Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
A lot of Taliban and Al Qaeda got away at Tora Bora because we hoped that Afghans could close the deal. But it's OK. Bush isn't concerned about it.

that wasn't a rambo movie, what do you mean by this? And your disconnect between saying 1) we should have caught more and 2) it is ok we had to let go those we did catch is stunning, and telling.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Hey - We caught us some weapons of mass destruction -- and they were THIS BIG!

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I finally saw 9/11. what a disjointed piece of crap. I really don't get what you guys are talking about when you say there are damaging facts. it was pretty clearly a hatchet job, and a dumb one at that.

what in the movie rang true for you guys?

Dunno. Haven't seen it, don't plan to.

Though it fits nicely on a BC'04 bumper sticker, many of us here aren't Moore fans.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
that wasn't a rambo movie, what do you mean by this? And your disconnect between saying 1) we should have caught more and 2) it is ok we had to let go those we did catch is stunning, and telling.

I know that irony doesn't translate well on the net, but WTF? The Administration tried to get by with Afghan troops, but when push came to shove, they weren't sufficiently motivated to go after AQ at Tora Bora, and OBL got away. I don't actually think this is OK. I would like them to catch Osama bin Laden. Bush gave a "major policy speech" yesterday in New Jersey in which he mentioned John Kerry 41 times, Al Qaeda once, and Osama bin Laden not at all, so apparently he has other things on his mind just now.

[SlaveNoMore]

Shape Shifter

Have you seen the ass on Hillary lately?

P.S. Ty invented this.

Dissent

2 -- t.s.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The Administration tried to get by with Afghan troops,

Someone earlier was explaining we had troops from everywhere, I remember even Canada had troops. Why would we "try and get by?" What possible reason Ty? the pipeline! Haliburton truck drivers? What do those synapses firing away in your brain say, don't keep it secret.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by bilmore
I'm guessing there are more Dems sitting around lamenting the choice of Kerry than Repubs sitting around lamenting the choice of Bush. Go read DU. It's fun.

No thanks. It's an enduring theme here that your consumption of the screamers on the left leads you to believe that it's representative of the Democratic Party.

Perhaps it's more revealing to see more and more mainstream conservative media* throwing up their hands in exasperation at Bush, proclaiming that he's taken the principles of conservatism, pushed them into a nice little pile, and pissed on them the last 4 years.

• The record, from published administration memoirs and in-depth reporting, is one of an administration with a very small group of six or eight real decision-makers, who were set on war from the beginning and who took great pains to shut out arguments from professionals in the CIA and State Department and the U.S. armed forces that contradicted their rosy scenarios about easy victory. Much has been written about the neoconservative hand guiding the Bush presidency—and it is peculiar that one who was fired from the National Security Council in the Reagan administration for suspicion of passing classified material to the Israeli embassy and another who has written position papers for an Israeli Likud Party leader have become key players in the making of American foreign policy.
  
  But neoconservatism now encompasses much more than Israel-obsessed intellectuals and policy insiders. The Bush foreign policy also surfs on deep currents within the Christian Right, some of which see unqualified support of Israel as part of a godly plan to bring about Armageddon and the future kingdom of Christ. These two strands of Jewish and Christian extremism build on one another in the Bush presidency—and President Bush has given not the slightest indication he would restrain either in a second term. With Colin Powell’s departure from the State Department looming, Bush is more than ever the “neoconian candidate.” The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected.
  
  If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from Inauguration Day forward. But the most important battles will take place within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. A Bush defeat will ignite a huge soul-searching within the rank-and-file of Republicandom: a quest to find out how and where the Bush presidency went wrong. And it is then that more traditional conservatives will have an audience to argue for a conservatism informed by the lessons of history, based in prudence and a sense of continuity with the American past—and to make that case without a powerful White House pulling in the opposite direction.
  
  George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies—a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky’s concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies—temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election—are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans “won’t do.” This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support.

Interesting to see conservatives compare THEIR GOP CANDIDATE to Trotsky instead of the Dem du jour, no? Yes, the reference is somewhat dated, but it's good to see the old-line conservatives using that muscle memory.

Fun times.

* OK, it's a bit odd to consider a mag edited in part by Buchanan to be mainstream conservative media, but you get my point.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Someone earlier was explaining we had troops from everywhere, I remember even Canada had troops. Why would we "try and get by?" What possible reason Ty? the pipeline! Haliburton truck drivers? What do those synapses firing away in your brain say, don't keep it secret.

Good question, Hank. Bush et al. had a chance to bag Osama bin Laden with U.S. troops, and they didn't go in strong. Why?

[baltassoc]

Perhaps I should post it over on the adult board due to its obscene nature, but I just want to say:

It's a good thing to want to Protect Our Civil Liberties.*




*I'd post the original story, but it requires registration. You'll just have to take the word of a radical left wing website.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Someone earlier was explaining we had troops from everywhere, I remember even Canada had troops. Why would we "try and get by?" What possible reason Ty? the pipeline! Haliburton truck drivers? What do those synapses firing away in your brain say, don't keep it secret.

We don't know why, but they did.

What was going on in your boy's head?

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Perhaps I should post it over on the adult board due to its obscene nature, but I just want to say:

It's a good thing to want to Protect Our Civil Liberties.*


*I'd post the original story, but it requires registration. You'll just have to take the word of a radical left wing website.

Clever. It certainly says something about how the Repubs view themselves if they presume the slogan is anti-Republican. I think those gals made their point quite well.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Bush et al. had a chance to bag Osama bin Laden with U.S. troops, and they didn't go in strong.

Based on....? I remember there was a fight in the mountains, and that someone saw a tall guy. i remember some US troops were there but that one of the fights was mostly Afghans. Since he was able to run into Paki in your version, away from the Afghans, why couldn't he run from Americans into Paki (ps i think he is dead)?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

"Ty invented this!"

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Back in '96. the chubby girl in the green dress would have been center stage.