outside the wire

If Kim became a Bush Super-Ranger, they would. As long as they can get money to help them maintain power, they'll sleep with anyone.

 

Being intentionally dense does not suit you.

That's not the case here and we both know it. And by the way, why fear idiots?

Please. Could you spill more venom in a more misguided response to my post? (Sadly, the answer is almost certainly, "yes.")

 

You have the nerve to write this after posting that article?

 

So you don't believe when we commit acts of torture, sanction torture, strip away habeus corpus that it isn't worse than when terrorists and dictators do it? You are saying that you have lowered the American standards to be the same as those of Saddam, and the terrorists.

It is worse when we do it because we hold ourseves to a higher standard.

 

I thought you ran your posts through spell check?

 

Sadly, the "democracy" in Iraq isn't quite so healthy as basso would have us believe.

 

To basso those are just unfortunate circumstances that happen in the fog of war.

MAN UP!!!

 

We are speaking of democracy which you have told us is going well in Iraq. Individual voting records are a way to check on those individuals, and not the strength of our democracy as a whole.

I do actually take individual voting records and absences into account. I also take into account if the congressman was running for president at the time, and take that into consideration when they run.

To the other question...

Do you not hold the U.S. to a higher standard than dictators and terrorists?

 

wow, the irony - this is exactly what the "article" or blog or whatever you posted does and what you do w/ 95% of your posts. when is the last time you posted something with factual evidence to back up what you say?

why do i get the feeling that if you hadnt been exposed as a plagarist you would have started a thread about how you coined a cool new phrase called "patriot terrorist"?

and how dare you, as a bush supporter, accuse others of wanting to see harm done to america. you and bush are the america hating traitors. you continue to support a president who advocates a policy of torture. a president whose legal council claims that there is no law that prevents him from sexually torturing children and whose attorney general claims there is no right of habeus corpus. you support a president who spent $2 billion on propganda and fake news stories. you support a president who claims he wants to protect america, yet leaves our borders wide open and calls for amnesty for illegal aliens, but doesnt call it amnesty even though that is exactly what it is. you support a president who is destroying the sovereignty of this country by signing onto the north american union and systematically killing our middle class. you support a president who craps all over the constitution, which he swore an oath to uphold - illegal spying and wiretaps and opening of mail. you support a president who is a proven habitual liar. you support a president who plants gay male prostitutes in the white house press corp and has gay male prostitutes make dozens and dozens of trips to the white house. you claim to be a conservative, but continue to support the biggest fiscal liberal to ever be president, spending more than all previous 42 combined, in only 4 years.

you and bush are the america hating traitors. if you hate america, our freedoms and our way of life so much why dont you leave?

 

basso, do you have any family or close friends serving?

did you see this poll from the military times? 50% of the troops think iraq is unwinnable - by your criteria these troops must hate america, right?

http://www.militarycity.com/polls/2006_main.php

For the first time, more troops disapprove of the president’s handling of the war than approve of it. Barely one-third of service members approve of the way the president is handling the war, ac cording to the 2006 Military Times Poll.

When the military was feeling most optimistic about the war — in 2004 — 83 percent of poll re spondents thought success in Iraq was likely. This year, that number has shrunk to 50 percent.

Only 35 percent of the military members polled this year said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the war, while 42 percent said they disapproved. The president’s approval rating among the military is only slight ly higher than for the population as a whole. In 2004, when his popularity peaked, 63 percent of the military approved of Bush’s handling of the war. While ap proval of the president’s war lead ership has slumped, his overall approval remains high among the military.

Just as telling, in this year’s poll only 41 percent of the military said the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place, down from 65 percent in 2003. That closely reflects the beliefs of the general population today — 45 percent agreed in a recent USA Today/Gallup poll.

 

basso will you sign?

The NRSC Pledge

19,394 people have signed The Pledge thus far. Will you?

http://thenrscpledge.com/

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.


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As rimrocker is want to say, Greenwald writes well...

Our Supreme General has spoken

There is nothing like a feeling of besiegement and desperation to make a political movement -- one that knows it is in its "last throes" -- show its true colors. The Supreme General-Commander has now decreed that any opposition to the "surge" helps The Enemy. Therefore, according to Bush followers -- beginning with the Vice President and moving down -- it is now the solemn duty of every patriotic American, especially those in Congress, to refrain from voicing any objections to the decision made by the Leader and the General. We must merely ask ourselves only one question: how can we lend the greatest support possible to our Leader's glorious plans? Everything else should be cleared away quietly and peacefully from our minds.

As usual, Bill Kristol was ahead of the authoritarian curve, last week proclaiming that war critics are "so irresponsible that they can’t be quiet for six or nine months." Yesterday, Party loyalist Hugh Hewitt unveiled what he and his comrades are calling "The Pledge" -- a creepy, Soviet-sounding declaration of loyalty, all based on Gen. Petraeus' decree, that vows to repudiate any Republican who opposes the "surge," and even refuses to donate to the NRCC unless they agree "in writing" that none of the contributions will go to any "surge" opponents. As Hewitt instructed:


Yesterday General Petraeus testified that the Biden/Warner resolutions and those like them encourage the enemy. . . . Don't believe me. Believe General Petraeus.

Bush followers across the Internet are now huddled in strategizing conference calls, and leading right-wing luminaries such as Glenn Reynolds have endorsed The Pledge. Reynolds' case is particularly instructive because, in order to defend the Leader and Don Rumsfeld, Reyonlds previously and continuously opposed sending more troops to Iraq, insisting that we had the exact right amount there. As but one example:


I think that calling for "more troops" is a way to criticize while not sounding weak, and that it thus has an appeal that overcomes its uncertain factual foundation.

But that was when the Leader said we had enough troops. Now, the Leader and the General have spoken, and that settles that -- now, not only do we need more troops, but it is unpatriotic to suggest otherwise. Yesterday, this is what Reynolds said when explaining the "rationale" for his support of The Pledge:


I think that Hugh's right to start this drive. Opposition to the surge is wrong (see what Petraeus said) and it's also political suicide for the Republicans.


Opposition to the "surge" is "wrong" because Gen. Petraeus said so, said that it would help The Terrorists. What is most notable about this duty of mindless submission to the General is that it emanates from the very top of the Bush movement. In his amazing interview with Wolf Blitzer yesterday, the Vice President dismissed away the notion that things were going badly in Iraq, but -- citing Gen. Petraeus' exchange on Tuesday with Joe Lieberman -- Cheney did identify the one truly grave threat that we face in this war: democratic debate:


Q How worried are you of this nightmare scenario, that the U.S. is building up this Shiite-dominated Iraqi government with an enormous amount of military equipment, sophisticated training, and then in the end, they're going to turn against the United States?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, that's not going to happen. The problem that you've got --

Q Very -- very -- warming up to Iran and Syria right now.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, you can come up with all kinds of what-ifs. You've got to deal with the reality on the ground. The reality on the ground is, we've made major progress, we've still got a lot of work to do. There are a lot of provinces in Iraq that are relatively quiet. There's more and more authority transferred to the Iraqis all the time. But the biggest problem we face right now is the danger that the United States will validate the terrorist strategy, that, in fact, what will happen here with all of the debate over whether or not we ought to stay in Iraq, with the pressures from some quarters to get out of Iraq, if we were to do that, we would simply validate the terrorists' strategy that says the Americans will not stay to complete the task --

Q Here's the Nouri al Maliki --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: -- that we don't have the stomach for the fight.

Q Here's the problem.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's the biggest threat right now.

Sectarian warfare? Militias and death squads? Sprawling anarchy and mass deaths? None of that is a problem. Everything is going great in Iraq -- everything, that is, except for one thing. The "biggest threat" is the debate taking place in the U.S. over whether our Leader is doing the right thing -- the true threat to the Glorious War in Iraq is Jim Webb's response to the Leader and Sen. Hagel's disobedience and Sen. Warner's criticisms of the Leader's plans and opposition to the war (shared by an overwhelming majority of Americans). That's what Cheney argued (and A.L. has an excellent discussion of the well-deserved problem for the Republican Party posed by the mindless loyalty to the President's war rhetoric which they have bred).

The idea that Americans should refrain from debating the propriety of using military force is about as foreign to our political traditions as anything can be. The Constitution -- while making the President the top General in directing how citizen-approved wars are fought -- ties the use of military force to the approval of the American citizenry in multiple ways, not only by prohibiting wars in the absence of a Congressional declaration (though it does impose that much-ignored requirement), but also by requiring Congressional approval every two years merely to have an army. In Federalist 26, this is what Alexander Hamilton said in explaining the rationale behind the latter requirement (emphasis in original):


The legislature of the United States will be obliged by this provision, once at least in every two years, to deliberate upon the propriety of keeping a military force on foot; to come to a new resolution on the point; and to declare their sense of the matter by a formal vote in the face of their constituents. They are not at liberty to vest in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence.

As the spirit of party, in different degrees, must be expected to infect all political bodies, there will be, no doubt, persons in the national legislature willing enough to arraign the measures and criminate the views of the majority. The provision for the support of a military force will always be a favorable topic for declamation. As often as the question comes forward, the public attention will be roused and attracted to the subject, by the party in opposition; and if the majority should be really disposed to exceed the proper limits, the community will be warned of the danger, and will have an opportunity of taking measures to guard against it.


Public opposition is the key check on the ill-advised use of military force. In Federalist 24, Hamilton explained that the requirement of constant democratic deliberation over the American military is "a great and real security against military establishments without evident necessity."

Finding a way to impose checks on the President's war-making abilities was a key objective of the Founders. In Federalist 4, John Jay identified as a principal threat to the Republic the fact that insufficiently restrained leaders "will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for purposes and objects merely personal, such as a thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people."

There are countries where citizens have a duty to affirm the Leader's decisions and submit to the Supreme General's decrees about war. The U.S. isn't one of those countries (although, revealingly enough, that belief in submission to the decrees of authority and infallabile wisdom of Supreme Leaders is one of the defining attributes of "The Enemy" whom we are fighting). But as usual, the dwindling band of authoritarian extremists propping up this presidency don't believe in American values of any kind. Those values are merely props they use to justify their endless wars and their endless demands that the Leader's will be followed.


http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/our-supreme-general-has-spoken.html

 

I usually avoid D&D, but I've been curious about this thread title that I see as the 'latest thread'.

So let me get this straight - basso believes that torture and unlawful imprisonment are ok and no one should criticize their leaders or country? Who's side is he on again?

 

He is in Bush's side of course.