Originally Posted by Mr. Thomas Fleming in [i

Chronicles[/i]]Now, even George Bush’s speechwriters know that the Hungarians did not actually succeed in 1956, nor did they actually overthrow their own Communist dictatorship nor expel the Soviets. The Soviet Union was the “Evil Empire” that claimed to have liberated Eastern Europe and establish true democracy. Eventually that Evil Empire died of its own excesses, and the Russians had to abandon their subject nations.

What the President is obviously telling the world is that Iraq, too, has been occupied by an empire that promised democracy but delivered only tyranny and violence, and the only hope he holds out for Iraq is the eventual dissolution of the American Empire.

I conclude from this speech that David Frum has been replaced by Stephen Colbert.

Paprika peccavi :oops:

CARRHAE PLC

Originally Posted by the more sober, less Trotskyite Hitchens

A government that is not really in control of its own streets, which cannot prevent terror attacks here and which refuses to spend enough on defence, has no business sending brave British soldiers to Afghanistan. It clearly has no real idea of what they are doing there or when, if ever, they can be brought home.* There is a simple answer to this.* They should be brought home now, rather than suffering severe casualties for no purpose, while ministers dither.

If the USA thinks that Western troops are needed in this place, then it must provide them itself, or find another country willing to provide them. No British interests are served by having our soldiers there - the simple test to which all such deployments should be subject.

As to what NATO* is doing in this part of the world, I cannot begin to explain it. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was formed to defend Western Europe against the Soviet menace and should have been wound up at the successful conclusion of its mission in 1990. If somebody wants to create a World Army or International Brigade, then they should say that is what they are doing and explain to us what its aims are and what laws govern its use.* Quietly to convert NATO from an anti-Soviet alliance into such a world army is dishonest and bound to lead to confusion.

Originally Posted by Mr. Simon Jenkins in the [i

Guardian[/i] (UK)]The debacle of Britain-in-Afghanistan cannot be ignored, because British troops are at risk. They were never meant to be at risk and their presence in that country has nothing to do with British security. They are sweltering and dying in Helmand not to prop up an embattled regime in Kabul, for which they are hopelessly undermanned, but to keep Nato alive in Europe, an unworthy mission. As an act of expediency, the expedition is on a par with Gladstone's fatal dispatch of Gordon to Khartoum.

A bad attack of Beau Geste syndrome at our expense :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

The latest unpleasantness in the Lebanon will advance the :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: 's of democracy. King Numbers will be made to hold sway in the most recent of the progressively manufactured Shiastans.

The Xians (though not "real" Red Heifer Xians to be sure) will be the losers as will the Druse and the Sunni and the Secularists who hold representation not in accord with "one man, one vote" but in a more republican manner.

Children, how do Romantic Idealists pronounce and spell C-A-R-R-H-A-E, ? Derive!

(fi-as'kO) f-i-a-s-c-o, from the Old European for an alcoholic beverage bottle

Originally Posted by Mr. Thomas Ricks in the Wa[i

Po[/i]]"I guess the reason I don't use the phrase 'guerrilla war' is because there isn't one," Rumsfeld responded.



...With clinical precision, a soldier attached to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment recommended by e-mail 14 hours later that interrogators use "open-handed facial slaps from a distance of no more than about two feet and back-handed blows to the midsection from a distance of about 18 inches." He also reported that "fear of dogs and snakes appear to work nicely."

The 4th Infantry Division's intelligence operation responded three days later with suggestions that captives be hit with closed fists and also subjected to "low-voltage electrocution."


...Again and again, in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, U.S. forces launched major new operations to assert and reassert control in Fallujah, in Ramadi, in Samarra, in Mosul.

"Scholars are virtually unanimous in their judgment that conventional forces often lose unconventional wars because they lack a conceptual understanding of the war they are fighting," Lt. Col. Matthew Moten, chief of military history at West Point, would comment in 2004.


..."We are finally getting around to doing the right things," Army Reserve Lt. Col. Joe Rice observed one day in Iraq early in 2006. "But is it too little, too late?"

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

It Looked Weird and Felt Wrong>>>Mr. Bush's Not-War


"Let them hate, as long as they fear!" :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Crush Assyrian Skulls!

Originally Posted by Mr. Glen Chancy

It is doubtful that George W. Bush will be remembered as the American President who brought Jeffersonian Democracy to the Middle East. But it appears that at least one historic achievement is well within his grasp. It is quite likely that "W" will succeed where the Arab Caliphate, the Mongol Empire, the Ottoman Empire, British colonialism, and decades of Ba’athist misrule all failed. When "W" finally saunters off the world stage, the Assyrian Christian community in Iraq will probably be gone as well.

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow: The Kristol Nacht :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Iran: "We are calling for a cease-fire in Lebanon."

Syria: "To resolve the crisis in the region it is necessary to decree a ceasefire..."

USA: ...has cautioned Syria and Iran that they face further isolation if they try to scupper US-led attempts to get a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel...

??

PS: The United States fought hard and won language in the final communique that excluded a call for an "immediate ceasefire"...

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Well, you're being disingenuous by not mentioning the fact that the ceasefire deals that Iran and Syria are offering include a prisoner exchange in which the two Israeli soldiers in the hands of Hizbollah would be exchanged for an unspecified number of terrorists currently imprisoned by Israel.

I was under the impression that it was to be an exchange of hostages taken on both sides. Israeli fighters for arab fighters. And the 5,000 arab lives-to-1 Israeli ratio is a fairly well-accepted one, by the standards set by the IDF itself...

Since the entire reason for Israel's show of force in Lebanon was to do enough damage to make Hizbollah think twice before kidnapping Israeli citizens in the future...

Soldiers are captured. Particularly when they are picked up on the wrong side of a border ("It all started on July 12 when Israel troops were ambushed on Lebanon's side of the border with Israel..."). Just a nit, I suppose...

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Just a nit, I suppose...

The whole moral foundation of the conflict is the manner in which people are killed. Hamas and Hezbollah are bad because they intentionally kill civilians, while Israel just accidentally kills civilians. However, Israel kills more Palestinian/Lebanese civilians than Hezbollah/Hamas kills Israelis. There's been something like 900 Lebanese civilian casualties this month - and this isn't even a conflict between Lebanon and Israel - it's between Hezbollah and Israel. It's like bombing Sicilian infrastructure to root out the Mafia ...

I'm not sure how that works when balancing the scales. Perhaps you can run it through your "1 Israeli for 5,000 Arabs" algorithm, Mr. 1977 ...

Inside the Green Zone

Originally Posted by Mr. Andrew Tilghman, who was a correspondent in Iraq for the military newspaper [i

Stars and Stripes[/i], in the WaPo]I asked Green whether he went there a lot. He did, he said, because he liked to get away from the Americans "who are always telling me what to do."

"These guys are cool," he said, referring to the Iraqis.

"But," he added with a shrug, "I wouldn't really care if all these guys got waxed."

As we talked, Green complained about his frustration with the Army brass that urged young soldiers to exercise caution even in the most terrifying and life-threatening circumstances.

"We're out here getting attacked all the time and we're in trouble when somebody accidentally gets shot?" he said, referring to infantrymen like himself throughout Iraq. "We're pawns for the [expletive] politicians, for people that don't give a [expletive] about us and don't know anything about what it's like to be out here on the line."

Cast upon, not a Procrustian bed, but a Fristian couch

The WaPo consults the heirs of Freud. :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Originally Posted by Uzi

Hamas and Hezbollah are bad because they intentionally kill civilians, while Israel just accidentally kills civilians.

Ah yes, 'accidentally'.

It was an 'accident' that Israeli planes bombed a house full of children twice. After all, "All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah...". And the bombers, I'm sure, couldn't actually see the whites of their victims' eyes -- which makes it less reprehensible, somehow??

And they sure do "accidentally" kill a lot of people. And keep doing the same things over and over that end up "accidentally" killing people. At some point -- well past by now, certainly -- the killing of civilians is recognizable as a foreseeable consequence of those particular actions. Thus, a decision to take those actions, is a decision to kill innocents.

Say! Or maybe the bombs dropped themselves?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

And they sure do "accidentally" kill a lot of people. And keep doing the same things over and over that end up "accidentally" killing people. At some point -- well past by now, certainly -- the killing of civilians is recognizable as a foreseeable consequence of those particular actions. Thus, a decision to take those actions, is a decision to kill innocents.

Say! Or maybe the bombs dropped themselves?

But if that's the case, maybe there is no Santa Claus! :oops: Oh my, how can I go on? Oh well, whatever. :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

The Forgotten Victims

Originally Posted by Mr. Scott. P. Richert

These Christians, who used to act as leaven, politically and spiritually, in a troubled region can no longer do so. And so the ideological description of the conflict as the dualism of Judaism/Israel versus Islam/Arabs has gone from an inaccurate reduction of reality to something more than a half-truth today.

What is astounding is that so few “conservative” American Catholics realize that the ethnic cleansing of Christians from the Middle East is not, in the long run, in the national interest of either the United States or Israel. Blinded by American nationalism or partisan politics or maybe just bloodlust, they’re supporting policies that will likely cost more American and Israeli blood in the decades to come.

Clearing the East of Christianity: Ignorance, Oikophobia or Alienation from Christianity?

Originally Posted by Mr. Daniel Larison

Everyone and his brother*on the blogging right seems to belong to the Save Darfur Coalition, but when*did you ever even hear of a Save Middle East Christians Coalition?

Why this ignorance of or contempt for people who are more “our own” than the myriad nations our government is supposedly*intent upon freeing and democratising?* Is this a function of secularism having taken such root in the culture that Christians are afraid or embarrassed to speak out for co-religionists on explicit grounds of Christian solidarity?* Is this some strange leftover animus among the Protestant majority towards other confessions, an expression of an old*prejudice that these people aren’t really Christians at all?* I know there are*some American Christians who take an active interest in the suffering and*persecution of Christians around the world, including in the Near*East, but why are they such a distinct and small minority?* **

I'm not sure most people know that Middle Eastern Christians exist. I wonder why the various churches - especially the Evangelicals and the Roman Catholics - aren't loudly proclaiming their existence and need for rescue? Back in my youth every church in the nation would have been at least taking up a collection for them.

I must admit this article came as an unpleasant surprise/reminder to me.

As for governments, it's no surprise they are ignoring/ignortant of this. Governments play balance of power and these are people without power. But why George Bush hasn't picked up on it and made it a moral crusade is the mystery of the decade, unless he is honestly not aware.

Thanks for posting this.

You Know why-----BECAUSE BUSH IS EVIL HE ISN'T REALLY A CRISTIAN HE WANTS TO BRING ABOUT WWIII (OR WWIV...whatever)

that decadant F*CK..his whole american sub-culture is moraly BANKRUPT

we need to cover the chistian's asses in the middle east and just start getting out of Iraq....just help Isreal (if they don't go compleatly nuts-oid themselves...maybe just to keep them sane anyways)

The big problems is IRAN anyways we shouldn't have even gone into Iraq and just paid attention to IRAN, Iran is so nuts now they want to start a nuke war with us because thet think it will bring all the other nuke powers into it and so we will be wiped out even if they are wiped out

So what do you do if an Entire Government OF A Country STARTS thinging like a suicide bomber (as in a suicide country)

Originally Posted by purple-state extremist

You Know why-----BECAUSE BUSH IS EVIL HE ISN'T REALLY A CRISTIAN HE WANTS TO BRING ABOUT WWIII (OR WWIV...whatever)

that decadent F*CK..his whole American sub-culture is morally BANKRUPT

we need to cover the christian's asses in the middle east and just start getting out of Iraq....just help Israel (if they don't go completely nuts-oid themselves...maybe just to keep them sane anyways)

The big problems is IRAN anyways we shouldn't have even gone into Iraq and just paid attention to IRAN, Iran is so nuts now they want to start a nuke war with us because they think it will bring all the other nuke powers into it and so we will be wiped out even if they are wiped out

So what do you do if an Entire Government OF A Country STARTS thinking like a suicide bomber (as in a suicide country)

Don't assume that rhetoric is policy. Iran is a lot like North Korea. they are in a quasi-protected status, Iran due to oil and NK due to China, so they feel free to blather to their hearts content. Most of the blather is for home consumption.

That's not to say that we shouldn't keep a close watch on both. Blather and belligerence can get out of hand.

• BTW, I ran spell-check on the whole post, so the orignial and my quote differ a bit

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

BTW, I ran spell-check on the whole post, so the orignial and my quote differ a bit

Ah, another Progressive blow against variety. If Eurasia cannot be reformed at least a forum might be 'fixed'! :wink: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

BTW, I ran spell-check on the whole post, so the orignial and my quote differ a bit[/list]

How do you run spell check when posting on the internet?

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

BTW, I ran spell-check on the whole post, so the orignial and my quote differ a bit[/list]

How do you run spell check when posting on the internet?

Go here, and download the toolbar. There are other tools, too.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

BTW, I ran spell-check on the whole post, so the orignial and my quote differ a bit[/list]

How do you run spell check when posting on the internet?

Go here, and download the toolbar. There are other tools, too.

What does the toolbar do with carpents, sacricolist, sospital?

Would it be a needful thing for Yo. Ob. Sv.?

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

BTW, I ran spell-check on the whole post, so the orignial and my quote differ a bit[/list]

How do you run spell check when posting on the internet?

Go here, and download the toolbar. There are other tools, too.

What does the toolbar do with carpents, sacricolist, sospital?

Would it be a needful thing for Yo. Ob. Sv.?

You're too funny. :lol:

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Iran: "We are calling for a cease-fire in Lebanon."

Syria: "To resolve the crisis in the region it is necessary to decree a ceasefire..."

USA: ...has cautioned Syria and Iran that they face further isolation if they try to scupper US-led attempts to get a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel...

??

PS: The United States fought hard and won language in the final communique that excluded a call for an "immediate ceasefire"...

All the talk of cease-fire is a diplomatic smokescreen on both sides. Syria and Iran want a hiatus to dig in and resupply Hizbollah, Israel wants to inflict more damage on their enemies, ideally to destroy them as a force and at lease to press them much further back, and to send a message to Tehran and Damascus.

America is on Israel's side in this, and it looks very much as if France might actually be, as well, or at least not averse to seeing Hizbollah take some more damage. The current UN resolution looks like more of the same pretended, wink-and-a-nod effort.

Millennials work together in Irak project! :cry: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Originally Posted by Mr. Geo. W. Bush, POTUS

'They try to spread their jihadist message -- a message I call, it's totalitarian in nature -- Islamic radicalism, Islamic fascism, they try to spread it as well by taking the attack to those of us who love freedom. '

Originally Posted by Mr. Juan Cole

Fascism is not even a very good description of the ideology of most Muslim fundamentalists. Most fascism in the Middle East has been secular in character, as with Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Fascism involves extreme nationalism and most often racism. Muslim fundamentalist movements reject the nation-state as their primary loyalty and reject race as a basis for political action or social discrimination. Fascists exalt the state above individual rights or the rule of law. Muslim fundamentalists exalt Islamic law above the utilitarian interests of the state. Fascism exalts youth and a master race above the old and the "inferior" races. Muslim fundamentalists would never speak this way. Fascism glorifies "war as an end in itself and victory as the determinant of truth and worthiness." Muslim fundamentalists view holy war as a ritual with precise conditions and laws governing its conduct. It is not considered an end in itself.

Cole Contra Bush