218-208 ! Bring Em Home!

[ivan]

Executive veto powers=tyranny

then why did the tyrant-fearing founders put it in article 2 then?

 

Is this going to be on the final, Mr Ivan?

come one, you should know that EVERYTHING is going to be on the final!

[chucK]

[Jim]

There was a great 1.5 hr examination of the Selling of the War by Bill Moyers on last night, only on PBS of course. The lack of any objectivity of the press in the war buildup and the total pass the administration got on their lack of evidence for their claims was stunning. Knight-Ridder seemed to be the only new service that was asking questions. So much for a liberal press. Within half and hour of Powell's UN speech they were able to find out the extend of lies and half-truths he put forth.

 

And the pundits who marched through the Sunday talk shows spouting off a list of facts, WMDs, aluminum tubes, biological weapons, mobile labs, based on leaks from the White House and picked up by a complicit press were easily proved false with only a cursory examination. Now these same pundits, who lied and were dead wrong, are still to be found on the news shows as "experts" on the middle east. Amazing.

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

You can add about 50 million voting morons (x 2, actually) to this short list of the prescient.

[jordop]

There was a great 1.5 hr examination of the Selling of the War by Bill Moyers on last night, only on PBS of course. The lack of any objectivity of the press in the war buildup and the total pass the administration got on their lack of evidence for their claims was stunning. Knight-Ridder seemed to be the only new service that was asking questions. So much for a liberal press. Within half and hour of Powell's UN speech they were able to find out the extend of lies and half-truths he put forth.

 

And the pundits who marched through the Sunday talk shows spouting off a list of facts, WMDs, aluminum tubes, biological weapons, mobile labs, based on leaks from the White House and picked up by a complicit press were easily proved false with only a cursory examination. Now these same pundits, who lied and were dead wrong, are still to be found on the news shows as "experts" on the middle east. Amazing.

 

 

Pretty riveting tv I thought. Also the complete difference in persepectives of the Washington-based press corps vs. those working in the Middle East who knew the real scoop, but were ignored.

[ivan]

There was a great 1.5 hr examination of the Selling of the War by Bill Moyers on last night, only on PBS of course. The lack of any objectivity of the press in the war buildup and the total pass the administration got on their lack of evidence for their claims was stunning. Knight-Ridder seemed to be the only new service that was asking questions. So much for a liberal press. Within half and hour of Powell's UN speech they were able to find out the extend of lies and half-truths he put forth.

 

And the pundits who marched through the Sunday talk shows spouting off a list of facts, WMDs, aluminum tubes, biological weapons, mobile labs, based on leaks from the White House and picked up by a complicit press were easily proved false with only a cursory examination. Now these same pundits, who lied and were dead wrong, are still to be found on the news shows as "experts" on the middle east. Amazing.

 

great show - watched that one too

[Stefan]

saw the documentary too. very informative

[foraker]

you'll never convince the True Believers, though, that the press aren't just lap dogs and haven't been simply regurgitating press releases and playing "He Said, She Said" for far too long now. for some reason, the Washington press corps seems more concerned about maintaining 'access' to the White House than doing any investigative journalism. what good is access if all the info is BS and everyone lies to you? just get the press releases from one of your buddies and go try to independently verify the info from other more credible sources.

[Crux]

That's the trip, there are credible sources and always were -- in abundance. Anybody who paid attention to available information, rather than just sucking on the brand-name packaged media, was never more than an hour away from an accurate conclusion. Same is true today.

[mattp]

I agree with you Crux, that the truth about our invasion of Iraq was readily available from the outset. However, American politics are twisted. The President knew he was lying, and every Senator knew it as well. Yet they still voted for war. The American public was largely mislead, but even the staunch conservatives know now that we were lied to all along yet they still want to believe the President is telling the truth today.

 

It doesn't make sense unless it makes sense somehow. For sure, any explanation involves conspiracy theories that sound "fantastic" as in "fantasy" to many listeners. But remember: 65% of the American people thought GWB was telling the truth when he spoke to us in his - what was it 2003? - SOU speech, and most believed Powell when he gave his famous address to the U.N. However, independant analysis showed each of these speeches to be false within 24 hours yet most Americans waved the flag (or maybe waived it) and stood behind the President and his men. And those who warned that the whole thing was based on lies were/are/continue-to-be defined as "conspracy theorists." (Note: lies, propagated by a group of people, and which affect the formation of public policy, is "conspiracy" by the very definition of the word.)

 

These criminals at the head of our government continue to lie every day, and those who point out their fasehoods are called "conspiracty theorists." Meanwhile, the most reliable estimate has been that - what was it? - 600 thousand Iraqis have died for our lies. And how many Americans? Our own government will not tell us. They publish the number of Americans who died in Iraq, omit those who were evacuated and died while in the hospital in Germany, and won't tell us how many working for civilian contractors are even over there, much less how many died.

 

Call me a conspiracy theorist.

[ken4ord]

As for our troops dying in the line of fire, yeah that sucks, but nobody forced individuals to enlist. Our soldiers enlisted (for Gawd knows what reason) and hopefully knew that being a soldier is not a free ride and there is a chance they could see frontline somewhere in the world and possibly die.

 

The recruiting booths they're sticking in area high schools designed to suck up the bottom students in danger of not graduating or dropping out doesn't sit well with me though.

 

I'm sure they're being completely honest and upfront with these intellectual marvels however.

 

I agree it is pretty disgusting the way our government recruits sometimes, but I tend to think no matter how dumb you are there is no way that you can actually think that you might not see some action at some point.

[drater]

I absolutely agree. It's those same morons that think Marine or The Guardian or Flyboys or any other of the war machine propoganda flicks to get released lately (nice timing, eh?) are awesome that are willing to sign their lives away.

 

Don't believe the hype!

 

A 17 year old female at Sandpoint High School wrote an amazing and scathing letter to the local paper decrying the propoganda techniques used by the recruiters daily in her school hallways...wish I could find it somewhere online, it's really disturbing.

[ivan]

As for our troops dying in the line of fire, yeah that sucks, but nobody forced individuals to enlist. Our soldiers enlisted (for Gawd knows what reason) and hopefully knew that being a soldier is not a free ride and there is a chance they could see frontline somewhere in the world and possibly die.

 

The recruiting booths they're sticking in area high schools designed to suck up the bottom students in danger of not graduating or dropping out doesn't sit well with me though.

 

I'm sure they're being completely honest and upfront with these intellectual marvels however.

 

I agree it is pretty disgusting the way our government recruits sometimes, but I tend to think no matter how dumb you are there is no way that you can actually think that you might not see some action at some point.

you have 3 choices when it comes to a military:

a. compulsory military (everyone's up for drafting)

b. volunteer military

c. no military at all

 

c's not really an option unless oprah winfrey's president - so between a and b, which do you want? i like b - but that does mean we'll need asses in uniforms, and that's going to take advertising. do you have a better plan?

[drater]

do you have a better plan?

 

Quit subisidizing violent crime convicted criminals. Trade three squares and roof over their heads for desert fatigues and an M-16. Sure, fragging rates would go thru the roof, but is that necessarily a bad thing?

 

If there's not enough murderers, rapists and sex offenders to keep up with the rate of attrition, instead of deporting illegal aliens, sign em up as they crawl over the fence. They make it back in one piece, give em citizen status.

 

Or maybe we should quit playing schoolyard bully to the world and concentrate on taking care of our own problems here at home, wouldn't need so many soldiers then.

 

At least until Snatch declares martial law.

[tvashtarkatena]

Some folks have a drinking problem. Some have a gambling problem.

 

We've got a military problem. Cut the military to 10% of it's current size, conduct foriegn and domestic policy accordingly (focusing on real rather than make believe threats) and we'd all be better off in the long run.

 

The military has been a monkey on our back for decades. Time for the monkey to go back into its cage where it belongs.

[drater]

There are a few too many mega-corps making really good money providing "services" in war torn areas for that to ever happen.

[ivan]

a large volunteer army and navy were required by the british to maintain the pax brittanica of the 19th century - should we not bear that burden in the 21st, seeing as how we consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources? what of our fumbling disasters in the civil war, spanish-american war, and world wars 1 and 2 due to our having very small, underfunded militaries prior to hostilities?

[tvashtarkatena]

All of those fumbling disasters resulted in quicker victories than we'll ever achieve in Iraq with a massively funded, enormous standing army.

 

So much for the history lesson.

 

Maintain a small, highly trained force to go after those bad terrorists and provide the 'seed potatoes' for a larger force, should it be needed, mothball a big pile of the the ships, subs, and other weapons systems we developed for the Cold War and no longer need, and watch that deficit dissappear in short order.

 

There is no military threat the US faces that requires the force levels we have now. Ours is an offensive force, plain and simple. It's built for conquest. The trouble is, we suck at conquest, which has become a bit harder to do of late. Given the failures of our military power over the past 4 years (at the behest of our beloved president), I'd say it's a gross waste of money.

[ivan]

i wouldn't mind if the % spent on defense was halved and put into education and social security - but then i am a tax-and-spend-bleeding-heart-liberal kinda loser...

 

[tvashtarkatena]

If we're gonna build cool, high tech shit that makes a lotta noise and goes really fast, let's put Bush on Mars.

Edited April 27, 2007 by tvashtarkatena

[chucK]

Clinton's from Venus, Bush's from Mars

[tvashtarkatena]

Cheney's from UrAnus

[Jim]

i wouldn't mind if the % spent on defense was halved and put into education and social security - but then i am a tax-and-spend-bleeding-heart-liberal kinda loser...

 

Beats a borrow-and-spend necon in my book.

[ZimZam]

Why aren't there more demonstrations by university students against the war? Is it due to the volunteer military? If a draft was instituted would their attitudes change, and they become more vocal?

 

Compulsory service would be nice if only for the fact that the entitled would have to serve along with the peons. Mothers (of the entitled) would be a lot more vocal if they thought Johnny might not come marching home again, hurrah.

[Serenity]

Some folks have a drinking problem. Some have a gambling problem.

 

We've got a military problem. Cut the military to 10% of it's current size, conduct foriegn and domestic policy accordingly (focusing on real rather than make believe threats) and we'd all be better off in the long run.

 

The military has been a monkey on our back for decades. Time for the monkey to go back into its cage where it belongs.

 

That's got to be one of the most blatantly ignorant statements I've heard out of you yet. Your strategic acumen is vastly overrated. You live in a shallow box. Get out of the house, look around you.