There is an ideological movement which wants to spread itself all over the world at the point of a gun - it's called Islamofascism. Our global strategies over the past 3 years have been in reaction to that. Remember, when Bush took office it was feared he was going to be an isolationist, unlike the globe-tripping Clinton.
In fact, Bush's policies toward Iraq and Al Queda are a direct continuation of Clinton's - Clinton has said so himself. Clinton couldn't or wouldn't do what Bush did, because he was already involved in the Balkans, because he would not be able to launch a war without a casus belli. But deposing Saddam was considered necessary, eventually. 9-11 made it possible to take action.
When America entered WWII, we were not trying to build an empire, but prevent an empire from being built. Unfortunately, we had to ally with another empire to get that done. The Cold War was about countering the spread of that empire. This war is about countering the spread of the Islamofacist empire. If we are such imperialists, how many territories have we acquired and how many hapless nations have come under our thumb from each successive wave of our "imperialism"?
As for spreading democracy: market economies tend to lead to prosperity and freedom of expression and governments selected by their people, and the more of those in the world, a more peaceful and prosperous world it will become, for everyone. Incidentally, societies like this also tend to be more tolerant of alternate lifestyles and accepting of empowered women. I don't understand why anyone has a problem with this. In fact, I do have a problem with people who have a problem with this, especially those who want to subject me and the rest of the planet to the oppressive rules of their society, and I support those who are fighting back.
PS I found all those links within the past 2 weeks during my usual blog reading. I know PNH reads different blogs than I do (although I would highly recommend bookmarking Phil Carter; he is honest and non-partisan and fact-based), but I would imagine you could have found at least a few supporting links yourself for your argument. One second-hand anecdote about WWII doesn't really put you in a position to sneer about what "everybody knows." (One of my favorite LC songs though. I especially liked how Atom Egoyan used it in "Exotica.")
Bush AWOL story at Factcheck.org.
Exhaustive look at the topic by Phil Carter, who is an expert military analyst and served in the National Guard himself:
Very looooong thread on the topic with many links to supporting documents, personal anecdotes of Guard service, political posturing on all sides, etc. Much hard information mixed in but not definite conclusions. Sort of like the WMD hunt.
More.
Have fun.
"They’ve been the guys who talk as if this Administration really is a threat to our future. . . While it’s seemed as if the other group, Gephardt and Leiberman and Edwards and Kerry, really believe at the end of the day that people like Cheney and Bush and DeLay are just regular politicians and colleagues who can be negotiated with."
Patrick, you sound like the anti-Clinton frothers of the mid-90s, and most of the country paid no attention to them either, when it came time to vote. Your average American voter is not going to buy into the demonization of George Bush, and will feel put off (to put it mildly) by anyone preaching that line. The last time there was a serious attempt at that kind of McCarthyist politics was Newt Gingrich and the Moral Majority, and thank God they went down in flames. The American electorate has become too mature and too decent to swallow that kind of crap. Nor will they swallow "Bush=Hitler" and "Halliburton eats babies for breakfast."
And that's a good thing. I don't want to see demonizers and conspiracy-theorizers (whether from the left or right) get an upper hand in American politics.
The more Dean and Clark play it that way, the more their support will drop. As I said on another thread, voters want to know what you are for, not who you are against. You want them to question Bush, stick to facts and policies and respect their intelligence.
The 20% of the country which hates Bush will be attracted to this kind of campaign, but most voters care more what you are for, than who you are against. This is why Dean finished third.
I don't know, Patrick. I've read some books you've edited, and the prose is 100 times more lucid than Ken's. I don't understand why you are impressed by this. And his only refutation of Geras' and the marxist.com folks' arguments seems to be that the war was conducted under false premises, in that (he thinks) we were told it was to liberate Iraq but was really about something else.
Well, many electrons have been spent over the past year linking to and explicating all the places where Bush & Co. clearly laid out the multiple reasons for invading Iraq, which included national security and deposing a very nasty dictator, among others. It is as tiresome to have to repeat this over and over as it is to continually refute the antisemitic canards of the Arab press. Not that Ken's revisionism is in that league - it isn't by many orders of magnitude - but the refusal to allow certain easily-researched facts to influence one's argument is.
So color me unimpressed.
According to the first paragraph of the first article you link to:
"Federal authorities this year mounted one of the most extensive investigations of domestic terrorism since the Oklahoma City bombing . . . one weapon of mass destruction - a sodium cyanide bomb capable of delivering a deadly gas cloud - has been seized in the Tyler area."
The second article you link to says:
". . . -they need look no farther than the startling non-response to domestic terrorism by the Bush administration. [...]"
Federal authorities mounting "one of the most extensive investigations of domestic terrorism since the Oklahoma City bombing" doesn't sound like a non-response to me.
Do you even read the stuff you link to?
http://www.drudgereport.com/flashbb.htm
Bush's visit.
"Over at CounterPunch, Wayne Madsden points out that Bush served that turkey at 6:00 am in the morning, Baghdad time:"
This has been debunked rather thoroughly. Madsden didn't fact check. The dinner was at the normal time for Thanksgiving dinner.
"in hell-hole socialist Europe one can purchase a small motorcycle with a 50 c.c. engine for about 300 Euros, used."
I don't know how much 300 euros is in dollars, or how much used motorcycles cost, but when I lived in Austin (where you need a car) I always bought 10 yr old cars for $2-3k in cash from ads in the paper, drove them till they cost too much to maintain, then donated them to Goodwill and bought another one.
If Arthur doesn't have $3k, he can get a credit card at a high rate, borrow cash from it, buy a junk car, and drive it. Maybe he could even get a bank loan at a lower rate. Obviously this is not a great way to manage one's finances, but if the choice is between being responsible for his own transportation and getting evicted/losing his job - which will start a serious downward spiral that it's hard to pull out of - it'll do - it's a stop-gap measure.
Unless there are medical reasons why Arthur can't drive, and those are the people who are really stuck.
"I won't soon forget sitting opposite a woman on the subway wearing Chanel clothes, Ferragamo shoes, and carrying a very very very large Mikkimoto bag. Someone like that would never ride mass transit in the US."
I see them on the New York subway frequently. One thing I like about NYC is that just about everybody rides the subway. Well, not movie stars and government officials and such, but plenty of men in suits and women in fur coats.
Lets' see. It's in the Independent - not where I turn for accurate news. After all, they publish Fisk. The reporting is somewhat sensationalized. The last Iraq issue that generated this much angst on Electrolite was the museum looting, most of which turned out not to be true.
I would give this one the 48 hour rule and cross-check other sources.
"I am reminded of Severian92s use of 93client94."
Yeah, the insurance company is torturing you by offering you safety tips. Right.
In Judaism we also have four yearly remembrance services (Yizkor) on Yom Kippur, Shmini Atzeret, Pesach, and Shavuot. So counting the yahrzeit (the actual anniversary) that's five.
Today is the yahrzeit of 9-11. Commemorations and sadness and anger and stocktaking today are appropriate.
It's great to see Stewart Brand on a list like this. He is one of the key figures of the second half of the 20th century, and I'm waiting for some astute historian of technology and pop culture to figure that out.
Actually they are mostly from the same places as the fedayeen who streamed into Iraq during the war: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Territories, and some are Iraqi also. Not sure what you mean by "North Iraq" - haven't heard anyone else use that term. Do you mean Kurdistan? That's doubtful - the Kurds really like us.
The "small region" is the Sunni Triangle, Saddam's family heartland, and it's not where 90% of the people live.
But don't let a few facts stand in the way of elegant snarkiness.
"I'll wait until this time tomorrow."
Patrick, I read a lot of blogs, occasionally I get into ongoing arguments on a particular blog, sometimes I just put in a comment and move on. In other words, I act like 90% of all bloggers and blog visitors. There's no reason I should have any idea you were "waiting for me," since the idea is ludicrous given the culture of the blogosphere and since you didn't call me or send me an email, and I can't read your mind. So climb down from your high dudgeon. You're not the Star Chamber handing out supoenas.
I know the general tone and attitude of this crowd (which many years ago was my crowd - no I'm not talking about fandom but about
righteously indignant "progressives."), and I stand by my assumption that most people commenting here would not ordinarily care much what happens to CIA agents. And my tone was no more contemptuous or snippy or whatever than the tone of most of your commenters, I'm just aiming it in a different direction. You like to dish it out, but you don't like it coming back your way. Believe me, I have been just as hard on Bill Quick and Tacitus and some of the more frothing LGF regulars and even poor Roger Simon, a gentle soul.
If you want to ban me like you banned Gary, I'll probably have a good chuckle with him about it and then blog about it. So do whatever makes you feel better.
(I'm vividly remembering why I left fandom - the pettiness and emotional claustrophobia. . . . )
You are correct, Patrick, I just remembered she ran against McKinney so I "remembered" her as a Republican.
"If you don't understand why we should try accused criminals rather than shooting them out of hand, you don't know much about civilization."
They didn't do that in LOTR world either, so I still don't get what the quote is supposed to say.
"Had Hitler been captured alive (rather than committing suicide) are you saying that all the others should have been tried but he should have been stood against a wall by the nearest squad of combat troops?"
No, I am saying that I would not worry about the state of my soul if I didn't give a s**t if he wasn't captured alive. We did try to extract the two sons alive, we've carefully captured various Baathists, we are treating the folks in Guantanamo far better than they would get at home in prison or out, we are spending much time, money, thought to reconstructing Iraq so that Iraqis can run it without being overwhelmed by another terrorist dictatorship, so I simply don't see the trend toward callousness, and I don't buy the "don't embarrass the admin" angle.
I find it sickening that people are in "despair" about American values because we aren't wringing our hands over poor Saddam. Talk about misplaced priorities.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 8 |
| 2003 | 67 |
| 2002 | 4 |
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