As is the case whenever anyone discloses information which reflects poorly on the Bush administration and particularly its Iraq project, Bush followers are swarming in fury, attacking Murtha personally as a traitor and a criminal. The "California Conservative," in a post concisely entitled "John Murtha, Traitor", recommends these actions against Murtha:
Frankly, this is the actions of a traitor or a sellout. He deserves to be ridiculed, excoriated and frog-marched off Capitol Hill, then remanded to jail. No bail. Doesn’t his idiot know the type of damage this inflicts on the Marines?
Michelle Malkin accuses Murtha of "hanging the Marines." GatewayPundit laments that "it's sad that this 'war crimes conspirator' is the best the democrats have to offer on Defense... very sad." Confederate Yankees alleges that Murtha "has dishonored his seat, the military criminal justice system, the Marine Corps and the United States of America."
Let's leave aside the all-too-obvious irony that the same circles who all but scheduled the public hanging of Mary McCarthy for treason a few weeks ago -- and who, for months, have been calling for the lengthy imprisonment of New York Times reporter Jim Risen -- now find it so deeply troubling that someone would dare to opine about someone's guilt before a full-fledged trial has been conducted. That level of hypocrisy is way too commonplace among this strain of Bush supporters to merit a real discussion.
What is so notable here is the sheer personal venom directed towards Murtha and his patriotism, up to and including calls for his imprisonment. One would think that someone who honorably serves their country for 28 years as a Marine, and who has a long and trusted record of serving as one of the primary allies of the U.S. military in Congress, would be immunized from having their patriotism and honor assaulted so casually and glibly by people whose record of service (military and non-military) could not even compare to Murtha's. One can certainly criticize Murtha for reaching this conclusion or voicing it in the way he did, but to accuse him of hating the Marines, hating the United States, and then urging his imprisonment -- all done so casually and routinely, as though it's nothing more than the Hate Session for the Day -- never ceases to amaze.
I have no idea why Murtha opined on this case, although it is clear that he was relying upon at least one or more of the numerous, high-level military allies he has. It is very likely that he came forward with this information -- and that he was urged to do so by his military allies -- for exactly the reason Billmon speculates:
I don't know why Murtha went public (just as the right wingers don't know) but I can make my own guess: He did it to try to prevent Rumsfeld's toadies from classifying and then deep sixing the investigative report, as they tried to bury the Taguba report on Abu Ghraib. And if the past really is prologue, Murtha is probably speaking on behalf of some fairly senior Marine officers who either can't abide a cover up, or who want to pin the blame on the people who created this mess, and left the jarheads in Haditha to deal with it, instead of on their beloved Corps.
Ultimately, do any of these war supporters really care if these allegations are true? Weren't they just recently celebrating Shelby Steele's recommendation that we fight this war with much less precision and sensitivity to civilian deaths, and with much greater and unrestrained "ferocity"? Are they angry at Murtha for violating their oh-so-deeply held beliefs in the need for due process before publicly proclaiming someone's guilt, or are they angry at him for confirming that the U.S. engaged in conduct in Iraq which, yet again, is incalculably harmful to our image and credibility in that region, supposedly the principal purpose of our occupation?
This administration hates nothing more than people who publicize politically harmful information that they want to conceal. Those who have been most viciously attacked, and at whom the most intense calls for imprisonment have been aimed, have been those who have disclosed information that has reflected poorly on the Commander-in-Chief and his administration. That is what explains these sustained attacks on investigative journalism. Investigative journalists, by definition, reveal information which the Bush administration wants to keep secret, and they are therefore one of the prime Enemies.
When ABC News recently revealed on its blog their sources had advised the journalists that their telephone records were being monitored by the Bush administration in order to determine the identity of their sources, the reactions in the Comment section to the ABC blog were as intense as they were illustrative:
'Bout time you guys are roped in.
Posted by: Brad May 15, 2006 11:11:50 AM
Excellent the Media needs looking after, Traitors most of them.......
Posted by: ken wiley May 15, 2006 11:12:07 AM
good, you seditionist creeps deserve what you get. who knows how many serviceman have died because of your "right to know"
Posted by: jeff bynum May 15, 2006 11:12:10 AM
I hope the information they gain allows them to catch the scum that leak information, and helps them arrest the communist scum who publish it.
Posted by: Dave Mottolo May 15, 2006 11:12:28 AM
well maybe ABC news better stop leaking classified information. This only helps our enemies and right now I believe ABC news is an enemy of the US.
Posted by: scott May 15, 2006 11:13:39 AM
GOOD! I hope they find out who is reporting all of these leaks. And I hope you are tried and perhaps spend some time in jail for it.KEEP CALLING and I hope they track your every word!
Posted by: bridget May 15, 2006 11:17:21 AM
I am a journalism graduate, UNC-Chapel Hill. I am also a veteran.I hope they catch every government leaker of classified secret information and put them in prison for life. And any reporter publishing known classified secret information should be shot. It is called treason, not first amendment rights.
Posted by: Tom Camp May 15, 2006 11:26:53 AM
This type of rhetoric matters. New Bush press secretary Tony Snow told Hugh Hewitt that he reads right-wing blogs -- and specifically identified Instapundit, Michelle Malkin and Powerline. Dick Cheney spent more quality time yesterday with Rush Limbaugh. Failed political movements often turn to the most extreme elements in their base in order to prop up enthusiasm, and there are few things uglier than the extreme elements among Bush followers.
I can't think of a single prominent Democratic political figure (perhaps other than Joe Lieberman) who hasn't been routinely accused of being a traitor and at whom threats of imprisonment haven't been launched by certain Bush followers around the blogosphere. News that journalists are being investigated, and even calls for the imprisonment of journalists, are now so routine that they hardly attract notice any longer. And anyone who reveals information that reflects poorly on the administration -- including life-long military veterans and pro-military Congressmen -- is an anti-American traitor who is tantamount to a criminal.
The Bush administration and many of its followers are coming increasingly to see hostile journalists and various political opponents as traitors and criminals, and their escalating rhetoric includes what are now routine calls for the investigation and punishment of those who politically harm the administration.
Murtha is right. The neocons are wrong. If treason is involved, it's by Cheney and Rumsfeld, both of whom are violating their oaths of office.
ReplyDeleteThe Pentagon lost the trust and goodwill of a generation of Americans for good with it's repeated lying during the VietNam War in the '60s - it's just amazing to me that they never learned their lesson. And it says loads about the veracity and character of their right wing water-carriers that they choose to personally victimize those who tell the truth.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested to know if any of the clowns smearing Congressman Murtha ever actually served in the military. Are we dealing with another whiny outbreak from the 101st Fighting Keyboards?
ReplyDeleteI can't think of a single prominent Democratic political figure (perhaps other than Joe Lieberman) who hasn't been routinely accused of being a traitor...
ReplyDeleteDon't forget former Senator (and former sentient being) Zell Miller, D-GA.
"I hope they catch every government leaker of classified secret information and put them in prison for life. And any reporter publishing known classified secret information should be shot. It is called treason, not first amendment rights.
ReplyDeletePosted by: Tom Camp"
And yet, these folks are first in line to defend the odious outing of Valerie Plame as no big deal.
I'm sure this kind of thing has been going on almost from the very beginning. Entire cities have been destroyed, for crying out loud, ostensibly because they were "insurgent strongholds" or some such bullshit.
ReplyDeleteI mean, come ON!! We saw a video of a marine(?) shoot a wounded iraqi in the head and then laugh about it. Remember? They went into a building, saw a bunch of dead Iraqis, saw that one was still alive and pretending to be dead, shot him in the head, then laughed.
Now tell me, which troops am I supposed to be supporting again?
The responsibility for this goes straight to the top of the totem pole. You know, the man who, if his mouth is open you can be sure he's lying. You know, the man (and group of men and women) who LIED US INTO THIS GOD-FORSAKEN WAR!!!
I will now go spontaneously combust, such is my anger.
Thank you John Murtha, Billmon, Glenn Greenwald, and a host of others.
When the rats'"reality" is being continuously attacked from all sides, it's understandable that they don't have time to actually "think" before they speak; they only have time and strength for the most basic of knee-jerk reactions.
ReplyDeleteWhat is more telling is the fact that their knee-jerk reactions reveal their underlying motivations; that thing that is at the center of their being, the thing that drives every thought and utterance; which is fear and hatred.
I like this part of Billmon's post:
ReplyDeleteThe men who committed this crime aren't really human any more -- they shed their humanity like a snake sheds its skin when they walked into those houses and started shooting. All that's left of them is a dark pit at the center of their reptilian brain stems, a place that knows no pity or remorse or even self-awareness. They're lost souls -- lost to the world and to themselves.
I think that says it all right there. It speaks, as well, to those who seek to defend the president, this war, and this kind of abhorrent action.
Glenn, you set out the pattern, but in my opinion you don't explain it fully. *Why* exactly does their Commander-in-Chief need to be protected? Is it just politics? Or is there more at work here?
ReplyDeleteI believe a distinction should be made between those within the political establishment, and the right-wing following in general.
Clearly, those within have political reasons: they want to stay in power.
But for the followers, I believe it goes back to the early days after 9/11. People became afraid, to varying degrees. And people looked for security.
This security was provided to them by the Commander-In-Chief, who promised he would protect them. He basically said: "You should be afraid, very afraid. But I will protect you: I am doing what I have to do to eliminate this threat. As long as I am your Commander-in-Chief, you are safe."
So what do you see when you buy into this view? If someone attacks your Commander-in-Chief, your Protector, he's also attacking you! He's attacking your safety, putting your life in jeopardy, signing your death warrant...
This is pure and bare survival instinct, and it ain't pretty.
Fear, the most effective instrument of control ever.
One would think that someone who honorably serves their country for 28 years as a Marine, and who has a long and trusted record of serving as one of the primary allies of the U.S. military in Congress, would be immunized from having their patriotism and honor assaulted so casually and glibly by people whose record of service (military and non-military) could not even compare to Murtha's.
ReplyDeleteBased on what evidence would one think this? Color me utterly unsurprised. Even if Murtha had lost three of his limbs in defense of his country, they would assault him, casually and glibly. Just ask Max Cleland.
The comments left at ABC are shocking indeed. It's hard not to jump directly to hyperbolic statements about fascism. If it weren't for the lessons of Gandhi/India/Pakistan I'd suggest we should just split up - permanently.
ReplyDeleteMurtha "opined" on this matter to show that the troops are at the breaking point because of three or four tours of duty and the failure of the whole endeavor. In his mind, one more reason to redeploy them. Although he said several times that he didn't excuse the massacre, his denial seemed half-hearted.
ReplyDeleteHere's a good article by Dick Meyer about Bush as Lame Duck and how we are not being governed. Here's an excerpt:
ReplyDeleteShort of another disaster on the scale of 9/11, George Bush no longer has the power, credibility or ability to effectively govern for the rest of his term in office. Contrary to what you hear on television, governing remains more important than campaigning. Government is more important than elections — to the extent the two can be differentiated anymore.
and...
The vaunted brilliance and corporate organization of Rove/Bush Inc. has been pretty much blown away in the second term. Rove is fighting off an indictment. From the Dubai deal to the Harriet Miers death march, the White House's political ear seems to be getting tinnier. Porter Goss' appointment to the CIA was a disaster not just politically but substantively. In his second term, the president has never reached outside his core circle for advisers, staff or ideas
and...
But what is apparent, is that George Bush has at his disposal none — none — of the tools presidents have used to turn bad situations around: public support, party support or skilled statecraft. He's a lame duck less than two years in to his second term. You are not being governed.
I agree. It seems to me that the reason that Murtha would offer an opinion would be to see the event as the sort of thing that can happen to soldiers who are overwrought and caught up in an absolute quagmire. The same sort of occurence in Vietnam had a lot to do with the collapse of public support for the war and the bad treatment of veterans who returned from it. It seems to me that Murtha is simultaneously trying to protect our foreign policy and the reputations (and sanity) of the soldiers.
ReplyDeletePretty traitorous stuff, dontcha think?
From Wikpedia on "moral equivalence"
ReplyDeletetypical conservative counter is the claim that there was in fact, a moral difference between the Soviet Union and the United States, and that policy arising in defense of the "moral superiority" of the US could not and can not be "immoral"
Well the Soviet Union is no longer an issue. So where does this "moral superiority" of the USA come from. I always knew that it came from our respect of human rights, the basic decency that precludes the use of toture, and our knowlege that we maintained our military in order to counter aggression.
Now it appears that there's a sizable faction of people who think that our moral superiority comes from the fact that we're White and Christian locked in a battle with people who aren't and can therefore do no wrong.
I'm confident that a majority of Americans can see through this and are mainly interested that we do the right thing.
That's why your calling these people out and exposing them for what they are is so important.
Re: gandalf
ReplyDeleteThey protect Bush because he's achieved cult status within the GOP. I don't think its just a post 9/11 behavior. Remember how Reagan's record has been washed of all the bad stuff (Iran-Contra, for example) and how his funeral was handled? Perhaps Reagan's "moment" was the Berlin wall. I realize the right-wingers have been upset with Bush over immigration, but once he leaves office, I'm sure we'll be reading tributes to "Saint GWB".
Meanwhile, members of our military may be committing war crimes and instead of talking about that, the right wing is dragging us into a debate over whether Murtha is a traitor.
These neocon right wingers are definitely extreme, but not for there rhetoric alone, but because they actually seem to be devout in their belief of it. this is what is scary! these people are literally slaves to an ideology. Whatever ideology it is, it is a self-serving and self-righteous one where truth and reason do not enter into thier process of thought. What they believe is the truth, there is no other. Disagreement with them are lies which deserve to be punished with imprisonment or death. Sad,Sad,Sad.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Murtha revealed this info because he seems to have a deep care and respect for the military. Not to further damage(if that's possible)the bush admin. He wants the troops to come out of this debacle as soon as possible, and I think he is trying to reveal what a total mess this really is and what it is doing to our military.
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ReplyDeleteDoesn’t his idiot know the type of damage this inflicts on the Marines?
ReplyDeleteUm....let's first consider the dead, innocent Iraqis when discussing inflicting damage.
Like kids playing in a sandbox, society enforces moral conduct. For the long-term health of our country, exposure and condemnation is essential.
Glenn, you're repeating yourself. You've said many times that this eliminationist rhetoric is escalating and it is "dangerous." We get it.
ReplyDeleteNow, though, it's critically important to go further, and explain why it is "dangerous."
What are the consequences of this sort of rhetorical escalation? What dangers are we actually facing?
And what should we do about it? Is there anything we can do about it now?
We can trace our current problem to the failure of the Democrats in office to fight the lawlessness of the Supreme Court in its Bush v Gore appointment to the presidency. With the exception of the CBC, there was almost complete acquiescence, and Al Gore has to take responsibility for his part in it, too.
"Don't fight" was the word of the day, and that became the foundation of Democratic behavior in this New World Order. "Don't fight."
And yet the weaklings on the other side could have been crushed at that early date, and at almost any date up till 9/11, had the Dems not already given up.
After 9/11, the other side was still a bunch of weakling cowards, but Dems had no ability to fight back again until the appalling drumbeats to invade Iraq. And they didn't do it. Instead, millions of people took to the streets in opposition, and they were almost entirely ignored by elected Dems. Our own Nancy Pelosi, bless her heart, said at one point, "Gee, if anyone had taken to the streets or contacted their congress member in October 2002 instead of waiting till Feb 2003, we might have been able to put the brakes on the invasion." Oddly, she didn't recall that hundreds of thousands were in the streets and the congressional switchboards were shut down by the volume of calls in OCTOBER 2002. She didn't recall. Why? Because it wasn't reported in the Big Media, that's why. And she was so insulated, she never heard directly.
We get further down the line like this, and they still don't know, still haven't heard, and are so protected in their bubbles, they can't find out.
Yet on the other side of the aisle, a grim and potentially very bloody rhetorical "exercise" is being performed in which all who disagree or seek and tell the truth are labeled as "liberals" - -or whatever the latest model demon is -- and rhetorically eliminated from the public weal.
Rhetorical elimination can easily turn into real elimination (viz: Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo) and that's the danger we face.
The Pentagon lost the trust and goodwill of a generation of Americans for good with it's repeated lying during the VietNam War in the '60s - it's just amazing to me that they never learned their lesson.
ReplyDeleteHell's bells...I'm still in the military and the Pentagon has lost my trust and good will. I have to cast a cynical eye on everything that comes down the pike that isn't tied to boring old day-to-day operations (ensuring there's toilet paper contracts, that salaries are paid, etc).
I'm supposed to be doing my Air Command and Staff College work so I can check off a square and be promotable to LtCol. I lost my appetite for the whole thing when I started going over the portion on "honor" and areas dealing broadly with proper conduct by military personnel at all times. It's frickin' hard to stomach that shit when we have Abu Ghraib and other prisoner abuses all over bejesus. It's frickin' hard to stomach when virtually every single so-called "honorable" commander involved in supporting/ordering and administering prisoner torture and abuse runs and hides in the shadows and lets their subordinates take the heat. THEY get a medal and a promotion while the grunts doing their bidding go to prison. Some honor. Some integrity. I don't see much of either these days, particularly from desk jocks at the Pentagon. What a bunch of robots and criminals they are.
Simon Critchley has some important remarks about how this administartion and its apologists do politics. For Critchley, contrary to the view on the left that Bush is an idiot, Bush and his minions are extremely adept at using the main tools of politics: fear and terror.
ReplyDeleteCritchley says:
This idea of politics as the management of fear is nothing new. ...
Shore up the mean with reverence and terror. But never banish terror from the gates of the state. The stronger the fear, the stronger the reverence for the just, the stronger your country's wall and the city's safety. A safer world, a more hopeful America, to recall the slogan of the brilliantly, indeed spectacularly, well-managed Republican National Convention in New York in September 2004. The political as the strength of the country's wall, is maintained through an economy of fear and an economy of terror. Peace is nothing more than the regulation of the psycho-political economy of awe and reverential fear, of using the threat of terror in order to bind citizens to the circuit of their subjection.
As a general outline for how this administration marshals its power in the field, we can see how Bushites always work at creating an enemy. Once this is done, they then proceed to raise the danger that these enemies pose to the right thoughts and morality that buttress the US social order.
By bringing to light the atrocities of US soldiers, Murtha is, according to these Bush apologists, threatening the noble lies that the Bush admin uses to justify its domestic and its foreign policies. These noble lies include the concepts of freedom, democracy, and human rights.
For Critchley, the Bushites' political mobilization of fear and lie occurs via a millenarian context--that is, the language used is depoliticized because it relies on the religious, absolute and supposedly context-free universality of divine revelation.
[T]he [Bushite] concept of the political is based on the fantasy construction of the enemy and maintenance of the economy of awe and terror that allows order to be secured in the so-called homeland. On the other hand, the decisive feature that defines the current US administration is a thoroughgoing hypocrisy about the political. What I mean is that, in Carl Schmitt's terms, there is something chronically depoliticising about the ideology of the current administration. Going back to those ignoble lies that are being told, contemporary US imperial power espouses an utterly moralising, universalist, indeed millennial, ideology whose key signifier is freedom. Allied to freedom are notions of democracy and human rights, and the administration even has the audacity to speak about human dignity in the 2002 National Security Strategy document that provided the metaphysical justification for pre-emptive military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
While Critchley is critical of this politics, however, he sees it as highly effective. Its hypocrisy resides in the disconnect between the propaganda about the higher virtues of justice and the actions undertaken to accomplish those ideals. The depoliticized nature of the ideals--thgrough revelation--allows them to marshal the fear of a higher power at the same time that the means used to accomplish these ideals literally can include every possible means.
This millenarian aspect--the depoliticized, religious nature of the Bush doctrines--leads the Bushite apologists to raise apocalyptic premonitions of disaster.
At the same time, the depoliticized nature of the rhetoric enables them to suggest what most would call inquistional tactics and terrorist modes of attack against its perceived enemies, such as Murtha now is suggested to be by the apologists.
But I think this is the last gasp of the bitter extreme, Glenn. Sure, these folks can be dangerous - another terror attack and they might get everything they want - but their venom stems from the very fact that increasingly, they are powerless; their little war has turned out to be a sad fiasco for everyone involved, and the country knows it; their beloved president has turned out to be an incompetent idiot, and the country knows it; their dreams have evaporated before their eyes. You bet they're pissed. But they're also far, far too chickenshit to act on it.
ReplyDeleteAgain, that could change in an instant. But without another terrorist attack to nurture their murderous fantasies, they're going to dream in harsher and harsher terms - but will ultimtely become more and more irrelevant.
I'm really sick of the Murtha bashing. Being in the military my self I'm glad he's in office, and I wish more Veterans were.
ReplyDeleteThe irony is that when the republicans aren't in the WH and/or don't have majorities in Congress, these same super patriots use their right to freedom of speech to criticize our government, our leaders, our military and anything else that pushes their bias on America.
ReplyDeleteThe curtailing of freedom of the press is one of the first signs of a despotic government and its intentions to increase its authoritarianism. We denounce it throughout the world when we see it, as an afront to democracy and freedom.
ReplyDeleteUnless it happens here.
anonymous at 1:30pm:
ReplyDeletetruly an officer and a gentleman. We need more like you.
Again. Americans are sooooo happy to give away their own rights, to a government that is acknowledged to be working AGAINST the people.
ReplyDeleteAmericans deserve what they vote for.
Billmon said a lot of good stuff, but I think with his last words he struck at the heart of what makes me ill - better to believe our fellow citizens fools than fascists.
ReplyDeleteWell, reality bites, but I think they ARE fascists, not just fools. And that is a hard, hard truth to swallow.
Jake
They cannot control the situation. Journalism is a globalized industry.
ReplyDeleteWorld opinion is emphatically against this administration, and no amount of bellyaching will change that.
My sense is that the soldiers are trying, at least fitfully, to do the right thing. After all, it is their institution that is being destroyed. Murtha sides with them. You are hearing the real voice of the soldiers, at least the brass, when Murtha speaks.
From davidbyron at 2:09PM:
ReplyDelete"Glenn essentially says that patriotism and militarism are the same, or at least that the more violent you are the more patriotic."
Sorry, I take a different reading of this post.
Glenn is by no means equating patriotism with 'militarism', but rather drawing a bright-line distinction between those who actually celebrate or simply outright deny atrocities like this versus those who demand both accountability and justice.
The fact the attacks on Rep. Murtha seek to demean his long and honorable service in the USMC, something he is rightly proud of, merely underscores how shallow his critics actually are.
I would agree with this link between violence / militarism and patriotism since I would say patriotism is just another form of violent prejudice
ReplyDeleteI have to STRONGLy disagree with this one. Patriotism has nothing to do with militarism and conflating the two is exactly how the right-wing gets away with smearing half of the patriotic Americans who inhabit this Country.
World opinion is emphatically against this administration, and no amount of bellyaching will change that.
ReplyDeleteActually, world opinion is increasingly against Americans, not just this Administration.
What's with the bloodlust in the right wing? Glenn has written several posts on the psychology of the right wing, but what has been striking me as odd is the violent connotations used by the right wing bloggers.
ReplyDeleteSome loose, anecdotal examples from the past few months.
-Not only should Murtha be fired, but he should be 'frogmarched' out and 'thrown in jail.'
-Not only should Mary McCarthy leave the CIA, she should be in 'handcuffs' and in jail and then 'hung.'
-Not only should we have secure borders, but we should have 'minefields' and 'machine guns' ready to shoot people on sight (presumably just the brown people).
-Not only should we criticize and harangue college students who protested (and blocked) military recruiters, but we should threaten these kids with their lives.
I'm sure there are plenty more examples, but my point is this: not only is the criticism bitter, hateful, and unfair, but a violent streak often runs through the criticism as well. Why?
Just as an example of how odd that is, I am someone that is passionately lobbying for the impeachment of President Bush, but I have never thought, spoken, or written about 'frogmarching', 'hanging', 'handcuffing', or 'shooting' President Bush. How many of you out there who support impeachment have had these types of violent or vengeful fantasies? Anyone?
Perhaps it's some sort of response to 9/11. Many recoiled in fear, and many wondered how to change things to prevent another attack. My theory is that others still were simply so enraged that they support any violent action anywhere in retaliation- be it against Iraq (who had nothing to do 9/11), Iraqi citizens (who are not part of al Qaeda), critics of the Retaliator-in-Chief, journalists who embarrass the Retaliator-in-Chief, Muslims, Arabs, Mexicans, and on and on...
Like Glenn, I believe the right wing blogs are frightening, but unlike Glenn, I don't believe these people become relevant and dangerous until they follow up their hateful words and thoughts with actions. Speech, no matter how hateful or violent, is fine, but hateful or violent actions are another thing entirely.
I would also point out that regardless of their actions, the violent and hateful tendencies of a major political party are important because you are fooling yourself if you think Fascism cannot rise in the United States. It can happen anywhere, given the right political and cultural circumstances, and the United States is no exception to that rule.
Does the violent tendencies of the right presage a rise of Fascism in the United States? I say yes, but it's just a theory, and I'm wondering what other people think.
Specifically why does service in the military, and support for the military imply you should be seen as more patriotic?
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't.
Your point is well taken.
But it also helps support my point which is that the confusion between patriotism and militarism has become so ingrained, that even people who should know better fall into the trap.
From davidbyron at 2:35PM:
ReplyDelete"Then how come nobody but me saw an issue with Glenn claiming that Murtha should be seen as more patriotic simply because he is more militaristic?"
I can only speak for myself, but I read Glenn's post as stating Rep. Murtha was more patriotic *not* because he is 'more militaristic', but because he is willing to confront the Bush Administration with the consequences of its decisions and demand its accountability.
The fact he has a long, distinguished military service is somewhat incidential and secondary. The current batch of attacks upon him as a 'coward' and 'traitor' ring hollow when compared to that.
Again, in my personal reading, Glenn wasn't equating militarism with patriotism, but simply noting the attacks on Rep. Murtha's character are disingenuious and shallow when compared against his background.
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ReplyDeletecfaller: I have never thought, spoken, or written about 'frogmarching', 'hanging', 'handcuffing', or 'shooting' President Bush. How many of you out there who support impeachment have had these types of violent or vengeful fantasies? Anyone?
ReplyDeleteI had this same question. The point is, if you did say this you'd have the Secret Service at your house and you'd be up on charges that could land you in jail for a long time.
I am wondering about this: is there a law similar to the one about making threats against the president that also applies to those making threats against senators or house members?
BTW cfaller, I did address the thinking and mind-set behind the violent imagery in my analysis of Simon Critchley's comments on Bush's political rationale.
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Bernard Shaw
Quoting myself posted here on 4/26.
ReplyDeletePatriotism is after all about not only loving your country, but participating in its governance and accepting responsibility for its actions. If our country's actions don't reflect our values, then we have a responsibility to try and bring about change.
I think more and more people are realizing this and are waking up to notice that our values are NOT being reflected in our governments actions.
"How dare you condemn them without a trial! For that, I'm going to condemn YOU without a trial!"
ReplyDeleteMyopic hypocrites to the last.
It's the extension of the Vietnam lie. The war would have been won, if the hippies didn't sap the nation's morale and encourage the commies.
ReplyDeleteThey believe in a kind of world where reality is shaped by expectations, and if we think good things, they'll happen. And they call us "hippies"!
When foreign troops occupy your homeland, even your homes, patriotism, the kind the framers spoke of, has meaning. To the people who toss the word around today, with the exception of Glenn and others who understand this distinction, it is as Bierce observed, meaningless.
ReplyDeletePATRIOT, n.
One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
PATRIOTISM, n.
Combustible rubbish read to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
I should say that I happen to think foreign troops do occupy my homeland. They call themselves Republicans.
ReplyDeleteI'd also read those comments from the ABC blog the other day, and thought Wow, and Malkin writes a book about how the left is 'unhinged?'
ReplyDeleteWhenever I hear a phrase along the lines of "Bush is motivating his base" I think of these folks.
The war would have been won, if the hippies didn't sap the nation's morale and encourage the commies.
ReplyDeleteThat war was won, to the extent that it was winnable, or achieved the objectives that were achievable, not all, but most. That's Noam Chomsky's opinion, in fact. It was lost when this country didn't recognize the hard realities and quit while we were ahead. We stayed as an unwelcome occupying force and were dealt a defeat by those to whom the term "patriot" had some actual meaning.
So you define patriotism to be an irrational identification with the state?
ReplyDeleteYou've identified one of the more puzzling aspects of living.
Why do people value money? Or even more "irrationally", why do they value gold? Only because everyone agrees to do so and that consensus is what allows our economy of for that matter our country to exist. Like it or not we are each part of a larger entity.
Should I held be held culpable for what some soldiers in Iraq did? Of course not, but that wouldn't help me if someone dropped me onto the scene. There would be no shortage of people who would want to kill me for no other crime than being an American. The problem with irrational hatred is that it cuts both ways. The only way I can prevent people from hating Americans is to do my best to discourage Americans from being assholes. Step one in that fight is to get our biggest assholes out of office as soon as possible. And to continue to speak out when I think we (collectively) are participating in evil.
and who, for months, have been calling for the lengthy imprisonment of New York Times reporter Jim Risen -- now find it so deeply troubling that someone would dare to opine about someone's guilt before a full-fledged trial has been conducted. That level of hypocrisy is way too commonplace among this strain of Bush supporters to merit a real discussion.
ReplyDeleteOh please. This is high hypocrisy on it's own. Here we have a person (Risen) that actually got an award for merrily breaking the law, while the call for censure and impeachment echoed round the country for Bush before finding out that no crime had been committed.
What is so notable here is the sheer personal venom directed towards Murtha and his patriotism, up to and including calls for his imprisonment......
........Those who have been most viciously attacked, and at whom the most intense calls for imprisonment have been aimed, have been those who have disclosed information that has reflected poorly on the Commander-in-Chief and his administration. That is what explains these sustained attacks on investigative journalism. Investigative journalists, by definition, reveal information which the Bush administration wants to keep secret, and they are therefore one of the prime Enemies.
And here we have a clumsy attempt to conflate Murtha's negative public relations stunt with actual lawbreaking. Worst of all is calling leak stenography, investigative journalism. Murtha can smear the Marines if he likes, and someone else can call for his jailing. It's free speech.
Publishing national secrets leaked by CIA operatives is patently illegal. But you're all for it. The NSA program leaked may or may not be legal but you're ready to impeach Bush over it. Double standard? No doubt. Why in the world should anyone take your views seriously when your morals are obviously relative?
Failed political movements often turn to the most extreme elements in their base in order to prop up enthusiasm, and there are few things uglier than the extreme elements among Bush followers.
Except for the extreme elements of Bush Haters, a mild example here....
Anonymous said...
I will be VERY pissed off if they DON'T have investigations!
Plus I want to see them scumbags be marginalized and sidelined just like they are treating OUR party now! Threaten to take away the filibuster from them and just treat them like crap in general.
They no longer deserve a voice, they have abused their chance at running it all.
News that journalists are being investigated, and even calls for the imprisonment of journalists, are now so routine that they hardly attract notice any longer.
Journalists? No, not journalists, garden variety reporters. Starting with Jayson Blair and down the line to Dan Rather reporting has gotten a black eye, shot itself in the foot, and screwed the pooch. Credibility is not their strong suit especially when doing something obviously partisan like the NSA leaks that fizzled.
The Bush administration and many of its followers are coming increasingly to see hostile journalists and various political opponents as traitors and criminals, and their escalating rhetoric includes what are now routine calls for the investigation and punishment of those who politically harm the administration.
This is nothing more than whining about having to take something less obnoxious than you folks dish out. One of the telling points about this controversy is that no conservative will politicize the actual investigation. If the troops did wrong they should pay the price. Contrast that with lionizing lawbreaking by leak stenographers. the difference could not be more stark.
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ReplyDeletePretty traitorous stuff, dontcha think?
ReplyDeleteActually, yes.
He is a military man, first and foremost. The video was already out there. It's been seen. There was black and white proof of what happened.
This incident was not going to be "covered up." It's one of countless incidents like this from what I have been reading lately. There is a "Death Squad" mentality which has taken over many of our troops in Iraq.
If we are being asked to accept that in any way or any form or for any reason we are being asked to give up our own humanity.
The men who committed this crime aren't really human any more -- they shed their humanity like a snake sheds its skin when they walked into those houses and started shooting. All that's left of them is a dark pit at the center of their reptilian brain stems, a place that knows no pity or remorse or even self-awareness. They're lost souls -- lost to the world and to themselves.
I am with billmon entirely. I will not "support" such behavior no matter who does it or why. It is inhuman, depraved and inexcusable.
Murtha has betrayed my values by offering justifications for this type of behavior. It simply cannot be justified.
These were not acts of self-defense. These were atrocities commited by amoral monsters. Is there anyone on this blog who could be under so much pressure that he would shoot an injured man lying still on the floor and then laugh about it?
Kill and laugh?
What does that tell you about the value that soldier places on the lives of other human beings?
If that were a family member of yours, would you really find that so funny?
In other wars, heroic soldiers who were drafted were literally broken as people because of the killing they had to do because it was wartime.
These soldiers laugh?
Murtha came forth to offer a defense of the troops who "over-reacted" because they were under "pressure."
These people didn't "over-react" because they were under "pressure."
That would be an excuse for any type of immoral, inhuman behavior by attempting to justify it because of the circumstances.
Hitler had an unhappy youth. We have to take that into account when considering his actions. Condi Rice is under pressure. Let's nuke Iran. That kind of thing.
People have free will, even under the most difficult of circumstances. How a person acts under pressure is a measure of what kind of person he is.
Murtha is, in essence, asking us to do that. "They acted badly. They were under pressure. Let's re-deploy."
I don't buy it. I wouldn't send those people some place else. I would try them for war crimes.
The attacks from the right are of course insane because those people go even farther in justifying these immoral actions. They don't even think the soldiers who did that need any justification.
CarolynC,
ReplyDeleteYou've missed all the massacres that the US has been involved in. There are more than enough to go around. From WWII, and this is just one of them involving civilians, many others involved unarmed enemy troops who had surrendered. See Biscari massacre.
The Canicattì slaughter was a war crime committed by Allied forces during the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, in which at least a dozen unarmed Italian civilians, including six children, were killed by U.S. troops under the command of General George Patton. The town of Canicattì had already surrendered when U.S. troops entered, following heavy German bombardment during their withdrawal. Civilians had been rounded up and herded into a bombed soap factory where they were shot by U.S. military policemen. The incident was covered up fearing that it would lead to reprisals from the civilian population.
The liquidation of the PKI in the 60s...
Liquidation of the PKI
On October 13 the Islamic organization Ansor holds anti-PKI rallies across Java. On October 18 around a hundred PKI are killed by Ansor. The systematic extermination of the party had begun.
Over a million Indonesians accused of being members or supporters of PKI were killed in riots and witch hunts. Lists of suspected communists were supposedly supplied to the Indonesian military by the CIA. A CIA study of the events in Indonesia assessed that "In terms of the numbers killed the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century..." [1].
It must also be noted that the CIA was not the only party to the issue, and there was also British involvement in the events.
Time Magazine presented the following account on December 17, 1966 : "Communists, red sympathisers and their families are being massacred by the thousands. Backlands army units are reported to have executed thousands of communists after interrogation in remote jails. Armed with wide-bladed knives called parangs, Moslem bands crept at night into the homes of communists, killing entire families and burying their bodies in shallow graves."
"The murder campaign became so brazen in parts of rural East Java, that Moslem bands placed the heads of victims on poles and paraded them through villages. The killings have been on such a scale that the disposal of the corpses has created a serious sanitation problem in East Java and Northern Sumatra where the humid air bears the reek of decaying flesh. Travellers from those areas tell of small rivers and streams that have been literally clogged with bodies."
You don't know the half of it in Nam... or Panama. Iraq is just another in a long of massacres and slaughters this country perpetrates against innocent civillians in other countries.
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ReplyDeleteWhen I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less
ReplyDeleteI'm just trying to claim the high ground above the people who scream "treason" anytime anyone tries to hold Americans accountable for their actions. They also use the phrase "blame America first" to describe the same bahavior.
I refuse to allow them to portray me "unpatriotic" and hence refuse to define patriotism as automatically evil.
PhD9 said... I refuse to allow them to portray me "unpatriotic" and hence refuse to define patriotism as automatically evil.
ReplyDeleteBeing "patriotic" isn't the same as being a good and decent American. A good and decent American blames himself or his country when they are in the wrong. A "patriot" in this sense, never does. It's foolish for these Americans to invoke "patriotism" when they have invaded another country without justification.
dan:
ReplyDeleteIt's the extension of the Vietnam lie. The war would have been won, if the hippies didn't sap the nation's morale and encourage the commies.
They believe in a kind of world where reality is shaped by expectations,...
Umm, I think you meant "PR".
Cheers,
My country, unless it's wrong. What could be more "moral" than that?
ReplyDelete"I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest." - Martin Luther King, Jr,
ReplyDeleteshooter242:
ReplyDeleteOh please. This is high hypocrisy on it's own. Here we have a person (Risen) that actually got an award for merrily breaking the law,...
Oh, really??? Now what law did he break? Out with it.....
Cheers,
shooter242:
ReplyDelete...while the call for censure and impeachment echoed round the country for Bush before finding out that no crime had been committed.
Ummm, won't know that until we have an investigation, will we? But Dubya has admitted "going around" the FISA law. Which, in my book, means he's breaking it....
Publishing national secrets leaked by CIA operatives is patently illegal....
Oh, really? Sez who? What law, now?
Cheers,
AMERICAblog reader Melissa, you made the New York Times
ReplyDeleteNYT
...news of the [NSA] program, particularly in this fiercely polarized political climate, has turned a beleaguered regional phone company with a somewhat lackluster customer service record into a gleaming political touchstone and beacon of consumer protection.... At Americablog.com, Melissa said: "I just switched to Qwest. It took two minutes."
And you got republished in the International Herald Tribune all over the world. You're a star, baby. Not bad for leaving a comment on a blog.
davidbyron: It is irrational for example to accept the blame or responsibility for actions you didn't commit, cause or support, yet you say a patriot will do this.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you did not mean it this way, so I will await a disclaimer on your part. But this statement you assert seems irrational itself. The irrationality comes from the idea that personal morality or ethics does not imply our taking responsibility for the actions of those we call countrymen. In what way are either I or you not responsible for the actions of the soldiers in the field fighting in our name in Iraq?
The actions committed in my or your name seems to imply the idea that we are or morally should take responsibility for those actions. We may not want to take responsibility for them, shrinking back from their horror, but they are nonetheless ours. It seems that the type of distancing you suggest--a distancing that I might use to dissociate myself from the evil is in fact a mirror image of the types of moral distancing that occurs when a Bush, for example, talks about collateral damage being just a fact of war. He takes no personal responsibility for the deaths of innocent men, women, and children because a bomb did it, not him. This seems to me to be a morally bankrupt understanding or moral responsibility.
Ted Honderich talks about this in an essay:
What makes something right or wrong is what it can reasonably be expected to do. What makes it right or wrong is not what the person would do instead if he had more choice. It does not matter what he says to himself or others is his goal -- or what he puts out of his mind. The prate of politicians about freedom does not often justify frying people.
Do you need what is as good as a proof of this, out of your own judgement?
Consider an ordinary murderer. His wife left him and he won't take it. He glues the locks of the house she is in and sets fire to it, knowing that an entirely unconnected person went in there and is probably still there. No judge will agree that he is responsible for only one death. No relative of the unconnected person will feel or think that about him.
As the casualty figures for innocents killed on account of American and British soldiers mount, it is impossible to make a relevant difference between the action of the leaders of the soldiers and a young Palestinian woman who carries a bomb onto a bus in Israel to kill innocents and herself.
In a similar way, we must and should take responsibility for the actions of our soldiers in the field. That is the morally responsibile thing to do. We should not hold ourselves somehow purer or immune to the consequences of unjust actions perpetrated by either our leaders or our fellow countrymen. That type of distancing only makes us appear self-righteous and holier-than-thou.
The reason for this non-distancing is important in the following way: by identifying with both the victim and the victimizer we gain a deeper insight into the truly human tragedy that is involved in these actions. From this understanding of the human tragedy involved, we can hopefully attain a moral distance that enables us to provide a deeper moral judgment that comperehends both the victim's viewpoint as well as the motivational factors determining the unjust actor's actions.
This latter distance would hopefully give us insight into how to attack and undermine those very determining factors that bring these other humans to carry out these barbaric acts. And via this insight we could thereby counter the actions and develop ways to undermine further acts of their kind.
[edited for typos and added link]
What is low hypocrisy? Is that like setting the hypocrisy amplifier on 3 instead of 11?
ReplyDeleteGlenn:
ReplyDeleteWelcome back.
Billmon has an excellent discussion of the significance of the pending Pentagon investigation into allegations that U.S. Marines in Haditha killed innocent Iraqi citizens in cold blood. These allegations have received substantial attention due to Jack Murtha's public claim that military sources have told him that these allegations are true -- that "there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
Murtha is flat out accusing the Marines of premeditated murder. However, he does not claim to have seen any of the evidence. Instead, we are supposed to believe the hearsay allegations (not evidence) of unidentified "military sources."
The town of Haditha is a Sunni town which was allowing the Baathists terrorists to attack our troops. Their claims without evidence are suspect and have been used for propaganda purposes by the enemy.
Murtha's claims without evidence similarly give aid and comfort to the enemy.
If Murtha ends up being right, then the Marines involved should be courts martialed and let the evidence lead where it may.
However, if Murtha is wrong, he should be censured and removed from the House for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. He cannot be tried for this because congressmen are immune from criminal prosecution for their actions when the House is in session.
Let's leave aside the all-too-obvious irony that the same circles who all but scheduled the public hanging of Mary McCarthy for treason a few weeks ago -- and who, for months, have been calling for the lengthy imprisonment of New York Times reporter Jim Risen -- now find it so deeply troubling that someone would dare to opine about someone's guilt before a full-fledged trial has been conducted.
You do not have to wait for a full fledged trial to be held to have an opinion so long as there is evidence on which to base that opinion.
Mary McCarthy reportedly failed a polygraph, confessed to illegally leaking classified information on where the US was detaining top enemy officers and was then fired and her case referred to Justice. Presuming the Donkey media who reported this are not lying again, this is a reasonable evidentiary basis to conclude that McCarthy probably violated several felony criminal statutes and that violation provided aid and comfort to the enemy.
We can all read what Risen disclosed to the enemy, what the Espionage Act forbids and have a reasonable evidentiary basis that he violated that felony criminal act and that violation provided aid and comfort to the enemy.
There is no comparison between Risen and McCarthy and Murtha's claims without evidence.
What is so notable here is the sheer personal venom directed towards Murtha and his patriotism, up to and including calls for his imprisonment. One would think that someone who honorably serves their country for 28 years as a Marine, and who has a long and trusted record of serving as one of the primary allies of the U.S. military in Congress, would be immunized from having their patriotism and honor assaulted so casually and glibly by people whose record of service (military and non-military) could not even compare to Murtha's. One can certainly criticize Murtha for reaching this conclusion or voicing it in the way he did, but to accuse him of hating the Marines, hating the United States, and then urging his imprisonment -- all done so casually and routinely, as though it's nothing more than the Hate Session for the Day -- never ceases to amaze.
1) Military service does not give you the moral authority to provide aid and comfort to the enemy by spreading propaganda lies about the military being "broken" and then spreading defeatism by calling for the military to surrender by cutting and running. Any respect and trust Murtha earned through his previous service was gone when he crossed the line here.
2) I cannot state what Murtha's motives are for lying about the condition of the military and calling for the US to surrender in Iraq. However, it is not for love of country or the armed services. You will be hard pressed to find an active duty Marine today with anything good to say about Murtha.
3) The fact that Murtha lied about the condition of the military in the past using "secret military sources" does not give me great confidence of his veracity concerning this engagement.
At the very least, Murtha was being very irresponsible in making these accusations before at least the investigation was finished. At the worst, he has slandered these Marines and provided propaganda for the enemy.
Bart, I think your "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" argument is overused.
ReplyDeleteWe live in an open society. Reasonable criticism of the government may, as a side effect, "give aid and comfort to the enemy".
(I am specifically not commenting on Murtha's actions.)
Conversely, an effort to never "give aid and comfort to the enemy" (as you use the term) would suppress much needed criticism and dissent.
Just my opinion.
davidbyron:
ReplyDeleteThis is a very similar to the way hate groups apply collective guilt.
I'm understanding your point much better now.
Holding certain individuals responsible for the acts of certain different indiviuals is the source of much (dare I say almost all) of the injustice and evil we see in the world. Fourteen Saudi's took out the World Trade Center, therefore we're justified in dropping bombs in Iraqi neighborhoods is only the quickest example I could come up with but of course there are countless others.
Unfortunately, it just happens to be the way brains work. Notice in the last sentence, I said how "we" are dropping bombs. Of course it isn't "we", it's individual pilots acting on orders from individual officers right up the chain until we get to the President.
We can't think about the world coherently unless we're willing to break it up into sets and subsets and think about them collectivly.
How we got into this mess in the first place is that a small group of people took advantage of our average citizen's tendency to overgeneralize and managed to get us into a completely unjustified war.
Devoman said...
ReplyDeleteBart, I think your "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" argument is overused.
We live in an open society. Reasonable criticism of the government may, as a side effect, "give aid and comfort to the enemy".
Conversely, an effort to never "give aid and comfort to the enemy" (as you use the term) would suppress much needed criticism and dissent.
The trick is to identify the dividing line between reasonable criticism of the government and providing aid and comfort to the enemy.
IMHO, reasonable criticism of the government during wartime are arguments with a evidentiary basis that the government is not doing enough to win the war. Examples of this might be sending too few troops to Iraq or not training the Iraqi Army quickly enough. These are legitimate criticisms and do not provide any aid and comfort to the enemy. Instead, such arguments provide a prod to the government and military to improve their efforts to achieve victory.
However, you cross the line from reasonable criticism to giving aid and comfort to the enemy when you provide propaganda to the enemy and depress the morale of the military by falsely claiming that our military is "broken" and argue that the military should surrender to the enemy by cutting and running from the field of battle. During WWII, this was called "defeatism" and US citizens who provided propaganda to the enemy saying roughly the same things were convicted and upheld as traitors.
Outside of the realm of propaganda, those who disclose to the enemy top secret intelligence gathering programs directed at the enemy provide an even more concrete aid and comfort to the enemy.
The difference between reasonable criticism of the government and giving aid and comfort to the enemy is that the former seeks to win the war and the latter either does not care or actively seeks for the US to lose the war.
I stand by my charges.
"Murtha's claims without evidence similarly give aid and comfort to the enemy."
ReplyDeletebart. I've asked you before but I'll ask again. WHO is the enemy?
Weve taken out Saddam and there was never a declaration of war and the government in Iraq is presumably freindly. So who is the enemy? Are all Iraqis? Half of them? Our soldiers have been put in an comletely untenable situation and regardless of how you feel about it, the responsibilty for them being in this situation rests entirly on GW Bush. (OK, so there were a bunch of spineless dems who helped him out!)
Paul Rosenberg said...
ReplyDeleteSee Bart's post above mine as Exhibit "A" for the fantasy narratives I was talking about.
One feature of them I forgot to highlight was the way that discredited lies are repeated over and over and over again--as we saw, for example, when Ray McGovern contronted Donald Rumsfeld.
Bart does precisely the same thing. And darned if we don't feel the need to treat his fables like they were news reports, in need of revision for factual accuracy.
What we really ought to be doing is stepping back, and looking at how his fantasies are constructed. Point-by-point rebuttal accomplishes nothing. (You can't rebut a fairy tale.)
Let's boil down this deconstructionist nonsense down to its two basic points:
1) You are calling me a liar.
2) However, you admit that you cannot rebut my facts point by point with contrary evidence.
Of course you can rebut fairy tales. That is what I spend my time doing here.
The fact that you cannot rebut my facts with contrary evidence merely disproves your first point.
See, you don't need 5000 words in a post to describe a very simple concept
Trigger happy thug!
ReplyDeletePhD9 said...
ReplyDelete"Murtha's claims without evidence similarly give aid and comfort to the enemy."
bart. I've asked you before but I'll ask again. WHO is the enemy?
The Saddam dictatorship and its military was defeated.
The current enemy is al Qaeda and its Islamic fascist allies across the world and the Baathist terrorists in Iraq.
Weve taken out Saddam and there was never a declaration of war and the government in Iraq is presumably freindly. So who is the enemy? Are all Iraqis? Half of them?
In Iraq, roughly 1500 al Qaeda and 20,000 Baathist terrorists. These are supported by maybe 10% of the population (half of the 20% of Iraq which is Sunni.
Worldwide, maybe 20,000 al Qeada and allied groups.
Our soldiers have been put in an comletely untenable situation and regardless of how you feel about it, the responsibilty for them being in this situation rests entirly on GW Bush.
How is the situation in the least untenable?
We are winning every battle.
We are fielding a friendly Iraqi military which now controls over 2/3 of the battle space in Iraq and continues to expand.
We have allowed the Iraqis of all sects to elect a friendly government.
In contrast, the enemy has failed to achieve any of its stated goals. It is now militarily impossible for the enemy to defeat the Iraqi military and take over the Iraqi government.
We are starting to draw down our troops in Iraq this year because we have already won. The only thing left to do is transfer the fight over to the Iraqi military.
The terror will continue for some years. This is a generational fight against Islamic fascism. However, we have been winning and will continue to win unless we unilaterally surrender to the enemy.
David, Just a small nitpick. In the American judicial system, people are often held responsible for things they did not do. I am responsible under some laws, for example, for what my child does. I am also responsible for something that occurs in my house, such as drug dealing, for example. A more dramatic example is when I know of a murder, do not do it, but am held responsible for it. Oll of these examples--perhaps obviously--are not equal. But it does show that individual responsibility according to the law does not stop at the limits of the skin on my teeth.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, one can only remember the Uurmeberg trials to consider how much culpability resides in the actual act of killing and the actions of creating the conditions or possibility for that killing. Some have even gone so far as to accuse the German people per se of being responsible for the holocaust--simply by doing nothing.
But my own comments relate not to social or group responsibility--a distinction you neatly disregard. I was speaking from a first-person stance not a third person plural perspective.
My point, again, was that one must, to gain an appropriate moral distance, idenitfy with those who commit the crimes and those who are the victims of those crimes. This is because doing so provides an insight based on the tragic nature of any situation.
What is the possible reason for this you might ask? Let me use an historical analogy. You are no doubt familiar with the South African Truth commision. The sole purpose of this commission was to allow victims and perpetrators to tell their stories. One of the reasons for this commission was to enable a form of public and communal forgiveness. Through telling their stories, the perpetrators became more human, less monstrous and fanatastical. Thereby, victims and families of victims could find some basis of humanity in themselves that showed how much of the criminal we might indeed have in ourselves.
The forgiveness could not happen if the community continued to hold itself purer and holier-than-thou. In some way, individuals had to recognize themselves in both victim and perpetrator.
The brunt of my previous comment posited that to attain a truly moral distance one must accept responsibility for the actions that others perpetrate. This is a responsibility--of course--that does not imply legal culpability, although it might (I think of nations that allow slavery or genocide). It does imply the notion that tgo take on injustice I must oppose the perpetrator in myself before I can hope to destroy the injustice that others perpetrate.
Bart you're such a joke. You must be a college republican training for a long career in politics.
ReplyDeleteHey Bart, according to your posts I guess it's time, once again, to unfurl the 'Mission Accomplished' banner! Wow, thank God, this nightmare is almost over!
ReplyDeleteOh, and which poll do you use to substantiate the claim 'You will be hard pressed to find an active duty Marine today with anything good to say about Murtha.'
Is this something you gleaned from a poll or more idiotic neocon wishful thinking?
God the ignorance/hubris of the Right in frighening!
bart said:
ReplyDeleteThe difference between reasonable criticism of the government and giving aid and comfort to the enemy is that the former seeks to win the war and the latter either does not care or actively seeks for the US to lose the war.
bart, that's silly- neither you nor anyone else can divine the motivations of a person who discloses classified information, or the motivations of the reporter who publishes that classified information. Since motivation (or what the person "seeks" as you put it) is the only differentiation you offer between reasonable criticism and treason, then by your own definition you can't tell the difference.
I would also add that just because information is classified, it does not necessarily follow that disclosing that information gives aid and comfort to the enemy. You seem to accept that as a given, but I am (and I bet many others are) much more distrustful of the government. I want to know why information is classified, and how national security has been harmed by its disclosure before I make a judgment on someone's "treasonous" activities.
This is a generational fight against Islamic fascism. However, we have been winning and will continue to win unless we unilaterally surrender to the enemy.
ReplyDeleteWe had a very interesting discussion upthread about individual and collective responsibility. So now we get to the hard part. Our enemy is "Islamic Fascism" I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you mean Islamic fascists. How do you differentiate between an Islamic fascist and an Islamic non-fascist? How did attacking the only secular country in the region mive the war against "Islamic-Fascim" forward. If what we are fighting is an ideology as opposed to a bunch of individuals, wouldn't make some sense to bring additional tools to bear other than bombs and guns. I can't think of any quicker way to create an "Islamic fascist" than killing her dad, can you?
Lying, murderous lizerdoid Bart writes,
ReplyDeleteDuring WWII, this was called "defeatism" and US citizens who provided propaganda to the enemy saying roughly the same things were convicted and upheld as traitors.
Can you cite cases? Contexts? You'd better be able to.
Mary McCarthy reportedly failed a polygraph, confessed to illegally leaking classified information on where the US was detaining top enemy officers and was then fired and her case referred to Justice. Presuming the Donkey media who reported this are not lying again, this is a reasonable evidentiary basis to conclude that McCarthy probably violated several felony criminal statutes and that violation provided aid and comfort to the enemy.
Links to the press that asserts these things re: McCarthy, polygraph, specifics? None, because there are none.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteBart you're such a joke. You must be a college republican training for a long career in politics.
5:49 PM
Nah, it's just Larry DiRita on a bender.
David Byron is just not fond of the military. I like the military. It's a wonderful tool, as long as the carpenter doesn't use the hammer to turn screws. The USMC is older than the USA, founded in 1775. They get the hand-me-downs from the Army. The Swiss have better equipment. They are many things and there may even be a few "trigger happy thugs" among them, but no more than in any other branch of the service. More now perhaps that recruitment quotas are not being met. Soon they will be offering convicts a chance to get early release if they sign up. The Swiss did not have a standing Army until 2003. It had been more like a miliitia and included every able bodied male within a certain age range. That changed in 2003. The Armed Forces of Switzerland is a unique institution somewhere between a militia and a regular army. It is equipped with mostly modern, sophisticated, and well-maintained weapons systems and equipment.
ReplyDelete(...)
Famously, members of the armed forces keep their rifles and uniforms in their homes for immediate mobilisation, as well as 50 rounds of ammunition in a sealed tin, to be used for self defence while traveling to the mobilisation points. Additional ammunition is kept at military bases where the militia are supposed to report. Swiss military doctrines are arranged in peculiar ways to make this organisation effective. Switzerland claims to be able to mobilise the entire population for warfare within 12 hours. In contrast, it can take several weeks to several months for a militarily-active country such as the United States to mobilise its military force.
Every year, those still in Reserve have to present themselves with their rifles at a shooting stand, and fire a certain number of rounds, which are issued.
Our enemy is "Islamic Fascism"
ReplyDeleteNot possible. If al-Qaeda were fascists they would have a Navy and an Air Force and the means of production for such weapons of war that were inextricably intertwined with their government, like here.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteOh, and which poll do you use to substantiate the claim 'You will be hard pressed to find an active duty Marine today with anything good to say about Murtha.'
Are you kidding? The righty talk TV and radio regularly bring on Marines fresh from Iraq to comment after one of Murtha's rants. Having been in the infantry, it is amusing to see these men and women attempt to restrain themselves from the swearing which is a normal part of a grunt's vocabulary when describing a form of life lower than whale sh!t.
You folks really ought to get away from these leftwing echo chambers to hear and read what the other side is saying. That is why I am here.
whew! an we're the angry ones?
ReplyDeletecfaller96 said...
ReplyDeletebart said: The difference between reasonable criticism of the government and giving aid and comfort to the enemy is that the former seeks to win the war and the latter either does not care or actively seeks for the US to lose the war.
bart, that's silly- neither you nor anyone else can divine the motivations of a person who discloses classified information, or the motivations of the reporter who publishes that classified information.
No sane person can rationally believe that disclosing to the enemy intelligence gathering directed at the enemy can do anything but provide aid and comfort to the enemy.
None of these leakers appears to be irrational so they either do not care if they are harming our war effort or they are actively seeking our defeat.
bart... Are you kidding? The righty talk TV and radio regularly bring on Marines fresh from Iraq to comment after one of Murtha's rants.
ReplyDeleteThose are the trigger happy thugs David is talking about. We have fascists here. Some of them do gravitate to the military.
Is bart an evangelist? Is he a bible thumper?
ReplyDeleteNone of these leakers appears to be irrational so they either do not care if they are harming our war effort or they are actively seeking our defeat.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe they are actually professionals who are very much motivated to defeat the enemy who are sick and tired of the whole process being undermined by partisan stupidity emanating from the White House.
No, not really. There's very few strict liability laws. You are not held responsible for what you don't do unless you had a duty to do something and were able.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he's talking about statutory reqs.
Good Samaritan laws in the United States and Canada are laws protecting from blame those who choose to aid others who are injured or ill. They are intended to reduce bystander's hesitation to assist, for fear of being prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death. In other countries good samaritan laws require reasonable action from bystanders (such as calling the authorities). The name Good Samaritan refers to the famous parable told by Jesus in the New Testament (Luke 10:33-35).
In other countries (including in the Canadian province of Quebec), Good Samaritan laws describe laws which legally require citizens to assist people in distress, unless doing so would put themselves in harm's way. Citizens are often required to, at minimum, call the local emergency number, unless doing so would be harmful, in which case, the authorities should be contacted when the harmful situation has been removed. Such laws currently exist in countries such as Italy, Japan, France, Andorra, and Spain. The photographers at the scene of Princess Diana's fatal car accident were investigated for violation of French good samaritan law. In Germany, "Unterlassene Hilfeleistung" (neglect of duty to provide assistance) is an offense; a citizen is obliged to provide first aid when necessary and is immune from prosecution if assistance given in good faith turns out to be harmful. In Germany, knowledge of first aid is a prerequisite for the granting of a driving license.
davidbyron said:
ReplyDeleteNot fascism. Something else which will get it's own name and which is already here. It is similarly a conspiracy of government and corporations, wrapped in a suitably American looking mythology. The aristocrats don't trust the violent rubes to take charge this time.
Could it be Christian Nationalism? I know some author with a new book just coined that term, and I've heard it thrown around a little bit on the net (I myself have used the term), but I'm still a little fuzzy on the definition.
I think it starts with the core principle that America was and is a Christian nation. Thus, America's foreign policy objectives should be (and with this President are) based on spreading (or evangelizing or crusading) Christian democratic principles throughout the world. Whatever that means.
Looking at foreign policy through this lens justifies an enormous amount of immoral activities, ranging from preemptive wars to violating the Constitution. By always answering to a "higher power" greater than laws or a common moral code, Christian Nationalists don't have to bother with obeying laws or avoiding needless death and destruction.
Actions taken are taken with the intent of spreading Christian democratic principles, and are thus "blessed" by our lord and savior Jesus H. Christ.
Unfortunately, I can't remember the author (she was on NPR this past weekend), and I could be way off on my definition. In any case, I think if we want to find the seeds of fascism in the United States, we need to look at the Christian right.
That's nothing to do with what we are discussing since you had no special duty to stop the war, and nor did you have any ability to stop it. Neverthelss I would guess you tried to stop it. So on all three counts you don't qualify.
ReplyDeleteHow did you get there from here: moral obligation? Squid manuever?
Michelle Goldberg.
ReplyDeleteKingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2006/05/12/goldberg/index_np.html
See also: Dominionism
ReplyDeleteSomething else which will get it's own name and which is already here. It is similarly a conspiracy of government and corporations, wrapped in a suitably American looking mythology
ReplyDeleteThat's American fascism. Ask anyone. Thhrow in a little religion, sure. The Nazis did. Gott Mit Uns.
What is Christian nationalism?
ReplyDeleteI've just published a book called Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, and since it appeared, I've been asked several times what Christian nationalism is, and how it differs from Christian fundamentalism. It's an important concept to understand, because the threat to a pluralistic society does not come from those who simply believe in a very conservative interpretation of Christianity.
It comes from those who adhere to a political ideology that posits a Christian right to rule. Christian nationalists believe in a revisionist history, which holds that the founders were devout Christians who never intended to create a secular republic; separation of church and state, according to this history, is a fraud perpetrated by God-hating subversives. One of the foremost Christian revisionist historians is David Barton, who, in addition to running an organization called Wallbuilders that disseminates Christian nationalist books, tracts and videos, is also the vice-chairman of the Texas Republican Party. The goal of Christian nationalist politics is the restoration of the imagined Christian nation. As George Grant, former executive director of D. James Kennedy's influential Coral Ridge Ministries, wrote in his book "The Changing of the Guard:"
"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.
But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish."
In the Christian nationalist vision of America, non-believers would be free to worship as they choose, as long as they know their place. When Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala became the first Hindu priest to offer an invocation before Congress, the Family Research Council issued a furious statement that reveals much about the America they'd like to create:
"While it is true that the United States of America was founded on the sacred principle of religious freedom for all, that liberty was never intended to exalt other religions to the level that Christianity holds in our country's heritage...Our founders expected that Christianity -- and no other religion -- would receive support from the government as long as that support did not violate peoples' consciences and their right to worship. They would have found utterly incredible the idea that all religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference."
The iconography of Christian nationalism conflates the cross and the flag. As I write in Kingdom Coming, it "claims supernatural sanction for its campaign of national renewal and speaks rapturously about vanquishing the millions of Americans who would stand in its way." At one rally at the statehouse in Austin, Texas, a banner pictured a fierce eagle perched upon a bloody cross. For a liberal, such imagery smacks of fascist agitprop. But plenty of deeply committed Christians also object to it as a form of blasphemy. It's important, I think, to separate their faith from the authoritarian impulses of the Christian nationalist movement. Christianity is a religion. Christian nationalism is a political program, and there is nothing sacred about it.
David Barton of WallBuilders rewrites American History.
ReplyDeletePhD9 said...
ReplyDeleteThis is a generational fight against Islamic fascism. However, we have been winning and will continue to win unless we unilaterally surrender to the enemy.
Our enemy is "Islamic Fascism" I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you mean Islamic fascists.
No, this is a war between ideologies. I meant Fascism, not Fascists.
How do you differentiate between an Islamic fascist and an Islamic non-fascist?
By what the person says and does, the same way you could tell the difference between fascist and non fascist Europeans last century.
How did attacking the only secular country in the region mive the war against "Islamic-Fascim" forward.
Because Saddam actively allied himself with the Islamic fascist movement starting in 1993 to strike back at the US.
The principle which treats those who shelter terrorists the same as terrorists applies to secular as well as theocratic dictatorships.
If what we are fighting is an ideology as opposed to a bunch of individuals, wouldn't make some sense to bring additional tools to bear other than bombs and guns.
I agree. This is why democratization in the ME is so critical. It has worked against the other totalitarianisms we faced in the 20th century - fascism and communism. If we are going to clean out the swamp in the ME, it is going to take freedom.
What the extreme right is doing is tantamount to criminalizing dissent. In a democracy that is treason. Fascism is treason.
ReplyDeleteI have ridiculed Rep. Murtha in the past for only being against the occupation of Iraq because it takes funding away from his benefactors' pet defense spending boondoggles and because of his military service in Viet Nam. Yesterday he did make me proud.
ReplyDeletePaul Rosenberg said...
ReplyDeleteTrying To Rebut A Fairy Tale
PhD9 is not stupid. But it's just soooo hard to resist the temptation. So PhD9 takes the bait, and tries to rebut a fairy tale:
PhD9 was not trying to rebut anything. Unlike you, he asked some intelligent questions.
I notice you have failed to offer any evidence to rebut my answers, just the usual ridicule. Is this what passes for "critical thinking" on the left these days?
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteIf we are going to clean out the swamp in the ME, it is going to take freedom.
A swamp in the desert. Bart is an idiot.
1) It was a metaphor. Look it up in the dictionary.
2) As a matter of geography, there is swamp in Iraq. I came down with Sand Fly Fever from the bugs from the swamps in southern Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.
Bart...I notice you have failed to offer any evidence to rebut my answers, just the usual ridicule. Is this what passes for "critical thinking" on the left these days?
ReplyDeleteNo one bothers to debate or rebut David Barton, either. If push came to shove and either issue was put before a trier of fact, neither you or Barton would show.
Bart:IMHO, reasonable criticism of the government during wartime are arguments with a evidentiary basis that the government is not doing enough to win the war.
ReplyDeleteWhat if you think the war itself is immoral? What if you thnk the practices of war as fought in your name are immporal? I find the rendition program reprehensible. I find torture unforgiveable. I find the unlawful detention of non-combatants with no recourse to redress or appeal immoral and a betrayal of our founding principles.
I really wish that Bush had answered Helen Thomas' question last month (timing?) about the real reasons we are in Iraq. Because I don't find the arguments put forth by the administration convincing.
I have no sympathy whatsoever for Saddam Hussein, who is a blood-thirsty thug. But I want a government not only a little, but way more on the up and up. And it is my responsibility as a citizen to speak out for that. Loudly. I will not cotton to being called a traitor for doing so.
I don't expect to have access to the CIA's files, or individual knowledge of the NSA's activities, in my home and on CNN every night. I DO expect that they WILL submit to oversight from the other two branches of government.
I don't expect their conduct to be lilly white and unimpeachable in all circumstances. War is hell, as someone once said. The methods of war are death, and killing, and destruction. The methods of intelligence, and black ops, (which I have knowledge of mostly from a thorough reading of Le Carre and Clancy and others, admittedly) are often morally nebulous at best. But I do expect them to pursue the goal of being forthright and moral where possible, and if they are going to have to break ranks with the reasonable laws of men, I damn well expect them to have a good reason for it. And I don't trust this administration to be doing that. They have lied, and hedged and prevaricated and "tiptoed through the minefield" and stunk up too many times to be given the benefit of the doubt.
Aid and comfort to the enemy my ass.
If those Marines did what Murtha is convinced they did, THAT is aid and comfort to the enemy, and will come back to haunt us way more than anything a Congressman says. Have you accused those guilty of the Abu Ghraib acts of torture and human rights violations of being traitors and giving "aid and comfort to the enemy?" Or just the folks who leaked the double-secret Army photos of such?
Murtha served this country for years, and continues to do so. And while his comments were irresponsible, condemn the comments for that - do not condemn Murtha for treason, or speculate that his motives are somehow unpatriotic, or not supportive enough of the war.
I wouldn't accuse Bush of treason, as I believe that he honestly thinks that what he is doing, he is doing for the good of the country. I am accusing him of being wrong, amoral, and incompetent in the service of that goal.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteIslamofascism is a neologism and political epithet used to compare the ideological or operational characteristics of certain modern Islamist movements with European fascist movements of the early 20th century, neofascist movements, or totalitarianism. Organizations that have been labeled Islamofascist include Al-Qaeda, the current Iranian government,[1] the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah. None label themselves fascist, however, and critics of the term argue that associating the religion of Islam with fascism is both offensive and historically inaccurate.
And this is a pathetic attempt to excuse the fascism of the enemy.
Fascism is subsuming the individual to the state, in this case a theocracy, on the theory that the citizen will become more powerful as the part of a stronger whole. This philosophy is particularly attractive to those alienated from society.
I would strongly recommend that you watch the first segment of the two part National Geographic documentary "Inside 9/11." NG allows you to listen to a variety of leaders in the Islamic fascist movement actually give their speeches with translations. They sound like Adolph Hitler with beards and turbans ranting about destroying the decadent west and replacing it with a world wide theocracy.
bart said:
ReplyDeleteNo sane person can rationally believe that disclosing to the enemy intelligence gathering directed at the enemy can do anything but provide aid and comfort to the enemy.
But again, bart, you're assuming that the act of disclosing information, harmful or not, to a reporter and the reporter publishing that information by definition constitutes the intent to provide that information to the enemy. I don't make that assumption, but I gather you already think I'm insane.
Try this analogy. If a soldier shoots a guy that is aiming a rifle at him, I think we can all agree that he was acting in self defense. But what if the bullet he fired rips through the guy with the rifle and kills an 8 year old girl that was simply caught in the crossfire? The result of the soldier firing his gun is the death of the child, which I guess in your mind makes him guilty of murder. But I don't believe the soldier intended to kill the child. Results don't always spell out intent. Unintended consequences can and do happen.
In my opinion, the analogy fits with regards to warrantless surveillance. An NSA employee became aware of illegal activity and disclosed it to a reporter, who then published that information. In your mind, since al Qaeda was "informed" of this, the result was giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
But regardless of whether al Qaeda was actually "informed" of this capability (see below), was that the intent of the whistleblower and the NYT reporter? Can you point to any facts and/or evidence besides the result that can spell out intent? I don't think so.
In my opinion, if your true intent was to notify the enemy, then you would do it as quietly and as secretly as possible, in order to 'flip' the enemy's asset back on itself (e.g. giving false messages). Publicizing your knowledge of the electronic capabilities of the enemy merely nullifies any possible advantage you could take from the situation. If it was the intent of the NSA whistleblower and the NYT reporter to notify al Qaeda of this capability, they did it stupidly. In my opinion, the intent was to publicize the existence of a program that violates the 4th amendment rights of American citizens, not to notify al Qaeda that they were under surveillance.
You look at the results of an action and you divine intent from it. That's not necessarily wrong, however it ignores the idea of unintended consequences, something which I believe exists and should be taken into account before you label someone a "traitor."
And for the record, bart, as far as al Qaeda operatives are concerned, this program did not "reveal" anything. There have been plenty of stories written in the past that discussed electronic surveillance of Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, terrorists, etc. al Qaeda and most terrorist organizations assume their electronic communications are being monitored, which is why they speak in code when on the phone and try to use human couriers as much as possible. I don't see much (if any) harm to national security, and I don't see much aid and comfort being given to the enemy. That's my opinion, and you're free to disagree.
Don't be a total weasel, Bart. Iraq is in the fertile area between two rivers in old Mesopotamia. You said the ME. It's mostly an arrid dry place and metaphors about cleaning out swamps in the desert make about as much sense as spreading democracy at gunpoint.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't address the seriousness of the potential threat these lunatics pose, but in an effort to position them outside the mainstream of American thought at this time i n history, I propose we start calling these last-vestige defenders of the naked emperor "dead enders" and/or, following Stephen Colbert's joke about the glass being 2/3 empty (i.e., 30% Bush approval rating), "backwash" (as in 'last third is usually...').
ReplyDeleteOne would think that someone who honorably serves their country for 28 years as a Marine, and who has a long and trusted record of serving as one of the primary allies of the U.S. military in Congress, would be immunized from having their patriotism and honor assaulted so casually and glibly by people whose record of service (military and non-military) could not even compare to Murtha's.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, one would assume that even if Murtha committed treason like Aldrich Ames, we would simply give him a pass, because after all he served, right? And therefore nothing he does could possible be unpatriotic.
Greenwald, you're a fool. You don't get "immunized" from being criticized for being unpatriotic even if you hold a Medal of Honor. And accusing these Marines while they are on trial, while we are at war, is unpatriotic.
This is the same excuse we heard about John Kerry. Sure, he served, but when he came home and said our troops were behaving like Ghenghis Khan on the basis of weak and fabricated evidence, that was unpatriotic. And that's why he lost the election.
nick said...
ReplyDeleteBart:IMHO, reasonable criticism of the government during wartime are arguments with a evidentiary basis that the government is not doing enough to win the war.
What if you think the war itself is immoral?
The debate over whether to go to war occurs before Congress authorizes war. However, once that authorization is given and our troops are sent into harms way, that debate ends and you support the troops.
What if you thnk the practices of war as fought in your name are immporal? I find the rendition program reprehensible. I find torture unforgiveable. I find the unlawful detention of non-combatants with no recourse to redress or appeal immoral and a betrayal of our founding principles.
This falls under reasonable criticism of the government unless you are lying about the facts. I presume that your goal is to improve our government's current approach to detention and interrogation to make it better.
Aid and comfort to the enemy my ass.
If those Marines did what Murtha is convinced they did, THAT is aid and comfort to the enemy, and will come back to haunt us way more than anything a Congressman says.
I agree. That is why I stated that the Marines should be courts martialed if the EVIDENCE shows a war crime was committed. As of yet, Murtha has provided no evidence, just accusations.
Bart...And this is a pathetic attempt to excuse the fascism of the enemy.
ReplyDeleteBart doesn't care to use the proper definition of fascism. If he did, the National Geographic might not be an unbiased source.
In 1997 internationally and in 2001 in the United States, the Society launched, in part ownership with other entities like News Corporation and NBC, television network, the National Geographic Channel (NGC) for cable and satellite viewers, which has global distribution.
When Fox and Murdoch and GE are involved, I think there might be an agenda. No, that's weasel words. I know there is an agenda. And that's fascism right there. Start packing, Bart. Bushlandia is calling you and CO is turning blue.
Just more Christian love from the pro-life movement.
ReplyDeleteThe debate over whether to go to war occurs before Congress authorizes war. However, once that authorization is given and our troops are sent into harms way, that debate ends and you support the troops.
ReplyDeleteFuck you, Bart. It's still a free country.
Bart...I agree. That is why I stated that the Marines should be courts martialed if the EVIDENCE shows a war crime was committed. As of yet, Murtha has provided no evidence, just accusations.
ReplyDeleteGlad you finally agree with us, Bart. It goes double for Bush, Cheney and Dumsfeld. You know that.
...Others argue that grouping disparate ideologies into one single idea of "Islamofascism" may lead to an oversimplification of the root causes of terrorism.
ReplyDelete"The idea that there is some kind of autonomous "Islamofascism" that can be crushed, or that the west may defend itself against the terrorists who threaten it by cultivating that eagerness to kill militant Muslims which Hitchens urges upon us, is a dangerous delusion. The symptoms that have led some to apply the label of "Islamofascism" are not reasons to forget root causes. They are reasons for us to examine even more carefully what those root causes actually are." He adds "'Saddam, Arafat and the Saudis hate the Jews and want to see them destroyed' . . . or so says the right-wing writer Andrew Sullivan. And he has a point. Does the western left really grasp the extent of anti-Semitism in the Middle East? But does the right grasp the role of Europeans in creating such hatred?" —Richard Webster, author of A Brief History of Blasphemy: liberalism, censorship and 'The Satanic Verses' writing in the New Statesman.
According to New York University professor Chris Matthew Sciabarra, writing about the influence of Sayyid Qutb, "(w)hatever totalitarian echoes one sees in the Qutbian vision, there are distinctions that disqualify the usage of the word "Islamofascism" to describe it, or to describe Islamic fundamentalism in general." See Neofascism and religion.
Others argue that movements characterized as "Islamofascist" are dissimilar to fascist movements of the past. According to Roxanne Euben, a professor of political science at Wellesley College,
"Fascism is nationalistic and Islamicism is hostile to nationalism. Fundamentalism is a transnational movement that is appealing to believers of all nations and races across national boundaries. There is no idea of racial purity as in Nazism. Islamicists have very little idea of the state. It is a religious movement, while Fascism in Europe was a secular movement. So if it's not what we really think of as nationalism, and if it's not really like what we think of as Fascist, why use these terms?"[5]
The use of the term "Islamofascist" by proponents of the War on Terror has prompted some critics to argue that the term is a typical example of wartime propaganda.
"Islamofascism is nothing but an empty propaganda term. And wartime propaganda is usually, if not always, crafted to produce hysteria, the destruction of any sense of proportion. Such words, undefined and unmeasured, are used by people more interested in making us lose our heads than in keeping their own."[4] —Joseph Sobran, syndicated columnist.
bart said:
ReplyDeleteThe debate over whether to go to war occurs before Congress authorizes war. However, once that authorization is given and our troops are sent into harms way, that debate ends and you support the troops.
Now come on, bart, that's just un-American bulls--t. We have a debate about war once, and then never again? America doesn't work that way, bart, and I'm surprised that you don't realize that.
It's a nice idea to think that once we go to war, we're all 100% for it. It's a nice idea, but it's completely unrealistic and false. If I'm against a war, an American soldier in harm's way doesn't change my mind, period.
I'm sure the troops would want us all to be unified- after all, who wants to go die for a cause that a majority of Americans don't support? But again, that is not how America works- the military serves the citizenry, not the other way around. Sometimes the citizenry does things wrong, or backwards, or slowly, etc. but that is the cost of living in a democracy.
That's the way the REAL America works- love it or leave it!
They sound like Adolph Hitler with beards and turbans ranting about destroying the decadent west and replacing it with a world wide theocracy.
ReplyDeleteWith all this talk about the enemy and "islamofascism" etc. what we need to recognize is that the real enemy is tribalism. We humans are pretty much wired up to think in terms of an us vs. them dichotomy. (don't beleive it? Read any comment thread on any blog anywhere) So the question before the house is how wide do we cast our nets to define what we mean by "us". Republicans, at this moment in history have managed to squeeze their definition of "us" down to just those that agree with them. All others are "islamofascists" or if they happen to be fellow Americans, "traitors". In the meantime, since the media thrives on conflict and some people seem to be get enjoy getting charged up by it, the MSM help perpetuate the drama of us vs them, both here at home and in the actual conflict zones.
In my darker moments, I fear that this fanning of anger will flare up into actual violent conflict erupting within the US. The fact that we have vigilantes patrolling the US/Mexico border as we speak doesn't reassure very much on this score.
In my brighter moments, I anticipate that what I call the middle third of Americans will begin to recognize hate speech for what it is and turn away from it.
Here's to hope.
Ender,
ReplyDeleteIf you would just agree to say shit you didn't really believe, or if you didn't have a functioning brain inside that jarhead, you could go on right wing radio and spout the same blather that Bart does. Right about now, I figure 60-70% of the corps, if not more, is where you are, not where Bart is.
I wouldn't knock all tribes. Some tribal societies were far more advanced than we are today. Franklin and Jefferson borrowed ideas on self-government from the Iroquois. Dominance hierarchies have been prominent in the recorded history of civilization, but that history only goes back about 10,000 years. Humans were living in societies for 30,000 years prior to the advent of written history. Some anthropologists theorize that these pre-historical societies were tribal in nature and most likely acephalous.
ReplyDeleteband and tribes
What was that line in that movie?
"The organizing principle of any society is for war."
Fox News is Bushlandia State run news network!
ReplyDeletePoll: 2004 Election Was Stolen; according to viewers of all news networks except Fox News
Nuke Bushlandia Now!
Good for Murtha,
ReplyDeleteWe need more Congress people with spine. When the harbies of the right get this loud you know you must be doing something right.
I don't know if Murtha is a traitor, he is entitled to his opinion. Nonetheless Murtha's past patriotism seems to have been blinded by Democratic Party Cut and Run. I can't imagine an ex-military hero convening a court of public opinion until the facts have been established by a military tribunal. I question Murtha's integrity in putting Democratic Left leaning politics ahead of the well being of soldiers currently in the field.
ReplyDeleteGandalf said...
ReplyDeleteGlenn, you set out the pattern, but in my opinion you don't explain it fully. *Why* exactly does their Commander-in-Chief need to be protected? Is it just politics? Or is there more at work here?
But for the followers, I believe it goes back to the early days after 9/11. People became afraid, to varying degrees. And people looked for security.
I agree that fear plays a part in it but the sickening truth is that greed does also. There are a significant number of people, the have mores which are Bush's base, that have done exceptionally well during his term in office. To include a brand new shiny 70 billion dollar tax cut in the midst of a "war" and record budget deficits.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete...Others argue that grouping disparate ideologies into one single idea of "Islamofascism" may lead to an oversimplification of the root causes of terrorism.
Mr. Bush made a serious mistake calling this a "war on terror" in order to spare the sensibilities of Muslims.
Many movements have used terror. Terror is a tactic, not a movement. There are no "root causes" to terror.
We are at war with only one movement - Islamic fascism.
"The idea that there is some kind of autonomous "Islamofascism" that can be crushed, or that the west may defend itself against the terrorists who threaten it by cultivating that eagerness to kill militant Muslims which Hitchens urges upon us, is a dangerous delusion."
Nonsense. Military action followed by democratization worked against all prior forms of fascism.
The symptoms that have led some to apply the label of "Islamofascism" are not reasons to forget root causes. They are reasons for us to examine even more carefully what those root causes actually are." He adds "'Saddam, Arafat and the Saudis hate the Jews and want to see them destroyed' . . . or so says the right-wing writer Andrew Sullivan. And he has a point. Does the western left really grasp the extent of anti-Semitism in the Middle East? But does the right grasp the role of Europeans in creating such hatred?" —Richard Webster, author of A Brief History of Blasphemy: liberalism, censorship and
'The Satanic Verses' writing in the New Statesman.
Anti-semitism was a goal of Nazi fascism because of Hitler's particular delusions. It was not a particular goal of the other fascist movements in Europe, although they cooperated with the Nazis in this regard for diplomatic reasons.
The fact that Islamic fascism shares anti-semetism with Naziism isn't the basis for noting that this Islamic movement is fascist.
According to New York University professor Chris Matthew Sciabarra, writing about the influence of Sayyid Qutb, "(w)hatever totalitarian echoes one sees in the Qutbian vision, there are distinctions that disqualify the usage of the word "Islamofascism" to describe it, or to describe Islamic fundamentalism in general." See Neofascism and religion.
Talk about tap dancing!
The leftists have a special place in their pantheon of bad guys for fascism. Stooping cartoon Nazi fascists is one of the only circumstances in which leftists will currently consider going to war.
That is why these folks are contorting like human pretzels to keep from defining Islamic fascists as fascists. To do so would give legitimacy to a war which they oppose.
In this particular case, New York University professor Chris Matthew Sciabarra is labeling the enemy movement as neofascism instead. This is amusing since it is the hated neoconservatives who are the primary movers for a war on Islamic fascism. I guess that makes this a war of the Neos...
"Fascism is nationalistic and Islamicism is hostile to nationalism.
Nonsense. Fascism is transnational and expansionist. The Nazis wanted to set up a world empire where the Nazis would rule. The Islamic fascists want to set up a worldwide Caliphate where Muslims rule.
There is no idea of racial purity as in Nazism.
That is true. The idea of racial purity is replaced with religious purity.
Islamicists have very little idea of the state.
More nonsense. They want a religious state known as a Caliphate.
MrsT said...
ReplyDeleteMurtha "opined" on this matter to show that the troops are at the breaking point because of three or four tours of duty and the failure of the whole endeavor. In his mind, one more reason to redeploy them. Although he said several times that he didn't excuse the massacre, his denial seemed half-hearted.
As the old saying goes, When you've walked a mile in the other guys shoes...........
While I don't condone it either, I do think that Bush and Co. who have no regard for the soldiers welfare, and commanders that are willing to violate regs to send troops back into battle with anti-depressants are equally guilty of any crimes committed. Even more so, but of course Bush and Co. and the commanders won't stand trial.
In a previous thread, I said this about our nation, It's being run by people who are immoral but smart in an alliance with people who are moral but stupid, all at the expense of those who are moral and smart.
ReplyDeleteI apologize for this comment. What I meant to say is that it's being run by Evil Incarnate commanding an army of morons. As evidence of my new assertion I present this Theway2k.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletecfaller96 said...
ReplyDeletebart said: The debate over whether to go to war occurs before Congress authorizes war. However, once that authorization is given and our troops are sent into harms way, that debate ends and you support the troops.
Now come on, bart, that's just un-American bulls--t. We have a debate about war once, and then never again? America doesn't work that way, bart, and I'm surprised that you don't realize that.
The way things currently work does not mean that we should not work to change them to the way things ought to work.
A Republic should have a compact with its soldiers. If the Republic sends its soldiers into combat and asks them to sacrifice their time, blood and lives to achieve certain goals, then the least the citizens of the Republic owe their soldiers is to support those goals which they have asked their soldiers to achieve.
Those who oppose the goals of the war after the Republic sends its soldiers into harms way betray the sacrifices of the troops.
When the Republic passes a law, it is expected that all the citizens will obey the law, even if they opposed it before it was enacted. Why should the same principle not apply to supporting the war effort?
Why should the same principle not apply to supporting the war effort? Because war is evil.
ReplyDeleteWhen Jesus said, render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar's and render unto God, that which is God's, he was making it pretty clear that morality transcends statehood.
More nonsense. They want a religious state known as a Caliphate.
bart is of course an expert on the psychological mindset of the "enemy". That's what makes it so them so easy to identify. Of course there isn't anyone in the middle east who simply wants to be left alone to lead their lives in peace!
From Bart at 9:27PM:
ReplyDelete"A Republic should have a compact with its soldiers. If the Republic sends its soldiers into combat and asks them to sacrifice their time, blood and lives to achieve certain goals, then the least the citizens of the Republic owe their soldiers is to support those goals which they have asked their soldiers to achieve."
That support has been given to our troops, without reservation, by the citizens. It is the current crop of 'elected' leaders who have seen fit to abuse and betray those troops, sending them into battle without sufficient equipment, inadequate numbers, or clearly stated mission objectives.
"Those who oppose the goals of the war after the Republic sends its soldiers into harms way betray the sacrifices of the troops."
And if these 'goals' are nonsense to begin with? In any case, it is the right of the citizens of this country to speak their mind, whether it be a time of peace or war. Or so it says in the Constitution. You *do* agree with that small point, yes?
"When the Republic passes a law, it is expected that all the citizens will obey the law, even if they opposed it before it was enacted. Why should the same principle not apply to supporting the war effort?"
For the same reason, apparently, the citizen elected to the highest office of the land feels no obligation to obey those same laws. After all, if the President himself does not feel bound by the rule of law, why should the rest of us?
Look, Bart, you may be a closet fascist at heart (hence your absolutism on this issue and your frequent genuflections to the authority of the state) and understandably insecure in your blind support of the whole Iraqi adventure (hence your almost vitriolic bolivations on the subject and refusal to consider even the most measured critique of current events), but do grow up and get over your idol worship.
Or, failing that, put your money where your mouth is and go fight 'the enemy' over there.
Uhhh Bart, not to be picky, but you evaded the point here...
ReplyDeleteBart claimed:
You will be hard pressed to find an active duty Marine today with anything good to say about Murtha.
Challenged by anonymous:
Oh, and which poll do you use to substantiate the claim 'You will be hard pressed to find an active duty Marine today with anything good to say about Murtha.'
Bart replied:
Are you kidding? The righty talk TV and radio regularly bring on Marines fresh from Iraq to comment after one of Murtha's rants.
Sorry Bart, finding examples of Marines willing to criticize Murtha is very different than being "hard pressed to find an active duty Marine today with anything good to say about Murtha."
Normally, I'd write this off to hyperbole, but you obviously make an effort to write very precisely.
Or, failing that, put your money where your mouth is and go fight 'the enemy' over there.
ReplyDeletebart is not a chickenhawk but I do find his blind allegiance to otherwise fallable authority figures troubling. Especially since the authorty figures in question have a long track record of both stupidity and dishonesty.
I am very much an outsider here. I take much interest in American politics because much of what happens there affects me and the rest of the world. The Australian government is no more than a US lapdog, one that can be counted on to follow loyally wherever the US take them.Our (the rest of the world that is) problem is, we have no say in who is in power over there. That, however, has nothing to do with the comment I wish to make, it is merely to let you know where I am coming from.
ReplyDeleteAs I said I follow American politics fairly closely and have done so for some time. What is apparent to me as an outsider is that the merit or otherwise of a leak and the ferocity it is either attacked or defended by those on the right depends solely on who is in power at the time. I am not saying this isn't done by the left leaning blogosphere. It is but to a much lesser extent.
One cannot help but notice how the right attack the messenger, rarely the message. They are on shaky ground attacking the message because the message is more often than not a factual account of what is happening. It would be against their principles to agree with anything that speaks out against their leadership so all that is left for them is to attack the bearer of facts. They have learned well from their leaders who are masters of character assassination.
Some are just calling him a traitor. Others of us have real responses to what Murtha is saying-- most tellingly, that we already knew about this and that this isn't a new allegation, and that the U.S. military had already concluded this was happening.
ReplyDeletehttp://rwmuckrakers.eponym.com/blog/_archives/2006/5/18/1968020.html
cfaller: I have never thought, spoken, or written about 'frogmarching', 'hanging', 'handcuffing', or 'shooting' President Bush. How many of you out there who support impeachment have had these types of violent or vengeful fantasies? Anyone?
ReplyDeleteThe part about frogmarching works for me, if it's US marshals making Chimpy do the perp walk on his way to the impeachment hearing.
talldave posted: This is the same excuse we heard about John Kerry. Sure, he served, but when he came home and said our troops were behaving like Ghenghis Khan on the basis of weak and fabricated evidence, that was unpatriotic. And that's why he lost the election.
Hey talldave -- what about the "weak" and "fabricated" evidence about My Lai? talldave? talldave?
[crickets chirping]
What a tool.
anonymous,
ReplyDeleteWhat a fascinating link. I remember when the story came out so I too am familiar with the fact that the incident itself is old news.
But what an interesting take on the situation. OF COURSE the marines killed 15 civilians in cold blood. We all knew that therefore Murtha is a liar!
What a hoot. If it weren't so pathetic.
Bart said:
ReplyDelete"Because Saddam actively allied himself with the Islamic fascist movement starting in 1993 to strike back at the US."
Iraq: Claim vs. Reality
by Rep. Ron Paul, MD
Claim: Iraq is an international sponsor of terrorism.
Reality: According to the latest edition of the State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism, Iraq sponsors several minor Palestinian groups, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). None of these carries out attacks against the United States. As a matter of fact, the MEK (an Iranian organization located in Iraq) has enjoyed broad Congressional support over the years. According to last year's Patterns of Global Terrorism, Iraq has not been involved in terrorist activity against the West since 1993 – the alleged attempt against former President Bush.
Bart, the fascist.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great if Congress, who represents the people, authorized a war that was necessary.
But, in this case, the administration lied to the American people. So, Bart, what do we do in this case? Impeach him? No, that would be against the Commander-in-Chief.
So, like good Americans, we should shut up and clap.
Bart, your government has lied and manipulated you to take this country to an unecessary war. You can't argue with this point. You understand it. So your defese of a Congressional decision to go to war under false pretenses under the argument that the troops are the embodiements of the policy is mindbogling.
So, since we all agree that this war in Iraq is unnecessary and based on lies, it is a betrayal of our troops to ask them to put their lives on the line for no purpose.
You agree with this, right? Or do you think that putting troops in harms way for no good reason (say, to form a human bridge for trucks) should be applauded loudly? No, you don't. You know that the mission is the problem here.
And you also know that the military uniform does not have magical powers to make a person some kind of holy and moral fighter. People fill these, and people can, and do bad things all the time. Being in the military does not make you immune from our laws. If you kill someone, you go to jail. If you murder women and children because you felt like having some revenge should be dealt with so as not to undermine the honor of our military.
You agree with this. So we all agree.
Armagednoutahere says:
ReplyDeleteBut the radio dial is now in full control of this army (except for a tiny beachhead at AirAmerica, which doesn't reach very far.) FOX has allowed them to shift TV squarely rightward, so the MSM is now the RWM.
It never ceases to amaze me, how "put upon" liberals can feel about one radio show, and one TV network, out of an entire galaxy of other choices. Perhaps you should consider that the reason you fear these, (and invoking the fairness doctrine is proof enough) is that you fear the audience more.
Yet we still have the majority. Al Gore beat Bush in 2000 despite the rightwing takeover of our media. Imagine how it will be when we have back a balanced media.
This is just hysteria. If you consider Fox and Rush to outbalance all the major newspapers, national networks, weekly news magazines, cable news, and a majority of the internet, then you have a phobia. An irrational fear of opposing thought.
Bart said:
ReplyDelete"When the Republic passes a law, it is expected that all the citizens will obey the law, even if they opposed it before it was enacted."
Simply not true Bart. Prohibition was disobeyed for so long by so many that it was eventually repealed. The 55mph speed limit is another case where a law was passed and widely disobeyed by large numbers of people.
Celo says....
ReplyDeleteBart, the fascist.
It would be great if Congress, who represents the people, authorized a war that was necessary.
But, in this case, the administration lied to the American people. So, Bart, what do we do in this case? Impeach him? No, that would be against the Commander-in-Chief.
So, like good Americans, we should shut up and clap.
Since portions of the history of our war are obviously forgotten, I think it's time to remind some of our less grounded contributors how far back the subject goes and how invested the Democrats are/were.......
"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003 | Source
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002 | Source
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998 | Source
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
- President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998 | Source
"We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction."
- Madeline Albright, Feb 1, 1998 | Source
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
- Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998 | Source
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton.
- (D) Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, others, Oct. 9, 1998 | Source
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998 | Source
"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999 | Source
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and th! e means of delivering them."
- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002 | Source
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 | Source
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 | Source
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002 | Source
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002 | Source
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002 | Source
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002 | Source
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002 | Source
Thank you for reminding us Shooter242.
ReplyDeleteThose Democrats should be held to the fire. As should the Republicans who went along with the charade which has resulted in the deaths of over one hundred thousand innocent Iraqi people. And for what? Their freedom?
The odd part is that people still stand behind this administration despite it's incompetent management of the war as pointed about by several high ranking military officers and generals. I suppose they're traitors, too.
You also selectively ignored comments from Condi Rice and Colin Powell which indicated that Saddam did not reconstitute his nuclear weapons program and that he was effectively contained. This was, of course, right before their notorious flip-flop after 9/11. Since you enjoy researching quotes to throw back in the Democrat's faces, I'm sure you won't have any problem finding the quotes of notable Republicans who were also just as wrong and/or deceived by the administration.
Democrats should have to explain their remarks. And to the quotes you selectively noted, many of them have. They claim they only saw selective evidence ginned up by the administration. And despite the calls for a comprehensive investigation of the lead up to war, Senator Pat Roberts has effectively stonewalled it.
It would be nice to prove each to each other which party is more responsible for the mess in Iraq. Since Republicans have control of virtually all branches of government, they take the lion's share of the blame.
But why does the right wing which loudly claims they "support our troops" continue to trash those who actually fought for their freedom to spout their vitriol?
Bush stomps on Fourth Amendment--Homework Assignment for Orin Kerr
ReplyDeleteEven if Congress were to repeal the laws securing telephone privacy, or if phone companies found loopholes to slip through when pressured by government, the Constitution's Fourth Amendment shield for ''the right of the people to be secure" from ''unreasonable searches" is a shield for all seasons, one that a lawless president, a spineless Congress, and a complacent majority of citizens -- who are conditioned to a government operating under a shroud of secrecy while individuals live out their lives in fishbowls -- cannot be permitted to destroy, for the rest of us and our children.
how invested the Democrats are/were
ReplyDeleteSorry shooter but I am on record that those particular democrats were full of it at the time.
The record of how the war got started clearly implicates the current administration for misrepresenting the available intel and also implicates most Congressional Democrats not only for failure to investigate Executive claims but further for their fear of being labelled soft on terrorists, they were instead soft on Republicans.
I personally don't care how we got into this rat's-nest, I'd just like to see someone show some leadership in getting us out of it.
Paul Rosenberg said...
ReplyDelete"The Vietnam-era "stab in the back" fantasy takes on at least 3 major forms:
"First, the claim that Washington politicians lost the war, most often by "tying the military's hands." The fact that we dropped something like 3 1/2 times the tonnage that was dropped during WWII makes no impression on the holders of this fantasy, precisely because it is a fantasy, and not a realistic argument."
Tonnage of bombs dropped has exactly nothing to do with whether the troops hands were tied behind their backs. LBJ micro-mismanaged the war and that is a fact documented on film. He among other things set a 30 mile no bombing circle around Hanoi that included Hanoi harbor. The pilots that flew those missions could watch the SAM missles being unloaded that would be fired against them the next day but could do nothing about it because of the restriction LBJ placed on them.
In my own very real experience it got so bad that when we were fired on while flying, we were supposed to call higher up and get permission to return fire. Even our own police forces have never had their hands tied behind their backs to the point that they have had to call their desk sergeant before defending themselves after being fired on.
"Second, is the claim that Washington deliberately and sinisterly left behind MIAs, who were still alive, and were being held captive, and tortured by the enemy. This was thoroughly debunked by historian H. Bruce Franklin, in M.I.A, or Mythmaking In America. But, of course, a realist arument cannot refute a fantasy, a fairy tale. And there have been sooo many MIA movies. Fantasy is impervious to reality."
Other than the rescue of one POW in the Mekong Delta when I was on a mission I have no direct experience with the MIA issue. However it is not beyond the pale for some to have believed that it could have happened. There was the case of a deserter who eventually ended up in New Zealand and only came forward in the ninetys. I imagine that he would have been reported as having been MIA for some number of years. That is not to say that he was in enemy hands and being tortured of course but it is a fact that we left Viet Nam with a number of MIA's unaccounted for.
"Third, is the claim that the anti-war movement betrayed the troops, as epitomized by the myth that anti-war protesters spit on returning veterans. The truth was quite the opposite: it was the Administration and their pro-war supporters who figuratively spit on the returning vets, many of whom had turned against the war and were actively involved in working to end it."
I was never spit on but I was approached in the airport in San Francisco upon returning from Viet Nam by some asshole that asked me how many babys I had killed that day. And I know for a fact that Viet Nam protestors dressed up in uniform and went to the homes of family members of vets who were serving in Viet Nam and told them that their sons or fathers were dead.
The only fantasy is the one that you have that the Viet Nam protestors were all lilly white and pure as the driven snow.
Paul Rosenberg says....
ReplyDeleteBut, of course, Murtha did not accuse them. He simply shared what he had been told:
LOL. He just happened to have a bunch of reporters around him when it he finally got around in his ruminations that he mentioned this? As if. Of course he accused them, by repeating the charges in a national forum, organized specifically for that purpose.
He never claimed to have first-hand knowledge. He said this is what sources inside the military were telling him.
So he called a press conference to pass on rumor and innuendo? Gee that's irresponsible, but typical for liberal talking points.
In short, it was a bad leak in the eyes of BushCo. And for BushCo, this translates into treason. Because in BushCo's fantasy, BushCo is America.
Well let's recap.... Murtha, using his position as veteran and Congressman, calls a press conference, in which he passes on unresolved charges about American soldiers committing a massacre. Why?
* To illustrate the difficulty of being a soldier?
* To point out the Army's willingness to investigate such charges?
* To recruit more elistee's?
* To demonstrate his pride in his fellow soldiers?
* To put this crime on a pedestal as representative of the Americans in Iraq?
He may be a vet, but as Tall Dave points out that isn't a guarantee that he speaks "Ex Cathedra".
Personally I think that he's still pissed that his resolution to end operations was exposed and slapped down by the entire house.
I think on this debate of "leaking" of classified material, we should all, both left and right, remember that this is our government. We are not its subjects, because we are the government, and so any move by the government to make itself(?) greater than the people is a violation of our social contract. Spying is legitimate against small or large groups or individuals seeking to harm the people, with a few exceptions i.e. MLK.
ReplyDeleteIn no way can it be found that the people as a whole are trying to hurt themselves and so it invalidates any claim the government tries to make saying that it needs the NSA's programs. And in the same way it is every informed citizen's duty who may have knowledge of government acts that are not on the up and up so to speak , to tell someone about it, be it Congress or a journalist.
The government does not get special priveleges simply because we are at war. The fact that soldiers can be driven to possibly massacre innocent women and children for no reason other than an outlet for their rage at not being able to get the makers of an IED, is a serious issue we must consider. We also must consider the recent reports that our military is sending psychologically impaired soldiers back onto the battlefield, i.e. PTSD.
And the fact that bart likes to claim that there are no root causes of terror is more ignorant than I can try to comprehend. In Israel you have the fact that they are treated as second class citizens, with barely any rights, you have the fact that tens of thousands if not more people are interned in refugee camps throughout the area with very little effort to alleviate their suffering. Hamas was elected on the claim they would try to correct the quality of life of most palestinians but we have effectively told them that "democracy will be supported only if parties beneficial to us are in power," by cutting funding to the government. Fatah only became violent after years of trying to plead their case in the international arena but to no avail. And became much more complacent when they came into power because they actually had to run a government. Think about it. Hez'b'allah was only formed after Israel decided to occupy their country in the 1980's. How many groups do you think will be borne out of Iraq like that? Al Qaeda was formed for a number of reasons such as the u.s. occupying territory in Saudi Arabi home to some of Islam's most sacred places of worship, and the fact we were the leading supporter of sanctions against Iraq which did nothing to punish the government, it only caused innocent people to starve or fall victim to preventable illnesses. Most of all Islamist groups are not driven to violence because they hate us, its because the west seeks to support regimes throughout the world that would marginalize what they have to say by excluding them from political activity. Whenever you marginalize a group of people they seek to make their presence and purpose known, take a look at the civil rights movements of blacks, immigrants, and gays. They may not be the majority but that in no way gives anyone the right to say their claims are not valid. This does not in any way endorse their use of violence, you just need to understand where they are coming from which you obviously dont. Humans killing each other simply just does not happen in a vacuum, it doesnt excuse it but it must be understood.
"There is nothing to fear, but fear itself." < more true today than ever before
Oh, hell, do it all in one slog and be done with it ... then folks can just scroll over it if they want:
ReplyDeleteHWSNBN lies, dissembles, and engages in hypocrisy, and an amazing and uncharacteristic moment of lucidity, so don't expect it to last long:
[HWSNBN on Murtha]:
Murtha is flat out accusing the Marines of premeditated murder. However, he does not claim to have seen any of the evidence. Instead, we are supposed to believe the hearsay allegations (not evidence) of unidentified "military sources."
[HWSNBN off on his own rant]:
The town of Haditha is a Sunni town which was allowing the Baathists terrorists to attack our troops.
So Murtha isn't allowed to do this (supposedly) "without evidence", but the troll can just spout his crap without a shred of evidence or backing?
I'd point out that even if there's some truth to this, "allowing" undoubtedly armed terrorists to do stuff ain't quite the same as shooting civilians yourself....
[HWSNBN misstates the law ... actually, two laws, actually, misstates two provisions of the U.S. Constitution ... and he claims to be a "lawyer"]:
However, if Murtha is wrong, he should be censured and removed from the House for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. He cannot be tried for this because congressmen are immune from criminal prosecution for their actions when the House is in session.
Article I, Section 6:
"They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same..."
Article III, Section 3:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
If Murtha did commit "treason", he wouldn't be immune. But he didn't commit treason, which is very carefully and specifically defined. The crime is "adhering to [] enemies". It is not just giving the enemy the warm fuzzies (hell, Dubya would be committing treason by just existing because his stoopidity makes them laugh). The troll blows it twice in one paragraph.
But we'll see later that the troll HWSNBN has an ... ummm, "interesting" ... view of how the gummint should work....
[HWSNBN continues his "aid and comfort" malarkey]:
We can all read what Risen disclosed to the enemy, what the Espionage Act forbids and have a reasonable evidentiary basis that he violated that felony criminal act ...
Ummm, which felony act? HWSNBN doesn't bother to state the actual law violated, or explain how the actions in question constitute the elements of the crime. Now wonder they apparently fired him as a prosecutor.
... and that violation provided aid and comfort to the enemy.
SFW?
[HWSNBN is confused]:
1) Military service does not give you the moral authority to provide aid and comfort to the enemy by spreading propaganda lies about the military being "broken" and then spreading defeatism by calling for the military to surrender by cutting and running. Any respect and trust Murtha earned through his previous service was gone when he crossed the line here.
More "aid and comfort" crapola? Propaganda lies? Unfortunately, Murtha wasn't lying. Also no call for "surrender"; Murtha said essentially, "let's 'declare victory' and go home" ... which, given the rosy picture that the troll HWSNBN paints elsewhere in this thread, must be a perfectly reasonable thing to do....
But Murtha has the moral authority to say this (for the above reasons, as well as the fact that anyone has moral authority to speak out on such issues). His CV just adds to his credibility as someone who's calling the shots accurately.
[HWSNBN sez dishonestly]:
2) I cannot state what Murtha's motives are for lying about the condition of the military and calling for the US to surrender in Iraq.
The liar here is the troll HWSNBN. Murtha has not "call[ed] for the US to surrender in Iraq".
[HWSNBN makes clear what "criticism" he'd allow]:
The difference between reasonable criticism of the government and giving aid and comfort to the enemy is that the former seeks to win the war and the latter either does not care or actively seeks for the US to lose the war.
"You can have any colour car you'd like as long as it is black."
You can criticise all you want, just don't say anything negative about the gummint or particularly the doofus Dubya and his pet war. That's the World'O'Barts'Wet'Dreams....
[HWSNBN provides "evidence" for the universal despising of Murtha]:
Are you kidding? The righty talk TV and radio regularly bring on Marines fresh from Iraq to comment after one of Murtha's rants. Having been in the infantry, it is amusing to see these men and women attempt to restrain themselves from the swearing which is a normal part of a grunt's vocabulary when describing a form of life lower than whale sh!t.
Ummm, yeah, and places like Freeper Central and Little Green Snotballs are full of frothers that would probably like to have Murtha drawn and quartered. Was there a point somewhere other than that the RW foamers have got their knickers severely knotted up and that they're bat-s**t crazy?
[Here's HWSNBN's idea of the freedom we're fighting for all round the world]:
The debate over whether to go to war occurs before Congress authorizes war. However, once that authorization is given and our troops are sent into harms way, that debate ends and you support the troops.
Or else. Martial law, you know....
We won't even bother with the fine legal point that there is no war....
The bozo continues frothing in this vein:
[Cfaller96]: Now come on, bart, that's just un-American bulls--t. We have a debate about war once, and then never again? America doesn't work that way, bart, and I'm surprised that you don't realize that.
[HWSNBN]: The way things currently work does not mean that we should not work to change them to the way things ought to work.
Ahhhh, at last. The bozo lets in a little gleam of reality. But now we can tell what kind of a world he'd like to see. He pines for the '30s and the Fatherl.... -- umm, sorry, "Homeland"....
Sorry, but to paraphrase Peter Seeger: "This keyboard kills fascists"
I'll leave the rest of the take-down here to the other rational folks on the blog.
Now begone, troll, before I start putting in thirty-seven hundred "Harold 'Bart' DePalma"s, "DUI"s, "Colorado"s, and such to get the attention of Google, along with an explanation of why you're a sh*tty choice for anyone needing a lawyer to get them off the hook for drunk driving (your recent dismissal of the "exclusionary rule" as a tool to win a motion for exclusion of evidence obtained illegally might be a start...)
Cheers,
DavidByron said...
ReplyDeleteIf they can brow-beat you into saying you "support the troops" then you've lost. You can't "support the troops" without supporting the war.
I see your point, and I even have an affinity for this way of thinking, but if I am not mistaken, by your own admission you are not an American.
And incidentally? I'm not an American.
Some of us here choose to recognize that the troops are, in many ways, victims themselves.
“The South is a big Indian reservation populated by ex-Confederates who are bred like cattle to die in Yankee wars. In Alabama there is no circus to run off to, so we join the Marines.”
Gustav Hasford, USMC
In case you didn't know, he wrote the novel Kubrick made into the film, Full Metal Jacket. He was Pvt. Joker.
Perhaps this is an erratic thread. I read about half; all DailyKoswine whining. Then a bright spot from Shooter 242. Then more repetitious whining. If Mr. Greenwald is ever going to influence those other than the choir, there has to be a more balanced commentary here (IMHO). Don't get me wrong; agreeing with any given (or all posts) is AOK. Agreeing with the post in an introductory sentence and then lauching into the same complaints by the same parties that have been entered as comments on every post to date is....Kossackism! Enough already.
ReplyDeleteshooter242:
ReplyDeleteSince portions of the history of our war are obviously forgotten, I think it's time to remind some of our less grounded contributors how far back the subject goes and how invested the Democrats are/were.......
Maybe it's time to remind morons like you that this RW "talking point" list cut'n'pasted by the Dubya butt-suckers has been seen by pretty much everyone here many, many times, has even been posted here on Glenn's blog multiple times, and has been addressed and rebutted. Try learning a new song ... if you're capable of more than a single, plagiarised thought....
Cheers,
yankeependragon said...
ReplyDeleteFrom Bart at 9:27PM: "A Republic should have a compact with its soldiers. If the Republic sends its soldiers into combat and asks them to sacrifice their time, blood and lives to achieve certain goals, then the least the citizens of the Republic owe their soldiers is to support those goals which they have asked their soldiers to achieve."
That support has been given to our troops, without reservation, by the citizens.
Really?
Durban, Kennedy, Murtha, Moore, Sheehan, and how many who post here?
"Those who oppose the goals of the war after the Republic sends its soldiers into harms way betray the sacrifices of the troops."
And if these 'goals' are nonsense to begin with? In any case, it is the right of the citizens of this country to speak their mind, whether it be a time of peace or war. Or so it says in the Constitution. You *do* agree with that small point, yes?
The fact that you have the right to do wrong doesn't mean that you should.
The fact remains that we and our representatives debated the issue of whether to go to war for months beforehand and then a heavy majority or our representatives voted to send our troops into combat.
These troops volunteered to fight our wars and deserve our unreserved support when they do.
Is your right to continue to speak against their efforts worth the damage you would do to the soldiers in the field.
"When the Republic passes a law, it is expected that all the citizens will obey the law, even if they opposed it before it was enacted. Why should the same principle not apply to supporting the war effort?"
For the same reason, apparently, the citizen elected to the highest office of the land feels no obligation to obey those same laws. After all, if the President himself does not feel bound by the rule of law, why should the rest of us?
That is a cop out and you know it.
The fact that Mr. Clinton committed felony perjury twice does not give you and I leave to violate the law.
The fact that others may denigrate and lie about the work our soldiers do on the battlefield does not justify your or I doing the same.
Or, failing that, put your money where your mouth is and go fight 'the enemy' over there.
I have already done so during the Persian Gulf war as an infantry officer. I also witnessed the results of the massacres of the Shia committed by the surviving Republican Guard just above our lines in Southern Iraq after the ceasefire. Our medics treated one pregnant woman who had been gang raped and then given an impromptu abortion with an AK47 round.
There is real evil in the world my friend and our soldiers are fighting it in Iraq. No matter what you think of Mr. Bush or war in general, they deserve our support.
Shooter242 said...
ReplyDeleteSince portions of the history of our war are obviously forgotten, I think it's time to remind some of our less grounded contributors how far back the subject goes and how invested the Democrats are/were.......
Nice job Shooter. Glad to see you posting some quotes rather than making unsubstantiated claims.
I'm already on record as not being any bigger fan of the Dems than I am of the Repubs. I just consider the Dems at this point to be the lesser of two evils.
The real solution: Throw em all out and start over again.
I read somewhere..."Politicians start wars...Soldiers Fight Them"
ReplyDeletegood, you seditionist creeps deserve what you get. who knows how many serviceman have died because of your "right to know"
Posted by: jeff bynum May 15, 2006 11:12:10 AM
In regards to your post Jeffie...You have it wrong...It's MY RIGHT TO KNOW and every other American.
Devoman said...
ReplyDeleteBart claimed: You will be hard pressed to find an active duty Marine today with anything good to say about Murtha.
Challenged by anonymous: Oh, and which poll do you use to substantiate the claim 'You will be hard pressed to find an active duty Marine today with anything good to say about Murtha.'
Bart replied: Are you kidding? The righty talk TV and radio regularly bring on Marines fresh from Iraq to comment after one of Murtha's rants.
Sorry Bart, finding examples of Marines willing to criticize Murtha is very different than being "hard pressed to find an active duty Marine today with anything good to say about Murtha."
Then you won't be hard pressed to find me one, will you. Three of my family are former Marines. I won't repeat what they had to say about him.
There are many Marine blogs. Go check what they have to say about Murtha.
To paraphrase another Marine who was quoted by a certain congresswoman - Marines do not cut and run.
celo said...
ReplyDeleteBart, the fascist. It would be great if Congress, who represents the people, authorized a war that was necessary. But, in this case, the administration lied to the American people.
I am so tired of this slander so I'll make the challenge I have made on other blogs.
A lie is intentionally making a false statement of fact (not an opinion) knowing that the statement was false at the time you made it.
I challenge anyone here to prove that Mr. Bush lied about anything concerning the war.
I don't want opinions or mistakes of fact.
Show me evidence Mr. Bush lied about a fact when he knew it to be false.
Great post, Paul. But Franklin is problematic. I assume you know why. Not for you or I or most perhaps, but for the wankers. I suggest this fellow for all things related to the POW-MIA myth, and all the info and data is there on his website, and there are many pages and lots of information:
ReplyDeleteCol. Joe Schlatter U. S. Army, Retired. I retired on 1 April 1995. My involvement in the MIA issue came during two assignments:
February 1986 - July 1990 Feb 86 - Dec 88: Chief, Analysis Branch, Defense Intelligence Agency Special Office for POW-MIA Affairs
Dec 88 - Jul 90: Chief, Defense Intelligence Agency Special Office for POW-MIA Affairs
July 1993 - March 1995: Deputy Director, Defense POW-MIA Office
Vietnam Veteran
2/13 Field Artillery
February 1969 - February 1970
He even reviews Frankilin's book:
M. I. A.: Mythmaking in America. How and why the belief in live POWs has possessed a nation. By H. Bruce Franklin.
This is well-researched, logically presented book, and tells the truth. However, it has had considerable abuse heaped on it for two reasons. The first is the author's undiluted anti-war posture. Franklin does not hide his political views and that draws a lot of fire down on his position. Second, is the fact that the author was involved in several "leftist" causes and groups, a fact that leads the MIA cult to brand him a "Communist." None of this attack by the primitives dilutes the book. His last chapter, which details events between 1991 and 1993, is worth the price of admission.
Franklin hits several nails squarely on the head.
Gris Lobo,
This is the best source for you if you are interested in this topic. You make some other points that are well taken, such as Micromanagement of the war and hostility to the troops in towns like San Francisco. The vast majority of anti-war protestors were not members of SDS or Maoist organizations. The police analogy is not the best one, perhaps, for several reasons, but that may not be worth going into here. Suffice it to say that cops are usually in an urban environment with innocent bystanders all around, visible and not visible, i.e., behind windows and doors. They don't just go into weapons free mode or act as if in a "free fire" zone, with or without checking with HQ. In fact, the first thing they do is take cover and call for back up. Micromanagement and other limitations on conducting a war is often necessary because of the diplomatic dimension that is usually a part of the conduct of the war.
WAR AND POLITICS: THE REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS AND THE CONTINUED RELEVANCE OF CLAUSEWITZ
Bart...I have already done so during the Persian Gulf war as an infantry officer. I also witnessed the results of the massacres of the Shia committed by the surviving Republican Guard just above our lines in Southern Iraq after the ceasefire. Our medics treated one pregnant woman who had been gang raped and then given an impromptu abortion with an AK47 round.
ReplyDeleteDid you find any of those incubators or see any of those little infant corpses they tossed out of the incubators onto the hospital floor in Kuwait? Even if it were true, Bart, which I doubt, no one here would ever believe you because you are the one "telling the story".
Bush lied about his intentions. He had made up his mind to invade Iraq, probably before 9/11, and certainly on 9/12. Everyone knows this. Everyone. He continued to insist that war was not his intention when we now know that it was all along. That's a lie about a fact he knew to be false.
ReplyDeleteHeh. IC that "Bart" interned in Office of the State Attorney while in law school:
ReplyDelete"During law school, Mr. DePalma interned for Florida Supreme Court Justice Charles Wells and with the Office of the State Attorney as a criminal prosecutor."
"Interned" as a "criminal prosecutor", eh? Sorry, you resume-padding schmuck, but they don't let interns work as prosecutors. You know, this thing about having a law licence and all.... "Bart" was the one that went for the lattes, mocha cappucinos, and iced chai teas.
Then "Bart" sez high up on his profile: "Mr. DePalma served both as a criminal prosecutor..." Strangely enough, he doesn't list any such position on his CV (other than the intern job above), which is rather remarkable considering that would be a feather in his cap if he had in fact been a prosecuting attorney with some real responsibility for cases....
Then he wants to lecture us about his great experience as a prosecutor.
Probably a supporter of Ben Dommenech as well, no doubt. And Jeff Gannon/Guckert. Does the same job as the latter (not, not that one, at least I don't think so....)
Wanker. Fool. And possibly fraud. D'ya think that the Coloroado bar might want to know about this misrepresentation (or dishonest advertising)?
Cheers,
When contemplating war, beware of babies in incubators
ReplyDeleteby Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
....According to MacArthur's book "Second Front," the first mention of babies being removed from incubators appeared in the Sept. 5 edition of the London Daily Telegraph. The paper ran a claim by the exiled Kuwait housing minister that, "babies in the premature unit of one of the hospitals had been removed from their incubators, so that these, too, could be carried off." Two days later, the LA Times carried a Reuter's story that quoted an American (first name only) who said, among other things, that babies were being taken from incubators, although she herself had not seen it happen.
From there it began to pick up steam, as one media unit after another started repeating the story without checking it. Sensing an opening, the Hill & Knowlton people jumped on the story.
The key moment occurred on October 10, when a young woman named Nayirah appeared in front of a congressional committee. She told the committee, "I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where 15 babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the babies on the cold floor to die."
Hill & Knowlton immediately faxed details of her speech to newsrooms across the country, according to CBC's Fifth Estate's documentary. The effect was electric. The babies in incubator stories became a lead item in newspapers, and on radio and TV all over the US.
It is interesting that no one – not the congressmen in the hearing, or any journalist present – bothered to find out the identity of the young woman. She was the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the United States, and actually hadn't seen the "atrocities" she described take place. (When later confronted with the lack of evidence for her claims, the young woman said that she hadn't been in the hospital herself, but that a friend who had been there had told her about it.)
Similar unsubstantiated stories appeared at the UN a few weeks later, where a team of "witnesses," coached by Hill&Knowlton, gave "testimony" (although no oath was ever taken) about atrocities in Iraq. It was later learned that the seven witnesses used false names and even identities in one case. In an unprecedented move, the US was allowed to present a video created by Hill & Knowlton to the entire security council.
But no journalist bothered to look into these witnesses' claims. As Susan B. Trento wrote in her book, "The Power House," an in-depth look at Hill & Knowlton, "The diplomats, the congressmen, and the senators wanted something to support their positions. The media wanted visual, interesting stories."
On November 29, 1990, the UN authorized use of "all means necessary" to eject Iraq from Kuwait. On January 12, 1991, Congress authorized the use of force.
The story was later discredited by organizations like Middle East Watch, Amnesty International, and various other groups and media organizations
HWSNBN comes out with this whopper:
ReplyDeleteThe fact remains that we and our representatives debated the issue of whether to go to war for months beforehand and then a heavy majority or our representatives voted to send our troops into combat.
That's just plain false. Just another day for the troll HWSNBN and his lies....
Cheers,
I am so tired of this slander so I'll make the challenge I have made on other blogs.
ReplyDeleteMy goodness, Dear Leader has been slandered and Bart is ready to burst into tears. Are you seriously suggesting that George Bush has never lied before? I'll make a confession here: I've lied before. I know you have too - hell you've make a career of it.
To suggest that Bush has never lied, unlike every other human on the planet, is insane.
Wanker. Fool. And possibly fraud. D'ya think that the Coloroado bar might want to know about this misrepresentation (or dishonest advertising)?
ReplyDeleteBart was probably a REMF. This is the kind of action he saw.
HWSNBN:
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Mr. Clinton committed felony perjury twice does not give you and I leave to violate the law.
The esteemed "criminal prosecutor" (although at this point it's not clear how that phrase should be parsed) is wrong. He's misstated the law here before, and ignores the likes of Gaudin ... and the fact that Clinton was found (in Rehnquist's words) "not guilty" in his Senate trial and not otherwise even charged with any such crime.
But he stayed at a Motel 6 last night and knows enough to repeat the RW mantra: "Clinton's penis, Clinton's penis!" Give it a rest, Harold....
Cheers,
HWSNBN:
ReplyDeleteI have already done so during the Persian Gulf war as an infantry officer.
Wonder if he pads his military resume the same way he pads his legal one.... REMF?
Cheers,
HWSNBN dishonestly offers this tripe:
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase another Marine who was quoted by a certain congresswoman - Marines do not cut and run.
Harold misspells "misquoted" here. So he further "paraphrase[s]".... Imagine that.
Cheers,
One Person Killed Every Hour--
ReplyDeleteThe Carnage in Basra
One person is being assassinated in Basra every hour, as order in Iraq's second city disintegrates, according to an Iraqi Defence Ministry official.
And a quarter of all Iraqi children suffer from malnutrition, a survey of 20,000 households by the Iraqi government and Unicef says.
The number of violent killings in Basra is now at a level close to that of Baghdad, and marks the failure of the British Army's three-year attempt to quell violence there. Police no longer dare go to the site of a murder because they fear being attacked. The governor of Basra, Mohammed Misbahal-Wa'ili, is trying to sack the city's police chief, claiming that the police have not carried out a single investigation into hundreds of recent assassinations.
The collapse of government authority in Iraq is increasing at every level and leaders in Baghdad have yet to form a cabinet, five months after parliamentary elections on 15 December.
I am trying to define for myself (and perhaps someone could be of aid) the difference between a paid mercenary and an enlisted military careerist.
Which of these would apply to which?
l) Kills for a paycheck
2) Will kill anyone he is ordered to do so without personally weighing in on whether the person is a civilian or an enemy of America
3) Will kill anyone including unarmed women and children in the vicinity of a field of skirmish often at no increase in pay
4) Laughs afterwards
Note: By "kill" I mean an action taken against another after which that other stops breathing. That person has no pulse. That person has no heartbeat. That person has no future. That person has no life. That person is a dead person. That person will be dead forever, until the last syllable of recorded time.
How many of these four definitions would apply to paid mercenaries? To enlisted military careerists?
What's the final tally of points one through four for each group?
Thanks.
HWSNBN:
ReplyDeleteI challenge anyone here to prove that Mr. Bush lied about anything concerning the war.
Too easy. Too easy.
"The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power..."
The Doofus-In-Chief repeated this obvious lie a second time soon thereafter, and inexplicably, did it yet a third time in the lst month or so (in response to Helen Thomas, IIRC).
HWSNBN may be technically correct: Given his definition of "lie" as something that is said that is knowingly false, it could be argued that Dubya is simply floridly psychotic and thinks this statement is in fact true. But that would mean that it's imperative we invoke the 25th Amendment and get rid of him before he imagines that Martians are invading via my favourite beaches in Cabo, and nukes the place....
Cheers,
"Show me evidence Mr. Bush lied about a fact when he knew it to be false."
ReplyDeleteThat seems conveniently hard to prove, Bart. Should we call it the 'he's not a liar, just stupid' defense?
Does it count as a lie if he says he "knows" something that turns out to be false? Or did he just not know that he didn't know it?
Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'
ReplyDeleteNot that George W. Bush needs much encouragement, but Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a new target for the administration's domestic operations - Fifth Columnists, supposedly disloyal Americans who sympathize and collaborate with the enemy.
"The administration has not only the right, but the duty, in my opinion, to pursue Fifth Column movements," Graham, R-S.C., told Gonzales during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Feb. 6.
"I stand by this President's ability, inherent to being Commander in Chief, to find out about Fifth Column movements, and I don't think you need a warrant to do that," Graham added, volunteering to work with the administration to draft guidelines for how best to neutralize this alleged threat.
"Senator," a smiling Gonzales responded, "the President already said we'd be happy to listen to your ideas."
In less paranoid times, Graham's comments might be viewed by many Americans as a Republican trying to have it both ways - ingratiating himself to an administration of his own party while seeking some credit from Washington centrists for suggesting Congress should have at least a tiny say in how Bush runs the War on Terror.
But recent developments suggest that the Bush administration may already be contemplating what to do with Americans who are deemed insufficiently loyal or who disseminate information that may be considered helpful to the enemy.
Top US officials have cited the need to challenge news that undercuts Bush's actions as a key front in defeating the terrorists, who are aided by "news informers" in the words of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Detention Centers
Plus, there was that curious development in January when the Army Corps of Engineers awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root a $385 million contract to construct detention centers somewhere in the United States....
Later, the New York Times reported that "KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space." [Feb. 4, 2006].....
As former Vice President Al Gore asked after recounting a litany of sweeping powers that Bush has asserted to fight the War on Terror, "Can it be true that any President really has such powers under our Constitution? If the answer is 'yes,' then under the theory by which these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited?"
In such extraordinary circumstances, the American people might legitimately ask exactly what the Bush administration means by the "rapid development of new programs," which might require the construction of a new network of detention camps.....
What is meant by a "fifth column"?
Pablo Paredes refused Navy orders to board a ship in San Diego and transport Marines to Iraq because he thought the war was illegal and he did not want to be complicit in the commission of war crimes. Paredes was convicted of missing movement at a court-martial, but received no time in custody. He has been speaking out against the war ever since.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why he was let go after a court martial. Does anyone know?
From another article: There Are Lives in the Balance
Washington - Today is day eight of our 34-day fast for peace at the US Capitol, the Washington component of the Winter of Our Discontent campaign organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence....
I promise we will not be deterred by the nabobs who swear at us almost under their breath, or the ones who laugh or the ones who pull their kids protectively toward them. That we know comes with the job. That we can stand. What is not tolerable is to think that the blessed, good souls in our nation, of whom I'm convinced there are a few million, will think once more about this war and say, "Well, I did wear a button ... I did write my letters ... I did make some phone calls ... I did march ... I've even been arrested already. What more can I do?"
That's it? There are only a few million good souls in our nation?
What's going on? Where did everyone go?
When they came for the communists,
ReplyDeleteI remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for bart and shooter and talldave,
there was no one left to speak out.
Most Americans Decry NSA Surveillance
ReplyDeletePolling Data
Based on what you have heard or read about the program to collect phone records, would you say you approve or disapprove of this government program?
Approve
43%
Disapprove
51%
No opinion
6%
The trend is your friend as they say about the stock market.
Also, two friends of mine recently returned from taking a luxury cruise which had Vietnam as one of the stops.
I asked them "How did you like Vietnam?"
One friend answered "We liked it a lot. Interesting country. But I can tell you one thing. Our government must have been out of its fucking mind to wage that war. Any idiot could have predicted we would lose there. The country is mostly jungles and swamp land."
Nobody thought of that?
these are serious issues. they come as a result of far right wing domination of the political process, and debate. democrats need to learn how to communicate better
ReplyDeleteBart is a more the Fascist than any Islamist is.
ReplyDeleteFrom The American Conservative, 2003.
Flirting with Fascism
Neocon theorist Michael Ledeen draws more from Italian fascism than from the American Right.
By John Laughland
On the antiwar Right, it has been customary to attack the warmongering neoconservative clique for its Trotskyite origins. Certainly, the founding father of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, wrote in 1983 that he was “proud” to have been a member of the Fourth International in 1940. Other future leading lights of the neocon movement were also initially Trotskyites, like James Burnham and Max Kampelman—the latter a conscientious objector during the war against Hitler, a status that Evron Kirkpatrick, husband of Jeane, used his influence to obtain for him. But there is at least one neoconservative commentator whose personal political odyssey began with a fascination not with Trotskyism, but instead with another famous political movement that grew up in the early decades of the 20th century: fascism. I refer to Michael Ledeen, leading neocon theoretician, expert on Machiavelli, holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, regular columnist for National Review—and the principal cheerleader today for an extension of the war on terror to include regime change in Iran.
Ledeen has gained notoriety in recent months for the following paragraph in his latest book, The War Against the Terror Masters. In what reads like a prophetic approval of the policy of chaos now being visited on Iraq, Ledeen wrote,
"Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence—our existence, not our politics—threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission."
This is not the first time Ledeen has written eloquently on his love for “the democratic revolution” and “creative destruction.” In 1996, he gave an extended account of his theory of revolution in his book, Freedom Betrayed — the title, one assumes, is a deliberate reference to Trotsky’s Revolution Betrayed. Ledeen explains that “America is a revolutionary force” because the American Revolution is the only revolution in history that has succeeded, the French and Russian revolutions having quickly collapsed into terror. Consequently, “[O]ur revolutionary values are part of our genetic make-up. … We drive the revolution because of what we represent: the most successful experiment in human freedom. … We are an ideological nation, and our most successful leaders are ideologues.” Denouncing Bill Clinton as a “counter-revolutionary” (!), Ledeen is especially eager to make one point: “Of all the myths that cloud our understanding, and therefore paralyze our will and action, the most pernicious is that only the Left has a legitimate claim to the revolutionary tradition.”
Ledeen’s conviction that the Right is as revolutionary as the Left derives from his youthful interest in Italian fascism. In 1975, Ledeen published an interview, in book form, with the Italian historian Renzo de Felice, a man he greatly admires. It caused a great controversy in Italy. Ledeen later made clear that he relished the ire of the left-wing establishment precisely because “De Felice was challenging the conventional wisdom of Italian Marxist historiography, which had always insisted that fascism was a reactionary movement.” What de Felice showed, by contrast, was that Italian fascism was both right-wing and revolutionary. Ledeen had himself argued this very point in his book, Universal Fascism, published in 1972. That work starts with the assertion that it is a mistake to explain the support of fascism by millions of Europeans “solely because they had been hypnotized by the rhetoric of gifted orators and manipulated by skilful propagandists.” “It seems more plausible,” Ledeen argued, “to attempt to explain their enthusiasm by treating them as believers in the rightness of the fascist cause, which had a coherent ideological appeal to a great many people.” For Ledeen, as for the lifelong fascist theoretician and practitioner, Giuseppe Bottai, that appeal lay in the fact that fascism was “the Revolution of the 20th century.”
Ledeen supports de Felice’s distinction between “fascism-movement” and “fascism-regime.” Mussolini’s regime, he says, was “authoritarian and reactionary”; by contrast, within “fascism-movement,” there were many who were animated by “a desire to renew.” These people wanted “something more revolutionary: the old ruling class had to be swept away so that newer, more dynamic elements—capable of effecting fundamental changes—could come to power.” Like his claim that the common ground between Nazism and Italian fascism was “exceedingly minimal”—Ledeen writes, “The fact of the Axis Pact should not be permitted to become the overriding consideration in this analysis”—Ledeen’s careful distinction between fascist “regime” and “movement” makes him a clear apologist for the latter. “While ‘fascism-movement’ was overcome and eventually suppressed by ‘fascism-regime,’” he explains, “fascism nevertheless constituted a political revolution in Italy. For the first time, there was an attempt to mobilize the masses and to involve them in the political life of the country.” Indeed, Ledeen criticizes Mussolini precisely for not being revolutionary enough. “He never had enough confidence in the Italian people to permit them a genuine participation in fascism.” Ledeen therefore concurs with the fascist intellectual, Camillo Pellizi, who argues—in a book Ledeen calls “a moving and fundamental work”—that Mussolini’s was “a failed revolution.” Pellizzi had hoped that “the new era was to be the era of youthful genius and creativity”: for him, Ledeen says, the fascist state was “a generator of energy and creativity.” The purest ideologues of fascism, in other words, wanted something very similar to that which Ledeen himself wants now, namely a “worldwide mass movement” enabling the peoples of the world, “liberated” by American militarism, to participate in the “greatest experiment in human freedom.” Ledeen wrote in 1996, “The people yearn for the real thing—revolution.”
Ledeen was especially interested in the role played by youth in Italian fascism. It was here that he detected the movement’s most exciting revolutionary potential. The young Ledeen wrote that those who exalted the position of youth in the fascist revolution—like those who argued in favor of his beloved “universal fascism”—were committed to exporting Italian fascism to the whole world, an idea in which Mussolini was initially uninterested. When he was later converted to it, Mussolini said that fascism drew on the universalist heritage of Rome, both ancient and Catholic. No doubt Ledeen thinks that the new Rome in Washington has the same universalist mission. He writes that people around Berto Ricci—the editor of the fascist newspaper L’Universale, and a man he calls “brilliant” and “an example of enthusiasm and independence”— “called for the formation of a new empire, an empire based not on military conquest but rather on Italy’s unique genius for civilization. … They intended to develop the traditions of their country and their civilization in such a manner as to make them the basic tenets of a new world order.” Ledeen adds, in a passage that anticipates his later love of creative destruction, “Clearly the act of destruction which would produce the flowering of the new fascist hegemony would sweep away the present generation of Italians, along with the rest.” And Giuseppe Bottai, to whom Ledeen attributes “considerable energy and autonomy,” was notable for his belief that “the infusion of the creative energies of a new generation was essential” for the fascist revolution. Bottai “implored the young … to found a new order arising from the spontaneous activity of their creation.”
One of the greatest exponents of such youthful vitalism was the high priest of fascism, the poet and adventurer Gabriele D’Annunzio, to whom Ledeen devoted an enthusiastic biography in 1977. Years ago, I visited D’Annunzio’s house on the shores of Lake Garda: there is a battleship in the garden and a Brenn gun in the sitting room. D’Annunzio was an eccentric and militaristic Italian Nietzschean who “eulogized rape and acts of savagery” committed by the people he called his spiritual ancestors. The poet was also an early prophet of military intervention and regime change: he invaded the Croatian city of Fiume (now Rijeka) in 1919 and held the city for a year, during which he put into practice his theories of “New Order.” In 1918, moreover, D’Annunzio had dropped propaganda leaflets over Vienna promising to liberate the Austrians from their own government, something Ledeen hails as “a glorious gesture.” D’Annunzio’s watchword was “the liberation of human personality.” “His heroism during the war made it possible,” Ledeen writes, “to bridge the chasm between intellectuals and the masses. … The revolt D’Annunzio led was directed against the old order of Western Europe, and was carried out in the name of youthful creativity and virility.”
As Ledeen shows, the Italian fascists expressed their desire “to tear down the old order” (his words from 2002) in terms that are curiously anticipatory of a famous statement in 2003 by the Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. In 1932, Asvero Gravelli also divided Europe into “old” and “new” when he wrote, in Towards the Fascist International, “Either old Europe or young Europe. Fascism is the gravedigger of old Europe. Now the forces of the Fascist International are rising.” It all sounds rather prophetic
The venomous tone of the rhetoric is sobering and discouraging. And yet the entrenched contradiction in claiming to be patriotic and clamoring for true support of American Values while attacking one of the cornerstones of American values and American democracy must cause amusement.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder how can these things be said with a straight face. This is the power of rhetoric, the ability to cause the speaker to believe in what is being said.
The language of traitor, un-American continues to divide. I weary of embracing "being blue" "acting blue" "buying blue"...feeling blue blue blue blue blue... I'm feelin' blue. Meaning that the rhetoric of embracing blue is just as divisive; though self-identifying rather than identifying other. But in creating an "Us", we must therefore create a "Them."
What would the purple strategy look like?
What would rhetoric of finding shared values look like?
Let's look into it.
I said:
ReplyDeleteSorry Bart, finding examples of Marines willing to criticize Murtha is very different than being "hard pressed to find an active duty Marine today with anything good to say about Murtha."
Bart replied:
Then you won't be hard pressed to find me one, will you.
Gee, I had to look no further than this thread of this blog. Ender appears to meet the criteria.
[Ender, if I'm mistaken, I apologize; I am referring to your post here where you said "Murtha is correct"]
Karl said...
ReplyDeleteThe language of traitor, un-American continues to divide. I weary of embracing "being blue" "acting blue" "buying blue"...feeling blue blue blue blue blue... I'm feelin' blue. Meaning that the rhetoric of embracing blue is just as divisive; though self-identifying rather than identifying other. But in creating an "Us", we must therefore create a "Them."
What would the purple strategy look like?
What would rhetoric of finding shared values look like?
Let's look into it.
Bwahahaha! I don't know wheter to call you Karl, as in Marx, or Neville, as in Chamberlain. Perhaps just Quisling.
The right has gone so far over the edge that you need to vote Democrat to be a Republican. Vote Democrat. It's the new Republican. Liberalism. It's the new conservatism.
ReplyDeleteVidkun Quisling
ReplyDeleteBart and all his fellow fascist travellers are Quislings.
Quisling, after Norwegian fascist politician Vidkun Quisling, is a term used to describe traitors and collaborators. It is most commonly used for right-wing political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II Europe..
I'm going to just throw this out and let whoever wishes to kick it around.
ReplyDeleteBart pointed to some of the more vocal critics of the Iraqi expedition at 12:49PM:
"Durban, Kennedy, Murtha, Moore, Sheehan, and how many who post here?"
Let's see what we have here: three politicians (one of whom has been among the Pentagon's most consistent and ardent supporters), an award-winning documentary filmmaker, a grieving mother, and a crop of American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights, all offering criticism of the current deployment, its actions, its consequences, and the policies that prompted it all.
Gee, doesn't that imply that maybe, just *maybe* some re-evaluation of the mission and its conduct is in order?
Bart continues in the same response:
"The fact that Mr. Clinton committed felony perjury twice does not give you and I leave to violate the law."
On this you and I agree.
"The fact that others may denigrate and lie about the work our soldiers do on the battlefield does not justify your or I doing the same."
The fact our soldiers are proven to be behaving like barbarians and savages - which is inevitable, given the circumstances of this deployment - does not entitle them to a free pass either. And I would point out the only lies being told about them are by the Bush Administration; ie we don't need more troops and the work is going along swimingly.
"Is your right to continue to speak against their efforts worth the damage you would do to the soldiers in the field."
Given I'm not speaking against their efforts, but against the policies and hubris that put them there, I'll leave that one go.
"There is real evil in the world my friend and our soldiers are fighting it in Iraq. No matter what you think of Mr. Bush or war in general, they deserve our support."
Again, we agree on this, or at least the underlying principle: there is evil in the world.
There is starvation, injustice, and tyranny.
What our troops are 'fighting' in Iraq is a population armed as much against each other as against the invaders in their midst. There is no evidence of any major drawdown of our troops levels there, nor any indication the Bush Administration is prepared to let the Iraqis have their country back.
We enrage both the Iraqis and the region in general by our continued presence there, and hinder any hope the major factions will come to terms. Why should they worry about forming a working government that must support and defend itself when our troops provide both nominal security and a wonderful distraction?
Our troops have our support, insofar as we as a country don't wish to see their lives spent needlessly or wastefully. And this entire expedition, not unlike the Punative Expedition of the British into China, has furthered no cause save more hatred of us.
This was a war of choice, against a regime that while reprehensible, was no immediate threat to our nation's borders or security. The reasons for invasion, while nice soundbites, have proven illusionary. In the meantime, this entire expedition has only convinced many who would otherwise be our allies that it is we who are the greater threat, and that Bin Laden and his ilk are correct to attack us.
Calling for a re-evaluation of the mission is not treason nor giving 'aid and comfort to the enemy'. It is simple common sense, especially when the mission itself is acting as a marvelous recruitment tool for that same 'enemy'.
As to shooter242's many quotes at 11:24PM, I would point out the common theme of them was that the Hussein regime needed to disarm and give up whatever WMDs it had or was working on. The fact Hussein was cooperating (at least as much as could be reasonably expected given his circumstances and personality) goes unmentioned, as does the fact inspections were already underway and discovering...no WMDs or active weapons programs!
Were those Democrats wrong in their statements? No. Does this mean the subsequent invasion was justified? An emphatic NO, particularly in light of what a disaster it has become for both Iraq and our troops.
Gentlemen, if you wish to 'support' the troops by saying we need to keep them in place and constantly under fire, with no clear mission objectives nor coherent exit strategy, that is your perogative and right.
Myself, I don't want anyone else killed strictly to satisfy the emotional vanity and the material greed of those who order them into battle. Call it 'giving aid and comfort' if that assages your conscience.
I'll call it "being an American citizen".
Go ahead, imprison (or worse, shoot to kill) someone like Murtha for "treason." It's the last thing the war criminals in the White House and Pentagon really want, because the publicity and discovery will blow the lid off the whole thing. And it may answer the biggest question of all: Just how fascist has the U.S. become, and what is the end game?
ReplyDeleteWe were discussing the definition of fascism and I noted how Islamic fascists replaced religion for race...
ReplyDeleteIran eyes badges for Jews
Law would require non-Muslim insignia
Chris Wattie
National Post
Friday, May 19, 2006
Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims
> http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=11fbf4a8-282a-4d18-954f-546709b1240f&k=32073
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteBush lied about his intentions. He had made up his mind to invade Iraq, probably before 9/11, and certainly on 9/12. Everyone knows this. Everyone. He continued to insist that war was not his intention when we now know that it was all along. That's a lie about a fact he knew to be false.
What happened to telling me to take a hike?
No matter, I can care less what "everyone knows."
By necessity, the planning and deployment of a massive military operation across the world takes several months. You can't wait until the UN dithers to decide to actually attack, then snap your fingers and instantly deploy a quarter million men around the world to launch that attack.
The evidence shows that Bush ordered the planning and preparation for the liberation some months ahead of time, gave Saddam one last chance to comply with the Ceasefire, gave the UN one last chance to back up its resolutions with actions and then gave the order to move out.
There is no evidence that Mr. Bush lied about giving Saddam and the UN one more chance. He predicted early on that both would fail, but he did not act as he promised until both had their chances.
Next.
Arne Langsetmo said...
ReplyDeleteAh, the liar returned.
Heh. IC that "Bart" interned in Office of the State Attorney while in law school:
"During law school, Mr. DePalma interned for Florida Supreme Court Justice Charles Wells and with the Office of the State Attorney as a criminal prosecutor."
"Interned" as a "criminal prosecutor", eh? Sorry, you resume-padding schmuck, but they don't let interns work as prosecutors.
Lie #12.
Feel free to call Assistant SA Tony Grisco at the Tallahassee office of the State Attorney. FSU Law regularly sends their students to work with the SA pursuant to a Florida statute. I worked there my second summer of law school and tried and won 6 cases.
Wanker. Fool. And possibly fraud. D'ya think that the Coloroado bar might want to know about this misrepresentation (or dishonest advertising)?
Feel free to lodge a complaint with the Colorado Bar. You can find them at cobar.org. Lying scumbags occasionally come out of the word work and go to the bar. You will be my first.
I am through with you for now.
Yankeependragon says:
ReplyDeleteAs to shooter242's many quotes at 11:24PM, I would point out the common theme of them was that the Hussein regime needed to disarm and give up whatever WMDs it had or was working on. The fact Hussein was cooperating (at least as much as could be reasonably expected given his circumstances and personality) goes unmentioned, as does the fact inspections were already underway and discovering...no WMDs or active weapons programs!
The text I emphasized is exactly why we had to go to war. In case this was missed the first time around, Blix and Baradei both produced negative reports to the UN two months before invasion.....
"Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspector, stated unequivocally last night that Saddam Hussein had failed to disarm, greatly strengthening the American and British case for war."
And let me add one more quote to my list, the one where Clinton announces that he has instigated bombing of Iraq.....
“Earlier today, I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors”
- President William Jefferson Clinton 12/16/98
I'd say that eliminates any waffling about the seriousness the Democrats had about their intel, and their belief that Saddam was a danger.
Adam said...
ReplyDeleteBart: "Show me evidence Mr. Bush lied about a fact when he knew it to be false."
That seems conveniently hard to prove, Bart.
Let me give you some examples of a lie...
Mr. Clinton stated under oath twice that he did not have sexual relations with employees in general and Monica in particular. Monica testified to the contrary and presented a blue dress with certain DNA material on it. This is known as evidence.
Kerry told the Senate that he commanded a naval operation into Cambodian waters.
Later, his crew stated that this did not happen. This is evidence.
In contrast, the press, the Senate, the House and the British Parliament have investigated the claim of prewar lies and found no evidence.
If you cannot present any evidence, then you are lying every time you make the accusation.
The troll HWSNBN says:
ReplyDeleteI'll take that as your charming way of saying that you are unable to meet my challenge. I'll take this as your admission the that slander that Bush lied is itself a lie.
Don't feel bad. No one else has been able to come up with a genuine lie either. You are hardly alone.
Particularly when the troll ignores what others actually did say in response to this challenge. Which simply proves the points made by more than one on this thread about Bushlandia, and Glenn himself in this and other posts about the Cult'O'Bush....
It truly is impossible to break the fever in these poor souls; I don't think that even 500 milligrams of Thorazine would do the trick. They will follow the Doofus-In-Chief in the swirling descent down the toilet bowl of history. And good riddance to them.
The thought just occurs to me that the Bushistas are perhaps as impervious to facts as the likes of David Irving.... Hmmmm....
Cheers,
Paul:
ReplyDeleteBart: I am so tired of this slander so I'll make the challenge I have made on other blogs.
A lie is intentionally making a false statement of fact (not an opinion) knowing that the statement was false at the time you made it.
I challenge anyone here to prove that Mr. Bush lied about anything concerning the war.
I don't want opinions or mistakes of fact.
Show me evidence Mr. Bush lied about a fact when he knew it to be false.
Paul: This sounds like a pretty formidable task. How can we prove what was in someone else's mind?
You don't have to. You prove the facts of which they were made aware before the statement alleged to be a lie. See the Clinton and Kerry examples above.
In our case, the usual claim is that Bush lied about WMD. That means that the intelligence services must have shown him facts that Saddam had in fact destroyed his WMD and Mr. Bush still claimed that Saddam possessed them anyway. The fact is that we still have no evidence that Saddam ever destroyed his WMD from an eyewitness, documents or physical evidence of the destruction.
Bush did something much, much worse than tell a single lie. He out to systematically destroy the truth. And not just with respect to the Iraq war, but across a wide range of policy areas.
The tap dancing begins.
This was investigated in 2003 across numerous fields of science policy by the Democratic staff of the Government Reform Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, with results posted on the "Politics and Science" website. This investigation followed a number of unprecedented editorials and letters in leading scientific journals such as Science and Nature making similar complaints.
OK, lets stop here. I do not give a fig about partisan accusations and opinions.
Give me an example of Mr. Bush telling a single lie about a fact used as a ground for war before the war.
According to your post, Mr. Corn has a book of these "lies." Give me one example with the evidence to back it up. Not merely the claim of a lie. Show me the evidence. I have shown you two examples of how this is done.
Arne Langsetmo said...
ReplyDeleteBart: I challenge anyone here to prove that Mr. Bush lied about anything concerning the war.
Too easy. Too easy.
"The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power..."
Lie #13
Not only did the intelligence available to Mr. Bush before the war state this, the investigation after the liberation of Iraq confirmed that Saddam had several WMD programs proceeding just before the war. See the Duelfer report.
Bart, Your definition of lying is useless. It does not cover deception, spin, and manipulation. Nor does it cover the incidence of omitting to tell someone of a fact, the lie of omission.
ReplyDeleteOTOH Given your legal background you expect to prove lying in the same way you can in a court of law. Oviously, for now that's simply impossible since we don't have access to all the evidence. The Senate is investigating these alleged lies about pre-war intel, but that investigation has been stymied by the Republicans.
Until such an investigation takes place, we in the public are left with the less rigorous baseline of probability. Therefore, we can induce from evidence like that provided by Paul Rosenberg that Bush probably has lied and continues to lie.
There is one fact that seems undeniable. Most people believe that Bush lied about WMDs. That's the common-sense conclusion that people have drawn from the oh-so-certain assertions made by Bushco that there were WMDs in Iraq and the fact that none were found.
Whether this latter case is one of perception vs reality is perhaps a matter of political will. That is, Bushco has to counter this perception with some form of counter-probability. From the polls, it seems that everything they have tried so far to produce a perception of truthfulness emanating from the White House is not working.
Bart:
ReplyDeleteFirst, you have not proven that Kerry told a lie regarding Cambodia. You merely "proved" that there were two versions of the events in question. Clinton lied, though - I don't know anyone who denies that, including Clinton.
Bush said the following during his State of the Union in 2003 - probably his most comprehensive case for war:
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.”
U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein
had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable
of delivering chemical agents.”
We have also discovered through intelligence
that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas."
"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people
now in custody reveal that
Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaida."
"Our intelligence sources tell us that he (Saddam) has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
All of these assertions were dubious at the time that he said them - there was certainly no unanimity amongst the intelligence community on any of these points - and yet Bush put these statements out as unassailable facts justifying war. You can also see that Bush uses wiggle words "had" the materials to make Sarin gas - had recently, or when the report was written, or 10 years ago? Depends on what the definition of what "is" is, I guess.
To me, what Bush did is lying. To you, it might be something else. I hope you don't sell used cars for a living, though.
HWSNBN:
ReplyDeleteFeel free to call Assistant SA Tony Grisco at the Tallahassee office of the State Attorney. FSU Law regularly sends their students to work with the SA pursuant to a Florida statute. I worked there my second summer of law school and tried and won 6 cases.
Ah-hah. As I thought. I can spot puffery from a mile away. HWSNBN's "prosecutorial" experience is as an intern for the OSA. I'd chided him for sweeping the floors there, but he actually had responsibility for getting the coffee as well. My mistake. ROFLMAO..... And he pretends at the top of his page to have been a "criminal prosecutor"!
Yes, my dear fraud and blowhard, I know that students get to work on cases (did so myself, FWIW), but they can't do it without supervision, and they can't actually sign anything without an actual attorney of record's signature. Unless Florida is more f***ed-up than I suspect, and unlike other states actually lets students do their prosecutions (which might account for the Florida legal system).
But I'll say it again: HWSNBN is a lying blowhard. As someone else pointed out here, he would be best asked the veracity of the incubator story too; sounds like a "mission" right up his alley, and possibly the "cap"-stone of his military 'career'....
Cheers,
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletedavidbyron: I can't abide this attitude. If you want to fight for social justice for the poor that's one thing. But to excuse murder by hinting that anyone who is poor can't be expected to have the slightest moral values, and therefore should be treated sympathetically when they agree to take money for killing civilians --- that's a great insult to the poor who don't decide to become assassins, the great majority of them.
ReplyDeleteAs in our previous exchange of comments on morality, I have yet to see what your standard of morality is. You seem to believe that this society provides an ethical standard and builds that in through the normal socialization processes. If this is your standard, then it seems that the soldiers are indeed acting morally, since the prevalent moral system in capitalist America is to do your job, fulfill your contract, and trust the decisions of those above you. The prevailing ethos of the US simply does not provide any form of character-building processes that would enable people to recognize evil and immorality when they experience it.
the cynic librarian said...
ReplyDeleteBart, Your definition of lying is useless. It does not cover deception, spin, and manipulation. Nor does it cover the incidence of omitting to tell someone of a fact, the lie of omission.
This is the definition of a lie. The fact that you are using other terms indicates that you know those other acts or omissions are not lies.
If you want to accuse Mr. Bush of spinning, make your case, but don't call it a lie.
OTOH Given your legal background you expect to prove lying in the same way you can in a court of law. Oviously, for now that's simply impossible since we don't have access to all the evidence.
We have a great deal of evidence in the record after multiple investigations. No evidence of lies, though.
Until you have the evidence, do not make the accusation.
Until such an investigation takes place, we in the public are left with the less rigorous baseline of probability.
The Senate committee playing this game is comparing statements of Elephants and Donkeys, which is public records, with the intelligence, which has largely been released.
The reason that BOTH the Elephants and Donkeys on that committee are dragging their feet is that both sides were equally incendiary at the time and don't want to go there now that the war is less popular.
However, that does not prevent you from comparing the public statements and the prewar intelligence to see if Mr. Bush was "lying."
Paul, what you are really complaining about is that Mr. Bush was giving persuasive arguments presenting the case for war and not an objective argument laying out pros and cons for war.
This is absolutely correct...and hardly unusual.
No President in history has used anything but persuasive arguments to rally the nation to go to war.
"Paul, what you are really complaining about is that Mr. Bush was giving persuasive arguments presenting the case for war and not an objective argument laying out pros and cons for war."
ReplyDeleteThe problem with this is Bush never acknowledged that he was giving us an argument rather than the straight facts. He owed that to the American people. Bush had all the intelligence, and we had much less, and we had to rely on what he was saying in large part. He was telling us to trust him, and we did, and we got screwed. And now we're being told that it was a sales job all along. Swell.
HWSNBN is clueless:
ReplyDeleteMr. Clinton stated under oath twice that he did not have sexual relations with employees in general and Monica in particular. Monica testified to the contrary and presented a blue dress with certain DNA material on it. This is known as evidence.
HWSNBN should be aware that the definition of "sexual relations" was strangely modified an dlimited (after a request by Clinton's lawyer, Bennett). Dunno what the other instance is of this supposed lie. HWSNBN also ignores (WRT whether such is perjury) the Gaudin case, so it's not in the least clear that this is even a prosecutable felony case, much less one which would obtain a conviction (but then again, HWSNBN is not the sharpest tool in the "prosecutorial" shed, either).
Kerry told the Senate that he commanded a naval operation into Cambodian waters.
Later, his crew stated that this did not happen. This is evidence.
Huh??? Swift Boat Veterans Against The Truth (as O'Leilly inadvertently bu accurately referred to them as) crapola?
I think HWSNBN is getting real confused here. But hard to check it out, because HWSNBN just goes flinging the feces around the room, and doesn't bother giving any cites (you know, to stuff other that FreeperCentral or WhirledNutzDaily...)
Cheers,
Myself, I don't want anyone else killed strictly to satisfy the emotional vanity and the material greed of those who order them into battle. Call it 'giving aid and comfort' if that assages your conscience.
ReplyDeleteAhh...there's that conscience word again. Since I opposed the war from the beginning, I don't have to wrestle that particular demon. What I wonder about is the mindset of people who supported the war at the time but now realize that it was misguided. I would imagine that Bush's polling number reflect the fact that they blame him directly for their discomfort. He did after all paint a completely false picture of the danger we faced. Many other's ,including those with stakes in the game (ie. people actually deployed and people with family there.) can't allow themselves to beleive that they're not doing the right thing. That's why the volume level of the "traitor-bashing" is increasing
Meanwhile, Justice TS Ellis, a district court judge in Virginia has dismissed the case of German citizen Khaled al-Masri against George Tenet and the CIA. Al-Masri alleges that he was kidnapped in Macedonia in 2003 and flown to Kabul Afghanistan, where he was tortured.
ReplyDelete"The judge did not rule on the truth of the allegations, but said letting the case proceed might endanger security.
Rights group the American Civil Liberties Union brought the case on behalf of Mr. el-Masri - who was never charged with any terrorist offences."
As we keep seeing in these cases there was no useful information obtained by these heinous methods, and any chance of legally dealing with el-Masri if he was a terrorist was negated by the torture.
The rest, from Raw Story:
Judge Dismisses Torture Suit
Why is it that the magic words 'national security' always seem to trump the Constitution and Bill of Rights in America? I thought the Constitution was the supreme law of the land. I guess it's like the musical group The Supremes after Diana Ross left. They were kinda The Supremes, but not really.
HWSNBN is clueless:
ReplyDelete[HWSNBN]: I challenge anyone here to prove that Mr. Bush lied about anything concerning the war.
[Arne]: Too easy. Too easy.
"The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power..." -- Dubya
Lie #13
Huh???? It's a freaking quote (complete with link) from Commander Codpiece off the White House web site!!! What a maroon!!!
Or did the troll mean it was lie #13 in his pantheon of Dubya whoppers.... Ahhhh, that must be it....
Not only did the intelligence available to Mr. Bush before the war state this, the investigation after the liberation of Iraq confirmed that Saddam had several WMD programs proceeding just before the war. See the Duelfer report.
Nope. But immaterial, even if true. The freaking TeeVee was showing Blix on the ground in Iraq, busily doing the inspections and even supervising destruction of the disputed al-Samoud missiles which Saddam figured weren't worth arguing about if it was gonna give the cowboy an excuse to invade....
Dubya said Saddam "wouldn't let them [the inspectors] in". That's just a freaking lie. He's repeated this whopper two more times now, to my knowledge, and pretty much any sentient being knows it's a lie. Which, apparently, doesn't include HWSNBN.
Cheers,
bart, As usual you disingenuously disregard my point and go on to assert--without logic or proof--the negative. It will simply be impossible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bush lied. That investigation was suppoed to occur in the senate but the Republicans have blocked it.
ReplyDeleteAs I say, common-sense goes with the probabilities here. Bush lied about WMDs, ergo he's probably lying about a lot of other things. Paul's list of items, where Bush has said one thing and another thing has happened, provide preponderant circumstantial evidence that goes a long way to provide grist for the inductive inference that Bush lied, is lying, and will ie.
Bart...Kerry told the Senate that he commanded a naval operation into Cambodian waters.
ReplyDeleteLater, his crew stated that this did not happen. This is evidence.
That's not evidence. That would be testimony if it were presented under oath and at trial. Evidence would be satellite imagery showing the complete course transited by Kerry's boat during the op in question. Given that GPS wasn't around in those days, Kerry might be the only one on that boat who had any idea where they were, and he may have been off by a few meters. He certainly had a better idea than the crewman manning the .50s. How good are your land navigation skills, there, Captain?
In a court of law, an average attorney (one more skilled than you) could make a better case for Bush engaging in a "pattern and practice" of deceit, dishonesty and outright lies, than could ever be made for Kerry by the best attornies around. I'd still like for you to explain your fascination with fascism to me.