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| What We Got Right In Iraq - Paul Bremer | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: May 13 2007, 06:28 AM (309 Views) | |
| George K | May 13 2007, 06:28 AM Post #1 |
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Finally
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What We Got Right in Iraq By L. Paul Bremer Sunday, May 13, 2007 Once conventional wisdom congeals, even facts can't shake it loose. These days, everyone "knows" that the Coalition Provisional Authority made two disastrous decisions at the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq: to vengefully drive members of the Baath Party from public life and to recklessly disband the Iraqi army. The most recent example is former CIA chief George J. Tenet, whose new memoir pillories me for those decisions (even though I don't recall his ever objecting to either call during our numerous conversations in my 14 months leading the CPA). Similar charges are unquestioningly repeated in books and articles. Looking for a neat, simple explanation for our current problems in Iraq, pundits argue that these two steps alienated the formerly ruling Sunnis, created a pool of angry rebels-in-waiting and sparked the insurgency that's raging today. The conventional wisdom is as firm here as it gets. It's also dead wrong. Like most Americans, I am disappointed by the difficulties the nation has encountered after our quick 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein. But the U.S.-led coalition was absolutely right to strip away the apparatus of a particularly odious tyranny. Hussein modeled his regime after Adolf Hitler's, which controlled the German people with two main instruments: the Nazi Party and the Reich's security services. We had no choice but to rid Iraq of the country's equivalent organizations to give it any chance at a brighter future. Here's how the decisions were made. Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the head of the military's U.S. Central Command, outlawed the Baath Party on April 16, 2003. The day before I left for Iraq in May, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith presented me with a draft law that would purge top Baathists from the Iraqi government and told me that he planned to issue it immediately. Recognizing how important this step was, I asked Feith to hold off, among other reasons, so I could discuss it with Iraqi leaders and CPA advisers. A week later, after careful consultation, I issued this "de-Baathification" decree, as drafted by the Pentagon. Our goal was to rid the Iraqi government of the small group of true believers at the top of the party, not to harass rank-and-file Sunnis. We were following in the footsteps of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in postwar Germany. Like the Nazi Party, the Baath Party ran all aspects of Iraqi life. Every Iraqi neighborhood had a party cell. Baathists recruited children to spy on their parents, just as the Nazis had. Hussein even required members of his dreaded intelligence services to read "Mein Kampf." Although Hussein and his cronies had been in power three times as long as Hitler had, the CPA decree was much less far-reaching than Eisenhower's de-Nazification law, which affected all but the lowest-ranking former Nazis. By contrast, our Iraqi law affected only about 1 percent of Baath Party members. We knew that many had joined out of opportunism or fear, and they weren't our targets. Eisenhower had barred Nazis not just from holding government jobs but "from positions of importance in quasi-public and private enterprises." The Iraqi law merely prohibited these top party officials from holding government positions, leaving them free to find jobs elsewhere -- even outside Iraq (provided they were not facing criminal charges). Finally, the de-Baathification decree let us make exceptions, and scores of Baathists remained in their posts. Our critics (usually people who have never visited Iraq) often allege that the de-Baathification decision left Iraqi ministries without effective leadership. Not so. Virtually all the old Baathist ministers had fled before the decree was issued. But we were generally impressed with the senior civil servants left running the ministries, who in turn were delighted to be free of the party hacks who had long overseen them. The net result: We stripped away the tyrant's ardent backers but gave responsible Sunnis a chance to join in building a new Iraq. The decree was not only judicious but also popular. Four days after I issued it, Hamid Bayati, a leading Shiite politician, told us that the Shiites were "jubilant" because they had feared that the United States planned to leave unrepentant Baathists in senior government and security positions -- what he called "Saddamism without Saddam." Opinion polls during the occupation period repeatedly showed that an overwhelming majority of Iraqis, including many Sunnis, supported de-Baathification. We then turned over the implementation of this carefully focused policy to Iraq's politicians. I was wrong here. The Iraqi leaders, many of them resentful of the old Sunni regime, broadened the decree's impact far beyond our original design. That led to such unintended results as the firing of several thousand teachers for being Baath Party members. We eventually fixed those excesses, but I should have made implementation the job of a judicial body, not a political one. Still, the underlying policy of removing top Baath officials from government was right and necessary. This decision is still supported by most Iraqis; witness the difficulties that Iraq's elected government has had in making even modest revisions to the decree. The war's critics have also comprehensively misunderstood the "disbanding" of Hussein's army, arguing that we kicked away a vital pillar that kept the country stable and created a pool of unemployed, angry men ripe for rebellion. But this fails to reckon with the true nature of Hussein's killing machine and the situation on the ground. It's somewhat surprising at this late date to have to remind people of the old army's reign of terror. In the 1980s, it waged a genocidal war against Iraq's minority Kurds, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and more than 5,000 people in a notorious chemical-weapons attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja. After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Iraq's majority Shiites rose up against Hussein, whose army machine-gunned hundreds of thousands of men, women and children and threw their corpses into mass graves. It's no wonder that Shiites and Kurds, who together make up more than 80 percent of Iraq's population, hated Hussein's military. Moreover, any thought of using the old army was undercut by conditions on the ground. Before the 2003 war, the army had consisted of about 315,000 miserable draftees, almost all Shiite, serving under a largely Sunni officer corps of about 80,000. The Shiite conscripts were regularly brutalized and abused by their Sunni officers. When the draftees saw which way the war was going, they deserted and, like their officers, went back home. But before the soldiers left, they looted the army's bases right down to the foundations. So by the time I arrived in Iraq, there was no Iraqi army to disband. Some in the U.S. military and the CIA's Baghdad station suggested that we try to recall Hussein's army. We refused, for overwhelming practical, political and military reasons. For starters, the draftees were hardly going to return voluntarily to the army they so loathed; we would have had to send U.S. troops into Shiite villages to force them back at gunpoint. And even if we could have assembled a few all-Sunni units, the looting would have meant they'd have no gear or bases. Moreover, the political consequences of recalling the army would have been catastrophic. Kurdish leaders made it clear to me that recalling Hussein-era forces would make their region secede, which would have triggered a civil war and tempted Turkey and Iran to invade Iraq to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdistan. Many Shiite leaders who were cooperating with the U.S.-led forces would have taken up arms against us if we'd called back the perpetrators of the southern killing fields of 1991. Finally, neither the U.S.-led coalition nor the Iraqis could have relied on the allegiance of a recalled army. This lesson was driven home a year later, when the Marines unilaterally recalled a single brigade of Hussein's former army, without consulting with the Iraqi government or the CPA. This "Fallujah Brigade" quickly proved disloyal and had to be disbanded. Moreover, the Marines' action so rattled the Shiites and Kurds that it very nearly derailed the political process of returning sovereignty over the country to the Iraqi people -- further proof of the extreme danger of relying on Hussein's old army. So, after full coordination within the U.S. government, including the military, I issued an order to build a new, all-volunteer army. Any member of the former army up to the rank of colonel was welcome to apply. By the time I left Iraq, more than 80 percent of the enlisted men and virtually all of the noncommissioned officers and officers in the new army were from the old army, as are most of the top officers today. We also started paying pensions to officers from the old army who could not join the new one -- stipends that the Iraqi government is still paying. I'll admit that I've grown weary of being a punching bag over these decisions -- particularly from critics who've never spent time in Iraq, don't understand its complexities and can't explain what we should have done differently. These two sensible and moral calls did not create today's insurgency. Intelligence material we discovered after the war began showed that Hussein's security forces had long planned to wage such a revolt. No doubt some members of the Baath Party and the old army have joined the insurgency. But they are not fighting because they weren't given a chance to earn a living. They're fighting because they want to topple a democratically elected government and reestablish a Baathist dictatorship. The true responsibility for today's bloodshed rests with these people and their al-Qaeda collaborators. |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| QuirtEvans | May 13 2007, 06:32 AM Post #2 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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So, exactly what does Bremer think we should have done differently? Or, better yet, what should we do now? JB asked that question about Batiste, so I'd like to ask the same question about Bremer. If all those choices were right, what should we be doing differently now? |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| Copper | May 13 2007, 06:33 AM Post #3 |
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Shortstop
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Apparently there’s more than one side to this story. |
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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy | |
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| jon-nyc | May 13 2007, 06:35 AM Post #4 |
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Cheers
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This is probably a better justification than he has in his book. In the book he spends pages and pages distributing responsibility for the decisions, far less time justifying them. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| jon-nyc | May 13 2007, 06:36 AM Post #5 |
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Cheers
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The tragedy of the situaiton, in my opinion, is that there are no good answers to that question. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| QuirtEvans | May 13 2007, 08:27 AM Post #6 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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There was an old movie with Matthew Broderick, called Wargames. Without reconstructing the plot, the denouement of the movie was the line "the best move is not to play." Unfortunately, that appears to be the Iraqi quagmire. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| OperaTenor | May 13 2007, 12:23 PM Post #7 |
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Pisa-Carp
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[Larry's shoot-the-messenger mode] Of course, Bremer's hardly what I'd consider an impartial or particularly well-informed analyst of the situation. [/Larry's shoot-the-messenger mode] |
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| ivorythumper | May 13 2007, 12:30 PM Post #8 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Forget the cheap shot at Larry -- why one earth would you say that? |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| OperaTenor | May 13 2007, 01:17 PM Post #9 |
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Pisa-Carp
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The "cheap shot at Larry" was supposed to be funny. So muc for sense of humor. Bremer is hardly objective. He's got to do and say whatever he can to cast his PS. As for Larry, he's made a lot of jokes at my expense, and I can see fit to laugh right along with everyone else. |
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| George K | May 13 2007, 01:27 PM Post #10 |
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Finally
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So, who is an objective observer about Iraq? Petraeus? Batiste? Obama? McCain? Both Clintons? Thompson? I'll venture to say that the first two (and Bremer) know more about what is going on and went on than all the pundits you'll see on TV combined. Oh, and speaking of objectivity, I didn't see a lot of the left calling into questions the former DCI's objectivity when his book came out two weeks ago. But then, I didn't expect it either, because the parts that made all the headlines suit the agenda. The parts that don't suit the agenda (like the "Al-Quada is here in the US" part) are glossed over. |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| Larry | May 13 2007, 01:42 PM Post #11 |
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
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Want me to make another one?.....
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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| Mikhailoh | May 13 2007, 02:10 PM Post #12 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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Every time someone who has actually been there and deeply involved with more successes than failures starts presenting informed data, Paul Bremer and John Taylor come to mind, there is always someone, in this case OT, backbiting them, but with absolutely nothing to refute what they say. As if you could make what successes there have been into failure by merely saying so. 'If you repeat a lie often enough..'. For me, I will take the very detailed word of the guys who were on the ground making things happen. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| ivorythumper | May 13 2007, 04:26 PM Post #13 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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OT: You say a lot of things here that have no real meaning. No doubt you don't like the guy, or what he was called to do, or the fact that historical forces brought about the situation in the first place, but to accuse him of lacking objectivity when you are clearly wrapped in your own subjectivity on the issue makes rational discussion quite impossible. I'd venture he has an exponentially greater understanding of the history, politics, social dynamics, civil order, and security issues in Iraq than you (or I or anyone here). It is facile to suggest that he is self serving in his recollections. In taking over after the fall of Saddam it would have been virtually impossible for anyone or any group of people to be able to calculate correctly the implications and ramifications of decisions made. The position that the whole venture has been a disaster is obviously a pernicious lie, and the indisputable difficulties in restructuring the society do not argue for incompetence. I suspect that he was damned in your eyes from the start. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| OperaTenor | May 13 2007, 07:22 PM Post #14 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Does it matter what I want? |
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| QuirtEvans | May 13 2007, 11:18 PM Post #15 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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Now THAT's quality humor! Seriously, if you're going to try to say that Paul Bremer had more successes than failures, it's hard not to laugh at you. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| Mikhailoh | May 14 2007, 02:20 AM Post #16 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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See? Now Quirt is doing the same thing. It's easty to carp and backbite the guys who were actually there, in the arena, swinging away. It is much harder to say what one would have done which would have been better. Currency exchange for the whole nation? Check. New army? Check. New constitution? Check. Elections held? check. New government in place? Check. with difficulties I know, but it is a start. New police force? Check. Rebuilding a huge amount of infratsructure? Check. Markets, schools and businesses open and functioning through most of the country? Check. Functioning oil industry? Check. Oh, and here's a link to a report that has been posted before that gives an update and more details on the plan that so many think we don't have. http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rpt/60857.htm |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| QuirtEvans | May 14 2007, 05:52 AM Post #17 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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I'll just start at the bottom, for laughs. Functioning oil industry?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/world/mi...east/12oil.html The same is true about the rest of your list. For example, remember that report about the projects that we dumped our money into that are non-functioning, or have fallen into disrepair? Your list is just a repetition of the fantasy world that the Bush Administration has been living in since day one. Err, make that "had" been living in. Because even Bush has gotten around to admitting that things are bad in Iraq. So, if things are bad, one of two things is true: (1) Bremer and the others in charge were hopelessly incompetent, or (2) it was a losing cause from day one, because even smart, competent people couldn't get it done. So, which is it? The fantasy that everything is roses and daffodils in Iraq just won't fly. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| JBryan | May 14 2007, 06:05 AM Post #18 |
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I am the grey one
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Who here has argued that everything is roses and daffodils in Iraq? No one that I can name. Indeed, it would seem that some people expect roses and daffodils for there to have been any progress made in Iraq. |
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it". Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody. Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore. From The Lion in Winter. | |
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| Mikhailoh | May 14 2007, 06:38 AM Post #19 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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I am aware of the missing oil in Iraq, and frankly it bothers me not a bit. The fact that it has been uncovered simply means it will be rectified. The projects that are in trouble do not bother me either. When you look at the scale of what had to be done, it is not hard to imagine that some things got done fast but not right. I suspect there were one or two hiccups in Europe after 1945 as well. Other than that, Quirt, you have provided no proof of anything, just more America-bashing rhetoric. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| QuirtEvans | May 14 2007, 06:45 AM Post #20 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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Au contraire, I wasn't trying to prove anything, other than the fact that your list was made of smoke. One more example: New constitution? Check. Except that the new constitution was supposed to be amended to deal with the respective rights of various ethnic groups, and the country seems incapable of doing it. It's so bad that one of the two largest ethnic groups threatened to pull out of the government, just last week. So your list proves absolutely nothing, it's just a list of words that don't have any actual meaning behind them. Actually, it does prove one thing. It proves that you're still drinking the Bush pre-2007 Kool-Aid. Or maybe that's the 2007 Cheney vintage Kool-Aid. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| Mikhailoh | May 14 2007, 06:50 AM Post #21 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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My list provided concrete facts. Were all these things done with perfection? of course not. Show me an organization anywhere that does things of this scale and complexity perfectly - or even very well for that matter. But it is most assuredly not smoke nor koolaid. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| ivorythumper | May 14 2007, 08:44 AM Post #22 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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