Comments Posted By Richard
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OBAMA-REZKO AND MEDIA IGNORANCE OF "THE CHICAGO WAY"
While I don't agree with some of the associations you make I would like to provide the link below. Maybe you have seen it, maybe you have not. I think that it adds to your point that there are a number of interesting stories about this guy but they are not being published.
http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/
Thank you for allowing me to submit this.
Comment Posted By Richard On 6.03.2008 @ 19:05
A beautiful if misguided post. September 11 will live on in our hearts and in our memories, but the endless reciting of the names and the ceremonies and the rending of garments.... It really is time to get over it. Which doesn't mean to forget. But six years is a pretty long time; life goes on. Remember, but don't swim in your sorrow and cling to victim status forever. Pico Iyer summed it up pretty well only two years after the tragedy; six years later his words seem more relevant than ever:
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http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501030915-483346,00.htmlTo many on this side of the world, therefore, America's dwelling—and dwelling—on its losses of two years ago appears unseemly. The firemen who gave their lives in the World Trade Center are heroes to inspire the world. And most Muslims regard the assault of a few fanatics as a blot on their religion, not a triumph. Yet America, determined not to look up from the event and to keep brandishing its wounds before the world, looks at times like an angry child who lacks the perspective of his elders. When a troublemaker tries to provoke you, even schoolboys know that you get the best of him by turning away and going about your business. Each time the U.S. revisits its sorrow, it provides Osama bin Laden with another victory and lives down to the terrorists' caricatures of it.
The very tragedy that should have propelled America closer to the rest of the world, and made it more sympathetic to cultures that have suffered catastrophes of their own, has only pushed America deeper into itself. And at precisely the moment when it should be thinking about a global future—if nothing else, the attacks reminded us that the grievance of one place is the sorrow of every place—the U.S. is retreating into the past and a vision of "us" against "them." America has acted in recent years as if to be on the receiving end of evil is, in itself, to be good. That being opposed to wrong is not the same thing as being right, that being a victim is not the same as being an innocent are ideas not warmly entertained of late in the land of the free.
Everyone who suffers a terrible loss grieves over it and remembers its anniversary; not to do so would seem scarcely human. And in the case of America, which has been shielded for so long from terrorism at home, the 9/11 attacks possessed a force that more weathered cultures have forgotten. But the older cultures, having extended a hand toward America at its time of need, can reasonably feel now that the U.S., in its rage, has swatted them away. And the imbalance of the world—whereby so much power and money lie with one of its youngest nations—is compounded by that deeper imbalance whereby almost every nation knows more about America than America knows about every other nation. Each reiteration of the 9/11 tragedy can make it seem as if the U.S. is stressing its losses to the exclusion of those in Bali or Bombay or East Africa; when more than 120,000 people died in a flood in Bangladesh in 1991—40 times as many casualties as on 9/11—I do not remember my neighbors in California showing much concern. -----------------------------------------
Comment Posted By richard On 3.09.2007 @ 04:40
"Make our stand now in Iraq or fight them later when they are far stronger."
Who's the "they"? The Sunni insugents and the Shia death squads, both of whom threaten us, are not going to come attacking the US. Ever. Increasingly, the "they" is a huge cross-section of the very people we went to liberate. They are not Al Qaeda, sworn to create the great Caliphate spanning the globe. They are fighting a local and centuries-old internecine battle that we cannot stop. Well, maybe we could have if, right at that golden moment when we had the chance - before the looting started, as the Saddam statues were falling - if we had shown we could maintain order and restore services and care about the people as much as the pipeline...maybe then we could have turned it around. I honestly thought we were right on the verge. I was so optimistic, ready to chalk one up from Bush. And then, bam!, we played the price for Rummy's lean-mean-fightin'-machine strategery. And the rest is history.
But back to my point... This isn't Al Qaeda we're fighting in Iraq, aside from a relative handful of AQ infiltrators. To say if we don't defeat the Iraqi insurgents in Iraq we will have to fight them on our shores is alarmist and insane: they hardly have the resources to survive, let alone assemble an army to cross the oceans and invade America. They need to be contained, monitored, frightened, intimidated, isolated and weakened. But you can't defeat them with guns - the more you pop, the more you fuel recuitment and resentment. A vicious circle, a never-ending tug-of-war. Just look at the Viet Cong. Did our dumping napalm on them keep them from their goal? Did it diminish their ranks? As is often stated, we never lost a single military battle in Vietnam. We always won. And yet it was in the end a defeat from which we have yet to recover - and from which we have yet to learn.
Comment Posted By richard On 22.08.2006 @ 02:38
"in all lost battles, there is the same explanation: too little, too late. and so it is here."
Absolutely. So interesting to see the consensus here, in a self-professed right-wing blog (and one of the few I really respect)as commenters nearly unanimously refer to it as a lost cause. in all lost battles, there is the same explRich was right, the president's inability or unwillingness to admit mistakes and to reconsider has wreaked havoc. Such a man should never be president. It calls to mind a classic quote from HL Mencken about the kind of person who runs for president:
"[A]ll the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre--the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." - H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.
Comment Posted By richard On 21.08.2006 @ 00:50
Sorry, left out the source of my long quote: Terence J. Daly is a retired military intelligence officer and counterinsurgency specialist who served in Vietnam as a province-level adviser.
Comment Posted By richard On 20.08.2006 @ 23:26
Give it up, Milan. You can't compare the war in iraq qith the Cold War. Stalin and his heirs had the bomb and threatened to point nuclear missles at us from Cuba. Saddam, evil butcher that he was, was a man in the twilight of his power with no weapons and no threat to speak of. I can see giving all we have to save us from nuclear destruction. I can't see our giving all we have for a fruitless quest to bring democracy to a people who are in every way - culturally, religiously, historically - not interested in democracy. We have better and more important things to do. At the risk of raising the chorus of Godwin's law, Hitler was very famous for insisting until his very last day in the bunker that through sheer force of "will" and "resolve" and "sticking with it," the Nazis could repel the Russians and Americans from German soil. It sounds good and all-American to have this can-do attitude. But there somes a point when we simply have to ask: is it working? What do have to show for our investment? Is our strategyu correct?
Great new op-ed in the NY Times today (pay-for-view only) by a military analyst during Vietnam. Let me quote a couple lines:
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THREE years into the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, everyone from slicksleeved privates fighting for survival in Ramadi to the echelons above reality at the Pentagon still believes that eliminating insurgents will eliminate the insurgency. They are wrong.There is a difference between killing insurgents and fighting an insurgency. In three years, the Sunni insurgency has grown from nothing into a force that threatens our national objective of establishing and maintaining a free, independent and united Iraq. During that time, we have fought insurgents with airstrikes, artillery, the courage and tactical excellence of our forces, and new technology worth billions of dollars. We are further from our goal than we were when we started.
Counterinsurgency is about gaining control of the population, not killing or detaining enemy fighters. A properly planned counterinsurgency campaign moves the population, by stages, from reluctant acceptance of the counterinsurgent force to, ideally, full support.
American soldiers deride “winning hearts and minds†as the equivalent of sitting around a campfire singing “Kumbaya.†But in fact it is a sophisticated, multifaceted, even ruthless struggle to wrest control of a population from cunning and often brutal foes. The counterinsurgent must be ready and able to kill insurgents — lots of them — but as a means, not an end.
---------------------If by "will" and "resolve," you (Milan) mean we should stay the current course of trying to kill insurgents, I'm afraid it's a doomed enterprise. And I'm afraid it's to late to try to do it the right way, via hearts and minds. All my hopes for that evaporated the dy the Abu Ghraib photos were released. That was my personal turning point, as I know once those we set out to liberate hate us, we're screwed. And the rest is history.
Comment Posted By richard On 20.08.2006 @ 23:25
Milan, back then, in 1951, Americans were generally in agreement that there was a very specific threat(the USSR) against which we had to stand united. And we did. Today, the threat (as far as Iraq goes) is far less clear, and unfortunately the terrorism that now runs rampant there was brought about by our invasion. Ironically, the war in Iraq causes us only to degress from the real clear threat - Islamic jihadists. America was 100 percent united in September 2001 and ready to do whatever had to be done to fight this threat. Bush, by sidetracking us and crippling us, has generated infinite disappointment for those of us who really wanted to se OBL and his operation destroyed.
The "whining" over Iraq is not a symptom of childishness or lack of resolve. It is a cry of despair over a war that, due to poor execution, now cannot be won, and that no longer makes sense.
Comment Posted By richard On 20.08.2006 @ 21:11
You make some fair points, but I also think some of your arguments are arcane. You can write about how good the constitution is in theory, but what does it mean? Is it being enforced? Is it being taken seriously? You can argue about who's Sharia and who's for true democracy, but where is the country actually heading as reflected in its actions (such as the arrest of gays)? We need to look at it from an ontological perspective: what is actually happening there and can we still control events there?
I think most Americans, like myself (and I was an early supporter of the war) are deeply confused and conflicted about what we should do next. No, we don't want to leave Iraq in chaos. Just as in 1972 in Vietnam, we want to get out with as much "face" as we can so that we can say, "We went in, we eradicated the Saddam tyranny, we gave them the tools for democracy and it is up to them now to make it work." And I predict that is exactly what we will say, in a scene errily reminiscent of Vietnam - because, tragically, there is simply no other choice in the matter, because any hopes of "winning" in the way Bush originally promised we would are down the toilet. I trust you saw today's article in the WaPo by Kenneth Pollack and Daniel Byman? It spells out just how crushing our problems there really are, and these are not hysterical leftists. The story, with its blunt examination of the catastrophe that would follow all out civil war in Iraq, is the stuff for nightmares. As is the alternative, staying and slowly bleeding to death. I'm afraid there are no good choices, but calling on Americans to show more "resolve" and more "will" is a futile exercise at this point. Our trust has been betrayed, and Bush cannot rally us as he could on September 12, 2001.
Strange similarities, too, to Germany in 1918, when the war efforts collapsed and the German government literally imploded. All of us (at least those with their eyes wide open) feel that we are now at that critical juncture, at the edge of a precipice, and we're scared to death that Bush could force us to jump. We have lost all our faith in our government (and the polls do make this very clear) and no one knows what's next - all we know is that there are no good choices, and whether we begin to pull out or plan to send in more troops, there's going to be unparalleld bloodshed to come, all for a goal no one can define anymore.
Comment Posted By richard On 20.08.2006 @ 19:59
"Simply put, the reason I have come to this conclusion now is that the enemies of Iraqi democracy have established a clear upper hand in the country and it is uncertain at best whether the situation can be retrieved at this point."
There is no democracy to be an enemy of. This "democracy" is employing death squads, supporting Hezbollah rallies, arresting homosexuals, curtailing women's rights, and imposing an Iran-style theocracy on our nickel. Getting into a lifeboat didn't make one an "enemy" of the Titanic - it was the prudent and smart thing to do after all other options were exhausted. Do we throw endless amounts of good money (and good lives) after bad? Sorry, but you are now in direct opposition to the majority of Americans and the more you cheerlead for a lost cause the more marginalized you make yourself. You'd have a tad more credibility if even a single promise of a post-Saddam world had been met: all costs of the occupation and rebuilding paid for by cheap Iraqi oil, a beacon of democracy that would force neighbors to reconsider their own governments' methods, Iraqis greeting us as liberators, troops home in six months, a cakewalk...remember? So the fact that now, three and a half years later, we are skeptical and pessimistic speaks to America's waking up, not breaking down. All the talk of a free and democratic Iraq is now heard only on the fringes and rings increasingly hollow. Face it: you lost this one and there's no resurrecting it. This is not the war we were told it would be, and the only return on our monumental investment has been tens of thousands dead, civil war, record-high oil prices, the alienation of our allies, America's new persona as torturer, and the implosion of the Republican party. Get out the pom-poms and cheerlead til the cows come home. Luckily, cheap slogans - "as they stand up we will stand down" and "the insurgency is in its last throes" - are now fodder for Jay Leno, national jokes. In the wake of Bush's incoherence on Iraq, even conservatives like Joe Scarborough are pondering whether our president is"an idiot." Sorry Rich, I know your intentions are good, but you'd better step back and see this as it really is. It isn't pretty.
Comment Posted By richard On 20.08.2006 @ 19:06
YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME...YOU DIE SOME
GW, you have to document how circumventing the established legal procedures put anyone's life in danger.
"No, the enemy and the rotten cowards are those who hate this president so much that they would do anything, including ignoring national security, for some bizarre thrill of disrupting any agenda of this administration."
Luckily, no one on the right ever tried to disrupt the Clinton administration just for the bizarre thrill of it all.
I really think you are off. George Will, John Derbyshire, Mort Zuckerman and a host of conservative bloggers and pundits have spoken out against Bush's power grabs. This is not Bush dementia syndrome, it's called the American way of life, where our government is accountable to its citizens, and where it adheres to the Constitution we all love so much.
Comment Posted By richard On 17.08.2006 @ 21:22
