Breaking News
Comcast Close To Buying NBC
Scheunemann is McCain’s point man in articulating and defending the senator’s Iraq policy. McCain was also a major advocate of the original invasion. The Worldwide document seems to portray Scheunemann as attempting to profit off the war. It is unclear how much, if any, money Scheunemann made from Worldwide.
Kristy Sanchez-Trujillo
T-Mobile Outage
T-Mobile
Megan Gale
Sylvie Van Der Vaart
Clash Of The Titans
Ashley Neufeld
Afton Williamson
Kyrstin Gemar
Tesla Coil
Xperia X10
Cany Vossough
Reza Vossough
Ninel Conde
Julia Louis Dreyfus
Guardians of Childhood
Botox
Chase Utley
Prince Of Persia Sands Of Time
Cherokee
Christopher Lee
Prince Charles
Prince William
Prince Harry
Cleveland Browns
Ernie Accorsi
Reina Flynn
Reid Gray
Cole Hamels
Brett Myers
Quinn Gray
SEPTA
Burlington Northern
Star Wars The Old Republic
Nightmare On Elm Street
Gerard Butler
Amrit Dhaliwal
Louise Linton
Gwen Stefani
Curtis Lavelle Vance
Anne Pressly
H1N1 Vaccine
Melody Ross
Oasis Of The Seas
Disney Cruise
Selita Ebanks
Anthony Sowell
JJ Redick
Axe Body Spray
Christopher Walken
Dragon Age Origins
“who possibly”
“seems to”
“it is unclear”
Could you throw in ANY more qualifiers?
Questions swirl…..
LOL
Hey, duh, you forgot “how much, if any.”
J.
Silly Oliver! Don’t you know that consultants over at Worldwide work for free solely for the democratization of Iraq? -and ponies. Lot of ponies.
Wow PD, that is just what Algore works for to “save the planet”, same with john edwards but he’ll take rainbows too. Oh Noes, Teh Profit!
Oh Noes, Teh Profit!
I’m curious. Do you believe the invasion and reconstruction of Iraq has been completely above board? As in, the dollars generally went where they should, even allowing for the normal, acceptable level of entropy (i.e. money that somehow vanishes down a hole)?
What I don’t understand is how Oliver could have misspelled “Dianne Feinstein” so badly.
Parthenon,
No, not a chance.
I don’t believe there has been a single undertaking of this magnitude in human history that was “completely above board”. Nothing.
Now, does that mean that someone like oliver gets to use human nature as a battering ram in his feeble attempt to get a political appointment as some sort of propaganda czar in an obama administration? No, I don’t think so.
Parth you seem like a reasonable guy, you can certainly recognize the roots of yellow journalism here can’t you?
you can certainly recognize the roots of yellow journalism here can’t you?
It’s certainly possible. I’m not going to mentally convict somebody out of hand because they made money off of something. In war things need to be purchased; many of those things will be purchased from the private sector (especially in the United States). This is in fact a very efficient way of doing things, especially if your system is generally tended by honest people.
But it never seems to be, does it? I can’t shake the idea that a lot of good people’s lives were ruined (Iraqi and American) and a lot of guys in suits now have bigger houses. There’s something that doesn’t seem quite right about that.
Now, does that mean that someone like oliver gets to use human nature as a battering ram in his feeble attempt to get a political appointment as some sort of propaganda czar in an obama administration?
This doesn’t strike me as fair to the host. All blogs (of which I’m aware, anyway) have a propaganda element to them, in that they tend to ignore evidence that doesn’t fit the owner’s ideology. OW is no more (and much less, by my estimation) a spreader of propaganda than the owner of any other blog.
And I don’t think Sen. Obama has made an issue of war profit. Even had he wanted to do so, I expect it’s not a mainstream-enough issue, reserved more for the pages of Rolling Stone and speeches by certain congressmen than a presidential platform with a chance of winning.
I can’t shake the idea that a lot of good people’s lives were ruined (
I think any reasonable person would agree. Would you also agree that many good people’s lives have been made better? That they have a future now that they would not have had if saddam remained?
Part of my beef with many of the liberal posters, and our host, is that they seem to demand perfection. WWII ruined a great many MORE good people’s lives, yet should we not have fought it?
I think we should attack graft and dishonesty where we find it, and call out hypocrisy when we see it. Whether it is Ted Stevens or Al Gore, a shakedown is a shakedown.
And I do think that Oliver is worse than most blogs. To direct the reader to a horribly partisan site, while making sly innuendo about something that may never have happened to make some sort of political point seems to be beyond the pale. Unless of course you are just interested in speaking with the hallelujah chorus….in which case he should probably just make this a password protected site and just preach to the saved…and forego the filthy lucre that comes from his web ads.
If you can’t argue good solid facts, then you may not have a good argument eh?
Would you also agree that many good people’s lives have been made better? That they have a future now that they would not have had if saddam remained?
No, I’m not willing to give you that one. At least, not until we see how the political solution finally straightens itself out in Iraq. I’m not defending Saddam by any means. But given the levels of violence, the destruction of infrastructure, the ethnic cleansing, the ruin of the middle class in Iraq … I don’t think very many people are better off in terms of standard of living and their own personal safety right now. And I’ll wager that there were much more humane, less destructive ways to get rid of Saddam in the long run.
We will just have to disagree then. 12 years of un/world sanctions and a smaller war seem to disprove your thesis that there were more humane ways.
Of course anyone with a tag line including “quaker” is unlikely to support a military option in any case.
Not to worry though, the rest of us will be happy to do the heavy lifting as we have in previous wars to be sure that you have a right to your opinion.
Not to worry though, the rest of us will be happy to do the heavy lifting as we have in previous wars to be sure that you have a right to your opinion.
You know nothing.
Google this, slick: “American Friends Service Committee” and “Nobel Peace Prize”
Google this: “Conscientious objector” and “starvation experiment”
Opposition to war is not the same as being uninvolved. It’s just a different way of engaging the conflict.
Don’t worry Quaker, I’m sure that when Pres. Hussein Obama X says “those people over yonder need killing” folks like “duh” will be just as happy to snap to and “do the heavy lifting” as when Superpresident Georgie W ordered it.
Huh. I just Googled up “Nobel Peace Prize” and got Henry Kissinger, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, United Nations Peacekeepers, Mikhail Gorbachev, Yassir Arafat, The United Nations and Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, the International Atomic Energy Agency and Mohamed Elbaradei, and Al Gore.
“I do not think that award means what you think it means…”
J.
Opposition to war is not the same as being uninvolved. It’s just a different way of engaging the conflict.
I would agree. And as long as only a tiny minority of our society holds your beliefs, I do not believe that our freedom is in much danger.
However, I don’t think telling the Nazi’s to google AFSC would have kept them from taking over europe and killing every jew in site. So rigid opposition to war in principle would be a pretty costly decision for some of us.
But we have strayed far afield from the topic at hand.
However, I don’t think telling the Nazi’s to google AFSC would have kept them from taking over europe and killing every jew in site.
Are you being deliberately obtuse, or are you just an ass?
Hitler didn’t arise out of a vacuum; the circumstances that led to WWII were a direct outcome of WWI and it’s aftermath. The idea is to prevent war by building a more just society, which is what the AFSC works for. Maybe if more people did that sort of “heavy lifting” we wouldn’t need to have these discussions.
And, duh, you have not explained how exactly the Iraqis are better off these days, either. Forget the absence of Saddam – there are a whole hell of a lot of dictators out there we haven’t deposed, so just “getting rid of the tyrant won’t cut it.” How many Iraqi’s have died due to violence in the last six years? How has their day-to-day quality of life changed, for better or worse? How’s the infrastructure? How do we create a “just” political solution over there with all the ethnic cleansing that’s gone on?
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. ~Abraham Lincoln
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. ~Thomas Paine
I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery.
I too can cut and paste flowery quoted from presidents.
Your underlying assumption remains – the only way to support and protect freedom is through the application of violence. You also assume that organizations like the AFSC do nothing to support the freedom of Iraqis – and countless others like them who aren’t “lucky” enough to be sitting on top of a country full of oil.
This idea that the only way to protect freedom is through brute force leads time and time again to the situation where no one does a damned thing until it is too late for anything but violence.
As Americans we tend to get all puffed up and full of ourselves when we go to war – bringing freedom and democracy to the world at the end of a gun. It’s a shame we don’t spend more time living up to those ideals the rest of the time – when we set up petty dictators to protect our economic and political interests around the globe. That, more than anything else, is responsible for the mess we now find ourselves in with respect to Iraq and Iran. And it hasn’t got a damned thing to do with protecting and/or supporting freedom for others.
And it hasn’t got a damned thing to do with protecting and/or supporting freedom for others.
S. Quaker, you and I are more or less of a mind on this issue, but that is a pretty broad brush you’re painting with. As ignorant and candyland an idea as it might be, do you really think those at the top don’t believe and never did believe in the doctrine of democracy via forced revolution? If you say that it hasn’t anything to do with that, it seems to me that it all has to have been a cynical sham. If that’s what you think, fine, but it stretches credulity for me to think that nobody involved in this was a true believer.
Earlier Duh made the oft-repeated comparison of the Iraq war to WWII. I believe that this, as I have stated before on this blog, is a dangerous and oversimplified false analogy guaranteed to cause the United States more and possibly greater foreign policy problems in the future. We cannot get by on ‘Saddam was a bad guy; Hitler was a bad guy’ and expect a rational foreign policy program.
Here is my take on this comparison -
–Iraq was a powder keg waiting to go off (with a strongman in the leadership role), ethnically, religiously and politically, governed by a religious minority that oppressed the majority – in other words, much more in common with Yugoslavia than Germany or Japan. Germany, Japan and Italy were more or less ethnically and culturally homogenous.
–Iraq was a relatively new country, a contraption invented out of the ruins of an old empire early last century, with a people with a long memory for the shame of western occupation. Germany was a western country, older than Iraq, and Japan was uncomfortable with western contact somewhat like Iraq but was much, much older as a cohesive society than Iraq, and its people have a cultural history of respect for authority.
–Both Japan and Germany fought traditional ‘capture-the-capital’ wars, whereas the accounts show that Saddam expected a guerrilla resistance against the coalition – which became an even more obvious eventuality after Bremer fired the entire military.
–Iraq is an Islamic country, a powerful unifier of peoples across national lines. The borders were porous enough to allow in foreign fighters. Japan and Germany had no such natural allies to help continue the fight, even had they wished.
–America started the Iraq War (therefore ceding a great deal of moral high ground, in the eyes of possible allies), and Germany started WWII.
–Iraq was fought after the great guerrilla successes (a fighting strategy of ‘wear them down and don’t lose’ that the Americans essentially helped pioneer, btw, in the revolution) of Vietnam, Algeria and the Chinese Civil War, whereas those had not yet happened when WWII was fought so that any loyalists to the old regimes has less frame of reference for success.
–Japan and Germany were put back together with the help of members from the former regimes, whereas under Bremer de-baathification was total.
That’s it for now, I guess. Errors? Cat calls?
Parth, that is an excellent comparison. I did not mean to compare WWII to Iraq, except in a most cursory fashion. There are some similarities, and those are worth highlighting. Like Iraq, the world attempting to reign in the German expansionism without resorting to violence. This clearly failed. In Iraq, we were much more pre-emptive, admittedly for reasons that turned out to be incorrect. Had we preempted Hitler, Germany might NOT have been so ethnically “homogenous” (ref: 6 million killed in the camps…that will homogenous just about any country).
My point with regard to WWII has more to do with Quakers assumption that we could have somehow talked ourselves out of WWII. I dont know how we could have developed a more “just” society that would have prevented hitlers rise….and apparently neither did the quakers, or they were keeping to themselves.
I am also afraid that Quakers stack of soapboxes upon which she has been orating, is high enough to induce hypoxia. When you say things like:
when we set up petty dictators to protect our economic and political interests around the globe. That, more than anything else, is responsible for the mess we now find ourselves in with respect to Iraq and Iran
you have clearly lost the bubble. I make it a rule not to discuss politics with the “Hate America First” crowd.
War profiteering used to be grounds for treason.
when we set up petty dictators to protect our economic and political interests around the globe. That, more than anything else, is responsible for the mess we now find ourselves in with respect to Iraq and Iran
Syngmhan Rhee
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
Fulgencio Batista
Carlos Castillo Armas
The Greek Military Junta
Ngo Dinh Diem
This list is, sadly, not exhaustive.
I don’t know Duh, I think ‘Hate America First’ is a little presumptuous. Seems to me she’s identified a pretty distinct post-WWII pattern.
(Ah, good ol’ moderation land. Reposted without the links.)
when we set up petty dictators to protect our economic and political interests around the globe. That, more than anything else, is responsible for the mess we now find ourselves in with respect to Iraq and Iran
Syngmhan Rhee
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
Fulgencio Batista
Carlos Castillo Armas
The Greek Military Junta
Ngo Dinh Diem
This list is, sadly, not exhaustive.
I don’t know Duh, I think ‘Hate America First’ is a little presumptuous. Seems to me she’s identified a pretty distinct post-WWII pattern.
I dont know how we could have developed a more “just” society that would have prevented hitlers rise….and apparently neither did the quakers, or they were keeping to themselves.
Hitler rose to power out of the insane war bill forked onto Germany after WWI and the depression, which was caused by a too-steep difference between rich and poor.
However, I don’t think telling the Nazi’s to google AFSC would have kept them from taking over europe and killing every jew in site.
Apparently you didn’t bother to do that Google search. If you had, you’d know why the AFSC won that Nobel. Then you wouldn’t be making errors like this one:
Keeping to themselves? Not exactly.
The AFSC won that Nobel for working for a more just society–by helping German civilians between the wars. As a result, they were among the last groups expelled from Nazi Germany and used that opportunity to save the lives of thousands who might have otherwise been exterminated.
And, by the way, there are two of us here–Southern Quaker and Quaker in a Basememt. Not the same person.
The wikipedia article on Quaker Peace Testimony is pretty good, and it won’t take long to read.
You gonna learn something today?
Not to worry though, the rest of us will be happy to do the heavy lifting as we have in previous wars to be sure that you have a right to your opinion.
I’m a US Army veteran. What branch of the srvice did you do your “heavy lifting” in, and what did you lift that was so heavy?
As a Vietnam era vet I am painfully aware that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a sham and that the excuse to do so was as completely manufactured as the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Bush was going to take us to war, and all he needed was an excuse that he could sell to fools. Unfortunately he found enough to accomplish his aim, although since then a lot of them, a majority in fact, have finally seen through the lies and now disapprove of the war.
Ther “heavy lifting” that remains from Vietnam is the huge number of traumatized men who were unable to live a normal life after enduring a year of horror. I was fortunate and did not serve in a capacity that left me permanently traumatized. When I served, it was just a year In Country, and now we have guys going back for a fourth or fifth. The price on our society when these people return will be enormous, and you have zero sympathy for them. I have seen this close up, and my heart breaks for them. You are a cold, unfeeling jerk.
Finally, WW II, during which my father gave up his job and built Liberty ships, and everyone lived with rationing of just about everything. We were attacked on our soil, Germany, Japan and Italy declared war on the United States before we reciprocated, and every member of American society participated in the sacrifice. You do not seem to know that.
Iraq didn’t attack us and didn’t declare war on us. Bush wants everyone EXCEPT the troops to enjoy this little skirmish, and does not ask for a single sacrifice from the rest of us. You didn’t seem to know that either.
Parthenon,
Sorry if I wasn’t too clear. I’m sure that Bush & Co. did have some deluded notion about forcing democracy on Iraq via revolution. I was referring to that non-exhaustive list you published later, when we propped up or installed dictators in the name of the Cold War, or protecting our oil supply, without caring one whit about the freedom of the people they oppressed.
And, duh, I make it a point not to discuss politics with people who bring out that old straw man the infamous “America Haters.” If you can’t tell the difference between honest disagreement with one’s government and “hating America,” then I’m not really interested.
So you like quotations, duh?
Dig:
Iraq didn’t attack us and didn’t declare war on us
“White House deputy spokesman Scott McClellan condemned the Iraqi attacks – at least four in the past few days – as “a violation that would constitute a material breach” of the resolution adopted unanimously by the council Nov. 8 to force Iraq to disarm”
http://www.michigandaily.com/content/us-will-wait-further-iraqi-no-fly-zone-violations
Why don’t you explain your quaint “turn the other cheek” aphorisms to my brethern in arms that were being shot at while enforcing the UN sanctioned no-fly zone? Seems like shooting at an american plane that is enforcing a UN no-fly zone might constitute an “attack”.
And repack, I did over a decade USN
Seems like shooting at an american plane that is enforcing a UN no-fly zone might constitute an “attack”.
I guess you don’t remember that we sent those planes over Iraq deliberatedly to draw fire and get an excuse to attack. The “no fly zone” was not something the UN created, it was a policy that we created ourselves strictly for political reasons. After all the Iraq air force, as we recall, consisted of nothing but drones, the rest having been destroyed in 1991.
Nothing that Iraq or Saddam did justified our killing tens of thousands of innocent people, destroying the infrastructure that supported them, killing thousands of our own people, and spending a trillion dollars killing people and breaking stuff. Not to mention making enemies of half the world.
We ha
I submit that if we had spent that money on our OWN infrastructure
This site needs preview. The first uncompleted sentence above was about the social cost of the return of thousands of permanently traumatized and disabled veterans, which of course does not bother people like you who have never served their country, and don’t have friends from a previous war who have suffered for 40 years from their experience. Like this one, that war was also pointless and based on fabricated provocations.
Why don’t you list all the sacrifices you have made for your country, so we can match them against the sacrifices you are asking others to make? It’s easy to send others into peril, harder to go there yourself.
Why do I have zero respect for your opinions about war? Do the math.
Now, the money we have wasted building nothing and killing people would have been much better spent building hospitals, schools, road and bridges here, so next time you have a reason to complain about our health care, our crumbling schools and roads, remember you wanted to spend that money elsewhere.
no question repack….You are the Man! No ones sacrifice or suffering means anything compared to yours.
Congress is putting your birthday in as a national holiday. I mean, a guy who is famous for mountain biking? Now YOU are agent for social change!
The rest of us just aren’t worthy, seriously.
/sarcasm
no question repack….You are the Man! No ones sacrifice or suffering means anything compared to yours.
Know what? You’re a big jerk.
Take note of that post because you’re going to be reminded of it every time you try to play the “liberals don’t support the troops” bullshit.
The borders were porous enough to allow in foreign fighters. Japan and Germany had no such natural allies to help continue the fight, even had they wished.
Invading and enslaving your neighbors without provocation tends to do that.
And repack, I did over a decade USN
I have no way of verifying this one way or the other.
“Why don’t you explain your quaint “turn the other cheek” aphorisms to my brethern in arms that were being shot at while enforcing the UN sanctioned no-fly zone?”
Explain to my why ‘Turn the other check’ is such a bad thing? Isn’t that the Christian thing to do? Or do you ignore Christ’s teachings when they are annoying.