<<Do you really intend to continue your silly argument that "Bush never mentioned Iraq" means Bush did not intend to attack Iraq? That's pretty lame, MT, because Bush mentioned that there were, IIRC OVER 60 nations worldwide that supported terrorism. He did NOT name 60. He named probably about two or three. >>
You are quoting from a speech that addressed very general concerns in the wake of a very specific attack on U.S. soil. There were threats to any nation that supported terrorism and that Iraq received honourable mention perhaps with others did NOT indicate that the U.S. was about to invade Iraq. Nobody at the time took that speech to be a warning of an attack about to be launched, and in fact when the time came to invade Iraq, a whole new pretext had to be invented to "justify" the attack - - it was the absurd "Weapons of Mass Destruction" rather than "supporting terrorism" which was the main featured reason in the campaign to prepare America for that particular war. In more general terms, the Bush administration decided that they would emphasize fear (of the mushroom cloud) rather than punishment (for "supporting terrorism") as the primary motivator of the American pro-war population. Your interpretation of the earlier speech as a clear indicator of an intent to invade Iraq has the benefit of hindsight but in reality that speech was never intended nor taken as a justification for the invasion of Iraq, and the conclusive proof of that is the invention of brand-new reasons for the invasion in the immediate run-up to it.
<< Iraq had already been identified as a threat nation in need of regime change by the CLINTON administration. >>
Again with nothing specific enough to justify immediate invasion. A lot of threats are issued by the U.S. against a lot of countries, as its generally favoured (to say nothing of its much cheaper) tactic of intimidation. However when the decision to attack is actually set, then specific reasons for each new act of aggression, be it the "Gulf of Tonkin incident" or the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" fiction, have to be invented fresh for the occasion.
<<We had been involved in a military action to suppress Iraq only ten years earlier. >>
Yes, for a very specific reason having nothing at all to do with "support of terrorism."
<<Was it really a shock to see that Iraq was on that list of nations? Please. >>
Uh, no, I don't think I claimed it to be a shock. As I said, the speech was broad enough to include any country the U.S. would deem to be "supporting terrorism," and it was NOT specifically directed at Iraq, though you try mightily to reconstrue its meaning that way, with the assistance of hindsight.
<< You have decisively lost this argument and you are grasping at straws.>>
Declare victory, hit ENTER. Never fails, does it?
<<Yes, it is. This is the part that is clear: "My tactic is very transparent." "It was bullshit then and it's bullshit now.">>
That's pretty childish, Pooch. When you want to address the substance of the argument that you just "answered," which dealt with the similarity of the justifications for the attack on Iraq and the prospective one on Iran, let me know.
<<No. How about a leader's mansion? You know like Number 10 Downing Street . . . why is he afraid to walk out in the open? President Obama does. . . . [OBL] is hiding. . . . He has a dwindling organization of loose cannons. We have an entire city of government buildings. He has a hideout. . . . >>
Exactly. That's WHY he's a folk hero. He's put his life on the line, attacked the Oppressor successfully in a bold and daring operation that nobody anticipated, showed millions of oppressed people with nothing to lose that it
IS possible, lives his life on the run and DESPITE the power of the Oppressor, has outlasted nine years of unremitting effort by cowardly men who live in palaces ringed by guards and billion-dollar "security" devices to bring his head in on a platter.
<< . . he is trying to invent a shoebomb that works. >>
We don't even know that that was HIS effort. It's highly suspicious to me how many "terrorist" efforts come down to nothing due to errors that a grade ten student wouldn't commit. Whether the efforts were genuine or not (something that I don't think we'll ever know for sure) OBL is known to every Muslim, not for the shoe bombs, but for the Twin Towers.
<<We have an army. He has a lot of dead friends and untrained fanatics.>>
He prefers to call them martyrs. It's what happens when you take on the world's biggest and most powerful Oppressor. It's a fate they're not afraid of and they're not intimidated by.
<<We brought down two governments. >>
Those fights are still going on, and what you intended to do with the countries whose governments you brought down is still undetermined. You have not been able to subdue either country despite the vast disparity in your sizes and your resources, and quite frankly, you are just making yourselves look like the punks you are when piss-ant nations are fending off your aggression for as long as they have been doing. The Third Reich AND the Japanese Empire both went down in less time.
<<He brought down two buildings. This is your idea of a guy who's kicking our ass.>>
When I add up the cost of what you had to lose to make up for those two buildings, then, yeah, I say this is the guy who's kicking your ass. And blackening your reputation in the process. Before all this you were able to pose as the "good guys" but that little luxury is gone too, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and Baghram Base and rendition and black sites and John Yoo all took care of that for you. Millions of oppressed people all over the world were radicalized not only by OBL's action but by your own reaction.
<<I brushed some dandruff off my shoulder this morning. It was a far bigger hit on me than anything bin Laden has done or will do. >>
Geeze, good point, Pooch, but whatever happened to "This morning I shat out a turd that was bigger than OBL?" Punchy. Powerful. Persuasive. Bin Laden as bodily wastes. The possibilities are endless.
<<I watched fireworks this evening to celebrate 234 years of freedom. >>
A mindless orgy of self-congratulation. Your freedom that always meant somebody else's oppression or slavery.
<<He is hiding in a hole somewhere watching the skies for predator drones. I sleep in the same bed every night, and never worry that some big, bad Muslim boogieman can get me. >>
That's an old, old story. He fights the Oppressor that you served without a single pang of conscience. So it's only natural that he watches the skies for threats while you sleep safe in your bed at night. He chose the path of the hero and the martyr, you cast your lot with the Oppressor.
<<He moves from place to place and pisses himself everytime he sees a bird's shadow on the ground. Great hero my backside.>>
You can make up any kind of fictional bin Laden you like. The guy fought the Red Army for years in the mountains before he took on the Americans. I don't think he pisses himself at much of anything, but maybe you know him better than I do. If I wanted an example of a leader pissing himself at a bird's shadow, first guy I'd think of would be Dick Cheney after 9-11, but WTF would I know?
<<Well, see they [shopping-mall drone soldiers] are actually involved in the war. Bin Laden isn't. He's the "leader" hiding out of harm's way. Obama doesn't control the drones, because he is a political leader - not a military one. Now, General Petraeus, see, he has a HEADQUARTERS. He shows up in public places. Bin Laden, the great hero, can't do this because we would kill him. He knows where OUR leaders are, but he can't kill them. If we knew where he was, he would be dead in minutes. He's had nine years to kill Bush, but he can't do it. He isn't even a little threat. So, we have driven him out of his stronghold into a hiding place, we have toppled the regime that supported him. He has drawn us out of our country to go to HIS country to punish him. Every time his piss ant soldiers show themselves and come against us, we kill them. Lots of them.. Far more of them than they kill of us. But you keep talking all you want to about how he is kicking our ass and the Taliban runs Afghanistan. You keep talking, because the silence would otherwise have to be filled with a reality you love to deny but that keeps laughing at you.>>
Bullshit. You know your soldiers AND your politicians are both cowardly little shits. Your soldiers for example never disclose their names or their units on operations against the people of Afghanistan or Iraq. They all adopt nicknames to use on operations and they shun media identification. I remember reading Ernie Pyle's accounts of the American soldiers of WWII. Ernie Pyle made a point in every story he filed to identify by both name and home-town as many of the soldiers around him as he could. It sold newspapers and the men weren't afraid to tell the world who they were and what they were doing to the enemy. Your Special Ops forces wear masks in addition to concealing their names and identities. When your politicians visit Baghdad or Kabul, it's always a "surprise" - - they drop in unannounced and leave the same way. When the visit's all over, then it's announced in the press. Hardly the brave, open, unafraid types you try to portray. They're scared shitless of the people they oppress and of their avengers.
<<Oh, you mean we're having money problems and it had nothing to do with the mortgage meltdown, the horrors of deregulation and the inherent evils of our capitalist system? >>
No, I mean you have money problems and you don't have the trillions spent or to be spent on the wars you embarked upon. Your credit has been impaired. The problems you always had due to the evils of your system, as you correctly posited, but you used to have extra money lying around to cushion the shock. Where's that extra dough now? Oh, wait! I guess you mean the cost of war and "Homeland Security" and the "Defense" establishment is all so trifling that it doesn't have any effect on your predicament at all. Chump change and all that.
<<I was unaware of it while I was spending the money I make from my military retirement and my current decade-old job or my wife's excellent sales bonuses and regular salary, but apparently the nation has done been destroyed right out from under me! >>
No, I guess if YOU'RE OK then the whole fucking country's OK. My mistake. I figured that the trillions spent on wars of choice were important sums, but I can see how wrong I was. All's well with Pooch and Mrs. Pooch, so obviously, all's well with the nation.
<<Yeah, like I said, how's that Jihad going?>>
And like I said, it's cost you TRILLIONS and you're headed for the economic toilet. THAT'S how the jihad is going.
<<Hmm, so you're saying, in response to my claim that Al Quaeda hasn't been successful except for a few failed attempts that they weren't really EVEN Al Quaeda attempts. And in fact, another good point to prove that Al Quaeda has TOO been successful, dammit, is that they are SO successful at attacking our country that our own government has to MANUFACTURE terror attacks to make it look like Al Quaeda is, umm, being successful in attacking, umm, us because they are, uhh, so . . . successful . . . wait. Wait a minute, that wouldn't make any sense. You wouldn't MANUFACTURE terror attacks if Al Quaeda was ALREADY successful in attacking us since 9-11.>>
I'm not even going to try to untangle that knot of twisted logic, but I will state what I said in terms so clear that even you won't be able to twist them into some unrecognizable contortion. A multi-trillion dollar industry (including Homeland Security) depends on "threats" from the outside against America. When the threats aren't coming in fast enough, they need to be manufactured.
<<Look, I'm sorry, but your logic is getting a little confusing. Now, I'm saying Al Quaeda's mighty Jihad isn't working, cuz they aren't getting any attacks in on us. You give me three options . . . >>
Forget it, Pooch. Just concentrate on the essentials and stop tap-dancing. Threats = justification for Homeland Security. No threats = no justification for Homeland Security. There. Is it really all that complicated. Yes, OBL has fucked you up big-time, but that's damage that's already done and can't ever be repaired. THAT money is gone. Homeland Security needs new threats, all the time. Got it?
<<Nope. You smack my wife, I shoot you. You smack somebody else's wife, meh.>>
Israel's your wife? The way I look at it, OBL kicked your ass. So shoot him (if you can!) Saddam paid death benefits to the families of suicide bombers who killed Israeli citizens. That was smacking someone else's wife. That was "meh."
<<Yeah, just like Hitler did. >>
Nope. NOT like Hitler did. Hitler was a creation of capitalist powers meant to counter the rise of communism in Germany.
<<He killed the enemies of the people - Jews, Gays, Catholics, those type. >>
Bullshit. None of them were enemies of the people. Enemies of the people are those who support the rich against the poor. The landowners against the peasants. The factory owners against the factory workers. The police against the Revolution. THOSE are the enemies of the people. In Germany, the Hitler and the Nazis were themselves the enemies of the people and had to be liquidated. In the end, that's exactly what the Red Army did.
<< Damn shame about those enemies of the people, though. They keep popping up in commie countries and going and having to get themselves killed, like in China in Tiananmen Square. Or those damn pesky enemies of the people like Lech Walesa. He sure ain't a "people." Damn enemy didn't even have the courtesy to get himself killed, dammit! Went and got a whole lotz of them enemies of the people and got the workers of Poland to unite! Karl Marx would have just been APPALLED at somebody uniting the workers against an oppressive regime. And then ya know what them enemies of the people went and done? Michael, ya wouldn't belief the NERVE Of them people - I mean ENEMIES of the people. They went and OVERTHREW the Soviet Union. Then the whole damn Iron Curtain went and rusted straight through, and the walls came a-tumblin' down around the Brandenburg Gate and THOUSANDS of them enemies of the people started shouting and singing and acting like they was free, instead of stuck on the wrong end of a wall or something. And all that just a few decades after Saint Joey the Stalinite had already killed MILLIONS of them enemies! That damn enemy of the people Nikita Kruschev even had the nerve to apologize for that wonderous act of noble mass murder. He shoulda been hung for it! Stupid enemy!>>
Counter-revolutionaries ARE the enemies of the people. I don't think Poland is any better off for the fall of its communist government and a lot of Polish working-class people now unemployed and paying for their own medical care don't think so either. I don't think China's worse off for the failure of the student counter-revolutionaries in Tienanmen Square either. China's doing OK, even if the "democracy activists" (read, U.S. stooges) don't like it.
<<But hey THANK GODLESS for Pol Pot. He sure knew how to take care of those enemies, didn't he? And Chairman Mao? Yeah, a real hero of the people there. >>
Cheap trick lumping Pol Pot with Chairman Mao. There's nothing in common between them. Pol Pot was a left deviationist, Mao was a Communist hero. There's a lot more reason to lump George W. Bush with Adolf Hitler, but that doesn't seem to please conservatives at all. They like to make the invidious comparisons, it's not something they're happy to see done by others.
<<Communists are mass-murderers by ideology. >>
Bullshit. They're selective executioners by the necessity of history.
<<Like all tyrants they are scared to death (and justifiably, as the fall of the Soviets and their satellites has proved, and the uprisings of the Chinese population continue to demonstrate) of the ACTUAL people - the real bread-and-butter workers and ordinary folks who got initially fooled by promises of "land, bread and peace" none of which came true. >>
More bullshitl They have a realistic appreciation of the dangers of counter-revolutionaries and other enemies of the people who agitate ceaselessly against socialist authority and will sabotage it by any means available if left to their own devices.
<<Your pathetic, transparent, bigotted crap about those millions killed by communist regimes being "enemies of the people" have the same filthy stench as the claims by slaveholders that blacks were not people, but property.>>
Nothing in common with that, except that you choose to say there is.
<< It is EXACTLY the same rationale as Hitler used for killing millions of people. >>
More bullshit. The enemies of the people are as I described them. They were not Jews, gypsies, gay people, communists or freemasons, who are the people that Hitler exterminated. You are just making up shit and hoping it will stick, but it is bullshit nevertheless.
<< It was the same motivation that led European settlers to give smallpox-infected blankets to indigenous people. >>
Again, more bullshit. You know that the settlers were racist ass-holes who coveted the Indians' lands. They did NOT consider the Indians to be "enemies of the people." That is such bullshit garbage I wonder how you can make this up with a straight face.
<< You talk about American soldiers being murderers. They are rank amateurs in the face of ANY Communist regime. >>
Yeah, tell that to the victims and their families. Tell that to the surviving family of Abeer, the 14-year-old Iraqi girl raped and murdered by U.S. marines. Tell the mother that her daughter's rapists and murderers were rank amateurs and how much worse it would have been for her daughter to have fallen into the hands of communists. You would never have the balls to say that face to face with the mother and you know it. Tell it to the families of the My Lai Massacre victims, to the father of the guy tortured to death in Baghram Base prison. Two million Vietnamese dead, show me the Communist regime that murdered two million of its own citizens. At least the Communists killed to produce a better world, free of exploiters of mankind, free of racists and fascists and anti-Semites. What was the U.S. killing for? Oil? The wealth of the rich?
<<Fortunately, America is STILL a strong 234 year old nation, while the mighty Soviet Union is a fading memory that lasted far less than a century, Communist China is quietly abandoning communist practice for Capitalist gains and the few remaining countries who actually take communism seriously have to survive by crushing the will of the people (like in Venezuela) or starving the population (like In North Korea) and then still only amount to a fart in a whirlwind in the real world. >>
Communist China got to where it is by communism. By the will of the Communist Party. And it's still communist today. The fart in the whirlwind is the U.S.A., less than a century of dominance and already fading fast. Held at bay by piss-ant nations, beaten by the peasant army of Viet Nam fighting without airpower in sandals and black pyjamas.
<<Enemies of the people, my eye. The enemies of the people in communist countries are all party members.>>
The enemies of the people are the exploiters, the capitalists, the racists, who the party fights with all its strength. Your bullshit attempt to stand reality on its head is just that, just bullshit. The enemies of the people are identified by their actions, by their exploitation, by their counter-revolutionary activities, not because Pooch chooses to call them that.
<<The "revolution" is not, and never has been the people. It is only a transfer of wealth and power from one elite set of people to another. >>
Nonsense. It is the ownership by the people of the means of production.
<<The only difference is that the first group generally earned the power and wealth and knew how to maintain it. >>
Yeah. Maybe all you need to do is read a newspaper once in awhile. See what happened to your banking system, your financial industry. Get real.
<<No Communist system ever made life better for its population, created any real wealth (except when it resorted to capitalism) or succeeded in any real way.>>
China. The U.S.S.R. before WWII. No need to say more. Your bullshit is just totally unsupported by facts, but you just don't want to see the facts anyway.
Quote from: Michael Tee on July 04, 2010, 05:09:20 PM
<< Well, I feel the same way about freedom (you know, the opposite of communism). >>
<<I support the free election of leaders in a multiple-party system. That's freedom. >>
Free election my ass. It's determined by money and campaign donors and the whole thing is a sham.
<< You support sham elections in a one-party system. That's oppression. >>
You just described your own country, sucker.
<< I support the right to earn your keep, make your way and better yourself and your family. That's freedom. >>
Rubbish. It's wage-slavery.
<< You support the subjugation of the individual to the state. That's oppression. >>
Not when the state IS the people.
<< I support the right to worship God, protect my family and do what I choose to do. That's freedom. >>
You can worship anything you like, the state will protect your family, and you can do what you choose to do so long as it's not some kind of anti-social activity that hurts others.
<<You support the abolishment of religious freedom . . . >>
I do not.
<< . . the dismantling of the family unit . . . >>
I do not.
<<and giving the state the right to dictate my choices. >>
Depends on the choice.
<<That's oppression. >>
Maybe it is, but it's not what I support.
<<You wouldn't know how to define freedom.>>
Better than you, my friend. You've spent your life in the service of the U.S. military, which suppresses freedom all over the world. Your country invaded Viet Nam specifically to PREVENT them from holding free elections in the south as previously agreed, precisely because your President knew that Ho Chi Minh would take over 80% of the vote and said so. So you can quit your BS blathering about "freedom" because you're not fooling anyone.
<<You think forced labor, mass-murder and government control is freedom. >>
That is absurd. I think no such thing. Get back to me when you want to have an argument with Michael Tee, instead of with yourself.
<<What I support has EVERYTHING to do with freedom. >>
Yeah, you support the freedom of the Israelis to wall off the Palestinians and force them off their land, the freedom of the Iraqis to choose a non-Baathist capitalist government with a made-in-America constitution, the freedom of the Afghans to have the American government of your choice, etc. Apparently also the freedom of the Iraqis to have another made-in-America government instead of the Parliamentary democracy they now enjoy and the freedom of the Venezuelans to have any leader except the one they freely voted in in two consecutive elections.
<<What you support has only to do with oppression.>>
I support the Revolution of the peasants, workers and oppressed against the rich and the oppressors. Call it what you want, it makes no difference. Your country is all over the world, torturing, murdering, assassinating, disappearing people, and you want to call it "freedom." You want to call anyone who opposes your invasions, occupations, tortures and murders "oppressors." Fine, who gives a shit? Get yourself a new dictionary, the Pooch Dictionary of the English Language and create your own 1984. War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. Me, I'll stick to my old Random House Dictionary of the English Language, thank you very muc
<<[Quoting MT]Ooops! I guess "greeted as liberators" has kind of worn out its welcome. Now there's another hare-brained scheme to replace it - - you'll "drive the hardliners and the opposition together." And you know this of course by your long and patient study of Iran, its government, people and customs.>>
All I meant by that was that the opinion expressed seemed to be ill-considered and not likely to have any relation to the reality of the situation. I didn't mean to imply that my knowledge of the facts or the background was superior to yours
<<I am an American, and an American soldier at that. I don't hope their isn't a God, I know there is one - and that fact gives me comfort, not fear. >>
I stand by my original comment. You and your country are very lucky that there isn't a God.
