to your latter point first, no, i was not an active GOP supporter during the '80s, i didn't vote for reagan either time, nor, for that matter, did i vote for his democratic opponents. as to the first point, was hitler "actively engaged" in genocide in 1941? germany delcared war on december 11. 1941 and the final solution was worked out at the wansee conference in january 1942. i'm not sure i see the distinction you seem to.
Perhaps you do have a tough time facing the truth. Why is it that every time somebody mentions torture you hid behind the safety of panties on the head, and a long period of bad music. Why do you ignore people being bound and forced to lie in their own waste, and urine, or what about those that were left outside and froze to death, or the taxi cab driver who was beaten to death, or the rapes by U.S. soldiers of prisoners in AG, as reported Gen. Taguba? I would say that beating a cab driver who nobody believes is a terrorist to death might rank up there with beheading somebody.
Yeah that's really going to stop terrorist's from fighting when most are willing to die for their cause anyway. Keep up the chickenhawk rhetoric, eventually you'll convince somebody of how tough you are
On point #1- agreed On point #2- good point on Pearl Harbor, Kuwait, I am not sure what treaty we have with them if it correlates and I don't think they were threatened and I didn't realize anyone has indicated we are finishing Gulf War 1. On point #3- While you need to fight on both fronts, there is nothing wrong with luring the nutcases to a battleground (Iraq) and killing as many as possible. The roster of potential nutcases is limited.- Just the opposite is true. Terrorists need three things- first money, second government sanction, and thirdly technology. Terrorists are easily bankrupted, easily betrayed and rely heavily upon technology (communication, covert opts and expertise). The insurgency in Iraq is a perfect storm for terrorists- they don't have to travel far, communications are simplified, they don't need government sanction and they are obviously are bankrolled. It is a disaster for the military because a small group can do great damage and bring instability to our efforts (an important goal). We are the ones lured into a bad trap. A small group of insurgents may be defeated but they will easily be replentished unless we decide to fight them indefinately or the CIA decides to crush them. I don't see the CIA getting involved that would be politically suicidal and I am sure we will find out soon what objectives we have for remaining in Iraq. We can't bring the divergent groups together in Iraq unless we exert the force Sadaam wrongfully used to control the country. We have removed the stablizing force because he was evil and yes I am glad he was removed because he was very evil. It is taking all our military might (the greatest int he world) to hold things somewhat together (barely) Now we must find a way to stabilize a situation that requires great force to stabilize. Hopefully whatever government we are trying to install will get powerful fast.
The final solution was merely putting into place throughout Europe what Hitler had already begun in Germany. So yes he was actively engaged in genocide at that time. An aborted attempt at genocide is horrible and should be punished, but it does not require the same immediacy of action that an ongoing genocide requires.
my problem is w/ focusing on it to the complete and utter exclusion of all the good work others in the military are doing.
I am in agreement with you here. We shouldn't ignore the good deeds and only focus on the wrongs. But I will say that denying that anything was ever done wrong by the U.S. in this will only encourage people to continue to lay out more evidence of ill-doings by the administration as a result of their handling of this war. A balanced approach where one decries torture, and the lack of accountability when those instances occur as well as support the good deeds by our soldiers like the brave soldier who reported the AG abuses should be lauded.
it'd be nice to see a prominent democrat actually praise the troops for once... http://www.washtimes.com/national/pruden.htm -- The master plan for party suicide By Wesley Pruden THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published June 17, 2005 The Democrats must have a master plan, based on polling that has penetrated deep into those secret places of the heart that George Gallup and John Zogby have yet to plumb. Otherwise, the constant focus on sins, mistakes and misadventures at the military prison at Guantanamo, which has surely reached its illogical conclusion in the hysteria of Richard Durbin, the Democratic chief of sordid Senate hyperbole, is a suicide pact. Responsible inquiries into the behavior of guards and their supervisors at Guantanamo are not only reasonable, but necessary. Close observation is only right and proper. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and there's no absolute power quite like the corrupting power of wardens, guards and interrogators. They must be watched lest they absorb the brutality of the guarded. But the Democrats, in their desperate search for an alchemist who can turn Iraq into Vietnam, stumble into one soft cowpie after another. Harry Reid called the president "a loser," and that didn't work. Howard Dean mocked Christians for both race and faith, and fell over backwards. Dick Durbin thought he had the formula, telling how an FBI agent told him interrogators at Guantanamo chained an al Qaeda terrorist to the floor, turned up the air-conditioning, turned on a hip-hop recording and dialed up the decibels. Making someone, even a terrorist, listen to hip-hop may well be beyond the ordinary limits of civilized behavior, but what can Mr. Durbin and his colleagues expect ordinary Americans to make of this: "If I read this [e-mail] to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners." His Democratic colleagues, despairing of buttoning the lip on the fattest mouth in the United States Senate, tried yesterday to avoid the senator and his firestorm, much like embarrassed parents whose four-year-old used the f-word in describing to dinner guests what daddy said to mommy. Harry Reid first hid between a bookcase and the Xerox machine and sent a female aide out to take the heat. She could tell reporters only that Mr. Durbin had "spotlighted" a problem and everyone ought to take "the FBI's concerns" seriously, although the FBI had said nothing at all about "the problem." Hillary Clinton, having wrapped up the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and eager not to offend allies before actual campaigning starts, insisted that she hadn't read "the senator's speech." When a reporter read the offending passage to her she could only say, primly, that she had nothing to say. If true, the senator's revelations that American war crimes at Guantanamo, consisting mostly of irreverent attitudes toward the Koran, had caught up with the atrocities of the Holocaust (9 million dead, including 6 million Jews), Stalin's gulags (2.7 million dead) and Pol Pot's Cambodian attempt at genocide (1.7 million dead) were surely the story of the new century, but the party's friendly press organs tried to look the other way. Neither The Washington Post nor the New York Times found room in yesterday's editions to report the controversy. But there was no press lollygagging in the Islamic world. Al Jazeera, the Arab-language network that regularly broadcasts dispatches from Osama bin Laden's cave, quickly put up the Durbin remarks in fulsome detail. The firestorm appears to be tempering whatever steel may be in the spines of Republicans who only 36 hours ago were ready to abandon Gitmo and maybe even the GIs in Iraq. Last night, the senator himself hit the fan on the floor of the Senate. John Warner, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, demanded an apology. Mr. Durbin blamed "the right-wing media" for reporting his remarks. Mitch McConnell read his remarks back to him and asked if he had actually said something so outrageous. Harry Reid reminded everyone that Dick Durbin had once been a Boy Scout, and besides, he does, too, love American soldiers. Robert Byrd got the floor and changed the subject to Father's Day. Then Jon Kyl of Arizona resumed the drubbing of Mr. Durbin. As Dave Barry might say, I am not making this up. Don't the Democrats wish. Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Times.
"Complete and utter exclusion" is much easier to percieve when you get all of your news from one side of the spectrum. Isn't that correct, basso?
I don't know about you, but I ASSUME that U.S. soldiers are doing good most of the time. This is not news. What is news is when the U.S. military abuses or kills prisoners, because it is not the norm. Then what is worthy of further investigation is whether this was an aberration or directed from above. Finally, all the stories in the world about painting schools and handing out food don't mean **** taken out of context. The real issue is are we making progress in stabilizing Iraq.
Prominent Demcrats praise the troops all the time. They just don't broadcast it on Fox News or print it on the National Review website. Since those seem to be your only sources for news, naturally you wouldn't have seen them covered.
Yes he was. You have to take into account that there was no official paperwork from Hitler or anything with his name on it concerning the final solution,because that's how he wanted it. You would have to be an idiot to believe that Himmler and Heydrich were doing this on their own without approval from Hitler. Genocide was happening ever since the invasion of Poland but on a slower scale. The Wansee Conference was not the beginning of the final solution. It was here that the Nazi brass, talking in generic terms, were trying to make the killing of as many enemies more efficient and on a much larger scale. The final solution was given much more importance than ever before, after the conference,even at the expense of the Nazi war effort.
Just to make a historical point. We didn't go to war against Germany because of genocide and leading up to the war the US denied many Jewish refugees from Europe sanctuary in the US.
such "complete and utter" bull****. painting schools and handing out food is how we're making progress, in addition to fights like that described above. i can't believe you don't see that, and don't recognize that the democratic party's fetishization of gitmo and abu ghraib just hands propaganda victories to the very terrorists we're fighting.
i actually agree- i just wanted to highlight how absurd FB's "ongoing genocide" remark was. EDIT: i meant morally absurd.
So in other words, you're either with us or against us. I would think that committing abuses like what happened at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo would be handing propaganda victories to the terrorists. Its not like the terrorists are relying on the DNC to make their arguments for them.
i'm actually not so sure about that. in fact, i think they're counting on it, hoping that continued bombings, etc. will sapp american moral and turn the home front against the war. the DNC needs very little encouragement.
Just so we're clear here and there is no misunderstanding. basso are you accusing the DNC of aiding the terrorists in the propaganda war?
