The US secret war

[Bernie Gunther]

it's also probably worth pointing out, in this battle of allegedly high ideals, that the terrorists in question have so far killed quite a few less innocent people than the USAF, to pick only one branch of the humungous US military.

In my mind killing innocents and torturing makes you hell-damned scum who will spend eternity sucking stinking pus from satan's foul, rotten, septic cock.

But if you're claiming the high moral ground, your relative slaughter of the innocents quotient is presumably quite important.

So where is the high moral standard to be found?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

<snip> Blah, blah, freakin' blah. The very opposite, eh? And when did this happen? What year? What decade? What century? (Include in your thoughts on this question notice of slavery, Indian wars, imperialism, etc. that go right back to the very founding.) Did our "fall" just happen to occur in your lifetime? Is this whinging of yours really just all about you?

Ah, so much guilt for such a young nation. Is it so hard to come to terms with your crimes that you have to sort of mix them up into a big stew of guilt? I am focussing on the crimes your nation has recently been committing. You have kidnapped and tortured people without due process and in violation of international law (except if you believe John "the gimp" Yoo) You have bombed hospitals and shot ambulance drivers in Iraq. You have tried to impose radical privatisation on a nation that is about to turn around and tell you to fuck off, and I have every confidence, is going to give you a humiliation that is going to make Vietnam look like a mild bad dream.

Good fucking luck getting out of Iraq in one piece, you torture freak nonce. You are a disgrace to the human race and so is your nation.

Which is very sad considering the noble ideals of its founders. If I were sitting here with Tom Paine, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, I'd have no doubt that we'd all be rooting for the Iraqis and their revolution. I can't imagine any of them having sympathy for a bunch of lying torture freak nonces, but I can imagine them rooting for a country freeing itself from conquest and exploitation by a bunch of fanatics who thought they were the master race and that that made it OK to torture people and terrorise them to get whatever they wanted.

 

[davekriss]

Liberty is what the U.S. stands for. You know it, and everyone else does too. That we are imperfect is beside the point.

Yer quite right there, sweet potato, the U.S. is all about Liberty -- the Liberty of the Master to exploit the Slave. The Liberty to engage in what William Blum calls "the American Holocaust" in Central America during the Reagan-GHWB years, where we aided, sponsored, and f*cking trained some of the world's most fiendish death squads in order to quell a populist craving for quality schools, hospitals, and a patch of land. The Liberty to cut taxes by several trillions of dollars over just a ten year span for mostly the Bush Base, then claim the U.S. can't afford to meet the social security promises made to millions even though the shortfall pales in comparison to the tax cuts when extended over the same time horizon; the Liberty to lie to the American people about a non-existent threat in Iraq in order to find a comfy home for four impregnable (Halliburton-built) garrisons from which the USG can radiate oligarchic-serving imperial power throughout the oil drenched mideast for that not-too-distant time when we really begin racing down the backward slope of Hubbert's Peak; the Liberty to withold aid to the poor of an American city after a natural disaster so that the whole world watched people die of thirst on their rooftops, surrounded by the sewage and chemical laden waters of Katrina; the Liberty to crush real democracy, to poison minds with numbing propoganda, to pollute the souls of fellow Americans, so that the plutocrats can run wild, free from the rule of law and any sense of morality. That is the Liberty of which you speak!

 

[davekriss]

In my mind killing innocents and torturing makes you hell-damned scum who will spend eternity sucking stinking pus from satan's foul, rotten, septic cock.

LOL (not that this is a laughing matter, but I did laugh -- that's what I always liked about you Bernie, always the epitome of academic calm and civility!

On edit: Bravo, mate! Truly bravo!

 

[rogue yam]

Bernie, this is some really weak stuff.

So OK, foreign opinions don't count, even if they happen to be a minor judge someplace. If you didn't get nailed in a US court of law it didn't happen ...

I said let's wait and see. I pointed out the difference between "the Italians" and one Italian. Calm down.

I have news for you. The number of people around the world who want to see the US humiliated increases tenfold with each word someone like you utters.

Again with the "around the world" nonsense. It is mere arrogance for you to simply "know", as well as you know your own name, that you have "news" for me about what people around the world are thinking.

Watch what happens in Iraq for example. Pretty soon, Sistani is going to tell the US to go home.

You're the expert, Bernie. But my take is that Sistani will not be in any great rush to have our protection removed. Further, Sistani will not be dictator. The Kurds and Sunnis will have their say, as will the Shia, all through their elected representatives.

They may do so, or they may try to cling to their gains. If they try to cling, I think we're going to be seeing marines stomping on the fingers of desperate collaborators trying to get on the last chopper again.

You've completely lost me with this part, Bernie. If the elected Iraqi government asks the U.S. to leave, we will. Are you denying this?

 

[rogue yam]

it's also probably worth pointing out, in this battle of allegedly high ideals, that the terrorists in question have so far killed quite a few less innocent people than the USAF, to pick only one branch of the humungous US military.

I simply don't believe this. And besides, it is completely unclear what exactly you are claiming. Are we talking Iraq? Worldwide? Over what time period? Most importantly, you are drawing a moral equivalence between the deliberate targeting of civilians (by terrorists) with the accidental and unavoidable loss of innocents that has accompanied U.S. military actions, actions which are the most measured and precisely-targeted military actions in history. This is moral cretinism.

In my mind killing innocents and torturing makes you hell-damned scum who will spend eternity sucking stinking pus from satan's foul, rotten, septic cock.

Lotsa potty mouth, little thought. As a rule, we don't torture or target civilians. You know that, Bernie. Your reasons for pretending to think otherwise are what should be of immediate concern to you, not U.S. policies.

 

[davekriss]

...disgrace to the human race and so is your nation.

Do remember that we are an occupied nation, not the land of the free. Do you think the impeachment of Bill Clinton had anything to do with a lie about an extra-marital affair? Clinton, remember, only came into power (disrupting BFEE plans) because Perot came on the scene, dripping with hatred for GHWB, and split the Republican vote. The nation loved Bill; the Regime therefore did everything it could to discredit him. Yet, still, GWB and a complicit SCOTUS had to steal the Presidency on 12 December 2000 (the day all pretense to democracy died), followed by atrocity after atrocity, including the stolen elections of 2002 and 2004. We are an occupied nation, not a free people, slow to wake up to the prison walls that grow all around us.

The illusion of freedom in America will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre.
--Frank Zappa, 1977​

And some more...

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
--President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.
--Malcolm X

If you assume that there's no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there's a chance you may contribute to making a better world. That's your choice.
--Noam Chomsky

You must be the change you want to see in the world.
--Mohandas K Gandi

Now. Or never.
--Henry David Thoreau​

Sweet potato is no patriot, nor is peebs; they are the happy idiots of a growing fascism, mere tools, too blind by myth to see it.

 

[rogue yam]

...Master... exploit... Slave... fiendish death squads... Halliburton... oligarchic-serving imperial power... oil drenched mideast... Hubbert's Peak... the whole world watched... chemical laden waters... crush real democracy...poison minds with numbing propoganda...pollute the souls...plutocrats...

This stuff really is a drug for you, isn't it?

 

[davekriss]

This stuff really is a drug for you, isn't it?

No, this stuff is...

Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there
government ends; the law of the strongest takes its place, and
life and property are his who can take them.
--Thomas Jefferson, to Annapolis Citizens, 1809​

...and so is this...

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

<snip>​

Or haven't you read this?

 

[rogue yam]

Do remember that we are an occupied nation, not the land of the free.... We are an occupied nation, not a free people, slow to wake up to the prison walls that grow all around us.

Sucks bein' you, dude! I kinda like it here myself.

 

[rogue yam]

Or haven't you read this?

Sorry, Dave. I'm still laughing about that "The nation loved Bill" line! Too rich! Such a popular guy! And do you love Hillary too? Will you vote for her in 2008? I expect she'll waltz to the Dem. nomination and then get creamed in the general election. Unless the Republicans do something stupid, which is always a good possibility. Seriously though, Dave, you see the situation for the U.S. as so dire, and yet the last two elections (2004, 2000) were both so close. How is it that so many are failing to see what you see? Are you really just that much smarter and better informed than everyone else? Are there really NO intelligent, well-educated, moral people who are conservatives?

 

[davekriss]

Sucks bein' you, dude! I kinda like it here myself.

Of course you like it "here". You have to tell yourself that every morning you see your face in the mirror. Over and over again. How else can you live with the things done in your name? I realize it's easier to tell yourself stories, to hold proudly to your image of the U.S. as the City on the Hill, so you tenaciously cling to the simplicity of your childhood civics lessons of Cherry Trees and Liberty Bells.

We have tripartite brains, three structures that operate relatively independent of eachother. The problem is two of these structures are mute, not reachable by logic or language. One of them, a structure we share with the coldest of reptiles, lords over territoriality with unyielding viciousness. A big problem for the human animal is that this structure can protect things like "political philosophy" and "religion" as if it were a patch of turf deep in some primordial jungle. Threaten that territory, and the animal snaps; the human animal devolves to ad hominem or worse, as you illustrate here.

No matter. I have no intention other than to draw you out for all else to see.



(Actually, to me you are a new poster -- you may be a perfectly reasonable fellow, though on this thread you advance no argument. Instead you seek to belittle and dismiss without providing anything of substance, and to "belittle and dismiss" on such a charged topic as this, well, it invades our protected territory too, though somehow our territory appears grounded in equality, compassion, and justice, whereas yours on apologetics for power and excuse.)

 

[davekriss]

Are there really NO intelligent, well-educated, moral people who are conservatives?

Were there no intelligent, well-educated, moral people who are conservatives in the Wiemar Republic?

There are plenty of wickedly intelligent conservatives; there are few who experience the human emotions of compassion and empathy. But let's get something straight right now: The Bush Regime is hardly conservative!! No, that's just the political philosophy they could all agree to, much like Wolfowitz' claim about WMD in Iraq; you know, any lie to advance a self-serving agenda. But don't kid yourself, the Regime is not conservative. They are not your friend, they care nothing about you -- except how they can use you to advance their quest for dominance and power.

 

[rogue yam]

Of course you like it "here". You have to tell yourself that every morning you see your face in the mirror. Over and over again. How else can you live with the things done in your name?

So everyone who sees things differently than you do is self delusional. Got it.

We have tripartite brains, three structures that operate relatively independent of eachother. The problem is two of these structures are mute, not reachable by...(blah, blah)

"We" have such brains, or just me? You seem to feel you know the one and only truth. Did you just get lucky, or have you somehow learned to overcome these limitations that imprison the rest of us mere mortals?

No matter. I have no intention other than to draw you out for all else to see.

Likewise.

...you may be a perfectly reasonable fellow, though on this thread you advance no argument.

You don't believe this, and neither does anyone else on this thread.

 

[rogue yam]

Were there no intelligent, well-educated, moral people who are conservatives in the Wiemar Republic?

One of the lamest, most tedious things that lefties do (and they do it constantly) is to make vague allusions to Germany in the last century and think that they have said someting intelligent. This is a particularly egregious example of such a non-argument.

...though somehow our territory appears grounded in equality, compassion, and justice...

There are plenty of wickedly intelligent conservatives; there are few who experience the human emotions of compassion and empathy.

Another favorite of leftists is to talk about their compassion and empathy simultaneous with their insults, belittlement, vulgarity, and condemnation. Re-read the last 20 posts on this thread and then tell me again who has the monopoly on compassion and empathy.

But let's get something straight right now: The Bush Regime is hardly conservative!!

Agreed. The Harriet Meyers fiasco proved that, as did the Medicare prescription benefit, his immigration proposals, etc., etc. Fortunately, the conservative movement in the U.S. is an ideology-based movement rather than a party-based one. Thus we are able to push back when necessary (in some cases) which is how we got Alito substituted in for Meyers.

They are not your friend, they care nothing about you -- except how they can use you to advance their quest for dominance and power.

I want America to be dominant and powerful. It allows us to do things like liberate Iraq, rather than being forced through weakness to cooperate with tyrants. Power in the service of liberty is what I like best. Sure there are risks, and eternal vigilance and self-regulation are essential. But liberty is on the march in many places, and the U.S. has much to be proud of in having contributed to this. I expect that in the (hopefully far distant) future, when we hold the state funeral for George W. Bush, it will be well-attended by democratic leaders and former dissidents from across the Muslim world, just as Ronald Reagan's funeral was attended by Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, etc., etc. The leftists gave RWR and the U.S. no credit twenty years ago, just as they give us and GWB no credit now, but history marches on. I'm good with Ronnie, and Maggie, and JPII, Lech, and Vaclav, and soon W. You all can have Fidel and Che.

 

[Kaka Tim]

.



I want America to be dominant and powerful. It allows us to do things like liberate Iraq, rather than being forced through weakness to cooperate with tyrants.

Fuck me - where do you start? The US has been 'co-operating with tyrants' for 50 years. Indeed it helped nurture and establish some of the cruellest tyrannies of the last 50 years (the name Saddam Hussien mean anything to you? - What about Suharto? let's not even get started on south amercia). Right now it is propping up tyranny in Saudi Arabia, Israel and Central Asia.

And - for your information - the US has killed many thousands more civilians since sept 11 than the jihadis (tens of thousands killed by the US in iraq alone - and thats by the most conservative estimates). If you want a longer historical pespective we're probably talking millions.

 

[nino_savatte]

Utterly worthless.

Talking about yourself? You've missed the point spectacularly and that's funny.

 

[nino_savatte]

You've been on Urban before - haven't you, rogue yam?

 

[fela fan]

Rogue yam is either playing games here, breaking the unwritten rule that one posts honestly according to their own individual voice, or he is the perfect example of self-delusion at work.

Either way it's best to ignore him. Mears has had plenty of opportunity down the months to break free of his own self-delusion, but as we see with his example such action appears to be impossible.

And that is understandable, coz once someone faces up to the reality that they've been lied to for so long it can be a psychological nightmare.

I've spoken to some perfectly polite and reasonable americans here in chiang mai in thailand where i live, yet when i start talking about certain things about their nation, the shutters come down. They have nothing within their psyche that allows them to deal with such information. Were they to accept these pesky facts, their whole world will cave in.

They won't even know who they are anymore, they will have lost their whole identity.

I've only bothered in the past with mears coz he's a fellow human being, but when i hit home with certain posts he ignores them. Like on this thread.

Self-delusion is the reason that leaders get away with their crimes. In fact enough of a population being self-deluded is exactly what they need in order to continue popping their power pills. Only when enough people 'wake up' can we reign in these criminals.

America, as evidenced by this rogue yam person, and mears, as a nation is still sufficiently asleep. Take it easy on such people, it is they who have to live with themselves. It is they who live a lie, just like their criminal leaders.

But we remain in hope due to american citizens such as davekriss.

 

[sleaterkinney]

The leftists gave RWR and the U.S. no credit twenty years ago, just as they give us and GWB no credit now, but history marches on. I'm good with Ronnie, and Maggie, and JPII, Lech, and Vaclav, and soon W. You all can have Fidel and Che.

John Paul II??

The eastern block fell from the inside, but I guess if you don't know your history....

 

[ViolentPanda]

It helps me understand how unserious you are. You specifically mention detainees' access to attorneys and then pretend this has no implications regarding their ability to communicate with their compatriots. Google "Lynne Stewart" and then get back to me (or don't).

Your reply says all I need to know about your position on the prisoners the US (and other states) are illegally holding.
The crux is that you believe it is well and good for the US and other administrations to formulate legal precedent "on the hoof" to fit the desires of that administration. I believe that the establishing of such precedent will come back to haunt us. You obviously believe in the primacy of "national security" I believe that given the structure of most terrorist organisations, i.e. cellular, then communication of information between units of that structure have little bearing, and are a red herring utilised by people who share your attitude to deny legal protections to prisoners.

You mention Lynne Stewart's case as though it has some greater meaning thatn a single individual erring. It doesn't. To try and present it as a primary justification is both facile and ignorant.

Get serious yourself, my friend. Maybe that way next time your critique will be somewhat less risible.l

 

[ViolentPanda]

Brilliant rebuttal.



I'm explaining why the actions are legitimate.

Your own rebuttal is somewhat less than gleaming.

You're not explaining why "the actions are legitimate".

You're actually explaining why you believe the actions to be legitimate. You're expressing your own (as yet unsupported) opinion, not delivering a truth.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The day that Yale professors stop slagging the U.S. from a leftist viewpoint will be the day that America has been taken over by a fascist, right-wing dictatorship. Contrary to the views of infantile leftists everywhere, such a day will never come. It is not the job of sensible citizens to try to change the minds of persons chosen for academic positions and offered advancement in large part because of their leftist views. Here in America, we've decided to let the leftists run the universities, and have the conservatives running the government.

I think your approach to dismissing the views of a professor of constitutional law at one of your most prestigious universities, on a matter of his expertise, is kind of interesting.

Would you dismiss the views of a professor of theoretical physics on a matter of quantum electrodynamics say, by calling him an 'infantile leftist'?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think your approach to dismissing the views of a professor of constitutional law at one of your most prestigious universities, on a matter of his expertise, is kind of interesting.

Would you dismiss the views of a professor of theoretical physics on a matter of quantum electrodynamics say, by calling him an 'infantile leftist'?

Always interesting watching the donkeys run through the standard tactics, isn't it?

I always love it when they use #43 "Though shalt ascribe a derogatory political label to any opposition, however prestigious".

I notice that the tuberous one particularly enjoys #106 as well; "thou shalt selectively answer posts, omitting any concession to parts which show the weakness of your argument, replying only on those parts where there is the possibility of scoring points".

 

[Bernie Gunther]

As far as I can see, all it's done so far is in effect said 'I don't believe you' whether evidence was supplied or not, and applied derogatory adjectives to things it doesn't like, in a way that's presumably intended to be provoking.

The style certainly is familiar, but I can't tell whether that's because it's one of our old bushbots returning or whether it's just that they all argue like this.

 

[Ae589]

I want America to be dominant and powerful. It allows us to do things like liberate Iraq, rather than being forced through weakness to cooperate with tyrants.

But co-operating with them for money is right.

 

[ViolentPanda]

As far as I can see, all it's done so far is in effect said 'I don't believe you' whether evidence was supplied or not, and applied derogatory adjectives to things it doesn't like, in a way that's presumably intended to be provoking.

The reality is, of course, that while such a "debating style" may impress others of its' ilk, it usually shows up that ilk as unable to debate at all, merely having the ability to avoid same.

The style certainly is familiar, but I can't tell whether that's because it's one of our old bushbots returning or whether it's just that they all argue like this.

Surely you're not implying that they're a monothought clique, Bernie?

Perhaps mears "drafted in" some support from a 'bot board? I've noticed other US rightists who've posted here do that when they're being overwhelmed with fact.
It's a pity that invariably the cavalry they send for turns out to be one man and his donkey.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Meanwhile, I was thinking about the question it posed regarding moral and intelligent conservatives. oi2002 has posted many links to commentators of that description, but in general they seem to think Bush's crowd are amoral incompetents who are bringing disgrace on a country that they have strong patriotic feelings about. Recently some of them have started using words like 'treason' to describe the conduct of their president and senior officials.

Here's a couple of the ones I have handy bookmarks for. oi2002 has lots more.

http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_archive.htm

The main question about the war in Iraq was never whether it would go well or go badly. The question was whether it would go bad fast or go bad slowly. So far, it has gone bad slowly, which was always the greater probability. But the possibility remains that it could go bad fast. The greatest likelihood may be during that most delicate of military arts, the withdrawal.

http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/

The bottom line here is that we are involved in a global campaign against terrorism where winning the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims, as Lee Kuan Yew points out in the current Forbes, will prove paramount. Like it or not, many Arab Muslims don't care for Israel much given the current state of conflict that exists between them and the Palestinians. So wrapping up detainees in the flag of Israel, while it's certainly not as gory as plucking away George Clooney's fingernails and such a la Syriana, just isn't very smart policy.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/

Now the Vice President says that the "burden of proof" lay with the Iraqi government. In other words it was their responsibility to prove to us that they did not have gas, biological or nuclear weapons or programs to produce them. They were unable to do that, because these capabilities and programs DID NOT EXIST.

So, citizens beware! It may become your responsibility to prove that you are not guilty of treason, sedition, being a malcontent, or whatever.

Can you prove that you are not?

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Since Donald Rumsfeld authorized the U.S. military in January of 2003 to "find, fix, and finish" Al Qaeda and other extremist Islamic groups around the world, the U.S. military has not bagged a single major target. Instead, the key terrorist leaders, such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who have been captured or killed were nabbed through intelligence and law enforcement efforts. Our military is too big, too bulky, and too slow to effectively attack and destroy the existing terrorist networks around the world. The terrorists do not offer "good" military targets, i.e. well organized commands with massive infrastructure. They operate in cells and fully integrate themselves with civilian populations. As we saw with the destruction of Fallujah, even wiping out a city does not wipe out terrorism.

President Bush is using fear to scare Americans into looking the other way as he tries to justify his declaration of an imperial Presidency entitled to do whatever he wants as long as he can say, "I'm protecting Americans from terrorism". If we continue to allow our fear of terrorism to be used as an excuse for torture, unconstitutional imprisonment, and domestic spying without judicial review, we are on the precipice of the totalitarian world feared by George Orwell and offered to us by the amiable George W. Bush.

 

[TAE]

As for practicing what we preach, it is not the U.S. that fails to understand the difference between terrorists and prisoners of war. After all, it is ultimately our insistence on making this distinction that you're whinging about, isn't it?

Not at all. It is your government's mixing of these terms which is objectionable.

If they are terrorists, put them on trial.
If they are POWs, treat them as such.

The US government has done neither.

Everone expects jihadists to act like bloodthirsty savages in every instance, even leftist twits. The U.S. military IS abiding by those international treaties to which we are a signatory, all while patiently explaining to hysterical foreigners how so.

Erm, wrong again.

But hey, it doesn't matter because nobody can stop you, right?
I mean deep down inside, isn't that what you really think?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Not at all. It is your government's mixing of these terms which is objectionable.

If they are terrorists, put them on trial.
If they are POWs, treat them as such.

The US government has done neither.


Erm, wrong again.

But hey, it doesn't matter because nobody can stop you, right?
I mean deep down inside, isn't that what you really think?

"Deep down"?