When 300,000 protesters assembled in New York City in late April urging President George W. Bush to “bring all the troops home now,” the response from the Bush administration was familiar: silence. Despite polls showing that majorities of Americans now believe the war was a mistake, Washington has no plans for ending the occupation of Iraq, either now or any… return to article
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Reader Comments (207)The newest twist in the Progressive road to nowhere is George Soros’ money and Kos’ white-hot passion for leftist nonsense and self-aggrandizement. Soros and friends spent increasingly tens of millions of dollars in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 election cycles in an effort to promote their communist ideology, with ever decreasing results. Now they think that they can do better in 2006 and 2008, with no confirming data whatsoever.
Kos has made a very large stir within a very small friendly audience on the Internet, but wait until the American people experience Kos’ hatred- and obscenity-laced rants; talk about a clash of cultures! At my last count, Kos had selected twenty leftist candidates as worthy of his support, and endorsed and helped fund their election campaigns; every single one of Kos’ candidates has lost, as if endorsement by Kos is the kiss of death. Kos has been reduced to claiming dubious moral victories when his candidates are not beaten too badly.
But such real power as the leftists actually possess is within the halls of Congress and in the Democratic Party establishment. Fortunately, the Democratic leadership in Congress exhibits the epitome of political ineptness, just like their communist heroes. Pelosi qualifies as a leftist apparatchik, while Reid is trying to straddle his conservative roots, the fairly broad Democratic base, and the Kos barbarians. Meanwhile, Screaming Howard Dean has seized the DNC and is pursuing his own vision and presidential goals by broadly supporting Democratic Party state organizations, while the Democratic Congressional leadership wants to concentrate on specific competitive local elections; consequently, Democratic resources are being pissed away on conflicting objectives.
Meanwhile, back in the real jungle, we Americans build democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, inspire democracies in Eastern Europe, Lebanon, and elsewhere, and have the finest, most productive, large economy in the world. And somehow the communists think they can improve on what we have achieved, using as resources Soros, Kos, Dean, Pelosi, Reid, Sulzburger, and Ward Churchill. How novel! How quaint! How stupid can you get?
And the Republicans just keep puttering along, getting things right, in the face of domestic leftist negativism, Jihadist headhunting and human sacrifice, European weakness and loss of direction, Chinese and Russian hostility, Irani efforts to build a bomb, UN corruption and incompetence, and other minor problems. Is this a wonderful world, or what?
Posted by scorp on Jun 13, 2006 at 11:10 AM Scorp,
On the issue of fascist regimes you played with semantics. In this way you avoided the issue of irrefutable US involvement in third world rightist dictatorships. The definition of fascism as a modern political typeology steming mainly from Europe as a nationalist dictatorship of the far right is irrelevant. US support for countless rightist dictatorships in the third world is the issue. They were unforgivable, attrocious, led to needless suffering, and, in the case of the middle east, led to intractable problems which were have today inherited. Let’s focus on this instead of the various definitions of a complex political phenomenon like Fascism which is a whole other can of worms.
The crimes of Mao and Stalin were vast and unjustifiable. We temporarily supported both when the German/Japanese Axis was understood to be the greater threat to world security and to the very fate of human civilization. Yet it must be understood that while the fascist regimes we linked forces with the communists to militarily defeat were unrelentingly aggressive and unreformable. They were brutal, racist, and malignant. They were inherently unstable, unsustainable, and creating irreversible damage and had to be stopped. Russian and China, on the other hand, were vast countries with enormous populations. Their revolutions met with a crisis of modernization and a need to reform and modernize vast areas that were highly diverse in many ways. This daunting task predisposed each country toward centralized and dictatorial leadership. The historic context is also relevant. Both countries faced war, invasion, social crisis, blockades, and stubborn ideological hostility from the west. Western support for these revolutions could have led to different outcomes. Nevertheless, these regimes loosened up and reformed. Post Stalinist Russia saw greater consumer goods production and freedoms. The post Maoist reforms led to a total capitalist revolution which is today seen as the fourth great industrial revolution after the UK, the US, and Japan. The Chinese workers are suffering greatly today but ALL industrial revolutions suppress consumption in favor of investment even the most capitalist ones! They also are nationally based beginning with primary and intermediate goods (feedstocks) as well as infrastructure like roads and railways that link the nation together. Only later is the consumer goods phase dominant.This is less true of the Chinese industrial revolution which is more global and more dependant on Foreign Direct Investment and foreign markets for its expansion.This is largely because China’s industrial revolution corresponds to a different stage of global capitalism’s historic development with a high degree of global concentration of manufacturing investment in certain countries and the rise of the global corporation. The global division of labor is also concentrating specific activities more than past industrial revolutions had done. Nonetheless, the communist experience of Russia and China was one of unification and modernization more than ideology.
Fascism as a political term is not just an epithet or term of derision but corresponds to repressive, rightist dictatorship. Fascism uses nationalism and romantic national mythology in order to create the popular impression of an organic historic linkage of the nation to the soil on which it stands and a rigid social bonding over the contrived sense of a common “national destiny.” There is real debate over whether or not there is such a thing a fascist ideology. Fascism has been described as a “politics of spontineity” whereby “action”, rather than organizing or ideology, is the force which galvanizes a movement. A sudden violent or bellicose act serves to create nascent bonds of solidarity amongst small organized groups whose efforts expand outward into an emerging national agenda creating a new nationalist consciousness in the process and generating support for a growing fascist movement. Further spontanious violent and aggressive acts are romanticized as “national salvation” while villifying democratic political forms as weak and corrupt until Fascist forces ultimately take state power. Fascism’s spontineity delinks it briefly from central organization and long-term planning and strategy. Fascism’s appeal is as the “politics of the moment.” It is in this sense that fascism is the ultimate existential political movement. Its meaning is defined as it gradually unfolds.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 13, 2006 at 4:26 PM Scorp....consideriing the fact that all of the rights you enjoy as an employee in the United States...were fought for and won by progressive political movements...40 hr. work week...workmens comp..etc...but then again you don’t have a job....anyway if you had a job...the rights you enjoy as an employee you owe to progressives worker movements....and considering the attack that the neo-con right-wing Fascist are engaged in against middle class working folks & unions ; that caused the down fall of corporations like Enron thus I assume your contractor employment......Why do you continue too lubricate your own posterior...for the ensuing drubbing that seems to be heading your way when the neo-cons get all they want....do you enjoy being screwed....do you think they will recognize you...and say don’t screw over Scorp , he’s our man....how long have you been this delusional....are you on medication ....or is it just child-like self-centered ingratitude...of the amerikan persuasion..?...?....?....Strraaannge.......Strange indeed…
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 13, 2006 at 5:18 PM CDC -
My points about your “fascist dictatorships” were:
1) that your use of the term is factually inaccurate. After WWII there were many power vacuums, filled by many warlords, some of whom espoused one political philosophy or another, with or without adhering to their chosen philosophy’s precepts, or none at all. Idi Amin was a Muslim cannibal; he was not a communist, which you would have embraced, but neither was he a fascist. Castro was a warlord that pledged communism, much to the astonishment of the Soviet Union, which had to scramble to accommodate their latest, and unanticipated, satellite. But the Soviets were not nearly as astonished as the Eastern Europeans, who would have done anything to get out of the Soviet orbit, where they were stuck, much against their wills. Noriega was a drug dealer. Allende was “elected” with a 36% plurality with KGB help, and promptly installed socialist policies that wrecked the economy: inflation was 140% in 1972, GDP declined three straight years, and basic foodstuffs were unavailable except on the black market. Pinochet kicked Allende out and installed free market reforms; in 2003, Chile had the freest economy in Latin America, number twenty in the world, according to Economic Freedom of the World, with concomitant personal freedom. The leftist rap on Allende always includes the fact that 3000 not-so-innocents died in the coup to depose Allende, which is a strange argument for leftists to make, since leftists killed about 100 million innocents in the twentieth century.
2) that you approve of any government or dictatorship you deem to be leftist, regardless of how odious, and disapprove of any government or dictatorship, no matter how beneficent, that you deem to be fascist, which includes everyone but your favored leftists.
3) that you are so lacking in discrimination that the term “fascist dictatorship” has become meaningless and harmless from lack of critical analysis and overuse.
So, how do you stack up against my criteria?
The definition of fascism as a modern political typeology steming mainly from Europe as a nationalist dictatorship of the far right is irrelevant.
Typical leftist twaddle. A definition is right or wrong, and only becomes irrelevant if it is wrong. You are trying to define forms of government according to your personal likes and dislikes and your Marxist ideology, which is nonsense, of course. I know that is what they are teaching in post-modernism, and that you will believe what you like. But I hope your silly definitions will achieve demonstrated irrelevance as a result of the electoral process, without a war. Either way, you will lose.
Continue ...
Posted by scorp on Jun 14, 2006 at 7:06 AM US support for countless rightist dictatorships in the third world is the issue. They were unforgivable, attrocious, led to needless suffering, and, in the case of the middle east, led to intractable problems which were have today inherited.
Right. Before the USA came along, the whole world was sweetness and light, and then we came in installing rightist dictatorships right and left, for no good reason, and its all our fault. Umm, wait, that’s not what really happened, is it?
The world has always been a bloodthirsty place, the founding of the United States substantially raised the sweetness and light factor, the founding of the technological communist dictatorships made the world substantially worse than it has ever been in history, even worse than fascism, and the communists sought to spread their malevolent sickness around the globe. The United States and the democracies beat the communists at their own game, aided immeasurably by the communists’ own corruption, inefficiency, and ideological blindness. Defeating the communists in the Cold War resulted in significant doses of sweetness and light being restored to a suffering world. Yeah, that’s better.
The root of your own ideological blindness is your uncritical acceptance of Marxist positions on class conflict and the inevitablity of socialism. If we opposed the KGB in Latin America and Africa, we must surely be “fascists”! We were supposed to roll over and play dead, because Marx said so! Well, no, we are just democrats doing our jobs. Marx was an odoriferous jerk. He not only had extremely limited insight to the workings of economics, he had much less insight into the workings of psychology, particularly his own. And you have bought into the Marxist nonsense. What do you want me to do about it?
Yet it must be understood that while the fascist regimes we linked forces with the communists to militarily defeat were unrelentingly aggressive and unreformable. They were brutal, racist, and malignant. They were inherently unstable, unsustainable, and creating irreversible damage and had to be stopped. Russian (sic) and China, on the other hand ...
Your description of “fascist regimes” is good enough, but then you say, “Russian and China, on the other hand ... “ Russia and China on the other hand what? The remainder of your paragraph is a communist crock. I defy you to show me how Russia and China were less “unrelentingly aggressive and unreformable”, less “brutal, racist, and malignant”, less “inherently unstable, unsustainable, and creating irreversible damage”, than nazi Germany and militarist Japan were. On sheer body count alone the communists killed ten times as many innocents than the nazis did. “Unrelentingly aggressive”? The “fascist dictatorships” you are complaining about were a direct response to communist unrelenting aggression. “Unreformable, brutal, racist, and malignant”? That’s the communists, OK, except China is beginning to reform; but then China is no longer communist. Still totalitarian, but not communist. “Unstable, unsustainable, and creating irreversible damage”? Damn, I could swear that sounds just like the Soviet experience as the Soviet Union collapsed. But the Chinese were smarter than the Russians, and have been moving sharply away from communist nonsense, with only thirty million dead in the Great Leap Backward and the Cultural Devolution.
Continue ...
Posted by scorp on Jun 14, 2006 at 7:12 AM Nonetheless, the communist experience of Russia and China was one of unification and modernization more than ideology.
Unification? Why, sure! When the Soviet Union collapsed, all of Eastern Europe and the tier of states on Russia’s southern border were ready, willing, and able to remain as vassal states in the new Russian Empire, which replaced the old Soviet Empire. And Taiwan, Tibet, and the Uigurs of Xinjiang are eager to come under Chinese communist subjugation. Do you realize just how fucking stupid you sound?
The ideologically driven Soviets conquered and subdued Eastern Europe, just as the Czars conquered and subdued the states on Russia’s southern and southwestern borders. I don’t recall the Soviets giving Chechnya the opportunity to opt out of the Soviet Union; on the contrary, the Chechens were killed and exiled from their homeland in one of the greatest genocides in history. What do you think the thirty-year war in Chechnya is about, anyway?
Your absurd ideological take on every historical topic leaves you floundering in acquired ignorance and irrelevance. No wonder Democrats can’t win elections, they don’t even know what is going on in the real world.
Posted by scorp on Jun 14, 2006 at 7:16 AM Frog, Redhorse, Scorp:
I haven’t run for cover or anything like that, but for the last couple days I have been unable to access the discussion on just this article. Even now I am only at page 1 and thought I would seen at least this comment.
This is the first time I have gotten to the submit box. What happens is when the window opens all comments are way off to the right of my screen. If I don’t scroll left first the part which was not showing is cropped right there.
Then after shifting it to the left and scrolling down it cuts off in mid message.
May Jobs and Gates rot in hell surrounded by hardware, software and the Iraqi electrical grid.
Hey, I like that one.
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 14, 2006 at 7:18 AM Frog, Redhorse, Scorp:
Finally I was able to catch up. It looks like the discussion really deteriorated while I was out. More heat than light.
Back to the topic—OK?
Summary:
The article stated that while many Iraqis want us out, they are afraid of the consequences if we leave prematurely.We have (I think) agreement between Frog and Redhorse that we should pull out our troops ASAP and never should have gone there.
Scorp sees more progress toward democracy and gradual Iraqi takeover of responsibility than I do.
We probably can agree Saddam is/was/and always would be bad for freedom loving people anywhere.My own views sum up as follows:
1. Saddam could/should have been removed in 1991, but could have been neutralized as a threat to the U.S. or our interests with far less involvement in 2003. The motives for our being there may vary, but oil is no doubt a major one.
2. Setting democratization of Iraq, while a noble thought, was stupid (probably a sales point to swing some support) and showed a lack of knowledge of the areas history.
3. The situation in Iraq post combat was poorly planned and not being intelligently addressed. To stabilize the country we need sufficient military troops to seal off the major cities and eventually the borders. (My historical examples were only to illustrate that our past shows this approach worked in WW2 and the Korean War, but was not applied in Vietnam nor Iraq.)
4. The threat of radical Islamists is real, international, of longstanding and building. It will continue indefinitely and requires international cooperation.
Hope I can get back again.
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 14, 2006 at 7:59 AM WTH...I can agree with your 1991 date for removal of Hussian...but first 4 quick observations...1 ;Kuwait was slant drilling and stealing Iraq oil...2 ;U..S. thru Rummy makes friends with Saddam back in ‘80’s ; then OK’s Iraq invasion of Kuwiat , after invasion U.S denouces invasion and turns on Saddam...3 ; Saddam says he want Euros not U.S. petro dollars for oil....4 ; Bush comes into power thru selection not election...oil is 18 dollars a barrel.. ; Sense invasion of Iraq price of a barrel of oil is 73 dollsrs a barrel....I submit to you Sir ...that OIL was the only REASON..................I really do not believe that under any troop numbers this...OIL...Operation Iraq Liberation would have been less or more successful ; it was just the wrong objective from the get go....plus international law was violated...legally and morally incorrect...period ! ! Now as far as radical extremist ...we had a kid arrested just the other day in Prince Georges County , Md...right outside Washington,D.C. to the east of the city...just a kid , 18 years old....the police found a pipe bomb and plans too blow up an abortion clinic...young christian extremist...white kid...pipe bomb...terrorist plot...it’s not a Muslim / Islam thing ; Jesus / Christian thing............it’s about tolerance vs. a lack of tolerance..........................................true.
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 14, 2006 at 7:01 PM Scorp,
You are as abusive as you are stupid. What does the broad conquest of peripheral vassel states have to do with ideology or modernization? They’re separate issues. Why does the fact that these old empires broke up after the fall of communism, deligitimize the idea that communist regimes in their inception faced the daunting tasks of modernization as well as recovery and stabilization from war and its drastic effects. Obviously all these issues contributed to the brutality of regimes which reformed later under different circumstances! This was my main point. Scorp, I don’t know who or what you are but you suffer from the most acute case of mindless, white male rage syndrome I ever encountered. You don’t LISTEN to others or pay close attention to what they say. You show no respect. You’re arrogant. And most of all, like most such individuals, you don’t know all that much!!!!!! In addition, you insult people. I don’t know if your are a paid shill to peruse the left blogs and harass people but if that is the case you certainly well display the low grade mentality of the dogmatic right-wing morons with whom you keep company.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 14, 2006 at 7:18 PM Scorp,
Your history is total garbage! Fascist regimes which emerged in Europe in the 1920s and 30s were not a response to communist aggression. This is absurd. What communist aggression? Lenin surrendered huge tracts of territory to Poland to the point that interwar Poland was only 60% Polish speaking. The Fascists in Europe were the outcome of the crisis of capitalism and to the potential restiveness of the working classes. They feared internal rebellion. Most of all the European depression engendered a crisis of overproduction which was eliminated through military Keynsean pump priming and war and conquest. It had nothing to do with communist aggression. Profitable outlets for European investment after WWI dwindled and so a renewed military conflict solved the crisis for capital. US corporations also profited from the economic growth in Germany brought on by the funding of the Nazi war machine. US capital dug deep into the german economy due to the lack of profitability in the depressed US economy to the extent that it blunted our early resistance to European fascism which we thus allowed to arm and progress making them ultimately harder to defeat. Capital has no country or patriotic loyalty! Did Japan fear communist aggression. Her aggression against China actually produced the Maoist Revolution not the reverse!!
Russian Communist leaders were brutal but they emerged as the result of western diplomatic isolation before Stalin. The Russian revolution could have taken a different turn had the western world had a more friendly attitude toward it and assisted the more reformist elements. Most of the old Bolsheviks like Kamenev, Zinoviev, and N. Bukharin opposed forced collectivization and even believed that grain production should be stimulated through allowing prices to rise to around “market” levels. The inceased income would not only stimulate grain production and delivery but create rural markets for light industrial goods produced in cities so as to absorb the unemployed. The 1927 grain crisis coupled with nagging fears of Western invasion weakened the reformist and Trotskyist elements in the Bolshevik party in favor of Stalin. Stalin, a meglomaniac and brutal paranoid, cannot be associated with true socialism or revolution. The grain deficits from the 1927/8 harvest led to forced collectivization which also fit with a heavy industrial program which most of the “old Bolsheviks” who were purged after 1931 strongly opposed. Stalin set unrealistically high production targets for steel and coal production, electrical generation capacity, and other heavy industrial products because of a percieved need for Russia to defend itself against a possible Western invasion. In about a decade his worst fears were vindicated. This is one reason that many respected scholars like Moshe Lewin, Stephen Cohen, and Isaac Duetscher all claim that Stalin was not inevitable but a direct product of fear of foreign threats, national isolation and pariahization at a time of difficult modernization, and lack of assistance through trade or aid. A different kind of socialist outcome would have been possible with a different western response.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 14, 2006 at 7:38 PM REDHORSE
Add slant-drilling and the mighty silent April Glaspie together, and you have a set-up for GW1.Add this from Greg Palast, and you have a mighty fine conspiracy !
Posted by frog on Jun 14, 2006 at 8:21 PM ACTIONS LEAD TO REACTIONS, SCORPITUDE,
some are unpredictable, others are highly likely .
The French left and right hated each others’ guts in 1936, Front Populaire govt, but after the Germans invaded many got to know and appreciate each other in the Resistance.
Posted by frog on Jun 14, 2006 at 8:36 PM Frog.....Shhhhhhh......not so loud.........if we use fear and keep folks worried about immigration and radical foriegn terrorists...sell a lot of meaningless bumper stickers.................no one will figure it out..........conspiracy.....what conspiracy....those Lefties are just cry’in wolf.......the sky is falling ! What !!.....Ken Lay !!......I ..ah..I might....ah...may have meet him once or twice.?$......Enron who...??.
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 15, 2006 at 4:46 AM Redhorse & Frog,
I think I understand a bit better where we disagree and possibly why. Both of you give much, more credence to the philosophy behind longer term history than I do.
While I don’t disagree with the oil history from each of you, I see less likelihood of continuity over generations and administrations.
I may even be more cynical than either of you. I see the quest for money and power as timeless truths without national boundaries. Oil, while one aspect and a prominent one now, is also critical to any industrialized country.The article on information clearing house ignores an awful lot in making the point of oil being the motive behind so much — no inflation adjustment over a 50 year comparison, no mention of the increased usage globally in 25 year stats and no consideration of the oil bottleneck, refineries. According to T. Boone Pickens (an oil man with 50 years experience) the world has been producing 85 million bbls/day and has been 85 million bbls/day for the last several years.
What the U.S. has done in the Mideast over decades militarily is largely hap hazard looking back, but at the time was an expedient of the Cold War. I believe it is a mistake to attribute person-like attributed to a nation as if it were a collective plan when it comes to foreign policy.
A similar comment seems to fit the example of the kid who wanted to bomb the clinic. While certainly despicable, it needs more evidence to become a “Christian Terrorist” act of war. If it turns out that some Christian sect put him up to it, then it begins to approach what the Radical Islamists have preached.
-------------------------------------------
Question about this site: Is anyone else having a problem getting back to this discussion? I’m about to scrap it.
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 15, 2006 at 10:37 AM WTH...I have had problems posting statements from time to time but that is all...my Windows 98 computer may be the problem....Man...I don’t know...we just disagree...frankly ; half the time I really don’t understand where you are coming from....to me it’s generational to some degree...The Saudis made a statement that was unfortunate for the Bushy elite...and that was that there was plenty of oil in reserve in Saudi Arabia...to switch hemispheres Hugo Chaves has 5 times the oil reserves as the Saudis...it’s about the petro dollar kick back...other than the elite base rich folks...Bush don’t care ;that’s what I try to tell Scorpy..Scorp....that he’s barking for a master that’s planning on mak’in him a stray.....As far as person-like attributes...Yes , people kiss ass...but what the U.S. represents is systematic institutionalized abuse ( historical based or not ) of the world community....maybe I am mistaken but history has not documented this type of deformity of judgement on such a large scale before......Also changing direction again...a few weeks back a young white kid ...18 years old..in Fairfax County ,Va ; just southwest of Washington ,D.C.,...opened fire on a police sub-station...killing two police officers...the young man had severe mental problems...his parents home was stocked full of weapons...he was also killed in the shootout...I don’t think the police really care about his religious affiliation...whether the individual involved is a religious zealot or violently mentally imbalanced the result is the same.......................Tim McViegh ? ?........................true
P.S.....It is my belief that you have a sincere desire too Know , from a none patronizing perspective, I know that is what drives me......but superstition gets in your way...................................................2 true
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 15, 2006 at 12:09 PM WTH
i did have the prob of not being able to get back ‘in”.
Have something called “Tune up Utilities”, pressed clean&repair;, and it did.
Another poss if you have a date when it went wrong, I now have XP which has a function where one can go back to a previous date of ‘state of system’ . Keeeps all recent files.
I still have boring things with WOOBROWSER , and a nasty company called “Errorsafe” who have infested me.
Anyone who errorsafe starts checking your system ‘free’ for viruses, disconnect. !!! A real PEST !As Linus Torvalds answered the question “What is the difference between Billl Gates and you ?
Bill Gates is a marketing man, I’m a programmer.
God bless him.
My son in law is going to Linux me when windows finally crashes, but he’s rather busy building an (eco-friendly low- energy wooden) house ...
Posted by frog on Jun 15, 2006 at 1:46 PM WTH
IMO the Cold War was a ‘construct’ as much as a reality.
Arms Races have a history which I must re-explore, but from distant memory the IDEA is in 1910? to sell one sub to country A, then tell country B, who orders two, and AWAY we go . Good biz. .
Well, The date was way wrong, the story true --- 1881 with Greeks and Turks being conned.
Dick and Rummy perpetuated the “Cold War”, $ and Power. ( I like IKE .)
Anyone who says “We, or Reagan, WON it “ , is talking out of their backside. That was , and is, propaganda.
The quest for money and power is not what makes the three of us tick, and the same goes for the vast majority of people in this world, of ALL denominations, I posit .
To paraphrase old Smedley Butler USMC--- “ I was a hit-man for the Banks and Trusts” ,--- the ordinary Joe, even an honest general, gets ‘used’.
Since we are of that sort, we have some interest in being very careful when we find ourselves aligned with the Other Sort, those who hunger for $ and Power.
Well, to put it in the language of my Communist friends, they are the Class Enemy . But I also have Capitalist friends who struggle along in small businesses , who just call them the Enemy .
Not much difference faced with a common problem. To repeat what I said just above,—the French Resistance brought together many who had previously believed themselves to be “enemies”..............
Posted by frog on Jun 15, 2006 at 2:56 PM WTH
Getting away from Cobra2, sounds like a good book, back to the more murky world of the other side , where disinfo and black-ops hold sway., They are part of a collective plan, too.
The real enemy now is the American people, because even if casualties are infinitesimally less than Vietnam, they are needing more and more ‘persuading’ .It’s not because yanks are soft, it’s because the whole goddam operation was a con-job, a crime.
They are spending hundreds of millions on propaganda, and still losing.PS Do you remember the Iraqi Savages throwing Kuweiti babies on the floor when they stole the incubators ? PR, old chap. I think it was Hill and Knowlton who cooked that up, for a price.
Google is great. I’m profiting from it as long as I can, because probably sometime soonish someone like GWB is going to strangle it. It’s called a Police State.
The Christian Science Monitor had this to say.
an extract
Too bad it never happened. The babies in the incubator story is a classic example of how easy it is for the public and legislators to be mislead during moments of high tension. It’s also a vivid example of how the media can be manipulated if we do not keep our guards up.
The invented story eventually broke apart and was exposed. (I first saw it reported in December of 1992 on CBC-TV’s Fifth Estate – Canada’s “60 Minutes” – in a program called “Selling the War.” The show later won an international Emmy.) But it’s been 10 years since it happened, and we again find ourselves facing dramatic decisions about war. It is instructive to look back at what happened, in order that we do not find ourselves deceived again, by either side in the issue.
Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990. As the BBC reported: “The country’s ruler, Sheik Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah, fled into exile in his armour plated Mercedes, across the desert to neighbouring Saudi Arabia.”
The Kuwait government had to find a way to “sell the war” to the American public, who were interested, but not deeply involved. So under the auspices of a group called Citizen for a Free Kuwait, which was really the Kuwait government in exile (the group received almost $12 million from the Kuwaiti government, and only $17,000 from others, according to author John R. MacArthur) the American PR firm Hill & Knowlton was hired for $10.7 million to devise a campaign to win American support for the war. Craig Fuller, the firm’s president and COO, had been then-President George Bush’s chief of staff when the senior Bush has served as vice president under Ronald Reagan. The move made a lot of sense – after all, access to power is everything in Washington and the Hill & Knowlton people had lots of that.
It’s wasn’t an easy sell. After all, Kuwait was hardly a “freedom-loving land.” Only a few weeks before the invasion, Amnesty International accused the Kuwaiti government of jailing dozens of dissidents and torturing them without trial. In an effort to spruce up the Kuwait image, the company organized Kuwait Information Day on 20 college campuses, a national day of prayer for Kuwait, distributed thousands of “Free Kuwait” bumper stickers, and other similar traditional PR ventures. But none of it was working very well. American public support remained lukewarm the first two months. And then...
AND THEN...
Posted by frog on Jun 15, 2006 at 5:23 PM CDC -
Don’t panic, Cabdriver. Hysteria does not become you, and does not accomplish anything. This site is, after all, a serious inquiry on serious subjects. Your tangential rants interspersed with abject befuddlement do not contribute to understanding and progress.
So calm down, and lets review the conversation so far that has you so bollixed.
You said:
“The US is mostly responsible for most of the post-WWII fascist coups in the third world. “
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 11, 2006 at 5:28 PM
I replied:
“ ... please list all the ‘post-WWII fascist coups’ you are aware of.”
Posted by scorp on Jun 11, 2006 at 9:41 PM
You responded with:
“The list of coups is very long.”
Then you proceeded to recount seemingly every international incident in the years following WWII, but you somehow missing one important class of coups and attempted coups; you failed to make any mention of Soviet communist KGB attempts to subvert nations around the world, including Czechoslovakia, Greece, Italy, Angola, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and Grenada, for examples.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 11, 2006 at 11:51 PM
Then I pointed out that:
“There were three primary political philosophies going into WWII, and only two came out. Democratic capitalism and socialism survived, and fascism fell by the wayside.”
The only surviving fascists in the world are a few nutcases in the USA and South America, and, interestingly enough, Russia. The Ba’ath Parties in Iraq and in Syria were specifically modeled on fascist principles, but the Iraqi Party is gone, and the Syrian Party is going shortly.
Posted by scorp on Jun 12, 2006 at 6:12 PM
Continued ...
Posted by scorp on Jun 15, 2006 at 9:19 PM Your response was:
“On the issue of fascist regimes you played with semantics. In this way you avoided the issue of irrefutable US involvement in third world rightist dictatorships.”
Now you are starting to lose it. There are several things wrong with this comment. The old “semantics” ploy, first. You are not using terms correctly, indicating sloppy thinking (typical of leftists), and then plead “semantics”. Well, no. Learn to think and talk with more precision.
Then you lumped everyone you don’t like together as “‘rightist dictatorships”, neatly avoiding the irrelevant “fascist” label, and ignoring the many variations among the countries of the world that you don’t like. And you again neglect to mention the irrefutable Soviet KGB involvement in subverting nations around the globe. Not to mention that communist dictatorships have murdered more innocent people than all the rightists in the world, by a full order of magnitude.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 13, 2006 at 4:26 PM
Continue ...
Posted by scorp on Jun 15, 2006 at 9:24 PM I made a long response, detailing the inconsistent and irrelevant positions you have taken.
Posted by scorp on Jun 14, 2006 at 7:06 AM
Then you blew it:
“Fascist regimes which emerged in Europe in the 1920s and 30s were not a response to communist aggression.”
Ummm, OK, right. But you started out talking about “post-WWII fascist coups in the third world”, and that has been the central theme of this entire conversation, as recounted above. So why are you now off on a tangent, introducing the idea that, “Fascist regimes which emerged in Europe in the 1920s and 30s were not a response to communist aggression.” You are absolutely right, but what does that have to do with the subject under discussion?
“Russian Communist leaders were brutal (no shit!) but they emerged as the result of western diplomatic isolation before Stalin (bullshit!).”
Stalin was Commissar of Nationalities in Lenin’s original Council of People’s Commissars in 1917, so he was “present at the creation”. “Russian Communist leaders” included Lenin, Trotsky, Rykov, and Dzerzhinsky, as well as Stalin. Iron Felix Dzerzhinsky was head of the Cheka, and was responsible for liquidating opponents of the regime; his function was very similar to that of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, except Z-man had better international media support and tools before his timely demise. The Soviet leaders “emerged”, if that is the right word, as a result of their own “aggressive, brutal, racist, malignant, and creating irreversible damage” characteristics, as you previously described other similar totalitarians.
In Marx’s socialist theory, after a society became industrialized and capitalism had developed, workers and farmers would seize the means of production and establish the socialist paradise, and the state would wither away as all men dealt fairly and honestly with all other men. Anyway, that’s the theory.
In the event in Russia, the society was not industrialized, there was no capitalist development, Lenin, Trotsky, Rykov, Dzerzhinsky, and Stalin were intellectuals and revolutionaries (who had never labored or farmed in their lives, and knew nothing of these topics), and the socialist paradise they founded grew, and grew, and grew, becoming more and more corrupt and inefficient until it collapsed.
In the absence of industrialized workers in Russia, the Soviets substituted peasants, and a peasant who owned a cow or a horse was elevated to the status of a capitalist boss, and executed; five million capitalist bosses were executed or starved to death in Ukrania alone in the 1920s.
Lenin proclaimed that two hundred years of industrial and capitalist development had miraculously been accomplished in a few months in 1917 and 1918 in Russia, and this was his claim for the legitimacy for the lying, murdering, destructive totalitarian regime he founded. And you buy into that bullshit.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 14, 2006 at 7:38 PM
Posted by scorp on Jun 15, 2006 at 9:30 PM Scorp,
Two rightist fallacies. The first is that the right wing coups assisted to varying degrees by the CIA in the post-WWII third world were responses to KGB meddling. In no case was there the least bit of Russian involvment. The Belgian Congo may have been an exception but Lumumba’s ties to the Soviet Union didn’t mean that he would allow the Congo to become a “Soviet Satellite” and in any case he had popular support. In NONE of the Asian (except Korea and Vietnam) or Latin American cases was there any Soviet involvement. The arguments for Soviet involvement in Latin America are especially stupid. Allende (Chile) Arbenz (Guatemala), and Goulart (Brazil) had NO foreign meddling of any kind except the US and all three men had impeccable democratic credentials, were elected in free and fair elections (unlike Bush), were highly reformist not revolutionary, and had popular support. All were overthrown in CIA inspired coups in the interest of US corporate greed. The Indonesian coup which brought the corrupt Suharto dictatorship to power in 1965 resulted in the deaths and imprisonment of over a million Indonesians by some estimates. It matters little what you call these right wing regimes, fascist or “bureacratic authoritarian” in the words of one Argentine political theorist whereby the popular sector is repressed in favor of capital. The outcome is what is important. US imperialism crushed the national aspirations of the poor in many countries using the cold war obsession with the Russians as the excuse.
The second fallacy is that Russian was all rural with no industrial base or urban working class at the time of the Revolution in 1917. I studied this issue many years ago at the UW-Madison in a course called “The Politics of Revolution.” One of the first things we quickly discover in our readings is that under the Czar Nicholas II in the late 1890s an ambitious program of industrialization takes place under interior minister Sergie Witte that is very rapid. Steel production increases very rapidly, railway track increases, and the urban working classes increase as steel, textile, and iron production facilities absorb increasing numbers of peasants and small town craftsmen who lose their independant livlihoods. Eric Wolff in Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century gives an excellent account of the Czar’s industrialization programs effects on the rural areas and its impact on revolutionary politics. The classic work on this subject and the one with the most copious data is, of course, Lenin’s The Development of Capitalism in Russia. Both will disabuse anyone of the notion that Russia had no urban industrial working class or industry on the eve of the 1917 Revolution.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 15, 2006 at 10:48 PM WTH...Frog....It is telling with all the media coverage that no journalist can or will quote a kill number for all the Iraq civilians....The U.S. has paid out in the general area of 2500.00 dollars per person for a total of around 20 million this year alone ; that points to around 8000 dead Iraq civilians.....as far as selling the war… the Kuwait ambassadors daughter was used in that scam...they thought she would be more convincing…
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 16, 2006 at 4:56 AM I feel many mistakes were made in executing the current war in Iraq. We should have held out for more coalition support, had a much larger force that could maintain the peace, control looting and secure the arsenals that were plundered so terrorists can make uncountable explosive devices. Also all the reasons for the war were poor, the planning was poor and knowledge about our enemy was poor.
The problem now is what happens to al Qaeda if we leave. al Qaeda will not stay in Iraq if we pull out. They will celebrate with the recruitment of many jihadists who know that al Qauda can defeat the US. And where do you think they will then spend their time and money waging war on the US? Right here in the USA. For that reason I feel we need to stay in Iraq, but with a larger force to keep al Qauda occupied with the hope we can learn how to fight such an enemy. If you want a safer USA you better keep al Qauda occupied off of our shores.
In summary I am sorry the war was necessary and that it was executed so poorly. Now that we are there we need to finish it the way we have won other wars - overwhelming forces. I am sorry that is the only way out of a poor situation that the dumbest president ever got us into. The option is to fight them in our streets. We will not have any better luck doing that than Israel has stopping suicide bombers.
Posted by jchamilt on Jun 16, 2006 at 9:00 PM jchamilt...First off...Coalition Forces said NO...Buckfush & Co. , had OIL on the mind and more so Money...petro dollar kickbacks...Saddam switching too the Euro for oil payments also was a BIG factor....they had NO intention of waiting...like a HORNY sailor on shore leave ,they’re gonna to get SOME !!....Next...my question to you is...if two men are having a gun fight in your living room , you don’t know either one of them, but they are gun fighting in your house ,with your children in harms way...do you want that mess in YOUR HOUSE...or somewhere else ??...The war was not NECESSARY....you do not throw good money after bad spending...that’s not too bright....And frankly jchamilt I believe you WILL have a better shot here at home...you do know the terrain don’t you...like al Qaeda knows the terrain in Iraq...To me that is a cowardly statement...like the U.S. is some bastion of functional unintended consequences that is not responsible for the CRIMES it commits internationally.....narcissistic naivete’ or supersition is not a very MAN-like quality.....didn’t Bushy say “ bring it on “.........
P.S....And were are these extra troops comng from...the military is TAPPED THIN as it is...why should a bunch of “economically poor “ teenagers bear the brunt for the mischief of a bunch of non-combat experienced rich ol’boogers..that find there manhood in trampling over the Constitution...too again quote the Fush one..”.that GD piece of paper “......................true
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 17, 2006 at 7:27 AM JCHALMIT
Thinking back some way, how many Vietnamese Terrorists have blighted America since “you” “withdrew” ?
I refer you to my link of 14th June above. freedom fighters or terrorists.
READ AND THINK.
The important thing in a democracy, is that IF we know the TRUTH. We will stop doing things that will incite ANYBODY to do us harm.
The simple message is “Stop fucking with me, and I will stop fucking with YOU”.
Posted by frog on Jun 17, 2006 at 4:45 PM Frog....In day to day life I do have ...how do I say this...an imaginative vocabulary.....".profane"....therefore when I communicate on .net conversations I attempt to keep it clean...Having said this all I can say is.....WELL SAID...sometimes a direct approach says it best................true
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 17, 2006 at 5:55 PM jchamilt......Drug Dealers...Gang Bangers...and Thugs in general understand that the price of being in the LIFE and of repentance from this behavior is sometimes retribution or what the CIA refers to as...” Blowback “...; this is also a spiritual principal.....why the general amerikan public, with all the pretenses of christian doctrine ; cannot apply this logic to criminal behavior on a political national level is bewildering to my own view of world affairs… too continue in said behavior is too exasperate the situation.........................true
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 17, 2006 at 6:25 PM Frog ... you asked *
“ Thinking back some way, how many Vietnamese Terrorists have blighted America since “you” “withdrew” ?
You seem to forget that 19 Al Qaede terrorists killed 2000 to 3000 innocent American BEFORE the war started and continue to hint it will happen again. I am not happy with the way the war is executed as I noted before, but to think that Al Qaede will stay in Iraq is silly after we withdraw and begs the question WHY would they want to stay in Iraq? Why would they want to stop killing Americans when they killed 2000 to 3000 before the war? Why would they not try to execute another 911 type of event? Please explain why Al Qaeda will stop when we withdraw from Iraq. Your comparison with Vietnam would be correct if the Vietnamese had killed 2000 to 3000 Americans in the United States prior to the war in Vietnam. Also if the Vietnamese had a history of bombing subways or trains before we entered the war, your comparison would be correct. Given the past terrorists acts all over the world I can’t see why Al Qaeda would stop these terrorist acts. Please help me understand why Al Qaeda will stop killing people all over the world when we withdraw from Iraq?
Posted by jchamilt on Jun 17, 2006 at 7:02 PM Redhorse .... You have made some very good comments. I do not like the war or the way it was executed, but I feel it is better to fight Al Qaeda away from our shores instead of in our living room here in the United States. You are one of the few who wants to fight Al Qaeda here inside the United States. If we withdraw you will get your wish. I hope you feel up to fighting Al Qaeda in your city or town and also up to convincing all those who will be affected by a second 911 that it was a good idea to fight Al Qaeda in our cites because we know our cities better than Al Qaeda. I do not know if 911 supports your feeling that it is easier to fight Al Qaeda here. Concerning the poor, economically disadvantage teenagers, forced to fight this war, does not ring true to me since I was not poor when I entered the arm services and I was not poor when I retired after 21 years. We have a volunteer armed services and not all Americans feel that swearing to protect and defend the Constitution is only for the poor. Redhorse, I am sure you are aware of the problems when people run our country when they do not have a lot of military service. Those without much service are less concerned about sending young men and women into battle. In summary I do not want to fight Al Qaeda here in the United States. I think it is better and easier to fight Al Qaeda off our shores. Please convince me that it is better to fight them here in the United States. The problem with the past sentence is you really need to convince a majority of Americans too . This is your chance to convince Americans it is better to fight Al Qaeda here in our cities and towns.
Posted by jchamilt on Jun 17, 2006 at 8:03 PM CDC -
Suspicions confirmed.
I studied this issue many years ago at the UW-Madison in a course called “The Politics of Revolution.”
So, let us review what we know, or believe we know, about Cabdriver:
1) He (probably not she) drives a cab.
2) Attended UW, studied soft subjects for which there is no market (graduated?), consequently drives a cab. (I am not knocking cab drivers, or any form of honest work. I have, on occasion, worked chopping weeds in a tank farm, dug ditches, been a welder’s helper, stocked in a warehouse, operated a forklift, and driven a delivery truck.)
3) Attentive in class, absorbing the leftist professors’ points on critical studies, Marxism, post-modern thought, Gramsci, and feminist/ queer/ gender studies.
4) Uneducated, but well-indoctrinated, as a result of leftist curricula and “schooling”.
5) Long on ideological self-serving “facts”, but incapable of critical thinking (this is not the same as critical studies!). Critical thinking is characteristic of the educated, but not necessarily of those who have spent time in school.
6) Far left political orientation based on natural inclination and leftist indoctrination.
So, how did I do?
Continue ...
Posted by scorp on Jun 17, 2006 at 9:12 PM More importantly, how did you do?
Two rightist fallacies. The first is that the right wing coups assisted to varying degrees by the CIA in the post-WWII third world were responses to KGB meddling. In no case was there the least bit of Russian involvment.
This is the problem with lack of education, combined with a hard political indoctrination, such as you have suffered. Communist and KGB infiltration and attack in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America are very well documented in contemporary news accounts, scholarly research, and more recently, Soviet archives released after the fall of the Soviet Union. To deny the available data is to deny reality.
The United States maintained a healthy respect for the capabilities of the Soviet Union, if not for the murderous character of its leadership, and did what was necessary to prevent a worldwide communist rampage of murder and oppression such as occurred in the SU, China, NorK, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and everywhere else the communists have taken over. And the USA was successful in this, even if we sometimes had to associate with unsavory characters in accomplishing the necessary.
But the historical and more recent incidents of leftists who deny documented events would be disturbing, if anybody took leftists seriously. Example: For political purposes, leftists, led by leftist American Intelligence agents, have decided that secular Saddam and Islamist al-Qa’eda could not possibly have cooperated in planning terror attacks and that Saddam was no threat, therefore the attack on Iraq was unjustified. But that position ignores a huge amount of data to the contrary:
1) The Iraq Liberation Act 1998, approved by 100% of the Senators, and all but 38 of the House members and signed into law by President Clinton, specifically identified Saddam as a terrorist, a possessor and user of WMD, a threat to the countries of the Middle East and to the USA, and called for regime change in Iraq. In 1998, Bush was Governor of Texas and had little or no input to the federal government on the status of Iraq.
2) The Iraq War Resolution 2002 was approved by big majorities in both Houses of Congress, and the War Resolution also cited Saddam as a terrorist, a possessor and user of WMD, and a threat to the countries of the Middle East and to the USA.
3) President Clinton attacked the al-Shifa Pharmaceutical Plant in the Sudan because it was in a joint venture with Saddam and Osama bin Laden to manufacture chemical weapons WMD.
4) Newspapers, including the NYT and the Guardian, routinely reported contacts and cooperation between Saddam and bin Laden in 1998, 1999, and 2000, before President Bush was elected.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,798270,00.html
Yet leftists, in a mass fit of ideological amnesia and derangement, deny all this and insist that President Bush lied to get the USA into war, even though the documented justification for war was created during the Clinton years.
Continue ...
Posted by scorp on Jun 17, 2006 at 9:17 PM The second fallacy is that Russian was all rural with no industrial base or urban working class at the time of the Revolution in 1917.
Cockiepop. Russia’s population was about 136 million in 1900, and was only 13% urban; the remainder was rural and agricultural. Before 1918, Russia exported grain to pay for industrial imports, but had no industrial exports. Russia’s per cap industrial output was 15% of Great Britain’s, and less than 10% of the USA’s. It is true that industrial expansion grew by a factor of three under Witte in the 1890s, but from an extremely small base:
Almost Nothing X 3 = Not Very Much
Witte’s investments cost too much, and some of them lost money, and poor Witte was fired.
Professor John Munro, UToronto, has the industrial work force of Russia as 2.32% of the total population in 1914, but per cap output has risen to 15% of that of the USA by this time. Lenin argued that Russia was ready for socialist revolution, but this defies all the theorizing of Hegel, Marx, and Engels. Plekhanov, the leading Marxist theoretician among the exiled Russians, did not agree that Russia was ripe for revolution, and this was a factor in the Bolshevik - Menshevic split. And in fact, Lenin financed his revolutionary activities and journalistic endeavors with armed robbery, a most unMarxist thing to do. You would think that Lenin was a cowboy, or something. On these grounds, and the total absence of the requisite workers and farmers among the Bolshevic leadership, the communist movement that led to the Soviet Union had almost nothing to do with Marxism, except that the Marxist name was expropriated to provide camouflage to the thieves and murderers that became leaders of the Soviet Union.
Next to the number of dead bodies found lying around the various communist countries throughout the Twentieth Century, the most startling statistic from the Soviet Era was agricultural production. During the last half of the Nineteenth Century, and up until 1918, Russia regularly exported grain to pay for industrial goods and investments. Coinciding exactly with the communist take-over, Russia had no grain to export (farmers were murdered by the millions during collectivization) and had no grain to export until the final collapse of the Soviets. Early in the 1990s, grain production recovered nicely, thank you, and is now contributing annually to the Russian balance of payments.
http://wwwiet.iet.ru/afe/english/apk/may2002.pdf
Cabdriver, you need to go back to UW-Madison and demand a refund of your tuition and fees. In pretending to educate you, and leaving you uneducated and with nothing but a useless indoctrination in a false political ideology, UW-Madison has perpetrated fraud on you.
Posted by scorp on Jun 17, 2006 at 9:25 PM First of all, Russian industrial output was substantial. Russian may have had no industrial exports in 1914 but neither did the US. GB and other countries dominated world market. Russian may not have been ready for revolution but Lenin never robbed people.
The US Congress was lied to about WMDs and al-Quaeda links deliberately. All informed sources now agree! The Iraqi Liberation Act was signed by Clinton but pushed for by the Republican House and Senate. Weapons inspectors had long eliminated all WMDs and potential WMD production capacity long before US invasion.
Interestingly you fail to address the Latin American issue. The US hardly ever used the cold war arguments to assist military coups except when it invoked the disgusting Monroe Doctrine. There is no KGB meddling in the Americas and all revolutions are authentic local efforts to free the country from the bonds of tyranny and poverty. The School of the Americas, where Latin American militaries are trained by the US, is an endeavor to create armed forces in Latin American countries that are more loyal to US corporations and national interests than to their home countries. The SOA was always the equivalent of the old Soviet Warsaw Pact and just as much of an infringement on human rights and sovereignty in those countries upon which it impacted. Soldiers trained in the program were ideologically indoctrinated as well as militarily trained and never sent to serve in the communities in which they were raised for fear of a reluctance to kill people to whom they are primordially attached and with whom they deeply sypathize. Though all the coups were based on economic issues, none of the post-coup military regimes solved those issues and often worsened the economic problems of balance of payments deficits, recession, foreign debt, and unemployment. All to cut inflation a bit and pay the foreign banks in a more timely fashion! They also opened the economies to US direct foreign investments. Hardly worth a coup and thousands of dead and locked up!
As for Vietnam, I do believe that Ho Chi Minh would have gladly thrown over the Russians ( he appealled to the US first) had he won the elections with the projected 80% vote that had been illegally prevented from taking place by the US in 1956 as per the Geneva Accords. US aid and open trade relations with Ho would have led to a unified but more democratic and economically open Vietnam to begin with however, these are counterfactual speculations though I believe reasonable ones. Instead the US set up a puppet government in the south of the country in defiance of the international agreement to which it was a signatory and started a two decades long war which ended up with over 2 million Vietnamese dead and nearly 60,000 Americans dead all for nothing. We never learn from our history!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 17, 2006 at 11:26 PM jchamilt...Supersition does in fact get in the way....my analogous of the living room gun fight was misunderstood or yes...you would prefer that the violence continue in your house ; no doubt to protect your neighbors ; I am quite sure many Iraqis would challenge your perspective....Al Qaeda is a fact.....they have executed terrorism all over the globe...again why invade Iraq...Iraq had nothing...nothing at all too do with al Qaeda....now that Bush & buddies has drawn them to this country ( Iraq ),you what to continue their suffering...so that we do not suffer another al Qaeda attack...how do you know that the continuation of this CRIMINAL ACT will insure that al Qaeda will not come back to U.S. shores...there are NO guarantees...this is just criminal foolishness...period.....Iraq was invaded for OIL and OIL only...al Qaeda is using Iraq as on the job training for their troops...plus Iraqis are pulled into the fray because just like yourself they are wiilling to fight the invading infidel...in this case U.S. troops....I would not preferr too fight them in my community , has the military destroyed your critical analogizing skills...the fact is U.S. behavior in the world community has create this situation...who was bin Ladens ol’ buddy...the Bush family.....Many young folks are not as fortunate as yourself...so military service is not much of a choice....maybe if I had the media power that the neo-con facists have I could “ lie “ my way into convincing folks that fighting al Qaeda at home is more noble than cop’in a squat an’ sqeeze on the Iraqi people ( analogy )....There is no logic...when fear and superstition dictate social behavior....But jchamilt where are the troops coming from...and what are the long term implications for troops that continue to be recycled back too Iraq ??..You know these young folks did not sign up too be USED as guinea pigs or training tools for al Qaeda............
p.s. But let use suppose than the fight did come too U.S. shores ; I believe the U.S. population and you would see that WAR is never as you say EASY...so maybe next time they will be less likely to allow a tyrant so much Power...Hitlers rise to power vs the Bush rise to power...very similiar...history will repeat when people are ignorant of MOTIVE......Operation Iraqi Liberation = OIL
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 18, 2006 at 5:55 AM Redhorse, Frog, Cabdriver, jchamilt…
“Man...I don’t know...we just disagree...frankly ; half the time I really don’t understand where you are coming from....to me it’s generational to some degree.”
“IMO the Cold War was a ‘construct’ as much as a reality.”
“Smedley Butler USMC--- “ I was a hit-man for the Banks and Trusts”“Too bad it never happened. The babies in the incubator story is a classic example of how easy it is for the public and legislators to be mislead during moments of high tension. It’s also a vivid example of how the media can be manipulated if we do not keep our guards up.”
-------------------
Where I am coming from:I think people in general attribute to much “personality” to countries. While there is a degree of continuity between elected administrations I can’t buy into the long term conspiracy theories. What we have in fact is a lack of political and diplomatic policies. Much of what has come back to haunt us is due to expediencies during the Cold War when communists were “lurking everywhere.
As with most issues there is enough truth to be convincing and enough untruth, imaginary and mistaken “facts” to cause terrible consequences.
Countries are not individuals with long term plans. Except for total dictatorships they are an amalgamation many varying opinions and ideas. As a matter of fact it seems to me that our nation is looking at ever shorter time horizons.
Motives for military action and intervention are never singular or even a choice of two (The media can only seem to handle two and pose issues as either/or.)Perhaps the single most universal and least changing motives are money and power which are joined at the hip. There has probably never been an armed conflict in which they have not been a major factor. With increasing globalization they are trumping national sovereignty and loyalty.
With the advent of the internet we are overwhelmed with information. Sorting it and mentally processing it is challenging to each of us. We must take care not to just accept those which fit our preconceptions and biases and reject those which do not without honestly questioning all.
We don’t truly know each other or anyone we “meet” on the internet. They may be sincere and be mistaken. They may be affected by their personal experiences to an extreme which distorts their perceptions. They may be just plain propagandists out to confuse or convince.
--------------------------
I am encouraged to find out my out of date Mac is not the only one balking at this site.
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 18, 2006 at 7:51 AM WTH.....Good to hear from you....one aspect of this Iraqi situation that I have not heard mention of , for quite some time is the fact that the military has built from my estimates 14 full scale military bases in country...Question : Do any of use really believe that after that kind of expenditure of resourses that this will not become another long term Korea type occupation ??..........Happy Fathers Day to all who have done the deed.......
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 18, 2006 at 8:19 AM JC Hammitt -
... the war ... was executed so poorly.
Posted by jchamilt on Jun 16, 2006 at 9:00 PM
I am not happy with the way the war is executed.
Posted by jchamilt on Jun 17, 2006 at 7:02 PM
I do not like the war or the way it was executed ....
Posted by jchamilt on Jun 17, 2006 at 8:03 PM
I take it that you do not like the way the war has been executed. But is there anything in particular that you think should have been done differently, or better? Too many civilian casualties? Too many Coalition casualties? Too great a cost? Too much time? You must surely have a reason, or reasons, for your statement, which is, after all, pretty broad.
Posted by scorp on Jun 18, 2006 at 3:43 PM JCHAMILT
I have serious doubts as to whether Al Qaeda exists in the form in which you appear to believe.
Without going into the boring thing of giving links that no fucker seems to read or comment on ( WTH i’m still awaiting your repose to my link freedom fighters or terrorists !°)
Terrorism is a tactic.
It has very often been used by the USA. And the UK, my country of origin.
IF, and it is a very big IF, this writer had wanted to explode a tactical nuke in your country, and he had had a very small, TINY, proportion of the billions of $ that the US and Saudi Arabia gave to the fundamentalist madmen in Afghanistan, and the other “stans”, he would have done it !
Shortly after leaving Her Majesty’s Royal Artillery in 1966, i discovered Containerisation, and a wonderful way of terrorising.
This is equally interesting for Criminals and political terrorists, surely ?
Most Political ‘terrorists’ in Iraq want one thing, which currently is to get Occupying Powers OUT.
Of the 20odd movements in Iraq, I do wonder how many of those who commit carnage against civilians are actually Resistance fighters or in fact Agents of some foreign power or another. Wittingly or unwittingly....because our Black Ops guys cover their tracks rather well....
Imagine yourself an Iraqi, 21 years loyal service in the Army. Obviously you survived the Great War. Maybe only just. Quite happy to see Saddam toppled, and THEN those liberators set up to steal the country’s OIL. .
Jay Garner said “ it’s their OIL”, well, he got fired smartish. For a member of IKE’s military-industrial Complex, he sure went native .
If I remember correctly they are are called PSA’s--- Production Sharing Agreements.
Fuck the details. You, WTH, redhorse, cabby, ME, would all have had choices to make, and luck would have had much to do with the results.
Some of us would have got busy remindng the bully-boy USA that we did not agree , with IEDs. (More of a sniper myself, with WTH as my partner. Human ingenuity being what it is, I started studying Guerilla Warfare early, to know the (then) enemy, so the underdog will often win. )
Others of us would have ‘collaborated’ in the hope to save something of a civilised country after the mongol hordes of mad-capitalist invaders and their terrorist surrogates had departed.
Strange thought that under the Hitler- like Saddam women could go to university, walk the streets after midnight, kids could play in the streets, rare books could be found in the innumerable second-hand bookshops of Baghdad.
Strange thought that a few madmen in the White House, plus a few , also mad, poodles like Blair, can visit so much suffering on so many people, and we do not rise up and lynch them.
frog is rather angry that otherwise decent people have fallen for a pack of lies. Mushroom clouds over Manhattan, indeed ! Fighting them THERE rather than HERE !
BULLSHIT.
frog does not believe in the Death Penalty, so your unelected “president” is safe from me should he come to Paris (FRANCE). Should the little shit come, he might do the same as his recent visit to Baghdad, 5 minutes warning to the head of State, so I’m fucked !
With MORE warning I will do the 330kms to pass my message.
I actually feel sorry for the poor nincompoop frat-boy who fell upwards to be the most pôwerful “man” in this world. If he’s a “man” your frog is chinese !
Posted by frog on Jun 18, 2006 at 5:43 PM WTH
very interesting idea that your USA is flitting from one short-term “solution” to another , just like the totally barmy financial markets. ( frog knows, been there, seen it, done it )
Looking at the current Administration, there is much to be said for that point of view. Barmy, nutty, MAD ? They are certainly subjects for psychoanalysis, or at least CITIZEN’S ANALYSIS !
INFORMATION ANXIETY (one book), shows that the info overload we all suffer from is omnipresent. ( Friend SCORP is the exception, ‘cos he can fit everything into his little boxes. )
Your idea that US admins , over time, do NOT have a ‘personality’ is, I believe , wrong.
Smedley Butler DID live, he is not a figment of my imagination. Henry Kissinger DID 100% support all the dirty tricks imaginable in Chile, like murder, and God knows how much torture. I know one subject of that torture.
Pinochet"s mob even assassinated people with car-bombs in the US. No response.
Have you yet googled posada carriles, WTH ?
Nowadays it is more and more difficult for INDIVIDUALS to have long-term plans. Your examples of your own sons prove it .
One easy way is to become a Cop or join the Military, you get fed at least, if the worst happens.
The long-term plans of those ruling America, and the rest of us, DO transcend generations.
Think a little, you are a Rockefeller or a Morgan or a Rothschild, would you go happily to your grave without making as sure as you could that your kids could not carry on the family fortunes, and the power that goes with them ?
Stands to reason.
The british MoD (DOD) is another death-defying organisation, or “Personality” , that exploits vets over decades, only last month they paid out £100,000 to the family of a guy killed in 1953 .
NINETEEN FIFTY - THREE !
They were experimenting on “ SARIN” , and the cheapest subjects available were servicemen. Mick Smith of the Downing Street Memos is a witness to these procedures, as is frog .
The old USSR satellites are now US (NATO) bases, buying F16s from Uncle Sam with loans from WTH . Now who is being surrounded ? AND how would you feel ?
One thing you can hold to in these troubled times is that frog is not a “plain propagandist”.
When I get it wrong, I admit it. . And when things are nebulous, we work on it, together.
Posted by frog on Jun 18, 2006 at 7:30 PM frog...now we hear in the news media about this aborted so-called terrorist plot too gas the n.y. subway...who knows...I find it very interesting and refreshing that someone out there in the .net world is thinking above the propaganda...My gut feeling has always been that Bushy boy the naked prince was in on this mess from the get go...and I mean pre 9/11 planning to make sure he had a reason too steal Iraqi oil.... U.S. citizens are like children ; no matter how much they love or hate the current administration the need to be mentally and emotionally immature as to the motives of these individuals....is consistantly the same....critical thinking skills 0 ....underhanded political economic system ad infinitum....I have very little doubt as too the circular nature of this whole affair.......
p.s....nothing lasts forever not even the good ol’ U.S.of A....if history is our time piece...the clock is ticking...civil-LIE-zations come and civil-LIE-zations go.........
p.s.s t.....1953 ...Black folks in amerika got that and some more...google...Reparations Bill HR 40...the original bill was passed for reparations for former slaves back in reconstructionist times...late 19th century...congressman John Conyers introduced the new reparations bill....compounded pay for wages not payed for labor rendered ; now owed to said desendants...141 years and counting.......about 185,000 dollars amerikan to each and every afrikan from amerika desendant....
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 18, 2006 at 7:35 PM RED
Ain’t read it , but can guess !
The child-like simplicity of so many otherwise admirable Americans is astounding .Nobody could sell them that bridge in Brooklyn, or persuade them to fork out $5000 to the Nigerian ‘banker’ with the proposition most of us have had on the Net, BUT they will probably fall for this latest that sounds like total bullshit. (BUSHit ?)
Usually shit like this comes up to distract attention from something else ? What ? Cui bono ?
Posted by frog on Jun 18, 2006 at 10:53 PM WTH
just listening to Murtha talking to Russert. About Rove, the tough guy who don’t want to “ cut and run.”Murtha WINS .
He is quite polite, being on TV, and a fucking politician, so instead of saying “Rove the armchair warrior is sitting on his arse and telling you to “stay the course"," he uses the word “backside”.
Same difference. I saw the hesitation, I knew which word he wanted to use.
Murtha is no shrinking violet Peacenik, like me, (GOAK), but he has a point in saying that the cost of this war/disaster would pay for a helluva lot of education…
Hell, me dear WTH, you live in the richest country in the world and you cain’t see videos I want to send you .
I live in the “Socialist Dystopia” Failed State of frogland so hated by scorpies, but old frog has DSL. living in the bocage of Normandy.
Our Rightwing State govt financed it for not much. What they didn’t know is that frog is going to do his damnedest to expell them next elections, and he is going to use this medium. And if their Socialist successors don’t do the job properly, frog will get them too.
Not being Rove, or even Rove-like, frog concentrates on the undeniable truth.
Yesterday a local bee-keeper gave me a lead --- Monsieur B, an outspoken supporter of GMO’s in our Parliament and everywhere--- has accepted ‘favours’ from Monsanto.
Well, I’m going to check it out, amass the evidence , and then IF all is true, (metaphorically) kill the motherfucker. My rather EVIL plans have something in common with Rove, they are wicked and powerful. The difference is that frog is not a mercenary.
We in the artillery used to be called the ‘long-range snipers’ by the pbi (poor bloody infantry) . Now I think frog is a long-term sniper, with WTH and friends, as little by little we take back our various countries from the scum who we have permitted for so long to rule over us.
Talking to each other here can be so much intellectual masturbation. But as we write, each one starts thinking more and more, and with the feedback we gradually, each of us, often get somewhere.
One guess for you , WTH, is how votes get counted where you live ? As Stalin said, its who counts the votes that counts , so i’d like to know if you have complete and utter confidence that your vote, and the votes of those you disagree with, “work.” where you live ????
I’ve seen human counting of paper votes here in the sticks, and in CAEN our nearest city. Impressive stuff, leaving little room for any doubt.
Labour-intensive, but 95%+ of the people involved were volunteers.
Posted by frog on Jun 18, 2006 at 10:55 PM Now they are attacking Murtha for telling the truth. This was an illegal war of aggression with no end in sigh. According to a pro-Bush Administration poll over three fourths of the Iraqi people only trust their own local police or the Iraqi army to keep them safe. According to the same Repulican Institute poll, only 1% of the Iraqi people trust the US military at all. Iraq is becoming more repressive all the time and is becoming another Lebanon only worse. Its time to leave!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 21, 2006 at 2:29 PM WTH, Cabby,
this is a very good article by robert dreyfuss
He makes the point that the bad guys CAN win, as the Contras did in Nicaragua.
They just needed more money, more ammo, more ruthlessness, than the other side, and in the above case this was financed by importing cocaine to the United States. ( Yes, WTH, I meant importing, not exporting. The CIA imported, gottit ? )
Cabby is sure to remember which dumbfuck in this Admin said WE’ll pay for it with their oil, because Iraq is floating on a sea of it !
dreyfuss---
The war in Iraq was not a “mistake.” It was a deliberately calculated exercise of U.S. power with a specific end in mind—namely, control of Iraq and the Persian Gulf region. It was illegal and remains so. It was a war crime and remains so. Its perpetrators were war criminals and remain so. Its goals were unworthy and remain so.
Posted by frog on Jun 21, 2006 at 3:35 PM http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#11526 64752348608248
Posted by Spinoza750 on Jul 13, 2006 at 1:33 AM More agonising stuff from Riverbend, who is a star.
prob here on html posting, editing… but the above from Spinoza works by cut&paste;. but this is easier !
Posted by frog on Jul 13, 2006 at 2:19 AM Read the Riverbend july 11 post......Being opposed to this conflict and knowing this whole thing was a bunch of Bull Shit from the get go....doesn’t make what I just read go down any EZer....
Posted by Redhorse on Jul 13, 2006 at 3:52 AM HELLO HORSE ,
Agreed. A NIGHTMARE . you’re up late, no ?
Interestingly bad article at 911faith movement, worth reading all the posts right through…
Posted by frog on Jul 13, 2006 at 4:12 AM frog....Actaully up early.....yes ; I will be reading the rest....Buckfush is on your continent , Germany....can you smell the stench....
Posted by Redhorse on Jul 13, 2006 at 4:36 AM OK....read some more....what strikes out loud and clear is that US presents is totally unnecessary.....In the States , the news media propaganda gives the impression that troops are fighting “ terrorist insurgents “, but riverbend posts convey the futility of the whole deal....night raids...and riding in armoured vehicles as a SHOW of force...are ridiculous wastes of time , money and lives…
I see no reason...other than foolish pride and numbnut dumb ego...why this whole situation cannot be ended in the time it takes to withdraw troops…
Iraqis will have to pick up the pieces...but this occupation is criminal....
In the States , opportunism is running wild...petting zoos , farmers markets and shopping mall donut shops are being marked as major “ terrorist targets “...by security officials looking for Federal money to “ fight against the terrorist threat “.....
Meanwhile NYC and DC LOSE funding.......My question is how many Tim McVieghs have been create....
77,069 listings of possible hot spots...Amish farm country....ice cream parlors....it looks more like a tourist guide....
Also columist Novak states Carl Rove gave him information about CIA undercover operative Valerie Plames identification...this after Fitzgerald declines to charge Rove with any crimes....ain’t life grand for the Ass and his Brass....
Locally....crime wave in effect...14 murders in a 12 day period....no real outrage until tourist in Georgetown are victimized....young brother paralyzed by gun violence 15 years earlier...was campaigning for Mayor...shot and killed several nights ago...long hot summer ahead...all the money being wasted in Iraq...could be spent here to help young folks learn to make better life decisions...recreational programs.....
Posted by Redhorse on Jul 13, 2006 at 5:26 AM Small victories are afoot....Mrs. Bunnatine Greenhouse....Head of Procurement for the US Army Corps of Engineers....Magna Cum Laude in mathematics...stood up and stated that Halliburton was cheating US taxpayers with no bid contracts....Mrs. Greenhouse was demoted for her whistle-blowing....Now we hear that Halliburton is out as the no-bidder of choice.........pigs do fly......
Posted by Redhorse on Jul 14, 2006 at 7:37 PM Redhorse,
We can certainly agree the current situation is a mess.
Frog gave the following link to an upcoming book (early next year) by a Recon Marine Captain who, IMO, should replace Rumsfeld as Sec. of Defense. If we had followed his approach (and forgot “democratization”) Saddam would be gone, we’d be out by now and the Iraqis would be a whole lot better off.
http://houghtonmifflinbooks.com/booksellers/press_release/fick/
Posted by whattheheck on Jul 15, 2006 at 8:03 AM WHERE IS THE PEACE MOVEMENT?
WE SHOULD BE OUT IN THE STREETS DEMANDING THAT THE USA STOP FUNDING ISRAEL.
STOP FASCISM
STOP WARMAKING
Posted by Spinoza750 on Jul 15, 2006 at 1:24 PM Spinoza,
Just curious — did you send a copy of this to Hezbolla as well? Most go for unilateral action around here.
--------------------------------------WHERE IS THE PEACE MOVEMENT?
WE SHOULD BE OUT IN THE STREETS DEMANDING THAT THE USA STOP FUNDING ISRAEL.
STOP FASCISM
STOP WARMAKING
Posted by whattheheck on Jul 16, 2006 at 6:31 AM CORRECTON:
Most DON’T go for unilateral action around here.
Posted by whattheheck on Jul 16, 2006 at 9:12 AM -
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