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Friday, August 4, 2006

Morning News

Posted by on August 4 at 8:38 AM

Civil War in Iraq: Getting closer.

Israel & Lebanon: More deaths, more threats, more bombs.

The Ahmadinejad Solution: Take a wild guess.

36 Hours In: “Peachy” Seattle.

Estate Tax Repeal: Defeated in the Senate (with Cantwell’s help).

Lieberman: “Facing a likely defeat.”

Neocons: On to the next war.

Climate Porn: Slammed in the UK.

Pat Robertson: Now a global warming believer.


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"Civil War in Iraq: Getting closer."
You mean it hasn't started yet?

I still can't believe the moronic sheep that follow people like, Pat Robertson. I have recently found that I, as an atheist, am in the top 90% of people in the US with knowledge of events in the "Bible." What gets me the absolute most is this... They are so certain that war in the Middle East means the end of times os near. However it says very clearly in there religious book, "1 Thessalonians 5," "5:2" "For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." (from the King James Bible)
So how the fuck do they get off thinking that this is the end of the world? When their very own holy book says that they will never have a clue???

there=their bad grammar on my part

Any thoughts on this matter?

That's a very *precious* article about Seattle in the NYT. :-p

It is now 635AM. How the hell did you post this 2 hours from now and still make me able to see it?

Evangelicals these days (mainly those who are also involved in politics) truly know nothing about the real teachings of the bible. A very good friend of mine was in a religious family when growing up and had to study the bible; he becomes infuriated by the pro-war Evangelicals. Jesus was in no way ever pro-war.

The article about the neo-cons next war is sickening. I will personally attend any war protests this time around. Perhaps my efforts will be for naught; however, I must appease my conscience and write to my (lame-as-they-are) democratic leaders, etc. 2008 is too long away for me to sit on my hands.

Someday, perhaps, the word "neo-con" will bring chills similar to the words "nazi germany."

Maybe I'll get an Arab penpal.

Audrey: Someday, perhaps, the word "neo-con" will bring chills similar to the words "nazi germany."

Audrey dear, I agree with you that the neocons are a bunch of delusional scumbags. But before you start comparing them to Nazis, try a little Google search of "Godwin's law." I think you're violating it.

Anyway, if you're going to compare anyone to Nazis, I think a prerequisite should be a desire to commit genocide. Perhaps if you took a look at another of Eli's links, you would see who really wants to commit genocide:

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday the solution to the Middle East crisis is to destroy Israel.

Anyway, if you're going to compare anyone to Nazis, I think a prerequisite should be a desire to commit genocide.


Cressona, while I agree that invoking Nazis is tiresome and overused and that Godwin's Law rules too much web commentary, Audrey might not be to far off base. Check out Josh Marshall in response to Yglesias:


"
Yglesias adds some good critical analysis to J-Pod's new pro-genocide positon on running the Middle East: brutal crackdown and massacres can be effective in the context of an on-going process of tyrannical repression and brutal dictatorship. Less so if you so don't want to run a police state permanently, which probably undermines the argument in favor of indiscriminate mass-killing as a means of democratization and liberalization.

And yes, the collapse of the neocon vision of forcible democratization does seem to glide rather effortlessly into an embrace of genocide and mass slaughter.

So mass slaughter in the service of democratization to mass slaughter in the service of mass slaughter, or what I guess we could call the transition from incidental or pragmatic genocide to a more principled genocide.
"

Another news link for today, although it's subscription-only. I'm relieved to see that my favorite New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has finally realized what Congressman John Murtha from Pennsylvania realized long ago: it's time to get the fuck out of Iraq.

Take a look at the most dire issues facing the world today:

  • Global warming.
  • Nuclear proliferation.
  • Islamic terrorism and war in the Middle East.
  • Global competition for oil.

Notice how they're all related to each other. They all go back to our (America's and the world's) addiction to oil. Instead of babysitting terrorism by wasting American lives and money in Iraq, we should be fighting terrorism by reducing our dependence on oil and providing the kind of global leadership -- both carrots and sticks -- that could drag China and India along.

Friedman in today's Times:

If Iraq opts for all-out civil war, its two million barrels a day will be off the market and oil could go above $100 a barrel. (That would, however, spur more investment in alternative fuels that could one day make us independent of this volatile region.)

Ah, Friedman. Always a few years behind the curve.

Gabriel: Audrey might not be to far off base.

Okay, grammatical error aside, let me see if I have this whole complicated Hegelian dialectic down here. When a Sunni insurgent sets a roadside bomb or a a suicidal Sunni terrorist rams a car loaded with explosives into a Shi'ite wedding or Shi'ites go on revenge killing sprees, they're really not acting of their own free will; they are poor innocents being forced into their actions as if Wolfowitz and Perle literally had a gun to their heads. It's amazing how patronizing we've become about Muslims.

I guess there should be a corollary to Godwin's law: the more you try to defend and justify a Nazi comparison, the more foolish you end up looking. Thanks for the unwitting defense of Godwin's law, Gabe.

Anyway, I'm happy to blame the neocons for continued loss of Iraqi lives, just so we get the hell out so there's no continued loss of American lives.

More Gabe: Ah, Friedman. Always a few years behind the curve.

Yeah, believe it or not, Tom Friedman isn't right about everything. But eventually, we're going to find out either the hard way or the very, very, very hard way how far ahead of the curve Friedman is about taking real steps to cure our addiction to oil.

P.S. One way I know Friedman makes sense is that the liberal establishment apparently hates him just as much as the conservative estalishment does.

It is sad that it took so long for a supposed expert to figure this out. I'm a dipshit, and I predicted this in 2003.

Cressona, to bring you back on topic a bit - did you read the Josh Marshall post, the Yglesias post and the original John Podhoretz NYPost article to which they referred? I didn't say that neocons were Nazis. I was responding to the fact that you said such a comparison required that the party in question at least advocated genocide. In Podhoretz's article, he said that we might be losing in Iraq because we are not genocidal enough and that our moral superiority puts us at a strategical disadvantage. Maybe if we had been willing to kill all Sunnis of a certain age, we would've achieved success. Of course, he phrases these all as questions in order to anticipate and deflect criticism.

I don't know what you were going off about regarding patronizing Muslims. I was talking about a prominent neocon seeming to advocate genocide.

Yeah, believe it or not, Tom Friedman isn't right about everything.

Don't say that about the Moustache of Understanding!

And do you really think that Friedman is the lone wise voice in the wilderness, pointing out our addiction to oil? Like I said, he's behind the curve again.

P.S. One way I know Friedman makes sense is that the liberal establishment apparently hates him just as much as the conservative estalishment does.

I hear that logic a lot, and it's flawed.

Mike in Mo: It is sad that it took so long for a supposed expert to figure this out. I'm a dipshit, and I predicted this in 2003.

I totally agree.

Y'know what, Murtha himself is not ashamed to admit he was wrong to vote for the war. No Kerry-esque "I was for it but I was against it." And hitting closer to home, Dan Savage too had to admit he was wrong, although both he and Murtha were a lot quicker than Friedman.

The sad thing is, just imagine if we'd taken the $300 billion the war has cost so far and spent it on mass transit and alternative energy. That actually would have done something to fight terrorism, not to mention global warming and high gas prices.

I guess I was looking for an instance where a government decided to take over at least a major part of the world, with its allies (similar to the US and Israel for a "new middle east"). History eventually does not look favorably upon extremists which is what the neo-cons are, but right now they still have ardent supporters amongst regular people. But that will change - how will they be categorized in text books 30 years from now? I think it is very possible that the term "neo-con" will conjure the idea of an oppressive, anti-arab (racist) regime. Not exactly like the Nazis - granted. and the Nazi comparisons are overused - granted, very much so. But my point was really that someday no one will even want to admit that they were once a supporter of our current regime.

Kind of like Vietnam - does anyone now think that war was a good idea, or that it should have gone on as long as it did? Or the fervent anti-communist rhetoric and actions of McCarthy - that was embraced for a time, but now those times are viewed as simply wrong.

That will happen to "neo-cons" and the term itself will be synonomous with negative impact/bad ideas/mistakes.

Maybe that is really obvious or too simple, but i like to think about it while we're currently mired in this. This administration's legacy will be that the new millenium will be always looked upon as a dark time, largely because of their quest for a "new Middle East.

Yet more Gabe: And do you really think that Friedman is the lone wise voice in the wilderness, pointing out our addiction to oil? Like I said, he's behind the curve again.

There are an awful lot of folks paying lip service to curing "our addiction to oil:" George W. Bush, Darcy Burner, the list goes on and on and on. Friedman is one of the few prominent voices calling for a European-level gas tax. No, he's not running for office, but as Friedman has observed, not a single member of Congress has had the guts to advocate for a gas tax -- if only to get the discussion started.

Yes, I believe that the answer to high gas prices is high gas prices -- not to mention part of the answer to global warming and Islamic terrorism.

P.S. Gabe, I'm surprised to see you're still defending that inane Nazi comparison. I didn't know you valued your intellectual honor so dearly.

Response to Audrey's last post: thanks for the clarification. Actually, I agree, with one clarification: the neocons' stupidity doesn't make Iran and its wholly owned subsidiary Hezbollah any less of a threat.

P.S. Gabe, I'm surprised to see you're still defending that inane Nazi comparison. I didn't know you valued your intellectual honor so dearly.

And I'm surprised to see you continue to mischaracterize my position while ignoring the actual point I made.

Oh, and Cressona...do you understand why Friedman being disliked by members of both the liberal and conservative establishments does not necessarily make him 'right'? For example, lots of Democrats and Republicans disliked Pol Pot. He must've been an alright guy?

I'm with Cressona 100% on this. Friedman is not always right, but he's right on oil -- not just for the facile reason that he, like a lot of people, pays lip service to the need to find alternatives to oil, but because he's actually worked through a lot of the complex issues on the subject. And he's taking a couple of the right stands even though they are unpopular: a higher gas tax and a "Manhattan project" level of scientific investment. Most people just stop at "duh, use less, dunno how" which isn't an argument.

He's unpopular because he takes a nuanced position on Israel. His critics on the right think he's too hard, his critics on the left think he's too soft. Lefties too often automatically go with the Palestinians and the Iranians, but they don't seem to grasp what the issues are there.

I think Friedman is kind of dumb. But he works hard at his job, and I think that makes him more valuable in the long run than much smarter, much more glib commentators, who don't really seem to be interested in understanding, only in confirming their pre-set beliefs. Friedman's better at changing his mind.

Fnarf,
I don't take issue with Friedman's position on oil, and I applaud someone that sticks to unpopular positions like his if they make sense. I was making more of a high-level jab at him. I agree with your comment about him seeming dumb. And cliched. And he too often gives the administration the benefit of the doubt on Iraq (another six months...). I don't think he is always spectacularly misguided or anything.

To me it all comes down to one thing:

Why are we spending MY and other Middle Class Americans tax dollars propping up a Muslim Shiite Theocracy in Iraq?

Well?

Every dollar we spend in Iraq makes us that much weaker.

Israel will win the war with Lebanon. The terrorists and their children are being killed to make America safer. Keep up the great reporting on this issue. The conventional Seattle wisdom of pacifism would get us all killed. We need war to bring us peace.

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