One wonders exactly what Anonymous, Shooter, RealName and Tiberius are adding to the debate? Their entire tactic is to rely wholly on strawman arguments, abandoning them for different strawman arguments once they're exposed. Oh, and never answer a direct question. Ever. In other words, they're clearly here to spread bullshit, but they act as though they're engaged in a vital debate. Ask Shooter a million times why the US needs to defend a heavily armed country like Israel against a non-threat like Iran, but you'll never get a response, because there is none. So what's the deal? Why are these guys here?

I'll answer this question myself, with a post I wrote yesterday to explain them (and what do you know, it still applies today).

These neocons are part of a large movement of Bush supporters, all of whom are finding themselves in the exact same predicament. They're realizing that, as a direct consequence of their poor judgment, our country (which they occasionally give lip service to loving, but only in words, never in action) has suffered more damage than it could have conceivably experienced through an attack by any enemy we have today. Who else could have bankrupted the treasury and made us the largest debtor nation, destroyed a US city, converted our government from a representative democracy to an authoritarian empire, made us into a rougue pariah state, and monopolized our military in an unnecessary war that leaves us less able to respond to real threats? Pity the sad ignoramuses who enabled this disaster; every day they wake up in the morning, with every newspaper headline in the world screaming at them "I told you so!"

Keep in mind, most people voted for Bush due to a flawed, overly simplistic, manichean belief that the world is divided between good and evil. Because the mind of the average Bush supporter cannot accommodate nuance, they are left with no other conclusion than that they have aided and abetted evil, if not being actually evil themselves. This, in turn, creates a cognitive dissonance that, in a great many, compels them to go online, search out comments made by Bush's opponents, and ridicule them in a vacuous, childish, pointless manner that would make an 8-year-old blush. I mean, how else would we even know who Ward Churchill was were it not for these imbeciles stuffing him with straw and holding him up as our own Emmanuelle-Goldstein-meets-Doctor-Evil?

I visit a fair number of right wing blogs, and I'm here to tell you, this phenomenon is utterly wide spread. Shooter, Tiberius and Elephantman are just our local representatives of an intellectual bankruptcy that is rife throughout the country. You do not have to respond repeatedly to these people, since they are not interested in any real debate. Generally, you can find a question or line of topic that completely levels their entire argument (such as why the US needs to defend Israel against Iran), and then ask that repeatedly. They usually scatter like cockroaches in the light of unspun truth.

First of all, Americans were hated way before the Iraq war.

Your point being...? That since we were hated before Iraq, then hell, what have we got to lose? Let's make a whole bunch more people hate us?

As for us "America-hating liberals," you've got that all wrong. We criticize America when it does not live up to its potential, because if we didn't, this country would have gone 4th Reich a long, long time ago. Similarly, my mom used to criticize me for all kinds of things when I would behave badly. Did she hate me? Or was she trying to encourage me to stop my self-destructive behavior and do better? Oh, at the time I was mildly convinced that she hated me. But then I grew up.

If you all want to pretend you dont know who Ward Churchill is, that's fine with me.

It's not that we don't know who he is. It's that we recognize that he's completely insignificant. He's one university professor who made some outrageous statements and was fired. What that has to do with me or anyone here is absolutely zero. The only reason right wing authoritarians bring him up is to fling mud in your impotent rage. Ward Churchill, unlike Podhoretz and so many other neocons who have openly advocated genocide, was never in any position of power to pursue any of his ideas.

If you want to pretend that Ward Churchill has any significance to any discussion whatsoever, that's fine with me. Obviously, I won't be the only one who sees that you're a fool.

I'll bet you all agree with Ward on most political issues.

Yeah? How much shall we wager?

Anonymous, you've very adequately illustrated the point in my "lecture." I knew one of you would pretty quickly. Please, let's see what other strawmen arguments you have in your case.

Oh, and I don't suppose you can answer this question:

Why does the US need to defend a heavily armed country like Israel against a non-threat like Iran?

Back under the bridge.