The central question we need to answer is this: What were the real reasons for the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq? When we identify why we really went to war—not the cover reasons or the rebranded reasons, freedom and democracy, but the real reasons—then we can become more effective anti-war activists. The most effective and strategic way to stop… return to article
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Reader Comments (573)Margaret;
The police, the firefighters and the communities they serve govern themselves, of course.
In my personal view there’s no reason to not have larger governmental structures as long as they are run on a consensus basis and their policy decisions are advisory and not coercive. It’s with the coercive power of the state and its submissive relation to concentrations of wealth that I’m concerned. Democratic governance is a good idea, we should try it someday.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 10, 2005 at 11:50 PM luminous beauty a libertarian? interesting….
I know you may not believe my affiliations Margaret, but I would like to try and answer you on my own if you will let me. A very basic tenet of libertarianism is the absence of government (or government sponsored agencies) forcing anything on the people. This idea of “force” is important:
The philosophy allows for police and fire fighters as this is considered either a protective, or defensive, use of force…that is, force is being applied to protect the rights of others, punish others who have violated rights, or whose rights are threatened. The key is that at some point in a robbery or other crime, force has been used to violate someone’s rights.
Libertarians oppose the use of force, period, but defend those who’s lives have been affected by the unlawful use of force because of the tenets above (defensive or protective measures). Libertarians belive that the only use for government is to protect or preserve these rights.
Posted by Curious on May 11, 2005 at 12:01 AM Luminous and Margaret,
To despise equally Mr’s Soros and Dobson is not to be turned to the dark side, it is to RECOGNIZE it’s motive force in both spectraFeel alone? Hardly, I am one of a core of activists who are still very pushy at local and state level, but bail out at the national level.
We see right in here the inheritors of the kind of polarization which represents that spirit to see evil in the opposition which corroded the roman republic.
And Lincoln, Margaret, PLEASE. the same Lincoln who held Chief Justice Taney in contempt and ignored their Supreme rulings? The same Lincoln who appointed the richest and sleekest repub BIG TIME lawyers to his cabinet (Seward an Stanton), the same Lincoln whose spending was so corrupt that the word SHODDY was invented to describe it’s results amongst the boys of the union army?
That Lincoln?
My point is that you have taken the case and because of a personal venom about Bush which is indescribable to me, made it the exceptional.
Deceive, sorry…not here. You simply cannot accept that those who were in the streets in 1969 can perceive OTHER
Impeach? Then FDR was fair game for trying to ‘pervert’ the supreme court to 13 justices, or for usurping the Neutrality Patrol. Or Kennedy for an ‘illegal’ blockade (an act of war btw) against a sovereign nation. Or carrying on with what the FBI considered a potential E German spy.
Impeaching Clinton was stupid, impeaching Bush in the midst of GWOT for claiming a BATTLE (which is what Iraq is, not a war, just ONE battle in a lengthy war, not of our choosing), is far past that. It is a demonstration that partisanship know s no bounds, and is far more important to those in opposition than the patience to see critical policies carried out.
“Provide for the Common Defense” is at the top of the document for a REASON.
But as you say this is pointless. I am a Harry Truman Dem in a group of extremeists in here (and you ARE) whose success within my party will mean a generation of large majorities for the republicans. Worse still, people like me driven into the republican party are liable to make them reasonable on the domestic policy side.
Then where will the dems be? 37% 35% 29%?
Oh but so pure in the descent. It will feel good railing, even in the declining relevance to history.
Whigs. Nothing more.
Ignorance in the election?....hardly.
We are the most well informed we have ever been.That ignorance is posited as a reason is an elitist, “I understand far better than you, the issues, and know best what is good for you.”
How anti-democrat, and anti democratic.
Just check Factcheck.org today, about judges, and how they are beying portrayed. Not exactly Fred Barnes.
And that is the entire point. When the center looks far right to you, something is VERY wrong.
Here this is a good site for you:
http://www.ILIKECHOMSKY.ORG
Posted by epaminondas on May 11, 2005 at 12:09 AM Well. Curious is a libertarian? Interesting…
You do know, Curious (if you are curious?), that lewrockwell.com, Ayn Rand and the Austrian League are not the end-all-be-all of libertarianism, don’t you?
Maybe you could go to
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
come back and report on what you’ve learned, if anything.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 11, 2005 at 12:30 AM epanamondas;
Your links are as screwy as your confused moral compass.
Iraq may be just a battle to you in your easychair. It’s hell on wheels to the people in Iraq. That’s why you are on the dark side. You turn your back on horrible and unnecessary human suffering to blindly support what are transparently a bunch of bungling liars. What’s with that?
Posted by luminous beauty on May 11, 2005 at 12:47 AM LM,
No, I meant the funding, not the governance. The government currently pays for these protections through our taxes.
Epi,
Well, what a surprise! Another Libertarian, maybe?
No, FDR couldn’t be impeached for lying to Congress, because no one pressed such charges. However, after 2006, the DNC will certainly pursue such charges as the recently leaked Blair/Bush documents verify that they lied to their respective governments and people about the Iraq situation.
If I am an elitist, it is only in that I bother to research my data. Most people don’t. And, I was on the streets in ‘69. It just amazes me that those people mostly sold their souls to the devil and became the “greed is good” generation. After they turned off when Boersky was convicted, they became the “it’s too much work, just tell me what I believe” generation. That’s you, Epi. When the msm only reports things that flatter the admin., you know somethings rotten in Denmark. Sorry you’re too unobservant and subservient to your masters to break your leash.
Posted by Margaret on May 11, 2005 at 12:51 AM Allow me to repond to you in exact kind….
Take your premarin
Posted by epaminondas on May 11, 2005 at 12:55 AM Paul,
You said:
“It was the “realist” policy of Albright/Baker/Scowcroft/Powell/Berger…. that got us the 9/11 mess to begin with by supporting so many Arab dictators out of “stability”.That you call these people “realists” (as others incorrectly have as well,) is a serious misunderstanding of what “real” is. Powell for one is a neocon and has always been one in his political life. Powell is just a moderate neocon who has had the “benefit” of real war experience in Viet Nam. He does have “some” idea of how wrong this misnamed war called “Iraqi Freedom” is, but his loyalty roots still won out as he sold his soul at the UN. His lying about mobile biolabs was a classic example of a man selling his soul. He will pay for that heavily as any political ambitions he might have had were smashed on the rocks called Iraqi Oildom, (er Freedom.)
Neocon does not = real. Neocon better =Empire and all that negative word stands for.You also said:
“You Democrats have to get over the idea that some regions need to continue living in despotic tyranny.”First of all, you are not a Republican in my view. You are a neocon from the attitudes you reveal. Your hegimonist belief that this, or any other country, has the “right” (no, better is obligation) to change the rest of the world through military might is truly insane. I suggest you need help when you think you have the right to take over other countries with killing and devastation (as in Fallouja, for instance.)
Secondly, this quote is pure nonsense. Just typical technique:
1. Make an untrue statement appear as fact by stating it authoritatively.
2. Paste your “fact” on your opponent.
3. Tell your opponent they are obviously wrong for believing your made up “fact.”
4. Tell your opponent how to solve the “made up problem” your opponent “has” with your obviously superior solution.Sigh…zzzzz
Posted by Merlin on May 11, 2005 at 1:06 AM Hi LB and Margaret,
LB,
My thanks to you as well LB, for the “Political Compass” site. I couldn’t remember who recommended it until Margaret mentioned it.Margaret,
My score was Economic @ -5.13 and Social/Authoritarian @ -5.33. So I’m right about where you are.
Posted by Merlin on May 11, 2005 at 1:14 AM Political Compass very engaging !
Economic Left/Right: 1.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.97
Posted by epaminondas on May 11, 2005 at 1:25 AM Margaret;
Here is some theory on how such a system might work.
http://www.zmag.org/ParEcon/pelac.htm
Practically, social-libertarianism doesn’t rely on systemics, but on the decisions of individuals to live in solidarity with all their relations. It’s generally seen as an evolutionary process driven by natural human desires for personal freedom and cultural solidarity.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 11, 2005 at 1:32 AM Epi,
You babbled:
“We see right in here the inheritors of the kind of polarization which
represents that spirit to see evil in the opposition which corroded the
roman republic.”Oh! Wow! This is some serious preaching right out of “Preacher Gobbledigook 101.” Do you teach? Or just starting the class?
And babbled some more:
“My point is that you have taken the case and because of a personal venom about Bush which is indescribable to me, made it the exceptional.”Whooie Margaret, what a snake you are! Full of personal venom! Stay out of my garden, you sound dangerous.
And you babbled further:
“It is a demonstration that partisanship know s no bounds, and is far more important to those in opposition than the patience to see critical policies carried out.“Do you realize how far out in left field you sound here?
Go back to my last post to Paul, and read that “great technique” Paul used that I laid out in great burdensome detail. You have just done exactly the same thing here.
Maybe some more knowledgable debate person here can put a name on this odious technique for me. Then I could just reference the name.
Posted by Merlin on May 11, 2005 at 1:51 AM Merlin;
I think epi’s problem is he’s caught in the middle and just doesn’t know where to turn. In his heart he knows Bush & co., whether they are EMRB’s (evil-minded rat-bastards) or just a gang of clueless idiots, are quickly leading our country toward utter rack and ruin. His rational mind, though a little bit panicky (hence the preachiness), is quite naturally seeking to find reasons to tell him that things really aren’t that bad. It’s a sane response in its way. For a while.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 11, 2005 at 3:10 AM David,
Thanks for the link. Provocative line of reasoning… basically that we should allow the Republicans to ‘abuse’ the language of democracy, since it is hand in hand with all the worst of capitalism anyway - so that the Republicans are allowing it to show its true face, allowing then for real change to maybe occur.
Not sure if I agree with it, but I appreciate the different way of thinking.The link again:
http://www.cprobes.com/archives/2005/05/why_we_should_p.html
Posted by Sara on May 11, 2005 at 5:26 AM David,
I read the article at CPROBES you twice recommended. This is one of the more confusing reviews I have read in a while. Its like he originally wrote a long article and then cut it in half and presented the chopped up version.His thoughts are such I want to ask what he was smoking when he wrote it. I wrote a point by point refutation but decided it was a waste of time to post it. I really think his “true point” is utterly without merit and the direction of his thought and proposed solution a total loss. To proceed as he proposes leads to more disaster (for others). I’m sure that if it was his “ox that was being gored” he would be thinking differently. Apathy cures nothing.
Posted by Merlin on May 11, 2005 at 7:04 AM There really is a good conversation going on here. I read all of page 1 and i want to reply to Curious if they are still listening.
Curious,
You need to abandon your emotional, sound-byte driven reactions to Margaret’s answer. Your question “Are the [Iraqi] people suffering more [after the invasion], economic stability, safety, etc…” sounds as though you’re amazed that the answer is “yes.” It doesn’t sound like you’re asking because you genuinely want to know the answer, although I may be wrong on this.
Your short answer is that with over 100,000 dead civilians, with many many more critically injured and facing lifelong poverty, the US-led occupation army has caused far more civilian deaths in two years than Saddam ever caused in the same amount of time. The country is also economically crippled, with very little rebuilding having been done so far by imperialist invadors, Halliburton, Bechtel & Co. The provisional occupation government banned newspapers that opposed the occupation.
Besides unpleasant details like these, I would also answer that “overthrowing Saddam” was not worth it (assuming you’re working from the vantage point of the Iraqi people, and not American imperialism) because the bigger picture shows us that Iraq is about to become a colony of the United States, pure and simple.
You seem to think that the war was partly a valiant humanitarian effort because, after all, we freed the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein!
Show me one third world country where a US invasion and occupation brought about a society with more freedom and equality.
We need to start making predictions based on history, not on wishful thinking. The world in its majority is doing just that: it opposes this adventure because it has a keener and more accurate sense of the ugly reality of American power than most Americans do, patriotic or not.
What do we do? Organize, organize, organize and build a more militant anti-imperialist movement that will force people to think of these questions and eventually force the US to re-think its agenda for world control. The people of the world are growing impatient.
Posted by Alessandro on May 11, 2005 at 8:13 AM Oh by the way, see a scathing criticism of Naomi Klein’s fence-riding on www.counterpunch.org. WHAT, more hair-wringing debates? WHat’s America coming to, people are actually passionately discussing and evaluating dissident views! Impossible. There is hope yet.
The article is called:
Ain’t But One Way Out
Naomi Klein’s “Courage”
By MICHAEL NEUMANN
Posted by Alessandro on May 11, 2005 at 8:20 AM Alessandro’s conclusion that the debate between Naomi Klein and Michael Neumann indicates America is “passionately discussing and evaluating dissident views” is an odd one. Michael Neumann and Naomi Klein are both Canadians.
Posted by Ian McGarrett on May 11, 2005 at 10:49 AM LB, really? Man, where have I been….
BTW, in case you were “curious”:
Economic Left/Right: 1.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.74
Posted by Curious on May 11, 2005 at 12:32 PM Margaret,
thanks for comments. You go, girl. and mostly, thanks to Naomi Klein for speaking truth to power. How to annoy a liberal: stop thinking, keep talking (for bumper sticker).
Posted by tw on May 11, 2005 at 1:37 PM Here are your “insurgents”...fresh this AM…
http://www.revivingislam.com/
“How are we going 2 kill these filthy kafirs if we cnt even do anything?”
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2005/May/f focusoniraq_May76.xml§ion=focusoniraq“One of the lions of the martyrdom-seeking brigade carried out a heroic operation against a police post on Abu Nawas street Tuesday, hitting several of the guardians of the Jews and Crusaders,”
Sounds just like Sam Adams to me! Naaahhhh…more like .. Franklin, right?
I’m not turning anywhere, BTW. This issue trumps considerations about unions, or anything else.
But when clearly objectively identified CENTRISTS find a label as ‘dark sided’ fake democrats…the labeler needs a real good look at the mirror.
If it’s too gobbelgook for you Margaret..maybe this is more clear for you… you are the Gracchi, Saturninus, no different in degree form what you despise, armored only with the thin effete defense that you do research…and your arrogant self assurance that others do not.
You are objectively in error. You are an extremist.
David Duke thinks he’s right too. He has his sources. He does his research. So does Noam Chomsky ... and there’s not a whit of difference between them. Both self eliminate, and self identify.
Maybe it’s me, but I still don’t see your links.
Posted by epaminondas on May 11, 2005 at 2:20 PM Curious: LB, really? Man, where have I been….
Expanding your mind, I hope.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m -7 on both scales. Yes, I’m radical and idealistic, but I’m not naive. I’m aware we live in a pragmatic world. I’m perfectly willing to listen to and seek to empathize with other people’s POV’s, but it only works if they are willing to make the same commitment. Copacetic?
‘So, where have you been, my blue-eyed son
B. Dylan
Posted by luminous beauty on May 11, 2005 at 3:00 PM Epi,
Unfortunately, everytime I go to Favorites to get the links, ITT drops off what I’ve already put in. So, to start with, here’s the link showing that Bush and Blair blatantly lied. Lying to Congress is an impeachable offense:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1592904-523,00.html
I will come back with another but, as I have a business to run, I’m not going to spend all day on someone who will only summarily dismiss any evidence that doesn’t agree with their mindset, you.
Posted by Margaret on May 11, 2005 at 3:18 PM Sorry the reply was later than you’d like but, being the boss, I get into the office when I get in. Here’s another link to show what a piece of crap liar George W. Bush is:
http://www.sundayherald.com/27735
Well, that’s enough for now. You may wish to dismiss the empirical evidence I amass, such as talking to people before the election and noting the demographic breakdown of the vote, but it’s not worth it to me to do all the research to attempt to convince you of my findings. You would just make some other lame refutation, so whatever. It is sad, however, that your responses are generally base and juvenile in tone.
Posted by Margaret on May 11, 2005 at 3:25 PM epaminondas:
<objectively identified CENTRISTS find a label as ‘dark sided’ fake democrats…the labeler needs a real good look at the mirror”</i>
I’m lookin’ pretty good for my age. And when I look inside I feel even better. how’s your concience? Can you find it? How big a pile of corpses will it take for you to feel secure?
You are objectively not CENTRIST (no need to shout). You haven’t displayed much evidence of thoughtful moderation. (David Duke the same as Noam Chomsky? George Soros no different than Rev. Dobson? Get real, quit spouting horsecrap.) More like a fence-sitting middle-of-the-roader playing CYA.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 11, 2005 at 3:28 PM Perfect how others make the point for me
LB, it was political compass which identified me as objectively in the middle.
My conscience is fine. After debating Gulf arabs on the meaning of morality and right and wrong for 4 years I am very comfitted, and confident in my position.
No doubt however, you are so extreme that in 12/8/41 you’d have been part of the 11% that wanted to negotiate with the Japanese, after all, it was the evil USA which cornered them with rapacious economic sanctions rendering a choice between being a third rate nation or war. We are in a world war not of our choosing. That’s it. Ignoreing this will cause more deaths…namely my kids, and soon to be their kids. After all they are crusaders and zionists. Sorry you are so head in the sand. Somehow I think my attitude is no fence sitting.
Want to see someone about the pile of corpses..try Sayid Qutb, and the Dean at King Abdul Aziz University.
BTW Duke and Chomsky are not very different… one is an avowed racist and the other writes book dedications for Holocaust Deniers.
Margaret ... a url in ‘favorites’ remains there unless purposefully erased. They don’t get dropped. You claimed they were in your favorites yesterday, I believe. I run a business in cardiovascular research and don’t have much time, but usu can find what’s needed in about 30 seconds.. put your phrase in quotes and use google or clusty. Sounds like a dodge to me. As far as quality of sources..who knows?
“Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC)” is a well known paper, and indicates as do ALL military plans potential courses which are benficial to the USA. As I stated, before, in 1941 we pulled the war plan out of a drawer which was closed in 1925, nearly a generation b4 the war. Does this mean that coolidge was planning on conquering Japan and the South Pacific? Or when it was updated to Rainbow Orange under FDR does it mean that he meant to expand the ‘american empire’?
There are other such plans from the other side of the aisle as well. Such as those for Post-Capitalism. All should be encouraged. Planning, if you run a business should be recognized as good.
Instead you have moved from the conclusion that evil bushitler was intent from when…Saddam went for his daddy or maybe from the day he had an oil well?? or was born?, on conquering Iraq ..without any cause to finding facts which can be jammed into that thesis.
The Times UK link.. which is certainly usu a good source, yields >> page cannot be found
cya… goin to client lab
Posted by epaminondas on May 11, 2005 at 4:06 PM As usual, you read things through your bias. I said, that when I go to favorites and then cut/copy them to go into the slot here at ITT, it only allows one entry at a time. Once you have entered the url and go back to get another favorite, it is gone from the ITT “Post Your Comments” when you return.
Yes, to plan is good. But not when you plan murder. That is not good. Get the difference?
There is another leaked paper that the webmaster at oldamericancentury is working on for me that details how Rumsfeld and Cheney plan to set America up as the one-world power, even attacking Europe if they don’t agree with us. That is not good. I am not a neocon like you, so I don’t see the good in becoming the Anti-Christ.I have seen precious little documentation for your views. But that’s okay, because I’m not interested in taking on “let’s bomb the world if they don’t agree with us and be our slaves” mentality anyway. You are a joke. Thanks for giving us all a good chuckle at your inane theories.
Posted by Margaret on May 11, 2005 at 4:43 PM May 01, 2005
Blair hit by new leak of secret war plan
Michael Smith
A SECRET document from the heart of government reveals today that Tony Blair privately committed Britain to war with Iraq and then set out to lure Saddam Hussein into providing the legal justification.The Downing Street minutes, headed “Secret and strictly personal — UK eyes only”, detail one of the most important meetings ahead of the invasion.
It was chaired by the prime minister and attended by his inner circle. The document reveals Blair backed “regime change” by force from the outset, despite warnings from Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, that such action could be illegal.
The minutes, published by The Sunday Times today, begins with the warning: “This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. The paper should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know.” It records a meeting in July 2002, attended by military and intelligence chiefs, at which Blair discussed military options having already committed himself to supporting President George Bush’s plans for ousting Saddam.
“If the political context were right, people would support regime change,” said Blair. He added that the key issues were “whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan space to work”.
The political strategy proved to be arguing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed such a threat that military action had to be taken. However, at the July meeting Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, said the case for war was “thin” as “Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran”.
Straw suggested they should “work up” an ultimatum about weapons inspectors that would “help with the legal justification”. Blair is recorded as saying that “it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors”.
A separate secret briefing for the meeting said Britain and America had to “create” conditions to justify a war.
The papers, the second sensitive leak close to the election, appear to be an attempt by disaffected Whitehall insiders to attack Blair’s integrity. They are likely to fuel claims he misled the country on Iraq.
One reason for the secrecy is that the minutes record discussion of US plans for invasion; another is that at the time Blair had given no indication that plans were so advanced.
He had not revealed to MPs or the public that in April 2002 he had told Bush “the UK would support US military action to bring about regime change”, as recorded in the Foreign Office briefing paper. Both before and after the July meeting Blair insisted in public no decision had been made.
The July meeting was later mentioned by Lord Butler in his report on the use of intelligence on WMD as a “key stage” in the road to war; but its details have never been revealed until now.
continued…
Posted by Margaret on May 11, 2005 at 5:16 PM The July meeting was later mentioned by Lord Butler in his report on the use of intelligence on WMD as a “key stage” in the road to war; but its details have never been revealed until now.
The minutes show Goldsmith warned Blair eight months before war started on March 19, 2003 that finding legal justification would be “difficult”. The attorney-general only ruled unambiguously war was lawful a few days before the war started after Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the defence staff, demanded unequivocal written confirmation.
Boyce was never shown Goldsmith’s more equivocal advice to Blair of March 7, 2003, and says today ministers failed to give him protection from prosecution at the International Criminal Court. “I have always been troubled by the ICC,” he says, adding that if British servicemen are put on trial, ministers should be “brought into the frame as well”. Asked if that should include Blair and Goldsmith, he tells The Observer: “Too bloody right.”
Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said the leaked minute showed Blair had “agreed to an illegal regime change with the Bush administration. It set out to create the justification for going to war. It was to be war by any means.”
Downing Street claimed the document contained “nothing new”.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/justify/2004/0803theyknew.htmhttp://www.tompaine.com/articles/iraq_when_was_the_die_cast.php
Just a “few” reports to confirm my statements. Thanks, by the way, because now I know how to put multiple links in without losing the prior “pastes”.
Posted by Margaret on May 11, 2005 at 5:21 PM Margaret,
I can’t wait to read how epaminondas dismisses the ‘smoking gun’.
We’re in a war not of our choosing, my ever-lovin’ butt. We sure did everything we possibly could to bring it about, though.
If he’s been arguing with Arabs with the same kind of honesty, openness and respect he’s shown here, Oo-boy, are we in trouble.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 11, 2005 at 5:55 PM Prados is a good writer and does an adequte job of schmearing opinion around as fact… he needs to stick to his board game, which I have heard is great. He just never got over hating Colby. This is evident from his claim that the admininstration was “informed” that the aluminum tubes were
categorically not for development of UF6. In fact this is a very extreme position and absolutely not fact.From a paper which disparages the admin position we see this: “The CIA has concluded that these tubes were specifically manufactured for use in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium. Many in the expert community both inside and outside government, however, do not agree with this conclusion.” and “Determining the truth against this background is difficult. I first learned of this case a year and a half ago when I was asked for information about past Iraqi procurements. My reaction at the time was that the disagreement reflected the typical in-fighting between US experts that often afflicts the intelligence community.”
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/al_tubes.htmlThis is from a left of center science group. Far from being a smoking gun of any kind, even those who disagree with admin conclusions, agree that at worst conclusions should have been hard to reach.
David Sirota - Center for American Progress? That David Sirota? The David Sirota who wrote in the Nation that the democratic party must move to the far left and abandon the center ? That David Sirota? What would be your reaction if I referred you to a Charles Krauthammner article, or a William Kristol set of ‘facts’. The same sirota who advertises for the out and out socialist Bernie Sanders (just endorsed I believe by Dean?). But before you even form the thought that I am smearing the man and not dealing with what he says, allow me to warn you that is what my arab friends call a typical zionist tactic. I am a zionist, in case you wonder, btw. No matter.
First - you insist on calling Iraq a war. My position is that it is no more a war than the american invasion of the Phillipines, 1944, was a war, and no more illegal. This war was begun with the slaughter of 3000 americans. My position is that the correct strategy for fighting this war is to destroy the status quo ante bellum which came about from 1918 onwards in the middle east (and Bernard Lewis in the most recent Foreign Affairs among other scholars agrees, btw). Part of that status quo is our responsibility, but only part.
cont>>>>>>>
Posted by epaminondas on May 11, 2005 at 8:11 PM You seem to feel that if western leaders correctly identified this strategy and then employed tactics to make sure this strategy is carried out this is a crime (as decided by who or what?). Colin Powell has freely stated, and very early on, that WMD was the only item around which multiple departments could ‘coalesce’. Thus, the entire matter is a committee decision for the sake of govt agreement. So what?
Hello, we are in a war. We have been since 2001.
Even if I were to stipulate for the sake of argument that each of these presentation url’s represent fact it means that what Blair is
supposed to have done is nothing different from Lincoln planning and then successfully manipulating Jefferson into the attack in Charleston Harbor (Shelby Foote), Wilson cornering the Germans into unrestricted submarine warfare (Edmund MOrris and Jim Powell), and FDR (Conrad Black, as I have earlier referred). Maybe Amazon has “Search inside the Book”. In none of these cases was there an illegal act committed. BTW, Illegal according to who, or what, anyway? The same Kofi who finds nothing wrong in Darfur? The same Kofi who finds a school bus full of Israeli kids shredded by ball bearings cannot be called terrorism? Illegal by a security council whose codified version of a static world, as Dean Acheson argued, actually prevents change by making any change not voted (in a DICTATORSHIP?)illegal since violence is involved?You say you have seen precious little documentation, but yet you who snobbishly denigrated the ‘average’ american voter as ignorant, apparently did not even try to see what it is that Sayid Qutb had to say in “Signposts” about the west and specifically america and jewish people, or perform your self vaunted ‘research’. Nor I bet did you see what the significance of Ibn Tamiyya’s rulings were in today’s world. Or what the significance of the Kharjarites are and what they mean for us today. Or what it is Abdullah Azzam was teaching at Abdul Aziz U. Or what Mawdudi preached. Or what Shaykh Qaradawi says today, or what he was doing on the Board of the new mosque in Boston.
LB you worry about my effect on the arabs… the effect is the other way around. It is THEY who convinced me beginning on 9/13 /2001 what the stakes are. It is their beliefs, freely and openly and unabashedly expressed that demonstrate the racist, semi-fascist plutocratic theocracy of ignorance is the outcome if we do not act with complete resolve. It is the arabs who thoroughly
radicalized me to the point of writing and seeing published columns detailing this.I have in earlier comments mentioned some significant things freely expressed, which represent staggering racism and hatred based in true myth, culminating in the beliefs of many that we represent satan. Is that you simply wish to ignore this reality or you are waiting for an inundation of urls proving this. I can provide it. Do you wish it? For starters, just take a stroll around here:
http://www.memri.org…just for starters. They provide verbatim transcripts and translations of arabic, farsi and other speeches, articles columns and recorded TV.You return again and again to the damnation of Bush and Blair seemingly in ignorance of the world around. You live in the blissful ignorance that in the end our ‘crime’ will be to create a democracy where there was mass murder and mass graves to the tune of 350,000 at a minimum..and our impetus was to create a mass of democracies because they historically never go to war with each other
(the 1812 return grudge match excepted) thus improving our security.But that’s okay to fail and to have you help at failure as long as Bush and Blair get branded.
You would do well to pick up Michael Beschloss’s history, “The Conquerors”, and read Conrad Back on the great FDR . There is nothing new here today,
and nothing out of the ordinary in the conduct of a war. This war.
Posted by epaminondas on May 11, 2005 at 8:12 PM hysterical and unfortunately typical
I answer your url’s in detail, and not only can you not refute mine, or my position, you don’t even have a one liner.
Far from obfuscation, it is refutation of your basic position. You are playing the wrong game.
And you still have not done a minute’s research on Qutb, or any other source which might shiver your gestalt, hmmm?
Head in the sand.
This is a waste of time. At least the arabs are actually starting to wonder (along with the Guardian, Asia Times, and many others) if the USA was right, and a change is coming.
Around the grounds ladies….
Posted by epaminondas on May 11, 2005 at 8:38 PM epi,
You stated:“You are playing the wrong game.”
So you admit it. This is all a game to you, and you are playing the “right” one, while “we” are playing the wrong one. They kill 3000, we are justified to kill a hundred thousand and counting. You may be highly educated and a business man etc., etc., but you still need real help psychologically to deal with your basic hate and prejudices.
Your anger and self righteousness underlies your desire to promote violence. And you have a thousand obfuscations, er URLs, to justify it.
Posted by Merlin on May 11, 2005 at 10:28 PM Merlin you can’t have this both ways
1) The ‘game’ I am referring to is the bushitler ‘game’ of others
2) What prejudice? You think I am? BRING IT ON… where, how?
PREJUDICE=<<<an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge>>That describes those who have YET to look at a single source I have provided.
3) I was condemned by Margaret for not providing documentation, and when it is provided it is called obfuscation..my fault for actually trying to provide objective evidence in an emotional<>hanging party.
Now, we don’t even have to be repubs to be considered evil…and what they say may be true..repubs think dems are stupid and dems think repubs are evil.
The Japanese killed less than 3000…we then killed millions ..were we justified oh great and know all gentle issue oriented 90’s man who can easily identify prejudice in others, but is totally lacking in history?
Posted by epaminondas on May 11, 2005 at 10:39 PM epaminondas:
If I’d had my majority in ‘41, I probably would already have died fighting Franco in Spain, thank you.
It’s an absolute falsehood that Chomsky writes book intros for Holocaust deniers. You should really check some of these “facts” you cull from righty propaganda and slander factories. Absolutely none of them are reliable for anything but a steady stream of BS.
Coolidge was planning to conquer Japan. How did you find out? So was Warren Gamaliel Harding (the 2nd Worst President Ever). You don’t think those plans actually sat around the War Department gathering dust, do you?
Ah, yes. The Yellow Peril. Wasn’t racism fun, back then?As I make it, you’re slightly more conservative than Adolph Hitler, and slighty less libertarian than Milton Friedman. Relatively middle-of the-road (company of yellow stripes and dead armadillos), yeah. A Centrist you’re not. A partisan you’ve become, young Skywalker. Welcome to your new housemates, Dave the Snake and Rev. Jim. Bet you wish you were bunking with Noam and George now?
It’s not like you really have to educate us on the loud and ubiquitous rationalitions, prevarications of meaning, and ornately decorated horsecrap of the Emperor and His Enablers. It’s everywhere. Except in the actual facts.
As far as I can understand between your oft-repeated baseless slanders of everyone to the left of Joe Lieberman, and ravings about how morality history and law don’t matter in the face of raw violence, you are saying that some Arab guys told you that some other Arab guys really hate us, and really, really want to kill us all. Duh! And they wrap their rationalizations for their hatred in religious trappings. Double Duh! They called us bad names! Du-du-duh! So we should really, really, really hate them back. And really, really, really, really kill all those Arabs and other Muslims who hate us, or happen to be standing next to Muslims who hate us, or dare to resist us killing their brothers, fathers, sisters, mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, or anybody who gets in our way, or fails to renounce any kind of anti-American or anti-Zionist beliefs, or fails to denounce anyone secretly harbouring forbidden beliefs….......freedom on the march.
No man. 4000 yrs of Western History and you haven’t learned a gadblamed thing.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 11, 2005 at 10:59 PM epi
“... and our impetus was to create a mass of democracies because they historically never go to war with each other.”Is democracy created by force? coersion?
will the new democracy allow for smokers? Asians?Gays?
WASPs?
should we make up a “watch list” for everyone who is not“with us” ?
prejudice is easily recognizedHave you seen the picture of Rumsfeldt and Saddam shaking
hands??I think it was right after Bush I gave Osama a cool $2 mill
Convience is a bitch
Posted by RB on May 11, 2005 at 11:12 PM epaminondas, as I have said to Margaret on several occasions, it is true that history will define this issue…in the matter that it has defined all of the issues you have laid forth. Ignoring historical reference is to ignore the truth of history.
I believe that history will define this war as a postive turning point…obviously most of those here on this site belive otherwise. A shame, but unavoidable. C’est la vie.
Posted by Curious on May 11, 2005 at 11:39 PM Pure facts:
Noam Chomsky wrote the dedication for Roger Faurisson’s last denial book. Faurisson is a well known denier, who has made many appearances at Shaykh Zayed’s annual racist hate fest in Qatar, why don’t YOU check it out. Chomsky is a defender of Faurisson, and has been for a long time.Alan Dershowitz caught him ICE COLD LIVE at a debate denying his defending the denier, and lying over the dedication.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky#The_Faurisson_affair
http://www.anti-rev.org/textes/VidalNaquet81b/
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V122/N25/col25dersh.25c.html
Now if you go on, that makes you a denier as well.Congrats. How’s <<your>> conscience cozying up to such a person?Ignorance is the basis for your beliefs in this, as in many other things.
RB..what are you talking about and WHERE IS YOUR DOCUMENTATION…
<< I think it was right after Bush I gave Osama a cool $2 mill >>
Acording to Stephen Coll (Ghost wars) and Mr. Wilson’s War, both of which are utterly unsparing of the USA, our aid went to the Pakistanis who refused to help unless they got the Cash, and later to Massoud. Most of the Pak help went to Gulbudin Hekmatyar.Doesn’t ANYONE know any facts????
Democracy IS historically created by force. Here. Freedom was brought by the Armies of the Potomac and Tennesee to half of this nation, and the largest mobilization in the history of the planet brought it at the point of the gun to Germany and Japan, and saved it across eastern europe by remaining vigilant. These actions have been compelled by others.
LB you don’t have a clue what I’m saying bout arabs and remain in Chomksy denial land. You allow evil to spread by such a fantasy life. Go read Signposts. They only confirm the importance of this work.
What do you people read?
Your visceral hatred and prejudice for those who believe ‘other’ has lobotmized reason.
Posted by epaminondas on May 11, 2005 at 11:40 PM Curious..it’s not so much that they disagree, that’s fine. It is the emotional intolerance, the arrogance and ignorance all rolled into one which make it galactically stupid.
Any item which rather than spur investigation seems to be irritating, creates a hyper allergic response which becomes a personal attack rather than a discussion of facts based on many sources.
Presentation of other facts becomes obfuscation.
Orwellian gulag
The Chomsky thing is iconic of the problem.
Posted by epaminondas on May 11, 2005 at 11:49 PM Epi,
You are a total waste of time and energy. Good-bye.
Curious,
Time will prove you wrong. This war and Administration is the turning point for the demise of the USA as we have known it.
You’re not a waste, as you are a much better debater with at least an occasional valid point. Best to you.
Posted by Margaret on May 11, 2005 at 11:58 PM An unknowing refutaton of Ms Klein’s thesis…
by an Iraqi blogger..written todayhttp://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/
“People inside and outside Iraq keep wondering why little progress is being made construction wise; why Iraqi cities still get poor power supplies? Why there is a deficiency in clean water in many places? Why sewer systems are incomplete? And a thousand questions like these are heard everyday.
I myself had similar questions but following the progress in one particular project gave me a better understanding of the situation and made me see some facts that I wasn’t aware of.”Read it if you are fair minded and want to know more about reality from an iraqi
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 12:08 AM asininondas;
Perhaps you could read Chomsky’s own words and find me a quote that shows Chomsky is a holocaust denier. Relying on the readings of partisans is not very strong. Guilt by association is less than weak. It is an injustice.
http://www.chomsky.info/letters/1989——.htm
You are easily led by lies, because slander and self-justification is your principle object. Not truth or Justice or anything noble.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 12, 2005 at 12:18 AM Epi
You replied:
“1) The ‘game’ I am referring to is the bushitler ‘game’ of others”To say someone is in the wrong game is to explain your own frame of mind. You do believe this “war” thing is a game to be won by the party with the most might, and you can hardly wait to justify your “righteous game.” We on the left (I speak for those I know) do not consider this a “game” as you do. Killing and maiming others is no game to us, nor is the destruction of others property and their lives. This is very serious and real to us. That you tag us as “game players” only shows that you would like to drag us down to your game playing position in the justification of death and destruction.
And of course you continue to prove my point about your game when you scream in caps at me to “BRING IT ON.” You want to play an angry game with all of us here. Your posts just reek of it.Regarding your point 2:
Here is Mirriam-Webster’s first definition of Prejudice:
1 : injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in disregard of one’s rights;This fits your neocon agenda of pre-emptive killing.
Regarding your point 3:
I don’t speak for Margaret (I don’t know her well enough to do that and would need her permission do specifically do so.) My use of the word “obfuscation” was satirical. Personally I do think that is really what you do here with all this verbiage. All a lot of smoke to hide and justify your angry vendetta against being “wronged.” I have “been there and done that”, chasing people like you through the haze of smoke and mirrors that you people call facts and issues. When I got to the bottom line there was the real emotional reason behind the farce. I learned that it is an utter waste of time blowing away the smoke when the real reason is so apparent.
Bottom line:
You an angry man with a war mongering agenda who is trying to hide your real self with smoke and mirrors.You noted:
“...oh great and know all gentle issue oriented 90’s man who can
easily identify prejudice in others…”
Thanks for the compliment. One note. I’m not a man of the 90’s I was born in 1935. Other than that you are right on!
Posted by Merlin on May 12, 2005 at 12:28 AM LB I never said CHomsky is a denier, I stated he wrote book dedications for holocaust deniers, which is a fact and which you claimed was “totally false”. He both did this, and defends Faurission, and has for ages. Make whatever you will of it, those are the facts. Whatever could possess someone to do such things is beyond my understanding, but surely he feels it was an item of guilt, for he tried to lie about it and was caught, live.
Merlin…a 90’s guy is a state of mind, not an age.
Angry?..I am angry with the racist myths that have brought the state of the world to this point. We may take a part of this blame, but the vast majority lies elsewhere, and remains, untouched, and in here quite unacknowleged. But that anger does not affect the objective reality of what IS. No more than being aggravated at a root canal changes what must be done.As for games…keep the psycho-babble out of it.
My agenda is to increase the security of this nation for three grown children (I was born in 1949) one of whom gets married in Sept. As a dem I am compelled to admit that the policies of the 90’s did not do this, and in fact by passing the buck later in time has increased the deaths.
Was John Brown, an angry man? Was he wrong? Was FDR an angry man on 12/8? Was he wrong? Was WSC an angry man through the 30’s? Was he wrong?
Yet many said about him, just what you have said here about me (no other comparison is intended or accurate)..angry, warmonger, yadda yadda.
There’s no smoke and mirrors.
These obfuscations you mention are the facts/ bones on which the muscle of opinion must be built. I have seen here the dismissal of a discussion of such facts by personal attack and name calling, I have seen no disputation of what is real based on honest discussion.
Even you, dismiss me by arrogantly saying in effect… “I know you and your kind”.
In fact you have no idea who I am, or what I have done or contributed. None. You have no idea of my politics domestically. You have no idea of anything except this singular issue, but you claim you know who I am.
Amazing, actually
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 1:02 AM Epi,
You corrected:
“a 90’s guy is a state of mind, not an age.”I know that. I was telling you I am a man of the 60s and 70s. You folks on the right just have no insight in reading between the lines. Its a common failing. Beyond the end of your nose everything is blurry.
You opined:
“We may take a part of this blame, but the vast majority lies elsewhere, and remains, untouched, and in here quite unacknowledged.This is more evidence of you not seeing what is beyond the end of your nose. This whole thing is a chicken and egg situation. Who poked who’s eye out first. You memorize history, admittedly going back through all the instances of war and mistreatment, trying to seek an answer that is just beyond the end of your proverbial nose. Nobody’s right! Trying to proportion out blame is worse than shortsighted, as it allows for the justification to strike back and continue the slaughter. You avoid the search for peace and promote war instead.
As to “the blame lying untouched,” I readily acknowledge that there is no excuse to create a 911 even though I understand the rational for it. “Blowback” has existed for eons even if the word itself hasn’t. Both the perpetrator’s of 911 and this administration are guilty of mass murder. I don’t think you will find progressives (of my stripe, at least,) saying that we should coddle bin Laden. Criminals of all stripes need to be stopped and brought to a form of justice where they can no longer harm society. And that includes Bush in my opinion.
You continued:
“No more than being aggravated at a root canal changes what must be done.”This is a bad analogy. Regarding your fear and resolve about your own mouth and its health, that is your decision alone and whatever choice you make is fine. Then you compare this with what you think is right for other people. You are justifying and forcing a decision of a root canal on 100,000+ people without their consent. Very wrong.
Then you quipped:
“As for games…keep the psycho-babble out of it.”Thanks for the laugh! You know, many years ago I used to say the same thing to people. That was before I realized how confused I was and was scared to death I would find out what a jerk I was. Any attempt to expose me for the fraud I was, was met with these same words. Running from yourself never works. The only cure is to stop and confront yourself in a real psychological way. Good luck. It is a long way out of the pit.
If you are not the person you present here then why are you doing it?
BTW, I enlisted and spent 6 years in the army from 58-64. What branch did you enlist in? Have your children enlisted and do they share your views?
You conclude:
“These obfuscations you mention are the facts/ bones on which the muscle of opinion must be built.”Again your nearsightedness is shown. Murder is wrong no matter how many facts you marshal in your defense of it. Opinion is not the best arbiter of action. In fact (at least in my opinion,) it is the worst. Compassion, understanding and love are the best determiners of our actions. Not things like greed, hate, revenge, or war. I am a secular Humanist, not a Christian, yet I have a lot of shared belief with that view of gentleness, understanding and compassion. Your judgment/opinion of many eyes for an eye, is a terrible way to live.
Posted by Merlin on May 12, 2005 at 1:59 AM I don’t have a clue who you are. But you have consciously and unconsciously, perhaps revealed a portion of what you are. Not pretty.
What was the motive behind that ‘if I defend a denier, i’m a denier’ And then ’ I never said he was a denier. If you read Chomsky’s rebuttal, you might have discovered that Chomsky’s letter, defending his freedom of speech not his conclusions, which were not conclusions denying the existence of the holocaust in any case, was not addressed to Faubisson, was used without Chomsky’s permission. But you knew that.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 12, 2005 at 2:03 AM Paul,I said that nothing we’ve done in Afganistan or Iraq has made things better,and probably made things worse.Actually,given the amount of depleted uranium that we’ve dumped in those countries,we’ve made those peoples lives worse for generations to come.How many babies born without arms or legs does it take before it’s not worth it?One? One thousand?How many? Give me a number so I know what your price is…..Epidermus,I’ve never heard one person use so many words to say absolutely nothing.You truly are a wonder.LB is right,you are perhaps the most confused person on the face of the earth.We’re talking about the Iraq war and you keep talking about WW2.Wassup wi dat?.....But to tell you the truth,these posts underline one thing,the people arguing against the war deal with facts and truth and struggle with their conscience,while all you armchair warriors out there deal with sound bites,bullet points and fantasy,and have no problem with your conscience.Pretty much say it all,doesn’t it?
Posted by mike, a.k.a. whats the truth? on May 12, 2005 at 2:37 AM LB, As an ACLU member I understand the freedom of speech/march in skokie reasoning, but I regret to inform you that I was in the audience when Dershowitz cored Chomsky, and his/Chosmky’s reaction and his long defense of a hideous idea on ‘that’ basis just doesn’t cut it. His long defense of Faurisson (decades by now?)belies it as well. Frankly based on Chomsky’s actions and writing about this, I simply don’t believe him in his freedom of speech gymnatics. But a good question is, why is this clearly news and a shock to you? Aren’t you someone who regards themselves as well informed? And if this was new information, as it seems, what else lies irrefutable just over the horizon?
However your final revelation about the US ‘desire’ to conquer Japan in 1925 is instructive about what you think.
Since this place saved the lives of many in my family from both religous and political persecution, you’ll have to forgive my not being able to regard it as evil.
Merlin, blowback is a ward chuchill code in this case, don’t you think? And more, it belies the reasons my arab friends shared with me with no problem whatsoever, and which go here unremarked, and form the heart of edgy sunni-ism. That being..there is only one law, >>God’s. Those who create their own laws cannot follow God’s, and make themselves gods in so doing, and are therefore idolators. Idolators and polytheists are not to be tolerated is a polite way to put it. Those muslims who view themselves as moderate will not speak up against this pov. Many here are not only afraid of the FBI but more afraid of the sunni mosques, and those I know thru medical research have looked at me and said…‘now you understand, we ran from the madness’. Those are facts. They have nothing to do with us. And unless you are willing to bow to Sharia, there is nothing you can do to affect their attitude. That is the motive force behind those willing to take action against us, and those who finance them and shelter them. Those who think this way have gotten their basis from as little as the 5th caliph after muhammad, and have been aided by the great jurist’s Ibn Tamiyyah fatwas against muslims who fail the sunni tests of real faith. To them these temporary political reasons which you probably accept as the cause for all this, are simply convieniences.
We, as cross worshipping crusaders and jews ( as they say every day, as and you should be able to read in the news) need do nothing to bring about their enmity, and God’s. I am personally as is all my family, to them, the descendants of apes and pigs, literally.
I submit that racist myth is what empowers these actors, and that no reasoning will reach them any more than it reached the slave owners of Yazoo City, probably less. And we all know the result of that.
I simply observe these facts. I bring to you my oservation.
I did not enlist but angrily organized anti vietnam protests, after it became clear what really happened on 8/2/65. The draft missed me by 3 (#128). I would have gone. I have one child away now.
But this is not that time. Nor is this war that war.
Defending myself, my family, our way of life and this nation from the racist killers who wish only for shahada is not murder, nor is it any more an eye for an eye than was our proper war against Japan, or the scouring of Nazis from this planet in the same effort.
If the righteous cannot act in self defense for fear of not being perfect in their actions, how is it that evil can ever be defeated? And make no mistake about what we face.
As someone who didn’t really believe in the power of racism until I experienced it personally in college in the mid 60’s, I found a changed me, and I will not do nothing now. I acted then, I will act now. I see no difference between those who espouse what they do today and the KKK. None.
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 2:46 AM Mike if you have no idea why history is not just important but critical, it’s a pretty pathetic statment on our eduational requirements..no doubt you’ll be repeating the history you don’t know..gee who said that?
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 2:52 AM Even Gush Limpballs sounds more coherent when he talks than that.
Posted by mike on May 12, 2005 at 2:54 AM Epi,a study of history is essential to understand current events,yet you seem to select only those parts of history that you can use to support your view.You need to consider everything,otherwise your view is incomplete.And your historical perspective is conspiciously lacking in recent events regarding US/Arab relations over the last 50 years or so.You never refer to it.Why is that???
Posted by mike on May 12, 2005 at 3:12 AM And whats does racism have to do with this disscusion,other than the increase in hate crimes aganst muslims in our wonderful,free ‘United’ States of America?
Posted by mike on May 12, 2005 at 3:21 AM Very passionate. Exactly appropriate that your core motivation is basically tribal and religious, and your hatred so alchemically reduced and sanctified. Congratulations! You have mystically transformed yourself into the worst of your enemies and brought forth the worst in all your enemies. Well forgive me for not wanting to fight in your religious war. I really haven’t a dog in your metaphysical disputes.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 12, 2005 at 3:35 AM LB,there’s no difference between Islamic fanaticism and Christian fanaticism.NONE!!!
Posted by mike on May 12, 2005 at 3:48 AM Epi,
You said:
“We, as cross worshipping crusaders and jews…”OK, thanks for revealing yourself. You are a Religious Crusader justifying your angry crusade with supposedly factual history (no bias in your observation, of course,) and your opinions and justifications based on it. You were angry with LBJ and now you are angry with the Muslims. Not much has changed in 40 years, has it? You are still angry…just at someone else.
And this:
“I submit that racist myth is what empowers these actors, and that no reasoning will reach them…”And I submit to you, “that no reasoning will reach you either” until you stop having this unrelenting anger.
And more:
“If the righteous cannot act in self defense for fear of not being perfect in their actions, how is it that evil can ever be defeated?”Wow, folks, a neocon religious wingnut preacher on the “good” side of that great dualism, exposes himself! Here is the reason for the factual smoke and mirrors epi denies using. Justification of his Crusade! Whew!!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, quoting myself, ahem:
“I have “been there and done that”, chasing people like you through the haze of smoke and mirrors that you people call facts and issues. When I got to the bottom line there was the real emotional reason behind the farce. I learned that it is an utter waste of time blowing away the smoke when the real reason is so apparent.”
And a farce it is.
Posted by Merlin on May 12, 2005 at 3:57 AM Epi,it blows me away that such a racist hate monger such as yourself could be a member of the ACLU.How do you reconcile such opposing view points?Is it only racism if it’s directed against you?
Posted by mike on May 12, 2005 at 3:59 AM Hi Mike,
You said:“LB,there’s no difference between Islamic fanaticism and Christian fanaticism.NONE!!!”
Exactly right. But of course to understand that, would be to have no excuse to have a Crusade. Poor epi could never do that. What would he replace all that anger with? Love? Compassion? Understanding?
How about abject fear of the truth? Unfortunately, that usually comes first. Enough to keep a man dressed in a cape with a cross on it I suspect…
Posted by Merlin on May 12, 2005 at 4:09 AM Merlin,crusade,inquisition,witch hunt,Christianity is replete with examples of,well,mans inhumanity to man,and that includes all you women out there,just so I don’t appear sexist. From where I sit,true and significant change will only occur when we,I.E..humanity,realise that,as individuals,our well being depends on the well being of all of us,and also that the well being of all of us depends on the well being of the individual.It’s something that can’t be legislated,can’t be forced.It requires a FUNDIMENTAL change in our consciousness.It requires a complete abandonment of capitalism,(the only way that capitalism can continue is if we realise interstellar flight).It requires a form of communism,OOOOH,now there’s a bad word.Our only other alternative is a dog eat dog world,survival of the fittest,where the survivor inherits a destroyed world.All I see right now is a bunch of Lemmings running full speed toward the edge of the cliff.I hope that I’m wrong.
Posted by mike,a.k.a whats the truth? on May 12, 2005 at 5:52 AM Merlin THIS PHRASE….<< “We, as cross worshipping crusaders and jews…”
OK, thanks for revealing yourself. You are a Religious Crusader justifying your angry crusade>>
Is what is used by Sunni Freaks word for word.. in describing christians. Those are THEIR words, not mine, and in your arrogant and foolish ignorance you have made my point.
Would you like the hundred’s of URL’s in which that phrase is so used?
If you cannot even recognize the perjorative, racist, language of religous hatred used by those who wish us so ill every second, used by them every single day, how can you possible know enough to comment on this?
What do you read?
Ignorance.
Mike, the problem is yours not mine. How can a civil rights worker have my views on foreign policy today? How could someone who housed Bradley campaign workers in the NH primaries have my views today? How could an ACLU member have my views today? How could a Mcgovern worker have my views today?
It’s called knowledge and experience.
How could the breaker of segregation (HST) carry out the great FDR’s plan to use nukes? (Oh but that’s history so you don’t get it, right?) You calim me to be racist? Define my racism. Go for it.
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 10:23 AM Epimonandas:
Is what is used by Sunni Freaks word for word.. in describing christians. Those are THEIR words, not mine, and in your arrogant and foolish ignorance you have made my point.
Perhaps since we American rational progressives, and Muslim Patriots and Religious agree on this one point, though otherwise in our beliefs, politics, and reason we differ so radically, it is evidence of the objective validity of this point. Much more likely than the echo chamber of like-minded opinions and specious reasoning you refer to as facts. (ah, but then you’re a lawyer and a fact is whatever you can convince a jury is a fact).
Where we differ from the Muslims that you hate so thoroughly and uncritically, is in seeing that fanatical disease ravaging the Muslim religion as well. Here we are, minus the irrational hatred that motivates you, on this one point, in agreement with you. More evidence that our view is objective. Actually the clincher as I see it.
You see, we prize objectivity for what it is. An ability to remove one self from the tangled confusion that is life for the purpose of examining reality unbiased by our mere human passions and foibles. To you it is a rhetorical trick, a little linguistic hocus-pocus, to advance your advocacy of your pre-concieved agenda. Not an attitude that lends itself to any kind of productive dialectic. You blithely and unconciously betray your bias with every post you write. Though the readers here have generously tried to correct your errors, to you it is water off a duck’s back. There is none so blind, as he who will not see.
The beginning of wisdom is the recognition of our fundamental ignorance. Since we have no certain knowledge of the outcomes of our actions, our only guide is the clarity of our intentions. So you see, to trade my small experience of seeking to heal the wounded human heart for all your lauded skill and accomplishment in inflicting such wounds, would be an immoral act on my part.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 12, 2005 at 1:26 PM A lawyer, eh? Yesterday he claimed he was a cardiologist. There goes—oops, it was already gone—Epi’s credibility.
Do you notice how increasingly shrill he sounds?
Just like a kid you catch doing something naughty, they scream like crazy and say you did it.
Posted by Margaret on May 12, 2005 at 3:06 PM Excuse me but if you can find where I claimed to be a lawyer..quote it. Nor did I claim to be a cardiologist.. I am a cardiovascular researcher, not an MD. If you or someone you know has had a bypass surgery, or any heart surgery in the last 15 years, or taken drugs to help left ventricular function, things I did were probably involved.
One makes a false claim and the other jumps on it. Truly amazing !
LB, you have made a clear statement which stands out:
“Where we differ from the Muslims that you hate so thoroughly and uncritically, is in seeing that fanatical disease ravaging the Muslim religion as well.”—on what basis do you think what is happening is a fanatical disease and not “real” islam? Have you perused memri? What is diplsayed there is what has been said for generations, by leaders, virtually all of them. I donl;t claim to say “this is Islam”, or “that is Islam” but I do know this..that is precisely what is at issue. And you have made the assumption that muslims will agreee to be temperate and as you find it non-fanatical. That is a manifestly gigantic assumption. From the 5th caliph this kind of paroxysm has raged periodically thru history within Islam. That is a fact. One not of my observation but of people such as Bernard Lewis. These ‘periods’ may last hundreds of years. They may go somewhat quiescent but never go away. Certainly not since the Salafi movement. Do you know the meaning of Salafi?I don’t hate the muslims. I hate those muslims whose racist theology and belief that god grants them the right to slice off heads and go to heaven has lead them to committ such acts, and those muslims who finance, transport, and support them. That is no different from saying I do not hate Christians, but I hate those who acted in the Christian organization, the KKK.
The muslims I converse with tell me about 1/3 support this ideology. That would be about the same who supported the KKK about the turn of the century, if not more. The differenc is that the USA had an organization which allowed it to stamp out such terrorists and murderers, whereas today not only is there no such organized ability for the ‘arab kkk’, many, many preachers teach this hate and racism. And this has nothing to do with military actions which we take that they find politically objectionable. It stems, they say from what is a perfect and immutable document, and the undiluted and exact words of God. Thus our symbols of cultural preponderance come to signify evil. Mcdonalds. Las Vegas. Brittany.
The only way, I posit, that this ideology can be ‘defeated’, is first to avoid being killed, and then to emplace if required, systems which allow their societies free will. The UN Arab Human development project has reported every year that arabs have the least human rights and freedom anywhere and lag behind every single geographic area, in every single technical and education and economic area (except per capita oil production). Their GNP’s together, when oil is stripped out, are about what Finland’s is.
That is why the entire status quo of the middle east has to go.
If these societies in free democracies tell us to take a hike..FINE. Govt’s which dislike us will be as transient as govts who do like us.
Nor should it be necessary with a little luck, to repeat Iraq. All we have to do is look at Lebanon. The Iranians, I have a feeling will take of things on their own, provided the mullahs don’t slaughter them.
What you seem to miss is that, there IS an objective reality. When the tree falls there is a sound 100% of the time. Fact is not what the jury decided if it diverges from this.
CONT >>>>
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 4:20 PM The readers here for the most have not ‘generously’ tried to correct my errors, in fact, for the most part, presentation of facts and sources has lead directly to personal attacks.
What I find is intolerance.
I am a racist.
I am an AWM (?) an assumption btw
I am a right wing fanatic (despite the presumably objective test mentioned here - Political Compass which plopped me dead ctr)
I am misquoted into a ‘religious wing nut’and why?
Because I have done the unthinkable! I am a liberal, Mgovernite, registered Dem, ACLU, vietnam protesting civil rights worker from the 60’s who had hair passed my shoulders, who depsite never voting for a repub in a local or state election must now apparently be expunged and excommunicated because I have identified outside the USA forces indistiguihsable from the KKK which seek our destruction, and low and behold is is GWB who has identified this as well.
That is a major mistake.
But apparently no ‘other’ can be tolerated around here.
Too bad for the party if this is the future.
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 4:21 PM It may just be those of us who aspire to progressive-libertarian principles are the genuine Centrists. Bridging the capitalist-libertarians on our right, and the state-socialists in the NW quadrant. It’s my opinion that all three sectors of public thought are, in the interests of human freedom and dignity, naturally allied against the capitalist- state tendencies towards oligarchy and fascism. History has in this light has been the story of the rich and powerful playing these three political world views against one another in order to maintain their authority to define status and value.
It is disturbing that epamonondas has chosen to let himself be played in this way, but the libertarian right has always been the weakest link in the chain. On one hand, they are the most likely to allow constraints to human liberty that they don’t see applying to themselves, and on the other, they are always yearning for the fruits of Mammon, and so liable to enslave themselves to the imperatives of capital.
Right now, they are not particularily touched by the odious stench of repression coming from the troglodyte mono-maniac right. I can’t imagine many feel much comfort in the influence of the likes of Reverends Dobson and Moon, unless like epi they have a convergence of religious views. As always their primary concern in life is the security of their investments, so as long as the market-place is relatively stable, they have no call to buck the status quo. But they are doubtless unsettled by all the environmental uncertainties of the current situation.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 12, 2005 at 5:18 PM Why is that I find this:
<< let himself be played in this way>>
somwhere about 3 sd’s to the left of arrogant condescension. I think, rather, I am somewhere in the front of a wave of exodus of perspicacious individuals who can see the end result before it needs to be experienced.
Nor can I find it a reasonable claim that someone who has stated that in 1925 the responsible planning against potential enemies does in fact mean the US, due to “yellow peril” racism intended all along to conquer Japan is remotely close to the centre of anything but chomskyesque theories of evil capital, and white men. That’s not intended as an insult, btw.
Please explain and give an example ,..really…
<<they are not particularily touched by the odious stench of repression coming from the troglodyte mono-maniac right>> Repression? How? Where? Here?
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 5:43 PM Epaminondas,
Follow the light. Leave the dark side (and the ACLU). Come on over where you can have disagreements and not be personally attacked. We need some intelligent folks on the conservative side. I’ve learned about 10 people have all the brains and the rest of us are stupid. We need you.
Posted by U Scare Me on May 12, 2005 at 5:46 PM In fact, U scare me…tho the numbers of strident, shrill individuals here is certainly few compared to a party, I find myself looking down, and wondering if the footprints I am looking at in front of me are those of David Horowitz.
The path has been trode before
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 6:11 PM Fascinating thread - partly for the interesting arguments, but mostly for the “debating” style. Both sides claiming the other is using personal attacks; both claiming the other side has their head in the sand, both claiming to be objective…
Ah, the irony. Kind of shame though. Both sides have made some fair points. Too bad neither side seems to be listening.
Btw, everyone here sure that there are just two sides to this - us against the terrorists (define your terms for each)? Seems to me, based on this thread as well as other reading, that the acts of terrorism in America, Bali, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc…are a symptom of something else, namely the war between the moderates and radicals in Islam itself. If true, the West (us?) still needs to be involved, but perhaps we should be pursuing a different goal through different means?
Posted by tomkin on May 12, 2005 at 6:36 PM The thousands of Iraqi civilians who have been murdered were
not sitting around “wishing us so ill every second”at least that’s what my Iraqi friends told me
“at least the USA had an organization which allowed it to stamp out such terrorists(KKK)....”
In that case please tell Mathew Hale and Trent Lott.They weren’t listening.
If we had let Strom Thurmond do it his way we wouldn’t have a problem,right?fortunately there is no such thing as institutionalized racism
for us to point to as repression in these “united ’ states.“Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives” Matthew 24:46
You know , the New Testament
Luckily , terrorists are only ” real” Islamics in towels
that way we can keep them off planes
Posted by RB on May 12, 2005 at 6:43 PM Tomkin…you are right. Only those who profess to be muslim moderates are not blowing anybody up. Right now they are losing. They have been since 1924. It’s a one sided ‘civil/religious’ war. There are many who consider themselves moderate, then when describing how these acts are NOT Islamic add the word…BUT.
RB..just think about this..I asked this before, and in fact I asked this of my Iraqi, Omani, and Saudi friends. I have not yet found a cogent answer…if good cannot respond to evil acts for fear of killing innocents, how can evil ever be repelled?
BTW, you left out Robert Byrd. Let’s be fair all around.
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 7:02 PM Epamonondas;
My apologies for inflating your status. My bad.
You think like a lawyer. More lawyer than scientist. Liberalism really is more than a label and a resume. Perhaps you are no longer what you once were.
Not a trial lawyer, though, or you would be presenting yourself with more sensitivity to your audience.
Objectively, one could say, things will get better in Iraq. What has gone on for 2+yrs. cannot be sustained forever.I don’t understand. Why do you think it will happen any quicker or more compassionately if we cease to be critical of the administration’s sincerity and honesty in carrying out the policies they claim to be following? The very best I can hope for is they might do it just to prove us wrong. They really have never outwardly shown much interest in our concerns in any case, though. So I’m not betting on it.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 12, 2005 at 7:04 PM Here you go Tomkin..fresh off the press today and right on your subject
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=569403&contrassID=2 2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 7:31 PM “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a decending sprial, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but not the lie, nor establish the truth. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light cando that.Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” Martin Luther King, JrBefore I am burned at the stake for my “bleeding heart”
I think a more important point here is that there has to be some credibility .
We cant marginalize brown lives because of our demand for “justice”,even though we do it here daily.
We end up looking like cowboys who aren’t smart enough to really figure it out or just don’t give a shit.
All men are created equal…..?
Posted by RB on May 12, 2005 at 7:41 PM Tomkin,
I do not come to these blogs and participate under the illusion I’m going to sway the opinion of another. I only hope to provide a different (conservative) perspective. Matching wits with the folks here keeps you on your toes and up to date on the issues. I once believed the progressive blogers enjoyed having someone to debate, but I’m not so sure any more.
On to your subject. I haven’t seen any evidence there’s a possibility to negotiate with radical Islamists. If you evidence or ideas, I’d love to hear them. We saw what the Taliban created in Afghanistan. When we went into Bosnia to prevent the slaughter of Muslims and were rewarded by an attack on the World Trade Center. Go to some of the obscure websites and see the special brand of justice dished out to their own people. It makes Abu Grab and Gitmo look like resort spas. There are always causalities of war that are heart breaking. However, our military spends millions to develop precision weapons to minimize civilian causalities. Not these guys, they actively plan to kill civilians…the more the better.
It is always better to seek compromise. I just don’t see it happening with radical Islam.
Posted by U Scare Me on May 12, 2005 at 7:42 PM RB,
You are right, but don’t expect this neocon bunch of warmongers who thrive on fear to get it. All they do is cloud any objection one might make and, no matter how well documented, scream that you are unsubstantiated. I have yet to read one thing by Epi that is anything more than hate-filled, bloodlusty warmongering. Don’t expect someone with no heart to understand you.
Posted by Margaret on May 12, 2005 at 7:44 PM Ghandi and MLK are the answers to a western conscience RB. They are the right answer for those struggles.
They are not the answers to those who think you should die and your death will be part of their salvation.
Unless I misunderstand you, your answer is that to act you become evil.
That is no answer. Even if they are somewhat relative (in your thought) there is at least an evil and a not-evil. You, in this case have condemned not-evil to extinction, perhaps in the thought of a greater salvation. You may be right in that hope. But to find that out you still allow evil to conquer here.
You assume an awful lot if you think this about ‘brown’. Richard Reid doesn’t appear to be brown. We could just as easily claim the reverse, that those who attack us do so partly because the ‘occidentals have a history which proves them evil’. Also false.
It’s not about either of those things. With the exception of the Saudi superiority complex, Islam is mostly color/race blind (but not tribe-blind). And in this case we are color blind as well. As Mel Brooks says, ‘funny, you don’t look druish’.
Muslims are both Muhammad Qutb, egyptian arab, and Stephen Schwartz - yes that’s right - (author of The Two Faces of Islam). Muslims might be anything ..racially.
It’s just not about brown at all. And to them, it’s not about about white, even when they think us evil.
Dresden looked just as bad as Nagoya, know what I mean, and both not much different from Richmond in 1865?
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 7:56 PM UScareMe,
It is odd that now, when one can see that the last few pages are dominated by conservatives, you come online with a far more civil tone. As a liberal, I don’t mind hearing your opinion or your sharing of facts, but I hate the Rush Limgaugh scream into your face approach.
I would agree that I don’t see that happening with radical Islam either. Unfortunately, on the other side of the coin, I see orthodox Christianity becoming volatile and reckless as well. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Was it Issac’s fault that Abraham slept with Haggar and Ishmael should have been his rightful heir? What we see today is the longest and most stringent case of sibling rivalry in all of history.
There’s plenty of blame for both sides historically. The Crusades were a pretty big screwup for Christianity, yet that is the current path we pursue. Regain the Holy Land. Except this time, the motive is oil.
After we tacitly helped build the Taliban and train Osama bin Laden, what did we do that pissed him off so much? Was it installing troops in Saudi Arabia? Was it that he felt we hadn’t supported him enough against the Soviets? For a certainty, our defense of Israel over the Palestinians hasn’t made us their pal. The thing is, for such a level of hatred, something(s) had to be the impetus. We are not blameless.
So, how to end this. Well, as a Christian I don’t believe we ever will. Gog and Magog and on to Armegeddon. But leaving that aside, the first thing we must do is relieve ourselves of foreign oil dependency. That’s been a mantra in the Democratic Party since the 70’s. Hasn’t come to much, though.
I think our government has been an ass over the last 40 years, just keep putting the future off, don’t worry about developing financially feasible alternatives—just keep that oil money pumping and screw the rest.
Posted by Margaret on May 12, 2005 at 8:05 PM Specious claim factually in error
<<After we tacitly helped build the Taliban and train Osama bin Laden, >>
As made clear in both the definitive histories (so far), Ghost Wars by Stephen Coll, and “Charlie Wilson’s War” by George Crile, not only did we not arm or train Osama (who had his own saudi funding the entire time), he was often in combat during the Soviet occupation with those we did, and ended by assassinating one of the major receivers of aid and training, Massoud.
I believe you to be demonstrably wrong on facts. BUt bring out your sources for this claim.
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 8:18 PM Please explain and give an example ,..really…
<they are not particularily touched by the odious stench of repression coming from the troglodyte mono-maniac right>> Repression? How? Where? Here?You really don’t know much about street level politics here in the good ol’ Yewessay, do yuh? You think Ann Coulter is a harmless quack?
You think you’ve been unfairly pelted with personal insults here?
In some respects, the KKK may no longer effectively exist, but the odor lingers on, under the rose.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 12, 2005 at 8:18 PM Last time I heard her name it was about a pie.
Seems like no repression on lemon meringue there.Why would some blond speaking her mind be an impediment to anyone speaking theirs? Is that your claim? Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh et al make Luminous Beauty afraid? Doesn’t look that way here.
<<In some respects, the KKK may no longer effectively exist, but the odor lingers on, under the rose.>>
What specifically does that mean?
We stamped it out but must still suffer as a nation? Do you favor the germans still suffering stigma? The japanese over Nanking? Korea?I asked for specific examples of repression. I see none. I see and hear Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. I see Barney Frank and I hear Ed Markey just fine. I see and hear Kwame Nfume and there’s no one on this planet who could intimidate Charlie Rangel. So what specifically are you claiming?
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 8:27 PM Unless I misunderstand you, your answer is that to act you become evil.
How much greater do you think your misunderstanding could be?
Posted by luminous beauty on May 12, 2005 at 8:30 PM In 1979 “the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA” was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.2:
With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan’s fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.3
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Pakistan’s military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam:
by Michel Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
Posted by Margaret on May 12, 2005 at 8:46 PM Prime suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks, branded by the FBI as an “international terrorist” for his role in the African US embassy bombings, Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war “ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders”. 1
Afraid you’re wrong on that one, Epi.
Posted by Margaret on May 12, 2005 at 8:48 PM I have tried to keep to facts, and clear questions, but yet others return to personal attacks, and obscure insults rather than grapple with facts as we can argue them.
One can only wonder why.
It continues to be amazing. It’s actually captured a few others here to read and ooh and ahhh
Maybe one of us here should spring for a copy of “How to Talk to a Liberal”. I thought it was a stupid idea for a book before. But now that I have been named a bloodlusting right wingnut crusading angry racist troglodytic servant of the right and satan’s whelp to add to my other illustrious descendant of apes and pigs labels….maybe I was wrong about that too.
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 8:51 PM Margaret
I’ve read different pitches in your tone as well. This article by Klein was particularly infuriating. We don’t need to rehash the earlier debates on the substance of the article as they are etched in temporary internet history.
Unlike you, I’m not a Christian. Christians have come under recent attack by many on the left. This blog and others are filled with hate speak. I’m glad many religious people have moved our way as a voting block and welcome them.
Like you I believe we need to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. I doubt we agree on the approach. I want alternative energy sources as bad as the next person and see more evidence of it being developed more than anytime in recent history. I believe as an interim step we need to remove the barriers preventing domestic sources of oil. One pound of uranium can produce an equivalent amount of electricity as one million barrels of oil. Oil, our economic and national security goes hand in hand. Until we have alternative sources all options should be on the table.
History is filled with examples of allies turned enemy and back to allies. Blame us, blame Israel, blame whoever; radical Islam is EVIL and I don’t mean as in evil business, evil Republicans, evil religious people. I mean the kind of evil that would saw both your and my head off with a dull blade and make a video of it for the folks back home. I’m fast approaching a firm belief radical Islam can’t exist in harmony with any group and must be destroyed.
Posted by U Scare Me on May 12, 2005 at 9:02 PM God I love the internet.
I quoted two best selling histories. Lauded by both sides of the aisle. Both took years to write. But if we take the seminal portion of your source in quotes…
<<<“Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war “ironically under the auspices of the CIA, t”>> and jam it in google…well well what do we find?STORMFRONT? you’re kidding right? Neonazis in case you are wondering
Englishpravda?
Searchtuna?
Indymedia?I hate to sound like Captain Reynaud, but these sound like the usual suspects.
And who is Michel Chossudovsky?? He is an anti globalist who believes we will make war by weather. Search on him.
You quoted a preconceived hack who knocked out a story 2 weeks after 9/11 for pravda.
This is what the ARABS do, Margaret.
Correction,used to do. Now they check it out first.
Why don’t you vette your sources first as well?
Obfuscation? Sorry, it’s called work.
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 9:05 PM Man ole man. Epi is spanking y’all so bad I can’t bear to watch it anymore. I’m going home and grill me a piece of cow and try to settle down. One or two pages ago Epi was a Democrat and now he’s doing the heavy lifting for conservatives everywhere. Makes me want to cry with joy.
Posted by U Scare Me on May 12, 2005 at 9:19 PM More on Michel… he’s also a 9/11 conspiracist who believes the USA was interested in the economic colonization of Bosnia at Dayton.
Perfect vision of Orwell’s “If the USA can be insulted, it must be insulted”. George had this kind of gavone in mind, I’m sure.
Upon further review it turns out that one this guy’s life theses ...to prove Bin Laden IS a creation of the USA.
“Millions of people have been misled regarding the causes and consequences of September 11. When people across the US and around the World find out that Al Qaeda is not an outside enemy but a creation of US foreign policy and the CIA, the legitimacy of the bipartisan war agenda will tumble like a deck of cards.”
Too bad this flies in the face of virtually every fact known.
On the other hand..George Crile, author of Charlie Wilson’s War ..
http://www.strom.clemson.edu/events/calhoun/guests/gcrile.pdf
60 minutes editor and producer
and Coll, pulitzer prize winning managing editor of the Washington PostNiether of the aforementioned instititutions could be characterized as supporting the admin.
Choosing to believe myth. Amazing.
Posted by epaminondas on May 12, 2005 at 9:33 PM Ralph’s Index (www.votenader.org)
Number of Americans living in poverty: 35.9 millionPercentage of the U.S. population living in poverty: 12.5%
Number of Americans without health insurance: 45 million
Number of children uninsured in the United States: 27 million
Percentage of all children in the United States who lack insurance: 36.7%
Number of Americans who die annually because they do not have health insurance: 18,000
The only industrialized country that does not provide universal health care: United States of America
U.S. ranking in overall quality of health care it provides: 37th
U.S. world ranking in national expenditures on health care: 1
Number of infants born poor in the United States: 1 in 3
Number of years Bush has presided over an increase in child poverty without sounding an alarm: 3 years in a row
Number of full-time workers earning less than $8.75 per hour before payroll taxes: 1 in every 4
Comparison of average CEO pay to average worker pay in America in 1965: 26 times more
Comparison of average CEO pay to average worker pay in America in 1982: 42 times more
Comparison of average CEO pay to average worker pay in America today: 300 to 500 times more
Median CEO pay at large companies in the U.S.: $6,600 per hour
Amount the minimum wage would be if it had increased in tandem with CEO pay since 1990: $15.71
Percentage of the federal budget going to the military: 50%
Number of U.S. soldiers who have died to date in the illegal war and occupation in Iraq: Over 1,000
Number of Iraqi civilians the U.S. has killed in the illegal war and occupation in Iraq: Over 15,000
Percentage of Americans an AP poll found would consider voting for Ralph Nader if they thought he had a chance to win: 33%
Number of presidential candidates standing up to corporate power: 1
Name of the presidential candidate standing up to corporate power: Ralph Nader
Your job: Visit the website (www.votenader.org), contribute (in any way you can (email campaign, money contribution, volunteer, write your local paper) make sure Ralph runs in 2008, and vote for Ralph
Posted by Richard on May 12, 2005 at 9:45 PM UScareMe,
You’re wrong, he’s not spanking anyone. Check the search engines under “cia bin laden” and you will find further substantiation of Prof.Chussodovsky’s points. Actually, I saw this article on 20/20 right after 9/11 stating the same facts.
Just because you say someon’s data is invalid, doesn’t make it so.
The truth is, what we’re observing is Epi. jerking off, pleasuring himself with non-factual data. Read a couple of your links, very inconclusive BS, Epi. Violence in Egypt, that proves>>>?
Sorry Richard, wouldn’t vote for Nader EVER.
Posted by Margaret on May 12, 2005 at 11:30 PM Here’s a little breakdown of what U Scare Me and Epamindondas stand for from a rational perspective (not in the “heat” of things, if you know what I mean):
“What we have seen in recent years is a breach of American values in order to reward the powerful at the expense of average Americans.
Those in power passed massive tax breaks for the wealthy and short-changed everyone else.
They granted sweetheart deals to Halliburton Corporation in Iraq while our troops went without armor.
They let the polluters write the pollution rules for our water and our air.
They let the oil industry write the energy policy in secret meetings in the White House.
Two weeks ago, over the opposition of every Democrat in the House and Senate, they forced through a federal budget that preserves corporate tax loopholes at the expense of college aid, and slashes Medicaid for poor mothers to pay for tax breaks for millionaires.
They twisted arms for three and a half hours in the dead of night on the floor of the House to pass a so-called Medicare reform that rewards HMOs and drug companies at the expense of senior citizens and the disabled.
They broke the ethics rules of the House of Representatives, then changed the rules to avoid investigation.
They want to break the promise of Social Security to our citizens by privatizing it, handing it over to Wall Street, and cutting benefits for middle-income Americans.
Now, Republican leaders want to break the Senate to get their way – this time with the nation’s courts.
We have blocked only the very few who are so far out of the mainstream that they have no place in our federal judiciary. And yes, we have filibustered those nominees to protect America from their extremism.
Yet, Republicans propose to scuttle the Senate rules that have protected our constitution and our citizens for more than two centuries – in a crusade to give right-wing activist judges lifetime appointments.
They want to break the rules to put judges on our courts who are friendly to polluters and hostile to clean water and clean air.
They want to break the rules to confirm judges hostile to civil rights, to disability rights, to women’s rights, and to workers’ rights.
They even want to break the rules to confirm judges who condone torture.
The nation’s founders understood that those in power might believe rules don’t apply to them. That’s why they put in place a democracy that preserves our rights and freedoms through checks and balances. These checks and balances protect mainstream values by preventing one party from arrogantly imposing its extreme views on the nation.”
“Ye shall know them by their fruits.” These are putrid, but I guess some people have a poor sense of smell.
Posted by Margaret on May 12, 2005 at 11:37 PM P.S. Epi is a fraud. No Democrat or liberal would ever espouse his views.
Posted by Margaret on May 12, 2005 at 11:38 PM In fact…
<<No Democrat or liberal would ever espouse his views.>>They are very close to those of Joe Lieberman, Joe Biden, and Harold Ford..all well known icons of the hard right…rotflmao. NO doubt you want them drummed out too.
Margaret, as I said, if you wish to purposefully choose myth as plopped out by a pre-judged america hating pravda free lancer whose ‘theories’ encompass 9/11 conspiracies (wikipedia) and that our interests in ending war in Bosnia in 1995’s Dayton treaties was econimic imperialism, rather than ending war, as opposed to pulitzer prize winning news editors of the Wash Post and 60 minutes…you have sailed away from objective reality, and have, as your post just earlier demostrates, retreated to the safe land of shrill recitation of halliburtonesque demogoguery, a portion of which is based on falsities like Michel Chewyourassoffsky. Don’t fret too much, it worked for the KGB 12th directorate! Always a kernel of truth in the poison pill!
And that is iconic of the left today.
Next you’ll tell me I can’t see beyond the facts.
Come back….FDR and HST are waiting right where you left them, with a democratic majority that lasted 2 generations. It’s not too late yet, but unless the repubs make a horrific error, it will be next time around, when the first black and female president of the USA is liable to be elected.
Danger Will Robinson.
Nighty night
Posted by epaminondas on May 13, 2005 at 12:24 AM Did you just quote that fat windbag and famous sailor…Ted Kennedy in that little rant?
Google says yes
Posted by epaminondas on May 13, 2005 at 12:26 AM It never ceases to amaze
When you point out the connect between the KKK and the republicans, everyone turns away.Lockheed (ABC Nightline last nite) is an example of the govt’s blind eye to solving the bigest crisis in the US
It’s those Niggers falt-
If we only knew our placeThe rest of the world sees this and knows…..
Posted by RB on May 13, 2005 at 9:57 AM IS this the report?
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050512/NEWS01/50512032 25/1002“The shooting happened July 8, 2003, at the plant that makes airplane components. Williams had left a diversity training class and returned with a 12-gauge shotgun and a semiautomatic rifle. He killed five and wounded eight other workers before taking his own life.
Four of those killed were black. Most of the wounded were white.”
Sollie said Wednesday he told ABC special correspondent Bryan Ross he was aware of the internal documents where Williams reportedly used the n-word. But Sollie said that doesn’t mean that Williams was a racist.
“In my opinion, he did not hate every one of a certain race, gender or religion,” Sollie told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “One of the persons in the training room where the incident began was a black person and the shooter came to her and said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot you.”’
Sollie said that information was confirmed by the woman, whom he did not name, and other witnesses in the room.
..........................................Anyone using that word in the course of normal converstaion in an offhand way, in that context probably has a major problem. PERIOD. We’ll leave Rap and hideous same race use of that perjorative for another day.
The sheriff can’t get out of his own mississippian way of thinking.
..........
Here’s another report…
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050512/APN/505120688<
The differences between the two stories are ‘interesting’
..........But I don’t see what this has to do with democrats or republicans,, unless you mean the sheriff. His party is not reported. Racists are everything. Name your party, or race, doesn’t matter.
Posted by epaminondas on May 13, 2005 at 10:40 AM Margaret,
I am a Republican and conservative. What you say I believe and millions like me is simply not true which is why your side is loosing so badly in state and national elections. You are trying to convince people to swallow a lie. With the alternative sources for news and information the left doesn’t have the advantage of one sided dialogue anymore.
You try to make people like me into some kind of monster that advocates poverty, wants to destroy peoples retirement, create a polluted environment and on and on and on, it’s a lie. People are smart in America and will eventually see through the BS and find the truth. When people realize they’ve been duped or in the case of religious people attacked, they leave and go somewhere else.
There are consequences that come with winning elections. It is called advancing the will of the people. Like it or not, it’s how things work in America. You have a better chance changing it by ideas rather than smoke and mirrors.
Posted by U Scare Me on May 13, 2005 at 11:41 AM The missed message indeed..
The really silly stories being pushed as if they have credit are a damage not to the republicans but the democrats.Silly 9/11 conspiracy theories are no different in character from absurd stories that FDR knew about 12/7/41 and did nothing. What do we think of the loon isolationist republicans of the time who said that? Or that Clinton is a rapist and his wife had Vince Foster murdered? Same flavor kool aid in a different box.
What is the use of making (false) claims about the filibuster being dismantled, when it’s application in this specific instance is not only not tradition, it’s not mentioned in the constitution? It’s a relatively young senate rule (one I think should be kept), but the point is the demoracts are (in the end) hurting the minority rights by creating false perceptions about it. Both parties have been playing fast and loose here, but the repubs are doing it on the judges themselves, NOT on the constitution.
Factcheck.org does a great public service here as in many other areas.
And if these judges are over conservative over zealous, the people can draw their own conclusions about how important it is to elect the man who makes these appointments as well.No one is going to take away our rights. That is why we have the 2nd amendment (just ask Gov Dean, on that one). The next election can always correct the error, if one has been made.
And now…experiments
Posted by epaminondas on May 13, 2005 at 12:26 PM USM;
Unfortunately, many milloins do believe like you. What is your party doing about poverty. Nothing. Retirement. They want to destroy SS. Don’t kid yourself. The oligarchs who own the Republican Party have wanted to repeal SS since it was passed. The environment. Yeah, trees are a major cause of pollution, St. Ronnie said so. Global warming is a myth? The jury is still out on evolution? Why do scientists hate America?
Yes, I am so nostalgic for the day when the Nation, Mother Jones, and ITT were the only current events periodicals available. Wasn’t it great when scurrilous leftist propaganda was over-flowing the shelves at every check-out counter? If only we could get back to the days when Democracy Now was the only voice on the radio and Bill Moyers the only face on TV. Wasn’t that a time?
What planet are you on?Epi. You’ve made your point. You have become a Republican. You don’t want anything to do with a critical progessive left-wing? There is none in the Republican Party.
You believe issues of good and evil can be solved with wars of aggression? Fine Republican value. You only wish to consider one side of an argument, and denigrate, slander, and dismiss anyone who thinks differently? Very Republican. They want you. You and Zell Miller. Go ahead and drink the kool-aid. Everthing is wonderful in Stepford.I wish I was wrong, but the hubris of this nation will ultimately destroy it. Not something any of us wishes to see. Connect the dots.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 13, 2005 at 1:04 PM “critical progessive left-wing” ..somehow while we weren’t paying attention
it’s as slanderous at this moment as the whacked out who thought Hillary a killer.There
is
no
differenceIt is that left wing which needs to reform. The HST/FDR/JFK people are the ones whose values have remained constant. What’s different is that you now call such people republicans because they have failed the same kind of litmus test the repubs use with abortion.
Are they republicans now? You seem to think so. If you think I am alone, you are disconnected.
Is the New Republic a right wing screed? Mother Earth News?“If only we could get back to the days when Democracy Now was the only voice on the radio and Bill Moyers the only face on TV. “
Is the free marketplace of ideas the END of a critical progessive left-wing? I hope not.
But that is precisely the problem. The core philosophies that formed the message have decayed into only opposition and we are bad we are bad we are bad.Here’s a WSC analogy for you..we ARE all bad on this planet, but we here are just a little less bad than almost everyone else, and the least bad so far. We do wrong, but we shout it about and kick each other half to death to figure out the next thing to do.
Posted by epaminondas on May 13, 2005 at 1:48 PM Luminous beauty,
Hate and anger causes wrinkles.
Here is what I’ve done for poverty in the last little bit.
I went shopping last night and purchased $32.74 worth of groceries to put by my mail box for the US Postal Service food drive tomorrow.
I paid a bunch of taxes that will go to support poverty.
I own 5 Section 8 rental houses that are the pride of the neighborhood.
I was able to hire 4 new employees in the last 7 months. Although they were already employed when I hired them, somewhere down the line, 7 people got jobs not available before.
I am a Shriner and I spend untold hours on efforts to raise money for Children’s Hospitals including standing on street corners and store fronts.
Every third Tuesday, from 6:00PM – 7:30PM, I tutor 3 adults in a community outreach literacy program.I just happen to believe, from experience, throwing money at poverty and not addressing the root causes will only get us more poverty. We have created programs that encourage dependency and welfare. Out of good intentions we have government programs that encourage the destruction of the family unit. I know because I provide housing for some of them. I want these people to be productive self supporting citizens. I’m beginning to believe Liberals see them as a reliable voting block as long as the stay dependent.
Social Security
I do not know of one single person that wants to see retirees with no means to survive and their Social Security wiped out. I feel sad for the people that must live on that alone. When I hear there is a program that will guarantee older citizens get what they were promised and younger workers can be part of a program with an even better life after they retire; I say lets do it. What a great deal. Who wouldn’t want to see that. Wait I know. A party that fears people becoming less dependent on government support.Environment
I want mine clean. I also want to find a balance between a clean environment and our needs as a free market society. I know we must have compromise and at the same time we need scientists like Epi developing the next generation of technology to better mankind. I find most radical environmentalists are also anti-capitalists. If that’s your gig, go for it. I just don’t believe you’ll find yourself in a majority except at a protest march.By the way. The planet I live on is earth, same as you. Just like Jerry Fawell lives on the extreme fringe of my party, I believe you live on the extreme fringe of yours. If you don’t, liberals are on the verge of extinction, as us evolutionists would say.
Posted by U Scare Me on May 13, 2005 at 2:20 PM By saying the rest of the world is worse than we are, you are rationalizing what is wrong with us. It doesn’t matter if racist perceptions linger in the American psyche, Saddam Hussein is the Anti-Christ! Arab hyperbole against Israel is racist but calling Palestinias cockroaches is just realism, I suppose. The left-wing is reforming, without your help, but we are not going to abandon our principles just to ‘win’ elections’. We’ve always been a minority voice in American politics, and we will stand in opposition to racism, oppression, and social injustice wherever and whenever it raises its ugly face.
Mother Earth News? Organic gardening is so controversial. And who are these leftist voices at the New Republic? Micheal Kinsley is sooo radical.
Free marketplace of ideas, my ass. Follow the money.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 13, 2005 at 2:31 PM LM
Don’t waste your time on these trolls. They believe in blood and lies, they even stake their reputation on a proven liar and C student.
Let them live in the hell they have designed and we will have the last laugh.
By the way, I vetted my article and the source was declassified CIA reports, but I am certain they will find a reason to negate their findings, as they surely are more “well informed” than the CIA. What losers. Wait till 2006, the GOP is going down.
Posted by Margaret on May 13, 2005 at 2:54 PM LB
1) What tripe…then I guess Churchill was a rationalizing fool when he made similar comments reagrding democracy
2) Mother Earth publishes all sort of things, and stepped away from the loonie, thus they are now, only to be trashed by the oh so pure legions of the hate america first
3)New Republic not Leftist? Left of center, certainly, but as I said..not good enough, huh? Not what I asked..but instructive, none the less. For in your response you have implied quite strongly that those not esconced in the Nation’s hatefest (what HAVE they supported in the USA since the New Republic broke away from them because of their outright support for Stalin and Mao? )left must therefore be BAD and ‘other’.4) Follow the money….you know Rush Limbaugh is boring to me..but he started with NOTHING, in Sacramento after a failed career somewhere else (midwest?) and succeeded in the strength of his audience #‘s. Follow the money = follow the audience #‘s. The first step to recovery is to admit the truth.
Yes, that which you call the progressive left has passed beyond the ability to anchor itself in reality. Passed beyond the ability to compete on ideas AND idealism and is walled off in strident frustration, replete in the certainty of evil conspiracies by chenyhalliburtonrovelikudneocontotalitarianusamakeswarbyweatherkyotosolvesallmyp problemsosmamisamerican911wasplanendbyfluorandwestillhatereagananyway
The center of the USA is outside the wall.What’s the point of a peace offer when those not hating america can only be evil themselves?
Too bad the pig died, I’d have been better off with it. Smelly and bloody, but straightforward.
Bye the way, anytime you want to go on the palestinians and Israel, LET’S ROCK, LADY! But you had better have your facts straight. I have that particular discussion WITH palestinians every single day.
Margaret…
You are full of it. Prove me wrong. I don’t think you can. Let’s see you excuse for running from documenting what would be headlines everywhere.
I don’t think an author who claims the USA makes war by weather stands up to washington post, pulitzer people, and 60 minuttes who did their work over years, while he literally freelanced for PRAVDA and knocked the article in question out on 9/25/2001.If it’s declassified, it’s on the web.
URL please.
Posted by epaminondas on May 13, 2005 at 3:03 PM http://www.cprobes.com/archives/2005/05/why_we_should_p.html
cut n’ paste that URL for a pretty interesting critique of Klein’s piece…
Posted by RPN on May 13, 2005 at 3:17 PM Luminous Beauty wants to confront oppression and social injustice on one side and we’ve got Margaret on the other side launching a bigoted attack on C students. You get a bunch of C students riled up …well you do have problems then.
You know C students have an agreement with the D & F folks and we’ve convinced a good many B students to move our way. The elitist A students are on a tiny island and loosing shoreline by the day.
Posted by U Scare Me on May 13, 2005 at 3:19 PM What is this pile of horseshit? What pig? You’ve descended into psychotic babble, friend.
Yes the truth is that the American audience has been flooded with right-wing propaganda. They believe it, why shouldn’t we?
Zionism is objectively true? It’s a well established historical fact that God gave Abraham all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates to the Jews? That is the basis of international law? The Palestinians voluntarily gave up their homes? What other ‘facts’ can you deliver. Oh, the holocaust justifies everthing, that’s right.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 13, 2005 at 3:21 PM Epi,
Interesting link, thanks. But it appears from your words and tone (and USM’s) that you seem to think the Islamic moderates have already lost the war against the extremists, that their demise is just a matter of time. I’m not sure that is fair or true. Terrorism is a sign of weakness, not strength. It’s an effort to call for attention, to demand attention actually. Attention that would not be needed if their message was being well-received. Apparently it is not.
Additionally, it’s important to note that the attention they bring upon themselves cuts both ways. Surely they do get noticed, but many more Islamic moderates now recognize the need to do something about them. I’m more than a little unsure that the Coalition of the Willing’s decision to “root the terrorists out” by force is the best or only solution. Of course, I do not think we (the West) can simply sit on the sidelines. I believe in Teddy Roosevelt’s big-stick theory. But I also believe that we can shorten this war by doing many more works of charity. The work done in the aftermath of the Tsunami (much slowed now, unfortunately) changed the impressions of the West, and the US in particular, for many effected Muslims. We should have done more, imo. In the not-too-distant past the West, and particularly, the US, was once seen by many in the rest of world as a force for good and progress. Our foreign policies over the last 25 years, catalyzed by our response to the 9/11, have changed that. For small money though, relatively speaking, it could be changed back.
Again, please understand that I recognize and agree that after 9/11 a forceful response to Al Quaeda was necessary and right. And I agree that reasoning with terrorists is a fool’s errand. But since 9/11 our response has been primarily based on our military. Why are we not helping to build roads, schools and hospitals in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, etc.? The tragedy created by the tsunami provides additional reason (cover against the isolationists). More than half the Muslims in the world are located outside Arabic lands. Shouldn’t we be helping those that we can, showing them by our deeds that we respect Islam? The Islamic extremists are the problem, but the US has done a poor job of explaining that. So poor, that the US is held up as an example of why to join the jihad. That’s just crazy. Win the Muslim’s trust with good works and the moderate Muslims will win, which in turn, means we all win. I don’t claim that to be easy, the logistics alone will prove daunting I’m sure. Winning this war will take time and considerable patience. But I don’t think we will win it at all if our primary tool of diplomacy is the barrel of a gun.
Posted by tomkin on May 13, 2005 at 3:23 PM One particular C student. asswipe. Yeah, the dictatorship of the ignorant, that’s the kind of country I want to live in.
How about you?
Posted by luminous beauty on May 13, 2005 at 3:29 PM Already gave the link. Go back to original post and look at footnotes on author’s article.
Posted by Margaret on May 13, 2005 at 3:29 PM epi
That’s cool the way you use Rush Limbaugh and recovery in the
same paragraph.He’s in jail for the illegal use of prescription drugs right??
Didn’t he just talk about Evanston High School
-students not knowing about WWII-
because of their multicultural curriculumHe panders to the same ignorant people who believe this tripe
If that’s your Idea of sucess .....
Posted by RB on May 13, 2005 at 3:36 PM LB Tomkin, thanks for responding ..see bottom
The pig we had an experiment with“It’s a well established historical fact that God gave Abraham all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates to the Jews? That is the basis of international law? The Palestinians voluntarily gave up their homes? What other ‘facts’ can you deliver. Oh, the holocaust justifies everthing, that’s right.”
ok….GOODIE..but later…gosh I feel like I am looking at a big rare steak ...your IGNORANCE about zionism is beyond comprehension, just based on one line, and naturally your history is just as bad,..I wonder what tripe lies just beyond the next needle prick…something as good as the US planing in 1925 to conquer Japan? But that will have to wait for a while, maybe tmw.
I’ll do you a BIG favor though, which considering that you took the trouble to actually look at what chomsky said, you might take advantage of…
TOM SEGEV - ONE PALESTINE COMPLETE
Alan Dershowtiz - The Case For ISrael
Dennis Ross - The Missing Peace
and for Giggles…
Ron Rosenbaum-Those Who forget the PastTomkin..
Look for these, they may be available in PDF form and from FTP sites as well in .txt format
Stephen Schwartz - The Two Faces of Islam
Dore Gold - Hatred’s Kingdom
Kenneth Timmerman - Preacher’s of Hate (actually about the Muslim Brotherhood), and Murders in Manhattan
Steven Emerson(Still under a death fatwa) - American JihadI have to go, but I want to say I don’t think they have lost, but I think they are losing. In any discussion it is very hard for them to stand up to the Salafists. The Salafi know the quran, and the quran says some very harsh things. You can’t fight what the quran says because it is perfect. So if you seem to disagree, the salafists then declare you apostate and off they go….to physical intimidation.
Here’s another for you today…these things are so fresh becuase they happen almost every day..
Egyptian Journalist on Muslim Liberals in the West: “Muslims in Name, Apostates in Fact”The Egyptian journalist Rim Azmi published an attack on Muslim liberals living in Western countries in the April 23, 2005 issue of the official Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi, titled: “Muslims in Name, Apostates in Fact,” in which she accuses Muslim academics and politicians in the West of using Islam for their own aggrandizement. The following are excerpts from the article: [1]
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD90505
I’ll come back to your post later…tonight or tmwe. This is good. I agree with your last sentence…more later
RB I don’t think he’s in jail. DOn;t know about evanston HS ..but there was just a report by some state about the kids have no clue about ww2..don’t knwo if it was Il or not.
Posted by epaminondas on May 13, 2005 at 3:46 PM Margaret I wil go back and look for the footnote, I have his original paper for pravda as well.
If so, I apologize.gotta go
Posted by epaminondas on May 13, 2005 at 3:47 PM More dismissing the message by attacking the messenger. More self serving opinion claimed to represent objective reality.
More self selecting and self limiting BS.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 13, 2005 at 3:56 PM Tomkin,
You raise some very good points. So much so that I need to do some re-thinking. I guess my main problem is I see no evidence moderate Muslims are doing much to police their own problems. I just haven’t seen the outrage that should be there. It makes me wonder if they are silent accomplices or are they too scared to speak out. Certainly North American followers of Islam don’t have fears of reprisals, yet there is mainly silence there as well.
Posted by U Scare Me on May 13, 2005 at 4:08 PM Luminous beauty,
You really have a major anger thing going on here. I’m not kidding about the wrinkles. Even a little attempt at humor sparks rage. Are you like this all the time or is this a calendar thing.
Posted by U Scare Me on May 13, 2005 at 4:14 PM No repression here;
http://www.counterpunch.org/
And what was the nature of that ‘lie’ that Chomsky supposedly told? He refused to admit that his support of a scholar’s freedom of expression wasn’t support for that scholar’s views? Even though some off-hand comments could possibly be construed as such, or not.? How shocking. I guess natural language is all hokum and we’ll just have to wait for someone else to create a symmetrical and justified mathematical foundation for understanding human cognition.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 13, 2005 at 4:27 PM Yes USM, I have a major anger thing going on. What are you going to do about it? Tell more bad sexist jokes? You’re not funny except to look at.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 13, 2005 at 4:50 PM Luminous Beauty,
Don’t you just love this evading the issue by using personal attacks MO? Rush has done a terrific job at raising a generation of self-deceiving, hate-mongering, non-reality based lie-lovers.
The Univesity of Minnesota/Wisconsin (don’t remember which and don’t want to go back right now for that)professor writing for Pravda? Does Pravda, the Soviet mouthpiece, still exist? Thought that fell after the Wall. Seems unlikely that in 2001 they would be recruiting work from a US Professor. But he throws that out to discredit a source that is an American academic paper using mostly CIA resources. Guilt by implication…more Conversational Terrorism 101. These Republicans sure seem to love that approach, as you never have to prove anything and you can blanket-negate anything anyone else says. It is an immature and false tactic to true discussion. Hence, they’re called trolls. Ugly little evil things that live in dark caves or sewery holes and wish to do people harm. What a perfect analogy.
U Scare Me has been a shrill screamer on several other threads on ITT, but now he turns it on frustrated LB because LB is tired of having his words twisted and perverted. But USM plays the “righteous indignation” card now, though he himself is very guilty of the same.
Posted by Margaret on May 13, 2005 at 4:59 PM Margaret,
**but now he turns it on frustrated LB because LB is tired of having his words twisted and perverted.**
I didn’t know Luminous Beauty was a guy. For some reason I made a false assumption. I’m sorry and retract my sexist attempt at humor.
I hope you all have a good weekend, really.
Posted by U Scare Me on May 13, 2005 at 5:23 PM Margaret;
USM likes to think well of itself, doesn’t it? I return its lame attempt at ‘humor’ (read; brain-dead juvenile sarcasm) with a little pointed irony and ‘I’m’ angry. It has all the perceptual brilliance of a dog turd. Not smart, even for a troll.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 13, 2005 at 5:25 PM If I were a woman, sexist humor would be appropriate, I take it? How stupid is this moron?
Posted by luminous beauty on May 13, 2005 at 5:30 PM Epi,
Again, interesting links, thanks. I’ve read excerpts from Stephen Schwartz - The Two Faces of Islam and I just read the Steven Emerson article. I’ll add the others to my ever-growing list.
You wrote, “I don’t think they [Islamic moderates] have lost, but I think they are losing. In any discussion it is very hard for them to stand up to the Salafists. The Salafi know the quran, and the quran says some very harsh things. You can’t fight what the quran says because it is perfect. So if you seem to disagree, the salafists then declare you apostate and off they go….to physical intimidation.”
Even so, I don’t think that means they are winning. My earlier point still holds I believe. The shrill and ever louder denouncement of all opposition seems to me to be a defensive strategy, not an offensive one. If it is offensive, it is indirect - namely to bring the West, particularly the Christian centric US, into the fray. On that score they seem to have been successful. This is not to say that getting involved was or is a mistake. The mistake, as I see it, is that we (The US) are involved on the radicals terms. Worse, we are not helping the moderates. We seem to be hurting them, in fact. Our rhetoric and, more importantly, our actions, which are predominantly based on our military strength, only inflame the fire.
To use an analogy, sometimes it is best to fight fire with fire and only a very foolish firefighter would not keep that option available. But very often a better option is to remove the fuel to the fire. Nothing to burn = no fire. If we can show by our deeds that we and, by extension, the West, do not want to start a modern crusade, the radical Islamists will fail. But limiting ourselves to militarily wiping out the insurgents is worse than a lost cause, it actually aids the very group we are trying to defeat, while weakening the majority we want to help.
Emerson’s article brings up a separate, but important point. There are terrorists among us I’m sure. And we do need to be more vigilant. Several changes brought about by the Patriot Act were long overdue. But there are limits. I think any law rushed through Congress deserves review, but especially one that has such far reaching implications (potentially abrogating pieces of the 1st, 4th and 5th Amendments in particular). Emerson warns that everything changed after 9/11 and yet nothing has - implying that we are still extremely vulnerable to attack from the radical Islamists. Perhaps, but I contend that we do not have to sacrifice the liberties so many have fought and died for just because we are now worried about what might happen next. Vigilance is the watchword, not fear.
Posted by tomkin on May 13, 2005 at 6:44 PM And at the risk of overstepping…
I have, for the most part, very much enjoyed reading the many posts this topic has generated. As I suspect all you have as well. Why else would you still be here? Just please remember that you are writing for a wider audience than you might think.
Posted by tomkin on May 13, 2005 at 6:55 PM epi;
You give me Dershowitz. I give you Edward Said.
http://www.progressive.org/0901/intv1101.html
Does Finkelstein’s criticism of Dershowitz’s plagiarism and sloppy scholarship constitute rebuttal of his entire life’s work? I didn’t think so. Even if he lies about it.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 13, 2005 at 7:41 PM Tomkin, that was way too moderate and considerate of a post. You must:
1) bold something
2) include a URL
3) use either the word neocon or obfuscation
4) bring up Bush or his daddy (and you must use the word daddy)
5) never use the word thanks (unless it is in a “thanks—-hole” kind of way)Just trying to create congruity here.
Posted by Curious on May 13, 2005 at 8:14 PM Curious,
Your attempt at humor just shows the general mindset of the Repulican posters on this thread. When you go back and read the bits that have genuine conversation and fact-sharing, you find none of the attributes you have so nicely placed in numeric order.
Once the trolls come on, smoke and mirrors become the rule of exchange, with plenty of insults and ad hominem attacks thrown in to show “superiority”.
I used the word “obfuscation” originally, as I prefer to remain succinct and germaine, and that is exactly what Epi had done to my post. He could not refute my point, so he went into some kind of weird “psycho-babble” that had nothing to do with the subject at hand. It was used only once by me to describe his response, not as a trite put-down. LB and Epi then used it once each. Didn’t see it elsewhere, did you?
It is funny that the party that represents our new, non-democratic one-party dictatorship (it will be after next Wed. or Thu. according to my phone conversation with Senator Kennedy yesterday)is so obsessed with squashing every bit of conversation that doesn’t support their agenda. I believe that’s called “fascism”.
Welcome to the Republican “dream world”.
Posted by Margaret on May 14, 2005 at 12:17 AM How to End the War…?
Hmmm, here’s a couple ideas:
-Take away the tax cuts that Bush gave to his “base” and say we’re doing it so we could pay for said war. That might do it. Those people tend to be awfully f’in attached to their money.
-Or we could make a law stating that only 18-22 year-olds whose parents made more than $100,000 in annual income would be sent to “protect our freedom”. Ya know, I’m pretty sure that would do it.
-Or, how ‘bout we pass some law that says you can’t declare ill-begotten war on false pretenses if yer “daddy” got you out of another ill-begotten war on false pretenses. Probably not gonna work, since it’s retroactive.
-Here’s another. A law that says anyone who is driving a gas-guzzling SUV (let’s just limit it to those that get less than 13 MPG) with an “I support our troops” logo on it can be pulled over at any time, their heads shaved and then given a free ticket on the next boat to Iraq. Yeah, that would definitely do the trick.
Posted by Matt H. on May 14, 2005 at 3:17 AM Matt
Here’s another one
Actually make sure that people who make $100,000 in income
pay the same percentage of tax that the people who make minimum wage do.which has not been raised -adjusted for inflation- for years.
that is until the ” war ” is over.
Posted by RB on May 14, 2005 at 7:05 AM Hi, Tomkin I want to discuss with you first. I think many if the rest are just in a battle of the sources (which can only have one end, but more on that later).
BTW, I will say again for those whose arrogant exclusivist rhetoric demands ultra-obedience to the party line..something they accuse the repubs of..I am a registered democrat. I expect that to continue. We have worked and volunteered for the party in the NH primaries. We have hosted for months, guest workers for the party here during primary season. The mere fact that I am ‘smeared’ (in their minds as evil I supposed) as a republican should cause every single person in here to wonder WHY disagreement over certain specific policies causes such desperate attempts at expulsion.............
Okay so…what metric do we have for deciding if the salafi/sunni tamiyya crowd is winning..none that I know of. Is it the number of KSA funded mosques opening (here)? Is it the changes in ‘rhetoric’ (I don’t think it is rhetoric, I think it is real) coming from certain places? Is it the number of bombings non-iraq related incidents around the world (just the number in southern Thailand alone this past 2 weeks is daunting)? I Don’t know any objective way to decide.However, the object of what we regard as loons is not to bring us into the fray. It is to unite the ummah under their banner because this is God’s will. There is no crafty plan here to prick us here and there until we ‘retake’ the holy land proving all they say, and they have been saying it for a long time now.
In going back over Stephen Coll’s huge history of US involvement in Afghanistan, it turns out that beginning in Sept of 1990 (Saddam’s invasion) the Shaykhs there were preaching that the treading of US boots on their soil was ‘only for oil’ and that before long we would be at their women, they would be slaves,yadda yadda.I’m sure you know the litany . A mini revolt occured and “Article of Demands” was presented to the Al Saud.. Obviously these dire warning were false, slavery hasn’t happened, and we left, as advertised, when asked. Yet the attitudes have not only not changed, they (as any perusal of Saudi publications shows) become more strident. Even in the English Arab News (and astonishingly on their WEB SITE as well)David Duke was a regular columnist. Now Duke of course, has certain negative connotations to say the least. His presence is emblematic of one the underlying hopeless impetuses..that we are zionist controlled and always have been. The Arab News had repeated over and over that Duke was representative of real ‘america’. Can you imagine? Sounds absurd right? Keep that in mind. I cannot tell you how many times I have said.. ‘but that’s absurd’. Protocols of the Elders of Zion (still a best seller), Mein Kampf - best seller, etc
There are 2 running themes in many of my discussions with the bank managers, IT chiefs, oil engineers,another medial researcher, several doctors, and I believe what may be one syrian or iranian govt person. One is that the capitalist system we live under is evil,>> lead to licentious, alchoholic, crime, fathers raping daughters, blah blah.(And Islam prevents this).the other is for lack of a better way to describe it, the ‘jew’ thing. Now what is alarming (and ironically for the most part discussions are more polite than aything going on with the intolerant IMHO Marg or LB here) is that the people I intersect with are the creme de la creme .. the ‘liberals’.
Posted by epaminondas on May 14, 2005 at 12:53 PM More for you Tomkin
To be sure many of them argue we are in everyone’s business..but just as sure is that when Lebanon happened, and the vote in Iraq, and Mubarak made his announcment, there WAS a change. You could feel it in the nature of the comments. Thus far from doing ill we may have actually delivered something which may change the equation. One person in particular whose anti american hatreds, and virulent anit semitism which he claimed was based in the quran, kept his prejudices, but stated adamantly that the freedom for the Iraqis, must now be preserved, and that incipient self determination had to be supported. He is in London.
So I’m saying that it must be considered that the neocon way may be right, in this instance, at this time. As Max Hastings of the Guardian wonders, as writers in the left of ctr New Republic wonder. It must be considered that unlike the 1953 Mossadegh “paleo” con disaster from which there is a straight line to Khomeini, what we have done and are doing is a force for ultimately good change. It is not a mandate for a policy to roll up nations one after the other, it may be a fulcrum point to tip the islamist war our way by adding human freedom in the ME, and subtracting just those autocrts who for whatever reasons have strangled human development.
Democracy does come at the point of gun, as it did in 1945.
Freedom does come from armies on the march. Appomatox.Compared to the tidal size of those forces, Halliburton et al are ripples.
“The Success of this occupation can only be judged in 50 years. If at that time they have a stable democracy, then we shall have succeeded”
Dwight Eisenhower, October 1945
Posted by epaminondas on May 14, 2005 at 12:57 PM Margaret
1) Here’s your link for Pravda and Chussovsky
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/09/25/16164.html2)Here are other links to what is apparently his article (History BOOK <>ARTICLE) compete with sources
http://www.cqs.com/binladen.htm
http://www.antiwar.com/rep/chuss10.html3) There are NO, NONE, ZERO, NADA references to declassified CIA reports stating the CIA was aware and approving in any manner of Bin Laden .. HERE is the reference list
# Hugh Davies, International: “‘Informers’ point the finger at bin Laden”; Washington on alert for suicide bombers, The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998.
# See Fred Halliday, “The Un-great game: the Country that lost the Cold War, Afghanistan,” New Republic, 25 March 1996):
# Ahmed Rashid, “The Taliban: Exporting Extremism,” Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999.
# Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992.
# Dilip Hiro, “Fallout from the Afghan Jihad,” Inter Press Services, 21 November 1995.
# Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted Clark; 16 August 1998.
# Ibid.
# Dipankar Banerjee; “Possible Connection of ISI With Drug Industry,” India Abroad, 2 December 1994.
# Ibid
# See Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995. See also the review of Cordovez and Harrison in International Press Services, 22 August 1995.
# Alfred McCoy, “Drug fallout: the CIA’s Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade,” The Progressive; 1 August 1997.
# Ibid
# Ibid.
# Douglas Keh, “Drug Money in a Changing World,” Technical document no 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations Publication, Vienna 1999, p 49-51, and Richard Lapper, “UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade,” Financial Times, 24 February 2000.
# Report of the International Narcotics Control Board, op cit, p 49-51, see also Richard Lapper, op. cit.
# International Press Services, 22 August 1995.
# Ahmed Rashid, “The Taliban: Exporting Extremism,” Foreign Affairs, November- December, 1999, p. 22.
# Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998)
# Tim McGirk, “Kabul learns to live with its bearded conquerors,” The Independent, London, 6 November1996.
# See K. Subrahmanyam, “Pakistan is Pursuing Asian Goals,” India Abroad, 3 November 1995.
# Levon Sevunts, “Who’s calling the shots?: Chechen conflict finds Islamic roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” The Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999.
# Ibid
# Ibid.
# See Vitaly Romanov and Viktor Yadukha, “Chechen Front Moves To Kosovo,” Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000.
# The European, 13 February 1997, See also Itar-Tass, 4-5 January 2000.
# BBC, 29 September 1999).4) He makes several references to the CIA knowing what was going on, but as BOTH exhaustive hitories make perfectly clear…
No equipment was allowed to TOUCH pakistan unless the ISI took ownership, and this includes the captured iraqi gulf war equipment which went to Helmatyar and Haqqani
No $$ was allowed to transferred directly to mujahideen (in fact, we had to fly a man into Massoud’s area to get him money)
You author actually USES Steve Coll who wrote Ghost Wars as a source, and that quote asserts just what I have been saying.
Finally as both of the histories make clear.. our guy was Massoud, who not coincidentally was murdered via 2 Al Qaeda suicide bombers posing as reporters on 9/9 2001CONT>>
Posted by epaminondas on May 14, 2005 at 1:37 PM And as Prince Turki (KSA head of Intelleigence) made clear in both books, and interviews at at the time quoted in those books, Bin Laden 100% of the time, has his own sources of funding, his own stream of volunteers, and conducted his own campaign most of which took place during the Afghan civil wars, NOT during the soviet occupation. In fact the US cut off completely funding and equipment thru the ISI when Hekmatyar and Haqqani came out against US participation in the Gulf War as anti Islamic.
In fact just to be sure I went back over every mention of Bin Laden in the index of Ghost Wars.
These claims the US tacitly approved of Bin Laden at the time are just not supported by facts.
He ran his own show, with hs own sources, and his own men. He would never ‘taint’ his effort with crusader help, nor would his tawhid allow him to be greeting cross worshippers working at the behest of zionists. He is Salafi. He was taught by supreme salafists. One of them STILL teaches at Abdul Aziz U.
Posted by epaminondas on May 14, 2005 at 1:38 PM Norman Finkelstein, the author of a self hating book, which claims, like someone around here that jews excuse everything due to the holocaust, and they have turned the immolation of european jewry purposefully into a profitable industry, is a very dangerous source to be using against someone like Alan Dershowitz.
Here’s your response:
http://www.explore-society.com/society/D/Dershowitz-Finkelstein_affair.htmlHere’s another:
http://encyclopedia.lockergnome.com/s/b/Dershowitz-Finkelstein_affairFinkelstein is an execrable human being who is not highly regarded himself anywhere academically unless it’s in David Irving’s circles.
How far are you going to go?
What sources are you willing to use?
I promise you Ed Said is FAR better as a human, and as a fact gatherer than Finkelstein. Even David Duke uttered some facts in his life, but I wouldn’t be one to quote him as on my side in anything even it was to agree the sky was blue.
Posted by epaminondas on May 14, 2005 at 1:48 PM The ‘goodness’ of sources..
When an asserton is made I usu. try to take a central portion of it and put it in quotes and give it a 30 second ‘google’ test to see what’s what.
If I were to make an assertion in which the central thesis turns out to be wildy adopted by:
rense.com (US controls the weather)
azzo.com
ccc (cofcc.org) (No not the Christchurch City Council)
stormfront.com (neo nazis)
Institute for Historical review (Holocaust deniers)
and some other which are esentially copies by other names…I would find this troubling. Some try to make the case that this is guilt by association. Nothing could be futher from the truth.
It should be a cause for hesitiation b4 assertion that one is about to argue for the same point which lunatics, aryan nation freakazoids, neo nazis and other assorted foaming and frothing grassy knoll fanatics are trying to make.
Counterpunch falls somewhere between these hideous sources and the Nation. They would like to have authors who don’t fall in that cateory (of being picked up by crazies and real fascists and racists), but sometimes do.
A complete list of hate organization’s web sites is usu availble at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s web site. Another one is also available thru the ADL web site.
Posted by epaminondas on May 14, 2005 at 2:03 PM Good grief! Finkelstein is a ‘self-hating Jew’! Slander as argument again. At least you are consistent. I have no idea who Finkelstein is, I just look at the text. Dershowitz lifted large sections of another writer’s work and claimed it for his own. ipso facto.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 14, 2005 at 2:09 PM Not Slander…
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=349122
truthHaving read the book, I can tell you that Joan Peters is credited EXHAUSTIVELY
This is another example of running to publish what backs up what you want to believe before having any idea if what backs you up is creditable.
Finkelstein is just a modified David Irving. It’s Dershowitz who’s been slandered and that’s why Harvard rejected the entire claim.
Posted by epaminondas on May 14, 2005 at 2:14 PM And more…
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=349102Finkelstein failed to prove his claims…THAT is slander, not my FACTUAL description of who Finkelstein is.
I know who he is since he has been widely quoted by arabs, and indeed when his claims are examined, as Dershowitz has asserted, they don’t seem very factual in many cases.
Check the sources
Posted by epaminondas on May 14, 2005 at 2:20 PM Peters was only credited with points that Dershowitz wanted to distance himself from. Those that he wished to embrace he cleverly inserted into his text without attribution. He was clever enough to change things around enough that his defenders could successfully argue that because it was not word-for-word it was not technically plagiarism. Sophistry is not a defence in my court, and you are in my court. If you want my consideration, you would be better served if you displayed a little intellectual honesty.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 14, 2005 at 2:23 PM And please, stop SHOUTING. It doesn’t help your cause.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 14, 2005 at 2:28 PM Epi, You should really drop the poor abused seeker of truth act. Your basic premise is that we are a bunch of ignorant, deluded, un-informed mindless followers of the party line, who should crumble beneath the shear weight of your superior wisdom. If you are starting from a hostile position there is no sense complaining if that hostility is returned to some degree. As ‘intolerant’ as you may find Margaret and myself, we have been nothing but willing to discuss your ideas. However, your arrogance, and unwillingness to consider any source of information that doesn’t ascribe itself to your particular ideological bias is frustrating to say the least.
As to your basic argument that ‘we’ should fall silent, self-censor, suppress, ignore, pretend no significance toward the fact of Bush’s objective criminality if not outright illegality of this ongoing mess’o'potamia, fugedabowdit.
Your vain and demonstrably sophist comparisons with WWII are particularily disturbing.
1. Whether FDR manipulated the Japanese to attack first, or not, the Japanese did initiate aggression. Saddam Hussein was not in any way responsible for 9/11.
2. We weren’t signatories of the U.N. in 1941. The last time I looked at the Constitution, treaties (international law) that the U.S. are signitories of are U.S. law.
3. the ‘Pacific Plan’ to make Japan the centerpiece of the American Empire of East Asia was original as far as I know to the McKinley administration. But he died and Roosevelt and Taft had their hands full with a Philippine insurgency that had some kind of irrational aversion to being ‘liberated’ from the Spanish. Sound familiar?
You seem fixated on winning elections over standing on principle. I’m really concerned more about the long term consequences of the criminal actions of those who claim to represent my country, than putting more obsequious, spineless fence-sitting Democrats like Lieberman and Biden in office.Here is some small evidence that the patient and unflagging pursuit of truth and justice is worthwhile;
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=589&e=1&u=/ap/200 050514/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/chile_human_rights
Now, if we could just get Hank Kissinger into a hotel room in the Hague.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 14, 2005 at 2:30 PM What is the factual basis of the term ‘self-hating Jew’? I’m curious.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 14, 2005 at 2:49 PM I am not abused
1) Whether or not FDR manupulated the japanese is irrelevent, I am saying it can be argued that his use of the neutrality patrol to get us in against germany is no different from anything today. And his acts are regarded today unquestionably as moral and correct (because they were). And…Iraq having nothing to do with 9/11 is irrelevant. It’s a battle not a separate war. The people of Peleliu and Tonga had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor but were “invaded” by the US just the same. Same for scores of others
2) What are you talking about? In relation to what?Spineless, hmmmm, perhaps you should be as concerned as these spineless men with those criminals who use religion to attack the american people, and our way of life, and our freedoms of epression because they believe god has given them this right? But it’s so much easier to blame us, isn’t it?
Since you haven’t read the “Case for Israel” why do you simply accept what the claims of Finklestein are as correct? Peters was sourced enough for me to go out and get her stuff long before Finkelstein made his clearly politcally motivated and attention seeking smear. Her work is seminal and that’s why it’s used. The whole thing occurs because he obliterates Finkelstein’s work (and his means of earning money touring campuses) within the book.
Posted by epaminondas on May 14, 2005 at 2:49 PM I’m not particularily moved by guilt by association. Especially when the associations are partisan slanders of people who disagree with your ideology.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 14, 2005 at 2:54 PM As I have come to understand it, and had it explained…there are those who rather than face the actions and deeds required to repulse racism, instead blame their race/religion with some/all the faults the racists claim. This both releases their false guilt, and releases them from having to act and speak against the racism directed at them, and the moral and physical risks this entails.
Sometimes this can be used in reverse as a poltical smear..for instance against those who oppose settlement expansion. That imho, is a wrong application.
However, in Finkelstein’s case it is correct, for it fulfills (for instance) the ancient money things and jews, and it is consistent throughout his works.
This is one case where searching the web for this phrase (I bet) would result in more confusion, not more information.
Posted by epaminondas on May 14, 2005 at 3:04 PM It has nothing to do with your ideological disagreements with Finkelstein. Look up ipso facto. You really need to learn to discern the difference between an objective reading and ideological screed. You would do well to study Chomsky in this regard, but then you hate Chomsky because he’s a self-hating Jew who doesn’t denounce who you wish him to.
Posted by luminous beauty on May 14, 2005 at 3:05 PM -
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