What causes your rational hatred of George Bush? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

powerclown · 11-15-2005, 07:10 PM

If host wants to respond to #24, I'll proceed from there.

politicophile · 11-15-2005, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

This strongly mirrors my own opinion of Bush.

It is unfortunate that I felt it necessary to vote for him to keep Kerry out of the White House, but that is the political reality we live in.

*still searching for that viable third party...*

Amen, in a non-religious sense. I hope nobody minds if I return to actually discussing rational hatred of George Bush.

I voted for Bush in 2004. Had I been old enough to vote in 2000, I would have done so then as well. In retrospect, I still believe those votes were the correct ones to have made, despite the numerous disagreements I have with Bush's policies.

Although Lebell chooses to phrase my goal in a different way than I would choose to, we share a wanting for a "viable third party". What I would really like to see, though, is the marginalization of the Bush-wing of the Republican Party. Christianity and social conservatism need to be thrown out, as mixing them with the government (in the classic Bush fashion) is contrary to the founding principles of the Republican Party.

The new "Republican Party" that I would create is one that rigorously defends civil/religious liberties (repeals the USA PATRIOT Act, stops using the Oval Office as a Christian-promoting device), supports fiscal responsibility (constitutional amendment against deficit spending, shove "bridge to nowhere" up Ted Stevens' ass), respects the right to privacy (no restrictions on abortions performed before viability, minimal restrictions on late-term abortions, freedom to use marajuana recreationally, freedom to buy whatever sort of firearm you please, freedom to marry whomever you please, regardless of gender), and adopts a consistently reserved, but not isolationist, position in international relations (give enough funding to MI so that we know what the hell rogue regimes are doing, apply sanctions to all countries that fail to respect basic human rights, invade all countries that engage in genocide [that includes Rwanda and Sudan], no more ineffective and excessively indiscriminate bombings a la Kosovo and Iraq 1998).

And that was my roundabout way of criticizing the Bush administration. His policy choices have been unwise in some instances and reasonably disasterous in others. My rational criticism for Bush stems primarily from his systemic abandonment of the conservative values of small government, individual freedom, and peace through strength. And don't even get me started on federalism...

jorgelito · 11-15-2005, 09:06 PM

Libertarian maybe?

politicophile · 11-15-2005, 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jorgelito

Libertarian maybe?

There's no point in voting for a candidate that you know will lose when you have a stake in which main-party candidate wins. If the race is at all close, I probably would prefer the Republican over the Democrat. And since the libertarian is going to lose anyway, why would I waste my vote?

No, what I envision is either taking over the Republican party and altering its platform away from the Bush-Republican style, or replacing the Republicans with a new conservative party that better represents the ideals of classical liberals, i.e. actual modern conservatives.

Elphaba · 11-15-2005, 11:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

If host wants to respond to #24, I'll proceed from there.

I have no idea what you edited out of this comment, so I will respond to your brief sentence.

#21: Host asked you to specify the conspiracy theory you ascribe to him.

#24: You respond with a non sequitur. This is the post you *really* believe is worthy of a response?

#32: I ask you to respond to Host's question in post #21.

#38: Boy Howdy! You somehow twist my words into something that appears that I agree with you in your silly attack on Host? That's some chutzpah.

#40: I called on you once again to answer the question in #21, #32, and ask for the third time that you answer the question of where is the conspiracy in Host's post.

Powerclown, this is simply a low tactic that is not worthy of you. I do not wish to consider the possibility that my good opinion of you is misplaced.

Drop the game or answer Host's question. It's that easy.

shakran · 11-16-2005, 05:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elphaba

Drop the game or answer Host's question. It's that easy.

He's not going to answer because he can't give an answer without either lying or losing, neither of which he wants to do.

He's backing the wrong guy, which means the facts are stacked against him. He's finding it more and more difficult to respond to the valid questions that you and others are posting. He's having to resort to the typical diversionary tactics to try and obscure the fact that his candidate, his political beliefs, and his party are crashing to earth.

Ustwo · 11-16-2005, 07:51 AM

What powerclown thinks he has done, is caught host in his own contradictory conspiracy theories. I say thinks because I do not have the stomach to go through each one host has posted on the Bush admin anymore so I can not verify powerclowns belief as true or false. I gave up trying to follow them all at the Bush engages in human sacrifice thread which was moved, wisely, to the paranoia board.

powerclown · 11-16-2005, 08:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

What powerclown thinks he has done, is caught host in his own contradictory conspiracy theories.

If host wants to respond to #24, I'll proceed from there.

Lebell · 11-16-2005, 09:04 AM

Politicophile,

I agree with pretty much all you've said.

My main beef with the libertarians is that they want to remove ALL security nets and I know from personal experience that that isn't realistic or desirable.

For example, OSHA and the related safety regulations (29 CFR 1910) are very much needed since too many employers have shown that they are capable of putting their employee's safety at serious risk to earn another 0.01 cents/share.

Ustwo · 11-16-2005, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

For example, OSHA and the related safety regulations (29 CFR 1910) are very much needed since too many employers have shown that they are capable of putting their employee's safety at serious risk to earn another 0.01 cents/share.

You are, I think, correct in that the libertarian party assumes by nature that everyone can take care of themselves. Even in the US we may have raised the bar, but we still have a pesant class mentality out there, and they would indeed suffer more. My solution would be an education system designed to break this mentality but thats for another thread where we can all talk of our pet theories which no one will adopt.

That being said, more specificly, OSHA is one of those things which is good on paper, and not bad for all, but most definately bad for some. Being that I work with it every day, some of the hoops, expensive hoops passed on to the consumer, are very annoying and totally pointless in terms of safety.

Bill O'Rights · 11-16-2005, 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by politicophile

There's no point in voting for a candidate that you know will lose when you have a stake in which main-party candidate wins. If the race is at all close, I probably would prefer the Republican over the Democrat. And since the libertarian is going to lose anyway, why would I waste my vote?

First of all, NO vote, that is cast, is a "wasted" vote.
Second of all, why do you "know" that the Libertarian is going to loose? Simply because they always have? I have heard over and over and over again that "Well, I'd have voted for Badnarik...if I thought that he had a chance to win.". Seems to me, that perhaps, just perhaps, if everyone had voted their true conscience, and how they truly believed, then Badnarik may have actually made quite a respectable showing.
That's kind of high schoolish, isn't it. "Well, I know that the "band geek" would make a much better student council president than the "jock", that he's running against, but he doesn't stand a chance of actually winning. Ahh, I'll just vote for the "jock" because everyone else is."

/me steps off of the Libertarian soapbox.

raveneye · 11-16-2005, 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BOR

Seems to me, that perhaps, just perhaps, if everyone had voted their true conscience, and how they truly believed, then Badnarik may have actually made quite a respectable showing.

Actually in a sense every vote is wasted no matter who you vote for, because there is not a chance in hell that your single vote is going to decide the election. In fact, you're more likely to be struck by lightning while winning the Lotto while discovering the cure for aids on the way to the ballot box, than be casting the deciding vote.

So, since your vote isn't going to make one whit of a difference one way or the other, why not just say the hell with all the polls, and just vote your conscience?

If everybody did this, then I think we would be a lot happier with the winning candidate, since both sides seem about equally unhappy with both of the major parties.

sailor · 11-16-2005, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by politicophile

The new "Republican Party" that I would create is one that rigorously defends civil/religious liberties (repeals the USA PATRIOT Act, stops using the Oval Office as a Christian-promoting device), supports fiscal responsibility (constitutional amendment against deficit spending, shove "bridge to nowhere" up Ted Stevens' ass), respects the right to privacy (no restrictions on abortions performed before viability, minimal restrictions on late-term abortions, freedom to use marajuana recreationally, freedom to buy whatever sort of firearm you please, freedom to marry whomever you please, regardless of gender), and adopts a consistently reserved, but not isolationist, position in international relations (give enough funding to MI so that we know what the hell rogue regimes are doing, apply sanctions to all countries that fail to respect basic human rights, invade all countries that engage in genocide [that includes Rwanda and Sudan], no more ineffective and excessively indiscriminate bombings a la Kosovo and Iraq 1998).

This actually almost exactly mirrors my views. I know quite a few people who vote Republican who have almost the exact same views as I do; the reason I vote Democrat is that I feel the Republican party has been almost completely overtaken by the same religious, socially conservative neo-cons that you were just speaking of. Almost all of my beliefs--smaller government, fiscal responsibility, stronger support of civil rights, etc. The problem is, the Republican party today supports none of those.

I also agree with Lebell that I don't want to vote Libertarian because history has shown that businesses will do almost anything for that extra cent--and having regulations in place to prevent that is something I see as a necessity. We don't need a repeat of late 19th century business practices--and, contrary to the Libertarian belief, I don't think most people have the will or resources to fight back.

Ustwo · 11-16-2005, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights

First of all, NO vote, that is cast, is a "wasted" vote.
Second of all, why do you "know" that the Libertarian is going to loose? Simply because they always have? I have heard over and over and over again that "Well, I'd have voted for Badnarik...if I thought that he had a chance to win.". Seems to me, that perhaps, just perhaps, if everyone had voted their true conscience, and how they truly believed, then Badnarik may have actually made quite a respectable showing.
That's kind of high schoolish, isn't it. "Well, I know that the "band geek" would make a much better student council president than the "jock", that he's running against, but he doesn't stand a chance of actually winning. Ahh, I'll just vote for the "jock" because everyone else is."

/me steps off of the Libertarian soapbox.

respectable showing

There are no moral victories, only victories. My thought is if everyone who may have voted for Badnarik did indeed vote for him, he would have made a respectable showing, but only in so much that it would have cost Bush the election. I'm sure some democrats would have voted that way too, but most people who are left learning and claim to be libertarians know nothing about the party beyond it being trendy to talk about. Once they get beyond the legalization of currently illegal drugs they tend to be horrified.

The VERY best possibility would be that each election they would get more respectable to the point of viable. It would split the vote on the right. The US does not form coalition governments and it most likely never will, as such we get NOTHING and surrender all power to the left. This is bad. Even if the Libertarians became the majority party, it would take several years of left wing dominance to reach it. It is something I may consider worth while, but not on the CHANCE that the libertarians MAY some day be a majority party.

Even though I agree with libertarian philosophy to a high degree, I do not agree completely and it will always result in a situation where it is the lesser of evils.

politicophile · 11-16-2005, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights

First of all, NO vote, that is cast, is a "wasted" vote.
Second of all, why do you "know" that the Libertarian is going to loose? Simply because they always have? I have heard over and over and over again that "Well, I'd have voted for Badnarik...if I thought that he had a chance to win.". Seems to me, that perhaps, just perhaps, if everyone had voted their true conscience, and how they truly believed, then Badnarik may have actually made quite a respectable showing.
That's kind of high schoolish, isn't it. "Well, I know that the "band geek" would make a much better student council president than the "jock", that he's running against, but he doesn't stand a chance of actually winning. Ahh, I'll just vote for the "jock" because everyone else is."

/me steps off of the Libertarian soapbox.

The school example does not fit this model because there are only two candidates. In a case where there are only two people running, it obviously makes sense to vote your conscience. The addition of a third candidate makes things more complicated.

In 2004, I decided that I would rather elect Bush than Kerry. Because of this decision, and because it was going to be reasonably close, I felt it would be irresponsible for me to refuse to help Bush prevail over Kerry. And that, in my view, is what a Libertarian vote would have been. The man had no chance of winning, whereas both Kerry and Bush had a significant chance of winning. My obligation under those conditions was to select amongst the two potential winners.

I'll also second what everyone else has said about the problematic nature of Libertarian calls for the destruction of the regulatory state. Not all governmental regulations are bad ones...

host · 11-16-2005, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by politicophile

The school example does not fit this model because there are only two candidates. In a case where there are only two people running, it obviously makes sense to vote your conscience. The addition of a third candidate makes things more complicated.

In 2004, I decided that I would rather elect Bush than Kerry. Because of this decision, and because it was going to be reasonably close, I felt it would be irresponsible for me to refuse to help Bush prevail over Kerry. And that, in my view, is what a Libertarian vote would have been. The man had no chance of winning, whereas both Kerry and Bush had a significant chance of winning. My obligation under those conditions was to select amongst the two potential winners.

I'll also second what everyone else has said about the problematic nature of Libertarian calls for the destruction of the regulatory state. Not all governmental regulations are bad ones...

Since the 9/11 attacks, between my wife and I.....two of our three sons have enlisted in the U.S. military, and one of them is still on active duty today.

One of our sons, the first to enlist, grew up in New England and attended catholic sunday school and services. He lost interest in organized worship and
is left leaning, politically. He was as shocked as I was to quickly get a sense during his early months in the military, in 2002, that there was a deliberate and widespread training and indoctrination effort to ready the troops for combat in Iraq. He asked me to look into the possibility of military action in Iraq, and...try as I might, I found no reason to believe that there would be justification for invasion of Iraq. I think his attitude, political sympathies, and reaction to Iraq was similar to what was reported about Pat Tillman:

Quote:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...NGD7ETMNM1.DTL
New inquiry may expose events that led to Pat Tillman’s death

Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, September 25, 2005

..........Interviews also show a side of Pat Tillman not widely known — a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books on World War II and Winston Churchill to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author..............

..........Throughout the controversy, the Tillman family has been reluctant to cause a media stir. Mary noted that Pat shunned publicity, refusing all public comment when he enlisted and asking the Army to reject all media requests for interviews while he was in service. Pat’s widow, Marie, and his brother Kevin have not become publicly involved in the case, and they declined to comment for this article.

Yet other Tillman family members are less reluctant to show Tillman’s unique character, which was more complex than the public image of a gung-ho patriotic warrior. He started keeping a journal at 16 and continued the practice on the battlefield, writing in it regularly. (His journal was lost immediately after his death.) Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat’s even arranged a private meeting with Chomsky, the antiwar author, to take place after his return from Afghanistan — a meeting prevented by his death. She said that although he supported the Afghan war, believing it justified by the Sept. 11 attacks, “Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war.”

Baer, who served with Tillman for more than a year in Iraq and Afghanistan, told one anecdote that took place during the March 2003 invasion as the Rangers moved up through southern Iraq.

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Stephen White — a Navy SEAL who served with Pat and Kevin for four months in Iraq and was the only military member to speak at Tillman’s memorial — said Pat “wasn’t very fired up about being in Iraq” and instead wanted to go fight al Qaeda in Afghanistan. He said both Pat and Kevin (who has a degree in philosophy) “were amazingly well-read individuals … very firm in some of their beliefs, their political and religious or not so religious beliefs.” .............

The other son, who enlisted much later....after the invasion of Iraq and the reports that there were no WMD to be found, spent his childhood in the southeast, in an extremely conservative christian household. He is an unwavering supporter of Bush and his policies, still arguing that WMD were found and that the left leaning press ignores the facts. I advise him not to be "more Bush", than Bush....as the administration has admitted that "the weapons we thought were there.....aren't there..." This son voted for Bush, and believes that it is right to back up the president and his policies by serving in the military. I don't agree with his politics, but I admire his willingness to "put his money where his mouth is".

I see so little of that consistancy exhibited by many other young people who support and/or vote for Bush:

Quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...in944449.shtml

............But if opponents of the war should go to France, shouldn't leaders of the pro-war movement serve in Iraq? In response to a query from The Nation about whether any leaders have volunteered to fight the war in Iraq, Shauna Moser, the chairman of Penn State YAF, said only that information on YAF officials could be found with a simple "search in a search engine."

YAF chairman Erik Johnson, vice chairman Darren Marks and fourteen other national officials have posted brief autobiographies on YAF's website. None of these bios indicate that the organization's national leaders have served in the military or plan to in the future.

For his part, Chris Hill has served in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) and has contibuted to a web log in which he offered advice to aspiring soldiers on how to obtain a military commission. He holds an officer's commission and intends to attend Navy Flight School next summer.

Nation Editor's Note: In an Oct. 6 interview with The Nation about his military aspirations, Hill indicated that he planned to attend graduate school, but for reasons of military protocol, did not disclose his naval commission or his plans to attend flight school. This story has been updated to include that information.

College Republicans also appear to be lacking in military aspirations. None of their board members--the controversial chairman Paul Gourley and officers Jess Beeson, Nathaniel Harding, Britton Alexander, Dan Schuberth and Tom Robins--boast any military experience. Their posted bios do not refer to any past, present or future military service, though they do describe in detail the postgraduate work and political aspirations of these young right-wingers.

Conservative campus groups like YAF and College Republicans are growing in strength and numbers. And since the start of the Iraq War, these outfits have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Bush to support the war, but they have not stood alongside the soldiers doing the actual fighting and dying. They want someone else to do the hard work.

This "contradiction" between what young Bush supporters say, and vote for, versus what they are willing to do, is causing controversy on college campuses:

Quote:

http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/art...section=1&id=2
Schuberth questions Cornell du Houx’s motives
Campus responds to criticism of student Marine’s impending deployment
October 28, 2005

By Anne Riley

As Maine College Democrats President Alex Cornell du Houx '06, a vocal opponent of the War in Iraq, prepares for his upcoming active duty with the U.S. Marines in Iraq, members of the Bowdoin community are responding to the news of his deployment with shock, gratitude, and in some cases, criticism.

"I applaud Mr. Houx [sic] for his service, just as I applaud any other soldier who is brave enough to take up arms in defense of this country," Dan Schuberth '06, secretary of the College Republican National Committee, said in a statement aired on a Bowdoin Cable Network news broadcast this week.

"I find it troubling, however," Schuberth continued, "that one of the most vocal opponents of our president, our country and our mission in Iraq has chosen to fight for a cause he claims is wrong. Mr. Houx's [sic] rhetoric against the war on terror places him in agreement with the most radical fringes of the Democratic Party, and I am left to question his logic and motivation."

Quote:

http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/art...section=1&id=2
Schuberth retracts criticism of Cornell du Houx's service
Leaders of College Democrats not satisfied with apology
November 4, 2005

By Anne Riley
Orient Staff

After publicly questioning the "logic and motivation" of U.S. Marine and Maine College Democrats President Alex Cornell du Houx '06 for his military service, Secretary of the College Republican National Committee Dan Schuberth '06 has issued an apology. Schuberth called Cornell du Houx, who is leaving for a tour of duty in Iraq in December, "one of the most vocal opponents of...our country."...........

politicophile, what about you? Do you fully understand the implications, obligations, and consequences of your vote for Bush? Do your plans include military service in the near future, or.....do you have "other priorities"?

Ustwo · 11-16-2005, 12:49 PM

Wow, its been a while since the chicken hawk defense was used.....

Weak then weak now.

What I always find amusing is how HARD people look for military men who are opposed to Bush, how they tell their stories in print, and yet, the military vote speaks for what the true feelings are.

Willravel · 11-16-2005, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

What I always find amusing is how HARD people look for military men who are opposed to Bush, how they tell their stories in print, and yet, the military vote speaks for what the true feelings are.

Host only had to look as far as his son. I have only so far to look as my cousin, and about a dozen friends. It's not hard to find them. It's hard to get them to talk. I'm sure you know the legilities aobut a military officer and what he/she can or cannot say in regards to the commander in chief.

tecoyah · 11-16-2005, 01:22 PM

Let it go Host....just let it go.

There is no reason to go back to the border of flame you two were on.

Please guys....just take a deep breath.

politicophile · 11-16-2005, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

politicophile, what about you? Do you fully understand the implications, obligations, and consequences of your vote for Bush? Do your plans include military service in the near future, or.....do you have "other priorities"?

Let me first state that I know Dan Schuberth personally and he is a collossal asshole - I'd have a hard time finding a worse leader. Maybe that's why I haven't been to a College Republicans meeting since Freshman year...

In a sense, I suppose I do have "other priorities". Like (I would hope) most patriotic Americans, I considered joining the military. ROTC would have been my route. After receiving information about the program from the Army website, I met with an Army Major who himself was an ROTC grad. He highly recommended that I join and convinced me that I would be well-suited for the work.

There are three reasons that, combined, comprise my "other priorities": those are my mother, my father, and my girlfriend. For a period of about six months, these three major influences on my life attempted to convince me that it would be unwise for me to join the military.

My mother argued that it would put me at unnecessary risk. Since I didn't need any monetary assistence in receiving an education, she argued, it didn't make any sense to put myself in harm's way.

My father argued that it was not in my interest to join, as it would delay my going to grad school and developing personal connections with the people I will be dealing with in my political life. He also claimed that there were other ways that I could satisfy my obligation to my country, such as working as a District Attorney or running for political office.

My girlfriend argued that, by joining the Army, I would be setting myself up for being forced to fight for a cause I didn't believe in. Considering the man currently occupying the Whitehouse, I thought this concern was entirely legitimate.

I did not join ROTC because I thought the arguments against doing so were good ones. Furthermore, I respected the opinions of those people closest to me and, in part, relied on their judgment. Sometimes I sincerely regret my decision. Other times, I feel I made the right call...

As for military service in the future... on the off chance they begin drafting soldiers before I enroll in law school, I will enlist when I graduate from college in the spring of 2007. If there is no draft, I will attend law school beginning in the fall of 2008, presumably graduating in spring 2011. At that point, all bets are off: I have no idea if military service would be on my mind then. Here is my best guess, though. I'll be 26 at that time. I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) that enlisting entails three years of service. If that is correct, I see no reason why I couldn't serve for three years before settling down. However, I certainly wouldn't consider this "the near future", nor do I think predictions that far in the future mean very much. I will say, however, that I believe all Americans should serve their country in one way or another. There is no profession more noble than being a soldier and I aspire to serve at a time when my educational "obligations" have been fulfilled.

Ustwo · 11-16-2005, 02:22 PM

politicophile - (and anyone else of that age) when I was in your position, almost exactly, I made the same choice (hell I even went to one of the young Republican meetings and had the same feeling of assholes, though it was perhaps better than the 'vibe' I got at a young democrats meeting). I have to say it is perhaps the only real regret I have when I look at my life’s accomplishments. It was an easy choice for me, Clinton was president at the time and the military was demoralized, things were bad and it looked like it was getting worse, which it did being prior to the disgrace in Somalia. I had the worried parents, I had the horny girlfriend, I had a president who I wouldn't trust with my life or my girlfriend and I didn't join.

Whats worse is I still took 2.5 years of extra (and not necessary) study, so I would have had the time. End result is, while I am in the top of my field, and a success by any measure, I still feel I let myself down. If you want to go into politics, a military background can only help you.

roachboy · 11-16-2005, 07:05 PM

i was speechless for a while and then i figured it out---this is the first time i have read something posted under this alias that no real person would ever say.

i knew it.

i read through this thread and cannot figure out what it is about.
i know how it started, but i dont understand anything else.
just saying.

host · 11-20-2005, 10:16 AM

I could have wriiten this....I have the information, but not the writing ability.....

Quote:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112005Y.shtml
One War Lost, Another to Go
By Frank Rich
The New York Times

Sunday 20 November 2005

If anyone needs further proof that we are racing for the exits in Iraq, just follow the bouncing ball that is Rick Santorum. A Republican leader in the Senate and a true-blue (or red) Iraq hawk, he has long slobbered over President Bush, much as Ed McMahon did over Johnny Carson. But when Mr. Bush went to Mr. Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania to give his Veterans Day speech smearing the war's critics as unpatriotic, the senator was M.I.A.

Mr. Santorum preferred to honor a previous engagement more than 100 miles away. There he told reporters for the first time that "maybe some blame" for the war's "less than optimal" progress belonged to the White House. This change of heart had nothing to do with looming revelations of how the new Iraqi "democracy" had instituted Saddam-style torture chambers. Or with the spiraling investigations into the whereabouts of nearly $9 billion in unaccounted-for taxpayers' money from the American occupation authority. Or with the latest spike in casualties. Mr. Santorum was instead contemplating his own incipient political obituary written the day before: a poll showing him 16 points down in his re-election race.<b>No sooner did he stiff Mr. Bush in Pennsylvania than he did so again in Washington, voting with a 79-to-19 majority on a Senate resolution begging for an Iraq exit strategy. He was joined by all but one (Jon Kyl) of the 13 other Republican senators running for re-election next year. They desperately want to be able to tell their constituents that they were against the war after they were for it.</b>

They know the voters have decided the war is over, no matter what symbolic resolutions are passed or defeated in Congress nor how many Republicans try to Swift-boat Representative John Murtha, the marine hero who wants the troops out. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup survey last week found that the percentage (52) of Americans who want to get out of Iraq fast, in 12 months or less, is even larger than the percentage (48) that
<h2>favored a quick withdrawal from Vietnam when that war's casualty toll neared 54,000 in the apocalyptic year of 1970.</h2> The Ohio State political scientist John Mueller, writing in Foreign Affairs , found that "if history is any indication, there is little the Bush administration can do to reverse this decline." <b>He observed that Mr. Bush was trying to channel L. B. J. by making "countless speeches explaining what the effort in Iraq is about, urging patience and asserting that progress is being made.</b> But as was also evident during Woodrow Wilson's campaign to sell the League of Nations to the American public, the efficacy of the bully pulpit is much overrated."

<b>Mr. Bush may disdain timetables for our pullout, but, hello, there already is one, set by the Santorums of his own party: the expiration date for a sizable American presence in Iraq is Election Day 2006.</b> As Mr. Mueller says, the decline in support for the war won't reverse itself. The public knows progress is not being made, no matter how many times it is told that Iraqis will soon stand up so we can stand down.

<b>On the same day the Senate passed the resolution rebuking Mr. Bush on the war, Martha Raddatz of ABC News reported that "only about 700 Iraqi troops" could operate independently of the U.S. military, 27,000 more could take a lead role in combat "only with strong support" from our forces and the rest of the 200,000-odd trainees suffered from a variety of problems, from equipment shortages to an inability "to wake up when told" or follow orders.</b>

But while the war is lost both as a political matter at home and a practical matter in Iraq, the exit strategy being haggled over in Washington will hardly mark the end of our woes. Few Americans will cry over the collapse of the administration's vainglorious mission to make Iraq a model of neocon nation-building. But, as some may dimly recall, there is another war going on as well - against Osama bin Laden and company.

One hideous consequence of the White House's Big Lie - fusing the war of choice in Iraq with the war of necessity that began on 9/11 - is that the public, having rejected one, automatically rejects the other. That's already happening. The percentage of Americans who now regard fighting terrorism as a top national priority is either in the single or low double digits in every poll. Thus the tragic bottom line of the Bush catastrophe: the administration has at once increased the ranks of jihadists by turning Iraq into a new training ground and recruitment magnet while at the same time exhausting America's will and resources to confront that expanded threat.

We have arrived at "the worst of all possible worlds," in the words of Daniel Benjamin, Richard Clarke's former counterterrorism colleague, with whom I talked last week. No one speaks more eloquently to this point than Mr. Benjamin and Steven Simon, his fellow National Security Council alum. They saw the Qaeda threat coming before most others did in the 1990's, and their riveting new book, "The Next Attack," is the best argued and most thoroughly reported account of why, in their opening words, "we are losing" the war against the bin Laden progeny now.

"The Next Attack" is prescient to a scary degree. "If bin Laden is the Robin Hood of jihad," the authors write, then Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "has been its Horatio Alger, and Iraq his field of dreams." The proof arrived spectacularly this month with the Zarqawi-engineered suicide bombings of three hotels in Amman. That attack, Mr. Benjamin wrote in Slate "could soon be remembered as the day that the spillover of violence from Iraq became a major affliction for the Middle East." But not remembered in America. Thanks to the confusion sown by the Bush administration, the implications for us in this attack, like those in London and Madrid, are quickly forgotten, if they were noticed in the first place. What happened in Amman is just another numbing bit of bad news that we mentally delete along with all the other disasters we now label "Iraq."

Only since his speech about "Islamo-fascism" in early October has Mr. Bush started trying to make distinctions between the "evildoers" of Saddam's regime and the Islamic radicals who did and do directly threaten us. But even if anyone was still listening to this president, it would be too little and too late. The only hope for getting Americans to focus on the war we can't escape is to clear the decks by telling the truth about the war of choice in Iraq: that it is making us less safe, not more, and that we have to learn from its mistakes and calculate the damage it has caused as we reboot and move on.

Mr. Bush is incapable of such candor. In the speech Mr. Santorum skipped on Veterans Day, the president lashed out at his critics for trying "to rewrite the history" of how the war began. Then he rewrote the history of the war, both then and now. He boasted of America's "broad and coordinated homeland defense" even as the members of the bipartisan 9/11 commission were preparing to chastise the administration's inadequate efforts to prevent actual nuclear W.M.D.'s, as opposed to Saddam's fictional ones, from finding their way to terrorists. Mr. Bush preened about how "we're standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes" even as we were hearing new reports of how we outsource detainees to such regimes to be tortured.

And once again he bragged about the growing readiness of Iraqi troops, citing "nearly 90 Iraqi army battalions fighting the terrorists alongside our forces." But as James Fallows confirms in his exhaustive report on "Why Iraq Has No Army" in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly, America would have to commit to remaining in Iraq for many years to "bring an Iraqi army to maturity." If we're not going to do that, Mr. Fallows concludes, America's only alternative is to "face the stark fact that it has no orderly way out of Iraq, and prepare accordingly."

That's the alternative that has already been chosen, brought on not just by the public's irreversible rejection of the war, but also by the depleted state of our own broken military forces; they are falling short of recruitment goals across the board by as much as two-thirds, the Government Accountability Office reported last week. We must prepare accordingly for what's to come. To do so we need leaders, whatever the political party, who can look beyond our nonorderly withdrawal from Iraq next year to the mess that will remain once we're on our way out. Whether it's countering the havoc inflicted on American interests internationally by Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo or overhauling and redeploying our military, intelligence and homeland security operations to confront the enemy we actually face, there's an enormous job to be done.

The arguments about how we got into Mr. Bush's war and exactly how we'll get out are also important. But the damage from this fiasco will be even greater if those debates obscure the urgency of the other war we are losing, one that will be with us long after we've left the quagmire in Iraq.

-------

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. TFP member, "host" has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is TFP member, "host" endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

I have to share this board with people who post about some of us "undermining the troops", because we know a mistake and a disaster in the making when we see one, especially when we have lived through a similar situation in the past, but....I don't have to like it!

If you have posted about, or believe that we are "undermining" by discussing and protesting against the disasterous and illegal invasion of Iraq, is it better to wait until 52,000 more of our soldiers have died there.

The term "decimated" is often misused when it is intended to describe the losses to an army in wartime. It does not mean that an army is nearly "wiped out". The actual meaning is that one tenth, or 10 percent of an army is killed or wounded.

Our military in Iraq, using the correct meaning of the term "decimated", since it is a standing force of about 150,000 and it has experienced losses in excess of 15,000 seriously wounded, and over 2,000 killed.....has been decimated.
And...what has it accomplished? I've posted current references that back the descriptions in the above article of the state of "readiness" and fighting capabilities of Iraqi forces. There is <b>no progress</b> in achieving Bush's "goal" of getting them to stand up, so we can stand down. There are only lies about progress, in Bush's Veteran's day speech, for example, as I detailed in my first or second post, on this thread.

I cannot persuade those who disagree with me to even respond to or rebut, or even acknowledge the referenced information that I've posted here that exposes Bush as a liar about the subject of progress in achieving "readiness" of Iraqi security forces. I can, however, post it all for the viewing of everyone who has an open mind and wants to help the troops avoid death that is in vain, and is avoidable. Your president is a liar, on the reasons we are in Iraq, and on the progress we are making to get our troops back home to us.

The "readiness" status of Iraqis, described above, and in my earlier posts, is the same or less as it was described in reports of battles in Najaf in april, 2004, and that was 19 months ago.....

The details that impact your arguments that are contrary to mine, are undeniable, and therefore, cannot fit into your "take" on what is happening in Iraq, and to Bush's presidency....but they are not going to go away, because they are a reliable description of waht is happening in what has morphed from a misguided and intentionally manipulated case for a run up to war, and a poorly planned invasion and occupation, that has descended into a <b>lost cause</b>. As in....a cause that was never worth fighting and dying....for.

This "war on terror in Iraq" never rose to the level of legitimacy or necessity that anyone named Bush or Cheny, or any named of any other prominent official in Washington, save a son or two among 535 legislators.....not a Bush cousin, even......bothered themself to actually serve and fight in. If you want to accuse anyone of "undermining", why not ask those who created and executed this quagmire, how it is that a cause so just and necessary has not moved any of their "flesh and blood" to serve in it and sacrafice for it?

Why are those questions labelled a "tired argument", when they are never honestly answered?

host · 07-26-2007, 10:13 PM

To follow up my long ago post #56 on this page..... some contradictions between what TPTB say....and what we know that they've done, and....what is still emerging as to what they have done.....

<center><h3>
Fortunate Son

Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, theyre red, white and blue.
And when the band plays hail to the chief,
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, lord,

It aint me, it aint me, I aint no senators son, son.
It aint me, it aint me; I aint no fortunate one, no,....

.....Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, lord,
And when you ask them, how much should we give?
Ooh, they only answer more! more! more! yoh,

It aint me, it aint me, I aint no military son, son.
It aint me, it aint me; I aint no fortunate one, one......

- John Fogerty
</h3></center>

I'm motivated to "come back" to this thread because of the hypocrisy and the hubris of the people who aspire to lead us into war, and to pursue war, but who do not themselves, generation after generation, now.....serve in the military to personally commit themselves to fight the war, that they are ideologically committed to....what is up with that? And where are the folks coming from, politically.....who actually serve in the military...the ones who ignore the hubris and hypocrisy, by embracing the policies of the chickenhawks....and their politics ?

Quote:

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/...ap3958728.html
Associated Press
AP: New Details on Tillman's Death
By MARTHA MENDOZA 07.26.07, 7:28 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO -

Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

"The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

The doctors - whose names were blacked out - said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.

Ultimately, the Pentagon did conduct a criminal investigation, and asked Tillman's comrades whether he was disliked by his men and whether they had any reason to believe he was deliberately killed. The Pentagon eventually ruled that Tillman's death at the hands of his comrades was a friendly-fire accident.

The medical examiners' suspicions were outlined in 2,300 pages of testimony released to the AP this week by the Defense Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

<b>Among other information contained in the documents:

_ In his last words moments before he was killed, Tillman snapped at a panicky comrade under fire to shut up and stop "sniveling."

_ Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments.

_ The three-star general who kept the truth about Tillman's death from his family and the public told investigators some 70 times that he had a bad memory and couldn't recall details of his actions.

_ No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene - no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck.

The Pentagon and the Bush administration have been criticized in recent months for lying about the circumstances of Tillman's death. The military initially told the public and the Tillman family that he had been killed by enemy fire. Only weeks later did the Pentagon acknowledge he was gunned down by fellow Rangers.</b>

With questions lingering about how high in the Bush administration the deception reached, Congress is preparing for yet another hearing next week.

The Pentagon is separately preparing a new round of punishments, including a stinging demotion of retired Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger Jr., 60, according to military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the punishments under consideration have not been made public.

In more than four hours of questioning by the Pentagon inspector general's office in December 2006, Kensinger repeatedly contradicted other officers' testimony, and sometimes his own. He said on some 70 occasions that he did not recall something.

At one point, he said: "You've got me really scared about my brain right now. I'm really having a problem."

<b>Tillman's mother, Mary Tillman, who has long suggested that her son was deliberately killed by his comrades, said she is still looking for answers and looks forward to the congressional hearings next week.

"Nothing is going to bring Pat back. It's about justice for Pat and justice for other soldiers. The nation has been deceived," she said.</b>

The documents show that a doctor who autopsied Tillman's body was suspicious of the three gunshot wounds to the forehead. The doctor said he took the unusual step of calling the Army's Human Resources Command and was rebuffed. He then asked an official at the Army's Criminal Investigation Division if the CID would consider opening a criminal case.

"He said he talked to his higher headquarters and they had said no," the doctor testified.

Also according to the documents, investigators pressed officers and soldiers on a question Mrs. Tillman has been asking all along.

"Have you, at any time since this incident occurred back on April 22, 2004, have you ever received any information even rumor that Cpl. Tillman was killed by anybody within his own unit intentionally?" an investigator asked then-Capt. Richard Scott.

Scott, and others who were asked, said they were certain the shooting was accidental.

Investigators also asked soldiers and commanders whether Tillman was disliked, whether anyone was jealous of his celebrity, or if he was considered arrogant. They said Tillman was respected, admired and well-liked.

The documents also shed new light on Tillman's last moments.

It has been widely reported by the AP and others that Spc. Bryan O'Neal, who was at Tillman's side as he was killed, told investigators that Tillman was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" again and again.

But the latest documents give a different account from a chaplain who debriefed the entire unit days after Tillman was killed.

The chaplain said that O'Neal told him he was hugging the ground at Tillman's side, "crying out to God, help us. And Tillman says to him, `Would you shut your (expletive) mouth? God's not going to help you; you need to do something for yourself, you sniveling ..."

Associated Press reporters Scott Lindlaw in Las Vegas and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this story.

In May of 2006, Stan Goff began a seven part series of reports on Tillman's death: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/the...an_files.shtml , with an Sept., 2006 addendum following the seven part series.....Many of the details reported now in the AP article, were reported more than a year ago, by Stan Goff.

<b>....and the General with the bad memory, described in the preceding AP reporting:</b>

Quote:

http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=6845494
Retired general may be demoted in connection with Tillman cover-up

July 26, 2007 09:19 PM

Army Secretary Peter Geren is expected to recommend three-star Retired Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger be stripped of a star and face a decrease in retirement pension for his role in an alleged cover-up surrounding the nature of Army Ranger Pat Tillman's death.

Tillman, a former Arizona Cardinals football star, was killed by friendly fire three years ago in Afghanistan.

For five weeks military officials claimed he was killed by enemy fire, even though investigators determined quickly that he was killed by his own troops.

Last March, the acting Pentagon inspector general faulted nine army officers, including Kensinger, for making critical errors in reporting Tillman's death.

Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger was the most senior of those officers. He was also the Army's representative at Tillman's nationally televised memorial service the following month.

The Department of Defense's report concluded that at the service, "although Lt. Gen. Kensinger knew friendly fire was suspected, he decided to withhold notification from family members."

It also found that when asked about it later, "Kensinger provided misleading testimony" to investigators.

The commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command is expected to decide on punishments next Tuesday.

<h3>The Pentagon, under Bob Gates, has apparently learned nothing from the Tillman coverup crimes:</h3>

Quote:

http://harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000587
How the Pentagon’s “Surrogates Operation” Feeds Stories to Administration-Friendly Media and Pundits
DEPARTMENT Washington Babylon
BY Ken Silverstein
PUBLISHED July 19, 2007

Earlier this week I wrote a story about a program run by the Pentagon’s Office of Public Affairs. This program seeks to bypass the mainstream press by working directly with a carefully culled list of military analysts, bloggers, and others who can be counted on to parrot the Bush Administration’s line on national security issues.

The unit was initially called the “Surrogates Operation” but was later rechristened as “Communications Outreach” after someone realized that the original title, while accurate, was embarrassing for those working with the Pentagon.

As I reported earlier, the unit is headed up by Erin Healey, a former junior assistant press secretary at the White House. Other players I identified were Julie George, a former campaign worker for ex-Senator Rick Santorum, and Jocelyn Webster, who formerly worked in the White House’s political operation. I’ve since learned that another key figure at the Surrogates unit is James Davis, who like Healey was apparently brought in as a contractor but was subsequently given a political appointee position. From what I understand, Davis is a political ally of former senator and GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson.

The Surrogates unit arranges regular conference calls during which senior Pentagon officials brief retired military officials, civilian defense and national security analysts, pundits, and bloggers. A few moderates are invited to take part, but the list of participants skews far, far to the right. The Pentagon essentially feeds participants the talking points, bullet points, and stories it wants told.

As far as I can tell, the conference calls with retired military officials and other analysts are not transcribed or made public, and I’ve been unable to learn who takes part in those briefings. But the calls with bloggers—who are often briefed by the same Pentagon officials who speak with the other groups—can be found on <a href="http://www.defendamerica.mil/specials/2007/blog/">“Defend America,” a Pentagon website</a>. “Welcome to the archives of the ‘Bloggers’ Roundtable’,” reads the site, adding forthrightly, “Here you will find source material for recent stories in the blogosphere concerning the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Global War on Terrorism by bloggers and online journalists.” ......

Quote:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/0...cowardly-lion/
Petraeus inappropriately talks to the Cowardly Lion
By: John Amato on Saturday, July 21st, 2007 at 2:01 PM - PDT

After Gen. Petraeus’ appearance on <a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/07/petraeus-gop-to.html">the Hugh Hewitt talk show</a>, there is simply no denying that the good General is a political puppet. Some of you may not know why I call Hewitt “The Cowardly Lion.” It’s an unbelievable exchange he had with <a href="http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/29/hugh-hewitt-the-cowardly-lion/">CNN’s Michael Ware</a> some time ago. (OK, make sure you rinse and spit after reading that…)

Petraeus needs to worry about the war in Iraq and not go on shows like HewittWorld. I didn’t know he had the kind of time to waste on a propagandist, who cares little for the country itself. I think <a href="http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=8428">John Cole should be honored</a> that the Cowardly Lion named him in a post. Here’s some propaganda for you:

I am not surprised that the Bush haters like Sullivan and Cole are outraged that General Petraeus would be interviewed by an admirer of the president, or that the anti-war extremists like Greenwald, Yglesias and the others cannot disguise their contempt for the military (though they think their attack on General Petraeus’ integrity won’t identify them as anti-military.)

You can always tell a propagandist by their use of the military as a wedge issue. The Daily Dish <a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/07/petraeus-gop-to.html">sums it up this way</a>:

Just look how Hewitt <a href="http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/374db9bc-bee3-44c2-9049-0c5f41f40b28">coopted the military leadership</a> for the Bush-Cheney narrative. This is pure Weimar: stab-in-the-back reactionaries trying to coopt the military for an agenda of one-party rule in defense of the homeland. Petraeus will regret his misjudgment. For him to aid, abet and ally himself with such a vicious and extreme partisan can only serve to undermine his critical presentation in September.

<h3>....and this week, a person identified as someone who "blogs at HughHewitt.com."...authors the following....and remember, Hugh Hewitt is "brought to you", both on Salem Radio's network, and on Salem's website, townhall.com, by prominent mega millionaire "leaders", <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/12/higher_frequency.html">Epperson and Atsinger III</a>, of the Council for National Policy:</h3>

Quote:

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Pu...3/904pffgs.asp
The 9/11 Generation
Better than the Boomers.
by Dean Barnett
07/30/2007, Volume 012, Issue 43

In the 1960s, history called the Baby Boomers. They didn't answer the phone.

Confronted with a generation-defining conflict, the cold war, the Boomers--those, at any rate, who came to be emblematic of their generation--took the opposite path from their parents during World War II. Sadly, the excesses of Woodstock became the face of the Boomers' response to their moment of challenge. War protests where agitated youths derided American soldiers as baby-killers added no luster to their image.

Few of the leading lights of that generation joined the military. Most calculated how they could avoid military service, and their attitude rippled through the rest of the century. In the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, military service didn't occur to most young people as an option, let alone a duty.

But now, once again, history is calling. Fortunately, the present generation appears more reminiscent of their grandparents than their parents.

I've spent much of the past two weeks speaking with young people (and a few not-so-young) who have made the decision to serve their country by volunteering for the military. Some of these men have Ivy League degrees; all of them are talented and intelligent individuals who--contrary to John Kerry's infamous "botched joke" ("Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq")--could have chosen to do anything with their lives. Having signed up, they have either gone to Iraq or look forward to doing so. Not surprisingly, the mainstream media have underreported their stories.

One of the excesses of the 1960s that present-day liberals have disowned and disavowed since 9/11 is the demonization of the American military. While every now and then an unrepentant liberal like Charlie Rangel will appear on cable news and casually accuse U.S. troops of engaging in baby-killing in Iraq, the liberal establishment generally knows better. They "support" the American military--at least in the abstract, until it does anything resembling fighting a war.

In search of a new narrative, 21st-century liberals have settled on the "soldiers are victims" meme. Democratic senators (and the occasional Republican senator who's facing a tough reelection campaign) routinely pronounce their concern for our "children" in Iraq. One of the reasons John Kerry's "botched joke" resonated so strongly was that it fit the liberals' narrative. The Democratic party would have you believe that our soldiers are children or, at best, adults with few options: In short, a callous and mendacious administration has victimized the young, the gullible, and the hopeless, and stuck them in Iraq.

But this narrative is not just insulting to our fighting men and women, it is also grossly inaccurate.

Kurt Schlichter is a lieutenant colonel in the California National Guard. A veteran of the first Gulf war, he's now stateside and commands the 1-18th Cavalry, 462-man RSTA (Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition) squadron attached to the 40th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. The last media representative he spoke with before I contacted him was a New York Times stringer who wanted Schlichter's help in tracking down guardsmen who were "having trouble because they got mobilized."

In describing his unit, Schlichter says, "Our mission is to operate far out in front of the main body of the brigade to find and keep in contact with the enemy, report on its activities, and call in air or artillery fire on it. We are very lightly armed--speed, stealth, and smarts are our best weapons--and our Cav scouts work out of humvees or on foot." Their squadron motto is "Swift and Deadly."

Colonel Schlichter talks about the soldiers he commands with unvarnished admiration. He has 20-year-olds serving under him who have earned combat badges. As to why these young men are willingly and eagerly putting themselves in harm's way, Schlichter flatly declares, "The direction comes from themselves. They like to be challenged."

One of the soldiers in Colonel Schlichter's 1-18th is 28-year-old Sergeant Joseph Moseley. The outline of Moseley's story matches the liberal narrative of the "soldier victim." A junior college student, he served four years in the Army and then four years in the National Guard. During his stint in the Guard, Moseley got mobilized. He went to Iraq, where he had a portion of his calf muscle torn away by an IED. He has since returned to the United States and is undergoing a rigorous rehab program, which he describes as "not always going smoothly." It's virtually impossible that Sergeant Moseley will recover fully from his injuries.

Yet when asked about his time in Iraq, Moseley speaks with evident pride. He says the fact that he took the brunt of the IED's blow means he did his job. None of the men serving under him was seriously injured. When asked how he would feel about being characterized as a victim, Sergeant Moseley bristles. "I'm not a victim," he says. "It's insulting. That's what we signed up for. I knew what I was doing."

Tom Cotton is another soldier who knew what he was doing. When 9/11 occurred, Cotton was in his third year at Harvard Law School. Like most Americans, he was "shocked, saddened, and angered." Like many on that day, he made a promise to serve his country.

And Cotton meant it. After fulfilling the commitments he had already made, including clerking for a federal judge and going to work for a large Washington law firm, Cotton enlisted in the Army. He jokes that doing so came with a healthy six-figure pay cut.

Cotton enlisted for one reason: He wanted to lead men into combat. His recruiter suggested that he use the talents he had spent seven years developing at Harvard and join the JAG Corps, the Armed Forces' law firm. Cotton rejected that idea. He instead began 15 months of training that culminated with his deployment to Iraq as a 2nd lieutenant platoon leader with the 101st Airborne in Baghdad.

The platoon he led was composed of men who had already been in Baghdad for five months. Cotton knew that a new platoon leader normally undergoes a period of testing from his men. Because his platoon was patrolling "outside the wire" every day, there was no time for Cotton and his men to have such a spell. He credits what turned out to be a smooth transition to his platoon's noncommissioned officers, saying, "The troops really belong to the NCOs." After six months, Cotton and his platoon redeployed stateside.

While in Iraq, Cotton's platoon was awarded two Purple Hearts, but suffered no killed in action. His larger unit, however, did suffer a KIA. When I asked Cotton for his feelings about that soldier's death, the pain in his voice was evident. After searching for words, he described it as "sad, frustrating, angry--very hard, very hard on the entire company."

He then added some thoughts. "As painful as it was, the death didn't hurt morale," he said. "That's something that would have surprised me before I joined the Army. Everyone in the Infantry has volunteered twice--once for the Army, once for the Infantry. These are all grown men who all made the decision to face the enemy on his turf. The least you can do is respect them and what they're doing."

Now serving in the Army in Virginia, still enjoying his six-figure pay cut, Tom Cotton says he is "infinitely happy" that he joined the Army and fought in Iraq. "If I hadn't done it," he says, "I would have regretted it the rest of my life."

Regardless of their backgrounds, the soldiers I spoke with had a similar matter-of-fact style. Not only did all of them bristle at the notion of being labeled victims, they bristled at the idea of being labeled heroes. To a man, they were doing what they saw as their duty. Their self-assessments lacked the sense of superiority that politicians of a certain age who once served in the military often display. The soldiers I spoke with also refused to make disparaging comparisons between themselves and their generational cohorts who have taken a different path.

But that doesn't mean the soldiers were unaware of the importance of their undertaking. About a month ago, I attended the commissioning of a lieutenant in the Marine Corps. The day before his commissioning, he had graduated from Harvard. He didn't come from a military family, and it wasn't financial hardship that drove him into the Armed Forces. Don't tell John Kerry, but he studied hard in college. After his commissioning, this freshly minted United States Marine returned to his Harvard dorm room to clean it out.

As he entered the dorm in his full dress uniform, some of his classmates gave him a spontaneous round of applause. A campus police officer took him aside to shake his hand. His father observed, "It was like something out of a movie."

A few weeks after his commissioning, the lieutenant sent me an email that read in part:

I remember when I was down at Quantico two summers ago for the first half of Officer Candidates School. The second to last day I was down there--"Family Day," incidentally--was the 7/7 bombings. The staff pulled us over and told us the news and then said that's basically why they're so hard on us down there: We're at war and will be for a long time, and the mothers of recruits at MCRD and at Parris Island right now are going to be depending on us one day to get their sons and daughters home alive.

When I was in England last week, I talked to an officer in the Royal Navy who had just received his Ph.D. He was saying he thought the larger war would last 20-30 years; I've always thought a generation--mine in particular. Our highest calling: To defend our way of life and Western Civilization; fight for the freedom of others; protect our friends, family, and country; and give hope to a people long without it.

It is surely a measure of how far we've come as a society from the dark days of the 1960s that things like military service and duty and sacrifice are now celebrated. Just because Washington and Hollywood haven't noticed this generational shift doesn't mean it hasn't occurred. It has, and it's seismic.

<h3>Dean Barnett blogs at HughHewitt.com.</h3>

....<b>Contrast the "bluster", above....with the new video described and linked to, here:</b>

Quote:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-bl...t_b_56676.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFGit_tZDqs

Max Blumenthal

Generation Chickenhawk: the Unauthorized College Republican Convention Tour

Posted July 18, 2007 | 12:42 PM (EST)

On July 13, 2007, I visited Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, where the bodies of American soldiers killed in Iraq were freshly interred. Afterwards, I headed across the street to the Sheraton National Hotel, owned by right-wing Korean cult leader Sun Myung-Moon, to meet some of the war's most fervent supporters at the College Republican National Convention.

In conversations with at least twenty College Republicans about the war in Iraq, I listened as they lip-synched discredited cant about "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here." Many of the young GOP cadres I met described the so-called "war on terror" as nothing less than the cause of their time.

<h3>Yet when I asked these College Repulicans why they were not participating in this historical cause, they immediately went into contortions. Asthma. Bad knees from playing catcher in high school. "Medical reasons." "It's not for me." These were some of the excuses College Republicans offered for why they could not fight them "over there." Like the current Republican leaders who skipped out on Vietnam, the GOP's next generation would rather cheerlead from the sidelines for the war in Iraq while other, less privileged young men and women fight and die.</h3>

Along with videographer Thomas Shomaker, I captured a vivid portrait of the hypocritical mentality of the next generation of Republican leaders. See for yourself.

Quote:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_...94486398202142

Wolcott writes:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/b...er_uppers.html

.....I suspect that among those who have not had to fight a war there are always a few who regret not being able to prove themselves on the battlefield. War does seem hardwired into the human experience; the battle cry is a pretty primal thing. So, I can understand the excitement of the twenty somethings like Pat Tilman who joined up after 9/11, driven by a strong desire to test his mettle and physical courage. (Hell, that was the reason Oliver Stone joined up in Vietnam, Kerry too --- it has little to do with politics.)Young men being excited about war is nothing new --- and having their illusions shattered by the reality of it is nothing new either. The literature of the ages can attest to this.

That is not what we are dealing with here, however. We are dealing with a group of right wing glory seekers who chose long ago to eschew putting themselves on the line in favor of tough talk and empty posturing --- the Vietnam chickenhawks and their recently hatched offspring of the new Global War On Terrorism. These are men (mostly) driven by the desire to prove their manhood but who refuse to actually test their physical courage. Neither are they able to prove their virility as they are held hostage by prudish theocrats and their own shortcomings. So they adopt the pose of warrior but never actually place themselves under fire. This is a psychologically difficult position to uphold. Bullshitting yourself is never without a cost.

And I think there is an even deeper layer to this as well and one which is vital to understanding why the right wing baby boomers and their political offspring are so pathologically irrational about dealing with terrorism. Vietnam, as we were all just mercilessly reminded in the presidential election, was the crucible of the baby boom generation, perhaps the crucible of America as a mature world power.

The war provided two very distinct tribal pathways to manhood. One was to join "the revolution" which included the perk of having equally revolutionary women at their sides, freely joining in sexual as well as political adventure as part of the broader cultural revolution. (The 60's leftist got laid. A lot.) And he was also deeply engaged in the major issue of his age, the war in Vietnam, in a way that was not, at the time, seen as cowardly, but rather quite threatening. His masculine image encompassed both sides of the male archetypal coin --- he was both virile and heroic.

The other pathway to prove your manhood was to test your physical courage in battle. There was an actual bloody fight going on in Vietnam, after all. Plenty of young men volunteered and plenty more were drafted. And despite the fact that it may be illogical on some level to say that if you support a war you must fight it, certainly if your self-image is that of a warrior, tradition requires that you put yourself in the line of fire to prove your courage if the opportunity presents itself. You simply cannot be a warrior if you are not willing to fight. This, I think, is deeply understood by people at a primitive level and all cultures have some version of it deeply embedded in the DNA. It's not just the willingness to die it also involves the willingness to kill. Men who went to Vietnam and faced their fears of killing and dying, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, put themselves to this test.

And then there were the chickenhawks. They were neither part of the revolution nor did they take the obvious step of volunteering to fight the war they supported. In fact, due to the draft, they allowed others to fight and die in their place despite the fact that they believed heartily that the best response to communism was to aggressively fight it "over there" so we wouldn't have to fight it here. These were empty boys, unwilling to put themselves on the line at the moment of truth, yet they held the masculine virtues as the highest form of human experience and have portrayed themselves ever since as tough, uncompromising manly men while portraying liberals as weak and effeminate. (Bill Clinton was able to thwart this image because of his reputation as a womanizer. You simply couldn't say he was effeminate.)

Now it must be pointed out that there were many men, and many more women, who didn't buy into any of this "manhood" stuff and felt no need to join in tribal rituals or bloody wars to prove anything. Most of those men, however, didn't aspire to political leadership. Among the revolutionaries, the warriors and the chickenhawks, there were many who did. Indeed, these manhood rituals are more often than not a requirement for leadership. (Perhaps having more women in power will finally change that.)

The only political aspirants among those three groups who failed to meet the test of their generation were the chickenhawks. And our problem today is that they are the ones in charge of the government as we face a national security threat. These unfulfilled men still have something to prove.

And, I suspect because their leadership of the "conservative" movement has infected the new generation, we are seeing much of the same pathology among younger warhawks as well. This is why we hear the shrill war cries of inchoate bloodlust from these quarters every time the terrorists strike. It's a primal scream of inner confusion and self-loathing. These are people whose highest aspirations and deepest longings are wrapped up in their masculinity, and yet they are flaccid failures. They are in a state of arrested development, never having faced their fears, never becoming men, remaining boys standing in the corner of the darkened hallway watching Bill Clinton emerge from a co-ed's dorm room to lead a rousing all night strategy session --- and sitting in the bus station on the way home for Christmas vacation as Chuck Hagel and John Kerry in uniform, looking stalwart and strong, clap each other on the back in brotherly solidarity and prepare to see what they are really made of. They have never been part of anything but an effete political movement in which the stakes go no higher than repeal of the death tax.

So, now we are facing a new crucible, one which the fighting keyboarders insist is an existential fight for everything we believe in. And you once again have campus Republicans sputtering about how their bake sales support the troops, trotting out their manly beer drinking as a stand-in for meeting the test of manhood their own belief system requires. Indeed, in a typical twist of reality, they claim that they are the new campus revolutionaries --- as they support the power structure in every way and insist that traditional values be enforced. I have no idea if they are getting laid, but their hyper-reliance on frat boy hyperbole to prove their masculinity to one another makes me doubt it. And so the weakness of one generation is passed on to the next.

Wolcott concludes his piece wondering how the warhawks can reconcile their alleged admiration for the British "stiff upper lip," with their own hysterical overreaction to the threat of terrorism:

The curious thing is that so many of the rightward bloggers and Fox Newswers who are hailing the Brits for their quiet stoicism and pluck don't seem to realize they're issuing an implicit rebuke to themselves and their fellow Americans. They're saying, in effect, "You've got to admire the Brits for showing calm and quiet perserverence after these explosions--they don't get all hysterical, overdramatic, and overreactive the way we Americans do." They don't seem to realize the example shown by Londoners might be a lesson to them, a model they might follow instead of playing laptop Pattons at full volume every time they feel a rousing post coming on.

Playing laptop Pattons at full volume, supporting the president and the entire power structure of the government is their only way of proving to themselves that they are warriors. They are damaged by their own contradictory past and as a result they cannot see their way through the haze of emotional turmoil to seek out and find real solutions to the problem of terrorism. They lash out with trash talk and threats and constant references to their own resolve because they are afraid. They've always been afraid.......

uncle phil · 07-27-2007, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

It is not hatred that I react to Bush with. I react with outrage to the lies and deliberately misleading statements that Bush consistently makes about matters of national security and other important policy matters. I react negatively to his hubris, his conceit, his ignorance, incompetence, and to his inarticulate manner of speech, his uncurious nature, his pettiness, his insecure personality, and his squandering of his own presidency, the reputation of our nation, the budget surplus that he inherited, his tax policies that favor the rich, his indifference to and lack of compassion for ordinary Americans, and his hypocrisy.

I very rarely post in Tilted Politics, but nothing could iterate my feelings about our current president better than the above...

albania · 07-29-2007, 09:23 AM

Hmm, rational hatred seems like an oxymoron. Certainly one can be rational and hate someone or something, and maybe they can even apply a certain rationale to justify hating someone; however, hate signifies such strong feelings and it is feelings above all that some people find to be the most irrational. But, really, that's neither here nor there.

I suppose it might be clear that I would find it hard to say that I hate Bush. I might not even want to say that I dislike him. I suppose it's more of a passive tolerance, the sort of feelings one might have for an annoying 5 year old. The reason for that is probably because I've lost hope that he'll ever be able to do anything, "war on terror" policy wise, that I might ever agree with.

11-15-2005, 07:10 PM	#41 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	If host wants to respond to #24, I'll proceed from there. Last edited by powerclown; 11-15-2005 at 07:19 PM..

11-16-2005, 07:51 AM	#47 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	What powerclown thinks he has done, is caught host in his own contradictory conspiracy theories. I say thinks because I do not have the stomach to go through each one host has posted on the Bush admin anymore so I can not verify powerclowns belief as true or false. I gave up trying to follow them all at the Bush engages in human sacrifice thread which was moved, wisely, to the paranoia board. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

11-16-2005, 09:04 AM	#49 (permalink)
Lebell Cracking the Whip Location: Sexymama's arms...	Politicophile, I agree with pretty much all you've said. My main beef with the libertarians is that they want to remove ALL security nets and I know from personal experience that that isn't realistic or desirable. For example, OSHA and the related safety regulations (29 CFR 1910) are very much needed since too many employers have shown that they are capable of putting their employee's safety at serious risk to earn another 0.01 cents/share. __________________ "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU! Please Donate!

11-16-2005, 12:49 PM	#57 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	Wow, its been a while since the chicken hawk defense was used..... Weak then weak now. What I always find amusing is how HARD people look for military men who are opposed to Bush, how they tell their stories in print, and yet, the military vote speaks for what the true feelings are. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. Last edited by Ustwo; 11-16-2005 at 12:54 PM..

11-16-2005, 01:22 PM	#59 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	Host vs Politicophile Let it go Host....just let it go. There is no reason to go back to the border of flame you two were on. Please guys....just take a deep breath. __________________ Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

11-15-2005, 09:06 PM	#43 (permalink)
jorgelito All important elusive independent swing voter... Location: People's Republic of KKKalifornia	Libertarian maybe?

11-16-2005, 02:22 PM	#61 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	politicophile - (and anyone else of that age) when I was in your position, almost exactly, I made the same choice (hell I even went to one of the young Republican meetings and had the same feeling of assholes, though it was perhaps better than the 'vibe' I got at a young democrats meeting). I have to say it is perhaps the only real regret I have when I look at my life’s accomplishments. It was an easy choice for me, Clinton was president at the time and the military was demoralized, things were bad and it looked like it was getting worse, which it did being prior to the disgrace in Somalia. I had the worried parents, I had the horny girlfriend, I had a president who I wouldn't trust with my life or my girlfriend and I didn't join. Whats worse is I still took 2.5 years of extra (and not necessary) study, so I would have had the time. End result is, while I am in the top of my field, and a success by any measure, I still feel I let myself down. If you want to go into politics, a military background can only help you. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. Last edited by Ustwo; 11-16-2005 at 02:32 PM..

11-16-2005, 07:05 PM	#62 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i was speechless for a while and then i figured it out---this is the first time i have read something posted under this alias that no real person would ever say. i knew it. i read through this thread and cannot figure out what it is about. i know how it started, but i dont understand anything else. just saying. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 11-16-2005 at 07:22 PM..

07-29-2007, 09:23 AM	#66 (permalink)
albania Psycho	Hmm, rational hatred seems like an oxymoron. Certainly one can be rational and hate someone or something, and maybe they can even apply a certain rationale to justify hating someone; however, hate signifies such strong feelings and it is feelings above all that some people find to be the most irrational. But, really, that's neither here nor there. I suppose it might be clear that I would find it hard to say that I hate Bush. I might not even want to say that I dislike him. I suppose it's more of a passive tolerance, the sort of feelings one might have for an annoying 5 year old. The reason for that is probably because I've lost hope that he'll ever be able to do anything, "war on terror" policy wise, that I might ever agree with.