Is there an honest, thoughtful argument to be made which proposes Bush should not be hanged? Wouldn't being assigned that position in a debate consign you to the losing side? Please, someone make the case he should be spared the gallows. Chirp, chirp.........
Posted by steve duncan at September 22, 2006 08:17 PMHanging him would violate the ugly billboard and signage law.
I stopped drinking in 99, under Clinton there was no reason to.
Posted by TIKI AL at September 22, 2006 08:26 PMI think they truly never got beyond "SADDAM BAD. NO SADDAM = GOOD. The neocons never really reconciled their ideas. Some wanted to extend the American Empire. Some wanted to remove an enemy of Israel. Some wanted an Iraq friendly to American and to American corporations. And on and on. They could never agree amongst themselves on what postwar Iraq was suppossed to be, let alone get America to agree on it. Did Cheney and Wolfowitz have the same ideas for post-invasion? I think they truly thought, they could take out Saddam and Iraq would still function
They never got all the elements of government to agree either. This was one of the reasons they didn't do any postwar planning. Because it would just highlight the problems and their differences. Some of them wanted to install Chalabi and the exiles right away. The CIA and the Military didn't want to do that. You had the military attempting one thing, the CPA attempting another, the president saying one thing and Pentagon saying something else. Thomas Ricks just profiled an Army Captain working in Civil Affairs and she described our effort in rebuilidng Iraq as "amateur hour."
Posted by KevinNYC at September 22, 2006 08:37 PMAnother reason for the illegal wiretapping and other actions against liberties; They know the sh*tstorm is coming, so are preparing for it as much as they can get away with without revealing why. Don't know if this is true, but it fits.
If there are any repubs still capable of independent thought, please, this country begs for your enlightenment.
Posted by jimbo at September 22, 2006 09:08 PMsoccerdad:
The fact that there is a civil war going on and that many middle and upper class Iraqis have left or are trying to leave the country works to the neocons favor. Look at Gaza and Lebanon. There is a pattern here, produce physically destroyed, failed states that they feel will be easier to control.
I'm not understanding you.
For one thing, Iraq is lousy with rich people. Kurdistan is full of very happy big-time businessmen and owners, as are many parts of the major cities in the center and south, including Baghdad. You just don't hear about them because Nic Robertson doesn't tell you.
Second, what is the real common controlling factor in those three states? Is it really the neocons ---by which you actually mean Jews--- who control Iraq? Do the Jews also run Lebanon? If the Jews really did run Gaza, one suspects that the situation there would have been resolved a long time ago ---and to the absolute and indubitable advantage of the state of Israel.
No, the real common factor in those three places is lunatic Muslim behavior. That is what is producing "physically destroyed, failed states." In a few weeks' time, Hizballah ---that great savior of Lebanon--- managed to utterly undo and embarrass the whole idea of a Cedar Revolution. They did it of their own accord and without provocation. They have completely fucked their own country because they cannot be done with their Jew-hatred. They cannot be done with their dreams of making themselves an Iranian proxy state on the coast of the Mediterranean. And Gaza? If there has ever been an enemy of the Arabs in Gaza, it has been the entire rest of the Arab Middle East, which has sold those bastards out for generations now ---just to leave a festering abcess in the midst of Zion. If the Saudis or the Egyptians or the Jordanians themselves actually ever cared about the plight of those people, they would have done something substantial about it a long time ago. They would have funded infrastructure and commerce there instead of funding madrassas and mosques where their Jew-hating garbage could be stirred about. They would have made it possible to better integrate Palestinian society into Israeli society by recognizing the right of Israel to even exist before they were made to.
And in Iraq? Well, that's Muslims attacking Muslims. That's not ecumenism at its best, you know. Lutheran anarchists stopped smashing up the papists' pretties centuries ago. But these people? They've been split in half since the first generation after Mohammad! And violently so. At least the Pauline Christians were smart enough to bury the Gnostics ---and did so peaceably, by political will, not tribal warfare as Mohammad's followers did.
Posted by Toby Petzold at September 22, 2006 09:26 PMSoccerDad, of course Bush doesn't care. Only because the media presents a biased portrait of him does he get any credit at all in this regard.
I have an even more cynical, small-minded view of the real reason for the war, based on the supposition that nothing deeper than cronyism motivates Bush. I begin with the hypothesis that some easily predicted consequence of the war has to be the clue to Bush's motive. The most obvious prediction was that the war would drive the price of oil up. With the price of oil higher, Bush's Texas buddies could make more money, both through their ownership in foreign oil stakes, and because they could profitably dig for US oil now. That's it.. nothing more.
Look for the ugliest, most heartless, basest motives in Bush---doesn't my theory make sense?
Or you picked a very good time to stop drinking.
I agree with your emerging view and with the element of profiteering that Marky added above. I have found that the only way to make sense of the Bushies is through an utterly cynical lense:
Its all about the military bases, oil, power in the region, and profiteering for cronies. They truly don't care about anything else.
So, yes, they have succeeded in achieving their real goals. Of course, they are still incompetent in dealing with anything else that matters, partly because they don't really give a damn.
They probably thought it would be nice if the shocked and awed Iraqis accepted a puppet like Chalabi, and maybe convinced themselves that the fantasy would actually happen. That wasn't crucial for them but they're arrogant enough to think the Iraqis, whom they feel vastly superior to, would accept their plans. If not, so what, the guys with the biggest guns rule. To them, little people are expendable.
Bush is running the United States the way a corrupt mayor would run a small town government (which is probably his true station in life).
It's possible, however, that BushCo convince themselves to partially believe their own lies, ideology, and religious stuff, just the way that the small town mayor and his cronies would. That doesn't change their fundamentally base, greedy, selfish, dishonest nature.
I don't think Toby there cares much about those "brown people", either.
Posted by donna at September 23, 2006 12:37 AMWe are seeing the wet dream of the rich and powerful men who attended Yale come to fruition, well, sorta.
Posted by Judith at September 23, 2006 05:56 AMSo now maybe we can stop tying to make the public care that Bush lied and focus on something that they do care about: money.
People still remember William Proxmire's $400 toilet seat revelations. Make the debate about theft, ineptitude, and a ruined Army.
Folks damn sure care about that.
Make John O'Beirne the poster boy for Republican cronyism and stupid warfighting.
Posted by Richard Bottoms at September 23, 2006 08:32 AMThe equation is simple: war=GOP in power. It worked during the Cold War, Eisenhower to Nixon to Reagan. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, we had eight prosperous, peaceful years under Clinton and the Rethuglicans realized they'd better invent another "clash of civilizations" damn quick or they'd never use the White House toilets again.
Posted by dalloway at September 23, 2006 04:39 PMYes, it definitely is NOT incompentence when you and all your cronies are "making" millions and billions of dollars. And make no mistake, the ONLY thing that is important to Bush and his cronies is money. They could give a rat's arse about the lives of our soldiers let alone any brown people. Indeed, follow the money and you will find the only reason for the war. Follow the money is the question everyone needs to repeat ad nauseum.
Have I mentioned I HATE these SOBs.
Great post soccerdad. And some great observations in the comments, especially the one about the neo-cons needing a new enemy after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which might explain why the Bush administration blew off all the urgent warnings in 2001 about an impending attack by al Qaeda in the United States. In other words, the inaction of the Bush administration was deliberate and actually facilitated the success of the 9/11 attacks.
But, Toby: "At least the Pauline Christians were smart enough to bury the Gnostics ---and did so peaceably, by political will,..."
I believe you got the "bury" part right, but the "peaceably" didn't happen. Remember, to the victors go the spoils and to the victors also goes the rewriting of history to hide what it took to be victorious.
I was raised Catholic, plus I'm a student of history. The idea that once the "Pauline Christian" Catholic Church gained Emperor Constantine's support and started converting "peaceably" the Roman Empire into what later became the Holy Roman Empire (gee, sounds like a Republican talking point to me) just doesn't hold up, nor follow historical precedent.
From what I've seen, religious people tend to not be willing to give up their religious beliefs willingly or easily. Which is what I'm certain happened in the old Roman Empire, as the Pauline Christians ultra-orthodox Catholic Church sought to eradicate all other religions, Roman God worshippers or non-Pauline Christian Christians or whoever, from their midst. Look at history. What happened next must have not been either "peaceable" or pretty. Men, women and children of non-Pauline Christian (non-Catholic Church) faiths would have been butchered en masse. Some may have converted. Many would have fled.
But whatever happened, the Roman Empire was doomed from that moment forward. Too many Roman citizens were butchered so that the Catholic Church could establish their ultra-orthodox, right-wing religious dictatorship and police state in the old Roman Empire.
But what else would one expect from a religious group that labelled everyone who didn't believe as they believed to be "blasphemers and heretics" who were "doing the work of the devil" (Iraneus). Oh wait, where have I heard these same accusatory words used and who said them? Ayatollah Khomeini. Osama bin Laden. Many Islamic imams, especially Wahibbists. Christian evangelicals, mostly. Many Catholic Church popes. Oh, and certain people in Judea two thousand years ago who wanted Jesus Christ dead.
Historically, after these words are used by anyone, then the butchering begins. Therefore, I have major doubts that the citizens of the Roman Empire converted "peaceably" into followers of the Pauline Christian Catholic Church, at least not without a lot of bloodshed. But, of course, the Catholic Church rewrote history to hide how many people must have died as this forced conversion took place. If I'd been a pope during, and after, those bloody, bloody years, I know I would.
Posted by The Oracle at September 24, 2006 01:35 AM