You mean the same france that was the biggest recipient of Oil for Food funds, and the same Russia that had billions in development contracts with the Iraqi national oil company? Is this the same France that is working to give Iran nuclear capability and the same russia that gave GPS jammers to Iraq? Somehow I don't think they would go along with your plan. Call it a hunch.

Given that France and Russia were willing to sell out whatever principles they had to deal with Iraq, don't you think their price was less than $87 billion? They may be ho's, but they're not that pricy.

So your idea of stability is to continue the old system where, no matter the merit, as long as we paid our "allies" enough, they would go along? I think my idea has much more staying power than yours. I think it's more stable.

Plus, I can look in a mirror without puking if we do it my way.

You are mixing applies and oranges when you refer to stability here. That aside, it's sad that you find the idea of paying off the French more nauseating than the idea of killing soldiers and civilians, etc.

I don't either. Back when this country still had principle-centered leadership and we sent the USMC to fight the Barbary pirates (yes even Thomas Jefferson had to contend with Arab terrorism), the battle cry was "millions for defense, not one penny in tribute". Adjusted for inflation, I would rather pay billions and kill our enemies than spend billions trying to buy our friends.

Nice analogy.
[list=1][*]Query whether a nation that fights a war against pirates for enslaving its sailors, all while enslaving hundreds of thousands of its own back home, can be said to have "principle-centered leadership."*[*]Query also whether we are likely to repeat the success of the Tripoli raids, when Tripoli's hero, Stephen Decatur, a notorious pirate-smoker himself, would be ineligible to serve in the modern U.S. military.[/list=1]

*"They can't do that to our pledges. Only we can do that to our pledges" was funny for a reason.

semper fi!

plus, he's saying billions to buy friends to agree and kill our enemies, after which we need to pay more billions to rebuild anyway.

If Mugabe and his merry band of murdering thugs start threatening international security, that suggestion won't be long in coming. Given the country's lack of oil and nuclear physicists, it doesn't seem too likely.

What a piece of work. Truly amazing how he came up with a plan to destroy the only functioning sector of their economy and ensure mass starvation.

Touche!

Let's not forget, however, that
1) Sudan STILL practices slavery.
2) appeasement of farm interests, even back then caused a disconnect between foreign and domestic policy (which eventually resulted in a civil war). It didn't make our foreign policy wrong, it made our domestic policy wrong.
3) I don't know exactly what you are trying to say about decatur, but I think you have read Billy Budd one too many times.

SuperGrover Runs Afoul of Godwin's Law
 

Grover Norquist, on NPR's Fresh Air:*

*You'll have to decide which 23% is misperception.

Edited to correct misconception/misperception rate, lest it become a further self-fulfilling prophecy.

SuperGrover Runs Afoul of Godwin's Law
 

Cf. Rush Limbaugh about blacks ("They're 12% of the population -- who cares what they think?").


Not sure I have that quote exactly right, and the research involved to do so would be distasteful.

SuperGrover Runs Afoul of Godwin's Law
 

What's Godwin's law? What was wrong with what he said?

The Muffin Said Placebo
 

SuperGrover Runs Afoul of Godwin's Law
 

There appears to be new data on the misinformation/misperception:

http://www.philly.com/images/realcit...7946393308.gif

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/new...aq/6918170.htm

SuperGrover Runs Afoul of Godwin's Law
 

People whose primary source for news is this board were misinformed 86% of the time.

Israel has bombed Syria in its pursuit of Hamas. Israel is about to target Lebanon. Is this good?

(Ty can pretend he hasn't read any of this. Atticus can do his basic snide, sarcastic, insubstantive response. SAM will have to uphold the "answer substantively" role, or anyone else is welcome.)

On the margin, or the entire situation? Bombing Syria and Lebanon may escalate and widen the conflict, to the detriment of everyone involved. Or it may prompt Syria to clamp down on its support for Hamas, which could dampen the conflict. I can't believe that Israel has discovered something that leads it to believe that Syria had something specifically to do with the most recent bombing (and isn't talking about it). I take Israel's airstrike as a sign that its government is growing frustrated with the lack of attractive military options to address what Hamas is doing. I don't think the ultimate solution to what Israel facts is going to be military, but I also don't think they have anyone to bargain with right now. Getting rid of Arafat will only make things worse, but you could get old waiting for him to die of old age.

I think probably not -- although Isreal is hoping to increase the cost to the supporters of those groups to choke off funding and support because they can't stop them 100% in the West Bank of Gaza. The strategy is understandable as a near-desparation mov by the Sharon government -- although I think it is very dangerous to the region as a whole.

The abject failure of the Israeli government to take even the most basic steps to address the settlement issue over the past few years has convinced me that Isreal, as much as the PA, lacks the strength and will to do the right thing in pursuit of peace. Both entities are hostage to the escalating cycle of violence and hatred, and radicalized domesric contituencies.

SuperGrover Runs Afoul of Godwin's Law
 

Here is a better quote from Rush from some years back -- as reporte in the mainstream media. [to African-American caller: "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back."]

S_A_M

There is nothing immoral about regulating our policy choices and expenditures of resources and lives according to our national interests. Iraq matters to us -- for many reasons -- while Zimbabwe (as with much of Africa) is meaningless to us except as a purely moral question.

S_A_M

Basically yes. I have always been more of a foreign policy hawk.

It is not paricularly the economy for me. It is issues like environmental policy, tax policy, collective international action against global warming, trade policy (I'm for free trade), and Supreme Court justices -- as well as a deep and abiding sense that we are quietly leaning way too far in favor of large corporate intrests behind the policy scenes.

S_A_M

SuperGrover Runs Afoul of Godwin's Law
 

Sorry for 5 posts in a row --

Is there anyone here who could honestly disagree that the answers to both those questions are not just "No." "But, Hell, No!"

If so, please identify the WMD found, and the evidence of 'close" connections to al Qaeda.

Well, let's not pretend then that we invaded Iraq because Hussein was a bad man.

Pre-emptive dissing?

What is going on is precisely what we should have expected. Our foreign policies adventures stand for the general principal that unilateral military action is justifiable, and that the various international entities set up to help keep the peace can be ignored. I suspect there will be a renewed impatience with diplomacy around the world in the coming years, and that the world will thus be a more dangerous place.

The hawks in Israel are generally on the ascendancy. Expect the hawks and radicals in neighboring countries to find renewed vigor as the battle is engaged, and so the spiral begins.

No one would or should say thats th e_only_ reason we invaded iraq was because Hussein was a bad man -- that is merely the reason that makes the invasion morally justified.

I remain mystified by the reasoning of people who think that the failure to depose every dictator and fight every morally justified conflict everywhere on the globe somehow renders suspect or hypocritical our actions to depose certain dictstors or fight certain conflictx for moral reasons. It is an odd sort of grade-school reasoning that utterly fails to take into account the complexity of the world and the realistic constraints on U.S. action.

Saves time. I can work out my personal demons without having to wait.

Its a mix. The only thing I don't want to see there is a.) any involvement of Egypt, b.) any involvement of Jordan, and c.) any WMD use by anyone.

If Israel wants to find peace with its neighbors, it needs to do any or all of the following:
a.) achieve regime change in Syria/Lebanon;
b.) create entirely unpopulated "buffer" areas on its borders by pushing a lot of people farther out; or
c.) scare the bejeezus out of its hostile neighbors.

The basic problem is the one we confronted with Afghanistan after 9/11. A country that harbors your enemy combatants is your enemy. And we will all be better off if nations who do such harboring are treated as enemies.

Excluding the British shelling the Boston Irish that is.

Seriously, there has to be an international consensus that states are responsible for the terrorist NGOs that they harbor. The alternatives just get worse as the available bombs get bigger over time.


Hello

Speaking of Preemptive Dissing
 

Is there anyone on this board who is willing to take the position that California will not have a Governor it can be ashamed of when the sun rises tomorrow?

Of course, Israel could take very significant steps toward peace by dismantling some settlements, something entirely within it's control.

And some of us wouldn't discount the potential impact of regime change in Israel itself.

Speaking of Preemptive Dissing
 

No way. The results probably won't be known for three weeks or more, so Davis will still be in.

Speaking of Preemptive Dissing
 

I will. When Californians elect Arnold, they can finally say that they are beyond their uber-PC fetish. That the are tired of dems that have run their country into the ground because they are worried about endangered owls and field mice, but not about endangered jobs. That they would rather have an honest hard-working businessman who likes to play smack-ass/grab-ass than a corrupt incompetent career bureaucrat anyday. This is their first step on the way to redeeming their dignity. Step two is dragging Arianna Huffingtons corpse through the streets and making Gray Davis eat what's left of it.

Speaking of Preemptive Dissing
 

Are you spending the day reading fine print to find your client an out?

OK, so is anyone ready to argue the position that come
All Hollow's Eve, we won't all find the California Governor a little scary?

Speaking of Preemptive Dissing
 

Said with all the seriousness you can muster for that position, aye?

That honesty thing is going to get challenged just a bit during the sexual harrassment lawsuits, isn't it?

Speaking of Preemptive Dissing
 

what I expect is the worst of the fall out, is how we are seen in other countries. we have a debacle of a presidential election, and finally get to a result.
then our president decides we as the sole superpower can take pre-emtive actions*. then, in our next major election, an actor, who might be a nazi sympathizer** is the front runner over a naturally large breasted women, a midget, and some political hacks that seem severly compromised. If I was living in country X, I'd like to think the country that may decide to come kick our ass next year, at least has a rational election process.

*with which I agree
** with which I disagree

Speaking of Preemptive Dissing
 

You mean the statute of limitations hasn't expired for incidents that happened in 1974? And none of the allegations I heard were from people who worked for Arnold, just random people. So what harassment is there? Is there some hostile workplace or quid pro quo issues that I am not getting, or did someone forget to update my pocketpart. Hehe...my pocketpart. Excuse me, I have some paralegals to harass.

Speaking of Preemptive Dissing
 

Well, let's see - is this a day that ends in the letter "y"?

Once upon a time, I was studying in another country, and the US Ambassador to that country came to have a very informal chat with some of the students. The Ambassador had some prepared remarks, which he gave, and the floor was open to questions. An earnest young man, a citizen of the host country, stood up at some point during the question answer period. He wanted to know why the US continued sanctions against Cuba when conditions in Indonesia (I think it was Indonesia, it could have been somewhere else) were so much worse. He went on at length to list the atrocities in Indonesia. Things didn’t sound nearly as bad in Cuba as they did in Indonesia. It sounded inconsistent. We were picking and choosing without looking at the merits of the case. So why, Ambassador, is the United States imposing economic sanctions on Cuba and not Indonesia? The Ambassador didn’t hesitate in giving his answer. “Because there aren’t a million voting Indonesians in Miami.” The room erupted in laughter, and the Ambassador went on to soothe the young man’s ego with a more lengthy answer that essentially boiled down to the same thing. We had/have a national interest in Cuba, and we don’t really care much about Indonesia. Every time the US makes an apparently inconsistent foreign policy decision, I think back to that remark, and things make a hell of a lot more sense to me.

Speaking of Preemptive Dissing
 

There are no doubt repressed memories all over the state that only an election result can trigger.

Why out? Why not in? (This is related to, but slightly different from, GGG's settlement point.)