violence problem? ya think?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

A wagged dog can bite around more than one hundred eighty degrees of arc.

Should I start a new thread of wholly new and original proverbs?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I for one accept that we are at war, for I do not accept the specious argument that we need to declare a war to be fighting one: history and the Supreme Court both render the verdict that it is not so. The United States has been in about a hundred and fifty armed conflicts/shootouts, and has formally declared a state of war in but five of them. Too, the War Powers Act pretty much codifies the fighting of wars without Congressional declaration.

Democracy's foes are banking on democracies' not lasting out a protracted conflict. I say we must render this strategy sterile, and be better at protracted conflict from the very beginning than democracy's foes are. An enemy of democracy is an enemy of all mankind, wealth and the good life wealth provides, Mom, apple pie with cinnamon, and so forth, no? Why shouldn't mankind therefore stamp these foes out? And should we even care how long it takes or how much stamping we do? That's only a matter of logistics -- bringing up enough bullets to parcel out among the screwballs that insist upon martyrdom.

If all of Islam's Idiots fell down dead this afternoon, what opportunities does this open up for the sensible, moderate Muslims?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Glatt: they won't like Bush's successor, either; I'd bank on it.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Glatt: they won't like Bush's successor, either; I'd bank on it.

Yeah, we've pretty much screwed the pooch when it comes to the Middle East. I bet the US could elect Bin Laden as president, and the Muslim world STILL wouldn't like us very much.

[Ibby]

Yeah, you FOR ONE do.

[Ibby]

Hey, there's an idea, why didnt I think of that?

[mrnoodle]

OH YEAH! I forgot about the Clinton body count. Good find.

But it's still not worse.

(and I still think it's probably true -- if Hillary wins the White House, watch the count go up)

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

But it's still not worse.

Far worse.

(and I still think it's probably true -- if Hillary wins the White House, watch the count go up)

So you're hardly speaking from the moral high ground, here.

[mrnoodle]

How does Republicans yelling "murder" > Democrats yelling "murder"?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

How does Republicans yelling "murder" > Democrats yelling "murder"?

Who is Bush supposed to have murdered?

And I'm not talking about bad policies that resulted in deaths; both sides will call those rhetorical "murders". I think plenty of people laid Blackhawk Down and Waco directly at Clinton's feet. It's not as many "murders" as Bush's toll, but you can't claim the dearth of death on Clinton's watch as a point for Republicans.

But are there any actual murders being blamed on Bush?

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Who is Bush supposed to have murdered?
...
But are there any actual murders being blamed on Bush?

Well, there's this guy.

According to the two-page accident report, Laura Welch was driving her Chevrolet sedan on a clear night shortly after 8 p.m. on Nov. 6, 1963, when she drove into an intersection and struck a Corvair sedan driven by 17-year-old Michael Douglas.

Although previous news accounts have reported Douglas was thrown from the car and broke his neck, those details were not in the report.

The speed of Laura Bush's car was illegible on the report. The speed limit for the road was 55.

Oh, you meant George.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Well, there's this guy.



Oh, you meant George.

She did say in March, when asked at a campaign stop about the crash, ''I know this as an adult, and even more as a parent, it was crushing ... for the family involved and for me as well.''

How about for the guy in the other car?

I've always suspected GWB had his own Chappaquiddick in his past, and it's possible that he still does. IMO, noone who went around that impaired and with that much of a sense of entitlement could possibly have been safe on the road. Maybe he got lucky, or maybe to this day a few thousand goes out each month to the family of some kid in Texas.

Basically, stuff like this always comes out after a president leaves office.

[DanaC]

Do you not beleive that jihadists have violent capability? If not, perhaps you should explain why to the people of Manhattan, the Pentagon, London, Madrid, Casablanca, Mumbai, Bali, Jakarta and Israel.
__________________

I believe Americans (and the Uk) have violent capabilities. Can anybody say 600,000 dead iraqis?

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I believe Americans (and the Uk) have violent capabilities. Can anybody say 600,000 dead iraqis?

Yeah, I heard that. Saddam killed 300,000, and Bush's actions have killed twice that. He should be doubly proud.[/sarcasm]

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Yeah, I heard that. Saddam killed 300,000, and Bush's actions have killed twice that. He should be doubly proud.[/sarcasm]

The 600,000 figure isn't trustworthy, coming as it does from a source that is anti-American-foreign-policy-success first and carefully accurate a distant second. The methodology used to make this estimate is open to considerable question to put it mildly. The actual figure may be a twelfth that -- circa 50,000, and how much of that Iraqi-on-Iraqi in this low-grade civil war?

And still the real brawling stays in the Sunni provinces, after years of troublemaking. Seems it can't spread to any effect, which gives me hope for a democratic and wise and humane future for Iraq.