Free Republic

Books written by people who are not known professional liars such as Ann Coulter, Kenneth Pollack, Barbara Olson, Bill Gertz, Gary Aldridge, Michael Reagan, Oliver North, read any of these?

First of all, Ollie North not a liar? Perhaps you missed his testimony in the Iran-Contra investigation. But either way, I've read some of these authors and found them often to be simply propagandic mouthpieces for knee-jerk 'Conservatism' - a kind of reactionary creed rampant in America right now that bears little resemblence to any classic notion of conservatism from this side of the pond or the other. In fact, these people are often quite revolutionary. Take their (and yours, apparently) opinions on Iraq. They are illuminated with the asanine idea that freedom and liberation can be created out of raw violence. This is something revolutionary in American politics. The idea that the U.S. ought to be trapsing around the planet, 'pre-emptively' 'force projecting' its values and mores upon all and sundry regardless of their wishes, is quite revolutionary. Barbara Olsen in particular has here head so far up the PNAC poopshoot, she likely couldn't find here way out with one of those 'field maps' of Iraq that they've been publishing in the newspapers to make us all feel like we're really part of the 'war effort': little armchair generals comfortably relaxing at home, playing X's and O's while actual human beings die.

American Empire - if that's what you want, expect consequences, not just 'over there', but 'over here' too. No Empire can last long without entirely revamping its domestic culture to include all kinds of corruption, unfreedom, and out and out tyranny. But, you might not have noticed that, because none of the esteemed writers you mentioned is much of a historian...

And never has there been a miltary that took so much effort to avoid civillian casualties.

I'm sure that's a great comfort to those who fell into the statistical catagory of 'unavoidable'....

Can you not be proud that out President and our military has the courage to actually fight evil and destroy our enemies?

I don't elect people to decide what is 'Good' and 'Evil', for me. My conscience is fine for that. I don't elect people to go on racist religious crusades against 'Evil'. I elect them to serve a narrow administrative function. You know, actual conservatism - not this rampant rightwing adventurism touted by ex-Leninist neo-cons who for all their renunciation of the Marxist faith, have kept the absurd kernal - that somehow rampant violence were the key to salvation...

There's many socialist nation's on this globe, pick one comrade, this ain't gonna be one.

Too late, friend. The American state interferes in the American economy more than any other state on the planet. It's called 'defense spending'. They take your money and they spend it to make 'enemies' and the weapons to knock down those 'enemies', meanwhile justifying their ever-growing expansion into various aspects of your life. This funny meld of state-socialism and nominal 'capitalism' has a name: Fascism. Go read a book about it sometime....Better yet, for first hand experience, just head down to your boob tube and watch a few minutes of CNN covering the president running around in military uniforms, bleating on about 'America's mission' to revolutionise the whole world in the white supremacist image of the PNAC scum. And it sounds like you've bought their demagoguic hero routine hook line and sinker. George Bush - the Cowboy Hero who Never Gets His Man. Or for more info, have a look at how in the wake of September 11, 2001, the Federal government has expanded it's power over areas of society heretofore unknown to them. That you can mention the supposedly 'small state' Reagan in the same breathe as the folks who through the Patriot Act have arrogated themselves the right to subordinate the Constitution whenever they want and have expanded the reach of the Federal government immeasurably is a sign of your own blindness to what is taking place in front of your eyes. Maybe it's just sentimentality getting in the way of your clear vision, but let's hope something can wipe it away...

Read a book.

By the list of author's you've given, I suspect you couldn't manage to read the prose of, let alone digest the meaning of, much of what I read.

Read again - I didn't say that anyone 'deserved' to die. My point is that the act carried out against Marines and French Legionairres that day were not 'terrorism'. Soldiers die in combat. That's their duty. They sign on willingly. To feign some kind of incredulity that a soldier occupying foreign soil could possibily end up dead is to be blind to what soldiering IS. It is horrendous. As Robert E. Lee put it, "It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it." We need to realise that there are consequences for sending our troops into foreign countries. That there are bloody results from becoming entangled in the entire world's affairs. To be astonished that other people might find our intentions less than pure when we bomb them, and send troops marching past their homes - as we would if our affairs were trampled on - is the height of hipocrisy and racism. Unfortunately it is just this hipocrisy and racism that is animating this latest American Imperial venture in the Middle East.

There’s 241 dead Marines in Lebanon who say otherwise

Please kindly document the connection between this event and Saddam Hussein, thank you. BTW - while I empathise with the families who lost loved one's in the attacks of October 23, 1983, I don't think we can classify that act as one of 'terrorism'. In short, the U.S. and French forces who were attacked that day were there in an imperial capacity as representatives of the United Nations. SOLDIERS occupying foreign soil in a conflict environment are not innocent bystanders.

Here's what the Marsh Arabs are currently saying about their 'liberation': Marsh Arabs threaten to resist 'army of occupation' - The Independent

Were their WMDs ever in Iraq? Well all those dead Kurds are quite the evidence of that. But also remember the government knew this back in the 1980s and while not completely turning their heads did not necessarily condemn Iraq for these weapons

They went further than that. In 1988 (the year of the massacres) the U.S. profferred (under Bush The Elder's watch) massive agricultural supply aid and contracts to the Hussein regime. Not the least of which included a number of dual use chemicals, and precursors to the creation of anthrax. Now, if there were a great concern over the use of biological weapons, one might expect that there would be a drop in American aid to Iraq after that. In fact, the opposite is the case, and we find that an even larger aid package (approx. 1 Billion) was given to Iraq in 1989.

The Soviet Union falls and now the United States is going the way of the old Soviet Union. Interesting? I guess our government officials are too stupid to see the future by looking in the past.

I think it is more complex than that. It's more than just a misrecognition. There is something 'organic' about the rise and fall of empires. History is written as a series of victories and defeats, but I think it is more accurate to look at it as a series of incorporations (literally in latin 'to take into the body') or 'hybrids'. States, or civilisations in conflict end up adopting similar technologies of power in order to fend each other off. When one falls, the other is left with the momentum of these changes already acting in their society. After WWII, many of the Nazis technologies of power (mass media saturation, the elevation of 'science' from a series of techniques to a salvation ideology of progress and inevitable improvement) were incorporated by America and the Soviet Union. This technological governance has expanded more in the 'capitalist' world because of the increased production of media machines. I'm not so sure that it is 'stupidity' as much as being simply cogs in a much bigger historical process of which no small group of political agents can be the sole arbiters.

You are digressing, Saddam failed to comply with the Cease fire agreement of "91. The proper response would be to ensue hostilities against him.

I'm digressing? Man, you make the claim that it was okay to attack Iraq because 'we were attacked' and then when that canard is blown out of the water you go reaching for some red-herring about a 'ceasefire'. Interestingly, not even the foulest mouthpieces for the PNAC propaganda machine were touting that as a sufficient causus belli - largely because they know it wouldn't wash.

Our enemies were in Afghanistan, the USA will destroy her enemies when right thinking people are in charge.

Your enemies were thousands of Afghani citizens, many without running water, let alone the ability to blow up the WTC? Or is it just the usual consequentialist garbage: it's okay to break a few brown-skinned eggs to make a nice white ommlette?

What book are you reading now? Be honest.

It's none of your business. What? Do you work for the spooks at the Homeland Security Department? Let it suffice to say that my reading selection are above average in depth and broad in scope.

I have an opinion that the deliberately ignorant do not read books.

There is definitely something deliberately ignorant about your opinion, that's for certain.

Books of merit.

What, might I ask, is a book of merit, in your esteemed opinion?

completely throwing out the Constitution and our entire culture for the homosexual lobby

What, exactly, is particularly 'American' about heterosexuality?

The citizens of Afghanistan attacked America? Iraq attacked America? In what universe?

Moreover, are you suggesting that a good ethical stance for America to upholding is 'an eye for an eye'? If you are, then you simply open the door to justification for more attacks. America's foreign policy record is bloody. There are a lot of aggrieved people out there who wouldn't mind exacting a little revenge. And since you say it's okay to think that way....

More on Iraq. Funny that the imperial programme for the control of Middle-East oil - dubbed Iraqi 'regime change' by the neofascists at the Project For a New American Century - was already being sold to the Clinton regime, among others long before September 11, 2001. Oh, and never mind that Saddam had nothing to do with that incident. And never mind that his WMD programme seems to have been a figment of the Bushites imagination. And never mind that the newly 'liberated' population of Iraq are slowly and surely killing American soldiers everyday because they see them for what they are - an aggressive occupation force with little regard for their interests. All the while, we are told that this increasing resistence must be due to some pathological support for Hussein, rather than a genuine popular uprising.

Yeah, but all that's okay because 'we were attacked'....

One might ask you the same question.

If you think the issue is one of partisanship to either of the sides of the two-headed Demopublicrat hydra, than you have bought the whole hog, including the postage....

Who were the Republican reps who stood against the invasive power of the Patriot Act, or the far-reaching mandate of the Homeland Security Department? Who were the Republican reps who stood against massive appropriation of public funds (actually more debt) to increased military spending to fight an ongoing succession of imperialist wars in the Third World? They were few and far between. A fish rots from the head down, and if you trust any of those bastards in Washington, than you deserve whatever you get...

"Following the implementation of federally funded universal heath care true socialism will be swift."

Geez, that's one hell of a slippery slope, dontchya think?

When the government controls your health care, they control you.

Huh? You get sick, you go to the doctor, just the same as if you were going to a private hospital. There is no 'forced' healthcare, no one will come to your door to ensure you are 'following the rules'... The difference, and where I see a cogent argument to be possible is in the issue of funding through taxes and 'public' administration.

The battle for the future of mankind is on right now, will the liberal socialists, the Clintons and their people be defeated?

It sure is, and it starts with facing up to the proto-fascist Imperial Czars in the Bush Administration (no less than the Clinton's) and 'Corporate America' who have declared a 'pre-emptive strike' on your freedoms, on the Constitution, and on the principles of peaceful coexistence that the Founding Fathers held dear. The have waged a war with Weapons of Mass Deception to parlay your support for increased defense spending (putting you billions further into debt), tax cuts for those who least need them, and an arrogant and futile colonial war on the other side of the planet where American troops die each day at the hands of a popular resistance (cynically called 'Baathist supporters') to their imperial incursion. In the process they have arrogated themselves the privilege to define what is 'America' by conflating support of their adventuristic war-mongering with patriotism. There have been too many willing takers.

The revolution is already on, Hank, only it came from the statist right wing. The American 'state' is growing in power and scope through the creation of massive new (and expensive) departments which increasingly centralise power into the hands of a few. It is growing through its massive outlays of tax dollars into the economy through increased defense spending and subsidies for 'high-tech research'. Who pays for all of this? You do. The state is growing through the institution of laws allowing your government to spy on your internet usage, open your mail, check what library books you read, and more, all without needing to inform ANYONE, and under the rubric of 'state security' to which many Americans, it would seem, are willing to bow and prostrate themselves.

The 'tyranny' is not 'out there', Hank. It's right here - the tyranny 'out there' is just a convenient distraction - like a magicians left hand....

The troops have crossed the Rubicon.

Again, you aren't following me.

Just because some stories are true, doesn't mean all stories are true....

Does that make more sense? Like I said, I never offerred an alternative vision of Saddam Hussein as some great philanthropist, I simply pointed out that we need to 1) be careful not to let historical allusions get in the way of our thinking about political situations. And 2) be mindful that there's an effort to get us all into a lather to support the killing of other people in their own name - that's what 'liberation war' means. As such, we need to be skeptical.

The question is how those 'parallels' are linguistically constructed. Without a certain framing they aren't parallels at all, but, alternatively, random events in unrelated narratives and causality spheres......

I can 'frame' the Founding Fathers to sound like terrorist revolutionaries and murderers of all that is decent. Go back and read the British dispatches of the time, they did it....

What was the 'truth'?

Not my friend?

How do you know?

We go waaaaaaaaaay back, as I recall....

Dighton the Hall Monitor......

Better make sure Byron uses all the right words and phrases, wouldn't want our normalcy disturbed. Best to just sleep tight in a blanket of jingoist rhetoric and call people 'Cong' if they don't regurgitate the Party Line on command.....

Pathetic.

What's that that Billthedrill was saying about 'denunciation' etc.?

Dighton, ol' friend, you'd be the first to join up for the Thought Police....

Wait, it's already too late.....

"You are right. It is a toss up. His creds are outstanding. There can't be one 'shred' of truth to what any of these Iraqi Nationals say!"

Don't put words in my mouth. I didn't present an alternative theory of what was 'true' and 'not true'. I simply pointed out that stories like these are quite easy to fabricate and disseminate....

Thanks for the amateur psychology. Biographical parallels don't really make the case unless we accept your vague terms as actually describing identitical phenomena.....

For instance:

"both ended up as minor functionaries in revolutionary parties."

So what? That describes any number of people. Millions in fact....

"Both suborned the leadership of those parties, both moved over several more likely rivals to assume leadership."

Name a president, prime minister, or other leader who hasn't.

"Both systematically killed the rivals."

I suppose, then, that Robbespierre was just like Stalin. And so were the American revolutionary militias led by those who would become 'the Founding Fathers'...


"Both set up huge systems of policing, internal spying, denunciation, imprisonment without trial, internal prison camps."

Sounds like the good ol' USA at this particular moment.....


"Both eliminated other political parties by mass killing."

And American troops killing Iraqis (political opponents) is different how?

It's all in the narrative, friend....

Thanks for the amateur psychology. Biographical parallels don't really make the case unless we accept your vague terms as actually describing identitical phenomena.....

For instance:

"both ended up as minor functionaries in revolutionary parties."

So what? That describes any number of people. Millions in fact....

"Both suborned the leadership of those parties, both moved over several more likely rivals to assume leadership."

Name a president, prime minister, or other leader who hasn't.

"Both systematically killed the rivals."

I suppose, then, that Robbespierre was just like Stalin. And so were the American revolutionary militias led by those who would become 'the Founding Fathers'...


"Both set up huge systems of policing, internal spying, denunciation, imprisonment without trial, internal prison camps."

Sounds like the good ol' USA at this particular moment.....


"Both eliminated other political parties by mass killing."

And American troops killing Iraqis (political opponents) is different how?

It's all in the narrative, friend....

One and the same. Got proof to the contrary?

You don't.

Either do I. As it stands, by narrative is every bit as plausible as yours.

Intelligence agencies use so-called 'journalists' all the time.....