The Tin-Foil Hat Brigade Marches On

[studmuff.livejournal.com]

Comments

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

*snerk*

[tubaboy81.livejournal.com]

This comment is ever so much funnier than the cartoon.

[studmuff.livejournal.com]

wow, doesn't take much, helmet-prayer boy, eh?

[tubaboy81.livejournal.com]

Since I didn't find the cartoon at all funny, no.

Incidently, it's a frisbee.

[desidono.livejournal.com]

It only hurts you because you know it's true.

[unluckystunt.livejournal.com]

And his fridge had a lot of Kool-aid! LOLOL

[katndhat33.livejournal.com]

OMG! You mean there is corruption in both parties? The devil you say!

In other news, water is wet.

[ceejayoz.livejournal.com]

And you don't see many Democrats defending this one. I certainly want him out of the party, posthaste.

[retrofire.livejournal.com]

He'd fit right in with the republicans. They could explain safe ways to hide and launder money.

[tantra-cat.livejournal.com]

Anyone who manipulates the system, takes bribes, or breaks the law should be prosecuted, punished, and most certainly fired. It doesn't matter what party they are in.

If this guy was a Republican though?? --The Bush administration would be saying what a swell guy he is and why are those mean nasty democrats trying to make him look bad?

[overstim.livejournal.com]

And the democracts would be calling for Bush to be impeached because they were at the same Sizzler on one night in 2003.

[tantra-cat.livejournal.com]

No.

The democrats would be calling for Bush to be impeached for blatently lying to the country about a matter that wound up getting us into a quagmire in Iraq that we can't possibly win, and has cost thousands of patriotic loyal soldiers their lives.

Would somebody give Bush a blowjob already so he can be impeached???

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

*sigh* This is getting old.

If Bush lied, then Kerry, Pelosi, Reid, Daschle, Kennedy, both Clintons and Koffi Annan all lied.

Let's just say that hindsight is a bitch, and Move On already.

[kmilligan.livejournal.com]

What's getting old is the left presuming that certain things are just given as fact. Let me go down the list:

1. Bush lied about the WMD, rather than, along with a significant portion of congress, and most of the rest of the world, having faulty intelligence on the matter.
   
2. The Iraq war was uneccessary. The sanctions regime was crumbling. Saddam was gaming the oil-for-food program with willing cooperations of our European "allies". We weren't going to be able to sustain it much longer. Saddam certainly did have ambitions to rebuild his weapons programs after the sanctions were gone. In 1991 we left the job unfinished, and dicked around with this guy for 12 years after that. The real sin is that it took us 12 years and a lot of dead Iraqis to finally do the right thing and just get rid of Hussein.
   
3. Iraq is a quagmire and is unwinnable. They just formed a government. This isn't the end, but it's a big step. Remember that the occupation of Japan and Germany lasted until 1952, officially. These things don't happen overnight, but progress is being made.

Success is far from guaranteed, but I haven't really heard any good ideas from the left on how to deal with the political dysfunction in the middle east that feeds much of the terrorist activity.

[kmilligan.livejournal.com]

If Bush lied, then why did Congress, who had access to the same intelligence, vote overwhelmingly in support of military action against Iraq? I didn't hear anyone in Congress express doubts that he didn't have WMD. I heard a lot of debate about whether the threat was really imminent or not, but, considering the amount of material that was unaccounted for, it seemed to be common wisdom that he had stockpiles stashed away.

Not that it matters. I never agreed with the emphasis on WMDs, not because I thought he didn't have them, but because I don't think that's the kind of thing you can build a lasting case for a protracted low-intensity conflict such as this. Bush's leadership in this area has been abysmal, and if we end up failing because we pulled out too soon, I put the blame squarely on his shoulders. Not because getting rid of Saddam was the wrong thing to do, but because he wasn't able to make the case for sticking it out. Every president who's ever fought a war has suffered setbacks and made mistakes, and this one is certainly no exception. His fault is abysmal leadership; failure to make his case and build institutions to deal with the geopolitical problems we'll be facing in the 21st century. Iraq will not be the last battle, and our national and global institutions don't appear to be up to the task of dealing with the problems.

After World War II, Truman set out to win the Cold War by building the institutions to help win it, the UN, NATO, etc. Over the next several decades, through both Democrat and Republican administrations, the struggle continued, though the instruments that had been constructed to fight it. And it worked, we won the cold war without ending up in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The new problem we face is political dysfunction and violence radiating out of the Third World, which, combined with nuclear proliferation, has the potential to be exceptionally deadly.

What will our institutions look like to deal with these problems? We have numerous examples that the ones we used to win the cold war don't work effectively for it. It's a question the people, the media, and politicians should be talking about. Is the White House even thinking about it? I don't know, but they should. Otherwise, when Bush is gone, or the Republicans are gone, the course might change. This might many in the anti-war left happy, but the problem will still be there, and won't go away just because we wish it would.

There's not going to be any retreating from this struggle, unless we can retreat from the 21st century.

[kmilligan.livejournal.com]

The problem is, which no one in the left seems to have answers to is, how do you conduct international law enforcement? How do you enforce law on regimes which harbor and support terrorists? Certainly no one is going to walk into Iran, Pakistan, Southern Lebanon, or wherehave you and just start arresting people. How would we stop, for instance, the genocide in Darfur without destroying the power structure that enables it?

You are right that conventional warfare against nation-states won't we the only shape of this conflict. There need to be many other components, but it should be recognized that sometimes we will need to use our military in order to enforce law, international or otherwise, on regimes that feel no duty to it. That perhaps we're relying too much on this blunt instrument is a valid criticism, but what other instruments of national power can we use?

[kmilligan.livejournal.com]

Another thing that us liberals are endorsing, which I have heard little if anything from the right on, is combating the causes of terrorism: economic, educational, religious etc

I agree with doing this, which is why I think rebuilding Iraq so that it has better institutions is a step in the right direction. Saddam did have links to terrorism, though perhaps being not quite so guilty as Syria or Iran. Reform in this region had to start somehwere, and Iraq was already a problem.

[desidono.livejournal.com]

"Saddam did have links to terrorism, though perhaps being not quite so guilty as Syria or Iran. Reform in this region had to start somehwere, and Iraq was already a problem."

I would argue that we already did start somewhere - Afghanistan. It bothers me greatly that Afghanistan has essentially been forgotten. I was a big supporter of the invasion of Afghanistan, of toppling a regime that was a chief exporter of terrorism, of removing the power structure that allowed terrorism to flourish.

What saddens me most about Iraq is that we didn't finish the job in Afghanistan before "moving on". It's not getting the attention it deserves, the Taliban is taking cues from the resistance in Iraq and is making a small resurgence.

My personal beliefs are that Bush wanted Hussein gone, for whatever reason, and he set a plan in motion to make that happen when the opportunity presented itself. We trust our leaders to the do the right thing by the country, especially our President, and in a time of crisis we want to stay united. The Bush Administration knew this and exploited a shell-shocked nation into giving it's approval of a hastily drawn up war designed to prove post-911/neo-conservative theories. Setting aside the global complications for the United States as a result of the Iraq War, this action has soured the American public on giving that type of trust again and squandered both economic and military resources.

I just wish that we'd concentrated on securing Afghanistan, giving it the "Marshall Plan"-esque aid it needed, and making it the shining beacon of democracy, freedom, and stability that we so desperately want in the middle east. Instead, we barely hear about it anymore and it's fallen off of the public's radar.

We didn't lose this opportunity to do the right thing - we threw it away. It makes me sad.

[kmilligan.livejournal.com]

The Taliban tried to make a resurgance, by trying to recapture terroritory from Pakistan, and they got cut to pieces by NATO and Afghan forces. I wouldn't agree that things are falling apart in Afghanistan any more than I would agree things are falling apart in Iraq. It is indeed a shame that people aren't thinking as much about Afghanistan, but I don't think either of them can be labeled a clear failure at this point.

Maybe Bush wanted Saddam gone, but don't forget that regime change became official policy under Clinton. Saddam is a long standing problem, for which a solution was long overdue.

[kmilligan.livejournal.com]

Oops... I should have made that clear. They tried to recapture territory in Afghanistan by invading from Pakistan... the Waziristan region that the Pakistani government, until recently, dared not tread.

I think the Pakistani government efforts to exert control over these regions is token, and will probably fail. I do think Musharraf, for all his faults, is a reasonable ally. But there are elements in Pakistan who have sympathy for the Taliban and who, if they manage to eliminate Musharraf and take control of the government, through a coup or other means, could force the US into a greater commitment in South Asia.

There are festering wounds in the Islamic crescent, and if you think things are ugly now... they could get a lot more ugly very quickly. I have a hard time poo pooing Bush for not getting everything perfect. I'm not sure anyone really has answers. We just have to do our best given the circumstances, and sincerely hope there will be historians to second guess our decisions.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

The video clips speak for themselves, dupe.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Nice fantasy world.
Practically art.

[zombiesmustdie.livejournal.com]

lucky this guy was a democrat and not a republican. otherwise chris muir would have had to come up with a different cartoon this week.

and it probably wouldnt have a punchline either.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

But it damn well would do its best to plagiarize Doonesbury, eh? ;]