Posted on 02/07/2005 7:40:39 AM PST by worldclass
In the Arab Middle East, there is no memory of democracy. There is an unbroken history of despotism and domination – by Ottoman Turks, then by Western imperial powers. To understand what kind of nations liberated Middle East peoples will construct, consider the most powerful currents running in the region.
What other forces has our invasion unleashed? One surely is the popular desire for freedom and democracy. But darker forces also roil the region. One is a virulent hatred of Israel and its American patron. From Morocco to Pakistan, Osama is as admired as Bush is hated.
Today, both Bush and bin Laden believe in revolutionary change in the Islamic world. Bush believes democracy will arise as the despots depart. Bin Laden believes Islamism inherits the estate.
Both cannot be right.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
You have to be joking. You probably also believe that the two chicks hugging at the State of the Union speech was spontaneous.
Just like our Constitution? Ha Ha!
Sage advice for all conservatives and border dwellers.
Don't you just love it? Buchanan gets accused of skewing facts by those who offer nothing more than their own implausible views of history.
That's not true. Bush said, on that occasion: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended." You need memory pills, mr. "skeptic"
Sorry if I don't join in you good golly gee's. If the result of all the election hoopla is that Iraq is going to vote in an Islamic constitution, it merely confirms my reservations all along -- that this invasion wasn't worth the fallen Americans and the hundreds of billions of tax dollars it has and will cost.
"Look at it this way, at the begginning of the 20th century only like %5 of the world's population could vote in elections. Its somewhere around %50+ now. I would say that is progress."
I disagree completely. Just look at this country as a microcosm of global politics. More people voting means more people involved in making policy who have no idea what they are doing or what the implications of various plans are.
If we eliminated welfare recipients from our rolls, many of our problems would go away overnight. The politicians would have to campaign towards people who actually know how to be responsible and produce wealth instead of people who just vote themselves a raise every year.
In everyone who's involved's perspective.
A Iraqi Constitution that does not protect the rights of minorities and freedom of religion would be a major stumbling block.
The Constitution defines the government. It defines the rights of the people and limits the government. It describe how power is balanced in the government to try and prevent abuse.
I agree with your point that the people need access to capital to get a functioning economy that will help stabalize the government. However, I disagree with your cause and effect.
They need the constitution to define and limit the government and guarantee freedoms. While this doesn't directly provide them access to capital, it removes most of the restriction to it. Iraqs oil will provide wealth for development if the atmosphere is ripe for it.
The banner was referring to that group's mission being accomplished, not the war in Iraq being finished.
The president did say that major combat actions were over. And major combat actions against Iraq's standing army were over.
There have been some pretty major combat actions, but they have been against groups with a high concentration of foreign insurgents.
Major combat against Iraq was over. Combat for Iraq isn't. We defeated the Iraqis rather quickly, and if it were only the Iraqi insurgents we are fighting now, that wouldn't likely have required any major offensives.
We misguaged how important it was to the terrorists to prevent a stable democratic government in Iraq.
You can play with the semantics all you want. However, our forces were extremely effective and successful in Iraq at quickly defeating the Iraqi army despite all the predictions of doom and gloom by the liberal press.
They focused in on this one banner and one phrase as something to attack Bush on because they didn't have much else to critisize him on at the time.
God forbid the Commander in Chief have a possitive attitued and commend the troops on a job well done! The horror of an American president being proud of the people who risked their lives on his orders.
Obviously, the media had to find some way to make Bush sound bad without directly attacking the troops themselves.
The US Constitution isn't perfect, and it's main problem is that it's being interpreted and enforce by human beings.
However, our Constitution layed the groundwork that has made us the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth.
I'm thinking our Constitution has served us extremely well.
However, you're free to disagree. After all our Constitution guarantees that at least the government respects your right to do so.
You can arguably disagree to the purpose of the banner by just ignoring why the people that put if up said they put it up.
It's politics, so those people may not be telling the whole truth. Bush's press people could have purposely put him in front of the banner even if it wasn't the intent of the people who put the banner up.
That's still focusing on details without looking at the whole picture.
The banner said mission accomplished, and the speech talked about the end of major combat opperations in Iraq.
However, he also said in his speech that the fighting was far from over.
Buchanan purposely takes a banner in the background, not even Bush's own words, out of the context of the speech he gave, and uses that to make it sound like Bush said that the war was over after 3 weeks.
That's a dishonest portrayal of someone he disagrees with.
Buchanan has ever right to disagree with Bush. He probably even has a few good points. However if he can't criticize him honestly and with integrity, I don't have much respect for him, and his words better have a lot of merrit on their own, because he's detracting from their credibility with his delivery.
Do his words have merrit? Well, it's basically a lot of pessimistic ranting and armchair quarterbacking without any real solutions.
It's the criticize the solutions of others and say we should solve our problems by doing nothing attitude that just lets problems grow.
He could have just said I'm an isolationist and my solution is to close our borders and ignore the rest of the world as possible. It would have been a lot more honest.
I would think that the purpose of making a political comment is to sway those that disagree with you. His comments are just badmouthing those he disagrees with while not being entirely forthright while doing so.
That makes for a nice rallying cry for the Bush bashers, but it's not likely to convince anyone to change their views, and it is likely to lose him the respect of those that don't agree with him.
It's awfully hard to change someone's view on things once you lose their respect.
"The mission accomplished banner was in relation to the end of the mission for the men and women on that Carrier. """
That's not true. Bush said, on that occasion: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended." You need memory pills, mr. "skeptic""
Yes, he said major combat opperations were over. Right after that he said the fighting wasn't over yet and we still had a long ways to go in Iraq.
Guess what? It was the end of major combat opperations against the Iraqi army. There have been a couple combat opperations since then that could definately be considered major, but they were mainly against groups with a very high concentration of foreign insurgents.
Bush never said the war was over in 3 weeks. He did misjudge the size of the insurgency to follow the defeat of the Iraqi army and the overthrow of Sadam. That's because we ended up fighting a new enemy. Sadam's government was toppled. We aren't fighting his government anymore. THere isn't even much evidence that there is a large number of members of his former army in the insurgency.
The insurgency has mainly beel led by foreigners.
The mission accomplished was in reference to the mission. A mission is not a war. The soldiers that were returning home had successfully accomplished their mission. Is that in dispute?
Bush himself said that we were seeing the end of major combat opperations. Considering that the Iraqi government was shattered, Sadam was in hiding and would be captured hiding in a hole in the not so distant future, is it unreasonable for his to say that major combat opperations were over?
Considering that the standing army was defeated, and the insurgency doesn't appear to be led by members of the former Iraqi government is it even reasonable to say he was right? That's debatable. It depends on how you define the conflict. Our soldiers are still there, and we've fought some sizable engagements with the insurgents since then.
However, it's hard to honestly make a case that Bush's comments when taken as a whole, including the comment that fighting wasn't over, were even close to unreasonable.
It's also pretty hard to honestly say that Bush was claiming the war was over and all our goals were reached there when he specifically said that wasn't true in the speech.
My memory's fine. You're seems to be selective.
I didn't see any mention of a banner in the article. Perhaps Buchanan is just echoing the interpretation offered by most of the media at the time. Political theater, these days, is extremely well scripted and it is very likely that most thought the message they received was what was intended.
That's a dishonest portrayal of someone he disagrees with.
You seem to be labeling the author dishonest because you don't like his opinion.
"I didn't see any mention of a banner in the article. Perhaps Buchanan is just echoing the interpretation offered by most of the media at the time."
So because the liberal media says it, it's ok to echo it as if it's the truth?
Pat Buchanan wrote those words in his own article. He's responsible to make sure they reasonably reflect the truth of the situation, not just merely echo the mistruths of others.
His credibility is based on what he says and does.
"You seem to be labeling the author dishonest because you don't like his opinion."
I'm labeling the author as dishonest based on how he presented his opinion.
I do disagree with him. That's a seperate point.
I would at least respect him more if he presented his opinion in an honest and forthright manner to try and persuade people with both the facts and his personal opinions, but not by mispresenting the facts.
There's too many political zealots talk about how great democracy is, yet they don't present things truthfully.
How well can a democracy work when the people who are voting are being fed lies?
Is the solution to one side telling lies really to tell your own?
That's the point I'm trying to make.
I think it is being echoed as the prevailing opinion of the day. I did not see this particular bit of political theater you say is being misinterpreted but it is a well established fact the staged political events, these days, are scripted with a lot of mixed messages and very little "truth" as you call it.
I'm labeling the author as dishonest based on how he presented his opinion.
OK; you are saying he is dishonest because you don't like his presentation. Perhaps you are the one who is not being honest.
Look, the author never quoted Bush and never mentioned any speech. He gave his opinion as to the prevailing attitude after, at least, two world events.
Please how I'm being dishonest by pointing this out? Are you saying my facts are incorrect?
Absolutely incorrect. The author never referred to any speech but you are saying he did. Perhaps you derived such a flawed inference honestly. I merely suggested some introspection.
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