They don't accept the possibility of defeat. Like the emperor and his new clothes, they look at it and just pretend it isn't there. I heard Sen. McConnell on NPR the other night, and he made me so angry I could have spit. He was using the standard modern demagogue's trick of assigning an emotively negative phrase to an idea he wanted to make unpopular, in this case "surrender date" as a way of referring to a withdrawal timetable. As if somehow we can change the facts by using different words. He seems to think that if we refuse to accept that we are beaten and just keep pumping more bodies into the battle that that will somehow change the dynamic.
And he kept repeating the tired old lie that "We're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here." What kind of bloody FOOL believes that? How stupid do you have to be to really think that we are safer here in the US because our people are getting killed in Iraq? Do Londoners feel safer after 7/7? The British Armed forces are losing people all the time in Iraq, but what difference does that make when the bombers who are trying to blow up British landmarks and citizens are fellow citizens from Bradford or Leeds?
While I'm on a rant, one more stupid, disingenuous, craven trick of propaganda trickery that I detest every time it trickles from the lips of our Moron in Chief--the canard that "we can't have politicians in Washignton tellign the generals what to do." The American system of government, in keeping with the great British Parliamentary tradition from which it sprang, is *ALL* about having the civilian government tell the armed forces what to do. This is not ancient Rome, Napoleonic France, or Franco's Spain, where generals run the country and are free to do as they please, ignorign the will of the people and the elected officials. The uniformed services are subordinate to the Secretary of Defense and to his boss, the President of the United States. "Politicians in Washington" are EXACTLY who tell the Army who and how to fight, and to have it any other way is to have a bananna republic dictatorship, rather than a democracy. The only problem I see is that the President and the Congress have been engaging in far too LITTLE oversight of the military and the conduct of the war. We need more of that, not less.
Of course the president and the Congress shouldn't be running day to day tactical operations, but no one is proposing that. What Congress is trying (even if somewhat half-heartedly) to do is exactly what it ought to be doing, and the only reason the president and his gang of corrupt cronies and evil councillors are objecting is that if this trend towards Congressional action keeps up sooner or later they will be held to account for their shockingly criminal mishandling of this war, and they are afraid, deeply afraid, of what will happen when that day comes.
I'm sure Bush will issue plenty of pardons before his last day in office, but the one person he cannot pardon is himself. In the end, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Rice, Negroponte and all the rest may escape, but I will be very sorry if there is no trial for George W. Bush.
This is way we have to impeach his ass before he pardons anyone. Or bring civil suits against the Gang of (where do we stop counting?)?
The amount of pure, unadulterated bullshit that this administration has piled on the American public just boggles me. That, and the amount of bullshit too many members of the public have been able to swallow. You'll eat shit and like it, dammit!
This is what makes me think we are moving away from democracy toward a republic more like ancient Rome, with its eventual slide into tyranny and civil war. Instead of giving a damn about voting or democracy or accoutnability, citizens just began choosing up sides and creating factions that used elections (and then later coups) as an opportunity to take punitive action against their opponents.
I'm just horrified by the number of Americans who apparently don't care that the president routinely flouts the Constitution and the laws, ignoring them or making excuses or claiming that a "war" (whihc somehow doesn't affect any of his other actions) requires that rights be suspended or curtailed. He just has to invoke the language of fear or the language of heroism, and that's enough for people to accept anything that he does. All the people who didn't like Bill Clinton as King Log are apparently happy to have George Bush as King Stork.
To me, a real war is one in which we give up material comfort so as to maintain the independence and core values of our nation and protect ourselves. Apparently to others, it is more important that we maintain our comforts, for which they are happy to give up our liberties and our laws.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Oh yes, mission accomplished
Date: 2007-05-01 06:58 pm (UTC)And he kept repeating the tired old lie that "We're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here." What kind of bloody FOOL believes that? How stupid do you have to be to really think that we are safer here in the US because our people are getting killed in Iraq? Do Londoners feel safer after 7/7? The British Armed forces are losing people all the time in Iraq, but what difference does that make when the bombers who are trying to blow up British landmarks and citizens are fellow citizens from Bradford or Leeds?
While I'm on a rant, one more stupid, disingenuous, craven trick of propaganda trickery that I detest every time it trickles from the lips of our Moron in Chief--the canard that "we can't have politicians in Washignton tellign the generals what to do." The American system of government, in keeping with the great British Parliamentary tradition from which it sprang, is *ALL* about having the civilian government tell the armed forces what to do. This is not ancient Rome, Napoleonic France, or Franco's Spain, where generals run the country and are free to do as they please, ignorign the will of the people and the elected officials. The uniformed services are subordinate to the Secretary of Defense and to his boss, the President of the United States. "Politicians in Washington" are EXACTLY who tell the Army who and how to fight, and to have it any other way is to have a bananna republic dictatorship, rather than a democracy. The only problem I see is that the President and the Congress have been engaging in far too LITTLE oversight of the military and the conduct of the war. We need more of that, not less.
Of course the president and the Congress shouldn't be running day to day tactical operations, but no one is proposing that. What Congress is trying (even if somewhat half-heartedly) to do is exactly what it ought to be doing, and the only reason the president and his gang of corrupt cronies and evil councillors are objecting is that if this trend towards Congressional action keeps up sooner or later they will be held to account for their shockingly criminal mishandling of this war, and they are afraid, deeply afraid, of what will happen when that day comes.
I'm sure Bush will issue plenty of pardons before his last day in office, but the one person he cannot pardon is himself. In the end, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Rice, Negroponte and all the rest may escape, but I will be very sorry if there is no trial for George W. Bush.
Re: Oh yes, mission accomplished
Date: 2007-05-02 03:30 pm (UTC)The amount of pure, unadulterated bullshit that this administration has piled on the American public just boggles me. That, and the amount of bullshit too many members of the public have been able to swallow. You'll eat shit and like it, dammit!
>:-O
Re: Oh yes, mission accomplished
Date: 2007-05-02 03:31 pm (UTC)*why
Re: Oh yes, mission accomplished
Date: 2007-05-02 03:56 pm (UTC)I'm just horrified by the number of Americans who apparently don't care that the president routinely flouts the Constitution and the laws, ignoring them or making excuses or claiming that a "war" (whihc somehow doesn't affect any of his other actions) requires that rights be suspended or curtailed. He just has to invoke the language of fear or the language of heroism, and that's enough for people to accept anything that he does. All the people who didn't like Bill Clinton as King Log are apparently happy to have George Bush as King Stork.
To me, a real war is one in which we give up material comfort so as to maintain the independence and core values of our nation and protect ourselves. Apparently to others, it is more important that we maintain our comforts, for which they are happy to give up our liberties and our laws.