"DSK" wrote in message
...
No. They're deceitful and cannot be trusted.


Then why, during the last election, were you trumpeting that Putin really
really liked Bush & Cheney and wanted us all to vote for him?


NOYB wrote:
Diplomatic blackmail. Bush had Putin dead to rights on a number of
issues: violating the Iraqi sanctions by shipping them arms, helping
Saddam smuggle out WMD, and running interference for Iraq at the UN.


And that was why you thought Putin's endorsement was good for Push??


It helped reassure the last-minute uninformed/undecideds who couldn't make
up their minds who to vote for.

Those folks seem to care an awful bunch about what other nations like Russia
think about us.



Russia's most credible nuclear threat to the US is via terrorist proxy.
Of course, President Bush is doing so little to combat *real* terrorism
that it's a huge threat.


We'd know in a heartbeat if a Russian nuke was detonated on US soil.

How?

From the isotopic signature.



... The Russians aren't that foolhardy.


No, they're very smart. That's why they would be perfectly willing to sell
nukes to some terrorists and possibly even help them deliver it via
shipping container. Plus they need the money.

But hey, aren't we all glad that President Bush's crackerjack Homeland
Security Team is 100% on-the-ball, right?


One of the best reasons for putting the hammer down on Bashir Assad is
that he has a knack for chosing the wrong side, that plus he's a brutal
dictator. OTOH his gov't is both stable & secular, and his help would be
(and was in the past) valuable against radical Muslim terrorist groups.



He has no interest in helping us. In fact, he's working feverishly to
subvert our efforts in Iraq.


Baloney. I suppose this comes out of the same spew that provides all the
ranting about Iran's insurgency is all foreigners.


The true native Iraqi "insurgents" are no longer very effective at killing
American and Iraq military and police forces. Though they may outnumber the
foreign fighters, their actions account for very few of the more recent
(within 6 months) American and Iraqi casualties.

"American commanders say that foreigners make up more than 90 percent of
the suicide bombers. Many of those suicide attacks are directed at
civilians."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/in...21baghdad.html




He is working at modernizing & Westernizing Syria, and if the U.S.
exerted a little smart diplomacy, could be a valuable ally.


Hogwash. Any country which supports terrorist groups like Hezbollah, is
in no way a potential ally to the US.


Yep.

BTW Hezbollah is supported more by Iran than by Syria. And they have a
large political wing which gives them a stake in realistic solutions.

Iran uses Syria (and much of formerly Syrian-controlled Lebanon) as a
Hezbollah supply route. In this way, Syria is just as much to blame.

If we get Syria to pull back (which would take some smarts & some time)
then that gives Hezbollah an even bigger reason to play nice.

Syria already pulled their troops out of Lebanon...but much of its
intelligence agency and Hezbollah-support network remains behind. It was
those elements that killed Hariri. Bush and our European allies tried to do
just as you proposed...but the assassination threw a monkey wrench into the
plan. That's why there's so much outrage among the US, UK, and France over
the assassination.




But I suppose you must rant & rave about how they are evil violent
fundamentalists (while ignoring the fact that you're a fundamentalist
advocate of violence yourself) & we should kill them all, somehow.


But I belong to the militarily stronger fundamentalist group.




We could influence him to grant slightly more human rights, too; although
somebody will first have to convince President Bush that torture is for
bad guys.


President Bush already knows that torture is for bad guys.

Then why did he promise to veto a bill defining torture as against US
policy? Or are you saying that President Bush is one of the bad guys?

No. I'm saying that he knows to use torture only on the really bad guys.