From the Shores of Tripoli to the Halls of Montezuma
I have so far refrained from commenting on the Libyan fiasco. I do not understand what is going on, and the administration has so far not condescended to enlighten us. We are not taking sides or deciding the future of the country--that is up to the Libyans, we say--but then declare that no outcome is acceptable unless Gaddafi is sent packing. We are there to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe, says Madame Clinton, but she gives no details. It is all very well for the President to say he doesn't have to wait for mass graves, but we could say the same thing about dozens of countries in the world where ugly dictators are oppressing and murdering their subjects. Why Libya and why now?
Ms Clinton and Ms Rice are fond of making the analogy with Bosnia and Kosovo, where, they say, US military intervention brought down the tyrant Milosevic. They appear to forget that we used to lie and pretend we were only advising the "Bosniaks." They also forget that Milosevic was not only a legal head of state but was ousted by a combination of a free election and popular protests. What does this have to do with the 40 year military dictatorship in Libya? If Gadaffi is almost as bad as Milosevic, then we can leave it to the Libyans to get rid of him they way the Serbs got rid of Slobo.
Gaddafi's great crime, according to the President and Mme Clinton, is that he is waging war on his own people. In other words, when a regional rebellion breaks out, as it did in Chiapas or here in America at the end of 1860, no government may use armed force to put it down. Guided by such a principle of nonresistance, no government could possibly defend itself even from criminals and terrorists. And, if the argument is based on the idea that Gaddafi's regime is illegitimate, because it sponsors terrorism or oppresses the people, why did we wait this long to do something about it?
This administration, it seems, is doing its best to outdo the Bush administration in incompetence, stupidity, mendacity, and evil. They have a long way to go, but they are doing their best. I suppose that they have learned a thing or two from the past several administrations. For example, that it is always better to tell one big lie and not to get bogged down in minor details and justifications that might be refuted. Rumsfeld, Powell, Cheney, and Bush looked pretty silly when they could not turn up the weapons of mass destruction they had promised the world, and Obama, see, is not waiting for mass graves: These preemptive strikes, he will be sure to tell us, have prevented the slaughter.
Consider the logic, for a moment. I have taken two aspirin every night for 10 years. I have persuaded myself they help me get back to sleep. And, know what? I have not had a heart attack or stroke, which proves the doctors are right. I also have not contracted tuberculosis, cholera, or Bubonic Plague. It's marvelous. In addition, I do a kind of abbreviated Rosary in my mind, which must be the reason The Rockford Institute has not gone bankrupt. I used to own a rabbit's foot, I never walk under ladders or step on the cracks in the sidewalk. And, whaddya know? I haven't had a DUI or been sued for libel.
The administration has quite correctly perceived that neither the media nor the people will call them on their infantile reasoning or their lies. If there were a single competent or honest reporter in the entire White House press corps, Obama would be in hiding today. But the conservatives are, if anything, worse than the leftists. Poor Rush Limbaugh is beside himself, justifying the war while attacking Obama. You see, this is all about American exceptionalism, about America as a beacon of democracy. Who is dumber, President Barry or the conservative guru of the airwaves? (Hint for coming up with an answer: Obama is actually the President and gets to turn his pretty fantasies into an ugly reality.)
I am sure there must be good reasons for trying to kill Gaddafi and overthrow his regime. Unfortunately, our President has not supplied any. If we want to overthrow an evil regime, why not start with North Korea or China or even the Ivory Coast? Better still, let us bring all the armed forces back home, bully the president of Mexico into inviting our troops into his country to restore order, and take over all of Mexico and Central America. We'd get lots of oil, stimulate the economy, and provide decent jobs for all the Mexican immigrants we could send back to where they came from. Mexico would once again provide cheap and tasteless vacations to the hordes of American tourists who have made a hell out of their own country and have to take cruises and go to tacky resorts where they can get publicly drunk and sleep with each others' wives.
Just a thought, which I shall develop in a future venture into the politically absurd.
In the meantime we can enjoy the show. We bomb a country and kill people in order to save lives. Leftist Democrats are nonplussed, and Republicans have now discovered that a President requires Congressional approval for a military action. Who says screwball comedy is a lost art?
Entries(RSS)
The Libyan opposition leadership in Bengazi is heavy on technocrats and light on generals. No Trotsky, no Lenin. Partition would seem to be the most viable settlement. Without Green Beret advisors, Tripoli isn't falling in the near future. The silence of most of the Anti-War Left shows that so-called humanitarian wars are the most pernicious.
You're not the only one who doesnt know whats going on. It is however, mildly entertaining in a dark comedy fashion that Libya, Tunisia et all appear to be unplanned by the CIA or other intelligence agencies, unlike the recent color revolutions.
This all makes me mess the days of the Cold War, when we couldnt get away with such reckless military campaigns.
A most amusing reflection! The Libyan conflict has certainly drawn the neo-connivers out of the woodwork back into the spotlight. As Supreme Babbler Kristol recently opined, it was wonderful news that Obama finally had the "courage" to invade another Islamic country!
Dr. Fleming is quite correct in his assessment of the WH press corps; of course, if one of those reporters had any integrity, historical awareness or journalistic competence he would no longer be in the White House press corps. He would at best be banished to the fringes where he would carry the label of either anti-Semite, racist or neo-Nazi, or most likely all three.
I watched a local TV station do a few "in the street" interviews this morning concerning Libya and the Obama speech; assuming the producer who put it all together was not deliberately trying to make it a satirical piece, the results were frightening. Each one interviewed looked more foolish than the next. Who was it that said a people will get the government they deserve?
I have (like everybody else probably has done)tried to think of one reason why this war might be happening, and I cant come up with anything that doesn't fail on one count or another. There seems to be no logical reason, covert or overt, sensical or not.
This really does look like the most nonsensical war in American history, out of many such wars. It's just happening, that's all.
This at a time when all bills are going up, all prices rising, housing going to pot, and states going bankrupt as people cant find nonexistent jobs, while the military falls apart in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It looks like the beast is in the final stages of madness, where he does completely nonsensical things for no real reason, or at least not for any reasons that even he can understand.
We dont have much farther to go.
Best article I have read about the why we are there and why NATO(especially the French) are so geared up to take him down is Pepe Escobar's articles in Asia Times online. His gist, just follow the money, and see who wins out politically also. It includes a long list of French multinationals and of course NATO, etc.
Here is my best guess as to what drove this. Interventionism is such an overwhelming bi-partisan consensus (whether the belligerent interventionism of the "right" or the multilateral liberal internationalism of the left) that it has become very difficult for the President of the Exceptional nation to do nothing. To do nothing is to do something because the default assumption is American action. Some neocons made this doing nothing is doing something argument outright.
So until Obama "did something" he was "dithering" and therefore "weak" and "indecisive." My hunch is that Obama's instincts were to leave well enough alone, but he was talked into intervening (mostly by Hillary?) because to not act would tar him as weak on defense, especially since he had failed to act (whatever it was he was supposed to do) on Egypt. Better to tick off a few anti-war true believer leftists than give the Republicans a big "weak on defense" stick to whack him with.
This presents a dilemma for non-interventionists and even realists. We have to actively make the case for doing nothing, because the consensus is so overwhelming for doing something. Unless you make the case, which Obama did not, you are dithering.
There are so many bizarre and utterly absurd affairs we have to witness while reviewing History. Modern idiotism starts probably with French Revolution in somewhat shy fashion and gains momentum through many other "revolutions", World, Civil and local Wars. Hundreds of them. All of those savageries had been motivated by Peace, Freedom and, above all Democracy. Brotherhoods and Equalities notwithstanding. So we face a fine disgrace again. This time Libya. Remote, secluded country somewhere in Arab world. Another sovereign country destroyed, it will imerge as a bankrupt, impoverished ground for growth of everything we fight against.
But that has been decided already. Pity though, I used to like the place.
What next? Something bigger? Some more small ones? How about REAL THING? Everybody has good tools for the job. Out of six billion jerks on this planet, at least half are not needed at all. Why not a good pretext for a real, real genocide?
All those games of absurd are boring.
Just do it.
Dr Fleming is undeniably right in his suspicions. Few intelligent or wary men believe these sallies to be in anticipation of a massacre of the Libyans - this is outright provocation and plunder. The predatory attackers are practising open piracy against Libya for the sake of her coveted oil.
I was sure that the dishonour and barbarism we witnessed when the "Coalition of the Willing" fell upon Iraq and dismembered it, and the shocking unprovoked butcheries committed there, were something not to soon be repeated - or exceeded.
The example this gives the world, of the lawless and capricious violation of a foreign country's sovereignty, will be learnt and in turn visited on those guilty of inaugurating this abominable precedent.
In defense of Bush (oh god, what am I doing?!), he -
1) only started a war that was already long planned and considered in Clinton's days, and did not start it out of the blue.
2) was a part of administration that was preaching for a war in Iraq long before 9/11, instead of implementing a decision first and justifying it later.
3) had received something that barely resembled Congressional support.
At least Iraq War considered for a long enough period that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden could decide they were in favour of it, before deciding they were not and flipflopping. This war in Libya happened so quickly, that even legislators don't seem to have the time to decide whether they like it or not, let alone flipflop on it.
I must disagree with Dr. Fleming. I for one have fallen-in-line and support our Commander-in-Chief. I don't really understand why and still can't find Libya on the map, but that's the American way.
Anyhoo, we must destroy Libya and get rid the tyrant -whats his name - and replace him with whoever because otherwise its Hitler all over again!
Looking for a reason? At this point the country is surely now lost on a mad voyage as insanity rules the bridge. The interventionists often invoke the sound of Chamberlain's tapping umbrella but it's the fevered walk of an ivory leg those who listen can hear.
"Who the gods would destroy . . . ."
So far, nobody has mentioned the 800-lb gorilla in the room.
I should add to my #6 above, that many seemed to have been caught somewhat off guard by the Security Council resolution actually passing. It had been assumed by many that Russia and China would veto it and save us from ourselves. So once the Security Council resolution passed Obama's hands were tied. It just remained to be seen what role the US would play. (I'm not suggesting that his hands were actually tied, just that this is how it played out in the minds of the geniuses in DC.) I know that I was telling people who assumed that our eventual intervention was inevitable that I didn't think it was because the window of urgency had seemingly passed, and I didn't think the UN resolution would pass.
I now wonder if Russia and China let the thing pass in order to bog us down in another conflict.
"So far, nobody has mentioned the 800-lb gorilla in the room."
Dr. Wilson, it has been interesting to me to watch as a divide has developed among interventionist (neocon and otherwise) over what the US response should be to these Arab uprisings, whether Egypt or Libya. The Democracy fetishists always want the US to intervene on the side of the protestors against despots, but some have more cautiously been skeptical of the protesters and willing to concede that the US (and Israel) might be better off with the despots remaining in place. Of course both sides take interventionism for granted, but are divided over how and when to use it. This battle is good for our side because if nothing else it demonstrates that these situations are not always black and white and easily reducible to good vs. evil morality tales.
Finally we have reached a level of absurd behavior that even poets find difficult to describe. Frost could write about the consequences of inordinate love and hate :
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
The Hollow Men, perhaps described our current bankruptcy in spirit and truth:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
"Republicans have now discovered that a President requires Congressional approval for a military action."
Actually, W Bush did get Congress to okay the invasion of Iraq before he sent the US forces in.
This is indeed a strange website. Whatever wrongs the Democrats are up to, it's always the fault of Republicans or Rush Limbaugh.
Mr. Smith,
Well, when you live in times when truth is stranger than fiction, I can understand you perplexity. This website is strange indeed because it noticed along time ago that between Limbaugh and Leftists, there is hardly a dimes worth of difference.
Republicans like KSmith will never learn, because they cannot climb down from the elephant long enough to clear their nostrils of the smell. Since the 1980s Republicans have been arguing--contrary to one of their party's finest traditions and against James Burnham's classic Congress and the American Tradition--that the President does not need Congressional approval for military actions, that the executive--despite the precise wording of the Constitution--is supreme in matters of foreign policy. President Bush did seek and obtain approval for his invasion plan, because it was a major war, albeit and undeclared war. For smallscale attacks, neither party's Presidents have sought approval. (Ironically, Obama was more eager to get UN approval.) Wars have to be undeclared because otherwise our operations would be governed by international conventions. I did not mention any of the above because I think I can take it for granted that self-described conservatives have some idea of the history of this question.
There was a time when one could pick a party whose principles one agreed with and back it. That is true today only if one is somewhere on the spectrum of mainstream-liberal/neoconservative. Anyone else--old-fashioned conservatives, Christians, pacifists, leftists, libertarians--will have trouble finding anything to celebrate in either party. I shall be satisfied if the GOP will become once again the party of greed, which has always been its first and highest principle, because an appeal to greed means lower taxes and less regulation of business, which in turn means a bit more money in my pocket, or, rather, a bit less out of it.
Poor Rush Limbaugh is beside himself, justifying the war while attacking Obama. You see, this is all about American exceptionalism, about America as a beacon of democracy. Who is dumber, President Barry or the conservative guru of the airwaves? (Hint for coming up with an answer: Obama is actually the President and gets to turn his pretty fantasies into an ugly reality.)
From what little, and it's very little, I have listened to Limbaugh since the latest folly unfolded he is all over the map. However, he and the other neo-con disc jockey's hypocrisy is very transparent. If this were Bush they would be pumping their fists while citing Jehovah Lincoln for their justification. There is no difference between American exceptionalism, 1930's German and Soviet exceptionalism. Sadly for the country Limbaugh's regular listeners are more delusional than he is. By the way the latest excuse for the second illegal Iraq war by Jorge dos ," although Saddam did not have WMD he was going to obtain them anyway and the world is better off without him".
"I shall be satisfied if the GOP will become once again the party of greed, which has always been its first and highest principle, because an appeal to greed means lower taxes and less regulation of business, which in turn means a bit more money in my pocket, or, rather, a bit less out of it."
Hark, Diogenes !! Come bring thy lantern I heard an honest man speak!! Follow younder star to the North and look you now, how unworthy a thing he makes of
us! He would play upon us; He would seem to know
us; He would pluck out the heart of our
mystery;( which is dealing in lies and politics ) He would sound us from our lowest note to
the top of our compass: and there is much music,in his voice, in that little organ !!!!
Hark, Diogenes!!! There lurks an honest man!!
The sole Republican/neocon objection to the war -- excuse me, "kinetic military action" -- seems to be that if Obama were to get any approval at all (not that he needed it, of course), it should've been Congress and not the UN Security Council. In other words, since he bothered to get approval at all, he got it from the wrong body. What grand opposition!
Meanwhile, I read we've spent $600 million in 6 days bombing Lybia to smithereens. That alone is enough justification not to intervene -- but I suppose the Fed will just buy $600 million more Treasuries so what's the worry?
To be fair to Limbaugh, he often displays a sound understanding of how politics works in public, here in America. It is just that he has neither firm principles nor any understanding of history. I liked him better when he was a clown who refused to talk about religion, abortion, etc. Now that he is a family-values neocon in the Gingrich style, the effect of his show can be gagging. I listen on my very brief rides to and from lunch (less than 10 minutes each way), because it lets me know what one head on the two-headed monster is saying this week. I've tried the others--Beck, Hannity, Levine--but I don't want to have to add anti-nausea medication to the anti-vertigo drug I have to take from time to time.
I assume Clyde Wilson's gorilla speaks Hebrew--or rather English in a Yiddish accent. Many Israelis are terrified of what is going on. Assad they regard as at least potentially as amenable to reason as his father was; Mubarak was someone they could do business with; and even the Colonel has been getting good press for over 5 years, both in Israel and in the American Jewish press (New York Times, Foreign Affairs.) I assume this is because he has been willing to play ball.
As skeptical as I am of the Israeli government and as disturbed as I am by American-Jewish control of our public discussions here, I have to side with the Israelis on this one. They want stability in the region, and the US and its allies are giving them a mess. Bugsy Netanyahu (Jim Jatras's joke) has to put on a brave face, but when he reads the Canadian security report (of a year ago) on Islamicist penetration of the anti-Gaddafi movement, he has to be distraught. If the Jews really ran the world as some people think, I do not think this would be happening. Fortunately for Israel, she has an able, astute, and patriotic class of diplomats and spies who may be able to turn this potential disaster to some good purpose. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live in a country where the political debate, carried out with energy and intelligence, was how best to advance the nation's interests. In our own beloved country, the Republicans are busy selling the store off to foreign and multi-national interests for the money they can get out of it, while the Democrats prefer to give it away: Hurting their own people is reward enough.
I have said this many times, only to anger the Jew-haters: There is nothing wrong in Israelis looking out for themselves or in American Jews feeling deeper loyalty to a real country than to this fictional nation dedicated to a proposition. The fault lies with our own ruling class who not only permits this to happen, but does everything it can to promote the destruction of whatever wholesome is left here.
"the world is better off without him”.
Does this often used phrase give pause to anyone else but me? This is the Kevorkian rule of modernity. In fact it probably should be the motto of the culture of death. I can't think of a death it doesn't apply to -- Heck, even Christopher Hitchens thought the world was better off without Saddam Hussein and Mother Theresa. Suicidal adolescents thinks the world would be better off without them. The Homicidal maniac keeps a long list of folks the world would be better off without. When there is no measure, there is no should, would, ought, better or worse. And what exactly is the measure these days? The people's will? Raw Power? Those who have nuclear weapons vs those who don't? The Party?
The phrase has been used for the executions of everyone from Socrates to Christ and Hitler to Hussein. It is a scary phrase on the lips of politicians, especially when it is divorced from any understanding of justice and mercy towards a known neighbor and used randomly to make the world a better place --- for who?
Added to the original:
Gaddafi's great crime, according to the President and Mme Clinton, is that he is waging war on his own people. In other words, when a regional rebellion breaks out, as it did in Chiapas or here in America at the end of 1860, no government may use armed force to put it down. Guided by such a principle of nonresistance, no government could possibly defend itself even from criminals and terrorists. And, if the argument is based on the idea that Gaddafi's regime is illegitimate, because it sponsors terrorism or oppresses the people, why did we wait this long to do something about it?
Robert said,
“the world is better off without him”.
Does this often used phrase give pause to anyone else but me? This is the Kevorkian rule of modernity.
No, Robert, you are not the only one! Well stated! That is a chilling phrase for anyone to utter; it's a positively frightening one when said by our fearless leaders. It bespeaks an arrogance that underlies much of the decision-making in the White House, past and present, not to mention many pundits on both the warmed-over Trotskyite side and in the anti-Christian liberal swamps.
I loathe all these electronic Elmer Gantrys making money off of these end times predictions, but one could be forgiven in thinking this whole experiment may indeed be headed for closure.
Gaddafi indeed has blood on his hands: that of Libyans and that of others, including but not limited to those who died in Scotland some twenty-three years ago. He also looks the part, that of the swarthy villain;however, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and now Obama have no little blood on their hands in the immoral, unconstitutional and unnecessary wars which they have launched and carried out.
The aforementioned Presidents have also made war, with small bloody phases such as Ruby Ridge and Waco, against us by stealing the value of the money in our pockets and dwindling savings through indebtedness and inflation schemes, by squeezing that last vestiges of subsidiarity out of our institutions: family, church, free associations and states, and by allowing and promoting a swarm of aliens, legal and illegal, to become the new Americans by reciting the "creed" of the propositional nation which Lincoln conjured up.
I am amused at the discussions which say that the general government of the United States is turning things pursuant to Libya over to the U.N. or to NATO. These entities, along with the World Bank and the WTO, are tentacles of the Hobbesian state.
Michael Kenny,
see the article below about 15,000 Libyan and Tunisian refugees as they flee to Italy from NATO's help. Why didn't the Germans chime in on the No Fly Zone proposal at the UN Security Council?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42305580/ns/world_news-europe/
As for NATO, I think it is about time the Europeans take over some of their own defense budget. Why should we still be providing protection and paying for it, this long after the Soviet threat has collapsed? They don't even provide a steady supply of Christian missionarys for Americans any more.
Robert- it not only gave me pause when I heard him say it, but it caused me to slightly veer in my lane as I was returning from an Aunt's funeral in West Texas. All I could find on the radio was neoconservative talk shows.
The rationale is akin to a cops storming into the wrong house and mistakenly shooting someone to death. Then stating they would committed a crime sooner or later therefore it was justified. Obama's using the same twisted reasoning, Colonel Q or K or G isn't committing mass murder, but he's bound to so we've got to stop it. I don't believe Obama believes any of what he said in his speech to no one. Rather the speech was written by his advisors and they're thinking it worked for Bush it can work for us.
"off of these end times predictions"
I am a Christian and therefore do not know the hour or the day my life will end. As for the world I grew up in, that actaully ended before I was old enough to know it had passed. I was fortunate to raise my family in a backwater part of the country that is still a hundred years behind Boston and San Francisco and therefore a hundred years ahead of where all this will end.
A man can cut the arms and legs off of another man and plead he is still a man. And he is indeed,but he is now a different kind of man.
What I meant about the world ending with a whimper instead of a bang is that we live in and among a very different world of citizens than those giants of old who were our Fathers in faith and culture, wisdom and understanding.
I recently gave my guitar-picking son a concert quality ukelele. For the first four or five hours he drove us all crazy with the same tunes, picked faster and faster, until he finally dropped the instruction booklet and begin to convert some guitar tunes he had mastered to his new instrument. If only Mr. Kenny, if he is going to continue to bore us with his sermons, would find a different tune to play, something a little more credible than resurgent Europe destroys the evil empire. If he or anyone actually knew something about this, he would make a trillion dollars on the stock market. I suppose I should look on the bright side. At least I'm not cornered in a bar or at a cocktail party by some crashing bore who wants to explain the Persian Wars or discourse on the wisdom of Newt. I do have a spam eliminator on our WordPress program.
It was George W. Bush and the REPUBLICANS who established, apparently for all time, the doctrine that the president can inaugurate foreign invasions of his choice that bear no relation to defense, and who announced the presidential right to "preventive war." Could a Democratic president have possibly done any more damage to the republic, at home and abroad, than did Bush? Is there any public problem that the Republicans offer any slightest hope of solving?
And "that good Christian man" George W. Bush abandoned the just war doctrine more completely than any previous chief magistrate.
Sorry for the post above, meant to answer Ray Olson on the latest Jerks discussion.
#33 Dr.Wilson,
We have all adopted the tragic vision of Hamlet today.
If you kill a bad guy like Claudius, Hussein, Gadhafi ??_________ (just fill in the blank) when he is acting bad,(“drunk asleep, or in his rage, or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed, attacking his own people, constructing mobile labs, purchasing Uranium from Nigeria, smoking cigarettes, or at a game swearing”, you can send him straight to hell.
If you kill him while he is remorseful, praying on his knees,or begging for mercy, he might go to heaven. Timing is everything when you are a human being playing God.
Just be sure you know that the neighbor who really needs your help is in some far away place, while the guy next door suffering the division of his property and family or his wife's last illness is just a poor accountant.
It is amusing how my few friends who echo Rush Limbaugh and the man himself have exactly the problem when it comes to this war, which they say of course is not a war at all, just cruise missiles. At last Obama does something they agree and yet still find fault with him, for not doing this sooner, or for not actually sending troops.
I will never understand how some people neglect their own town, state and country to see another man's country destroyed, all the while proclaiming their own goodness.
"I will never understand how some people neglect their own town, state and country to see another man’s country destroyed, all the while proclaiming their own goodness"
Well said, Alex.
Alex N
Your words:
"I will never understand how some people neglect their own town, state and country to see another man’s country destroyed, all the while proclaiming their own goodness."
Jefferson Davis tell us "how" in the following words from a speech which he gave to the Mississippi legislature in December of 1862:
"Our enemies are a traditionless and homeless race; from the time of Cromwell to the present moment they have been disturbers of the peace of the world. Gathered together by Cromwell from the bogs and fens of the North of Ireland and of England, they commenced by disturbing the peace of their own country; they disturbed Holland, to which they fled, and they disturbed England on their return. They persecuted Catholics in England, and they hung Quakers and witches in America."
They do not have their own town, state or country. There are no common customs, habits and traditions which bind them. Things have become much worse since Davis uttered those words.
The vectors of the American politics have been invariably yielding the resultant of imperialism since the inception of the Republic. Manifest Destiny?
#22 Agreed. It was heterosexual white male Christian politicians who ran this country into the ground due to one of more of the Capital Sins (I didn't give-up puns for Lent).
While I value all European Countries above Israel, I do agree with your long-held ideas about The Jews that you summarised in your last accurate paragraph.
Not 24 hours after our president re-states his commitment to turn this Libyan affair over to someone else to direct and to man, I see that we've sent 2200 marines on the way to the Med. Of course, I'm sure they are only going to "protect" civilians, but it sure smells like more imperial behavior to me.
It's good that Mr. Peters has reminded us of Jefferson Davis' words; they are not only strikingly accurate they also remind us that we once had on these very shores politicos who spoke the truth. Gone with the wind, indeed.
Dr. Wilson #32 and #33
Yes, and it was also a Republican in office who finally surrendered to intelligence operatives and their corporate media outlets, the license to start and stop any war and make or break any President.
I keep thinking the internet will soon be reigned in and confiscated but evidently they are waiting until they have good addresses on those 2% or 3% of Americans who either voted for Pat Buchanan, read a passage from Chronicles, or placed on the Sothern Poverty Law Center's most wanted list, at least once in their life!
Other than that, I can't think of any good reason they allow us to keep commenting about them.
Jefferson Davis now there is a soldier, public servant and statesman Mississippi can be proud. Unlike the present day Governor whose knee bends to the Cultural Marxists. I bet he is one of the critics claiming we should have attacked Colonel Q,K or G much sooner but only after Congress rubber stamped it.
The latest is the Pentagon is attempting to come up with some legal mumble jumble to codify giving arms to the anti Q force. They never learn.
Dr Clyde Wilson, I wonder what you think of the theory proposed by some that the War Between the States was a continuation of the English Civil War?
Dr. Fleming @22
This is quite insightful and I entirely agree. I always think there is more honest news about the Middle East in the oldest Israeli daily, Haaretz, than in most any American newspaper. I read today for instance in Haaretz about those half dozen Rabbis in New York and their assistants in New Jersey who plead guilty to laundering money, defrauding the poor and other corrupt behavior.
Israel being composed of a real people is not shocked by the capital sins, or driven to despair or disbelief by the fact that Jew and Gentile both commit sins. Only in America is religion considered either the sole cause or the sole cure for every malady known to man and one can tell the saved from the damned by simply looking at them.
RE #18 For the record, I have been registered as an Independent for more than forty years.
My point is that---as I have always taught my students---we should use specific truths to make our points.
If we have a case to make, why is it necessary to classify someone with whom we disagree as belonging to some group of untouchables? That's the tactic of a bigot who avoids the need to make a cogent and logical argument against an IDEA by attacking the PERSON who poses the idea.
Mr. Smith,
What is a bigot? I have often been called one but never understood what it meant. I know it must be really bad because almost to a man everyone who calls me that name is in support of infanticide, genocide or regicide. Heck one fellow even said I needed insecticide and I thought that was just clear over the top!
Anyone who cannot oppose an argument he doesn't like without crying bigot excludes himself from rational discourse. Mr Smith began with an insult which he now compounds with further insult. Has he an argument? Who knows? He won't tell us Heaven help his students, unless the teacher mends his reason and his manners.
Mr. Maxwell at #44. It is an interesting and useful concept if one does not take it too literally and exclusively. You can get a good view of the idea by reading Richard Weaver's comparison of the 17th century diaries of Cotton Mather of Massachusetts and William Byrd II of Virginia. The contrast is startling and persuasive.
Our Congress has an approval rating of something like 18%, making it likely the regimes Washington is overthrowing in the name of democracy enjoy greater democratic legitimacy than our own.
In addition to El Rushbo, add Billy O'Reilly to the list of "conservatives" simultaneously chiding Obama while cheering as the bombs and missiles fall. In the meantime, we still await a coherent response to the question: Why Libya?