VIDEO: Bush Agrees Current Iraq Violence May Be ‘Jihadist Equivalent Of The Tet Offensive’
VIDEO: Bush Agrees Current Iraq Violence May Be ‘Jihadist Equivalent Of The Tet Offensive’
In an interview today with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, President Bush said he agreed with a recent op-ed arguing that the current spike of violence in Iraq could be the “jihadist equivalent” of the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam, which was “widely credited with eroding support for President Johnson” and turning the American public against that war.
Watch it:
President Bush is right to finally admit that violence in Iraq has reached a tipping point, and that the U.S. is not winning the war as he has claimed. But the current violence is not a propaganda campaign by Iraqis to impact the U.S. elections, as he suggests. It is a civil war, one that he has repeatedly failed to acknowledge and has no plan to address.
Full transcript:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Tom Friedman wrote in the New York Times this morning that what we might be seeing now is the Iraqi equivalent of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968. Tony Snow this morning said, “He may be right.” Do you agree?
BUSH: He could be right. There’s certainly a stepped up level of violence, and we’re heading into an election.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But what’s your gut tell you?
BUSH: George, my gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we’d leave. And the leaders of al Qaeda have made that very clear. Look, here’s how I view it. First of all, al Qaeda is still very active in Iraq. They are dangerous. They are lethal. They are trying to not only kill American troops, but they’re trying to foment sectarian violence. They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause government to withdraw
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294 Responses to “VIDEO: Bush Agrees Current Iraq Violence May Be ‘Jihadist Equivalent Of The Tet Offensive’”
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The worst president in the history of America.....Caption should read...Get me another drink Laura
October 18th, 2006 at 7:32 pmCan you say lying, incompetent criminal?
October 18th, 2006 at 7:32 pmB...b...but Cheney said everything was going swell?
These guys don't know if their coming or going..
I'll answer that, they're going straight to hell!
October 18th, 2006 at 7:32 pmbut it's only because of the election. so blame it on the election. and can't forget the blame of ramadan. what a helluva guy.
October 18th, 2006 at 7:33 pmIt took them three friggin' years to admit that the Iraqi insurgents were friggin' insurgents.
How long will it take them to admit there is a friggin' civil war going on.
October 18th, 2006 at 7:37 pm#5
watch out now. it's called sectarian violence.
October 18th, 2006 at 7:40 pmBush has revised his comments. He thought Stephanopolous asked him if "tits were offensive" and he agreed to show his Christian modesty.
As far as the Jeehadeez.......they wanna chop yer heads off!
-GSD
October 18th, 2006 at 7:40 pmIt's really difficult to look at the picture of him from this video. I have never seen a more dishonest face...
October 18th, 2006 at 7:48 pmI think many folks out there are missing the historical analogy. The Tet Offensive was a massive, undeniable defeat for the enemy. They achieved none of their tactical, military objectives. They suffered FAR more casualties than the U.S. and our South Vietnamese allies. The reason why Tet was considered a communist victory (despite their overwhelming losses) is because the media portrayed it as a victory for the NVA and Viet Cong, and, as a result, the U.S. public began to think the war was unwinnable. Tet was purely a propaganda and psychological victory for the communists. As a military initiative, it was a disaster for the communists. But perception became reality. Same here. The terrorists cannot win militarily in Iraq. They know that. They're only chance for victory is to convince the media and, consequently, the American public that the U.S. cannot win. Al Qaeda/Iraqi "insurgents" have indeed learned the lessons of Tet and Vietnam well. Have we?
S
October 18th, 2006 at 7:48 pmBig deal. So GWB is "admitting" that al Qaeda is orchestrating all the violence in Iraq in order to drive out the saviors of the Iraqi people. This is nothing new from George.
October 18th, 2006 at 7:48 pmAs I was reading #9 I was thinking, "Who is this person who's pimping for Bush and slamming the media for reporting on the Vietnam war?"
October 18th, 2006 at 7:55 pmhe agreed because his earpiece told him so
October 18th, 2006 at 7:59 pmNotice how Bush refers to the terrorists/insurgents in Iraq as "al Qaeda." (He's still trying to sell us on the Republican lie that the invasion of Iraq had anything to do with 9/11.) If anyone saw the rest of the interview, did Stephanopoulos call Bush on that? Probably not.
Bushian loyalty is no virtue--it's the loyalty of thieves
October 18th, 2006 at 8:02 pm#9 -- No matter what it is, other than a f***ing disaster in every way, the United States should not be in Iraq. End of story. The war in Iraq is unwinable. As a matter of fact, it should not be won. It should just be over. Will the insanity of you Bush lovers ever end? Will you ever care about the lives being lost, US and Iraqi? Or will you just kiss Bush's ass over and over again until you can't pucker your lips anymore? When is it you people stop and think about the grave consequences of this administration's actions? Please think before it's too late for all of us. It would be a crying shame for every being on this planet to have to suffer because of the flagrant ignorance of people like you.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:03 pmBring our boys home or I'll...I'll...I'll stage another interview to promote my book!!!!
October 18th, 2006 at 8:13 pmGo Cindy!
October 18th, 2006 at 8:15 pmIt would be a crying shame for every being on this planet to have to suffer because of the flagrant ignorance of people like you.
Comment by NoMoreRepublicanTrash
Exley doesnt care about people. He cares about the Mets.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:15 pmSince Bush was no where near Vietnam in 1968, I wonder if he's aware of how many American soldiers died during the TET Offensive. or is he only aware of its "political" ramifications? At what point does American deaths have "moral" ramifications? Who wants to be the last American soldier to die in Iraq?
October 18th, 2006 at 8:16 pmBring our boys home or I’ll…I’ll…I’ll stage another interview to promote my book!!!!
Comment by Cindy_Sheehan
Thats really brave. To make fun of a grieving mother. I bet you cant get it up.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:16 pmI would bet her son is equally apalled at his mother's behavior toward the cause he lost his life defending!.. He wasn't drafted...He was a volunteer!...
And I get it up just fine thank you...Want pics???
October 18th, 2006 at 8:19 pm"What is Ted's Offense? and why is he asking me about Vietnam? Dang it I hate these foreiner questions"
"Oh wait my handlers are tellimg me to nod"
October 18th, 2006 at 8:20 pm#15 -- Republicans don't care about grieving mothers whose sons or daughters died in Bush's war of convenience. Republicans don't even care about the troops that are living, or their families fears and concerns. Republicans simply don't care about America or Americans, on insomuch as looking to the country and its people as something to fleece. So, based on your comment, you must be a dirty piece of Republican filth. I long for the day that you people are silenced permanently.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:20 pmWhat a fitting background. Queen George the Dumb within sight of the checkered flag and the finish line. In just a few days he will be a lame d(*)uck and his checkered past will assure his finish. l\Long live NASCAR! Maybe he sees it as a chess board but if it is somebody tipped the board and QGtD is off the board and on his ass. Don't forget to sign on to the new revolution here.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:21 pmIn Vietnam, George W Bush had an exit strategy.....
October 18th, 2006 at 8:23 pm# 23
My bad! Try here.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:24 pmSo, based on your comment, you must be a dirty piece of Republican filth. I long for the day that you people are silenced permanently.
Any opposition is responded to with wishes of death by you people...You are no different then the fanatical idiots that saw peoples heads off for disagreeing with them!..Amazing!
October 18th, 2006 at 8:26 pm#20 -- no, you lowlife garbage, Cindy Sheehan's son would not be appalled at his mother's bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. Cindy Sheehan will be remembered in history as someone who without thought as to how it would affect her life, challenged the true enemies of the United States and its people -- George W. Bush & Co.; you and your ilk, however, will be remembered in history as people who sold out their own country and its people in the name of the Republican party. How proud you must be.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:26 pmCindy Sheehan's son was fighting for freedom of expression so that the USA would never be taken over by a dictator who would call a dissenter a traitor.
Republicans don't care how many soldiers die to achieve their unacheivable objective. I'm sure their happy that the US population just hit 300 million because that means there are a lot more bodies for their phony war on terror.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:27 pmGood try WB, but not only al Qaeda in Iraq. There are Sunni insurgent, Sunni militia, Shiite militia, Kurdish miltia, Iraqis police and of course our boys and warprofit companies. Stop lie.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:28 pmYou are no different then the fanatical idiots that saw peoples heads off for disagreeing with them!..Amazing!
Comment by Cindy_Sheehan
Whatever.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:30 pmAny opposition is responded to with wishes of death by you people…You are no different then the fanatical idiots that saw peoples heads off for disagreeing with them!..Amazing!
Yup, you got it, you piece of s**t. You don't get courtesy because you don't deserve courtesy. You'd know all about fanatical idiots because you and your Bush-loving cohorts are fanatical idiots. Don't come here looking for your perverted worldview to be accepted with grace and love. You and your ilk have been shown entirely too much tolerance since 2000. Now is the time to fight you tooth and nail in order to regain control of OUR COUNTRY and wrench it out of the hands of arrogant fools like you and Bush. You haven't seen fighting yet. We are only getting started. After November you and the rest of the Republican trash can bend over and grab your ankles. Enjoy.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:30 pmTerrorist this, terrorists that......
Bush boy,wake up. These are insurgents. There is a civil war going on.
You screwed up. We should have never invaded Iraq in the first place. You forgot the actual war on terror when you invaded Iraq for a pack of lies and for oil ( and the PNAC plan )
Quit drinking your own Koolaide, Chimpy.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:31 pmHey #20 -
Yeah, volunteered to be a chaplain's assistant. I'm sure he'd be disappointed by his mother's unwavering dedication to the teachings of Christ. Right.
/people that bash Cindy Sheehan are ignorant scum
October 18th, 2006 at 8:31 pmHmm, I don't think the current violence in Iraq is a spike. I think it will get much worse.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:32 pmAl Qaeda/Iraqi “insurgents†have indeed learned the lessons of Tet and Vietnam well. Have we?
Mate If thats the ONLY thing the US has learnt from vietnam then the US Iraq adventure is truely beyond incompetence.
"From start to finnish, American leaders remained catastrophically ignorant of Vietnmese history, culture, values, motives, and abilities. Misperceiving both it enemy and its ally and imprisoned in the myopic conviction that sheer military force could somehow overcome adverse political circumstances, Washington stumbled from one failure to the next in the continuing delusion that success was always just ahead" - Without Honor - Arnold R. Isaacs
Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively. And if after all of this time, and all of this sacrifice, and all of this support, there is no end in sight, then I say the time has come for the American people to turn to leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past.-Richard M. Nixon
October 18th, 2006 at 8:34 pmAfter November you and the rest of the Republican trash can bend over and grab your ankles. Enjoy.
Keep threatening people...They seem to be getting the message!!!...PFFT!
October 18th, 2006 at 8:36 pm#5
Al Qaeda/Iraqi “insurgents†have indeed learned the lessons of Tet and Vietnam well. Have we?
Is that all the US has learnt from Vietnam ?
"From start to finnish, American leaders remained catastrophically ignorant of Vietnmese history, culture, values, motives, and abilities. Misperceiving both it enemy and its ally and imprisoned in the myopic conviction that sheer military force could somehow overcome adverse political circumstances, Washington stumbled from one failure to the next in the continuing delusion that success was always just ahead" - Without Honor - Arnold R. Isaacs
Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively. And if after all of this time, and all of this sacrifice, and all of this support, there is no end in sight, then I say the time has come for the American people to turn to leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past.-Richard M. Nixon
October 18th, 2006 at 8:36 pmAhhhh, the old "they are volunteers" arguement. How is that volunteering going now? Nobody is volunteering to fight this stupid war anymore. The people that were already in didn't volunteer to kill innocent people either.
Have you served? What unit? Base? MOS?
Do you know what it is like to kill somebody in combat? Nobody should have to do it.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:41 pmThey seem to be getting the message!!!…PFFT!
Comment by Cindy_Sheehan
At least the 60 something %.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:41 pmGWB, Your 'gut' is not a credible source of 'intelligence'. It's more likely telling you that it needs some Pepto Bismal. Why won't you just admit that you don't have a clue about Iraq, and you never did.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:45 pmThis is where my age shows, I was months from coming out when this happened.
I can't believe the same crap is still happening.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:46 pmHave you served? What unit? Base? MOS?
Yes...and I'm not whining about it...It was the proudest thing I have ever done...And if you did, then you should be ashamed at your comments...You join the military...Not the friggin boy scouts!!!!!!..
So don't come off like war wasn't a possibility...It is a hazard of joining and some people seem to act like they never expected it to EVER happen or anyone to die...What a crock of sh*t!
October 18th, 2006 at 8:47 pmThe people that cut off people's heads are:
Conservative
Religious
Zealots
Osama bin Laden
CRZ
Saudi Arabia
CRZ
George W Bush
CRZ
We are not Conservatives, most aren't religious and you gotta be religious to be a zealot.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:47 pmComment by Exley
You have a good point, I don't know shit about the Tet Offensive, and just read about it, on that Wiki. Apparently it was a great defeat for the enemy and the media portrayed it otherwise, and it still ended up becoming the turning point.
The context of the thread is, that a tipping point may have been reached with the Iraq war.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:51 pmAhhhhh, so unlike most of the righties that come here, you served. Good for you.
Did you serve during wartime? From your comments, I would say no.
I served during Desert Storm and you are incorrect. You need to reup just before a war starts and watch people jump out of windows, try and hang themselves with the buffer cord or punch a commanding officer to keep from going to jail. All of this happened in my platoon alone. 4/5 Field Artillery 1st Inf. Div Fort Riley KS.
Not everybody is in the military to fight in a war and most are not prepared for it. Most people join the military for the college money and because they have no other option.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:53 pmSo don’t come off like war wasn’t a possibility…Comment by Cindy_Sheehan
Mmmm...General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin CEO´s have done a good job brainwashing your mind with some little GI Joe´s cartoons. I dont see the most prosperous countries in the world worrying about war. (Norway, Switzerland, Luxemburgo, etc...) but hey, whatever satisfy your "beheading" impulses, murderer.
What a crock of sh*t!
October 18th, 2006 at 8:57 pmExactly. You describe your posts quite well.
Oh yeah and Cindy, start using a screen name that is your own and people might give you more credit. But, I am sure you didn't come here to debate or discuss. You started with an attack, so an attack back is what you got. Action/reaction it's physics.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:58 pmDid you serve during wartime? From your comments, I would say no.
BUZZZZZ...Wrong again!!!!!!
I actually have a 2 combat action ribbons and serverd in the infantry...soo your stories of hanging themselves with buffer cords stikes me as funny!..I never saw that in the Marines....It's easy to get out without killing yourself or punching someone....I see that as a weak argument!
October 18th, 2006 at 8:59 pmJuan C...is that a hispanic name???????
I hope your not here illegally...If so your days of sucking my tax money are numbered!
October 18th, 2006 at 9:01 pmAction/reaction it’s physics.
Comment by SpudgeBoy
Hey, Spudge. Try to keep it simple for this guy. Do not confuse him with science stuff.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:01 pmKeith Olbermann just kicked George W. Bush's ass with his Special Comment on the death of habeas corpus.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:04 pmTo say that we have actually something to compare the current violence and counter Islam infighting to is the point we are missing. We have stuck our finger in the dike and the water is coming over the top. Historical comparisons are purely academic and for the feebly minded constituents who have some how taken sides in this debacle like it's a football game with the same level of consequences. We are all responsible for allowing this man to become President and to accommodate his callous belligerent simplistic view of the world to be hijacked by a few elitist arrogant impotent dreamers who have lost so many lives and dollars on behalf of twisted imperialistic goals before. The argument is over . Failure is a gift to those who do not prepare for all of the outcomes of carnage. Thank a god if you have one will not see this man in control of our destiny any further.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:04 pmI hope your not here illegally…If so your days of sucking my tax money are numbered!
Comment by Cindy_Sheehan
Genius! Why would I want to be in the US? You think illegals like McDonalds, Country music, KFC and Baskin Robbins? Ha! They sure dont like the artificial culture US have built after the genocide of indians. They are in your country working so they dont starve in their native countries. BTW, those native countries economies are ruled by the IMF...which is, surprise!, an US toy. So, in summary, that illegal you talk about is very much a consequence of US actions.
Now, I bet you cant spell the country Im from. I can speak your language, you know shit about mine. Whose the alien, buddy?
October 18th, 2006 at 9:07 pmI meant whos the alien?
October 18th, 2006 at 9:08 pmThat's it!..Blame me and all republicans for what happened to the native americans 100 years ago.....Way to spin things BUDDY!!!
October 18th, 2006 at 9:09 pm>In Vietnam, George W Bush had an exit strategy…..
great line - you could sell that one to TDS or Leno
But seriously, I doubt that George Bush has any idea what the Tet Offensive was. He was too drunk and coked out during those years for even what few grey cells he may have had to have retained anything.
This guy is the most painful national humiliation we've ever endured and we're not even 75% through it.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:11 pm"Cindy Sheehan" kicks its own ass. That's nice...
October 18th, 2006 at 9:18 pmBlame me and all republicans for what happened to the native americans 100 years ago…..Way to spin things BUDDY!!!
Comment by Cindy_Sheehan
100 years ago??? I would add another 100 years. And who the hell is talking about Dems or Reps? I said US. Do you think I give a f*ck about Dems or Reps? Do you see life that way? Good and Evil, Black and White, Dem or Rep? What the hell is wrong with you, that you have to mock a mother, attack people who dont want war and then make a racist comment about illegals? Dont you have some self-respect or at least decency to post with another name? You are shameful and pathetic.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:20 pmOh yeah, about the Tet Offensive: yes, it was a military failure for the NVA. The problem was--and the reason why it was perceived as an American disaster was that the American public had been treated to daily reports of enormous losses by the enemy--how there was nearly no NV army left--and how the war was very nearly over. That the NVA could have made such an offensive at all so flew in the face of previous propaganda that significant portions of the public that had supported the war came to the conclusion that the Government was either 1) wildly mistaken in their intel, or 2) lying.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:27 pmHistory is full of battles lost that neverthelewss changed the psychology of a war. Tet was one of them.
Sorry. I don't watch Bush clips anymore. Too depressing.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:28 pmThis statement fits into the administration's optimistic thinking on Iraq. The Tet Offensive was largely a military defeat for the North Vietnamese. Therefore, today's North Vietnamese or th e jihadist or whatever they're labelling those who want us out, will lose this battle militarily.
But, because of the large number of American casulaties, Tet began the shift in mainstream America's mind that the war was not worth it. It was a public relations victory as only Americans can appreciate and provide. Bush's 'stay the course' mantra lives on -- if we just continue being there we'll deny those who defy us a victory and they will crumble. It's the same BS Kissinger was probably feeding Nixon at the time.
Everything old is new again.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:29 pmWell said, Juan.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:29 pmHe is beyond offensive. Is there no level to whichhe won't stoop???
Someone needs to ask him his Kim Jong Il's recent nuclear activity is an attempt to manipulate our elections as well.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:30 pmWell said, Juan.
Comment by Zooey
I had a blackout. What happened? :)
October 18th, 2006 at 9:33 pm#9. i think you make a fatal mistake in your thinking. you are trying to take one event and give it one outcome. very few actions have a single consequense. Sure, the NVA and the VC lost more Soldiers. But they were "successful" in many other ways. They were able to make fairly concentrated attacks across all of South Vietnam. The arms caches went mostly undetected and when detected, no one really new what to think of them. it took the battle field to Saigon which at that time was mostly devoid of fighting. it wasnt just the media that was latching on to the story. it was a strategic victory. the civil war that is ongoing in iraq is much the same. sure we kill alot of them. but what is the outcome? how do you measure victory? the NIE already stated that we are creating more terrorists. in vietnam, we were up against the vietnamese and some small elements from surrounding areas. this current debacle has created a global recruiting poster.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:34 pmMy gut tells me that as long as it is someone else paying the price we are staying the course
October 18th, 2006 at 9:34 pmI had a blackout. What happened? :)
Comment by Juan+C
Your comment in #58.
Which type of blackout?
October 18th, 2006 at 9:55 pmAre you drinking or did your power fail? :)
It shows a lot about Bush's priorities that he thinks everything revolves around him and his party. To assume that people fighting and dying is merely an effort to derail his party's election chances is, to me, a shameful degree of hubris.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:58 pmMy gut tells me to buy 98,000 acres in Paraguay under my daughter's name while we all sacrifice and fight terra.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:00 pm#14, I am sorry my history lesson upset you. All I can do is teach you history. What you do with my teachings are up to you.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:05 pm#65, Bubba wrote:
This current debacle has created a global recruiting poster.
Exactly. Well said.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:07 pmI strongly suggest you guys actually read a history book and learn the facts behind the Tet offensive. It was a major loss for the Viet Cong and the only reason it had any affect on the war was that American media championed it as a victory for them.
Bush knows his history - you and the main stream media do not - but this time the truth is available to everyone.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:14 pmNSC is, of course, correct. Well said.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:17 pmHabeas Corpus?.... anyone?....
http://www.getsomejosh.com
October 18th, 2006 at 10:23 pm#72. your thinking is extremely narrow. tunnel vision kills. you blame one thing for the tide of vietnam just like you blame one thing on this quagmire. "liberal media this and liberal media that." since you are such a fan of history, how many "pre emptive" wars in modern history has the united states fought and achieved decided victory?
October 18th, 2006 at 10:24 pmHistory lessons from Exley! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!! ROTFL!!!
October 18th, 2006 at 10:25 pmNSC = Exley...no wonder you agree with him.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:26 pmBush knows his history
Comment by NSC
In rehab...perhaps.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:32 pmWhere was George during the Tet Offensive? Not in Vietnam that's for sure.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:36 pmWhat you do with my teachings are up to you.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:36 pmComment by Exley — October 18, 2006 @ 10:05 pm
Yes Master, Wax On,,,,, Wax Off,,,
An attorney I used to work for, a retired Marine Colonel, was trapped in Hue City for several days during the Tet Offensive. He said they lost that battle, and it was the beginning of the end for us in Viet Nam.
He was there. He knows.
And in case you're wondering, he's no liberal. He's a registered Republican, always has been.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:37 pmExley is teaching Vietnam history, fellas. Tomorrow he will be giving lessons on the good old Contras, those palladins of democracy that killed nuns, children and women in Nicaragua following orders from that great gift of humanity called Negroponte. After tomorrow he is planning to lecture on the 9/11 Commission report where his whole faith in God and Bush is deposited, without asking himself why the FBI havent blamed OBL for 9/11 atrocity or why the FBI is still keeping the tapes from the area around the Pentagon where the "forth plane" crashed. I wonder if Exley will be giving lessons on the 9/11 event that killed 30,000 people. It happened in 1973. I leave it to him to do some reasearch.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:39 pmYes Master, Wax On,,,,, Wax Off,,,
Comment by ren
Ha ha! But even Miyagi San said: We trained Karate for one reason: Not to fight.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:40 pm#65, Bubba,
You make some valid points. In explaining the correct history of the Tet Offensive, I was making no argument one way or other about how best to proceed in Iraq. I was simply correcting the historical record. Many people (including apparently people at ThinkProgress) do not know what happened at Tet. I needed to teach some history.
You write: "the NIE already stated that we are creating more terrorists." You are only half right. While the NIE said the liberation of Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for Islamic jihadists, the NIE aslo said that an American victory/Al Qaeda defeat in Iraq would be a major blow to the radical Islamic jihadist movement. You neglected to mention that. That is not your fault. The mainstream (read, liberal) media buried that aspect of the NIE.
You ask: "how do you measure victory?" That is the key question. At this point, I don't know the answer. Clearly, half the victory has already been achieved -- the deposing of Saddam. Where we go from here, however, is uncertain. I don't believe U.S. troops should be kept in the middle of a civil war. The Iraqi people were handed a golden opportunity and gift by the U.S. and Coalition when we deposed Saddam. We gave the Iraqis every opportunity to create a democratic and civilized society following our overthrow of Saddam's tyrannical rule. Rather than making the most of this opportunity, the Iraqis have instead seemingly chosen to indulge in the violent settling ancient ethnic, religious, and tribal grievances. If that is what they choose to do, the U.S. should withdraw our troops. You can lead the proverbial horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. We have done all we can for the Iraqis. The rest is up to them.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:43 pmLet us not forget the history lesson that George Walker Bush, the liar, the sociopath, the psycho, the coward....is the greatest president of all time.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:44 pmWe have done all we can for the Iraqis. .
Comment by Exley
600,000 dead iraqis would say: No more effort, please.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:48 pmThe rest is up to them
Like managing their own oil, I guess. Yeah...
Exley's lesson on our generosity and altruism in Iraq = The rapist throwing $20 on the back of his victim, and saying, "I don't know why you're upset, honey, I gave you every opportunity to enjoy it." Buy yourself somethin' pretty...
October 18th, 2006 at 10:49 pmThis is friggin' nuts. I just want you neocons to understand that just because I'm a cross dresser, does not make my viewpoint friggin' invalid.
My personal issues ar not part of my friggin' politics.
Again, move on to another subject and stop sending me friggin' e-mails about it.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:50 pm#88 - That's not SpudgeBoy.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:54 pm82 - Last night Ex was pretending to teach Constitutional Law...except that he called it Civil Procedure.
And, CS, I've met Cindy Sheehan. She is one of the nicest, warmest, kindest persons I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. She has dedicated her life to doing whatever she can to prevent another mother from feeling the grief she felt and still feels over her son's senseless and needless death in an immoral and illegal war.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:55 pmhttp://www.vwam.com/vets/tet/tet.html
Winning over the hearts and minds of the people was fundamental to the Vietnam War. Westmoreland's "Search and Destroy" operation actually producted more VCs. Even enough sympathizers to allow them secrectly concentrated near SVN's cities.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:56 pmHi Zooey.
yeah, there was a spudgeboy impersonator here earlier. I wonder why Judd can't block it's ISP address.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:57 pmHey #88: Last time I checked, Cowards and Terrorists hide among the population too...
October 18th, 2006 at 10:59 pmHello Briseadh na Faire,
I assume you sent Judd an email regarding this hijacker, just as you did about the one who hijacked ren and my names.
I can't help but feel like it's more than one of the these idiots doing it.
They're desperate.
October 18th, 2006 at 11:01 pm"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." - George Bush, December 18, 2000
He has finally gotten his wish. Habeas Corpus, R.I.P.
October 18th, 2006 at 11:02 pm84, it did state that if we were successful it may deter more fighters. however the point remains. our presence brings more fighters. that is the problem with occupying a country. no matter how many you kill, they always have more. i havent seen anything even remotely tangible in terms of "winning." our strategy has yet to change. we keep employing the same overall structure. i dont care what catch phrase mehlman wants to use. stay the course or adapt and win, the outcome is the same. the same philosophy is still in action in terms of our strategy. so yes the NIE says if the jihadists perceive they are losing, it may slow. but can you point to anything since "mission accomplished" that the jihadists may see as "losing"
October 18th, 2006 at 11:02 pm#86:
The Lancet figure of 600,000+ is an October ploy to help cost Dubya Republican majorities in the House and Senate; they tried the same thing in 2004, trying to prevent his re-election, with equally bogus figures. Even Iraqbodycount, who oppose the Iraq war, cannot stand behind them....
October 18th, 2006 at 11:08 pmBut I have a feeling that the people who hate Dubya do not care whether the study is or is not propagandistic BS; they just hope that gullible and credulous voters will swallow it.
#94 This is getting like the wizard of oz... Does Judd even exist, If he does could he maybe POST SOMETHING about this problem and what he is doing about it?
October 18th, 2006 at 11:09 pm"Major combat operations by U.S. military forces in Iraq have ended." - George Bush - May 1, 2003
2,792 R.I.P.
October 18th, 2006 at 11:09 pm#98....600,000 is accurate. You and other people who wish to stick their head in the sand do not have to believe it.
October 18th, 2006 at 11:13 pmComment by Mark+Glesne — October 16, 2006 @ 2:51 pm
“Ask any one of the sailors on the USS Lincoln, the Mission Accomplished sign was for their ship - for their crew - for completing their mission. It wasn’t a broad statement about the war in Iraq. Bush has always said that this war would be long and tough.Get over it.â€
BUSH ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN May 1, 2003
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended, In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.â€
Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary
October 18th, 2006 at 11:16 pm“We put it up. We made the sign. But I think it accurately summed up where we were at the time, ‘Mission Accomplished’ … the mission was to topple Saddam Hussein.â€
Salamantis,
How many dead Iraqis would be acceptable?
October 18th, 2006 at 11:16 pmAlways changing the mission.
The mission is to find WMDs.
The mission is to topple Saddam Hussein.
The mission is to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq.
The mission is to secure Baghdad.
October 18th, 2006 at 11:21 pmBush knows nothing about Vietnam, nor the Tet Offensive, because he was drunk and snorting cocaine in Texas during that time! Dubya Dunce Decider Despot would be wise to shut-up!
October 18th, 2006 at 11:22 pm#84
I 'm sick and vomit because of these words, but let me say something. Before the war, million iraqis had a peaceful familly, normal life, jobs and friends. Saddam is evil but those ppl is innocent. Now what they have no familly, violent life, no jobs? You think you give them golden opportunity, ask them - they will say "Fking your oppertunity". Freedom is not the thing you force them accept it. Rather than thinking without best post-war plan, the war broke the banlance of power and catalysed the civil war, you blame Iraqis.
October 18th, 2006 at 11:23 pmNo more Holy Freedom War. Let ppl free to choose their way to Freedom. It will be their true Freedom.
The Lancet figure of 600,000+ is an October ploy to help cost Dubya Republican majorities in the House and Senate;Comment by Salamantis — October 18, 2006 @ 11:08 pm
October 18th, 2006 at 11:25 pmSala+mantits-Remember Seinfeld Where Kramer and George's father come up with the bra for men, They called it the "Bro" and/or the Manzier, sorry Mantits uh.... Mantis
Salamantis,
How many dead Iraqis would be acceptable?
Comment by Zooey
Yes, Sally, how many?
October 18th, 2006 at 11:30 pm#90 BnF, How ya doing, big guy? Still absurdly claiming that appellate courts re-try issues of fact, as you did yesterday? Good luck on that bar exam, junior. You are gonna need it!
October 18th, 2006 at 11:34 pm#17....Juan C...
Mets win tonight! Game 7 tomorrow at Shea!
LET'S GO METS!!!!!
October 18th, 2006 at 11:37 pmBoth sides should leave Cindy Sheehan's son out of this discussion. Sadly he is gone and not around to speak for himself in this debate. So it's regrettable when both sides decide to use his memory or what they suppose he would think to score political points. Let him be, there are more than enough valid points for both sides to make.
October 18th, 2006 at 11:39 pm#96:
You argue that killing jihadists just makes more jihadists, and thus we should stop. But even Muhammed, whom Usama Bin Laden quoted, said that people tend to back the "strong horse". Make no mistake about it; Al Qaeda want to establish another Afghanistanish free-training zone in Anbar Province, to replace the one they lost. And they will fight us wherever they can, and will not stop; they will merely plan another 9/11, and another, and another, from any place we let them have. Would you rather the jihadists die against an armed and alert US military over there, or come over here again and mass murder more unarmed and clueless civilians simply trying to pursue their lives? Or would you just prefer surrender, and the choice of death, conversion or dhimmitude (second-class serfdom with the payment of tribute)?
I do not believe in the 'weed theory' that the more you kill the more will sprout; there are too many pristine lawns and gardens for that to be true. To stem the creation of jihadis, we need to drain the Middle Eastern swamp of tin-pot dictators and mullahs who send their surplus of young hotheads to attack the infidels so they do not foment revolution against their domestic regimes, and offer these people a better alternative - constitutional democracy, with guaranteed civil and human rights for all, personal voices in the conduct of their own affairs, electoral voices in the conduct of the affairs of their countries, and genuine economic opportunities. Democracies do not generally wage war upon one another.
Our Iraqi action, which removed a man who had pictures of Hitler and Stalin in his presidential office and who killed more Muslims than any other human in history, is an attempt to plant just such a freedom seed in the Middle East; other countries in the area, for instance Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Yemen, are responding positively to varying degrees. Walid Jumblatt, head of the Lebanese Druze, said that the sight of ten million Iraqis proudly waving their ink-stained fingers after voting in free elections for the first time in their lives was, for him, the Middle Eastern equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It was tough after Hitler was deposed, too; the Allies had to fight a counterinsurgency against the Werewolves, Nazi remnants, for another eight+ years. No one ever should have said that it would be quick or easy. But the rewards - a staunch ally of long standing - were, and are, well worth the cost in blood and treasure.
We have Al Qaeda killing the Shia in an attempt to foment civil war, but now 25 out of the 31 tribes in Anbar province are hunting down those foreign jihadists and killing them where they stand. The Shi'a have been trying to kill the jihadists and those who support them, but are killing Sunnis who would never side with foreign jihadis. This is largely a function of the Iranian sponsorship of the Mahdi Armi and the Badr Brigade, the two largest militias in Iraq. It is not in the interests of Ahmadinejad to be sandwiched between US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan while he pursues the bomb with which he can nuke Israel and, by thus provoking global warfare and chaos, hasten the return of the Mahdi, the 12th Imam, as his Hojetiyyah sect desires. Just as it was not in his interests to have worldwide attention focused upon his country's nuclear activities, so he told his Hezbollah clients in Lebanon to kidnap Israeli soldiers just before the IAEA met to discuss it. He wanted to show that there was a price to be paid to pressure him. It was paid in Lebanese and Israeli blood. Nasrullah has said that if he had known that Israel would respond so forcefully, he never would have ordered the kidnapping, but Israel had already shown how they would respond, in Gaza, and after an earlier unsuccessful attempt, had warned Hezbollah that such an action would reap the whirlwind. He should have taken them at their word.
But Iran didn't care; it got them out of the limelight, just like the North Korean missile test and nuke test have. Both, by the way, were attended by Iranian representatives.
No one could see except in retrospect what Germany and Japan had in common in WW II - not religion, not geography; one could say that few see what Iran and North Korea, our present Axis, have in common today.
October 18th, 2006 at 11:41 pmYou want Vietnam war lesson? Never burn other's house and tell them it is for their Freedom. To winning a war, you should eliminate enermies not product more.
October 18th, 2006 at 11:43 pm[...] To this: President Bush is right to finally admit that violence in Iraq has reached a tipping point, and that the U.S. is not winning the war as he has claimed. [...]
October 18th, 2006 at 11:46 pm91 - Yangho,
Excellent post. As you note, there are many aspects to the Art of War, one of which is the fact that you do not have to defeat an army to win a war.
The Iraqis are doing to the United States what the Spanish did to the French in 1805-12, and what the colonists did to the British in 1775-79. In both of those cases the occupying army took and held the cities, only to be bled to death by guerilla attacks around the country. We have not learned from the collective history of thousands of years of warfare.
But then, this war was not meant to be won, just to be fought. A never ending war is the way for the Party to forever maintain power and control at home. And THAT'S what this war is about.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:00 am94 - sorry Zooey, I didn't get the chance. I just had a few minutes of down time during parent conferences tonight.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:01 amGood luck on that bar exam, junior. You are gonna need it!
Comment by Exley
How old are you, Exley? If you're not comfortable giving your actual age, then pick the appropriate range.
18-24
October 19th, 2006 at 12:02 am25-29
30-34
35-39
Thanks, Briseadh na Faire.
I guess it would have more impact if we all sent our own messages to Judd, rather than waiting for one of us to do it.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:04 am98 - Salamantis, Iraqbodycount uses a different methodology, thus your comparison is flawed.
It's like comparing the methodology of one group which uses public opinion polls which are accurate to +/- 3% with another group which studies only actual police reports of, say, rape (a highly underreported crime). Neither group is wrong, you merely have to understand the different methodology used in each study. Sadly, that is a skill you apparently lack.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:12 am"...our present Axis..." Comment by Salamantis — October 18, 2006 @ 11:41 pm
Sounds like someone is sold on Bush propaganda. If you're going to post here, could you please use your own mind? Thank you.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:12 amThe Iraqis are doing to the United States what the Spanish did to the French in 1805-12, and what the colonists did to the British in 1775-79. In both of those cases the occupying army took and held the cities, only to be bled to death by guerilla attacks around the country. We have not learned from the collective history of thousands of years of warfare.Comment by Briseadh+na+Faire — October 19, 2006 @ 12:00 am
October 19th, 2006 at 12:14 amExactly, and once again, it's the Liberal Media that only reports the negative stories and not the positive... Then as well as now, the Liberals and the Media, caused us to lose the war......:-/
#118, Awww, Zooey…I knew you couldn’t stay away from me, despite your earlier pledge to ignore me….Face it, Zooey, you can’t get enough Exley. Since you asked so nicely and seem so infatuated, I will tell you that I am over 21. And you're 46, right?
October 19th, 2006 at 12:15 amSo, Exley, just turned 21 a couple days ago? It's interesting how patronizing one so young can be.
If you were hoping to embarass me by mentioning my age, forget it. I'll tell anyone my age, anytime. I'll be 47 in a couple weeks.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:20 am#124 Awww, Zooey…I knew you couldn’t stay away from me, despite your earlier pledge to ignore me….Face it, Zooey, you can’t get enough Exley.
Oh My God...... Baaaaarf....!!!!!!! I think my Ears and Eye's are bleeding from what I just read, and I puked all over the floor. A human cannot go to bed with this being the last post....please...
October 19th, 2006 at 12:20 amFace it, Zooey, you can’t get enough Exley. Since you asked so nicely and seem so infatuated, I will tell you that I am over 21. And you’re 46, right?Comment by Exley — October 19, 2006 @ 12:15 am
Right and you weight 400 pounds and haven't left your parents house since 1986....Barf!!!!!!
October 19th, 2006 at 12:22 amI know, ren, I just slit my wrists....
October 19th, 2006 at 12:23 amExley must be under 30 because only someone who is under 30 would think that 46 was old and therefore a funny joke. I'd say Exley is 15. His mind has not fully developed, he's irrational, his debating skills are still weak, he thinks he's intelligent, and he thinks his stupid comments are smartass funny.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:24 amComment by Exley — October 18, 2006 @ 11:34 pm
I tell you what, Exley. When I am admitted to the Bar, you'll be my first lawsuit. It's a simple tort, really, "false light." You keep saying I said something which I never said. I never claimed Appellate Courts re-try issues of fact. I said they review issues of fact as well as of law. You keep trying to put false words in my mouth. And I'm going to sue you. So, you'd better get yourself a good lawyer, one who hopefully knows more about the law than you. Because I can get a court order to find out who you are.
I warned you some time ago not to play your little word games with me. So, from now on out, if you want to continue playing, it's going to cost you.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:25 amLook away Zoe...! Look away.......!
October 19th, 2006 at 12:26 amRun to the Light Carrol Ann.....
Zooey, I wasn't trying to embarass you at all. Why would you be embarassed? You mentioned your age once before and I just wanted to let you know that I remembered. And why do I remember? I remember because I care, Zooey. Maybe that's my problem....Maybe I care too damn much! But I can't help it...I'm a people person. That's the kind of guy I am. I think that is why you like me so much...
October 19th, 2006 at 12:27 am129 - I hope Exley is over 21. Because then I can haul his a$$ into court!
October 19th, 2006 at 12:27 amAlso, Notice how nobody hijacks Exley's name for posting?
October 19th, 2006 at 12:28 am#122:
I am thinking with my own mind, and have been doing so all of my life, thankyouverymuch. I posted facts; I notice that, rather than attempt a point-by-point refutation of them, you instead indulged in a gratuitous ad hominem (ad hominem, btw, was proven to be a logical fallacy 2500 years ago by the Greeks, and that conclusion has resisted revision ever since).
As to those who doubt that the Lancet report is of dubious veracity, I have a few URLs for you:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/press/pr14.php
http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/2006_10_08_archive.html#116069912405842066
http://medpundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/lancet-strikes-again-i-admit-this.html
http://medpundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/iraqi-death-toll.html
October 19th, 2006 at 12:28 amSo, from now on out, if you want to continue playing, it’s going to cost you.
Comment by Briseadh+na+Faire
Exley, I'm sure Mighty Hag will represent you.
I crack myself up...
October 19th, 2006 at 12:29 amhmmm, Zooey, you're a Scorpio! No wonder Exley has the hots for you!!!
October 19th, 2006 at 12:30 amMaybe I care too damn much! But I can’t help it…I’m a people person. That’s the kind of guy I am. I think that is why you like me so much…
Comment by Exley
Oh Ex, you're so sweet. If you'd like, you can write to me at zooey at goodvibes dot com
Hurry...
October 19th, 2006 at 12:32 amI never claimed Appellate Courts re-try issues of fact.
Nice retreat, BnF. Well, at least you are willing to admit when you are wrong. First, I got you to admit that you were wrong when you claimed that the MCA precludes U.S. citizens from petitioning from a writ of habeas corpus. And now you have finally admitted you were wrong when you initially argued that appellate courts re-try issues of fact, rather than reviewing the record for errors of law by the lower court.
I am glad you are willing to learn from me, rookie. Good luck on that bar exam, pardner.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:32 am140 - Ok, THAT made me laugh out loud!!!
:-D
Thank you!!!
October 19th, 2006 at 12:32 am[...] Tigerhawk demolishes the suddenly ubiquitous meme that George Bush "accepted" that Iraq is like Vietnam. As usual, the press is wrong. That is not - at all - what was said. It is also not - at all - what Bush meant. The President has apparently made news by "accepting" the Iraq-Vietnam comparison. Drudge has linked, and lefty blog Think Progress is making a big deal of it. Here is what President Bush said: Stephanopoulos asked whether the president agreed with the opinion of columnist Tom Friedman, who wrote in The New York Times today that the situation in Iraq may be equivalent to the Tet offensive in Vietnam almost 40 years ago. [...]
October 19th, 2006 at 12:32 am#138... please explain how you can have your own mind and parrot Bush propaganda.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:33 amI remember because I care, Zooey. Maybe that’s my problem….Maybe I care too damn much! But I can’t help it…I’m a people person. That’s the kind of guy I am. I think that is why you like me so much…
Comment by Exley — October 19, 2006 @ 12:27 am
#17) Exley doesnt care about people. He cares about the Mets.
Comment by Juan+C — October 18, 2006 @ 8:15 pm
#17….Juan C…
Mets win tonight! Game 7 tomorrow at Shea!
LET’S GO METS!!!!!
Comment by Exley — October 18, 2006 @ 11:37 pm
Barf!,,,,Baarf!,,,,,Baaaarf!
October 19th, 2006 at 12:33 am#137, Actually Ren, My name was hijacked in today's thread regarding electricity in Baghdad. Oxillini, PLC, and I had a discussion about name-hijacking today.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:34 amhmmm, Zooey, you’re a Scorpio! No wonder Exley has the hots for you!!!
Comment by Briseadh+na+Faire
I know it's why I have the hots for him...
October 19th, 2006 at 12:34 am#147
Please explain where anything I posted was propaganda instead of facts.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:36 am#148...And you call yourself a Mets fan, ren?????
October 19th, 2006 at 12:37 amI know it’s why I have the hots for him…
Comment by Zooey — October 19, 2006 @ 12:34 am
Huuuurl,,, Baaarf,,,Hurrrrlll....!
October 19th, 2006 at 12:38 amI gots to go to bed now, I hope you all have nightmares from this exchange, cause I will.... nighty night ya'll..
#153...everything you posted is Bush propaganda! And you can't see it??? You've got to be kidding!!
October 19th, 2006 at 12:41 amI gots to go to bed now, I hope you all have nightmares from this exchange, cause I will…. nighty night ya’ll..
Comment by ren
You're too easy, ren. :)
October 19th, 2006 at 12:41 amI think Ex is checking out goodvibes dot com.....
October 19th, 2006 at 12:44 amFYI, I am a registered Democrat, and voted for Clinton twice, scootching up in the voter line in a chair because after an auto accident I could not stand, to vote for his re-election. I have been an abortion clinic escort in Pensacola, Florida, where three people have been murdered by anti-abortion activists, and have spent Christmans and Mother's Day nights in clinics so that anti-abortionists would have to take life (mine) in order to firebomb them on such significant (to them) days. I have served in the US military during the Carter administration.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:45 amMy first Republican vote was to re-elect Dubya. As much as I abhor his reactionary social agenda, and as much as I think that both the Democratic tax-and-spend policy and the Republican borrow-and-spend policy are fiscal disasters (Clinton had that one right - against his own party), I simply, after studying Kerry's personal history and voting record and listening to his speeches, could not trust him with the safety and security of this nation at this critical time - which is why I am leaning towards Rudolph Giuliani, a social liberal, fiscal conservative, and foreign policy realist, in 2008.
I think Ex is checking out goodvibes dot com…..
Comment by Briseadh+na+Faire
:-D
October 19th, 2006 at 12:47 amRegarding Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho who got outed as Bisexual: No posters have mentioned that exposing oneself or engaging in sex in public restrooms is considered a crime > in fact if you get caught in the act, and convicted in court, you then are required to register as a sex offender, so if in fact Craig had sex in Union Station restrooms in DC, then Larry is a sex offender > why is this not being investigated by the DC police department? And why should Sen. Craig be allowed to remain in the Senate seeking icky sex in unclean restrooms? The GOP members are sex deviants!
October 19th, 2006 at 12:47 am#158
The broad brush will not be sufficient; please post specifics, and we can clearly debate them.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:48 amDC Republican Senators, like Larry Craig, are so cheap minded that they do not even hire clean male escorts, nor rent a room to have sex, so they would rather get a icky BJ in a restroom by a drunk? > blows my mind!
October 19th, 2006 at 1:00 amIslamofascism vs. Christian Fundamentalism: Which is the Greater Threat?
By Salamantis
I view the contemporary Islamofascist memeset as currently more dangerous to freedom and tolerance than the Fundamentalist Christian one, for a number of reasons.
1) Recent History
The lion's share of mass-killing terror attacks in the past quarter-century have been perpetrated by these people, and not Fundamentalist Christians (although they, too, are on my "Danger, Will Robinson!" list). 9/11, London, Beslan, Bali, Madrid, the USS Cole, the Kenyan and Tanzanian embassies, the Khobar Towers...the list could go on and on.
2) Fundamentalist Literalism
Christians believe that the Bible was written by human beings, under Holy inspiration, while the official position of Islam is that the Qu'ran (literally, the Recitation) was dictated to Muhammed, from Allah (God) by the Archangel Gabriel, and is word-for-word accurate and correct for all time. Thus, while there is a reasonable split between Fundamentalist Christians, who take the Bible literally, and the rest of Christians, who see parable, poetry, metaphor, simile, era-linked human prejudices, contradictions and inaccuracies in the Bible, no such split is officially possible within Islam. All observant Muslims are expected to submit to the literalist stance; in fact, Islam translates as Submission.
3) More Violent Character
While there are a half-dozen or so peace-and-tolerance passages contained within the Qu'ran, there are also more than a hundred vicious and violent passages to be found there. People say, well, the Old Testament is indeed itself to a significant degree a 'testament' to divinely sanctioned brutality, and this is true. However, most of that brutality was superseded by the pronouncements in the more peaceful and tolerant New Testament, while the Qu'ran is divided into the Meccan and the Medinan sections. The Meccan section, which came first, when Muhammed was militarily weak and was forced to placate his enemies, contains all of the peace-and-tolerance passages, while the Medinan section, which contains many (although not all) of the brutal and violent passages, was written later, and supercedes the more moderate Meccan section. It is as if, in the Bible, the Old Testament came later and superceded the New; if this were so, the majority of Christianity would most likely be much more brutal and intolerant than small sections of it (see the former Yugoslavia) are now.
In fact, there is no such thing as enduring peace with infidel nations in the Muslim lexicon; instead, they employ truces (hudnas). These are, according to the Qu’ran, supposed to be offered when the Faithful are militarily weak vis-à -vis their adversaries, to give them time to increase their military numbers and augment their armaments. When the weak faithful become militarily strong compared to their adversaries, the hudna is to be unilaterally broken by the faithful, and jihad is to resume. Once one understands the conceptual character of the hudna, it becomes obvious that it is never in a nation’s interest to accept one.
4) The Examples of the Respective Primary Protagonists
Jesus only once became violent in the Bible, when he whipped the moneychangers. Mainly, he preached faith, love of one's neighbors, and nonviolence. When one of his disciples raised a sword against and cut the ear off of one of the people sent to arrest him, he supposedly put it back on. Muhammed, on the other hand, was historically a warrior and guerilla fighter. His life was circumscribed by military conquest. The hadiths, which are records of occurrences in and commentaries on the life of Muhammed and records of his words (when they were not supposed to be dictated by the Archangel Gabriel), are nearly as important as the Qu'ran itself to them.
5) The Confrontation with Modernity
Christianity began to behaviorally moderate and domesticate itself around 500 years ago, due to the effects that the Reformation and the Enlightenment had upon it. Islam has yet to go through this confrontation; it is only now just beginning for them. However, in the present era, with the advent of global anonymous communications and travel, and with easy access available to both the materials needed to construct WMD's and the knowledge needed to properly employ these materials, this is a particularly dangerous time for fanatics to lash out from the growing pains. Giordano Bruno conceived of relativity 350 years before Einstein and was burned as a heretic for it, and rockets (fireworks) were already known to Europe by then, due to Marco Polo's sojourn in China; think of what it would have been like if the medieval world had had the option of ballistic thermonuclear conflagration (not to mention genetically engineered plagues and mass-produce-able deadly chemical compounds). There is the added factor that one of the Muslim death-penalty heresies (or shirks) translates as 'innovation' (Islamists are quite willing to appropriate death-dealing technology while rejecting the science behind it - a Pakistani 'scientist' actually wrote a paper that advocated solving his country's energy problems by harnessing djinn (genie) power!); thus it can be dangerous for Muslims to publicly embrace novel concepts - and this will only make it more difficult for Muslim adaptation of include accommodation to other perspectives rather than to simply be comprised solely of the Borgian assimilation, subjugation or elimination of all of their vectors.
6) The Evolution of Universality and Intolerance in Totalizing Memeplexes
Mind viruses are unlike the viruses that plague our bodies. If a physically infectious disease kills its host too quickly, that host cannot serve as an infection vector (which is why AIDS is so much more of a global threat than the Ebola virus - the long, symptom-free yet contagious incubation period). This is also why deadly diseases demonstrate the historical propensity to become slower killers as time goes on. However, a different survival strategy presents itself for totalizing mind-viruses, which MUST be cognitively rather than physically communicated, and thus, if they are elaborate and/or involve significant behavioral changes, difficult to contract under the radar of one's attention: to kill and/or enslave all those who RECOGNIZE the attempted dissemination (proselytizing) and REFUSE to be infected (part of these memesets is invariably the inculcation of the desire and/or duty to infect others - this is how they propagate). This eliminates competition for cognitive residence from alternative memeplexes (the dead cannot communicate their competing vectors). Unlike physical diseases, where people may be infected with multiple differing phages simultaneously (like measles AND the flu), a totalizing memeplex must have SOLE possession of its niche, or it cannot be said to possess it at all. And in fact, to reject conversion to Islam is considered by Islamofascists to be an insult and attack upon it, punishable by death.
Now, remembering that the historical function of tribal religion has been to enhance group cooperation and cohesion, thus giving religious tribes an advantage in warfare against tribes with less mutual commitment and more individualism (and most likely the pre-historical function, too - thus setting up a group selection which would tend to reproductively favor those who were increasingly susceptible to infection by religious memeplexes), let's take a quick look at the evolution of universality and intolerance in Patriarchal Monotheism.
The memeplex of Judaism originally involved a divine gift of a particular parcel of land to a particular chosen people - Israel for the Jews (although, lately, converts to Judaism, although not sought, are accepted from every racial and ethnic classification). Thus the parameters for the growth of the Jewish memeplex were set by the nature of the memeplex itself - only within ethnic Jews, who were only promised dominion over historical Israel (most Zionists still think this way).
However, with the evolution of Christianity from Judaism, the ethnic imperative and the geographical rootedness were pruned off, and all one had to do was to accept the memeplex. This allowed Christianity to spread to all sorts of ethnicities, and for them to take control of previously non-Christian lands, as their demographics grew to majority within them. It also had the advantage of spreading the genetic sacrifice idea beyond a tribe, so that multiple tribes sharing the same memeplex could band together and both protect each other and cooperate in the confrontation of common enemies (a feature that the Roman Empire put to conscous use when they adopted Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire). However, Christianity was written so it could be disseminated via persuasion - the Great Charter, which comprises the Christian memeplex's infection module, reads: "Go ye therefore and TEACH all nations". Of course, the construction of this module implies the conviction that the vector is offering a gift of knowledge to the ignorant, and for this reason many have been historically forced to adopt Christianity 'for their own good', even when they were too (willfully or otherwise) ignorant to recognize what their own good was, and sometimes at the cost of their mortal bodies, if in the process their immortal souls were saved.
Still, the language of Christianity's proselytization module is persuasional rather than coercive, and this left room for the development of tolerance for other faiths, even while missionaries continue to be perpetually funded to 'spread the Good Word'.
This is a weakness that the evolution into Islam has exploited. The Muslim memeplex explicitly substitutes coercion for persuasion. It is quite precise in what may and may not be done: all 'People of the Book' - that is, Jews and Christians (and I suppose Zoroastrians - they have a single holy book called the Zend Avestra of Zarathustra)- have the option to a) convert to Islam, b) be put to death, or c) live in Dhimmitude, a serfic, subservient state somewhere between slavery and second-class citizenship, characterized by less civil rights, the fact that any Muslim's word will always be legally favored over theirs in courts of Shari'a law, and the payment of perpetual monetary tribute known as the jizya. For all the rest - Buddhist, Taoists, Hindus, Pagans and Atheists - the options are only two: convert or die.
Islam officially divides the globe into two camps; Dar-el-Islam (the World of Islam) and Dar-el-Harb (the World of War). This stance entails the conviction that the only means by which final global peace may be attained is the total elimination of the Dar el Harb, and the establishment of a Global Muslim Caliphate ruled by Shari'a law. Those who choose to embark upon Jihad (actually, it is described in the Qu'ran as a duty rather than as a choice just like Christian witnessing is in the Bible) and are killed (martyred) while engaging in it, are Qu'ranically assured of a Paradise in which they may perpetually and guiltlessly enjoy practically all of the pleasures that are religiously forbidden to living Muslims; those who live are Qu'ranically permitted to take possession of the spoils of war, be they the property or the women of the conquered and/or slain infidels. This stance is, of course, patently hegemonistic and militantly imperialistic, and becomes even more appealing to poor male Muslim youth, when they see their chances of having their own (appealing) wife as negligible (since the more wealthy Muslims are religiously free to marry as many as four of them each - as long as they can financially support them all). When one takes a look at the historical spread of Islam, primarily by coercion and conflict, from its inception in the Arabian Peninsula some 1300 years ago to its reach from Spain to the Philippines today, and one discovers that, of the forty-five military conflicts extant in the world today, Muslims are fighting on one or both sides of them all, it would appear that this particular module possesses great expansionistic efficacy.
Supporting this memetic module are some others, such as the doctrine that all humans are naturally born as Muslims, and that those who profess other beliefs have fallen into apostasy (and thus must be rescued from their error or suffer the dire consequences), and the dictum that people are free to convert TO Islam - in fact, as we have seen, the 'inducements' are quite formidable - but that to convert FROM Islam to anything else (or, in the case of atheists and agnostics, to nothing) is a religious crime for which the punishment of death is prescribed. It is also better for one's assimilational purposes if one's infidel target is kept in the dark. Thus, Muslims are religiously free to both deceive infidels as to their intentions regarding them (taqiyya) and to misdirect their attention from those intentions (kitman), in the interests if the greater good - that is, in the interests of the expansion of the Ummah (the fellowship of the true believers).
Now, I'm not saying that all Muslims, or even a majority of them, are inexorably drawn from live-and-let-live tolerance to Mujaheddin Jihadism in the service of the annihilation of the Dar el Harb and the establishment of the Global Caliphate (Daniel Pipes estimates the number at around 15%), but the vast majority those who are not so drawn are very quiet, because the message contained in the memeplex of Islam supports not them, but the militants, and they are quite reasonably frightened of suffering the Righteous Retribution of the Violent Faithful should they dare to attempt to speak out in dissent (Some exceptions are Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, Taslima Naslim, and Ibn Warraq; these brave souls continue to suffer for their courage and integrity, and many of their outspoken brethren have been killed).
Next, let us take a brief look at the particular strain that is presently so globally troubling.
Imaam Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab was born in and lived in eighteenth century Arabia (1703-1792), and promulgated the idea that Islam had fallen away from its seventh century roots, the Edenic era when Muhammed and the Four Great Caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali) succeeded each other, and needed to return to them. This involved a Puritanical purging of all non-Muslim influences, the return of draconian enforcement of religious edicts against infidels, and the toughening of restrictions upon women. Wahhabism subsequently spread throughout most of the Arabian Peninsula and gained significant footholds beyond, but concentrated itself primarily upon the peninsula itself, as the defender of the purity of the faith in Muhammed's birth land, the Land of the Two Mosques. In the early 20th century, the House of Saud brokered a deal with the Wahhabists, and Saudi Arabia was born.
Sayyid Qutb was a Wahhabist born in Egypt (1906-1966). He traveled to the US, and sojourned there between 1948 and 1950. This experience shocked and disgusted him. He was horrified by the presence of uppity and voting women, freedom of religion and thought, widespread substance use and rampant sexual licentiousness. He then put forth the idea that the US was the fount of Jahiliyya (a word roughly translatable as pre-Musim Paganism), and, as such, was a danger to Islam and must be forcibly subjected to Shari'a rule. He did not view the US as a military threat, since he believed that life in such a dissipative culture had weakened and softened its citizenry, but rather contended that its various freedoms and vices were slatternly temptations that could seduce the faithful away from the true path. Thus, for the good of both the faith and of all humankind, the US as it was must be destroyed, and Muslim piousness enforced there. He later generalized this view to include, first European, and later all non-Muslim societies.
Notice that, without Qutb, Wahhabism would have remained directed inwards, and without Wahhabism, Qutb would not have had a pious and puritanical Islam with which to compare and contrast the US culture that he encountered. Together, their contributions combine to create the present Al Qaedan stance that the entire globe must be subjugated to a religious regimen that consciously holds itself in the seventh century. Interestingly enough, the head of Al Qaeda, Usama Bin Laden, came from Saudi Arabia (like Wahhab), while Al Qaeda's chief ideologue, Zawahiri, came from Egypt (like Qutb).
Considering all of these points taken together, it is surpassingly obvious that, in the present era, Radical Islamism is a far greater threat to the continued existence of the secular, nonsectarian governance of open and constitutionally democratic societies than is Fundamentalist Christianity.
How do we, as free, democratic and tolerant societies, deal with the aggressive encroachments of this virulent memeplex? I believe that we're already on the path to doing so, and this is why:
The primordial form of government, one that long predated the advent of the written word, is monarchial, composed of royal masters, typically from a single family lineage that served as a simulacrum of the genetic heritage of the tribe, and ruled slaves, who owed the masters familial bonds of fealty. However, this form of government often entailed power struggles and intrigues by the royal relatives to either lay claim to or to seize the reins of succession during the authority change when the king, czar, pharoah or emperor would die, and this was not conducive to smooth and orderly transition and the smooth continuation of civil order.
Spoken religious myths had most likely been invoked to legitimize royal rule for as long as humans spoke and gathered in tribes. However, with the creation of written language, it was possible to create a form of leadership that would not change or die like rulers did; blueprints - that is, sets of ideas - that could codify the regal rule as divinely sanctioned, serve as abstract monarchs with which to supplement the concrete yet generationally changing kings, provide a common glue which smoothed transitions and soothed the populace while transition happened, and, via the inclusion of explicit tribal history, the encoding of symbolic abstractions of important past tribal decisions within the religious myth, or the insertion of purportedly divinely communicated rules, provide both guidance as to how such transitions should be effectuated, and within what parameters a particular king should circumscribe his decisional alternatives. These blueprints are the holy texts of written religions.
As time passed, certain written religions spread across several kingdoms each, and the kings themselves became in their turn ruled by their ecclesiastical authorities, who held sway over multiple kingdoms; as religion mattered more, royalty mattered less. In such a manner, genetic monarchies gradually evolved into, or were superseded and supplanted by, ideological monarchies, whose rulers were chosen from within the membership of the religion itself, the successor being decided, whenever a ruler died, via the consensus of the most influential members remaining.
Where religious government was itself supposedly superseded, in most cases, its supersession was apparent rather than real. Thus with communism and fascism, the god of matter and labor, and the god of the spirit (geist) of the people and its will to power, replaced the transcendent god of heaven, mind and prayer. Still, however, the master and the slave remained; the divinely granted or prescriptively composed sets of ideas and rules were the acknowledged rulers, but the actual rulers were those who mandated to the general populaces what those rules meant. Hegel was the philosopher who first explicitly described this structure.
The Hegelian master-slave dialectic was composed of Masters (who were willing to risk death in order to rule) and Slaves (who were not willing to risk death in order to not be ruled), and Hegel did not present any manner by which governmental form could evolve past this basic inequity. However, in the past couple of hundred years, a synthetic new level has emerged, that of Free and Independent Individuals, who refuse to rule others, but who are willing to kill and die in order not to be ruled by others - that is, they are willing to, in fact, even desirous of, letting others rule themselves, and will even take pains to free enslaved others, but in return they insist upon the right to rule themselves also, via representatives who are neither divinely chosen nor doctrinally imposed by exclusive vote from within an ideological apparatus, be they priests or commissars, but are instead popularly elected by the populace at large, in accordance with a constitution that, in addition to codifying those ethical precepts contained within both holy and secular precursors which are genuinely ethical, mandates the existence, frequency, and structure of such a process. In a way, the principle of ecclesiastical or commissar vote was generalized to encompass the entire citizenry (just as, in prior times, the Gutenberg printing press wrested the holy texts away from their elite cadres and made them available for perusal and judgment to all literate citizens), and a new memeplex has thus evolved; the constitutional democracy memeplex
In fact, evolution is an explicit module of this memeplex; whereas holy texts were forever frozen in their revealed forms, constitutions could be amended or modified by elected representatives responding to popular consensus in the face of changing circumstances, like species evolve in response to natural selection acting via changing environments. This capacity for evolution from within relieves pressure for revolution, as popular changes can be made to the established order without the need to overthrow that order in its entirety. However, so that the rights of minority citizens are protected from any oppressive 'tyranny of the majority', basic guaranteed civil and political rights for all are also included as a submodule qualification of the popular evolution module. This submodule grants and guarantees all of the memeplex's citizens equal rights and freedoms to individually pursue their own personal and economic well being. The interpreters of this constitution (the written and codified template of this memeplex) are appointed by the popularly elected representatives of the citizens, and those who amend it via legislation are separated from those who execute its enforcement and from those who interpret its meaning, as a barrier against groups of representatives collaborating in order to create and implement mutually self-serving rather than citizenry-benefitting changes, or issuing and enforcing self-serving interpretations, and to prevent the executors from authoring self-serving provisions which they then may enforce to their own benefit, or from interpreting existing provisions in self-serving ways. Of course, the concrete personal and political reality of a citizenry as codified in their constitution can never completely catch up to their abstract ideal, as this ideal is itself a moving target, in constant evolution in response to evolving and expanding potential rights, responsibilities, opportunities and choices, but, as noted before, their constitution can be continuously modified to progressively approach it.
Competition between the governments and peoples of countries that embrace this principle, that is, competition between constitutional democracies, is removed from the politico-military sphere (democracies generally do not war with one another - it's counterproductive) and relocated in the economic sphere, comprised of international trade and the competition between producers for consumers via the manufacture of better and/or less expensive products. This competition of course financially and materially benefits the consuming citizenry, at the same time that it furnishes them with gainful productive employment by means of which they may self-support (self-support and self-responsibility being a necessary corollary of freedom and self-rule). Thus, the constitutional democracy memeplex is likely to appeal to a significant percentage of those who presently suffer political and personal oppression and economic privation under theocratic and totalitarian systems, and are prevented by such systems from having an electoral voice in their government's conduct, making personally benefitting economic decisions, exercising personal choice, or changing (or even advocating the changing of) the nature or rules of the system in order to permit themselves to do these things. This appeal renders it likely that the constitutional democracy memeplex can, by offering people the opportunity to achieve concrete and actual this-world economic benefits, expanded ranges of personal choice, and genuine political empowerment, successfully compete for their cognitive memespace with the abstract and hypothetical next-world paradisiacal promises and infernal threats proferred to them by the Wahhab/Qutb memeplex. The hope for the future of secular and tolerant civilization could well lie in this constitutional-democratic memeplex synthesis proliferating through the populations of the globe, siphoning a large enough percentage of their potential members away from the enslaving embrace of the Wahhab/Qutb memeplex that they are unable, after membership attrition via natural and jihad-related causes, to increase or maintain their acolyte population, and finally ridding the world, via democratic revolution (assisted where possible and necessary), of the remaining totalitarian and theocratic enclaves which continue to employ the oppressive master-slave dialectic, and maintain their citizenries in its stifling thrall.
PS: Do not think that this is a racist stance which I am taking; I am expressing dismay at the propagation of a violent, virulent memeset that may cognitively infect any racial or ethnic classification, and trying to figure out what can be said and/or done to persuade Muslims to refuse to embrace it. In fact, there are quite a few non-Muslim Arabs, and the majority of Muslims are themselves not Arabs - the most populous Muslim nations are Malaysia and Indonesia, and their populations are East Asian, not Arab). Likewise, I am not criticizing Islam alone or in its entirety; the problem we face and the task set before us is to gain enough understanding of the workings of the Islamofascist memeplex to be able to memetically counter the propensity, a propensity particularly inherent in the Islamic memeplex but also present in the memeplexes of the other Patriarchal Monotheisms, to facilitate the spawning of intolerant and murderous mutational variants, such as, in the case of Islam, the Wahhab/Qutb Al Qaedan strain.
Also do not think that I have written this analysis from the standpoint of a hidden Christian or Jewish agenda. Putting aside the fact that attacking the racial or ethnic membership or the religious affiliation of the author of a position, rather than critiquing the merits of the position itself by assessing the evidence presented and checking the logical links in the chain of reasoning by means of which the items of evidence are connected, is a 2500 year old Greek logical fallacy known as ad hominem, I am neither Christian nor a Jew, either ethnically or as a religious stance; I am English, Irish, Dutch and Native American, and consider myself to be a secular humanist with pagan overtones (I tend towards sympathy with both the gender egalitarianism and the ecologically friendly stance embraced by many pagan faiths and their adherents, as well as their typically tolerant and positive attitude towards the freedom of all to make uncoerced and unfettered personal choices for themselves in matters both political and religious, and their opposition to such matters being dictated by some for others). I am not a fundamentalist of any stripe. Philosophically, I favor existential and hermeneutic phenomenology, Jean Piaget’s genetic epistemology, semiotics, and memetics (my BA is in philosophy) and my graduate work (a thesis short of my MA) is in interdisciplinary humanities, including philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, political science, and comparative religion.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:06 amI do, however, believe that the one thing that tolerant people cannot tolerate is the coercive intolerance of others. Once people begin to tolerate such a thing, it is a short and slippery step for them to begin to share those others’ intolerances, as well as the coercive manner by means of which they endeavor to force such stances upon people who would not freely embrace them (Tolerance: Between Intolerance and the Intolerable by Paul Ricoeur).
#162: Like Communism is Industrial Capitalism's own child, the Modern Terrorism is Modern Imperialism's own child, I think. It is hard to said that Islamites born with anti-American thought. Israel wars, Cold war, Afganitan war(soviet) and recent Iraq wars is causes.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:06 amBtw: my BA is in philosophy, and my MA is in humanities interdisciplinary (including the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, political science and comparative religion), paid for largely by the GI Bill. So yes, I did write the essay that I just posted.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:10 amDid post 168 cut and paste a whole chapter of a book on here?
October 19th, 2006 at 1:18 am9/11 violently awoke me from a deep Kantian 'dogmatic slumber'; it would appear that many others are still asleep.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:19 amFYI, I am a registered Democrat, and voted for Clinton twice
Comment by Salamantis — October 19, 2006 @ 12:45 am
You aren't the first water carrier for Bush to make that claim here (funny how they always say it right after one of their Rove-directed talking point orgies). You slipped up and gave yourself away with this line: "But I have a feeling that the people who hate Dubya do not care whether the study is or is not propagandistic BS; they just hope that gullible and credulous voters will swallow it." The part about hating Bush is the ultimate straw man argument; no Clinton-supporting Democrat would say that. The rest of it is pure projection, classic evidence of the modern Republican psyche. So go tell your lies somewhere else.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:22 amSo yes, I did write the essay that I just posted.
Comment by Salamantis — October 19, 2006 @ 1:10 am
Yikes, what a whack job.
Pathetic.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:24 amBtw: my BA is in philosophy, and my MA is in humanities interdisciplinary (including the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, political science and comparative religion
Comment by Salamantis — October 19, 2006 @ 1:10 am
So what you are saying is that you know nothing about many of fields of study.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:27 amSalamantis,
Get your own bleeding blog -so those of us who don't care for you or your drivel can stay at a safe distance from it.
You can start here: http://www.blogger.com/start
It's free. Go now.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:30 amIt is said that great minds contemplate ideas (not that my mind is all that great, although I am a Mensa (top 2%) and Intertel (top 1%) member, which means there are 3 million Americans as bright or brighter than me, and all of my education and cognitive acumen, plus $4.99, will buy me a coffee at Starbucks, if I do nothing with it), mediocre minds are caprured by events, and small kinds are enthralled by persons. I do not vote for or against people, or parties. I vote on the basis of what people have previously said, done, and voted on issues.
To demonize a person or a party without regard to their challenges, obstacles and opportunities, and the ways in which they have responded to them, is the labor of small minds. My mind may not be surpassingly capacious, but it is at least larger than that.
No military conflict is perfect, or even in principle perfectable. What is important is the intent behind it, and how that intent has been translated into action, and modified in response to the adaptations of opponents. I do not consider fleeing the field in order that our opponents may follow us and continue the battle on our home ground, among our homes, jobs and families, to be a feasible adaptation. But I see nothing else being offered by the present administration's adversaries.
No matter who is US President or rules the US Congress, we're going to be in this one for a long time, because it takes two to make peace, but only one to make war, and those who hate us and consider our destruction to be a religious duty are not going to stop making war upon us whatever we do, until they win or die. Considering this fact, retreat is the poorest of options. In football, the best defence is a good offence, and in military parlance, the mobile beseigers win over the hunkered down and beseiged.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:33 amI would like to append a comment to my last post. I have earned BS, MS, and PhD degrees in ONE field (chemical engineering), and have practiced in that field for over 20 years, yet I am still just getting to know it. I can say that if Salamander has really studied all those disciplines, he/she/it cannot have learned enough to even be dangerous, much less well-versed. Just enough to be stupid, judging from that off-the-wall essay.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:35 amAll you have is personal and gratuitous ad hominems, and not one whit of debate on the issues under review. that is what is truly pathetic.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:35 amalthough I am a Mensa (top 2%) and Intertel (top 1%) member
Comment by Salamantis — October 19, 2006 @ 1:33 am
Buddy, if you brought up your Mensa membership in real academic circles, you would laughed at, then taken out behind the woodshed for a good, hard beating. I have never met a scientist in my entire career who claimed to belong to Mensa.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:39 amAll you have is personal and gratuitous ad hominems,
Comment by Salamantis — October 19, 2006 @ 1:35 am
Correct. But around here I refer to it as my pointy stick.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:40 am#173:
So you're saying that you do not want the study in question to influence people to vote against Republicans in 2006, if it is not a valid canvass? That would be truly refreshing.
I want people to vote, which ever way they choose to vote, on the basis of facts, not fallacies. Democracy is weakend if votes are cast on the basis of propagandistic lies, no matter who is doing the propagandizing.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:41 amI left Mensa and Intertel, because I discovered that conversations with supposedly bright people were not as enlightening or enjoyable as conversations with those with whom one shared interests. All it takes to apprehend a subject deeply is commitment and perspicacity.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:44 amwhich means there are 3 million Americans as bright or brighter than me, Comment by Salamantis — October 19, 2006 @ 1:33 am
And 2,999,999 of them post at this web site.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:44 am#187, or anyone else here:
Please point out specific mistakes in my posted essay; I am eager to hear from any of you concerning them.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:47 amAfter all, dealing with data that contradicts one's model, and either discarding or modifying it in the light of such data, is the scientific way (verification principle)...;~)
October 19th, 2006 at 1:50 amPlease point out specific mistakes in my posted essay; I am eager to hear from any of you concerning them.
Comment by Salamantis — October 19, 2006 @ 1:47 am
Mistake #1 -- writing it in the first place.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:52 amMistake #2 -- letting it see the light of day.
#191:
Please let me comment upon your 'facts':
Although there is evidence that a voice from Able Danger was crying in the wilderness, it is also true that Anne Gorelick divorced the FBI from the |CIA, so they could not share domestic and international intel on terrorist threats; had this not been the case, either Bush (who was still in transition into office) or Clinton might have uncovered the 9/11 plot.
Any action creates a response. We created more Nazi stormtroopers for a while when we went after Germany, and more banzai flyers when we went after Japan. But after a while, as we stuck to the difficult and demanding job, there were less and less of them - and then there were none.
We have not had an attack on US soil since before 9/11. Obviously, we are safer now than we were for the 3000 US citizens who died in that attack.
The assistant secretary of the Iraqi Air Force has stated that, just before the US invasion of Iraq, seats were removed from passenger planes and 50+ flights into Syria contained yellow barrels painted with skulls and crossbones. I'm still interested in what lies beneath those three large areas of disturbed earth in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, that got disturbed just before the US incursion into Iraq.
Both parties have corruption (underhanded Nevada land deals that, unlike Whitewater, actually mada a million), bribery (thousands in a refrigerator freezer) and sex crimes (|Gerry Studds, anyone?). As individually serious as these are, they are side issues when compared to international global policy in these dangerous times.
And it is Iran's Hojetiyyah cultist president Ahmadinejad who wants to drop a bomb on Israel in order to hasten the Shia Second Coming of the Mahdi, the 12th Imam, who he so believes has been hiding at the bottom of an Iranian well for hundreds of years that he built a highway from the well to Tehran, so the |Mahdi would have no problem finding his way back.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:05 am#196:
Islam has been militaristic since its inception, which is why it has spread so far so fast (in global terms). Even the Christian crusades were a response to hundreds of years of Muslim aggression, which conquered the then-Christian countries of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, laid successful seige to Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), conquered sdpain (and want it back), and, if not stopped at Tours, would have seized france, and thence the totality of Europe - something that is being attempted again against a secular Europe by means of immigration and propagation as we speak.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:09 am#196:
In Latin America, you do not see waves of suicide bombers. Nor do you see a generalized jihad. Instead you see, after Communism's defeat, burgeoning democracies, one of which (Guatemala) is poised to take a seat on the UN Security Council.
Venezuela, in South America, is another story. Chavez is indeed making common cause with Iran and North Korea, and has brutally repressed dissent in his own country, just like his friends. He has also bought 100, ooo AK-47's to distribute to anyone willing to kill folks whom he does not like. Even The Daily Kos, Indymedia and the Democratic Underground cannot bring themselves to stomach him.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:14 amMore about Chavez:
He wants to be the next Castro, and to foment class warfare in the US by handing out discounted heating oil to the poor (something the US should be doing). But many Eskimos, who live in the coldest of US climes, have actually refused the offer, because of where it came from.
He owns Citgo. Just so you'll know where to fill up.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:24 amJust curious. Is it possible we could offer a 10-for-1 trade? Can we trade nationalities between Juan+C and Cindy, Exeley, Paul, Dick, George, Rush, Anne, Rummie, Condi, and Hastert? Would be pretty easy to add 10 more to sweeten the pot further.
What a humiliation that we have such idiots for citizens. Trading countries with Paul+C would result in an immediate increase in our national average IQ by about 20 points.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:40 amI speak on the basis of facts, logic and evidence. That is all that I offer, and all that I ask in return.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:44 am"It is a civil war, one that he has repeatedly failed to acknowledge and has no plan to address."
Because he and his pal Chalabi have gone to GREAT trouble to create civil war, in order to partition the country and kill A LOT of Arabs, as if by accident.
How joyful will be the day that people FINALLY stop thinking GFH Bush is an incompetent bumbler. He is, quite obviously, the most ruthless and sinister mass-murderer since Milosevich. He hasn't quite reached Hussein's standard -- but he's hot on its trail.
(Well, why not? They both work for the same Department of Profitable Blowback).
October 19th, 2006 at 4:09 amBy Salamantis
I view the contemporary Islamofascist memeset as currently more dangerous to freedom and tolerance than the Fundamentalist Christian one, for a number of reasons.
If you want to be taken seriously, use real terms. There is no such thing as Islamofascism - its irrational to assert otherwise. If you can't be bothered to use accurate terminology in the title, I would question your objectivity, and intellect. Please explain "islamofascism" - keeping in mind the actual meanings for both words, not some neo-con hybrid.
October 19th, 2006 at 4:13 amOh, my, they would have seized FRANCE!
Let's see, who DID seize France? Oh yeah, it was those White Supremacist MFers from Northern Europe. What was their name?
KKK? Knights Templar? Pederast Popes? Emperor of Rome?
"Wait, Crusaders? Conquistadors? Knights Templar??? Oh my gawd -- Damn You Da Vinci!"
(/Colbert)
October 19th, 2006 at 4:17 amFrom Cakewalk to another Vietnam Fiasco in three short years. We need the Dems to take both the Senate and House this November and put an end to Bush Clown. It was only 6 months ago Bush was running around with his Plan for Victory speeches and banners.
October 19th, 2006 at 4:26 amActually, #208, Islam was inoculated with fascism during WW II, by Nazi Germany. One of A
October 19th, 2006 at 4:27 amActually, #208, Islam was inoculated with fascism during WW II, by Nazi Germany. One of Adolph Hitler's allies in the Middle East was the Mufti of Jerusalem - Yassar Arafat's uncle. He actually had troops sent to help the Nazi cause. And as previously noted, one of the two portraits that used to hang in Saddam's presidential office was of Hitler; the other was of Stalin. BTW: do you know what thwe bestselling book after the Qu'ran is in the Middle East? Surprise; it's Mein Kampf!
October 19th, 2006 at 4:30 amHere's the rest of the last essay:
CONCLUSION
There is much work to be done in the field of comparative philosophy, and one of the richest comparisons still to be made in depth (although both D.T. Suzuki and Stephen Batchelor have substantially addressed it) is that of Zen and EP. We have barely scratched the surface within this preliminary study, but we shall nevertheless risk a few impressions on their conjoint future.
EP is an intellectual revolt against the sterile intellectualism of the scientistic formalist who threatens to destroy subjectivity by objectifying everything; Zen is an intuitional revolt against the transcendental mysticism of the everyday Hindu. They seem to be on converging paths. Why?
The two could be naturally complementary, as are the intellectual and intuitional aspects of the brain. This complementarity is, however, not the final stage if such is the case, for as the individual is the synthesis of the two as a concrete bearer of reality, so would the truth each is in its own way approaching be found between them. Zen already involves intellection, and EP intuition. This truth is lived - they agree on this. The continuation of the present convergence would thus most likely involve dynamic interpenetration.
Both of them are growing more popular as they converge. This would suggest that their respective zeniths of popularity - or the points at which they are each appropriated by the greatest number of individuals as ways to the understanding of life - will coincide with their synthesis in a Hegelian sense (with the truths of each preserved within their common supersession). That this is perhaps better understood as synthesis in F.S.C. Northrup's terminology rather than in Hegel's is a realization to which one comes when one contemplates the number of various schools of thought comprising each of them. Not the two, but the many converge. This involution cannot help but stimulate evolution, and as yet unsupposed insights, which will be at once widespread and readily accessible. The effect snowballs, the East and West rush towards their appointed meeting, and - purely subjectively - I nod, smile, and perhaps even applaud a little. Such a fertile playground is grist for the mill of a future synthesizer in the spirit of Aristotle, Kant and Hegel, and the revolutions themselves are temporally closer as time goes on. The next cannot come soon enough for me.
CONCLUDING AESTHETIC POSTSCRIPT
"What we cannot speak about", says Wittgenstein, "we must pass over in silence.' What we can speak of, we must and will, and the only way to find out is to try, replies EP. Zen answers EP by asserting that we cannot speak about the foundations from which the speakers themselves spring except imperfectly and incompletely. At that moment, the silence casts light upon, rather than passes over, this primordiality.
EP might just agree already; or so Albert Camus seems to be saying. In the beautiful words of an intuitive intellectual:
"The secret I am seeking lies hidden in a valley full of olive trees, under the grass and the cold violets, around an old house that smells of wood smoke. For more than twenty years I rambled over that valley and others resembling it, I questioned mute goatherds, I knocked at the doors of deserted ruins. Occasionally, at the moment of the first star in the still bright sky, under a shower of shimmering light, I thought I knew. I did know, in truth. I still know, perhaps. But no one wants any of this secret; I don't want any myself, doubtless; and I cannot stand, apart from my people. I live in my family, which thinks it rules over rich and hideous cities built of stones and mists. Day and night it speaks up, and everything bows before it, which bows before nothing: it is deaf to all secrets. Its power that carries me bores me, nevertheless, and on occasion its shouts weary me. But its misfortune is mine, and we are of the same blood. A cripple, likewise, an accomplice and noisy, have I not too shouted among the stones? Consequently, I strive to forget, I walk in our cities of iron and fire, I smile bravely in the night, I hail the storms, I shall be faithful. But perhaps someday, when we are ready to die of exhaustion and ignorance, I shall be able to disown our garish tombs and go and stretch out in the valley, under the same light, and learn for the last time what I know."
October 19th, 2006 at 4:32 amHey, Barfly, ixnay on the Salamantisnay. I think he's trying to publish his term paper on ThinkProgress in order to get that cushy job at the NatSecAg.
Frankly, it's an F. (That's presuming his name is actually Frank).
If this doesn't work, he has to pretend to be a fellow pederast who can pony up some underage poontang. Unless he can pull that act off, no chance of getting Speaker Hastert hot. And Speaker Hastert no hot, no job for Salamantis.
It's a Dog-'Eat'-Dog world in NeoConia.
October 19th, 2006 at 4:33 amActually, #208, Islam was inoculated with fascism during WW II, by Nazi Germany. Comment by Salamantis
A specious definition. Try again. Be more specific.
October 19th, 2006 at 4:40 amfascism - a dictatorial government, especially combined with extreme nationalism.
Islam is a religion - as such, it is not nationalism, as it is not limited by politically-imposed borders.
If you want to change the heading to Islamic Extremists instead of islamofascists you'll get no static from me. But using islamofascist just announces that you don't know what you're talking about - or you think the readers don't, which is highly insulting.
October 19th, 2006 at 4:50 amNo one's blocking you, just be patient - and answer my question.
October 19th, 2006 at 4:51 amPaul,
October 19th, 2006 at 5:06 amAs the dems have no clearly articulated platform, but are about to take over anyway, would that mean the American voters have given them a mandate to investigate (as everyone knows that is what will happen should the repubs lose)? Will a dem win mean that the voters are ready to let loose the bloodhounds?
.
Israel is going to commit a false flag attack against a US Aircraft Carrier off the coast of Iran in order to "justify" a retaliatory nuclear strike...and it's coming in the next two weeks if we don't publicize the possibility of it.
Learn about the USS Liberty incident - then read this:
http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/104451
Here is the DRESS REHEARSAL for the sinking of the USS Enterprise:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-05-17-ship-reef_x.htm
.
October 19th, 2006 at 6:23 amI noticed the numbering on this site changing. People are replying to numbers on posts that haven’t occurred in the post yet. Your TP (Toilet Paper) site is editing, removing or should I say censoring our conversations. Boy, your left wing agenda site is showing its true colors now. Here is an example -
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/16/swift-detainee-bill/#comments
#48 replies to #51
#52 and #53 both reply to #61
#56 to #64
So much for free thought and discussion. You people are a joke.
October 19th, 2006 at 8:20 amdoes this mean the the chimp will still "stay the course"?
October 19th, 2006 at 8:39 am.
Poll results skewed by MEGAPHONE:
BBC recently had a poll asking if Holocaust denial should be a crime in this country -
"The long-running BBC History Magazine poll posed the question: "Do you think holocaust denial should be made illegal in Britain?" Soon after it was targeted by Megaphone, the poll was pulled. The magazine declined to speak to The Register about the episode." -
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/06/giyus_megaphone/
"Megaphone itself is worth noting as a propaganda tool."
Amazing - the criminalisation of historical research is given respectability by the BBCs twisted use of language.
We have our own Glorification of Terrorism Act which can be widely interpreted by the unscrupulous to mean whatever they wish and the Bush mob have made it clear what they mean by similar acts -
White House Targets Conspiracy Theorists As Terrorist Recruiters
'Strategy for winning the war on terror' says world contaminated, corrupted by misinformation
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2006/070906terroristrecr uiters.htm
The criminalisation of those who question the Holocaust shows quite clearly the lengths that can be gone to to perpetuate our beliefs, false or otherwise. It is no great leap to criminalise those who give solace to terrorists by propogating "outrageous conspiracy theories".
The very fact that questioning anything is criminalised should raise a red flag.
http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=28433
Click here:
http://www.eretz.com/NEW/
Scroll down to this:
GIYUS.ORG - Give Israel Your United Support
"Many of us recognize that the internet is the new battleground for Israel's image. Now is the time to improve our efforts on this front by better coordinating our on-line efforts. An Israeli software company has developed a free, safe, and useful tool for this purpose: the Internet Megaphone. Please go to http://www.giyus.org and download the megaphone. You will then receive daily updates with links to important internet polls, problematic articles that require a response, and more."
"PROBLEMATIC ARTICLES?"
They've developed a blog spamming software tool specifically to infiltrate web sites that dare to post TRUTHFUL articles about Israel - which they of course define as "problematic?"
Is there anything about this approach that does not piss you off?
All of the infighting here and rants about "anti-Semitism" are the direct result of these
M E G A P H O N I E S
If Israel is such a goddamn terrorist state that it requires a legion of disinformation swiftboat lackies to attack the messenger - how much more of YOUR TAX DOLLARS do you want them to have?
THIS is Eretz Israel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Israel
Israel is directly responsible for our invasion of Iraq and the pending nuclear attack on Iran.
Expose the truth.
.
October 19th, 2006 at 8:51 am#221
I mentioned to my wife that I had been sent out by the "right wing conspiracy machine" to see just how virulent the left was towards our President. She didn't believe me when I told her that the only thing the left has is Bush bashing, so she checked it out herself. Together we went to over a dozen lefty bloggs.
She was appalled to see exactly what I had described....a bunch of whinny, bithcy, losers that are driven by entitlements and hatred.
So come on all you leftists that blog here, let's here a coherent PLAN to solve the world's problems, rather than just bitching about it.
Oh, by the way, did I tell you John Kerry was in Nam? LOL!
October 19th, 2006 at 8:53 amTim - it is a secret. We cannot tell you until November 8th.
October 19th, 2006 at 9:05 amJules,
October 19th, 2006 at 9:12 amThen it is true? You're only a Patriot when you win.
Tim
Our progressive plan IS to bitch, moan, be angry, scream, hollar, whine, complain, hate, and accuse.....Unless, you count all those other ideas, strategies, programs, approaches, and proposals that have been ignored by the neoconservatives who have the political and media controls. Just 'cause you ain't list'nin' don't mean we ain't talkin'.
October 19th, 2006 at 9:31 amNo Tim - I am a patriot regardless. It is the right, and the duty, of every American to question the policies, and the politics, of their ELECTED leaders when they believe these leaders are not acting in a way that will preserve the Union. Have you read the preamble to the constitution?
Presidents and Congresspeople are ELECTED to represent the people of the United States. WE, that is "We The People," are their bosses. They work for us, we do not work for them. When they are not doing their job it is our duty to let them know.
October 19th, 2006 at 9:37 amThis "commission" with Jim Baker...
...is nothing more than...
...Bushiva and L'il Dick hijacking Cindy Sheehan, Murtha's (and other Progressive liberal Democrats') stance on Iraq...
...remember the one the criminal Bushite cabal dubbed, "cut 'n run" ?
...and morphing it into their own creation...
...creating reality...
...a Repulsivescam Party MO since 2000...
...patent pending...
October 19th, 2006 at 9:45 amTHE POOR BASTARD LOOKS AND SOUNDS UTTERLY DEFEATED AND EXHAUSTED, THERE MAYBE NOTHING LEFT TO IMPEACH.
October 19th, 2006 at 9:50 amI BLAME CHENEY.
" The reason why Tet was considered a communist victory (despite their overwhelming losses) is because the media portrayed it as a victory for the NVA and Viet Cong, and, as a result, the U.S. public began to think the war was unwinnable. "
I'm sorry, but that just isn't the truth. Everyone knew that the Vietcong had been defeated during Tet. They didn't manage to hold on to any piece of territory they occupied during Tet.
However, Tet was political victory for the Vietcong, because it showed the American public and the world three things.
1) That even after 3 years of intensified occupation of Vietnam, the US was powerless to prevent
2) The mightiest country in the world had been shown to be unable to predict or prevent the Tet offensive buildup, including in Saigon. It had been unable to destroy massive the tunnel complex outside of Saigon, that also happened to be the terminal point for the Ho Chi Min trail, implying that future Tets were possible.
3) Even though an estimated 45,000 Vietcong were killed (supposedly 50% of Vietcong strength) there was no real let up in Vietcong attacks and ambushes. Their numbers were being reinforced by North Vietnamese and even some Chinese.
In other words, the Tet Offensive highlighted the fact that there was no end in sight; that intel had failed; and that the leadership could formulate no clear definition of 'victory'.
Sound familiar?
The lesson should have been, that the US can take on any military in the world and win. It however cannot occupy every hill or paddy field. The invasion, absent of weapons of mass destruction, was always going to be a walkover. However, the occupation is another thing (and the Bush administration could have helped themselves a great deal by disarming the Iraqi military, securing all ammunition dumps and keeping the Iraqi military on the payroll; but then, apparently Rumsfeld didn't plan for the occupation).
October 19th, 2006 at 10:04 amVery good 227 & 228! It appears you both have had the opportunity to use your educations...congratulations!
However, here is the hypocrisy in your way of thinking...if you don't mind?
When you suggest that "after Nov 8th you'll see our plan", you are in essence saying that you are more political than patriotic.
For example: if I were your employer (you do work don't you), and the entire company's success was determined by the success of each individual division's success, and one division decided to be isolated, there is a better than average chance the company will fail. It takes a team to win a war and not one person. Now, you may say that Bush is doing exactly this, however, the left has been bashing the Bush family since 1986 and if I were GW, I'd be telling the Libs with their cut-n-run ideas to take a hike too.
As far as #227's comment regarding "being ignored". You must be in denial if you think you're being ignored? I've been voting since 1970 and have never been ignored. The reason the Bush adm. doesn't use the lib idealology is simply that...it is ideaology, not rational, intellegent thought that promotes debate. Put yourself in GW's place. If you had Ted the murderer Kennedy calling you a war monger and a baby killer, you'd shut off the input too.
October 19th, 2006 at 10:06 am#231
I could have sworn you guys were progressive? Why go back to Viet Nam to make your point?
Go to a dictionary and look up the word "progressive".
Are you so bogged down with hating Bush that you need to dredge up the past to make yourself feel good? Because it certainly looks this way.
October 19th, 2006 at 10:12 amI #231
The lesson should've been what TRUE warriors have realized since man CREATED war...
...if you're going to invade a man's HOME...
...you'd better bring your breakfast, lunch AND dinner...
...cuz you're gonna be a while...
October 19th, 2006 at 10:18 amTim - do you always keep your head in the sand or is it just when it regards republican politics? This administration shouted "Mission Accomplished" before they even had Iraq secured. The only plan heard from this administration is "Stay the Course." What the hell does that mean? We are losing this fight. Staying the course has not worked. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. This administration is insane!!
And if we are going to bring up scandals from the past - don't forget Laura Bush's killing her ex-boyfriend by running him over with a car. And when the hell did Kennedy ever call Bush a baby killer. You just pulled that one out of your ass.
A president should never shut off input from a disenting viewpoints. These views should be addressed and validated or invalidated. Just because you do not agree with them does not mean they should be dismissed or the person should be swiftboated. You republicans are good at that. Swiftboat Murtha then take his ideas and call them your own.
Bush has NEVER listened to the American people and now almost 70% of them have awoken to that fact.
October 19th, 2006 at 10:34 amCaption contest:
"They know something about me and Gannon...
...I can feel it..."
October 19th, 2006 at 10:43 amThe reason the Bush adm. doesn’t use the lib idealology is simply that…it is ideaology, not rational, intellegent thought that promotes debate. Put yourself in GW’s place. If you had Ted the murderer Kennedy calling you a war monger and a baby killer, you’d shut off the input too.
Comment by Tim
And you have to ask progressives why they "have no plan". Thanks for proving my point that BushCo dismisses progressive (or, more specifically, any but their own) ideas out of hand.
BTW, if you are going to comment on my "education", perhaps you ought to consider the correct spelling of "intelligent" and "ideology", the meaning and usage of the term "hypocrisy", and when to use a question mark as punctuation.
October 19th, 2006 at 11:07 amJules
I stand corrected, it was Michael Moore, your golden child, that said the baby thing. Teddy only killed Mary Jo when he ran away from the accident at Chappaquiddick.
Good try at retaliation though! You are exactly why Republicans are considered rational and Dems are emotional.
As far as having my head in the sand, and since you "progressives" like to live in the past, how many chances did Slick Willy have to clamp down on terrorism prior to 911....eh? Or will you accuse me of Clinton bashing?
The fact is, as I stated, I assume responsibility for MY party making blunders regarding this war, and yes I do think it was irresponsible and premature to say "Mission Accomplished", but you're feeding right into my trap. How could the American people trust such emotional politicians like Teddy, Kerry, Dean, Pelosi, Hilarious ( did you know she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary), etc. Sure, you can accuse our side of being the party of scandals, but be accurate when you throw stones, sometimes it's plexiglass you're throwing at and the stone will come back and hit you squarely in the face...like reality does.
If I recall, Bush won by over three million votes last time and the mid-term turned out to be the same for our party. Are you saying those 58 million voters all had their heads in the sand except your side? What planet are you living on? Polls don't mean Sh#@. If you recall Kerry won in 2004 soley on exit polls...gimmme a break!
If your side wins this time, it's not because of your plan or what you can deliver for the people, it's because, like myself, I believe change is good, even if it means my party loses. As long as the incoming party is more rational than emotional and truly has a better plan that is.
It also appears that there is a double standard attched to dissenting viewpoints. Remember when the CIA wanted to take out UBL and the Clinton adm. said no? If I recall, many dissenting views on our side said that bi-lateral talks with Kim Jong Mentally Ill was a mistake too, but I didn't see Whalen and Madam Albright use the input...now did we. Oh, but of course, Bush caused NK to build nukes, now didn't he? I was employed with the DOE ( Rocky Flats, look it up) during that era and know a bit more than the average American, and it's BS to think they stopped when the deal was signed. It's like a drug addict saying they'll stop and seek help just for appeasement's sake.
You see Jules, no matter how many times the left points the finger, and many times justified, there are always three pointing back at them.
October 19th, 2006 at 11:13 am#237
Thanks for the lesson, however, does it make a person feel smarter when the have to correct a blind person?
October 19th, 2006 at 11:15 am#227
Punctuation has never been one of my strengths...unfortunately.
But one of my strengths is to call BS when I read or hear it and the "progressive" types that post here are certainly full of it. It will be interesting to see how this election plays out.
Oh by the way, I was partially blinded by radiation while building anti-tank, depleted uranium Sabots for the DOE, so please excuse the punctuation, it takes me longer sometimes.
October 19th, 2006 at 11:27 amThe Iraqies are not killing thier neighbors because it's midterm elections in the US you idiots
ed
October 19th, 2006 at 11:34 am#
" I #231
The lesson should’ve been what TRUE warriors have realized since man CREATED war… …if you’re going to invade a man’s HOME… …you’d better bring your breakfast, lunch AND dinner… …cuz you’re gonna be a while…
Comment by big+papa — October 19, 2006 @ 10:18 am "
I actually think that if George Bush had been an intelligent president, and for some reason he STILl would have invaded Iraq, the situation would have been salvageable.
They could have secured the ammo dumps, paid the Iraqi military so they wouldn't be roaming the street unemployed but armed and ready to fight in any warlord's militia for cash.
They could have instituted local government with basic services (like education and healthcare) and would have passified the Iraqi populace like that.
They could have forced a profit sharing method so that all three sides benefit from the oil wealth.
They could have forced the creation of an unified Iraqi state, in which all three regions are semi-autonomous.
I think the problem was that they are so full of the neoliberal ideology, and the 'we don't do nation building' mindset, when nation building was exactly what was necessary. It would also have been the cheaper option, both in American and Iraqi lives, and in money.
No one likes living in a dictatorship. However, this was a typical Third World dictatorship, where the nation's resouces served the interest of a small national minority. If the country's resources could have been seen to be re-invested in schools, hospitals, public amenities and infrastructure, that would have taken the air out of 90% of the rebellion.
Small time warlords don't have much money, so the 'capital' they use is religion; ethnicity/tribe; favors to their loyalists. The US could have risen well above that, and given the Iraqi people a functioning, normal society, especially in the long run.
The problem comes, when the present administration doesn't even believe in that for Americans, so why would they apply such a concept to Iraq?
If the US had played to it's strength, it would have used MONEY, not bullets to settle the issues of Iraq.
October 19th, 2006 at 11:36 amTim
First, I am sorry about your injury and resulting loss of eye sight. However, I did not know that and, subsequently, I did not "feel smarter when the have to correct a blind person". You made what I thought was a facetious, condescending reference to my "education" and I responded to that. Your blindness does not excuse you for the content of what you post, which you can control. But I certainly will not make any further negative comments about the style, which you cannot control, and do apologize for doing so in an unintentionally callous manner.
October 19th, 2006 at 11:59 amBoy, for site called "Think Progress", I see little of either.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:11 pm244
Such wonderful self-reflection.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:19 pmdoes the picture of bush on this post look like a man with a plan?
October 19th, 2006 at 12:19 pmThe first words out of his mouth? Al Queda. Not the grotesque sectarian violence happening everywhere in the country. He's got to keep that Saddam-Al Queda connection alive...
October 19th, 2006 at 12:28 pm#243
No problem!
As far as the facetious, condescending reference, you can understand why us old timers are a bit tired of the name calling and the venomous words in which the opposing side attacks our President with. In your defense, I remember how the right attacked Clinton and I didn't like that either, although as you can see, I'm conservative. But I still believe that the President deserves respect from the people no matter what his political pursuasion. I hope you would agree.
My point is this: If we're to succeed in creating a future for our grandchildren, we need to agree to disagree...right? If not, then we're no better than those we're at war with.
From my view, as low level as it may be, I see the name calling of the President to be seen by our enimies as a weakness. If you've ever played sports, your coach surely told you never to place your hands on your hips or the opposing team would view this as a weakness. Well, this is seen throughout the world, and if we allow our enemies to see us as weak, we're doomed.
It is indiputable that the terrorists had the balls to venture onto our land and attack us, therefore emboldening their sick buddies to do the same.
So my question to your side is this; if GW didn't invade the two countries with the plan to kill terrorists there, what would the plan be?
I really haven't heard a plan from the left that assures victory. If victory is unattainable, maybe we'd better build a fence around this great country and become isolationists.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:47 pm[...] The Tet offensive is widely considered to be the turning point in the Vietnam War. See also here. [...]
October 19th, 2006 at 12:48 pmTim you still have not said what the republican plan for Iraq is. Stay the course is not a plan. If you are thee party of ideas, name some of them.
All you do is regurgitate the neocon talking points. Even if every single item in your post were correct, which not one is, chimpy has had FIVE years to work out a plan for NKorea. He has none. He has no plans. He is as incompetent in the arena of foreign policy as he is with domestic policy.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:59 pm# 233
" I could have sworn you guys were progressive? Why go back to Viet Nam to make your point? Go to a dictionary and look up the word “progressiveâ€. Are you so bogged down with hating Bush that you need to dredge up the past to make yourself feel good? Because it certainly looks this way. "
Sometimes you have to do more than 'look'.
And another thing about Tet. The Tet offensive was the culmination of General Westmoreland's approach to the war. He WANTED the VC to draw set up a conventional attack and expose himself to all the military might that was at his disposal.
One reason the Tet offenive was a failure for US's military strategy, was that even though for once, Westmoreland had his way, and the VC followed HIS gameplan, the end result was not victory. The VC and NVA were defeated on the battlefield, but they were not wiped out. In fact, more US soldiers died AFTER Tet, than before.
Another analogy to the 'Mission Accomplished' statement.
Westmoreland was an artillery officer, and that is how he approached the war. His plan was, that as long as he could draw the VC/NVA into a conventional conflict, he could use his far superior air power, artillery, and naval support and blast the hell out of them. The problem is that the VC/NVA only very rarely provided him with that opportunity. When they did so, they lost, but most of the time, they were just using ambushes, bicycle bombings, assassinations of Vietnamese civilian personnel, sabotage, etc.
The final point, is that the occupation of Vietnam was an extremely costly affair. Because of the absence of passable roads, and because of the shortage of troops the US always was coping with, the Huey helicopter provided the same role as the jeep had in WWII. Obviously, it is an extremely expensive proposition to have to fly squads of soldiers everywhere by helicopter.
So the longer the Vietcong could drag out the war, the more they could sap the US's political and economic will to stay there for years to come. It is no surprise that the recession of the early 1970s was a severe as it was - Vietnam played a huge role in that.
Empires historically have been brought down by overextending themselves. They weren't necessarily militarily defeated or invaded, although that often was the final nail. They simply outspent themselves in foreign conflicts. Study the declines of the Roman, Islamic, French and British empires, and you will find a similar dynamic.
And that is an outcome that has to be avoided at all costs, I think.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:10 pmJules
You've just proven my point that I had written to PLC about.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:12 pmTim - republican plan? what is it?
October 19th, 2006 at 1:14 pmJules
To relentlessly attack the terrorists on their soil using our military might and kill them where they live so we do not have to fight them on our homeland. And I don't care if there is collateral damage.
To relentlessly spread freedom and democracy wherever we can. Whether it appears as nation building or not, I don't care anymore. After 911, we realized that the terrorists have been planning to attack us for decades and it's time for them to go, even if it takes 20 years. Hell, what makes anyone think this war would be over by tomorrow. Bush may have blown the timeline, but those of us that have been through multiple wars know better.
To stand up to dictators like Kaddafi, Saddam and Kim Jong Ill that persecute their people for wanting freedom.
To win in Iraq by engaging the enemy in battle, not negotiations, like your side would want to do. Yeah, that's right, try to negotiate with a terrorist and you'll get your throat slit. If they're in a civil war, let them fight it out like we did. We should stand at the sidelines and be the referee and when they step out of line, kick their ass.
To covertly identify and destroy as many terrorists as possible using whatever technology we have. Including, yes, wire taps and moles. Wire taps and big brother have been watching us for years and it hasn't affected me one bit.
To educate the rational Islamic community that there is a better life than being paid $25k for sending their kids off to be suicide bombers. Soccer, surfing and skiing sound like a lot more fun to me than the thought of twenty virgins. Who the hell wants a virgin?
To continue to cut taxes in America so the rich can continue to get richer so they can grow their companies and provide jobs for the less fortunate. If not, let the poor and middle class try to survive without and see what happens.
To continue to provide health care for seniors, not those that are capable of working and not illegal alliens, but seniors that cannot afford it. If you have an income that allows you to go to the casinos and gamble, screw you, get an extra job.
To relentlessly describe people like you to as many people as I can so they can decide for themselves if they want to always believe the sky is falling.
I prefer to look forward, not backwards.
So what is YOUR plan...Jules?
October 19th, 2006 at 2:03 pmI - great post.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:08 pmI arrived in DaNang in Feb 69. The troops around me were completely freaked, awaiting an anniversary attack. The phychlogical impact of Tet 68 was devastating for two reasons.
First, it challenged the administrations assertions that all was going just great, according to plan.
Second, they occupied the historic capital, Hue. Even though they couldn't hold it, they occupied it. For the Vietnamese this was a severe humiliation.
For us, it showed that the enemy would strike on their terms.
We were always waiting for the shoe to drop again after that.
Our mind set was permanently altered after that.
We began to really question "what is progress, and how is it defined" after that.
Sound familiar?
Tim
And I am tired of the neocons' hijacking the flag, the Bible, and anything else to use to label us dissenting progressives as anti-American, God-hating, terrorist-supporting, etc. And yes, much of this started with the attempts to take Clinton out of office through character assassination rather than the ballot. I DON"T agree that Bush deserves respect as he does not respect the American representative democracy with its guarantees of human rights over corporate rights, checks and balances in government, and free expression. I don't think Bush respects the Presidency or, more importantly, the public.
The name calling of the President is NOT the primary means by which our enemies will see us as weak. It is through our policies and actions around the world. Using your sports analogy, the the opposing team would view our poor play, unsportsmanship, and trying to change the rules in response to them as weakness. We are not doomed by how the world sees us, we are doomed by our own actions. America will no longer be America if we weaken the Constitution and our own morality for the sake of appearing strong or feeling falsely safe.
"It is indiputable that the terrorists had the balls to venture onto our land and attack us" Yes, and, therefore we should be bold and strategic enough to go after them, not others.
Your comments "I really haven’t heard a plan from the left that assures victory. If victory is unattainable, maybe we’d better build a fence around this great country and become isolationists." refer to the battle of Iraq. You want progressives to give a plan for YOUR goals. They are not MY goals. I think it's more important to consider victory as a larger issue, that is, in the "war" to maintain our country as the beacon of representative democracy, a country that weathers adversity without losing itself. I believe that if we follow Bush's doctrines, we have lost our country. Terrorists cannot truly destroy us. But we can destroy ourselves.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:10 pmTim. So you're advocating bombing southern Pakistan. Wow.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:10 pmPLC - Thunderous applause!
October 19th, 2006 at 2:12 pmOMG - PLC you are one amazing patriotic dude. Too bad Tim has his mind closed, he could really learn something from you!!
October 19th, 2006 at 2:25 pm258 and 259
Thank you.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:32 pmKARMA
October 19th, 2006 at 2:54 pmFirst of all, I am offended by the idea that the Democrats have to find solutions for the Republicans' mess. People have been bailing Dubya out for his entire life. He pretty much expects that in his pampered mind, this is how the world works. Safiq bin Laden bailed him out when he ran his toy oil company Arbusto into the ground. Katherine Harris and the Supreme Court bailed him out when he lost in Florida. And now, the Democrats have to bail him out of the trainwreck he made of America as well.
However, here goes.
" To relentlessly attack the terrorists on their soil using our military might and kill them where they live so we do not have to fight them on our homeland. And I don’t care if there is collateral damage. "
You mean relentlessly attack A-rabs. Terrorists don't have soil. Even the Taliban were good enough to do business with, until they said no to a Central Asian oil pipeline.
You don't care if there is 'collateral damage'. That makes you a war criminal.
" To relentlessly spread freedom and democracy wherever we can. "
Do 'relentless' and 'democracy even belong in the same sentence? I'm sure you have a different interpretation of democracy than I do.
" Whether it appears as nation building or not, I don’t care anymore. After 911, we realized that the terrorists have been planning to attack us for decades and it’s time for them to go, even if it takes 20 years. "
Decades? Hmmm... Decades ago, say 20 years ago, what was Osama bin Laden doing? Oh I remember now, he was killing Russians in Afghanistan, with the full backing of the CIA, who even sent him surface to air missiles to take out Russian planes and helicopters. What irony.
" Hell, what makes anyone think this war would be over by tomorrow. Bush may have blown the timeline, but those of us that have been through multiple wars know better. "
What war? And who said it would be 'over by tomorrow'? And aren't you conflating the 'war against terrorism' with the war in Iraq? Because they're not the same, of course and yes, the US involvement in Iraq could be over very quickly. The fact that Dubya has created a Greater Iran, by putting the Shiites into power in Iraq, will stir up the Middle East for years or decades to come. Let alone endanger the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world's oil flows. One publication I read, estimated that if there was a war with Iran, oil could easily move to $261,- per barrel. And that would be the end of the world economic boom, or possibly even the United States itself.
" To stand up to dictators like Kaddafi, Saddam and Kim Jong Ill that persecute their people for wanting freedom. "
And embrace dictators like General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan (who overthrew the democratically elected woman President Benazir Bhutto), the Saudi Royal Family (no elections there), and I'm not even keeping track of the Central Asian republics. Or mentioning past US support for dictators in South and Central America.
In other words, business as usual. The USA picks the dictators who will go against their people's wishes and interests and then when they go against the USA, they become part of the 'axis of evil' or some similar comic book analysis. Like Daniel Ortega, for instance. Or Sadam Hussein.
" To win in Iraq by engaging the enemy in battle, not negotiations, like your side would want to do. "
Like the vietcong, real terrorists will not be engaged in battle. Think of the 9/11 hijackers.
" Yeah, that’s right, try to negotiate with a terrorist and you’ll get your throat slit. "
How about the government of Israel? They started out as 'terrorists'. They lynched two British army sergeants, they blew up buildings. Guest who are the US's best buddies now?
I will refrain from listing all the countries whose opposition movements were once labeled 'terrorists', but after coming to power, had tea with the Queen or became 'allies' to the US.
Also, never forget that the Germans called the Resistance fighters 'terrorists' too.
" If they’re in a civil war, let them fight it out like we did. We should stand at the sidelines and be the referee and when they step out of line, kick their ass. "
Well who created that civil war? Dubya did. So he should get a free pass again, so we can let them 'fight it out'?
" To covertly identify and destroy as many terrorists as possible using whatever technology we have. Including, yes, wire taps and moles. Wire taps and big brother have been watching us for years and it hasn’t affected me one bit. "
But doesn't the failure of 9/11 show that it isn't a lack of technology, but a lack of human intelligence that was the problem? Infiltrators inside Al-Qaeda, for instance? That is how the FBI successfully fought the KKK, the Mafia, etc.
That is the kind of conflict we are talking about. Not a conventional war, where parties square off on a battle field.
" To educate the rational Islamic community that there is a better life than being paid $25k for sending their kids off to be suicide bombers. Soccer, surfing and skiing sound like a lot more fun to me than the thought of twenty virgins. Who the hell wants a virgin? "
I think they already know that. What they want, is for the US to stop propping up their dictatorships, so they can have real democracy and a properly functioning civil society.
And this '72 virgins' myth is getting stale too.
" To continue to cut taxes in America so the rich can continue to get richer so they can grow their companies and provide jobs for the less fortunate. If not, let the poor and middle class try to survive without and see what happens. "
You mean, like in Katrina?
" To continue to provide health care for seniors, "
But not for poor seniors, surely?
" not those that are capable of working and not illegal alliens, but seniors that cannot afford it. "
So you DO want to help the poor. But only if they're very old.
" If you have an income that allows you to go to the casinos and gamble, screw you, get an extra job. "
So no support for gamblers. But I'm sure Bill Bennett won't be sweating that one.
" To relentlessly describe people like you to as many people as I can so they can decide for themselves if they want to always believe the sky is falling. "
Or the Middle East is exploding. Or New Orleans just disappeared from the map.
" I prefer to look forward, not backwards. So what is YOUR plan…Jules? "
And you cannot understand the present or the future, without understanding the past.
Actually, I feel sullied just to have to come up with a way to get Dubya out of his mess. However, here goes.
You try to NEGOTIATE a truce between the Shia, Suni and Kurdish sections of Iraq. This would have to involve that all of them disarm (that's right, 'give up their guns'). You start investing hundreds of billions in Iraq's devastated infrastructure, AND THIS TIME YOU ACTUALLY MONITOR ALL EXPENDITURES. You know, be careful and thrifty with American's taxpayers dollars? That sort of thing?
You NEGOTIATE an end to Iran's experimentation with enriching uranium, and give them access to already enriched nuclear energy in a safe way.
You put pressure on Syria to democratize.
You put pressure on Israel to solve the Palestinian issue, which has been poisoning Middle East relationships for over half a century now. You buy the Palestinians a real physical infrastructure (roads, hospitals, colleges, set up businesses) so the Palestinians have something rare called HOPE, and drain support for extremist movements that way.
You GET SERIOUS about fighting terrorism, in the only way that works and makes sense. You integrate information sharing between the intelligence services, especially the FBI and CIA, so that when a future plot originates somewhere in Central Asia, the information is passed on to domestic intelligence and security services. You create a databases of terrorists that is amenable to information retrieval by agents in the field. Not 'security lists', but actual databases, whose data can be checked and built upon. You start interrogating suspects in a way that actually delivers information, and stop this torture nonsense that has never worked, during any conflict in human history. The only thing torture is good for is taking revenge, and extracting confessions. Real information comes from individuals who WANT to help. Read "Slow Burn" by Orrin Deforest (still available second hand at Amazon.com). A very interesting book that should be mandatory reading for anyone involved in the area of security, terrorism or just public policy.
And lastly, you create a nexus of democracy worldwide, that stems from governments who put their people first. Local government is a good way to do that, because spending national revenues at a local level is the most certain way that taxes are turned into services that move the people and the country forward. Monitor spending. Create the infrastruture that supports the functioning of local government (roads, satellite connections, phonelines, electricity).
Apart from the physical infrastructure (mainly roads), this can be done very cheaply from existing revenues. You see, most Third World governments spend most of their revenues at the Central Government level. Ministries, large bureaucracies, etc. Reverse that, and you have a situation where local government provides healthcare, education, running water and electricity, policing. And all of a sudden, you have a nation where large numbers of unemployed youths no longer hang around on street corners, ready to be recruited by whatever warlord comes by and offers them a couple of dollars.
Governance. Nation building, if you wish.
October 19th, 2006 at 3:03 pmI- It seems like nothing is good enough for the so called "progessivess" on this blog.
This has been an eye opening education for me. It has been fun, but also annoying to see how the left views reality. Now I understand why you watch the polls.
I have no regrets about visiting this blog, only suggestions:
1) Learn to take responsibility for your actions.
2) Remember that it is us against them...whether you believe it or not.
3) All the education in the world doesn't make you logical or rational.
4) Think long play wrong...I. You need to loosen up a bit. Maybe see a doctor for that severe case of RCI. Your living in the past man.
In closing, take the time to read some conservative sites and you'll notice, or maybe you won't, that very seldom do they name call. This is the first step to becoming a true patriot. Dissent, not insult.
October 19th, 2006 at 3:29 pmI #242
...If the seed is rotten...
...can the tree survive, or bear fruit?
Invading Iraq was incompetent foreign policy, illegal, and most of all immoral...
...the US cannot succeed in Iraq because the reasons for invading were WRONG!
...lies, profiteering, exploitation, leading to the mass murdering of hundreds of thousands of innocents...
...and American racist, inbred al Cracker Bush worshipping 'CONNED'servatives supported it why?
...REVENGE for 9/11...
...in spite of the fact that Iraqis had NOTHING to do with 9/11...
...unless one has truly legitimate cause to kill, maim and destroy a perceived enemy...
Ex: If someone raped or killed your wife, mother or child...
...one should NEVER unleash one's darkest nature...
...unless one is prepared to go all the way...
...and accept the results...
October 19th, 2006 at 3:29 pm" Like Daniel Ortega, for instance. Or Sadam Hussein. '
Correction, I mean Manuel Noriega.
big+papa #264,
" …If the seed is rotten…
…can the tree survive, or bear fruit?
Invading Iraq was incompetent foreign policy, illegal, and most of all immoral…
…the US cannot succeed in Iraq because the reasons for invading were WRONG!
…lies, profiteering, exploitation, leading to the mass murdering of hundreds of thousands of innocents… "
The only hope is that in the end, the Iraqi people will have to live with eachother, under some form of government.
The conflicts in Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland seemed to go on forever as well.
Ironically, Northern Ireland was solved, by the European Union giving huge subsidies to the Irish Republic.
A major driver in the violence, was the fact that the Protestant majority often economically discriminated against the Catholic minority. However, when Ireland started to develop it's economy from agricultural to a service based economy, all of a sudden, a united Ireland didn't seem like such a scary prospect anymore.
Much of the conflicts around the world are driven by poverty. Eliminate the poverty that exists, take the distribution of resources out of the hands of central government politicians and into the hands of local government (with proper monitoring of expenditures) and you drain the pool extremist or militant movements recruit from. It also gives people loyalty to the state (as represented by local government), which is psychologically very important, because it undermines religious and tribal loyalties.
October 19th, 2006 at 3:53 pmI am sure he just didn't know what the tet offensive was and agreed because he thought it was the right thing to do. If the question is about "Vietnam" in general, of course he would say there is no similarity at all.
October 19th, 2006 at 3:53 pm# 255
I - great post.
I arrived in DaNang in Feb 69. The troops around me were completely freaked, awaiting an anniversary attack. The phychlogical impact of Tet 68 was devastating for two reasons.
First, it challenged the administrations assertions that all was going just great, according to plan.
Second, they occupied the historic capital, Hue. Even though they couldn’t hold it, they occupied it. For the Vietnamese this was a severe humiliation. For us, it showed that the enemy would strike on their terms. We were always waiting for the shoe to drop again after that. Our mind set was permanently altered after that. We began to really question “what is progress, and how is it defined†after that. Sound familiar?
Comment by RUCerious — October 19, 2006 @ 2:08 pm
First off, I salute your courage, and without reservation.
Secondly, I think that after the United States' success in WWII, too many politicians started to see the military as the solution for their problems. Look at the proliferation of the 'war' metaphore. War on drugs, war on cancer, war on crime, war on terrorism. Managing Directors became Chief Executive Officers and Presidents, etc.
I think that is what is happening with this administration, but to the n-th degree. For Bush, everything is a soundbite or a talking point.
Jules #235,
" A president should never shut off input from a disenting viewpoints. These views should be addressed and validated or invalidated. Just because you do not agree with them does not mean they should be dismissed or the person should be swiftboated. You republicans are good at that. Swiftboat Murtha then take his ideas and call them your own. "
Not shutting off debate can only happen, when there is a president with the intelligence to actually engage in debate.
The BIG red flag came early on, when Al Gore wasn't allowed to really engage Bush in debate, when the questions were carefully scripted as the answers were. Why was there no real debate? Because if Bush would be allowed to interact with Gore, it would be plain for all to see what a dupe he is.
In the Third World, he would be called a stooge. A neocolonial puppet for industrial interests. The real powerbroker's retarded cousin, who can wear the epaulets and the sabre and the comical uniforms. I am half expecting he wants to go for a 'third term', just to avoid the prosecution that always comes when the legal protection that comes with dictatorship is lifted. The third presidential term is a bit of a running gag. People are generally surprised when a president has the decency to abide by the constitution, and not run for a third term.
Maybe Bush won't go for a third term as president, but maybe J.E.B. will run instead. There has already been a Bush president before him, why not make it three?
October 19th, 2006 at 4:41 pm"The third presidential term is a bit of a running gag. People are generally surprised when a president has the decency to abide by the constitution, and not run for a third term."
The 22nd Amendment is not a good law. Why should the people not be allowed to elect a President five or twenty times, AS LONG AS THE ELECTIONS ARE FAIR?
The 22nd Amendment was put into place in order to prevent FDR's four terms from happening again. But there was nothing wrong with FDR's popularity -- unless you were in the minority party. Given a chance, voters would have happily reelected Bill Clinton -- and they DID elect his Vice President.
Presently, we do not have legal elections. The Rapepublicans have made election-stealing an art. The problem is not with the Constitution, or with a third term, but with the RIGGED VOTING SYSTEM and the openly, corruptly PARTISAN STATE SECRETARIES OF STATE, who steal the election and scoff at court orders and the public will, while disenfranchizing minorities through wholesale coercion, illegal caging lists, and, of late, electronic purging tactics (such as illegally dropping legal registrations because the person shares a name or birthday with a felon).
October 19th, 2006 at 5:10 pm263 Tim - your comments would've better served in another time - maybe the Ford administration. Appeals to moderation and so on are really irrelevant now. You also admit a belief that there is, in fact, an effort afoot in the world to "take over" the USA, which is really a fringe position - no one with knowledge of the scope of our military capabilities can believe that without delivering a damning, albeit surreptitious, insult to our military professionals and the best-in-class technology at their disposal.
This country faces an emergency of extreme proportions, and the threat is not external - it is internal, and the result of a relentless program of rhetorical subtrefuge and demagoguery calculated to divide and radicalize our population. It dates back to the end of the Ford administration, and it is the program the Republican party has used to attain unprecedented control over our government, and the public, political, social discourse that determines the character and action of our government.
October 19th, 2006 at 7:54 pm#269
You speak with such authority! It almost sounds like you know what you're saying.....so just say it. I HATE AMERICA, is exactly what you're saying. Just listen to yourself...whacko. You blame America for everything.
I'd bet you and your lib whaco friends sit around, smoke pot, listen to audio tapes on how to increase your vocabulary and think of ways to suppress the conservative voice in America.
So let me ask you, have your consevative friends placed nazi flags or confederate flags on their redneck truck windows? Have you're rights been infringed by wire taps? Have you been put out by security inspections at borders or the airports.....didn't think so moron.
"Internally", open your eyes fool, the terrorists attacked us not George Bush. You're the party looking in the past and if you'd look ahead, you'd see that the world is anew with a culture that has preached hatred to children in the Islamic community for over thirty years and now those children are young adults ready and willing to KILL your ass for a bunch of virgins. Oh I'm sorry, you call them freedom fighters....gimme a break!
"Divide & radicalize" our population. You sound like Wad Churchill...another moron living off the taxpayer's dollar and espousing his hatred for America.
Here's what will happen...and I guarantee this will happen. Your party may win an election here or there, however, in the broad scheme of things, the lib population, who we all know doesn't really beLieve what they are saying, only that they hate Bush, will slowly fade into darkness along with their Fu#@*& up beliefs.
It has already begun....but you'll never admit to it.
Get a life idiot.
PS. Moron, after years building nukes and anti-tank weapons for the DOE, I'm a lot more in tune to our military's capabilities than you are....and I guarantee this too..idiot.
October 20th, 2006 at 9:18 amHi Paul,
" The 22nd Amendment is not a good law. Why should the people not be allowed to elect a President five or twenty times, AS LONG AS THE ELECTIONS ARE FAIR? "
I think it is great that politicians are on notice that they will be turfed out after a specific period. Believe it or not, it really cuts down on corruption.
They may like it or not, politicians become old, and with them, so does their life experience and relevance to society. The Third World is dotted with 80-something dictators.
October 20th, 2006 at 9:53 amNeo-Conservatism, is the ideology bought theIraq invasion "because they
October 20th, 2006 at 6:07 pmhad better targets" was spawned from the Troskyite opposition in the
early USSR. While Leninism held that one political party and one government will be the final step before the "withering away of the state"
Trotskyism and the Bolsheviks had different ideas of how to attain this
one political party: Trotsky advocated "the permanent war," " the permanent revolution" These elements came under the tutelage of one Leo Strauss who mixed this in with Platonism insofar as the true leader
is detached from everything else but (his) ideas of the Republic, the philospher king. That is to say, such a person will not have served in war or industry or commerce but have become a total expert on the metaphysics of rule and world domination. In the world of Lenin there was ultimately no room for a second opinion. That is the mind-stuff or the "memes" that destroyed American conservatism and transformed the Republican Party into what it is today.
[...] President Bush … telling George Stephanopoulos: "There’s certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we’re heading into an election… My gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we’d leave." [...]
October 20th, 2006 at 8:23 pmFor the record, I'm still angry because I sent e-mails to the President before the war saying "Are you sure they have these weapons/nukes? you can NOT be wrong here and How about more inspectors? (before the French suggested the same) My Aussie, Canadian, and Euro. friends all said the "decission to invade has already been made". I hoped they were wrong and too cynical.
Later, I read the Downing Street Memo (Best Brit intel available) and they were right. Bush listened to Cheney, extremely persuasive but terribly, leathally, deadly wrong not to mention dishonest thinking the ends would justify the means.
Perhaps the best we can do now is kick out, or at least censure Bush and somehow move on. Who will unite us in 2006? Love the Nixon quote because it's got to be someone that didn't have a thing to do with Iraq. Obama?
I guess the term for Tet could be a type of Phyric victory for America that showed that the North was strong and not going away.
I hate to agree with the guy who said this isn't a spike in Iraq, it will get worse but.....
Vote people
October 21st, 2006 at 5:08 pm[...] President Bush, 10/18/06: There’s certainly a stepped up level of violence, and we’re heading into an election. … They are trying to not only kill American troops, but they’re trying to foment sectarian violence. They [Al Qaeda] believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause government to withdraw. [...]
October 23rd, 2006 at 3:30 pm[...] President Bush, 10/18/06: There’s certainly a stepped up level of violence, and we’re heading into an election. … They are trying to not only kill American troops, but they’re trying to foment sectarian violence. They [Al Qaeda] believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause government to withdraw. [...]
October 24th, 2006 at 12:33 amWho are you people. So if you do not agree with a comment, you just get shouted down as a Bush lover and whatever other hatefilled response you can come up with. This is my first time to visit this site and let me tell you, this is disturbing behavior. What happened to respectful banter about real issues. All everyone does and spew hate towards each other. What a waste of what I am sure is very intelligent people's time! Just because someone does not agree with the status quo of this site, does not make them brain washed Bush lovers, but rather citizens who disagree with the point being made. Anyways, I am can already predict the response I will recieve so i will stop now. Disturbing posts people, very disturbing......
November 15th, 2006 at 5:46 pmWho would have thought that GWB would fight this war like LbJ fought the Viet Nam war? I am disgusted.
If we are going to fight this war in John Murtha/ Nancy Pelosi mode, why don't we just get the F out of there?
Why is that asshole Badr (?) still alive?
Oh yeah, I think it's because Gerald (falling Down) Ford said we are not allowed to assasinate (?) anyone, including anyone who would throw kerosene on you and then light you like a firecracker,
Thanks Gerry. Do you share a bunk with "Jimmah"?
By the way, how scary is it that Nancy "THe Queen" Pelosi is determined that Alcee Hastings will be the chairman of the Intelligence Commitee?
She is going to "drain the swamp"?
This woman is sicker than Rep. Foley. I e-mail her about three times a day asking what the F*** is she thinking?
As far as I can tell, Nancy Pelosi is more interested in screwing her Dem enemies than worrying about our country.
November 25th, 2006 at 2:30 amWell is saddam is killed for killing people then what should be done with bush who said there is WMD and attacked and killed many innocent iraqies?
December 31st, 2006 at 3:01 amWell is saddam is killed for killing people then what should be done with bush who said there is WMD and attacked and killed many innocent iraqies?
December 31st, 2006 at 3:02 am[...] Where have I heard this before? Oh, that is right- every six months. President george Bush, 18 October 2006: [...]
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