A Small Victory

Don't be naive, Michele. You know that as part of the vast Zionist conspiracy, the war on Iraq is my (and my fellow Joooooos') fault.

Medea Benjamin, representing ANSWER, is speaking now. What kind of parents name their child after a Greek mythological character who killed her own children to save her lover's life?

No wonder she's in ANSWER.

Oh, my, God. "The Raging Grannies" are singing a parody on Bush. With a kazoo.

They really, REALLY miss the sixties. You can tell.

They have a lasy on from the Arab American Anti Defamation committee on right now. Never heard of them, but all I can say is, to her every statement about how these actions are misguided, my reponse is "why?"

Oh, the raging grannies are really bad. What's worse is they'll probably be the high point of the day...

Oh my. The Raging Grannies....I don't even know what to say.

Say. Howcome these guys never protest the war in the Sudan?

Ah, I'm so glad I caught your post, Michele. The Raging Grannies made my week! What a hoot!

Oooh, oooh, a poet is on! She's probably going to a poem!

And she's from Lawn Guyland, Michele. Ha!

("read a poem")

And she is. A pali poem!

These particular protestors are obviously fruit loops.

However, I sense the implication here that the existence of these crazy far-left folks somehow invalidates any and all political opposition to George Bush, and that's pure BS.

The Republican Party has just as plentiful supply of far-right nut jobs as the Dems do on the far-left, and they're just as potentially dangerous. If they don't invalidate all Republicans, then the far-left folks don't invalidate all Democrats.

I am so missing all the fun. My teevee is in the other room, and I don't have cable on it anyway.

Ramsey Clark is on now. Ramsey Clark? Didn't we take away his weekend passes from the mental hospital?

Stan, I never implied anything of the sort. I oppose Bush at times myself.

I never mentioned the word Democrats once. So your argument about that is invalid.

I couldn't watch it either. So thanx for the orally applied visuals. *lol
Is ProtestWarrior there? If so they could ask the protesters, what about the war in Sudan? How come they aren't protesting blatant slavery?

I hate when people co-opt protests. A protest should be for ONE cause, unless everybody in the group actually takes a vote and they all agree on all of the issues mentioned, which is impossible with such a big group. That's why I didn't protest back when this started -- I didn't want to be in a crowd that started yelling about the Palestinians or something, didn't want to look like I supported a cause I might not agree with.

MikeR...you've gotta look at the trend line. The number of bigots and general whackos on the conservative side has been declining for a couple of decades. On the "progressive" side, it seems to be growing exponentially.

Read "The New Anti-Semitism" by Phyllis Chessler (a leftist and feminist) for a chilling analysis of just how pervasive anti-Israel and anti-Jewish attitudes have become on the left.

I hope you will forgive this post if it is placed inappropriately, but I could use some guidance on this topic. Can someone take a minute to tell me what it is that these people want? I know you have made it clear that none of the people in the televised autoerotic lovefest you have been describing have said nothing about what should happen if the Coalition suddenly smacks itself in it's collective forehead and says, "What were we thinking? Everyone pack up, and somebody go find that guy with the bushy moustache and give him his palaces back."
It's no secret that I am on the ground in Baghdad. We can get CNN and FOX news where I am, and there are some places where other news is available, so we know there are protests, but we haven't heard much about what they want. I mean, the whole head-smacking thing I said earlier was kind of a joke, right?
That's not really what they want, is it?
Anybody?
Bueller?
Somebody, please tell me this isn't a mindless, knee-jerk reaction to a Presidential Initiative, and that the Loyal Opposition has some legitimate, logical concerns that can be addressed in the arena of ideas so that we can come up with the best method for assisting the people of Iraq in their journey toward self-rule.

The olny fuit lop as AMERCIA

Puce!

Congratulations, you can spell the word "the".

I've heard "Union yes, war no" before - eight months ago, right before the war started, when my union (graduate teaching assistants) was on strike. On the whole, my union was pretty focused - we were asking for raises, not to lose our health benefits, and for tuition waivers, and we weren't going to be distracted by side issues - but every now and again someone decided that when we're not fighting the university administration, we may as well be fighting the US government and the Iraq war.

At one open meeting, after another union member made an impassioned speech ("fuck the university administration, and FUCK BUSH! Let's all show up at the anti-war rally next week and tell the government where we stand!") I stood up and pointed out that the ONLY thing everyone at the meeting had in common was that we supported the strike - and that bringing in extra causes was unnecessarily divisive. There was dead silence in the room. It hadn't occured to the union leaders (who had applauded after the Fuck Bush speech) that it could be possible to support the union without opposing the war in Iraq.

I never mentioned the word Democrats once. So your (Stan's) argument about that is invalid.

But it's one of those slips that tells us volumes about him and his guilty conscience, IMHO.

Puce lives! I'd love to see one of his signs at the Moonbat Convention:

US out to Iraq peeples

No for Bush war Iraq

Puce for president!

“And I'm still waiting for an anti-war person to answer today's burning question: What happens to the people of Iraq if we bring the troops home now?”

Fuck I care. That is, just to cut to the chase. The more appropriate question should be: what happens if we keep on staying in Iraq? It’s currently costing the U.S. taxpayers a billion @ week. If, our military continues our country’s ideology campaign in Iraq, it will eventually cost American citizens a half of a trillion bucks to complete our grand design. Mark my words, “a half-trillion dollars.” This is in dollars---not in dinars. This is in actual cash, not in some stock options on paper given in a hostile taken-over by some vandals at the gates on Wall Street. You explain to your kids why we can’t afford to fix and repair our public schools’ buildings---five years from now. And enjoy the bumpy ride as you drive over the unfilled potholes on our country’s streets and highways in the foreseeable future. The appropriate action is to stand off in Iraq.

Iraq is not only a potential quagmire, there is quicksand under the Persian oil boondoggle. Iraq has the second largest natural oil reservoirs, but anyone equipped with the most rudimentary explosives can blow up an unguarded section of the oil pipeline and put a halt to Iraq’s crude oil distribution. The financial genie in the bottle that was once thought could be unbottled in a post-war Iraq has now transformed into a hot potatoe with dismal prospects of oil output. Under these conditions, if you expect other countries to help pay the tab for the Iraqi War, then you might as well return the Louisiana Purchase to France and Alaska to the Russians. The industrialized world is still pissed off at the U.S. for the first Iraqi War in 1991 when the U.S. landed in Kuwait and as part of the opening day ceremonies back-charged other countries for the war costs. Although the recipient countries complied with the diplomatic invoices, I don’t think they quite liked the idea.

Only a minor portion of the $87 billion for the salvation of Iraq is earmarked for reconstruction itself. On top of this, our military today is largely privatized, so even the discarding of trash on U.S. military installations in Iraqi is done by private contractors. Consequentially, much of the reconstruction money gets funneled into the pockets of private contractors employed under non-bid contracts gained through political preferences. The majority of the billions simply goes to support America’s military industry complex through high mark-ups on the supplies essential to our brave men and women inducted on foreign soil. The benefit if other countries join in the reconstruction effort---even without making any financial pledges to the American charity drive at the U.N.---is that there’ll be somewhat more production efficiencies if the European and Russian companies are allowed to submit their bids on various infrastructure projects, but the American taxpayer will still end up footing the bill and mimic getting exploited by the self-serving commissariat after the Russian revolution, who professed the idealology of the motherland in their proletariat coup. There is no question that we should get the heck out of Iraqi---if only for the sake of finishing up our Habitat for Democracy project in Afghanistan---but the riddle is how can the world’s only undisputed superpower make an exit without looking impotent in the spotlight of world community.....

When the comment is 10 times longer than the post it's commenting on, it's time to start your own blog and post a link.

Mr. Al Aska:

May I remind you that I am trying to save the world.....which I can not accomplish hindered by unsolicited distractions by geckos in general and your edicts in particular.....Why aren't the New York Yankees playing tommorow?.....if you're so smart.

1. The causes of terrorism lie in the dysfunctional Arab/Muslim politcal culture.
2. To drive terrorism at least to a point where it will be a small law enforcement problem, and not a war, we must see this political culture is reformed into something halfway decent.
3. Iraq, due to its cultural characteristics seems to be the best Arab country to start with. It has always been the favorite of Arabists for the prospect of reform. Thus it is the best place to start the necessary reform of Arab political culture.
4. Conquest of Iraq also puts an American army in the central position of the Middle East, where it can threaten the three principle state supporters of terrorism, Iran, Syria, and the Wahhabist Entity. Thus we are now in a position to support resistance movements there if we wish, to bring pressure to bear, to make commando raids, or even to use major military force if necessary to influence the terrorist supporting states and to further the destruction of the terrorist groups. That is the purpose of the war after all. This ability will increase with time as new Iraqi police and military units take over security duties and free up American formations from such static duties.
5. As Iraq becomes a freer country the influence of this will percolate into the surrounding autocracies and influence their people towards a halfway decent political culture.
6. As another benefit, our army in Iraq attracts jihadis away from attacking American civilians at home into attacking armed and dangerous soldiers in Iraq. This will enable our soldiers to kill them before they strike again at our civilians.

That is why we are in Iraq. Oh, yes, as a byproduct the Iraqis were liberated.

Ron's comments come the closest, so far, to answering the burning question. Not quite there, but closed.
If I may "put the cookies on the bottom shelf," I'd like to ask you to consider the following analogy.
A man discovers his unemployed, unmarried daughter is pregnant, and the father is gone. He may or may not have suspicions regarding the identity of the father. He may decry the costs involved in whatever solution is chosen. One thing is certain, though. If both the father of the child and the father of the mother-to-be choose to turn their backs on her, the next generation is going to have some serious issues, and society as a whole will be somewhat the less for it, and everyone will shake their heads and think how sad it is that all the men in her life are so uncaring and cruel.
Assign whichever identity you like in this illustration to the US (or the Coalition, if you are willing to remember that there are other countries that have been involved in this from the outset), but in either role, if the Iraqi people are left to rebuild on their own, we will be repeating the mistakes of the first World War. For better or worse, the US has enmeshed itself in the affairs of the less developed nations of the world, primarily because it is an expensive proposal to raise a nation to a higher standard of living, and the one weapon that the US uses more effectively than any other in it's arsenal is the dollar, as the former Soviets can attest. America is in Iraq because few other nations could pull this off. It will, indeed, be expensive. It will cost money and time and the lives of our children, and perhaps my own life, since I write as one who can walk out the front door and see the event, rather than one who follows the reports from a distance. I submit, though, that to withdraw now will be, in the long run, more costly, and that to continue will have long-term rewards that we currently can't calculate.
Apathy toward the people of Iraq isn't a logical answer. "Fuck I care" is what got them into the current state of affairs, and isn't a seemly response for someone who is trying to save the world.

I think it's really weird that the same people tend to go on and on about how much money we're spending in Iraq and then also complain that the US gives the least amount per GDP in aid to poor countries. Isn't our work in Iraq more effective than, say, giving aid to Saddam would have been?

"May I remind you that I am trying to save the world"

You certainly may! ;)

Yeah McGehee, I'm a raving communist. Let me go brush up on my little red book...

I know Michele didn't make any explicit statement equating opposition to George Bush with anti-Americanism. It's just that when you have the words "anti-Bush" and "anti-American" in such close proximity to each other, there can be an implication of equating the two. Especially with some of her more right-leaning readers. Those protestors were so absurdly pathetic, I don't see them winning anything but disdain or ridicule from the larger population.

Unfortunately, dismissing people out of hand tends to anger them, and make them more intrenched in their cause. Do you really want already loony people to get violent (if they haven't already)? That is the next step, if the WHO protests are any indication.