The ITT List
Tuesday May 17, 2005 10:11 am
“You Know It Makes Sense”
The unstoppable Terry Jones of Monty Python fame lets Blair/Bush have it in his Gaurdian editorial today. Jones comments on the recent report that rates of malnutrition for Iraqi children have doubled since the U.S.-led invasion. Jones writes of George W. Bush's plan to help the children of Iraq:
(The viewpoint Terry Jones wrote on homeland security in In These Times last summer is still apt.)
[H]e hit on the idea of bombing them instead [of imposing sanctions]. And not just bombing, but capturing and torturing their fathers, humiliating their mothers, shooting at them from road blocks - but none of it seems to do any good. Iraqi children simply refuse to be better nourished, healthier and less inclined to die. It is truly baffling.
And this is why we at the department are appealing to you - the general public - for ideas. If you can think of any other military techniques that we have so far failed to apply to the children of Iraq, please let us know as a matter of urgency. We assure you that, under our present leadership, there is no limit to the amount of money we are prepared to invest in a military solution to the problems of Iraqi children.
(The viewpoint Terry Jones wrote on homeland security in In These Times last summer is still apt.)
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Lets see . . . IMPEACH THE ASSHOLE. How’s that?
There was a message above mine, which was apparently deletd, that said someone should post to this thread. That should explain my curt post.
For more good reading of good ole British wit, go to this link to read the transcript of George Galloway handing Norm “Human Douchebag” Coleman his own small, shriveled nuts, and then kicking him really hard right where they used to be…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1616578_1,00.html
I wondered how long it would take for Coleman to get “HIS”.
He deserves the Galloway treatment and a few others who smugly rule in DC.
When their moms and dads were being tortured by Saddam, they were much happier and well fed. And when they got to go to the stadium to watch their neighbors’ hands get cut off for thought-crimes, that was really fun. Too bad the Americans’ had to stop all that.
“And when they got to go to the stadium to watch their neighbors??? hands get cut off for thought-crimes, that was really fun. Too bad the Americans??? had to stop all that.”
Perhaps you mean too bad the Americans (and their allies - sic) are torturing and murdering innocents in the name of freedom and liberty. Sadam may have been a monster, but his crimes against humanity may become second rate compared to what America is achieving under Bush.
“For more good reading of good ole British wit, go to this link to read the transcript of George Galloway handing Norm ???Human Douchebag??? Coleman his own small, shriveled nuts, and then kicking him really hard right where they used to be?? “
It was a beautiful thing.
Truth and Freedom, what planet are you on? Saddam purposefully tortured millions, had women raped in front of their fathers, husbands, and sons to make a point, used poison gas on civilians as well as the Iranian people, and murdered millions of his own citizens - yet his crimes pale compared to George Bush?!
Pal, while American Soldiers at Abu Ghraib humiliated a bunch of guys, mocked them, posed them, and threatened them - its considered a scandal, here, and people are getting prison time for it. In Saddam’s Iraq the tortured involved the removal of pieces of your flesh, usually resulted in painful death, and Saddam encouraged it.
other rick-
Reading skills optional? It’s Truth IS Freedom, and they said Saddam’s crimes against humanity MAY become 2nd rate to Chimp Boy’s. Chimp Boy is still going-it could get worse-hard to imagine, yes, but possible.
Hey Rick,
Prisoners have been murdered at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. And the orders came from W. Bush. And, in addition to the political assassinations ordered by Daddy Bush, W. Bush has squandered the lives of over 1,600 US soldiers, 100,000 Iraqi’s, and $300,000,000,000 in taxpayer money, so that he and his family could make money taking kickbacks in exchange for no bid contracts in Iraq.
What planet are you on, Rick?
Matt H.
Ad hominem is a sign of weakness, pal. Way to not address anything. Move along, troll.
And Lefty, I would love to see the evidence that W. personally ordered the killing of detainees. Heck, even Common Dreams is still using the term “alleged” murder.
Again, I want to understand how anyone, regardless of their political leanings, could even dream that American forces are even close to the level of Saddam’s Iraq. Its a sick, twisted fantsy to legitimize a hatred of the Right. I’ve been to the Middle East and talked to Irawis in Saudi long before the war and listened to them talk of entire families vanishing, people driven mad by what they were forced to witness, and wholesale slaughter of villages because of their ethnicity or religion.
These weren’t activists, these were shopkeepers and truck drivers.
Or talking to Iranian POWs from the Iran-Iraq War. Or foreign workers who had left. Irawi POWs from Desert Storm who didn’t want to go back.
I hope everyone involved in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib rots in jail for decades. But their actions do not make the American and Allied forces ‘the same as’ the Republican Guard nor Bush ‘just like’ Saddam.
The real point is that the bush administration has been and is still developing a system in which, illegal invasions, torture, murder and a complete absence of legal rights for detainees from the so-called “war on terror” is encouraged by policies of people who consider themselves above tha law. Our crimes need not be on the level of Saddam’s for it to be fascism. Then when again when one considers how many innocent civilians we’ve already killed (unintended or not they are just as dead) and how many are tortured, raped and murdered in the American Gulag it seems quite likely that Bush will outdo Saddam before it’s over with. Bush and his war criminal cabinet are fascists and for such people repression is just part of the price for maintaining order. This price doesn’t matter to them because they are not the ones having to pay it.
So the new definition of ad hominem is pointing out somebody else’s straw man argument? Whatever pal…
Matt H
Reading skills optional, Chimp Boy?
Louis Rue,
Here’s a hint on how to tell the difference between a government you don’t like and an actual fascist state; George W. Bush’s America - millions of pictures of American citizens protesting in the streets against him. Hitler’s Germany - no pictures of people protesting in the streets against him.
See, in a police state the internet would be closely monitored and restricted, people making comments like yours would be noted and, eventually, visited by guys a lot like Saddam’s thugs, and if you were lucky no one else in your family would join you. Street protests would be broken up with machine guns, no one in the American media would *dare* report abuse at prison camps, and web sites like the one we are all using would be illegal.
I’ve been to countries with near-fascist and fascist regimes in power and I find it loathsome that someone sitting in their barcalounger who can read any newspapaer in the world, travel wherever they want, and has no worries that their children will be disappeared by the police whines that the US is a theoconfascistpolicestate.
Get a grip, people.
Rick Stump,
The central feature of a fascist state is a virtually unmitigated alliance between big business, industry and the government. If you don’t believe we have such a situation here then you haven’t been paying attention. Furthermore, after years of sponsoring the most repressive regimes ever on the face of the earth including Sadam Hussien’s Iraq don’t you think fascism would come back and start biting us in the ass at home. You probably don’t berlieve we have political prisoners in this country but your beliefs do not change the reality of it. I don’t even see how anyone could try to make the point of our relative freedom of expression here by noting that some dissent and protest is still tolerated. Such freedom has been increasingly infringed upon ever since W got in office the first time. I suppose you would prefer to wait until we are all living in a full-fledged totalitarian state before getting concerned about civil lioberties/human rights abuses here and abroud. Empire and Republic are incompatible. Learn some history
One more thing. Is Rick Stump a troll or what? Besides, kissing the government’s ass is what’s truly loathsome, especially when it’s becoming more repressive.
Again, I am not saying America is Eden. I’m just saying that comparing the U.S. Government to a fascist state is self-serving and ignorant.
Louis, you are right - any time there is a tight relationship between corporate power, the government, and police there is a *danger of* fascism. This is akin to saying, however, that national controls on corporations *are* communism. A staunch John Bircher or Libertarian would tell you that the EPA, FDA, and CDC are evidence that America is well on its way to being a communist state and only (group X) can save us!
My point is that while both tendencies (fascism and communism) exist in America (or any nation), that to call Bush/the US government “the same as” Saddam/The Baathists is a terrible injustice because it belittles the sufferings of the Irawis under Saddam. Do you really think you have it as bad as an Iraqi in Basra in 1998? If you do, you need help.
Louis,
BTW, as far as “relative” freedoms, here’s a test. Go to your local hardware store and buy a rifle, then go to the library/coffeeshop/university and pickup a copy of Workers World News, then drop by your local union hall and join the Wobblies. Then head to whichever local freeway or school area has a near-perpetual anti-war protest and picket for an hour.
Tired from all that excitement, drive to the local embassy for (random pick) Ireland and apply for citizenship and a travel visa. Then transfer all of your money into Euros and deposit them in an off-shore account. Finally, traipse on down to the local art house and catch Michael Moore’s latest, then write a letter to the editor about how George W. is evil and make a large donation to the Communist Party/Constitution Party/Green Party/whoever. Book a flight to Brazil, and get some sleep.
See, in a fascist state *none* of that would be possible. Here you have a waiting period for the gun (well, except in Massachusetts, where it better be a rifle) and you need to pay taxes on interest from that off-shore account. The country at the other end might demand a passport, but that’s international law.
Rick, stop making sense. Around here, that is called “being a troll”.
Now back to business as usual. The US is the worst country on the planet. GW is Hitler reincarnated. Christianity is evil. Blah blah blah. :)
Rick, you never addressed the point of our supporting the worst repressive governments on the planet(uncluding Sadam and his totalitarian Baathist stste) and the increasing threat to civil liberties. What I find most hypocritical about the current administration is how they wrap themselves in the flag and constantly talk about spreading freedom in the middle east in particular. The fact that the present government in Iraq hasn’t gotten as bad as Sadaam’s means little because they’ve already started death squads with CIA and special forces help so its probably just a matter of time. It is widely known in the middle east at least that we helped to set up a coup in Iran in the 50s to overthwow the democractically elected government of Mosedeq just as we did all we could to destroy the elected governments of Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, the list goes on. And Mary my point has nothing to do with American people, it has to do with the nature of power. The American government is now so uncontestibly powerful that it further corrupts those who control it to an extent hitherto unknown for the simple reason that no government has ever had this degree of global domination. However, people all over the world during the course of the twentieth century have been rejecting colonialism at all costs. Our occupation of Iraq is all about neocolonialism. The only freedom that W is interested in bringing to Iraq is the freedom for our corporations to exploit. If anyone doubts this please explain why when the CPA existed they did all they could to privatize the industry (especially oil) of Iraq, which is by the way, yet another violation of international law. I think pointing out how much worse Saddam was is pointless because you know as well as I do that the invasion/occupation has never been about liberating the Iraqi people. Remember the non-existant WMD and nonexistant ties to al-Qaida and 9-11. It’s always been about the oil and setting up a laissez-faire
system where profits could be maximized at the expense of the working class. By the way Mary, I have nothing against Christians either. It does baffle me, however, how the frothing at the mouth reactionaries can call themeselves Christians while ignoring and even opposing almost everything the master taught. Sorry about the troll comment Rick.
So you think the US has supported the most repressive satellite governments? Apparantly you forgot Soviet-controlled Poland, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, East Germany, etc., etc. Or the long-suuported-by-China-until-too-crazy North Korea.
Again, I’m not saying that US support of dictators was good, I’m saying that you are exaggerating and it undermines both your point and reduces the suffering of others.
And I know a lot more about Operation Ajax than you might think, actually.
Louis,
I wasn’t offended and I thank you for the apology.
These governments were no worse than the sha of iran’s government and certainly no worse than the El Salvadoran government of the 1980s, in fact the shah and the Salvadorans with their U.S. trained and supported death squads were demonstrably worse. We really have supported the worst governments since Hitler, and when one considers Hiroshima and Nagasaki along with the invasions of Vietnam, Iraq, our colonial adventures in the Philipines etc. there really cant be many nations that have outdone us in war crimes. The only reason Bush and Tony blair will never occupy a cell block in the Hague is that they are simply too powerfull to be adjuticated. Justice is only for the Victors.
Louis,
Your ignorance is showing. Even El Salvador *pales* in comparison to the Warsaw Pact nations. More importantly, it dodges a key issue. While the Soviet Union’s proxies were crushing their own people, Russians were ignorant and/or silent. Americans were writing articles, books, TV shows, movies, etc.; protesting in the streets, boycotting businesses and grilling politicians.
That is the difference between totalitarian and free. Our government makes mistakes, even horrible ones. But we can talk about it and change things.
“Ad hominem is a sign of weakness, pal.”
posted by Rick Stump on 5-24-05 at 7:24 AM
“Your ignorance is showing.”
posted by Rick Stump on 5-25-05 at 8:51 AM
Hey Rick, your hypocrisy is showing.
That’s right Matt. Rick’s hypocracy is showing. I don’t know how anyone can pretend that El Salvador in the eighties and Iran under the Shah was any better than the Warsaw pact nations were. Anyone who isn’t quite ignorant of actual fact-based history knows that these governments were as totalitarian as any that have ever existed. What else can you call it when all of the political opposition is abducted, tortured and murdered? I don’t know how Rick can keep calling me ignorant and then proceed to demonstarte his own true ignorance. Here’s a nice little statistic for Rick to chew on. The two nations in our hemisphere that the U.S. has intervened in the most militarily are Haiti
and Nicaragua. Guess which are the two poorest nations in the hemisphere? That’s right, Haiti and Nicaragua. if anyone thinks this mere coincidence or that we intervened because of their poverty then they are demonstarating a profound ignorance of not only our foriegn policy but of the history of the foriegn policy of all nations. Rick seems to be promoting the American exceptionalism delusion that allows people to believe that our intervention in Iraq, for example, is now (revisionist history prevailing) to help the Iraqis. If people would wake up and realize that most of our politicians are in the hands of the coorporations and that coorporations are inherently dictatorial instutions, thay would perhaps come to understand how governments every bit as totalitarian as anything that so-called socialism has ever produced, but without any of the benefits like free medical care education, and garunteed employment come to be. This is not to deny the politically repressive nature of the old Soviet Union (especially under Stalin)but since Stalin, Hitler, and Mussilini, the very worst societies (at least for anyone not part of the oligarchy) have developed with the help of American intervention in places like Chile under Pinochet, which combined totalitarian
repression with unbridled economic oppression of the people. Our foriegn policy (like that of all nations throughout the capitalist period at least) is about maximizing American business interests, and the cost to the people of the nations affected (including our own) does not figure into the costs because those who wage the wars (and get others to actually fight them)profit from them while getting us to pay for them with our taxes. Don’t forget that Bush I is on the board of the Carlyle group which included arms manufacturing firms. But now some corporate lapdog will feel compelled to respond to my understanding of how the system really works by accusing me of being ignorant. I suppose in these Orwellian times, knowledge is ignorance, war is peace, and slavery is freedom.
All of this argument over whether Iran or El Salvador were worse than Iraq sort of misses the point doesn’t it??? There are very few reasonable people who would argue that Saddam was a nice guy or dispute that the world is a far better place without tyrants and dictators like him. The problem is that the Bush regime systematically lied and dissembled on a grand scale in order to inflame patriotic Americans into supporting their neoconservative crusade, and that they then proceeded to bungle both the war and the subsequent occupation so completely that it almost defies belief. I believe that claiming that Iraqis are better off with us in charge than with Saddam qualifies as,at the very best, damning with faint praise.
Well said Kelly, but as far as Bush and his thugs are concerned it will be considered bungled only if it proves to continue to impossible to exploit that nation as they had wanted too. I want to emphasize that they don’t give a rat’s ass how many people die if it increases profits. There seems to be too much determined resistance to these neocolonial ambitions for them to be feasible. The Bush team are quite determined however and don’t let the present state of affairs deter them much. I think that will continue unless very large numbers of Americans mobilize against the war and for a withdrawal plan.
All of this argument about who was worse or which one did what.
Bad is bad and any argument like this is just a replay of one ups-manship in reverse.
Hey I’m not nearly as bad as you, I only murdered 100,000 people you murdered 150,000 people. bla bla bla etc.etc.etc. How dare you say I’m bad????? Just look at the other guy, why that bastard.
What this country is doing in Iraq is wrong, illegal, and immoral. It doesn’t mean a thing what any other country did, is doing, what Saddam did, what Bush 1 did, whatever.
You know that BTK killer guy across the street, yeah he was such a good church going guy, volunteered a lot too. Maybe we should just go easy on him.You know remeber what the Son of Sam guy did, now there was a real bad guy.
Try to keep the conversation real.
Well, I’d have to say that Kelly Boyd pretty much summed it up in a small paragraph!
Moral of this story (for me): Brevity and good judgement always stumps (or should anyways) endless blathering of regurgitated information and tortured reasoning.
You can believe the Guardian during a Democrat administration:
http://tinyurl.com/7rwd
http://tinyurl.com/52wvm
Or you can believe them during a Republican one:
http://tinyurl.com/2orav
I hope it’s just that Julian is biased, and not that his memory is that bad. Alzheimers is not pretty in its later stages.
It doesn’t make too much sense, in my opinion, to argue whether the US crimes in Iraq are as bad as Saddam’s were. More instructive is to compare the Bush Administration’s actions with American ideals like democracy, human rights, and freedom. We can see that US actions in Iraq, whether quanitatively or qualitatively better or worse than Saddam, are not consistent with our highest ideals. The fact that many, many are dead and we are betraying our ideals is a tragedy.
(Of course, I could also point out that the US supported Saddam during the time when he gassed his people and ran rape rooms—thus, we are implicated in his crimes, as well.)
I’ve been reading some great comments on this thread. I just hope the next administration will have a look at history and the forty year British colonial experience with Iraq. Maybe they would then have the decency to begin withdrawing. That is by no means certain however, in light of the tremendous geopolitical importance, the impending collapse of the Saudi monarchy, etc. The temptation for any American administration to continue with the plan for permanant military bases in Iraq will be great unless it becoms both financially and politically impossible. Humanitarian concerns for the iraqis and our soldiers will play little if any role in this, except to the extent that it becomes politically necessary. The very best we could do to eliminate our entanglements in that part of the world is to reduce our dependence on petroleum imports. That is why I cycle near distances and dtrive a Civic. As long as Americans are determined to drive the largest tank of a gas-guzzling SUV as they can possibly afford to feed then we will continue to have wars for oil. As long as our energy policy is formulated by the energy companies for the energy companies blood for oil will be the rule rather than the exception.
One does not have to go outand buy a weapon, demonstrate, join a union, change all one’s money to Euros and deposit off shore or any of those things. All one has to do is support the Native American Rights Fund and work for the religious rights of American Indian prisonors to end up on the Terrorist Watch List. Did you know that all non-Christians (especially those of Indigenous descent) are potential terrorists. I didn’t until I had problems taking a short trip by air.
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