Then conquer we must,
When our cause it is just
And this be our motto:
"In God is our trust."
— F. S. Key

Maybe that's why we didn't win in Vietnam or Iraq. Congress should appoint a commission to investigate this.

I would bet good money that they are all planning on a bunch of pardons come January 2009. Is it within the President's powers to grant pardons for crimes for which they have not been convicted?
— tballou

Quite possibly. In fact it wouldn't surprise me to see Bush issue the first-ever class-action pardon to everyone who served in his administration.

But that won't help the telecoms because it is not a matter of criminal prosecutions but of civil liability. The president only has authority to pardon "offenses against the United States" not remove civil liability. That is why legislation granting immunity from civil suits has been critical to the cover-up operation.

GO AL-QAEDA — YEA TEAM

Well, at least we now know that we are safe since none of the predictions made by nabalnazi (or any of his earlier manifestations) have ever been accurate.

Another difference between Tom Clancy's world and that of the Bush administration is that Clancy's CIA agents are always both crackerjack field men/women and analysts. They connect three dots and get a Rembrandt. Bush's intelligence apparatus connects a hundred dots and then tries to sell it as a Picasso.

Gen. Petraeus and Mr. Crocker have gotten more confident about calling the surge a success, and rightly so. "It's worth it," said the general. "We have seen a significant degradation of al-Qaeda's presence and its abilities," said the ambassador. "Al-Qaeda is our mortal and strategic enemy. So to the extent that al-Qaeda's capacities have been lessened in Iraq -- and they have been significantly lessened -- I do believe that makes America safer."

Presumably, then, if America is safer because of the lessening of Al-Qaeda's capacities in Iraq, then America was infinitely safer in 2003 when Al-Qaeda's capacities and presences in Iraq was zero. So let's look at the timeline:

• 2003: No Al-Qaeda in Iraq; America extremely safe
• 2005: Al-Qaeda in Iraq rampant; America's very existence threatened
• 2008: Al-Qaeda in Iraq diminished; America safer than in 2005 but much less safe than in 2003.

All this at a cost of 600 billion dollars and 4000+ plus American troops killed. And this is called "progress".

omooex: People do seem to have a long history of voting for reprehensible ideas, and did initially overwhelmingly support the war, the Patriot Act, etc. This may be out of ignorance, rather than malevolence, but in the end there's been little difference.

I guess it's time to trot out Fat Hermann again to point out that the people, regardless of the form of government, have little to say about what the government does:

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm

Gustave Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary, conversation with Hermann Goering on 18 April 1946:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Consent of the governed. People must want to believe these fantasies, because there is so much available information to the contrary. Ignorance, in this country with the availability of information resources that every person (except perhaps the most destitute or extremely rural), is a choice.
— omooex

History — Lessons — Ignore — Repeat.

Have you been paying attention since 2001? Have you been listening to how the country's nominal 'leaders' have been exploiting the "threat" of "Islamofascism"? (Hint: It's called "fear-mongering"). Have you been listening to how those who claim that the threat is exaggerated have been characterized? If you don't want to page back through the editorial pages of the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal, just look at the local version by reading the back posts of shooter or nabalnazi. How many people have had their patriotism questioned by the lapel-pin patriots? The amount of information to the contrary is irrelevant. Human nature doesn't change and there are always people willing to exploit that immutability.