Not much visibility for Dickie lately, and I think it may be because when he's alone in his bunker with just his ink pad and his giant classification stamp, when he turns off Fox Noise and locks Lynne back into her crypt, I think he hears these hounds howling for him, and I think for the first time in his life he grasps that he may go the way of so many tyrants.Because Karma, sweet thing, really is a bitch.
6 comments:
Olaf,
While I tend to agree with your astute observations concerning Islam and the ME situation, I do not buy the fact that this is not a real threat. If we objectively look at the world right now, almost every violent conflict going on has its roots in “radical” Islam. And we can’t blame Bush for that, although many do. (And for the record, I think Bush has been one of if not thee most incompetent presidents ever. Criminal…..no…Idiotic….absolutely!) While undoubtedly, the cold war with the Soviet Union potentially posed a far greater threat to the existence of our nation, not a single shot was ever fired. There were no American casualties. Al Qaeda’s (among other extremist groups) have openly declared war on the west and our way of life. And they ARE shooting, bombing, killing, innocent civilians on our own soil. If we ignore this threat or just refuse to acknowledge it because of the impotent current administration, then we only need to look at the sad state of affairs in the UK right now. That is not how I want to live and attempt to raise my family.
I would also like to refute your comment about “even fool the nation into entering into a war against the weakest nation in the Middle East, which did not possess any threatening means of attack on our country AT ALL. “ Sorry Olaf, but your argument here holds no merit. First of all let me give you a few quotes from the other side of the aisle …..
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear.
We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
"Iraq is a long way from USA but, what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S.Constitution and Laws, to take necessary actions, (including, if appropriate,
air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction
programs."
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002
So, I guess all these folks fooled us as well. Where is your contempt for them? Should they not be held accountable as well? And come on with the “weakest country in the ME”. You have got to be kidding. Is that why they sustained an 8 year long war with Iran, because of their weakness? And invading Kuwait? While I will admit they were no super power of the ME, they were far from weak.
In closing, I will agree that are unfortunate dependence on ME oil is the ultimate key to this entire mess. Sorry this was so long…but your rant was too.
I apologize if I gave the impression that I thought terrorism was not a real threat. My point was that the reaction that the administration tried to evoke from the people was far off the scale and only for the purpose of using fear for consolidation of power. Had they behaved in a more rational manner, we would have established international cooperation with intelligence and policing agencies to make it easier and more effective to detect and then disrupt terrorist cells and plots without having to resort to massive military options, which are largely useless in this kind of situation, with Iraq providing the present example.
Terrorism is definitely a threat, but because of its mobility, bottom up development, and decentralized nature, it cannot be fought with the same mentality that got us through the Cold War.
Iraq was indeed the weakest nation in the Middle East as of 2003. Over a decade of sanctions plus the inspection and destruction of weapons by UNSCOM along with enforcement of no-fly zones had rendered Iraq into a ghost of its power in 1991 when they invaded Kuwait. And it was also a humanitarian disaster with hundreds of thousands of children dying from diseases like cholera. Bush/Cheney knew that Iraq would be a military pushover providing many photo-ops for glory and further pursuit of their police state ambitions, but thanks to their incompetence they failed to reckon with how difficult asymmetrical warfare is do erase if you destroy the existing political and economic infrastructure. The available pool of people with nothing to lose explodes, and an organization like al Qaeda, operating with impunity in Pakistan, is able to fully exploit it.
Very simply, my view is that "war on terror" is nothing more than rhetoric in the service of power. A real war on terror would have taken advantage of the world's support on September 12 to build an international effort to destroy it; instead, Bush wanted to be John Wayne, who, by the way, was also someone who avoided military service.
Man, I have to go from my gut, cause I ain't real good at this stuff. Your verbal sparring here is confusing me. Wasn't Vietnam a product of the Cold War? And aren't there some major problems with violence even here in the good ole USA? We've got stats off the charts. We lead the world in violent crimes, percentage of our population in prison, not to mention so-called gang violence and domestic violence.
And I don't know about all these quotes. They're interesting enough, but what do they really say? When you unpack the bags, what's in them? Toothpaste and air? Ways to poke holes in people? Is that what we all are? Damn, I have no national identity, and yet I do. I just wisht I knew what the heck it was.
I'll say this though, I love a good Olaf rant. One that's focused and dangerous, and risky, and I look forward to the next one.
ddg,
LMAO, nice post. Of course, go with your gut. Go with your "feelings". Don't let pesky facts bother you. This debate was not about domestic issues. I don't dispute at all the problems we have here in the good ole US of A. But there are groups of people in this world that want to kill us en masse. Which was the overall topic of the rant.
And "unpack" those quotes all you want. You completely missed the point. I will slow it down a little bit here for you.....those quotes were from the Democrat side of the aisle. Since Olaf made the statement that Bush fooled the country into war, I was simply offering EVIDENCE from the opposing party PRIOR to Bush sending us to war that WMD's was not just a Bush ploy, it was bi-partisan. If you take that as "toothpaste and air", then good luck to you.
Oh, Anonymous person, thank you so much! Thank you. I just couldn't get it. You know, I am a blonde and all. Those damn Demicruts (sp?) LOL. I wish I had enough brains to keep up with Anonymous people. Those mystery folk behind the curtain. Yanking the chain. Making my toothpaste for me. Thanks to you! Where would be without you? You mean there are people out there who hate Merikuns and want to kill us? I'm shocked.
Why would they think that?
Sorry, Olaf, couldn't resist. I'll behave...sort of...I just can't get the point of conversations, you know. Someone told me that once. Who was that?
There have always been people around the world who have wanted to kill us, but it's pretty goddamned hard to do, bristling as we are with military (now severely weakened, thanks to you-know-who), personal weapons, and a level of paranoia that must rank near the top of the industrialized nations. Shit, we spend MORE than half of the global defense (offense) expenditures all by ourselves! Yes, there are terrorists out there, and their total capacities for mayhem remain pretty feeble. Care to do a body count of dead Muslims versus dead Americans? I'd say we're winning pretty big with a kill ratio of at least 30 or 40 to one, or if the medical journal The Lancet is to be believed, it's closer to 100 to 1.
I'll admit those are some crazy motherfuckers out there who have such a freaky religious delusion that they have to attempt such violence (they fail far, far more than they succeed), but as I've said--it's intelligence and police work and international cooperation that stops terrorism, not the military. You have to operate like the terrorists--surgically, discreetly, lethally. That's not what armies are for.
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