The mayor of Smurfville.
Posted on 12/17/2003 8:04:12 PM PST by Commie Basher
Sunday's capture of Saddam Hussein made it a great day — a great day for empty rhetoric and meaningless posturing by politicians and journalists.
Somehow it was assumed by politicians and the press, without explanation, that Hussein's capture has vindicated the Bush administration's attack on Iraq. But from September 2002 to March 2003, George Bush said nothing about capturing Saddam Hussein. Instead, Bush talked incessantly about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's ability to attack the U.S. with them — as well as Al Qaeda camps in the Iraqi desert. How does finding Saddam Hussein make Bush's claims any more true than they were last week?
We're told that that the Iraqis can see now that Saddam Hussein isn't coming back to power — as though they couldn't figure that out for themselves with 130,000 foreign troops occupying their country.
But in the wonderland occupied by politicians and journalists, the capture of Hussein must mean that all the resisters — also known as "loyalists of the old regime" — would have no more reason to resist.
Some politicians said that if anti-war protesters had their gotten way, Hussein would be in his palace today, instead of in jail. Yes, and if the anti-war protesters had gotten their way, several hundred Americans and thousands of Iraqis would be alive today, instead of dead.
The press played its part in the celebration. Wolf Blitzer of CNN said that Hussein's capture proves to the world that "the President of the United States means business" — whatever that means.
In fact, we've known all along that George Bush means business — the business of getting reelected.
There were plenty of TV pictures of Iraqis firing AK-47s into the air. But no inquiring minds bothered to ask how everyday Iraqis could be carrying AK-47s out in the open, when the American occupiers have imposed strict gun-control edicts and are at war with resisters.
What if Saddam Hussein says that all the dreaded Weapons of Mass Destruction were destroyed years ago? Well, we know that George Bush believes in preemptive strikes, and he's already made one on this front. On Monday, he said of Hussein:
He’s a liar. He’s a torturer. He’s a murderer. . . . He’s a — he’s just — he is what he is: He’s a person that was willing to destroy his country and to kill a lot of his fellow citizens. He’s a person who used weapons of mass destruction against citizens in his own country. And so it’s — he is the kind of person that is untrustworthy and I’d be very cautious about relying upon his word in any way, shape or form.
In other words, "Believe him only if he confirms what I've been telling you for the past year."
Liberation
Donald Rumsfeld said that Hussein's capture means that the Iraqis can now be free in spirit, as well as in fact.
Ah yes, liberated Iraq. It is now a free country. George Bush has liberated it.
How has Iraq been liberated? Let me count the ways . . .
1. The country is occupied by a foreign power.
2. Its officials are appointed by that foreign power.
3. Its citizens must carry ID cards.
4. They must submit to searches of their persons and cars at checkpoints and roadblocks.
5. They must be in their homes by curfew time.
6. Many towns are ringed with barbed wire.
7. The occupiers have imposed strict gun-control laws, preventing ordinary citizens from defending themselves — making robberies, rapes, and assaults quite common.
8. Trade with some countries is banned by the occupying authorities.
9. The occupiers have decreed that certain electoral outcomes won't be permitted.
10. Families are held hostage until they reveal the whereabouts of wanted resisters — much like the Nazis held innocent French people hostage during World War II.
11. Protests are outlawed.
12. Private homes are raided or demolished — with no due process of law.
13. The occupiers have created a fiat currency and imposed it on the populace.
14. Newspapers, radio stations, and TV are all supervised by the occupiers.
This is liberation in the NewSpeak language of politics.
Words like freedom just don't seem to mean what they used to, do they?
Okay, let's agree with the premise that voting for the Libertarian party will get more Democrats elected. However if you believe the first part of your statement to be true, which I assume you do or you wouldn't have said it, what's the difference if the GOP or the Democrats get elected? Stronger national defense? Granted the GOP has been running with that for years and I believe will continue to use that as a major plank in their platform. But if that's about it, what's the difference on the domestic front?
Granted I'm not a big L libertarian, you might consider me more of a Southern Constitutionalist
The mayor of Smurfville.
Most of Browne's assertions in this article are crap distortions, but that doesn't change the fact we're better off with the neutral, free republic our Founders created than the mercantilist democracy that has consolidated power in Washington D.C. and involved Americans in a series of unending invasions of other countries.
Maybe you like buying Jimminy Carter's Nobel peace prize with the lives of thousands of Americans and billions of tax dollars. I don't. We've involved ourselves in the politics of the Middle East with no end in sight. To what advantage? What have we bought with nearly 4,000 dead Americans and god only knows how many hundreds of billions of dollars spent?
Yeah, American troops in the Middle East had nothing to do with it...
The LP, when they began, took bits and pieces of all kinds of political philosphies, mashed them together, and they just do NOT mix. The " good " parts, which some here tout, are old fashioned REPUBLICAN ideals/ideas; heck, even Conservative Dems, in the '40s & '50s held those beliefs.
Libertarians are like the pencilnecked geek, who used to wear a bow tie to school, smoke a pipe, because he thought it made him look intelligent, and would spout a buncch of intellectual sounding garbage/the pathetic girl, who no one wanted to know, who dragged a copy of " WAR & PEACE " around with her, in the summer, and never read beyond page 3. Then, the " Beats " entered the scene, and these dolts said they were " Beats ". Then, the Hippies came on the scene and they became " weekend Hippies ".
Now, they're L/libertarians, because they have distain for the Dems ( though they agree with much of their positions )and the GREENS ( whom they're REALLY like !); not to mention the hooligan " anti-Globalists " ( who they're too cowardly to join )!
They would surely attempt to recapture the Persian dream of converting the entire World over to Islam! And they would not do it with an Olive Branch! They would quickly execute anone who did not bow to Allah or join their Jihad.
And, Libertarians will NOT ever get a candidate elected president, but IF, in some unimaginable way, they did, he would NOT be able to govern, nor get any of the stated LP positions passed.
I am laughing so hard at your last post I may require oxygen!
What a hoot!
Aren't facts fun ? LOL
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