1 Yep. Uh-huh.

2 Hello, I am a grad student at the University of Pittsburgh and am researching terrorist intentions via the Mexican border. If you have any links that could point me in the right direction please do not hesitate to send them to me. Any alerts etc. that would be great. Thank you, Zack

1 Alright...so after I looked at Angelina for a while...I made my way over to fat...er...Michael Moore's site and read his little essay. And in typical Moore fashion he'll convince a ton of people. But he bases his argument on a few things... 1. The election day pollsters had to be right for this to play out. 2. That means the voting machines were wrong (i.e. hacked) BUT he fails to point out: 3. That means the pre-election day pollsters were wrong (and several of them were darn close to getting the election right). So in Moore's world...2 things have to be lies for his theory to be true. In my world...Michael Moore is an ass.

2 ALL ass, if you "ass" me.

3 Because if there were any chance in Hades that the Diebold machines were rigged, John Kerry's 10,000-lawyer army would have sued already.

4 Rusty: I'm in the midst of something or I'd post in more detail, but just a quick note. It appears that they're comparing the exit polls with the actual count, without considering that: 1. An estimate has a margin of error, and therefore isn't directly comparable to a count; and 2. The exit polls were conducted and released gradually throughout the day. The Finals probably had a margin of error of plus or minus 4% (total of 8%) but earlier polls would have had a wider margin. Bottom line: Statistically there isn't much difference between the exit polls (at least the finals) and the count. What difference does exist can be explained by oversampling, etc. Someone needs to explain to those guys what a prediction interval is. Sorry I haven't been around. I've been stressing over this project that has been languishing for too long.

5 Gawddangit, Rusty! My girlfriend was in the room!

6 ... and on top of that she's got James Dobson's show playing on the radio, right now. What? You think that whole scenario is funny? Good thing I spent the $5 on that Martha Stewart's Living magazine at the grocery store tonight - it held her attention just long enough to click the back button. By the way, is Martha running the publication from prison.

7 http://leenks.com/redirect.php?lid=3783 angelina jolie and others...leenks.com is funny

1 Last night the French killed twenty and wounded over 600 poor innocent Ivory Coast residents. They were only carrying machetes to protect themselves as they went to work at 1:00 am in the morning. Everyone knows the frogs are just after the cocoa. British and American bloggers know Chirac has planned this for years because the Ivory Coast people called his daddy names. Stop the slaughter. No more blood for cocoa. French go home and let the guys with the machetes peacefully work out their problems. No more Frogs in Africa. The French president is a moron. The bloodshed is all his fault. Michael Moorer says there is evidence that he stole the election. The natives have no other way to protest the french invasion than to kill people from other lands. French troops cannot be allowed to piss on Holy Ivory Coast soil.

2 http://www.canada.com/news/world/story.html?id=48c6cee4-e196-4078-9931-506764ce3d4a An Associated Press reporter watched a crowd clutching machetes and iron bars enter one neighbourhood, demanding if any French lived there. "If there are any whites in this neighbourhood, we're going to get . . . them," one man shouted. http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1288602004 One reporter watched yesterday as a crowd armed with machetes and iron bars entered a neighbourhood near the city’s main French military base, demanding to know if there were any French living there. "It’s better to kill the whites than steal their stuff," one rioter shouted. "It’s better to burn them, like in Algeria. They burned the whites - that’s why they’re respected," another said. "It's better to kill the whites than steal their stuff," another yelled. ------------------ And that is why france imported so many Algerians those appease and surrender monkeys not only surrendered Algeria but France itself to them. So what better people to import than those ivory coast people so they can do the hack, burn and chop dance in gay old Parie. The french women don't mind either, just like during WWII the french women threw up their dresses to the Nazi Occuppiers, they'll do it again for Ivory Coast and Algerian occupiers. WHy not it's not a war it's just immigration.

3 Hey Greyrooster, haven't we heard much of this before. Mmmm. Let me think... Cocoa? yeah, that's oil; called Daddy names? George Bush anyone? The French President's a moron? Dubya get you on this one? French out of Africa? How about USA in Iraq/Middle East? Oh, the irony is just too much

4 MATT BING: Too bad you didn't get the message? Explains a lot of things.

1 Fallon is a lovely community on the Walker river. It has a Naval Air Station and Coast Guard base. Gotta keep them boys happy. The whole area around Fallon has less whores than in 1 city block of San Francisco. Don't believe me? Go to the tenderloin district and try to park your car on the street. The ones at legal brothels are given health checks weekly. The ones on the streets of San Francisco will give you aids. Never understood why a person would give their hard earned money to an overpriced whore. But, then again, I've given the casinos. What's the big deal? Republicans are pro business.

1 Loved it, but I've got that damn song stuck in my head now. Arrrgh.

2 Booshie!!

1 Rusty?

2 Peter?

3 Greyrooster?

4 McCloud?

5 Bueller?

6 Donkey?

7 good post, i forwarded it to my friends

1 As I said sometime back . . . We have to leave the Western Europeans to their own. It's their Immigration policies at work, and who are we (the Americans) to comment? Should we comment or attempt to help, we would appear to be just like them . . Monday Morning Quarterbacks . . Let 'em deal with the Muslims, lessee if they can do any better than we have! May be fun to watch, once it spreads to France . . . .

2 For some reason I don't believe the Dutch actually had the nerve to put a bomb in one of the schools of these muslim invaders. SOmething tells me they did it themselves to involk sympathy from the leftist sheep they wish to eventually slaughter. BAH BAH BAH dutch. Its similar to what happened in the US with Fat Al Sharptons Neice who claimed she was r*p*d by skinheads. Turns out she faked it so to I think this is a fake by muslims against muslims to blame their host population for it so that they can get special perks in the form of laws that make it an offense to sneeze near one of these toweled living gods. Just my view on this, I feel confident that in time we'll see the whose who and whats what of this.

3 LARGE: What do you mean when it spreads to France. Have you been there recently? The French must have traded places with the Algerians and Moroccans. Twenty more years and France will be a North African puppet state. Judging by their recent actions maybe they already are. After the Algerian thing these guys are scared stiff on anything with a rag on its head.

4 Here's the problem: ok, so we let it spread, then in 20 years or 50 Europe is a majority Muslim continent. Then what? We have Muslim domination of countries with a whole lot of nukes and stuff. Serious problem.

5 "ok, so we let it spread, then in 20 years or 50 Europe is a majority Muslim continent. Then what? We have Muslim domination of countries with a whole lot of nukes and stuff. Serious problem." Maybe...of course, by then, the U.S. will be majority Mexican. Maybe then, the Hispanic majority will be a little more tolerant to other cultures? Who knows. Seriously, it's their countries...if they want Muslims, that's their choice. It's not like every single Muslim out there is a bad person because of recent events, just like every single Christian isn't a bad person because of the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in 1982.

6 VENOM: The US will never be majority Mexican. Hispanic people that immigrate to the US become Americans within a generation or two. I'm amazed at how fast they intermingle with the rest of the population. Anyway, immigration will soon slow to a trickle. I expect we will close the doors to Muslim types which means we will have to close the door on others (it's a liberal play fair thing). Sabra and Shatila massacres? Sharon now a Christian? Been a long time but I thought Sharon's militias were blamed for that one. Maybe he armed some Christian types. I sure you can figure a way to show that palestinians have never done anything to drive people to slaughter them back. Maybe someone's children just got blown up? Live by the sword etc:. Where are all the Christians that lived in Lebanon before Hezzbolah sent it's Syrian and Iranian killers in. Answer dead. Mexican's 100% Catholic population more tolerant to other cultures. Man did you flunk history. Example: England/Ireland. Very tolerant. Catholic/Protestant can get along at times. It's a Christian thing. But Christians, Buddist, Hindus or any other religion will never get along with Muslims. It's an Islamic thing. For clarity: I think Israel in it's present location was a mistake. The Brits should have known the impossiblity of getting along with Islamic people. No one else in the world does. So to me they made a mistake. The end. Nothing can be done now. I don't have the answer. Do you? The palestinians should have a country. I do think it would be easier for them to be absorbed into other arab muslim countries. They will always consider themselves 3 class citizens in Israel. I also think the west is making a mistake by educating Islamic types in our universities. Sound nuts huh. Time will tell. If Iran makes a N bomb we will see. The west educated them. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb. They weren't ready. We worry about Pakistan/India and their constant threats to each other. In my view, if Pakistan/India gets into it, other muslim nations will get involved which will force the west to get involved. Anyway my major difference with you is that I believe in America. It's a winner. It's not perfect but it's far ahead of anything in second place. Better minds than I will come up with the solution.

7 RUSTY: I agree. This immigration thing is changing the face of the world. Never understood why we continue to need immigration. Ever been on a freeway in Los Angeles? Now, who in his right mind would say we need more people. Several states are running out of water because of over population. It's nutso. A bigger gripe is after many immigrate they complain and start trouble with the native populations. Don't make sense, look at Europe. Riots, hatred and so on. People immigrate to Europe and North America because their countries suck. Then they don't seen to appreciate their new country. I honestly think repatriation is the answer and not just stopping more immigration. I HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT GERMANY, FRANCE, SPAIN AND MORE ARE NOT WITH US ON THE TERRORIST HUNT BECAUSE OF THEIR LARGE ISLAMIC POPULATIONS. They are afraid of internal strife. And of course. THE VOTE:

8 The USA is the best county in the world! If you think the US is overcrowded, try living in a country with 15 million inhabitants that's half the size of South Carolina. That's right, you guessed it: I'm talking about Holland. A clearer case for stopping all new Muslim immigration into The Netherlands until the current mess has been cleared up could not be made.

9 DUTCH EXPAT: Then why immigration? doesn't make sense.

10 As Bob Dylan said. How does it feel? It's like a rolling stone.

11 greyrooster: It's been pretty well documented that those that carried out the Shatilla and Sabra massacres were Christian militias operating under the approving eye of Israel. Hey, it wouldn't be the first time a foreign country had used foreign fighters to fight their battles. And, obviously, it wasn't the last. My point is that you can't draw conclusions on a religion of billions because of the actions of a minute fraction of that religion. Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews...all have done their share of killings and massacres. But we're not a planet of murderers. As a Christian, I don't consider myself a murderer because another Christian twisted the word of God and made his own interpretations on words written centuries ago. "The US will never be majority Mexican. Hispanic people that immigrate to the US become Americans within a generation or two." Not necessarily. And it depends on what you consider an "American." I don't know if you've opened your window lately, but the U.S. now is a lot different than 30 years ago. Many cultures based on many immigrants. Sure, they become American citizens, they may learn English...but many of them keep their cultural ties. You think it won't influence your "way of life?" And I'd bet that when these immigrants become American citizens, they're going to be looking to better the lives - which is the main reason people come to America, right? Which means, they're going to be looking for health care, job security, benefits...issues the Republican party has no interest in. Or, more accurately, less interest than the Democratic party. Piss and moan all you want, but that's how things are. "But Christians, Buddist, Hindus or any other religion will never get along with Muslims. It's an Islamic thing." Really? Hmm...what about all those close alliances the western world (read: the U.S.) has with Turkey (NATO ally, btw), Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Quatar, Oman, etc.? What about all those new (military) contracts GWB has signed with some of those Islamic countries that border Afghanistan? What about the arming and training of the mujahadeen during the Soviet control of Afghanistan - the same radicals, btw, that have caused all of the most recent Islamic fundementalist problems these days? C'mon, cultures and religions can get along and they can fight against each other, it just depends on the circumstances. Saying that Christians and Muslims can never get along is being pretty ignorant. "For clarity: I think Israel in it's present location was a mistake. The Brits should have known the impossiblity of getting along with Islamic people. No one else in the world does. So to me they made a mistake. The end. Nothing can be done now. I don't have the answer. Do you?" I completely agree with you that the state of Israel in its present location was a mistake. In fact, it might have been one of the worst mistakes of the 20th century. As for your comment that "no one in the world" gets along with the Islamic people, please re-read my above proof. The U.S. has fantastic ties with Islamic countries and does business with many of them on a regular basis. Just because YOU don't get along with Muslims doesn't mean the U.S doesn't. "I also think the west is making a mistake by educating Islamic types in our universities. Sound nuts huh. Time will tell. If Iran makes a N bomb we will see." I don't know what to make of that comment. What, is physics something the U.S. invented? Sharing isn't allowed? And what's an "Islamic type?" Do you mean, a Muslim? "The west educated them. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb. They weren't ready." Please explain what makes a country "ready." "Anyway my major difference with you is that I believe in America. It's a winner. It's not perfect but it's far ahead of anything in second place. Better minds than I will come up with the solution." Despite what you might think, I believe in America, too. I believe in the country that our ancestors made great. I believe in the country that was once the shining beacon in the world and that stood up for the average American, not the average American multinational. I believe in the country that would only put its soldiers in harm's way when it had a clear-cut reason, not a bunch of half-truths. And that when America does decide to go to war, there's an exit strategy, not a quagmire. I believe in the country that didn't let paranoia govern its foreign policy and run its citizens' lives. I still believe in America, but I have a sinking feeling that America doesn't belive in either me or you.

12 VENOM: As a hater of American policies you immediately skewed my comments to suit your agenda. I did not refer to American citizenship. I did not use a piece of paper as a guidepost. Some are Americans overnight, some never are. I referred to how quickly mexican people assimilate into the mainstream culture. Their work ethics, religion, food, music, etc: match much of the existing areas they mainly move to. Mexicans taking jobs? Which one took your mop and bucket? You want to pick the lettuce and tomatoes? Dig ditches? I don't. They fill a nitch that no one else wishes to fill. Of course they want social services. They earn them in the fields so we can eat cheaper and better. Comparing Mexican imigrants to Muslim imigrants is ignorant. Mexicans do not preach hated for America in their mosques. There are no Mexican clerics in Chicago preaching the killing of non Mexicans. No blind Mexican clerics planning to bomb the world trade center. And you use the word ignorant!! Of course you failed to answer where all the pre-war Christians in Lebanon are today. Of course you failed to answer why Sharon's militas would attack people in a refugee camp. Then use that same stupid excuse losers always use. Everyone else is ignorant. Us losers are the only ones that understand the issue. Only losers know anything. The rest of the population is dumb because they don't agree with us. They cheated. They follow like sheep. The other side is composed of mindless idiots. On & on. Nothing. Religion of Billions? Bullshit! how about 1 billion. There is also 1 billion Hindus, 1 billion Catholics. 1 Billion Protestants and 1 billion Chinese (whatever they are these days). The others in South East Asia are another billion. IN PLAIN ENGLISH MUSLIMS ARE A BIG MINORITY. Why do you play it like they are a majority. Furthermore, I would venture to say more than half the muslims in the world wish to hell they were not muslims. The ISLAMIC religion has been holding them back for centuries. Example: Hewlitt Packard corp. receives more international patents in a month than the entire middle east has in the last 20 years. I did not say physics was invented by Americans, so that is a purposeful mistruth coming from you. I purposely used the word the WEST, of which America is a part of. If you don't know what countries constitute the WEST, meaning the Western World. Then who is ignorant. The technology of atomic energy came from the west. What makes a country ready is this. You're ready when you do not allow religious fanatics to control your countries domestic and foreign policies. Anyone who thinks present day Iran is adult enough to have atomic weapons is IGNORANT. We armed the Mujahaheen to assist them in resisting a foreign government using modern weaponry. A secondary reason was to get back at the Soviet Union for arming people against us in the past. Before you start whinning, its merely a true fact. Nothing I would agree with. Was a republican in office then??? It's ignorant to think the ISLAMIC NUTSO's were doing anything but using us for a means to an end. Using the mujahadeen as an example of Muslims and Christians getting along is IGNORANT. Many of them turned that same weaponry against us the next day. So that's a piss poor example. Close alliances with the countries and organization you mentioned is a myth. The majority of problems in the world today are caused directly by the religion of ISLAM. Read the fucking news. Africa (the sudan, Nigeria). Middle east (Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, Afganistan) Bosnia, the Philipines, Indonesia, Russia, India, Holland, Spain, England, United States, Thailand. All these countries and more are experiencing riots, beheadings, insurgency, bombings, and terrorism in the name of ISLAM. The list goes on and on. How can anyone be ignorant enough to blame this on Bush. Talk about ignorant! A religion is the problem. A horrible religion that condones these atrocities. A religion whose holy men yell death to America when discussing the manufacture of nuclear material (Iran this week). A religion whose fundalmentists believe in beating women for not wearing a veil. The horrors India experienced 50 years ago where caused by Muslims. The separation of India into 3 countries was caused by Ghandi's realiziing the Muslims could not get along with the other religions of India. He was the expert on the issue. He tried for years. Then realized separation was the only way. I agree with Gandi. The piss and moan issue you brought up. Are you kidding. It's you liberal democrats that are doing the piss and moan thing. Piss and moan about the election. Piss and moan about the poor Iraqis. Piss and moan about our elected president Piss and moan about our leaders Piss and moan about the war. Piis and moan about this blog. Never a solution. Never an workable idea. Never a constructive thing to say. Just piss and moan. Just a bunch of sore losers. This country is great and kind and giving. America has done more for the world than the rest put together. A nation or person that takes action will make mistakes. However if anything is to get done that nation/person has to stick his neck out for the do nothings to take a swing at. Those that do nothing are safe from criticism. Those that piss and moan about the doers are nothing. No heart, no character, no soul. Never took the lead in anything in their lives. Never won anything in their lives. Never fought for anything in their lives. Call that living? They know who they are. IGNORANT my ass. Look in the mirror. It's easy to read and write and quote. But Common sense will prevail. Attempting to get along with these ISLAMIC assholes shows a lack of common sense. Never has happened, isn't happening now and won't happen in the future. The practice of fundalmentalist ISLAM must be beaten and outlawed. The mugger anology by Rusty was a good example. How can you get along with people that use murder, bombing, human suicide and beheadings as a means to get their way. And they do it in the name of religion. The religion of ISLAM. I KILL YOU IN THE NAME OF ALLAH WHO IS ALL GOOD AND MERCIFUL. BULLSHIT!

13 "Mexicans taking jobs? Which one took your mop and bucket? You want to pick the lettuce and tomatoes? Dig ditches? I don't. They fill a nitch that no one else wishes to fill." What the fuck are you talking about? Do you not even think about the thousands of factory jobs that have gone south of the border because of cheaper labour found in Mexico than in the US? Please tell me you're not this stupid. "Of course you failed to answer where all the pre-war Christians in Lebanon are today." There are actually a lot of Christians living in Lebanon. I happen to have (Christian) friends whose relatives still live there. And their doing pretty decently. Again, please tell me you're not this stupid. "Of course you failed to answer why Sharon's militas would attack people in a refugee camp." Since you're dying for an answer: Simply, the Phalangist militia were retaliating for the assassination of Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayal. Now, WHY Israel would allow this to happen is a whole different question, with pretexts dating to before either you or I was born. I'd love to sit here and educate you why Jews and Muslims don't seem to want to dance and the sock hop, but I imagine it would be a waste of my time since you've made up your mind so long ago. "Then use that same stupid excuse losers always use. Everyone else is ignorant. Us losers are the only ones that understand the issue. Only losers know anything. The rest of the population is dumb because they don't agree with us. They cheated. They follow like sheep. The other side is composed of mindless idiots. On & on. Nothing." Actually, you're the one that's being pretty ignorant. I was speaking about you, not anyone else. Please get your facts straight: YOU are ignorant, and YOU don't get it. "Religion of Billions? Bullshit! how about 1 billion." How about close to 2 billion as of the end of 2000. I know this because I actually look things up. You don't know this because, as I previously mentioned, you're ignorant. "Furthermore, I would venture to say more than half the muslims in the world wish to hell they were not muslims. The ISLAMIC religion has been holding them back for centuries." You could venture to say this, but you'd only be speculating and you'd probably be wrong. "Example: Hewlitt Packard corp. receives more international patents in a month than the entire middle east has in the last 20 years." Do you wish you were Buddhist? I mean, Japan is a juggernaut of technological innovation. If a Muslim decides to turn Christian, is he suddenly showered with wealth? Because that's pretty much what you're saying. And equating "contracts" to a person's religion is pretty fucked up. Is this how you really think the world works? Seriously, what point is it that you're trying to make about Hewlett Packard? That because they get a lot of international patents, they're better than the Middle East? Yeah, probably. But so what? "I did not say physics was invented by Americans, so that is a purposeful mistruth coming from you. I purposely used the word the WEST, of which America is a part of. If you don't know what countries constitute the WEST, meaning the Western World. Then who is ignorant. The technology of atomic energy came from the west." No, but you commented that the west (which in your world, I think only seems to involve the U.S.) shouldn't educate "those Muslim types" and that the US shouldn't be sharing its knowledge. I mentioned physics as an example. You do realize that it was Muslim mathematicians who basically helped civilization along hundreds of years ago, right? Sure, atomic energy came from the west. A lot of it came from displaced German Jews. GERMAN, as in "FROM GERMANY," one of the countries you love to bash on a regular basis. But hey, if you can use Germany in an argument (in a backpedalling kind of way), then suddenly they're great, right? Trust me, I know what constitutes the western world. You, on the other hand, have your head so far buried up your ass you'd need a flashlight and two hookers to find it. "Before you start whinning, its merely a true fact. Nothing I would agree with. Was a republican in office then???" Yeah, actually. You might have heard of him. His name was Ronald Reagan, and he served two terms. You might also rememeber him as being a central figure in selling arms to Iran, another hardline Islamic country. Another example of a Christian country and a Muslim country doing business. But hey, we weren't supposed to find out about that, so maybe we shouldn't be talking about it. "It's ignorant to think the ISLAMIC NUTSO's were doing anything but using us for a means to an end." Yup. And it's also ignorant for thinking that it wasn't going the other way around, too. As an aside, I love how on the one hand you call them "mujahadeen" to justify the need for arming them, and then conveniently switch back to calling them "Islamic Nutso's." I guess changing the goalposts is something you do on a regular basis? "Close alliances with the countries and organization you mentioned is a myth." Nope. Wrong again. NATO is a pretty solid alliance, last time I checked. And the US continues to sign deals with those countries, solidifying already strong relationships. See? Christians and Muslims DO get along on a daily basis! "All these countries and more are experiencing riots, beheadings, insurgency, bombings, and terrorism in the name of ISLAM." It's pretty unfortunate and terrible, but when a fraction of a population acts in a certain way, it doesn't represent the charateristics of the total population. In statistical theory, these are called outliers, and they're routinely rejected from the analysis. Because a few thousand fanatics in a total Muslim population of 2+ billion decide to act like criminals doesn't mean that the other Muslims out there have criminal tendencies either. In fact, you earlier stated that "I would venture to say more than half the muslims in the world wish to hell they were not muslims." By this, you're implying that these Muslims wish they weren't part of this religion because they don't like what's happening in the name of Islam by these fanatics. And if that's the case, how can they ALL be bad? How can "a majority" of them be bad? You see? You contradict yourself left, right, and center. "A religion is the problem. A horrible religion that condones these atrocities. A religion whose holy men yell death to America when discussing the manufacture of nuclear material (Iran this week). A religion whose fundalmentists believe in beating women for not wearing a veil." Yeah, and of course, all other religions are completely peaceful...oh, wait, there's that thing called "human history" and every religion has committed atrocities. Each holy book of each religion is open to the interpretations of those who read them. A person who reads "an eye for an eye" in the Bible may one day become president and wage war on everyone. Does that condemn all Christians? Because of a FANATIC's actions and interpretations? You yourself even use the adjective "fundamentalist" to describe them - ie, a person who takes a hard-line view on everything. This isn't a religion of 2+ billion fundamentalists. If it was, you and I would have been gone long ago, along with all of our ancestors. "I agree with Gandi." Absolute, fucking bullshit. You don't know SHIT about Gandhi. He was THE proponent of non-violent resistence, something you haven't demonstrated once in any of these threads. And, on this topic, it was an intolerance between both Hindus and Muslims that created the separation of India. Gandhi...I can't fucking believe YOU of all people try to bring him into this to support YOUR arguments. "It's you liberal democrats that are doing the piss and moan thing." I'm actually a conservative, but I also call 'em like I see 'em. You might not like my criticisms about a party you hold dear to your heart, but who the fuck is going to call them on it when they fuck up? I'll vote for anyone that has the best interests of my country as his focus, and not those of the top 2% of the country. Just because I don't like Bush or his policies doesn't make me a "liberal democrat." It's convenient for you to label me as such, because your arguments are weak all over and you can't back up shit. How the FUCK can anyone vote for a guy who allowed 9/11 to happen on his watch, who could allow job growth to remain stagnant for almost 4 straight years, who caters to the FUNDAMENTALIST Christian minority, whose administrations LIED before its people and those of other countries as to WMDs in Iraq and the need to invade??? Gimme a fucking break. You would vote for a stick of celery if it had a Republican badge on. I don't like Kerry either, but I can tell you Bush was a complete disappointment. "However if anything is to get done that nation/person has to stick his neck out for the do nothings to take a swing at. Those that do nothing are safe from criticism." I'd agree with this, but this isn't what the Bush administration does. The Bush administration sticks up for its own (ie the rich and corporations), and no one else. "Attempting to get along with these ISLAMIC assholes shows a lack of common sense. Never has happened, isn't happening now and won't happen in the future." Islamic assholes, no. Muslims in general, yes. No one will want to talk/negotiate/deal with terrorists, and no one should. But the US has great relations with Muslim countries, and American Muslims get along great with Americans of other backgrounds. Just because YOU don't like Muslims doesn't mean that the whole world (or the majority of Americans) share your view. The world is changing, and you're getting left behind. "How can you get along with people that use murder, bombing, human suicide and beheadings as a means to get their way. And they do it in the name of religion. The religion of ISLAM." I've said from the very beginning that these are criminals that twist the word of God to suit their own agendas. No one is suggesting you get along with criminals. But, an extreme fraction of a large population doesn't embody the characteristics of the whole.

14 Getting left behind? Wanna bet. You run your mouth so much to don't listen to the majority. blab, blab, blab, blab. Nothing else but blab.

15 "the religion is the problem" no people like you are the problem. Do you know anything about Islam? Can you show where in the Qu'ran is condons all these acts of violence you talk of? if so many people hated being Muslim why wouldn't they convert? it can't be that bad if its the fastest growing religions in the world. Muslims are the only ones that murder? are you kidding me!?!?!? how do people get along with christians? jews? hindus? The hatred between Arabs and Israelis is POLITICAL.It is often confused as being religious. Not all Arabs hate Isrealis nor vice versa. You will find extremists on both sides! Some Muslims are distorted in their thinking, BUTSO ARE SOME CHRISTIANS, JEWS, HINDUS.. What about the terrorists who rape, and molest? What about the terrorists who are gang members, or in the KKK? Are they not terrorists? Why isn't their religious offiliation brought into the light? Islam teaches peace! "attempting to get along with these islamic asssholes shows a lack of common sense " Pfffft.... The Quran and other Muslim texts preach tolerance of non-Muslims and especially emphasize the value of human life, the ban on killing non-combatants, and respect for people of other religions. The fact that many acts of terror in recent years have been perpetrated by Muslims should not lead us to lay the blame on the religion of these individuals, since Christian, Jewish, and other histories - even in present times - are similarly filled with instances of violence waged in the name of their faiths. Instead, we should investigate the underlying motives of these individuals, most of whom come from nations in which the United States government has long been supporting puppet governments and providing funding for military actions against the people of these countries. We could point to the United States' support of the Saudi regime, in which the royal family is allowed by the US to rule in an undemocratic fashion in exchange for providing cheap oil resources; or the US' annual financial aid of about $9 billion to the government of Israel which uses these funds in its continued illegal occupation of Palestinian lands; or the US' financial backing of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Such circumstances provoke the oppressed people of these nations to feel great animosity towards the United States. And just as others have unjustifiably pointed to religion as the inspiration for their actions, these individuals similarly claim Islam as their motivation, despite the numerous instances in the Qu'ran which discourage them from doing so... but your ignorant way of thinking makes you think otherwise psshtt fool.....Thus, in order to understand the root of the violence, it is important to recognize the significance of the role of US foreign policy in world politics as well- did you change your attitude towards Muslims yet? probably not - **sigh** how little you know.... you are one sad person greyrooster "I HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT GERMANY, FRANCE, SPAIN AND MORE ARE NOT WITH US ON THE TERRORIST HUNT BECAUSE OF THEIR LARGE ISLAMIC POPULATIONS"... "IN PLAIN ENGLISH MUSLIM ARE A BIG MINORITY" why do you play it like they are a majority" Do you think before you open your trap??? - as Venom said you are full of contradictions!

16 Hi, Salaamwalaikum (Peace Be On To You).... Greyrooster, u seem like u have the whole world figured out, I dont have time to get into the whole politics with you, cuz realisticly I'm not going to change your views, and your not going to change mine. But I would like you for starters to look up the Definition of Islam. Because you obviously dont know a damn thing about the religion, so you need to learn your abc's before you can jump into this "Muahideen" talk. By the way if an army was to occupy ur land and accidently shoot ur 6 year old neighbour, and happen to rape ur little sister in the process, what would you do?

17 sorry "MUJAHIDEEN" talk**

1 yes, and I posted that news in the comments over at cowbytheudders.

2 If I'm not mistaken, he still has the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover. I don't keep up with the jobs tallies from moment to moment, but if you're bragging that he only has ONE OF THE WORST jobs records of all-time, then, well, I don't know what to say. The fact is, anyone who cuts taxes on the wealthy multiple times and still can't generate jobs is most likely doing something wrong. Since we're sacrificing the country's fiscal health in the future for the economy of the present, we at least should get a few jobs out of it. Any president can impatiently stimulate the economy with crude tax cuts. Bush's tax cuts provide little specific stimulus in the correct areas (Clinton's economic team was less crudely ideological about these things, and more analytical), so the wheels just aren't turning quite as well as they should be. I love how Bush supporters talk about these things in a vacuum. You'd think that in order to evaluate the president, you'd need to compare him to someone. Apparently not. They like to cite raw figures, without any mention of the fact that Clinton, say, created more than 10 million jobs per term while, unlike Bush, maintaining a healthy fiscal policy. With Bush, expectations are so damned low. Iraq isn't Vietnam. The jobs situation isn't as bad as it was during the Great Depression. Sure millions have lost healthcare. But think of Kenya! Far more people there without quality health insurance. Yes, Bush has no policy on global warming, even as frightening new data pours in about the vanishing arctic ice caps. But imagine being able to grow tomatoes in Alaska! We haven't caught bin Laden. Or even focused on it, really. But admit it. Sitting home alone with a box of popcorn, watching those video tapes, is better than anything you can rent at Blockbuster. It ain't so bad. Bush is DA GREATEST, man.

3 actually, no bragging. I think to much credit and blame is assigned to presidents where the economy and particularly employment is concerned. I would counter, however, that overzealous efforts to reduce the deficit during the Clinton admin resulted in a huge government surplus. Though it has been over 20 years since I studied macro, I do recall that government surpluses cause recessions...its better to have the money in the hands of the private sector. I would also argue that Clinton's distracted leadership (which was his fault and the fault of republicans who took advantage of his inability to keep it in his pants) added greatly to our being asleep at the watch. This helped contribute to 9-11, which further hammered an economy that was on a slide. I think it will be another two or three years before we find out if Bush and his policies, across the board, will make matters better or worse.

1 30 years or so from now some schmuck is gonna be running for president and it's gonna get out that it was he who did this and that his national guard service was to get out of going to the Iraq war. Oh yes.

2 Our president will be sure to straighten this one out. "Son, coke and fighter planes just don't mix. Truss me on this 'un. I been there."

3 and it's gonna get out that it was he who did this And he'll win in a friggin' landslide. Dude, you shot up a school with an F-16?! That's so cool!

4 See, what happened is, I told those kids, "Is you learning, kids?" And they said, "No, Mr. President, your education plan bites." So I told 'em, "You either with us or against us."

5 "How many frags did we get, Dick?" --"Um, I'm not entirely sure, George." "We fight terror and evil, Dick. We don't differentiate between the terrorist enemy in Afghanistan, and the schoolyard bully who steals my lunch money, you little bastard, I'll never forget that! I'm the president now, and I've got a bunch of red buttons, do you hear me? Red buttons!" (breaks down crying) --"There there, Mr. President. There, there."

6 "Theresh an old saying in Texas. 'The only innocent person is an unborn person.' Once you're out of the womb, you're fair game for execution, USA-STYLE. Yeah I set the record for fryin' the most people as governor, but that stuff takes way too long. The appeals process alone takes like 3 minutes. BORING! My favorite was the retard with the sleeping defense attorney. You shoulda seen the hippies come outta the woodwork tryin' to save that little piece of s**t. But a godless preteen commie liberal waste-of-space from tha Satanic Republic a New Jersey might just take tha cake. I told him, DURING SCHOOL HOURS, man! School hours. It don't do no good if you do it after 11 PM!"

1 I emailed GReynolds the same thing (yeah, like he'll respond), but I told him that I thought the real losers of the night were the trial lawyers. Think of all those poor BMW and Lexus drivers that won't be able to drag the results on for the next 3 months! It is them that I feel for. D

2 This is exactly what was wrong with the campaign this season. Republicans wanted to talk about EVERYTHING but Bush's record. Blame the media. Turn Kerry into a slimeball. Talk about values, morals, yadda yadda. Everything but Bush's actual policies, which are total failures. I am so disgusted with Republicans right now I can't begin to tell you. This is not what America is about. Yes, the New York Times is slanted. New York City is overwhelmingly Democratic. It's not news. It's also not hard to unspin the stories. I read the Times sometimes. I know it's biased. So whatever. Get over it. Fox News bothers me because it goes a step beyond, often not only slanting but presenting ideas in such a black and white way that they leave no room for doubt. The Times hardly ever does that. It doesn't present an opinion as certainty. It merely skews things a bit. Ron Reagan, Ronald Reagan's wayward son, said a Fox News friend told him that he was not to mention bin Laden, in case he might remind Americans that Bush has been totally incompetent tracking down the man who killed 3000 people on 9/11. If you'd told me after 9/11 that Bush would fail to nab bin Laden by election time and still win by running on the issue of terrorism, I would have told you you're an idiot. But the Bush team has spun this thing successfully beyond belief, and a willing army of Republican cheerleaders have digested every last morsel, barely questioning a single fact. I used to identify with a lot of Republican values. But right now I've never been more disgusted with Republicans.

3 Hrj, I feel your pain.

4 HRJ, You just don't get it, do you? You lost, get the hell over it and work on making your life better. The problem most of you pricks have is that, you don't realize how good you have it. Stop bitching like a little girl before somebody walks by and bitchslaps you like one.

5 Dick. What an apt name. You are a dick. How can we get over the fact that America has elected the most hated man in the world into power? What are people supposed to do? let you get on with destroying everything that has been built up by the largest democracy in the world? No, we aren't going to stand by and watch. people like you seem to revel in violence and one day someones going to bite you back. Moron.

6 I've been waiting for a half of a century Matt. When? Are you gonna bring it? No, I don't think you have what it takes. Also, thanks for the compliment. You'll probably make the "Acordian News" at my site. Also, before you start talking more trash, you might wanna read yesterdays post at my site.

7 How can we get over the fact that America has elected the most hated man in the world into power? Oderint dum metuant. (Lucius Accius) “Let them hate so long as they fear.”

8 This is GREAT!!! We live in a country where we are FREE to bash each other. Democrats against Republicans and vice versa. I am so happy to live in a country were we are FREE to speak our minds and voice our opinions. This is a GREAT country!

9 Arafat just died.

10 Ok maybe not

11 Arafat just died....OK maybe not!?!?!? Ok Mr. Rather, enough is enough. Get your story straight.

12 The Israelis say yes, the French say no. In hind sight I shouldn't be trusting either of them. My bad.

13 He's in a coma, I know that much.

14 My Way says he's done. http://reuters.myway.com/article/20041104/2004-11-04T163956Z_01_L04284404_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-MIDEAST-ARAFAT-DC.html

15 Does anyone know any more about the possibility of Ashcroft or Powell resigning?

16 Dear God, I hope Ashcroft doesn't almost as earnestly as I hope Powell does.

17 Man, I wish Arafat would die. I don't think either one will resign, although I wouldn't mind seeing Guliani in Ashcroft's place. When it comes to law and order, that guy doesn't mess around. Strike that, I would like to see Guliani in Powell's place. Can you imagine Rudy negotiating with the French? Classic.

18 If figure Arafag (I mean Arafat) will die soon. His chances are about as good as Nick Berg's were. (not good).

19 What's this talk about "reaching across the aisle" and "reuniting America"? Screw the Democrats. Bush has a CRYSTAL CLEAR mandate from the popular vote. The quote, "you're either with us or against us", still holds true. The only reason Bush's 1st term was less than stellar was because of the obstructionist Dems like Tom Daschle, who's fired now thanks to the wise people of South Dakota. Others, like that femi-nazi Nanci Pelosi had better keep their mouths shut in this 2nd term. And who's this Barack Obama guy? Sounds like another proud-to-be-liberal, terrorist sympathizer to me. His very name gives me the chills. The Dems are clearly losing popularity because of their anti-American, obstructionist, treasonous, complaining ways. They criticize and mock Bush's speech mishaps, but they offer no serious, clear, viable plan of their own. They muck-rake for muck-raking's sake. Now that the GOP has total control of the White House, Senate, House of Reps, and hopefully the Supreme Court, the liberals better shut up and let us carry out Bush's agenda the way it's meant to be. The filibustering, obstructionist, Democrat bureaucracy must end for America to defeat terror and revitalize the economy. The end of terror will bring world peace, which will boost the economy. A strong economy will solve all the social domestic problems that Dems are so keen on (health care, social security, education, deficit reduction, etc.). Message to Michael Moore: you are not being silenced by the Bush administration, or some vast right wing conspiracy, you are being silenced by the American people, who have given a very clear message on Nov 2, despite the box office succcess of your film. You're film may be entertaining and provacative, which explains the box office success, but it's just entertaining fiction. The American people, thankfully, are smart enough to see that it's just lies and fiction. Please do us a favor and get a real job, or move to Canada.

20 Not that I give a shit, just chatting here, but I thought Arafat was on the mend? What the heck happened? They said he didn't have leukemia or cancer, so what's the deal? Just got back home and didn't turn on any news. Had to do something important...go to the beauty salon...LOL.

21 Laura: Victory manicure?

22 From what I heard at 8:00am PST, they were thinking that it may be some sort of viral infection. Of course, it might be some STD or some crap now. Hell, they've had 6 hours beyond what I've heard to speculate some more. I wonder if he signed a DNR waiver... we can only hope. Or, maybe he'll see that big light at the end of the tunnel and G-d will talk to him and tell him to stop being such an asshole.

23 LMAO: No, actually that's tomorrow! Today was the hair. ;-)

24 Funniest front page here in the UK here today went to the Daily Mirror paper who splashed a picture of Dubya on the front page and said "How can 59,000,000 people be so DUMB?!". Erm... besides being an affront to every intelligent person who voted for Dubya, that is a question that you yourselves might like to answer. YOU got it wrong. YOU are one person writing the headlines. That is why Democracy isn't perfect... 59 Million people can get it wrong... And one Newspaper editor can be right. But let us just assume that one person out of that 59 Million is NOT "dumb" and of equal intelligence... he/she counters your argument. The other 58,999,999 obliterate it. (Bear in mind, the paer had their Editor sacked recently for printing those pictures purportedly from Abu Ghraig prison but which were more than likely fake mock-ups. The paper itself gets maybe 1-2 million readers per day.)

25 I guess the bitching will go on for some weeks but from an outsider's point of view, I am delighted with Dubya's re-election. What you see is what you get with the man. Kerry won an awful lot of votes but he seemed to shift his position in order to gain that support. The question that will never be answered is What would Kerry have done on November the 12th? 24 hours after that attack at the very heart of America and what makes it great. It's easy to sit back and years later pick holes in the President's reponse, I can do that, you can do that, Kerry can do that. Basically, George Bush realised that these people were hell-bent on the destruction of Western Civilisation and George Bush wasn't afraid to meet fire with fire and declare outright war on the nations that supported and "harboured" such people. The USA has for too long been regarded as a push-over. The mightiest nation in the world would seemingly bend over backward so long as it didn't offend the UN. Well, fuck the UN. This was an attack on YOUR country. You are perfectly within your rights to defend yourselves against foreign invasion. In this case, it wasn't a specific country claiming credit for the attack but a religion... a religion spread across the world but where fanaticism is rife within certain countries. In many ways, the USA brought it on themselves through previous trade misdemeanors but it is ok to accept you were wrong and make amends rather than to try to excuse. The minute that first plane hit the WTC, war was established. Dubya recognised this and went into action. Some people may say this is all for oil but Dubya never asked anyone to destroy the WTC in order that he could head the forces into those countries. America seriously needs to wake up and realise that it DOESN'T owe the world a living. America is great because it is forward thinking. America is the leader in technological innovation. America needs to ensure that a handful of nutters don't threaten the very roots of all that it has achieved over the last couple of centuries. To repeat, America is where it is today through (mostly) rational thought (there's still too much religion dominating the Constitution for my liking but there you go...). It is the hard-headed business-people, the dedicated scientists and the everyday working class who greet their position with vigour as another day to say, "This is what I do to make this Country a better place". It is time for America to be PROUD of what they are AS A WHOLE. Don't give me any lefty clap-trap... the nation was taken by force but if it wasn't, I wouldn't be typing this right now because the internet wouldn't exist... I'd be sending smoke signals. Whether a Kerry voter or a Dubya voter... be proud that you are an American... I truly wish I could say the same thing (I'm from the UK). America stands for all that is great and good in this world. At least it SHOULD do. It has the best philosophical basis that any country has ever been founded upon (it would be better without the religious conotations but hey... nothing is perfect!) Today Iraq, tomorrow Iran, the day after... any other towel-headed, left-hand-bottom-wiping nation that thinks it can bring your mighty nation down. Support your president. He has his faults. But his actions are clear-cut and in your best interests. Just ask him to not be such a fanatical-Christian.

26 Red Devil I would've never expected you to be from the UK...from the many people that are on this blog, I have been crucified for my beliefs on the Ken Bigley Blog on here, mostly from the likes of James and CooqarUK. They are vehemently against Bush's "illegal invasion" and just as mad at Blair. However, they blame everything on the Bush administration! Hey, there's no draft, those soldiers went because they felt it was their duty to protect their country from terrorists, yet those people I mentioned say that Bush went there illegally, that Saddam wasn't a threat, Iraq didn't slam those planes into the WTC, and no WMD were found! How is it possible that persons from the same country can differ so drastically about this? I guess the same way the US is divided...the anti-war, peaceloving lib's and the others who are sick and tired of the threat of terrorism. Your posts have renewed my faith in your country and I'm sorry that the posts of a few could turn me against the whole country. I received an email from someone over there as well and she as horrified at the actions of her fellow Britians on this blog and apologized for them. She told me not to think all Britons were like that. This current situation really dates back to exactly 25 yrs. ago....when Iran took 44 Americans hostage...think about it...everything started happening after that...more and more foreigners entered our country illegally, or came here, never became citizens and planned their attacks for years, meanwhile, some of them acting like "regular Joes" and living right next door to us. I don't know how we will end this...every time we get someone, another group proclaims themselves...now, there's another group besides Zarqawi, can't remember their names, how many more? How many nations will we have to fight to end this? It just keeps spreading.

27 I couldn't agree with you more. The Majority of people has lost all trust in the MSM.

28 HRJ: Exactly how long to you plan to piss and moan. Another word for democrat is CRY BABY!

29 LAMO: Refer: Arafat: Thanks for the brief moment of happiness.

30 Didn't no Red Devil was from the UK. He's one of the few reasons I haven't ripped into some of the UK assholes.

31 This war may never end... certainly not within our lifetime. Whatever the outcome of the next four years, suicide bombs and beheadings will probably continue for a long, long time. This war has become a religious war. Dubya is a fanatical Christian (and that is where is he dangerous). Al Zarqawi et al are fanatical Islamists. These religions cannot co-exist. Even "moderate" Islamists cannot co-exist with moderate Christians (the acid test is whether a Muslim family would accept a non-Muslim into their family though marriage with open arms... if the answer is "no" or "yes, on condition that the person converts to Islam" then that is not integration. If Dubya was Atheist, he would be the perfect president IMHO... he would be defending America purely because it was under attack and not because his religious beliefs were being challenged. The issue over the last few years here in the UK is whether we should "Join the Euro" but us Brits don't want that. Despite being a tiny nation in terms of physical size, we have a strong history of our own. We have been involved in many wars, some just and some unjust. But we have never shirked from a battle and we have always stood up and been counted when faced with opposition. For us to hand over everything we have worked for to a band of free-loaders in Brussels is unthinable. To be quite honest, I think most UK citizens would prefer to be affiliated with the USA. The USA is much closer to our ideals than any country in France. It's a pain that we are so far geographically from the USA yet so close philosophically. But we are so close philosophically to the USA yet so far geographically. If the USA could be somehow moved to the place that Europe currently occupies on the world map, I think we'd all sign up to become part of the USA tomorrow. I may be digressing here but basically, I think we stand "Shoulder to shoulder" with the USA in this war because we all feel the same way about September 11th (not November as I stated above!!!!). Whether our own soft-lefties acknowledge it or not, we all sat here that afternoon and watched the WTC disappear and thought, "Oh shit, another war has started". It wasn't YOUR country that was hit that day, we in the UK (the honest ones amongst us) recognised that it was part of OUR family that was attacked that day. YOU were chosen (as opposed to the UK) because you represent everything the Fanatical Islamist despises on a scale much larger than that of the UK simply by virtue of the physical size of your country. But we recognised that we could just as easily have been in the firing line that day ... or at least, one day in the near future. The UK couldn't act alone, the USA probably could. But as we're fighting against a common enemy here, we're more than happy to lend our support where it counts and where we thrive... on the battlefield. Long after anyone alive reading this blog today has passed on, this war will be discussed in history classes around the world. Who knows? Maybe by then children will have become so de-sensitised to violence that the Al Zarqawi beheading videos will be shown to the pupils as part of the curriculum. Even the most ardent leftie will find it difficult to excuse such acts of barbarism. But us alive today have seen these videos, and when you're asking WHY you watch them and questioning whether you are a sicko with sadistic tendencies, just try to remind yourself that by viewing these things, you remind yourself of just what we're fighting here. If we let these people "get away" with the likes of 9/11 then barbarism on a much more regular, larger and closer-to-home scale will be our reward for such apathy as non-action would only embolden the enemy. Sorry for my mega-blogs this evening but I am revitalised after Bush's win as I feel that this war can pick up pace from now on. The last couple of months he has had to tread carefully as every bomb that kills a terrorist would probably kill a couple of "innocents" and these deaths would affect his popularity with the section of the American voting public who suffer from myopia.

32 Red Devil, I think I'm in love with you.

33 Red Devil, you do not speak for most of the UK. Most of the UK think Bush is a moron, America is actually a backward thinking country (think war, think the environment) and the war on terror was basically brought on by the absurd foreign policy. Most of the war is in his imagination and three British soldiers were killed yesterday because of Bush.

34 RED DEVIL: Speaks for the Brits that count. I can tell that by the E-mails I get. MATT BING you don't count for anything. Just another cry baby punk.

35 Ditto the above. I get emails too from other UK folks apologizing for the jerks on this blog. Thank God your opinions and views don't count in the US. Shove them.

36 Don't take this the wrong way. I'm sure you will. But some of these comments are so incredibly ill-informed. People are forming opinions based on little slivers and bits of information, never having anywhere near the full picture. Maybe you've heard about Ron Suskind's now famous editorial where he talked about the "faith-based community" of Bush supporters versus the "reality-based community." One facet of the faith-based community is that it tends to embrace "easy certainty" over objective analysis, and from what I read from many (though far from all) people participating on some of these blogs, there may be something to it. I see people crudely oversimplifying terrorist motivations, and saying f**k them, let's just bomb them. Well we can bomb them. Bush will certainly back you on this, and his neoconservative pals will come up with some half-baked plan to get us into a quagmire, but none of that deals with the roots of terrorism, man! Al-Qaeda is a privately-sponsored terrorist organization that's present in at least 60 nations around the world. I know some neocons would love to bomb France, those unpatriotic losers. (Benjamin Franklin: "Every man has two nations, and one of them is France." The guys who gave us the STATUE OF LIBERTY, remember??) But that ain't gonna solve the problem. All you guys with your happy six-shooters at your hips ready to blow up anyone who comes to your door. 10 years from now we'll look back at this and say, "Hmmm...this really didn't solve the problem." You guys won't care. As long as your favorite presidential candidate wins, what do you care if his policies make any f**king sense? "HRJ: Exactly how long to you plan to piss and moan. Another word for democrat is CRY BABY!" This is extremely pathetic, but unfortunately very predictable. I'm not even a Democrat, man! Why didn't you ask me? I'm just an American who uses his brain and cares about his country. No more, no less. And if I was a Democrat, you just made the lamest, least convincing argument in the entire history (and prehistory) of mankind. Congratulations. Go treat yourself to a giant toll-house cookie or something. You deserve it. According to most of commenters, however, I appear to be an un-American traitor who gets all his talking points straight from Michael Moore. People seem satisfied with that. They usually prefer to rebut me that way rather than actually think about any issues. And there's a reason they don't want to think about any issues. It's because if you're a Bush supporter, ISSUES DON'T FAVOR YOU. They make you look stupid. He has no policy. Just a bunch of gobbledygook rhetoric. Congratulations on electing the most unqualified leader in American history. I have zero regrets about the vote I cast. You're the ones who'll have to explain this vote to your grandchildren. "The UK couldn't act alone, the USA probably could. But as we're fighting against a common enemy here, we're more than happy to lend our support where it counts and where we thrive... on the battlefield." You guys just don't get it. Saddam Hussein was a S-E-C-U-L-A-R leader. Say it with me. Al-Qaeda called his government an "apostate regime." One of Saddam's greatest fears was that he'd be attacked by Islamic extremists, so he kept his country virtually clean of them. When, precisely, did Saddam Hussein threaten to attack the UK? Because this is definitely news to me. And are you serious that the UK couldn't have toppled Saddam on its own? Saddam Hussein had a handful of pathetic military toys, nothing more. He was an impotent old man sitting around in the Middle East waiting to die. You've got to be kidding me. "Long after anyone alive reading this blog today has passed on, this war will be discussed in history classes around the world. Who knows? Maybe by then children will have become so de-sensitised to violence that the Al Zarqawi beheading videos will be shown to the pupils as part of the curriculum. Even the most ardent leftie will find it difficult to excuse such acts of barbarism." If we're very lucky, the chapter won't be called, "The Beginning of the Great American Collapse." Taking out Saddam isn't the problem. The problem is that our methods and means have become completely crazy and un-/counter- productive. And you do realize that it's the war in Iraq that has turned Zarqawi so fervently against the US and led to this spate of beheadings in the first place. You guys would prefer to ignore reality, and just keep pounding the hell out of the world because we're great and they suck. Well we can certainly do that ad infinitum, but I guarantee you it won't work. It's easy to see what we're doing. We're recreating the Israeli/Arab problem all over again. Israel has perfected the methods for creating terrorism, and America under Bush has decided that that's just friggin grand. The more terrorism the merrier. Crazy comments: "Even 'moderate' Islamists cannot co-exist with moderate Christians (the acid test is whether a Muslim family would accept a non-Muslim into their family though marriage with open arms..." First of all, what the heck are you talking about? Most people who talk about "Islamists" use the term to mean extremists, so when you when say "moderate" Islamists, I have no clue what you mean. But there are plenty of fundamentalist Muslims who coexist perfectly well with other people. If you want to bring back old-school bigotry, go right ahead. I ain't coming along for the ride. Do you happen to know any of these people you're defining so confidently? If you do, I hope it's a wide cross-section, so you're in a position to make such sweeping statements. There are plenty of Orthodox Jews who are opposed to intermarriage. I guess that means we can't trust them, and we can't live together. Boy, this is great. It feels like the 19th century all over again. Maybe we should even bring back the "N" word. "If we let these people 'get away' with the likes of 9/11 then barbarism on a much more regular, larger and closer-to-home scale will be our reward for such apathy as non-action would only embolden the enemy." Precisely, so we should track down the terrorists who attacked us and those who sponsored them, a.k.a. bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and Mullah Omar. Rather than go after a secular leader who hadn't even been threatening us -- forget about attacking us -- who had nothing to do with Islamism/Islamic extremism and was not collaborating in any meaningful way with the guys who attacked us. I really hoped that 9/11 would usher in a new era of political awareness. But it seems to have done the opposite, ushering in a new era of dangerous simplistic dogma. It saddens me because I know it's dangerous to confront a problem so confidently, yet be so far off-base that we're not even swinging in the correct general direction. We have GOT to do better. "Just ask him to not be such a fanatical-Christian." I'm sure he'll comply with this request. "HRJ, You just don't get it, do you? You lost, get the hell over it and work on making your life better. The problem most of you pricks have is that, you don't realize how good you have it. Stop bitching like a little girl before somebody walks by and bitchslaps you like one." These are the sort of comments I love and appreciate. In-depth, probing, demonstrating a clear grasp of the issues. Yeah, the thing is, I don't fight cat-fights. You'll be sprawled on the floor before you can get around to bitch-slapping me, unfortunately for you. But listen, what I'd rather do than fight an (apparently) unevenly-matched fight is actually sit down and talk about real issues in a civilized way. You want to bitch-slap people who disagree with you, go right ahead. It's not exactly the path to civilization. "Well, fuck the UN. This was an attack on YOUR country." Exactly. Screw what every American president up until George Bush has done. What we really need to do is let the terrorists completely change our national character. Start fighting aggressive, preemptive, unilateral wars based on scant evidence, even if we know the target had nothing to do with any attack on us and there's no evidence he's planning anything against us. We should just throw away American values completely, say f**k it, f**k the terrorists -- or whoever, random people -- just bomb the hell out of them. Anybody who doesn't want to do that hates America and is a little pink pansy. "The minute that first plane hit the WTC, war was established." Against whoever the hell we feel like attacking. 'Cause this is America. We're self-entitled to be total a**holes. It's our God-given right and we're going to exercise it, dammit, whether it accomplishes anything or not! Who cares if it costs us $5 billion per month for however long the "long, hard slog" lasts. In fact, we should fight more simultaneous wars. Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Libya, France, Belgium, and you know, hasn't Castro been in power too long? Let's see if we can get to 10 simultaneous wars at once. Anything less is a complete failure. "If Dubya was Atheist, he would be the perfect president IMHO..." If Dubya was an atheist, he would be a walking jello-mold. All he has is his "faith." "RED DEVIL: Speaks for the Brits that count. I can tell that by the E-mails I get. MATT BING you don't count for anything. Just another cry baby punk." I'm sure the emails you get are a representative sample. Once again, I'm in awe of the articulate arguments presented here. Cry-baby punk. My personal opinion is that anyone who disagrees with attacking ANY country at ANY time is a cry-baby punk. I think we should attack Canada and Mexico TOMORROW. Actually, why don't we attack the UK? We can take those losers. Anyone who disagrees with me is a sad little cry baby fairy godmother meowing little kitten. Meow! I'm a sad little wimp! Kick my a**! When the debate reaches these embarrassing depths, it's hard to keep the conversation elevated. But easier to keep it entertaining, I guess.

37 HRJ... excellent post. For the record, I live in Manchester UK. A few miles down the road is Oldham where riots occured a couple of years ago between Muslims and "whites" (that's how it was described in the press). There was an metal fence erected to define a border of the area (similar to the Berlin wall but made of steel rather than brick). Yes, I work with several Muslims on a daily basis and I know that if I made a romantic move on any of them, their brothers would be round with baseball bats before you could say "moderate Islamist". Maybe my wording was wrong, but Muslims tell me that the likes of Al Zarqawi and Bin Laden are not true Muslims. But they seem to worship the same prophet and god. So, I refer to them all as Islamists. The preach and practice the religion of Islam. Some are extreme and some are moderate. As for Iraq (I'll ignore your comments about Saddam being a pathetic old man - like he stayed in power there for so long by being old and pathetic). So we invade Iraq and suddenly it is over-run with Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists who are lopping off people's heads on an almost daily basis. Where did these people come from? Did they decide to rush into an area where bombs were dropping and suddenly decide to make their statement? Or were they already there and are pissed off that their guardian angel has been banged up behind bars? As for your comments on the UN and "previous presidents" and your "national character". I would ask you to check how the USA was originally founded. You're clearly an intelligent person hrj who knows his stuff but you fail to offer any viable solutions of your own. Post 9/11, what should the USA have done, in your opinion? Go after Bin Laden? Go after Al Zarqawi? Go after Mullar Omar? Well, Mullar Omar was the leader of the Taliban. I think we can safely say that the Taliban regime is now defunct. Bin Laden? Holed up in some cave. Al Zarqawi... we're working on that one. But it won't end at Zarqawi. These Islamic extremist groups are cropping up like daisies. And they will forever more. They are dangerous to us peace-loving Westerners. You make us Westerners out to be the bad-guys in all of this. We have our bad guys... people who go out and murder, r*pe and steal. By and large our police and justice system deals with these people. But the majority of Westerners simply want to go about their daily lives in peace. How can that be possible when there are people who see it as a glorious act to strap a load of bombs to their chests and run through a populated area? You claim to be all for rational discussion but there is no rational discussion to be had when faced with fanatacism on that scale. People like you really do make me wonder whose side you are on. Is the answer to issue an apology for anything we may have done in the past to offend these people and let them continue with their lives? America is NOT a backward thinking country. America has been a beacon to the rest of the world to all that is possible with FORWARD thinking. It is no coincidence that America enjoys such affluence whilst these "poor" countries remain poor. These "poor" countries were established for many centuries before the US was established. And they are poor and have always been poor. Yeah blame it on Bush if you wish but try to see the connection between religious fanatacism and prosperity (or lack of). The Founding Fathers saw what could be achieved by man and allowed them to achieve it. And there you are today. Be thankful and if you're not, move and live in a country that closer matches your own ideals. You're not a tree. I hope you enjoy the experience.

38 Ahh...excellent. See, now that wasn't so difficult, was it? Thank you for your thoughtful post. This is all I want Bush supporters to do. Think in terms of reason instead of in terms of blind faith. You may have rationale behind your thoughts, but most seem not to. If you have rational arguments, use them instead of resorting to stuff like, "Bomb the f88k out of everyone!" So, finally on a civilized level of discussion. OK, what should we have done? Actually, in this case it's not only what should we have done, but what should we NOT have done. Toppling Saddam in the way that we did made things far, far worse. Saddam was a bad guy, sure. But Iraq was not a center of the terrorism problem. Not by a long shot. By invading we helped to spur anti-American anger in the region, aiding recruiters and helping to turn the next generation of young Arabs into anti-American terrorists. That's not at all helpful. In order to solve this problem we need to take a broader perspective. Now I'm going to say something that people may not want to hear. Where did the war in Iraq come from? Did it come from terrorism experts? No, it didn't. It came from the neoconservatives in the 90's. These guys were NOT focused on terrorism. Most of them knew nothing at all about al-Qaeda. Most of them knew little or nothing about terrorism at all. These guys, most of whom tend to be hard-line Israel fanatics, were interested in reshaping the balance of power in the Middle East using American military force. You can argue with me if you want, but don't argue with me before you've researched it. I've looked into it, and I can provide details, but why not just look into it yourself? I DON'T believe that immediately following 9/11, this sort of foreign policy adventure was at all well-advised. These characters who designed this war show no evidence whatsoever that they understand terrorism. They do the same sort of crude stereotyping I see in many comments on this blog. There is no entity called "the terrorists." Terrorism is a method. It's a type of guerilla warfare. There are more causes and groups than I can name. The Basques were initially blamed for the Spanish train bombings. Why? Obviously because the hard-line Basque separatists have employed terrorism in the past. Why have they toned down their terrorism a lot recently? Is it because the Spanish have used military or police force to pound the hell out of them? Not primarily. It's because they've found ways to better work with the REASONABLE Basques, thus undermining support for the radicals. Basque terrorism more or less exploded when Franco was in power. Franco simply used brute force tactics against the Basques to try to bend them into shape, and the Basques resisted with a passion. Ah, so here we are. Islamic extremism. It's important not to confuse Islamic extremist political terrorism with Islamic fundamentalism, because the two are very different. Some neoconservative idiots like to blame terrorism on Saudi Wahhabism. Just lazy reasoning. Wahhabism, if anything, is often a religion of submission, not one of rebellion. No state power is going to actively promote a type of religion that breeds revolutionary resistance. That's insane. The Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia (and some don't like that term) don't consider bin Laden to be one of them. He adopted a peculiar strain political philosophy mixed with religion that originated in places like Egypt and Pakistan. It's not the Koran; in fact, it even includes bits and pieces of Western philosophy. If you strip out bin Laden's politics, he has no cause left, because there's nothing in the Koran that encourages people to conduct suicide attacks against innocent civilians. On the contrary, the Koran forbids suicide, forbids attacks on women and children, forbids attacks on civilians, and forbids attacks on Muslims. I've seen the way these guys rationalize their actions. It's totally convoluted. They twist and distort the concept of "jihad" until it's totally unrecognizable, making the outrageous claim that these actions are not only permitted in Islam but actually required -- absolutely amazing. Yes, their followers are fervent and religious, but what they follow is some twisted ideology, Islam manipulated for purposes of political terrorism. It's not really Islam. (However, because Islam has no pope or truly central authority, it's hard for Muslims to definitively refute the legitimacy of these strains.) George Bush has consistently ridiculed law enforcement's role in tracking down terrorists. Well, newsflash for Mr. Bush. Law enforcement plays the dominant role, whether you like it or not. If you take out law enforcement, we're all screwed. If you take out the war in Iraq, no problem, because that war didn't do s**t to reduce terrorism. In fact, it's made the job of terrorist recruiters a lot easier. People seem to think we had to invade SOMEBODY. Not true. Although the Afghanistan invasion became a no-brainer to a lot of people because Omar wouldn't capitulate, Iraq is a different matter altogether. If there's no obvious country to invade, the answer is reasonably simple. DON'T INVADE ANY COUNTRIES! You know, we're not being wimpy for not invading a country if invading a country makes no goddam sense. Can we plant the seeds of democracy in the Middle East? Yes, but what we want to do is for these guys to look up to us and admire our system. Right now they hate us. And I'm talking about the broader Middle East. In Iraq, the sentiment is complicated. But for the neocons who designed the war, one of the long-term goals was for other countries in the region to jump at the chance to adopt our system. Well, guess what? If people hate us, they aren't going to be jumping at the chance to adopt our system. The Bush administration is all sledge-hammer and no delicate hand. Resolving the problem of terrorism requires not only a steel-driving hammer, but also surgeon's scalpel. Until the Bush administration realizes this, we will never even come close to resolving the problem of terrorism. The State Department, the department idiot neocons now love to hate, has said that the administration is not providing nearly enough funding for diplomacy in the Middle East. In other words, our policies are fueling unprecedented levels of anti-American hatred in the region, and we don't have the diplomatic armies over there to counter the damage. Neocons seem to think that the more America is hated, the better. Where did they get this notion? America has NEVER embraced this line. You wrote, "As for your comments on the UN and 'previous presidents' and your 'national character'. I would ask you to check how the USA was originally founded." You misconstrued what I said. Clearly the UN wasn't around when the nation was founded. But our founding fathers absolutely did not believe in aggressive military intrusion in other nation's affairs. The Iraq war is the complete antithesis of what any of those guys advocated. Neocons bash the UN as being an organization that requires total submission. That's just stupid. The UN is an organization that encourages nations around the world to seek cooperation foremost, before resorting to other options. We're never BOUND by the UN. That doesn't mean we should reject it. The UN has accomplished as much as perhaps any other organization in the world today. The UN represents the higher ideals of mankind. Being a member of the UN means striving to be more civilized when possible. it doesn't mean subjugating our will to other nations if doing so will be highly counterproductive. I've had it with the UN bashing. I've had it with the French bashing. Particuarly from ignoramuses who don't study the issues and simply parrot the myopic anger of others. I'm not suggesting we entirely go back to the world of our founding fathers. It's not feasible. They believed in isolation where possible, and cooperation where necessary. Not the Bush administration's sort of isolation, meaning attacking nations and turning the world against us. But genuine noninterference. However, I believe the founding fathers would have appreciated the goals of the United Nations as they fit into the modern world. The UN helps to promote values around the world very much in keeping with those of America, and it prioritizes diplomatic, non-military solutions where possible, and military solutions only when necessary. This is a philosophy very much in line with that of the founding fathers. The Treaty of Tripoli of 1797 is always an interesting one to cite. I like to remind people of this: "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." Sometimes extremist Christian lunatics argue that the founding fathers knew nothing but Christianity. That's ridiculous. They were familiar with Judaism, Islam, even something called Deism that was trendy at the time (as well as others). It wasn't an oversight that they didn't mention Jesus in the the Constitution. It was by design. The world was, arguably, a much more diverse place then than it is now. The US was not a superpower back then, of course, but you can hardly argue that the founding fathers envisioned the US becoming a lawless bully on the international scene. Yes, lawless. The invasion of Iraq was illegal in the context of international law. The man who designed much of the war, Richard Perle, acknowledged it was against international law. It's hard to believe that some of Bush's allies will talk about the barbarity of the terrorists, meanwhile dismissing the importance of the international institutions like the UN that promote civility around the world. We're dealing with a universal problem, and the antidote to extremism is not more extremism. It's moderation. The antidote to mindless aggression is not more mindless aggression, but sensible reaction. This is a problem that requires patience. Impatience will only make it worse. If we don't know who to invade, then guess what? We shouldn't invade anyone. This is a problem we can tackle. One small place to start is with a widespread PR campaign that exposes bin Laden's ideology for what it really is: counterproductive and infeasible. Blowing up skyscrapers [note to blog: word censored originally, did HTML trick] isn't going to get anyone what they want. Remember how Mahatma Ghandi stood up against a formidable enemy? It worked. Martin Luther King? Provoking the most powerful nation on earth the way al-Qaeda does, while turning reasonable mainstream people around the world totally against you, is not going to work. Some of bin Laden's beefs with the US and the West are legitimate. And some of his followers extrapolate that to mean that his methods are legitimate too. Wrong. His methods suck. We don't need to appease the terrorists, but we do need to stop needlessly making people around the world angry. This is simply pointless, and it's not going to get us anywhere. Most controversially, we need to scrap the entire "war on terror." This concept was idiotic from the start. Terror is an emotion, not an enemy. We can't defeat terror. We need a specific opponent. This is the sort of BS that led us from al-Qaeda, a privately-sponsored Islamic extremist group, to Saddam Hussein, a secular leader unaffiliated with al-Qaeda. Sure, you can argue both have something to do with "terror." So what? This is ridiculous. On 9/11, we were not attacked by Islam. We were not attacked by Saddam Hussein. We were not attacked by "terror." We were attacked by some guys we've paid very little attention to since 9/11. The two leaders of al-Qaeda, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, are still at-large. Mullah Omar, the guy who sheltered them, is still at-large. Yes, we toppled the Taliban. That was easy and obvious. For symbolic value alone, we need to track down the other guys. But there is far more than symbolism at stake here. Bin Laden is the guy who's been obsessed with the US. All these people who lump Islamists and terrorists and even "terror" together are sort of sad. Most of these guys couldn't care less about the US. Before the 2001 Afghanistan invasion, probably 99.9% of the Taliban couldn't care less about the US. They weren't international thinkers like bin Laden. There are some people who, for their own reasons, want the US to lump all of these threats together. At the center of all of this is Israel, which has faced every variety of tension and threat over the last few decades. While there really isn't any state sponsoring terrorism against America, there are a few that sponsor at least a little terrorism against Israel. It's part of the Arab/Palestinian resistance. Those who don't want Israel to find a diplomatic solution to the Middle East crisis, but prefer Israel to never back down and never give an inch, are OK with terrorism but not OK with conceding territory. So they'd like to get Israel's allies behind the country fending off "terror" and the "terrorists" (part of the anti-Israeli guerilla resistance) so it doesn't have to sit down at the negotiating table and make concessions. (For the record, many of the nutty evangelicals Bush hangs out with are against negotiation because they believe that a national Israel, with ancient Biblical boundaries, is necessary for Armageddon to occur and Jesus Christ to return to earth for his thousand year reign. When Armageddon occurs -- and they think it will be soon -- all Jews are either killed or converted to Christianity, and the world as we know it is destroyed.) I'm not anti-Israel, but I don't believe either that this hard-line approach is wise, nor that American troops ought to be involved in helping Israel not negotiate with its neighbors. This policy is dangerous and counterproductive. People like to bash Arafat, but Arafat was closer than many realize to signing something. He may have wanted to sign something in 2000, but the political climate in Palestine was perhaps not right for an agreement. Israeli Prime Minsiter Ariel Sharon has been far more averse to negotiating than Arafat ever was. So where do we start in trying to resolve this whole thing? We HAVE to start in Israel. I know this is the hardest place to start, but it's where we have to start. We have to resolve this thing, no matter how difficult it is or how tough it's been so far. Bush has paid the Israeli/Arab problem almost zero notice while in office, and thus the tensions over there have escalated over the past few years. The US, the world's only superpower, rubber-stamps anything Israel does (even policies that are bad for both the US and Israel). Why does the Arab world hate us? This reason is huge. Senator Ernest Hollings: "I had a headline the other day. When I saw it, I showed it to my staff. I said: You all come in here, I want to ask you something. 'Israel plans to destroy more Gaza dwellings.' You see that headline? I asked staff members: Suppose they bulldoze your daddy's home. Wouldn't you want to cut their throat? They said: In a New York minute. How do you create terrorists? Where is the front line in the so-called war on terrorism? I learned the answer recently on a trip I was on with the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. We talked for over an hour with the King of Jordan. He finally cautioned at the very end, when we stood up, he said: You have to settle this Israel-Palestine question. That is the only way to get on top of this. We went over to Kuwait to the Prime Minister [and] when he got through, he said: You have to settle the Israel-Palestine situation. I will quote Mr. Musharraf, the President of Pakistan. When we got there, he cautioned if you can settle the Israel-Palestine question, terrorism will disappear around the world." Obviously all "terrorism" won't disappear. But the tension between Israel and its neighbors has been helping to fuel this toxic terrorist ideology in the region for decades now. There is no way to pound the terrorists into submission. Israel has got to find a comfortable place for itself in the Middle East. Jews and Arabs get along all the time in specific communities. I don't know what quirky Muslims you're hanging out with; they aren't like the ones I know, and there are as many types of Muslims as there are types of people, or types of Jews, or types of Christians, so don't overextrapolate from one group. Israel's overreliance on force in the region has created an environment in which terrorism is perpetual, and expected. The US, via its new policies, is creating a similar environment worldwide. The US is of course incredibly hard to attack. We've got allies north and south, and oceans east and west. Our strategic location couldn't be much better. But that doesn't mean we need to increase the risk to our security unnecessarily, like we've been doing. We're also greatly underfunding homeland security. With the money we've spent on Iraq, we could have easily addressed the homeland security holes experts have pointed to. We're spending many times on Iraq what we're spending on homeland security, and no, that war is not mitigating the threat from terrorism. After 9/11, after 3000 Americans were killed, how could we distract ourselves like this? How could we ignore the specific threats related to 9/11 and pursue some other random course? I'll tell you how. Because George W. Bush doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't know much about foreign policy, even today. He doesn't know much about economics. He listens to certain staff members, and some of them have specific and radical agendas. Those guys would never be elected president, but because our president doesn't know enough to create policy himself, he relies on these guys. Americans trust Bush because he's a regular guy. And he tries to act confident to reassure all of us. But the truth is that he doesn't have a clue about his own policies. That's why he's so suspiciously overconfident. That's why his rhetoric is so simple and black and white. If he stopped to think about whether he's actually right, he'd get confused. He DOESN'T UNDERSTAND the threats we face. He never has. Brent Scowcroft, George HW Bush's national security advisor, said in 1999, "Is [W Bush] comfortable with foreign policy? I would say not." But we all knew this. He had zero experience. What makes us think he got so smart in six or eight months? Smart enough to deal with a very complicated foreign policy issue? The fact is, he didn't get smarter. He just got more full of bluster and faux-confidence, reassuring people but not having a clue himself what was going on. That's the truth. In late 2002, when the US was preparing to go to war in Iraq, the following exchange took place as captured by Ron Suskind: " 'I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,' Bush said. 'They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.' [Tom] Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: 'Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion. Bush held to his view. 'No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.' The room went silent, until someone changed the subject." Everyone who's studied European history in high school knows that Switzerland is the neutral country (or people like me, who didn't even study European history in high school). Bush is not just bad on foreign policy. He's nearly hopeless. He doesn't talk about issues in depth because he doesn't understand them. He asks for us to be totally confident in him, but where does he get his own confidence? From knowledge of the world? Nope. From his belief in God. Dallas evangelist Tony Evans said that approvingly that "one of the impetuses for [Bush's] considering running for President was biblical teaching. He feels God is talking to him." Not all church leaders are quite so thrilled. The Presbyterians said the invasion of Iraq has been "unwise, immoral, and illegal." Jim Winkler, the United Secretary of the United Methodists, said, "Well, friends, the job is done and done poorly. In fact, it could not have been done worse. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to trust our leaders to correct their mistakes. Whether it has been on foreign or domestic policy, we have been led down the road to disaster." And we have no one to blame but ourselves. Look forward to four more years. Cheers.

39 hrt: Actually, in this case it's not only what should we have done, but what should we NOT have done. Toppling Saddam in the way that we did made things far, far worse. In exactly the same sense that Iwo Jima and the Battle of the Bulge made things far, far worse; before they made things far, far, far better. Resolved: Give no credence to this argument unless the fellow who proposes it also proposes an alternative course of action that recognizes the origins of Salafism and its linkages to Nazism and Radical Hermeneutics. To suggest that we not intervene in the Middle East is like suggesting that we leave a bomb to tick away in peace. It came from the neoconservatives in the 90's. These guys were NOT focused on terrorism. Most of them knew nothing at all about al-Qaeda. Most of them knew little or nothing about terrorism at all. These guys, most of whom tend to be hard-line Israel fanatics, were interested in reshaping the balance of power in the Middle East using American military force. You can argue with me if you want, but don't argue with me before you've researched it. I've looked into it, and I can provide details, but why not just look into it yourself? Well, I don't know if this counts as "research," but I was S.M. Lipset's student, and discussed terrorism back in the 1990s with Irving Kristol, and I'd like to know who's more neoconservative than Irving? And you're simply wrong about the focus of the neocon movement, which began in Alcove II at the City University of New York in the late 1940s, and was for all of its existence an anti-totalitarian movement. Period. In fact, they began as a Marxist cell, the Campbellites, and their first inkling that something was amiss came when Stalin gave the order to translate into English the works of all prominent Marxists, but forgot to leave Trotsky off the list. (Sometimes totalitarians are hard to figure.) So I beg your pardon, but you don't know what the heck you're talking about. What we're confronting here is not a series of isolated terrorist gangs that we can deal with as though it's a temporary criminal justice problem. This is Totalitarianism 3.0, and the outcome of the struggle is by no means certain. I submit that it's you that doesn't comprehend the nature of the problem, and like a blind man touching an elephant you see it as different beasts that are sometimes "snake-like" while at other times "tree-like," and you favor the application of chain saws or forked sticks to address the creature depending on your latest impression. Except that the blind man is involuntarily blind, while your blindness is volitional. As regards Israel, Yasser Arafat was the leader of a totalitarian quasi-state as well as a long-standing terrorist/totalitarian movement, while Israel is a largely secular democracy. So naturally you see Israel as the problem. God forbid the Palestinians should adopt the institutions of peaceful transition of power and the rule of law, for heaven sake. If you sew total war, by making non-combatants the targets of violence rather than merely the occasional side-effect victims there is just a chance that you'll reap total war as the "reward." It might behoove the Palestinians and the Arab Middle East were someone to clue them in on that possibility, instead of sewing the conviction that the patience of either the US or Israel is infinite. If a ten-year-old shows up at your front door shouting threats and swinging his small fists its a small matter to hold him off with one hand. If he shows up with a 10-guage, it's an entirely different matter. And regarding Ron Suskind's small "gaffe:" The policy of the Swedish Government from 1939 and to the end of World War II, was to remain neutral and stay out of the war. The Swedish policy of neutrality had been a successful strategy for more than a century,... (Source: one click away on Google)

40 Optimists argue that America and Europe are still united by far more than divides them. Democracy, free speech and the rule of law are indeed important fundamentals. But the role of the UN, the gap between rich and poor countries, the doctrine of pre-emptive war, the balance between liberty and security and the idea that tyrants such as Saddam Hussein can be overthrown by what Chris Patten scorns as "Jeffersonian tanks" are all big and divisive issues. Mr Bush's estranged allies are entitled to expect him to take more account of their concerns than he has done so far. He should have no illusion that victory over John Kerry means that the rest of the world has endorsed his way of doing business. Nor should Tony Blair imagine that the outcome vindicates his supportive and uncritical relatioship with the 43rd president.

41 Thanks for your thoughtful response. I truly appreciate it. My participation in this stuff is going to peter out relatively soon by necessity (I won't have the time), but don't take that to mean I haven't thought things through and don't have responses. I have great respect for Irving Kristol, so you won't catch me saying anything bad about the guy. And you're right, of course, about the origins of neoconservatism -- to a degree. One reason I deeply respect Kristol is that the man is relatively honest and open. He tries to tell it like it is. He acknowledges that there's such a thing as neoconservatism. He acknowledges he cares about Israel. He acknowledges that neoconservatism tries to yank conservatism over to its side; you have to love and respect a guy who admits that the "historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism would seem to be this: to convert the Republican party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills" into a new kind of politics. Neoconservatism, in short, is not conservatism. But Kristol's variety of neoconservatism is obsolete. It's still fascinating to study, but it doesn't represent the central stream of neoconservatism anymore. Kristol's Trotsky-derived strain was long ago supplanted by the Albert-Wohlstetter-derived tactical strain. Kristol is an intellectual (a "New York intellectual," to be specific). Most of the new neocons are not what I would call intellectuals. They see a world of black-and-white tactics, a world of simplistic, interconnected threats. They don't think about the motivations of the other side, or why our opponents might actually be interconnected. They tend to assume it. (And all-too-often they are completely wrong, which means that, dangerously, they totally misconstrue the true nature of the threats out there. For one thing, neoconservatism's frequent emphasis on vulnerable Israel helps to give it a healthy but sometimes overblown sense of near-paranoia.) If Irving's brand of neoconservatism was still the main one, I'd have less of a problem with it. Even Irving's son William is a bit more candid about things than many of the neocons, who crave secrecy and manipulation behind the scenes; I think that sucks in a democracy. For instance, referring to the war in Iraq, William told the Jerusalem Post that Wolfowitz "showed real courage in advancing this agenda." He said, "The truth is there weren't many of us. You know, this 'great powerful neo-conservative conspiracy.' There were about eight people... ItÂ’s a very impressive thing that he did." Some neocons deny the phenomenon even exists. Irving wrote a book about it for Christ's sake. His son William even talks about how small and elite the core of neoconservatism is -- which really is no surprise to anyone who pays attention. "Resolved: Give no credence to this argument unless the fellow who proposes it also proposes an alternative course of action that recognizes the origins of Salafism and its linkages to Nazism and Radical Hermeneutics. To suggest that we not intervene in the Middle East is like suggesting that we leave a bomb to tick away in peace." Part of what you say is reasonable. I never said we should do nothing in the Middle East. I believe we should be REASONABLE, not PASSIVE. Attacking Iraq so soon after 9/11, while all-but-ignoring the primary strains of the movement that led to that attack, is simply reckless and stupid. Saddam Hussein presented a problem in the Middle East, no question. It was not an urgent problem, but certainly one that deserved attention. There were all sorts of things we could have done about him, from simply waiting for him to die and modernizing the sanctions regime, to using more behind-the-scenes methods of toppling him, to waiting longer to assemble a true coalition (France said it would participate under certain conditions, but we didn't have the patience). But Saddam is NOT fundamentally related to al-Qaeda. In fact, he has nothing to do with al-Qaeda. Neocons love to interconnect everything in the Middle East. And you and I both know one of the major reasons. It's because they want us to see all of the various forces that threaten Israel as a united force that also threatens the world at large, and the United States more specifically. Come on, so much of this is about Israel, and so few people have the nuts to talk about Israel. It makes me sick. Israel is a close ally. So why the hell can't we talk about them? What, do they have the cooties or something? Some sort of terrible disease? Why can't we talk about Israel? I believe the US is capable of standing by its allies, AND talking about them. If we don't talk about this s**t, we won't find solutions. I guarantee you that. We can keep knocking over regimes in the Middle East. It won't solve the terrorism problem. There's terrorism in democracies, and there's terrorism in totalitarian regimes. If anything, it's often harder to contain terrorism in a democracy, because people have the freedom to do things. Saddam had the luxury of being able to control Islamic extremists almost entirely. Whatever democracy replaces his regime (God willing) will almost certainly be more wrought with active terrorist and extremist elements than was his regime. There is terrorism in Europe. Algeria has dabbled in (granted, lame forms of) democracy, and the more they did it seems the more terrorism there was. In Egypt, as leaders tried to adopt some Western elements before solving the Israel/Arab problem, terrorism increased, not decreased. When people in the region are so ticked off at the West, the more we force democracy upon them, the more they rebel. And at the moment, one of their top means of rebelling is terrorism. We cannot use so much brute-force. It is counterproductive. Few people in France during World War II were super-keen on Adolf Hitler, and they were happy to accept help building a new society. These guys understand liberty and freedom. They emulated us after our revolution. They gave us the Statue of Liberty. The Middle East is simply not the same place. They're dealing with ancient strains of culture that are not incompatible with ours, exactly, but are quite distinct from ours in a very relevant way. If we pretend these differences don't exist, as Wolfowitz and those other morons do, we simply won't succeed. I promise you. Yes, we can remake the Middle East. Rather, we can help the Middle East remake itself into something that suits both it and us. But if we try to cram this s**t down their throats, look for terrorism around the world to keep rising. It's a simple cause and effect. You mentioned Salafism, another name for Wahhabism, which I mentioned above (you chose the more culturally-sensitive term, although Wahhabism seems to be the term that's more widespread at the moment). Wahhabism is a strict form of fundamentalist Islam, but it has very little to do with the revolutionary aspects of bin Laden's ideology, which come from people like Saeed Qutb (Egypt) and Sayyid Abu'l-A'la Mawdudi (India/Pakistan). These are all ideologies that bin Laden was exposed to, but certainly have little if anything to do with Saddam Hussein. Saddam was secular, neither very pan-Arab nor pan-Islamic, and had no love for bin Laden's brand of Islamic extremist political activism (if anything, he feared it), nor even for the Taliban's medieval Ottoman-esque caliphate-wanna-be system. This actually illustrates precisely my point. It's important to separate out the various groups around the world, rather than to lump everyone together. If one of these ideologies is a target, so be it. But if it is, then leave Saddam out of it. And to imply that there's some sort of ideological consistency between Saddam, Salafism, and Nazism is just not realistic. That's like Bush telling us, after he toppled Saddam, that we'd "removed an ally of al-Qaeda." Ally according to whom? Certainly not according to either the Iraqis or al-Qaeda. I've seen some suggest that Saudi Wahhabism/Salafism is identical to the ideology of Qutb (equally untrue, though at least a bit more understandable), but I've never seen Saddam linked to any of them. It's not fair, and it's not right, to simply say that the whole Middle East is some sort of cohesive ticking time-bomb. Lumping the entire Middle East together is like lumping Asia together. Do we start with China or Vietnam? What does it matter? They all have those squinty eyes. They're trouble. I'll say it one more time. BS! (You know what I think the Nazi link is? Propaganda. I'd like to know where you saw that. If I had a dime for every time a neocon-ally tried to make an analogy between World War II and something entirely unrelated, I'd be Bill Gates times ten. Not true. There aren't enough neoconservatives.) Bin Laden, for the record, was influenced by a number of philosophies and types of theology. What it ALL boils down to, however, in the end, is pride. These guys are a very proud group of people, and they HATE to be disrespected. Some elements over there choose to express their discontent in more outrageous ways, but these angry sentiments that the Middle East (except for Israel) is some sort of trash heap / oil well for the world are not uncommon. The reasonable people in the Middle East deserve more respect from us. Those who attack us deserve our focus in pursuing them. So far, we're getting an F in both. Even Michael Moore, he of the bleeding-heart sensitivity, seemed to lump together all the Saudi Arabians in Fahrenheit 9/11 by showing images of Bush with the Saudis, as though ANY association with ANY Saudi is somehow suspicious. What the hell? Just cuz Amuric'n values are great doesn't mean we have to be so dumb about these things. Let's face it: what conservatives are defending in Iraq is a completely optional nation-building project. I just love the irony. All of that criticism of Clinton trying to reach out America's tentacles to the world to engage in peacekeeping or whatnot. Bush flip-flop #234483: "Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have a kind of nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not." (Circa campaign 2000.) If it wasn't so wrong, it would be funny. But Tony Blair (yet another @#$&*#@*!) actually made an interesting point awhile back. He said that the Iraq war could be justified on humanitarian grounds alone. I.e. to relieve the people of the sanctions. Remember, Blair is the British equivalent of a Democrat. The odd thing is, this reason may have been the MOST compelling one for invading Iraq in early 2003. So what we have now is an expensive humanitarian nation-building project overseas, costing us $5 billion per month. (Clinton never did ANYTHING like THAT.) And the thing is, since we didn't even market the war as a benevolent humanitarian project, we get no political capital out of it. People in the region hate us now more than ever, because we sold the war on selfish terms that turned out to be BS. I think the humanitarian reason for the war was worth considering. But this was certainly not the way to conduct a humanitarian war. Jumping impatiently into a poorly-planned, super-expensive effort without recruiting allies. Just utterly back-asswards. But whenever I hear ANYONE mention the fact that we're freeing the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator, I just like to point them to the dictionary, the section right around h-y-p-o-c... Congratulations, liberals, you've freed the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator. Just keep on bragging about it. I'm not going to go into as much detail as I'd like to, but I think I've covered some of the major points. (So I have a lot to say, so sue me. If you've read this far, you deserve some sort of gift basket, I think, but unfortunately I'm fresh out of gift baskets today.) Let me say this, though. Israel has got to stop playing the victim, and start taking some responsibility for itself, and for its actions. Its policies have bred overwhelming frustration among the Palestinians, 80% of whom are beneath the poverty line (while Israel enjoys European-style living). You cannot simply continue to f**k with people for so long and expect no consequences. And then Israel has the nuts to say the other guys are simply barbarians. Give me a break! This is a problem that will require efforts on both sides. Real solutions are not as far away as some people think. But using American military force to plow through the Middle East and try to bend it to its will is not the solution. And I'll also just throw out the pragmatic problems with it. The Iraq war has already cost us hundreds of billions of dollars. If we keep plowing ahead with Norman Podhoretz's roadmap for the Middle East, we will be nothing but a giant military industrial complex, throwing dollars down the drain for many decades. There are other ways to solve problems. The neocons are so force-obsessed they discard the possibilities of other methods. America is great, sure, and we can exert our will. But there's no reason we have to throw away our common sense, our patience, or our national character to do so. (When people compare Bush to Reagan, I have to laugh -- and shortly thereafter, maybe, cry. What was Reagan's Iraq? He didn't have one. The neocons of today, however, don't want to stop at Iraq. They want us to march through the Middle East, with guns blazing, and just hope it all turns out for the best. They are killing the essential character and purpose of this country. Some of them don't even seem to care. Michael Ledeen -- part of that small neocon elite -- cited Machiavelli. "We can lead by the force of high moral example. It has been done. [But] fear is much more reliable, and lasts longer. Once we show that we are capable of dealing out terrible punishment to our enemies, our power will be far greater." You think the Iraq war has increased our power? We're mired in a quagmire. If someone attacked us right now, what would we do? We can't exert pressure on Iran or North Korea, because they know our hands are tied. Even many of our former allies now hate us. This is stupid. This isn't increasing America's power. It's flushing everything that's great about America right down the tubes. And what did Benjamin Franklin say about virtue? "I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous." This end-justifies-the-means stuff is highly counterproductive. What's the end? If all goes well, America will keep marching ahead for many years. There is no end. All we have are the means. If we discard them, we vanish.) A few non sequiturs: "And regarding Ron Suskind's small 'gaffe:' The policy of the Swedish Government from 1939 and to the end of World War II, was to remain neutral and stay out of the war. The Swedish policy of neutrality had been a successful strategy for more than a century..." If you're implying that Bush's Sweden/Switzerland error was a result of him knowing TOO MUCH history, I respectfully disagree. In fact, I've seen no indication from him of ANY awareness of ANY history. And I would hardly call this sort of monumental, fundamental error a "gaffe." This is International Politics 101. Not even 101. Whatever comes before that. International Politics Preschool. Richard Perle, the ubiquitious neocon who designed much of the war, said "the first time I met Bush 43 [when he was running for president]...he didn't know very much." For all of us, that's a bad thing. But if you're Richard Perle, looking to indoctrinate some sucker who's about to rule the free world, it happens to be a good thing. Bush to Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso: "Do you have blacks too?" Bush apparently not a soccer fan. For the hell of it, I'll throw out an idea that I DON'T advocate (so please don't refute it) but which demonstrates the wide spectrum of options available. As it turns out, Saddam was hoping to restore ties with the US. One of the more unconventional options would have been to restore ties with Saddam, making those ties contingent on strict oversight and his ultimately handing power over to someone reform-minded who met our approval. It's not so far-fetched. He was, after all, once an ally. The neocons think so narrowly -- imagine walking down a narrow hallway with horse-blinders on, for good measure -- they rarely ever come up with anything creative. If I thought that narrowly I'd get a major migraine in about 5 minutes. For the neocons, it's brute-force or nothing. The point is not whether this particular solution is a great one or even feasible; I mentioned it because it's interesting, not because it's one of the top 5 best choices necessarily. The point is that creative solutions are worth considering over brute-force solutions that carry so many negative side-effects as to be totally counterproductive. Bush has actually had the gall to claim that Libya's about-face was because of Iraq. Few people read much about Libya, so who can argue with him? In fact, US discussions with Libya began during the Clinton years and continued in the State Department in the Bush administration despite resistance from those determining the main thrust of Bush's policies. (By now the absurd Colin-Powell-hating has reached a fever pitch.) Richard Perle and David Frum, in their dumbly-named book "An End to Evil," called Libya an "implacably hostile regime." Woodrow Wilson, whom a lot of the neocons respect -- because as you mention, the movement came from the left, and not the right -- once said, "The thing to do is to supply light and not heat." That well-characterizes America's historic mission. Michael Ledeen characterizes America's historic mission much differently, however: "creative destruction." He writes that "we must destroy [our enemies] to advance our historic mission." He writes, "Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone." He writes, "Of all the myths that cloud our understanding, and therefore paralyze our will and action, the most pernicious is that only the Left has a legitimate claim to the revolutionary tradition." If you're concerned about neoconservativism's leftward origins, fear not. Ledeen acquired much of his perspective by reading about Italian fascism. Podhoretz, that recent Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient (and neocon-co-godfather, together with Irving Kristol, though slightly more relevant today), is itching for World War IV in the Middle East. Ledeen refers to this lovingly as "the Great Game." Americans "love war," Ledeen says. Neoconservative Mark Steyn looks forward to "turning the whole region into a cauldron [of war]." America, it would seem, is now the aggressor, the country that instigates the world wars. Claes Ryn: "America is witnessing nothing less than an inversion of its traditional self-understanding and sense of priorities." We don't need to go to out of our way to create destruction. Sometimes heat is unavoidable, but when we can avoid it, we must; that is the American character. We need to spread light. As Abraham Lincoln said, "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends." Hey, it doesn't always work, but if all you do is march down the corridor of war, how do you know what works best? It's time to take off the horse-blinders, rub our eyes, and step out into the light. There are a lot of choices. Some of them, as luck would have it, are at least vaguely compatible with American values. "...Israel is a largely secular democracy. So naturally you see Israel as the problem." Israel is not what we tend to think of nowadays as a normal democracy, however. Many of the problems stem from the fact that it's an EXCLUSIVE democracy, i.e. they don't want the Palestinians there because it would mess up the character and political makeup of the state. The United States is a place that accepts all sorts of people; some complain about it, but it's the way it is. Israel is a JEWISH state. And I think if it was anything else, at least for the moment, it would not be serving its purpose. But let's not get too over-the-top about this whole Israel-is-a-secular-democracy thing. If they were truly an American-style democracy, they might have DIFFERENT problems, but they wouldn't have the problems they have now. Let's just think about how it works in Israel; people who lived in the territory for generations have been forced to leave, while Jewish people from anywhere around the world have free license to come and stay. You think that has nothing to do with the frustration on the other side? You probably won't like this, but here's what Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa had to say about Israel. "I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa." Face it. Israel has EXPORTED people out of its democracy, and that's where a lot of its problems lie. The Americans may have screwed with the Native Americans early on, but say this: they didn't send them to Greenland. These are issues people have to face, rather than simply sweeping them under the carpet. If Israel starts to acknowledge some of this stuff (taking great care as to how it does), it will be easier to work toward solutions. I'm tired of people elevating Israel to some mythical status. It's a place with great possibility, but also a place that has done some not-so-appealing things. This is all in the past, but this arrogance of pretending Israel is faultless and pristine is pure BS, and it's not getting us anywhere. Think about where the Jewish state is today. Is this where the early settlers had hoped it would be? The state is hated by millions of people in the region. Some Jewish people around the world chalk that up simplistically (or for self-serving reasons) to anti-Semitism. But I don't care who you are; if you create a two-class environment where one side is perpetually repressed while the other reaps all the spoils, you will create frustration. Is the Palestinian leadership absent blame in the equation? Of course not. That doesn't mean Israel can get off scot-free, and pretend that the entire problem is the other guys' fault. Israel has infinitely more power than the Palestinian leadership. That means it has more responsibility. Because I respect Israel and believe in it, I hold it accountable. I think it has the power to do more to solve this problem, and so do billions of other people around the world. And if it's going to solve this problem, it needs real help from the United States. The US can't just rubber-stamp the same-old-same-old asinine Israeli policies that have led to the exact point where we now find ourselves. Say what you will about the Palestinian leadership; but there will be NO LONG-TERM SOLUTION without some sort of reasonable agreement wherein each side acknowledges at least some of the perspectives of the other. What is the long-term plan of the hard-liners? Beating people completely into submission. Well, guess what, the Arab world has been around for more than a few millennia, and Israel's 5 million people aren't going to beat their pride into submission anytime soon. Israel can either face reality, or it can continue to dig itself deeper into the same old BS perpetual crisis. And another thing. People who think they're doing Israel a favor by obscuring the truth? You aren't. We need to be talking about these things openly, so that peoples' minds can be actively engaged in finding solutions. As long as certain issues are simply off-limits, we will never be able to tackle the problems broadly enough to successfully combat them. p.s. That's it for now. Maybe someday I'll go into DETAIL. [insert fancy smiley-face]

42 hrj: Hey asshole: Did it ever occur to you that 99% of Americans don't even think about Israel. You just ramble along about what you perceive the world thinks. Well, it thinks you're boring. Who in the hell asked you to give anyone a lesson on anything. Now go change your dress.

43 hrj: I may turn this into a pocket essay. Anyway, to begin: But Kristol's variety of neoconservatism is obsolete. It's still fascinating to study, but it doesn't represent the central stream of neoconservatism anymore. Kristol's Trotsky-derived strain was long ago supplanted by the Albert-Wohlstetter-derived tactical strain. Well, what this amounts to is an argument that Kristol isn't a "real" neocon. Does that mean his son, Bill, isn't a real neocon either? Because I can pretty much assure you that the two men agree right across the board. And I daresay Gertrude (Himmelfarbe), Bill's mother, is on the same page as well. I'd also say that most of the people, besides Bill, who currently pass for neocons qualify as "intellectuals" to most people. They have Ph.D.s from top universities, and they right books and articles with lots of footnotes and citations. I guess what you might have in the back of your mind, as you use that term, is idea that intellectuals aren't pragmatists. Or possibly that they're absorbed by theory. But on a profound level the neocon movement is, and has always been, dominated by pragmatism and the "reality check." Indeed, my use of the term "Salafism" isn't just a culturally sensitive word, but refers to the more militant version of Wahabbism. And it's a distinction that I learned from a colleague of Michael Ledeen's. Some neocons deny the phenomenon even exists. Irving wrote a book about it for Christ's sake. His son William even talks about how small and elite the core of neoconservatism is -- which really is no surprise to anyone who pays attention. Lipset doesn't like the term either, because it's so often misinterpreted and misused. (Like the term "liberal," in fact.) Many Brits, for instance, frequently refer to Bush as a "neocon." I guess you'd have to call me a neocon as well, since I buy into the notion of peace and security through democracy and prosperity. And I suppose it also applies to Tony Blair. Indeed, the group is getting to be pretty broad, and we'll soon have to start electing an administration in order to bank and manage the dues. And I should tell you that I've also never met a secretive neocon in my life. They'll not only tell you their intentions, but if you buy them a cheese plate and a little wine they'll talk your ear off. After awhile you begin to wonder "Isn't this stuff supposed to be secret?" Maybe I just have a trustworthy face, or something. If the Straussian method of interpreting texts in relation to the repressive conditions of their context is going to have some basis in experience it may not survive for much longer. We may have to create "virtual worlds" in order to undestrand whan repression is, or else run the risk of mistaking it for heated debate, or the exposure of silly ideas as, well... silly. Part of what you say is reasonable. I never said we should do nothing in the Middle East. I believe we should be REASONABLE, not PASSIVE. Attacking Iraq so soon after 9/11, while all-but-ignoring the primary strains of the movement that led to that attack, is simply reckless and stupid. Now that's just silly. You're falling for the "campaign slogan fallacy." Most of the folks who thought the Iraq War a good idea, also keep pretty darn close tabs on how we're doing in terms of busting up the Al Qaeda leadership. One of the chief reasons the movement is making some important mistakes that alienate members of that they consider their own constituency is that we've interrupted their command/control. Isolated cell structures are fine for maintaining security in a law enforcement environment, but they depend on hierarchies to function and coordinate the activities of cells. When those hierarchies are disrupted the result is disorganization... and mistakes. One of the anti-terrorism folks I talk to frequently said that he was a little worried recently that the pace at which we've been busting the major leaders, about one per a year, had slackened after Khalid Shaykh Muhammed. But shortly after that we cornered a handful within a short period. If anything the pace of disrupting their hierarchy is quickening, though we don't know what their capacity for regeneration might be. I do not think we are "all but ignoring the primary strains of the movement." I just don't. My problem with the "REASONABLE, not PASSIVE" approach is that that seems to be what we've been doing, for years. To me the tactic seems to assume that war is off the table, whereas sometimes the only way to control a situation is to be willing to go to war. And if you're willing then you have to actually do it sometimes. If we made a mistake, it was in not outmaneuvering Saddam so that we compelled him to start the war himself. If you recall, Saddam threatened to shoot down the U2s if their flight paths weren't submitted with 48 hour notice, if we flew more than one mission at a time. We should have done that anyway, and just ignored the threats. But, of course, the UN wasn't about to do anything so radical as insist on compliance with it's own demand for unconstrained inspections. So, even had Bush attempted to use this device the UNSC have blocked it. They weren't about to give Saddam a real test. Nor would he have sent a pilot up on such as suicide mission. Which ought to tell you what the UN really thought of Saddam's sincerity. But Saddam is NOT fundamentally related to al-Qaeda. In fact, he has nothing to do with al-Qaeda. You know, it's funny... the argument used to be that a religious purist would never do business with a reprobate pervert like Saddam, until we learned that Bin Laden was actively seeking such cooperation. At that point the door appears not to have swung from Saddam's side... but half the obstacles to cooperation had been already overcome. And you can bet that the instant the relationship had more benefits than liabilities for Saddam he'd have somehow crossed that bridge. We thought Marxists and Nazis were bitter enemies incapable of a strategic alliance until the Hitler/Stalin Pact. And once that door swings both ways we've passed a threshold from which we'll never return, and have entered a world in which a conventional ground war with deliberate rules about avoiding civilian casualties will be viewed as an ananchronism. We can keep knocking over regimes in the Middle East. It won't solve the terrorism problem. Again, "knocking over regimes" isn't the objective. The objective is to change the nature of the regimes in the Middle East. If that happens primarily though negotiation all the better. And the realistic possibility of a military option invariably makes those negotiations a great deal more fruitful. Do you think the Arab Summit in Tunisia recently would have done much about reform if they knew we were willing to abandon Iraq and head home? And now that the election is over, the foot dragging is going to stop as well. You must know this. Was the Iraq War "optional," as Friedman likes to put it? Sure, I guess so... in a way. What I have for dinner, or even whether I eat dinner, is probably optional. But eating, isn't. This was a project that had to eventually start somewhere, and the combination of having the world's worst tyrant (tied with N. Korea and Myanmar) who had a twelve-year history of thwarting UN resolutions and who had used WMD in the past makes the Saddam regime pretty good candidate. If not here, where? If not now, when? Moreover, not acting would have sent yet another message to the organizers of Al Qaeda and other Islamist terror organizations that we're a paper tiger, like the UN. And in this sort of post-9/11 world that's a message we just can't afford to send very often. Indeed, I don't we can ever afford to send it again, and not only for our own sakes. There's terrorism in democracies, and there's terrorism in totalitarian regimes. If anything, it's often harder to contain terrorism in a democracy, because people have the freedom to do things. Saddam had the luxury of being able to control Islamic extremists almost entirely. There's just soooo much wrong with this. Sure Hafez Assad controlled non-Alawite/non-Ba'athist terrorists by bull-dozing their enclave and paving it over, bodies included. But he also used terrorists as a tool, so controling them was simply an essential component of their utilization. This is an ancient pattern: the interrelationship of terrorist strategies and totalitarian state terror. They really aren't that different... just different phases of the some phenomenon. And far from making us more "safe" the ability of states to produce "one point safe" WMD, and the inability (so far) for independent movements lacking enclaves to do it, very definitely keeps the lid on what terrorists are capable of doing. And since the only constraint on their actions lie in the realm of capability rather than intent, that's the only leverage we have. Ultimately control isn't the key. The key is to prevent, as much as possible, the marginalization of people who might turn into terrorists. If you want to read an interesting book about the period leading to the rise of the Nazis try Paul Lazarsfeld's Marienthal Studies. It's about a population that had been isolated and marginalized by unemployment and "the dole," and who were therefore ripe for a movement that gave them social context. In Europe this was Nazism/Fascism. According to Lazarsfeld the US avoided this problem by utilizing various "workfare" programs, like the CCC. Sure there will always be disgruntled people motivated by paranoid movements, but those groups will have to survive within the context of a system that overtly constrains them through criminal justice intervention, and that places burdens on their predatory instincts. It is, in fact, much easier for terrorists to survive in totalitarian states, once they've passed the threshold of being useful to that state. I sort of agree that the problem is one of "pride" for the Al Qaedists, but there are lots of prideful people that don't resort to terrorism. It's more like a "status gap" between what they feel they deserve, and the status they actually receive. This was the problem in Germany/Austria leading up to the Nazis, and it's still the engine that fuels totalitarian movements, whether they constitute secular or clerical "religions." Even Michael Moore, he of the bleeding-heart sensitivity, seemed to lump together all the Saudi Arabians in Fahrenheit 9/11 by showing images of Bush with the Saudis, as though ANY association with ANY Saudi is somehow suspicious. Well, Michael Moore also came up with the theory that Americans have guns because we're more afraid of our neighbors than are the people in other countries, even though the data from several waves of the World Values Survey demonstrates that the US is toward the bottom of that scale... while Belgium is at the very top in just about all measures of prejudice and "fear of the other." Yes, the very Capital of the EU is the most prejudiced and fearful nation in the first world. Michael Moore is tedious. Who cares what he thinks, or says. I guess I'd agree that many of the folks implementing this little project aren't very nuanced about the plethora of divisions and factions in the Middle East, but they're learning and they have some powerful tools at their disposal for understanding those factions at an empirical level. It is how, after all, we're preparing the battlefield in Fallujah. We're at the start here. In fact, we're still at the beginning of the beginning. The tide may be turning though. I think the humanitarian reason for the war was worth considering. But this was certainly not the way to conduct a humanitarian war. Jumping impatiently into a poorly-planned, super-expensive effort without recruiting allies. Just utterly back-asswards. Sorry, but in this sort of work the only ally worth having is the UK. The strategy behind having others involved at this point isn't so much that we need them, but that we have to build a broad contingent of nations capable of this sort of work for the long run. It's a little like taking the kids to work. That's the way I see it, anyway. Let me say this, though. Israel has got to stop playing the victim, and start taking some responsibility for itself, and for its actions. Its policies have bred overwhelming frustration among the Palestinians, 80% of whom are beneath the poverty line (while Israel enjoys European-style living). You cannot simply continue to f**k with people for so long and expect no consequences. I'm sure you won't agree with this, but indulging the Palestinians is not the way to go right now. First, a military victory over institutionalized terrorism must be gained... and leaving that little detail off the table makes all the difference. The strategy being used by Israel of building a wall, and actively killing the leaders of the terrorist organizations is a method that will work, provided we don't undermine it. Sooner or later the Palestinian people will decide that being governed by these degenerates is not to their advantage. Ultimately this is an internal affair within the Palestinian territories, but it's a battle that Israel may be able to shape. It also isn't Israel's job to improve the lot of Palestinians, but in the long run that improvement is to Israel's benefit. After the victory, though. Not before, because any achievements made in that direction without first destroying the terrorists would be undermined by them. They recognize that any movement toward genuine representation and prosperity undermines their control. And then Israel has the nuts to say the other guys are simply barbarians. Give me a break! Watch this, and it'll be clear who the barbarians are... and what their incentives are too. (It's not violent, in case you're worried about that.) Thugs are the same, the world over. The first general organized thuggery with which the western powers had to deal was, in fact, the origin of the word itself. The strategy used by the British to control and eliminate the Thuggee under the command of William Sleeman probably crosses the line into genocide, as many would see it. But for his role in quelling this scourge, that had not only probably murdered over 100,000 people in northern India, but had disrupted the society for generations, Sleeman is remembered as a hero. There are good people among the Palestinians, no doubt. For the most part they have no champion and no protector... so are silenced. Until these modern thugs are quelled, they have no chance. And note that this parses a society that you insist on representing as unitary, without nuance. In some sense the same could be said of the pessimistic characterization of Iraqis and of Arabs in general. I'm not impressed by quasi-sensitivity. There aren't any easy answers here. There are other ways to solve problems. The neocons are so force-obsessed they discard the possibilities of other methods. Well, I actually saw a debate between William Kristol and Joseph Nye on CSPAN the other day over "soft power," and Kristol really had no problem with the notion that soft power is useful and vital. The problem is that in the absence of a credible threat of hard power, soft power is sometimes just powerless. My analogies run more along the lines of a balance between tension and compression, employed in Bucky Fuller's "tensegrity" structures. (I realize he didn't invent the concept, by the way.) The concept provides a convenient bridge from the more conventional references to carrots and sticks. Absent the discontinuous compression elements (struts) the tensional net has no structural integrity to speak of. It's just a pile of knotted string. With discontinuous compression, at strategic locatons within the net, the structure is the strongest per given unit weight on the planet. "Soft power" without "hard power" is just a pile of useless agreements that end up as entanglements. What we ought to be talking about is the expertise needed to strategically locate and place hard power. The terms "never" and "seldom" just don't cut it, I'm afraid. For the hell of it, I'll throw out an idea that I DON'T advocate (so please don't refute it) but which demonstrates the wide spectrum of options available. If you don't advocate it, why should I bother refuting it? Presumably you can do that for me, and it makes a nice division of labor. I think I've suggested that the neocons may be a bit more nuanced that you give them credit for being. But I have to tell you, I get the impression that you're "all nuance," and that's what's problematic for me. As Bill Whittle states so eloquently here and here, not everyone likes carrots and some people even hate them. But everyone has a disdain for sticks. It is therefore impossible to design a foreign policy in this age of the superimpowered individual that doesn't empoy a pretty hefty bundle of sticks. And that's something you should probably incorporate in your philosophy. As for whether Iraq played a role in Qadaffi's decision, all I can say is that he said it did. I think one has to take him at his word. Even if it's not the case, the prinicple still holds... and I simply see zero willingness or your part to even acknowledge what I should call "the principle of sticks" (discontinuous compression). We need to spread light. As Abraham Lincoln said, "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends." Sort of ironic, don't you think, that after defaming Michael Ledeen and Mark Steyn as war mongers, interested in military destruction purely for its own sake, you should settle on the man responsible for kicking off the most destructive war in this hemisphere as your example of soft power? Of course, he was talking strictly about political enemies... and even at that he never "made friends" of the Copperheads. Nor are Steyn and Ledeen likely to make political friends of our modern antiwar Copperheads. Just as there was no common ground over slavery and secession there is no common ground today over totalitarianism... the scourge that replaced slavery at the top of the heap of infamy. If a little Spartan talk helps to convince our enemies that we're serious, it serves a useful purpose.

44 Wow, thanks for taking the time to respond in-depth like that. There's no way I can keep this up in this much detail right now, but I'll get into a few things. Suffice it to say that while I respect your positions, I also disagree with just about every one of your points (well-stated though they were), and they're more or less what I've been hearing from the neocons for years. The neocons have a FRAMEWORK. But it's not a framework that generally meshes with reality. They create an abstract framework and then cherry-pick parts of reality to try to make them fit. But the framework is NOT REALITY. First, this. Neoconservatism IS indeed secretive. Maybe we don't agree on what secretive means. You just said you yourself are a neocon, and judging by the points you're making, you clearly are a neocon. Neocons obviously aren't secretive AMONGST themselves. What sense would that make? They're secretive in relation to the outside world. I think that's the definition of secretive most people would understand. But as I said, Irving's a notch above. He tries to tell it more or less like it is. He's not ashamed of his ideology, and he doesn't try to hide it from the world. My problem is that this stuff is often so behind-the-scenes that most people don't have a fair chance to refute it. And when you get a good, clean look at neoconservatism, it all falls apart fairly easily. Their greatest defense is their secrecy. The neoconservative mindset is often one of intense distrust for the outside world, and such a mindset is not without its use. But neoconservatives often totally botch their conclusions about who's doing what, who WILL do what, who's cooperating with who, etc. America is supposed to be staunch and strong. Neoconservatives are often borderline paranoid. (Who would YOU trust to keep you safe? A paranoiac, or someone who's staunch and strong? I know who I'd pick.) Gary Hart was a member of the bipartisan Hart-Rudman Commission, which warned the Bush administration prior to 9/11 that they needed to act on al-Qaeda (and were ignored). Hart: "The global rules for nations throughout history have been pretty consistent: a threat must be immediate and unavoidable. Iraq was neither. If someone knocks on your door, and you've been robbed before, you're not justified in blowing that person away simply because you're afraid. The same is true of nations." Neoconservatives often apply an end-justifies-the-means approach, and a framework of speculative guesswork to determine threats -- both of which are completely counter to traditional American ideals. Machiavelli said, "Whether an action is evil or not can only be decided in the light of what it is meant to achieve and whether it successfully achieves it." This is hardly what our founding fathers had in mind. John Adams: "The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue." America has prospered for more than two centuries by striving consistently to adhere to its high ideals no matter what the circumstances. Other nations have faltered when they discarded their ideals for supposed temporary gains. "Trust me just this once," a leader will say. "We'll get back to our ideals when the threat is over." You know what? That's a recipe for national implosion. America is strongest when it adheres to its ideals even in the face of overwhelming pressures to discard them. America is NOT Machiavellian. Many neoconservatives are so enamored of their little strategic games that they shortsightedly value these over the principles of the Constitution, and over the essential character America has sought to maintain since its founding. Let me say it one more time. BS! (Bush's wacky evangelical Christian crowd does something similar, by the way, elevating their own sectarian theology above the Constitution and our nation's founding principles.) What's a human being without his fundamental soul, essence, personality, good character? He's nothing. What's a nation without its fundamental soul, essence, personality, good character? It's nothing. To make matters worse, neoconservatism doesn't even do a semi-passable job of determining which threats are the most important. Prior to 9/11, most neocons couldn't have named three members of al-Qaeda. They didn't care about al-Qaeda. The world of neoconservatism is often a world of juvenile, machismo boasting over which regime America should knock off next. They claim to be visionaries, but at heart many of them are simply schoolyard bullies. Neocon legend Norman Podhoretz grew up on the mean streets of urban Brookyln, and joined a neighborhood gang. "We were a typical Brooklyn gang," he said in an interview. "The main desideratum was to be tough, not to back down from a fight, and to be a sissy, as people used to say, or a coward, was probably the worst possible condition into which you could fall." If it doesn't show up on a map, fuhgettaboutit. Former Bush counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke said, "I began saying [before 9/11], 'We have to deal with bin Laden. We have to deal with al Qaeda.' Paul Wolfowitz the Deputy Secretary of Defense said, 'No, no, no. We don't have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.' And I said, 'Paul, there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the Untied States in eight years,' and I turned to the Deputy Director of [the] CIA and said, 'Isn't that right?' and he said, 'Yeah, that's right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States.' " Neoconservatism is so narrowly focused that it generally misses about 90% of reality. In the world of neoconservatism, there's not a lot of room for privately-sponsored terrorist organizations. They don't fit conveniently into the laser-focused neoconservative framework. There's not a lot of room for considering what a foreign leader's motivations might be. There's not a lot of room for diplomacy. Neoconservatism is a cynical, insecure, closed-minded game of shoving nations around on a strategic map. And neoconservatives have an incurable Cold War jones. Without cold war strategizing, most neocons feel empty inside, completely lost. But you know what, guys? The Cold War is OVER. We're in a different world now. Karen Kwiatkowski, who used to work under crazy/stupid Pentagon neocon Douglas Feith: "I saw a dead philosophy -- Cold War anti-communism and neo-imperialism -- walking the corridors of the Pentagon. It wore the clothing of counterterrorism and spoke the language of a holy war between good and evil. The evil was recognized by the leadership to be resident mainly in the Middle East and articulated by Islamic clerics and radicals. But there were other enemies within, anyone who dared voice any skepticism about their grand plans, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and Gen. Anthony Zinni." The neoconservative elite tends to go behind closed doors at think tanks like the Project for the New American Century and the American Enterprise Institute and immerse themselves in the strategic games they love to play, and then they emerge in tiny-but-pushy droves to sell their agenda to the world, using whatever framework they think people will buy. At the moment, it's the "war on terror." One of Richard Perle's innumerous echoes, David Wurmser, wrote a book in 1999 called "Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein." The book contains only a few offhand references to terrorism. The first reference to terrorism in the book is to Kurdish PKK terrorists. A connection between Saddam and terrorism barely registers as a blip on the radar screen. The current idea of toppling Saddam was originally introduced by Richard Perle and a few of his colleagues in the mid-90's as a means of changing the balance of power in the Middle East to (supposedly) better favor Israel's interests. In a think tank paper written for the eyes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Perle, Feith, Wurmser, and a few other neocon radicals wrote that "early adoption of a bold, new perspective on peace and security is imperative for the new prime minister." Later they wrote that "since Iraq's future could affect the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly, it would be understandable that Israel has an interest in supporting the Hashemites [the Jordanian monarchy] in their efforts to redefine Iraq... This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq -- an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right -- as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions." The idea, give or take, was to change the balance of power in the Middle East to squeeze Israel-rival Syria virtually out of the picture. The next year, Wurmser wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal called "Iraq Needs a Revolution." The year after that, he signed a letter written mainly by Richard Perle and Stephen Solarz, and signed by all top three people at the current Bush Pentagon (as well as a number of other prominent Bush officials), urging Clinton to focus on toppling Saddam. Then he wrote his book, the foreword of which was written by Perle, urging America to use force to topple Saddam. In his book, he talked quite a lot about Syria and Jordan. Not too concerned about terrorism. In the Bush White House, Wurmser co-ran a group with Michael Maloof called the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group, whose purpose, interestingly enough, was to gather so-called "intelligence." The New York Times: "The men, Michael Maloof and David Wurmser, culled classified material, much of it uncorroborated data from the CIA. 'We discovered tons of raw intelligence,' said Maloof. 'We were stunned that we couldn't find any mention of it in the CIA's finished reports.' " In addition to getting info from the CIA, they also got info straight from Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who was hell-bent on toppling Saddam. Perle, a close friend of the scandal-prone Chalabi, helped to establish the ties. Times: "Perle asked Chalabi, now a member of the interim government of Iraq, to have his staff provide Maloof information gleaned from defectors and others." A better-known intelligence-cooking operation in the Pentagon was the Office of Special Plans, whose analyses were guided by such unbiased neocons as Douglas Feith, William Luti, Michael Ledeen, and Abram Shulsky. Shulsky, who ran the operation at the lower levels, has written that "truth is not the goal" of intelligence-gathering, "but only a means toward victory." The coauthor of the book was Gary Schmitt, the executive director of the Project for the New American Century. (The PNAC, as you probably know, was cofounded by William Kristol and fellow neocon Robert Kagan. William Kristol is one of the favorites of News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch -- of Fox News and New York Post fame. Kristol edits Murdoch's neoconservative Weekly Standard, which Murdoch has long-published at a financial loss and distributed free to thousands, solely for the purpose of political advocacy.) You mentioned Strauss; Shulsky's a Straussian, having studied under Strauss at the University of Chicago alongside Wolfowitz, Chalabi, and some others. (For those unfamiliar with Strauss. Newsweek: "Strauss taught that philosophers needed to tell 'noble lies' to the politicians and the people.") You write, "Was the Iraq War 'optional,' as Friedman likes to put it? Sure, I guess so... in a way. What I have for dinner, or even whether I eat dinner, is probably optional. But eating, isn't. This was a project that had to eventually start somewhere..." What exactly is the "project" to which you're referring? Neoconservatives love projects, and in order to create a project, they'll often lump together all manner of goals and tasks that have nothing to do with one another. They like things to look clean and neat. If the reality doesn't fit the "project," they force it. There is NO cohesive project. Saddam and al-Qaeda have nothing to do with each other. So Thomas Friedman said it was "optional," eh? James Baker, who was Reagan's chief of staff and Treasury Secretary, and HW Bush's Secretary of State, said, "This is a war of choice, more so, perhaps, than a war of necessity." Baker warned that if Bush plowed on ahead, there would be "costs to other American foreign policy interests, including our relationships with practically all other Arab countries (and even many of our customary allies in Europe and elsewhere) and perhaps even to our top foreign policy priority, the war on terrorism." You write that "half the obstacles to cooperation [between Saddam and al-Qaeda] had been already overcome. And you can bet that the instant the relationship had more benefits than liabilities for Saddam he'd have somehow crossed that bridge. We thought Marxists and Nazis were bitter enemies incapable of a strategic alliance until the Hitler/Stalin Pact." Once again trying to determine our enemies based on fantastic speculation. Let's go over this one more time. SADDAM AND AL-QAEDA WERE NOT COOPERATING. I can't say it any clearer than that. You can't attack someone based on speculation that they may someday cooperate with someone. Do you have any idea how ridiculous, not to mention uncivilized, that sounds? Neocon philosophy is particularly riddled with contradiction and hypocrisy. Most neocons are intent on brute-forcing civilization down everyones' throats, but their own methods for doing so are themselves patently uncivilized. This simply doesn't work. Neoconservatives tend to embrace free markets around the world, want nations to participate in the international marketplace, yet they belittle the very international institutions that lubricate the machinery of worldwide capitalism. Neoconservatives tend to claim they're interested in civilization, yet there are few who cooperate less well with others, or value civilized diplomatic engagement less than the neocons. Neoconservatism is a half-assed ideology, and it always has been. The only way it survives is by spending most of its time in the shadows, staying just hidden enough that most people can't quite see what it's up to. Here's the kind of reasoning most neocons try to avoid like the plague. Saddam was an egotistical, power-hungry dictator. He knew the world didn't have an overabundance of patience with him. He knew America's patience in particular was relatively thin. Nearly everything Saddam has done over his career has been calculated to increase Iraq's or his own power. With the scrutiny of the world on both him and al-Qaeda, cooperating with that group would have been regime suicide. Saddam did not move at random; and he liked to press the limits of his power, not intentionally shoot himself in the head. Going around the world attacking people based on speculation is surely a brave new world. It's a world in which America acts out of fear and paranoia, not out of strength and virtue. It would be tempting to say, yes, we have safety, but at what cost? The only problem is that the neocons don't even understand the true threats. So within the neocon framework we have neither safety nor virtue. But at least we can say that we're hated almost without exception, throughout the world. That's something, right? "We thought Marxists and Nazis were bitter enemies incapable of a strategic alliance until the Hitler/Stalin Pact." It's true. For some neocons not only has the COLD WAR not ended, even World War II is still ongoing. Earth to Neocon Headquarters: these analogies are useful for academic discussion, but they're not a good enough rationale for sending American troops to die overseas! Let's stop and think for a moment just how flimsy this argument truly is. A and B are ideologically dissimilar, and they were cooperating. Therefore we're justified in attacking C, which is ideologically dissimilar from D. Don't take this personally, but are you loco, gringo? That's the most convoluted, BS argument I think I've ever heard in my life! And let's stop bringing WWII into this, 'K? You yourself wrote that "the door appears not to have swung from Saddam's side." Meaning that Saddam actively chose not to cooperate with al-Qaeda. Perhaps you can go over your logic one more time, because you left me behind. We're justified in attacking a guy who chose not to cooperate with al-Qaeda, because he might someday cooperate with al-Qaeda, based on an analogy from World War II wherein the Marxists collaborated with Hitler? Whew. That's about as airtight as it gets. You really ARE a neocon. You weren't kidding. "...'Knocking over regimes' isn't the objective. The objective is to change the nature of the regimes in the Middle East. If that happens primarily though negotiation all the better." If only it were so. Wolfowitz summed up the sentiments of the neocons pretty well when he said that toppling Saddam by force "appeared to be about not whether but when" for the Bush administration. The Independent: "Mr [Paul] O'Neill [former Bush Treasury Secretary] said invading Iraq was 'topic A' at the very first meeting of President George Bush's National Security Council, 10 days after his inauguration on 20 January 2001, and continued to be an abiding theme in follow-up meetings. '...From the very first instance, it was about Iraq,' said Mr O'Neill... 'It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying "Go find me a way to do this".' " For most neocons, when the word "diplomacy" comes up in a discussion, it might as well be synonymous with "naivete." Which is ironic, because in reality it's the term "neocon" that's truly synonymous with "naivete." Neocons are working so hard to cram civilization down the throats of good people all over the world, but when you think about it, what is the definition of "civilization"? To a large degree, to be civilized means to be diplomatic, sensible, to play by agreed-upon rules, to get along well with others. All traits that are valued almost not at all by most of the neocons. The neocon sensibility is almost inevitably one of obsessiveness. There's a "project" that needs immediate attention. Little glitches on the horizon that we need to rectify immediately in order to complete our project, form our perfect world. You know what, the world will never be perfect. And especially not if we throw away our fundamental values in order to go around the world impatiently bullying other people and nations without considering all our options or thinking through all the potential consequences. We can improve the world, but how can we improve the world by setting the example that bullying other people based on wild speculation is acceptable and even desirable? It is not a more perfect world that the neocons are helping to create; it's a more chaotic, distrusting world, wrought of a foolish, reckless game that's totally incompatible with both American values and common sense; and you can leave me out of it, thank you. Neocon Daniel Pipes, who's done as much as anyone to spread impressively bogus notions about Islam, Islamism, Wahhabism and the like, summed up the neocon mentality pretty well. "What war had achieved for Israel," Pipes said, "diplomacy has undone." Pipes, who Bush appointed to the US Institute for Peace of all entities, said, "How is a change of heart achieved [in Palestine]? It is achieved by an Israeli victory and a Palestinian defeat. The Palestinians need to be defeated even more than Israel needs to defeat them." And we wonder why the Arab world looks askance at us. (Stephen Schwartz also gets honorable mention for skewing Arab culture hopelessly beyond recognition, i.e. referring to the "the Wahhabi death cult." Even by neocon standards, Schwartz is one of the more confused neocons out there. He doesn't seem to realize that neocons are supposed to be EX-Trotskyites, not actual Trotskyites -- Trotsky being a communist (one-time big-C, later little-c) and all. Schwartz has said he will defend Trotsky "to my last breath, and without apology." Whoa there, easy does it. Like a lot of the rest of the neoconservative pack, Schwartz claims that "military defeat is the only solution with regard to open terror.") You write that Saddam had "a twelve-year history of thwarting UN resolutions and [that he] had used WMD in the past makes the Saddam regime pretty good candidate..." Oh, so it appears we're now concerned about UN resolutions all of a sudden. How entirely convenient for us. Civilization, apparently, is not a two-way highway. When asked about violating international law, Bush once said sarcastically in a press conference, "International law? I better call my lawyer; he didn't bring that up to me." Richard Perle, who said in late 2003 that "international law...would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone," would no doubt have been very proud of his beligerant young Jedi. So Saddam used WMD's, did he? And when was this exactly? Oh, right, in the 80's, when he was a US ally. And who supplied many of the components? Oh, right, the US did. The Reagan administration. In fact, the neocons. New York Times: "Col. Walter P. Lang, retired, the senior defense intelligence officer at the time, [said,] 'The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern...' " DIA official: "The Pentagon 'wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of gas,' said one veteran of the program [to help Saddam]. 'It was just another way of killing people -- whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference,' he said." But the 80's are over. More relevant as of 2003 was that the combination of the 1991 Gulf War and the 90's weapons inspections had, as luck would have it, DESTROYED ALL OF THAT STUFF. Saddam made no serious attempt to restore his weapons programs after 1991. We can see all of this more clearly in reverse, but we could see plenty clearly enough even then. Foreign policy is a matter of setting priorities, and toppling Saddam was simply not the top priority in 2003. The US did have a number of priorities. Remember 9/11? Doesn't anybody friggin' remember 9/11 anymore? Washington Post: "[Former Bush counterterrorism director Rand Beers] thinks the war in Afghanistan was a job begun, then abandoned. Rather than destroying al Qaeda terrorists, the fighting only dispersed them. The flow of aid has been slow and the U.S. military presence is too small, he said. 'Terrorists move around the country with ease. We don't even know what's going on. Osama bin Laden could be almost anywhere in Afghanistan,' he said." Beers, a normally nonpartisan guy who has worked for both Republicans and Democrats, was so disgusted with Bush's inept so-called "war on terror" that he quit and started working toward Bush's defeat in 2004. Bush's attempts to shore up homeland security, too, had taken a backseat to the neocons' beloved Iraq Adventure. "What else can you say," Beers lamented. " 'We don't care about 3,000 people dying in New York City and Washington?' " Then there's the more-than-over-the-top fearmongering the Bush administration has embraced with a flourish since 9/11, gleefully overhyping the threat from all manner of WMD. Ashcroft said a dirty bomb "spreads radioactive material that is highly toxic to humans and can cause mass death and injury." Actually, no, that's not quite right, John. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that the conventional explosive material used in a dirty bomb is more dangerous than the radioactive material perched alongside it. "The main purpose of a dirty bomb is to frighten people and make buildings or land unusable for a long period of time," the Commission says. "...At the levels created by most probable sources, not enough radiation would be present in a dirty bomb to cause severe illness from exposure to radiation." Not severe illness, maybe, but certainly "mass death and injury," right? Right? No, sorry. Thanks to Jose Padilla's supposed dirty bomb plot, Bush signed an order authorizing the US military to arrest Padilla, an American citizen, in Chicago and hold him indefinitely without access to the American legal system. The Supreme Court eventually had to intervene to say (me paraphrasing), "What the f**k are you doing, you f**king crazy lunatics? You can't do that for f**k's sake, you insane motherf**kers!" Antonin Scalia, one of the most conservative justices on the Supreme Court, a man who has had dinner with the Bushes, gone duck hunting with Dick Cheney, and cast a key vote giving Bush the White House in 2000, said, "Where does he get that power?" The power of a president during wartime, Scalia said, is "the George Washington-like" power to command the troops in battle. "It doesn't mean he has the power to do whatever it takes..." The Court ruled 8-1 that the administration had overstepped its bounds. The administration had argued that Yaser Hamdi, another American citizen, was also too dangerous and had to be held indefinitely without access to the courts. When the Supreme Court disagreed, the Bush administration decided not to try Hamdi at all. Instead, it simply let him go. He is now free. Give him a call if you want. Ask him what's up. "Yo, Yaser, how's it hangin'? You a terrorist or what?" As for Padilla, the day after Ashcroft said, "We have disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive 'dirty bomb'," Wolfowitz said, "I don't think there was actually a plot beyond some fairly loose talk and obviously to plan future deeds." Padilla was a "scout" or something, the administration said. Whatever he was, he wasn't to have access to the American justice system the Constitution promises to all American citizens -- at least until the Supreme Court intervened. At his UN presentation in February 2003, the unfortunate lowlight of his career, Colin Powell warned that "a single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes." The Centers for Disease Control says a drop of VX on the skin "can cause sweating and muscle twitching where the agent touched the skin," and that "mild or moderately exposed people usually recover completely." You know, now that you mention it, the VX Powell was referring to had long ago been destroyed, and even if it hadn't been, it would be useless today. Actually, hunh, you know what, now that I think about it, Iraq never perfected VX in the first place... Yeah... Hunh... I'll be damned. Yeah, but it sure was entertaining the way Powell held up that vial and looked at it quizzically, his head slightly cocked to one side like a dog in the woods that can't quite place a sound. A winning performance, although, ironically, a career-damaging one. The Bush administration's hyperactive WMD spin has indeed been more than Oscar-worthy. There will be no Oscars for Bush and his loyal cast and crew, however. Just a second term in the White House. Experts said that even if Saddam HAD HAD these weapons, and HAD been cooperating with some anti-American terrorist group, he STILL wouldn't have given these weapons to the guys. Power-hungry dictators aren't about to give away their favorite toys. It just doesn't happen. But this is the sort of analysis that doesn't interest neocons. It doesn't fit all-too-well into the "project," you know. You write, "...Not acting would have sent yet another message to the organizers of Al Qaeda and other Islamist terror organizations that we're a paper tiger, like the UN. And in this sort of post-9/11 world that's a message we just can't afford to send very often. Indeed, I don't we can ever afford to send it again, and not only for our own sakes." Let's try to keep our countries straight. The war in Afghanistan was widely supported by nations around the world. It was a response to 9/11. It was just; it was logical. What message are we sending the Islamists, again, by attacking a secular leader who hadn't been cooperating with them? There are a few chapters, it would seem, missing from your book. What message are we sending -- remind me -- by ultimately going so light on the people who attacked us and then focusing the vast majority of our energies on a bunch of guys, sitting pretty quietly, really, who our attackers referred to as "infidels"? Remind me to get refund on this book. Chapters 3-15, completely missing. Richard Clarke: "Osama bin Laden had been saying for years, 'America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country. He had been saying this. This is part of his propaganda. So what did we do after 9/11? We invade...and occupy an oil-rich Arab country which was doing nothing to threaten us. In other words, we stepped right into bin Laden's propaganda. And the result of that is that al Qaeda and organizations like it, offshoots of it, second-generation al Qaeda have been greatly strengthened." Perhaps you come from the Michael Ledeen school of thinking. As paraphrased by neocon Jonah Goldberg: " 'Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.' That's at least how I remember Michael phrasing it at a speech at the American Enterprise Institute about a decade ago." Except that we'd already picked up Afghanistan and thrown it against the wall. I think most neocons would consider Afghanistan to be a crappy little country. (Or is there such a thing as TOO crappy? Clarke said Rumsfeld complained there weren't any good in Afghanistan. Again with the machismo. The juvenile need to retaliate against someone, something -- anyone, anything. Punch a wall. It will make you feel better. So what if you break your hand.) Perhaps the problem was, Afghanistan was not one of the crappy little countries the neocons had been targeting. Neocons tend not to be overly flexible. They have narrow plans. They develop them. If someone "moves the cheese," as they say, the neocons still go to the same place. Flexibility is not the neocons' forte. Wolfowitz had wanted to ignore Afghanistan from the very beginning and go right after Iraq. Rumsfeld wanted to do both at once. On September 20, 2001, Perle and his allies wrote to the president that capturing or killing bin Laden should be "by no means the only goal, of the current war on terrorism." They then segued casually into explaining why toppling Saddam had to be a key goal of the war on terror. It's a good thing Bush "didn't know very much" coming into office, as Perle has said. Otherwise he might have noticed the flimsiness of the laughably-forced connection between Saddam and 9/11. As Laura Bush once said of her husband, "He doesn't need to evaluate and reevaluate a decision. He doesn't try to overthink. He likes action." And -- action it is. "Sure Hafez Assad controlled non-Alawite/non-Ba'athist terrorists by bull-dozing their enclave and paving it over, bodies included. But he also used terrorists as a tool, so controling them was simply an essential component of their utilization." I've opened up here far more than I cover in sufficient depth (my bad), but the bottom line is that foreign policy is about setting priorities. "Terrorism" is not an objective term. The US collaborated with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban. Many would say that's backing one terrorist group over another. In the Middle East (and elsewhere), many insurgents can be labelled "terrorists." Who do we label terrorists? Terrorists tend to be the guys who do mean things to people without our permission. When Saddam rose to power, we helped him slaughter many of the moderates who might have been useful in toppling him later on. Speaking of which, weren't we pretty much buddy-buddy with Saddam during the 80's when he was screwing with the Kurds? Saddam was sympathetic to Mujahideen e Khalq, because they wanted to overthrow the Iranian government. Many of the Bush administration neocons wanted to fund that exact same group just recently in order to try to topple the Iranian government. The US has backed what most reasonable people would call terrorists in Latin America and elsewhere. Hey -- should we root out the terrorists in Northern Ireland? What about the Spanish Basques? They're our problem, right? Terrorists. No, wait, we're not just targeting "terrorists." We're targeting "terror." I remember a rollercoaster I went on at Six Flags not too long ago that was pretty damn scary. I say take it out. The Bush administration has convinced many of us that there is this singular, entirely interconnected net of "terrorists" out there. I know Bush said, "We are fighting evil, and we will continue to fight evil, and we will not stop until we defeat evil." But let's step out of neo-evangelical dreamland for a moment and snap ourselves back to reality. It's not enough to simply slap a label on someone -- "terrorist" -- and then retaliate against them because we were attacked -- by someone or something terrifying -- on 9/11. We are twisting and convoluting the notion of justice like it ain't never been 'atwisted and 'aconvoluted before. Saddam was not involved in terrorism against America. Al-Qaeda was actively focused on killing thousands of American civilians and bringing down the American economy. What in the hell, pray share, do those two have to do with one another? I'm really eager to read those missing chapters. I'm sure they do a bang-up job of filling in the gaping holes in your p__j_ct blueprint. I'm sorry. Project. Something wrong with my keyboard. I knew I shouldn't have taken the PNAC's surplus computer peripherals. No matter WHAT, if the US wanted to bring down Saddam, in a very delicate post-9/11 climate it needed to do it the right way. That was a given. Obvious. Bush has about as much foreign policy sense as a box of sand. On a good day. This may seem like a lot, but I've only touched the very surface. I don't have time to cover all of this stuff; but a few more things. (I know, I opened it up; it's my fault.) You write, "Ultimately control isn't the key. The key is to prevent, as much as possible, the marginalization of people who might turn into terrorists. If you want to read an interesting book about the period leading to the rise of the Nazis try Paul Lazarsfeld's Marienthal Studies." Again with the Nazis! You mentioned them four times! At some point I'm going to have to say, if you can't discuss these issues without tying them (I believe for reasons that have more to do with propaganda than good logic) to the Nazis or World War II, don't even bother, yo! It's gettin' repetitious. Before the Iraq war, lots of neocons were trying to compare Saddam to Hitler. Like, um, er, ah, give it a rest. Hitler had been aggressively expanding throughout Europe, and he controlled a powerful nation/economy/military. Saddam was sitting there quietly in the Middle East, hemmed in by sanctions, doin' nothin' ta nobody. Last time he acted up he got slapped back, and he hadn't tried anything since. I says, enough already with the Nazi spiel. The Nazis were bad people. They're GONE. The Cold War was a challenge. It's OVER. The Soviets made James Bond movies more interesting. They're kaput. Get with the program. As for preventing the marginalization of people, that's all well and good, but there are ways to do this that are compatible with American values and don't create more problems than they solve. Regardless, however, the Madrid train bombings weren't a result of people being marginalized. They were a result of people BEING F**KING TICKED OFF. You don't have to be marginalized to be ticked off. If you're totally marginalized, you're often defeated. Neither Afghans nor Iraqis, for the record, tended to be international terrorists. Afghans in particular would have been perfectly happy with a free lifetime supply of grain. Is this the nuance I'm not supposed to be using? I'm "all nuance," you said, and that's "problematic" for you. Nuance, I guess, means that if a round peg doesn't fit in a square hole, you don't keep slamming it down until it goes through. Bummer, though, I know, for those who had their hearts set on that hole. "Saddam threatened to shoot down the U2s if their flight paths weren't submitted with 48 hour notice, if we flew more than one mission at a time. We should have done that anyway, and just ignored the threats." You're a neocon all right. You figure out who to attack first, and then come up with a reason later. The UN inspectors had helicopters, aerial drones, satellites, maxed-out vehicles, sophisticated equipment, you-name-it-they-had-it. The one thing Saddam asked is that there not be unlimited spy planes buzzing around overhead. Yeah, that's definitely a reason to bomb the living s**t out of him. At one point the UN inspectors did actually have more than one plane up there, and no, Saddam didn't shoot them down. But since they'd agreed to a certain protocol with the spy planes, the inspectors acknowledged the mistake like civilized people do and didn't do it again. The UN inspectors were NOT lacking for any equipment or access that they needed. This was probably the most intrusive inspections regime in history, even though it was cut short by our ACTION!-happy commander-in-chief. "After all," Bush said, "this is the guy who tried to kill my dad." You wrote, "...Of course, the UN wasn't about to do anything so radical as insist on compliance with it's own demand for unconstrained inspections. So, even had Bush attempted to use this device the UNSC have blocked it. They weren't about to give Saddam a real test. Nor would he have sent a pilot up on such as suicide mission. Which ought to tell you what the UN really thought of Saddam's sincerity." Reality's really not as bad as you think. Sometime when you're feeling a bit saucy, poke your head out of the cave and take a look around. It's actually quite liberating. The UN's purpose, incidentally, is not to create lame rationalizations for one country to invade another. Frankly, though, the Bush administration doesn't seem to need the UN's help in this regard. It came up with plenty of lame rationalizations on its own. My favorite was the Africa uranium documents. "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The British government, eh? But not us, I guess. Why'd you mention it in your State of the Union speech if only the British government has learned it? Newsweek: "The State Department...turned over the Italian documents to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which had been pressing the United States to back up its claims about Iraq's nuclear program. 'Within two hours they figured out they were forgeries,' one IAEA official told Newsweek. How did they do it? 'Google,' said the official. The IAEA ran the name of the Niger foreign minister through the Internet search engine and discovered that he was not in office at the time the document was signed." Remind me to donate a personal computer to the White House so that they have access to Google in the future. Briefly: You mention "the problem in Germany/Austria leading up to the Nazis." The NAZIS! The NAZIS! Man. Not sure why you keep mentioning the Nazis, but these comparisons are none too helpful. What's your worry? That some group will turn the US into an Islamist state? If you give me a plausible sequence of events via which this can happen, I'll ship you everything I own, complementary, postage-paid. You concerned about an Ottoman-style pan-Arabic empire in the Middle East? Well, Saddam certainly wasn't about to let that happen, so if that's your worry, toppling Saddam is just plain weird. There isn't going to be any pan-Arabic Taliban empire -- it's not happening -- and even if there was one, it would be impotent because those guys are bad at capitalism. (Not enough people want this either at the top or the bottom, and the international landscape wouldn't permit it anyway. It's the fringe loonies who want it, and even they have to wonder about their chances.) I'll tell you what wouldn't be impotent. A pan-Arabic confederation of democracies. If everybody in the Middle East is democratic, the next logical step is to form a pan-Arabic union not unlike the EU. Then, if these guys don't feel like inviting Israel to join, they'll have more than enough power to push Israel right into the sea. You know, in a way that would be really f**king funny, given all the effort the neocons are putting into this. I'm not suggesting that democracy is bad. What I'm saying is there's no way for Israel to run away from diplomacy and cooperation. They can solve this now, or they can suffer for awhile longer and solve it later -- or, perhaps, destroy themselves waiting for something to happen. There ain't gonna be a perfect solution. These super-obsessive pro-Israel fans who think Israel deserves it all. Give it up, guys. The world will never be perfect, and neither will Israel. Ask Icarus what happens when you want it all. You write that "in this sort of work the only ally worth having is the UK." You couldn't be more wrong. The US could have avoided a lot of the recent damage to its reputation and national interests, particularly in the Middle East, by having a broader coalition. Not exactly rocket science. And this time around, unlike in the 1991 air-power-centric Gulf War, we actually could have used some of these Arab troops for peacekeeping, etc. This also well-epitomizes the notorious neoconservative tunnel-vision. The first war in Iraq cost us about $5 billion. This one is costing us about $5 billion PER MONTH. Stephan Richter: "What a difference a decade makes. Back in the times of the first Gulf War, in 1991, nations such as Saudi Arabia, Japan and Germany were literally lining up to pay the United States tens of billions of dollars for the costs of its military exertions. Now, as Turkey proves, that convenient principle has been put in reverse." We tried to bribe Turkey to join, and they still wouldn't. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that 95% of the Turkish public was against the war? Given the theme of this blog, I can't help myself. "Now, release your anger..." "I can feel your anger... Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete." How to Create Terrorism, for Dummies "Watch this, and it'll be clear who the barbarians are...and what their incentives are too... Thugs are the same, the world over." Like I'm a clean slate on this issue, and this one extra tidbit is going to convince me that Israel has no blame and Palestine is the only culprit. There may be a sucker born every minute, but unfortunately for you, I ain't one of them. Try reading about how the Israeli military razed the only the zoo in the Gaza Strip, or about how Ariel Sharon permitted the slaughter of hundreds of Palestinian refugees in the 80's. Or how Israeli policies exacerbate crushing levels of poverty in Palestine. You see what you want to see. Personally, I want to see the truth, because that's the only way to solve a problem. If you want to be biased, be biased. It's not as helpful as you may think. Israel has a sophisticated modern military. They don't need to fight a guerilla war. Palestine has s**t. They fight the way they think they have to fight. It's not productive, but they do it out of desperation. Someday this meshugas has to stop, and Israel has to take the initiative. You write, "Until these modern thugs are quelled, they have no chance." Israeli policies are helping to fuel the thugs by creating overwhelming levels of frustration among the Palestinians. Taki, Spectator (UK): "...The [Israeli] occupation has lasted a generation and rules the lives of 3.5 million Palestinians. Sharon's gambles have only managed to turn policy over to the lunatic religious Right on the Israeli side, and the mad mullahs in the Palestinian camp... If a decent human being like Gerald Kaufman can write an article in an English newspaper asking 'How CAN my fellow Jews do something like this?' it's time for America to wake up and take notice." Some people want to use brute force until the cows come home. Well, the cows isn't comin' home. "Absent the discontinuous compression elements (struts) the tensional net has no structural integrity to speak of. It's just a pile of knotted string." [Etc., etc. Abstract discussion of soft power, hard power, etc.] These arguments ought to be separated, however, from the fundamental question of whether preemptively, unilaterally invading Iraq in 2003 MADE ANY GODDAM SENSE! There are two separate issues here. One is what is the overarching philosophy to apply to foreign policy. Worth considering and contemplating. Another is the specific notion of Iraq in 2003. And no matter what kind of overarching foreign policy philosophy you have -- if you use a koosh ball paradigm, I don't care -- the Iraq invasion STILL has to make some friggin' sense on its own merits. I'm not arguing from the perspective of a pacifist. I believe in any given circumstance considering a wide array of options. Neoconservatives do not, in general (despite your arguments that neocons are somehow anything other than blunt) consider a wide array of options. William Kristol is not exactly the WORST, but he's still stuck in a hard-line rut just about all the time. An example of TOO-SOFT is the way Clinton handled Somalia -- Black Hawk Down et al. You can't just pull out of a place after a setback like that. Clinton wasn't what I would call soft, but that wasn't a campaign he'd wanted; it was handed to him by HW, who anticipated it would go a lot quicker. At the time, Clinton was still a bit new at the foreign policy game, though he came in with HEAPS (as the Brits say) more knowledge about foreign policy than Mr. "Keep good relations with the Grecians" Bush. Foreign policy is one-part pragmatics and one-part perception. The war in Iraq, unfortunately, gets a failing grade in both subjects. You can refute an opponent of the Iraq war by simply calling him soft. But being reasonable doesn't make a person a wimp. Being recklessly macho makes a person a danger to mankind. Let me add, too, that American leaders for decades have been trying to lead the world into an era of what (quasi-neocon) Francis Fukuyama called "the end of history." What they've been trying to create is a friendly, civilized international landscape that for the most part identifies with and embraces our own values. The neocons, ever-the-hypocrites, claim they are trying to expand this landscape -- but their persistent cynicism toward institutions like the UN that do no less than amplify American soft power, again demonstrates the obtuseness, narrowness, and incompleteness of the neocon vision. You say soft power without hard power is useless. But hard power, exercised in a lawless context, undermining the precise paradigm it is ostensibly intended to enhance, is not only useless but dangerous and counterproductive. Indeed, despite America's military assets, by far America's greatest power is its soft power -- its valued alliances and its social, cultural, political, and economic sway with nations around the world. That other nations emulate us increases our power and our influence. International institutions that identify with our values INCREASE our soft power, and thus our overall power. And hard power exercised in such a way that it undermines our soft power is pointless -- again, counterproductive. The world we have known in recent times is one that is exceedingly friendly to American interests. Senseless, then, to risk throwing much of that away just so we can throw some crappy little country up against the wall. (The American military is powerful, but even America cannot take on the world. America may be the strongest as of now, but the rest of the world combined is far stronger. We are 300 million people in a world of 6 billion, and we cannot forget it.) In the last two years we have seen a REVERSAL of American power, not an increase in American power. We're stuck in an embarrassing quagmire, unable to exercise our power against anyone right now because our hands are tied in Iraq. In the meantime, we've lost buckets of respect around the world. People don't trust us. They are less likely to listen to us. Rather than want to instinctively cooperate with us, many now consider us to be a force for evil. South Korea depends on us for its national security. In a recent poll, South Koreans said the United States was a greater threat to world security than Iran. Polls show most Europeans are now distrustful of the United States. 40% of Canadian teenagers say America is a force for evil in the world. Countries are dropping out of our coalition. Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski said the US "deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride." Italy's European Affairs minister said the war in Iraq "wasn't the best thing to do." A US diplomat said, "I can tell you it has played hell with our ability to get people behind us on Iran. You hear it once a day: 'How do we know this isnÂ’t another Iraq?' " Former CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack said, "Fairly or not, no foreigner trusts US intelligence to get it right anymore, or trusts the Bush administration to tell the truth." You think the war in Iraq is increasing America's power? The war in Iraq has compromised American interests all over the world. And this is one of the main problems with neoconservatism. I'm glad you brought it up. Near-total obliviousness to the utility of soft power. "...I have to tell you, I get the impression that you're 'all nuance,' and that's what's problematic for me. ...But everyone has a disdain for sticks. It is therefore impossible to design a foreign policy in this age of the superimpowered individual that doesn't empoy a pretty hefty bundle of sticks. And that's something you should probably incorporate in your philosophy." It goes something like this, I guess: "My fellow Americans, we cannot afford to wait a moment longer. The time to arbitrarily attack some crappy little country, based on that time-honored American tradition called the bundle-of-sticks/discontinuous-compression theoretical framework, has, for better or for worse, now arrived on our nation's doorstep. We must take care to embrace our moment of destiny -- not to mention a big, fat bundle of big ole' goddam whoppin' sticks -- and go, like, attack someone or something. Heh heh. Cool. I ask for your trust. And I ask for your patience. Give me just a few days, my fellow Americans, and I'll try to figure out just who the f**k we're actually attacking. Fortunately, citizens, there are more than enough crappy little countries to choose from in this grand and phenomenally diverse world of ours. I close with a simple prayer, oft-repeated. I think. God bless America, and God bless continuous/discontinuous...whatever. Don't forget to tip your waitresses. I'll be here all week." If nuance means being able to tell the difference between Saddam Hussein, the leader of a secular state, and Osama bin Laden, the leader of a privately-funded Islamic extremist organization, then yup, I guess you could say I'm nuanced. Arbitrarily lumping together potential threats to the US based on some vague undefined notion of "terror" is just plain loopy and dangerous, not to mention unprecedented in American history for very good reasons. Employing a hefty bundle of sticks doesn't mean wearing a blindfold and swinging wildly into the dark. We can be assertive without being stupid. And to me, American values are nonnegotiable. These values have worked pretty well for us for the past 200 years, and I don't care how spiffy and cool the strategic framework is, if it doesn't mesh with our national character, f**k it; it's out the window for me. If, as a nation, we look in the mirror and can no longer recognize ourselves in the reflection, then we are nothing. "As for whether Iraq played a role in Qadaffi's decision, all I can say is that he said it did. I think one has to take him at his word. Even if it's not the case, the prinicple still holds... and I simply see zero willingness or your part to even acknowledge what I should call 'the principle of sticks' (discontinuous compression)." The Libyan economy played the dominant role in Qadaffi's decision. It's a no-brainer; his son (and no doubt others) told him that his isolation was killing the country. Why would Iraq have played the dominant role? The Bush administration never explains (and neither do you). Libya wasn't part of the axis of evil, and we hadn't even gotten through country #1 yet. The chances that Bush would still be in power by the time the US got through Iraq, Iran, and North Korea had to be minimal at best. In fact, neocons weren't particularly obsessing about Libya. Rumsfeld was threatening Syria, Perle was threatening Saudi Arabia. Libya came up from time to time, but it was hardly a center of attention. What the hell did Iraq have to do with Libya's decision? As for the "principle of the sticks," if it means attacking other countries without good reason, then yes, I have zero willingness to acknowledge it as legitimate. If it means being assertive and being smart, and employing force where sensible and necessary, then yes, I acknowledge it. "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in the compression-decompression theoretical strategic framework -- did I get that one right? -- and dedicated to the proposition that every few years, we take some crappy little country and throw it against the wall. We are here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that this nation, under God, shall have a grand new bundle of whopping sticks -- and that government of the neoconservatives, by the neoconservatives, for the neoconservatives, shall not perish from the earth. Thank you. We're all f**ked. God bless America. F**k me." " 'We need to spread light. As Abraham Lincoln said, "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends." ' Sort of ironic, don't you think, that after defaming Michael Ledeen and Mark Steyn as war mongers, interested in military destruction purely for its own sake, you should settle on the man responsible for kicking off the most destructive war in this hemisphere as your example of soft power?" I anticipated that using this quote might draw a response like that. No, the point is that Lincoln, a man who understood that might has its role from time to time, did not go out of his way to create enemies. Lincoln was not "responsible for kicking off the most destructive war in this hemisphere," as you say. Lincoln didn't rub his hands together in sterile conference rooms in Washington, DC think tanks and try to reckon new ways to arbitrarily connect unrelated threats -- who to attack next. War came to Lincoln, not the other way around, and he had the backbone to lead the nation during a difficult and challenging time. Ledeen isn't worthy of shining Lincoln's shoes. The two men have nothing to do with one another. You think Lincoln was Hobbes or Machiavelli? Bzzz. Try again. Lincoln waged war in an attempt to PRESERVE American values. Ledeen and Steyn -- who I can't defame ENOUGH -- want to fight war IN SPITE of American values. Yeah, ah, we can get back to American values later; right now we've got a war to fight. Great American leaders haven't picked and chosen the times in which to employ American values. They've embodied American values from start to finish. Preemptively, unilaterally attacking some guy in the Middle East who wasn't threatening us, at a time when we have serious, urgent foreign policy priorities, in order to fulfill a wargame fantasy imagined in the 90's, was wrong on every level. Not courageous. Not American. It makes my stomach turn. Lincoln's line is directly applicable to what we now face. We seem oblivious to the fact that today's angry, America-hating youth in the Middle East is tomorrow's anti-American terrorist. We seem oblivious to the fact that our slate of enemies is not fixed but variable, and it varies based on our own actions. America's founding fathers never intended for us to go out shopping for enemies. This isn't about others around the world disagreeing with American values. This is about America discarding its own values, and creating unnecessary new enemies in the process. (There are hard-liners out there who focus on Israel who don't mind all of this. After all, America's tough enough to take these guys, and better the US than Israel, right? But once upon a time -- and not that long ago -- the Middle East was on the verge of modern, Western-style reforms, without the application of force. We're sabotaging our own goals, and their futures.) The ongoing Israel-Palestinian problem, and the backlash it creates for the West -- widespread distrust both of Western nations and of Western values and institutions -- has thrown an industrial-sized wrench into the region's modernization engine. Israel has got to shove aside the pesky hard-liners and find a way to somewhat normalize the environment in that part of the Middle East so we can start to move forward there without relying so heavily on ultra-side-effects-laden brute-force. "...there is no common ground today over totalitarianism" Maybe I shouldn't ask this, but what percentage of your immediate concern is for Israel, and what percentage is for America and/or the world-at-large? Are you comfortable answering this question? Can you say you really believed Saddam Hussein was an immediate threat to America in 2003? Can you say you really believed Saddam was connected to 9/11? Or is there some legendary spinning and twisting going on here? If Saddam wasn't an immediate threat, and wasn't connected to 9/11, how on earth can you justify that sort of action following the most devastating terrorist attack in the history of the world? The leader of the group who carried out that attack, as we know, remains at large. Bush has all-but-ignored the Israeli-Arab problem during his first term. Clinton understood the importance of resolving it. Neocons might call Clinton anti-Semitic for answerig Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's call for assistance in the peace process, but nowadays as some of us know, to be anti-Semitic can simply mean considering the Palestinian side to be less than total nonsense. This conflict is killing us. It's killing the Middle East. It's a drag on the world. It's killing us. Sometimes literally, and we've got to stop sweeping it aside. This is not a problem on which you can procrastinate, which you can hide under the bed while tackling everything else under the sun first. We need leadership both in America and in the Middle East that understands that the sledge-hammer is only one implement at our disposal. Sometimes it takes a needle-and-thread. Sometimes it takes a can-opener. Former Bush counterterrorism chief Rand Beers said that in the Bush administration, "There's no curiosity about opposing points of view." David Gergen (Reagan communications director and Clinton advisor) said that "this president often lacks an open, inquiring mind." Former Bush speechwriter David Frum said that "the president does not hear such a wide range of views." We already know that the neocons themselves don't embrace a wide range of views. The neocons prefer to pursue a narrow, hyperfocused vision. The president, himself a fan of narrowness, eagerly embraces the narrow vision of his staff. And America pounds away with the sledgehammer. Smack, smack, smack. In case you hadn't noticed, that's our nation's foundation we're chipping away at. Just put down the sledgehammer, guys, and slowly walk away. "Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time." "It's hard work, I know that." "You forgot Poland." Ah, yes. Poland. Who could forget Poland? One of the innumerous countries we cajoled into fighting the neoconservatives' war, despite that nation's powerful misgivings. Poland, which would later complain to us that we had deceived them. Who COULD forget Poland and its 200 troops? Just remember, Poland, when you're chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble, give a whistle, and remember, it's hard work (I know that). "...Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." "As you can see, my young apprentice, your friends have failed. Now witness the firepower of this FULLY ARMED AND OPERATIONAL BATTLE STATION!" F**k.

1 I keep making admissions all over the place: I hate skankiness

2 She just looks like a damm whore....never has impressed me. She just belongs to the " expose to fame " cats..

3 If it's good enough for Christina Aguilera, it's good enough for me. Seriously, you shouldn't VOTE for someone because an idiot endorses him. Nor should you not for him. There are plenty of idiots on both sides. By definition they don't know whether they're voting for someone good or bad. So just ignore them.

4 Yeah, she doesn't do it for me either...but it was keeping with the 'finger' theme of the day, though. First celeb 'finger' image I could find that was SFW!!

5 You people have got to be kidding. I wish I was single and she was interested. I realize her brain is in her right hand but its not her brain I'm after. ROOPESH: Don't worry about it. You know as well as I, if she seen you she'd think you were a terrorist and run like hell. KRF: You're far more interested in the new governor of Calif. Admit it. Turns you on. Doesn't he.

6 I must be the only truthful man out there today.

7 I think Christina is a very woman..She doesn't care about what all people say about her..she just be herself..that's what i love in here..I'M LIKE HER!!!

8 i hate u BITCH and dont even think about talking with the SEXIEST guy on earth pharrell williams because ur not worth it .i'm sure that he likes jade more than u.

1 The stock market isn't necessarily rallying because of Bush. The market doesn't like uncertainty. I.e. People don't know in what to invest unless they know who will be president in January. People invest in different things depending on who's running the country. With Bush in office, oil companies are definitely a good bet. Which is why you shouldn't count on Bush fixing our energy policy anytime soon. Those guys also don't believe that global warming is real science, even though it's as mainstream as any medical science. These hypocrites will go get heart surgery and then turn around and say global warming is crackpot science. It's hilarious. Anyway, new studies show the Arctic ice caps are melting at alarming rates. But there's an upside. When they melt, we can more easily drill for oil beneath the ice! Ain't that f'ing grand? So, no need to develop alternative fuels, or say, set up a hydrogen fueling infrastructure in the US. We'll just drill the Arctic dry. We'll have to wear wetsuits to keep from getting skin cancer, but who cares, because hopefully before long Jesus will return and rapture us all to heaven. Let those ungodly people deal with flooding in New York, no energy, massive deficits, world war in the Middle East, and more skin cancer than you can shake a stick at. They deserve it! Oh, and as for George sticking his middle finger up at UBL. Funny he didn't seem to mind moving the special forces that were tracking bin Laden out of Afghanistan -- when they were on a relatively hot trail -- and plunking them into Iraq, a nation which had not been bothering us, was not collaborating with al-Qaeda, and was not involved in anti-American terrorism.

1 Rusty, Come on - they were just doing their best to give 110%. Give 'em some slack.

2 Spewing LOL!!

1 That's OK Rusty...in the end, you will be right. When have you ever been wrong?!

2 Overseas miliatry ballots are also normally not a big Kerry constituency.

3 This would be done if not for media bias. They called Wisc wfor Kerry ith 99% counted and the tally at 49/50. The remaining states have the same or more counted, and with Bush 51/49 in Ohio, and 50/48 in NM we still have doubts.

4 Kerry just made the concession call to Bush. IT'S OVER!!!!

5 Proves that Kerry is a better man than Gore.

1 This is freakin' killing me (and I don't have a vote).

2 I am proud to report that my home state of NC has been declared a W for W by NBC

3 Nope, I'm not a South Carolina fan Rusty but you probably know that and just said it to annoy me.

4 Rusty, you have lost your "faculties" tonight...pun intended....hehehe.....going for broke, eh? Do we go back to a PG-13 rating after tonight or does the blog disappear with Bush (IF he loses!!!!)?

5 Nah, I'm a strictly PG-13 kind a guy!! Back to normal after this. Jeff, if you make it back to the comments--is hosting matters still down?

6 did you call me Mrs K because I pick on your liberal buddy?

7 No, because I'm an idiot. My apooligies.

8 wait. I will send you my transvestites for Bush picture.

9 Electoral Votes: Bush 102 Kerry 77 So far, Bush is ahead!!! Bummer, is, some polls are closing as late as 1:00 a.m. ET in one area, and 11:00 p.m. in others. We may not know till we get up in the morning!

10 Mrs. Holmes went to take a shower, but would not let me use the digital camera for some pictures to "spice up my liveblogging." She's too modest.

11 Oooops. Bush 136 Kerry 108 Jesus, different places have different numbers, but in any event, Bush is still in the lead on all of em.

12 Damn her!!!! Need pics!!

13 Dick Burr is racing up there, just like Dick Trickle (its a Nascar thing)

14 He LIES! He never even asked...! but if Bush wins tonight, I might feel generous. If Kerry wins, I may be too distraught to protest... so you could win either way. Stay tuned...

15 Hey dudes, if you want to e-mail me use the g-mail address. mypetjawa@gmail.com I get a billion comments in old threads, as Laura knows, and they all get e-mailed to my yahoo account--so I pretty much ignore messages there. But my gmail account notifies me when new messages come in and I check it pretty regularly.

16 Shackleford: ask and you shall receive: looks good for Burr. http://www.wbt.com/

17 Dare I attempt anything else tonight? I'm giving up my workout tonight to keep track of this shit! Shall I go lift some weights for awhile? Promise you'll keep me updated?

18 169-112 now, Rusty. Bush: 56% Kerry: 43% The other 1 % is for Nadar, I guess.

19 53% - 46% ooopss my bad, dyslexia, I suppose.

20 Shit, the AP just announced race is too close to call!

21 It's cause of all the red states reporting and hardly any blue. Patience people.

22 Yeah but I see Bush's EV's are going up, and Kerry's remains at 112.

23 Shit if the blue ain't reporting, we're in trouble! That means it could change dramatically...figures...why is it that what seems obvious at first, will be overturned later?!

24 EV's seem to be off, Fox News has them at 165-112. So do my local news here in Dallas/FW.

25 That's cause different news agencies have different standards for calling a state's EV. All the 'calls' are really predictions.

26 Fox News reports a "cushy" lead by Bush so far, in terms of EV's. Let's hope it STAYS that way.

27 176-112!!!

28 184 - 112 Is there a God after all?

29 195 - 112

30 Oh man, I've never been so happy to be wrong in my life!!!1

31 No shit! I think Bush has New Hampshire, of all places!!!!!

32 yeah, i just updated that. Check out the new map thingy I put up.

33 Hey, Miami/Dade is being accounted for: check this link: http://enight.dos.state.fl.us/20041102_DET_PRE.html This is good news indeed.

34 Burr declared winner in NC Senate race: http://roomforrant.blogspot.com/2004/11/burr-wins-nc-senate-race.html

35 Holy Shit! Bush may have BOTH Florida AND Ohio. They said almost all of the counties went for Bush, even the ones that are mostly Democratic!!!! They're saying if we win those two states, then they could predict a definite win for Bush.

36 Only a 400 vote diff. in New Hampshire!

37 Holy schneike!! It looks like it won't matter, though, does it?

38 Nope, don't seem like it.

39 Shit, here we go again. Fox News reporting that most all the states too close to call...not enough votes in yet.

40 Bowles officially declared "pussy" by local NBC affiliate.

41 Awesome.

42 193-133 ruh roh

43 Dicks rule!

44 I would feel sooo much better if Bush could break 200 before too long.

45 197!!!!!

46 megapundit is summarizing all this purty well

47 Yeah but I'm having fun here!

48 why TF is CNN already projecting Ca a Kerry win? Just to help the fake JFK look better? Yeah, I know he'll get hollywood but still...

49 Because CNN likes Kerry. Kerry's up to 144 EV's.

50 Fox shows 197-144...must not be getting in the results as quickly as MSNBC, Rust.

51 It's just the way they call it. Some are more cautious in predicting than others.

52 Rusty: thanks for the plug...hate to be a weenie but ferries cross the sound, fairies vote for Clintonistas!!!!!

53 My ex home state FLA looks like a done deal!!!!!!

54 I'm calling it.

55 Bad year for Gators, 'Canes, 'Noles...great year for Bush!

56 Don't know where you are, but I'll buy the beers to celebrate your bad predictive model...

57 Dude, I'll take you up on that...don't drink, but you can buy me a coke.

58 whatever you want. civility still exists in politix see roomforrant. hats off to Bowles.

59 The sandlappers went R with the SC senate too.

60 OK, does anyone have a good recipe for crow. No matter, it'd be delicious raw. Sweetest crow I'll ever eat. So far only Drudge has called Ohio, so my mouth isn't watering yet.

61 Dude, both of us eating crow!! And how sweet it is!!

62 12:01 AM Almost 2/3rds of Ohio reporting, and Bush lead is growing to around 160,000

63 maybe beer would help your "gut" feel for FLA

64 Drudge projected it well over an hour ago. At this point the President needs 3 votes to win. Alaska has 3 votes, and generally votes Republican by a 20% margin. Although Alaska has almost none of it's returns in, the odds that Kerry could win it as well as run the table of all the other states, including NM which he's currently losing are about zero. It's over, folks. Everything but the shouting.

65 But what about Michael Moore and the Boss and M&M and George Sorass and Osama and Chirac and Mycock?

66 May they all rot in hell -- or worse, move to FRANCE!!!

67 FUCK YEAH! except I need Mycock!

68 Brokaw is conceding defeat....

69 ha ha, I bet it just hurts sooo bad for him to concede!!!!

70 Brokaw, Russert eulogizing now. Good Night.

71 In a few minutes they will announce New Mexico's for Bush. 266 plus 5 equals 271.

72 >Dreams of OBL weeping all night long. Oh, those >will be wet dreams indeed. Weeping? What are you talking about? That bastard should be dead by now. What makes you think bin Laden isn't happy about a Bush win? Bush's policies have helped anti-American terrorists recruit abroad by creating anti-American anger. America, rather than pursue bin Laden or the other leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, focused on a government in Iraq al-Qaeda had called "infidels." Bush is alienating America from the world community, which anyone with a sense of history understands is weakening us, not strengthening us. One analyst said before the vote that if Bush wins, he should personally thank bin Laden. I agree. No one wants to think they're being influenced by bin Laden into voting for a specific candidate. Unfortuately, for some people that may be precisely what happened. Bush's terrorism policies are way, way off-base, and how can a guy like Osama not appreciate that? Kerry said he would actually focus on those responsible for killing 3000 Americans, something that seems straightforward enough but Bush, unconscionably in my view, forgot. How can we let these bastards kill 3000 American civilians, and then not pursue them with everything we've got? It makes me angry. Sadly, this election is a victory for the terrorists and a defeat for the values that helped make America what it is today (or at least, what it was prior to about 2003). Just a reminder for those of you more immersed in the Bush campaign spin than in reality. A few months after 9/11, with planning for the invasion of Iraq in full swing, Bush said: "I don't know where [bin Laden] is. No, you know, I just don't spend that much time on him to be honest with you." "I'm not that concerned about him." ("I am deeply concerned about Iraq," he added later.) "I don't know where [bin Laden] is. I have no idea and I really don't care." This is the man YOU helped to reelect. Supposedly because he's tough on terrorism. Clueless is perhaps a better word. History will be the final judge of this president. But democracy only works when we actually pay attention BEFORE history is written. If we wait until after, it may be too late.

73 God I wonder about people. So many votes for Bush. What are people thinking??? Still, you reap what you sow.

74 Not over yet...news is saying could take up to ELEVEN DAYS before all the counting's done in Ohio...now they're saying that there's confusion because of voter's changes in addresses, and other shit.

75 Hummmpf! Where's the porn?!? I put all my favorite search terms into Google, and all I got was THIS SITE! ...... Seriously, great job. And, WE WON ...... !

76 Thanks Asher...I thought this was BYOP (bring your own porn)??

77 I SWEAR if Kerry would have won.... I was packing up and moving to Canada... So it was too funny when I read this and it said move to Canada. Sittin on the couch last night watching the first of the returns, I thought Mexico naw... I can't deal with people who tan betta then me.. Over seas naw... to many issues of other hair raising adventures.. But CANADA yup i could do that... hahaha Since BUSH won.. I am relieved of the thought of all that packing hahaha

78 So despite efforts to block Nader's candidacy, Kerry still couldn't beat Dubya in the popular vote. Shame on the Green party for not backing Nader. Perhaps a comparison with 2000 will drive home the point that a good vote for a candidate like Nader also floats the whole anti-Republican vote higher.

79 Hi this is will be visible? sexy - sex stories fuck - masturbation if yes please delete it

80 Yes im agree with you sex toys - adult animal sex - teen models

81 http://san-diego.realestateslaws.com/santa/ arrrr boyslaurenretail

82 http://kdoginc.hypermart.net/wwwboard/messages/1027.html beckonframedrotating

83 http://football.eastgranbylibrary.org/black/ sensualsovietstudied

84 http://www.womendontask.com/discussion/messages/22710.shtml involuntarilylittlewaists

1 Bob, I hope you're wrong.

2 I still don't know why President Bush didn't use the Kerry Discharge thing. However, we differ on who is going to win.

3 If he loses it will because he didn't use the death penalty, not the AQ tape. The death penalty is a litmus test for liberalism for most people. In my state, if they knew Kerry was against the death penalty, he would lose by 40 points. In my state he'll lose, but only by 10-15.

4 If you're right does it mean Monica Lewinski will get her job back?

5 Americans never shirk their duty. Bush understands this. Being a leader doen't mean being popular. Bush knows this. Kerry is going to lose, because unless you are a pinko, commie liberal appeaser, Americans, real Americans who understand that the only way we get to have political debate on issues like Social Security, Welfare, Environmental concerns, the Economy, or anything else is if we don't have Islamo-fascist jackasses running planes into buildings or lighting off a nuke in a city in America. God Bless America and God Bless George Bush.

6 What DID happen on Sunday at the SwiftVets' rally???

7 Dick: Americans never shirk their duty. Bush understands this. Being a leader doen't mean being popular. Bush knows this. I really like that. If you're right we've at least corrected the error of Athens in the Peloponnesian War agaist Totalitarianism 1.0. Laura: What DID happen on Sunday at the SwiftVets' rally??? It was cancelled, ostensibly at the request of somenone "very high up" in the administration. I almost went, but had car trouble... fortunately.

8 I smell a rat!!!!!!!

9 Someone may be concerned about civil disobedience if Kerry were to win.

10 1% of votes counted. Bush 59%.

11 3 states so far: IN, KY, GA, and VT: Bush up 34-3

12 Brian, yeah, but that says what? That Bush wins all the states he was supposed to win and Kerry too. Folks, Demosophist and I don't want Kerry to win--we're just afraid that he will.

13 Damn: Monica don't pack your bag yet.

14 Posted this elsewhere: Only 10% of young voters voted....kinda throws that theory out the winda, that in order to win, Kerry would need the young crowd's votes? Guess not!

1 Oh man, I read the title of this post and fell out of my chair in catatonic laughter. I'd say your definitely in "XXX" territory, never mind the "R" rating.

2 Who-kette? Oh, yeah, I'veheard of her. Can we discuss something/someone of actual relevance?

3 Butt ugly?

4 I work on Capitol Hill & somehow missed this whole Jessica Cutler thing. I didn't really miss anything, though.

1 Rusty I beg to differ...Rush said they Bush has Fla.!!!

2 And Rush, you know, must be right?

3 My grandmother voted early in FL. and she said pretty much everyone in her home was voting for Bush. Well, except for one guy, apparently he was vocally for Kerry and the old lady next to my grandma said "I'd say something to that asshole, but I don't won't to start a fight." Go old people!

4 Rusty: Why, soitenly!!!! ;-)

5 and don't give Hawaii away so fast, either.

6 Just started raining here. Hard. Ist time in weeks.

7 Rusty: I went to grad school (MBA) with a fellow who was a Democrat campaign consultant who wrote his thesis on a program to optimize the vote outcome for Democrats in the event of inclement weather. I doubt that he originated the concept, but it's empirical rather than theoretical. It very definitely happens. The fellow's name, by the way, was Don Homuth. Nice guy, for a D. He also came up with a good rule of thumb that he called "Homuth's Law." Basically in read: "Never sleep with anyone crazier than you are." Wish I'd followed it.

8 Speaking of crazy, that's probably pretty close to how I see things ending up, unfortunately. The exit polls in Fla seem to have Kerry leading at the moment by a sizeable margin. The end of the world draweth nigh!

9 Kerry leading Florida!!!! OH my! But, RUSH says Bush's got it! You gotta believe Rush, right??

10 Ricky V, Kerry is up in exit polling? Where did you get that info? Rusty, Nice to see you've come around to understanding Bush will end up with a victory. What changed your mind?

11 BTW, Laura, I asked Ricky that question because if it's the datat he's I think he's talking about you can rest assured it is very skewed numbers.

12 Aagghh! You said: "Jawa call Fla=Kerry." and I had to leave, quickly. Hyperventilating.

13 Ahhhh forget Kerry and Bush. Lets move to Tatoine... I love hives of scum and villany. Great blog btw. xxxxx

14 Editor, perhaps "exit poll" was the wrong terminology, but found this at USA Today... USA Today Story Here's a snippet from it... In Florida, 30% of registered voters said they already had cast their ballots, using early voting sites and absentee ballots. They supported Kerry 51%-43%. ------------- Of course, we all know that they can choose to call up registered Ds for their survey, but it still disheartened me somewhat.

15 Yeah, that's the one. It's already been eviserated - BIG TIME!!! Poll contradicts itself. Why? Because a number of people refused to answer who they voted for and Gallup decided on their own that 9 of 10 of the people would vote for Kerry. Yeah, that's about as good a methodology as that 100,000 extra dead report. Laura, take a deep breath, now. Ricky knew was he saw, but the real story was hidden from him.

16 A follow up... The main point is that the media is going to try and do the same thing they did in 2000 and call the race early to "dishearten" people from taking the time to go vote. That was the whole point of that poll and skewing the numbers the way they did. Think I'm paranoid? Think I'm pushing a "conspiracy" theory? I don't think so - USACNNGALLUP proved me right with that poll.

17 Holy Shit, Editor! My son said the same thing, and he's only FIFTEEN!!! He said if the news reports that Kerry's ahead, people will shrug their shoulders and maybe not vote, thinking he's way ahead anyway....or some shit like that. People don't give up!!!! Go and vote and don't listen to anything until tomorrow night. I hear they're saying the final results may not be in for days...weeks...maybe a recount. Jesus.

18 Dang, Laura, and I just got Hardbloggered(?) over at MSNBC regarding those same sentiments on my own blog. It, of course, was for mocking purposes by Dave Johnson. Can't wait for the hate mail.

19 Yah, I've been around enough to know that's the case. It still bums me out that they would report it like that. 2000 should have been a big eye-opener, but it still amazes me how biased the media is towards us left-brained-right-thinking types. I know how things work. I can't help but shake my head though.

20 I guess Rusty's prediction is like going to tradesports and betting on Kerry...but with tradesports if you win the bet, you have money to drown your sorrows.

21 This is the most media-hyped, vicious, slanderous, election campaign EVER...and I'll say it again and again! What mudslinging....what biased reporting on the cable news networks. Watch CNN....they say Kerry's ahead....watch FOX, they say Bush is ahead...listen to Rush and Billy Boy....all for Bush (but that's okay...ehehe). Maybe they should have a poll on who's better at reporting: CNN or FOX?? Who is MSNBC for? I don't even watch that one. Even my own newspaper's biased. Called the FW Star Telegram, or as it's more commonly known locally, "the Startle Gram". Later. :-)

22 Laura, we call ours the Charlotte Disturber. At least some have honest names, my old hometown paper is the Tallahassee Democrat. You know to put that one straight in the bird cage.

23 Ours here in Eugene I call the Red Guard instead of The Register Guard. My favourite Oregon talk show host, Lars Larson calls The Oregonian the daily dead fish wrapper.

24 LOL! Amusing, isn't it? Love the way we've all got monikers for our local papers. My heart's still with The Daily News, my stomping grounds!!! We even had centerfold pics (no guys not THAT kind!) which showed in more complete detail, what was on the front page headlines...like a "continued here" thing. I'm not even watching TV right now...what's going on? Anything?

25 Bush is going to win. Nuff Said. The military vote will be what puts Bush over the top. All of the media hype about this voting bloc is misplaced. The MSM has been solidly in Kerry camp since about 1967. Seems to me that as a soldier, I will NOT be saluting John Kerry, should be unlikely enough to steal his way into the White House. He is a traitorous, pinko commie, punk appeaser that isn't fit to be dog catcher. Regardless, come tomorrow, the grown ups will still be in charge.

26 I can't handle it. I'm reading a novel.

27 I'm worried...and depressed. That stupid site electoral-vote.com may be right...but your post cheered me up..but that gif is scary!

28 In New Orleans we call it the Times Picayune (spanish for a penny) because a penny is all it's worth.

29 Thanks all for the input! The reason I say I think Bush will win, quite frankly, is because my track record at preditions is pretty bad! I only have to be wrong in MN or WI for Bush to clench it. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but my gut tells me Florida goes Kerry.

30 Mmmmm, now they're saying it just may be up to the "young voters" to clench the deal. Of course, over 70% of the military's voting for Bush, so what does that tell you? That they support their leader in the Iraq invasion. Hey, if it's okay with them, and THEY'RE the ones over there, who are we to bitch and moan?

1 Keep an eye out for an email form me, I know you're swamped with email.

1 Maybe he thinks it's too late in the game?

2 Because he's George Bush. He believes he can win without behaving like Kerry and his infantile supporters.

3 Rush just said Bush has Ohio and Florida! Do we need any more proof?

4 I have no answer either. But I would like to add this: Osama is showing his mental retardation with his speech. To suggest that any sort of peace is possible is total fantasy; I would strongly suggest that regardless of the outcome of the election, Osama has an appointment with American gunfire, bullets, and his own impending demise. I don't believe that is going to change if Bush should lose. If Osama wants to pretend that some sort of peace would exist with those states that go to Kerry, he is sadly mistaken. We don't forget our debts, be they monetary in nature or those that are justice based. Perhaps he has some knowledge of our electorate, but he is way off base with the rest of what he said. Why give him the attention at all?

5 greyrooster: Call me crazy, but I think having a good political sense is worth something... that it's a more or less vital aspect of leadership. That doesn't mean that integrity isn't important as well, but it means that you have a capacity to win opponents to your way of thinking, or at least neutralize them. And I'd also point out that even if I was assured that we were winning (which I am not) it's still far better to win BIG than win small. A President with a clear electoral mandate has a great deal more lattitude in policy than one with the plurality by a small margin. By the way, what is there about being political that's necessarily "infantile" as opposed to "adult." In fact, I'm saying that Bush should just ignore Kerry entirely, and run the campaign against Bin Laden as though that's his real opponent... which is about 90% true. A gifted politician would have simply ignored the foolish pundits and their halls of mirrors and reverse spin, and gone straight for the prize. Rusty says that perhaps it's too late in the game. If you're in a battle, and it's going south then staying with the battle plan isn't wise unless you can only make things worse by doing something different. The MSM is blocking the story about Bin Laden's actual words, and may even have mistranslated that passage on purpose. A good politician will be able to get that info past the filters somehow. It's not as though there's not an army of people out there willing to do it for him, if he just focusses a little. I'm pretty worried, in spite of what Rush says. I sure hope he's right, though.

6 Geoff: Why give him the attention at all? Because it helps focus the attention of a population that often suffers from ADD. Osama was foolish enough to provide the vehicle, so why not use it against him? BTW, Bill Whittle isn't all that confident in our attention span either: Whether or not you are willing to bargain your safety with this man is up to your own individual conscience. Personally, the idea disgusts me, and I think the reason the press has --shockingly! -- declined to mention this is because they know that despite Michael Moore, this is not Spain. I believe the idea of bin Laden dictating American politics is enough to ensure a Bush win. Whittle has a good political sense, and he's worth listening to. When you're in a tight race you don't squander a gift from the gods. While a Bush loss tommorow might not be the end of civilization, it will be a pretty significant disaster, for the reasons Bill , Alaa, and Paul Johnson make pretty clear.

7 Osama knows his base: http://www.sacredcowburgers.com/leftovers/showpics.cgi?dhimmicrats

8 DEMOSOPHIST: You're right. I give you this one. I just want to hit someone. If not a terrorist, a Kerry supporter will do. I have a long memory. I imagine GEOFF is right too. Hey wife! make me another margarita!!!!

9 More proof osama takes his cues from the DNC