BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 08 May 08 - 02:46 PM

Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign 466* 08 May 08 - 12:13 PM
Popular views /Bush Administration 1124* 08 May 08 - 12:05 PM

I don't suppose either of these is the one you're referring to, T? Or were you averaging them together?



A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 08 May 08 - 12:13 PM

In the article there is a hard stretch made to redefine neocon, Bobert. Kinda like Ann Coulter's campaign to degrade the definition of the word "liberal" to mean any faggoty pinko socialist commie bastard bleeding heart namby-pamby pussy they want to brand. In the article they try to make the argument that neocons are really the new mainstream center-of-the-road. I don't buy it, but it is just a semantic shellgame in any case.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Bobert
Date: 08 May 08 - 10:46 AM

Amos posted this somewhere else, W-Gang...

I think it is a stretch to put the neocon label on Obama... Clinton??? Maybe...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 May 08 - 10:40 AM

The estimation method used in that link (provided by Amos) is a bit too creative for my taste (creative in a very verbatim sense too).

But the numbers game here is stupid from both sides: Someone with left leaning has to believe the highest estimate available, someone with right leaning has to believe the lowest estimate available, both of course irrespective of the methodological quality.

But you may want to read an interview with someone who has changed his mind.

I Don't See Anything Good That Has Come from this War (Interview with Lawrence Kaplan)

(Just BTW, J.R. would be overjoyed by the designation of both Obama and Clinton as neoconservative; but that is only a minor part in the interview)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Teribus
Date: 08 May 08 - 01:01 AM

Re Pol Pot and Saddam you don't need death certificates TIA the contents of the mass graves told the story and provided the numbers plainly enough.

As to the Hopkins Study guesswork, I do not have to argue with them or with the site linked to referring to it. IranBodyCount did more than a competant critique of Hopkins figures

You might not know of any better estimate/guess Amos, so why not use actual confirmed figures Amos? Bobert doesn't like those because they don't match his scaremongering and they are not so good for Bush bashing which in reality is all the pair of you are interested in.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 07 May 08 - 10:50 PM

Remember, an estimated death is not an actual death. Pol Pot did nothing wrong in Cambodia, because no one can show me 4 million certified death certificates. In fact, Saddam was not doing anything wrong before we invaded. If you are going to claim that he was, you better show me the death certificates for all those Shiites.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Bobert
Date: 07 May 08 - 08:32 PM

Yeah, T... I mean, this has become a tiresome exercise in futility and whether it's 300,000 or 1,200,000 it doesn't really change the conversation, does it??? Back when I was sayin' 100,000 you spent way too much energy attacking those figures as if I knew every one of those Iraqis personally and had an accurate count... This is beyond a waste of time with you and BB and I won't engage in ya'all's game any more...

And I'll continue to say "upwards of a million" and if you don't like it, tough...

You want to debate somethin' then lets debate the real reasons why Bush ordered the invasion... No, not to phony baloney UN resolutions crap that could become an endless academic exercise in further futility but the real reasons... You know what they are... The are based in a neocon philospohy of a "new world order" that has now shown to have more holes in it than Swiss Cheeeze... And then there is Bush who has never really succeeded at anything other than stealing 16 million bucks from the tax payer of Arlington, Texas who wanted to show his dadddy that he could do something "right"... Wrong againg, George...

But academic exercises have grown tiresome...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 08 - 06:55 PM

Well, T, excuse me. The source given above, as I pointed out, does in fact "estimate", using an earlier "rigorous cluster study" as a baseline, that the total deaths are over one million.

The Lancet study which first came up with the baseline figure was heavily flamed by people who dreamed of war but not of the horrors of it.

I do not know of any better estimate, given the chaos of war.

But as Bobert says, go to the page and argue with them about their methods.

I am truly sorry that you relish war so much, but that is your worry.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Teribus
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:43 PM

What me all puckered up Amos!!! I'm not the one with a thread of damn near 800 posts the majority of them mine, practically all of which are pointless cut'n'pastes banging on about how the President misrepresented rfacts to Congress in order to get approval to invade Iraq.

But we see here that both you and Bobert are not above misrepresenting facts yourselves when it suits your purpose. Now I'd just call that downright hypocritical.

Don't care what the number is Amos but if you're going to quote it get the damn thing right, or as near right as can be managed.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Bobert
Date: 07 May 08 - 04:57 PM

BB,

Go argue with the source I provided...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 08 - 04:29 PM

Oh, T, are you all puckered up? The order of magnitude is correct, and if it is even a whole factor of 10 off the ground truth, do you think that modulates the stupidity and immorality of the situation one whit?

It does not, my friend.

If it were only ten thousand, or two million, the equiation of this false and bloodyminded decision does not change its ugly colors or its rotten odor one scintilla.

Would you get a better view of the iceberg if I moved your deckchair a bit this way. sir? You can hear the band better from here, too...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Teribus
Date: 07 May 08 - 04:20 PM

It is still a guess not a fact so stop presenting it as such.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 08 - 02:01 PM

T:

Don't be boring. An estimate is a guess based on rational premises, extrapolation, or reasonable probabilities. A guess is something you pull out of your ass.

What IS your problem?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 May 08 - 01:23 PM

hypotheticals????

"the researchers estimated that over 650,000 Iraqis had died who would not have died had the death rate remained at pre-invasion levels. Roughly 601,000 of those excess deaths were due to violence."


Yet you will not allow the discussion of the "pre-invasion" levels?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Teribus
Date: 07 May 08 - 01:23 PM

As Amos was a bit coy about giving us the meaning of "estimate" here it is:

estimate - noun
a guess of what the size, value, amount, cost, etc. of something might be

estimate - verb
to guess the cost, size, value, etc. of something

So what you and Bobert are basing your claim that "Upwards of a million Iraqs have now been killed" is a GUESS. Which if any had bothered to read The Lancet Article would have been obvious as in thet article the introduction clearly stated that "Iraqi civilians MAY HAVE died".

If you are going to make statements on numbers of fatalities the least you can do is base them on something better than a GUESS.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 May 08 - 01:20 PM

Bobert,

Then how can you claim that any specific number are due to the US invasion? Since we invaded, you seem to claim all deaths are our fault- yet the past statistics of that country indicate a higher death rate when Saddam was in power. You are saying we should not have attacked and let a larger number of people die?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Bobert
Date: 07 May 08 - 12:30 PM

BB,

Your question is not answer-able because it deals 100% with hypotheticals... If I change the wording of the question and throw it back into your court you cannot answer it either... You are just playing childish rhetorical games...

No did intended... It's just the way it is...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 May 08 - 11:59 AM

From MY link...


"The authors of a peer-reviewed study, conducted by a survey team from Johns Hopkins University, claim that about 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war. Yet a close look at the actual study, published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet, reveals that this number is so loose as to be meaningless.

The report's authors derive this figure by estimating how many Iraqis died in a 14-month period before the U.S. invasion, conducting surveys on how many died in a similar period after the invasion began (more on those surveys later), and subtracting the difference. That difference—the number of "extra" deaths in the post-invasion period—signifies the war's toll. That number is 98,000. But read the passage that cites the calculation more fully:

We estimate there were 98,000 extra deaths (95% CI 8000-194 000) during the post-war period.

Readers who are accustomed to perusing statistical documents know what the set of numbers in the parentheses means. For the other 99.9 percent of you, I'll spell it out in plain English—which, disturbingly, the study never does. It means that the authors are 95 percent confident that the war-caused deaths totaled some number between 8,000 and 194,000. (The number cited in plain language—98,000—is roughly at the halfway point in this absurdly vast range.)

"

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 08 - 11:58 AM

Don't get snide with me.

It means estimate, as you well and clearly know, and no-one has imputed any other definition to it.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Teribus
Date: 07 May 08 - 11:54 AM

The word "estimate" seems to figure large in your "cut'n'paste" Amos.

Care to tell us what it means. From what I remember I don't think it means "definite", or "certain", or "confirmed".

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 08 - 11:38 AM

Read the JFP site more carefully, T.

Based on the earlier calculations and rate of change they estimate Iraqi deaths ast xsomething over one million. They state:

"Since researchers at Johns Hopkins estimated that 601,000 violent Iraqi deaths were attributable to the U.S.-led invasion as of July 2006, it necessarily does not include Iraqis who have been killed since then. We would like to update this number both to provide a more relevant day-to-day estimate of the Iraqi dead and to emphasize that the human tragedy mounts each day this brutal war continues.

This daily estimate is a rough estimate. It is not scientific; for that, another study must be conducted. However, absent such a study, we think this constitutes a best estimate of violent Iraqi deaths that is certainly more reliable than widely cited numbers that, often for political reasons, ignore the findings of scientifically sound demographic studies.

In September 2007, a new scientific poll of Iraqis confirmed that the number dead is likely to be over a million. The prestigious British polling firm, Opinion Research Business, estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis had been killed violently since the U.S. invasion.

The Significance of the Iraqi Death Estimate

The Lancet study already demonstrated that, as of July 2006, the deaths caused by the U.S. invasion of Iraq rivaled the death toll of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Our update suggests that it has now surpassed even high estimates of deaths in Rwanda. (Note that this does not even include Iraqi deaths attributable to the 1991 Gulf War or the sanctions imposed on the population between the two wars.)

Realization of the daunting scale of the death and suffering inflicted on Iraqis should add urgency to efforts to end the occupation and to prevent such "pre-emptive" invasions or "interventions" in the future. The American people need to rein in their government and create a new kind of foreign policy, one based on cooperation, law, and diplomacy rather than violence and aggression.

The Rationale for Just Foreign Policy's Iraqi Death Estimator
Iraq is in a state of extreme upheaval that makes it very difficult to record deaths. The occupiers and the central government they established do not control much of the country. The occupying forces have made it clear that they "do not do body counts." The Iraqi government releases regular estimates of deaths in the country, but these are unreliable. In early 2006, the Iraqi Minister of Health publicly estimated between 40,000 and 50,000 violent Iraqi deaths since the invasion. In October 2006, the same week a study was published in the Lancet estimating 600,000 deaths, the Minister tripled his estimate, saying there had been 150,000 deaths. Can this be anything but political?

The media in any country only detect a fraction of all violent deaths. In Iraq, the media is limited to shrinking zones of safe passage. While press reports of violence in Iraq are important and often heroically obtained, they cannot provide a complete picture of all deaths in that war-torn country.

In a country such as Iraq, where sufficient reporting mechanisms do not exist, there is a scientifically accepted way to measure demographics including death rate: a cluster survey. Cluster surveys provide reliable demographic information the wake of natural disasters, wars and famines. Cluster surveys give us the data about deaths in Darfur, accepted for example by the U.S. government as one basis for its charge of genocide. They are used by U.N. agencies charged with disaster and famine relief.

In Iraq, there have been two scientifically rigorous cluster surveys conducted since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The first, published in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet (available in pdf), estimated that 100,000 excess Iraqi deaths had resulted from the invasion as of September 2004. The second survey, also published in The Lancet (available in pdf), updated that estimate through July 2006. Due to an escalating mortality rate, the researchers estimated that over 650,000 Iraqis had died who would not have died had the death rate remained at pre-invasion levels. Roughly 601,000 of those excess deaths were due to violence.

As with all statistical methods, the Lancet surveys come with a margin of error, as do opinion polls, for example. In the second survey, the researchers were 95 percent certain that there were between 426,000 and 794,000 excess violent deaths from March 2003 to July 2006. 601,000 is the most likely number of excess violent deaths. It is this number that our Estimator updates."

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Teribus
Date: 07 May 08 - 11:23 AM

Spit away Amos, while doing so ponder what is stated in that link, compared to what Bobert contends and what you are spitting about:

"Tell your friends about this estimate of Iraqi deaths." - JFP site

"Upwards of a million Iraqs have now been killed" - Bobert

Notice any great difference in those Amos? Because if you can't I sure as hell can.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 08 - 10:56 AM

To somer degree the notion that Saddam was a better alternative than the present is because he made Iraq so much ewasier to ignore as a far-off place with different rules.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans learned the words "Shiite" and "Sunni" and perhaps even "Allah" for the first time because of Bush's war. We as a population were force dby the war to look more closely at the nature of Middle Eastern entanglements.

This beneficial side-effect is trivial, though, compared to the blood and money wasted because we looked at it as though we were the planet's SWAT team, and those contained in Saddam's web were no more players than cheap inventory in a Target store.

So Bush opted for the solution of excessive force, ruining lives and unbalancing the economy in the process

A more intelligent leader would have weighed the elements in the problem more carefully.

For all his touting phrases about freedom and democracy, Bush made the basic and ridiculous mistake of have a paternalistic approach toward democracy. The biggest hole in his plan was that he did not care to understand the people to whom he was gifting democracy and how much difference their indifference to democratic principles is. (Not economic principles or secular freedoms, mind you).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 May 08 - 10:22 AM

"And how many Iraqis would have been killed had we not invaded??? One heck of alot less than what we've seen since the invasion..."


That is the question that you are ducking. IMO, the number that would have been killed would include at least the ones that Saddam would have killed ( see past discussions- more than the war) as well as the ones that would be killed by the continuation of the plans in place by Saddam.


Saddam's non-compliance with the UN resolution ( as stated by the UN) indicates that "business as usual" would have meant and eventual WMD use by Saddam, or by some proxy that he gave the WMD to.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 08 - 10:20 AM

"Ali Hussein was buried in the clothes he died in: a white-and-blue t-shirt and a pair of little orange shorts. It was what he wore the day his dust-covered body was pulled out of the rubble of his house, after it had been flattened by an American bomb. Ali was 2 years old.

At least 30 people died in that bombing in Baghdad's Sadr City, on the 29th of April, 12 of whom were children.

"Ya'mma, Ya'ba" ("Oh mother, oh father"), cried Amira Zaydan, a 45-year-old spinster, slapping her face and chest as she grieved for her parents Jaleel, 65, and Hanounah, 60, whose house had exploded after apparently being hit by an American rocket.
"Where are you, my brothers?" she sobbed, lamenting Samir, 32, and Amir, 29, who had also perished along with their wives, one of whom was nine months pregnant.
"What wrong have you done, my children?" she howled to the spirits of four nephews and nieces who completed a toll of 10 family members in the disaster that struck last Tuesday (The Times, 4 May).

As neighbours were trying to dig out her family's bodies out of the rubble, another rocket landed, killing 6 rescuers.

Um Aseel Ali lost her husband and 3 sons, aged 6, 4 and 2, when a rocket hit their house, while another woman, Um Marwa Muntasser, kept under sedation, lay unaware that her husband Samir and her children, 4-year-old Sajad and 2-year-old Ayat, had been killed when their home was hit. All three women may qualify for condolence payments (made for death, injury or battle damage resulting from US military operations) usually around $2,000-$3,000, which should ease their pain of having had their families exterminated inside their own homes.

Overall, 218 civilians were killed in Iraq last week, 25 of them children. 20 of those children were killed by US forces, as they tried to kill Iraqi 'criminals' through bombing house after house, neighbourhood after neighbourhood, in a city of 2.5m people.

As April 2008 came to an end, the Iraqis mourned another 1,400 civilians… perhaps as many as 1,900. At least 66 children were reported killed in April, while US forces killed a minimum of 136 civilians (and possibly as many as 600), with the blessing of the democratically elected Iraqi government.

How can we do this? How can we 'enlightened,' 'liberal' and 'moral' citizens of a culture that has allegedly reached the 'end of history', a culture that stands for freedom, human rights and equality… how can we commit such crimes? We think we can fight humanitarian wars inhumanely, we find it acceptable to meet 'evil with evil'. We, who think our morality and our ethics to be superior to those of others, less civilised, how can we bear to be so cruel?

When did we lose our faith in our principles, those principles that were true for us, that defined our western civilisation? When did we abandon those principles that made our lives a little more meaningful than the simple struggle for survival in a jungle, a little more meaningful than the basic survival of the fittest –or, in this case, the mightiest?

When did our own lives become so meaningless that we can bear to take the lives of children without guilt, without regret, so systematically and so heartlessly? "



THese are questions for which I do not have answers.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 08 - 10:18 AM

Here's the link, corrected.

"



The number is shocking and sobering.

It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003.

That study, published in prestigious medical journal The Lancet, estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion as of July 2006. Iraqis have continued to be killed since then. The graphic above provides a rough daily update of this number based on a rate of increase derived from the Iraq Body Count. (See the complete explanation.)

The estimate that over a million Iraqis have died received independent confirmation from a prestigious British polling agency in September 2007. Opinion Research Business estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the US invasion.

This devastating human toll demands greater recognition. It eclipses the Rwandan genocide and our leaders are directly responsible. Little wonder they do not publicly cite it. .."


One of the cited sources, however, reports a civilian body count of 83,441 – 91,003 .

Is 100,000 an acceptable figure, T? Toluhable?

I spit.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Bobert
Date: 07 May 08 - 10:17 AM

Google "Information Clearing House Newsletter", BB, for "cumulative Iraqi awr deaths"...

And how many Iraqis would have been killed had we not invaded??? One heck of alot less than what we've seen since the invasion...

BTW, BB, you seem to only understand military solutions and seem incapable of going back to 2002 and imagine a different world view from that of your neocon buddies... Saddam was a company man and he was vain and scared to death of his neighbors... We knew this much about him from our past dealings with the man so what if rather than having Bush surrounded by neocons he had been surrounded with folks who understood how to manipulate Saddam and bring him back into the fold with some kind of security pact??? Of course one could have put a little "stick" in the "carrots and sticks"...

But no, the neocons only understoof the "stick" part of foriegn policy and it clearly hasn't worked and won't work... Occupying countries hasn't worked out too well going back a 100 years... Colonialism and neo-colonialism has proven to be a trap to the invader... And no it is US that is very badly trapped of out own makings...

In the words of the late Waylon Jennings, "We need a change"...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 May 08 - 09:01 AM

"The page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings. "


info on previous 100,000 claim. Oct 2004



In fact, unless you define the term "Upwards of a million Iraqs have now been killed... " to say BY WHO, it is meaningless.

By US and coalitiion troops?

By insurgents?

By automobile accidents?

By age or disease?

By Iranian expolsive devices?

By suicide bombers?

And what number would have been killed had we NOT invaded? ( Using the pre-invasions statistics presented in past threads?

Are more or less Iraqis alive now than would have been alive if we had not invaded? THAT depends on whether the WMD PROGRAMS that were bing worked on by Saddam were stopped- which the UN has NOT been able to do in the case of Iran ( or N. Korea) so there is no reason to think they would have had any effect in Iraq.

Under the traditional ( established by the Democrats when they controlled both the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives) any attack by WMD would be met with total destruction (MAD), so that means what- 24 million dead Iraqis?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Bobert
Date: 07 May 08 - 08:19 AM

Okay, T, have at it:

http://www.justforiegnpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

Current deaths: 1,205,025

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Teribus
Date: 07 May 08 - 01:03 AM

Sorry Bobert, you keep coming out with this million dead statement, give us some form of substantive evidence for it.

Ron, always pleased to be of service, it's good to have something to look forward to.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 08 - 12:00 AM

Neoconservatism today, is really just a shorthand for the practice of combining power and idealism in foreign policy.

Combining power and idealism. Isn't that what Hitler did?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Ron Davies
Date: 06 May 08 - 11:38 PM

Welcome back, Teribus. We've missed you.

Now perhaps you can tell us how al-Qaeda can take over Iraq---supposedly the reason we're there---when Iraqi Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites loathe and despise it.

Looking forward to your revelations on this specific issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 08 - 08:55 PM

I think he's trying to redefine the word from its despicable nadir, Bobert.

But at least he has confessed to bad thinking.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Bobert
Date: 06 May 08 - 05:38 PM

No, you prove it's false, T...

Yo, Amos,

Kaplin is so fulll of it that his eyes have to be brown./.. UI don't buy into the theroy that neoconservativism is here to stay... Neoconservatism is based on a new world order that is enforced upon countries and populations...

You can count me out...

Kapklin thinks that Obama or Clinton will have to adopt some of the neocon principles??? I hope not!!!

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Teribus
Date: 06 May 08 - 04:38 PM

"Upwards of a million Iraqs have now been killed" - Bobert

Prove it.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 08 - 01:35 PM

Lawrence Kaplan was one of the influential proponents of the Iraq invasion. In a telling interview with der Spiegel, he concedes his support of the war was "an abstraction", not based on an appreciation of the ground elements of reality involved.

The article header is "NEOCONSERVATIVE LAWRENCE KAPLAN ON IRAQ
'I Don't See Anything Good That Has Come from this War' "

The interview can be found on this page.

An excerpt:

"SPIEGEL ONLINE: So for the record: Was the Iraq war a mistake?

Kaplan: Yes. Knowing what we know today, definitely. I know this is political poison in some quarters, but respect to reality demands this answer. However, this is a completely different question from whether or not having invaded Iraq we should stay or leave. On this I am equally clear: We turned this country upside down and we have an obligation to put it back together again. No matter how long it takes.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The Iraq war was percieved as the one chance the neocons had in our time to prove that their theories were right. Is neoconservatism already a historical footnote?


NEWSLETTER
Sign up for Spiegel Online's daily newsletter and get the best of Der Spiegel's and Spiegel Online's international coverage in your In- Box everyday.

Kaplan: The near term argument here is that if John McCain wins the presidential election, neoconservatism will have been vindicated. Because by voting him into office, people will have tacitly given their endorsement to that sort of foreign policy. His advisers are the very people we are arguing about. The second argument is that, even if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton win, they can't completely escape certain ideas that could be described as neoconservative. Because in the course of American history, what we refer to as Neoconservatism today, is really just a shorthand for the practice of combining power and idealism in foreign policy. It's very difficult to escape these boundaries. The question is only how much you stress the one and how much the other. Looking at it from this angle, the difference even between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush is not huge. There's something essentially American about what we today call neoconservatism. Or to put it differently: Iraq set things back. But to extrapolate too much from Iraq would be as if after Vietnam one had said that anti-communism was discredited and we should stop fighting the Cold War. "

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 08 - 09:46 AM

Tens of thousands of American minds have been stressed to the breaking point, with poor chances of permanent recovery.

The physically wounded show the world. THose whose wounds are of the heart and mind have no audience but themselves for their screams. The shattered bonnes will heal, or be replaced with titanium. The shattered minds will never forget the experiences that broke them.

Those traumatized by duress and loss, even absent physical damage, carry theitr own scars. The net effect of these, on either side, is the promulgation of madness in a world that cannot afford anymore insanity.

Bad decisions at the top. Bush will retire on a legacy of economic, societal and political mayhem, and a handsome pension with secret service agents.

In another day, when justice was less convoluted, he might have been hanged, beheaded, or publically drawn and quartered. IF he were really fortunate, banished on pain of death.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Bobert
Date: 06 May 08 - 08:05 AM

Yo, Ron and TIA... I'd suggest that you both walk away from the "Resolutions Distractions" tactic that T is playing on you... It is nothing more than an academic pea-under-the shell game that favors endless denial on T's part...

Really, think about it... It's been, what, 5 or 6 years of endless debate over the "language" of UN resolutions...

What is happening in Iraq is criminal and anti-human??? Innocent people are dieing every day and the argument should not be made on an "academic playiong field" where T can keep it going for a "100 years or more" but on the "human field" where we have the advantage...

Upwards of a million Iraqs have now been killed... Over 5000 Anericabn and British troops and private contractors have been killed... Tens upon thousands of other "prople" have been seriously wounded and are noe disabled... Our presence in Iraq only keeps the bllod flowing in streets of various Iraqi towns and the US governemnt is beibg played by both sides in an on going civil war...

We don't even have to talk about just how much of our treasury we have spent opr the good it could have done for our people... We don't even have to talk about the fact that no WMDs, the excuse for going to war, were not found...

What we need to be talking about is getting the heck out... Period... Screw resolutions... 89 cents and a UN resolution will get you a cup of coffee at yer local Pigly Wiggly... This human catastrope is beyond dumb resoultions...

What we need is to get the heck out of Iraq...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:00 PM

Yup Ron, that's about the size of the argument:

The USA was bound by (clever/date I say evil?) interpretations of previous UN resolutions to invade Iraq even though the UN was on the verge of voting to forbid the USA from invading, and the invasion was hurredly implemented before the vote to ensure that we could hide behind this transparent rationalization.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 May 08 - 10:42 PM

It's really interesting that Teribus seems to think that even though, on this very thread I believe, it was established that GWB in fact had no UN authorization to attack Iraq in 2003, he feels that if he brings up the old tired specious arguments on another thread, say for instance, the Obama bombing Pakistan one, he'll have better luck with the same nonsense.

Now what was that definition of insanity--something about trying the same failed idea over and over, in hopes of a different result?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Bobert
Date: 05 May 08 - 05:32 PM

Yeah, Amos, there will not be any progress until the US leaves...

But, Bobert, that might mean an escelation in the current civil war???)

Not my problem... Let them work it out... I am very sorry but we can't fix it no mattrer how long we saty... Might of fact, I think our staying will just make the civil war that much greater when we leave...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 05 May 08 - 05:11 PM

On-site reports from Baghdad do not show great signs of improvement if any.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: TIA
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 02:13 PM

We knew they planted stories in the NY Times, then cited them as proof of W's of MD in a sneaky circular argument.

We knew they planted false stories in international newspapers.

We knew they published rigged "polls".

Now we know that they have been bribing and browbeating former military men to pretend to be objective military analysts on the news.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1209405887-tvyIpgX6c9A8QG0u9X18hg

Is there really anybody out there who still does not believe there was (in fact *still is*) a carefully orchestrated, far-reaching propaganda campaign?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Ron Davies
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 11:23 PM

Still no Teribus. Gee, we're pining away here.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: GUEST,Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 02:02 PM

Yes, Barry, very extreme costs...

The reason "The Surge" has cut down on vioence isn't becuase of "The Surge" of troops... No, its "The Surge" of our tax dollars + guns going to Sunni croonies as protection money... Yeah, we are paying them not to kill US???

Hmmmmmmmmm???
B

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Barry Finn
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 11:00 PM

Ron, the extremists have taken over Iraq, quite some ime ago too, I might add. They are US! We took extreme measures & we are paying extreme costs but I said this before we went into Iraq. It was appearant then but the nation was beating it's patriotic war drums & drowning out any thing sensible. Still is.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 10:42 PM

Gee, Teribus is posting on other threads. Wonder why he doesn't have the time to grace us with his presence. I'd particularly like him to tell us exactly which "extremists" are ready to take over Iraq--since we are told that's what we are there to prevent.   As even he might be aware, al-Qaeda is roundly despised and hated by Iraqi Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis.

I'm sure he has a creative suggestion.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 05:16 PM

And the beat goes on while...

...the usual suspects wonder just why we don't believe either them or their hero???

We'll just refer to this as the "duhhhh, factor"...

Meanwhile, Bush, even after his own intellegence people told him that Iran curtainled it's nyclear weapons program in 2003, continues to woof-woof about Iran being such a menace...

Oh, speaking of a menace... The EU has released a statement accusing Bush for creating the current worldwide financial crisis with his econimic policies of spend, spend, spend and not have means to pay for it... Sound familiar??? Well, it should... It's a page outta Reagans "Voodoo Economics Handbook" which also brought about similar results in Reagun's 7th year... Deja' vu...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 05:06 PM

On the Repression of Dissent in American Universities.

...Plus c'est la meme chôse.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush Iraq Propaganda Campaign
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 05:00 PM

(plusça change... )