Fighting Them in Iraq So We Can Also Fight Them — Again — in Afghanistan
Fighting Them in Iraq So We Can Also Fight Them — Again — in Afghanistan
Recent reports show an serious uptick in attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan. This year is “already the deadliest for American soldiers” since the war was launched in 2001, with sixty-five American casualties in the first nine months. Taliban fighters have also killed “more than 800 Afghan officials, police, troops, aid workers and civilians since March,” and the violence is “likely to intensify” before September’s elections.
The reports clearly demonstrate that Afghanistan is not the open-and-shut “success story” that conservatives often describe. Just as important, they show that the CIA was correct when it predicted earlier this year that “Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in Al Qaeda’s early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat.”
Consider this portion of the New York Times report this morning:
More money is coming in, probably from Arab countries, and a unit of Qaeda fighters has returned to [Afghanistan] from Iraq to teach local fighters an unspecified “new tactic they learned in Iraq,” one security official said, explaining that he could not be identified because of the clandestine nature of his work.
Likewise, Knight-Ridder reported on 8/17/05:
Borrowing tactics from their counterparts in Iraq, [Taliban fighters] beheaded alleged informers and staged two suicide bombings, a form of terrorism rarely seen in Afghanistan.
In other words, President Bush’s defense strategy has not only turned ‘New Iraq’ into the old Afghanstan, but is also on its way to turning the ‘New Afghanistan’ into a second, violence-torn ‘New Iraq.’
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So the flypaper strategy has curled into Afghanistan.
August 22nd, 2005 at 5:36 pmShould we be surprised?
A Bush strategy? He has one? Wow. I never knew.
If this weren’t so serious the irony would be delicious. Instead, we send our children off to die for a strategy that does not exist. The Greedy Old Parasites need to be removed to jail. Now!
August 22nd, 2005 at 5:37 pmBrilliant! Also brilliant is the argument that we can’t have a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq because the insurgents would lie low and wait until we left. Of course, that means they would stop killing our troops and go on holiday. We certainly wouldn’t want to encourage the insurgents to stop the killing, would we? Present course ahead, Brilliant!
August 22nd, 2005 at 5:59 pmI just took a look at a protester’s sign from today’s Salt Lake City protest (which 5,000 people showed up at). The sign read:
Fighting for Peace is like Screwing for Virginity
I love it.
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:02 pmAmerican forces are undermanned in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
For more details as to the implications on the ground, see:
“The Coming Draft Debate.”
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:07 pmYeah, what’s with the Salt Lake City major joining the protest? There’s a Dem mayor in Utah? Get out!
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:08 pmJon, I don’t think there will be a draft – that’s the way to shut this PNAC thing down in a heartbeat – the chickenhawk daddies won’t let junior get drafted and they also know it’s the issue that will get the GOP turfed out in 2006 (election fraud notwithstanding).
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:13 pmSo now even Afghanistan, the war the left tolerated as long as our casualties remained low, is now also a bad idea – again.
I well remember the predictions of quagmire and thousands of body bags at the outset of that war, in October 2001. Those predictions all became moot when we quickly drove the Taliban from power (if you look on a map, they now only control the most mountainous, inaccessible regions of the country).
Then we went into Iraq, and the left screamed bloody murder, predicting quagmire and the deaths of thousands more Americans within just a few weeks. In those days the left was fond of saying the war in Afghanistan had been the right thing to do, as opposed to war in Iraq, which the left called “blood for oil.” Of course, we swept into Baghdad in record time.
The only thing consistent about the left, since 1967, is its willingness to use American casualties, or the mere the prediction of American casualties, as a propaganda wedge to discourage Americans at home and abroad. The left is only interested in gaining power, that is, power to destroy American leadership abroad, and power to destroy American freedom here at home. This is not progressive thinking. It only encourages America’s enemies.
And, by the way, virginity requires personal chastity; peace requires the national will and means to wage war. American independence, the abolition of slavery, and the defeat of both fascism and soviet communism – these things all were accomplished by wielding the power to wage war. None of them was achieved by sticking flowers in rifle barrels.
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:31 pmOh, boy! This is gonna be good. Laura Rozen:
More Able Danger, you ask? Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott is going to be issuing some sort of public statement today, I’m told. The statement will supposedly assert how AD was allegedly able to identify Atta, (the 9/11 Atta, not the other Atta who was deported from the US to Israel), in early-mid 2000, and assert that the photograph of Atta the team allegedly came up with was not the visa one we have seen since the attacks, but from other sources. Able Danger was apparently stood up in 1999 even before the bombing of the USS Cole. And Able Danger was killed in March 2001, during the Bush administration, under whose orders, it’s not totally clear. One thing I’ve heard today suggests that Phillpott’s statement to the 9/11 commission in July 2004 involved allegations of linkages between Al Qaeda and the leadership of foreign countries, say the one where the majority of the 9/11 hijackers came from. So stay tuned.
Another source says that DoD did complete an investigation, interviewed everybody, and ‘there’s just nothing there. . . Able Danger never produced any kind of documents of the type being described.’ DoD is going to brief various Congressmen and Senators, including Weldon’s House Armed Services committee but not issue a public statement more definitive than the di Rita one I posted earlier. But I’ve also heard that there’s a separate Army investigation of the Able Danger claims than the Pentagon one being led I believe by Steve Cambone’s office.
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002404.html
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:33 pmI think it’s time BSer. Chimpy’s approval rating is now 36%. We don’t have to debate you anymore. We can take a page from your playbook now and just stomp you into silence, so STFU!
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:36 pmWhat a load of BS, BSr.
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:41 pmDoesn’t require any response, other
that to call “BS”.
BS, the war in Afghanistan wasn’t a bad idea. LOSING the war in Afghanistan was a bad idea.
Got it?
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:45 pmBSer, all you trolls, the debate is over. You lost. You were wrong. You don’t have to publicly admit defeat, but keep your bullshit spin to yourselves. We are sick of hearing it. I know I am. The whole damn country is. Save a shred of your dignity and if you can’t lose gracefully, at least please just STFU. For your own safety. Someone is going to catch you in person someday and close that mouth for you…
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:46 pmRove just leaked a preliminary copy of DUHbya’s memoirs concerning, they think, his reaction to 9/11.
“My name is Duhbya.
I read a book. It was about me seein’ Uncle Dick run over Aunt Jane Fonda’s dog, Spot, I Think.
My wife Laura, she said I shouldn’t read it because it had a shallow plot but I think she was lying to me. It didn’t tell me to see Uncle Dick and Aunt Jane skinny-dipping in no shallow plot.
Uncle Dick says we have to go hide now. He says the Senate is cooking up a surprise for us. It must be a pie ’cause he said something about Peach Mint.
Bye.”
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:48 pmNow would be a good time to go on vacation, like Michele Malkin. I heard she left the country…
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:48 pmMaybe she can make it a permanent
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:50 pmvacation?
Blue State Red,
Have you ever killed anyone? Have you ever seen first hand (not in a picture) what a 2,000lb bomb does to a family of five at the dinner table in their own home? Have you ever considered what it would be like to dig through the ruble of what was once your home in a panic to find and help your family only to find the mangled corpses of your wife and children; then have to listen to the leader of the government that committed the act say that the “casualties†(what a polite word for such a horrendous act, wouldn’t you agree?) are regrettable, but are just a part of war?
What would you do if such a thing happened to you and your family? Would the actions that you took be justified in your mind? Would the opinion of others about your actions matter to you?
These are things that our government perpetrates on a daily basis, and they have been doing it for decades. These are the reasons behind the insurgencies in Iraq, these are the reasons that terrorists groups come together. They certainly are NOT coming together because they “hate our freedom.†The only freedom they hate of ours is our freedom to bomb and murder the people of other countries, especially theirs, at will.
There is nothing “casual†about the slaughtering of innocent people, and most of the time, the armies themselves are just as innocent. From the eyes of the terrorists and those that agree with them, the attacks on this country and others like us are justified. The only way to change that is to address their motives. Not to do more of what motivated them in the first place.
War should NEVER be an option.
Be careful you are not blindly following a government that has told you who they are, and why they do things, without truly investigating for yourself, or listening to the opinions of others.
Chomsky writes: “States are not moral agents.â€
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:52 pmGosh Elvis, If you keep this
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:58 pmup they may take away the internet
access at the truck stop. ;^)
Looks like Junior’s invasion of Iraq was just what the Al Qaeda recruiters wanted to see.
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:59 pmYeah Keith, that would seem to be true.
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:00 pmFirst off, the civil war was about secession, not slavery. Should Lincoln have gone to war to prevent the south from seceding from the union? I don’t know. I know that some people still want to secede from the union.
http://christianexodus.org/
There are other groups, too.
I say let them. Get all these lunatics in one place, dust off, and nuke them from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:01 pm>>And, by the way, virginity requires personal chastity; peace requires the national will and means to wage war.
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:02 pmB.S.R.,
Yeah, I was one of those lefties predicting a quagmire in Iraq and today we’ve got what? that’s right, a quagmire. By the way, I also predicted that we would be in Baghdad in a couple of weeks. It’s just that one doesn’t have anything to do with the other. Going into afghanistan was the right thing to do because that’s where Al Queda was. The problem was We didn’t get Osama been forgotten, nor did we crush Al Queda, because George diverted our troops to Iraq. Now, Al Queda is re-energized in Afghanistan, the war lords run most the country, and opium production is up to higher levels than before we invaded. By going into Iraq before we finished afghanistan we created 2 quagmires out of none. Brilliant job! What a Commander in Chief!
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:03 pmGame over man…Game over.
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:04 pmLOL! It’s another bug hunt!
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:10 pmDid IQs drop sharply while I was away?
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:11 pmDick, if BS hasn’t gotten that message through his head yet, there’s not much hope for him. He probably filters everything through Karl Rove. Notice how what he remembers us saying has absolutely no bearing on what we actually said.
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:18 pmDon’t know, but I do know
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:19 pmthat W. has a negative IQ -
he saps intelligence from a
room.
I’m Hudson … He’s Hicks.
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:33 pmLOL!
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:39 pmKarzai is more like the mayor of Kabul rather than the President of Afghanistan. Step outside of city limits and you’ve entered a realm of corruption and poverty called the Warlord Zone. Success in the Warlord Zone is measured in how much we pay off the most powerful and/or compliant warlords in tokens of appeasement, such as money, weapons, and looking the other way (ie heroin trafficing, human rights abuses, etc).
We warned you of this BSR. Afghanistan is NOT over, simply pacified temporarily at best.
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:53 pm“War should NEVER be an option.”
Tell that to the survivors of Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka. They weren’t saved by Geneva Convention inspectors.
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:24 pmThere is no quagmire – only a failure of moral nerve on the left.
We have opened over 3100 hospitals and schools. Traffic flows freely every day, in every Iraqui city. Every day people go to school, or to work, and then go home at night, without any fear of being kidnapped and tortured or killed. Most of the country is free of violence.
These are good things, and none of them would be true if we had not toppled Saddam from power.
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:31 pmFirst off, the civil war was about secession, not slavery. Should Lincoln have gone to war to prevent the south from seceding from the union? I don’t know. I know that some people still want to secede from the union.
Uh, I guess this may not be the place to debate the Civil War, but slavery certainly was one of the prime dividing issues. What exactly do you think Lincoln and Douglas were debating at all those campaign stops? How about a little case involving Dred Scott.
Claiming the Civil War was about secession is a bit like claiming the NHL strike (or baseball strike or whathaveyou) was about whether or not the players had a legal right to refuse to play under the circumstances (it wasn’t — it was about the labor negotiations).
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:36 pmHear that everyone? Nobody in Iraq fears kidnapping! Whether this is true is completely irrelevant to BSR. He has no way of knowing and won’t believe reports to the contrary.
It is true that most of the country is free of violence. Only the populated areas are violent, and that is only a small part of the country.
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:42 pmBSR,
Have you been to Iraq, during Saddam or since we toppled him? Iraq wasn’t the shithole much of it is now when Saddam was in power. Yes there were shitholes then as well, but not to the extent that your apparent sources inform you. That quagmire quote of yours qualifies as the BS in BSR, for quagmires happen due to horribly underqualified leadership, not concerned citizens questioning the actions and motives of authoritative figures. See Kosovo, which your heros damned from word go, yet went quite successfully in ending the genocide.
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:49 pm“War should NEVER be an option.â€
Tell that to the survivors of Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka. They weren’t saved by Geneva Convention inspectors.
They didn’t try to kill us after we liberated them, did they?
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:57 pmSkid, BSR thinks there’s not rivers of sh** running in the streets, a stone age life expectancy, a booming kidnap-for-ransom industry, honor killings, revenge killings, tribal warfare, ethnic warfare, and summary execution for anyone who talks to an American.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:02 pmAnother problem with this “peace activists support terrorism” argument is this: If that is true, then Bush has implemented a policy, the success or failure of which depends on silencing dissent. Next time any neocon tries to blame Cindy Sheehan for the growing insurgency, that’s your answer.
And like Skid said, Clinton actually did stop a genocide and brought war criminals to justice despite a very vocal opposition. All those whiny republicans didn’t cause an insurgency in Bosnia and Kosovo.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:04 pmBreaking — Bush admin delays issuing airline security rules:
http://www.securityinfowatch.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=385&id=5350
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:14 pmThere is a parallel between the mini-thread civil war debate & bushco invading Iraq. It goes like this:
The Civil War was because of economics. The south had been a pliant agrarian society that bought most it’s finished goods from the north. When they started dealing direct with Europe (primarily the British & French) the north lost money & tried hitting ports with fees & levies. Slavery was a headline issue & important. But it served as the faux reason to go to war. It wasn’t the primary one. The North went to war for economics & control. Slavery was secondary at best.
Bushco starts whipping up a case to go to war in Iraq (really publically, privately much, much sooner-read Woodwards book) about a month after 9/11. We got the headline issues of WMD, nukes, biological weapons, Al Quada/Saddam links all prominently used as headline fodder. When in reality it was all about economics & control. Bushco wanted Iraq’s OIL & control of the region (that whole neo-con domino theory). Kicking Saddam’s ass was only secondary at best. Freedom & democracy appear no where on the real list, see control if you don’t understand that.
Both wars were/are very expensive enterprises & required a facade to try and paint the issue so the “nice” people would become pliant enough to be pushed into it. But let’s not kid each other. Bushco had the intellegence that there were no WMD, no nukes, no Al Quada/Saddam links & probably no biological weapons. But they firmly believed in the oil & money and mid-east bullying.
It worked for a while. I mean we here weren’t for it, but lotsa pliant folks went along (some numb-skulls still try to say it’s all true, I guess they get different TV than I do). Makes me wonder how the south would have done if they had had RPG’s & AK-47’s. Who here can whistle “Dixie”?
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:44 pmWe had the chance to do something constructive in Afghanistan, but the founders and signatories of the Project for the New American Century just couldn’t wait to get their greedy, self-serving hands on Iraq. This is the sole reason we are mired in shit in Iraq. Just go to their site, http://newamericancentury.org/, and try to stomach this convoluted, cockamamie plan to fight several wars simultaneously (starting with… you guessed it, Iraq) to control the world through the ‘Pax Americana’, the American Peace.
Our government has been hijacked by greedy, sanctimonious, powermad neocons that are only concerned with their power and their elite social status. Why do you think they are ready to ’stay the course’? Because they are raking in billions of dollars by doing so. They want instability in the middle east to continue to justify their actions.
So fighting the terrorists in Iraq is a means to keep from fighting them here is part of their master plan then how do you think they feel about that policy in England and Spain?
George Bush is nothing but a dummy company, the amiable, likable front man for a deeper, darker agenda envisioned by Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, et al.
Go to their website a read some of this drek and see for yourself.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:47 pmIt’s about time we start talking about the failure in Afghanistan. Lets protest the occupation of both Afghanistan and Iraq.
votetoimpeach.org
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:01 pmWell stated kindness. They cooked the books on Iraq as well as Emeril Legasse does a Cajun Crawfish Bisque.
I just can’t believe the CIA is so inept as to get all of the intelligence wrong on al-qaida, but kicked ass for nearly 40 years keeping tabs on the old Soviet Union. I don’t see how the CIA can stand being the fall guy for the Bush Administration.
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:02 pmSorry, I should have mentioned that the CIA supposedly got it wrong with regards to Iraq and WMD. Whatever, I still don’t buy it!
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:05 pmMr Evil,
They’ll blame the CIA failure on Clinton. As far as the CIA standing being the fall guy, we’re seeing some fallout already, with more to surely come eventually.
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:08 pmDamn, how could I have forgotten the rightist mantra… IT’S CLINTON’S FAULT!!!!
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:12 pmI’m not buying it either Mr. Evil. The CIA did not fail, the Penatgon did. Rummy and gang knew exactly where the hijackers were on 9-11 and chose to do nothing about it.
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:12 pmI wonder how the Jews in “Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka” would feel about “us” if they new that our companies were helping the Germans attempt to exterminate them.
The “allies” portrayed the finding of the consentration camps as a surprise. It was not. We knew, and we were profitting from it. Then we acted like we didnt know. The commanders on the ground may not have known, it may have been a surprise to them, but it certainly wasnt to our leaders, or “The High Cabal” as Churchill refered to them.
Chomsky writes: “States are not moral agents.”
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:18 pmAnd Prescott Bush was still doing business with the Nazi’s well after we entered the European theater of WWII. I wonder if he is considered a good, patriotic American. Well, I guess if you use the twisted standards of his grandson, the prez, then he is probably one of the most true-blue Americans ever.
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:27 pmDon’t believe me?
http://www.acsa2000.net/ibm_and_hitler.htm
Or try this one on for size (The Bush family ties to Nazi Germany):
http://www.rense.com/general17/bushhitler.htm
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:28 pmSorry Mr. Evil, I missed you by a minute! I’m not trying to steal your thunder (re: link of Bush and Nazi Germany).
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:30 pmNo problem at all. Nice to know there are other knowledgable people aware of the Bush family shenanigans!
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:35 pmThank you, Elvis, thank you very much. And Mr Evil too. I make the mistake of assuming everyone knows about Prescott Bush and the source of the current Bush wealth.
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:43 pm#33 how many hospitals, schools, power plants, sewage works etc were open before the invasion? Women held jobs without fear and went about their business unafraid of bearded fundamentalists. I suppose they only need enough facilities for 100,000 fewer of them now, but there’s still only 6 hours of power a day in Baghdad. The question of ‘better off without Saddam’ is a complex one. Speaking personally, I am worse off.
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:46 pmOutside of thinkprogress.org, what other sites do the people who freaquent this site vist daily? I’m always looking for good info, and I’m sure there are other good ones out there… care to share?
Thanks
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:57 pm#8 the progressives only opposed the Afghan war after it became clear that the country was being handed back to the same opium war lords who ran the country before the Taleban. The reason – move troops to invade Iraq well before the job was done in Afghanistan. The incompetence and mendacity of the PNAC campaign to ignore Afghanistan for Iraq is what people object to – starting with the idiotic episode were OBL was allowed out of Tora Bora.
And finally Blue State, I would put it to you that the very ‘leadership abroad’ supporting dictatorships, overthrowing democracies, denying the rest of the world the chance for their own freedom even as they used slave labour for their corporations and dug mineral wealth from the ground is what is threatening your country’s ‘freedom’ today. That is what progressives fight against, they see the values that America was built upon cheapened, destroyed and denied to anyone else.
Your ‘they hate our freedom’ claptrap is just that, a lie that you have bought to excuse your behavior and the people you vote for’s behavior. America’s freedom is at risk, because of the American fascism that is emerging in the wake of 9-11. Don’t agree? Read this and see what you think. http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:58 pmI guess #33 Blue State Red is going to be enlisting tomorrow to go over to that wonderful, sparkling example of civilization at work called Iraq.
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:59 pmAnother FOX News automaton.
Elvis, I usually do a roundup of Buzzflash, Bushwatch, POAC. Then Alterman on MSNBC, Guardian, Al-Jazeera, Glasgow Herald and Sydney Herald. Finally Fox to see what the loonies are doing.
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:00 pm“Finally Fox to see what the loonies are doing.” LOL!!!
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:05 pmELVIS, Looks like Terrytheturtle and I frequent many of the same web sites, plus a few widely read newspapers, you might try listening to Air America on the radio or stream it on line.
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:19 pmMr. Evil, some good reads on the CIA (I take it by your posts you are interested) from my perspective would be:
JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy. by L. Fletcher Prouty.
Killing Hope by William Blum
Allen Dulles was the chief of the OSS (WWII version of the CIA) during World War II. He was also Theisen’s lawyer after WWII (see posted link above), helped orchestrate the smuggling of the Nazi intelligence apparatus back to the US after the war (all of whom eventually became some of the base recruits for the newly formed CIA), he eventually became the head of the CIA (fired by Kennedy). Truman stated that his biggest regret was creating the CIA, whose secret branch supposedly runs truly everything (see L. Fletcher Prouty’s other book “The Secret Team”). Based on what I’ve read, it was Kennedy’s realization of this secret side of the CIA and The Secret Team that led to him firing Allen Dulles and his attempt to stop Vietnam, that lead to his assassination.
Other interesting notes: Dulles was on the Warren Commission who was charged with investigating the assassination. Also on the Commission was Gerald Ford, whose future head of the CIA was George Herbert Walker Bush. All of these men were/are part of “The Secret Team†or “The High Cabal†as Churchill referred to them.
Just thought you’d find it interesting.
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:22 pmThanx for the info Elvis and from what I’ve read and watched over the years you’re right on target. But the looming question is, how do we finally stop it and create a world where there are no ultra-rich, powermad warmongers/profiteers bent on total control? Maybe if we could find a way to kill their god… money.
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:32 pmElvis,
DailyKos is always an informative site to check out, as are Crooks & Liars, Perrspectives.com (who comments here) and toostupidtobepresident.com (political humor of course). I’d like to plug these guy’s site as well to read.
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:42 amhttp://www.ivaw.net/index.php?id=1
Can you name one thing that, after Bush “touched it,” DIDN’T turn to sh-t?
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:45 amWell TAC actually… no, wait, that turned to shit. How about when… damn, that did too. Ohhhhh, I remember one time during the first term, nope… more shit there also. Maybe…. but…. hope…. awwww shit!
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:06 amI’ve been here since TerrytheTurtle posted it a little while ago, http://www.oldamericancentury.org/, and you can see for yourself that TAC hit the nail right on the head. Tons of Bush created shit!
I just had a brainstorm for a novelty item. How about finding a way to have someone manufacture rolls of toilet paper with George Bush’s face on each section! Then when nature calls we can actually say to his face, “Eat Shit George”!
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:13 am“Uh, I guess this may not be the place to debate the Civil War, but slavery certainly was one of the prime dividing issues”.
‘My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause’.
- Abraham Lincoln; The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume V, “Letter to Horace Greeley” (August 22, 1862), p. 388. http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln78.html
‘If I thought the object of this war was to free the slaves I would resign my commission and offer my sword to the other side’.
August 23rd, 2005 at 3:04 am– U.S. Grant
“War should NEVER be an option.â€
This is true. War should never be an option. An option is regular wheels or mag wheels on your ride. War is always a last resort. Sometimes there is no other option. Some will invoke Clausewitz and say war is diplomacy carried out by other means. It’s still a last resort, much more than just another tool in the tool kit.
“Uh, I guess this may not be the place to debate the Civil War, but slavery certainly was one of the prime dividing issuesâ€.
Corryn,
The right likes to spin it that way but some closer scrutiny reveals that’s not accurate. The spin that slavery was the issue is misleading. It was about states rights, and then secession. The right wants to link it to slavery because that dovetails neatly with their attempts at linking abortion with slavery. At the time there was a great debate among the abolitionists as to whether the use of violence was moral and just to free the slaves. Does the name John Brown ring a bell? I won’t delve into that argument here, it’s far too complex, but by linking abortion to slavery the right hopes to justify the violence they endorse and carry out against abortion clinics and providers. In the final analysis, what the right really wants is another civil war. They’ll get their asses whipped again because not all that much has changed but the names. As chimpy the pendejo says, bring ‘em on. We still make all the big weapons in the northern blue states.
On hearing of South Carolina’s secession, Sherman presciently observed to a southern friend before going north to serve in the Union Army:
You people of the South don’t know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing!
You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it …
Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors.
You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.
August 23rd, 2005 at 8:46 am#67 Mr. Evil — there already is toilet paper on the market featuring the Bush countenance. Did I see it in “The Nation” ad pages? Or maybe at one of the anti-Bush paraphernalia sites?
August 23rd, 2005 at 9:47 amCorryn et al, whenever a right winger is talking, even if he’s telling you his real name, he’s lying through his teeth.
August 23rd, 2005 at 9:58 amThank you Historian. Well documented quotes always help validate a point. Why can’t our bushie friends do that? Oh, that’s right. Thats because they’d have to use phaux news & the like for all their quotes. Yes those may be quotes that can be attributed, but they are calorie free quotes. I say that because they have no substance at all. That’s the whole poorly documented of which I referred to.
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:09 amInteresting how Mr Grant and Mr Lincoln don’t seem to think that ending slavery is worth it? Maybe that bill of rights should have had ‘but not the black ones’ inserted in it? Still think the US is capable of electing a black president or a woman president? I don’t – because the Civil War is over (War between the States, Sorry) and the South seems to have won.
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:20 amhttp://www.ejscoffeelounge.us/SheepToTheSlaughter.mp3
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:52 amMr. Evil,
One way to “finally stop it” that comes to my mind would be to play by their rules. Be covert in intent. Covertly bring the right people to power under what would seem “normal circumstances” or with “typical objectives” then when they’ve got the White House, the staff and other key elements in control: one day just use the presidential power to simply wipe away the CIA and the means of control for “The Secret Team.”
Possible? Sure. Likely? No. Are there other ways? I’m sure there are. After all, we do have the power to take out the existing government and create a new one. Maybe they should have left us a hand book on how to do that.
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:33 pmGuess what? With the papering over of differences in Iraq’s fake draft constitution, it looks loke Islamic law is enshrined as being the final word and now women in Iraq will have less rights that they had under Saddam Hussein. Looks like the majority of Iraq is getting reeeeeeal close to Iran, too… So anybody who says Americans are over there dying for nothing is wrong: They’re over there dying for the interests of Iran and Islamic fundamentalism!
August 23rd, 2005 at 5:18 pmWhat is all this talk about Afghanistan. We chased the Taliban out of there a long time ago according to the Bush War Department aka DOD.
Are Karfen Hughes and Condi Rice in Utah holding Bush upright. I wonder who is supplying him coke nowadays.
August 23rd, 2005 at 8:31 pmHis Florida supplie, K. Harris, is a long way off.
#63 is right
George Walker Bush is a much, much lower turd than whale dung. Here’s a bit more solid proof for those who wonder how Smirko got to be the most powerful coke-whore on the planet:
CIA, Nazis & the Republican Party
A Fresh Look
by Carla Binion
Investigative reporter Christopher Simpson says in BLOWBACK that after World War II, Nazi émigrés were given CIA subsidies to build a far-right-wing power base in the U.S. These Nazis assumed prominent positions in the Republican Party’s “ethnic outreach committees.” Simpson documents the fact that these Nazis did not come to America as individuals but as part of organized groups with fascist political agendas.
The Nazi agenda did not die along with Adolf Hitler. It moved toAmerica (or a part of it did) and joined the far right of the Republican Party. Simpson shows how the State Department and the CIA put high-ranking Nazis on the intelligence payroll “for their expertise in propaganda and psychological warfare,” among other purposes…
Journalist Russ Bellant (OLD NAZIS, THE NEW RIGHT, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY) shows that Laszlo Pasztor, a convicted Nazi war collaborator, built the Republican émigré network. Pasztor, who served as adviser to Republican Paul Weyrich, belonged to the Hungarian Arrow Cross, a group that helped liquidate Hungary’s Jews. Pasztor was founding chairman of the Republican Heritage Groups Council. Two months before the November 1988 presidential election, a small newspaper, Washington Jewish Week, disclosed that a coalition for the Bush campaign included a number of outspoken Nazis and anti-Semites. The article prompted six leaders of Bush’s coalition to resign.
According to Russ Bellant, Nazi collaborators involved in the Republican Party included:
* Radi Slavoff, GOP Heritage Council’s executive director, and head of “Bulgarians for Bush.” Slavoff was a member of a Bulgarian fascist group, and he put together an event in Washington honoring Holocaust denier, Austin App.
* Florian Galdau, director of GOP outreach efforts among Romanians, and head of “Romanians for Bush.” Galdau was once an Iron Guard recruiter, and he defended convicted Nazi war criminal Valerian Trifa.
* Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of a Cossack GOP ethnic unit. Nazarenko was an ex-Waffen SS officer.
* Method Balco, GOP activist. Balco organized yearly memorials for a Nazi puppet regime.
* Walter Melianovich, head of the GOP’s Byelorussian unit. Melianovich worked closely with many Nazi groups.
* Bohdan Fedorak, leader of “Ukrainians for Bush.” Fedorak headed a Nazi group involved in anti-Jewish wartime pogroms.
August 28th, 2005 at 1:14 amAMEN AND WOO HOO #13! My words exactly. I hope I meet him/her/it in person, as part of my quest for justice I would love to help him/her/it see the error of its ways.
August 30th, 2005 at 11:33 pm#57, elvis- what good sites to visit…
Bushwatch.com
Buzzflash.com
and just to piss of nor east dimentia and b.s. red:
Michaelmoore.com
August 30th, 2005 at 11:41 pmhttp://www.ejscoffeelounge.us/nwo/Sexist!Racist!InsaneNation!.mp3
http://www.ejscoffeelounge.us/nwo/SignsOfTheTime.mp3
December 28th, 2005 at 1:09 pm