign nation with the same legitimacy as a number of other nasty thugs that 'we' are pleased to deal with, but who has been reduced to living in a hole in the ground - and you latch onto his beard which he may not have been too keen on himself anyway. (What, you think he's been waiting all these years for the chance to grow a big dusty beard, but it conflicted with his other responsibilities?) There are far more bothersome issues to obssess about.

 

That doesn't mean though barry, that we have to be completely po faced about it...

[scouser 4]

Shouldn't "we" have a capital W, O11? Heroes an' all that...

[Siren 0]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20031216/ts_alt_afp/iraq_saddam_us_toy

[LiquidX 0]

Oh my god. What with that and the other 2 bush dolls, that Chrippy budget is really stretched.

 

[IIIII 2]

Do they sell it with a shaving kit and mouth examining stick (I'm sure one of them has a name)

[Siren 0]

An interesting site

 

http://stuarthughes.blogspot.com/

[Siren 0]

Billionaire Soros takes on Bush

by By Laura Blumenfeld, Washington Post • Tuesday November 11, 2003 at 11:10 AM

 

 

Soros believes Bush's “supremacist ideology” guides this White House. He hears echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary. “When I hear Bush say, ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ it reminds me of the Germans.” It conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort mit (“The enemy is listening”).

 

NEW YORK, Nov. 11 — George Soros, one of the world’s richest men, has given away nearly $5 billion to promote democracy in the former Soviet bloc, Africa and Asia. Now he has a new project: defeating President Bush.

 

“IT IS THE central focus of my life,” Soros said, his blue eyes settled on an unseen target. The 2004 presidential race, he said in an interview, is “a matter of life and death.”

 

Soros, who has financed efforts to promote open societies in more than 50 countries around the world, is bringing the fight home, he said. On Monday, he and a partner committed up to $5 million to MoveOn.org, a liberal activist group, bringing to $15.5 million the total of his personal contributions to oust Bush.

 

Overnight, Soros, 74, has become the major financial player of the left. He has elicited cries of foul play from the right. And with a tight nod, he pledged: “If necessary, I would give more money.”

 

“America, under Bush, is a danger to the world,” Soros said. Then he smiled: “And I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”

 

Soros believes a “supremacist ideology” guides this White House. He hears echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary. “When I hear Bush say, ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ it reminds me of the Germans.” It conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort mit (“The enemy is listening”): “My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me,” he said in a soft Hungarian accent.

 

Soros’s contributions are filling a gap in Democratic Party finances that opened after the restrictions in the 2002 McCain-Feingold law took effect. In the past, political parties paid a large share of television and get-out-the-vote costs with unregulated “soft money” contributions from corporations, unions and rich individuals. The parties are now barred from accepting such money. But non-party groups in both camps are stepping in, accepting soft money and taking over voter mobilization.

 

“It’s incredibly ironic that George Soros is trying to create a more open society by using an unregulated, under-the-radar-screen, shadowy, soft-money group to do it,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson said. “George Soros has purchased the Democratic Party.”

 

In past election cycles, Soros contributed relatively modest sums. In 2000, his aide said, he gave $122,000, mostly to Democratic causes and candidates. But recently, Soros has grown alarmed at the influence of neoconservatives, whom he calls “a bunch of extremists guided by a crude form of social Darwinism.”

 

Neoconservatives, Soros said, are exploiting the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to promote a preexisting agenda of preemptive war and world dominion. “Bush feels that on September 11th he was anointed by God,” Soros said. “He’s leading the U.S. and the world toward a vicious circle of escalating violence.”

 

Soros said he had been waking at 3 a.m., his thoughts shaking him “like an alarm clock.” Sitting in his robe, he wrote his ideas down, longhand, on a stack of pads. In January, PublicAffairs will publish them as a book, “The Bubble of American Supremacy” (an excerpt appears in December’s Atlantic Monthly). In it, he argues for a collective approach to security, increased foreign aid and “preventive action.”

 

“It would be too immodest for a private person to set himself up against the president,” he said. “But it is, in fact” — he chuckled — “the Soros Doctorine.”

 

His campaign began last summer with the help of Mort Halpern, a liberal think tank veteran. Soros invited Democratic strategists to his house in Southampton, Long Island, including Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta, Jeremy Rosner, Robert Boorstin and Carl Pope.

 

They discussed the coming election. Standing on the back deck, the evening sun angling into their eyes, Soros took aside Steve Rosenthal, CEO of the liberal activist group America Coming Together (ACT), and Ellen Malcolm, its president. They were proposing to mobilize voters in 17 battleground states. Soros told them he would give ACT $10 million.

 

Asked about his moment in the sun, Rosenthal deadpanned: “We were disappointed. We thought a guy like George Soros could do more.” Then he laughed. “No, kidding! It was thrilling.”

 

Malcolm: “It was like getting his Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.”

 

“They were ready to kiss me,” Soros quipped.

‘If someone guaranteed it.’

 

Asked if he would become poor to beat Bush Before coffee the next morning, his friend Peter Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Corp., had pledged $10 million to ACT. Rob Glaser, founder and CEO of RealNetworks, promised $2 million. Rob McKay, president of the McKay Family Foundation, gave $1 million and benefactors Lewis and Dorothy Cullman committed $500,000.

 

Soros also promised up to $3 million to Podesta’s new think tank, the Center for American Progress.

 

Soros will continue to recruit wealthy donors for his campaign. Having put a lot of money into the war of ideas around the world, he has learned that “money buys talent; you can advocate more effectively.”

 

At his home in Westchester, N.Y., he raised $115,000 for Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. He also supports Democratic presidential contenders Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.).

 

In an effort to limit Soros’s influence, the RNC sent a letter to Dean Monday, asking him to request that ACT and similar organizations follow the McCain-Feingold restrictions limiting individual contributions to $2,000.

 

The RNC is not the only group irked by Soros. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, which promotes changes in campaign finance , has benefited from Soros’s grants over the years. Soros has backed altering campaign finance, an aide said, donating close to $18 million over the past seven years.

 

“There’s some irony, given the supporting role he played in helping to end the soft money system,” Wertheimer said. “I’m sorry that Mr. Soros has decided to put so much money into a political effort to defeat a candidate. We will be watchdogging him closely.”

 

An aide said Soros welcomes the scrutiny. Soros has become as rich as he has, the aide said, because he has a preternatural instinct for a good deal.

 

Asked whether he would trade his $7 billion fortune to unseat Bush, Soros opened his mouth. Then he closed it. The proposal hung in the air: Would he become poor to beat Bush?

 

He said: “If someone guaranteed it.”