You know, as bad as going in was, I never figured things would look as bleak as they do now in Iraq, especially so soon. I thought it was very wrong to invade Iraq, especially with so much unfinished business in Afghanistan putting a strain on our resources. But, as of now, we’re approaching a Vietnam-like kill ratio: 1100 of ours, and about 100,000 Iraqis. Since they hate us more than ever, and are fighting harder than ever, despite those ghastly numbers, I’m forced to conclude a Vietnam-like outcome is a distinct possibility.
But, no, I didn’t think things would go so poorly, I just lamented useless loss of life on both sides, and a self-destructive distraction from more pressing security issues. Now it’s becoming rather clear the problem is far more serious, and getting progressively worse. We’re contemplating a full-on assault in Fallujah, which some predict will violently inflame the rest of the Sunni Triangle, as well as escalate the violence in the Shia-controlled regions of the country. Meanwhile, it’s still urban guerilla warfare in the “Green Zone” of Baghdad; there’s still a steady stream of body-bags from the “secured” region.
This is a good essay here. Unfortunately, it is about a year behind the times. This was the situation a year ago, and only now this is dawning on the smart, attentive awareness of this illustrious message board?
Honestly, I appreciate the precision and clarity of your analysis here, but duhhhhhhhh!!! You are just now figuring this out?
I want to congratulate you, but I also want to shake this board and scream WAKE UP!
See-ahm-bee, unless you clean up your act pronto you will not be long for this board. Direct personal insults are not allowed, and you really don’t seem to be adding much in terms of “debate”, either. If you must froth at the mouth, take it to the BBQ Pit forum.
Hey vanilla, this is no way to welcome a newbie. He was an intelligent passionate man. If you had just ONE thing intelligent to add instead of MALICIOUSLY following him thread to thread eggng him, I might have thought your comments funny. Instead of a good debate with an intelligent man, we have you. Ready with a quick inappropriate snide comment to amuse the less caring and cruel children of the board.
I think it was inappropriate to take just one man out here…or woman as the case may be.
I give him credit. At least he didn’t back down like I did when I first came here. Don’t bother responding. I don’t care what you have to say.
For clarities sake, I suspect that this should’ve been ‘cruel and less caring.’ I should know, I’m one of them.
If cmb had been less derisive of people he’d never met, he may’ve received a less derisisve response from people he’d never met. Vanilla’s comments, snide, irreverent and irrelevant as they were, were nothing.
CMB brought it on himself. Brittle personalities like that draw this sort of thing upon themselves through their self-absorbed, castigating behavior.
I would have liked to’ve given him credit for reasonably stating his arguments.
I’d prefer that there be more members than fewer. I’m all for anybody participating.
However, this is not a a free-for-all. There’re certain rules and expectations. CMB could not abide by the rules, and was thus not allowed the time to measure up to the expectations (which he may or may not have done).
I expect that CMB may have been one of my kindred spirits politically- a congenital conservative with an advanced anti-gubmint disposition. (Granted, if he was, he was a poor country relation without many manners.)
There need to be more of us expressing our view point.
It’s not that hard to abide by the rules of GD.Whenever you want to call someone names, etc. you just do it aloud while you’re typing something else.
As one of the cruel and less caring children to on of the others, “Lalalalalalal. I can’t hear you.”
Please don’t dismiss them as nothing. What you didn’t see possibly was that vanilla’s response to CMB’s very first post was so totally rude and she kept it up. Even to the point of following him in here.
I actually agree he should have been banned. My point is that I feel vanilla should be punished as well. From what I see, 90% of her oh so many posts are rude comments exactly like these. I do not think that because she has been here so long that she couldn’t be considered a troll as well.
Is it rational or righteous to name-call all non-conservatives as “socialists”? Economics is a complex set of issues, and the goal should be to devise a system which takes all important considerations into account. Depending on how you define it, socialism is either a vital component of a healthy and just society that only a radical far-right fringe woul do away with, or something that only a radical left-wing fringe is guilty of. Either way, economic moderates–who most likely comprise the majority of American–are not being acknowledged by conservatives because they are not so readly demonizable (is that a word?).
Brain Glutton:
Actually, we could go so far as to portray the pro-life position as more socialist and the pro-choice position as more capitalist. Pro-lifers would rather society as a whole take responsibility for unwanted children than for people not to have them. And they have a “social engineering” agenda that’s centered on banning abortion. The pro-choice position would allow people to include laissez faire economic considerations in their reproductive descisionmaking and has the net effect of reducing demand for social services, thus permitting lower taxes.
What makes you think you could win? Most Americans, rightly or wrongly, support the government. And of the small minority who seriously oppose it, there are at least as many right-wing racist gun-nut militiamen as left-wing radical class warriors. Hard to picture the two groups joining forces; they’d be fighting each other at the same time they were fighting the government. Not a formula for victory.
Lets have a cite please.
Not even half of my posts are rude.Not even 20%.
Please go to the pit and prove it if you imagine you are correct.
But you can’t.
Why both, of course. Society is multi-layered, with some of the issues forming a neat dichotomy, others a spectrum, and others a more complex set of problems. On one level, society is divided between conservatives and non-conservatives. Among non-conservatives, there is a great deal of dissention and diversity, with leftists and moderates disagreeing (to greatly oversimplify). But it’s in conservatives interests to portray all non-conservatives as leftists so they’ll appear reasonable by comparison.
True. With regard to cultural and religious issues, there’s a hard core of about a third or less of the population who are definitely with Pat Robertson, Roy Moore, etc. And they, together the business-interest conservatives, form George Bush’s base. (There’s also the foreign-policy neocons, but that’s an intellectual-elite movement with no mass base.) The corporate interests have pulled off a really diabolical feat, in getting the religious conservatives – most of whom are middle-class or working-class – to side with the Pubs for moral reasons, and against their own economic interests.
Well, all the pundits appear to agree now, this election was about the cultural war. Values, more than economic or even security issues, were what mainly motivated the red-stated voters.
Some people are saying this means the left has to “reach out” to the cultural conservatives, to “co-opt” them. I take a different lesson. Up to now the culture war has been a war with only one side. Cultural liberals, rationalists, atheists, secular humanists, modernists of all kinds, have to stop pretending the culture war doesn’t exist and start fighting it. And we have to fight fire with fire. We have to be just as nasty, arrogant, insulting and judgmental about Pat Buchanan, Roy Moore, et al., as they are about us. We have to attack their “family values” head-on! Never pass up a chance to grab a fundie by the lapels and scream in his face! Literally and metaphorically. Tell them why they’re wrong! Tell them over and over and over and louder and louder and louder! Repetition is the essence of propaganda!
Nor one for good housekeeping, either. I doubt that the children would be able to play nice without pulling hair, kicking shins, and shooting one another.
*Not all gun-nut militiamen are right-wing, or racist. Such broad, unwarranted generalizations are harmfull to the true gun-nut militiamen, who need no creed nor racial affiliation as an excuse to bring down the “Fedral Gub’mint,” and shoot you (your neighbor, heck, just about anybody) as an “Inimy of Freedum.”
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No. The “moral values” issue was overblown. My mother participated in that survey; she said that none of the choices she was given were good choices; she just picked “moral values”. Also, Christians did not turn out more than anyone else did.
