Politics: J'accuse!

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
We keep talking about whether we're going to be able to establish a democracy in Iraq. What if we do, and -- aside from the Kurds -- they really don't like us? A country where people do the things seen in these pictures is a country that might, for example, support terrorism. Then where are we?

It may be true -- there are some countries that just are not ready for democracy.

If Saudi Arabia held elections tomorrow, who would win -- George Bush or Osama bin Laden?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
It may be true -- there are some countries that just are not ready for democracy.

If Saudi Arabia held elections tomorrow, who would win -- George Bush or Osama bin Laden?

There's a civil war going on within Islam, and we haven't figured out yet how to help the good guys.

It is to our credit that those pictures are not going to have the same effect that the ones from Mogadishu did.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
What if this is what democracy looks like?

(spree: some of these pictures are really, really awful)

We keep talking about whether we're going to be able to establish a democracy in Iraq. What if we do, and -- aside from the Kurds -- they really don't like us? A country where people do the things seen in these pictures is a country that might, for example, support terrorism. Then where are we?

I'm afraid we're not winning hearts and minds.

Well, we could've had this conversation 8 months ago about the exact same place (Fallujah). I don't have the link, but I think we did have this conversation 8 months ago about the exact same place (Fallujah).

The military is
1.) not occupying the town heavily;
2.) not engaging in a massive sweep of every fucking inch of towns where this stuff occurs;
3.) not responding to incidents against U.S. government contractors in places like Fallujah for as much as 1 or 2 hours after attacks begin (and obviously not escorting the contractors)...

blah blah blah.

Unless somebody has a better idea, I return to the suggestion of forcing the locals to elect leaders, and then holding the leaders accountable for wrongdoing, while leaving entire areas alone when nothing bad happens.

In this case, it sounds like one or two neighborhoods need to have all males between 18 and 50 rounded up for a few days of questioning.

But hey, they didn't have a stick for the carrot 8 months ago, why would they have one now?

And I hope the military and president understand exactly the harm these pictures do to our national security, much like the Somalia pictures a decade ago. Once these pictures are out, the world had better understand that a price is to be paid. And if its not, then Bush in '04 is no different from Clinton in '93, except that he'll continue sending our young people over there to face these horrors where Clinton would just as soon have our young people run away. Hard to say which is better for our country.


Hello

PS I couldn't believe when I saw one of those pictures on Yahoo news. That has to be the most graphic picture of a recently deceased American that I've seen in my life in a major media outlet.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I was afraid this was going to happen, but I'm now convinced that the commission, like all other aspects of our public institutions, have been whored out to the partisans.

Speaking of partisan whoring, I'm willing to bet you money that none of the questions to Dr. Rice from the Democrats on the commission are as cheap as the questions from Lehman and Thompson to Clarke.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Speaking of partisan whoring, I'm willing to bet you money that none of the questions to Dr. Rice from the Democrats on the commission are as cheap as the questions from Lehman and Thompson to Clarke.

And I'm willing to be that Rice's testimony is credible and totally discredits Clarke's.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
After you complete this, please explain for Hank why using a racist term ("towelheads") is slightly different than making an obvious exaggeration about the weather.

Do you really think so? Do you think I didn't understand that? Numbskull.

But I have a more important question. Since you became a big time law partner, do you order GA's to go fight your fights?
Don't know if you are at the same firm, but if so I do hope you aren't in a position of authority over Atticus. I have seen some travesties in the law practice, but that would be just too much.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Well, we could've had this conversation 8 months ago about the exact same place (Fallujah). I don't have the link, but I think we did have this conversation 8 months ago about the exact same place (Fallujah).

Recognizing that Fallujah is about the worst place in Iraq for an American to be, that doesn't suggest there's been a lot of progress in the last 8 month.

Unless somebody has a better idea, I return to the suggestion of forcing the locals to elect leaders, and then holding the leaders accountable for wrongdoing, while leaving entire areas alone when nothing bad happens.

At the risk of losing, is that not the sort of thing the Gestapo would do? How do you hold a leader accountable for something like this? Once something like this has happened, there really isn't a good response, it seems to me. Coming down on the whole area is a good way to radicalize more insurgents.

And if its not, then Bush in '04 is no different from Clinton in '93, except that he'll continue sending our young people over there to face these horrors where Clinton would just as soon have our young people run away. Hard to say which is better for our country.

You don't have Clinton & Somalia quite right.

First of all, it was a Bush affair that Clinton inherited. The outgoing Bush folks told the incoming Clinton folks that the U.S. troops would be out of Somalia by Inauguration Day, replaced by the UN. It didn't happen. (Against All Enemies 85.)

Second of all, we killed lots and lots of Somalis. In the Black Hawk Down battle, 18 Americans were killed, and well over 1000 Somalis. Our problem was not that we didn't kill enough Somalis. It was that the warlords there were making a living off the relief operation. Also, a precipitating event for that battle is that we used helicopter-launched missiles to kill a number of elders in Aideed's clan -- you could say assassinate. This is a good part of why the Somalis were so angry. If the media don't report our use of force, naturally we think that we're soft. The problem may have been the opposite. (My sources here are Black Hawk Down and a book by a Reuters journalist who was in Mogadishu called The Zanzibar Chest.)

Third of all, Clinton deferred to the military until that battle. Here's how Clarke describes the events after the battle:

• When the National Security Council cabinet members met with the President in the Cabinet Room, Clinton was irate. Somalia was not his idea of how to spend his first year in office. He had inherited it and the military had let him down. He had followed the Pentagon's advice, not Howe's, in June and they have been wrong. When Aideed could have been captured in June, they had let him go. When the military had finally agreed to send in JSOC to Mogadishu, they had acted as though there were no hostile forces operating against them, ignoring their usual tactics, and creating a disaster. Clinton sat silently, red-faced, in the Cabinet Room, listening to Warren Christopher, Les Aspin and Colin Powell. I realized that he was letting them have their time, but he had already decided something. He was done listening to them on Somalia.
  
  When they had talked themselves out, Clinton stopped doodling and looked up. "Okay, here's what we're gonna do. We are not running away with our tail between our legs. I've already heard from Congress and that's not what they all want to do, get out tomorrow. We're staying. We are also not gonna flatten Mogadishu to prove we are the big badass superpower. Everybody in the world knows we could do that. We don't have to prove that to anybody.
  
  "We are going to send in more troops, with tanks and aircraft and anything else they need. We are going to show force. And we are going to keep delivering the food. If anybody fucks with us, we will respond, massively. And we are going to get the U.N. to finally show up and take over. Tell Boutros he has six months to do that, not one day more. Then . . . then we will leave."
  
  As the meeting broke up, Clinton indicated for Lake and me to follow him through the side door into the outer area of the Oval Office. "I want us running this, not the State Department or the Pentagon." He looked at me. "No more U.S. troops get killed, none. Do what you have to do, whatever you have to do."
  
  In the days that followed, American snipers were placed on the roofs and walls of the U.S. compounds. When they saw any Somalis in the area with guns, they took them out. There was little or no publicity about these deaths. When the U.S. forces went back on the streets, they went with tanks. Six months later, the United States finally handed the operation to the United Nations peacekeeping force. There had been no more American casualties.

(Against All Enemies 86-87.)

This approach doesn't work if you're trying to occupy and democratize the country, though.

PS I couldn't believe when I saw one of those pictures on Yahoo news. That has to be the most graphic picture of a recently deceased American that I've seen in my life in a major media outlet.

Agreed. I was shocked.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Don't know if you are at the same firm, but if so I do hope you aren't in a position of authority over Atticus. I have seen some travesties in the law practice, but that would be just too much.

Rest easy, dear heart. Sidd's only in a position of authority over me at our GA happy hours at 74 Otis St.

[SlaveNoMore]

Atticus Grinch
I never said it was my family's emergency. Your mom beeped me. Again.

How typical. What a whore.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
And I'm willing to be that Rice's testimony is credible and totally discredits Clarke's.

If she can't do better than this, she's in trouble. There's a reason why the full commission, and not just the Democrats, wanted to hear her again.

eta: This WaPo profile of Clarke from a year ago holds up pretty well today -- i.e., it's consistent with what he's saying now.

The more interesting thing is the way both Rice and Powell have unintentionally confirmed O'Neill's claim that the Administration was focused on Iraq before 9/11.

Rice said:

• When we went to Camp David to plan our response to the al Qaeda attack, it was a map of Afghanistan that was rolled out on the table. It was Afghanistan that became the focus of the American response. And Iraq was put aside.

Similarly, according to Powell's testimony, when Wolfowitz wanted to go after Iraq after 9/11, Bush said, "first things first," and decided on Afghanistan.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop

[Clarke quoting Clinton wanting to stay and wipe out Somalis]

Wow. Between this and the earlier press reports of John "Commando" Kerry shooting up Vietnam, I'm sensing a new Democratic foreign policy thrust. Here we come, November!

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
What if this is what democracy looks like?

(spree: some of these pictures are really, really awful)

We keep talking about whether we're going to be able to establish a democracy in Iraq. What if we do, and -- aside from the Kurds -- they really don't like us? A country where people do the things seen in these pictures is a country that might, for example, support terrorism. Then where are we?

I'm afraid we're not winning hearts and minds.

And the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, whose ass we are being forced to thoroughly kiss, came out with a statement comdemning the assassination of Sheik Yassin (Hamas) and calling him a martyr to the struggle, etc.

Well, everyone says that democratization is a long term process, and people don't love you just 'cause you did them a favor.

Democratization is not enough, however. I guess the answer is that folks in the Middle East are less likely to "like us" until their countries/societies modernize, Westernize, and become more prosperous -- which we _think_ is likely to happen faster with an open, democratic society where certain basic freedoms are enshrined in law. Also -- the opportunity for political participation is likely to reduce, long-term, participation in terrorist/violent organizations to advance one's political agenda.

S_A_M

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
How typical. What a whore.

You suck all the joy out of a good mom joke.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
You suck all the joy out of a good mom joke.

Daddy?

[Replaced_Texan]

I don't think that MoveOn necessarily supports Kerry. I think they're the Anyone-But-Bush crowd and they see Kerry as the only viable option at this point.

At any rate, I do think they should pull the ads.


Clarke Asks Anti-Bush Group to Pull TV Ads

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...=694&ncid=2043

By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites)'s former counterterrorism adviser complained Wednesday about the use of his name and comments critical of Bush in a new broadcast advertisement from a political group supporting Democratic candidate John Kerry (news - web sites).

Richard Clarke said he instructed his lawyer to ask the MoveOn.org Voter Fund to pull the ad, which Clarke said was created without his knowledge or permission. The group said it rejected the request.