...Glenn, did you listen to the Ira Glass "This American Life" show last night? A repeat of a show from a year ago, a show that won a Peabody, a show that interviewed, two Guantanamo prisoners, and told the whole appalling story of what we've done down there, and what we continue to do. Jack Hitt did a simply remarkable job of making it clear just how cowardly, sleazy and corrupt both the White House, and the Defense Department have been, in initiating a totally illegal detention system, and then desperately trying to cover up the mess when that system went totally off the rails.

It's required hearing. I listened to it last night for the first time, and, I thought "Christ. What we've done at Guantanamo is beyond redemption. And Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo, Addington, Wolfowitz, Rice, and anyone else involved, should be in jail. The articles for impeachement of both President and vice President are right there in Glass's show."

I hope you're right. But if you think the power structure in this country is just going to roll over and play dead..I don't think so. That structure protects its own. I don't see how Bush and Cheney will ever answer for their crimes. But I continue to hope that they do. Glass's show last night could be one more very heavy straw, were it more widely known.

farnsworth wrote:

The average voter on the streets still lacks the knowledge and expertise necessary to judge what is the best way to prosecute this military venture. It is disingenuous at best to pretend that "what the American people want" is a basis upon which to make military decisions, when "what the American people want" cheered us right into this mess.

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As two reasonable people, farnsworth, let's look at this together.

1) As has been pointed out any number of times, Bush is a proven ignorant civilian, and he simply replaced all the "professionals" who disagreed with him, so he could pursue his ignorant ways, with new "professionals" who would go along.

(we needed a draft for this job. But the GOP likes having a private army that will do its bidding without any fuss. Institute a draft, and that state-of-affairs would vanish as the first draftee was called up. The GOP knows this. They'd rather lose Iraq than institute a draft, because a draft would stop the entire mess in its tracks.)

2) If we pulled out of Iraq beginning tomorrow, by the fastest timetable that could be designed by professionals in the Pentagon, would things be ANY worse in Iraq?

Probably, for a relatively short time. If all the Americans were gone, and no longer pulling the strings on a puppet government, the natural forces on the ground would reach equilibrium. It'd take awhile, and more would die. But how many more than are dying now? And no Americans would be in the middle.

Then, based on past, similar situations, order would likely be restored, probably by someone very like Saddam was. Aside from proving the utter bankruptcy of everything Bush has done in the Middle East since 9/11, this would likely be a good thing, on the whole, for the people of Iraq. Pace Christopher Hitchens. And, of course, "good" is a relative thing. Ask the Iraqis now, and how many would wish to be back in the *relative* peace and prosperity and stability of Saddam's Iraq? Quite a few, I imagine.

In short, while the American Public may be too ignorant to make military strategy, that Public, on the evidence, is more competent than George W. Bush, to make such strategy. At this point, I'd trust Congress to figure out how to get us out of there, than I'd trust George W. Bush, who has proven himself an utter incompetent, dangerous to our country and the world.

Surely, on this, we can agree?

..who wrote:

The rest is politics. We can afford not to challenge certain traditions, and allow that belief or non-belief in them is of no concern precisely because they are traditions, and make no claim on those who don't believe other than the right of those who do to hold and profess that belief.

*********

Perhaps. Except, it does seem that one aspect of the meta-thread of which your post was a part is that a human being who could actually believe in the literal reality of the Virgin Birth could believe in just about anything.

Once you cross the line into the irrational, anything is not only possible, but justifiable..at least, in the sense that it need not, and will not, be justified.

And, that's the problem, isn't it? A big, fat problem. You believe in the Virgin Birth, you believe GW Bush is a great man. You believe in the tooth fairy. You don't have to demonstrate a proof of these, or any other irrational thing, because, after all, you *believe* them, and thus, they must be so.

I've taken to being acutely suspicious any time anyone uses the word *belief* or *believe.* Beliefs are like emotions, insupportable, most of the time, but often extremely dangerous.

Thus, I side with Dawkins in this: we need to fight irrationality tooth and nail, because if we don't, irrationality rends reason to bits. And smiles happily while so doing.