From Clif, Gulf War I Desert Storm Commander disabled Vet:
Lydia,
I stood in the desert after the end of combat in 1991 and looked around at the death and destruction that we had done to so many of saddam's troops, one scene still haunts me, It was where a low ranking enlisted soldier had been captured by an Iraqi republican guards officer and senior enlisted, they shot the soldier in the back of the head, and almost immediately were killed by some sort of US cluster bomb. I thought it was ironic that they killed a man for trying to escape the Hell that is war but ended up being killed almost in the same moment, I thought it was poetic justice until I remembered Pvt Eddie Slovic from WW2, something changed that day, I started seeing the ghost images of the "enemy" in their fighting positions, the caves they dug in the ground to escape the bombing by the US Air Force, the bomb craters next to tanks where they died, I could imagine in my mind the horror they must have felt being bombed from the air but if they tried to get away they would end up shot.
As bad as the pics of Abu Ghraib look the horror is much greater because the camera never was focused in the interrogation chambers where the real horrors are done.
I have no patience for the chicken-hawks who shill for others to go into these corners of Hell so they can be safe in their minds, because that is where their fear lives.
11:12 AM
clif also said...
If you believe that this current (Bush) government is so interested in freedom take a LONG look at the pictures of the Abu Ghraib prison and ask your self a few questions... What are these prisoners accused of? Are they being charged or just detained? Do they have any "civil rights" if they are in the custody of the US military? Is the treatment of these prisoners in line with the spreading of freedom?Hint almost every person in those pictures has been released, so their crimes must not have been that extreme, so what justified their treatment?( Keep the answers based upon the spread of freedom and the US does no wrong, not flaming about 9-11(these prisoners weren't there), or terrorism, they can't be terrorists because WE invaded their country and destroyed a large section of their society. We do more damage in a month than was done here on 9-11, and we have been there for 35 months. Remember the anger over 9-11 here, YES THE ANGER IS AND WAS JUSTIFIED, but try to imagine the anger some Iraqi's have for what the US arny, US Marine Corp and US Air Force has done to their country. These people did not sponser 9-11 Osama Bin Laden did (he's Saudi) and 15 of the 19 Highjackers were also Saudi, the base of Bin Ladens operation was Afghanistan NOT Iraq. In 1990 Osama offered the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia his services to defend the kingdom against Saddam, but the King chose the US military, and so to Osama's mind slighted him. Osama's real aim is to topple the Saudi monarchy and reestablish the muslim chiaph(sp?) and the agreement bewteen Washington and Riyahd for the US military to defend the Saudi monarchy stands in his way. That is his beef with us. We defend the Saudi monarchy in excahnge for them stabilising the world oil markets. Since this administration is so consumed with 9-11(their justification for everything) why did they remove the only Special Forces team that was fluent in the local dialects from Afganistan and move the unit to Iraq to hunt for Saddam, the SF unit that was the replacement is fluent in spanish, makes you wonder where their real priorities are.
URGENT from Lydia: These shameful pictures of Abu Gahrib somehow seem worse than before; my heart is breaking; I feel overwhelming sadness for America and what we've become. These are human beings first and foremost. No matter what color, race or tribe, we are all brothers on this planet. We must hold bush & co accountable for whatever he is doing. We must get this mad man out of office. We cannot ever allow torture of detainees or "enemy combatants" - or whatever word he uses to circumvent the Geneva Convention. How can we ever be proud of ourselves as a nation again? This is unconscionable. As Darth Worfeus said: "Its a sad day when the industrialized nations of the world we share, who have always looked to the US as a bastion of good, and freedom, now look to us with quaking fear, of our abomidable and unspeakable crimes against humanity."
I am so sick of right-wing so-called "patriots" who dare to think the left are "traitors" because we value human life and abide by deep moral imperatives. We know the difference between right and wrong. You have sold out America for a quick anger fix. Only very primitive people would take the bait, and I guess these are the ones leading our country - Lydia
The guiding principle is the Geneva Convention built from the expierences of the allied prisoners of war at the hands of the NaZis and to a lesser extent the Japanese. What happened was a Nazi or Japanese tactic in WW2 for treatment of POW's and now we are doing it. The simple test for the question of "Are the actions proper"" is does the reversal of the roles: put the prisoners in charge and the soldiers in the prisoners place, how would you feel and do you want US soldiers treated this way? If the answer is no then the actions are wrong. If we don't want it done to our troops then we don't do it to theirs plain and simple.
** THIS IS THE GOLDEN RULE (Lydia)
I don't think our troops welfare is really high on the thought process for the neo-cons both in and out of the Bushco admin, otherwise the fiasco of not enough armor both personnel and vehicle etc wouldn't be happening here. The "support the troops" makes a good campaign-slogan but hard if you have to put money in the troop protection, VA, and support to the returning Guard and reserves, instead of Halliburton, Defense weapon industries that cannot even be used in an insurgency style war, if that is what Iraq is now.
Bush, Rumsfeld don't want to listen to anything as to why the battle in Iraq is not going like they want us to believe. They ignore any historical perspective on the situation: even Churchill realized in 1919 that Iraq as well as the middle east -- was not going to be conqured militarily by any western (christian from the arabs standpoint) power: not Iraq, not Afganistan, and they got out. Also no military power has ever been able to defeat an insurgancy if the insurgants were also the native population, from the American Revolution where Washington et al were the insurgents through vietnam where Ho Chi Mihn and Giap were the insurgenta against the Japanese, French and the US. The only way to defeat an insurgancy is what we did in the 1800's to the american Indian, whole sale slaughter and putting the rest on reservations( in WW2 we called them interment camps) , hopefully we can't even think of trying that, but as the days go by I'm not sure how far the Neo-cons would go to control the energy resources of this planet.
************
Wow, we had over 680 comments on the last post (below). Thank you for all your brilliant ideas; we could solve a lot of Bush's problems with your help (but maybe not Cheney's.) Also, this blog was nominated for 2 Koufax awards. Voting starts soon; details below.
I have a feeling Cheney's initial coverup of this shooting incident was because he didn't want anyone to know that Mrs. Armstrong, the owner of 50,000 acre "quail ranch" is a Washington lobbyist giving Cheney a perk for some reason. I don't know, what do you think?
I am so sad that Paul Hackett dropped out of the Ohio race for Senate; I believe he is EXACTLY what we need and I pray he runs for President in 2008.
Many of you know about Skull and Bones, but last week I was deeply disturbed about even darker secrets I discovered about the secret society that Bush Sr. and Jr. are both members of, as well as John Kerry. I'll post here soon; I have to find it again. I always wondered why Kerry didn't fight the election results; something eerie was afoot and now I realize what it is: Skull and Bones. But what is the nature of the pact they made? What are the vows they take in that windowless tomb? So many missing pieces of the puzzle (including who runs the global economy) are found by looking into Yale's "Bonesmen". These people have very little interest in the lives of ordinary Americans.
This blog is a 2005 Koufax Award Double Nominee!! Thanks to everyone who nominated us!
BEST POST: Cornell's BradBlog article Death Is Sexier than Sex, to Ann Coulter
BEST NEW BLOG 2005 Koufax Award Nominee LydiaCornell.com
BEST POST voting will start soon at: Wampum (vote here for BRADBLOG: Death is Sexier than Sex)
BEST NEW BLOG voting at: Wampum
Be sure to check out this wonderfully generous website (Wampum) and all the nominees.
****************
Just got this from my friend Garth Bishop (Bixxo.com). It's a letter he wrote to the Guardian:
"Ironic to have to read U.S. General Peter Pace's comments in a UK newspaper re Bush administration plans for a "Long War."
This following sentence struck me as odd since Bush created the war himself through the most colossal strategic blunder in history (directed by Karl Rove and V.P Dick Cheney). To quote: "The message from General Peter Pace, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, was apocalyptic. "We are at a critical time in the history of this great country and find ourselves challenged in ways we did not expect. We face a ruthless enemy intent on destroying our way of life and an uncertain future." (my emphasis on "we did not expect")
The Iron Curtain fell more than 40 years after Pres Truman's containment strategy was launched, and any rational intelligent being would have followed the same course to stem the flow of anti-western influences. But it seems that sinister people bent on taking over power permanently have created a "war without end" to accomplish this purpose."
Garth Bishop
Los Angeles
*********************
*Outed CIA officer was working on Iran, intelligence sources say*
*Larisa Alexandrovna*
Published: February 13, 2006
The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY
According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.
Read the rest here:
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Outed_CIA_officer_was_working_on_0213.html
Worfeus said " 4. Know that we know Beer was available during this outing, how much beer did Cheney injest that day?"
ReplyDeleteyour fourth post is the one that interests me the Most Worf, you raised this issue also Kirk. some one with Alcohol in their system would want to lay low until all traces left their system.
It definately looks and smells fishy to me, Cheney has acted arrogant, secretive, condescending and like he is above the law from day one, now I usually like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but like Lydia said in a previous blog, we would trust these guys and cut them some slack if they exhibited some integrity and actually earned that trust, but they dont, so I feel the benefit of the doubt is not warranted.
Exactly, Cheney acts like he is above the law!!!!
ReplyDeleteMike
Anyone see the note about Ann Coulter's voting in the wrong precinct in Florida? Could be legal repercussions if true. Here's a link:
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/95z78
Also says that Coulter moved to Palm Beach to escape stalkers. Hmmmmm. Would have been nice if she had felt concerned about Lydia's potential for stalkers when she posted her personal contact info on her site. What a creep!
Drewl said "Anyone see the note about Ann Coulter's voting in the wrong precinct in Florida? Could be legal repercussions if true. Here's a link:
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/95z78
Also says that Coulter moved to Palm Beach to escape stalkers. Hmmmmm. Would have been nice if she had felt concerned about Lydia's potential for stalkers when she posted her personal contact info on her site. What a creep!"
I have lots of family and relatives in Palm Beach County Florida and I was down in Palm Beach County the day after the 2000 election fiasco, I saw the protests first hand, you would have thought these guys had learned something 4 years later.
As for Coulter moving to Florida, there goes the neighborhood. I hope they dont get blasted by hurricaines this year, but if they do, maybe one can drop a house on that witch or at least blow her off to the land of OZ, I bet midgets and monkeys are right up her alley.
Mike
Back to Hackett for a second, it seems for the last 50 or so years we've been locked into a two party system, is there any way possible to get out of this rut to where an independent actually has a chance, right now it seems the deck is stacked against an independent ever succeeding unless they is a billionaire who could finance their own campaign (and how many people like that would want to be president). Just curious is there any way a good independent candidate can get the financing and support needed to compete against the Repugs and Dems??
ReplyDeleteI think a third choice would help to hkeep both partys honest, or at least MORE honest.
Mike
Voltaire said "That poor, poor, valiant man....
ReplyDeletePutting on such a good show for the doctors while secretly struggling, fighting for his very life...."
You can argue that one till your blue in the face voltaire, but last time I checked being in the hospital with a bullet lodged in the heart was pretty serious, in fact I'll bet if we surveyed all the doctors in our country, not counting Republican Schills in Cheney's back pocket at least 90% would say this is very serious and he could die, they just dont leave a bullet lodged in the heart if it could be removed easily and safely.
Mike
Scott McClellan said yesterday that looking back they could have handled the Cheney incident better, these guys should make that into a bumper sticker, mediocrity is acceptable, these guys are running our country not working at Mcdonalds, to me all the lies and incompetence ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!
ReplyDeleteMike
Like I said before there's NO ACCOUNTABILITY from these guys, to them incompetence and mediocrity are acceptable, and no one calls these guys on their lies and incompetence.
ReplyDeleteThose pics dont surprise me, they disgust me, but dont surprise me one bit.
Mike
This worfeus dufuss guy needs to double up on the Prozac for a couple weeks.
ReplyDeleteMe thinks worfeus dufuss lives on brokeback mountain.This mook has to be a rump ranger.
ReplyDeleteWorfeus said "Oh I'm sorry Mike.
ReplyDeleteDo they not let you talk about this one? "
5:14 PM
Worf, I allready responded to this in my 3:56PM post, I said I found it disgusting, I would have liked to have responded in more detail but a little inconvience known as work got in the way. BTW, who is the "THEY" you are refering to???
I also mentioned accountability Worf and I think its our Government and Military leaders that should be held accountable. Bush and Cheney and the rest of their corrupt administration lie and talk out of both sides of their mouth and until very recently no one has called them on it. Every other word out of Bush's mouth is he is a "WAR PRESIDENT" and he has a RIGHT to do what he is doing because there is a war going on and he needs to keep our citizens safe. Well you know what if it really is a war then those prisoners should be considered prisoners of war and be protected under the Geneva Convention, this hippocrite cant have it both ways, its only a war when it suits him best like when he wants to seize power and its not REALLY a war when they want to torture prisoners.
As far as ALL our troops being corrupt I dont think you could be more wrong, I'm friends with some military personel, (in fact i'm going to lunch with one tomorrow) and I worked with a whole bunch aiding Katrina victims and these are good people that would give you the shirt off their backs. As much as I hate to say this i'm afraid I have to disagree with you and side with Voltaire probably for the first time, I think its our leaders both government and military who are the real bad guys and should be held accountable for these disgusting attrocities, i'll also say that some of our soldiers who would go along with this probably are bad apples and I FEEL they should know better than to just blindly follow orders that are wrong (thats why I could never be in the military, not because I lack courage, but because I never blindly follow orders I know to be wrong) now having said that thats what the military does to people, it brainwashes them not to think for themselves but just to blindly follow their higherups and commanding officers orders. I think Bush and Cheney should not only be impeached and removed from office but thrown in jail and not only for this latest incident you mentioned, they have lied and broken the law many times and need to be held accountable.
Just because I didnt have the time to respond to your post in any kind of detail doesnt mean I support that kind of appalling behavior, I dont want to speak for anyone else either, but I feel pretty confident saying that most of our regulars whose opinions I respect like Kirk, Lydia, Drewl and Johnny would feel the same, I have to say I dont like someone assuming I support something that despicable without even hearing me voice my opinion thats what the Neo Cons do. i'm not saying you implied that, I actually just think you were just frustrated and were trying to ellicit responses but it could have been intreptetted that way. any time you want to bounce around some ideas or discuss a serious issue i'm all ears. I think Lydia's really busy right now and cant spend as much time here as she would like and I think your kind of a leader around here, your a real smart guy who raises a lot of interesting issues, when you say something i sit up and listen because I have a lot of respect for you and value your opinion. Now having said that i'm not going to walk on egg shells around you and watch every word I say, I agree with Johnny when he said that 90% serious issues and 10% fun banter is ok. Like I said before anytime you want to raise a serious issue or bring the thread back to a serious issue i'm all ears, but I think you should cool it with the veiled insults a little, i'm not the enemy, if you dont like what I have to say tough, we cant agree on everything, but I was under the impression we did agree on most things.
Voltaire said "I guess if you guys need to prove how "evil" Chenney is, you're gonna have to sneak in there and hold a pillow over this guys face cause it sure looks like he's gonna be OK. "
ReplyDelete6:18 PM
Well I hope he will be ok, but I dont believe everything I hear and right now, I dont think I buy Cheney's story, as for the doctors opinion, we'll have to see
Voltaire said "Listen asshole, why don't you post pictures of AMERICANS BEHEADED in Iraq and get pissed about THAT?
ReplyDeleteBecause you're just another Communist piece of shit who just can't believe his country could ever do anything decent.
No, YOU just post pictures to arouse hatred of your own country you lying backstabbing bastard."
Voltaire posting pictures of something appalling that should not be going on doesnt mean he hates our country or supports our citizens being beheaded, not only is that riddiculous and quite a strech, but he has said he is for rooting out true terrorists. the war in Iraq is something else.
you still didnt tell me who "THEY WAS"
ReplyDeletepissed frustrated, same difference, i'm frustrated too, I think these guys should be in jail not just having people say what they are doing is not right, but I guess the wheels of justice turn slow.
ReplyDeleteBTW all you got out of that post was the little comment I made in the last paragraph, what about the rest?
I'd like to bang Lydia.....again.
ReplyDeleteLets do a profile on worfeus.
ReplyDelete1- White male, 25-35 years old
2- Either lives with his parents
or in an apartment.
3- Is a least 25 pounds overweight
4- Favorite foods are some sort of
chip and a Mountain Dew type
drink
5- Has'nt washed his hair in at
least three days
6- Has'nt had a "real" date in
two years or more
Ok, see ya tomorrow
ReplyDeleteWorf
ReplyDeleteI failed to see a few of your posts in the previous blog during our chat.
I now owe you one.
Drinks are on me at the "First Annual Lydia Cornell Blog Barbecue & Booze Fest".
Seraph:.......I had to be sure.
ReplyDeleteNeo: Of what?
Seraph: That you are The One.
Neo: You could've just asked.
Seraph: No. You do not truly know someone until you fight them.
Garth Bishop said"But it seems that sinister people bent on taking over power permanently have created a "war without end" to accomplish this purpose."
ReplyDeleteI think this sentence sums up pretty well what is going on today.
Mike
AP 9:14AM Feb 16, 2006 "ENEVA - The United States should shut down the prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay and either release all detainees being held there or bring them to trial, the United Nations said in a report released Thursday.
ReplyDeleteThe report, summarizing an investigation by five U.N. experts, called on the U.S. government “to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention center and to refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
Like I said yesterday, If this is truly a war then these people should be considered prisoners of war and should be protected under the Geneva Convention. You cant have it both ways, either its a war or it isnt. And the sword cuts both ways, if it is a war then Bush and Chenney could be guilty of war crimes.
I remember China and Russia making a statement to the effect that they would not hesitate to treat prisoners like this but they had thought the United States was better than that, and I have to say that I did as well. these prisoners should not be detained indefinately and tortured, if they are guilty they should stand trial.
Mike
"I'm really glad to be here," said Bill Gates to a conference this week. "My other invitation was to go quail hunting with Dick Cheney."
ReplyDeleteWhen Bill Gates is joking about an incident,
Voltaire,
ReplyDeleteThe events at Abu Ghraib were truly disgusting and disturbing. Fortunately the sick criminals (formerly) in uniform have been severely punished, humiliated, and roundly criticized by all Americans.
Contrast this result with what routinely happens after Islamists commit their atrocities on innocents; they become heroes. The mother of three homicide bombers is a heroine throughout the Middle East and has been elected to the Palestinian parliament.
The leftists use Abu Ghraib as a bloody shirt which they can not seem to wave enough. The NY Times ran 31 consecutive front page stories on Abu Ghraib. This is reminiscent at how AlGore and the dhimmicrats attempted to use the hideous dragging death of James Byrd to smear Dubya in the first election.
Thanks for exposing the America-hating fifth column which haunts this site. They give lip service to being patriots and "supporting our troops" but their passion betrays them. They giggle with delight at every opportunity to rip the U.S. and our fine military service men and women.
You are a courageous and articulate man of honor and I salute you.
maybe you should also publish pictures of the bodies in the 9/11 inccident
ReplyDeleteand the bodies of scuicde bomb victims... women, children, babies .... gone beyond recognition
killed for no reason
other than these guys wanted their way or no way..
war is not fair
Obviously Bush, Chenney and many of the other higherups will get some patsy to take the fall for them, but regardless, shouldnt war crimes be an issue with stuff like that going on???
ReplyDeleteMike
dont they call that friendly fire Kirk??
ReplyDeleteMike
I looked at those pictures of Ahu Gahrib and for some reason I was more in shock than when I first saw them. I am so ashamed of the troops who did this. How can anyone harm another human being, when we are all brothers? If America lived by its values and principles, these apply no matter who the enemy is. The enemy is never who we think it is. Until a man has conquered himself, he has conquered nothing.
ReplyDeleteI am still finishing this book, and will be checking in to read all your great stuff.
xoxo
Lydia
FF Kirks post sums up my feelings on this issue pretty well
ReplyDeleteKirk said "As to the beheadings that Voltaire spoke of. No one condones it that I've seen, and yes I agree ( as posted before) that muslim prisons are a worse place to be.
Having said that, it seems both sides have something in their eye. The best thing for me to do (in my opinion) is to try to get the plank out of my eye first. I expect better from my country. In fact I think it's patriotic to DEMAND better. "
FF I think We should be held to a little higher standard than a bunch of crazy barbarians beheading people, dont ya think. I know I think of us as better than that. and while I think the soldiers committing those horrific attrocities were most definately wrong, I blame the higher ups and commanding officers. Soldiers are trained to follow orders from their superiors and not to think for themselves and I think the Higherups should be held accountable not just the patsys taking the fall for them.
Mike
AP 1:25 PM Feb 16 2006 "What happened in the Cheney shooting (All times ET)
ReplyDelete4 p.m.: Vice President Cheney begins an afternoon quail hunt with four other hunters on the private Armstrong Ranch in south Texas. They had been hunting earlier in the day, but took a break for lunch.
6:30 p.m.: Cheney accidentally shoots fellow hunter Harry Whittington while aiming for a bird. Secret Service agents and medical personnel with Cheney tend to wounds on Whittington’s face, neck and chest.
7:20 p.m.: An ambulance takes Whittington to Christus Spohn Hospital Kleburg.
7:30 p.m.: White House chief of staff Andrew Card tells President Bush there was an accident, but Card is unaware Cheney was involved.
7:50 p.m.: The head of the Secret Service office in McAllen, Texas, calls the Kenedy County sheriff to report the accident. The sheriff asks to speak to Cheney, and they schedule an interview for 9 a.m. Sunday. At the White House, presidential aide Karl Rove tells Bush that Cheney was the shooter, after talking to ranch owner Katharine Armstrong.
Source: The Associated Press • Print this
Chenney claimed the Sun was in his eyes
He said Whittington was dressed properly in blaze orange and the upper part of his body was visible, but that he was standing in a gully with the sun behind him, which affected his view."
Dont know about you but at 6:30PM in mid February I find it a little far fetched that the blazing sun would be shining in someone's eyes and blinding them. dusk is around 5:30PM, 6PM at the latest. Now i'm not Perry Mason or Columbo, but the facts just dont add up, 2+2 doesnt equal 5.
Mike
Intersting how the Cheney chronology started at 4PM and he convieniently left out that 1 lunchtime beer he claimed to have had.
ReplyDeleteMike
Maybe Cheney should give up hunting for a good hobby like .... Drinking
ReplyDeletelets see now,
ReplyDelete1) Cheney claimed the blazing sun was shining in his eyes and blinding him at 6:30PM
2) Cheney claimed the victim was 30 yards away, when we know it is almost impossible for a pellet to knock a man off his feet and pierce the breast bone at 30 yards.
3) Cheney claimed to have only had one beer, yet he failed to disclose the incident or meet with law enforcement till the following day, well beyond the window when traces of alcohol would be detected.
draw your own conclusions???
Mike
...while I think the soldiers committing those horrific attrocities were most definately wrong, I blame the higher ups and commanding officers. Soldiers are trained to follow orders from their superiors and not to think for themselves...
ReplyDelete-Mike
While I agree that the "buck stops with the President", after a certain amount of nauseating repetition, the cheap political purpose of the leftists becomes crystal.
U.S. soldiers are absolutely not trained to blindly follow orders. Our servicemen swear to obey the U.S. Constitution and the lawful orders of their superiors.
Obviously as has been discussed before, you have never been in the military, they program you to follow orders.
ReplyDeleteIf the higher ups were totally incompetent and had no clue what was going on and the inmates were running the asylum then they are still at fault, but I dont buy it, I think those troops were ordered to torture the prisoners.
I seem to remember the Bush administration making a case a while back that they werent really prisoners of war, they were detainees and thus the Geneva convention did not apply and they could torture these people. but Bush and his cronnies hushed it up and tried to keep it out of the media as much as possible.
Mike
didnt notice that, I guess your right Kirk.
ReplyDeleteMike
quote :
ReplyDeleteyou have never been in the military, they program you to follow orders.
hey bud!! not so
Only the SS, Gestapo, and NKVD are trained as unthinking machines but Not allied troops.
The Nuremburg trials outlined that clearly
I was talking about basic training when when I said they program troops to follow orders. Of course they say troops are are not supposed to blindly follow orders that are evil or wrong and I strongly believe this to be true. But defying orders from a superior officer may be the right thing to do, but its definately a slippery slope.
ReplyDeleteMike
Worfeus said "Former CIA Operative Bob Baer said on Hardball we are flying people all over the world.
ReplyDeleteThen torturing them. When Mathhews asked him what happened to them, he said many of them are taken outback and their throats are cut and the bodies burned."
Worf do you know what i'm talking about in my 11:13AM post, I seem to remember the Bush administration trying to circumvent the Geneva convention and justify torture by categorizing these prisoners as "detainees" and flying them to all different places, do you know what i'm talking about, i'll try and research it tonight or tomorrow if I have time, but I figured you would know what i'm talking about. not sure if it was Rummy or who it was but I remember some of the higher ups making a case for torture then, they totally hushed up on the subject. if so its kind of hard to blame what went on on the hired help being out of control if these guys made a conscious case to support it.
Mike
AP 4:11PM Feb 16, 2006 "Earlier in the day, White House spokesman Scott McClellan hinted at a “good discussion going on” with lawmakers and praised in particular “some good ideas” presented by Sen. Mike DeWine. The Ohio Republican has suggested the FISA law be changed to accommodate the NSA program.
ReplyDeleteMcClellan: No significant changes
However, McClellan left the impression that any deal would not allow for significant changes. He said the White House continued to maintain that Bush does not need Congress’ approval to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping and that the president would resist any legislation that might compromise the program.
“There’s kind of a high bar to overcome,” McClellan said. “We think there’s some good ideas, but we have not seen actual legislation.”
Separately, the Justice Department has strongly discouraged the Senate Judiciary Committee from calling former Attorney General John Ashcroft and his deputy to testify about the surveillance program, saying they won’t have new information for Congress about it.
Just as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could not talk about the administration’s internal deliberations when he appeared before the committee earlier this month, neither can Ashcroft nor his former No. 2, James Comey, Assistant Attorney General William Moschella said in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa."
Unbelievable looks like congress just caved in, what a bunch of cowards. So much for checks and balances, what do we need the legislative and judicial branches for if the executive branch is calling all the shots, we may as well eliminate them and save some money.
Amazing, these guys are telling congress what they do and dont have the right to do and basically refusing to testify and they get away with it. Gonzalez and Ashcroft should be arrested for obstructing justice if they REFUSE to testify.
These guys are basically saying to either change the law to accomodate them or else they dont have to obey it anyway and so far they;ve gotten away with it, I WANT TO KNOW WHERE THE ACCOUNTABILITY IS?????
Mike
NOW I"M PISSED.
ReplyDeleteMike
Freedom Fan said
ReplyDelete"Our servicemen swear to obey the U.S. Constitution and the lawful orders of their superiors."
This is getting ridiculous!
I suggest the average infantryman may have enormous difficulty defining "lawful" when confronted by educated and superior ranking officers.
I have spoken with (many e-mail's) the most highly decorated American soldier in the Korean War...Col. Anthony B. Herbert..173d Airborne...Vietnam. He begs to differ with you.
His subordinate..Capt.Mike De Gurky sent me (unrequested by myself) a free autographed poem book he wrote.
Herbert's refusal to follow the program and agree with unlawful orders reached Nixon himself and (allegedly) almost cost him his life.
Decorated by Truman himself, Eleanor Roosevelt earlier gave Herbert this advice: The Army will try to use you...dont let them!
Anthony B Herbert
"Soldier" 1973
Nevertheless, some muslim scum deserve to have their turbans ripped.; their wacky man.
P.S Herbert also met Otto Skorzeny.
Guys about the pics of Abu Grabie(SP?) I was a company commander in Desert Storm so I am not a left wing commie pinko, that out of the way lets get a perspective,
ReplyDeleteBefore the pics, the jihadists flew planes into buildings and beheaded people, now that some of their fathers brothers uncles buddies and neighbors have been humiliated internationally by members of the US Army throuygh a wink and a nod about the geneva convention , WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK THEY WILL DO TO AMERICAN SOLDIERS NEXT TIMEW THEY GET SOME,
The soldiers from the trans company and the two helo pilots from the war were not treated very bad compared to the Iraqis in the prison, but next time some poor GI is captured they are in for hell and we can't ask for Geneva convention we therw that out the window.
I had to learn alot about how to treat EPW's(enemy prisoner of war) and EXACTLY why we do this. The guiding principle is the geneva convention built from the expierences of the allied prisoners of war at the hands of the NaZis and to a lesser extent the Japanese. What happened was a Nazi or Japanese tactic in WW@ for treatment of POW's and now we are doing it.
The simple test for the question of are the actions proper is does the reversal of the rolesof the actors, put the prisoners in charge and the soldiers in the prisoners place, how would you feel and do you want US soldiers treated this way If the answer is no then the actions are wrong.
If we don't want it done to our troops then we don't do it to theirs plain and simple
Respectfully Cliff, you do not write like an officer; I could be wrong.
ReplyDeleteHaving intensely studied the Russian Front, abuse of prisoners intensifies from either side depending how each one treats the other, therefore, I do agree with you.
I was, however a head injury from the gulf was makes some things harder, I'm 100% VA disabled
ReplyDeleteI salute you Cliff...if you are real.
ReplyDeletePlease allow me to point out that some Canadians are just as guilty as some Americans when it comes to injustice in war.
ReplyDeleteWorfeus what I'm saying is the Radical Islamists were not nice before the pics and now they have at least one legitimate reason to be pissed off, You went on a rant yesterday about these pics, try to fit your head around how people who really don't like us already feel if the people in the pics are their relatives neighbors or friends, what I'm saying it is not even in our own self interest to have our troops doing this but I don't think our troops welfare is really high on the thought process for the neo-cons both in and out of the Bushco admin, otherwise the fiasco of not enough armor both personnel and vehicle etc wouldn't be happening here. The support the troops makes a good campaign slogan but hard if you have to put money in the troop protection, VA, and support to the returning Guard and reserves, instead of Halliburton, Defence weapon industries that can not even be used in an insurgency style if war that is what Iraq is now, Bush, Rumsfeld don't want to listen to anything as to why the battle in Iraq is not goping like the want us to believe, and ignore any historical perspective on the situation, even Churchill realised in 1919 that Iraq as well as the middle east was not going to be conqured militarily by any western (christian from the arabs standpoint) power, not Iraq, not Afganistan, and they got out. Also no military power has ever been able to defeat an insurgancy if the insurgants were also the native population, from the american Revolution where Washington et al were the insurgents through vietnam where Ho Chi Mihn and Giap were the insurgenta against the Japanese, French and the US. The only way to defeat an insurgancy is what we did in the 1800's to the american Indian, whole sale slaughter and putting the rest on reservations( in WW2 we called them interment camps) , hopefully we can't even think of trying that, but as the days go by I'm not sure how far the Neo-cons would go to control the energy resources of this planet.
ReplyDeleteW, I'm the same clif that had USA Patriot at TP on the run one night if you are the same Worfeus
ReplyDeleteOff topic but curious, where is Lynn Cheney after all this has to be the most traumatic thing Dick Cheney has ever done, where is his wife to defend him like she defended her daughter after the debate, I really wonder if the real story was Dick got caught and he was trying to keep the truth from Lynn Cheney about the hunting trip with the Ambassador to Switzerland, and the mess is he didn't think the national implications through.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside might the secret secure UNDISCLOSED location have anything to do with the American embassy in Bern?
Just a thought i had.
I dont know about this one Worf... a little fishy to me.
ReplyDeleteI blame Lydia and her illusions for giving me hope on this one.
ReplyDeleteThank you Cliff, I was very moved by your post about the Golden Rule. And Worfeus & Mike -- if Bush is allowing torture like this, we have to do something NOW. We have to stop our government because we have crossed the line and we are as bad as the Nazis.
ReplyDeleteI feel it is true. I am going to post your comments, Mikes and Worfeus on the blog.
xo
Johnny; Worfeus and I trolled a troll to death, he quit using that moniker after the chicken-hawking we gave him, was fun but didn't get rid of the stench in DC
ReplyDeleteExtremely strange an officer would care to address you rather than my Herbert points :D
ReplyDeleteWorf
ReplyDeleteNo joking - is he real or not?
EXCELLENT WORF !
ReplyDeleteI unreservedly stand behind you.
My instincts intially told me he was Okay until you doubted.
ReplyDeleteExactly Worf.
ReplyDeleteCliff
ReplyDeleteRespectfully.... do you feel true peace is achievable?
Our servicemen swear to obey the U.S. Constitution and the lawful orders of their superiors.
ReplyDelete-Freedom Fan
This is getting ridiculous!
I suggest the average infantryman may have enormous difficulty defining "lawful" when confronted by educated and superior ranking officers.
-Johnny Moo²
Agreed, sometimes it is difficult to do what is right legally and morally. But that is why we were given free will by our Creator. While your anecdote is nice these are the facts:
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).
-Oath of enlistment, U.S. Military
"I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God." (DA Form 71, 1 August 1959, for officers.)
-Commissioned officer's oath, U.S. Military
Every serviceman has access to the UCMJ; if you don't violate it, there is no basis for prosecution. On a practical level, do you really think any of the participants doubted that what they were doing was morally reprehensible? But you're right; that is getting ridiculous.
Johnny It is acording to what peace you talk about, After GW1 I was diagnosed with PTSD and spend a couple of years in sort of hell but through help from a whole lot of people I've achieved a senerity that I can live with in, if you mean peace through out the entire world I'm not really sure we can get 6.5 billion people to live together and get along, because there are always a few that want to take advantage of the rest and a few more that will do the first groups bidding, Greed etc plays a big role along with a persons sence of inadequacy which if the person is in a place of power whether Nixon or Bush etc they will play their inner insecurities out on the national and world stage, The neo-cons want to control the energy sources of this planet thus maximise their wealth but bush is trying to out do his daddy and he thinks conquring Iraq would do that for him, his demand for all yes men is also tied to his insecurity, but his drinking is also.
ReplyDeleteCliff -- Yes George Bush is a dry drunk, or maybe not so dry. He never surrendered his ego and gained a modicum of humility. Sounds like you know the 12-steps, which I believe everyone could benefit from: how to get along in this world and be of love and service. The best route to spiritual and emotional serenity (finding "God").
ReplyDeleteOUTSTANDING CLIFF! :O
ReplyDeleteTold you Lydia!
CLIFF said:
..."If you mean peace through out the entire world I'm not really sure we can get 6.5 billion people to live together and get along, because there are always a few that want to take advantage of the rest and a few more that will do the first groups bidding, Greed etc plays a big role along with a persons sence of inadequacy....."
Drinks are on me Cliff :D
Have to be Dr Pepper that is as hard as I go now
ReplyDeleteWorfeus Saddam converted his oil sales to the Euro in 2000 and got attacked in 2003, Syria has no oil to speak of but this month converted to the Euro for its international exchange, Iran is coing to open an oil market to compete with the NY ans london exchanges and to boot they are going to use Euros, If the world can buy oil with Euros they won’t need dollars and then they will dump the dollars on the worlds currency market causing the dollars value to fall causing the costs of oil for us to rise, also the ability for the US to service its $8,000,000,000,000(yes there are that many zeros) debt to become difficult if not impossible, leading to either a rapid devaluation of the dollar to the euro,yen etc ala germany in the 1924-1929 period or the “bankrupcy” of the US government on its debt thus no more world borrowing for deficiets, a samll war or two to these neo-cons mind is a small price for their continued control especially if they don’t have to fight it.
ReplyDeleteI posted this at think progress but here just as well.
"And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed - I'm unplugged - a new man, so to speak, like you, apparently free."
ReplyDeleteNeo: Congratulations.
Smith: Thank you. But as you well know, appearances can be deceiving, which brings me back to the reason why we're here. We're not here because we're free, we're here because we're not free. There's no escaping reason, no denying purpose - because as we both know, without purpose, we would not exist.
It is purpose that created us,
Purpose that connects us,
Purpose that pulls us,
That guides us,
That drives us,
It is purpose that defines,
Purpose that binds us.
Smith: We're here because of you, Mister Anderson, we're here to take from you what you tried to take from us.
Purpose.
Honestly? Yes, I doubt they thought it was morally reprehensible.
ReplyDeleteFrom the study of human psychology we have learned that ALL humans at ALL times think what they are doing is right.
-worfeus
This is absurd; give me your source.
Criminal intent is legally established primarily on the basis of whether the perpetrator knew or was capable of knowing what he did was was wrong.
Actually what you have isolated for all is the essential difference between Liberals and Conservatives.
Conservative's lives are founded upon broad moral principles which are determined far in advance of when they need to be applied.
Whereas liberals simply act how they feel like acting at the moment. They scoff at moral principals and talk a lot about "nuance" as if that concept were superior to consistency and truth.
For Conservatives, freedom is very important because it is essential to allowing the exercise of free will. In turn, free will is the essence of humanity; it is the characteristic which distinguishes humans from the rest of Creation.
Liberals are ambivalent about freedom. They take it for granted and assume when a Conservative talks about it, it is just some sort of propaganda. Liberals always think that someone else is responsible for their own lives and happiness; the will rarely accept personal responsibility for their actions. Your puppet-puppeteer analogy expresses this core liberal belief succinctly.
Thanks for your candor.
Lydia
ReplyDeleteYour quick to agree, but not so readily to take on Johnny moo moo?
Cliff, your 3:34PM and 4:29PM posts were fantastic, I agree 100% with everything you said, the Neo Con's dont give a rats ass about our troops, because if they did like you said they would not be circumventing the Geneva convention and they would be providing them with body armor and adequate equipment and would not be cutting funding to the VA during a war yet. also interesting and refreshing to see how a soldier who was actually over there fighting could still take the time to see things from the Iraqi's perspective, I dont think FF or any of the other trolls would dare to say Cliff is not a patriot, but if they do then they are even stupider than I give them credit for being.
ReplyDeleteI am so sick and tired of hearing hippocritical chicken hawks like FF spout the same outdated partisan rhetoric that the Right Wing is for the military and for fiscal responsibility when if you look at the facts you see how laughable and riddiculous those claims are, its nice to see a guy who has actually earned a right to voice an opinion on these issues speak the truth and call BS.
BTW welcome to the blog buddy, good to have you here!!
Conservative's lives are founded upon broad moral principles which are determined far in advance of when they need to be applied.
ReplyDeleteAnd thus you prove Bush and Cheney aren't conservative, thank you for that.
For Conservatives, freedom is very important because it is essential to allowing the exercise of free will.
Unless that free will is in conflict with the stated principles of the conservatives then they decry all the "Freedom" of the liberals
Liberals are ambivalent about freedom. They take it for granted and assume when a Conservative talks about it, it is just some sort of propaganda. Liberals always think that someone else is responsible for their own lives and happiness; the will rarely accept personal responsibility for their actions.
Are you now accusing George Bush and Dick Cheney of being Liberals?
Your puppet-puppeteer analogy expresses this core liberal belief succinctly.
Karl Rove puppeteer, Congress puppet?
Criminal intent is legally established primarily on the basis of whether the perpetrator knew or was capable of knowing what he did was was wrong.
Thus Cheney had criminal intent when he failed to followe Texas law. Thank you for clearing that up also.
You should have your own Blog you do so well.
FF, there was an old psycological study I believe from the 1950's where a psychologist would tell someone participating in the study to keep administering progessively stronger shocks to another person who was supposedly in another room, much to the people conducting the experiments surprise the vast majority of partipants kept administering greater shocks despite pleading and cries of pain and agony and even when the peson being shocked yelled "my heart" leaving little doubt that he was having a heart attack and then went silent like he had died the participant kept administering higher voltage shocks just because the experimenter told him to.
ReplyDeleteNow when people from our government who seem important and have an official capacity tell us things MOST PEOPLE tend to accept what they say as true and believe them, even if they use deceptive processes like groupthink, word association, misinformation, propaganda, stereotyping etc.. and you would be surprised at how far and the extent of the evil these people are willing to commit simply because they are told it is right by some one who seems important or has an official capacity.
BTW this is a very well known experiment that should be quite easy for you to find if you are half as smart as you pretend to be. But i'm sure you allready know this, just as you are perfectly aware of what is really going on, even though you deny it and attempt to justify it, because people like you are part of the problem, not the cure.
They both selectively edit their respective "GOD GIVEN" texts.
ReplyDeleteLydia great post on the blog, you tied everything together and summarized it perfectly, and your right i'm more appalled everytime I look at those photos as well.
ReplyDeleteand FF if these prisoners or detainees or what ever you choose to call them are really guilty then they should stand trial and be accountable for their crimes, but they should not be held indefinately and tortured.
see the bush administration isnt big on proof or following the law, lets take a stroll down memory lane and look at their track record, first they lied to justify the war,then when most of the world failed to support us they advocated a preemptive attack, now think how ridiculous a premptive attack is, thats like if I say that I have a feeling in my big toe that that chicken hawk FF means to do me serious harm so I act premptively and go over his house with a baseball bat and bash his skull in with a baseball bat, according to Bush and co its ok, right I mean I was just PROTECTING myself right, he's real big on protection right??. All you get out of this kind of twisted mentality is chaos and lawlessness, just what we now have in Iraq.
next they riddiculed and marginalized the United Nations. following this they claimed "well me went into Iraq on "MISINFORMATION" but as long as we are here we owe it to them to liberate them from an oppresive dictator and install democracy. Circumventing the Geneva Convention and torturing Iraqi's seems a funny way to deliver them from an oppressive tyrant, but who am I to judge these true patriots running our country right??
Next Bush breaks the law by authorizing a warrantless spying program on our citizens and uses fear tactics to try and justify it, while arrogantly saying he has the right to do it and while his lackies Ashcroft and Gonzalez arrogantly obstruct justice by refusing to testify.
Next lets see, Cheney leaks classified information, then theres the lies about Abramoff, McClellan lying about that and about Cheney having alcohol etc... i'm growing weary and disgusted but see the pattern.
Voltaire because the pentagon did a pr investigation focusing on one general and several low ranking troops but the same things went on other places some of which we don't even know where because they are kept secret. The leadership in the Army and DOD were more interested in getting the story to go away than actually having a full open investigation, Gen. Miller wasn't properly investigated and the enlisted troops couldn't have done what is shown in the pics with out a hell of a lot of people knowing including a lot of Officers and as a former Company commander, the officers on duty at the time ARE responsible because as an Officer I had the responsibility to report any violation of the regulations(rules to civilians) each and every time I saw or heard that it happened. This included the Intelligence Officers that show up in the photos. The Uniformed Code Of Military Justice does not allow anything different and the supervisors and orricers could each be court-martisled for derliction of duty as well as conduct unbecomming of an Officer, or Non-commisioned officer as the case may be. The truth was not cleared and as such "covered over but not up" This will still come back to haunt us, even now the UN is finding the prison at Gitmo(where the tactics that were used at abu Grabide came from ala Gen. Miller)is in violation of UN rules on human rights as well as the Geneva Convention. Remember if we don't want US troops exposed to this next time they fall into enemy hands we need to stop it and clean up the mess we have now, to do otherwise is to leave US troops open to the same with out any recourse because the same red cross we hope to aid our troops if they are captured is being blocked at Gitmo in violation of thr Geneva Convention.
ReplyDeleteAnd what about the warrantless spy program, did Congress just total cave in on this one. How can they tolerate McClellan saying either Congress authorizes just the way they want it or Bush and co will just blow them off and claim they have the authority to do it anyway, and Ashcroft and Gonzalez arrogantly thumb their nose in Congress's face by saying they dont have to testify because it might compromise national security (they should ask Chene3y about that one)
ReplyDeletetheres a scary pattern here, these guys are out to seize power, we might very well be seeing the nazi's come into to power and everyone is just playing dead. I'm positive this warrantless spy program is a lot more than it seems, if the Republicans just side with things like this out of blind partisan loyalty then shame on them for what might happen next, because the only way to stop these evil people from leading us down this dark path is to shine the light of day down that dark path and expose what is really going on and to to it in the early stages before it is too late.
and FF one last thing while I am proud to be an American I am ashamed to be associated with despicable monsters like Bush and Cheney.
Cliff said "The leadership in the Army and DOD were more interested in getting the story to go away than actually having a full open investigation, Gen. Miller wasn't properly investigated and the enlisted troops couldn't have done what is shown in the pics with out a hell of a lot of people knowing including a lot of Officers and as a former Company commander, the officers on duty at the time ARE responsible because as an Officer I had the responsibility to report any violation of the regulations(rules to civilians) each and every time I saw or heard that it happened.
ReplyDeletethanks Cliff, I think its fairly obvious that this wasnt just a few low level storm troopers running amuk, i'm sure the higher ups had full knowledge and condoned andsupported what went on, and when I say higher ups I mean all the way up to the white house.
Voltaire said "And World War 3 may just be what is REQUIRED. Islam is a POISON that infects mens minds."
ReplyDeleteVoltaire, thats pretty easy to say when your not over there putting your life on the line on a daily basis.
Voltaire how much of the Koran have you actually read?
ReplyDeleteI wonder how far in the past Mr.Voltaire is thinking how about the 30's 40's 50's 60's during the Jim Crow period and all the good white christian southern baptists brotherly love for their good black christian southern baptist brothers and sisters/
ReplyDeleteWorfeus said "That Do unto others thingy?
ReplyDeleteYou remember from Sunday School, right"
Putting yourself in someone else shoes and seeing things from their perspective is not a sign of weakness, its a sign of maturity and intelligence. unfortunately the current administration is a couple of power mad spoiled brats that cant see past their own greed and arrogance, they are all about achieving what they want and imposing their will in any way possible.
I respect your military service, however from your previous posts I think we have a very large divergence in our philosophies.
ReplyDeleteYes I expect the people in the military to follow all the regulations not just the ones they like just as I expect All citizens to follow the law including those who think their above it.
you know something Voltaire, I actually think i'd miss you if you stopped coming here.
ReplyDeleteVoltaire, there are certainly a lot of crazy wacko Muslims, i'm not going to deny that, but were making mainstream moderate muslims hate us, think if unother country dropped a bomb on your house or you say family members and friends being tortured in your own country by members of this country's military, wouldnt you hate them and want revenge???
ReplyDeletewell what about these prisoners, if there guilty of being terrorists then we should present the evidence at trial and let that decide their fate, not just imprison them indefinately and torture them.
ReplyDeletevoltair said....clif said...
ReplyDelete"Voltaire how much of the Koran have you actually read?"
As much as I can stomach in small doses, and I go back when I must to refresh my memory...
7:52 PM
Try to read it with out the partican slant and with an open mind, you don't have to agree it is the word of God but understand alot of people put faith in the words in the book and only a few are violating its principles,
Both side have people who preach selective passages from their particular religious texts with out actually living the true meaning, and they usually preach for others to do what they have not the testicular fortitude to do themselves.
To actually see every person on this planet as a child of god is an herasy to both sides fundementalist extremes.
But Jesus did preach differently (his sermon on the mount for example)and Mohammed did not deny Jesus was a prophet.
The example of Jesus, the Lords prayer(the only prayer attributed directly to jesus in the bible) and the example of the sermon on the mount, stand in stark contrast to the ranting and raving about some of GOD's other children on this planet by some rather (unjesus like) people who preport to be followers of the Christ.
Voltaire try this site;
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sftt.us/phpbb2/index.php
There are more than a few radical right spouting here they actually try and help soldiers of all services not just build egos.
Worf said
ReplyDelete"Actually I take that back. Hers looks more like the back of a Hustler mag."
How do you know what the back of a Hustler mag looks like Worf? :D
Good, someone with a pulse and a backbone
ReplyDeleteJohnny, whats up buddy?
ReplyDeleteCliff
ReplyDeleteThanx for helping me in getting Lydia to consider taking a red pill.
You are a worthy opponent in defeating Johnny moo moo on our purpose and meaning in life . Perhaps we may debate on this sometime.
Take care
Im toast
Nite everyone
Mike
ReplyDeleteIm toast man.
Stay frosty.!
Yeah, i'm excited, i've been saying i'm slightly more optomistic lately, but its still an uphill battle, Bush has been stacking the deck against us while everyone's been sleeping, I just hope these guys are ready to roll up their sleeves and actually fight, cause thats what its going to take to beat these deceivers.
ReplyDeleteWow, this blog's been up 1 1/2 days and theres allready 300 posts, and there was some really good discussions, particularly today.
ReplyDeleteold snot nosed scotty aint gonna be happy tomorrow, wonder if he'll be all arrogant and cocky and proclaim his majesty Lord Bush has a right to do what he is doing and they are defying the court order.
ReplyDeleteyeah, Voltaire's ok, I dont agree with him on most things, but he's not that bad of a guy, FF on the other hand, TROLL with a capital T.
ReplyDeleteWorfeus they are going to appeal to the circut court and the the supreme court just like they did with Cheney's energy give away secret meeting, it is a good start but they aren't done and given the current make-up of the SCOTUS I for one am not as optmistic as you are,
ReplyDeleteno, but he stops in about once or twice a week, flings a few insults and focuses on one little inconsistency in an otherwise sound arguement then runs and hides for a week with out defending his position on any of the hippocritical statements he made.
ReplyDeletei've seen his kind before, snd theyre very transparent and easy to figure out.
ReplyDeletedisgusting, and these guys claim they went in there for the benevolent reason of liberating the Iraqi's from an oppressive dictator and to install democracy.?????
ReplyDeletewhat hippocrits!!!!!
Makes you wonder what si bring done at Gitmo and the places that we don't know about, the same general that brought these ideas to this prison ran Gitmo.
ReplyDeleteWorfeus This couldn't be a few soldiers on the night shift because if you look at the background plus the cuts, scars, burns the day shift crew HAD to see it, the company commander must have during his walk through, the platoon seargent because he is required to check his soldiers, the first seargent same as CO, These people HAD to see signs that would call out for an imediate investigation every time they entered the prison where these prisoners were held. Since this was a US military prison in an combat zone the Geneva Convention applied and the Company Commander and First Seargent are required by DOD and Army regulations to enforce the Geneva Convention, and take actions when ever they see members of their command violating it. Also inspections and visits by higher ups would find the same things.
ReplyDeleteWorf, I could tell from the tone of Lydia's post on the main blog how appalled she is. She is well aware of the tactics the Nazi's and Stalin used as they seized power (you are as well i'm sure), how they dehumanized people and brainwashed or intimidated the masses into believing that torturing or killing whole groups of people was acceptable or a good thing. things like that always happen slowly and the people propogating them always claim to have good motives and paint the enemy as evil and try to say its either "us or them". people painting things as black and white and proposing simple solutions to complex problems always scare me, and I think theres good reason to be scared.
ReplyDeleteClif, I think the coruption goes right to the top, I seem too remember a senior official from the Bush administration (cant remember if it was Rummsfeld or not) advocating torture as a tool to fight the war on terror, the advocated using torture on these people to get them to talk, then they kind of hushed up about it and swept it under the table.
ReplyDeletejust like the warrantless spying thing these guys jumped on the war on terror babdwagon and are hiding behind it to justify anything and everything they feel like doing.
Later Worf I'm outa here also
ReplyDeleteFF: I hate to pile on here, but these broad generalizations about liberals do this and conservatives do that are kind of childish.
ReplyDelete-Kirk12
[So since I'm kinda childish, here are some of my personal favorite generalizations, but please don't ever call me a hypocritical "liberal"…c'mon I sit in the "middle-of-the-road" and I understand "nuance"]:
Liberal -- Tax and Spend
Conservative -- Borrow from the Chinese and Spend
[True, Republicans have some explaining to do in this area. But I'll vote for a dhimmicrat just as soon as one suggests cutting a few government programs and reducing the size of our bloated government…um …waiting…]
Liberal -- Sense of Urgency to help the poor and disenfranchised--even to a fault
[Yes indeed, liberals are very generous…with Conservatives' money! Liberals think that only government can do good things--not individuals--certainly not eevil corporations. Therefore individuals have to be liberated from more and more of their earnings.]
Conservative -- Sense of Urgency to cut taxes on the wealthy--always to a fault
[When you pass across-the-board tax cuts, then folks who are already paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes, of course, will benefit more than those who pay little or no taxes or even negative taxes. To do otherwise only would serve to make our tax law more steeply progressive and further punish producers who will simply leave or dramatically reduce productivity like they have in France and much of the rest of Europe. The Bush tax break is one of the primary reasons why the U.S. economy is currently so robust. Those in the top 5% of income earners pay over half of all personal income taxes . What a liberal can never seem to tell me is what percentage of one's income is too much to pay in taxes-this is impossible to answer for a liberal running for political office.]
Liberal -- Unwilling to force their personal tastes on others by legislation
[OK this is utterly ridiculous. Ever heard of the ACLU? The jihad on the Boy Scouts or the denial of any form of religious expression on public property? All the money being spent to persecute the Tobacco companies? Outlawing outdoor smoking in public places? Anti-gun legislation and attempts to bankrupt the firearm industry? How about the lawsuits against fast food companies for making kids fat? How about the renegade activist 9th Circuit Court which almost always has its opinions overturned upon appeal? Roe vs. Wade-ever find abortion mention in the Constitution? The concept of the Constitution as a "living, breathing" document which means whatever Liberals want it to mean, not what the founders meant.]
Conservative -- "Fred and Bob in New York getting married is a bigger threat to your family than the fact that your autistic son can't get health insurance."
[Marriage exists now as it has for thousands of years; heterosexual marriage is not an invention of Conservatives. Gays already have virtually all the benefits of marriage in the form of Registered Domestic Partnerships which are available in most states. What they don't get to use is the word "marriage" which essentially mandates state-sponsored acceptance of the gay lifestyle. Not sure what the autistic son's health insurance has to do with government unless you are advocating nationalized health insurance a la HillaryCare.]
Liberal -- Realize that the word freedom means allowing people to sometimes do things that may offend others sensibilities, but those things don't actually harm anyone else.
Conservatives -- believe the word freedom means the freedom to be just like every other conservative.....and if you're not there's obviously something wrong with you that maybe a prayer group or a donation to the 700 club can solve.
[Apparently this is what liberals believe that Conservatives believe, but it is bogus. Economic freedom means allowing a person to make a living any legal way he wants without unreasonable rules for obtaining the governments' permission or having to pay the government confiscatory taxes. The socialism that Liberals love is the mortal enemy of economic Freedom because it eliminates economic choices; the government decides how to spend what you have earned.
Social freedom means allowing a person to do anything socially which does not infringe on someone else's freedom. However Freedom also includes the right to offend other people, such as drawing offensive cartoons, or saying offensive things. Liberals will bankrupt a company whose employees say offensive things which constitute a "hostile work environment". Liberals will expel a student who is guilty of "hate speech" (disagreeing with his goofy liberal professors.) Freedom also includes the right to criticize people who do or say stoopid things. However, Freedom does not include forcing taxpayers to fund blasphemous art or pay the salary of sick college professors like ward churchill, who suggest that his countrymen who died in a terror attack deserved what they got.]
Liberal -- love America like an adult....seeing all it's flaws and demanding that it strive to improve.
Conservative -- love America like a 4 year old loves its daddy....or like a Stepford wife does .It can do no wrong (Love it or Leave it).
[No, I think it is more like Ann Coulter said: Liberals love America like O.J. loved Nicole. Actually, Liberals love America like a guy loves his wife…but only provided she get enormous fake boobs, collagen lips, a tummy tuck, a face lift and a hubba hubba hiney-in other words someone who is completely different. Liberals love America as they hope she eventually becomes in their imagination not as she actually exists and not for all the wonderful things she has already done. Liberals see only her flaws which they constantly criticize like a wicked parent who emotionally cripples his child by continually degrading and humiliating her. The fantasy-America Liberals love is completely different from the real one that which Conservatives love…you know the America which has a wonderful Constitution and a proud heritage of defending and promoting Freedom around the world.]
Liberal -- Think that a 14 year old girl who is raped by her high school teacher should be allowed to have an abortion.
Conservative -- Think abortion on demand is wrong-- until their daughter gets knocked up and then they go away for a " 3 day weekend vacation" to a nearby large city.
[Actually, Conservatives think the Constitution means what it says in the 10th amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." Conservatives don't find anything in the Constitution about abortion, so they believe we should either amend the Constitution or leave the matter to the states in accordance with the 10th amendment. Also unlike liberals like barbara boxer, Conservatives get a bit squeamish about the prospect of sucking the brains out of a viable third trimester infant during the course of a premature delivery.]
Liberal -- believe the death penalty is morally wrong as well as pragmatically useless as it has never been shown to act as a deterrent to crime.
Conservative -- believe that "vengeance is mine, says the Lord!" is the one part of the Bible that is actually up for interpretation.
[Actually Conservatives believe that a perpetrator would hesitate to take another person's life if he knew he would quickly meet a similar fate (wouldn't you?). If a murderer knows that he might not be caught and even if he is, that the ACLU will make sure that the appeals process lasts 20 years, then yeah this proly won't serve a much deterrent before he blows away the Korean-American clerk with a shotgun at the local convenience store. Liberals like Rose Bird believe in ignoring the death penalty law, scorning the will of the overwhelmingly majority of California voters. I don't.]
The bottom line: Conservatives believe in accepting personal responsibility for achieving happiness; Liberals believe in blaming evil "puppeteers" for their failures (thanks worf, that's a keeper).
I think you are misguided, but basically a decent and honorable person, not a kool-aid drinker. So thanks for playing.
Duhhhh......Im like..duh..dumb!
ReplyDeleteSince Lydia seems to enjoy pointing out who is smart then I shall do the same.
I feel Kirk is an excellent moderate who has a very sharp and keen intellect. GLAD YOUR HERE:)
I remember giving Voltaire a fair chance while others simply labelled him a troll.
Although I do not always agree with Freedom Fan, I feel he has been reasonably civil and composed while under attack. His comments, right or wrong, are welcome here...impossible to learn from each other if we dont communicate.
No one was even speaking to Cliff until I gave him the benfit of the doubt.
But Im dumb...duhhhhhhh.
But, I do have hope after reading Victor Frankl - my new mission in life is to become a SMART GUY :D
Where do I start? :o
Worf said
ReplyDelete"Today, because of public outrage, a US FEDERAL JUDGE has ORDERED THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, to turn over documents or explain what the hell he is doing spying on us all."
WOW!
...Unless that free will is in conflict with the stated principles of the conservatives then they decry all the "Freedom" of the liberals...
ReplyDelete-Cliff
Apparently you confuse the propensity of Conservatives to be judgemental when Liberals do and say bonehead things, with demands to silence opposing viewpoints. The latter is what libs are famous for doing.
From the study of human psychology we have learned that ALL humans at ALL times think what they are doing is right.
ReplyDelete-worfeus
I can't educate you buddy. If you don't understand the binary nature of the Human Brain, I suggest you attend a Universtity where they don't teach you the world was created in 7 days.
-worfeus
“Binary nature of the human brain”? But I thought you folks believed in nuance not absolutes. The university I attended taught us to be careful when making sweeping generalizations using such words as “All” and “Every”. For example, if you see such words on a multiple choice exam, those choices are almost always false. Apparently the “ universtity” you attended did not teach similar lessons.
BTW congratulations on attending college. My undergraduate degree is in biology...yours? So you see I really have little use for your attempts to “educate” me, especially about matters which only involve knowing one’s own mind. Perhaps you are familiar with the concept of having a “conscience”? Maybe you even had one at some point.
The pattern I see with you is that you say outrageous things which you cannot support and then resort to an arsenal of logical fallacies when challenged. You have already used most of the common ones in the list; as you are now you are attempting the “Appeal to Authority” gambit. The problem for you is that logical fallacies only work if your opponent doesn’t grasp what you are doing; it is transparently obvious that you routinely spout nonsense that you can’t defend.
I have a sister who lives in San Fransicko who has a M.S. in psychology; she has practiced as a clinical psychologist for over 30 years; written several books; currently has a radio program. She also believes in horoscopes and is a flaming moonbat. I love her but she is seriously full of shit. You two would hit it off immediately. So I have a lifelong intimate understanding of how liberals think; I know the liberal thought process which consistently leads to your bogus conclusions.
But I don’t talk politics with family or friends, which is why I’m here. I am grateful to Ms. Cornell for allowing the uncensored exchange of ideas on her blog. This is what folks do when they are not afraid of truth; in such an environment truth eventually becomes apparent to anyone who is genuinely interested in knowing it.
Johnny Moo Moo -- I was referring to one of Mike's quotes about the prison pictures that I was going to post on the blog, but posted Cliff's and Worfeus and didn't want to leave MIke's out, cuz he started Geneva Convention stuff.... since I described the other two, I described Mike too. I added you, so I'll look for a quote from you on this subject when I have time.
ReplyDeleteAlso Johnny, you keep challenging me to explain how on earth world peace can work for 6 billion warring people on this planet. Each of us can only take care of our own side of the street, one day at a time. If each of us practiced these principles of making peace in our own small lives, with our families, friends, and business associates -- it would make a huge difference. That's why I think the 12-steps are the best practical answer to spreading peace one step at a time. Like Nicosi Jones said: "Do the best that you can,in the time that you have, in the place that you are." and I honestly think that the way humans can touch divine coincidence is by getting outside of our own selfish egos and helping others. Miracles start to happen when we do charitable acts. Also: always resist fighting, turn the other cheek and answer people without getting defensive, get our egos out of the way, learn the path of peace where you are.
Prayer REALLY changes things; if you don't believe it, of course it will not work for you, because belief (faith) is the key.
Pray by expressing love, radiate love outwardly toward your friends and enemies. From within to without. I try to disarm enemies (people whose feelings are hurt and are retaliating in anger to cover their hurt feelings) by sending them compassion, rather than attacking them. Otherwise it's just two primitive idiots with their egos in the way.
ReplyDeleteFF said,
ReplyDeleteThe university I attended taught us to be careful when making sweeping generalizations using such words as “All” and “Every”.
really guy then explain this:
So I have a lifelong intimate understanding of how liberals think; I know the liberal thought process which consistently leads to your bogus conclusions.
You take ONE repeat ONE person and extend her thought process to every person YOU describe as liberal , if that is not a "sweeping generalisation" then what is?
Apparently you confuse the propensity of Conservatives to be judgemental when Liberals do and say bonehead things, with demands to silence opposing viewpoints. The latter is what libs are famous for doing.
Another sweeping generalisation I believe.
No, I think it is more like Ann Coulter said:
Quoting Ann Coulter who makes a living on broad generalisations(most of which are not based on facts) undercuts your assertion of having the truth for us all.
Conservatives love…you know the America which has a wonderful Constitution and a proud heritage of defending and promoting Freedom around the world.
Tell that to the vietnamese when the US was compliciant in reestablishing the French colonial power in the late 1940's instead of allowing the vietnamese independence,
or to the Chilian citizens where the US government funded and trained the military overthrough of a duly elected government,
or to the people of Iran where in 1954 the US government overthrew another elected government to reestablish the p[ower of the Shah,
or tell that to the Venesulains where the present US government is trying to destabilise the elected government,
or tell it to the Hatians where they forced out the elected president in 2003 and undermined that system,
or tell it to any of the central ameriacn nations where various us governments have routinely sent US troops to topple democratically elected governments to prop up "banana dictators",
Me thinks you don't know much about the True history of this country,
I haven't even started about the freedom the nation granted to minorities in the majority of the 19 and 20th centuries.
Also FF if you believe that this current government is so interested in freedom take a LONG look at the pictures of the Abu Graibe prison and ask your self a few questions...
ReplyDeleteWhat are these prisoners accused of?
Are they being charged or just detained?
Do they have any "civil rights" if they are in the custody of the US military?
Is the treatment of these prisoners in line with the spreading of freedom?
Hint almost every person in those pictures has been released, so their crimes must not have been that extreme, so what justified their treatment?( Keep the answers based upon the spread of freedom and the US does no wrong, not flaming about 9-11(these prisoners weren't there), or terrorism, they can't be terrorists because WE invaded their country and destroyed a large section of their society. We do more damage in a month than was done here on 9-11, and we have been there for 35 months. Remember the anger over 9-11 here, YES THE ANGER IS AND WAS JUSTIFIED, but try to imagine the anger some Iraqi's have for what the US arny, US Marine Corp and US Air Force has done to their country. These people did not sponser 9-11 Osama Bin Laden did (he's Saudi) and 15 of the 19 Highjackers were also Saudi, the base of Bin Ladens operation was Afganistan NOT Iraq. In 1990 Osama offered the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia his services to defend the kingdom against Saddam, but the King chose the US military, and so to Osama's mind slighted him. Osama's real aim is to topple the Saudi monarchy and reestablish the muslim chiaph(sp?) and the agreement bewteen Washington and Riyahd for the US military to defend the Saudi monarchy stands in his way. That is his beef with us. We defend the Saudi monarchy in excahnge for them stabilising the world oil markets.Since this administration is so consumed with 9-11(their justificsation for everything) why did they remove the only Special Forces team that was fluent in the local dialects from afganistan and move the unit to Iraq to hunt for Saddam, the SF unit that was the replacement is fluent in spanish, makes you wonder where their real priorities are.
Kirk -- please read my post above about prayer. This was for you.
ReplyDeleteTO EVERYONE ELSE: when I use the word "idiot" I am referring to Bush and company, and all people who engage in the politics of personal destruction based on ego -- not DEBATE. I love the debate that goes on here; this is healthy. I'm talking about looking your enemy in the eye during a standoff (I had a horrible fight with a stranger once and the minute I got out of my ego and looked at him with compassion he felt it and totally melted. ) I NEVER REFER TO ANYONE HERE AS AN IDIOT. I love you all!!
WOW CLIFF - GREAT POST; here it is again. Sorry I interrupted it.
ReplyDeleteclif said...
Also FF if you believe that this current government is so interested in freedom take a LONG look at the pictures of the Abu Graibe prison and ask your self a few questions...
What are these prisoners accused of?
Are they being charged or just detained?
Do they have any "civil rights" if they are in the custody of the US military?
Is the treatment of these prisoners in line with the spreading of freedom?
Hint almost every person in those pictures has been released, so their crimes must not have been that extreme, so what justified their treatment?( Keep the answers based upon the spread of freedom and the US does no wrong, not flaming about 9-11(these prisoners weren't there), or terrorism, they can't be terrorists because WE invaded their country and destroyed a large section of their society. We do more damage in a month than was done here on 9-11, and we have been there for 35 months. Remember the anger over 9-11 here, YES THE ANGER IS AND WAS JUSTIFIED, but try to imagine the anger some Iraqi's have for what the US arny, US Marine Corp and US Air Force has done to their country. These people did not sponser 9-11 Osama Bin Laden did (he's Saudi) and 15 of the 19 Highjackers were also Saudi, the base of Bin Ladens operation was Afganistan NOT Iraq. In 1990 Osama offered the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia his services to defend the kingdom against Saddam, but the King chose the US military, and so to Osama's mind slighted him. Osama's real aim is to topple the Saudi monarchy and reestablish the muslim chiaph(sp?) and the agreement bewteen Washington and Riyahd for the US military to defend the Saudi monarchy stands in his way. That is his beef with us. We defend the Saudi monarchy in excahnge for them stabilising the world oil markets.Since this administration is so consumed with 9-11(their justificsation for everything) why did they remove the only Special Forces team that was fluent in the local dialects from afganistan and move the unit to Iraq to hunt for Saddam, the SF unit that was the replacement is fluent in spanish, makes you wonder where their real priorities are.
Worf where did ole FF go, he seemed so knowledgable(LOL), I just wanted to exchange some of the contents of my synaptic links, for some of his synaptic links, to see which ones could stand the light of day side by side. He won't play, do you think he is scared, or just waiting for the email of rebuttles?
ReplyDeleteLydia,
ReplyDeleteI stood in the desert after the end of combat in 1991 and looked around at the death and destruction that we had done to so many of saddam's troops, one scene still haunts me, It was where a low ranking enlisted soldier had been captured by an Iraqi republican guards officer and senior enlisted, they shot the soldier in the back of the head, and almost immediately were killed by some sort of US cluster bomb. I thought it was ironic that they killed a man for trying to escape the Hell that is war but ended up being killed almost in the same moment, I thought it was poetic justice until I remembered Pvt Eddie Slovic from WW2, something changed that day, I started seeing the ghost images of the "enemy" in their fighting positions, the caves they dug in the ground to escape the bombing by the US Air Force, the bomb craters next to tanks where they died, I could imagine in my mind the horror they must have felt being bombed from the air but if they tried to get away they would end up shot.
As bad as the pics of Abu Graibe look the horrer is much greater because the camera never was focused in the interrogation chambers where the real horrors are done.
I have no patience for the chicken-hawks who shrill for others to go into these corners of Hell so they can be safe in their minds, because that is where their fear lives.
Worf not as bad as living it
ReplyDeleteCliff -- I'm going to post those two on the blog right now, if that's okay.
ReplyDeleteWell I've got to go soon I 've got a 9 year old and she wants to talk about kittens and puppies you know the Important things.
ReplyDeleteLydia go ahead
ReplyDeleteThank you for the excellent writing by everyone on this blog. I am sending my buddies over here who have been very confused lately over what to believe about our involvement in Iraq. You may be helping to change people's minds. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteHi Clif,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all let me thank you for your service to our country. But I admit being somewhat confused that you are a liberal, and regret being on the opposite team from someone like yourself.
Worf where did ole FF go...He won't play, do you think he is scared, or just waiting for the email of rebuttles?
-Clif
No actually I'm right here; glad to play. But my priority is not to respond to you; rather it is to keep my little corporation going, play in 3 bands and spend time with my family. Unfortunately I am not a synapse-impaired conscience-free liberal who has the luxury of living on Ms. Cornell's blog while I dazzle you with inane bullshit, experiment with clever animated GIFs, and bill the taxpayers for my time as a government contractor in Washington D.C.
I get bored quickly with irrelevant superficial talk about personalities. Most of this talk is politically motivated and becomes stale rapidly. Eg. Cheney shot his lawyer, why didn't you tell the press sooner, were you drunk, yada yada. Some of the jokes were funny most are predictable.
You take ONE repeat ONE person and extend her thought process to every person YOU describe as liberal , if that is not a "sweeping generalisation" then what is?
-Clif
Quite right; I made a sweeping generalization, but note that I did not use the word "all". Perhaps my statement is better qualified:
So I have a lifelong intimate understanding of how [almost all] liberals think; I know the liberal thought process which consistently leads to your [almost always] bogus conclusions.
-Freedom Fan
However, my understanding of liberals v Conservatives is not based upon the knowledge of just one person. Rather it is a conclusion I have reached after much study and a fascination with attempting to answer this question:
"How do two intelligent people, genuinely interested establishing truth, study the same facts and arrive at opposite conclusions?"
To me it is obvious that these folks are starting with different premises and values, the essence of which I have attempted to define. True I do so in ways that are not flattering to liberals, but that is part of the fun.
Perhaps my understanding is mistaken. If so, feel free to enlighten me with the "real" snark-free answer to this fundamental philosophical question.
...bill the taxpayers for my time as a government contractor in Washington D.C...
ReplyDeleteLOL.
Guess when you're out of ammunition you just start making things up.
-Worfeus
Worfeus naturally I was speaking hypothetically. Frankly I'm shocked, shocked that you would identify with this statement.
I am pretty sure there are only three or four government contractors working in the capital.
No doubt you spend all your time sharing witty gems on this blog without any compensation whatsoever, while you simultaneously run all seven or eight of your thriving businesses, and boogie with the babes all night. Most impressive indeed.
Also FF if you believe that this current government is so interested in freedom take a LONG look at the pictures of the Abu Graibe prison and ask your self a few questions...
ReplyDeleteWhat are these prisoners accused of?
Are they being charged or just detained?
Do they have any "civil rights" if they are in the custody of the US military?
Is the treatment of these prisoners in line with the spreading of freedom?
-Clif
The events at Abu Ghraib were truly disgusting and disturbing. Fortunately the sick criminals (formerly) in uniform have been severely punished, humiliated, and roundly criticized by all Americans.
...
The leftists use Abu Ghraib as a bloody shirt which they can not seem to wave enough. The NY Times ran 31 consecutive front page stories on Abu Ghraib. This is reminiscent at how AlGore and the dhimmicrats attempted to use the hideous dragging death of James Byrd to smear Dubya in the first election.
-Freedom Fan
Clif, you're right everyone agrees that the treatment of prisoners at Abu Graib was shameful and served to undermine our war effort and its ultimate objective of spreading democracy throughout the Middle East and safety at home. But it was properly handled long ago. Liberals who continue to delight in waving the bloody shirt are just using it to beat up their political opponents. This disgusting practice is also not in the best interests of the U.S.
I am grateful for your service to our nation, but if you are now supporting leftists like cindy sheehan who believe that "this country is not worth dying for", or imbeciles like michael moore who believe "there is no terrorist threat in this country" then you and I are not on the same team.
"How do two intelligent people, genuinely interested establishing truth, study the same facts and arrive at opposite conclusions?"
ReplyDeleteBecause we aren't studying the same facts. I understand the history of the western world doesn't start at the end of WW@ and understand that the US military has been used MANY times to interfere with the internal political and economics of a lot of nations around the world to support the US corporations.
Worf where did ole FF go, he seemed so knowledgable(LOL), I just wanted to exchange some of the contents of my synaptic links, for some of his synaptic links, to see which ones could stand the light of day side by side. He won't play, do you think he is scared, or just waiting for the email of rebuttles?
10:53 AM
The synaptic links I mentioned have nothing to do with liberal or conservative, but you had to go to another generalization; to whit;
But I admit being somewhat confused that you are a liberal, and regret being on the opposite team from someone like yourself.
I don't see myself on a team unless the discussion of the full truth is a team, and then you place yourself outside that team, suit yourself.
If someone does not agree with you they are liberal, wrong, but understandable given your disecting the entire world as us conservative americans against all others, liberals Islamists communists et al.
On some things I am probanly more conservative than you for one I do not believe it is in the best interests of the country for the government to be giving major corporations tax breaks or grants because it distorts the markets and gives the officers of said corporations incentives to do things that are not truely good for the investors or workers but just to artificially add to the bottom line in the quarter or year of the government programs.
bill the taxpayers for my time as a government contractor in Washington D.C.
Sorry not in DC, not a contractor just 100% disabled from Desert Storm.
To me it is obvious that these folks are starting with different premises and values, the essence of which I have attempted to define. True I do so in ways that are not flattering to liberals, but that is part of the fun
You left out different sources of information, I rarely go to the MSM for info because that is a highly filtered source, all of them especially Fox, and Rush has been discredited so many times that he to me is a propogandist and not credible. More entertainment than any substance, worse on the right than moore is on the left.
So I have a lifelong intimate understanding of how [almost all] liberals think; I know the liberal thought process which consistently leads to your [almost always] bogus conclusions.
I do not understand how the facts that I have presented can be considered as liberal, the historical facts that I present is with out political afiliation, the relevance some one attaches to the fact comes apriori to the facts the select to defend their position. I have not stated a political position but the history of certain US political moves made through the use of the US military which has led to rather disasterous results sometimes decades later and related an understanding as to the emotional reactions the people who were on the recieving end of the military actions showed.
History is not political, but the editing of history for political gamesmanmship is disengenous, maybe that is why someone who does not edit history as you seem to do is seen by you as on a different team, but as Joe Friday says "just the facts" I add "all of them please".
I am grateful for your service to our nation, but if you are now supporting leftists like cindy sheehan who believe that "this country is not worth dying for", or imbeciles like michael moore who believe "there is no terrorist threat in this country" then you and I are not on the same team.
ReplyDeleteCan you reference any where I mentioneed Cindy Sheehan?
If you can't then I would suggest you are putting elements into the discussion that I have not Ala Rush Limbaugh, and would consider your arguements as credible
Clif, you're right everyone agrees that the treatment of prisoners at Abu Graib was shameful and served to undermine our war effort and its ultimate objective of spreading democracy throughout the Middle East and safety at home. But it was properly handled long ago.
ReplyDeleteMany are asking why and how the photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib got in the hands of a small television station in Australia. The answer may lie in the decisions of the Bush Administration to allow senior officials escape punishment while forcing low-ranking soldiers to take the fall.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the use of military working dogs during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay when Major General Geoffrey Miller was the base commander. Miller then brought that technique with him in his efforts to “Gitmo-ize” Abu Ghraib.
But just last month, Gen. Miller took the military equivalent of the 5th Amendment and refused to testify at the trial of two soldiers accused of using attack dogs to injure and intimidate prisoners.
Donald Rumsfeld is still Secretary of Defense. General Miller is still in charge of detainee operations in Iraq. But nine low-ranking soldiers have been convicted of abuse, and now these two dog handlers were left to hold the bag. That may be too much for some soldiers in possession of Abu Ghraib photos and videos, and may have led them to seek other avenues to hold high-ranking officials accountable in this tragedy.
– Ken Gude
What he said, the Officer who brought the techniques used in Abu Graibe from Gitmo has been promoted to command all detention facilities in Iraq not stand trial for his actions and an Officer taking the fifth does not look good on his character or candor, but since he was operating on the orders of the pentagon he gets a pass.
Worfeus said;
ReplyDeleteFor instance, suppose I was wanted to destroy American Naval vessels and deploy Nukes in the centers of major citys.
Wouldn't the shipping ports of New York, Philly, Baltimore, Miami, etc make attractive targets?
Lets say I got some type of operational control of the harbors and security operations and day to day maintenence.
I deploy a bunch of American made Security Buoys in the harbors, each containing nuclear devices or dirty bombs.
Worf it is not that easy the bouys would be like smoke alarms to certain satelites we have, no "nuke" could be openly placed, I have some expierence with "special weapons" as the military calls them there are ways but to discuss them in open is not wise.
Worfeus a simpler scenario would be blow up an LPG tanker in Boston Harbor , would make the expierence of N.O. look like a picnic
ReplyDeleteWow Worf, thats mindboggling, i'll have to let that sink in a while before I could even formulate a question or response. What could they be thinking trusting a company controlled by a middle eastern gov to provide security, thats got my head spinning.
ReplyDeleteCliff, I remember hearing rumors a while back that the terrorist wanted to blow up a LNG tanker or terminal or a passenger cruise ship.
ReplyDeleteA full LPG tanker is equivalent to a small nuke and it would be as easy as the USS Cole to ignite but the city of Boston would for all practicle purposes be a memory, when the LPG tankers come in to port the security is immence but given the "new" operators how hard for a less that trust worthy individual to slip in like they did in Yemen?
ReplyDeleteCliff, those were some good posts today, FF will be ignoring you pretty soon also like he does to anyone who picks apart his hysterical rhetoric, when some one calls his BS or presents a valid point he cant refute he flings a few insults and runs and hides for about a week then comes back and points out one minor inconsistency in a completely sound string of posts or debates semantics and thinks its a victory.
ReplyDeleteAs far as i'm concerned he could post the same robotic rhetoric and sterotypical labels his warped mind uses to define what he considers a liberal (which is really anyone who does not agree with him) interspersed with a few different insults every five days and i'd never know the difference.
What I find amusing is he doesnt have the guts to call you unpatriotic or a coward like he does everone else, and Worf, i'll concede that he has every right to be here, but as far as i'm concerned he adds nothing of substance to the blog and in my opinion he is the biggest hippocritical chicken hawk troll on this site and he wont have my respect till he can coherently and logically defend his position with facts and rebutt some of the points I called him on in previous blogs.
btw Cliff, how did you find this blog??
Wrof posted about it at Think Progress a blog I've been at for a short while, He and I trolled a troll one night and the troll quit using that particular moniker, a small victory but they won't show up in person for a little one on one ( I get to use what the military taught me and so do they) LOL
ReplyDeleteI guess what I want to ask and i'm going to be blunt here is what is our governments motivation for this, is it about an oil deal, money, or do our government officials want something bad to happen to take the heat off of them and justify all the terrible things they are doing like the domestic spy program, torture of prisoners, war in Iraq etc...
ReplyDeleteClif said "He and I trolled a troll one night and the troll quit using that particular moniker, a small victory but they won't show up in person for a little one on one"
ReplyDeletedoesnt surprise me a bit.
Clif is LPG the same as LNG, and if so arent most of the terminals particularly the newer ones built out in the ocean with underground pipelines to bring the LNG into the cities.
even if this company is on the level it doesnt look right having a middle eastern country provide security. thats like asking the fox to guard the chicken coop.
ReplyDeleteLPG is liquified petrolium gas and the port of boston has the ship inside the city to unload. LNG is liquid natural gas, I'm not sure if the names are interchangable.
ReplyDeletegod thats scary, theres close to a million people in Boston, I remember hearing talk that terrorists could use those Stinger missiles (i think) to blow up LNG terminals, cruise ships and shoot down planes.
ReplyDeleteI honestly think this deal is about money(what drives every one of them) and security is not important enough for them to cut out a profit. I don't believe they even try to imagine anything bad because then the money becomes blood money after the next attack and they can't drink enough to clear their consciousness(hunting or not), so they'll rationalise the deal for the loot and hope for the best. Almost the same mind set as in Enron keep proping up the whole mess while milking it for every last dime and hope not to get caught, and conviently forget to remember anybody who gets caught. In the game of high stakes money anyone is capable of being thrown under the bus if everybody else keeps "winning". And as long as these good people keep getting higher stock prices bigger dividends and lower taxes they think they have won. Nothing else is relevant in their matrix, money is how they keep score, and the prize.
ReplyDeleteWorfeus if their self esteme is low than a high bank account can help them believe their "worth" something, but no amount of money is high enough for some because their esteme is gone, they grasp for recognition and notariaty while grabing all the cash they can and the political office perks are a bonus.
ReplyDeleteWorf said "Why is it those on the right, think we should blame the troops, and those on the left think we should blame those in command of the troops.
ReplyDeleteWho really supports the troops?
12:59 PM
Couldnt agree more!
Wow, I really missed a lot of good posts today
Mike remember the top commander of the troops are bush and rumsfeld, and the JCS who bow down because those that wouldn't got sacked, There is alot of blame to go around at that level.
ReplyDeleteI could't agree more Clif, I said in several posts yesterday that the coruption goes right to the top and includes Bush and Rumsfeld, I dont buy that it was a couple of renegade stormtroopers, I think they found a couple of patsies to take the fall, and I agree with what you said thatsome of the troops could have leaked the pics because they were disgusted that Rummy and the other Men in charge passed the buck and let someone else takr the fall.
ReplyDeleteIts pretty transparent what is going on if you look at the facts and have an open mind.
Hey FF I found this on another blog and I thought youd appreciate a more historical accurate reading hope you don't mind
ReplyDeleteFreedom fan said;
ff;The US had NO legitimate right to invade iraq.
-Kirk12
ff;Just as the U.S. had no legitimate right to attack nazi Germany.
clif;We didn't until after germany declared war on us. A fact you left out.
ff;After all, they didn't attack us.
clif;But they declared war on us.a fact you left out.
ff;Sure they were gassing millions of Jews and butchering our friends but oh well.
Here's a little background since you liberals have such short memories (proly the weed at work):
Between 1975 and 1990, saddam hussein spent $65 billion on military arms; he was one of the largest purchaser of arms in the world. His ultimate dream was to possess nuclear bombs; he fervently was pursuing this dream.
In 1980 saddam hussein attacked Iran which began a bloody war that lasted eight years and cost about a million lives.
clif;The war was at the behest of VPGeorge bush41 george Casey and the Saudi royal monarchy, a fact you left out
ff;In 1988 he dumped poison gas on his own dissident people, resulting in the deaths of over 100,000 mostly civilian Kurds.
clif;The poison gas that was provided by the Reagan administration, with Donalrd Rumsfeld as chief arms merchant in that deal, another fact you left out.
ff;In 1990 hussein invaded Kuwait without provocation; he also launched missle attacks against Israel, because just like hitler he despises all Jews.
Having attacked his neighbors to the east, then his neighbors to the south, without a doubt he would have attacked his rich, weak neighbors to the west. Then with saddam in possession of the oil of Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, he would control over 70% of the world’s oil. He easily would become the richest man on earth. He could dictate world oil prices; triple, quadruple the price and we still would have to pay. While this evil dictator was enriching himself and building weapons of mass destruction, the rest of the world would plunge into desperate economic depression and collapse into third world nation status, or be consumed in thermo-nuclear fire.
This is what we Conservatives dare to call a “threat to our national security”. Perhaps you do not believe or feel threatened by this scenario. Apparently you see no parallel between saddam’s plans and hitler’s; you feel that we should have appeased his ambitions, like chamberlain in WWII. Do you think we stopped saddam because of his skin color?
clif;No it had alot more to do with the fact that the OIL FOR FOOD program was being conducted in Euros after 2000, another fact nmissing.
ff;Did we really invade Iraq to enrich Haliburton?
clif;Not directly but Cheney saw his chance.
ff;How utterly stupid does someone have to be to display, or wink at people who display, signs proclaiming “End War and Racism” and “No Blood For Oil”?
Nahle Sabet was once a pretty Iraqi architecture student from a respected Christian family. Then she was abducted, raped, tortured, and finally fed alive to uday’s starving dogs. uday was next in line to be dictator of Iraq.
clif;No saddam was actually planning on Quesay(sp?) Even Saddam saw Uday as unstable.
ff;Today in Iraq, the long, dark reign of terror, rape and murder is over. My heart swells when I see the Iraqis' purple fingers of freedom. Thousands of people will live, who would have died under saddam. Millions more will breathe the sweet air of freedom and justice.
Liberals wring their hands over the relatively small number of unintentional civilian deaths,
clif;Estimated between 30,000-50,000
ff;invent bogus statistics about how 15,000 U.S. troops had their arms and legs blown off,
Clif not all wounded to that extent but around 16-17 thousand wounded and about half extremely.
ff;lecture us on how to properly fight a war--as if they know anything about it,
clif;Your military credentials please,
Mine include Engineer school, Jungle warfare school, ROTC, Ordinance Officer Basic, Explosive Ordinance Disposal School(Army Bomb Squad), and command of an unit in Desert Storm.
ff;smooch repulsive traitors like ward churchill while wearing roosting chicken hats, giggle at michael moore "documentaries", and pretend to "support our troops" while doing everything in their power to destroy our courageous military and undermine its noble, selfless mission.
Real Americans are patriots who proudly cheer the spread of freedom and democracy throughout the world, courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue.
Kirk12, no doubt you and "anon" the nameless "Christian" wonder weenie, favor "turning the other cheek" when evil bullies threaten civilization. Dubya does not. Neither do I.
Sometimes it is necessary to fight to protect our great nation, its values, and its legacy of freedom. Sometimes we must fight to protect the people we love.
clif;Yes by going after those who actually attacked us namely Osama Bin Laden, but I heard he was on the border of Afganistan and pakistan, how did we get to Iraq?
ff;Greater love hath no man than this: That a man lay down his life for his friends.
-John 15:13
Clif;I'll meet you at the recruiting station of your chioce, just let me know. But know I don't expect you to go any more than any other chicken-hawk, but don't lecture me on defending ones country, been there done that have you?
That said please be historically acurate when you post as not to look so much like a chicken-hawk troll. Thank you for your support(LOL)
Wow clif, didnt take you too long to figure FF out. What I love is that he cant call you unpatriotic or a coward like he does everyone else, so he'll either have to come up with some new material to go along with his broad generalizations and labels he uses to insult liberals or else run and hide. my guess is the latter, he'll claim he's to busy to answer, or your uneducated responses dont merit a response from him. Man i'm glad your here, we really have a good group of regulars here.
ReplyDeleteI dont think we should trust the security of our Country to any company affiliated with a forteign government,particularly one in the middle east. Canada or UK maybe, but any company affiliated with a foreign gov securing our ports just doesnt sound right.
ReplyDeleteHey Johnny Stay frosty buddy!!
ReplyDeleteI think you just need to hangout and post more, its the law of averages buddy, if you post enough times like I did, your bound to say something smart. :D
law of averages., then theres people like Worf and Clif were just about all there posts are fantastic.
It has to be money Kirk, since the UAE has lots of oil i'm thinking it might be access to their oil by American companys and contracts to Haliburton et al to develop those wells. I just hope its not something more sinister like they actually want something bad to happen to deflect the heat and justify everything they are doing. like Worf said 9/11 was the best thing for Bush's presidency, everything he is doing now hinges on 9/11.
ReplyDeleteIn the military there is a term "free fire zone", it is used to denote an area in combat where all persons are to be considered 'enemy' and dealt with accordingly, all trolls are "free fire zones " in my mind and I do to them intellectually what I was trained to do physically on the battle field. This place is an intellectual battle field where the spiritual ideals are worth defending and I don't plan on giving any quarters to those who use fear or intimidation for lack of intellectual and spiritual capacity. To do otherwise would be disingenous and that would make me a troll.
ReplyDeleteW-They have to punch out before 10pm eastern, Karl HATES to pay overtime even if he isn't paying minimum wage.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of a troll is not debate for ideas but debate for obstruction, and the muddling of the debate in order to cloak the truth, FF is good at that Karl is pleased.
ReplyDeleteThe US had NO legitimate right to invade Iraq.
ReplyDelete-Kirk12
ff;Just as the U.S. had no legitimate right to attack nazi Germany.
clif;We didn't until after germany declared war on us. A fact you left out…
clif;But they declared war on us.a fact you left out.
FF: Clif, you made good point…both times. So…I guess that little Kuwait invasion thang was irrelevant as justification for Gulf I? Or was the fact that saddam violated the terms of the armistice after Gulf I, kicked out the weapons inspectors, and ignored any direction from the U.N. Security Council for 10 years, an unjust reason for invading in Gulf II?
ff: In 1980 saddam hussein attacked Iran which began a bloody war that lasted eight years and cost about a million lives.
clif;The war was at the behest of VPGeorge bush41 george Casey and the Saudi royal monarchy, a fact you left out
FF: Wow I didn’t realize that the U.S. was really responsible for orchestrating everything that Saddam did…kinda like that pussycat Saddam was just a puppet and the U.S. was a puppetter. Hmm where have I heard that before? Maybe just like noam chomsky says, the eevil U.S. is responsible for all the wicked things in the world; that we are even worse criminals than the nazis. Next you will be telling me that the U.S., not saddam, was responsible for gassing the friendly Kurds.
clif;The poison gas that was provided by the Reagan administration, with Donalrd Rumsfeld as chief arms merchant…
ff:Apparently you see no parallel between saddam’s plans and hitler’s; you feel that we should have appeased his ambitions, like chamberlain in WWII. Do you think we stopped saddam because of his skin color?
clif;No it had alot more to do with the fact that the OIL FOR FOOD program was being conducted in Euros after 2000
ff: Would this be the same oil-for-food program that was secretly enriching Kofi’s son and funneling bribes to saddam so he could build golden palaces while all the liberals like madeline albright were shrieking that the U.S. was killing over 100,000 Iraqi children because they couldn’t get the money to buy milk?
Nahle Sabet was once a pretty Iraqi architecture student from a respected Christian family. Then she was abducted, raped, tortured, and finally fed alive to uday’s starving dogs. uday was next in line to be dictator of Iraq.
clif;No saddam was actually planning on Quesay(sp?) Even Saddam saw Uday as unstable.
FF: Clairvoyance perhaps? Remarkable. But it is indeed a relief to know that someone as mentally balanced as saddam would be put in charge… of running the rape rooms and filling the mass graves after saddam’s departure.
ff;Did we really invade Iraq to enrich Haliburton?
clif;Not directly but Cheney saw his chance.
FF: Really? Because according to Wikipedia Cheney made sure to become independent from Haliburton before becoming Vice President:
Cheney bought an insurance policy that guaranteed a fixed amount of deferred payments from Halliburton each year for five years so that the payments would not depend on the company's fortunes. The officials also said he had promised to donate to charity any after-tax profits he made from exercising his stock options. These steps are not unusual for corporate executives who enter government.
Liberals wring their hands over the relatively small number of unintentional civilian deaths,
clif;Estimated between 30,000-50,000
FF: Were all these civilians or were some combatants, or civilians used as shields by combatants? How many died directly as a result of U.S. action as opposed to the insurgents who purposely targeted their own people? Also, how many Iraqis are alive today who would have otherwise died or remained enslaved under saddam? An estimate I saw was that saddam murdered an average of about 100,000 Iraqis per year. Plus the Iraqi people will now be full participants in a democracy—no longer slaves to a wicked dictator—what is that worth?
ff;invent bogus statistics about how 15,000 U.S. troops had their arms and legs blown off,
Clif not all wounded to that extent but around 16-17 thousand wounded and about half extremely.
FF: Thanks for confirming that the statistics published elsewhere on Ms. Cornell’s site were completely fabricated. They represented the total wounded at the time of publishing, not just amputees as stated. Of the total number wounded about half were so slightly wounded that they returned to duty within 72 hours. If you say that all the soldiers who didn’t return within 72 hours were severely wounded, I’ll take your word for that. Regardless, I have nothing but honor and respect for the courage shown by you and these brave folks who sacrificed in defense of the U.S. and her interests.
ff;lecture us on how to properly fight a war--as if they know anything about it,
clif;Your military credentials please, Mine include Engineer school, Jungle warfare school, ROTC, Ordinance Officer Basic, Explosive Ordinance Disposal School(Army Bomb Squad), and command of an unit in Desert Storm.
Clif;I'll meet you at the recruiting station of your chioce, just let me know. But know I don't expect you to go any more than any other chicken-hawk, but don't lecture me on defending ones country, been there done that have you?
That said please be historically acurate when you post as not to look so much like a chicken-hawk troll. Thank you for your support(LOL)
FF: Captain U.S. Army Reserve, Medical Service Corps. ROTC at a famous military academy. Airborne qualified. Honorable discharge. Raised in a military family. My Dad set up radar stations in the Pacific theatre. However, I don’t make a habit of bragging about my service or putting down someone because they chose not to serve. And of course I wasn’t lecturing you, since you weren’t even around when I posted the comment; I was responding to Kirk12 (but you know that). But you do make an important point: Our military is all-volunteer, isn’t it?
ff;smooch repulsive traitors like ward churchill while wearing roosting chicken hats, giggle at michael moore "documentaries", and pretend to "support our troops" while doing everything in their power to destroy our courageous military and undermine its noble, selfless mission. Real Americans are patriots who proudly cheer the spread of freedom and democracy throughout the world, courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue.
I am saddened that apparently you have joined forces with the “blame America first” crowd who furiously strive to undermine our country’s free enterprise economy and magnificent democratic foundation. Perhaps you were disillusioned by the experience of the war or the trauma your injuries. Again I respect your sacrifice and honor your service.
However I remain undeterred from giving America every benefit of the doubt, just as a lover does not dwell on the faults of his loved one; for the faults we can change, I will continue to offer constructive criticism. America, her Constitutional foundation, traditional Judeo-Christian values, and the fundamental collective goodness of her people are the reason she will remain prosperous and strong. She will continue to serve as the example of what is possible in a democratic, just society as more and more of the world’s people shake off the yoke of tyranny and embrace the life-affirming freedom which allows humanity to reach our full potential.
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose that freedom.
-Somerset Maugham
Wow I didn’t realize that the U.S. was really responsible for orchestrating everything that Saddam did…kinda like that pussycat Saddam was just a puppet and the U.S. was a puppetter.
ReplyDeleteThey gave Saddam the unofficial go ahead through the Saudis, because of the Iranian revolution and the hostages the war was to keep Iran in check, the Iran contra scandal further shows that Bush41 played both sides
FF: Were all these civilians or were some combatants, or civilians used as shields by combatants?
ReplyDeleteNo known cases of "human Sheilds, if you have a source please post.
How many died directly as a result of U.S. action as opposed to the insurgents who purposely targeted their own people?
Many killed in the Leveling of faluga in nov 04, a large number were civilians who could not get out because they had no pl,ace to go. (Kinda like New Orleans in august 2005) plus other operations where the indescriminate killing was carried out. The terrorists are actually insurgents mainly sunni but also shite (al Sadar) who resent the US occupation, we Occupy Iraq, they rejected the Cheney pick Chalibi, and chose an shite who allies himself with Iran instead but since the majority of Iraq is Shite that should come as no suprise.
Also, how many Iraqis are alive today who would have otherwise died or remained enslaved under saddam? An estimate I saw was that saddam murdered an average of about 100,000 Iraqis per year.
link not just speculation please.
Plus the Iraqi people will now be full participants in a democracy—no longer slaves to a wicked dictator—what is that worth?
That is to be seen the rosey pronouncements so far have fallen way short of the mark. No welcoming as liberators, no Oil will pay for the operation but instead the price tag is approaching 400 billion dollars.
FF: Clif, you made good point…both times.
ReplyDeleteThank you
So…I guess that little Kuwait invasion thang was irrelevant as justification for Gulf I?
Never said that did I?
Or was the fact that saddam violated the terms of the armistice after Gulf I, kicked out the weapons inspectors, and ignored any direction from the U.N. Security Council for 10 years, an unjust reason for invading in Gulf II?
The last time the weapons inspectors left was because Bush43 told them to go because the timetable for invasion had already started, also if they were allowed to stay through the summer of 2003 they would have found the same thing that david Kay found and reported NO WMD FOUND period.
Cheney bought an insurance policy that guaranteed a fixed amount of deferred payments from Halliburton each year for five years so that the payments would not depend on the company's fortunes. The officials also said he had promised to donate to charity any after-tax profits he made from exercising his stock options. These steps are not unusual for corporate executives who enter government.
ReplyDeleteGiven Cheney's track record for factual statements I'll believe this when as Reagan said "it is verified"
clif;The poison gas that was provided by the Reagan administration, with Donalrd Rumsfeld as chief arms merchant…
ReplyDeleteff:Apparently you see no parallel between saddam’s plans and hitler’s; you feel that we should have appeased his ambitions, like chamberlain in WWII. Do you think we stopped saddam because of his skin color?
You failed to address the factual statement that the poison gas came from the US.
The rest of your rant is fluff pure and simple, it is an attempt to throw the discussion off track. I'd hope that your ROTC training would serve you better.
But if you insist Saddam used Stalin not Hitler as a focus for his idendity, and had no illusions that ahe had the luftwaffe or the panser divisions for world conquest, he thought that he might get away with the grab for Kuwait because of the mixed signals from the bush administration especially thge ones delivered by the American ambassador to Iraq in late july and early aug 1990. Having recieved similar signals before he launched the attack on Iran in 1980 then he might have misunderstood what Bush 41 was saying
Next you will be telling me that the U.S., not saddam, was responsible for gassing the friendly Kurds.
ReplyDeletePartly, if you must, we gave the chemical to him, so we hold responsibility just as a drug dealer has responsibility in every over4dose he sold.
FF: Captain U.S. Army Reserve, Medical Service Corps. ROTC at a famous military academy. Airborne qualified. Honorable discharge. Raised in a military family. My Dad set up radar stations in the Pacific theatre. However, I don’t make a habit of bragging about my service or putting down someone because they chose not to serve.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all thank you for your service.
I was also raised in a military family, My Dad fought in Korea, my youngest brother in Bosnia, my Daughter in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I was not bragging but estsablishing what expierence I had in order for you to understand where I based my statements on, and I don't put anybody down for nopt serving, however i feel the right to call someone out if they call for a war and never offered to serve, that is my definition of a chicken-hawk, many do that and I feel it is very dishonorable and cowardly to ask others to defend when the "chicken-hawk" did not offer the same of themselves. You may disagree, but this is a free country.
I am saddened that apparently you have joined forces with the “blame America first” crowd
ReplyDeleteNo I just want all the facts known.
who furiously strive to undermine our country’s free enterprise economy
and corporate welfare system, there is not suffeciant funds the fully fund the Veterans Administration for 2007, many vets in catagory 7 and catagory 8 do not recieve any treatment at the VA because they don't have enough money to pay the doctors that would be needed, but there is money for tax breaks for Exxon-Mobiln which are having record profits, where is the sharing of the burden, it seems to fall on the troops and vets much harder than the oil companies.
and magnificent democratic foundation. Perhaps you were disillusioned by the experience of the war or the trauma your injuries.
No some of the views i held before going to Iraq, but they have been reinforced by much I have seen since I've returned.(see va comments above)
Again I respect your sacrifice and honor your service.
To bad those in Washington do not otherwise the returning vets of this war and the vets of past service and wars would not feel the pinch at the VA, how about it full funding for the veterans Administration even if it means some of the OIL companies can't have all the tax breaks and government land oil lease breaks they were promissed by the Bush Administration, that would certainly be supporting the troops, both past and present wouldn't it.
ff; However I remain undeterred from giving America
ReplyDeleteclif; Please define exactly what America you mean, because the governing party in DC is not the total definition of America
ff; every benefit of the doubt, just as a lover does not dwell on the faults of his loved one; for the faults we can change,
clif; Unless the congress refuses to address those faults and the administration denies that they see any faults, especially in the budget, can you explain why given the fact that the Iraqi war started in 2003 and the budget for 2007 has zero funds for on going operations, that a fault of this administration might be their inability to HONESTLY account for the funds they will need to operate the WHOLE government for the fiscal year 2007, seeing the troops in Iraq and Afganistan are part of DOD thus therefore part of the government?
f; will continue to offer constructive criticism.
clif; Where I have not read any criticism of the America, but of Liberals, surely there are more pressing problems like a dysfunctional department of Homeland security, the rampant corruption shown by Cunningham's guilty plea, Abrarmoff's scandal, Frists SEC violations, Libby's lies to a grand jury, Abrarmoff's ties to the Administration including the fact he was part of George Bush's transition team for the dept of interior, Failure to properly secure the ports of this country, Inability to figure out what to do with 300,000,000 worth of house trailers in Arkansas while cutting off 15,000 people who lost everything in New Orleans and basically leaving them High and dry.
ff; America, her Constitutional foundation,
clif; undermined by the Idea of the unitary executive, spying scandal that to many violates the fourth amendment as well as FISA statute, denial of allowing proper oversight by the constitutionally directed legislative branch, if this administration wants Strict constructionist then the idea of executive privilege does not exist because it is not mentioned in the constitution.
ff; traditional Judeo-Christian values,
clif;However the separation of church and state is a fundamental principal of this nation so you may live by those principles that is your right but you have NO right to foist-er those principles upon anybody else against their will. I am not against the Judeo-Christian principles, the are excellent principles to live by especially the ones found in the sermon on the mount, I just don't have the right to force you to liver by them. And I took an oath to defend you in either case whether you choose to live by them or you choose not to.
ff; and the fundamental collective goodness of her people are the reason she will remain prosperous
clif;As long as the Chinese, Japanese and Saudi government don't dump the almost 2.5 trillion dollars they hold
ff; and strong.
clif;Hopefully Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld can repair the damage to the army with the successive deployments any lagging recruitment that has them lowering the requirements so far they are willing to recruit people with a criminal past and admitted drug offenders, having served in the Army in the 70's the problems that recruits from catagory4 and waivers for criminal history and Drug abuse history will further erode the militarises ability to field the absolute best soldiers, the cat4 and waiver recruits have historically had a marked higher incidence of UCMJ actions and early discharges for cause, which places a larger burden on the other members of the command that the caty4 and waiver soldiers serve in.
ff; She will continue to serve as the example
clif; Most of the world do not see what is happening in Iraq as an example to be followed,
ff; of what is possible in a democratic, just society as more and more of the world’s people shake off the yoke of tyranny and embrace the life-affirming freedom which allows humanity to reach our full potential.
clif; Your ending sounded good but the facts on the ground here and overseas might beg to differ,
The just society sounds fine if your in the upper levels but to a lot of inner-city and poorer rural people the just doesn't feel like it.
To a majority we are a prime example of tyranny, we invaded Iraq even though they did not present a clear and present danger to us, the justifications for the war have fallen far short, the intel largely discredited even Bush admits the info was wanting, flowery phrases about the spread of democracy and allowing the full human potential ring hollow in the light of the day when the corporation's mentality of sub minimum wage for profit outsourcing of American jobs to factories that could not meet American standards, thus more profit. Sweatshop conditions in many industries around the world in companies run by US corporations belie the Judeo-christian values that you purport to uphold, A great success story Wal-mart is telling their employees to go to the government for medical services all the while reining in record profits, at some time the profit motive and christian message of love for all your fellow man must collide and the side that you choose to support says which is more important, The money changers Christ threw out of the temple today we call bankers and are exhulted but I'm not sure Jesus would approve today any more than he did 2000 years ago.
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose that freedom.
ReplyDelete-Somerset Maugham
In other words from someone who said it better than me;
Those who would sacrifice freedom for the sake of security deserve neither.
It's been fun freedom fry but I've got to go later.
ReplyDeleteYou love America like my 3 year old daughter loves me. And that's a breeze. Clif and Mike and Worf love America like my wife loves me. And that sometimes really sucks when she calls me on my stupidity and my ego.
ReplyDelete-Kirk12
I doubt you really believe this. When two folks are in love they don't constantly dwell on each other's faults; they don't run to their neighbors and gossip about their spouse's shortcomings.
My wife almost always takes my side when I have a disagreement with someone (even when I'm partly to blame). Certainly we offer constructive criticism to each other. However, it is easy to recognize the difference between criticism which is constructive, since it makes someone become better, and destructive which constantly tears someone down and undermines his every effort.
Loving someone means you look for, and reinforce, the good in your loved one. A person who loves another wants to see his loved one succeed, prosper and experience lasting happiness.
Obviously this is not news to you or anyone else.
Lydia: Puhhlease!
ReplyDeleteMy intention is not to have one of my meager posts graciously find its way to your main thread so I may achieve some kind of personal glory...I was simply trying to point out that everyone here is sharp and has contributed.
I am unlike some people who seem furiously obsessed in trying to sound intelligent day after day; most of it is rehash. And, will go to incredible lengths in an effort to outshine others as well as impress you, family, and friends.
I do not find extreme brown nosing, after the fact agreeing, deception, and falsehoods, ( I was just trying to oblige Johnny) intelligent qualities. Sorry!
As for peace.
You may recall I attended a youth group many years ago in an effort to pick up chix. I met a genuine, kind, helpful, thoughtful, and very cool guy named Andrew who took this little atheist under his wing. He worked at the local university and we became excellent friends.
He ended up in a mental hospital attemting to achieve "true peace" ,thereby, allowing the "Second Coming."
Be careful!
Johnny said" ( I was just trying to oblige Johnny)"
ReplyDeleteJohnny, you arent still upset about that comment from last week are you?
Mike
Wow I didn’t realize that the U.S. was really responsible for orchestrating everything that Saddam did…kinda like that pussycat Saddam was just a puppet and the U.S. was a puppetter.
ReplyDelete-Freedom Fan
They gave Saddam the unofficial go ahead through the Saudis, because of the Iranian revolution and the hostages the war was to keep Iran in check, the Iran contra scandal further shows that Bush41 played both sides . You failed to address the factual statement that the poison gas came from the US…
-Clif
I have no knowledge about the poison; please provide a credible link for the source. However, I have no doubt that all Americans were appalled to learn that poison gas was used on innocent dissidents.
Certainly the U.S. despised Iran’s theocratic monster Khomeini, who booted the Shah, burned our embassy and held our citizens hostage for over a year. The U.S. was probably delighted that Iraq wanted to punish Khomeini. But the U.S. didn’t force saddam to invade. Furthermore, the U.S. was a minor player in providing arms to Iraq; the main source of arms was Soviet Union, France and China.
Thanks for illustrating once again the core difference between liberals and Conservatives: One believes folks are helpless puppets the other believes each person is responsible for his own actions. Conservatives believe a murderer is responsible for his crime; liberals want to put the gun in jail and bankrupt the firearm manufacturer.
i feel the right to call someone out if they call for a war and never offered to serve, that is my definition of a chicken-hawk, many do that and I feel it is very dishonorable and cowardly to ask others to defend when the "chicken-hawk" did not offer the same
ReplyDelete-Clif
You’re right…I disagree. Someone who supports military success of the U.S. is not automatically a coward because they did not serve in the military. Honorable people may disagree on whether we should have removed saddam hussein, but I would submit that anyone who wants to see the U.S. fail in the Middle East is a traitor; I trust you as a patriot would agree.
...I think [uniting Muslim and progressive forces globally] is vitally necessary and I think it is happening already. It is possible because the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies. Their enemies are the Zionist occupation, American occupation, British occupation of poor countries mainly Muslim countries. They have the same interest in opposing savage capitalist globalization which is intent upon homogenizing the entire world turning us basically into factory chickens which can be forced fed the American diet of everything from food to Coca-Cola to movies and TV culture. And whose only role in life is to consume the things produced endlessly by the multinational corporations. And the progressive organizations & movements agree on that with the Muslims.
-george galloway
Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners – Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent. And some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters. Why? Because they are too weak and too corrupt to do anything about it.
-george galloway
Translation:
If you wimpy Arabs were really men you would kill more Americans, Brits, Israelis, and other Arabs who yearn for freedom.
george galloway is a disgusting communist traitor, who is considered a hero to liberals like randi rhoades on air (head) Amerikka radio.
Many killed in the Leveling of faluga in nov 04, a large number were civilians who could not get out because they had no pl,ace to go. (Kinda like New Orleans in august 2005) plus other operations where the indescriminate killing was carried out.
ReplyDelete-Clif
Here’s a detailed account of the U.S. occupation of Fallujah per Wikipedia including this: …on March 31, 2004, four private military contractors from the U.S. company Blackwater USA were dragged from their vehicle and killed. Their bodies were then mutilated and burned. A crowd of militants and townsfolk, estimated to number over a thousand, beat and dragged the burnt corpses behind automobiles, then hanged the dismembered remains from the girders of Fallujah's bridge over the Euphrates River.
[In response the U.S.] occupying force on April 9 2004 allowed more than 70,000 women, children and elderly residents to leave the besieged city, reportedly also allowing males of military age to leave. On April 10, the U.S. military declared a unilateral truce to allow for humanitarian supplies to enter Fallujah…
The rebel forces capitalized on this 'ceasefire' to conduct the most aggressive counter-offensive of the cordon. Additionally, numerous weapons were found hidden in the humanitarian supply trucks that were attempting to enter the city…
The ceasefire followed a wave of insurgency across southern Iraq, which included the capture of two American soldiers, seven contract employees of Kellogg, Brown and Root, and more than 50 other workers in Iraq. Several of the prisoners were released within days of their capture, while the majority were executed.
As for indescriminate killing, I presume you are talking about this well publicized incident:The shooting of a wounded rebel fighter by an US Marine was also caught on video…The Marine involved in the November 13th incident was acquitted of the charge of manslaughter in May 2005 on grounds that he had reason to believe the man was armed.
-Wikipedia
As of November 18, 2004, the US military reported 1200 insurgents killed and 1000 captured. US casualties were 51 killed and 425 wounded, and the Iraqi forces lost 8 killed and 43 wounded.
So in conclusion, the U.S. can be proud of its actions in Fallujah. We were provoked into assaulting the city, but first we allowed civilians to leave well in advance of our assault, we provided for medical attention for civilians. In contrast, our enemy unethically killed civilians, hid in mosques and used humanitarian vehicles for military purposes.
It would appear that Fallujah was a huge military success. I would be interested in learning from you, as a military man, how this conflict could have been handled better. Also I am curious why you, as someone who loves his country, have chosen to show these events in such a negative light.
It's been fun freedom fry but I've got to go later. –Clif
Indeed. Thanx for playing.
Freedom fan said:
ReplyDeleteMy wife almost always takes my side when I have a disagreement with someone (even when I'm partly to blame).
clif: Thank you a good example of codependency,
Freedom fan:
However, it is easy to recognize the difference between criticism which is constructive,
Clif:
Like that which points out when the country or the government of the country is not living up to the Ideals the country was formed on as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, or is in violation of the constitution, might that be the constructive criticism you mean.
Freedom fan:
since it makes someone become better, and destructive which constantly tears someone down and undermines his every effort.
Clif:
Like the criticism leveled by those which make sweeping generalisations about others using loaded terms, or terms such as patriotic, with out describing what such terms really mean, a classic example is the flag amendment, which is an attempt to change the basic structure of the constitution in order to save a piece of cloth, Think about it when does the constitutional flag amendment take effect on the piece of cloth? when the piece of cloth is undyed there is no flag, so the flag is not pre-existant in the cloth. When the dye or ink is applied the result is the flag but why is the cloth plus color worth more than the Ideal of Freedom of expression, a bed rock of this nation and one of its most precious treasures. The first amendment can not be seen felt (or worn) but has been used many times to point out wrongs of the nation( some extremely serious Slavery and discrimination in all forms). The flag is a symbol and as such only a statement which is subject to the first amendment, not the other way around. The actions one person takes with a symbol is expression and as such only limited by the provisions of the First amendment, just as you may not yell fire in a crowded theater, you may not set a flag on fire in one. However in the open air of the street where the danger of life or limb are non-existent then both are acceptable by the rulings of the supreme Court. To attempt to change the fabric of the constitution
to protect the fabric of the flag is shortsighted at best and a dangerous precedent. To destroy a part of the compact between the people and their government, that is the constitution in order to save a symbol which is getting harder to define, ie is a bikini that is dyed in a flag design an actual flag? The helmet worn by Peter Fonda in Easy Rider a Flag? A beach towel with the flag printed on it, how about curtains, t-shirts, book dust jackets, red white and blue motorcycle jackets, where does the flag end and other objects begin? That is a decision that is best left up to individuals not governments, and where as I have never and will never burn the flag and personally don't like it when I see someone else burn the flag, I understand their right is much more important that my attachment to the symbol.
The first amendment is based on a saying of a Frenchman named Voltaire, his statement (paraphrased)" I may disagree with everything that you have to say but I will defend to my death your right to say it" thus the oath to defend the constitution not the flag.
You’re right…I disagree. Someone who supports military success of the U.S. is not automatically a coward because they did not serve in the military.
ReplyDeleteThey are a coward if they did not offer to serve when they had a chance and now call for others to do so, you served in the reserves and as such offered to go if needed that is all I ask the offer, I'm sure you must agree that the offer to serve is the patroitic thing to do.
The war in Iraq is not a sucess YET, and if the result turns out to be Another shite dominated theocracy like Iran or worse civil war that completely destabilises the region that the "sucess" becomes a failure.
Honorable people may disagree on whether we should have removed saddam hussein, but I would submit that anyone who wants to see the U.S. fail in the Middle East is a traitor; I trust you as a patriot would agree.
Failure has more than one meaning, the overthrowing of the elected government in Iran and the reimposition of the Shah ended up with the failure of 1979, which has led down the path we must now travel in the middle east. The removal of Saddam had more to do with the oil sales and the fact he was using the Euro not the dollar as the currency of exchange and the contracts with France and Russia in Euros were one of the first things L Paul Bremmer ended.
Mike said
ReplyDelete"Johnny, you arent still upset about that comment from last week are you?"
Isnt this the advice Worfeus gave to you at one point while you were busy brown nosing and stabbing people in the back deviously :D
BTW, I almost forgot to say "Your Welcome" after I helped you with your gif.
I do not appreciate being used for your ultimate endeavour of being master of the site.
ReplyDeleteWorf said at one point : "Gee, I guess I wasnt really into the spirit of things." Worf, who was writing small and very effective posts at the time was suddenly interrupted by your many giant ones in what I believe was an effort on your part to outshine him.
Worf is genuine.....you are fake.
As of November 18, 2004, the US military reported 1200 insurgents killed and 1000 captured. US casualties were 51 killed and 425 wounded, and the Iraqi forces lost 8 killed and 43 wounded.
ReplyDeleteNot everything reported by the US military is as acurate as it should be, Many reports during vietnam were not accurate, and it would not suprise me any to find out this conflict is not the same. In the statistics no civilians are mentioned however there are civilians killed in faluga both times in fact the first battle in April was stopped because of the bad image of the civilian deaths.
[In response the U.S.] occupying force on April 9 2004 allowed more than 70,000 women, children and elderly residents to leave the besieged city, reportedly also allowing males of military age to leave. On April 10, the U.S. military declared a unilateral truce to allow for humanitarian supplies to enter Fallujah…
Fallujah is reported to be a city of 200,000 people, so 130,000 civilians remained.... another fact you selectively left out I got the population from the same wikipedia page you used, I'm sure you saw it and can do the math.
Pre-offensive inhabitant figures are unreliable; the nominal population was assumed to have been 200-350,000. Thus, over 150,000 individuals are still living as IDPs in harsh conditions in tent cities outside Fallujah or elsewhere in Iraq. Also from the same article.
Residents were allowed to return to the city in mid-December after undergoing biometric identification, provided they wear their ID cards all the time. US officials report that "more than half of Fallujah's 39,000 homes were damaged, and about 10,000 of those were destroyed" while compensation amounts to 20 percent of the value of damaged houses, with an estimated 32,000 homeowners eligible, according to Marine Lt. Col. William Brown [1]. According to the NBC [2], 9,000 homes were destroyed, thousands more were damaged and of the 32,000 compensation claims only 2,500 have been paid as of April 14, 2005. According to Mike Marqusee of Iraq Occupation Focus writing in the Guardian [3], "Falluja's compensation commissioner has reported that 36,000 of the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines". Reconstruction is only progressing slowly and mainly consists of clearing rubble from heavily-damaged areas and reestablishing basic utility services. This is also due to the fact that only 10% of the pre-offensive inhabitants had returned as of mid-January, and only 30% as of the end of March 2005 [4]
Makes Fallujah seem like a sucess in the same way the responce of FEMA in New Orleans is a sucess
The new mayor of the city—Taha Bidaywi Hamed, selected by local tribal leaders—was staunchly pro-American. When the U.S. Army entered the town in April 2003, they positioned themselves at the vacated Ba'ath Party headquarters—an action that erased some goodwill, especially when many in the city had been hoping the U.S. Army would stay outside of the relatively calm city. A Fallujah Protection Force composed of local Iraqis was set up by the U.S.-led occupants to help fight the rising resistance.
On the evening of April 28, 2003, a crowd of 200 people defied a curfew imposed by the Americans and gathered outside a occupied local secondary school to protest the presence of Coalition forces in the city and demand its reopening. Following the discharge of some demonstrators' firearms into the air, soldiers stationed at the roof of the building opened fire upon the crowd resulting in the deaths of 13 civilians. A protest against the killings two days later was also fired upon by US troops resulting in two more deaths.
This was the situation before the horrible killing of the US civilians taht is usually not mentioned
On 9 November, 2005 the Italian state-run broadcaster RAI ran a documentary titled "Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre" depicting what it alleges was the United States' use of white phosphorus (WP) in the attack causing insurgents and civilians to be injured by chemical burns or killed. The effects of WP are very characteristic. The resulting bodies were partially turned into what appears to be ash, but sometimes the hands of the bodies had skin or skin layers peeled off and hanging like gloves instead. The documentary further claims that the United States used incendiary MK-77 bombs (similar to napalm). The use of incendiary weapons against civilians is illegal by Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (1980), however the US is not a signatory. Moreover, the 1983 Chemical Weapons Convention (signed by the US) prohibit the use of the chemical properties of white phosphorus against personnel. The documentary stated:
:WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out... We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions.
The US State Department initially denied using white phosphorus as a munition, a claim later contradicted by the Department of Defense when bloggers discovered a US Army magazine had run a story detailing its use in Fallujah. The US government maintains its denial of use against civilians, while trying to justify the offensive use of WP against enemy combatants. However, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, quoted by the RAI documentary, WP is allowed as an illumination device, not as an offensive weapon, for which its chemical properties are put to use. An article in Washington Post exactly a year before also pointed out the use of White Phosphorus in the battle, but attracted little attention.
Worfeis all I ask.
ReplyDeleteWAR SUCKS! However, we will never get along....PERIOD. If I could snap my fingers I would.
ReplyDeleteJohnny, I am sincerely sorry if I offended or insulted you in any way because I did not mean to. I think what you said had to sink in a little before I realized you were right and backtracked a little on my posts. And yes I did say "I was only trying to oblige Johnny" I was refering to my repeating what I had deleted because you had asked me to.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes your probably right I should have spoken up at the time and told Worf there was nothing wrong with a little banter particularly when he was partaking in it himself, my thinking was a long the lines of one of your earlier posts that Worf works extremely hard pointing out new info and breaking news and fostering intelligent debate and I feel with Lydia not able to spend as much time as she would like here he is kind of a leader around here, and out of respect for him I defered and backed off, like you said he had a right to be frustrated and angry and I respected that. Just because I have a great deal of respect for Lydia and Worf does not mean I am brown nosing. While I think Worf is here primarily for the political debate and to through around ideas about what is going on in the world, I am here for a variety of reasons, initially I discovered the blog because I was a fan of Lydia's something I feel I dont have to apologize for, but I soon came to really enjoy debating politics and current events and bouncing around ideas with people I like and respect, and as I said in an earlier post that includes Lydia, Worf, you, Kirk, Drewl and Clif. I hope to try to make a differnce in what is going on even if in a small way.
and Johnny as far as brown nosing or stabbing people in the back I dont know what either of you are talking about, the only way to improve or stop doing something wrong is to be aware of what you are doing, and I am not. just because I say nice things or agree with Lydia or Worf the vast majority of the time doesnt equate to brown nosing. I have a lot of respect for Lydia and I think for the most part I kind of do "get" what she is saying, but if I have stuck my nose in trying to clarify what I think her point is when you asked her a question or came across as a know it all, that wasnt my intention. I learn something new here everyday from people who are probably a lot smarter than me.
Mike
Johnny, I couldnt outshine worf if I tried, and I didnt, i'm new to blogs, if my ettiqutte is bad you need to let me know, sorry if I get long winded at times, but being an airhog was not my intention.
ReplyDeleteWhen so called men, can watch innocent children burn alive, in a pit, while throwing candy at them, I have no choice but to believe we are all infinetly hopeless.
ReplyDeleteI want peace, but know in my heart it will never be.
Mike
ReplyDeleteI need time to think about your post.
I did befriend you at a time when I felt friendship was overrated.
Gotta go my daughter wants to go to a neighbors farm and see the new born baby goats, later
ReplyDeletei'm learning, and I have been trying to watch the timing. Johnny, things arent always black and white like the Bush administration or FF or other trolls would like us to believe, i'll admit when i'm wrong and try to improve as much as possible, despite FF rhetoric we all should try to improve, but I need to know when i'm doing something wrong. and I dont have bad intentions here like some people do.
ReplyDeleteMike
Mike
ReplyDeleteSorry I didnt get back right away.. my cousin called and needs money.
What Im really trying to say Mike - if we would have stuck together in expressing our enjoyment of our converse, Worf would have had no choice but to concede.
Life is more than politics....believe me.
And Worf
ReplyDeleteIm beginning to suspect you like Mike simply because he is an ass kisser; you dont like strength and will do whatever possible to fight it.
Then again what can I expect from someone who is a scholar of the bible but doesnt reaaly believe in it.
Worf sais"Now we find that an American firm is about to provide the UAE with access to the most dangerous place we could give them access to.
ReplyDeleteOuter space.
What??????
Mike
I conceded that one to you last week Johnny it just took a day for what you originally said to sink in, see backtracking or admiting you were wrong isnt a sign of weakness like some would have us believe.
ReplyDeletemike
Where you going with this Worf, spy sattelites?, weapons?
ReplyDeleteMike
Maybe Eric, FF, and Voltaire are right, being a F#@%$^& fairy doesnt work.
ReplyDeleteAfterall, Worf got me to admit there is some effectiveness in Ann Coulters ways, thereby admitting Lydia is wrong.
ReplyDeleteWell, at least I dont shake and bust down doors :D WAKE UP
ReplyDeleteThats right Worf, simply supply your own scenario :D Much more fun !
ReplyDeleteI have had real battles my friend Worf that would put you to shame.
ReplyDeleteScholars of the bible...Hmffff.
ReplyDeleteYea, and thats what Lydia and Jesus want; be a foul mouthed prick.
ReplyDeleteI am not calling you this, but refering to your own statement.
If a scholar has no belief in Jesus, how on earth am I too :D
ReplyDeleteGod and faith is so blind and full of it is nothing more than a mask to hide behind our futility.
ReplyDeleteMaybe your more fake than Mike Worf :D
ReplyDelete