Buzzflash
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Mixx it!
RedditEarlier this month, for a forthcoming article in Rolling Stone about President Obama's Afghanistan policy, I interviewed Representative Jim McGovern (D.-Mass.), who's called on the White House to declare its "exit strategy." A majority of the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives backed McGovern's call, and polls show that something like two-thirds or three-quarters of Democrats around the country believe that the war in Afghanistan isn't worth fighting.
As McGovern points out in the interview below, in Congress some Democrats are reluctant to challenge President Obama. But McGovern says: "The further we get sucked into this war, the harder it will be to get out of it."
Q. What do you think about General McChrystal's call for more US forces in Afghanistan?
MCGOVERN: "To me the issue is more than about sending troops. The question is, what is our policy? There's no clear mission. I offered an amendment to the defense authorization bill a few months ago that would have required the secretary of defense to submit to Congress his exit strategy for the military in Afghanistan. And we had 138 votes. Barack Obama said on 60 Minutes, we need an exit strategy. [Secretary of Defense] Gates has said, we need an exit strategy. What is so controversial about asking them to provide an exit strategy? I'm not looking for a date certain. But what they need to tell us is, at what point does the military contribution to the political solution end? And when do our troops come home?
"I don't know what the policy is. Is the policy to defeat all the Taliban and create a Jeffersonian democracy in Afghanistan? Well, we just had an election, and President Karzai stuffed the ballot boxes. By all accounts, this was a mess of an election! And so, we're gonna put our confidence in this government? The government we are now supporting is corrupt, incompetent, and engaged in election fraud.
"We want this administration not to send 40,000 troops. And we want them to define policy. Right now the fight is over, do you go with McChrystal or do you go with [Vice President] Biden? I'd rather go with Biden than McChrystal, but the Biden solution has some problems, too. The further we get sucked into this war, the harder it will be to get out of it.
"I voted for the authorization to use force right after 9/11 to go after Al Qaeda. That authorization was very specific about going after Al Qaeda. It said nothing about what we're doing now. Al Qaeda's in Pakistan. Osama bin Laden moved to a different neighborhood. And in some ways it's a safer neighborhood, because the U.S. military can't do whatever it wants in Pakistan. So, OK, what are we doing? Help define it for us."
Q. McChrystal seems to be challening the president directly. He said in London that Biden's strategy is wrong.
MCGOVERN: "You can argue whether a lot of the statements and leaks that have come from the generals are appropriate. When you're having a policy review, this is kind of an odd way to do it, when you have generals speaking to the press left and right, and giving speeches left and right. Putting that aside, I go back to my question, what is the definition of our mission? What I'm looking for is some clarity. McChrystal says, it we get more troops, this conflict is winnable. What does winnable mean? Answer the question! At what point do you seeing this winding up? What are you trying to do? If we're trying to build a good government, I wouldn't trust Karzai to tell me the time of day."
Q. What's the overall feeling like on Capitol Hill?
MCGOVERN: "People are very concerned. Having said that, if you're a Democrat, the president of the United States is a Democrat. He's taking on issues, very courageously, like health care reform, and you want to be as supportive as you can be. And I think people are nervous, reluctant to be more forceful in their opposition to what McChrystal is saying, because they don't want to hurt the president. … There's this kind of anxiety about taking on a president that in every other area is doing an incredible job, so it's difficult to get up and challenge the president.
"On the other hand, if he asks for another 40,000 troops, I don't know where the votes are. We got 138 votes on our amendment, and I know that since that time a lot of people have come to me and said they wish they'd voted with me. So I think that number goes up. The majority of the Democratic caucus voted with me on that exit strategy amendment."
What's the next step, in your opinion?
MCGOVERN: "I got 57 people to sign on to an letter asking the president not send more troops to Afghanistan. And every day there are Republicans standing up on the House floor saying that every day that Obama doesn't send those 40,000 troops he is giving comfort to the enemy. We have to wait and see what happens, what the president decides. I hope he decides not to increase forces there."
Q. Senator Feingold has called for a "flexible timetable" for a US withdrawal.
MCGOVERN: "I think Russ Feingold is right on target. … There's no question that the Taliban are not good people. But the problem we face is, the Taliban are from there. This is not an outside force, like Al Qaeda, coming into Afghanistan. And not every one who calls themselves Taliban thinks the same way. But they do all agree about opposition to a foreign occupation. … [Al Qaeda] is in Pakistan now. By going down the road of larger and larger military occupation, not only is it counterproductive, but how do we sustain all this? We're already in debt up to our eyeballs. Does Afghanistan pose a national security threat to the United States?"
In his report, McChrystal himself admitted that the United States and its allies don't understand the social, cultural, and political conditions in Afghanistan.
MCGOVERN: "When he says that, it reminds me of Robert McNamara talking about Vietnam. He admits, in one of his books, that we didn't know Vietnam, we didn't understand the country, the geography, the sense of nationalism. … When someone admits that they don't know about the country they're going to occupy, it makes me very nervous."
"If the president decides not to go the route that General McChrystal is asking for, then we need to start talking what a flexible withdrawal would look like. I would not send people to war without a clearly defined mission, and a beginning, a middle, a transition, and an end. We do not have that in Afghanistan.
"What the hell is the objective? Tell me how this has a happy ending. Tell me how we win this. How do we measure success? What are the benchmarks? I voted against the supplemental bill on Afghanistan because there was a whole lot of money in there with no benchmarks, and no conditions, and no nothing! … Congress has a role in this. We have not had a full debate on this. During the [funding] debate a whole bunch of us got up and made speeches, but we haven't really had a real debate on Afghanistan. And we better.
"What is ‘working'? I mean, you could send a million troops there, and put a lid on it, but is that ‘working'? To me, working is, I want to know when I leave that it is sustainable. This is not sustainable. Backing a government that doesn't have the support of its people is just not sustainable."
Share this article
Robert Dreyfuss
A chronicle of America's adventures in foreign policy and national security.
RSS
Before the inevitable comments from the Right linking "Jim" to "Senator George" McGovern and Vietnam....keep in mind the history-
The Repubs ran the '72 campaign claiming that McGovern was "soft on Vietnam" and would "surrender it the moment he got in office" (aka the old version of "cut & run")...
and what happened?
Nixon suspended offensive action against NV a week before the Inauguration and Kissinger signed the Paris Peace Accords two days after Inauguration. Thus basically doing what he attacked McGovern for.
I predict something similar in 2012. If Obama has stupidly not started a pull-out of Afghanistan....his GOP opponent will run on "He's losing the war...I'll win it!"....and if elected...
"President Romney" (or whoever) will start a pull-out and "peace with honor" before 20123 is over.
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 09:29am
Typo..."before 2013 is over"....sorry.
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 09:30am
i highly recommend everyone watch the new PBS special on afghanistant. the 24 minute preview is AMAZING.
after viewing this, you'll understand why afghanistan is simply not winnable.
there's an amazing scene where an american soldier asks the rural inhabitants why they aren't (i kid you not) standing up to the taliban, and they reply:
"you have tanks, planes, guns. we don't even have a sword. what would you like us to do?"
it really comes to down to these sort of 'ground zero' type scenarios, in which afghanis are confronted with the deadly decision of:
a) following taliban orders (or die)
b) follow american orders (or die, because the taliban will kill you for taking american orders)
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 10:02am
the dirty hippies were right about vietnam, iraq and afghanistan. each of them bankrupt our government, destroyed our morale, and divided our country.
and they killed millions of innocent people, and for what? for what, i ask our conservative posters?
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 10:05am
I can't share your optimism, "Mask." The Republican party of 2009 is no longer the Republican party of 1969.
The only thing George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had in common with Richard M. Nixon and Spiro Agnew is that they were all crooks. But whereas the Nixon administration was a gang of wily, opportunist crooks, the G. W. Bush administration was a gang of intellectually dense and ideologically rigid crooks.
Perhaps Mitt Romney is the standard-bearer of opportunism in the Republican Party today, but somehow I can't see the birthers, tenthers, and tea-baggers, who are as dense and as doctrinaire as Dubya, going for Romney at the polls. And no Republican today can possibly win without their vote.
Posted by JakobFabian at 10/14/2009 @ 10:06am
What progress US made after invading Afghanistan ? The war is going on for the last 8 years.A troop surge will never help there.Afghanistan is a country where empires go to die. That is the history.So, withdraw the troops. The sooner , the better.
Posted by Dastu11 at 10/14/2009 @ 10:11am
If Afghanistan is where empires go to die, perhaps the US should stay & just get it over with. Decline & fall as soon as possible.
Less facetiously ... any Af/Pak debate/piece that doesn't mention, much less discuss, the US-planned pipeline ... is dangerously deceptive.
Posted by sloper at 10/14/2009 @ 10:24am
Our key military failure in Afghanistan, "darladoon," has been our failure to take seriously the problem of civilian casualties.
Ever since the war began, our military has been focused on financial costs first, casualties among our soldiers second. Civilian casualties among Afghan noncombatants were not a concern at all; they were officially ignored. Indeed, if I recall correctly, our military makes no official count of them, and may not do so even today.
This is a grave error, and not just for moral reasons, but also for pragmatic ones. We will never win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people as long as we continue to kill noncombatants. Each civilian casualty is a human being - this is the moral reason for concern. And each civilian casualty has a family that will grieve, that will get angry at our soldiers, and that will be prone to look upon the insurgency and even upon terrorism in a much more favorable light. This is the pragmatic concern. Osama Bin Laden's recruitment strategy depends on civilian casualties, and we have never failed to deliver.
Since the replacement of Donald Rumsfeld, we have moved slowly toward shifting concern for saving money toward concern for the well-being of the troops. But we still do not care about civilian casualties. When we do, that's when we'll bring the troops home and move on to anti-terrorism strategies that have a better chance of success - strategies that we are already using in countries that we do not occupy militarily.
One thing that troubles me about the present debate is the frequency with which the financial cost of the war is foregrounded, even by Democrats - as if Rumsfeld had been right, after all. On the contrary: It is and has always been the human cost of war that matters most.
Posted by JakobFabian at 10/14/2009 @ 10:35am
Less facetiously ... any Af/Pak debate/piece that doesn't mention, much less discuss, the US-planned pipeline ... is dangerously deceptive.
Posted by sloper at 10/14/2009 @ 10:24am | ignore this person | warn this person
Or why we don't destroy poppy fields.
Posted by OneVote at 10/14/2009 @ 10:36am
"This is not sustainable. Backing a government that doesn't have the support of its people is just not sustainable."
That says it all. Any doubt about that, take a look at Iraq which is supposed to be a success. (If that's success I sure would hate to see what failure is). I guess success means establishing your puppet dictator. It doesn't matter what kind of dictator that person is as long as they do what you tell them when it counts. They can do to their people as they please and our government won't spend one thought on it as long as the right wheels get greased.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 10/14/2009 @ 10:42am
"On the contrary: It is and has always been the human cost of war that matters most"
indeed. i always knew this, and that is why i marched against the war in october 2001.
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 10:51am
Less facetiously ... any Af/Pak debate/piece that doesn't mention, much less discuss, the US-planned pipeline ... is dangerously deceptive.
Posted by sloper at 10/14/2009 @ 10:24am
Just read an article on that very subject.....Why are we in Afghanistan? They're called PIPELINES!
By michael payne
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 10/14/2009 @ 10:55am
'MOSCOW, October 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's security chief accused Georgia on Tuesday of supporting terrorist groups in Russia's North Caucasus.
FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov told a meeting of the national counterterrorism committee that audio recordings found on militants "show that they had worked with Al-Qaeda emissaries in establishing contacts with representatives of Georgia's special services, who participated in organizing training of terrorists and sending them to Chechnya."
Georgian special services also helped supply arms and funds to terrorist groups for attacks in Dagestan, "particularly on oil and gas pipelines," the FSB chief said.
So far this year, 45 terrorist attacks have been prevented in Russia's North Caucasus, including 19 since the start of June, Bortnikov said. A total of 178 militants have been killed or arrested.
Russia's North Caucasus republics, in particular Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, have seen an upsurge of militant violence this year, with frequent attacks on police and officials.'
The other day, Karzai's Defense Minister Wardak said Chechyna was sending insurgents into Afghanistan.
So it starts. Our new buddy Russia joing GWOT. Al-Qaeda is everywhere.
Let's see how far our Secretary of State goes to get Russian cooperation on sanctions on Iran....on behalf of Israel.
Posted by OneVote at 10/14/2009 @ 10:59am
Posted by JakobFabian at 10/14/2009 @ 10:06am
Our own Larry/antisoc has declared his loathing of Romney...."Temple Mormon" doncha know?...but was merely using Moneybags Mitt as an example.
Truth is, it could be Prom Queen Granny from Wasilla...and her puppeteers...er..."advisors"...would tell her the same thing- "Run against Obama and claim you'll 'win' Afghanistan....get elected and get the troops out within six months and declare 'victory'....or get dragged down just like he and Dubya were!"
As far as Tea Partyers, Birthers, neo-cons, etc. go?.....as usual...they'll do what they're told and dutifully return to the voting booth as long as the Dem is a Dem and "Marxist radical scandal-plagued corrupt leftist who hates America" can be thrown at anybody left of Zell Miller.
So don't fret them.
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 11:25am
deed. i always knew this, and that is why i marched against the war in october 2001.
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 10:51am So did I. That sentiment wasn't and isn't too popular in Dixie mind you, but there were quite a few of us out there.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 10/14/2009 @ 11:46am
Lookie here, Mask......
The person who will become President in January 2013 will work to achieve peace through victory, you betcha!
"Peace through honor" will not be an option if it means capitulation and defeat. Thus we will have an honorable peace because it will be peace through strength and victory over the terrorists who want to kill us.
Question - What does Mitt Romney have to do with any of this? You keep mentioning Mitt Romney's name relative to January 2013.....I am sorry but I have no idea why his name is relevant with regard to the inaugration on January 20, 2013.
Unless you are expecting he will be Vice President after that date, but then it will still not be up to him what our military policy is, although I guess he could offer advice to President Palin.
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 11:57am
darladoon,
You say above:
"..... i always knew this, and that is why i marched against the war in october 2001........"
Somehow, unless you are still quite young, I get the feeling that October 2001 is not the only time you ever marched against war.
I wonder what makes me think that?
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 12:00pm
"Let's see how far our Secretary of State goes to get Russian cooperation on sanctions on Iran....on behalf of Israel." one vote
Far from discussed, much less understood in the US, is the role of so many Russians in the Israeli govt & Likud.
Posted by sloper at 10/14/2009 @ 12:26pm
'"..... i always knew this, and that is why i marched against the war in october 2001........"
Somehow, unless you are still quite young, I get the feeling that October 2001 is not the only time you ever marched against war.
I wonder what makes me think that?'
I wonder what makes me think, "sjchermak," that you've NEVER opposed a war that was started by either our Congress or our President, whether this was done legally or illegally? For unless you HAVE opposed at least one war at some time, it's hypocritical to imply that "darladoon's" opposition to this or any other war is "rigid" or "doctrinaire." Your pro-war doctrine is merely the mirror opposite of hers.
Of course, pointing out hypocrisy is a child's game; and it is possible, after all, that you HAVE opposed some war at some time that the United States has started. This would exempt you from the charge of being either doctrinaire or hypocritical generally - but not from the more serious charge of contempt for human lives in the particular case of the war in Afghanistan.
Whenever human lives are at stake, we owe it to all human beings concerned to do a whole-cost accounting of the probable effects, both in the near and far term, of any war that we start. The near-term results of the Afghanistan war are already known, and they are not encouraging.
In all my life (and I was born in 1967), only two military interventions on the part of the United States have met my approval: one in Bosnia, owing to the seeming resurgence of ethnic cleansing on the continent of Europe; and the other in Afghanistan, owing to the judgement that the Taliban was such a horrible government that we couldn't possibly make things worse by attacking.
I have since revised my view of the Afghanistan war in light of more recent events.
Posted by JakobFabian at 10/14/2009 @ 12:30pm
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 10:05am
Asked and answered. You have a reading comprehension problem. Pot smoking does that to you.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 10/14/2009 @ 12:56pm
Posted by JakobFabian at 10/14/2009 @ 10:35am
You probably haven't heard about the current policy over there about not being allowed to return fire or call in air support if any innocents are involved. So when the Taliban fires on our troops and then fades back into the civilian population, how do you fight back? See how silly that policy is?
Lets just tie the hands of all of our troops behind their backs, let the Taliban wipe them out and then liberals everywhere will be happy. Imagine how impossible it would have been for us to win WWII if we had to worry about civilians getting in the way. War is hell. People die. Get over it.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 10/14/2009 @ 1:03pm
"On the contrary: It is and has always been the human cost of war that matters most"
indeed. i always knew this, and that is why i marched against the war in october 2001.
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 10:51am
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 10:51am So did I. That sentiment wasn't and isn't too popular in Dixie mind you, but there were quite a few of us out there.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 10/14/2009 @ 11:46am
I predict something similar in 2012. If Obama has stupidly not started a pull-out of Afghanistan....his GOP opponent will run on "He's losing the war...I'll win it!"....and if elected...
"President Romney" (or whoever) will start a pull-out and "peace with honor" before 20123 is over.
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 09:29am
Great examples why the left does not deserve to ever be in control of the presidency.
Mask always looks for what is expedient to a "pragmatic" political victory.
Leftists like Darla and Wolf epitimize the lack of deeper thinking into why war.
It's about liberty and freedom, not the financial cost, and not the cost of lives. For when freedom is gone, you cannot buy it back.
A soldier willing lays down their life because they have done exactly what Jesus asked and counted the cost before serving.
Sacrificing your life in order to maintain or to extend freedom is the ultimate and only truly nobel endeavor that we can undertake.
The anti-war left has never and probably will never understand this and prefers enslavement to liberty.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 1:10pm
>>>and polls show that something like two-thirds or three-quarters of Democrats around the country believe that the war in Afghanistan isn't worth fighting. <<<
This the POLITICS OF THE MOMENT the president was referring to.
If you did a poll of Americans asking them would they vote for Obama if he allowed another attack on America to be orchestrated from Afghanistan after admonishing Bush for taking his eye off Afghanistan, what would be the result? 3/4 against re-election!
MCGOVERN does have a point that there needs to be a clearly defined comprehensive strategy in Afghanistan, and the military component is probably the smallest piece. The focus of this strategy should be on defining what Afghanistan would have to look like for us to feel comfortable leaving without fear of another attack.
A functioning "legitimate" government is one thing, a viable alternative to the illegal opium trade is another, and some sort of force capable of rooting out terrorists that want to set up shop in Afghanistan is a must.
Do we need a troop "increase" to accomplish this? Probably not. But we do need to address ALL of these issues above if we are even going to talk about withdrawing.
Posted by Metteyya at 10/14/2009 @ 1:23pm
"Do we need a troop "increase" to accomplish this? Probably not. But we do need to address ALL of these issues above if we are even going to talk about withdrawing."
~Budd Lite aka "Metteyya" at 1:23pm
It looks to me like you didn't run this post by brother Rahm first, Budd. Didn't you get the memo? We aren't withdrawing. Period.
The TAPI --Turkmensitan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India-- pipeline is far too critical to our longterm plans of outflanking Russia and China in the Global Energy Wars.
Geez....get with the program already, Budd! Another bone-headed post like that and you're FIRED!
Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/14/2009 @ 1:40pm
'You probably haven't heard about the current policy over there about not being allowed to return fire or call in air support if any innocents are involved. So when the Taliban fires on our troops and then fades back into the civilian population, how do you fight back? See how silly that policy is?'
By whose judgement, "gunslinger1," are "innocents involved" in any intercultural encounter between our troops and local Afghan citizens?
By the judgement of our military, of course. Not surprisingly, in the judgement of our military (including our loyalist embedded journalists), a civilian casualty almost never happens.
Independent journalists do not share this official opinion, however, and neither do I.
Google the terms "predator drone" and "civilian death," and you will get plenty of evidence that supports my view and does not support yours.
The "hands tied behind our back" trope is and always has been a self-serving myth. I fail to see how, during the Vietnam War, we could have slaughtered 2,000,000 Vietnamese while suffering only about 58,000 troop casualties on our side (only about 3% of the Vietnamese losses) with our "hands tied behind our back" - and without killing any civilians.
Posted by JakobFabian at 10/14/2009 @ 1:42pm
Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/14/2009 @ 1:40pm
I don't think anyone in the Administration believes that the conditions are right for an "immediate" withdrawal - including Rahm Emanuel.
But I think EVERYONE in the Administration wants to work on getting the appropriate conditions in Afghanistan so that we can withdraw without worrying about another attack.
What MCGOVERN and some on the left have failed to do is present a PLAN for changing the conditions in Afghanistan so that withdrawal is feasible.
Posted by Metteyya at 10/14/2009 @ 1:47pm
curious -- have any of you guys (gals?) ever considered any dispute as one as to which reasonable minds could disagree. Everyone seems so dogmatic and self-righteous. No one respects a dissenting opinion as merely relecting a disagreement. Here,the other side always is wrong, and not just wrong, but wrong because of immorality, ignorance, hypocrisy or bad faith.
Wish everyone would take a deep breath and count to 10 before posting. It's little wonder given human nature (mine included) that disagreements and disputes erupt into conflicts and violence.
Posted by gren at 10/14/2009 @ 1:56pm
But I think EVERYONE in the Administration wants to work on getting the appropriate conditions in Afghanistan so that we can withdraw without worrying about another attack.
~Metteyya
Budd, Budd, Budd......You make the old, old mistake of taking the charade seriously. You need to get up to politics 601 speed, and start reading between the lines old boy.
We have a foreign policy establishment, and they have an agenda that we aren't supposed to know about. But look at where we have our bases, and start reading in depth about the critical need for hydrocarbons that any empire MUST obtain to maintain its perceived superiority, and you may then reach an understanding.
Obama is just a masthead, he isn't our savior. Wake up, Budd!
It's the people who need to adjust our consumption and demand that we get off of our oil addiction. It's gonna take a revolt, folks, if we want our country back.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/14/2009 @ 1:58pm
As for the Second World War, "gunslinger1," this falls completely out of the present context, because it was a defensive war against state aggressors.
Although the war in Afghanistan is arguably defensive, it is being waged against non-state aggressors.
Although he war in Iraq war originally was fought against a state aggressor (and quickly won), it changed into a war against non-state aggressors. It also was always pre-emptive rather than defensive.
I do not dispute that it is sometimes both possible and morally right to wage war successfully against a government. However, I have my doubts that we can win one that we wage against an entire population. This is not our stated intention in any country that we presently occupy militarily, of course. However, our actions speak much louder than our words, and our actions frequently kill civilians. It is clear, therefore, why many Afghans fail to see our presence as benign, and why we therefore fail to win their hearts and minds.
I do not dispute the need to fight terrorism any more than Representative Jim McGovern does. However, we are both convinced that this fight can be won only by means other than war.
Finally, I am under no illusions that we are going to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan any time soon. The process of "Afghanistanization," if it's done right, will reduce civilian casualties even before we call our troops home. I am confident that my present stated opposition to our continuing occupation of Afghanistan will do less harm than my former tacit support for it.
Posted by JakobFabian at 10/14/2009 @ 1:58pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 1:10pm
Two points, Larry-
1. IF Obama insanely keeps plugging troops into Afghanistan for 3 more years?...A potential "President Mitt" or even sjcher's joke-that-only-he-thinks-is-funny "President Caribou Barbie"....WILL pull a "Nixon '73" on you.
They WILL NOT want to tie themselves to a disaster of a war (mostly made so by the "last Repub President") by "staying in it, to win it!".
Oh, they'll promise guys like you that they "have a secret plan to end the war", but unlike Nixon, who was given an additional 4 years by his "Silent Majority" to end it....the Repub will be inheriting a war that NO majority of Americans support and even some conservatives and neo-cons have gotten tired of.
They'll pull out and fast as soon as Inauguration Day is over.
2. You love war.
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 2:03pm
Posted by JakobFabian at 10/14/2009 @ 1:58pm
Anytime a neo-con throws up "This is JUST LIKE World War-II"....just ask them-
"Fine...did we cut taxes in World War-II? Did we let war profiteers do as they willed? Did FDR tell people 'go shopping' to help the war effort? Did Roosevelt dress up as a navy pilot and wheel himself onto the Enterprise a week after D-Day for a "Mission Accomplished" photo op?"....
suddenly "Well, it's not THAT serious" excuses pop up.
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 2:06pm
Posted by b_kool_66 at 1:58pm
.....And the ignorance of this fact is why we will not get our country back anytime soon.
It never ceases to amaze me how little attention people pay to how they are so badly played by charlatans --in this case "our" government.
PT Barnum is the Socrates of our age.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/14/2009 @ 2:13pm
"It never ceases to amaze me how little attention people pay to how they are so badly played by charlatans ... "----Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/14/2009 @ 2:13pm
I'm sorry....WHO was your guy in the 2008 Democratic Primaries again, KOOL?
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 2:21pm
Posted by JakobFabian at 10/14/2009 @ 1:42pm
To bad you didn't catch 60 Minutes this pat Sunday. The marine unit that was in the battle that cost eight odf their lives were interviewed and they related how the politicians tie their hands. I didn't just make it up. I heard it from the horse's mouth.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 10/14/2009 @ 2:23pm
Posted by Metteyya at 10/14/2009 @ 1:47pm
Give the generals the tools they need to get the job done, and they will. That's where you start. They're already engaged.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 10/14/2009 @ 2:25pm
Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/14/2009 @ 1:58pm
Oil, gas pipeline and other "immoral" rationales for war can ONLY be taken off the table if we transition out of the world cop role and are replaced by a truly "international" rapid response force that is under international command.
There will always be suspicions when you have a single country (or even a small group of countries) playing this world cop role, and Afghanistan may be the conflict where this transition becomes a reality.
Already ISAF forces have evolved so that they are no longer under NATO command, and now have forces comprised of 40 countries. If this continues to evolve in the right direction, it may represent as many as 150 countries, and it would therefore be extremely difficult to use this force for the economic benefit of a single country or even a small group of nations.
Putting ISAF forces under the command of the UN Security Council also has issues because of the permanent veto scheme enjoyed by just a few countries, and the out-right bribery of other countries on the Council by countries that have veto power. But this is just another reform issue, and does not mean that we should not at least move toward an international rapid response force that keeps the world safe based on international consensus.
I think that this is perhaps the only way to deal with "self-serving wars" on behalf of private companies, and reserve military action for real security threats and interventions necessary to prevent genocidal-scale human suffering (e.g., Rwanda, Kosovo, Holocaust, etc.)
Posted by Metteyya at 10/14/2009 @ 2:28pm
Posted by JakobFabian at 10/14/2009 @ 1:58pm
The Afghani people are terrified that we will leave them to the vices of the Taliban. They are paid 10 dollars for every IED they plant and do in not just for the money but because they are afraid to be harmed if they don't. It's arguable worse over there than it ever was in Iraq. They are unable to defend themselves. Even though civilian casualities are invitable, many more will die and be oppressed if we pull our troops out.
The mission there is clear by those doing the fighting and their morale remains pretty high but if the President doesn't get up to speed and turn a deaf ear to people like McGovern and other weak-kneed liberals, the worm will turn for the worse over there, the Taliban and Al Qaeda will have won an incaluable victory and we will be back to square one in the fight against terror.
It was never going to be easy to defeat this enemy.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 10/14/2009 @ 2:36pm
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 2:03pm
Did you forget what Obama campaigned on regarding Afghanistan? He's a politician too you know.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 10/14/2009 @ 2:38pm
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 2:06pm
FDR stood up from his wheel chair to address Congress after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. When he stood up, America stood up. The rest is history, something you appearantely know little about. I'd hate to think of what would have happened if Barack Obama was President then. He probably would have requested a sit down with Tojo.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 10/14/2009 @ 2:42pm
The President and the rest of the politicians should not be considering an exit strategy right now. They should accept reality and facilitate an entrance strategy. In othe words, shit or get off the pot.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 10/14/2009 @ 3:03pm
"A soldier willing lays down their life because they have done exactly what Jesus asked and counted the cost before serving." Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 1:10pm
Whom did Jesus ask to slay, Larry? Did he ask his followers to kill the Romans who were occupying Israel and denying them their freedom? I am far from pious, but when I was serving Uncle Sam, I never confused him with Jesus. To me, that would have been a kind of blasphemy.
Posted by Tatra at 10/14/2009 @ 3:08pm
I'm awaiting the inevitable neocon poster who will denigrate McGovern as a "pinko lefty". The man knew how to drive a B-24.
His cred remains, one of those quiet guys who did so much.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 10/14/2009 @ 3:13pm
Oh, they'll promise guys like you that they "have a secret plan to end the war", but unlike Nixon, who was given an additional 4 years by his "Silent Majority" to end it....the Repub will be inheriting a war that NO majority of Americans support and even some conservatives and neo-cons have gotten tired of.
They'll pull out and fast as soon as Inauguration Day is over.
2. You love war.
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 2:03pm
Mask, your first problem in your constant assumptions is believing that anyone thinks like you do.
I have no support for any future candidate that tells me the voter, that they have a "secret" plan for ending the war.
And just as I ended up voting 3rd party once again last year, I will do so in 2012 if there is not a good conservative Republican candidate.
And don't you get tired of lying?
I don't love war. I love liberty. And sometimes liberty requires fighting for it; to preserve it, to expand it, to delivery others from totalitarianism. But I guess you're like your buddy JR (Emile) and Darla. You don't mind seeing the Taliban resume their enslavement of the Afghan people. You must like seeing the women treated as slaves and less than human.
I knew back in March 2001 when the Taliban blew up the historic Buddhas that these people were not capable of allowing freedom in their country.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 3:17pm
Imagine how impossible it would have been for us to win WWII if we had to worry about civilians getting in the way. War is hell. People die. Get over it.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 10/14/2009 @ 1:03pm | ignore this person | warn this person
But, Gunny, I THOUGHT this was a "different kind of war" now, not like that WWII stuff, and the "old rules" didn't apply. That this was a new paradigm, justifying things like the Patriot Act, having to take half our clothes off to get on a flight, extraordinary interrogation methods for these "illegal enemy combatants" or whatever they're calling them today, etc. We can't have the WWII parallels AND get to keep all this shiny new stuff, too.
Can we?
Posted by schnellerheinz at 10/14/2009 @ 3:21pm
antisocialist,
You said:
"....Sacrificing your life in order to maintain or to extend freedom is the ultimate and only truly nobel endeavor that we can undertake.
The anti-war left has never and probably will never understand this and prefers enslavement to liberty....."
Your remarks got me thinking that it must drive any liberals nuts who live in New Hampshire and have to cope with having the words "Live Free or Die" on their license plates.
There used not to be many political liberals up there but in recent years a lot of people have moved up to the southern areas of New Hampshire from neighboring Massachusetts. I wonder how many put off changing their vehicle registrations until they absolutely had to.
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 3:25pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 3:17pm |
Fine....Obama defeated in 2012 by YOUR best candidate, and he or she is succeeded every 2 terms by somebody just as committed as you...
when will the "War on Terror" be won?
Nothing specific. Don't have to say "2025, no later"...just give me factors of 10. A decade? 20 years? 30 years?
What?
Now....
tell us why you "can't say for certain"?
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 3:27pm
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 3:25pm | ignore this person | warn this person
SJ: Would you consider McGovern to be a "political liberal", or not?
Posted by schnellerheinz at 10/14/2009 @ 3:28pm
"....Sacrificing your life in order to maintain or to extend freedom is the ultimate and only truly nobel endeavor that we can undertake.
The anti-war left has never and probably will never understand this and prefers enslavement to liberty....."
Your remarks got me thinking that it must drive any liberals nuts who live in New Hampshire and have to cope with having the words "Live Free or Die" on their license plates. "----Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 3:25pm
And YOUR assignment...
given you agree....why have you never served in the military?
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 3:28pm
Far from discussed, much less understood in the US, is the role of so many Russians in the Israeli govt & Likud.
Posted by sloper at 10/14/2009 @ 12:26pm
With Putin as Kingpin over essentially deported oligarchs/mafia who still retain hope of being reunited with their Russian assets. Some in Israel even complain of Putin's attempt at Russification of Israel by forging Jewish birth certificates for Slavs who emigrate to Israel.
You are right - very little press devoted to this subject here at home.
Some argue Putin is using Iran to gain influence and power in Israel.
Posted by OneVote at 10/14/2009 @ 3:31pm
Couple of things confuse me. First, Obama opposed the war in Iraq even when the most dovish pols were convinced that Iraq had WMDs that were a threat to us, Israel and Iraq's neighbors. Like most of us Obama didn't know it was all Cheney/Wolfowitz/ Perle/ Rumsfeld bullshit, yet he was opposed to going in to Iraq.
He supported going into Afghanistan against the Taliban who were not a threat to anyone but their own Afghani people. If it was to wage war against Al-Queda then he will have to wage war against them in every Muslim country in the world. Al-Queda has no return address and maintains terror cells in every major city in the world. Including the U.S.
Waging war against terrorism is like waging a war on drugs and/or a war on poverty. These are not wars you win. They are wars you wage. Afghanistan is a no-win situation for Obama. No matter what he decides to do, the best result will be bad and he will be attacked either for getting out and abandoning the Afghanis to the Taliban or for staying in and losing American lives. I say get out. The sooner the better. But what the hell do I know
Posted by bean22 at 10/14/2009 @ 3:33pm
Mask,
About your comment:
"... even sjcher's joke-that-only-he-thinks-is-funny "President Caribou Barbie...."
If you think I think it is funny now, then just think ahead to after the noon hour on January 20, 2013........one of the things that I will think is funny at that time will be me thinking about how you are reacting to the newly inaugurated President Sarah Palin being in office!!!
I will be left with only conjecture as to how irritated or upset you may be about that happening, because I would assume that you will not be straightforward here on The Nation in the blogs as to what you are really thinking.
You of course are never straightforward about what you are thinking and I can't imagine that changing by 2013.
You still haven't explained what Mitt Romney has to do with any of this. Of course, I am still waiting for your answer/eveidence on how WXYZ television in Detroit is biased towards Israel in their news coverage.
Maybe I will never get an answer from you about that because WXYZ television is probably not biased. If they were, then certainly Frosty Zoom would have let us know about that by now, watching from over in Windsor.
By the way, back to the topic, you imply that the war was made by the "last Repub president".....
To correct you in your error on that statement......the war was made by terrorists, not the last Repub president...
If you walk out of J&R Computer World, go accross the street, go into St. Paul's Chapel, through the Chapel, and out the other side, you will see there is nothing across the street.
There is nothing there courtesy of terrorists representing the Religion of Peace who used hijacked aircraft to create the nothing that is there now....they are the ones who made the war.
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 3:43pm
'The marine unit that was in the battle that cost eight of their lives were interviewed and they related how the politicians tie their hands. I didn't just make it up. I heard it from the horse's mouth.'
"Gunslinger1," I do not doubt the good intentions of nearly all of our troops, nor their courage under fire. What I do doubt is whether it is humanly possible (or mechanically possible, in the case of predator drones) to achieve our stated objective to avoid civilian casualties when we are fighting a war against non-state actors who are not in any way distinguishable from non-combatants.
In short, what we are requiring our troops to do is not possible.
It is not the responsibility of our rank-and-file troops or their generals to set primary military objectives. That is the responsibility of the civilian government, principally the President and, at critical moments, Congress. What this means is that the major questions of military policy are OUR responsibility. Merely standing back and "giving generals the tools that they ask for" is an abdication of our responsibility as civilians to make the ultimate decision for or against war. It is also the abandonment of our republican system of government in favor of a military oligarchy.
I therefore lay blame for the failure of our present wars ultimately with our ailing republican system of government, not with any individual soldier.
I will never overcome my bitterness at the injustice that we inflict when we punish rank-and-file military abuses and let their commanding officers, above all the President and his Vice President, unpunished and unaccountable. These abuses are not the inspiration of "bad apples." They are the unavoidable consequences of unrealistic military policy.
Posted by JakobFabian at 10/14/2009 @ 3:44pm
when will the "War on Terror" be won?
Nothing specific. Don't have to say "2025, no later"...just give me factors of 10. A decade? 20 years? 30 years?
What?
Now....
tell us why you "can't say for certain"?
Posted by Mask at 10/14/2009 @ 3:27pm
What's changed since 9/11? As Bush stated, this is a war that will go on for decades. Unless of course the judgment of Christ comes first.
Why don't you tell us why you disagree with it going on for decades? Tell us why you don't believe that global jihad will remain a threat? We'd love to hear your answer.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 3:48pm
McGovern keeps asking an essential question. It needs to be answered. I've scanned all the comments...including a lot or really stupid ones ...and I don't see an intelligent argument against demanding an exit strategy.
If we don't receive a reasonable exit strategy from our leaders, then I'm for getting out now. That should be the "default" exit strategy. Historically, our leaders (Democrat or Republican) have used a default exit strategy of...the lack of an exit strategy.
Posted by salesgrower at 10/14/2009 @ 4:17pm
"As Bush stated, this is a war that will go on for decades"
yeah, bush also said:
"is our children learning"
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 4:32pm
"The Afghani people are terrified that we will leave them to the vices of the Taliban"
how do you know what the afghani people feel?
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 4:34pm
Posted by JakobFabian at 10/14/2009 @ 3:44pm
I don't know what it takes to get through to some people. Jako, we have troops on the ground there. They're getting shot at and they're dying. They don't give a fiddler's fart about whatever we're discussing here or for that matter in the halls of Congress.
They just want to know that we have their backs like they have ours. They don't want to represent the world's last superpower, with the mightiest military the world has ever seen and be made to feel like the 7th Calvary at the Little Big Horn.
That's why I've advised our civilian leaders that if they do not have the cajones to win this, or any other war where we've sent our kids, either bring them home and surrender or give them everything they need and MORE, to win.
Any politician who advocates surrender or defeat should resign immediately. That includes the President. We'll see if this administration has the same backbone that the last one did. I don't know why liberals struggle so hard to accept the fact that freedom is not free. You can't sat you support the troops but you are not willing to give them the tools to fight and the ability to shoot back.
Can you imagine yourself being over there, under fire, watching several of your friends die right in front of you and then be told not to shoot back because the cowards who just killed your buddies ran behind some woman's skirt, understanding full well, that liberals are now running the show in Washington and that they're squeemish at the sight of blood. Ridiculous.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 10/14/2009 @ 4:49pm
I don't love war. I love liberty. And sometimes liberty requires fighting for it; to preserve it, to expand it, to delivery others from totalitarianism. But I guess you're like your buddy JR (Emile) and Darla. You don't mind seeing the Taliban resume their enslavement of the Afghan people. You must like seeing the women treated as slaves and less than human.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 3:17pm
So it ok if its not OUR liberty, as long as we can justify killing in the name of someones liberty? Would that justify invasion of China? Iran?
Posted by Extraneous at 10/14/2009 @ 4:53pm
"The Afghani people are terrified that we will leave them to the vices of the Taliban"
how do you know what the afghani people feel?
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 4:34pm
So you would approve returning to the days when a woman could not leave the house without her husband? Could not have her face uncovered in public?
You approve of executing people in the soccer arenas who the Taliban felt were not being "good" Muslims?
You approve the banning of all non religious music?
<Sima Samar, head of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, recounted firsthand Thursday Afghanistan's current political state as well as its future at two campus presentations, focusing her speech on human and women's rights.
Women were perhaps hit hardest by the strict rules of the system. Women were not allowed to have a career, go to school, show their faces or leave their home. Samar fought against the Taliban's edicts by running a high school for women--the only one that existed for women at the time.
In addition, the Taliban outlawed women from watching television, closed public baths for women's use and forbade girls to play with toys that made noise. Samar stressed that the religion of Islam is a very peaceful one, and the Taliban exercised a strict and radical interpretation of it.
"[Women] had to wear the burqa. They were not even allowed to wear high-heeled shoes because the sound would disturb men on the street," she recounted. "Even a kite was not allowed because it resembled a bird. [The Taliban] have something against nature. Their beliefs did not have logic, especially in this century.">
http://tinyurl.com/yfzj5qk
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 4:58pm
We need clarity on Afghanistan. McGovern is on the right track. What exactly is our mission there? This raises a few questions about Obama's position. Did he focus on Afghanistan during the campaign because he wanted to appear strong on national security? Or does he really believe Afghanistan is a "war of necessity"? If he really thinks its a "war of necessity" then we are in trouble. Afghanistan will lead to Pakistan, and then what? We need clarity. The Taliban is rooted in Afghanistan and now expanding in Pakistan. The Taliban is not Al-Queda. By confusing them we run the risk of popularizing the Taliban in Pakistan. The Taliban is like the Viet Cong. Sooner or later we will have to negotiate with them. Better sooner than later, when we can somewhat isolate them in Afghanistan. We got to get rid of years of Bush-thinking where our mindset is "shock and awe". Its a difficult mindset to get rid of. As a matter of fact, it can be quite addictive. Lets have clarity about Afghanistan.
Posted by trueleftist at 10/14/2009 @ 5:02pm
So it ok if its not OUR liberty, as long as we can justify killing in the name of someones liberty? Would that justify invasion of China? Iran?
Posted by Extraneous at 10/14/2009 @ 4:53pm
Unlike many of you on the left, I want all mankind to live in liberty.
China cannot be compared to Iran or Afghanistan. While there certainly is a lot of inexcusable oppression of groups like Christians and Buddhists, it has become a haven for capitalism and and surprising freedom.
Tracks of 500k homes being built. the opening of stockmarkets to the masses. The number of modern shopping malls with luxury item stores. The most expensive golf country club and resort in the world. this month has already been a record month for Chinese tourism to other countries (a fact that really surprised me).
Try watching CCTV (and live streaming on cctv.com) and be surprised at the changes. My wife and I who were last in China 16 years ago are amazed at the change.
I remain hopeful in Iran that the people there can rise up against the Muslim clergy.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 5:04pm
Any politician who advocates surrender or defeat should resign immediately. That includes the President. We'll see if this administration has the same backbone that the last one did. I don't know why liberals struggle so hard to accept the fact that freedom is not free. You can't sat you support the troops but you are not willing to give them the tools to fight and the ability to shoot back.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 10/14/2009
I just can't follow your logic. You say you support our troops. Ok. No one is talking about not letting them shoot back, like Reagans policy for our Marines in Lebananon, I think that lesson was learned.
No one is advocating surrender, or defeat. We are not being chased out, we are not losing the battles. We are just not making any progress. Have we accomplished what we set out to do? No, but our target, Al Qaeda has left or has hidden, and our presence there is not welcome by the locals. I don't understand how you can support keeping troops in harms way for a mission that has no tangible goal. Have you not paid any attention to the discussions above? We are not trying to overturn a goverment, this is not a traditional war. We can continue to chase the Taliban around the country indefinately. When our troops enter a city, they will fight us and then disapear. This is not a type of warfare that we can sustain or 'win'. If we capture and kill their leaders, new ones will arise. Our troops are only targets, if we remove the targets and use other means (support local elements that have the will and means to fight the taliban) then we may achieve some success.
Your use of brain dead quotes like freedom is not free, is just meaningless propaganda in this situation as this war has NOTHING to do with our freedom.
Posted by Extraneous at 10/14/2009 @ 5:14pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 5:04pm | ignore this person | warn this person
western style multi-party liberal democracy with virtual absolute freedom of the press and assembly is not the only moral model of a political system. especially for societies seeking to modernize today, a single party with a legislating elite is proving very effective in southeast asia and china in providing its people with a widespread substantial improvement in their standards of living and an increase in the opportunites and alternatives available to them in living their lives. It is possible, if not likely, that a western model government could not have achieved these accomplishments in these societies at this time under the existing conditions.
just another example of why we are not at the end of history.
Posted by gren at 10/14/2009 @ 5:22pm
Unlike many of you on the left, I want all mankind to live in liberty.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 5:04pm |
Don't you mean that unlike many of us on the left you want to use military force to spread your idea of liberty (luxury shopping malls and golf courses for the countrys elite) to those who don't have it? Even if it means the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians?
Who cares how many people die, one day the countries elite may be able to play golf at a 5 star resort... So what if their poor are dying in the streets due to malnutrition or lack of healthcare at least their rich can go shopping at luxury stores.
Just give the poor a ration of Acai berry juice and they will be fine...
Posted by Extraneous at 10/14/2009 @ 5:29pm
Extraneous,
You say this war has nothing to do with our freedom.
However, it does.
If we defeat the terrorists, then people can remain free in the future whereas if the terrorists win some people lose their freedom.
For example, you can lose your freedom by becoming dead, when you would have preferred to have remained alive.
Some of the people who worked in office buildings across the street from St. Paul's Chapel had no say in being able to continue to live. They became dead one day. If one has no say in whether they live or die, it seems that is a pretty severe lack of freedom.
Of course, some made a conscious decision to die when they jumped out of the windows and fell 70 stories or so to their deaths, but they were going to die anyway within a few minutes, more precisely 9:59 AM if they were in 2 WTC or 10:29 AM in 1 WTC, so it was not really live or die but what time and in what manner to die for them.
We are at war to prevent that from happening again....so the war has EVERYTHING to do with our freedom.
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 5:30pm
"As Bush stated, this is a war that will go on for decades"
yeah, bush also said:
"is our children learning"
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 4:32pm
YEARS of serious alcohol usage went on there, with that man.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 10/14/2009 @ 5:39pm
Unlike many of you on the left, I want all mankind to live in liberty.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 5:04pm
Correction: You want all mankind to live by US/Western values and be sumsevient to the US.
"I remain hopeful in Iran that the people there can rise up against the Muslim clergy."
So you are hopeful that violence ensues?
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 5:48pm
Posted by gunslinger1 at 10/14/2009 @ 4:49pm
Can you tell us what war you were in? Because, as a veteran of Iraq I, I can say that the best way to support the troops is to not have them over in foreign countries and serving as targets for a several year war with no discernible objectives.
Posted by Extraneous at 10/14/2009 @ 4:53pm
I must admit the digest version of antisocialist is much better. Thanks for the valuable service.
Also, it's interesting that he talks about expanding liberty. I don't remember that being one of the justifications of getting into Afghanistan in the first place. It's kind of an after the fact rationalization.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/14/2009 @ 5:53pm
We are at war to prevent that from happening again....
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 5:30pm
I do not agree. Freedom is not = to life. Freedom is the power to act and speak with out constraints. 9/11 was not an attack on our freedoms it is sad to me that you don't understand the difference. If anything we as a society have chosen to give up freedom for security in response to 9/11.
Furthermore, what we are doing in Afghanistan no longer has anything to do with your above statement. If anything our current actions are only serving to increase the liklihood that we will be attacked again.
Posted by Extraneous at 10/14/2009 @ 5:57pm
We are at war to prevent that from happening again....so the war has EVERYTHING to do with our freedom.
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 5:30pm
Only if your definition of freedom implies some sort of right to build pipelines on someone else's land.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 6:10pm
Also, it's interesting that he talks about expanding liberty. I don't remember that being one of the justifications of getting into Afghanistan in the first place. It's kind of an after the fact rationalization.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/14/2009 @ 5:53pm
No to mention unconstitutional...Anti allways seems to be against things that he deems unconstitutional, by his interpretation. He would probably find a way of interpreting common defense/repelling invasion into expanding liberty abroad.
Posted by Extraneous at 10/14/2009 @ 6:11pm
"So you would approve returning to the days when a woman could not leave the house without her husband? Could not have her face uncovered in public?"
what do you mean "returning"? do you actually believe that, because of our invasion and occupation, afghani women have evolved?
sharia law is (quite literally) still 'the law of the land' in afghanistan, and that was decided by the elected leadership, under 'our man in kabul,' hamid karzai.
our invasion accomplished nothing for women in afghanistan. from the huffpo today:
""Sharia law with all of its violence" has just been made the law of the land by President Karzai -- you know, our man in Kabul. The Sharia Personal Status Law, signed by Karzai, became operational in July. Among its provisions: custody rights are granted to fathers and grandfathers, women can work only with the permission of their husbands, and husbands can withhold food from wives who don't want to have sex with them"
so, anti, what did the invasion accomplish for women, exactly?
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 6:19pm
The only argument the "freedom-loving" fascists make on this list is that we must "win in Afghanistan" to prevent terrorist attacks.
It's all lies. We are not in Afghanistan because of terrorism, but because of oil pipelines and military bases on China's borders. The attack on Afghanistan was planned well before 9/11. http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/preplanned.html It had nothing to do with terror.
NONE of the 9/11 attackers came from Afghanistan. Neither did the 7/7 attackers in London, or in Bombay or anywhere else outside their own country. Yet you wingnuts feel it is perfectly OK to invade, occupy, and bomb Afghan people to further your economic and military interests. If we don't, someone might set up a "terrorist training camp" somewhere. Training camps are easy to set up - they have them here actually. They don't justify occupying a country and massacring people.
The whole "anti-terrorism" meme is an EXCUSE. It's not the real reason and never has been. People like gunslinger and antisocialist are ignorant monsters. You condemn innocent American soldiers and people in all our target countries to death, and call it "freedom." You talk about our soldiers "fighting with their hands tied," while we kill people from the air with robot airplanes. And then you believe Jesus is on your side. I only wish there was a Hell so you could go there.
Posted by DavidSpero at 10/14/2009 @ 6:32pm
Also, it's interesting that he talks about expanding liberty. I don't remember that being one of the justifications of getting into Afghanistan in the first place. It's kind of an after the fact rationalization.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/14/2009 @ 5:53pm
Well, it is after the fact. Just as it was with Germany and Japan. We didn't defend ourselves to bring freedom to the Germans and the Japanese, but it was a definite byproduct.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 6:53pm
It's all lies. We are not in Afghanistan because of terrorism, but because of oil pipelines and military bases on China's borders. The attack on Afghanistan was planned well before 9/11.
The whole "anti-terrorism" meme is an EXCUSE. It's not the real reason and never has been. People like gunslinger and antisocialist are ignorant monsters. You condemn innocent American soldiers and people in all our target countries to death, and call it "freedom." You talk about our soldiers "fighting with their hands tied," while we kill people from the air with robot airplanes. And then you believe Jesus is on your side. I only wish there was a Hell so you could go there.
Posted by DavidSpero at 10/14/2009 @ 6:32pm
Another far left conspiracy kook.
Al Qaeda was hdqtrd in Afghanistan. the Chief plotter of 9/11 Kalik Sheik Mohammad, was a right hand man to Bin Laden and was captured, hiding in Pakistan.
Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghanistan Taliban is married into Bin Laden's family and has sworn a vow of global jihad against the west.
Your ignorance and your hatred of liberty and all who love it is evident by your language. The soldiers fighting in Afghanistan are VOLUNTEERS. I meet with Marines who have returned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan every month. They are proud of their service and I am proud of them.
You don't deserve to have these brave young Americans defend your right to be a jerk, but they do it because unlike you, they love this country enough to die for it.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 7:01pm
The whole "anti-terrorism" meme is an EXCUSE. It's not the real reason and never has been. People like gunslinger and antisocialist are ignorant monsters.
Posted by DavidSpero at 10/14/2009 @ 6:32pm
Of course they are.
It was funny to see antisocialist ask someonw what their age was, whil he himself falls for the same ruse that Hitler user to invade Poland.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 7:11pm
so, anti, what did the invasion accomplish for women, exactly?
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 6:19pm
The results have been mixed depending on where you are in Afghanistan. In the cities, the change is remarkable. In the villages, unfortunately there has been little improvement.
<But, according to USAID, the number of children now enrolled in school has increased six-fold to 6 million children -- one-third of whom are girls -- since the Taliban's fall. Moini and Brown, who previously opened a co-ed elementary school in Jalalabad that now enrolls 2,000 students, tell a similar story of expansive improvement in women and girls' education.
Ann Jones, a women's rights expert and author of Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan, spent four years in Afghanistan as a journalist and aid worker, from 2002 to 2006, and has more recently been involved with Rethink Afghanistan, filmmaker and activist Robert Greenwald's latest Brave New Films documentary. She applauds the successes in developing areas such as Jalalabad, and even notes improvements in some rural localities where non-governmental organizations (NGO) such as Vorgetts' Women for Afghan Women and the National Solidarity Project have a strong presence. But overall, she is less sanguine than Moini and Brown. "All the positive changes are still insufficient to produce something like critical momentum, and all could be reversed in a moment by laws such as the Shiia family law Karzai was ready to implement until international pressure gave him pause," writes Jones in an email to the Huffington Post.
http://tinyurl.com/lndhh7
I rather see slow progress and even mixed progress than what the had before we invaded.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 7:32pm
I rather see slow progress and even mixed progress than what the had before we invaded.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 7:32pm
But according to your own link,
a) positive changes are still insufficient to produce something like critical momentum
and
b) the changes are due to NGO's, not military intervantion
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 7:37pm
"b) the changes are due to NGO's, not military intervantion"
antisocialist left out that critical fact, and also forgot to mention that robert greenwald, with whom author worked, is a leftie filmmaker/activist.....and massively opposed to the war.
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 7:41pm
"b) the changes are due to NGO's, not military intervantion"
antisocialist left out that critical fact, and also forgot to mention that robert greenwald, with whom author worked, is a leftie filmmaker/activist.....and massively opposed to the war.
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 7:41pm
I purposely quoted a leftist source just for you Darla. By providing a link, I certainly wasn't hiding the fact.
But your point about NGO's ignores the reality that without the war, NGO's could not be there.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 7:50pm
But your point about NGO's ignores the reality that without the war, NGO's could not be there.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 7:50pm
Where's the proof of that?
"Non governmental organisations (NGOs) have played an important humanitarian role in Afghanistan and in support of Afghan refugees since 1979."
http://tinyurl.com/yfhwgda
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 7:56pm
http://minx.cc/?post=224542 "INFANT mortality in Afghanistan has fallen dramatically since the demise of the Taleban, according to a new study, with 40,000 fewer babies dying every year....Benjamin Loevinsohn, a World Bank health specialist, said the survey results probably underestimated the improvement in infant mortality.
"It's a conservative estimate. This is the situation two and a half to three years ago ... It should be better than that now," Mr Loevinsohn said.""
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 8:08pm
http://www.tcj.com/247/e_giuffo.html From 2002: "...he ignores the $4.5 billion in international aid to Afghanistan that wouldn't have been sent had the Taliban remained in power. The Ahmed Rashid books he cites ad nauseum should have taught him that the Taliban were known for pushing aid organizations out of the country for such "violations" as being Christian. The World Food Program reports that food aid is now successfully reaching 6.6 million people in Afghanistan. According to UNICEF, who, coincidentally, also voiced opposition to the bombing campaign at first, the international aid agency is now able to go forward with the "biggest logistical operation for many years" in Afghanistan. In an aid update from January, UNICEF workers immunized 572,000 children in Kabul during the first two weeks of 2002, "six times higher than the total immunization coverage in 2001." They also vaccinated over 700,000 children against measles during the first two months of 2002, in a country where, as Nicholas Kristof pointed out in the Feb. 1 New York Times, "virtually no one had been vaccinated against the disease in the previous 10 years." That alone will save the lives of at least 35,000 children each year. Kristof also quotes Heidi J. Larson of UNICEF saying that she expects maternal mortality rates in Afghanistan will halve as a result of improved health care over the next five years. That's another 112,000 children and 7,500 pregnant women saved each year."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 8:09pm
he ignores the $4.5 billion in international aid to Afghanistan that wouldn't have been sent had the Taliban remained in power.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 8:09pm
Sadly, itihas been revealed that a lot of that money is going to the Taliban.
http://tinyurl.com/ljfqse
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 8:16pm
That's another 112,000 children and 7,500 pregnant women saved each year.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 8:09pm
That would only be true if 12,000 children and 7,500 pregnant women were dying each year prior to 2001, whcih is not the case.
It's so easy to debunk with simple logic.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 8:18pm
http://minx.cc/?post=224542 "INFANT mortality in Afghanistan has fallen dramatically since the demise of the Taleban, according to a new study, with 40,000 fewer babies dying every year....Benjamin Loevinsohn, a World Bank health specialist, said the survey results probably underestimated the improvement in infant mortality.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 8:08pm
Also debunked.
From 2005:
Afghanistan's maternal and child mortality rates soar http://www.unicef.org/media/media_27853.html
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 8:20pm
Shingo,
I am quite certain, and Mask would correct me if I was wrong, but I am positive that no Polish terrorists ever hijacked aircraft and flew them into 110 story office buildings in Berlin in the 1930's.
So the unjustifiable reasons that Nazis gave for invading Poland are NOT the same as the justifiable reasons given for why the United States has gone to war against terror.
You implied that they were, and this DavidSpero calls it a "meme".
I don't exactly know what a meme is but I do know what nothing looks like, I saw it across the street from St. Paul's Chapel near J&R Computer World.
I can tell you that nothing does not look very good when one realizes that the nothing was made possible courtesy of terrorists representing the Religion of Peace, and we are at war to prevent something else somewhere else from turning into nothing at a future point in time.
Maybe you and DavidSpero need to stop comparing unjustified invasions by Nazis into Poland with efforts to prevent somethings from becoming nothings.
And maybe I am not familiar with what a meme is but you and DavidSpero need to familiarize yourself with what nothing looks like. Go look at it sometime, you will find it across the street from St. Paul's Chapel.
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 8:28pm
sjchermak,
None of the Taliban were involved with flying hijacked aircraft into buildings either, as I recall, nor was Iraq, so I'm afraid that the olich analogy does apply.
As for what nothing lokos like, you can find plenty of examples of carnage on the scale of 911 in most Iraqi towns and villages thanks to our invasion.
You're real point is that it happened to us, which is unforgiveable,. When it happens to brown people, well, better them than us right sjchermak?
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 8:49pm
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 8:28pm
So why exactly were we threatening war in August 2001, during negotiations for a natural gas pipeline. Why exactly was Bush given the plans for the invasion before September 11th.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 8:54pm
Oh and another thing sjchermak,
Terror is tactic, not a plance or a thing, or a society, thuse going to war against it is abotu and meaningful as a war on gravity.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 8:54pm
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 8:54pm
The same thing with Iraq. Bush stated he wanted to invade Iraq long before 911, but argued that 911 was the reason for the invasion.
You see nkurland, understanding the right wing mid requires a suspension in reality. In theri world, time moves backwards and gravity is up.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 8:56pm
Shingo,
As you know, Saddam would have been back making WMD again had we not stopped him. The WMD ultimately would have killed perhaps millions of people.
We stopped that. Get that into your thick head, please.
After going into Iraq, we were then fighting against insurgents and terrorists that hate us, our way of life, and who also want no freedom for the Iraqi people.
So any carnage that results from fighting these evil people is blamable on them, not the United States.
Get that into your thick head, please.
Then you go down the well-worn leftist path of throwing the race card by implying that we don't care about killing "brown people".
You know full well that we did not go into Iraq to kill "brown people" and you know full well that the United States of America is not ambivalent about the well-being or life of "brown people". You know this because if you read history you see that the U.S. has done more good for more people world wide than any other country in human history. That is the exact opposite of ambivalent.
And from reading history you know that Americans have worked by themselves in a free society to right wrongs that existed here....with those wrongs being righted to a much greater degree here than would have been possible anywhere else....
Get those concepts into your thick head, please.
And put your race card away, unless you want to start throwing it at people on your side of the political fence who are the people who continually look at people of color with pandering condescension and fake compassion, telling them there is no hope for them because of past wrongs unless they allow the rich white liberal to bestow upon them the blessings of government.
With the result continued poverty and misery.
Get that into your thick head, please.
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 9:08pm
It was funny to see antisocialist ask someonw what their age was, whil he himself falls for the same ruse that Hitler user to invade Poland.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 7:11pm
All started at a little wooden radio tower in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia...
Posted by schnellerheinz at 10/14/2009 @ 9:09pm
Not that GOVERNMENTS would ever,you know, lie...
Posted by schnellerheinz at 10/14/2009 @ 9:14pm
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 9:08pm
Interesting how you're possibly blaming Hussein. After all, UN Resolution 1441 was passed with the understanding that it was not justification to go to war, John Negroponte even said this. We didn't go back to the Security Council for direct authorization because it would have been instantly vetoed. Even with your rationale that As you know, Saddam would have been back making WMD again had we not stopped him" that still doesn't equal an imminent threat of attack, so no matter how you look at it, the war was preventative. Preventative war is considered aggression.
In light of this, the Nuremberg trials defined a war of aggression as such: "essentially an evil thing...to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
So responsibility still lands on the shoulders of the U.S.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 9:17pm
...allow the rich white liberal to bestow upon them the blessings of government.
With the result continued poverty and misery.
Get that into your thick head, please.
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 9:08pm | ignore this person | warn this person
But, of course, this natural distrust of all things government must necessarily exclude entrusting them with the ULTIMATE power a government can have----invading other countries, on foreign adventures, and in our name. If you can't trust them with running pissyshit like the Post Office, how can you have them even attempt to run this post-colonial empire of ours?
Posted by schnellerheinz at 10/14/2009 @ 9:22pm
No offense to the P.O.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 10/14/2009 @ 9:23pm
...and yes, Constitution buffs and burgeoning would-be legal scholars, the Post Office IS mentioned in the Constitution...
Posted by schnellerheinz at 10/14/2009 @ 9:25pm
As you know, Saddam would have been back making WMD again had we not stopped him. The WMD ultimately would have killed perhaps millions of people.
We stopped that. Get that into your thick head, please.
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 9:08pm
This is from the IAEA's INVO- Iraq Nuclear Verification Office:http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Invo/index.html
Direct quote: "IAEA inspectors found no evidence that the nuclear programme had been revived during the forced absence of INVO from 1998 until 2002."
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 9:26pm
nkurland,
The U.N. demanded of Saddam things that Saddam never intended to do.........and it was clear that the U.N. was never going to make him do them.
If you remember, before the left re-wrote history, back at that time most all believed Saddam to be a threat. This included Democrats in this country and even Saddam's own generals.
We had no way of knowing just exactly what capability Saddam possessed because Saddam was not complying with the demands upon him to completely come clean about the state of his weapons programs.
So the only thing that was happening was that Hans Blix was wandering around Iraq and checking places out that Saddam did not keep him from going into because any weapons that were thought to have been there were long gone. Gone were and when, we probably will never know.
So Saddam had to be looked upon as an immediate threat, and since the U.N. was never going to resolve the issue, President Bush and PM Blair did so.
So the war was not completely preventative anyway. It was to remove a current threat.
What if we did nothing and then Saddam had wiped out a city somewhere with WMD? We had no way of knowing then that Saddam was not capable of doing that.
I can tell you what would have happened. Liberals would have screamed in condemnation of President Bush and said he did not pay attention to the threat!!!
Classic dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.
So responsibility still lands on the shoulders of Saddam and other terrorists we still are at war with.
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 9:36pm
nkurland,
Ab0ut your 9:26 pm post---
I was not talking about what happened or what did not happen between 1998 and 2002.
I was talking about what would have happened if we had not invaded Iraq in 2003.
If we had not invaded Iraq, then Hans Blix at some point, having found no weapons, would have proclaimed Saddam disarmed. He would have been off the hook, the sanctions would have been lifted, not many people would have paid attention or cared what if anything Saddam was doing, and thus he would have had the green light to start his programs again.
And the world would not have been aware of it.
Between 1998 and 2002 Saddam was still "on the hook", so to speak, with world attention on him. He was still in the period where he was allowing his weapons program to go into abeyance in order to someday be declared disarmed, and then have a green light to go back to making WMD.
So your point has nothing to do with the point I made.
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 9:42pm
Sjchermak,
Actually , we don't know that Saddam would have been making WMD agin. He had no WND when we invaded, nor had there been any since 1991, so what was there to stop? WMD had never been used to kill millions of people, so what evidence is therer that he was about to?
After illegally invading Iraq on false pretenses, we fought Iraqis that hated the fact that we were there. We would have done the same if invaded. You will have noticed that Iraqis were not attacking us before then.
You've never heard of cause and effect it seems.
According to the Geneva Conventions, the ultimate war crime is a war of agression and indentified by the fact that any violence that ensues thus becomes the fault of the agressor, so yes, any carnage that resulted from the invasion was indeed our fault.
As for killing brown people, we don't even call them people but collateral damage and as the Pentagon told us, we don;t do body counts. That shows how much we care about them or regard their lives.
Having read history, not the comic books you are referring to, it's clear that the U.S. has inflited untold harm. All we have done s start more wars than any other country.
The US government and the US military, which is simple an agency of the government, is not the American people. I laugh at your wingnuts who insist that we can't trust the government to run anything, but worship the government run, government agency called the DOD.
American people have lived to generate a living, but the freedoms here can be found in at least a dozen other countries. If you had a passport and actually bothered to leave your neighborhood, you might discover that.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 9:45pm
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 9:36pm
In case you haven't noticed, the Democrat Republican divide was not applicable in the decision to start either war. This is why I'm registered as an independent. In any case, you haven't countered the charge that Iraq stopped its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, verified by the IAEA.
And let's not forget this dossier submitted by Hussein: http://www.unwire.org/unwire/20021218/31005_story.asp
Sorry that your apologetics fall flat on their face.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 9:45pm
BW Sjchermak,
Don't lecture to me about condescension and fake compassion. You wingnuts can't seem to make your mind up whether you want to blow up Arabs or save them, but revise your raison d'etre to fit your xenophobic and fascist talking points. In fact, you shouldn''t even bother trying to interpret true and fake compassion.
It's best you tick to to concepts you understand.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 9:46pm
I was talking about what would have happened if we had not invaded Iraq in 2003.
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 9:42pm
Except that this is pure speculation and post invasion/post disaster rationale.
Even if Saddam has re-start his programs, which had not existed since 1994, so what?
Who was he about to attack having seen his military and country destroyed in 1990/1991?
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 9:51pm
"That would only be true if 112,000 children and 7,500 pregnant women were dying each year prior to 2001, whcih is not the case."
Shingo, far, far, far, far more than that were dying prior to 2001. Scientific studies and proven scientific facts have no impact on you. You are delusional.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 9:53pm
"But your point about NGO's ignores the reality that without the war, NGO's could not be there"
oh right, i forgot. freedom bombs!
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 9:57pm
"http://www.unicef.org/media/media_27853.html"
This link supports my claim that the Afghan war is saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
It says: "While Afghanistan is progressing from a state of emergency to a focus on development, women and children continue to face an "acute emergency'' because of exceptionally high maternal and child mortality rates. "Infant mortality and under five mortality are very high, girls' enrolment is one of the lowest in the world and malnutrition affects almost half of the country's child population," said Cecilia Lotse, UNICEF's Regional Director for South Asia, after a a week-long visit to the region."
It agrees that healthcare in Afghanistan, even as of 2005 (when it was written), is dramatically better than it was under the Taliban. It just reiterates that Afghanistan is still a very, very backward country. Obviously, you didn't read the article.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 9:58pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 9:58pm
Notice how the article attributes the gains to the work of UNICEF, an NGO.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 10:00pm
and besides, as i've clearly pointed out, women's rights may have evolved ever-so-slightly in kabul, but outside of kabul, it's still awful. and the law of the land, sharia, is still effective in kabul.
Posted by darladoon at 10/14/2009 @ 10:00pm
Posted by sjchermak at 10/14/2009 @ 9:42pm
As it turns out, Saddam did everything the UN demanded of him.
The reason that Bush ordered Blix out of Iraq is because he was afraid that Blix would confirm this.
If you recall, the only reason anyone believed Saddam to be a threat is because the US was telling them so.
Poor wingnuts like yourself still desperately cling to the Orwellian logic that the only reason we didn't find any WMD is because they were hidden, or better still, the fact that we didn't find them proves they existed.
Sadly for you, Wolfowitz admitted to vanity fair that we invaded Iraq because it swam on a sea of oil.
Wingnuts like yourself also use the circular logic that the U.N. was never going to resolve the issue, even though history has shown there was nothing to resolve.
There was no threat, thus no justification for the war.
What leads you to believe that Saddam would have decided to wiped out a city somewhere? with WMD? What cities had he wiped out in the past?
Your is the most pathetic and infantile, retroactive, post facto rationale, which only a hand full of dead enders like yourself still cling to.
Perhaps the news about how all our intel being wrong, didn't reach your neck of the woods?
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 10:03pm
Notice how the article attributes the gains to the work of UNICEF, an NGO.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 10:00pm
And ntice how those NGO's are predominantly Afghani, not foreign?
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 10:06pm
This link supports my claim that the Afghan war is saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 9:58pm
No it doesn't becasuse it does not mention that hundreds of thousands of lives were being lost.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 10:07pm
Here's what the left needs to get through its thick skull: sure, we could have given Saddam 15 more years in which he'd kill 20,000 Iraqis each year, and we could have given his even crazier sons a couple decades of power as well, but their rule could not have lasted forever. Post-Baathist Iraq was inevitable. It was not caused by the invasion. Hitchens summed it up best in 2002: "It's fairly easy to demonstrate that Saddam Hussein is a bad guy's bad guy. He's not just bad in himself but the cause of badness in others. While he survives not only are the Iraqi and Kurdish peoples compelled to live in misery and fear (the sheerly moral case for regime-change is unimpeachable on its own), but their neighbors are compelled to live in fear as well.
However--and here is the clinching and obvious point--Saddam Hussein is not going to survive. His regime is on the verge of implosion. It has long passed the point of diminishing returns. Like the Ceausescu edifice in Romania, it is a pyramid balanced on its apex (its powerbase a minority of the Sunni minority), and when it falls, all the consequences of a post-Saddam Iraq will be with us anyway. To suggest that these consequences--Sunni-Shi'a rivalry, conflict over the boundaries of Kurdistan, possible meddling from Turkey or Iran, vertiginous fluctuations in oil prices and production, social chaos--are attributable only to intervention is to be completely blind to the impending reality. The choices are two and only two--to experience these consequences with an American or international presence or to watch them unfold as if they were none of our business."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:08pm
As far as if Bush was correct to wager that post-Baathist Iraq would be the central front in the war on terror from which to launch a truly spectacular blow against AQ, it seems as though he's been sufficiently proven correct by the events that followed our intervention.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:11pm
BTW, upwards of 60,000 Iraqis will have been saved by improved healthcare resulting from the war by 2016, not that liberals REALLY give a damn about the Iraqi people.
Saddam could have constructed a nuclear arsenal in a matter of months and had plans in place to do so as soon as the sanctions were lifted according to the Duelfer Report.
Libya gave up its WMD, Syria handed over Baathists and jihadists it previously harbored, Iran was weakened, Saudi Arabia further capitulated on its sponsorship of terror, and the AQ-Khan network was unmasked as a result of the Iraq war.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:16pm
"The reason that Bush ordered Blix out of Iraq is because he was afraid that Blix would confirm this."
Actually, that's true.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:20pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009
Here's what the left needs to get through its thick skull. Even if Saddam had killed 20,000 Iraqis every year for 15 more years, there would stil be over 1 mllion Iraqis still alive.
Hitchens was wrong abotu everythig to do with the Iraq was so what he summer up in 2002 is just a product of his acolohol induced coma.
There was no evidence that Saddam's regime was on the verge of an implosion. The CIA had been predicitng that he woudl be toppled in 6 months since 1991, and he proved everyone wrong.
You can pontificate and talk abtou what f's all you liek, but the reality is that we killed many more Iraqis than we woudl have svaed by not invading.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 10:21pm
But only 130,000 people have died in the entire war.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:22pm
Actually, that's true.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:20pm
So that proves Bush lied about WMD.
Good for you.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 10:22pm
BTW, upwards of 60,000 Iraqis will have been saved by improved healthcare resulting from the war by 2016, not that liberals REALLY give a damn about the Iraqi people.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009
Compete rubbish. Iraq had the best public health care and education system in the M, thoguh it's ironic to hear wiongnuts boast of public services implemeted in countries we've invased, while decrying them at home.
Saddam never produced a simgle nuke, so would never have constructed a nuclear arsenal, let alone in a matter of months. The Duelfer Report nevr proposed this scenario.
Libya had ben trying to give up its WMD ince 1993. Iran has been strengthenes adn become the most poweful player in Iraq, with Saddam gone. Saudi Arabia continues to sponsor AQ and the Taliban. The US has known about the AQ-Khan network since the 70's, turning a blind eye to it's dealings until 911.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 10:27pm
"Iraq had the best public health care and education system in the M,"
I know you have nothing but glowing praise for the wonderful land that was Baathist Iraq and that Syrian TV is your primary source of information on foreign affairs, but it remains nonetheless the case that empirical evidence does not support your claims.
From an 2007 report: "According to figures from the CIA World Factbook there are roughly 864,588 live births in Iraq every year (about 31.44 for every 1,000 citizens). In 2003 there was an infant mortality rate in Iraq of 55.16 per 1,000 births, or about 47,690 infant deaths.
In 2006 that infant mortality rate has dropped to 48.64 deaths per 1,000 births. Or about 42,503 infant deaths/year. Or about 5,187 fewer dead infants every year than in 2003."
By 2016, from this alone roughly 57,057 Iraqis will have been saved. However, healthcare will continue to improve, saving thousands or tens of thousands annually. In addition, water purification facilities, schools, and hospitals have been built by noble and caring and humane Americans in Iraq, and the sanctions are gone. America has given billions more in humanitarian aid to Iraqis.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:38pm
By the way Shingo, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Kuwait, and Jordan all had better healthcare and education than Baathist Iraq.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:40pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:08pm
So let's see here, 20,000 a year (if we're accepting your bogus claim) or 1.2 according to the rate of increase from the Lancet report. I wonder which number is greater. I wonder whih number is based on statistical analysis.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 10:44pm
I wonder what liberals think of healthcare and nutrition improving so dramatically in Iraq and of the death rate for US soldiers in Iraq in the bloodiest year of the war being less than the death rate of young black men in Philadelphia. The reason I'm curious is because Shingo (like many leftists) holds that morgues in Iraq have covered up at least 1.1 million deaths or so as part of an elaborate conspiracy and that the Iraq war has actually cost more lives than 12 Hiroshimas AND that the scale of the killing in Iraq was greater than in Darfur and Rwanda combined.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:45pm
"So let's see here, 20,000 a year (if we're accepting your bogus claim)"
Its a very accurate claim. The Weekly Standard is my source. I respect them.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:47pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:38pm
You just admitted that lifting the sanctions saved lives. So you are in fact accepting U.S. responsibility for deaths under the sanctions. And still, none of your sources directly credit the invasion. We could have simply given the aid without invading.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 10:47pm
"Libya had ben trying to give up its WMD ince 1993"
Not according to Gaddafi.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:48pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:38pm
You just admitted that lifting the sanctions saved lives. So you are in fact accepting U.S. responsibility for deaths under the sanctions. And still, none of your sources directly credit the invasion. We could have simply given the aid without invading.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 10:48pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:47pm
All you did was divide the total killed by the total number of years he was in power, you can't predict a number killed.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 10:51pm
I know you have nothing but glowing praise for the wonderful land that was Baathist Iraq and that Syrian TV is your primary source of information on foreign affairs
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:38pm
Seeing as I don't wantch either or speack Arabic, this is rubbish.
By 2007, the occupation ws already 4-5 years old, so the figures you cited have no relevance to Iraq's heatlh system pre invasion, let alone pre-sanctions.
So to argue that by 2016, 57,057 Iraqis will have been saved is laughable, and a joke.
1.2 million have been killed as a result of the invasion, forgetr the consequnces of the hudnreds of tonnes of DU in Iraq, whcih could lead to the deaths of hundreds fo thousands more.
The UN report just relased reveals that water shortages have cause 100,000 to flee homes in Iraq. http://tinyurl.com/yllhppq
Sorry to burst your bubble rightwingnutcase, but the harder you dig, the bigger the hole gets.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 10:51pm
Saddam manipulated the sanctions, starving a quarter of a million to death, in order to use it as propaganda to get the sanctions lifted so he could construct his nuclear arsenal. In fact, he used money stolen from the Oil-for-Food program to pay off "anti-war" politicians in Europe to feign mock "moral" outrage over the suffering, and to covertly bargain with North Korea for WMD.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:52pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:52pm
Oh yea? Prove Saddam was responsible for a quarter of a million deaths.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 10:55pm
Saddam manipulated the sanctions, starving a quarter of a million to death,
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:52pm
Firstly, the sacntions were based on the US breaking the terms of the sanctions by insisting that they not be tied to Iraq2 disarming, but the removal of Saddam, which was not mentioned in any of the UN Resolutions to which the sanctions were tied.
Also, Maldelaine Albright admitted those deaths that resulted were the responsibility o the US when she declared half a million dead children to be a worhty price to pay.
Saddam paid no NO "anti-war" politicians anywhere.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 10:56pm
"All you did was divide the total killed by the total number of years he was in power, you can't predict a number killed."
Actually, the Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has documented over 600,000 civilian executions carried out by Saddam's regime over 24 years (1979-2003). This doesn't count about 200,000 killed in genocide, as the sanctions and no-fly-zones prevented him from doing that again and would inflate his total.
If I just divided that, I would get 25,000 per year. I still think the WS's 2003 estimate of 20,000 was more accurate because Saddam's killing had waned somewhat by the time of the war.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:58pm
"Saddam paid no NO "anti-war" politicians anywhere."
Not according to the always reliable Hitchens.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:59pm
Actually, the Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has documented over 600,000 civilian executions carried out by Saddam's regime over 24 years
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:58pm
Do you have a link?
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 11:01pm
The AP has just released this story today:
"BAGHDAD – At least 85,000 people lost their lives from 2004 to 2008 in Iraq's violence, according to the first official report by the Iraqi government on the death toll since the war begun.
The report, released by the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry late Tuesday as part of a larger study on the country's human rights situation, said 85,694 people were killed from 2004-08, and 147,195 were wounded during the same period.
The Associated Press reported in April that just over 87,000 people died between 2005 and early 2009, according to government statistics it obtained.
The Iraqi death toll has been a hotly disputed subject and critics on both sides of the political spectrum have accused the other side of manipulating the death numbers to sway public opinion."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:02pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:58pm
Even so, you can't predict a number that would be killed, its completely baseless. So let's just toss that figure right out the window.
Oh, and btw, the total amount of deaths based on the Lancet study's rate of increase is now 1.3 million.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 11:02pm
Not according to the always reliable Hitchens.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 10:59pm
Realiable and Hitchens is a contradictino in terms. Hitchens lied in teh run up and all through the Iraq invasion. He is completely discredited.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 11:03pm
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/09/iraq99.htm
This link provides indisputable evidence that all the deaths "from the sanctions" were actually caused by Saddam.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:04pm
Oh, and btw, the total amount of deaths based on the Lancet study's rate of increase is now 1.3 million.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 11:02pm
Not just the Lancet, but the British ORB as well.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 11:04pm
"Oh, and btw, the total amount of deaths based on the Lancet study's rate of increase is now 1.3 million."
According to morgues and death certificates in Iraq and the Iraqi government's just-released new report, its 85,000, sorry.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:05pm
This link provides indisputable evidence that all the deaths "from the sanctions" were actually caused by Saddam.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:04pm
On the contrary. Madelaine Albright already claimed responsibilityon behalf of the US. She said that the daths of half a million Iraqi children was a price the US was willing to pay.
Also, when teh US helped draft the UN Resolutions, no mention was made of regime change. It as only after Bush 41 signed the resolutinos that he declared that the US would veto any call to lift the sanctions even if Iraq complied.
Thus Bush 41 made the descision to kill all those Iraqis. That policy was carried through by the 2 subseqeunt administrations.
2 UN heads of Human Rights resigned their post over what they reagrded as infancticide adn genocide by the US and the UN in Iraq.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 11:08pm
According to morgues and death certificates in Iraq and the Iraqi government's just-released new report, its 85,000, sorry.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:05pm
Robert Fisk exposed that that Iraqi morgues were ordered to cover up the true number of deaths by the interim Iraqi government.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 11:09pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:04pm
Not only does is this document from a biased source, but it contains no real analysis or consideration of the relatively light application of the sanctions in Kurdistan. Try comparing this with the views of Dennis Halladay and Hans von Sponeck, the two United Nations Humanitarian Coordinators for Iraq. Both oonsidered the sanctions genocidal in nature.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 11:11pm
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/09/iraq99.htm
This link provides indisputable evidence that all the deaths "from the sanctions" were actually caused by Saddam.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:04pm
BTW. your link has been subsequently debunked by history.
For example:
"Since December 1998, Saddam Hussein has prevented UN weapons inspectors from even entering Iraq."
This has been debuked. It was Clinton that ordered the UN weapons inspectors to leave Iraq in 1998 and Bush who ordered the UN weapons inspectors to leave Iraq in 2003.
Just goes to prove that the whoel thing is outdated propaganda.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 11:13pm
"Robert Fisk"
Who Osama greatly respects and admires.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:14pm
According to morgues and death certificates in Iraq and the Iraqi government's just-released new report, its 85,000, sorry.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:05pm
That's OK.
The Iraqi government's figures are false either way. ;-)
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 11:15pm
Who Osama greatly respects and admires.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:14pm
No, you're just desperate and you won't have any evidence to prove it.
You said that about Michael Sheurer too.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 11:17pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:14pm
Look, its clearly obvious that you've never read Robert Fisk. We established this before.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 11:18pm
"Do you have a link?"
Yes, the same source I got my infant mortality numbers from.
http://tinyurl.com/ntb3uj
INDICT, the New York Times, and The Black Book of Saddam Hussein agree with those estimates.
In fact, the NYT and Iraqi interim government in 2004 put out much larger estimates of deaths under Saddam.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:19pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:14pm
Tell us, which of Robert Fisk's works or articles have you read? Oh, that's right, NONE. I doubt that you've read anything more than a google summary of Hitchens either.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 11:21pm
Yes, the same source I got my infant mortality numbers from.
http://tinyurl.com/ntb3uj
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:19pm
That's funny. Johns Hopkins Universityis the same organisation that concluded that 1.2 millinIraqis have died as a result of the Iraq invasion.
The Lancet must be credible then right?
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 11:22pm
In fact, the NYT and Iraqi interim government in 2004 put out much larger estimates of deaths under Saddam.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:19pm
The NYT does not specialize is anythign to do with body counts from wars. The Iraqi interim government was exposed as supressing the real numbers of deaths.
Posted by Shingo at 10/14/2009 @ 11:24pm
"That's funny. Johns Hopkins Universityis the same organisation that concluded that 1.2 millinIraqis have died as a result of the Iraq invasion."
My figures on infant mortality are from the CIA World Fact Book and my estimates of deaths under Saddam INDICT and the Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq. I'm not sure what John Hopkins has to do with that. I guess you're just desperate.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:25pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:19pm
But by this logic, the sanctions death toll is undercounted since excludes the incline in infant mortality and the time it took to get back to prewar levels. Or do you want to stop fabricating statistics?
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 11:27pm
I'd be desperate too if I held that morgues in Iraq have covered up at least 1.1 million deaths or so as part of an elaborate conspiracy and that the Iraq war has actually cost more lives than 12 Hiroshimas AND that the scale of the killing in Iraq was greater than in Darfur and Rwanda combined even though healthcare and nutrition in Iraq have improved dramatically and the death rate of US soldiers in Iraq during the bloodiest year of the war was less than the rate of death for young black men in Philadelphia.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:29pm
"But by this logic, the sanctions death toll is undercounted since excludes the incline in infant mortality and the time it took to get back to prewar levels. Or do you want to stop fabricating statistics?"
Not sure what this nonsense is about, or even what it means.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:31pm
I'd be desperate
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:29pm
You're doing a pretty good job of sounding desperate, don't worry.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 11:34pm
In re: Nazis invading Poland...
The attack on the radio tower by Polish nationalists was staged by SS and Gestapo operatives using Polish prisoners. The Poles were forced to act out an assault and were killed.
In re: Bush invading Iraq...
Bush lied about the reason for invading Iraq and the Downing Street Memo proves it.
In re: War in Afghanistan...
This was a retaliatory attack that has morphed into an adventure in nation building.
Where are we at this point? The Karzai Government is illegitimate so how can the US defend it?
There was a misplaced depiction of the Iraqis and Afghans as being like the revolutionary era Americans struggling to be free from oppression.
This depiction was flogged to the American people to garner their support for the wars.
In this particular scenario (that Iraq / Afghan wars are analogous the the US revolution) the US would be the British.
Posted by koroviev at 10/14/2009 @ 11:36pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:31pm
What I'm saying is that going by your logic, the sanctions death toll doesn't factor for what the infant mortality rate would have been had they not been instituted in the first place. Of course, the logic is outrageous.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 11:37pm
"Tell us, which of Robert Fisk's works or articles have you read? Oh, that's right, NONE."
So? I never claimed I did read his writings. I never critiqued them. I never analyzed his prose stylistically or challenged him factually. I said that Osama bin Laden has praised him and endorsed his books. You can't refute that, which is why you've turned to desperate attempts at changing the subject like this one.
I've read plenty of Hitchens; Love, Poverty, and War, his biography of Jefferson, ect. He's my favorite political writer, though he was seriously wrong politically back in his Socialist days. I sure hope he's embarrassed today by pieces like "The Cassandra and the Canary".
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:37pm
So? I never claimed I did read his writings.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:37pm
Which means you have no basis on which to criticize his reporting or books.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 11:40pm
" the sanctions death toll doesn't factor for what the infant mortality rate would have been had they not been instituted in the first place"
Every estimate I've seen actually does factor that in, that's how you get "excess deaths".
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:40pm
"Which means you have no basis on which to criticize his reporting or books."
Let's repeat for the stupid liberal:
I never critiqued them. I never analyzed his prose stylistically or challenged him factually. I said that Osama bin Laden has praised him and endorsed his books. You can't refute that, which is why you've turned to desperate attempts at changing the subject like this one.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:41pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:40pm
My point was that the estimates don't factor the time it took for the rates to normalize back to prewar levels \after the sanctions were lifted. My point is that attempting this estimate is as ridiculous as your attempts to calculate the number saved by the invasion.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 11:47pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:41pm |
Interesting how when you can't refute an argument, you resort to name calling. You can call your tripe whatever the hell you want, but the repeated mentions of bin Laden were attempts to side swipe and discredit his work without having actually read it. Once again, read his works, then you can attempt to pass judgement.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 11:50pm
I'm not sure what John Hopkins has to do with that. I guess you're just desperate.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:25pm
Read your own link desperado.
"According to the preliminary results of a Johns Hopkins University study, the infant mortality rate has declined to about 135 per 1,000 live births in 2006, down from an estimated 165 per 1,000 in 2001. . . ."
http://tinyurl.com/ntb3uj
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 12:01am
I said that Osama bin Laden has praised him and endorsed his books. You can't refute that, which is why you've turned to desperate attempts at changing the subject like this one.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:41pm
Praised him? Loved him?
Please provide a link where Obam apraised Fisk.
How about you prove it first and then we'll refute it.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 12:04am
Let's repeat for the stupid liberal:
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/14/2009 @ 11:41pm |
And yet, when provided with evidence that the Iraqi morgues had been ordered to cover up deaths you merely commented on Fisk "Who Osama greatly respects and admires." So why bring this up other than to attempt to pass judgement on and discredit his work.
You see, you can make all the counter claims you want, but the statement was obviously meant for a specific purpose. Its called logic. Perhaps you've heard of it in passing?
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 12:04am
Tell us, have you considered changing your screenname to rightwingnutbag?
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 12:06am
Tell us, have you considered changing your screenname to rightwingnutbag?
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 12:06am
"BTW, upwards of 60,000 Iraqis will have been saved by improved healthcare resulting from the war by 2016"
oh, you mean the socialistic healthcare system?
Posted by darladoon at 10/15/2009 @ 12:21am
Doesn't matter what McGovern or anyone else says, Obama will commit the 40 thousand troops as the US expands its occupations and military bases much as Bush began after dumping Rumsfeld for Gates and will continue until overall over expansion and exhaustion forces an end. Often not pleasantly.
One more example where Obama continues policies active since I can remember. Another example of the same continuation is affirmed by US commitment to Colombia and the change and addition of military bases there.
Charlie M.
Posted by cmsandia at 10/15/2009 @ 12:21am
Agreed. But we'll be lucky if its only 40,000. After all, McChrystal's report contained a possible request of 60,000 and he then suggested 40,000 is the bare minimum necessary. Obama's a deferential president and rather than expose himself to attacks by the right for cutting corners and doing the bare minimum, I have to think he'll send an even 50,000
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 12:37am
So why exactly were we threatening war in August 2001, during negotiations for a natural gas pipeline. Why exactly was Bush given the plans for the invasion before September 11th.
Posted by nkurland at 10/14/2009 @ 8:54pm
Because they had been drawn up by the Clinton administration first. The Bush Administration then spent 7 months reviewing and revising them. It had to do with this guy named Bin Laden
The negotiations for the pipeline were cancelled prior to the 2000 election.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 08:23am
The negotiations for the pipeline were cancelled prior to the 2000 election.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 08:23am
The negotiations were not cancelled. They took place in the summer through August 2001. When the Taliban refused our offer the negotiators threatened to to bury them under "a carpet of bombs." Then a month later the plans were submitted to Bush for final approval so as to give the invasion the green light.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 08:34am
Posted by Extraneous at 10/14/2009 @ 6:11pm
Excellent point. I'm quite sure he won't be quoting the Founding Fathers on promoting "democracy" around the world - particularly given the fact that Jacobian used to be their word for terrorist/communist. The Founding Fathers hated democracy and would have hated his ideas about spreading "liberty" around the world. They would have called it what it properly is, imperialism.
All that aside, spreading "liberty" is most definitely not in the Constitution, and I'm glad he raised World War II (and by extenstion, WWI) as consistent with his imperialist view. Both of which has the problem of being unconstitutional - as much as health care.
Another little interesting tidbit I came across today. Let's make it a quiz. What does this describe?
1. Focus on the urgent instead of the important.
2. Vivid emotions and the visuals that go with them as a selector for what's important.
3. Emphasis on noise over thoughtful analysis.
4. Unwillingness to reverse course and change one's mind.
5. Xenophobic and jingoistic reactions (fear of outsiders).
6. Defense of the status quo encouraged by a group self-selected to be uniform.
7. Things become important merely because others have decided they are important.
8. Top down messaging encourages an echo chamber (agree or go elsewhere).
9. Ill-informed about history and this particular issue.
10. Confusing opinion with the truth.
11. Revising facts to fit a point of view.
12. Unwillingness to review past mistakes in light of history and use those to do better next time.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/15/2009 @ 08:38am
The negotiations were not cancelled. They took place in the summer through August 2001. When the Taliban refused our offer the negotiators threatened to to bury them under "a carpet of bombs." Then a month later the plans were submitted to Bush for final approval so as to give the invasion the green light.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 08:34am
You have to stop reading fringe left conspiracy nuts.
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/911comm-sec4.pdf
http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=12379
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 09:19am
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 09:19am
You just gave me one irrelevant article about fahrenheit 9/11 and another that fails to address why the plan was approved after the failure to build a pipeline. Perhaps you've heard of this thing called reality, maybe in passing.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 09:30am
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 09:19am
Just curious, what exactly was the Taliban's role in the September 11 attacks?
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 09:36am
We don't have a strategy in Afghanistan, except for going after the fabricated 'terrorists' hiding in caves . We didn't have one in Vietnam either, except for the fabricated 'terrorists' of the Tonkin Gulf. We didn't have one in Iraq either, no wait, we had about five.... depending on which week / media cycle we were on..... Saddam has WMDs, Saddam backed 9/11, Iraq harbors Al Qaeda, we're going to 'install' democracy, they WANT us there...... all complete lies.
The way the economic / Jewish / Christian fundamentalists get their wars is ALWAYS on an incremental basis, since a rational, logical or even remotely moral reason does not exist. Even WWII might not have included us had the Japanese not attacked, so don't give me this 'greatest generation' 'we saved the world 'cause we're so bloody moral' (well, bloody is right) crap.
Posted by DejaVu at 10/15/2009 @ 09:53am
Posted by srjenkins at 10/15/2009 @ 08:38am
What I've stated is that in securing our own defense against those trying to destroy us, liberty to the oppressed has been a byproduct and not the initial premise for war.
That was true with nearly every example we can look at. We didn't go to war with Germany and Japan to bring liberty, it was a byproduct. Likewise with Afghanistan and Iraq.
Thoughts from the founders.
John Jay in Federalist #3
<Among the many objects to which a wise and free people find it necessary to direct their attention, that of providing for their SAFETY seems to be the first. The SAFETY of the people doubtless has relation to a great variety of circumstances and considerations, and consequently affords great latitude to those who wish to define it precisely and comprehensively.
At present I mean only to consider it as it respects security for the preservation of peace and tranquillity, as well as against dangers from FOREIGN ARMS AND INFLUENCE>
<To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.>
George Washington, 1st Annual Message, January 8, 1790
<If we desire to insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.>
George Washington, Annual Message, December 1793
It is incontrovertible that a nation that experiences liberty is less likely to become a threat to the US. Expanding liberty seems to be a fulfillment of the Constitution
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty...
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 10:41am
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 09:19am
You just gave me one irrelevant article about fahrenheit 9/11 and another that fails to address why the plan was approved after the failure to build a pipeline. Perhaps you've heard of this thing called reality, maybe in passing.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 09:30am
No, you just didn't bother to read.
The Newsweek article by Michael Isikoff cited the lies of Michael Moore about the gas pipeline being negotiated by Bush.
The 9/11 Commission report also addresses this fallacy that is repeated on the left.
You choose to ignore the facts and cite debunked leftist sources.
It is you who needs a reality check with history and the facts.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 10:44am
' "They were interested to know what it was for and what the star was," said Mr Miller, who hopes that Unocal has clinched the deal. "The first day, they were stiff and cautious. But before long they were totally relaxed and happy," he said. Unocal, which heads an international consortium of companies from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Japan, has been bidding for the contract since vast oil and gas reserves were discovered in Turkmenistan, one of the southernmost states of the former Soviet Union, in 1994. The fuel has so far been untapped because of Moscow's demands for high transport fees if it passes through Russian-controlled territory. The quickest and cheapest way to get the reserves out is to build a pipeline through Afghanistan.
It will supply two of the fastest-growing energy markets in the world: Pakistan and India. The Unocal group has one significant attraction for the Taliban - it has American government backing. At the end of their stay last week, the Afghan visitors were invited to Washington to meet government officials. The US government, which in the past has branded the Taliban's policies against women and children "despicable", appears anxious to please the fundamentalists to clinch the lucrative pipeline contract. The Taliban is likely to have been impressed by the American government's interest as it is anxious to win international recognition. So far, it has been recognised only by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan'
12/14/1997
Oil barons court Taliban in Texas By Caroline Lees
The Telegraph
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 10:50am
'THE first detailed eyewitness accounts of the massacre of up to 8,000 people by Islamic fundamentalist Taliban fighters who ran amok in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif last August have been passed to western governments.'
How the Taliban slaughtered thousands of people
The Sunday Times , Nov.1,1998 By Michael Sheridan
"Last August" - that would have been August 1997 to be precise.
And the pipeline deal - to supply Pakistan and India.
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 10:53am
Just curious, what exactly was the Taliban's role in the September 11 attacks?
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 09:36am
This isn't ancient history.
I've cited the documentation repeatedly.
Mullah Omar married Bin Laden's eldest daughter and Bin Laden took one of Omar's daughter's as a wife.
How bin Laden and Taliban Forged Jihad Ties
By DOUGLAS FRANTZ and DAVID ROHDE Published: Thursday, November 22, 2001 NY Times
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 21 ? In a reception room at a Taliban ministry of defense building in Kabul, a brightly colored map depicting the American military presence in the Arabian peninsula was painted on a wall. An identical map appears in a book written by Osama bin Laden declaring a holy war on the United States.
Although it has long been known that Mr. bin Laden had great influence over the Taliban, the full extent of the ties may become clearer as more documents are seized and more insiders come forward
The picture ? still far from complete ? is of a relationship nourished by Mr. bin Laden's access to vast wealth, ties that ultimately led an essentially Afghan religious movement into a more global jihad and, eventually, doom. One of the primary reasons Mr. bin Laden exerted so much influence over Afghanistan was clearly his relationship with Mullah Muhammad Omar, the one-time clerk who rose to become spiritual leader of the Taliban, which sealed control over most of Afghanistan after taking over Kabul in 1996. Insiders say Mullah Omar and Mr. bin Laden spent many hours in deep discussion of the intricacies of Islam, often by the light of kerosene lamps in the hideouts both men resorted to as the world's pressures against them mounted.
continued
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 11:04am
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 10:41am
In other words, you've got no Constitutional argument. Quoting a few founders who were arguing that the nation needed to be ready to defend itself is not a justification of imperialism as "defense". It also puts to lie all your arguments about "liberty" - because you never talk about it as a by-product but as the reason for the action. Then, when challenged like here, you back off.
It suggests a bit of inconsistency, reverend. Maybe you need to rethink your love of war and the real implications that American style imperialism has on liberty, both at home and abroad.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/15/2009 @ 11:04am
Nkurland -Omar and Bin Laden continued
<Mr. bin Laden played to the mullah's vanity by declaring him caliph, a title reserved through the 1,400-year history of Islam for the leader of the faithful. In turn, the Taliban leader turned his back on most of the rest of the world to support his patron.
Sometime in the last year, Mr. bin Laden swore "bayat," an Islamic oath of fealty, to Mullah Omar. By January of this year, at the wedding of one of his sons, the terrorist leader began to call Mullah Omar the caliph
The Taliban's brand of radical Islam was rooted in the code and culture of Afghan village life. Mullah Omar and his compatriots did not show the slightest concern about the outside world until Mr. bin Laden appeared on the scene.
Under the tutelage of his guest, Mullah Omar began to see his goal as more than the liberation of Afghanistan and he progressively signed on to the idea of a worldwide jihad against the United States.>
http://tinyurl.com/yfdl6b5
You can read this interview with a former Taliban official
http://kabulcenter.org/?p=89
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 11:09am
'Following 9/11, Mazar was the first Afghan city to fall to the Northern Alliance (former militias). The Taliban's defeat in Mazar quickly turned into a rout from the rest of the north and west of Afghanistan. On November 9, 2001 the city was recaptured by the Afghan Northern Alliance after the Battle of Mazar e Sharif with help from the United States Special Operations Forces. As many as 2,000 Taliban fighters who surrendered were reportedly massacred by the Northern Alliance after the battle, and reports also place U.S. troops at the scene of the massacre.[5] The Irish documentary Afghan Massacre - the Convoy of Death investigated these allegations. Filmmaker Doran claims that mass graves of thousands of victims were found by United Nations investigators.[6] The Bush administration reportedly blocked investigations into the incident.[7]'
Wikipedia
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 11:11am
Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death (earlier title: Massacre at Mazar[1]) is a 2002 documentary by Irish filmmaker Jamie Doran and Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi about alleged war crimes committed by Afghan Northern Alliance troops under General Abdul Rashid Dostum against Taliban fighters. The Taliban fighters, who had surrendered to Dostum's troops after the November 2001 siege of Kunduz, were transported to Sheberghan prison in sealed containers. Human rights groups estimate that hundreds or thousands of them died during and after transit. Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death presents testimony from interviewees stating that American military personnel were present at and complicit in some of the mass killings, known as the Dasht-i-Leili massacre.
A short early version of the documentary was shown to the European and German Parliaments in June 2002, causing widespread concern in Europe.[1][2][3][4] Against protests from the United States government, the completed documentary was shown later that year on many countries' national television channels, including German, British, Italian and Australian television. The programme was not screened in the U.S. and received no U.S. media coverage.[3][5][6][7] A Newsweek report in August 2002, based on a leaked UN memo, did confirm some of the details in Doran's documentary, as well as the presence of mass graves in the Dasht-i-Leili desert, but made no mention of the documentary.[4][8][9]
In July 2009, Barack Obama, the president of the United States, ordered a probe into allegations that the Bush administration had resisted efforts to have the massacre investigated.[10]
Wikipedia
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 11:17am
Here's how it works....short version-
I post "Larry/antisoc supports an ENDLESS war"
Larry then says "That thiirr, is an unmitigated fabrication!!!" (Daffy Duck) and claims "Typical Mask making up things that are totally false about me!"
Then I RE-post "As Bush stated, this is a war that will go on for decades. Unless of course the judgment of Christ comes first."----Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 3:48pm
Then Larry suddenly develops a NEW definition of "endless".
Fun, huh?
Posted by Mask at 10/15/2009 @ 11:23am
In other words, you've got no Constitutional argument. Quoting a few founders who were arguing that the nation needed to be ready to defend itself is not a justification of imperialism as "defense". It also puts to lie all your arguments about "liberty" - because you never talk about it as a by-product but as the reason for the action. Then, when challenged like here, you back off. It suggests a bit of inconsistency, reverend. Maybe you need to rethink your love of war and the real implications that American style imperialism has on liberty, both at home and abroad.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/15/2009 @ 11:04am
Balderdash! National defense is NOT IMPERIALISM. Now you are merely sounding like another far left nutcase. National Defense is most certainly constitutional.
And you are lying about my arguments. Never have I stated that either the Iraq war or the war in Afghanistan were first and foremost about bringing liberty to either of those nations.
Iraq I've stated for years was about the right of the US to resume hostilities with Iraq because of a condition of material breach (The AUF states that explicitly).
Afghanistan was the right of the nation to engage in self defense against those who perpetrated an attack on the US.
As to your last, you merely parrot Mask. I have no love of war. I love liberty and freedom which includes the right to defend your liberty against those who wish to take it away. Killing you seems to be a very specific act of attempting to take away one's liberty.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 11:26am
Here's how it works....short version-
I post "Larry/antisoc supports an ENDLESS war"
Larry then says "That thiirr, is an unmitigated fabrication!!!" (Daffy Duck) and claims "Typical Mask making up things that are totally false about me!"
Then I RE-post "As Bush stated, this is a war that will go on for decades. Unless of course the judgment of Christ comes first."----Posted by antisocialist at 10/14/2009 @ 3:48pm
Then Larry suddenly develops a NEW definition of "endless".
Fun, huh?
Posted by Mask at 10/15/2009 @ 11:23am
You really are a nutjob.
Recognizing that an enemy has sworn to destroy you and that you can either surrender to that enemy or fight for survival is not "supporting endless war".
More and more Mask, I find little difference between you and the Code Pink and ANSWER nutcases when it comes to wishing to see the preservation of the nation.
I think I am regretting taking you off of ignore. Your views make it fairly clear that you are no better than any of the pro-jihadist types that blog here.
These jihadists have sworn to the destruction of the US unless it submits to Islam. It seems Mask that you would rather submit to these totalitarians than to preserve freedom and liberty for Americans.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 11:37am
Battlin' Larrys....pick your favorite-
"Nuke 'Em Til They Glow" Larry-
"3-5 nuclear weapons against China and a threat to Russia to keep in line or they would have been next would have given the world a much better opportunity for peace than we have seen as a result of not letting MacArthur achieve the victory that we should have."-----Posted by LVLIBERTY1 01/10/2007 @ 4:32pm
"Tell the military to take off their safety's, find some "Patton" style leaders; also, think Dresden; tell the president, his advisors, and the military staff to quit worrying about public opinion and just destroy every enemy-no prisoners."----Posted by LVLIBERTY1 10/21/2007 @ 10:50am
or "Reasonable St. Augustine Just War" Larry-
"No, an army (at least ours) plans to defeat an enemy; killing them is done if it must be; but Army plans always involve the possibility of an enemy surrendering."-----Posted by antisocialist at 05/07/2009 @ 7:05pm
Posted by Mask at 10/15/2009 @ 11:39am
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 11:37am
You support endless war, Larry.
Please...deny it.
Posted by Mask at 10/15/2009 @ 11:40am
Please...deny it.
Posted by Mask at 10/15/2009 @ 11:40am | ignore this person | warn this person
Watch for the "freedom" retort......, Larry always resorts to it when he is cornered.
Unbelievable quotes.
The AntiChrist if there ever was one.
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 11:49am
The AntiChrist if there ever was one.
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 11:49am
Perhaps an uncle-Christ, but not the auntie. Sorry, I couldn't resist the opportunity. Just leave it at Reverend blood and guts.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 10/15/2009 @ 12:06pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 11:09am
That still isn't proof of involvement in the actual September 11 attacks.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 12:07pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 10:44am
That article on Fahrenheit 9/11 ignores the August 2001 meetings.
In fact, he's dead wrong to state it was a dead issue since in April 2001 the administration received a report from James Baker titled STRATEGIC ENERGY POLICY CHALLENGES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY. Here's your link:http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3535.htm
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 12:22pm
Barak Obama told the nation, Have no fear of escalation, I am trying everyone to please. Tho' this isn't really war, We're sending 45,000 more, To help save Afghanistan from the Afghaneze.
Posted by Masaniello at 10/15/2009 @ 12:22pm
And more proof Bush policy was affected by the pipeline: http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/CK20Ag01.html
That report from Baker makes several not so veiled references to a pipeline in Afghanistan
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 12:28pm
Perhaps an uncle-Christ, but not the auntie. Sorry, I couldn't resist the opportunity. Just leave it at Reverend blood and guts.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 10/15/2009 @ 12:06pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Just borrowing from Reverend Wrong's vision for The Rapture.
If this is "freedom," why do I feel like I am in chains to those who preserving our "freedom."
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 12:34pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 11:26am
"Balderdash! "
Using archaic language is probably not the best rhetorical device.
"National defense is NOT IMPERIALISM."
"National defense" that is based on having more than 1,000 bases abroad is most definitely imperialism. It's too bad we don't have the number of bases run by the British during their time and soldiers occupying them for comparison - but I bet their numbers were less.
"Now you are merely sounding like another far left nutcase."
Lame ad hominem argument, which makes you sound like a nutcase.
"National Defense is most certainly constitutional."
National Defense taken to the point of 1,000 bases abroad most certainly is not. There isn't a framer or a historical dictionary that will support you in this unconstitutional view.
"And you are lying about my arguments. Never have I stated that either the Iraq war or the war in Afghanistan were first and foremost about bringing liberty to either of those nations."
True, you sneak it in the back door after talking about all those brown people hell bent on making you a dhimmi.
"Iraq I've stated for years was about the right of the US to resume hostilities with Iraq because of a condition of material breach (The AUF states that explicitly)."
That's not what sold the war. What sold the war was the talk about mushroom clouds.
"Afghanistan was the right of the nation to engage in self defense against those who perpetrated an attack on the US."
The Taliban didn't plan the attack. No "nation" did.
"I love liberty and freedom which includes the right to defend your liberty against those who wish to take it away."
So, the United States should have formed an army to attack the British Isles, since they attacked us in 1812? But that didn't happen. Why?
Posted by srjenkins at 10/15/2009 @ 12:37pm
Posted by srjenkins at 10/15/2009 @ 12:37pm
The Why is rhetorical, by the way. It didn't happen both because the United States didn't have the wherewithal to do it, and those leaders were a stupid as our current crop.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/15/2009 @ 12:38pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 10:44am
This is what Blair told the Guardian: "To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11."
Or is this like the support for gassing the Kurds, where it didn't happen until you were shown the evidence.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 12:42pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 11:37am
You support endless war, Larry.
Please...deny it.
Posted by Mask at 10/15/2009 @ 11:40am
Of course I deny it Mask.
you are a serial liar.
you are ignored.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 12:45pm
Or is this like the support for gassing the Kurds, where it didn't happen until you were shown the evidence.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 12:42pm | ignore this person | warn this person
We supported Taliban as counterweight to Iranian influence - post Soviet exit.
gosh, this sounds familiar to the story of Saddam.
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 12:53pm
And here's the interview with Jean Brisard: http://dir.salon.com/story/politics/feature/2002/02/08/forbidden/print.h tml
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 12:55pm
you are a serial liar.
you are ignored.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 12:45pm
Wait Larry - you were telling us the other day that Iran is supplying arms to the Taliban.
http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2009/ 09/03/talibans-tank-killing-bombs-came-from-us-not-iran/
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 1:05pm
Posted by srjenkins at 10/15/2009 @ 12:37pm
I happen to like the word, perhaps because of my age.
Setting aside the inaccuracy of your "1000" bases, as I've stated before, most provide either an economic advantage to our military and save the taxpayers money. Others are required because of Treaties. That said, the 1990 BRAC which was updated in 2005 will see many bases continue to be closed by it's completion in 2011.
88% of our bases and facilities in Germany have been closed.
I believe we will see the Pentagon continue to close more bases that no longer offer a strategic benefit to national security and/or where treaties are modified to accommodate those further closings.
But to sum it up, foreign bases indeed are central to our national security. They allow faster response times, refueling and repair of aircraft and ships.
We would put our nation in greater peril if we abandoned all of our foreign bases. Your agenda and that of other leftists here will not ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and secure the blessings of liberty as the Constitution states.
I don't care what you think "sold" the war. The AUF specifically cites the material breach justification.
I've provided plenty of evidence that the Taliban were integral to the effort of Al Qaeda to launch the 9/11 attacks. You are choosing to ignore the facts.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 1:12pm
you are a serial liar.
you are ignored.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 12:45pm
So are the neocon greedy, blood thirsty, power hungry cowards you think are so great. Why don't you ignore those serial liars instead.
If your fearless cowardly leader Dickless Cheney ever spoke the truth, that, and only that would be the sign of the end of time.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 10/15/2009 @ 1:17pm
I've provided plenty of evidence that the Taliban were integral to the effort of Al Qaeda to launch the 9/11 attacks. You are choosing to ignore the facts.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 1:12pm
The story that supposedly proved this point didn't even use the words "September 11" let alone prove that the Taliban played a role.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 1:35pm
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 12:55pm
There are plenty of sources to debunk and expose Brisard, but I'll use this one from David Corn when he was still with the Nation.
<Upon receiving the English translation of the short book, I eagerly began reading. Within a matter of pages, I was stunned. The book was almost entirely unsourced. It contained multiple factual mistakes.... More important, it presented suggestive innuendo rather than clear and irrefutable evidence. It referred to "policy-makers" and "officials" without naming them; it depicted policy decisions in vague terms, without supplying specifics. The authors conveyed no sense that they had interviewed any single player in their tale. (There were not even anonymous sources.)
Their book is a crass exploitation of a tragic event. It violates the most modest of journalistic standards. The authors manipulate an awful event into a story to serve a political end--or, perhaps, only to make money for themselves. The book practically justifies the attacks. Which is foul. It says the September 11 assaults were prompted by these "secret negotiations," not bin Laden's jihad or the geopolitical conditions and conflicts that may have fed that jihad. No doubt, anti-Bush partisans and individuals who tend to disbelieve conventional accounts will be drawn to the book. And they will soon have the opportunity to read the English-language version, for it is being published this summer by Thunder's Mouth Press and NationBooks.>
http://tinyurl.com/2fe5a2
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 1:39pm
And Kevin Sanders defends him:http://www.jimpivonka.com/unpublished/forbiddentruthrev.html
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 1:52pm
I've provided plenty of evidence that the Taliban were integral to the effort of Al Qaeda to launch the 9/11 attacks. You are choosing to ignore the facts.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 1:12pm
The story that supposedly proved this point didn't even use the words "September 11" let alone prove that the Taliban played a role.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 1:35pm
What kind of college education would lead you to a ridiculous conclusion that the lack of the words "September 11" means there is no connection?
What is the criteria under law to convict someone of murder who doesn't actually commit the crime of murder?
If you do anything to further the commission of the murder, you are equally guilty.
At the very least, even though the preponderance of the evidence shows more guilt, the Taliban were guilty of complicity.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 2:04pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 2:04pm
Other than not using that phrasing, the article didn't even mention the attacks. So show us something that links the Taliban to 9/11. You basically read the article and then used supposition to come to your conclusion.
"What is the criteria under law to convict someone of murder who doesn't actually commit the crime of murder? "
But you still haven't provided that evidence, have you? And that's essentially the Bush Doctrine, illegal in any sense of the word.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 2:07pm
And here's Eric Margolis pointing out that the Taliban had zero knowledge of the September 11 attacks: http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis22.html
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 2:13pm
And of course, Bin Laden's videotape from 2007 in which the claim was made that the Taliban had no knowledge of the attacks whatsoever. This videotape, according to the CIA, is almost certainly from Bin Laden:http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL2912911920071129?pageNumber=2&v irtualBrandChannel=0
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 2:19pm
Nkurland
Your book is nothing but trash and the authors have admitted lying
<We, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquié, are the authors of Forbidden Truth, a book circulated widely since it was first published in the autumn of 2001. I, Jean Charles-Brisard, am also the author of a Report entitled Terrorism Financing published in December 2002.
The Book and the Report contain very serious and highly defamatory allegations about Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz and Sheikh Abdulrahman Bin Mahfouz, alleging support for terrorism through their businesses, families and charities, and directly. As a result of what we now know, we accept and acknowledge that all of those allegations about you and your families, businesses and charities are entirely and manifestly false.
The allegations were based on information which we have now been able to establish has been largely withdrawn or refuted in the intervening years since Forbidden Truth was first published, and to our knowledge has never been verified. We did not anticipate at the time the Book and the Report were written that the information which we relied upon would later be withdrawn or refuted. Notwithstanding research into terrorism financing, we have learnt nothing since the publication of the Book and the Report which suggests there is any evidence supporting the allegations. We therefore now unreservedly withdraw all of the allegations about you both in the Book and the Report and confirm that we will never repeat them.
We appreciate the very serious damage that has been caused to your reputations by these allegations. We also accept that the allegations caused you and your family very great distress. For all of this we are truly sorry.>
http://www.voltairenet.org/article143908.html
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 2:19pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 2:19pm
Show me where I sourced the actual book.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 2:26pm
The quote that I did use was from Niaz Naik.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 2:35pm
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 2:13pm
The comments of a former Taliban official stating the role of the Taliban with Al Qaeda
Waheed Mujda is a former high-ranking foreign ministry official of the Taliban and an expert on Al Qaeda.
<Mujda: Al Qaida never expected that the U.S. would respond to 9/11 as forcefully as it did. Bin Laden had convinced Mullah Omar during the planning stages that if the U.S. attacked Afghanistan, the Americans would only meet the same fate that the Soviet Union did. The mujahidin would be able to beat American superpower too. And if the U.S. did not invade Afghanistan, its superpower status would still be diminished – it would be seen as weak. What the Al Qaeda leaders never imagined is what actually happened, Al Qaeda was never prepared for the possibility that the 9/11 attacks would launch a war against Muslims worldwide, and further oppress them.>
http://kabulcenter.org/?p=89
The NEFA Foundation has obtained an exclusive new interview with Maulana Faquir Mohammed, deputy commander of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). During the interview, Maulana Faquir insisted that the TTP closely supports the activities of Al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan because these jihadi operations represent the "will of all Muslims." Faquir also discussed the loyalty of Pakistani Taliban forces to the leader of the Afghan Taliban movement, Mullah Mohammed Omar, recognized by them as "the spiritual leader of the jihadi movement." When asked about Taliban interest in launching 9/11-style attacks on U.S. soil, Faquir assured his audience that Al-Qaida "can plan another such attack. Al-Qaida and the Taliban can do anything they want... and we certainly have the desire to launch one."
http://tinyurl.com/yjrzq58
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 2:47pm
Funny, Robert Baer the former CIA operative commented "The Taliban did not attack us on 9/11. They were simply the equivalent of a hotel operator that had a very bad guest that committed a crime. And now we're going after the hotel and the hotel operator." He says this directly in Rethink Afghanistan.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 2:58pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 2:47pm |
And yet it still doesn't say that the Taliban even played a role in the planning.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 3:08pm
And what about Bin Laden stating that the Taliban had no knowledge of the attacks::http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL2912911920071129?pageNumber= 2&v irtualBrandChannel=0
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 3:13pm
Here's a direct quote from said video (translated, of course): "I am the one responsible... The Afghan people and government knew nothing whatsoever about these events,"
And let's keep in mind that the CIA considers it a near certainty that the video is legitimate.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 3:19pm
"Read your own link desperado.
"According to the preliminary results of a Johns Hopkins University study, the infant mortality rate has declined to about 135 per 1,000 live births in 2006, down from an estimated 165 per 1,000 in 2001. . . ." "
Shingo, after I said that upwards of 60,000 Iraqis will have been saved by improved healthcare resulting from the war by 2016, you said (paraphrasing) "OH YEAH, well John Hopkins also says 1.3 million Iraqis have died in the war but morgues in Iraq have covered up 1.2 million of them!!!!!!!!!"
The link you quote above I have indeed linked to in the past, but it was not the one we were discussing, and it has nothing to do with improved healthcare in Iraq. That quote you cite is about improved healthcare in Afghanistan.
The authors of that study on Afghanistan have been supported by every other study conducted in that country, though most consider it a slight underestimate of lives saved by the war. They have no affiliation with, are not the same as, have no relationship with, and have never even met the authors of the Lancet study. Trying to link them with the authors of the Lancet study serves no purpose I can understand. Perhaps your position is that if I think a single study used manipulated evidence, I must therefore assume all studies are equally manipulated. Silly.
Your argument is pointless in any case, since the Lancet's current editor, along with one of the authors of the Lancet study, has admitted the numbers were cooked. The Lancet's current editor is on the record as wanting to distance the study from the magazine and feeling a sense of "discomfort" over their affiliation with it.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 3:27pm
If anyone still believes in the cognitive superiority of the left over the right, I reccommend reading Shingo's posts to cure yourself of that rancid delusion.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 3:28pm
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 3:19pm
I understand you better from your posts today.
You are just another "truther" conspiracy nut. You need to get a refund on your college education. They failed you.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 3:32pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 3:32pm
I actually don't believe that Bush played any role in attacks, let alone planning them. Rather, I think he let them happen. Big difference. So we have an ex CIA operative and Bin Laden himself stating that the Taliban didn't plan the attacks.
Better get a refund on the past 60 years.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 3:39pm
"Praised him? Loved him?
Please provide a link where Obam apraised Fisk."
http://tinyurl.com/ykozknu Bin Laden says: "And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998. You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan [of BBC radio], as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk. The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 3:51pm
Afghanistan attacked us on 9/11 and anyone who denies that is simply and plainly delusional and out of touch with reality.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 4:01pm
I actually don't believe that Bush played any role in attacks, let alone planning them. Rather, I think he let them happen. Big difference. So we have an ex CIA operative and Bin Laden himself stating that the Taliban didn't plan the attacks.
Better get a refund on the past 60 years.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 3:39pm
you've cited Bob Baer who was a good CIA agent, but he doesn't have any concrete evidence on the Taliban and Al Qaeda. He never operated in that theater and he left the agency in '97.
Secondly, I have posted an interview with former Taliban official who specifically states that Omar was working with Bin Laden on the attacks.
Bin Laden's statement on the Taliban's involvement is just camouflage and is meaningless. The Taliban continue to state that they are committed to global jihad.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 4:22pm
All the imperialists who say US bases in the Mideast and Asia etc. must be maintained -as well as foreign aid to Israel--as a part of "national defense" and who then cite Taliban, AQ or any other Islamic/Arab etc. resistance movement's goals or statements as proof of same are simply not to be taken seriously, ethically or strategically.
Posted by zionopp at 10/15/2009 @ 4:56pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 4:22pm |
The statement that you provided did not state that they had planned the original attack. As per the text: "can plan another such attack. Al-Qaida and the Taliban can do anything they want... and we certainly have the desire to launch one."
It merely stated that they could conduct a similar attack. That's just about as credible as Bin Laden's statement, if not less so. A statement like that can just as easily be a tactic, or a boast to get the desired reation.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 4:57pm
Here's more, which states directly that though the Taliban and were technically allied, they were nonetheless distinct and had no direct involvement in the attacks.
From Stratfor intelligence:Geopolitical Diary: U.S. Reconciliation With the Taliban as an 'Exit Strategy'
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 5:19pm
Inside the Oval Office President Bush gives journalists a "heads up" about the mid-term elections, among other things. by Fred Barnes 09/13/2006 1:54:00 PM
'WE NOW KNOW WHY the Bush administration hasn't made the capture of Osama bin Laden a paramount goal of the war on terror. Emphasis on bin Laden doesn't fit with the administration's strategy for combating terrorism. Here's how
"Tuesday: "This thing about . . . let's put 100,000 of our special forces stomping through Pakistan in order to find bin Laden is just simply not the strategy that will work."
Rather, Bush says there's a better way to stay on offense against terrorists. "The way you win the war on terror," Bush said, "is to find people [who are terrorists] and get them to give you information about what their buddies are fixing to do." In a speech last week, the president explained how this had worked--starting with the arrest and interrogation of 9/11 planner Khalid Sheik Muhammad--to break up a terrorist operation that was planning post-9/11 attacks on America"'
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 5:20pm
The statement that you provided did not state that they had planned the original attack. As per the text: "can plan another such attack. Al-Qaida and the Taliban can do anything they want... and we certainly have the desire to launch one."
It merely stated that they could conduct a similar attack. That's just about as credible as Bin Laden's statement, if not less so. A statement like that can just as easily be a tactic, or a boast to get the desired reation.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 4:57pm
You're conflating quotes. That one was a secondary quote showing that the Taliban still want to attack the US.
You keep ignoring my quote from the former Taliban official who was there when Omar coordinated with Bin Laden on the attack.
You simply have your head in the sand and are ignoring Islamic history if you want to believe they had no connection.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 5:22pm
The negotiations for the pipeline were cancelled prior to the 2000 election.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 08:23am
The negotiations were not being done by Clinton but by UNOCAL, and the Taliban were invited to Texas as part of the deal. Who do you suspect was governor of Texas at the time?
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 5:46pm
The NEFA Foundation has obtained an exclusive new interview with Maulana Faquir Mohammed, deputy commander of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). During the interview, Maulana Faquir insisted that the TTP closely supports
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 2:47pm
Clearly none of this holds up, becaue none of it has been accepted by the US government, who to this day, does nto support this conspiracy theory.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 5:51pm
You keep ignoring my quote from the former Taliban official who was there when Omar coordinated with Bin Laden on the attack.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 5:22pm
Has it not occured to you that this so called "Taliban official" is no longer a Taliban official, and has clearly had a falling out with the Taliban and and is likely talking complete rubbish?
Evidently you've learned nothing from the Chalabi and Curveball debacle.
You're simply an Islamphobe who is obsessed with demonizing slam.
When the story broke about Iran's so called secret nuclear favcility, you jumped up and down like a Mexican jumping beam proclaiming that you and Israle were right all along and that Iran really were deevloping nukes.
How did that turn out for you?
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 5:57pm
Afghanistan attacked us on 9/11 and anyone who denies that is simply and plainly delusional and out of touch with reality.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 4:01pm
Wrong. No one even connected to the Taliban, let alone Afghanistan attacked us on 9/11. The 911 Commision Report doesn''t even mention the Taliban's involvement.
If Afghanistan attacked us on 9/11, teh so did Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Therefore, anyone who insists Afghanistan did attacked us on 9/11 is an ignoramus and an Islamohpobe.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 6:01pm
The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 3:51pm
Is that it? Is that your proof of Bin Laden praising and showing hsi love for Robert Fisk?
Get some medical help rightwingnutcase. There might stil be time to save your attrophying brain.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 6:05pm
The link you quote above I have indeed linked to in the past, but it was not the one we were discussing, and it has nothing to do with improved healthcare in Iraq. That quote you cite is about improved healthcare in Afghanistan.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 3:27pm
You really are losing a grip rightwingnutcase. This link, that mentions John Hopkins, was the one you posted at 10/14/2009 @ 11:19pm.
While it coudl be argued that 10/14/2009 @ 11:19pm was the past, it certainly was the one we were discussing.
Are you feeling unwell today rightwingnutcase?
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 6:10pm
Your argument is pointless in any case, since the Lancet's current editor, along with one of the authors of the Lancet study, has admitted the numbers were cooked.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 3:27pm
Absolute rubbish. Neither of them said the numbers were cooked. let alone admitted it.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 6:13pm
Returned Afghan general throws weight behind Karzai Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:02pm EDT
By Golnar Motevalli
'SHIBERGHAN, Afghanistan (Reuters) - One of Afghanistan's most notorious militia leaders threw his support behind President Hamid Karzai at a chaotic rally Monday, the final day of campaigning for this week's election.
With the outcome of Thursday's ballot hanging on the threat of Taliban-led violence and the clout of old militia chiefs, Karzai's main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, staged an equally frenetic rally in the capital, Kabul.
In the north, thousands gave a rapturous welcome to General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the former Uzbek militia chief who flew back to Afghanistan Sunday from exile in Turkey.
"We need to go with Hamid Karzai into the future," Dostum told cheering supporters in Shiberghan, his dusty home city.
Polls have shown Karzai with about 45 percent of the vote, a clear lead but not enough to win an outright majority and avoid a run-off against Abdullah, Karzai's former foreign minister who has strong support among ethnic Tajiks in the north.
Dostum's backing could deliver enough support for Karzai to win the election in a single round, despite grave fears expressed by the United States and the United Nations over Dostum's possible return to a position in government.'
Now we are propping up Karzai and we don't have any say on who is in his cabinet? Not likely.
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 6:15pm
KABUL (Reuters) - After months of exile in Turkey, Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum returned to Afghanistan on Sunday after being given a government all-clear in the face of threats by his supporters to withdraw support for President Hamid Karzai in Thursday's election.
Following are some facts about Dostum:.
* A survivor of Afghanistan's 30 years of war and known for making and breaking alliances, Dostum is the self-styled leader of the Uzbek minority in a country where ethnic loyalty has become a key force.
* Originally a plumber, Dostum joined the army and became a general under the communist regime in late 1970s. He has influence in several northern provinces where hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks live.
* During its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Soviet Union promoted the burly Dostum as the leader of Uzbek militia forces fighting against the Western-backed Mujahideen groups. He was named a national hero by the Moscow-backed government, but also earned reputation for brutality.
* A pro-federalist, Dostum who resembles to Josef Stalin, has had close ties with Uzbekistan and Turkey for years.
* He sided with U.S. forces in driving out the Taliban from parts of northern Afghanistan in 2001. Some 2,000 Taliban fighters who surrendered to Dostum suffocated to death in cargo containers in which they were being held in what became known as the Dasht-i-Laili massacre.
Another 300 Taliban prisoners held by Dostum and U.S. forces in a 19th century prison fortress died during a rebellion.
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 6:16pm
* Dostum stood for the presidency in the 2004 election and won 10 percent of the vote. He held a ceremonial position as the chief of staff for the commander-in-chief until last year when, following clashes with a rival, he was put under house arrest by the government and then forced into exile.
* Dostum's party and loyalists have pledged to support incumbent Hamid Karzai in return for positions in a future government.
FACTBOX: Some facts about Afghan militia chief Dostum Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:06am EDT
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 6:18pm
That one was a secondary quote showing that the Taliban still want to attack the US.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 5:22pm
Isn't it funny how the right wing like to cite quotes from Bin Laden to prove a point when it suits them, arguing that it must be true because Bin Laden said it, but just as easily, dismiss quotes that don't suit them on the grousn that Bin Laden can't be trusted?
Fascinating how the right wing brain (if you can call it that) works..
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 6:19pm
The Book and the Report contain very serious and highly defamatory allegations about Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz and Sheikh Abdulrahman Bin Mahfouz, alleging support for terrorism through their businesses, families and charities, and directly. As a result of what we now know, we accept and acknowledge that all of those allegations about you and your families, businesses and charities are entirely and manifestly false.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 2:19pm
Oh how sweet. Antisocialist has a soft spot for Saudi Arabian billionaires.
a) Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz was a non-executive director of Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a financial conglomerate later convicted of money laundering, bribery, support of terrorism, arms trafficking, and many other crimes.
b) It was the right wing necon, James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, who testified to a congressional sub-committee, that Khalid Bin Mahfouz was a brother-in-law of Osama Bin Laden.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 6:30pm
We appreciate the very serious damage that has been caused to your reputations by these allegations. We also accept that the allegations caused you and your family very great distress. For all of this we are truly sorry.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 2:19pm
This sounds like the kind of apology/retraction one would make if 2 wealthy Saudi billionaires were thretening to sue someone.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 6:33pm
This sounds like the kind of apology/retraction one would make if 2 wealthy Saudi billionaires were thretening to sue someone.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 6:33pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Or worse.
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 6:36pm
See BAE scandal and Tony Blair.
Saudi's got nothing to hide. Right.
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 6:52pm
"Absolute rubbish. Neither of them said the numbers were cooked. let alone admitted it."
Uh.... actually Garfield has explicitly, and you know that for a fact. Don't play dumb.
"neither of them said... let alone admitted....."????? What kind of a distiction were you making?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 6:56pm
Uh.... actually Garfield has explicitly, and you know that for a fact. Don't play dumb.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 6:56pm
Actualy Garfield did not explicitly say anythign of the kind. He had a disagreement with one of the members, but he NEVER said th numbers were fabricated,.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 7:00pm
"You really are losing a grip rightwingnutcase. This link, that mentions John Hopkins, was the one you posted at 10/14/2009 @ 11:19pm."
That was a blog entry linking to articles from the Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq and an article on improved infant mortality in Afghanistan. It also contained the figures from the CIA World Factbook on improved infant mortality in Iraq. I linked to it to back up my claims on Iraq. I don't know why you're getting stuck on the article on Afghanistan.
To repeat, stupid silly child: The authors of that study on Afghanistan have been supported by every other study conducted in that country, though most consider it a slight underestimate of lives saved by the war. They have no affiliation with, are not the same as, have no relationship with, and have never even met the authors of the Lancet study. Trying to link them with the authors of the Lancet study serves no purpose I can understand. Perhaps your position is that if I think a single study used manipulated evidence, I must therefore assume all studies are equally manipulated. Silly.
Your argument is pointless in any case, since the Lancet's current editor, along with one of the authors of the Lancet study, has admitted the numbers were cooked. The Lancet's current editor is on the record as wanting to distance the study from the magazine and feeling a sense of "discomfort" over their affiliation with it.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:01pm
"You really are losing a grip rightwingnutcase. This link, that mentions John Hopkins, was the one you "Actualy Garfield did not explicitly say anythign of the kind. He had a disagreement with one of the members, but he NEVER said th numbers were fabricated,."
Your numbers of 1.2 million were off by at least a million or so according to Garfield. If you magically get a number suggesting one million deaths occurred that in fact never took place in a low-tech counterinsurgency run by the volunteer military of a vanguard democracy, odds are you had to fabricate numbers to get it so spectacularly wrong.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:05pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:01pm
Poor rightwingnutcase. It's a dead giveaway that your losing the argument when you resotrt to personal insults.
Yuor blgo entry included the the John Hokins source to argue it's case, and as such, thatmakes the John Hokins source eitehr legitmate, or all of the related sources illegitmate.
So if you want to argue that al these sources re valid, then John Hopkins is valid, adn thus so in the Lancet.
The Lancet's current editor never admitted the numbers were cooked. Stop lying.
Sorry if you got caught in your own trap.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 7:06pm
"If Afghanistan attacked us on 9/11, teh so did Egypt and Saudi Arabia."
So, you favor bombing the Saudis, Shingo? The case for regime change in Saudi Arabia could certainly be made.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:07pm
The Lancet's current editor is on the record as wanting to distance the study from the magazine and feeling a sense of "discomfort" over their affiliation with it.
I know you've read the article that reported this. Don't play stupid you illiterate pathalogical liar.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:09pm
Your numbers of 1.2 million were off by at least a million or so according to Garfield.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:05pm
Not at all. Garfield. said no such thing.
Furthermore, the Lancet is supoprted by the British ORB, that also concluded the deaths due to the inbvavio came to 1.2 million.
Last but not least, if the Lancet is not credible, then neither is your link with regards to mortality rates in Afghanistan, whcih I might add, have improved slightly only because of NGO's, not the US invasion.
The US military is designed to kill people, not save them.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 7:10pm
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 7:06pm
Unreadable illiterate nonsense and blatantly circular logic.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:10pm
"Your numbers of 1.2 million were off by at least a million or so according to Garfield.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:05pm
Not at all. Garfield. said no such thing."
He said the death toll was closer to 200,000 you idiot.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:12pm
He said the death toll was closer to 200,000 you idiot.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:12pm
No he didn't. He simply had a disagreement with one of the members of the team. it was probabyl a personal falling out and now he's bitter.
You're still using insults because you're still losing.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 7:14pm
Unreadable illiterate nonsense and blatantly circular logic.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:10pm
Trasnlation: My limited righ t wing intellect (lack of) can't cope with reality.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 7:16pm
"Furthermore, the Lancet is supoprted by the British ORB, that also concluded the deaths due to the inbvavio came to 1.2 million.
Last but not least, if the Lancet is not credible, then neither is your link with regards to mortality rates in Afghanistan, whcih I might add, have improved slightly only because of NGO's, not the US invasion."
If you post stuff this stupid, you obviously cannot be debated. BigPasture was right; talking to Shingo is like talking to a brick wall.
Again: The authors of that study on Afghanistan have been supported by every other study conducted in that country, though most consider it a slight underestimate of lives saved by the war. They have no affiliation with, are not the same as, have no relationship with, and have never even met the authors of the Lancet study. Trying to link them with the authors of the Lancet study serves no purpose I can understand. Perhaps your position is that if I think a single study used manipulated evidence, I must therefore assume all studies are equally manipulated. Silly.
The NGOs wouldn't be there if not for the US-led coalition invasion.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:16pm
"No he didn't. He simply had a disagreement with one of the members of the team. it was probabyl a personal falling out and now he's bitter. "
Delusional, nonsensical lies.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:17pm
I know you've read the article that reported this. Don't play stupid you illiterate pathalogical liar.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:09pm
I did, and the artcle never said what you claimed it said. besides, the leading British Giovernemtn Scientist said the Lancet was sound.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 7:17pm
The NGOs wouldn't be there if not for the US-led coalition invasion.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:16pm
I debunked this rubbish yesterday.
NGO's have been in Afghansiatn since 1979.
"Non governmental organisations (NGOs) have played an important humanitarian role in Afghanistan and in support of Afghan refugees since 1979."
http://tinyurl.com/yfhwgda
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 7:20pm
"I did, and the artcle never said what you claimed it said. besides, the leading British Giovernemtn Scientist said the Lancet was sound."
You suffer from a reading disability.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:44pm
"Non governmental organisations (NGOs) have played an important humanitarian role in Afghanistan and in support of Afghan refugees since 1979."
So?
The increase in aid was blocked by the Taliban because aid groups were deemed "un-Islamic". Healthcare has improved dramatically in Afghanistan not just due to aid but an end to the Taliban's restrictions deliberately designed to cause needless deaths of Afghan women and to create a healthcare system like what they had in the days of Muhammad (the jihadist child rapist Jew killer the Muslims call the prophet).
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:50pm
As far as aid groups having to help Afghan refugees:
"Post-liberation, 2 million Afghan refugees vote with their feet and return home. Why, if this war was such a bad thing? 2 million people coming home! The left was wrong again. As of late 2003, 2.5 million Afghan refugees have now returned home! The capital Kabul's population has doubled in 2 years! As of mid 2004, 3.6 million Afghan refugees have now returned home! As of mid 2006, 4.5 million Afghan refugees have now returned home!"
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:55pm
Just so everyone knows what we're up against. This is how the primitive religious fascists of the Taliban fight:
"Taliban attack Afghans who are trying to clear the mines left over from the Soviet wars, mines that kill and maim Afghan children, 2007. "Deminers are heroes who risk their lives each day to save innocent lives and free Afghanistan of landmines and unexploded ordnance to return the cleared land back to their countrymen. They should be praised for their hard work and not attacked." As if the Taliban care about the people of Afghanistan.
Taliban target and kill UN aid workers, Sept 2008.
Taliban kill Christian aid worker, Oct 2008.
Taliban kill aid worker, Nov 2008.
The Taliban, like the Iraqi resistance, are rapists and sexual predators. Taliban abduct and repeatedly rape 43-year-old Dutch female journalist, November 2008.
Taliban bomb girls' primary school in Pakistan, Apr 2009, killing at least 4 children.
Taliban campaign of attacking girls' schools with poison gas. These animals even gas little girls at primary school.
Taliban in Pakistan use 12 year old boy to plant bomb, June 2009.
Taliban in Pakistan shoot 11 year old Christian boy in head, June 2009.
Pakistan Taliban buy child slaves as young as 7, to use as suicide bombers.
Taliban cut off the fingers of voters in Afghan election, Aug 2009 (and here). Too cowardly to stand for election themselves. Those who cannot win elections - bomb and mutilate the voters.
Taliban attack a group of boys on their way to school, Pakistan, Sept 2009. They kill 4 children because they are Shia, which apparently is the "wrong" type of Islam.
Pakistan Taliban suicide bomb UN World Food Program office, killing 5, Oct 2009."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:00pm
You suffer from a reading disability.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:44pm
Still struggling with reality I see .
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 8:01pm
The increase in aid was blocked by the Taliban because aid groups were deemed "un-Islamic".
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:50pm
Rubbish.
You now admit that NGO's were in Afghanistan all along, but are now tryign to salvage your position.
The aid going to Afghanistan BTW is largrly going to the Taliban
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 8:03pm
"You now admit that NGO's were in Afghanistan all along, but are now tryign to salvage your position. "
How do you explain 200,000 lives being saved each year by improved healthcare since the intervention by the brave and noble and heroic soldiers of the brave, noble, and heroic nation of America?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:07pm
"Post-liberation, 2 million Afghan refugees vote with their feet and return home. Why, if this war was such a bad thing? 2 million people coming home! The left was wrong again. As of late 2003, 2.5 million Afghan refugees have now returned home! The capital Kabul's population has doubled in 2 years! As of mid 2004, 3.6 million Afghan refugees have now returned home! As of mid 2006, 4.5 million Afghan refugees have now returned home!"
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 7:55pm
Except that you left out one detail
The main reason Afghan refugees began returnign home was becasue Pakistan began closing its largest camp for Afghan refugees out of fear that remnants of the Taliban had been using it as a hideout.
Now, more than 70,000 Afghans are being uprooted once more. So much for Afghan refugees voting with their feet and return home.
http://tinyurl.com/yjgu8yt
What's more, those returning face a destitute future
http://tinyurl.com/yjgu8yt
Celebrate away wingnut.
Too funny.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 8:13pm
Ayatollah Khomeini says Islam is not a religion of peace (also here):
"Islam is Not a Religion of Pacifists ... Islam's jihad is a struggle against idolatry, sexual deviation, plunder, repression, and cruelty. ... But those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [God's law]." "Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does that mean that Muslim should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill the [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender [to the enemy]? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword!"
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:14pm
Is there a proper Muslim way to have sex with animals? Indeed, there is! Guidelines for sex with animals can be found in the writings of Ayatollah Khomeini. Two excerpts from his writings serve to clarify the matter.
"A man can have sex with sheep, cows and camels and so on. However, he should kill the animal after he has his orgasm. He should not sell the meat to the people in his own village; however, selling the meat to the next door village should be fine." Don't the buyers deserve a discount of some kind?
Khomeini's "Tahrirolvasyleh" fourth volume, Darol Elm, Gom, Iran, 1990
"If one commits the act of sodomy with a cow, a ewe, or a camel, their urine and their excrement become impure, and even their milk may no longer be consumed. The animal must then be killed and as quickly as possible and burned." What if it was really good and invites another lap or two? Must animals always be one-night stands?
The Little Green Book, Sayings of Ayatollah Khomeini, Political, Philosophical, Social and Religious, ISBN number 0-553-14032-9, page 47
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:17pm
How do you explain 200,000 lives being saved each year by improved healthcare since the intervention by the brave and noble and heroic soldiers of the brave, noble, and heroic nation of America?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:07pm
To easy to debunk with siple logic.
For 200,000 lives being saved each year by improved since teh invasion, you would have to prove that 200,000 lives were being lost each, due to poor health care, before the invasion.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 8:17pm
"For 200,000 lives being saved each year by improved since teh invasion, you would have to prove that 200,000 lives were being lost each, due to poor health care, before the invasion."
Many, many, many, many, many more lives than that were being lost annually. 200,000 of them are being saved annually.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:20pm
Ayatollah Khomeini says Islam is not a religion of peace :
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:14pm
What a pitty you can't read your own quotes.
He said Islam was not a religion of pacifism. He doesn't even use the word peace.
BTW. Is there a link for this quote?
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 8:20pm
"He said Islam was not a religion of pacifism. He doesn't even use the word peace."
Clearly, Shingo chose not to read the quote because it challenged him.
The Ayatollah argued killing all non-Muslims in the world was neccessary for self-defense:
Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does that mean that Muslim should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill the [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:23pm
Is there a proper Muslim way to have sex with animals? I
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:17pm
Even if these quotes were true, there is no basis for them in the Koran.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 8:25pm
"BTW. Is there a link for this quote?"
littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=20949&only&rss
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:25pm
Many, many, many, many, many more lives than that were being lost annually. 200,000 of them are being saved annually.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:20pm
In other words, you have no numbers and are back to making shit up.
Debunking your arguments is child's play. Is that why you went off on a tangent about the Komeni thing?
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 8:27pm
Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does that mean that Muslim should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill the [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:23pm
This out of context quote was debunked weeks ago.
It refers to self defense is being attacked. The last sentence refers to teh agressors, not non-Muslims.
Furthermore, teh teachings dictatet that if teh agressor repents, they must not be harlemd.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 8:30pm
littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=20949&only&rss
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:25pm
Wow, I'm just speechless. Why didn;t yuo just go to David Duke's web site? LGF is notorious for being an extremist right wing site.
In any case, the source of this link is a book by 2 well known Islamphobic neocons and as I pointed out, deliberately mis-represents the context of the passages being quoted.
You can just as easily pull the same tricks withquots from the Bible.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 8:34pm
We have no national interest in Afganistan period. The Taliban are not coming here and they get stronger every time we drone one of them. Remember how america responded to 911...with a vengance.......they do the same and we wonder why... sheeeet.
Posted by notsleepy at 10/15/2009 @ 8:43pm
Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:23pm | ignore this person | warn this person
RW - have you seen this story?
September 3, 2009 11:25 AM Is the Taliban Getting a Cut of U.S. Aid?
'GlobalPost reporter Jean MacKenzie writes, "the Taliban allegedly receives kickbacks from almost every major contract that comes into the country."
MacKenzie adds that the deal are "at times highly formalized" and "the Taliban actually keeps an office in Kabul to review major deals, determine percentages and conduct negotiations. The arrangements are often more personal, as when a local supplier pays off a small-time Taliban commander to allow free passage of goods through his patch of insurgency-controlled terrain."
One source told the GlobalPost that the Taliban takes as much as 20 percent of development aid awarded to contractors. An embassy worker in Kabul described the arrangement as "organized crime."
Dona Dinkler, the chief of staff for congressional affairs at USAID's Office of Inspector General in Washington, D.C., told the GlobalPost that the allegations are a cause for concern, but added a note of caution.
"It's a real hard thing to prove. Who is going to survive to testify about that? That is our challenge. But that doesn't mean we stop trying. We want to get to the bottom of it," Dinkler said.
USAID has only one inspector and two auditors in Afghanistan following the billions of dollars in aid money that the United States provides.'
WorldWatch - CBS News, Dana Chiwis 09/03/09
Also, US military supplies shipped through Pakistan into Afghanistan pays protection money to Taliban via "Paki" shipping transit mafia.
Your tax dollars at work RW. Careful what you wish for
Posted by OneVote at 10/15/2009 @ 8:46pm
"Is that why you went off on a tangent about the Komeni thing?"
No, I just found these quotes and thought they were hilarious.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:52pm
"Is that why you went off on a tangent about the Komeni thing?"
No, I just found these quotes and thought they were hilarious.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:52pm
BTW, since the Ayatollah feels that Islam wants to conquer the world and exterminate all non-Muslims, was he an Islamophobe?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:55pm
"LGF is notorious for being an extremist right wing site."
That's okay; since I'm a right-wing extremist after all.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:56pm
"In other words, you have no numbers and are back to making shit up.
Debunking your arguments is child's play."
"To easy to debunk with siple logic.
For 200,000 lives being saved each year by improved since teh invasion, you would have to prove that 200,000 lives were being lost each, due to poor health care, before the invasion."
Clearly, Shingo is completely ignorant on this matter and knows absolutely nothing at all about the subject he is at present discussing.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 9:01pm
BTW, since the Ayatollah feels that Islam wants to conquer the world and exterminate all non-Muslims, was he an Islamophobe?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 8:55pm
He said nothign about exterminating all non-Muslims.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 9:21pm
You can't read.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 9:31pm
Clearly, Shingo is completely ignorant on this matter and knows absolutely nothing at all about the subject he is at present discussing.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 9:01pm
Rightwingnutcase is panicking here.
He can't find any evidnce to prove that 200,000 people were dying annually in Afghanistan each years due to poor health conditions imposed by the Taliban , so he's stalling and pretendind he doesn't have to.
You're not having a good day are you?
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 9:33pm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEH4sBsazGg
Shingo, watch this Saddam-loving propaganda from Al Jazeera.
Even one of the guests they invite on concedes that Iraq's implosion was inevitable.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 9:36pm
Shingo, watch this Saddam-loving propaganda from Al Jazeera.
Even one of the guests they invite on concedes that Iraq's implosion was inevitable.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 9:36pm
You mean they all had crystal balls? Gotta get me one of them.
So I take it you had no luck finding those numbers about 200,000 dying every year from lack of medical aid then? Pitty.
Oh, and seeing as you're so proud of the wonderful changes we've brought to Iraq, you might enjoy these further examples of winnign hearts and minds:
Iraq now of the world's most contaminated countries Iraq war remnants cause cancer deaths: minister http://uruknet.com/index.php? p=m58927&hd=&size=1&l=e
Deformed babies in Fallujah Iraq LETTER TO THE UNITED NATIONS http://uruknet.info/index.php? p=m58926&hd=&size=1&l=e
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 10:31pm
Shingo, watch this Saddam-loving propaganda from Al Jazeera.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 9:36pm
Al Jazeera loved Saddam?
Like Bin Laden loved Fisk?
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 10:37pm
http://www.tcj.com/247/e_giuffo.html From 2002: "...he ignores the $4.5 billion in international aid to Afghanistan that wouldn't have been sent had the Taliban remained in power. The Ahmed Rashid books he cites ad nauseum should have taught him that the Taliban were known for pushing aid organizations out of the country for such "violations" as being Christian. The World Food Program reports that food aid is now successfully reaching 6.6 million people in Afghanistan. According to UNICEF, who, coincidentally, also voiced opposition to the bombing campaign at first, the international aid agency is now able to go forward with the "biggest logistical operation for many years" in Afghanistan. In an aid update from January, UNICEF workers immunized 572,000 children in Kabul during the first two weeks of 2002, "six times higher than the total immunization coverage in 2001." They also vaccinated over 700,000 children against measles during the first two months of 2002, in a country where, as Nicholas Kristof pointed out in the Feb. 1 New York Times, "virtually no one had been vaccinated against the disease in the previous 10 years." That alone will save the lives of at least 35,000 children each year. Kristof also quotes Heidi J. Larson of UNICEF saying that she expects maternal mortality rates in Afghanistan will halve as a result of improved health care over the next five years. That's another 112,000 children and 7,500 pregnant women saved each year."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 10:38pm
http://minx.cc/?post=224542 "INFANT mortality in Afghanistan has fallen dramatically since the demise of the Taleban, according to a new study, with 40,000 fewer babies dying every year....Benjamin Loevinsohn, a World Bank health specialist, said the survey results probably underestimated the improvement in infant mortality.
"It's a conservative estimate. This is the situation two and a half to three years ago ... It should be better than that now," Mr Loevinsohn said.""
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 10:39pm
"Al Jazeera loved Saddam?"
Sure. Just watch the video.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 10:40pm
...he ignores the $4.5 billion in international aid to Afghanistan that wouldn't have been sent had the Taliban remained in power. T
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 10:38pm
Still nothing about 200,000 reported deaths from lack of medial aid before 2001?
Come rightwingnutcase, you're not trying har hard enough.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 11:02pm
according to a new study, with 40,000 fewer babies dying every year....Benjamin Loevinsohn, a World Bank health specialist, said the survey results probably underestimated the improvement in infant mortality.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 10:39pm
Actually the study showed 35,000 fewer babies dying every year. So where are the rest of the 165,000 deaths documented?
Focus now rightwingnutcase. Yuo can do it.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 11:04pm
Sure. Just watch the video.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 10:40pm
I just did.
Nope,. didn't see any crystal aballs or magic potions. No I love Saddam t-shirts or bumper stickers anywhere.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 11:06pm
"with 40,000 fewer babies dying every year."
"That alone will save the lives of at least 35,000 children each year."
"That's another 112,000 children and 7,500 pregnant women saved each year."
So actually about 180,000 are saved each year.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 11:10pm
"No I love Saddam t-shirts or bumper stickers anywhere."
The people who had interviewed Saddam were positively enamored with him. They want on and on about how Bush was the worse war criminal, how dashing and articulate and charasmatic Saddam was, how sensitive, how charming, how cultivated!
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 11:13pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 5:22pm |
That other quote says nothing about direct involvement in the attacks (I've addressed both now btw). It does not say the Taliban assisted in the planning or execution of the attacks. I never thought it was possible but you just managed to politicize reading comprehension. Congratulations.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 11:15pm
"It does not say the Taliban assisted in the planning or execution of the attacks."
At the very least, they trained, harbored, armed, and supported those who committed the attacks.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 11:23pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 11:23pm
Actually, Al Qaeda funded and aided and helped to arm the Taliban, not vice versa. In any case, your still basing the justification for the attack on the illegal Bush Doctrine.
Posted by nkurland at 10/15/2009 @ 11:35pm
So actually about 180,000 are saved each year.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 11:10pm
So again, if 180,000 wer saved, where are the statistic showing that 180,000 were dying pre invasion?
Stop stalling.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 11:41pm
They want on and on about how Bush was the worse war criminal, how dashing and articulate and charasmatic Saddam was, how sensitive, how charming, how cultivated!
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 11:13pm
That's all true to a point. Bush did kill more peopel than Saddam.
He was probably more articulate than Bush, though I ouldn't say he was charming.
Still, that's not what Al Jazeera said.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 11:45pm
At the very least, they trained, harbored, armed, and supported those who committed the attacks.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/15/2009 @ 11:23pm
Are you tryign for a consolation prize rightwingnutcase?
Having starte out with teh insistence that Afghanistan commited 911,you've now backed off to hey trained, harbored, armed, and supported those who committed the attacks.
Even then, as nkurland pointed out , that is also false.
Not only were AQ being supported by Saudi Arabia, but according to former FBI translator, Sibel Edmonds, the US was supporting AQ right up until 911. We trained AQ, not the Taliban.
Posted by Shingo at 10/15/2009 @ 11:53pm
Anyone who supported AQ was at war with us after 9/11. That is what I meant when I said Afghanistan declared war on us on 9/11.
So, Shingo, you favor a US-led military attack on Saudi Arabia?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/16/2009 @ 12:48am
9/11 was committed by terrorist. These terrorists were not representative of any nation or government. They happened to be from Saudi Arabia and may have trained in Afghanistan.
Al Queda had bases in Afghanistan and that was reason enough to launch a punitive attack after 9/11/01.
Bush screwed up when he attacked Iraq. This blunder is indefensible, yet through a series of lies, exagerrations, and meaningless platitudes, Bush tried to make his case.
Nonexistant WMD's and Nigerian Uranium, grateful Iraqis greeting the US Army, oil money that would pay for the war... all lies.
Then Bush exaggerated the inelligence to support the lies and the Downing Street Memo proves this. Also, much was made that other countries believed the WMD claims, yet other countries did not and they were ridiculed.
There were platitudes offered by Bush as reasons for the war. Some of them sounded ok but were really meaningless and others were just stupid.
"We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here." What kind of strategy is this? You let the enemy decide when and where he will attack and even then he must cooperate. There was no compulsion for Al Queda to fight in Iraq other than it was easier for them to get to Americans. No great chess move.
Characterizing a withdrawal as "Cut and Run" or stating that "we cannot let those who died to have died in vain" were also part of it. What kind sound military judgement is this? A soldier who hears his commander say a withdrawal is out because "we can't cut and run" would think him insane.
Posted by koroviev at 10/16/2009 @ 02:44am
Rep. McGovern and the other Democrats are correctly doing a harsh reality check and the reality is our country is financially strapped. With our current debt, It is a struggle to pay back our debtors now. I certainly don't believe the Chinese are going to go out of their way to loan us more. As General McChrystal has stated: "you simply don't make promises to the Afghan people that you can't keep". We simply can not protect the Afghan people from the Taliban forever and is best left up to the Afghan security forces that we have trained for the last 8 years. It is noble to build schools, colleges, hospitals if we had the funding that would not further the burdens we already have. Unfortunately, We may have to spend money we don't have in Pakistan. Pakistan is now a humanitarian nightmare with elements of Taliban/Al Qaeda attacking the Pakistani populace as well as its government entities. The Pakistan government has between 80 and 100 nuclear weapons and should be of great concern. I believe the terrorist would to anything for a nuke to undo what we have done so far in Afghanistan and harm our troops and country. Pakistan is a much smaller country and I believe that Vice President Biden is correct in taking the fight there. We should secure the nukes and work with the populace,and Pakistan government to kill, capture and imprision the criminals that threaten the security throughout the world
Posted by Dallasman at 10/16/2009 @ 04:07am
Posted by antisocialist at 10/15/2009 @ 1:12pm
"Setting aside the inaccuracy of your "1000" bases..."
From the Bureau of Atomic Scientists:
"According to the Pentagon's own list PDF, the answer is around 865, but if you include the new bases in Iraq and Afghanistan it is over a thousand. These thousand bases constitute 95 percent of all the military bases any country in the world maintains on any other country's territory."
http://tinyurl.com/aqq4zu
"But to sum it up, foreign bases indeed are central to our national security. They allow faster response times, refueling and repair of aircraft and ships."
When national security is used as a code word for imperialism, as can be seen from the quote above and the fact that no other nation deems it necessary to do the same.
"Your agenda and that of other leftists here will not ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and secure the blessings of liberty as the Constitution states."
Your agenda is unconstitutional based on the very grounds you argue, on every other topic but "national defense". The Framers did not envision a 1,000 bases as national security. Further, I think your argument also fails on efficacy grounds because we were specifically targeted on 9/11 because of our involvement in Lebanon and our imperialist foreign policy. Hence, it is not making us "safer" in any meaningful sense of the term.
"The AUF specifically cites the material breach justification."
Another example of ignoring the real world and pretend "text" is somehow more real.
"I've provided plenty of evidence that the Taliban were integral to the effort of Al Qaeda to launch the 9/11 attacks."
The Taliban is also in Pakistan. Why didn't we attack there? See the problem is your inconsistency.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/16/2009 @ 08:56am
Posted by srjenkins at 10/16/2009 @ 08:56am Citing the leftist Bureau of Atomic Scientists just gives you incorrect information. Their data is old and doesn't reflect two critical points. Also, if anyone wants to debate that they are leftist, merely look at the link and see that they quote Chalmers Johnson in the opening remarks.
1.The ongoing reductions due to BRAC (for example the US began closing 57 bases in Germany in 2007 that will continue until 2011) 2.Most of the bases in Iraq have already been turned over to the Iraqis since that last report (approx 90%-the US currently retains just over 20 of the original 300 with continued turnover)
http://tinyurl.com/yf9rb9x
Now as to your many argument on constitutionality:
Here is actually your weakest argument and I've been dealing with you from other aspects until now.
The bases are 100% constitutional by even original intent as they are all the result of treaties. We are bound by those treaties to provide defense (either mutual as in Germany & NATO), or exclusively as in Japan who is prohibited by the surrender terms of WWII to have a military.
Next I will post the comments of one of the Founders, member of the Constitutional Convention, and later an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court; Joseph Story
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 10:43am
Response to SRJ continued
Here is one of the founders, Joseph Story, confirming that the constitutional convention was affirming the necessity of a standing army including all steps necessary to defend the nation
<I§ 1177. It was said, that congress, having an unlimited power to raise and support armies, might, if in their opinion the general welfare required it, keep large armies constantly on foot, and thus exhaust the resources of the United States. There is no control on congress, as to numbers, stations, or government of them. They may billet them on the people at pleasure. Such an unlimited authority is most dangerous, and in its principles despotic; for being unbounded, it must lead to despotism. We shall, therefore, live under a government of military force. In respect to times of peace, it was suggested, that there is no necessity for having a standing army, which had always been held, under such circumstances, to be fatal to the public rights and political freedom.
§ 1178. To these suggestions it was replied with equal force and truth, that to be of any value, the power must be unlimited. It is impossible to foresee, or define the extent and variety of national exigencies, and the correspondent extent and variety of the national means necessary to satisfy them. The power must be co-extensive with all possible combinations of circumstances, and under the direction of the councils entrusted with the common defence. To deny this would be to deny the means, and yet require the end. These must, therefore, be unlimited in every matter essential to its efficacy, that is, in the formation, direction, and support of the national forces.>
http://tinyurl.com/y9ab9h7
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 10:45am
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 10:43am
Let's see. I cite the Bureau of Atomic Scientists, who provide a link to DoD data. You state in response:
"Citing the leftist Bureau of Atomic Scientists just gives you incorrect information."
So, your first inclination is to engage in personal attacks. Then, you claim their data is old, yet do not provide a link to any new data that suppliants the data they are using from official sources.
What you do sight is an article, which cites another article that eventually states:
"More than 150 American bases or outposts have been closed in Iraqi cities this year -- 85 percent of the total, an Iraqi official said -- including some that commanders considered crucial."
In case you missed the problem, the source is an anonymous Iraqi official. Even then, it doesn't match what you said, and it still means 15 gigantic bases in Iraq and an unspecified number in Afghanistan to augment the total number of bases reported by the DoD.
If you had made the effort you could have found the new 2008 report - which I've done for you, then you would have seen that bases went from a total of foreign bases went from 823 to 761 and bases in territories went from 86 to 104 - which gives us 865 for 2008 (the most current year available).
To no one's surprise, your quoted "facts" don't match up with the official data. I'd assert that's true because you are relying on anonymous Iraqi sources reported in wherever you get your misinformation.
As for your Founding Fathers argument, this is again just one opinion that a standing army is necessary. Others did not agree. Further, this is not an argument for keeping foreign bases, and you cannot argue that the founders imagined keeping bases in foreign territories as "defense" because it isn't so.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/16/2009 @ 12:04pm
Posted by srjenkins at 10/16/2009 @ 12:04pm
I'm sorry SRJ, but this is an area where we are going to have to just agree that we disagree.
We keep going around in circles on this.
1. US law has already required a reduction in the number of military bases which you do not want to acknowledge
2. I have stated that we can close at least 10% more beyond what BRAC already requires.
3. You cannot make an argument that is compelling against the constitutionality of standing armies. Dismissing the comments of someone like Justice Story who was rel;ating what occurred at the constitutional convention without any substantive rebuttal denigrates your own argument.
4. You also made no attempt to rebut the Treaty argument because there is no constitutional argument against the compliance with treaties.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 12:26pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 12:26pm
1. I'm using DoD data. You've got nothing.
2. So what? The bottom line is there is close to a thousand bases, and if that is a necessary component to "national security", why wasn't that a feature in our historical past or in the foriegn policy of other nations?
3. I already have. There was no standing army at the time of ratification, and if there were, the Constitution would not have been ratified - certainly not be all the states.
4. Because an argument that we need to maintain a 1,000 bases as part of our treaty obligations is not worth a response. It's stupid.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/16/2009 @ 1:22pm
1. I'm using DoD data. You've got nothing.
2. So what? The bottom line is there is close to a thousand bases, and if that is a necessary component to "national security", why wasn't that a feature in our historical past or in the foriegn policy of other nations?
3. I already have. There was no standing army at the time of ratification, and if there were, the Constitution would not have been ratified - certainly not be all the states.
4. Because an argument that we need to maintain a 1,000 bases as part of our treaty obligations is not worth a response. It's stupid.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/16/2009 @ 1:22pm
1. I'm also using DOD data
2. We established the first foreign US bases around 1803 as we began the Tripoli wars. In 1815 we established the first US base in the Pacific in the Marquesa Islands.
3. by around 1850 we were opening US bases in Japan and China.
4. Stating that honoring US treaty obligations is stupid is hardly a reasoned response.
Again, you are the only one discussing keeping a 1000 bases. I am not doing so and neither is the US govt. It is purely a leftist lie. US law (BRAC) says differently and our treaty agreement with Iraq calling for us to turn over bases to the Iraqis counters your claims. We are on a schedule to reduce bases in Germany by over 80%. We have closed numerous US Navy sub bases like Holy Loch Scotland in the past 15 years.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 1:56pm
There was no standing army at the time of ratification, and if there were, the Constitution would not have been ratified - certainly not be all the states.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/16/2009 @ 1:22pm
That is completely wrong. We have never been without a standing Army. Just as we did after WWI and WWII, the size of the army was reduced, but we have never gone without a standing army.
Most people don't know that Washington after leaving office as president, became the commanding General of the US Army.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 3:03pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 1:56pm
1. If so, no reference to which source so your statements can be checked for truth.
2. June 17, 1788 is not 1803. 1 base is also not the same 1,000. If this argument is supposed to offer some kind of support on Constitutional or historical grounds, it fails.
3. I'm not sure what the relevance is of your third point other than a sorry attempt to assert that 1,000 bases is justified by a few outposts that the founders would have found unconstitutional.
4. Asserting that 1,000 bases, or even a significant portion of 1,000 bases, is required by treaty is stupid.
Further, misrepresenting people's statements is more in line with typical Mask behavior. However, I am beginning to see that it is not uncommon for you either.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 3:03pm
This statement is simply wrong. You can check any number of sources, but Wikipedia is convenient. Try Battle of the Wabash as a starting point. A couple of hundred "regulars" isn't an army.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/16/2009 @ 5:45pm
Posted by srjenkins at 10/16/2009 @ 5:45pm
You remain fixated on this number 1000 which I do not promote and yet you continuously attempt to state that I do.
It is indicative of your unwillingness to consider facts that do not support your contention.
the fact is and the US Army maintains that is has been continuous since 1775. I've cited 3 members of the Founders who wrote and approved the constitution and you dismiss all 3. Even though they represent 2 presidents and a Supreme Court Justice. Hardly lacking credibility.
You have provided NO EVIDENCE to support your contention. History, the constitution, and the founders substantiate my argument.
What will you do by 2011 when the number of bases totals around 600-650? Will you still claim that actually means 1000?
Why aren't you honest and simply state that you disagree with having even one military base. You'll never see that happen, but at least it would be honest coming from you.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 7:59pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 7:59pm
I'm fixated on the number of 1,000. It shows what is wrong in our foreign policy. It's also a fact - backed up by D0D data - that you seem unable to grasp.
What relevant facts have you offered? The only thing I see is off-point crap.
"What will you do by 2011 when the number of bases totals around 600-650?"
I'll ask what does having 600-650 foreign bases have to do with "national security"? I think by any measure, triple digits is excessive.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/16/2009 @ 8:36pm
BTW SRJ,
St Claire left with 2000 men, not a few hundred. And nowhere does history indicate that he took all of the US Army.
<The campaign had been planned to begin in July of 1791, but St. Clair ran into a variety of problems. Recruits were slow to come in, and when they finally did, there weren't enough supplies for them.
Finally, on Sept. 17, St. Clair set out from Fort Washington, near modern-day Cincinnati, with some 2,000 men. They marched 20 miles, built Fort Hamilton (now Hamilton, Ohio), then marched 45 more north and constructed Fort Jefferson, near modern-day Greenville, Ohio>
In other words, he was recruiting mainly fromthe territories. Ohio wasn't even a state then.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 8:42pm
Ohio wasn't even a state then.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 8:42pm | ignore this person | warn this person
And shouldn't be now.
GO WOLVERINES! BEAT THE BUCKEYES!
Bwahahahaha!
Posted by schnellerheinz at 10/16/2009 @ 8:52pm
Most people don't know that Washington after leaving office as president, became the commanding General of the US Army.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 3:03pm
Washington warned against standing armies as he left office.
Posted by Shingo at 10/16/2009 @ 8:54pm
Anyone who supported AQ was at war with us after 9/11. That is what I meant when I said Afghanistan declared war on us on 9/11.
So, Shingo, you favor a US-led military attack on Saudi Arabia?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/16/2009 @ 12:48am
By that logic, we were at war with ourselves.
Bush supported the Jihadist groups, Jundullah, which was Kaleid Sheik Mohammed's old gang. Jundullah are AQ supporters, which makes us AQ supporters.
Did Bush declare war on the US too?
"So, Shingo, you favor a US-led military attack on Saudi Arabia?"
If we are to be consistent about attacking those who suport AQ, and those who attecked us, then we shoud have attacked Saudi Arabia also. The fact that we didn;t shows that we are hypocrites who only apply principal and morality when it suits us.
Posted by Shingo at 10/16/2009 @ 8:59pm
"Did Bush declare war on the US too?"
No, the toppling of the Taliban, the destruction of AQ in Afghanistan, and the military defeat and discrediting of AQ in Iraq in the eyes of and with the help of an Arab and Muslim people in a Muslim country that would have devolved into a genocidal anarchy ruled by jihadist warlords and become the Congo of the Middle East absent our intervention were the two most logical steps to take in the War on Terror.
I agree that one could have made a case for attacking Saudi Arabia as well, but it seems as though the Saudis have cracked down on AQ, and as such don't necessarily pose a threat to our security. We could also have attacked Sudan, but it also would have been unnecessary from a security point of view even though Sudan supports terror (though justifiable, of course, on humanitarian grounds).
As far as Bush supporting anti-Iran terrorists, Seymour Hersh may be a pathological liar, but he also is a damned good reporter who has uncovered some big scoops. It seems his articles on Bush's covert actions against Iran actually were a serious and legitimate discovery. I would agree that his actions were very foolish. To say supporting Jundullah means supporting AQ is false, though it does show that Sunni terrorists hate the Mullahs in Tehran and want to overthrow them. Why some claim without evidence that Iran and AQ are allies is beyond me.
It's funny that people are so fixated on the "Shiite triangle," when the Shiites are our allies in Iraq and Afghanistan and indeed have aided our military greatly in ousting the Taliban, and when the Shiite fundamentalists in Tehran condemned 9/11 and provided great assistance to America in its military response to it. The Sunni fundamentalists are our foes; we should be allies....
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/16/2009 @ 10:22pm
...with the Shiites who are also attacked and persecuted by them. Shiite Islam even generally as a historical trend has always been more secular and modern than Sunni Islam, which has always been more backwards and repressive and barbarous. I think that the Shiites have been forever tainted in America's mind by the terrible 1979 Iranian Revolution. That said, Iran today is a paper tiger led not by serious zanies like the Ayatollah, but cynical and corrupt frauds who simply pander to religious fundamentalists to secure their support. Its sponsorship of terror has long ago been eclipsed by the real serious threat, AQ. It will be a secular democracy in a decade or two. Even Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was puzzled by our hostility towards Iran, which has done so much to aid us since 9/11 and has nothing to do with AQ. Iran does sponsor terrorism against Israel more energetically then most other countries, but that does not mean it supports terrorism against the United States, which should be our top priority. AQ in Iraq, we now know for a fact, had private documents that we've uncovered in their safe houses that contained detailed plans about trying to provoke a war between Iran and America. Given that AQ is our main foe, we should not aid them just for the sake of helping Israel.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/16/2009 @ 10:34pm
"we are hypocrites who only apply principal and morality when it suits us."
So you at least accept that the Afghan war is based on principle and morality? Glad to hear it.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/16/2009 @ 11:42pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/16/2009 @ 8:42pm
Apparently, I have to even do the reading for you. Here's the important bit:
"At its peak, the army under St. Clair included 600 regulars, 800 six-month conscripts, and 600 militia, for a total of around 2,000 men."
In other words, the "Army" wasn't one. "Regulars" constituted a minority of any force that was more generally populated by either recent conscripts or militia. There was no "Army".
Posted by srjenkins at 10/17/2009 @ 12:35am
In other words, the "Army" wasn't one. "Regulars" constituted a minority of any force that was more generally populated by either recent conscripts or militia. There was no "Army".
Posted by srjenkins at 10/17/2009 @ 12:35am
you just keep believing in your little anti-American, anti-military fantasy SRJ. In the meantime, loyal and honorable men and women will continue to enlist and serve with dignity, pride, and dedication to this country and what it represents to the hope of mankind.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/17/2009 @ 1:03pm
Posted by antisocialist at 10/17/2009 @ 1:03pm
And at last, it is clear what you are - a little right wing troll. Rather than address the argument and make some kind of counter-argument about how the establishment of a frontier force prior to the Constitution leaves some room for arguing about a standing army and foreign bases - as there surely were on the frontier, you resort to name calling. Well, enjoy the last refuge of the sad sack.
I have to thank you, however. This has been a real eye opener in terms of understand how any "dialogue" with you is a waste of time. You can be sure I won't forget the lesson. Back to ignore, you go.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/17/2009 @ 1:34pm
And at last, it is clear what you are - a little right wing troll. Rather than address the argument and make some kind of counter-argument about how the establishment of a frontier force prior to the Constitution leaves some room for arguing about a standing army and foreign bases - as there surely were on the frontier, you resort to name calling. Well, enjoy the last refuge of the sad sack.
I have to thank you, however. This has been a real eye opener in terms of understand how any "dialogue" with you is a waste of time. You can be sure I won't forget the lesson. Back to ignore, you go.
Posted by srjenkins at 10/17/2009 @ 1:34pm
Please show me what "name" I called you?
Since you hate real debate, I'm not surprised that you put me on ignore. You have yet to counter the arguments. You could not show how Hamilton, Madison, and Story, to name just 3 from the Constitutional Convention were wrong in stating that the constitution does allow for a standing army. You could not find any argument that every president since Washington has called the army into war without a declaration of war.
It is you who has no argument and that is why you now put me on ignore. That is your problem, not mine.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/17/2009 @ 9:15pm
The political Left is now attacking Gen. Stanley McChrystal over his proposed troop surge in Afghanistan in the same way it tried to besmirch the character of Gen. David Petraeus when he promoted the successful Iraq reinforcement.
The lesson: when a four-star commander wants to win a war with more troops they get profiled by the Left as betrayers, rogues and liars. With Petraeus, they failed. Will McChrystal fare as well?
Everyone should remember the infamous 2007 newspaper ad from MoveOn.org, the hard Left advocacy group, that posted a video showing George W. Bush transforming into Hitler.
In Petraeus' case, MoveOn was a bit kinder. It only depicted him as a traitor to his country. "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" the ad said. "Cooking the books for the White House."
The ad, for which the New York Times granted a huge price discount, went on to assert, "Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed."
Hillary Clinton also condemned Petraeus in stark terms. At a Senate hearing, she said to the four-star general, "The reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who had pronounced the Iraq war lost, said of the general, "He's made a number of statements over the years that have not proven to be factual."
A year later, a short-lived political consensus emerged that the Iraq surge worked in greatly reducing violence. As a bonus, America defeated the Iraq wing of al Qaeda.
Today, it is McChrystal who must watch his Left flank, getting flack from the same type of leftists who applauded former Gen. Eric Shinseki for publicly saying the U.S. needed more troops for an Iraq invasion. The hypocrisy of the left !
Posted by BigPasture at 10/18/2009 @ 01:57am
Good points, BigPasture. The left knows nothing about military strategy.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 5:59pm
The political Left is now attacking Gen. Stanley McChrystal over his proposed troop surge in Afghanistan in the same way it tried to besmirch the character of Gen. David Petraeus when he promoted the successful Iraq reinforcement.
Posted by BigPasture at 10/18/2009 @ 01:57am
When General Shinseki told the Bush Administration they'd need 200,00 thousand troospo secure post war Iraq and and that the Iraq would cost over $200 billion, he was shown the door.
The lesson: when a four-star commander wants to win a war with more troops they get profiled by the rigth as betrayers, rogues and liars.
Rumsfeld told us the war wouldn't last longer than 6 months.
On May 1, 2003, Bush declared Mission Accomplished.
The right clearly knows nothing about military strategy.
"A year later, a short-lived political consensus emerged that the Iraq surge worked in greatly reducing violence. As a bonus, America defeated the Iraq wing of al Qaeda."
Wrong. The surge, wbhich was suppssed to last 6 months, took 18 months to work.
Secondly. it was the Sunni awakening that defeated AQI before the surge even started. The reducintino in violence was due to the enthic cleasing of Baghdad.
Posted by Shingo at 10/18/2009 @ 6:29pm
Shingo, how was your usual weekend trip to the AQ training camps? Informative as usual? Get any autographs from the jihadists?
Just be glad they don't know you're Jewish.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 6:34pm
you just keep believing in your little anti-American, anti-military fantasy SRJ. In the meantime, loyal and honorable men and women will continue to enlist and serve with dignity, pride, and dedication to this country and what it represents to the hope of mankind.
Posted by antisocialist at 10/17/2009 @ 1:03pm
The US military is simply a branch of the US government that and serves US government interests. Those loyal and honorable men and women are therefore not serving theri country, but serving their government and most are simply opting for teh position to earn a living.
If the government can't be trusted to run health care, how can it be entrusted to run the military to do what's right for American?
Posted by Shingo at 10/18/2009 @ 6:40pm
"The reducintino in violence was due to the enthic cleasing of Baghdad."
So violence was only reduced in Baghdad, then?
"it was the Sunni awakening that defeated AQI before the surge even started."
The Awakening started in 2005. Not only did violence increase in 2005 and 2006, but the left argued through all of 2007 that the situation in Iraq was getting worse. If factors prior to the surge ensured Iraq would obviously be stabilized, why did the left argue that it was an impossibly costly lost cause months after the surge began no matter how much empirical evidence there was that suggested they were wrong? AQ in Iraq was defeated nearly three years after the Awakening began. After it was defeated, fatalities from terror attacks fell worldwide by 90%.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 6:41pm
"If the government can't be trusted to run health care, how can it be entrusted to run the military to do what's right for American?"
So you don't think we should have any military? What if we were attacked, stupid? Every man for himself?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 6:43pm
Shingo, how was your usual weekend trip to the AQ training camps? Informative as usual? Get any autographs from the jihadists?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 6:34pm
Another week and stil you have nothing worthwhile to say rightwingnutcase.
They use to say that drugs and alcohol was for thos who can't handle reality. As it turns out, it's right wingers who can't handle it.
Posted by Shingo at 10/18/2009 @ 6:48pm
The Awakening started in 2005. Not only did violence increase in 2005 and 2006, but the left argued through all of 2007 that the situation in Iraq was getting worse. If factors prior to the surge ensured Iraq would obviously be stabilized, why did the left argue that it was an impossibly costly lost cause months after the surge began no matter how much empirical evidence there was that suggested they were wrong? AQ in Iraq was defeated nearly three years after the Awakening began. After it was defeated, fatalities from terror attacks fell worldwide by 90%.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 6:41pm
Yes, the awakening started in 2005/2006, at which point the Sunni's turned against Al Qaeda. By 2007, AQI were all but removed, but they were not the sole cause of the violence, as the right like to believe.
The Surge was nothing more than a strategy of bribing and arming the Sunni's, including former AQI members. Funny how we always end up supporting AQ isn't it?
2006 was the height of the civil war, which lead to the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad. Once the Sunnis were driven out of Baghdad, the violence dropped because there was no one left to kill.
The reality of these events became evident a year later.
Posted by Shingo at 10/18/2009 @ 6:55pm
"They use to say that drugs and alcohol was for thos who can't handle reality. As it turns out, it's right wingers who can't handle it."
Liberals believe reality is whatever they want it to be, all they have to do is believe strongly enough and join hands with like-minded people and reality will mold itself to their will.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 6:56pm
Liberals believe reality is whatever they want it to be, all they have to do is believe strongly enough and join hands with like-minded people and reality will mold itself to their will.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 6:56pm
The right still believe Iraq had WMD, but shipped them to Syria. The right believe that Saddam and Al Qeda are the same thing and that Saddam was involved in 911. The right believe that Afghanistan attacked us on 911. The right believe that Obama is a Muslim who was born in Kenya. The right believe in creationism.
Actually , it's the right wing that believe they can create their own reality. They even said so and criticize the left for belonging to the reality based community.
It was the right who said this:
''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
Posted by Shingo at 10/18/2009 @ 7:03pm
So you don't think we should have any military? What if we were attacked, stupid? Every man for himself?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 6:43pm
We haven't used the military for self defense since WWII. Since then, it has simply been a government militia.
Posted by Shingo at 10/18/2009 @ 7:06pm
"The right still believe Iraq had WMD, but shipped them to Syria."
I don't.
"The right believe that Saddam and Al Qeda are the same thing and that Saddam was involved in 911."
I don't.
"The right believe that Afghanistan attacked us on 911."
It did. Obviously. Everyone knows that.
"The right believe that Obama is a Muslim who was born in Kenya."
I don't.
"The right believe in creationism."
I don't.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 7:12pm
"We haven't used the military for self defense since WWII. Since then, it has simply been a government militia."
Afghanistan was self-defense.
Its been primarily used for humanitarian intervention since WW2.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 7:15pm
In fact, Obama is an atheist.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 7:18pm
No, the toppling of the Taliban, the destruction of AQ in Afghanistan, and the military defeat and discrediting of AQ in Iraq in the eyes of and with the help of an Arab and Muslim people in a Muslim country that would have devolved into a genocidal anarchy ruled by jihadist warlords and become the Congo of the Middle East absent our intervention were the two most logical steps to take in the War on Terror.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/16/2009 @ 10:22pm
Don't you just love how the right seem to be able to predict everything that would have happened had we not bombed a country?
A few points: 1.AQ were never in Iraq until AFTER we invaded. 2.AQ are not in Afghanistan now. In fact, even the Taliban have no respect fro them seeing as AQ is the reason they were overthrown. 3.Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan has ever been run by jihadist warlords. 4.Saudi Arabia are the primary source of financing for AQ 5.Sudan supports terror the same way we support terror. 6.Bush and Israel have already admitted to programs of subversion and paramilitary operations against Tehran. 7.Kaleid Sheik Mohammed, the 911 mastermind, was a member of Jundullah, so that makes Jundullah defacto AQ.
Posted by Shingo at 10/18/2009 @ 7:22pm
"1.AQ were never in Iraq until AFTER we invaded."
In fact, Zarqawi had infiltrated Iraq along with dozens of other terrorists after the liberation of Afghanistan and was plotting to use it as a base from which to plan future attacks on America. Bin Laden told him he could use the AQ brand name for his organization.
"2.AQ are not in Afghanistan now."
Because our invasion utterly annihilated them.
"Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan has ever been run by jihadist warlords."
You would object to characterizing the Taliban as jihadist warlords?
"4.Saudi Arabia are the primary source of financing for AQ"
Then we should bomb them.
"5.Sudan supports terror the same way we support terror."
We don't support terror.
".Bush and Israel have already admitted to programs of subversion and paramilitary operations against Tehran."
So? I never denied this; I called such actions unwise.
"Jundullah defacto AQ."
False. It is an anti-Iran group, though radical Sunnis are naturally anti-Iran.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 7:34pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 7:34pm
"In fact, Zarqawi had infiltrated Iraq along with dozens of other terrorists after the liberation of Afghanistan..."
1.Zarqawi only became a member fo AQ after the invasion. 2.Zarqawi was in the Kurdish region outside of Saddam's reach 3.The 2006 Senate Report shows that Saddam and Zarqawi were enemies. 4.As for Zarqawi's base, Bush had at least 2 opportunities to bomb it before the Iraq invasion but turned them down.
"Because our invasion utterly annihilated them."
Partly true, though we allowed many senior AQ to leave safely from Kunduz to Pakistan, including Bin Laden.
"You would object to characterizing the Taliban as jihadist warlords?"
They were at war with the warlords of the Northern alliance.
"Then we should bomb them."
I'd just advocating taking out the Saudi Royals and their band of vermin.
"We don't support terror. "
Of course we do. Always have, and always will. We support the Jundullah, and the MEK (listed by the Stet Department as a terrorist organisation).
Before that, we not only supported AQ in Afghanistan, butZbigniew Brzezinski admitted that we actually supported the Menhaden in Afghanistan, to incite the Soviets to invade.
False. It is an anti-Iran group, though radical Sunnis are naturally anti-Iran.
Jundullah is a radical Sunni jihadist group that is anti Iranian, just like Al Qaeda, so they are Al Qaeda. OBL want the US to attack Iran.
Posted by Shingo at 10/18/2009 @ 7:44pm
"OBL want the US to attack Iran."
Duh.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 7:46pm
"Before that, we not only supported AQ in Afghanistan, butZbigniew Brzezinski admitted that we actually supported the Menhaden in Afghanistan, to incite the Soviets to invade."
Right, under the jihadist Jimmy Carter.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 7:47pm
Right, under the jihadist Jimmy Carter.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 7:47pm
If Carter had been a Republican, the hypocritical right would have praised him for luring the Soviets into a trap which bankrupted them.
Seeing as they were supported and praised as freedom fighters by Ronald Reagan, that makes him as jihadist too.
Posted by Shingo at 10/18/2009 @ 8:12pm
<i>Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 7:18pm </i>
Come again? I'd LOVE to see you try and back THIS claim up...
Also, with respect to your point about bombing Saudi Arabia...I thought you set up the example of Saudi Arabia earlier as a setup for "and clearly bombing them would be dumb." Apparently, I was mistaken. And yes. Bombing them would be ridiculously dumb, probably in too many ways to count.
Posted by Thrawn at 10/18/2009 @ 8:26pm
"Come again? I'd LOVE to see you try and back THIS claim up..."
Quote from Obama:
"Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our Bibles. Folks haven't been reading their Bibles."
Obviously, Obama is not a Christian. He's too intelligent to fall for all that superstitious nonsense. Since all religions have teachings similar to those he points out in the Bible, I take it that he is not just a secularist, but an atheist who would never admit it.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 8:51pm
I said that if Shingo was correct, and Saudi Arabia was the main financier, armer, trainer, and supporter of AQ, then their regime should be obliterated. Personally, I'm not sure they are a major threat to our security. I think Syria is the biggest state sponsor of Sunni Islamic jihad.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 8:54pm
It's funny that out of all ME countries, the one we're most eager to bomb is Iran, when that is the stupidest, most pathological and self-destructive decision that would have the most devastating consequences out of all the decisions we could make about attacking any country out of all the countries in the ME.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 8:59pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 10/18/2009 @ 8:59pm
Excellent and intelligent comment.
Posted by Shingo at 10/18/2009 @ 9:51pm