Noticed this tragic tale via Memeorandum:
The Army said Friday it would apologize to the families of about 275 officers killed or wounded in action who were mistakenly sent letters urging them to return to active duty.
The letters were sent a few days after Christmas to more than 5,100 Army officers who had recently left the service. Included were letters to about 75 officers killed in action and about 200 wounded in action.
“Army personnel officials are contacting those officers’ families now to personally apologize for erroneously sending the letters,” the Army said in a brief news release issued Friday night.
The Army did not say how or when the mistake was discovered. It said the database normally used for such correspondence with former officers had been “thoroughly reviewed” to remove the names of wounded or dead soldiers.
“But an earlier list was used inadvertently for the December mailings,” the Army statement said, adding that the Army is apologizing to those officers and families affected and “regrets any confusion.”
While a tragic mistake, it is understandable. The Army is composed of humans, and those humans have huge databases to contend with, and inevitably something like this happens. Drawing a larger point about the competence of the military from this incident would be silly and unfair. It was a mistake, and mistakes happen. While regrettable, it can be explained and, to some extent, excused.
What can’t be excused are the future letters that will be sent to the parents of children killed in Iraq. It is pretty clear to everyone but the most addle-brained that our Iraq policy is and has been a disaster. The region is slipping further and further into chaos, aided by administration incompetence, Congressional indifference, and Presidential inadequacies. We have pursued a failed policy for nearly four years, and we have pursued this flawed policy in the most ham-handed manner possible. In short, we took a bad idea, added a little incompetence, and made it worse.
As I write this, the President is, in secret, mulling over a plan. Putting aside the fact that I have no confidence whatsoever in his or his administration’s decision making capacity, I find that it is disgusting that the plan is being crafted behind closed doors rather than in the open. Each day another ‘leak’ appears highlighting what the President is ‘planning’ to do, and to date, the plan appears to range from a slight increase of troops so small that it would be inconsequential to a larger increase in troops that we simply do not have.
That is, apparently, the deep-thinking being done behind closed doors, and it is disgusting. That is no plan- that is more of the same. Presenting those options as if they represent some breakthrough is borderline criminal, and almost as bad as the fact that this ‘plan’ is being crafted behind closed doors for purely political reasons. There is no need for secrecy in this situation; it is being in private solely to stop any criticism or vocal opposition. Saner heads will have no say until the decider presents us his new folly during the State of the Union, and by then, as it almost always is with this administration, it will be too late. The decider will have made his decision, and more young men and women will march onward into the meatgrinder in Iraq in pursuit of Bush’s legacy.
And unlike the accidental mailings this week by the Army, that will be no accident.
Myrtle Parker
Off topic:
Hey John, check out this article by Glenn Greenwald in the American Conservative of all places. He takes on a bunch of pundits (Michael Ledeen, Charles Krauthammer, Peggy Noonan, and Ralph Peters) for their dishonest rhetoric regarding their history of claims viz a viz Iraq and Bush.
It is quite a takedown to be published in a conservative rag!
Darrell
We toppled a sociopathic middle eastern dictator who had a track record of invading his neighbors, supporting terrorists, developing and using WMDs, and flouting all international sanctions. Most of the misjudgements weren’t policy mistakes, as much as they overestimated the ability of Iraqis (living under the jackboot of Baathist rule for so many years) to govern themselves.
Sure there were mistakes made. But was the policy of toppling Saddam and trying to plant democracy in Iraq really a “disaster”? To draw an analogy, you can rescue a drunk off the street, feed, clothe and house him, and even set him up with a good job. But at the end of the day, if the drunk returns to his alcohol abuse, is it because of the “failed policy” of those who tried to help him?
John Cole
A better analogy would be we were driving along a week after we lost our kid to a drunk driver, and saw another drunk driver. We decided then to take the law into our own hands and apprehend the drunk driver. We chased after him, ran into him, he tried to flee on foot, and we ran over him. Seeing our error, we backed up, and ran over him again. Each time we ran over him, a passenger in our car fell out and was also killed. At this point he was stuck to the undercarriage, so we decided to drive straight to the hospital, where we were greeted by Dr. Darrell who glibly told us:
“Hey- at least you got a drunk driver off the road!”
And sadly, Dr. Darrell is serious.
GOP4Me et al
It’s not our fault the Iraqis weren’t worth saving. Fuck those crazy ingrates.
I think for this analogy to be fair, you also have to execute his bartender. Also, once he sobers up he absorbs the ideology of radical Islamic extremism, but meanwhile you’re too busy patting yourself on the back for getting him sober to notice.
garyk
This is Bush’s plan – delay until Jan ’09, keep telling us “we’re winning” followed closely by “we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” followed closely by “if you’re not w/ me, you’re for the terrorist”. Funny thing happened over the last 6 months, however, that seems to escape our President: the country is tuning him out. So, what will come first? Will the country prevail over the stupidity of this man or will Georgie bomb Iran and start another war?
GOP4Me et al
Your analogy works better, except that our car has to explode at the end. Or maybe the drunk driver’s car explodes, killing his wife and children. Or, maybe both.
KC
Myrtle Parker,
I used to subscribe to the American Conservative. I stopped last year just because I found I wasn’t reading it–get most of my news over the computer now. In the last four years though, it has published articles every bit as critical of this administration and their neoconservative alcolytes as any article in the Nation (the editorial position of the magazine was largely against the war). The fact that they published Greenwald is no surprise, as the magazine has consitently published pieces critical of this adminstration’s overly broad views of executive powers. In this era of chic conservative victimhood, authoritianism, and war mongering, it was always nice for me to sit down and read something conservative that was levelheaded (for the most part).
Ned R.
And sadly, Dr. Darrell is serious.
I never doubted he liked pie.
Darrell
Is it your contention John, that the US led coalition toppling Saddam was “illegal”?
John Cole
Citizen arrests are quite legal, Darrell. Nice try at pie.
Darrell
John so much prefers arguing with caricatures of conservatives.. Must be that integrity thing of his.
jake
I read in CBR that should The Decider want to raise levels above 150K he’ll have to do a little ‘splainin’ to Congress first. Bush doesn’t like to ‘splain. He likes to decide. I imagine this will do more to shape his calculations than anything like conditions on the ground or reality.
Regarding the “leaks”: Perhaps I’ve just become too cynical, what happened to the Bush Admin that threw tantrums when information about its machinations was leaked? Now the White House is leaking like the hull of a certain ship in the White Star Line and no one seems to care. Irrelevant, but it’s something I’ve wondered about.
The fuck of it is, even if Bush can convince us that the information on WMD wasn’t cooked until crispy, his legacy will be X people killed, Y people wounded, Z people displaced. Along with a number of Constitutional rights undermined, black prisons and on the domestic front, things like that pesky memo about Al-Quaida being determined to attack the US, his handling of Katrina, pandering to the base and stocking his administration with cronies. Oh yes and has anyone seen Osama bin Laden lately?
If soldiers are dying to fluff his legacy they may as well be dying to save the damn Hindenburg and the mythical Island of Atlantis. Bush’s legacy had its pants around its ankles on September 11, 2001. it was buggered bloody when the first soldier set foot in Iraq. If he were one quarter of a man he’d realize no amount of shock n’ awe neat sounding operations and solemn homilies will fix it, but he isn’t a man, he’s The Decider who has become The Reactor and is well on his way to The Panicer.
Zombie Santa Claus
Well, it did violate Article 4(2) of the UN Charter- but hey, it’s not like the Supremacy Clause applies to our treaty obligations anyway, so who gives a rat’s furry tush about that?
Ho ho ho, bitches!
Darrell
But your analogy was not limited to simply arresting the drunk driver, but executing him as well.. not legal. Pie’s on your face now John.
Zombie Santa Claus
Sorry, I meant Article 2(4). Cut me some slack here, I’m a zombie.
Zombie Santa Claus
I like when John and his sock-puppet get into fights. Maybe I should have Zombie Santa Claus and GOP4Me involve themselves in a donnybrook, it could be entertaining.
John Cole
Darrell- I said apprehend him, you jackass. Running into him was an example of our incompetence in performing our mission at hand.
I give up. You are too goddamned stupid to even understand silly analogies designed solely to explain things to your stupid ass. I am not sure what is more distressing, that you are this inane, or that you are that vile that your whole response to my post and comments was to try to portray me as some crazed leftist so you can dismiss me. That was the entire point of trying to draw me in with the illegal war nonsense.
When you are willing to face reality and deal with the fact that Iraq is a mess, and a mess of our own doing aidfed by the wholesale arrogance and incompetence of this administration, and that it doesn’t make you a traitor to do so, come back. Until then, I am just ignoring you. You do not, contrary to what I stated months ago, argue in good faith, and you are impervious to facts, logic, debate, and reason. You have made your mind up- everything is aok in Iraq, and the only problem is that the media is distorting our successes.
The Free Republic is thattaway.
Darrell
Snark aside, I would like hear the argument on why toppling Saddam and trying to install a democracy in Iraq was such a ‘disaster’.
Zombie Santa Claus
Amen.
Niket
Well Darrell, while we are using analogies, how about this. There is a drunk (Iraq) on the streets with a failing liver (Saddam). But he is unable to receive a liver transplant. He is being monitored (international community) because they are trying to figure out how best to handle the situation. One of them (US or specifically, Bush) figures that lets just take the liver out, I am ready to feed and cloathe him. Skeptics point that the liver can perhaps still be rescued; some other skeptics point that the drunk won’t survive without the liver and we don’t have a workable alternative; while a lot of others (me, John Cole, et al) support the move hoping that the “Samaritan” has a plan to get the drunk on his feet. But several years later, we have the same drunk, sans his liver, with his drinking problem mostly unaddressed. We point out that the drunk is in a worse condition now. The fact that we point this out does not mean that we don’t acknowledge that the “Samaritan” fed and cloathed the drunk; it means that we don’t believe the “samaritan”, who was the one to drive the drunk in a worse condition, is likely to bring him back on his feet.
I agree with you Darrell, when you say that this isn’t a “failed policy”. For a policy to fail, there needs to be a policy, in the first place. All that we have seen from Bush co. are platitudes and even more platitudes and a rejection of not only opinions but also facts that run contrary to their perceived world view.
The idea of toppling Saddam or bringing democracy wasn’t wrong. The implementation was so wrong, carried out with so much incompetence, the attacks on any contrary opinion were so crass that it really doesn’t matter what the intensions were.
Zombie Santa Claus
Oh, it worked out fine, if by “democracy” you mean “radical Shiite theocratic Iranian satellite caught in the throes of a civil war.” If that’s what we were after, Operation Iraqi Freedom has gone swimmingly.
Niket
John
While we are working with analogies, let me ask this. Lets say you have a car for sale. Lets assume you are a lousy driver and have the car in a real bad shape. I take the car for a test drive and drive it into a ditch. Would you say, oh well, I was a lousy driver anyway; or would you want me to pay for whatever the car was worth?
The question is that if US withdraws, do you believe it ought to owe Iraq and its people cash (or kind) for the fact that its invasion was the one that precipitated the current situation?
scarshapedstar
Well, the first two are straight-up lies, and the third kinda hinges on the second being true.
Darrell
I wasn’t trying to “draw you in”. I thought your analogy was poor, and I was trying to understand where you were wanting to go with it. I mean, what kind of ‘addled brained’ idiot wouldn’t get the clear meaning of what you were saying. Duh!
Darrell
So it’s your position that Saddam never developed or used WMD’s? I just want a clarification as I’m not believing how out there some of you are.
carpeicthus
John, you didn’t need to get dragged into an analogy game. Darrell proved your point in his first comment.
Darrell
I do not believe everything is a-ok in Iraq and it’s lie to assert that I do. Or more to the point, show us where I have ever suggested it. Talk about arguing in bad faith John.
ThymeZone
Yes.
Another simple answer to you one of your phony simple-minded questions.
Right around 80% of the American people have no confidence in Bush’s war as of now, and the only reason that isn’t 99% is that there are a whole lot of morons out there like you who still don’t get it.
RWB
Snark aside, I would like hear the argument on why toppling Saddam and trying to install a democracy in Iraq was such a ‘disaster’.
Because in the process, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead, the country is now a failed state, Iraq is riddled with death squads conducting brutal ethnic cleansing, there is a brain drain of the educated elite, and Iraq is a much greater threat to regional stability than it has been since the end of the first Gulf War.
Look, obviously in the abstract, getting rid of Saddam is good. A democratic Iraq is great. But there is no way that the cost of this war to us and to the Iraqi people can justify those outcomes–especially since the second outcome–a democratic Iraq–seems more and more like a cruel farce with each passing day.
Since everyone loves analogies so much, here’s one. Saddam was like a dog in your neighborhood that just wouldn’t stop barking. In the past, he’d even gotten out of his yard and killed some neighborhood cats. But now he was locked behind his house in his back yard, stil barking and driving everyone crazy. So to deal with this annoyance (which might become a rabid menace, you know, maybe), we burn down the house.
ThymeZone
Of course it was wrong. And your reference to it now is wrong.
The “democracy” ploy was a goalpost shift rolled into place to cover up the fact that no WMDs were found, that the stated reason for the war was a threat that never existed. This country didn’t sign up for war to bring democracy to Iraq, and never would, and never will.
But more to the point, there is nothing in history indicating that a successful democracy is possible in the Arab world. There has not been one yet, unless you want to try to represent Lebanon to be one, which would be ill advised given that our closest ally in the region spent the summer basically trying to destroy that country
There’s no reason to think that an Arab democracy is in the offing any time soon, and the idea certainly isn’t worth one American life.
Fledermaus
Darrell, you are familiar with the concept of time, aren’t you?
ThymeZone
Where is TP? I think this might be Darrell’s Irony of the Day.
ThymeZone
Just a slight adjustment.
ThymeZone
Just a slight adjustment.
Darrell
Source? And how many of the Iraqi dead were attacking coalition forces or fellow Iraqis?
Lots of problems in Iraq, but better than under Saddam. At least now they have fighting shot at democracy
How so? How is Iraq a greater threat to regional stability now than before? And do you think the status quo of a Middle East run by despots is a situation which deserves to be “stable”?
Darrell
Yes I am. How would that have any relevance to my post which you blockquoted?
ThymeZone
As long as Darrell posts here, this blog is a joke.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
So what that drunk needed was to have the old liver (Saddam) removed, and replaced by a new liver (???) that could keep the body healthy without risk of infection (insurgency, civil war, Iranian takeover).
The English had a phrase for that solution: “benevolent imperialism.” Keeps the oh-so-important peace (of course, like the English, we’ll return the country when it is “civilised”), excises the brutal dictator, and meanwhile, it’s “All The Oil You Can Steal!”
Oh, how soon the Bushitler-haters would’ve discovered their great and sudden love for “Iraqi freedom” and “Iraqi self-determination” then!
ThymeZone
Q.E.D.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
I’ll beat the libs to it: “It is better to live and die in chains than to risk dying for freedom.”
ThymeZone
How can anybody take this argument seriously when the “right” is represented by Darrell, and a few spoofs? There hasn’t been any legitimate conservative commentary here for a year. Not that I have any magic formula for drumming some up, but what is the point of arguing with comic-book characters and a pathological liar?
Darrell
You’d just obsessively scream for them to go fuck themselves, just as you did with Stormy, TallDave, Mac Buckets, and virtually every other conservative who posts here TZ. In fact, you are such an obsessed whackjob that you still have a comment on your website, lambasting that “idiot” Mac Buckets over a blog post he made like 8 months ago.
I can’t imagine why more conservatives don’t post here.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Finally, after all the millions and millions of misuses of the term “ad hominem argument” on the intertubes, this bozo gives us a real example! And the hilarious, unintended irony? That’s just a freebie!
RandyH
I like RWB’s analogy above about the barking dog in the neighborhood… so we burn down the dog owners’ house. The best yet.
ThymeZone
Thanks, Darrell. But you missed the point. You are a pathological liar, a guy who defends the bombing of civilian (read: children) populations for political purposes, a guy who can never answer a direct question, who never explains any particular point of view or takes any particular position but always manages to crap on those of everybody else, a person who gives and gets no respect here ever …. what is the point? What are you doing, Darrell? What are you representing? The 20% of Americans who still believe in the Bush war plan?
Good, then quit being an ass and defend that position. Explain why we should now, after four years, believe you and your idiot government which has managed to be wrong about every single aspect of this war and this situation not just from day one, but from day -6000, going back to Bush’s dad’s presidency and vice presidency. Wrong, wrong, wrong, and still wrong, and yet you keep saying the same tired shit over and over every day and shitting mercilessly on anyone who disagrees with you as if you had some basis for doing that.
What’s the deal? Are you getting paid to do this? Is John Cole your brother-in-law? I don’t get it.
Darrell
Do you? You think it’s reasonable and intelligent to compare Saddam, who attempted genocide on the Kurds and the Marsh arabs killing tens of thousands, invaded two neighbors resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, and routinely murdered political opponents… you think it’s the “best yet” to compare that to a neighborhood dog who killed a few cats?
ThymeZone
Really? Was I right, or wrong?
How am I doing so far on the whole politics/war thing? Right, or wrong?
You? How’s it turning out for you? How’s your side doing?
Do you see a trend, a pattern, Darrell?
ThymeZone
Can you point me to the Bush speech prior to March 2003 which explained that he wanted America to go to war with Iraq to free the Iraqi people and give them a better life?
ThymeZone
Iraq better off without Saddam?
Apparently, the Iraqi people aren’t agreeing with you, Darrell.
Isn’t it time for you to stop pulling that tired horseshit out of your ass every day?
What’s your definition of a “disaster,” Darrell?
ThymeZone
C’mon, Darrell, chop chop. You are going to need to step up your game, son. Your 2005 routine isn’t feeding the bulldog any more.
Tulkinghorn
It is logically and rhetorically impossible to answer that question without a degree of snark. So won’t even try.
ThymeZone
People are so desperate now to flee Iraq that ….
What’s up, Darrell? You don’t know what a disaster is?
{ sound of crickets }
I thought so.
Perry Como
“Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.” — Ronald Reagan, June 8, 1982
But keeping preaching Darrell. Scream it loud and proud how Iraq is okay. I want everyone to see how extreme you are. Strong. Smart.
Pb
Hey now, Iraq is only #4 on the Failed States Index–mission accomplished!
Darrell
You and most of the leftists posting here claim to have supported our war in Afghanistan, right? Given the change-for-the-worse situation in Afghanistan, why are you not talking about the “disaster” that effort has been? Do you demand a complete troop withdrawel in Afghanistan too? If not, why not?
Richard 23
Send in a few zombie soldiers and maybe we’ll get that pony. Did Zombie Santa Claus receive a letter too?
Perry Como
First you need to argue from a position of good faith. *If* you can do that, you’ll see why your entire question is, well, fucking retarded.
Darrell
First of all, let’s all acknowledge that this “study” you cite claims that things in North Korea are “less bad” than in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and 12 other countries.
Second, since Afghanistan is #10 on the failed states index, do you call that effort a “disaster” in which we need to extricate ourselves ASAP?
ThymeZone
Wait a fucking minute here. We’re not changing the subject, asshole.
The topic is Iraq, and disaster. As established by your first post to this thread:
Yes, apparently it is a disaster, Darrell. What part of the reality of it don’t you understand?
How long are you going to keep pulling that “better off without Saddam” gerbil out of your ass?
Tsulagi
Just refreshed and saw this post. Then this comment…
LOL! That was good! Worth repeating.
No doubt Dr. Darrell is anxiously awaiting to hear the supreme Mother Against Drunk Driving next week tell us what his new plan is. I know I’m expecting another masterpiece to be unveiled.
Darrell
But it’s not really a change of subject. They are the two most active military fronts on the war on terror, and both have been backsliding over the past year, using increased violence as the metric, which you all have used as the primary metric for declaring Iraq a “disaster”. Given this reality, it’s entirely fair to ask you why you’re not calling Afghanistan a “disaster” or at least a “disaster in the making”, given the increased violence there?
ThymeZone
Are ya even paying any attention out there, Darrell?
Dya think that keeping our focus on Afghanistan might have prevented TWO disasters … the one in Iraq, and the one unfolding in Afghanistan?
Perry Como
First acknowledge that Pakistan has a tenuous grip on democracy and that it has ceded a fair amount of territory to the Taliban and al Qaeda. Add in its nuclear capability, its proliferation of nuclear weapons technology…you know, why am I even bothering. You have about as much of a grasp on geopolitics as the Decider in Chief.
Are you really looking forward to that pig? I hear that pig is really good. I hope you’re really looking forward to it. Can’t wait to dig into that pig.
AnneJ
Now that’s the Bush version EEEL.
ThymeZone
Darrell, are you on heroin today?
There’s apparently plenty of it available from Afghanistan, and it might explain your brainless behavior on this thread.
Uh, Darrell? Maybe you need to find a different jackalope?
{ crickets chirp }
Darrell
So then, by defending the study’s conclusions, I take it you are agreeing with their assessment that N. Korea is better than Pakistan, right?
AnneJ
Does anyone know of a site by a sane conservative willing to defend te war? Let’s leave the corner out of the suggestion-lists. Freaking Krauthammer bailed on Bush.
I say let’s all eat pie.
ThymeZone
The topic is Iraq, Darrell.
Unless you are ready to concede that Iraq is a disaster.
Darrell
Military leaders interviewed on the subject say no. They says we have all the troops we need in Afghanistan.
Sometimes if a culture, for whatever reasons, isn’t ready for democracy, even the best laid plans and military resources can’t make it right.
AnneJ
Darell is like Bush: he’s the Decider and would rather die than admitting mistakes. He’ll I even prefer Bart dePalma
ThymeZone
So, you mean Bush was right in 2000 when he said that the US should not engage in nation-building?
Because, you know, it could lead to disaster?
What would make people who just finished voting for him think that suddenly nation-building was a good idea when he started his runup to war in 2002?
Careful, dumbshit, it’s a trick question.
ThymeZone
Then you better get your ass down to the recruiting office and sign up, Darrell.
It’s gonna take a lot of US troops to keep the peace in those new democracies that are going to sprout up like poppies … er, I mean, daisies …. in the Middle East.
Darrell
Such intellectual depth in that statement Anne. Krauthammer didn’t “bail” on Bush..he said that if the Iraqi govt. is going to be hell bent on crushing the Sunnis, they can do it without our help. Bill’s interview posted at INDC also suggested that Iraqi govt may be infested with extremists.
I’m sure you’ll blame Bush for this too. I hope everyone can agree that the Bush admin needs to read the Iraqi govt the riot act if there is significant evidence (and it doesn’t look good) of widespread Iraqi govt. support of violence against Sunnis.
Darrell
So then, do you agree that we should leave Afghanistan?
Richard 23
I’ve taken a break from following the news lately. So this is the “surge” I’ve been hearing about? Mission accomplished!
Darrell
Anne, what “mistakes” am I not admitting? Please elaborate.
ThymeZone
With whom? Who is advancing that policy?
Darrell
Given the sharp rise in violence in Afghanistan, worst since 2001.. do you believe we should declare that situation, like Iraq, a “disaster”, and extricate ourselves immediately?
ThymeZone
The world is making that declaration, not me. Even if we wanted to increase troop strength there to fight the Taliban, we couldn’t because of Iraq. Because of Iraq, Iran gains power, Afghanistan slides, and your shitty president can’t govern. You lost your Congress and you don’t even have any righty buds left on this blog.
But keep fighting the good fight, Darrell. You are surely winning even though every single fact on the board says you are lost this fight a year ago. Just keep it up.
Are you ready to concede that Iraq is a disaster, or do you know something that James Baker doesn’t know? You know you ought to respect him, he’s a Texan, and he has been sucking Bush penis a lot longer than you have.
Darrell
Sure we could. We have approx 60,000 troops in Germany alone. I think the German ‘threat’ is under control to the point that 10,000 or 20,000 of those troops could be redeployed if military commanders actually thought that they were needed in Afghanistan.
ThymeZone
So your contention is that we have at least 60k troops that we are free to move around as desired, to plug those holes in Mesopotamia and bring us victory?
You are in for an interesting year, Darrell.
Perry Como
That depends on what you are using as a measure. Does Kim Jong Il have a tenuous grip on his country and have terrorists taken over a section of North Korea?
Mmmmm, pig.
Darrell
What “facts” on the board dispute any position that I’ve taken here? We toppled Saddam and tried to implant democracy there. That was the right overall policy imo. Iraqi tribal/sectarian conflicts mixed with meddling foreign powers and Al-Queda, have made progress on the democracy front slower and poorer than anticipated.
As both Duelfer and Kay concluded, Saddam was a threat. He had flouted every UNSC resolution and sanction imposed on him, so unless you’re taking the position that Saddam turned over a new leaf on his decades-held WMD ambitions, it’s a safe bet that he would have reconstituted his WMD programs immediately after sanctions sunk for good, funded by oil money that he controlled himself. And he had one helluva axe to grind against the US. Not smart to leave him in power.
Perry Como
So you’re a fan of nation building? How “conservative” of you.
AnneJ
@Thymezone: I know it is a hard thing to do. To leave a troll unanswered for is a fight lost in this google-world. Having enough trolls all over the US will screw the idea of “the truth”, because there view of the world will end up higher up the google list then the truth. But in this fight the truth has soared regardless of these clowns and bozo’s. Only the true nutcases such as Darell choose, and I repeat choose, to believe and follow there beloved leader.
Do like the rest of us and make darell eat pie
Darrell
TZ, you’re not a good reader. I was responding to this comment from you:
Taliban. In Afghanistan.
Steve
Darrell still thinks we have 60,000 troops available in Germany? He’s such an “independent thinker.”
Darrell
Pretty much only when those nations pose security threats to us.
Darrell
Did I say we have 60,000 troops available Germany or did I say we had approx. 60,000 troops in Germany? I’m sure you changed my words in a noble ‘quest for truth'(TM) Steve.
Darrell
In other words, you have no intelligent response. Join the other 99% of leftwing sheep on this site.
jake
But there’s just gotta be a pony in here somewhere!
ThymeZone
That’s your moron’s opinion. Another opinion, widely held and supported by facts, is that we failed. And that the failure was predictable. And predicted. And that the idiot who is responsible for this failed policy was warned of this very liklihood. And that his own father knew better than to go into this rat’s nest when he was president. And that the wise men who guided him have now concluded that Junior has fucked it up. And that the Iraqi people who can run away are running away.
But here you are, still talking as if it’s March 2003 and if we just clap louder, we can prevail.
You’re a joke.
ThymeZone
This is what you said, idiot, and if you actually think that any of those troops are in Germany because of a “German threat” then you are stupider than even I thought possible.
Darrell
By whom? Cite please. It sure as hell wasn’t these guys:
ThymeZone
So, your approach to any nation that “poses a security threat to us” is to topple its leaders and then try build a shiny new democracy there? This is your answer to Iran, to North Korea?
And you wonder why TallDave and your other “friends” here don’t come to your rescue here any more? Shit, even then are smart enough to realize that you are frigging lunatic.
Darrell
Completely flew over your head…as usual.
Darrell
Let me guess… hmm, could it be because you obsessesively harassed them like a crazed lunatic, answering every argument with a “Fuck You”?
CaseyL
Remember that saying about how you shouldn’t try to teach a pig to dance? How it doesn’t work and only annoys the pig?
I really think John should close the Academy of Swing Dance for Swine.
There’s only one student, and he stinks up the joint so bad everyone else starts to reek, too.
Steve
If only our military had access to Google, maybe they’d realize we have 60,000 troops available in Germany. Damn that Clinton and his budget cuts.
ThymeZone
Plenty of people here have been told Fuck You. Sometimes buy John himself; to my knowledge I’ve never used a profanity here that I didn’t see him use first. But more to the point, plenty of people get that message, including some of the lefties you rail at every day. And yet they courageously carry on.
{ pauses to wipe eye with hankerchief }
Are you telling me that I single-handedly drove all those people away, Darrell? That these warmongering thugs so eager to call all the war detractors traitors and OBL-lovers caved in at the appearance of the F-word?
I “harassed” them, Darrell? Like I harass you, challenging your idiotic assertions and holding your feet to the fires started by your own stupid words?
What will you have me believe … that you are the only Bush dick-licker brave enough to stand up to the evil ppGaz and live to tell about it? That’s your fucking story?
LIke I said, you’re a joke.
ThymeZone
Did it now? You’re going to have to get up earlier to get one over my head, Darrell. But please, give it your best shot.
The point is, your horse’s ass, there aren’t enough troops available to make a positive difference in Iraq. Everybody knows it. If they are avaialable, then WHY THE FUCK HAVEN’T THEY ALREADY BEEN SENT THERE?
Doug H.
“It is better to live and die in chains than to risk dying for freedom.”
(Offer not valid if said chains are forged by the Republican Party in pursuit of Islamofascists. The Constitution is not a suicide pact, citizens!)
I really think John should close the Academy of Swing Dance for Swine.
Seconded. Yet another thread has turned into The Pay Attention To Darrell Show. Does he really add anything to the conversation here other than endless amounts of posts egging TZ?
Darrell
Do you have a mental disability TZ? The comment about 60,000 troops in Germany, as has been pointed out to you more than once on this thread, was in response to this
Taliban. Afghanistan. So no, the “point” wasn’t whether or not there are enough troops available to make an impact in Iraq, the point was whether or not there are enough troops available to make an impact in Afghanistan
Zombie Santa Claus
Sure, I got a few, but it seemed almost indecent to bring them up in this conversation. This thread’s about Iraq, a subject on which I’ve always held a consistent position: George Bush is doing the right thing over there, he’s performing God’s work, and anyone who stands in his way gets a lump of coal up the ass come Yuletimes.
Ho ho ho, bitches!
Darrell
In other words you have nothing of intelligence to add, can’t make a substantive argument, and now call for echo chamber unanimity of opinion.. just like a good leftie sheep.
ThymeZone
If there are troops available to turn our failures into successes, Darell, then WHY THE FUCK HAVE THEY NOT ALREADY BEEN DEPLOYED?
Do you think that a drive over to the Pentagon and a couple breakfasts with advisors have suddenly revealed that a four-year clusterfuck can be turned into success by taking two months cooking up a small-time redeployment of a couple of brigades?
In that case the shithead president should be impeached NOW for spending the last two and half years endangering the lives of every US soldier in the Middle East.
Read John’s post again. Unless you can refute it on a factual basis, then shut the fuck up.
Zombie Santa Claus
He’s a good model for spoofs. If you’re just starting out in the spoofing world, you can practically cut and paste old Darrell posts, and you’re set!
Zombie Santa Claus
By “Darrell,” I mean Senator Cornyn, of course.
Darrell
What’s to refute? Tripe like this?
ThymeZone
Listen Zombie, I knew Santa Claus. Santa Claus was a friend of mine. And you’re no Santa Claus.
Rome Again
Darrell, can you not see the disparity in that statement? We’re losing Afghanistan to the Taliban, who are gaining more territory there, and yet, we don’t need extra troops because the military leaders say they have enough troops? Hmmmm, if we had enough troops, then why are the Taliban gaining and we’re not? Or is it just that we have plenty of troops there, yet they aren’t doing what they were sent to do? Either way, the military is wrong. These are the guys you listen to? These are the people you defend?
ThymeZone
Pretty much the mainstream opinion in both the Western and non-Western worlds, Darrell.
jake
Never mind Iraq, this is a real tragedy
If we squeeze hard enough we’ll shit diamonds and use them to buy ponies! Thank you ZSC!
Darrell
What’s interesting, is that when you spoof-posters actually stake a position, that position is so absurdly extreme, it’s more ridiculous than of the conservatives that you mock..The other day, GOP4Me actually posted that those executed under capital punishment (lethal injection with plenty of sedatives) faced a harher fate than “99% of their victims”. Incredible they see themselves as so enlightened.
Darrell
harsher fate, not harher fat
ThymeZone
Instant noodles are the foundation of the software industry, Jakester.
Without those cups of noodles and salt and msg .. er, hydrolyzed protein …. whatever …. I couldn’t do my job and survive the Deployments Gone Horribly Wrong in my shop.
Mr. Noodle, RIP.
Doug H.
In other words you have nothing of intelligence to add, can’t make a substantive argument, and now call for echo chamber unanimity of opinion.. just like a good leftie sheep.
If I had any pity for you, Darrell, I might be sorry that your boyfriend has yet another headache and you’re left with trolling here for the attention your pathetic existance doesn’t get in real life.
Alas, I don’t, so I award you no points for trying. I’d ask for God to have mercy on your soul, but I know He must be laughing His own toga off at you.
Darrell
I think you are equating “inflicting more murder and violence” with “winning”. In some sense you’re right, as terror is what they want. But more troops doesn’t necessarily = less violence.
Doug H.
That’s the worst news I’ve heard all day, jake. There goes a true Real Man of Genius.
John Cole
Tell that to Bush.
Darrell
Thanks for confirming that you really are a halfwit with nothing intelligent to say
Perry Como
Awesome. So when do we invade China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Russia, *stan, and pretty much half the world? Maybe those 60k troops in Germany can help.
Strong. Smart.
Darrell
What I’d like to know is whether or not Bush is proposing more troops on his own, or whether the generals say they need the troops to meet upcoming mission requirements.
Rome Again
Murder and Inflicting violence had nothing to do with my argument. Control of the region is what I’m talking about. We had control, yet now were don’t. Does the US go to war only to suffer deep setbacks in the accomplishment of its goals while making GOOD decisions? We had initially rid the nation of Afghanistan from Taliban rule, yet, we relaxed our troop strength there, and now the Taliban is gaining territory (which we are LOSING) and our military says they don’t need more troops. How does that make any sense at all?
At what point does it become necessary to recognize that we’re NOT winning there?
ThymeZone
To you and the three other people on earth who haven’t figured it out yet …
YES.
Now go away.
From February 2005. Just two years ago, it seems that victory was just THAT CLOSE.
But a couple brigades redeployed now, two years later, will close the deal. Right Darrell?
Darrell
I don’t see China, Pakistan, and Russia as threats to us at this time. Same with any of the -stans. China has more to lose than us if N. Korea steps too far out of line.
As for Iran and Syria, particularly Iran, I think the current European led negotiations while hoping for the best is the best policy alternative. As long as we hope hard enough that the mullahs don’t get nuclear weapons, things will probably turn out ok
ThymeZone
After four years of failure, the generals suddenly decide they need a couple more brigades?
Those generals wouldn’t last a week on a Donald Trump tv show, Darrell. These are the masterminds you’ve been pimping for all this time?
Rome Again
You already have the answer Darrell. Abizaid and Casey were not open to the idea of more troops. The day before it was announced that they would be replaced, there was a discussion on Kos where it was mentioned that Casey most likely wasn’t going to be sticking around. Abizaid wasn’t mentioned in the discussion IIRC, but Casey was. The very next day, it was announced both of them were leaving their posts.
Perry Como
Yeah, positions like “Iraq is not a failure.” The problem with spoofing these days it that there is nothing so ridiculous that can be said that hasn’t or won’t be said in complete serisousness by some mainstream conservative “thinkers.” We proved that with Scrutator.
Krista
Is there any point in asking you for a source on that?
AnneJ
Actually there might be another sollution to these wankers such as Darrell. One can make his site “unsearchable” to google. If so, I reckon one could organize it’s site so that only Darrell’s stupidity would becomen unsearchable. My main problem with goons such as Mr pie, mess up the web. They know that all their stupid arguments count in the big google-truth-o-meter unless they are refuted directly below. Trolls are the spinmeisters of the internet, that’s why they never have anything substansive to add.
Darrell
I’m gonna plead ignorance here. I knew the Taliban was making a resurgence, but I’m not aware to what extent they control certain areas. I assume you’re correct.
Here is the deal as I understand it – we made a deal with the Europeans in NATO like the left said we needed to do. As a result, we’ve agreed to pull our troops out of heavily infested Al Queda/Taliban areas in the south, giving control to NATO forces. If that turns out to be a bad move, and it probably will be, then will we hear pronouncements of Afghanistan is a “disaster” and our “troops must leave” just like what’s being done in Iraq?
Another little covered issue, is that our Northern Alliance allies who did most of the heavy lifting fighting the Taliban, has been disarmed. I can’t recall the details on why and who pushed for the disarming, but it struck me as a really bad idea. Now why don’t we hear similar cries of “failed policy” in disarming the Northern Alliance just like all the armchair quarterbacks who told us after-the-fact how ridiculously stupid it was to disband the Iraqi army.
There seems to be a severe case of double standards in the criticism of Iraq versus Afghanistan.
Darrell
With the upsurge in violence, they may think they need more troops to secure certain areas, and/or better control the borders, or train Iraqi soldiers. I’m not sure the justification, but I agree after 4 years, the timing sounds fishy.
Rome Again
Hey John,
Back on the subject of this post. I find it very strange that this government couldn’t keep track of the status of 200 wounded, and 75 men who died due to war in Iraq; yet recently, a guy on Kos was denied the right to renew his driver’s license because he was a witness to a hand-billing incident in 1984, and someone accidentally put his name in the defendant position on some paperwork. It seems our government has their priorities totally screwed up, but you already knew that, I’m sure.
AnneJ
Truth be told: I don’t think the Iraq disaster can be confronted in any way until Bush is gone. He will to the bitter end defend his failed legacy and will fight tooth and nail too fight reality. Don’t you dare forget about Truman… The only ray of light I see, is that I don’t see how Bush could possibly fuck up Iraq even more in the coming two years. A surge would be bad for America but not necessarily for Iraq (not saying it would amount to anything, just that it isn’t extra bad). Yes Bush will sacrifice more Americans and that in it self will be criminal, but on a larger scale, a surge will lead to nowheren.
Darrell
Rome Again’s recollection is the same as mine. I don’t I’m stating anything controversial regarding generals’ saying they had adequate #’s of troops
ThymeZone
Maybe there’s hope for you yet.
I know, I know, I’ll hate myself in the morning for saying it.
Jonathan
Completely off topic, but have Y’all seen this statement?
I lack the words to properly describe this.
Rome Again
When we went into Afghanistan, we drove the Taliban out. We removed them from power. We started to attack the poppy industry and convince those poppy farmers to try to find a new product to produce. Now the Taliban is back, they are gaining territory and the poppy industry is thriving. How can you question that we’re not in control?
Those in that alliance were happy to help us with a justified war; they were not happy to follow us into the folly of an unjustified war. The Taliban were a legitimate target after 9/11, they DID harbor al Qaeda. There is absolutely NO evidence that Iraq was linked to al Qaeda. Zarqawi was a opportunist who planted himself and his “al Qaeda in Iraq” movement in Iraq AFTER the fact.
Because most people don’t follow Afghanistan anymore. There is too much going on in Iraq. The news hardly ever mentions the war in Afghanistan, most people have forgotten it because their eyes were taken off that ball to watch the ball in Iraq. With the exception that I sometimes see mention of the Taliban resurgence and the poppy industry is growing more and more lucrative again, I haven’t had much to set my attention on Afghanistan. It’s a forgotten war.
Not at all. When you have an unjustified war lined up next to a justified war, the unjustified war is going to gain all of the attention.
Rome Again
Jonathan,
It’s called “Do as a I say, not as I do” and they’ll never truly acknowledge the way they shut Democrats out of the entire process for six years.
I had a suggestion that when the Republicans go to meet in a chamber room, that there be a sign on the door stating “if this had been a meeting of the Democrats in the 109th Congress, you’d be meeting in the basement”
jake
[emphasis mine]
Translation: Forget the six year rump rape and be gentle with us, ‘kay?
And you have to love the delusion that what the Republicans expect the Democrats to give a damn about their expectations. Newsflash: You can EXPECT Pelosi not to use any lube when she pounds you with that gavel. You can EXPECT to smile and ask for another.
j
TZ, I was only being a little snarky. I never thought of instant noodles as having an inventor. I thought they just were. Like manna from heaven. Nice to know at last who kept me alive through college. (And provided entertainment in the form of making other friends laugh noodles out of their nose.)
Darrell
Regarding the disarming of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, turns out it was (predictably) a UN program, which no doubt was as effective as the hairbrained gun buyback programs the liberals are so fond of here in the US. Bad guys keep their guns, or sell their crap guns for hundreds of dollars each. Anyone think the warlords and Taliban fighters gave up their guns? Check out the costs involved, which, with the UN in charge, was a complete goatf*ck like most of their programs
$100 million dollars for a program that almost certainly didn’t amount to much in effectiveness. Do the math – Over $1,900 per soldier in the gun tradein program, many of whom no doubt kept their best weapons in stash. Wonderful.
ThymeZone
You’re supporting a war that costs $100m every 8 hours, and is a disaster by any objective measure.
Shut the fuck up.
Jonathan
Heh, I just got kicked off a righty website Right Wing Nuthouse for rubbing their noses a bit too vigorously in their own illogicality.
Perhaps some of you might like to go over there and annoy them a bit. They are currently dissecting the earth shaking Jamil Hussein story.
Rome Again
Darrell,
I’ve never studied the issue much, and I don’t know about what you’re addressing, but the fact remains, Afghanistan is a forgotten war, the reason it is a forgotten war is because we sent troops out of there to Iraq to an unjustified war, and that is what is getting all the attention.
TZ is correct, the costs you are so upset about don’t compare even the slightest to the quagmire in Iraq, which has cost us, last I heard, about 100 billion.
The costs you mention (and the way you say they went about it) means little by comparison.
Darrell
Your posts were were weird and completely off-topic, but banning seems a bit extreme unless you have history of trolling there. You have several posts up made within the last hour speaking truth to power. Are you really banned from RWN?
scarshapedstar
Hmm, well. Why would he need to develop them? I seem to recall somebody dropping them in his lap. As for using them, well, I think it’s wiser to base our decisions to go to war on who could actually use them now. And so far, we’ve discovered, with great fanfare, a few artillery shells with mustard gas.
A trillion dollars to stop a guy from shooting World War I-era munitions out of a cannon. Keeping in mind that the maximum distance a conventional projectile will travel is, what, 80 miles…
Thank God for His presence in the White House!
Darrell
I think the war in Iraq was necessary for a number of reasons. If you believe toppling Saddam and the Baathist power structure in Iraq was a waste, then yeah, the price comparison would seem ridiculous. I’m not sure if there has ever been a UN program which was not enormously wasteful though.
Rome Again
I am wrong, sorry, I said 100 billion, I believe that should be 300 billion. Apologies. We don’t talk much about the amount of money it costs anymore (at least not the discussions I’ve been involved in) because the errors of this war and the atrocities are so much more attention grabbing.
Jonathan
Darrell:
Judging by the reports coming from Afghanistan I would say that, if it isn’t a failure now, it certainly looks as if it could be fairly shortly unless some corrective actions are taken.
Afghanistan is a counter insurgency or COIN operation. COIN doctrine calls for a ratio of twenty troops for every one thousand population. According to the CIA the population of Afghanistan was 31,056,997 in 2006. Divide thirty one million by one thousand and you get thirty one thousand, multiply that by twenty troops per thousand and you wind up needing roughly six hundred thousand troops to reliably pacify the country.
I don’t think we have anything like six hundred thousand troops in Afghanistan now, so I would think that we could probably use a few more.
Rome Again
Darrell, we had him contained. There were no WMD, now many thousands of everyday Iraqi people are dead, who wouldn’t be if we just had kept him contained.
I can’t believe that getting one man hanged would be worth so much to you, really.
Darrell
You seem to be suggesting that your photo-op jpg “proves” that we armed Saddam. You need to educate yourself.
Some of you are just too far gone. Willful ignorance.
Rome Again
Whatever the UN did, it is ultimately our President and his advisors that have erred. They were in charge of it all.
Darrell
Yeah, all those palaces filled to the rafters with cash and guns tell us all we need to know as to how “contained” he was. Hello! Oil for Food scandal.
I though even liberals realized that the sanctions weren’t working worth a damn.. but I guess not.
Tsulagi
You been snorting that crystal meth Haggard said he threw away? The Northern Alliance was a group of warlords once led by Massoud. After we chased the Taliban, they reclaimed their old territory and resumed their old warlord ways. Now helped by money from opium production.
To help you out, here’s a backgrounder from the Council of Foreign Relations, a very Republican friendly organization…
Yeah, you’d really want to keep these guys armed in the name of national security. Wouldn’t want them to turn in weapons to the central government and Afghan National Army as your linked article mentioned. Nope. Stupid ass U.N. They should be giving that $100 million TO the warlords for weapons purchases rather than make any attempt to help the central government under Karzai.
Come to think of it, why did we have a weapons buy-back program in Iraq during the early period? Paying good money to buy explosives, mortar rounds, mines, RPGs, etc., etc. Did those damn U.N. pussies dress up in U.S. military uniforms back then to do that frenchy kind of thing?
Jonathan
I just got a nasty note from the proprietor, Mr Moran, telling me that I was getting annoying and that annoying people didn’t last long there. I think after my last post that I’ll be persona non grata.
So I suppose that I’m not technically banned right now but if I post any more I will be.
Do you really think I was speaking truth to power or are you just being sarcastic? It’s hard to tell sometimes online.
Not to blow my own horn or anything but I just got a Red Star Letter on Salon’s letter section. I’m trying not to break my arm patting myself on the back for it. ;-)
Darrell
And like with every other gun for cash and toys program here and abroad, the bad guys {gasp} don’t turn in their guns.. so yes, stupid as hell.
Rome Again
Your vehemence for the UN is on a scale of a far-right conspiracy. It doesn’t wash with me. The story is nowhere nearly as huge as you want to make it out to be. Your fear for the UN isn’t either. You’re getting that from your far-right friends. The same people who have been wrong about nearly everything about this president and his wars. Come back to reality Darrell, reality misses you.
As a matter of fact, Rumsfeld did have a very chummy business relationship with Saddam, what we sold him, I can’t say, but US and Saddam were chummy, whether you want to believe it or not. The pictures of them together are not faked.
Perry Como
We can get 60,000 from Germany. Ask Darrell.
ThymeZone
It’s the mainstream view in the Western and non-Western worlds. It’s the mainstream American opinion.
It’s based on not just facts, but the distance between those facts and the lies and foolish rhetoric that comes out of the White House and out of the mouths of sockpuppets like you.
You talk as if the war in Iraq were about toppling a statue. Your attitude is an insult to every person that has died there and to every person in uniform there.
You out of both sides of your mouth. On one side you speak as if you have some moral superiority over your antagonists because you cheer the “toppling” of a bad dictator. Out of the other side, you cheer on bigotry against gays because it appears to help your side in politics. You cheer on the bombing of children and civilians in a useless war waged entirely for political advantage in Lebanon. You have no moral superiority. You have no moral foundation at all as far as I can tell.
ThymeZone
We waste more cash than that every week in Iraq, completely and absolutely waste it, and you think that he war is justified because the asshole stole cash?
The fact that he stole cash is proof that we had no business with him. A thief is just a thief, and has no motive to endanger his thievery. He was no threat.
This country did not, would not, and will not go to war over stolen cash.
Darrell
I know the pic with Rumsfeld and Saddam was not faked. At the time, Iraq was fighting the mullahs of Iran who had taken Americans hostage. Even with that, we didn’t supply him with squat for military support.
I agree the UN guns for cash program wasn’t a well reported deal. I remember thinking disarming the N. Alliance was a bad idea, and I googled to refresh my memory as to the circumstances surrounding it, and ran across the UN piece.
You’re right, I don’t think much of the UN. Their collosal blood soaked screwups in Rwanda and Srebrenica, combined with UN child molesters not being pursued and the oil for food scandal has turned me a bit cynical.
Darrell
It is the view at this time. It wasn’t the view after no WMDs were discovered and Bush was re-elected in 2004 with (almost unprecedented) midterm gains for Repubs in the House and Senate.
In fact, we don’t know if it’s the view even now. Maybe Americans want us to get more aggressive or pullout.
Rome Again
Jonathan,
Good letter on Salon. I agree with you, and so does my husband. If were going to surge, we should have 300k minimum added to the current force. I’m not a pro-war advocate, and I’m not saying that I would support the idea of a 300k surge, but only that if it were to be done, that’s how it should have been done.
I want to state something that you reminded me of in your letter. I just took a shower, and while I was walking to my shower (I live in an RV, so I take longer hot water showers in the clubhouse) I thought to myself that while stating that Abizaid didn’t want more troops, that perhaps that was not completely correct. I believed Abizaid did want more troops, but the administration was stating he didn’t. Is that correct?
I seem to recall that the generals were asking for more troops previously, and the Bush administration was stating they weren’t. I was under the impression it was just Rumsfeld wanting to get it done with the fewest troops possible, with the lowest cost, trying to make himself look like a strategical genius, although, we see that didn’t work out. Am I wrong? There seems to be some confusion as to whether the generals truly wanted more troops, and I believe that confusion came from the white house itself.
Up is down these days, sorry.
Darrell
UN workers have child molestation rings in Haiti, Liberia, and Congo.. with sex trafficking ring in Kosovo.
Oh my, “heightened” policing measure and mandatory training. Sounds like they mean business!
ThymeZone
Disapproval of the war was the mainstream view in the Western and non-Western worlds almost from the get-go, Darrell.
Your little reign of arrogance is over. While you tut tut about “UN child molesters” but manage to prop up a defense of the bombing, burning and killing of children as recently as last summer by your heroes in Israel, you have been abandoned here by all of your righty pals.
You talk mighty big for a person who is considered a lughingstock by almost everybody who hangs here.
Darrell
This what’s it’s come to on the left.
ThymeZone
.
This is what it’s come to in the White House, you stupid asshole.
Your heroic president made a comedy sketch out of looking for WMDs under sofa cushions, Darrell. He LAUGHED AT YOU, and you still don’t get it.
You were played, you collossal fool, and you are still being played.
The man LAUGHED while people were getting killed looking for the threat that wasn’t there. Get it, Darrell. HE FUCKING LAUGHED
Darrell
Keep peddling those bald faced lies to your fellow suckers and dupes in the ‘reality based’ community.
jake
As of October 2004 there were approximately 18,000 soldiers (all coalition members) in Afghanistan.
There are a couple of caveats that go with this figure:
1. The age of the data. I didn’t really dig around in there but most of the Afghanistan-related matter I found hasn’t been updated since 2004. Why does the DoD hate the soldiers in Afghanistan?
2. Special ops forces may or may not be included in this number.
Still, I feel confident in saying there are rather less than 600,000 soldiers in there.
[/research geek alert]
ThymeZone
That’s the US Darrell, which is about 4-5% of the world’s population. The Western World is not Texas, Darrell.
The mainstream view in the Western World was and is opposition to the war. In the non-Western world i’m sure it’s even more so. Outside this country, the was is the centerpiece of the collapse of American prestige and influence around the world.
Perry Como
Someone polled the Western and non-Western world? Or just the US?
Rome Again
Darrell,
The GOP was doing these types of things themselves in the Northern Marianas Islands. I don’t want to hear it. If you’re upset about such abuses, then target ALL who do them, not just some.
There are powerful people in the GOP who would have no qualms about doing the same things (Tom Delay was a regular visitor to the Northern Marianas Islands) and you need to see the whole picture.
rachel
The population of the USA = the Western and non-Western worlds, according to Darrell. I say that it’s a sad thing to lose your mind–or to not even have one.
Rome Again
The Western World = many people in Great Britain, Europe (including French and German who the GOP vehemently oppose because of their opposition to the war) and even many in Canada and other countries in both North and South American (how about Chavez Darrell?)… get it?
jake
The outside world does not count. The outside world contains the French and you know what they’re like. Soon it will contain those cut n’ running Brits. Better to stay in our nice safe foreigner-free cocoons.
With our ponies.
Rome Again
The Iraq war has never aided US security, it has always made us less safe, and many of those who feel as I do have always believed that.
Ryan S.
Because for 20+ years Saddam had poured every ounce of his will into destroying, twisting and anihilating any and every voice of freedom, peace, and sanity in Iraq. A dictator rules a country not because it is stable, but because it is unstable. To go in and topple Saddam without the means to stabalize the country in its entirety( not just the green zone ) is a ‘disaster’ waiting to happen. And the same will follow in Afganistan if we are not carefull.
I predict if free from tirants for another 40 years(roughly two generations**) Iraq might actually have a chance at stability, unless we can muster the 350,000 troops to truely stabalize the country.
**There is a saying/or a theory that goes. After a conflict/war/whatever it takes three generations before peace can come again between two peoples.
Rome Again
I agree Ryan, the truth is, as long as we are there, a tyrant is still in charge.
The Other Steve
That is an incredible lucid point.
Pooh
Look, a Jackalope!
The Other Steve
That is an incredible lucid point.
I’m really not much interested in having yet another discussion about the Iraq war. It’s clear by now the proponents of this clusterfuck just plain simply don’t care about America, American Soldiers, American Citizens or logic.
The Other Steve
That’s weird. I posted twice, but with different content. ;-)
Ryan S.
Wow, ‘tirant’, must sleep.
I’ll leave you with this probably unpopular(maybe not) comparison.
I don’t think either is true. That we have a tyrant in the white house, or that we are in charge.
Iraq is like a Massive churning ocean, and in order to stop the turbulence we threw 140,000 thousand soldiers overboard. Then the President can’t figure out why they are drowning.
Rome Again
Ryan,
If you think GW is just confused, I believe you are sadly mistaken. He does seem to act as if he will win no matter who defies him. Just look at the way he shuffles his staff around when they disagree with him. He doesn’t listen to anyone, even Papa’s Iraq Study Group.
Interesting analogy, but where did you come up with that idea?
Jonathan
Rome Again:
It seems that there has been nothing but confusion coming from the White House. They seem to thrive on chaos and confusion.
As to your question, I wish I knew the answer. From what I understand, the Army has been fairly thoroughly politicised in that upper echelon officers are being promoted based on their adherence to neocon politics rather than strictly on merit as has been the case in the past. The cleansing of the military came quite quickly after Rumsfeld became SecDef on Jan 20, 2001.
Here’s an interesting article about what was going on in the Pentagon during the planning stages of the Iraq war.
As you can see from above, the decision not to plan for the occupation of Iraq and to invade with insufficient troops for occupation was made for political reasons.
Another revealing article is here.
There’s a lot more info out there but you have to wade through a considerable amount of garbage to find it.
Jonathan
Rome Again:
It seems that there has been nothing but confusion coming from the White House. They seem to thrive on chaos and confusion.
As to your question, I wish I knew the answer. From what I understand, the Army has been fairly thoroughly politicised in that upper echelon officers are being promoted based on their adherence to neocon politics rather than strictly on merit as has been the case in the past. The cleansing of the military came quite quickly after Rumsfeld became SecDef on Jan 20, 2001.
Here’s an interesting article about what was going on in the Pentagon during the planning stages of the Iraq war.
As you can see from above, the decision not to plan for the occupation of Iraq and to invade with insufficient troops for occupation was made for political reasons.
Another revealing article is here.
There’s a lot more info out there but you have to wade through a considerable amount of garbage to find it.
Jonathan
Oops, sorry for the double post.
ConservativelyLiberal
I have been lurking in the corners here for some time, and I like the variety this place has. Very open discussion, and very open debate on very important issues. I am a free speech nut, and this place has my stamp of approval.
One thing I noticed is that when I first started reading here is that I used to be able to read whatever this one person (‘Darrell’) posts, but as has time passed all I am reading in his posts is ‘Blah, blah, blah… ad infinitum’.
I am an independent (no party affiliation) voter (as is my wife) as I (we) do not fit into the mold of either major party. IMO, John Cole writes from the heart. That catches my attention, as you have to have a mind to have a heart (again, IMO).
IMO, Darrell does not have a heart. He sees his side of an issue, and nobody else matters to him (again, IMO) except for those of his ilk/mentality. I have always appreciated good conservatives and liberals, and many of my friends are both. I do not tolerate idiots very well, and I find it is best to just ignore them. Sooner or later they figure it out and leave (or reincarnate in another personage).
I learned long ago that you can’t win an argument with a stump…
I know this is not a good way to step into the fray (first post and all), but please accept that I just can’t stand to see so much space wasted with someone posting ‘Blah, blah, blah…’ over and over.
Hopefully one day I will be able to comprehend Darrell’s posts again…
Nice site, and thanks for running it. I only participate on one political blog (now two with this post here) as I do not have tons of time to waste online. When I do have time to read online, I like to read something of substance.
I shall resume lurking once again… ;)
Beej
An administration with anything approaching an informed understanding of Iraq could and should have realized that removing Saddam was going to unleash all the old tribal and religious hatreds that Saddam’s ruthlessness had managed to suppress and planned accordingly. The Bush administration, apparently, missed this bit of information somewhere along the line and thus had no plans for dealing with such a contingency.
So, yes, Darrel, it was a disaster. It is a disaster. For the U.S. and its military, for the Iraqis, and probably for the region. (the region is already pretty much of a disaster, so it’s hard to see how much of anything would make it worse)
Chuck Butcher
Darrel asked and nobody answered whether toppling Saddam and instilling democracy were a disaster.
Yes, Darrel, both ideas were a disaster. The Constitution does allow military force for US protection, it does not have a section devoted to the desirability of tyrant toppling or foreign installation of democracy. Yes, we certainly did install democracy in Germany and Japan, after we kicked their asses for attacking us, USA – us. We did not set out to install democracy, we set out to destroy them.
Darrel, you’re real happy to keep moving goals around to suit the President’s current agenda, you may want to ask yourself what the next goal will be, and the next and… There were no WMDs, GWB was told so and decided he liked his information better, so a change of goals became necessary.
You may have some misplaced loyalty to the man George W Bush, I have none. I have loyalty to the Constitution of the USA and it’s defenders, he is not one. Read his signing statements and other words, despite his oath.
You want to start up with me, knock yourself out, you asked a question that wasn’t answered, it’s answered. I do not deal with trolls. BTW, if you think these galoots are lefties, you have no idea.
Rome Again
“Tribes? What are these tribes you speak of… oooooooooooooohhhhh, you mean tribes, like indians, right? Did they wear mohawks too? Did they scalp their enemies? Tribes, hmmm, kewl”
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I never seem to be amazed, I knew this, and I’m just a housewife with “some college” from Podunk, WTF?
Rome Again
Here, Here! ::a toast::
Rome Again
By the way Jonathan, thanks for answering me.
I truly appreciate it.
I can only hold one reality in my head, and sometimes that reality changes (such as the moving of the goalposts) that I get a bit confused, you know? I keep feeling like I’m sitting in a movie theater, and quarter of the way into the movie, they start it over with a completely different beginning. And then they do it again, and again, and…
Ted
Darrell’s gonna need to enlist, right away. Because we’re going to need one hell of a large military (like 15+ million troops) to go about policing the entire planet for this crap.
It’s one thing to despise Saddam’s behavior and do what you can internationally to contain it, it’s quite another to go about ridding the world of it where ever it is.
But then again, as TZ said, Darrell’s a pathological liar, and as John said, a jackass, we all wish he’d go away so the threads weren’t so damn long, and probably too much of a coward to go fight for his passionate ideology (and don’t give me crap about age when we have people as old as 60 being sent over there in one capacity or another).
Darrell, please go where you are wanted (Free Republic), and lay off the pie.
Ted
Darrell’s now in the ‘30% community’! :)
Rome Again
Johnathan:
From what I heard that is no longer the case. Abizaid and Casey were both announced to be replaced just recently. According to what I heard on CNN, Casey is being moved to another position, Abizaid is on his way out the door. Sanchez will have company now.
jake
Since this post has been Darrellized for your protection, I’ve got a question for history buffs. I’ve been wondering about the hypothetical I’ve never seen discussed: What if a group of Iraqis had kicked out* Hussein?
Do internal revolutions have better outcomes than regime changes spurred by outside forces? To keep things simple, I classify any “revolution” directly funded or supported by another country as a regime change by external forces.
Just wondering, feel free to recommend books.
j
* For “kick out” you may substitute shoot/kick over the border/tar and feather, whatever suits your fantasy. Just assume he’s gone because the Iraqis got rid of him.
Jonathan
Rome Again:
That’s because you are part of the reality based community.
And to answer your question about Abizaid and Casey. When they finally refused to go along any longer with the neocon/Bush program, they were shitcanned. It had nothing to do with whether or not they were good officers or commanders, only their willingness or lack of such to drink the kool aid.
That is the only criteria that Bush and co. have for their underlings.
John Redworth
Darrel
I am just a background character here who sometimes has a speaking role, but I do have something to say to you… it seems that at times when you decide to stick your neck out to support your cause knowing full well that you will be attacked, you start to paint yourself in to a corner… meaning that you make claims that either can’t be backed up or you decide to nitpick comments made by others as if you are “getting them” but in reality you come off as someone who can not admit that maybe you are wrong… add in the typical change of subjects, the attempt to smirk down your opponents and the off the cuff demands that you ask of others without being able to provide similar evidence, it just seems that you are no longer standing for your principles but wanting to argue for arguing sake…
take this for what it is worth… I am not here to fight with you but just offer an observation from a slight outsider…
Rome Again
Revolutions are hard when you have one populace, imagine a revolution with three separate and distinct groups (and all that oil to divvy up), it would never have worked, IMHO.
The religious differences alone would have made it impossible. They would never agree on what the outcome of the state would be. Of course, they could have just revolted (sort of what Bush did externally) and not thought of the consequences… and then they’d be left just about exactly where they are today, only without 140k US troops in country.
Rome Again
George, you DO own a computer. Please tell Laura I think she’s doing a mighty fine job of insulting your detractors so you don’t have to. You picked a mighty fine bulldog in that woman.
Rome Again
Understood Johnathan, and I thought as much when I initially heard they were both leaving… but, later they mentioned Casey was being reassigned (can’t remember where, sorry) so why would Casey be reassigned to another position in that case? Was it because he didn’t speak out as loudly?
Rome Again
How could I forget, Casey is to be Army chief of staff, sorry.
John Redworth
okay… sure thing…
Rome Again
Anyone still around, check out the New York Times Editorial Page, “Imperial Presidency 2.0”
WOW
If you don’t have a log in, the link is on a page in this Kos Diary:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/7/12753/41730
Wickedpinto
75 dead (which is too many) and 120 (odd) wounded, who are STILL SERVING) and then more than 50 med retired.
Your post is incorrect in facts, but factual in it’s irratation and outrage. I was a clerk for a time, and I was VERY perfect in their info, and my PC was an anal mofaku when it came to information, I kinda bitched about it, and he said to me ” A time will come when it’s importent so get used to it Corporal!!” and I believed him, cuz I worshiped him.
I don’t blame the military, I blame the politicians in uniform who are EFFING WITH THE MILITARY!!!! FOR THIS EFF UP, and those politicians? ARE NOT RUMSFELD OR BUSH!!! they are lazy idiots sucking ass with stars on their collar.
If you served john you know damn well that the shinier your collar the more retarded you are. If you had shiny stuff on your collar then you either admit your own retardation, or you understand the “mistakes” of the politcal class of the military.
that, or you blame the guys who do the work.
Ryan S.
It depends, but unless that group of Iraqis is nearly equal in their cruelty to Saddam then the carefully crafted pressure cooker that is Iraq will explode. It doesn’t care who opens the lid.
That is why I have been against this war from the get go. Unless, you build some kind of structure (a world coalition like we had in Golf War 1 plus a army of aid workers) to contain the explosion of civil tensions before you invade then there will be a disaster no matter who touches it off. When the administration said ‘it will be a cakewalk’ I about had a coranary. There is NOTHING in this world harder to overcome than civil strife, and it is the vary antithesis of a ‘cakewalk’.
Tulkinghorn
This sounds like a left-handed attempt to let Bush off the hook. He has repeatedly said that he ‘listens to the generals’. If 90% of the generals are retarded and 10% are brilliant, he needs to know that and act like Lincoln and keep firing the Burnsides until he finds a Grant or a Sherman.
Part of the retardation of the generals is learned, too. The closer they are to working with civilians, the more political they are, the more retarded they must be. I have heard comments about Shinsecki and Clarke that would peel paint at 100 yards. The closer these generals get to politics the more retarded they must be. A halfway competent CiC knows this and does not drive the brilliant, honest 10% out of their careers. I don’t know when we last had such a non-poisonous CiC, but it has been at least 14 years.
I am a Clinton fan as far as other issues go, but I regret what he did in this respect — but I have got to hold him responsible for the damage that happened on his watch. Bush, it appears, has done much worse damage to the military.
Jonathan
Darrell:
If you respond to me, I promise not to attack you, call you names or insult you. If you are tired of attacks, name calling and insults, you can talk to me. I’m genuinely interested in your opinion and I would like to know why you think what you do. If you read my posts over at Right Wing Nuthouse then you know that even while I’m being combative, I remain a gentleman.
Israeli Experts Say Middle East Safer With Saddam In Iraq
What do think of this article, Darrell?
Apparently even the Israelis are starting to have second thoughts about Saddam having been overthrown. Saddam was far, far more of a threat to Israel than he ever was to the USA, if the Israeli’s are starting to have second thoughts, what does that say about us?
If you want to be attacked, called names etc. etc. then continue as you have been doing. If, on the other hand, you want to have a calm, rational discussion then engage me.
I’m holding out the olive branch, Darrell. If you want peace then take it.
Paddy O'Shea
The big secret that everybody knows is that Bush has lost this war. What we are seeing here with this widely reviled PR build-up for his ‘surge” announcement is an attempt to somehow convince the American people to give him yet one more chance to salvage something from this military defeat. Will it be 20,000 more troops? Will it be 30,000? Yeah, he’s really got America on the edge of its sofas.
The only real question here is will this be the time that Bush is finally denied the opportunity to further indulge his vast military incompetencies. If the new Democratically controlled Congress effectively strips him of the ability to further fumble his debacle in Iraq, what will be left of the poor little fellow? If Congress does its job and takes away Georgie’s war toys, it will be tantamount to stripping him of power. This war is really all that he has left.
From the Imperial Presidency to house arrest. Exciting times coming up these next few weeks.
Jane Finch
How did one guy manage to hijack a whole thread?
demimondian
Paddy, you underestimate the Bush White House.
By making the discussion one over numbers, they have moved the discussion of when the troops need to be out off the table. Remember Tim’s constant harping over the Overton Window? Well, you’re watching it in effect.
Paddy O'Shea
Aahh, but Demi! Congress is making all sorts of noises about curbing the little fellows Imperial ambitions. What if they should actually take away his funding and leave him without the wherewithal to conduct his Battle of the Baghdad Bulge? What if the Senate should strip him of some of the powers it voted him back in the day? Even Republicans are sounding like they’ve had enough of Georgie’s shenanigans.
Again with the numbers, Demi. Is this some kind of religioous thing with you?
This has all the makings of quite a Constitutional conflict, Demi. Will Congress reassert its Constitutionally decreed powers and put George back in his box?
Stand by! Oh, and bring your abacus!
Paddy O'Shea
Jane – Darrell is the proverbial turd in the swimming pool. Nobody likes him, but they certainly don’t seem to be able to deny his existence.
The only thing odd about the situation is that nobody wants to leave the water in spite of the floating menace.
ThymeZone
The odd thing about the situation is that even when you throw the turd out of the pool, it keeps jumping back in.
Tim F.
Assuming success, there are several possibilities. A Sunni coup would simply replace one Saddam for another. Big whoop. A Shiite coup would vary dramatically in usefulness depending on who stood at the helm. A Sadrist uprising would give basically what we will eventually have now, a corrupt majoritarian regime aligned closely with Iran. A fierce Sunni resistance would probably end in the same civil war that we have now.
There is one possibility that interests me very much. If a revolution centered around Sistani’s teachings rather than a thug like Sadr then it might have had some hope of changing things for the better. If regime change was our goal and shepherding such a movement from the outside was our policy then there’s a decent chance that I would have supported it enthusiastically.
But, if I was Napoleon I wouldn’t have invaded Russia in the winter. Things are past the point where any of this matters.
Paddy O'Shea
On Face the Nation this morning Nancy Pelosi threw down the gauntlet. The Iraq ‘supplemental’ budget will now be split into 2 parts. The first for the maintenance of existing forces already in Iraq, the second for any of Georgie’s cockamamie add-ons. Which would seem to include the ‘surge’ we’ve all heard too much about.
Constitutional crisis!
Paddy (heart) Nancy.
Tulkinghorn
Bush has been so off the wall that he is just asking for this, so I think it fair to conclude that this is what he wants. Why? He wants to frame the failure of Iraq as a failure of a Democratic Congress to support him. I can hear the neo-con refrain:
‘Bush was so close! So much good had been done! All he wanted was five brigades, just five damn brigades, but those anti-American and anti-military bastards would not let him! Stab-in-the-back, just like Vietnam! Pelosi lost the war!!!!!’
We know that independent, expert, object analysis is meaningless to these people, and facts are to be discarded, or made up as they see fit. All they care about is the political narrative, and whether they can twist it and project it to their purposes.
God save us if this country falls for this again. FWIW, by the time there is another republican president, my kids will be off to Canada in necessary.
ThymeZone
Yes, watching her now.
Bring it on. Bush enters into a power struggle with this Congress at his peril. For the sake of the troops and the country, I hope he doesn’t. But if he does, my money is on the side of the lady from San Francisco. I think Bush ends his presidency unless he has the sense to realize that he has to work with this Congress.
He already is in a position where he can’t really govern anything. Unless he backs down, he’ll end up with no Republican support on Capitol Hill. I don’t think he has much now, but it can drop to zero.
demimondian
I believe in reality, and reality can be measured. If it can’t be measured, then it’s mysticism, and has no place in the reality-based world.
If you want to be a mystic, way cool, dude — but find yourself a mountaintop to do your shit on. Don’t shit on my world.
Paddy O'Shea
You know what, Demi? And this will also include your observations on the Military Times poll that you weighed in so cryptically against on a previous thread. I think you like to entertain the bigoted notion that the United States is an aggressive fascistic nation comprised of an ingnorant and brutal population backed up with an Imperial Stormtrooper military. And anything that does not jibe with your supercilious unctuous opinion is to be denounced as being somehow simplistic and inferior.
And what mighty authority do you back your opinions up with? You’re a glorieied accountant at best, somebody’s number crunching assistant at worst. Laughable.
One other thing, Demi. You are aware that saying you ‘believe in reality’ is an oxymoron, right?
Darrell
If you’re going to take a swipe at me, could you at least be specific? What exactly do think I was so ‘obviously’ wrong about which would cause you to make such a lengthy post directed at me?
Steve
Um. Here’s what Reid and Pelosi actually said this week.
I don’t see how the White House’s extreme position has moved the other side of the “window” one inch.
demimondian
Um, no. It isn’t. Any philosophy of governement necessarily entails a set of axioms — I believe in reality, that which can be measured. If it can’t be measured, for the purposes of government, it is not real.
I take it from your response that you believe, apparently, that magic fairies will make it all OK in the end? That’s why IOKIYAAP? O! Great Mind! O! King of kings! Tell me, how that is different from the actions of the neocons? Please, wisdom on me some more.
demimondian
Look at the polls being publicized in the press. The questions being asked have moved from “Get out when?” to “Now many new troops should be sent, none, 10K, 20K, 30K?” The questions have been shifted from “how soon to leave” to “how much, if anything, to add”. That’s the Overton Window in action.
Darrell
Well, in case you didn’t keep up with the news, there were over 15+ justifications given for invading Iraq, not just to promote democracy.
Also, this fight with Saddam didn’t start in 2003, it was a long overdue response to his countless aggressive violations of his 1991 terms of surrender. Last I checked, no one disputes that violation of terms of surrender = resumption of hostilities.
Paddy O'Shea
Demi? Belief is a religious impulse. Reality is something you know and can prove. Thus making your goofy content-free statement an oxymoron.
Now then, do you KNOW that what you regard as being reality is just that? And is this why you believe that Nancy Pelosi cannot stop Imperial Georgie’s ‘surge’ by stripping him of the necessary funding? Is it because of all the pick-up trucks in Kansas? Or is it all those cowboy hats ..
Be nice, or we’ll stop buying Canadian products and you’ll all starve to death.
Oh, almost forget. “..governement..” (sic).
ThymeZone
All reality can be measured?
Wow. The end of literature, then.
Oh well, easy come, easy go.
Good lord, man. “Reality can be measured?”
Tell me you didn’t say that.
No, never mind, I predict that you’ll say you meant it.
Darrell
It’s one perspective, not the “official” Israeli opinion on Saddam. Saddam had for decades loudly proclaimed his biological and nuclear weapon ambitions, and had carried through with his biological program which wasn’t discovered until 1995, and according to Duelfer and Kay, he was preserving his nuclear know-how until sanctions were sufficiently weakened. I think it is wildly naive to think that a sociopath like Saddam funded by all that oil $$ would have given up on those ambitions, or would have hesitated to pass along weapons to groups who try to do us harm. We’re talking about someone crazy enough to make an assasination attempt on a US President.
Darrell
And they’ll turn off the oil spigot and we’ll freeze to death while riding to work on our bicycles. I think Canada is our #1 supplier of oil.
Rome Again
In early 2003, we invaded Iraq, to topple “The President of Iraq” who is now dead, hung by a noose that we helped to pull. How is that any different? You stand by a man who was “crazy enough to assassinate (not attempt, but actually do it) an IRAQI President”.
And yet, you’ll just brush that off as if that was okay. Your double standard is showing.
ThymeZone
Another lost weekend here, then. All Darrell, all the time. An entire blog wrapped around the musings of a fucked up piece of shit bigot, liar and sociopath from Texas who gets off on annoying Democrats.
Thanks, guys, we appreciate it so fucking much.
Rome Again
TZ, I don’t come here for Darrell, I come here to watch the completion of John’s transformation (which is in it’s final stages now, and I’ve watched with awe) and to share in your deliciously witty remarks. Didn’t you know that?
Darrell
Are you seriously equating Saddam’s attempt to kill a US President, with the jusified capital punishment of the most blood soaked living (at the time) tyrant on earth?
In your mind, to oppose one, but not the other is “double standards”? C’mon Rome, you need some coffee.
ThymeZone
RA, your money order is in the mail. You can cash it at any Firestone tire store, or at participating bail bond offices in several states.
Steve
You’re cherry-picking the polls, if you think they’re no longer asking people how long we should stay in Iraq.
Darrell
deliciously witty remarks = “…of a fucked up piece of shit bigot, liar and sociopath from Texas”
How very witty..
Rome Again
Darrell, it is not I who has a double standard, my coffee level is fine. So, are you stating that the reason we went to Iraq was so we could punish Saddam for trying to kill Georgie’s daddy? That was my belief all along, in so far as little Georgie’s intentions were concerned; which the people around him, commercially interested, played off of.
Exactly how did Iraq get blamed for 9/11? Would you care to elucidate with facts (and not right-wing rag links)?
Paddy O'Shea
Steve – No, it’s true. Demi can prove everything, haven’t you heard?
Pull up a chair and join the crowds awaiting the big moment when all reality comes on down courtesy of our number-crunching friend from the Great White North.
And right here on Balloon Juice no less!
ThymeZone
It’s better than you deserve. By far
Darrell
Just curious why you would believe UN blue helmets and/or NATO forces and aid workers would be more effective in keeping a lid on civil tensions than the US military? We have sort of this kind of effort in Afghanistan, and violence there has surged.
ThymeZone
You must have mistaken Darrell for his other brother Darrell.
Facts? Prohibition of righty talking points? These are Kryptonite to the One True Darrell.
demimondian
Yup. I did. I’m an unreconstructed realist; deal with it.
Psychology is all about measuring the “unmeasurable” — and, for my expertise in that area, I point you at a variety of papers I’ve published in refereed journals in the area. (You know my real name; look me up.) I long since stopped believing that there was anything about the universe that couldn’t be measured, at least indirectly, and stopped trusting anyone who claimed otherwise.
More than that, you believe the same thing; you just don’t admit it to yourself. Want evidence? Look at the topic you raised yourself: literature. You review films. You talk about how a performance affected you, or didn’t. Those are measurable, demonstrable things — if I wired you up, I could see the effects. That does mean I understand the pathways, but I can see the effects.
demimondian
Paddy, if you think I’m your friend, then you’re far more deluded than I thought. Now, about those magic fairies…found any yet?
Rome Again
Darrell, why do you equate a world coalition with UN forces? Are you not aware that there are more than UN forces in this world, besides us?
We have little international support for what we are doing in Iraq, not just a denial of the UN, but from many countries who we had with us during Desert Storm.
Darrell, are you crazy? Are you insane? Are you so filled with hatred from all that right-wing tripe that you think the UN is the only international force anyone could summon up?
Zombie Santa Claus
I’m back. I wanted to respond to this:
Don’t take my word for it, Darrell. Camus is the one that said:
You see, Darrell, an ordinary murder victim retains an element of hope until the very moment of death. Up until the end, they can expect and pray for the police to arrive and save them. Not so the victim of the death penalty, for whom the police signify imminent demise. In the one case, the state is a saviour; in the other, the state is the murderer.
If, as a conservative, you have no problem with the state assuming the power of life and death, good for you. I disagree vehemently, and so did Camus, Dostoyevsky, and pretty much anyone else who’s ever put any serious thought into the matter. If I’m an extremist, then I’m proud to join the ranks of Jesus Christ, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, and Martin Luther King. You, on the other hand, share your opinion with George Bush, Saddam, and Stalin. I hope it comforts you to keep such upstanding company, Darrell. Such upstanding, “anti-statist” company.
Darrell
And death row inmates don’t? Not to mention the fact that their victims were innocent and the death row inmates are cold blooded murderers who need to die.
ThymeZone
.
Jesus, I knew you were weird, but I never thought you were a fucking Scientologist.
You can “wire up” people and “measure” the effects of literature, music, film … art? Life itself?
You meet all kinds on the net, but even after ten years, this is a first. I never actually met somebody who believed such a thing … and said so.
Yikes. Seriously. Yikes.
Darrell is annoying, but this that you are talking about … truly scary.
demimondian
Paddy wisdoms down on us:
Oh? you can prove everything about reality? I recommend you go to Berkeley to find out about that claim. (No, I don’t mean the University in California, although I’m sure that you could learn about Berkeley at Berkeley. They’re pronounced differently.)
Barring studying Berkeley, there’s this old German fellow named “Emmanuel Kant”. He thought a lot about that question, too, looking for something called a “synthetic a priori”. You might learn something from his work, too. If you prefer works in the original English, there’s a guy named “David Hume”. He pretty much debunked your claim, too.
Zifnab
Hey Darrell, what the hell do you have against Texas? Why don’t you move to Canada you damn Yankee?
Darrell
Ok, now I see the problem is that you’ve had too much coffee ;)
Paddy O'Shea
You know, besides Demi there is one good thing that comes from Canada. It’s this Iggy Pop bootleg CD I got called “Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell.” Recorded live in Toronto in Oct. 1982 during the “Zombie Birdhouse” tour.
Of course, it was manaufactured somewhere else ..
Darrell
I was quoting TZ aka ppgaz. He said it, not me. I hope this explanation helps.
ThymeZone
Heh. No worries, mate.
jake
To veer OT for a moment.
Don’t forget these folks. When discussing the DP as an American I always think it is helpful to look at the company we’re keeping. Just like the ban on gays in the military, if birds of a feather flock together, we’re hanging with the turkey buzzards.
(With apologies to Cathares aura.)
ThymeZone
That’s right, he was quoting me, and I’m an Arizonan.
Hardly a Yankee. Out here, anybody from east of the Rio Grande or west of the Colorado is looked at with suspicion.
East of the Ohio River? Might as well be from Mars.
Paddy O'Shea
Demi: Darling, you seem distraught. It was not I who said I can prove everything about reality. That was you and your pocket calculator.
Sad that you have to invent attributes for people so that you can communicate with them.
Punchy
I know…a day late and many dollars short…but still…just an ENORMOUS jackalope here…
demimondian
Which effects? If there’s a change in behavior, snookums, yes, we can measure it.
Now, as to the particular claim I made, I predict that showing you a film with a suitable set of fast NMR probes in your system would evoke physiological responses in your brain that could be seen. Those responses would reflect neurobiological changes in your emotional state.
We can measure “being in love”, these days, you know. We can measure chronic depression, and, as a result, can tailor medication to treat it. We can measure the objective correlates of most psychoses, and those measurements help us treat them, too.
I know, it’s much easier and less demanding to believe in fairy dust; then, you don’t have to deal with the real world. The “reductionists” keep winning those arguments — ever wonder why?
jake
Or, if you can tolerate Keanu Reeves’ “acting” just watch The Matrix.
ThymeZone
Go easy on him, he’s math head. You wouldn’t yell at a fish for not being able to play the violin, would you?
demimondian
versus
Ah. I see. IOKIYAAP.
Rome Again
First of all, how many death-row sentences have you seen commuted? Secondly, not every single death-row inmate is absolutely guilty of a crime, they are just judged guilty by people who weren’t there to witness the crime. Do you believe all government, judges, lawyers, juries and prosecutorial documents are completely innocent of any wrongdoing? You have a hatred of all things Saddam, yet he was a governmental official… what makes you think our government can’t also do such things?
When the state starts killing people who God keeps breathing (yes, I do believe in a supreme being), I have a problem with that.
With the ability to wield power over anyone (such as the Nazis did), someone with that kind of power would be able to treat all their enemies (perhaps innocent) as qualified for death, perhaps by railroading them with pernicious documentation, and you would cheer them on. How quaint!
ThymeZone
Uh huh.
Oookay, heard enough. Please go away and leave me alone. Really, I mean it.
Paddy O'Shea
I’m starting to get the feeling that Demi is channeling Mussolini ..
Darrell
Plenty
Zifnab
Assuming a perfect judiciary, this characterization is entirely unfair. Capital Punishment, in its American incarnation, strives to appeal to a would-be murderer’s sense of personal self-preservation by basically proclaiming that premeditated murder will be functionally equivalent to premeditated suicide. It forces anyone willing to take a life to take his own life into his own hands, and hopes that the human survival instinct will prevail. In this rather idealic vision of capital punishment, I honestly can’t see anything wrong and I would support the death penalty.
Unfortunately, as any honest DA or defense lawyer will tell you, that’s not the way the death penalty ACTUALLY works. Innocent men get put on death row frequently enough to raise serious reservations. Some would never have been aquitted without the use of DNA evidence which is only now seeing a decade’s worth of common use. The idea that innocent men haven’t seen the chair or the gas chamber or the injection table is laughable, and the only question left is how many innocent men the state has killed.
Likewise, known hardened repeat murderers can escape the death penalty with a good lawyer because capital punishment isn’t universally applied by the law, but doled out conditionally by judge and jury. So the death penalty is applied with extreme prejudice and no longer becomes a serious and consistant threat. The actual US application of the death penalty is, in this way, a mockery of justice and I’ll be happy to see it go the way of Segregation, Prohibition, and the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Darrell
On rare occassion, TZ can be pretty damn funny.
demimondian
Wow! Five back and forths, and you’re pulling a full-blown Darrell, up to and including Godwin!
Paddy, think about this: you’re closer to Darrell ideologically than you are to anyone else here. You’re a demagogue using different swear words.
ThymeZone
Borat speaks.
Darrell
Ok, now we know you’re a kook demi.
ThymeZone
Irony is dead. A guy who thinks that the “effects” of art can be measured with wires is calling another guy a “demagogue.”
Best entertainment on the Intertubes today, I swan to goodness.
Zifnab
That’s why you’ve got to get out of the Senate and run for Governor Darrell. Then you’d have a better handle on this sort of thing.
Also, you’re forgetting Jeb Bush who put all those executions on hold down in Florida just because of one tiny little botch up. That Jeb Bush, what a flaming liberal, eh?
ThymeZone
Well, the Jeb Bush thing can be measured and quantified.
If we can “measure” the “effects” of art, surely we can measure things like justice, and ethics, and morality.
It’s all a matter of knowing where to insert the wires, you see.
ThymeZone
Oh, and would somebody PLEASE pull the wire out of Darrell’s ass?
Paddy O'Shea
Ah well. Time for the Jets game.
Thanks for helping me kill some time, Demi.
You know I love you.
ThymeZone
OMFG, my skin’s electrical resistance just plunged.
This is just so …. measurable.
{ weeps }
jake
Or Dr. Frost in “That Hideous Strength.”
I’d forgotten how creepy he was.
demimondian
Yeah, Clive Staples didn’t have a whole lot of use for BF Skinner, did he?
Sad, isn’t it, that it’s the heirs of the Chicago psychologists who won that battle, isn’t it? You know — people like Lakoff?
Rome Again
You use one instance of a mass commutation in Illinois to prove a point? I can assure you Darrell, that is the exception to the rule, not the rule. Rarely do commutations occur. Those who have the power to commute death sentences are more likely (such as George Bush during the Karla Faye Tucker execution) to deny any such possibility. But, so long as Illinois did a mass commutation, that’s good enough, hang the rest of the bastards, right?
I find it interesting that you don’t really address the fact that those who impose such sentences (judges, lawyers, juries) may not have the most upright reasoning for wanting such sentences carried out, nor possibly the most truthful documentation/witness depositions and some may in fact be pawns in a game to get rid of an innocent who was targeted for whatever reason. Just because a state convicts, doesn’t mean the crime happened exactly as it was presented. Court proceedings are not so much a rehashing of facts as they are a convenience of ridding the world of whatever menace they believe is before them. It is about rules and the execution of rules. A fact that may prove a man innocent may not be admissable if it was not executed correctly, thereby rendering an innocent man of guilt simply because his proof of innocence was supressed. Man is often an erroneous vessel, often when he fills his head with nightmares that make him believe “we must kill them before they kill us”. If you believe that court proceedings are the end all of truth, than perhaps it will be your lesson to learn this not to be the case one day sitting in the defendant’s chair.
demimondian
Yup — that’s why we have scales of failed states, TZ. That’s why we count deaths. That’s why it matters how many Iraqis died, you know — because that’s a measure of a correlate of morality.
That’s why we count votes, too, you know — because the popularity of a proposal, as measured across a large cross-section of people, is roughly correlated with the likely long term injury it will do.
Awful, isn’t it? Those DAMNED empiricists. They keep saying “Show me”. It’s hard to sell them fairy dust, and they’re so *shrill* about it.
ThymeZone
Demi will invent us a gadget that can be inserted up the … uh … into the body of an accused person, measure guilt, and then kill the defendant on the spot with a jolt of three-phase good-ole-fashioned Thomas Edison e-lectricity.
The Convict-O-Matic. Foolproof, reliable, quick.
Someday people will laugh at us for taking the time to hold trials, and engage in messy humanistic mumb-jumbo in order to have justice.
ThymeZone
Leave.Me.Alone, Mister Demento.
When I want your opinion, I’ll dial it up on my galvanometer. Right now you are measuring pretty low on the Truthimometer.
Drink some Pedialyte and then let’s measure you again.
DenverOasis
thanks to you and other republican apologists for enabling the crooked republican leadership to make this disaster happen. along the way you’ve cheapened the debate and defamed the anti-war crowd (who turned out to be right about the Iraq war from day 1).
congrats.
demimondian
Well, I suppose we could do that, but, frankly, it doesn’t seem to me to be likely to preserve social well-being as well as the current the jury system seems to do pretty well as a substitute. Why would I want to replace what seems to work pretty well?
Oh, damn — you need me to take a stupid and ill-considered version of “measure” don’t you? That way, you can keep peddling fairy dust.
I’m sorry, I’d forgotten that the empiricists were all stupid homosexual sadists (thanks, CS!), who sought only to kill and torture the fairy-dust sellers. I’ll try to remember my place in the future.
demimondian
Don’t like it, eh? It’s tough being held accountable, isn’t it? Reality is a pretty harsh mistress, isn’t she?
Schade. I’m truly sympathetic — you want to go unchallenged, list most people, and you hope to get by on common belief. I wish I could let you do that, you know — my ends are largely in alignment with yours *right now*, and I could just let it ride.
But, history suggest that if I do that, then at some time in the future, I’ll be stuck trying to defend -trying Scopes- -ignoring problems with welfare abuse- -ignoring Terri Sciavo’s wishes- explaining that dairy dust is cheap, really. I don’t want to be there, so I’m going to start fighting the trend now.
Rome Again
Demi, just as court proceedings are not the end all of facts, measurements of social behavior are not the end all of truth. What scale is used, and what parameters are judged is set by the winners of the game.
Every story has two sides, Saddam didn’t think himself a bad man, just a powerful one. In his reality, he measured your parameters as bullshit.
Morality is in the eye of the beholder. Few actually consider themselves amoral, including the preacher who meets the layman’s son in the darkened basement after church service is over. I personally judge those who would keep an unwanted child alive and starving more immoral than those who would snuff out the life (and the existence of pain) in said child. Accepted standards may be a judgment of measuring, but they do not always contain absolute truth.
ThymeZone
You are a funny, funny little person!
“Measure the effects” of art, and “preserve social well being” too?
Okay, Spock. Whatever you say.
Now begone, go and disturb someone else. Darrell, maybe.
I am not talking to you any more. With any luck, ever.
demimondian
But, you see, you’ve already granted me the win.
I don’t care what scale you use, what parameters you measure, or what tea-leaves you read. I care *only* that there *is* a scale, which is reasonably repeatable, and for which we have mechanism for measuring confidence in the results of the outcome.
That’s why I’m reasonably comfortable with our current system of jury trials, and yet oppose the death penalty. Are jury trials perfect? Hardly — eyewitness testimony is still admitted, after all — yet they’re a reasonably good system that seems to work most of the time. Around them, we’ve built a huge body of practice to frame their limitations by detecting, however imperfectly, evidence that they are outside of the domain where they are reliable measures.
We just don’t say it that way, because doing so requires us to (a) make a decision about what the system is for, (b) admit that the system is reasonably good, (c) not perfect, and (d) complicated for a good reason.
ThymeZone
Whatttt? Blasphemy. If it isn’t absolute, then our measurements are in question.
Degrees of goodiness and moralitiness? No wonder you liberals are all a bunch of losers!
I prefer Darrellism, in which we can be absolutely sure of our rectitude and therefore not flinch when we have to do something unpleasant, like incinerate kids.
demimondian
Poor TZ. He wanted a free pass because of his direct link to the Great Source of All Fairy Dust. Sorry. Herb, I don’t believe in fairy dust; you’ll have to show me. I’m not intimidated by your tantrums, and I’m not afraid to call them what they are. Deal.
ThymeZone
I don’t listen to people who think that anything they can’t measure is “fairy dust.”
They’re crazy. They’re the “measurin'” version of crazy religious people, who think that anything that isn’t fairy dust isn’t real.
Same disease, different symptom.
demimondian
I don’t listen to people who think that anything they can’t measure is “fairy dust.”Fine, you go on not listening. You do realize that I don’t care what you believe or not, right? I care that others not be intimidated into agreeing that you are right, even if they don’t agree.
As to you, I challenge you to give me a good reason to do *anything* without an objective correlate. You’re going to have one Hell of a time of it, for exactly the same reason the anti-evolutionists do. Your position is based on the assumption that people like me haven’t spent a lot of time trying to debunk our own position, and that we don’t listen to you. We do, and we think “is that right?”.
I’ve yet to come to a case where you fairy-dust-spreaders had anything to add which couldn’t be measured. When you start talking about your fairy dust, in fact, I typically find that you’re trying to avoid being held to account for the outcome of your proposed action.
Zifnab
I mean, it’s not the best system in the world, but it’s the best we’ve got. I would absolutely love TZ’s butt-plug-of-justice, but I think we’re a few years off from that. The only real problem with the death sentence is the total lack of ability to repair the damage that’s been done. Politics is temporary, DAs get hired and fired all the time, and a guy tossed in for life can always await the newest shiny techno-device that will aquit him. But once you kill a man for his crimes, there’s no way to commute that particular sentence.
ThymeZone
Bwaaaaaaaaahahahahaha! It’s what I live for, stupid.
So you really do believe that anything you can’t measure is “fairy dust?”
You are one crazy motherfucker!
“All men are created equal.”
True, or false? Because by every objective measure, it appears to be false. By every measure, all men appear to be not equal. The more you measure, the more unequal they get.
You show me how you measure and test the value of that maxim using your “objective” means, and I will start listening to you.
I hold that it’s not measurable, and at the same time, one of the most powerful ideas in the history of man.
jake
Or Freud. Or any other bloviating blowhard you care to name. But Lewis was going after people who took Hume etc seriously when the philosophers themselves were just kidding.
There was a battle? I’ve only got a BA in the subject, but it seems to me that any “battles” between various schools of psychology were manufactured to give the psychologists something to write about. Oh look, there is some lint in my navel. Yaaaawn!
Alas, no patents for Demi on this one. But the minks and other fur bearing critters would think it was funny.
ThymeZone
WAIT! Don’t throw it out … Demi wants to get a tweezers and save it for later measurement.
Rome Again
Demi, I have no qualms that man has chosen to measure everything under the sun, and beyond. But measurements are not always consistent. Measuring in itself is a game, with no end and no real mission besides that of searching out and offering reasoning. Not all reasoning is positive. Positive reasoning itself is in the eye of the beholder.
Travesties in courtrooms happen much more often than you might imagine. Someone who cannot afford to take on the big guys will not get justice by any means. Those who have the money to pay for such court cases win more often than not. As someone who has dealt with such, I can assure you, my case was not unique.
demimondian
You offer the following statement.
I’m supposed to recoil in horror at the thought of blaspheming one of our common secular religion’s commandments. Unfortunately, I see no reason to do so; as you interpret the sentence, it is clearly and unequivocally false. To pick an obvious example, I’m physically weak and deformed — think a Shakespearean Richard III, only 6’4 1/2″ — so I’m the physical equal of almost nobody.
If we actually tried to make “all men equal”, in fact, we would fail. I have done heavy construction work, but I’m slow and inefficient at it, and I will never be the equal of any competent laborer. I am, objectively, not his equal.
Of course, the truth is that you’re misinterpreting the sentence. Rather, the sentence argues that all people have an equal capacity for pleasure and suffering, and, as far as any objective measure has been performed, that statement seems to be true. More than that, the consequent claim, that all men should be allowed an equal voice in their own affairs, is also measurable; if you’ve been through “diversity training”, you’ve be exposed to studies in which the performance of groups with heterogeneous voices were compared to the performance of groups with homogeneous voice; consistently, heterogeneity yields better, although slower outcomes.
So, you are objectively wrong.
demimondian
There was a battle, jake, and not between psychologists.
The battle was between those who thought we could measure things about society and behavior, and those who did not. Lewis, fundamentally a Christian mystic, was among the loudest voices in opposition to the notion that we could measure things; Skinner, fundamentally an atheist mystic, was equally strident in his belief that we could. Both of them used every demagogic trick in the book to paint their adversary as fundamentally evil and depraved.
Both of them, of course, were wrong, although in interestingly different ways. Lewis, a kind, brave, and gentle man, felt that nothing short of Ransom’s fairy dust from Venus would save the world, and that academic towns would have to be swallowed up before that happened. Skinner, a far cold, autocratic, and profoundly unpleasant man, felt that measurement would eventually carry the day because it would make the world a better place for the people in it.
In the end, Skinner was right, along with Pearson and the other behaviorists. Lewis, Chomsky, and the fairy-dust spreaders were wrong. We behave as if we accepted that, even though we say we don’t.
demimondian
This, by the way, is bullshit. Lewis had an agenda; go read some of his other apologetics. It’s no coincidence that the head of the secret police in _That Hideous Strength_ is a gay sadist.
ThymeZone
I am? Where did I “misinterpret” it? I didn’t interpret it at all. I made only a qualitative declaration, that it’s a powerful idea. I offer no objective measure with which to defend my claim. I assert that there is no such measure, in fact. That’s about measures, not about the idea itself.
You state that “all men SHOULD be allowed an equal voice in their own affairs.” I’m sorry, can you point me to the objective measure for “should?” You’re talking about a social compact. You and I can agree that you are a great fellow, and well met. But that doesn’t make you one.
Social compacts and crummy “training” manipulations of behavior are the “measure” you will use to prove your point?
That’s …. just worse than I expected. If you’d have never answered, I’d have held you in higher regard than to see you come back with that lame offering.
“All men are created equal” is a great idea because it resonates with almost all reasonable people, who immediately know its power without having to measure or analyze anything in order to understand it. Without taking a single measure of anything, people will defend this principle with their lives.
Why? Because humans are all slide rules at heart? I don’t think so. I think you are absolutely and completely full of shit, man.
You approach the great endless tapestry of human experience and announce that if you can’t measure something, it’s “fairy dust?”
I’m embarassed to share a species membership with you.
demimondian
Travesties in courtrooms happen much more often than you might imagine.You’d be surprised, perhaps, what I can imagine.
I’m sorry that your case was poorly handled. I acknowledge that the court system certainly *seems* to do poorly with poorer claimants. I haven’t ever seen any direct measurements that prove this, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to find that such measurements exist. I’d be perfectly willing to work to make things better — but I don’t know, even imprecisely, what’s wrong with the current system.
But, if you look at that statement, you’ll see a bunch of claims of ignorance. Is there evidence that the problem is so hideously bad that we should strike out blindly? If not, what do we need to know to make a good decision?
demimondian
Selective quoting, TZ? I can see why you’re ashamed of yourself to belong to the same species as me; you really ought to be. The original quotation, in full, read
Look! See those sentences after the clause you so carefully take out of context? They talk about exactly why “should” is use in the previous sentence.
demimondian
By the way — I’m running away now. I have a bunch of work to do to get ready for tomorrow, which will, objectively, come much to soon (given the nominal rate at which I get my work done, anyway.) I hope we can pick this up later, but it’s going to be much later for me.
Feel free to insult me in my absence. :)
jake
And I suppose the idea is I will be shocked to find Lewis was a Christian (though unrecognizable as such if you stick him next to something like Robertson). Whatev. That does not change the fact that in the character of Frost he was doing a send-up of the tedious wanks who took their Philosophy 101 a leetle bit to seriously. Are you suggesting Skinner (or any other well-known navel gazer) didn’t have an agenda. Of course not. That would be stupid. Everyone has an agenda. Any day know we’ll be able to measure it.
From what I’ve read of Lewis’ thought re: gays – He could give a fuck. Really. Hardcastle was a ballbreaker (regardless of gender) and a chameleon who did whatever allowed her to smash heads. This does not change the fact that the main villians in Lewis’ trilogy were all male Brits. What’s the coincidence there?
ThymeZone
You’re an ass. I addressed your entire ridiculous assertion. The fact that I parsed it into manageable bites to do so doesn’t license you to selectively quote me in order to assert that I selectively quoted you.
In any case, your response is just gibberish nonsense.
To save time, I refer to your Skinner assertion: He “felt” that his view would produce a better outcome.
For the better part of several thousand years, religions browbeat people into swallowing the kool-aid on the strength of the demonstrably “better outcomes” that follow religious practice.
Now science does exactly the same thing. Of course, the idea of “better” has shifted.
What is the difference between arguing that only the Bible can be used to find the truth, and arguing that only a caliper or a scale or an anemometer or a spreadsheet can be used to find the truth?
Both idiotic assertions require constraint on what “truth” means. Both idiotic assertions are advanced for self-serving reasons. If you aren’t making one of those assertions, good for you, my complaint is withdrawn. If you are, then you are a fucking idiot and I want nothing but distance between myself and you.
GOP4Me et al
A laughable assumption.
Then what about the felony murder doctrine? If one person is accidentally killed during a felony in which some non-lethal objective was intended, suddenly it’s in the accidental killer’s best interest to also kill any surviving witnesses. He’s going to get the death penalty anyway, even if he wasn’t the one that pulled the trigger.
I can, because I still view it as hypocritical that the state kills people to show that killing people is wrong.
Me too. It seems to be on its way out the door, but that’s what they said in 1972 after Furman v. Georgia, so it’s probably a bit early to start writing the American death penalty’s epitaph just yet.
GOP4Me et al
That’s a good point. I had a friend in law school who told me he wanted the death penalty for policemen and prosecutors who suppressed exculpatory evidence or otherwise manipulated a trial so as to ensure the conviction of an innocent person. If we are going to try to keep the death penalty in this country, that would seem like a necessary corrective measure. (Then again, it would probably spell the death knell for prosecutors seeking the death penalty, since one screw-up would put them at risk of death row, too.)
Rome Again
Well, I’m sure my experience is only an anecdote, and won’t amount to much, but I had a child removed from my care for defending her from being abused by someone else (I was no arrested for this incident, it was a domestic dispute). The state (I live in a state that is well-known for screwing with custody issues, and poorly) decided that I was more of a threat for defending my three year old child than the person who was going to turn her into ground meat. When they removed her from my care, they sent her to live with her father and paternal grandparents who molested her (father) and then sent her to live with another family (grandparents after father abandoned her), a family which included a crazy boozed up woman who eventually held a gun to her head. Since it was the state that was making these decisions, I had no legal recourse. Do you find justice was served in this situation?
During the court hearing that I went to, I was not allowed to speak, only to listen to the punishment they were handing down to me. As I stated, I was no arrested. They chose to restructure my daughter’s life to exclude me, the mother, from her life, and in doing so, they made her life even more hellish. During that court hearing, I had to wait while other couples were receiving the same treatment. No one in that room got custody back, every single child was removed from the custodial parent. Now, I’m not saying that all of those children should have been returned to their homes, I don’t know the circumstances of those situations, and perhaps some (maybe even most) were justified, but they didn’t even take the time to make those assessments. They chose to believe that removing my child from my care was the best thing for my child without knowing the circumstances of the place they were sending her to.
Of course, it is my fault for having met, married and mated with her father to begin with (and I regret that everyday, although I don’t regret my daughter’s life); but had I known then what I know now, the message I would have received was “it’s better to allow my daughter to be beaten to a pulp then to defend her safety”.
Your thoughts?
Zifnab
Under that logic, the state “kidnaps” people to prison to show that kidnapping is wrong. They “steal” from thieves (in the form of fines) to show that stealing is wrong. Hell, cops speed to catch up to speeding motorists to give them a ticket.
Eye-for-an-eye might not be the humanist method of punishment, but I can’t see it being called unfair, or even hypocritical.
Under this logic, anyone older than 60 committing a crime that’ll cost them 10+ years in the pen should kill all witnesses. A drunken motorist should feel free to crash his car in states with stiff DUI penalties, because he can’t do much worse than involuntery manslaughter.
There are a great many quirks in the system, and if you get hung up on all of them, you’ll never put anything into use.
But none of that really matters because the death penalty still sucks as it stands. And the entire judicial process could use some massaging and restructuring to boot.
ThymeZone
RA …. good lord. I don’t know what to say to such a story except “I’m terribly sorry that this happened to you.” And to your daughter of course.
It sounds as if the authorities were just completely unfair and blind to anything but their own agenda.
GOP4Me et al
Another thing I heard in law school was when a defense attorney visiting our class said, “They might as well pass laws saying that you can’t get the death penalty if you can afford to spend $75,000+ on your legal defense, because in practice that’s how it works out.” I think we’ve only executed a handful of wealthy people in this nation’s history, one of them being Louis Lepke- the head of Murder, Inc. and the first millionaire ever to go to the electric chair. Also, Capano is on death row in Delaware, and Scott Peterson in California. Beyond those three, I can’t think of any, although there are probably a couple of others out there. OJ got off scot free. Leopold and Loeb got life sentences despite the fact that they basically killed someone for the sheer fun of it. A poor man can face the death sentence just because a prosecutor wants to make a name for himself as “tough on crime,” mitigating circumstances be damned. If he doesn’t have a decent lawyer to take his case, he’s a dead man regardless of his actual guilt or innocence.
This also goes toward your statement, demi:
The DAs can throw money at any death penalty case. They have the FBI and the local police departments as their all-encompassing investigative arms. They can afford the best forensics experts, ballistics experts, and the most slanted psychiatric analysts money can buy. So can the defendant, if he has enough money. If he’s poor, though, he has to use the PD office. I worked in a public defender’s office, and I can tell you that your public defender has an unbearable caseload, which is a major distraction even if his/her colleagues are taking over some of the other 40+ cases a week he/she would normally be allotted. There is no money for DNA analysis, forensics analysis, ballistics analysis, and seldom is there money from the central office for a psychiatric evaluation on behalf of the defense. This means that your average jury only hears the evidence favorable to the prosecutor, performed by analysts working for the prosecutor’s investigators. (Believe it or not, that makes a difference in the way the evidence is prepared and presented in court.) I think it’s fair to compare a battle between the DA and the public defender’s office in a case involving capital punishment with a fight between David and Goliath.
I’m not even going to get into the use of death sentences by the prosecutor to extort guilty pleas from innocent defendants, or the frequent use of this extorted testimony against other defendants whose innocence is outweighed by the cowardice of their co-defendants. Suffice it to say, the system is broken beyond repair, unless everyone wants to pay another $5,000 a year in taxes so that the states can hire more public defenders and finance their investigations adequately.
Rome Again
I give you the State of Florida Department of Children and Family Services (an oxymoron if I ever heard one).
Thanks TZ, it’s water under the bridge now, this happened about 20 years ago, but imagine being in that situation, with no legal recourse, and as I said, as I sat in that hearing room, I was watching parent after parent having their child removed from custody before my eyes. Florida caseworkers decided all parents were guilty, no matter the circumstances.
The interesting thing is when this incident that I had her removed for occurred, I had custody, and if I hadn’t tried to seek help for the emotional distress I was dealing with (having just almost killed someone) I would have maintained custody. But, since I felt I needed counseling and had no place for my daughter to go (I had recently caught my mother and stepfather feeding my daughter vodka and orange juice, so I wasn’t about to leave her with them) I placed her in state custody while I sought emotional help (which I never actually received). I was stupid to think that I needed to talk to someone, I realize now. I never got that help I was seeking, only drugs (Navane, they decided I was paranoid schizophrenic, of course, everyone in that behavioral center was diagnosed with the same thing and was either given Navane or Lithium). I was assured that when I got out of the hospital, I would get custody of my daughter back. It never happened. I decided to go off the drugs because they made me groggy and I couldn’t function on them. The caseworker went postal during the court proceeding because clearly I wasn’t taking my drugs anymore (as I was trying to get a word in about what they were doing, and I was shot down). They only expected that I be compliant about all their decisions, and content to watch my daughter be removed from my care.
The behavioral center I went to was an interesting experience too. When I arrived, the first thing I did was go into an intake meeting, where two women asked me 20 different ways to the moon if I was hearing voices. They had me diagnosed before I even walked in the door, along with everyone else who was in that unit with me.
GOP4Me et al
Of course the state is hypocritical. It monopolizes violence on behalf of the citizenry. Read your Hobbes, the whole foundation of the state is that it takes violence away from the individual and organizes it for the benefit of the masses. Every example you’ve provided is an example of hypocrisy, but in most cases that hypocrisy is tolerated because its benefits outweigh its costs. This is not the case with the death penalty; no benefit is derived from execution which compensates for the cost to the society of losing its constituents to the whims of prosecutors up for re-election.
That’s right. If everyone behaved under the logical rules of self-benefit, as you’ve erroneously assumed, then these people should also kill. Then again, most murders occur in a time of passion, and most automobile drivers who accidentally kill are not going to turn into cold-blooded calculators of self-interest 4 seconds after they’ve accidentally run someone over, so I think we can safely leave rational thoughts of best interest out of this discussion. Ask your average murderer if he was even thinking 30 minutes ahead at the time of his crime. As your average felony murder doctrine death row inmate if he even understands what the fuck he’s doing there, since he didn’t even personally kill anyone.
We’re specifically discussing the death penalty, not the criminal justice system at large. Although the death penalty does highlight many of the inequalities and other “quirks” in that system as a whole, it stands alone in its perverse capacity to enable these injustices to sacrifice human life on the altar of bungling inefficiency, judicial caprice, and prosecutorial misconduct. As such, while I am somewhat willing to tolerate the foibles of a criminal justice system that keeps us all relatively safe on the streets, once the system begins to kill people without reason, I favor placing checks in its path. Don’t you?
So you agree with me. So what are you going on about?
Jonathan
We are all heroes in our own story.
GOP4Me et al
Jesus, RA, I’m sorry about what happened to you and your child. This system is pretty flawed, that’s all there is to say about it. Unfortunately, any attempt at reform is met with catcalls from Darrell and his ilk, whose talking points are that raising taxes for justice isn’t worth the price, due process = coddling criminals, and that to even discuss these issues is to deny the lynch mob the fairness of its emotionalist tribalism. Unless this country lurches sharply away from the Darrells in the coming decades, I don’t see any prospect for progress or reform, be it in matters of capital punishment, child custody, domestic violence, or that extrajudicial, extralegal shadow world of detainee abuse.
Zifnab
That sucks alot RA. Stories like that make you kinda shudder at the “nanny state” in general.
Zifnab
I was mostly just arguing the logic of the “if murder is wrong then the state shouldn’t do it either” logic, which I quoted at the top.
Yes, which is why my stance remains “For death penalty in theory, against it in practice”. The reasons behind the death penalty are sane and fair, but the execution (no pun intended) is half-assed and foolish.
That’s all I’m saying.
ThymeZone
I would just like to go on record as saying …
It’s true, what they say. All lefties are poopyheads.
But … take heart: All poopyheads are created equal.
So to the Darrells of the world, I say:
Oh yeah?
ThymeZone
Zif, let me take a stab at it:
I am for death for all murdering assholes. But I’m against having the death be imposed by the state. I won’t hire the state to kill people for me, because I can’t trust them to get it right every time without fail.
So, I settle for life imprisonment as a second-best thing.
Until they invent perfect justice, it’s the best I can do.
Rome Again
It’s interesting that someone mentioned Louis Capano, Jr. I was born and raised in Delaware, and lived in a neighborhood adjacent to several subdivisions filled with Capano homes. I moved away before the Fahey thing happened though. I happened to watch a movie about that whole incident a few months ago, I watched it actually because it was about events that happened in my home state (and that’s a rarity to see something about Delaware), although it was interesting to watch how they presented that whole family.
This section is to Zifnab: Zif, that is that nanny-state as it existed 20 years ago. Imagine how much they’ve “improved” in the meantime. I shudder to think about it.
ThymeZone
So RA, how is your daughter doing now?
RSA
I’m not a psychologist, but my impression is that with the information processing “revolution” in psychology in the 1950s, things changed so much that it’s hard to find anyone who’s not an heir to the behaviorists in some sense.
Rome Again
They don’t care about justice or being their brother’s keeper (The Bible that many of them read states emphatically that the question to the answer “Am I my brother’s keeper”? is “Yes!”) but only that they have an easy time of doing whatever it is they want, with no money out of their pocket and damn the consequences of anyone who is not happy with that system.
I think it will be interesting (not that I’m looking forward to it) when they get rid of all taxation and then they’ll wonder why the infrastructure of society (or the judicial for that matter) is no longer being maintained. I think they aren’t considering the future in that situation, only their wallets. When they become the victims of that structure, they’ll whistle a different tune.
Rome Again
Not good. She lives several hundred miles away from me, with a man who is much, much older (he’s been stalking her since she was in middle school according to her, of course she doesn’t use the word stalking, that’s MY take on it). I offered her a place to live, a vehicle, a college education and a chance to have a mom again. She’d rather stay with her “boyfriend”. We don’t talk anymore.
Rome Again
Correction: They don’t read the Bible so much as they SAY they do.
ThymeZone
Sorry to hear that. My son and I don’t talk that often, but it’s always congenial.
Meanwhile … I’m well into the Maci period of my life. I’m her step-granddad (see my url for photos) and when she runs over to me with her arms out saying “pick me up!” then in that moment every stupid mistake I ever made and every stupid thought I ever had is erased from the official record, and I’m Superman for a while at least. I never did anything to deserve such a reward, so there is plenty of hope out there for the people who are more deserving. If I can get to spend time with Maci, then everyone eventually gets their pony. So to speak.
There’s still time for the space between you and your daughter to close up. I hope it does.
matt
Holy shit, I didn’t know ThymeZone was the gaz! Cool. :)
I need to pay better attention.
Rome Again
Thanks TZ, one can only hope.
What I’m hoping is that this world doesn’t completely fall apart in the meantime. I also hope she doesn’t up and do something stupid like sign up for the military. A couple of years ago when the fallout of her new boyfriend happened, I tried to warn her that this administration is not truthful, right before the 2004 election (she didn’t want to hear about it, she decided that even though she was of voting age, it wasn’t important for her to actually educate herself about politics). I told her that I was afraid she might decide to try to go in that direction, or that she could possibly be drafted (my fear) I told her that she needed to come to me in that case. She said “oh, if I’m called up Mom, don’t worry, I’ll serve my country”. I almost hit the floor.
She lives in a very deep south area where conservative values are not only rampant, they are expected of every single member of the community. She has been well indoctrinated in all that.
Rome Again
You didn’t? I thought everyone knew that. I left this blog (actually all blogging) for several months, and when I returned, TZ was here and ppGaz was gone, but TZ sure sounded like ppGaz to me. How could you not know that? I’m surprised.
Rome Again
TZ, your granddaughter is beautiful. Congrats, and enjoy her, she’s truly a gift from heaven.
matt
Basically, I’m retarded. Plus, I thought he was banned, so I guess it never occurred to me that he would would be posting, let alone under a different name.
jake
OT: Why throwing money into big-assed data bases to keep us safe is stoopid.
To be clear, I of course know nothing beyond some guys tried to sneak in some place they didn’t belong. If the trio was comprised of Methodist ministers from Minnesota my reaction would still be the same: Nogoodniks ahoy!
My point is another guy, just doing his job, caught them.
demimondian
Hey, wait! Did you say “created” up above? I thought you said “cremated”. I’m sorry, TZ, I misunderstood.
Seriously, the “strong empiricist position” — embodied by one of the heroes of _THS_, jake; the scotsman, obviously intended to stand in for Hume — is easy to parody. Simply claim that everything can be measured, and the chickens will scurry most obligingly. However, before you dismiss it as simple foolishness, if measurement is taken out of the L. Ron Hubbard-squash idiotic form, and is taken to include observables like genuine smiles (BTW: humans are very good at distinguishing them from fake ones. We don’t know how we do it, but do it we do), the position becomes a lot harder to pound back. No, obviously, you can’t measure everything with a ruler and a bunch of electrodes; that said, it’s amazing how much you can measure just by asking people questions in a smart way.
Big Pimpin'
All you philosophy majors have been very serious today.
Somebody slip some rat poison into your lattes or something?
Rome Again
Thanks for the link Jake, but of course:
“We’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here”.
Feeling a bit uneasy yet Bushniks?
demimondian
Now that’s an interesting idea. I take it you’re volunteering to try it first, so we can see what the effects are?
Big Pimpin'
Sounds like you’ve already had yours, sweetheart.
The results aren’t pretty.
ThymeZone
I figured you were funnin’ me all along. But anyhoo, doesn’t matter.
What matters is Total World Domination by Progressives, or people who hang with progressives. Nothing less than complete conquest. If we can get that with empiricism, then by Gad let’s get it.
I mean it. Darrell Delenda Est!! To the ramparts!!
demimondian
Hmm. Well, obviously, I was in no condition to observe them. I’ll ened some help replicating them, I think — you look like a fine specimen to me.
Big Pimpin'
Now that’s what I’m looking for. A crazy lady who wants to poison me.
Cab!
ThymeZone
.
Ooh, somebody got up on the wrong side of the rack today.
demimondian
Oh, how little you know. How little you know.
maf54
Who’s gay now, bitches!?!?
maf54
Whoops! Wrong thread. Maybe wrong blog too. Depends. R there any hot interns here?
ThymeZone
Aisle 7.
jake
I was going to make a very serious reply to TZ re: THS but maf54 has me spitting my rat-poison laced latte (soy, extra foam) all over the monitor. And I’m not even a Phil. major.
Zifnab
You pretty much nailed it.
AnneJ
Quoting Camus?! But don’t you know Camus was French?!
AnneJ
And by the way: don’t go too metafysical on me again, it is hard work enough having to scroll past all Darrell’s whining!
Krista
Just had to respond to this:
Jesus H. Christ in a hopped-up sidecar, don’t foist him upon us!
demimondian
We are all gyros in our own stories, each of which is a PITA.
maf54
Ha! U R funny. But U sound OLD. OLDSTER! We’ve got too many of you in the 16th already. I bet you drive a Buick!
I’m more into beefcake.
This Darrell guy you yell at all the time sounds like a hottie! And right wing. You know what that means! G-A-Y-O-L-D-P-A-R-T-Y!
richard
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-brooks5jan05,0,3406790.column?coll=la-opinion-center
This is worth noting. Bush/Cheney/Rummy have managed to transform the military in one way. It is no longer a majority-Republican institution.
ThymeZone
U R drunk.
Perry Como
Tzatziki for you to say.
grumpy realist
Just to comment on the “fake smiles” thingie–take a gander at a good artist’s book on facial expressions and you’ll understand what is going on. A true smile doesn’t just involve movement of the mouth; there are many other muscles around the eyes that are involved. We unconsciously pick up on that and “know” whether a smile is true or not.
One of the more fascinating parts of the artist’s book I read was a dissection of several ads from the 1950s and 1950s and how bizarre the characters’ expressions were.
GOP4Me et al
My point is that it’s more than a practical objection for me. I also have philosophical, legal, and religious objections; I pretty much object to it on every level. (Speaking of legal objections, read Scott Turow. He makes the interesting point that it’s pretty much impossible to craft a death penalty statute which is narrowly tailored so as to include only the worst of the worst. Basically, other crimes will always be added onto the statute, until eventually you have people on death row for things like being the getaway driver outside the store at the time when an accomplice inside accidentally shoots a customer during the course of the holdup. Which to me, at least, is extremely fucking unfair.)
I am for death for a lot of things. So what? I think people who cut me off on the freeway should be smitten by bolts of retributive lightning from the heavens of an angry God. This isn’t about how I might personally feel about this asshole or that asshole, and it really shouldn’t be. This is about the concept of a society that murders its own constituents. To paraphrase Justice Brennan, a society that treats its citizens like a cat treats a plaything, not a constitutent but an object to be killed once no longer useful (or entertaining).
Still, I’ll take your objection on practical grounds over the support of a Darrell on grounds of mental idiocy any day. I think more people are becoming swayed by the issues of practicality, wrongful sentencing, etc., than are being swayed by my primary objections, which veer from the abstractly philosophical to the outrightly religious.
I’m the one that brought up Capano; I happen to be from Delaware too. I think people not from DE don’t tend to pay much attention to its goings-on, although Tim F. does a good job of talking up Dogfish Head. Speaking strictly as a Delawarean, the whole Capano clan are a bunch of fucking assholes. I still don’t support the death penalty for anyone, but at the same time I have to concede that it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy than Louis Capano.
GOP4Me et al
BTW, thanks for the link, richard. That’s a hopeful sign for the future of the military debate in America.
RSA
Here’s something cool from the BBC: a set of 20 15-second videos of people smiling, arranged as a test for you to decide whether they’re faking their smile or not. I was surprised to get 17 out of 20 right.
Zombie Santa Claus
Nobody’s perfect.
Krista
Wow. I actually got 20 our of 20. I’m shocked.
Jake
Relax, they are referring to Cody Wayne Camus, a famous lawn tractor racer and philosopher from Bilious, AR.
RSA
Holy crap. You don’t interview people for a living, do you? (I’ve read that there are a few people around who are actually very good at reading expressions, even if the majority, even among professionals, are terrible at it without even realizing it.)
Krista
No. But, I am a PR flack, so maybe that gives me an inside edge on recognizing insincerity. :)
ThymeZone
Well, Mrs. Zone and I both took the test and got the same score, 75% (15 of 20). We did not have the same set of answers, though.
But it was very unsatisfying. First of all, there was no contextual information at all. How much of real judging another person’s real responses is based on just the visual of their face, without … the body, the hands, the breathing, the sounds, and the context?
I don’t see what this proves, or even what it illustrates. It’s on the level of a parlor trick.
I didn’t expect to get 15 of 20 correct, I’d have predicted 50% for me.
I am the best person in the family at reading Maci, who is days away from being 20 months old. But I might be the worst at the office at reading my boss, who laughs and jokes all the time except for odd times when he is about to throw a small tantrum. But I know from context that 2/3 of his smileys are fake or contrived, it’s just that I never know which ones.
TenguPhule
Shorter Darrell: Watch me contradict myself in the same paragraph!
TenguPhule
Shorter Darrell II: I have no fucking idea what our military does.
TenguPhule
I call Bullshit on Darrell. He’s repeating the same tired old lies, neglecting that the 2003 reports DIFFERED from the 1998 reports he loves to quote from.
Oops!
TenguPhule
For the nth time, Darrell. Saddam was contained, no WMDs.
Stop trying to confuse that with sanctions.
Krista
Sour grapes tasting good, are they? ;)
demimondian
Ah, TZ, but that’s the point — it’s a tremendously difficult task, and one which we unconsciously perform every day, and one at which we are astonishingly good. (Remember, Krista’s 20/20 is a one-in-a-million outlier. The several of you who’ve run the test so far are collectively in the one-in-tens-of-millions outliers.) I’d love to understand what we do — yes, there’s the “eye-crinkle” effect, known to both artists and cognitive psychologiest for a *very* long time, but one can even learn that, and still won’t fool other humans.
ThymeZone
You could be right, Demi. Could be, I said, don’t get all excited.
Anyway, I believe in the fake-smile-plus-“Fuck You” approach.
Let ’em figure that out.
Heh.
RSA
Self-selection, I suppose. I might not have posted the link if I’d gotten 50%, but either a bad or good score is notable. It is surprising what we do pretty much unconsciously. God did a nice job of engineering 6000 years ago. :-)
demimondian
Yes, it could be self-selection. However, if it is, then there are a lot more people reading this blog that I thought. :)