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Open thread
- By Phillip Brownlee
- Posted Feb. 18, 2007 at 1:05 a.m.
- Filed under Open thread
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45 Comments
http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20070209/cm_uc_crpbux/op_33580;_ylt=Ao1ymaThttvRNylb4d6bpMSets8F
Is Bombing Iran Bush’s Call?Fri Feb 9, 3:00 AM ETIn aborting ’s nuclear program, “all options are on the table.”?Some version of this threat against Iran has lately been made by John McCain, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Mitt Romney.Yet, if an attack on Iran is among “options … on the table,” who put it there? Who gave President Bush the authority to attack Iran? And when was it granted? And are all options also “on the table” if North Korea continues to test nuclear weapons?What makes these questions other than academic is that Bush is putting in place military assets that will enable him to order and effect the rapid nuclear castration of Iran. But scarcely a peep of protest has been heard from our congressional leadership.Observers have noted the dispatch of minesweepers and another U.S. carrier to the Persian Gulf, the naming of Admiral Bill “Fox” Fallon to head CentCom, which today manages two ground wars, and the return of U.S. fighter-bombers to Turkey. In March’s Vanity Fair, Craig Unger reports:”The same neocon ideologues behind the Iran war have been using the same tactics — alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on WMD — to push for the bombing of Iran. As President Bush ups the pressure on Tehran, is he planning to double his Middle East bet?”Ex-Israeli Prime Minister “Bibi” Netanyahu has told CNN: “Iran is Germany, and it’s 1938. Except that this Nazi regime that is in Iran … wants to dominate the world, annihilate the Jews, but also annihilate America.”More ominous than the hawk-talk is Unger’s report that “Bush has directed StratCom (U.S. Strategic Command) to draw up plans for a massive strike against Iran at a time when CentCom has had its hands full overseeing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan???????. Shifting to StratCom indicates that they are talking about a really punishing air force and naval air attack (on Iran).” So says retired Col. Patrick Lang, formerly of the Defense Intelligence Agency.Now, this dramatic turn toward Iran — as a menace and source of our troubles in Iraq, which began with Bush’s speech announcing the surge — can have other interpretations.Bush may be waving a big stick in Tehran’s face to compel it to negotiate its nuclear program. He may be reassuring the Saudis and Sunnis that America will not leave them to face a nuclear Iran. He may be recruiting and rallying an anti-Iran coalition of Israeland Sunni Arab states to stand up to the Shia superpower in the Gulf. He may be playing to the home crowd in America, which is more receptive to keeping nuclear weapons away from the mullahs than in making Iraq safe for democracy at a cost of 100 U.S. dead a month.But whatever motive he has, Bush is putting in place forces to enable him to order an all-out attack on Iran’s navy, air force, and anti-aircraft, anti-ship and land-based missiles — and all its known nuclear facilities.Now, as there is no indication Iran is preparing any attack on U.S. forces or facilities, or the homeland, such a U.S. attack would be the first strike in a preventive war — like the ones Japan executed at Port Arthur in 1904 and Pearl Harbor in 1941. Only Bush could claim Iran had been repeatedly warned of what he would do.So, we return to the question: Does Bush have the authority to do this? If so, where did he get it, as Congress alone is empowered in the Constitution to declare war?Discussing preventive war on Iran on “Hardball,” Sen. Jim Webb said he is considering introducing a resolution declaring that Bush has no authority in present law to launch a war on Iran.Such a resolution, HJR 14, has already been introduced in the House by Rep. Walter Jones , Republican of North Carolina, and now has the backing of 28 members. In an anguished plea to President Bush, Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, implored: “Don’t do it, Mr. President. Don’t bomb Iran. … We don’t need it. We don’t want it.”Paul went on to declare that, today, Bush has no authority — in the Constitution, in the law or in morality — to launch a pre-emptive war on another nation that has not attacked us.So, will the neocons get their way and their new war — on Iran?Or will Congress follow the guidance of Jefferson: “In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”Those member of Congress today apologizing for having voted Bush a blank check for war on Iraq might better tell Bush, by joint resolution, that he has no blank check for a war on Iran.Or is this Congress, too, terrified of crossing the War Party?
It does concern me because I don’t think Bush will need, nor will he care about Congress’s approval.
“Portions of the War Powers Resolution require the President to consult with Congress prior to the start of any hostilities as well as regularly until U.S. armed forces are no longer engaged in hostilities (Sec. 3); and to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities if Congress has not declared war or passed a resolution authorizing the use of force within 60 days (Sec. 5(b)).”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution
You’re right to be worried, PM. Bush doesn’t have to declare war to start one. The War Powers Resolution only requires the president to “consult” with Congress, not get their permission. Bush can order troops into Iran without permission of Congress for 60 days and can extend for another 30 days. What would be the practical effect? War, whether Congress and the American people want it or not.
And he’s shown that he really doesn’t care about what the people want. All he’s worried about now is his own legacy.
We’ve seen in the past with regards to wire-tapping and other things, that to George W. Bush, the word “Congress” can mean a handful of select congressmen, not the body as a whole.
“At this critical moment when most Americans seek to extricate US forces from the fighting in Iraq as swiftly as possible, George W. Bush appears determined to construct a new rationale for intervention whose logical conclusion is not withdrawal but a wider war, possibly involving attacks on Iran later this year.”http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070305/klare
We need to get rid of the crazies.
Gated, and thus reprinted in its entirety from http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/opinion/18rich.html:——————————————Oh What a Malleable War
By FRANK RICHPublished: February 18, 2007MAYBE the Bush White House can’t conduct a war, but no one has ever impugned its ability to lie about its conduct of a war. Now even that well-earned reputation for flawless fictionalizing is coming undone. Watching the administration try to get its story straight about Iran’s role in Iraq last week was like watching third graders try to sidestep blame for misbehaving while the substitute teacher was on a bathroom break. The team that once sold the country smoking guns in the shape of mushroom clouds has completely lost its mojo.
Surely these guys can do better than this. No sooner did unnamed military officials unveil their melodramatically secretive briefing in Baghdad last Sunday than Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blew the whole charade. General Pace said he didn’t know about the briefing and couldn’t endorse its contention that the Iranian government’s highest echelons were complicit in anti-American hostilities in Iraq. Public-relations pandemonium ensued as Tony Snow, the State Department and finally the president tried to revise the story line on the fly. Back when Karl Rove ruled, everyone read verbatim from the same script. Last week’s frantic improvisations were vintage Scooter Libby, at best the ur-text for a future perjury trial.
Yet for all the sloppy internal contradictions, the most incriminating indictment of the new White House disinformation campaign is to be found in official assertions made more than a year ago. The press and everyone else seems to have forgotten that the administration has twice sounded the same alarms about Iranian weaponry in Iraq that it did last week.
In August 2005, NBC News, CBS News and The Times cited unnamed military and intelligence officials when reporting, as CBS put it, that “U.S. forces intercepted a shipment from Iran containing professionally made explosive devices specifically designed to penetrate the armor which protects American vehicles.” Then, as now, those devices were the devastating roadside bombs currently called E.F.P.’s (explosively formed penetrators). Then, as now, they were thought to have been brought into Iraq by members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Then, as now, there was no evidence that the Iranian government was directly involved. In February 2006, administration officials delivered the same warning yet again, before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Timing is everything in propaganda, as in all showmanship. So why would the White House pick this particular moment to mount such an extravagant rerun of old news, complete with photos and props reminiscent of Colin Powell’s infamous presentation of prewar intelligence? Yes, the death toll from these bombs is rising, but it has been rising for some time. (Also rising, and more dramatically, is the death toll from attacks on American helicopters.)
After General Pace rendered inoperative the first official rationale for last Sunday’s E.F.P. briefing, President Bush had to find a new explanation for his sudden focus on the Iranian explosives. That’s why he said at Wednesday’s news conference that it no longer mattered whether the Iranian government (as opposed to black marketeers or freelance thugs) had supplied these weapons to Iraqi killers. “What matters is, is that they’re there,” he said. The real point of hyping this inexact intelligence was to justify why he had to take urgent action now, no matter what the E.F.P.’s provenance: “My job is to protect our troops. And when we find devices that are in that country that are hurting our troops, we’re going to do something about it, pure and simple.”
Darn right! But if the administration has warned about these weapons twice in the past 18 months (and had known “that they’re there,” we now know, since 2003), why is Mr. Bush just stepping up to that job at this late date? Embarrassingly enough, The Washington Post reported on its front page last Monday — the same front page with news of the Baghdad E.F.P. briefing — that there is now a shortfall of “thousands of advanced Humvee armor kits designed to reduce U.S. troop deaths from roadside bombs.” Worse, the full armor upgrade “is not scheduled to be completed until this summer.” So Mr. Bush’s idea of doing something about it, “pure and simple” is itself a lie, since he is doing something about it only after he has knowingly sent a new round of underarmored American troops into battle.
To those who are most suspicious of this White House, the “something” that Mr. Bush really wants to do has little to do with armor in any case. His real aim is to provoke war with Iran, no matter how overstretched and ill-equipped our armed forces may be for that added burden. By this line of thinking, the run-up to the war in Iraq is now repeating itself exactly and Mr. Bush will seize any handy casus belli he can to ignite a conflagration in Iran.
Iran is an unquestionable menace with an Israel-hating fanatic as its president. It is also four times the size of Iraq and a far more dangerous adversary than was Saddam’s regime. Perhaps Mr. Bush is as reckless as his harshest critics claim and will double down on catastrophe. But for those who don’t hold quite so pitch-black a view of his intentions, there’s a less apocalyptic motive to be considered as well.
Let’s not forget that the White House’s stunt of repackaging old, fear-inducing news for public consumption has a long track record. Its reason for doing so is always the same: to distract the public from reality that runs counter to the White House’s political interests. When the Democrats were gaining campaign traction in 2004, John Ashcroft held an urgent news conference to display photos of seven suspected terrorists on the loose. He didn’t bother to explain that six of them had been announced previously, one at a news conference he had held 28 months earlier. Mr. Bush played the same trick last February as newly declassified statistics at a Senate hearing revealed a steady three-year growth in insurgent attacks: he breathlessly announced a thwarted Qaeda plot against the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles that had already been revealed by the administration four months before.
We know what Mr. Bush wants to distract us from this time: Congressional votes against his war policy, the Libby trial, the Pentagon inspector general’s report deploring Douglas Feith’s fictional prewar intelligence, and the new and dire National Intelligence Estimate saying that America is sending troops into the cross-fire of a multifaceted sectarian cataclysm.
That same intelligence estimate also says that Iran is “not likely to be a major driver of violence” in Iraq, but no matter. If the president can now whip up a Feith-style smoke screen of innuendo to imply that Iran is the root of all our woes in the war — and give “the enemy” a single recognizable face (Ahmadinejad as the new Saddam) — then, ipso facto, he is not guilty of sending troops into the middle of a shadowy Sunni-Shiite bloodbath after all.
Oh what a malleable war Iraq has been. First it was waged to vanquish Saddam’s (nonexistent) nuclear arsenal and his (nonexistent) collaboration with Al Qaeda. Then it was going to spread (nonexistent) democracy throughout the Middle East. Now it is being rebranded as a fight against Tehran. Mr. Bush keeps saying that his saber rattling about Iran is not “a pretext for war.” Maybe so, but at the very least it’s a pretext for prolonging the disastrous war we already have.
What makes his spin brazen even by his standards is that Iran is in fact steadily extending its influence in Iraq — thanks to its alliance with the very Iraqi politicians that Mr. Bush himself has endorsed. In December the president welcomed a Shiite leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, to the White House with great fanfare; just three weeks later American forces had to raid Mr. Hakim’s Iraq compound to arrest Iranian operatives suspected of planning attacks against American military forces, possibly with E.F.P.’s. As if that weren’t bad enough, Nuri al-Maliki’s government promptly overruled the American arrests and ordered the operatives’ release so they could escape to Iran. For all his bluster about doing something about it, Mr. Bush did nothing.
It gets worse. This month we learned that yet another Maliki supporter in the Iraqi Parliament, Jamal Jafaar Mohammed Ali Ebrahimi, was convicted more than two decades ago of planning the murderous 1983 attacks on the American and French Embassies in Kuwait. He’s now in Iran, but before leaving, this terrorist served as a security adviser, no less, to the first Iraqi prime minister after the American invasion, Ibrahim al-Jafaari. Mr. Jafaari, hailed by Mr. Bush as “a strong partner for peace and freedom” during his own White House visit in 2005, could be found last week in Tehran, celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution and criticizing America’s arrest of Iranian officials in Iraq.
Even if the White House still had its touch for spinning fiction, it’s hard to imagine how it could create new lies brilliant enough to top the sorry truth. When you have a president making a big show of berating Iran while simultaneously empowering it, you’ve got another remake of “The Manchurian Candidate,” this time played for keeps.
Note that one of Rich’s major conclusions is NOT that war with Iran is imminent, but that the Bush administration is beating war drums to distract Americans from other news, news which is politically inconvenient to the administration.
Probably the biggest thing Bush hopes to accomplish with his war drums, then, is getting Americans to support his personnel surge in Iraq. He doesn’t want to wage war on Iran (by this scenario), he wants Americans and their Congressional representatives to stand behind him in Iraq.
I think I agree with Rich. Although Bush has clearly showed us he’s a dipshit, further clarification to include “breathtaking” surely can’t be on the horizon. (i.e., breathtakingly stupid dipshit).
Can it?
“So what, then, is the primary objective of compulsory education?
The primary objective is to convert human raw material into human resources which can be employed efficiently by the managers of government and the economy. The original purposes of schooling were to make good people (the religious purpose), to make good citizens (the public purpose) and to make individuals their personal best (the private purpose). Throughout the 19th century, a new Fourth Purpose began to emerge, tested thoroughly in the military state of Prussia in northern Europe. The Fourth Purpose made the point of mass schooling to serve big business and big government by extending childhood, replacing thinking with drill and memorization while fashioning incomplete people unable to protect themselves from exhortation, advertising and other forms of indirect command. In this fashion, poor Prussia with a small population became one of the great powers of the earth. Its new schooling method was imitated far and wide, from Japan to the United States.”
bush IS going to attack Iran.
And so for the first time, I join the call.
bush and cheney MUST be impeached before they can do this.
Question for WE bloggers:Do strategic airstrikes war make in your opinions, truth be told?
Anon’s anti-public school screed this time came from one John Taylor Gatto, “Dumbing us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling.”
Apparently, at the homeschool Anon “attended,” no one ever told him about citing sources and plagiarism.
Also, Gatto himself attended a Catholic boarding school.
Go figure.
America’s view of GOP crumbles with Iraq
By Thomas F. SchallerSpecial to The Baltimore Sun
Article Last Updated: 02/15/2007 11:20:07 PM MST
According to the latest Gallup survey, Republican self-identification has declined nationally and in almost every American state.
Why? The short answer is that President Bush’s war of choice in Iraq has destroyed the partisan brand Republicans spent the past four decades building.
That brand was based upon four pillars: that Republicans are more trustworthy on defense and military issues; that they know when and where markets can replace or improve government; that they are more competent administrators of those functions government can’t privatize; and, finally, that their public philosophy is imbued with moral authority.
The war demolished all four claims.
In uniform or out, Americans think Iraq is a disaster, oppose escalation and blame Bush and his party for the mess in Mesopotamia. Heading into the 2006 mid-terms, polls showed Republicans trailing Democrats as the party most trusted to handle Iraq and terrorism. Nationally, Bush’s war approval ratings hover around 30 percent.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_5238026
*****
The RepubliCONs are in their last throes if you will.
Worst. President. Ever. hasn’t just screwed America–he screwed his closest supporters.
Reap what you sow, losers. Reap what you sow.
McCain just did away with about 20 years of good will in one simple sentence.
What good will?
OH, you mean the good will of letting the president of iran come to this country and talk at the UN and NOT be detained by the FBI for investigation to see IF he was involved in the attack of a US Embassy and the kidnapping of US Citizens. I guess that does have goodwill written all over it, Jimma (worst president ever) Carter style written all over it.
Gene, why is it okay for use to plot the assassination of Hugo Chavez, illegally mine Nicaraguan harbors, or fund right-wing death squads in El Salvador WHILE AT THE SAME TIME demanding international justice for people who do exactly the same thing like the President of Iran?
Just wondering . . .
Error–not “for use,” for US.
Cappy, I can only say to look at the policy of the US throughout the past 200 some odd years. It basically boils down to this.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Tell me WHEN in the past 80 years has the US not been involved in other country’s internal struggles.Hitler declared parts of Europe as a german territory and thus his “reasoning”Japan declared an “Asian Circle” and thus we were interfering in an Asian problem.Korea, civil warVietnam, civil warGreece and Congo, civil war
Russia attacks Afghanistan, who do we want to win? Who do we want to support?
Iraq attacks Iran, at the time, WHO do we want to win? Who do we support?
El Salvador, civil war
Afghanistan, during Taliban rule, who did we support? The northern alliance, the LESSER of the two evils.
Bosnia, civil warDarfur, civil warRuwanda, civil war
All throughout our history, American presidents have been FORCED to make some hard decisions. Repub and Dems. The lesser of two evils and we HOPE that they are doing what is best for and to protect the US.Like it or not but sometimes certain things must be done. You can call it a war for oil, but what happens to the US economy when the oil drys up or the price skyrockets? We lose.Believe me I have cussed EVERY administration and congress since the 1970’s embargo. Here it is almost 40 years later and we are STILL in the same predicament.
The question is, do we pull out of everything, turn a blind eye?
Who is to pick and choose which struggles we do or do not get involved in. We do that when we go to the polls, that the president and congress the majority choose will make those tough decisions, when the time comes.Clinton went into the Bosnian civil war, it was a tough decision but he made what he thought was the right decision. That is what the majority picked him for.
This country is so split politically, that no president will ever be able to make a decision without the other sides opposition. There will never be another “correct” war, such as WWII was considered. Unless a specific country pulls up on the shores of North Carolina or Oregon and trys to take over the country, no use of force will ever be considered okay by one side. (see john mellancamps recent comments)
Clinton could have pulled our bases out of the Middle East. Every president since 1948 could have stopped support for Israel. We didn’t have to go into Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia etc.
So either we continue to make these tough decisions or pull out of the world community all together.
‘[McCain] dismissed Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as someone “whose name I refuse to learn to pronounce.”‘
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070217/ap_on_el_pr/mccain2008;_ylt=Al68fn9Sh5zyiNqstBhEIr7MWM0F
McCain would rather use these 8 words to make the troglodytes of his party happy than show American voters he can be a responsible adult (yeah: forget showing Americans he’d be fit as POTUS, with these words McCain puts into question his overall level of maturity as a human).
And other than making guys like Gene less pissed at John McCain, what do such willfully ignorant comments earn for the USA?
ANS: not a damn thing outside more international scorn. And let’s face it: Bush has got to know his surge stands a snowball’s chance in hell of doing any long-term good for Iraq. Mostly what Bush is trying to do is to repair the formerly good name of the US by sacrificing more blood and treasure in Iraq with his “surge.” That’s right: the only good to come from a surge of 21,500 troops is to effectively buy the international community’s good will.
McCain’s words screw even that up. Like I said, John, don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.
Wafflin’ John ALSO managed to dodge yesterdays Senate vote on the House resolution opposing bush’s surge.
“Truth” – we considered the strategic air strikes against our naval base in Pearl Harbor 12/7/41 to be an act of war. Does that answer your question?
“Strategic strikes” by our forces on Iran will VERY likely bring strategic strikes by Iran on OUR forces in Iraq.
REMEMBER. It’s a different ball game than Iraq. Iran has an air force.
We just have to do better than this. Someone has to take a step back, take a deep breath and revisit this entire mess that Bush has made in the Middle East.
Ninety percent of the world was behind us just five years ago after 9/11.
Now, ninety percent of the world is against our foreign policy in the Middle East.
Iraq is a huge mess, true enough, but the unthinkable will happen if Bush attacks Iran.
World War III is not an exagerated possibility if Bush goes to war with Iran.
World War I began with a Serbian – Austrian conflict.
World War III could begin with a Iraq – Iran – USA conflict.
From Reuters, Feb 14, 2007.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice misled the U.S. Congress when she said last week that she had not seen a 2003 Iranian proposal for talks with the United States, a former senior government official said on Wednesday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1433692720070214
…and we should trust Dubya and Kinda Sleezy Rice to keep us out of a war with Iran?
…they are without same.
Gene Ralston–
You conflate “engaging in world politics” with American terrorism.
There have been many occasions of American terrorism, overthrowing democracies to install kings and dictators, and gunboat diplomacy.
Helping Bosnia avoid a genocide by Serbs is in no way morally equivalent to mining Nicaraguan harbors (under Reagan) or plotting to kill thrice-elected President of Venezula Chavez.
“Kill a man, it’s murder. Kill a million, it’s foreign policy.” Howard Zinn
The way to begin ending terrorism is for the United States to stop engaging in it.
“So either we continue to make these tough decisions or pull out of the world community all together.”
A perfect example of the “either/or” fallacy.
Invading and occupying Iraq which has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths is not making a “tough decision.”
It’s making a STUPID and immoral decision, a decision that differs from flying planes into the World Trade Center only by the method of terrorism and the scale.
Our terrorism is much worse.
But because it’s Iraqis who are terrorised, because it’s they who are killed and maimed and it’s their government which is overthrown, we don’t even see it as terrorism.
We see it as a “tough decision” neccesitated by “world events.”
As if the world’s mightiest superpower has no choice but to act in this way . . .
Capn – Ralston’s bogus ‘logic’ has become all too typical. “Because you don’t support invasion you are an isolationist.” BOGUS. And his examples are equally so. In Bosnia, for example, we did NOT intervene militarily. We sponsored talks that led to the Dayton Accords. We then provided a token presence along with NATO to implement. In Darfur those of us who want action look only for logistical and air support for AU and UN/NATO forces. In Palestine we look to see America resume its role as arbiter – not troops.
I like having cops on my street. They make me safer than I would be without them. However, I sure as hell don’t want them bashing down my door. Nor do I want them arresting me for telling Mayor Mayans what I think of him. There IS a difference.
Pelosi’s implosion of the most ethical Congress ever continues.
So, just how good does ‘08 look?
Tee Hee
Jesus wept.
“WASHINGTON Feb 16, 2007 (AP)— House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who stripped embattled Rep. William Jefferson of his seat on a powerful tax committee last year, has decided to put him on the Homeland Security panel, infuriating some Republicans who charge he may be a security risk.”
When has Dubya ever needed or used diplomacy in his life? Daddy and Mummy (well preservered, isn’t she?) have always fixed everything. Or their friends have. Diplomacy would mean taking responsibility.
GW Bush: the perfect example of a sociopath.
Karma, Fleetie. Pure Karma.
Do strategic air strikes war make in your opinions, truth be told?A strategic strike, is still an act of aggression no matter what the motivation. A good rule of thumb is if some one did it to the United States, would it be thought a act of war? If you think about it, Pearl harbor was a strategic air strike, the Japanese were trying to eliminate the Pacific fleet.You can bet it would be taken as an act of war by many in the world, it would also be un-American… truth be told!
Hey, Peckerwood–
We won. You lost.
If you don’t want William Jefferson on the Homeland Security committee, then you should’ve kept the Congress in the hands of the RePUKES.
Get over it.
“infuriating some Republicans who charge he may be a security risk.”
I wonder what the Republicans thought of the security risk that was presented by Cunningham, Ney, DeLay and friends?
What about the security risk posed by Cheney, Libby, Rove, and Armitage?
Security risk my ass. Politics, all politics.
Good point, writerdog.
That’s exactly the standard we should take.
If someone did to us what we do to them, would it be considered terrorism?
When Saddam Hussein purportedly plotted to kill H. W. Bush–even though he did not have the means–Clinton of all people responded with a missile strike.
However, when the CIA plots to kill Hugo Chavez, that’s okay because . . . uh . . . we really don’t like Chavez.
Or something.
So using our own standards, Venezuela is now justified in attacking us with missiles.
Of course, THEY would never do that . . .
I think this is bull. 1st of all, Saddam touted he had WMD’s, just because he was doing so to intimidate his enemies in the region.
Iran flat out says it’s going to go nuclear. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t, but should we be held liable if moran dictators like to cry wolf?
I am really trying to understand where many of you stand via national defense and foreign policy.Because all I can fathom, truth be told, is Anti-US, pro-Dictator or Socialist policy?Please explain, truth be told.
Truth–
The first thing the United States needs to do from now on is support democracy, not just say it will support democracy.
That means it has to respect democracy no matter for whom or what the majority vote–Hugo Chavez in Venezuela or Hamas in Palestine.
Instead, the US gov’t (who mouths platitudes about creating democracy) immediately attacks any democracy it disagrees with. Hamas for instance has been essentially sanctioned out of existence. Chavez was the target of an attempted coup and assassination by the US.
It is not “socialist” or “anti-American” to insist that our government live up to the ideals it claims it has.
Support democracy. Stop US terrorism.
In short, become America.
Truth be told, it is you who is pro-dictator. Truth be told, we have replaced democracies with dictatorships in several countries over the years. Truth be told, this often ends up back-firing on us. Truth be told, our invasion of Iraq has back-fired. Truth be told, it is those who favor bad policies that back-fire who are anti-US. Therefore, truth be told, YOU are anti-US.
Right you are, HT.
The reich-wing keeps the sheeple so hysterical over the latest enemy, they can’t keep track of all the times the US gov’t KILLED democratically elected leaders to install an unelected dictator or monarch.
Iran in 1957 comes to mind.
In El Salvador, we turned the “security forces” into a right-wing terror squad.
And remember when the fore-runner to Al Qaeda truck bombed the WTC in 1993? Who taught them how to truck bomb buildings?
Why, our own CIA after we allied ourselves with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to inflict maximum pain on the rapidly declining Soviet Union.
Did it ever occur to you “my country, right or wrong” types that fomenting violence around the world is not a good idea?
Apparently not.
Truth be told, I appreciate the respectability of your answer Capn.There are Democratically elected Governments however that are sworn enemies of the United State and/or it’s interests (Hamas an example).I do not think we are the bad guys in this scenario, truth be told.I do believe, truth be told, your stance is noble. However, it is “perfect world” scenario, which of course we do not live in, truth be told.
Anyone else think this site is running slow today????
Truth be told, Hamas came to power because we undercut Abbas. Truth be told, Hizbollah is gaining power because we undercut the Saniora government. Truth be told, the Ayatollah came to power because we overthrew the democarcy in Iran and installed the dictator Shah. Truth be told, these US-installed dictatorships are unstable and back-fire.
You are correct, truth be told, Hard Truth. The question remains how is any of this GW Bush’s fault?I might also remind you, truth be told, Adolph Hitler was a Democratically elected leader. Should the US have done nothing?
Heh, truth be told, Hitler was NEVER democratically elected, but that’s a common myth that a lot of people think is true.
“You have can control or you can have democracy. You can’t have both.”