When was the last time the “right” was right?
 

I really can’t remember.

They were claiming Terry Schiavo’s chances for recovery or rehab were great enough to call a special session of Congress and pass some stupid, intrusive law that applies to one individual while there are hundreds of other Americans in a ‘persistent vegetative state.’

Afghanistan was a campaign undertaken for the right reasons, but little positive has come out of it, since there was no plan to finish the job. Most of the country is still ruled by warlords and opium production is the highest it's ever been.

They said Saddam was a threat to us. But he wasn’t, unless you were in Iraq and he didn’t like you. Now, Iraq is a mess, 1700+ U.S. troops killed, 12,000 wounded and the administration says it’s at least 2 more years before we can pull out — partly because Iraq has become a destination for Jihadists from many countries. No imminent threat to the U.S., but thousands will have died, and the long-term threat to the U.S. is likely increased.

Osama? He still seems to be no big deal to W. They didn’t go after him before 9/11, and haven’t done much since.

They said Ashcroft would be a good AG, after being beaten out of his senate seat by a dead man. But he was lame and delusional. In his exit speech, he took credit for ‘making America safe’ but he only made us safe from seeing the breast of the statue of Justice, AFAIK. He presided over the biggest explosion of new laws in history, reducing privacy to an all-time low. And isn’t if tunny how those 700 pages of new laws were ready just weeks after 9/11?

Tom Ridge? A joke. We have a whole new Federal department and it hardly has any credibility with the others.

Tenet got a medal of freedom, so he must’ve done a good job, right?

Colin Powell? A good man, but they didn’t listen to him. Looks like they gave him the job for political reasons, and then didn’t trust him to do it.

Dick Cheney? He cleared Halliburton work directly through his office! He’s slimier than Sprio Agnew, but our expectations are much lower, now.

On the economy, W is a disaster, abandoned by real conservatives for his huge deficits and pandering to Wall Street with Social Security schemes.

What’s going right for the right?

They manged to steal the election...

techweenie........well done. couldn't have done better myself. if you want to run in the next election, you've got my vote. keep me in mind for the next Minister of Peace.

rumsfeld is brilliant, truly he is, but he gives me the heebie jeebies.

Don't forget to mention that Iraq is now a special training ground for insurgents and terrorists. They go there to sharpen their craft; eventually they will leave and use it elsewhere.

Iraq has made us less safe because now they are better fighters. Guerilla wars are the worst to fight because you can't tell the enemy from the friendlies...I don't know how to win one but it seems to me the best thing to do is evacuate the people want to leave and then cut off the area they are inhabiting from all contact. Rope, fence, wall it off. Let 'em stay if they want but don't give them ANYTHING until they surrender. Or carpet bomb them into dust.

Hey; that's just this liberals take on it though.

The best thing we could do right now is pack up and leave.

History has a longer view than yours, and to not even concede that history may have a different view in the unfolding of what no one can deny will be the great struggle of this century -- that between Western civilization and radical Islamicism -- seriously undermines your screed, or rather underlines that it is nothing more than a screed. For we are at the dawn of an epic war. If you think we can avoid that war you are, in my view, mistaken.

I believe we would have been at war in Iraq in the next administration anyway, by force not by choice, by their choosing and not ours, and under far less favorable circumstances than those brought about by our initiation of that inevitable war. As bad as things may look now, how would they have looked when the Iran satraps and the feverish locust waves of Islam swept in to fill the power vacuum left by Saddam Hussein.

Tens of millions of people are free in Afghanistan and an effective protectorate of terror camps has been obliterated. As you say, Afghanistan was necessary. If there are warlords and poppy fields, then there are. So be it. The world is a messy place. But such periods of unease are necessary, or rather unavoidable, in the longer struggle toward human freedom. So you would exchange the warlords and poppies and the freedom, including those for millions of women now being educated and voting, for what was? Again, this struggle is ours one way or another.

Saddam was not a threat? Too many threads have thrashed this question to a pulp. I can add nothing but my restated belief that in many ways he was, and that above all it was necessary to establish that he was not. In any case he was an international criminal censored and blockaded and sanctioned and his continued violations and floutings of law demanded an international response, a removal from power.

Terrorists are congregating in Iraq. Does this mean that without Iraq they would have simply disappeared? Or is the congregation, the pooling of targets for us to kill, somehow worse than having them scattered? If you believe that our actions actually recruited terrorists, or that terrorists would not otherwise be interested and motivated to kill us without Iraq, I cannot agree. Again, I believe it is a terribly short-sighted view that demonstrate either an intentional disregard or indifference to the reality of Islamicism. September 11 came about out of a clear blue sky. There was no provocation for that. Our provocation is not the cause of this war, this epic struggle.

I cannot remark on Ashcroft as “lame and delusional.” This sounds a bit lurid to me. And I have yet to hear a detailed analysis on the Patriot Act and how and why it has injured the privacy rights of the average American. The most notable feature of it was to eliminate the firewall between the FBI and CIA, which had been buttressed by Clinton’s wildly incompetent justice official Jamie Gorelick. As for Ashcroft, was he better or worse than Webster Hubbell? You tell me.

The rest of the litany of personal attacks don’t mean much to me. I can’t comment. Maybe you are correct.

As for the economy, George Bush inherited a recession and promptly faced a near-economic disaster on September 11. But the economy recovered and has largely grown and, with some fits and starts, done quite well. After incessant cries by the media of lost jobs even when this was not true, when it was simply the lone statistical relative "loss" among all the rising economic statistics, the material gain in jobs in the past year has put to rout this liberal cry, at least to those who retain some sense of shame. Recent readings of the leading economic indicators show that more than not have gained and are in better shape than under Bill Clinton’s best years. The inflation rate, interest rates, stock market, employment rate – the principal measure soft economic health – are rather robust. To call the economy a “disaster” is simply false. Bush would have certainly lost the election in November if most Americans felt this to be the case, especially as he carried the burden of a war many think is not going as well as planned. If we accept your premise that the economy is a “disaster”, then there is really no way to explain the loss by John Kerry except in the starkest terms of liberal intellectuial and moral bankruptcy. They had so little to offer the American people that the people chose instead a “disaster.” Now that is something.

But again, time will tell.

Cheers.

Rush is right.

Rush IS right...far right..........

Actually, the apologists for the administration all receive the same "talking points", and most seem unwilling or unable to come up with originality. All the arguments have been made, and no matter what defender is interviewed, one hears the same phrases over and over and over and over.....A positive spin can be put on anything if one selects the data carefully, ignoring those facts that disprove the pre-conceived conclusions. Whether we are "safer" now or not is an unprovable, as are so many things that a current administration claims (reguardless of party) AS for the inevitability of a culture based war, that may be the case as long as both sides consider their ideology the only true path. We already have that war, and it is in Washington DC right now. Until we can get our own house (no pun intended) in order, we will NEVER be able to mount the unified front necessary to prevail.

I will not go into a discussion of the economy. It is simply a personal observation made by each individual based upon their own experiences,and as such reminiscent of the blind men attempting to describe an elephant after allowed to touch only one part.. If the economy is so robust, I wonder why the stock market is so soft? So many factors to consider, and no one has a handle on them all. The answers to simple problems are seldom simple nor correct.

Quote:

Don't forget to mention that Iraq is now a special training ground for insurgents and terrorists. They go there to sharpen their craft; eventually they will leave and use it elsewhere.

I don't know that Iraq ever was the training ground for anything. But one thing is certain now. Iraq is certainly the killing field and the so-called insurgents are recieving outstanding on-the-job training at the expense of the US military and fully funded with US tax dollars.

Now, if we can only convince the conservatives that Saddam didn't have WMD.

rrpjr:

I see no real counter arguments in your statements, and there is one truly egregious mis-statment.

9/11 didn't 'come out of a clear blue sky...' It followed a 1998 fatwah specifically categorizing injustices that OBL observed and set his followers to redress.

http://www.ict.org.il/articles/fatwah.htm

There is a long chain of abuses heaped upon the middle east for which the Western world is paying - the U.S., disproportionately. Our interference; hell, even our help. It all went wrong. Saddam was a useful tool of the CIA. The Shah of Iran was a useful tool of Western interests. We armed, then abandoned the Mujahadeen -- many of whom became OBL's followers.

The "oil for food" program was specifically mentioned by OBL as a motivating factor in his war against the U.S. By his accounts (and others) pehaps 100,000 died by starvation in Iraq every year the program was in place.

It's incredibly naive to buy the administration's repeated statements that OBL is 'a madman' and think 9/11 was unprovoked.

It was provoked, as far as OBL and his followers are concerned. They believe they are fully justified in any action that gets our fingers out of the middle east. They express it in terms of 'believers and infidels' so that the uneducated can understand. But their war is both cultural and economic.

It does us no good to ignore the motives of our enemies. They are prepared to die to punish us, and we have to not only neutralize OBL, but hand off Iraq and get out so they will focus their anger on their brethren. Yes, it sounds cold, but if the middle east is allowed to be truly democratic, fundamentalist governments will be elected and Afghanistan, Iraq and others will be headed right back toward Taliban-like rule. Only Iran, with a decades of progress toward Western-style living, shows proomise as a potentially positive force -- if democracy ever fully blossoms there.

In this context, Saddam was a real lynchpin in the middle east, and taking him out of power will quite possibly turn out to be the absolute worst thing the U.S. could have done to protect its interests there.

(edit for typos)

I'm not 100% endorsing what's said in this interview, but at least the subject had a lot of inside information -- information that somehow didn't get to the majority of Americans.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/071800-102.htm

Bill, don't forget North Korea. By focusing on a minor threat (Saddam) at best, NK now has 4-6 (who knows really!?) nuclear bombs. And negotiations ahve gone really well too! The great bush "ignore them" doctrine will be at least 2 paragraphs in future history books.

But the real deal is that since we're so over-extended militarily, we don't have a big stick anymore. Our big stick is all used up. And even if we did have one, remember our bankers, the Chinese, the guys who are funding our little quagmire over in Iraq, well, I don't think they'd be so keen to lend us the $2B per day to keep our "strong" economy afloat. You see, they are building a major military force, and have seen what a great job we've done in Iraq and yes, they can choose their neighbors, well that just means we've got no stick. It's really hard to argue with your bankers, the ones who will dwarf your economy within 5 years.

And if we wanted to use a carrot instead of a stick, well, just see above. We don't got no carrot neither, just the hole in the ground where it was 5 years ago and a huge note payable to the general store for all kinds of guns to kill any varmints comin' around.

World eco-politics, it doesn't really lend itself very well to one-line slogans: wanted, dead or alive; bring them to justice; and so on...

Good point about NK, Shaun.

I actually had quite a few other things I left out -- you know, saving them for the book ;-)

China is on track to owning us. Heck, they may even buy out the House of Saud's share!

NK will not use their bombs. If they use 1, the DPRK will become a glass memorial.

If Left is right then Right is all that is left...

I think I am strating to change my mind about this war. I was for it but tonight the kids were watching Pochahantas (sp) on TV and Max asked why the English were taken the Indians land. I told him that they thought they needed to be more civilized and to worship a different God and that they were also looking for Gold. "But Dad! They have no right! It ain't theres they should mind their own business!"

I couldn't argue the point. He was right.

Uhhh, this ignores the fact that KJI is crazy. Mutually assured destruction was great in Reagan's time, but you New Right guys have to play by your own new rules. That's all we hear: "new world" (see slogans above), "everything changed..."

You can't have it both ways. And to argue that it's ok for NK to have nukes because you *think* they won't use them, is just plain silly. Maybe you should talk Mike's kids.;)

where's BT, flintstone, or lenn to answer these charges ? i am pretty sure we are just not looking at this right. W & Co. have got a simple explaination for most of what tech cites above. W knows what's best for us and thats a free irak, or was it WMD's, or,,, well what was it again?

Actually I am spending my time in the tropical are of beautiful Australia these days (which certainly does not appear to be the hotbed of anti-military/anti-American/anti-war sentiment that we are led to believe it is on the BB) and have better ways to spend my time.
Actually, the action in Iraq is going quite well. Besides, it is just the same delusional, rehashed BS that has been posted by liberals for the last four years...why waste the time? The elections...in the US, and then in Iraq... proved who was right. You guys just don't know when you are beaten.

I missed you, Weenie.

There was a 5 or 6 month period there where the neocons were all just high-fiving each other and talking in bumperstickers. Wasn't worth the trouble.

Probably still isn't, actually, as Fint's head-in-the-sand post typifies all the 'thinking' you'll get from the least cerebral of the neocon crowd.

Public approval of rthe war? They don't want to discuss it. Publishing the list of the war dead? Well that's treason, doncha know?

1737 U.S. dead, 13,074 wounded. At least two years to go, say the Bushies.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/

Tech, how many dead would be ok with you?

The level of "threat" posed by Saddam warranted zero American deaths, IMHO.

Fair enough, so our troops should only be used in the case of imminent threat (declared war, actual strikes, etc..)?

that's beautiful man.

Not at all.

There are plenty of situations where our troops have a reasonable expectation of success with minimal risk.

Iraq wasn't -- and isn't -- one of them.

Like what? Not arguing, just looking for your perspective on these allowable or acceptable actions.

Well, just take a look at how Bill Clinton used the troops.

Kosovo and Haiti and Macedonia turned out well, despite howls and hand-wringing and dire predictions from the neocons. Somalia? Well, we tried to do the right thing, and when we found out we were not only fighting the warlords, but the population in general, we left. There was a great hue and cry about 19 U.S. deaths, but at least we didn't compound it by continuing to throw troops in harm's way. Lots of people forget that the troops were put into Somalia in the first place by Bush. Sr.

We stayed out of Ethiopia and the Sudan, and I disagree with those decisions, since I think we could have helped, at little risk to ourselves.

As for Bush, I've always supported the about-face on Afghanistan, especially after W went from discussing a $41 million payoff to the Taliban in May of 2001 to an invasion when the Taliban wouldn't turn over OBL. I would have liked to have seen that mission (Afghanistan) accomplished before deploying significant numbers of troops in any other arena.

Tech:

Sorry I failed the standard for the counter--argument. I tried.

As for my "egregious mis-statement," if one more "fatwa" in a profusion of fatwas is supposed to mean something in particular to us or confer legitimacy on barbaric attacks, then I do not agree, and accept with resolute satisfaction my "extreme naivete." While it is always good to pay attention to the ravings of enemies, and I agree that we certainly failed our job of intelligence to decipher the enemy's intent leading up to 9/11, a fatwa does not a righteous cause make. It only makes a fatwa. Yes, perhaps the sky was not so clear and blue, but not because of the clouds of our own so-called incriminating involvement.

If what you say is true about OBL's characterization of the "oil for food" abomination, and I think it is (OBL may even be underestimating the human toll), the proper targets on 9/11 should instead have been the United Nations.

Overall I detect here the old moral equivalence argument -- all the western colonialist, imperialist sins heaped upon the middle-east etc. that are supposed to lend some explanation (or just explanation) to the attack on us. The Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal line. Nevermind that this is morally cattywhompers, it never allows the slightest room for (and in fact studiously avoids) discussion of the far greater sins heaped upon the middle-east by other middle-easterners, and by our attempt to correct some of this, or of the astonishing amount of improvements to life resulting from US technology and presence in many parts of the middle east. For every alienated rich-kid who sends young minions out to martyr themselves for his own delusionary yearnings to be the new Caliph of a savage Messopatamian empire there are thousands of children who have benefited from vaccines supplied by the evil old United States.

Maybe our good intentions are incredibly naive and we'll be routed from Iraq in total disgrace and never be able to show our heads around the world again. But, as I said earlier, a point which was totally ignored, there may -- and I suspect there is -- an historically inexorable quality to this conflict, and that we may see an even far greater, more active US military role around the world under the Hilary Clinton presidency. My prediction.

Sorry if I was inappropriately dismissive of your previous post. I appreciate your response.

I think we as a nation were well aware of the power wielded by OBL at the time of his '98 fatwah -- that it wasn't just another 'missing child' flyer in our mailbox.

I still think it's dangerous to simply dismiss OBL's statements as 'ravings.' If only because they are significant to perhaps 800 million to a billion of the planet's inhabitants.

I do not think there is 'moral equivalence' between the killing of 100,000+ and the killing of 3,000.

As for OBL's "appropriate target" well, everything the UN does is at the behest of the Security Council of which the US is one of five permanent members. The US was seen as the driving force behind the initial invasion of Iraq, and as the prime mover in Oil for Food.

I'm not justifying OBL's actions. I'm simply saying that it makes no sense to keep repeating "madman" as if it was the whole answer.

As for your own 'moral equivalence' counterargument -- the one that says the middle easterners are harder on each other than we (the West) have been to them, well, don't you think generations of internecine tribal war have pretty much proven that the punishment is being shared?

As for the vaccine argument, well, that's a good one. Maybe if those 100,000 or so children hadn't starved to death in Iraq, they could have been saved later.

Western influence is a two-edged sword. It comes with medicine and with technology and with pop culture. To some extent, it's the reaction against Western pop culture that is reinvigorating Islamic fundamentalism. So that now, even Iran, a country that [under the Shah] was 'progressive' in the context of its neighbors has elected a leader that tilts back toward the Ayatolla Khomeini regime in terms of fundamentalist totalitarianism.

The world of the middle east is one where we have little chance of doing good. And even our actions with the best intent have unintended consequences (i.e., our support/abandoment of the Mujahadeen creates al Quaeda).

In my opinion, the only appropriate stance to take with the middle east is containment. But it's too late for that. We're in for years. fighting against people we cannot discern from civilians -- because they are civilians. Fighting against people who want to kill us, but who only reveal their intent whan they take action. Can you say "Vietnam?"

BTW, Hillary will not be President.

I always figured that an "insurgency" needed domestic popular support like in Cuba or China. I never realized that an invasion force of Iraq's citizen killers would be supported by so many US citizens? Especially 'cause they're not being supported by Iraq citizens. I guess the fact that free Iraqis are making slow political and military gains is bad? And the fact that terrorists are gaining power in DC is good? The Rep Sen from Neb didn't exactly explain it that way but he stated "we're losing in Iraq". I further figure that the next few months of drafting an Iraq constitution, then a vote on that constitution, then a Dec election for a permanent gov't will be a waste of time.. just like last Jan's election would lead to failure.

rrpjr, your first post was eloquently written and well thought out, and these lefty peaceniks haven't really responded to any of your points.

What really prompted me to respond was the fact that you are from LA, the capital of the Liberal People's Republic of California. Glad to hear there is at least one other sane-thinking person left in LA. :D

jkarolyi: thanks. It is not yet as bad here as it is in Berkeley (where I occasionally visit and get into arguments). Check out David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture in LA, if you haven't already.

Sheesh, weenie, the wars that the liberals have gotten us into in the past have cost more American lives in a single day than the have been lost in both Iraq wars combined. If you consider Clinton's bombing our old allies in Yugoslavia a couple of days, bombing an asprin factory in the middle east or the cluster f**cks in Haiti or Somalia to be some sort of high water marks in the use of the military....LOL They were litttle more than publicity stunts.......in fact, Bin Laden himself cited Billy's fecklessness in Somalia as inspiration for his fatwa. In each serious matter...Iran, Iraq, N. Korea....and when Bin laden was offered up on a silver platter.....Billy blinked. Now we are stuck with much bigger problems as a result.

The difference is that I and many others work very hard every day to end our action in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorism throughout the world and to prevent more deaths of our soldiers in the field while you provide the enemy as much moral support as possible...while you feign concern over the "soldier's plight." Clearly you are choking on the bitter grapes of your pitiful (Jane Fonda inspired) liberal cause and it's inability to find a person with an iota of leadership or honor to run for office which you attempt to pass off as legitimate concern for the cost of war..... it is your cerebrum that is in the wrong place.

Glad to see your posts are still unsullied by fact, Fint.

What wars have liberals gotten us into in the past?

What war has cost 1800+ American lives in a day?

Bombing the former Yugoslavia cost how many American lives? None.

Bombing a WMD factory only to find it made aspirin still upsets you? It was just a small scale precursor to attacking an entire country only to find no WMDs. No American lives lost vs. 1750+ American lives lost... so far.

Haiti went pretty well, in case your handlers didn't tell you. No American lives lost, and we did some good.

Somalia? Well, Bush1 put us there, and after 19 Americans were killed, Clinton pulled us out.

That story about OBL 'being served up on a platter' is just that -- a story repeated endlessly by the right wing propaganda machine. Never happened.

And what has W done to get rid of OBL? Well, he did topple the Taliban, but he didn't get OBL, and in invading Iraq, gave OBL his biggest recruiting campaign, ever.

Could Clinton have done something more to head off this mess? Well, when he tried, the neocons laughed it off. I'm willing to bet that to this day, W has not fired off more ordnance than Clinton did in attempting to kill OBL.

The neocons had 200 FBL agents investigating his old real estate deals and bimbos. Imagine what those guys could have contributed if they'd been out looking for terrorist cells, instead.

For "W" that would be like killing the cow that gives the milk. Why would GWB want OBL confirmed dead or captured? The fact that he is out there is fueling his neo-con agenda.

Just wanted to let you know that you are doing a horse***** job of it then, all of these things are going seriously in the wrong direction.

fint..respectfully; are you really that full of yourself?

Look, I am not totally committed one way or the other; comments are made that cannot be proven (you make them too), and people who question or disagree are automatically called "unAmerican" or "giving aid to the terrorists" or worse. Ain't necessarily so, friend. There is always room for honest disagreement among rational people. Baiting the "loyal opposition" is a low and dispicable approach, proven to work very well in politics, practiced by every political party that has ever existed.


I sit here sometimes like the proverbial "fly on the wall" and would laugh if these set-in-concrete mindsets weren't so dangerous on all sides. But instead, I simply shake my head and hope some posters are actually "having fun" taking extreme positions to see what happens.

Now please do not disappoint me. Throw some insults and invectives my way. I probably deserve them since I am not a "true believer".

Boy howdy. Either we are fighting people who want us our of their country, or using our soldiers as 'bait' to pull would-be terrorists our of all the surrounding region to attack. I wonder how much influence the U.S. presence in Iraq had on making the Iranian election results swing the way they did?

BTW, when I see people claim 'they're doing all they can to support our troops' it usually means they put a bumpersticker on their car.

"It's the least I can do to support our troops."

"My point exactly."

Anyone really working to support our troops should be working to reverse the Bush administration's draconican policy of VA cuts.

uhhhhh, Viet Nam, Korea, WWII...

uhhhhh, Viet Nam, Korea, WWII...

geeze man, just how tight have you closed your eyes?

Randy

Randy:

All three of the wars you mentioned had far different reasons for happening. Whereas I will not argue the merits of 'Nam and Korea except to "stop the spread of the Red Menace" of the day, and we came to the aid of countries with which we had agreements of mutual aid, but WWII? Did I miss something in history class? Was it the US that attacked the Japanese fleet in Tokyo Harbor? Did the US declare war on Hitler (hint...Germany declared war on us)

Ahhh, revisionist history. So that's it!!


"Tell the same lie over and over with enough conviction and it will eventually become the truth" A.H.