Plamegate and Iraqgate get the shaft: normenclature of scandals

[Tonchi]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Tonchi, we have done it. Can't you see that the only thing the opposition has left is murdering people?

That might be enough to stop you, but it doesn't stop either me or the Iraqis. The murderers can't see they aren't persuading anyone as to the legitimacy of their cause. They're only going to get their asses kicked so hard they can use their butts for earmuffs.

So in order to "persuade" somebody that you have a bigger stick than he has, what is your acceptable military and collateral damage to prove your point? It's OK to wipe 20,000 civilians and 2,000 young Americans off the books to create a power vacuum where militants from other countries can operate freely without a tenth of the casualties that you are taking? Don't you realize that dead is dead no matter whether the person who took you there has an ideology or not? Or even a recognizable religious reason for hating so much that it does not matter WHO he kills because he gets points for it anyway?

We are CONSTANTLY sticking our noses into places like that, setting ourselves up against people who do not think, reason, fight, or worship in a form we recognize. We do not have a clue what to do once we get there. We love our new technology of war, we are real good at blowing things all to hell in record time but if we can't then immediately pack up and go home for the parades and a medal we are in deep shit. The video game was supposed to be over, "we win", but what to do about these pesky people all over the place who are stuck with the radioactive shells and total destruction of their government, social fabric, and infrastructure? Not to mention the fact that somebody forgot to check whether they WANT a cookie-cutter version of American democracy so we are forced to "occupy" the place to inforce our "suggested procedures".

You think this business in Iraq was PLANNED? Darn right it was. The FIRST part. It has been well documented that Bush and Cheney were planning to go into Iraq before the election of 2000 was even over. Saddam dissed his daddy, and Jr. was going to teach him a lesson. By seizing the oil fields, Cheney intended to pay for the whole game. Simple. Easy. Quick. I don't have to discuss whether we knew what to do when we got to Iraq, because we have 2 years worth of "surprising revelations" in any media you want to examine, which show plainly that we got almost everything wrong. We DON'T have the oil fields. We DON'T have any world support. And we DON'T have a ready, willing, and able government in place. We don't even have anybody to leave in charge, since the only Bush crony waiting in the wings to be set up as the new leader turned out to be an embezzler and passer of false intelligence who has no credibility in ANY group now. We don't even have a reason anymore to give why this HAD to be done except that Saddam was a really bad person who needed to be removed, killed a lot of his own people and all that. Well duh, so did the psycho running North Korea, how about 3 of the African dictators, or Mr. Putin in Russia who has rolled back or eliminated all of the democratic reforms which the country was trying to implement? I saw the figure of 10,000 Iraqis who Saddam supposedly did away with since Desert Storm. How many Iraqis did WE kill? And Saddam did not kill 2,000 Americans, that pretty much happened without his supervision. We didn't plan that part either, just tried to keep the photos out of the papers.

I saw in another post that you are one of those who is rationalizing all this by calling it part of the War On Terror. We didn't get that right either. Iraq was NOT dealing with Osama, they were NOT supporting terrorist training camps, they did NOT have the WMDs (at least at the time of end-game). The only Terrorism Saddam was conducting was against his own people and the Kurds, but hoo boy, the terrorist training camps are running full bore now that the USA "won". I know you will not accept that Iraq was not an immediate threat to America or the West, you will follow the official position that it is sufficient that a ruler is a really evil person and we have the right to go in to remove him. We don't. We didn't have the right to attack the sovereign country of Panama and seize their leader either.

Just one more thing I need to clear up with you: I am not some degenerate liberal hippie type who protests any lawful and rightful military action. I detested Jane Fonda and I am not against War across the board. I was born on an Army base, both my parents were Army officers, and I don't lie cheat or steal or tolerate anybody who does. The problem I have is with stupid stupid people who have their own agenda taking the cream of our country into places where we have no business being so that they can get wiped off the face of history for NOTHING. And I believe Iraq will go down as the biggest Nothing in our history.

[xoxoxoBruce]

C'mon, Tonchi. The shells aren't radioactive, it's the projectiles.





But the rest on your post is spot on.