Infinite Justice...

Subject: Infinite Justice...
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 01 - 06:48 PM

'Operation Colossal Hubris' would be nearer the mark... Another example of the Mr. Bush's unfamiliarity with the English language? The United States stating its deep-seated belief that it is qualified to play God? Or simply another poor choice of words?

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 19 Sep 01 - 07:24 PM

It is an excellent choice of words. If the President was responsible, he is to be commended.

Murray

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 19 Sep 01 - 11:13 PM

Or maybe the guy pulling the strings and throwing his voice is improving with practice.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Peg
Date: 19 Sep 01 - 11:29 PM

A friend met me for drinks earlier. When he walked into the pub he was clearly upset. He told me had had just gotten off the phone with his wife. She had told him of the (at that point) rumor that this military operation was to be called "Infinite Justice."

I sat there as my tears welled up while he quietly but firmly expressed his disgust in his inimitable eloquent manner.

Poor choice of words, yes. But I think they were entirely intentional. Inexacting though they may be.

Hubris does come to mind, yes. As does Arrogance. And Pig-headedness.

What the fuck does "infinite justice" mean????

Is it really the melodramatic nonsensical platitude it sounds like?

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 07:25 AM

what a pathetic bunch of effing morons this administrsation is

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: kendall
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 08:23 AM

You can fool some of the people...etc.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Gervase
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 12:29 PM

Peg, I'm afraid the answer to you question will probably be "yes".

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 12:36 PM

Rumsfeld just said the name will probably be changed to something else.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: GUEST,Greg F.
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 01:03 PM

Whoops! That's the second time in as many days his handlers have realized Dubya stuck his foot in his mouth...

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: GUEST,UB Dan
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 01:37 PM

To the families and friends of those killed in the recent planned, coordinated and implemented attacks, I'm sure the use of the word Justice is neither embarrassing nor melodramatic.

And when we take stock of who is an effing moron and who is not, maybe we should consider a group of people who are so absolutely consumed with interest in the name of a thing that they totally forget what it is.

There is no Peace without Justice....who wouldn't want an infinite supply of both

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 01:42 PM

It wasn't the justice part that was percieved to be a problem. Keeping in mind that we need the help of the Islamic countries, it was made clear that the word "infinite" was considered highly inappropriate.

They believe that only God/Allah is infinite. Everything else is finite. Thus, the use of the word "infinite" was considered to be highly inappropriate for religeous reasons.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 01:45 PM

Correction. Islamic scholars have said that only Allah can dispense "infinite justice".

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 01:47 PM

Wait a tic, you mean George ISN'T God?!!??

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 01:48 PM

Correct, Carol. God is infinite. Everything else is finite. And few things are more wretchedly finite than any nation-state's concept of "justice".

- LH

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: The Walrus
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 06:41 PM

One can only hope that the PR idiot who dreamed up the name was told to clear his/her desk (like yesterday). The problem, of course, is that the harm has already been done (and the loopies will make hay), why couldn't they have stuck with just the "Justice" bit?

Walrus

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Deda
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 06:50 PM

So let's see, here -- "Finite Justice"? "Some Justice"? "A heaping helping of Justice"? "Justice bigger than a breadbox"?

How about "Texan Justice"? or "Justice, Amurrican style"?

I'm sorry, I mean no disrespect to Justice, and certainly no disrespect to those who have reason to be clamoring for it at this time.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: DougR
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 07:10 PM

I just heard on Fox News Network that "Infinite Justice" will be dropped because it offended some Muslims and something else will be selected. Hmmm? Suppose the new name offends christians? The Jews? The Whatever? Well, I'm sure they will cross that bridge when they come to it.

So those of you who got your noses out of joint should seize the opportunity! This is a chance for you to use your creativity to help the war effort: send your suggestions for a better name to Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. I'm sure he would be happy to hear from you.

DougR

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Amos
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 08:47 PM

I think we should call it "Circumspect Hamhandedness", or perhaps "Dysfunctional Retribution". or maybe "Indefinite Darnation", "Unstoppable Rhetoric" or "Operation Nebulous Circumlocution", "Project Bottomless Nounlessness", "Boundless Ambiguity, Texas Style" or maybe even "Operation Semantic Nullification", if that wouldn't offend too many Semantic people...

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Amos
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 09:53 PM

I take it all back.

I don't care what he calls it.

I have just heard the best speech made by a Republican since Dwight David Eisenhower's "beware the military industrial complex" farewell address.

I haven't cheered for a Republican in all the time since then.

But tonight, at particular points, I cheered.

Somebody in the White House grew up in the last few weeks. I hope it sticks, and I wish him well.

A.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Troll
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 10:30 PM

Amos, he'll get precious little credit around here.

troll

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: rube1
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 10:52 PM

you hippie peacefreak pseudo intellectual socialist progressive wicca pagan nonsense mongererers who keep bashing Bush and the govt. just to get off cheap shots among yourselves remind me of the wimpy guy at the foot of the stairs in "Animal House" singing a dopey folksong when John Belushi grabbed his guitar and smashed it.

the time has come to define your beliefs. if they haven't changed since the sixties, maybe it's time to shut up and get out of the way. you weren't right about everything back then and you're not right about everything now.

sure there will be demonstrations. the revolution thrives on nostalgia. be a part of something, chant "Give Peace a Chance, do the candlelight vigil thing. But when things get tough, remember what the President said: You either stand with us, or you stand with the terrorists. I'm glad it's not that hard to decide for most of the world.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Amos
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 10:56 PM

Maybe so, troll. I have been amongst his detractors. I condemned him roundly. And for good reasons.

I think the history of the hour has opened up a side of him that he didn't know was available, and changed him substantially.

Anyway, whatever the reasons, he has changed significantly and he did a fine job delivering an absolutely extraordinary speech of well crafted rhetoric encapsulating very hard-thought-out policy. Reasoned, persuasive, compassionate and fierce at the right places. A tour de force, which surprised me completely.

So more power to the man for having stood up when he was needed and answered up well. Hope he can make it stick.

A.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From:
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 11:02 PM

I agree....crummy name. Sounds like a legal brief or something. How about Operation Foggybottom? mg

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Troll
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 11:06 PM

Amos, what's the whole quote..." and some have greatness thrust upon them"?
Let us pray that this is the case here; that greatness has been thrust upon him.
I hope he can carry the load.

troll

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Amos
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 12:17 AM

I have my fingers crossed for it; it is sure he wasn't born great, nor prior to last week had he acheived greatness. But he's doing his best to stand up to the thrust, I guess.

Here's a helluva note: last Sunday i sent a suggestion to the email address president@#whitehouse.gov, in which is made a suggestion:

        What he should do instead is announce to the woirld

        that for the sake of humanity he is going to

        exterminate a vicious antisocial cult.

        And furthermore, that one of the reasons and

        benefits for so doing will be to return the name of

        Islam to those who are true to its actual tenets and

        undo a group which sullies the name of Allah by

        diverting it to criminal purpose.

        This would put 80% of the East on his side, and

        would pull the rug out of the jerks such as the leader

        of Afghanistan, who made the claim that Bush's war

        was about Islam as much as it was about terroism.

        Someone needs to defuse that line right now,

        because it is untrue and because it is a dangerous lie.

        This approach would give the lie to it; Dubya could

        go on TV with a Koran and read from it.

        I think it would be masterful PR stroke -- saving

        Islam from the vipers. And it really is true that the

        enemy is not a nation, but a distorted maniacal cult.

My notion is not to say we are going to "save Islam"

        but merely that we are going to eradicate a cruel and

        violent cult which among other things has perverted

        the repute of Islam by twisting its teaching to the

        side of evil; thus, we will restore freedom of religion

        to those who wish to follow their hearts and the

        teaching of islam just as much as we protect it for

        those who wish to follow the teachings of Gandhi,

        Buddha, Deepodio Lancaster Gotwallop, or L. Ron

        Hubbard as long as in so doing they do not break

        the laws of common humanity.

        There are quotes to be found in the Koran which

        amount to refusing to commit violence even in

        response to violence. I think a talented script writer

        could handle this in such a way as to make a major

        PR coup out of it.

Well -- tonight, the guy stands up before Congress and God and everyone and says:

Al-Qaida is to terror what the Mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money. Its goal is remaking the world and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.

The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam

He touched on the theme a couple of other places to. Let's hear it for that speech writer!!

A

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Amos
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 12:18 AM

"other places, too". Sorry rof eht ypto.

A.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: DougR
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 12:23 AM

Hey, Rube1, don't hesitate to tell us what you think!

I think we've had some good suggestions for a new name for the Cru ...oops, Infi ...oops, ...thing that's going on. So far, Amos has the lead!

DougR

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Peg
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 12:44 AM

To polarize the American people at this time by saying "If you are not WITH us (meaning in full agreement) you are with the TERRORISTS" is cruel and manipulative. Not to mention divisive and unproductive.

America is built upon a foundation of healthy dissension and questioning of tyranical authority. To expect us to stray from our roots so far that we become in effect blind, head-nodding thugs is to spit upon what it REALLY means to be an American.

I must say I find the silly stereotyping of "us liberals" from idiots like "rube" here to be less than a bay ant's step removed from the sort of coarse rhetoric sported by the bigoted cretins who are beating up on innocent Arab-Americans and other "suspicious-looking" Americans at this point in time...

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Amos
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 12:52 AM

Peg, i think if you review the actual text, you will find that remark was laid at the door of those nations who are being asked to decide their national policy vis-a-vis an effort to eradicate terrositic (is that a real word?) practice.

There are some nations -- Syria, Algeria, Iraq, and Afghanistan come to mind -- who have made a policy decision in the past to encourage or support actions like blowing up planes, car-bombings and suicide bombings carried out in practice by the private networks of which the Q'asada is one example.

I believe the import of remarks addressed to American citizens included points like, getting back to your lives, supporting the American economy, staying calm and focused.

Here -- read it over for yourself.

Warm regards,

Amos

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Amos
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 12:55 AM

An excerpt:

Americans are asking, ''What is expected of us?''

I ask you to live your lives and hug your children.

I know many citizens have fears tonight, and I ask you to be calm and resolute, even in the face of a continuing threat.

I ask you to uphold the values of America and remember why so many have come here.

We're in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith.

I ask you to continue to support the victims of this tragedy with your contributions. Those who want to give can go to a central source of information, libertyunites.org, to find the names of groups providing direct help in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Peg
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 01:00 AM

thanks for the link Amos.

I will read it.

But I did see a couple of excerpts on the news and the guy's smug expression makes me angry. What was with the smiling???

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: rube1
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 07:50 AM

Peg, you might note that I didn't use the word "liberal." That's a stereotype I hesitate to use. I'm not an idiot, but if you feel comfortable stereotyping me as one of those "cretins," that is your right. I do consider that a pseudo intellectual act, however. Also, if GWB represented a "tyrannical authority" I would stand with you against it and him. But that's not the case.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Butch
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 08:08 AM

Peg, get off the man! He was looking at his wife and other friends in the audience who were supporting him in the upper gallery. To a public speaker it is important to show some response to your audience when you are being cheered. You try standing in front of a few hundred people cheering wildly and try not to smile at the love of your life and your best friends! If that is all you have to complain about, then you are showing me, at least, that you don't want him to be right on anything and are so blinded by predudice that you will never hear him. Right or wrong at least listen with an open mind.

As for the rest of you who have so roundly trashed him. You think you could handle this crisis better, then do it! Run for office and place your views against his in the public forum and see who wins. But to vent your views here among a "safer" audience is getting old. We know you don't like the Pres. but some of us (who are generally less vocal) support him and are sick of thew attacks.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Troll
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 11:16 AM

Butch. Huzzah.

troll

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Deda
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 11:46 AM

I'll confess, as someone who has been public about disliking this president pretty intensely from early in his campaign, I watched the whole speech and I admit he did OK. I'm not as bowled over by it as some, but he did far better than I had feared, and in a few places he actually spoke with real conviction, even some passion. He showed that his heart had been moved by the losses of the last week, which demonstrated publicly that he HAS a heart. Conservatives aren't big on heart, generally, and they tend to insult those of us on the other side as "bleeding hearts" -- to which I have generally responded "at least I HAVE a heart, thank you". I really do believe that the best of what we are and could be is contained in that metaphor of our hearts, and I want public officials who listen to their own hearts. I think W. did some of that last night -- first time I ever saw that in him.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Troll
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 11:51 AM

Deda, we conservatives want pretty much the same things you liberals do. We just believe the old dictum that That Government is best that governs least, while you guy seem to se the Govt. as the cure for every ill. Even those that it has caused. We try to let our heads rule our hearts.

troll

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Peg
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 11:58 AM

Butch;

It is also an American's right to speak out in favor of, or against, our government. So you can get off ME, thank you very much.

I don't have a problem with Bush smiling at his family, for pete's sake. Even if I did, that would MOST CERTAINLY not be ALL I have to complain about, as you so irritably put it. It is his smugness at other times that annoys me. And of course it is good to hear that he is demonstrating his emotional side; maybe that will help more Americans back him in this terrifying time.

But I do not agree with a LOT of what he has said so far. His Wyatt Earp-like demand for bin Laden "dead or alive" is ridiculous. Calling for blood when we don't even know who exactly is responsible for this attack, is feeding the militant, vigilante crap that is tearing apart our streets right now. A Pakistani DOCTOR was attacked by a man in an emergency room who he was HELPING. Do you think that our president's use of such violent rhetoric (even while he has FINALLY taken a stand on anti-Arab and other racist attacks) is helping now???

I pray he has learned a lot and grown up a bit and may be able to lead us through this. I have not seen convincing evidence of it so far. But I do appreciate the fact that a lot of people here have been comforted by his speech.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice...
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 12:11 PM

Durn right the bin Ladens are to Islam as the KKK is to Christianity.

Subject: RE: Infinite Justice... From: Deda Date: 20-Sep-01 - 06:50 PM

So let's see, here -- "Finite Justice"? "Some Justice"? "A heaping helping of Justice"? "Justice bigger than a breadbox"?

How about "Texan Justice"? or "Justice, Amurrican style"?

I'm sorry, I mean no disrespect to Justice, and certainly no disrespect to those who have reason to be clamoring for it at this time.

********** Iffin you want some real Texas justice mosy on over to the thread : The keys to US strategy and warfare