No, that's not what I'm saying. If the rag was looking to protect anyone it would be the Dems (assuming protection was the motive). That's what I was saying.

well, it's sortof the same thing isn't it , you're saying the rag is dem loving, and was protecting the dems

i mean, if they are dem loving , they are pretty much dem now aren't they ?

By affiliation, absolutely. But I assumed we were talking about the national party.

99% of the negative talk about Iraq could also translate to Afganistan. Dems need to be able to badmouth Iraq while defending thir desire to stay in Afganistan. Do you not see the issue there.

If Afganistan gets likened to Iraq in the media the Dems will be forced to call for that pullouty as well.....they know that's a loser with the American people. This is election season you know.

Assuming Occam's Razor, Newsweek determined they'd get more newsstand sales showing the Liebowitz cover here. It's probably as simple as that.

beeing able to badmouth iraq isn't really all that difficult

Afghanistan is not the reason Iraq is went wrong
Iraq is the reason Afghanistan went wrong

i really don't see how you come up with 99% bad vibes is from Afghanistan, it's the other way around

99% of the bad vibes translate to Iraq
if there were no Iraq, the badvibes wouldn't be so bad

desire to stay in Afhganistan , well y'all have no choice
it's either stay there and sort it out
or giving it back to the Taliban, and wait for the next 9/11
(cause you know they are not and did not plan it from Iraq now do ya )

and how are you going to explain that to the public
never mind to the mothers and children of anybody who died there trying to get Osama and his crew, but got shortchanged by those who sent em there?

Could very well be, which is why I posted it as theory (though an obviously more likely theory than Newsweek protecting Bush).

Regardless of why it went wrong the reasons to pull out are the same. Who do you think will take over Iraq if we leave? Careful now, you're starting to sound like a Neo-Con:D

dare I say it?

Stay the course?

Iraq is a completely differnt ball game
if you leave that ****hole alone, it'll turn into a mess, granted
Sunni vs ****ezus

Osama and his gang will never gain the freehaven they got and can get in Afghanistan

that place is something else, since there is nothing there
no oil, no food, just Opium, which is clandestine revenu, meaning AlQaeda revenu

Iraq is Oil revenu , which is not clandestine, which means a proper (not sayign democratic, just a real thing , could just as well be a dictator)governement will eventually arise, simply because somebody wants to get the oil money from the west
and that will never happen with Osama and his boys roaming free, they wouldn't even let it happen

Iraq poses a conflict of interest that cannot be resolved by fanatics, big bucks will spawn some new topdog who will compromise for his own good

Looking back at Weenie's original post, I am confused to why he and Jon Stewart and so many other liberals find it so intriguing that Newsweek's marketing department made a commercial decision to maximize newsstand sales (seems wise to me: Americans are tired of incessant war stories and ROW enjoys American failure). Where's the beef? Why is this interesting?

it's a sign of weakness

Yes, not being able to handle the truth is a sign of weakness.

The concept on the part of Newsweek editors that a (relatively) obscure photographer on the cover would get more Americans to pick up the magazine than a picture of a Taliban fighter is no doubt based on extensive research and experience in publishing. Afghanistan is a 'forgotten war' here at home.

Things are not going well there, and Americans have no stomach for hearing the facts about it.

i'll elaborate , a sign of weakness, but ROW is not looking at it as "woohoo , america is failing" ROW ( meaning not the terrorists and other so called enemy's) are looking at this as the first sign to America correcting it's mistakes

and like some friend who's gone off the rails on booze ,or depression or what not , you have to see em go rock bottom before they can rise back to the former glory...there's no cheering for that, it's just tough love.

keep in mind ,that most Europeans , want this whole Iraq business to go away , it's bad form for everybody involved, and polarizes communities all over the place, both in Europe and in hte US
we simply want things to quiet down instead of escalate

the unfortunate truth is , that to have it quiet down , the current US governement will have to take a knee fall regarding Iraq
or simply get a landslide democratic election , a new prezzy, somebody who can do some reconciling, smoothing things out , and do some diplomatic handywork

Afghanistan will become the primary focus, and if everybody is friendly , NATO and UN will have more resources from the memberstates
and with some luck the mission will then really get accomplished

Here's a question that is related to the thread...sortof.

Why are the journalists who take pictures of taliban fighters or interview Osama bin Laden not held accountable for not turning them in? I know that the press has to remain (supposedly) impartial, but if you are a European or an American, those guys want to kill you and your family too. I saw a piece about a month back where they filmed a hundred or so Taliban fighters praying together out in the open. Hello? Airstrike? One that really got me is about 2 years ago they had film of an Iraqi insurgent firing a mortar at a US base. Now there were US reporters mind you, and they sat by and filmed while an Iraqi launched a live mortar round at THEIR TROOPS.

Maybe I just don't get it, kinda like I don't get how lawyers can use any technicality to get a child molester off who they know is guilty. Maybe that's why I'm not a lawyer or a journalist.

that's the press for ya, they'll do anything for a story
we've all seen pics from Vietnam , from Lebanon in the 80'es , 6 day war in Israel/Egypt, etc etc
for one thing ,reporters are quite brave ( or stupid, depending on how you look at it )

and the Taliban needs to get theirs PR work across, so they will happely oblige if they think the can get a cover ( in some way , they're no different from a rockstar trying to sell a new album )

the fact that they can show their face long enough to be interviewed, the fact that a reporter can setup a meeting ,find them and the troops somehow are not busy bombing the snot out of them
is just a bad sign of how business is running there

if things were right, a reporter would not go round unnoticed
and setup that meeting, the intelligence boys ought to be trailing them , and then take out the badguys ( if said reporter is snuffed, that would be his own problem , next thing , you wouldn't see any taliban on any magazine cover, because reporters would not be so dumb as to put themself in the crosshairs )

I like that idea, Stijn, but can you imagine the outrage if a reporter was killed by US troops while interviewing the Taliban? Yeesh.

It shows the down side of freedom of the press. Not that I would rein in the press; they are one of the only things we have that isn't completely regulated, but it just points out that you gotta take the good with the bad. Remember the old adage:

"Keep you friends close and your enemies even closer".

These "interviews" with the enemy may, at times, reveal things we want to know. Any information source should be welcomed for what it is and judged as to whether it is useful or not.

balls to that, the italian dude that got snuffed by a road block after helping to get some italian hostage out... who's talking about that one now?? bygones...

it's not like the shutterbugs will keep doing it , they're not THAT stupid to keep looking for taliban , if they know there's a B2 in a holding pattern , basically waiting till the reporter "makes contact"...

*Zoomies, this Houndog, target is lit, boomboom is GO*

LOL, if only the US government had the stones to do that...

no offence, they do have the stones to do that
it's been done many times
the problem is they aren't doing it in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a game of Whack a Rat
they sit in caves, every time a dingbat shows his rag
whack
whack
whack
whack

unless they find a way to breed talibans by goatshagging, they gonna run out of dingbats to show the rags...( they don't have women in there , so it's that simple

it's yer basic whack a rat for sure, except they are stickign their head out , and nobody is whacking the hammer fast enough