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RedditThe Bush administration employed propaganda techniques, political spin and deception to promote and then justify a war with Iraq that was unwise and unnecessary.
And a "too-deferential" national press corps allowed the president and his aides to get away with it.
Who makes this devastating, if not entirely new, charge?
The man responsible for spinning the story of the Bush presidency, former White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
In a memoir that will be published Monday, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, the veteran campaign and White House aide to George W. Bush portrays his former boss and those around him as permanent campaigners who frequently sacrificed the good of the country to achieve dubious political and policy goals.
McClellan is sharply critical of the Bush White House's handling of definitional domestic policy challenges, particularly Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
But nowhere is the former press aide so devastating in his critique of his former boss as on the issue of how the United States was steered into the quagmire that is Iraq.
Bush, he writes, is guilty of a "failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and (of) rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath."
Accusing the president of engaging in "self-deception" when it came to the facts from the Middle East, McClellan explains that Bush "and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war."
"[I]n this regard, (Bush) was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security," argues McClellan, who is blistering in his description of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the president's former national security adviser, as "too accommodating" and too concerned about protecting her own reputation to challenge strategies that she had to know were ill-advised and dangerous.
And what of the free press that is supposed to serve as a watchdog on executive excess and deceit?
"If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq," the former spokesman writes. "The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media' didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."
McClellan, Bush's traveling press secretary during the 2000 campaign and a former deputy press secretary to the president who served as White House spokesman from 2003 until 2006, is blunt and detailed in discussing administration efforts to destroy the reputation of a critic of the rush to war, former Ambassador Joe Wilson (and Wilson's wife, outed-CIA agent Valerie Plame).
"I had allowed myself to be deceived into unknowingly passing along a falsehood," he writes of his defenses of key players in the scandal such as White House political czar Karl Rove and fellow White House advisers Elliot Abrams and I. Lewis ‘Scooter' Libby. "It would ultimately prove fatal to my ability to serve the president effectively."
While Bush, too, may have been deceived, McClellan explains that "the top White House officials who knew the truth -- including Rove, Libby and possibly Vice President Cheney -- allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie."
That lie, and the others related to the war, are the bitter legacy McClellan wrestles with in an agonizing account of the White House in which he served. That account will serve as an essential document of the Bush presidency, and of the current campaign to replace it.
Above all, however, McClellan's book is a cautionary tale that reminds us that powerful men and the governments they guide must never be allowed to wage wars of whim.
"History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder," he writes. "No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary."
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John Nichols
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I'm of two minds about Mr. McClellan. One part of me wants to call him a coward for waiting until now.
On the other hand, he couldn't have picked a better time for his book to come out - both for his pocketbook and for the election.
Either way, it's yet another proof that the Bush/Cheney administration is filled with liars. They don't mispeak, they don't "forget and make a mistake" (a la the Libbey defense) - they lie. They know they're lying, then they lie about the lying.
Posted by johnhummel at 05/28/2008 @ 12:31am
ah, the wisdom of the neoconmen.....
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 9:20:40 AM
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 01:00am
how ironic.
the wheel only begins to grind once the "bread" has already been made.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 9:24:13 AM
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 01:04am
Interesting to see how our local right-wingers "explain away" McClellan.
Do they say he was telling the truth then...but lying now? If so, why should we believe that he was telling the truth THEN?
And what "sinister" motivation will they accuse him of?
BTW, everybody's right...this is the first of an AVALANCHE of "tell-alls" that will come out of the Bush Administration...and not ALL of them will be easy to "explain away" as "disgruntled former officials"....especially when several key things keep popping up over and over and over again.
Posted by Mask at 05/28/2008 @ 01:05am
<i><b>McCLELLAN IS A PAID WRIGHT OPERATIVE!!!</b></i>
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 01:15am
Wouldn't it be nice to have a politician that stands up and tells the truth while still in office...before thousands of people get killed for no reason.
I guess the days of doing what's right no matter what are long gone.
Sad.
PS: Dana Perino is the worst Press Secretary in U.S. history, bar none! I think the news agencies should put together a highlight reel of all her excruciating press conferences and release it on YouTube.com! She's so hilarious it's beyond sad.
Posted by CrushInfamy at 05/28/2008 @ 01:25am
CrushInfamy
check out dana at her worst!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Cvg9deslg&fmt=18
and her worster!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKla10sh3hE&fmt=18
and her worsterest!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcc0VFTp2p8&&fmt=18
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 01:44am
McClellan presents a prima facie case for impeachment. An investigations committee should be organized at once, McClellan called as its 1st witness.
BTW: Bush & Cheney can be impeached even after they've left office. Impeachment is not a criminal judicial proceeding. If found guilty, their punishment is prescribed: they may never again hold a position of public trust. More importantly the current precedent -- that a president can with impunity & without a declaration of war invade & occupy another country on the basis of lies -- would be overturned. Those officials not granted preemptive pardons/commutations by Bush could have their crimes, at the very least, investigated.
Posted by sloper at 05/28/2008 @ 02:07am
If found guilty, their punishment is prescribed: they may never again hold a position of public trust.
Posted by sloper
well, i think that's a given........
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 02:25am
Posted by sloper at 05/28/2008
A HSUBfoolish dream, slope.
Obama (and the country) will want to "move on" after Bush leaves.
Their punishment is ...their place in history. Likely nobody even NAMED "Bush" or "Cheney" (even if not related) will be elected President for 100 years.
Posted by Mask at 05/28/2008 @ 02:26am
Likely nobody even NAMED "Bush" or "Cheney" (even if not related) will be elected President for 100 years.
Posted by Mask
i honestly don't think they ever have been!
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 02:42am
I find 3 things difficult to believe:
1) That anyone in this country actually believes the Bush administration didn't lie and deceive this country into a terrible war. McClellan merely confirms what anyone with half a brain already knew.
2) That anyone believes the job of press secretary is anything other than saying exactly what the president tells him or her to say. If you have a problem with half truths or lies, don't take the job.
3) That anyone believes Scott McClellan, or anyone else for that matter, could have questioned or challenged the policies of this administration and not been hung out to dry...or just hung. For Rove or any of these idiots to say, "Well, I don't remember Scott ever raising these points when he was the Press Secretary" is just ridiculous.
I'm sure McClellan was willing to swallow all the bullshit because it kept him in Washington. If you're a politico, this is the Super Bowl, right? What I'm curious about is why exactly did he leave. Did he finally get a conscience or was he just thrown out with the trash?
Posted by sbenasso at 05/28/2008 @ 02:46am
<i>Obama (and the country) will want to "move on" after Bush leaves.
</i>
Much like Ford wanted to move on after Nixon left. What more punishment could have been meted out to Nixon? He lived the rest of his life virtually in exile, shunned by his country. His punishment, like Bush's, was his place in history.
The truth about Nixon gradually came out, as will the truth about Bush. Justice will eventually be served.
Personally, my interest lies more in preventing such abuses of power as we have witnessed under Bush from ever happening again.
Posted by Balrog at 05/28/2008 @ 02:49am
Posted by Mask at 05/28/2008
Would it not be nice if the next time I get pulled over for speeding that I could ask the trooper if it would be Ok if my punishment could be my place in history. Too bad we all don't get to live by the politicians rules.
Posted by Benchrest at 05/28/2008 @ 02:50am
Yet another albatross to hang around McCain's & the GOP necks in the national election. The Dems' cup runneth over ... unless Billary succeed in knocking it over.
Posted by sloper at 05/28/2008 @ 03:00am
Congressional subpoenas? ignored.
how about all those blacklisted during the 50s, those Hollywood ten or whatever. they faced jail time for not appearing, and many served that time. my how things have changed.
McLellan was is no politician, he was a hired hand.
I think it was hugely damaging to our laws and our nation that Nixon's crimes were not punished, and exposed in detail.
for one thing the co conspiritors would not still be hanging around in public life.
also the very real crimes of Reagan and his gangsters would also not have gone unpunished.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 03:09am
MCLellan was a professional liar. the others were just amateurs.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 03:14am
Just think how many lives might have been saved in Iraq if Bush staffers who felt the same as McClellan (obviously felt,) had jumped ship when it mattered most- before we got ourselves into this quagmire. It would've been much easier for doubters to defy Bush and Cheney's deceptive plan had they been united and bravely spoke what they knew to be the truth. Apparently, "mum was the word" and McClellan became the spokesman of deception. I blame him as much as the Bush administration for the American lives and treasure lost. Shame on McClellan for holding his tongue to protect his career. The blood on his hands can't be wiped away with the pages of his book.
Posted by kevnbro at 05/28/2008 @ 03:33am
And his "revelations" are new? I thought anyone with a couple of working brain cells knew all this long ago. And now the breaking news: Beatles score smash hit with "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"!!!
Posted by smckenna at 05/28/2008 @ 03:36am
The blood on his hands can't be wiped away with the pages of his book. Posted by kevnbro at 05/28/2008
NOR WITH ALL THE MONEY HE'S MAKING ON IT.
McClellan can use that money for a good lawyer, in the unlikely event that a congressional committee ever summons him to testify, under oath, about CheneyBush misdeeds.
Like the former CIA director who waited until he was paid $4 million to tell some truths, having lied on the same points when he was merely testifying before a committee & on the public payroll. He got away with it, however, so why can't McClellan? And the parade of GOP ex-officials to come, looking to cleanse themselves as they cash their royalty checks.
This could be averted if the invertebrate Dem leadership acquires backbone & opens investigations.
But we won't hold our breaths will we ...
Posted by sloper at 05/28/2008 @ 03:45am
Posted by smckenna at 05/28/2008
a little Beatlemania/history.
the Fab Four flunked their first big record company audition.
no major record company here in the US would touch them, even after their huge success in Britain.
I saw their first album in the cut out bins, until "I wanna hold..."
the Beatles also recorded I want to hold your hand and She loves you in GERMAN
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 03:53am
of course McLellan is guilty as sin. he should have written that book in time for the 2004 election
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 03:56am
You guys shouldn't get your knickers in such a twist. The book isn't due out until next Monday. And, for those of you who are willing to purchase his book, don't act surprised or disappointed when Mr. McClellen doesn't condemn his former boss outright. Like everything else that has "teaser" headlines, it'll be interesting to see how far it goes up on the best seller list before folks realize they've spent $25 on book that talks more about the writer's life than the initial subject headline.
Posted by ACook at 05/28/2008 @ 04:00am
The ONLY way to prevent the crimes of the Bush mob from being repeated is to perp-walk Bush and Cheney and the rest out of their mansions and put them in prison for the rest of their lives for the murderous crime s they've committed. We already know that exposing the crimes of previous Presidents like Nixon has not worked as a deterrent.
Posted by mrpoizun at 05/28/2008 @ 12:26pm
The ONLY way to prevent the crimes of the Bush mob from being repeated is to perp-walk Bush and Cheney and the rest out of their mansions and put them in prison for the rest of their lives for the murderous crime s they've committed. We already know that exposing the crimes of previous Presidents like Nixon has not worked as a deterrent.
Posted by mrpoizun at 05/28/2008 @ 12:29pm
"this book and its "revelations" is but the opening salvo."
"there will be many others as the truth will go from a trickle to a flood."
"look for congress to repudiate Bush, especially the repubs who are staring defeat in the face."
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008
If I were you, I wouldn't bet the farm on your predictions.
Posted by ACook at 05/28/2008 @ 12:36pm
If found guilty, their punishment is prescribed: they may never again hold a position of public trust.
Sloper, I don't think this is true. what happens in a successful impeachment is that the guilty person loses their position.
there is nothing to prevent them from seeking and attaining another political office.
other than public opinion of the voters.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 12:36pm
This admin has certainly earned its dark corner of history....
Posted by leftofcenter at 05/28/2008 @ 12:37pm
How do you "armchair" a "game" when the objectives that define victory are constantly changing? Constant changing of the rules of "play" simply keep the "game" going indefinitely and keep both the "players" and "fans" in a state of confusion. The fact that you even make such a lackadaisical comparison of war and sport, is apathetic and insensitive. Regardless, I'm certain however that it won't be too terribly long before the Bush administration has found some way to declare victory by pointing out some successful objective that we've all yet to hear about. McClelland in the meantime should announce that all proceeds of his "memoir" sales will go to the rehab of the only Iraq warriors who can (if they should so choose,) forgive him- the permanently maimed and scarred who return home alive.
Posted by kevnbro at 05/28/2008 @ 12:39pm
Ah, Texans, and yes, I am one too - generally too ashamed to admit it. Scotty's mommy was our State Comptroller and tried to run against Rick Perry - sadly, his hair was much better than hers. Scott, on the other hand, deserves to be hung out to dry just like his "compatriots" Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice/Powell et al.
Posted by AuntBec at 05/28/2008 @ 12:43pm
Grant's Sec of War was impeached after resigning from office.
There is no pardon for impeachment. And only the one penalty: you can't come back in "an office of trust or profit under the United States."
That's the law. It's up to the Dems to enforce it.
Posted by sloper at 05/28/2008 @ 12:55pm
Grant's Sec of War was Belknap.
Posted by sloper at 05/28/2008 @ 12:57pm
Posted by Benchrest at 05/28/2008
Allow me the introductions....
Benchrest....real world
real world....Benchrest.
Posted by Mask at 05/28/2008 @ 12:58pm
Posted by ACook at 05/28/2008
So you tell us not to make judgements about the book before it actually hits the shelf, then you make a judgement about the book before it hits the shelf.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 12:59pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcc0VFTp2p8&&fmt=18
Posted by frosty zoom
You are right. That clip does show Helen Thomas at her worst!
Posted by abell12ct at 05/28/2008 @ 1:02pm
"Ah, Texans, and yes, I am one too - generally too ashamed to admit it." Posted by AuntBec at 05/28/2008
Don't feel bad AuntBec- in many cases, that statement is appropriate at the international level as well: "Ah, Americans, and yes, I am one too- generally too ashamed to admit it."
Posted by kevnbro at 05/28/2008 @ 1:02pm
This administration is just as bad as the last one. How many innocent Iraqis died because Bill Clinton kept the war going against Saddam for his whole presidency.
Posted by abell12ct at 05/28/2008 @ 1:04pm
I find it funny that Happy and Lv and many of our other local conserves will keep supporting Bush's decision even as more and more people come out saying that it was unnecessary and a lie. Happy just argued in here that the war was necessary even after he read a quote from a member of the administration who helped them to propagate their lies said it was unnecessary. Obviously someone doesn't have their facts right and I am going to go ahead and say it's probably the person with no real facts at all beyond opinion and a press line delivered by a man who admitted they were all lying and knew they were lying. Just goes to show people will believe with undying conviction anything their party tells them even when the people who told them the lies say they were lying.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 1:04pm
sloper, you are correct, and I'm not.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 1:06pm
Posted by HAPPY3 at 05/28/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
Your usual warmongering crap, Happy. And pretty easy for you to spout , as long as it's not your life on the line. I've asked you before and I ask you again - when are you going to put your safety where your stated principles lie? Or are you simply far less cavalier about your own life than you are about the lives of everyone else?
Posted by jmusolino at 05/28/2008 @ 1:08pm
This administration is just as bad as the last one. How many innocent Iraqis died because Bill Clinton kept the war going against Saddam for his whole presidency.
Posted by abell12ct at 05/28/2008 |
you must learn to make distinctions. Iraqi deaths certainly were not in the 100,000s during the Clinton years.
American deaths were not in the 4,000s either.
where does that leave your post? piffle
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 1:11pm
If I were you, I wouldn't bet the farm on your predictions.
Posted by ACook at 05/28/2008 |
many if not most repugs share my dim view of their electoral chances.
how many special elections in supposedly safe repug districts have they lost recently?
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 1:14pm
"how many special elections in supposedly safe repug districts have they lost recently?"
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008
Three, that I know of. But that doesn't mean the newbies won't keep the status quo.
Heckuva job the dem congress is doing.
Posted by ACook at 05/28/2008 @ 1:30pm
Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand
a classic....
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 1:30pm
not as wacky as nat king cole (pbuh) singing in spanish....
<i>solamente una vez.........
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 1:31pm
Posted by ACook at 05/28/2008
sure, change the subject.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 1:34pm
This administration is just as bad as the last one. How many innocent Iraqis died because Bill Clinton kept the war going against Saddam for his whole presidency.
Posted by abell12ct
well, i'd say bush is considerably worser than clinton.
and that's quite a feat!
from neoliberal slime to neoconservative goon.
way to go, america!
NOT AGAIN, PLEASE.
pretty please with subsidized sugar on top?????
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 1:38pm
<i>solamente una vez.........
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXYxtZHxCyI&feature=related
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 1:39pm
Let's see there the estimates range from 250,000 to more than a million civilian deaths in Iraq during the time of the sanctions. When asked about those numbers Madeline Al(but)bright said it was worth it. Nice going Dems!
Posted by abell12ct at 05/28/2008 @ 1:43pm
Oh and I got those figures from a story on The Nations web site dated Nov 15th 2001 by David Cortright
Posted by abell12ct at 05/28/2008 @ 1:44pm
Posted by abell12ct at 05/28/2008 |
you are as phony as a three dollar bill.
you are not concerned about Iraqis, you are just looking for a rhetorical club to strike dems with.
this is nothing but the old Clinton did it ruse. no sale.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 1:48pm
You aren't concerned about Iraqis either. You just like to use them and want to kill more of them by pulling out. Shame on you you little boy.
Posted by abell12ct at 05/28/2008 @ 1:55pm
Posted by abell12ct at 05/28/2008 |
I am a man. what are you? a mouth piece nothing more.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 1:58pm
Wow... HAPPY is still delusional, I see.
Greetings all. Hope life is finding you well.
Just wanted to drop in and say hi.
Posted by jorcheim at 05/28/2008 @ 2:00pm
sera un'avventura, oh yeah!
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 2:01pm
clinton/gore did very much damage to the pueblo of iraq.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 2:02pm
Posted by abell12ct at 05/28/2008
Interesting, huh?
Now that Bush is collapsing, abell has MIRACULOUSLY turned into a cynic with his "They're ALL equally bad" talk....
appendiced with of course talk about Bill Clinton, not so much George Bush!
LOL!
Posted by Mask at 05/28/2008 @ 2:03pm
Posted by jorcheim at 05/28/2008
Good to see you, JORCH....come back soon.
Posted by Mask at 05/28/2008 @ 2:04pm
Posted by abell12ct at 05/28/2008
"You aren't concerned about Iraqis either. You just like to use them and want to kill more of them by pulling out. Shame on you you little boy."
In time, the mask of rhetorical speech is removed and the espouser is seen for what he or she is truly capable of- two dimensional powers of perception.
Posted by kevnbro at 05/28/2008 @ 2:10pm
Posted by libzsuck at 05/28/2008
Why do you call him a half-breed? Does it make you less of a human being if you aren't entirely one race? Maybe since he isn't entirely white you consider him to be not as good as you? Hmm. Your liberal use of the term "half-breed" makes me wonder about your racial attitude. Don't forget though. Blade was a half-breed and he had all of their strengths and none of their weaknesses.
I'm just curious because I am one of the mixed bloods you speak of.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 2:17pm
I should actually say:
I'm just curious because I am one of the mixed bloods you speak so derogatorily of.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 2:18pm
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008
how can you take this creep seriously?
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 2:19pm
Bill Clinton lied about about oral sex and was impeached. George Bush and Dick Cheney lied in order to go to war which has led to thousands of dead Americans and what happened to them? They got re-elected! Everyone who voted for Bush/Cheney the second time around when it was known that they lied about the reasons for going to war has the blood of thousands of Americans on their hands! Maybe the third time around they'll learn from their mistakes and get it right.
Posted by danconstan at 05/28/2008 @ 2:21pm
You silly Marxists Lib fools
Posted by libzsuck at 05/28/2008
Aside from your name, that phrase automatically invalidates everything that flows forth from your mind. Any idiot knows not all liberals are Communist, Marxist or Socialist. I contend that you are more Communist than I am because you commit corporate welfare instead of social welfare which is basically the same thing just for the top 10% instead of the bottom 10% which in the end is even more hurtful because the top 10% asks for a lot more than the bottom 10%
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 2:21pm
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008
I don't take him seriously I just like to pick him apart because I know he is an idiot who takes himself seriously but has no idea he is a flaming idiot. So I like to just show him every once in a while how little credibility he actually has.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 2:22pm
Allow me the introductions....
Benchrest....real world
real world....Benchrest.
Posted by Mask at 05/28/2008
Why do I get the feeling this is along the lines of Crush introducing his kids to Marlin.
Jellyman....Offspring
Offspring....Jellyman.
sweeeeeeett!
Posted by Benchrest at 05/28/2008 @ 2:30pm
CAN WE SAY "THE MOST LIBERAL SENATOR IN us HISTORY THAT HASN'T ACCOMPLISHED A DAMN THING IN HIS LIFE AND IS WHOLY UNQUALIFIED TO EVEN RUN A COMPANY
Posted by libzsuck at 05/28/2008
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH
Dennis Kucinich. That's the one name I have to say to make sure you look like an idiot. Wow you are a walking, breathing, typing, Human joke.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 2:31pm
"get crushed in November like the grape he is"
Lol...Obama is beating McCain nationally without even having started campaigning against him...too funny! Even funnier is that the democratic runner-up is also crushing McCain! Hey, Hey, Hey...Good Bye!
The one good thing about idiotic Bush/Cheney supproters is that they elected someone so terrible that this country has turned and will continue to remain democratic for quite some time. As evidence, just take the recent special elections in which the repubs lost seats that they had for decades.
Posted by danconstan at 05/28/2008 @ 2:31pm
SEE HOW IT WORKS???
Posted by libzsuck at 05/28/2008
Actually I didn't know Cher had a song called Half-Breed. Have you listened to the contents of the song? Maybe she isn't talking about raise ya moron. I don't listen to Cher.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 2:32pm
Bush was installed in the White House by a right-wing judicial coup d'etat but there was no excuse for keeping him there. We have reaped what we sowed in 2004 and there is no taking back the horrible damage he did. We can only go forward using all the information available to us as a warning and as a guide for not making the same mistake again.
I think Scott McLellan has done a public service, however much self-serving is part of it. He has appropriately dinged the media for sucking up and he has appropriately opened the garbage sluice to show what was missed. No amount of calling McLellan "disgruntled" can erase the memory of Bush peering out the window of a plane flying over New Orleans or the words of the mother he sought to impress by going to war when his father did not when Barbara saw the misery.
He has also made it impossible for John McCain to run even near Bush and forced McCain to re-assess his campaign and its proximity to Bush. Barack Obama has been given a huge, huge boost because he can now screw Bush and McCain to the same wall. It's sort of just. We were screwed by Bush and Cheney.
Posted by midnight04 at 05/28/2008 @ 2:33pm
The problem is that people think war is a game, and the way to solve that problem is not to impeach Cheney or Bush. The way to solve that problem is to require that any war has to be voted for, by the American people via enlistments - starting with the family members of our representatives. If you can't get a majority of Congress to convince a least a member of their family to join the cause, then they have no business voting for it.
Think how excited George Bush would have been to go into Iraq if it were Barbara & Jenna Bush were on the front lines. Or how much political posturing Hillary Clinton would have done if Chelsea Clinton was leading troops into battle.
Christopher Bond, Tim Johnson, Joe Wilson, Duncan Hunter, yes, even John McCain have or had family in the line of fire - but we are talking less than 1 percent of Congress. If people had to back-up their tough talk with some of their own kin, they might be a little less eager to treat it as a game.
Plenty of people, I'm think of you Ponti, assure us that they would be happy to serve, if called. Well, make "the call" part of the authorization, and if you argue for it but can't put your life or anyone in your families life on the line, then you don't support the war - and have no business sending other people's children there to die or be crippled in your place.
Posted by srjenkins at 05/28/2008 @ 2:34pm
SEE HOW IT WORKS???
Posted by libzsuck at 05/28/2008
If you actually read the lyrics. Which I just looked up on google. However I am starting to doubt you CAN read.
Half-breed, that's all I ever heard Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word Half-breed, she's no good they warned Both sides were against me since the day I was born
That's the chorus. She is talking about the hardships and the derogatory nature of being called a half-breed. But I guess a "genius" (sarcasm since you seem to be completely unable to pick up subtleties) would have already known that.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 2:35pm
"It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt."
Mark Twain
Congratulations libzsuck- you've managed to do it in all caps.
Posted by kevnbro at 05/28/2008 @ 2:35pm
Just wanted to drop in and say hi.
Posted by jorcheim
hey, doodles!
peace be upon you and your house.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 2:38pm
Happy to see The Nation setting its online free speech bar so low. Let a hundred flowers (and the occasional stinkweed) bloom.
Posted by JFHill at 05/28/2008 @ 2:41pm
Thanks, Scott McClellan. Waiting until the nation has wadded into a pit full of feces and then to yell out, "Hey, you all are wadding in crap!" for a buck, when you could have said something when it would have been useful - i.e. before we got knee deep in it - is an insult. I won't be buying your book. Thank you very much for your "service".
Oh, they told me lies and I unknowingly repeated them. Pull the other leg. It plays jingle bells.
Posted by srjenkins at 05/28/2008 @ 2:42pm
GOD I HOPE YOU MARXISTS INSTALL THIS FOOL AS YOUR NOMINEE...IT WILL BE A LANDSLIDE EQUAL TO YOUR OTHER LOSERS AKA CARTER AND MONDALE
Posted by libzsuck at 05/28/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
Carter had to run against his own failing record and crippling stagflation/recession as well as a ground swell of popularity for the charismatic Reagan (sound familiar?). Mondale had to run against Reagan at the height of his popularity and a booming economy.
Obama will have to run against the Bush legacy of failure, on every conceivable front, and a John McCain (3rd Bush term) that does not excite the Republican base (especially the Neo-Cons and Evangelicals). So how do you propose McCain will get such a commanding landslide victory?
Posted by BizarroRio at 05/28/2008 @ 2:43pm
Benchrest
careful with that realworld fellow.
i've heard he votes republican't.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 2:43pm
libzsuck
¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡half-breed!?!?!?!?!?
let's hear your pedigree, fido.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 2:45pm
Posted by libzsuck at 05/28/2008
I can only hope that you are a joke. That you sit at home laughing about the things you say on here as you are just trying to get a rise out of someone. Because i think the existence of someone has obviously stupid as you is proof of the in-existence of intelligent design and therefore the lack of existence of any God to speak of.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 2:45pm
This IS the administration our forefathers warned us about...
Posted by ttr at 05/28/2008 @ 2:47pm
I don't listen to Cher.
Posted by Cccomfo1
does anybody?
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 2:48pm
Posted by libzsuck at 05/28/2008
Superior intellect yes. Googling Cher lyrics however is not exactly educating myself. However I know highschoolers that have a superior intellect when compared to yours so it's not much of a feat. Calling Bush a Nazi, which I don't do, is not the same as espousing racism. While yes Nazi has quite a horrible backing to it, most people don't use it the way your uninformed and possibly malformed mind thinks they use it. They don't use it to mean he gassed people or killed millions of people through genocide. Most people use it to mean he is a fascist. With no care for Democracy whatsoever. Which can be argued with the methods he has used to wiggle his way around the Democratic way of doing things. Calling Obama a half-breed on the other is spitting racism which marks you AS a racist. Which means everything you say is equated to nothing more than the BS the KKK and CofCC members your candidate supports. On top of that calling him Barack Osama and other stupid crap like that further invalidates anything you say as anti-Muslim, in support of genocide, bullshit. Which is why I read your posts with a smile on my face because I can only hope for more conservatives like you because if there are enough you's in the world conservatism will die quickly. I think our local conservatives that are rational, Acook, MaryBret, Jom etc. will admit some semblance of embarrassment caused by people like you being the loudest voices in an otherwise intelligent group of people. So keep spouting your racism and genocide loving crap. Your hotair isn't going to fill the Hindenburg that is your party, in fact it is just going to fan the flames.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 2:54pm
Posted by srjenkins
we need a quaker in the white house!
The Peace Testimony is probably the best known testimony of Friends. The belief that violence is wrong has persisted to this day, and many conscientious objectors, advocates of non-violence and anti-war activists are Friends. Because of their peace testimony, Friends are considered as one of the historic peace churches. In 1947 Quakerism was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which was accepted by the American Friends Service Committee and British Peace & Social Witness on behalf of all Friends. The Peace Testimony has not always been well received in the world; on many occasions Friends have been imprisoned for refusing to serve in military activities - many conscientious objectors have been Quakers.
In America, others pay into an escrow account in the name of the Internal Revenue Service, which the IRS can only access if they give an assurance that the money will only be used for peaceful purposes. Some Yearly meetings in the US run escrow accounts for conscientious objectors, both within and outside the Society.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 2:55pm
does anybody?
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008
I thought it was popular amongst the homosexual community. I only have one lesbian friend and one gay friend and neither of them are atypical so I can't be sure.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 2:55pm
"I will continue to insult B.O. just like you anti-american assholes have called Bush a Nazi for the past 8 years... "
This kind of school-yard tit-for-tat is to be expected from developmental challanged mental midgets such as yourself.
But, hey, do whatever you need to do to distract yourself from the train-wreck that is the Bush Administration and The Republican Party.
Bring up ancient history (Clinton), the wife of a mere candidate of the other party, or, better yet, even call that candidate a terrorist or a muslim - it will not change the fact that the Bush Presidency is an utter failure and that The Republican Party is deservedly headed to a future of irrelevancy on the scrapheap of history.
Posted by Balrog at 05/28/2008 @ 2:56pm
Let a hundred flowers (and the occasional stinkweed) bloom.
Posted by JFHill
an angiosperm by any other name.....
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 2:58pm
This IS the administration our forefathers warned us about...
Posted by ttr at 05/28/2008
This administration is the reason our Fore Fathers set up the system of checks and balances. Which they would have been a little more obsessed about their obsession with corruption, they might have been a little more thorough in their checks and balances.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 2:59pm
"Propaganda"
the key word of the Bush administration.
And all of the followers here bought it, while accusing the no-war folk of eating "lefty propaganda".
Bite me mongers!
Posted by crabwalk at 05/28/2008 @ 3:10pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008
The U.S. has had a Quaker in the White House. Unfortunately, his name was Richard Nixon.
Posted by srjenkins at 05/28/2008 @ 3:18pm
Honestly, I don't know why you guys feed the troll calling himself LIBSZUK.
Do you expect he cares about your retorts...or just laughs at "how I got a rise out of those Commie libs today. Another victory for me to mark on my calender...right after scoring Jeri Ryan's autograph at the ST Convention"?
Put him on Ignore. There's nothing to be learned from him...and nothing he'd learn from you.
Even ol' RIO BRAVO could form coherent sentences and some paragraph structure.
BTW, if you must...just wait until after January 20th when Obama gets sworn in and then tell him he's "attacking the Commander-in-Chief in wartime...you hate the troops and want America to fail to regain your power".
heheh
Posted by Mask at 05/28/2008 @ 3:22pm
Posted by libzsuck at 05/28/2008
Did your hand slip off and hit you in the forehead again?
Instead of lotion, try superglue next time. Those forehead bruises are starting to look like self-abuse.
Posted by Benchrest at 05/28/2008 @ 3:23pm
Learn something new everyday - apparently Hoover was also a Quaker.
Posted by srjenkins at 05/28/2008 @ 3:27pm
LIBSUX=propaganda eater, spoon fed fear monger lost in the past.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/28/2008 @ 3:28pm
Unfortunately, his name was Richard Nixon.
Posted by srjenkins
egad!
the u.s. needs a frosty in the white house!
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 3:31pm
srj, here's one for you:
Daisey Douglas Barr
Daisy Douglas Barr was Imperial Empress (leader) of the Indiana Women's Ku Klux Klan (WKKK) in the early 1920s and an active member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Professionally, she was a Quaker minister in two prominent churches.
However, in 1924, the Klan charged that Rev. Barr "had amassed a fortune off the dues of Klansmen." Two years later, she was replaced in her leadership position in the WKKK by Lillian Sedwick who was a state official in the WCTU.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
an embezzling quaker clanswoman.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 3:35pm
"FRANGRITS IS CORRECT WHEN HE STATES "MASK" IS AN EMPLOYEE OF THE NATION MAGAZINE.....HIS MAIN FUNCTION IS TO STORE ALL POSTS AND PROVOKE ONE SIDE AGAINST THE OTHER..."
Good God, but you are a delusional, paranoid ass-tard. Into the ignore bin with you - begone, troll, begone!
Posted by Balrog at 05/28/2008 @ 3:36pm
Which is worse:
an embezzling quaker clanswoman
or
an lying meth-head evangelical?
Posted by Balrog at 05/28/2008 @ 3:38pm
jorge luis borges, a quaker, too.
El Instante
Dónde estarán los siglos, dónde el sueño de espadas que los tártaros soñaron, dónde los fuertes muros que allanaron, dónde el Árbol de Adán y el otro Leño? El presente está solo. La memoria erige el tiempo. Sucesión y engaño es la rutina del reloj. El año no es menos vano que la vana historia. Entre el alba y la noche hay un abismo de agonías, de luces, de cuidados; el rostro que se mira en los gastados espejos de la noche no es el mismo. El hoy fugaz es tenue y es eterno; otro Cielo no esperes, ni otro Infierno.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 3:42pm
Posted by LibsWarnedU
Posted by libzsuck
let the fray begin!
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 3:45pm
Posted by LibsWarnedU
Posted by libzsuck
let the fray begin!
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008
Actually, they should date. It would probably work too. Like Carlin and Madelin. Between the two of them, they would probably have typical children.
THAT would take up their spare time!
Posted by Benchrest at 05/28/2008 @ 4:03pm
libswarnedumightsuk
if you buy the propaganda from Chimpco
foolish nationalists!!
too bad they dragged 250 million people down the drain with them, along with several other fiascos they call "democracy projects" or something like that.
god, if it were not such a waste of human life and money it would be funny.
but it almost makes me want to cry. morons. dangerous fools. useful idiots. sheep.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/28/2008 @ 4:04pm
"useful idiots"
What's useful about them? Other than killing off The Republican party?
Posted by Balrog at 05/28/2008 @ 4:17pm
Posted by LibsWarnedU at 05/28/2008
You really should go out with Libzsuck. Just think of all the fun you could have training him. He would be a whipped puppy when you got through with him.
Posted by Benchrest at 05/28/2008 @ 4:25pm
Its foolish the attention this guy is getting. The whole world was on the streets, protesting, thousands of people consistently dying, ask those widows, sisters, and children what happens if the male member dies due to somebody's EGO! They were after saving their FACE, only. A billion dollars will not compensate for the lose of life of one loved one!
To be fair to one and all, somehow get these jokers like Bush the bad and Chenny the ugly into the frying pan, and sentance them to 15 years rigorious imprisonment. That would be the real democracy what these demons talk about. Why chenny was not remanded into custody when that shooting incident happened, agreed his friend didnt die, but still, as he didnt notify the police after the shooting incident. Fu.....k A.....s! Why should such a great nation have double standards? Life would be so easy if plain honesty prevails in higher offices. I wish they experience massive heart attacks, both of them, chenny and bush for being responsible of over 700,000 deaths.
Posted by aleemsyed at 05/28/2008 @ 4:32pm
Posted by Balrog at 05/28/2008
FRANK will be overjoyed to know that now he and the SZUK are now allies.
heheh
Posted by Mask at 05/28/2008 @ 4:36pm
I guess what The Nation website appears to be is one big recycling machine - for liberals to keep rehasing the same stuff over and over and over and over again.
Just about everything imaginable appears in the posts above. Stuff we have heard before and will endlessly hear again. The so-called lies, stolen elections, unnecessary wars, "crimes", etc etc etc.
Just about everybody in office in the U.S - even before George W. Bush was president, and many in foreign countries as well, cited Saddam as a threat. And we have things like the recent Pentagon report (at a time where the surface has only barely been scratched as far as reviewing left over documentation from Saddam's regime) that show clearly what a threat Saddam was and what a troublemaker he was aspiring to be.
But because no WMD were found when we went into Iraq (and we do not know and maybe never will know what happened to stuff known to exist) and because unfortunately the Iraq war has become drawn out in what will be a very long battle (even once Iraq is resolved) against enemies who want to kill us, it is proclaimed that George W. Bush lied. And it is proclaimed that the war was unnecessary - by people that have never offered any credible solution of their own on how the situation should be dealt with.
There is glee on this website because libs here think they have "the goods" on President Bush and Vice President Cheney, libs who yearn for the day when they are "frog-marched" out of the White House. (The yearning that was never fulfilled when Karl Rove never did get "frog-marched".)
Someone who was in the administration now comes out with a book that is totally believed, hook line and sinker, by libs because it fits their pre-determined template to begin with. No concept by the libs whether any of it is true or not or what circumstances have driven the publishing of the book.
Richard Clarke was a counterterrorism chief who wrote a book promoting himself as almost a super hero in the White House warning everybody about terror threats, but Louis Freeh, who was FBI director, has a book out that says the stuff Richard Clark proclaims occurred in fact never happened.
So just because somebody declares something in a book, then libs automatically believe it if it is negative about George W. Bush.
I guess the way it works in liberal land is that if somebody says things in the public domain libs agree with, then that is "Truth" and it is "Proof" of guilt in crimes libs (acting as police, judge, jury and executioner) declare those they oppose have committed.
But if somebody says things in public libs don't agree with, then that is declared "lies" and "propaganda"
Posted by sjchermak at 05/28/2008 @ 4:41pm
Do not be fooled. This war was about oil and power.
McClellan writes that this war was un-necessary. That implies that WMD was the real reason that we went to war. It was not. It never was. That was just a front, because even most of the neo-cons knew that 'They have our oil', while the honest reason in their minds, was immoral.
For those who were and are still willing to see the truth - the US invaded a weaker nation because they had something that we wanted - we see that McClellan is still not being completely honest either with the public or with himself.
If this war had been a 'success'; If Bush was not completely incompetent; If Mission Accomplished had actually been just that and the war had ended then, It would still be immoral.
We should not let Bush and the neo-cons off the hook with the war only being a strategic failure. Even more important, we should remind the world that this war was a moral failure.
The MSM media and the American people should not only have been outraged when the war persisted longer than we expected. We ALL should have been outraged, at the beginning, when we allowed our leaders to invade another country so that we could have access to their oil, their money, their power.
Do not let history re-write this war as a strategic failure. We were lied to from the beginning. It was never about security or WMD. They had something we wanted and we were willing to kill people to get it. That fact, that fact alone, should be the source of our rage.
Posted by jbfromBigD at 05/28/2008 @ 4:46pm
Posted by sjchermak
hahahahaha.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 4:48pm
sjchermak
funny thing.
i knew it was your post after one sentence.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 4:50pm
that's because he's a shill, nothing more.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 4:52pm
" The Bush administration has arrogated powers to itself that the British people even refused to grant King George III at the time of the Revolutionary War, an eminent political scientist says.
"No executive in the history of the Anglo-American world since the Civil War in England in the 17th century has laid claim to such broad power," said David Adler, a prolific author of articles on the U.S. Constitution. "George Bush has exceeded the claims of Oliver Cromwell who anointed himself Lord Protector of England."
Adler said, Bush has "claimed the authority to suspend the Geneva Convention, to terminate treaties, to seize American citizens from the streets to detain them indefinitely without benefit of legal counseling, without benefit of judicial review. He has ordered a domestic surveillance program which violates the statutory law of the United States as well as the Fourth Amendment." "
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_sherwood_080526_bush_claims_more _pow.htm
Posted by Balrog at 05/28/2008 @ 4:53pm
Posted by Balrog
good one
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 4:58pm
Posted by sjchermak at 05/28/2008
Hmm funny because I can put Republican in almost all of your sentences and it still holds try. Why don't you stop being so biased and admit that both sides do it. You guys are willing to believe every line Bush feeds you. You believed the war would only last a few months. You believed Saddam had WMDs. You believe him when he says he will stimulate the economy into working. Face you are one of the sheep you are complaining about you just have such an inflated ego you can't see it. You think it is only the path of the left. But partisan bullshit aside both sides do it. Look at people like Libzsuckz for proof of that. You guys have people on your side that will both believe that Obama is Muslim AND attended Christian churches for 20 years.
So please. Don't come espousing partisan BS. When someone in your own administration says that he told lies that he was forced to tell. When multiple members of the administration and people who they colluded with in Britain are saying this war is a sham. Then it might just be a sham and maybe you should start thinking for yourself instead of believing the White House press line just because the President is Republican. Even your current Presidential Nominee was at odds with your current President before he needed the Christian Right. If EVERYONE is saying it maybe it should be investigated. I'm not saying it's true but it should be investigated.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 4:59pm
Read, if you can find it before the thought-police remove it from book stores and libraries, a book by Justin Frank called "Bush on the Couch." Nothing revealed by McClellan or anybody else - there have been a lot of them - will surprise you about Mr. Bush's behavior these last 7 years.
Of course, we're closing the barn door after our wealth, health, and dignity have long since flown the coop.
Posted by felicity at 05/28/2008 @ 5:00pm
This, and other "what we said earlier was false"-type exposees perhaps to come, marks the most dangerous time in American, perhaps global history.
It documents and irrefutably confirms for all time exactly what those of us who were onto their WHIG games all along were saying -- back through Ari Fleisher (Jew) times, and his "for the price of one bullet" line that preceeded the DC sniper shooting in '02.
Here is what is reptilian about it. A. NOW (time tn), he says that what he said THEN (time m), was false (about having a plan for post-invasion Iraq, for instance). OK. but B. TiVo clips show that at tm he was ALSO BLAMING DEMOCRATS FOR FALSE ACCUSATIONS. That is, he not only lied, knowingly, but knowingly twisted public opinion with false accusations, himself.
He -- they -- cannot be let off from criminal charges without
-nullifying the efforts all of us have made, throughout, to expose what he has said and get it related to as the reality
-tacitly sanctioning fake-hate/false-flag operations to instigate atrocities for profit, and blame for weak sister dems for not stoping them.
McClellan actually accuses the "liberal media" of "failing" to do its job -- fair and balanced dogpile crap that he is. I remember one NYPost headline about FBI phone taps on Vietnam war protestors in the 60's: "THE PARANOIDS WERE RIGHT" -- exposing the practice as fact.
-McClellan's piece, now, shows the perpetuation of Reagan Contra satanism. The rules on the brim of their hats and Tee shirts were: DENY EVERYTHING ... EXPLAIN NOTHING ... BLAME THE ACCUSER
That's how they operated the death squads, and that is how he operated Press conferences.
This falls under the category of Reichstag Fire fraud exposure: it will have to be either faced up or and dealt with, or be accepted as historical precedent.
I vote for the latter. And nothing goes without saying anymore.
If the truth of what really happened on 911 and the anthrax poisoning would just come out noe...Where's Deepthroat -- or would that be Deepanus -- when we need him? (Its always sex that takes the satanic snake brain hit when they get exposed, but more of that later.)
Posted by jones at 05/28/2008 @ 5:18pm
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 |
good one, but McLellan wasn't exactly forced to tell those whoppers.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 5:25pm
CAN YOU SAY "IRRELEVANT DISTRACTIONS"
I CAN SAY "IMMORAL WAR"
I CAN SAY "IMMORAL TAX POLICY"
I CAN SAY "IMMORAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY"
I CAN SAY "IMMORAL ENERGY POLICY"
Posted by jbfromBigD at 05/28/2008 @ 5:26pm
Posted by Euler
nothing could be further from the truth. we have a repug candidate who is Bush 3.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 5:27pm
Last paragraph-but-one should read: I vote for the former. What is exposed cannot be accepted as precedent. Collective punitive action is required by law. I know, without being able to cite it.
Posted by jones at 05/28/2008 @ 5:30pm
Posted by sjchermak at 05/28/2008
I guess the way it works in neo-con Land is this
They let the admin "create their own reality"
they let their admin use federal tax dollars to spread propaganda.
They go to war because they think they should be afraid, because they bought the propaganda they paid for.
the "war" is on it's 6th year, but it is only a "drawn out battle " against "people that want to kill us", when those "people" actually were not in Iraq.
WMDs not found but "we still don;t know what happened to them", because you bought the propaganda. Those wmd's were ALL destroyed in 1993. How do I know this? The head of the wmd program told UNCOM, who told the US.
Too many insiders have come forward and told us exactly what went down, which was that Chimpy McFlightsuit wanted war. He could not make the case with facts, so he dug up some "facts" from drunks, convicted felons, outdated "evidence", forged documents and cherry picked quotes from Hussein Kamal. He then used PROPAGANDA, a republicans words, not just mine, to scare the living shit out of cowards like you and HAPPY.
then, they outed a covert CIA agent, went after her husband (both formerly republicans). They lied about Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman. They lied about the costs, they lied about contract letting, they enriched their friends, family and cronies. They ignored the advice of career diplomats and military officials while spouting such nonsense as "listen to the troops".
they came up with jingoes like "support the troops" while slashing vet benefits, extending tours, ignoring endemic problems in the VA, sent soldiers into combat without the proper equipment.
they ignored any advice that contradicted the "reality" they wanted to create. Not my words, a republicans words.
now, SJ, if you can show me that 5 1/2 years into this "war" that we have removed wmd threats from the world and/or established a functioning democracy in the ME, then I might listen to you. But you cannot. If you could show me how attacking Iraq protected us from AQ, I might listen to you. But all you will say is "we have not been attacked", while ignoring the 4000 dead Americans and the DAILY attacks on US troops, embassies and bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, then I might listen to you. But, you cannot.
So, what you are left with is the warmed over propaganda from the Chimpy McFlighsuit admin.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/28/2008 @ 5:38pm
Propaganda from the Bush admin:
Armstrong Williams
Retired "military analysts"
Daily briefings from behind the podium marked "White house".
Folks like SJ and others around here will not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES admit that they were duped.
no wmd's? Oh, gee, they must be in Syria, they must be buried, "we will never know what happened to them"
Or, they were not there. Why make up stuff when the most basic answer is the obvious answer.
Is it "old news" to discuss why 4000 + americans have died in a failed attemp to rid the world of non-existant wmd's ? I don't think so.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/28/2008 @ 5:45pm
we made it a lot easier to kill Americans, by sending them over there. cheaper too, for them, not for us though.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 5:46pm
great post, crabwalk.
I'm saving it.
-jones
Posted by jones at 05/28/2008 @ 5:52pm
Hello Cccomfo1
Why am I getting the comment back "So please. Don't come espousing partisan BS."
Haven't we been through this before (that I am not just parroting back talking points, etc) recently in one of the other blogs?
You say above "Then it might just be a sham and maybe you should start thinking for yourself instead of believing the White House press line just because the President is Republican."
What about what Mayor Ed Koch has to say?
http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/koch/entry/bush_is_one_of_the
I think Mayor Koch is right. It seems to me he is not Republican. So it may not be true after all that I believe people "because they are Republican"
You also say "Even your current Presidential Nominee was at odds with your current President before he needed the Christian Right."
MY current Presidential Nominee was at odds with MY current President? NO KIDDING! Like you are telling me something I do not already know!!
The "Your current President" part I accept and think is good, but don't rub it in about the "Your current Presidential nominee" stuff!
There are three liberals running for President this year, two of them Democrat, one of them RINO (Republican in name only). I have no choice but to vote for the RINO candidate only because I do not believe in capitulation and surrender in Iraq, and at least the RINO candidate will not surrender in Iraq. (Altough one of the Democrat candidates said something I did like, when asked what she would do if Iran attacks Israel with a nuclear weapon, Hillary Clinton said basically there would be no more Iran! It would be gone! - Barack Obama on the other hand said stuff that would make Jimmy Carter (and probably the Iranians, too) proud)
"Your current Presidential nominee" ?
Since at the polling place this year during the primary I made the remark out loud that if anybody hasn't voted yet, please vote for Mitt Romney (which is probably illegal for me to have done so - campaigning at a polling place!) please do not rub it in with the "Your current Presidential nominee" stuff!
Posted by sjchermak at 05/28/2008 @ 5:56pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008
Anytime I hear Quaker minister, I reach for my rifle - metaphorically speaking that is. =) One of the reasons I decided to become an unprogrammed Quaker was because it was one of the few religions that didn't have a minister. Nothing cuts through authoritarianism like not having a head.
Evangelical Quakers have ministers. I understand the reasons behind specialization on what not, I just don't think ministers are worth their price - in bad ideas, in bad behavior, etc.
Cause in point, I believe LVL said he had some connection to Quakers when I first started talking to him. I'm guessing he put less emphasis on the peace testimony.
Quakers have their flaws, as I frequently demonstrate for everyone to see here. Yet, the ideas of peace, integrity, equality and simplicity that are at the heart of the Quaker understanding of the Christian religion.
Posted by Euler at 05/28/2008
Who says people like Democrats any better?
Can you tell me who has a different policy in respect to using military against Iran? Can you tell me what the policy is when the differences extend to who will, or will not, speak to the Iran's leadership?
Who's for immediate withdrawal from Iraq?
Who's for eliminating long term bases in Iraq?
Who's arguing for more limited government?
Who's arguing for universal health care?
Who's arguing for the abolition of the death penalty?
Who's arguing for same-sex marriage?
Who's arguing for decriminalization and amnesty for non-violent drug offenses?
Who's for ratifying Kyoto?
Who's for providing commodity backed alternative curriencies?
Who's for eliminating the Presidential usurpion of Congressional powers in negotiating so called "free trade agreements"?
Who's for cutting down military spending to levels comparable to other industrialized nations?
Who advocates a non-interventionist foreign policy?
The answer to practically all of these questions, is neither of the major parties.
So, please spare me those lame ass "you hate Bush arguments". Fine for when you are listening to Rush and can't form your own thoughts - but don't offer up that tripe here.
Posted by srjenkins at 05/28/2008 @ 6:04pm
Hello crabwalk,
You proclaimed above while commenting on my postings "WMDs not found but "we still don't know what happened to them", because you bought the propaganda. Those wmd's were ALL destroyed in 1993. How do I know this? The head of the wmd program told UNCOM, who told the US. "
That is fascinating. Problem is, I remember that every now and then, during the 90's (which includes time after 1993) that the Nightly News reports on NBC or the reports on the CBS Evening News, or shows on ABC World News Tonight, would have a story about the inspectors finding some WMD in Iraq. (despite every effort Saddam was making to impede them)
To repeat: the network news, during the 90's (when George W. Bush was not yet President) reported every now and then that WMD were found.
So, the WMD were NOT ALL destroyed in 1993.
Once again, the WMD were NOT ALL destroyed in 1993.
Posted by sjchermak at 05/28/2008 @ 6:20pm
Since at the polling place this year during the primary I made the remark out loud that if anybody hasn't voted yet, please vote for Mitt Romney (which is probably illegal for me to have done so - campaigning at a polling place!) please do not rub it in with the "Your current Presidential nominee" stuff!
Posted by sjchermak at 05/28/2008
I didn't mean to rub it in, and yes that is more than likely illegal.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 6:34pm
<i>Altough one of the Democrat candidates said something I did like, when asked what she would do if Iran attacks Israel with a nuclear weapon, Hillary Clinton said basically there would be no more Iran! It would be gone!
Posted by sjchermak at 05/28/2008 </i>
I think this excerpt is interesting, because it's always been frustrating to me. So many people have said, as a result of Clinton's statement here, "man, that Clinton is such a warmonger!" What they seem to keep forgetting is the clause in the hypothetical "if Iran ATTACKS ISRAEL WITH A NUCLEAR WEAPON." Precisely what alternative would critics suggest? Some level of conventional strike? Quiet negotiations? Remember that we're dealing with the first time in history that a nuclear weapon would EVER have been used in a flatly unprovoked assault. How does our nuclear umbrella mean anything if if our deterrent lacks any credibility whatsoever?
Posted by Thrawn at 05/28/2008 @ 6:37pm
There have been a plethora of requests from 'pubs for Dems & Liberals to go to Iraq, accompanied or otherwise, & witness the success of the surge. Most want souvenirs. Suggest that Iraqi merchants erect bunkers away from the bazaar & equip them with vending machines. This would allow protection from reprisals after said guests depart. Or.. is there a bazaar in the Green Zone?
Posted by Sorelish at 05/28/2008 @ 6:44pm
ed Koch is an old fool. no one here in NYC pays the slightest attention to him. he is a dem in name only.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 6:49pm
libzsuck ...you suck
Posted by jones at 05/28/2008 @ 7:10pm
No one has mentioned how HELEN THOMAS fought with the press secretaries when this war started.............
She was the ONLY person asking the hard questions..... The News people told her to sit down and BE QUIET.... In fact Dana Perino did it just a couple of weeks ago....
HELEN THOMAS tried....... the rest of us sat with our brains shut down and listened like little children....
Than YOu Scott for FINALLY having the nerve to SPEAK UP!
Posted by pasnell at 05/28/2008 @ 7:13pm
Helen Thomas was treated abysmally by these two bit shills.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 7:31pm
Come on, come on. People were screaming at the top of their lungs about this stupid arrogant war. Let's name a few; Scott Ritter, Peter Stark, Ambassador Wilson, The Security Council. We were all to busy debating French Fries and French Toast. We have become a stupid country with nuclear weapons and a stupid administration that has its finger on the nuclear trigger.
We have a chance at redemption with Senator Obama, but because of the pro choice issue we are going to elect an old war hero turned idiot and continue down the path of self destruction.
I'm not a pacifist I'm just against stupid.
Posted by julien38 at 05/28/2008 @ 7:36pm
Posted by julien38
the American people will NOT elect McSame. notachance.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 7:41pm
modest too...glad someone thinks so....I haven't seen much evidence so far....Keep trying fool
Posted by libzsuck at 05/28/2008
I see you chose to omit the second part of my statement. The part where I said even a highschooler has a superior intellect to you. Maybe you should try reading instead of spinning fool.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 7:42pm
IF YOUR AGAINST STUPID...WHY ARE YOU A LIB????
Posted by libzsuck at 05/28/2008
Ahh the irony in a mental midget calling ANYONE stupid.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 7:45pm
BTW, this is the Right Wing spin on McClellan....you get to choose one of 4 or combinations or all 4...
1. "He's a liar." (but he "told the truth" when he was taking orders from Bush)
2. "He's only in it for the money." (which requires a right-winger to explain why making money...makes you dishonest!)
3. "He's a disgruntled employee" (which requires explaining this...
Thursday, April 20, 2006
By Jane Roh FOX NEWS
"Bush said McClellan had performed a "job well done," and the two touched on their long relationship predating the presidency.
"I thought he handled his assignment with class, integrity," the president said. "It's going to be hard to replace Scott, but nevertheless he made the decision and I accepted it. One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days."
(my fave) 4. "He was always a liberal" (which requires you to believe ...well....idiocy beyond belief!....heheh)
Posted by Mask at 05/28/2008 @ 8:04pm
If found guilty, their punishment is prescribed: they may never again hold a position of public trust.
Sloper, I don't think this is true. what happens in a successful impeachment is that the guilty person loses their position.
there is nothing to prevent them from seeking and attaining another political office.
other than public opinion of the voters.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 |
Alcee Hastings being the first example that comes to mind - impeached as a federal judge, now a US Rep from Georgia, I believe
Posted by skeletonman at 05/28/2008 @ 8:04pm
"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." --Abraham Lincoln, speech to the Young Mens Lyceum of Springfield, Il, Jan., 1838
Posted by Balrog at 05/28/2008 @ 8:06pm
Alcee Hastings is a rep from FL. The Senate had the option to forbid Hastings from ever seeking federal office again, but did not do so. (Alleged co-conspirator, attorney William Borders went to jail again for refusing to testify in the impeachment proceedings, but was later given a full pardon by Bill Clinton on his last day in office.)
It's up to the Senate, to prosecute, try &, if the accused is found guilty by the senate, determine what the punishment will be. The choice of punishment is not limited to removal from office, but may include banning from fture office as well.
Posted by sloper at 05/28/2008 @ 8:24pm
SUCH A TOUGH LIB BEHIND HIS KEYBOARD....GOTTA BE IMPRESSED
Posted by libzsuck at 05/28/2008
This is funny from a person who espouses bullshit constantly in all capitals. Oh no big tough idiot with his caps locks key.
"That's the distance you'd have to move your pinky in order to not sound like an idiot. I know the burden of pressing shift to capitalize is a great one, but c'mon Turing, you can do better than that. I used to type emails in caps like yours, but then I decided that I didn't want a job mixing concrete."
That's a quote from maddox.xmission.com in his hate mail section to some idiot who typed him hate mail in all caps. You should listen.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/28/2008 @ 8:34pm
Hello sloper,
Question- How much did attorney William Borders donate to the Clinton library in exchange for his pardon?
I don't know - that's why I'm asking you - but it seems that donating to the library was the most common fee charged for pardons Clinton gave out during the fire sale he held his last days in office. I guess he was like a man possessed in those days, busy trying to think of who else he could sell pardons to.
I guess that does have a good side, though - that kept him occupied and away from allowing his buddy contributor CEO at Loral Space to sell more missile technology to the Communist Chinese!
When you look at it, doodling with the interns doesn't look so bad after all. I wish now Bill Clinton had done nothing but doodle with the interns all day for eight years, maybe we would have come out of his presidency better off!
Of course, what comes next is all the same bloggers on this site who crucify President Bush day after day will take me to task for saying negative remarks about Bill Clinton.
Posted by sjchermak at 05/28/2008 @ 8:58pm
OK..... Any One who ends thier posts with 'the Great Ann Coulter' (lol, sad really, in a totally brainwashed/cromagnum sense) Immediately goes to the IGNORE list... These posts really should stay on topic... Mclellan spills the beans..
Not hard to believe.. Has anyone believed ONE Bush Admin Press Sec..?? have they ever told the truth ..?? really..??
Libzsuck... Its ok lil guy... sittin around the doublewide (i did write 'your doublewide, but know you dont own anything)... wrapped in the CBRD kit they sold at Home depot(whats the terror alert color on FOX today), Ollie North poster up, your 'Boycott the Dixie chix' heavy cotton t on... Face Full of 'Freedom fries'... Radio welded to the AM dial....
you and your ILK are such sad examples of the human race(please understand that) ... Its people like you (and Ms. Coulter) that make abortion so attractive... no need to retort (look it up) ... you've been IGNORED...
Posted by Vvf1969 at 05/28/2008 @ 9:11pm
[So, the WMD were NOT ALL destroyed in 1993.
Once again, the WMD were NOT ALL destroyed in 1993.
Posted by sjchermak at 05/28/2008]
WIKI:
["Kamel maintained that Iraq had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction and related programs after the end of the first Gulf War. "I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons--biological, chemical, missile, nuclear--were destroyed." [2] Britain's Foreign Office has stated that they disbelieved this claim, while a March 3, 2003 Newsweek report said that Kamel's revelations were "hushed up" because inspectors "hoped to bluff Saddam [Hussein] into revealing still more." [3] Kamel's version of events appear to have been borne out in the wake of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq."
(wish I had BOLD here, don't have time to libsuk it and put it all in caps)
"....In the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Bush administration figures--including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell--repeatedly cited Kamel's testimony as evidence that Iraq had produced unconventional weapons, without mentioning that, according to Kamel, all such weapons had been destroyed]"
I call that a piece of propaganda.
UNSCOM destroyed a bio weapons facility in 1996. but, no wmd's have been found in Iraq, save some spent shells. They were not there.
Hussein was non-cooperative in some part due to , here ya go SJ... to Bill Clintons mishandling of the CIA and inability to out game Hussein in the international arena. Clinton cannot be absolved, but neither should he be used as a cheap foil to Chimpies malfeasance and ineptitude's. Your histories of Clinton misdeeds is even more rich when taken with your earlier claim that this thread is just more liberal whining about ancient history.
"There is simply no doubt Iraq has reconstituted it's nuclear programs", Cheney, is propaganda. It was NOT TRUE.
The "generals" appearing on "liberal media" were mouthpieces for the gubment.
you bought it all.
I bet you went around for weeks soaking in the glory of Private Lynch's heroic gunfight to the end. How she emptied her clip in a desperate attempt to avoid capture. How she was rescued from the clutches of the Republican Guard.
You bought propaganda.
I bet you wept when you heard how Pat Tillman went down under fire from the Taliban. I bet you closed your ears when it came out they lied about the whole thing. They used him.
you bought propaganda
I bet you think all 450 detainees at GITMO were "the most dangerous, the most vicious." Half of them have been let go. 7 returned to "the battlefield", maybe. Of course the "battlefield is The Earth under Chimpies newfound powers of Unitary Executive.
You bought propaganda
BOO!
Posted by crabwalk at 05/28/2008 @ 9:28pm
Sorry, Saddam Hussein was non-cooperative ..., not Hussein Kamal. Kamal cooperated and was murdered by Saddam for his good deeds.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/28/2008 @ 9:36pm
"If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq," the former spokesman writes. "The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media' didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."- former press secretary of President George W. Bush, a republican. Not from "the left".
The lapdogs from the mass media should not be given any sanctuary either. they FAILED in there main task of questioning authority. They were fighting for license renewal from the FCC and for de-regulation for their conglomerates at the time . It was a boondoggle, a propaganda machine. Right out of a book. Scare the sheep, they will willingly crowd into the pens.
And the neo-cons bought it all.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/28/2008 @ 9:41pm
LIBSUK, do you touch your bible with those fingers?
Posted by crabwalk at 05/28/2008 @ 9:45pm
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over ... and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."- George W. Bush.
Propaganda:
The link between terrorism, Iraq and 9/11
Iraqi agents meeting with 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta
Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons.
Iraq's purchase of nuclear materials from Niger.
Saddam Hussein's development of nuclear weapons.
Aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons
The existence of Iraqi drones, WMD cluster bombs and Scud missiles.
Iraq's threat to target the US with cyber warfare attacks.
The rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch.
The surrender of a 5,000-man Iraqi brigade.
Iraq executing Coalition POWs.
Iraqi soldiers dressing in US and UK uniforms to commit atrocities.
The exact location of WMD facilities
WMDs moved to Syria.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/28/2008 @ 9:53pm
HAHA
wanna read a good one? Kwame Kilpatrick, the doomed crooked Mayor of Detroit (d) vetoed the city council resolution removing him from office.
Hehhee. That's funny.
Worse than Hillary still hanging around.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/28/2008 @ 10:05pm
Meanwhile, back at The Ranch
[By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer Tue May 27, 10:33 AM ET
WASHINGTON - A Department of Homeland Security program to strengthen port security has gaps that terrorists could exploit to smuggle weapons of mass destruction in cargo containers, congressional investigators have found.
The report by the Government Accountability Office, being released Tuesday, assesses the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), a federal program established after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to deter a potential terrorist strike via cargo passing through 326 of the nation's airports, seaports and designated land borders.
A 2005 GAO report found many of the companies were receiving the reduced cargo scrutiny without the required full vetting by U.S. Customs, a division of DHS. The agency has since made some improvements, but the new report found Customs officials still couldn't provide guarantees that companies were in compliance.]
Posted by crabwalk at 05/28/2008 @ 10:09pm
Crab:
That's a good nutshell on the indictable lies CheneyBush & Co have propagated to support their illegal war.
Now if only the unlikely would happen & they were deservedly impeached for it, calling McClellan as a 1st witness under oath before the investigations committee. This option remains available even after they leave office.
Of course should impeachment occur, it does have a chilling effect on the next president's willingness to wage an illegal war.
Posted by sloper at 05/28/2008 @ 10:12pm
Posted by sloper,
evidently the punishment of barring future office is optional
The Senate had the option to forbid Hastings from ever seeking federal office again, but did not do so. Wiki
Posted by emile duBois at 05/28/2008 @ 10:43pm
the American people will NOT elect McSame. notachance.
Posted by emile duBois
hmmm?
nixon,
reagan,
bush,
clinton (well, better than bush but still stinky)
bush twice!
hmmm?
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 11:00pm
but don't offer up that tripe here.
Posted by srjenkins at 05/28/2008
go get 'em srj.
well put.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 11:14pm
Abraham Lincoln, speech to the Young Mens Lyceum of Springfield, Il, Jan., 1838
Posted by Balrog
well put, mr. lincoln.
please come back.
i'd even vote republican.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 11:16pm
Of course, what comes next is all the same bloggers on this site who crucify President Bush day after day will take me to task for saying negative remarks about Bill Clinton.
Posted by sjchermak
bushclintonbush and thank god no more clinton.
clinton was horrid -- telecom act, glass-steagall, no-fly zones, neoliberalworldbank bull.
bush is horrider.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/28/2008 @ 11:21pm
The Iraq war was done for OIL. All of the public explanations for the invasion are totally bogus. The WH knew the American public would never support a war for oil, so they used the fact of 9/11 to package the invasion as part of the war on terror. Ever since the media and politicians from both sides of the aisle have played along with the bogus narrative. They all have blood on their hands - the blood of hundreds of thousand of innocent people killed for oil profits and political gain.
Posted by wgilwood at 05/28/2008 @ 11:21pm
Anyone who has worked for the US Govt and has reported corruption, deception and lies, is always reported as "disgruntled employee". You could have 35 years of superior performance...it doesn't matter. McClelland did the right thing. It took time to compose the events and dialog from his time in the White House.
The next step is for McClelland to testify before Congress and provide testimony on his knowledge of the blatant deception of the Bush White House...in particular Rove and Scooter.
It would be a pleasant surprise having Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Campeon released from prison to make room for Rove and Scooter.
Posted by DahktaD at 05/28/2008 @ 11:21pm
But Dana Perino, the current White House press secretary, had harsh words for Mr. McClellan, calling the situation "sad" and suggesting that he mischaracterized his years in the West Wing to sell books.
"Scott, we now know, is DISGRUNTLED about his experience at the White House," she said. "For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/washington/28cnd-mcclellan.html
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 12:04am
Some good comments here - except the trolls and neocons. Their laughable employ of all the 'bad debating techniques' is SO BAD, because they don't 'know' how, they think and talk that way naturally. Generalization, Obfuscation, Straw Men, Red Herrings, the old chestnut of the ad hominem ... and getting louder as it were with feeble reiteration as if decibels and repetition conferred veracity. They also mix in humorless hyperbole and false analogies, revealing the depth of their intellectual lassitude to all but the most obtuse. I cut them a break personally, as their political heroes and no doubt every bad actor they've ever capitulated to (preachers, teachers, tyrannical mates - of whatever species - bosses, sergeants, etc.) has treated them this way. They are like flatworms trying to comprehend the gourmet slime they are sucking - sh*t must taste pretty good if that's all you know. But not too enlightening. [That's all they respond to by the way].
Anyway it's s not the job of Republican operatives on this and other blogs to make any sense whatsoever. They are there, like hemorrhoids, simply to inflame and be inflamed so as to reinforce their own mutational emergence into nonentity. These 'lesser lights' must anyway be occasionally pissed-on to tamp down their sputtering. Yet, they sound like little kids who need a diaper changed but can't tell and deny when discovered where the foul odor is coming from.
Then there is their 'real problem' - a historical and cultural one they will forever deny the genesis of: hate-filled, especially race-based, blather and drivel designed to demoralize and dehumanize - always wrong.
Here at least is what seems to be a mix of natural allies for some common good who are admirably not so clannish as to not take-on a contrary view - at least one articulated better than the grunts and howls of troglodytes who probably rant at the TV when Dems appear or cheer when Bill Kristallnacht scores what they think is a zinger. And, I swear, all my life I have never known one, not a soul, among these who might show the kind of restraint to let in some light and air.
It's really quite tragic. Perhaps the Almighty, the Great Absent, weeps as the Devil sharpens his implements; but I do not. And when these express their hate in their votes and asserting their willful ignorance in other ways, they harm and sometimes must be sharply-countered. How to do it beyond ignoring is sometimes vexing as to ignore them totally is to say they don't exist; and, my [proudly] liberal friends, they are Legion AND dangerous, especially with Republican defectors being courted, riskily, imho, into Obama's coalition, all manner of rat-fuc*ing is in the offing.
I ask, why 'take back' these "Reagan Democrats" - how I loathe that facile term? They unceremoniously jumped ship in a tough time to make love to Reagan's racist appeals! And they (and us) got sold-out. Now a very late buyer's remorse with the lemon GWB?!? Who needs 'em? Especially in the new government to come. As far as campaign participation, how much lucre are they really offering from their ever-tightening beer budgets? Cut 'em loose. They claimed a home somewhere far to the right of Fantasyland and will only stink up the place if we welcome them as prodigals or some such conciliatory nonsense. Too bad. Now they are jumping from S.S. Bush along with all the rats and want our life-raft. Not this time - remember Clinton's conciliation among these base political animals? A disaster for all. Unity does not mean marrying your molester.
*** *** ***
But for McClellan, I suspect this memoir is not a whole lot more than - not so much THE major document of the W Reich - but a base and slimy attempt to court leniency (or even get a, hopefully putative, pundithood on corporate TEEVEE like Rove's filthy mug appearing all over nowadays) WHEN the post-Bush prosecutions arrive.
From Colon Bowell, former top generals, ex-Bushies (lawyers, functionaries, et al., mouths still frothy from their Foul Kiss upon W's person), right on to the janitors in the White Bunker, now, with retirement balls, incessantly whine how they were duped - by whom, the Genius George W. Bush? How feeble ARE their peabrains anyway? Colon Bowell, duped by a third rate intellect addled from alcohol and drugs?! Colon, tsk, tsk. Mm,mm ...
The good news is that for these, willing shills all, to claim anything self-exculpatory is for them to admit that those above were indeed conspiratorial, in many ways suborning substantial criminal acts. That's why today, McClellan "lost every friend he ever had" per D. Bartlett, who gave the Kiss way back in Texas.
McClellan, for the giddy thrill he undoubtedly so-enjoyed as the soiled hand of the puppetmaster slid up his back and words 'not his own' (channeling) emerged from his marionette's mouth, could, MIGHT BE, redeemable, unlike so many. He might not have given such a fulsome Kiss, and then he did develop the stunted conscience of a jaded whore in time. Maybe his penance could be the above-mentioned tell-all to an empowered, prosecutorial Congress SANS Pelosi!!! in near future. We can hope, but then not reward him with a place in an new order ...
Won't buy the book; won't pad his imminent legal bills; don't want to hear about the heady days of election theft and sundry frauds that are the very icon of the political shock and murder that his crowd have been doing for decades. IF the book, as one here suggests, teases the eager liberal lover into bed only to receive a sudden phone summons elsewhere, it will have also given GWB a little bit more cover - we should not be 'duped.'
Posted by SquareheadXYZ at 05/29/2008 @ 12:07am
1. "He's a liar." (but he "told the truth" when he was taking orders from Bush)
••• Speaking on Fox News, where he is now a commentator, Mr. Rove said Mr. McClellan was not even present at many of the meetings he describes and suggested that he was not writing truthfully.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
2. "He's only in it for the money." (which requires a right-winger to explain why making money...makes you dishonest!)
••• But Dana Perino, the current White House press secretary, had harsh words for Mr. McClellan, calling the situation "sad" and suggesting that he mischaracterized his years in the West Wing to sell books.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
3. "He's a disgruntled employee"
••• "Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," she said.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
(my fave) 4. "He was always a liberal" (which requires you to believe ...well....idiocy beyond belief!....heheh)
••• "First of all, this doesn't sound like Scott. It really doesn't," he said. "Not the Scott McClellan I've known for a long time. Second of all, it sounds like somebody else. It sounds like a left-wing blogger.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Posted by Mask at 05/28/2008
god bless you, mr. mask.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 12:09am
HAPPY3
we only import a to 2 million bbls per day directly from there.
•••••••••••••••••••
the same ones you EXPORT to china and japan!
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 12:29am
HAPPY3
those were the rantings of a greed driven, gluttonous fool.
i suggest you hit the UNsubmit button with upmost haste.
truly, truly pathetic.
you disgrace your country.
is norway in your sights, too?
truly, truly pathetic.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 12:34am
I am getting sick and tired of all these attacks on liberals. If you hate liberals so much, and refuse to see the truth about anything, then why do you people keep coming here throwing insults and vengeful wrath? Insulting the liberals won't change the fact that your man - your man - has no idea that there even is such a thing as the Constitution or that its powers are primarily given to Congress, not to him.
Posted by Kristev at 05/29/2008 @ 12:47am
I am getting sick and tired of all these attacks on liberals. If you hate liberals so much, why do you keep coming back? Because they're generally tolerant and kind enough to let you people come here and slander them? Honestly, it seems that some people refuse to see the truth. Nothing that happened to the world in the last seven years was the liberals' faults. It was your man - your man - who has obviously never read the Constitution. Thus, he does not know that its powers are primarily granted to Congress, not to him. Teddy Roosevelt had the same problem. The "Bully pulpit" does not exist, and it never was intended to.
Posted by Kristev at 05/29/2008 @ 12:50am
hey look!
mr. pentagon message message force multiplier is back on cnn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWlyqseOlwg&fmt=18
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 01:13am
<i>Posted by SquareheadXYZ at 05/29/2008 </i>
I think it truly ironic that this post embodies many of the very same fallacies that it attributes to conservative posters. Two particularly interesting ones should serve to illustrate this.
1) Ad hominem fallacy (ex: "Colon Bowell"), i.e. pretending that simply substituting a cute epithet for people's actual names constitutes something resembling an argument
2) Broad generalizations (ex: presupposing that all conservative posters are simply "hemorrhoids"), unless of course he was only referring to SOME conservative posters
Though one could simply comment on the irony and leave it at that, I think this post really reflects a dangerous and destructive chord within too much of current politics. It seems like way too much of our political discussion is centered on presuppositions that those who disagree with our particular point of view are either incompetent or malevolent. This presupposition is almost always false, and when we embrace it, we erode the potential for actual, meaningful democratic dialogue. Since a democracy relies on this kind of dialogue for its very existence, the hostility and demonization that characterizes posts like these endangers the substantive engagement without which our democracy cannot truly flourish.
Posted by Thrawn at 05/29/2008 @ 01:39am
I don't understand the media frenzy over this book. I suppose because it was written by a Bush administration insider. However, the book certainly isn't new information. There are plenty of well researched books about this administration and the Iraq blunder. Thomas Ricks'- Fiasco- and Charlie Savage's -The return of the Imperialist President... offer well documented indictments of the Bush administration. I am surprised this book is being treated like a bombshell when it offers nothing most people don't already know.
The Bush henchmen are working hard to discredit the book and it's author. And CNN offers an unchallenged stage for the Bush crew to weave their web of deceit.
Posted by SandyFeet at 05/29/2008 @ 01:41am
Hi crabwalk,
I personally remember that periodically there were stories on the network news during the 1990's about weapons being found in Iraq.
My personal memory is not propaganda. And I would be fascinated as to how you could make the claim that network news stories were propaganda by George W. Bush, who was not yet president at the time.
It used to be 1991. Hans Blix I guess proclaimed the weapons were all gone by 1991. Now it is 1993. Which year is it going to be next, the so-called year the weapons were all gone?
Repeat: The WMD were NOT all gone by 1993.
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 04:30am
SJ, show me some stories.
Certainly the wmd's were "all gone" by 2003, 2001 and even 2000.
why else would Colin Powell have said in 2000 that Saddam was clean. He was joined in this by Condi Rice. If you don't believe me, use the google on the internets to look it up. I am using this Kamal story as an example of propaganda used on you. Chimpy and VP Howler Monkey cherry picked from Kamals testimony to frighten you. Why would they withhold the rest of his statements if they were honest, forthright people trying to make an honest case for war?
I would also like to note how you made zero comments about the other Bush propaganda you so eagerly feasted on. Did you BELIEVE that Lynch was a hero? Did you believe that there were wmd's "in and around Tikrit"? Did you believe that the war would "take weeks, maybe months, but certainly not years"?
Did you ever think that Plame was not a covert agent? (did you notice when the VP's Chief of staff was found guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty of lying, obstruction of justice and sentenced to 2 years in prison? He was frog marched, in rhetorical terms)
Did you listen "to the generals" then go around parroting their talking points? Talking points that were given to these "independent voices" by a pentagon office set up to get you to play along?
Did you mock anti-war folk for thinking that it would turn into a guerilla war, just like Rummy?
If you did any of these things, you fell for GUB-MENT PROPAGANDA. LIES. deception, obfuscation. All meant to make you feel afraid and nationalistic. You were a sheep, a follower.
Did you ever see any wmd's in Iraq? Did you volunteer to fight for your country? Why are you not there now? If, as we are told by the propaganda arm of your gubment, it is getting better, it is as safe as Indiana, why are you not over there helping the Iraqis?
I will give yu some credit, you and the nutter libsuk are the only two neo-cons that have the guts to show up when this forum gabs about propaganda. For some obscure reason they disappear like Iraqi wmd's when this subject comes up.
As pointed out by Thrawn, SJ maybe you should read FIASCO, "The Greatest Story Ever SOLD", or any of the myriad other books on this subject. Maybe you could tell me about a book that has been written about he success of Iraq?
7:42
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 07:40am
Now that Bush is collapsing, abell has MIRACULOUSLY turned into a cynic with his "They're ALL equally bad" talk....
posted by MASK
Yes you are right. I want to see more innocent Iraqis killed and that is why I am coming over to your side. Withdraw now and let's watch em die yea!
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008 @ 07:44am
I just love this garbage
"Those who were skeptical should have spoken up at the time and argued against U.N. sanctions such as the oil-for-food program."- Condi Rice
Duh!! People Did! What was the response from the mongers? "'Merica haters. Saddam lovers! Useful idiots. Hollywood actors"
Christ! These scumbags have zero shame, zero memory. Only fear and more lies.
Lie, rinse, repeat. Lie, rinse, repeat. Lie, rinse, repeat. All of a sudden it becomes common "knowledge", based on lies.
7:48
oh, sorry. Bill clinton, Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 07:47am
es you are right. I want to see more innocent Iraqis killed and that is why I am coming over to your side. Withdraw now and let's watch em die yea!
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008
So, go help them. What is your excuse? Too old to drive an ambulance? Too dumb to operate a hammer and saw? Too lazy to show an Iraqi how to be a capitalist? To scared to leave home?
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 07:50am
ABEL, scroll up and read the list of propaganda stories I wrote. Then tell us, in ALL HONESTY, how many of them you believed. Then tell us why.
7:53
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 07:52am
Here, I will make it even easier for you:
Propaganda:
The link between terrorism, Iraq and 9/11
Iraqi agents meeting with 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta
Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons.
Iraq's purchase of nuclear materials from Niger.
Saddam Hussein's development of nuclear weapons.
Aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons
The existence of Iraqi drones, WMD cluster bombs and Scud missiles.
Iraq's threat to target the US with cyber warfare attacks.
The rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch.
The surrender of a 5,000-man Iraqi brigade.
Iraq executing Coalition POWs.
Iraqi soldiers dressing in US and UK uniforms to commit atrocities.
The exact location of WMD facilities
WMDs moved to Syria.
7:54
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 07:53am
1) Saddam did support terrorists. Not Al Qaeda but palestinian terrorists. 2) No proof on that one 3) According to the UN and MANY of the intelligence services around the globe believed he had them. They even found some after the first gulf war 4) The British still stand by this one. 5) Isreal bombed Iraq when they were trying to build them before the 1st gulf war. Not too hard to believe they would try again 6) Do you mean the Dual Use Aluminum tubes? 7) Don't know about Drones wmd cluster bombs but he did have scuds 8) Don't remember hearing that one 9) Yes sometimes stories are created to boost morale 10) don't remember hearing that one either 11) Wasn't there an airman Speicher or something like that? 12) Didn't hear that one but it is possible 13) don't remember hearing that one either 14) There were trucks spotted leaving a suspected chemical weapons factory and crossing the border into Syria before the war. What was in those trucks is hard to say. Can you prove there weren't WMD's in them?
How about libs propaganda
Everything will be alright in Iraq if we just leave Our country has turned into a dictatorship The world now hates the U.S. We knew all along that Saddam had no WMD's and was not a threat Everything was fine in Iraq before the 2nd war
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008 @ 08:24am
Slow down crabwalk,
I remember that stories appeared on the news during the 1990's about WMD being found. I am not going to go now and pull up links that you could research yourself just to amuse you. All kinds of other intelligence relied upon by many people during that period indicated otherwise.
You seem to have forgotten that many Democrats are on public record during that period with statements about the threat of Saddam. Democrats commenting about Saddam during a time when a Democrat was the president. Comments that do not match up with all your "truth" and "facts"
What say you about that? How do you explain that? You don't, you just breeze past that!
Do you have an exact roadmap of how Saddam came to be free of WMD? You don't, of course, because Saddam never provided that. He was required to do so by the UN, but never did. The UN would not enforce it's own resolutions, so George W. Bush and Tony Blair had to do it for them.
Do you consider the possibility (answer is No) that Saddam willingly let his program wither so that he would be declared free of WMD someday, and thus free to go back and make WMD again? His own people said so. However, since this is something that doesn't fit your template, you declare it invalid, propaganda, etc.
You, of course, in highlighting all your "evidence" just breeze past that recent Pentagon report that shows what a troublemaker Saddam was aspiring to be. But, I know, the sentence in the report that said no link was found between Saddam and al-Qaida is "truth", the rest was "propaganda"
Above, you said "Did you ever think that Plame was not a covert agent? (did you notice when the VP's Chief of staff was found guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty of lying, obstruction of justice and sentenced to 2 years in prison? He was frog marched, in rhetorical terms) "
Since Valerie Plame was not working in a covert capacity for over 5 years, she was not a covert agent. And you do know, don't you, that Scooter Libby was found guity of providing false testimony in the process of the "investigation" that led to nothing else besides that? And you are aware, aren't you (answer - no) that the Bush administration did not engage in a campaign of obstruction against this investigation or the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald? The kind of obstruction that was conducted by the previous administration when it was being investigated by Kenneth Starr.
You, of course, do not question why, if the secrecy of Valerie Plame's identity was so super important to the nation's security, how it was that the CIA let Joseph Wilson blab and talk with his op-eds that would invariably lead to public attention on him and the rest of his family.
And, of course, no where in you lengthy list of proof of "crimes" committed by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, et. al., does the name of Richard Armitage appear. Why is that? He is the one who "leaked" the name!
And of course, the tried but true lib position that eventually appears - you ask me if I have volunteered to fight in Iraq. (with the implication that I am hypocritical if I am not willing to back up my beliefs):
1. I am too old to go into the military.
2. Fascinating how libs feel they have the right to disenfranchise people and lay conditions down on who can comment about what. If you have not been to Iraq, libs say you have no right to comment about Iraq. Having been to Iraq, however, is not a requirement for someone to speak out against the war. In fact, there are no "preconditions" or "requirements" or "experience" one has to have in order to speak out against the war. Everybody is free (freedom granted by libs) to speak out against the war in Iraq!
3. I could lay the same condition down upon you. You say we should not have done what we have done, and no doubt believe we should capitulate and surrender now. However, are you willing to lay yourself or others in your family down for slaughter that will occur if we do not fight back? I do not know where you think you have the right, without committing to do this yourself, to advocate the policies you do, and thus condemn others to die, unless you are willing to commit yourself and your loved ones to the same fate.
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 08:26am
Sorry about running everything together. I put returns in but they were stripped out.
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008 @ 08:27am
Everybody
Clarification to my statement above:
I said:
"All kinds of other intelligence relied upon by many people during that period indicated otherwise."
What I meant by that was that the intelligence indicated otherwise to what crabwalk proclaims.
Given I put it in the same paragraph as my other comment about the news stories, it may have been interpreted by libs that I was contradicting myself.
In other words, intelligence relied upon and even cited by Democrats during that period showed Saddam to be a threat with WMDs.
It is important to remember these things as they happen so that the memory of what really happened is fresh in one's mind - so you can relate it to kids who are no doubt "learning" the re-written version of history by lib historians and educational textbook authors.
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 08:50am
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008
So then we can NEVER leave, can we?
I mean, if there's a CHANCE...a remote, slight, even miniscule chance...that sectarian violence could spring up the moment our troops strength drops below 75,000....
we can't leave....can we?
(Hint--Here's where you talk about how things are getting better, but still can't give any specific time by which we could leave....unless you want to agree with McCain that it'll be over by Jan. 2013....in which case by YOUR standard, McCain is for "cut & running" too!)
Posted by Mask at 05/29/2008 @ 09:03am
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
Wow, your knee jerked pretty far that time!
**You seem to have forgotten that many Democrats are on public record during that period with statements about the threat of Saddam.**
Yep, they caved. Of course, they didn't actually get to see all of the evidence in it's 'un-cherry-picked' form, did they?
**Do you have an exact roadmap of how Saddam came to be free of WMD?**
Try reading the book called "Disarming Iraq" by Hans Blix. It's a pretty good roadmap...by the guy who had the job if making sure of exactly that.
**The UN would not enforce it's own resolutions, so George W. Bush and Tony Blair had to do it for them. **
Actually, the UN did NOT grant authority to Bush and Blair to do so. That would have required a UN resolution. They wanted one, but couldn't get it. So, they invaded without it...illegally...plain and simple.
**But, I know, the sentence in the report that said no link was found between Saddam and al-Qaida...**
So which part of that statement didn't you understand?
**Since Valerie Plame was not working in a covert capacity for over 5 years, she was not a covert agent.**
Actually, the CIA itself said she WAS. Why would they lie about that? Even Scotty McClellan now says so. I believe them...why don't you?
**And you are aware, aren't you (answer - no) that the Bush administration did not engage in a campaign of obstruction against this investigation or the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald? **
You ARE aware, aren't you, that this i an absolute contradiction of reality? Let's listen the transcript from the Special Council after his investigation of the Chief of Staff for the VP...
Friday, October 28, 2005; 3:57 PM
FITZGERALD: Good afternoon. I'm Pat Fitzgerald. I'm the United States attorney in Chicago, but I'm appearing before you today as the Department of Justice special counsel in the CIA leak investigation.
.
FITZGERALD: We are now going from a grand jury investigation to an indictment, a public charge and a public trial. The rules will be different.
But I think what we see here today, when a vice president's chief of staff is charged with perjury and **obstruction of justice,** it does show the world that this is a country that takes its law seriously; that all citizens are bound by the law.
.
BTW, you like to through the "libs" name out there...with rather obvious derision. That lays you open for wearing the flip side label - 'wingnut'...or maybe 'con' as in neocon...or maybe 'con'artist...or maybe 'con'vict.
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 09:22am
From all the media comments and hype so far, the book by McClellan seems to be an apologist's book to save the idiot in chief by throwing the lesser idiots over the cliff. Seems to be working like the Woodward book. Why is Kiki, a Hillary supporter, defending the administration in all this. I haven't seen Lanny yet.
Posted by julien38 at 05/29/2008 @ 09:23am
**In other words, intelligence relied upon and even cited by Democrats during that period showed Saddam to be a threat with WMDs. **
No doubt whatsoever that this is what you will try to teach your children.
If they have any sense, they'll look into it themselves...and discover what a doddering 'con' you really are!
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 09:25am
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
**You say we should not have done what we have done, and no doubt believe we should capitulate and surrender now. **
Haven't you heard? The pres'nit stood right there in front of a HUGE 'Mission Accomplished' banner and declared victory. He said we 'won' already. Wait...was he lying?
**However, are you willing to lay yourself or others in your family down for slaughter that will occur if we do not fight back?**
"Fight back" against who? Shia? Sunni? They are both killing each other. Which are the good ones and which are the bad? Do you even have an idea? Here's a hint, those Iraqis we demonized before the invasion?...they're the ones we LIKE now!
** I do not know where you think you have the right, without committing to do this yourself, to advocate the policies you do, and thus condemn others to die, unless you are willing to commit yourself and your loved ones to the same fate. **
You supported an invasion that has now resulted in a MESS. Now you need to clean it up!...but all you have to offer is more killing! And you have the absolute 'GAUL' to lecture here about "advocating the policies you do"?!?!?!
You are the perfect spokesman for the 'con' side...devoid of logic, unable and unwilling to accept responsibility for your actions, and with absolutely nothing to offer except more killing, more death, more destruction....and more ripping off of our nathion's and our children's futures.
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 09:36am
You know, not long ago, a holocaust servivor came to my son's high school to talk about what happened to him. It was an absolutely horrendous story. Afterwords, my son came home and wanted to discuss it. He was convinced that all of those who served in the German army as NAzis were absolutely EVIL.
I tried to explain that they weren't evil. They were good people who let unquestioned nationalism (patriotism) blind them to the evil that they were asked to commit. He had trouble beleiveing that people could do that.
Every now and then, I show him this site...and the postings of the 'cons' here, who let their patisanship blind them to reality. I show him and explain...after denying reality, pretending things happened that didn't, demonizing an entire country on the basis of cherry picked BS, and the rationalized justifications for virtually anything...torture, Gitmo, illegal invasion, Shock and Awe (bombing and death), continued occupation of a foreign country...I tel him, it's just one more small step or two.
He gets it.
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 09:45am
If David Brock ("Media Matters") could reveal the truth of his many lies as part of the "vast right wing conspiracy,"--and cleanse his soul in the process-- then perhaps Scott McClellan can as well. I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on this, even if he is trying to cash in on his experience as an enabler of war criminals. Better to come late to the party than not at all. In my fantasy war crimes trial of the Bush administration, Scott is now one of the key prosecution witnesses.
Posted by robgo2 at 05/29/2008 @ 09:57am
I wonder if the left is cherry picking evidence to support their withdrawal strategy.
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008 @ 10:01am
Since Iraq violated the surrender terms of U.N Resolution 687, they were subject to the resumption of hostilities. Was the bombing of Iraq during the sanctions constitute an illegal action?
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008 @ 10:17am
He was convinced that all of those who served in the German army as NAzis were absolutely EVIL.
you can start by explaining that Nazi refers to membership in a political party, and not to serving in the army, most of whom were drafted.
and here's a little history for you.
Nazi party membership was compulsory for most walks of life. the army was one of the last to submit to this edict.
it is also from army officers that much of the resistance to the nazi party regime came. most striking is of course the attempt to assassinate Hitler.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 10:17am
happy "IF back in 2002/03, oil prices are as high as they are today, everything else being the same.......seriously consider going into Iraq over oil can certainly be debated as a rational reason. "
Didn't your Mother teach you that it's wrong to take things that don't belong to you?
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 10:38am
sjchermak: "In other words, intelligence relied upon and even cited by Democrats during that period showed Saddam to be a threat with WMDs."
I never understood how Sadaam, even if he had WMDs, could be a threat to the USA. Even if he had them, the mighty Iraqi Navy couldn't bring them to our shores and the vaunted Iraqi Air Force couldn't drop them from our skies.
Sadaam was a threat to other countries in the region, but he was never a threat to us.
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 10:44am
Hi Lillian,
Democrats caved? Democrats, when the president was also Democrat, said Saddam was a threat. You say they caved - caved to who? How are Democrats, during a Democrat presidency, saying Saddam was a threat, caving to George W. Bush, who was governor of Texas at the time?
You said "Actually, the UN did NOT grant authority to Bush and Blair to do so. That would have required a UN resolution.". Huh? Why are you telling me this? I already know the UN did not grant authority! The UN just would have had another resolution. And another one after that, and on and on and on. Nothing but resolutions, slapping Saddam on the wrist for not complying. The UN was NEVER going to enforce it's resolutions. That is not OK.
You talk about no link between Saddam and al-Qaida, and that I did not understand what that meant. How about the entire rest of the report that showed Saddam to be a growing big time troublemaker? And what about how that report showed associations by Saddam with people that eventually became part of al-Qaida? Thus, they said no link was found but did not imply that was absolute that no link ever existed.
What about how the invasion of Iraq was not because of a link between him and al-Qaida to begin with? And how the Bush administration never claimed it was? And how it was about being pro-active against future threats, which Saddam clearly was?
You talk about cleaning up the "Mess" (Iraq). Things are improving in Iraq now and progress is being made. On your side of the political fence, you ignore or deny this.
You say all I have to offer is more killing. We are in a war that is going to last a long time (beyond Iraq) and that we did not create. You forget the Islamic radicals going beserk and killing people about cartoons in a Danish newspaper. This whole thing is about more than us (the U.S.). You do not see that.
Your side of the political fence casts itself as more moral because you advocate "peace" and "stopping the killing" but history has taught that doing so only leads to more war, more death and more human misery.
You say I am not willing to accept responsibility for my actions. I disagree. Given that I am not in our government, and am too old to go into the military, I am limited in my "actions" to start with, so the only real pro-active action I can take is the one I am taking - speaking out against policies and ideas (that you and others have) that I believe to be wrong and that will lead to more death, misery and human suffering if your side of the political fence has it's way.
It is the responsiblity of a citizen in a free society to do so, and I have the right of free speech to be able to do this.
You say my arguments are devoid of logic, but they are full of logic you can not refute - and you talk about "cons" being blind to reality but what you cite as "reality" is just your opinion - one which I believe you and others have come quite short in defending.
You have the same right I do - as a free citizen in a free society you can say what you want. And I have the right to argue against it, as well.
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 10:48am
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008
Speaking of Germans and a "bunker mentality"!
heheh
Posted by Mask at 05/29/2008 @ 10:51am
abell:"Since Iraq violated the surrender terms of U.N Resolution 687, they were subject to the resumption of hostilities."
Subject to, but not required to be.
This, of all the reasons/excuses for going to war in Iraq, is the only one that turns out to have any basis in fact. Iraq did indeed violate Res 687.
My take on that was/is: it was a UN resolution, let the UN handle it. There's plenty of other UN Resolution Violations - some of them our own - that we turn a blind eye to.
Defenders of the Iraq invasion point to Res 687 as if we were bound by international law and had no choice but to invade. We weren't bound and we did have a choice. We made the wrong one.
Res 687 is but flimsy cover for an unjustifiable invasion.
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 10:53am
Speaking of Germans and a "bunker mentality"!
heheh
Posted by Mask Hunh?
So if they were subject to a resumption of hostilities doesn't that make the war legal?
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008 @ 10:57am
Hi Balrog,
You say, "I never understood how Sadaam, even if he had WMDs, could be a threat to the USA. Even if he had them, the mighty Iraqi Navy couldn't bring them to our shores and the vaunted Iraqi Air Force couldn't drop them from our skies. "
Iraqi Navy or Air Force would not have been used to disperse WMD - wouldn't have been needed. The nature of the WMD was that only small amounts could have caused big time damage. Saddam probably wouldn't have been the one to disburse WMD anyway. It would be other terrorists (you know, the ones Saddam had no connection to (a little bit of sarcasm here)) that had been given WMD by Saddam or who had purchased WMD from Saddam - who would have done the damage.
Saddam did not appear to have a death wish. He probably knew that a WMD attack tracable to him would bring holy hell raining down his head. Many of these other terrorists, on the other hand, not only do not care if they die while killing us, they consider that to be the ultimate path to glory (and the 75 virgins) as well.
You can not possibly have a fortress America to stop every last person seeking ill will against our country from getting in and doing their damage. Stopping the ill will proactively is the necessary way to do that, one that much of the left rejects.
It was not an organized attack by a foreign army or navy that brought down the towers, remember.
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 11:01am
Not to be too technical but isn't it 72 virgins? And why would they want virgins? Wouldn't you want someone with a little experience?
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008 @ 11:18am
Hello abell12ct,
Once you get up to that number, I can't imagine there is much difference between 72 and 75. And you ask me "Wouldn't you want someone with a little experience".
Since I don't think any virgins will be awaiting me - you need to ask the people who think there will be virgins (72 or 75) awating them - the homicide bombers in the Middle East, the Islamic terrorists worldwide, etc. They are the ones expecting virgins, so ask them why.
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 11:28am
"Stopping the ill will proactively is the necessary way to do that, one that much of the left rejects."
And of course the best way to stop ill will v. the US is for the US to invade shock & awe style, then occupy militarily. That'll do it. Look how well the bombing of Indochina worked. You don't see Australia under the control of Red China now, do you? Stopped the Commies dead in their tracks, a decade of bombing did. And now we forgive the reds their ill will by borrowing the cost of Iraq war from them. See how it works! They love US!
Posted by sloper at 05/29/2008 @ 11:29am
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008
The WMDs were a chess match we played with Sadam, and in the end our intelligence service and Britain's lost that match, and for that loss there are consequences, regardless of good intentions.
The republicans had their chance to govern and they did not stick to their principles nor project a very good image. See Duke Cunningham, Larry Craig, etc., etc.
The consequences of these occurences will be democratic majorities in the house and senate larger than what has been seen in a long time.
The pendulum swings, it is a natural occurrence, it will happen again.
Posted by Benchrest at 05/29/2008 @ 11:44am
Posted by HAPPY3 at 05/29/2008
A Compound Fracture of the C-1 through C-3 vertebrae.
I was not speaking of personal consequnces but national ones.
Posted by Benchrest at 05/29/2008 @ 11:55am
Hello Benchrest,
The Republicans have not stuck to their principles, no argument or disagreement there.
There is a difference between Republicans and Conservatives, with a lot of Republicans not being Conservative at all.
President Bush comes under fire from Conservatives (e.g. the Harriet Miers fiasco).
But still, on balance, much better than the alternatives.
You are right about the pendulum swinging, and it has swung in Congress now.
But before that happened (2006), I saw many comments from those on the Left, that it was "wrong" somehow that the Republicans were in charge of the Executive and Legislative branches. No recognition from those citing this "wrong" that the circumstance was the will of the voter then and that the will of the voter would swing the pendulum back someday.
It was just cited as a "wrong".
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 11:59am
sjchermak : "It was not an organized attack by a foreign army or navy that brought down the towers, remember."
I remember - do you? It was Saudis (not Iraqis) on expired visas and their weapons were acquired here in the United States It had nothing to do with Sadaam or WMDs...which he didn't have.
"You can not possibly have a fortress America to stop every last person seeking ill will against our country from getting in and doing their damage."
Israel, who has been surrounded by people seeking ill will against them for their entire history, has done a pretty good job of sealing their borders; the US has not. On September 20th, 2001, on a Vietnam War discussion list, I wrote:
"Secure our borders and get control over who enters this country. It's no good to kill the flies when the windows have no screens..."
It made sense to me then, and it makes even more sense to me now. Seal up the house, then go outside and kill the maggots.
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 12:05pm
People have been saying from the beginning that Bush and his gang lied the U.S. into the war in Iraq. So really, there is nothing new in what McClellan is saying except that he, McClellan, is saying it. That has got to hurt the Bush and McCain. However, people have short memories, and perhaps these latest revelations in a long line of them will be forgotten by the autumn and the presidential election.
Posted by mikhailovich at 05/29/2008 @ 12:09pm
"Secure our borders and get control over who enters this country.
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008
it can't be done. the borders are too long. we would need every military and police and it would still be too long.
Israel is tiny.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 12:12pm
Happy: "I offer "food for thought" backed up by multiple reasons and end with the comment such rationale can be debated.....and you come back with my mothers' teaching??"
Actually, you offered: "...seriously consider going into Iraq over oil can certainly be debated as a rational reason."
And I, not agreeing that "going into Iraq over oil can certainly be debated as a rational reason", simply asked whether you were taught to not take things that don't belong to you.
Apparently you weren't.
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 12:13pm
Happy: "I offer "food for thought" backed up by multiple reasons and end with the comment such rationale can be debated.....and you come back with my mothers' teaching??"
Actually, you offered: "...seriously consider going into Iraq over oil can certainly be debated as a rational reason."
And I, not agreeing that "going into Iraq over oil can certainly be debated as a rational reason", simply asked whether you were taught to not take things that don't belong to you.
Apparently you weren't.
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 12:14pm
Here's what bothers me most about the current state of our electorate. It seems as if no matter what this Administration does most people just don't care.
I'm willing to bet you that a large majority of people who voted for Bush/Chaney would do so AGAIN even knowing what they know now. It's one of the more frustrating things living here in a conservative stronghold like North Carolina. It's virtually impossible to engage in a debate about politics because as soon as you drop that first unanswerable question on them they get angry and start shouting or pouting about "liberals".
It saddens me when I hear my 15-yr old son come home and talk about the lack of true information other kids receive in regards to our government and current affairs. What they believe (which they get from their parents) sounds like the script coming straight out of the White House with no factual information to back it.
Maddening.
Cekim
Posted by MikeOrTara at 05/29/2008 @ 12:23pm
"Shooting at American pilots enforcing the No Fly Zones? No, not a threat at all (sarcasm, just in case). Posted by HAPPY3 at 05/29/2008 "
How dare they shoot at US pilots bombing their country! What chutzpah!
If as a result of US illegal invasion of Iraq, a no-fly zone were declared over, say, parts of FL, US military forces wouldn't dream of shooting down foreign fighter bombers flying over FL. Not a chance. Look at how well behaved US forces were on 9/11, letting those Saudi fellows flex their muscles over DC & NYC without any interference whatsoever from US.
Posted by sloper at 05/29/2008 @ 12:23pm
"Secure our borders and get control over who enters this country.
can't be done. borders are far too long. Israel is tiny.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 12:23pm
[3. I could lay the same condition down upon you. You say we should not have done what we have done, and no doubt believe we should capitulate and surrender now. However, are you willing to lay yourself or others in your family down for slaughter that will occur if we do not fight back?]-abel but unwilling
yes. I am willing to kill to defend my home and my loved ones. If they come under attack.
At work so I don't have time to discredit your beliefs in fantasy. Plain and simple, no wmd's in Iraq, no links to 9/11, no links to AQ, quagmire ongoing.
You bought propaganda, period.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 12:27pm
Happy: "I offer "food for thought" backed up by multiple reasons and end with the comment such rationale can be debated.....and you come back with my mothers' teaching??"
Actually, you offered: "...seriously consider going into Iraq over oil can certainly be debated as a rational reason."
And I, not agreeing that "going into Iraq over oil can certainly be debated as a rational reason", simply asked whether you were taught to not take things that don't belong to you.
Apparently you weren't.
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 12:28pm
Since Iraq violated the surrender terms of U.N Resolution 687, they were subject to the resumption of hostilities. Was the bombing of Iraq during the sanctions constitute an illegal action?
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008
Read a resolution. They end with "The council remains seized of the matter".
It means something.
Read the Treaty portion of the US constitution. a treaty is law. We had a treaty with Iraq, via the UN. We were not attcked, or under immentent threat of attack. Therefore= illegal.
---
SJ, if you are going to make claims about news stories in the 90's, proving it is not for my "amusement", it is to prove your statements true. If you cannot take the time to back yourself up, don't open your fingers.
--CIA says Plame was covert. End of argument.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 12:35pm
David Brock
Scott Mcclellen
David Kuo
Treasury Secretary, O'neal (?)
who else has moved out of ChimpCo and then wrtitten about how Chimpy/Howler Monkey abused their position, used the religious right, wanted war, do not listen to contrary ideas?
who will you neo-cons listen to? Reagans former counsel Bruce Fein? no, liberal 'Merica hater.
who then?
victoria Toesening? Tony Snow? heheheeee
sheep eating propaganda.
----GOOD JOB LILLIAN!!!!----
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 12:38pm
How dare they shoot at US pilots bombing their country! What chutzpah!
Posted by sloper
We bombed them when they locked on to our planes or shot at them. You make it sound like our pilots just went in there and bombed them on a whim.
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008 @ 12:39pm
The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor over oil. We cut them off and they attacked. But if we went into Iraq for Oil, why didn't we take it?
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008 @ 12:41pm
[But before that happened (2006), I saw many comments from those on the Left, that it was "wrong" somehow that the Republicans were in charge of the Executive and Legislative branches. No recognition from those citing this "wrong" that the circumstance was the will of the voter then and that the will of the voter would swing the pendulum back someday.
It was just cited as a "wrong".
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 | ]
It is not going to be good. There needs to be balanced. But, 2 parties is not balanced. 4-5 would be much better. vote for Barr, I'll go for Uncle Ralph, SJ.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 12:41pm
Ever heard of Anthrax? How about Saddam's plotting to assassinate Bush 41? Shooting at American pilots enforcing the No Fly Zones? No, not a threat at all (sarcasm, just in case).
Posted by HAPPY3 at 05/29/2008
This is all when considered in the grand scheme of things a very small threat. Shooting at pilots while deplorable does not threaten to destroy our country. Anthrax. Again while deplorable you would have to have an infiltration on a massive scale to do any real damage. They would have to be sending out thousands of Anthrax letters. Assassinating Bush-41 while again a deplorable act will not threaten the entire nation. Should we bomb the US because people send death threats in to Bill Gates?
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/29/2008 @ 12:43pm
I think Sloper makes a very important point: that if Bush/Cheney are impeached immediately they will not be able to pardon or make any other moves to protect/silence all of the potential witnesses at the upcoming War Crimes trial.
Posted by jread_21205 at 05/29/2008 @ 12:45pm
[The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor over oil. We cut them off and they attacked. But if we went into Iraq for Oil, why didn't we take it?
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008 ]
1: incompetence.
2: "we" are helping ourselves, to some of the profits.
3: if we went in to rid the world of terrorism and wmd's, why haven't we?
4: why did Howler Monkey have a map with the oil fields drawn up, with each oil company given a slice?
5: why did we secure the Oil Dept building, but not the civilians?
sorry for the brief comments, although may you like me to be short. Trying to work, but I am shaking my head in disbelief at the ostrich/sheep hybrids.
shake shake shake.
shake your booty.
deny deny deny
make everything "secret"
can't prove anything, it's all secret.
Trust the president, he has intel he cannot show us.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 12:48pm
[The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor over oil. We cut them off and they attacked. But if we went into Iraq for Oil, why didn't we take it?
Posted by abell12ct at 05/29/2008 ]
6: a small war broke out after "mission accomplished".
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 12:51pm
Hey crabwalk,
You don't quit. I saw news stories in the 90's, on the televison, about weapons being found, but now by your directive I can not comment on that unless I go back and find what? A replay of those stories? They may not exist on the Internet unless the news organizations have developed transcripts, etc. By your directive, I can not commnent on anything I saw unless I go back and establish enough proof and confirmation to satisfy your requirements.
There are only 24 hrs in a day, but I can not comment (by lib crabwalk directive) on whatever I experienced in life unless I develop enough independent support to satisfy lib crabwalk requirements.
Anybody that utters a comment that is opposite of what you believe MUST back up those comments with independent "Proof" as though they were in a court of law!
Problem is, that is a goal that cannot be achieved because if I go quit my job and any other commitments in life to go find back up information, you would just declare it propaganda.
You, of course, are not subject to the same restriction, because you have already declared what you believe to be obvious truth. By force of your invocation, what you believe is absolute and does not have to be defended. Or the defense is usually just "declaring" it is the truth, that "everbody" (e.g. all libs) already "knows"
You say you do not have time to discredit my beliefs. Sorry to tell you crabwalk, but if you had all the time in the world you could not do that.
I do not have the same problem (finding time to discredit your beliefs). Why is that? Because I already have, just scroll upward and read my various postings.
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 1:01pm
SJ:
no wmd's
no links to AQ
no links to 9/11
5 1/2 year war, costing close to $500,000,000,000 of your tax dollars (borrowed in part from commies and Islamic dictators BTW)
A "cakewalk"?
discredit that.
It takes 2 minutes to google something you know exists.
I "remember" hearing about Saddams soldiers tossing babies out of windows in Kuwait. That don't make it true. I "remember" reading news stories about Jessica Lynch being a hero. That Don't make it true. I "remember" hearing news broadcasts about the EPA saying the air at Ground Zero was safe. That Don't make it true. I "remember" the president declaring mission accomplished. That don't make it true.
Propaganda.
You bought it.
This is a blog about a REPUBLICAN insider, with Chimpy since 1999, who is telling us that Chimpy McFlightsuit used PROPAGANDA to convince you to be frightened of something that did not exist. He is not a "lib". He was one of your group. He is not alone in his insider description of ChimpCo.
You, sir, IMHO, are willfully ignorant.
Peace, gotta run. Please do some research, avoid sources known to be propaganda from the WH. Avoid drunks, convicted felons, childish forgeries and partial statements from defectors.
Try it, you might like it.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 1:13pm
PS, I recommend Hans Blix too. As well as David Albright, Scott Ritter (formerly a darling of the right wing spin machine), and the Carnegie folks. You may also want to spend some time reading General Hoars comments, along with a plethora of retired military "america haters" who were not on the payroll of defense industry and the Pentagon spin machine.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 1:17pm
crabwalk,
You, of course, automatically believe Scott McClellan. How do you know whether what he is saying is the absolute truth? Why do you believe, with no investigation, which seems to be the case, what he is saying.
Libs let fly on this website with a lot of wild stuff, but you demand no proof from them. Lillian, in postings above, indicated that Democrats commenting on Saddam's threats during a Democrat presidency were caving to George W. Bush, who was not yet president. Lillian has not yet posted back with any proof how this was so.
No WMDs? If this is the absolute slam-dunk you proclaim it to be, they why hasn't there been a complete expose by the New York Times, NBC, CBS, etc documenting the "proof" that WMDs did not exist after 1993, and the "proof" that everbody in the Bush Administration knew that?
Most of the media is so liberal biased you can cut it with a knife, certainly if your "facts" were so obvious, then they would have spared no expense to broadcast them far and wide.
But they haven't. You would say the media is not liberal biased, that it is really in cahoots with George W. Bush, and that I need to offer links and "proof" that the media is liberal biased.
In this case, I would not need to look anything up, since that research already exists at the Media Research Center website. They have documented liberal bias for a long time. I would tell you to go there.
You would declare that since the website is partisan, and Conservative, that it is "propaganda".
Any "proof" I would offer would be declared by you to be "propaganda" anyway.
Libs can cause a person to go around in endless loop-de-loops searching for information that will satisfy the lib demand, but only if you let the lib do that to you.
Many of my arguments are my logic. I do not believe you have offered much logic in defense of your beliefs.
You declare me to be ignorant, that is your argument - I am ignorant - but I would have to ask you - why in your post above do you list "no links to AQ , no links to 9/11 " - when in postings above I have already said those were not reasons for going into Iraq to begin with?
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 1:31pm
I wonder if the left is cherry picking evidence to support their withdrawal strategy.
Posted by abell12ct
i wonder if the iraqis are fed up.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 2:05pm
Since Iraq violated the surrender terms of U.N Resolution 687, they were subject to the resumption of hostilities. Was the bombing of Iraq during the sanctions constitute an illegal action?
Posted by abell12ct
perhaps not....
but it scared the !@!@@#@@# out of many iraqi kids who are now quite perturbed.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 2:07pm
Sadaam was a threat to other countries in the region, but he was never a threat to us.
Posted by Balrog
but it's your oil.
too.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 2:08pm
It was not an organized attack by a foreign army or navy that brought down the towers, remember.
Posted by sjchermak
no, it was oil.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 2:11pm
Wouldn't you want someone with a little experience?
Posted by abell12ct
Posted by sjchermak
poor guys.
they're only going to find you two there.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 2:13pm
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
**The UN was NEVER going to enforce it's resolutions. That is not OK. **
Really? Your memory must be exceedingly short. Try googling 'Gulf war', or 'desert storm' or 'UN Resolution 687'. I realize the result won't fit with the 'make believe' world you live in, but it's reality for the rest of us.
** How about the entire rest of the report that showed Saddam to be a growing big time troublemaker? **
Uh, you do get that "troublemaker" DOESN'T equal a link to al-Qaida, right?
** Thus, they said no link was found but did not imply that was absolute that no link ever existed. **
This is 'con' doublespeak for 'they didn't mean what they said'...'they meant what I say'.
** What about how the invasion of Iraq was not because of a link between him and al-Qaida to begin with? And how the Bush administration never claimed it was? **
What about how you are now trying to completely re-write history? Maybe you can post the links to back this new history? If not, this makes you sound sort of daffy.
** Things are improving in Iraq now and progress is being made. On your side of the political fence, you ignore or deny this. **
Actually, on my "side of the political fence" we've been hearing this baloney since May 1, 2003 - "Mission Accomplished". We ignore or deny it because it is pure 'con' fantasy. Or maybe you actually have links to the facts that back your claim?
** You forget the Islamic radicals going beserk and killing people about cartoons in a Danish newspaper. This whole thing is about more than us (the U.S.). You do not see that. **
You seem to be completely clueless as to what "this whole thing" is about. YOu see, Saddam, as bad a man as he was, kept the RADICAL muslims in check. What happened in response to that Danish cartoon, would NEVER have happened in Saddam's Iraq. Apparently, that simple fact is completely lots on you.
** Your side of the political fence casts itself as more moral because you advocate "peace" and "stopping the killing" but history has taught that doing so only leads to more war, more death and more human misery. **
Now this is just truely bizarre. Who started this war in Iraq? Do you even know?
** ...the only real pro-active action I can take is the one I am taking - speaking out against policies and ideas (that you and others have) that I believe to be wrong... **
Peace. It's called "PEACE". That's what you are speaking out AGAINST. YOu are 'against' PEACE...and FOR continued occupation and continued killing. There's NO getting around it.
** You say my arguments are devoid of logic, but they are full of logic you can not refute...**
Actually, just saying your arguments are full of 'logic' doesn't make it so. I've refuted virtually everything you've posted...with facts that you refuse to accept. You've offered no facts in response. That places your 'arguements' on the same level as 'fantasy'. That may satisfy your fellow 'cons'...but the rest of us inhabit reality.
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 2:14pm
I offer "food for thought"
Posted by HAPPY3
more like last week's mouldy leftovers.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 2:15pm
The Results Are Shocking!
http://www.votenic.com
Posted by votenic at 05/29/2008 @ 2:17pm
You make it sound like our pilots just went in there and bombed them on a whim.
Posted by abell12ct
a friend recently told me the story of how, in 2000,
he met a lt. col. in the usairforce who told him he had a bombing run to do in iraq the next month,
and would write my buddy's name on a bomb for him, if he so desired.
he refused the offer.
just a story....
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 2:20pm
February 20, 2001
The February 16 attack was an escalation, in that it targeted installations outside the no-fly zones, but the scale of action in the no-fly zones has increased dramatically since the beginning of 1999. Although there had been several major clashes over the no-fly zones since 1991, the pattern of attack and response was much less intense. According to UK Ministry of Defense figures quoted by The Times in June 2000, since mid-December 1998, RAF bombers alone dropped 78 tons of bombs on Iraqi military targets, compared with 2.5 tons between April 1991 and December 1998. The average monthly release of bombs rose from 0.025 tons to five tons. The casualty rate on the ground has also gone up sharply. Although the figures are contested, the Iraqi government claims that between December 1998 and the beginning of 2001, 323 civilians have been killed and 960 injured by US and UK attacks in the no-fly zones.
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero022001.html
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 2:21pm
It was not an organized attack by a foreign army or navy that brought down the towers, remember.
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
How many of the people who brought down the towers were from Iraq? How many were trained by Iraq? How many financed by Iraq? How many with 'ties' to Iraq?
Oh yes...that's right...none!
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 2:22pm
** Thus, they said no link was found but did not imply that was absolute that no link ever existed. **
"absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Donald Rumsfeld, war criminal.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 2:30pm
If not, this makes you sound sort of daffy.
Posted by Lillian
hey!
leave ducks out of this.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 2:34pm
Just like Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, "there's no there there," in the case of George there is no there there.
We may as well have seated a camel behind the desk in the Oval Office as a George. Amazingly, we continue to hold on to the illusion that we have been dealing with a thinking, reasoning, feeling human being. George is a cipher. (Hell, even a camel is an entity.)
Posted by felicity at 05/29/2008 @ 2:38pm
one itsy, bitsy, teeny weeny sliver of hope:
"The United Nations has declared this area one of the world's greatest environmental disasters," Howari said.
Richardson and Hussain's report, he said, "is a very interesting article trying to document the recovery process of these marshes."
Eden Again
Restoration efforts have made some progress in revitalizing the region, as noted by the new data Richardson and Hussain collected.
In 2003 local farmers began blowing up dikes and earthen dams to release water back into the marshes.
Within a year of reflooding, species recovery began. Small invertebrates, fish, and bird species all began returning, though in much reduced numbers.
Rare bird species like the marbled teal and the Basrah reed warbler, thought close to extinction, apparently survived the wetlands' destruction--both were spotted in a 2005 census.
Within two years about 39 percent of the destroyed marshes had standing water, and vegetation was growing at a rate of 300 square miles (800 square kilometers) a year.
Recent overflows of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are probably responsible for replenishing the marshes with even more seeds, insect larvae, and fish stocks, encouraging more birds to return, the report authors say.
saddam sure was an asshole.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 2:38pm
the propaganda wars continue in these pages.
a theatre of the absurd.
we have Whigs here who argue the same lies that they have been arguing for years now. Saddam blah blah.
hey gang, I know what's let's do: let's all ignore them, so that we can comment just with other adults.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 2:39pm
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
**It was just cited as a "wrong".**
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
** I saw news stories in the 90's, on the televison, about weapons being found, but now by your directive I can not comment on that unless I go back and find what? **
Cited by whom?
You saw the "stories"?
Again, no links = fantasy.
Is this really what passes for 'logic' with the 'cons'?
** Anybody that utters a comment that is opposite of what you believe MUST back up those comments with independent "Proof" as though they were in a court of law! **
Google. Use it. Quite simple really.
Start with the term 'glittering generalities'. (Just copy and past right into the search term.)
It's a very common propaganda technique...one you employ quite often in lieu of actual fact or rational argument. Here's a link...
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Glittering_generalities
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 2:39pm
While this book may give more inside details about the Bush Administration that might be valuable to Historians, it is not new information. We alreeady know that Congress and the media rolled over in support of this war.
Posted by P. J. Casey at 05/29/2008 @ 2:43pm
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
** You, of course, automatically believe Scott McClellan. How do you know whether what he is saying is the absolute truth? **
OMG!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Do you even realize that virtually everything you've posted to date regarding Iraq, WMDs, Valerie Plame, etc. has come from that man's lips. Only now, when he says he was TOLD to lie....now, you question his honesty?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
** Many of my arguments are my logic. **
OMG!!
Here I've been trying to present logical, rational arguments. TO someone who is only capable of dealing with 'his' logic.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Is this really what passes for 'logic' with the 'cons'?
** Anybody that utters a comment that is opposite of what you believe MUST back up those comments with independent "Proof" as though they were in a court of law! **
Google. Use it. Quite simple really.
Start with the term 'glittering generalities'. (Just copy and past right into the search term.)
It's a very common propaganda technique...one you employ quite often in lieu of actual fact or rational argument. Here's a link...
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Glittering_generalities
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 2:46pm
P. J. Casey
the book is a sign that the hour that the ship comes is near.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 2:47pm
hey!
leave ducks out of this.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
Sorry, didn't mean to malign any WB cartoon characters! :-)
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 2:49pm
OBAMA/YOSEMITE '08!
For A Rootin'-Tootin' Future!
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 2:52pm
Hello Lillian,
You say "troublemaker" doesn't mean link to al-Qaida. There is other trouble in the world besides al-Qaida!! Trouble Saddam or terrorists who were not al-Qaida would have caused would have left us just as dead as trouble caused by al-Qaida. The realization was that we needed to be pro-active about threats or future threats against us, regardless of their source.
Ditto about my comment about the Danish cartoons. We faced trouble from Saddam, we face trouble from radical Islam, and also Saddam was connecting more and more to terror organizations. My comment was in the context that we did not cause a lot of the trouble that faces us, wheras the Left pretty much says if somebody hates us it is our fault.
You want links that the Bush administration did not claim a link between Saddam and al-Qaida. You are going link crazy here, just like crabwalk. You want links to things that never happened. Where are your links to "proof" of specific public claims by the Bush Administration that Saddam had involvement in 9/11?
You say your view of "Peace" does not lead to more war. Have you ever heard of "Peace in our time" achieved by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain prior to World War II. Boy, "Peace" really stopped the killing then, didn't it! And people were told they had to have peace even though Winston Churchill warned everbody otherwise, and warned that peace would be followed by war eventually anyway.
So you haven't refuted anything I have said.
P.S. Where are your links to your "proof" that Democrats, during the Clinton administration, who cited Saddam as a terror threat, were caving to George W. Bush? I am still waiting for those links!
P.P.S. Whew! We are going in circles here, aren't we? Frosty Zoom says leave ducks out of this, but maybe it is time to call them in, maybe they have some other insight that could straighten this out!
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 2:55pm
Lillian,
You want me to use Google to find links. What has gotten lost in all the hoopala you and crabwalk have regarding links, is that a lot of what is happening on this side, liberal or conservative, are statements of people's opinion, backed up by attempts at logic and also facts where necessary or available.
Two different people can look at the same set of events and draw completely different conclusions.
But you seem to a require a link to anything I say. So you want links to what in many times is somebody else's opinion offered up as proof of something.
That is what I find a lot of the time when I follow links offered up by libs - just other libs giving out their opinion.
Is there no requirement for anybody to defend their opinion with logic anymore? I have tried to do that a lot. It seems to me that when people just cite links to something somebody else believes they are sloughing off any attempt to explain or defend their opinions.
You are trying to set the standard that offering up "links" is the only proof of anything.
What did people do before the Internet? Since you can't prove anything without a link (your requirement), can you explain what people did before the Internet?
Are you not capable of independent thought, without having all your arguments propped up by links? How is somebody else's opinion or take on something proof?
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 3:07pm
Hello libzsuck,
Just to fill you in on the latest that has been going on here: crabwalk and Lillian and other libs too, probably, will demand you provide an Internet link for anything you say, and they will proclaim you haven't proved anything unless you provide a link!
You and I should get separate websites with our opinions, and I will provide links to whatever you say, and you provide links to what I say, and maybe then that will meet the lib standard for "proof".
See you on the links!
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 3:14pm
[ "no links to AQ , no links to 9/11 " - when in postings above I have already said those were not reasons for going into Iraq to begin with?
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 | ]
Buawahahaha! !!!
funny stuff.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 3:39pm
It's hurricane season
It's cyclone season
Hurricane season
cyclone season
hurricane season
cyclone season
cyclone season
cyclone season
hey....!!!
---
too rich that now we are not to believe McClellan, when, as pointed out by LIL, the talking points being regurgitated by the war mongers come from McClellan and FLeischers original comments made as officials of the WH propaganda office.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 3:42pm
Maybe, just maybe, "everyone KNEW Saddam had wmd's" because there was a non-stop catapulting of propaganda from the WH?
What we do KNOW, is that there were no wmd's in Iraq. If you thought there were, you were not paying attention, be you Hillary Clinton or SJchermak.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 3:46pm
Who was it that said Plame had not gone overseas in five years?
propaganda.
the CIA disagrees with you. Read the court documents. You can find it on a LINK somewhere. say, the internet(s). What you would find would be similar to this:
[The unclassified summary of Plame's employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, "Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."
Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, "engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business." The report says, "she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times." When overseas Plame traveled undercover, "sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA."
]
Good thing McLellans wife isn't hunting AQ somewhere. She would be fair game.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 3:49pm
the real deal, from the CIA, via the republican appointed prosecuter:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/070529_Unclassified_Plam e_employement.pdf
read it and weep, propaganda eaters.
weep at what you have allowed your gubment to do to it's employees, it's former republican appointees and donors.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/29/2008 @ 3:52pm
sjchermak: "Is there no requirement for anybody to defend their opinion with logic anymore?"
Like a mathematical proof, logic requires a set of givens (facts) upon which to work. You are being asked to provide those givens. It is the basic facts upon which you build your logic that is in dispute.
sjchermak: "What did people do before the Internet?"
They cited published, credible works - a hard copy link, if you will.
sjchermak: "You want links that the Bush administration did not claim a link between Saddam and al-Qaida."
Yes. That is one of the givens upon which you are arguing, which is easily disproven:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday the evidence is "overwhelming" that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/18/cheney.iraq.al.qaeda/
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 4:00pm
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
sjchermak, you've made claims about what 'libs' thnink, you'e made claims about why we invaded Iraq, you've made claims to have heard all kinds of things. Yet you can't back any of it.
Here's another of your claims...
** Is there no requirement for anybody to defend their opinion with logic anymore? I have tried to do that a lot. **
This is a great question...for you to ask yourself. If you think you've done anything even remotely like that, you are engaged in pure fantasy.
You've posted NOTHING but your opinions. No problem with that, but to be considered 'logic' in any fashion, your 'opinions' need to be based on facts...facts presented as 'links', as quotes, as news sources, as research papers, etc. Or, at least your 'opinions' need to be based on a rational thought process that is demonstrably based in reality.
If not, your opinions simply amount to wild generalizations, the 'logical' equivalent to simian feces. Nothing more.
And frankly, I ignored Libz long ago because, while I find it interesting and worthwhile to engage in dialog with people like Thrawn, with whom I normally rarely agree, but who at least has the intellectual capacity and moral honesty to present a reasoned and thoughtful analysis...
...I don't feel compelled at all to respond to simian feces.
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 4:14pm
One former Bush aide, however, is sticking up for McClellan, arguing that the former Bush press secretary is "getting savaged for saying what everyone knows to be true."
Mike Turk served as the eCampaign director for President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. As such, his tenure corresponded with that of McClellan's. No longer connected to the administration, Turk is now one of the few (if any) voices with connections to that crowd who are saying, quite simply, that the book "What Happened" is steeped in little more than truth.
"After watching McClellan on Today this morning, I think the reception his book received exemplifies the point he was making," Turk told The Huffington Post in an email. "People had high hopes for President Bush to bring America together after his election and after the attacks on 9/11. They felt disillusioned by the Administration's adoption of the 'win at all costs' partisan mentality in this town. I think the bigger point of Scott's book comes from the lessons he learned while playing a part in the permanent campaign. It's an exploration of how that mindset can lead to some really bad choices."
Indeed, Turk notes, he himself has been on the receiving end of Bush-loyalist scorn. After the campaign and his tenure at the Republican National Committee, Turk criticized the party for not fully embracing technological advances. "As a result I'm already on the watch list for the GOP establishment for some of my own criticisms," he said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/29/former-bush-aide-mclellan_n_104 102.html
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 4:56pm
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008
SJ do you really think that a government that has made a business out of lying is going to leave the proof of their lies sitting around? We only recently started to find that through declassified documentation that the theory that the government knew about Pearl Harbor has more credit to it than most people gave it. So why is it that you "proof" which is the voice of the propaganda machine is better than our "proof" from the people who defected from the propaganda machine. You are saying that Scott McClellans word is worthless and not prood however you were willing to believe what he said when he worked for Bush. You are being hypocritical. You are saying that just because the government tells us so it IS so then you are saying that when we say that someone who worked in that government is saying it wasn't so, that that person is a liar.
You won't know for 40 years or however long the classification lasts whether we went in for fully legitimate reasons or not. But your "proof" is no better than ours. How often has the government chimed in about the massive threat that a country is and been wrong? Only sheep (and that is not an attack on you) believe everything the government tells them whether they are Democrat or Republican. They both work for the same people, that is why I don't like either of them. They are all a bunch of liars. I am more inclined to believe the defector who left on good terms than the administration who has something to lose. You say we don't know his motivation but Bush himself said he left on good terms. If he had left on bad terms don't you think Bush would have said that in order to discredit everything he writes? I would have. Oh well we will never know because the proof will never be released and all that stuff you say the New York Times isn't posting HAS been posted. It's just none of it was ever good enough for you and it never will be. I'm sure they could come out with something categorical and you will still find a way to justify your way of thinking to yourself. That's why people are so easily swayed by the media. They have a way of convincing you it's your own logic and not just answers based on what they fed you.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/29/2008 @ 5:01pm
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly,...you've been taking lessons from the former JR, haven't you? I can tell, your elite thought processes are looking more refined.
Posted by ACook at 05/29/2008 @ 5:36pm
Posted by ACook
JR sends his greetings. he says it's flattering to be remenbered
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 5:53pm
Just suppose: How much credence would you put in the "tell all" book of a mid-level employee who had been fired by Obama?
Posted by Dimslie at 05/29/2008 @ 6:07pm
A lot of this thread really seems to boil down to two broad areas: the Bush Administration as a whole, and the War in Iraq specifically (though, granted, they are obviously very intertwined).
The criticisms of the Bush Administration seem very much like a mixed bag. Were there some serious problems regarding Valerie Plame (who WAS, indeed, an undercover CIA operative)? Absolutely, and frankly, I think that kind of problem should be taken extremely seriously. I'm still not, however, convinced by the claim of lies. Though there is overwhelming evidence that the invasion itself was planned with little to no actual intelligence (meaning brainpower, not information, though that certainly mattered too), it's not clear that this reflected deliberate malice from all members of the Administration. The evidence for direct deception from Bush himself, for instance, is extraordinarily sketchy at best. Though I frankly will be glad to see him leave, I don't believe he deserves the level of condemnation frequently directed at him, even if the same could not be said for EVERYONE in his administration.
That said...the war itself. As is often the case, I have to respectfully disagree with Lillian's criticisms, though I certainly agree that the war AS UNDERTAKEN was not justified. I think there were two critical concerns in play:
1) The stability of the region. I was very surprised to see one of the more liberal posters in the thread suggest that Saddam would "only" have been a threat to other countries, rather than to us directly. That's a huge problem, though! I'm not just talking about vast economic repercussions, here, but also about disruption to a region that already is not among the world's most stable. I don't understand why that shouldn't be taken seriously, though I am equally concerned by the instability we have helped to create and foment. I am not convinced, however, that it will go away simply because of us pulling out, particularly because much of the violence is BETWEEN Sunni and Shia.
2) WMD. I know, Lillian, I can almost see you groan. What I want to hit on here, though, is a little different from the stock arguments often made, and instead to raise a dilemma that I've never seen adequately answered. Anyone who has a reasoned perspective on the war has to either oppose the sanctions on Iraq or support them. I think, personally, that either side undercuts the antiwar position.
Suppose that you oppose them. Then you have a serious problem. Absent these kinds of sanctions (plus the no-fly zones whose purpose was to help prevent genocide), Saddam has little reason not to continue the WMD programs that we know he initially utilized. Perhaps the best evidence for this, ironically, is how sanctions have so often been touted even by posters on this site as the reason why Saddam was supposedly not a threat.
But what if you support them? Then, you have a problem of moral consistency. As has been so aptly pointed out, their humanitarian cost was incredible, arguably HIGHER than the cost of an effectively-managed invasion would have been. Moreover, are such sanctions to be continued in perpetuity? If not, you still have serious problems.
There's a reason that by the mid-1990s, substantial portions of the intelligence community concluded that Saddam could not remain in power (information obtained, interestingly enough, from Bob Woodward's book, I think it was the first one). Iraq under Saddam was becoming less stable and continually dangerous, something the international community would have to address. Tragically, I fail to see how much of the antiwar thought addresses this.
Posted by Thrawn at 05/29/2008 @ 6:20pm
Propaganda = Spin: That is precisely what Rumsfeld's formation of the "Office of Special Plans" headed by Heath and Bolton were accused of during the run-up. The intent was to mislead Congress and the American people to invade and occupy Iraq, a sovereign nation and without emergency war powers - under which propaganda is authorized. This is key – Congress did not declare war, place this nation in a state of war, and then assign temporary emergency war powers to the Executive Branch to prosecute the war. War Powers allows the President to suspend civil liberties such as exerting press censorship and the use of propaganda however, "Use of force Resolutions" do not authorize the Executive Branch to silence the press, mislead/misdirect or otherwise propagandize the information, nor stifle dissent by the Leadership or Public . . . also known as the "Noble Lie", a premise employed by leaders since Plato formulated it. In addition to the almost immediate loss in the "Nation Will" by the Home front to bear any burden, pay any price no matter how long it takes, under our system the President and his advisors can be prosecuted for lying to Congress and the American people, since he was not assigned war powers (Inter Arma Silent Leges _ Latin for, "In Time Of War The Laws Are Silent"). So, the White House has no option but to flatly deny McClellan's assertions that they "sexed up", "spun", "cherry-picked" or otherwise misled with propaganda Congress and the American people on this most critical and singular issue regarding how this country may go to war.
Posted by Holman at 05/29/2008 @ 6:29pm
Posted by Thrawn
Saddam was no threat to anyone. no airforce, one of the worst armies. what could he have done? attack Iran or Kuwait? been there done that. attack Israel? it's just preposterous.
he did not have the WMD, the supposed casus belli. the inspectors knew this quite well. also how was he going to use them? no air force remember.
to get to the sense of that look at the allies in the first and second gulf war. the first was a true alliance, even arab countries supported us. the second war had aside from Britain only those we could pay and strong arm to join us. does not that tell you something.
as for stability in the region, is the region more or less stable now? obviously less stable, with Turkey attacking Iraq, Lebanon in crisis, the west bank situation more tenuous. none of these things of course had anything to do with Saddam and Iraq.
the civil war between Iraq's factions was under control of Saddam.
"As has been so aptly pointed out, their humanitarian cost was incredible, arguably HIGHER than the cost of an effectively-managed invasion would have been."
this is unworthy of you, it's a woulda kind of thing. the cost of the war, has been far higher than the sanctions for Iraqis AND for the US.
"Iraq under Saddam was becoming less stable"
less stable than now? that's as you surely realize, is preposterous.
no matter how you slice and dice it, the war and the occupation have made things in Iraq and the region far worse.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 6:47pm
I can tell, your elite thought processes are looking more refined.
Posted by ACook at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
"Elite thought processes"?
Most of the folks with whom I speak, just call it 'thinking'.
There are several who frequent TN that would do well to try it...before posting!
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 7:47pm
the ‘liberal media' didn't live up to its reputation
Because, Scott, this 'reputation' is itself a media phenomenom-
A Trojan horse invented and perpetuated by propagandists-
Most of whom still believe most of their own lies, such as this one-
the ‘liberal media' didn't live up to its reputation
Posted by winyahn at 05/29/2008 @ 7:52pm
Posted by Holman
not bad, but incomplete.
Inter arma enim silent leges is a Latin phrase meaning "For among [times of] arms, the laws fall mute," although it is more popularly rendered as "In times of war, the law falls silent." This maxim was likely first written in these words by Cicero in his published oration Pro Milone, although Cicero's actual wording was "Silent enim leges inter arma." Wiki
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 8:04pm
Happy:***To twist the facts when evidence is hard or time-consuming to find is once thing, to blatantly lie in near real-time, is a major character flaw! ***
I merely disagreed with your statement that "going into Iraq over oil can certainly be debated as a rational reason". I don't agree; I believe it to be tantamount to stealing.
You may not agree with my opinion, but that does not make me a liar.
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 8:08pm
Posted by Thrawn at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
** The criticisms of the Bush Administration seem very much like a mixed bag. **
Well...this is Scotty McClellan...remember. I believe he is the one doing the talking. To qualify as a "mixed bag" it would seem one would have to buy into the whole characterization of him now as somehow "disgruntled". I personally don't think that passes the smell test.
** Though there is overwhelming evidence that the invasion itself was planned with little to no actual intelligence (meaning brainpower, not information, though that certainly mattered too), it's not clear that this reflected deliberate malice from all members of the Administration. **
Interesting choice of words Thrawn..."it's not clear that this reflected deliberate malice from **all** members of the Administration". It sort of implies that you agree with many (here and elsewhere) that at least some in the Administration DID bear "deliberate malice". I do believe this to be the case. There were certainly some who were looking for 'an excuse' to invade...and for whatever reason, they set the direction that the entire Administration ended up following (and I believe some followed only reluctantly.)
** The evidence for direct deception from Bush himself, for instance, is extraordinarily sketchy at best. **
This is plausable...but I think he was quite willing to allow others to set this direction for him. I don't think he's a complete bozo...just that he allowed himself to be 'convinced' because he became enamoured of whole idea of being a 'war' president...and completing what daddy left undone.
** That said...the war itself. As is often the case, I have to respectfully disagree with Lillian's criticisms, though I certainly agree that the war AS UNDERTAKEN was not justified. **
And there's the rub. I have heard this often...that the war was the 'right' thing to do, even if the reasons advanced for it were not justified. But you know, try as I might, I cannot construe this as anything but a 'lie'. If there were 'good' reasons why we needed to invade, then those reasons should have been advanced, debated, and, if they were truely 'right', they would have stood on their own. The fact is, the war was 'sold' based on falsehoods and deceptions. No other explainations hold water.
** Anyone who has a reasoned perspective on the war has to either oppose the sanctions on Iraq or support them. **
Sorry Thrawn, but I have to call this what it is...'red herring'. Are you truely attempting to advance the notion that war exacted 'less' from Iraq than sanctions? We were talking about the justification for going to war. Sanctions? What does my agreement/diagreement with those have to do with the question of whether invading Iraq was 'right' or 'wrong'?
** Iraq under Saddam was becoming less stable and continually dangerous, something the international community would have to address. Tragically, I fail to see how much of the antiwar thought addresses this. **
The MUCH bigger tragedy is that we never got a chance to "address" this in any other way. We invaded Iraq under false a premise...and now we'lll never know what 'could have been'.
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 8:13pm
Thrawn: ***I was very surprised to see one of the more liberal posters in the thread suggest that Saddam would "only" have been a threat to other countries, rather than to us directly.***
For the record, this "liberal" poster, the one who suggested the above, was originally a registered Repubican. I am anti-illegal immigrant, english-only, and pro-gun. I fish, I hunt, and in fact I am rated an "expert" shooter by the NRA. I fly the flag 24/7 and illuminate it at night. I take off my hat at ballgames and get pissed at those who don't. Sometimes I say something, sometimes I don't...depends on how big and how belligerent they appear to be.
Saving Private Ryan is my all time favorite movie, partly for the horrifying combat scenes that debunk the glory-myth of war but, mostly for the message: "Earn this". I always tear up at the end, with Ryan standing before Miller's grave in the middle of the Normandy cemetary, asking his wife "Am I a good man?". Asking if he has made good on other's sacrifices...wondering if he lived his life so as to honor what others gave for him. A powerful, powerful message...I watch this movie every Memorial Day, as a tribute and as a reminder.
No one on this board could possibly have known any of this about me and given the subjects upon which I post and the opinions I have expressed, I can understand why some would think I'm a flaming liberal.
The problem with labels, though, and especially the two labels that get applied to all political debate in this country, is hardly anyone can be stuffed into one of those two pigeon holes.
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 8:33pm
<i>Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 </i>
So, based on your comment, I think we're on somewhat close to the same page regarding the Administration. I do think that ideology played a significant role in the decision to go to war, along with the ridiculous notion that the military should operate akin to a business.
On the war's defense, I think a couple of things are important. Though I think you overstate the degree of destruction in Iraq, it seems pretty safe to say that the country is in pretty bad shape right now. However, evidence seems to suggest that a lot of the chaos we see can be attributed to the way in which we invaded, not to the mere fact that we invaded. Did we send the troops we should have? No. Did we respond to the Baath party well? Not at all. These failures should be roundly criticized, and reflect both on the officials responsible for overseeing them and on Bush's unwillingness to play a truly active and critical role in what was going on.
That said, however, I think that some invasion of Iraq absolutely had to happen, and I thought it was surprising that you never really dealt with that whole line of analysis. What I argued was that Saddam's government could not be left in power, as many dating back to the 90's recognized.
So here's where the sanctions analysis is relevant. The evidence seems pretty unambiguous that Saddam, left alone, would present a serious threat to the region (and I'll get to that in more depth when I respond to Emile). So how was the international community supposed to respond? If you oppose sanctions AND any form of invasion, you make it functionally impossible to contain Saddam. Even if you favor sanctions, an invasion is STILL necessary because sanctions can't be maintained in perpetuity without becoming ineffective at best and a humanitarian nightmare at worst.
<i>Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 </i>
I thought it was interesting here how you say "Iran? Kuwait? Been there, done that." Exactly! Historical precedent unambiguously established Saddam's willingness to threaten and destabilize his neighbors. Though you insist that he would never attack Israel...he did. In the 80s, they didn't just bomb the Osirak reactor out of a random fear of attack; Saddam had been actively hostile to them and had funded those who perpetrated terrorism against them.
Here's another interesting thing. Repressive though Saddam was (which in itself is a justification for going in, if genocide or attempted genocide justifies intervention), the civil war was not fully under his control at all. Many institutions in Iraq were continuing to fracture, and it's not clear that the country would have been remotely stable in perpetuity.
Ultimately, ugly and unfortunate though it is, it seems that war with Iraq was necessary and inevitable, though it should have been executed with a serious and careful understanding of the challenges that would emerge.
Posted by Thrawn at 05/29/2008 @ 8:43pm
Hello Lillian, crabwalk, et. al.:
Looking for links? Here's one!
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_052908/content/01125111.gues t.html
And the first paragraph at that link:
RUSH: The guy that published Scott McClellan's book is a guy named Peter Osnos. He is a huge, far-left liberal. His publishing house is affiliated with The Nation magazine. His company has also published The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. This man's name is Peter Osnos, and so far six books have been bankrolled by George Soros. So there is a George Soros connection to the Scott McClellan book.
Now, I know (from having been educated today at The Nation), that this is propaganda and lies! Or will be declared so by you, anyway!
It comes from the #1 location on the internet that would be declared invalid by you.
Since everything I say is not only dismissed by you, but also because from your mountaintop and lofty perch of enlightenment I am lectured to and told what a moron you believe me to be (except for Cccomfo1 who does not do that), there isn't much point to attempting any rational discussion. I might as well have some fun, and this link, while it will immediately be pooh-poohed by you libs (even though it most likely is true), will also stir up some funny and interesting stuff as you work yourselves up in a froth in response.
Enjoy!
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 @ 9:01pm
sjchermak: ***The guy that published Scott McClellan's book is a guy named Peter Osnos. He is a huge, far-left liberal.***
Ah, the attack the messenger instead of the message through guilt-by-association gambit. I know nothing about Osnos - he may well be an overweight, far-left liberal as Rush says.
But at one time in the quite recent past, McClellan was right-of-center enough to be George Bush's Press Secretary. Rush (and you) appears to be suggesting that McClellan is as left-wing as Osnos - and as overweight as well - and therefore is not to be believed.
If McClellan did, indeed, turn to the dark side, the question is raised as to why. Did serving in the Bush administration turn him against all that is good and right and decent? Did McClellan turn Democrat? Perhaps...
Or perhaps the answer is that McClellan is still a Republican, but no conservative publishing house would touch his book (for fear of losing Government printing contracts?). That, to me, seems the more obvious and likely explanation.
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 9:47pm
and in fact I am rated an "expert" shooter by the NRA
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008
Pray tell, in what discipline are you considered an 'expert shooter'?
Posted by Benchrest at 05/29/2008 @ 9:56pm
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly,...you've been taking lessons from the former JR, haven't you? I can tell, your elite thought processes are looking more refined.
Posted by ACook
dear lillian is very, very sharp.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 9:56pm
That said, however, I think that some invasion of Iraq absolutely had to happen, and I thought it was surprising that you never really dealt with that whole line of analysis. What I argued was that Saddam's government could not be left in power, as many dating back to the 90's recognized.
thrawn.
after all,
it had been inflated by some very nefarious individuals....
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 10:01pm
Benchrest:***Pray tell, in what discipline are you considered an 'expert shooter'?***
Trap.
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008 @ 10:05pm
Posted by Balrog at 05/29/2008
Excellent!
Posted by Benchrest at 05/29/2008 @ 10:08pm
Pray tell, in what discipline are you considered an 'expert shooter'?
let's keep this blog civil!
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 10:18pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008
You're the one who is in trouble buddy! I have been searching far and wide for some Unibroue delicacies and I might as well be asking for a unicorn. So now I have to special order it, and I have to try several so I don't miss the best one, and now I am out much coin because you piqued my curiosity that you may have better taste in beer than me, and that just won't do, and......what if it really is better than Sam Adams, and I can't live without it, and......T.R.O.U.B.L.E.!
Posted by Benchrest at 05/29/2008 @ 10:21pm
Posted by Thrawn at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
** That said, however, I think that some invasion of Iraq absolutely had to happen, and I thought it was surprising that you never really dealt with that whole line of analysis. **
Why? The Us invaded on the basis of a laundry list of falsehoods and deceptions. Like I said, whatever the 'real' reasons are that you think constituted 'valid' reasons for the invasion...those 'real' reasons NEVER got discussed, debated, weighed, and measured. Now, they become an excercise in 'rationalization' after the fact. Don't they?
** The evidence seems pretty unambiguous that Saddam, left alone, would present a serious threat to the region. **
Hmmm...this is another falacious arguement Thrawn. By what stretch of the imagination was Saddam "left alone"? Set the subject of 'sanctions' aside for a moment. What else was going on with the international community? Iraq was divided into thirds, with Saddam bottled up in the middle section. Weapons inspectors travelled throughout Iraq. Hans Blix details extensively how he systematically destroyed Saddams weapons. Sanctions or no, from the end of the first Gulf war, Saddam was NEVER "left alone"...not ever.
** So how was the international community supposed to respond? If you oppose sanctions AND any form of invasion... **
Wait, you've reduced this question to a false dichotomy. I opposed sanctions AND invasion. What am I left with? No fly zones! Weapons inspectors! Elimination of WMDs and the capacity to produce them...elimination of the very things that you claim would make Saddam "a serious threat to the region." You see, a thrid choice beyond your 'either / or'.
** Repressive though Saddam was (which in itself is a justification for going in, if genocide or attempted genocide justifies intervention), the civil war was not fully under his control at all. **
Hmmm....the "civil war". What civil war Thrawn? You can't really claim there was a civil war...AND that Saddam brutally supressed or eliminated those who opposed him, now can you? I think it is rather obvious that Saddam was brutal...and his brutality suppressed anything even remotely akin to 'civil war'.
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 10:27pm
most of the time, i actually drink belgian beer.
perfect summer qwafage:
mort subite framboise lambic
belle-vue cherry kriek
chapeau banana lambic
any lambic.
mmmmm. summer.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008 @ 10:28pm
Thrawn, I thought it was interesting here how you say "Iran? Kuwait? Been there, done that." Exactly! Historical precedent unambiguously established Saddam's willingness to threaten and destabilize his neighbors. Though you insist that he would never attack Israel...he did. In the 80s, they didn't just bomb the Osirak reactor out of a random fear of attack; Saddam had been actively hostile to them and had funded those who perpetrated terrorism against them.
you cannot use conditions of the past to justify actions in the present. Saddam invaded Kuwait, after being told by the US that they considered his border dispute an internal matter. he invaded a country far smaller with no army to speak of. this ability had been taken away from him. whom was he going to threaten? not Israel. during gulf one he threw a handful of missiles at Israel, which did not feel threatened enough to retaliate. again whom was he going to threaten? Saudi? with a hundred thousand American troops there? ludicrous.
his support for terrorists consisted of sending checks to families who had their homes destroyed in collective punishment. other countries including Saudi and Pakistan have supported terrorist far more.
"Repressive though Saddam was (which in itself is a justification for going in, if genocide or attempted genocide justifies intervention)"
whose doctrine is this? this has never been in force. there have been many repressive regimes, many supported by the US for decades. you're just making this up. shamefully. name one instance where this was a doctrine in force.
"it seems that war with Iraq was necessary and inevitable,"
to whom?
if this was in any way operative why did not Bush go before the country and use that for a justification? he did not, because the world and this country would have laughed at him.
you're really all over the map on this. first he was a threat, then he was genocidal. the fact is that absent the 9/11 attack no one would have invaded Iraq and no American president would have dared to go before congress and the Un to suggest it.
he was not a threat to the US. what could he have done? NOTHING. did he threaten any US allies? no. he did not.
you take as inevitable something that was by no means so. that flaw is the basis of your argument. since it is flawed your entire argument falls apart.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 10:29pm
So, based on your comment, I think we're on somewhat close to the same page regarding the Administration.
Posted by Thrawn at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
I agree with you Thrawn. (Again... :-) )
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 10:29pm
Bush 1 was able to muster the great coalition BECAUSE he assured them that he would kick Saddam out of Kuwait, and no more.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 10:31pm
What a joke this article is, and the liberal bloggers that go for the spin.
McClellan got fired; he wrote a payback book (payday for him) and published it in a Soros "moveon.org" related publishing house. And, of course, you elite liberals jump on it as truthful. Beats dealing with the real truth afterall.
Facts, Folks: This country went into Iraq because Intelligence said they had WMD's. Intelligence was wrong. Real men, and women, don't quit and go home bawling about how unfair life is, and look for someone to blame - they do what can be done to make the best of it. In other words, "we broke it, now we have to fix it".
Grow up, liberals. The problem is in poor Intelligence - and it's been poor ever since Jimmy Carter & Adm. Stansfield Turner had their hands on it. The CIA is now a liberal enclave and we are all paying a price for that.
Posted by BillSanford at 05/29/2008 @ 10:31pm
most of the time, i actually drink belgian beer.
perfect summer qwafage:
mort subite framboise lambic
belle-vue cherry kriek
chapeau banana lambic
any lambic.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/29/2008
You're killing me.
Posted by Benchrest at 05/29/2008 @ 10:37pm
Posted by BillSanford
if only it were as simple as simpletons like you make it.
real men? come on Mary, i've seen you cruising the gay bars.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 10:37pm
Posted by BillSanford at 05/29/2008
If he was "fired"...why did Bush compliment him PERSONALLY when he left, and say...
"I thought he handled his assignment with class, integrity," the president said. "It's going to be hard to replace Scott, but nevertheless he made the decision and I accepted it. One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days."
(BTW, that's from FOX NEWS...before you try the ol' "Liberal Media" canard)
Posted by Mask at 05/29/2008 @ 10:39pm
BTW, didn't you just KNOW that it was "Jimmy Carter's fault"...
"it's been poor ever since Jimmy Carter & Adm. Stansfield Turner had their hands on it. The CIA is now a liberal enclave and we are all paying a price for that."-----Posted by BillSanford at 05/29/2008
And not Reagan or Bush-41 or Duyba?
Seems he could atleast have blamed Clinton!
LOL
Posted by Mask at 05/29/2008 @ 10:50pm
Hello Lillian, crabwalk, et. al.:
Looking for links? Here's one!
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_052908/content/01125111.gues t.html
And the first paragraph at that link:
RUSH: The guy that published Scott McClellan's book is a guy named Peter Osnos. He is a huge, far-left liberal.
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
.
So that's your source for 'facts'?...Rush Limbaugh?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
This is a looney on the far, far right wing extreme...calling Peter Osnos a 'far-left liberal'. Please sjchermak, don't be a mindless dittohead. Research for yourself.
http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/staff.html
Peter Osnos also published books by Andy Rooney and Paul Volker. You remember Paul Voilker don't you? the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board under that famous far-left liberal...Ronald Reagan!
You see sjchermak, you've inadvertently exposed the stupidity of relying on Rush Limbaugh for actual 'information'.
It does explain alot about you though....and it's good for a laugh...at your expense.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Really....keep them coming. We love seeing your true nature exposed!
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 10:58pm
Agree, well said. I would describe all your addressing as a everyday evil, an assortment box of nod/wink, delegate, extremely smartly designed cover where needed, manipulate/bend law where needed. A hodgepodge, with Bush necessarily being handled so as to never technically cross any super indefensible line. With Cheney being better hidden far more aggressive, far more consciously masterminding. Keeping Bush in more defensible zones as a central strategy from the start. I am sure there's lots of filth on lower ranks, actual laws broken, some low level smoking guns, lots of graft, nasty use of mercenaries once they were in country, for ex., as the Bremmer puppet plan faltered... But it's like Rove and Plame. It's like Sandra Day and 2000. The damage is done and if there's ever any justice it'll be great, and it'll be anti-climatic.
Posted by winyahn at 05/29/2008 @ 10:59pm
McClellan got fired
Posted by BillSanford at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
.
The wingnuts have gone so appolplectic...they are delusional.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/19/washington/19cnd-resign.html
"Mr. Bush, during his remarks, at one point put a hand on Mr. McClellan's shoulder. "One of these day he and I are going to be rocking on chairs in Texas, talking about the good old days and his time as press secretary," the president said. "And I can assure you I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, job well done."
.
Text: President Bush and Scott McClellan By The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
MCCLELLAN: Good morning, everybody. I'm here to announce that I will be resigning as White House press secretary.
Mr. President, it has been an extraordinary honor and privilege to have served you for more than seven years now, the last two years and nine months as your press secretary.
The White House is going through a period of transition. Change can be helpful. And this is a good time and good position to help bring about change.
I'm ready to move on. I've been in this position a long time. And my wife and I are excited about beginning the next chapter in our life together.
You have accomplished a lot over the last several years with this team. And I have been honored and grateful to be a small part of a terrific and talented team of really good people.
Our relationship began back in Texas, and I look forward to continuing it, particularly when we are both back in Texas.
BUSH: That's right.
MCCLELLAN: Although I hope to get there before you.
I have given it my all, sir, and I have given you my all. And I will continue to do so as we transition to a new press secretary over the next two to three weeks.
Thank you for the opportunity.
BUSH: I, first of all, I thank Scott for his service to our country. I don't know whether or not the press corps realizes this, but his is a challenging assignment dealing with you all on a regular basis. And I thought he handled his assignment with class, integrity. He really represents, you know, the best of his family, our state and our country.
It's going to be hard to replace Scott. But nevertheless, he's made the decision, and I accept it.
One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas talking about the good old days of his time as the press secretary. And I can assure you, I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, job well done.
MCCLELLAN: Thank you, sir.
BUSH: You bet. Appreciate you.
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 11:07pm
McClellan's book is nothing new, of course. look for some real news books coming down the pike, you ain't seen nothing yet. the rats are leaving the sinking ship.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008 @ 11:11pm
Question:
Who published this book? By another disgruntled former Bush Administration official?
.
Lt. Gen. (ret.) Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded coalition forces in Iraq in 2003-04, made headlines last fall when he described the Iraq War as having been "catastrophically flawed" from the start and called it "a nightmare with no end in sight."
Now Sanchez is further slamming the Bush administration for gross incompetence in his new memoir, Wiser in Battle.
.
Answer:
Harper Collins
(another far-left liberal organization!!!)
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 11:14pm
"In a new memoir set to be published May 6, the former commander of US forces in Iraq provides new intimate details of the goings-on at high levels of the Bush Administration in the first year of the Iraq war.
His sharp tongued conclusion: "Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to **gross incompetence** and **ereliction of duty**." "
Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 @ 11:19pm
<i>Posted by Lillian at 05/29/2008 </i>
I want to answer two separate and important lines of analysis. Disagree though it seems we do, I frankly enjoy our dialogue.
First, on the nature of justification. I recognize that a number of the arguments I'm making aren't justifications that the Administration put forth. That said, however, I don't understand why that's a problem for my position. I'm saying that either President Bush or Clinton would have been justified in invading Iraq. Therefore, I don't think the nature of my argument is in and of itself problematic.
Second, the question of sanctions. If we're agreed that sanctions were a poor effort at solution, the question becomes simple: are the kinds of measures you talk about sufficient? I think they fail for some of the same kinds of reasons that sanctions do.
1) I don't think you can really sustain them in perpetuity, which is a problem since the "Saddam issue" was not just going to go away.
2) I don't think you can count on Iraq to remain stable. That's actually part of why infrastructure was so bad after the invasion: Saddam's rule sent a lot of it down the crapper. He was ruthless, to be sure, but it wasn't at ALL clear that he could maintain ongoing stable rule. Unless you think that would spontaneously generate a democracy, without any form of outside aid whatsoever, the prospect of a civil war (and I misspoke, it was potential rather than actual) would be a serious concern that would only grow over time.
<i>Posted by emile duBois at 05/29/2008</i>
Since I think the analysis above deals with the "threats to neighbors" argument, the one I want to deal with is the genocide argument. Was Saddam attempting to carry out acts of genocide (with at least some success)? Yes, this is categorically acknowledged. The only question is whether this justifies action, and I think it does for at least three reasons.
1) The Genocide Convention, to which we are a party, obligates countries to take action against genocidal actors.
2) Much as I hate to have to actually say this...genocide is really awful. If Germany hadn't been a threat to us, we would still have been justified in going after them if we could have stopped the Holocaust. I also think we should have gone into Darfur by now, even if a lot of people contend otherwise. Granted, if that and Iraq were mutually exclusive options, Iraq becomes harder to justify (though I still think Iraq can be justified).
3) Attampted acts of genocide present a serious problem in the Middle East, where the different group identities involved transcend particular national boundaries. That's part of why the civil war in Iraq is such a serious problem; the clashing identities of Kurd/Shia/Sunni implicate neighboring countries rather than just being confined to Iraq.
Posted by Thrawn at 05/29/2008 @ 11:50pm
"too-deferential" press....
"too-deferential" press secretary
All are hand-picked follower types
McClellan, your eyes are half open. Good start.
Posted by winyahn at 05/30/2008 @ 12:30am
Posted by Thrawn at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
1) I don't think you can really sustain them in perpetuity, which is a problem since the "Saddam issue" was not just going to go away.
2) I don't think you can count on Iraq to remain stable. That's actually part of why infrastructure was so bad after the invasion: Saddam's rule sent a lot of it down the crapper. He was ruthless, to be sure, but it wasn't at ALL clear that he could maintain ongoing stable rule.
.
1) in your view, why would these actions need to be maintained "in perpetuity"? They were working. WMDs were destroyed. Saddam kept his 'people' in tact, but his stockpiles and his production capacity was destroyed. Any attempt to reconstitute a weapons program of any merit would have been easily detected and, given his near complete isolation, would have been just as easily squashed.
2) This is kind of a strange statement, given the actual history of Saddams rule. He began his rise to power in the mid to late 1960s. He became de-facto ruler in 1976. Actual President in 1979. That's OVER 25 years. He virtually eliminated Sharia law, his power base rested firmly on middle-class support, his people held virtually every government position of any merit, and the central core of the country's infrastructure was still intact, even after the first Gulf War.
UN forces had already split the country into thirds along the natural tribal lines, with Kurds in the northern third and Shia in the southern third. Both areas of 'instability' were effectively excised from 'Saddam's' Iraq. And, he was effectively isolated with ancient tribal enemies at his north and south.
A more effective solution would have been to stand up to Turkey and proceed with the establishment of a Kurdish republic in the north, keep Saddam bottled up in central Iraq (where his natural power base all but guaranteed order), and use our UN allies to maintain order in the Shia south.
In my opinion, such a strategy would have had a heck of a lot better chance at success than what we're seeing now.
Posted by Lillian at 05/30/2008 @ 02:42am
Since I think the analysis above deals with the "threats to neighbors" argument, the one I want to deal with is the genocide argument.
Posted by Thrawn at 05/29/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
.
In my view, this is the ONLY alternative rationale for invasion of Iraq that has any merit. However, it is RIFE with problems.
First, it is NOT AT ALL clear the extent of the alleged 'genocide'. All of the so-called 'proof' I've seen, is based on intelligence estimates derived from anecdotal evidence. Remember the hew and cry from the right when the Lancet study estimated Iraqi war deaths at 600,000 or more...based on exactly the same kind of extrapolations? Yet we're apparently all supposed to accept this 'genocide' charge on precisely the same quality of 'proof'.
Second, according to everything I've seen from sources like Iraq Body Count and the WHO, who verify every reported death at least 2 ways before they apply to the total, the current war-related death count is now running around 100,000 to 150,000...comparable to the reported death toll under Saddam. Doesn't it seem odd to you that we're killing roughly the same number of Iraqis...ostensibly to save them?
Third, the most notoreous instances of Saddams use of WMDs (poison gas) occurred in the Iran-Iraq war in 1988 and against the Kurds in 1986-89. Horrendous to be sure...but by the 2003 invasion?...just an ugly memory. If there are more recent instances, or instances that were more imminent, I haven't heard of them. I find it pretty hard to justify an invasion based on 15 year old actions. Don't you?
Finally, why Iraq and not other locales with MUCH worse, much more clear-cut and irrefutably evident, and much, much more recent...ongoing actually. Why Iraq and NOT Darfur? See, once you start down this road, there is a LOT of explaining to do.
Of course, the Bush Administration had EVERY opportunity to make this case...but they didn't, did they?
Posted by Lillian at 05/30/2008 @ 03:11am
Posted by Lillian at 05/30/2008
"First, it is NOT AT ALL clear the extent of the alleged 'genocide'. All of the so-called 'proof' I've seen, is based on intelligence estimates derived from anecdotal evidence."
So, you don't consider Saddam's mass graves to be evidence'?
"Of course, the Bush Administration had EVERY opportunity to make this case...but they didn't, did they?"
I would say they made it quite well by Nov 2004 when Bush won re-election and this was debated as a major campaign issue. Also, of course, every major Democratic politician was onboard at the time, in favor of invasion. I guess what you mean is that the case was never made to the 15 percent of the kool-aid drinking left, which probably can't be convinced of much beyond knee-jerk reaction anyway. If that's the case, I agree.
Posted by pontificus at 05/30/2008 @ 07:42am
Posted by Lillian at 05/30/2008
"Doesn't it seem odd to you that we're killing roughly the same number of Iraqis...ostensibly to save them?"
So, Lillian, in your world, every civilian that a terrorist kills is our fault, and, in fact, it's exactly the same as if we're doing it ourselves? You see no moral difference? You have an extremely twisted view of the world, all seemingly based on blaming the US for everything bad that happens in the world. I'm curious; what did this country do to you that makes you hate it so much?
Posted by pontificus at 05/30/2008 @ 07:47am
I'm wondering, Lillian. If every civilian in Iraq that a terrorist kills is our fault, what about Afghanistan? Are we responsible for all of those deaths too? If not, why not?
Posted by pontificus at 05/30/2008 @ 07:48am
hey HAPPY, I'm I'm 'happy' to say that AMSC is up 20 percent since I mentioned them to you last week.
Posted by pontificus at 05/30/2008 @ 07:50am
I guess what you mean is that the case was never made to the 15 percent of the kool-aid drinking left, which probably can't be convinced of much beyond knee-jerk reaction anyway. If that's the case, I agree.-----Posted by pontificus at 05/30/
PONTI, speaking of "percentages"...what's the percentage of the country that still thinks going into Iraq was a good idea?
Posted by Mask at 05/30/2008 @ 09:11am
"If Germany hadn't been a threat to us, we would still have been justified in going after them if we could have stopped the Holocaust."
you live in a dream world. the allies wouldn't even bomb the train lines to the camps. the US was also turning away jewish refugee ships, so was everyone else.
if this is such an ironclad casus belli, why did Bush not state it as such. incidentally over 50 countries are NOT signatories to that UN convention. no country was ever invaded with the consent of the UN on the basis of this.
"That's part of why the civil war in Iraq is such a serious problem; the clashing identities of Kurd/Shia/Sunni implicate neighboring countries rather than just being confined to Iraq."
nonsense. the muslim world is almost entirely sunni, Iran excepted. the civil war in Iraq is not of a religious nature. it is rather a struggle for power. the sunnis have had it for decades, the Shia want it.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 @ 09:17am
Posted by pontificus
you're not intellectually equipped to join this discussion of adults.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 @ 09:21am
mass graves are a tricky thing. there was this episode at the end of WW@, where in the forest of Katyn, massgraves of 3,000 Polish officers had been murdered. the Germans who controlled that area were accused of these crimes, including incidentally my grandfather, a colonel in the Wehrmacht.
well, the Germans were innocent in this case. the Poles were murdered by the Russians.
while mass graves have been found in Iraq, none on the scale of the projected genocide have been reported.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 @ 09:34am
nice work Lillian. Trawn is entertaining to discuss with, as, unlike most Whigs here, he does not rely on cheap emotionalism, but rather reasoned arguments.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 @ 09:35am
the Katyn post got a bit garbled, sorry. the meaning however has not been obscured.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 @ 09:47am
I once asked the distinguished historian Juan Cole about the numbers of Iraqis killed by Saddam and the Baath party. he told me that there were no clear, reliable figures.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 @ 10:08am
nice work Lillian. Trawn is entertaining to discuss with, as, unlike most Whigs here, he does not rely on cheap emotionalism, but rather reasoned arguments.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
.
Thank you.
Although I have always viewed Thrawn as being, fundamentally, on 'the other side', we have some excellent 'reasoned' discussions and often find ourselves agreeing on quite a lot. I just wish there were more like him - willing to enagage in discussion rather than the usual knee-jerk, 'projectile vomiting' of predigested, far-right talking points we usually see from the Ponti's, and Rio's and Libz out there.
Posted by Lillian at 05/30/2008 @ 10:08am
We alreeady know that Congress and the media rolled over in support of this war.
Posted by P. J. Casey
And thank god they did!
Posted by abell12ct at 05/30/2008 @ 10:43am
Posted by abell12ct
the survivors of the 4,000 American dead and the over 100,000 Iraqi dead thank god every day for their good fortune.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 @ 10:55am
we are told that the fact that US casualties are down is a sign of success in Iraq. by that standard NOT invading would have been the greatest success of all, NO American casualties.
withdrawing American troops too will be measured as a success in Iraq, as no more American casualties will be the result.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 @ 11:00am
abell12ct = chickenhawk
Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 @ 11:03am
<i>Posted by Lillian at 05/30/2008 </i>
Hmm...I will say that I'm growing slightly less convinced of my position than before, though I still think that it's ultimately justified.
Before I go into that, though, I want to make an overview, one that I think is incredibly important. Frankly, the way that we went into Iraq was absolutely inexcusable. If we went in, we needed to go in with overwhelming force. I think we're agreed on that, but I'm still seeing comparisons in both posts that conflate invasion with "invasion the exact way that we did it." Remember, that's not what I'm defending.
What still troubles me a great deal here is the question of endgame. Absent constant weapons inspections, it's not at all clear that efforts to rebuild or acquire WMD would indeed be instantly detectable. So, in order for your solution to work, you more or less have to maintain the no-fly zones, weapons inspectors, etc. for as long as Saddam (or any one of his chosen successors) is in power. This just doesn't seem particularly feasible, at least in part because I don't think the US or its allies would be able to sustain the political momentum needed to make something like this work. Even if they do, though, you're still talking about something similar to what many people protest now: the continuing, systematic presence of the US (and UN allies) in another country with no particular end in sight.
In terms of destabilization, WAS the central core of institutions intact? It seems like intelligence we've gotten suggests strongly that a lot of these institutions never got funded, and it's not clear how long whatever tensions existed between groups could be bottled up. It's not like those tensions were simply political either, though even if they were, they still acquired a dimension of religious conflict.
Finally, let's go to the genocide argument. I absolutely think we should have finished the job at the end of the First Gulf War, or at least gone in once we knew what Saddam had done (or tried to do) to the Kurds, which is pretty well established by historical record, even if the numbers themselves aren't perfectly clear. I don't think he has to have succeeded in conducting genocide on a large scale, because that seems like a pretty perverse standard for intervention.
So the real question, then, is: why Iraq and not Darfur? Are these, in fact, mutually exclusive? I think it would depend partly on knowing what kind of forces are necessary to move against the Darfur genocide, but unquestionably I think we should have (and still should) act against the Darfur genocide. If they are mutually exclusive, I might very well end up agreeing with you against Iraq.
<i>Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 </i>
I'm sort of confused by this response. Did we turn away Jewish refugees and refuse to bomb the death camps? Yes. Were we morally wrong to do so? I think we definitely were. It's entirely consistent with my position to suggest that these actions, and other actions which refuse to act against genocide, were wrong even if they were the popular option. Frankly, I think that if the US is capable of stopping a genocide, and they're the only country willing to do so in a particular case, then they're justified in going it alone. The mere fact that some other countries don't take the Genocide Convention seriously doesn't mean that the US shouldn't either.
On the "civil war"...you're right. Most of the Middle East is Sunni, and Iran is not. Hence conflict. What I said about identities is borne out in large part by the fact that Iran is able to obtain power in Iraq in part by appealing to its people on the basis of a common Shia identity.
Posted by Thrawn at 05/30/2008 @ 11:05am
So, in order for your solution to work, you more or less have to maintain the no-fly zones, weapons inspectors, etc. for as long as Saddam (or any one of his chosen successors) is in power. This just doesn't seem particularly feasible,"
compared to war and occupation going to its sixth year? just nonsense, really
"Most of the Middle East is Sunni, and Iran is not. Hence conflict"
what conflict. where else is the a sunni shia conflict?
you're not really addressing my points. go tyo Baghdad in gulf 1? I mentioned that there would not have been ANY arab support if that had been the plan, ditto with European support.
where was the genocide convention in Pol Pot's Cambodia? how about Rwanda? and yes, Darfur. your argument collapses under its own weight.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 @ 11:16am
"Iran is able to obtain power in Iraq in part by appealing to its people on the basis of a common Shia identity."
and the Iran Iraq war? the common shia identity did not seem to come into play. the Iraqi shia were fighting Iran too.
you make reasoned arguments but your command of facts lag far behind.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/30/2008 @ 11:19am
We alreeady know that Congress and the media rolled over in support of this war.
Posted by P. J. Casey
And thank god they did!
Posted by abell12ct at 05/30/2008
Yes, otherwise Saddam Hussein wouldn't have given non-existant WMDs to guys who he hated and had no operational contact with.....
and we wouldn't have gone a TRILLION dollars into debt and killed 4000+ GIs for no good reason!
Whew....that was close!
Posted by Mask at 05/30/2008 @ 12:09pm
abell12ct = chickenhawk
Posted by emile duBois
emile duBois=defeatist
Posted by abell12ct at 05/30/2008 @ 12:43pm
It occurs to me that the "disgruntled" dismissal the right applies to McClellan is quite similar to the dismissal the left applies to Dick Morris...it all depends which horse you're backing.
Posted by Balrog at 05/30/2008 @ 1:27pm
Posted by sjchermak at 05/29/2008
You aren't an idiot. You always present rational and thought out arguments. Whether I disagree or not I can see you your intelligence.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/30/2008 @ 4:01pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 05/30/2008
The problem isn't normally your facts - although you don't have a particularly good track record there either. The problem is your logic and interpretation of those facts.
Example: The fact that Bush didn't plant weapons of mass destruction must mean he's a stand-up guy. About as good as there could of been WMD, the question is still open. Or that people didn't really know.
I'm sorry. Your "facts" are frequently false, even from your shorthand examples. Your logic flawed, particularly by your speculations of such things as the motivation of Muslims or wishful thinking about facts on the ground.
What do you expect? Ejaculations of "Oh thank, sweet baby Jesus! LVL and Happy have prognasticated that we've turned yet another corner in Iraq."
Yeah, you're wasting your time if you think your sloppy arguments, bad facts and flights of conjecture are going to convince me that your flawed view of the world is one that merits much consideration, much less adoption.
Posted by srjenkins at 05/30/2008 @ 4:51pm
No, the left will continue to post ad naseum on sites like this all their vitriolic little snipes. All without any real substantiation or justification; other than their utter disdain for those Americans who fail to share their views.
Posted by lvliberty1 at 05/30/2008 |
So, where are these wmd's that everyone KNEW existed?
simple question.
the most likely answer is that not EVERYONE KNEW saddam had them. IF one was willing to dig just a little, in 2003 one could have come to the conclusion that Iraq was not a threat to either the US or the region. I did. Why didn't you?
Within the US government itself there was quite a bit of disagreement about these issues. Take the aluminum tubes . The energy dept and dept of state both said they were for rockets. This was backed by many engineers in the private sector.
After Powells testimony much of it was shown to be wrong. What did you do then? Did you question other information you had from similar sources? Or, did you ignore those of us that, in the end, turned out to be correct?
Did you know that one of the "reliable sources" was a drunk whose testimony had been discarded by the same Germans you are now trying to hide behind?
not to go too CONSHAME on ya'll, but at this point AT BEST, your sources have proven to be wrong about wmd's, wrong about the length of the war, wrong about Iraqi links to AQ, wrong about the spread of democracy, wrong about the impact of our invasion of the paradigm in the ME. Even if I grant that there were no lies (which I will not), the admin was just flat out incorrect about it's analysis.
so, why should we continue to listen to you? Because you still feel right in your cause?
Posted by crabwalk at 05/30/2008 @ 5:02pm
BALROG, why do you get upset when some one does not sing the National Anthem with you at a baseball game? What do the 2 have to do with each other?
Posted by crabwalk at 05/30/2008 @ 5:07pm
[Nor from the likes of current anti-war demagogues like Ritter (a proven liar), who up to the Bush presidency had been testifying before Congress that Saddam was still a WMD threat.]
Do you know what makes Ritter such a good example for the anti-war (correct) crowd? He looked at new information and changed his mind based on the information. He went into Iraq and looked. He did not just read old files and decide that those conditions must still exist because that's what he wanted to believe. And that pissed off the right wing, who turned on him just like they turned on Shinseki, Block, the Plames, and now the Press Secretary for the President, a man Chimpy claimed would sit with him in Texas and recall the good days of 2006, the year the war ended. A man the President said had done good work.
----
I note that none of the neo-cons have commented on Jessica Lynch or Pat Tillman.
Propaganda all
Posted by crabwalk at 05/30/2008 @ 5:16pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 05/30/2008
Funny you always think that quoting members of the Democratic Party is a slam dunk for some reason. You think quoting Ritters disproves everything being said. However when we bring up Scott McClellan you say he is nothing but a liar. They are all still members of government. Just as corruptible as the last. I can quote to you evidence from British Intelligence saying the KNEW Saddam did not have nuclear weapons. But of course you are doing exactly what you accuse everyone else of in completely ignoring the mound of evidence presented against you. You are working out of your own paradigm LV. Don't accuse others of ignorance when you were proven wrong. Many in this country saw the flaw in invading Iraq from the beginning. You guys got us into this party and you are still trying to justify it to yourselves by quoting evidence that has already been proven wrong.
They did not greet us with open arms, we did not find nukes, there were no ties to AQ, the only change we brought to the Middle East in killing Saddam was to open the door to other groups. If the mighty intelligence of the US couldn't have discerned any of this then it begs the question of what the hell do we pay them for? To get us into war for God knows how long. With no victory even conceivable, that will cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives based on "mounds of evidence" that was ALL proven wrong? If that's what we pay them for I want my tax dollars back and they should all be fired. Happy if you listened to a stock broker who gave you mounds of evidence that said this stock was going to go up and then the stock flopped and you lost millions on it, would you continue to go to that stockbroker?
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/30/2008 @ 6:03pm
[October 17, 2004
Without a Doubt
By RON SUSKIND
Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that ''if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3.'' The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.
''Just in the past few months,'' Bartlett said, ''I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .
''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.'' Bartlett paused, then said, ''But you can't run the world on faith.''
Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off the Senate floor. I was there as a guest speaker. Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. ''I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad,'' he began, ''and I was telling the president of my many concerns'' -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. '''Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?'''
Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. ''My instincts,'' he said. ''My instincts.''
Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. ''I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!'''
The democrat Biden and the Republican Bartlett are trying to make sense of the same thing -- a president who has been an extraordinary blend of forcefulness and inscrutability, opacity and action.
But lately, words and deeds are beginning to connect.
The Delaware senator was, in fact, hearing what Bush's top deputies -- from cabinet members like Paul O'Neill, Christine Todd Whitman and Colin Powell to generals fighting in Iraq -- have been told for years when they requested explanations for many of the president's decisions, policies that often seemed to collide with accepted facts. The president would say that he relied on his ''gut'' or his ''instinct'' to guide the ship of state, and then he ''prayed over it.'' The old pro Bartlett, a deliberative, fact-based wonk, is finally hearing a tune that has been hummed quietly by evangelicals (so as not to trouble the secular) for years as they gazed upon President George W. Bush. This evangelical group -- the core of the energetic ''base'' that may well usher Bush to victory -- believes that their leader is a messenger from God. And in the first presidential debate, many Americans heard the discursive John Kerry succinctly raise, for the first time, the issue of Bush's certainty -- the issue being, as Kerry put it, that ''you can be certain and be wrong.'']
Posted by crabwalk at 05/30/2008 @ 8:38pm
LUVVY, quoting select testimony from 1998, but leaving out Ritters 2003 comments is a bit disingenuous, don't you think?
Quoting from other people that were wrong, how does that bolster your argument?
Many of those you quote were getting there "intel" from ChimpCo.
Also, as I read the speech above, I am able to insert "Israel" in place of Iraq in many places. Violator of sanctions, occupier of lands, possessor of wmd's, threat to the stability of the region. Taken from an Arab standpoint, using the Bush Doctrine as a basis, they would be justified in invading Israel.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/30/2008 @ 8:48pm
Plus, one of your cohorts has described Ritter as a "known liar".
Posted by crabwalk at 05/30/2008 @ 8:52pm
"BALROG, why do you get upset when some one does not sing the National Anthem with you at a baseball game? What do the 2 have to do with each other?"
I don't get upset when people don't sing...I get upset when they don't remove their hats. It's just a thing with me, showing respect to the flag. I didn't used to be this way, but over the years (I'm 47) I have spent lots of time in conversation with vets, reading and exploring American History, and I have developed a deep respect and appreciation for the sacrifices people have made for our country. It is more out of respect for them, and a love for my country, that I attribute my sense of patriotism.
Posted by Balrog at 05/30/2008 @ 8:57pm
LUVVY, quoting select testimony from 1998, but leaving out Ritters 2003 comments is a bit disingenuous, don't you think?
Posted by crabwalk at 05/30/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
.
Actually Crab, I think you are being overly generous. Larry KNOWS full well that Ritter was an outspoken critic of the Iraq war and policy and also said...
"There's no doubt Iraq hasn't fully complied with its disarmament obligations as set forth by the Security Council in its resolution. But on the other hand, since 1998 Iraq has been fundamentally disarmed: 90-95% of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capacity has been verifiably eliminated... We have to remember that this missing 5-10% doesn't necessarily constitute a threat... It constitutes bits and pieces of a weapons program which in its totality doesn't amount to much, but which is still prohibited... We can't give Iraq a clean bill of health, therefore we can't close the book on their weapons of mass destruction. But simultaneously, we can't reasonably talk about Iraqi non-compliance as representing a de-facto retention of a prohibited capacity worthy of war. "
.
Larry's attempt to leave that out, and portray Ritter's comments as the opposite...
...amounts to lying, in my book.
Posted by Lillian at 05/30/2008 @ 10:09pm
I also see NOTHING in Larry's long cut-and-pastes that indicate Biden, or Kerry, or Clinton, or Chirac, or ANY of the others he quotes as supporting the invasion of Iraq that Bush proposed.
Actually reading later comments, one finds that, almost to a man, everyone that Larry quotes, later discovered that they'd been lied to by the Bush administration who were selectively cherry-picking from the available intelligence.
(Nice work Crab, in posting some of it.)
Posted by Lillian at 05/30/2008 @ 10:17pm
the rats are leaving the sinking ship.
Posted by emile duBois
eek!
more invasive species!
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/30/2008 @ 10:59pm
Finally, we must consider the ultimate nightmare.
Posted by lvliberty1
mccain/clinton '08?
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/30/2008 @ 11:14pm
If anything, I am more convinced than ever that Bush did the right thing. I remain proud of his decision. The fact that the left still shouts liar just provides further validation that the war is just and right.
Posted by lvliberty1
no,
bush did the wrongerest thing.
humans love the lazy way, and oil is the lazy man's gold.
and thus, the po' folks living on top of the stuff get jacked around.
in this particular case,
the british got this prize and realized what was under the ground.
so, they made a country.
they planned a mess in order to always have the need to come back and fix things.
anyhoo, birds of an oily feather....
bushw wrongerest
clintonb wrongest
bushhw wronger
reagan wrong
and the band played on.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/31/2008 @ 01:46am
"Unfortunately, two children were killed when the other occupants of the vehicle, in which they were riding, exhibited hostile intent," the statement said.
hmmm?
why would those men exhibit hostile intent?
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/31/2008 @ 02:19am
Just before the missile hit, Zahara was returning home from delivering food to neighbors. She was near the door when her grandmother yelled: "Get inside the house!"
As she began to move, the missile crashed into the house, throwing her behind a set of stairs.
One of Zahara's uncles, Dhia Rahi Shaie al-Koreishi, 34, a taxi driver, and her grandmother, Um Fadhil al-Koreishi, were killed by the blast.
"The heart of this family has been ripped out," said Alaa Rahi Shaie, 29, another uncle, who was stoic in describing the death of his brother. "This is his blood," he said, indicating red splotches in front of his home. "And the remains of his head are over there."
He pointed at a large mound of dirt. A group of young boys dug out the remains and then showed visitors a black bag filled with clumps of hair and scalp.
Family members and neighbors said they didn't see anyone in the area fire rockets. Two black funeral banners hung outside the battered home to honor the dead.
"They were killed because of the cowardly American bombings," the banners read.
The U.S. military said it fired a Hellfire missile in the area that night targeting men officials said they saw loading rockets into a sedan, killing two of them. The military said it monitored the sedan for hours before firing, out of concern for "collateral damage to innocent civilians."
Since the fighting intensified in eastern Baghdad this spring, the U.S. Army has kept six Apaches in the air around the clock.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/31/2008 @ 02:21am
collateral humans.......
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/31/2008 @ 02:21am
Firing missiles at tanks at a base in Texas during training was exciting, he said.
"There's this big roaring woosh sound, a missile shoots by and there's a flash of light," he said quickly and excitedly. "Then you see this big cloud of smoke in front of you. And then it gets really quiet for a bit. You're like -- oh, oh, I hope I don't miss, I hope I don't miss, don't miss, don't miss, don't miss, don't miss. Then wack! It smacks the target. It's an awesome feeling hitting the target."
Firing his first missile in Baghdad was sobering.
"I know I can do this," he told himself. The target was in sight and permission from ground commanders had been granted. "I've done this before. But you better not screw this up. If you mess up, people get hurt."
Katzenberger said pilots adhere to strict rules of engagement. They occasionally get reports of what happened on the ground after they fire the missiles. After that, "we never hear about it again," he said. "It leaves you a little sense of wondering. You kind of get that detached feeling."
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/31/2008 @ 02:23am
WHOOOOOOOOOOSH!
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/31/2008 @ 02:23am
Posted by lvliberty1 at 05/31/2008 | ignore this person | warn this person
** So how is it you attempt to still put the blame on Bush? It's solely because you disregard the facts and prefer your hate. **
Again with the dishonesty Larry. You ask me a question...then answer it for me?
Actually, I don't discount, disregard, or ignore anything. The people you quoted, did indeed make those statements before Bush was President. However, as you well know, but are attempting to hide and/or ignore, all of those others kept investigating and learning and updating their information. Only Bush and his cronies cherry-picked from OLD intelligence to bolster his case...just as you are doing now. Bush cannot escape his lies...any more than you can.
** His credibility since he changed his tune is what is suspect. **
Why? Why is Ritter's credibility perfectly acceptable when he says what you want to hear, but suspect when he says something you don't? The man was a REPULICAN for heavan's sake. He VOTED for GWB! Ritter didn't suddenly fall off the face of the earth or suddenly fall under some 'evil liberal spell'. It was only a few months after your Ritter quotes that he also spoke of US VIOLATIONS of the UN terms...of the CIA attempts to infiltrate the UNSCOM inspections process, while he was leading their work. He only became a critic after it became obvious that GWB was attempting to cherry-pick from the available eveidence, including his very statements...EXACTLY the way you are doing.
** What you people want to try and manipulate are the facts. **
The facts are the facts...and it is you Larry who are trying mightily to manipulate them...pretending that the only 'valid' Scott Ritter analysis is found in the words with wich you agree, while simultaneously trying to throw out as somehow 'invalid' his words with which you disagree. Just the way you present your next 3 'facts' as if they are incontravertable support for the Iraq invasion.
1) The Bush adminstration CHERRY-PICKED evidence provided by the Clinton Administration...and literally ignored the words like 'might'and 'could indicate' and 'has the potential to be' language that was plainly included in that intel.
2) actually, there existed MUCH current intel that indicated the previous intel might be invalid. One need look no farther than the intel gathered by Wilson to find evidence for this.
3) Actually, this is the biggest lie yet...or pehpas you are just sadly uninformed. There was PLENTY of intel that suggested Saddam was trying to maintain an illusion that he 'might' still have something up his sleave. Even YOU admit this. And much of this intel came from our own military!
** You cannot make decisions of war based upon "what if everyone is wrong" assumptions. **
And you Cannot morally choose to engage in war on false premises. There were obviosuly grave doubts as to the acuracy of the intel and the assumptions and the reality (that you are choosing to ignore) is that weapons inspections had resumed. There was another way to get the answers...that didn't involve killing and mass destruction (shock and awe) to get the answers.
** The fault is Saddam's and certainly not George Bush's. **
History has ALREADY recorded that the 'fault' lies with Gerge W. Bush....and his supporters who 'remain proud of his decison" regardless of lies that he used to start his war and the mountain of evidence that he was wrong.
** The fact that the left still shouts liar just provides further validation that the war is just and right. **
And there you expose the source of your stubborn refusal to accept the reality that this war, and the death and destruction it has wrought, was started on a lie and has resulted in accomplishing NOTHING that is 'good'. The source of your refusal to accept reality...
...is your hatered of 'the left'.
Posted by Lillian at 05/31/2008 @ 04:42am
[You're the one who is in trouble buddy! I have been searching far and wide for some Unibroue delicacies and I might as well be asking for a unicorn. So now I have to special order it, and I have to try several so I don't miss the best one, and now I am out much coin because you piqued my curiosity that you may have better taste in beer than me, and that just won't do, and......what if it really is better than Sam Adams, and I can't live without it, and......T.R.O.U.B.L.E.!
Posted by Benchrest at 05/29/2008
Your search will not be in vain, my pigeon shooting friend. Le fin Du Monde will finish you, it is what I call a "comfy chair beer". Be sure you sure in one before you finish the glass.
But, be forewarned, it is NOTHING like a Sam Adams.
Also, as a side note: I too am type cast around here. I attended the Olympic Training Center for indoor riflery, I achieved the highest ranking in the NRA system. I hunt, I am perhaps the worlds worst fisherman so I don't do that much anymore. However, I quit the NRA when they took the side of bullet production over common sense. I have never regretted that decision. I drive a 4X4, a Continental (that gets 28mpg) and have voted for many (moderate) republicans. I have worked on campaigns for local republicans, as well as state and national dems.
That makes me a loon!! bzzzt.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/31/2008 @ 10:03am
Luvvy, seein as we are playing dueling quotes, what do you make of these?
[Colin Powell in Cairo February 24, 2001: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."
Condoleeza Rice, July 2001: "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt." ]
So, here we have two people that had the truth, but changed their minds to believe something that was not true.
You, on the other hand, are using somebody that used new information to establish the truth. I can say that because in the end, Ritter was right, Powell and Rice were wrong, as were you.
Now, there is this "THE WHOLE WORLD NEW " BS. In fact the whole world did not know that. I did not know saddam had nukes, because he didn't. David ALbright knew, Ritter Knew, Blix knew, millions of people that showed up for the largest demonstrations EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD knew. Many of us also suspected that we would be in the exact mess we are in now if we invaded. But, what did you do with this information? You, and the other war mongers blew us off as "librool fools". But it turns out we were right all along.
I think that is because we choose to not live in fear, we are open to new information that disproves old information.
Was the CIA (full of liberals, except when you want to use their cherry picked intel, leaving out ALL caveats) on the ground in Iraq? Was Cheney or Bush?
No, they were not.
Who was?
Scott Ritter, Marine, republican, a man Powell called "A true American hero".
Hans Blix, who knows more about wmd's than you and all the cons combined.
LILLIAN was kind enough to print a more accurate description of Ritters thoughts. Here is some from Blix:
["I doubt that he will reveal any WMD, because I think both we UN inspectors and the American inspectors have been looking around and come to the conclusion that there aren't any," Mr Blix said.
"He might be able to reveal when they were done away with. I am inclined to think it was early in 1991 or 1992."]
We also know, as I have mentioned before, that after Powells UN statements were made, almost all of it turned out to be bad information. We knew that before the invasion. Blix told us so. But, he was ignored, called "a European!", A Saddam stooge, and worse. Turns out he was RIGHT, you were WRONG.
Blix did think "some " chemical and bio weapons would be found, but I believe he thought they would have been decades old and useless, certainly not something to spend decades and a trillion dollars to hunt down in a civil war atmosphere.
In closing, we have to look at who, in the end, was right and who was wrong. We also have to look at what was known at the time vs what was said in public. McClellan is a republican, a friend of Chimpies, not a "librool". HE says propaganda was used, HE says there was a "culture of deception". You may want to lay this at the feet of "lefty bloggers", but too much has come out to use that simple ploy.
who was right, who was wrong? Who are you still listening to? Why? Methinks ideology and a deep seated hatred of "the left" clouds your mind.
The right was wrong about wmd's
the left was correct.
the right was wrong about the length of the war
The left was correct
Posted by crabwalk at 05/31/2008 @ 10:34am
crap, sorry, I got BALROG and BENCHREST confused. My bad.
A benchrest is a shooting device, I think that is where I went wrong. My apologies.
See how easy it is to admit wrongness? There is no shame in it. The shame comes when you are wrong about basic facts but still think the conclusion rests on it's own foundation.
Posted by crabwalk at 05/31/2008 @ 10:43am
http://benchrest.com/inlink/index.php?sid=672730821&t=sub_pages&cat=16&n um_results=100
Balrog, isn't that a flaming beast from Middle Earth? Also used as an emergency landing device for old wizards?
Posted by crabwalk at 05/31/2008 @ 10:49am
***Balrog, isn't that a flaming beast from Middle Earth?
I can't comment on the beast's sexual orientation...but I would think it would be hard for it to find a partner of either gender. Apparently it doesn't get out much, spending eons in seclusion underground.
***Also used as an emergency landing device for old wizards?
Only as a last-ditch measure.
Posted by Balrog at 05/31/2008 @ 11:07am
I love the thought process of LV. As long as his evidence backs up what I think is right then he is credible. So in the 90s he was credible. But once he starts going against what I feel is correct he is a drunk liar! You don't give a damn about evidence LV all you care about is what you think to be correct. That is proved by the fact that you are arguing for the war based on 98 testimony from someone who did a 180 in 2003 based on new evidence. Are you saying he all of a sudden became outspoke against the war just because? What did he have to gain from being against it at a time when it was popular to be for it? Nothing. He obviously saw something that the few clear thinking people saw. Which has been proven correct by the path of the war itself. You guys can argue all you want for the war being right. But everything you used as reason to invade has fallen apart or is negated by your support of other people. Israel breaks UN regulations all the time but you are not calling for a bombing of their country.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/31/2008 @ 6:17pm