What I heard about Iraq (updated)
December 30, 2005 2:18 PM Subscribe
What I heard about Iraq in 2005. Eliot Weinberger provides an updated companion piece to his earlier list (previously discussed on MeFi).
I originally read this in the print version of The London Review of Books, so it may have been more digestable in that format.
In addition, we definitely have Iraq discussion fatigue on MeFi in general, which made me hesitate to post this, but I thought this particular list was worth it, given how it collects a great many disparate (and yes, depressing) pieces of information into one place, many underreported elsewhere; for instance:
I heard the President proclaim a ‘critical victory in the War on Terror’ with the capture of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, whom the President said was a ‘top general’ and the number three man in al-Qaida. I heard him say: ‘His arrest removes a dangerous enemy who was a direct threat to America and for those who love freedom.’ A few days later, I heard that the man had probably been confused with someone else with a vaguely similar name. I heard that a former associate of Osama bin Laden in London had laughed and said: ‘What I remember of him is that he used to make the coffee and do the photocopying.’ I never heard this reported in the American press.
posted by melissa may at 2:57 PM on December 30, 2005
In addition, we definitely have Iraq discussion fatigue on MeFi in general, which made me hesitate to post this, but I thought this particular list was worth it, given how it collects a great many disparate (and yes, depressing) pieces of information into one place, many underreported elsewhere; for instance:
I heard the President proclaim a ‘critical victory in the War on Terror’ with the capture of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, whom the President said was a ‘top general’ and the number three man in al-Qaida. I heard him say: ‘His arrest removes a dangerous enemy who was a direct threat to America and for those who love freedom.’ A few days later, I heard that the man had probably been confused with someone else with a vaguely similar name. I heard that a former associate of Osama bin Laden in London had laughed and said: ‘What I remember of him is that he used to make the coffee and do the photocopying.’ I never heard this reported in the American press.
posted by melissa may at 2:57 PM on December 30, 2005
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘Goodness knows, it doesn't take a genius to blow up a building.’
Oh. Lordy. He got that right.
Though it is confusing. because the enemy keeps going from being described as "insidiously evil geniuses (with nukes)" to "common street thugs (anybody can build an IED)."
It helps Rumsfeld if he pictures the Insurgency like the gang of disposable color-coded masked dim-witted henchmen employed by The Joker on Batman. Each one of them has like their number and name (in Arabic) on their stocking caps.
I guess that leaves Zarqawi somewhat like the constantly annoyed Riddler.. always disappointed in his clumsy staff. Though I think Zarqawi's costume would have a black cape and black turban with the cartoon symbol of a bomb on it.
posted by tkchrist at 3:02 PM on December 30, 2005
Oh. Lordy. He got that right.
Though it is confusing. because the enemy keeps going from being described as "insidiously evil geniuses (with nukes)" to "common street thugs (anybody can build an IED)."
It helps Rumsfeld if he pictures the Insurgency like the gang of disposable color-coded masked dim-witted henchmen employed by The Joker on Batman. Each one of them has like their number and name (in Arabic) on their stocking caps.
I guess that leaves Zarqawi somewhat like the constantly annoyed Riddler.. always disappointed in his clumsy staff. Though I think Zarqawi's costume would have a black cape and black turban with the cartoon symbol of a bomb on it.
posted by tkchrist at 3:02 PM on December 30, 2005
I never heard this reported in the American press.
AH. No what wasn't reported was the shear GENIUS of the organizational structure of Al Qaida. See EVERYBODY is the number two and number three man.
This system makes recruitment much easier as you can give even the least desirable recruit an important title. Like Vice Sub-General of Sanitation Engineering (the cave janitor), etc. Helps with cave morale and self esteem. Bin Laden is veeery big on the self esteem thing as he was teased at school for being so tall, skinny and ashen. The kids would tug on his beard and call him a "lanky goat herder" etc.
Besides making the coffee is a very import position. At least it is in my cave it is.
posted by tkchrist at 3:11 PM on December 30, 2005
AH. No what wasn't reported was the shear GENIUS of the organizational structure of Al Qaida. See EVERYBODY is the number two and number three man.
This system makes recruitment much easier as you can give even the least desirable recruit an important title. Like Vice Sub-General of Sanitation Engineering (the cave janitor), etc. Helps with cave morale and self esteem. Bin Laden is veeery big on the self esteem thing as he was teased at school for being so tall, skinny and ashen. The kids would tug on his beard and call him a "lanky goat herder" etc.
Besides making the coffee is a very import position. At least it is in my cave it is.
posted by tkchrist at 3:11 PM on December 30, 2005
Woa what a big big list !
I wonder if it could be denied, piece by piece, by showing that there are have been some small, but steady and constant progress. Next time list pops up, it will be shown that there have been some progress. All the positives will be brought up .Then a balance will be drawn :D !
Let's see have some preview shall we :
Their Deads / Our Deads = on long term equal so it's even
Their Grief / Our Grief = Their suffered more, but so did we
Their Profits / Our Profits = ????
Oh come on :) Saddam is gone innit ? How much is getting rid of a dictator worth ? 1 Billion barrel ? 2 Billion Barrel ! Why do you hate price fixing freedom so much ? We want to at least recover the cost of it ..but american taxpayers are generous and sweet, they'll foot the bill.
That's what you get when you have a financier doing the job of an economist, more or less.
posted by elpapacito at 3:20 PM on December 30, 2005
I wonder if it could be denied, piece by piece, by showing that there are have been some small, but steady and constant progress. Next time list pops up, it will be shown that there have been some progress. All the positives will be brought up .Then a balance will be drawn :D !
Let's see have some preview shall we :
Their Deads / Our Deads = on long term equal so it's even
Their Grief / Our Grief = Their suffered more, but so did we
Their Profits / Our Profits = ????
Oh come on :) Saddam is gone innit ? How much is getting rid of a dictator worth ? 1 Billion barrel ? 2 Billion Barrel ! Why do you hate price fixing freedom so much ? We want to at least recover the cost of it ..but american taxpayers are generous and sweet, they'll foot the bill.
That's what you get when you have a financier doing the job of an economist, more or less.
posted by elpapacito at 3:20 PM on December 30, 2005
On postview : Tkchrist AH. No what wasn't reported was the shear GENIUS of the organizational structure of Al Qaida. See EVERYBODY is the number two and number three man.
GENIUS ? Nah they just copied western economies. Isn't everybody an excutive director of execution these days ? I heard you were recently nominates Ruler of Your Own Mess, but they pay isn't that hip isn't it ?
posted by elpapacito at 3:23 PM on December 30, 2005
GENIUS ? Nah they just copied western economies. Isn't everybody an excutive director of execution these days ? I heard you were recently nominates Ruler of Your Own Mess, but they pay isn't that hip isn't it ?
posted by elpapacito at 3:23 PM on December 30, 2005
For any theatre-goers in L.A.: What I Heard About Iraq onstage.
posted by scody at 3:23 PM on December 30, 2005
posted by scody at 3:23 PM on December 30, 2005
I heard a man who had been in Abu Ghraib prison say: ‘The Americans brought electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house.’
.
.
.
(an excellent post, Melissa May -- this should be required reading)
posted by edverb at 3:57 PM on December 30, 2005
.
.
.
(an excellent post, Melissa May -- this should be required reading)
posted by edverb at 3:57 PM on December 30, 2005
I heard there is more than one way to start a paragraph.
posted by raaka at 4:21 PM on December 30, 2005
posted by raaka at 4:21 PM on December 30, 2005
raaka writes "I heard there is more than one way to start a paragraph."
Repetition creates solemnity and grandeur. Four examples, from literature almost universally considered moving and effective:
Repetition creates solemnity and grandeur. Four examples, from literature almost universally considered moving and effective:
Gen.5
[1] This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
[2] Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
[3] And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:
[4] And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
[5] And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
[6] And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos:
[7] And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters:
[8] And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.
[9] And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan:
[10] And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters:
[11] And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died.
. . . .
[30] And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters:
[31] And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died.
[32] And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
. . . .
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
. . . .
....To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
. . . .
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:.
. . . .
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
. . . .
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender....posted by orthogonality at 4:39 PM on December 30, 2005
So basically repeat same old same old same old same old same old same old shit some will stick ?
Ahahaha yeah right why not sure !
Oh wait....stay the course..stay the course...stay the course...OH SHIT !
posted by elpapacito at 4:47 PM on December 30, 2005
Ahahaha yeah right why not sure !
Oh wait....stay the course..stay the course...stay the course...OH SHIT !
posted by elpapacito at 4:47 PM on December 30, 2005
Intriguing analysis, elpapacito. I look forward to similarly detailed analysis of War & Peace. I think I can safely say it will look something like this:
"It's about Russia".
posted by kaemaril at 5:17 PM on December 30, 2005
"It's about Russia".
posted by kaemaril at 5:17 PM on December 30, 2005
Great post, melissa may. Thanks.
posted by languagehat at 5:22 PM on December 30, 2005
posted by languagehat at 5:22 PM on December 30, 2005
kaemaril: " It's a book"
posted by elpapacito at 5:35 PM on December 30, 2005
posted by elpapacito at 5:35 PM on December 30, 2005
I heard that this year’s budget included $105 billion for the War on Terror, which would bring the total to $300 billion. I heard that Halliburton was estimating that its bill for providing services to US troops in Iraq would exceed $10 billion. I heard that the family of an American soldier killed in Iraq receives $12,000.
Umm, that number was probably $262,000 at the beginning of the year, and it is now $412,000. People who cite this statistic are either so far removed from the military that they have not heard of Servicemember's Group Life Insurance, or they don't consider this money "received" because it costs the servicemember $26 a month to get the maximum, $400,000 payout.
By default, each servicemember is signed up for the maximum coverage, though they can opt out or opt for a lower benefit. A more interesting statistic would be how many people risked the $400,000 payout because they really, really needed the $26 now.
posted by bugmuncher at 5:42 PM on December 30, 2005
Umm, that number was probably $262,000 at the beginning of the year, and it is now $412,000. People who cite this statistic are either so far removed from the military that they have not heard of Servicemember's Group Life Insurance, or they don't consider this money "received" because it costs the servicemember $26 a month to get the maximum, $400,000 payout.
By default, each servicemember is signed up for the maximum coverage, though they can opt out or opt for a lower benefit. A more interesting statistic would be how many people risked the $400,000 payout because they really, really needed the $26 now.
posted by bugmuncher at 5:42 PM on December 30, 2005
el:So basically repeat same old same old same old same old same old same old shit some will stick ?
Ahahaha yeah right why not sure !
Oh wait....stay the course..stay the course...stay the course...OH SHIT !
I heard the President say: ‘See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.’
posted by kaemaril at 5:46 PM on December 30, 2005
Ahahaha yeah right why not sure !
Oh wait....stay the course..stay the course...stay the course...OH SHIT !
I heard the President say: ‘See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.’
posted by kaemaril at 5:46 PM on December 30, 2005
These two are quite ... interesting ... when combined:
- I heard him (President Bush) tell the American people: ‘As we work to deliver opportunity at home, we’re also keeping you safe from threats from abroad. We went to war because we were attacked, and we are at war today because there are still people out there who want to harm our country and hurt our citizens. Our troops are fighting these terrorists in Iraq so you will not have to face them here at home.’
- I heard that a report by the CIA National Intelligence Council had stated that ‘Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of “professionalised” terrorists,’ providing ‘a recruitment ground and the opportunity for enhancing technical skills’. I heard that it said that Iraq was a more effective training ground than Afghanistan, because ‘the urban nature of the war in Iraq was helping combatants learn how to carry out assassinations, kidnappings, car bombings and other kinds of attacks that were never a staple of the fighting in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet campaigns of the 1980s.’
too bad Bush is such an idiot that it's clear he's using 'catapult' to mean 'leap over' rather than the verb 'project'.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 5:57 PM on December 30, 2005
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 5:57 PM on December 30, 2005
$26 x 12 x 130,000 = ~$40M/yr
$40M / 800 KIA/yr = ~$50K / KIA
so the $400k payout is certainly a benefit
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 6:06 PM on December 30, 2005
$40M / 800 KIA/yr = ~$50K / KIA
so the $400k payout is certainly a benefit
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 6:06 PM on December 30, 2005
“I heard that the average monthly war coverage on the ABC, NBC and CBS evening newscasts, combined, had gone from 388 minutes in 2003, to 274 in 2004, to 166 in 2005.”
I didn’t hear about that. Why didn’t I hear about...oh, yeah, right.
“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”
So after they found out Saddam was in league with OBL they found out the WMDs were shipped off to Syria, right?
Where did I hear that?
Yeah. Tears in rain.
Sometimes I dispair.
posted by Smedleyman at 6:51 PM on December 30, 2005
At the dedication of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, I heard the President compare his War on Terror with Lincoln’s war against slavery.
You know, I think Bush is on to something here. Lincoln's war on slavery was a dirty war, too. 600.000 Americans were killed. We are way to pious about the Civil War, simply because it freed the slaves. But really, there had to be some other way to free the slaves that didn't kill 600,000 people, the vast majority of whom were not even remote stakeholders in the issue.
Lincoln simply presided over an insane killing spree by armed gangs of murder-crazy idiots with ornate beards. How did the death by dysentary of some just-off-the-boat Irishman in a Southern prison contribute to the freeing of the slaves?
Suppose Iraq does become a democracy? How did the machine gunning of those twelve prisoners mentioned all-too-passingly in the post contribute?
All reverence for all wars must cease.
posted by Faze at 7:02 PM on December 30, 2005
You know, I think Bush is on to something here. Lincoln's war on slavery was a dirty war, too. 600.000 Americans were killed. We are way to pious about the Civil War, simply because it freed the slaves. But really, there had to be some other way to free the slaves that didn't kill 600,000 people, the vast majority of whom were not even remote stakeholders in the issue.
Lincoln simply presided over an insane killing spree by armed gangs of murder-crazy idiots with ornate beards. How did the death by dysentary of some just-off-the-boat Irishman in a Southern prison contribute to the freeing of the slaves?
Suppose Iraq does become a democracy? How did the machine gunning of those twelve prisoners mentioned all-too-passingly in the post contribute?
All reverence for all wars must cease.
posted by Faze at 7:02 PM on December 30, 2005
Faze: You hit on a topic of particular interest to me: reverence for wars. Combine the willingness of a young soldier to risk all and the all-consuming notion of the nation state, and you have a singularly strong object of reverence.
How one asks can anyone be cynical about the evening news including, each night, a portrait of a hero? To each goose a proper ganda.
posted by ahimsakid at 7:35 PM on December 30, 2005
How one asks can anyone be cynical about the evening news including, each night, a portrait of a hero? To each goose a proper ganda.
posted by ahimsakid at 7:35 PM on December 30, 2005
ahimsakid -- We are all afraid of ceasing to revere the the servicepeople in Iraq, because we don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water: in other words, we don't want to devalue bravery. After all, bravery is the first among virtues, because it makes the practice of all other virtues possible -- including pacifism. On the other hand, some philosopher among us needs to figure out how we can cease to worship our war heroes without denigrating bravery itself.
posted by Faze at 7:58 PM on December 30, 2005
posted by Faze at 7:58 PM on December 30, 2005
I'm bummed that Mr. Weinberger gives no citations. I gave up trying to sort the wheat from the chaff after the third item I knew was incompletely presented.
It took me some time to get to 3; but, given the context, I thought each should have included a final update which would have challenged Mr. Weinberger's dirge.
If one is going to go on and on in this day and age, I always like to see a few source links. It helps the curious.
There are many, sad, details of this monologue that are correct as far as I know. There are enough that are incorrect, to my knowledge, I wouldn't link it on my blog.
It really isn't good to overstate the case any which way. It's enough of a mess over there.
posted by taosbat at 8:20 PM on December 30, 2005
It took me some time to get to 3; but, given the context, I thought each should have included a final update which would have challenged Mr. Weinberger's dirge.
If one is going to go on and on in this day and age, I always like to see a few source links. It helps the curious.
There are many, sad, details of this monologue that are correct as far as I know. There are enough that are incorrect, to my knowledge, I wouldn't link it on my blog.
It really isn't good to overstate the case any which way. It's enough of a mess over there.
posted by taosbat at 8:20 PM on December 30, 2005
On the other hand, some philosopher among us needs to figure out how we can cease to worship our war heroes without denigrating bravery itself.
We don't need a philosopher. Just keep dancing until the war is over. I'm sure the politicians will get it all sorted out right.
posted by eatitlive at 8:51 PM on December 30, 2005
We don't need a philosopher. Just keep dancing until the war is over. I'm sure the politicians will get it all sorted out right.
posted by eatitlive at 8:51 PM on December 30, 2005
taosbot, your right, it wouldn't have taken much more effort for the author to have provided sources, and it would have gone some way to cement his case. That said, I didn't see anything he mentioned that I don't remember having read.
posted by cytherea at 9:22 PM on December 30, 2005
posted by cytherea at 9:22 PM on December 30, 2005
I heard Private Jessica Lynch say: ‘They used me as a way to symbolise all this stuff. It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about.’ Of the stories that she had bravely fought off her captors, and suffered bullet and stab wounds, I heard her say: ‘I’m not about to take credit for something I didn’t do.’ Of her dramatic ‘rescue’, I heard her say: ‘I don’t think it happened quite like that.’I also heard about a football player who volunteered and was killed in an accident which was somehow reported as a heroic sacrifice.
[...]
In 2005 I heard about 2003. I heard a US marine, who was a witness to the event, say that the story of the capture of Saddam Hussein was a fiction. Saddam had been caught the day before in a small house, and then placed in an abandoned well, which was invented as the ‘spider hole’ where he was hiding. I never heard about this marine again.
Reading the whole stream of events and statements in one place I was really struck by the ease and shamelessness with which the administration fabricated stories and how poorly the war was executed.
It's almost as if the war were executed by a public relations firm or an election campaign team, where the primary objective was always the hearts and minds of the public; while the execution of the actual war was something of an afterthought.
I heard that the primary source of information about the tons of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons buried under Saddam’s private villas and under Saddam Hussein Hospital in Baghdad and throughout Iraq was a Kurdish exile called Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri. He was sponsored by the Rendon Group, a Washington public relations firm that had been paid hundreds of millions of dollars by the Pentagon to promote the war. (Rendon, among other things, had organised a group of Iraqi exiles in London, called them the Iraqi National Congress, and installed Ahmad Chalabi as their leader.) I heard that after al-Haideri failed a lie-detector test, administered by the CIA in Thailand, his stories were nevertheless leaked to journalists, most prominently Judith Miller of the New York Times, which published them on the front page.The cynic in me thinks that the whole point of this disasterous enterprise was to garner enough political support to gut the last vestiges of the welfare state, to drive through the legislation necessary to give the executive branch powers on par with a fascist state, and to cement a republican hegemony.
posted by cytherea at 9:55 PM on December 30, 2005
bugmuncher, $12,000 (or $262,000 if you prefer) was accurate until the passage of PL 109-013 in May 2005. The military death gratuity is now $100,000, retroactive to October 7, 2001; in that sense the article was outdated. In the same bill the SGLI benefit was increased to $400,000, by adding an automatic $150,000 benefit paid by the USG. The theoretical maximum payout to all relatives and designees is $500,000, but the death gratuity is paid to a predetermined list of beneficiaries; the life insurance may be designated for any beneficiary the servicemember chooses, otherwise it goes to a default list as well.
It may have been more accurate to say that survivors were guaranteed no more than $12,000, since increased to $100,000.
It's appalling that it took this long to change -- three and a half years of one party pretending that military personnel should trust and depend upon them completely. In the 108th Congress, a similar bill (like this one, bipartisan) languished in committee.
posted by dhartung at 11:00 PM on December 30, 2005
It may have been more accurate to say that survivors were guaranteed no more than $12,000, since increased to $100,000.
It's appalling that it took this long to change -- three and a half years of one party pretending that military personnel should trust and depend upon them completely. In the 108th Congress, a similar bill (like this one, bipartisan) languished in committee.
posted by dhartung at 11:00 PM on December 30, 2005
The cynic in me thinks that the whole point of this disasterous enterprise was to garner enough political support to gut the last vestiges of the welfare state, to drive through the legislation necessary to give the executive branch powers on par with a fascist state, and to cement a republican hegemony.
and the would-be Bush biographer from 1999 that now says Bush was then talking of being a "war president" to create "political capital" to push through his domestic agenda (like Thatcher found with the Falklands, and Reagan tried to duplicate with Lebanon, Grenada, Libya) would say you're cycnicism is grounded in fact.
When you add up the costs of war past, present, and future, you're looking at $900B/yr in budget allocation ($700B for expenditures and $200 for debt service). This is a lot of money to be spending with no economic return (infrastructure or other capital investment).
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:32 PM on December 30, 2005
and the would-be Bush biographer from 1999 that now says Bush was then talking of being a "war president" to create "political capital" to push through his domestic agenda (like Thatcher found with the Falklands, and Reagan tried to duplicate with Lebanon, Grenada, Libya) would say you're cycnicism is grounded in fact.
When you add up the costs of war past, present, and future, you're looking at $900B/yr in budget allocation ($700B for expenditures and $200 for debt service). This is a lot of money to be spending with no economic return (infrastructure or other capital investment).
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:32 PM on December 30, 2005
to drive through the legislation necessary to give the executive branch powers on par with a fascist state, and to cement a republican hegemony.- posted by cytherea
What would be the point of that?
...oh yeah, power. Yeah. Sorry.
Meh. Why does it have to be a republican hegemony per se? Why the red sock puppet over the blue one?
....wow, pretty cynical myself today. I'm not even arguing the Tillman point. (I should...but I won't)
posted by Smedleyman at 1:38 AM on December 31, 2005
What would be the point of that?
...oh yeah, power. Yeah. Sorry.
Meh. Why does it have to be a republican hegemony per se? Why the red sock puppet over the blue one?
....wow, pretty cynical myself today. I'm not even arguing the Tillman point. (I should...but I won't)
posted by Smedleyman at 1:38 AM on December 31, 2005
Heywood, you wouldn't happen to know of an online article or the name of the print-bound book where the would-be Bush biographer talks about W's then stated intentions? It strikes me as odd that something so essential has had so little exposure.
But then, you'd think that the origin of the Jessica Lynch fantasy tale (et al.) would have merited some explanation, some attention from some reporter somewhere. I recall only silence. I hope I'm not alone in finding that creepy.
posted by cytherea at 1:58 AM on December 31, 2005
But then, you'd think that the origin of the Jessica Lynch fantasy tale (et al.) would have merited some explanation, some attention from some reporter somewhere. I recall only silence. I hope I'm not alone in finding that creepy.
posted by cytherea at 1:58 AM on December 31, 2005
Whoops. No Smedly, you're absolutely right. 'Republican' was the wrong word, but I couldn't think of the right one to describe the oligarchy. (Eeek. four posts in one thread. I'm going to shut up now.)
posted by cytherea at 2:04 AM on December 31, 2005
posted by cytherea at 2:04 AM on December 31, 2005
This is a lot of money to be spending with no economic return (infrastructure or other capital investment).
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 8:32 AM CET on December 31 [!]
Economic return ? Your financer is taxpayer who for some reason is stupid enough to believe he shouldn't expect tax back in services (and incresingly better one) infrastructure and investments ,thank to the falsification of free market theory into a corporate sel-serving ideology. You're NOT entitled to welfare, yet you don't know how much you depend on it yet you talk against welfare. Genius, pure genius ? No.
Investing into projecting military hegemony into middle east must be better if then you get cheap oil. Oh wait, taxpayer later pays for oil ? Who could have told ? It's absolutely incredible how people appear to be willing to donate their value to less person, fewer persons and not to themselves. Then pay AGAIN for the donation and obtain very little if nothing in return.
It's not like investing in alternative energy resources and reduction of consumption is going to give more value in the long term. And if it's discovered the technology would probably be copied...so bye energetic hegemony. It's much better if nobody discovers anything...for some people.
posted by elpapacito at 4:34 AM on December 31, 2005
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 8:32 AM CET on December 31 [!]
Economic return ? Your financer is taxpayer who for some reason is stupid enough to believe he shouldn't expect tax back in services (and incresingly better one) infrastructure and investments ,thank to the falsification of free market theory into a corporate sel-serving ideology. You're NOT entitled to welfare, yet you don't know how much you depend on it yet you talk against welfare. Genius, pure genius ? No.
Investing into projecting military hegemony into middle east must be better if then you get cheap oil. Oh wait, taxpayer later pays for oil ? Who could have told ? It's absolutely incredible how people appear to be willing to donate their value to less person, fewer persons and not to themselves. Then pay AGAIN for the donation and obtain very little if nothing in return.
It's not like investing in alternative energy resources and reduction of consumption is going to give more value in the long term. And if it's discovered the technology would probably be copied...so bye energetic hegemony. It's much better if nobody discovers anything...for some people.
posted by elpapacito at 4:34 AM on December 31, 2005
I heard that privately (Bush) had said: ‘I’m not meeting again with that goddamned bitch. She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.’
Yeah, he heard that at Capitol Hill Blue, and they credit an "anonymous source." It seems odd to me that this "anonymous source," a source so high up he has direct contact with the President in private meetings, would bypass the mainstream press and go straight for a couple of hippies with a website.
I heard the story was nonsense, but just too good for Eliot to pass up.
posted by Jatayu das at 4:55 AM on December 31, 2005
Yeah, he heard that at Capitol Hill Blue, and they credit an "anonymous source." It seems odd to me that this "anonymous source," a source so high up he has direct contact with the President in private meetings, would bypass the mainstream press and go straight for a couple of hippies with a website.
I heard the story was nonsense, but just too good for Eliot to pass up.
posted by Jatayu das at 4:55 AM on December 31, 2005
There are a bunch of iffy quotes, including the standout one about america bringing electricity to "my ass before my house."
But there are so many appalling quotes from officials too that it was worth reading.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:47 AM on December 31, 2005
But there are so many appalling quotes from officials too that it was worth reading.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:47 AM on December 31, 2005
cytherea writes "I didn't see anything he mentioned that I don't remember having read."
I didn't see anything I don't remember having read, either. But, I did see some entries which told only the part of the story convenient to Mr. Weinberger. For example, Mr. Weinberger writes:
posted by taosbat at 7:52 AM on December 31, 2005
I didn't see anything I don't remember having read, either. But, I did see some entries which told only the part of the story convenient to Mr. Weinberger. For example, Mr. Weinberger writes:
I heard that the emergency response to the hurricane had been hampered because 35 per cent of the Louisiana National Guard and 40 per cent of the Mississippi National Guard, as well as much of their equipment and vehicles, were in Iraq. Approximately 5000 Guards and troops were eventually deployed; in 1992, following Hurricane Andrew in Florida, George Bush Sr had sent in 36,000 troops. I heard that the Guardsmen in Iraq were denied emergency two-week leave to help or find their families. I heard they were told by their commanders that there were too few US troops in Iraq to spare them.I heard that the entire Tiger Brigade was rotated out of Iraq several weeks early so they could return to Louisiana. The entry would have been solid without the misleading last 2 sentences or with the addition of that last part...about them being sent home early.
posted by taosbat at 7:52 AM on December 31, 2005
Heywood Mogroot writes "and the would-be Bush biographer from 1999 that now says Bush was then talking of being a 'war president' to create 'political capital' to push through his domestic agenda "
LINK??
posted by orthogonality at 10:48 AM on December 31, 2005
LINK??
posted by orthogonality at 10:48 AM on December 31, 2005
too bad Bush is such an idiot that it's clear he's using 'catapult' to mean 'leap over' rather than the verb 'project'.
Er? He clearly means sending the propaganda far away at great velocity. This is what catapults do, after all.
Not the best phrasing, especially since if you think in terms of "us vs. them" as many do it sounds like he's catapulting propaganda at the public rather than away from it. But if you realize he considers himself one of "us" then the meaning is pretty clear.
There are many reasons one could consider Bush an idiot, I'm sure, without inventing new ones...
posted by kindall at 11:03 AM on December 31, 2005
Er? He clearly means sending the propaganda far away at great velocity. This is what catapults do, after all.
Not the best phrasing, especially since if you think in terms of "us vs. them" as many do it sounds like he's catapulting propaganda at the public rather than away from it. But if you realize he considers himself one of "us" then the meaning is pretty clear.
There are many reasons one could consider Bush an idiot, I'm sure, without inventing new ones...
posted by kindall at 11:03 AM on December 31, 2005
Bush is like Michael Jackson in that regard, in that any hideous insane perversion you can invent about Jackson it will turn out he has actually done, just as any idiocy you can invent about Bush will turn to actually be true.
posted by maxsparber at 11:17 AM on December 31, 2005
posted by maxsparber at 11:17 AM on December 31, 2005
In the Obey Your Thirst/Image Is Everything era of American politics, Bush's National Victory campaign is a creepy innovation. It features the president thumping a document -- the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" -- that was largely written not by diplomats or generals but by a pair of academics from Duke University named Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi. Essentially a PR document, the paper is basically a living political experiment, designed to prove that Americans will more readily accept military casualties if the word "victory" is repeated a great many times in public...The Magical Victory Tour
God bless George Bush. The Middle East is in flames, and how does he answer the call? He rolls up to the side entrance of a four-star Washington hotel, slips unobserved into a select gathering of the richest fatheads in his dad's Rolodex, spends a few tortured minutes exposing his half-assed policies like a campus flasher and then ducks back into his rabbit hole while he waits for his next speech to be written by paid liars.
If that isn't leadership, what is ?
On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground.If the soil is moist enough, he will light a match and burn the wood. If it is parched, as it is across Texas now, the wood will sit in piles scattered over the 1,600-acre spread until it is safe for a ranch hand to torch -- or until the president can come home and do the honors himself.Down on the Ranch, President Wages War on the Underbrush
Sometimes this activity is the only official news to come out of what aides call the Western White House. For five straight days since Monday, when Bush retreated to the ranch for his Christmas sojourn, a spokesman has announced that the president, in between intelligence briefings, calls to advisers and bicycling, has spent much of his day clearing brush. This might strike many Washingtonians as a curious pastime. It does burn a lot of calories. But brush clearing is dusty, it is exhausting (the president goes at it in 100 degree-plus heat), and it is earsplitting, requiring earplugs to dull the chain saw's buzz. For Bush, who is known to spend early-morning hours hacking at unwanted mesquite, cocklebur weeds, hanging limbs and underbrush only to go back for more after lunch, it borders on obsession.
posted by y2karl at 8:25 PM on December 31, 2005
« Older We won the f*ing lottery! | babysitter of the year Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Kickstart70 at 2:44 PM on December 30, 2005