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Sep 16th, 2006 12:05 PM
Preechr No correction needed. Pretty liberal, ain't it? You could have picked quotes from any number of other people, all saying basically the same thing, but I don't mind agreeing with Dubya on this, even if I disagree with him on so many other things. Let's say that I agree with his speechwriter's sentiments on the matter.

I also agree, in spirit, with his liberal position on immigration and his support of free-market alternatives to "universal healthcare." The positions his administration have adopted, in a few cases, are much more sensible than either of the parties would support. That's the "Neo-con" influence that will live inside government after Bush is gone, just as it lived within the Clinton administration, that of the other Bush, and Reagan's presidency.

"Neo-con" is generally seen as purjorative term, but the movement is nothing more than an ideology set to action based in classical Liberalism. Those that don't like Jews call them Zionist conspirators. "Progressives" don't like them because their views and actions pierce the facade of the modern Democrat Party's claim to a liberal foundation, revealing them as the socialists they really are. "Conservatives" don't like them because they operate mostly from within the Republican Party, regardless of the insult to conservative principles doing so represents. Everybody seems to have a reason for not liking them, it seems.

I like them, so far, because I believe in the things they seem to be causing. I believe they are gaming the political system in order to instigate very positive changes in the status quo. They have infiltrated the permanent government that lives behind the elected, political shell. Whether or not Bush really believes the words you quoted, Neo-cons are the people that provided them for him. I don't judge them by what others say about them, because they seem to threaten everyone with something to gain from the way things are now. Those kind of people tend to lie. I judge them by what I see them doing, and I like it.
Sep 16th, 2006 12:40 AM
derrida "One, I believe there’s an Almighty, and secondly I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody’s soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live to be free. I believe liberty is universal."

-George W. Bush

"Human cultures can be vastly different, yet the human heart desires the same good things, everywhere on earth…For these fundamental reasons, freedom and democracy will always and everywhere have greater appeal than the slogans of hatred and the tactics of terror."

-George W. Bush

This is basically how I see your position on Iraq. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Sep 15th, 2006 12:56 PM
Preechr I'm a bit more optimistic on the perceived benefits the world will enjoy for us having engaged in this fight. While I understand that it's silly to try and hinge a discussion on what might have happened if we hadn't acted as we did, I think it's a safe assumption that 9/11 represented such a large scale upping of the ante in the already raging terrorist side of the war, which leads me to believe they had a little more than 5 years of nothing else in store for us. Can we agree that our response to 9/11, whether or not you like it, has disrupted their plans? We constantly debate among ourselves as wheter we are, in fact, safer now thanks to the WOT... Is there andy debate as the safety of our enemies?

Additionally, I didn't mean to make you think I was saying that war is no more important than a garden variety piece of legislation. What I meant was that politicians use the same processes to run a war as they do everything else. Government, as I have said many times before, is like a chipper-shredder. No matter how you intend to use it, it does everything the same way. How many times have you seen a piece of legislation come out of that machine as a "compromise," which basically means it's about half of what it was supposed to be? They will always say that's all they could get through, but that they'll be refining it and adding to it later on.

As sick as it sounds when we're talking about people fighting and dying, this is the same political bullshit method being used for the war. Personally, I feel it is better to be half-assing it than doing nothing as long as half-assing it is all we are capable of. Sure, it'd be great to be doing the right thing AND doing it perfectly, but that's a pipe dream. That being said, I honestly believe we aren't doing THAT bad of a job. Our methods are showing results, and we are not using the brutal warfare tactics of all our other wars... stuff like Napalm, Carpet Bombing, Seiges like D-Day... Say what you want about Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and I'm sure you want to bring up Phosphorus Bombs, but millions of people aren't dying needlessly this time around, unlike wars past. War is Hell, but the War on Terror has a cherry on top with sprinkles when compared to WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, or even your example of the Soviet clusterfuck in Afghanistan.

We are fighting much better and much more effectively and much more humanely than we ever have, but that's not the only thing that's changed with this war. More "innocent civilians" died in WWII than did actual soldiers. We had the stomache for that back then. We treat every dead body in this war, unless they are American soldiers of course, as a tragedy, and we blame it on Bush. That's a ridiculous notion that has no place in a war because it's fighting the fight for the enemy. Yes, I know that sounds like something Cheney would say, but I'm about sick of the media and the left being such pussies about this.
Sep 15th, 2006 09:39 AM
mburbank Are you speaking of potential benefits? Because while I understand there's little else to speak of, I think we should try to keep ourselves realistic. The WOT could rsult in the complete annialation of all life on earth, or an earthly paradise. Neither seems likely.

My prediction isn't WWIII, although I think we lean more in that direction than a balanced world order, is a prolonged cluster fuck draining our coffers and strething the army to it's breaking point until the next presiential election. Then we will either try to extricate ourselves and refocus or go on an actual war footing. I wouldn't care to predict how either course would run, it depends on how much pojntless damage is done before then as we 'stay the course'.

I think my biggest disagreement with you is one of degree. Yes, wars are like bills and laws. But there's different degrees of bad. Like if I have an opperable cancer, that's bad, but it's nowhere near as bad as if a meteor strikes the town I live in, killing me and everyone within a hundred mile radius. This war has involved almost unmeasurable amounts of hubris and boobery, as opposed to the usual very large but quantifiable amounts of Boobery. It's not quite Little Bighorn or the Charge of the Light Brigade yet, but it's getting into the Soviets in Afghanistan territory in it's budget busting and it has a lot more capacity for widening.
Sep 14th, 2006 06:45 PM
Preechr You guys really need to start thinking like politicians here. The pattern is very easy to see. They talk a lot of shit about an issue they think they can make popular, then they feed into the political debate machine. There's a lot of spinning and porking, then, eventually, some sort of action is taken. You are used to seeing this action in the form of a bill being passed, but in this case, war was declared... a really big and ambitious one, in fact.

Think about those bills that get passed, though. In every case, what makes it through the machine is at best a shadow, if not a mockery, of the ideological bruhaha that started the process. Welfare Reform produces nearly the same Welfare System we had. Tax Reform bills regularly screw the tax code up even more. Immigration Reform... Weapons Initiatives... Freakin FCC laws... Can you name something Washington DC has ever done that worked out as planned? They even screwed up the damn Amber Alert!

The implementation of everything we've ever wanted the federal government to do has always been fucked from the get go. Why should War on Terror be any different? Bad planning should have been expected. Have you ever read any histories of any wars past? If so, I encourage you to compare the mistakes made with the benefits of seeing those efforts through. There's more at stake here than the glory of Dubya's legacy.
Sep 12th, 2006 06:41 PM
Preechr A good example: Rummy is widely credited for "streamlining" the military, which gives the impression that he woke up one morning with a hangover and a brave new idea, immediately setting out to hack and slash the existing force structure into some ingenious, innovative "army of one." This is hardly the case. He worked a lot of the political angles that allowed major changes to made, but all he represented was the political push behind the culmination of millions of man-hours over decades... tons of other people much more qualified than Rummy have dedicated much of their careers to re-shape the Post-Cold-War military.

As I said before, the world is no longer threatened by the huge scale warfare that ended with the gore and death of WWII. Since the end of the Cold War, we have no more use of the type of soldiers and gear required to fight on that level. Admirals and Generals have commissioned thousands of experts to forcast the threats of the future and what we'll need to meet them. Billions of dollars have been spent in this effort, and the effort is ongoing.

It took the 9/11 attacks to refocus those Admirals and Generals on the real threats of this century. They were still hoping for (and thus paying for the studies that confirmed) a real threat from a "near-peer," like China. You can still hear idiots talking about a red threat, regardless of the fact that the only thing China might possibly mobilize for is our failure to stabilize the oil supply they will be needing in abundance in about ten years. I have said it before: if this is a war for oil on any level, it's not a war for oil for us.

Rummy may have been helpful... instrumental even... in lining up the politics behind the pre-packaged Army of One, a metamorphesis still far from completed btw, but it was hardly his idea. It's still fun to watch disenfranchised military leaders, unfortunately streamlined in some way, bitching about Rummy's single-handed prosecution of the war... as if they don't know better.

This is the way of things. Especially these days, administrations mean next to nothing. The only choices to be made are doing what the experts recommend or doing nothing.
Sep 12th, 2006 04:01 PM
Preechr I don't admire him. I said ALL Presidents simply pick from presentations. I said he had the guts to pick an actual strategy, where Clinton only just reacted mildly when provoked with no overall plan. Politically, Bush has shown more balls than Clinton did. Additionally, it's one thing to have a strategy, and it's another thing altogether to implement it well. The main thing TeamBush has done badly is the way they've handled the PR. They're trying to work it the same way they did Plamegate and all the other political battles with which the Dems have challenged them. Maybe that's the only way to handle people, but I would have preferred openly explaining the goals (not the means for attaining them) instead of just telling us it would be a long process and we'd need to just stay the course for as long as it takes.
Sep 12th, 2006 03:56 PM
mburbank I disagree entirely, and this is one of the ways in which I think this administration is very different from previous ones.

I think W is malleable putty, a figurehead at best. I think actual decision making is made by Chenney, Rumsfeld and is filtered by Rove for political impact. If that triumvirate actually picked a plan from the A-Z lsit on the table, I would feel safer. I think they are meglomaniacal and believe they are far wiser than anyone in the Pentagon, which is why they installed their own flacks in critical positions and created entire new offices to shape intelligence to fit policy.

I think they picked an alphabetized plan and immeditely began to retool it as if they had the slightest idea what they were doing. Career officers played ball and got promoted or didn't and got shitcanned.

How else could you possibly explain a total failure to plan for anything but a best case scenario? How else could you explain Bremmer disbanding the entire Iraqi army? The American army has a proud tradition of doing what it's civillian leaders order, and I think it's a very valuable , perhaps even a critical structure. But one relies on a secretary of state who does not radically overestimate himself, and a President who will fire the secretary if he does. I think, in this respect, we are seriously fucked.
Sep 12th, 2006 03:01 PM
Blasted Child So now you're giving Bush credits because 1) he followed a presented plan without thinking for himself and 2) the plan was bad but he still kept to it?
Can you pin-point exactly what there is to admire?
Sep 12th, 2006 02:41 PM
Preechr The Bush administration, just like Clinton and all the others, is primarily a political entity with political goals. They only know what actual smart people tell them, and so any decisions they make are made based in information accumulated by others. We are not at war in Iraq because of what George W Bush knows about Iraqis or terrorists. He picks from preformed plans arrayed for him with the goal of politics being first and foremost. He doesn't even have beliefs of his own.

Imagine military plans A-Z laid out on a table, scenarios that would have us attacking everybody from Australia to Zimbabwe. Plans G, H, and V only work as a strategy if they adhere to a coherent belief structure. All this is pre-packaged, and the President simply picks what he can sell politically. Clinton took the easiest route possible. At least Bush had the guts to pick a strategy even though he wasn't up to the task of selling it.
Sep 12th, 2006 10:12 AM
mburbank I'm relieved (seriously) to hear you say that there is some sort of coherent plan, and will probably get the book you mentioned.

Here's my question though, how much does the Pentagon get to steer? I'm not of the impression that they have the same goals as Rummy or Chenney, who seem to me to win a lot of the arguments between them and have also set up a sort of private pentagon within the pentagon.

At some point, though, barring a coup, they wil be gone, and it is a relief to think that there are people who aren't full bore bonkers at least working on the problem.
Sep 12th, 2006 09:58 AM
Preechr You're welcome. You would have said it. I just had to steal your thunder. I support the war, for reasons that may well be alien to most our government, and I can still see this name-change is stupid. I understand the value of drawing a line between normal, everyday Muslims and the super-Muslim mutants with which we are fighting. Sure, fascism is bad... but Al Quaeda is no more a fascist organization than it is a gaggle of moon people. Saying the word makes me want to take a computer plane to Pepsi-Cola, Florida just to get away from all this stupidity for a while. The administration, with one word, has made the whole world dumber.

The good news, however, is that by co-opting the phrase used by ALL of the conservative talk-show hosts, the punditry that most voters partake of is somewhat calmer and more supportive of "Staying the Course," fat and happy as they are now on their table scraps. All Dubya has to do at this point is make a show of slamming the border doors and send some green busses to some major cities, "Cracking Down" on illegal aliens... right before the election... and the Democrats will lose seats this Fall.

I would have DRASTICALLY preferred the administration just come clean on what the War on Terror really is. The book I recommended you, "the Pentagon's New Map," by Thomas PM Barnett... available on Amazon and stores near you... clearly explains why we are doing what we are doing and is BASED on a Pentagon Powerpoint presentation that dots all the i's and crosses all the t's... One that existed BEFORE 9/11 and has been seen by everybody in charge of this war. It's not perfect and it's not complete, but it does a freakin GREAT job of painting a pretty picture over a messy and confusing war.

War Presidents EXPLAIN wars to the people. "Stay the Course" has run off the tracks. What pisses me off the most is that there is a perfect message out there that could easily replace the nothing we have and nobody's getting it out there. That says all that needs to be said about how our government views the majority of American voters. Maybe, deep inside the beltway, people discuss this war candidly and honestly so it's easy for them to believe that we, too, can sort rhetoric from fact. Unfortunately, that is just not the case. This war deserves broad-based support, and it would get it but for the closed mouths in the White House. I have seen the administration use this political tactic before, and it works, but this is not just the latest wild-eyed Democrat attack plan. This is a very real war where very real Americans are risking their lives and often losing that bet. There is nothing to be gained by politicizing it, and both sides are doing that moreso than they are getting the world honestly behind it, and THAT is what will end it.
Sep 12th, 2006 09:05 AM
mburbank Boy oh boy, Preech, I got to tell you, I haven't even finsihed your post, and I just wanted you to know that if I had a sig, it would contain the quote " A "War on Islamofacists" is revisionist and retarded." I could not agree more.

Your summation of what I would say if I ever got it all sorted was better than anything I have said so far, which is impressive concidering I think that we disagree on wether we should be doing any of what we are doing.

So, I'll return the compliment candidly and admit I don't know what we should be doing. I just have really passionate feelings about things we should not do, and I hate retarded revisionism so, so SO much, and I get very angry that people confuse their legitimate (though contrary to my) goals for our country with what this administration is doing for what I see as a host of ham fisted and differing reasons in Iraq. I think it's a hideous stew of Daddy Issues, Free market fundamentalism, religous fundamentalism, arrogance, fear, slavish party loyalty, superiority and messianic delusions and that where it touches on goals and ideals expressed here on I-mock ( even by posters I never agree with) it is almost totally coincidental.

But the fact that I don't know what we should be doing is not an argument for being satisfied with it. If I didn't know how to drive, I still wouldn't get in a car with a drunk, legally blind dwarf with Narcolepsy and a driver's liscence.
Sep 12th, 2006 01:55 AM
Preechr We are at war with those that would use violence to suppress others, "we" being the most effectively violent thing in the history of the planet. A "War on Islamofacists" is revisionist and retarded. Was Saddam Hussein an "Islamofascist," or was he a decidedly un-Islamic-by-any-measure despot that was attacked within the criteria of THIS war? How many wars are we fighting?

Suddenly calling it a "War on Islamofacists" is to allow Max, once he's had the time to sort it all out, to say that we started a "War on Islamofacists" in Afghanistan, then switched gears to fight a "War against Saddam's Regime in Iraq," which allowed "Islamofascists" into Iraq, where we are now fighting another "War on Islamofacists." He would then facetiously ask which country are we going to behead next in order to broaden the "War on Islamofacists." THAT is why calling it a "War on Islamofacists" is retarded.

TERROR is the last available tool for someone to use violently against someone else. "War" is no longer conflicts between nations or alliances of nations. We tried "Cold War," a new concept in warfare, but that's out now, too. We are now in the era of Superpower vs. the regime. We did not declare war against Iraq... just it's leadership. We did not declare war against Afghanistan, just the bad guys holed up there. Saddam and the Taliban and the "Islamofascists" and C.O.B.R.A all use violence in the form of terror to suppress what we feel should be FREE people, so we kill them... "we" being the most effectively violent thing in the history of the planet.

I have asked this before to no avail: When terror no longer produces results for bad guys, what method is left? The pressure is on for all of these violent groups to disarm and form political movements that seek to do whatever they wish within the confines of the political arena DEMOCRATICALLY, just as God intended it. Unfortunately, God never enforced that, preferring instead to God-give us all inalienable rights and then leave it up to us to sort it all out, so now it's up to the Neo-Cons to make sure EVERYBODY gets to enjoy the freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Sep 12th, 2006 01:24 AM
Abcdxxxx He also said "Fascism is a religious concept".

It's just terminology though. there can be Fascist Corporatism.
Sep 11th, 2006 11:37 PM
Preechr THANK YOU.
Sep 11th, 2006 10:43 PM
ziggytrix “Fascism ought to more properly be called corporatism since it is the merger of state and corporate power.” Benito Mussolini
Sep 11th, 2006 10:34 PM
Abcdxxxx When did fascism become defined by how it effects outsiders? Certainly the populations living under fascists rule suffer the most.

You're still welcome to address the wealth of information from the article posted. All the organizations and governments we're speaking of were either linked, or inspired by the Nazis themselves. Not some hyperbole analogy but the very Nazis themselves. Really your argument is cosmetic. It hasn't risen above "but they had jungle in vietnam and sand in iraq".
Sep 11th, 2006 10:19 PM
Courage the Cowardly Dog I'd agree to that, but I also think the Vietnam analogy is lame though. Just cause it's a very long war we may not win with little back up doesn't make it identical. The driving forces on all 3 sides are VERY different and so is the methods.

I'd compare it more to wars between system lords on Stargate SG-1.
Sep 11th, 2006 08:26 PM
mburbank You mean our good friends and allies in the war in terror the Saudis, or some other Saudis? 'Cause it doesn't sound to me as if you're on board with the WOT we have. And you have to go to war with the war you have.

For a unified group with unfied goals, they sure are killing each other a lot in Iraq. I'm not sure I recall the Nazis killing each other by the bucket load.

I'm not saying they aren't dangerous. I'm saying they are different. Different enough that all this talk of appeasement and Hiter is a pretty useless model.
Sep 11th, 2006 06:10 PM
Abcdxxxx "the whole WWII anaolgy is useless as a tool for understanding, which is unsurprsing since it's intent is solely to influence the upcoming American elections."

Call me crazy, but I don't think the two articles I posted, or the many like it published over the past 5 years, have a thing to do with the upcoming elections.

Islamic Fascists do in fact recognize themselves as a group - they consider themselves good Muslims and soldiers for allah. Inter-factions and disputes are not what defines their ideology in common. For fundamentalists of any religion, the word of a prophet is more then enough to go on, wether from scriptures or just interpretation from a spiritual leaders. People routinely make life decisions based on religious doctrines, and in this case they have politicized their beliefs as duties commanded of them by Muhhammed. Everything they do is in reference to their concept (again, wether or not it's theologically or historicallyaccurate) of fullfilling his expectations of them. In that regard, this version of fascism is more dangerous then one led by a living breathing flawed figurehead. Their leadership rule by totalitarianism, and their people live under fascisism dictated by what is supposed to be Islamic law. Shar'ia laws in Saudi Arabi are islamic Fascism.
Sep 11th, 2006 03:53 PM
mburbank " They don't have a leader that commands loyalty on even a remote par with Hitler."
-Me, making a point about why the Nazi analogy doesn't work.

"Unlike the Nazis, the Islamic fascists "answer" to the call of many leaders... dead ones...Muhammed ring a bell?"
-You making a point about... well, I'm not really sure.

I don't believe a dead person can be a leader. The instructions of the dead are alway open to interpretation, there is no method by which you can say which living persons interpretation is more valid and far from unifying, the words of dead lead almost inexorably to factionilization and power struggles. The "Islamic Facists" are not a group, do not recognize themselves as a group, cannot even put aside their fraticidal killing to focus fully on any common goals they may have. Ergo, the whole WWII anaolgy is useless as a tool for understanding, which is unsurprsing since it's intent is solely to influence the upcoming American elections.

I'm hardly in a position to criticize you for going off topic, but that analogy is what this thread is about.
Sep 11th, 2006 01:19 PM
Abcdxxxx Nobody compared Muhammed to Hitler. It's the Islamic fascist belief of Muhammed that makes him a unifying figurehead for their movement. Wether their viewpoint is accurate is an entirely different topic entirely.
Sep 11th, 2006 11:04 AM
mburbank Fine, snootypants.

I moved it. You can respond to it or lock it or make it into a party hat.

"Max, I'd like for you to elaborate on this comment. Do you think he's incorrect b/c Muhammed simply doesn't hold much stature in the "ME"? Did Muhammed preach or practice peaceful Islam?

Which is it?"

Kevin, quite frankly I missed that post in the absolute blizzard of other crap in this thread. To respond, BECAUSE I RESPECT YOU,

I said Muslims had no single leader, no voice they all answered, even remotely comparable to Hitler. Abcdxx responded "What about Muhammed" and I said that was one of te stupidest things he'd ever said.

I didn't take it any further because I thout it was self evident. However unlike him, I am perfectly willing to accept your question as proof my meaning was NOT self evident, and so BECAUSE I REPECT YOU I will respond.

Quite frankly, I don't know anywhere near enough about the Koran to begin to discuss wether or not it preaches 'peaceful Islam' and make any sort of comparison to Nazism in particular or fascism in general, or even violence as a political, social or religous tool.

Here's what I do know. The Koran is and has been historically open to a wide number of interpretations, as have the speciffic words of their Prophet. The same can hardly be said for Hitler during his lifetime. His officers and soldiers were not allowed to 'interpret' his orders, there weren't multiple schools of thought on what he meant. I see little to no comparison between a totalitarian dictator during his lifetime and a religous leader dead for hundreds of years. If you want a comparison, you could look to living leaders capable of enforcing their will as they themselves interpret it. Al sadr, Hussein, whomever, and that was exactly my initial point. We are fighting multiple factions even within the three main ethnic divisions, complicated by countries, tribes, economies, histories, etc, etc, etc.

Of course Muhamed holds stature, but he does not personally enforce and interpret his will. I find comparison between a monolithic nation ruled by a speciffic dictator and a huge, fractured region influenced however strongly (and of course it's very strongly) by the written words ascribed to a man long dead. I find a comparison between Hitlers leadership of the Nazis and Mohameds influence on Muslis, even if you only want to talk about radicalized Muslims, well, stupid. Not to put to fine a point on it.

I hope I have now adressed your query in such a way that you personally feel I have not embarassed myself further, but only because I RESPECT YOU and not because I feel your ownership of the truth is such that you are empowered to make such determinations.
Sep 11th, 2006 09:51 AM
KevinTheOmnivore And still you refuse to discuss the issue.
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