All Hank, all the time.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I'd forgotten, you were the sock who knew so much about how we should man and equip the Iraq invasion- big brain Ty!

In retrospect, maybe they should have asked him.



S_A_M

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
In a "Most Helpful like Hank" sort of way I thought that comment you edited out was actually a bit of a de-escalation of the rhetoric in the last couple of sentences that you left in. FWIW.

That's not how I saw it. I saw it as too nasty, even in response to Wonk's accusations.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
On July 18, you said:



I would be embarassed by that statement too, Wonk -- but running away from it doesn't help.



That was not in response to a suggestion of US occupation. It was in response to your suggestion that imperialism was a good option. I took that as a half-assed comment and made a half-assed response ("genocide by white people is good?"). It was an effort to remind anyone who would actually support or talk fondly of imperialism of what that really means.

I did not accuse you of being a proponent of genocide, because I did not think that you seriously applaud the notion of imperialism and all that it wrought throughout the world.

In contrast, you have consistently accused me of, in essence, being a war criminal. And of "fashionably" suggesting that Arab lives are worthless.

Worse yet, you have the temerity to make that accusation in the same thread where you advocate the US invading Lebanon, conquering it, and administering it as a protectorate for the next 100 years -- an approach that anyone would recognize is not only impracticable, likely impossible, but that will cause vastly more deaths than anything Israel has done this year. (cf Iraq, 100 bodies a day and counting.)

And again -- after you propose that, you call me a proponent of genocide. Claiming that I "played that card" when I did not use it in anything like the context or manner that you are using it worse than a cop-out -- it's an excuse that you know to be bullshit (just like you should know the claim that you "never said anything about your stance on Iraq relative to your stance on Israel").


A Jew who lost family in the Holocaust should be a bit more careful about accusing people of supporting genocide. You ought to know the fucking difference.

You can withdraw that comment, or you can go fuck yourself and your familly, you worthless piece of shit.

I did draw the parallel. I had forgotten about that and you dug it up. My bad. I'm sorry. Good for you.

I didn't actually suggest occupying Lebanon. I suggested occupying Israel. I believe that in the long run, it will save far more lives than it will cost. If it takes 100 years, so be it. I don't believe that anything less will work.


I think what I disagree with is summed up pretty well in this quote from a post of yours on July 17:

My position? I believe in a policy of fierce retaliation against terrorists, including countries and populations that willingly harbor and support them. This is why I believed that attacking Afghanistan was right, despite the civilian deaths. But attacking Iraq was wrong -- sort of like Israel invading Detroit, or Berkeley, on the grounds that the population and even the leadership there agree with the people who attack Israel.

Lebanon has been directed by the UN to disarm Hezbollah. It has failed to do so -- and failed because Lebanon is too beholden to Hezbollah, and to Syria, to do so. The attacks will never stop until Lebanon realizes that the cost of not doing something outweighs the cost of doing something. And that realization will never come -- apparently, and very sadly -- without strong military action by Israel.

It's not genocide, but it is an awfully broad brush you were painting with. I personally feel it's too broad a brush. The people of Lebanon and Gaza convince themselves that they are in the right by saying that the Israeli military and police invade their homes, shell their villlages, and kill their children. They argue that they will never be safe as long as the Jews support attacks on Arab citizens, terrorist or not.

It never ends.

Maybe my posts have not been as concisely and clearly laid out as I would like. For that I apologize. In my defense, I will note that when someone repeatedly keeps telling me to fuck myself, my first reaction tends to be "Fuck me? Fuck YOU!!!!" But that is not productive, so I try to squelch it with some modicum of success. Of course that is my personal weakness, not any fault of yours.

In any event, it is apparent that this conversation is going nowhere but down fast. For that, I bear as much of the blame as anyone. I'm done. Declare yourself the winner.

Oh, and, fuck me?

Fuck you.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I did draw the parallel. I had forgotten about that and you dug it up. My bad. I'm sorry. Good for you.

I didn't actually suggest occupying Lebanon. I suggested occupying Israel. I believe that in the long run, it will save far more lives than it will cost. If it takes 100 years, so be it. I don't believe that anything less will work.


I think what I disagree with is summed up pretty well in this quote from a post of yours on July 17:



It's not genocide, but it is an awfully broad brush you were painting with. I personally feel it's too broad a brush. The people of Lebanon and Gaza convince themselves that they are in the right by saying that the Israeli military and police invade their homes, shell their villlages, and kill their children. They argue that they will never be safe as long as the Jews support attacks on Arab citizens, terrorist or not.

It never ends.

Maybe my posts have not been as concisely and clearly laid out as I would like. For that I apologize. In my defense, I will note that when someone repeatedly keeps telling me to fuck myself, my first reaction tends to be "Fuck me? Fuck YOU!!!!" But that is not productive, so I try to squelch it with some modicum of success. Of course that is my personal weakness, not any fault of yours.

In any event, it is apparent that this conversation is going nowhere but down fast. For that, I bear as much of the blame as anyone. I'm done. Declare yourself the winner.

Oh, and, fuck me?

Fuck you.

Isn't the real lesson that when this sort of conflict persists, no one wins?

N.B. -- I will ignore this lesson when I am drawn into future conflicts.

[Gattigap]

I've been watching the whole Lieberman/Lamont thing with some degree of amusement, largely because (a) I'm not from CT, (b) I don't really care too much about Lieberman personally, though I do find him mildly annoying when I do think about him, and (c) I presumed that the whole primary thing couldn't really be profoundly affected by Kos or some other bloggers typing angrily onto their keyboards, no matter how pissed they really are. In the end, I thought, it's a local campaign and the locals will decide what they want.

I was surprised, though, to come across the NYT editorial in which the Gray Lady endorsed ... Lamont.

It is NOT a typical, mealy-mouthed endorsement. Nor does it spend more than a paragraph or so praising Lamont. No, much of it is dedicated to the dicing and filleting of Joe Liberman. To what I imagine will be Slave's, Penske's, bilmore's, spanky's, and club's delight, the NYT doesn't even pretend to sit above the fray and spend time complimenting both candidates. Instead it kicks Joe in the butt, stomps on his testicles, and leaves him for dead.

I don't know but presume that CT voters tend to read this paper, and would imagine that a typical voter there would place some importance on the NYT's endorsement, certainly more than that of an Atrios. I wonder how this will play out.

Gattigap

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I did draw the parallel. I had forgotten about that and you dug it up. My bad. I'm sorry. Good for you.

Thanks. You shouldn't feel bad -- when you so easily descend into telling people that they are racist (after all -- what else are you saying when you say I don't value Arab lives?), it's easy to forget.

I didn't actually suggest occupying Lebanon. I suggested occupying Israel. I believe that in the long run, it will save far more lives than it will cost. If it takes 100 years, so be it. I don't believe that anything less will work.

I think that's insane and impossible, but hey.

For the record -- I think that destroying the military capability of Hezbollah will save more live than it will cost, in the long run. In other words, I don't hate or devalue Arabs any more than you do Israelis, it appears.

I think what I disagree with is summed up pretty well in this quote from a post of yours on July 17:

It's not genocide, but it is an awfully broad brush you were painting with. I personally feel it's too broad a brush. The people of Lebanon and Gaza convince themselves that they are in the right by saying that the Israeli military and police invade their homes, shell their villlages, and kill their children. They argue that they will never be safe as long as the Jews support attacks on Arab citizens, terrorist or not.

This is a legitimate point. You can fairly accuse Israel of going too far, being too harsh. I have acknowledged in the past week that they have done so (attacking civilian convoys as they fled So. Lebanon in response to Israeli instructions). In years past, I have done the same, and far more harshly. (I think that what Sharon did at Sabra and Shatila, for example, is nothing short of a war crime.)


But -- YOU CAN DISAGREE WITH ME WITHOUT CONSISTENTLY ACCUSING ME OF TREATING ARAB LIVES AS WORTHLESS, OR SUGGESTING -- SAYING -- THAT I SUPPORT GENOCIDE. It was those comments that led me to tell you to go fuck yourself.

I can have a calm discussion about this, or I can have a discussion that is passionate without getting personal. Or it can be personal. But I did not bring this to a personal level. You think that I "dug up" your comment re: Iraq/Lebanon, referenced above. I didn't -- I remembered it. I found it very offensive, very personal, and very disturbing. Hence the harshness of my response. I apologize for the level it reached.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Gattigap
I've been watching the whole Lieberman/Lamont thing with some degree of amusement, largely because (a) I'm not from CT, (b) I don't really care too much about Lieberman personally, though I do find him mildly annoying when I do think about him, and (c) I presumed that the whole primary thing couldn't really be profoundly affected by Kos or some other bloggers typing angrily onto their keyboards, no matter how pissed they really are. In the end, I thought, it's a local campaign and the locals will decide what they want.

I was surprised, though, to come across the NYT editorial in which the Gray Lady endorsed ... Lamont.

It is NOT a typical, mealy-mouthed endorsement. Nor does it spend more than a paragraph or so praising Lamont. No, much of it is dedicated to the dicing and filleting of Joe Liberman. To what I imagine will be Slave's, Penske's, bilmore's, spanky's, and club's delight, the NYT doesn't even pretend to sit above the fray and spend time complimenting both candidates. Instead it kicks Joe in the butt, stomps on his testicles, and leaves him for dead.

I don't know but presume that CT voters tend to read this paper, and would imagine that a typical voter there would place some importance on the NYT's endorsement, certainly more than that of an Atrios. I wonder how this will play out.

Gattigap

The real news is that Kos has taken over the NYT. Oh the humanity!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
For the record -- I think that destroying the military capability of Hezbollah will save more live than it will cost, in the long run.

Maybe the proper tense is "would" instead of "will." The news reports I've seen in the last day -- yesterday's NYT or WaPo or today's FT, I can't recall which -- suggested that Israel is having a much harder time with Hezbollah than was expected. Which is Not Good.

Maybe this is what I was thinking of:

• The very clear winner, for the moment at least, was Hezbollah and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. . . . As the only Arab leader seen to have defeated the Israelis — on the basis of their withdrawal in 2000 from an 18-year occupation — he already enjoyed wide respect. Now, with Hezbollah standing firm and inflicting casualties, he has become a folk hero across the Muslim world, apparently uniting Sunnis and Shiites.
  
  The standoff stunned Israel, whose offensive came in response to a Hezbollah cross-border raid that resulted in the death of eight Israeli soldiers and the capture of two others. Central to the embattled nation’s sense of survivability is the idea of its invincibility. Its intelligence knows everything, the mythology goes, and no army dare stand against it. In truth, Israel has, in part, been lucky in its enemies, mostly Arab regimes with armies suitable mainly for keeping their own populace in check.
  
  What was clearly conceived two weeks ago as a quick battle using air power and strikes on specific targets with commando raids to degrade Hezbollah’s resources, particularly its stores of thousands of rockets, has turned into a crisis. “Israel is far from a decisive victory and its main objectives have not been achieved,” wrote the country’s most respected military analyst, Zeev Schiff, in the daily Haaretz.
  
  Hezbollah, Sheik Nasrallah has said, “needs only to survive to win.” That seemed increasingly likely by week’s end. Deeply entwined among the Shiite community that makes up perhaps 40 percent of Lebanon’s population, it would be impossible to eliminate. But there is more. Although the Israelis announced within days that they had destroyed 50 percent of Hezbollah’s munitions, the guerrillas have continued to rain more than a hundred rockets a day on Israel. And on Wednesday, in Bint Jbail, a town the Israelis said they controlled, a well-laid Hezbollah ambush pinned down infantrymen from the elite Golani Brigade for hours. At times the firing was so heavy the brigade’s soldiers could not return it; eight Israelis were killed. The highly advanced Merkava tanks were reduced to ambulances and several were destroyed.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Maybe the proper tense is "would" instead of "will." The news reports I've seen in the last day -- yesterday's NYT or WaPo or today's FT, I can't recall which -- suggested that Israel is having a much harder time with Hezbollah than was expected. Which is Not Good.

Concur on both points.

And it's not good. Rather than stand down or soften its line in response to Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon, Hezbollah has used the intervening years to bulk up its military capacity and dig in deeper.

This means that the war may well get worse. It also means that Hezbollah represents a serious threat to Israel, and the more time goes on the more serious the threat gets. This is especially true given that Hezbollah is not alone in the region, but rather is closely allied to Syria, which has a significant military of its own.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Gattigap
I've been watching the whole Lieberman/Lamont thing with some degree of amusement, largely because (a) I'm not from CT, (b) I don't really care too much about Lieberman personally, though I do find him mildly annoying when I do think about him, and (c) I presumed that the whole primary thing couldn't really be profoundly affected by Kos or some other bloggers typing angrily onto their keyboards, no matter how pissed they really are. In the end, I thought, it's a local campaign and the locals will decide what they want.

I was surprised, though, to come across the NYT editorial in which the Gray Lady endorsed ... Lamont.

It is NOT a typical, mealy-mouthed endorsement. Nor does it spend more than a paragraph or so praising Lamont. No, much of it is dedicated to the dicing and filleting of Joe Liberman. To what I imagine will be Slave's, Penske's, bilmore's, spanky's, and club's delight, the NYT doesn't even pretend to sit above the fray and spend time complimenting both candidates. Instead it kicks Joe in the butt, stomps on his testicles, and leaves him for dead.

I don't know but presume that CT voters tend to read this paper, and would imagine that a typical voter there would place some importance on the NYT's endorsement, certainly more than that of an Atrios. I wonder how this will play out.

Gattigap

Most people think the NYTimes is a fucking joke. Their Oped page is a goddamned embarrassment. So is the Journal's. The two are partisan bookends. The Journal is slightly better because the writing is better than it doesn't have a shrill little twit like Krugman whining through it every other day.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
But... but.....


FREEEEEEEDOOMMMMMM!!!!!


Okay -- as long as I can get Braveheart on Netflix, I'm okay wit this. And Lethal Weapon (the first one rocked. Deal with it).

And Ransome

[Tyrone Slothrop]

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
That's not how I saw it. I saw it as too nasty, even in response to Wonk's accusations.

Fair enough. The new, kinder, gentler and more well behaved version of Penske, Penske 3.62, iyw, was interpreting your comment as being helpful career oriented advice, but upon further examination, atc, I see your point.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Fair enough. The new, kinder, gentler and more well behaved version of Penske, Penske 3.62, iyw, was interpreting your comment as being helpful career oriented advice, but upon further examination, atc, I see your point.

Few people will consider abandoning the law for the proctological sciences.