Wow. This is so intellectually feeble that there MUST be room for you at a rightie think tank.
You object to "Cold War"? Now?
We used the term for fifty years, and it was quite serviceable. But YOU, grand poohbah of the mind, cerebral juggernaut, legend in your own alleged mind, YOU have decided that the term is wrong?
The halls of power come to a sudden funereal stop. A fill-in blogger has DECREED that "Cold War" is a bad term. Why .. it's POLITICALLY INCORRECT!
And then, like the proverbial flatulence in a cyclone, the moment passes, the river moves on, and we all curse the moments lost that might have been better spent reading restroom doggerel, specifically,
Those who write on bathroom walls/
should roll ...
Well, you get the idea, you Wit, you.
Posted by Hart Williams at December 9, 2007 02:04 PMhart-
i understand. you got tr'd into oblivion at dk, yesterday. it's somehow all my fault. seek professional help. really.
Posted by Turkana at December 9, 2007 02:06 PMI really don't know what to do.
Americans think other people's dead children is an ok thing, for an unelected president's ego. They can't seem able to put themselves in a position where it's their own children. I give up.
Oh, and some asshole on another thread asked when I'm going to live in Baghdad. Actually I liked the old Baghdad, where people had jobs and homes and clean water and electricity and such. It's the pussy war lovers like Cheney and the trolls here who need to go live in Baghdad. Why would they not want to experience the fruits of their brilliant thinking?
Posted by Sharkbabe at December 9, 2007 02:06 PMAwww, back to the kindergarten condescension?
At least I didn't call you a fatuous hypocrite for uncritically accepting the term "The Great Game" when it was anything but a "game" and is an equally vile (to use your own logic) appellation since so many lives were therein lost.
Worse, you missed the obvious parallel between the neocons and Lord Elfinstone, who reinstalled deposed King Shujah on the throne in Kabul (as did we, with Hamid Karzai, albeit for the first time) with a British army of 16,500, and only one man returned to tell the tale. (The greatest British military defeat of the 19th Century, and, therefore, not much talked about).
So, you can't seem to win the argument in the library or on the playground. What's next? Run to mommy?
Posted by Hart Williams at December 9, 2007 02:42 PM"They can't seem able to put themselves in a position where it's their own children. I give up."
Sharkbabe, when a person says that "black people don't love their children as much as a white people do," why would you expect empathy from others of like mind? (Actual quote from an educated WASP Republican I know.)
um- hart- it was, you know, a touch of irony- the great game and all. but, okay- you win. you're smarter than me, cuter than me, and a better person than me.
Posted by Turkana at December 9, 2007 02:52 PMsharkbabe-
it's a fundamental lack of humanity. a fundamental inability to perceive those unlike oneself as human. whether it's people in chile or angola or vietnam or iraq, they are mere numbers. to bush, war is but a video game.
Posted by Turkana at December 9, 2007 02:55 PM@ Turkana: Excellent essay.
@ Hart: do you do insults for hire?
Posted by andgarden at December 9, 2007 03:52 PM"They want it to be a world war..."
Well, consider this:
First attack on the World Trade Center in 1993
Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
The attack on the USS Cole, while in Yemen, in 2000.
All attacks carried out by Muslims. Seems pretty world-wide to me.
Posted by Bagley at December 9, 2007 04:05 PMbagley- one small band of obsessed terrorists pulls off three attacks in eight years? you need to study a little history, to get a little perspective. not to mention the concept of stereotyping.
Posted by Turkana at December 9, 2007 04:21 PM"...three attacks in eight years..."
Three examples. If you think these were the only attacks during that time-frame...well, you "need to study a little history..." (There were also many, many attacks prior to this time frame: remeber the US Embassy in Tehran?)
"...the concept of stereotyping."
Ummm, the attackers were Muslim. Hardly stereotyping to accurately identify them.
Posted by Bagley at December 9, 2007 04:35 PMbagley-
the 1930s fascists were all white christians. should we stereotype?
and in case you haven't been paying attention, there has been more terrorism since 9/11 than before. that's what your chickenhawk idols have accomplished.
Posted by at December 9, 2007 04:42 PM"....the 1930s fascists were all white christians."
Ummmm, no. No they were not.
"...there has been more terrorism since 9/11 than before."
So I take it then that you would be perfectly comfortable with continuing low-level Muslim terrorism. So, exactly, how many Westerners do you think it is acceptable for Muslim terrorist to kill off each year?
Posted by Bagley at December 9, 2007 04:55 PMI also use a World War II analogy for the Iraq War a lot. I use it to describe the lot of Iraqi civilians caught between the Americans and the "insurgents" (Not the best phrase, but everybody understands who I'm referring to). I use the analogy of the Ukranians. They were sandwiched between the Soviets and the Nazis. They eventually decided "Well, the Soviets want to oppress us and exploit us and kill some of us, the Nazis are into the exploitation and oppression, but they want to kill all of us, so (grumble, sigh) we may as well fight for the Soviets."
Unlike the conservatives, with their Manichean "good vs evil" frame, I see Iraqi civilians as choosing between what they see as bad and worse.
Just 'cause the other side is really bad doesn't mean your side is good!
Posted by Rich at December 9, 2007 04:58 PM"Unlike the conservatives, with their Manichean "good vs evil' frame..."
A good little multi-culturalist.
Posted by Bagley at December 9, 2007 05:26 PM"That's an awfully low standard for things in which we should take pride." ...(Turkana)
And yet Bush continues to amaze by setting the bar lower and lower.
Cold war differences aside, this description of the Bushco idiocy of calling the current conflict "WWIII" mirrors mine. It's simply ridiculous to elevate bin ladin to the status of a world power, and only serves to encourage terrorism----Podhoratz and our dear GroceryBagger need to read a book by an actual terrorism expert. So that's not why we do it.
The main reason that the conservatives elevated this issue to "world war" status is simple worship and adoration of massive US military spending and "power"--"defense" is the only "valid" function of the federal govenment in their polluted toxic brains.
Hence the "Koraq" 50 year model, the long term NATO involvement in Afghanistan, the repositioning of the ever expanding permanent bases, the absurd new bipartisan call for substantially increasing the ground forces. These calls for yet more militarism all originate on the unthinking nationalist, jingoist Right, and the Left does nothing to challenge the absurdity of this thinking, let alone actually oppose the nonsense.
So "National Defense!" is screamed hysterically by the entire country of shitbrain lemmings, when we currently outspend the rest of the world combined, have two stable, friendly democracies as neighbors, two vast oceans to the east and west and no other maritime power on earth. Insanity, explained only by the white male desire to dominate others by force. A sick, sick society.
Posted by euzoius at December 10, 2007 06:14 AMTurkana: "it's a fundamental lack of humanity. a fundamental inability to perceive those unlike oneself as human. whether it's people in chile or angola or vietnam or iraq, they are mere numbers. to bush, war is but a video game."
Driftglass succintly describes THE primary characteristic of right-wingers: fuck everybody but me
"First attack on the World Trade Center in 1993"
well bagless bagley, Clinton brought them to justice. Where's Osama?
Posted by at December 10, 2007 10:31 AM