Quibbling over whether 100 helicopters constitutes "plenty" is besides the point. It is more then a little disingenuous to accuse the UN of coddling butchers when our own government supported that very same butcher (and plenty of others, as well).

so far as i can tell, there is only one way that you could have assessed the debates as bush having come out of it better --if you were exclusively focussed on the type of langauge that bush was deploying to the exclusion of what kerry was doing.

in which case, there would have been no real difference between watching the debate and watching a bush commercial because all conversation would be elilminated. the debate, from that viewpoint, would be a conservative monologue.

which seems the only way that conservative ideology can hold up---people who operate within that space can only go so far in explosing their positions to scrutiny, even through conversations in places like this--when things start to get down to fundamentals (when they do) the usual move is to attempt either to relativize the whole conversation and thereby protect the internal coherence of their positions, or to launch some strange personal attack, which enables the conversation to grind to a halt and the attacker to imagine him or herself a martyr or having somehow trumped the other person by switching the situation.

i see this systematically--it is not particular to you, irate, when you indulge it (and you did not in the last post)---and it is in part because of this (which has been evident for some time) that i am starting to think contemporary conservative politics are not like politics that have preceded it--it is more self-enclosed, more self-referential--it is not oriented toward interaction with other positions because it discounts them up front---and feeds psychological requirements more than it does conventional political requirements (in other words, it is not based on a compelling description of the world, but rather on a series of normative positions that have and require no descriptive dimension).

the right has a new and quite (alarmingly) effective institutional infrastructure that is geared toward getting its premises worked into the normal operating language of the tv figures who mediate the relation of too may americans to the world. the right, and the right alone, has worked out the centrality of getting non-earmarked funding to their thinktanks---this is a fundamental prerequisite for the rest.

there is no point in trying to argue this away--it is simply factual, like it or not.

i think the effects of this system on individuals is disturbing--it seems to engender a systemic incapacity to deal with dissonance, and a tendency to retreat into the orderly world of conservative monologue as a response. i do not see how this helps anything--not american pseudo-democracy, not the ways in which participants in that pseudo-democracy understand what they are doing and why, nothing.

and i do not know what media you watched after the debate that enabled you to pretend that it was "a near-tie"--the assessment simply flies in the face of reason. the problem for the bush campaign has been trying to get out of the defeat that bush suffered there. read the times article--you will find loads of bush campaign types talking about this issue. if the campaign is forthright about the pounding bush took, why should you not be as well?

Yeah ... but you didn't answer my question - which one of the two made the incredibly stupid mistake? I don't give Presidents who make incredibly stupid mistakes, second chances.

Was there a need to answer your question? I believe you had already answered your question with your own hypethetical version of "mistakes". It's so easy to be a "Monday Morning Quarterback". I suspect that if you had been privy to the classified information that BOTH the Democrats and Republicans was privy too you also would have concluded that there was WMD's in Iraq and would have voted to give, in fact encourage, the President to go to war with Iraq especially after the happenings of 9/11. Neither party is without guilt in this catastrophe. The only difference is now the Democrats are distancing themselves from it to attempt to draw some differences between them and the Republicans. At least the Republicans have the balls to stay and hang it out until things get better. Minus this single difference, there is little difference between the core of the two parties. Neither party has come out on any real issues that effect you and me, the little man. Both parties have their hands in the pockets of big business and the wealthy. Neither party has come out and publicly denounced NAFTA. Neither has offered a real solution to illegal immigrants. Neither has offered any solution to all the outsourcing of jobs and the overall loss of jobs that has our economy in a real bind. Neither has offered any real solution to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In fact Kerry's plan for the limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons is almost identical to Bush's other then the fact he would open dialogue with North Korea which is probably the worst thing anyone could do now.
I'm a 40 yr. old independant voter and I've voted for Republicans and Democrats alike throughout my lifetime. It just seems the older I get the further away the Democrats get from my core sense of values. This may be the first time in my life I vote a straight ticket because I see no real commitment to change anything worthwhile from the Democratic Party.

All of your excuse for Bush's major mistake hinges on the belief that the Democrats would have invaded Iraq just as Bush invaded Iraq.

Sorry, I'm not buying that nonsense.

there is no way a democrat administration would have treated the un with the contempt exhibited by the un, and that on the basis of "information" somewhere between deceptive and wrong.

because it is not true that "the whole world thought hussein was developing wmds" two years ago. if that was the case, then the administration would not have lost the unsc vote that set up what is now an illegal, unjustifiable war.

equating bush and non-bush on these counts is totally arbitrary.

How easy you forget that essentially all the other major countries in the world believed that Saddam Hussein had WMD's. with the notable exception of France, Germany and Russia. And they argueably had their hands in the pockets of Saddam via the "Oil for Food" program to the tune of billions of dollars. So your argument is equally as void in my view.

And you are probably right Opie, a Democratic adminstration would have just set off the coast and shot a couple missles up the ass of a few camels for sake of looking like something is being done and a few good press moments.

scout--you are empirically wrong on the question of the wmd question--you would think, after this had gone round so many times on this board alone that something of the facts would have sunk in.

and you are wrong on the question of the reasons for the bush administration losing before the unsc. fact is that the case was such a sham that powell has even since apologized for it.


since you assume in advance---despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary--- that the bushwar is legitimate, what you have to say about how a democratic president might have acted is of no interest whatsoever, because nothing about the question gets to the legitimacy of the act itself--everything stops at the john wayne threshold. the matter is only about whether you can imagine a democrat giving you the same kind of vicarious experience of manliness---no wonder you are not and cannot be concerned about matters like the fiasco that is continuing to unfold in iraq as a result of this kind of thinking....

And that would have been far, FAR less of a horrendous mess than what Bush did.

Which is exactly my point.

We supported him because he was fighting Iran at the time (a US enemy) and that was well before the Gulf war and his campaign of genocide against the Kurds. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. It's every country's policy, get over it. Furthermore, what the hell were we supposed to do? Whip out our magical crystal ball and see that in ten years time, Saddam would become a total jerkwad? Sorry, but things don't work like that.

I believed there were WMDs when we went in. I also became very worried when we didn't find any. I wondered who had them. Even when facts that there were never any I still thought there may have been a few. It was basically when the administration (Bush and Company) kept changing their story last year that I realized we didn't go in at all for WMDs. It was then I realized that we were duped by our government and that going into Iraq was never truly the right thing to do.

We are spending BILLIONS upon BILLIONS for this war and there does not seem to be an end to it. For those who think Iraqis are just going to get tired of fighting, it's possible (highly doubtful as the ones fighting see this as a holy war). But there is also the pipeline of Syrians, Saudis and Iranians coming in. We cannot totally defend our own borders how are we going to defend Iraq's?

We started this for the wrong reasons and we continue because we have no clean cut way out.

The rest of the world is sitting back and waiting for us to destroy ourselves ecomoically from this war. We cannot feasibly continue to spend the BILLIONS we are there and believe it won't hurt us economically.

For one thing if Bush is elected he'll cut educational funding to the bare minimum, he'll cut any and all social services as deep as he can because he has to give out the tax cuts he promised. But that won't work because states and cities then have to absorb the costs. With the exporting of industry, lower waged jobs and education going down the tax base then becomes narrower and narrower to the elites whom Bush cut the taxes for. So yes, you may pay less Federally but state, county and city, property and sales taxes and so on are going to skyrocket. Bush will also see what allies we have dropping out as their countries people start voting the allies out and replacing them with people who will get out of "our" war. And rightfully or wrongfully the world percieves it as the "US's war".

Already the Feds expect the cities and states to pay for all this Homeland Security BS. and you're eating away tax dollars that go to schools, and bettering the infrastructure. I have yet to hear any politician or pundit tell me why Cleveland having to layoff over 400 police and firemen is a good thing. I have yet to hear them explain how bankrupt schools and cities and social services are a good thing. I have yet to hear why the closing of VA hospitals and the renegging of Vets rights and services is a good thing.

Eventually, the states and cities will go broke (there is no way they can operate without federal help when there is no industry to help their tax base). The Federal will continue paying for this war, sending BILLIONS to Isreal and invading another imminent threat (IRAN).

By 2008 we'll be in economic turmoil and there won't be this shining light at the end of any tunnel.

That is my fear, that is what I see W. doing. I truly hope I am wrong if he is elected but I don't see it happening. Or Bush will continue to run up record deficits and interest rates and inflation will skyrocket as the $ will be worth pennies of what it is now.

Kerry, IMHO, may not be able to get us out freely, but I truly believe he won't bankrupt us nor will he stand alone. He may have to negotiate and give away aspects of Iraq to France and Germany BUt at least I believe he'll get others to absorb some of the cost and it won't be just on us.

In summary I see the election like this, 4 more years of Bush, and we're where Russia is today. 4 years of Kerry, we may not be as well off as we were before Bush but at least we'll be striving in the right direction.

This election is going to make or break one of the parties no matter what happens. If the GOP win and Bush does what I believe he will, the masses will be close to rebellion and the GOP will be unelectable for a very long time.

If the Dems win and the economy gets better, the world views us favorably again and we are headed in the right direction the GOP is doomed. If Kerry is elected and finds out that the war is more fucked then ever let on and noone will help us.... then the Dems are done, unless in 4 years people remember it was the GOP that put us there in which case a strong 3rd party will sweep out the trash.

Kerry doesn't even bring up the "illegal" war crap anymore. Have you thought about why that may be?

And you assume in advance that because France, Germany and Russia didn't sign on that the war is illegal. You seem to forget the 19 or so resolutions that was passed before we went to war. Are you suggesting we should have passed another resolution?

Have you also thought about the fact that if this war is "illegal" then that would make every single one of our personnel in the military that participate in this war criminals? It is against the UCMJ and international law to obey a unlawful order. Not a very good way to get votes, perhaps that's why even Kerry doesn't bring up this argument anymore.

This argument just goes around and around. Your view is as asanine to me as I'm sure mine is to you and like you said it's been discussed here 10,000 times with the same outcome. So peace and let's agree to disagree.

In all fairness, "Illegal" and "illegitimate" are two different things.

Brilliant post

In other UN-related news...

Anyone see the old "Rocket Launcher Smuggled Inside a UN Ambulance Trick", yet?

How about the silly "Terrorists Using a UN Ambulance as Getaway Vehicle" prank?

Shouldn't the UN be outraged by this kind of thing?
Oh, wait. They're the UN. :lol:

Just a quick observation and in all honesty it IS an observation and OPINION and nothing more.

As for disobeying the UCMJ we already have soldiers who have, Abu Ghraib as one huge example.

Course it depends on who you believe, I guess. The soldiers in the pics and being courtmartialed (?) who say they were following orders OR the officers who say they knew of nothing.

Either way we have already seen illegal acts (as you would see in ANY WAR, not that it is right, just that illegal orders happen for numerous reasons). My point is to say that soldiers wouldn't follow illegal orders and that none would ever be given because they don't want to be war criminals is, IMHO, bs.

What do you mean "we have taken advantage of too"?

No crystal ball was needed considering that Saddam was already a "jerkwad." Look, we can ignore American history and pretend that the US has always done the right thing with dictators or we can acknowledge that our government has a history of openly supporting butchers whenever it suits our political goals. You can't be all for political realism one moment (enemies enemy and all that) and then switch to the global good guy role. It just isn't honest. This was the point of my original post.

CATDAMN cthulu23 you've wrapped this all up quite succinctly.

:)