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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War / Time For a No-Fly Zone To Target Government Ground Forces in Syria?

Time For a No-Fly Zone To Target Government Ground Forces in Syria?

by John Cole|  March 25, 20111:53 pm| 355 Comments

This post is in: War

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Sound familiar:

The international community is concerned about the situation in Syria. The United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke by phone with President Assad.

Human Rights Watch, among other groups, said Thursday that around three dozen people were killed in clashes in a 48-hour period.

“Syria’s security forces are showing the same cruel disregard for protesters’ lives as their counterparts in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

“President Bashar al-Assad’s talk about reforms doesn’t mean anything when his security forces are mowing down people who want to talk about them.”

The government announced a number of measures that apparently addressed protesters’ demands. Among them are decrees to cut taxes and raise government workers’ salaries by 1,500 Syrian pounds ($32.60 US) a month and pledges to provide more press freedoms, increased job opportunities and curbs on government corruption.

The government said it will form a committee “to contact and listen to citizens in Daraa.”

It also said it would study lifting the country’s emergency law and adopting new legislation that would license political parties.

Syria’s emergency law has been in effect since 1963. It allows the government to make preventive arrests and override constitutional and penal code statutes. It also bars detainees who haven’t been charged from filing court complaints or from having a lawyer present during interrogations.

Why not- brutal dictator slaughtering freedom loving protestors wanting political reform, in the Middle East, we already have lots of troops and a NATO command structure in place for Libya we could use.

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Reader Interactions

355Comments

  1. 1.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    March 25, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    Not sure Syria has enough oil to grease the wheels of democracy.

  2. 2.

    Poopyman

    March 25, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    Hey! I’ve got a great idea! Let’s let the Israelis run it!

  3. 3.

    MikeJ

    March 25, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    You have a bunch of other governments that think it’s important? Remember, the US didn’t introduce the Libya issue.

    Put together a coalition and get back to us.

  4. 4.

    Elvis Elvisberg

    March 25, 2011 at 1:58 pm

    Libya, unlike Syria, had clear geographical lines of control, which allows for an internationally enforced no fly zone to prevent Qaddafi continuing his attacks on mostly civilian targets.

  5. 5.

    dr. bloor

    March 25, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    Troublemaker.

  6. 6.

    Mike G

    March 25, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    …decrees to cut taxes and raise government workers’ salaries by 1,500 Syrian pounds ($32.60 US) a month

    The Syrian Teabaggers must be feeling very conflicted about now.

  7. 7.

    Redshirt

    March 25, 2011 at 2:00 pm

    Freedom is on the march!

    Half serious though. These are epic times in the Mideast, similar in ways to the late 80’s in Eastern Europe. The board is changing.

  8. 8.

    Poopyman

    March 25, 2011 at 2:01 pm

    In all seriousness, Syria’s neighbors are going to have all kinds of issues with this. Libya is bracketed by two countries in relative disarray due to their recent revolutions. Turkey has to live with a Syrian border forever, and I’m guessing they’re going to be less willing than they were for Libya.

  9. 9.

    trollhattan

    March 25, 2011 at 2:02 pm

    I noticed Colbert has a lot of room left on his nations invaded punchcard. I checked Wikipedia and Syria does export oil. Sounds like a winner!

  10. 10.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 25, 2011 at 2:04 pm

    No, all wars are invariably Iraq, so we should never participate in another one, ever.

  11. 11.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    March 25, 2011 at 2:08 pm

    How many innocent Syrians must be massacred in cold-blooded genoci- oh wait, Obama hasn’t intervened yet? Nevermind.

  12. 12.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 2:08 pm

    OBAMA LIED. LIBYANS EGYPTIANS SYRIANS YO MAMA DIED.

    seriously. what the hell is wrong with this blog?

  13. 13.

    J.W. Hamner

    March 25, 2011 at 2:10 pm

    Be careful what you wish for/joke about… IIRC weren’t there people in the Bush administration advocating invading Syria? Ah, yes… Rumsfeld.

    I bet it’s still pretty high on many a neocon’s Christmas list.

  14. 14.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 2:10 pm

    Human Rights Watch, among other groups, said Thursday that around three dozen people were killed in clashes in a 48-hour period.

    That’s terrible, but if you don’t see the difference with Libya, you’re being willfully blind.

    “Syria’s security forces are showing the same cruel disregard for protesters’ lives as their counterparts in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

    Whoa. One of these things is not like the others.

  15. 15.

    Incoherent Dennis SGMM

    March 25, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    I’d prefer that the government extend more aid to people who are trying to establish democracy in the U.S.

  16. 16.

    kindness

    March 25, 2011 at 2:15 pm

    When can we attack those commies in Canada? That’s what I want to know….

  17. 17.

    RP

    March 25, 2011 at 2:15 pm

    Cole’s constant trolling is getting really irritating. Maybe I should take a break from this blog for a while.

  18. 18.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 2:17 pm

    Once again, you can’t make the argument that intervention comes with high costs, and then make the argument that it’s wrong to only use it in the most extreme circumstances but not every circumstance, without displaying breath-taking hypocrisy.

    Chemotherapy has terrible side effects. And, the doctors didn’t use it for any of the early-stage skin cancer patients. So, therefore, it’s grossly hypocritical for them to use it on the guy with the metastasizing stomach cancer. They must be in it for the money.

  19. 19.

    Mike Goetz

    March 25, 2011 at 2:17 pm

    When Assad invests an entire city and threatens a bloodbath then we can talk. Until then you are just scoring cheap debator’s points.

  20. 20.

    Socraticsilence

    March 25, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    Look, I get your point but I think what was different about Libya was both the stated willingness to kill tens if not hundreds of thousands- and (this is actually a huge point for the Europeans if I remember correctly)- the threat to target ships and commercial airliners in the Med- something a large portion of the EU viewed as credible given Lockerbie.

  21. 21.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 25, 2011 at 2:19 pm

    @joe from Lowell: Or the oil. I mean, if there’s oil in whales, there’s probably a lot of oil in cancer patients.

  22. 22.

    SteveinSC

    March 25, 2011 at 2:19 pm

    I thought this was all sorted out in the earlier thread that got into a food-fight. “Stand still you ever moving spheres.”

  23. 23.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: FTW

  24. 24.

    Socraticsilence

    March 25, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    Now, I will say that other than Saddam and Khadafi- Assad (or at least his father) is the leader who has the most demonstrated willingness to engage in mass slaughter of dissidents (though that was a slaughter we applauded at the time as it was basically a grouping of Islamic radicals)

  25. 25.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    @Poopyman: the Israelis would be more than happy to bomb Syria..would definitely solve the Golan Heights problem.

  26. 26.

    Cris

    March 25, 2011 at 2:21 pm

    @Redshirt: These are epic times in the Mideast, similar in ways to the late 80’s in Eastern Europe. The board is changing.

    It’s really thrilling, in the most serious sense of the word. I’ve become an al-Jazeera junkie over the last couple months. They’re totally cheerleading the uprisings; it’s good for their circulation, obviously, but I think their editorial board is genuinely excited about what’s going on, while cognizant of the real human costs of it.

  27. 27.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 25, 2011 at 2:22 pm

    I dunno, maybe there _is_ more that we should consider doing for the popular resistance in Syria. Is that obviously an unthinkable thought?

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    March 25, 2011 at 2:22 pm

    Why not- brutal dictator slaughtering freedom loving protestors wanting political reform, in the Middle East, we already have lots of troops and a NATO command structure in place for Libya we could us.

    OK, OK, I get it. No fly zones are bad. Intervention is bad. Good, right thinking Americans believe that if peaceful protests lead to peaceful change, then everybody wins. Maybe. Sorta. Fingers crossed.

    On the other hand, the tie goes to the authoritarians. If they fight back and crush any protest, then it’s got nothing to do with us and we should just STFU and stay out of other country’s affairs.

    Because it is only a bad thing when Americans kill civilians with our expensive weapons. On the other hand, if dictators kill civilians, it’s “no harm, no foul.” Even if they use weapons they previously bought from us.

    See? Everybody wins.

  29. 29.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 25, 2011 at 2:22 pm

    John, I think you meant the last word to be use.

  30. 30.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 2:23 pm

    We talkin’ about Freedom
    Talkin’ bout Freedom
    I will fight, for the right
    To live in Freedom

    ~Paul McCartney

    He will need to compose a new song for the right wingers (and the liberal interventionists) if Obama decides to bomb Syria

  31. 31.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 2:25 pm

    Of course, Obama didn’t support military intervention at this stage in Egypt, Tunisia, or Libya. In all three cases, when the protests and the crackdown was comparable to what is going on now in Syria, he utilized public rhetoric and quite diplomacy to ease the dictator out peacefully.

    As he’s doing with Assad. As he’s doing with Saleh in Yemen. As he was doing with Khadaffy in Lybia, even after the fighter-bombers began air strikes on the crowded squares in Tripoli. As he was doing right up until the Libyan army was hours away from a massacre more than a thousand times greater than what is reported in this article (dozens vs. dozens of thousands).

  32. 32.

    No Fortunate Son

    March 25, 2011 at 2:25 pm

    There are plenty of reasons to be opposed to the US involvement in Libya. You may be a pacifist. You may not believe in interventionism. All of these are perfectly valid reasons. So let’s use our adult words to express them.

    John, do not forget that innocent people will suffer and die regardless of what the US does. Glibness over such a serious matter is unbecoming, and degrades the discussion into a Rush Limbaugh skit akin mocking Japan for their suffering.

    I find myself deeply conflicted. Lots of people do. But if you’re going to argue for sitting out the next Rwanda, at least show some respect.

  33. 33.

    Shoemaker-Levy 9

    March 25, 2011 at 2:27 pm

    Relax, dude, France doesn’t get a significant amount of oil from Syria.

  34. 34.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 2:27 pm

    @Socraticsilence:

    Now, I will say that other than Saddam and Khadafi- Assad (or at least his father) is the leader who has the most demonstrated willingness to engage in mass slaughter of dissidents

    Let’s not forget that Mubarak gave the order to the army to open fire on the protesters in Tahir Square. Good thing they refused. I’m glad we got something for the billions of dollars we’ve given them over the years.

  35. 35.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 25, 2011 at 2:27 pm

    “You said lying was bad. But what about lying about where the refugees are? You’d lie about that, right? That makes you a hypocrite! Herp derp derp.”

  36. 36.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 2:27 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: and u think we arent doing more short of bombing? Dont kid youself by thinking we dont have CIA spooks, as well as Mossad people, funding insurrection groups over in Syria, as well as creating sabotage. Getting rid of Assad and putting in a pro Israel dictator has been every American and Israeli’s politicians wet dream.

    Still I will expect, for the sake of consistency, Obama to bomb Syria and Yemen. he cant afford to look hyprocritical

  37. 37.

    Under the Aurora Freeway

    March 25, 2011 at 2:28 pm

    Turkey might be wondering the same thing.

  38. 38.

    taylormattd

    March 25, 2011 at 2:29 pm

    Sound familiar

    Well, not really.

    Unless by “familiar”, you mean “familiar” in an exceedingly superficial, completely unfleshed out way.

    Also, apples =/= oranges, etc.

  39. 39.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 25, 2011 at 2:29 pm

    “You said you like to eat candy. Maybe you should eat nothing but candy! Har har yuk yuk! You liked it in one situation but changed your mind about another! Heehee!”

  40. 40.

    agrippa

    March 25, 2011 at 2:31 pm

    We have enough on our plate right now.
    There is a revolutionary situation in the Arab World.

    It is very facile to put out rhetoric about ‘hypocrisy’, ‘inconsistency’ and so on.

    The fact is that resources are limited and you cannot make places go boom in order save everyone. It is called triage.

  41. 41.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I dunno, maybe there is more that we should consider doing for the popular resistance in Syria. Is that obviously an unthinkable thought?

    A few weeks ago, I would have said no. A few weeks ago, this board was full of people urging Obama to use stronger diplomatic and other tools to help the protesters in Egypt.

    But that was a few weeks ago now. For all I know, we’ll be seeing the Syrian protesters slandered as skeery al Qaeda Mooslims by the same people who were so outraged when Pat Buchanan did that to the Egyptian protesters.

  42. 42.

    DB

    March 25, 2011 at 2:33 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    I’ve been lookin’ for freedom
    I’ve been lookin’ so long
    I’ve been lookin’ for freedom
    Still the search goes on
    I’ve been lookin’ for freedom
    Since I left my home town
    I’ve been lookin’ for freedom
    Still it can’t be found

    – David Hasselhoff

  43. 43.

    Mike Goetz

    March 25, 2011 at 2:34 pm

    The word “oil” (like “corporate” before it) is like an antibiotic that has been ruined by overprescription. Little better than placebo now.

  44. 44.

    Maude

    March 25, 2011 at 2:34 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:
    Is this all the people in the Mid East look alike, therefore all the countries are alike and oh, Obama is Black Bush?
    Edit, can’t spell.

  45. 45.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead: not enough oil sure, but the Israelis sure dont like Syria, and we are more than happy to their bidding

  46. 46.

    Sirkowski

    March 25, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    Because we do what we can.

  47. 47.

    danimal

    March 25, 2011 at 2:36 pm

    Cole needs a nuzzle from Lily or something.

    I’m conflicted about the interventions being discussed, because there really is an opportunity to do something good and lasting as well as to do something terribly stupid and expensive. Execution and restraint are really important here, and I’m not certain we have the skills and smarts to pull it off. But I’m more confident in Obama than I would be in Bush.

    Anyway, Cole’s self-trolling is really dumb.

  48. 48.

    JAHILL10

    March 25, 2011 at 2:38 pm

    I didn’t think BJ was so desperate for hits that it would continue this trolling of its readers to fight the same battle five times a day.
    The Arab world is changing, people. It’s unsettling, and it’s unpredictable and it’s nothing the U.S. is in absolute control of. I think Obama is doing a fine job given the circumstances. Use the “bully pulpit” support the populations of these countries determining their own destinies while trying to keep the U.S. out of any direct involvement as in the cases of Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria. And intervening only in partnership with Arab League, UN and NATO countries when the population is asking for international help as in Libya. Hard to understand? Not really.

  49. 49.

    Suffern ACE

    March 25, 2011 at 2:38 pm

    @J.W. Hamner: Yes, and that will be the next line of attack. “He bogged us down in Libya so we couldn’t go to Syria.”

  50. 50.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 2:39 pm

    @Maude: you are not gonna win against Angry Black Lady. Obama is beyond criticism for her, and if he had invaded Iraq under false pretenses, she would still be defending him.

  51. 51.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 2:40 pm

    @agrippa:

    It is called triage.

    I’d welcome a discussion about whether the standards by which we are “performing triage” are the right ones, or about whether we are honestly applying those standards.

    Instead, all I see is the assertion that there can’t possibly be standards by which one patient will be treated and another not, because shut up and oil, that’s why.

  52. 52.

    Felonious Wench

    March 25, 2011 at 2:42 pm

    And the Canadians are leading the NATO mission in Libya. Can we all bitch at Canadian Observer now about what a shitty country he lives in?

    Kidding. Go Canada!

  53. 53.

    Calouste

    March 25, 2011 at 2:42 pm

    Let’s see, what is the purpose of a no-fly zone? Right, it is to make sure that no planes can fly in a certain area to attack civilians people*. Has Assad used planes to attack his people? No he hasn’t. So would a no-fly zone be much use? No it wouldn’t.

    *) Note that I have made sure that there are no words of
    more than two syllables long words in this so it can actually get into Cole’s thick skull.

  54. 54.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 2:43 pm

    “Well, you see, the principle of Responsibility to Protect authorizes intervention when the case meets a list of six…”

    “I’M LINKING TO A PICTURE OF DEAD PEOPLE IN AFGHANISTAN, SO I WIN!”

    “…um…yeeeeessssss…so…anyway, the first one is Just Cause….”

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne

    March 25, 2011 at 2:44 pm

    So, wait, we’re supposed to think that Syria is completely ignorant of the UN no-fly zone over Libya or why they’re getting hint-hint calls from the UN so therefore they won’t stop killing people unless actually bombed?

    I think Syria is taking what’s happening to Libya very seriously and scrambling around to prevent the same thing from happening to them. I mean, the Syrians are rational people. It’s not like they’re Republicans who would answer every threat with even more belligerence.

  56. 56.

    Bob Loblaw

    March 25, 2011 at 2:44 pm

    Broken records keep on spinning. And spinning and spinning and spinning.

  57. 57.

    Maude

    March 25, 2011 at 2:45 pm

    @salacious crumb:
    You must have not understood what I wrote. On the blogs a lot of comments are along the line of it’s all the same over there. Like Iraq is just like everything else.

    Qutar is flying over Libya. I can’t spell it, it is pronounced like Cutter.

  58. 58.

    parenthetical

    March 25, 2011 at 2:46 pm

    Jon, I get your point, but it’s disheartening that this truly awful thing happening to actual human beings is being interpreted by you solely through the lens of American foreign policy and as an opportunity for you to harumph at Obama. Try this: imagine all the people being massacred in Syria are cute little puppies. Maybe then you’d show some sympathy.

  59. 59.

    Joe Beese

    March 25, 2011 at 2:48 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    Obama is beyond criticism for her, and if he had invaded Iraq under false pretenses, she would still be defending him.

    Why bother with hypotheticals? He’s murdering civilians on an almost daily basis and she’s still on board.

    Pakistan has acknowledged that last week’s drone attack on a tribal peace congregation in North Waziristan Agency, which killed over 40 innocent people, has strained its relations with the United States, and that it has decided to boycott the March 26 trilateral talks in Brussels over the issue. “Pakistan has always opposed US drone attacks, and killing of innocent people is totally unacceptable to us,” The Nation quoted Foreign Office spokesperson Tehmina Janjua, as saying while responding to a volley of questions during her weekly briefing.

    http://www.sify.com/news/pakistan-to-boycott-trilateral-afghan-talks-over-us-drone-attack-civilian-casualties-news-international-ldzkOdahgii.html

    But why should we care if Pakistan gets upset because some of their civilians “ran out of luck” – as a BJ-er memorably put it yesterday.

    They’re just too primitive to understand how important it is that we support a President who signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act.

  60. 60.

    JPL

    March 25, 2011 at 2:50 pm

    What would Newt do?

  61. 61.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 2:51 pm

    @Joe Beese: Yeeeessssss…sooooooo…anyway, the second principle is “Right Intention…”

  62. 62.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 25, 2011 at 2:51 pm

    Syria sounds nothing like Libya. Yes, there are clashes, but the government is putting reforms through.

    Now if your commenting on Sarah Leah Whitson’s (three names, hmmm, I wonder who she killed) statement, then yeah, I’ve heard that a lot.

  63. 63.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 2:53 pm

    @JPL:

    What would Newt do?

    What day is it?

    Poor Newt.

    Almost exactly two years ago, at the very moment the SEALs shot the three pirates who were holding the captain of a hijacked ship, he was taping an interview for “This Week,” denouncing Obama for not being tough enough to make the tough decisions. And now this.

  64. 64.

    sal

    March 25, 2011 at 2:55 pm

    Syria’s emergency law has been in effect since 1963. It allows the government to make preventive arrests and override constitutional and penal code statutes. It also bars detainees who haven’t been charged from filing court complaints or from having a lawyer present during interrogations.

    Damn! Took us another 40 years. Well, better late than never.

  65. 65.

    No Fortunate Son

    March 25, 2011 at 2:56 pm

    Refresh my memory: when Clinton intervened to stop the genocide in Kosovo, which the Libyan intervention most closely resembles in my mind, did people on the left accuse Clinton of murder? Or is this something we reserve for Barack Obama?

  66. 66.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 2:56 pm

    @Joe Beese: haha,AMEN!

  67. 67.

    eemom

    March 25, 2011 at 2:59 pm

    As flies to wanton boys are we to the Cole
    He trolls us for his sport.

  68. 68.

    Joe Beese

    March 25, 2011 at 2:59 pm

    @agrippa:

    It is called triage.

    Being a humanitarian only when it suits your own interest isn’t humanitarianism, it’s opportunism.

    http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/humanitarians-r-us-its-label-not-policy.html

  69. 69.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    March 25, 2011 at 3:00 pm

    @Maude: Qatar becomes first Arab country to fly over Libya.

  70. 70.

    General Stuck

    March 25, 2011 at 3:00 pm

    Oh, it’s just John Cole triangulating his obot commenters again. Yawn. The beatings won’t stop till he’s fat as Michael Moore, or the statute of limitations runs out for former wingnuts.

  71. 71.

    Under the Aurora Freeway

    March 25, 2011 at 3:01 pm

    You know, come to think of it, here on Troll Ave, it does sound familiar.

  72. 72.

    Maude

    March 25, 2011 at 3:01 pm

    @No Fortunate Son:
    All I know is there are a ton of excuses made for Clinton from the left and none for You Sold Us Out Obama.

  73. 73.

    wenchacha

    March 25, 2011 at 3:02 pm

    Let’s be clear: we don’t care about the Ivory Coast thing, right?

  74. 74.

    HyperIon

    March 25, 2011 at 3:02 pm

    My understanding (heh) of what is required before we can “help” them:

    1. autocratic leader (check)
    2. pissed off citizens (check)
    3. autocratic leader tells pissed off citizens to stop protesting or else he is going to kill them all
    4. leader of pissed off citizens make impassioned plea to be saved from massacring autocratic leader
    5. “free world” gets off its ass and does something

    I’m thinking most (remaining) autocratic leaders NOW understand that they should avoid #3. That should cause enough dithering so that even when #4 occurs, no help is sent.

    So I doubt Syria ever gets in “our” crosshairs. Or NATO’s.

  75. 75.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 3:03 pm

    @No Fortunate Son:

    Refresh my memory: when Clinton intervened to stop the genocide in Kosovo, which the Libyan intervention most closely resembles in my mind, did people on the left accuse Clinton of murder? Or is this something we reserve for Barack Obama?

    Yes. In fact International ANSWER led the protests against him.

  76. 76.

    Brachiator

    March 25, 2011 at 3:03 pm

    @Joe Beese:

    But why should we care if Pakistan gets upset because some of their civilians “ran out of luck” – as a BJ-er memorably put it yesterday.

    As usual, you’re out of your depth here. The government of Pakistan makes all kinds of noises about being upset, and then asks the US for more military aid. Of course, Democratic and Republican presidents have long supported Pakistan because the military industrial complex told them it was the right thing to do to counter the Soviets on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and the Chinese on the other days of the week.

    of course, we recently had Sarah Palin in India speaking gibberish, while the other GOP fools gnash their teeth over anything that Obama does, but curiously they don’t have a damn thing to say worth paying attention to.

  77. 77.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 3:03 pm

    @Maude: the problem with war Maude, is that once you start it, you have no control over it once you get it started, we learned that in Vietnam, in Iraq and in Afghanistan, despite our best intentions. And the Islamic world have always been suspicious of our intentions (with good reasons for doing so). Whats it going to take to remove Gaddhafi? who is gonna take his place? an equally murderous thug? why havent we taken our Mugabe? is it because Mugabe has no oil? why is it that we havent taken out Kim Jong Il despite his starvation of more than a million of his citizens? is it because he has nukes?

    this is war, not matter how much Obama tries to avoid calling it one. Muslims and Arabs will see it as an assault on another Muslim nation by western imperialist out to humiliate Arabs/Muslims. getting a dictator in Qatar is back us is not gaining us any friends in the Arab world

  78. 78.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 3:04 pm

    Oh, look. The UN and European powers are getting frisky now that they’ve had some taste of using American combat power, paid for by American taxpayers.
    Somehow I’m not surprised.
    At some point the Chinese and the Russians are going to start vetoing this stuff in the security council because it’s their client states.

  79. 79.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 3:07 pm

    @Brachiator: and so your point is what? that we should keep coddling dictators even though their populace doesnt like it? just like we are doing in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia?

  80. 80.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 3:09 pm

    @soonergrunt:

    The UN and European powers are getting frisky now that they’ve had some taste of using American combat power, paid for by American taxpayers.

    What, exactly, are you talking about?

  81. 81.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 3:09 pm

    @Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): Yay! we know the Qatari people definitely support this, and we all know dictatorships/monarchies represent the voice of their people. And since one tiny Arab country sent their planes, the whole Arab world supports this mission…

    kinda like saying u aint a racist because your best friend is black!!!

  82. 82.

    Joe Beese

    March 25, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    The government of Pakistan makes all kinds of noises about being upset, and then asks the US for more military aid.

    Making noise, you say.

    Pakhtoon Students Federation activists held a protest rally in front of Dera Press Club against the drone attacks in Waziristan. The activists burnt American flag as well as effigy of US president Barack Obama. The protesters termed the drone attacks an open violation of international human rights, and said that the so-called propagator of world peace, America, was engaged in killing the innocent tribal people.

    http://www.dunyanews.tv/index.php?key=Q2F0SUQ9MiNOaWQ9MjI2OTI=

    But college students are always bitching about something, right?

    Besides, what are they going to do about it? Become radicalized and take up arms against our occupying force in Afghanistan?

    Obama says: “Bring it on.”

  83. 83.

    J.W. Hamner

    March 25, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    @Joe Beese:

    Wow, that’s an aggressively stupid statement by digby.

    If we only use “humanitarianism” as an excuse for going after our own interests what exactly are our interests in Libya? What were they in Kosovo?

  84. 84.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 3:11 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    just like we are doing in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia?

    This argument would be a great deal stronger if Obama hadn’t just dropped three (Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen) American-allied dictators like hot potatoes in response to popular uprisings against them.

  85. 85.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 3:12 pm

    @wenchacha: Do they have oil or lithium there?

  86. 86.

    Bob Loblaw

    March 25, 2011 at 3:13 pm

    @wenchacha:

    UN peacekeepers are already there doing their best. As is the norm for sub-Saharan Africa, they’re a bit overwhelmed. Oh well.

  87. 87.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 3:13 pm

    @joe from Lowell: ok fine…no one is complaining about his lack if support for Mubarak and that Tunisian dude…but why start another war is what I dont get? and since China (remember Tiannamen massacre) and Saudi Arabia are equally murderous regime, why not start wars with them.

    You are pointing out weaknesess in your own argument…

  88. 88.

    Mnemosyne

    March 25, 2011 at 3:14 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    the problem with war Maude, is that once you start it, you have no control over it once you get it started, we learned that in Vietnam, in Iraq and in Afghanistan, despite our best intentions.

    Wait, you thought we actually had good intentions in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq and things just happened to go wrong? What were you smoking when you came up with that notion?

  89. 89.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 3:15 pm

    @salacious crumb: That’s some terrific logic.

    I get that the evidence – the Arab League’s actions, the grateful celebrations in Benghazi, the assets provided by the UAE, Turkey, and Qatar – isn’t enough to convince you. Gee, what shocker, you’ve clearly entered this with an open mind.

    So, show us your cards. The evidence for your position, that this action will turn Muslims across the world against us, is…what, exactly?

    Maybe there are some anti-American protests you can point to. I dunno. Do you have any such evidence, as you so quickly dismiss other’s? Or is this one of those non-rebuttable assumptions?

  90. 90.

    J.W. Hamner

    March 25, 2011 at 3:15 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    and since China (remember Tiannamen massacre) and Saudi Arabia are equally murderous regime, why not start wars with them.

    Non sequitur much? Are China and Saudi Arabia currently in open revolt?

  91. 91.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 3:16 pm

    @Mnemosyne: and you think we actually have good intentions for Libya? that this isnt ensuring that Gaddhafi doesnt cut off the oil supplies to west when it looked like he was gaining momentum..

    what have u been smoking?

  92. 92.

    Dave

    March 25, 2011 at 3:16 pm

    @salacious crumb: But your argument amounts to “If you don’t do it everywhere then you can’t do it anywhere.” And that’s a flawed argument.

  93. 93.

    Maude

    March 25, 2011 at 3:17 pm

    @salacious crumb:
    Wow, really?

  94. 94.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 3:17 pm

    @joe from Lowell: Have you seen a news broadcast at all in the last week?
    Or, have you read anything that you, yourself wrote on Balloon-Juice in the last week?

  95. 95.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    March 25, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    @salacious crumb: LOL what? The Arab League supports this. Still does. The African Union supports this. Still does. The AU wouldn’t mind additional intervention in Cote d’Ivoire and it’s not like I don’t understand people’s arguments about apparent hypocrisy. But like I said yesterday, if nothing had been done and Gaddafi made good on his promise to slaughter the citizens of Benghazi and show “no mercy,” there’d be a lot of handwringing about how “someone” should have done “something.”
    Damned if you do something, damned if you don’t.

  96. 96.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    @J.W. Hamner: no but they are but we wouldnt dare touch them, just like we arent doing anything against Bahrain….

    now i know what your argument will be…oh they are killing 100,000 people, they only killed 100, so we need not intervene

  97. 97.

    Maude

    March 25, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    @Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):
    I saw it on AP and couldn’t remember how to spell it. I have AP and BBC news on my homepage. Thanks.
    Qatar said they were coming in and they did.

  98. 98.

    salacious crumb

    March 25, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    @joe from Lowell: if there was so much support for all this, then why is the United States involved at all?

  99. 99.

    Bob Loblaw

    March 25, 2011 at 3:20 pm

    @J.W. Hamner:

    If we only use “humanitarianism” as an excuse for going after our own interests what exactly are our interests in Libya?

    Ideological. And process strategical. The ability to redefine UNSC and NATO security and multilateral protocols and the “responsibility to protect” doctrine.

    Also, a desire to gain credibility as legitimate liberators and guarantors of human rights in a region where said credibility is lacking.

  100. 100.

    Joe Beese

    March 25, 2011 at 3:21 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    what have u been smoking?

    Captain Mnemo’s drug of choice is crystallized Hope – cut with some cult-of-personality.

  101. 101.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 3:21 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    but why start another war is what I dont get?

    To protect the civilian population from the massacre.

    and since China (remember Tiannamen massacre) and Saudi Arabia are equally murderous regime, why not start wars with them.

    The fourth principle of R2P is Proper Authorization. You think we’re going to get the UN Security Council on board with a resolution to attack China? You think we’re going to get the Arab League on board with an attack on Saudi Arabia?

    The fifth principle of R2P is proportional means. Is there anything happening in either place right now that outweighs, and outweighs by a long shot, the harm that would be done by any military action that is sufficient to topple those governments?

    The sixth principle of R2P is Reasonable Prospect of Success. I’m not seeing that one in China, certainly.

  102. 102.

    Tim, Interrupted

    March 25, 2011 at 3:22 pm

    @RP:

    Cole’s constant trolling is getting really irritating. Maybe I should take a break from this blog for a while.

    Maybe you should. Probably be for the best. Think it over and let us know.

  103. 103.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 3:22 pm

    @Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):

    Damned if you do something, damned if you don’t.

    So save the money, and don’t.

  104. 104.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 3:23 pm

    @soonergrunt:

    Have you seen a news broadcast at all in the last week?

    Yep. Now, are you going to answer the question, or are you going to keep striking the Superior Internet Pose?

  105. 105.

    J.W. Hamner

    March 25, 2011 at 3:25 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    Well there is a fair bit more to it than just humanitarian concerns. I mean, the invasion of China is, I hope, not something to be taken lightly. Sometimes military action is just not an option… that’s not hypocrisy, that’s just reality.

  106. 106.

    Bob L

    March 25, 2011 at 3:25 pm

    I still think the irony is hilarious. If the neo-cons just chilled for about 10 years Saddam would have been swept away with this Green Revolution and we could have gone into Iraq as liberators and not as imperialists. Everyone right now would be saying the Neo-Cons are bunch of visionaries playing for the long game and not a bunch of power drunk frat boy assclowns.

  107. 107.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 3:25 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    now i know what your argument will be…oh they are killing 100,000 people, they only killed 100, so we need not intervene

    And the problem with that argument is, what, exactly?

    Mr. I’m-So-Concerned-About-the-Cost-of-War is arguing that it isn’t legitimate to limit it to the worst cases?

  108. 108.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 3:26 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    if there was so much support for all this, then why is the United States involved at all?

    Capabilities, and the speed with which they can be brought to bear.

  109. 109.

    Bob L

    March 25, 2011 at 3:29 pm

    BTW John, you want to stop being a snarky and look at a map for a moment. The big difference here is Israel. Any western help and the protesters will be denounced as tools of the Zionists/Western Imperialists. So there is a big difference; Libya is easy, Syria will undercut the very movement we are sort of supporting.

  110. 110.

    BGinCHI

    March 25, 2011 at 3:29 pm

    Bob Herbert leaving the NYT.

    Any word about matoko chan taking his place?

  111. 111.

    J.W. Hamner

    March 25, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    @Bob Loblaw:

    Ideological. And process strategical. The ability to redefine UNSC and NATO security and multilateral protocols and the “responsibility to protect” doctrine.
    Also, a desire to gain credibility as legitimate liberators and guarantors of human rights in a region where said credibility is lacking.

    So you believe the UN approved a no fly zone in Libya to give Obama good press and to prove an ideological point for IR theorists? That strikes me as, uhm, implausible.

  112. 112.

    General Stuck

    March 25, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    It is certainly in part about oil, at least for the Euros, but the fact that the Arab League asked for help when they never do, suggests they were terrified that Gadaffi was about to slaughter thousands of Arab citizens and if they did nothing some culpability would be theirs.

    You can parse their motives as noble, or more likely self survival in the likelyhood the Arab street would go completely crazy for such an event, and drag their autocrat asses out of the palaces for some hanging, or that these autocrats are just a bunch of concerned Arab citizens. Who knows.

    The realty was, act now, and stop that from happening. Or sit around and talk about it until it was too late. The world chose to act, in the face of all those unanswered questions by the Peggy Noonans of the world, as well as varied motives.

    If another similar circumstance presents itself somewhere else, and at the likely levels of mass murder being imminent, then the world will get to decide again to do something, or not. Depending on all sorts of life is unfair factors. They may choose wrong, and may have chose wrong with Libya, with respect to the long term consequences, whatever they be.

    But they stopped a genocidal action reaching the probable cause level, and I suspect the overwhelming bulk of the Arab street was in favor of it. They don’t much care for western invasions and forced democracy from the barrel of an assault weapon, as Iraq proved. But this is not that.

    Look at it this way. Myself and other liberals have long since condemned the US propping up dictators like Qhadaffy, because they offered stability which was in our interests, but pretty much spat in the eyes of common Arabs and Muslims. We aren’t doing that here, and I say that is a good thing. At least for now.

  113. 113.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    @General Stuck:

    It is certainly in part about oil, at least for the Euros, but the fact that the Arab League asked for help when they never do, suggests they were terrified that Gadaffi was about to slaughter thousands of Arab citizens and if they did nothing some culpability would be theirs.

    I agree.

  114. 114.

    mr. whipple

    March 25, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:

    OBAMA LIED. LIBYANS EGYPTIANS SYRIANS YO MAMA DIED.

    seriously. what the hell is wrong with this blog?

    Anxiety attack(s)?

    Place has gotten wierd of late.

  115. 115.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 3:35 pm

    @joe from Lowell: You do understand what a rhetorical statement or rhetorical question is, right?
    I don’t need to prove every single thing I post with a concrete answer because not everything I post is written to imply, nor do most people infer that I mean precisely what I say and have no sideways or rhetorical meaning. I mean, you get that, right?
    So when I say that the UN and the European powers are drunk on the high of having the American military at their beck and call without having to pay for it, I don’t think that Ban Ki Moon and Nicolas Sarkozy are leaning over their Risk ™ board and plotting where next to send the US 7th Fleet and the 52nd Fighter Wing as I write this.
    I DO mean that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if those same powers were doing what they have done for as long as I’ve been paying attention, which is to see something like Libya or Syria, and to loudly declare that “somebody should do something!” or variations on that theme, while staring meaningfully in the direction of Washington, D.C. and now that they’ve gotten US assets to do their bidding cost free for the first time since the Kosovo campaign, they might be feeling a little giddy.
    But I guess you have to have an appreciation of hyperbole to get it.

  116. 116.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 3:36 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    Matoko is still waiting for sexy time from John Cole.

    I hear she is very miffed that she can’t play with us anymore…

  117. 117.

    Bob Loblaw

    March 25, 2011 at 3:37 pm

    @J.W. Hamner:

    Um, that wasn’t your question. You asked what the United States’ national security interests were in Libya beyond just a simple humanitarian calculation.

    This may be news to you, but members of the coalition have both common and uncommon specific interests and agendas in Libya. France is not the US which is not Qatar.

  118. 118.

    scav

    March 25, 2011 at 3:37 pm

    @mr. whipple: Stuck your head outside recently? Someone’s clearly hoarding sanity in an attempt to corner the market. I had to queue half an hour for a calm breath the other day, and that only works on even days.

  119. 119.

    BGinCHI

    March 25, 2011 at 3:38 pm

    @celticdragonchick: Holy crap, I can’t believe I missed that!

    She’ll be happier as a princess mewed behind a paywall anyway.

    matoko chan, let down your hair!

  120. 120.

    J.W. Hamner

    March 25, 2011 at 3:39 pm

    @Bob Loblaw:

    OK… but I don’t think it’s any less ludicrous to suggest that we fired those Tomahawks to score an ideological point.

  121. 121.

    Mnemosyne

    March 25, 2011 at 3:40 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    and you think we actually have good intentions for Libya? that this isnt ensuring that Gaddhafi doesnt cut off the oil supplies to west when it looked like he was gaining momentum..

    I think that, unlike Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, we have no interest in conquering Libya and running it as a client state of the US. Our interest is more in the stability of the entire region (which naturally stabilizes the oil supply) than it is in overthrowing and executing Gaddafi, installing an American-controlled puppet government, and taking over Libya’s oil fields for American companies.

    But I realize that you have absolutely no ability to distinguish between different military actions and think that WWII = Vietnam, so I realize you still won’t be able to process what I’m saying.

  122. 122.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 3:41 pm

    @celticdragonchick: You’d have to ask the poster self-styled as Hermione Granger-Weasley. She and m_c sound suspiciously like each other. I’m not sure, but I think they went to the same classes in junior college.

  123. 123.

    srv

    March 25, 2011 at 3:41 pm

    @No Fortunate Son:

    the next Rwanda, at least show some respect.

    You might get some respect if y’all stop making shit up.

  124. 124.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 3:41 pm

    @Joe Beese:

    Ah…you have joined us for the day.

    Found anymore Obama Nazi war crimes since last night? Mayhap SecState Clinton had some children boiled alive in cooking oil, or Samantha Powers had some puppies stomped to death?

  125. 125.

    Tim, Interrupted

    March 25, 2011 at 3:42 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    you are not gonna win against Angry Black Lady. Obama is beyond criticism for her, and if he had invaded Iraq under false pretenses, she would still be defending him.

    I am shocked that you would cast such vile aspersions upon ABL. Watch your step, lest you be banned, and deservedly so.

    And let me tell you, not that you asked, that ABL’s postings, writing, positions, emotional state, and physical presentation as expressed in posted pictures are all absolutely awesome, glorious, and the very models of perfection.

  126. 126.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 3:43 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    I am still laughing over that post myself. That one needs to be worked into a tag for Balloon Juice.

  127. 127.

    someguy

    March 25, 2011 at 3:43 pm

    NO WAY SHOULD WE GO BOMBING SYRIA!

    Well, unless the Preznit goes to the UN and kinda sorta gets NATO to kinda sorta mebbe back it, in which case,

    HELLS YEAH, WHAT THE FUCK KINDA HIPPY PEACENIK ARE YOU BOY?!? YOU MUST HATE HUMAN RIGHTS TO OPPOSE BOMBING THE FUCK OUT OF SYRIA!

    The most principledestest administration in history.

    Oh yeah, and fuck what Congress thinks. Since when do they have anything to say about when and where we go to war? I don’t see anything in the Constitution about them getting to say who we declare war on. Er, decree commencement of sorta multilateral disruptive kinetic actions against, I mean.

  128. 128.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 25, 2011 at 3:43 pm

    @No Fortunate Son:

    Refresh my memory: when Clinton intervened to stop the genocide in Kosovo, which the Libyan intervention most closely resembles in my mind, did people on the left accuse Clinton of murder?

    Yes, they did. There are people who write for Counterpunch who _still_ view Richard Holbrooke as a villain. It’s old news. The hard left didn’t even support Kosovo or, in many cases, Afghanistan, which was also deemed a war about oil pipelines and such.

  129. 129.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 3:44 pm

    @soonergrunt:

    Hogwarts sock puppetry?? Oh dear.

  130. 130.

    Mnemosyne

    March 25, 2011 at 3:44 pm

    @Bob L:

    Everyone right now would be saying the Neo-Cons are bunch of visionaries playing for the long game and not a bunch of power drunk frat boy assclowns.

    Oh, don’t worry, they’ll say it anyway. I’m surprised I haven’t seen Bill Kristol advancing the theory that none of this would have happened if not for Bush’s brave actions in Iraq, but they’re probably waiting to see how it plays out before they try taking credit for it.

    If this doesn’t go horribly wrong — and I still think this is more Bosnia than it is Iraq — the Republicans will be leaping forward to claim the credit, and the media will let them.

  131. 131.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 25, 2011 at 3:45 pm

    @mr. whipple:

    what the hell is wrong with this blog?

    Dick-measuring contest.

  132. 132.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    What this blog needs are more boobies.

  133. 133.

    Mnemosyne

    March 25, 2011 at 3:49 pm

    @someguy:

    Since when do they have anything to say about when and where we go to war? I don’t see anything in the Constitution about them getting to say who we declare war on.

    Did you know that treaties that are signed by the US — like, say, the treaty that we have with the UN — have the same force under the Constitution as US law? And that the Congress-approved UN treaty specifically says that the president does not have to wait for Congressional approval to act in concert with the UN?

    Maybe you should find some real talking points and stop making a fool of yourself.

  134. 134.

    Bob Loblaw

    March 25, 2011 at 3:50 pm

    @J.W. Hamner:

    You’re using ideology like it’s some sort of nasty pejorative. Becaused wizened “pragmatists” convinced you so.

    The UN’s responsibility to protect is an ideology. The UN claims the right to invade/deny sovereignties of its member states to prevent humanitarian disasters under specific rationales, even though two-fifths of its permanent security council routinely act in an anti-humanitarian fashion without consequence. It is what it is.

    The ability to legitimize, expand, and consolidate that responsibility is an American national security interest.

  135. 135.

    Martin

    March 25, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    @Bob L: Yeah, Israel certainly does complicate things, as does Iraq and Turkey. More significantly, I haven’t seen any indications that the Syrian people actually want intervention, at least from the west.

    Syria and Turkey have a simliar Kurdish problem as Iraq does. A reasonably large population that is in conflict with arab populations in the south and with Turks in the west. Any kind of intervention in Syria is going to provoke those ethnic problems all over again, particularly as the uprising in the middle east are primarily Arab uprisings. Not that the Kurds aren’t aligned with the goal of the uprising as they are in Iran, but they are going to be very skeptical about the consequence of the uprising in places like Syria and Turkey where they could be completely pushed out by a much larger Arab population. Basically the same problem that we saw in Iraq.

    Even if Israel stayed completely out of the fray (which would be difficult for them to do), the end result of Syrian intervention is likely to look much more like Iraq than Libya. That larger Kurdistan region, along with the Sunni/Shia and Arab/Persian ‘borders’ are all minefields for the west. Libya just doesn’t have that kind of shit going on. They’ve got tribal issues, but everyone else has those in addition to ethnic and sectarian issues.

    Plus, Libya doesn’t have any serious disputes with neighbors, unlike Syria who has constant disputes with Turkey and Israel. Again, this all comes down to ‘can we make this better’ and the answer is almost certainly ‘no’ at this stage.

  136. 136.

    BGinCHI

    March 25, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: It’s down to Beese and Loblaw then, cuz they’re the biggest dicks.

    Wait, maybe I have the wrong contest.

  137. 137.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    @J.W. Hamner:

    So you believe the UN approved a no fly zone in Libya to give Obama good press and to prove an ideological point for IR theorists? That strikes me as, uhm, implausible.

    Still, it does a much better job of describing Obama’s actions over the course of this episode than the War for Oil cliches.

    Did you know the Somalia mission was all about oil, too?

  138. 138.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    It’s down to Beese and Loblaw then, cuz they’re the biggest dicks.
    Wait, maybe I have the wrong contest.

    FTW

  139. 139.

    Jay

    March 25, 2011 at 3:53 pm

    I’m sure Leon Weasel Tears will be along to write an angry TNR piece about Syria any day now.

  140. 140.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 3:53 pm

    @celticdragonchick: Naaaa. I prefer Tits.
    Flashier tits make for stronger sperm, btw.

  141. 141.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    @joe from Lowell:

    Did you know the Somalia mission was all about oil, too?

    Yeah. I heard that Grenada and The Falklands wuz all about the oil too…

    The future war on Mars will be about the oil also.

  142. 142.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    @soonergrunt:

    LOL Typical male. ;)

    So you like tiny tits that are hard to catch?

  143. 143.

    Joe Beese

    March 25, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    Found anymore Obama Nazi war crimes since last night?

    Well, there was that Afghan child he murdered on Wednesday – but I may have mentioned that one already.

    And anyway, we don’t count them. Literally.

  144. 144.

    Poopyman

    March 25, 2011 at 3:57 pm

    @celticdragonchick: Feets, don’t fail me now!

    Thanks for the pics!

  145. 145.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 3:58 pm

    @Joe Beese:

    You never disappoint.

  146. 146.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 3:58 pm

    @Poopyman:

    LOL :)

  147. 147.

    NobodySpecial

    March 25, 2011 at 3:58 pm

    I think we should just take away everyone else’s air power, starting now. Clearly, they only use it to oppress people. Start with Heathrow.

  148. 148.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 3:59 pm

    @soonergrunt: Hyperbole only works if the it can be clearly traced back to the grounded point.

    Anyway, I’ll point back to the upgrading of Europe’s capacities and willingness to act after the Kosovo War. Obama has certainly not given them a free ride on our backs. He’s been firm in his demand that we turn over leadership quickly, and in demanding, successfully, meaningful assets from other countries.

    Now that I get your point, I think you’re just wrong about this. I predict that Europe will come out of this more ready and willing to pull their weight, not less.

  149. 149.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    @celticdragonchick: It’s the story of my life. shrug.

  150. 150.

    Mako

    March 25, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    @JAHILL10:

    I didn’t think BJ was so desperate for hits that it would continue this trolling of its readers to fight the same battle five times a day.

    please.
    It’s all ridiculous anyway. Only 3 solutions, kill Q, invade Libya and depose Q, or give up and let the Q keep it.
    If they are gonna do it without consulting me, I’d at least hope they’d do it frugally.
    and article about how nonexistant are the “rebels”.
    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/03/24/111020/on-the-ground-in-libya-rebels.html

  151. 151.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 25, 2011 at 4:02 pm

    @celticdragonchick: Also the reason for taking out Salvador Allende. Oil.

  152. 152.

    Joe Beese

    March 25, 2011 at 4:05 pm

    @Mako:

    I’d at least hope they’d do it frugally.

    Remember the billions we’re going to spend on this when Obama explains why he had to make the “tough choice” to cut Social Security.

  153. 153.

    Tim, Interrupted

    March 25, 2011 at 4:05 pm

    @soonergrunt:

    @celticdragonchick: Naaaa. I prefer Tits.
    Flashier tits make for stronger sperm, btw.

    Wow. That is just incredibly sexist and vile. I am offended, and fully expect to see you banned.

  154. 154.

    Suck It Up!

    March 25, 2011 at 4:06 pm

    Yes, John Cole, All Middle Eastern countries look alike.

  155. 155.

    someguy

    March 25, 2011 at 4:06 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Maybe you should find some real talking points and stop making a fool of yourself.

    So if the president signs a treaty, the Senate ratifies it, nobody gets a say about implementation, Congress & the Supreme Court are shut out when it comes to implementation?

    Ahh. Unitary Executive Theory + treaty power trumps Congress + Supreme Court.

    That’s a unique idea. I wonder where I’ve heard that before. Seems to me this Yoo feller used to talk that way. I thought he was crazy. Little did I realize he was actually a prophet.

    Ps. I saw your principles on the corner, Mnemosyne. I’m not shocked that they’re whored out, I’m just shocked that you’re okay with whoring them out so cheaply. Bombing Syria? Hmm. I have to ask, if Obama decided to bomb Iran to stop the repression of political dissent there, would you be okay with that too, providing he could get some level of UN sign-off? I say “some level” because Russia and China have now reneged on their Security Council votes…

  156. 156.

    Tim, Interrupted

    March 25, 2011 at 4:07 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    So you like tiny tits that are hard to catch?So you like tiny tits that are hard to catch?

    Sexist, mysoginist, degrading, and whatever. Wow, can’t believe you haven’t been banned yet.

  157. 157.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 4:08 pm

    @someguy:

    Well, unless the Preznit goes to the UN and kinda sorta gets NATO to kinda sorta mebbe back it

    You are welcome to your own opinions. You are not welcome to your own facts.

    Since when do they have anything to say about when and where we go to war? I don’t see anything in the Constitution about them getting to say who we declare war on. Er, decree commencement of sorta multilateral disruptive kinetic actions against, I mean.

    Did you know that the UN Participation Act, including Section 6, was passed by Congress?

  158. 158.

    Calouste

    March 25, 2011 at 4:08 pm

    @mr. whipple:

    Well, the logical facilities of the proprietor are on an extended vacation and some of the more sane frontpagers don’t post much these days (anyone seen Tom Leveson), so there’s that.

  159. 159.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 4:08 pm

    @joe from Lowell: If he hasn’t presented them wit a bill for 120 Tomahawk missiles (+/-), about 100 JDAM bombs (+/-), and one F-15E, then I’d say yeah, he has let them slide. Also the use and maintenance of all the assets that have been used to date, but I don’t have any heartburn with giving them a deal on that. Something like a buy two, get one free deal per aircraft operating hour, maybe, or a bulk rate on JP-8 and JP-5.
    I don’t think they’ll come out of it any more ready to pull their own weight than they were when they themselves actually started admitting that they were doing this back in the early ’90s.

  160. 160.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    March 25, 2011 at 4:09 pm

    @soonergrunt: So save lives and do. Or withdraw from the UN and take Switzerland’s stance on all wars.

  161. 161.

    Uriel

    March 25, 2011 at 4:10 pm

    @No Fortunate Son:

    I find myself deeply conflicted. Lots of people do. But if you’re going to argue for sitting out the next Rwanda, at least show some respect.

    Hear-fucking-here!

  162. 162.

    HyperIon

    March 25, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    @mr. whipple:

    Place has gotten wierd of late.

    I agree. Can you explain ABL’s comment, please?

    OBAMA LIED. LIBYANS EGYPTIANS SYRIANS YO MAMA DIED.

    @Angry Black Lady …or maybe you could? (sorry, the strike-throughs LIBYANS EGYPTIANS SYRIANS of don’t copy. i don’t understand it with or w/o them.)

  163. 163.

    Calouste

    March 25, 2011 at 4:12 pm

    @someguy:

    Supreme Court are shut out when it comes to implementation?

    The Supreme Court is shut out about implementation unless a case that deals with it actually comes to them. Contrary to what your feverish imagination seems to think, the Supreme Court can’t actually take an initiative to review anything unless there is a case in the courts.

  164. 164.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 4:12 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    Yeah. I heard that Grenada and The Falklands wuz all about the oil too…

    For realz! This morning, our Kanadian Komrade was ‘splaining it me. Somalia is near the Red Sea, where oil tankers travel, so that’s why we started defending aid convoys and then withdrew after losing a dozen soldiers.

  165. 165.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 4:13 pm

    @Tim, Interrupted: But you’re a fucking moron, so nobody cares what you want.

    And John Cole can ban me anytime he wants. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t have to ban me, merely tell me not to come round these parts no more, and he’ll have his way. And not in some bullshit new handle way like you’re doing, either.

  166. 166.

    MikeBoyScout

    March 25, 2011 at 4:14 pm

    I know it sounds crazy ‘n all, but maybe dem rascally Arabs are capable of managing their own affairs. As I recall from my Book of Mormon the semitic people have been running their own business for quite a while longer than Anglo born again (and again??) Murkins have.

    Maybe they can figure it all out and kill just the right villains all by themselves without us dirtying our little hands.

    Then again if we just shoot down everything that flies and use drones to bomb everything with a towel, nothing can go wrong.

  167. 167.

    Joe Beese

    March 25, 2011 at 4:15 pm

    Seems to me this Yoo feller used to talk that way. I thought he was crazy. Little did I realize he was actually a prophet.

    Yep.

    Now, here’s the funny part. This dark fantasy of a third Bush term is also an accurate portrait of Obama’s first term to date. In following Bush, Obama was given the opportunity either to restore the rule of law and the balance of powers or to firmly establish in place what were otherwise aberrant abuses of power. Thus far, President Obama has, in all the areas mentioned above, chosen the latter course. Everything described, from the continuation of crimes to the efforts to hide them away, from the corruption of corporate power to the assertion of the executive power to legislate, is Obama’s presidency in its first seven months.

    http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/bushs-third-term

    To which we can now add: Lying us into another war for oil.

  168. 168.

    Canadian Observer

    March 25, 2011 at 4:18 pm

    I’m going to keep repeating this:

    Qaddafi threatened to replace western oil firms with companies from India and China in a March 2 speech and more than 10 days later discussed possible investments with the ambassadors of the two countries and Russia, state-run television reported.

    Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told Italian lawmakers on March 16 that “China’s reasoning is an economic one” when it comes to Libya.

    Rome-based Eni, Italy’s largest oil company, France’s Total SA (FP) and Spain’s Repsol are among foreign companies that have evacuated their staff and scaled down production in Libya. More than 20 percent of the oil imported by Austria, Ireland and Italy is Libyan crude, the IEA said.

    “I don’t consider relations with Libya compromised,” Eni Chief Executive Officer Paolo Scaroni told investors in London on March 16. “We maintain relations with the national oil company, which is our natural counterpart.”

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-17/qaddafi-advance-poses-eni-expulsion-risk-from-libyan-oil-fields.html

    ….and then, magically, the push for intervention started snowballing! What a coincidence! I’m sure dropping Freedom Bobmbs had nothing to do with that!

    U.S. foreign policy is about 1) oil, 2) containing the rise of China as a Superpower. When the chips are down, it is all about those two goals.

    However, China didn’t veto it because it’s more than happy to see the US get bogged down in another quagmire while it happily lends your weakened and indebted economic basketcase of a country more money, while China builds up its stunning amount of foreign reserves and invests in infrastructure and education. As Lenin said, “They will sell us the rope we use to hang them”.

    MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, right guys?

  169. 169.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 4:19 pm

    @someguy:

    So if the president signs a treaty, the Senate ratifies it, nobody gets a say about implementation, Congress & the Supreme Court are shut out when it comes to implementation?

    Congress can repeal the UN Participation Act any time it wants.

    Until it does, it has invoked its authority to allow the President to use American military forces in response to a resolution from the UN Security Council.

    I say “some level” because Russia and China have now reneged on their Security Council votes…

    Russia and China didn’t cast votes.

    Other than that, great comment.

  170. 170.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 4:21 pm

    @Tim, Interrupted:

    You realize we are talking about birds, right?

  171. 171.

    boomshanka

    March 25, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    Damn, people blame John for trolling his own site (is that possible), but it seems to me there isn’t much room in the comments for the DFHs. Lotta people here got their war on.

  172. 172.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 4:23 pm

    @soonergrunt:

    LMAO!

    Can’t help you with that one!

  173. 173.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 4:24 pm

    @MikeBoyScout:

    I know it sounds crazy ‘n all, but maybe dem rascally Arabs are capable of managing their own affairs.

    Oh, I don’t think there’s any doubt Khaddaffy was about to handle the living shit out of his affairs in Benghazi. Papa Assad sure did handle his affairs in Hama – good and hard.

    In a similar vein, the hallowed Invisible Hand would handle widespread poverty, too. Oh, yeah, baby, Khadaffy and the Invisible Hand can reach some serious equilibrium.

  174. 174.

    SteveinSC

    March 25, 2011 at 4:24 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    Beese and Loblaw then, cuz they’re the biggest dicks.

    The product of penis length and IQ = 600

    PL x IQ = 600

    Q.E.D.

    (Equation derived from study of porn movies and interviews with porn stars and diverse others, e.g. John Holmes, myself, etc.

  175. 175.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    @joe from Lowell:

    Canadian Observer is a bonafide hoot. I half wonder is she isn’t doing some sort of performance art.

  176. 176.

    John Cole

    March 25, 2011 at 4:26 pm

    Some times y’all just can’t resist the bait when I throw it out there, can ya?

  177. 177.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    @John Cole:

    Depends on what you put on the hook.

  178. 178.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 4:30 pm

    @celticdragonchick: Nice red meat.

  179. 179.

    Uriel

    March 25, 2011 at 4:30 pm

    @celticdragonchick: M_C is still posting under a different name- Hermone Somebunchofnonsense, or something similar.

  180. 180.

    Uriel

    March 25, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    @Canadian Observer:

    I’m going to keep repeating this

    Yes, I somehow suspected you were. Funny that.

  181. 181.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 25, 2011 at 4:37 pm

    @boomshanka: You lot just tuckered yourselves out overrunning every previous thread with predictions of doom and empire.

  182. 182.

    General Stuck

    March 25, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    @John Cole:

    You got Joe Beese so loosey goosey, he played the Obama to gut SS card in a war thread.

    I figure by tomorrow, the dude will renounce his citizenship and run off with a band of gypsies.

  183. 183.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    March 25, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    The first time we ever got a troll, we knew we’d made it up to the C-list. I’m not talking about today’s criteria for trolls (ANYONE THAT DISAGREES WITH ME OR JOHN IS A TROLL GODDAMMIT) I’m talking about the real deal, sent right from the bowels of Hell to rage unrelenting war on rational human beings, sorta like Joe Beese except back then, they only had to put in 5 days a week because the RNC didn’t wanna pay overtime.

    Oddly, it seems like the only time trolls (again, the REAL kind) show up is when everyone is sitting around hugging and singing kumbaya at each other, or otherwise ya don’t even notice ’em. We had our paradise for sure. This was in the days before internet advertising so the pages loaded super quick. There weren’t that many of us regulars so it seemed like hardly anybody at all was ignoring ya. And those were the days when regular folks like me and you could make an absolute shitton of money by posting comments about sh0es or penls enhancement drugs and/or surgery.

    So there we were in the middle of one of our typical conversations about the f00twear when out of nowhere, this dude named Darrell showed up, pissed all over the carpet, wrote his name in feces on the wall and got us thrown out of Eden, not necessarily in that order.

    So when I see so-called trolls nowadays, I just have to giggle inappropriately. Because you kids wouldn’t know a troll if it came wrapped in troll paper with large blinking Troll arrows pointing at it.

  184. 184.

    Brachiator

    March 25, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    and so your point is what? that we should keep coddling dictators even though their populace doesnt like it? just like we are doing in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia?

    Ah, no. I’m suggesting that the distinction between the people, all sweetness and light, and dictators, all naughty and odious, is simplistic. And various factions have backed “the people’s choice” only to find that what you get is just as bad as what you just toppled.

    In short, it’s about specific situations, people times and places, not neat pro or anti war sloganeering or a foreign policy template that gets plastered over everything.

  185. 185.

    BGinCHI

    March 25, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    @SteveinSC: And they say the underemployed aren’t doing useful things.

    /high five

  186. 186.

    Suck It Up!

    March 25, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    @boomshanka:

    who’s stopping you from typing?

  187. 187.

    Gus

    March 25, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    @wenchacha: Bingo.

  188. 188.

    Calouste

    March 25, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    @boomshanka:

    I’m glad to listen to the DFHs on this one (my personal opinion is that war is a bad thing but letting Gaddafi carry out his threats would have been worse^).

    However, seeing the same dishonest bullshit (unconstitutionality (nope, UN ,Participation Act) America started it (nope, Arab League explicitly asked the UN for a no-fly zone) etc etc) repeated over and over again makes the patience wear thin.

    ^) I haven’t added up the numbers from the various reports, and there is of course misinformation on both sides, but Gaddafi’s forces seem to have killed significantly more Lybians than the UN coalition since the no-fly zone went into effect. Even with the no-fly zone and ground attacks against artillery and such.

  189. 189.

    jenn

    March 25, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    @Uriel:

    Seems unlikely. Hermione is able to write in complete sentences, not to mention correctly use punctuation — and I’ve yet to see her preeningly reference her own IQ.

  190. 190.

    Poopyman

    March 25, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    @John Cole: Well, we did get us some boobies now, right?

  191. 191.

    Poopyman

    March 25, 2011 at 4:50 pm

    @jenn: Exactly. Of course, MC’s schtick could have been entirely fabricated. I wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble, but ya never know.

  192. 192.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    @Poopyman:

    Unfortunately, “Tim Interrupted” doesn’t like my boobies.

  193. 193.

    Uriel

    March 25, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    @jenn: No, it’s her- when she first started back, she hadn’t fully internalized the new character and made a couple of telling slips- referencing the whole ‘genitcally selecting for stupid in jesus land’ thing, and slipping into her weird chanese l33t speak (think MOAR NAOW). Also, she posted links to her favorite American Muslim boards.

    And, most tellingly, she hasn’t corrected anyone calling her Matoko, which has occurred several times.

  194. 194.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    @Poopyman: So maybe she got her meds tuned.
    The give-aways are that she refers to military equipment as ‘mecha’ just like m_c did, and she’s ridden the same “islam is incompatible with democracy” hobby horse (tell that to the Egyptians) and she also references the Abu Muquwama blog just like m_c did, using the english translation of “Father of Conflict (War)”. She also referenced the arabic translation of the Libyan op’s name correctly into the name of the (famous to Arabs) Arab revolutionary.

  195. 195.

    patroclus

    March 25, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    I think it’s time for America to impose a No Lie Zone.

  196. 196.

    boomshanka

    March 25, 2011 at 5:01 pm

    @Calouste

    I’m completely against the war but hoping it goes as well as it possibly can. I’m reflexively against it not just because Bill Kristol is for it, but because Obama has not justified it to me morally or to shown it to be prudent. He hasn’t attempted to do so. As Jon Stewart said the other night (paraphrasing) “Obama doesn’t even care enough about us to lie to us.”

    The primary reason I supported, donated to, volunteer for, and voted for Obama over Hillary was because he was against the Iraq war, and less likely of the two to start another. True she was a known quantity as she established her hawk credentials. But I never heard of his interventionist philosophy before two weeks ago.

    No, Libya isn’t Iraq, but I’m hearing a lot of a lot of similar humanitarian arguments used to justify it. Just because Libya has the UN Seal of Freshness doesn’t make it all peaches and pancakes to me.

  197. 197.

    Tim, Interrupted

    March 25, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    @soonergrunt:

    But you’re a fucking moron, so nobody cares what you want.
    And John Cole can ban me anytime he wants. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t have to ban me, merely tell me not to come round these parts no more, and he’ll have his way. And not in some bullshit new handle way like you’re doing, either.

    Gosh, Soonergrunt, you are just so angry and like, mean. What in the world could be making it so for you? I am sorry if things aren’t nice in your world today.

    FYI, I chose my new handle with great consideration and much care, in an effort to reflect the depth of my contrition and the sincerity of my BJ rebirth. Does this upset you, my friend? Does the joy I feel in my new place in the light, as reflected in my new “handle,” make you haz a sad?

    Here’s a hug: (soonergrunt)

  198. 198.

    BGinCHI

    March 25, 2011 at 5:08 pm

    This thread needs a cock:

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_F6nE-2x3ZaY/Swg1iYpQSOI/AAAAAAAABho/ZDXcwrE0nw4/s1600/rooster.jpg

  199. 199.

    Tim, Interrupted

    March 25, 2011 at 5:09 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    You realize we are talking about birds, right?

    Well, of course, but others are not so wise, and it is for their pain that I cry out to the blogger gods for justice.

  200. 200.

    Uriel

    March 25, 2011 at 5:09 pm

    @soonergrunt: Those things, also, too.

  201. 201.

    Valdivia

    March 25, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    OT but not really–I have been keeping pretty close track of all the revolutions and it is truly amazing to see arabs in their 20, 30, 40s snark their way through twiter about their tragic circumstances and the exhilaration of the possibility of deposing these old dictatorships. Their manual of arab dictators is hilarious. They also have a dictator bingo for the inevitable speeches of nothing to see here, Al Qaeda did this, the Zionists did it, they’re all drug-dealers etc.

    Truly something to behold and inspiring.

  202. 202.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    @Canadian Observer:

    I’m going to keep repeating this:

    If you want to keep scoring this own-goal over and over again, you go on with the your bad self.

    February 26, 2011: Barack Obama: Muammar Khadaffy Must Go Immediately

    So, in other words, when Libya was still happily selling his oil to the west, we threw in with the protesters and demanded he leave. In response, he threatens to cut off oil sales. We respond to the possibility that he will cut off our oil sales if he take action against him by…taking action against him, which led him to cut off oil sales to the west.

    Thus proving that we took action to protect our access to Libyan oil. Or something.

  203. 203.

    No Fortunate Son

    March 25, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    @srv:

    Let us never forget that innocent people will suffer and die.

    Excuse me for taking Qadaffi at his word. He does have a history, you know.

  204. 204.

    Brachiator

    March 25, 2011 at 5:22 pm

    @Canadian Observer:

    U.S. foreign policy is about 1) oil, 2) containing the rise of China as a Superpower. When the chips are down, it is all about those two goals.

    And how is this a problem, when it is lauded and applauded by the American people, liberals included, and Canadians, also?

    And it’s not just about oil anymore. Hasn’t been that way for a long time. China has a crappy human rights record and does business with some of the most rotten authoritarian regimes ever, for materials and energy resources. But everyone, everyone, wants cheap Chinese goods. No questions asked.

    And China has been a superpower ever since it got the bomb. I don’t see much to contain here.

  205. 205.

    Poopyman

    March 25, 2011 at 5:22 pm

    @soonergrunt: Jesus! You’ve been paying attention.

    Not to be disrespectful, but have you ever considered getting a life?

  206. 206.

    Dave

    March 25, 2011 at 5:23 pm

    How does Canadian Observer feel about a Canadian general taking control of the NATO forces in Libya. Or is that part of a CIA false flag operation to keep Obama’s oil hunger a secret just a little longer?

  207. 207.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    @Tim, Interrupted:

    Heh! You got me!

  208. 208.

    No Fortunate Son

    March 25, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    @joe from Lowell: You do know a Canadian is now leading this effort? Just sayin’

    You can flail around desperately trying to spin a US oil conspiracy from straws here, but the simple fact that the US lagged, not led on this issue effectivly refutes that theory.

    The US imports no oil from Libya and has an oil surplus for Heavens’ sake. If you’re going to go with a conspiracy theory, pick the right one.

    This was nothing more than a chance to topple Qadaffi, avoid genocide, and make friends and influence (the right) people in the Middle East.

  209. 209.

    No Fortunate Son

    March 25, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    @Brachiator: You do know a Canadian is now leading this effort? Just sayin’

    You can flail around desperately trying to spin a US oil conspiracy from straws here, but the simple fact that the US lagged, not led on this issue effectivly refutes that theory.

    The US imports no oil from Libya and has an oil surplus for Heavens’ sake. If you’re going to go with a conspiracy theory, pick the right one.

    This was nothing more than a chance to topple Qadaffi, avoid genocide, and make friends and influence (the right) people in the Middle East.

  210. 210.

    Gus

    March 25, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    @soonergrunt:

    islam is incompatible with democracy” hobby horse (tell that to the Egyptians)

    Oh, did the Egyptians elect the army? I’m as excited about the potential of Egypt as anyone, but let’s wait to see what happens before we call the country democratic. Turkey is a much better example.

  211. 211.

    No Fortunate Son

    March 25, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    @Canadian Observer: You do know a Canadian is now leading this effort? Just sayin’

    You can flail around desperately trying to spin a US oil conspiracy from straws here, but the simple fact that the US lagged, not led on this issue effectivly refutes that theory.

    The US imports no oil from Libya and has an oil surplus for Heavens’ sake. If you’re going to go with a conspiracy theory, pick the right one.

    This was nothing more than a chance to topple Qadaffi, avoid genocide, and make friends and influence (the right) people in the Middle East.

  212. 212.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 5:29 pm

    Kanadian Krackheads: A Play in One Act

    Crack Dealer standing on street corner with Girl. They’re arguing. He slaps her.

    Crackhead: Hey! You keep your hands off my sister!

    Dealer: Oh, yeah? You do anything I’m not selling you any more crack.

    Returns to slapping her. slap. slap. slap. slap. sla-BOOM!! Crackhead punches Dealer.

    Dealer: That’s it! No more crack for you!

    Crackhead stands between Dealer and Girl.

    Kanadian Komrade: He did that because he wants the crack.

    fin

  213. 213.

    Mnemosyne

    March 25, 2011 at 5:31 pm

    @someguy:

    So if the president signs a treaty, the Senate ratifies it, nobody gets a say about implementation, Congress & the Supreme Court are shut out when it comes to implementation?

    ‘

    Congress is welcome to pass legislation voiding the treaty, though it will be too late to avoid our involvement in Libya. If someone can prove that they have standing, they’re welcome to try and sue to void the treaty and get the case to the Supreme Court.

    But until that happens, the law is the law. Are you really arguing that it’s up to the executive branch to interpret the Constitution and decide for themselves if a treaty approved by Congress passes constitutional muster?

    Ahh. Unitary Executive Theory + treaty power trumps Congress + Supreme Court.

    I’m pretty sure there couldn’t anything less “unitary executive” than saying that if Congress doesn’t like the terms of a treaty and wants to rescind it — as is their constitutional duty — then they should. “Unitary executive” is your vision of the executive deciding for himself whether or not a treaty is constitutional after Congress approves the treaty. Projection much?

    Bombing Syria? Hmm.

    Sorry, where did I say I was in favor of bombing Syria? In fact, where did anyone say they were in favor of bombing Syria other than the people who claim it would be hypocritical not to do it?

    As other people have pointed out, Syria would open up a whole bunch of cans of worms that are not factors in Libya (like, say, Israel, which borders Syria but is 1,200 miles away from Libya). But, hey, why look at different situations on their own merits when you can just scream, “OBAMA = BUSH!” over and over again?

  214. 214.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 25, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    @jenn: Oh, it’s her. The verbal tics are still there, but they are camouflaged a bit.

  215. 215.

    Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy

    March 25, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    OO: It’s a mere fig leaf, as you can address her directly (frankly, calling her ‘tako-chin [and I’m not sure what I mean by that] is easier than thumb-typing her new name) and she will respond.

    But you are correct in that her ‘tako-tics shine through pretty clearly.

  216. 216.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 6:02 pm

    @salacious crumb: shut your fucking face, uncle fucker.

  217. 217.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 6:04 pm

    @salacious crumb: and yes, that’s all the response your dumbass trolling warrants. when you’ve read the preamble and chapters I-VII of the UN Charter (shouldn’t take you more than 20 minutes, assuming you’re not hooked on phonics) then I’ll consider your dumbassery worth my time.

  218. 218.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 6:07 pm

    @Joe Beese: it’s so sad how you keep trying to win against me and you fail repeatedly and catastrophically. read the fucking un charter, you dolt.

  219. 219.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 6:08 pm

    @Tim, Interrupted: i’m glad that you finally agree. i see your ABL™ brainchip is working quite well.

    carry on, morons.

  220. 220.

    Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy

    March 25, 2011 at 6:10 pm

    Angry Black Lady: JFC, after that factually challanged meltdown of yours, I wouldn’t really depricate others for their errors.

  221. 221.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 6:12 pm

    @celticdragonchick: has anyone considered a meme generator for joe beese?

  222. 222.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 6:14 pm

    @Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy: and what exactly are you referring to?

    you still crying about me getting two entirely irrelevant facts wrong about woodrow wilson? did you high five yourself and cry out “EUREKA!” and then jizz in your pants?

    read the fucking un charter or shut up.

    also, it’s “challenged,” in case you care. i guess that means everything you say from here on out is bullshit.

    neener neener!

  223. 223.

    Canadian Observer

    March 25, 2011 at 6:16 pm

    @joe from Lowell:

    The movement for intervention didn’t pick up steam until Ghadaffi threatened the oil, especially when he threatened to bring in China.

    It went from empty words to snowballing into a full-blown war in about a week.

  224. 224.

    Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy

    March 25, 2011 at 6:20 pm

    So you don’t know the difference between spelling and facts. Good to know.

    And frankly, when I read a paper with so many basic errors of fact in the background info, I’m not really inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt on the rest. Something about a foundation built on sand.

    Hey, why don’t you ban me for being a big meanie?

  225. 225.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 6:20 pm

    @HyperIon: it was a troll response to a troll post. much like the myriad troll responses on this thread.

    nothing to see here.

  226. 226.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 6:21 pm

    @Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy: really? was it so many? or was it two?

    i can’t keep up since you keep moving the ball.

    again, read the un charter, or shut the fuck up.

    oh, and here’s a rag for that mess in your pants.

  227. 227.

    Calouste

    March 25, 2011 at 6:21 pm

    @boomshanka:

    No, Libya isn’t Iraq, but I’m hearing a lot of a lot of similar humanitarian arguments used to justify it.

    So what humanitarian arguments were used to justify the 2003 Iraq invasion? Saddam Hussein wasn’t trying to exterminate a section of the Iraqi population at that time, he already did that in 1991. In 2003 the talk was about WMD, Saddam wasn’t attacking how own population at that time.

  228. 228.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 6:22 pm

    @Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy: and for the record, i didn’t ban tim for being a meanie. i banned him for being a sexist asshole.

    but you wouldn’t know the difference because you’re an idiot.

  229. 229.

    WaterGirl

    March 25, 2011 at 6:24 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: She did start writing in complete sentences after John mini-banned her a few weeks ago, so we know she is capable of it.

  230. 230.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 6:24 pm

    @Tim, Interrupted: Even if you gave me a little tongue action I’d still think that you’re fucking moron.
    But if you choose the right lip gloss, put on a miniskirt, and cut your hair just so and and stand in the light just right…
    Nope. You’re still a fucking moron. But now you’re kinda cute.

  231. 231.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 6:25 pm

    @WaterGirl: she also invaded my blog and started posting as aspie asian grrl or some such shit.

  232. 232.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 6:26 pm

    @soonergrunt: ::snort::

  233. 233.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 6:27 pm

    @Poopyman: I had one of those. They’re over-rated. So I retired and got less stressful one.

  234. 234.

    General Stuck

    March 25, 2011 at 6:27 pm

    @Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy:

    And frankly, when I read a paper with so many basic errors of fact in the background info, I’m not really inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt on the rest.

    If you can make a cogent and coherent case that Obama is acting outside the law, then make it, and stop whining and rehashing peoples past mistakes they have corrected as an argument. Or you could just, stfu

  235. 235.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 6:28 pm

    @No Fortunate Son: You’re shooting at the wrong guy, dude.

  236. 236.

    Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy

    March 25, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    Hey, all I know is that you tucked tail and ran because several people called you on you errors of fact.

  237. 237.

    Gus

    March 25, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    @Calouste: You should read some 2003 Hitchens. I don’t think he bought the mushroom cloud bullshit, but he talked about saving Shia from oppression. There were plenty of mentions of Halabja, not to mention the way the oil for food program had no effect on Saddam, but plenty on Iraq’s poor. So yeah, it was mostly from the Peter Beinarts of the world, but there was plenty of justification of the Iraq invasion on humanitarian grounds. There was of course always the brilliant “oh, you don’t like the invasion, you must love Saddam” argument, which I am happy to see no one offering in Gaddhafi’s case.

  238. 238.

    OzoneR

    March 25, 2011 at 6:30 pm

    Seriously, I wouldn’t say no. If al-Assad says he will “spare no mercy” against, say, Aleppo, then yeah, no fly zone away

  239. 239.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 6:31 pm

    @Gus: I was referring to the aspirations of the Egyptians, but your point is well taken. Thanks.

    Turkey is a much better example

    yes, they are. Again, thanks.

  240. 240.

    General Stuck

    March 25, 2011 at 6:32 pm

    @Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy:

    Hey, all I know

    I googled it, and came up goose eggs.

  241. 241.

    Bob Loblaw

    March 25, 2011 at 6:34 pm

    Man, I can’t figure out why people don’t take ABL seriously.

  242. 242.

    Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy

    March 25, 2011 at 6:36 pm

    Hey Stuck, isn’t time for you to ‘retire’ or write a GBCW or beg John to ban you or something?

  243. 243.

    Cris

    March 25, 2011 at 6:37 pm

    This thread sucks.

  244. 244.

    General Stuck

    March 25, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    @Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy:

    Hey Stuck, isn’t time for you to ‘retire’ or write a GBCW or beg John to ban you or something?

    It could be. But not today.

  245. 245.

    Mnemosyne

    March 25, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    @Gus:

    Contra Hitchens, I do think there’s a difference between Saddam having massacred his people in the past and Gaddafi lining up his artillery to level a city in real time.

    But, really, Hitchens just wanted to kick some Muzzie ass, so forgive me if I doubt his crocodile tears about the poor oppressed Shia.

  246. 246.

    Mnemosyne

    March 25, 2011 at 6:41 pm

    @Cris:

    Yeah, the really fun trolls aren’t around today. There’s only so many times you can kick Joe Beese in the ass before you get bored. Canadian Observer bored me three days ago, so I just scroll past.

  247. 247.

    jenn

    March 25, 2011 at 6:43 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Ugh. Well, at least in her HGW persona, I haven’t yet read any posts that made me want to gouge out my eyeballs with a spork, so there’s that.

  248. 248.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 6:51 pm

    @jenn: Who says that people can’t grow?

  249. 249.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 6:53 pm

    @soonergrunt: He seems to just be spraying the room.

  250. 250.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    March 25, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Yeah, the really fun trolls aren’t around today. There’s only so many times you can kick Joe Beese in the ass before you get bored. Canadian Observer bored me three days ago, so I just scroll past.

    Is that even possible for you? You strike me as the sort of person that has imaginary arguments with other cars on the freeway.

  251. 251.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    @Bob Loblaw: not “people” just a few idiots like you, dear.

  252. 252.

    agrippa

    March 25, 2011 at 7:01 pm

    @Joe Beese:

    whatever floats your boat Beese

  253. 253.

    agrippa

    March 25, 2011 at 7:01 pm

    @Joe Beese:

    whatever floats your boat Beese

  254. 254.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    March 25, 2011 at 7:01 pm

    I can’t figure out why people don’t take me serious. Is it the handle? Because I can change it to “guy with smoking jacket”.

  255. 255.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    @Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy: shows how little you know, toots.

    @General Stuck: http://tiny.cc/heyo

  256. 256.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead: hahahaha.

  257. 257.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 7:05 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Affect a ‘liberal William F. Buckley’ attitude to go with the jacket, and you’re there.

  258. 258.

    Uriel

    March 25, 2011 at 7:05 pm

    @jenn: Really? ‘Cause I personally find all the cutesy references to dementors and Hogwarts and dark arts class mind numbingly irritating. Whatever you want to say about the old persona, at least it wasn’t saccharin.

    (Ok, in the interests of full disclosure, I was actually fond of the old persona. Sure it was crazy and repetitive, but it was entertainingly crazy and repetitive. I thought it added a certin je ne sais qua to the usual, oh so very serious proceedings. YMMV, obviously.)

  259. 259.

    agrippa

    March 25, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    @joe from Lowell:

    i would welcome a discussion about why we choose to go against Gaddafy and not go against Assad.

    there may not be a logical explanation.

    I am real weak on this Libya operation; if for no other reason than the Arab World is in a revolutionary situation ( in my view) and the whole region may catch fire.

  260. 260.

    Bob Loblaw

    March 25, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Have you read the fucking UN charter yet? I’ve been hearing good things about it.

  261. 261.

    Jonny Scrum-half

    March 25, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    Just curious. Why is it okay to ask our soldiers and sailors to kill and die because citizens of another country are being killed by a dictator in that country?

  262. 262.

    Brachiator

    March 25, 2011 at 7:18 pm

    @Canadian Observer:

    the movement for intervention didn’t pick up steam until Ghadaffi threatened the oil, especially when he threatened to bring in China.

    Of course, the Chinese have their own agenda. Ghadaffi couldn’t just raise the Bat signal and have them appear.

    And again with the oil. Oi! Everybody wants strategic materials. Ya know, like metals for batteries for their laptops, the components of solar cells. You know where people get all the stuff they need without the need for pesky dealings with foreigners? Yeah, you got it:

    Utopia.

  263. 263.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    March 25, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    @Bob Loblaw:

    Have you read the fucking UN charter yet? I’ve been hearing good things about it.

    I’ve been looking for video of Sasha Grey reading it while being doubleteamed by a French dude and an English dude.

  264. 264.

    Jonny Scrum-half

    March 25, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    Regarding the UN Participation Act, what does the “special agreement” between the UN and the US say with respect to the forces that the US is to provide to the UN in situations such as Libya?

  265. 265.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    March 25, 2011 at 7:28 pm

    .
    .
    Time for a no-fly zone for U.S. government air drones over U.S. soil.
    .
    .

  266. 266.

    Mnemosyne

    March 25, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Is that even possible for you? You strike me as the sort of person that has imaginary arguments with other cars on the freeway.

    Oh, I get bored with particular commenters after a while and scroll on past. On the other hand, apparently I think that bad weather is a personal insult that needs to be argued with, so there’s that.

  267. 267.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 7:37 pm

    @Bob Loblaw: willful ignorance is hilarious! also, it’s a characteristic of the teabillies.

  268. 268.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    @Uncle Clarence Thomas: Apparently this is a huge coordination issue for the Air Force. Non-piloted planes in the airways, the reaction time issue with remote pilot systems, the whole nine yards. There’s some useful stuff on that here.

  269. 269.

    Bob Loblaw

    March 25, 2011 at 7:52 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:

    Why it’s almost as though the UN/NATO action is the complete opposite of illegal and unprecedented! OMGWTF.

    You should clearly keep going on and on and on about the system working exactly as it was designed to do. Because Joe Beese and random BJ commenters are just so damned credible. And it doesn’t make you look ridiculous and small at all.

  270. 270.

    soonergrunt

    March 25, 2011 at 7:54 pm

    @patroclus: That would be an area approximately 1/2 square meter.
    In southwestern Utah.

  271. 271.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    March 25, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    Yer like a fucking troll magnet, ABL.

  272. 272.

    joe from Lowell

    March 25, 2011 at 8:04 pm

    @agrippa:

    i would welcome a discussion about why we choose to go against Gaddafy and not go against Assad.

    1. The situation in Libya is a lot worse – many times worse – than the situation in Syria. The article John links to says “dozens” were killed in Syria. Khadaffy was in midst of a campaign which would have killed, literally, a thousand times that number, or more.

    2. The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution, and we weren’t even the driving force behind it. We can’t just go storming into countries by ourselves.

    3. Libya is a military situation, and was before we got there. There are two armed sides, front lines, heavy equipment, and open warfare. Repression by security forces, even using lethal force against protesters, simply isn’t as amenable to things like air strikes as a tank column closing in on a city.

  273. 273.

    HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist

    March 25, 2011 at 8:05 pm

    But we can’t support anything anywhere that would raise gov’t workers’ salaries!

  274. 274.

    Fuzz

    March 25, 2011 at 8:11 pm

    fwiw Syria also has powerful friends, not many, and they likely can’t do much, but they have means of fighting back against outsiders. If Syria ever get bombed an ungodly amount of missiles would be fired into Israel by them and by Hezbollah. It would dwarf the war from 06 because now they both have missiles that can reach Tel Aviv. Libya on the other hand hasn’t had any friends since the cold war ended, everyone hates Qaddafi, except for that Serbian Facebook group, whatever he did to Serbia, they love him for it (they’re supposedly sending mercenaries).

  275. 275.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 25, 2011 at 8:23 pm

    @Fuzz: Also, the way I remember it, some Libyans killed that guy who built a time machine out of a DeLorean.

  276. 276.

    Calouste

    March 25, 2011 at 8:23 pm

    @joe from Lowell:

    +1, specially on point 3

    As I said in a somewhat mangled post (FYWP) above, a no-fly zone does F-all if the target in question doesn’t use any planes. Which Assad doesn’t, or at least not to quell the unrest.

    If you want to stop repression by security forces the options are pretty much limited to boots on the ground, and that’s not going to happen.

  277. 277.

    DPirate

    March 25, 2011 at 9:56 pm

    @Poopyman: Maybe they already are. Black Bloc.

    First Libya, then Syria, next Wisconsin!

  278. 278.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 9:59 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:

    I thought that was Matoko.

  279. 279.

    celticdragonchick

    March 25, 2011 at 10:02 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:

    has anyone considered a meme generator for joe beese?

    Charles at LGF did a hilarious one for the Shrieking Harpy over at Atlas Shrugs (I refuse to link to her blog).

    I would love to see one for our dear friend Mr Beese.

  280. 280.

    Todd Dugdale

    March 25, 2011 at 10:23 pm

    Is the opposition in Syria the majority? probably not
    Are they asking for international intervention? no
    Has one of our military allies recognised the opposition as the legitimate government of Syria? no
    Is Syria a country with vast expanses of emptiness in which air power would be crucial to massacres of civilians? no

    Are we going to go through this false equivalence for another decade? yes

  281. 281.

    OzoneR

    March 25, 2011 at 10:34 pm

    @agrippa:

    i would welcome a discussion about why we choose to go against Gaddafy and not go against Assad.

    Syria hasn’t reached to the level Libya is at yet.

  282. 282.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    @Bob Loblaw: you should clearly read the fucking un charter and the constitution and stop being such an unabashed idiot.

    seriously. you’re embarrassing yourself.

  283. 283.

    Tim, Interrupted

    March 25, 2011 at 10:48 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:

    and for the record, i didn’t ban tim for being a meanie. i banned him for being a sexist asshole.

    Those latter two terms being highly subjective and ever-changing around here…but never mind. I don’t want to spend another week chained in ABL’s basement.

    I saw things there that, were I to speak them aloud, would TEAR YOUR SOUL APAAAAAAAAAARRRRTTTT!

  284. 284.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 10:48 pm

    @Bob Loblaw: yes, I’M the one who looks small. doesn’t your name appear on virtually everyone’s shortlist of most likely to go full retard troll?

    please. if people are going to keep repeating the same bullshit, i’m going to correct it if i see it. suck it up, buddy.

    so in conclusion:

    how’s that un charter working out for ya?

  285. 285.

    Tim, Interrupted

    March 25, 2011 at 10:52 pm

    @soonergrunt:

    ven if you gave me a little tongue action I’d still think that you’re fucking moron.
    But if you choose the right lip gloss, put on a miniskirt, and cut your hair just so and and stand in the light just right…
    Nope. You’re still a fucking moron. But now you’re kinda cute.

    I always knew you wanted me…you military boys are all the same.

    BTW, should I attempt to have you banned for using homophobic language and degrading imagery in that post and thereby offending me to the quick? Hmmm…

  286. 286.

    Tim, Interrupted

    March 25, 2011 at 10:55 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:

    @soonergrunt: ::snort:

    So…ABL, it’s good to know you are OK with sexist and homophobic language when directed anywhere but at you, and when spewed by one of your buds.

    Good to know…that. Wonder…should I email Cole about this? You know, like you would do?

  287. 287.

    Corner Stone

    March 25, 2011 at 10:57 pm

    @soonergrunt: Wow.

  288. 288.

    Bob Loblaw

    March 25, 2011 at 10:58 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:

    To repeat, since I’ve repeatedly said the administration is completely within constitutional bounds and the UN resolution is entirely within conventional R2P doctrine and thus completely legitimate and uncontroversial, and you just want to lie about what I’m saying and tell me to “go read the UN charter” for no reason…yeah, that makes you look small.

    You’re so lost up in your own bullshit you don’t even know who you’re yelling at anymore.

  289. 289.

    Corner Stone

    March 25, 2011 at 10:59 pm

    Whatever anyone does! Do NOT answer a post by ABL that references any part of her anatomy!
    She will whinge to Cole post haste facto ante qui sum and chickenshittedly get you banned!
    It’s a tarp!

  290. 290.

    Corner Stone

    March 25, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    UN Charter!! U..N..Char..Tar!!

  291. 291.

    Corner Stone

    March 25, 2011 at 11:02 pm

    @Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy:

    Hey, why don’t you ban me for being a big meanie?

    ::snort::

  292. 292.

    Corner Stone

    March 25, 2011 at 11:04 pm

    @Angry Black Lady:

    and for the record, i didn’t ban tim for being a meanie. i banned him for being a sexist asshole.

    Bullshit. That was pathetic.

  293. 293.

    Corner Stone

    March 25, 2011 at 11:05 pm

    @General Stuck:

    I googled it, and came up goose eggs.

    Mainly because ABL pulled the post after 18 comments. A little matter of factual errors.

  294. 294.

    Corner Stone

    March 25, 2011 at 11:08 pm

    @Uncle Clarence Thomas:

    Time for a no-fly zone for U.S. government air drones over U.S. soil.

    Welcome to Houston and the Gulf Coast. Drones are free flying here for the last several months. Over American soil.
    All the things we’ve done overseas or off our shores during the last couple wars we have now brought home and mainstreamed.

  295. 295.

    Corner Stone

    March 25, 2011 at 11:09 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Yer like a fucking troll -magnet-, ABL.

  296. 296.

    eemom

    March 25, 2011 at 11:15 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    know what’s pathetic, Stoned Alone? You. Lingering at the bottom of dead threads to lob your serial schoolboy taunts at people who have forgotten you exist.

    What you need are some more imaginary Nicks to catch sock-puppet-handed. G’wan, go sniff out some clues on some other ancient threads — it’ll at least theoretically lend some purpose to your existence other than hating on strangers.

  297. 297.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 11:16 pm

    @Tim, Interrupted: tim, i like you today. hilarious.

  298. 298.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 11:18 pm

    oh cornerstone. still pissed off you couldn’t beat me in the manning debate, are you?

    go have a cookie. it’ll make you feel better.

  299. 299.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 11:20 pm

    @Corner Stone: if you had any brains whatsoever, you would have noticed there’s a robust discussion of that post on my blog devoid of the turds that squirt out of the mouths of idiots who, when confronted with their own mistakes, double down on them.

    you mock me for correcting errors in my posts? that’s what thinking people do, asshole. unlike you, who continues to repeat the same fucking point across all threads on this blog despite having been proven wrong again and again.

    i’m sorry you’re not smart enough to evolve intellectually. now do me a solid and remove your little molars from my pantleg.

  300. 300.

    Corner Stone

    March 25, 2011 at 11:21 pm

    @Angry Black Lady: You keep repeating that. Maybe one day it will be true.
    You lied then, you’re a liar now, and you will obviously continue to be a liar tomorrow.
    Why you clownin’?

  301. 301.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 11:22 pm

    @Bob Loblaw: well then why are you still talking at me? seriously. just shut the fuck up.

    it really IS that easy.

  302. 302.

    Corner Stone

    March 25, 2011 at 11:22 pm

    @Angry Black Lady: Why the fuck would I waste my time going to your shitty blog?
    You’re a D level blogger and your GBCW post here was the most accurate thing you’ve posted to date.

  303. 303.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 11:23 pm

    @Corner Stone: waaaaaaaaah.

    here’s a tissue.

    get off my leg.

  304. 304.

    Corner Stone

    March 25, 2011 at 11:26 pm

    “Waaahhh! I don’t belong here! Wahhh, my schtick isn’t good enough!”
    I should probably get a screen shot of this post before you pull it too.

  305. 305.

    big city

    March 25, 2011 at 11:30 pm

    corner stone, don’t you ever get tired of having you around? the rest of us do.

  306. 306.

    Corner Stone

    March 25, 2011 at 11:32 pm

    I guess clowns gotta be clownin’.

  307. 307.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 25, 2011 at 11:36 pm

    sick burn, dude. you really told me.

  308. 308.

    Allan

    March 25, 2011 at 11:48 pm

    @Corner Stone: Yeah, you should definitely do that.

    You wouldn’t want to lose out on all this great masturbation material.

    PS It’s John’s post, dumbass.

  309. 309.

    Corner Stone

    March 26, 2011 at 12:08 am

    @Allan: You are a truly stupid individual.
    PS Matoko Chan is back posting. Can you possibly consider running away and hiding again now?
    Maybe telling Cole you won’t feel comfortable participating in comments again until she is driven away again? You know, Cole taking responsibility as a blog owner?

  310. 310.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 12:24 am

    @Corner Stone: I had a little chat with m_c the other day. So we’re all good. But thanks for your concern, and all that you do to keep the comments section of BJ free from derailing, trolling and bullying.

  311. 311.

    El Cid

    March 26, 2011 at 12:27 am

    I was completely wrong about Syria. I had believed that due to Syria’s outrageous history of repression (Hama) it wouldn’t be the subject of such population rebellions.

    You have to admire the ‘nads on the people of the entire Mid-East / North Africa.

  312. 312.

    Corner Stone

    March 26, 2011 at 12:29 am

    @Allan:

    The ABLC team has conferred about your arrival at our site, and in spite of the fact that you have persisted in the overt and covert threadjacking, derailing, racism, sexism and homophobia that have repelled people and led to your banning at blog after blog after blog after blog after blog after blog after blog after blog after blog, you haven’t actually written anything here horrible enough for us to bother to ban you. Yet.

    Awesome. Looks like Just Some Fuckhead continues to drink your milkshake.
    You’re a first class drama queen and ABL is a first class clown who can’t handle her shit.
    I’m glad to see you’ve found each other in this cruel and unforgiving world.

  313. 313.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 26, 2011 at 12:44 am

    @Corner Stone: for someone who can’t stand me, you sure seem to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking and writing comments about me.

    Get off my pant leg or I’m charging your owner for dry cleaning.

    Shoo!

  314. 314.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 12:54 am

    @Corner Stone: You’re also welcome to comment at ABLC, if you can keep those simple rules in mind.

    Interesting that you didn’t choose to highlight my sincere advice that she set up a blog of her very own, where people who want to read her stuff could seek her out.

    Unfortunately, as she informed me, she tried that before, but was, wait for it… cyberstalked! and, wait for it… accused of racism!

    I can certainly appreciate how things like that might disturb a delicate wilting flower like her and render her unable to go on in the face of such cruelty, the poor dear.

    If only the internets weren’t so full of bullies.

  315. 315.

    aisce

    March 26, 2011 at 1:10 am

    @Angry Black Lady:

    well then why are you still talking at me? seriously. just shut the fuck up.

    pathetic.

    @Corner Stone:

    She will whinge to Cole post haste facto ante qui sum and chickenshittedly get you banned!

    more pathetic.

    I guess clowns gotta be clownin’.

    winner. corner stone takes it best two out of three. great competition, you two truly deserve each other.

  316. 316.

    Corner Stone

    March 26, 2011 at 1:15 am

    @aisce: Thank you Aging Infrastructure Systems Center of Excellence, your endorsement means quite a lot to me.

  317. 317.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 1:19 am

    @eemom: What makes you think Corner Stone and Just Some Fuckhead aren’t Glenn Greenwald and his boyfriend?

    Being unable to live together in the US makes a gay couple bitter. Try to show a bit more empathy for them and their permanent butt-hurt.

  318. 318.

    Bob Loblaw

    March 26, 2011 at 1:28 am

    @Allan:

    What an odd person you are. Just a wound up little ball of bitterness with a Napoleon complex to boot.

  319. 319.

    Corner Stone

    March 26, 2011 at 1:38 am

    @Allan: It’s interesting you would link to an Ace of Spades post in an attempt to slander someone.
    Or maybe it really isn’t interesting. After all, you’re pretty much run of the mill in every other aspect. I guess this is fitting as well.

  320. 320.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 1:45 am

    @Bob Loblaw: Thank you for that diagnosis, Dr. Frist.

  321. 321.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 1:50 am

    @Corner Stone: That’s a very Rovian response to evidence that your Messiah is the very thing you accuse others of being on an hourly basis.

    I wonder how many of the bullies at BJ have your fist up their asses, Glenn?

    Let’s see, you’re also known as:

    Bob Boblaw
    Just Some Fuckhead

    Who am I missing here?

  322. 322.

    Corner Stone

    March 26, 2011 at 1:52 am

    @Allan: It all makes a kind sense now.
    You are the absolute perfect accoutrement at the ABLC blog.

  323. 323.

    Corner Stone

    March 26, 2011 at 1:54 am

    And as far as “bullies” go, it’s interesting that you crowed about getting M_C banned here, and ABL manually banned Tim, then threatened others.
    How many commenters have I banned?

  324. 324.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 2:01 am

    @Corner Stone: Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance. Google it.

  325. 325.

    Corner Stone

    March 26, 2011 at 2:03 am

    @Allan: How bout you just sit and spin?
    That would probably make us all happy.

  326. 326.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 2:05 am

    @Corner Stone: Not quite grasping your argument here. What part of Popper’s thesis are you rejecting?

  327. 327.

    Corner Stone

    March 26, 2011 at 2:06 am

    @Allan: Also, nice avoidance. How many people have I had banned here? You and ABL are both at least 1up on me.
    And it’s not even y’alls blog.

  328. 328.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 2:15 am

    @Corner Stone: It’s absolutely precious how you ascribe to me the power to have m_c banned. As you say, not my blog. You really need to take that up with Cole.

    Why don’t you send him an email about your butt-hurt? He lives for that.

  329. 329.

    Bob Loblaw

    March 26, 2011 at 2:25 am

    @Allan:

    You just jumped the shark. I must say even I’m surprised at how thoroughly you’ve descended into tinfoil hat madness. You rarely see that.

    Also, you have an unusual fixation on Glenn Greenwald and asses. I recommend a course of serious self-examination.

    Bill Frist out.

  330. 330.

    Angry Black Lady

    March 26, 2011 at 2:33 am

    You have serious issues, pal. Why is it you can’t keep my name out of your comments? Do you realize how weird and pathetic you seem with your endless slagging in threads I’m not even participating in?

    John gave me the keys to this place. Hell, he even invited me to drunk dial him if I ever wanted to. Do you get it? I am here TO STAY. You are just some weirdo who lives here and spouts unintelligent bullshit, that is when you’re not sneering at people and pretending Balloon Juice is your play castle. Come on everybody! Let’s call her Angry Clown Lady because I’m too mentally deficient to have a debate on the merits!

    You sound ridiculous and you are embarrassing yourself. So would you just knock it off already? We can co-exist in this space. We don’t need to interact. Just stop bringing my name up. Stop trying to pretend we’re school children at recess. Pretend I’m not here. Scroll on by my posts. Or better yet, go outside!

    In short, I can ban you if I want. I don’t need Cole’s permission, and you would be put in the position of having to grovel before him in order to come back in. Do you really want to be *that* guy?

    So why don’t you do yourself a favor and just stop.

    This is me telling you nicely to just stop.

    You can’t win this one. That’s the way it is. Your choice.

  331. 331.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 2:36 am

    @Bob Loblaw: Interesting.

    I parody Corner Stone’s obsession with outing sock puppets, and that proves to you that I’ve “descended into tinfoil hat madness.”

    Odd that you say “You rarely see that,” when it plays out daily here at BJ thanks to the tinfoil hat madness that goes by the name “Corner Stone.”

    If that really IS you, “Bob Loblaw”, or should I say Glenn?

  332. 332.

    Corner Stone

    March 26, 2011 at 2:38 am

    @Angry Black Lady: Bring it clown.

    I will. Keep talking. -ABL

  333. 333.

    El Cid

    March 26, 2011 at 9:01 am

    I would just like to say that you people are wrong.

  334. 334.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    March 26, 2011 at 10:02 am

    @Allan: AMG.
    That is just blatant lying, with no linkage.

    and, wait for it… accused of racism!

    MY blog was shut down during the Sea of Green protests for HATESPEECH. I told you that.
    I am not a racist unless stupid and proselytizer are races now.
    Allan seems to deliberately want to smear me as a racist….i wonder why?
    Didn’t someone else try that recently?

    I am not going to comment here except in cases of blatant lying like Allan.

    You should all click over. Brownshirt Hall Monitor Allan’s gravatar looks exactly like you imagine him in your heads.
    ;)

  335. 335.

    Tim, Interrupted

    March 26, 2011 at 10:17 am

    @Allan:

    Being unable to live together in the US makes a gay couple bitter. Try to show a bit more empathy for them and their permanent butt-hurt.

    Watch it with the gay-hate, Allan. Your inner bigot is showing.

  336. 336.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    March 26, 2011 at 10:46 am

    And that was SUSPECTED hatespeech. After Blogspot investigated they found no cause and re-established my blog.
    And there was no hatespeech, as Blogspot determined..
    I said christians are ON THE AVERAGE less intelligent and proselytization is stupid, because proselytizing just makes more jihadism.
    That isn’t hatespeech.
    It is truth.

  337. 337.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 11:03 am

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: and I almost forgot. my trademark scifi/literary tagging.

    Rah-Rah-Ah-Ah-Aah
    Roma-Roma-Ma-ah
    Gaga-Ooh-La-la
    Want your bad romance

  338. 338.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    March 26, 2011 at 11:38 am

    @Allan: You should link to what I said, Big Fat Multichin Liar.
    That is what YOU said, not me.

    ABL is right, I am pretty crazy. But I am not a liar or a racist or a homophobe. I might be sexist….i havent really given it much thought.
    Here’s your decoder ring, one time only.

    angry aspie white grrl says: March 24, 2011 at 7:37 am
    and I almost forgot. my trademark scifi/literary tagging.
    Sore wa inotchi innosensu translation Innocense is Life from GitS II.

    Let a person walk alone with few wishes, committing no wrong, like an elephant in the forest.

    A buddhist saying, also from GitS II.
    Pa-ta-li di Ra-pa-ta
    Cromda Cromda Ri-pa-lo
    Pa-ta Pa-ta
    Ko Ko Ko
    The Song of the Elephants from Babar the King. An important part of a fiction trilogy by Peter Straub about Vietnam war atrocities.

  339. 339.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    March 26, 2011 at 12:07 pm

    Don’t want me around? Don’t lie about me.
    I can’t do anything about the rest of the lying.

    I had an epiphany about that.
    You see….Cole is right. It doesnt matter if you bury your uterus at Waco, or bury your heart at wounded knee.
    It doesn’t matter.
    You can’t do a damn thing about it.

  340. 340.

    soonergrunt

    March 26, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    @Allan: I don’t like Glenn Greenwald because he’s an egotistical prick with a streak of ‘if you don’t agree with me completely you hate children and kittens!’ streak to him.
    But what makes you or anyone think a gay couple can’t live in the US? Dan Savage and his husband do quite nicely, according to them on their recent Fresh Air interview. It could be better for them, but they’re making it work.

  341. 341.

    eemom

    March 26, 2011 at 2:48 pm

    @soonergrunt:

    and the Savages are very far from alone. There are millions of happy gay couples living in the US, and many ways to make it work, e.g., getting married in Canada as one of my FB friends and her wife did. I have another friend who’s been on the front lines of the fight against Prop 8 in CA with his husband.

    Indeed, it is the very essence of Glenn Greenwald to deal with it the way he did: whining and stalking off in a hissy fit, instead of, you know, sticking around and FIGHTING for what’s right.

  342. 342.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 2:52 pm

    @soonergrunt: Sorry if that comment was unclear. In Glenn’s specific case, the reality is that they are a bi-national couple. His partner is Brazilian, and so, like many others, it has not been possible for them to make the US their permanent home due to the interface between DOMA and immigration policies.

    The name we in the LGBT community use for people like Glenn is “love exile”. Glad to clear that up for you.

  343. 343.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 3:27 pm

    @eemom: And I’m part of such a couple, holding a valid California marriage license issued on June 17, 2008, the first day of the brief window in which such licenses were legally permitted. And even without marriage, registered domestic partnerships here are treated the same as married couples for taxation purposes, so we file our state income taxes jointly.

    See my response to soonergrunt above for why Glenn’s situation is unlike mine. We have other friends who are caught in the exact same bind as Glenn and his partner. It isn’t right, it isn’t fair, and it should be corrected.

  344. 344.

    Allan

    March 26, 2011 at 3:29 pm

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    Big Fat Multichin Liar

    Thanks for voluntarily adding another form of prejudice to the growing list with which you are associated.

  345. 345.

    eemom

    March 26, 2011 at 4:02 pm

    @Allan:

    that’s not new. She’s on record as calling a pregnant woman fat.

  346. 346.

    soonergrunt

    March 26, 2011 at 4:14 pm

    Ya’ll won’t get any argument from me on LGBT issues.
    US straights been screwing up marriage all on our own for a long time now, so no reason ya’ll shouldn’t join the party.
    After all, why shouldn’t you people be as pissed off, annoyed, stressed-out, and angsty as the rest of us?

  347. 347.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    March 26, 2011 at 7:13 pm

    @eemom: again, I did not say Suzanne was fat, I said she was stupid.
    I say stupid. Eemom hears fat.
    I say stupid proselytizers, Allan hears racism and homophobia.
    I say IQ, and everyone here hears race.
    Again, if you want me to go away and stay away, don’t lie about what I say.

    I do, however, loathe multichins. And Brownshirt Hall Monitors. And pompous asses that tell easily debunked lies.
    I recommend that you stop naow, Hall Monitor Allan. You are punching waay out of your intellectual weight class.

  348. 348.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    March 26, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    @Allan: Perhaps you missed my Contemporary Fable of the Snake Pokers.
    It might be instructive to reiterate it here.

    Out here in the west we have a whole class of citizens that we call snake pokers.
    They come in to urgent care with a snake bite and their story is always the same….they were just jogging or cycling, just exercising their peaceful constitutional right to freedom of exercise, and the snake jumped out and bit them!
    ….but….the snake bite is always on their hand or wrist.
    so obviously these peaceful free exercise advocates had picked up a stick and were snake poking.

    So Allan, it is your freewill choice.
    You can always choose not to pick up the stick.
    ;)

  349. 349.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    March 26, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    moderation?

    w/e

  350. 350.

    Corner Stone

    March 26, 2011 at 11:17 pm

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    I recommend that you stop naow, Hall Monitor Allan. You are punching waay out of your intellectual weight class.

    What’s really sad is how true this is.
    Don’t make it turn your brown shirt blue….

  351. 351.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    March 26, 2011 at 11:41 pm

    @Corner Stone: My post at ABL was a one-off, just like Libya. I don’t relly like it there. Praps it is the quality of Team ABL’s bloggers?
    Who can say.
    Hall Monitor Allan could have sensibly left it alone.
    But nooooooooo… the pompous buffoon had to come over here and brag.
    Instead he picked up the stick.
    And he isn’t even smart enough to tell the truth about easily available linkage while boasting that he ran me off.

    The interwebz is forevah.

  352. 352.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    March 26, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    /shrug

    I could have stayed until I got banned….prolly long enough to make Allan cry liek that Whiny Ass Titty Baby Reihan Salam.
    But why would I?

    The Net is vast and infinite.
    kthnxbai

  353. 353.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    March 27, 2011 at 9:12 am

    oops.
    One More Thing I Forgot.
    Coles version of his interaction with Hall Monitor Allan is kinda vastly different than how Allan described it. It apparently involved large quantities of profanity.
    jus’ sayin’

    But that is Cole’s bidness, not mine.

    My work is done here.
    For naow.
    ;)

  354. 354.

    Corner Stone

    March 27, 2011 at 4:03 pm

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    Coles version of his interaction with Hall Monitor Allan is kinda vastly different than how Allan described it.

    Tell us moar.

  355. 355.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    March 27, 2011 at 5:57 pm

    @Corner Stone: That is Coles bidness. I am only concerned with people telling lies about me.

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