Three Years of War With No Checks, No Balances

With the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq approaching, Congress rejected reality once more and provided another infusion of funding to continue the open-ended occupation of that increasing disordered and volatile land. Nothing, not even the Bush administration's deception and intransigence, has done so much to continue the quagmire as the failure of Congress to check and balance the madness of President George.

Even as Iraq has become the "Bloody Kansas" of the Middle East, with a horrific explosion of sectarian violence that even some of the administration's most ardent apologists admit could well be a precursor to civil war, Congress remains the rubberstamp that it has always been – a fact confirmed Thursday by the lopsided House vote to meet another of the president's demands for more money to pay for his military misadventure.

By a vote of 348-71, the House approved a $91.9 billion supplemental spending bill, with the lion's share of the new funding earmarked for Iraq. Three years into a war that 60 percent of Americans now tell pollsters has not been worth the cost in lives and dollars that it has extracted from the United States, overwhelming majorities of both the Republican and Democratic caucuses in the House backed a measure that demands no real accountability of the administration – and that perpetuates a war that, according to a new Gallup Poll, 58 percent of Americans believe has had a generally negative effect on life in the United States generally.

The new money for the Iraq occupation comes on top of the $50 billion in supplemental war funding that the Congress had already approved for the current fiscal year, after spending $100 billion last year. And the administration says it will be back soon seeking another $50 billion for the coming fiscal year. All of this spending is in addition to the record $439.3 billion defense budget the president submitted to Congress.

This additional spending will push the federal budget deficit to a record $423 billion in fiscal year 2006, up more than $100 billion over the past year. That fact, along with concerns about the attachment of $19 billion for Hurricane Katrina relief to what started as a military supplemental, led roughly a dozen Republican fiscal hawks to oppose the measure – including Judiciary Committee chair James Sensenbrenner and Budget Committee stalwart Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas. It was also opposed by several Republicans who have rejected past war supplementals, such as Texan Ron Paul and Wisconsin's Tom Petri.

But the bulk of the opposition votes came from 52 Democrats, most of them members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who believe as Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich said before the vote: "After three years arrogance and incompetence, contempt and lies, death and destruction, Congress should say enough is enough and provide not one more dime for this Administration's ill-conceived, ill-advised, misguided and failed Iraq policy. Iraq has held three elections and is now a sovereign nation. Meanwhile, our troops are caught in the middle of a civil war that our own generals say cannot be won by military force. To funnel more money into this failed misadventure would serve only to throw good money after bad. Congress should not serve as a rubber stamp of this Administration's failed policies. Congress should reject this Supplemental request, along with the Administration's failed policy in Iraq, and work to bring all our troops home."

Missing from the list of those calling the administration to account were House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California; House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland; and, of course, the militantly pro-war chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Illinoisan Rahm Emanuel.

Most voters won't have a chance to send a signal to Emanuel anytime soon. But, in Illinois's 6th Congressional District, Democratic primary voters will have a chance to choose on Tuesday between the DCCC chair's handpicked candidate, Tammy Duckworth, who does not live in the district, and grassroots Democrat Christine Cegelis, who lives in the district and who stunned analysts by winning almost 45 percent of the vote as the Democratic nominee in 2004.

Duckworth, an Iraq veteran, has a compelling personal story, but she has refused to endorse a clear timetable for bringing the troops home. Cegalis supports a timetable, saying, "I have opposed this war from the start. But revisiting what brought us to this disastrous point does not solve the problem. It is time for us to bring our troops home." Cegalis explains that: "The failures of this war must prevent the United States from making similar mistakes in the future. And the only way we can make sure that lesson is learned is to elect leaders who understand that lesson."

After Thursday night's vote in the House, it is more evident than ever that the inability to understand that lesson is not merely a Republican infirmity. And it is equally evident that the appropriate response to the crisis will require voters, not just in Illinois but nationwide, to follow their own good judgment – as opposed to the dictates of Democratic "leaders" in Washington.

That's the message of the new group Vote for Peace, which is asking voters to take a pledge before they go to the polls: "I will not vote for or support any candidate for Congress or President who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq, and preventing any future war of aggression, a public position in his or her campaign."

Visit the Vote for Peace website at www.votersforpeace.us and learn more about this nonpartisan anti-war campaign.

Comments (252)

1. "This is the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine!" -R.E.M.

   Posted by BlueTexan at 03/17/2006 @ 11:01am

2. "offer me solutions, offer me alternatives...i decline!"

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/17/2006 @ 11:37am

3. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6330851/

   Bush loses his base:

   My father, who was a faithful member Nixon's Silent Majority, supported the 36th President throughout Vietnam, Cambodia, Kent State and the Watergate hearings.

   To George F. Scarborough, the Washington Post was the enemy, Walter Cronkite was a communist and John Dean was a spineless traitor.

   Even as an 11 year old, I knew the gig was up when my dad opened up the paper one morning in August and whispered, "If he's done half of this stuff, he should be sent straight to jail."

   The next day, Nixon resigned.

   Thirty-two years later, the same guy who stood by Nixon to the very end turned away from the Duke-Boston College game to tell me that he was losing patience with another GOP leader.

   "What's going on with Bush? I look at some of the things he's been doing and I just don't..."

   Dad's voice trailed off.

   This lifelong Republican who waited in line for hours in 1964 to cast his vote for Goldwater, and predicted the rise of Ronald Reagan in 1979, could not bring himself to verbalize what the President's critics have been saying for years now. That George Bush's war is a disaster and his administration is out of touch with the Silent Majority.

   The record deficit. The port deal. Amnesty for illegal aliens. Bridges to nowhere. Skyrocketing gas prices. Iranian terrorists getting the Bomb.

   It's all been enough to make hardcore Republicans like my dad start asking if there's any difference between the Republican Party they have always loved and the Democratic Party they have forever loathed.

   A Republican President has to work hard to lose guys like my dad. But George Bush is close to losing George Scarborough.

   Maybe that's why he's sitting at 38% in the polls and why his party's leaders are running for their lives.

   Posted by plunger at 03/17/2006 @ 11:42am

4. http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

   Creeping Fascism

   The voices of the past, on Recognizing the Unrecognizable…

   "You will understand me when I say that my Middle High German was my life. It was all I cared about. I was a scholar, a specialist. Then, suddenly, I was plunged into all the new activity, as the university was drawn into the new situation; meetings, conferences, interviews, ceremonies, and, above all, papers to be filled out, reports, bibliographies, lists, questionnaires. And on top of that were the demands in the community, the things in which one had to, was ‘expected to' participate that had not been there or had not been important before. It was all rigmarole, of course, but it consumed all one's energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time."

   "Those," I said, "are the words of my friend the baker. ‘One had no time to think. There was so much going on.'"

   "Your friend the baker was right," said my colleague. "The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I do not speak of your ‘little men,' your baker and so on; I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about--we were decent people--and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises' and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?

   "To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it--please try to believe me--unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,' that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures' that no ‘patriotic German' could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

   "And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,' collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in--your nation, your people--is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.

   "Once the war began, the government could do anything ‘necessary' to win it; so it was with the ‘final solution of the Jewish problem,' which the Nazis always talked about but never dared undertake, not even the Nazis, until war and its ‘necessities' gave them the knowledge that they could get away with it. The people abroad who thought that war against Hitler would help the Jews were wrong. And the people in Germany who, once the war had begun, still thought of complaining, protesting, resisting, were betting on Germany's losing the war. It was a long bet. Not many made it."

   How ironic then that the persecuted have become the persecutors, using the tactics of their former oppressors to destroy those they wish to control and/or exterminate. 9/11 was their Reichstag Fire (a near-perfect False Flag Operation - but for the "Dancing Israelis"), the pretext to launch their plan – rooted in revenge and greed. But they have taken it one step farther, compelling others to do the job on their behalf.

   Posted by plunger at 03/17/2006 @ 11:44am

5. "Most people prefer to believe that their leaders are just and fair, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which he lives is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all."

   Michael Rivera

   Posted by plunger at 03/17/2006 @ 11:44am

6. Om Hussein, who was reluctant to give her full name, and her Shiite family are preparing for war. They've stocked up on food. They bought a Kalashnikov rifle and a second car -- so that there is space for all 13 members of their extended family should they need to flee in a hurry.

   "We are afraid of what will happen in the coming days," she says. "Maybe there will be a monthlong curfew, or maybe fighting in the streets will force my family to stay in the house for days at a time."

   In the past week, President Bush has tried to assure Americans that Iraq has stepped back from the brink of civil war. "Iraqis have shown the world they want a future of freedom and peace," he told the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on Monday.

   Few Iraqis, however, share Bush's view that the crisis has been averted. They are readying themselves for the worst, fleeing likely flash points, stockpiling weapons and basic foodstuffs, barricading their neighborhoods, and drawing lines in the sand delineating Sunni and Shiite territory.

   http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/15/MNG6MHO...

   Posted by plunger at 03/17/2006 @ 11:45am

7. (laughing) Hey Nichols! (laughing) Maybe you need to push (laughing)...push (laughing)...push Fein-(laughing)...push Feingold to continue with that (laughing)...that censure(laughing). Better yet, get him to go to that (laughing) town in Vermont (laughing) that wants to (laughing)...to impeach Bush (laughing) and drum up support for his (laughing)...his (laughing)... his censure proposal (laughing)...

   Posted by woodyee at 03/17/2006 @ 11:50am

8. 348-231....leaves AT BEST 117 Democrats voting for it, right?

   And yet....supposedly...when Democrats "win the House in November", those same 117 Democrats are going to turn around and vote to impeach Bush, right?

   Posted by Mask at 03/17/2006 @ 11:57am

9. oh we hope so

   Posted by Will C. at 03/17/2006 @ 11:59am

10. Posted by WOODYEE 03/17/2006 @ 11:50am

    What's really funny is you couldn't get those other words out but (laughing)... always made it.

    What a joke

    Posted by Will C. at 03/17/2006 @ 12:04pm

11. For the pertinent update on conditions in Iraq go see MSN Seems that in most areas Iraq is in worse shape than before the war....but I suppose those involved in the the daily random killings have the satisfaction to die free! (But is that really a consolation?)

    Saddaam was indeed an insane murderous despot....but his country at least functioned, after a fashion. I am not saying he should still be there (before the nut jobs start calling me an "Islamofascist" / terrorist sympathizer) but maybe three religous factions of Islam need a "bit of the stick" to co-exist. We obviously do not understand them. I think we have proved that very plainly....

    Posted by leftofcenter at 03/17/2006 @ 12:19pm

12. Mr Nichols writes:

    Even as Iraq has become the "Bloody Kansas" of the Middle East, with a horrific explosion of sectarian violence that even some of the administration's most ardent apologists admit could well be a precursor to civil war

    Gosh, according to the NYT Iraq is 'on the brink' at least every other week for the last 3 years - still no civil war though - and the insurgency has been 'growing' or 'spiraling' out of control' at least as many times. Don't these leftists ever get tired of predicting imminent disaster?

    Posted by pontificus at 03/17/2006 @ 12:20pm

13. Oh, wait, I think I see the idea. If you predict imminent disaster on a daily basis, you are bound to be right eventually...then you can tell everybody that you told them so. Like a stopped clock that's right twice a day. Nice technique, if you can afford it, but I guess you can if you've been turned out of all power and responsibility by the electorate.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/17/2006 @ 12:24pm

14. The amazing thing about idiots like Pontificus is that he can look at the insurgency, which from all accounts is home-based, and deny the existence of a civil war. Is that why your idiot government had to land another landing force these last two days, Pontificus, because there's order in Iraq? No one's predicting "imminent disaster", the disaster is here. Just because your armchair general ass isn't getting shot off doesn't mean it hasn't arrived. So know this, jerk. That mess over there, that's your fault. You and the many others like you. You are as guilty as any terrorist faction or supporter thereof. And some of us are never going to forget that. Simon Wiesenthal hunted Nazis all his days. We will follow his example, when your party is on the run. And that time is not far off.

    Posted by Sweetdaddy at 03/17/2006 @ 12:41pm

15. Just posted this on another thread but can work here to..

    The article(s) below reminded me of the South African struggle and how they succeeded without the US going in there and fixing everything for them. The same repub corporate BS is now rapping profits in the flag in Iraq. So there never was any WMD and they knew it and then it's building democracies but the port deal shows they could care less about building democracies. Now the BS is the Iraqis' need us to straighten out the mess we made there and I say look at South Africa, they'd still be segregated if we had gone in to help them out messing with their history. The US interests are rarely pure per the corporate influence always distorts the humanitarian need to a profit angle… We deminish the Iraqi people and 'their' history, by staying there. Does anyone like the bragart at the table that's always acknowledging to everyone that you wouldn't exist if weren't for me?

    Believe it or not I did edit this down a lot but I found a lot of recurring themes.

    Mandela the teenage pig stealer

    Nelson Mandela has spoken of his youthful exploits as a pig thief.

    The former South African president made the revelations during a visit from the director and stars of the film Tsotsi, which won a Best Foreign Film Oscar.

    Tsotsi is about a young gangster, and Mr Mandela said he identified with the main character.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4816266.stm

    http://www.mltranslations.org/SouthAfrica/SApamphl.htm

    In the last year and one half of resistance, the struggle of the Azanian people has reached new heights. The masses have drawn on tactics that have been used at different stages in the last twenty-five years, as well as new, more militant forms of struggle. Strikes, stay-at-home campaigns and boycotts have been combined with mass marches, small skirmishes with the police, armed attacks on the police, whites and industrial targets, and significantly, retaliation against Black informants and collaborators with the apartheid regime.

    This is not the first time that the mass struggle has risen to a high level. In the period after Sharpeville, it was the people themselves, not the leadership, who asked for guns. This happened again after Soweto.

    Over and over again, people have demonstrated their willingness to make innumerable sacrifices, including death, to bring to a halt the unbearable machinery of apartheid and national oppression.

    The murder of protestors, including babies, school children, women and the elderly has become commonplace. On top of the poverty and starvation that is commonplace for Blacks under apartheid, these atrocities have driven the people to the brink.

    **************************************

    The apartheid rulers have substantial open support among the U.S. bourgeoisie and its allies. They include the administration, mainstream Republicans, religious fundamentalists, the Klan/Nazis, and now, sections of the Afro-American petty bourgeoisie and comprador bourgeoisie.

    Under Reagan's leadership, the administration trumpets the line of constructive engagement. It counsels patience and praises every mock reform that the regime put in place. It maintains that divestment will harm the Black masses. Reagan has the gall to liken the situation to the U.S. where, he says, it took several hundred years to "solve our race problem." Be patient with them as the world was with us, he says.

    The popular support for apartheid is being led by Jerry Falwell on behalf of Reagan. Falwell is not constrained by the diplomatic niceties of political office and so he does not even have to give lip-service to opposition to the apartheid regime.

    Using these distortions combined with anti-communism, Falwell tries to rally mass support for apartheid and raise money. He pledged to raise one million dollars to stop the divestment forces and to support the Botha government.

    In January of 1985, Senator Edward Kennedy, a chief liberal imperialist spokesperson, went to South Africa. He tried to convince the regime that it should carry out certain reforms, such as a peaceful transition to majority rule, that would leave the relations of exploitation intact. He also tried, in a number of speeches around the country, to get the Azanian people to support Bishop Tutu's calls for non-violent reforms instead of genuine liberation. For this he was righteously denounced by AZAPO, which forced the cancellation of his last appearance, at Tutu's church in Soweto. AZAPO promised the same reception to Jesse Jackson if he should go there

    In December of 1985, Secretary of State Shultz appointed a commission to study the situation in South Africa and to report back with policy recommendations. According to Shultz, they have no restrictions on what they examine and no pre-drawn conclusions. It is clearly a panel of the bourgeoisie and its allies. It is headed by a former chairman of I.B.M., Frank Cary, and includes the chairman of General Motors, Roger Smith, a former Attorney General, Griffin Bell and a former Undersecretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger. Of the 12 members, 4 are Black (Franklin Thomas, Leon Sullivan, Vernon Jordan, the former head of the National Urban League, and William Coleman, former Secretary of Transportation). UAW President Owen Bieber is also a member. Thus, as with the President's Commission on Central America, we see the monopoly capitalists being joined by their key supporters, the labor bureaucrats and the Black bourgeoisie.

    Posted by BUSHFOOLS 03/17/2006 @ 10:15am

    Posted by Bushfools at 03/17/2006 @ 12:50pm

16. The war in Iraq shall never end.

    So let's leave.

    Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/17/2006 @ 12:52pm

17. Yep, got to get those poll numbers up:

    Day two of US-led Iraq offensive

    US military pictures showed troops involved in the operation A major military operation targeting insurgents and foreign fighters in northern Iraq is continuing into a second day, the US military says.

    US and Iraqi troops surrounded a group of villages and are carrying out raids, but a security official said insurgent leaders had left before they arrived.

    The operation near the town of Samarra is not as huge as has been suggested, correspondents say.

    Local people say there has been little if any combat.

    The troops carrying out the operation are said to have detained about 40 suspects but 17 of these were later released.

    "[The US forces] are surprising us with meaningless acts at the time Iraqis are looking forward to the first session of the parliament, preferring the political solution, not the military one," Saleh al-Mutleq told Reuters news agency.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4816710.stm

    Posted by Bushfools at 03/17/2006 @ 12:55pm

18. Posted by SWEETDADDY 03/17/2006 @ 12:41am

    That mess over there, that's your fault. You and the many others like you. You are as guilty as any terrorist faction or supporter thereof. And some of us are never going to forget that. Simon Wiesenthal hunted Nazis all his days. We will follow his example, when your party is on the run. And that time is not far off.

    Wow, scratch a leftist and you get a threat. You mean you're going to have a trial for the 62,000,000 people who voted for Bush? You guys are a stitch, really.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/17/2006 @ 1:28pm

19. Guys like SWEETDADDY are what makes this board so damn interesting. Leftists are so used to bullying people in their venues (academia, especially) that threats are generally never far from the surface in any discussion. Most of these little tin horns are used to 'winning' arguments by making different types of threats or shouting insults. It's just so funny to poke these little cowards and show them up for the nitwits they are.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/17/2006 @ 1:41pm

20. Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/17/2006 @ 1:41pm | ignore this person

    I've never understood the Republican ability to simultaneously proclaim a broad public mandate and portray themselves as an aggreived, persecuted minority.

    Posted by breasonable at 03/17/2006 @ 1:50pm

21. Gosh, according to the NYT Iraq is 'on the brink' at least every other week for the last 3 years - still no civil war though - and the insurgency has been 'growing' or 'spiraling' out of control' at least as many times. Don't these leftists ever get tired of predicting imminent disaster?

    Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/17/2006 @ 12:20am

    uhhh ... predicting? Disaster is already here.

    Go look at some statistics showing the huge increase since 2003 in insurgent attacks.

    Yes, in their last throes, indeed.

    Posted by Hman23 at 03/17/2006 @ 1:54pm

22. PONTIFICUS is really a subliminal backwards message: SUCI FIT NO P

    But seriously, this is a good read:

    http://www.bopnews.com/archives/006133.html

    Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism are not "grass roots" objects, both in the US and in the Middle East they are funded by state and elite actors as a means of exerting control. Without billionaire backed money, creationists would be smelly people in cheap suits talking in polyester Motel 6 conference rooms about the "Darwin conspiracy". Without Saudi backing, Wahabism would be confused with people who like too much green stuff on their sushi.

    **********************************************************

    It is no longer about oil, but about entropy. Not in the ordinary sense of entropy as "disorder" - entropy is in fact order, namely the ordering of previous waves of information. Entropy accumulates because of the fractal overlap of longer and longer interative sequences. Controlling entropy means creating choke points through which paths must move, and thus restricting the end points that are possible. This is different from controlling energy - since energy simply controls how much movement that can occur. Controlling entropy is controlling the possible outcomes.

    Thus Iraq has turned vicious, because the US calculated what it would take to control Basra, Baghdad and the oil. It did not calculate what it would cost to control every synchronization point in Iraq, and didn't have enough force to do this as a pyramid anyway.

    This is why 911 struck at the targets it did - they were points of synchronization. Destroy synchronization, and the structure unravels.

    The future is coming straight at you. And unless you adapt, there is no future in your future.

    *********************************************************

    The war over what form this kind of social organization will take, and the ability to control the communication channels that it uses is the next war. It, not oil, will represent the key to controlling the populace in the future, and it, not pure energy state pyramid politics, will be the nature of coming war. For those of you who remember reading Wesley Clark's Winning Modern Wars such assertions are not new.

    What is new to Iraq, is the unfolding of what the physical military manifestation of this conflict is about. It is not just about sleek internet interfaces and digital technology, it is also about the brute physicality of control of houses of worship. In this sense the same conflict is being played out in India.

    The question in an assymetrical world is who controls the power of synchronization. In a pyramid a single node sends out orders, and backs those orders by seeding other nodes below it that have the ability to enforce the orders by cutting off some flow. Weak pyramids must adopt a first strike policy such as the "Bush Doctrine" of starting wars before they get started.

    Posted by Bushfools at 03/17/2006 @ 2:01pm

23. I don' think anyone really knows WHY we went to war in Iraq. Did anyone here ever the Oliver Stone movie Nixon? There is a great scene where (based on an actual incident), right after the Cambodian invasion and Kent State shootings, Nixon himself makea a surprise visit to the Lincoln Memorial, where he chats with anti-war protesters. One of the students asks Nixon point-blank: why can't we get out of Vietnam? Nixon looks at her, and says, "I don't know." It is obvious that Nixon HIMSELF cannot truly answer the question, that he is being very sincere and honest, that he himself (the President of the United States) isn't sure WHY we are there, and WHY we cannot get out.

    That is sort of how I feel about Iraq. I'm not sure Bush himself can say. Sure, he gives his bullshit answer about "protecting freedom," "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here," and what have you, but I'm not sure even George Bush HIMSELF knows why we went there.

    Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/17/2006 @ 2:25pm

24. The only solution to the mess in Iraq is to build a time machine, go back in time, and NOT go to war.

    That is the only option at this point.

    Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/17/2006 @ 2:28pm

25. Posted by FRANK THOMAS 03/17/2006 @ 2:28pm

    Which is about as realistic as staying the course.

    Posted by breasonable at 03/17/2006 @ 2:34pm

26. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/17/2006 @ 2:36pm

    That's not documentation

    Posted by Will C. at 03/17/2006 @ 2:43pm

27. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/17/2006 @ 2:36pm

    Geez, LVLIBERTY1, you're like a skunk at a garden party here. Incoming!

    Posted by pontificus at 03/17/2006 @ 2:53pm

28. Context, not framing, is what's needed to take place figuring out first if these are even authentic and then the context of the gathered info. It seems curious that after 3 years to start trotting these out when the W is quickly going ever so lower in the polls.

    New Documents from Saddam Hussein's Archives Discuss Bin Laden, WMDs

    U.S. Government Releases Papers From Saddam's Reign

    March 16, 2006 -- Following are the ABC News Investigative Unit's summaries of four of the nine Iraqi documents from Saddam Hussein's government, which were released by the U.S. government Wednesday.

    The documents discuss Osama bin Laden, weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda and more. The full documents can be found on the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office Web site: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm.

    Note: Document titles were added by ABC News.

    "Osama bin Laden and the Taliban"

    Document dated Sept. 15, 2001

    An Iraqi intelligence service document saying that their Afghani informant, who's only identified by a number, told them that the Afghani Consul Ahmed Dahastani claimed the following in front of him:

    That OBL and the Taliban are in contact with Iraq and that a group of Taliban and bin Laden group members visited Iraq.

    That the U.S. has proof the Iraqi government and "bin Laden's group" agreed to cooperate to attack targets inside America.

    That in case the Taliban and bin Laden's group turn out to be involved in "these destructive operations," the U.S. may strike Iraq and Afghanistan.

    That the Afghani consul heard about the issue of Iraq's relationship with "bin Laden's group" while he was in Iran.

    At the end, the writer recommends informing "the committee of intentions" about the above-mentioned items. The signature on the document is unclear.

    (Editor's Note: The controversial claim that Osama bin Laden was cooperating with Saddam Hussein is an ongoing matter of intense debate. While the assertions contained in this document clearly support the claim, the sourcing is questionable -- i.e. an unnamed Afghan "informant" reporting on a conversation with another Afghan "consul." The date of the document -- four days after 9/11 -- is worth noting but without further corroboration, this document is of limited evidentiary value.)

    Posted by Bushfools at 03/17/2006 @ 2:54pm

29. Geez, LVLIBERTY1, you're like a skunk at a garden party here. Incoming!

    Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/17/2006 @ 2:53pm

    Hail Caeser!

    Hey our favorite roman knows liberty as well as we do.

    Posted by Will C. at 03/17/2006 @ 2:56pm

30. That Iraq was monitoring al Q, doesn't prove or disprove that they were supporting or sponsoring them. I'm sure the FBI/NSA/SS has tons on me, but they in no way will ever admit to supporting me or us being partners... Staw men, if they only had a brain.

    "Al Qaeda Presence in Iraq"

    Document dated August 2002

    A number of correspondences to check rumors that some members of al Qaeda organization have entered Iraq. Three letters say this information cannot be confirmed. The letter on page seven, however, says that information coming from "a trustworthy source" indicates that subjects who are interested in dealing with al Qaeda are in Iraq and have several passports.

    The letter seems to be coming from or going to Trebil, a town on the Iraqi-Jordanian border. Follow up on the presence of those subjects is ordered, as well as comparison of their pictures with those of Jordanian subjects living in Iraq. (This may be referring to pictures of Abu Musaab al Zarqawi and another man on pages 4-6) The letter also says tourist areas, including hotels and rented apartments, should be searched.

    (Editor's note: This document indicates that the Iraqis were aware of and interested in reports that members of al Qaeda were present in Iraq in 2002. The document does not support allegations that Iraq was colluding with al Qaeda.)

    Posted by Bushfools at 03/17/2006 @ 3:08pm

31. Finally, maybe next the Iraqi will be telling us to just leave-- wouldn't be just a grand Dubai moment!

    Sunnis Denounce Plan by U.S. and Iran to Hold Talks on Iraq

    By KIRK SEMPLE

    Published: March 17, 2006

    BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 17 -- Sunni Arab political leaders today denounced an agreement between the United States and Iran to hold face-to-face talks about Iraq, saying the conversations would amount to "unjustified interference" by foreign nations in Iraq's domestic affairs.

    http://nytimes.com/2006/03/17/international/middleeast/17cnd-iraq.html?h p&ex=1142658000&en=7872b8bd00fc9b9f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    Posted by Bushfools at 03/17/2006 @ 3:20pm

32. BUSHFOOLS:

    I agree the context IS important. Especially considering that several documents released are reported to suggest that Hussein was looking to capture Zarqawi rather than cooperate with him.

    Posted by Hman23 at 03/17/2006 @ 3:28pm

33. FrankT

    Dr. Who premieres on SciFi tonight...maybe someone could hitch a ride?

    John Nichols

    While I'll agree that the situation both here and abroad is way out of balance, I must disagree on the other point. No one can write a check quite like GWB for his Iraq renovation project! Of course, it's our money...but that doesn't seem to impede him.

    Posted by leftofcenter at 03/17/2006 @ 4:14pm

34. MBB

    for overly long URLs try http://tinyurl.com

    the WPost piece, while interesting, is little more than wandering rhetoric that posits no real solution. For one thing, single payer doesn't necesarily mean single rate. I agree that both age and lifestyle can and should modify rates. Maybe even genetics to some extent.

    Howabout this:

    guaranteed access to a "modicum" of health care at a "reasonable" rate with no /few questions asked. Similar to the socialized medical structures of the rest of the industrialized world (in one form or another.) To get "expanded" coverages, voluntarily submit to blood / tissue / genetic testing to calculate real liklihoods and risks. The really healthy get off with minimal payment and realize little benefits as they don't need'em. The less healthy pay more...unless they become so unhealthy they cannot pay, in which case they fall back to the "socialized modicum" level (aka: medicare) for critical if not heroic measures levels of care. The rich...well, they can buy what they like, like they do now.

    Posted by leftofcenter at 03/17/2006 @ 4:27pm

35. LL:

    I guess "the glass isn't 7/8 empty, it's 1/8 full" is one way of looking at it.

    Posted by Hman23 at 03/17/2006 @ 4:45pm

36. Bush invaded Iraq to get re-elected, the "re" is dubious as he was not exactly elected the first time. and it worked. imagine Bush in 2004 without the war. not captured Osama? you're fired.

    they thought it would be a cake walk, lovely dance. Low hanging fruit it was described. Fear is fear, worked for Hitler, works for Bush. god help us if there's another attack.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 4:53pm

37. another crank consigned to the ignore list for eternity ... g'night, woodeye. >CLICK<

    Posted by ZERO 03/17/2006 @ 4:14pm | ignore this person

    MAKE IT GO AWAY!!!

    (laughing) Hey Nichols! (laughing) Maybe you need to push (laughing)...push (laughing)...push Fein-(laughing)...push Feingold to continue with that (laughing)...that censure(laughing). Better yet, get him to go to that (laughing) town in Vermont (laughing) that wants to (laughing)...to impeach Bush (laughing) and drum up support for his (laughing)...his (laughing)... his censure proposal (laughing)...

    Posted by WOODYEE 03/17/2006 @ 11:50am | ignore this person

    hey (laughing) butthead (laughing) if (laughing) you (laughing) were (laughing) right (laughing) here (laughing) i (laughing) would (laughing), despite (laughing) my (laughing) innate (laughing) pacifist (laughing) tendencies (laughing), bitch (laughing) slap (laughing) you (laughing) back (laughing) to (laughing) last (laughing) tuesday (laughing). good (laughing) thing (laughing) all (laughing) i (laughing) can (laughing) do (laughing) is (laughing) hit (laughing) the (laughing) ignore (laughing) button (laughing) thereby (laughing) getting (laughing) the (laughing) last (laughing) laugh (laughing) and (laughing) avoiding (laughing) the (laughing) ugly (laughing) yet (laughing) satisfying (laughing) consequences (laughing) for (laughing) such (laughing) an (laughing) action (laughing). bye (laughing)...

    EVERYONE WITH A BRAIN DO THE SAME, AND IF IT DOES NOT HAVE THE SENSE TO GO AWAY, SAME DIFFERENCE REGARDLESS...(laughing)

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/17/2006 @ 5:12pm

38. Oh, wait, I think I see the idea. If you predict imminent disaster on a daily basis, you are bound to be right eventually...then you can tell everybody that you told them so. Like a stopped clock that's right twice a day.

    Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/17/2006 @ 12:24am

    That's what YOUR president (and cabal) having been doing to US every day since 9/11.

    It seems that you have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear.

    Posted by skeletonman at 03/17/2006 @ 5:13pm

39. Hail Caeser!

    Hey our favorite roman

    Posted by WILL C. 03/17/2006 @ 2:56pm | ignore this person

    I thought that our favorite roman was ... bigus dickus

    Posted by skeletonman at 03/17/2006 @ 5:15pm

40. Lefty, I agree that was a shitty article. no mention of what seems to work in other first world countries. here's something for the america the beautiful crowd, we don't get the best care, not even the rich, ha ha ha

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 5:19pm

41. Don't these leftists ever get tired of predicting imminent disaster?

    Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/17/2006 @ 12:20am

    PONTIFICUS, noting that Iraq is in a low-intensity civil war isn't a "prediction," it's an observation. Call it what you want, though. The left warned that all of this might happen,said that there were no WMDs, no ties to bin Laden, and that democracy wouldn't take root at the point of a gun. But whatever, call it what you want. And we are tired of it, because people are dying. Being right, in this way, twice a day is two times too many.

    Posted by breasonable at 03/17/2006 @ 5:34pm

42. Posted by MASK 03/17/2006 @ 11:57am

    good question...but with the courage of mob mentality, and who knows maybe some hush hush deals with moderate republicans...who knows...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/17/2006 @ 5:36pm

43. Posted by BREASONABLE 03/17/2006 @ 5:34pm

    PONTIFICUS, noting that Iraq is in a low-intensity civil war isn't a "prediction," it's an observation.

    Well, you better call the NYT then, and let them know that Civil War is no longer 'imminent', it's just 'low intensity.' My bet is your definition of 'low intensity Civil War' does not fit many people's defintion of civil war at all, especially if the NYT is still not on board with you. It sure isn't safe in Iraq, I'll grant, but that was the intent all along - fight Al Quaida there, not here. Seems to me to be working pretty well, or at least as well as we intended.

    Call it what you want, though. The left warned that all of this might happen,said that there were no WMDs, no ties to bin Laden, and that democracy wouldn't take root at the point of a gun. But whatever, call it what you want. And we are tired of it, because people are dying. Being right, in this way, twice a day is two times too many.

    People were dying before we got there (and Afghanistan as well, too) and will probably be dying after we leave. Things have not gone as smoothly as we would have liked, but in war they seldom do. Better than sitting here at home and wait for the next attack, which seems to be about all the left has as far as a straategy, other than hating Bush.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/17/2006 @ 5:45pm

44. "Don't these leftists ever get tired of predicting imminent disaster?"

    that's how we got into Iraq, by the Bush mob predicting imminent disaster, speaking of which Pontifuckus is a disaster, imminent and otherwise

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 6:01pm

45. to support free speech the world over, buy Danish, which has been boycotted by muslims over the cartoon flap.

    ww.buydanish.dk

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 6:22pm

46. Impeachment? Hell no, impalement

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 6:33pm

47. Will Durst WorkingForChange.com

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 6:34pm

48. In parallel with a pledge drive for the coming election to extract anti-war votes from would be members of congress, why not organize a pressure group to get congress to act now? A face-saving suggestion for them would be in essence to declare victory by passing a resolution similar to the following:

    Whereas the conditions specified in the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq (PL 107-243) have been met;

    Whereas the conditions specified in UN Resolution 678 have been met;

    Whereas the conditions specified in UN Resolution 687 have been met; and

    Whereas the conditions specified in UN Resolution 1441 have been satisfied: Now, therefore, be it,

    Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

    That the authorization to use force against Iraq is hereby rescinded and the President shall immediately remove all United States military forces from Iraq.

    Posted by seattlescribe at 03/17/2006 @ 7:17pm

49. Posted by SEATTLESCRIBE 03/17/2006 @ 7:17pm

    That the authorization to use force against Iraq is hereby rescinded and the President shall immediately remove all United States military forces from Iraq.

    Helloooooooo...dumbass....this was already voted on...helloooooo...

    GOP leaders hastily scheduled a vote on a measure to require the Bush administration to bring the troops home now, an idea proposed Thursday by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). The Republican-proposed measure was rejected 403 to 3, a result that surprised no one.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR200511 1802896.html

    Posted by pontificus at 03/17/2006 @ 7:57pm

50. MBB

    Perhaps...but at least we're talking. The only way anything will get done is by discourse. Why can't the US look to the rest of the first world nations for ideas on centralized systems?

    Ponti

    Predicting disaster under Bushco's regime is like predicting the sun will rise. He has disasters falling off him like road apples out a horse's ass.

    Posted by leftofcenter at 03/17/2006 @ 8:46pm

51. ALL

    Pardon a minor off-topic

    Didja all see the Fed court in NY sided w/14 other states in preventing BushCo's gutting of Clean Air regs? Maybe sanity will prevail in the long run...

    you may rejoin your scheduled insanity, already in progress...

    Posted by leftofcenter at 03/17/2006 @ 8:49pm

52. From the outside (the public view), this administration has never concerned itself with the Constitution. Why should it be concerned with the checks & balances provided therein?

    It appears Dubya is concerned with nothing more than getting checks from his high finance friends so he can balance his own retirement account.

    Posted by Uriah at 03/17/2006 @ 9:31pm

53. Helloooooooo...dumbass....this was already voted on...helloooooo... GOP leaders hastily scheduled a vote on a measure to require the Bush administration to bring the troops home now, an idea proposed Thursday by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). The Republican-proposed measure was rejected 403 to 3, a result that surprised no one. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR200511 1802896.html Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/17/2006 @ 7:57pm | ignore this person

    There are a few slight differences between the Murtha resolution that you cite and what I propose.

    My proposal is based upon our having accomplished the goals Bush and his backers established for invading Iraq. My proposal is "face saving" for the die-hard Bush backers who don't know how to extract themselves – and the rest of us – from the quagmire that is Iraq. Representative Murtha's resolution was a factual, but hard-hitting, indictment of the errors and costs of the occupation. In brief, I'm saying, "OK, all of your legalisms for invading and occupying Iraq have been fulfilled. Now, since the objective is realized, let's get the hell out of there. Murtha was offering his own assessment of the situation and was saying, "hey, you are screwing up big time and it is not in our interest to stay there." You'll notice the tone in my proposal is conciliatory in nature – something necessary to get politicians to act- and Murtha's is more of a bludgeon force. Here is a sample of the differences:

    Murtha: Whereas Congress and the American People have not been shown clear, measurable progress toward establishment of stable and improving security in Iraq or of a stable and improving economy in Iraq, both of which are essential to "promote the emergence of a democratic government";

    Murtha: Whereas, due to the foregoing, Congress finds it evident that continuing U.S. military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the people of Iraq, or the Persian Gulf Region, which were cited in Public Law 107-243 as justification for undertaking such action;

    Mine: Whereas the conditions specified in the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq (PL 107-243) have been met;

    Bush tried to wrap his justification for invasion in legal niceties and I'm saying those "reasons" have been met. Examples: The Use of Force Authorization Against Iraq was directed toward two aims: (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq.

    • I know of no one who would argue that Iraq is a threat to the US now (I argue it wasn't a threat to us when Bush invaded, but that is extra to the point here.) Bush has Saddam in jail and the old regime is not in power, so part (1) has been met.

    • UN Resolution 678 authorized the Security Council to use force to eject Iraq from Kuwait and to restore peace and security in the area. That objective was met.

    • UN Resolution 687 set out the ceasefire conditions after Operation Desert Storm and imposed continuing obligations on Iraq to eliminate its WMD. Done.

    • UN Resolution 1441 determined Iraq was in material breach of UN Resolution 687 because it had not fully complied with its obligations to disarm. Now a moot point.

    So, part (2) objectives have been met.

    In summary, Congressman Murtha's resolution calling for withdrawal of our forces from Iraq was based upon his own personal conclusions of what is good for the country. My proposal is based upon fulfillment of the reasons Bush gave for going over there. Thus, a major difference between Murtha's resolution and my proposal.

    Posted by seattlescribe at 03/17/2006 @ 10:20pm

54. a new parliment will be sworn in soon.

    they have a army the same size as our ocupation force...

    see ya

    Posted by Will C. at 03/17/2006 @ 11:22pm

55. My understanding of the BC BS regime take on the Geneva Conventions is that they're viewed as rather ‘quaint', but not applicable to dealing with terror, or is that translation to be treated arbitrarily depending on the level of secrecy involved in the goal they're trying to reach, (er, if there is one apart from profit)?

    Posted by Bushfools at 03/18/2006 @ 12:01am

56. My reading of this text indicates that the US is obligated under International Law to stay in Iraq until the Iraqi's are capable of self-governance and security. They could ask for some form of international security detail in lieu of the US, but it is not likely that they would get it from the UN or others. This reading of International Law seems to be overlooked by most on the left. It is however, consistent with what the US did in Japan and Germany. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/17/2006 @ 11:06pm | ignore this person

    LVLIBERTY1,

    Your citations speak to rules of conduct while occupying a foreign nation, but they do not speak to the mechanism of disengagement by the occupier. You post:

    Question: When does an occupation end?

    Belligerent occupation ends when control by the occupying power is no longer exercised. If this is true, then we should end the occupation by the end of this year. "President Bush announced for the first time on March 13 that he hopes to turn over control of most of Iraq to Iraqi troops by the end of 2006." - CQ Researcher.

    In our unfortunate circumstance in Iraq, I suspect exit of US armed forces will be initiated more by US political pressure than by international protocols. While disdain for international law and settled international treaties is a hallmark of Bush foreign policy, he did cite UN Resolutions, as I mentioned in my post, as part of his rationale for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein's regime. Indeed, Part (2) of the American Use of Force Authorization for Iraq cited support for UN Resolutions; so the fact that the conditions of these resolutions have now been met, would give Bush a legitimate exit strategy.

    I argue that those looking to help members of congress find their way out of this quagmire by signing a pledge during the forthcoming campaign season are overlooking an opportunity to advance a legitimate end to this occupation right now. And it would be based on Bush's own rationale.

    Posted by seattlescribe at 03/18/2006 @ 02:25am

57. Some thread.

    MaryBretBrad posting the exact same cut-and-pasted paragraph about healthcare from one board to another (and still wildly off-topic in both)...

    Liberty frantically shooting every last limp arrow in his quiver:

    - but, the troops are doing nice things, too (we know)

    - Saddam had weapons programs (mostly going nowhere and with no means of delivery to the U.S.), which Liberty equates to proof that Saddam hid actual weapons just before the invasion

    - Posting HUGE cut-and-pastes instead of just the headline and a blurb from the article (which would be highly courteous)

    - And quoting the Geneva Convention! What moxie!

    What, no Mask playing Devil's advocate tonight? Hope everything's okay with the little fella.

    And check out our boy Pontificus... Mouthy tonight… But still stupid.

    He posts…

    "Don't these leftists ever get tired of predicting imminent disaster?"

    Like the Republicans got tired of color-coded Homeland Security warnings every time there was a scandal brewing?

    Hell, now they just trump their big scandals with fun little semi-scandals, like shooting their hunting partners…

    in the face.

    Muddy the message, muddy the message, like Liberty pasting articles about hospital-building, but pointedly avoiding mentioning the current "largest air campaign since the beginning of the war"…

    How many civilians do you think those bombs will hit, boys, now that the terrorists/insurgents (whatever the Rovian term du jour is) know the bombs are coming and are clearing out?

    And Pont posts:

    "People were dying before we got there (and Afghanistan as well, too) and will probably be dying after we leave. Things have not gone as smoothly as we would have liked, but in war they seldom do. Better than sitting here at home and wait for the next attack, which seems to be about all the left has as far as a straategy, other than hating Bush."

    Your first two posts are dead on correct, people are dying by the thousands, and not all of them bad guys. Wasn't it Rummy that said at one point that the entire insurgency numbered in the low thousands? We've wiped out that many and many, many more. And your response to that is, "Oh, well, things are not going smoothly".

    Compassionate conservatism indeed.

    And we are sitting at home waiting for the next attack.

    It only took nineteen guys, most of whom were here legally (and some of whom were being actively tracked) thanks to our lax immigration laws, to perpetrate 9/11.

    How, Pontificus, is the Iraq war preventing nineteen more guys from entering our country? What's stopping them from flying from Jordan to Canada or Mexico and walking across the border? Not George Bush. Not his misadministration.

    And not people like you who vote for people like them.

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 03:08am

58. "Your first two posts are dead on correct"

    should have been "Your first two points..."

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 03:14am

59. in the face

    Posted by NEW DAWN 03/18/2006 @ 03:08am

    -> :)

    Posted by Will C. at 03/18/2006 @ 08:24am

60. Dawn, that attack by 19 arabs was used as an excuse to double the already obscenely bloated defense budget, nice huh? which has accomplished what?

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/18/2006 @ 08:28am

61. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/18/2006 @ 09:19am

    good morning, LL.

    did you see my rebuttals to you medison/jefferson qoutes supporting your opinion regarding the "general welfare" references in the US constitution the other day?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/18/2006 @ 09:42am

62. osted by LVLIBERTY1 03/18/2006 @ 09:55am

    ok - later

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/18/2006 @ 09:58am

63. Men's prayer breakfast, eh?

    I wonder what they will pray for?

    Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 10:00am

64. If they are all a bunch of right-wing Christian fundamentalist/literalists, then maybe they can pray for deliverance from their own belief system.

    Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 10:06am

65. maybe they'll pray for more war, and for more american kids to come home in a box, because we were attacked and we're really showing them now that we can't be pushed around

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/18/2006 @ 10:10am

66. Speaking of Biblical literalism: I was momentarily watching Pat Robertson's 700 Club the other day (just for laughs), and they were talking about the search for Noah's Ark. They took it for granted that there really WAS an actual, literal, historic person named Noah, and was an actual literal historic world flood. Not for one SECOND did they consider the theoretical possibility that the story is allegorical.

    I know it's nothing new, and I shouldn't be shocked or surprised, but to me, an educated, enlightened, modern person, it is so bizarre.

    Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 10:41am

67. the flood story precedes the bible by at least a millennia, dating to Babylonian and Sumerian times. and that guy was definitely not named Noah. in fact the flood story is found all over the world.

    what I find particularly interesting is that evolutionary science posits that all life came from the sea, and some creatures actually evolved to land and then returned to the sea, such a whales and Manatees.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/18/2006 @ 10:56am

68. I was impressed with the quality of gutsy speak on CNN exhibited yesterday afternoon when reporting about the repubs and W. Only caught a few minutes here and there while working outside. Incompetence, repub morons in the senate, just flowed from the announcers' mouth like it was as natural as it was a common thing to state! Wolf, Anderson, especially their field correspondents seem to have gotten their leaches removed (for now, just yesterday?). Wow, when did this start. These guys are being confrontational with the BS and not cowering. Cool, news programs that are skeptical and inquiring like in the old days. (Perhaps the chem.-trails don't have the same passivity mix spray stuff in them? Will faux news far righties all get brain steroid over douse tumors now?) Apart from KO on countdown and the Daily shows, seems that everyone is polite about dumb-ass stuff that the gov/vog is doing. Gets pretty frustrating to look at at times. Good thing there's lots to do than look at tv news/swen. Or is it just me...

    We Were Warned: The Coming Oil Crisis

    http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/presents/

    Protests planned for Iraq war's third anniversary

    Thousands expected in Australia, Japan; 100,000 in London

    Saturday, March 18, 2006; Posted: 9:24 a.m. EST (14:24 GMT)

    http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/18/iraq.protests.ap/index.html

    Posted by Bushfools at 03/18/2006 @ 11:11am

69. You know what's interesting about the flood story is that there is geological proof of massive floods at the end of the last ice age as ice dams around the world broke and inundated the surrounding countryside with floods of (can I say it) biblical proportion.

    People were witness to these floods, had language and told stories.

    Give it a couple of thousand years of fire side chat and that strong human desire to explain the unexplainable...

    and you get "Noah"

    Posted by Will C. at 03/18/2006 @ 11:15am

70. Other than that you have to figure out a mechanism for continents to submerge themselves in the oceans and then bob back up again 40 days later and or figure out the words that allow water to magic itself out of nowhere in propotions large enough to flood all the continents and then magic itself away again...

    to explain that particular bit of fiction

    Posted by Will C. at 03/18/2006 @ 11:20am

71. at the very least, the 40 days are allegorical

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/18/2006 @ 11:39am

72. Johannesrolf you mentioned eralier versions of the Flood story. The ancient Sumerians are the earliest recorded version, probably the progenitors of the myth. The story is called the Epic of Gilgamesh, of course. What is amazing is how much the (later) Biblical story mirrors it, even down to the tiniest details. (Sending out a dove to find land, bringing two of all the animals in, instructions to build an ark, etc.) The Old Testament version is indisputably based on the earlier Sumerian:

    "the gods decided in anger to send a flood upon the earth. Their secret decision was revealed to one man. The good god Ea felt kindly towards Utnapishtim and told him about it. The man immediately proceeded to build an ark."

    Of course, since ancient Sumeria WAS the ENTIRE known world at that time, if there WAS a flood there, that would have (to them) constituted a "world wide" flood. From there, the story spread from culture to culture.

    But what's most interesting to me is, the attempt by superstitious, unenlightened men to dream up supernatural explanations for perfectly normal natural processes. This attempt of course continues today.

    Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 12:18pm

73. Pat Roberson's view of God and the natural world is as primitive as the ancient Sumerians. It's as if the subsequent 5,000 years of scientific thought and revelation had not occurred.

    Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 12:21pm

74. In the case of Pat Robertson, perhaps a lobotomy might help.

    Or, perhaps he's already had one.

    Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 12:23pm

75. That would certainly explain a lot.

    Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 12:24pm

76. Posted by Bushfools at 03/18/2006 @ 1:00pm

77. OOooops, from nothing to something. Since we're talking floods and religion, might want to get some. Er, religion that is. (ha) The floods, for sure, are a recurring thing, but what about floods of information? Why is the gov letting 11 million illegal workers in for cheap labor without that much interest in security, wanting our ports and airlines to be farmed out to foreign gov's with ties to terrorists, purposefully running our economy to the ground with debt with an aim for higher interest rates and weakened national guard/military, working towards limited population movement per highest fuel cost way too expensive, well known major global disasters on the horizon, and illegal data mining of US citizens going on for years--now really, what does that all add up too? Is this just too beyond 9/11 conspiracy or just what's happening...

    Planet Earth's Ice Melt

    by Linda Moulton Howe

    "Very reasonable computer models suggest a point of irreversibility for Greenland exists at a warming between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius and we're already looking at a warming of about 2 degrees C., maybe 3 degrees C. over this century. So, it seems that if this irreversibility point exists, that we're getting frightfully close to it." - Jason Box, Ph.D.

    March 17, 2006 Albuquerque, New Mexico - Over the past 100 years, our planet's global average temperature has increased one degree Fahrenheit. In 2005, that average surface temperature was 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit – the hottest year on record ever in modern human history. In fact, the last time the Earth was this warm is estimated to be at least ten thousand years ago, or longer. Some scientists think the last time was the Pliocene 3 million years ago.

    By the end of this century, the average global surface temperature is expected to increase perhaps another 3 degrees Fahrenheit - and maybe as much as 10 degrees F. - depending on CO2 and methane increases in the atmosphere.

    http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=1065&category=Environment

    SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

    House OKs $92B For Wars, Hurricanes

    CBS/AP WASHINGTON, March 17, 2006

    The House vote on the spending bill for the wars and hurricane relief came several hours after Congress pushed the ceiling on the national debt to nearly $9 trillion.

    Also Thursday – in yet another move sure to disconcert fiscal conservatives - the Senate approved a $2.8 trillion budget blueprint that forsakes President Bush's tax cuts.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/16/politics/main1414172.shtml

    HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

    By Thom Hartmann

    Why Bush & Co. like a cheap and illegal labor force

    Thru, 09 Mar 2006 06:18:27 -0800

    Recently George W. Bush insulted working Americans by saying that we need eleven million illegal immigrants here in the United States because (in a slightly cleaned-up version of the more blatantly racist comments of Vicente Fox) there are some jobs that "American's won't do." As the modern-day Sago miners, and the 1950s Ed Norton character Art Carney played on the old Jackie Gleason show (who worked in the sewers of NYC) prove, the reality is that there are virtually no jobs Americans won't do – for an appropriate paycheck.

    http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/2157/Illegal_Workers_the_Con_s_Sec ret_Weapon

    IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

    Police Memos Say Arrest Tactics Calmed Protest

    By JIM DWYER

    Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:22:41 -0800

    he reports also made clear what the police have yet to discuss publicly: that the department uses undercover officers to infiltrate political gatherings and monitor behavior. Indeed, one of the documents -- a draft report from the department's Disorder Control Unit -- proposed in blunt terms the resumption of a covert tactic that had been disavowed by the city and the federal government 30 years earlier. Under the heading of recommendations, the draft suggested, "Utilize undercover officers to distribute misinformation within the crowds."

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/nyregion/17police.html?_r=1&pagewanted =1&ei=5094&en=5b0782ad98a92b1c&hp&ex=1142658000&partner=homepage&oref=lo gin

    http://www.guerrillanews.com/headlines/8166/Police_Memos_Say_Arrest_Tact ics_Calmed_Protest

    TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

    Missed chance on way to 9/11

    By: KEITH PHUCAS, Times Herald Staff 06/19/2005

    A small group of intelligence employees ran "Able Danger" from the fall of 1999 until February 2001 - just seven months before the terrorist attacks - when the operation was axed. To link Atta to al-Qaida, the operation's information technology specialists used data mining and fusion techniques to search terabyte-sized data sets from open sources - such as travel manifests, bank transactions, hotel records, credit applications - and compared this material with classified information. During the operation's life cycle, the group sought help from the CIA. But getting the intelligence agency to share information is like pulling teeth, Weldon said. The agency is notorious for its reluctance to cooperate with other government or intelligence agencies.

    http://www.timesherald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14720231&BRD=1672&PAG=46

    "To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult."

    – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    Posted by Bushfools at 03/18/2006 @ 1:01pm

78. Posted by NEW DAWN 03/18/2006 @ 03:08am

    New Dawn,

    It's nice to have you back but I notice you've gotten a little testy during the time you were away...switch to decaf.

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/18/2006 @ 09:19am | ignore this person

    Liberty -

    I never put poisons in my body like caffiene (just cigarettes, bourbon, and the occasional toke), and have been drinking decaf for about nine years. But thanks for your concern for my well-being and my health.

    Testy? Goddamned right I am testy. But it has nothing to do with caffiene so much as some of the posts on here. I am just about sick to death of all of the duplicity and the rampant apologism and blind eyes that refuse to see. It's making me testy, and sick.

    Try a cup of reality, Liberty, with plenty of accountability stirred in, and two scoops of true conservatism, then open your newly-seeing eyes and get pissed off like the rest of the sane people. The rest of you apologists (you know who you are) need a cup, as well.

    High time you got "testy", too, instead of weakly, meekly, unflinchingly supporting this ridiculous excuse for a "president" and what he's doing (and allowing to be done to) our country. And you people have the nerve to call us "weak". We are standing up and shouting out against multiple travesties that you, like Pontificus, shrug away as "Oh, well, sometimes things don't go so well as we hoped" or "The ends justify the means".

    Largest deficit in history, the murders of thousands of people who never did a single thing in their entire lives to the United States of America (and yes, we've murdered thousands of innocents - how's that for compassion?), our kinglet and his court's pointed determination to rule the world and tell every other country in it what to do, how to do it, when, where...

    Should we be proud?

    And don't think I didn't notice that you didn't even skim the meat of my last post.

    If you don't want to address what I said (and I don't see why wou wouldn't), then how about this: just one time, sometime, just to indulge me, you spend one whole post telling us what you think is wrong with this misadministration. Don't resort to cut-and-pastes or Biblical prophecy (which you've been amazingly good about leaving out of the discussion lately - I noticed and I thank you), and don't sugarcoat, just honestly assess and evaluate, like you did when you and I were discussing border control.

    That was a great discussion and I enjoyed it, not because we agreed so much as I knew you were paying attention and being honest in your evaluation.

    How about another cup of that?

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 3:28pm

79. Dawn, that attack by 19 arabs was used as an excuse to double the already obscenely bloated defense budget, nice huh? which has accomplished what?

    Posted by JOHANNESROLF 03/18/2006 @ 08:28am | ignore this person

    Funny, being such a "weak leftie liberal who just posts from the comfort of my cozy room", I'd put up my own tax money in a heartbeat to pay for a JUST war, and would ESPECIALLY rather have those billions going to REAL homeland security.

    Can you imagine the port and border control, the securing of water, power, nuke, and chemical facilities we could have accomplished since 9/11 with those dollars if we had finished up in Afghanistan, captured or killed Bin Laden and his immediate associates (and F you to those who cry, "Zarqawi" - he wasn't Osama's bitch until after both the Afghanistan AND Iraq invasions), and then came home to fortify the shit out of our homeland?

    But no, the misadministration would rather "fight them over there" with a huge and expensive war-making apparatus not even ideally suited to the fighting at hand (since we aren't fighing uniformed soldiers on a map with defined battle lines). This is no fight for our conventional war machine. Urban snipers, IED's, and suicide bombers prove this daily...

    We'd decimate any country who moved on ours in force (which they can't, and haven't been able to since the Cuban missle crisis, which would be M.A.D., anyway, then and today), so why not truly protect our homeland instead of scurrying abroad at the immense cost of treasure and lives in Iraq...

    None of which, by the way, prevents nineteen guys from slipping over here and committing another 9/11.

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 3:48pm

80. Posted by me to Liberty a bit back:

    "just one time, sometime, just to indulge me, you spend one whole post telling us what you think is wrong with this misadministration."

    Liberty, afterwards, just to reciprocate and be fair, I'll even be happy to write a post realistically savaging weak Dems. Plenty of ammo for that argument too (though it won't change who or what the current misadministration is).

    I don't like many Dems, either, but they aren't in power right now. The real bad guys are.

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 3:54pm

81. NEW DAWN

    Largest deficit in history

    Pure propaganda. Why don't you just admit you want to hike taxes, preferably on people that make more than you do? To pay for your 'concern for the poor?' What kind of humanitarianism is it that uses other people's money to pay for one's own purported charity? A big phony kind of humanitarianism, that's what.

    the murders of thousands of people who never did a single thing in their entire lives to the United States of America (and yes, we've murdered thousands of innocents - how's that for compassion?),

    I find your selective morality pathetic. Somehow it's only the wars started by politicians that you don't like that get you leftists out in the streets. Innocent people get 'murdered' in every war. How many innocent people were 'murdered' in Afghanistan? How many innocent people were 'murdered' by the socialists in Cambodia? How many 'innocent' people are being murdered as we speak in North Korea and the People's Republic of China? How many people did Clinton 'murder' in his 'illegal' war in Bosnia? How many of these crimes were you sobbing about?

    You are a pathetic phony of the worst kind because you use prostitute humanitarianism to your own political agenda.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/18/2006 @ 4:09pm

82. who has set the agenda in the last five years? the dems? Osama? Bush? nah he's too stupid. anyone read that thing about the price of cars at the senior center?

    No, Cheney and Rumsfeld.bunglers all, to try to blame the dems is an exercise in absurdity. the blame belongs to the american people, I mean sheeple.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/18/2006 @ 4:13pm

83. Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/18/2006 @ 4:09pm | ignore this person

    First off, let me say this:

    BWahahaaHAAAHahaahahaaahahaaa

    Check out Ponti and his newly found big mouth. Did you and Len attend a sack-growing seminar after having a nice lunch together?

    Pont posts:

    "Largest deficit in history... Pure propaganda."

    The following tends to diagree with you, oh sage one, so go explain propaganda to them, not me.

    http://www.cbpp.org/3-8-05bud.htm

    http://www.house.gov/budget_democrats/analyses/ 07short_analysis_pres_budget.pdf#search='largest%20deficit%20in%20histor y%202006'

    http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/ 2003-10-20-federal-deficit_x.htm

    Many are also uncomfortable (and being realistic) considering the inevitable shortfalls expected to worsen later this decade when the huge baby boom generation begins drawing on Social Security and Medicare. Further, there is immense concern about the hidden and as-yet-unpredictable costs associated with our continuing Middle East adventures, which currently cost billions. Sorry to whap you upside the head with reality over propaganda, Pont. I know reality is painful for you, and I'm sorry for hurting you. It isn't in my prostituting humanitarian nature, according to you.

    "Why don't you just admit you want to hike taxes, preferably on people that make more than you do? To pay for your 'concern for the poor?' What kind of humanitarianism is it that uses other people's money to pay for one's own purported charity? A big phony kind of humanitarianism, that's what."

    Boy are you off on a tangential rant that addresses absolutely nothing you actually got from any of my posts. Did I mention charity of any kind at any time, or say "concern for the poor" anywhere or even discuss it? Attending the Mask "School of Entirely Made-Up Quotes" with a high GPA, I see. Quoting yourself to boost your own arguments can't be far off...

    Taxes are most excellent for wars and homeland security, and I never said tax anybody else, I said I'd gladly give tax money to those ends. Where are you getting this stuff you're attributing to me, anyway? Did you even read my posts or just skim them?

    "I find your selective morality pathetic. Somehow it's only the wars started by politicians that you don't like that get you leftists out in the streets. Innocent people get 'murdered' in every war. How many innocent people were 'murdered' in Afghanistan?"

    Not as many as in Iraq.

    "How many innocent people were 'murdered' by the socialists in Cambodia?"

    I don't live in Cambodia and didn't support the conflict materially or otherwise. What year are we talking about, anyway, and how could I have supported anything in Cambodia? I was in junior high school through half of the eighties. And what the fuck does Cambodia have to do with Iraq?

    "How many 'innocent' people are being murdered as we speak in North Korea and the People's Republic of China?"

    And what, exactly, is this misadminstration doing about that? And are you trying to imply that I support North Korea because I loathe Bush and his misadminstration? Now, I support North Korea for speaking out against any and everything?

    Neat little Republican trick you're trying there, Pont, but you ain't got the brains or the delivery to pull that one over on me. Watch some old David Blaine reruns and get back to me with that misdirection.

    "How many people did Clinton 'murder' in his 'illegal' war in Bosnia?"

    Not as many as in Iraq.

    "How many of these crimes were you sobbing about?"

    Several, but they weren't on topic.

    "You are a pathetic phony of the worst kind because you use prostitute humanitarianism to your own political agenda."

    Did I say this already? BWAHAHAHAhahaahahahHAAAaahahaahaaha

    And you are one sick fuck for thinking that the deaths of thousands can be shrugged off as "Sometimes things don't go smoothly". Believe me, Pont, the humanitarianism in my statements is every bit as genuine as your "Oh, well, they were in the way of our righteous bombs, so fuck 'em" is repugnant.

    Here's quote I think you'll dig: "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic." Five points if you can identify the speaker. You and him seem to think a lot alike. The ends justify the means, right?

    Learn what stones are and how they can be used effectively, genius, before you start hurling them clumsily through your own glass walls.

    Post some more. I admit to getting a perverse kick out of making fun of you. You're as big a joke as ever.

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 4:51pm

84. Hail Caeser!

    Posted by Will C. at 03/18/2006 @ 5:01pm

85. I love this graph

    It basically shows how liberals pay the bills and how conservatives Spend, Spend, Spend

    http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

    Conservatives are bad

    Conservatives are very very bad

    (and they Lie)

    Posted by Will C. at 03/18/2006 @ 5:09pm

86. Phonytinyfecacus,

    I do believe morality is primarily selective, i.e. good vs. evil, morality vs. immorality, democracy vs. dictatorship, etc., and thus one selects.

    And I do think you require help, of an extreme psychological developmental nature, if you think going to war when one does not need to, selectivity-- is equivalent to where one hasn't a choice; thus considered necessity. DUH.

    Posted by Bushfools at 03/18/2006 @ 5:12pm

87. Posted by WILL C. 03/18/2006 @ 5:09pm

    Good one. I actually heard B. Clinton speak to this once a while back, as growing the military doesn't get the nation/world anything that moves growth exponentially like a new computer that then allows for new software markets, printers, etc. Grow a big army and it just sits there eating up funds with little returns unless you have a war and then you spend more... Only a few make dead end money, literally. Society as a whole doesn't grow new products from it thus its a drain on multiple levels vs. peaceful trade and growing new products via research like alternative energy, a giant market-- especially in China… It's way to bad that we have a dumb ass in office, currently. Good for other dumb-asses to have a role model though.

    Posted by Bushfools at 03/18/2006 @ 5:33pm

88. Long post, just skip if you ain't interested. Apologies to all who ain't.

    _____

    Liberty -

    First off, in my posts previous, those today, and those to come, I have been and will be occasionally hyperbolic, sophomoric, and immature, and I'm tired of apologizing for it. I am a smart-ass by nature in real life, and Liberty, you are oft-times a sarcastic ass, too, so stem the chastising, patronizing tone, followed by the "but I didn't mean that about you thing, please, or just give in and be blunt. I can take it.

    1. As to the Budget...

    This seems to get boiled down by you to the GDP discussion, often rehashed and and as-yet still open to debate, granted. As is the cyclical nature of the economy. I'm no economist, but it doesn't take one to notice the underlying "That's just the way things go - it's kind of preordained and natural" attitude underneath your statements. To turn a blind eye to the right-here, right-now, today spending practices and subsequent deficit of this misadministration and excuse it away to the last forty years of cyclical economic rises and falls is simply turning a willingly blind eye to the issue.

    And Bush's tax cuts are a disaster. Google it.

    "I of course would disagree with your label of murder which is the intentional taking of innocent life. In wars unfortunately, innocent lives are taken. To use the murder label is to engage in the type of immature labeling that is usually left to either propagandists or ignorant people. I do not consider you to be either so your comments are beneath you. I continue to support the war and have no regrets that it was a necessary action. I am at peace with myself in that decision."

    Slick, insulting me and then qualifying it with how you consider the thing you accused me of being beneath me. Am I supposed to feel guilty here for not realizing I was being an ignorant propagandist or not? I'm confused.

    Afghanistan: necessary. Iraq: yeah, not so much.

    And I'll tell you what, Liberty. Let's cut the word "murder" out of my post above, and insert the word "killing". Now, let's hear the requisite apologism for it. I know you've got it in you. Can't back you into a corner with the fact of the deaths (whatever you "label" them) without arguing the semantics. Liberty, the innocent dead remain the innocent dead no matter what you label them.

    "The kinglet mocking is just leftwing hyperbole..."

    Goddamned right, and no apology for it. The fellow and his misadminsitration are a joke, and I'm done apologizing for that, too. If they don't want to be cried over or laughed at, maybe they should stop being so tragically funny.

    "You are perfectly aware that Bush has no intentions of being made king or overriding our electoral system and staying in office. Nor has he ever had any intention of "ruling the entire world". That is rather sophomoric and is usually typical of a marxist or maoist propaganda you would hear from ANSWER or NOT IN OUR NAME."

    Now, I'm a Marxist/Maoist propagandist aligned with ANSWER and NOT IN OUR NAME because I mockingly called Bush a "kinglet"... hey, you're better at this trick than Pontificus, Liberty! But I still ain't falling for it. I'm none of those things, but that's not what you were implying anyway, right, that mocking Bush makes you any of those things? You were just saying... what, exactly?

    KUDOS for the honest shortlist that followed. I knew you had those awarenesses in you, too.

    However, 1-2-3-4-3-7-5-6... What the hell kind of numbering system is... Did you substitute some vodka for the altar glass of water today, Liberty? Fess up now. Be honest. Be careful, though... We liberals might be more inclined to think you're "likable enough to sit and have a beer with".

    I'll answer in your questionable order.

    1. Are you including line item vetos?

    2. Fair enough.

    3. Absolutely right.

    4. Absolutely right.

    3. I see no surface issues with this, but am not familiar wth the topic or implications.

    7. Yep.

    5. Yep.

    6. Good God, yes, why are we not more focused on China?

    7. Questionable, but complicated. Less a Bush issue than an "What's in America's best interests" question...

    8. Cheney step down? Hell, yes, along with much of the rest of the criminal cabinet. But Condi Rice with more power? Hmm, maybe you are pushing for real, live Armageddon with this one, Liberty.

    9. See above, but not for the reasons you stated.

    10. Karl Rove has NEVER provided good political advice to Bush and should leave the Administration.

    11. ANWR is pristine wilderness. Responsible drilling is not as big a problem for me as it is for many. And frankly, since I'm not a caribou, it doesn't affect me directly. Please, wacko left-wing naturalists, don't scream at me. I like you guys, really, I do. You're cute. ;)

    12. Yep.

    13. Yep. And how about them newer and shinier "enduring bases"? You agree with me that we should close them, too?

    Love honest discourse with you, Liberty. Like a good game of chess. All due respect, and how did the prayer breakfast go?

    Can I ask, really briefly, if you prayed for either George W. Bush or the civilians dying in Iraq personally? Not a smart-ass question, I swear. I am just genuinely curious since you read this board right before you left, and the topic had to be on your mind when you got there.

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 5:44pm

89. Posted by NEW DAWN 03/18/2006 @ 4:51pm

    "How many people did Clinton 'murder' in his 'illegal' war in Bosnia?"

    Not as many as in Iraq.

    "How many of these crimes were you sobbing about?"

    Several, but they weren't on topic.

    Oh, well, pardon me. I guess I took it to mean that you were protesting the 'murder' of innocent people. I take it you mean you're only protesting the 'murder' of people when George Bush does it, not Bill Clinton. I think you need to be a little more clear, then, next time you complain about innocent people being 'murdered'. Perhaps you should put an asterisk and a footnote that 'murdering' innocent people is okay, or at least you're not going to be very upset about it, as long as it is someone other than George Bush doing it.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/18/2006 @ 5:52pm

90. Oh, and Liberty, I said,

    "...our kinglet and his court [have a] pointed determination to rule the world and tell every other country in it what to do, how to do it, when, and where..."

    You said I was being hyperbolic, and that's true, but I'd bet you a thousand bucks that many of the misadminstration players frolic through this very scenario every night in their smug and self-satisfied dreams of what they wish would be.

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 5:55pm

91. Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/18/2006 @ 5:52pm | ignore this person

    Read my posts before you comment on them, you idiot.

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 5:56pm

92. The topic at hand is the Iraq war.

    Idiot.

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 5:56pm

93. Jesus, Pontificus,

    You're so ignorant that new and imaginative ways to eviscerate your arguments just keep on flowing freestyle...

    Neither Bill Clinton nor George Bush had anything to do with Vietnam, genius. Did you hear me mentioning Vietnam on a board about the Iraq war? Or Bosnia, or Cambodia (Cambodia??) or or or... That was all you, sage one.

    And on the subject, Retardicus, my original quote that you are rampantly misquoting was:

    "the murders of thousands of people who never did a single thing in their entire lives to the United States of America (and yes, we've murdered thousands of innocents - how's that for compassion?),"

    Never once said I supported or denied support to any single invasion, occupation, or war in history. I said the United States had been responsible for thousands of deaths (which is in perfect agreement with your pointless posts - duh- that the Iraq war isn't the only war in history).

    You got specific with all of the others, However I was talking about the Iraq war, the TOPIC ON THE BOARD.

    You walk into a lot of stuff, don't you?

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 6:04pm

94. Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/18/2006 @ 4:09pm

    I figured it out! Pontificus is really Sean Vanity-- ahem, Hannity!

    No wonder your bulb is so dim!

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 6:16pm

95. Good discussions, indeed, As always, Liberty, well, as usually...

    ;)

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 6:47pm

96. Liberty,

    You and the esteemed Ponte Hall, both posited this idea. (No, I am not comparing you to ponificus. I like to call you names, but would never stoop that low.

    Your quote was, "I of course would disagree with your label of murder which is the intentional taking of innocent life. In wars unfortunately, innocent lives are taken."

    I believe the point is, death is imminent, in war. In an unavoidable war, these deaths are unavoidable, and hence described as 'collateral damage'. But in an avoidable war, they are..well...avoidable. Hence, some of us call them 'murder'.

    Eric

    Posted by malcontent3 at 03/18/2006 @ 6:54pm

97. Liberty -

    Regarding tax cuts as determined by the CBO:

    $1.3 Trillion in Deficits Forecast Over Decade

    Cumulative total is 60% more than the estimates of just four months ago.

    By Joel Havemann, Times Staff Writer 12:14 PM PST, January 25, 2005

    The budget deficit is becoming a knottier problem in the short term and will be a potentially catastrophic one in the future, the Congressional Budget Office reported today.

    The report suggests that President Bush, in the budget he will deliver to Congress in two weeks, will have a harder time keeping his promise to cut the deficit in half during his presidency.

    The CBO's annual report on the budget outlook foresees a deficit of $400 billion this year. It also forecast a cumulative deficit of $1.3 trillion from 2005 to 2014, an increase of nearly 60% from the CBO's $861-billion estimate of just four months ago.

    These figures take into account some of the administration's request today for another $80 billion for the war in Iraq, but they do not assume an extension. Nor do they assume the likely extension by Congress of some major tax cuts that were enacted in 2001 and 2003 and are scheduled to expire in 2009 and 2011. And this:

    You also posted:

    "Most of the increase in individual tax receipts appears to have come from higher stock market gains and the business income of relatively wealthy taxpayers. The biggest jump was not from taxes withheld from salaries but from quarterly payments on investment gains and business earnings, which were up 20 percent this year."

    Who does this paragraph say that the tax cuts benefit?

    "Higher stock market gains and the business income of relatively wealthy taxpayers..."

    I fail to see why the majority of the American public (many of whom are neither wealth nor make stock-market gains) and most of the lowest-income, hardest-working folks should be happy about this.

    Am I missing something?

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 6:55pm

98. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/18/2006 @ 6:49pm | ignore this person

    Thank you for your candid response. I wondered if this was a fairly standard practice amongst such groups.

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 6:56pm

99. Liberty posted:

    "And for the cynics, no we do not pray for their deaths."

    Occasionally disagreeable, but Pat Robertson you're not - didn't think that of you, Liberty.

    Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 6:57pm

100. "And since I believe in God's grace and justice, I leave it to Him to take care of the innocent in eternity, which is for me where it matters most."

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/18/2006 @ 6:43pm

     Just when I was begining to wonder wher that annoying guy, who prostheletizes and twists reality to fit his fantasies. The one I wondered, 'why did I call him so many names.

     Along you come to remind me of how truly dangerous, not merely different and sometimes annoying, you really are.

     Why would ANYBODY, in their right mind, entrust his future to the ideals and leadership of people like you? Fuck the innocent, god'll fix 'em up later.

     This tends to extend to, fuck the enviroment, future progress and stability. It'll all be ok afterwe die, so who cares about the here and now. Let the top dogs have fun at others expense. Why worry so much, about making things fair for 75yrs. or so. Let's focus on how great it'll be for **eternity** afterwards. And rationalize away everything that happens now, with platitudes. Scary, dangerous bullshit.

     You are a freaky dude.

     Eric

     Posted by malcontent3 at 03/18/2006 @ 7:06pm

101. Mal -

     If I started a religious argument, we'd be here for days, so I avoided it.

     Have you seen the annoyingly-long size of my posts already today?

     Didn't wanna go there...

     ;)

     Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 7:09pm

102. As an ex-Catholic, I remember it well, if not fondly.

     They also pray for the world in its entirety, and are very vocal in their oft-times misguided stances on other things, as well.

     Thus, I'm no longer a Catholic... Go figure...

     Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 7:16pm

103. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/18/2006 @ 7:12pm

     Not that Mal needs any help arguing his own points, or you yours, Liberty, but are you or are you not an end-times, Revelationist, Armageddonist? Do you not believe in the coming war and subsequent cleansing of the earth for the next eternity? And that all we do between then and now is essentially preordained as written in the Bible?

     Not an accusation, again, just an honest question and quite possibly even just my misconception...

     Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 7:20pm

104. Youtube rocks. My lady's brother just sent me there last night.

     And the shirt-folding one is even better. I actually do them this way now.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=fvNUdcDtTwo&search=shirt%20folding

     Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 7:22pm

105. Not so much a religious argument. Just wondering if liberty understands what he is saying. Understands why those of us who don't share his beliefs, don't just find him annoying or amusing. We find him scary.

     Some of us believe that, while there should be no religious 'litmus test' for public office, it is only common sense, not to have folks who believe the end is imminent, desirous (not say LL is, on that one. I dunno.) and a whole lot more important then the here and now.

     It really isn't personal, when I say crazy people shouldn't be in charge. Especially when they think this world, in the final analysis, is not as important as a world only thet believe in.

     (And I really was starting to think, LL has been more civil lately. And appreciated the lack of bible quotes. Then he went and said, one of those things he says, sometimes.

     I guess I'm rude, talking about him in the third person...shhh! here he comes!)

     Oh, hello liberty.

     Eric

     Posted by malcontent3 at 03/18/2006 @ 7:25pm

106. Liberty:

     The line item veto is unconstitutional.

     Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 7:29pm

107. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/18/2006 @ 7:12pm

     "Rather sarcastic when you have read enough of my posts to know that those are not my views."

     I was not trying to ascribe those views to you. That's why I started with "this tends to...". In retrospect, I should have been more clear.

     It is the underlying belief, that scares me. And the faulty logic the results in bad decisions, which we all pay for.

     Eric

     Posted by malcontent3 at 03/18/2006 @ 7:33pm

108. Sorry, too happy with the Submit button. Meant to add a link..

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-item_veto

     Although I'll concede that not having it (and in the hands of a President who would use it responsibly) does tend to let pork slip through in big, greasy barrelsful.

     Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 7:33pm

109. I wonder what LVLIBERTY thinks about Pat Robertson (and/or his ilk)praying for the death of Supreme Court Justices? (Yes they did that at least once, I remember reading about that somewhere.)

     Actually praying for someone to die.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 7:35pm

110. I wonder if he believes that God hears the prayers of non-Christians? I ask because, I remember a fundamentalist/literalist Christian preacher saying some years ago that God does not hear the prayer of a Jew. (And by implication, anyone who isn't a Christian.)

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 7:38pm

111. "I think George Bush is going to win in a walk. I rally believe I'm hearing from the Lord that it's going to be a blowout election in 2004. The Lord has just blessed him. I mean, he could make terrible mistakes and comes out of it. It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad; God picks him up because he a man of prayer, and God's blessing him. – Pat Robertson

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 7:45pm

112. "I trust God speaks through me. Withhout that, I couldnt do my job."

     -George Bush

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 7:46pm

113. Posted by FRANK THOMAS 03/18/2006

     Ouch. No wonder even the right scorns him.

     Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 7:47pm

114. Scary stuff.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 7:47pm

115. Of course Pat Robertson also said that Ariel Sharon had a stroke because God was punishing him for giving up Gaza.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 7:49pm

116. And that all we do between then and now is essentially preordained as written in the Bible?

     God gave mankind perhaps the greatest gift (and our greatest weakness) in giving us free will. We make the choices that affect not only ourselves but others. If there is a God, than surely He must be all knowing. God knows beforehand the choices we will make. He attempts to give us the opportunity to make right choices, but ultimately they are our choices.

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/18/2006 @ 8:03pm

     I used to argue with my dad about this. My argument was that god didn't give us the gift of choice, but rather the gift of ignorance. If it's already preordained what our choices are per the omnipotent alpha/omega know it all god already, then it's about us not knowing. Thus the real question becomes: what if I'm not chosen to go to heaven/raptured/saved/etc., knowing that-- do I still do good works? If I decide to do good works anyway, god becomes a non-issue.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/18/2006 @ 8:24pm

117. "God knows beforehand the choices we will make. [But he] attempts to give us the opportunity to make right choices, but ultimately they are our choices."

     Liberty, you're speaking on God's behalf by asserting that "he" is in any way sentient or even cognizant of the world's progression and of our individual choices (I want to thank God for my award for best song, "Slap that bitch up! --- We won this football game because God was watching over us!). But okay... I'll go with that for a moment.

     You present the dichotomy of God "knowing beforehand of the choices we will make" and then trying to claim that we still get a choice. So, God knows when we're going to be wrong, before we even get a chance at the choice. Not being wrong when we were expected to would make God wrong, which is impossible, so by your logic, there is really no "choice", per prophecy and its eventual fulfillment.

     Therefore, evil will never cease by human means alone, because it is also necessary to fulfill prophecy and require the earth's eventual cleansing ritual to make the Bible true. The God you often describe must have evil to achieve his preordained ends, as written in the Bible.

     _____

     I don't believe any of that, by the way. God is not watching you or anyone else. God is not Big Brother, or subject to any of our petty human external squabbles or any internal ones on his own behalf.

     The great cosmic stuff that we came from, have been, and will return to when we "die" doesn't think or rationalize or feel jealous, angry, or loving. It doesn't support football teams or rap artists or even churches.

     And you posted:

     "It is not sufficient to blame [evil] on the continued presence of religion. Evil flourishes whether religion is present or not."

     No kidding, and in spite of all prayers to the contrary. And no one on this board that I know of (or anywhere else) has ever said that religion is the genesis of evil.

     Organized religion is, however, often used as a crutch for terrified people unable to make sense of the evil and strife in the world, so that they may rest easier believing there is greener grass on "the other side".

     Liberty, I believe that "God" is no life preserver in the sea of good and evil, for either the sacred or the profane. "God" is the ocean, and is no more "cognizant" or "feeling" than that blue deep.

     Disclaimer: I realize that any of those who continue to cling to the notion of a personified deity will never understand where I am coming from, but I mean them neither harm nor offense.

     Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 8:48pm

118. Hey ND, god -r- us. Everything is the ocean-- just don't know it yet, stuck somewhere in the middle.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/18/2006 @ 9:45pm

119. Posted by NEW DAWN 03/18/2006 @ 8:48pm

     See liberty?

     There is another, different point of view. Still difers from mine, but it doesn't offend one's natural sensibilities.

     More importantly, it doesn't subjugate others or threaten mankinds exsistance. And it doesn't negate certain, incongruous, logical trains of thought.

     Eric

     Posted by malcontent3 at 03/18/2006 @ 9:57pm

120. Question:

     Did President Bush and his administration lie to the American people about Iraq? This question can be broken down into two (related) parts: did they lie about WMDs (the main rational for the war), and did they lie about Iraq in general (in terms of the degree and nature of the threat)?

     First, WMDs. There are usually two possibilities presented: 1) they outright lied, in total, from top to bottom, knowing full well that he literally had no WMD; if true, that is an impeachable offense. (I do not believe that is true, partly due to lack of evidence for the claim, and partly based on intuition and ideological beliefs about what the American government in general is capable of, regardless of who heads it.) 2) The Administration did not lie, in that they were the victim of bad intelligence; that is, they were "misled," given false/faulty information, and, if it turned out to be wrong (as it did turn out to be), then Bush was a victim of false information, not a conscious purveyor of falsehoods. (If true, that raises troubling questions about the reliability and competence of American intelligence; how could it have been that wrong?)

     As I see it, these two explanations on the WMD question represent extremes (Bush and company totally lied about everything, or they were totally misled.) I believe the truth – as is so often the case -- lies somewhere in the middle. That is, while Bush was the victim of bad intelligence, he also lied. He was misled, in that he (as did we all, the CIA, the public, and the world) believed Saddam had some WMD (it was just a question of how many); however, he also lied in the following way: even though he truly did believe Saddam had some WMD, he knew he did not have as many as he was saying he had, and he also knew he did not have the capacities to deliver them as he was saying he did. So yes, in short, he did lie concerning the WMD issue.

     Did they lie (not only about WMDs, but generally) about Iraq, about the threat posed by Saddam? I believe the answer is in fact yes, in the following ways. In general, they exhibited a pattern, in both their (alleged) factual statements, and in their rhetorical style, of purposely (i.e. dishonestly) overstating/exaggerating the general scope and size of the threat Saddam posed, in order to "sell" the war. That is, they did in fact "lie," in that they purposely painted Saddam as a greater threat than they knew he actually was. They stated/implied that Iraq was an imminent, immediate threat, when they knew it was only a potential one; that was a lie. They stated that Iraq was a huge and grave threat when they knew it was not as huge or grave as they were stating; that was a lie. (To purposely overstate the threat a nation poses, in order to sell or rationalize going to war with it, is to be less than honest.)

     Other (specific) examples of this pattern of exaggeration/hyping (dishonesty) include the Niger uranium hoax, relying on anecdotes from questionable Iraqi defectors, scare-mongering about Saddam using crop dusters against us and similar sensationalistic hype, and ignoring the statements of people like Mohamad El Baradei and others indicating he was not anywhere near to getting the bomb, and lacked all capacity to do so, etc. It all adds up to a pattern of disingenuousness/hyping at best, and outright dishonesty at worst.

     One thing is fairly indisputable: Bush and company rather conveniently (and shamelessly) "cherry-picked" information: they relied on, sanctioned, cited, put forward and endorsed, information suggesting/supporting the "he is utterly awash in WMD" claim, while conveniently ignoring/disregarding information that suggested otherwise. This strongly supports the contention that they were attempting to "hype" or "sell" the war (which they did with considerable success).

     To some extent the issue may have been (at least in part) psychological in nature. That is, Bush himself may not necessarily have been "lying," in that (to some unknowable extent) he really had come to believe his own sensationalistic rhetoric (i.e., he was kidding himself, in order to psychologically convince himself). This could be an example of dishonesty, or not; if one consciously cherry-picks, one is being dishonest. If done unconsciously, one is not -- or at least, is not in as egregious a manner -- being dishonest. Of course, if the inspection process had been left to play out, we would have eventually found out the truth; that was the course of action I favored; let us -- and the world -- withhold final conclusions and decisions as to course of action until we were more certain, because war should only be undertaken when certain as to what the facts are, and a determination as to its necessity – or not -- can be truly made. We had the means to find out and make that determination – inspections – but Bush purposely preempted the inspections process. His doing so supports the notion that the war was – at least in part – fought for reasons other than WMD. (That is, if the WMD issue really was – as we claimed all along -- our main concern about Iraq, then why wouldn't we have let them continue, in order to find out the truth as to whether he had them, or not?)

     This is a somewhat complex issue; reasonable people disagree on it. My own personal view is that they did (to some extent) consciously "hype" (exaggerate) the degree of the threat posed by Iraq in order to sell the war, a war that was therefore (to some extent) fought for reasons other than those given. There clearly was some degree of disingenuousness (dishonesty) concerning the reasons given for the war; to some extent, the decision was made to go to war first (remember, "regime change" was often openly stated as the goal, even before the 2003 round of inspections started), then rationales/justifications began to be offered, such as WMD and an alleged (and untrue) connection to September 11th. (And since those two reasons have failed to pan out, "spreading democracy" has become the latest rational offered. Further, there is no doubt but that Bush – especially Cheney, specifically – lied through their teeth about Saddam's "connection" to the September 11th attacks; there was no evidence for that, and they knew it, but said it anyway.) My beliefs are also consistent with the Downing Street memo, in which the British noted the American decision/desire to go to war, and their observation that the WMD issue and alleged September 11th connections were going to be "used" to justify the war.

     In short, in all the ways described, Bush and his cronies were in fact dishonest, in addition to genuinely being misled by bad intelligence.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 10:50pm

121. To put it another way, the WMD issue was, all along, to some extent, a rationalization for a war that was actually fought (perhaps largely) for other reasons.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 10:57pm

122. Frank,

     I think there's a big difference in attitude, manner and action between having to go to war and wanting to go. The BC BS regime definitely was in the wanting to go descriptive set. The 'rush' to war was palatable even as lots of headlines spoke of it. The problem was the over-sight wasn't there with sufficient push back. Nor was the msm very confrontational to call any of the BC BS regime on obvious misrepresentations, even those caught on camera. Why? Well, one word could do it, 'intimidation'. Sometimes belief is a bad thing, especially when it steamrolls the facts. The BC BS regime were so in a hurry to go to war that I swear that when I heard them speechifying about it, I always felt like they were about to pee in their pants--they had to go so bad.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/18/2006 @ 11:45pm

123. BushFools,

     You're right. They wanted to go to war, REAL BAD. They were hell-bent on it. This was an elective war. WMDS (to whatever extent, some say partially, some say totally, whatever) were an excuse, a rationalization. Yes there was definitely a rush to war. Partly because they were afraid that if we found out he did NOT have any WMDS, then my god....what the hell would they have done then? Played up the "connection" to 9/11 and Al Queda? That probably wouldn't have sold it. So what then? They would have been panicking at the thought they couldn't have their war. Thank God the inspections process was preempted/ended; otherwise, no excuse for the war!

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/19/2006 @ 12:06am

124. Of course, this does necessarily raise the question of, if WMDS were NOT the real reason we went to war (were rather a rationalization, a cover for other hidden reasons) then they WHY did we REALLY go to war?

     There has to BE a reason, right?

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/19/2006 @ 12:08am

125. The only reason I can think of is that we went into Iraq because of W's Mad Dash for a birthday present. His pappy's birthday is June 12-- so he figured that if he hurried he'd be able to get his pappy Iraq by then and his pappy wouldn't have to worry about saddam threatening him any more. W figured it for a 2-fer and got his pappy Saddam for christmas t'boot.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 01:08am

126. Seriously, I think it wasn't a why do it, but rather a what's stopping me from doing it type of thing. The same reason Bill got a bj. Thus whatever short term benefits W derived from the Iraq adventure, they are just icing on the cake to him. If you were to get a hold of a psych profile on W you'd see what I mean.

     http://www.serendipity.li/bush/madness.htm

     http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1033904,00.html

     http://www.unknownnews.net/insanity061704.html

     http://www.majickq.com/bush-petition.htm

     http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0060736704/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-0335210-314 7319#reader-page

     http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/column.php?id=722

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 01:34am

127. God has more important things to do than sit around a watch Earth TV all day.

     What do you think she is, some kind of couch potato?

     Posted by Will C. at 03/19/2006 @ 02:31am

128. Posted by FRANK THOMAS 03/18/2006 @ 10:57pm

     In four simple letters, I agree:

     P N A C

     Posted by New Dawn at 03/19/2006 @ 04:26am

129. Rese,

     I still think W's determining motivation was personal psycho deficiency in nature rather than that of the reasons of the people around him and theirs, pnac/aipac. That he got benefits/profits from those secret constituencies was just icing on the cake. One need only look at what he views are his enemies at any given time and the shit that hit them, i.e. CA, NY, anyone critical, esp. within the regime leaving, the strangle hold on energy and info. etc.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 11:21am

130. God has more important things to do than sit around a watch Earth TV all day.

     What do you think she is, some kind of couch potato?

     Posted by WILL C. 03/19/2006 @ 02:31am | ignore this person

     The simplest way to monitor a large group is to put a gps chip within. We do it, I'm sure the god substance did similarly a few kazillion years ago. It really has no need to monitor us individually if you 'are' the same thing to begin with; has memory sub-dna downloads w/14 verses. Like when one can tell/know one receives a cold, cancer or breaks a leg. Some Buddhist monks are so aware of themselves that they can feel/control their organs, stop their hearts, control their bleeding...etc., tao and anti-tao.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 11:32am

131. Since I argue that: a) the reasons given for this war were to a significant extent disingenuous AND b) therefore, the war was unnecessary

     It is intellectually incumbent upon me to explain why it is that we actually (really) went to war; if the reasons given for the war were somewhat to largely bogus (if the war was therefore not necessary), then what is the real and actual reason(s) that we fought this war? I believe there are two main ones:

     1) The American government wants to directly control the Middle East. This is the neo-conservative belief that that is the solution to the problems of the Arab/Muslim world, and the current Western-radical Islamic imbroglio (and other problems).

     There are three basic (or sub) reasons why we want to directly control the region (the first is probably the biggest):

     a) It is a highly problematic, troubled, and dangerous area, causing us a great deal of trouble (as evidenced by 9/11, Madrid, London - the continuing radical Islamic anti-Western terrorist threat; rogue dictators, deadly religious fanatics, irrational and violent hatreds), so we need to be there directly; it is the source of the problem; we have a desire to (and an absurd belief we can) remake it, modernize it, democratize it, mold it, "fix it," on terms amenable to our interests. This can only be done (it is argued) if we are directly there to control it, and this can only be done by use of militarily force. (The "we are fighting them there so that we don't have to fight them here argument.")

     b) Oil. Although the radical left overstates the importance of economics as (the one and only) motive for everything, it is a fact that economic considerations always do play a role in why nations do what they do; it further is a fact that the bulk of the Western world's oil supply is located in the Middle East, and that we therefore have a desire and wish to safeguard it; in the abstract, there is nothing wrong with this – it is a highly legitimate concern. (Actually though, I believe that even from a strictly financial point of view, with the destabilizing effects this war has wrought, we have probably put our oil supply at greater risk, and in the long-run, damaged our economic interests. (If the region comes unglued, who knows who might end up with their hands on the oil refineries.) So even from an unabashed economic "we have to protect the oil" perspective, it didn't make any sense either! The best way to ensure a continued and steady oil supply is to have stability in that region; the instability caused by our war in Iraq obviously runs counter to that credo.

     c) To protect Israel. For many reasons, continuing to protect Israel, and to some extent, doing its bidding (thanks to this war, Israel has one less enemy), remains very important to the U.S. government (particularly to the neo-conservatives – a disproportionate number of whom are Jewish -- who currently hold such a large sway over U.S. foreign policy).

     2) To fundamentally change the way America interacts with the world. From multilateral, moderately pro international law consensus builders, to "it is our world and we'll do what we want with it" unilateralists; to flex American muscle, to send the message to any potential enemies that we will go to war whenever we want, with whomever we want, at any time we want, regardless of what anyone (even our own allies!) think of it. (Regardless of whether we even necessarily need to or not; against even theoretical or potential enemies.) The idea is to make even potential enemies afraid of us; to frighten humanity with the scope and size of our might and strength, so that no one will dare mess with us.

     [I think there is something to this perspective; there is real validity to deterrence. There are also surely cases in which preemption is justified, is necessary. However, like almost anything else, the "deterrence/preemption" posture and attitude can be taken too far; you can "deter" and threaten "preemption" so much, that rather than deterring war or the acquisition or production of WMD, you can provoke/stimulate it. (There is a fine line between "offense" and "defense;" some may not see our offensive actions as necessarily "defensive" in nature, and may consequently act -- including militarily -- to deter our "defense.")]

     To a significant extent, we want the world (collectively, and the individual nations that comprise it) to fear us, to see us as a threat to it/them. (And to a significant extent we have succeeded; however, I am not at all convinced that doing so has made the world -- or us -- any safer.)

     Other additional/lesser reasons why we went to war:

     a) In invading Iraq, we now have Iran surrounded on the West (in Iraq) and on the East (in Afghanistan). I believe this fact did not escape the notice of the Pentagon planners. (This is a reason why segments of the government wanted war, not the American people.)

     b) "To take care of unfinished business." Many did not like it when we let Saddam stay in power after the Fist Gulf War; Americans generally – certainly the neocons who currently run our government -- don't like "half" or "unfinished" wars (such as Korea for example). (This view was shared by government people and large segments of the American public.)

     c) The fact that Saddam was an irritant, was something of a vague and continuing threat (though of course greatly overstated and exaggerated by Bush and company). (Certainly the American people, believing all the Bushian rhetoric, believed that Saddam was a tremendous threat – that he was trying to get -- and was close to getting -- nuclear weapons, that he wanted to attack us, etc.)

     d) To a significant extent, I think it was a case of national displacement (Freud: the process by which energy is rechanneled from one object to another), as well as an expression of anger at the Arab/Muslim world in general; we (government and people) were and are frustrated at our inability to get at the real enemy – Al Queda/radical Islamic jihadists – so we took out our frustration on another convenient (and fairly easily defeatable) target (Iraq). We were outraged and frightened at the scope and audacity of the September 11th attacks, and the reality of the threat we realize we face; Bush and his cronies to some extent shared those feelings, but also, to some extent, exploited those feelings in order to sell this war. Further, I believe this displacement could only be done by specifically choosing an Islamic/Arab target; to some extent, we – mostly or somewhat unconsciously, though in many cases, with some Neanderthal conservatives (the type that blithely advocates liquidating/murdering millions of human beings by saying such things as "lets nuke em'" and so on) openly and blatantly -- view the entire Islamic/Arab world as "the enemy." There are in fact many Americans who (consciously or not) blame the entire Islamic civilization, en masse, collectively, for the September 11th attacks, rather than viewing them as being done by one small segment thereof, or viewing them within the context of an ongoing struggle between modern/moderate, and pre-modern/fundamentalist/literalist/radical Islam. In short, the war in Iraq was one way to "get back" at those "damn Muslims and Arabs" who (as evidenced by the September 11th attacks, as well as other previous transgressions, such as the hostage taking in Iran in 1979, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, and other incidents over the years) cause us so much trouble and heartache. (Bush and Cheney would have had a much harder time tying 9/11 to North Korea than to Saddam.)

     e) Americans always have been, to a significant extent, a martial people; simply put (as strange as it sounds), we actually sort of "like war," to a real extent. (The "excitement" of it, the drama, the passion, etc; further, we almost always win the wars we wage.) This peculiar "fondness" for war – manifesting itself in the form of waging it when not really necessary -- is probably due in part to the fact that, unlike our European cousins, who had world wars ravage their continent twice in the last century, American soil itself has traditionally been untouched (until September 11th that is); perhaps for this reason we do not truly understand and appreciate the utter horror and bestial nature of war; we the American people have not directly experienced it. (Though we got a taste of it on 9/11.)

     f) To prove that we really mean it when we say that we will fight "preemptive wars." We mean business. We aren't screwing around here. The American "preemptive" policy is for real. The only way that can actually be demonstrated is by waging wars (even unnecessary ones).

     These are the reasons then why I believe we really went to war. Having peeled away the rhetoric to reveal the actual reasons, does not change my view that going to war there was a mistake. This is because each real reason can (as can the fake ones also) be refuted!

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/19/2006 @ 11:34am

132. CONTINUATION OF EARLIER POST:

     1) "We need to directly control the Middle East." Rebuttal: I disagree; that is the wrong solution to the right problem. Invading Middle Eastern countries will not produce democracy, and will not stabilize the region; it will not decrease anti-Americanism and anti-Western terrorism. On the contrary, it will fuel and exacerbate those problems. (This is not to say that directly controlling nations is always a bad idea; on the contrary, it is sometimes necessary. Afghanistan is a good example.) In the eyes of millions and millions of Arabs and Muslims, the war (to varying degrees) has vindicated (or at least supported) the radical Islamic jihadist view that America wants to dominate and control them, that America is little more than a war mongering monster on a rampage, that we may in fact be "waging a war on Islam." (And further, that in "fighting back" against us in the form of terrorism and so on, they are in fact "defending Islam" against the evil infidels of the West who are out to control and kill them.) In many eyes, among millions of rank and file, ordinary Muslims (moderate Muslims), to a significant extent, this war demonstrates that there is in fact something to that point of view. (For this reason, I argue that in terms of "winning the hearts and minds" of the Arab and Muslim masses, of convincing them of our good intentions, this war was a colossal public relations disaster.) In light of the fact that the war wasn't necessary, and that the Arab/Muslim world knows it wasn't really necessary, how could it but not play into the hands of the radical anti-American jihadists? Directly controlling Arab and Muslim lands in instances when we don't even have to (unlike Afghanistan) does nothing to alleviate the Arab/Muslim perception that we "have it in" for Muslims and Arabs, that we want to colonize and control them, and/or exploit their natural resources. In short, trying to directly control the Middle East does absolutely nothing to alleviate the fear and paranoia of Arabs and Muslims that we want to directly control the Middle East! (And does everything to increase the perception that in order to fight that attempt at control, means such as terrorism must be employed.)

     Further, from a strictly military and logistical point of view, I do not believe we can directly control the Middle East, try though we might. Iraq demonstrates this, does it not? We are having trouble controlling it; it is more and more apparent that we cannot control it; that we will probably be there for years trying (unsuccessfully) to control it. Now imagine, trying to do what we are doing in Iraq, to the entire region. That would be a nightmare of epic proportions! In short, one of the reasons that we should not try to directly control the Middle East, is, simply put, that we cannot. It is logistically and militarily (not to mention financially) impossible.

     One possible way to actually reduce anti-American sentiment and the terrorist threat (unlike the false "solution" of invading their countries, trying to democratize/change their societies at gunpoint, and getting embroiled in quagmires as they resist our noble attempts to liberate them) would be to try to address or solve some of the underlying causes of terrorism and anti-Western sentiment, such as horrific poverty, pre-modern/fanatical religious thought (I am open to suggestions as to how this can be addressed), our support for dictatorial regimes, virtually unconditional support of Israel, the open wound of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc, that actually breeds/produces anti-Americanism and terrorism.

     Not to suggest that all (or even many) of the intrinsic and innate problems of the Arab/Muslim world (such as pre-modern thinking, the fusion of religious and political fanaticism, an undemocratic culture, blatant oppression of women, etc) can be blamed on us, that Muslim civilization itself, of its own volition, does not have problems/faults (it clearly does); that changing certain foreign policies will eliminate the terrorist threat and/or transform the Middle Eastern world; of course it will not! There will still be many who (because they hated us before the war in Iraq, and will continue to hate us no matter what we do), will continue to hate us, and continue to plot their evil mass-murdering schemes against us. But the point is, if we change those polices that in part fuel or increase that fanaticism and consequent anti-Western (terrorist) actions, we can (hopefully) reduce their frequency and scope, and the numbers of radical Jihadists, or, at very least, prevent further recruitment for their (largely evil) cause. (I say "largely evil" only because, to some degree, some of their specific grievances – such as their gripe against our virtually unconditional support for Israel – are in fact legitimate to some degree -- though of course, the means they use to try to address some of those legitimate grievances – such as terrorism – are not).

     The Western world's oil supply was not being threatened by Saddam. It was safe. ¼ of our oil comes from the Saudis. That supply was and is secure; however, the instability engendered by this war may in the long run threaten the oil supply. I favor trying to somewhat wean ourselves off our gluttonous appetite for Middle Eastern oil, by exploring alternative forms of energy, such as solar power, wind power, electric cars, mass transit, etc; that way, we won't need to go to war to protect our oil supply.

     As far as protecting Israel and her interests, I favor doing so to some extent; I recognize Israel's right to exist and I believe that the Arab world must as well; however, I favor moderating our virtually unconditional support for Israel, and making our policy concerning the conflict there more even handed and balanced. I favor a two state solution to the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In any case, I certainly do not believe we should be fighting wars on behalf of Israel! Alienating the Arab world by doing so (as was somewhat the case with Iraq, in that, as stated, I believe that was a factor), and playing such a large role in the continuing denial of just Palestinian nationalist aspirations, does nothing to alleviate anti-American feelings and the terrorism it in part breeds; on the contrary, it clearly fuels them. Yes, we should remain a friend of Israel, but we should no longer support them (virtually) unconditionally, because doing so is in fact not in our national interest.

     In short, for all the reasons stated, the idea of trying to directly control the Middle Eastern region (unless we have no choice, as in Afghanistan) is a terrible policy!

     2) "To fundamentally change the way America interacts with the world."

     Rebuttal: I believe the old way we interacted with the world was much better; I almost entirely disagree with the new way. Projecting our strength by "throwing our weight around" is not the answer to the terrorist threat (it rather exacerbates it). And again, while it in the abstract has some merit, it is clearly being overdone. I believe in international law. I believe in working with allies, and heeding (or at least considering) their opinion. I agree with Thomas Jefferson when he stated that we have a moral obligation to have a "decent respect for the opinion of mankind." Ignoring the wishes of our friends, and doing whatever we want, regardless of what they or the world in general thinks, is, generally speaking, a bad and misguided policy.

     [Not to say that it may never be justifiable to take unilateralist military (possibly preemptive) action that the world and our allies oppose; under certain extreme or rare circumstances, it would be justified (though it wasn't in Iraq). But generally speaking, it is a bad idea.]

     We should not be waging wars because we want to-we should only wage wars because we have to. War, while ghastly and abominable, is nevertheless, at times justified (it is a sometimes necessary evil); however, it should never be undertaken unless absolutely necessary. Preemption, as an idea, has merit, and should be used under certain circumstances. However, as noted, the war against Iraq did not meet the criteria of preemption (Iraq was not going to attack us, and was not even threatening to do so). "Preventive" war (the idea of waging war not because you are about to be attacked, but rather, because you theoretically might be attacked at some point in the future) is an incredibly bad and dangerous idea for the world.

     [Imagine if parties in the China/India or Pakistan/India or Israel/Arab conflict decided to act on that idea! A lot of countries pose vague and potential threats towards other nations. Thank God very few of them adhere to the Bush "preventive war" doctrine! (The world would be even bloodier – a frightening thought – than it is now.)]

     Further, that point is moot in the case of Iraq because Iraq didn't pose much of a long-term or potential threat either (as we had them rather thoroughly contained and so on); that is, as was the case with "preemptive" action, Iraq didn't meet the criteria for taking "preventive" action either!

     In summary, the false reasons given for this war were bad, and the real (somewhat hidden) reasons were bad as well.

     Thus, the war was wrong on two levels.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/19/2006 @ 11:45am

133. W's a salesman with a bad product to sale that he's sold himself is good for people to buy. Not being able to sale it and foot firmly in the door, he's decided to hit the people over the head with lies and just take their money, leaving the product there for them and saying, "hey, you bought it".

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 12:09pm

134. Thus, the war was wrong on two levels.

     Posted by FRANK THOMAS 03/19/2006 @ 11:45am

     Nothing good can come from anything based on a lie.

     The identity of a service person is founded on being a stand up individual. The honor code says I will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do.

     This whole GWOT has been about lying, cheating and stealing. These Conservative actions bring dishonor to our military.

     They bring dishonor to our country

     Posted by Will C. at 03/19/2006 @ 12:13pm

135. I have one...

     even though the conservatives have done their best to transmagorify we sane Americans into wild eyed 60's throw backs, they can't do it. We don't have to take to the streets anymore.

     We Blog.

     It's not as dramatic for the cameras. But just as capable of moving the heart of a nation.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/19/2006 @ 1:04pm

136. LVLIBERTY,

     It is both. Yes, they don't like the war. Yes, they have war fatigue in general. But the two things are intimately connected. If a war is believed just, then the American people will stick in there for longer. If it is going bad, they will lose patience and support will drop, whether they supported the war or not. Again, interrelated factors there.

     Why such small protests? Partly (something they have in common with war supporters, which everyone feels at this point), fatigue. Anti-war activists get fatigued too. Plus, a feeling of impotence. That nothing can stop Bush anyway, so what point is there in protesting anyway?

     I think calling the protests "nonexistent" isn't quite accurate. They were small, yes; smalller than expected. But a few were substantial here and there. (There was a pretty big one in Chicago.) However, don't let that make you think that the world has changed its opinion; it has not. The world was against this war before it started, and is still against it. They know what's what.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/19/2006 @ 1:08pm

137. As far as street demonstrations, I generally don't go to them.

     1) For one thing, many of the participants are way too left-wing for me (again, the radical-liberal divide); too many Marxist freaks walking around wearing Che Guevara t-shirts and so on. I simply disagree with many of their positions (both participants and speakers and platforms).

     2) One might argue that, in a sense, street demonstrations are undemocratic, in the following sense: if the viewpoint they represent is that of the minority, then in a sense, that group is trying to sort of force their minority viewpoint onto the majority, which of course, could be considered as undemocratic, in that one of the things democracy means is the will of the majority being executed.

     Though of course, the rebuttal is that in a democracy, the minority has a right to express its view as well. (Freedom of assembly, free speech, etc.)

     Then again, should policy be determined in terms of protests and demonstrations anyway? What about those who don't go to demonstrations either way? Their views count for something too! Maybe protestors should not be affecting policy decisions too much?

     I went to the one in NYC in February 2003. I went partly as a participant, but partly as an observer. (I wasn't exactly sure at that time what my position was on going to war, or certain aspects of the entire issue, at any rate. To me it wasn't black and whit; it still isn't-nothing ever is, actually). So I did go, which for me was the first time I had attended a public political demonstration of any kind in about 20 years!

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/19/2006 @ 1:22pm

138. Reasons why billions didn't march yesterday, personally speaking from what I see: having to hold 2-3 jobs comes into play, no draft, neighbors kids in the service, sure they know I'm against the war but for the troops, the amount of troops there isn't as high as Vietnam's at it's height or it hasn't been as long, plus the divide and concur thing as far as lousy BC BS regime policies to choose from kind of dissipates the laser beam focus on just the war the way Vietnam did. Plus all the passivity chem.-trails sprayed, I'm sure play something of a roll… Were there malls back then?

     http://25thaviation.org/id430.htm#allied_troop_levels___vietnam_1960_to

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 1:44pm

139. Actually, one could make the argument that protests were completely fruitless in the case of Iraq, in terms of stopping our government from going to war there. In 2002/2003, there were unprecedented protests and demonstrations around the globe. People came out everywhere. I mean, MASSIVE/EPIC protests, of staggering size and scope and duration. You might go so far as to say that, the world had never been MORE united in its oppostion to a war by ANY nation, EVER. (Remember?) It truly was something to behold.

     Further, it wasn't just a case of a (sizeable) minority trying to impose its views on the majority. Polls is every nation on Earth (with the exception of Israel and the U.S.) showed overwhelming majorities against going to war. The world knew it was bullshit, even if a lot of Americans didn't. It was quite inspiring. The world coming together to say NO to an unnecessary war. That still moves and inspires me.

     Of course, none if it stopped Bush from actually going to war. So one might argue there was no point. Then again, they didn't KNOW for sure that it would NOT stop Bush, so it was worth trying.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/19/2006 @ 1:54pm

140. But there is another principle here in this issue (concerning the efficacy of protests).

     Even if you think that you have ZERO chance of actually producing change, of effecting some political policy or proposal you favor or oppose, maybe you should TRY ANYWAY. If you truly and honestly and sincerely and genuinely and strongly feel that something is very wrong, then maybe you can't help but try, even against all odds. Maybe you are morally obligated to do so.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/19/2006 @ 1:58pm

141. Republican fiscal mismanagement and their recent appropriations for the Iraq War illustrate that America's warped priorities have inflicted an "investment deficit" an infected our political culture with regressive small mindedness. For a more in depth analysis our fiscal situation and an alternative program for Democrats to pursue, read A Time For Boldness in the Intrepid Liberal Journal [intrepidliberaljournal.blogspot]

     Posted by trebor007 at 03/19/2006 @ 2:02pm

142. Remember the quaint days of yore when ConservaClowns bellowed, loudly and to whomever would listen, that GOVERNEMENT is the problem, that GOVERNMENT is not competent to regulate the private sector, that agencies like OSHA were sucking the lifeblood out of the US economy with the dedicated zeal of agents of the Kremlin? Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 with these claims as part of the centerpiece of his campaign, to "get the government off the people's backs", and so on.

     To this day, the hapless conservaClown will indignantly bray his or her allegiance to the rock-ribbed principle of limited government, as it suits conservaClowns while they stroke themselves before the mantle of Reagan, and ... and ... err, except when they don't. Let PONTIFICUS explain how this works, with regard to massive State intervention into Iraq. Mind you, I am picking up on PONTIFICUS claims but this is standard issue, lockstep-with-the-party-line barking that (by its nature) is not specific to PONTIFICUS:

     Oh, wait, I think I see the idea. If you predict imminent disaster on a daily basis, you are bound to be right eventually...then you can tell everybody that you told them so. Like a stopped clock that's right twice a day. Nice technique, if you can afford it, but I guess you can if you've been turned out of all power and responsibility by the electorate. Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/17/2006 @ 12:24am

     You see, the US government is too inept with its Brussels-esque bureaucrats, stone-faced as they count the paper clips, to regulate business or determine if a workplace is safe or sanitary (so the rightwing mythology goes). But, by magical powers of arresting one's own reason by avoiding obvious questions, the same grim ideologues claim that ... the State is competent to re-design, from the grassroots to the treetops, another society halfway acorss the earth, to its own specifications, via a massive mobilization of the State via invasion and occupation.

     Mission Accomplished! The conservaClown is exposed for what he is: A supreme relativist, an antogonist to principles that would constrain the right's beserk calculus and actions and the damage that they can wreck upon America ...

     Posted by GlennC.Lemon at 03/19/2006 @ 2:11pm

143. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/19/2006 @ 1:40pm

     Good articles, thanks! Just heard Murtha on one of the sunday morning talks. That guy can talk fast, but made a lot of sense. Stated something that made Vietnam an example as what to do per experience vs. the argument that lots of people will die if we leave Iraq-- see how many died when we stayed in Vietnam after 14 years...

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 2:14pm

144. Murtha also stated that the Iraqi if they do go to a full blown civil war, won't have as many casualties as the USA had in our civil war...

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 2:27pm

145. A tight point, Mr. GlennC.Lemon. The right always screams about the excesses of the state, but the state is infallible when it comes to construction of opportunity for war speculators and their friends. For me, that's been the most odious thing about the conservatives and their progeny since a was a boy. The state this, the state that, bureaucrats dis, dat, and d'uddah, but when push comes to shove, who's screaming the loudest for the state as an agent on behalf of the wealthiest people in the country? The right. In one of his more clarion moments, Harry Truman said the only way to straighten conservative economists out was a few kicks in the right asses. And that's the task that we have in front of us today.

     Posted by redwingblack at 03/19/2006 @ 2:30pm

146. We should have a law that makes it's illegal to profit in any way from war, in fact-- corporations should give 25% of their assets to any war effort as patriots, since corporation can't serve and die, only people can do that...

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 2:36pm

147. murtha did a fine job today.

     any interested - check out wes clark's podcast -

     wesclarkpodcast [securingamerica.com]

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/19/2006 @ 3:45pm

148. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/19/2006 @ 1:40pm

     You're using the behavoir of Brits to explain the behavoir of Americans.

     Ha Ha Ha Ha

     Posted by Will C. at 03/19/2006 @ 4:43pm

149. the strain is really getting to you liberty

     Posted by Will C. at 03/19/2006 @ 4:44pm

150. OOOouch, the W must be thinking-- "Do I really want to go out there and lie about this some more?"

     Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. March 16-17, 2006. N=1,020 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

     ". . . Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?"

     _______________Approve___Disapprove___Unsure

     3/16-17/06_________29_________65________6

     11/10-11/05________30_________65________5

     9/29-30/05_________33_________62________5

     9/8-9/05___________36_________60________4

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 5:26pm

151. Posted by BUSHFOOLS 03/19/2006 @ 5:26pm

     I think it's interesting that the one pecent change in approval went to the unsure column instead of to the disapprove column. Perhaps a statistical expression of hand wringing, perhaps a loss of faith in a crew that must have faith or they have no center... no foundation.

     I asked Rio not long ago what it would take to bring him to his knees. If I could posit an answer it will be what we are seeing right here, right now in this poll.

     Every drop in in approval is another group in the faith based crew dropping to their knees, praying to God, asking God why she has turned her back on them...

     and begging to know if George W. Bush ever one of them.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/19/2006 @ 5:38pm

152. Hamsterland is ripe for the picking

     Posted by Will C. at 03/19/2006 @ 5:38pm

153. "in fact-- corporations should give 25% of their assets to any war effort "

     Socialism once again rears its very ugly head

     Posted by libzsuk at 03/19/2006 @ 5:47pm

154. "murtha did a fine job today"

     Murtha is an old fool that is 2nd only to Chucky Shmucky Shumer at racing to get in front of a camera...He is about as relevent as mother Sheehan....Or in other words...non existant except to the kook left fringe

     Posted by libzsuk at 03/19/2006 @ 5:51pm

155. Posted by WILL C. 03/19/2006 @ 5:38pm

     I think that's how migration works. One is in the unsure column for a day or two before moving over to the dis/approve columns.

     As for the praying, if the W ever really prayed-- I'm sure he is now. Well ok, he's really scheming, but that's the BC BS regimes take on prayer/scheme, same thing to a salesman.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 6:13pm

156. Oh, ok the people that are rep in the stat's praying, naw I don't think they really believed the W was sincere or one of them, just thought they could get more milage out of him... not. Like a broke car, they're out looking for another gas guzzler. Well maybe an alternative energy guzzler now...

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 6:19pm

157. Amazing how fast a decorated war veteran and hawk so quickly becomes "an old fool" and "irrelevant" the moment he disagrees with this misadministration, makes perfectly valid points,and offers concrete plans in the best interest of the country.

     Posted by New Dawn at 03/19/2006 @ 7:29pm

158. Getting back to the topic of the thread. Has anyone noticed that the republicans aren't doing anything more than throwing money at the problem of Iraq?

     No new ideas, unwilling to budge on the occupation... they just throw more and more money at it.

     Amazing isn't it? A political organization that has complained for decades that all liberals know how to do is throw money at America's problems and all that Republicans can do with this problem (of their own creation) is throw money at it.

     and because throwing money at the problem of Iraq is really the only plan the Republicans ever had for this little 1.5 billion dollar boondoggle (as advertised by guess who... those fiscally responsible prowar conservative republicans whose prowar moniker should have been a dead give away and told everybody loud and clear that conservatives are insane and shouldn't even be trusted with keys to the outhouse must less a government, or a budget or even a war)…

     Now where was I... oh yeah, because throwing money at the problem was all these Bush Monkey's ever had planned, this 1.5 billion dollar boondoggle (that Iraqi oil was going to pay for, remember that one Ha Ha Ha) could very easily turn into a great big trillion dollar boondoggle that makes America even less safe then it was before the Republicans threw all that money at the problem that they created after banging the gas cans together and running around like a bunch of insane Bush Monkey's(aptly named because they are so low they can't even make it up to the lowest of tree branches to even get at the lowest of the low hanging fruit) and started a war of choice which demonstrated that all Republicans know how to do when running a country is create problems so they can throw wads and wads of money at those problems so that at the very least they (the republican party) will have some excuse to spend all that money that they are borrowing from Americas cold war enemy(and the new bestest of conservative buddies) the communist Chinese.

     All this used to really bug me. Now I sit here my cold soda and fresh bag of chips and watch the Republican Party kill the conservative movement here in America for the rest of time.

     Isn't life grand?

     :)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/19/2006 @ 7:36pm

159. Posted by LIBZSUK 03/19/2006 @ 5:51pm

     oh hi libzsuk. just tlking about politics and stuff here. you seem uncharacteristically reserved today. is something wrong? here, have some herbal tea and organic hommous on blue corn chips. mmm mmm good! that always cheers me up when i'm feeling "blue" hee hee. awww...things falling apart? don't worry, the neocon crackup will only result in trial and disgrace for your fascist buddy heros. your just LIBZSUK, an angry, petulent, squeaky, voice out in the cold now. awww, OK, go ahead and give us a good ole fashioned profanity ridden skree, like the old days...it'll make u feel so much better, and we don't really care what you say anyway...you're on the loser side now...

     but please, do have the herbal tea and vegan snacks...they're yummy and free and good for the spirit and body too!

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/19/2006 @ 7:41pm

160. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/19/2006 @ 12:54am

     why no big protests?

     most have responded well already...

     1. people are busy trying to stay afloat...neocons have trashed social welfare net enough, enriched the rich and made life hard enough for schmuk nation that we are kind of tired...

     2. USAFASCIST act scares folks and keeps em low key, hiding out...

     3. here we are, right here...see? look at us, and many more on many many websites. mine will be up soon, look for it - virtual democracy...

     4. quiet revolution beginning...people think things will begin to change this november...even more in 08...know how they will vote...quiet, seething disgust and rage...watch out arrogant neofascists

     because if they pull any shennanigans like the rigged elections of 2000 this time, or let another terrrorist attack get through shoddy underfunded homeland insecurity, or haul off and get us ivolved in another stupid poorly thought out macho military quagmire, or pull just about any other arrogant, stupid stunt (and if past action is any indication...), you just might well see some folks in the streets...but maybe not PEACEFULLY expressing public opinion this time...

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/19/2006 @ 7:59pm

161. Can saying Cheney's a delusional pathological liar, being too polite?

     Cheney: Iraq Not in Midst of Civil War

     Mar 19 11:09 AM US/Eastern

     By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press Writer

     "Cheney said he did not think optimistic statements that he has made about the war have contributed to Americans' skepticism about the war. For instance, the vice president predicted that invading U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators and then said 10 months ago that the insurgency is in its last throes, even though violence still rages. Cheney said the optimistic statements "were basically accurate, reflect reality."

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 8:04pm

162. What if we, the 65-70% of the US, patriotic citizens that we are, that think the BC BS regime are a bunch of incompetent elite rich aholes that don't value human life in the least compared to the power, control and profit they can make, that we all synched up our watches for say 10 PM and all yelled at the top of lungs: " Bush and Cheney-- You Incompetent Fools-- Go Fuck Yourselves!" And what if we yell it 10 times every night until November. Think they'd start getting the message?

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 8:23pm

163. osted by BUSHFOOLS 03/19/2006 @ 8:23pm |

     10 pm est, central, mountain, or pacific? don't know bushfools, prob get a few of us arrested though...

     THUS BEGINS THE REVOLUTION!

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/19/2006 @ 8:39pm

164. wesclark [securingamerica.com]

     listen to the podcast. consider what he says.

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/19/2006 @ 8:42pm

165. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 03/19/2006 @ 8:39pm

     It'll need to be 10 PM central, but can we add Rumsfeld to the yell? Makes it sound a little awkward but he's another idiot liar too and fits right in with the other two corrupt salesmen.

     Rumsfeld's Iraq-Germany analogy disputed

     Former top officials disagree with comparison

     Sunday, March 19, 2006; Posted: 6:25 p.m. EST (23:25 GMT)

     WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former top officials in two presidential administrations -- one Democratic, one Republican -- disagreed Sunday with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's characterization of what would happen if the United States were to pull out of the war in Iraq.

     "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis," Rumsfeld wrote in an opinion piece published Sunday -- the third anniversary of the beginning of the U.S.-led war in Iraq -- in the Washington Post.

     Henry Kissinger, who served with U.S. forces in Germany at the end of World War II and who served as secretary of state under Republican Presidents Nixon and Ford, said the situations are not analogous.

     "In Germany, the opposition was completely crushed; there was no significant resistance movement," the German-born diplomat told CNN's "Late Edition."

     Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as national security adviser under President Carter, a Democrat, was less charitable.

     "That is really absolutely crazy to anyone who knows history," he said. "There was no alternative to our presence. The Germans were totally crushed. For Secretary Rumsfeld to be talking this way suggests either he doesn't know history or he's simply demagoguing."

     DUH.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 8:50pm

166. Posted by BUSHFOOLS 03/19/2006 @ 8:50pm

     hey - your evil doppleganger, bushrules is bragging about the size of his weeny on the hillary blogette on he notion...

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/19/2006 @ 9:10pm

167. I feel sick.

     Iraq: A victim of international terrorism

     By Ghali Hassan, Online Journal Contributing Writer

     Mar 17, 2006, 12:46

     One of the common myths about the US war against the Iraqi people is that the US and its Western allies are on a ìmissionî to help the Iraqis in their aspiration for ìdemocracyî and ìfreedom.î However, a brief analysis of the crimes committed against the Iraqi people in the last 15 years shows that the main aim of the US and its allies is the destruction of Iraq and Iraqi society.

     **********************************

     Eric Hoskins, a Canadian physician and coordinator of a Harvard study team, reported that the US War on Iraq ìeffectively terminated everything vital to human survival in Iraq -- electricity, water, sewage systems, agriculture, industry and health care.î [3] "All of Iraqís 11 major electrical power plants as well as 119 substations were completely destroyed. Eight multi-purpose dams were repeatedly hit and destroyed -- this wrecked flood control, municipal and industrial water storage, irrigation and hydroelectric power. The health and education systems werenít spared. Twenty-eight civilian hospitals and 52 community health centres were hit." In addition, more than 676 schools were damaged, including 38 completely destroyed (Media Lens 01 July 2002). Was all this for the sake of returning a tin-pot dictator to Kuwait?

     Research by Thomas Nagy, professor of Expert Systems at George Washington University, revealed that the US military knew the effects of their attacks on the civilian population and proceeded with them nonetheless. Nagy wrote: ìThe health effects of the destruction of the water treatment system were not merely foreseeable in principle but were actually foreseenì. (The Progressive, September 2001). As Barton Gellman of the Washington Post wrote at the time quoting a Pentagon source; ìPeople say, 'You didn't recognize that it was going to have an effect on water or sewage,íî said the planning officer. ìWell, what were we trying to do with [United Nations-approved economic] sanctions -- help out the Iraqi people? No. What we were doing with the attacks on infrastructure was to accelerate the effect of the sanctions.î (Washington Post, 23 June 1991)

     To ensure that Iraq would be unable to repair or replace of what had been destroyed, the US and Britain maintained the genocidal sanctions against the Iraqi people, enforced by a massive military presence and weekly bombing raids designed to terrorise the Iraqi population. The sanctions have greatly impaired Iraqís ability to import the nutrients, medicines and other materials necessary to saving the lives of even their toddlers. The health care system has deteriorated, and the education system and standard of living were near collapse. In addition, the sanctions were designed to isolate Iraq from the rest of the world and destroy the fabric of Iraqi society.

     More than 88,500 tons of bombs were dropped on Iraq during the 1991 US war. A large number of these bombs were encased in ëdepletedí (DU) uranium, a radioactive by-product of the enrichment process used to make nuclear fuel. The ëdustí which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years contaminates the air, land and water, and causes chromosomal radiation damage, especially to soft tissue, pregnant women and their foetuses. [2] Cancer researchers in Iraq and in the West have shown that due to DU residue, the ërate of cancer has increased nine-fold since the 1991 US war,í particularly among pregnant women and their babies. According to the Pentagon's own report, the US-UK dropped 320 tonnes of DU on Iraq in 1991. Greenpeace puts the figure at an estimate of 800 tones. More that 100,000 DU shells dropped on the city of Basra and its surroundings. The destruction was deliberate and a long-lasting act of terrorism.

     ******************************

     Former UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday has repeatedly denounced what was happening as ìa systematic program . . . of deliberate genocide.î His statements appeared in the New York Times and other mainstream media during 1998, so it can hardly be contended that the world, the American public in particular, was îunawareî of them. He resigned from his post and refused to be part of this deliberate genocide.

     ***********************************

     Having failed to defeat the Iraqi people through genocidal sanctions, the Anglo-American armies unashamedly attacked Iraq again. In March 2003, Iraq was massively attacked in a preemptive and unprovoked act of aggression. The attack was a blatant and gross violation of international law and the UN Charter.

     In the end, every pretext for the war (WMD and Iraqís alleged connection to ìterrorismî) has proved to be a lie. The UN declared the an ìillegalî act of aggression. The motives for the US war were obvious: the removal of an independent government, enforcing the US-Israel Zionist domination of the region and control over Iraqís oil resources.

     According to Michael Mandel, professor of Law at York University in Canada; ìIf we judge [the war] by the standards laid down by the Nuremberg Tribunal that judged the Nazis after World War II, it is the supreme international crime.î [5] The Nazis who committed war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity were indicted and sentenced to death by hanging. So, in a just world, the perpetrators and promoters of the war on Iraq must be held accountable and stand trial on war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.

     ********************************************

     After three years of violent occupation, the living conditions in Iraq have worsened since the invasion. There is no clean water and there is no adequate supply of electricity. Iraq remains a destroyed nation. The health care system is beyond repair and the education system has collapsed. A study conducted by the Norway-based Institute of Applied International Studies, or Fafo, in cooperation with Iraq's Central Office for Statistics and Information Technology, Iraq's Health Ministry, and the UNDP, reveals that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children between the ages of six months and 5 years has increased from 4 percent before the invasion to 7.7 per cent since the US invasion. In other words, despite the 13-year long genocidal sanctions, Iraqi children were living much better (by 3.7 percent) under the regime of Saddam Hussein than under the tyranny of George W. Bush. The study shows that about 400,000 Iraqi children are suffering from 'wasting' and 'emaciation' -- conditions of chronic diarrhoea and protein deficiency.

     In addition, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children have been needlessly killed by US and British forces. The true number of Iraqis killed may never be known. In October 2004, the respected and peer-reviewed British medical journal, The Lancet -- the only serious study so far ñ, published a ëconservativeí estimate of 100,000 Iraqis killed, mostly women and children, by US forces. The US violence and destruction have since increased and the number of Iraqis killed could be more than half a million. (See The Lancet, 29 October 2004).

     http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_602.shtml

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/19/2006 @ 9:30pm

168. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/20/2006 @ 12:16am

     Show your info discrediting this article or you're pathetic. You can say anything, but cite your proof, I really want to see it. The article cites it's references-- site yours.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/20/2006 @ 12:25am

169. LL,

     All the stuff/space you took does not dispute what the article stated. Education is fine but it's talking death and destruction, mayhem,,, That our troops and agencies are helping as they can through the civil war is hopefully a sign that something, anything good is happening apart from the Abu Ghraib, chemical bombs, etc., but it would be hard not to at least consider that some of what was written in the article you dispute off hand could be or is true per actual documented abuses. Considering you really didn't provide anything to dispute a lot of what was written, I take it most of it could still be true and you're talking out of the other orifice.

     And since as you say you've disputed the DU uranium dust controvercy but cite no references, am I supposed to take your word that that it's not that bad to live and breath the stuff as a simple google is giving me more confirming info than not:

     http://www.wise-uranium.org/pdf/duemdec.pdf

     http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/silentWMD's.html#SILENT

     http://www.atforumz.com/showthread.php?t=230047

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/20/2006 @ 01:30am

170. Ok, there are 'varying' estimates of how many Iraqi have died, between 2003-05 and that proves what exactly? That we're so disorganized and can't or won't count the dead and thus not 'that' bad! Oh please, it's lots of death and mayhem and it's getting worse not better. And all your space did not dispute the fact that we destroyed most if not all of their infrastructure the first time around nor once again the second time we bomded them to the middle ages. And you never disputed the increase in the Iraqi children malnutrition stats. And again I want to see documentation of you eating and breathing the DU dust and show everyone how harmless it is.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/20/2006 @ 02:02am

171. LL ,

     The stuff you just cited is old-- the stuff I cited earlier is a year newerer and more comprehensive and states they're still doing studies on it. UUUuhhmm-- yours must've been jumping to conclussions without a scientific study if a newer article is saying they're still studying the effects of the DU dust. It reminds me of Reagan saying that global warming is good for the environment-- trees like C02...

     Do even read your own references? I don't know where got the BS you cut/pasted up there but it's being disputed in wikipedia. From your own last post reference site:

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

     Health concerns

     Soluble uranium salts are toxic, causing kidney damage in large doses and proven reproductive, neurological, and immunological harm in mammals. Soluble uranium salts are excreted in the urine, although some accumulation in lungs, bones, and soft tissues does occur. (Many uranium compounds are partially soluble, and some are insoluble.) The World Health Organisation has established a daily "tolerated intake" of soluble uranium salts for the general public of 0.5 ?g/kg body weight (or 35 ?g for a 70 kg adult): exposure at this level is not thought to lead to any significant kidney damage. However, these measures have not been designed to address reproductive toxicity.

     The chemical toxicity of soluble uranium salts is about a million times greater than their radiological toxicity (Miller, et al. 2002.)

     The dangers of exposure to depleted uranium combustion products has received widespread attention as a result of the use of DU munitions in the 1991 Gulf War and current conflicts. Peer-reviewed medical and scientific publications state that exposure to uranium is a cause of or contributing factor to Gulf War syndrome. The long-term effects on populations living in the areas in which DU munitions were used have also caused some concern.

     As of 2006, there is controversy over whether the production of uranium trioxide gas vapor from the use of DU munitions and other uranium combustion scenarios is a hazard. As the degree of risk is currently unexplored, this potential hazard is not listed in the MSDS (Material safety data sheet) for depleted uranium, and neither are reproductive, developmental, and immunotoxic risks.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/20/2006 @ 02:22am

172. LL,

     Lastly, it seems people have to die for you care if this DU shit is harmful. What if you don't die just feel like shit for the rest of your life-- does that count? Nope, it's good for you! I do not believe you're at all religious. I see little empathy or concern in you-- except for supporting herr leader the reckless idiot king lite soon to be deposed. Of course you could go to sleep. Try and remember your dreams they might give you a clue.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/20/2006 @ 02:36am

173. Subject: Dark Days

     Below is an excerpt from an article in the March 27, 2006 online edition of US News & World Report. The article opens with a reference to the dark days just after Sept. 11, 2001, and I would argue that under the Bush Regime the days for Americans have become even darker since Sept. 11.

     Senator Russ Feingold's censure resolution is correct and proper, and it is needed more than ever now!

     Excerpt:

     In the dark days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a small group of lawyers from the White House and the Justice Department began meeting to debate a number of novel legal strategies to help prevent another attack. Soon after, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to begin conducting electronic eavesdropping on terrorism suspects in the United States, including American citizens, without court approval. Meeting in the FBI's state-of-the-art command center in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the lawyers talked with senior FBI officials about using the same legal authority to conduct physical searches of homes and businesses of terrorism suspects--also without court approval, one current and one former government official tell U.S. News. "There was a fair amount of discussion at Justice on the warrantless physical search issue," says a former senior FBI official. "Discussions about--if [the searches] happened--where would the information go, and would it taint cases."

     FBI Director Robert Mueller was alarmed by the proposal, the two officials said, and pushed back hard against it. "Mueller was personally very concerned," one official says, "not only because of the blowback issue but also because of the legal and constitutional questions raised by warrantless physical searches." FBI spokesman John Miller said none of the FBI's senior staff are aware of any such discussions and added that the bureau has not conducted "physical searches of any location without consent or a judicial order."

     Bush's Black Bag Jobs [usnews.com]

     Posted by oraibi1952 at 03/20/2006 @ 07:44am

174. Posted by ORAIBI1952 03/20/2006 @ 07:44am

     It's mind boggling how quickly that slippery slope can ice over and evolve into a world class olympic bobsled run...

     (with bobsleds and everything)

     :)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/20/2006 @ 09:14am

175. And the irony is it was a guy with German extraction that resisted the new evangelic conservative Gestapo policy

     Posted by Will C. at 03/20/2006 @ 09:18am

176. I guess the marshall plan worked

     Posted by Will C. at 03/20/2006 @ 09:20am

177. Remember when Cheny would not allow us to learn what was being discussed at those secret energy planning sessions when the Bush Administration was first (s)elected to office?

     What he didn't want you to know (you who pay his salary) was that he was dividing up the oild fields of the middle east among his friends while letting them in on a little secret.

     "We're going to create a pretext for the invasion of the middle east and gain control of all of their oil and pipeline routes."

     These oil executives were actually privvy not just to inside information upon which they could trade and make millions, but they joined an elite group of insiders who learned that America was going to be attacked, fully a year before 9/11.

     Many of them made trades in the days preceding 9/11 which would pay off handsomely when the attacks occured.

     Notably, no members of Al Qaeda were found to have made any such trades.

     How did Cheny know?

     Cheney was in charge on 9/11.

     Google: Cheney NORAD

     Secretary of Transportation Norman Minetta testified that Vice President Dick Cheney not only knew about the looming attack on the Pentagon but that Minetta had heard Cheney confirm what Minetta believed to be a stand down order. In effect, telling his soldiers not to shoot down the incoming jetliner.

     http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/01/cheney.halliburton/

     Given what we know about VP Cheney's direct financial ties to Haliburton, isn't it clear that he has committed a fraud against the United States for the purpose of illegal financial gain, in accordance with the following statute? Couldn't the same be said of any US official who knowingly made false statements to advance the cause of war, while owning shares of companies that stood to gain substantially from that war? Cheney was acting specifically on behalf of the Contractor, Haliburton, to ensure no-bid contracts were awarded, based on knowingly fraudulent information generated by his own Office Of Special Plans. It might also be construed that any official who had a relationship to the Carlyle Group was also lying on their behalf - for their own financial benefit.

     Section 1031. Major fraud against the United States

     (a) Whoever knowingly executes, or attempts to execute, any scheme or artifice with the intent - (1) to defraud the United States; or (2) to obtain money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, in any procurement of property or services as a prime contractor with the United States or as a subcontractor or supplier on a contract in which there is a prime contract with the United States, if the value of the contract, subcontract, or any constituent part thereof, for such property or services is $1,000,000 or more shall, subject to the applicability of subsection (c) of this section, be fined not more than $1,000,000, or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.

     (1) the gross loss to the Government or the gross gain to a defendant is $500,000 or greater; or

     (2) the offense involves a conscious or reckless risk of serious personal injury.

     http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/18/parts/i/chapters/47/se ctions/section_1031.html

     The financial links between those who lied, and those who benefitted as a direct result of the lies (primarily in the oil and military industries) are clear. The evidence that the President's speech knowingly included a lie about the Niger Yellow Cake is proveable in a court of law under oath.

     That the Vice President knew for a fact that the claim was based on a forgery in advance of the President's speech is a given. That he instructed others to ensure that the sentence made it into the speech is also a given. What did the Vice President know, and when did he know it?

     Everytime the Vice President knowingly lied to the American People to advance the cause of war, he committed a crime against the United States which both directly harmed other US citizens and directly enriched himself.

     Indict Dick Cheney for Fraud.

     The pretext for the invasion of the Middle East according the the PNAC was going to be a "New Pearl Harbor."

     How did Cheny know?

     Why did Bush refer to Rove as "The Architect" when he thanked him for his 2004 re-selection?

     Rove knew.

     Cheney knew.

     Libby knew.

     Chertoff knew.

     Fleisher knew

     Card knew.

     Zakheim knew.

     Sharon knew.

     Jeb knew.

     Rumsfeld knew.

     Bush watch it live on TV in his limo enroute the the school that morning.

     He said so...twice!

     Who else knew?

     Now you know.

     What are you going to do about it?

     Is Cheney going to "Serve Out His Term" in the White House, or at Gitmo?

     You are in charge.

     Force the media to tell the truth.

     "Most people prefer to believe that their leaders are just and fair, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which he lives is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all."

     Michael Rivera

     Posted by plunger at 03/20/2006 @ 10:11am

178. Bushfools,

     The child malnutrition data is also suspect and disputed. And when discussing facts, I separate out the emotionalism which so often characterizes liberal dialogue. Of course any human being that has not lost all human reasoning does not want to see even one child suffer or one innocent person lose their life.

     LL,

     It's called compassion. The thing heartless conservatives lack 'big time' and which allows them to do and accept heartless information. You always err on the side of the least compassionate outcome to disputed information-- why is that best? Sounds rather petty and anti-christian to me.

     I'll once again check your references, but I think this time if they're pointless, contradictory, or refuted, you're going on my ignore list as a repub shiller for good.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/20/2006 @ 10:12am

179. Posted earlier on another blog:

     Disagreeing with alternate facts and references is part of debate. But calling someone a liar and stating that they made up references which I provided the weblinks to and are widely acknowledged only makes you look foolish.

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/20/2006 @ 09:24am |

     LL

     You're the one that posted the reference web link that didn't match the cut/paste and in fact refuted exactly want you posted. That is a lie by any definition.

     Posted by BUSHFOOLS 03/20/2006 @ 09:41am

     LL,

     Let me hear you say you simply cut/pasted from the wrong reference link per it refuted what you were saying. That would mean then that you are purposefully ignoring other facts that don't follow what you want to believe... So are you lying to yourself or to me?

     The fact that there is a disagreement to the facts per current scientific inquiry, must make one with a once of decency, pause to fall on the side of caution-- but not you. You don't mind if a few Iraqi suffer if the depleted uranium is really harmful or just a little-- oh well, just a blog? I don't think so. It speaks volumes to your morals and integrity.

     Posted by BUSHFOOLS 03/20/2006 @ 09:53am

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/20/2006 @ 10:14am

180. Is that why evangelics have a fish on the back of their cars?

     It warns other people that they are cold, unfeeling, uncaring...

     like a fish

     Posted by Will C. at 03/20/2006 @ 10:32am

181. Bush's Global War On Terror implemented by coldblooded execution [tinyurl.com] of 3-year-olds by US military? You'll know who to thank for the next terrorist attack in America.

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/20/2006 @ 12:37pm

182. This is how America makes friends- by stealing bread out of the ovens of people who probably don't have enough to eat.

     Before loading up into the helicopters for a return trip to Baghdad, Iraqi and American soldiers and some reporters helped themselves [tinyurl.com] to the woman's freshly baked bread, tearing bits off and chewing it as they wandered among the cows. For most of them, it was the only thing worthwhile they'd found all day.

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/20/2006 @ 12:42pm

183. While morally indolent, overfed Americans watch on television.

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/20/2006 @ 12:44pm

184. LINK CORRECTION

     This is how America makes friends- by stealing bread out of the ovens of people who probably don't have enough to eat.

     Before loading up into the helicopters for a return trip to Baghdad, Iraqi and American soldiers and some reporters helped themselves [tinyurl.com] to the woman's freshly baked bread, tearing bits off and chewing it as they wandered among the cows. For most of them, it was the only thing worthwhile they'd found all day.

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/20/2006 @ 12:58pm

185. You're in the Army, now, you're in the Army, now! [tinyurl.com]

     1,000 more sailors expected to join ground forces in Iraq

     Got policy failure?

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/20/2006 @ 1:01pm

186. FROMREDBIRD------"Accusations that U.S. troops have killed civilians are commonplace in Iraq, though most are judged later to be unfounded or exaggerated". -----From the same article that you site. I guess you read only the parts of articles that support your agenda. I am willing to admit that there are unintended consequences to military actions---Are you ready to admit that "most charges are unfounded and exaggerated".

     Posted by Len Mosse at 03/20/2006 @ 1:03pm

187. Wow! Who would have guessed?

     Study: U.S. Mideast policy motivated by pro-Israel lobby

     By Shmuel Rosner

     WASHINGTON - The U.S. Middle East policy is not in America's national interest and is motivated primarily by the country's pro-Israel lobby, according to a study published yesterday by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Chicago.

     Observers in Washington said yesterday that the study was liable to stir up a tempest and spur renewed debate about the function of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby. The Fatah office in Washington distributed the article to an extensive mailing list.

     "No lobby has managed to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. and Israeli interests are essentially identical," write the authors of the study.

     John J. Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago's political science department and Stephen M. Walt from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government do not present new facts. They rely mainly on an analysis of Israeli and American newspaper reports and studies, along with the findings of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

     The study also documents accusations that American supporters of Israel pushed the United States into war with Iraq. It lists senior Bush administration officials who supported the war and are also known to support Israel, such as Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith and David Wurmser. The authors say the influence of the pro-Israel lobby is a source of serious concern and write that it has even caused damage to Israel by preventing it from reaching a compromise with its neighbors.

     http://tinyurl.com/gtdak

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/20/2006 @ 1:04pm

188. In justifying [tinyurl.com] the NSA's warrantless surveillance program, Gonzales has argued that the review process required for a FISA warrant is too cumbersome for a program that is of "a military nature" and that requires "maximum speed and agility to achieve early warning."

     "Maximum speed and agility" like when the Republicans spent eight months totally focused on tax cuts while al-Qaeda leisurely prepared 9/11?

     Not very convincing when you consider what happened when someone gave Dick Cheney a shotgun.

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/20/2006 @ 1:10pm

189. "We wanted to win, not lose." It's enough to make an imperialist cry, isn't it?

     SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The third anniversary of the Iraq invasion unleashed a surge of pessimism at a local farmers' market here, where stalwart Republicans, standing amid aisles of produce and miracle cures, said President Bush has messed up a war that looks more like Vietnam every day.

     ''It's chaos," said Roger Madaras, who voted twice for Bush. ''How many more people are going to be killed? We were going in to free the people of Iraq, but as far as I'm concerned, a lot of them are worse off today than they were under the dictatorship."

     Madaras, the owner of a plumbing company, said he believed Bush when the president declared major combat to be over in May 2003, and is ''disgusted" that Bush's rhetoric was hollow. And he is far from alone.

     Support for Bush and his handling of Iraq is sharply eroding across the American heartland, where the overcast skies and the muddy fields of late winter matched a sense of gloom about Bush and the war.

     This month, the Indianapolis Star released poll findings that Bush's approval rating among Indiana voters stood at 37 percent -- a drop of 18 points over the past year. The numbers echoed national polls, but were particularly shocking in a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, and where Democratic presidential contenders often do not bother to campaign.

     ''A 37 percent approval rating in Indiana for a Republican president is unheard of," said Brian Howey, who runs a newsletter for Indiana state political insiders. ''Those are Bill Clinton or John Kerry numbers in Indiana. So there is something seriously awry going on right now." http://tinyurl.com/pf6oz

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/20/2006 @ 1:12pm

190. FROMREDBIRD-----Al-Qaeda prepared for 9/11 for many years---during republican and democrat administrations. To look back with 20/20 hindsight is not only nonproductive it is less than intellectually honest. Why didn't you have Wichita St. playing George Mason in the sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament? All the signs and warnings were there? Why didn't you pick them in your pool? and if you didn't participate in a pool that clearly discredits anything you could possibly say about any intellectual topic.

     Posted by Len Mosse at 03/20/2006 @ 1:20pm

191. As a long-time supporter of Israel; but not its ultra, right-wing foreign policy and settlement policy, I find the Bush Administration's foreign policy to ill-serve both the United States and Israel.

     Moreover, the Bush Administration's imperialistic, foreign policy is not good for the other nations (e.g., Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, etc.) of the Middle East either.

     Any notion of fairness from the U.S. in dealing with Middle Eastern nations has been lost in the U.S.'s occupation of Iraq.

     Posted by oraibi1952 at 03/20/2006 @ 1:20pm

192. Monday, March 20, 2006

     The third anniversary...sacrifice, fear and hope. It has been three years since 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' began and for three years we debated whether the decision was right or wrong and until this moment we have different feelings and opinions about where this operation brought us and where its aftermaths are going to lead us.

     This disputed operation no doubt had-and will continue to have-major effects on the future of the region and the rest of the world and it's not limited to the boundaries of Iraq; a fact that makes rational debate legitimate by all standards.

     To me, each anniversary brings emotions, thoughts and expectations; some are personal and others are for the future of my country and people. Today I relive those historic moments and remember the way my mind accepted and welcomed those moments like all, or say most Iraqis did as we were praying to see Saddam overthrown without even bothering to think of the consequences or results…all we wanted was to see Saddam out of power, period.

     Maybe people still remember how Iraqis first reacted to the change; they directed their rage against anything that reminded them of the regime they hated, burning and looting anything that represented Saddam and his regime. The rich and the poor both stormed those buildings because those angry crowds felt those buildings were Saddam's property and few of us realized at that time that that was wrong yet the emotions driving it were understandable.

     The smoke faded away and we woke up to see all the chains gone and instead of the God-president and his iron grip over our destinies, we found ourselves without a guide, without any guidance but our long buried primitive nature, the long repressed nature of loving freedom and practicing it.

     The change began then, at that moment where reason mixed with sentiments; were we free…or, were we lost?

     Actually it was a lot of both and there was also a sense of great relief that the terrifying warnings from hundreds of thousands of deaths, famine and mass refugees were not true at that point, on the contrary the military operation itself was clean and successful by all standards and didn't cause any serious harm to the civilian population, the infrastructure, or the marching troops.

     Saddam was gone and suddenly Iraqis and Americans found themselves face to face in a place that felt new to both of them. They knew almost nothing about each other as the prison Saddam built around us left the world with little knowledge about Iraqis except for the whispers of Iraqis who fled the horrors of the tyrant. On the other hand, all that Iraqis knew about America was that it's the merciless enemy of Muslims and Arabs, the invader coming for oil, the all-time supporter of Israel against the Palestinians, the imposer of the sanctions and above all, the America that let us down in 1991.

     Now the two strangers had to work together to accomplish a goal Iraqis knew almost nothing about; they knew that America wanted to topple Saddam and secure the oil fields but that's all they knew while America was thinking of a huge transformation for the entire Middle East with Iraq being the key to that transformation. There was a wide gap between the two but we had no choice but to work together, because in a moment Iraqis didn't choose, America and a group of Iraqi ex-pat leaders were suddenly replacing a regime that controlled everything for too long. Iraqis were confused and vulnerable and there were too many differences to cope with but we were there and there was nothing we could do about it and we had to prepare ourselves for many transitional stages that some Iraqis thought were improvised and arbitrary while others thought were planned long time ago.

     The question keeps ringing… Was it the right decision to remove Saddam?

     I say yes, and that's what most Iraqis said and still say even if they became divided over what happened later…the truth is that virtually no one wants Saddam back.

     I will just ignore the weepers, whiners, teenagers and half educated naïve people and their silly rallies as I don't want to waste time on people who can do nothing but blindly oppose everything without thinking. I will ignore them and focus on the more important goals we want to reach here…

     Life stopped and time stopped when Saddam ruled Iraq, actually that totalitarian regime was moving backwards and dragging us with it and nothing could stop the deterioration that began the moment Saddam came to power. We had to accept the change and live with all that would come along with it whether good or bad. The democracy we're practicing today in Iraq is the exact opposite of what we had for decades and until three years ago. This democracy carries the essence of life, the differences, the dynamics and yes, the failures but also the seed of a better future.

     Before the liberation we were suffering and we had no hope, now we are also suffering but we have hope and I see this hope even in the words of those that are cynical about the outcome of the political process; who say they hope things will be better in four years or eight years… When Saddam was here we didn't have any hope and we could expect nothing good from a dead regime that cared only about its absolute existence.

     Yes. We are facing enormous and dangerous challenges and this is not unexpected because the old will not easily step down and accept the loss; the old will fight back fiercely and the old here is not only Saddam and the Ba'ath, the old can be found among many of our current leaders and the mentality they carry that belong to the same generation that bred Saddam but I believe they will melt away as well because no one can go against the direction of time and the clock cannot be forced backwards.

     The green bud looks weak and is buried in the dirt and surrounded by a tough shell but it will break through this covering, pierce the dirt and stand on its feet to announce a new era. We will not be defeated and orphans of the dark past will get what they deserve and our sacrifices and the sacrifices of those who stand with us shall not go in vain, our sacrifices will pave an easier road for those want to follow us when they decide it's time for them to change.

     And yes…Iraq will be the model.

     Posted by Mohammed @ 19:26

     From an Iraqi posted on the website Iraq the Model Blog

     Posted by libzsuk at 03/20/2006 @ 1:46pm

193. LL,

     Separating facts from emotion is fine. But don't think for a moment that there is a difference between your side and ours when it comes to this issue. For every bleeding heart liberal there is a conservative wackjob tossing out there very liberal interpretations of your Good Book as a means of envisioning an ideal US society.

     Facts. Truths. Emotions. Everyone thinks they have the proper balance of these and there are plenty of others to tell each of us we have are full of s--t and empty of everything else. I know enough about your ideas to know that you are every bit as passionate about contemporary issues as an Amy Goodman or Alexander Cockburn. Without such passion, you'd be a far less interesting person.

     Posted by tjbehrens1 at 03/20/2006 @ 2:07pm

194. Imagine the security we could have implemented in this country with a trillion dollars ????? With no loss of life on top of that...

     Posted by djmarch at 03/20/2006 @ 2:43pm

195. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/20/2006 @ 1:48pm Instead of responding to me with your bias that believes all conservatives to be heartless and uncaring, I asked you to separate emotions from facts. I did not state that caring and compassion are not responsible emotions to have for those who are suffering.

     BLAH BLAH BLAH

     I did not say all lying scumgag conservative right wing nutjobs are cold hearted, I 'm saying you are. You've yet to address your lying. Stop cloking yourself as a repub every man-- you're not.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/20/2006 @ 4:04pm

196. Since you're multi posting:

     Posted by LIBZSUK 03/20/2006 @ 1:43pm

     Your LIPSUCKSness, I found the website you neglected to post with the blog you dated today-- which is funny that the current blog's earliest posting is 3 days ago; not today. But then maybe you're really Mohammad about to post that blog there?

     Anyway, I copied the first two below and part of one of Mohammed's. Cool site thanks for that at least. Doesn't sound like the one you posted that much. Do you have the future web address that has the blog you posted?

     399 posts matching blogurl:iraqthemodel.blogspot.com - showing 1 through 10 sorted by date

     The Saddam era documents.

     17 Mar 2006  by Omar

     As you probably already know, many Iraq and Afghanistan documents from the Saddam/Taliban era have been released to the public through this website. Our friend Roger directed me to one document he though was interesting, and reading it, ...

     IRAQ THE MODEL - http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com

     Who's really in the swamp?

     16 Mar 2006  by Mohammed - References

     According to this BBC report and this AP story, AbdulAziz al-Hakeem called for talks between Iran and the US over the situation in Iraq in what I view as an armature maneuver from Tehran to find an escape from her conflict with the ... IRAQ THE MODEL - http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com

     Monday, March 13, 2006  

     The situation as it looked today. Security in Baghdad has drastically deteriorated recently and reached its latest spike with the multiple bombings of yesterday. Looking at the time pattern of violence escalations we can notice that spikes in attacks curve coincide with the sessions of Saddam's trial which indicates that followers of Saddam are still strong and active inside Baghdad and it seems that those are isolating themselves from the developments in the Iraqi scene even with regard to their politician friends and public base so to speak as the latter had changed their methods and switched largely to political means of opposition.

     http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2006/03/situation-as-it-looked-today.ht ml

     Posted by BUSHFOOLS 03/20/2006 @ 3:17pm

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/20/2006 @ 4:07pm

197. God...can a LIB be so fucking stupid...go to the blog nitwit today...IT WAS POSTED TODAY CANT YOU READ...You just cant accept facts like all stupid LIBS

     Posted by libzsuk at 03/20/2006 @ 4:38pm

198. Here is the latest on "GOP Democracy In Action" from Roll Call:

     Seeking to consolidate time as House Members slogged through dozens of proposed amendments to the $91.9 billion emergency spending bill Thursday, Republican leaders resurrected a tactic that hadn't been used in nearly 20 years: speed voting.

     House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) revived the strategy Thursday afternoon, seeking a "more efficient" way of dealing with the numerous back-to-back votes expected on the spending bill designating funds for the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as hurricane relief to the Gulf Coast, a spokesman said.

     Posted by Hman23 at 03/20/2006 @ 5:08pm

199. The repub method of debate:

     Bush's Rhetoric Targets Unnamed Critics

     By JENNIFER LOVEN

     The Associated Press Monday, March 20, 2006; 6:58 AM

     When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

     The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.

     He typically then says he "strongly disagrees" _ conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making.

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/20/AR200603 2000301.html

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/20/2006 @ 6:14pm

200. Posted by LIBZSUK 03/20/2006 @ 4:38pm

     Hey, your LIPSSUCKidness, it finally posted. Funny how it wasn't there after you posted it along with all the other ones... a conspiracy theory in the making. In any case it's best to read all the other posts there in order to put the writings into a better larger context. Picking just the one makes it seem rather one sided. Kind of like just looking at one painting of an artist that painted thousands, and drawing conclusions beyond the frame of just the one isolated work. I like using my peripheral vision too.

     Still retard, thanks for pointing me in that direction, the more the info, the better.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/20/2006 @ 6:25pm

201. True, Bushfools. His whole style is reminiscent of Dickie Nixon, except not as gracious. Nixon, at least, gave his opponents a dash of credit in his rhetoric, with his usual "And I'm sure Senator so and so is a fine American. Where, then, do we differ?" As unctious as he was, he still sweated when announcing his war crimes, which indicated at least some small remorse. Not this guy. Bush could be swimming in carnage and still say, "It's all good". Classic totalitarian bullshit.

     Posted by redwingblack at 03/20/2006 @ 6:34pm

202. This is the BUSH MAN AKA barry 25 and I had to laugh hysterically at the title of this blog, " isn't it time to vote for peace"? Ha, just like a lunatic liberal living in utopian dreamland to believe that if we just vote for dem's, instant peace will occur! The terrorists will drop their weapons, unstrap their explosive belts, and make peace with the infidels! I'm still laughing about this one! You morons just don't get it, do you! There is and will never be a way to make peace with these lunatics! They must be squashed like the cockraoches they are and democracy must be established in the middle east, period! Some of you twerps on the left have actually stated that saddam was good as a dictator because he was able to stamp out any dissent or conflict in Iraq! Fidel Castro is a hero to the looney left as a dictator, yet the looney left always cries about freedoms suppossedly being taken away! Talk about a contradiction! You really believe freedom occurs under a dictatorship? The bottom line is this: the American people are a free people whotook advantage of their democracy at the voting booth and kicked the power hungry traitors ( democrats ) out of power.

     Posted by barry25 at 03/20/2006 @ 6:41pm

203. You know, I've never been one to discredit public education, but when I see posts like Barry25's, I think the critics might have a point.

     Posted by redwingblack at 03/20/2006 @ 7:07pm

204. to support free speech the world over, buy Danish, which has been boycotted by muslims over the cartoon flap.

     ww.buydanish.dk

     Posted by JOHANNESROLF 03/17/2006 @ 6:22pm

     Kind of like "buying Southern" in America in the 1950's to support "freedom of association".

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/20/2006 @ 7:27pm

205. Posted by BARRY25 03/20/2006 @ 6:41pm

     igga igga igga igga

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/20/2006 @ 7:28pm

206. Posted by BARRY25 03/20/2006 @ 6:41pm

     argue points, get attention. resort to rude, unpleasant name calling hyperbole...igga igga igga igga, u red faced frat boy conservabot.

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/20/2006 @ 7:31pm

207. no frat boy here, but i did knock a couple of them out back in the day!

     Posted by barry25 at 03/20/2006 @ 7:51pm

208. Is Barry for real? Do people like that REALLY exist?

     It's hard to believe, isn't it?

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/20/2006 @ 8:39pm

209. This is the BUSH MAN AKA barry 25 and I had to laugh . . . You morons just don't get it, do you! There is and will never be a way to make peace with these lunatics! They must be squashed like the cockraoches they are and democracy must be established in the middle east, period!

     Yeah, all we need is a mental retard like you to organize it. Wait, we already tried that. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Your war was lost before it started, animal.

     Some of you twerps on the left have actually stated that saddam was good as a dictator because he was able to stamp out any dissent or conflict in Iraq!

     Posted by BARRY25 03/20/2006 @ 6:41pm

     You're shoveling horse manure. You couldn't point out anyone saying that here if you had three years to find it. How does it feel to have a case so wimpy weak that you have to lie it into existence?

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/20/2006 @ 8:40pm

210. Is Barry for real? Do people like that REALLY exist?

     It's hard to believe, isn't it?

     Posted by FRANK THOMAS 03/20/2006 @ 8:39pm

     They usually hide in the dark beneath the kitchen cabinets. Time to call pest control.

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/20/2006 @ 8:42pm

211. no frat boy here, but i did knock a couple of them out back in the day!

     Posted by BARRY25 03/20/2006 @ 7:51pm

     It seems that you're afflicted with persistent delusions of adequacy. If you were any dumber and you'd have to be watered twice a week.

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/20/2006 @ 8:47pm

212. Very cute comments, jerkoffs! Obviously you do not read much! It has been stated time and time again by wackjob liberals ( election losers, in the minority on every issue )that saddams brutal hand was the tool that kept iraq stable, and this is a prime example of the twisted type of thinking that PROVES that today's liberalism is a mental disorder! The same type of thinking that makes seditious, whining, twerps like fromredbirdsass laugh gleefully at his belief that his own country lost a war before it started! I continually inform the RATIONAL people around me ( including a few semi-rational dem's )of the absolute insane things you morons write and believe! The more you expose yourselves, the more you lose. Just look at the last 2 elections! So keep it up just like Air America, who is losing money, has almost no advertisers left ( I absolutely love watching that ship go down )and may just be breaking a few liberal donors financially! Man, I got you fools in the palm of my hand, sqeezin' you little bitches till I make you so mad your heads gonna pop! Damn I still got it, Check mate!

     Posted by barry25 at 03/20/2006 @ 10:33pm

213. Question: if your dorks got it so figured out, how come Air America fails and conservative talk thrives? I dare you to answer!

     Posted by barry25 at 03/20/2006 @ 10:35pm

214. frank - fromredbird

     follow my advice - unless u like intellectually booting around a conservabot...

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/20/2006 @ 10:46pm

215. I dare you to answer!

     Posted by BARRY25 03/20/2006 @ 10:35pm

     Disease always thrives in the polluted body. Psychosis in conservatives can be measured in how often they change their names as they throw themselves at ramparts of Hamsterland, so desperate to be heard.

     Aludra... more than a dozen

     Liberty... three

     My widdle friend Bush Boy... two

     Ha Ha Ha Ha

     Barry is it now? Ba... Ba... Bwah ha ha ha

     (Ba Ba bush boy have you any bull)

     (yes sir... yes sir)

     (three crocks full)

     (One has no paper)

     (One has no pee)

     (the last dropped out of Ba Ba's mom and was named... Barry)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/20/2006 @ 11:42pm

216. no wonder you have a thing for everyone elses mom...

     Your's hated you.

     Ha Ha Ha Ha

     (Barry)

     Ha Ha Ha Ha

     Posted by Will C. at 03/20/2006 @ 11:43pm

217. now I understand why your posts are slathered with Walter Middy

     Posted by Will C. at 03/20/2006 @ 11:48pm

218. haven't seen him in awhile

     Can't say

     Posted by Will C. at 03/20/2006 @ 11:54pm

219. :)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/20/2006 @ 11:56pm

220. dared ya' and just like I thought, your pathetic little minds couldn't answer a simple question! Typical! Now, Mr. Will C., are you still mad about what I did to your mom? Come on, I was just joking ( although she's ripe for a good ol' POKING since she gave up sex right after you popped out, and for obviously good reasons, my little biiiaaatch )! Now, back to clownin' you fools! Be brave, have self-respect and pride, reach down deep and pull out a little confidence and answer the question you bitches so shamefully and pathetically avoided! You chumps need to start paying for the education I'm so charitably giving you!

     Posted by barry25 at 03/21/2006 @ 12:32am

221. Oh, by the way, the name changed due to someone trying to block Bush Man from posting on this blog! And you liberal wackoffs cry about free speech when you are not being heard by people who don't want to hear you ( the majority of Americans I might add ) Hypocricy at it's highest level indeed!

     Posted by barry25 at 03/21/2006 @ 12:37am

222. Very cute comments, jerkoffs! Obviously you do not read much! It has been stated time and time again by wackjob liberals ( election losers, in the minority on every issue )that saddams brutal hand was the tool that kept iraq stable, and this is a prime example of the twisted type of thinking that PROVES that today's liberalism is a mental disorder!

     Yeah, right- so many times that you can't provide just one example. You're one of those people who sets low personal standards and consistently fails to achieve them. My guess is that someone donated your brain to science before you were finished using it.

     The same type of thinking that makes seditious, whining, twerps like fromredbirdsass laugh gleefully at his belief that his own country lost a war before it started!

     It isn't a belief any more, swami- it's a fact of life. You wouldn't understand.

     Man, I got you fools in the palm of my hand, sqeezin' you little bitches till I make you so mad your heads gonna pop! Damn I still got it, Check mate!

     Posted by BARRY25 03/20/2006 @ 10:33pm

     Something tells me that you spend a good part of your waking life with something a lot less challenging in the palm of your hand.

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/21/2006 @ 01:09am

223. Oh, by the way, the name changed due to someone trying to block Bush Man from posting on this blog!

     Posted by BARRY25 03/21/2006 @ 12:37am

     The correllate conclusion being that you are desperate to talk to people who feel sorry that your life is such a train wreck? You've made it abundantly clear that if brains were taxed, you'd get a rebate.

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/21/2006 @ 01:15am

224. Question: if your dorks got it so figured out, how come Air America fails and conservative talk thrives? I dare you to answer!

     Posted by BARRY25 03/20/2006 @ 10:35pm

     Uhh- because a high percentage of social misfits don't have anything better to do around the trailer park all day than listen to Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and use their Medicare accounts to order Viagra on the 800 number?

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/21/2006 @ 01:23am

225. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

     oh Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa reeeeeeeeeeeeeee

     Uh the horror of it. The hours spent unside down in the gym locker.

     the muffled bars of copa cabana whistled before the entire school breaks into hysterical laughter.

     and going home hoping for comfort, our widdle fwend bush boy instead is shunned by a mother cold, unfeeling, uncaring (chrome plated fish stapled to the back of her dodge dart)

     Oh Bush boy, change your name as many times as you need too.

     Because no matter how deep you fall into darkness, we'll always be here to pull you back to the light.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/21/2006 @ 08:51am

226. "Question: if your dorks got it so figured out, how come Air America fails and conservative talk thrives? I dare you to answer!"

     For the same reason that Brittany Spears (or whatever flavor of the month no-talent pop sensation) thrives while symphony orchestras fail. It's all about the lowest common denominator in the US. And you Barry are the definition.

     Posted by rain man at 03/21/2006 @ 09:18am

227. Wow, Rain Man. Very nicely said. Culture is one of the strongest examples that shows how backwards these folks are. The funniest part of it all is that the right wants to scream about the forms it assumes, and the fact of the matter is that the public is getting dreck because that's what the market actively promotes for purchase. There are a lot of sad fools who post here who think they know something about hip hop and rap music, in fact, condemn it, when all they've ever heard is commercial gangsta rap, which is garbage, but garbage is what sells the most records. The serious artists like Mos Def, Erika Badou, Jill Scott, Jurassic Five, Aesop Rock, Saul Williams, the Roots, Immortal Technique and many others, they have much smaller audiences. Why? Because they aren't fucking around, just playing to the lowest common denominator. Nice post, Rain Man.

     Posted by redwingblack at 03/21/2006 @ 11:18am

228. Oh joy....LibZ & Bushwacko are both back....now my day is complete. Hey, if ya'll can quit fighting over that one brain cell you share, you might take a peek on the note I left LZ at 03/20/2006 @ 11:41pm on the "Smoking Gun" thread...

     Posted by leftofcenter at 03/21/2006 @ 11:51am

229. Thanks Redwing. Good assessment of the music scene.

     You mentioned one of my favorite artists--Eryka Badu. Her live version of "Tyrone" gets me very time I hear it.

     I don't begrudge anyone their right to like Nascar, watch Terminator movies, listen to crap corporate music--whatever. But what is upsetting is seeing people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity appeal to the lowest instincts of their audience and in the process they are influencing the political landscape to the detriment of a large portion of their audience. And why are they still yelling? What are they so angry about? Their people are running the country--what more do they want? But they keep yelling because that's what gets the ratings.

     Maybe we need a progressive voice on the air to disdain nuance and intellectual rigor and start screaming into the mic.

     Posted by rain man at 03/21/2006 @ 12:03pm

230. RAIN,

     They are still yelling because they want it ALL. Not 1/2, not 3/4, not 9/10. Our (anyone not a right-winger, from Jimmy Carter to Noam Chomsky) very existence irks them. It's not enough that they have the White House, both Houses of Congress, the Supreme Court. No, they look and see that there are bastions of non right-wing thought: college campuses for example. So they are moving on them too. They will not stop until they have EVERYTHING.

     To quote an old Doors song: "we want the world and we want it now." That is their motto.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 12:16pm

231. one more from the Doors: they've got the guns but we have the numbers

     Posted by johannesrolf at 03/21/2006 @ 1:45pm

232. W can just keep talking the BS but.... This poll isn't scientific but pretty consistent, if not exagerated some what of the trend of the scientifically accurate =/- 3 point polls:

     Do you believe that the low approval ratings for the president and Congress are a result of:

     Poor communication ____________2%__________314 votes

     Poor policies __________________98% _______12271 votes

     Total: 12585 votes

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/21/2006 @ 3:05pm

233. Another good estimate:

     Americans completely detached from reality--33%

     Posted by rain man at 03/21/2006 @ 3:39pm

234. LVLIBERTY,

     These things go in cycles. So right-wing ideology may be on top right now, but liberalism/progressivism will rebound. Partly because there will be a reaction to the horrors unleashed by the right's polcies.

     I have faith in the American people. They will come around sooner or later.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 3:41pm

235. Assuming LvLiberty's numbers are accurate, are reflective of the actual reality.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 3:43pm

236. Further, if liberalism is as dead as LVLIBERTY would have us believe, then how to explain John Kerry (a Liberal) almost beating Bush (came close, anyway, in what was a relatively close election) in 2004?

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 3:49pm

237. Most reliable estimates show:

     1. Social Conservatives (Evangelicals, conservativer Catholic, and Orthodox Jews)=90-100 million (30-33% of population)

     2. Leftists = 12-30 million (4-10% of population)

     3. Liberals= 60 million (20 %)

     4. Secular conservatives (45 million (15%)

     5. Moderates= 81-90 million (27-30%)

     Based upon exit polling and surveys by Gallup and several other polling organizations.

     With this fairly consistent data, the numbers are just not there to effect the kind of change that most of the posters here would like to see.

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/21/2006 @ 2:55pm

     Does it make you wonder how gays-in-the-military Clinton got elected?

     And then reelected?

     But don't get in over your head.

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/21/2006 @ 3:53pm

238. Maybe there has been a huge resurgence of reactionary attitudes starting in 2000?

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/21/2006 @ 3:54pm

239. Or, maybe- 9/11.

     Guess what LL -- the Republicans took the political capital from 9/11 and wasted it. That's right, it was a temporary effect and you guys are done. Even the Republican perceived advantage on national security has been dissipated by the jackanape Republicans.

     Good.

     Posted by fromredbird at 03/21/2006 @ 3:59pm

240. FRANK -

     The self-identification surveys LL cites are extremely suspect in my view. The Battleground Poll is one widely cited by conservatives for the premise that their side is winning the battle. This poll has shown a pretty consistent 2 to 1 tilt in favor of self-identified conservatives vs. liberals for almost 50 years. However, one must ask, with such a seemingly large advantage for conservatives, how was it possible to get to the point where any liberal policies came about? A group of Democratic legislators were somehow able to hijack our government to impose a minority philosophy rejected at home by an overwhelmingly conservative public? And, even though conservatives are twice as numerous as liberals (according to such polls), they somehow have been unable to change this course, even with a Republican-dominated Congress and president (and a majority of Supreme Court justices selected by Republicans)? Indeed, if you look at polls on issues central to liberal ideology (like choice, minimum wage, labor laws, individual rights, universal health care, etc.), it paints a different picture of where people stand.

     Here is list of some liberal policy achievements: the minimum wage, 40 hour work week, labor safety laws, consumer protection laws and the CPSC, the GI Bill, Social Security, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, FDIC, Securities Acts of 1933, rural electric power, the Fair Housing Act, the 19th Amendment, federal student loan programs, Medicare/Medicaid, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, the EPA and other environmental protection laws, reproductive freedom, laws aimed to protect privacy rights, OSHA, and Head Start.

     Conservatives may nibble at the margins, but they have been largely unsuccessful in changing the liberal character of this country. Name any significant conservative legislative achievement during the Bush administration or in the last 25 years for that matter. Even though liberals were only in control of the government for brief periods of the 20th Century, they still won. By nature of these liberal victories, conservatives today are operating in a liberal world whether they admit it or not. All they can do is try and halt the flow, they cannot reverse it. Liberals and progressives will continue to get their victories, and as history shows, one they do those policies are here to stay. If conservative philosophy is sweeping the nation, they should run a candidate who pledges to reverse those measures or eliminate those programs and see how he/she does. On that note, the conservative hero Reagan did not eliminate one single federal program or agency in eight years, did he? These liberal policy victories are firmly entrenched and accepted by the public. The country is not shifting to the right, the right has been forced by liberals and their successes to play ball on the left's side of the field. Just look at where the debate is on prescription drug benefits, welfare reform, Social Security, and the like – conservatives are only left with nibbling at the edges.

     The Supreme Court provides a great example of how entrenched liberalism is. Look at some of the recent opinions from the Republican-dominated court - upholding privacy rights for homosexuals and affirmative action. See, you guys are just playing games on our side of the field. The greatest example will come after the court rejects South Dakota's challenge to Roe v. Wade.

     The fact is, even if conservatives win elections in the short term, they will still lose in the long run, because they have no hope to reverse the liberal victories in the past and will not stop the ones yet to come.

     Posted by Hman23 at 03/21/2006 @ 4:00pm

241. FROMRED,

     I think we are living in the shadow of 9/11. That colors everything; it's not so much that the country has sudenly turned to the right in some all-encompassing, thought-out way, in some massive shift. Rather, it's that 9/11 has played into the hands of the right.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 4:01pm

242. Hman,

     Interesting post. You are somewhat going against conventional left or liberal wisdom there, in suggesting that the right-wing has NOT gotten much (or even little) of what it wants! That we are STILL (despite Reagan, Gingrich, Bush, etc) a liberal nation, in that we still have overwhelmingly liberal policies?

     What about welfare reform? That was something the right wanted and got. (Though in watereddown form-they wanted to dismantle it all together.) What about the Democrats moving to the center (DLC) on economics? What about shift in welath upward that has occured over the last 30 years, that has continued whether a Democrat OR a Republican was in power?

     I agree that the right is not quite as dominant as many think (thank god), but I would hardly claim that we are still "living in a liberal era."

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 4:07pm

243. By the way Hman, when you listed all those great liberal achievements, I got a hard-on, it was so great.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 4:08pm

244. I have an honest question for the Bush apologists:

     In your opinion, what are some examples of positive things that the current administration has accomplished?

     Posted by rain man at 03/21/2006 @ 4:13pm

245. Hman, I do take issue factually with one thing you said: "Even though liberals were only in control of the government for brief periods of the 20th Century."

     Liberals were in charge from 1945 to 1973. That's how I (and many analysists) see it. That was the "liberal era." (Economically, anyway.) By no coincidence, that was the period of our greatest economic growth, our greatest prosperity. Liberalism produced the largest, most prosperous middle-calss society in the history of human kind.

     Obviously, I would like to see us go back to those great liberal policies, the policies that made our country great.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 4:16pm

246. I made a serious misstatement in my last post. The liberal era was from 1935 to 1973, NOT 1945 to 1973.

     Apologies.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 4:17pm

247. 1933, to be exact (it started the nmoment FDR took his oath of office).

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 4:18pm

248. Economic liberalism was the norm in this country for 40 solid years.

     Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 4:19pm

249. FRANK -

     Regarding the periods liberals were in charge, I accept there could be a difference in opinion on that. However, I do not count when conservative Republicans were aligned with conservative Southern Democrats - which takes a large chunk out of your period. I count the Wilson years in addition to yours.

     Regarding your earlier point - conservatives have gotten a little of what they want, but look how the debate is framed. If pure conservatism was SO popular, why aren't there winning candidates who pledge to eliminate all the federal social and regulatory programs they complain about. No they just attack at the margins because they cannot touch them - like Social Security.

     Look at the Patriot Act. Liberals find some of it objectionable, and they should fight it, but as conservatives are keen to point out - it is NOTHING compared to legislation that curtailed individual liberties during the earlier part of the last century or even during WWI and the 1950's.

     Look at what the regulatory bodies Nixon allowed during his terms - OSHA, the EPA, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Like I said, Reagan did not cut anything. Bush has actually increased the Cabinet and expanded funding for education, for example. Recently, 200 Republican House members supported the prescription drug benefit.

     So, while I do not think conservatives are harmless and should be ignored - take pride in knowing that they are playing on our side of the field.

     Posted by Hman23 at 03/21/2006 @ 5:05pm

250. If they are playing on our side of the field, why are we in Iraq? And why are so many social programs being under funded while we're cutting taxes esp. for the richest while at war and an occupation? Why-- because they're using our field to up interest rates via a gigantic deficit, lining their pockets and making money for they're MIC buddies, stealing tons, poof, loosening environmental restraints, etc. I say they're playing us and pilfering our field.

     Posted by Bushfools at 03/21/2006 @ 6:15pm

251. BUSHFOOLS:

     I am drawing the distinction between conservative and liberal ideology in domestic issues. I do not claim that all is liberal or that everything is rosy.

     As for Iraq, it is hardly a victory for the conservative ideology I am referring to because Bush is no conservative and going to war in Iraq was not conservative - it was reckless and something entirely different.

     Posted by Hman23 at 03/22/2006 @ 09:52am

252. And, although I agree the funding issue is important, it is an example of nibbling at the margins. I am not saying there are no negative effects from a liberal perspective, but the programs still exist. Admittedly, it is a tug-of-war. If the DEMs highlight these problems in 2006, they should swing the elctorate back again. Then they will be able to take two steps forward. I know it is hard given what is happening today, but look at the long term here. It will always be two steps forward, one step back.

     Posted by Hman23 at 03/22/2006 @ 09:57am