Here We Go Again—The Way We Are Now, Continued
by Clyde N. Wilson
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It is said that the U.S. now has more Iraqis in prison that Saddam Hussein did. Nor is their treatment always better.
I haven’t seen any estimates, but is it possible that the U.S. has killed more Iraqis than Saddam did?
Over 1,100 vehicles were viciously attacked by deer in my State last year.
When rulers start mad bloviating about imminent and desirable universal regimes, it is always a sign that a downfall is near. It does not make any difference if the universal regime is called “democratic.”
Most governments conduct their relations with other states in the light of what is good for their country. I can think of only two states in recent times in which the rulers felt empowered to expend the blood and treasure of their people on fantasies—Nazi Germany and the U.S.A.
Was not the present financial crisis easily foreseeable by prudent people who care about their fellow citizens? If so, it follows that our rulers are either corrupt, incompetent, or irresponsible—or some combination of those characteristics.
We know the politicians and financiers are corrupt and incompetent, but we long ago lost the ability to do anything about it.
It has often been said that you can look at California and see the future of the U.S. In my worst nightmares.
In the last eight years we have seen the. U.S. government launch an unnecessary war of choice, put in place a police state apparatus, and sign over the economy to a few huge financial interests. All proposed by The Leader and hurriedly rubber-stamped by the “representatives of the people.” It used to be called fascism.
Don’t pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he will just kill you. —Proverbial (remembered recently on receiving word of the 50th reunion of my high-school class)
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1 Comment by Josh Cooney on 10 October 2008:
“Was not the present financial crisis easily foreseeable by prudent people who care about their fellow citizens?”
This should tell us everything we need to know about our media. If people were as outraged at the media as they are at the government, then we might have a chance of squeezing some truth out of them.
2 Comment by D Simmons on 10 October 2008:
You might want to rethink that governments and fantasy thing again, what you wrote sounds more like the hyperbole of an Ayers than the thoughtful writer you are. Bill Bonner wrote a year or two ago that Baby Bush was here to destroy our empire, well? I would say job well done, and I would congratulate the LOS for recognizing this fact that the empire is declining, quickly. Now with Comrade Obama about to begin the first Jim Jones presidency we can all hope that the liberal experiment will come under scrutiny, and no more “conserving ” liberalism past.
3 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 10 October 2008:
Dr. Wilson wrote:
“…expend the blood and treasure of their people on fantasies—Nazi Germany and the U.S.A…”
Certainly the case with the USA; as for Nationalist Germany, I’d like to see some verifiable evidence.
Certainly everything I managed to read over the last 25 years or so points in the direction that the primary thrust of the National Socialists in Germany was the protection of Germany against surrounding enemies, and improving the standard of living of the German worker.
And the latter was achieved in Germany, without any gold in the national treasury, to a very large measure during a time when the USA was in the midst of the last great depression in the mid 1930’s.
And no other “democratic leader” in the western world can lay claim to any similar achievement.
H.F. Wolff
4 Comment by David on 10 October 2008:
Apropos corruption, consider the lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal today. Here we read of Senator Chris (Countrywide) Dodd sharply questioning the former head of Leman Brothers. Dodd and, it seems many others, were in a special category of borrowers—”friends of Angelo.” That is Angelo Mozillo, the former head of Countrywide. Seems all these folk were provided with special deals on their real estate purchases. The editorial traces the fact that Mozillo kept his beneficiaries informed of all that he was doing for them in these transactions. And these folk would of course reciprocate with continuing legistlative support of the culture that produced the current financial meltdown.
5 Comment by MAP on 10 October 2008:
Let me see…Polls indicate that the radical left comprises less than 20% of the population, yet they dominate our educational system. Polls show most Americans are opposed to open borders, yet the invasion continues. Polls reveal that the majority of the nation is against the ‘war’ in Iraq, yet the war goes on. Polls determined that the bailout was very unfavorable with the public, yet the bailout was passed…
Remind me again; what form of government is this?
6 Comment by David on 10 October 2008:
Map
Of course, we know that elections in a “democracy” are merely show biz. They give the canaille the absurd notion that their voting has some effect.
7 Comment by Robert on 10 October 2008:
MAP @ 5 “Remind me again; what form of government is this?”
It is called Hell, with a neo-con face. rr
8 Comment by Mike Willard on 10 October 2008:
“We know the politicians and financiers are corrupt and incompetent, but we long ago lost the ability to do anything about it.”
… save prayer, good Dr. Wilson, for which I shall be in vigil for the weekend, Dei gratia.
9 Comment by Horace Grady on 10 October 2008:
Americans are shocked when catastrophes occur. Sane and vigilant Americans know that these catastrophes-subprime mortage meltdown.Iraq/Iran war,attack on the twin towers and the race replacement of the Euro-American majority-didn’t have to happen. Things could have been other wise. This is a trivial observation.
It seems as though, Euro-Americans lacked the crucial nerons in the brain that would generate these trivial thoughts about the world. It is as though missing part of their brain.
For example, seven legal immigrants from the midde east nearly knocked down the twin towers in Nov 1973. You think common sense motivated by an acute survival instinct would have kicked in. If this had happened, there would have been a call to shut down muslim immigration completely along with a call to deport the muslims already living in the US. If this had happnend, 9/11 never would had occured. Instead, the muslim popuation of the US was allowed to increase, and as a consequence ,there was a corrsponding increase in muslim political power which translated into muslim control over US immigration policy. The end result was 9/11.
Remember all the stupid talk about how 9/11 changed everything. In fact, nothing has changed at all. Since 9/11, the muslim population in America has increased by over a million(250 thousand muslims enter the US every year and throw in the number of children they are having).
Euro-Americans know more about the inner workings of their local sports team then they do Republican-Democratic trade policy,foreign policy and immigration policy. Let us be honest, there is a large population of Euro-American males who have a sports fetish. It is a form of pornagraphy. Very weird.
I hate to admit this but America is now a joke nation that is very likely to die.
10 Comment by Horace Grady on 10 October 2008:
Corection:the blind sheik and his young accolytes tried to knock down the twin towers in Nov 1993.
11 Comment by james1 on 10 October 2008:
Its Americas own fault for the mess it is in.
You could have voted for Ron Paul and can vote for Chuck Baldwin but instead you elected the worst possible candidate John McCain who was a dunce in his military career.
Both candidates want war with Iran and Russia and no obvious solution to fixing the economy primarily because both candidates are funded by mega banks that are ruining the economy.
12 Comment by robert m. peters on 10 October 2008:
MAP @ 5
A society creates its polity or government; thus the society or the people – not as an “aggregate” but in our case the states as organic institutions made up of real people and not as abstractions or as the Gestalt of a collective gray and faceless bureaucracy or state government – created a union of constitutionally federated republics and along therewith a general government as the agent of the states which were the principals. The states are therefore the creators and the general government is the creature. Of course, with the advent of Lincoln and the Republicans and the wars which they engendered – a war of aggression against the South, a civil war against the remnant of the Old Union in the North and a war of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Plains Indians – that Old Union ended, and we had a propositional nation foisted upon us which has now morphed into an empire. We, the states, are as Dr. Frankenstein and the creature, the general government, is the monster, turned on his creator. He has already killed the Doctor’s family and is now obliterating the last of his virtue and his good name. However, the creator has an obligation to either destroy or redeem a fallen creature. Whether it be destroy or redeem, I would say that the creators of this monster had better get with it in whatever fashion Good Providence allows, assuming that Providence makes any allowance.
13 Comment by polemicscat on 10 October 2008:
I agree with you, Horace. I would add that the final nail in the coffin is likely to be a Muslim president.
14 Comment by robert m. peters on 10 October 2008:
Dr. Wilson:
Your words:
“Don’t pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he will just kill you. —Proverbial (remembered recently on receiving word of the 50th reunion of my high-school class)”
The the previous marshal of Pollock, the marshal now being retired, was, when elected, a slight man in his late sixties. He considered himself to be a “peace officer” and not a “law officer,” the latter term meaning for him the new paramilitary police force which now roams our streets and which is as dangerous as many of the criminals.
He made it his business to visit as many of the known felons in his small jurisdiction as possible and have coffee with them. Among the things he told them was that if it were to come to an altercation when he had to serve a warrant or make an arrest, he would likely, given his age and size, have to resort very quickly to deadly force. His intent was that they go peaceably. Many against whom a warrant was to be served chose his option that they come to his office so that he would not have to arrest them before their families. Such men are rare.
15 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 10 October 2008:
Arrest by appointment.
The very feminine wife of an acquaintance is detective in the fraud squad.
When she has identified a suspect she would call him/her and state: “You have three choices. 1) I can come and arrest you in front of your wife and children. 2) I can arrest you in front of your boss and colleagues. 3) You can voluntarily report to this office and straighten out this mess.”
Almost all suspects report to her office, and are amused, sometimes bitterly, at the slight police detective that convinced them to turn themselves in.
Of course this saves serious $$$ for the taxpayer and is much more tidy for everybody.
H.F. Wolff
16 Comment by Jon I. on 10 October 2008:
Mr. Robert M. Peters @13
Those men are rare, and the fact that ACLU types don’t understand is that those types of understandings benefit both the community and the families of career criminals. Unfortunately in my opinion their are three types of modern police officers: normal police, corrupt police, and career police. Career police officers are just as dangerous to the public as dirty cops, maybe even more so.
Secondly, many of our fellow citizens would love nothing more than to live in a police state. They are sick sadists who love seeing dissenters and the morally brave brutalized. (Ra-Ra-Ra for police beating protesters etc.) A twisted girl scout (no not a child) in my local paper bragged about ripping down advertisements for garage sales on public street lights in a local town, since they “looked like rubbish or trash,” and was then shocked and angered when people called her home with angry words. These types of our fellow citizens should be thrown in an asylum or forcefully deported to a society more to their liking, such as North Korea.
17 Comment by Jon I. on 10 October 2008:
P.S. my apologies if my theory has already been said on this website before.
18 Comment by St. Patrick's Purgatory on 11 October 2008:
‘The U.S. has more Iraqis in prison than Saddam did, and their treatment is not always better’…
‘…[I]s it possible the U.S. has killed more Iraqis than Saddam did?’
You, sir, perpetuate these slanderous, repulsive myths at the peril of your own honor and dignity. If only you knew the truth…
And please, Chronicles, refrain from chastising me for having the temerity to correct my ‘betters’. This magazine is rapidly heading over the precipice into the lunatic-fringe abyss, if it cannot emancipate itself from the not-so-lovable curmudgeons and unreconstituted confederates quixotically tilting toward God-knows-what. Some of your most loyal readers (such as I) suffer their petty rants with heroic dignity and have little intestinal fortitude left.
Have the decency to edit outrageous attacks on the conduct of U.S. forces, for in this instance, I am ‘your better’…
19 Comment by MAP on 11 October 2008:
Dr. Peters @11. My thoughts on the issue: The Jeffersonians (decentralized government, adherence to the constitution, free trade, etc.) ceased to have representation with FDR and the radical left’s coup of the democratic party. Or, to say the same thing another way, the very principles for which this country was founded ceased to have representation with FDR. Since then, big government has become the platform of both parties. The warfare/welfare state = the Lincoln/FDR state = the fascist/socialist state. They rule the treasury which buys their monopoly (though they now seem to have emptied it). The Jeffersonian doesn’t fit on either side of the slash and is given no voice.
20 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 11 October 2008:
#14. “arrest in front of your wife and children.” Let me tell you a story about a gentleman I esteem greatly. He undertook a violation of a government policy on principle. The matter should have gone to civil court for a test. Instead, Leviathan treated it as a crime and came to arrest him. The “law officers” politely offered to take him into another room so his children would not see them put on the cuffs. “No, I want them to see it,” he said.
21 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 11 October 2008:
#17. I did not make “an outrageous attack on the conduct of U.S. soldiers,” which I have no doubt has generally been as honourable as circumstances permitted. I intended an outrageous attack on the U.S. government which deploys massive high explosives to kill people from the air, launches wars of aggression, and generally behaves with deadly incompetence.
22 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 11 October 2008:
#18 MAP. I would say that it was not so much that the Democratic party was taken over by the radical left under FDR, although there was some of that, but that the Democratic Party was taken over by Northeastern REPUBLICAN “PROGRESSIVES.”
23 Comment by Horace Grady on 11 October 2008:
St Patricks Purgatory
What Clyde Wilson wrote is 100 percent accurate. The US miltary has murdered more Iraqis than Saddam Hussien could ever dream of doing. For the averge Iraqi the US military occupation of Iraq has been brutal. But why be shocked by this? The US marines, Army Calavary gun ships, 101 first and 82 airborne are trained to kill. It is an instinct for them. Stop portraying them as gentle and caring social workers who have been parachuted into Iraq by the “benevolent ” pro-Israeli controlled US Bush the imbecile adminstration.
24 Comment by Horace Grady on 11 October 2008:
polemscat
I’m betting that the Hindu Governeor of Louisiana will be the next President of America within four to eight years. Some readers will point out that Bobby Jindal and his wife converted to Catholicism. However, the Hindu fifth Column in America understands quite accurately that Jindal is basically one of their own. Every Hindu mother in America understands this and sees Jindal as a role model for their young hindus sons and sons to be born). Jindal is the hindu trojan horse of the hindu fifth column in America. He is a fanatical supporter of allowing hindus and sihks to come into America and steal jobs and wages from Native Born White Christian Americans. We dam near got Jindal as our vice president and one heart beat away as US president.
America is a joke Nation. However, we still must fight on.
25 Comment by SEMPRONIUS on 11 October 2008:
I would say that it was not so much that the Democratic party was taken over by the radical left under FDR, although there was some of that, but that the Democratic Party was taken over by Northeastern REPUBLICAN “PROGRESSIVES.”
Two questions Wilson:
Why did the noble South then proceed to support those very same Northeastern Republican Progressives?
How and why do Southerners always apparently allow themselves to be outdone, in one manner or another,by the same villainous Yankees?
26 Comment by robert m. peters on 11 October 2008:
St. Patrick’s Purgatory @ 17
It is not only possible but it is highly likely that the United States government has killed more Iraqis than Saddam did, in fact, very likely if you place of the U.S. account all of the Iraqis killed by Iraqis because the immoral, unlawful, unconstitutional and unnecessary U.S. invasion destabilized the country.
As a Christian, I do not genuflect to the god of war but to the Prince of Peace. The chief standard I use in measuring the actions of the general government of these United States is the Christian Just War Standard. In the case of the war in Iraq, the general government does not measure up against that standard.
An individual soldier has to make his own moral decisions. A soldier who is a Christian and who is an American has two moral standards: Does the action which I am about to undertake violate my service to the Christ and does the action which the general government is asking me to take violate the Constitution of these United States? If he answer is “yes” to either of those questions, he is obligated as a Christian and an America not to obey such orders. To obey orders contrary to those standards, assuming that those are his standards, is, in fact, egregious misconduct on the part of the soldier. We have not yet come so far that our soldiers take a personal oath to the Leader (Führerprinzip). I do not deign to judge any soldier currently fighting for the general government; that rests with God and with that soldier. I have merely articulated the parameters of the standards as I have been given to understand them.
I am certainly not “one of your betters,” the context of which in your post I frankly did not understand.
27 Comment by Chuck Hicks on 11 October 2008:
“Why did the noble South then proceed to support those very same Northeastern Republican Progressives?”
Well, Southerners didn’t until Tricky Dick’s “Southern strategy,” which hoodwinked not only the South but the Midwest and Mountain West into believing the Republican Party to be the defender of life, liberty and family. Moreover, “the South” is not the South anymore. Come visit Charlotte, NC and observe the pace of life and dialects.
“How and why do Southerners always apparently allow themselves to be outdone, in one manner or another, by the same villainous Yankees?”
Lovely expression of social Darwinism, i.e. might makes right. I’m sure the Iraqis feel the same.
28 Comment by SEMPRONIUS on 11 October 2008:
Mr. Hicks,firstly let me thank you for kindly responding to my queries.That may sound a bit odd but that is exactly what they are;questions,not smart-alecky statements meant to provoke controversy for mere sport.
You see,as a non-southerner I find it more and more difficult to accept the kind of analysis put forward by men like Wilson that implicitly or explicitly place the south seemingly so far above all else that any criticism or doubts or, as in my case,mere questions, becomes an occasion for verbal fisticuffs or a contemptuous cold shoulder.
Let me assure you I have no animus towards the south or southerners,only differences.And in the interest of good manners and sportsmanship allow me to add that in my personal experience the few southerners I’ve personally encountered have generally tended to be kind, friendly,and personable.A real pleasure to meet.
If the south – and not only the south – is going to overcome its subordination to what we shall simply call “modern civilization” then we need to determine how we got ourselves into this stew,and also how, thus far, we have failed to arrest its seemingly endless declension,much less reverse it and like Ulysses return to Ithaca and our beloved Penelope.
Now, in order to do all of that we must be critical of all the failed traditions that could not prevent or combat or overturn what both you and I hate.The south is one – though not the only one to be sure -of those traditions.Surely you don’t want to spend the rest of your life watching things go from bad to worse and then worse again, and yet worse again for good measure,now do you?
If we can isolate our failures,correct them and develop an improved basis from upon which to combat our tyrants,conceivably we could escape the blind alley we are currently enjoying.Sounds reasonable,yes?
And that my friend brings me to my two questions.As per question # 1 I believe the south did support The New Deal Roosevelt coalition,perhaps not the wisest thing to do.As far as question # 2 is concerned,Darwinism was the furthest from my mind.Instead I was merely ruminating on what we might change in order to preserve ourselves.
29 Comment by Horace Grady on 11 October 2008:
Sempronius
Here is a big part of the answer to the qestion of how WE got ourselves into this mess:both Northern and Southern elites had and continue to have an apetite for low wage scab labor whether it be chattel slavery or wage slavery.
Fitzthugh’s critique of wage slavery in the North was dead on accurate. Of course, this was used to justify chattel slavery(I am not making any claims about whether Slavery was the cause of the civil war).
However, there is an even deeper level of analysis that one can go to and it is this: Why do both modern day Euro-American Southerners and Euro-American Northers put up with it. And the answer to this question is very simple and obvious:because the governed-this is a very undemocratic term-give their consent to Republican-Democratic consensus. Enough of them do at least.They can not govern without our consent. Even Kings anmonarchs can not govern without consent. This is why these days they have been reduced to figure heads with absolutely no power. Understanding this point is crucial to our liberation from the Republican-Democartic beltway stanglehold on “democracy.”
I consider Evangelical Christians and ultra -conservative Catholics to be the crucial voting block that keeps the game going. I consider both groups to be truly evilland traitorous. This is the crowd that worships Israel and facistic Republican and Democratic parties wars of aggression on behalf of Israel. We can not reclaim our nation until the Republican party is destroyed-completley.
30 Comment by St. Patrick's Purgatory on 11 October 2008:
Mr. Grady,
U.S. troops are not social workers, and I have no intention of portraying them as such. However, when you use the verb ‘murdered’ in this context, you remove yourself and your point from any serious consideration. I pray you one day feel otherwise.
Dr. Wilson,
Point taken, and I apologize for any offense. I take umbrage easily at such characterizations and I grant you that I must have misunderstood your point.
Mr. Peters,
Dr. Fleming and perhaps other Chronicles posters have advised certain intemperate posters to refrain from criticizing their ‘betters’, which I’m led to believe means one’s elder and more urbane/educated contributor. Whereas I believe Dr. Wilson is my superior in any number of fields of endeavor or inquiry,
I am a serving USN intelligence officer who has been intimately involved in operations throughout the GWOT and Iraq campaigns. I can tell you with certainty that virtually all figures bandied about in regards to casualties, fatalities and the sickening euphemism ‘collateral damage’ are wildly inaccurate to the point of hysterics. Therefore, whenever I read conjecture regarding our conduct or prosecution of this struggle – flawed in many regards as it has been – I surrender to my own basest instincts and immediately attack the messenger. I blame it on my fiery Irish and Polish heritage.
I know perfectly well the Christian and UCMJ imperatives involved in the moral prosecution of combat operations, and I know that you, as a fellow veteran, take these things quite seriously. Take it from me, the vast majority of the U.S. officer corps also holds these sacred concepts with the utmost sobriety. As for our elected officials, well, that’s another story…
My most heartfelt apologies for any offense I may have caused.
31 Comment by Charlemagne on 11 October 2008:
Mr. Grady @ 28
Sir, I consider myself an ulta-conservative Catholic and as such can assure you we neither worship Isreal or war; quite the contrary. I suggest you engage my fellow travelers before leveling such erroneous assumptions.
BTW, what do you offer as a solution to our current two party dilemma?
32 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 11 October 2008:
#29 St. Patrick’s Purgatory,
My condolences on having to serve in Iraq.
The number of Iraqi civilian casualties quoted in this blog are those same numbers I have obtained from various news sources on the ‘net.
You may argue that all these MSM get their information from the same news source (biased, if you will) in Iraq… I wouldn’t know.
What I do know though is that the official figures from the Pentagon or other US government agencies are even less believable because of their historic distortions of truth.
Since you are in the thick-of-things perhaps you would care to enlighten us with your belief of what is really happening there. Some references to the source of the data would also be nice but may not be possible at this time. I would certainly understand.
Don’t you think that this is the better way of addressing disagreement than name-calling?
Dr. Wilson:
Any individual that, on principle, infracts upon (unreasonable?) government regulations and stands up and accepts the results while fighting tooth-and-nail for his rights legitimately, has my highest respects.
This doesn’t apply to fraud artists, though.
H.F. Wolff
33 Comment by Horace Grady on 11 October 2008:
ST PATRICK’S PUGATORY
I can not think of a more accurate word to describe what is going on in IRAQ. Iraqi civilans are not the only human beings being muurdered in Iraq. Vincent Bugliosi hasmade an absolutely compelling case that George W Bush has murdered over four thousand mostly American teenagers who were sent to fight a war justifed by a pack of lies.
Iraq posed no threat to America. Sadam Hussien’s atrocities against his own people were never of any concern to both Republican and Democartic administrations. Republican and Democratic adminstrations provided Saddam Hussien with technological and finacial support to carry out his atrocities. The “Christian” American population didn’t give a hoot about the fact that they were subsidizing the murderer Saddam Hussien. They were more interested in the outcome of the yearly Alabama-Auburn game. The Iraqi people did not invite the US military into theor country. The Iraqi people want us out of their country.
The Nazis murdered thousands of French citizens during their pacification of France. The US has been doing the same thing in Iraq.
9/11 was completely avoidable. After the atttack on the twin towers in 1993, all muslim immigration should have been shut down to 0 and the muslim “Americans” should have been encouraged to leave. There is no other game in town. Of course,if the 1965 immigration reform act had not been passed and a national origins immigration policy had been maintained, the pobablity of both the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the twin towers occuring would have been 0.
The US military is nothing more than an enforcer for the psychopathic gangsters in the Republican and Democratic parties. War is a racket as General Smedley Butler wrote in his autobiography. The worshpping of the American soldier besides being phony is war pornography. The American military -elevated rhetoric about noble intentions nothwithstanding- performs the same function for the Republican and Democratic parties that Sammy the Bull Gravano performed for John Gotti.
I won’t allow you to murder in my name.
Charlegmange
It starts with something very simple :don’t participate in the great crime against yourself,against your family and the nation you were born into. You do this every time you vote Republican. If you have voted year in and year out for the Republican party, you have voted for the death of Euro-America. This should be obvious.
34 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 11 October 2008:
Horace Grady wrote:
“…The Nazis murdered thousands of French citizens during their pacification of France. The US has been doing the same thing in Iraq…”
Self defense is legal according to national and international laws; France, Britain, the USA in fact, and all their hangers-on, DID declare war on Germany.
To equate the action of Germany, even on the eastern front which turned out to be a truly preemptive strike on which Russian and German historians agree, with what the USA is doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, and has done in numerous other countries in the past, is truly beyond belief.
H.F. Wolff
35 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 12 October 2008:
The U.S. attack on Iraq was an illegal and immoral war of aggression as certainly as the German attack on Poland in 1939.
Americans have to recognise that, as the Germans apparently did not, or we will be headed in the same disastrous direction. The military is an honourable calling and in principle it is usually correct that its followers carry out the orders they are given; decent people sympathise with the impossible choices they must sometimes make. Their honour is often misused by politicians whose only calling is vanity, greed, and lust.
36 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 12 October 2008:
The point of the arrest story is that the gentleman in question chose to sacrifice something to give his children an invaluable lesson in the nature of government.
37 Comment by Chris on 12 October 2008:
“It is said that the U.S. now has more Iraqis in prison that Saddam Hussein did. Nor is their treatment always better.”
The Daily Kos couldn’t have said it better. I’m pretty sure Saddam’s torture chambers were at least a step or two worse that what the US has put in place.
“I haven’t seen any estimates, but is it possible that the U.S. has killed more Iraqis than Saddam did?”
I read an estimate that Saddam killed approximately 70,000 Iraqis for every year he was in power, not to mention another million or so Iraqis and Iranians killed by the war he started, so the US is not even close.
There really does come a point when paleoconservatives, in their anger at the US Government, morph them into something something indistinguisable from a leftist.
38 Comment by G.S. on 12 October 2008:
If I’m not mistaken at least a million Iraqis, mostly children, died as a result of the US-pushed embargo.
Unless, of course, that’s also Hussein’s responsibility, since he declined to dissolve his regime and shoot himself in the head when we wanted him to.
39 Comment by G.S. on 12 October 2008:
As to the Iran-Iraq War, I wouldn’t really bring up that episode in the context of America’s pure and righteous struggle against the vile Hussein. It’s bad strategemery.
40 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 12 October 2008:
Chris #36. Leftists love the U.S. government, most leftists support the Iraq expedition, and killing for “democracy” is a leftist enterprise. Now do you understand?
41 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 12 October 2008:
Dr. Wilson,
You claim the the German invasion of Poland was immoral, etc…
Since the British, who had great influence in Poland because of the open-ended guarantee of support, would not help in stopping the murder of up to 50,000 Germans, (numbers vary) by the Poles, in formerly German lands, what do you advise would have been appropriate action for the German government to take after numerous diplomatic efforts?
Suppose 50,000 US citizens had been murdered in Iraq, would this have justified the US invasion?
I agree with the morality of your arrest story.
Thanks for your response.
H.F. Wolff
42 Comment by Horace Grady on 12 October 2008:
Clyde Wilson
You are using the term “leftist” in a way too broad a way. There are important distinctions between Liberal “Save Darfour” poltical liberals-this is another operational definition of a war criminal(think Madeline Albright)- and leftists. There is complete overlap between the two on social issues and big goverment. But there are significant differences between them on foreign policy issues.
On foreign policy, Leftist and Paleoconsevatives seem to be in complete agreement.
43 Comment by Horace Grady on 12 October 2008:
Chris
You completely miss the point that the Both Republican and Democratic adminstrations had no problem with Saddam Hussien’s murdering of his opposition. The Christian population of America didn’t give a hoot either. They didn’t care that their taxes were being used to subsidize the murdering Saddam Hussien. The outcome of the yearly Alabama-Auburn game was much more important. It’s all crocodile tears.
The fact of the matter is that both Republican and Democratic admistrations and the majority of Christian Americans participated in the mass murder of Iraqis before and after both the 1991 and 2003 invasion of Iraq. This has been a gift to AL-Queda.
44 Comment by Horace Grady on 12 October 2008:
H.F Wolf
The US attack on Iraq had nothing to do with self defense. The Nazis used the exact same language that both the neocon Republican and Democratic adminstrations used in justyfying their invasion of Iraq. Both the Nazis , The Japanese fascist-”liberators” of Asia-and Republican and Democratic administrations use the exact same lnguage about noble intentions. Makes you want to throw up.
Wars of premption in this day and age are war crimes. The rest of the planet will not tolerate it. And one powerfull message that Republican and Democratic wars of pre-emption sends to every nation on the planet is this:get nuclear weapons to deter an attack by the US. It has worked quite well for the North Koreans.
45 Comment by robert m. peters on 12 October 2008:
Chris,
Saddam Hussein with his alleged 70,000 murdered a year does not set my moral standard, i.e. we have killed less, perhaps far less, so we are good.
The Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Church and Holy Writ set my standard; and by the Christian Just War Standard which flows out of that, the war which we are fighting in Iraq is immoral. That is a conservative position.
My standard at law is the Constitution. A resolution masquerading as a formal declaration of war by the only body which can do that, namely the Congress, is a fraud and a counterfeit. Thus, the war which we are fighting is unconstitutional. Adhering to the letter of the Constitution and demanding that the general government do the same is a conservative position.
My concrete and practical standard is not to squander blood and treasure on unnecessary war. The war in Iraq is by any objective standard unnecessary. It is therefore wrong. That is a conservative standard.
The left, the liberals and the progressives have been no little war mongering, going back, at the very least, to Wilson. Clinton as his quite liberal crowd got us into a war with Serbia and through the sanctions on Iraq killed tens of thousands of Iraqis. Leftest, liberals and progressives, cloaked as Democrats or Republicans, get us into armed conflicts in which innocents die by peddling their “noble cause.”
46 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 12 October 2008:
43Horace Grady:
Please see my post #40 above.
If you wish I will dig out the documentary references to substantiate my position.
Your post #43 reads to me as “my mind is made up don’t confuse me with facts”. Of course I may be wrong in my interpretation of your post; I am always willing to be educated/informed with logic and verifiable evidence.
If you are referring to my earlier post #33, I did state that France (among numerous others) had declared war on Germany, hence the German invasion thereof.
It never ceases to amaze me how many spurious comparisons are made between the actions taken by Germany in the 1930’s and ’40’s, with those nowadays of the USA and Israel.
A review of available documentation of the German action would disclose that that action was justified at that time, and certainly by today’s standard.
H.F. Wolff
47 Comment by robert m. peters on 12 October 2008:
Dr. Wilson:
Your words:
“Over 1,100 vehicles were viciously attacked by deer in my State last year.”
We have a similar statistic here in Louisiana. As of the 1 of October, we have gone over to the offensive with bows and black powder rifles. Come 1 November, we’ll be firing with all weapons against the vicious, antlered, cloven-hoofed creatures. The battle cry will be “Venison in every pot!”
48 Comment by Robert Bruce on 12 October 2008:
#36 Chris,
Paleoconservatives are indistinguishable from leftists because they don’t like war? That is the only item on the a genda they even come close to agreeing on. So what I am understanding is what, neoconservatives are REAL conservatives, with their love for war, the huge welfare/warfare/police state? That is not to mention their need to spread “democracy” at the point of the gun. If that doesn’t fit the bill of a modern day Trotskyite, I don’t know what does!!!!!!!
49 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 12 October 2008:
#45. My last and only word on this subject. It never ceases to amaze me that some people still swallow Nazi propaganda. Whatever the sins and mistakes of the Allies may have been, it is ludicrous to deny that the Nazis boastfully declared their intent to dominate all of Europe in a war of conquest, as was super-evident to themselves and to everyone else in the world.
50 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 12 October 2008:
#48Clyde Wilson:
If you wish to label British diplomatic dispatches, and British historian’s writings, and British journalist’s submissions, all written during the 1930’s, as Nazi propaganda, add to that the findings and publishings of Russian and German historians in the last 10 years or so, that is your problem and I feel sorry for you.
Perhaps the editor of this blog will cut me off… so be it. But I shall critique every mention or comparison of Germany with whatever misdeed du jour, if it propagates lies or falsehoods about Germany. I make mistakes… people that DO things do so; I am, however, always ready to stand corrected and learn from verifiable sources. Arm waving, ventilating, meaningless labelling… won’t do.
I have read too much about Germany from British, French, Russian, Canadian, and yes USA sources to sit idly by and do nothing about the continuing defamation of one of the most civilized and productive countries the world has ever seen. I believe that its defeat in two fratricidal wars, fostered by enemies of western civilization, is the reason for what we are experiencing now.
In effect the two WW killed off the CRITICAL MASS of western intelligentsia and left a sufficiently sized group of miscreants to give rise to the mass of kleptomaniacs, charlatans, liars, self-promoters, etc. etc. “running” the world today, and the leeches feeding off it.
Look around you, the “civilized” western world is collapsing from a moral and financial stand point for now, and I am swallowing propaganda? No, I read and compare; I look for snippets of information where I find it, look for confirmation from other sources, and give credence to that what makes sense from a logical, scientific, and experiential, perspective.
One of the reasons I keep carping about Germany is because the National Socialists managed to unshackle some of the greatest feats in management, productivity, inventiveness, etc., including finance, the world has seen.
And it may very well be that the western world will need some of those ideas to see us through the difficult times ahead.
The USA’s traditional solution of throwing obscene amounts of $$$ or bombs at any problem appears to be no longer working and it behooves us all to look at solutions that have worked in the past, no matter how demonized the originators have become through the likes of you and the MSM.
H.F. Wolff
51 Comment by Chris on 12 October 2008:
I agree with fellow paleoconservatives that the war in Iraq was wrong. My issue is when some commentators, in their understandable anger at the US Government for getting us into such a mess, give in to hyterics and start making wild, unsubstantiated allegations (such as Dr Wilson did) in a way that the Left is expert at. What usually most impresses me about paleoconservative commentary is its commitment to cold reason over hot emotion.
I should also add that, if we are to be honest, most of the opposition to the Iraq war came from the Left (paleos being too few to count). Yes, the Left has a great tradition of war mongering (Wilson et al) but that does not change the facts in this instance. Now, if we had gone into Sudan, I am sure the Left would have supported it wholeheartedly.
52 Comment by Josh Cooney on 12 October 2008:
Chris,
Here is what Dr. Wilson said: “I haven’t seen any estimates, but is it possible that the U.S. has killed more Iraqis than Saddam did?”
Is this the “hysterical,” “wild,” and “unsubstantiated allegation” of which you speak? It sounds more like Dr. Wilson is posing a question for thought rather than making a definitive claim about the number of dead in Iraq.
53 Comment by Chris on 13 October 2008:
Josh, it is most certainly an allegation (albeit posed as a question), and as he has made no effort to find a source as to whether it is true or not, it is unsubstantiated.
I was also taking issue with the comparison between Saddam and the US military’s prisons. That to me borders on hysteria and unbecoming of the quality of commentators to be found at this site.
54 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 13 October 2008:
Chris, I posed it as a question because I don’t think anybody knows how many Iraqis have died, directly or indirectly, due to the invasion of their country and the long boycott that preceded it. No, American prisons may not match Hussein’s atrocities. My point is that we self-righteously justified war because of his atrocities and then committed them ourselves.
55 Comment by MAP on 13 October 2008:
In a general context and not directed at any specific war, past or present, when murder, theft, rape and pillage is wrong, it is wrong for all parties. When it is wrong for the enemy only, it is called hypocrisy. No country or people, no matter how self-righteous they perceive their cause, is above condemnation.
56 Comment by Horace Grady on 13 October 2008:
HF Wolff
You and the rest of Euro-Amerian wo’t be the worse off if GEorge W Bush,Dick Cheney, Condaleza Rice were packed off to stand trial for crimes against humanity On the contrary we will have gooten rid of traiors whose ultimate agenda is to destroy Euro-America. The legal case could be very easily be made.
Vincent Bugliosi already has made a powerfull legal argument that GEorge W Bush should be indicted for the mass murder of over four thousand Amerian teenagers who have served in Iraq. If the Vermont for state attorney general goes the right way, the preosecution of GEorge W Bush for the mass murder of four thousand American teenagers who served in IRaq wil proceed.
If George W Bush were ever packed to the Hague to stand trial for mas murder in Iran, it would open the doorfor prosecuting rapist and traior Bil Clinton for war crimes in Serbia.
BY the way, Donald Rumsfeld can no longer travel to Europe. LAst time he was there, he came very close to be picked up for war crimes because of the Abu Garb torture chamber. So ther might very well be legal proceedings taken place already against the Bush adminstration that we are not aware.
Finally, it is beyongd the pale to engage in a debate about who had a more brutal torture chamber Iraq Saddam or George W Bush. Sadam Hussiens atrocities were US atrocities. America aided and abetted Sadddam Hussien since at least 1979. This is a well known and well documented story.
As far as the exact number of Iraqis murdered by both the Bush and Clinton administrations, let the court at the Hague figure it out. The will sort it out in precise way. Enough is known already to require both Clinton and Bush to stand trial for crimes against humanity. We never know a serial killers actuall body count until they finally stand trial for their killng spree, but there is always evidence beforehand that was compelling enough to justify their indictement for murdering the innocent.
57 Comment by TJF on 13 October 2008:
A few years ago I was paid a visit by a leader of the Republikaner in Germany. I gave the fellow every benefit of the doubt, even when he simultaneously derided our pretty waitress’s Italian background and tried to pick her up. Trying to be pleasant, I said something like, “There was right and wrong on both sides in WW II.” He told me Germany did nothing wrong. I set aside the unpleasant treatment of Jewish citizens, the invasion of Norway, etc., and asked if it showed good judgment to slaughter the Ukrainian peasants who initially welcomed the Germans as liberators. “GERMANY DID NOTHING WRONG!!!” was his response. I understand this coming from a German nationalist, but not from Americans. Britain and the US committed unspeakable crimes in the course of WW II but Nazi and Soviet thuggery were of a different order. Those who wish to dispute this are either hopelessly ignorant or morally diseased. Since this is not a Revisionist website, people who wish to debate the details can go elsewhere. Those who wish to defend mass homicide will be banned. You know who you are.
Estimates vary and no one on this site, even active duty officers in Iraq, can have any rational way of making a final determination. I did used to know slightly a fine French officer, General Gallois, a Catholic rightist who held senior positions under De Gaulle. In his book, which can be translated as Blood and Oil, he estimated about 750,000 civilian deaths after the first Gulf War, but that was some years before the second War, which would make the million figure reasonable. Gallois traveled widely and spoke everywhere with top officials. I do not believe he would lie deliberately, but who knows? Whatever the figure, we had no moral or legal justification for either war–neither was waged in self-defense–and however many hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, they are on our moral balance sheet. Saddam was, indeed, an ugly customer, but he was THEIR ugly customer, not ours.
58 Comment by D Simmons on 13 October 2008:
TJF, politics nothing more than human chimpanzees of one troupe shrieking insults at another troupe (think the water hole scene in “2001 Space Odessy”).
59 Comment by JD Salyer on 13 October 2008:
“My issue is when some commentators, in their understandable anger at the US Government for getting us into such a mess, give in to hyterics and start making wild, unsubstantiated allegations (such as Dr Wilson did) in a way that the Left is expert at. What usually most impresses me about paleoconservative commentary is its commitment to cold reason over hot emotion.”
Chris,
It seems to me that making a moral evaluation of the situation in Iraq is as valid as assessing it from the POV of realpolitik. Obviously my opinion is that the invasion was a grave mistake from both vantage points, and as such they should reinforce one another. Whether liberals distort one and exclude the other should be a matter of indifference; what we should be interested in is the truth.
Of course empathy for the plight of foreigners can lead to hysterical, counterproductive, and irrational & sentimental hand-wringing or self-destructive decisions — but on the other hand properly-balanced and rationally-restrained empathy can also provide significant and very practical insights.
I.e. an empathic person is more likely to question the prudence of trying to create a new American ally in the Middle East by starving and bombing people into a state of democracy. Lack of visceral empathy is as much to blame as anything for leading the Albrights and Frums of the world to think that a man whose child has become “collateral damage” will simply shrug off his son’s death by saying, “you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”
It is not a lack of Machiavellian cunning but rather an inability to connect with real-world, human feelings which leads the would-be masters-of-the-universe to presume that this man — and the dead boy’s brothers, uncles, etc. — will enthusiastically embrace Western-style constitutional principles immediately following the boy’s funeral. (Not that the West really cares about constitutional principles anymore, of course, but that’s beside the point.)
There is also the factual issue: I do not know the actual numbers any more than Doc Wilson does, but I should say that if we haven’t killed as many Iraqis as Hussein has, then we’ve certainly given him a run for his money. Add together the civilian deaths from the embargo (~1 million) to those due to the occupation (the low estimate I’ve seen is ~40,000, a paltry sum I admit) and we get a pile of stiffs that is a bit too large to be swept under the rug.
This fact has indeed some bearing to our standing & reputation in the Middle East, and is something worth reflecting upon when we consider how we deal with the Muslim world.
What Dr. Wilson is attempting to do is in fact quite practical: Debunk a dangerous delusion held by far too many Americans, the delusion that we have any reasonable expectation of receiving a warm fuzzy glow of gratitude from Iraqis or anybody else in the Middle East.
In this light, I invite you to ponder as to whether “hot emotion” is not more evident in post #17, and in admonitions to have “the decency to edit outrageous attacks on the conduct of U.S. forces”.
If we attempt to whitewash the ghastliness of the situation, then we are simply playing Rudy Giuliani to Dr. Wilson’s Ron Paul.
They’re over here because we’re over there? What are you, some sort of anti-American leftist radical?
60 Comment by MAP on 13 October 2008:
If American history records the truth (something you don’t see a lot of), the Iraq invasion will be seen as one of, if not the greatest blunder(s) in our history. All that death, mayhem, and treasure for what? A truthful history will not be kind to George W.
61 Comment by Horace Grady on 13 October 2008:
Let the international court at the Hague determine actual criminal guilt or innocence. A good estimate of the number murdered by both Bush and Clinton adminstrations can be determined. Unfortunately, this isn’t even on the mental radar screen of the American public. Not even below the mental radar screen. The door to even more criminal wars of pre-emption is wide opened. At some point-and I expect very soon-the rest of the world will fight back.Obvioulsy, this could lead to nuclear world war three.
Like I said before, Saddam’s atrocities were never of any concern to Republican and Democratic adminstrations and to the American people. His crimes became a “concern” when he no longer became a reliable asset. The same was true of Manuel Noriega.
Then the next question that arises is how much and what kind of aid was Saddam recieving from the US during his reign of terror. The answer to this question will determine the degree of US complicity in Saddam’s crimes against his own people and against Iran when he declared war against Iran back in Nov 1979.
For the WW11 revionists:If the US had not destroyed the Japanese Empire, what would have happened to the European nations Australia and New Zealand? WW11 revisionist Justin Raimondo thinks the Japanese would have taught them about rock gardening-worst case scenario. But the rest of us-who aren’t brian dead -know exactly what would have happened. The European men of these nations would have been worked to death as slaves and the Euopean women of these nations would have forced into sexuall slavery servicing the Japanese imperial army.
The Nazis were the technological enablers of Imperial Japan. The Nazis would have been accomplices to the mass murder of Euro-Australians and Euro-New Zealanders.
62 Comment by Horace Grady on 13 October 2008:
Ron Paul’s opposition wasn’t exactly based upon deep moral principles. Ron Paul would to put the American people to sleep with technical mumbo-jumbo about the Constitution.
63 Comment by SEMPRONIUS on 13 October 2008:
As always, it is important to make distinctions.
It is absolutely beyond doubt that the war in Iraq is an act of criminal malfeasance that has done enormous damage to the well-being of the American people ( none too well-off prior to the war ) and to the civil and military institutions created to serve the interests of those people.
To refer to this criminality as “fascism” or “nazism” is absurd;it reveals a mind so besotted with leftist banality, that in trying to make a case for a traditional foreign-policy, weak and provincial intellects find it impossible to articulate such a policy without relying on ideas and opinions whose origins are deeply hostile to the traditions they seek to uphold.
In other words “outta the frying pan and into the fire”.
The war in Iraq has nothing to do with Herr Hitler,but rather with Israel,oil,and a vulnerable dollar.In short the Anglo-American hierarchs are trying to shore-up their dwindling share of global power rather than graciously accepting the just claims to some of that power by Europe, Russia and Japan.
And in their desperation they’ve become reckless and violent.More so than usual.
Irony of ironies Fascism sought to,and almost succeeded in, nipping this clownish American imperium in the bud.Whatever ELSE they might have done notwithstanding.
Christians and “rebels” who affect to disdain Fascist misdeeds (from a safe historical distance I might add) have a duty to put forward practical alternatives to the all-too-real problems Fascism resisted and wrestled with.If they cant or wont,then practically speaking they are worthless.
Without America ruling the world America would be much better off.Europe can be Europe again,and Americanos can spend most of their time – ineffectually, as is usually the case with them- chasing negroes away from their daughters (and wives).
Dr.Flemming,if you should ever meet-up with that stupid Nazi again, kindly remind him that Italian men have far more success with pretty fraulein than he does with Italian waitresses.
64 Comment by SEMPRONIUS on 13 October 2008:
I forgot to mention one other thing.All of the fatuous Wilsonian rhetoric surrounding the Iraq war has been misinterpreted by critics of that war.
Bush and his gang do not for a moment adhere to any of the nonsense they put forward.They are not Leftists.
Their propaganda is roughly analogous to Soviet propaganda surrounding the Berlin Wall.Briefly,the Soviets announced that the wall was erected TO KEEP PEOPLE OUT,when it was common knowledge that nobody was trying to get in.They obviously couldn’t admit the truth.But the purpose of their lie was not to deceive anyone- who could be so stupid-but instead to simply remind the world that they would do as they please and nobody could do anything about it.The same is true with Dubya.
As for the American people,Sempronius will graciously interpret their implicit response to Dubya’s Agit-Prop.”We Americano’s don’t care what you do,nor what you say in order to justify what you do,so long as you leave us to our creative accounting practices and our suburban swinger-parties”.
However it would be a mistake to to dismiss Bush’s propaganda as entirely devoid of significance.By using revolutionary rhetoric,albeit dishonestly,he is anchoring his policies in the soil of revolution.In other words he is seeking the enlistment of revolutionary cohorts into his army.If revolutionaries join forces with him and drop their anti-Western Third World solidarity they too may share in the spoils of victory.
By implication no spoils are being proffered to poor, down and out little conservies.
65 Comment by Horace Grady on 13 October 2008:
Sempronius
No one has ever come up with an essential universally agreed upon defintinion of fascism. The Nazi charge is not accurate either. However, there is important overlap btween the Bush and Nazi regimes:attacking other nations based upon a pack of lies. An attack that has lead to large scale death and destruction. This is the Nuremberg standard.
66 Comment by Horace Grady on 13 October 2008:
Sempronius
An alternative Fascism ok. How about the American populist movements of an earlier era. One of the big problems with facism is its top down political structure. This is not unique to fascism of course. What passes for Democracy these-and days before-is very top-down in structure. Real democratic input into fundamental core policy decisions is non-existant. Much of what passes for Democracy in America is ratification of pre-ordained policy decisions. The ongoing policy proposlas for dealing with subprime mortgage meltdown is example of this. So was the repeal of Glass-Steagal by war criminal and rapist Bill Clinton.
I almost don’t know where to begin. There is very deep rot in common American Culure. Do our fellow Americans really find Cultural garbage satisfying? It is this common core rotting cultural garbage that creates the consensus to keep quite about the obvious. Listen to sports talk radio and you will experience clinical depression. Look, somethng is keeping people in line. The Dark ages have arrived.
Shall we beign the autopsy of Euro-America? The autopsy begins with asking the following question: Just what the hell do Euro-Americans care about?
67 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 13 October 2008:
64Horace Grady wrote:
…”However, there is important overlap btween (sic) the Bush and Nazi regimes:attacking other nations based upon a pack of lies.”…
Truly a case of “My mind is made up don’t confuse me with facts”.
As I stated before and confirmed by various British dispatches at that time and Russian historians as of late, the German invasions were preventive in both the cases of Poland and the Soviet Union.
Perhaps the American psyche is so weak that it cannot bear/understand its criminality without fantasy tales of horror from “long ago and far away”. Some people never outgrow these fairy tales.
Why not state the REAL truth: The USA and Israel attacked other nations… without any legal justification.
H.F. Wolff
68 Comment by Michael Ezzo on 14 October 2008:
“Wars of preemption in this day and age are war crimes. The rest of the planet will not tolerate it.” (#43)
Oh but they do! They tolerate it every time. Here in Japan the people are scared to death of America’s government because of its global hegemony. They know that the ruling party is always strong-armed into supporting our wars. It’s pathetic. The people keep up a facade of following along but you can see the resentment seething underneath. Yet there is nothing they can do about it. No, they just tolerate it.