Comments Posted By Drongo
Displaying 171 To 180 Of 246 Comments
NANCY'S EXCELLENT MIDDLE EAST ADVENTURE
(Sorry, I seem to be having trouble with posting today. I'll try again. I hope I haven't been banned, I can't work out why that would be. I don't think I've been insulting, sworn, gone off topic or spammed. And we know that you wouldn't ban someone just because you disagreed with them. You're just not that sort of person.)
That's about as good a piece of writing as the "What if Gore had won in 2000" thing from FDl the other day. You do realise that, don't you?
" I think a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem would be fewer Jews in Israel. That would make the Arabs less mad and lead to peace. "
Nice.
Honestly, how would you feel if someone wrote a similar piece about someone you admire, suggesting that they thought that maybe if we had less Blacks in America we would have less murders. Answer, you would condemn them.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 4.04.2007 @ 09:23
MICHAEL WARE NEEDS TO COME HOME
Oh, and while we're looking at McCain's idiotic wander in a market;
"21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress. "
Frankly, I cannot imagine how any aware person can avoid laughing out loud at the absurd pronouncements coming from McCain. It is like listening to a combination of the Soviet grain harvest report and Bagdhad Bob.
Let's remember how it goes now, shall we.
A potential leader of your country says that you can walk safely around Bagdhad. He proves this by walking around with 100 troops, helicopters and a bullet proof vest. 1/2 hour after the press conference, the area of the conference is mortared by insurgents, and the next morning 21 people who he visited are kidnapped and visciously murdered by the insurgents.
I got your working surge right here folks...
(And no, no glee at this report before you have the routine "You love it when things go wrong" sulk. I wish McCain had a magic wand and could render Bagdhad a peaceful paradise, but he can't so he plays make-believe.)
Comment Posted By Drongo On 3.04.2007 @ 07:50
"Automatically dismissing information from certain sources without independently evaluating and confirming it – something he has admitted doing – is outrageous."
Could you furnish us with the quote for this please?
Comment Posted By Drongo On 3.04.2007 @ 07:33
"NBC aired a report that McCain’s claims of being able to walk freely through a Baghdad market – about 3 minutes across the Tigris river from the Green Zone – were something less than honest. He was surrounded by 100 American soldiers and screened by 3 Blackhawk helicopters and 2 Apache gunships. The left and the press is having a field day with this info, never mentioning the fact that John McCain is a serious candidate for President of the United States and that this kind of security is not only necessary but expected."
McCain : It is safe to walk these streets. Out on walkabout to show how safe it is. Shows exactly how safe it is by hiding behind a 100 armed guards. Pretty unsafe by ll accounts.
Thus McCain's point is disproven. Since he must have known about this contradiction, he did the PR stuff with his eyes open.
This is a man who will openly lie about something as vital as an ongoing war. What's more, he'll lie stupidly.
"John McCain is a serious candidate for President of the United States"
Yes he is. The fact that people are noticing that this candidate is a brazen faced liar is a good thing, don't you think?
"Ware has seen dozens of these attacks – the dead and dying, the body parts of children, the screams of anguish from the bereaved and screams of pain from the horribly wounded."
So, let me get this straight. Some journalists can't be trusted to show the upside of this war because they are too immersed in the overwhelming horror of it.
Not exactly one of the worlds most convincing arguments, is it?
Comment Posted By Drongo On 2.04.2007 @ 22:34
"Is there nothing in that imbecilic claptrap that you find the least ridiculous or fanciful or downright loony?"
I found it all hilarious, of course. An absurd excercise in wishful thinking.
"You really are a knee jerk idiot, Drongo."
And yet, oddly, I, the idiot, am the one who said 4 years ago "This is going to be a horrible mess" and you were the one cheering for it.
Funny that.
"I rarely read them"
Fair enough, free country and all that.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 31.03.2007 @ 18:37
"September 16, 2001: 150,000 UN-led troops, 100,000 of whom are US forces, leave for Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein, who as a secularist Muslim leader despises Osama bin Laden and is in any event eager to get back in the world’s good graces, assists in setting up staging areas in Iraq for the UN. In Teheran, Iran’s moderate leadership, which needs the help of the world community in beating back the conservative mullahs, agrees to let UN troops and planes pass through Iran unhindered."
June 2007 : US and coalition forces still tied down by viscious guerilla war in Afghanistan. Iraq, Iran suspected of dealing arms to Taliban Guerillas.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 31.03.2007 @ 17:47
SHIAS RAMPAGE IN IRAQ: IDIOTS RAMPAGE ON THE LEFT
"Please excuse the snark but I am heartily sick of brainless twits on the left who have yet to offer one solid idea on how to improve the situation in Iraq (Americans exiting would not improve the situation one iota) while denigrating our efforts. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not in the game. They forfeited years ago. And the only reason you can’t ignore them is because they are so obnoxious."
"The game"?
Americans exiting would improve the situation a great deal. No more Americas would be being killed or maimed in Iraq. That's an improvement, right?
By doing so, after a period of violence, maybe, just maybe the state could rebuild itself in a form that can work in Iraq. By staying you just prolong this bloodbath and support a system that obviously doesn't work over there.
I find the idea that we should ignore anyone who disagreed with this idiotic adventure in the first place, and listen more carefully to the people who started it amusing.
Tell you what. I'll suggest solutions if you accept that the invasion was a bad idea in the first place. No caveats, no extraneous language, just say "We should never have invaded Iraq" and we'll start from there.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 30.03.2007 @ 07:48
"To lovingly dote on each setback, every attack that we fail to stop, or any indication of trouble whatsoever as proof of anything is sheer lunacy. And it bespeaks a shallowness of thought we have become all too familiar with from people who openly wish for a defeat of American arms on the field of battle."
OK, lets focus less on individual bad days and look at the trends over the last, say, 3 years.
Government has gone from a relatively ineffective secular US-friendly group with little sectarian division to a totally ineffective mish mash of competing militias and religious nutjobs who would turn on us in a heartbeat, and who can't pass laws in any meaningful manner, nor even get a quorum in their parliamentary meetings.
Security has gone from occasional attack on civilians and little sectarian violence (particularly little sectarian kickback from Shiites who were remarkably restrained in the early years) to a total free for all involving kidnapping gangs, militias on all sides, police going around in their own town killing everyone on the wrong sectarian team while nutcases carbomb at will, even now using chemical weapons to hit US bases. The Green Zone has gone from a party zone and secure enclave to somewhere that you can't walk around without a flak jacket and helmet. Bodies routinely turn up on the streets that have been tortured. Police stations have been raided that were practicing torture. Coalition troops have been caught raping and murdering civilians.
Economically, the country is a nightmare with raging inflation, mass unemployment and no security net for the hundreds of thousands left without a breadwinner in the family. Millions of the most highly skilled have run like hell to the nearest friendly country. Untold others live in tent cities outside the ruins of their former cities.
Petrol, electricity, sewerage, clean water, food, all are in shorter supply than they were 3 years ago.
Attacks on all categories (Coalition, civilian, police) trend consistently upwards. Those attacks have gone through several stages but have evolved to deal with armour, procedures, and even helicopters.
Whole chunks of the country have blinked off the map controlled by god-knows who if anyone.
Percentages of Iraqis who support attacks on coalition troops have gone up and up over the three years.
I wish the Iraqi people well. I don't want this nightmare to go on. But it is just absurd to imagine that doting on each setback is the problem here. If each setback was followed by a step forward that improved the situation then you'd have a point, but it doesn't. Each stepback places us further and further away from peace and towards anarchy, and it has been doing for years now. Nothing hints that this is changing. It is people who constantly point to the tiny steps forward while ignoring the massive jumps backward that are missing the point and acting on false premises.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 30.03.2007 @ 07:40
IRAN TRIES THE OLD "BAIT AND SWITCH"
"It may seem a little forward of me to ask, them being high falutin diplomats and all, but who, praytell, is going to take the position in this “debate†that Iran is within their rights to hold 15 foreign nationals who even the Iranian government admitted on Sunday (later changing the lat/long to reflect the lie that they were picked up in Iranian waters) were in Iraqi territorial waters engaged in activity mandated by the UN and approved by the Iraqi government?"
One complexity here is that there isn't any such thing as an Iraqi/Iranian border in those waters. The Iranians claim that it was Iranian waters, the Brits claim it was Iraqi.
Not that this makes holding the marines acceptable, but it does explain the reticence of other in the international community to stand up.
And can I just add that it is at times like these when it would be nice if one could protest about cruel treatment of your nationals in other people's hands without the entire world laughing at you and saying "I thought the Geneva conventions were quaint?" and "Hiljab or Jumpsuit, what's the difference?"
Integrity, once lost, is very difficult to regain.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 30.03.2007 @ 04:42
BRITS YAWN AS IRAN DECLARES WAR
"The lack of reaction by the British public is curious. There seemed to be a little more outrage when they were shown on TV, but not the level that I would expect."
Not really all that surprising if you lived here. The whole "Stiff upper lip" thing isn't just a stereotype. People have, for years, responded to terrorism with a "getting on with it" attitude and this falls into the same category. As an example, the day after the 7/7 bombings most conversation was about how the tubes were going to be cocked up, rather than worrying about whether we were all going to be blown up. That and the standard joke : "The French did it because we won the Olympics" (Oh how I wish the French had won the Olympics...)
In contrast most people in the UK have been agast at the US flag-waving attitude that has been prevalent for the last few years.
It is difficult to describe this effect. We like our patriotism stoical and quiet usually. Just like we like our religion. Don't mistake that for cowardice, or being war-shy. Most people that I spoke to that were anti-Iraq war took a "But this is just bloody stupid" line rather than a "Make love not war" one.
That having been said, the UK is in no state, militarily, to go invading Iran, so what would be the point in pretending that we were?
Comment Posted By Drongo On 29.03.2007 @ 09:45
