[quote=babbling looney]

how about offering up a son or daugther for the cause?

My daughter, just like Casey Sheehan, can make her own decisions and I will have to abide by those decisions.   As a grown up, adult woman, she is not mine to "offer up".

And this thread has NOTHING to do with whether or not I agree with political issues such as the war in Iraq.  I have never mentioned Iraq or anything to do with the military. You seem to have a reading comprehension problem along with cruiser.  (I hope you listen to your clients better than you are able to read commentary)  What I object to is the dragging into public and politicising what should be a private process of grief.  Cindy Sheehan, dancing on the corpse of her dead son for her own self agrandizement is what I find disgusting.   There are constructive ways to protest and get your views out there. This is how we got Megans Law, this is how MADD was formed. Parents turning their grief into positive results.  I just find her way unseemly and sickening and especially find the parasites that cling to her for their own purposes to be disgusting human beings.

PS.  How about two nephews (who both were in Afganistan and Iraq as Army Rangers and thankfully home safe now), two of my uncles(career Air Force)?  I don't think the military is taking middle aged women. Although maybe they should since there is nothing more dangerous than a menopausal stock broker.

  I am not an Idiot, I just do not think it is my place to make judgement on how other people live their lives. You are a gutless coward. Sitting at your computer,taking pot-shots at someone who has given alot more than you could ever dream of to the war in Iraq. I know you will try and spin it some way to make you or your Values look better, but face it, YOUR WRONG.

Having spent time in two different war zones...

The current military is an all volunteer military.  When you sign up you acknowledge that you will "defend against ALL enemies, foriegn and domestic". 

War IS hell.  I felt sorry for my wife who was left behind (in the normal world) without any idea of where I was, or how I was doing.  But everyone who is over there knew what they were getting into. 

Having said that...  It is VERY important to support the troops, no matter what your feeling on the mission may be.  But, it is even MORE important to support the families of the troops, because like I said most of them don't even know where they are and how they are doing. 

And NOT KNOWING, my friends, is the hardest part.

[quote=babbling looney]

Last post on this topic, I have wasted too much time here

Actually , I was speaking to your view on our foriegn policy.

You have no effing idea what my views are on our foreign policy. 

You want to project what you think my views are.  Get a clue, buy a vowel and learn to read without putting your own preconceptions on some one else.

Must go take a chill pill now.

[/quote]

BL, BL, BL, In my post to answer  EJ in describing the book Rise of the Vulcans, you took one phrase of that answer and responded to it. That phrase was, Now is the time, while we are dominate military force on the planet, to use that force to forward American Foreign policy. Your response was: And so...?  BL, exactly how was I suppose to read that, other than you support the war?

Our foreign policy is democracy at the point of a gun. We are no longer the guys in the white hats who ride to the rescue. As biggest bad ass on the planet, our new roll is to convert the world's population to our way of doing things, democracy. It's our way or the highway, even if we have to use some F18s and smart bombs to persuade thinking in our favor. Iraq, unfortunately, is just the first stop. And if you don't know this or believe this, then it is you who needs a clue. I'll give you that you may not be aware of this, or that you didn't intend your response to show support for this policy or the war. However, preconception? Not at all.  By clipping  the one hawkish phrase from my post and responding as you did, you sure sound like you support the war. I responded to that.  

T

[quote=SonnyClips]TJC45,

Did they mention the whole "perpetual war" scenario in "The Vulcans" that was adopted by the City College intellectuals who made the shift from Communist Trotskyites to Neo-Conservatives? I think this comes as an almost unfathomable shock to most conservatives in that the foriegn policy that has developed seems to mimic that of the Soviets. Creating enclaves of US style democracy and wait for the dominos to fall.

The irony of course is the huge cost of providing fertile ground for this perspective is very expensive. So expensive that it caused the end to the Soviets and Communism as a force seemingly overnight. I would not assert that the US economy is this fragile but I would submit that all of the spending being done for this policy is frivolous and utopian.

If you still believe that Iraq is about terrorism from the Whitehouse's perspective read the work on the plan from the early nineties on this site.
It shows clearly that this war was not driven by national concerns of security but misguided idiology.

Either way I look forward to reading the book. It seems to be mentioned more and more these days.

Best,
Sonny

[/quote]

Sonny, I don't recall all of the references in the book. As I said it doesn't trash neo-conservatives. As you mention in your post, misguided ideology, is closer to the mark. And how that ideology has been made policy and acted upon by the Bush administration. In today's paper there is a short AP story about Scooter Libby. It brings up a paper co-authored by himself and Paul Wolfowicz in the early nineties that said, recognizing that we are the World's only remaining super power we should use pre-emptive force to stop other nations from developing weapons of mass destruction as well as stop other nations from becoming rival super powers. Sound familiar? The book shows how their careers, and experiences acted on our national policy makers and their beliefs.

Another interesting book is "Against All Enemies" By Richard Clark. The White House spin machine has done it's best to discredit Clark as a disgruntled ex employee. But there's just too much fact backing Clark's version of Bush's early anti terror policy to blow it off.

[quote=Cruiser]

   I wonder what you would do if your child was to die. You act like Sheehnan is doing all this for attention.[/quote]

Sheehan simply proves that being a grieving mother doesn't mean you can't also be a fool and a publicity hound. "End the military occupation of New Orleans", indeed.

[quote=SonnyClips]I believe that TJC45 and Cruiser are reacting to something that is inconsistent in your values. . [/quote]

Funny, I thought they were simply responding to some mental shortcomings of their own.

[quote=tjc45]

Another interesting book is "Against All Enemies" By Richard Clark. The White House spin machine has done it's best to discredit Clark as a disgruntled ex employee.

[/quote]

 As well he is.

[quote=SonnyClips] I wonder why the Right Wing Media never latched on to her story. Why they focused so much on Sheehan who is so obviously unprepared for her role. [/quote]

Yeah, that's what happened, it was the "Right Wing Media" that made Sheenhan such a public figure. Geezee, what a steamy load....

[quote=tjc45

Our foreign policy is democracy at the point of a gun. We are no longer the guys in the white hats who ride to the rescue. As biggest bad ass on the planet, our new roll is to convert the world's population to our way of doing things, democracy. [/quote]

What a wonderfully convoluted argument in favor of dictatorships and against democracy, READ:FREEDOM. Now, tell me again how it’s so evil that we should help people out from under a dictator’s boot and into the light of freedom….<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

[quote=SonnyClips]Did they mention the whole "perpetual war" scenario in "The Vulcans" that was adopted by the City College intellectuals who made the shift from Communist Trotskyites to Neo-Conservatives? I think this comes as an almost unfathomable shock to most conservatives in that the foriegn policy that has developed seems to mimic that of the Soviets. [/quote]

ROFLMAO, back to Sonny's ludicrous attempts demonize William Kristol and interject Trotskyite traits  into today’s US foreign policy all because Irvin, William’s father, as a college student had a brief infatuation with Trotskyism…. He even buys into the lunatic fringe’s conspiracy theory that Project for the New American Century directs US foreign policy (how many PNAC members work at the White House?). I guess the fact that regime change in Iraq became US policy back in 1998, long before Bush and the eviilllll neocons came to power just confuses the daylights out of them….

[quote=SonnyClips]

The irony of course is the huge cost of providing fertile ground for this perspective is very expensive. So expensive that it caused the end to the Soviets and Communism as a force seemingly overnight.

[/quote]

What a mind-numbingly stupid attempt at a parallel. One, the Soviets weren't exporting freedom, they were exporting Marxist slavery at the point of an AK-47. Second, the USSR economy collapsed because Marxism simply doesn't work, not because of their foreign policy.

<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

[quote=tjc45]

Our foreign policy is democracy at the point of a gun. We are no longer the guys in the white hats who ride to the rescue. As biggest bad ass on the planet, our new roll is to convert the world's population to our way of doing things, democracy. [/quote]

What a wonderfully convoluted argument in favor of dictatorships and against democracy, READ:FREEDOM. Now, tell me again how it’s so evil that we should help people out from under a dictator’s boot and into the light of freedom.<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

[quote=SonnyClips]Let's not devolve in to ranting and raving. So far I think its been "evil" because it has been horribly ineffective. If you don't believe me consult Brent Scowcroft's piece in the Times.

[/quote]

Oh, golly, there's a critic. That PROVES it must be a bad policy. BTW, did Brent bother to talk to any Iraqis who risked their lives to vote in free elections? And just how many years into a free Iraq will it be before the critics change their tune?

[quote=SonnyClips]
As far as the PNAC stuff, Rumsfeld was a member who tried to urge Clinton to invade Iraq.

[/quote]

Rumsfeld's not a member of PNAC, and Clinton made regime change HIS policy and the policy of the US government without any evvvviiillll neo-cons in his administration.

[quote=SonnyClips]

I myself don't believe in the whole intricate theory route and you become tiresome continuing to label me with this.

[/quote]

You don't believe it, but you can't help but bring up the theory every so often...

[quote=SonnyClips]

The Trotsky thing is documented on the very Republican and upstanding journal the National Review.

[/quote]

"The Trotsky thing" being the fact that Bill's father had a brief membership in a Trotskite organization like so many other Leftists of his day. BFD.

[quote=SonnyClips]

I would honestly like you to give your perspective on why you believe this war in Iraq is such an unmitigated success.

[/quote]

War is never an unmitigated success. This war is no different. OTOH, over the whines of the critics  (the ones that were screaming "quagmire" on day three of the invasion, the ones that warned of the "harsh Afghan winter" in the prior conflict) there's been a handover of power to an interium Iraqi government, and election, a constitutional proposal written and accepted by the voter and in December, there will be full-fledged goverment elected. The Iraqis are taking up the cause of their defense and are doing most of the bleeding an dying these days.

[quote=SonnyClips]

Because I personally would like it to be one.

[/quote]

ROFLMAO, you'd lose your chance to be a knee-jerk Bush critic, you'd hate it. Gee, even that windbag Joe Wilson admitted he was disappointed that the Iraqis voted for the constitution, at least try to be honest.

[quote=SonnyClips]
I think though that the mere fact that there is an insurgency means that failure is a foregone conclusion.\

[/quote]

Please tell me you're joking. Failure is a foregon conclusion just because there's an element that wants to defeat democracy? Are you kidding? The "insurgency" can't hold territory, was rejected by the Sunnis as they decided to join the democratic process for the last vote and they've changed their objective from killing US troops to killing innocent civilians. Hardly the voice of the people at work there.

[quote=SonnyClips]
As far as Bill Kristol is concerned I admire his intellect .....He is not a Communist, this I know. But believe it or not Marxist criticism and the study of other Communist thinkers like Trotsky is still considered a legitimate pusuit amongst people who are intersted in exploring ideas.

[/quote]

That kid of gibberish would make Joe McCarthy blush. You keep ranting Trotsky, Trotsky as if it means something significant that his FATHER, IN HIS COLLEGE DAYS was a Trotskite for a couple of years. Give it a rest. For crying out loud, REAGAN was the head of a UNION, does that mean he was a unionist president decades later?

[quote=SonnyClips]

As far as the CCCP falling because of their foriegn policy just look up the numbers on what they payed out to Cuba and Angola. They would have failed eventually but all that spending sure sped up the process.

[/quotes]

There's the phrase I was looking for "they would have failed anyway". Correct, foreign policy or not, their Marxist economy was doomed to failure. They could have stayed home and baked cookies and it would have failed.

[quote=SonnyClips]Oh and did you here Fitzgerald on the I. Lewis Libby indictment... Compelling.
[/quote]

Did I hear it? Yes, I did. If Libby lied to a grand jury, he should pay the price. Clinton should have as well.

Notice no one was charged with exposing a CIA operative, and that Rove's free. Sorry Fitzmas was such a washout for you.... 

All you need to know about Clarke is how ineffective against Al Qaeda the US government was when he was in charge of the section watching him. They didn't bother to take him into custody 3 times when offered, they let him out of a training camp in Afghanistan when they had him in their sites. Clarke lied when he said that HIS input stopped the millennium bomber in Seattle (the border guard thought she had a drug trafficker, no warning on bombers ever made it to her post), he lied when he said Condalezza hadn't ever heard of AQ until HE briefed her on them (a tape of an earlier interview proved him wrong).<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Bottom line, he was pissed he lost his daily briefing of the pres gig when Bush decided to hear from the head of the CIA and the FBI rather than their 2nd string, as Clinton did. In fact, the flight out of the country of a number of bin Laden's family right after 9/11, the flights that drove Michael Moore to rant any number of conspiracies, guess who approved of it? Richard Clarke.....

[quote=SonnyClips]Tell me why you believe this. You even recoiled from describing the reason why Reagan and Teller devised SDI as a means of out spending the CCCP.<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

[/quote]

You mean why do I believe the Soviet economy was doomed to failure? Do I really need to explain that? Here's your problem, YES, Reagan knew he could speed the process of Soviet collapse, HOWEVER, you made it sound as if the USSR would have survived had it not pursued its foreign policy. Note the difference, they were going down the drain EITHER WAY, and not because of their foreign policy. Therefore some comparison to "cost" and an attempt to liken the Soviet collapse to a US-like foreign policy is simply bogus.

[quote=SonnyClips]

 I want you to tell me why Scowcroft is wrong.

[/quote]

Because Saddam was not going to be "contained" (as if you could even do such a thing when WMDs can be moved without detection). Saddam was not only not going to be contained, he was on the very edge (via buying German and French support by way of his food-for-oil bribes) of completely escaping international scrutiny. Sanctions were going to end, the inspections were going to end, Saddam was going to be free to pursue whatever it is he wanted to.

Now, you tell me why it's so shocking to you, why it's so amazing that a decision as momentus as going to war wouldn’t have critics. You make it sound like the very existence of critics proves something important.

[quote=SonnyClips]

I want you to describe another insurgency that has been defeated in a similar scenario.

[/quote]

The mistake you make is twofold. First, you want to surrender immediately because there’s some resistance to democracy. Do you really believe that freedom is so weak a human goal that it always collapses in the face of resistance? Secondly you make the assumption that the insurgency represents some legitimate nationalism and represents the people. They don’t. In fact they’ve targeted the civilian population, a population that proved they by risking their lives to vote that they reject the terrorists.

[quote=SonnyClips]

I really really want to be positive about Iraq, I am sincere, and talking about battlefield success in Afganistan does not count towards success in Iraq. I admit the nattering naybobs of negativity were wrong about us being in a quagmire about the Afgani conflict.

[/quote]

I want to believe you’re sincere, but I can’t. Giving Bush a defeat is more important to most Democrats than US success and Iraqi freedom. As you said yourself, the same voices crying quagmire today were crying the same thing before we entered Afghanistan. They were making the same noises after three days of the invasion of Iraq. They’ve ignored every single success in the timeline established to creating a free Iraq. They have far too much invested in defeat to enjoy a success.

[quote=SonnyClips]

You still haven't proved that my perspective on Trotskyite.

[/quote]

Your “persepective” is laughable. So what that Kristol’s father was a Trotskyite as a college freshman? I was a liberal Democrat in college. BFD.

[quote=SonnyClips]

 As far as Rummy being a PNACer check the website. http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

[/quote]

Clinton made regime change in Iraq official US policy without a single eeevvvillll neo-con on his staff. Spin that anyway you’d like.

[quote=SonnyClips]

So please make an argument that could at least be farther reaching than "you are a liberal and you suck, Sonny." I would be interested to read it.

[/quote]

Again, you’re the knight without arms and legs screaming it’s only a flesh wound. My side of the conversation has been anything BUT what you described.

[quote=SonnyClips]


How many indictments is that now for your team and not one was protecting the wife and kids from a story about them being a chubby chaser.[/quote]

ROFLMAO, like Hilary needed to be “protected” from news that Bill was didling the staff. If Libby lied to the GJ, he should face the music, the same applied to Clinton attempting to hide evidence in a sexual harassment lawsuit.

[quote=SonnyClips]Jeb being more competent than W might have made the whole Iraq sceme work, funny thing about fate.

[/quote]

Right, that's how war works. The guy in the oval office personally sets the tactics, leads the fight, wears the uniform, etc.. Man you're really off your game, Sonny.

BTW, Sonny, since you're hysterical about the PNAC and their set of principles, how about pointing out what you object to, specifically.

WTF does any of this have to do with Rosa Parks?

[quote=joedabrkr]WTF does any of this have to do with Rosa Parks?[/quote]

Nothing, it's just a typical liberal thread hijack