Battle hardened?
If dead is battle hardend... sure, why not?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ombs/Crazy.jpg

From the Washington Post of 17 Dec 2006:
"Stay the course" is now called "Way forward".
34% of Americans still cannot see the lying president for what he really is - who even deny facts from the Baker Hamilton commission. George Jr's stubbornness and mental midgetry will even guarantee a defeat in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, American opoerations in Somolia are also failing just as spectaculorly.

85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. That is 99% when top management is in denial - blames others such as me.

He has contempt for the American soldier. Way "Forward, the Light Brigade!" is just "Stay the course".

Time to solve "Mission Accomplished" with hundreds of thousands more troops has ended. So George Jr will think for another month about deploying a few ten thousand. They are expendable.

When a president must "Wag the Dog". George Jr now advocates more war (rejects the Iraq Study Group) because soldiers are expendable and George’s legacy is more important.

Patriots leak constantly when scum bags would sacrifice more American soldiers to "Mission Accomplished". Leakers apparently include the Joint Chiefs. From the Washington Post of 19 Dec 2006 - and a fact that was predictable:
Of course it was obvious that "Mission Accomplished" was being lost. The president started a war without a strategic objective AND (as leaked) still has no strategic objective. To anyone with minimal grasp of history, that means defeat. To any student of history or military science, the PBS Frontline program The Lost Year demonstrates why this discussion should have been held in 2004. Since no positive solution remains, what do our anti-American leaders do? Current attitudes duplicate 1968; including rejection of conclusions from the president's "Wise Men". The expression "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it" has never been so explicit.

Colin Powell (former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and former Sec of State for George Jr) has defined "Mission Accomplished" Still 34% in America denied reality when defined even by UK General Sir Richard Dannatt in October 2006. See British to Withdraw from Iraq to appreicate which Cellar Dwellers could not recognize the obvious - who therefore demonstrate contempt for the American soldier.

George Jr must reject the Iraq Study Group. He must send more troops to Iraq. George Jr must advocate troop increases in Iraq AND more military spending at home. He is an extremist no different than Crusaders of the 11th Century. He even said that god told him to invade Iraq. And he must maintain this war beyond 2008 so that it is not 'lost on his watch' - his legacy. Worse are many Americans who believed this idiot – and still do. See British to Withdraw from Iraq. And see what anti-Americans must deny: The Lost Year

The idiot president as an MBA – and like every administration official did on 11 September to make zero decisions – this fool and his staff, instead, will have more meetings.

George Jr recently said we are not winning "Mission Accomplished" and not losing it either. Simple logic. Then American soldiers are not in Iraq. Well not being there is what another lying president tried to claim when he invaded Cambodia. So now George Jr says, by default, that American troops really are not in Iraq. "Mission Accomplished"?

From ABC News of 4 Jan 2007 or why Urbane Guerrilla has a president he adores:
Actually George Jr is correct. Another president - Nixon - did open mail without judicial review. When he was lying to the nation about Cambodia, Nixon feared that soldiers would hear the truth about his lies. So all mail to the troops from the United States was censored. Mail both from the troops and to the troops were censored. Nixon could not afford to have troops even receive the truth. So he opened and censored all mail - in both directions.

Deja vue Vietnam. Nixon - I mean George Jr - censors mail because we cannot be trusted. But then Americans finally got intelligent and demanded that other president (that Urbane Guerrilla also adored) be impeached.

The only mail I get is from creditors. If they open them, they have to pay them, right?

Thats a good idea wolf - can we get that through congress?

This is not why I "adore" the President, as you should very well know, but never do know, tw. It is your perpetual, oft-demonstrated inability to get these things right that persuades me you're none too bright -- in political matters at any rate. Nonetheless, valiant in your ignorance, you go on until you go down in flames, never learning the least lesson. Are you then a booby or a target drone?

Nixon was regarded in 1968 as being a strong man on foreign policy. A good man at foreign policy is what's wanted in a state of war, Congressionally declared or not. He quite upheld his reputation there.

You'll recall the Democratic candidate was George McGovern. That George had nothing (theoretically anyway -- I was seventeen at the time he was running) to offer me that would make me, and as it turned out forty-nine of the fifty states, want him in the Oval Office. That looks like history's vindication to me.

That's right. Massacre another 30,000 American soldiers in Nam so that a war is not lost on his watch. Send 20,000 more to Iraq (woefully too few) so that "Mission Accomplished" (and Afghanistan) is not lost until after 2008. These are presidents that Urbane Guerrilla admires.

Nothing? He didn't want to send you into a pointless war.

Blue, the last card you should ever try to play with me is that one.

Resistance to tyranny -- a tyranny amply proven in North Vietnam's behavior in the South -- always has a point and is by nature noble and right.

The defeatism he pushed -- that liberty and democracy aren't worth the effort needed to emasculate the Communists for trying to chain humanity -- is exactly what people like me never accept. America has quite a supply of people like me, it seems. We like democracy in ways you apparently can't fathom, and we don't accept totalitarianism as a way for any society to be.

Your remark, dear sir, is extraordinarily anti-democracy, and it is cowardly. Be ashamed, and then be better than you were tonight.

The same goes double for you, tw. You aren't a patriot, but an antipatriot, and you've been that way since, oh, the 1960s. You have not written one single word demonstrating you want America to win. Contrast that with a search of my postings, you indescribably awful example.

And it was working so well right then and there, and ended up being so very successful. McGovern wanted to save your American life, and you blow him off by accusing him of defeatism. So ungrateful, you are.

I'm never grateful to people who fifth-column for humanity's enemy, and even less so to people who try and make America lose without even the crappy excuse of being foreigners.

Success, from a long-range point of view, was delayed: Vietnam eventually concluded Communism doesn't work as an economic system, and now seems to be turning capitalist in the streets while maintaining Communism as a sort of state religion. For the time being.

Which goes to demonstrate we were on the right side in that war, and that, blue, is something I've always understood -- since about fuckin' fourth grade. You, OTOH, have some catching up to do. I see you're not yet prepared to take the advice I gave you.

And where is McGovern now? -- retired and good riddance.

Claiming that the US foreign policy is based on noble and right principles is ignorant, to say the least.

Why can't America be noble and principled? I'm not saying our policy is, just asking why you think it can't be.

It can be, but it isn't. It would be against the benefit of the US itself, most of the times. I'm not necessarily saying it's not the right thing (for the US) to do (Realpolitik and such), but claiming it happens out of noble principles is utter bollox.

Yet, you're a Nixon fan. Whatever happened to him? Give us some spin on how disgracing the office of President makes America win. And, while you're at it, how one 'catches up' to a fourth-grade opinion of the Vietnam war.

Blue, I never have patience with the pseudosophisticates either. You are not able to fight totalitarianism; I am, and I have, and it's a way you'll never be, which keeps you the lesser. You can't even catch up with "a fourth-grade opinion." How lame is that?

So Urbane Guerrilla just announced either his suicide or his impending mental self destruction. UG - you are the classic example of totalitarianism. You even preach (lie) exact same spin as those who did it in 1970 support the liar Nixon. Nixon also promoted and Cheney currently promotes same totalitarianism that Urbane Guerrilla promotes.

Amen. Something truly sensible from tw for a change (sorry mate).

From the New York Times of 10 Jan 2007:
Complete with body counts, this reeks of Vietnam. US Military with a second surge this fall in Baghdad (troops removed from Anbar province execute this surge) still fight battles all day long - even with Apache helicopters and fighter bombers? This is a crowded city. Right outside the Green Zone. This is a victory?

Green zone - where Americans did not leave in 2004 due to security risks even in Baghdad – when the entire administration said we were winning hearts and minds? US troops and civilians could even walk the streets of Saigon during a losing war. A raging all day battle only right outside the green zone? This sounds more like the Tet Offensive.

Frank Miller was a 22 year veteran of the Pentagon; an analyst who viewed documents that most others only saw after being censored. Condi Rice, so frustrated for information in March 2004, sent Miller to Baghdad. Remember, this is when Iraq was secure – even according to many in The Cellar; reconstruction was rumored to be ongoing; the press was accused of being negative. And that is what many even in the Cellar posted. Reality in Iraq even in 2004 was quite different from what our Rush Limbaugh and Fox News liars promoted.

It was that bad then. It’s many times worse now - an all day battle fought even right outside the Green Zone. What does that say (and obviously say to all Iraqis)? The insurgents are winning just like the Vietcong 30+ years ago. The president is lying to save his legacy as Nixon did (knowning full well that Vietnam could not be won). George Jr will send more (and too few) troops as if securing Baghdad will somehow win “Mission Accomplished”. He does this why? Read those posts on and after Sept 2003.

Looking Back: Cellar 2003
 

Some samples of what we were saying about Iraq in The Cellar in late 2003 and early 2004. Saddam was on the run. Abu Ghraid had not yet happened. Tobias posted from Iraq. Fallujah was not yet fought. deBaathification and disbanded Armies in May had started a summer of violent attacks.

How corrupt the media?
So, UT, what do you think of the Iraq big picture now? where xoxoxoBruce says Major Concession
Bush goes to Baghdad
Pissed Iraqi foreign minister kicks UN squarely in the nads
Iraqi poll results
America's Antagonistic Allies What David Kay said and what they reportNation Building 101

This is true -- in that I promote no totalitarianism at all. My mind, tw, remains clearer than yours at all times, at least those times when I am awake. Keep this in mind -- to the degree possible in yours.

It is remarked, from the National Review quarter, that Nixon was no conservative -- and I think with justice, taking the quickly-failed wage-price regulation as just one example. The Bush Administration's fundamental political instinct is more in line with conservative Republican thinking: minimize tax burden (though in the typical Republican/Beltway/Democrat fallacy, don't minimize the burden by cutting government services and staffers of agencies, hence being vulnerable on the score of deficit spending), don't monkey with the Bill of Rights even where it might be convenient (a besetting sin of the Clinton Administration, which never gave a tinker's damn about the BoR and perennially worked to subvert it, though they were more successful at subverting the Department of Justice), and if a war comes, and come it did for certain on 9/11, try and win it rather than do the Dem Party thing -- make a half measure and call it "unwinnable."

This is what they try for, and they keep trying, even if they don't achieve it in the press of circumstance and the roar of war. The previous occupant of the Oval Office never even tried, and was an inept cypher at foreign policy. What can you say of a President who never recognized he had a war to fight? Glad I never voted for this -- this indescribable Ol' Possum Head.

Oh my fucking god. You have got to be kidding me. Bush has unabashedly trampled every amendment but the second.

Oh wait, thats what you meant by the Bill of Rights. Nevermind then.

You also forgot the First, whose robustness is demonstrated right here, as you display without let nor hindrance (certainly not from me) your seventeenness.

The Third is a hard one to trespass upon -- it's been legitimately invoked a grand total of once AFAIK, and that case was settled without trial, or anything being established in the caselaw either.

The Fourth is where we come into furious debate indeed. There seem to be points to be made on both sides. I just note that no person here present has been searched unreasonably.

The Fifth through Eighth aren't touched.

Then we get to the Ninth and Tenth -- and the quiet campaign to revive these more fully. There isn't a triumphalist conquest by these two yet for two reasons: their particular partisans figure there's a long way to go yet, and there isn't really active opposition by anyone, just an inertia.

Unabasedly wasn't the word you wanted. When checking your prose, read slowly. I remind myself of that, from time to time.

abasHedly.

One is being tightened more and more.

Four is gone.

Five is gone.

Six is gone.

Seven is gone.

Eight is gone.

Where the word "gone" is just hyperbole to make a point.

They just added, "Usually" to the front, or "except when..." to the end, of each amendment. I think amendment VI got both. :smack:

If it's not universally applied, if they get to pick and choose at ALL who does and doesnt have the rights given by the bill of rights... It's over. If they can pick and choose, it might as well not exist.

Now that I have time I'll explain a little, I posted the simple list when I was really really tired.

One - Christianity is becoming more and more of a state religion under the republican regime, and free speech is more conditional now. "Free Speech Zones", anyone?

Four - Illegal wiretapping and spying on US nationals without warrant and at the discretion of the white house alone.

Five - Forced confession, and holding of prisoners indefinitely without charge, and the suspension of Habeas Corpus.

Six - Again, holding of prisoners indefinitely without charge without declaration of war.

Seven - Trials not by jury but by military against prisoners.

Eight - If torture isn't cruel and unusual I don't know what is.

Part gone is GONE.

That's the problem, all right. We look at those Iraqis, and think they just aren't grateful enough! Maybe if we kill off a few more, they'll bump up that gratitude level to a sufficiently significant level.

We think we are helping them out but don't understand what they are going through. Typical.

We think the president tells a truth. 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. Iraqi are victims of American ideologs.

Ibbie, the America-haters want you to confuse what are in effect enemy prisoners of war -- foreign citizens, mind you -- with American citizens. One never charges POWs -- consider the roaring international success North Vietnam achieved trying to call our fliers "blackest criminals!" -- one simply holds them, which is another point the antis want you confused about. Indeed your entire list shows how thoroughly they've taken Ibram in: to get us to lose the fight, they fly a banner woven of red tape alleging that we are obligated to extend citizen rights unto noncitizens. That there is no such obligation doesn't shut these liars up for a minute.

I have no idea where you're getting this "Christianity-state-religion" thing, as this isn't happening, and if you know anything about Christianity as decent people practice it, I'll be pretty surprised. Frothy leftwing websites will insist it is happening, but I know better than to credit that lot. Nazi websites insist they're just plain great folks too, you know.

You know, UG, if we were at WAR then calling them POWs and treating them as such would be a great thing to do.

We aren't at war. The war on terror is no more a war than the war on drugs. We don't go around rounding up Columbian coca famers and holding them indefinitely without charge, and torturing them, because that would be illegal and immoral. Charging the prisoners as terrorists or murderers, putting them on a trial by jury, and LEGALLY imprisoning them is completely acceptable. Holding them without charge, suspending Habeus Corpus, and torturing them, is not. It is a breach of EVERYONE's freedom when the government is given free reign to do this kind of thing. You may trust the government with your life - I don't. When the government is allowed to capture and torture as they please, it won't be long before they do it to their own citizens, too. All they have to do is mumble something about a terrorist threat, and they can do as they please. If the government decides the ACLU is a 'subversive terrorist threat' because they disagree with their pro-freedom views, they can just lock the whole lot of them up and throw away the key.

ANYBODY that calls themself 'pro-human' should oppose that. Giving the government more and more power can only lead to a repeat of the thirties and forties.

The Not War is preferable to Actual War, which is one of the alternatives, and would become the position of most of the public if another large-scale attack is pulled off inside the US.

Believing in slippery slope arguments as if they were logical and inevitable was what drove me into the Libertarian Party. Noticing that the world doesn't actually work that way is what pulled me out of it.

It is in fact not a breach of everyone's freedom when the government is given free reign to do this kind of thing.

For starters, although they restrict particular people's freedom, the police aren't the people who restrict freedom. They are the ones who maintain the conditions in which freedom can exist. And strangely, it's still mostly true even if the cops suck (although not if they are corrupt).

But more importantly, I can't for the life of me think of one actual freedom that I personally have lost if some gentleman overseas is water-boarded. I am still free to say what I want, assemble with others, shoot off a big ol cannon at the local range, kiss mah woman (or man!) in the public square, sell my computing services to the highest bidder, and heavens, I may even engage in dancing, if I so desire.

Also, "free reign" is actually worse than slippery slope: it's inventing the conditions that make your argument. The government doesn't have "free reign" to do anything, as there are huge checks and balances everywhere. Some of these checks are enumerated in the Constitution, but there are many more that you don't usually notice. Some that are extremely powerful yet you never even realize they are there.

And in the end, our government answers to a higher power: the voters. A big sector of the American government has just been de-elected and replaced.

Oh, and when you say giving the government more and more power is bad, do consider at least for a moment that the forces it is supposed to be fighting (in the GWoT) are religious fascists -- looking to set up the biggest, baddest, most torture-friendly and freedom-unfriendly governments on the planet.

And, try as they might, they would never be able to do that to us. But they can make us do it for them, it seems. "What we're doing isn't so bad - look! They're chopping off heads!"

All they have to do is keep ahead of us on the brutality scale, and we'll happily follow them.

Welp, keeping "ahead of us on the brutality scale" does mean they really suck bad enough that they should be defeated, defunded, destroyed and made pariahs of all men, and left talking to themselves in isolation cells and cardboard boxes in rainy alleys. Those that are still in shape to talk at all.

Be happy to defeat them, and don't agonize about how we have to be tough to win. It's bloody useless, and it will make you personally die a dog's death if they are ever lucky enough and powerful enough to catch you, HM.

Ibram, if you cannot learn from me, as evinced by every word you wrote in the first two paragraphs of post #455, then you are in effect extremely stupid. Which does not actually match your true intellectual powers. However, there is no one so very stupid as one determined beyond any bounds of sense to stay stupid just out of some childish dislike. Be very ashamed of yourself.

@ whom it may concern: free rein -- loosened control, not rulership at no charge.

Then please, oh wise and powerful UG, explain to me how we plan to wage a war on an idea, an ideology, a feeling?

And then, after we've happily followed them, we would deserve the same.

We shouldn't! We should just pack up all our shit and go home and wait in blissful ignorance until they kick the door in and stick a bomb up our asses. Then we can call the "more benevolent nations" to help us out. Oh nevermind, it'll be too late by then. Hell, lets just all convert now.

I doubt Chuck Hagel is converting, but here he is pandering to us surrender monkeys.

The fact is that we agreed on and signed the Geneva Convention... we are not complying.
Right now, we are just as much the bad guys as they are. In Iraq, we are just the bad guys. We started it and are continuing it, regardless of the few good PR things we do.
If we were invaded and occupied the way they are there would be an insurgency, I would be part of it and we would be doing what they are.
By international law, what they are doing is legal and should be. (I am not including the foreigners in Iraq just there to kill Americans, separate issue)

I support our troops, BTW, those who sent them there are international criminals and mass-murderers.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../freedom_3.jpg

Maybe the fact that they hate us is because we are over there killing them. For every civilian we kill over there, ten more are going to grow up hating us.

Do you know how the American Revolution started to gain steam? The British would hurt innocent civilians and kill their neighbors. So they would hate the British for what they did to them, even if their neighbor started it first.

You would blow up civilians in crowded markets just like the Iraqi insurgents do?
:eyebrow:

I don't believe that that is common to Iraqi insurgents. More illegal immigrants there to continue their campaign of terror (that they would not be doing if we had not invaded and occupied an non-threat nation)... I was talking more along the line of direct fighting and blowing-up their vehicles, gorilla warfare.
Yes, I would do that.
Targeting civilians, no, in no way.

It's not just Iraqis vs. Americans. It's also a power struggle between the different religious factions.

It would be like if the Russians invaded the US, and the Baptists took the opportunity to go into a Catholic neighborhood to blow up a Walmart there, and any Russian soldiers they might see in the area too.

We aren't over there intentionally killing civilians PH. Of course there are unintentional casualties, but they are not the enemy. Iraqi insurgents are being included as civilian deaths as well. Not all of them are over there wearing a bright sign that says "ENEMY" on it. Many Iraqi civilians are being killed by the enemy as well. Of course, thats our fault too.

It's a lose lose situation. I can't be certain but I would guess that Iraqis are more pissed at their poor living conditions than anything.

I think its a very different culture over there and the vast majority have absolutely no concept of what a democracy is or could be. They have no idea how wonderful life can be. All they've ever known is the same bullshit and fragmented society. Freedom is a word without a definition to them. Something they've never had nor can grasp.
Furthermore, those that oppose us wish to continue to exert their control upon the masses or gain more by any means - for their own gain/profit or power. Too bad we'll probably never be able to give the power back to the people - its a sin really.

We are not giving them freedom. We are running into their house, taking their possessions and peeing on them on the way out.

We have to slowly give them democracy or they will reject it. Also, I bet the USSR was saying almost the exact same thing as you 60 years ago.

Yep...that has always been the Bush=Hitler policy...according to the MSM.....Keith Oberman told me so...


Haaaaa...Haaaaaaa...

Really???? We have to GIVE them democracy???

I don't know what the point of your remark was since you said the exact same thing.

My point is that the people are not in power. maybe its semantics, but we can't force a democracy on them we can only give them the power to choose whatever form of Gov't they want to have. They certainly didn't choose what they have had.

I'm going to be recycling some of the stuff I used in this thread on an essay I have to write in class in a few days about Social Contracts and Current Events and stuff like that, so I'm just stating that I'm the writer of all that stuff and such so I can argue that I wasnt plagarising anyone but myself.

Don't you dare Ibram - Use us all as interviewees and then reference us at the end -
can you say "bonus points?" ;)

Nah, its an in-class essay on social contracts for a class that doesnt REALLY encourage out of the box thinking as much as it should.