Letters to the Editor
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The comparison to Hitler is apt
In Hitler's final days, as the Russians were steadily closing in on the Fuehrer bunker, Der Fuehrer continued to sign memo after memo establishing new Panzer divisions and then sending these mythical divisions into battle against the encroaching Russian and American armies. Unfortunately, there was no longer much of a populace from which the personnel for a new division could be drawn and there was even less of an industrial base from which the tanks and other vehicles could be built. Hitler's last lucid moment was to shoot himself, with orders to cremate his remains. For the remainder of the 20th century, every German who lived through the madness of Hitler was assumed to have been a fellow traveler with the Nazis, even if that person had never been an official member of the Nazi Party.
Thus, it will be for the remainder of the 21st century, for those Americans who have lived through the madness of George W. Bush; even those of us who did not like him will be convicted in the world's eyes of having been a supporter of him and his insane quest to conquer the world. The Republican Party ought to be treated like the Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan: totally and irrevocably abolished and their members publicly shunned, when they are not willing to commit suicide.
If it is okay to hate Hitler, then it ought to be okay to hate Bush!
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simple question
Negotiate with whom? The Baathist fascists in Syria? The Islamo-fascists in Iran who are supporting the insurgency in Iraq?
Get real.
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Lame Duck Soup
The President's strong show of support for Malaki makes the Iraqi leader a "dead man walking." Bush had to travel half way around the world to state his true intentions on Iraq. Gutless, spineless, clueless. Democrats will be waiting for him to return, so they can hammer him on the compromise gambit.
Iraq never should have been this difficult, John Kerry knew it, that's why he fashioned a campaign which focused on competence in dealing with the problem. Too bad America, you missed it.
The Bush mismanagement team is going to ensure that Neoconology lives on. Republicans will talk about this for the next ten years, ( We had the right idea, but the wrong man), after they have disenthroned George Bush as their most prominent advocate. It will take a while for the ramifications of this latest and most monumental diplomatic screwup to reach main street, but it will, and it won't take two years. The Bush legacy is in a lot of trouble.
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Just Wondering
Why not? Rumsfeld was in Iraq shaking Saddams hand in a photo-op, shit-eating grins all around, when he was killing Iranians for us........Gee, I wonder why the Muslims don't trust us?
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Wes
Why not? Rumsfeld was in Iraq shaking Saddams hand in a photo-op ...
Yeah, and FDR was shaking Stalin's hand in one photo or another. You pick the devil you want to fight first and deal with the consequences later. Yeah, it sucks, but that's the real world. Iran was the greater threat at that time, and if the incompetent Jimmy Carter had not allowed the Mad Mullahs to yank our chain for a year, we might not be dealing with either mess at the moment.
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Psychoanalysts Definition Of Crazy:
....Is doing the SAME thing over and over AGAIN and
expecting DIFFERENT results.
Even after the ISG report comes out the administration plans to ignore most if not all of it.
I only have one question, how did any Americans keep thier sanity during the MCCarthy and Nixon ers???? Because I am living in disillusionment!!
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just wondering
The reason Iran yanked our chain is because we backed the Shah and his microwave move to wessternism and his secret police.
Grow up. We've been fucking with those people over there for decades to keep the oil flow going and our super power status maintained.
And have not given a rat's ass about the common Muslim on the street.
Now we are paying. With our money and blood. It's justice.
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Concur with Mr. Conason and .Arvin Hill's observation
It is truly a sad time to be an American with principles and endure the daily charade of criminally mismanaged leadership. From the Executive branch's last six years worth of inept and corrupt dealings on a global scale and the abyssmal performance of the 109th Congress all we can do is make sure that we consistently convey to this incoming Congress that they are public servants and as such we expect a government that functions for the people, not for the coffers of their corporate sponsers and pac contributors. Overly simplistic and idealistic to the point of naivety, I know. Truth, in my opinion is a rare commodity on the Hill these days but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see it return.
Arvin Hill's observations were spot-on with the exception of his characterization of the "bovine American public." I do think he may have intended "ovine" as in sheep-like.
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Big Dick
Cheney didn't have trouble sitting down with hostile regimes when he was head of Halliburton. I guess that tells you about his priorities.
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Dan Lewis, it's already lost.
Dan, your advice to "pay any price, bear any burden" and do whatever it takes -- a draft, higher taxes, etc. -- would have made sense three and a half years ago. The war would still have been a bad idea justified on utterly false premises, but at least if we had followed the Powell doctrine, going in with overwhelming force and a clear exit strategy, we might have come out with something other than disaster.
The time to do that is over. A draft would get Bush impeached faster than he could say "But I didn't mess around with interns." The free market has spoken at recruitment centers (Milton Friedman, wherever he is, would approve) and the people have spoken at the polls. He can't raise taxes because what's left of his base wouldn't tolerate it. Iraq is lost. The officers and soldiers in the field have seen it coming for awhile, and all they hope to do now is keep casualties as low as they can.
Have you seen the movie "Sophie Scholl: The Final Days," about the trial and execution of a young anti-Hitler activist in Nazi Germany? It's a tough film to watch, but should be required viewing for Americans, because it is scary-relevant to our current situation. And this isn't one of those fictionalized docudramas with a heavy-handed contemporary message to sell; it's based almost entirely on actual interrogation and trial transcripts. The lines that will make you do a horrified double-take are the ones about whether or not Germany can still win the war after their defeat at Stalingrad. Sophie and her associates say that the war can't be won, only prolonged, at enormous cost of human life. The judge at her trial nearly has a coronary from rage; how dare she defame the glorious German race by claiming that they can't win if they put their minds to it and commit themselves to "total war?" I hear the same kind of denial coming from Americans now. American can win anything if it wants it enough, American can-do spirit can do anything, the only reason we lost in Viet Nam was that nay-sayers and protestors encouraged our enemies and demoralized the troops. Guess what two of the charges against Sophie Scholl were? Demoralizing the troops and encouraging the enemy. And that's a documented fact, not the 20-20 hindsight of a screenwriter.
One last thought for you to ponder. Sophie Scholl was executed as a traitor, but the Germans today regard her as a national heroine. The judge and prosecutor who tried her -- well, they're the people the Germans want to forget.