Not On Your Life

If the average American were told that they could be targeted for death or an on-video beheading simply because they were taking part in an election, do you think there would be this type of turnout?

72.4 % of all of those polled said they would participate in the elections. [Ed.: If so, Iraqi voting will vastly outstrip participation here in the U.S., where 56% of eligible voters contributed to a record turnout in 2004.]

97% of Iraqis in Kurdistan said they would participate in the elections.

96% of Iraqis in the southern provinces (mainly Shiite areas) said they would participate in the elections.

33% of Iraqis in the central provinces (Sunni Area) said they would participate in the elections.

10% of Iraqis in Central provinces (Sunni Area) said they have not yet made their mind if they were going to vote or not.

Do you think that the following numbers are as good, or better, than the numbers that would have come from a polling of Democrats who live in America prior to our election in November? How about now?

62.1% of those polled said that the elections will be neutral and free.

17.8% said elections will not be neutral and free.

If you were to poll people in New York City (Kerry - 78.7% vs Bush - 16.2%) do you think you'd get numbers as good, or better than these below?

53.3% said the security is good in their area..

21.7% said that security was average in their area.

25% said that security was bad in their area.

These are the numbers from a poll taken by the Iraqi Ministry of Planning, as reported in the Arabic newspaper Alsharq Alausat.

What percentage of Americans understand that Iraq is much better off now than they were a year, two years, three years ago? What percentage of Democrats living in America believe that Iraq is the "failed policy" and "quagmire" that Senator Kennedy called it in yesterday's confirmation hearings on Dr. Rice?

Last question. What percentage of Democrats living in America (but ashamed to be) are quietly hoping that thousands of Iraqis are slaughtered by al Zarqawi's al Queda group in Iraq during the vote, just so they can say that Bush's policy failed?

(thanks to Power Line: Iraqis Eager to Vote.for the info on the poll)

Comments

[Zhang Fei]

You gotta hand it to these guys. Initially, it looked like the local security guys were slacking off, and way underperforming the ARVN (South Vietnam's military). Now it looks like they're taking casualties and really wading into trouble spots. The ratio of Iraq troops to GI's killed is over 5 to 1 (South Vietnam's level), meaning that Iraqi forces are getting involved, instead of ducking and diving as they were at the beginning. And that's not counting the civilians who risk death by working for the government or our troops.

[DeWayne]

End-Timers & Neo-Cons
The End of Conservatives

by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts; January 19, 2005

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during 1981-82. He was also Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review.

I remember when friends would excitedly telephone to report that Rush Limbaugh or G. Gordon Liddy had just read one of my syndicated columns over the air. That was before I became a critic of the US invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration, and the neoconservative ideologues who have seized control of the US government.

America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war, and fully half of the country's population is enthusiastic. Many Christians think that war in the Middle East signals "end times" and that they are about to be wafted up to heaven. Many patriots think that, finally, America is standing up for itself and demonstrating its righteous might. Conservatives are taking out their Vietnam frustrations on Iraqis. Karl Rove is wrapping Bush in the protective cloak of war leader. The military-industrial complex is drooling over the profits of war. And neoconservatives are laying the groundwork for Israeli territorial expansion.

The evening before Thanksgiving Rush Limbaugh was on C-Span TV explaining that these glorious developments would have been impossible if talk radio and the conservative movement had not combined to break the power of the liberal media.

In the Thanksgiving issue of National Review, editor Richard Lowry and former editor John O'Sullivan celebrate Bush's reelection triumph over "a hostile press corps." "Try as they might," crowed O'Sullivan, "they couldn't put Kerry over the top." There was a time when I could rant about the "liberal media" with the best of them. But in recent years I have puzzled over the precise location of the "liberal media."

Not so long ago I would have identified the liberal media as the New York Times and Washington Post, CNN and the three TV networks, and National Public Radio. But both the Times and the Post fell for the Bush administration's lies about WMD and supported the US invasion of Iraq. On balance CNN, the networks, and NPR have not made an issue of the Bush administration's changing explanations for the invasion.

Apparently, Rush Limbaugh and National Review think there is a liberal media because the prison torture scandal could not be suppressed and a cameraman filmed the execution of a wounded Iraqi prisoner by a US Marine. Do the Village Voice and The Nation comprise the "liberal media"? The Village Voice is known for Nat Hentoff and his columns on civil liberties. Every good conservative believes that civil liberties are liberal because they interfere with the police and let criminals go free. The Nation favors spending on the poor and disfavors gun rights, but I don't see the "liberal hate" in The Nation's feeble pages that Rush Limbaugh was denouncing on C-Span.

In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush.

The Iraqi War is serving as a great catharsis for multiple conservative frustrations: job loss, drugs, crime, homosexuals, pornography, female promiscuity, abortion, restrictions on prayer in public places, Darwinism and attacks on religion. Liberals are the cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against America and is a liberal. "You are with us or against us."

This is the mindset of delusion, and delusion permits no facts or analysis. Blind emotion rules. Americans are right and everyone else is wrong. End of the debate.

That, gentle reader, is the full extent of talk radio, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal Editorial page, National Review, the Weekly Standard, and, indeed, of the entire concentrated corporate media where noncontroversy in the interest of advertising revenue rules.

Once upon a time there was a liberal media. It developed out of the Great Depression and the New Deal. Liberals believed that the private sector is the source of greed that must be restrained by government acting in the public interest. The liberals' mistake was to identify morality with government. Liberals had great suspicion of private power and insufficient suspicion of the power and inclination of government to do good.

Liberals became Benthamites (after Jeremy Bentham). They believed that as the people controlled government through democracy, there was no reason to fear government power, which should be increased in order to accomplish more good.

The conservative movement that I grew up in did not share the liberals' abiding faith in government. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Today it is liberals, not conservatives, who endeavor to defend civil liberties from the state. Conservatives have been won around to the old liberal view that as long as government power is in their hands, there is no reason to fear it or to limit it. Thus, the Patriot Act, which permits government to suspend a person's civil liberty by calling him a terrorist with or without proof. Thus, preemptive war, which permits the President to invade other countries based on unverified assertions.

There is nothing conservative about these positions. To label them conservative is to make the same error as labeling the 1930s German Brownshirts conservative.

American liberals called the Brownshirts "conservative," because the Brownshirts were obviously not liberal. They were ignorant, violent, delusional, and they worshipped a man of no known distinction. Brownshirts' delusions were protected by an emotional force field. Adulation of power and force prevented Brownshirts from recognizing implications for their country of their reckless doctrines.

Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy. I went overnight from being an object of conservative adulation to one of derision when I wrote that the US invasion of Iraq was a "strategic blunder."

It is amazing that only a short time ago the Bush administration and its supporters believed that all the US had to do was to appear in Iraq and we would be greeted with flowers. Has there ever been a greater example of delusion? Isn't this on a par with the Children's Crusade against the Saracens in the Middle Ages?

Delusion is still the defining characteristic of the Bush administration. We have smashed Fallujah, a city of 300,000, only to discover that the 10,000 US Marines are bogged down in the ruins of the city. If the Marines leave, the "defeated" insurgents will return. Meanwhile the insurgents have moved on to destabilize Mosul, a city five times as large. Thus, the call for more US troops.

There are no more troops. Our former allies are not going to send troops. The only way the Bush administration can continue with its Iraq policy is to reinstate the draft.

When the draft is reinstated, conservatives will loudly proclaim their pride that their sons, fathers, husbands and brothers are going to die for "our freedom." Not a single one of them will be able to explain why destroying Iraqi cities and occupying the ruins are necessary for "our freedom." But this inability will not lessen the enthusiasm for the project. To protect their delusions from "reality-based" critics, they will demand that the critics be arrested for treason and silenced. Many encouraged by talk radio already speak this way.

Because of the triumph of delusional "new conservatives" and the demise of the liberal media, this war is different from the Vietnam war. As more Americans are killed and maimed in the pointless carnage, more Americans have a powerful emotional stake that the war not be lost and not be in vain. Trapped in violence and unable to admit mistake, a reckless administration will escalate.

The rapidly collapsing US dollar is hard evidence that the world sees the US as bankrupt. Flight from the dollar as the reserve currency will adversely impact American living standards, which are already falling as a result of job outsourcing and offshore production. The US cannot afford a costly and interminable war.

Falling living standards and inability to impose our will on the Middle East will result in great frustrations that will diminish our country.

[Zhang Fei]

Paul Craig Roberts: In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush.

It's now clear why Roberts did not serve out a full term in the Reagan administration. He is a nutjob. The idea that GWB's supporters worship him is a joke. I detest his immigration policy and his softly-softly approach vis-a-vis the Muslim world. He has increased the size of the Federal government by an amount I thought only possible with a Democratic president. But he's the best we'll get this time around. On a personal level, I think he's a good guy - loyal to his friends, and way too nice to his enemies. He's certainly way too nice to America's enemies.

Roberts sees conservatives who disagree with him as unthinking automatons. The reality, of course, is that they don't need Roberts (or the lying, incompetent, anti-American media) to tell them what is important. They *know* what is important to them. Just because their idea of what the agenda should be doesn't coincide with Roberts's doesn't mean they worship GWB. They don't need either Roberts, the media or GWB setting the agenda for them. They know what's important to them and support (or oppose) public figures based on that. Not what the media, Roberts or GWB want to dictate to them.

This is why many conservatives who support GWB vehemently oppose him on illegal immigration, Federal spending, his efforts to reach out to the UN (especially the request for UN approval on the Iraqi invasion), his conciliatory efforts towards America's enemies and a whole laundry list of other items. But he's the best we'll get this time around.

[DeWayne]

Oh Zany, you're sweet. Your differences with potus with the mostus is that he's not zany enough! Something tells me you didn't laugh much during Dr. Strangelove but I'll bet you had a tear in your eye at the end.

Zany, the Medium Lobster has your butter and lemon:

The Few, The Proud

There's been some noise about the Pentagon's use of covert ops teams of late - specifically, of the Defense Department's decision to place these covert teams under its own authority rather than the CIA's in order to skirt Congressional oversight. The Medium Lobster doesn't see what's so outrageous about this. This is merely a natural extension of America's foreign policy: the United States will defend itself and the principles of Freedom no matter how many allies and branches of government get in its way.

There are times when America needs to defend itself, and it cannot wait for the doddering approval of our vaunted "allies": the United Nations, Europe, the CIA, Congress. In times like these, when facing down an imminent threat to Freedom - or a grave and gathering threat, or a distant and someday possible threat, or threat-related program activities - it is imperative that the United States be able to go to war to defend itself without waiting for the sanction of bureaucrats in our own legislative branch.

In creating these covert teams, America now has the capacity to defend itself without seeking the oversight of Congress or the CIA. Finally, America will no longer have to rely on cumbersome "alliances" between multiple branches of government. Instead, America can now defend itself with a lean, strong coalition of the willing between the White House and the Pentagon.

Oh, some may deride this as reckless unilateralism, as cowboy diplomacy. Some will say that this will put a greater strain on America's relationship with Congress and the CIA. Would this really be so terrible? Whenever America has gone to war in the past, resistence has always come from Congress. Whenever America desperately needed to be elected to a second term, it was the CIA which leaked damaging information to the press. With friends like these, who needs enemies? Let them join France and the State Department in diplomatic purgatory.

The one question remaining is this: is America ready and willing to go to war on its own, to defend itself by itself if the military deserts it? As we've seen with Poland and Spain, even the most stalwart of allies cannot be trusted to remain in the fight forever, and as the shameful refusal of some troops to return to Iraq makes clear, even the military can't be relied upon indefnitely. The White House must prepare for the contingency - no, the eventuality - that its bold cause will be betrayed once again. In that case, America must carry on the fight with the only men with the nerve to defend this great nation: George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their staff. The Medium Lobster recommends they be suited up and shipped out at once.

[Zhang Fei]

DeWayne: Something tells me you didn't laugh much during Dr. Strangelove but I'll bet you had a tear in your eye at the end.

Watch Dr. Strangelove? The only way I spend my time watching commie propaganda is if something pays me to do it. Say hello to Pozzo and Vladimir for me, won't you?

[DeWayne]

Now Zany I know you're hunkering down in your bunker ever fearful but ever vigilant for signs of enemies of the state, like your soulmates, Rev. Jerry keeping an eye on those rascally festive teletubbies and Dr. Dobson smelling something fey on Sponge Bob, but there is treatment for Paranoid Personality Disorder.

You're a tad slow on the literary references, too. Reading rightwing rants is a lot like living inside a Beckett play.

But I find your faint praise for our feckless leader intriguing. I mean, really, this guy does do your dance. He weeps, mourns, pounds fist, high fives, smiles. Yes, our president emotes. On par with a 10 year old. James Wolcott gets it:

The White House announces a press conference in the morning. After the announcement comes the news that 31 Americans died in a chopper crash in Iraq (6 others died today in seperate incidents). The president takes the podium fresh with the knowledge of that tragedy--and radiates a cheerful disposition bantering with the press about senior citizens and their faulty memories. She can't see something scarily wrong with that? She doesn't spot some sort of emotional disturbance or disconnect? Imagine if Bill Clinton had been chirpy and chipper having just received the news of 31 soldiers dying in the theater of combat--Rush Limbaugh would have devoted three hours to it, and Fox News would have dragged Dick Morris out of the all-you-can-eat buffet for his "expert analysis."

When Bush did address the soldiers' deaths, he said that we "weep and mourn" when Americans die, but as he was saying it his hand was flatly smacking downwards for emphasis, as if he were pounding the table during the business meeting, refusing to pay a lot for a muffler. The steady beat of his hand was at odds with the sentiments he was expressing--he didn't look or sound the least bit mournful or sombre. And why should he? Death doesn't seem to be a bringdown for him. There isn't the slightest evidence that he experiences the anguish LBJ did as casualties mounted in Vietnam. His record as chief executioner in Texas is of a man for whom the death of another is an administrative detail, a power exercise. As Sister Helen Prejean wrote in The New York Review of Books:

"As governor, Bush certainly did not stand apart in his routine refusal to deny clemency to death row petitioners, but what does set him apart is the sheer number of executions over which he...presided. Callous indifference to human suffering may also set Bush apart. He may be the only government official to mock a condemned person's plea for mercy [Karla Faye Tucker's], then lie about it afterward, claiming humane feelings he never felt. On the contrary, it seems that Bush is comfortable with using violent solutions to solve troublesome social and political realities."

Comfortable, hell, he's downright enthusiastic about it. He's so cocky now that he can't even fake a semblance of sorrow after hearing news that would have made most presidents turn ashen.