Neo is concocting a counter-insurgency - Or otherwise known as, war on war action

Mega post, references to Tom, Neo, Grackle, Stryp [...]

The thing about the phraseology is just that Republicans are honest, they say what they mean and they mean what they say. So when they saw a new conservative, they mean just that, a new conservative. While liberals tend to redefine words, leading to their inability to say neo-liberal. As in pseudo-liberal. Rather than a conservative of the old school, this is of the new school. As opposed to liberals, who still wonder why liberal is a bad word and can't understand that when you become something that a word doesn't describe, then that word becomes a bad word.

There's this secrecy about the philosophy of socialism and Democrats. In Europe, they call it democratic socialism, a new name for an old game, in an environment that likes socialism. Here in the US, the Democrats can hold the language in stasis, in the hopes that nobody reads the history texts and finds out the inconsistencies in the liberal of today's world and the liberal of 2 centuries ago. They have to hold language hostage, otherwise the truth would get out, and people would be able to think through the fog of unclear definitions and purposefully obscure ideologies.

Is there an outcome in Iraq that would suffice for this event?

People need to stop asking non-helpful questions and get a clue.

Here's a clue, what kind of an event would suffice for you to committ suicide?

What kind of event would suffice for you to betray all that you have known, will ever know, and always held dear to your heart?

What event would suffice for you to turn on your family and have them murdered?

What kind of event would suffice for you to kill a million people just for the kick of it?

I can just see it now, "what kind of event would make you give up the belief that your life is important".

These are un-helpful questions because the responses do not solve the problem. It's all relative. Each person decides for himself what he will believe and to what limits his actions and conscience will carry him. They tell more about the questioner than the answerer.

The longer answer: they underestimated the problem of the aftermath, and made some mistakes in going about the reconstruction.

When you don't play the Empire game, then it's kind of hard to be prepared to occupy and take over a country from top to bottom. The inconsistency is that people think this is an adventure, yet quote the very exact details as criticism, that actually supports more of the same actions. Many criticize actions after the invasion as proof that the choice to invade was wrong, but the fact is that the only thing that that proves is that the US needs more experience occupying and rebuilding nations, which can only be fullfilled by more of these "adventures" people seem to talk about.

People really can't have it both ways. Either they don't want go anywhere or do anything, in which they should see failures in security and reconstruction as supporting their position. Or they think the neo-cons want to empire build, and therefore they should cut the neo-cons some slack in beginning the process of learning.

As I said before, if people don't like the policies of this nation, they can either offer alternatives or they can wait for Bush to die/get out of office. Anything else is a childish temper tantrum.

They didn't get what they want and they feel helpless in the process, oh boohoo, tell it to the mirror. The rest of us don't want to be dragged into the misery of others.

The only way to effectively convince most Americans that going to Iraq was a good thing, requires Bush to turn on and destroy the United Nations. The propaganda apparatus and human psychology of Americans, would demand nothing less. Without the destruction of the United Nations, Bush cannot justify Iraq in light of the many criticisms he gets. 50% will still disagree. 22% is hopeless, and 40% is strongly in the President's camp. The 36% left, would easily be convinced, if Bush was willing to sacrifice the UN. But he never was, and so we have people attacking neo-cons instead of defending their own distorted reality and predictions.

the writer calls the war an "elective military adventure" that "aggravat[ed]...existing problems."

If some guy got shot by an arrow, I really don't want to see people saying that breaking off the arrow and taking it out would "aggravate existing problems". You can't solve current ones, if you afraid all the time of new ones cropping up. This fear is not only ridiculous, it is inherently cowardly. The inability to make decisive decisions and to take the consequences, good or bad, after the fact.

Because the truth is that the forces leading to unrest in the Middle East are not necessarily stoppable, but the creation of a functioning democracy, if successful, would constitute a counterforce of some magnitude.

The issue can be framed in different ways, democracy is only one variation on the advertisement. The other variation is really psychological, and that is almost never raised. It should be however. Cause a lot of Americans feel democracy is too weak to make the right decisions, a lot of Americans want to go on the offensive, they want a strong heirarchy, a strong leader, to do what needs to be done. Democracy, does not sell that point to many Jacksonians. It is a selling point for Wilsonians and perhaps Jeffersonians, but not Jacksonians. But then again, most Jacksonians don't care what it is called, so long as we win.

Finally, I'm perpetually amused by the "you only have complaints -- offer some suggestions" argument; it's as if military conflict is something that should be avoided only of something else is proposed.

This is a good look into the warped stupidities people tend to believe is called "thought".

It is as if military conflict is something that should be avoided only if something else is proposed, it is as if WWII could have been avoided if someone suggested Munich or giving the Rhineland to the Germans.

There are too many dumb ideologies around, because I cannot believe even someone thinking that war is the last option, can believe that war does not become the first option if nothing is ahead of war in the line.

Score one for liberal reeducation. When people can't think, I can get them to believe anything, regardless of the logic.

I thought it should be clear that I was referring to a certain subset of war-opposers, a group that I think I described rather well.

One of the ways propaganda works is that it shortcuts logic, and basically makes people see what they want to see... in a way that makes them see what I want them to see. Someone with a clear head and thinking logically, would obviously see Neo's point and agree in the context of the sentence she was refering to. But, that does not mean other things don't happen. Other things, in which people see what they want to see. Those kind of people, are grist for the propaganda mill. It would be much better if Bush would just crank up the propaganda machine, cause these people are annoying. It's like Al-Qaeda, if you don't bother them, it just means they are going to bother you faster and harder.

Get on the offensive, and everything solves itself in the end.

Fukuyama is not only not worth debating, he can be reduced to ridiculousness inside of a few paragraphs. It is simply that his arguments are both old and obsolete, it's already been countered.

After all, it's not like it's difficult; one doesn't even have to register with Blogger.

Yes, but you do have to be literate. I think some anon's have a problem with that.

(not to mention the same writing style, quoting style, same talking points, same everything. After you read pages and pages of someone you get to reconise thier writing)

What if someone's writing style is to reflect the weaknesses inherent in their opponent?

Well, in light of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, maybe all war supporters should ask themselves what the war has done to the USA.

I got them. The rule of law is not what the judges, the lawyers, and the ACLU says. We didn't fight a Revolutionary War so you fake liberals in the Democratic party can get rich, powerful, and become an aristocracy over the rest of us. Don't even try it. Your "KELO Act" victories are simply failures to win in a fair fight, and will become failures soon enough.

Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943

Churchill also told you guys to stop being pacifists, isolationists, Communists, and Socialists. Since when did you guys start listening to WC? Whenever you feel like it, I'd thought so.

I think the war has shown that the US is a country of justice meted out.

You don't mete out justice by treating criminals as if they benefit from the laws they broke. You don't mete out justice by showing compassion to rapists, murderers, and people who would run over a woman just for the kicks of it. You don't mete out justice by treating terroists as soldiers or soldiers as terroists.

Don't confuse justice with the arbitrariness of George W. Bush.

There is a simmering rage beneath the veneer of civilization, and Bush seeks to keep the lid on it. It has nothing to do with justice.

Tom has some good points but puts too much faith in the UN for my taste.

It isn't that Tom puts too much faith in the UN, it is just that Tom seems to believe that if you punish bad actions, they will stop. Most people might agree with that.

The US should be in the UN because it is a gathering of nations & the US needs to attend to US interests & goals that such a gathering may consider, so the US can’t afford to totally ignore this discredited & corrupt body.

We can't ignore it, but we can destroy it to fuel our war machine. How many Americans would protest the destruction of the UN, leading the way to the salvation of America and the saving of American soldiers? Not many at all. More people care about the Dubai port deal than they do about the UN going kaput.

If the US can get the member nations to go along with what must be done, fine, but a hard & fast 3 resolution rule, given the make-up of the organization, could be used against the US.

The US is like the primary stock holder in a company, that always gets shouted down and told to shut up. We're the ones that made the company what it is today, yet everyone else is stealing shit off of our successes, and it is getting annoying. We might have to liquidate the company and start all over again.


America has never been perfect but is way better than those that America is fighting.

America should never be perfect, so saying America isn't perfect isn't really telling much. Good thing, wohoo, lack of perfection, I like that.

Americans are constantly defended while Americans are always trashed by the anti-warriors.

If a judge can say that a guy being executed by lethal injection would feel pain, and that this is a cruel and unusual punishment, why would it be surprising that people defend terrorism but not Americanism? After the guy scheduled for execution raped a woman and ran her over with a car just for the kick of it, putting him to sleep and having him "pass away" is a cruel and unusual punishment. GIven that logic, the terroists are freedom fighters. Some people prefer the rule of judges, I prefer the rule of law, and hence the rule of justice.

They'll never convince me that their brand of "aristocracy" is justice. They'll have to kill me first. Which tends to be their strategy if you think about it.

There was never much post-War analysis done because of their faith in democracy.

When people don't know how to fiight an insurgency or what an insurgency is, it is kind of hard for them to plan anything about it. When your primary military advisor is an Air Force guy specializing in Star Wars and SDI and Nuclear Technology, you might have a tinny little problem dealing with a Special Forces kind of war.

Sadly, the neocon position was overly optimistic and faith-based.

It wasn't the over-optimism of neocons that had the mainstream media showing pictures of statues falling and shit like that. Get your propaganda straight.

Neocons are not foreigners in America, they are Americans, as hard as that seems to be to believe, and all America was fooled by the glorious victory dances in the street that the media showed to us on purpose.

It's not neocon's fault they believed the media was truthful and honest.

We are at the whim of the vagueries of a religiously-charged culture.

And they are at the whim of our nuclear weapons, nuclear subs, air craft carriers, stealth bombers, Marine warriors, Special Forces assassins and saboteurs, Navy and Army counter-terroist hit squads. The side that can get there the firstest with the mostest, and lasts the longest, usually wins.

Just because the Muslims are willing to do what needs to do for them to win, and we aren't, doesn't mean that this will always be so.

As for future heads of Iraq, whatever stripe they may be, they need to know that they are doomed if they try to screw the US like Saddam did.

But They are trying to screw us like Vietnam did, and that is something else entirely.

"I am obliged to write it (this book)because I have, except for a few comic moments, always been pleased to be a Jew. The gift deserves to be defended."
Anti-Semitism?

Do you realize that you can be an American and an anti-American at the same time, or does this simple logic escape you?

Is Dick (Five Deferments) Cheney reaping any consequences?

Aren't his enemies dieing in droves? So yes, he is reaping the consequences.

terrye

Cheney, Clinton et al: I don't respect those who avoid the horrors of war but push others into them.
If it walks and talks like a chickenhawk...(No matter what party colors it wears.)
Your father is another story.

An ignorant dude is an ignorant dude, regardless of how he walks. Public opinion and only public opinion decides when and where a democracy goes to war. Unlike the oligarchs and those for aristocracy, Cheney, Bush, Clinton doesn't decide if they will war or not war.

Reading comprehension 101:

I don't understand, what is reading comprehension and why do you have a number after it?

Hypocrisy is where you want to look for it.

How right that is, hypocrisy, like propaganda, is whatever you want it to be.

He just returned from Iraq and he is a democrat, yet somewhat conservative.

A Democrat? That's pretty hilarious. VDH is a classical liberal, and that's it.

But I stand corrected; it seems you are determined to "misunderstand" me.

Wait, wait, the last time the United States got misunderestimated, 2 cities got nuked. Are we going for round 2 here?

Do you really think my response to you means I don't regret those deaths?

I think he's talking about me, in that I don't regret the deaths of Iraq insurgents or Al-Qaeda terroists killed in iraq, one single iota.

I've seen too much of that sort of thing, and it's starting to really, really annoy me.

Bad propaganda always annoys me. So does dumb arguments and stupid logic, but that's just the trick of the trade.

The real world can be big and scary and sometimes hard decisions have to be made. maybe you should let the big boys handle this while you go do pottery, or whatever sensitive type thing you guys do with your day.

Metrosexuals usually do their hair, their nails, their face, their skin, and their lips in a salon.

1. Democratizing Iraq, and perhaps via a domino theory, other countries in the neighborhood?

Maybe if people all used Google Earth, they might just know where Lebanon was. Maybe not.

3. Ending terror and bloodshed in Iraq? Or, did our intervention merely exchange one reign of bloodshed for another kind?

Of course it did. We exchanged stupidity for ignorance, and a good trade it was too. Just like back in American history in which the neocon Founding Fathers traded a war for taxation without representation.

4. Improving the relationship between the West and Islam?

The more they fear Americans, the more the relationship is improved.

Or, did our invasion fuel the already flammable mood?

You can't burn wood after the tears of fear have made it wet.

Saddam was a threat to no one.

That's like saying Hitler was a threat to no one. After the US removed him from power with tanks and grunts.

And if someone does nuke us, what exactly are we going to do? We can't just start dropping nukes indiscriminately all over the Muslim world. That's ridiculous.

No, it isn't ridiculous at all. Because even if you don't kill anyone with a nuclear weapon, just dropping it on a nation produces intense psychological impact, it shows a lot of will on your part, and it warns people not to piss us off.

It's not ridiculous at all. You just have to think outside the box. Not every weapon of war is best used to kill people. Anyone studying Napoleonic war tactics and weaponry would understand that perfectly, others might not.

It is a matter of Life or Death for the West.

What is East of the Moon and West of the Sun?