just made me so mad. so so unsurprised but mad nonetheless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY





just made me so mad. so so unsurprised but mad nonetheless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY
Love it!
I just saw that on the Daily Show. Fucking unbelievable!



Thank you for this, Chrissy--I hadn't seen this. Amazing how these characters blow with the prevailing wind, and get our country into so much trouble. I've heard Bush and Rumsfeld suggest that they will be compared to Churchill in history: I think it more likely they shall be looked at as history's fools.
JK Jim
Amazing (or maybe not so) how he was able to do a complete about face.
Some small part of me wonders if they were really as dumb as they appeared, or if the war was a case of prison justice. You know, like the guards can never tell the real truth, but believe the only way you can really teach a lifelong asshole what he needs to learn is to drag him into a dark room and beat the fuck out of him. Of course on paper they write that it was just a routine search, but the reality is those on the inside have long since lost hope in due process and believe that the only way to real deal with an anti-social psychopath is to make him understand that he is going to get the hell beat out of him if he acts up. Sadly, there is a devils argument that the only thing fundamental terrorists understand is the simple concept of attack us, and we will attack back and do 100x as much damage. The threat of reverse force does work with sociopaths, even if they don't really learn anything else, it does curb bad behavior. If that's the reality, then they knew the WMD excuse all along, but nobody is ever going to admit it.
Big fucking surprise.
You said it better than I could.
I also feel the Iraq war was Dirty Work for the Saudis, since the US is in their pocket....
The most seriocomic thing I've heard about Iraq was from a young Marine who just got back- "You wouldn't believe what Iraqis can do with a little time and a lot of explosives..." The underestimation of Iraqis has been the biggest problem.
(Bill Maher says it well too- he goes into in his new HBO special...)
Haha.
I have a different perspective on prision justice. My dad was in prison in the early 80s and there was a guard who hated him for some reason. My dad had never done anything to him specifically or anything at all that that the guard could pin on my dad. The guard just had it in for him, and because he had infinite power due to his position, he hauled my dad out of his cell in the middle of the night and took him to a stairwell. He tried to get my dad to fight him, but my dad's not a fucking idiot. So the guy had a buddy punch him in the face and then wrote up my dad for assaulting a guard. My dad ended up getting the living shit beat out of him and spent 21 days in the hole.
'
That is what I believe went on. Not some kind of "this is the only thing the terr-ists understand" crap.
My problem is Dottie is I spent enough time working with prisoners who said one thing, but their long rap sheets and direct observation of behavior said another. I don't know your dad personally, but unfortunately I'm not very trusting either that people tell the whole story. I am trusting that they tell the side they want others to believe. /shrug. So far my experience is while there are exceptions, my distrust generally has served me well. This isn't a diss against your dad, but you're hearing his side second hand through him. More direct experience with a larger number of prisoners would give you a different perspective.
The other thing is it's easy to apologize for prisoners right up until you are a victim, and worse yet, a victim of a repeat offender. I'm sorry, but I just don't think all people are inherintly good, and I do think on a big grey scale, we see some people in society are sociopathic, violent, and plain out dangerous. And lets not forget, I'm talking about people that kind of people that were proud of themselves for hijacking 3 planes and killing thousands of civilians. I think it's reasonable to at some point, face fact and realize there are people out there that aren't deterred by normal social laws, norms, of a normal sense of justice, and only understand sheer counter-force.
Anyway, I understand this was your dad and you believe him and believe he was the victim. I'm just saying, the rest of the world is not obligated too believe your dad, and your dad's situation isn't the barometer by which we measure everything else when it comes to anti-social behavior.
Last edited by xdamage; 08-16-2007 at 01:53 PM.
Not a threadjack, but a related topic- some people think Pat Tillman met an untimely end due to his plans to speak out against the Iraq war, which he felt was illegal. This has been dismissed as a "tinfoil hat crowd" theory, but the mess of how his death was handled can't help but raise such questions.
Aside from illegality, the poor planning of the war was criminal.
However, the U.S. is stuck there. IMO.





Ummmmmm huh?
So, a politician should ignore 10 years worth of current events, never assimilate new information, never change their mind as the situation or information changes, and never grow? I'm no Cheney or Bush fan, but the one thing worse than either of them would be a poltician who made up their mind about the world 30 years ago and applies that mindset to each new year. Yikes.
People are supposed to evolve their views and change their mind on certain things as they age. That's growth. My views now aren't what they were when I was 19, and I'm sure when I'm 39 they'll be different too. I change, the world changes, my views must change or become irrelevant.
That (audio) clip was all over Air America two days ago.
This seems like a political move to further make the GOP look bad. Then you tie the GOP candidates any way possible to the white house, and the dems end up with a presidential win.
These kind of press releases are timed out perfectly for greatest impact on the voters. Since the first primaries are in January, this is about hte time to get everyone screaming about how scandalous the White House is.
Waiting for the GOP response. They have great offensive moves, but their defense could use a lot of work at this stage of the game.
(Yes, I follow politics like many people follow sports)
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The only problem with this argument was that Cheney was spot on with what would happen in Iraq. That is exactly what happened when we invaded in 2003 and the subsequent occupation.
Iraqi culture hasn't changed much over thousands of years. What makes anyone think that there would be a massive culture shift in just 10 years? That info wasn't out dated.
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Valid point. Personally I don't know what Cheney believed would happen in 2003. The problem is we, the people, heard only bits and pieces made public. The actual behind the table discussions is another thing. Possibly Cheney made this point up until 2003, but he wasn't the only voice in the room, and (important) I honestly don't know how relevant it was to the final decision.
I have unfortunately met many people that when faced with a complex task/problem, confuse their own bravado and tendency to see things in simplistic terms with the reality. So it wouldn't surprise that some of Bush's advisors, and maybe Bush himself believed it would be a quick and "easy" job. I don't know if all of them believed it though, and when it comes to group think and politics, even if Bush's cabinet presented a united opinion to the public, who knows what was really said inside.
None of that is meant to excuse anyone for bad decisions, just I think it's probable some people did warn Bush that we'd be stuck there for years if he goes ahead. If it wasn't Cheney, it's hard to fathom that nobody would have warned him that Iraq would be completely unstable without it's dictator.
^^Maybe getting "stuck" there for years was what the desired outcome has been the whole time?
When you are a CEO of a multinational corporation that stands to gain gazillions of dollars and power that is immeasurable by being "stuck" in a quagmire, maybe a quagmire is a good thing??
I base that opinion on exactly....Nothing ;-)
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Oh yeah, he definitely nailed it. What I think changed in the past ten years (well - in 2001) was our sense that we could avoid these problems by staying out of it. So Iraqi culture didn't change but I think the perspective of the Powers That Be did - they knew going in would be bad all along, but then later decided that not going in would be even worse.





Wow, he should be a psychic!!
Look like a woman
Think like a man
Act like a lady
Work like a dog
- My Great Grandmother Bessie's Recipe for Success
Well actually Irag has only been around since when - post WW1 something like that.. It was cobbled together by the Brits from the Ottoman empire. And they all new it was only held together by Hussein - much like Yugoslavia was held together by Tito...
BUT - in '94 - Cheney had not totally converted to the dark side - ie the neo-cons. Thats happens later and and the neo-cons always felt that NOT invading Iraq in the first gulf war was a mistake. Unfortunately for us, lil George was one of them.
But showing that on the Daily show was frickin' hilarious.
Here is a big question - why isnt the REAL news shows showing us these contradictions - Why do we have to watch youtube or the a show like the Daily Show or the Colbert Report to see this. They should be hammering these guys and they should have started it in 2002. The 4th estate has been a big let down IMHO ...
Enuf of me and my soapbox --- sorry!!!
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It does make sense. Since Reaganomics we've been running our nation like a corporation, with monetary gain being the ultimate goal. Many corporations don't appear to care who or what they destroy to achieve that goal. Not even the birthplace of civilization is safe.
Again, I've got nothing aside from conjecture. Sigh.
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Because corporate interests purposely buy advertising on the news stations and during news broadcasts in order to have editorial control over the content.
*ever notice a Boeing commercial on a news channel? Why does Boeing have to buy advertising on TV? Ditto with pharmaceutical companies (as opposed to specific drugs).
Same reason why Imus got fired, not because of him being an ass, but because the sponsors took their money away. Imus has been an ass all his life.
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^^^ My theory is that the major new outlets locked in step with Bush more for having a the big story - WAR IN IRAQ. U know the big graphics, the ominous music, all that crap Why? Cause news is entertainment. Not to enlighten or inform. So they can get ratings and charge more for the ads by Boeing and Novartis. Thats why I guess youtube and satire news show like Daily Show and even Bill Maher are more relevant. In fact I hear more enlightened commentary on our world from comedians than I do from journalists.
Your right tho - ads kill objectivity .. THats why I read my news from overseas sources. Heck even the US version of Al Jazeera has a more neutral perspective!!!
And Imus was always an ass LOL!!!





Oh I know. No direct relation at all. In the broader sense though, oppressed people in dictatorial regimes being fed any sort of fanatacism is bad for the world, and not something we can escape with wishful thinking or isolationism.
<mini-rant>
Iraq wouldn't be at the top of my list of countries to invade in that sense, not even top 5. I'd say Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Columbia, and North Korea as my top 5 list, but then not all of them have natural resources to plunder. But then I also feel no further justification was needed for resuming combat with Iraq than we had a cease fire (from Gulf War I, a UN-sanctiond action) that Iraq violated weekly and almost daily for ten years. The U.S. exhibited deity-like patience with them, to a fault. I don't buy "short attention span" as an argument against resuming hostilities. But then if North or South Korea attacked the other, I wouldn't consider it an act of war either. They are not at peace. They are in a state of war and currently have a cease fire. It would be a mere breaking of the cease fire (something that they do every few years actually). I don't think a friggin' war is the place to be loose with international legal terms; a cease fire is not peace.
The problem with my argument being, of course, how to define a congressionally and UN-sanctioned combat operation versus an official declaration of war.
</mini-rant>
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