Iraqi Debacle

Holy Shit.

It was bad enough when we were only rhetorically sodomizing the Iraqi people.

What were those people thinking? If I were an American soldier, I would sooner go down in blaze of glory than allow myself to be captured now. This war is getting worse and worse. I have a feeling that larger, more spectacular bloodshed is in the future as well.

It is sadly ironic that many stupid people in the U.S support Bush because they think that he will somehow protect them from terrorists. Not only was his administration’s response to terrorism pitifully inadequate before 9/11, but they have done more after 9/11 to make America despised around the world than anyone would have thought possible. How this stupid, arrogant man’s approval ratings are not on the single digits is beyond me.

 

Big business and cultural conservatives still got Bush's back. It's the rest of us, the more rational citizenry who dislike Bush.

It's likely Bush has set back foreign relations by a good 15 or so years. I hope Kerry can at least begin to repair a lot of those relationships; we're going to need them.

 

it nauseates me to even think about all the McCarthy-esque nonsense he's put his own citizenry through, much less the Mai Lai-like brutality that's coming to light now, over in Iraq. sometimes the news seems like some twisted parody news show along the lines of The Daily Show or SNL's Weekend Update, but it's all unfortunately true. to quote Maddox's Best Page In The Universe, "Bush: Making political satirists obsolete since 2000."

 

Political Satire

The original quip was that awarding Henry Kissinger the Noble Peace Prize had rendered political satire obselete. Just ask a Cambodian amputee. Throw a rock into a crowd in Phnom Phen and chances are you'll hit one.

The absurdity of this administration is unlike anything I've ever lived through, and I remember when that senile bastard Ronald Reagan was President. He had to have Nancy (or as he called her, Mommy) wipe his ass for him.

 

Re: Political Satire

I know media requests aren't allowed, but

[ QUOTE ]
He had to have Nancy (or as he called her, Mommy) wipe his ass for him.

[/ QUOTE ]

do you have a clip of this?

 

Re: Political Satire

I wish I had a clip to give you all. On second thought, maybe that wouldn't be so great.

There was one clip where Ron and Nancy were accosted by some reporters. These reporters were audacious enough to ask the president a question. I don't remember what the guestion was, but I doubt it was that difficult. The President stared blankly ahead, searching in vain for an answer that was not forthcoming. After an awkward moment, Nancy, out of the side of her mouth says, "Tell them we're working on it." Ron did not hear her (maybe he forgot to pop in his Miracle Ear that day) so she again said, louder, "TELL THEM WE'RE WORKING ON IT!" almost shouting but still talking out of the side of her mouth. This was all on camera. There was sound also. Funny? Sure. Scary? That to.

I meant to write earlier: "It was bad enough when we were only metaphorically sodomizing the Iraqis." This was of course a reference to the recent revelations of the sexual torture of Iraqi prisoners and comparing that to the trespass that the invasion is and was all along. My typo sadly damaged the humorous impact of my jest.

 

Re: Political Satire

well i don't have any clips of senile, Oedipal, septagenarian, scat porn but i do have this little number. enjoy... if you can.

 

Re: Political Satire

And Bush said they goes to Irak for peace and freedom. Imagine if they didn't!!

Gorbag

 

Prison Guards

That story is hard to read. Of all the things that go on in a war, or in society at large, institutionalized sadism is one of the hardest for me to stomach.

I think that the soldiers are getting reamed by the media. I don't mean to say that they are great people or anything, but they are getting too much of the blame. It is obvious that these pictures were taken in a setting where torture and humiliation had become commonplace. If that is the case, the superiors are obviously culpable.

It is hard to imagine that that little woman from West Virginia just turned into a pint-size Marquee de Sade overnight with no provocation. The worst thing is when they trot out family members of the accused. Those soldiers are mostly from poor, uneducated families and thus their family members are painfully inarticulate. I heard one of them say something like, "I know (name I can't remember) didn't participate in no sodomizations (sic)." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

While I think these guards are obviously guilty of some terrible things, I think that they are also victims. Their superiors put them in an environment where the normal standards of human decency were replaced by obscene, systematic dehumanizing, torture and humiliation. Soldiers as a rule are drilled into submission to authority. The people who created the inhuman atmosphere at that prison brought out the very worst in those people, people who under normal circumstances would have lived their entire lives without doing anything remotely like what happened in that place. I hope for some kind of justice.

 

Re: Prison Guards

Well "I was just following orders" is no excuse, ever. I Don't think there is a rampant problem though with torture...but there definatly are some people that need to be ratted out.

 

Re: Prison Guards

[ QUOTE ]
The people who created the inhuman atmosphere at that prison brought out the very worst in those people, people who under normal circumstances would have lived their entire lives without doing anything remotely like what happened in that place.

[/ QUOTE ]

The quality of your character isn't best measured when you sit in the nicest of environments but in the worst.

GE
<font color="green"> we're singing songs about 21st century living/if hate's in your heart man/you'll take what you're given</font>

 

Re: Prison Guards

more stomach churning tales

 

Beheading

When I read the story in the NY Times about that guy getting beheaded on video, I felt as horrified as I have ever felt about any story in the news, and I've followed politics and current events my whole life. I feel terrible for that poor guy and I can't imagine what his family is going through. I also felt anger directed at this administation more intensely than at any point thus far and that is saying something. Bush's stupidity and lies have done a lot to help those subhuman murderous fucks over there. He has done morethan anyone else to help Jihadists gain sympathy and support around the Muslim world.

It could be that I am overly optimistic about Americans' political intelligence, but I think that this prison torture scandal and subsequent beheading are spelling the end for Dubya. I know the GOP bullshit machine has a lot of ammunition ($$$), but I don't think it is going to matter. Only Nixon (for killing millions in SE Asia) compares to Dubya in terms of Presidential failures. These are dark times.

 

Re: Beheading

[ QUOTE ]
Only Nixon

[/ QUOTE ]

Blame Kissenger.

 

Re: Beheading

I was totally sickened by that story today, imagine how fucking angry and helpless that guys family must have felt. I think you have a good point that Bush and Blair's errors (lies?) over intelligence and the outrages against Iraqi prisoners have compounded the problem, but to be honest militants like this will use any excuse to murder innocent civilians.

The scariest part of all this is the media's role. If these militants can perform act of barbarity like this in the knowledge that media outfits in democratic societies will publish them, we're fighting a loosing battle. They know full well how much value we attach to human life and how soft and pampered we are in the West. They use this very weakness to attack the goverments who are waging the war aganst them. Causing revulsion by brutally murdering or torturing civilians in Iraq is one of the deadliest weapons they have at their disposal.

I think it's important to consider this before rashly blaming your goverment's policies, as this is exactly what these militants want you to think. Having said that the way America and Uk has dealt with tthis whole crisis has been pretty deplorable....something needs to change quickly.

 

Re: Beheading

[ QUOTE ]
MAXIMUM said:
I think you have a good point that Bush and Blair's errors (lies?) over intelligence and the outrages against Iraqi prisoners have compounded the problem, but to be honest militants like this will use any excuse to murder innocent civilians.

[/ QUOTE ]

International borders and geography protect us in large part from terrorists. Going to Iraq has given terrorists the chance to kill real live Americans in their back yard.


[ QUOTE ]
The scariest part of all this is the media's role. If these militants can perform act of barbarity like this in the knowledge that media outfits in democratic societies will publish them, we're fighting a loosing battle.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would you expect the media to just blindly go along with whatever the administration says the public should or should not see? In other words, do want the media to act the way that it did during the run-up to the war?


[ QUOTE ]
Causing revulsion by brutally murdering or torturing civilians in Iraq is one of the deadliest weapons they have at their disposal.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. That is one more reason why it is best not to give them the chance. As Richard Clark and others have pointed out, by invading an oil-rich, Moslem country the U.S. has done exactly what bin Laden would have wanted. More and more people in the Middle East hate the U.S. and are ready to do their part, dying if necessary, to bring down the “Great Satan.â€Â


[ QUOTE ]
I think it's important to consider this before rashly blaming your goverment's policies, as this is exactly what these militants want you to think.

[/ QUOTE ]

I oppose rashly blaming the government. Given these circumstances, however, outrage toward the government seems pretty reasonable. I do not think that the militant care what we think about our government. The more brutal and incompetent our leadership, the more it plays into their hands. Bush did nothing to thwart terrorists before 9/11. Then he went and attacked a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. Now we are in a quagmire that many people saw coming. Here is a quote that may make you (the three people who will read this) shit your pants in anger. Please take your laptop and go sit on the john:

“Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in “mission creep,†and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible….We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, there was no visible “exit strategy†we could see….Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different- and perhaps barren- outcome.â€Â
-George H.W. Bush from A World Transformed


[ QUOTE ]
Having said that the way America and Uk has dealt with tthis whole crisis has been pretty deplorable....

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, but let’s not forget that this is a crisis of our own making. The pre-war justifications were inaccurate, one-sided, and just plain dishonest. The occupation has been run incompetently. It is a disaster that could have easily been prevented were it not for the ideologically blind idiots in charge. They bullied the media and other countries to join their coalition of the coerced. Now, look at what we have to show for it.


[ QUOTE ]
…something needs to change quickly

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I agree, but I do not see any easy choices in Iraq. These kinds of debacles are easier to avoid than to repair. There is one easy choice of course: SHOW BUSH THE DOOR IN ’04!

I hope Britain disposes of Dubya’s English partner-in-crime/ fluffer Tony Blair.

Maximum, I hope I do not sound hostile here. I just cannot stomach the arrogance, stupidty, and duplicity of this administration. Another four years of this and we are doomed.