A Joyful Friday Link

"Joy, joy at a time like this?" you say? Or "I couldn't possibly take any more joy!"?

OH well, for those who do need a little Friday afternoon pick-me-up, check out this .mpg of Bush and Blair declaring their "Endless Love" in song.

Comments

[eVite]

hehe. Here's another happy fun link!

[David F]

great list Lefty! very clever!

Steve -- while i understand that the majority is in favor, so the "popular vs unpopular" can be let aside, the thought that "europe and middle east" etc in ruins is puzzling. why would europe be a target? as usual, the europeans are either grabbing their ankles or adjusting their kneepads to appease and avoid conflict with anybody but the US.

the article, reason.com/links/links030603.shtml is a nice discussion. for exactly these discussions here! and these discussions are terrific!

the precautionary principle argument in favor of war is one that i don't quite get. the prez was given authority, thanks to the democrat-controlled senate (!) to go after terror, carte blanche. Iraq, even though not a 9/11 state, is a regime that does sponsor terror that, locally, is against us interests. fine. but i do really wonder why iraq, if it really were such a threat (it certainly didn't suddenly become one), why wasn't that highlighted in the campaign as one of the many foreign policy failures of the last duo? iraq wasn't mentioned until the "axis of evil speech", right? so, all of a sudden, post speech, this guy is about to attack??? that's where the current line of reasoning loses me.

and reading the un resolutions clearly shows that "more inspections" isn't called for. so, dealing with iraq, based on its failures makes more sense to me. technically, the cease fire has been voided. and also, the "why now" question is less relevant (because the violations have been present for so long, prior sloth doesn't excuse present sloth, etc). so, the violation argument collides with the terror attack argument to confusing effect (cease fire is provable, this terror fear is speculative). One reason should suffice.

but some of the questions conservatives were demanding of prez keep it in his friggin pants (um, bill jeff clinton, of course) when he moved into yuglslavia -- was and am totally against that!!! -- or haiti (exit plan, transition of power, change of regime will be accomplished "____", etc.) should be asked here.

figuring how turkey could (probably will) move in to get the PKK (based on the same anti terror principle)in the north of iraq hasn't been addressed. the exit strategy, potential leadership changes, stability once us troops leave. etc. many of the nuts and bolts of after iraq gets its ass handed to it haven't been addressed. hopefully we can secure the oil and de-booby trap the wells and areas before something happens there (nuke, maybe?)

sure, sometimes war is necessary ("revolution, WWII, star wars"). the first time i ever was in favor of US shooting was in response to 9/11. i think the us response was "too nice" actually. i think we should have found those valleys where the taliban/ al kaida people were hiding and poison gassed, irradiated, etc. killed every thing there. destroyed everything. so, my hesitance on iraq isn't from a pascifist notion nor a "war is bad, m-kay" point of view, it's just that the reasons for going are in such a muddle, some arguments are based on "9/11 responsibility/ link" (which i don't see or buy at all), then there's the UN SCR 1441 reasons (okay, makes some sense), and the "terror from there will happen at any second" (huh?) argument.

poor US action, european indifference and sabotage, and ADD on follow-up helped get us in this mess with iraq. If SH were on the playground, he'd get beaten like a rented mule. But, all of these justifications upon justifications upon justifications (where one of them, if carried through with the proof and powell-point, shouldsuffice) simply weaken any truth value of the claims. the presence of semi-explained or highly speculative arguments causes suspicion about this war with this citizen.

so, i do feel that discussion of the pro/ contra for moving in can still be discussed, as there are issues or reasons still not firmly pounded out.

thanks and have a great weekend, Lefty and Steve!

respectfully,
drf

[Lefty]

VIETNAM 2 PREFLIGHT CHECK
1. Cabal of oldsters who won?t listen to outside advice? Check.
2. No understanding of ethnicities of the many locals? Check.
3. Imposing country boundaries drawn in Europe, not by the locals? Check.
4. Unshakeable faith in our superior technology? Check.
5. France secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
6. Russia secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
7. China secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
8. SecDef pushing a conflict the JCS never wanted? Check.
9. Fear we?ll look bad if we back down now? Check.
10. Corrupt Texan in the WH? Check.
11. Land war in Asia? Check.
12. Right unhappy with outcome of previous war? Check.
13. Enemy easily moves in/out of neighboring countries? Check.
14. Soldiers about to be dosed with *our own* chemicals? Check.
15. Friendly fire problem ignored instead of solved? Check.
16. Anti-Americanism up sharply in Europe? Check.
17. B-52 bombers? Check.
18. Helicopters that clog up on the local dust? Check.
19. In-fighting among the branches of the military? Check.
20. Locals that cheer us by day, hate us by night? Check.
21. Local experts ignored? Check.
22. Local politicians ignored? Check.
23. Locals used to conflicts lasting longer than the USA has been a country? Check.
24. Against advice, Prez won?t raise taxes to pay for war? Check.
25. Blue water navy ships operating in brown water? Check.
26. Use of nukes hinted at if things don?t go our way? Check.
27. Unpopular war? Check.

Vietnam 2, you are cleared to taxi

[Lefty]

Thanks, dude. Take a nap and see ya on Monday.

[Steve]

Ummmm...last poll I saw was 67% in favor, only 33% against shootin' in Iraq.

I don't think anyone is stupid eough to call a war "popular". War is a bad thing. sometimes it's necessary.

And this won't be another Vietnam. We can either do it now, or when Europe and the mideast is a smoldering ruin.

[Another Dan]

Lefty:

Thanks for that clever, irrelevant list. Wait a minute while I pull up your other list......on how the US......was going to follow the Soviets, Brits and others into disaster in the mountainous, landlocked hell known as Afghanistan...Here it is.

Hold a minute...

Not one of those came true either!

[Another Dan]

David:

I admire the depth of your thinking. I would and will listen to anyone who so analyzes a problem.

At the risk of boring Lefty with a reprint from another thread, the war in Iraq has nothing to do with an Al Qaeda link or revenge:

"If the war on terrorism is to be won, it is not a matter of only finding and stopping those who have attacked us. If every person who every had anything to do with 9/11 died tomorrow, is this war over? Is terrorism finished?

Bush has correctly identified that terrorism is a by-product of a culture that is defective. Rather than wring one's hands about the hegemony of the US, consider the source of terror: in great part it springs from the indoctrination of the youth of the fundamental Islamic world.

Bush understands that the war will be won with freedom, which will break the back of the mullahs who brainwash a generation to die and take us with them. Freedom is the natural state of the human spirit and it values life and order. Bush seeks to transform the hotbeds of indoctrination with freedom. His main targets: Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iraq is a device to continue the change in the Middle East. Iran, bubbling with rebellion, will not long remain repressed pinned between a liberated Iraq and Afghanistan. With these three countries in the throws of democratic explosion, Saudi Arabia will then be compelled to change."

My point is that this thinking, although true, can only be whispered. Defective Islamic culture? A domino approach to toppling Middle Eastern governments? Yikes! So the argument for Iraq for Iraq's sake seems weak. But this is phase one of a larger plan.

[Another Dan]

Lefty:

Fascinating comments that I would not have predicted. MAD assumes a fear of destruction. Do you not accept the premise that terrorists embrace their destruction, eventually making MAD a reality (i.e., there is no deterrant value to our arsenal)?

[Lefty]

No, I don't accept that premise. None of the fundamentalist, charismatic leaders strap any explosives to themselves. They have drones to do the dirty work. We have successfully, and with world government support, gone after those guys as criminals. This is not to say the leaders won't die for their cause but they are not suicidal.

Similarly, governments take survival as their ultimate responsibility. They are not suicidal, either. The tired example is, of course, Russia but I would submit that the same MAD approach has, and can continue to work with North Korea, possibly the craziest nation on earth.

We have lived with terrorism for a hundred years and are not alone in the problems they present to the world. We are assisting their chaotic goals by fracturing world cooperation.

[Lefty]

The weird thing is the rest of the world sees exactly your version of the Plan (a holy war) and are acting in their interest by rejecting it. Patriotic Americans, convinced that the Gummint could not/would not pull such a big switcheroo on them, go along incrementally and allow it to take a life of its own. Every day I wake up and wonder how we got from 911 to here in so short a time.

This is the stuff world wars are made of. Over 20 nations have nukes now and many more are speeding into them. This will not be pretty.

[joe]

Steve's poll numbers are a little misleading. 66% support war WITH UN APPROVAL. Without, support drops below 50%. I'n not exactly sure what to make of this, but there it is.

Lefty, you're right about American's swallowing the administration's public excuses. Whenever I mention the Project for a New American Century or a grand plan to increase our influence/democracy in the Middle East on certain web sites, people start making comments about tin foil hats. The funny thing is, publications like National Review and the Weekly Standard have been very forthright about this being the plan, but the left still gets accuses of hawking conspiracy theories if we mention it.

[Another Dan]

Lefty:

I have a propisition that worldwide destruction is inevitable because once you marry disaffected (and violent) people (who will always exist) with the ever-increasing power of technology, one day a Mohammed Atta will be able to hold in his hands planet-encompassing destructive power.

So I agree that it might not be pretty. However, since the root cause of hostilities towards America is our existence (our culture) and not US hegemony (a red herring argument), we can either commit mass suicide, be passive and endure terror as it happens, or proactively go after the problem.

What would you recommend?

[Lefty]

Have the courage to change the things we can change, accept those that we can't and the wisdom to know the difference.

Life is a paradox. Mutually Assured Destruction works.

[Kevin Carson]

Another Dan:

So the "root cause" is "our existence," not "our hegemony." Sounds an awful lot like the neocon mantra "they hate us not for what we've done, but what we are." That's a great slogan, but it sounds more like a statement of faith than an empirical generalization from the past. This is also true, admittedly, of the statement that it's really about blowback from past empire. But FWIW, it strikes me as incredible that 9-11 would have happened without arming the mujahedeen and carrying out Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

[Another Dan]

Kevin:

Try reading the manifesto put out by Al Qaeda before you conclude I am humming some neocon tune. Try to sound less intelligent and be more intelligent.