Politics: J'accuse!

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Here's the thing --- and I really don't expect you to change this sock radically to pretend to understand this point, so I'm only talking to you to make a point to others who post under real consistent personas --- when it comes to "not innocent" POWs, be careful when preparing that delicious new sauce for the goose. There are a whole lot of our ganders in Iraq and elsewhere, and unlike in the realm of real honest to goodness criminal law, you don't have much of a choice to avoid other "not innocents" being jailed and having your retributive POW policies come back to haunt you.

Besides, the BBC is reporting the man being urinated upon was being held for theft, not blowing up our boys or shooting from behind kids.

Sigh. Agreed. Too easy to demonize, I suppose.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Remember, the coalition of the UNwilling harbored enough reasonable doubt that they pussed out on actually killing people in pursuit of the point, so the conventional wisdom was never as adamant as the President on this.

OK, you are drunk. The coalition of the unwilling feared exposure of their kickbacks/bribes for stealing the oil-for-food money. This was a reasonable fear given all the evidence of their duplicity that has been revealed.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Perhaps Bush's biggest mistake was doing more than simply responding "Well, I don't think we've made any mistakes, at least none comes to mind. Obviously people can second guess after the fact, but that's not really fair to call things mistakes in hindsight. Next question."

And if you can't call something a mistake in hindsight, there is no such thing as a mistake. Seriously, WTF? What kind of traction do you get with your GPs with that kind of argument? "It wasn't a mistake when I made the decision; it merely turned out to be a mistake, so it's not fair to call it a mistake." C'mon, man, if you knew it was wrong when you did it, it ceases to be a mistake at all --- that would be what we call "on purpose." Clearly that's not where this President is going, PR wise.

I think that article I posted about MRIs showing we turn off rational faculties when thinking about our own candidates is proving to be a little too true. I, for one, am starting to get a woody at the idea of President Kerry, so I guess it's happening to me, too.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Not Me
If I am a sock, who is my primary? And how the fuck do I have time to get any work done if I am posting as this sock and as a primary?

As I recall, I wrote a song parody asking that very question.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
C'mon, man, if you knew it was wrong when you did it, it ceases to be a mistake at all --- that would be what we call "on purpose."

Oh, OK, Bush lied. Now I get it.

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I, for one, am starting to get a woody at the idea of President Kerry, so I guess it's happening to me, too.

Doesn't surprise me at all.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
As I recall, I wrote a song parody asking that very question.

If you posted it on the FB, then I missed it. I can only stand to read about 1/3 or less of the posts on that board given the low-IQ of the average FB poster.

Post it here if you want me to read it, serf.

[Antiquity]

Originally posted by Not Me
The US is NOT and has never been fighting a war against Iraq. It is a war against Saddam.

If word gets out about this, we're going to look pretty foolish around the world. Not that Saddam is beating us yet, but he's doing ok for a guy in custody in Doha, Qatar.

[Antiquity]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I, for one, am starting to get a woody at the idea of President Kerry.

Actually, that's just disturbing. Put down your copy of Clockword Orange and get yourself some help.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Antiquity
If word gets out about this, we're going to look pretty foolish around the world. Not that Saddam is beating us yet, but he's doing ok for a guy in custody in Doha, Qatar.

Saddam is the term commonly used for Saddam and his loyalists. 'Cuze me. I will make an effort to be more precise in my syntax in the future.

[confidential to AntiquiTy]I know, I am being too literal[/confidential to AntiquiTy]

[Antiquity]

Originally posted by Not Me
Saddam is the term commonly used for Saddam and his loyalists. 'Cuze me. I will make an effort to be more precise in my syntax in the future.

[confidential to AntiquiTy]I know, I am being too literal[/confidential to AntiquiTy]

I read this a lot, often attributed to people in our military and other people associated with the CPA. I don't doubt that they think this, but how do they know? Iraq is so dangerous right now that it's hard to get a sense of what the other sides are thinking. I don't doubt that there is at least one faction associated with Saddam, but I don't think we're doing ourselves any favors pretending that they're acting out of loyalty to Saddam. They surely have some other agenda, and I would find it easier to believe that we're getting somewhere in Iraq if we were fighting tomorrow's battle instead of yesterday's.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
lets not paraphrase...he said:

I believed that Saddam Hussein was trying to pull a fast one on the U.N. inspectors in that he wanted them to give him a clean bill of health because they couldn't find a smoking gun. In other words, a stockpile. And I don't believe he had a stockpile. What he was very cleverly doing was building a framework that could start a program once he came out of sanctions. In other words, he had a missile system that he was allowed to have, the Al-Samud Missile System, that was limited in range. But within that missile program he could do research and development, develop special fuel systems. So it would have been easier just to extend the range and increase it as a weapons system. He had dual-use plants, pharmaceutical plants, pesticide plants, that could be turned over. He had the scientists all in place with the documentation. But what the inspectors did, what their charter was, was not to necessarily just look for a smoking gun or a stockpile, but that he was in compliance with the United Nations resolution in that he had dismantled that capability and didn't have the ability to restart it. In addition to that, to ensure that he had destroyed previous stockpiles. And I think, again, Hans Blix, just like his predecessors Richard Butler and Rolf (Akkaus), were on to him. And what annoyed Saddam is they wouldn't give him a clean bill of health until they could talk to the scientists, until they could assure themselves that that framework didn't exist. And the threat was the framework. And the inspectors, including Hans Blix in my mind, would have never given him a clean bill of health for two reasons. He was in non-compliance, he wouldn't give them access to the scientists and others. And there wasn't full accountability of previous stocks.

Hank -- If your going to post a long quote . . .how about the parts that address the other eight points Ty listed, not just the first one?

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
here's the difference between us and you, what I quoted means it made sense to do Iraq War. to you, we should have worried about 8 dozen things- (def com 4)

Don't you think that the U.S. did, or should have, worried about 8 dozen things other than the fact that Hussein planned to rebuild WMD before we invaded or occupied? If not, why not?

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
the prisioners, is it not likely they are these guerillas who are planting bombs and killing friends of these young men? I don't buy into their being anything other than a delayed military tactic- but I don't think these troops look at it that way. Here we all are posting on some waste of time page while making 6 figures, while these kids are seeing their friends killed by non-regular troops. might I take a pee on them if i were 20 and in Iraqui? thats a hypo I don't need to answer.

the rest of you, while you swill your Medoc 2nd growth, consider the above.

Hmmm. Why aren't the responsible authorities (military and civilian) taking a similarly enlightened and moderate view of those events? Because everything you've said may be true, but is almost completely irrelevant. Some young cops ram nightsticks up prisoner's asses when they're under stress, but I think they are not immune from opprobrium.

In the end, none of what you said matters much, Hank. If you're a soldier you're supposed to do your job and do it right. Those soldiers had duties and obligations and standing orders, they violated all of those. In so doing, they abused prisoners who were under their control, and gave our whole operation a huge black eye. Those 6-7 people have by themselves made everything we're trying to accomplish in Iraq that much harder.

So they'll be punished, and deservedly so, but that won't make a damn bit of difference.

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
I am 99.9% confident that the pictures were taken by someone who was appalled at the conduct. For what its worth, the behavior is stupid (and yeah, insulting and provocative etc.), but it is a bunch of young soldiers after all, not well-trained police officers etc.... Somewhere, an officer deserves to be given a dishonorable discharge, a demotion, and a kick in the ass.

Hello

According to Not Me's article, 14 of the 17 soldiers were from a Maryland Army Reserve MP unit who had training/experience as correctional officers.

S_A_M

Originally posted by Not Me
The only reason that this has happened is that we were worried about civilian casaulties and the insurgents were using mosques and women and children as shields. We could have leveled the city and won this no problem.

The problem is that "leveling the city" and "winning" are mutually exclusive where the goal is (as we have been told, though this could be another lie) actually making life better for Iraqis -- you know, free air of democracy, human rights and all that rot. Destroying the village in order to save it doesn't work in that context.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Antiquity
Sorry. There's a fine line between outlandish things in NRO and OJ that some of you guys find compelling and outlandish things there that are so outlandish that they're funny, and sometimes it's hard for the rest of us to see that line. Carry on.

Let's not paint with such a broad brush. OJ is a web site fully of hit pieces, and I find it very strange that the WSJ sponsors it. Other than the left column of the editorial page, I find the WSJ relatively objective. NRO is a serious website. You may not agree with the positions, but the columns there are typically very academic and respectful.