Saturday, August 26, 2006
Thomas Mann of The Brookings Institution Also Predicts Dem Takeover
Holy shit, this seems a little unbelievable to me, but coming on the heels of Stuart Rothenberg's prediction that Democrats will retake the House with a 15-20 seat pick-up in November, I guess the internal polls are really starting to show a tidal wave surging against the ruling Grand Old Party. The info is from Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:
Couple of things here: Mann is right to tell Dems not to allow Republicans to make this into a prospective, future-oriented election. Chris Matthews was trying to do that to a Dem candidate last night on Hardball. But this election is a referendum on the mistakes of the past, specifically a retrospective assessment of the mistakes the Bush administration has made and the ease with which the Rubber Stamp GOP Congress enabled all those Bush policy mistakes: the Iraq war, screwing up the War on Terror (where is Osama? why is the Taliban making a comeback in Afghanistan?), the deficit spending, the shitty economy for everybody outside of the investor class, the shitty port, infrastructure and homeland security, the disastrous No Child Left Behind law, the even more disatrous Medicare law, etc.
Second thing: I don't buy the 25-35 House figure/6 Senate figure just yet. I do believe the internal polls are scary for the GOP. I also believe the GOP pollster who says he forsees 26 Dem pick-ups in the House and 6 in the Senate. But there is still a long way to go before November, Rove undoubtedly has some tricks up his sleeve, and a lot can happen between now and then to change things.
Still, as The Specials used to sing in the Seventies, "Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think..."
Brookings Institution scholar Thomas Mann "projects the Democrats to pickup 25-35 House seats, and four to five Senate seats with a chance to maybe hit six," according to Thomas Schaller. "Alternatively, Mann said the chance of Democrats capturing the House are two in three, and put the capture of the Senate at 50:50. One lunch attendee whose very close friend happens to be a Republican pollster told him that his internal GOP numbers point to 26 House pickups and six Senate gains for the Democrats."
"In his remarks, Mann also cautioned Democrats to not let the GOP somehow turn the election into a prospective, future-oriented question, but to make it as much a retrospective assessment of Bush in the Republicans. (No shocker there.) He also said Democrats ought to not only figure out a way to make Iraq -- Bush's biggest liability -- into as big a liability as possible."
Last month in the Washington Post, Mann wrote "If history is any guide, we're heading into a major political storm. And that means we could see a national tide in November that will sweep the Democrats back into the majority."
Couple of things here: Mann is right to tell Dems not to allow Republicans to make this into a prospective, future-oriented election. Chris Matthews was trying to do that to a Dem candidate last night on Hardball. But this election is a referendum on the mistakes of the past, specifically a retrospective assessment of the mistakes the Bush administration has made and the ease with which the Rubber Stamp GOP Congress enabled all those Bush policy mistakes: the Iraq war, screwing up the War on Terror (where is Osama? why is the Taliban making a comeback in Afghanistan?), the deficit spending, the shitty economy for everybody outside of the investor class, the shitty port, infrastructure and homeland security, the disastrous No Child Left Behind law, the even more disatrous Medicare law, etc.
Second thing: I don't buy the 25-35 House figure/6 Senate figure just yet. I do believe the internal polls are scary for the GOP. I also believe the GOP pollster who says he forsees 26 Dem pick-ups in the House and 6 in the Senate. But there is still a long way to go before November, Rove undoubtedly has some tricks up his sleeve, and a lot can happen between now and then to change things.
Still, as The Specials used to sing in the Seventies, "Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think..."
Comments:
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reality, you wrote:
"...all those Bush policy mistakes: the Iraq war, screwing up the War on Terror (where is Osama? why is the Taliban making a comeback in Afghanistan?)..."
Yes. Where is Osama? More importantly, what should have been done to nail him? Do you know of a strategy that would have nailed him by now? Would Gore have gotten him? Would Kerry have gotten him. What would they have done to capture and/or kill him?
We have 16,000 troops in Afganistan looking for him there. Is he in Afghanistan?
The Taliban is making a comeback, you say. Okay. Same questions. Who has a better plan? What is it?
Your stance is the typical liberal approach. Sneer at what's been attempted without offering a better idea -- and I'm sure there are some better ideas out there.
Meanwhile, what will happen if Osama is caught and/or killed? Do you think the muslim terrorists will simply give up their quest and resort to living in peace with the rest of the world?
I think his death will have very litte effect on the world. Like the death of Zarqawi.
Since you think muslim terrorist recruiting increases when the US kills muslim terrorists fighting our troops in Iraq, it's only logical for you to think that killing Osama would draw thousands of new jihadists into battle against us.
You wrote:
"...the deficit spending, the shitty economy for everybody outside of the investor class..."
Deficit spending is not intrinsically bad, especially when interest rates are low. But it is a point for rational debate.
Meanwhile, when unemployment is as low as it is and all other economic indicators are as generally healthy as they are, it's impossible to characterize the economy as "shitty."
You wrote:
"...the shitty port, infrastructure and homeland security..."
Okay, so once again, what should we do differently? There's room for debate here, but you don't seem to realize that many principles of democratic governing prevent many actions most of us would default to if we could.
You wrote:
"...the disastrous No Child Left Behind law, the even more disatrous Medicare law, etc."
So how should we handle education in this country? I hope you realize it's a bad idea for the federal government to control schooling.
You should note that in 2004 the DOE spent $8,300 per student for kids at Stuyvesant and $11,300 for the average kid in a city school. Therefore simply throwing money at education is not an answer. Why does it cost 30% less to educate kids at Stuy versus all city schools?
And to what Medicare law are you referring?
"...all those Bush policy mistakes: the Iraq war, screwing up the War on Terror (where is Osama? why is the Taliban making a comeback in Afghanistan?)..."
Yes. Where is Osama? More importantly, what should have been done to nail him? Do you know of a strategy that would have nailed him by now? Would Gore have gotten him? Would Kerry have gotten him. What would they have done to capture and/or kill him?
We have 16,000 troops in Afganistan looking for him there. Is he in Afghanistan?
The Taliban is making a comeback, you say. Okay. Same questions. Who has a better plan? What is it?
Your stance is the typical liberal approach. Sneer at what's been attempted without offering a better idea -- and I'm sure there are some better ideas out there.
Meanwhile, what will happen if Osama is caught and/or killed? Do you think the muslim terrorists will simply give up their quest and resort to living in peace with the rest of the world?
I think his death will have very litte effect on the world. Like the death of Zarqawi.
Since you think muslim terrorist recruiting increases when the US kills muslim terrorists fighting our troops in Iraq, it's only logical for you to think that killing Osama would draw thousands of new jihadists into battle against us.
You wrote:
"...the deficit spending, the shitty economy for everybody outside of the investor class..."
Deficit spending is not intrinsically bad, especially when interest rates are low. But it is a point for rational debate.
Meanwhile, when unemployment is as low as it is and all other economic indicators are as generally healthy as they are, it's impossible to characterize the economy as "shitty."
You wrote:
"...the shitty port, infrastructure and homeland security..."
Okay, so once again, what should we do differently? There's room for debate here, but you don't seem to realize that many principles of democratic governing prevent many actions most of us would default to if we could.
You wrote:
"...the disastrous No Child Left Behind law, the even more disatrous Medicare law, etc."
So how should we handle education in this country? I hope you realize it's a bad idea for the federal government to control schooling.
You should note that in 2004 the DOE spent $8,300 per student for kids at Stuyvesant and $11,300 for the average kid in a city school. Therefore simply throwing money at education is not an answer. Why does it cost 30% less to educate kids at Stuy versus all city schools?
And to what Medicare law are you referring?
Putting aside partisan positions, RBE, you are right on both points. Drill the past, the history. But they should't get too focused on Iraq etc, there is a whole economic mess that is far more immediate for most.
Second point, retain the retisence, with a dash of hope! It's always best to go in aws the underdog. It creates a sense of urgency and makes the GOTV far easier.
Second point, retain the retisence, with a dash of hope! It's always best to go in aws the underdog. It creates a sense of urgency and makes the GOTV far easier.
Osama is in Pakistan. Looking for him in Afghanistan isn't going to help capture him.
True, killing Zarqawi didn't end the Iraqi insurgency and killing or capturing Osama now won't end Islamic extremist terrorism. But capturing him back in 2002 at Tora Bora instead of letting him escape would have been a good idea. He is the poster child for terrorism, after all, and "hunting him down" like the preznit promised to do after 9/11 would have been a considerable victory for the U.S.
A better plan to deal w/ the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan? How about not pulling military and financial resources out of Afghanistan in late 2002/early 2003 in order to prepare for the invasion of Iraq? How about finishing the mission in Afghanistan before starting a new one in Iraq? (For that matter, how about finishing the mission in Iraq before starting a new one in Iran?)
Yes, I think the Iraq war has served as a recruitment tool for jihadis the world over. Rumsfeld has acknowledged as much. I'm not sure what the rationale for the invasion was anymore (WMD's? Flypaper strategy? Oil? Spreading democracy? Taking it to the terrorists?), but whatever the rationale was, the result has been disastrous for United States power. With 135,000 troops stuck in Iraq, with the U.S. having spent $300 billion dollars on the war and the tab still mounting, and with security conditions worsening there each month, the United States is not better off for having invaded. Saddam was NOT a good guy, make no mistake about that. Neither is Castro, Kim Jong ll, Hugo Chavez, and a host of other demagogues and murderous dictators, yet we haven't invaded the countries those men lead and won't any time soon. Had the administration continued the previous policy of containing Saddam, the U.S. would have had the resources to finish the mission in Afghanistan and to deal with Iran more effectively (particularly since Saddam would have still be in power and have been a worry for Iran.) But instead the administration invaded with too few troops to handle security in the post-war/nation-building phase, a half-baked plan for the occupation (how did Debaathification and the disbanding of the army work out?), and refused to acknowledge an insurgency existed until the UN headquarters was blown up, allowing long months for insurgents to establish themselves. In the words of Chris matthews, we have created a Shiite crescent of power, from Tehran to Baghdad to Beirut, that is largely controlled/influenced by the mullahs in Tehran. Had we not invaded Iraq and taken out Saddam, that crescent wouldn't exist.
Really, I think Iraq is the root of nearly all the foreign policy problems the U.S. now faces. Does this mean Islamic terrorists didn't want to attack us BEFORE the Iraq invasion or wouldn't have wanted to attack us if we hadn't invaded? No, of course not. But the invasion made things so much worse by a) rallying much of the Muslim world against us (particularly after Abu Ghraib) and b) sqaundering our financial and military resources in Iraq when they are needed in so many other areas.
What answer do I have to get out of Iraq with some semblance of "face" left intact? The honest answer is, I don't have a plan. But the honest answer is also that I didn't think going into iraq was a good idea to begin with. It seemed insane to me that the admin would take out a contained (and secular) Saddam who was a counterpoint to both Al Qaeda and Iran. Also, as George Will pointed out BEFORE the war, nation-building in the Middle East seemed to be an open-ended and unenviable task doomed to failure if histroy was any judge. And so far, that's what it has turned out to be.
Perhaps Biden's partition plan might be a way to settle matters in Iraq w/ the least amount of turmoil and bloodshed. It's not a perfect solution, of course, but if the country is heading toward dissolution or failed state status, it might be the best alternative.
Why was deficit spending bad when Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson were doing it, but not so bad when Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were doing it? I'm assuming it's what the money is spent on - tax cuts are good, social programs are bad. But it seems that when a republican Congress forced the Clinton administration to balance the budget (and I think there were four straight balanced budgets from 1998-2001), thing worked out pretty well. I understand that deficit spending during a recession can be a good idea, but how long does the deficit spending have to continue before it becomes harmful to the overall fiscal health of the country?
Most airplane cargo isn't screened. Most port cargo isn't screened. Some of the money squandered on the Iraq war would surely be helpful in this area. Also, I have been listening to Dick Lugar, Tom Kean and others push the administration to pressure Russia into securing its nuclear sites. Lugar and Kean both say not enough is being done to make sure nuclear material isn't stolen from Eastern European and handed over to terrorists like Al Qaeda. That possibility is truly terrifying and that would be something I think should be addressed by the administration which hasn't.
I agree that the Feds shouldn't be in the business of primary or secondary education. One size fits all fix-its in education do not work, whether they come from Washington in the guise of NCLB or whether they come from Tweed in the form of mandated lesson plans in reading and math in which every child in every classroom across the city is suppossed to be on the exact same question on the exact same page at the exact same time.
Comparing Stuyvesant or any other school of "gifted students" with public schools is like comparing apples and pork chops. Your argument would work if classrooms and children existed in a vaccuum. They don't. The lives, family structures, socio-economic status, and parental/societal expectations for these two different groups of kids ("gifted" programs vs. regular programs) are so divergent that a straight comparison is futile and meaningless. I have done some work at a gifted school and at three other public schools. The vast majority of gifted students are inherently motivated to do well in school, or are getting the motivation from home, many other public school children are not. it is easier to teach and educate gifted students. It's just that simple. Think of your own school experience. What were the kids in the honor classes like? What were the kids outside of the honors classes like? Well, the difference between educating "gifted" kids and kids in regular/remedial/vocational programs is even more divergent than that. On top of that, throw in language difficulties, learning disabilities, and some truly terrifying home lives for many of these children and you will see why you cannot comare Stuyvesant to Bryant one-to-one.
This is not to say there isn't waste in the system. But don't kid yourself, much of the money given to the public schools goes toward administrative overhead at Tweed and bullshit professional development programs that are often counterproductive. If you lowered class sizes in schools, you would go a long way toward fixing SOME of the problems in public education.
Let me explain what I mean: I teach Regents classes in the fall that are specially funded and capped at 24. All of my other classes are not specially funded and capped at 34. I can tell you as someone who has been teaching for a while now that I am a much more effective teacher when I can give more one-on-one instruction to kids in a class of 24 instead of a class of 34. Also, I can spend more time assessing the writing and reading abilities, strengths and weaknesses of each student much more effectively when I have fewer students. If I had classes of 24 instead of 34, I would see only 120 kids a day as opposed to 170 kids a day. Seriously, that makes a big difference in terms of my effectiveness as both an educator and as a person. It is easier to personally connect with students when the number is lower as well. And as a teacher, I am not just there to educate them. I am also there to make personal connections, especially since so many of them come from homes where there are a few positive or mostly negative connections.
If I could ask for one wish from the education fairy, I would ask for smaller class sizes and a clean, comfortable environment to teach in. Currently I work in a classroom with one electric outlet, three windows (only two of which work) a radiator that doesn't shut off and a room temperature that often exceeds 100 degrees. This room is heads above my last one which had asbestos residue in it and a three foot hole in the ceiling that collapsed a little bit more each day. I ought to be able to teach in a room where the heat shuts off, the windows work, I have more than one electrical outlet, and the ceiling doesn't collapse. Air conditioning would be nice, but I'm not greedy. Just shut the heat off in May and June and fix the windows.
But this is not what Mayor Bloomberg spends education money on. Instead it goes to purchasing mandated curricula (many of which last a year ot so before being shelved), hiring parent coordinators he then ignores, making sweetheart no-bid deals that wind up costing the city more money than they should and bothering everybody with bullshit professional development programs that were created by people with little or no practical urban education experience.
That's the frustrating part about teaching in the NYC school system. But I'm sure you know that already if you are working as a math teacher. The help we are given by Tweed is often a hindrance and the help we truly need from Tweed we never receive.
True, killing Zarqawi didn't end the Iraqi insurgency and killing or capturing Osama now won't end Islamic extremist terrorism. But capturing him back in 2002 at Tora Bora instead of letting him escape would have been a good idea. He is the poster child for terrorism, after all, and "hunting him down" like the preznit promised to do after 9/11 would have been a considerable victory for the U.S.
A better plan to deal w/ the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan? How about not pulling military and financial resources out of Afghanistan in late 2002/early 2003 in order to prepare for the invasion of Iraq? How about finishing the mission in Afghanistan before starting a new one in Iraq? (For that matter, how about finishing the mission in Iraq before starting a new one in Iran?)
Yes, I think the Iraq war has served as a recruitment tool for jihadis the world over. Rumsfeld has acknowledged as much. I'm not sure what the rationale for the invasion was anymore (WMD's? Flypaper strategy? Oil? Spreading democracy? Taking it to the terrorists?), but whatever the rationale was, the result has been disastrous for United States power. With 135,000 troops stuck in Iraq, with the U.S. having spent $300 billion dollars on the war and the tab still mounting, and with security conditions worsening there each month, the United States is not better off for having invaded. Saddam was NOT a good guy, make no mistake about that. Neither is Castro, Kim Jong ll, Hugo Chavez, and a host of other demagogues and murderous dictators, yet we haven't invaded the countries those men lead and won't any time soon. Had the administration continued the previous policy of containing Saddam, the U.S. would have had the resources to finish the mission in Afghanistan and to deal with Iran more effectively (particularly since Saddam would have still be in power and have been a worry for Iran.) But instead the administration invaded with too few troops to handle security in the post-war/nation-building phase, a half-baked plan for the occupation (how did Debaathification and the disbanding of the army work out?), and refused to acknowledge an insurgency existed until the UN headquarters was blown up, allowing long months for insurgents to establish themselves. In the words of Chris matthews, we have created a Shiite crescent of power, from Tehran to Baghdad to Beirut, that is largely controlled/influenced by the mullahs in Tehran. Had we not invaded Iraq and taken out Saddam, that crescent wouldn't exist.
Really, I think Iraq is the root of nearly all the foreign policy problems the U.S. now faces. Does this mean Islamic terrorists didn't want to attack us BEFORE the Iraq invasion or wouldn't have wanted to attack us if we hadn't invaded? No, of course not. But the invasion made things so much worse by a) rallying much of the Muslim world against us (particularly after Abu Ghraib) and b) sqaundering our financial and military resources in Iraq when they are needed in so many other areas.
What answer do I have to get out of Iraq with some semblance of "face" left intact? The honest answer is, I don't have a plan. But the honest answer is also that I didn't think going into iraq was a good idea to begin with. It seemed insane to me that the admin would take out a contained (and secular) Saddam who was a counterpoint to both Al Qaeda and Iran. Also, as George Will pointed out BEFORE the war, nation-building in the Middle East seemed to be an open-ended and unenviable task doomed to failure if histroy was any judge. And so far, that's what it has turned out to be.
Perhaps Biden's partition plan might be a way to settle matters in Iraq w/ the least amount of turmoil and bloodshed. It's not a perfect solution, of course, but if the country is heading toward dissolution or failed state status, it might be the best alternative.
Why was deficit spending bad when Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson were doing it, but not so bad when Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were doing it? I'm assuming it's what the money is spent on - tax cuts are good, social programs are bad. But it seems that when a republican Congress forced the Clinton administration to balance the budget (and I think there were four straight balanced budgets from 1998-2001), thing worked out pretty well. I understand that deficit spending during a recession can be a good idea, but how long does the deficit spending have to continue before it becomes harmful to the overall fiscal health of the country?
Most airplane cargo isn't screened. Most port cargo isn't screened. Some of the money squandered on the Iraq war would surely be helpful in this area. Also, I have been listening to Dick Lugar, Tom Kean and others push the administration to pressure Russia into securing its nuclear sites. Lugar and Kean both say not enough is being done to make sure nuclear material isn't stolen from Eastern European and handed over to terrorists like Al Qaeda. That possibility is truly terrifying and that would be something I think should be addressed by the administration which hasn't.
I agree that the Feds shouldn't be in the business of primary or secondary education. One size fits all fix-its in education do not work, whether they come from Washington in the guise of NCLB or whether they come from Tweed in the form of mandated lesson plans in reading and math in which every child in every classroom across the city is suppossed to be on the exact same question on the exact same page at the exact same time.
Comparing Stuyvesant or any other school of "gifted students" with public schools is like comparing apples and pork chops. Your argument would work if classrooms and children existed in a vaccuum. They don't. The lives, family structures, socio-economic status, and parental/societal expectations for these two different groups of kids ("gifted" programs vs. regular programs) are so divergent that a straight comparison is futile and meaningless. I have done some work at a gifted school and at three other public schools. The vast majority of gifted students are inherently motivated to do well in school, or are getting the motivation from home, many other public school children are not. it is easier to teach and educate gifted students. It's just that simple. Think of your own school experience. What were the kids in the honor classes like? What were the kids outside of the honors classes like? Well, the difference between educating "gifted" kids and kids in regular/remedial/vocational programs is even more divergent than that. On top of that, throw in language difficulties, learning disabilities, and some truly terrifying home lives for many of these children and you will see why you cannot comare Stuyvesant to Bryant one-to-one.
This is not to say there isn't waste in the system. But don't kid yourself, much of the money given to the public schools goes toward administrative overhead at Tweed and bullshit professional development programs that are often counterproductive. If you lowered class sizes in schools, you would go a long way toward fixing SOME of the problems in public education.
Let me explain what I mean: I teach Regents classes in the fall that are specially funded and capped at 24. All of my other classes are not specially funded and capped at 34. I can tell you as someone who has been teaching for a while now that I am a much more effective teacher when I can give more one-on-one instruction to kids in a class of 24 instead of a class of 34. Also, I can spend more time assessing the writing and reading abilities, strengths and weaknesses of each student much more effectively when I have fewer students. If I had classes of 24 instead of 34, I would see only 120 kids a day as opposed to 170 kids a day. Seriously, that makes a big difference in terms of my effectiveness as both an educator and as a person. It is easier to personally connect with students when the number is lower as well. And as a teacher, I am not just there to educate them. I am also there to make personal connections, especially since so many of them come from homes where there are a few positive or mostly negative connections.
If I could ask for one wish from the education fairy, I would ask for smaller class sizes and a clean, comfortable environment to teach in. Currently I work in a classroom with one electric outlet, three windows (only two of which work) a radiator that doesn't shut off and a room temperature that often exceeds 100 degrees. This room is heads above my last one which had asbestos residue in it and a three foot hole in the ceiling that collapsed a little bit more each day. I ought to be able to teach in a room where the heat shuts off, the windows work, I have more than one electrical outlet, and the ceiling doesn't collapse. Air conditioning would be nice, but I'm not greedy. Just shut the heat off in May and June and fix the windows.
But this is not what Mayor Bloomberg spends education money on. Instead it goes to purchasing mandated curricula (many of which last a year ot so before being shelved), hiring parent coordinators he then ignores, making sweetheart no-bid deals that wind up costing the city more money than they should and bothering everybody with bullshit professional development programs that were created by people with little or no practical urban education experience.
That's the frustrating part about teaching in the NYC school system. But I'm sure you know that already if you are working as a math teacher. The help we are given by Tweed is often a hindrance and the help we truly need from Tweed we never receive.
Oops, cartledge and abi commented while I was responding to n_s.
cartledge, the CW seems to be hardening on the midterms. Let's see if that means anything though. CW is often wrong.
abi, right!
cartledge, the CW seems to be hardening on the midterms. Let's see if that means anything though. CW is often wrong.
abi, right!
reality, you wrote:
"Osama is in Pakistan."
You might be right. If you are, there is little we can do about it because Pakistan will not allow the US military in to chase him. What then?
You wrote:
"Looking for him in Afghanistan isn't going to help capture him."
Why not? He might be in Afghanistan. He might be in Syria or Iran, too.
You wrote:
"But capturing him back in 2002 at Tora Bora instead of letting him escape would have been a good idea."
Nobody "let him escape". The military made a mistake by wasting time seeking authorization to kill him while he was in our gunsights. That will never happen again.
You wrote:
"He is the poster child for terrorism, after all, and "hunting him down" like the preznit promised to do after 9/11 would have been a considerable victory for the U.S."
Our military is hunting for him and if you know where he is, let them know. If he's in Pakistan he's pretty safe.
You wrote:
"A better plan to deal w/ the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan? How about not pulling military and financial resources out of Afghanistan in late 2002/early 2003 in order to prepare for the invasion of Iraq? How about finishing the mission in Afghanistan before starting a new one in Iraq?"
Every idea mentioned in the preceding paragraph is backward looking. YOu did not put forth a single idea about what we should do NOW. You only criticized actions taken in the past.
You wrote:
Yes, I think the Iraq war has served as a recruitment tool for jihadis the world over."
In other words, their hatred was given an outlet. According to you jihadists from all over the middle east are flocking to Iraq and other venues to assist in the assault of the US, the west and Israel. Thus, you are admitting that muslims -- regardless of the country in which they live -- hate the US enough to travel to Iraq to die for islam. That should tell you a lot about the mindset of many muslims.
You wrote:
"...the United States is not better off for having invaded."
That's impossible to say. Saddam was a destablizing force in the middle east who was very close to playing havoc with the oil markets before we invaded.
You wrote:
Saddam was NOT a good guy, make no mistake about that. Neither is Castro, Kim Jong ll, Hugo Chavez, and a host of other demagogues and murderous dictators, yet we haven't invaded the countries those men lead and won't any time soon."
That's right. We won't invade any of them soon for a set or reasons that are easy to articulate for each country. And none of them are muslim theocracies that have screamed for the destruction of the US. Castro may already have given up his rule.
You wrote:
"Had the administration continued the previous policy of containing Saddam, the U.S. would have had the resources to finish the mission in Afghanistan and to deal with Iran more effectively (particularly since Saddam would have still be in power and have been a worry for Iran.) But instead the administration invaded with too few troops to handle security in the post-war/nation-building phase, a half-baked plan for the occupation (how did Debaathification and the disbanding of the army work out?), and refused to acknowledge an insurgency existed until the UN headquarters was blown up, allowing long months for insurgents to establish themselves."
The preceding is all commentary made in hindsight. It means nothing.
You wrote:
"...we have created a Shiite crescent of power, from Tehran to Baghdad to Beirut, that is largely controlled/influenced by the mullahs in Tehran. Had we not invaded Iraq and taken out Saddam, that crescent wouldn't exist."
Nonsense.
You wrote:
"Really, I think Iraq is the root of nearly all the foreign policy problems the U.S. now faces. Does this mean Islamic terrorists didn't want to attack us BEFORE the Iraq invasion or wouldn't have wanted to attack us if we hadn't invaded? No, of course not. But the invasion made things so much worse by a) rallying much of the Muslim world against us (particularly after Abu Ghraib) and b) sqaundering our financial and military resources in Iraq when they are needed in so many other areas."
More nonsense. The islamic world is aiming to create a global caliphate and rid the world of non-muslims. Infidels can convert or die. That's their plan.
You wrote:
"The honest answer is, I don't have a plan."
Then how can you conclude what we're doing is wrong?
You wrote:
"But the honest answer is also that I didn't think going into iraq was a good idea to begin with. It seemed insane to me that the admin would take out a contained (and secular) Saddam who was a counterpoint to both Al Qaeda and Iran."
Saddam was not a "counterpoint" al Qaeda or Iran. If he were to start another war with Iran, the world would have already seen $100-per-barrel oil.
You wrote:
Also, as George Will pointed out BEFORE the war, nation-building in the Middle East seemed to be an open-ended and unenviable task doomed to failure if histroy was any judge. And so far, that's what it has turned out to be."
Will may be right. On the other hand we have 40,000 troops on the border between N. and S. Korea, where they've been stationed for over 50 years. Sometimes it's necessary.
You wrote:
"Perhaps Biden's partition plan might be a way to settle matters in Iraq w/ the least amount of turmoil and bloodshed."
The partition plan is not bad. Since the national boundaries of the middle east were all rather arbitrarily established by the British in the earlier part of the last century, breaking apart a country along ethnic lines isn't exactly a big deal or a bad idea.
You wrote:
"Why was deficit spending bad when Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson were doing it, but not so bad when Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were doing it?
I don't recall Carter's spending record. But rates were climbing rapidly during his administration, making any deficit expenditures enormously expensive.
Johnson spent on Great Society social programs and Vietnam. You can assess the value of both.
Reagan spent heavily on a military buildup which brought the Soviet Unnion to its knees. Money well spent.
You wrote:
"I'm assuming it's what the money is spent on - tax cuts are good, social programs are bad."
It depends on the return on investment. Reagan's military spending led to the fall of the Soviet Union. But our expenditures in Vietnam yielded no such benefit, though that money did contribute to the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, show me a social program that has worked. I'll give you one: Social Security. But even that needs some modernization.
Tax cuts are generally good. Tax cuts spur investment and investments create jobs -- at all levels. High taxes discourage investments and result in companies seeking opportunities in other parts of the world.
You wrote
"But it seems that when a republican Congress forced the Clinton administration to balance the budget (and I think there were four straight balanced budgets from 1998-2001), thing worked out pretty well."
Not exactly. The phony profits reported during Clinton's administration by companies like Enron, Worldcom, and a few others that collapsed must be subtracted from the those years. A restatement of revenue, so to speak. Those who lost money on those companies are able to take tax deductions for their losses. That means the money that appeared to flow in during the Clinton years, didn't really flow in. Now the books must be balanced.
You wrote:
"I understand that deficit spending during a recession can be a good idea, but how long does the deficit spending have to continue before it becomes harmful to the overall fiscal health of the country?"
Good question. There's no single absolute answer.
You wrote:
"Most airplane cargo isn't screened. Most port cargo isn't screened. Some of the money squandered on the Iraq war would surely be helpful in this area."
That's true. But simply bombing Iran's nuclear facilities is a lot less expensive that scanning cargo everywhere. By the way, it's cargo coming into the US that needs scanning. Thus, every other nation in the world must scan. You can be sure they won't.
You wrote:
"Also, I have been listening to Dick Lugar, Tom Kean and others push the administration to pressure Russia into securing its nuclear sites. Lugar and Kean both say not enough is being done to make sure nuclear material isn't stolen from Eastern European and handed over to terrorists like Al Qaeda. That possibility is truly terrifying and that would be something I think should be addressed by the administration which hasn't."
While this is a realistic worry, it's not as significant as North Korea, which is probably already negotiating with terrorists.
It's a dangerous world, but it's the leaders of other countries that are nuts. The problems do not start here at home.
"Osama is in Pakistan."
You might be right. If you are, there is little we can do about it because Pakistan will not allow the US military in to chase him. What then?
You wrote:
"Looking for him in Afghanistan isn't going to help capture him."
Why not? He might be in Afghanistan. He might be in Syria or Iran, too.
You wrote:
"But capturing him back in 2002 at Tora Bora instead of letting him escape would have been a good idea."
Nobody "let him escape". The military made a mistake by wasting time seeking authorization to kill him while he was in our gunsights. That will never happen again.
You wrote:
"He is the poster child for terrorism, after all, and "hunting him down" like the preznit promised to do after 9/11 would have been a considerable victory for the U.S."
Our military is hunting for him and if you know where he is, let them know. If he's in Pakistan he's pretty safe.
You wrote:
"A better plan to deal w/ the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan? How about not pulling military and financial resources out of Afghanistan in late 2002/early 2003 in order to prepare for the invasion of Iraq? How about finishing the mission in Afghanistan before starting a new one in Iraq?"
Every idea mentioned in the preceding paragraph is backward looking. YOu did not put forth a single idea about what we should do NOW. You only criticized actions taken in the past.
You wrote:
Yes, I think the Iraq war has served as a recruitment tool for jihadis the world over."
In other words, their hatred was given an outlet. According to you jihadists from all over the middle east are flocking to Iraq and other venues to assist in the assault of the US, the west and Israel. Thus, you are admitting that muslims -- regardless of the country in which they live -- hate the US enough to travel to Iraq to die for islam. That should tell you a lot about the mindset of many muslims.
You wrote:
"...the United States is not better off for having invaded."
That's impossible to say. Saddam was a destablizing force in the middle east who was very close to playing havoc with the oil markets before we invaded.
You wrote:
Saddam was NOT a good guy, make no mistake about that. Neither is Castro, Kim Jong ll, Hugo Chavez, and a host of other demagogues and murderous dictators, yet we haven't invaded the countries those men lead and won't any time soon."
That's right. We won't invade any of them soon for a set or reasons that are easy to articulate for each country. And none of them are muslim theocracies that have screamed for the destruction of the US. Castro may already have given up his rule.
You wrote:
"Had the administration continued the previous policy of containing Saddam, the U.S. would have had the resources to finish the mission in Afghanistan and to deal with Iran more effectively (particularly since Saddam would have still be in power and have been a worry for Iran.) But instead the administration invaded with too few troops to handle security in the post-war/nation-building phase, a half-baked plan for the occupation (how did Debaathification and the disbanding of the army work out?), and refused to acknowledge an insurgency existed until the UN headquarters was blown up, allowing long months for insurgents to establish themselves."
The preceding is all commentary made in hindsight. It means nothing.
You wrote:
"...we have created a Shiite crescent of power, from Tehran to Baghdad to Beirut, that is largely controlled/influenced by the mullahs in Tehran. Had we not invaded Iraq and taken out Saddam, that crescent wouldn't exist."
Nonsense.
You wrote:
"Really, I think Iraq is the root of nearly all the foreign policy problems the U.S. now faces. Does this mean Islamic terrorists didn't want to attack us BEFORE the Iraq invasion or wouldn't have wanted to attack us if we hadn't invaded? No, of course not. But the invasion made things so much worse by a) rallying much of the Muslim world against us (particularly after Abu Ghraib) and b) sqaundering our financial and military resources in Iraq when they are needed in so many other areas."
More nonsense. The islamic world is aiming to create a global caliphate and rid the world of non-muslims. Infidels can convert or die. That's their plan.
You wrote:
"The honest answer is, I don't have a plan."
Then how can you conclude what we're doing is wrong?
You wrote:
"But the honest answer is also that I didn't think going into iraq was a good idea to begin with. It seemed insane to me that the admin would take out a contained (and secular) Saddam who was a counterpoint to both Al Qaeda and Iran."
Saddam was not a "counterpoint" al Qaeda or Iran. If he were to start another war with Iran, the world would have already seen $100-per-barrel oil.
You wrote:
Also, as George Will pointed out BEFORE the war, nation-building in the Middle East seemed to be an open-ended and unenviable task doomed to failure if histroy was any judge. And so far, that's what it has turned out to be."
Will may be right. On the other hand we have 40,000 troops on the border between N. and S. Korea, where they've been stationed for over 50 years. Sometimes it's necessary.
You wrote:
"Perhaps Biden's partition plan might be a way to settle matters in Iraq w/ the least amount of turmoil and bloodshed."
The partition plan is not bad. Since the national boundaries of the middle east were all rather arbitrarily established by the British in the earlier part of the last century, breaking apart a country along ethnic lines isn't exactly a big deal or a bad idea.
You wrote:
"Why was deficit spending bad when Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson were doing it, but not so bad when Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were doing it?
I don't recall Carter's spending record. But rates were climbing rapidly during his administration, making any deficit expenditures enormously expensive.
Johnson spent on Great Society social programs and Vietnam. You can assess the value of both.
Reagan spent heavily on a military buildup which brought the Soviet Unnion to its knees. Money well spent.
You wrote:
"I'm assuming it's what the money is spent on - tax cuts are good, social programs are bad."
It depends on the return on investment. Reagan's military spending led to the fall of the Soviet Union. But our expenditures in Vietnam yielded no such benefit, though that money did contribute to the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, show me a social program that has worked. I'll give you one: Social Security. But even that needs some modernization.
Tax cuts are generally good. Tax cuts spur investment and investments create jobs -- at all levels. High taxes discourage investments and result in companies seeking opportunities in other parts of the world.
You wrote
"But it seems that when a republican Congress forced the Clinton administration to balance the budget (and I think there were four straight balanced budgets from 1998-2001), thing worked out pretty well."
Not exactly. The phony profits reported during Clinton's administration by companies like Enron, Worldcom, and a few others that collapsed must be subtracted from the those years. A restatement of revenue, so to speak. Those who lost money on those companies are able to take tax deductions for their losses. That means the money that appeared to flow in during the Clinton years, didn't really flow in. Now the books must be balanced.
You wrote:
"I understand that deficit spending during a recession can be a good idea, but how long does the deficit spending have to continue before it becomes harmful to the overall fiscal health of the country?"
Good question. There's no single absolute answer.
You wrote:
"Most airplane cargo isn't screened. Most port cargo isn't screened. Some of the money squandered on the Iraq war would surely be helpful in this area."
That's true. But simply bombing Iran's nuclear facilities is a lot less expensive that scanning cargo everywhere. By the way, it's cargo coming into the US that needs scanning. Thus, every other nation in the world must scan. You can be sure they won't.
You wrote:
"Also, I have been listening to Dick Lugar, Tom Kean and others push the administration to pressure Russia into securing its nuclear sites. Lugar and Kean both say not enough is being done to make sure nuclear material isn't stolen from Eastern European and handed over to terrorists like Al Qaeda. That possibility is truly terrifying and that would be something I think should be addressed by the administration which hasn't."
While this is a realistic worry, it's not as significant as North Korea, which is probably already negotiating with terrorists.
It's a dangerous world, but it's the leaders of other countries that are nuts. The problems do not start here at home.
n_s, I'm just going to touch on a few points here because I'm pressed for time:
1) I get from your commentary on the Iraq war and the WOT that we are in a death struggle with Islamic world and must destroy them before they destroy us. Am I correct in stating this is your position? And if so, how do we "defeat" them?
2) I find it hard to believe that ALL of the balanced budgets from 1998-2001 were based on phony profits from Enron, Worldcom, et al. Can you please illuminate upon that point.
3) Your point about bombing Iran's nuclear facilities being cheaper than scanning airport and seaport cargo doesn't make sense to me. This again sounds like you are comparing apples and pork chops. Is a nuclearized iran a scarier proposition? You bet. Would it be nice to take out their nuclear capacity? You bet. Would that stop other terrorists from the Islamic world trying to blow up planes by sticking explosives in the cargo area or sneaking in nuclear or dirty bomb material through the sea ports? Not if we're in a death struggle with the Islamic world. I think securing airports, seaports, infrastructure, etc is as important as dealing w/ North Korea and Iran. In addition, can we be assured that an attack on Iran WILL take out all of their nuclear capability? Because it seems counterproductive to attack Iran and then not succeed at taking out their nuclear capability.
4) I agree that Noth Korea is a problem and could be negotiating w/ terrorists. I still think unsecured nuclear material in Eastern Europe needs to be addressed. It's probably pretty difficult for terrorists to purchase nuclear material in Eastern Europe and sneak it into the U.S., but it certainly is plausible that jihadis could really fuck up a country on the continent (and perhaps Britain) with such material.
5) I disagree that my Iraq commentary is meaningless because it is in hindsight. We have to figure out HOW we got to where we are in Iraq right now in order to figure out how not to make similar policy mistakes in the future, especially since the administration seems so hellbent on taking out Iran's nuclear capability. The fact that the administration so badly underestimated the post-war occupation in Iraq SHOULD give people on both the right and the left pause as the administration begins to bang the drums for the Iran attack. And as for the "hindsight is meaningless" point, heck, the 9/11 Commission investigation was in hindsight too. Should that not have been conducted?
1) I get from your commentary on the Iraq war and the WOT that we are in a death struggle with Islamic world and must destroy them before they destroy us. Am I correct in stating this is your position? And if so, how do we "defeat" them?
2) I find it hard to believe that ALL of the balanced budgets from 1998-2001 were based on phony profits from Enron, Worldcom, et al. Can you please illuminate upon that point.
3) Your point about bombing Iran's nuclear facilities being cheaper than scanning airport and seaport cargo doesn't make sense to me. This again sounds like you are comparing apples and pork chops. Is a nuclearized iran a scarier proposition? You bet. Would it be nice to take out their nuclear capacity? You bet. Would that stop other terrorists from the Islamic world trying to blow up planes by sticking explosives in the cargo area or sneaking in nuclear or dirty bomb material through the sea ports? Not if we're in a death struggle with the Islamic world. I think securing airports, seaports, infrastructure, etc is as important as dealing w/ North Korea and Iran. In addition, can we be assured that an attack on Iran WILL take out all of their nuclear capability? Because it seems counterproductive to attack Iran and then not succeed at taking out their nuclear capability.
4) I agree that Noth Korea is a problem and could be negotiating w/ terrorists. I still think unsecured nuclear material in Eastern Europe needs to be addressed. It's probably pretty difficult for terrorists to purchase nuclear material in Eastern Europe and sneak it into the U.S., but it certainly is plausible that jihadis could really fuck up a country on the continent (and perhaps Britain) with such material.
5) I disagree that my Iraq commentary is meaningless because it is in hindsight. We have to figure out HOW we got to where we are in Iraq right now in order to figure out how not to make similar policy mistakes in the future, especially since the administration seems so hellbent on taking out Iran's nuclear capability. The fact that the administration so badly underestimated the post-war occupation in Iraq SHOULD give people on both the right and the left pause as the administration begins to bang the drums for the Iran attack. And as for the "hindsight is meaningless" point, heck, the 9/11 Commission investigation was in hindsight too. Should that not have been conducted?
reality, you wrote:
"5) I disagree that my Iraq commentary is meaningless because it is in hindsight."
The question I asked was: What do we do Now? What is our plan for the Future.
You answered by stating we should not have taken certain paths in the PAST. That's not an answer.
Ask yourself how you would respond if the federal government offered you the same response you offered me. You'd realize your response did not address the question. You'd realize you might have touched on which moves in the past were misguided. But that doesn't address the future.
You wrote:
"We have to figure out HOW we got to where we are in Iraq right now in order to figure out how not to make similar policy mistakes in the future, especially since the administration seems so hellbent on taking out Iran's nuclear capability."
The preceding may be true, but if you were to answer the question I asked, your answer would imply that you have weighed the experience of the past.
You wrote:
"And as for the "hindsight is meaningless" point, heck, the 9/11 Commission investigation was in hindsight too. Should that not have been conducted?"
The 9/11 Report was an investigation of the past. That's what it was intended to be. It addressed the obvious question: How and Why did 9/11 occur?
The focus of the 9/11 Report was Not on what we should do Now to protect ourselves against future muslim terrorist attacks. It was chiefly and primarily an analysis of the past -- which is what it was supposed to be.
"5) I disagree that my Iraq commentary is meaningless because it is in hindsight."
The question I asked was: What do we do Now? What is our plan for the Future.
You answered by stating we should not have taken certain paths in the PAST. That's not an answer.
Ask yourself how you would respond if the federal government offered you the same response you offered me. You'd realize your response did not address the question. You'd realize you might have touched on which moves in the past were misguided. But that doesn't address the future.
You wrote:
"We have to figure out HOW we got to where we are in Iraq right now in order to figure out how not to make similar policy mistakes in the future, especially since the administration seems so hellbent on taking out Iran's nuclear capability."
The preceding may be true, but if you were to answer the question I asked, your answer would imply that you have weighed the experience of the past.
You wrote:
"And as for the "hindsight is meaningless" point, heck, the 9/11 Commission investigation was in hindsight too. Should that not have been conducted?"
The 9/11 Report was an investigation of the past. That's what it was intended to be. It addressed the obvious question: How and Why did 9/11 occur?
The focus of the 9/11 Report was Not on what we should do Now to protect ourselves against future muslim terrorist attacks. It was chiefly and primarily an analysis of the past -- which is what it was supposed to be.
reality, you wrote:
"1) I get from your commentary on the Iraq war and the WOT that we are in a death struggle with Islamic world and must destroy them before they destroy us. Am I correct in stating this is your position? And if so, how do we "defeat" them?"
Based on the words of islamic leaders and islamic militants around the world, they have declared war on the US, the west and Israel.
For the most part the muslim threat is confined to terrorist attacks against civilians. For now.
But Pakistan has nuclear weapons. The creator of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program has visited Iran. Iran is on its way to acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran has already promised to use its power to destroy Israel and Ahmadinejad has already suggested he would think the loss of half of Iran's population from a counter-attack by Israel is acceptable if Israel were destroyed as a result.
Iran has publicly proclaimed it is on a course that will disrupt the entire world. Thus, the rest of the world must act pre-emptively to eliminate the threat of nuclear mayhem in the middle east that could spread over a much larger area.
My solution is NOT to kill THEM before they kill us. That's genocide. My solution is to kill the handful of muslims who are driving the whole world toward nuclear calamity.
I have no compunction or reluctance about assassinating the lunatic leaders running several middle eastern countries. After all, we are actively attempting to kill the individuals who headed al qaeda and we have gotten all but about five of the original 52. Of course we havn't gotten Osama. But he's no longer operating freely. He's got to stay in hiding or he's a dead man.
If muslim extremists understand they will not live long if they advocate nuclear or terrorist mayhem, moderates will eventually acquire the power to run the countries.
This, of course, is the rationale behind invading Iraq.
Install democracy by force in the middle of the middle east and the neighboring countries will soon follow voluntarily.
Unfortunately, despite claims to the contrary, muslims are poorly educated. They have yet to grasp an understanding of the extraordinaly benefits of democracy and they have yet to understand that islam is the cause of their societal failures.
Can we change the nature of the islamic mind? Tough question. But now that muslims have stated their goal of creating a global caliphate and have begun a wider quest for nuclear weapons, we have no choice but to take extreme action to stop them before they make good on their threats of annihilation.
"1) I get from your commentary on the Iraq war and the WOT that we are in a death struggle with Islamic world and must destroy them before they destroy us. Am I correct in stating this is your position? And if so, how do we "defeat" them?"
Based on the words of islamic leaders and islamic militants around the world, they have declared war on the US, the west and Israel.
For the most part the muslim threat is confined to terrorist attacks against civilians. For now.
But Pakistan has nuclear weapons. The creator of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program has visited Iran. Iran is on its way to acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran has already promised to use its power to destroy Israel and Ahmadinejad has already suggested he would think the loss of half of Iran's population from a counter-attack by Israel is acceptable if Israel were destroyed as a result.
Iran has publicly proclaimed it is on a course that will disrupt the entire world. Thus, the rest of the world must act pre-emptively to eliminate the threat of nuclear mayhem in the middle east that could spread over a much larger area.
My solution is NOT to kill THEM before they kill us. That's genocide. My solution is to kill the handful of muslims who are driving the whole world toward nuclear calamity.
I have no compunction or reluctance about assassinating the lunatic leaders running several middle eastern countries. After all, we are actively attempting to kill the individuals who headed al qaeda and we have gotten all but about five of the original 52. Of course we havn't gotten Osama. But he's no longer operating freely. He's got to stay in hiding or he's a dead man.
If muslim extremists understand they will not live long if they advocate nuclear or terrorist mayhem, moderates will eventually acquire the power to run the countries.
This, of course, is the rationale behind invading Iraq.
Install democracy by force in the middle of the middle east and the neighboring countries will soon follow voluntarily.
Unfortunately, despite claims to the contrary, muslims are poorly educated. They have yet to grasp an understanding of the extraordinaly benefits of democracy and they have yet to understand that islam is the cause of their societal failures.
Can we change the nature of the islamic mind? Tough question. But now that muslims have stated their goal of creating a global caliphate and have begun a wider quest for nuclear weapons, we have no choice but to take extreme action to stop them before they make good on their threats of annihilation.
reality, you wrote:
"2) I find it hard to believe that ALL of the balanced budgets from 1998-2001 were based on phony profits from Enron, Worldcom, et al. Can you please illuminate upon that point."
I didn't state that "all the balanced budgets from 1998-2001 were BASED on phony profits..."
I said essentially that things were not what they seemed in those years because we had to pay off the debts incurred by the fraudsters of those years.
Clinton did reasonably well on the budget. But, he took zero steps against terrorism and that's after getting a big heads-up in 1993, when terrorists bombed the World Trade Center the first time.
By ignoring muslim terrorists in the 1990s -- not spending a dime to protect the US -- he kept some government expenditures in check. Would another president behaved differently? Who knows? And it doesn't matter because the past is past.
But more to the point, I'm not such a budget maven that I can quote federal statistics from the Clinton years without research. HOwever, I'm not about to do much research. Most of what I write here is off the top of my head.
The country was recovering from an early-1990s recession and the rebound of the US banking industry following the Savings & Loan Crisis. Real estate began a post-1987 stock market crash recovery that has only recently abated.
The collapse of the Soviet Union delivered a "peace dividend" to the US and the Fed was able to hold the line on inflation. The military was able to stand down after maintaining decades of readiness in case of a Soviet attack.
In that period fears of Aryan Nations militants, self-described anti-government militia-men and groups like the Branch Davidians were abounding. That all culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
"Globalization" became a familiar term as did NAFTA. Millions of illegal immigrants swarmed in and little was done to stop them.
The Internet took shape and much changed quickly as a result. Not the least of which was the number of Internet companies fleecing investors.
Matt Drudge made his name by breaking the Monica Lewinsky story.
Personal computers became ubiquitous and Microsoft soared. Oil fluctuated from $10 a barrel to $35 a barrel, but spent most of the 1990s between $15 and $25 a barrel.
There was a frenzy as Chicken Littles predicted a worldwide collapse of computer systems when the clocked ticked in the year 2000. Computer geeks never had it so good.
In sum, Clinton took many good steps. But it's not obvious that balancing the budget was a good thing.
We would all be very happy if he had borrowed money for securing national safety if we could have known it would head off 9/11 and its direct costs and all our expenditures that followed.
Now we know how determined the enemy is. Learning this lesson was very costly.
"2) I find it hard to believe that ALL of the balanced budgets from 1998-2001 were based on phony profits from Enron, Worldcom, et al. Can you please illuminate upon that point."
I didn't state that "all the balanced budgets from 1998-2001 were BASED on phony profits..."
I said essentially that things were not what they seemed in those years because we had to pay off the debts incurred by the fraudsters of those years.
Clinton did reasonably well on the budget. But, he took zero steps against terrorism and that's after getting a big heads-up in 1993, when terrorists bombed the World Trade Center the first time.
By ignoring muslim terrorists in the 1990s -- not spending a dime to protect the US -- he kept some government expenditures in check. Would another president behaved differently? Who knows? And it doesn't matter because the past is past.
But more to the point, I'm not such a budget maven that I can quote federal statistics from the Clinton years without research. HOwever, I'm not about to do much research. Most of what I write here is off the top of my head.
The country was recovering from an early-1990s recession and the rebound of the US banking industry following the Savings & Loan Crisis. Real estate began a post-1987 stock market crash recovery that has only recently abated.
The collapse of the Soviet Union delivered a "peace dividend" to the US and the Fed was able to hold the line on inflation. The military was able to stand down after maintaining decades of readiness in case of a Soviet attack.
In that period fears of Aryan Nations militants, self-described anti-government militia-men and groups like the Branch Davidians were abounding. That all culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
"Globalization" became a familiar term as did NAFTA. Millions of illegal immigrants swarmed in and little was done to stop them.
The Internet took shape and much changed quickly as a result. Not the least of which was the number of Internet companies fleecing investors.
Matt Drudge made his name by breaking the Monica Lewinsky story.
Personal computers became ubiquitous and Microsoft soared. Oil fluctuated from $10 a barrel to $35 a barrel, but spent most of the 1990s between $15 and $25 a barrel.
There was a frenzy as Chicken Littles predicted a worldwide collapse of computer systems when the clocked ticked in the year 2000. Computer geeks never had it so good.
In sum, Clinton took many good steps. But it's not obvious that balancing the budget was a good thing.
We would all be very happy if he had borrowed money for securing national safety if we could have known it would head off 9/11 and its direct costs and all our expenditures that followed.
Now we know how determined the enemy is. Learning this lesson was very costly.
n_s, I offered a plan for the future of iraq - it was Biden's partition plan. It's not perfect, but given the choices, I think it's the best that can be done. Hell, "Kurdish Iraq" is already running tourist ads touting itself as the other (read: "safe") Iraq as distinguished from the insane central part.
You're wrong about the 9/11 Commission Report. Yes, it was an analysis of past mistakes, but it also made recommendations about how to rectify those mistakes and make sure they are not made all over again (Kean and Hamilton continue to make the cable news network and Sunday morning shows circuit calling for the 9/11 Commission recommendatinos to be adopted.) If you're not going to analyze and learn from past mistakes, why bother going over it? You cannot address the future of an issue/problem without understanding the mistakes that were made on it in the past. This is true whether we are talking about terrorist attacks like 9/11 or war plans like what the administration came up with for Iraq (or the pre-war intel the admin used for Iraq which told them Saddam was loaded to the gills w/ WMD's when that turned out not be the case...it sure would be nice to know WHY the intel was wrong and HOW not to make similar screw-ups with Iraq, yes?)
You say that if we "Install democracy by force in the middle of the middle east...the neighboring countries will soon follow voluntarily." How's the democracy project working so far, n_s? You decry Muslim leaders who hate Israel/the West and note how important it is we take them out, yet Bush's democracy project helped install them into power in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq (this morning on CNN al-Maliki refused to say whether he believed Israel has the right to exist no matter how often Wolf Blitzer tried to cajole it out of him. Do you really think a Shiite gov't controlled from Tehran running the show in Baghdad is going to help Israeli or U.S. interests in the long run?) It seems that the democracy project hasn't been working as advertised so far. Many conservatives like George Will and Pat Buchanan think it never will work that way. I think they have a point.
I agree that Dr. Khan running around handing out nuclear secrets like candy is a scary proposition. I also agree that a nuclear Pakistan just one coup away from radical Islamic statehood is scary too (much scarier to me than Saddam ever was, for that matter.) So what do you propose to do w/ that problem? Can we prop Musharraf up forever and hope one of the assassination attempts he's always dodging doesn't hit paydirt?
Finally, one thing about the question of Islam's role in the WOT. I think the problem is not Islam, per se, but "fundamentalist" Islam. Frankly, I think all fundamentalist religions (the big three I can think are Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are a problem. Any religion that decides IT is the answer for all is a problem. While radical Islam is currently leaps and bounds ahead of the other two religions in terms of killing, the other two are not entirely bloodless (think Northern Ireland, which certainly had a religious as well as a nationalist/cultural component to it or think the means Jews used to help establish the Israeli state.) I would agree with you though that some of Islamic religios thought is backward-looking and anachronistic. That's true of Catholicsm (my upbringing) too. And have you seen all the evangelicals trying to turn the clock back to pre-Darwin days?
You're wrong about the 9/11 Commission Report. Yes, it was an analysis of past mistakes, but it also made recommendations about how to rectify those mistakes and make sure they are not made all over again (Kean and Hamilton continue to make the cable news network and Sunday morning shows circuit calling for the 9/11 Commission recommendatinos to be adopted.) If you're not going to analyze and learn from past mistakes, why bother going over it? You cannot address the future of an issue/problem without understanding the mistakes that were made on it in the past. This is true whether we are talking about terrorist attacks like 9/11 or war plans like what the administration came up with for Iraq (or the pre-war intel the admin used for Iraq which told them Saddam was loaded to the gills w/ WMD's when that turned out not be the case...it sure would be nice to know WHY the intel was wrong and HOW not to make similar screw-ups with Iraq, yes?)
You say that if we "Install democracy by force in the middle of the middle east...the neighboring countries will soon follow voluntarily." How's the democracy project working so far, n_s? You decry Muslim leaders who hate Israel/the West and note how important it is we take them out, yet Bush's democracy project helped install them into power in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq (this morning on CNN al-Maliki refused to say whether he believed Israel has the right to exist no matter how often Wolf Blitzer tried to cajole it out of him. Do you really think a Shiite gov't controlled from Tehran running the show in Baghdad is going to help Israeli or U.S. interests in the long run?) It seems that the democracy project hasn't been working as advertised so far. Many conservatives like George Will and Pat Buchanan think it never will work that way. I think they have a point.
I agree that Dr. Khan running around handing out nuclear secrets like candy is a scary proposition. I also agree that a nuclear Pakistan just one coup away from radical Islamic statehood is scary too (much scarier to me than Saddam ever was, for that matter.) So what do you propose to do w/ that problem? Can we prop Musharraf up forever and hope one of the assassination attempts he's always dodging doesn't hit paydirt?
Finally, one thing about the question of Islam's role in the WOT. I think the problem is not Islam, per se, but "fundamentalist" Islam. Frankly, I think all fundamentalist religions (the big three I can think are Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are a problem. Any religion that decides IT is the answer for all is a problem. While radical Islam is currently leaps and bounds ahead of the other two religions in terms of killing, the other two are not entirely bloodless (think Northern Ireland, which certainly had a religious as well as a nationalist/cultural component to it or think the means Jews used to help establish the Israeli state.) I would agree with you though that some of Islamic religios thought is backward-looking and anachronistic. That's true of Catholicsm (my upbringing) too. And have you seen all the evangelicals trying to turn the clock back to pre-Darwin days?
In retrospect, the 1993 bombing was a wake-up call that war had been declared against the United States by radical Islam. But before we talk about what Clinton should have done and didn't do to manage the threat (which is a lot, actually), let's also remember that had he tried to fight radical Islam with some stringent measures, the "Black Helicopter" crowd would have been all over him for trying a UN/One World power grab. Also, remember that when Clinton did try and hit Osama, many on the right accused him of wagging the dog. Given the political environment of the time, it would have been very difficult for Clinton to have done things too much differently than he did.
reality, you wrote:
"n_s, I offered a plan for the future of iraq - it was Biden's partition plan."
The partition plan is one to consider.
You wrote:
"It's not perfect, but given the choices, I think it's the best that can be done."
No plan is perfect and in war, the other side never cooperates. It took the complete and unconditional surrender of Japan and Germany to start a reconstruction process that lasted seven more years, a lot longer than WWII itself.
A partition plan will have plenty of critics within Iraq, but it will have the full support of the Kurds. In any case, why even mention that "It's not perfect."
You wrote:
"You're wrong about the 9/11 Commission Report. Yes, it was an analysis of past mistakes, but it also made recommendations about how to rectify those mistakes and make sure they are not made all over again."
I stated that the 9/11 Report focused on the past because that was the mandate given those who compiled it. I said it looked forward as well.
I have a copy of it in front of me, which I read very quickly after it was published. The first 500 pages are devoted to everything leading up to 9/11 and the last 100 pages offer prescriptions for the future. It's exactly what I stated.
You wrote:
"You say that if we "Install democracy by force in the middle of the middle east...the neighboring countries will soon follow voluntarily." How's the democracy project working so far, n_s?
It's way too early to pass judgment. Remember, it took seven years after WWII before the US could leave Germany and Japan.
You wrote:
"You decry Muslim leaders who hate Israel/the West and note how important it is we take them out, yet Bush's democracy project helped install them into power in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq."
I don't think all muslims are motivated to create a global caliphate above all other concerns in their lives. I do think there are enough sane muslims to run governments that serve the populations of the middle east countries rather than oppress them.
If you believe otherwise then you will have no choice but eventually concede that we will be forced to commit genocide or submit to genocide.
As far as your statement on "Palestine" and Lebanon go, I have no idea what you're saying.
There is no "Palestine". That term refers to a region, like the North Pole. It was never a sovereign nation. In fact the middle east was nothing but tribes scattered across the region until the British divided it into states in roughly the 1920s. If it was anything, it was part of the Ottoman Empire, but that's long gone.
Lebanon is not a democracy. It is a state controlled by Hezbollah that operates a front government that looks marginally democratic. The faux-democratic government interacts as necessary with other governments. But the ostensible democratic government of Lebanon exists at the pleasure of Hezbollah, or, more accurately, Iran.
You wrote:
"(this morning on CNN al-Maliki refused to say whether he believed Israel has the right to exist no matter how often Wolf Blitzer tried to cajole it out of him."
There is no single form all democracies should take. The fact that the Iraqi leadership is another anti-Semitic government is problematic, but one we can live with as long as they don't act on their ill will.
You wrote:
"Do you really think a Shiite gov't controlled from Tehran running the show in Baghdad is going to help Israeli or U.S. interests in the long run?"
Democracies stand on their own. That is to say they are not mere puppets like Lebanon vis-a-vis Iran. Thus, if Iran controls Baghdad, we have failed and democracy does not exist. Once again, that's another reason to kill the Iranian leadership. There are moderate Iranians with more on their minds than exterminating Israelis and destroying Israel.
However, you are seemingly suggesting that radical muslims are the future of government in the middle east. If your vision proves correct, we better kill them now rather than deal with the consequences later.
You wrote:
"Finally, one thing about the question of Islam's role in the WOT. I think the problem is not Islam, per se, but "fundamentalist" Islam."
The fundamentalists may be the driving force behind the problem, but islam, by its nature is a problem. Muslims, in general, are comfortable with the idea of a religious government whose legal structure is set by the Koran. This is simply nuts. The US Constitution is an affront to Koranic thought.
You wrote:
"Frankly, I think all fundamentalist religions (the big three I can think are Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are a problem."
This is where you and so many others get it wrong.
You wrote:
"Any religion that decides IT is the answer for all is a problem."
Islam is the only major religion that advocates killing non-muslims simply because they have not accepted mohammed. Christianity and Judaism espouse nothing of the sort.
You wrote:
"While radical Islam is currently leaps and bounds ahead of the other two religions in terms of killing, the other two are not entirely bloodless".
Neither Christianity nor Judaism harbor designs of global control. Period. There's a big difference between proselytizing and killing infidels. Meanwhile, in Judaism there is no proselytizing.
You wrote:
"think Northern Ireland, which certainly had a religious as well as a nationalist/cultural component to it..."
Not even close. Did the Protestants attempt to kill the Pope or fly planes into the Vatican to destroy Catholicism? Did Catholics attack Protestants in the US? No. The problem remained confined to the people and region affected by it. As bad as it was, that's nothing compared with the global ambitions of islam.
You wrote:
"...or think the means Jews used to help establish the Israeli state."
The steps toward the creation of Israel began in the earlier part of the 20th century. The Balfour agreement, signed around 1920, was a milestone in the process of creating the Jewish state.
The area known as Palestine was a British mandate and after WWII Britain finally decided to establish a Jewish homeland, largely in response to the Holocaust. On the day the nation was founded in 1948 it was attacked by muslim neighbors. The muslims got their asses kicked.
In any case, the founding of any nation is never pretty. We thoroughly kicked the shit out of the Indians and the British and others to create the US. I feel no sympathy for the people who claim they were mistreated as a result of the founding of this nation and Israel. Some were pushed out, but many were bought out. And most were allowed to become citizens of Israel, which today has a population of 6.5 million, of which 1.5 million are muslims.
Also, there are only about 15 million Jews in the world. Christians and muslims number in the billions. It is fascinating that such a tiny number of Jews inspires so much in non-Jews.
You wrote:
"I would agree with you though that some of Islamic religios thought is backward-looking and anachronistic."
The chief problem is the fact that this backward religion is the backbone of muslim political and legal thinking, which isn't really thinking, but rather looking in the Koran for the answer to a problem.
You wrote:
"That's true of Catholicsm (my upbringing) too."
No it isn't. There are no Catholic governments and there are no governments that find the answers to all political, social and legal issues in the Bible.
You wrote:
"And have you seen all the evangelicals trying to turn the clock back to pre-Darwin days?"
We do not have kings or autocrats in control of the US. If some kooky people have some input into our lawmaking for a while, they're unlikely to do any more harm than people purportedly more reasonable.
As I like to remind people, the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court in 1857 upheld the rights of slave owners. Then we had to fight the Civil War. FDR took steps in the 1930s that unquestionably magnified the destructiveness of the Depression. Lyndon Johnson took us further into Vietnam and Clinton ignored the threats of muslim terrorism and here we are today.
None of those mistakes were intentional and their impact was not foreseeable. Nevertheless...
"n_s, I offered a plan for the future of iraq - it was Biden's partition plan."
The partition plan is one to consider.
You wrote:
"It's not perfect, but given the choices, I think it's the best that can be done."
No plan is perfect and in war, the other side never cooperates. It took the complete and unconditional surrender of Japan and Germany to start a reconstruction process that lasted seven more years, a lot longer than WWII itself.
A partition plan will have plenty of critics within Iraq, but it will have the full support of the Kurds. In any case, why even mention that "It's not perfect."
You wrote:
"You're wrong about the 9/11 Commission Report. Yes, it was an analysis of past mistakes, but it also made recommendations about how to rectify those mistakes and make sure they are not made all over again."
I stated that the 9/11 Report focused on the past because that was the mandate given those who compiled it. I said it looked forward as well.
I have a copy of it in front of me, which I read very quickly after it was published. The first 500 pages are devoted to everything leading up to 9/11 and the last 100 pages offer prescriptions for the future. It's exactly what I stated.
You wrote:
"You say that if we "Install democracy by force in the middle of the middle east...the neighboring countries will soon follow voluntarily." How's the democracy project working so far, n_s?
It's way too early to pass judgment. Remember, it took seven years after WWII before the US could leave Germany and Japan.
You wrote:
"You decry Muslim leaders who hate Israel/the West and note how important it is we take them out, yet Bush's democracy project helped install them into power in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq."
I don't think all muslims are motivated to create a global caliphate above all other concerns in their lives. I do think there are enough sane muslims to run governments that serve the populations of the middle east countries rather than oppress them.
If you believe otherwise then you will have no choice but eventually concede that we will be forced to commit genocide or submit to genocide.
As far as your statement on "Palestine" and Lebanon go, I have no idea what you're saying.
There is no "Palestine". That term refers to a region, like the North Pole. It was never a sovereign nation. In fact the middle east was nothing but tribes scattered across the region until the British divided it into states in roughly the 1920s. If it was anything, it was part of the Ottoman Empire, but that's long gone.
Lebanon is not a democracy. It is a state controlled by Hezbollah that operates a front government that looks marginally democratic. The faux-democratic government interacts as necessary with other governments. But the ostensible democratic government of Lebanon exists at the pleasure of Hezbollah, or, more accurately, Iran.
You wrote:
"(this morning on CNN al-Maliki refused to say whether he believed Israel has the right to exist no matter how often Wolf Blitzer tried to cajole it out of him."
There is no single form all democracies should take. The fact that the Iraqi leadership is another anti-Semitic government is problematic, but one we can live with as long as they don't act on their ill will.
You wrote:
"Do you really think a Shiite gov't controlled from Tehran running the show in Baghdad is going to help Israeli or U.S. interests in the long run?"
Democracies stand on their own. That is to say they are not mere puppets like Lebanon vis-a-vis Iran. Thus, if Iran controls Baghdad, we have failed and democracy does not exist. Once again, that's another reason to kill the Iranian leadership. There are moderate Iranians with more on their minds than exterminating Israelis and destroying Israel.
However, you are seemingly suggesting that radical muslims are the future of government in the middle east. If your vision proves correct, we better kill them now rather than deal with the consequences later.
You wrote:
"Finally, one thing about the question of Islam's role in the WOT. I think the problem is not Islam, per se, but "fundamentalist" Islam."
The fundamentalists may be the driving force behind the problem, but islam, by its nature is a problem. Muslims, in general, are comfortable with the idea of a religious government whose legal structure is set by the Koran. This is simply nuts. The US Constitution is an affront to Koranic thought.
You wrote:
"Frankly, I think all fundamentalist religions (the big three I can think are Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are a problem."
This is where you and so many others get it wrong.
You wrote:
"Any religion that decides IT is the answer for all is a problem."
Islam is the only major religion that advocates killing non-muslims simply because they have not accepted mohammed. Christianity and Judaism espouse nothing of the sort.
You wrote:
"While radical Islam is currently leaps and bounds ahead of the other two religions in terms of killing, the other two are not entirely bloodless".
Neither Christianity nor Judaism harbor designs of global control. Period. There's a big difference between proselytizing and killing infidels. Meanwhile, in Judaism there is no proselytizing.
You wrote:
"think Northern Ireland, which certainly had a religious as well as a nationalist/cultural component to it..."
Not even close. Did the Protestants attempt to kill the Pope or fly planes into the Vatican to destroy Catholicism? Did Catholics attack Protestants in the US? No. The problem remained confined to the people and region affected by it. As bad as it was, that's nothing compared with the global ambitions of islam.
You wrote:
"...or think the means Jews used to help establish the Israeli state."
The steps toward the creation of Israel began in the earlier part of the 20th century. The Balfour agreement, signed around 1920, was a milestone in the process of creating the Jewish state.
The area known as Palestine was a British mandate and after WWII Britain finally decided to establish a Jewish homeland, largely in response to the Holocaust. On the day the nation was founded in 1948 it was attacked by muslim neighbors. The muslims got their asses kicked.
In any case, the founding of any nation is never pretty. We thoroughly kicked the shit out of the Indians and the British and others to create the US. I feel no sympathy for the people who claim they were mistreated as a result of the founding of this nation and Israel. Some were pushed out, but many were bought out. And most were allowed to become citizens of Israel, which today has a population of 6.5 million, of which 1.5 million are muslims.
Also, there are only about 15 million Jews in the world. Christians and muslims number in the billions. It is fascinating that such a tiny number of Jews inspires so much in non-Jews.
You wrote:
"I would agree with you though that some of Islamic religios thought is backward-looking and anachronistic."
The chief problem is the fact that this backward religion is the backbone of muslim political and legal thinking, which isn't really thinking, but rather looking in the Koran for the answer to a problem.
You wrote:
"That's true of Catholicsm (my upbringing) too."
No it isn't. There are no Catholic governments and there are no governments that find the answers to all political, social and legal issues in the Bible.
You wrote:
"And have you seen all the evangelicals trying to turn the clock back to pre-Darwin days?"
We do not have kings or autocrats in control of the US. If some kooky people have some input into our lawmaking for a while, they're unlikely to do any more harm than people purportedly more reasonable.
As I like to remind people, the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court in 1857 upheld the rights of slave owners. Then we had to fight the Civil War. FDR took steps in the 1930s that unquestionably magnified the destructiveness of the Depression. Lyndon Johnson took us further into Vietnam and Clinton ignored the threats of muslim terrorism and here we are today.
None of those mistakes were intentional and their impact was not foreseeable. Nevertheless...
Couple of quick hits:
I said Catholic religious thought was backward looking and anachronistic, not Catholic political thought. But I'd like to add the church's stance on social issues to the discussion beccause I think that was what I was getting at. Given the church's stance on sex, birth control, women's rights, etc., you could argue that the church looks back to the Victorian era on many social issues. In comparison to some Islam, the Catholic Church looks positively 21st Century, of course. Nonetheless I know many in the church, including a few priests, who think the Vatican and the current pope are taking the church backward.
You wrote: "The chief problem is the fact that this backward religion is the backbone of muslim political and legal thinking, which isn't really thinking, but rather looking in the Koran for the answer to a problem."
Switch muslim for evangelical christian and koran for bible and you could be describing a large part of the evangelical community. And you cannot dismiss them as political entities. They may not run governments by themselves, but they surely have influence on the current administration and on many state gov'ts.
Explain to me again how Lebanon is not a democracy. Last year when the administration was touting its democracy project in the Middle east, the three places it mentioned as successes were a) Iraq b) Gaza c) Lebanon. It seems to me that you are dismissing "democracy" there simply because Hezbollah won some power. Certainly Hezbollah is backed by Iran, but so what? That's the chance you take when you have elections. Frankly, if you're going to have electinos in the Muslim world, it seems to me that you are going to have groups or political leaders who are anti-Semitic,radical and dangerous to the interests of the U.S. win sometimes. Unless you want to rig the elections, of course.
The Northern Ireland conflict never went global. However the IRA's use of terrorism in Britain bears a grave similarity to the current campaign of terror by radical Islam.
Good point about anti-semitism. I don't understand the virulence so many around the world feel for Jewish people.
I said Catholic religious thought was backward looking and anachronistic, not Catholic political thought. But I'd like to add the church's stance on social issues to the discussion beccause I think that was what I was getting at. Given the church's stance on sex, birth control, women's rights, etc., you could argue that the church looks back to the Victorian era on many social issues. In comparison to some Islam, the Catholic Church looks positively 21st Century, of course. Nonetheless I know many in the church, including a few priests, who think the Vatican and the current pope are taking the church backward.
You wrote: "The chief problem is the fact that this backward religion is the backbone of muslim political and legal thinking, which isn't really thinking, but rather looking in the Koran for the answer to a problem."
Switch muslim for evangelical christian and koran for bible and you could be describing a large part of the evangelical community. And you cannot dismiss them as political entities. They may not run governments by themselves, but they surely have influence on the current administration and on many state gov'ts.
Explain to me again how Lebanon is not a democracy. Last year when the administration was touting its democracy project in the Middle east, the three places it mentioned as successes were a) Iraq b) Gaza c) Lebanon. It seems to me that you are dismissing "democracy" there simply because Hezbollah won some power. Certainly Hezbollah is backed by Iran, but so what? That's the chance you take when you have elections. Frankly, if you're going to have electinos in the Muslim world, it seems to me that you are going to have groups or political leaders who are anti-Semitic,radical and dangerous to the interests of the U.S. win sometimes. Unless you want to rig the elections, of course.
The Northern Ireland conflict never went global. However the IRA's use of terrorism in Britain bears a grave similarity to the current campaign of terror by radical Islam.
Good point about anti-semitism. I don't understand the virulence so many around the world feel for Jewish people.
reality, you wrote:
"...I know many in the church, including a few priests, who think the Vatican and the current pope are taking the church backward."
You may be right. But this current trend does not involve international terrorism aimed at innocent civilians. Thus, you are merely pointing out the variety and richness of civil society in free countries.
You wrote:
"Switch muslim for evangelical christian and koran for bible and you could be describing a large part of the evangelical community."
Nonsense. Other than a few deranged Christians killing abortion doctors, there is no violence practiced by evangelists.
You are trying to create moral equivalence between murderers who want to eliminate the infidels of the world with people who mostly knock on your door and ask if you're interested in joining their church.
This attempt at moral equivalence is disturbing. It attempts to show that nihilistic terrorism is no worse than peaceful religious rituals. You really need to wake up.
You wrote:
"And you cannot dismiss them as political entities. They may not run governments by themselves, but they surely have influence on the current administration and on many state gov'ts."
That's what someone gets as a result of living in a free society.
By describing participatory democracy as a problem, you are suggesting that a dictatorship, where no choices are permitted, is a better alternative.
You asked:
"Explain to me again how Lebanon is not a democracy."
I don't know why people are so confused by this perverse situation.
Let's try this example.
If Chavez of Venezuela sent an army into Mexico and the army established itself in northern Mexico on the US/Mexico border and began firing rockets into Arizona, New Mexico and Texas while helping illegal immigrants sneak into the US, we might begin to have an analagous situation.
When Country A sends an army into Country B and Country B permits the army to remain, then Country B has been invaded and conquered.
When Country B allows the army from Country A to attack a country bordering on Country B, you know Country B is fully controlled by Country A and the real government of Country B resides in the capital of Country A.
The fact that Hezbollah has acquired seats in the representative body of Lebanon only proves how complicit and subservient Lebanon is to the ruling power of Tehran.
This is not democracy. It is puppetry.
You wrote:
"Certainly Hezbollah is backed by Iran, but so what?"
This is outrageous. Your statement says you accept violence against innocent civilians as an acceptable form of government.
You wrote:
"That's the chance you take when you have elections."
No it isn't. But based on your statement, you'd rather eliminate the risk by installing a dictatorship.
You wrote:
"Frankly, if you're going to have electinos in the Muslim world, it seems to me that you are going to have groups or political leaders who are anti-Semitic,radical and dangerous to the interests of the U.S. win sometimes."
You said as much about groups IN the US, like evangelicals.
Meanwhile, the issue is whether or not people obey the normal laws of democracy, which include allowing everyone to do whatever they like so long as it causes no harm to others. Muslims haven't reached that evolutionary level yet, unfortunately.
You said:
"Unless you want to rig the elections, of course."
That would assure you of nothing.
You wrote:
"The Northern Ireland conflict never went global. However the IRA's use of terrorism in Britain bears a grave similarity to the current campaign of terror by radical Islam."
That's right. It never went global, nor will go global because the aggrieved parties are only interested in the issue as far as it applies to Northern Ireland. However, there is no doubt money for the IRA came from plenty of bars in Queens and the Bronx.
Meanwhile, I think the death toll due to terrorist acts in Northern Ireland is about 400. After how many years? How many decades?
It's more than 400 a week in Iraq and there are muslim terrorist attacks all over the world every year. The problems are not the same. And their resolutions are not similar.
Post a Comment
"...I know many in the church, including a few priests, who think the Vatican and the current pope are taking the church backward."
You may be right. But this current trend does not involve international terrorism aimed at innocent civilians. Thus, you are merely pointing out the variety and richness of civil society in free countries.
You wrote:
"Switch muslim for evangelical christian and koran for bible and you could be describing a large part of the evangelical community."
Nonsense. Other than a few deranged Christians killing abortion doctors, there is no violence practiced by evangelists.
You are trying to create moral equivalence between murderers who want to eliminate the infidels of the world with people who mostly knock on your door and ask if you're interested in joining their church.
This attempt at moral equivalence is disturbing. It attempts to show that nihilistic terrorism is no worse than peaceful religious rituals. You really need to wake up.
You wrote:
"And you cannot dismiss them as political entities. They may not run governments by themselves, but they surely have influence on the current administration and on many state gov'ts."
That's what someone gets as a result of living in a free society.
By describing participatory democracy as a problem, you are suggesting that a dictatorship, where no choices are permitted, is a better alternative.
You asked:
"Explain to me again how Lebanon is not a democracy."
I don't know why people are so confused by this perverse situation.
Let's try this example.
If Chavez of Venezuela sent an army into Mexico and the army established itself in northern Mexico on the US/Mexico border and began firing rockets into Arizona, New Mexico and Texas while helping illegal immigrants sneak into the US, we might begin to have an analagous situation.
When Country A sends an army into Country B and Country B permits the army to remain, then Country B has been invaded and conquered.
When Country B allows the army from Country A to attack a country bordering on Country B, you know Country B is fully controlled by Country A and the real government of Country B resides in the capital of Country A.
The fact that Hezbollah has acquired seats in the representative body of Lebanon only proves how complicit and subservient Lebanon is to the ruling power of Tehran.
This is not democracy. It is puppetry.
You wrote:
"Certainly Hezbollah is backed by Iran, but so what?"
This is outrageous. Your statement says you accept violence against innocent civilians as an acceptable form of government.
You wrote:
"That's the chance you take when you have elections."
No it isn't. But based on your statement, you'd rather eliminate the risk by installing a dictatorship.
You wrote:
"Frankly, if you're going to have electinos in the Muslim world, it seems to me that you are going to have groups or political leaders who are anti-Semitic,radical and dangerous to the interests of the U.S. win sometimes."
You said as much about groups IN the US, like evangelicals.
Meanwhile, the issue is whether or not people obey the normal laws of democracy, which include allowing everyone to do whatever they like so long as it causes no harm to others. Muslims haven't reached that evolutionary level yet, unfortunately.
You said:
"Unless you want to rig the elections, of course."
That would assure you of nothing.
You wrote:
"The Northern Ireland conflict never went global. However the IRA's use of terrorism in Britain bears a grave similarity to the current campaign of terror by radical Islam."
That's right. It never went global, nor will go global because the aggrieved parties are only interested in the issue as far as it applies to Northern Ireland. However, there is no doubt money for the IRA came from plenty of bars in Queens and the Bronx.
Meanwhile, I think the death toll due to terrorist acts in Northern Ireland is about 400. After how many years? How many decades?
It's more than 400 a week in Iraq and there are muslim terrorist attacks all over the world every year. The problems are not the same. And their resolutions are not similar.
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