US Sniper Attack - Bush a hypocrite

MrBlonde

Just listened to George Bush in relation to the US Sniper.

His "war on terrorism" focuses on Iraq and the "threat" of Saddam Hussein and wants to use military action.

Yet he speaks to Americans about the sniper causing "violence and fear" to the population. Is it just me or is this the typical "foreign policy" thing where lets have a war and not even focus on terrorism even greater than 911 as I see it in his own back yard.

Just my opinion.
-Verifyor

"The good news is the White House is giving George Bush intelligence briefings. You know, some of these jokes just write themselves." - David Letterman

DadaKopf

Originally posted by MrBlonde
Is it just me or is this the typical "foreign policy" thing where lets have a war and not even focus on terrorism even greater than 911 as I see it in his own back yard.

Hmm, 10 deaths versus 3,045 deaths. Which is greater?

Yeah sure, Bush is using the same language with the sniper as he is with Al Qaeda but if you were living in the Washington suburbs, you'd probably be terrified, too. Could the sniper be described as anything else?

pencil

Too true - from the Michael Moore Mailing list


>>> "Michael Moore's Mailing List" <mailinglist@michaelmoore.com>
10/24/02 12:38am >>>
October 23, 2002

Dear friends,

The note from the sniper could not have been more clear: "Your children are not safe, anywhere at anytime." How did snipers get to be so smart?
Have truer words amidst such madness been spoken before? "Your children are not safe."

And so the parents of the DC area are now in a state of holy terror. The news media is at full throttle: "Keep your children home! Your child could be next! The sniper is everywhere!"

And this morning, for the first time, there is talk that perhaps
election day in the Capital area should be postponed -- or at, the very least, the polls must be manned by armed troops. Fear reigns. The democratic process can wait. Our children are not safe.

Yes, our children ARE not safe. They have not been safe for some time. Every single day in America, at least 8 children (19 yrs. old and younger) are killed by gun violence in the United States.

EVERY SINGLE DAY in America between 30 and 40 people are murdered by someone using a gun. EVERY SINGLE DAY in America another 40 to 50 people use a gun to kill themselves.
None of this has created a panic. These 80+ deaths a day by gunfire do not lead off the evening news. We have, sitting in our homes, a quarter-BILLION guns. And, yet, not one of those guns would have saved anyone shot by the sniper. The sniper knows -- "Your children are not safe."

But it is not just because of his actions or the actions of those who collaborate each day in his -- and our -- carnage that makes our children unsafe.

Your children are not safe because we live in a country where we value bombs and missiles more than we do textbooks and teachers.

Your children are not safe because we still will not provide them with the most basic of human rights, one that nearly every other country on earth has: that ALL children have a right to free health care should they get sick.

Your children are not safe because we stuff them full of McDonald's and Ritalin and then wonder why they have diabetes at 13 or shoot up the school a week before graduation.

Your children are not safe because they saw us adults allow a man to steal the White House, and then we did nothing about it. They learned that lying and stealing are OK, but "one person, one vote" is a sham.

Your children are not safe because one in six of them live in poverty, while Bush's friends and business partners make off with loot from the pension funds and the stock market.

Yes, the sniper has got it figured out. The children have been targets for some time, and the "snipers" who take their lives, ruin their lives, run loose.

If you want to do something to make our children's lives a bit safer, one thing you can do is to participate in one of the various
demonstrations taking place this Saturday around the country protesting Bush's war against
Iraq (check out my website, www.michaelmoore.com
<http://www.michaelmoore.com/> , for details). Nearly a half-million Iraqi kids have died already in the last decade, thanks to our sanctions which have starved them and our bombs which have killed them.

Now Bush the Sniper has a new message to the Iraqi people: "Your children are not safe, anywhere at anytime."

Death in DC, death from DC. It is all too much, and it all has to stop. If Bush and his NRA buddies hadn't prevented the formation of a national database for ballistics fingerprinting, the police would have been able to trace the sniper's bullets to the actual gun that he is using. He might have been caught by now. But no -- we must protect the rights of the sniper to make sure that his constitutionally-protected assault weapon is not registered or on any kind of list anywhere, anytime.

I am sick and tired of the children not being safe. I want this
insanity ended now. Remove the Republicans and Republican-wannabes on November 5th, pack the rallies this Saturday, and tell your children that we are sorry that this is the world we have created for them and that we will now do whatever we can to make it a safer place.

Yours,

Michael Moore

http://www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com

PS. Sniper Porn -- a.k.a. nonstop news coverage that tells you nothing new but titillates and scares the bejeepers out of you -- pre-empted the hour-long Donahue show from Flint on Monday night. I've been told it may air this Thursday night (Oct. 24) at 8pm/11pm ET/PT on MSNBC. It's a great show, live from the Flint premiere of my film, with Phil and 300 mostly Flint-area residents speaking their minds. The film continues to set records and, on Monday night, it became the #1 film in the country in per
screen average at the box office! Thanks to everyone who has seen it. It arrives in more cities this Friday.

yankinlk

the snipers second shooting was a mile from my old home in the states. thank god they have someone in custody that may be the supspect they are after.

i for one am glued to this coverage, hoping NOT to see a freind or loved one become his next victim.

seamus

There's just something so disturbing about the coldness of the killings. This man picks people at random, and without consideration for the fact that they're a person, and obviously gets some kick out of killing someone who's not suspecting it, etc etc. I mean, shooting the innocents in a computer game for fun is one thing, but this guy is doing it with people. I don't know why it disturbes me so much more than any other type of killing. yankinlk, if it makes you feel any more relaxed (it probably doesn't), there is more chance of someone winning the Maryland lottery than being shot by this guy.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Yoda

Originally posted by seamus
I mean, shooting the innocents in a computer game for fun is one thing, but this guy is doing it with people.

I wonder if the guy ever shot innocents in a computer game. Millions have....

DiscoStu

Speaking of computer games, Wal-Mart has decided to take the game Sniper: POV off the shelves of its DC stores. maybe as michael moore points out they should take the goddamn ammo off the shelves.

http://www.zdnet.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2895570,00.html

Sand

Dont get me wrong, i dont like seeing dead americans, i just save my pitty for those that deserve it.

Or you could just exspress regret for the deaths of innocents without a qualification regarding their nationality/political leanings/where they live.

As for the sniper initial reports seem to paint him as an Islamic extremist, not connected to bin laden , but just a "volunteer" with his son in tow.

DeVore

I agree with Sand on this one. Innocents death is lamentable regardless. There is a hypocrisy of pity going about but its not remedied by equal but opposite hypocrisy.


Also, while they are keen to stress that once again bad people all are somehow linked to Bin Laden... lets not forget that he was trained to shoot people a mile away and not care about it by the US army...

DeV.

The Gopher

Did anybody else suspect from the start these snipers may have had a Mid East related motive?I didnt think they were Arab terrorists but I did believe that they had anti-war motives over Iraq etc.Why?Because there wereso many shootings that occured in petrol stations,perhaps signifying the Mid East oil agenda which dominates US policy there.
But the most confusing thing is that while at least one was a devout Nation of Islam adherent many of his victims were black.Despite the fact he volunteered at Louis Farrakhan meetings,a man who despite his controversial rhetoric does loudly oppose black on black crime,the sniper killed and wounded a handful of blacks,including a child.Very peculiar.And also the fact that he shot an Indian taxi driver-from appearence most Indians could pass for Pakistani muslims but the sniper,not knowing the mans religion,shot him anyway.This guy had some very mixed up motives.
Personally I thought that the sniper would be a white ex solider(thinking that primarily because serial/spree killers are mostly white),perhaps opposed to a new Gulf War because of his bad experience in the region.
Ah well,half right.

Clintons Cat

the incident reminds me of Timothy McViegh.The oaklahoma bomber and former gulf war veteran who came home from the gulf war with a mixture of mixed up political beliefs and a desire to "bring the war home".
A phrase that seems to have gone out of fashion but was a common syndrome amongst Vietnam Vets was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or the inability to fit back into normal society.Ii believe both men were suffering from it to a degree.
John Allen Williams seems to have been painted as an Islamic fanatic and yet his calling card was a tarot with the phrase "i am god".this is probally the most blasphomose statement a muslim could make.Certainly not the words of a fervent muslim.
Secondly iconocraphy of any description is prohibited by islam,the taliban,their saudi/wahabi paymasters and by extention Al Queedia were extremely strict in this interpretation destroying priceless works of art in kabul for featuring depictions of living creatures,not sure what the punishment for possesing artistic depictions of death on Tarot cards is in the al queedia handbook,but i am guess it probally involves toppling walls,pits and hand grenades.
John Allen Williams name change to mohamed seems to have not been a recent occurance as reported but one that occured 17 years ago whilst he was a member of the Nation of Islam,With its depiction of the "white race" as alternatively a race of devils descended from dogs/creation of a mad scientists genetic experiments which is is about as islamic as scientioligist is christian.
To be honest i dont think we will ever really understand what motivated Williams to take up the gun,but its a hell of a lot more complicated than blaming OBL or Sadam

Clintons Cat

Because there wereso many shootings that occured in petrol stations

The main reason so many people at petrol stations were targeted was because they were stationary targets in an open area.Contary to hollywood depiction is quite difficult to hit a moving target at distance with a scoped weapon.

yankinlk

As I originally suspected, they were committing these crimes for quite a long period of time. Many unsolved murders are now coming to light.

Even scarier then any terrorist plot is what these two may have been up to. An example of what they were at:

One of them would snipe a lone shop attendant/gas station worker/person with money from a safe distance, while the other scooped in to get the cash. When the robber was persued by police/dogs the trail would always dissapear, because the sniper would drive back and pick him up.

They travelled from the west coast to the east coast successfully "living off" their victims. They had the perfect crime thing going for a while, albeit they werent probably making much in the way of money at the cost of ending an innocent life. Much scarier in a way then terrorism...

bonkey

Originally posted by yankinlk
As I originally suspected, they were committing these crimes for quite a long period of time. Many unsolved murders are now coming to light.

...

They travelled from the west coast to the east coast successfully "living off" their victims. They had the perfect crime thing going for a while, albeit they werent probably making much in the way of money at the cost of ending an innocent life. Much scarier in a way then terrorism...

I have some problems with this.

First of all, these men have already been declared guilty by the popular press (by way of the police effectively deciding that "we've caught them, theyre guilty).

Now, more and more crimes are being "possibly linked" to them, and we get a growing media representation of crimes these people "have comitted". In the first case I saw reported, the connection was that someone was claiming to have seen a car matching the description on the night in question.

IIRc, they hadnt mentioned it at the time, but only now remembered that they had seen it, because it was the car shown on TV for the captured suspects.

Not only is this "selective recollection" highly questionable (given that it wasnt recalled at the time) but is also far from conclusive. And yet, for the media and many others, it seems to be enough to declare these men guilty of yet another crime.

Not only that, but it doesnt make sense. These guys had a working method of sustaining themselves, as you pointed out. It wasnt making them rich, but was keeping them going. Then, all of a sudden, this got thrown away in favour of a concerted single-area-focussed killing spree for no apparent reason. They went from being incredibly cagey killer-thieves to rampant killers....for no offered reason, and no suggested benefit.

It distresses me that the US legal system allows for changes of venue to escape biased or prejudicial juries, where it can be shown that this can be the case, and yet in a case like this, there is no problem with the media naming, shaming, and condemning the suspects nationally and internationally.

These men will not receive a fair trial. Their jury will be biased/prejudiced. However, because it will be no more biased in one location than another, there is no problem.

Whether or not they are guilty, I find this trend worrying....that its increasingly OK for the media to pre-judge, name and shame suspects.

jc

Prisoner6409

Would have to agree with Bonkey on this one. Where was all the pity expressed(esp in America) to the inocent civilians killed by the carpet bombing of Afganistan, well they were not only quite but exuberant in the other extreme.

Biffa Bacon

Originally posted by Prisoner6409
Would have to agree with Bonkey on this one. Where was all the pity expressed(esp in America) to the inocent civilians killed by the carpet bombing of Afganistan, well they were not only quite but exuberant in the other extreme.

Afghanistan was never carpet bombed. And no one in America was "exuberant" over any civilian deaths.

Clintons Cat

i would agree with you bonkey but its the American way,any high profile crime is going to attract the kind of media attention that would in the united kingdom contravene the "contempt of court act 1982" and probally has similar legislation throughout the EU.
In the US no such legislation exists,.
From OJ to Rodney King probally everyone on the planet with a TV had decieded before the trial what the verdict SHOULD have been.
But I dont think its a fit up,if the Americans had wanted one they could have fitted up that pair of illegal mexicans they caught a week prior to the arrest of williams.Besides it would be far too politically damaging if the attacks restarted now the men have been caught and the evidence paraded.
But i think it is too early to attribute every unsolved liquor store homicide across the country to these individuals until the ballistic reports are in.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49054-2002Oct31.html

And the Shooting Goes on (washpost)

it woz the sun wot won it(sic) (washpost)

bonkey

Originally posted by Clintons Cat
But i think it is too early to attribute every unsolved liquor store homicide across the country to these individuals until the ballistic reports are in.

They've already been linked with one crime where the ballistic evidence was known to be inconclusive....and the link was the one I mentioned (eye-witness recalling the car)

jc

Clintons Cat

but hopefully the judicial process will eventually filter out the more spurious claims currently being made by every law enforcement agency across the country hoping to boost its detection rates.