Comments Posted By Dale in Atlanta
Displaying 31 To 40 Of 138 Comments
THE 'MAN ON A WHITE HORSE' SYNDROME
Wow, I hate to admit it, but Rick must be doing something "right", no pun intended.
He's thoroughly pissed me off, for attacking President Bush and his stance against the Iraq War.
Now, he's pissed of the Lunatic Moonbats, because he dares to criticize the second coming of the Obamessiah!
Wow, good job Rick, you've pissed everyone off!
That said, GREAT post on the "Obmessiah", you're absolutely correct, of course.
Also, just so you know, the ONLY reason he attracted that many people up there in OR, is because they gave a FREE music concert of a very popular local "Indie" band, and 95% of that crowd showed up to see the band!
Check out Hugh Hewitt, he has the whole story; of course, you won't see the MSM admitting that!
Comment Posted By Dale in Atlanta On 21.05.2008 @ 08:07
Well Rick, I've never seen any sensible person advocate the United States use "torture"!
Including the Bush Administration.
What we do disagree on, is WHAT constitutes torture.
I say, as before, and again now, the following do NOT constitute "torture":
a) waterboarding
b) sleep deprivation
c) stress positions
d) loud noise stress
e) temperature manipulationRick, I was in the Marine Corps, I had to undergo all those and worse, to just to prove I belonged! (Sorry, I lied, I did not go to SERE school, so I was not ever "waterboarded").
But, I know that we do, legally, Waterboard hundreds of SERE, Pilots, and other snake-eater types on a yearly basis in different training courses in the US Miliatry and Government.
Sorry, it is NOT "torture".
Hell, you're average College Freshman or Pledge has worse done to them trying to join a damn Frat!
Under your rules, and those of the Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Left, Raising your voice, pointing your finger, and using bad words on someone is out!
Me, I personally draw the line at the following:
a) actual physical or medical Harm
b) anything sexual, except verbal secual humiliation
c) Dogs to scare them is fine; dogs that physically attack them/hurt them, no way!
d) food/water deprivation, only for 48/72 hours, maximmum (had that done many times!)Sorry, if the Al Qaeda P%&*ies can't put up with that type of stuff, then they need to quit beheading and killing people, and running planes into skyscrappers and killing 3000 people at a time.
And the cheesedicks on the Left, think any of the things above ARE "torture", then they need pack their bags and go join their Al Qaeda Allies in Waziristan!
Sorry Rick, once again you've picked an issue, fallen in love with your analysis, and are are wrong.
Comment Posted By Dale in Atlanta On 2.04.2008 @ 18:36
CAN WE JUST WALK AWAY FROM IRAQ?
Nor can we in 500 years. Islamic militants and the overall deep division between the Sunni and the Shia will never be placated by the actions of the U. S. military. Dale, you, like Rick, will eventually have to spit out the neo-con Kool-Aid that promotes any idea of “victory” in Iraq. It won’t happen.
I really wouldn't expect any other type of reply from an Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Democrat Liberal Nutbag!
You're hoisted on your own treasonous petard!
Comment Posted By Dale in Atlanta On 2.04.2008 @ 18:26
Rick: I'll add a few other comments.
Rules of Opinions: everybody has one.....and you know the rest!
Rick, you run a Blog, you're entitled to your own opinion, obviously, and you can post whatever you want, obviously, and that is not me in a patronizing way "giving you permission" or anything; I'm just stating the obvious.
However, the reason why I'm so distressed with you on this particular issue, is that not only are you "wrong", but that your "opinion" like most other Bloggers, is based upon what you read, and interpret via various Media outlets!
Rick, DON'T EVER believe what you read in the newspaper@
I learned that lesson early in life, I was 10 years old, living in Benin City, Nigeria, before, during, and after the Biafran Civil War.
No TV there, no video games, computers, Internet, etc.
We did have a big old radio in a wooden cabinet, and we could get the VOA and BBC every evening, and once a week, we went to the Lebanese owned "Cinema" to watch either a James Bond flick or some 4 hour Bollywood tour de force with 10 dances, 20 songs and NO kissing!
So, a precocious kid like me had to READ to stay sane. I started with Newsweek and Time and National Geo and Encyclopedia's and anything Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Rice Burroughs and Agatha Christie and James Carr and Frederich Pohl and went on from there.
It was interesting, reading the weeklies, like Newsweek and Time, and seeing them talk about the starvation in the streets of Benin City and the Biafran Rebels murdering people in the center of the town when in fact I WAS sitting in the center of Benin, reading the article, and not once in five+ years did I ever see a starving Nigerian or the Biafran Rebels murder anyone on the streets because they were about 120 miles AWAY, but you'd never know that fom Time and Newseek or the other Leftist even back then "rags", as they ran that same picture over and over again of the same 3 - 4 starving Ibo kids they got from down in the Port Harcout area somewhere.
Later one, when I was a teenager and going to University in Cairo, I watched the US and Canadian press show up about once a year, and DEMAND from their various Embassies FIRST CLASS accomodations and easy access etc., and even once, when the limo didn't show up on time at Cairo International Airport, the Embassy Rep was blatantly told: "You'll see a negative story about the Embassy and what you do here on the 6pm National news tomorrow, because you didn't treat us right...", and they were right, the ran a bogus story the next day, to pay the Embassy back.
Then, there was the time I was in Northern Iraq, counting the graves of slaughtered Kurdish kids, and mapping out over 250 Kurdish villages that had been bulldozed into the ground by Saddam's genocide against the Kurds (there were over a 1000 such villages, I just got to document only 250 in person, however); and we had a Iraqi Nuclear Scientist defect to us, and were trying to get him out of the country.
Some idiot Army Officer (I was a Marine) decided he'd suck up to the NPR reporters who were roaming around, and "leak" the info to them; they showed up at midnight, and asked me to verify it, because of what I was doing.
I told them, Off the record, that I couldn't confirm or deny it, then they proceeded to reveal all the idiot Army guy told them, and it was EVERYTHING; I couldn't believe.
Anyway, asked them what they were going to do with that info, and they said "Publish it of course", and I said do you realize that by doing that, you're putting him, his entire family, the family he had to leave behind in Baghdad, and even us in danger? Is that worth it to you?
Their answer to me, unsurprisingly, I guess? "Doesn't matter, the American people NEED to know!"
I told them, "No, the American people don't NEED to know, YOU NEED to have your name on a Headline", and walked away!
Anyway, I tell you all this boring stuff Rick, because I have over 30 years direct, hands on experience, with this apart of the world, and though I'm no longer active duty, I have dozens of my peers who are in Afghanistan and Iraq, and I get the unvarnished, accurate scoop of what's going on, on a weekly basis!
I KNOW, and it's NOT what's in the press, and it's not open to leftist spin, nor Rightist isolationism.
By the way, you can't label me a "Righty" Rick, I'm a registered and proud Independent, and I've done something that most people in this country don't do!
I choose my Presidential Candidate based upon who I think is, and will be the best for America!
I could care less about abortion, or the bogus class warfare populism crap, or the bogus economy is in a recession crap, or that the Anti-American Leftist Europeans don't love us any more bogus meme (I'll tell you about my 3 years in Spain and 2 years in Okinawa sometime, BEFORE Bush was ever President, and we'll see how that bogus line stacks up!).
I ONLY care about "America", so labelling me a "righty" just doesn't work. I do't go to Church, I don't pray, I don't care about abortion; though I do think that if other people care about those things, good for them, they're free to choose.
Bottomline is this Rick, you're making judgements, on the Iraq war, thru a VERY narrow prism of knowledge and experience of said War, garnered from an even MORE narrow prism of oepn source information that you interpret to come to your conclusions.
It's not a good way to evaluate such a critical issue, especially when you wield the power of the pen so to speak, by running an influential Blog, and thus you are capable of swaying other people to your opinions with that Bully Pulpet!
I'll just throw one measure of success out there for you about Iraq, that is completely absent any MSM, or Blog, etc.
Yesterday, a Marine was killed in Al Anbar province of Iraq, the home of the "Sahawa" or Awakening as you probably know.
He was the Fourth Marine, total, killed in Iraq, in the past completed three months.
Yes, that's right, FOUR US Marines have been killed in Al Anbar, in the past three months!
Every casualty of ours, and any innnocent Iraqi,is a Tradegy Rick, but you have to keep thisi in Military significant terms.
Four Marines, three months, Al Anbar, KIA.
If you go back a total of Six months, there have not been 8 Marines KIA in all of Iraq, which is Al Anbar as their AOR, in the past six months. Three of those occurred in Oct, one in December; 2 in Jan, one in Feb, and this last one in March. So, in essence, since the New Year, there have been a total of 4 Marine KIA in Al-Anbar. Just over one per month in the last three months, and the last six months.
In the six months before that, there were 56 Marines killed in Al Anbar!
And in the six months before that, there were 132 Marines killed in Al Anbar!
Geez Rick, is that progress, or no?
The Left refrain is that the violence in Iraq has only subsided a bit, because Al Sadr called a "ceasefire"!
Geez Rick, IF that is the case, how do you account for a 132 - 56 - 8 reduction in casualties (by the way, that includes KIA's and non-combat casualties!) during those six month intervals, among the SUNNIS of Al Anbar, because the Shiite As Sadr called for a "ceasefire"??
To address on other critism of the Surge, its that we bought off thugs, former insurgents and criminal gangs by bribing them!
Well, if that's the case, and the Sahawa is nothing more than a bunch of bought-off mercenaries, they sure have carried out their task, which is keeping American Forces relatively safe, for the past six months, which is NOT the hallmark of a bunch of cowardly paid-off thugs and mercenaries.
IT'S a WAR Rick, people die, and victory is hardly every complete or clean, if you knew anything about Military History, you'd know that.
To "win" WWII, we had to Nuke two Japanese cities, we had to turn Sicily in effect over to the Mafia to control, and we had to allow the Rightist, racist, nationalist Power Structure in Japan, that was responsible for the horrific War Crimes of the Rape of Nanking and Rape of Manila, among others, in order to bring the war to an early end!
NOT good stuff, morally questionable stuff, but done nonetheless to end it sooner rather than later.
And guess what Rick, 60 YEARS LATER, we're still there, and in Germany, and in Italy, and in Holland and in Belgium and in the UK for gosh's sake!
We can't solve 1400 years worth of Ethnic, Religious, Tribe, Clan and other problems in Iraq, in Five years!
But what is MOST important, is that we have STARTED; we've started a complete Paradigm shift in the Religion and Politics of the Middle East; which was DESPERATELY needed, if you know anything at all about the ideology, theology and longrange plans of the Jihadis.
We started it, and we CANNOT quit now, because you, and others like you, and the Left in this country, lack the long-range vision to see what we are up against, or the testicular fortitude for a fight!
Ask Prime Miminister Quisling or Neveille Chamberlain about that!
Anyway, Rick, that's my 2cents, though I know I haven't convinced you on iota. When people fall in love with their own analysis, and paint themselves into a corner, especially when they're Bloggers, they never admit they're wrong, they just keep Blogging away to keep up the facade to their supporters.
That's fine, as I said, it's your Blog, you can and will do as you wish, of course; it does not however make you "right", nor does it even connote that you have a avery large prism at all, from which to responsibly analyze this situation.
Comment Posted By Dale in Atlanta On 1.04.2008 @ 17:19
Rick: sigh....you didn't listen I guess....
Rules of Holes:
1) Quit digging when you're in over your head!
Rules of Analysis:
1) NEVER fall in "Love" with your own analysis
Basic Rules of Conclusions:
1) Go where the Facts lead, do not reach your Conclusion First, then find "Facts" to fit it!
Congrats Rick, you've made a Hat Trick; you've violated all Three, and now do so on a depressingly frequent basis concerning this issue.
Final "Rules":
1) if you really don't know enough about the topic to ponfificate, then don't!
2) Rule of "Corners": once you paint yourself into a corner by previous "analysis", the best course of action is to STOP painting and let it dry; do NOT keep on painting! No matter how many coats you keep re-applying, in order to cover up your mistake, you're still stuck in the corner, and cannot extract yourself!
Comment Posted By Dale in Atlanta On 1.04.2008 @ 16:14
Well Rick, once again to prove your Anti-War roots, you jumped on seemingly "negative" news about the War, and just as in the past, you have been consistantly proven wrong.
Rick, you, like too many other Bloggers, Fall in Love with your Own Analysis, then you Blog your way into an corner, and the only way out, is to continually Blog away on a subject, while you are constantly sinking under the weight of your previously stated "analysis".
This is called: Arriving at the Conclusion first, in your case, you've decided you're aainst the War, and then finding the "evidence" to support your flawed, pre-judged "conclusions".
Rick, you're the BEST WRITER on the Internet/in the Blogosphere, bar none!
You're a smart guy too, no doubt.
And I think your heart, and probably your head, are in the "right" place.
But your common sense and your ability to effectively and accurately judge from an unbiased position what is happening in Iraq, what it is all about, and why it is VITALLY important that we not only stay there, but for once and for all, end that conflict in a decisive manner, has slipped from your grasp.
In fact, your recent posts on the War have sounded more at hmme over at DU or Moveon.org or the Daily Kos-omac.
But since I know you are not a "Lefty", I can only assume you've sniffed the rarified airs of Pat Buchannon, Ron Paul and the John Birch Society.
Stop it now Rick, you're smarter and better than that!
Comment Posted By Dale in Atlanta On 30.03.2008 @ 14:21
Rick: bottomline is this: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and looks like it's a duck....it IS a "duck"!
"Pastor" (I put that in quotes, because he's not really a Pastor, he's an Anti-American, Anti-White, hating Racist Demagogue!)..but anyway, "Pastor" Wright walks like a Racist, quacks like a Racist, and looks like a Racist, ergo, he IS a Racist.
Of course "Pastor" Wright, and his "congregation" of befuddled sychophants, as well as the self-hating Anti-American Left in this country, can never, and will never admit that, because "Pastor" Wright has black skin, and in their La-La-Fantasyland, ONLY Whites can be Racists!
But "Pastor" Wright is a Racist; and frankly, if Senator Obama and his wife, have sat there and agreed with him for the past TWENTY YEARS, and they have not condemned him before they got caught just recently, and only just "condenmed" him for political expediency, and they've exposed their kids to that Anti-American/Anti-White HATE for however many years, then the truth is, THEY are Racists too!
Nobody wants to say; I don't care, I will!
If walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and looks like a duck....
Comment Posted By Dale in Atlanta On 19.03.2008 @ 17:19
Rick: you CAN'T be serious about the below:
1. There is every reason to believe that slavery would have died under the weight of its own contradictions without killing 600,000 Americans not to mention the consequences of “reconstruction†which are still being dealt with today.
2. Hitler was not our problem. He had no bombers that could reach us nor a navy to ferry an invasion force across the Atlantic. We chose to take on Hitler. The Japanses freed hundreds of millions from European colonialism. The fact that they took the place of the European overlords was none of our business. A foreign policy that reflected those ideas would have not have given the Japanese any reason to bomb Pearl Harbor.
I don’t subscribe to either of those arguments but they are legitimate.
There are arguments against any and every war – good, sound moral arguments.
Ed.
Number One is completely and factually bogus, this para from the Wiki proves it:
In 1962, Saudi Arabia outlawed slavery, freeing about 10,000 slaves out of an estimated 15,000-30,000.[22] Slavery was ended by neighboring Qatar in 1952, the Yemen Arab Republic in 1962, the UAE in 1963, South Yemen in 1967, and Oman in 1970. Some of these states, such as Yemen, were British protectorates. The British left South Yemen without forcing it to give up slavery, but did pressure the UAE into giving it up. In 2005, Saudi Arabia was designated by the United States Department of State as a Tier 3 country with respect to trafficking in human beings. Tier 3 countries are "Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so."
And those countries only so-called "outlawed" slavery under international pressure; fact it, it's still overtly permitted, and that's not even to get into the vast swath of Sub-Saharan Africa, Sudan, etc., where slavery has never ended!
As far as Number Two is concerned, c'mon, you really really really can't be serious?
So that argument is completely and thorougly bogus; and I'm completely STUNNED that you even imply they are "legitimate" not even counting the fact that they are historically and factually WRONG!
The Japanese didn't free anybody from European colonialims, they replaced sometimes benign, sometimes oppressive European colonialism across SE Asia with a brutal and bloody form of Japanese colonialism the effect of which to this day have still poisoned normal relations between Japan and it's Asian neighbors
Considering the age you said you are Rick, you should be ashamed of yourself to even make such a ludicrous statement as you just made above; you should know better, if you don't then I'm appalled.
Rape of Naking, Rick?
Rape of Manial, Rick?
Japanese forces in a six week period murdered over 200,000 Chinese civilians in the Rape of Nanking, Rick, are you completely out of your mind?
America, at it's worst, anywhere, has NEVER done anything like that.
In the Rape of Manila and the Philippines, it's estimated that the Japanse military Raped over TWO MILLION Filipina women!
Are you kidding me?
Bad American miliary personal in Iraq rape ONE Iraqi women, and they are punished and we are vilified around the world, and someone would equate that with the the deliberate rape of over TWO MILLION women? Are you kidding me?
As many as up to 200,000 women from all across SE Asia were forced into Prostitution as "Comfort Women" for the Japanese Miliatry.
My god Rick, you've got to be kidding me on this.
Besides, we didn't "take on Hitler"; the Japanese bombed on us, and Hitler declared war ON US!
"He had no bombers that could reach us nor a navy to ferry an invasion force across the Atlantic. "
Again a completely stunningly ignorant of history comment!
WOW!
The Japanese actually developed an Atomic bomb, and probably tested it in Korea before the end of the War; they even sent a Submarine ladened with a "dirty bomb" to nuclear contaminate the West Coast of the United States, and it was only by dint of luck that it didn't succeed.
As far as the Germans were concerned, they did not have an "amphib force" to ferry an invasion force, but that is the ONLY aspect of the comment that is correct!
They had EVER intention, with Strategic plans, as soon as they took over England, to turn it into an island "Aircraft Carrier" from which to attack and destroy the United States.
That you don't know this, is completely baffling; German scientists were ahead of us in the nuclear arms race, and it was only due to British special forces that they didn't actually explode one first.
They developed the V1 and then V2, NOT to attack England, the developed them to build follow-ons to attack the United States, and we had not defense against them.
They were planning and building Intercontinental bombers, to attack and raze US mainland cities, especially NYC.
Hitler himself approved the building of several variants that were developed and tested before the end of the war; it was only because of the extreme pressure from the Russians and us after Normandy, that they never succeeded.
If we hadn't had been in Europe at all, they WOULD have succeeded.
You're betraying an ignorance of history Rick, that is frankly stunning to me, and one that is clearly you putting the blinders on, in order to not only "prove" your post is correct, but in order to back up your other posts where you have criticized the War in Iraq, and have been subsequently proven incorrect!
I like you Rick, you're a good guy, you're heart and head are mostly in the right place, but sometimes, you fall in love with your own analysis and writings, and you back yourself into a corner with them, and then you continue to defend them with increasingly shaky post after increasingly shaky post, in order to a) never admit you were wrong, and b) in order to what I can only surmise is a type of Patrick Buchanan/John Bircher/Ron Paul-esque type affectation; sometimes in an attempt to show you are "even-handed".
You're wrong Rick, in your examples, and in the thrust of your post, I've proven it, and if you don't know it, you should a) be ashamed that you allowed yourself to parrot things that as so demonstrably historically wrong and b) put yourself in the position in the first place to even attempt to legitimaize such ludicrous statements.
There are, and will me "moral" wars Rick; to deny that is to go so far to the Right, that you are now sitting firmly on the Left with the Moral Relativists and Moral Equivalence-ists!
WOW!
Comment Posted By Dale in Atlanta On 17.03.2008 @ 22:51
In my 54 years of life on earth, I have come to see war in rather stark and uncompromising terms:
1. War is waste.
2. There is nothing moral about any war except working to end it in victory as soon as possible.
Rick, you're taking an extremely shallow view of war and warfare, to in fact I think, do nothing more than make it seem as if you are against the Iraq War. It's a stance you switched to over a year ago, and it's a meme that you now have to constantly defend.
I won't even go into the Iraq war, which is the main thrust of your generalization.
You completely ignore a totally "moral" war, and that was the US Civil War, the purpose of which was to end the absolutely horrific institution of Slavery in this country.
That WAS a "moral" war, and despite the slaughter and horry, it was not only justified, but would have been justified even if the cost was higher; for no matter the cost, we fought a war for the very soul of our nation and ideals, and the cost was nothing compared to the previous hundreds of years of misery and slavery and slaughter and denigration and the loss of our souls.
WWII was a "moral" war, we faced an evil in Hitler and the Holocaust that was just as insidious and just as evil as the institution of slavery; maybe even worse! That cost too was high, but it was a cost worth bearing for ourselves, and the world.
The war that we didn't fight, in the mid-90s during the Clinton Administration in Rwanda and Burundi, would've been a totally justified "moral" war, our inaction led to the deaths of over 1,000,000 innocents, children, babies, pregnant women, men; most slaughtered in the most horrific way, hacked to death with machetes!
I could go on and on; your heart is in the right place Rick, I know that, but you're expressing it completely the wrong way.
And you do NOT have to keep writing against the Iraq War, to prove anything to anyone; the Invasion of Iraq was the Correct thing to do, though I will not say it had reached the point of a "moral" war. It was the correct thing to do, we are not losing, we never were losing, and it's something that will ultimately make the Middle East the the World a better place.
Aside from Iraq thought Rick, there were, and are "moral" Wars, you've just not put enough thought into this one.
1. There is every reason to believe that slavery would have died under the weight of its own contradictions without killing 600,000 Americans not to mention the consequences of "reconstruction" which are still being dealt with today.
2. Hitler was not our problem. He had no bombers that could reach us nor a navy to ferry an invasion force across the Atlantic. We chose to take on Hitler. The Japanses freed hundreds of millions from European colonialism. The fact that they took the place of the European overlords was none of our business. A foreign policy that reflected those ideas would have not have given the Japanese any reason to bomb Pearl Harbor.
I don't subscribe to either of those arguments but they are legitimate.
There are arguments against any and every war - good, sound moral arguments.
Ed.
Comment Posted By Dale in Atlanta On 16.03.2008 @ 14:25
...existence as an American. All he needs to do is focus on the apple pies, and once he “gets†that (assuming he has to learn how to be an American, rather than he already IS an American) he’ll be able to politely reflect on issues of race over the 4th of July BBQ.
Spoken like a true non-black American.and your comments reflect more about YOU than they do about both me and Obama!
Spoken like a true Anti-American/Pro-Jihaid Leftist Democratic Liberal Nutbag!
Congrats, that was easy to infer....
Comment Posted By Dale in Atlanta On 15.03.2008 @ 17:27
