Getting back to the memo-it HAD to be a joke, just because even Bush had to know someone would have said “Hey, wait a minute” for all of the reasons listed. He wasn’t and isn’t dumb enough to send troops into a friendly country. A country that we’ve fought and he could make a half-assed story about? Sure. But not blowing up Qatar. He knew and knows who Al-Jazeera is, and he would not have attacked them there. In Iraq I’d buy that he or someone else “unoffically” had them attacked. But not in another country for all the world to see. You have to give the current Powers That Be this much credit: they can plan things out. Not enough to help the soldiers in Iraq, but enough that they still smell like roses to a segment of the population.
Luc, according to Abe, that’s one of those logical fallacies. Just because fear and brutality rotted away your cousin’s humanity doesn’t mean shit. Your conclusion ought more properly to be that it might be genetic.
You may well have a point, since he and I are both Texans, hence we derive from a stagnant gene pool, one of the backwater swamps of the Caucasian sub-species: Ireland, Texas, Australia, all very similar in that regard.
Yeah, I noticed that, too. I was wondering why no one is wondering why no one has asked for any confirmation, or isn’t that needed anymore?
And, there are people who generalize, who paint with a very broad brush other people who they know nothing about, based on cherry-picked anecdotal evidence. They are, regrettably, all over the fucking place.
Nit-pick: Shouldn’t that be “consciences”? And, how, might I ask, would you know who has one and who doesn’t, or does that omniscience come with the attitude?
And let me clarify a point, lest I slander kinfolk. He was reporting what he saw happen to others. But there is nothing unique in his experience, it is regretably all too common.
People will do terrible things to people they hate, but even more terrible things to people they are afraid of.
Luckily, the mostly just insult those that they envy.
Yes, well, the problem with that is that the British Government not only controls the “confirmation,” but has threatened anyone who publishes it with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. See post #43. :mad:
So, how is spifflog’s undocumented presumption of parity any different from anyone else’s undocumented presumption of perfidiousness.
Yeah, usually, but not for Bush… remember, he’s a moron. The same moron who tricked all those Democrats into voting to authorize use of force in Iraq.
I don’t know from insults, Luc, but I think you should reconsider your position that there is nothing unique in any soldier’s experience. Frankly, that attitude helps make it easier to send hundreds of thousands of them off to war in the first place.
You mean British subjects actually obey such governmental edicts???
We seem to have reached some sort of communication impasse, here…
Apparently, you have no idea what I said…
…and I have no clue as to what you’re talking about.
Amusing. The guy who’s against mass killing and destruction has an “attitude”.
I know they have no moral code because they demonstrate none - simple as that.
You may be right… I thought you were generalizing, making blanket statements about all soldiers based on your cousin’s experiences in Nam, and then extrapolating further that combat rots the humanity of all who experience it. Excuse me if you weren’t. Shame on you if you were.
You know, that really is simple! I didn’t realize you were the Ultimate Observer, Discriminator and Judge Supreme of Conscience. But all joking aside, that moral code you don’t see, could it be that you just don’t recognize it?
Me: “…There are people who can endure fear and stress for interminable lengths of time and keep thier humanity and compassion intact…”
You: “…then extrapolating further that combat rots the humanity of all who experience it…”
And, again…
Me: “…There is much in their narratives unique…”
You: “… I think you should reconsider your position that there is nothing unique in any soldier’s experience…”
Contrast and compare. Its not potato, potahto. You’re not even close.
You know, there’s another possibility…
What if its a leak from Blair’s people, and all this huffing and puffing about ‘official secrets’ is just a smoke screen. That he’s trying to distance himself in the eyes of the Brits by letting it slip out how he kept George the Certifiable from doing something really stupid?
Keeping in mind a couple things: first, that the Bushiviks were not reticent in bandying about the notion that Al-Jazeera was little more than a propaganda arm for AlQ.
And that he has a bit of a history for rash statements. For instance, Woodwards book about him has him ducking his head into Condi Rice’s and saying “Fuck Saddam! We’re taking him out!”. Of course, this was right about the same time as he was telling us that he was not a war monger, that he was going to exhaust all opportunity to avoid war, etc., lie, and etc.
Recall his ultimatum to the Security Council. Remember? How he said he was going to demand the second resolution vote regardless, that he was calling their bluff, that he was going to have everybody’s cards on the table?
Remember how that went “Poof! Gone!” Proving that someone on staff can count to seventeen.
So he says it, Tony the Poodle says, “Oh, not the done thing, you know, George, launching uprovoked air raids on…yes, of course we are, but Iraq isn’t an ally, surely you do see that, don’t you?..”
And they both forget about it until Tony finds it useful…
Ah, I see what happened… time warp! Here you go:
You: “Because my gentle and sweet cousin Clay was in Viet Nam. He told me what he did, and saw, and I believe him. Because I know that the brutality and fear that war generates is corrosive to the human soul, and rots away the humanity of even the best of us. With the worst of us, it just takes less time.”
Me: …then extrapolating further that combat rots the humanity of all who experience it…
You: “And let me clarify a point, lest I slander kinfolk. He was reporting what he saw happen to others. But there is nothing unique in his experience, it is regretably all too common.”
Me … I think you should reconsider your position that there is nothing unique in any soldier’s experience…"
I know… it’s late. I guess my point is that some rise to the occasion, as hard as that may be for you to imagine. For every writer who decries the horror a soldier sees in war, there are others who proclaim the valor. We are each unique, as are our responses to our unique experiences, and it’s no more fair to compare your cousin to, say, Genghis Khan than it would be to compare Genghis Khan to all soldiers.
Sheesh… G’nite, Gracie.
PS: Is there really such a place as Nipples, Minnesota? Google slapped my face!