and not in a good way.

And yes I do believe that.  Shrub proclaimed he was going to return honor and integrity to the White House.  As if he was some heaven send angel who was morally superior than his predecessor.  The morally righteous extreme right is nothing more than a big orgy of self proclaimed prophets, who in the light of scruitny are nothing more than the scum of the earth.  Bush is nothing more than a corrupt, thoughtless, croney puppet, who has caused more damage to the honor and integrity of the White House than probably any other man in our history.
   Clinton's blowjob was a stain on Monica's blue dress, while Shrub and Cheney are a stain on our nation!!

-- Modified on 6/17/2004 8:09:29 PM

See- I think he has a major point.

Two bad things are happening now- Bush's Cronies getting Sweetheart Deals and business is Running Rampant, and have you heard there's a war on?  That now seems to have been unnecessary, and then poorly run, and then the occupation has been a real cluster fuck.

Uneccessary?  Well it appears now that there was enough information to counter the most dire estimates.  And while Hussein was a total scumbag, he did not pose that much more of a threat than, say Pinochet, to pick a GOP favourite.  I have just finished a great book, the longest war by Dilip Hiro.  It'sd about the first Gulf war- the one that Reagan took Hussein's side against Iran.  So i do the Math.  That war went from 1980-1988, costing thousands of lives and a lot of Military Equipment.  I think the Iraqis lost about 500,000 people.

Saddam made the Gas for that one.  Halabja was actually a Iranian Kurdish town, so at least they were in Rebellion when hre gassed them.  The US press portrayed it as a totally random Act.

But then in 1990-1991 we show up after he invades Kuwait and trash his army and bomb the crap out of that country.  Conservative estimates put Iraqi casualties at about 100,000, with some other going way higher.

Then they spend the last years since then getting bombed every now and then and with all kinds of sanctions.  

OF COURSE THEIR SOCIETY WAS FUCKED UP!  They'd been on a war footing for over 20 years!  And we did'nt think the Infrastructure might be crappy?

I'll admit, I thought this was was generally a good idea, although I felt the force package was way too low, and that we were stupid for going it alone.  I knew we would win any pitched battles.  I was afraid that Saddam would go totally VC and fight completely guerrilla.  I KNEW we didn't have enough guys for that.

But I loved the idea of getting that guy and freeing those poor people.  

But with no WMD and no indication of complicity in 9/11, then it was not NECESSARY.  And I have thought about it- you only fight WARS when it's Necessary.  Otherwise, in a democracy, you lack the proper zeal and political cohesion and will.  A moral Imparitive.  And I feel that Abu Ghraib is a mere symptom of that lack of moral edge we had in Iraq.

To make war without that moral imparitive- unfortnuately, that's Empire.  The border state must be made vassal at the pleasure of the Emperor, their King chased into his dungeon.

I want no part of it.

There- I think I went off on a good rant w/o calling bush anything more incindiary than Emperor.  I'm sure I'd have a great time at a Crawford BBQ, or a round of golf.  I just don't want him running the country.  I'd be sure to ask him to reconcile that old fossil record with his devout belief in the 144 hour big bang-to-people creation.  His administration has been Incompetant, his leadership weak, and his aggressive desire for some sort of personal redemption has weakened us deeply and potentially fatally (I do think we can recover- but we are weaker than at any timne during the cold war).  I find his recklessness a poor choice in a president.  

But I respect your right to differ.  Some people like to drive home with the drunk guy.

While it is true that I may disagree with many of your points, my response to you, and to any others that read this, it was a nice change of scenery.  I hate to say this, but if all of the lefties on this board chose their words more carefully and stuck to the point rather than personal inuendo & slander their argument or statement would have greater clarity and the spirit of debate would not only rise, but in a manner that might induce some of you more close minded individuals to think more clearly than through a fog of hatred.  It would also make the righties less likely to crawl down into the sewer with you

Can a semi-nutcase whose posts are often muddled and who call other posters names accuse anyone of name calling?  
    I disagree with the use of the term "Shrub" that some people use to name president Bush, but I do so from a standpoint that it does no good to use such a tactic when the goal is to convince people.  You make your attacks from the, what is to me, unbalanced mindset that appears to be you standard mode of operation.  I would suggest that you grow up, but when one is obviously so twisted and subject to somewhat unfocused rage, such a suggestion does little good.

I support several of the conclusions that you made but do not agree at all with some.  The first one is the gassing of Iranian Kurds.  I can call less whether they were in rebellion, gassing civilians is a war crime.  The second is your focus on Iraqi calsulties, if those casulties were soldiers, who gives a shit?  In the first gulf war (US vs Iraq), this country tried very hard not to hurt civilians, and although it did not succeed 100%, I do think that the effort was acceptable and the civilian losses were a result of the ravages that happen when dogs of war are unleashed.  In the first gulf war (US vs Iraq), it was Saddam who unleashed those dogs, not the US.
    The sanctions that were imposed after the first gulf war were necessary, although I would agree with the point that they could have been done is such a way as to not harm regular Iraqi people as much as they did.  The sanctions could have been done such that Saddam did not have as much control over the money for oil revenue as he did, but of course, we know now that some United Nations officials who were responsible for administering the program were corrupt and were working in league with Saddam.
    On you issues with the current war, I agree almost entirely.  Saddam was a fuckwad that needed to be taken care of but the US could have worked harder to broaden the force that would ultimately take him on and eliminate him.  Broadening the force would have given more boots on the ground during the critical early days of the occupation and now.  I also agree with you that there was simply not enough US troops sent into the country to apply the iron vice that needed to be applied to eliminate "insurgents".
    One critical disagreement that I have with the current Iraq war is that it should not be happening at this time, we could have waited.  We have critical efforts in Afganistan that have suffered because we chose to invade Iraq at the wrong time.  It would have been great if we had eliminated Bin Laden and the Taliban in Afganistan then worked to make that country a model of how the US can work with a Muslim nation.  If we had succeeded in Afganistan, using the proper tactics, the Iraqi people, who actually LIVED in that country and suffered Saddam daily would have begged us to come in and kick his ass - the upshot for us in a situation like that would we would have had everyday Iraqis willing to turn on any "insurgent" assholes who tried to ruin their good thing.

  To me his faith is sincere, and he truly tries to spread his beliefs in an honorable, peaceful, kind, and convincing manner.  I was talking about the likes of Fallwell, Robertson, DeLay, Shrub and company.  Self-righteous, empty to the core, extremist cronies are the kinds I was referring to!!  I don't think anyone can say that about Billy Graham!!

Which is a simple fact.  Getting us into an unneccessary war, over oil interests, using bogus, trumped up WMD charges - especially the charges related to an active NUCLEAR program, which has gotten over 800 Brave American troops and counting killed, while squandering over $200 Billion in U.S. treasury, simply DWARFS the Clinton/Lewinsky BJ in terms of the discredit and dishonor that was done to the nation.

It is quite simply staggerring that anyone can claim that the malfeasance of getting us into an ill-conceived war on false pretenses is even in the same class of discussion as a private pecadillo that would have remained private had the Republicans not had a full-time agenda to destroy the Clinton Presidency.

On scale of Presidential offenses, there is arguably NONE worse that misusing the power of the office to drive us into an OFFENSIVE war where no genuine threat the the U.S. existed.

And, BTW, since "shrub" is term inadvertently coined by Bush himself in naming one of his failed companies, we do not consider it to be a put-down.  Of course, if others consider it to be a term of denigration, I will not quibble with their interpretation, however I will also not pay them any heed in my use of the term.  I will grant you that "Dumbya" is a term of derrogation - but it is entirely earned, by a man who has yet to recognize a single mistake he's made during his term, and thus precludes himself the opportunity to learn from those mistakes - a concept that any 6-year-old can understand.

I'm not talking about the casualties to pity them- that would be silly- they died in wars.  But think about the real damage that causes!  We haven't had a casualty rate like that EVER!  It'sd about Civil war levels- and we were a bigger country then than Iraq is now!'

It's more likely to create the kind of exhaustion that France and Germany had in WW1!  That screwed them up politically for a while did it not?  Fighting a long war with no purpose or pay off, but mammoth death and destruction.

historiography is where the numbers inform your perception of the social realities.  So try to think about a culture uder attack from within- Baath vs. Al Daawa- and from witohut- Iran, US+Team (I) and US+B Team (II), with all the corruption inherent in present islamic societies AND the corrupttion inherent to conmmand economies AND all the corruption that happens with most wars (Remember the HUGE black market during the 40s?).  not a condition conducive to rational thinking on very many peoples parts.

As the rational outsiders WE ought to have thought this out more.

I have to say the pillorying of Clinton caught a lot of us on this side of the aisle by surprise.  When the actual political flow was managing to include most of the good ideas the replublicans had come up with, the man getting that accomplished was being called names and attacked for minor personal foibles.  coming from the party of Taft and nixon (I'll leave Teflon ronnie out of this with his second term of personal gain fest), whose scandals had been about real issues, the vitriol of the right was uncalled for and out of all scale.

What you see now is the reaction to reaction.  I preferred the "learned collegue" form of political dialog, but the Clinton years erased that -AND THE RIGHT DID THE ERASING.

Now if you are tired of being called a fascist- too bad.  You guys should have thought about that when you were calling for the head of a guy who got the occiasional blow job on the clock.  Perhaps a moment of reflection when you were encouraging the Anti-Choice groups to radicalise would have been prudent.  A sliver of introspection before adding another needless military campaign to a full plate in Afghanistan.  It's your turn to sleep in wet spot!

This is where you pay for your convictions.

The attempt were and continued by the left in the US is so sad.  They are truly the decendants of Neville Chamberlain.  The Islamic fanatics HATE us and want as many of us dead as possible.  They will attack again and they will not give up...especially thanks to the gutless Clinton and Gore.  They did nothing while these attacks began in the first Trade Towers, embassies in Africa, and the USS Cole.  
We will be over run if we don't kick some serious ass and let the world know we will not take this crap from anybody.  Force is all they understand.  Iraq may not be the perfect place to begin, but it as good as place as any.  We definitely know they funded Al Quida.

Where, BTW, is the SLIGHTEST SCINTILLA of evidence that Iraq funded Al Qaida?  The problem is, you are accepting sheer B.S. spewed forth by this administration at face value.  You've been lied to, and you've bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Saddam exiled and jailed and persecuted the extremist Moslem clergy in Iraq.  Looked at purely from the perspective of preventing extremist terror, in fact, Saddam was doing our bidding.  He most definitely did not support, and actually went out of his way to oppress the forces you are referring to.

SAUDI ARABIA and KUWAIT, on the other hand, DID support Al Qaida, in a BIG way, although they are FINALLY NOW coming around to fighting these extremists, now that the extremists are bombing THEM.  They are purported to be our allies.  If your argument were to make any sense at all, we should have overthrown Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and left Saddam alone to oppress his own people in Iraq.

A part form the lack of any factual basis in it good post.

Saddam is a Baathist.  Secular semi-Marxist-Leninist Nationalist Party.

Al-Quada is pretty clsoely aligned to Al Daawa, the religious rightist party in Iraq.  Tried several times to kill saddam.  Who do you think the Mukhabarat were designed to attack?

A part from "the enemy of my enemy" rationale, these two groups are unlikely to agree on anything let alone a difficult project like the twin towers attack.

To you they are probably all towel heads anyway and you show a marked antipathy to scholarship, but there is a lot of importance to the nuances in the moslem world.  Arab Nationalists hate us for our alliance with Israel and for "taking up the Colonial burden".  Islamic radicals are like out religiuos right- they hate us for being secular and "attacking their religion and culture" with our culture.  

Personally I think they are messed up and not being intellectually honest-  but that's their bag.  They don't like each other.  But there are some sort of middle grounders who hate us for both reasons mixed.

This is a complex issue unlikely to be solved by the kill 'em all let god decide method.  And we are not without some culpability as well.

and Sully's screed in response to your note of appreciation demonstrates the truth of that trite observation.