Oh, I feel that I should explain why I haven't answered the poll question. In the first place, the thread was titled "a poll for liberals", and I'm not a liberal, and, in the second place, I don't really "do" hatred.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

While I would not say I hate I will replace hate with anger. Anyway, I did pick Osama for one reason only and that is that even though Bush is responsible for the death of innocents as well as terrorists I still have no seen anything to suggest that he intentionally wishes for civilians to die while Osama specifically targets them. That is the only thing that saves Bush for me.

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"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

How many lives did Bush waste? How many dollars did Bush waste? Ask same questions, but replace "Bush" with "bin Laden." Then, ignore "axis of evil" propaganda and compare results.

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If a neocon whines about big government wealth redistribution, just ask him what he thinks about the portion of that big government that sends aid to Israel.

Maybe the only difference is that bin Laden isn't as powerful or as dishonest.

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If a neocon whines about big government wealth redistribution, just ask him what he thinks about the portion of that big government that sends aid to Israel.

Let's take your point of view at face value (I'm guessing that you believe Bush embarked on the Iraqi Adventure as part of some sort of nefarious scheme)...

Now, assuming that Bush wanted to generate profits for Halliburton (or whatever), we can further assume that he had no real interest in soldiers/civilians dying - specifically, they were collateral damage as some sort of means to an end. OBL, on the other hand, specifically targeted locations in order to maximize the number of civilian casualties. So, even assuming that the whole "blood for oil" thing is right, how can you morally equate Bush and OBL? One sought a particular goal and didn't care about the casualties while the other one had a particular goal of casualties.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Why do you assume profits for Halliburton? Maybe he just wanted to get re-elected.I guess what you are saying is that Osama is a serial killer who killed 5 people with a rusty knife (+$25,000 state burial costs) and Bush is a bank robber who killed 100 people with a flamethrower and stole billions of dollars. Furthermore, the question was "who do you hate more," not "who is less moral." Bush has certainly done more harm to me than Osama did. And this doesn't even address shit like the Patriot Act.

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If a neocon whines about big government wealth redistribution, just ask him what he thinks about the portion of that big government that sends aid to Israel.

Well this might strike you as strange but terrorists really watch their enemies closely. Like today a French journalist was released by islamic terrorist because the French announced plans for a withdrawal timetable from Afghanistan. And the Madrid bombs were for retaliation of their troops in Iraq.

My guess is that they were offended by something, like Bush' strong words against arafat, or his general unilateral foreign politics (also before 911) or his bombing of iraq earlier in 2001. If a less nationalistic, less religious, less militaristic president who wasnt so outspoken against Palestine would have been president it might not have happened.

from wikipedia:

"They hate ... a democratically elected government. ... They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." (President George W. Bush) Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People.

Bin Laden says (appearantly in response to the above), "the White House is hiding the Truth ... the reality is that we are striking them because of their evil and injustice in the whole of the Islamic World, especially in Iraq and Palestine and their occupation of the Land of the Two Holy Sanctuaries (Arabian Peninsula)."

What these extremist islamics want is that the west leaves the middle east alone. If they really wanted to strike freedom they would have struck western Europe or Turkey which are much easier to reach and have much bigger muslim populations to hide among.

Shows what you know. It was during the Clinton Presidency that Osama Bin Laden began his attacks against the United States.

Dr. Goodtrips I just wanted to say, in a public fashion, that you are my favorite poster on here. Keep up the good work.

Well apparently he is pretty powerful because as a result of his actions he placed the U.S. in a constant state of fear and nearly every western nation has stripped certain liberties from its citizens.

That just means Bush is retarded. He (Osama) can lift a 10 ounce puppet and use it to push a button that activates a nuke, perhaps.

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If a neocon whines about big government wealth redistribution, just ask him what he thinks about the portion of that big government that sends aid to Israel.

The islam is all about honor and revenge and timing is as important as the act itself. If they felt that the timing was bad or the situation was improving, it would not have happened.

Bin laden isnt stupid: he knows he can't convert the free world to the radical islam. I bet he'd much rather spend his effort on making governements enable the sharia laws in the middle east.

So if a man held a gun to your head and told you to do something unreasonable would you do it?

So picking a neutral stance in the Israel conflict, respecting international treaties, and not bombing Iraq in 2001 is 'unreasonable'?

Supporting one side in a conflict or making a direct agressive move will initiate a counter-reaction. Nobody directly threatened you ('held a gun to your head'). Its more like: You supplied the gun to a guy who killed another guy, and now a friend of that other guy is coming back at you.

Dont victimize the US: youre in the middle of it.

(Also make sure you read my post just above yours)

I don't. I included the parenthetical "whatever" to indicate whatever nefarious deeds that you think Bush is up to. Halliburton profits was just a guess.

I don't think that your analogy holds water. The misadventure in Iraq has killed roughly as many US soldiers as 9/11 killed people, and the havoc unleashed on the US economy probably outweighs the money wasted in Iraq. A better analogy is that Osama is a serial killer who killed 100 people (with a knife or something else, and the rustiness of that knife notwithstanding) and wound up costing the state a million dollars and Bush is a bungling CEO who took 100 people with thousands of dollars in their pockets ice fishing on a lake with only a quarter inch of ice covering it. OBL's intentions were malicious, and Bush's were ostensibly benevolent, but mind numbingly stupid.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson