Can’t put it much better than the Bradrocket. When you look at the glorious hash that our great leader made of elections in Palestine certain trends ought to stand out – we casually interfered in another country based on “plans” that could best be described as fanciful. We didn’t have a fallback plan. When things didn’t work out as expected we panicked and made a series of sloppy decisions that just made the situation worse. Then we threw in guns and support to an armed faction that lost.
Ten more months.
Asti
No one could have forseen….
Can we finally send this woman packing and off to the Russian tundra where she belongs?
scarshapedstar
I’m not going to look, but does anyone know how Charles Johnson is rationalizing this shit?
incontrolados
Can we finally send this woman packing and off to the Russian tundra where she belongs?
She speaks the language poorly, so that’s probably not a good idea.
Republican pardons work out much better than Democratic pardons.
IanY77
I held my nose and checked. He’s ignoring it. To be fair, the only blog close to being called “major” is pro-Israel, fairly hard right “Israel Matzav”:
Is this believable? In a word, yes. David Wurmser has been a severe critic of White House Middle East policy since he resigned as Cheney’s adviser. His wife Meyrav has also indicated that the Bush administration abandoned Israel as a consequence of its failure to produce in the 2006 Lebanon War. Meyrav Wurmser is an Israeli; David is an American. Their commitment to Israel has been unstinting.
This story just broke. Wait til tomorrow night. Then we’ll know how much traction it’ll get. In a functional democracy, this would be impeachable. In the US, it’ll get a meh from the bewtowrks, ignored by Fox News, Drudge, and talk radio, and will pass in a week. I’m going to go bang my head on the desk for a bir, then finish off that bottle of Black Bush I have in the kitchen (seriously).
Here’s the Vanity Fair story. Read and weep.
IanY77
wow, spazzed on the keyboard. No idea why the spell checker didn’t catch it. I meant to say:
“it’ll get a meh from the networks, ignored by Fox News…”
TenguPhule
QOTD.
TenguPhule
If even half of this is true, Rice and company belong under the tundra, not on it.
MJ
There isn’t a whole lot of difference between Fatah and Hamas. The election was a lose lose situation. Neither has ever intended to make peace with Israel. Fatah has tried at times to present a better face to the world but they have never given up on the idea of the destruction of Israel. Who won the election didn’t really matter.
TenguPhule
Apparently it did since Bush sent a whole bunch of guns to the side that LOST which Hamas then captured and turned on Israel.
Try again, dumbass.
Martin
From the Bush/Gore debate.
MJ
The missiles they have been shooting into Israel were not provided by Bush. Try again dumb ass.
Brachiator
The sad thing is that both liberals and conservatives foolishly believe that the US, because it is a superpower, can arbitrarily and unilaterally, intervene in the affairs of weaker countries. The only difference between the two ideological camps is that the worst conservatives believe that as long as you are strong, you can make bad policies work, while the worst liberals delude themselves that “fallback plans” and good decisions can somehow transform ill-conceived interventions into something positive.
Both groups ignore the interests of the people in the country that is the target of US intervention. Or, worse, they assume that magically the national interests of the country messed with corresponds to US national interests.
Here is a recent example from Pakistan:
The New York Times story documenting this includes a great photo in which a protester holds up a sign that proclaims, “American Interference in Pak Politics Unacceptable” (U.S. Embrace of Musharraf Irks Pakistanis)
The sign doesn’t say “You need a better fallback position.”
I simply do not understand why Rice has not been shown the door, as Donald Rumsfeld was, a while ago. Maybe it’s the Dubya loyalty thing.
Dennis - SGMM
Has there been anything, no matter how how completely telegraphed, that didn’t catch this administration unprepared?
“Bin Laden determined to strike US.”
“Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, says several hundred thousand troops needed for Iraq.”
“Katrina approaches Gulf Coast.”
Eight years of lurching from one blunder to the next in a march of folly unparalleled in modern times. Although we will have to spend years and billions to clean up the mess, we will be the beneficiaries of two thin books, to be published by Regnery; The Wit and Wisdom of George Bush, by Paul Hinderaker, and My Foreign Policy Triumphs, by Condoleeza Rice (Forward by Diane Feinstein).
Dennis - SGMM
Ummm, they aren’t missiles, they’re rockets; unguided dumb bombs.
From Britain’s Telegraph.co.uk, March 1, 2008.
Now no one could possibly anticipate that Hamas would trade some of its windfall of arms for plastique or that they’d use rifle powder for a propellant.
Dennis - SGMM
Make that: No one could possibly anticipate…
Brachiator
Nonsense. The idea is to demonstrate that they are willing to stand up to Israel, whether or not they are a particularly credible threat.
In a similar vein, Saddam Hussein lost his country and his life because defying the United States was more important than anything that remotely resembled an effective, less self-destructive, foreign policy.
Jimitha
Hussein lost his country and his life because he didn’t think the US would actually invade.
srv
Bush once said he chose her as Nat’l Sec. Advisor because she could explain things in terms he understood.
It wasn’t until later that I figured out that meant she was the only person stupider than George.
lilysmom
He will keep anyone employed, no matter how badly they f up, as long as they look adoringly at him and say over and over how far-seeing and wise he is and what a great leader he is.
Uh, yeah.. right into the ditch and over the cliff.
I grieve over the things that have been done in our name.
Martin
They are but goats unable to understand the world around them. We will show them the way by will of our all knowing Lord almighty who has steered us effortlessly though all manner of disaster, both natural and manmade, with nary a life lost.
Perry Como
Why the fuck are criminals like Negroponte still allowed to serve in the US government?
TenguPhule
Thanks to Bush, they’re a bigger threat then they were before.
Bay of Pigs Meets Iran-Contra.
TenguPhule
Shorter MJ: I can’t tell the difference between guns and missiles.
Those guns are now in the hands of Hamas fighters. Who the fuck do you think they shoot at?
TenguPhule
I blame Clinton. He should have sanctioned the bitch with the CIA years ago.
TenguPhule
Shorter Brachiator: I will say both sides are equally bad. The magic of the flying pony center!
‘Liberals’ have seen that fucking around with other countries politics is counterproductive. The same can’t be said for Republicans, Bush Dog Democrats and idiots.
Unfortunately, the last three get all the airtime.
Wilfred
Now everybody cares about Palestine, eh? Zero comments about the dozens of civilians killed by the brave fighters of the Jewish state, including a 13 month and 21 month old baby, in the recent ‘incursion’ into Gaza. Zero comments about Human Rights Watch denunciation of the Jewish State for its indiscriminate use of cluster bombs against civilians in South Lebanon
Bush bashing is a jackalope. It makes American Jews feel better while they can ignore everything else that’s done. Maybe not for so longso long
More ‘progressive’ talk and Bush bashing, yet nothing about the collective punishment inflicted on the Palestinians. Too fucking much sometimes.
Redhand
Reminds me of her infamous, “No one could have dreamed that they’d fly airliners into buildings” post 9/11 excuse when documents later unearthed by the 9/11 Commission showed that Condi & Co. were warned that it was a possibility.
The Big Lie, . . . because it works.
As to the quality of Bush’s decision making, he reminds me of Czar Nicholas II assuming active control of the Russian Army in WWI. We all how that turned out.
Brachiator
You clearly missed where I said “the worst conservatives” and “the worst liberals.”
It’s not about the middle vs the extremes. It’s about stupid foreign policy vs intelligent foreign policy.
But I’m curious who these magical liberals are who “have seen that fucking around with other countries politics is counterproductive.” JFK? LBJ? Clinton? Carter?
jake
I move we make that LOL cat be the official mascot of the bAdmin.
My favorite:
Even hardened killerz are awe-struck by Teh LOL cat of Apocalyptic FAIL.
It’s like bAdmin. watched Monty Python’s Confuse-A-Cat skit and thought it was a brilliant policy for dealing with hostile nations and organizations. Maybe that explains this whole fucking mess. Bush didn’t get that M.P. is comedy. Look at how they deal with disagreement:
“Yes it is.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it isn’t!”
And of course, who can forget how they reinterpreted the Dead Parrot skit to create the whole Terri Schiavo mess? Starring Bill Frist as the shopkeeper.
“Look! See, ‘e moved!”
Please tell me that at some point in the future we’ll look back on this shit and laugh. And probably spit out our dentures and go into cardiac arrest. But, surely at some point we’ll be able to laugh at this never ending lube-free cluster fuck of an administration.
Racist! Sexist!
MJ
LOL.. and he has the nerve to call me a dumb ass. Hamas has been firing hundreds of rockets into Israel. They aren’t firing AK47s. Regardless of that it doesn’t prove that Fatah is any better then Hamas. Either way that election went they would have ended up with murderous thugs running the place.
Wilfred
What about the murderous zionist thugs responsible for this?
DrDave
Hezbollah put its Katyusha rocket batteries in residential neighborhoods. The Israelis weren’t supposed to try to take them out as Hezbollah fired on Israeli cities and towns?
The same for Hamas: They fire Kassams at Israeli residential areas–Sderot and Ashkelon-while hidng behind women and children. Do you remember this cartoon?
It is closer to the truth than critics of Israel (and advocates for the Palestinians) usually care to admit.
4tehlulz
In this thread your usual GOS IP thread.
scrutinizer
Wilfred, Wilfred. Have you heard the phrase “collateral damage”? If those girls had done as their parents said and hurried to the courtyard, it wouldn’t have happened. Here we are, our country is trying to further the ambitions of the Zionist State, and you’re distracting us by trying to put a human face on mere statistics, the by-blow of democracy in action.
Wilfred, why do you hate America?
Wilfred
So they both do it, correct? The thing is that American taxpayer money doesn’t pay for the rockets fired by Hamas or Hezbollah which, after all, are not states but terrorist organizations. Israel does what they do, ergo it’s a terrorist state. American taxpayer money supports the murder of Palestinian children – that’s what Americans need to keep in mind at all times, or at least be reminded of it.
As for doing the same thing. Hamas rockets killed one civilian – the Jewish state response was the same overkill and collective punishment that is routinely condemned by civilized people.
Who the fuck do you think you’re kidding? Americans have become the enablers of baby-killing.
Dennis - SGMM
Bush is in office for six years and then he and his geniuses notice that there’s a little trouble over in that ol’ Palestine. His solution for dealing with a three thousand year old nexus of hatreds? Send in more weapons. Don’t even think about talking with experts on the situation there – especially if they happen to be Palestinians, don’t question why Fatah was hated by many, just send in more guns.
MJ
It is also hard to know what to believe from what comes out of there. They have a history of making bogus claims.
jake
Oh heavens Wilfred where’d you get an idea like that? No one gives a flaming half fuck about Palestine. We think they’re a bunch of doody ca-ca heads that eat their own toe cheese. However, we couldn’t pass up a chance to snark on teh LOL cat o’ FAIL, so we’re crassly using the Palestinians as an excuse. When we’re done we’re going to toss a crumpled $20 in their direction and ask them to pass us a towel before they go.
Don’t worry, your persecution complex is safe with us.
rachel
Israel accidentally killing innocents as they take out Hezbollah’s rockets is working out very well for Israel. Not.
Hint: What did Machiavelli say about being hated?
Wilfred
Ok, her 21 month old persecution complex is over. enjoy your snark asshole.
jake
Thanks wilf. Pass me a towel will. Same time next week?
MJ
It’s a good thing he didn’t consult with Obama’s expert on the ME, Samantha Power who in the past has called for sending in a ‘mammoth protection force’ to fix the problem over there.
Punchy
If you think these officials will actually obey the judge and testify, I have some great rentals in Tikrit to lease ‘ya.
DrDave
Not many good choices for Israel, are there?
Dennis - SGMM
That just goes to show how unready Obama is to be commander in chief: mammoths have been extinct for thousands of years!
Dork
David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen’s bodyguards?
jenniebee
One question: why are we not taking to the streets?
Aldorossi
I think we should go easy on MJ. Even if there is “no difference between Hamas and Fatah”, the initiative undertaken by the Bush Adminstration in Gaza would still be one more example of their incompetant dumb-assery.
And we can all agree on that.
Wilfred
Barack Obama actaully has advisers who actually, you know, think of things:
.
Note Muslim – Palestine is no longer an Arab issue but is ncreasingly perceived by Muslims to be part of the US led war on Islam, abetted by its Israeli proxies. True? Depends on who you believe. Putting anti-Muslim zealots like Eliot Abrams in charge of the ME desk at the State Department is hard to rationalize.
Hilary Clinton, on the other hand, will follow the Aipac line to the grave. As Marc Lynch, an American academic who actually know something about the region, compares the efforts of Obama and even McCain with Clinton:
This is Likud’s position, btw, as transmitted via Aipac.
A last note. The problem with bullshit posts like Tim F.’s forever makes is that they take shots at Bush only, as if his Administration was the only enabler of ME disasters. He leaves out the tireless efforts of Likud proxies like Abrams , Tom Lantos, Wexler and Lantos’ successor as committee chairman – Howard Berman, yet another zionist and Likud supporter. He thus exonerates the Democratic Party from complicity in the ongoing humiliation of the Palestinian people and soothes his own conscience at the expense of the Republicans.
MJ
Well there you go, lets just have meeting and hash out the problems. It’s simply brilliant!! How come nobody else ever tried that?
See Oslo, Camp David 2000, Geneva Accord, the Annapolis Conference and I am sure there are others.
Clinton came the closest to actually making a deal that could have given the Palestinians a state.
.
Jake
MOAR FAIL PLZ.
In Goldbergese: The Shia is the Republican of Iraqi Democracy.
Here I stand,
dick in hand,
Another lackey to GDubya…
Wilfred
You’ll have to do better than an appeal to authority that involves Dennis Ross. Try Norman Finkelstein’s deconstruction: Dennis Ross and the Peace Process: Subordinating Palestinian Rights to Israeli “Needs”. I won’t even bother to cite the Palestinian accounts as one characteristic of these discussions is that their voices never matter.
The main point of the Obama quote is his recognition that it is Muslims that matter now, not Arab nationalists or the survivors of any Arab Marxist movements. Palestine has become an issue for Muslims, while the original PLO charter was purely secular – those days are over.
To quote the ‘Annapolis’ conference is just stupidity and not deserving of further comment.
TenguPhule
Says Wilfred, supporter of suicide bombers and child murder, provided the child belongs to the right state.
srv
Have become? Sheesh, that’s been the American Way for a long, long time. It’s what Democrats and Republicans do. You’re probably another Obamamoron who thinks he’s going to change anything.
From his own campaign site:
Does he have to jump in that Dallas-built F-16I himself and drop that American-made bomb for y’all to get a clue? Vote Obama, it’s the moral thing to do.
Wilfred
Projection. Not me, I’m against all baby-killing and murder of civilians. Unlike the supporters of the Jewish state, whose rabbis justify it. Sorry asshole, this is about what Americans pay for – and they pay for the Jewish state’s murder of innocent men, women and children.
TenguPhule
Except Hamas is now the government of the Palestinians. Whoops! There goes that lame excuse!
Shorter Wilfred: Let’s all pretend the suicide bombing blitz
that took place for years never happened. Hamas gets to start a new body count from zero, just because it sounds better. After all, it’s not like Hamas used overkill and collective punishment against all of Israel because a few of its operatives were arrested or killed by a small portion of it.
Yes Wilfred, do explain how is it that the Palestinians who support Hamas and the rest are ‘innocent’ while Israelis who support their IDF are ‘acceptable targets’.
TenguPhule
Because you clearly didn’t say that, you lying asshole.
Instead, you lumped apples with bananas.
TenguPhule
Shorter MJ: I see the hole, I must dig deeper.
TenguPhule
Yawn.
Get back to us after you’ve seen what the Palestinians did to shopping centers, ice cream parlors and people sleeping in their beds.
Or maybe you could take a good look at the Palestinians tortured to death by Palestinians for being ‘Spies of Israel’ which appears to be short for ‘I don’t like you’.
TenguPhule
Corrected for accuracy.
TenguPhule
Unless they’re an Israeli. We have only to go back to your own words in past threads to see this is true.
TenguPhule
So Israelis hit neighborhoods of Hamas supporters with weapons and fighters hiding in them is bad.
But Hamas and company attacking Israeli neighborhoods where there are no Israeli bases is acceptable?
If you want to wave the ‘innocent civilian flag’, it applies both ways.
Wilfred
Again asshole, I’m opposed to your state. I just want my fellow Americans to know they pay for – dead Palestinian children. They’re not paying for the dead Israelis, only Palestinians.
Americans should know that they pay for this:
jewish war ethics
Now if Americans support that, they should say so.
srv
Shorter TenguPhule: Everything would be fine if those brown people would have just behaved themselves.
srv
Cowards never admit they’re cowards.
The Moar You Know
RE: The Middle East
And I mean this with every fiber of my being; I’d like nothing better than to see every Israeli and every Palestinian dead, so you would all finally shut the fuck up about it and I’d have some peace and quiet for once.
Any candidate who gets on board with this gets my vote.
MJ
Wilfred so Obama is going to have this magical summit meeting that will have Muslims nations not just Arab nations. What does that get you? Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia at this meeting too? Sorry but that’s not going to help make peace.
I have read more then enough Finkelstein, no thanks. It does give me an idea of where you are coming from though. Also call me a cynic but I don’t trust Arafat’s version of anything. I have never been a huge fan of Ross but I think he’s a better more trust worthy source.
The reality is that these Arab or Muslim countries don’t really care about the plight of the Palestinian people. This all Muslim meeting will be about as useful as all the other summits I listed.
MJ
You don’t read what people write here do you?