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PROTESTING CHEAPER THAN THERAPY
It’s all about Traceeee:
I remember a creeping, sick feeling of inevitability that the Iraq war was not for stopping ... On March 20, 2003, the Iraq war became a reality and Australia was involved in starting an armed conflict for the first time. I remember it as a crushing blow ... I cannot help wondering ...
Looking back on those days and weeks after I walked alongside similarly motivated people, I feel a profound connection with them. I can still see their faces. Still feel the hope and quiet strength of their presence. I remember the optimism, unity and belief that I drew from being with them and the lightness they left in my step and in my heart.
These are the things that will give me cause for hope this weekend.
They are the reason I will seek out the company of like-minded souls and wrap myself in their company.
They are the reasons I will walk again for my social and political convictions ...
Imagine how sad Tracee would be if Iraq hadn’t been invaded.
I remember a creeping, sick feeling of inevitability that Webdiary was stopping ... I remember it as a crushing blow ...
Looking back on those days and weeks in which Webdiary flourished, I feel a profound connection with Margo. I can still see her face. Still feel the hope and quiet strength of her presence. I remember the optimism, unity and belief that I drew from being with her and the lightness she left in my step and in my heart.
These are the things that will give me cause for hope this weekend.
They are the reason I will seek out the company of like-minded souls and wrap myself in their company.
They are the reasons I will wank again for my social and political convictions ...
Quick Trace, get to an optometrist - you’ve got ‘I’ disease…
—Nick
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 03 18 at 01:43 AM • permalinkHere, I’ll add in what Traceeeee left out:
I remember a creeping, sick feeling of inevitability that the Iraq war was not for stopping and that Iraqis might be freed… On March 20, 2003, the Iraq war became a reality and Australia was involved in starting an armed conflict for the first time. I remember it as a crushing blow to my hopes for continued dictatorship ... I cannot help wondering what Iraq under Uday and Qusay could have been like…
Looking back on those days and weeks after I walked alongside similarly motivated anti-democracy people, I feel a profound anti-freedom connection with them. I can still see their pro-torture faces. Still feel the hope and quiet strength of their plastic-shredder-favoring presence. I remember the optimism, unity and belief that I drew from being with them and the lightness they left in my step and in my heart as we thought of Saddam’s rape rooms.
These are the things that will give me cause for hope this weekend that Iraq may yet find a strongman who will make Iraqis feel the lash.
They are the reason I will seek out the company of like-minded anti-freedom souls and wrap myself in their democracy-hating company.
They are the reasons I will walk again for my social and political convictions that Arabs do not deserve to be free…
Somebody should send her a nice bunch of Narcissus.
http://www.wordreference.com/definition/narcissus
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 03 18 at 02:38 AM • permalinkAs I’ve gotten older, my previously good vocabulary has shrunk. Somebody help me out and give me an adjective for Tracee’s logorrheic discharge. It’s the standard granola-leftist prose style, where everything, no matter how prosaic, is laden with inappropriate and disproportionate profundity and emotional resonance (for example, where a conservative would say, “We got together at the Danish Embassy, met some good folks”, a lefty would talk about his protest with a lot of crap about lighting candles in a profound silence and feeling the transformational power of their shared emotional conflicts and hopes blah blah blah).
I’ve got that thing happening where an incorrect word is interfering with me thinking of the right one (in this case, the incorrect word is “ponderous.”)
McEnroe, you’re a writer, yes? Help a brother out.
Dave S — Bloviated, bloviation, rhodomontade, pedantic, codswallop, blather, turgid, fucken narcoleptic…
Also, I know I’m just a rude colonial and all, but isn’t Australia a Commonwealth country? So weren’t they sort of involved in starting a conflict in 1914 and 1939?
Bloviated codswallop has a sort of ring to it…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 18 at 02:47 AM • permalinkDo you remember where you were at this time three years ago? What you were thinking?
Let’s see, I’m not Tracee Hutchison, so it can’t have been Rosebud Centrelink.
Posted by Oafish and Infantile on 2006 03 18 at 02:55 AM • permalink#9 Could it be “hippopotosesquipedelian” is the word you are thinking of?
#7 Mike G, you’ve nailed it, mate. That’s our Traceeeee.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 03 18 at 03:15 AM • permalinkWith heart pounding I bounced lightly down to the local neighbourhood Harvey Norman franchise. It’s familiar signage for once almost surreal. The now heroic juxtaposed against the ordinary. “48 hours”, Bush had announced for the world to hear, in cold quiet tones surely no one could mistake, not even the cynically deaf of the Baghdad gang listening as sharply as ever for any change in the hot afternoon desert breeze. “We will be there” said Blair too. As if anyone could harbour any doubt. “This is a job no honourable people can shirk” Howard had said to a nation that had already steeled itself, sadly, nodding knowingly with a determination born of experience. Minds already made up.
They knew. Life and liberty did not come cheap. The tyrants and murder gang bosses had shown to all how much they would give to snatch it away, paying freely like drunken Jihadists on the very eve of Paradise, in the turgid gritty currency of their subject peoples’ blood.
“I will have that Samsung Tantus.” I told the young salesman, overweight,red-faced and panting already, belly splitting a white shirt overhanging dark trousers in need of a dry-clean. “The biggest on the floor.” “Also that Sony Digital Control Centre. And that DGTec box. Throw in the VCR. Hi-Def of course”
“All of them sir?” asked the fat young man.
“What’s the best sound system you have?” I answered, as if he had never spoken.“Oh, one thing more” I added as I flourished my amex card. Don’t leave home without it. Well not today anyway. “All this must be delivered, assembled, installed and working without fault by noon the day after tomorrow” I mentioned casually while surveying the build up of boxes.
“The day after tomorrow?” queried the fat man nervously.
“Or the whole deal is off.” I answered.A furtive exchange of glances with a close-by floor manager, hovering like a Durfan vulture. A silent nod—the unspoken communication of every shop, the global lingo of the retailer.
“It will be there this afternoon sir” said the fat man walking.
They are the reason I will seek out the company of like-minded souls and wrap myself in their company….They are the reasons I will walk again for my social and political convictions…
Good thing she has that to live for, apparently lacking family, a job, classwork, a pet, or a decent hobby to care about. Without the protest, she’d never get out of bed in the morning.
Posted by Aaron - Freewill on 2006 03 18 at 05:02 AM • permalinkI believe the word he seeks (my choice, anyway) is “pusillanimous”.
Pusillanimous comes from Late Latin pusillanimis, from Latin pusillus, “very small, tiny, puny” + animus, “soul, mind.”
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 03 18 at 05:45 AM • permalinkThis reminds me of a car I saw the other day.
It was stopped at a stop light and as I approached, I could see it was an older car and the back was covered with bumper stickers.
Now, normally I would have waited until I got closer to see what political bent the driver possessed, but there was a rather large sticker that made it clear even before I could see the others. It simply said:
I (heart) ME
Immediately, I knew it HAD to be liberal.
#4, I only saw Shock And Awe on a small screen myself, but it must have been really great on a BIG screen with surround sound.
Could you hear the screams of pain, fear and terror bouncing around the room?
Could you see any of the body parts of Iraqi women and children flying through the air on that really BIG screen when Shock And Awe began to totally kick both civilian and evil regime butt?
Then again, the cameras were pretty far away, and the human sounds would have been drowned out by the explosions, and only a few hundred people were wasted during those nights of bombing, so yeah, it would have been hard to see that kind of detail.
—————————
It might come as a sickening surprise, but you can be pro-peace and pro-democracy at the same time.
There is a time for war, but there is, or was, also a time to let the valuable work of SAS and intelligence agencies run its course.
There were no WMDs, Saddam’s generals had been paid off not to fight, the evil old f..ker was already on his way out, and the some of the half trillion spent by the Allies so far might have been better spent really winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis with bomb-free goodwill.
On the peace marches : I’m sure those thousands of World War 2, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans who marched in Sydney, Melbourne, Paris, New York City, London, in February and March, 2003 would feel so pleased to know what you really think of them.
Yeah, disgusting the way all those veterans and war nurses dared to use the democracy and the rights of freedom that they fought for to try and warn those who have not experienced war of the true horrors to come, and even dare to suggest there might have been another way to displace one of the West’s long favoured dictators of choice.
Hmmm, perhaps by cutting off the hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal bribes and payments that propped up his regime? Just a thought…
You all got the War you wanted, but you still can’t tolerate the fact that hundreds of millions of people across the planet didn’t want, or see the need, for democracy to take root in Iraq by the way of the bomb and the gun.
There were other options to Shock and Awe, as many of the world’s best intelligence agencies pointed out to Bush, Blair and Howard before the war began.
They chose to ignore this solid and proven advice, and now true democracy is struggling for a foothold as a result of those appalling errors of judgement.
President Bush has acknowledged that terrible mistakes were made before and after the war kicked off. Isn’t it time the pro-war crowd grew up and did likewise?
And yes, Traceeeee is an incredibly wet and flowery writer. That fact is definitely not in dispute.
Long live democracy in Iraq.
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 18 at 08:16 AM • permalinkLLL, as God is my witness, I have no idea what you are trying to say. You were aginst the war, but it’s good that Iraq is a democracy, but we screwed that up, so it would have been better to leave Saddam alone, but we didn’t so we need to admit our mistakes and then….
“Long live democracy in Iraq.”
Huh?
LLL, I find your equivocation quite interesting dear chap.
While I appreciate you acknowledging that Iraq under Saddam was not Garden of Eden II, I do find it hard to reconcile the view that deposing Saddam and restoring democracy into Iraq could have occured without the armed intervention of the Allies.
Sadly covertly funding a domestic over throw proved disasterous for the Kurds and Shia and the Marsh Arabs in the 1990s.
The only thing that would have brought hope and democracy to Iraq was meaningful show of force.
It also had the side benefit of pulling Libya into line and encouraging pro-democracy in Lebanon.
While Geoff’s comments are amusing and I’m sure he’ll admit, facile in the same way Traceee whatsherface’s column is, it doesn’t mean that we conservatives glory in war.
But there is a time when talk has to end, where making threats and sanctions have to be backed up by actions.
As for the war vets and nurses who protested the Iraq war - it was a wonderful testament for the democracy in which we live that they had the freedom to do that.
It was a pity that until liberation, demonstrations against the regime was a luxury ordinary Iraqis couldn’t afford.
As for the gobs load of goodwill the coalition is generating, I suggest you visit Iraq the Model and Michael Yon, watching so much of the ABC is obviously atrophying your brain.
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 03 18 at 08:37 AM • permalinkYou can be pro-peace and pro-democracy. You can be against the use of massive war to remove a dictator, and for the removal of that dictator.
Of course it’s good that the slaughter-hungry bastard is gone, but it wasn’t the only option available to the West to get Saddam gone from Iraq forever.
And when you slam the smelly dread-heads and floweries who were marching before the War began, you’re also slamming all the others who marched, including the thousands of veterans who lived through the horrors of past wars and didn’t want the people of Iraq to experience the same.
Veterans should be respected for the sacrifices they’ve made in their lifetimes, but they should be listened to as well, as they have much to teach those who believe that war is the first and best choice.
Pre-emptive strikes and the use of Shock And Awe weren’t the only plans and options available to generate regime change in Iraq. The method used by Bush, Blair and Howard was obviously the wrong choice.
Introducing war into the transition process allowed waves of chaos to enter the regime change process, and is one of the main reasons why there is a tide of dead and disabled Iraqis today.
Bush admitted mistakes were made before and after the war began, but few others who pushed for the rush to war are willing to do the same now.
Except for Daniel Pipes, that is, and Richard Perle, and the other neocons who now bailing out on their long cherished belief in the use of pre-emptive strikes to generate regime change.
Pre-emptive strikes and the use of Shock And Awe weren’t the only plans and options available. The SAS and intelligence agencies had made massive progress towards seeing the removal of Saddam when the war option was activated.
Democracy isn’t screwed up in Iraq, that wasn’t said at all, it’s just been a hell of a lot more of a bloodier transition from dictatorship to democracy than it needed to be.
There were no WMDs, there was no immediate international threat, the need for a rush into war has now proven to be wrong, and the people of Iraq, and the families of the dead Allied soldiers, have paid far too heavier a price for these poor decisions.
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 18 at 09:07 AM • permalink#27
The SAS and intelligence agencies had made massive progress towards seeing the removal of Saddam when the war option was activated.Please elucidate LLL, I wasn’t aware that cold war-esque surgical removal of the regime by the SAS was an option. Could you please oblige by providing links to your sources.
And how limited did you really expect this war to be?
Perhaps send the paras down to all of Saddam’s palaces in Rove’s silent black helicopters in the hopes he’d be at one of them having a Sunday roast with Uday and Qusay and say, ‘excuse me chaps, you’ve won an all expenses holiday at the Haig - you can have adjoining suites with Milosevic’.
War is ugly, but it is sometimes necessary and it was necessary in 2003 to depose Saddam.
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 03 18 at 09:16 AM • permalinkThere were no WMDs, Saddam’s generals had been paid off not to fight, the evil old f..ker was already on his way out
And his sons on the way in, in case that somewhat important fact has eluded you for the last few years.
and the some of the half trillion spent by the Allies so far might have been better spent really winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis with bomb-free goodwill.
Yeah, because all they’ve done in the past three years has been to continue bombing Iraq into the ground, right? Sheesh, what an idiotic statement.
You all got the War you wanted, but you still can’t tolerate the fact that hundreds of millions of people across the planet didn’t want, or see the need, for democracy to take root in Iraq by the way of the bomb and the gun.
Oh, I tolerate that, but that doesn’t make them any less of idiots for believing in some fairytale solution in which pretty words would have made Saddam see the light.
In fact, this calls for a link to Jim Treacher’s astute assessment of the situation from three years ago.
There were other options to Shock and Awe, as many of the world’s best intelligence agencies pointed out to Bush, Blair and Howard before the war began.
Is that the same intelligence agencies who botched the WMD call so badly? Thanks, but no thanks.
They chose to ignore this solid and proven advice
Bwahahahahaha.
and now true democracy is struggling for a foothold as a result of those appalling errors of judgement.
I guess we should have sent in some of those who always seem to know better, like you, to do the democracy-spreading. Don’t call us for ransom money, though.
President Bush has acknowledged that terrible mistakes were made before and after the war kicked off. Isn’t it time the pro-war crowd grew up and did likewise?
Who the hell here hasn’t acknowledged that mistakes were made? The points that evade you and everybody else that makes these arguments are:
1) Mistakes inevitably happen in every war. People who don’t get that simple fact have watched too many movies or read too many Tom Clancy novels. Iraq hasn’t been any better or worse than any other war in that regard.
2) What we’re not acknowledging as true are not the mistakes that were indeed made, but the hysterical claims by people like you that Iraq has been turned into rubble, that every single Iraqi hates America now, that there were obviously better ways of doing every single thing (even though nobody ever bothers to come up with a detailed explanation, oddly enough), etc. etc. et-fucking-cetera.
I hope this post furthers your learning efforts as you continue to un-fuckwit-ify yourself on the topic of the Iraq War.
Don’t be such a sook LLL. Stay in school. Work hard. And one day when you grow up you can get a nice job, keep your nose clean, be respectful towards your elders and betters, save up and you can have a big screen with surround sound too.
In the meantime you would be well advised to keep your mouth well and truly shut about things you have no idea about. Such as war. Or veterans’ opinions.
Before you make such a complete goose of yourself no one will be able to help you.
Triple L spouts the usual tripe about how there were other options to secure regime change in Iraq but can come up with nothing other than some vague intimation that perhaps James Bond or Austin Powers would have been able to do it in a covert operation. Ignored is the fact that we had been at war with Iraq ever since the first Gulf war. That no WMD were found is nothing more than 20:20 hindsight. We know he had them at some point because he used them. They are probably in Syria now. And it is also a fact that Saddam provided a haven for al-qaida, which after 9-11, was not to be tolerated.
Thanks, PW #29, for finding the link to Treacher’s assessment of the peace lover’s solution, saved me the trouble of finding it.#10 Bloviated, bloviation, rhodomontade, pedantic, codswallop, blather, turgid, fucken narcoleptic…
Interestingly, McEnroe used all those words on my 2005 Annual Henchman Performance Evaluation. They seem to be tried and true words for him.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 03 18 at 11:38 AM • permalinkLLL—PW has hit the important points of your dissertation. So I’ll just add a couple of comments.
First, take note of the fact that the massive bribery scheme as “Food for Oil” was not really known until after Iraq was liberated, and the Coalition dug into captured documents. Kinda hard to stop a bribery scheme if you don’t know about it, or have evidence, hmmmmmm?
Second, you are pining for the days of the law enforcement approach to terrorism, where everything was kept low key, and ran through intelligence and law enforcement agencies. This is known as “The Clinton Model”, which usually ended in blowing aspirin factories, shooting camels in the butt with cruise missiles, or turning down chances to capture Osama bin Laden…...while American warships, barracks, and embassies were being blown to hell by suicidal terrorists. And was capped by the events of 11 September 2001.
In simple terms, The Clinton Model didn’t work, as demonstrtated by an objective historical review, thusly: Clinton enforced his model through policy and actions, and terrorism flourished.
Will the Bush model work? An initial assessment says “Probably”. It could still fail; nothing is certain in this world. But to blindly follow a policy known to be ineffective? That’s the height of arrogance and stupidity.
In an earlier thread, I suggested that you stop cherry picking your history. You haven’t. You really need to do that and un-fuckwit-ify yourself as well.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 03 18 at 12:21 PM • permalinkwronwright — I go where my inspiration leads me…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 18 at 12:38 PM • permalinkthe evil old f..ker was already on his way out
LLL, this is the little bomb that brings your whole, wordy treatise to a screechingly pointless halt. What is your evidence please? I don’t know anyone who believed Saddam’s bloody stranglehold on Iraq was loosening in the slightest. Upon his eventual death, his psychotic sons were set to take over and continue business as usual. And, please, no bleating about sanctions. We all know where that was going.
Also, I share #24’s confusion as to what position, exactly, you’re trying to take. You seem to be all over the place. Hedging your bets, are you?
I think you should look Traceeee up. I think the two of you have a lot in common.
They are the reason I will seek out the company of like-minded souls and wrap myself in their company.
Ah, into the echo chamber then dear Traceeee.
Posted by Major John on 2006 03 18 at 02:07 PM • permalinkDave S. — Cumbrous? Pedantic? Pedagogic?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 18 at 02:08 PM • permalinkGood God, Latte’s done it again—made a thread all about him and his dimtwittery.
Anyway, Dave S., the passable priggish philanthrope’s pompous pontifications pommel others with ponderous polemics ponied about to post-mortem the “potentate’s” maladministrations in order to pluck the proletariat heartstrings and warn them of the Philistines’ intent to exploit the plebian populations of “colonial” “empires” and pollutions of the oppressed planet.
Sometimes these pontificating poltroons use portmanteau postmodern provisions and protractions to do so.
#38,#42What is your evidence please?
You’re asking this of LLL? You’ll never get a non-delusional answer. After all, he already has the problem of war and peace solved, as he announced in a previous post, by forming alliances among teen-agers all over the world to never fight in another war. So why should he respond to silly questions about “evidence” I ignore his posts but my eye did catch Ushie’s observation that he has once again hijacked a post to concentrate on his dimwittery. Perhaps the time will come that he will get a job or do some other useful thing like travel to Iraq to give the peaceful OBLs a hand.Judas, LLL, gag me with an espresso spoon why doncha. I’ll bet you’re one of those “war never solves anything” wankers who after 9-11 wanted us to go politely knocking on Mullah Omar’s door armed with the properly executed international arrest warrants and haul OBL off to the Hague for tea and justice. At the time, I never could get one, and I asked many, of you to tell me what Plan B was after Omar told us to sod off as he slammed that door in our stupid, self-righteous, naive faces.
Here’s the deal: Technically, a state of war with Iraq still existed because Hussein never complied with the terms of the ‘91 cease fire agreement that allowed him to remain in power (IMO, that’s the biggest mistake we’ve made). SAS, Ml6, CIA—please. They had no plans. Their interests were in preserving the status quo. Introducing war into the transition process my ass. There was no “transition process”. Saddam wasn’t going anywhere unless it was feet first. And even then, the psychotic Uday/Orsay tag team waited in the wings.
Our SC pals, France and Russia, along with others among our “allies”, were breathlessly anticipating the moment they could finally cash in on all those oil contracts that had been languishing for ever so long. Once Hans Blix and his merry band of Clouseaux finally declared “if there are any WMD around here, we certainly don’t know where they are and we’ve looked, you know, everywhere, just everywhere” and packed it in, the pressure would have been intense to lift the sanctions. Then Saddam would have been free to pursue whatever dastardly plan his fevered little brain could devise. And he’d have had a ton more money to finance those pursuits.
No one ever claimed that the danger from Saddam was immediate. In fact, President Bush went out of his way to make clear that it was not immediate and that was the whole friggin’ point. Once danger is imminent, it’s too late to do much more than react. After 9-11, we were not disposed to RE-action and too late. The only Iraqis who think life was better under Saddam are those who had status, rank and privilege under Saddam. The rest want to move forward to the good life. They think the sacrifices (even those that were forced upon them by way of shock and awe) they’ve had to make are and will continue to be worth it.
Normally I don’t engage in useless debate with the likes of latte lover. They iterate the same worthless talking points over and over and over again ad nauseam, facts be damned. And they do it with such an air of smug moral superiority it makes you want to just squash them like the annoying little bugs they are. Sometimes, though, I just can’t seem to help myself (obviously). I have a modicum of respect for those true-blue, turn-the-other-cheek pacifists who live by a code of absolute non-violence come what may. I think they’re foolish, but worthy of a certain respect for their consistency if nothing else. But that’s not latte. For the lattes, pacifism is a cloak they don to conceal whatever shortcomings or ugliness lie beneath.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 03 18 at 03:00 PM • permalinkDave S., from Watson’s translation in Ch. 2 of the Zhuangzi: “People suppose that words are different from the peeps of baby birds, but is there any difference, or isn’t there?”
Slip the phrase “from an overweening lefty ninnyhammer” in the appropriate place in that sentence, and all will be revealed.
#9 Dave S.,
It’s the standard granola-leftist prose style, where everything, no matter how prosaic, is laden with inappropriate and disproportionate profundity and emotional resonance…
Pretentious and pusillanimous pseudointellectual psychobabble.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 03 18 at 03:26 PM • permalinkGood God, Latte’s done it again—made a thread all about him and his dimtwittery.
It’s your own fault for answering him. You will NEVER get honest debate from a lefty, so what’s the point? Give him one straight answer, and then when he proceeds to prove he’s only here for the free bandwidth and blogspot is too hard to work, ignore him.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 18 at 03:57 PM • permalinkThey are the reason I will seek out the company of like-minded souls and wrap myself in their company.
Yet strangely, I’ve never yet been to a march where any left would admit the slightest connection to the sign-waving, barking mad buffoon next to him…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 18 at 05:03 PM • permalinkYes, pusillanimous is the word: lacking courage and resolution, marked by contemptible timidity, cowardly.
We have seen a perfect example of pusillanimity in this thread, ostensibly about Traceee, but redirected in near inimitable fashion by the above vaciLLLating poster.
More applicable to this creature, perhaps, is the rehtorical device known as antanaclasis, a stylistic trope, in which a single word is repeated, but with a different meaning each time.
As to the the statement “allowed waves of chaos to enter the regime change process”, the deponent is tempted therefrom to view his rehetoric through the lens of quantum theory.
His apparent ability to determine the quantum state of the contents of a closed experiment—let’s call it “Schroedinger’s Iraq”—is not only uncanny but presupposes the collapse of the probability wave sometime in 2001, instead of much earlier, in the Clinton Model (tm) of the Universe.
Further, his dialectical style is Heisenbergian in its uncertainty. The more we know about his current position, the less accurately we can predict where he will venture next. And, as we follow his movements with ever-increasing amazement at their fluidity, his position on issues under discussion becomes less and less discernable to the discriminating (and ever-patient) reader.
This creature provides us a living (apparently) example of the left’s misunderstanding of this profound principle of causality.
In the Left’s sharp formulation of the law of causality—“if we know the present exactly, we can calculate the future”-it is not the conclusion that is wrong but the premise.
You may think you have the present “pinned down”, but the idea that you can predict the course of future events thereby is flawed.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 03 18 at 06:07 PM • permalinkI was infact watching it on the plasma tele. Thats what I was doing this time 3 years ago. Then I walked up george street in the city to watch the freak parade tht afternoon. There was also a contingent of Kurds holding up placards with rather graphic images of gassed victims, however, there was a curious void around them, none of the long-haired soap avoiding hippies wanted to acknowledge their presense, the kurds had been swallowed up by a SEP field.
The Saddam regime was on its way out, it was propped up by the hundreds of millions in sanction-busting bribes, and plenty of countries knew what was going on - Canada, for example, who tried to raise the alarm, but were ignored by Howard & Co.
Saddam was so weak and his regime was so close to collapse he made offers of voluntary exile, which were rejected in February and March, 2003, in favour of the old style invade and overthrow. Offers for hs exile were extended to Richard Perle, amongst others.
Special forces groups, including the SAS, has done plenty of good work through the end of 2002 in getting plenty of Saddam’s generals to agree not to fight when the time came, which is why so many commentators like Miranda Devine, The Bolster and David Brooks went on and on about ‘the cakewalk’.
No protestor ever said ‘No Democracy For Iraq’, the signs always said ‘No War On Iraq’.
If Saddam and his regime hadn’t been so good for business, he would have been gone years before the war began. If you don’t understand that, you must have been reading the op-ed pages too much, instead of the business sections.
How can there be any kind of debate on these issues here, when the war option is always the first choice for the extreme right? Particularly when those about to be invaded and occupied just happen to be majority Muslims…
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 18 at 08:12 PM • permalinkLLL, I can’t help but notice you didn’t bother to answer any of the questions posed to you, just a restatment of your dubious assertions.
If you really feel that the regeime was on its way out, you have no sense of reality.
Could you please give us one source that you base that statement on?
No protestor ever said ‘No Democracy For Iraq’, the signs always said ‘No War On Iraq’.
Uh, same difference.
But let me ask you a question. Let’s assume that instead of invasion, the UN had convinced the coalition to wait. The inspectors had gone in and found no WMDs. Would you, at that point, insisted that sanctions be lifted?
The Saddam regime was on its way out, it was propped up by the hundreds of millions in sanction-busting bribes, and plenty of countries knew what was going on - Canada, for example, who tried to raise the alarm, but were ignored by Howard & Co. ...
If Saddam and his regime hadn’t been so good for business, he would have been gone years before the war began.
If you don’t see how these two statements quite flatly contradict each other, you’re beyond help. Amazingly, you even placed both of them in the same post. You really are grasping at any plank of rotten wood that comes floating by you here, aren’t you.
No protestor ever said ‘No Democracy For Iraq’, the signs always said ‘No War On Iraq’.
As Kyda recalled from her many discussions with people like them and you, you’re oddly quiet on the obvious follow-up: “Okay, then what else?”
How can there be any kind of debate on these issues here, when the war option is always the first choice for the extreme right?
Congrats, you’ve just managed to occupy a second slot in the “top 10 most idiotic statements ever written in these comment sections” in addition to the one you grabbed a few days ago. Seriously, what is it that turns your brain into useless mush on this particular topic?
At any rate, I’m sure you really believe that you’re in favour of democracy in Iraq, but while that may be true in the most abstract of meanings, your glib attitude merely mirrors how everyone you might ask will tell you they’re “for world peace”. As I’ve written before, you simply don’t seem to have any credible idea how to get there, and you don’t seem very concerned with finding out if the ideas you do have actually are credible. You just repeat them ad nauseam as though they’re chiseled in stone tablets and handed down from Mount Kofi, not noticing just how stupid you sound. In that, you’re cookie-cutter leftist, or maybe I should say “cookie-cutter idiotarian”, given that such creatures occupy parts of the far right, as well. Go read that Treacher post I linked, then read it again, then get it tattooed on the insides of your eyelids. Eventually you may come to realize how much of an idiot you’re being right now.
Yeah, I’ve been getting the Heidelbergian vibe too, but LLL has been exhibiting attempts at the occasional humorous post, so I’d hope it’s not Heidelberg himself, as that would require a slight change in my assessment of the guy (Heidelberg, that is), and we all know how much we on the right abhor admitting our errors.
#7 Mike G,
Spot on.#10 Richard,
I think that if you examine the circumstances, the unpleasantness of 1914 was started by the Serbs, Austro-Hungarians, and the Germans, in that order of responsibility. The British Empire got involved in response to the German invasion of Belgium.In the case of 1939 the whole thing was willed by Old Adolf, albeit the Russians covered his back while the French and the British Commonwealth let him get away with so much in previous years that he expected to meet with no trouble from them one more time.
The p-word Dave was looking for was “pusillanimous”? Shucks, I thought it was “pissant”.
LLL seems to overlook 12 years of sanctions, several failed coup attempts, and 14 months of trying to work through the corrupt UN before the Coalition turned to “the first option” of a military campaign. I suspect LLL does not understand how the Iraq Campaign fits into the larger War on Terror, though he, she, or it is not alone in that respect. There is a willful refusal to understand that among liberals (sensu American), lefties, MSM people, and general chuckleheads. I have explained it on this site’s comment threads before and am in no mood to do so again just for LLL’s benefit (you can all stop the cheering now, especially you wronwright).
People who say they favor Iraqi democracy who also denounce the only way it was ever going to come to Iraq are like pimps extolling chastity.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 03 18 at 11:55 PM • permalinkRe #54, TomB, ignoring pointed questions and hard facts offered in response to their statememts is a form of denial often seen in people engaged in moral relativism. LLL is one such person, at least on the topic of Iraq.
Oh, that, and LLL’s inability to do little more than repeat assertions offered as “valid facts”.
Sad, as LLL is intelligent and less idiotic in other areas. Or at least can mimic intelligence.
PW:
I doubt that LLL is Heidelberg in disguise, although Bryla is possible…...he has faked a psuedo-RWDB before (“ssssssabre”, or some such). If so, now he’s faking a slighty-left-of-center-progressive?
Eh, what a waste of pixels. And not very original. Nor very flattering to him….he has to fake being somewhat rational? Of course, LLL/Bryla/whoever will see it as coming down, not going up.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 03 19 at 12:43 AM • permalinkThe problem with hindsight experts on Iraq and so much else is they simply have no concept of what it is like to live in a country ruled by somebody like Saddam. Sure they read books and accounts of mixed worth. But this is something that is so far beyond their experience it is simply beyond the grasp of their minds. Therefore they have no concept on how enormeously difficult it is to dislodge a regime anything like Saddam’s.
The constant surveillance, the secret police checking on everything, informers everywhere just waiting for an opportunity to ingratiate themselves with somebody, the constant requirement to affirm one’s support for the pissant tyrant one step further up the ladder, never say a word out of place, be seen in the right places, the near complete control on information, the suspicious neighbours and petty officials, never say anything that could be misunderstood, the people disappearing, the tortured bodies that show up that no one can talk about, never offend anyone who you shouldn’t, the unlimited absolute arbitrary power, flatter the right people, don’t be seen to be a supporter of the wrong people, the shifting sands, the lines of patronage often unseen and unknown, the constant brutal war on one front or another consuming lives at random all around, the daily struggle to live, get enough food, medicine and above all the constant all pervasive terror always present, everywhere, year after year after year…
These regimes are not easily overthrown. They rarely collapse under their own weight. Look at Libya, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Cuba ...
Saddam and his heirs would have stayed in power indefinitely. Uprisings are easily put down if the brutality of the regime is has no restraint at all. Palace plots are easily exposed if every third conspirator is a spy or double or triple agent. Not understanding this was the mistake of ‘91.
The world is not in good shape. But it’s a damn sight better off than it would have been if Saddam had still been in power.
Therefore they have no concept on how enormeously difficult it is to dislodge a regime anything like Saddam’s.
Ironically enough, their massive (and massively unsuccessful) effort to dislodge Bush, Howard et al. including the occasional nutcase’s call for armed insurrection has apparently given them no understanding at all of this fact. Instead, it seems to be processed as “Bush is even harder to get out of office than we can ever imagine Saddam being, so Bush must be the bigger dictator”, or somesuch. Ah, to live in a fantasy world where the worldview shapes the evidence instead of the other way around.
...“Bush is even harder to get out of office than we can ever imagine Saddam being, so Bush must be the bigger dictator”...
This might be a partial explanation for the pandemic Bush Derangement Syndrome™.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 03 19 at 01:52 AM • permalinkLLL:
“There were other options to Shock and Awe, as many of the world’s best intelligence agencies pointed out to Bush, Blair and Howard before the war began.”
No. We did not do that. That is not our job.
We provide the known facts and an estimate of capability and intentions based on that.
EVERY intellugence agency in teh world estimated that teh Saddamites had WMD. Their constant work to undermine the sanctions regime was also known. Banned weapons were discovererd in Iraq post-liberation.
As for the chem stocks, the fact is that they have not yet been located. No more than that can be said at this stage. it took us six months to locate the Iraqi MiG-25 FOXBAT force, when they were known to be on a particular air base. They had buried the aircraft on that base, you see.
How much harder to search an entire nation?
The triumphalist trumpetings of much of the left about their ‘proven non-existance’ is not supported by the available facts.
MarkL
CanberraMichael Lonie — Sorry, but in both cases the British Empire could have simply viewed the invasion of Belgium and Poland with alarm and called for constructive dialogue between the combatants. Just like FDR could have demanded urgent talks between Japan and China. The BE were obvious provocateurs… dislocates jaw talking out of left side of mouth…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 19 at 12:15 PM • permalinkgeoff—
The problem with hindsight experts on Iraq and so much else is they simply have no concept of what it is like to live in a country ruled by somebody like Saddam.
Do you recall when Saddam assembled his government ministers, military brass and other assorted high ranking personages and they stood one-by-one, each awash in flop sweat, to swear their undying loyality to the great and powerful Oz, er, Saddam as the strongarm’s came and removed certain of them, seemingly at random, never to be seen nor heard from again? The single most chilling piece of film ever.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 03 19 at 02:56 PM • permalinkTracee’s article reminds of me. I myself find the Iraq war challenges me and my values that I have developed and makes me wonder if I can find my true path within myself and think to myself “my, my, my”. Personally, I think I must find my way for me, myself and nobody else and I must walk on my own path that I make for myself.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 19 at 04:37 PM • permalink
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Whoa! How could marches by <.001% of the population not have stopped the war? No wonder she’s all bent out of shape.