FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives – Usama Bin Laden: Still at large
Terrorism Could Hurl D.C. Area Into Turmoil: “On the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the nation’s capital lacks a comprehensive way to tell people what to do in a state of emergency, especially a terrorist attack with no warning, according to law enforcement and Homeland Security officials involved in emergency preparations.”
Four years later, we are no safer, our murdered remain unavenged, and our reputation and ability to lead remains devastated. The spinmeisters and propagandists will try to say otherwise, but those are the facts.
Way to memorialize the day, Oliver… Do you plan on remembering the 3,000 victims at half – time today?
I’ve been attending the Toronto Film Festival this week and last night I saw a doc by Mariusz Pilis and Marcin Mamon called The Smell of Paradise, billed as a journey through the world of jihad (You can read a longer write up by clicking my username). At one point in the film, an Afghani man whose family has for centuries guarded the prophet’s mantle, Islam’s holiest relic, in Kandahar tells the director that he’s glad the Taliban are gone — because they weren’t true Muslims. Indeed, when the Taliban’s Sheik Omar came to Khandahar he dared to don the mantle and proclaim himself the new leader of all the world’s faithful. The man telling this believes the American invasion was God’s punishment of both the Taliban and the Afghan people, not for 9-11, which is harldy mentioned at all by the terrorists and spiritual leaders interviewed, but for the Sheik’s blasphemy and that it will clear the way for a true Islamic state in Afghanistan … In another interview, a tribal elder who once placed his faith in the American promise of a better life, wonders now why his son was arrested, where he is, why he can’t talk to him and when he will see him again. The words Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are on the lips and minds of a number of the tribal leaders interviewed.
Today, of course, should be a day of reflection not only for the lives we lost on that day but also on the last four years and what we’ve accomplished since then. Since 9-11, do we really know what we’ve been doing in the world? This doc suggests that where and when it counts, we haven’t a clue.
Liberals would ‘memorialize’ the 3,000 victims by hunting down all perpetrators involved up to the saudi elite who funded them, not hold some fenced in ‘parade’ that has the dual purpose of celebrating the troops in iraq.
“Four years later, we are no safer”
Don’t see how you can say this. We clearly are safer. We were attacked. We fought back, became security conscious, and haven’t been successfully attacked on our home soil since. The people must agree with me. The WOT is a big issue and they re-elected Bush.
And I am not one who says Bush has been perfect; but I have not heard one viable alternative from the left. A question I have often asked on this site: given your hyperbolic criticisms of George Bush, of the Patriot Act, of Gitmo, of Iraq, of Afghanistan (many on the left have indeed criticized that action – many not), how is it you will track down and kill terrorists more effectively? Or will just “understand” them better and open up “dialogue” with them?
Dugger
You have forgotten. You do not care.
Your short term memory loss astounds me, Oliver. How is that disaster relief effort you promoted so long ago going. Are you going to lead Oliver? Do you care? Was it a worthy goal, or just a political stick in the eye, easily forgotten? (Kinda like “Brit Hume Must Resign.”)
Why hasn’t every post since you first mentioned the effort had something at the bottom mentioning it? Why hasn’t the original post remained a the top until the goal is reached? Get creative with words Oliver. You’ve got the skills. You are always TALKING about leadership. LEAD.
18% and counting.
You ought to be careful about what you wish for . . .
I don’t see anything wrong with searching for Osama to try to ARREST him and try him for complicity in various crimes of terrorism such as the embassy bombings and perhaps the Cole holing, but if you’ve seen any proof that Osama had anything to do with either nine eleven or Mo Atta, I’d like to hear about it. The ONLY “proof” I’ve seen submitted anent this subject was on Tony Blair’s web page of “proof” in which his proof was “who else could it have been?”
In fact, you were told by Colin Powell that Osama was responsible, and that alone ought to give you pause. He has yet to tell the truth about anything except maybe who killed Ron and Nicole . . . oh, that’s a story about another lying black man, isn’t it?
More to the point, you don’t even know for a FACT that Osama was alive at the time the order was given to go ahead with the nine eleven plan, and you don’t know that he is alive today either.
Note that I’m not saying Osama is dead and had nothing to do with nine eleven; I am saying only that if there is proof that he is both alive and was responsible for the terrorist attacks, then he ought to be apprehended, charged, tried, and hopefully convicted of crimes he committed. Putting out a “kill on sight” order won’t get it, at least not unless you have some proof that none of the rest of us have seen that ties Osama to the crime BEFORE its commission, not just as a cheering fanatic after the fact.
Unfortunately for all of us, our government and our people have decided that anyone George Witless Botch decides is an enemy can be murdered in his sleep if George so desires, and no law applies to any of it. The suspect can also be tortured with impunity, rendered, imprisoned for life, and made to pose in his underwear for photographers if George wants that to happen.
So when you say “those are the facts” do be careful about just what “facts” you mean and if you say “this is the truth,” I want to know if you mean your truth or mine.
Sam
Don t see how you can say this. We clearly are safer. We were attacked. We fought back, became security conscious, and haven t been successfully attacked on our home soil since.
London? So much for our allies, huh? Oh, btw…there are enough reports out there from people much more qualified then *you*, stating that terrorism is on the rise, and that U.S. invasion in Iraq has increased the ranks of Al Qaeda. Enough reports to choke a Dugger.
The people must agree with me. The WOT is a big issue and they re-elected Bush.
Then why do a majority of them now disagree with the war in Iraq, which is Bush’s “centerpiece” in the WoT?
They bought a bill of goods, just like you. Doesn’t mean they were right…and they now seem to be coming to their senses.
Invading Afghanistan and purging the Talban was the RIGHT THING. They were directly responsible for 9/11, but we dropped the ball, let OBL get away and the Taliban is coming back. Iraq, on the other hand has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with 9/11. Our invasion of Iraq served absolutely NO useful purpose and only made things worse by destabilizing the area, giving the terrorsts a new playground, and setting the stage for a new Iran-style fundamentalist state. Saddam Hussein may have been a slimeball, but the alternative has turned out to be worse. Better the devil you know. Better a stable secular dictatorship that didn’t pose a threat to other countries than a new Islamist state that threatens everyone.
Marty, youre full of hate this morning. How does oliver not care? Way to encourage the samaritan spirit, asshole.
What’s the matter, Outer_space? Don’t like Oliver’s rhetorical style? (Oh- only when he uses it, I guess.)
I realize that you probably missed or haven’t been a part of this interesting conversation, but please understand that I have no hate for Oliver. On the contrary, I enjoy his mastery of the language in spite of my differences in opinion with him. However, I personally think that he is dropping the ball in an area in which I think he could really prove his sincerity by actually leading something positive to a successful finish.
Dugger
The centerpiece for this administrations claim that we are safer is .”…..rather than fight them here, we’re fighting them in Iraq………and we are creating a democratic stronghold that will be the mainspring for democracy across the Middle East.”
Just a little context is called for here.
Is there a reason why Dad Bush dared not tread on this snakepit?
Good advice. That’s why.
The last time a unification of Arab tribes was seriously undertaken was in Damascus, Syria in 1918. The British were only concerned with consolidating their interests to the Suez Canal, which the Turks were threatening. But Col T.E. Lawrence had a grander vision. He wanted Arabs to stop fighting with each other and join forces. The result? Disaster.
Arab culture is primarily suspicious of outsiders. “Outsider’ can be braod in their definition. They distrust cousins over brothers, adjoining village over cousins, outlying village over adjoining village, and most of all; colonialists over fellow Arab.
I, too, once felt that since the genie has been let out of the bottle, we must stay in Iraq until the job is done. Gradually though I have come to believe that no matter how long we stay. No matter how much treasure we expend. No matter how many more american troops we sacrifice; civil war is inevitable in Iraq. That does not make us safer. It makes the world far more dangerous than if we had left Saddam in power. It had nothing to do with 9/11 and everyone should stop pretending it does.
Right, Semanticleo, Arabs aren’t “like us”. They don’t want peace or freedom, those primitives. Why don’t you throw away that single factoid, and the other myths, and go learn the truth somewhere.
Some of us truly remember:
http://www.islamfortoday.com/010912wtc_attack1p.jpg
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/105/900/320/9-11bakerco.jpg
CondiPundit Remembers
Frank;
I think frameone is saying there is another way to reduce the number of terrorists……
other than carpet bombing an entire race of people, that is.
Is ’scorched earth’ the only answer from the limbic brain of the new nihilists?; or new conservatives, neocons, whatever you tight asses are calling yourselves today.?
Stop it Frameone: You are not going to convert terrorists. You can only reduce their numbers. Period.
All the jibber – jabber in the world isn’t going to stop some Arab, or Iraqi, or Palestinian, from waking up pissed off at somebody.
What he needs to know, is that if he that if he tries to act on it, he’s going to end up dead. There may be a whole bunch of terrorists, but there aren’t a whole bunch of suicide bombers.
Invading Afghanistan and purging the Talban was the RIGHT THING. They were directly responsible for 9/11, but we dropped the ball, let OBL get away and the Taliban is coming back.
Erm, Invading Afghanistan was just as illegal as Iraq.
Afghanistan never attacked us, and the majority of hijackers were Saudi and not Afghani.
And, just because we haven’t been attacked in the US, doesn’t mean we’re any safer. You do realize that Americans are being attacked and killed daily in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not to mention Americans have been killed in the attacks on Bali and London, so I don’t really see how you can come to the conclusion that, since there were no more attacks on America, we’re any safer.
Quite frankly, I’m disgusted by how the media and the government makes a scene out of the 9/11 attacks with the faux patriotism and pomp and circumstance.
Frank;
You have all the trappings of a ‘Divider, not a Uniter’
Congratulations, you win a “freedom” medal from Bush and Gang!
One of the things that’s so frustrating about the war on terror is that for us to be successful, no matter how you define it, what matters most is not what we think it is that we are doing but what the people most directly effected by our policies think it is that we are doing. If what we think we are doing and what they think we are doing are not the same things then ending the cycle of hate and violence that creates terrorists is a pipe dream. I happen to believe that invading Afghanistan was a reasonable response to 9-11 but in the long run it doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is what the average Afghani thinks. I don’t think we’ve given enough thought to this. As I tried to point out in the above comment, this film I just saw suggests that in the mind of some influential Afghani leaders, our invasion of that country has been folded into a narrative of retribution that has nothing to do with 9-11 and everything to do with cleansing Afghanistan for a purer Islamic state to come. Was that our intention, to reinforce a narrative of God’s desire to cleanse the world of evil to clear a path for Sharia and radical Islam? And remember this what the people we came to help believe. And with that narrative in hand, the leaders interviewed in this documentary just might have the will and followers to make that happen, whether at the ballot box or through other means, if indeed, a new Sharia republic there or in Iraq is not we intended.
Dugger, and others, pooh pooh “understanding” and “dialogue” but what is more stupid and pointless than formulating a policy without any clear sense of how it’s going to play out in reality on the ground? Dugger also wants to know if the left has a more efficient plan for tracking down and killing the terrorists. One way is to come up with a plan that doesn’t make more terrorists and Islamic republics in the process. The Bush administration has clearly failed this most basic test of efficiency. The people of Afghanistan don’t give a fuck about 9-11 even if we do but they are clearly upset about what they’ve heard of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, even if we aren’t. Bush has done nothing, said nothing to make them think or feel differently. Just more of the same bullshit and bombings. How to correct that? I’m sure I haven’t got the slightest idea but we have already heard hints of a new direction from some US generals and even Rumsfeld himself (when he was looking for cover for the latest Iraqi bloodshed). The solution to reducing terrorism is not the military, it is and always has been mostly a law enforcement problem and can be solved with an international law enforcement effort. Unfirtunately, Bush recognized that big explosions help win domestic elections. Combine an international law enforecement effort — one that doesn’t implicitly or explicity sanction torture — with a concerted effort to reach out and support moderate muslims (instead of turning them into collateral damage) and I think you may have a good start.
Leo: Think of how much you might say, if you stopped insulting me, and other conservatives, and substituted substantive information?
No one said anything about “carpet bombing” anyone…
Iraqis and Afghans are not races (we’re back to that ‘brown – skinned’ nonsense, aren’t we?)…
“Scorched earth” is a policy of making your own assets unavailable to the enemy, usually while retreating. It has no relation, whatever, to carpet bombing.
BTW, I think I understand quite well what Frameone meant. It’s you who did not.
Frank;
“…..you can only reduce their numbers. Period
…….all the jibber jabber”
You don’t have to say anything specific to ‘carpet bombing” for the message to get through. For my edification, if that was not your intent; what was the meaning of the words above? No, scratch that. You have made it clear that you are carved in stone.
What’s sad about most of what I’m reading here is not that Oliver and his sycophants are completely clued-out of reality. It’s that this way of thinking has become mainstream, in what used to be a progressive Democratic Party. That you jokers think your ideas even remotely resemble those of JFK, FDR, or Truman, proves the level of your ignorance.
We’re not safer today?
The war in Afghanistan was illegal?
The war in Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11?
Bush doesn’t care about black people?
Frankly, I have only one thing to say to this crowd: shit, or get off the pot! You have nothing to contribute but derision, whining, finger-pointing, wild conspiracy theorizing, and lame excuses for the complete failure of leftist ideology. It’s time for you folks to join the adults in finding solutions to our problems, rather than shit all over everything, because nothing pleases you.
Yes Marty, I saw you declare Oliver is not doing enough for the hurricane in other threads. Its still idiotic to say that he has forgotten and doesnt care.
It s time for you folks to join the adults in finding solutions to our problems, rather than shit all over everything, because nothing pleases you.
How about the Republicans and Bush start living in the world called REALITY and quit it with the notion that the world is America’s nuclear playground to do what we please.
What have we done since 9/11?
We’ve waged two preemptive, illegal wars against countries that had nothing to do with 9/11 (Iraq had no nuclear weapon capibilities, had no weapons that could reach the United States, and had no roll in 9/11 and, as for Afghanistan, if the only justification for war is that they “harbored” or “trained” terrorists, then what do you say about the US who is home to many terrorists like McVay or Rudolph?)
The number of terrorist attacks against American citizens/interests abroad have increased – and we’ve but our armed forces at risk every day, while cutting benefits to our veterans and refusing to provide them with armour and weapons.
We’ve alienated and cut off the rest of the world with our arrogance and boorishness.
We cut funding to the states Homeland Security budget, restricting their ability to help secure ports and borders.
We’re spending billions on Iraq and providing billions of dollars in tax cuts to the top 2% of this country while education, healthcare, jobs, and the economy studders to a halt.
Need I say more?
Take off your blinders and realize that Bush is doing more to destroy this country then Osama Bin Laden could ever hope for (not to mention that we’ve helped Osama Bin Laden turn Iraq from a secular state in to one controlled by Islamic fundamentalists).
I agree with Frank. You must reduce the number of terrorists.
And the way to do that is with appropriate polcicing and law enforcement measures, not by invading uninvolved countries and turning their populations against us.
And insofar as making us safer, Bush and Fema had weeks to take measures against Katrina. Instead, he couldn’t be bothered to take off from his five week vacation until after the bodies started piling up. I shudder to think how these guys would react to a disaster they have no warning of.
Do you have mental telepathy, Leo?
Don’t you think if I wanted to say something about carpet bombing I could and would?
I was very simply saying that I didn’t say anything about carpet bombing because I didn’t say anything about carpet bombing.
What is it with you and this ongoing game of “gotcha”?
Did you notice above how JSVB referred to what I said, and then disagreed with me? He didn’t have to say I said (or meant) anything else.
Why do you?
As to what those words meant — What can I say? What’s unclear about it?
And, please. don’t tell me what I “must” mean.
Phile says: “You have nothing to contribute but derision, whining, finger-pointing, wild conspiracy theorizing, and lame excuses for the complete failure of leftist ideology.”
And just what exactly have you offered to the discussion recently apart from such a blind willingness to defend the failures of this president that you’ll quote a newspaper article and insert a misleading date into the middle of it? Either you’re an idiot or a liar. You have yet to come clean and tell us which it is.
Idiotic, Outer_space? Any more idiotic than the title of this post? I took the words right out of Oliver’s playbook. I am surprised you didn’t recognize the style of argument.
And Oliver’s answer?:
[blockquote]“Marty, I ve got the banner up on my site.”[/blockquote]
OOOOOhhh! Working so hard to make the goal a reality. A banner. I’m sure your readers stops and reads banner ads at every site they go to.
Sounds pretty passive to me. That’s a far cry from:
[blockquote]“Hurricane Katrina destroyed thousands of lives. Together, we re trying to raise $1 million and prove that the liberal blogosphere can and help our fellow citizens in need.”[/blockquote]
But I knew that Oliver wasn’t really serious when he said that, because the post didn’t stay at the top and soon after it was back to the keyboard for more sniping.
I guess getting Brit Hume to resign way back when was more important than helping Katrina victims now.
frameone,
Thank-you for illustrating my point.
oh please Phil, please. Did you not insert a fake date in a news article in a WaPo article to defend Bush? Here’s a link to the thread right here:
http://www.oliverwillis.com/2005/09/04/more-on-stop-protesting
If I’m wrong and the date in question was Aug 26th tell me, point me to another article where the date doesn’t appear in editorial brackets. If I’m wrong I’ll back off and apologize. Can you prove me wrong?
And Frank, you can kill all the radical islamofishes you want, it won’t stop Islamic terror and it won’t make us any safer here at home. At the same time I’m not suggesting some kind of talking cure. You see Frank, that’s what you don’t/can’t understand about what I and others have said. We’re not talking about converting terrorists. We’re talking about taking away the terrorists’ ability to convert. Do you see the difference? That’s how you reduce and manage terrorism.
You are simply wrong to think that there is a finite number of suicide bombers out there. There are a whole lot of desperate, sick, confused, susceptible people in the world. The Middle East has more than its share and each one is a would be suicide bomber if the terrorists can pitch their message just right. So far I think we’ve gone out of our way to give them all the pitch material they need. We’re literally helping them make more suicide bombers, fresh, everyday.
Let me ask you, how long has the Middle East been plagued with suicide bombers? When did that tactic really start? According to the Wikipedia entry the first modern suicide bombing (the tactic itself goes back centuries) was in Lebanon in 1981 (they blew up the Iraqi embassy BTW). So that’s over two decades of people willing to kill themselves for this thing of theirs. It’s even more fanastic when you consider that there have been periods throughout these two decades when suicide bombs have been detonated on a daily basis in the Middle East – and that on the whole, in two decades, they have accomplished practically nothing of their stated goals, not the destructon of Israel, not a US withdrawal from the region, not even a Palestinian state, really. Nothin at all. Now we’re seeing it in Iraq which has had its weeks of almost daily suicide bombings. So after two and a half decades of killing terrorists do you honestly believe that we are close to exhausting the supply of suicide bombers?
You ought to listen to more right wing rhetoric because to a certain extent they’ve got one part of it right: radical Islamic terrorists don’t care about dying because they think they are dying to bring God’s law to the world which guarantees them a place in paradise. To my ears this is insanity. We need to find a way to get more ears in the Middle East to hear it that way too. The sound of American bombs and guns just isn’t doing the trick. They more Muslims we kill and torture the more the radicals can say to the cliffhangers, the angry, the desperate or the susceptible, “See, they are killing us and torturing us, when all we want is to spread the word and law of God.” We are never, ever going to do away with that kind of fanaticism, but we can stop fanning it and we can start trying to manage it. What would it do to the radical’s recruiting tactics if we could arrest more terrorists than we killed? Or, even more under our control, what if we gave fair and open trials to more terrorists than we tortured? What would it do to their recruiting if we gave more economic and political support to nascent democracy movements and religious moderates in more Islamic countries? I’m sure others can offer other ideas but the aim is the same: Not to convert terrorists but to take away the terrorists ability to convert.
mike3k,
Why is the left must overstate everything? Want to reconsider this :Our invasion of Iraq served absolutely NO useful purpose? Perhaps upon some reflection you would chose to argue that it was not a worthwhile thing to do or something more moderately sensible.
Semant. Actually, good post. I also do not feel we change things so easily in Iraq or the Mideast (I think of the reversion of the Shah’s modern Iranian state). My bet is that things revert when we leave – and I really hope I’m wrong. But keep in mind here the basis for this discussion is Oliver’s general claim that: “we are no safer.” It may be a coincidence, and it may not (or may) at all be remotely because of Iraq, but we are statistically clearly safer and O is wrong.
And Frame, Middle east terrorism, even that directed at us, significantly precedes this era. Was there anybody out there who believed in dialogue and the touchy/feely method of dealing with terrorists than Jimmy Carter. It got us Desert One. Ever see the pictures of our soldiers burned bodies being kicked about. You and many opponents of Bush claim we have created many more terrorists. Well I don’t take their word for it, nor do I support the logic. We are safer since 9/11. If there are more terrorists where are they? Either they don’t exist or Bushco is doing a helluva a job protecting us against threat even you would have to admit is greater. My bottom line: either Bush is doing a great job or there aren’t more terrorists.
Dugger (maybe both)
Dugger;
My money is riding with your bet. When scientists attempt an experiment (say when an anthropologist studies a primitive culture) sometimes his very presence contaminates the results. We are seen as contaminants in Iraq by the general pop. But when we leave, whether next year or 5 years from now, civil war is not just probable, but likely.
I’ve said enough on this thread and so I’ll leave it with this. Dugger, if we are safer, let me ask you why are we safer? Is it because we’ve killed more terrorists or is it because we are more security conscious than we’ve ever been before? I believe the reason we haven’t seen a terrorist attack on our soil since 9-11 is the latter. (But then again, the British were just a security conscious as we were when they got hit.) What I find troubling is that our over emphasis on the military to solve the terrorism problem abroad is actually creating more terrorists and so undermining our long term security efforts here at home. In other words, the right hand is undermining what the left hand is doing. That’s not a sound way to proceed and I believe we can do better.
So unless Phile decides to put up or shut up, that’s enough out of me.
“We are safer since 9/11. If there are more terrorists where are they?”
Only in the sense of “There have been no attacks on US soil since 9/11/2001″. But there have been many attacks in other countries. Besides the attack in London, there have been three attacks against Western targets in Indonesia since 9/11 (Bali, Mariott, and Australian Embassy bombings). Many of my fellow Australians died in those, and the bombers cited US policies towards Islam as their motivation.
The Australian government admits that it is merely a matter of time before Sydney or some other Australian city gets blown up.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Thanks oh so much for exporting your problem to the rest of us. We certainly feel so much safer now.
Frame,
” Is it because we ve killed more terrorists or is it because we are more security conscious than we ve ever been before?”
I know you’ve departed, but to answer your question. Both. But I concede the latter is likely a bigger overall factor. I guess I would also say that some thought has be given to our perceived desire to fight an engage the enemy. A fact perhaps not lost on the enemy.
Dugger
Semant, You (and I) are probably right (about the ultimate ‘hopelessness’ of the Mideast) but I never thought the Soviet Union or the old Warsaw Pact would fall. So sometimes I hope that the architects see more and have a better understanding than we realize.
Dugger
Frameone,
Let this be lesson to read carefully, and cover your ass, before opening-up with the utter false libels.
First of all, the quote from the WaPo article clearly states that Bush sent Blanco the memorandum on the FRIDAY before the storm – August 26th (check your calendar).
Here, once again, is the quote from the article (the calenderically challenged are on your own, this time):
And, the article itself, is right here:
http://tinyurl.com/97sb3
Oh, and as for an apology, I do not seek one. Your accusation was malicious, in bad faith, and deliberate. Not to mention, easy as shit to refute.
Frameone,
Let this be lesson to read carefully, and cover your ass, before opening-up with the utter false libels.
First of all, the quote from the WaPo article clearly states that Bush sent Blanco the memorandum on the FRIDAY before the storm – August 26th (check your calendar).
Here, once again, is the quote from the article (the calenderically challenged are on your own, this time):
And, the article itself, is right here:
http://tinyurl.com/97sb3
Oh, and as for an apology, I do not seek one. Your accusation was malicious, in bad faith, and deliberate. Not to mention, easy as shit to refute.
Upon further digging, I think I did get it wrong. It seems I misunderstood the article as relating to evacuation preparations, and not the actual evacuations themselves. The Friday memorandum seems to have been sent on Sep 2nd, not August 26th.
Looks like I get to eat some crow. Nevertheless, calling someone a liar when they make an unintentional error is still in bad faith.
Okay Phile. Thank you for setting the record straight: You aren’t a liar. You’re an idiot. Can you find the actual number 26 any where in the article you finally linked to? Indeed, reading the article from the headline to the final word can you find the date Aug. 26 referenced anywhere? I’ll bet you can’t. You know why? Because the dateline for the article is Sept. 3. Now I don’t know what you know about journalism but the dateline is used as a reference point for every other date in the article unless otherwise specified. The reference date for this article (which published on Sept. 4) is Sept. 3. The Friday in question then is Friday, Sept. 2. The Friday AFTER the storm. You’ll notice that the Friday in question is not the only unspecified day in the article. In the paragraph before the one you quote you will read this:
“Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the flooding — 250,000 have been absorbed by Texas alone, and local radio reported that Baton Rouge will have doubled in population by Monday. Federal officials said they have begun to collect corpses but could not guess the total toll.:
Does the article’s author mean the Monday before the storm? No. The events described tell us that but so to does the dateline which clearly establishes that he means Monday, Aug. 29th, the Monday immediately preceding the dateline. Or how about this from the third paragraph:
“As Louisiana officials expressed confidence that they had begun to get a handle on the crisis, a dozen National Guard troops broke into applause late Saturday as Isaac Kelly, 81, the last person to be evacuated from the Superdome, boarded a school bus.”
Here, once again, the events allow us to understand the chronology but the dateline does that as well. The author of the article does not have to write “late Saturday, Sept. 3″ because the dateline establishes this already. Sept. 3, the article’s dateline, was the most immediate Saturday after the storm.
But when events, like a meeting between the President and a governor, aren’t public or else vague, the dateline plays a crucial role in placing the events in their correct chronological order. It also saves the journalist time and makes for a more efficient writing style. That is, the dateline alows a journalist to write “Monday,” “Friday” or “Saturday” without having to say “Monday the 29th” or “Friday, Sept. 2.” If you re-read the article — and not just the snippet you probably got from some other idiot who didn’t know how to read a newspaper story — you will see that if the author meant Friday, Aug., 26 where you say he did, he would have had to write Aug, 26th to differentiate it from the week obviously referenced in the earlier paragraphs. Of course he didn’t write Aug 26th. He just wrote Friday. Why? Because he was counting on the dateline to make his meaning clear. Obviously you were confused anyway.
So now you’ve learned something I hope you find useful in the future. In closing, I would say it’s better to be an idiot than a liar so take comfort, you actually come out of ahead of the game.
Same Snedegar…
if you ve seen any proof that Osama had anything to do with either nine eleven or Mo Atta, I d like to hear about it.
Hmmm. Aside from his declaration of war on the US and his “determination to attack the US on our own soil,” maybe it was the videotape of him gleefully explained some of the planning process: “OBL: (…Inaudible…) We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (…Inaudible…) Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for.”
(transcript here)
Like I said before I saw your “crow” post: Not a liar. But an idiot. Now why would I call you an idiot? Because the way you presented this supposed fact: “[that's Aug., 26th for calenderically challenged.]” Next time less arrogance and more fact checking. But also because you weren’t the only Bush defender to cite this article. Some guy named Mike made the same point quoting the same article, making the same mistake in another comment. I felt the beginning of a right-wing meme building and it pissed me off because it was so fucking obviously wrong.
The article makes no such thing clear. The article to which you link was posted on Sunday, September 4 and datelined on Saturday September 3.
When referring to “midnight Friday”, the article would mean Friday, September 2, not Friday September 26th. It is common in news articles to refer to days of the week when speaking of days that have occurred during the week in which the article was written. When referring to days prior to the week in question, they usually indicate this by specifying a date.
Further evidence of what they mean can be found in this sentence:
Since the article was written on a Saturday, this can be interpreted as: “as late as today, Blanco still had not…”
The correction at the top of the page further buttresses the understanding that when referring to dates occurring in the previous week, they use dates, not days of the week:
August 26 was the Friday prior to the week in which the article was written.
Another example of this can be found in an article written today:
They didn’t mean Sunday, September 4.
Hey Frankie, I’m working my way through the lectures of your Russell Kirk, I have to take it in small doses.
But anyway I ran across this gem that I thought you might like, since you are so concerned with Our Leader’s War and all:
Consequences of Hubris. Every inch a Caesar LBJ looked; he might have sat for Michelangelo for the carving of a statue of a barracks emperor. Experience, nevertheless, had not taught this imperator how to fight a war. To fancy that hundreds of thousands of fanatic guerrillas and North Vietnamese regulars, supplied by Russia and China, might be defeated by military operations merely defensive-plus a great deal of bombing from the air, destroying civilians chiefly, that bombing pinpointed by Johnson himself in the White House! The American troops in Vietnam fought admirably well-how well, my old friend General S. L. A. Marshall described unforgettably in his books-but their situation was untenable. “Imagination rules mankind,” Bonaparte had said-Napoleon, master of the big battalions. Had Johnson possessed any imagination, he would have sealed Haiphong, as Nixon did later. Only so might the war have been won.
Afflicted by hubris, Johnson Caesar piled the tremendous cost of the war-a small item was the immense quantity of milk flown daily from San Francisco to Vietnam, American troops not campaigning on handfuls of rice-upon the staggering cost of his enlargement of the welfare state at home. One might have thought he could not do sums. He ruined the dollar and bequeathed to the nation an incomprehensible national debt. Both guns and butter! It had been swords and liturgies with earlier emperors.
Russell Kirk
The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma
Cool! You’re close to the key to what’s wrong with liberalism! Keep plugging away…
I applaud your efforts (really) Inever expected you to read the essays…
Good for you…
So now you’re saying George Bush is a liberal? Does that mean you are getting close to cutting him loose? You can tell me.
I am saying no such thing…
He is as far from micro – managing the war, intraditional, LBJ liberal style, as Minnesota is from the Moon.
Notice where he says “Had Johnson possessed any imagination, he would have sealed Haiphong, as Nixon did later. Only so might the war have been won.”
Democrats start wars, and Republicans finish them
You don’t win a war by trying to get the enemy to like you.
George Bush has done everything Kirk accuses LBJ of doing. Taking his military strategy from politicians like Rumsfeld instead of generals. Fighting a guerrilla war with conventional troops. Killing civilians. Running up the national debt.
The only difference I can see is that Johnson’s Great Society allocated resources towards the poorest among us while Bush’s Ownership Society, with its deregulation, no-bid contracts, tax cuts for the rich and pork barrel subsidies, allocates them to the richest.
Other than that, they are exactly the same. My one hope for this situation is that, since Vietnam innoculated us against the war bug for a good 30 years, maybe Bush’s War will give us a 50 year innoculation.
“Democrats start wars and Republicans finish them.”?
Frank, you gotta update your bumper sticker collection.
Viet Nam was also responsible for the “wall” between the CIA and the FBI, and that got us 9 / 11.
frameone: al qaeda would be a two bit operation blowing up the accasional disco somwhere (else, not here), if it weren’t for Democrats — the war on terror began on their (Carter’s) watch (Iran), and it will end with the Republicans: Bush I, Bush II, Rice ‘08 and ‘12.