...There comes a point when the views of the American people have to be heard. (My emphasis)

Dick Cheney was sitting right there, in the room, on the committee, when a member of his own party said this. It makes no difference whether these people think they're right. They have no right to be right.

-- ondelette

So when Congress voted in the affirmative on the AUMF for Iraq, it was the people speaking and anyone that dissented has no right to be right. Well, thank you for your support of the war effort. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

L.W.M. said:

There is just one minor disagreement I have. These are dual objectives. Military dominance globally and political dominance locally. It's never been an "either, or" propostion. Neutralization and elimination of the Democratic party (and the Nixonian wing of the Republican party) as a political force has always been their first objective going back to Goldwater's defeat in 1964 and the foundation of "movement conservatism" of the the early 1970s before Iraq was even on the radar. Whatever happens, regardless of causation and responsibility, they will politicize it and use it to beat down and weaken their political opponents at home.

T'is true, t'is true. While the maladministration/PNAC cabal may have had some grand "objectives" (be it oil, hegemony, military bases, shoring up a Likudnik Israel in its hard line, etc.), I don't think a minute was lost to the political implications as well. I remember the 2002 political year very well, and the RW was trying to club the Democrats any way they could with the "Terra-ism" cudgel and the scaremongering on Iraq. It worked too; the Democrats (for the most part) followed meekly in signing on to the Iraq resolution, but still got burned for being "followers" and not "Deciderators" (hopefully to their ever-lasting shame and chagrin).

There's no need to attribute just one bad motive to the Republican tactics when so many will do. They thought it was "win-win" all the way round for them.

We need to lay bare the whole panoply of bad decisions and specious (if not outright illegal) policy, and the motivations behind them. Inter the Republican party and pi$$ on its grave.

Cheers,

I've been somewhat out of the loop and what not, and I haven't read all the comments here, but I've got to say, I find the fact that we've progressed to the point where a war czar has been proposed and there's barely an audible sigh from the American public.

I can tell you this. If the founders were alive today and they heard talk of a war "czar" they'd probably express, in some lofty 18th century English no doubt, what Charlton Helton expressed at the end of Planet of the Apes when he saw the Statue of Liberty submerged.

Let's pause for a moment and consider what "czar" implies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar

Originally, and indeed during most of its history, the title tsar meant Emperor in the European medieval sense of the term, i.e., a ruler who has the same rank as a Roman or Byzantine emperor due to recognition by another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official (the Pope or the Ecumenical Patriarch). Occasionally, the word could be used to designate other, non-Christian supreme rulers. In Russia and Bulgaria, the imperial connotations of the term were blurred with time and by the 19th century it had come to be viewed as an equivalent of king,[1].[2] The modern languages of these countries use it as a general term for a monarch.[3][4] For example, the title of the Bulgarian monarchs in the 20th century was not generally interpreted as imperial (although the title was possibly implying imperial ambitions.

Ok, the word czar was the Russian version of Caesar. The founders HATED Caesar. They thought he was one of the world's greatest villians of all time. They read Cato's Letters and thought Brutus a hero and what not.

There should be no title whatsoever in the United States of America that has "czar" as part of the title (one could also bring up the expanded police state powers and curtailment of liberty that have risen concomitantly with the "drug czar").

Hell, you may as well call this new position the War King or War Emperor.

"Pax Americana" indeed. Every day that goes by neoconservatievs of the PNAC variety betray their deep seated antipathy to the bedrock that this nation was founded upon: democracy.

or one may as well call the position:

Warlord

Like they have in Afghanistan and Somalia and our other great successes...

Just like "global warming"? Heh.

When you tend to "over-estimate" (exaggerate) threats (internal or external) for political reasons rather than assessing them realistically, maybe everything tends to look bigger than it really is through that lens...

-- L.W.M.

More "leftist tree huggers" (like Zinni) are Generals than we ever knew. Who knew?

US generals urge climate action

The US has refused to join an international treaty to cut emissions

Former US military leaders have called on the Bush administration to make major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

In a report, they say global warming poses a serious threat to national security, as the US could be drawn into wars over water and other conflicts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6557803.stm

So when Congress voted in the affirmative on the AUMF for Iraq, it was the people speaking and anyone that dissented has no right to be right. Well, thank you for your support of the war effort. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

-- shooter242

`

Sorry about being so off topic but I'm waiting for Shooter to blame the horrific rampage at Virginia Tech on liberals and to brag that had he been there with a concealed weapon he would have taken the gunman out himself.

"What if it works" is a phrase that implies "faith." Forget facts, forget objective analysis. If we want it bad enough, maybe if we believe in some almighty divine power and pray to it, events will go the way we would prefer. It is no surprise that in a nation where 80% of the population favors belief in a divine creator over evolutionary theory a majority of Americans believed Bush was talking straight when he dragged us into a war in Iraq. "What if it works" is like saying, there must be a God because science can't explain everything.