ThinkFast: November 15, 2006
ThinkFast: November 15, 2006
Last month, President Bush conceded that an analogy between Iraq and Vietnam can be made. AP reports, “Amid an intensifying discussion at home about the future of the [Iraq] war, Bush gives the comparison debate another kick by walking among Vietnam War relics on a four-day visit to the communist nation created after American troops departed 33 years ago.”
Conservative staff members in the Senate have already started attacking Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the incoming chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, as “radical,” “extreme,” and “out there.” In one of her first “extreme” moves, Boxer plans to hold hearings on global warming.
The Senate approved an amendment Tuesday to extend the work of the Iraq inspector general, who has “unearthed millions of dollars in waste and fraud associated with the rebuilding of Iraq.” Conservatives quietly tried to terminate the IG in a recent spending bill.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) are teaming up for a holiday-themed campaign with Wake-Up Wal-Mart criticizing Wal-Mart’s “wages and benefits, as well as recently enacted attendance and salary policies, in a move timed to potentially disrupt the company’s holiday sales.”
“Iran’s president declared yesterday that his country’s nuclear program was nearing an important milestone,” the NYT reports, “even as international atomic inspectors reported that they had found unexplained traces of plutonium and that Tehran continued to be so uncooperative in answering questions that they had been unable to confirm earlier claims of progress.”
A congressionally-mandated study by Los Alamos scientists and others on plutonium finds the radioactive element, “which provides the immense explosive force in nuclear weapons, has a useful lifespan far longer than previously estimated.” The findings could undermine Bush’s “argument for manufacturing a new generation of warheads.”
Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff is scheduled to enter federal prison today “over the protests of prosecutors who wanted him to remain free to cooperate in an investigation that has threatened to implicate several members of Congress.”
Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner reports that mobile homes purchased by FEMA, worth up to $4 million, for people left homeless by Katrina have been damaged beyond repair because they were not properly protected.
Only three automakers — Toyota, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler — improved the fuel economy of their fleet from 1996 through 2005. Subaru “stayed the same during the period and fuel efficiency declined at nine other automakers.”
And finally: Excuse me, but I couldn’t quite understand your anti-immigrant message. Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), who has taken a “tough stance on immigration,” complained that his campaign callers had “thick enough foreign accents that the congressman himself said he couldn’t understand them.” Souder discovered this “after listening to a message left on his sister’s answering machine in which the only word he understood was ‘Hayhurst,’ the last name of his Democratic challenger, Tom Hayhurst.”
What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.
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Jack Abramhoff: Inmate No. 27593-112
(yup, that’s his real number)
November 15th, 2006 at 9:09 amConservative staff members in the Senate have already started attacking Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the incoming chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, as “radical,†“extreme,†and “out there.†In one of her first “extreme†moves, Boxer plans to hold hearings on global warming.
Gasp. She is actually going to make the Committee work on environmnetal issues…….egads. Oh no a hearing. She is creating a situation where the truth may come out and problems may be solved. The Repubs worst nightmare has come true.
November 15th, 2006 at 9:15 amJack Abramhoff: Inmate No. 27593-112
(yup, that’s his real number)
Comment by bobcat_grad
Sweet…
November 15th, 2006 at 9:16 amConservative staff members in the Senate have already started attacking Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the incoming chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, as “radical,†“extreme,†and “out there.†In one of her first “extreme†moves, Boxer plans to hold hearings on global warming.
The nerve of that woman.
November 15th, 2006 at 9:17 amSen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) are teaming up for a holiday-themed campaign with Wake-Up Wal-Mart criticizing Wal-Mart’s “wages and benefits, as well as recently enacted attendance and salary policies, in a move timed to potentially disrupt the company’s holiday sales.â€
Boo frickin’ hoo.
November 15th, 2006 at 9:18 amAnd finally: Excuse me, but I couldn’t quite understand your anti-immigrant message. Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), who has taken a “tough stance on immigration,†complained that his campaign callers had “thick enough foreign accents that the congressman himself said he couldn’t understand them.†Souder discovered this “after listening to a message left on his sister’s answering machine in which the only word he understood was ‘Hayhurst,’ the last name of his Democratic challenger, Tom Hayhurst.â€
Bigots are so funny. And I don’t think the thick foreign accents of his callers was the flaw in his plan.
November 15th, 2006 at 9:19 amHomeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner reports that mobile homes purchased by FEMA, worth up to $4 million, for people left homeless by Katrina have been damaged beyond repair because they were not properly protected.
Imagine that. If people had actually been allowed to live in them, they would have been able to maintain them.
November 15th, 2006 at 9:19 amExcuse me, but I couldn’t quite understand your anti-immigrant message. Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), who has taken a “tough stance on immigration,†complained that his campaign callers had “thick enough foreign accents that the congressman himself said he couldn’t understand them.†Souder discovered this “after listening to a message left on his sister’s answering machine in which the only word he understood was ‘Hayhurst,’ the last name of his Democratic challenger, Tom Hayhurst.â€
There is such a thing as terminal stupidity…
November 15th, 2006 at 9:21 ammissed:
November 15th, 2006 at 9:24 amCIA Tells of Bush’s Directive on the Hadling of Detainees
Anyone else noticed that the trolls seem to be a little less visible since early last week? And the ones that do show up seem a little chastised?
Now… what could have happened early last week that would have done that?
November 15th, 2006 at 9:27 amNow… what could have happened early last week that would have done that?
Comment by bobcat_grad
Well, the weather definitely changed….
November 15th, 2006 at 9:30 amHmmmmm, what else….what else……?
November 15th, 2006 at 9:30 amConservative staff members in the Senate have already started attacking Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the incoming chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, as “radical,†“extreme,†and “out there.†In one of her first “extreme†moves, Boxer plans to hold hearings on global warming.
Any chance Michael Crichton will be invited?
November 15th, 2006 at 9:32 am;)
Does anybody remember a couple of trolls who prophesised “that when the Republicans win the next election all you left wing losers will be weeping in your white wine as you are nothing but a bunch of irrelevant hot air”. Of course this is the polite rephrasing of the prophesies.
Of course MA is still trying to spout venom and roger(repeats) was trolling yesterday but I couldn’t understand them.
November 15th, 2006 at 9:33 amAnyone see Lou Dobbs go off in his commentary?
November 15th, 2006 at 9:36 amOf course MA is still trying to spout venom and roger(repeats) was trolling yesterday but I couldn’t understand them.
It’s hard to understand someone when they are talking out their….
Nevermind. I’m abiding by TP’s no-flaming rules.
Let’s add something constructive to this post, then: Heard a guy from the Nation on Air America this morning recounting the story of Bush’s brain-trust sitting around discussing Rummy’s replacement. Apparently, Cheney piped up, “Uhhh… Mr. President, I, uhhh, may have, uhhhhh, a few names for you to, uhhhh, take a look at.” (The ‘uhs’ were added for realism) Bush, said, “Heh-heh… No thanks, Dicky. I’ve been talking to my daddy, heh-heh. And he gave me a name. ”
Apparently Cheney’s jaw hit the floor. Bush standing up to him? Bush not bringing in a new neo-con? Bush listening to his father? HOW DARE HE?!!?
November 15th, 2006 at 9:42 amApparently Cheney’s jaw hit the floor. Bush standing up to him? Bush not bringing in a new neo-con? Bush listening to his father? HOW DARE HE?!!?
Comment by bobcat_grad
Wow. GWB may die suddenly in his sleep soon…
November 15th, 2006 at 9:52 amUS killed in Iraq = 3,000
US killed in Vietnam = 58,000
Did Democrats largely support the decision to go to war in Iraq? yes
Did Hussein kick out weapons inspectors? yes
Did Hussein use weapons of mass destruction? yes
If you don’t like the war that’s fine I want them out as well but please don’t act so innocent, both parties have blood on their hands. Albeit only 5% of the amount of blood as the Vietnam war.
November 15th, 2006 at 9:53 amFever,
The Dems agreed to this war based on the lies of this administration. Thanks for blaming the Dems for actually thinking they could believe the words of GWB about the necessity of going into this war.
Don’t minimize the waste of life here.
November 15th, 2006 at 9:56 amOne more thing, Fever.
Yes, Saddam used WMD. Against his own people, years ago. Not good.
The allegation was that Saddam had WMD in 2003 and was prepared to use them. That was a lie. A lie which has been acknowledged by the Boy King.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:00 amAlbeit only 5% of the amount of blood as the Vietnam war.
Fever: Tell the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, sons, and daughters that they should only feel 5% as bad as those that lost family in Vietnam.
Congress was given false evidence by the administration that prompted them to go to war. Bush’s ineptitude and lack of planning has got us to where we are now.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:01 amUS killed in Iraq = 3,000
US killed in Vietnam = 58,000
Comment by Fever
So how many dead American troops does it take to get you fired up about an illegal war Fever? 5,000….10,000…20,000?
November 15th, 2006 at 10:04 amUsing your logic Fever, the US has also used weapons of mass destruction. Also, should we wait until the troop death toll is comparible to Vietnam before being justified in demanding a pull out from Iraq?
You have ignored the fabricated evidence to justify going to war.
Did we ever find the WMD’s that this administration used to whip a fear frenzy on the American public? No
Has there ever been a comprehensive plan to secure Iraq? No.
It’s not a matter of “liking war” or not. It’s a matter of this administration using the mighest military force in the world to do their own bidding while lying to the American people on the rationale for it. So you want to ignore that fine but don’t come here and expect your missplaced patriotism to gain supporters.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:05 amFever,
US killed in Iraq = 3,000
US killed in Vietnam = 58,000
US killed in the first 5 years(61-65) in Vietnam
1,864
US killed in the first 3-4 years of Iraq
3,000
Sounds like so far, we’re looking at a nearly 200% higher casulity rate, hopefully it dosn’t keep up that way.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:09 am“The Senate approved an amendment Tuesday to extend the work of the Iraq inspector general, who has “unearthed millions of dollars in waste and fraud associated with the rebuilding of Iraq.†Conserveratives quietly tried to terminate the IG in a recent spending bill.”
Apparently the IG was exposing the agenda of the Republican Monopolist Party of Oil and War Profiteering…Don’t worry IG, Congress is about to expose alot more in 07!
November 15th, 2006 at 10:11 amFever (#18), what do you mean that Hussein kicked out the weapons inspectors? George Bush told the weapons inspectors to leave Iraq just before the invasion began.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:12 amSounds like so far, we’re looking at a nearly 200% higher casulity rate, hopefully it dosn’t keep up that way.
Comment by squegeeboo
Well done, Squeegy.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:13 amDear Mr./Ms.Fever….
November 15th, 2006 at 10:16 amMr. Donald Rumpsfelt provided the materials and technology for WMD to Mr. Hussein, back in the ’80’s, and he used such against his own people, as well as Iran.
On the subject of the missing trolls, perhaps the colder weather is keeping them under the bridges…. poor saps, must be rough having to live in fear of a crumbling highway bridge over your head, and your only source of heat is vehicle exhaust… small wonder they get all excited about SUVs and Hummers.
Anyone here about the 16″ Tusnamia that hit Japan? I hear it caused untold damage to the fledgling sandcastle industry there.
Zoo
November 15th, 2006 at 10:19 amWell done, Squeegy.
Thanks, it’s not often that I’ll point something like that out seeing, but if your going to compare casulities, at least do it honesty, otherwise it’s a bad comparision even by Interweb standards.
Nooooo! Not the sand castles…!
November 15th, 2006 at 10:22 amBush finally makes it to Vietnam.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:23 am. . . started attacking Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the incoming chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, as “radical,†“extreme,†and “out there.â€
The only thing radical, extreme and out there about Boxer is that she is not owned by the petroleum industry – unlike Bush, Cheney, Condi and others.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:25 amDid Hussein kick out weapons inspectors? yes
Comment by Fever
Sort of…but thats because they were informing US that Iraq HADNT WMDs? Or do you think would have invaded a country having WMD´s??? Ha ha. Dream on. Ask yourself how many WMD´s had Panama, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Grenade, etc…
Did Hussein use weapons of mass destruction? yes
November 15th, 2006 at 10:27 amOf course…now, where are they? Over thousands of dead kurds.
Toyota is about to become the world’s largest automaker.
Because you see having an industrial policy is a bad thing
November 15th, 2006 at 10:30 amI believe Saddam also let the inspectors back in and then Bush had them pulled because the battle plans had been put in motion.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:36 am#31
Well said. Also, the example that so many neoconservatives use comparing Americans who were killed in Vietnam- 58,000 -killed to those in Iraq- 3000 is so specious. Someone else correctly pointed out that there were less Americans killed in Vietnam over a four year period that have now been killed over that same period of time.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:42 amConservative staff members in the Senate have already started attacking Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the incoming chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, as “radical,†“extreme,†and “out there.†In one of her first “extreme†moves, Boxer plans to hold hearings on global warming.
Go Barbara! Go Barbara!
The more Conservative staff members wail the better you must be doing your job! Here’s an idea – go beyond just having hearings and push for real legislation. Obviously, it is most important to get something done. Getting to see them go into fits is just a bonus.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:51 amSomeone else correctly pointed out that there were less Americans killed in Vietnam over a four year period that have now been killed over that same period of time.
Well not entirely correctly, my numbers were from a time when it was still mainly military adivisors. Until 1964 there was less than 20K US troops in Vietnam, and no regular fighting forces worth mentioning until the landing of Marines in 1965 at Da Nang, once you get into regular army forces in 1966, you start to see higher deaths per year than total deaths so far in Iraq.
My point was to show that generally speaking comparisions of Iraq and Vietnam are poor at best.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:52 amI hope that when Bush inevitably lectures Vietnam’s leaders on “democracy”, “freedom” and other things, that they will tell him to f* off.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:59 amThe problem fever is that we all should have known better due to the lessons of Vietnam.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:00 amI can’t believe Boxer, what a moonbat, wanting to actually address environmental issues rather than completely deny them.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:02 amAbout those WMDs that Saddam DID have…
Didn’t Donald Rumsfeld help facilitate the sale of those mustard gas shells to Saddam – in order to help Iraq defeat Iran? So whos fault is it exactly that Saddam HAD those WMDs that he used on the Kurds?
November 15th, 2006 at 11:02 amFrom what I just read the general consensus on this site is that the Republicans are guilty for the Iraq war and Democrats are innocent because they were misled by Republicans?
If yes, what information do you have that Bush knew Iraq didn’t have WMDs? I mean, Hussein kicked out inspectors, used WMDs in the past, attempted to assassinate Bush Sr. and had invaded Kuwait. And Bush was given documents by the CIA that indicated Iraq had/was pursuing WMD program and even after given authorization to go to war, Bush continued to claim Iraq had WMDs. Seems to me both parties have blood on their hands despite having evidence to justify the war. The Democrat’s Iraq argument ultimately boils down to the position that Democrats have 20/20 hindsight and Republicans don’t.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:03 amFever:
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/15/wmd-irrelevant/
November 15th, 2006 at 11:06 amIn case anyone missed #9, from trueblue:
November 15th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Fever,
If you don’t like that link, just use “the Google” with the words “bush admits no wmd,” and see what comes up.
Run along…
November 15th, 2006 at 11:09 amZoo
bush admits no wmd
In Bush’s defense, he though he was ordering a burger with-out mustard or dill.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:13 amFrom Fever: The Democrat’s Iraq argument ultimately boils down to the position that Democrats have 20/20 hindsight and Republicans don’t.
You are correct there. Of course there is blood on both parties hands. Are you denying the party in power that pushed for this has less? The democrats are now pushing for a new direction. Something that wouldn’t or couldn’t be thought of from the other side of the isle.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:14 amIn Bush’s defense, he though he was ordering a burger with-out mustard or dill.
Comment by squegeeboo
Like I always say, Squeegy dear, it’s better to be a smartass than a dumbass. Your promotion stands…
November 15th, 2006 at 11:17 amFever,
you are so pre-Nov 7th! Those “talking points” you’ve just spewed most likely came from Rush/Hannity/Coulter circa 2005/early 2006.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:23 amIf yes, what information do you have that Bush knew Iraq didn’t have WMDs?
We haven’t had access to the information – before the war, Saddam released a document detailing his WMD programs, and gave it to Bush. Before giving it to the UN, Bush redacted ten thousand pages – from a fourteen thousand page document. So, perhaps we’ll finally get to see what’s in those redacted pages? Don’t count on it.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:25 amFever, SH had WMDs bought from Rumsfeld in the late 80’s. Any that were left in 2003, were deteriorated into uselessness. When SH gassed his own people with the weapons we supplied, we did not disapprove.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:25 amAs for throwing out the inspectors, it was W who told them to get out in early 2003 because the bombs would soon be falling. The inspectors were searching for evidence of the aleged WMDs and were finding nothing. (It is hard to prove a negative)
We had surveillance planes covering Iraq for years – providing very detailed photographs – so if trucks had carried the same alleged WMDs into neighboring countries, they would certainly have been spotted.
3,000 soldiers have died for a lie based on the greed for oil. (Bush has even blurted out that fact in public)
You must stop getting your news from FOX. They are making you stupid.
#38
“My point was to show that generally speaking comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq are poor at best.” That belief does not seem to take into account the biggest similarity that Iraq and Vietnam have, which is the fact that in Iraq, as in Vietnam, the citizens of that country will stop at nothing and will fight until their dying breath until the invader, the United States, has been driven from their soil. The United States apparently was too stupid to learn that lesson from Vietnam, which was that an invaded country was never going to rest until the United States was expelled from their country. The United States killed two to three million Vietnamese during that idiotic war but to the Vietnamese, in a sense, it did not matter, because they would have kept fighting until the mighty United States was defeated, which is exactly what happened those many years ago.
Again, that same thing is happening in Iraq. A recent poll revealed that 80 per cent of Iraqis are in favor of shooting at the American military. This will continue to happen until the U.S. government gets it through its head that it should start withdrawing American troops from that country as soon as possible. As in Vietnam, the U.S. has no right attempting to subjugate the Iraqis against their will and until they leave, more Americans will continue to get blown up and ripped apart for absolutely no legitimate reason.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:34 am#9 true blue
November 15th, 2006 at 11:36 amThat’s very interesting and damning of GWB, but TP is not letting me post a direct quote.
Exit Polls Do Not Match Vote Totals
15th of November 2006
by Jay Randal
The most nefarious trick the GOP used in the election was the suppression of Exit Polling data, which is the only way tp checkmate vote fraud, so the Press never reported on differences between Exit Polls and counts.
Numerous House and Senate races had discrepancies in Exit Polling data versus the actual tally outcomes, so that indicates the cloaking of fraud by the GOP, so there appears to have been a 5% vote switch to GOP.
For example: A Democrat candidate loses by 1 or 2%, but Exit Polling data claims the Dem should have won by 3 or 4%, so 5% switch of votes would give the seat to the Republican candidate by 1 to 2% vote margin.
Programming E-Vote machines to flip 5% of the votes can be done readily by manufacturer representatives, such as by Diebold personnel, or by clandestine GOP agents, so any investigations need to focus on agents.
How was it possible for Democrats to still win House, and Senate seats, since fraud occurred? 5% vote flip was not enough to cover unexpected voter turnout.
( Jay Randal, political activist and writer in Georgia, USA.)
PS: GOP tends to focus on just a few states each election cycle to engage in fraud. This year was Florida, Georgia, and Connecticut races.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:37 amOops, they just did.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:37 amthe other side of the isle.
Comment by hellinabucket
And that would be “Gilligan’s Isle”? :)
(Sorry, couldn’t resist. We all know you meant “aisle”. Obviously the “a” didn’t come out when you pressed it on your keyboard.)
November 15th, 2006 at 11:37 amSorry, the posts are all messed up for me today.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:39 amI think I will go watch Abizaid on C-Span, since I have the day off.
Why yes I did mean aisle but I like the unintended reference to isolation and banishment to an isle.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:45 amthe citizens of that country will stop at nothing and will fight until their dying breath until the invader, the United States, has been driven from their soil.
In Vietnam they wern’t trying to drive us from their soil, they were trying to take over the South, driving us out just happened to be a requirement for take over. We wern’t invaders so much as hired mercs for the South.
Your views also seem to ignore people such as the Kurds, who seem to have very little problems with us staying involved until the ’situation’ calms down enough.
which was that an invaded country was never going to rest until the United States was expelled from their country.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:49 amSouth Korea fought us out of their country?
#59- Mr. or Ms. Squegeeboo
In the examples you gave, South Vietnam and Korea, you again seem to be missing the point, which is that in both cases the United States had no business and no right attacking a country that was never remotely considered a threat to these United States. Your example of South Korea makes my point. More than fifty years after the U.S.-Korea “police action”, U.S. troops, over 35,000 of them, continue to remain in South Korea against the wishes of the Korean people. As for Iraq, most Iraqis across the board want the imperialist United States to stop occupying their country.
This concept should not be that difficult to grasp. Iraq does not belong, despite what so many people seem to believe, to the United States. The majority of Iraqis want the United States to stop occupying their country probably, in all likelihood, because they resent the fact that their country was invaded because of lies and because of daily atrocities that are committed against the Iraqis by the U.S. military. I suggest, that, since you do not seem to be aware of this, that you try reading the writings of, among others, independent journalist Dahr Jamail, who has described the killings and slaughter of innocent Iraqi civilians in places other than Baghdad and Fallujah. To quote a line from Burt Lancaster in the anti-war film The Train [1964], it just might help to “broaden your horizons.”
November 15th, 2006 at 1:03 pmErroll
More than fifty years after the U.S.-Korea “police actionâ€, U.S. troops, over 35,000 of them, continue to remain in South Korea against the wishes of the Korean people.
We are there to defend them from the Norks, something their gov’t understands, at this point we could prob. leave, but if we did, just wait for the complaints from the loss in revenue to local business’s that are supported by our troops, just like our bases in Europe.
Peace thru strength my friend, the only true peace.
in both cases the United States had no business and no right attacking a country that was never remotely considered a threat to these United States.
In Korea we were there at the request of the UN, and the South Koreans to defend them from the North, and in both cases as part of the containment policy in place to deal with the spread of communism, in Korea, it worked, at least partially, in Vietnam, not so much.
it just might help to “broaden your horizons.â€
My horizons are broad, I just happen to belong to a different political subset than you, I’m closely alligned with the real-politik, neo-libertarian, and natonalist viewoints, and I don’t mind having to break a few eggs to bake the cake, if you will. However in this case, it appears the cake might be falling in the oven, and it’s time to start discussing a backup dessert.
Also, its Mr. Squegeeboo :)
November 15th, 2006 at 1:32 pmIn Vietnam they wern’t trying to drive us from their soil, they were trying to take over the South,
Comment by squegeeboo — November 15, 2006 @ 11:49 am
I see, the Vietnamese were trying to reunify their country that had been divided in half by a colonial power. The gall! The horror! How dare they?
It was a civil war, fueled by the presence of a military force foreign to the region that the Vietnamese saw as a continutation of the French control over their country.
driving us out just happened to be a requirement for take over. We wern’t invaders so much as hired mercs for the South.
Yes, the Vietnamese wanted to take over their country. Is that a bad thing?
Invaders or mercenaries -take your pick. The difference is irrelevant when the bulk of the fighting was done directly by the US military and/or with US military hardware. The US wasn’t welcome in either scenario.
In Iraq as in Vietnam, the US is fighting a native military force that uses guerrilla warfare to make life as uncomfortable as possible for the occupiers. The parallels between the two are many.
November 15th, 2006 at 1:33 pmI see, the Vietnamese were trying to reunify their country that had been divided in half by a colonial power. The gall! The horror! How dare they?
Well, judging by the refuge rates between the north and south before the war, it would appear that people were happier in the south than the north, and would have prefered to stay divided.
It was a civil war, fueled by the presence of a military force foreign to the region
November 15th, 2006 at 1:47 pmFueled by multiple foreign military forces, the Soviets and Chinese constantly supplied the North, while instead we choose to use our own forces in the South, call it a civil war if you want, but it was really a proxy war, with out the conflict between the 1st and 2nd world, the US could have very well backed Ho Chi Minh all along.
In Iraq as in Vietnam, the US is fighting a native military force that uses guerrilla warfare to make life as uncomfortable as possible for the occupiers. The parallels between the two are many.
Actually, besides the US resolve faltering, and the ‘native’ military force being supplied by foreign interests, those are pretty much it…beyond that, culture, climate, topology, infrastructure(military, political, civilian, economic, take your pick) there are more differences than similarities.
Gregor Samsa at 1:33 pm
Well said. I do try to be as level-headed as possible but it angers me to no end when to someone like Mr. Squegeboo, war seems to be viewed simply as an abstract concept. Someone like him may, perhaps, not realize that actual war is not like playing a video game. In a combat zone, people and soldiers are, like in Vietnam, getting blown up and ripped apart for no valid reason. I tend to be suspicious of someone like our commenter who describes himself as someone with “nationalist viewpoints.” Far too many wars have been fought, both in this country and abroad, in order to further the agenda of countries which have had imperial designs upon those countries which were never a threat to an aggressor power, be it the former U.S.S.R. or Nazi Germany or the United States.
November 15th, 2006 at 2:05 pmErroll
angers me to no end when to someone like Mr. Squegeboo
Hey now, don’t get angry, it’s just abstract political discussion when it’s on the interwebs.
Someone like him may, perhaps, not realize that actual war is not like playing a video game. In a combat zone, people and soldiers are, like in Vietnam, getting blown up and ripped apart for no valid reason.
National interests can be a valid reason, depending on the person. WW2 most people will agree was full of valid reasons, Desert Storm, not as many people, but still a good amount, The Iraqi war, now your looking at a minority of the people.
Far too many wars have been fought, both in this country and abroad, in order to further the agenda of countries which have had imperial designs
And just as many have been fought for freedom, due to nationalism. The start of WW1 was due to the balkins wanting freedom, Algeria seperating from France? Nationalism.
Also, referencing Nazi Germany when discussing wars by aggressor powers just points to the need for pre-emption and a strong will against what you consider to be evil/wrong.
But you do have a point, nationalism is one of the easier tools of the Elites when it comes to mass manipulation, especially in the short term.
November 15th, 2006 at 2:37 pm#63
Then why did the South government block democratic elections from taking place?
November 15th, 2006 at 2:40 pmThen why did the South government block democratic elections from taking place?
Fear of an almost certain communist victory. Can’t even blame it on vote tampering by the communists, seeing how as the guy who got elected in South Vietnam definitely did vote tampering also, he won 98% of the vote while forming one of the South Vietnamese gov’ts. I suppose a large part of it would be voting for the guy who was most responsible for liberating them from the French.
But like I said, look at the refuge rates:
52,000 from south to north
450,000 from north to south.
And those are just the numbers for ‘54-’56, didn’t bother to look for any more.
Thats nearly a 1 to 9 ratio.
November 15th, 2006 at 2:55 pmRegarding new vehicle fuel efficiency: ThinkProgress should have also mentioned that it was increased production of SUVs and PUs that attributed to the fleet MPG levels. If you look at the Consumer Federation of America’s press release (http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/Gas_Mileage_Consumer_Attitudes_Manu_Performance_Press_Release111306.pdf) you will see that the fuel economy levels of passenger cars has increased among 12 of the 14 listed manufacturers. Why should TP have mentioned this? Because the Bloomberg article you link to does not.
November 15th, 2006 at 3:02 pmLame-Duck Hunter shoots self in political foot:
WASHINGTON – The Senate voted Tuesday to repeal a new law allowing big-game hunts to continue on a California public island in defiance of the National Park Service and a federal court settlement.
The measure was added by California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer to a military construction spending bill being completed by the Senate during Congress’ lame-duck session. It was approved by voice vote without debate.
The Feinstein-Boxer measure would overturn language about big game on Santa Rosa Island that was part of a defense programs bill signed by President Bush last month.
That provision, written by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., overturned a federal court settlement mandating that nonnative deer and elk on Santa Rosa Island be removed by 2011. Under the settlement, privately run hunts on the public island off the coast of Santa Barbara, part of Channel Islands National Park, were also supposed to end that year.
National Park Service officials opposed Hunter’s plan because they want to get nonnative game off the 53,000-acre island and restore native plant and animal populations. Congressional Democrats, who will assume control of the House and Senate in January, were also opposed.
“With this amendment we can ensure this beautiful part of the Channel Islands National Park remains open and its wildlife will be enjoyed by all for years to come,” said Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on military construction and veterans affairs.
Hunter’s plan is for disabled veterans to be able to hunt for free on the island — even though the disabled veterans group he initially enlisted for support, Paralyzed Veterans of America, decided the idea was unworkable and withdrew support.
“It’s disappointing that the senators are relentlessly trying to exterminate the deer and elk herds on Santa Rosa Island,” said Hunter spokesman Joe Kasper, adding that Hunter would work to keep his measure alive.
The House has already passed a version of the military construction bill that does not include language on Santa Rosa Island, so the Feinstein-Boxer language will have to survive House-Senate negotiations in the final days of the lame-duck session.
November 15th, 2006 at 3:11 pmit would appear that people were happier in the south than the north, and would have prefered to stay divided.
Comment by squegeeboo — November 15, 2006 @ 1:47 pm
That was up for the Vietnamese to decide, not the French or the Americans -wasn’t it? Unless, of course, you don’t think respecting a country’s sovereignty is important.
If you don’t, don’t forget that’s exactly the mindset that got the US in Iraq and in Vietnam to begin with.
call it a civil war if you want, but it was really a proxy war
Huh? Vietnamese killing other Vietnames is not a civil war? Both sides got their weaponry from whoever was willing to give it to them.
At any rate, the conflict was unnecesarily extended by the US because Vietnam was supposed to be reunified after the French left, following elections the US all by boycotted fearing a communist electoral victory.
beyond that, culture, climate, topology, infrastructure(military, political, civilian, economic, take your pick) there are more differences than similarities.
No kidding… I suppose you also feel compelled to point out that while the Vietnamese are Asian, Iraqis are mostly Arabs.
What I was trying to say, and thought was obvious, is that the nature of the two conflicts is very similar: It is about a native population (yes, without the quotes) waging a war against a foreign military force, and using guerrilla tactics to achieve that goal.
US ‘resolve’ needs not falter: The US should have no say in the internal affairs of either country.
November 15th, 2006 at 3:14 pm#65
It is difficult to rebut your arguments as it is next to impossible to know what your positions are. Most, if not all of them, are mired in ambiguity. On one post, you seem to justify the United States having invaded Vietnam, a country, again, which never posed, even remotely, a military threat to this country. while at #65 you seem to understand Algeria’s desire to break away from France ["Algeria seperating [sic] from France- Nationalism”]. Vietnam was engaging in nationalism by defending itself against the United States and France which is the same thing as what Algeria did against France.
My point, which you again failed to address, or perhaps can not, is that the Iraqis, like their predecessors against Great Britain following The Great War and the Afghanis fighting the Soviets, are defending their national interests against the United States. Why? To risk repetition again, because their country was invaded illegally by the United States and they remain occupied, illegally, by the United States.
Out of curiosity, the phrase you used at #61, “peace through strength”, did you happen to reference it from the novel 1984? That phrase makes about as much sense as another phrase that came from something called the Vietnam conflict, by an American officer who said “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
November 15th, 2006 at 3:31 pmAnd just as many [wars] have been fought for freedom, due to nationalism. The start of WW1 was due to the balkins wanting freedom, Algeria seperating from France? Nationalism.
Comment by squegeeboo — November 15, 2006 @ 2:37 pm
First, it’s the ‘Balkans’. The Balkans are a region, not a people. But I agree that the triggering event for WWI was about a group of Bosnians looking to gain their independence.
About Algeria, you are mostly correct except Algerians were not ’separating’ from France: They were fighting for their independence not for their secession. by the way, that is another exmaple of the native population successfully using guerrilla warfare to boot the foreigners out.
Also, referencing Nazi Germany when discussing wars by aggressor powers just points to the need for pre-emption and a strong will against what you consider to be evil/wrong.
Here is where things get sticky. Hitler used something similar to Bush’s “pre-emptive strike” doctrine to annex parts of Checkoslovakia, and to invade Poland and the Soviet Union. You see, Germany always claimed to be invading this country or the other in self-defence, or to protect ethnic Germans.
The UN Charter has provisions against “pre-emptive strikes” precisely for that precedent, and to forestall future unprovoked attacks by a dictator using phony arguments.
Or that was the idea, at least.
November 15th, 2006 at 3:32 pmThe US should have no say in the internal affairs of either country.
Sure we should, if it affects our national interests. Or, when it comes to bleeding heart type people, does that mean we should have ignored the balkins genocides, and continue to ignore Darfur? Maybe Queitly sweept the parts of the holocaust that occured with-in Germany under the carpet beacuse what germans did to Jew’s under their control is an internal affair? Or are we suddenly allowed to be involved in those internal affairs because those are ‘wrong’ but other things we involve ourselves in might not be ‘wrong’ according to a certain % of the population?
Vietnamese killing other Vietnames is not a civil war?
Well from a purely technical standpoint, you had one country trying to remain independent, and anouther one trying to reunify, where as a civil war is about 2 sides fighting for control of the entire country, so really it was more of a war of secession/independence that the south lost.
At any rate, the conflict was unnecesarily extended by the US because Vietnam was supposed to be reunified after the French left
November 15th, 2006 at 3:40 pmWell look at it from anouther angle, maybe the war was unnecesarily extended by the Communist powers helping the North, with out that, and our aid to the South, the South would have won quickly.
Erroll,
Thanks for the compliment. It’s not always easy to keep a cool head, but I figure if I post an angry comment I am losing the argument by default. I am also trying to help other like-minded people see through fallacious arguments; we will all run into them sooner or later.
I have learned a lot from reading the comments of others who have offered clear, factual rebuttals to the many talking points the trolls post over and over again. I am just trying to return the favor ;-)
November 15th, 2006 at 3:42 pm#70- Gregor Samsa
Well said. Some people like squegeeboo seem to be unable to comprehend that the United States should not, out of caprice, be invading and occupying those countries which were never deemed to have been a military threat to the citizens of this country.
November 15th, 2006 at 3:42 pmErroll
It is difficult to rebut your arguments as it is next to impossible to know what your positions are.
Ask you shall recieve, give me a list, and I’ll give you my views.
“peace through strengthâ€
Is it from 1984? Haven’t read it in years, but to me, what the phrase means, is that Peace can only happen as long as the evil/bad/enemy parties play nice. Now if you are more powerful than that group, they are less likely to cause major trouble, also, in the event they do cause trouble, it is much easier to deal with them and get back to peace.
are defending their national interests against the United States. Why? To risk repetition again, because their country was invaded illegally
So if we had invaded them ‘legally’ then they wouldn’t be resisting us? In my opinion, the Iraqis are resisting us because we failed to take control immediatly after removing Saddam, with a proper initial showing of police force, things would have been and would still be quieter, possibly even allowing us to not be there any more, also stupid decisions such as disbanding the Iraqi army, instead of using it for that initial showing of force, which would have also allowed a smaller american footprint in Iraq gave fresh recruits to the insurgents.
“We had to destroy the village in order to save it.â€
Depending on the mission objects that statement can make sense, if the objective was to liberate the village, not so much, if the objective was to stop it from falling into enemy hands for use as a base, well then, objective achieved.
you seem to justify the United States having invaded Vietnam, a country, again, which never posed, even remotely, a military threat to this country.
November 15th, 2006 at 3:53 pmWe never invaded North Vietnam, and the South Vietnamese rebels (viet-cong) were around before any US troop build-ups to begin with, and ceased to exist as a ‘native’ force after the Tet-Offensive. So what exactly did we invade, or what was the North protecting against, because clearly the South had no real issues with us, compared to their desire to remain free of the North. It was purely an agresive war on the part of the North.
Military threat? No. Political threat? Yes.
Sure we should, if it affects our national interests.
Comment by squegeeboo — November 15, 2006 @ 3:40 pm
So, if the US internal affairs affect, say, China, would you be ok with China funding presidential candidates? Sending weapons to anti-government militias?
does that mean we should have ignored the balkins genocides, and continue to ignore Darfur?
Genocides are crimes against humanity. A civil war isn’t. Pears. Apples.
Plus, the US cannot unilaterally decide to intervene even in a blatant ethnic cleansing campaing -like Sudan’s. The US is not the world’s police. Ever heard of the UN?
And before you go off on “the UN is ineffectual” or something like that, keep in mind that the UN is as effective as its members will let it be. The US, as a permanent Security Council member, has a big say on this type of situations.
Maybe Queitly sweept the parts of the holocaust that occured with-in Germany under the carpet beacuse what germans did to Jew’s under their control is an internal affair?
Huh? What do contents in history books have to do with a country’s internal affairs? Also, what was happening in Nazi Germany was ethnic cleansing, which later devolved into genocide. Were that to happen nowadays it would be a crime against humanity.
The UN can authorise an intervention in that case, but -again- the US cannot unilaterally decide to send in the Marines.
Or are we suddenly allowed to be involved in those internal affairs because those are ‘wrong’ but other things we involve ourselves in might not be ‘wrong’ according to a certain % of the population?
Strawman. See above. I won’t spend any more time on this one.
Well from a purely technical standpoint, you had one country trying to remain independent, and anouther one trying to reunify, where as a civil war is about 2 sides fighting for control of the entire country, so really it was more of a war of secession/independence that the south lost.
Didn’t you read my previous post? Vietnam was divided by French fiat, not on their own will. It was a case of divide and conquer. They were supposed to be reunified following the same elections the US bungled. That ‘independence’ you speak of was bogus from the start.
The Vietcong were SouthVietnamese, fighting to reunify their side with the North.
In fact, their will to ’secede’ (as you put it) was so weak, the SouthVietnamese army could not stand without substantial American support.
maybe the war was unnecesarily extended by the Communist powers helping the North, with out that, and our aid to the South, the South would have won quickly.
Huh? B-52s unloading tons of bombs couldn’t do the trick against a militia that didn’t even have heavy artillery. No amount of American military help could defat the Vietnamese insurgency.
And you still think the South ‘could have won quickly’? What planet do you live on?
November 15th, 2006 at 4:01 pmWow, looking over past posts, my grammer took a turn for the worst, time to start proof reading again.
Gregor Samsa
Also, what was happening in Nazi Germany was ethnic cleansing, which later devolved into genocide. Were that to happen nowadays it would be a crime against humanity.
If it is happening with in their country, then it’s an internal-affair, and according to you:The US should have no say in the internal affairs of either country.
Now maybe you didn’t mean for that to be as unequivocal as it came out, but it’s what you stated, in which case it stops being about apples and oranges, and starts being about fruit and fruit.
the SouthVietnamese army could not stand without substantial American support.
Perhaps because the North Vietnamese was standing with substantial Chinese and Soviet support, as well as being the invading force, which meant except for US bombing runs, the North could hurt the South’s infrastructure, but not the other way around.
No amount of American military help could defat the Vietnamese insurgency.
Tet Offensive. The Viet-Cong was basically destroyed, and when it finally began to operate, was mainly peopled by Northern agents, instead of Southern insurgents.
What do contents in history books have to do with a country’s internal affairs?
November 15th, 2006 at 4:18 pmSo if it’s big enough to make it into history, it stops being internal?
So, if the US internal affairs affect, say, China, would you be ok with China funding presidential candidates? Sending weapons to anti-government militias?
Depends, are they supporting the side I support, or the other side? Also, that would be an example of real-politiks, so why I might not be ok with it, I would understand why they did it, accept it as part of politics, and then try and leverage any influence I could to stopping or at least counter-balancing them (once again, assuming they were supporting the other side, not my side)
the US cannot unilaterally
So while your against genicide, your ok with no-one stopping them until the UN says to? Wouldn’t it be worth breaking the rules in that one case to stop it? To put it on a much smaller, less genocidal view, is it ok for a man to steal bread if his family is starving, or does he have to wait for a handout, even if it means one of them dying?
#76
This will, no doubt, be an another exercise in futility to attempt to point out to you that in what appears to be your basic premise, the Orwellian “peace through strength” is simply code for American imperialism. You seem to believe that American domination over other countries must be right because in some bizarre way you attempt to rationalize that there is a threat to America by some third world power and therefore that country must be invaded and occupied.
This leads to the next point, which is your listing all the reasons why the Iraqis are fighting the Americans while conveniently ignoring the fact that, again, their country is being illegally occupied [you certainly are right, their country is not being "legally" occupied, however illogical that reference is]. If the United States were invaded by another country, there would be pockets of resistance forming throughout the country in order to expel the invader. Again, the concept should not be all that difficult to grasp.
You seem to attempt to rationalize and justify what the U.S. did in Vietnam, discounting the effect the U.S. military had on the Vietnamese, while ignoring the fact the the United States, in their zeal to bomb the North Vietnamese back into the Stone Age, ending up killing 2 to 3 million Vietnamese people in the process. But I am sure to someone like you, those civilian casualties, like the Iraqi civilian casualties, can be simply seen as a comma, as our less than competent leader has phrased it, in the history books.
November 15th, 2006 at 4:39 pm[you certainly are right, their country is not being “legally†occupied, however illogical that reference is]
I was pointing out that you choose to use the term illegal, but even if the invasion was ‘legal’ (backed by the UN) there would still be resistance to the invasion, making the use of illegal unnecessary.
you attempt to rationalize that there is a threat to America by some third world power and therefore that country must be invaded and occupied.
I don’t think I’ve tried to defend the invasion of Iraq because of a threat to America, although there are things you could point to towards that aim, that have been shown to be false since the start of the war. My initial point, was that Vietnam shouldn’t be compared to Iraq, since then it’s spiraled to the point where now I’m just having fun arguing against different world views.
discounting the effect the U.S. military had on the Vietnamese
What of the effect of the US leaving? Come on now, I know you’ve seen the picture’s of the last hellicopters leaving the embassy, to cite one example. Which was prompted by us not just leaving, but also cutting off all military support, something the Chinese and Soviets didn’t feel the need to do once we started to back down.
“peace through strength†is simply code for American imperialism.
Seems like you have 3 options
1. peace thru weakness, at which point someone bigger and meaner than you gets rid of the peace part
2. peace thru equality, at which point, arms race anyone?
3. peace thru strength, not guranteed, but better than the other two.
Good night Gregor, Erroll, I’ll check back in later if I can, its been fun.
November 15th, 2006 at 5:01 pmIf it is happening with in their country, then it’s an internal-affair, and according to you:The US should have no say in the internal affairs of either country.
Comment by squegeeboo — November 15, 2006 @ 4:18 pm
You are being obtuse on purpose. Genocide is a crime against humanity, and because of that it is not simply an internal affair anymore.
Perhaps because the North Vietnamese was standing with substantial Chinese and Soviet support, as well as being the invading force
“Invade”? Now you are making less and less sense. How can a country invade itself? As I have stated repeatedly, Vietnam was supposed to be reunified anyway. As matter of fact, the division was to be temporary. That inevitability was recognised in the accords that created a South and a North Vietnam.
American meddling impeded that reunification, and prolongued a bloody conflict.
Tet Offensive. The Viet-Cong was basically destroyed, and when it finally began to operate, was mainly peopled by Northern agents, instead of Southern insurgents.
It was crippled, not destroyed. Even when an insurgency is crippled at some point, it can reorganise and eventually win their independence -as was the case in Algeria.
At any rate, the US could not deliver a decisive military defeat during the duration of the conflict, which was my larger point.
So if it’s big enough to make it into history, it stops being internal?
This one is beyond asinine. You’ve outdone yourself.
Also, that would be an example of real-politiks, so why I might not be ok with it, I would understand why they did it
I didn’t ask whether or not your intellect can comprehend the facts. I asked if you were ok with thought another country meddling in US elections, or other internal affairs. I want to know if you would be a collaborator of the occupation or if you would fight for your country -real politick notwithstanding.
So while your against genicide, your ok with no-one stopping them until the UN says to?
I am willing to take that risk because that is what the UN is for.
Without the UN, we would go back at least 50 years in terms of legal, social, development, back to a time when a government could decide to invade, murder, kill anyone at will with little or no consequences because there was no forum where all other nations could come to an agreement an take coordinated action.
Wouldn’t it be worth breaking the rules in that one case to stop it?
If the rules have too many exceptions, then there is no point in even having rules.
is it ok for a man to steal bread if his family is starving, or does he have to wait for a handout, even if it means one of them dying?
This is not a moral equivalent to murder, let alone mass murder, Squeegee.
November 15th, 2006 at 5:23 pmGregor Samsa
If I can put forth a suggestion, it is probably impossible to get through to someone like squegeeboo. I have finally come to this realization after I tried to point out to him how morally bankrupt it was, to say the least, for the U.S. to have caused the deaths of 2 to 3 million Vietnamese people. He tried to excuse this by somehow equating that with those Vietnamese who later died after the U.S. finally left that country and by also conveniently ignoring those Americans in the military who died, like the ones in Iraq are doing, for a less than noble cause.
Dealing with him reminds me of the classic film Twelve Angry Men. There is a scene where the eldest juror is attempting to speak to another juror by laying out a reasoned argument, who is played by Jack Warden. Jack Warden’s character, juror #7, I believe, walks away from the idealistic juror. The elderly juror, #9, I believe, tells # 7 that he is talking to him but his entreaties fall upon deaf ears. That is when juror #8, played by Henry Fonda, tells juror #9 [concerning juror #7]: “He can’t hear you. He never will.”
What is bizarre and illogical about Squegeeboo is that he seems willing to admit that invading Iraq may have been a mistake but is not willing to concede that invading Vietnam was a mistake costing thousands of American lives and millions of Vietnamese killed, all due to needless American aggression.
November 15th, 2006 at 6:00 pmIf I can put forth a suggestion, it is probably impossible to get through to someone like squegeeboo.
Comment by Erroll — November 15, 2006 @ 6:00 pm
You know, I have realised that too. That is why I don’t get angry anymore.
I do believe, however, that certain claims should not remain unchallenged, and that specious reasoning should be noted. Without going into a long discussion, much less a flame war, I try to do just that.
Maybe I am wrong but I think it helps me keep the facts clear in my mind in case I run into someone who makes a similar claim (which I have), and makes me a better debator. I also seek to benefit others in this forum who might be interested in sharing their opinion, and hope it encourages them to share their knowledge.
In short, I do it for the like-minded hoping we can all learn from each other. I’ve given up on the trolls already.
November 15th, 2006 at 6:15 pmGregor
Genocide is a crime against humanity, and because of that it is not simply an internal affair anymore.
If it is contained within a country, it is an internal affair, it dosn’t matter if it’s genocide, civil-war, electing a president, or constructing a power-grid it is INTERNAL. Something that you feel other countries shouldn’t be involved in, you don’t get to make exceptions for one interal affair over anouther, you even state your opinion on exceptions:
If the rules have too many exceptions, then there is no point in even having rules
I am willing to take that risk because that is what the UN is for.
For some one who supposidly cares about the deaths of civilians I can’t believe you would ever admit to this. Your willing to allow genocide to continue beacuse the UN won’t agree to stop it. That’s just amazing. So if your neighbor was being assulted, would you not help him, because the police didn’t tell you to?
It was crippled, not destroyed.
Strange, check out this bit thats easily found, either exactly or paraphrased thru google:
The Americans and South Vietnamese, initially surprised by the scope and scale of the offensive, quickly responded and inflicted severe casualties on their enemy (the NLF was essentially eliminated as a fighting force, the places of the dead within its ranks were increasingly filled by North Vietnamese).
It would appear historians disagree with you on what happened to the Viet Cong.
This is not a moral equivalent to murder, let alone mass murder, Squeegee.
Perhaps not, but what’s the moral equivalent to allowing mass murder to happen, because you haven’t been told specifically to stop it?
I asked if you were ok with thought another country meddling in US elections, or other internal affairs.
And I answered you, it depends on how they are meddling, are they helping my side of the debate/argument/war/whatever that my country is currently in, if yes, then I have no real problems with them ‘meddling’ or ‘interfering’ or whatever you want to call it, if no, then I would do what ever I could to destroy, or otherwise negate their interferance, and it’s really that simple of an answer, just like I stated above.
I’ve given up on the trolls already.
If it makes you feel any better, we’ve given up on turning you conservative :)
Erroll
the U.S. to have caused the deaths of 2 to 3 million Vietnamese people.
Running the numbers aviable puts the deaths that can be laid directly on the head of US forces much lower than that….so I can only assume your counting any death at all from the conflict (in which case your still nearly 200% the offical estimates) Why arn’t the North Vietnamese responsible for any of those deaths? Or the Soviets or Chinese for supplying them, why must the US always be the first, and last country to be blamed for engagements such as Vietnam? Perhaps trying to stop the spread of communism, and trying to keep the world safe for democracy and capatalism was worth their deaths, or perhaps trying to defend the people living in South Vietnam from the North, nearly 500K of whom used to be living in the North until they became refuges, anouther factor you seem to ignore or dismiss out right. Are you willing to abandon allies and friends, and enemies of your enemies that quickly because you view your side in the wrong?
Would you allow your friend to be beaten up if you knew he deserved it, or would you do what you could to stop him from getting hurt?
but is not willing to concede that invading Vietnam
Vietnam was not invaded, rather South Vietnam was defended by American troops.
“He can’t hear you. He never will.â€
Thats what happens when people of nearly opposite view points talk, its why so many political issues are so hard to reach an agreement on, don’t you ever think that the ‘trolls’ people like me and Tundra, get together and share the same thoughts you seem to about how think people on the other side are, and how their view-points just don’t mesh with the real world on certain areas? You guys need to understand that our view points are because we are stupid, or refuse to see the obvious ‘truths’ that are aviable to progressives everywhere, but that maybe we see the same facts on the ground and use them to come to different conclusions. This isn’t Math, there is no completly correct solution, and until one has been tried, you can’t show that it is wrong, all you can do is state why you ‘feel’ it is wrong, and hope you can swing enough people to your side.
Ok, I’m off to bed now, if either of you see this, feel free to bring anything up in tomorows thinkfast, enjoy your night!
November 15th, 2006 at 11:34 pmThe Agenda of Islam – A War Between Civilizations
By Professor Moshe Sharon
(TI) The war has started a long time ago between two civilizations – between the civilization based on the Bible and between the civilization based on the Koran. And this must be clear.
There is no Fundamental Islam
Fundamentalism is a word that came from the heart of the Christian religion. It means faith that goes by the word of the Bible. Fundamental Christianity, or going with the Bible, does not mean going around and killing people. There is no fundamental Islam. There is only Islam full stop. The question is how the Koran is interpreted.
All of a sudden we see that the greatest interpreters of Islam are politicians in the western world. They know better than all the speakers in the mosques, all those who deliver terrible sermons against anything that is either Christian or Jewish. These western politicians know that there is good Islam and bad Islam. They know even how to differentiate between the two, except that none of them know how to read a word of Arabic.
The Language of Islam
You see, so much is covered by politically correct language that, in fact, the truth has been lost. For example, when we speak about Islam in the west, we try to use our own language and terminology. We speak about Islam in terms of democracy and fundamentalism, in terms of parliamentarism and all kinds of terms, which we take from our own dictionary. One of my professors and one of the greatest orientalists in the world says that doing this is like a cricket reporter describing a cricket game in baseball terms. We cannot use for one culture or civilization the language of another. For Islam, you’ve got to use the language of Islam.
Driving Principles of Islam
Let me explain the principles that are driving the religion of Islam. Of course, every Moslem has to acknowledge the fact that there is only one God.
But it’s not enough to say that there is only one God. A Moslem has to acknowledge the fact that there is one God and Mohammed is his prophet. These are the fundamentals of the religion that without them, one cannot be a Moslem.
But beyond that, Islam is a civilization. It is a religion that gave first and foremost a wide and unique legal system that engulfs the individual, society and nations with rules of behaviour. If you are Moslem, you have to behave according to the rules of Islam which are set down in the Koran and which are very different than the teachings of the Bible.
The Bible
Let me explain the difference.
The Bible is the creation of the spirit of a nation over a very, very long period, if we talk from the point of view of the scholar, and let me remain scholarly. But there is one thing that is important in the Bible. It leads to salvation. It leads to salvation in two ways.
In Judaism, it leads to national salvation – not just a nation that wants to have a state, but a nation that wants to serve God. That’s the idea behind the Hebrew text of the Bible.
The New Testament that took the Hebrew Bible moves us toward personal salvation. So we have got these two kinds of salvation, which, from time to time, meet each other.
But the key word is salvation. Personal salvation means that each individual is looked after by God, Himself, who leads a person through His word to salvation. This is the idea in the Bible, whether we are talking about the Old or the New Testament. All of the laws in the Bible, even to the minutest ones, are, in fact directed toward this fact of salvation.
Secondly, there is another point in the Bible, which is highly important. This is the idea that man was created in the image of God. Therefore, you don’t just walk around and obliterate the image of God. Many people, of course, used Biblical rules and turned them upside down. History has seen a lot of massacres in the name of God and in the name of Jesus. But as religions, both Judaism and Christianity in their fundamentals speak about honouring the image of God and the hope of salvation. These are the two basic fundamentals.
The Essence of Islam
Now let’s move to the essence of Islam. Islam was born with the idea that it should rule the world.
Let’s look, then, at the difference between these three religions. Judaism speaks about national salvation – namely that at the end of the story, when the world becomes a better place, Israel will be in its own land, ruled by its own king and serving God. Christianity speaks about the idea that every single person in the world can be saved from his sins, while Islam speaks about ruling the world. I can quote here in Arabic, but there is no point in quoting Arabic, so let me quote a verse in English. “Allah sent Mohammed with the true religion so that it should rule over all the religions.”
The idea, then, is not that the whole world would become a Moslem world at this time, but that the whole world would be subdued under the rule of Islam.
When the Islamic empire was established in 634 AD, within seven years – 640 – the core of the empire was created. The rules that were taken from the Koran and from the tradition that was ascribed to the prophet Mohammed, were translated into a real legal system. Jews and Christians could live under Islam provided they paid poll tax and accepted Islamic superiority. Of course, they had to be humiliated. And Jews and Christians living under Islam are humiliated to this very day.
Mohammed Held That All the Biblical Prophets Were Moslems
Mohammed did accept the existence of all the Biblical prophets before him. However he also said that all these prophets were Moslems. Abraham was a Moslem. In fact, Adam himself was the first Moslem. Isaac and Jacob and David and Solomon and Moses and Jesus were all Moslems, and all of them had writings similar to the Koran. Therefore, world history is Islamic history because all the heroes of history were Moslems.
Furthermore, Moslems accept the fact that each of these prophets brought with him some kind of a revelation. Moses, brought the Taurat, which is the Torah, and Jesus brought the Ingeel, which is the Evangelion or Gospel – namely the New Testament.
The Bible versus the Koran
Why then is the Bible not similar to the Koran?
Mohammed explains that the Jews and Christians forged their books. Had they not been changed and forged, they would have been identical to the Koran. But because Christians and Jews do have some truth, Islam concedes that they cannot be completely destroyed by war [for now].
Nevertheless, the laws are very clear – Jews and Christians have no rights whatsoever to independent existence. They can live under Islamic rule provided they keep to the rules that Islam promulgates for them.
Islamic Rule and Jihad
What happens if Jews and Christians don’t want to live under the rules of Islam? Then Islam has to fight them and this fighting is called Jihad. Jihad means war against those people who don’t want to accept the Islamic superior rule. That’s jihad. They may be Jews; they may be Christians; they may be Polytheists. But since we don’t have too many Polytheists left, at least not in the Middle East – their war is against the Jews and Christians.
A few days ago, I received a pamphlet that was distributed in the world by bin Laden. He calls for jihad against America as the leader of the Christian world, not because America is the supporter of Israel, but because Americans are desecrating Arabia with their filthy feet. There are Americans in Arabia where no Christians should be. In this pamphlet there is not a single word about Israel. Only that Americans are desecrating the home of the prophet.
Two Houses
The Koran sees the world as divided into two – one part which has come under Islamic rule and one part which is supposed to come under Islamic rule in the future. There is a division of the world which is very clear. Every single person who starts studying Islam knows it. The world is described as Dar al-Islam (the house of Islam) – that’s the place where Islam rules – and the other part which is called Dar al-Harb – the house of war. Not the “house of non-Muslims,” but the “house of war.” It is this house of war which as to be, at the end of time, conquered. The world will continue to be in the house of war until it comes under Islamic rule. This is the norm. Why? Because Allah says it’s so in the Koran. God has sent Mohammed with the true religion in order that the truth will overcome all other religions.
Islamic Law
Within the Islamic vision of this world, there are rules that govern the lives of the Moslems themselves, and these rules are very strict. In fundamentals, there are no differences between schools of law.
However, there are four streams of factions within Islam with differences between them concerning the minutiae of the laws. All over the Islamic world, countries have favored one or another of these schools of laws. The strictest school of law is called Hanbali, mainly coming out of Saudi Arabia. There are no games there, no playing around with the meanings of words. If the Koran speaks about war, then it’s war.
There are various perspectives in Islam with different interpretations over the centuries. There were good people that were very enlightened in Islam that tried to understand things differently. They even brought traditions from the mouth of the prophet that women and children should not be killed in war.
These more liberal streams do exist, but there is one thing that is very important for us to remember. The Hanbali school of law is extremely strict, and today this is the school that is behind most of the terrorist powers. Even if we talk about the existence of other schools of Islamic law, when we’re talking about fighting against the Jews, or fighting against the Christian world led by America, it is the Hanbali school of law that is being followed.
Islam and Territory
This civilization created one very important, fundamental rule about territory. Any territory that comes under Islamic rule cannot be de-Islamized. Even if at one time or another, the [non-Moslem] enemy takes over the territory that was under Islamic rule, it is considered to be perpetually Islamic.
This is why whenever you hear about the Arab/Israeli conflict, you hear – territory, territory, territory. There are other aspects to the conflict, but territory is highly important.
The Christian civilization has not only been seen as a religious opponent, but as a dam stopping Islam from achieving its final goal for which it was created.
Islam was created to be the army of God, the army of Allah. Every single Moslem is a soldier in this army. Every single Moslem that dies in fighting for the spread of Islam is a shaheed (martyr) no matter how he dies, because – and this is very important – this is an eternal word between the two civilizations. It’s not a war that stops. This war is there because it was created by Allah. Islam must be the ruler. This is a war that will not end.
Islam and Peace
Peace in Islam can exist only within the Islamic world; peace can only be between Moslem and Moslem.
With the non-Moslem world or non-Moslem opponents, there can be only one solution – a cease fire until Moslems can gain more power. It is an eternal war until the end of days. Peace can only come if the Islamic side wins. The two civilizations can only have periods of cease-fires. And this idea of cease-fire is based on a very important historical precedent, which, incidentally, Yasser Arafat referred to when he spoke in Johannesburg after he signed the Oslo agreement with Israel.
Let me remind you that the document speaks of peace – you wouldn’t believe that you are reading! You would think that you were reading some science fiction piece. I mean when you read it, you can’t believe that this was signed by Israelis who are actually acquainted with Islamic policies and civilization.
A few weeks after the Oslo agreement was signed, Arafat went to Johannesburg, and in a mosque there he made a speech in which he apologized, saying, “Do you think I signed something with the Jews which is contrary to the rules of Islam?” (I have obtained a copy of Arafat’s recorded speech so I heard it from his own mouth.) Arafat continued, “That’s not so. I’m doing exactly what the prophet Mohammed did.”
Whatever the prophet is supposed to have done becomes a precedent. What Arafat was saying was, “Remember the story of Hodaybiya.” The prophet had made an agreement there with the tribe of Kuraish for 10 years. But then he trained 10,000 soldiers and within two years marched on their city of Mecca. He, of course, found some kind of pretext.
Thus, in Islamic jurisdiction, it became a legal precedent which states that you are only allowed to make peace for a maximum of 10 years. Secondly, at the first instance that you are able, you must renew the jihad [thus breaking the "peace" agreement].
In Israel, it has taken over 50 years in this country for our people to understand that they cannot speak about [permanent] peace with Moslems. It will take another 50 years for the western world to understand that they have got a state of war with the Islamic civilization that is virile and strong. This should be understood: When we talk about war and peace, we are not talking in Belgium, French, English, or German terms. We are talking about war and peace in Islamic terms.
Cease-fire as a Tactical Choice
What makes Islam accept cease-fire? Only one thing – when the enemy is too strong. It is a tactical choice.
Sometimes, he may have to agree to a cease-fire in the most humiliating conditions. It’s allowed because Mohammed accepted a cease-fire under humiliating conditions. That’s what Arafat said to them in Johannesburg. When western policy makers hear these things, they answer, “What are you talking about? You are in the Middle Ages. You don’t understand the mechanisms of politics.”
Which mechanisms of politics? There are no mechanisms of politics where power is. And I want to tell you one thing – we haven’t seen the end of it, because the minute a radical Moslem power has atomic, chemical or biological weapons, they will use it. I have no doubt about that.
Now, since we face war and we know that we cannot get more than an impermanent cease-fire, one has to ask himself what is the major component of an Israeli/Arab cease-fire. It is that the Islamic side is weak and your side is strong. The relations between Israel and the Arab world in the last 50 years since the establishment of our State has been based only on this idea, the deterrent power.
Wherever You Have Islam, You Will Have War
The reason that we have what we have in Yugoslavia and other places is because Islam succeeded into entering these countries. Wherever you have Islam, you will have war. It grows out of the attitude of Islamic civilization.
What are the poor people in the Philippines being killed for? What’s happening between Pakistan and India?
Islamic Infiltration
Furthermore, there is another fact that must be remembered. The Islamic world has not only the attitude of open war, but there’s also war by infiltration.
One of the things which the western world is not paying enough attention to is the tremendous growth of Islamic power in the western world. What happened in America and the Twin Towers is not something that came from the outside. And if America doesn’t wake up, one day the Americans will find themselves in a chemical war and most likely in an atomic war – inside the U.S.
End of Days
It is highly important to understand how a civilization sees the end of days. In Christianity and in Judaism, we know exactly what is the vision of the end of days.
In Judaism, it is going to be as in Isaiah – peace between nations, not just one nation, but between all nations. People will not have any more need for weapons and nature will be changed – a beautiful end of days and the kingdom of God on earth.
Christianity goes as far as Revelation to see a day that Satan himself is obliterated. There are no more powers of evil. That’s the vision.
I’m speaking now as a historian. I try to understand how Islam sees the end of days. In the end of days, Islam sees a world that is totally Moslem, completely Moslem under the rule of Islam. Complete and final victory.
Christians will not exist, because according to many Islamic traditions, the Moslems who are in hell will have to be replaced by somebody and they’ll be replaced by the Christians.
The Jews will no longer exist, because before the coming of the end of days, there is going to be a war against the Jews where all Jews should be killed. I’m quoting now from the heart of Islamic tradition, from the books that are read by every child in school. The Jews will all be killed. They’ll be running away and they’ll be hiding behind trees and rocks, and on that day Allah will give mouths to the rocks and trees and they will say, “Oh Moslem come here, there is a Jew behind me, kill him.” Without this, the end of days cannot come. This is a fundamental of Islam.
Is There a Possibility to End This Dance of War?
The question which we in Israel are asking ourselves is what will
happen to our country? Is there a possibility to end this dance of war?
The answer is, “No. Not in the foreseeable future.” What we can do is reach a situation where for a few years we may have relative quiet.
But for Islam, the establishment of the state of Israel was a reverse of Islamic history. First, Islamic territory was taken away from Islam by Jews. You know by now that this can never be accepted, not even one meter. So everyone who thinks Tel Aviv is safe is making a grave mistake. Territory, which at one time was dominated by Islamic rule, now has become non-Moslem. Non-Moslems are independent of Islamic rule; Jews have created their own independent state. It is anathema.
And (this is the worse) Israel, a non-Moslem state, is ruling over Moslems. It is unthinkable that non-Moslems should rule over Moslems.
I believe that Western civilization should hold together and support each other. Whether this will happen or not, I don’t know. Israel finds itself on the front lines of this war. It needs the help of its sister civilization. It needs the help of America and Europe. It needs the help of the Christian world. One thing I am sure about, this help can be given by individual Christians who see this as the road to salvation.
APPENDIX: Ezra HaLevi, “Islamic History Expert: Moslem Peace with Israel? Never!” Arutz-Sheva September 15, 2006, http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=1120660
Islam History Professor Moshe Sharon of Hebrew University told a counter-terrorism conference, “There is no possibility of peace between Israel and the Palestinians whatsoever – ever.”
Sharon, speaking at the annual conference of Herzliya’s Counter Terrorism Institute, said that Iran is dead serious about obtaining and using nuclear weapons in order to bring about its vision of an Islamic End of Days.
The veteran expert on Islam says that Western officials fail to grasp that the Arab and Islamic world truly see Israel’s establishment as a “reversal of history” and are therefore unable to ever accept peaceful relations with it. From Moslems’ perspective, “Islamic territory was taken away from Islam by Jews. You know by now that this can never be accepted, not even one meter. So everyone who thinks Tel Aviv is safe is making a grave mistake. Territory which at one time was dominated by Islamic rule, now has become non-Moslem. Non-Moslems are independent of Islamic rule and Jews have created their own independent state. It is anathema. Worse, Israel, a non-Moslem state, is ruling over Moslems. It is unthinkable that non-Moslems should rule over Moslems.”
Sharon dismissed various peace treaties signed by Moslem and Arab officials over the years as “pieces of paper, parts of tactics and strategies… with no meaning.”
Sharon’s assessment focused on the danger posed by Iran. From studying Iranian culture, literature, newspapers, broadcasts and interviews with major players in the Islamic regime, Sharon concludes that a deep belief in a Shiite messiah is at the root of Iran’s nuclear project. “They truly believe that the Shiite messiah, the 12th Imam (also known as the Mahdi), is here, and that he will reveal himself. What moves the Iranian government and leadership today is first and foremost the wish to bring about the 12th Imam.”
Addressing the theological doctrine of how exactly the this Messiah will be revealed, Sharon explained: “How will they bring him? Through an apocalypse. He (the Mahdi) needs a war. He cannot come into this world without an Armageddon. He wants an Armageddon. The earlier we understand this the better. Ahmadinejad wants nuclear weapons for this!”
Sharon has in the past insisted that the Western world was engaging in great folly by differentiating between radical and peaceful Islam. “All of a sudden we see that the greatest interpreters of Islam are politicians in the Western world,” he wrote sarcastically. “They know better than all the speakers in the mosques, all those who deliver terrible sermons against anything that is either Christian or Jewish. These Western politicians know that there is good Islam and bad Islam. They know even how to differentiate between the two – except that none of them know how to read a word of Arabic.”
“The difference between Judaism, Christianity and Islam is as follows: Judaism speaks about national salvation – namely, that at the end of the story, when the world becomes a better place, Israel will be in its own land, ruled by its own king and serving G-d. Christianity speaks about the idea that every single person in the world can be saved from his sins, while Islam speaks about ruling the world. I can quote here in Arabic, but there is no point in quoting Arabic, so let me quote a verse in English: ‘Allah sent Mohammed with the true religion so that it should rule over all the religions.’
“The idea, then, is not that the whole world would necessarily become Moslem at this time, but that the whole world would be subdued under the rule of Islam.”
That, Sharon insists, is the plan, in black-and-white, of the Iranian regime.
“This is why [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad seeks nuclear weapons,” he emphasized. “The faster we realize this, the better.”
Thought this was a well done primer on Islam…for those who haven’t taken the time to read the Koran or study the Moslem world.
November 16th, 2006 at 5:48 amThe Culture of Jihad (1:26) http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/cultureofjihad.htm
How Jihad is taught and praised in Arab classrooms.
Hitler & The Mufti (0:56) http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/hitlerandthemufti.htm
The historic links between the Nazi leader and radical Islamic ideology.
The Media Of Terrorism (1:33)http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/mediaofterrorism.htm
How a pervasive, propaganda-based Arab media teaches hatred to adults and children alike.
The War Against The West (1:40) http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/waragainstwest.htm
Radical Islam is waging a war against western culture and Judeo-Christian values.
November 16th, 2006 at 5:51 amSaddam Closer To Bomb Than Anyone Thought
Filed under War On Terror, News
The New Yorks times confirms that in 2002 Saddam Hussein’s “scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away:â€
Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990’s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.
Had the United States not eliminated this threat, today we would be facing a nuclear armed Iraq and possibly a nuclear armed Iran. Well, there is your talking point Tony Snow.
From National Review:
I’m sorry, did the New York Times just put on the front page that IRAQ HAD A NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM AND WAS PLOTTING TO BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB?
What? Wait a minute. The entire mantra of the war critics has been “no WMDs, no WMDs, no threat, no threatâ€, for the past three years solid. Now we’re being told that the Bush administration erred by making public information that could help any nation build an atomic bomb.
Let’s go back and clarify: IRAQ HAD NUCLEAR WEAPONS PLANS SO ADVANCED AND DETAILED THAT ANY COUNTRY COULD HAVE USED THEM.
I think the Times editors are counting on this being spun as a “Boy, did Bush screw up†meme; the problem is, to do it, they have to knock down the “there was no threat in Iraq†meme, once and for all. Because obviously, Saddam could have sold this information to anybody, any other state, or any well-funded terrorist group that had publicly pledged to kill millions of Americans and had expressed interest in nuclear arms. You know, like, oh… al-Qaeda.
The New York Times just tore the heart out of the antiwar argument, and they are apparently completely oblivous to it.
The antiwar crowd is going to have to argue that the information somehow wasn’t dangerous in the hands of Saddam Hussein, but was dangerous posted on the Internet. It doesn’t work. It can’t be both no threat to America and yet also somehow a threat to America once it’s in the hands of Iran. Game, set, and match.
Blue Crab Boulevard
Let me put this another way: You cannot simultaneously hold the position that Saddam did not have WMD programs and that he had advanced knowledge of nuclear weapons that would be of use to Iran. You cannot simultaneously believe Iran has a peaceful nuclear program and a need for advanced knowledge of nuclear weapons.
This may be a surprise too far if it was intended to damage Bush.
Flopping Aces
I find it funny the lengths the NYT’s will go to in trying to destroy the Bush Presidency, and then shooting themselves in the foot….I mean WHO are they to question the release of sensitive information?
Captain Ed has much more with an awesome post: Here is just a bit.
This is apparently the Times’ November surprise, but it’s a surprising one indeed. The Times has just authenticated the entire collection of memos, some of which give very detailed accounts of Iraqi ties to terrorist organizations. Just this past Monday, I posted a memo which showed that the Saddam regime actively coordinated with Palestinian terrorists in the PFLP as well as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. On September 20th, I reposted a translation of an IIS memo written four days after 9/11 that worried the US would discover Iraq’s ties to Osama bin Laden.
It doesn’t end there with the Times, either. In a revelation buried far beneath the jump, the Times acknowledges that the UN also believed Saddam to be nearing development of nuclear weapons:
AJ Strata notes:
That is why none of this information is critical to Iran. Clinton gave them the design to the hardest part of making a nuke – the trigger. He did it in 2000. Of course the NY Times fails to mention any of that. I guess to journalism majors, the material looked really complex and scary. I would wager nothing in these documents could not be found in college text books. We do train people to deal with nuclear reactors and weapons to some level. I have no problem with a review and double checkon the material – makes sense.
But I guess the NY Times is also now admitting Iraq had WMD capabilities! I mean, if raq had designs helpful to Iran then Iraq was ahead of Iran in gaining a nuclear weapon. It is a good thing we grabbed this information before Saddam shared it with Iran and Al Qaeda.
Washington, D.C. – Much is being said and written these days about how the war in Iraq resembles the war in Vietnam. The theme began during the 2004 presidential campaign with Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry describing Iraq as a “quagmire†and demanding a “date certain†for a U.S. pull-out. Purveyors of the “news†in our so-called mainstream media picked up the beat – though many of them are too young to know anything more about Vietnam than what they learned from a movie. The “Vietnam déjà vu†howl is now in full cry. But it’s a myth.
Having now spent nearly as much time in Iraq as I did on my first “tour†of Vietnam in 1968-69, it’s readily apparent that the parallels between the two wars are practically non-existent – on the battlefield. In the press and politics – it’s a different matter. The barons of bombast have decided that Iraq equals Vietnam. Those who make this argument are ignoring some very inconvenient facts.
Most importantly, the adversaries confronted in both wars are radically dissimilar. In Vietnam, U.S. troops faced nearly a quarter of a million conscripted but well trained, disciplined and equipped North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regulars and upwards of 100,000 highly organized Viet Cong (VC) insurgents on a constant basis from 1966 onward. Both the NVA and the VC “irregulars†were well indoctrinated in communist ideology, received direct aid from the Soviet Union, Communist China and the Warsaw Pact and benefited from logistics and politico-military support networks in neighboring countries. During major campaigns against U.S. and South Vietnamese forces – of which there were many each year – both the NVA and VC responded to centralized command and control directed by authorities in Hanoi. None of that is true of Iraq.
In the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, enemy combatants are a combination of disparate Sunni Jihadi-terrorists, disenfranchised Ba’athists, Shia militias aligned with Iran, fanatical foreign Wahhabi Mujahadeen, Muslim Brotherhood-supported radicals and well-armed, hyper-violent criminal gangs, often with tribal connections that are stronger than any ideological, religious or political affiliations. Though many Jihadis receive indoctrination, munitions and refuge from a network of mosques and sectarian Islamic groups, centralized command, control and logistics support is virtually non-existent. Operating in small independent “cells†instead of organized, disciplined military units, the enemy in Mesopotamia has no ability to mount any kind of protracted offensive against U.S. or even lightly-armed Iraqi government forces. Increasingly dependent on improvised explosive devices and suicide-bomb attacks to inflict casualties, the opposition in Iraq is more “anarchy†than “insurgency.â€
The second great fable about the war in Iraq is the horrific casualty rate. This is always the most difficult aspect of any war to address for all comparisons seem cynical. For those of us who have held dying soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines in our arms it is particularly painful. Yet, it is one of the oft-cited reasons for why we were “forced†to get out of Vietnam – and why we are once again being urged by the media to “end the bloodshed†in Iraq. Here’s a reality check.
Over the course of the entire Vietnam War, the “average†rate at which Americans died as a consequence of armed combat was about 15 per day. In 1968-69, when my brother and I served as Rifle Platoon and Infantry Company Commanders – he in the Army and I in the Marines – 39 Americans died every day in the war zone. In Iraq, the “kill rate†for U.S. troops is 2.06 per day.
During the 1968 “Tet Offensive†in Vietnam there were more than 2,100 U.S. casualties per week. In Iraq, the U.S. casualty rate from all causes has never exceeded 490 troops in a month.
None of this is to say “my war was tougher than your war.†As of this writing 2,802 young Americans have been killed during three and one half years of war in Iraq. That’s roughly the same number killed at Iwo Jima during the first three and one half days of fighting against the Japanese. Every life lost was precious and every loss grievous to those who loved them. Unfortunately, our media intends to use every one of those killed to make their point. It’s a lesson they learned in Vietnam.
On 27 February 1968, after a month of brutal fighting and daily images of U.S. casualties on American television, Walter Cronkite, then the host of the CBS Evening News, proclaimed that the Tet Offensive had proven to him that the Vietnam War was no longer winnable. Four weeks later, Lyndon Johnson told the nation that “I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President.†It didn’t matter that Tet had been a decisive victory for the U.S. and South Vietnamese.
Today’s potentates of the press are trying to deliver the same message: that Iraq, like Vietnam, is un-winnable. One television network has gone so far as to broadcast images of U.S. troops being killed by terrorists – making Iraq the first war where Americans get their news from the enemy.
The war in Vietnam wasn’t lost during “Tet ‘68†no matter what Walter Cronkite said. Rather, it was lost in the pages of America’s newspapers, on our televisions, our college campuses – and eventually in the corridors of power in Washington. We need to pray that this war isn’t lost the same way.
Oliver North is a nationally syndicated columnist and the founder and honorary chairman of Freedom Alliance.
November 16th, 2006 at 5:52 amIraq technically put itself into a state of war with the United States by violating the cease-fire that ended the 1991 Gulf War. Long before the 2003 war, Iraqi forces were shooting daily at American and British warplanes assigned to enforce the U.N.-imposed “no-fly zones†over Iraq.
The Clinton administration chose to ignore these attacks and other cease-fire violations, but the Bush administration decided to take action in view of Iraq’s manifest failure to prove that it had dismantled its prohibited programs to build weapons of mass destruction and missiles that threatened its neighbors. The U.N. Charter explicitly recognizes the right of every state to act in self-defense.
Washington Post Acknowledges Troops in Iraq Support Bush Policy, Oppose Pullout
Posted by Brent Baker on November 7, 2006 – 01:41.
The Washington Post certainly waited until the last-minute, the day before the mid-term elections, to run a story pointing out how soldiers in Iraq are committed to the mission and don’t want the U.S. to leave, but they should get kudos for printing the article which contradicts the assumptions of much of the media’s reporting on Iraq, “Soldiers in Iraq Say Pullout Would Have Devastating Results†— though the paper’s editors only squeezed it onto page A-13. From “Forward Operating Base Sykes,†Post correspondent Josh White disclosed that he talked to “dozens of soldiers across the country†and they feared “leaving Iraq now would have devastating consequences.â€
White reported in the article published November 6: “With a potentially historic U.S. midterm election on Tuesday and the war in Iraq a major issue at the polls, many soldiers said the United States should not abandon its effort here. Such a move, enlisted soldiers and officers said, would set Iraq on a path to civil war, give new life to the insurgency and create the possibility of a failed state after nearly four years of fighting to implant democracy.†In addition, “the soldiers…expressed support for the Bush administration’s approach to the war, which they described as sticking with a tumultuous situation to give Iraq a chance to stand on its own.â€
An excerpt from the story:
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SYKES, Iraq, Nov. 5 — For the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, the war is alternately violent and hopeful, sometimes very hot and sometimes very cold. It is dusty and muddy, calm and chaotic, deafeningly loud and eerily quiet.
The one thing the war is not, however, is finished, dozens of soldiers across the country said in interviews. And leaving Iraq now would have devastating consequences, they said.
With a potentially historic U.S. midterm election on Tuesday and the war in Iraq a major issue at the polls, many soldiers said the United States should not abandon its effort here. Such a move, enlisted soldiers and officers said, would set Iraq on a path to civil war, give new life to the insurgency and create the possibility of a failed state after nearly four years of fighting to implant democracy.
“Take us out of that vacuum — and it’s on the edge now — and boom, it would become a free-for-all,” said Lt. Col. Mark Suich, who commands the 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment just south of Baghdad. “It would be a raw contention for power. That would be the bloodiest piece of this war.”
The soldiers declined to discuss the political jousting back home, but they expressed support for the Bush administration’s approach to the war, which they described as sticking with a tumultuous situation to give Iraq a chance to stand on its own.
Leading Democrats have argued for a timeline to bring U.S. troops home, because obvious progress has been elusive, especially in Baghdad, and even some Republican lawmakers have recently called for a change in strategy. But soldiers criticized the idea of a precipitate withdrawal, largely because they believe their hard work would go for naught.
Capt. Jim Modlin, 26, of Oceanport, N.J., said he thought the situation in Iraq had improved between his deployment in 2003 and his return this year as a liaison officer to Iraqi security forces with the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, based here on FOB Sykes outside Tall Afar. Modlin described himself as more liberal than conservative and said he had already cast his absentee ballot in Texas. He said he believed that U.S. elected officials would lead the military in the right direction, regardless of what happens Tuesday.
“Pulling out now would be as bad or worse than going forward with no changes,” Modlin said. “Sectarian violence would be rampant, democracy would cease to exist, and the rule of law would be decimated. It’s not ’stay the course,’ and it’s not ‘cut and run’ or other political catchphrases. There are people’s lives here. There are so many different dynamics that go on here that a simple solution just isn’t possible.”…
“This is a worthwhile endeavor,” said Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of Multinational Division North and the 25th Infantry Division. “Nothing that is worthwhile is usually easy, and we need to give this more time for it to all come together. We all want to come home, but we have a significant investment here, and we need to give the Iraqi army and the Iraqi people a chance to succeed.”
Numerous soldiers expressed frustration with the nature of the fight, which many said amounted to driving around and waiting for the enemy to engage them, often with roadside bombs, known within the military as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs….
In Rushdi Mullah, a small farming village near Baghdad, Capt. Chris Vitale, 29, of Washington, Pa., said his unit’s recent moves to the edge of this insurgent safe haven have made a major difference for residents. “If my unit left town, the insurgents would come back in and use it to stage attacks on Baghdad,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”
In the north, where Iraqi army and police units have made strides toward controlling their own territory, U.S. soldiers said they were at a critical point in helping the Iraqi forces develop.
Capt. Mike Lingenfelter, 32, of Panhandle, Tex., said that U.S. troops have earned the trust of residents in Tall Afar over the past couple of years and that leaving now would send the wrong message. His Comanche Troop of the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment is working with Iraqi forces to give them control of the city.
“We’ll pull their feet out from under them if we leave,” Lingenfelter said.
“It’s still fragile enough now that if the coalition were to leave, it would embolden the insurgents. A lot of people have put their trust and faith in us to see it to the end. It would be an extreme betrayal for us to leave.”…
November 16th, 2006 at 5:53 amThe Truth About Muhammad
By Brigitte Gabriel
October 30, 2006
“Freedom of inquiry and speech, the quest for truth, should not be cowed into silence by violent intimidation or the acceptance of half-truths and propaganda meant to appease freedom’s enemies. One thing is certain: if no one is willing to take such risks, freedom of speech will swiftly become a relic of history.â€
These are the words of author Robert Spencer, who is risking his life to educate Westerners about the life of the founder of Islam. He has just come out with a new book, The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion http://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Muhammad-Intolerant-Religion/dp/1596980281. In this biography, Spencer tells the story of the founder of Islam — a story that many Muslims themselves apparently either do not know about or do not want non-Muslims to hear.
Yet it’s strange that any Muslim would react with anger to Spencer’s book, since he bases it strictly on Islamic sources, all written by pious and serious Muslims. No critic can rightly say that anything Spencer has said about Muhammad in this book is inaccurate. But the problem Muslims find with it is that Spencer doesn’t treat Muhammad as if he were the highest moral standard.
Within the Islamic world, by contrast, Muhammad is considered untouchable. Spencer demonstrates that the Qur’an and Islamic tradition are clear that the Prophet is the supreme example of behavior for Muslims to follow. And today, no hint of criticism of any of his acts or teachings is tolerated.
This stifling of speech is now beginning to affect the West, within which non-Muslims are becoming increasingly frightened to say anything critical about Islam and its founder. Indeed, at even the mildest criticism, either by the Pope or in lightly satirical newspaper cartoons, Islamic nations erupt in a frenzy of blind anger. Furious Muslims take to the streets, burn churches and temples, kill innocent civilians, and threaten violence against the non-Muslim world.
Spencer warns that for the West to be intimidated into silence by this behavior is dangerous. He writes, “to place Muhammad and Islam beyond criticism and even beyond lampooning would be just as dangerous for a free society as the idea that the “Beloved Leader†of North Korea and dialectical materialism is above criticism. Indeed it would be death for a free society.â€
Spencer accordingly presents the truth about Islam’s founder clearly. His story is backed up by solid scholarship and research. So the key question becomes: who is the man whom the Qur’an states is “an excellent model of conduct†(33:21)?
Spencer begins by introducing the historical Muhammad as well as the books and writings that make up the religion of Islam. This is crucial for all to understand, because it is not only the Qur’an that influences Muslim opinion, but also accompanying religious literature, including the hadith (traditions of Muhammad recorded by his followers) and the Sira (the biography of Muhammad).
Spencer goes on to explain how Muhammad became a prophet, and how he tried at first to spread his message by peaceful means — including attempts to convince Jews and Christians that he was a prophet in the line of the Old Testament prophets and Jesus (whom he considered a prophet, not the Son of God). When his efforts failed to bring them, along with the pagan Arabs of his native tribe, into his new religion, he became a warlord — killing, slaughtering and beheading in order to convert others or to force them to submit to him and to the religion given to him by Allah.
Spencer shows how the Prophet Muhammad, the perfect model for human behavior according to Islam and any professing Muslim, perfected the arts of assassination, deceit and taking booty. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 detail the warrior Muhammad’s battles with pagans, Jews and Christians. He told them that their lives and property would be safe only if they became Muslims. In many places, we can see clearly how he serves today as an example for Muslim behavior: at one point Spencer writes,
“Muhammad addressed them (the Jews) in terms that have become familiar usage for Islamic Jihadists when speaking of Jews today …. ‘You brothers of monkeys, has God disgraced you and brought His vengeance upon you?’ The Qur’an in three places (2:62-65; 5:59-60; and 7:166) says that Allah transformed the Sabbath-breaking Jews into pigs and monkeys.
Jihadists today routinely refer to Jews as “pigs and monkeys” — not just a term of abuse, but an imitation of the holy prophet’s example.
The author also sheds a light on the Treaty of Hudaybiyya, the ten-year truce (Hudna) Muhammad signed with the pagan Quraysh tribe. By breaking this treaty, Muhammad again set a precedent: Muslims can sign a treaty but can break it at anytime, when doing so is to their advantage. The purpose of Hudna is to allow weakened Muslim forces to gather strength to fight again later more effectively. This is an extremely important principle for the West to understand today, since it shows the difference between what we perceive as a cease-fire and what believing Muslims think it is.
Chapter 10 explores in a carefully balanced and restrained manner the personal life of Muhammad, allowing the reader to make his own informed decision based on the facts. Spencer presents frightening facts that call into serious question the wisdom behind the Islamic tradition that has dubbed Muhammad “al-insan al-kamil,†or the Perfect Man: his marriage to a child (which is widely imitated in the Islamic world today), his polygamy, his calls to subjugate Jews and Christians, and more.
Throughout the book, we learn how Muhammad treated women and how his words and actions have inspired generation after generation of Muslim men to look at women as nothing more than property. As Spencer notes,
“The Qur’an likens a woman to a field (tilth), to be used by a man as he wills: ‘Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will’ †(2:223).
That’s bad enough, but there is much more. Spencer’s work details example after example of Muhammad’s teaching about women and how to treat them: beat them if they are disobedient, deny them the right to testify in cases involving sexual crimes, deny their inheritance rights, and deny their rights in numerous ways. And as the historical record has shown, his teachings have sentenced millions of women into a life of oppression, misery and depression.
Readers will learn a great deal from this book, as I did. Spencer also offers constructive suggestions and solutions if we ever want to win this war on Islamofascism. Some of them include:
* Stop insisting that Islam is a religion of peace.
* Initiate a full-scale Manhattan Project to find new energy sources.
* Make Western aid contingent upon renunciation of the Jihad ideology.
* Call upon American Muslim advocacy groups to work against the Jihad ideology.
* Revise immigration policies with the Jihad ideology in view.
This book is a must read for all to understand the roots of radical Islam. It arms non-Muslims and Muslims alike by illuminating what needs to be targeted in order to weaken Islamic extremism and the oxygen which they need to breathe.
Get it and be informed.
November 16th, 2006 at 5:54 amNovember 16th, 2006 at 5:55 am
Democrats are outraged over President Bush’s new series of national security speeches. There he goes again, politicizing the war.
The Democratic leadership obviously believes the president should muzzle himself so close to the November elections, because what is important for national security might also help Republicans and that must be avoided at all costs.
Democrats are furious over Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s speech to the American Legion this week, in which he compared today’s appeasers to those of the World War II era and warned that we mustn’t turn a blind eye to today’s terrorists the way many did to yesterday’s Nazis.
Such talk is off-limits because it offends the appeasers, who, by the way, deny they’re appeasers, insisting they’re “tough and smart” scavengers on the hunt for the only terrorist on the planet, Osama bin Laden. His capture or death, they imply, will shut down terrorism in its tracks like a redheaded stepchild and put an end to this reckless, recreational neoconservative global gallivanting.
So, let’s cease further discussion of the most important issue of the day. Let’s put our history books back on the shelves and consign ourselves to repeat the painful and costly mistake of ignoring the relentless march of evil in the world.
In fact, Democrats are the ones politicizing the war and who view it exclusively through a partisan prism. When they stop hyperventilating, they might consider that it is the commander in chief’s duty to rally popular support for the troops and their mission.
Of course, the president’s task wouldn’t be nearly so urgent if Democrats hadn’t been undermining the war effort in Iraq almost since it began with a steady stream of disinformation, focusing on the false charge that he lied us into war.
They explain their sudden affinity for the truth – in contrast to their cynically dismissive attitude toward it during the Clinton years – as a matter of the singular importance of the war. While lying per se isn’t particularly wrong under their relativist standards – and lying about adulterous relations is even virtuous to protect one’s family – lying about war, at least by a Republican president, is so evil it pretty much drives them to the obnoxious Christian state of moral absolutism.
This distinction is interesting given their own pattern of deceit concerning all aspects of the war. Let’s review, shall we?
They said Bush attacked Iraq “unilaterally,” when he built a coalition of over 30 nations, including Great Britain, and tried hard to persuade the rest of Old Europe to join. To their discredit, they refused. A unilateralist wouldn’t have bothered.
They deny that Iraq is part of the war on terror, never mind that terrorists demonstrably disagree. Never mind that the Bush Doctrine clearly defines the enemy to include terrorist-sponsoring nations, such as Saddam’s Iraq.
They claim that Bush asserted a connection between Saddam and 9/11, when he explicitly said otherwise. He said Saddam had close ties to terrorists, including al-Qaida and the Taliban, which is undeniably true and which Democrats also persist in falsely denying. Indeed, Iraq was on Clinton’s watch list of terrorist nations.
They say Bush called Iraq an “imminent threat,” when he called it a “great and gathering threat.” The Bush Doctrine called for attacking threatening nations before they could become an imminent threat, when it would be too late. But some anti-war Democrats, like Jay Rockefeller, did call Iraq an “imminent threat.”
They say Bush’s sole reason to attack Iraq was its WMD. In fact, David Horowitz notes there were 23 “whereas” clauses in the Iraq War resolution, only two of which mentioned WMD and 12 of which concerned Saddam’s violations of U.N. resolutions.
November 16th, 2006 at 5:56 amThey say they were duped into voting for the resolution by administration hype on WMD. But the intelligence Congress received in the National Intelligence Estimate was much less alarmist and more nuanced than the intelligence the president received in the Presidential Daily Briefings. But hey, they had to give their anti-war base some excuse.
They say we had Osama surrounded in Tora Bora and let him go, outsourcing the job of capturing him to Afghan warlords so we could pursue our quixotic junket in Iraq. General Tommy Franks put the lie to all of this malicious nonsense.
On the hyped Wilson/Plame nonscandal – don’t get me started.
Most unforgivably, they’ve lied in painting President Bush as a liar on Iraqi WMD.
There’s much more – like their simultaneous condemnation of and advocacy for pre-emptive strikes – but no space left.
Next time you hear Democrats say they abhor lies “about war,” remember a few of these gems.
To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at http://www.davidlimbaugh.com.
The sacred memory of the victims of the Nazi Holocaust must not be victimized by political correctness.The U.S.Holocaust Memorial Museum has done this by avoiding any mention of the Arab or Muslim role in the Holocaust and by ignoring the link between Nazism and current Islamic extremism.
Iran’s president announces that the Holocaust never happened while simultaneously announcing that Israel should “be wiped off the map.” The vilest anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are promulgated in the Arab press and taught to Arab children as a matter of routine. Anti-Semitic incitement has become a state-sponsored article of faith in much of the Islamic world.
The museum has programs on the role of Christianity in promoting anti-Semitism — but nothing on Islam. It has programs on current genocidal threats such as Darfur — but not when the threat is against Jews. It does mention current anti-Semitism in Europe — but not in the Middle East.
Just as the Nazi threat was not confined to Jews, the Islamofascist threat is not confined to Jews, as demonstrated by the events of September 11, 2001 and by Islamic terrorist bombings in London, Madrid, Bali and Israel.
Nazism held a genuine appeal for the Arab populace, who were attracted to its messages of rejection of democracy, recovery of past military glory and Jew-hating. In 1935, Reza Shah, the ruler of Persia, changed the country’s name from Persia to Iran to reflect that they, like the Nazis, were Aryans. A popular Arab song during the war went, “Allah in heaven, Hitler on earth.”
The historic Nazi connection to today’s Islamic terrorism is Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem. He became a Nazi agent after meeting Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, in Palestine in 1937, and with Nazi funds organized the Arab Revolt of 1936-39 which led to the British closing Palestine to Jewish immigration. This facilitated the “Final Solution” by closing off the avenue of refuge. In 1941, the mufti orchestrated a short-lived Nazi-backed generals’ coup in Iraq. One of the participants in that coup, Gen. Khayrallah Tulfah, was Saddam Hussein’s uncle and mentor.
The Iraq coup was followed by the Farhud, a pogrom against Baghdad’s Jews, an event viewed by Sephardic Jews as comparable to the German “Kristallnacht,” but never mentioned by the museum. The Mufti obtained Hitler’s assurance in November 1941 that after dealing with the Jews of Europe, Hitler would treat the Jews of the Middle East similarly. Husseini promised the support of the Arabs for the Nazi war effort. In Berlin, Husseini used the “sonderfund,” money confiscated from Jewish victims, to finance subversive pro-Nazi activities in the Middle East and to raise 20,000 Muslim troops in Bosnia, the infamous Hanjar S.S. Waffen, who murdered tens of thousands of Serbs and Jews in the Balkans and served as police auxiliary in Hungary.
There is no mention of the grand mufti in the museum’s permanent exhibit, although only Hitler received more pages in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust.
But the Mufti’s Nazi heritage did not end with the Holocaust. Nazi war criminals found employment in Arab capitals as advisers in murder. The notorious SS killer Alois Brunner was the personal adviser to Hafez Assad’s brother, who was in charge of the Syrian security forces. Husseini, Yasser Arafat’s mentor, brought former Nazi commandos to Egypt to teach Mr. Arafat and others how to become terrorists.
Walter Reich, director of the U.S. Holocaust Museum from 1995 to 1998, has recently said: “a focus on Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial at the Holocaust museum… would be, I believe, appropriately within the museum’s mandate. Indeed, it would be strange if the museum did not focus on such anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, given the museum’s devotion not only to the Holocaust but also to contemporary genocides and given the prevalence in contemporary Arab rhetoric of not only the kind of anti-Semitism that helped lead to the Holocaust but also the calls for genocide that are aimed at the Jews of Israel.”
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum should be an authoritative voice educating the museum’s visitors and the public about the re-emergence of genocidal hatred as a political tool. The museum’s mission requires it to publicize this rebirth of Nazi propaganda though exhibits and educational programs.
Chuck Morse is the author of “The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism.” Carol Greenwald is on the board of Holocaust Museum Watch.
Hitler & The Mufti http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/HitlerAndTheMufti.mp4
The Culture of Jihad http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/CultureOfJihad.mp4
The Media Of Terrorism http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/MediaOfTerrorism.mp4
The War Against The West http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/WarAgainstTheWest.mp4
November 16th, 2006 at 5:57 amMedia Yawn as Climate Center Reports Continued Global Cooling
Posted by Noel Sheppard on November 16, 2006 – 02:13.
At roughly 11:00AM Eastern Time Wednesday, the National Ocean & Atmospheric Administration announced that for the second straight month, America saw below-average temperatures. As a result, regardless of how warm July was, it now appears unlikely that 2006 will surpass 1934 as the hottest year on record. Yet, a Google News search suggested that not one news agency bothered to report this announcement. Not one.
For those not in the media who might be interested (emphasis mine throughout):
For the second consecutive month, temperatures across the continental United States were cooler-than-average, according to scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Drought conditions improved in some areas, but large parts of the nation remained in moderate to extreme drought. October ranked as the 12th wettest October when compared with historical precipitation records for the month.
The announcement continued:
The October 2006 temperature for the contiguous United States (based on preliminary data) was 0.9 degrees F (0.5 degrees C) below the 20th century average of 54.8 degrees F (12.7 degrees C). After a record warm January through August period, this was the second consecutive month of below average temperatures.
The combination of a cooler-than-average September and October dropped the year-to-date national temperature from record warmest to third warmest for the January through October 2006 period. The record warmest January through October occurred in 1934.
Hmmm. So, let me get this straight. The globe supposedly has been warming for decades as a result of man-made greenhouse gases. Yet, the warmest year on record is still 72 years ago. That doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, does it?
Here’s some more data to refute the claims by the global warmingists:
Global land- and ocean-surface temperatures brought the fourth warmest October and tied the fifth warmest year-to-date period since records began in 1880. October land surface temperatures were third warmest, while ocean surface temperatures were fourth warmest in the 127-year record. An El Niño episode began in September and continued to intensify throughout October as ocean temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific continued to warm.
Um, excuse me? Global land and ocean-surface temperatures so far this year are the fourth and fifth warmest since 1880? If global warming is occurring, shouldn’t we be setting new all-time highs?
Alas, this shouldn’t surprise us, for it has always seemed obvious that the same people that buy into global warming are the ones that also believe the economy is just as bad today as during the Great Depression. What is it about radical liberalism that destroys a person’s math and science skills?
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