This is insanity. Straight up insanity. We need to get these guys out of there and start working on rebuilding and protecting America – another storm is coming and we haven’t even begun any serious recovery from the last one.
U.S. Military Deaths Top 1,900 in Iraq
The war in Iraq passed a sobering milepost Tuesday when U.S. officials reported 12 more Americans were killed eight of them members of the armed forces, raising to more than 1,900 the number of U.S. service members who have died in the country since the invasion.
-sigh- Oliver, the only reason troops keep dying has nothing to do with the inept Bush administration- you aren’t PRAYING hard enough. You damn al-Qaeda mollycoddler.
Not a very good headline writer, are you Frank? Here’s how it’s done:
THIRD HURRICANE HEADED TOWARD GULF – BUSH PANTS STILL AROUND ANKLES
SOLDIERS DIE IN UNNECESSARY, ILL-PLANNED WAR – OUTRAGEOUS, SAYS EVERYONE WITH HEAD OUT OF ASS
FILM AFTER MONDAY NITE FOOTBALL!
BUSH LAUNCHES SECOND HURRICANE TO PUNISH GULF COAST ‘WHINERS’!
SOLDIERS DIE IN WAR — UNPRECEDENTED, SAYS OLIVER
FILM AT ELEVEN!
Frank,
Are you *still* defending Bush and the Iraq War? Come on now, you’ve got to be, like, the last person with enough gall to still avoid the obvious.
Isn’t there an island holdout somewhere you and the rest of your Bush doctrinaire dead-enders can wait a good 30-40 years for your Great Emperor to rise again?
It’s over for now, he couldn’t even save himself with the sacrifice of 1900 brave men and women to his vengeful God of War.
‘BLOGGER, HEADLINE WRITER TOO BUSY WATCHING MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL TO GROW UP
Poor Frank, he labors all day to look intelligent. Reads the national review cover to cover, listens to all the rightwing blowhards on the radio, dutifully parrots RNC talking points on left wing blogs. No time for fun, no time for Monday nite football, no time for sex, no time for life. All that grueling effort and sacrifice, and in the end, he still comes off looking like an ass.
He is more to be pitied than censured.
When was the last time any nightly newscast used film? You guys have some serious catching up to do.
At the same time, Frank, a man with all the reason of a stubborn four year old, telling someone to grow up is just priceless. “Ad hominem, ad hominem,” Frank will no doubt sputter, dribbling formula down his chin. Stick a pacifier in it Frank. You’re done.
Wilbur, I wish you as much about anything as you pretend to know about me…
But pity me if you must — it’s the only thing liberals do well
frameone: blaming the President for a hurricane, complaining that soldiers have died in a war, when soldiers always die in wars, is certainly juvenile, if not stupid.
Thank God those brave men and women were mature than the likes of you, wilbur, leo and Oliver
Link to all “Liberal Media” whiners.
In the macabre countdown to the next milestone of 2000 dead. Will the Press
scrutinize the war with the same passion as the dead in Katrina’s wake?
(Oh, and don’t forget to report the ‘good news’ coming out of Iraq)
But that’s exactly it Frank. No one here or anywhere has ever blamed Bush for Katrina itself. You did that in order set up a convenient strawman.
Second, we all know that soldiers die in wars, in general. But it is truly juvenile to stick your head in the sand and ignore the specifics of THIS PARTICULAR war including the faulty intelligence used to justify it, the poor planning that went into the reconstruction, the massive corruption that plagues said reconstruction, and the fact that our end objective — a democratic, American-friendly Arab state in the Middle East — is hanging by a thread of hope because the Bush administration misread the local and regional politics. All of which make the loss of life resulting from our war in IRaq all the more tragic and unnecessary. The point being, no one is complaining about soldiers dying in A war. We are complaining about soldiers dying in THIS SPECIFIC war because it was unnecesary, poorly thought out and poorly executed by the Bush administration.
No doubt you woud agree that there is such a thing, in general, of an unjust, ill-planned, poorly executed war? Surely, you recognize that such wars have happened before? You’re inability to face the facts that suggest our adventure in Iraq is just such an endeavor — making the loss of life there all the more tragic — is truly astounding in its infantile denial.
Anyone who has some knowledge of military knows that “well-planned wars” do not exist. Every single war has had its share of mistakes and tragedies. “Faulty intelligence” has been a part of virtually every war. Corrruption has been a hallmark of every “rebuilding” effort, especially in the Middle East. To think that the Arab world could do something without corruption is to “misread the local and regional” culture.
Undoubtedly the administration has made mistakes. But one also needs to realize that in the space of 4 years, we have gone halfway around the world and deposed 2 brutal, fascistic regimes; freed 50 million people; and have set up the beginnings of democracy in places where it has never existed. All at a cost of less than 2000 soldiers. Those are unprecedented achievements in history.
But that s exactly it Frank. No one here or anywhere has ever blamed Bush for Katrina itself. You did that in order set up a convenient strawman.
I don’t know if he’s doing it on purpose. Some poor folks actually THINK this way. To blame Bush for the govt. RESPONSE to Katrina is to blame Bush for Katrina. To say that the Iraq war was a bad idea done badly is to be against all war, or against the war on terror, or against the troops, or against America. For some poor folks this is just the way their brains process information.
Now wait a second nudnik. You are, like Frank, using generalities to limit the culpabilities of the Bush administration. If you look at the specifics, they have a lot of answering to do.
In terms of faulty intelligence we’re not talking about battlefield fog of war, we’re talking about the primary reason we went to war in the first place.
On the corruption front we aren’t talking about blackmarket blankets or pencilin, we’re talking about billions of dollars gone missing — and not just because of “arab culture” unless you know something about Halliburton the rest of us don’t.
And finally, add to the 2000 US fatalities the thousands more who have been critically injured and things look a lot less peachy keen. I note, you also leave out the civilian casualties. There is no question that what the Bush administration has accomplished in Iraq is unprecedented. But is it worth it? I would argue that the administration’s mistakes, far from slight or inconsequential, significantly endanger the very outcome they hope to achieve. And yet, they have not made any effort to change their thinking or planning.
Nudnik, you really can claim that we freed 25 million people- women have few rights in the new Iraq.
And add to the cost of 2000 soldiers
100,000 Iraq lives (oh, that’s right, Iraqis don’t count)
$200 billion and counting
loss of respect in the world
An increasingly militant Iran
A new crop of terrorists getting OJT in the “new” Iraq
and you’re pretty accurate about the costs.
Let me put my questions for Frank more clearly;
Frank, we all know that soldiers die in wars. But …
Do you believe that there is such a thing as an unjust war or that there’s such a thing as an incompetent military commander? If your answer to these queries are yes, is it the public’s duty to a) speak out against the war and/or its planners or b) continue to support the war regardless?
frameone, the intelligence that you speak of (WMD) was never the primary reason for the war; just as the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was not the reason for WWI.
In any large project corruption is inevitable. Take a look at Boston’s Big Dig, originally slated to cost $2.5 Billion, and now in excess of $15 Billion. It is the “cost of doing business”.
“Imposing” democracy was also not the agenda. But if you get rid of the brutal dictators, people will choose democracy. This is evident from the number of people who came out to vote both in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Undoubtedly this is just the beginning. It will take at least a generation for democracy to really take root and who knows what happens in the meantime.
What many seem to refuse to talk about is what the alternatives were. Think back to 2001. Europe, Russia and China were pressing to have sanctions on Iraq lifted. It is highly likely that they would have been. Saddam would then be free to pursue the weapons that he desired (especially nukes) without any oversight. (The IAEA has proven itself to be a joke in its dealings with Iran). Saddam was a serial miscalculator who had attacked his neighbors on a few occasions. Had we not taken out Saddam when we did, we would at some point have had to confront him and then he would have been significantly stronger. Why let him decide the time and nature of the confrontation?
God is displeased.
Oh and because corruption is inevitable it should be tolerated? The people responsible for oversight unchallenged and unquestioned?
I should also add that the administration’s aim of imposing democracy by force in the Middle East, was seriously flawed and dubious to begin with. Which is not to say that Iraqis don’t deserve freedom or democracy, or that they aren’t “ready” for it either, but rather that quite, frankly, you can’t make someone choose democracy. They have to choose it for themselves. And yet, inspite the empty rhetoric of the Bush administration, history has shown time and time again that people don’t always choose democracy when it is presented to them as a choice. Take the fate of the Weimar Republic as one recent example. Which to say that given the complexity of what the administration wanted to achieve, they did not put a hell of a lot of thought into how they were going to achieve it beyond military force. This isn’t simply poor planning, it’s a total lack of planning.
frameone, Looking back at history of Germany (and Japan) should also tell you that democracy can be imposed. It required the destruction of the ideology of fascism. Same thing here, except that for the most part Iraqis are not under the Islamofascist ideology and are ready to give democracy a chance.
The primary reason for attacking Iraq was that after 9/11 we realized that we can not live with Islamofascism. The goal is to transform the entire Middle East. Iraq was merely a good place to start due to ready-made causes for war.
You may slight the IAEA s handling of Iran but the fact of the matter is that thanks to inspections and restrictions Iraq had no WMDs of any kind over a decade after the first gulf war.
That is completely untrue. Even after the Gulf War Iraq continued its weapons and nuke development. In fact, Saddam’s son-in-law who fled to Jordan exposed a large part of the WMD program that was concealed from the UN inspectors. Iraq was very good at cheating and hiding its programs. The IAEA and weapons-control treaties are only good if signatories obey them. If they choose not to obey them, then no amount of inspections or monitoring will be able to stop proliferation.
And I am not saying that corruption should not be challenged, merely that we shouldnt be surprised that it exists – especially in large scale projects.
Correct, nudnik. That’s why it’s a bad idea to fight them when there are other alternatives.
quaker, very often there are no other alternatives. Peace, like war, has costs.
“But if you get rid of the brutal dictators, people will choose democracy.”
Again, history reveals plenty of evidence that reality is not so simple. People do not always automatically choose democracy over dictatorship. You site WWI so you should be aware of what happened to the Weimar Republic. A significant number of Germans resented their new democracy, blamed it for the Treaty of Versaille and eventually elected, literally, to return to a non-democratic form of government.
Beyond that, if WMD was not the primary reason for invading Iraq and imposing democracy was not the agenda, what pray tell, are we doing in Iraq? Because Hussein may have one day restarted his weapons programs? Lifting sanctions did not mean lifting restrictions and inspections of Hussein’s weapons programs. You may slight the IAEA’s handling of Iran but the fact of the matter is that thanks to inspections and restrictions Iraq had no WMDs of any kind over a decade after the first gulf war.
I’d also like to point out that in the case of WWII the dismantling of the ideologies of fascism and Japanese imperialism happened AFTER the war. We won the war not because we “destroyed the ideologies of fascism” we won the war by killing or capturing everyone we could who was willing to fight for fascism. We were able to do that because they all happened to be wearing the same uniforms and generally living in the same geographic regions. Radical islam and/or Islamofascism and the tactics of its supporters are a totally different ball game. And yet Bush insists on fighitng this “new war” the old fashioned way by invading nation states. So far the only ideology we’ve “dismantled” is Baathism but then again, there are still a lot of Baathists in Iraq who are fighitng what they see as an occupation. So we haven’t even accomplished that four years after the start of the war. Not to mention the fact that Iraq is now splitting along religious and ethnic lines that are centuries old. Are we going to finally settle the ancient differences between the Sunnis and Shiites?
“the intelligence that you speak of (WMD) was never the primary reason for the war… the primary reason was.. Islamofacism.”
Who the hell knows what you mean by this, Nud, but when most people refer to a “reason” for war, they’re talking about the motivation among the public and the publicly stated reasons. Without WMD, though, and the repeated assertion that Iraq was a “grave and gathering” and “immediate threat,” there never could have been the public support or the Congressional resolution for war. Islamofacism, as a threat, would simply never have cut it.
grave and gathering
and yet clearly it wasn’t. It certainly wasn’t a threat to the US in any way shape or form.
Nudnik,
You say that IRaqis were not living under the Islamofascist ideology so what did invading Iraq have to do with 9-11? After we invaded, why was there no evidence of Iraqi WMDs, or any evidence of active programs? How is Iraq different from North Korea or Iran? How exactly can spreading democracy be the primary reason for invading Iraq and yet not be reason enough? Why is Islam and Sharia law a significant part of Iraq’s new constitution if its people are so welcoming of democracy? Or to put it another way, why are Iraqi women facing less rights under the new government then they had under Hussein? Why are vast swaths of Afghanistan still largely under the control of local warlords?
Oh, and, I’m not surprised that corruption exists but I am angry about it. Why aren’t you?
Iraq was a “grave and gathering” threat for the reasons I described, ie the inevitable removal of sanctions. (No one said “immediate threat”)
Since 1998 there was a Congressional resolution calling for the removal of Saddam. And after the demonstration of Islamofascism on 9/11, it certainly would have cut it as a threat to the US.
The cost of “peace in our time” was the bloodiest war in world history. Just one example.
Nudnik wrote: No one said immediate threat
In fact, officials at all levels of the administration tied Saddam’s non-existent WMD programs directly to the threat he posed, and hyped it as the most important reason above all others.
Sadly, it seems your non-MSM right wing sources have lied to you, Nud. But worse, the Adminstration has lied to all of us.
“No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.”
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld before the House Armed Services Committee, 9/19/02
“Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent – that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons.”
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02
“This is about imminent threat.”
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03
“This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined.”
President Bush, 9/26/02
Really? And what might be the “cost” of peace?
I wish the “cost” of supporting a war, was, you know, having to actually FIGHT IN IT.
I gotta give props to Nudnik for his handle. I thought you guys were insulting him until I caught on.. oh, that’s his *name*.
We should get some wingnut to post here under the handle “Asshole”. So we can have fun making statements like, “What you’re saying, Asshole, is that war is justified just because we feel like it…”
hank God those brave men and women were mature than the likes of you, wilbur, leo and Oliver
Frank;
I thank God every day for those who volunteer for “The Charge of the Light Brigade” but have the maturity to call on such character only when necessary.
The cost of peace is war?
Awfully close to plagiarism, don’t you think?
Frank;
From me.
Just because I so love an argument.
Dodging the discussion. I asked you for some basis for your pejorative use of the phrase.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,
What is wrong with the concept? I do not associate the idea with Marxism, I associate the concept with that of the early Christian Congregation. It seems you have a rather narrow view of ideas in general. I am not a marxist any more than you are a nazi. I have a spectre of Socialism in my bag of ideas because I am not afraid of names. I do not like to be cubby-holed as a this, or a that. I, like my genetic gene pool, am a combination of disciplines and dogmas that changes as I learn. How do you learn? I hope one of the reasons you visit this site is to learn about the other point of view. That is why I visit Powerline. Little Green Footballs and such. Is that why you are here Frank?
Just once I would like to hear a direct answer to a direct question without all the bobbing and weaving.
Ihave answered many questions as directly as possible, not necessarily by you. and I have still been accused of bobbing and weaving. I can’t help that.
As far your question goes, let’s take the saying apart:
1) From each according to his ability. What about the person’s willingness; what about choice?
If I am able to sing, must I be a singer? Can’t I be a playwright?
If I am able to drive a truck, must I drive a truck? Leon Uris write Exodus while he was a truck driver. What if he had lived in a society where he was compelled to be a truck driver? We have no Exodus, No Mila 18, No Trinity, no QB VII.
2) To each according his needs. Where do I begin? Who determines need? Who determines what is required to satisfy that need? You? Me? A committee?
What do you know about the early Christian congregation? Something written by some liberation theologian? Do you find it interesting that no one made comparisons between Communism / Marxism and early Christian living until the 1960’s? It would have been a very useful comparison in the 1850’s, wouldn’t it? Why didn’t they know about iT?
Frank;
Your assumption that marxism infects the notion , “from each according to his ability…..” is to condemn the idea without a trial.
In the first place, that expression connotes a willingness on the part of all participants not just in the FREEDOM to act, but the RESPONSIBILITY to act or not act, as appropriate. (You must love one another, as you love yourself”)
What has been missing from the American experiment in freedom is PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. When one chooses to exercise freedom only with respect to oneself, without regard to how it affects others; it is not freedom. It is tyranny. You and I make that choice on a daily basis. Voluntarily subscribing to a life of mutually assured benefits for all lifts each one and exalts none. The question of how you deal with laggards who lack any selfsame spirit is another matter. You may choose to focus on them if you wish as an answer to this. Or you may wish to address the bigger picture; personal development.
That’s enough of that for now. More later. If you wish.