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Chewey_Delt saidThe thing is that when this story did originally break, it was covered extensively in the media. The problem, as the NY Times has recently demonstrated, lies in part in the fact that the Bush administration has been so enormously good at ensuring their own propaganda gets on the air by employing former military personnel to act as "independent analysts" to the media.

Wysiwyg60 said

Is it my imagination or are Presidents doing this more often (using so-called experts as spin doctors)?

Trance23 saidI vote numb.

I don't think the average American really understands the world around them and doesn't even want to. We'd rather live inside our own red or blue bubble.

jarhead5536 said
Your observation is correct, but I still classify willful ignorance about damned near everything as dumb. Anti-intellectualism is so in in America, isn't that hot?

roadbikeRob saidThis same question should be applied to the democratic voters in Pennsylvania yesterday when they made the dumb move of voting for Hillary Clinton. They are dumb because they fell for her empty promises and hyperbole. Pennsylvania democrats do not fully realize that Hillary Clinton is nothing more than an opportunist and a bullshit artist.

roadbikeRob saidThere is no conceit here. It is a good example of Americans being dumb and making poor choices. Most of the democrats in Pennsylvania that voted for that opportunist bimbo were blue collar whites that usually have no more than a high school diploma or are high school dropouts. That says alot about several democratic voters in the Keystone State. Obviously their elevators do not make it quite to the top. This is an outstanding example of Americans who are dumb.

roadbikeRob said I have every right in the world to criticize anything so shut up .

Twincam saidI vote for numb and dumb. We are so oversaturated with news media, almost to the point where we no longer know what's important. We have too many outlets with not enough scope controlled by too few parties. The fluff from pop news shows like Extra and Entertainment Tonight are now part of the regular network news - blurring the lines between what's real news and entertainment. It would seem to be what most people want. When I want world news I usually turn to the BBC or NPR.
In this environment, it's easy to see how the President continues to get away more scandels than the Clinton administration ever did and at such extreme cost to our economy and national security.

John43620 saidFirst off, the Geneva conventions are a method of regulating conflict between legitimate military forces. The Taliban don't qualify neither does any insurgent who isn't wearing a distinctive uniform or insignia designating them as a combatant. Without the uniform, under the Geneva conventions, a private is authorized to execute them as a spy. The only reason such things rarely occur is because of rules of engagement by a higher than a private authority. Usually to garner information. I don't particularly care for waterboarding myself, captured insurgents deserve a straight razor to the throat. Why waste a bullet on them?
I don't see what all the fuss is about.

caesarea4 said That's probably true about those who care to know what he's doing, but another possible factor is that this president is a LAME DUCK. Why should I get all riled up when in 8 months he'll no longer be in office?

John43620 said

I'm all about human rights. When an insurgent fails to wear a uniform and blends into the general population, they draw legitimate fire and so "colatteral damage" on "non-combatants". If you don't want to see civilian casualties, slitting terrorists and insurgent throats is a dandy idea.

Have a nice day.

John43620 said
I'm all about human rights.

Trance23 saidI vote numb.

I don't think the average American really understands the world around them and doesn't even want to. We'd rather live inside our own red or blue bubble.

John43620 said Chewey_Delt said: " In other words, "fighters on the other side cease to be humans when they start using tactics that I don't like." That really doesn't sound like a paradigm anyone should be comfortable with."

The tactic of failing to wear a distinctive uniform and blending in with the civilian population invites attack upon civilians. Now Chewey, do you want to see that?
It doesn't matter to me, the "Civilian non-combatants" obviously know that they harbor insurgents and I have no sympathy for collateral damage. But if you don't want to see that, then how are you comfortable with your paradigm?
Iraqi insurgents purposely try to get stupid civilians killed for propaganda value. So if you support that, you're just as complicit. After all, they do it as a show for gullible people like you Chewey. When the show loses it's appeal, they'll have to stop doing it.

PhxAriz08, so are insurgents who hide among the civilian population and invite attack the paragon of human rights?

Trance23 saidI vote numb.

I don't think the average American really understands the world around them and doesn't even want to. We'd rather live inside our own red or blue bubble.

John43620 saidI remember the VC who was shot in Saigon in 1968 during the Tet Offensive. That was absolutely priceless. Nguyen ngoc Loahn, then police chief of Saigon shot him. The Iraqi government forces need to start doing that.
In the documentary "The Ten Thousand Day War", that VC was identified as a top communist leader who had personally taken part in murdering some of Loahn's family members. I thought a shot through the head was rather humane, and a waste of a bullet.

Pierrecadot saidYou're over 200 pounds and wearing spandex.

lilmaninsc saidBoth? *shrug*

John43620 saidNo Chewey_Delt, it is those like you who buckle under to their demands. Your not being logical.

Caslon saidDismayed by the average U.S. citizen's political and social apathy and the overall crisis of memory and knowledge involving everything about the way we learn and think, Jacoby passionately argues that the nation's current cult of unreason has deadly and destructive consequences (the war in Iraq, for one) and traces the seeds of current anti-intellectualism (and its partner in crime, antirationalism) back to post-WWII society. Unafraid of pointing fingers, she singles out mass media and the resurgence of fundamentalist religion as the primary vectors of anti-intellectualism, while also having harsh words for pseudoscientists.

John43620 said...that VC was identified as a top communist leader who had personally taken part in murdering some of Loahn's family members.

John43620 saidChewey_Delt, we must then agree to disagree. In my opinion US Forces in Iraq haven't used enough brute force.

John43620 saidFirst off, the Geneva conventions are a method of regulating conflict between legitimate military forces. The Taliban don't qualify neither does any insurgent who isn't wearing a distinctive uniform or insignia designating them as a combatant. Without the uniform, under the Geneva conventions, a private is authorized to execute them as a spy. The only reason such things rarely occur is because of rules of engagement by a higher than a private authority. Usually to garner information. I don't particularly care for waterboarding myself, captured insurgents deserve a straight razor to the throat. Why waste a bullet on them?
I don't see what all the fuss is about.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------KING GEORGE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE IT YOUR WAY, GIVING NO RIGHTS TO "TERRORISTS" but the courts have been seeing it differently to a large degree. Your way off base John, the geneva conventions don't separate human rights by whether or not they are a "LEGITIMATE MILITARY FORCE" or not. THESE CONVENTIONS AND TREATIES WERE PUT IN PLACE TO GUARANTEE HUMAN RIGHTS IN ALL CONFLICTS !!!! SO THAT TAKES IN ALL HUMANS, AS HUMANS WE HAVE BASIC RIGHTS !!!! Just as KING GEORGES ideas of torture is being found as unlawful, so will his designation of "ENEMY COMBATANTS/TERRORISTS" not being granted these basic rights under our laws and geneva conventions, be found totally unlawful. KING GEORGE (if you pay close attention) assumes the right to declare anyone an "ENEMY COMBATANT/TERRORIST", therefore not due basic rights (Habeaus Corpus rights to a day in a legitimate court) WE SHOUD NEVER ALLOW OUR GOVERNMENT TO DO TO OTHERS, WHAT WE DON'T WANT DONE TO US !!!!!! THATS JUST BASIC COMMON SENSE !!! KING GEORGE IS OUT OF LINE, OUT OF SINC WITH THE WHOLE WORLD AND THE MAJORITY OF CLEAR THINKING INFORMED AMERICANS, and I BELIEVE WILL HAVE ALL OF HIS TROUNCING ON HUMAN RIGHTS TO BE FOUND OUTSIDE THE REALM OF LAWFULL ACTIONS BY OUR GOVERNMENT!!! and as his first head of Dept of Justice said "HISTORY WILL JUDGE US HARSHLY ON THIS"

John43620 saidBoy, if guys like you start running the show western civilization won't last another generation.
I don't think you boys are keeping up on current events. Take for instance last September's Israeli bombing of the co Syrian-North Korean nuclear reactor, we have enemies who are trying to get nuclear weapons, to attack us with. It looks to my like we ugly Americans aren't ugly enough. Nothing else matters if we don't survive.

John43620 saidBoy, if guys like you start running the show western civilization won't last another generation.
I don't think you boys are keeping up on current events. Take for instance last September's Israeli bombing of the co Syrian-North Korean nuclear reactor, we have enemies who are trying to get nuclear weapons, to attack us with. It looks to my like we ugly Americans aren't ugly enough. Nothing else matters if we don't survive.

Jackal69 saidIn response to the above drivel, please remember that the US is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons TWICE on a civilian population. As far as any Syria-North Korea connection, that's an alleged connection which is simply absurd. In addition to South Korea's own conscripted army which is over one million, there are over 10,000 US troops stationed along the boarder in the DMZ. (That's not even counting the thousands of troops STILL in Japan, 60 years after WWII!) I'll assume this talk of North Korea being a threat to the US is an example of more US idocy than anything malicious, although it's strikingly erroneous.

There has been a general dumbing down going on I'd say since the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam which seemed to dangerously accelerate after 9/11. Listening to news commentators or politicians, I sometimes feel we're in some sort of cruel parody by Stanley Kubrick. I still don't understand how anyone can talk of a "war on terror" with a straight face, but such is the general ignorance and apathy with which the average american, through a little fault of their own, has cultivated.

2 cents, bitches.

Jackal69 saidI really am not sure this is the forum for it, but perhaps you should revisit why the US got involved in Korea in the first place (or, while you're at it, WWII so late in the game). I think you will find the US's involvement less honest nor nice as you may think (which is why, not for nothing, the Korean War isn't even taught in school or if it is, fleetingly).

Now for a few facts: the US is the only country to use nukes against a civilian populace whose gov. was about to surrender and who, anyway, was about to be "helped" defeat the Japanese by the Russians; the US had a hand in many atrocities in Korea, not unlike it did in Vietnam helping to "defend democracy South Vietnam"; the US has over 100 military bases all over the globe; the US is the only industrialized nation found guilty by the I.C.C.(of which it refuses to ratify); the United States SPENDS MORE ON MILITARY EXPENDATURES THAN THE ENTIRE WORLD PUT TOGETHER; the US has invaded two nations in the span of less than 10 years; the US currently considers itself above international law and has a known and operating concentration camp/interment camp, Guantanemo Bay.

You boys should really get Howard Zinn's "A People's History" to wake up a bit. You may find our own history to be less black and white (or "lily white" than you may think). (Sorry if I've offend you, but this American Superiority stuff really bugs me.)

Chewey_Delt saidIn Reply to Jackal

Sorry, but you mean more American lives would've been lost? That's implicitly saying that Japanese lives are less-worthy, no? There's something disgusting there to me in that statement...

Well hello Strawman! I see you've decided to grace us with your presence.

Wysiwyg rebutted your point excellently, so I'll leave it at pointing out that logical fallacy.


Yes, and to put that in perspective, the US is how much of the world's population? What's all that spending for? The US hasn't been invaded since the British in the 19th century! Did you know that the US also leads the world in prison population (you can check the gov's own stats on their website if you think I'm being partial on that claim).

I was merely pointing out your factual error. I don't contend that we spend a huge portion for a relatively small population.

There's a good degree of evidence, however, that it's our massive military spending that has, since the end of the Cold War, held at bay the emergence of another superpower and will continue to in the future, as Richard Haass, President of the COuncil on Foreign Relations, notes in his most recent article, The Age of Nonpolarity. Say what you like about how the US has acted as a superpower (and I won't contend that there have been many egregious and abominable things done in the name of US national security; for heavens stakes I focused much of my history degree on the study of American-Latin American foreign policy), but would you rather see China in the position of superpower considering their enormous human rights abuses? How about another stint for Russia as a superpower?

As far as Prof.Zinn's "sketchy claims," to which do you refer specifically? All historians should be taken with a bit of skepticism as historical knowledge is not nor ever will be carved in adamantine; the underlying critique of US foreign policy with respect to the stupidity or ignorance of its population still stands. Sorry.

Mostly his radical reading of all of history. It's the same critique I have of Marx, which is that Zinn envisions all of American history as a conspiracy to exploit the downtrodden. Marx does much the same thing by reading a purely economical and deterministic history into his theory. While it provides an absolutely necessary counterpoint to the rather vanilla history that is often presented, it lacks subtlety and an understanding of complexity.

I'd never outright dismiss Zinn or anyone, such as yourself, who believes that American history is much dirtier than most Americans would like to believe--I know that it is as well as you. I think there's a real problem, however, in reacting in the exact opposite direction, because you miss out on a lot of the subtleties inherent in a history of a complex nation and a complex world.