Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

The Millenarian Möbius

Originally Posted by ST

There is nothing to choose between those two “visions.” The bipartisan consensus is set, and its implications are staggering. For as long as there is a single country anywhere in the world that is gripped by tyranny (Bush), or that does not enjoy peace, prosperity and self-determination (Democrats), it is ripe for regime change by all practicable means, USAF and USMC included. This is not to be done in order to protect America’s security interests in any traditionally defined sense: even supposing that such interests are not necessarily identical with those of “the world” smacks of “isolationism” and shows readiness to “retreat from our duties.”

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

I'm dubious about the above. Bush 43 seems to care more about crushing tyrannies in oil rich countries than elsewhere. The Clinton Administration was active when warlord government led to ethnic cleansing, genocide, military scale rape campaigns and political famines. This is a long way from sending in the marines whenever there is a lack of "peace, prosperity and self-determination." As a self proclaimed long term isolationist, I would like to be scaling down our foreign interventions. Still, the above quote is far more strawman than truth. It portrays the foreign policies of neither party accurately.

Originally Posted by Mr. Alan Bock

In his attack on "isolationism," the president bought into and furthered a false alternative that has poisoned American political discussion for decades now. This use of the term isolationism to demonize opponents or critics has usually been a staple of liberal Democrats, but putatively conservative Republicans now seem to find it handy. It doesn’t have any more intellectual validity now than it did in decades past.

Dreary Old Clichés

Originally Posted by AB

I would note that there are plenty of relationships among people of different countries besides buying or selling goods that are and should be welcomed by most people of reasonably good will. Tourism, cultural exchanges like trips by symphony orchestras and other performing arts organizations, foreign student exchanges, and all sorts of welcome interchange occur at the level of private citizen-to-citizen activity. In fact, interchanges among governments, even those that involve military action, are a small minority of the interchanges and exchanges that take place in this world.

I am so sick of these false choices -- this "you're either on our side or their side" kind of mentality. I'm glad to see that Bush is being called out on this.

GWOT=TLW

Originally Posted by Mr. Simon Tisdall in the [i

Guardian[/i](UK)]The Bush administration's re-characterisation of its "global war on terror" as the "long war" will be seen by critics as an admission that the US has started something it cannot finish. But from the Pentagon's perspective, the change reflects a significant upgrading of the "generational" threat posed by worldwide Islamist militancy which it believes to have been seriously underestimated.


...Gen Kimmitt admitted the biggest battle could be at home: "It will require strong leadership to continue to make the case to the people that this war is necessary and must be prosecuted for perhaps another generation."

Generations of Not-War to come in the Reform of Eurasia. :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Originally Posted by Mr. Simon Tisdall in the [i

Guardian[/i](UK)]The Bush administration's re-characterisation of its "global war on terror" as the "long war" will be seen by critics as an admission that the US has started something it cannot finish.

Indeed.

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Originally Posted by Mr. Simon Tisdall in the [i

Guardian[/i](UK)]The Bush administration's re-characterisation of its "global war on terror" as the "long war" will be seen by critics as an admission that the US has started something it cannot finish.

Indeed.

What's really scary is Bush's claim that he can do whatever he wants "for the protection of the people of the US" during a time of war combined with the war will last a generation. By the end of this "war" we won't have a constitional republic any more.

Originally Posted by jeffw

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Originally Posted by Mr. Simon Tisdall in the [i

Guardian[/i](UK)]The Bush administration's re-characterisation of its "global war on terror" as the "long war" will be seen by critics as an admission that the US has started something it cannot finish.

Indeed.

What's really scary is Bush's claim that he can do whatever he wants "for the protection of the people of the US" during a time of war combined with the war will last a generation. By the end of this "war" we won't have a constitional republic any more.

Kudos to Senator Brownback of Kansas--a very conservative Republican--for raising that very point in the hearings yesterday.

David K '47

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

Originally Posted by jeffw

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Originally Posted by Mr. Simon Tisdall in the [i

Guardian[/i](UK)]The Bush administration's re-characterisation of its "global war on terror" as the "long war" will be seen by critics as an admission that the US has started something it cannot finish.

Indeed.

What's really scary is Bush's claim that he can do whatever he wants "for the protection of the people of the US" during a time of war combined with the war will last a generation. By the end of this "war" we won't have a constitional republic any more.

Kudos to Senator Brownback of Kansas--a very conservative Republican--for raising that very point in the hearings yesterday.

Anyone putting country before party would.

The Mess

Originally Posted by Mr. Peter Galbraith in the NY[i

RB[/i]]On June 28, 2004, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh escorted Bremer to a West Virginia Air National Guard C-130 plane on the tarmac of the Baghdad International Airport. As photographers snapped the picture that would appear in the next day's newspapers, Bremer stood in the aircraft door and waved goodbye. The door closed, the farewell party left, and nothing happened. When the coast was clear, Bremer and his bodyguard left the C-130, ran to a nearby helicopter, flew to a different part of the airport, and then boarded a waiting jet to Jordan. If insurgents were planning to attack the C-130, he had outfoxed them.

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

CIVIL WAR, anyone? I can't believe the Bushites couldn't see this coming. Our Mideast policies stink so bad I wonder how this country hangs together. Why would anyone want to join any branch the U.S.military service if they knew that a prolonged civil war in Iraq was inevitable. No winners, just losers.

I feel certain that Gore would not have been so blind.

--Croakmore

I like the new AP headline even better : "Mosque Attack Pushes Iraq Toward Civil War"

The reprisals have already begun.

If it is a civil war, this bombing may mark the end of the long conservative era that began with the 1968 Chicago riots. The folks who started this war, and even those who supported it, will be due for some serious comeuppance, and atonement.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

Originally Posted by jeffw

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Originally Posted by Mr. Simon Tisdall in the [i

Guardian[/i](UK)]The Bush administration's re-characterisation of its "global war on terror" as the "long war" will be seen by critics as an admission that the US has started something it cannot finish.

Indeed.

What's really scary is Bush's claim that he can do whatever he wants "for the protection of the people of the US" during a time of war combined with the war will last a generation. By the end of this "war" we won't have a constitional republic any more.

Kudos to Senator Brownback of Kansas--a very conservative Republican--for raising that very point in the hearings yesterday.

I'm beginning to think that the nature of the last 3T administration tends to influence the nature of the Regeneracy coalition. Last time around the President spanning the 3T-4T transition was Hoover, a humanitarian-a clueless humanintarian, but a humanitarian nonetheless.

This time around the coalition may be made up, at first glance, of strange bedfellows. We may end up with a broad grouping that cuts across party lines and, to a substantial extent, ideological labels.

David K '47

Something wierd happened with my last post, my comments began with "I'm beginning" and ended with "ideological labels."

Don't worry. This is nothing like when an Austrian Archeduke was shot in the dawn of WWI. Those brave people of Iraq have their religions to comfort them, and everybody will live in peace, now that Saddam is gone. However, it might require perpetual marshal law and WWIII to deliver that blessed peace, not mention a few more American lives and $$ deposited to that account.

btw: The French think the big one is about to pop.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

Something wierd happened with my last post, my comments began with "I'm beginning" and ended with "ideological labels."

I suspect that you pushed the Quote button expecting to get the quote where the cursor is. What actually happens is that it comes out at the end.

In any case, go back and edit your article by moving one of the two [/quote]'s at the end to before where your comments start.

"130 Killed in Attacks Across Iraq"

On the Road to the Rubicon

Originally Posted by The Guardian

"...the term "civil war", chillingly familiar from Lebanon in the 1970s or Algeria in the 1990s, is too neat: Iraq is embroiled in a war of all against all, supercharged mayhem in which Shia militias fight each other; the Kurds have a fully-fledged army; al-Qaida and foreign jihadis work with Ba'athists and armed criminals run rackets. The road ahead leads to warlordism and anarchy."

The situation in Iraq reminds me of Germany in 1932, with Communist, Socialist and Nazi militias fighting in the streets---although my recollection is that those guys rarely used firearms. I never thought much good was going to come of this, but I didn't expect it to get this bad either. I wonder whether a few weeks of religious strife will sour the American people on the whole enterprise. We shouldn't leave, though, without trying to broker some kind of cease-fire, at least, among the factions.

Gee, the Syrians stopped the civil war in Lebanon. Suppose we'll ask them to take on Iraq?

Just kidding. .. I think.

David K '47

In the days of Desert Storm, Saddam launched some missiles in the direction of Israel, hoping Israel would counter strike, thus turning the war from an everyone against Saddam conflict to an Arab against West conflict.

The amazing thing was that Israel didn't shoot back. It wasn't in their interests to escalate, so they didn't. Unheard of restraint.

With both Sunni and Shiite in modern Iraq blowing up churches, no such restraint.

The recent norm of how to establish peace in Iraq was set by Saddam's terror squads. The way to establish peace in the recent cultural context is genocide. Saddam ruled by fear. Not an abstract in theory my phone might be tapped fear, but an everyone knows someone who died fear. The Sunni aren't going to win politically by the new rules, as they haven't the numbers to win a majority in parliament. So they provoke a genocidal conflict???

Spiral of violence... When someone does something bad to you, it is essential that you do something worse to them, as otherwise they will do it again. If both sides understand this philosophy, can you detect a slight problem?

I guess the artist generation traditionally produces compromisers, people trying to defuse conflicts before they get out of hand. A nice thought. Then there are the prophets, not content with compromise, who want resolution.

I have a prophet's stroke of idealism, the desire to solve problems, but would prefer to do it with compromise if at all possible. At what point is it not at all possible?

If this is civil war, perhaps it is also the cascade.

Originally Posted by Linus

If this is civil war, perhaps it is also the cascade.

I used the phrase "spiral of violence" long before the term 'cascade' became popular on this site. Heck, when I first started visiting these forums, I was still concerned about the Waco, Ruby Ridge, OKC spiral.

But spirals of violence can be local or global. "The Cascade" like "The Regeneracy" seems to apply to a culture. One might propose that the 3T / 4T cusp might come in phases which could be labeled. I try not to become too obsessed with labels. "The Cascade" would be a time when two factions are escalating violence in an attempt to intimidate the other into backing down. "The Regeneracy" would be a time when old solutions and perhaps carefully escalating violence have to be abandoned in favor of new solutions and / or no holds barred all out attempts at victory. The Crisis proper, post Pearl Harbor or equivalent, forget it. No holds barred. Us or them. Blood, toil, tears, sweat...

But, yes, this could get out of hand. If destruction of one of the holiest of Shiite holies isn't the Pearl Harbor equivalent, what will be? How well are Mecca and Medina guarded? If it does get out of hand, real bad for the Iraqis, and not at all good for the United States.

Then again, there were riots and car burnings around Paris not long ago, and riots and demonstrations after the Egyptian ferry went down. The entire Islamic civilization seems on edge, but not quite as on edge as those of us watching from afar sometimes anticipate.

My Magic 8 Ball™ is still hazy. We have to try again later.

Unbelievable. Bill O'Reilly has thrown with "Mother Sheehan". Why does he hate America?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602220007

Originally Posted by Mr. Joseph Sobran

At risk of provoking liberals to riot by insulting
their most cherished beliefs, I should point out that in
many respects President Bush himself is a liberal. He
assumes that if he offers the world's Muslims democracy
-- an offer they can't refuse, as it were -- they will
eagerly grab it, women's rights and all. This is another
case where I might have counseled otherwise, but again, I
wasn't asked.


Like most of his breed, our liberal in chief seems
to regard religion as a mere opinion, an edifying
individual option rather than a necessary social
cohesive. This is why he seems ill prepared to deal with
the Muslim world, where they take a different view of it.
Unlike the liberal Washington Post, for example, the
Muslim press doesn't bury religious news in the back
sections of the weekend editions. It takes the view, so
baffling to enlightened Westerners, that if the Almighty
exists, he is probably pretty important.

Liberal in Chief

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Unbelievable. Bill O'Reilly has thrown with "Mother Sheehan". Why does he hate America?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602220007

I especially like the term "crazy-people underestimation." :lol: :lol:

Originally Posted by Mr. Jon Basil Utley

A major reason the Armageddonites have become so powerful is that most journalists can't comprehend that millions of Americans could really want, in this day and age, their God to destroy most of the human race, much less that they are donating millions to promote it (subsidizing settlements on the West Bank and paying for Russian Jews to immigrate to Israel in order to fulfill prophecies faster). Nor do most Americans know that Armageddonites are in the highest levels of government. But it was erstwhile House Majority Leader Tom DeLay who argued that the Iraq war should be supported because it is a precursor to the second coming of Christ. He also tried to undermine the Bush "roadmap for peace" when he visited Israel.

The Brutal Christ of the Armageddonites

Originally Posted by JBU

This is how the dispensationalist ideology, dreamed up in the mid-19th century in the poor hills of Scotland and dispersed to the backwoods of Virginia and the deserts of Texas and Oklahoma, became a major factor in American foreign policy. ...

A few educated evangelicals, however, are now questioning where their brethren are trying to take America. In January, the New York Times carried a piece by Charles Marsh, a self-declared evangelical, about how many ministers agitated for war on Iraq, even telling their congregations that it would help expedite biblical prophecy. Eighty-seven percent of white evangelical Christians supported the attack, and some even linked Saddam Hussein with wicked King Nebuchadnezzar of Biblical fame.