How to End the War

The NRO..people would do well to note that not only is VDH a noted historian, but he is a KENNEDY DEMOCRAT.

Hello? Are we seeing the light here?

Let’s talk about those who believe that the oft quoted O Neill is right, and this came up? If true..so what? Plan Rainbow Orange for the Pacifc War came up at the start of FDR’s presidency..so ? Does that mean FDR had it in for the Japanese?

We had BETTER have people including the president evaluating every single danger and opportunity.

Who and where are the threats and how do we extinguish them?
“Provide for the common defense” comes at the TOP if the list, I believe.

I have no objection if Bush used the same tools as FDR to accomplish a strategic objective.

SUPPORT THE TROOPS!Bushes great rallying cry.SUPPORT THE TROOPS,OR ELSE YOUR A TRAITOR!So how are we supporting our troops?We send them beef jerky.WOW!You want to support the troops?Sell your SUV,and buy a smaller,more fuel efficient vehicle.You want to support the troops?Buy a bike,and ride it to work twice a week.You want to support the troops,put a couple of solar panels on your roof.You want to support the troops,put up a windmill.You want to support the troops,write your congressperson,and ask them why they voted down funds to help veterans suffering from post tramatic stress syndrome.You want to support the troops,make the small sacrifices so that they don’t have to make the ultimate sacrifice.If your unwilling to do these things,or any of the millions of other things you could do,then you all are just shadow people,devoid of conciousness or soul,running around spouting empty rhetoric,sound bites and bullet points.You bush/war supporters make me sick and I’m tired and bored with sparring with you.Goodby and may god have mercy on your empty souls.

i’m still waiting for my cheap iraqi gas!

Margaret -

You did not answer the question.  Why didn’t Bush/Blair/Aznar have a plan to plant WMD’s if they KNEW it was a lie?  Certainly if they are crafty enough to start a bogus “war for oil”, mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops, tanks, planes, ships (piss off the whole world) they could have arranged to plant a few barrels of anthrax or enriched uranium and save them all of this trouble.  This goes back to the typical Leftie schizophrinia of Bush being both and idiot and a Machiavelli genious.

I will accept that they believed the most favorable intelligence reports to support the case for regime change - but what is the President to do when a Clinton appointed CIA Director says it is a “slam dunk”?  Not to mention 8 years of Clinton bombing the hell out of Iraq for violating UN Resolutions?

Regardless, WMD’s were just 1 of 3 major reasons for Regime Change.  The Washington Post was complaining before the war in 2003 that Bush had too MANY reasons for war.

“But Bush still has a problem that goes beyond style: We don’t know if this war is primarily about (1) taking weapons of mass destruction out of Saddam’s Hussein’s hands, or (2) removing Saddam from power, or (3) bringing democracy to Iraq and revolutionizing the politics of the Middle East.”

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=14432

The ME is the last collective region on the planet that does not self govern.  We always talk about “root causes” of Islamic terrorism, perhaps it is due to the Brzezinski/Scowcroft/Powell/Baker foreign policy of quitely supporting “strongmen” to keep the oil flowing and those “uppity” Arabs from expressing themselves through the ballot box.

We are always warned about the “Arab Street” but we have recently seen the REAL Arab Street (Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, and even some of the Gulf States) and they want the same thing that you and I take for granted - Democracy.  I know and work with way too many Arabs here in the States to think that they are somehow culturally or genetically inferior to self-govern.  Too bad so many Lefties are blinded by Bush-hatred and continue to support the corrupt status quo in the ME of buying off dictators.

This is a marathon - not a sprint.  All politics are local, and if Arabs are given control over their own destinies they will be less apt to squander their lives in an all-consuming hatred of the West and more apt to worry about their own success in life - once the dictatorial barriers are removed.

Yes, we should have our elected officials watching out for us and HONESTLY reporting what they find.  But that is the crux of this argument,epamimondas.  Documents have now come to light that PROVE we were lied to.  That is a breech of authority and an abuse of power.  America deserves better.

If it’s true, which I personally doubt, that FDR “knew” we’d be attacked, I guess we have a present day perfect parallel in Bush/Cheney/Rice.  A total of 52 memos went over Rice’s desk warning of impending terrorist attacks on the US, I believe 3 specifically mentioned a jetliner to be the weapon of choice.  She didn’t even bother to pass it on.

And, yes, Iraq is turning into the next Vietnam because, like Vietnam, we went into a guerilla environment that had unexpected popular support from those we are supposed to be liberating. Secondly, neither war had a pre-planned exit strategy.  I realize that most of the “insurgents” are foreign criminals, but Asia Today’s article yesterday states that the conflict has given the Taliban and Al Qaeda an unexpected boost in resources, both human and financial.  Like Ho Chi Minh, whether Bin Laden is actually in control anymore or not, they have a “bottomless pit” of reserves.  Our own generals have cried in the press only 2 days ago about who short-handed we are.

And back to the Vietnam analogy, the “domino” theory of Communism (which I vehemently oppose as a Constitution-loving Democrat) proved to be completely erroneous.  Just as military and political forces in the 60’s believed Communism would spread unfettered if we didn’t fight in Vietnam, the current Administration is eyeing the battle for oil now and in the future.  They feel if we don’t secure those lands under our authority, we will be put in serious danger of foreign economic and political domination.

Both viewpoints were disingenuously reported to the American people as a “fight for American freedoms”.  It has nothing to do with OUR FREEDOM!  It has to do with corporate America not having to restructure to new fuel sources in order to survive.  Put off the bill for redesigning industry and transportation by killing and lying instead of paying now with some of the billions in our new deficit (to development, not war) to create “foreign-assistance free” sources.

Kevin, I find your diatribe the most disturbing of all.  Your logic is so riddled with swiss cheese holes that the holes have more substance than your arguments.

Paul,

You’re right in that we need to get the heck out of there.

Secondly, yes, Reagan and Bush I should not have put Sadaam into power and backed him.

No, I am not blind.  I am not so blind as to think a foreign power can waltz in, lay half a million people off work (even our generals have stated that “perhaps” it was a mistake to remove all Bathists, and that they probably should have handled it differently), given all the reconstruction work to foreign firms so that the money doesn’t flow back into Iraqi economy, lost 9B$ of oil they pumped but don’t know what happened to the money, squandered 18B taxpayer dollars in “wasteful” spending and expect that the “liberated people”,nor the people at home would be happy with it.

I’m sorry Republicans are so power drunk that they have lost all vision.  I’m sorry that
Republicans are the true “commies” of today, because they want to irradicate the Constitution piece-by-piece and bring a fascist (not all fascists are Nazi’s--the biggest ones are corporations, per Mussolini)theocracy to our once great land.  Shame on you.

“This is a marathon - not a sprint.  All politics are local, and if Arabs are given control over their own destinies they will be less apt to squander their lives in an all-consuming hatred of the West and more apt to worry about their own success in life - once the dictatorial barriers are removed.”

When does this “marathon” end?  Who is waving the finish line flag?

Paul,

When the photos of the “mobile chemical labs” were shown to be a hoax, I think even the Machiavellian Cheney/Rumsfeld tagteam thought better of trying to “doctor” WMD’s.  I find great satisfaction in knowing that David Kay, Hans Blix and Scott Ritter all presented true information that would have shown, if the war plans hadn’t already been drawn up in early ‘02, as we now KNOW, there were no WMD’S. In fact, they were right that Iraq’s infrastructure was in total disrepair and that Sadaam was no imminent threat.  Another lie we were sold when all three of these gentleman provided solid proof to the contrary in 2002 and immediately preceeding the war in ‘03.

What is so unpatriotic about wanting to see the U.S. of A. be truthful, peaceful, and regarded as admirable around the globe?

Belgium is truthful, peaceful, and regarded as admirable by at least some of the people who know about it. So are Iceland, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden… are you seeing a common theme here?

Your attitude is *not* unpatriotic. It *is* dangerously naive.

I’d rather be naive than have a black heart. My attitude is not dangerous, bullets and bombs are.

Actually, Rosignol, I don’t see your point.  I have been to 4 of the above-mentioned countries and found them to have thriving economies, sound policies of government and the people I met were basically well-informed, bright, working families with strong community ties and a government that cared for them…

So what is your point?

I think a point that everyone in this conversation is missing is the fact that we are neglecting major problems in our very own country while we are off playing the worlds freakin vigelante. People are starving here, homeless here, uninsured, kids die everyday here!  We have a corupt government and judicial system and a society that really does not give a shit about you, me, or redneck Bob. We have so lost our way.

“U Scare Me” Is Typical.  These scared out their wits cowards are the reason we are in the situation we are in now.  They remind me of the movies where you had the “damsel in distress” who was so afraid she couldn’t even run away from danger without tripping over own feet.  My question to “U Scare Me” is are you at the part in the movie when the so called hero has sex with the damsel.  From what I can tell Bush is doing a good job ramming his genital up your.....  I’m like Mike Malloy, I can’t stand these simple minded 3 year olds.

“U scare me is working for “W” don’t let the smooth taste fool ya”.

Hey Don’t be afraid-
Be afraid
Read Michael Ruppert’s very important book, “Crossing the Rubicon”.
You seem to need an education as to who is behind the 9-11 attacks.
Maybe you can’t handle the verifiable truth…

Oh please, I did the hippie thing in 1969. These are just not those kind of times.

“I’d rather be naive than have a black heart”
Child like in it’s innocence..do you HAVE children? I’ll take the black heart to ensure my three remain alive. It’s not even close.

This is why.

We either recognize we are in a world war or we do not. If we do not, then every argument made here by the frankly, fringe, bushitler repubs are evil constitution eaters who are worse than the sith might be plausible enough to comment on. If we do recognize that a world war is on… a war in which those who make their own laws are regarded as idolaters (as we are) by those who claim to follow god’s .. then every argument made here by this same group becomes ...laughably naieve. So sorry.

This is exactly why Kerry lost by a significant margin (by our election stds). Not because Rove-Goebbels snoggered the right blogs to slay the faithful, but becuase the american people recginized the danger ..not in fear, but in thoughtful, well publicized, fundamentally debated decision. Kerry told Tim Russert the war was better off as a police and law enforcement matter ..something tried and failed ... and we all saw he couldn’t even stand up to Dean and Kucinich ..no core ideal.

If the dems, MY PARTY, keep on down this road, THEY will be a danger to the republic because they are so devoid of a coherent ideology they are going to self extinguish.

All that that hold the dems together right now is opposition. Unfortunately they oppose reality.

Great article.

After the Iraqi election, many of my liberal friends got sucked into the “maybe George Bush got it right” crowd.  I maintained my position that this election will not lead to a true democracy where Iraqis have control, but to the neocon version of democracy that only concerns with satisfying the Bush warhawk interests.  The Iraqi people will not accept this.  All this election proved was that they want to run their own country.  They gave us the purple finger….America get out now.  The polls there say that a strong majority of them see the U.S. as occupiers and not the liberators that the neocons promised.  But as long as Bush-Cheney remain in office the war will rage on.  Their so-called exit strategy of staying until Iraqi forces are trained is yet another lie.  They have no intention of leaving.  U.S. occupation will only cause a deeper and deeper quagmire and more troops and innocent Iraqis will be killed or maimed.  But the Bushies do not care about the troops.  1600 of them are dead and gone.  They support our troops so much they can’t give them the armor needed to protect them.  The warhawks should stop worrying about a pullout being wimpish and cowardly. They need to get off their high horse about displaying raw American power to the rest of the world.  They need to declare victory and get out.  Support the troops and bring them home.

Naomi Klein should be a guest on Bill Maher’s show. He is spreading the falsehood of Bush’s creating democracy in Iraq as an unexpected benefit of the invasion.

Many people can’t handle the verifiable truth.Just read the posts from all the armchair warmongers on this site.Their arguements fall apart regularly,so they just jump on some other sound bite that they heard,until that arguement falls apart,till eventually they come around full circle,and end up repeating themselves.And all the while they’re patting themselves on the back because of the deep understanding that they think that are imparting to the rest of us.When in the cold hard light of reality,they’ve barely scratched the surface and are already lost.It’s like trying to have a discussion with someone about the Mona Lisa,and for some reason,they can only see 5% of the picture,a square inch here,a square inch there,and they only see the parts they want to see,because they’ve already formed an opinion about it.You’ll never get anywhere with them.They’ve chosen ignorance,out of fear,greed,or whatever.Just keep that in mind when you consider responding to their mindless babble.And hope that they will eventually grow up.

Kerry lost by 1%.An historically small margin of victory.And he lost from fear my friend.The continual barrage of terror alerts gauranteed that.The terror alerts that magically disappeared after the election.Or maybe that was just a coincidence.

Anyone on the Left cheerleading the armed resistance is a hypocrite.  Either you are for peace or you are not.  The willful slaughtering of innocent Iraqis is wrong, no matter who is doing the killing.  I find it more than a little disturbing that so many of the posts here seem to condone this.  Isn’t this exactly why we are so mad with Bush and Co.?

When are people going to wake up....

The elections in the US no longer reflect the will of the people.

A potentially genocidal movement fomented by neocon and “Christian” dominionist hatred and ideology is developing.

The media no longer reports the truth.

You’re right mike, and the bait is very mealy and tastless.

but I can’t resist thinking aloud that opposition to War never goes out of style and even the Pope opposes war and living in fear isn’t really living. 

I have no sympathy for Muslim ideology but you won’t win any respect with violence as the solution.

God Bless US!

Margaret - you are creating fiction:

“Secondly, yes, Reagan and Bush I should not have put Sadaam into power and backed him.”

Over 82% of Saddam’s conventional and unconventional weapons from 1971 to 1991 came from Russia, China, and France (in that order) The US provided less than 1%

http://projects.sipri.se/armstrade/Trnd_Ind_IRQ_Imps_73-02.pdf

Who sold Saddam a nuclear plant in 1970’s?  Who was the chief defender of Saddam at the UN in 2003?  Who is providing nuclear material to Iran this very day?  Which country taught the Baathist how to run a police state?  Look at all of the Russian T-72 tanks, AK-47’s, Mig Jets, French Zebra Helicopters, Chinese Silkworm Missiles, North Korean Scuds, German Bunkers.......yet somehow the Left believes that Saddam was “our guy” based on 2 year support against the Iranians?  How do you figure? 

What are you talking about regarding David Kay?  He was one of the biggest hawks supporting Regime Change from the very start.  In fact, Kay’s interim report to Congress, he stated that Saddam was a bigger threat then he thought due to the sloppy way he safeguarded his weapon stockpiles. 

The rest of your “fascist/theocrat” yapping is just more emotional leftist pap.  I thought the Dem’s said they were going to reach out to the “values/religious” voters after they got spanked in November’s election?

Mike, Last time I checked it was 51-48% And 3% is solid, but no mandate.

Not 1 %, if not, quote your URL and let’s have a look see.

And as far as fear...no one I know was scared, except for those who believe in bushitler..and WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE????????????? Where I live, long time democrats voted in large enough numners for Bush to swing the county.

“The elections in the US no longer reflect the will of the people”

Why is that...you voted wednesday? If one cannot grasp the oxymoronity of that statement, then perhaps an explanation of how a freely conducted election, in which a clear majority was obtained cannot de facto represent the will of the people?

Pick of the litter -

“When does this marathon end?”

As long as it takes.  We can’t undo hundreds of years of colonialism, theocracy, and totalitarianism in the ME overnight.  We have spent nearly a century sacrificing American lives and treasure sorting Europe out of its various death throws.  Heck - Europe still can’t go 50 years without genocide occuring like it recently did in the Balkans.  At any rate, we have seen many positve signs coming from the ME with recent elections, and historic protests in Lebanon.  Compare that to 1948.

We live in a globalized world, and I think it is naive to think that we can let the ME continue to fall towards despotism (as it has done over the last 50 years) without more 9/11 type attacks.  You should read the 2003/2004 UN Arab Human Development Report.  The report was written by courageous Arabs and they detail many of the problems facing that region.  Hint - it is a bit more complex then the existence of Jews in Israel.

What is the armed resistance resisting?"Freedom and democracy”,or what they see as a puppet regime forced on them by us?The elections were a sham,hell, those people didn’t even know who they were voting for,they just voted for their own,shiites voted for shiites,sunnis voted for sunnis,etc.And it can be argued that they risked their lives to vote for the sole reason that they thought that would finally get us out of their country.So sorry...Look at Afganistan.A small central government beseiged on all sides by various warlords who really control the country.And all the Limbaughs,Ingrahams,and Hannitys out there call that a success.What a joke.Good for the propaganda junkies out there,but for the rest of us watching with our eyes open,not very encouraging.So sorry.

How elistist!

The iraqi election not up to your standards?

Unreal !

Where should they start? Dick Morris, Roger Ailes, Pat Caddell, James Carville?

Elections are a substitute for civil war, for power grabs..whether YOU care for who they cast their votes, or not, or whether it met your elitist stds or not, those people risked their lives to get ink on a their fingers to make something, where there was only fear.

Unbelievable!

U scare me is an idiot.  His right-wing bile reminds me of every hillbilly cracker I knew in the Deep South.  He/she can go fuck his/her own face.

Epaminondas,my bad,but 3% is hardly significant.And it sounds like the terror alerts did have a significant effect on your dem friends,even if they won’t admit it.But don’t you think it’s strange that the terror alerts stopped after the election?Even Cheney said,IF YOU VOTE FOR KERRY,WE’LL HAVE ANOTHER TERROR ATTACK.They worked it,they used it,and can you honestly say it didn’t have the desired effect?...And what the hell does Epaminondas mean?

“What are you talking about regarding David Kay?  He was one of the biggest hawks supporting Regime Change from the very start.  In fact, Kay’s interim report to Congress, he stated that Saddam was a bigger threat then he thought due to the sloppy way he safeguarded his weapon stockpiles.”

David Kay reported that “we were all almost all wrong” regarding WMD. Which is to say, as a hawk, he was predisposed to BELIEVE Hussein had WMD. As a post-invasion weapons inspector, he came to the same conclusion as had weapons inspectors before and after him: Hussein had no WMD and no viable programs to create them.

See Scott Ritter, see Hans Blix, see Charles Duelfer.

Regarding Blix, he and his inspection team were on the ground in Iraq prior to the war; they kept coming up with findings of, uh, “no weapons so far.” Cheney, et al, dismissed them as incompetents and fools. Bush yanked them preemptorily from Iraq before they could complete their inspection, so he could launch his “only as a last resort” attack.

Later, after Hussein’s LACK of WMD was undeniable, Bush lied further, stating for credulous American tv news cameras, “Why didn’t Hussein let the inspectors in? If he had no weapons, why didn’t he avoid this war by letting us confirm it?” (Or words pretty much to that effect.)

I guess Bush knows his audience pretty well; few called him on his lie, and apparently few even remember that the Blix team’s findings were offering an utter refutation of Bush’s groundless claims immediately prior to the war; that is, no doubt, why they were yanked out so abruptly: Bush and posse didn’t want their primary rationale for war to be debunked before they had the chance to attack.

In the same way, few remember, or even noted at the time, that prior to the FIRST Gulf War, when Bush Sr. threatened to attack Iraq, Saddam made it plain he was open to a diplomatic resolution; Bush Sr. ignored Saddam and launched his OWN “only as a last resort” attack.

Epaminondas,you’re becoming histerical,calmdown.We can already see the results of our meddling in Afganistan,and Iraq looks to heading down the same road.Do you really think thats a good thing?

RBC,did you also know that just before the 1st gulf war, Saddam asked Bush the 1st if he would interfere if Saddam were to invade Kuwait,Bush said NO,WE AREN’T INTERESTED IN INTERREGIONAL CONFLICTS.Ain’t that interesting.

Antilaugh,kind of harsh,don’t you think?Ithink you hurt his feelings.

Mike -

“Look at Afganistan.A small central government beseiged on all sides by various warlords who really control the country.”

So what is YOUR recommendation?

- Put the Taliban back in power?
- Tromp all over the country (Russian style) burning down Opium crops?
- Leave the country to chaos?

Yet the Left wonders why they keep losing influence.  You guys are always finding doom and gloom and provide NO ALTERNATIVES.  BTW - why are they called “Warlords” in Afghanistan, but they call them “Sheiks” in Iraq, Mullahs in Iran, Imams in Saudi Arabia....... What do you have against Warlords anyway?  Do you think the US can (or should) take away thousands of years of tribal tradition in 3 years?  How pathetic. 

If we put in hundreds of thousands of troops in Afghanistan (as many on the Left advocated) I suspect you would be the first to complain how we were being overly “imperial” in forcing our will on the Afghan tribes.  There is no winning with you people.

“RBC,did you also know that just before the 1st gulf war, Saddam asked Bush the 1st if he would interfere if Saddam were to invade Kuwait,Bush said NO,WE AREN’T INTERESTED IN INTERREGIONAL CONFLICTS.Ain’t that interesting.”

Yes. Hussein indicated to our ambassador at the time, April Glasspie, that he intended to resolve his dispute with Kuwait by military means. She told him she was instructed (by Washington) to emphasize to him we had no opinion on border disputes between neighboring Arab states.

Later, she claimed they didn’t MEAN he could just go ahead and attack Kuwait. Well...if not, why didn’t they tell him: if you attack Kuwait, we will be HIGHLY displeased? Even if she thought her communication did NOT give Hussein Washington approval to pursue his military course against Kuwait, HUSSEIN certainly did. Once again, we must ask, why didn’t Bush avail himself of the opportunity to resolve the matter diplomatically, as Hussein had said he wanted?
Further, why did Bush Sr. call this small-time dictator a modern-day Hitler? Why did Bush promulgate stories about Iraqi soldiers bayonetting new-born Kuwaiti babies in their hospital nurseries? As with nearly everything claimed about Hussein in the run-up to THIS war, such tales were lies.

If there are legitimate reasons to wage war against another country, why would we tell lies as our primary rationale/motivation?

I’ll give you one guess!

to USM,
if liberals are so drunk, on Haldol, wacky, and stupid, then why do you want to write to us? Run along and read Ann Coulter or something and foam at the mouth. 

When confronted with facts, Bushiites (not true conservatives, which i might be one, since invading countries without reason (Iraq) is not a conservative stance) just say, “this is all lies and a joke and you hate America”. 

Ok, - we need to do is remember what a fact is.  What reality is.  I know you Bushies love your SUV’s and junk food, but spending money on Haliburton and missile shields will not bring you any more SUV’s and junk food.  Your kids will be living in a third-world country.  We will go broke.  Did you people study Roman history?  Don’t go back just to WWII, but all of it. 

Again, if it is all lies, why write here?  We’re all crazy anyway, right?

Paul, what you call doom and gloom,I call reality.And it appears that we chose your 3rd alternative,we left the country to chaos so we could do the same thing in Iraq.BTW,look around you,it’s the right thats losing influence now,that the constant lying is becoming more and more obvious.  RBC,I think it’s because there was no legitimate reason to wage this war against Iraq.dingdingdingding.Don Pardo,tell our contestant what he’s won.Ye-hah, I’m rich.

Is it just me,or are the armchair warmongers becoming more histerical?

There’s a fundamental self-deception at work in the conciousnesses of those who rationalize ad hoc justification for unwarranted violence.  Unable to accept responsibility for their actions, they seek to place blame anywhere but themselves.  Especially on those who they have harmed and on those who may have tried to restrain them.  Fear, anger, suspicion, and hatred become the controlling emotions in their lives.  Without therapeutic help such individuals are in danger of falling into criminal pathologies.

Tragic enough in the case of an individual.  What horror it represents in the behavior of a nation.

What good medicine have I to offer my friends on the right who frantically post such rationalizations here to keep at bay their own sense of the terrible karma they have so willingly unleashed upon the world?

Try to remember occasionally, we are, all of us, in the same boat.  Left, right; American soldier, Iraqi insurgent.

Mike -

So you are actually saying Afghanistan is WORSE OFF today (in chaos) than under the Taliban?  What is your frame of reference?  Please be specific:

- Child mortality
- School enrollment (particularly females)
- Participation in Government
- Freedom of the press
- Freedom of women
- Tolerance of religion
- Power infrastructure
- Water infrastructure....

In addition - what would YOU have done after 9/11 with Al Qaeda openly training in camps in Afganistan?  It is soooooo easy to complain, it takes something else to stand for something and support it during thick and thin.

Hi Paul,
You said:
“If we put in hundreds of thousands of troops in Afghanistan (as many on the Left advocated) I suspect you would be the first to complain how we were being overly “imperial” in forcing our will on the Afghan tribes.  There is no winning with you people.”

This just makes no sense!
“...(as many on the Left advocated)”...?? You do mean “on the RIGHT advocated” don’t you. The left pushes for peace and withdrawal. Not empire building, solve our energy problems on the end of a bayonet militarism. That is your belief system.

You are more than confused here. I think you are so exercised that you can’t get your thoughts together in a way that makes sense.

<Belgium is truthful, peaceful, and regarded as admirable by at least some of the people who know about it. So are Iceland, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden… are you seeing a common theme here? >

Nice countries where people are respected and there is national health care and not too much spent on defense alternative fuel source are being utilized and not in the coalition of the shilling?

Hi all you Bushie enablers,
Long ago in this thread a commenter brought up the recent unauthorized release of the “secret Downing Street memo.” Later in this thread Margaret indicated that 86 congress people have sent a letter to this administration demanding an explanation about its contents.

None of you neocon enablers has spoken to that memo and its charge. Namely that the Bush Administration, in July 2002, “wanted to remove Saddam through military power.” That is a QUOTE, folks. Read Ray McGovern’s May 4 article @ Tom Paine.com. (With a link to the actual memo.) Tony Blair does not dispute the authenticity of the document. This is the smoking gun regarding the fact that this neocon administration deceived the Congress and the American public and went to war in Iraq based on lies.

So, what do all you right wing enablers have to say? Will you now, in the face of real hard factual evidence, admit that you are wrong about Bush’s motives about going to war in Iraq.

First of all, I strongly suspect this “U scare me” individual is really Ann Coulter. His/her comments definitely have all the earmarks of her Hitlerian prose.  And I very much doubt that even Little Delusional Annie believes that we started a war to rescue the poor downtrodden Iraqis from Saddam’s satanic clutches.  Does Dick Cheney look like a person who gives an infinitesimal damn about the welfare of his fellow man? Hell, Cheney would be the slumlord who’d foreclose on the orphanage, and turn the kids out in a blizzard on Christmas. How can any intelligent person believe the bovine excrement about the Busheviks’ altruistic goals to build a Utopian democracy for the Iraqis when they’re doing everything possible to delete every last vestige of it from the US?  I don’t say this flippantly; I’m quite serious.  The neo-cons would like nothing better than to do away with checks and balances and the two-party system, and have George The Dim go from mere president to Tsar Of All The Russias. (The Saintly Mr. Robertson would make a perfect Rasputin.) There’s only one way to end this genocide of a war: determine from your congressperson exactly how much of your tax dollar goes to support it-- then simply refuse to pay it.  Declare your intention to do so first.  Then just deduct that sum from your income tax check.  It’ll take the IRS bureaucrats a while before they start grabbing your assets...enough time to launch a letter-writing campaign to everyone in the media and make your case known.  Hell, if enough of us do it, they can’t jail all of us.  They can’t even rob all of us. The greatest weapon we have, as Michael Collins once said, is our refusal. Mass civil disobedience. There’s never been a better time for it.  Anybody with me on this one?

Paul,I’m saying that the elections were pointless,they made absolutely no difference to whats going on in that country.I’m saying that taking out the Taliban made absolutely no difference,Al Quaida is still out there,and apparently are stronger than ever.I’m saying that everything on your list is as bad or worse than they were before.Unless you believe the Bush propigandists,well then “freedoms on the march”.It’s soooooo easy to stick your head in the sand and deny the truth,and not so easy to open your eyes and admit that maybe you’re wrong and you backed the wrong team.But keep talking,not that I need help with proving my point,but your simplistic and naive viewpoints certainly don’t hurt.

Ellen,Ann Coulter stated in her Time Magazine interview,she said,and this is a quote,I’m typing it as I read it,"most of what I say,I say to amuse myself and my friends.I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about anything beyond that”.And this is what right wingers take as gospel.Is it any wonder that they have no grip on reality?Hell, even Gush Limpballs admits that he’s primarily an entertainer.In other words, he says whats he gets paid to say.He’s bought and paid for,and he does’nt even try to hide it,because he knows that his listeners are to stupid to realise it.

Yes, unfortunately, most right-wingers just want their news fed to them like strained peas; so they can wrap themselves in the little security blanket of blissful ignorance the White House provides them. Of course, the Bushies have no shame whatever about exploiting the patriotism of the unschooled and the unread.  After all, idiots put them in power; idiots keep them there. While the milquetoast press merely sits and allows them to murder innocent people and shred the Constitution with complete impunity.  Sickening.

Ellen,a better way to stop this war,would be to get people to use their vote.Start voting for third party candidates.Trying to get people to withhold taxes is a bit scary on an individual basis,not many people will go along with that.But we still have our vote,maybe we should use it while it still counts for something.And while were at it, we should get rid of all electronic voting,and go back to all hand counted ballots,verified by bypartisan,or tripartisan oversight.It would take a huge effort,requiring a lot of volenteers to pull it off,but whats more importent than our right to vote and ensuring that each vote counts.If people want to get involved in politics on a grassroots level,what better way to do it?I would certainly donate my time.Whats more patriotic than that?

Paul,

You are so full of crap.  Rumsfeld went there as a special envoy from Reagan and read the following article to refute your claim.  Maybe the arming and funding of Sadaam began before Reagan because we saw him as an ally against Iran, but the bulk was built up during Republican administrations.  Come on, be a big boy and admit your party screwed up royally.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2038.htm

When Donald Rumsfeld Met Saddam

Video Clip: “Shaking Hands with the enemy,” Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad on December 20, 1983.

See Also: Iraq-Gate How The United States Illegally Armed Saddam Hussein,\.

Your defense is the typical kneejerk non-reality based neocon defense.  When are you people going to drop your big ego-trip and admit you were swindled.  At least Democrats are dealing in reality here.  I think the fact that the rest of the world thinks we have a chimpanzee for a president pretty well says it all.

Merlin,it’s going to take them a while to come up with a response,there are no sound bites or bullet points to tell them how to think.Be patient.

Paul,

I guess it was Scott Ritter, not Kay, who went public just prior to our invasion of Iraq and said that there were no WMD’s.  Pretty telling that such a “bullish supporter of Bush” resigned after he was found to have been a piss-poor inspector.  Regardless, here’s the worlds reaction to our folly.  Notice the word “lie” used as much as “mistake”.  Your bozo of a president has ruined the reputation of our country, and its a matter of time before the Republicans “fall” from office like Satan fell from heaven.

I chose only quotes from our “allies”:
Poland

“The CIA, and the Bush Administration, claimed the opposite, and the conviction that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was prepared to use them was the main reason for attacking Iraq… The most important thing is how [President] Bush made the decision to start the war - whether he was himself misled or he deliberately told a lie… It is imaginable, after all, that the United States told a lie and went to war. However, if the country went to war by mistake, the consequences are appalling.”

- Dawid Warszawski, Warsaw Gazeta Wyborcza, January 28, 2004

United Kingdom

“It’s getting embarrassing. Anybody who’s anybody now admits that there are no, and were no, weapons of mass destruction worth the name in Iraq. The roll-call of converts to what used to be the exclusive position of the anti-war camp gets more impressive by the day. David Kay, President Bush’s handpicked arms inspector and the former chief weapons monitor of the CIA - hardly a limp-wristed European peacenik - quit his post at the head of the Iraq Survey Group last week, concluding that there are no Iraqi WMD to be found: “I don’t think they existed,” he said bluntly… In 2002-03, governments in London and Washington stretched every sinew to persuade their publics that war was necessary because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But Iraq did not and so the war was fought on a false basis. For that, surely, there must be a reckoning.”

- Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, January 28, 2004

India

“The United States Administration’s defense of its Iraq policy has been steadily rendered untenable by developments on the ground. Its justifications for the invasion have not withstood close scrutiny and it is unable to contain the consequences of its actions… The administration also cannot take shelter behind the CIA official’s statement that errors in judgment should be attributed to the intelligence services rather than to the political echelon. President Bush and his political appointees have so consistently followed a pattern of doctoring data and concocting cases to suit their political purposes that they cannot blame professionals in the intelligence services for the wide gap between reality and their projections of it.”

- The Hindu, January 28, 2004

Algeria

Oh, and on the “Ann Coulter” banter, I heard her say that she is for complete deregulation and that many of the laws passed since 1905 should be changed back.  Sure sounds Libertarian to me.  When asked what she would change first, she said the 16th Ammendment, oh, so Libertarian.  No taxes.  Great idea, but who’s going to clean up all the crap out of drinking water when we can’t fund the water reclamation plants.  Good luck getting a cop to help you when the criminal with the Uzi is at the door, because we didn’t fund them!

This is the bottom line, my friends, you either pay taxes and have services or you live in a filthy anarchy.  But apparently, that is what the Bush Admin. wants.

‘No taxation wihout representation’.Does that mean we shouldn’t be taxed unless we’re equally representented in our government,or does it mean that the taxes we pay should be duely accounted for and easy to trace,so as to make sure they are being used openly and fairly,or both?Taxes are nessassary,there are some things that we as a society need to cooperate on to get done,such as sanitation,law enforcement,etc.But we also have a responsibilty as individuals to make sure that the taxes we pay are being used as they’re intended.A lot of the problems we’re having these days are due to the fact that we’ve handed our individual power and responsibility over to our government,and so have lost control over it.We need to get back to a government ‘OF THE PEOPLE,by the people,and for the people’.We seem to have forgotten that first part.

Margaret,remember,little orphan annie doesn’t think much about she says,but she sure is a hottie.

U Scare Me,

You and your rightwing comrades are un-American traitors.  You’ve put your cultish worship of George W. Bush, and your fanatical devotion to your One True Party ahead of the United States of America, and God.  You hate this country and all that it stands for, like rightwingers always have.

Enjoy your brief time in the sun, because it’s coming to an end very soon.  We real Americans are going to make sure of that.  Then maybe you can migrate to North Korea and find another godlike leader to worship, and another cultlike political party to surrender your soul to. 

This is a wonderful country of decent, hardworking, religious people...And you rightwingers will not be able to enact your treason much longer.

God Bless America!  And down with all rightwing traitors.

U Scare Me -

Do you EVER stop to think as to why the U.S. has SO MANY enemies?

What could we be DOING to create so many enemies?

WAKE UP! And stop being so damned scared - its the weaker road.

i think the armchair warmongers have decided long ago to either turn of their brains and enjoy the ride, or completely live in a rambo-inspired world. unless your ‘facts’ come straight from GOP headquarters or church (what’s the difference anymore?) or you are either unable and unwilling to research things or speak to those worldwide that differ from your view, i just cannot see how you continue to deny the lie that has cost well over 3000 american lives (i won’t use the highly-suspect DoD numbers that only count active duty troops that expire within the borders of iraq or afghanstan) and 300 BILLION dollars. and there is no sign of either of those numbers slowing.

yet a 1979 honda got better gas mileage than a 2004 model. hmm. amazing how that carburetor/fuel injection technology goes backwards while every other technology progresses.

btw smartypants on this site --- who was rambo fighting with in the big reagan-era movie rambo: first blood 2?  remember, the guy went from disgruntled vietnam vet with emotional problems in pt1 to super patriotic ripped arab killer (how convenient?) in pt2 but it wasn’t just rambo verses everyone as your memory of that fine movie might serve you. rambo was on the side of the taliban, arming and training the little osamas. maybe hollywood does stumble into some things sometimes.

to the guy who said he’d take the black heart in order to keep his kids alive?  they are nearly dead already with this kind of thinking from their father. i have one and i know the world is a dangerous place. and for someone supposedly ungodly like myself, you know being all democratic and opinionated like i am, why is it that all of these deceptions, fear tactics, and blood lust towards a country THAT NEVER ATTACKED US continue to come from the so-called religious people? the inquisition, yeah yeah yeah.  funny how so many people in this country have forgotten that this country was formed by people escaping europe and religious persecution. my how the roles have reversed 300 years later.

to every one on both sides, Im scared of you both. WE should all be ashamed, As my grandmother has said to me on many occasions. So the question is,” Do you want a stable oil price, do you want to continue this way of life allittle longer.” The truth is that none of you fuckers have the courage, nore I for that matter, to stand up to it all. Its just to BIG. But when it becomes unbearable, you will find that your fellow countrymen will multiply, and your patriotism will swell. The truth is every generation comes to a crises like we face today, But none of them have faced the future that we face today. prepare today, or your children will suffer. I continualy begg forgivness to whatever God all of us Humans have offended. And I begg you all for forgiveness on the spelling of this humble statement

MIKE ...
1) 3% IS a significant solid victory in 20th/21st century national US elections. Look at the margins back to TR. It’s not quite a mandate..maybe 5% depending on turnout would take that, but in the largest turnout in many generations for our party to DENY the reality is to continue decline and marginalization. The actions and rhetoric of moveon and Soros types will END THE PARTY

2) Everyone..everyone I know read both FAT CHECK org and realclear politics (which is where this article showed up btw) every single day, and it wasn’t Cheney’s over the top comment that grabbed the people I know (all of whom are active workers in campaign NORMALLY) it was Kerry on Russert (Meet the Press). Also consider perception ..if you do NOT believe we are in a war then Cheney’s comment is ridiculous fear mongering, but if you DO believe we are in a war, it’s just ..’c’mon cheney- get real- and suck the words back into your head, that was stupid’

3) Nobody living where we live NOTICES terror alerts.

Epaminondas is a PERSON not a thing. He took a bunch of farmers in the Boetian plains north of Athens after the peloponesian war, in Thebes, and obliterated Sparta after they threatened thebes. He invented the organization, tactics and strategy wage a pre-emptive war specifially against the Spartan army, by an agragrian democracy against an organized society, let alone army, and he completely destroyed the entire spartan society. Then he took his army, left free democracies in his wake, in the stead of helot slaveocracies, and went home. Years later he was killed in battle as the Macedonians began the wars of Alexander, when he could not rouse Thebes/Boetia and her allies in time.

Luminous Beauty ..I wish I had been around last eve to see your post. While I admire the sentiment you express about being the same boat..you and I are in the same boat..but I beg you to believe me that having been talking to people in the Gulf for years, neither of us are in the same boat with (MAYBE) Iraqis, who explode themselves in ice cream parlors, and employment waiting lines. These are not insurgents. They are people who firmly believe that the people they are killing are no longer even muslims (via the teaching of a fellow named Ibn Tamiyya ..and I’ll say again if you don’t know that name and seveeral others you are incredibly, dangerously lacking in knowledge). These sunni freakazoids think that they are sparking the righteous wrath of god which will destroy america. Their targets tell you all you need to know about them.

These are not the fellows around Concord Green. Their fight is NOT political. They are the people who cut the head off Daniel Pearl. They are the people who believe and have been taught that jews and zionists are behind ALL OF THIS, and have been for millenia. And they believe our destruction will be the hand of god and that they are righteous in their murders.

I am not in their boat.

Get familiar with…
Sayid Qutb ..more than anyone
Hassan Al Bana
Mawdudi
Muhammad Qutb ..professor at King Abdul Aziz U
Abdullah Azzam.. professor at King Abdul Aziz U
Ibn Tammiyya .. famous jurist

If you don’t know these names....

epaminondas,

In the whole history of the world, returning hatred with hatred has only caused more hatred. 

It doesn’t seem to me that Muslims are unique in using religious faith as a rationale for their feelings of emnity.  Iraqi’s, regardless of what they believe, are fighting for their homeland, while we are institutionally indifferent to the genuine suffering of the Iraqi people, as we seek to impose our Imperial hegenomy on the entire region.  It’s the situation that we have pre-emptively created over generations, not just since Saddam Hussein became such a useful foil in the Machiavellian manipulations of the Empire, that generates extremist feeling and empowers extremist rhetoric.  It’s our obligation to change the situation.  Then, and only then, will the shrill voices of extremism fade into meaningless babble. 

Here’s a clue; there is only one boat.  Muslim names you should maybe familiarize yourself with are Rumi, al-Gabr, Kayyam, al-Mansur.  Islam is derived from salaam, which is the sea of human solidarity.  The jetsam foam you speak of are but momentary phenomena in the tide of history.

I find it sadly ironic that your eponymous hero and his populist vision were crushed by King Phillip and Prince Alexander, and here you seem to be aligning yourself with the modern equivalent of the Macedonian enterprise.

Naomi,
You have some of the clearest reporting out there. The most destructive element to Iraq right now is the profiteers who have set up shop and are rooting for the total leveling of that country. We are putting our soldiers in harms way, without proper equipment for the sole benefit of the Haliburtons and the GEs who want the long term foothold in a new market. We are killing thousands of innocent citizens, injuring more, and ruining a culture for one purpose only, and that is economic gain for a few enterprising companies. Your article is the most concise writing I have read on the real reason for the war and the reason to end it now. It should be put on the desk of every member of Congress. It is not a matter of them not being educated. They know. It is a matter of Congress understanding that the public knows. As the public begins to grasp the true nature of this catastrophe and they begin to ask questions those members of congress will be forced to question their own leadership and integrity.
The war is over. Our president told us so. Now the real reconstruction must begin. Our obligation is to offer our help, our reparations, and our friendship. We have done so much damage, I don’t know if any of those things will ever be desired.

The literal translation of ‘salaam’ is ‘peace’, not ‘solidarity’.

The literal translation of ‘islam’ is ‘submission’.

Epaminondas is correct in his estimation of your ignorance, and your comments of the ‘tide of history’ are amusingly reminiscent of the old Marxist idea of ‘historic inevitability’.

We must part on the issue of what has ‘caused this’.

Look up this..KARJARITES, KHARJARITE or KHAWARIJ

The forces within islam which we face today are NOT fringe. Nor are they new. Nor are they due to anything we have done. The great 13th century jurist Ibn Tamiyya and his modern adherents simply have their view of things. In this view we are evil, god says so, in his perfect and immutable message. We represent shaitan, literally. Our ‘freedom’ is a tool of the devil. There is only god’s law. Men cannot make their own. Nor are the series of hideous autocrats to be assigned solely to us. No one forced the arabs to align themslves with Hitler. We did not cause the saudis to publish news reports that jews use gentile blood to make holiday pastries (2002). We did not cause the syrian defense minister to write books about rabbis slitting the throats of muslims for their blood. We did not cause those who follow these thoughts to scrape the art of millenia off the mosques in Bosnia (1990’s) because it is blasphemy. We did not cause them to wipe out every man women and child in Taif in 1804. We did not cause Assad to kill 20,000 (at a minumum) in 1982 in Hama and plow then into the ground and make a parking lot.

These people blowing up ice cream parlors, slicing off Daniel Pearl’s head, are empowered by ONE motive force, and it is NOT some kind of Iraqi patriotism. It is NO coincidence that these acts are so similar. Or their words the same at ‘consummation’.

No doubt you would like to assign modern blame to us for the Dulles’s actions in 1953. While those actions were galactically in error, we are three generations distant from then, and today are calling not for utterly self interested oil sucking policies, but instead for free democratic societies. We do so for our own interest, but at worst this can be characterized as enlightened self interest.

This is precisely what those on the left have failed to connect with. This is precisely where MY party lost the message.

Nor is the USA Sparta, or Macedon.

If youa re so convinced that we are evil now, what on earth would have you have made of Abe Lincoln?

Lincoln who IGNORED THE SUPREME COURT
Lincoln who did nothing when rampant congressional committees jailed people (including generals) for no cause (See Gen Charles Stone, for one)
Lincoln who suspended civil rights
Lincoln who considered JAILING the Chief Justice
Lincoln who acted with no declaration of war

Frankly I must wonder if those who blame the USA do so because it is so much easier to do than face the actions we are compelled to face as result of the agression of others.

Perhaps, then, Pearl Harbor was really our fault since the poor japanese were forced to wall by the pernicious and devastating economic sanctions we placed upon them?

I think it is unfair to heap all the blame for the Iraq mess on George Bush. After all, Bill Clinton had 8 years to resolve things over there as partisan advocates of the right like to point out. However this way of defending Bush administration errors highlights the incompetence of Bush and his team and ultimately comes off as no defense at all. If I hire on to do a job and lack the skills to do that job I doubt very much that a defense of incompetence would stand me in good stead. In fact I would be out on my ass and I would feel it proper to be out on my ass and so too would any of Bush’s defenders.
But even heaping blame on Clinton isn’t going back far enough. The senior George Bush started the Iraq war. But let’s go back further - all through the eighties the rest of the world was clamouring for action to be taken against Saddam because of civil rights abuses in Iraq and his use of chemical weapons in his war with Iran but in the eighties U.S. foreign policy was directed against Iran, a country that had thrown off the shackles of what was considered at the time one of the worst regimes on the planet, and therefore Saddam was America’s shining boy.
You can go back even further if you wish to dish out blame and since America has completely succumbed to the blame game that is probably the course of action it will take. I think first and foremost Americans should take a long hard look at what it is their country is doing, not at who is to blame nor at the intended outcome, and what it is that America is doing is sleepwalking through atrocity. America needs to wake up.

However, Naomi Klein, as much as I admire her incisive reportage, as well as her passion and conviction, is, in my opinion, wrong in her particular wakeup call. She uses language which implies she sides with the bomb-throwing of the insurgents. If you back the warmongers whether they wage war with JDAMs and elite troops (BTW does anyone remember in the WWII movies when troops were asked to volunteer for “suicide missions” and those who volunteered were considered such wonderful heroes? No point here. Just asking.) or wage war with suicide bombers (...oh - I guess I was making a point - my bad) then you are on the wrong side of history. My argument for this simple and specious but refute it if you care to: If war is to be our solution then history is over because eventually we will destroy ourselves and no one will be left to remember or record.

I think at this point in time it is healthier for everybody to look at a realistic pullout option. Whatever the history, and I agree it has been a lousy diplomatic history, we are doing nothing positive. Our remaining there is, as I see it, nothing more than providing a great quarter for the companies that are taking advantage of the era “of global terror”. We need to stop being afraid of the war talk and the propaganda. We are causing to much damage. How is our staying there providing any stability? Somebody please explain that?

rosignol,

Please forgive me for my denotative and metaphorical associations.  Much meaning is lost in literal translation. If you could elucidate the inviolable distinctions between peace and solidarity, I would be much obliged.

I am not so much ignorant of the abysmal screed of extremists as determined not to empower them by succumbing to fear and hatred and the knee-jerk response to violence with more violence.  By implicitly lumping the majority of Muslims with extremists, you are engaging in the same kind of extremist screed.  I don’t condemn you for your ignorance, but I would like to see you rise above it.

I’m pleased to be the source of your amusement.  However, I would never say the course of history is inevitable.  It depends on what we as human beings do.  Whether we seek to establish respect for the universality and particularity of human dignity or devolve into endless bitter bloody conflict, the choice is yours.

Here’s a clue; there is only one boat.

epaminonandas, you say;

“ (We) today are calling not for utterly self interested oil sucking policies, but instead for free democratic societies”

If our actions matched your rhetoric, I would find this sentiment admirable.

Mike,

Guess I don’t get your Little Orphan Annie connection, as one can note on my posts that I put a great deal of thought and RESEARCH into my political opinions.  So, what do you mean?

Ian,

I disagree about GWB.  Clinton spent a great deal of time working with the Israelis and the Palestinians trying to work out an equitable deal to bring about peace.  More time than any other US President since 1948.  GHWB was smart enough not to go into a war with no exit strategy.  Too bad his son didn’t inherit his smarts.

GWB and his cronies had drawn up the war plans for Iraq in early 2002, within 6 months of 9/11, although most of the intelligence showed Sadaam had a real anti-bin Laden/Al Qaeda policy.  He ruthlessly worked to eliminate the Shia, who are the more religiously radical Muslims in Iraq.  He wanted a dictatorship fueled by an open market, but on his terms.  Funny how he evaded the UN sanctions by dealing almost exclusively through 3 TEXAS OILMEN.  What an odd coincedence.

Epamindondas,
You’re right that the insurgency is fueled by a single common goal--that Islam will become the world religlion in the most orthodox manner, and that the Jewish state and religion will be completely and finally inhialated from the world.  Complete and total Jewish genocide is the true aim of Islam, and don’t believe them if they say differently.

And as I likely by virtue of my temprament would have been an abolitionist is 1865, I would have lauded my great President.  The comparison is very poor, as Lincoln worked to establish the Constitutional rights of a disenfranchised and abused people.  GWB works to establish to revocation of the Constitution for those who are disenfranchised and abused, placing them into the lower netherworld of the “endentured” class with the elimination of the Middle Class.

Just as Rome overextended themselves in their pursuit of Empire, thereby forcing the Roman middle class into near extinction, so our “Emperor” brings our country to it’s knees in a quick two terms.  The only way we are going to survive his evisceration of our Constitution and Bill of Rights is if Democrats or a very disgruntled Republican takes the next election, AND if we don’t sustain another massive terrorist attack on US soil.  If Al Qaeda succeeds again, say with nuclear weapons detonated in several US metropolises simultaneously, our government will enforce martial law, revoke our civil liberties, reinstate the draft, and we will have lost the US as we know it for some time to come, if not forever.

So, neocons, if and when this happens, the blame with forever be yours in the world’s history books.  Shame on your blind obedience.

We have,and by that,I mean THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,been interfering with the middle east for the last 50 years,backing tyrants,despots and dictators at our convenience,only to turn on them with rightious indignation when they were’nt convenient to us anymore.We backed Saddam,we backed Osama,we backed the Shah,remember him?We back the saudis,a theocratic dictatorship,etc,etc,etc.Is it any wonder that the ‘freedom and democracy’ mantra rings so false over there?The whole Arab world sees the hiprocricy that is American foriegn policy.More clearly than some of us here appearently see it.Yes,Epaminondos,we may be at war,but it’s a war that WE started,a war that WE are responsible for,and a war that WE have to find a way to end.And all the misguided goobility gook you expouse isn’t helping at all.

epaminondas;

So ibn Tammiya is the universal spokesman for all of Islam, and Rumi is what?

Are you the undeviating ideological heir of Cotten Mather and John Calvin?  Is Martin Luther to be remembered only for his execrable anti-semitism?  Does only Savaronola represent the Catholic Church or do Francis d’Assisi and Bartholome de las Casas have a say? 

This habit we humans have of dividing the world with such smug certainty into absolute good and evil, ineluctably defined so simply and clearly as us versus them is ugly and unjustifiable by and of anyone. 

It is unfortunate but true that we all tend to be driven primarily by our emotions using our wonderfully potent and sadly misused thinking abilities mainly to rationalize our feelings by placing blame and responsibility outside of ourselves rather than engage in conscious self-critical analysis.

It is telling that those of us, in American society, who have acquired the habit of critical self-analysis and apply that painfully acquired wisdom to history and politics are castigated by many self-appointed cheerleaders of the American Empire as traitorous, treasonous, blaspheming heretics who hate America. 

Beware when casting out demons you lose the best part of yourselves.

Margaret,I had to think for a few minites about my last post to you,and I apologise if you took offense at my comments,it wasn’t meant that way.It’s pretty obvious you know what you’re talking about.My point was that Ann Coulter does’nt think about anything she says,she says it to amuse herself.So if some of her ‘opinions’ are libertarian in nature,as you pointed out,that just shows that nothing she says can be taken seriously,she does’nt really know what she’s talking about.She banks big money,(30,000$ per show)on knowing how to use the sound bites and bullet points in her commentary,and on being a ‘hottie’.So in the Ann Coulter vein,I said what I said to amuse myself.Sorry if you took it the wrong way.

Well said, LB.

No offense taken.  Sometimes it’s hard to interpret whether someone is being sarcastic, actually joking or if they are meaning something completely other than what you’re thinking.  I appreciate your work online.

Ditto,Margaret

Want to stop the war?  Read David Ray Griffin’s THE NEW PEARL HARBOR: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11, published 2004.  Also, read his new book, THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT: Omissions and Distortions.  Then, don’t just impeach Bush & Co., imprison them for life with no parole and in no country club prison, but doing hard time.  Do it quick, before we have another 9/11-type event here in this country.

realitybasedbob. I forgot to post the URL for the Wolfowitz article but I guess it doesn’t matter, no one here on the left would bother to read it. But sure I can use Wolfowitz, remember he was very close to GWB and he was one of the main theorists of democratisation as a means of changing the Arab countries from the medieval theocracies spawning terrorists that they are, to bring them to a state of more normal countries. Which means for a start and extremely importantly, not subjugating half their population, the female half. Treating women so would screw up any community I would think.

What’s the truth. You could think my name silly, I had doubts myself when I picked it as a pseudonym for guest writer on a blog. However: about fifty years ago, in a school in UK, where we had inkwells in the desks and pens with nibs to dip into them, I started Latin. Our teacher, one Miss Jones, gave us all Latin names that were related to out surnames as a way of immediately becoming familiar with about 32 Latin words. My surname was Greenwood, Ligneus is the Latin word for wood, that’s all. I thought it would be kinda neat to resurrect it after all those years and send it out on the internet.

Its easy to blame Bush and others for the war. But we need to understand that it is us, American consumers and our car-&-suburb lifestyles (and city zoning/development), that is to blame.  Bush is just representing our American interests abroad.  Every dollar you give to every corporation is a vote.  Every gallon you pump into your car a decision you make in how you choose to live your life. Now the beast we have collectively created is looking abroad to fill its belly. Only we can fast from our own appetites.

Like a hamster in a cage with nothing else but a wheel, we dont know what else to do but get in our car.  Convenience is king.  If you want an enemy to fight, this is it.  It lives within you.  The only way to win the war against greedy convenience is through the weapon of sacrifice.  Ghandi, and Jesus (who mostly is not followed and learned from, but is used as a platform) can teach us about this.

With a combination of an infrastructure built around bicycles (btw- the most efficient form of human transportation available, as well as a prescription for obesity and isolation) and public transportation, even a place like Los Angeles can be transformed (go to Holland for inspiration).  That is if people there cared for change and the environment as much as they do for movies/wal-mart/style/cars/beauty/suburbs etc.  The left has the zeal, they just need the organization and activation to put it into active policy.

Start by putting that environmental sticker on your bike not your bumper.  Support live/work zoning and architecture, ride a bike, plant a tree, meet your neighbor. Build a community of hope and progress, not isolation and anger.  I am sick of all the dichotomizing, and demonizing. Refuse to be Democrat or Republican, left or right.  Think for yourself and find the balence not in mudslingers but between love and truth - Yahweh and Yshua.

The only person you can really change is yourself. I love my bike and I love my sustainable urban village community. I made an effort, even in spite of the American paradigm to live this way. It took an initial sacrifice (By choice I have never owned a car) but it has been worth it. Its not impractical, it just takes initative and ambition. See you in the bike lane.

This message sponsered by Hope corporation.
Find some at a holy spirit near you.

Hi LB,
You said:
“This habit we humans have of dividing the world with such smug certainty into absolute good and evil, ineluctably defined so simply and clearly as us versus them is ugly and unjustifiable by and of anyone.”
And:
“It is unfortunate but true that we all tend to be driven primarily by our
emotions using our wonderfully potent and sadly misused thinking abilities mainly to rationalize our feelings by placing blame and responsibility
outside of ourselves rather than engage in conscious self-critical analysis.”

Bingo!

Hello. Let’s get our comparisons/analogies straight: The postWW2 occupation and Marshall Plan reconstruction by allies in Europe served one solid function: to keep our former allies, the Stalinists, in check. That was a perceived critical dynamic at the time. Perhaps philantropy was a partial motive and great PR, but nothing like good old realpolitik of strengthening Western Europe to keep the Reds behind the Iron Curtain.
Also, please read Franz Fanon’s _The Wretched of the Earth_ to understand the collective subconscious dynamic as to why colonized peoples turn their anger on each other in addition to turning it on the colonizers. Such internecine behavior is an historically predictable _consequence_ of colonization…
Face it: Iraqis don’t want us there stealing their oil, raping their women or torturing their young men...and they are angry and frustrated.
Are some people in our Republic naturally blind to the inhumane behavior visited on Iraqis simply because “the leader” says it is “OK?”
You’ll pardon me, but I am part of the reality- based crowd…

To all you armchair warmongers out there,go to www.electroniciraq.net,click on iraqi diaries,read what there.But be warned,you risk a complete breakdown of your complacent self rightousness.We are’nt waging this war for these people,we’re waging this war on top of these people.And why?So that we can hop in our SUVs,flit down to the local starbucks, sip our lattes and double decaff lat caps,and whine to each other about how much it costs to fill up our gas guzzling road hogs.We’re grinding these poor people into the dirt because they were unfortunate enough to have suffered under a viscious dictator that we did’nt happen to like.And then you might try conteplating what the true nature of evil is.

TO: Curious, DBA, and all you right-wingers:

Please tell us that you look at more then CNN, FOX, & MSN, Please, please!!! When you reply to these blogs, we want intelligent, thoughtful answers, not regurgitated cud from this so called president.

The mere fact that we illegally invaded a country based on a lie is enough to disqualify it as the proper thing to do. Get real will you? There was a laundry list of other despotic countries that need our attention. Iraq was not one of them.  We invaded their country for the oil.  WE ARE RUNNIMG OUT OF OIL!!! (See: PeakOil). bush&co;have to get theirs.  Why can’t you see that? The Iraqis are NOT better off since we are occupying their country, ask Naomi about this, she would be an authority!!  Duh!!??

When I encounter someone from what I call “the sucker base” I ask several questions: Why can you not see this fraud (Bush) for what he is? (By the way, most of my Latin American friends and family can see right through b&company;). Why did you keep eyes closed to the evidence that we have a crooked government, now in control by b&company;?  Why do you not understand the concept of hypocrisy, deception, bigotry and outright lying?  Why?  Roughly 50% of the electorate could, why couldn’t you??  What’s wrong with your perception?  All I get are some pretty choice, terse words and a befuddled look....  Just goes to show you, our education system is not teaching analytical thinking.  The righties are battling Darwinism in Kansas, and thousands die in Iraq; wow, we are so in trouble!!

Oh… p.s.: REMEMBER: lying to Congress is an impeachable offense, will the gutless repukes know the right thing to do?  Doubt it....

To impeach bush,I wonder if there is any point in trying to talk to the blue light zombies.I turned off my TV almost 2 years ago.Sometimes I wish I had’nt.

Mike - What do you mean by “blue light zombies”?

Congress abdicated Congressional authority. You’d think a body of individuals would have more intelligence than that, there.

We don’t know what happened that day, but we can see little has changed since. If I had three hundred billion to invest against terrorism I be fach!ng spending it at home.

Lockheed Martin ~ Monsanto growth economy greed rats who are self-unaware because they have too much to do.

How about some R&D;in stuff that doesn’t suck! Bet you’ll get some Iraqi hearts and minds by not being a murderous, rapine poison thief!

Yer damn right I’m bitter - Go get ‘em Naomi!

America’s shame, two years on from ’Mission Accomplished’

Sunday, 8th May 2005, by Robert Fisk

Part One

Two years after “Mission Accomplished”, whatever moral stature the United States could claim at the end of its invasion of Iraq has long ago been squandered in the torture and abuse and deaths at Abu Ghraib. That the symbol of Saddam Hussein’s brutality should have been turned by his own enemies into the symbol of their own brutality is a singularly ironic epitaph for the whole Iraq adventure. We have all been contaminated by the cruelty of the interrogators and the guards and prison commanders.

But this is not only about Abu Ghraib. There are clear and proven connections now between the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the cruelty at the Americans’ Bagram prison in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Curiously, General Janis Karpinski, the only senior US officer facing charges over Abu Ghraib, admitted to me a year earlier when I visited the prison that she had been at Guantanamo Bay, but that at Abu Ghraib she was not permitted to attend interrogations - which seems very odd.

A vast quantity of evidence has now been built up on the system which the Americans have created for mistreating and torturing prisoners. I have interviewed a Palestinian who gave me compelling evidence of anal rape with wooden poles at Bagram - by Americans, not by Afghans.

Many of the stories now coming out of Guantanamo - the sexual humiliation of Muslim prisoners, their shackling to seats in which they defecate and urinate, the use of pornography to make Muslim prisoners feel impure, the female interrogators who wear little clothing (or, in one case, pretended to smear menstrual blood on a prisoner’s face) - are increasingly proved true. Iraqis whom I have questioned at great length over many hours, speak with candour of terrifying beatings from military and civilian interrogators, not just in Abu Ghraib but in US bases elsewhere in Iraq.

At the American camp outside Fallujah, prisoners are beaten with full plastic water bottles which break, cutting the skin. At Abu Ghraib, prison dogs have been used to frighten and to bite prisoners.

How did this culture of filth start in America’s “war on terror”? The institutionalised injustice which we have witnessed across the world, the vile American “renditions” in which prisoners are freighted to countries where they can be roasted, electrified or, in Uzbekistan, cooked alive in fat? As Bob Herbert wrote in The New York Times, what seemed mind-boggling when the first pictures emerged from Abu Ghraib is now routine, typical of the abuse that has “permeated the Bush administration’s operations”.

Amnesty, in a chilling 200-page document in October, traced the permeation of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s memos into the prisoner interrogation system and the weasel-worded authorisation of torture. In August 2002, for example, only a few months after Bush spoke under the “Mission Accomplished” banner, a Pentagon report stated that “in order to respect the President’s inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign, [the US law prohibiting torture] must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander- in-Chief authority.” What does that mean other than permission from Bush to torture?

Part Two

A 2004 Pentagon report uses words designed to allow interrogators to use cruelty without fear of court actions: “Even if the defendant knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent [to be guilty of torture] even though the defendant did not act in good faith.”

The man who directly institutionalised cruel sessions of interrogation in Abu Ghraib was Major-General Geoffrey Miller, the Guantanamo commander who flew to Abu Ghraib to “Gitmo-ize the confinement operation” there. There followed the increased use of painful shackling and the frequent forcible stripping of prisoners. Maj-Gen Miller’s report following his visit in 2003 spoke of the need for a detention guard force at Abu Ghraib that “sets the conditions for the successful interrogation and exploitation of the internees/detainees”. According to Gen Karpinski, Maj-Gen Miller said the prisoners “are like dogs, and if you allow them to believe they’re more than a dog, then you’ve lost control of them”.

The trail of prisons that now lies across Iraq is a shameful symbol not only of our cruelty but of our failure to create the circumstances in which a new Iraq might take shape. You may hold elections and create a government, but when this military sickness is allowed to spread, the whole purpose of democracy is overturned. The “new” Iraq will learn from these interrogation centres how they should treat prisoners and, inevitably, the “new” Iraqis will take over Abu Ghraib and return it to the status it had under Saddam and the whole purpose of the invasion (or at least the official version) will be lost.

With an insurgency growing ever more vicious and uncontrollable, the emptiness of Mr Bush’s silly boast is plain. The real mission, it seems, was to institutionalise the cruelty of Western armies, staining us forever with the depravity of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Bagram - not to mention the secret prisons which even the Red Cross cannot visit and wherein who knows what vileness is conducted. What, I wonder, is our next “mission”?

Ten bloody days in Iraq: 338 dead, 588 wounded

Was it worth it to overthrow Saddam? My oppinon is yes. He was a ruthless dictator who created a small elite class in Iraqi that opressed the majority. But like curios said, could it be worse now then it was before? Yes when we have a leader like Bush trying to privatise the countrys main assests and cut the newly elected goverment out of recounstruction. If we used our resources to really help Iraq instead of pursuing the desires of the Bush administration that people in iraq would welcome US aid (not occupation)in creating a working democratic goverment.

RE.’blue light zombies’.Have you ever seen the light that eminates from a TV at night with the lights out?It’s blue.Considering that studies have shown that ones brain is more active when one is sleeping than when watching TV,well,you get the picture.

Everyone please stop using the term “neo-con”.  It is overused and the meaning has been muddled to the point of absurdity.  I know Air America loves it, but let’s let it end there.

Anyway you cut it this administration sucks.  We are being sold down the river to line the richans pockets. Anyone with any brains at all knows Bush only took us into Iraq for the oil.  He was afraid to attack Iran or Korea.  He’s simply a loud mouth SOB that somehow got enough people on his side through a bunch of lies.  I personally think the elections we’ve had in the last two elections were rigged.  There is too many of us out here who are not walking around with our heads stuck where the sun doesn’t who voted.  We are in a big world of dodoo, about to loose all of our rights and social security too.
I’ve got senators who wouldn’t vote against the administration no matter what was offered them.  This is really where our problems are.  People keep voting in the same old good old boys.  They do not care what the voters in their districts want, they say screw us middle class people and keep lining their pockets with our money upping the anti every few years.  They are in cahoots with the Jews who own all the news services on prime TV.  Now how do you think we’re going to fight this without masses of us going to DC and assinating everyone who leaves any building on the hill.  Do you think our boys in the service would feel sorry for us and turn the guns on the lying, cheating no good politicians and administrators instead of on us?????

If you could elucidate the inviolable distinctions between peace and solidarity, I would be much obliged.
-LB

To put it succinctly, solidarity is a condition of consensus and commitment to a particular end among a group of people.

Peace is a word used to describe a lack of conflict.

You can have peace without solidarity- each individual doing as they see fit, not agreeing with other individuals, but not in violent conflict with them, either- and you can have solidarity among a group of people who are at war with some other group (for example, a platoon of soldiers).

Clearly, they are distinct concepts. Why do you think the terms have anything to do with each other?

My view: This author sees economic reasons for the American intervention and therefore posits an economic solution for ending it . I think it is more complicated than that and therefore more difficult to fashion an exit strategy. The reality is that there are now two wars: one against the foreign occupation by the U.S./British coalition of the willing and the other a civil war between Iraqi groups over who is going to control Iraq, each of whom has foreign sponsors. The conflicts are interwoven.