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| SFReader Forums > The Real World > World Events > Iraq | Forum Quick Jump
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nathan
Sage
      
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2176
| Posted 7/5/2007 2:34 PM (GMT -5) |   | |
One of the unpleasant luxuries of 3am feedings is that you are up. This gives you time to ponder even as you desire sleep, but the little guy has to eat and there’s only so much breast milk…and because of a recent thread conversation I was pondering Iraq. I realized that this board is a primary source of socialization for me and that the topic of Iraq (understandably) has invaded and created a host of posts here. I often have been at odds with people about thought processes there and even miffed at the choice of language some use when describing America’s actions. I thought if I could write down what my understanding of Iraq is, base it on mostly objective observations with a nod to subjective emotional motivations, I could clearly state my position then see where my good friends here truly disagree with my understanding and can explain in coherent manner backed up by concrete-sequential arguments just how I got it wrong.
And I could have it wrong. My opinion on the matter has evolved from 9/11 thru Shock & Awe to today. A great influence on my thinking came from books by Ron Suskin and Bob Woodard--neither of whom work for Fox news, are particular fans on the Bush administration, but whom spent much time skulking the halls of power grooming contacts.
Someone here may have done more research than I have, been influenced by different books on the subject, have a different perspective based on a fact that is unknown to me and educate me.
Plus such a discussion will increase the traffic/hits and impress our server ;-P
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"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2176
| Posted 7/5/2007 2:36 PM (GMT -5) | | |
My understanding of Iraq starts before 9/11. Bush is elected. I didn’t vote for him but he was the president. As part of the neocon platform there was a concept that America had won the Cold War, we were the world’s only superpower and we had earned the right to act like it. Such actions would be a fitting pay-off to the 50 year struggle. We needed to stop allowing the Lilipulitions of the UN and various unions from keeping us down because it made them uncomfortable that they weren’t superpowers too.
I’m personally sympathetic to that line of thinking--I’m a patriot in the nationalist sense and think the world well served by such a view (IMO), the platform makes a sense, but I was not sympathetic enough to overcome my own leftish, liberal leanings and vote for that platform. I think that in the end, to be functional as a player in history judgments have to be made and then action taken. To not do so, even for an imperfect cause, is to become a chattering irrelevant. (this isn’t meant as “fact” but rather as personal “orientation” through which I see the world stage and history)
Then 9/11, It caused a panic, it revealed that people with ideological differences from us (us meant as America’s ‘national identity’ i.e. the twin pillars of free market- and democratic- institutions) would kill a bunch of innocent people to try and force us to stop engaging in international relations with various countries.
An introspection starting immediately which has spanned up until now revealed a couple of things: America is basically indefensible. Our ports too teeming, our borders too porous, our immigration system overburdened, our airports traffic too copious. We could make ourselves “safer” but any true “fortress America” concept is completely unworkable. Especially since in order for such things to happen our civil liberties would more closely resemble those of Israel and not the EU, for example. A great many citizens won’t stand for that--perhaps rightly so.
Now couple that understanding with things like the fact that pre-9/11 Intel showed UBL meeting with a rouge Paki nuclear scientist, proving that the acquisition of WMDs was very much on the forefront of that organization’s mind. In the bad old days nuclear arsenals (rightly or wrongly) were seen as deterrents. If you launch a WMD on me we’ll respond and no one will win. But now after 9/11 5 or 6 backpack nukes were missing from Russia and rouge/criminal states were working hard on getting bombs. Still, with a state that isn’t as bad--there’s still deterrence based on conventional military power, there’s still status quo.
But…what if there were rouge/criminal/tolitarian states who wanted to strike the U.S. and not be melted? What could they do? Give them to terror orgs. If Lil’ Kim fires a missile at us we fire a 100 back. If a hardened Hezbollah guerilla humps one up through the Sonora desert how will we respond?
The results were potentially so catastrophic and the folly’s of pre-9/11 intelligence so evident that we realized that if we waited for things to proven beyond a reasonable doubt we’d find ourselves responding to one devastating attack after another. The threshold has to be lowered in order to actually function. Terrorists are ghosts in the machine but in order to eat/sleep/plan/train/sponsor/poop they must exist in real time/space. Rouge/criminal nations then form the platform through financial or technical aid or geography. Eliminate rouge states suspected of having WMDs and suspected of being sympathetic to terror groups and you don’t eliminate the terror ideology--but you do denigrate its ability to operate on a world stage.
This lead us to A-stan and the initial success there. Married to Cheney’s pragmatism was what I believe is a sincere belief by Bush in the spread of freedom as exemplified by the twin pillars of democratic- and free market- institutions. The spreading of democratic ideals is to my mind the polar opposite of colonization (for example) and the use of trade agreements between two peaceful nations is the polar opposite of “empire building.” Both as historical models and by the basic, semantic, meaning of those words. Removing the brutal repression of the economically broken Taliban and giving the Afghans the power of self determination and the tools to compete in the world market place is a good thing, a noble thing. It is not the same as Soviet expansion, Roman conquest, or anything having to do with the sunset of French and British colonial rules.
To be it simpler: we don’t do it for the oil. But there’s nothing wrong with us operating in our national economic interest once we done the good and noble thing. It makes sense. It’s how the world works.
Based on available intelligence, Saddam’s past treatment of UN inspectors, and his use of NBC in 1998 I thought Iraq had WMDs. If I’d known how vehemently Colin Powell was against the invasion I would have seriously reconsidered my position. However the post 9/11 mindset typified by the 1% Cheney doctrine formed on Sept 12 [which states as the name indicates that if there is even a 1% chance that WMDs could be used on America or passed by criminal states [sic Iraq] to transnational terror groups then we treat it as a certainty because to not do so is to leave the basically indefensible America open to attacks so horrific they would overshadow 9/11 the way it did Pearl Harbor.]
My point is not that I agree with that, per se. I don’t actually, but I am sympathetic to such a vigorous mindset as a general statement. My point is that 1% doctrine married to a sincere belief that free markets and democracy are a wonderful thing lead to the invasion of Iraq and the attempted liberation of its people.
It is an example of pre-9/11 neocon thinking, that America should act in its interests even if a Russia, France, Honduras or Niger disagree and it was married to the realization that defensive war is impossible and that regime change(s) is the most tangible way to weaken the reach/influence/real-time power of amorphous terror groups. It also a married to a variation of a more liberal worldview: White Man’s Burden. All it takes for the evil of a Lil’ Kim, Khadafy, Noriega, Milosevic, Omar, Hussein to exist is for the world’s only superpower to let them. In many ways it is that simple. How sickening, to my point of view, to let masses of people that could be freed to remain raped, exploited, slaughtered. History shows that energy and desire without military or aggression leaves us with Darfur, Rwandan, the Free Tibet movement, an unchallenged Taliban. But marry a sense of desire to promote good you have a rescued Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, Bosnia, Afghanistan, a changed Lebanon, a changed Libya. But it’s a dangerous game and for all the good you’ll run the risk of having an Iraq. Be courageous, I argue, take risks to do good things [“good” meaning spreading the influence of democratic ideals and a free market]
So my point is only that I think this is why we invaded A-stan. This is why we invaded Iraq. We didn’t do it because of over-simplified views of Bush and Cheney as comic book villains. We didn’t do it to create global empire in any true sense of the world. It wasn’t a colony grab. It wasn’t for the oil. It may not have worked--and Rummsfeld and Cheney bear the blame for that--but it wasn’t for greedy hubris. But hubris did cause our strategy to fail.
VIEW IMAGE"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2176
| Posted 7/5/2007 2:36 PM (GMT -5) | | |
I came to that conclusion not from watching Fox News. Not from attending necon rallies. Not from daily doses of talk radio hammering home Karl Rove’s talking points. I came to it because I spent the time and energy to find journalists and policy observers who seemed to have windows into the secret chambers of the administration and seeing what they had to say. Some books were by former generals, some articles by men like Kissinger, but most were books written by investigative journalists--no water carriers for the administration they. [I mean I’m nobody, I have no contacts, I have to trust someone to get analysis why not Bob Woodward?]
This is why while I don’t agree with necon platforms, don’t vote GOP, don’t think much of Bush’s mental nimbleness, I also don’t cross into what seem to be factual incorrect attacks that “Bush lied.” Or that we are exercising a “Robber Baron mentality.” “9/11 is an inside job” or “this was to make Halliburton rich” or that klepto-cracy’s like Saddam’s Iraq hold moral equivalency to a Switzerland so that we somehow “attacked a ‘Sovereign Nation’” that everything was a “fabricated pretext to invent an enemy to steal our civil liberties” etc, all.
The truth is bad enough. 9/11 hurt. We were faced with choices. We could give into the attackers and agree to let non-state players tell us which nations we could or couldn’t pursue our interests with. Or we could fight. Once we decided to fight we couldn’t do so defensively. Defending America is impossible. It’s really impossible if civil liberity is seen to trump actually security. So we had to be offensive. Changing the world’s map was an option.
But ‘we’ [Rummsfeld &Chenny] made a mistake in execution that has hurt this country, though in retrospect most of those mistakes (IMO) were tactical how’s and not philosophical whys. We don’t need the fringes theories and vicious vitriol based more on general distaste for GOP platforms than on actual, dispassionate looks at motivations and facts. And some of those fringe theories are indeed motivated by unpatriotic feelings--if the word patriotic is used in its specific meaning and NOT in its more general, watered down pop culture use.
Did I offend anyone with this position? Does someone have a concrete-sequential reason why my view of the situation is wrong? (yes I know, Bush is a big fat liar liar idiot: I don‘t respect him myself but I mean a more mature retort). If so I am sincerely open to it. If someone read a story where there was an email from Halliburton to Dick C that said “start a war, bump up our stock” or something I would love to see it--and it would move me to reconsider my position. But is such a standard for proof from the other camp (the “we did it for oil camp”) to much?
If I’m missing something real I would be very open to hearing it.
Thanks for listening.
VIEW IMAGE"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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PaulMc
Adept
Date Joined May 2005
Total Posts : 992
| Posted 7/6/2007 4:36 PM (GMT -5) | | While I'm not sure we went to war to improve stocks (can't prove it anyway - if the Admin was stupid enough to leave a trail that open, they get what they deserve) I do believe we went to war because we could and we wanted American interests first. In a thumbnail, we sanctioned Iraq after the first Gulf War and everyone else got a seat at the table before us (China, etc.) We wanted to reset the table.
I wasn't raised admiring bullies. I hate them. We're supposed to be "the good guys". We're not supposed to start wars, we're supposed to end them (WWI, WWII.) We're not supposed to clobber someone just because we can and they have what we want. Not that it ever stops us (just ask any Native American) but we're supposed to be progressive and better than that now - aren't we?
Now that it is a "quagmire", many people cite the Vietnam War parallels, but I see far more parallels with the Spanish-American War and the Banana Wars. We took an excuse (USS Maine == 9/11), focused on what we wanted (U.S. interests), trumped up charges (the Maine probably blew up because of a faulty boiler and/or poorly stocked magazine - not Spanish sabotuers == Iraq had 'weapons of mass destruction'), yellow press. And if you want to go the extra measure...well, Halliburton==United Fruit Company. 
There was no culture taken into account. The Administration just assumed everyone loves democracy - like the clerics in Iran and the ROYAL family in Saudi Arabia. We went into Iraq (how many of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi? Oh yeah - none! They were ALL SAUDI, except for one Egyptian.) and destablized the country to the point were Al-Qaeda can operate nearly as freely as they did/do in Afghanistan. As they used to say about Mussolini - the trains ran on time. Hussein was a bastard, but he kept his country under control compared to what it is now. Who talked about an Iraq civil war when he was in power?
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
-- Paul McNamee
My Writings
The Tales of Doran Coyle | | Back to Top | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2176
| Posted 7/6/2007 5:54 PM (GMT -5) | | |
Paul good post? 
But you just asserted a 180% refutiation of what I said, but I don't(he says humbly) think you sourced the reasons you fell that way very well. (using none bombastic voice).
I mean none of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi. So? That wasn't the point. The point was that after 9/11 rouge states marrying up to terror orgs was a huge, tremendous fear.
Is there something intinsically wrong with a nation pursueing its interest?
I agree 100% about the lack of culture incite, btw, though the Afghans embraced it enough that it was a reasonable "template".
I don't think it looks a think like the banna wars because I don't think we were going after oil as our mission statement (the "bannas") and I just don't see any evidence to support that statement other than mild distaste for the GOP on one hand and the Bush Derangement Syndrome on the other. (I'm not saying "you" in that case just pointing out people's opinions being formed in a vaccum of evidence to support the emotion.)
How on earth does removing a Saddam and liberating the Kurds translate into bully? 
You act like we hit Denmark or something. Ten good samaritans tackling a rapist aren't bullies.
edit: I hope what came across wasn't "angry" retort but rather interest about what exactly you formed your opinions on where your views of the situation (and the situation leading up to the situation) were formed.
Nothing written by even the most aderant Bush detractors--those with inside access, (Bob Woodard's last book was hardly a cheer-fest) indicates that this resembles a situation where a Chevron is a UFC. It was part idealsm (Iraqi's like Afghanies "want" to be free, who doesn't) and part gritty pragmatism (rouge states with a penchant for hating and wanting to harm America can not be allowed the potential to marry up with transnational actors)--executed stoopidly in Iraq.
I can see people laughing at the naivity of spreading democracy to a people stuck in the 11th century. I can see how many, many might disagree with preemptive action to stop potential threats.
I just can't connect the dots based on evidence that all that translates into war for oil or that somehow removing a sociopath from raping his people ("no one talked about civil war when Saddam was in power"--not true the Shia did all the time, he just tortured and killed it out of them--but still for larger purperose will go with your view) translates into being a "bully" in any real sembelance of the meaning of that word? (he asks, not argues).
VIEW IMAGE
"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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MichaelEhart
Sage
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 2352
| Posted 7/6/2007 8:00 PM (GMT -5) | | Nathan, excellent post. There are many things I disagree with in it, but thanks for laying it all out. If I can make the time this weekend I will shine a little light on the errors of your ways, many of which are just poor assumptions about the nature of the disagreements and the disagreers.
"Darkling I Listen; and for Many a Time" , Fear and Trembling, coming soon!
"The Scarlet Colored Beast" The Sword Review, September 2007
"Nothing But Our Tears" The Sword Review. August 2007
"Weaving Spiders Come Not Here" The Sword Review, July 2007
"The View From the Shotglass Floor" Ray Gun Revival, Feb 2007
"Six Zombies Doing That Mick Jagger Strut" Damned in Dixie, July 2007
"The Death of Number 23" Dark Krypt, Fall 2006
"Servant of the Manthycore" Sword Review, April 2006
"Voice of the Spoiler" Sword Review, up now!
"Dancing with the Elder Gods"-- Thirteen Magazine, October 2005
"It's a Living" Byzarium---November 2005
"An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" The Sword Review, October 2005
Host, 2005 Nebula Awards Live Chat, sff.net
http://mehart.blogspot.com/ | | Back to Top | | |
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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 4515
| Posted 7/6/2007 11:16 PM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2176
| Posted 7/7/2007 6:24 AM (GMT -5) | | |
Interesting link, a sound voice with credible experience. If we were talking about how we view the strategic execution of the war you would find no more disgusted critic of Rummsfeld than myself.
I'm more talking in this thread about how extreme fringe theories about how we got into Iraq (Bush lied, its for oil, etc) have started to slip into mainstream political lexicons despite not only being wrong, but unsubstantiated in any meaningful way.
Part of the General's argument about Clinton troop cuts is well taken given Rummsfeld's own obsession with transforming the army into a leaner more tech friendly entity focused on "fighting the next war" instead of the last.
The rapid takedown of the Taliban with about 300 special forces and Shock & Awe's rush to decapitate Saddam bear out why Rummy thought this new approach a better one. However he made a criminal miscalculation in not preparing for the worst while hoping for the best.
Once in possession of Iraq the US army found itself not in a "next war" but in a very old one, a kind of war that can only be fought with an army the size the General recommends in the article. Which isn't the same as saying America was without pretext by entering in the first place.
But even this mistake is a very good example of how some of the administrations most strident, most unreasonable critics have gotten it wrong. A very big reason we went in with only the bare amount of troops we did (not counting the Turkey problem) was because of Rummy's "little footprints" philosphy.
Little Footprint basically meant we used as little force as needed, gave the tools of modern government to the liberated peoples then got out before the foriegn nation grew too dependant on American troop presence--the way south Vietnam ceased to function once we were there en mass.
I think Colin Powel for one told them it wouldn't work in Iraq the way that template did in A-stan. They didn't listen, they were filled with hubris at their plan and America has suffered for it.
but...
The guiding philosphy of "little footprint" (publiclly written & referenced) seems to put obvious lie to this notion of modern day adventurism. "Get in, give them democratic nation building tools, get our troops out before they're seen as occupiers" is a huge, vast, parsecs wide, difference from the light cast by the accusations of creating "puppet states" --if I can be understood to be using that term as an umberalla one for any belief that the action existed only to exploit natural rescources of weaker "soverign" nations, say the way Spain did the Americas.
So I agree--Rummy & Chenny (and Bush by extension) criminally mismanaged the war. My point in this particular thread is only that it was done for idealistic (not greed based) reasons.
Laught at the idealism. Disagree with it. Think it idiotic. Just acknowledge that it exists is my only point.
The Shia blew it, and perhaps understandably. They allowed Zarqwi's strategy of drawing them into endless cycles of ethnic slaughter to place the future of that country into a hellish nightmare.
Now our troops are surging to provide security so that Iraqi will stop killing Iraqi. We were, once upon a time, fighting foriegn agents and the remments of the Sunni resitance (the sunni were not "liberated" by our action anymore than genteel plantation owners were "liberated" by Grant) now we have to be the Iraq government percisely because we tried so hard not to form a corporate eco-colony puppet government and allowed a ruling body like the one they now have into power.
Surge doesn't work we pull out, Iran moves in, and ethnic cleansing to make Rwanda look like Disney World will occur (but someone will still be screaming we should do something in Dafur because the slaughter of innocents there is some how troubleing[?]--noted for irony not argument). However the Iraqi's themselves may have left us with no other choice since our enemy's asymetrical plan of wearing down popular support through acts of continus and grotesque violence played out daily in the media seems to have worked (I say with a certain resignation and not pointed rancor).
VIEW IMAGE
"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2176
| Posted 7/7/2007 1:46 PM (GMT -5) | |
Daniel said...
Laught at the idealism. Disagree with it. Think it idiotic. Just acknowledge that it exists is my only point.
***
Sorry, Nate, I simply don't believe that. Not for an instant. The neo-con will to invade Iraq was present before 911 and long before the population had been tricked into believing Islamic terrorists (from Iraq) posed a threat to "democracy."
To marry this to your second post, I don't find you baiting in raising these points at all. I think these fair questions.
My intention is not to get someone with "your" (if I may say so without shoving you in a cabinet but rather to admit that many people see things the way you do) view to do a 180% turn and support either necon platforms (which I don't myself) or to suddenly become a fan of regime change in criminal states. If you're not there, you are not there.
What I am trying to do is to convince you that while discussing Iraq and to a certain degree the war on terror, that you don't allow frustration to tempt you into making hyperbolic leaps not presented in any true substantiated by facts. Why? Because the more smart people choose to use such lanuge the more likely average people will believe them and then the national identity of the US is hurt during a time of crisis.
Let me start by agreeing with you. Yes the desire to remove Saddam existed before 9/11. You are 100% right. It dates back to my time as a young man. There were many, many in this government and in D.C. policy think tanks who thought Bush #1 got it wrong. That Powell had been so pragmatic he'd become a moral coward by not removing Saddam after freeing Kuwait.
One of the chief architects of that though process was the professional academic and former Nixon cabinet member Donald Rummsfeld, though he wasn't alone. Bush #2 being a moralistic thinker (you can sneer at that, but I'm not defending him, just pointing out how he sees himself) thought and agreed with Rummy platforms (married to the admitted necon platform of America acting like a Superpower because it had earned the right post Cold War--a thought process I'm sympathetic too, but wary of).
The triumverate of Chenny/Rumy/Jr. had been quite literally (you are correct)obsessed with SH for a decade and saw our abandonment of the Shia after Kuwait as a stain like the Bay of Pigs on our national honor.
No one ever thought Islamic terrorists "from Iraq" posed a threat in such a linear dot-dot-dot fashion. Saddam wasn't an Islamist. However he did have a long history of supporting terror orgs (my god he had camps with 747s so they could train on hijackings!) and the specific fear that formed national policy in the days immediately following 9/11 was that he was exactly the kind of rouge who would pass WMDs onto transnational players to avoid culpability and retaliation. Marry this to a dramtic shift in the kind of evidence required to act ("we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" as I recall) and you have Iraq.
I can see you (and many) thinking that the standard for action following 9/11 was lowered too much. Dan, I agree with you. But I think the difference is that I agree with you while admitting I'm not in the "The Buck Stops Here" seat when something happens and Americans I'm charged with defending are killed.
Can you imagine the weight? Can you imagine what you might do in your desire to never see something like those towers falling ever again? Would you ever want to be the one in The Buck Stops Here chair when more attacks hit on homeland soil? Not me, brother.
My point is only that there is nothing there pre-9/11 to indicate that this was a plan of war-for-oil. Rummy's regime change plan was around for awhile, but it was based on idealism not naked avarice. I would never expect you D, to support that specific brand of idealism. I'm not a total brick. 
My only desire is to persuade you (based on a clear and present papertrail dating back to the 1st Gulf War) to stop painting America as a sort of 1800's Britian in this matter. Or to cast America's interdiction in Iraq in the same light as Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
Did that make sense?
I'm saying only that I think people are bandying about charges that are not born out by facts and to do so is potentially damaging.
Terrorists can't, I agree, bring down democracy in CONUS. Terrorists can attempt to kill people both here and abroad as a way to force us not to act in our own national interest, or to dictate to with whom and over what we may conduct our concerns.
Such linch-pin/choke-point strangeholds, common sense tells us, can hurt America (thus democracy thru our weakening) and our way of life as we live it now. Certainly much more than any lame duck president who's lost control of both Houses, had terrorists take their cases to our Supreme Court and win, damaged his own party's chances for winning the next election etc etc.
I'm not writing this thread to spread necon ideals. I'm not writing this thread to drum up support for Iraq. I am writing this only as a plea that intelligence people use more responsible language in their dissent.
VIEW IMAGE"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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MichaelEhart
Sage
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 2352
| Posted 7/7/2007 3:55 PM (GMT -5) | |
Nathan said...
No one ever thought Islamic terrorists "from Iraq" posed a threat in such a linear dot-dot-dot fashion. Then why, oh why did they sell that so hard? You know that more than half of Fox News viewers still think this true? In fact, I just yesterday heard some Fox talking head articulate this very thing. They did their level best to conflate the two, to the point of saying, over and over, that our invasion of Iraq was somehow a response to 9/11. Go back and read some of those speeches and blab-show appearances, especially those by Cheney, Rice, and Feith. Many of the statements are so carefully pased as to allow for deniablity but at the same time give the false impression that they could only have been constructed with the intent to deceive.
Side note: It is not the US press or media that have lost this war. It is a shifting mission, testosterone thinking that cannot allow for any resolution (Korea as a model? Haven't they been pooh poohing anyone who says this as a paranoid fringy? They say this about everything that isn't lockstep with them, right up until they say it themselves--- where is the truth? Not coming from them!), no adjustment for circumstances, too much arrogance... bah. We have already been invovled in this mess longer than WWII. If that war had been so mishandled, it would be unpopular too. It ain't the press, bub, it is the common sense of the people of this country who can no longer believe anything this administration says. Been through it before, half of us, in the Nixon years.
And the side note makes my point. There are very few people who think that Israel caused 9/11, or that it was a bomb or some other such. Every huge event brings out the wackos. The problem is that far too many things we have been told are just constantly repeated lies, so eventually we begin to question everything they say.
And if it isn't about oil, then why are the pumps still unmetered? Prewar Iraq shipped 100 million USD a day, now nobody knows, because after 3 years it is still unmetered. Why did we secure the oil ministry first and almost exclusively? Cheney may be an idealist, but his ideal is oil, his company benefited more than any other. I don't know the truth because they will go to jail before they talk, and stonewall every attempt to get to the truth.
Tony Snow last week sternly advised congress to stop worrying about the past and get on to law making. This congress has issued a couple dozen ("politically motivaed") supeonas on the executive, as opposed to the nearly 1100 issued in the last 6 years of the Clinton administration. They are hiding the truth, aggressively, and many, many people are starting to wonder why, which leads to some pretty weird speculation. I am in for alien cross-dressers myself, but am willing to consider alternatives :)
This turned out far more rantish than I intended. The central point is that they have regularly dismissed everything suggested as paranoid ravings, and too many times that raving has turned out to be the truth.
Nathan said...
had terrorists take their cases to our Supreme Court and win No Nathan. Had untried terrorist suspects go to HIS Supreme court and have it ruled that the constitution applied to his actions no matter how he tried to paint it. They only won the right to be actually charged with something, instead of being held indefinitely. Even his rubberstamp court couldn't stomache that level of dictatorial nonsense. Note that immediately following that decision we released a large number of detainees because we finally bothered to investigate and learned that most of the released had nothing to do with foriegn fighters or terror--- were just fueding farmers turned in for a bounty.
There is no Buck stops here with Bush or the right. They are already whining about the evil congress--- they will blame every one of their failures on the Democrats and the civil rights lawyers, on the liberal media and abortion clinics or what ever. Like the "partisan" nature of Scooter Libby's trial--- Republicans in charge every step of the way, from Ashcroft to Morgan. But still the fault of the evil liberals. My favorite new Fox meme is that univeral healthcare aids terrorism--- with crap like this who can take anything they say as anything more than Kabuki for blind people?
Nathan, once again, thanks for taking the time to spell out your thoughts on this. It takes far more effort and honesty to lay it out in an orderly fashion than it does to pick it apart. That's why politicians seldom give complete answers :)
Beer definitely in order at OryCon :)
"Darkling I Listen; and for Many a Time" , Fear and Trembling, coming soon! "The Scarlet Colored Beast" The Sword Review, September 2007
"Nothing But Our Tears" The Sword Review. August 2007
"Weaving Spiders Come Not Here" The Sword Review, July 2007
"The View From the Shotglass Floor" Ray Gun Revival, Feb 2007
"Six Zombies Doing That Mick Jagger Strut" Damned in Dixie, July 2007
"The Death of Number 23" Dark Krypt, Fall 2006
"Servant of the Manthycore" Sword Review, April 2006
"Voice of the Spoiler" Sword Review, up now!
"Dancing with the Elder Gods"-- Thirteen Magazine, October 2005
"It's a Living" Byzarium---November 2005
"An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" The Sword Review, October 2005
Host, 2005 Nebula Awards Live Chat, sff.net
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2176
| Posted 7/7/2007 4:27 PM (GMT -5) | |
MichaelEhart said...a bunch of stuff
I initial addressed your post in a pleasant and thoughtful manner. But then I realized I was kind of rewarding bad behavior (he says teasingly). I gave a linear, flowing, rescoured by point explanation of a thought process. I argued for the removal of emotion and hyperbolic lanugage. I tried to plead that language and I specifically stated I wasn't quoting Fox news (instead Bob Woodward and Suskin) and you gave me a long post that was...well...not that
You voiced some angry suspicions be didn't offer anything concrete sequential to point to why. It was a little bit of I hate Bush rant plus I hate Fox rant--even though I said specifically I didn't draw this from said channel.
Is it possible you could come up with a post that while refuting my own matches it in cited referneces, moderate tone, olive branches to the other side, and coherant structure? 
 I live you. I like beer.
VIEW IMAGE
"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2176
| Posted 7/7/2007 5:29 PM (GMT -5) | | note: Mike, I'm not trying to jerk you around with that teasing. Nor do I think I'm truly in a position to "scold" anyone on these boards.
It was just after your initial post about gathering your thoughts I was under the impression your post would look a little more like this:
"Yes, Nathan. I realize that Bob Woodard was able to his book show that Donald Rummsfeld began writing and lobbying for the removal of Saddam Hussien almost immediately after the end of the first cold war.
However, my good man, Journalist X, who's experience and credentials indeed match if not surpass the Author of All The President's Men, was able to show that at this very same time Don R belonged to a D.C. S&M group with Dick Chenney and several male prostitutes testified under oath that the two men, while finger painting in the blood of liberal's children, in deed discussed ways to make Haliburton stockholders rich through the pretext of a war on a soverign, begin nation incapable of defending itself but rich in natural recourses.
He in fact shows jpeg images of the finger paints clearly showing a map of Iraq supperimosed with the Chevron logo and the words "he he he."
I was kind of hoping for something like that...
VIEW IMAGE"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 4515
| Posted 7/7/2007 7:17 PM (GMT -5) | | What I am trying to do is to convince you that while discussing Iraq and to a certain degree the war on terror, that you don't allow frustration to tempt you into making hyperbolic leaps not presented in any true substantiated by facts. Why? Because the more smart people choose to use such lanuge the more likely average people will believe them and then the national identity of the US is hurt during a time of crisis.
***
But I've never been frustrated, Nate. Not about Iraq. I mentioned before I predicted the US would attack Iraq long before they started drumming up public support for their "new product*."
On the *day of* 911, I told my wife and my brother in law I thought the US would invade Iraq. How did I know? Well, the only good targets in A-stan are pack mules** and that wouldn't play well on TV. Also, Colin Powell came out later that day and said "Saddam Hussein is the leading terrorist on the face of the earth." They had a hard-on for Iraq pre-911, the American Enterpirse Institute. My brother-in-law's response was "Every terrorist on the face of the earth started salivating the minute W was elected because they knew the US could then be baited into a quagmire."
And all that was said on the day of 911 or the next day. Far from frustrated I am somewhat pleased to know that my understanding of the neo-cons was good enough to predict their behavior before the fact and also -- its failure. Yep, as you may recall, I have been saying from the begiinning the Iraq War wold fail and I used the strategic precepts I recently commented on (Sun T'zu) to support my ideas then, too. Dave Felts used to argue woith me about it, but he quit. You seem to be the last man standing who is towing the original line for the build up to war, at least around here!
You think its anti-American to not support the war and I think it is anti-American to supprt it. I can show you examples, concrete examples, and I've been trying to show them to you, of how the action in Iraq weakens America and hurts our military and hands our enemies victory and power and resources and does nothing to combat international terrorism. You have not rasied one SINGLE example of how the war is good for America. Not one which can be substantiated. And guess what? This is teh same position I've held ALL ALONG. Way before "liberals" (who mostly voted for the war) spoke out against it.
The invasion of Iraq no surprise to me at all. BTW, I didn't support the first Gulf War, either.
I've been very careful NOT to make "hyperbolic" leaps. Especially one like "Iraq (or Iraqis) is/are responsible for 911."
If by "national identity" you mean your particular brand of politics and patriotism, I think that ship has already sailed --- and sunk!
* "When Bush began the process to go to war with Iraq, it was Andy Card who led the war's marketing campaign, as he described it.
He formed the White House Iraq Group, which coordinated the administration's statements about Iraq.
All the talk about aluminum tubes, Nigerian yellowcake uranium, smoking guns and mushroom clouds can be laid at his feet. It was a propaganda campaign to drag the American public to war, and it worked.
What's more, Card himself admitted that the campaign was cynical. Asked about the timing of the campaign by a New York Times reporter, specifically why it started after Labor Day, Card remarked, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."
** Rumsfeld apparently agreed with me:
After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.
"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.
"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml
"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
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MichaelEhart
Sage
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 2352
| Posted 7/7/2007 8:40 PM (GMT -5) | | Oh no, Nathan--- my thoughts aren't gathered at all. That was just a fisking rant. Thought I was clear on that---- there will be more later, but to give your post its due will take time to draw together a ton of stuff--- you'll get your response but it might be a couple of days or even a couple of weeks. I am so stinking busy right now---- off right now in fact to attend yet another campaign picnic, I've got stuff to finish on a white paper on the patriot act--- yeah, I finished it, but now they want more, and I am studying for yet another certification test for my day job. I squeeze in a chapter a week on my new shining masterwork, and try to pick at the one that I really want to be writing.
This board is about my only social outlet that doesn't involve either smiling until my cheeks hurt or playing with my kindergartner--- which isn't so bad, his best friend is the son of Michael Moorcock's webmaster, so at least there is something to talk about :)
So trust me, you will feel the power of my mighty intellect as I wield the awesome Hammer of Truth to illuminate the vile Anvil of Opinion, and strike transcendant fear into the hearts of the unenlightened.
Just not today.
"Darkling I Listen; and for Many a Time" , Fear and Trembling, coming soon!
"The Scarlet Colored Beast" The Sword Review, September 2007
"Nothing But Our Tears" The Sword Review. August 2007
"Weaving Spiders Come Not Here" The Sword Review, July 2007
"The View From the Shotglass Floor" Ray Gun Revival, Feb 2007
"Six Zombies Doing That Mick Jagger Strut" Damned in Dixie, July 2007
"The Death of Number 23" Dark Krypt, Fall 2006
"Servant of the Manthycore" Sword Review, April 2006
"Voice of the Spoiler" Sword Review, up now!
"Dancing with the Elder Gods"-- Thirteen Magazine, October 2005
"It's a Living" Byzarium---November 2005
"An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" The Sword Review, October 2005
Host, 2005 Nebula Awards Live Chat, sff.net
http://mehart.blogspot.com/ | | Back | |
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