Although the leftist media, using one of their time-tested tricks (raise a question, answer it themselves and then proceed as if the question has been answered), has declared "waterboarding" torture, the issue is (as one would expect from the leftist media) far deeper than Chris Matthews or Soledad O'Brien can understand, much less discuss.
There are, in fact, three levels to the question:
1) Is waterboarding torture?
2) Is torture always wrong?
3) Even if our policy was to never waterboard, should we announce this to the enemy?
Answer:
1) According to Dictionary.com, the word torture means
"1. the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty."
We can eliminate punishment, revenge and sheer cruelty from the list. I know Democrats won't, because they have such disdain for people who would volunteer to protect America that they assume they must enjoy killing and the torturing of terrorists (Dick Durbin even compared them to the Nazis.) Still, most Americans don't hate our troops the way Democrats do.
So, that leaves only is waterboarding the "inflicting of excrutiating pain...as a means of getting a confession or information"? Here, again, the answer is no. For waterboarding does not cause pain. It causes fear. While I'm sure that the pseudo-intellectuals at the leftist universities can make a tortured argument about how fear is pain, my writings are not meant for those who do not seek truth so, again, we can leave the Democrats out of this debate and the rest of us can agree that waterboarding isn't torture.
Not only does waterboarding not cause pain, it is also over in no time. The average for CIA officers who underwent waterboarding as part of their training was fourteen seconds. The longest any of the terrorists held out was about two minutes. This was Khalid Sheik Muhamad who, after two minutes, gave up information that prevented further terroist attacks.
Between fourteen seconds and two minutes of painless interrogation and tens of thousands of American lives were saved. All Americans are happy about that which, again, explains why the Democrats want it stopped.
Short-lived and painless is not exactly the description of "torture." Besides, if it were "torture," would we be doing it to our own troops as part of their training?
Just for the record, here are the names of the other "enhanced interrogation techniques" that the Democrats are whining about because they are too mean to the terrorists: (from ABC News):
"The Attention Grab" -- ooh, lordy, we grab the terrorist's shirt to get their
attention. Isn't that known as a "come on" in West Hollywood?
"The Attention Slap" -- not even a punch, an open-handed slap. Yep, the evil,
horrible Americans slap the terrorist to get their attention. Isn't that known
as "a rejection" to the "attention grab" in West Hollywood?
"The Belly Slap" -- yep, another open-handed slap. "Meanie, meanie, meanie..."
"Long Time Standing" -- also known as "The DMV" (I made that up.)
"The Cold Cell" -- by "cold" they mean 50 degrees -- about the temperature in the
Northwest in summer. It does get worse, though, the terrorist is doused
with cold water. So...imagine Seattle in July.
Slaps, water, no injuries and not a single death at the hands of an American the entire half-decade the prison for terrorists caught attempting to murder Americans has been open. As Ann Coulter likes to point out, more people have died in Ted Kennedy's car yet Kennedy is a Democrat Party elder statesman and the CIA is under investigation.
There is one more "torture" technique that is used at Gitmo...they play rap music. Seriously. That's the degree of "torture" that the leftists are using to try and denigrate America again. Make the terrorists listen it's "torture" force it down our children's throat and it's "progressive."
2. But even if this short-lived and painless exercise routinely performed on Americans by their friends and colleagues WERE torture, who's to say that torture is wrong? A very legitimate question is what if you know the terrorist in your control has knowledge about an imminent attack that will cost the lives of thousands -- even tens of thousands of innocents?
Forget hypotheticals, this is exactly the case with Khalid Sheik Muhammad. A couple of "belly slaps," a few seconds of fear, and untold number of innocents were saved from real torture, say, being burned alive as "revenge" and "punishment" for being the offspring of pigs and monkeys.
In other words, the Democrats would prefer for thousands of Americans to be tortured, than to have one Islamic fascist get a belly slap, an attention grab and fourteen seconds of water.
The only argument that the leftists have against this is not their reliance on the Geneva Conventions, which they hope their followers know nothing about, since they do not apply to terrorists, but rather that "if we torture them, then they might torture us." Torture us? They're murdering us. They're kidnapping civilians and sawing off their skulls and proudly displaying them on the internet. What are they going to do, really, really, double really saw off our heads? Really, really, double really, burn us all alive?
It reminds me of an old joke. These two Jews were about to be murdered by the Nazis. Delighting in making them await their fate, the Nazi leader says "any last request, Jew?" The first Jew, Moshe, says "I wouldn't take anything from you, you Nazi bastard" and spits in his face. The second Jew, admonishes him, saying "Moshe, Moshe, what'a you want to do, cause trouble?"
Frankly, I don't have a problem with, as a last resort in exceptional situations, giving the terrorist a little extra zing. Some sworn enemy, who considers me the offspring of a pig and a monkey and his 72 virgins awaiting him if he can just murder a few more good, decent, hardworking families in America, giving him a few seconds of listening to "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" (Hollywood's "Best Song" from a few years back) is a-okay with me.
3. But let's give the Democrats their way (in this discussion). Let's say we agree that the folks who saw off the heads of innocents, blow up our embassies, murder our sailors at sea and burn thousands of us alive (and promise to keep doing so) shouldn't ever be tortured -- not even fourteen seconds of painless "enhanced interrogation(compare that to the hours of terror of the poor kid who worked at Charles Schwab who had to choose between being burned alive or jumping 106 stories to his death). There's no way we should tell them.
Why? Because without the fear of unpleasantness, just what, exactly, is their incentive NOT to join al Qaeda and NOT to attempt yet another attack? Basically our threat, then, is that, unless they stop trying to burn entire skyscrapers filled with human beings alive, we're going to take them from their frozen mountain hideout and drag them off for a long stay on a Caribean Island? Where they'll have more to eat then they've had in their entire lives, plenty of time to study their killing manual (the Koran) and time off for soccer and volleyball.
Where do I sign up?
War is awful. Terrorism is awful. We're not going to combat is with an interrogation policy that reads like a brochure for Club Med.
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62 comments:
What could be more typical of the modern conservative than for one of their minions to provide support for torture and inhuman behaviour on the very day of Christmas. Have the few remaining lackeys of this vile ideology no shame remaining?
As to the specious arguments made by this wretched specimen of humanity regarding the question of waterboarding, we have seen judgments rendered which should leave no doubt as to its evil status.
A body no less relevant and important than the government of this very nation has said, in no uncertain terms, that torture is precisely and undeniably what it is:
In 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out this very act.
Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.
There can be no event which so illustrates the barbaric and vulgar effect which the conservative movement has had on this great nation. They have always hated and sought to destoy every noble impulse in this country...and hate the real and high minded America which was once a beacon to the entire world. They have come dangerously near to creating a monstrous society in their own tawdry image, but fortunately it looks as though the tide is finally turning against them.
Hi there Elite gal.
Speaking for myself (I'm nobody's minion and since you don't know me let's just say I'm not a "modern conservative" either...whatever you think that is)
I think Evan's comments make a lot more sense than yours.
I think many people agree that any pain inflicted {unless asked for :-)} is undesirable i.e. bad. I also believe in Life,Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
There are some people in the world who don't like "us" and in fact want to kill or harm lots of "us" here in the US or really anyone who disagrees with them. I think it's a small number of people (relatively) but they're motivated. I'm comfortable calling these people "bad".
I always like to think of it this way. Lets' say someone you really care about, just one person, was in danger of being killed or seriously harmed by someone "bad". Would you just sit there and let it happen rather than do something to prevent it? I'm not saying hurting anyone is good but you have to put it in context, you have to compare one "bad" with another "bad" and decide that there's a difference.
Oh back to the person in harms way; So you're sitting there pondering if it's OK to to let them die or get hurt so you can feel OK.
What are they thinking? I mean maybe you'd be lucky and they'd be dead before they knew what hit them (feeling no fear or pain) or maybe you'd get the call on you cell phone or left on your voicemail where they tell you how much they love you and will miss you. If you're "lucky" you won't hear anything too gruesome before they hang up.
So just for yucks, turn the situation around: Ask everyone you know & love what they would do for you, if you were in danger.
If they all say they'd turn off their cell phones and hope for the best then I'd say you're hanging with an interesting crowd.
Please let us know what kind of response you get.
NOTE: If I had the chance to save you or someone you care about (or anyone really) I would at least try.
Think this though: Waterboarding can't be considered in the same terms as beheading (for example). Have you ever heard anyone interviewed after being beheaded? I heard a guy on ABC a few weeks ago who described his waterboarding experience.
I really appreciate the fact that this (waterboarding & such) doesn't happen too often and that there are guidelines in place to keep it to a minimum.
I also appreciate the fact that there are thousands of men and women defending this nation and that THEY are the ones actually facing the life and death choices day to day (and directly facing the risks)
No nation is perfect but people are voting with their feet by the millions, you can too. Of course sometimes it's easier to run away from a problem and hide than deal with it.
:-D
The problem with the leftists is that, as children, they never think about the consequences of their actions. Like the kindergartener who eats the paste, he doesn't think about the stomach ache afterwards.
Thus, they'd rather protect the feelings of the Islamic terrorist than protect the lives of tens of thousands of innocent Americans who will suffer REAL torture (like being burned alive) if the Islamic terrorist doesn't spill the info he knows.
The Democrat ALWAYS sides with the evil because he doesn't think what will happen. Thus, like John Kerry, they pretend to be all high and mighty as they side with the Viet Cong, and then cover their eyes as millions are murdered in Southeast Asia. They side with Saddam Hussein because "war is icky-poo" not caring that by not waring millions of Marsh Arabs, Kurds and others are murdered.
Leftists are children who get upset when they find out that that food they're eating actually has to be slaughtered. They just want the steak for free.
To answer dshea,
Yes, he would sit by and let it happen -- just as Michael Dukakis would allow his wife to be raped. Democrats are children. They don't think. They expect everything to be for free (notice Hillary's Christmas ad where everything is a present under the tree to be unwrapped by the children.)
To elitegal the opposite of waterboarding is not the mass murder of thousands because he doesn't think that far ahead. Like John Lennon said, paradise to the Democrat is "all the people living for today." So the opposite of waterboarding is NOT waterboarding. To thinking people -- the grown-ups -- the opposite of waterboarding is the mass murder of thousands.
Conservatives idolize the Grand Inquisitor a bit too much. But I would kiss them, not condemn them, for it.
Because it is NOT upon the "innocents" that Western conservatives act.
And it is precisely upon the "innocents" which our opponents, the Islamicists, prey.
And this is a distinction that Western progressive Liberals are no longer capable of making...
"...you say (and I am not quoting) that every man possesses a point of weakness, an Achilles' heel, and by exploiting this a man may be made a hero or a martyr or a rag. Again, if I understand you correctly, you think that Western civilization has rested upon the principle that, whatever else was permitted or forbidden, the one heinous act which would destroy the world was to do precisely this--the deliberate act of tampering with human beings so as to make them behave in a way which, if they knew what they were doing, or what its consequences were likely to be, would make them recoil with horror and disgust. The whole of the Kantian morality (and I don't know about Catholics, but Protestants, Jews, Muslims and high-minded atheists believe it) lies in this; the mysterious phrase about men being "ends in themselves," to which much lip-service has been paid, with not much attempt to explain it, seems to lie in this: that every human being is assumed to possess the capacity to choose what to do, and what to be, however narrow the limits within which his choice may lie, however hemmed in by circumstances beyond his control; that all human love and respect rests upon the attribution of conscious motives in this sense; that all the categories, the concepts, in terms of which we think about and act towards one another--goodness, badness, integrity and lack of it, the attribution of dignity or honour to others which we must not insult or exploit, the entire cluster of ideas such as honesty, purity of motive, courage, sense of truth, sensibility, compassion, justice; and, on the other side, brutality, falseness, wickedness, ruthlessness, lack of scruple, corruption, lack of feelings, emptiness--all these notions in terms of which we think of others and ourselves, in terms of which conduct is assessed, purposes adopted--all this becomes meaningless unless we think of human beings as capable of pursuing ends for their own sakes by deliberate acts of choice--which alone makes nobility noble and sacrifices sacrifices. "
In a 1951 "Letter to George Kennan," Oxford scholar Isaiah Berlin recalled a scene in Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov". In the scene, Ivan Karamazov says that if he could buy the happiness of all of mankind with the torture and resulting death of one completely innocent child, he could not do so. He would, as Berlin says, "return the ticket." Berlin goes on to say that no promise of eternal harmony in the future... will make us accept the use of human beings as mere means -- the doctoring of them until they are made to do what they do not for the sake of the purposes which are their own, fulfillment of hopes which however foolish or desperate are their own, but for reasons which only we, the manipulators, who freely twist them to our purposes, can understand. Berlin was referring to Nazi Germany (reaction of horror common people had to the deceptions used by the Gestapo to "relocate" and "exterminate" the Jews) and the moral predicament of the 50's era apparatchik's in Soviet Russia. I don't think Berlin ever would have dreamed that so-called progressive Marcusian neo-liberalism could gain the foothold it has in America or anywhere the West by violating this sacred law of "truly" liberal thought. George Kennan based his forecast of the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union upon this "moral predicament". He was the author of the successful US policy which lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union known as "containment".
"All this [the praise of our choicemaking volk] may seem an enormous platitude, but, if it is true, this is, of course, what ultimately refutes utilitarianism and what makes Hegel and Marx such monstrous traitors to our civilization. When, in the famous passage, Ivan Karamazov rejects the worlds upon worlds of happiness which may be bought at the price of the torture to death of one innocent child, what can utilitarians, even the most civilized and humane, say to him? After all, it is in a sense unreasonable to throw away so much human bliss purchased at so small a price as one--only one--innocent victim, done to death however horribly--what after all is one soul against the happiness of so many? Nevertheless, when Ivan says he would rather return the ticket, no reader of Dostoevsky thinks this cold-hearted or mad or irresponsible; and although a long course of Bentham or Hegel might turn one into a supporter of the Grand Inquisitor, qualms remain."
The entire text of Berlin's letter to Kennan can be found in a copy of "Four Essay's on Liberty".
The progressives condemn "torture" in all it's forms and think well of themselves becuase of it.
But it isn't "torture" that is the evil, just as it isn't a war on "terror". It's the torture of "innocents"... it's the murder of "innocents". THAT is what is so insidious about the progressive liberal defense of our enemies in the current conflict.
...to them, there are no "innocents". They have judged the West, in its' entirety", as "guilty" and deserving of whatever calamities are inflicted upon it.
The "Progressives" need to leave the West and move to these imaginary "perfect" utopias where there can be "innocent" people again. For they have become far too cynical for life in a modern, interdependent society. They have already proclaimed end of innocence.
As Evan says, in many ways they're children.... but I think they're no longer "innocents"...
*pulls up a chair and grabs popcorn* this troll festival should be fun
They want to assume their "daddy" Grand Inquisitor's mantle...
...but cannot bring themselves to perform the "actions" necessary to permit innocence to develop.
They insist on "truth" but cannot handle the truth.
They insist that "choices" between incommensurable values can be made between values which are incapable of living together... like freedom and equality, wisdom and justice... without cost, and that there NEED NOT be tragedy which naturally results from any and all said choices.
They think that they can have their cake, AND eat it, too.
And this hubris comes from their obsessive critical "thinking" about the "social justice" of making these choices, and refusing to acknowledge or deal with the consequences which stem from the poor choices they fatefully make... like the destruction of the nuclear family.
Nietzsche, "Genealogy of Morals"
We Germans certainly do not think of ourselves as a particularly cruel and hard-hearted people, even less as particularly careless people who live only in the present. But have a look at our old penal code in order to understand how much trouble it took on this earth to breed a "People of Thinkers" (by that I mean the European people, among whom today we still find a maximum of trust, seriousness, tastelessness, and practicality, and who, with these characteristics, have a right to breed all sorts of European mandarins). These Germans have used terrible means to make themselves a memory in order to attain mastery over their vulgar and brutally crude basic instincts. Think of the old German punishments, for example, stoning (the legend even lets the mill stone fall on the head of the guilty person), breaking on the wheel (the unique invention and specialty of the German genius in the area of punishment!), impaling on a stake, ripping people apart or stamping them to death with horses ("quartering"), boiling the criminal in oil or wine (still done in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), the well-loved practice of flaying ("cutting flesh off in strips"), carving flesh out of the chest, along with, of course, covering the offender with honey and leaving him to the flies in the burning sun.
With the help of such images and procedures people finally retained five or six "I will not’s" in their memory, and so far as these precepts were concerned they gave their word in order to live with the advantages of society—and that was that! With the assistance of this sort of memory people finally came to "reason"! Ah, reason, seriousness, mastery over emotions, the whole gloomy business called reflection, all these privileges and ceremonies of human beings—how expensive they were! How much blood and horror is the basis for all "good things"! . . .
Joseph de Maistre, "Saint Petersburg Dialogues"
What is "justice"...
To come now to detail, let us start with human justice. Wishing men to be governed by men at least in their external actions, God has given sovereigns the supreme prerogative of punishing crimes, in which above all they are his representatives....
This formidable prerogative of which I have just spoken results in the necessary existence of a man destined to inflict on criminals the punishments awarded by human justice; and this man is in fact found everywhere, without there being any means of explaining how; for reason cannot discern in human nature any motive which could lead men to this calling. I am sure, gentlemen, that you are too accustomed to reflection not to have pondered often on the executioner. Who is then this inexplicable being who has preferred to all the pleasant, lucrative, honest, and even honorable jobs that present themselves in hundreds to human power and dexterity that of torturing and putting to death his fellow creatures? Are this head and this heart made like ours? Do they not hold something peculiar and foreign to our nature? For my own part, I do not doubt this. He is made like us externally; he is born like us but he is an extraordinary being, and for him to exist in the human family a particular decree, a FIAT of the creative power is necessary. He is a species to himself. Look at the place he holds in public opinion and see if you can understand how he can ignore or affront this opinion! Scarcely have the authorities fixed his dwelling-place, scarcely has he taken possession of it, than the other houses seem to shrink back until they no longer overlook his. In the midst of this solitude and this kind of vacuum that forms around him, he lives alone with his woman and his offspring who make the human voice known to him, for without them he would know only groans. A dismal signal is given; a minor judicial official comes to his house to warn him that he is needed; he leaves; he arrives at some public place packed with a dense and throbbing crowd. A poisoner, a parricide, or a blasphemer is thrown to him; he seizes him, he stretches him on the ground, he ties him to a horizontal cross, he raises it up: then a dreadful silence falls, and nothing can be heard except the crack of bones breaking under the crossbar and the howls of the victim. He unfastens him; he carries him to a wheel: the shattered limbs interweave with the spokes; the head falls; the hair stands on end, and the mouth, open like a furnace, gives out spasmodically only a few blood-spattered words calling for death to come. He is finished: his heart flutters, but it is with joy; he congratulates himself, he says sincerely, No one can break men on the wheel better than I. He steps down; he stretches out his blood-stained hand, and justice throws into it from a distance a few pieces of gold which he carries through a double row of men drawing back with horror. He sits down to a meal and eats; then to bed, where he sleeps. And next day, on waking, he thinks of anything other than what he did the day before. Is this a man? Yes: God receives him in his temples and permits him to pray. He is not a criminal, yet it is impossible to say, for example, that he is virtuous, that he is an honest man, that he is estimable, and so on. No moral praise can be appropriate for him, since this assumes relationships with men, and he has none.
And yet all grandeur, all power, all subordination rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world, and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple, and society disappears. God, who is the author of sovereignty, is the author also of chastisement: he has built our world on these two poles; for Jehovah is the master of the two poles, and on these he makes the world turn.[1 Samuel 2:8.]
Robspierre, "Justification on the Use of Terror"
If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs.
It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern by terror his brutalized subjects; he is right, as a despot. Subdue by terror the enemies of liberty, and you will be right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the revolution is liberty's despotism against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime? And is the thunderbolt not destined to strike the heads of the proud?
. . .
. . . Indulgence for the royalists, cry certain men, mercy for the villains! No! mercy for the innocent, mercy for the weak, mercy for the unfortunate, mercy for humanity.
Society owes protection only to peaceable citizens; the only citizens in the Republic are the republicans. For it, the royalists, the conspirators are only strangers or, rather, enemies. This terrible war waged by liberty against tyranny- is it not indivisible? Are the enemies within not the allies of the enemies without? The assassins who tear our country apart, the intriguers who buy the consciences that hold the people's mandate; the traitors who sell them; the mercenary pamphleteers hired to dishonor the people's cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fire of civil discord, and to prepare political counterrevolution by moral counterrevolution-are all those men less guilty or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?
Condemn the Grand Inquisitor all you want... but what you should really do, is kiss him... for he does NOT terrorize "innocents". He punishes the "guilty".
...and this makes our traitorous progressive friends a bit "uncomfortable". As well it should.
The Modern Liberal "thinks" in reverse. He starts with his conclusion firmly in place -- that the good and the successful are oppressors and that the evil, failed and wrong have been oppressed (otherwise why would such lovely people as, say, the Islamists do such evil things? The victims MUST deserve it.)
Then, being on the side of the evil, failed and wrong (the "oppressed"), the Modern Liberal calls this "compassion."
Of course, they have no compassion for the thousands of innocents who are burned alive inside the WTC. They are all "little Eichmanns" because, since America is successful (i.e. "oppressive") they deserve it.
Thus ANYTHING the evil oppressors do to the innocent terrorists -- like fourteen seconds of scaring them -- is not only too much, it is FURTHER proof of their "oppressive nature."
Can you think of an evil regime that the Democrats do not support? They kiss Hugo Chavez, work hand-in-hand with the communists (who do you think sponsor their anti-America rallies which they lying call "anti-war rallies"? They helped the Viet Cong, marched to undermine American victory in the Cold War and now they want the Islamic fascists to win (because Bush is Hitler dontcha know.)
Is there anything that can be done or said to convince them the this is NOT the case? That their "causal chain of reasoning" is defective?
Nietzsche, "Gay Science"
112
Cause and Effect. We say it is "explanation "; but it is only in "description" that we are in advance of the older stages of knowledge and science. We describe better, we explain just as little as our predecessors. We have discovered a manifold succession where the naive man and investigator of older cultures saw only two things, "cause" and "effect,"as it was said; we have perfected the conception of becoming, but have not got a knowledge of what is above and behind the conception. The series of "causes" stands before us much more complete in every case; we conclude that this and that must first precede in order that that other may follow - but we have not grasped anything thereby. The peculiarity, for example, in every chemical process seems a "miracle," the same as before, just like all locomotion; nobody has "explained" impulse. How could we ever explain? We operate only with things which do not exist, with lines, surfaces, bodies, atoms, divisible times, divisible spaces - how can explanation ever be possible when we first make everything a conception, our conception? It is sufficient to regard science as the exactest humanizing of things that is possible; we always learn to describe ourselves more accurately by describing things and their successions. Cause and effect: there is probably never any such duality; in fact there is a continuum before us, from which we isolate a few portions - just as we always observe a motion as isolated points, and therefore do not properly see it, but infer it. The abruptness with which many effects take place leads us into error; it is however only an abruptness for us. There is an infinite multitude of processes in that abrupt moment which escape us. An intellect which could see cause and effect as a continuum, which could see the flux of events not according to our mode of perception, as things arbitrarily separated and broken - would throw aside the conception of cause and effect, and would deny all conditionality.
Just the place to visit for a CONSERVATIVE Christmas...truly an odious bunch of people...most of them the same person when you follow the links.
Whenever you speak about modern liberals "thinking in reverse", I call to mind the Rocky & Bullwinkle episode where Bullwinkle inherits an "upsidasium" mine atop "Mt Flatten"... which to me served as a metaphor for those who would attempt to force "equality" upon the unequal.... the commies.
Do you think that the New Left has taken over where the Old Left commies left off?
...most of them the same person when you follow the links.
I think jackie see's a reflection in a shallow pool of water... Ooops it's jackie!
Wingnuts Roll Out Annual War On Christmas Nonsense
By Dave Johnson
Created Dec 21 2007 - 4:21pm
Here we go again. The wingnuts will believe anything. It's sort of fun to watch, except that they have guns and power.
See Redstate | Okie Attorney General Bans Christmas. Seriously. [1] Except if you read the story [2] they point to the Oklahoma Atty General didn't "ban Chrsitmas" -- a wingnut group says he did with no evidence. Turns out from the story that some obscure HR person at a university may have done it - not the state Atty General as claimed. And the news source for this? "a visiting journalism fellow at The Heritage Foundation. " Heh.
And of course, other extremely gullible wingnuts [3] jump [4] on board [5] to catapult [6] the propaganda, as they say... Unfortunately they are giving out the Atty General's phone number, so readers can harass and intimidate him.
The whole point being, of course, to rile up the "wackos" (as the conservative leaders refer to [7] the Christians). But this year it might backfire on them. The "conservative movement" is extremely threatened by candidate Mike Huckabee - but he is the primary beneficiary of their efforts to stir up religious strife.
Update - To his credit Captain's Quarters [8] actually checked out the story - after posting - learned it isn't true, and posted an update. Others [9], however, join [10] in echoing [11] the [12] lie [13] - even adding
More dead children to go with the half million killed by the embargo...
Maybe that's why they hate us.
UN report: Two million Iraqi children face disease, poverty
David Edwards and Adam Doster
Published: Friday December 21, 2007
While violence is slowly subsiding in parts of Iraq, living conditions are still deplorable. According to a new U.N. Children's Fund estimate, two million children in Iraq face the “unrelenting threats of poor nutrition, disease and no school.”
It is important that you read this guy. The UNITED NATIONS embargo of the terrorist, mass murderer Saddam Hussein is not only America's fault in the eyes of the hate-America-always leftist, but that the food-for-oil money that was specifically allowed so that no one would go hungry, which was stolen by the dictator and the French, again, is somehow America's fault.
Meanwhile, it can't be -- just can't be -- that the Koran teaches the mass murder of all infidels because that would mean America ISN'T at fault, so the leftist ignores those facts too.
ANYTHING that can be cherry-picked, spun or lied about -- always in an attack against America -- is what the leftists call "intellect."
...all Leftist roads lead to...
It's America's fault...
and if you must go deeper than that... to GW Bush & the GOP.
But starving the children was Clinton's stated policy for a full 8 years... with ZERO attempts to change the policy.
...and the current DNC leadership line is "Get out of Iraq and let civil war kill ALL of IRAQ's children!"
No wonder they hate us. Well, not ALL of us. ;-)
Farmer, the Modern Liberal is a child. Like children, they don't think about consequences. The child doesn't think about the stomach ache to come when he eats the paste, and the Democrat doesn't think about the consequences when he creates policy.
To the leftist if we surrender to the terrorists that means there's "peace." He doesn't think (nor does he care) about the massacres and the genocides that surrendering to evil brings. That's down-the-road, that's in the future, these are concepts that the Democrat doesn't understand.
Remember what John Lennon called paradise, it's everyone living only for the moment. Think of what's advantageous for the second (free welfare, abortions, surrender, etc) and you arrive at Democrat policy.
I'm sorry, Evan. I wish I could give them all the "benefit of the doubt" and believe that they act out of "ignorance" and not a more self-serving form of cynicism.
What you say may be true for many of their less-educated followers, but I cannot believe that the same applies to their NY Times loving "elites". These are no longer "innocents". These are Grand Inquisitor wannabes who act from a position of "faith/belief" which they have mistaken for "knowledge".
...and the only way to shake the hypnotized from these mistaken belief's must come from a torpedoes shock (Plato, "Meno")
MENO: O Socrates, I used to be told, before I knew you, that you were always doubting yourself and making others doubt; and now you are casting your spells over me, and I am simply getting bewitched and enchanted, and am at my wits' end. And if I may venture to make a jest upon you, you seem to me both in your appearance and in your power over others to be very like the flat torpedo fish, who torpifies those who come near him and touch him, as you have now torpified me, I think. For my soul and my tongue are really torpid, and I do not know how to answer you; and though I have been delivered of an infinite variety of speeches about virtue before now, and to many persons--and very good ones they were, as I thought--at this moment I cannot even say what virtue is. And I think that you are very wise in not voyaging and going away from home, for if you did in other places as you do in Athens, you would be cast into prison as a magician.
For unless that is done, they will surely torpify us.
...as they are planning to utilize a new and improved form of shock doctrine of their own.
This looks to me like the last writhings of a dying snake...one last attempt to convince somebody...will farmer john continue to convince sayet? Will sayet convince farmer john? Stay tuned ...they've lost everyone else.
how do you like that dumb dshea loonytoon...he's the not conservative (whatever dat is) guy. I think he's an objective source...gee i sho be lissnin to him dasrite
What's the matter Praxagora? People won't buy your shock treatments for a global-warming pseudo-crisis if they read Evan's blog?
Awwww. So sad 4u.... Lysistrata was no match for Aristophanes' Ecclesiazusae in pointing towards the truth, anyway... that if it weren't for beer, ugly women couldn't get laid if their lives depended upon it.
"gee i sho be lissnin to him dasrite"
^^^ what is that thing your trolls do? are they imitating rednecks? black people? southerners?are they trying to make you look stupid or themselves?
what purpose is served by these comments?
I don't know exactly how objective I am but I'm willing to explain my thoughts without calling people names or using denigrating language.
FYI: Shea really is my last name, first initial D.
Hey, has anyone heard from EliteGal, how did the survey go?
:-D
I don't know exactly how objective I am but I'm willing to explain my thoughts without calling people names or using denigrating language.
Yeah, so what's your problem, Church lady? Uptight upbringing?
As for the survey, look around...you got a corner stake up your ask me no hard ones.
Ugly girl confesses:Awwww. if it weren't for beer ugly women couldn't get laid if their lives depended upon it.
Keep your cooler loaded then, big girl.
Let me join and reiterate in this solemn query. This site has become a scandal.
"...what purpose is served by these comments?"
purpose? we don't need no damn purpose...meaning does not lie in purpose but in seeking purpose.
Who ever said that a dolphin riding a bow wave couldn't be a reactionary?
You're right, Evan... they DO think backwards. LOL!
I wonder why these 18-year olds come to this site? There are so many things they could be doing--like getting out the vote for their favorite candidates? And who would that be, guys? Hilary? Obama? Edwards? Please go play and leave the grownups alone.
Kate...another invented blogger...why does Sayet go to these lengths to appear to have an audience...because his blog is a failure, like everything else he's done.
Yeah nobody cares about what Evan says, there are like only 4 or so of use who care to listen to him but we've been busy. Check him out on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaE98w1KZ-c
Views: 316,094
Check it out, be # 316,095!
:-D
Forgot to mention over 6,000 comments too. :-D
four fans with a combined age of about sixty ...and a few of us freak show fans...
One schizophrenic troll.
One more good reason they hate us...
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml
Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
By LARRY JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR
SOUTHERN DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Iraq -- On the "Highway of Death," 11 miles north of the Kuwait border, a collection of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles are rusting in the desert.
They also are radiating nuclear energy.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I
Six-year-old Fatma Rakwan, being held by her mother at the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Children, was recently diagnosed with leukemia.
In 1991, the United States and its Persian Gulf War allies blasted the vehicles with armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium -- the first time such weapons had been used in warfare -- as the Iraqis retreated from Kuwait. The devastating results gave the highway its name.
Today, nearly 12 years after the use of the super-tough weapons was credited with bringing the war to a swift conclusion, the battlefield remains a radioactive toxic wasteland -- and depleted uranium munitions remain a mystery.
Although the Pentagon has sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, Iraqi doctors believe that it is responsible for a significant increase in cancer and birth defects in the region. Many researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations, agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans.
THE DANGERS
Depleted uranium, known as DU, is a highly dense metal that is the byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to manufacture nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural uranium. DU remains radioactive for about 4.5 billion years.
DU shell holes in the vehicles along the Highway of Death are 1,000 times more radioactive than background radiation.
But the radioactivity is only one concern about DU munitions.
A second, potentially more serious hazard is created when a DU round hits its target. As much as 70 percent of the projectile can burn up on impact, creating a firestorm of ceramic DU oxide particles. The residue of this firestorm is an extremely fine ceramic uranium dust that can be spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain.
Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment and create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in ground water, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.
Studies show it can remain in human organs for years.
Try posting something original. Oh, that's right, you don't have any of your own thoughts. That one last braincell that keeps you breathin' will have to die of loneliness.
Yas, tellink that the rightist has no defense...dey shoult try star vars...
Iraq Progresses To Some Of Its Worst
Analysis by Dahr Jamail
WASHINGTON, Dec 29 (IPS) - Despite all the claims of improvements, 2007 has been the worst year yet in Iraq.
During the surge, the number of Iraqis displaced from their homes quadrupled, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent. By the end of 2007, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that there are over 2.3 million internally displaced persons within Iraq, and over 2.3 million Iraqis who have fled the country.
Iraq has a population around 25 million.
The non-governmental organisation Refugees International describes Iraq's refugee problem as "the world's fastest growing refugee crisis."
One reason for a decrease in the level of violence is that most of Baghdad has essentially been divided along sectarian lines. Entire neighbourhoods are now surrounded by concrete blast walls several metres high, with strict security checkpoints. Normal life has all but vanished.
"Iraqis are suffering from a growing lack of food, shelter, water and sanitation, healthcare, education, and employment," the report says. "Of the four million Iraqis who are dependent on food assistance, only 60 percent currently have access to rations through the government-run Public Distribution System (PDS), down from 96 percent in 2004."
Nearly 10 million people depend on the fragile rationing system. In December, the Iraqi government announced it would cut the number of items in the food ration from ten to five due to "insufficient funds and spiralling inflation." The inflation rate is officially said to be around 70 percent.
Iraq's children continue to suffer most. Child malnutrition rates have increased from 19 percent during the economic sanctions period prior to the invasion, to 28 percent today.
This year has also been one of the bloodiest of the entire occupation. The group Just Foreign Policy, "an independent and non-partisan mass membership organisation dedicated to reforming U.S. foreign policy," estimates the total number of Iraqis killed so far due to the U.S.-led invasion and occupation to be 1,139,602.
This year 894 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq, making 2007 the deadliest year of the entire occupation for the U.S. military, according to ICasualties.org.
While this policy has cut violence in al-Anbar, it has also increased political divisions between the dominant Shia political party and the Sunnis – the majority of these "concerned citizens" being paid are Sunni Muslims. Prime Minister Maliki has said these "concerned local citizens" will never be part of the government's security apparatus, which is predominantly composed of members of various Shia militias.
Underscoring another failure of the so-called surge is the fact that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad remains more divided than ever, and hopes of reconciliation have vanished.
According to a recent ABC/BBC poll, 98 percent of Sunnis and 84 percent of Shias in Iraq want all U.S. forces out of the country. (END/2007)
Causalties last month were the lowest since the invasion. Oodles more Iraqis moved BACK to Iraq last month, then left. I guess next year the doom & gloom nay-sayers will have to calculate 2 year averages to make the situation look as bad as possible. What a bunch of pathetic losers!
'Tis an old proverb, "I hate one that remembers what's done over the cup." This is a new one of my own making: I hate a man that remembers what he hears. Wherefore farewell, clap your hands, live and drink lustily, my most excellent disciples of Folly.
...especially one who has no thoughts of his own
truly addled sez it's going good...just let me pick the stats to show you..
It's the politics stupid... not the military situation which is only artificially improved anyway.
One foot before the other, asswipe.
So, six years for that first step...after which everything is much worse than before it was taken...then what twenty more and you've got a complete genocide...that do it for you? Meanwhile Afghan and Pak are lost in the process...oh that a-dult foreign policy
drooler must be drowning in it...the first step was they meet us with flowers and embrace democracy then put food on their families whilst asking admittance as the fifty first (red) state...hahaha how much will these little twats suck up? The place is one step away from total civil war.
Nope, six days for the first step and Mission Accomplished... which jealous Democrats proceeded to CRAP all over w/complaints and give cause to Iraqi dissent with criticisms about zoo's, and then museums, then Abu Ghraib, and investigations into bibles flushed down toilets @ Gitmo, and then "where are the wmds", Joe Wilson's NY slimes confessions, Bush lied... etc, etc... followed by four years of RE-STABILIZATION to get back to where we started.
Think we need or want any "help" from Democrats in the WoT? Think we need Pelosi and the DNC truing to implement their own foreign policy with the Syrians at the height of the bloodletting?
Not on Iraq's life...
You whiners are history. I can't wait for the start of the general election...
hhahahahahahhahahahaha..RESTABILIZATION....hahahhahahahahahathat's too funny even for these pinheads...hahahahahaha...and it's more unstable now than it was he day before the incompetent fools disbanded the Iraqi army...Waaaaay more ... REstabi...hahahah...that one will go down in history if anyone in the administration ever uses it...I hope they do...
Don't worry. History will draw it's own conclusions.
Farmer John said...
Don't worry. History will draw it's own conclusions.
Yes, but liberal revisionists will make us look bad...we must go back to 19-Leben to get a fair hearing...or maybe look at Torquemada's diaries to get the straight shit.
...or just read ANY conservative blog.
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