Well the Rove-led GOP political machine's focus groups must have finally found a key catch-phrase to rally the easily-led faithful to continue pursuing outdated blue v-meme policies.  As a result, we will be hearing about nothing but the looming Islamic Facist threat from now till election day.

Hopefully the electorate will be wise enough to see that the real threats to U.S. citizens and the rest of the world are those (mostly conservative Republicans here in the U.S.) who can see no viable options except those blue-value "solutions" that inevitably lead us to war.  These blue values lenses are the same ones worn by our current adminstration that did not allow the world's best orange-value scientists the time to discover whether Iraq truly possesed weapons of mass destruction that were a real threat to anyone.

This blue-value system now points us to imagining a similar (but larger) threat in Iran.........when in reality it is OUR blue/orange policies (such as conquering and occupying Iraq and unilaterally supporting Israel) that are creating more and more resentment, fear and terrorism in the Islamic world.  It is our failed policies in Iraq and Lebanon that have recently empowered Iran and the Islamic fundamentalists more than ever.........and this adminstration is more desperate than ever in the face of these failures and our continuing dependence on foreign oil (which it also continues to foster).

Sadly this blue-lens adminstration offers no viable solutions other than greater economic aggression and military war......because if you are not with our tribe and its value system, you are the evil enemy and a great threat to us........If there truly are "facists" in control of Iran, then there are an equal number of facists currently in control of our government here in the U.S. and Britain.........where the coming elections offer the opportunity to prove that democracy is superior to theocracy, but they cannot do so simply by holding elections, they must do so by electing leaders with more-adequate value systems that can envision and implement true solutions to the crises we face.

R.K.

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"No problem can be solved at the level of consciousness that created it in the first place!"

887 Posts on Forum #1; 222 Posts on Forum #2......Member Since 8/8/2003

I think your anti-Bush lens is distorting the true picture a bit myself.

The U.S. has two primary parties.....from what I've seen, neither party has the solution.  We have independents (such as myself) and a few other minor political parties, but it's either the Dems or the GOP for the most part.  The other parties simply do not have the kind of funding to really get after it.

As far as the Islamic facists......you doubt this term?  It's real, and it's a fairly accurate term to describe many of this groups.  I've been there (the Middle East) and some of those people would have no problem killing anyone from the U.S., including you.  They don't care what you believe, or if you hate Bush....they'd only care that you are from the U.S. and plot to get whatever mileage they could  from media outlets and what not.

You seem to imply that the Democrats have the solution.  They don't.  Right now, they'll say anything they can to get elected.  When elected, welcome to the same old song and dance.  The anybody but Bush crap is just that.....crap.

IMHO, the biggest problem facing the U.S. system of democracy are life-long politicians.  Term limits will fix that, but our leaders will never vote for them, just as they passed a law years ago that they had to vote not to get a pay raise.  It should be considered public service....not a career.

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In a black and white picture....there's a lot of grey junk

the east seperates the west  berlin wall came crushing down in do time, who woulda thought, eh?

i recall my father getting demoted at work-place for sleeping in on a   'i'm proud to be a red-square supporter' parade-day.

h

How could a group of people who are resisting an invasion be terrorist?

 

The Iraqi resistance however brutal is a resistance movement against an invader of their country.

 

The liars and war criminals President Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, who if their were any REAL justice in the world would be on the dock with Saddam Hussein for war crimes, are running around lying, deceiving, and distorting reality to defend their immoral illegal war, and have the audacity to claim the war in Iraq, is the forefront of the war on terror!

 

 

Before this bloodily adventure in Iraq there were no terrorist there, so these liars are directly responsible for the “terrorism” now in Iraq. If the American people don’t see through this Nazi-like Propaganda effort by the administration and throw the real FASCIST out of office- the Republicans, then this country is finished.

 

They are using the big lie, the big distortion, the fear card to bamboozle the American people to keep the neo-con agenda viable by not turning out the Republican corporate lackeys in congress to continue giving power to the neo-con beast.

 

 

Of course the Democrats are not much better than the Republicans: it is the usual choice we get in this corporate two party dictatorship that at best always gives us the proverbial lesser of two evils to pick from. Nevertheless throwing the Republicans out decisively will send a MESSAGE TO THE DANGEROUS, IMMORAL, CRIMINAL GANG THAT RULES IN WASHINGTON that the American electorate has finally seen these criminals for what they are.

 

 

 

So in 2024 we will have the wonderful choice of Hillary Clinton against Rudy Giuliani

 

I wont run to the polls for that one.

They are resisting the occupation, which is only prolonging it. And "They" are a small group of Saddam loyalists who lost power. If the U.S was planning to be in Iraq forever than the whole "resistance" theory might hold water.

A different scenario: What if the Bush administration and the conservative right took power in the U.S, brutally repressed or destroyed anybody or organization not conservative Republican, rewrote the constitution and Bill of rights, ceased all elections, imposed a dictatorship with Bush as lifelong President. What if Iran(for reasons true or not) invades the U.S to topple the Bush regime. Am I going to fight them? (no, just like most Iraqis didn't fight the U.S invasion). The Iranians say they want to establish democracy, rebuild the U.S and leave.(why would I fight that?)

But the small group of Bush loyalists are not happy about being toppled by Iran and start a campaign of guerilla warefare to "resist" the Iranian "occupation.", hindering rebuilding efforts in an effort to drive them out so they can reclaim their old position. Fringe conservative christian groups from other countries(al-qaeda) cross the border and start terror campaigns and bombings of democrats, liberals, muslims, and anybody who doesn't see their way to try to start a civil war between christian conservatives and everyone else.

Are the Bush loyalists resisting the Iranian occupation "freedom fighters"? Not a chance. Just a group that oppressed the majority of americans and wants to be back on top of the hill. In the process of attempting that, they cause delays, bloodshed,  and problems. Most Iraqis view the Iraq insurgency the same way. 

This is not a perfect analogy because it is hard to compare religious sectarianism with something comparable in the U.S.

It amazes me how the left wing anti-war types can make heroes out of the Iraq insurgency.

RK,

I would like to hear specifics from you about how to deal with the issues the U.S is facing. If you are going to criticize the Bush administration(not saying you are wrong on this), for their decisions, I think it is only appropriate to say what you would do instead.

It is easy being an armchair quaterback.

You have misrepresent what I wrote:

 

I never said in my post that the Iraqi insurgents were heroes, all I said was that ANYONE has a right to take up arms against a foreign invader. I stand by that. Whether the opposition is sensible, moral, reasonable, is another matter. But people taking up arms against a foreign invader absolutely has the god given right to resistance, and they are not terrorist. Whatever tactics they choose is up to them. The tactics may be horrible to us, but under the circumstance of a foreign invasion it is understandable that they do what they think is right for them. So your distortion of what I said is noted and refuted.

 

 

Sure your analogy doesn’t quite work because the insurgency has all kinds of Iraqis, not just Saddams old group.

 

But the small group of Bush loyalists are not happy about being toppled by Iran and start a campaign of guerilla warefare to "resist" the Iranian "occupation.", hindering rebuilding efforts in an effort to drive them out so they can reclaim their old position. Fringe conservative christian groups from other countries(al-qaeda) cross the border and start terror campaigns and bombings of democrats, liberals, muslims, and anybody who doesn't see their way to try to start a civil war between christian conservatives and everyone

It doesn’t matter what you would do, under those circumstances any American citizen still has the right to fight a foreign invasion.

Also many Iraqis don’t see the US as good guys who have the Iraqi people’s interest at heart. They see among other things an invader primarily interested in their great oil wealth. You are naïve in that you don’t see or know that the US has already made plans to exploit that wealth. The pretension that he US is interested in democracy for Iraq, and their liberation is bullshit. Many see the US only trying to make a client state in the Iraq Invasion.

 

Many people told those blind fools who started this war that they were opening up a Pandora’s Box of intense suffering, confusion, and sectarian violence of immense proportions by doing it. And guess what? That is just what happened! But these ignorant arrogant people did it anyway.

 

This has nothing to do with left wing, right wing. I could show you MANY conservative who are as vehemently opposed to Bush and his neo-con savages as I am.

Pat Buchanan

Paul Craig Roberts, a Reagan Republican are just two examples, there are many many more.

 

Finally, people with a conscience and morality, and those that have  the courage to admit that this was a colossal mistake, grieve for the dead Iraqis in this abominable misadventure as well as the almost 3000 American troops killed in this war.

You should do the same and stop defending the indefensible.

 

 

 

 

I never said in my post that the Iraqi insurgents were heroes, all I said was that ANYONE has a right to take up arms against a foreign invader. I stand by that. Whether the opposition is sensible, moral, reasonable, is another matter. But people taking up arms against a foreign invader absolutely has the god given right to resistance, and they are not terrorist. Whatever tactics they choose is up to them. The tactics may be horrible to us, but under the circumstance of a foreign invasion it is understandable that they do what they think is right for them. So your distortion of what I said is noted and refuted

To me, this represents a national-centric viewpoint and not a world-centric view.

Sure your analogy doesn’t quite work because the insurgency has all kinds of Iraqis, not just Saddams old group.

The bulk of the insurgency is Saddam loyalists and Al-qaeda, two groups I had equivelents to in the analogy. The analogy isn't perfect but it is not for the reason you just stated.

Also many Iraqis don’t see the US as good guys who have the Iraqi people’s interest at heart. They see among other things an invader primarily interested in their great oil wealth. You are naïve in that you don’t see or know that the US has already made plans to exploit that wealth. The pretension that he US is interested in democracy for Iraq, and their liberation is bullshit. Many see the US only trying to make a client state in the Iraq Invasion.

Most Iraqis prefer democracy to Saddam. The U.S does have it's interest in the region and as a superpower that is natural. But, it is a shared interest with Iraqis in that they get something out of it as well. The U.S is interested in democracy in Iraq, if it wasn't, it wouldn't have set it up. Democracy in Iraq is better for the WORLD.

Many people told those blind fools who started this war that they were opening up a Pandora’s Box of intense suffering, confusion, and sectarian violence of immense proportions by doing it. And guess what? That is just what happened! But these ignorant arrogant people did it anyway.

Your rhetoric is tiring. If given the choice, most Iraqis prefer todays situation to going back to the Saddam days. Unlike you, who would gladly turn back the clock. Most of Iraq is peaceful, with most of the violence located in specific areas. Intense suffering? Yeah, like there was none of that before the invasion. Iraq is in transition with the hope of a better future. It didn't have that under Saddam.

Finally, people with a conscience and morality, and those that have  the courage to admit that this was a colossal mistake, grieve for the dead Iraqis in this abominable misadventure as well as the almost 3000 American troops killed in this war.

Just because something doesn't go as planned, doesn't mean it was a mistake. Only the end result will determine that. Give me a break with your grievences. Did you grieve for the Saddam era atrocities? How about Darfur today? Under your logic, we shouldn't have stopped the genocide in Sudan because that would be an "Invasion". Again, national-centric view.

I'll tell you what, why don't you go to Iraq and join the "Bring back Saddam movement" that must be happening in there. I am sure there are marches, demonstrations, and people wanting this. It's all over the news, right? No? Well, you could go and start one. Make banners saying "Bring back Saddam" and I am sure you will quickly get lots of support.

Or am I misinterpreting your words? Sounds to me that if you are against the Invasion, then you are directly or indirectly supporting the Saddam regime(widely recognized as one of the most brutal and tyrannical in modern history). But you are a person of "Conscience and Morality" so how do you explain this?

You should do the same and stop defending the indefensible.

The Iraq invasion sounds very defencible to me. There were major mistakes and things didn't go as planned, but that doesn't mean that the goals were bad. Saddam gone, democracy in Iraq, oil for us, influence in the region etc. Yes, the last two you would claim as bad but they are in fact good. Iraqis don't have a problem selling us their oil and as the superpower, we should have influence in the region. America may not be the perfect superpower but I will take it over China, Russia, Iran(regional) etc. (and that is not because I am an American. )

Power can be ugly sometimes. If America wasn't the superpower trying to influence the world, somebody else would be. The world could do alot worse than America as the superpower, and that is what might happen if we withdraw from the rest of the world.

BTW, I am not claiming the Bush Admin. is coming from a world centric viewpoint. But I believe it's national-interests were also beneficial to Iraqis and the world.

 

girard77:

Also many Iraqis don’t see the US as good guys who have the Iraqi people’s interest at heart. They see among other things an invader primarily interested in their great oil wealth. You are naïve in that you don’t see or know that the US has already made plans to exploit that wealth. The pretension that he US is interested in democracy for Iraq, and their liberation is bullshit. Many see the US only trying to make a client state in the Iraq Invasion.

Where are you getting this information from? I ask, because I know it not to be a fact.

While many Iraqis long for the day when U.S. troops are no longer in the country, your everyday Iraqi is glad the U.S. came in and removed Saddam.

I notice the Kurds are not running around blowing people up and shooting at U.S. troops.

Right now, what you are seeing is a miniority within the Iraqi people acting out and commiting murder against the Iraqi people (and Shiites in particular).

I have to ask.....those saying all the negative things....Have you been to Iraq? Have you seen these things firsthand? or are you basing your "facts" on what you have seen on television and in the newspapers?

The reporting on this war has been horrendous, and in many cases, outright false (i.e, doctored film, pictures, misrepresentations of what actually happened, etc.). So if that's your source......

Garbage in, garbage out.

I'd be the last person to say things are going great, but they are not near as bad as presented in most media outlets. Many areas of the country have no problems whatsoever. Other areas, we have people doing shit to stir up trouble.

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In a black and white picture....there's a lot of grey junk

Hey Kaspan,

I would like to hear specifics from you about how to deal with the issues the U.S is facing.

Unfortunately, the U.S., having lost nearly all its credibility in most of the world (which now sees and FEARS it as an insane Imperialist power) is left with much less power and far fewer good choices.  The blunder in Iraq (despite massive amounts of intelligence and foreign policy knowledge that this was a horrible idea) has made the situation in that country much worse, greatly empowered Iran, and already greatly destabilized the middle-east....... so there may be little or nothing that can be done at this point in the short-term to reverse a much broader regional conflict and the spread of terrorism now.

Nevertheless, in the long-term we need to move in more of a healthy-orange/green direction though(which I believe Democrats heavily lean toward while Republicans mightily resist), so a few new major initiatives that should have been started 30 years ago (and have been called for continually by progressives) are still needed:

1.  We need to make a real committment to implementing safe alternatives to oil and coal (we need to spend [and should have spent] the $400 billion we have already spent in Iraq on this effort).

2.  A real committment to requiring corporations to act and invest resources in the public interest (this could be done by inclusion of these responsibilities in their state articles of incorporation). They key problem they need to address in addition to energy is the great disparity in wealth and income in the U.S. and the world (caused by orange corporate structure and policies) that is fueling community/global instability and terrorism.

3.  A real committment to a fully empowered United Nations.  If we believe in democracy, the rule of law and rights of the majority.........let us say so and put our resources where our mouths are......this means being a true leader and team player......and not a unilaterally-acting-out superpower that only supports reforms that are in our narrow self-interests.  (The first thing that needs to be done there is a speech by the U.S. President apologizing for our past blunders, military and corporate imperialism and their negative effects..........this will be a start in reducing the GREAT FEAR we are generating in the world and middle-east).

There are volumes of plans on the shelves already detailing the specifics of these new orange/green policies/programs and how the transitions can be made.........the upcoming election will be important in showing which way we want to head............on the present blue/orange course toward increasing corporate hegemony/imperialism, war and armageddon; or on a new path of orange/green community and individual empowerment, social/economic justice, peace and global prosperity.  The choice of direction may still be up to the U.S. voters!

R.K.

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"No problem can be solved at the level of consciousness that created it in the first place!"

887 Posts on Forum #1; 222 Posts on Forum #2......Member Since 8/8/2003

Kaspan,

That is a fantastic analogy, and exactly what was presented by a group of panelists in the Diane Rheem Show Wednesday on NPR.

Keith

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Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. -unknown

Girard,

I don't think anybody has defended the indefensible here.  What it seems is that some of us are trying to approach this rationally looking at the facts, rather than just spouting hatred, which, frankly, is about all I see coming from you on this issue.  Even when people directly say they don't support Bush's policies, yet they refute your rantings, you lash out with the same venom.  Why can't you consider that there are people who disagree with Bush AND who disagree with your position as well?

As for morality and the notion that "...people taking up arms against a foreign invader absolutely has the god given right to resistance, and they are not terrorist. Whatever tactics they choose is up to them. The tactics may be horrible to us, but under the circumstance of a foreign invasion it is understandable that they do what they think is right for them." That's amoral nonsense.  The insurgency are the Baathists, who started this whole sectarian violence game by blowing up a mosque and fomenting the killing of innocent Iraqis, not the "foreign invader."  The Baathists have no interest in engaging the American forces directly.  Instead they are trying to get under the skin of the American public, hoping that we will pull out so they can step back in and re-institute their own fascist regime.  Those are the facts as presented by numerous Middle-East and Iraqi scholars.  Those facts are that Iraqi's are killing mostly Iraqi's.  What does that have to do with insurgency?

On a similar note, a Palestinian official said the same thing about the crap that goes on there.  All the infighting nonsense that, while related to the Israeli issue, is really more directly the fault of the people who are jockeying for their own control, and are using the "foreign invaders" rhetoric just as you say the Bush administration is using it to serve their own ends.  You should take your own advice and "stop defending the indefensible." It seems to me that most if not all posts that challenge your position are not defending anything, rather just trying to present rational explanations that this is much more difficult than saying "it's Bush's fault."  Why can't you see that?

Keith

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Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. -unknown

Hmmmm....
Since not everyone has read the same opinion pieces or even the same NEWS sources, having this debate is a little like the blind men and the elephant.  Makes me wonder about the idea of a reading room where people could post news stories (not opinion pieces) and come up with some sort of decent sense of relative reality...

We can probably agree that the movement toward equating members of the largest religion in the world as Nazis and fascists is counter-productive and shows just how desperate the administration is becoming. Yes, I know they will claim that the Bushies mean only the terrorists, but we know where this is going. To unite people, you provide them with an external enemy. It's the oldest trick in the book.

And the fixes to the US political system (which is broken) go beyond term limits, which probably aren't the real solution---Campaign finance reform, redistricting reform and lobbying reform would be a good start (but I'm a broken record here). I agree that the Democrats just want power back, but what the Republicans have done has been disastrous...dismantlement of environmental protections, worker protections, not to mention this war.  A disaster.

Onto Iraq...

1. So do we know anything about what's really going on inside Iraq or nothing about what's really going on inside Iraq?  If we can't know anything about what's going on inside Iraq because the reporting is too poor or biased, any claims made here about what the 'average' Iraqi thinks of the US occupation is suspect.  The Kurds, mostly in the north, are the big winners so far...

And if we don't really know what news to trust, how can we even have a conversation without it degenerating immediately (apparently we can't)?  But the beheadings were real enough...and the woman Iraqi journalist who was abducted and found murdered after being tortured...it's hard to be sympathetic to the insurgency as freedom fighters, especially if it's fellow citizens they are killing.

2.  I have read accounts from several US and foreign newspapers about the Sunni-Shia bloodshed, people posing as Iraqi government police in the daytime and deathsquads at night...roving through Baghdad neighborhoods and abducting people with Sunni surnames...even abducting people from hospitals. Or is this really isolated and thousands of people haven't disappeared...?  And corruption in the Iraqi government is the same, no matter which faction is in charge.

3. The larger STRUCTURAL problem with the region goes back to the way the borders were drawn up, but no one wants to really wave this flag and stand by it.  There should be a Kurdistan, but Turkey won't give up it's Kurdish republics because, guess what?, there's oil there (as I recall).  Iran/Iraq boundaries should be redrawn.  The partitioning of Pakistan and India wasn't perfect, but it was the best possible alternative given the circumstances. But it took brave people with some vision to make it happen ( as to why India and Pakistan still think that they need to point missiles at each other escapes me, but it's a fairly predictable course of human events).

4. The invasion of Iraq was a bad idea, I knew it before we even went in. From a US strategic perspective, Saddam and his monstrous offspring were contained militarily by the No-Fly Zones.  There was work to do in Afghanistan, that could have been really well-completed by now. We were sold a bill of goods.  THERE WAS NEVER A PRESSING NEED TO INVADE IRAQ, not even for the sake of the Iraqi people...after all, the North Korean people have been starving to death for at least a decade, and they haven't been invaded...this was not about the suffering of the people in Iraq. (of course, it appears that we did some good in Kosovo, it seems, AND for purely humanitarian reasons, but everyone seems to forget that episode in the rush to try to demonize Clinton as a dove...but we were going against a fixed enemy with a conventional army)

5. That said, we now have a karmic debt to the Iraqi people to fix this mess. Opinions on how to accomplish this may vary, but a unilateral withdrawal will result in increased Sunni-Shia murders. But the term 'cluster-f**k' does seem to be relevant.

No solutions here, just observations. The big, big view is hard to find, sometimes.
But I would invite all interested parties to go do some reading from sources outside their everyday papers and TV news.

Perhaps the integral approach is not to form an opinion without actual tested data to base it upon.

Julie

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All of my thoughts, like junkyard dogs, guarding scraps of nothing......
Bird York

Hey Keith,

I didn't hear the show but would be interested in it. Hopefully they have recordings of past shows.

Julie,

I think alot of the Shiite on Sunni violence is a counterbalance to the Sunni insurgency's killing of Shiites. It would be difficult for them to not respond and they can probably do it better than U.S forces. The Iraqi government for the most part is working despite the different ethnic and religious factions. Corruption? Probably some, but the death squads are a security measure against insurgent Sunnis. If you take away the insurgency the deathsquads will probably go, but if you take away the deathsquads, the insurgency will strengthen. In the end, both need to be dismantled.

No, there was no immediate need to invade Iraq if you are talking WMD, but I think there was a small window of opprtunity otherwise. I don't see the Iraq invasion happening two years later for instance. People were in the mood for war after 9/11 and the success of Afghanistan. They had to take advantage of that.

 Many people feel lied to about the WMD. No doubt the Bush admin. brainstormed(not Bush, his cabinet) about how to "sell" the war to the american people. WMD threat was the only one they came up with that had a chance of working. Helping the Iraqi people may not have been on the top of the list as reasons(probably near the bottom) to invade, but it was a by-product. That is good enough for me because either way it gets done.

Saddam apparently thought France was going to save him from the U.S, which is why he was so uncooperative during the inspections. That blunder of a chess move is what really allowed the invasion to take place.

Iraq, if done right, would have been quick (and quick to recover) and shouldn't have affected Afghanistan. The difference between Iraq and N Korea is that Iraq was do-able and N Korea was not.

I still think Iraq has a chance at recovery.

RK,

What about short-term specifics like Iran's Nuclear program? The Iraq security situation?

If the 2024 election comes down to Hillary and McCain, who are you going to vote for?