Don’t the candidates have until the 15th to post results? Weird, I’ve seen several results posted already. Maybe the recent $1,000,000+ fundraising by Ron Paul in just one weeks time scared the rest of them into trying to kick start this lobbyist popularity contest sooner before any more people became aware of the good Doctor.

hmmm, i guess those kurds just layed down and gassed themselves…

to play devil’s advocate though, theoretically Saddam had plenty of time to either A)Bury said weapons in the desert, which is quite large, or B)Smuggle them into Syria…in the end, the absence of evidence neither confirms or denies anything…to do so you have to have concrete evidence, and we (the public) will probably never know…given bush’s push for war and the UN’s general incompetence and corruption on, well, everything, its hard to say who one should believe

i was just wondering if anyone else found it strange that every major intelligence source said he had WMD– CIA, MI6, the Mossad, Russian intelligence, Italian intelligence, etc., etc. and every outlet was proved wrong…that to me speaks volumes in and of itself

I have 9 glass cups. I put them outside and it starts raining. I turn on a hose and point it at the first of the cups. What is causing the increase of water in the first cup?

Well, Fred would say its the rain, because surely the increase of water in the cups due to the rain can be seen affecting all the cups, and because they are gaining water by the rain, so too must the first one.

Well done Fred. You astonish me. Here I thought that just because one thing contributed to an increase of some quantity, other things still could as well. You sure showed me.

Really, the issue is so far past that we have lost sight of you. We are now concerned with how big is the hose that we are using to fill that cup. How significant is it and whether or not our actions really make a difference. Come on Fred, catch up. At least make a stab at saying our contribution to current conditions is negligible or something…

He knew well before the invasion that NPAC wanted iraq regardless. If he had them, he would have used them as a last resort against the invasion.

Merk:
Not ready to abandon ship yet, I see. Still hanging onto that ‘we haven’t found them YET’ thread. OK, irrefutable, but ok.

However, this one here raised my eyebrows:
“given bush’s push for war and the UN’s general incompetence and corruption on, well, everything, its hard to say who one should believe”.
How about this: Given the fact that Bush has lied about everything, and hidden everything, and changed everything, and done whatever he wanted, I don’t see how you CAN believe him.
It’s an anomoly here: Saddam said he didn’t have any WMD’s, now he’s dead. We haven’t found any, and people are still using it as a justification?
If the warmongers would just stick to the “Saddam was a bad man” card, the WMD’s, or lack thereof, wouldn’t still be an issue. But the fact that it, and it alone, was the reason for the invasion, makes it an issue.

i was merely playing devil’s advocate…had WMD’s been there or not is somewhat irrelevant now…and if they had been found, would the situation be any different on the ground? WMD’s or not, the underlying tensions were still there, and for better or worse, we ripped em open again (though i believe it would have happened the minute Saddam keeled over, like in Yugoslavia)

I personally don’t think bush is a liar, merely incompetent and a bumbler on grand scale, but i also see him as merely representative of a grossly corrupt and ungainly system…but i have a feeling he’ll end up like a mixed bag…in my view, he and clinton are the different sides of the same coin

but as i said, the main thing that bothers me is that EVERY intelligence outlet was wrong…dead wrong… but i guess i’m the only one who senses something is up there, and sees it as a cause for concern

This is a weak slate for the Republicans. Rudys down to phone jokes and Fred is not looking presidental. i like Huckabee, all the front runners that didnt go to the minority forum looked real bad.

I have to agree with Merk. Plenty of time and space to dispose of the WMD that every inteligence agency interested in the matter said SH still had. Nevertheless, one would think that if artillary shells tipped with VX or mustard gas were cached in the desert, these things would have been used at some point against coalition troops. I would think that it would just be too tempting for one of the many groups to take out a battalion of Marines or an envoy from the administration – or maybe just each other. That or the enemy(s) is extremely disciplined and organized and utilizing the shame and doubt that has been cast upon the US and the administration for its own purpose. I’ll admit that what I’m suggesting is extremely speculative. Still, you have to wonder why SH was willing to risk the fate he ultimately met, unless he had something very big to hide. I can’t believe we’re still arguing about this, but as Merk pointed out, the absence of the weapons proves nothing.

Ole/Merk,

Amoral: adjective: without moral standards or principles

The absence proves NOTHING!!??!! You guys amaze me. The eternal rationalizers. Ah, the voice(s) of 21st Century America.

When did accountability die in this country? Along with self-respect. SCORES of thousands of Iraqis have perished because of the misguided ideological zealotry of a handful of megalomaniacs and you armchair quarterbacks sit back in the safety and luxury of this country and opine that the burden of proof remains on the innocent. Shame on you.

As long as there are apologists such as you, Bushney will be emboldened to continue destroying the lives of millions and mortgaging the future of this country.

Ole, according to your logic, the world must be flat because so many people believed it to be so.

Merk: “i was merely playing devil’s advocate…had WMD’s been there or not is somewhat irrelevant now…”

I HAVE to take this one on. Irrelevant? I think not. Admitting fault goes a long way toward recovery. It also goes a long way in repairing relationships. You want America to dominate and be a global ‘leader’, but you don’t want it to admit to a mistake. How can you be a leader without accepting fault??

And, no, Clinton and Bush are NOT on the same coin. Bush’s LIES have led to the deaths of over a million people. Clinton lied about a blowjob.

It’s amazing how low conservatives will stoop. EVERY SINGLE ONE of them uses Clinton as a comparison.

I’ll say it again: Bush’s lies have led to over a million deaths. Clinton’s didn’t. Period.

Coach-

I agree, the Clinton-Bush comparison is not valid. But don’t you think that receiving felatio while deciding the number of troops to commit to a combat operation is a wee bit irresponsible?

Ole,

You’re still in your playful mood. I’m sure Caesar, Alexander, Napolean, et al did their best ‘work’ whilst being serviced.

To Merk,

“I personally don’t think bush is a liar, merely incompetent and a bumbler on grand scale”

Then he has you thinking exactly what he want you to, well …the next best thing besides believing his is a good leader, at least.

Here is what Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst had to say about the intelligence reports that you say all concluded iraq was developing nuclear warheads and other such weapons.

“CIA analysts were involved in a knockdown, drag-out argument with the Pentagon on this very point. Most of the nuclear engineers at the CIA, and virtually all scientists at U.S. government laboratories and the International Atomic Energy Agency, found no reliable evidence that Iraq had restarted its nuclear weapons program.”

Source: for synopsis go here: alternet.org/waroniraq/16283

The neoconservative element in our government pushed and pushed for cherry picked reports, installing members of PNAC and affiliates(Rumsfeld) to head up the report of threat assessment (who had been drooling over controlling iraq before Clinton by the way) after the first commission report and the second didn’t bring back answers they wanted to hear. Rumsfeld came back with what the people in the pentagon wanted to hear. Surprise surprise.

For some more background information on the issue in general, take a look at this report which has incredibly damning evidence against rumsfeld for his bogus report:

fas.org/irp/congress/ 1998_cr/s980731-rumsfeld.htm

And lastly, his report itself, which was the third one from congress and completely contradictory to not only the first two, but to other agencies findings as well:

fas.org/irp/threat/bm-t hreat.htm

I really hope this post doesn’t get deleted, I hate having to sift through all my saved information to find the right articles. It takes so long to cite evidence properly…

apparently our young friend has never had the pleasure of enjoying such pleasantries. He would likewise not be aware of the chemical changes within produced by the act that gives lucidity and clarity to almost everything done in the following three hours.

Then again, it wouldn’t make as much sensation as trying to paint the picture of a president standing behind his desk on the phone to the pentagon while the intern does her business… While at the same time having trouble believing that two oil men and a war time services contractor would lead us to war over oil. No limits to the level of human self deception.

fair enough evidence annoying

but as a follow-up, how do you account for all of the other major intelligence agencies around the world?

C’mon Merk, they’re all in bed together. Don’t you read Follett? le Carre?

Blood: “I agree, the Clinton-Bush comparison is not valid. But don’t you think that receiving felatio while deciding the number of troops to commit to a combat operation is a wee bit irresponsible?”

What is that supposed to be? YES, YES, YES, it was irresponsible of Clinton. Does that settle it now?

But, this we know. Bush’s lies and Clinton’s lies are in different stratospheres. Period.

Jed-
You got me….
I have never had the pleasure of receiving a blowjob while determining US foreign policy. I shudder to think of the circumstances surrounding the events that form your basis for authority on the subject. Please be a little more specific about what goes through your mind in those moments of ‘lucidity and clarity.’ Is that when your paranoid visions (fantasies?) of fascists in polished boots come to you?

In light of what has been posted on these boards, aren’t we glad they don’t have the authority to implement public policy? We probably would have run out of nukes by now, a BJ may have helped to temper the belligerence a little… na, that is innate in this one. I guess that is what happens when a child with no experience thinks he knows what the hell he’s talking about.

Sad to hear you’ve never had a blowjob… then again it’s not surprising no women would find you attractive(assuming you are attracted to women)… human women anyway.

Actually, that’s when you get the lucity to realize that “hey, this guy is not a uniter, hell he’s created more division than the last 10 yrs combined. Wait, why is the environmental president making a loophole for mercury belching power plants in the EPA rules? We don’t have the troops for iraq but we want to start a war with who? ” Then again, lucidity doesn’t have much to do with it, just a good connection to reality and an ability to ignore the ignoramuses that would follow their leaders to the slaughter merely because they are starstruck. Clarity allows you to recognize the precursors to totalitarianism, expecially when you have lived through them once yourself, so that you don’t have to wait for the shiny boots to stomp on your friends to realize what’s coming, and if necessary, make my way home south and let you stay behind your neo-berlin wall.

ah yes, jed, you must be swimming in women, what with the psuedo-philosophical ramblings and the stench of patchouli…

and to continue the snark…perhaps the world would be better place if there were more bj’s…but who knows

just need the current one gliebe, no need to be greedy, or lusty.

Glad you are touched by the ‘pseudo-philosophy’ as much as I enjoy your Nazi foreign policy. Guess which one is more constructive and would lead to greater peace and stability.

Merk: Supporting unilateral invasions is EXACTLY Nazi foreign policy. Add a dash of fascism, and we’re identical to the Third Reich…….the only thing that separates us from Nazi, Germany during the 30s and 40s is the fact that we’re not gasing anybody. But, throwing people in remote prisons for the rest of their life without possibility of appeal is, basically, the same thing.

Jed-
This stream-of-conciousness thing is just too fragmented and far-out for me to follow. Are you saying that spit-polished boots lead to fascism, or is that fascism leads to spit-shined boots? I don’t get it? What about smart wollen socks? 99-bottles of beer on the wall? Does lucidity and clarity come in a bottle or a can?

Perhaps you are not aware, I lived in chile from 65 to 76 and can tell you what is happening here is the same tactic that was used there to install the military regime(a regime supported and propped up by the US), this is why I feel so adamant that we open our eyes and prevent these types of actions from taking place.

At this moment you have 170 thousand or so regular troops and unknown others (its a secret within an ‘open’ society you know) working as mercenaries for security companies learning all the techniques of oppression. Beating down doors, planting ‘evicence’, acting with impunity and arrogance. Most of these guys will come home and take jobs doing the only thing they know, working as police officers or some other official armed function. Do you really think they will drop all the tactics they learned in combat and treat the general population with respect considering the little training in that respect that they get? (while not all those returning and joining a police force will be bad, can we afford the ones that do?)

So yea, I know fascism, I’ve lived under fascism, my family was devastated by the state’s designation of subversives because my father wrote some newspaper articles exposing the regimes attrocities.
Today, in america the leadership is teaching the police forces disdain for the general public. People are being arrested merely for looking latino and not having documentation to prove their citizenship(do you have YOUR citicenship card in your pocket?). I’ve personally dealt with having to help people that have valid documentation (just not on their person) get un-incarcerated, what was the crime that put them in lock up for 5 days(some of them more), being hispanic and not having a document proving ‘legality’ on their person(even some WITH valid documentation have been deported, their life’s savings confiscated). I’ve seen american citizens get deported because they didn’t speak english well enough to convince the INS officers.
Our society is based on the credo that you should do no harm to the innocent in trying to apply justice. You personally seem to think that as long as you have a false ’sense of security’ and the illusion that ’something is being done’ you could care less what innocents are swept up. ‘Too bad!!’ seems to be your logic, ‘gotta break a few eggs to make an ommelette’. That is the definicion of a fascist, so it is good that you feel identified, perhaps recognizing it will be the first step in correcting it.

Oh does it bother you to be identified? ‘Do unto other’
is the rule, I’ve bit my tongue and held my words time and again in light of insults and attempts at ridicule. I figured this is the way you wanted to be treated, isn’t trying to be contentious the main reason you log on to these boards anyway? be a man and take it or stop dishing it out. Preferably the latter for the well being of all.

In case you aren’t really sure what a fascist is other than Limbaugh telling you it’s bad…

“A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline(o’reilley), humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity(kkk, immigrant debacle), in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites(mil indust complex), abandons democratic liberties(patriot act) and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion(invasion of iraq).” [Robert O. Paxton, "The Anatomy of Fascism," 2004]

Jed,

Nice post. I was wondering when you were going to come out with it. Few native born Americans have much of a clue what ‘real life’ is about. That’s not a condemnation. It’s not our fault. However, an equal few seem to have the imagination to appreciate how good we have it. We take it for granted.

Your definition of fascism was excellent. Ironically, it describes this country in the early stages of the industrial revolution when the police fought on the side of big business and when they weren’t held accountable for anything. I especially like considering what we can expect when many of our troops become Peace Officers. (Remember when we called them that. No more. Now they’re law enforcers. Subtle transference.)

Hard as it might be for many to accept, the U.S. Constitution didn’t do THAT much for civil rights. To vote you had to be a propertied, white male. We’ve come some since then. And it wasn’t easy. A great many heroic people sacrificed everything for the simple premise of equality. And the battle continues yet.

Is this country threatened with fascism? I doubt it. I don’t believe this country can be controlled. Manipulated? Yes, but not controlled. Are our civil liberties being threatened? Big time. But this too will pass.

Merk,

A more measured response, to a point. Good. You represent a third ‘leg’ which I admire and like having around. I hope you continue to fight your fight. I admire and agree with many of the positions posited by Libertarians but I think you know my true mantra is oppose the Right. A good case can be made that if it were simply Right/Left in the last two elections, the Left would have triumphed. So, ultimately I see you as a threat.

Incidentally, the scenario Jed was developing doesn’t have much in common with the ‘plight’ imagined vis a vis returning Viet Nam vets. THAT scenario had wild, drug-crazed vets shooting up places. (Hmmm, as a matter of fact, that HAS happened some.) Jed is referring, I believe, to troops and, worse, ‘private security’ folks returning to the U.S. and taking positions in ‘law enforcement.’ Not quite the same. Scarier, in fact.

PS, a driver’s license is probably the most counterfeited document made. I don’t believe it qualifies as proof of citizenship. Nor does a social security card. If each and every one of us had to ‘prove’ our citizenship on a daily basis, we’d be in trouble. What Jed’s referring to is racism, pure and simple. If you’re not one of the stereotyped races, then you don’t realize it’s happening. Remember when Joe Morgan was hassled by the cops at SFO? Cheech Marin’s “Born In East LA.”? It happens. Denying it propagates it.

Jed-
I can appreciate that your experience in Chile has made you passionate about where you stand on fascism. I have a good friend who was fortunate to leave Chile, his home, and come to the States during that period.

Nevertheless, I truly doubt the validity of a comparison between Chile then and the USA now. I do not support the administration unconditionally, if I thought that we were moving towards the kind of society you describe, I would take my family as far away from this place as possible and then begin spending the rest of my life, my talents, my wealth working to eliminate whatever circumstances have led to the demise of my home.

I am an open-minded person. I am willing to consider any possibility. Why do you think I am on the Rolling Stone National Affairs Blog’s board? I want to hear other perspectives, not just the conservatives that I relate to. I find myself seriously disappointed to learn that most of the fearmongering that I encounter has little to no factual basis. It’s mostly just the same banal conspiracy theory spouted by kids who got picked on in the schoolyard too many times.

I work and have worked for a number of those big businesses for whom you espouse such hatred. I don’t see any of the diabolical things that you claim going on. I see good people trying to make life a little better for themselves and their families. I don’t see people plotting to wrest control from the weak or poor. I see boundless possibilities for the US at a time when it is poised for enormous transition.

PS Many of those mercenaries have advanced degrees in technical fields. A lot of them will return to the States with their choice of job-offers.

now, if we could only get passed our aversion to accept responsibility for our presidents misdeeds.
Perhaps we could do the same with out current sitting leadership and let the world know we truly are a nation of laws, by the people and for the people instead of the elites.
How about failing to follow the law and comply with all foreign laws and treaties?

Dennis, i think much can be gained from listening to the left, if anything, the constant questioning is good for letting a breeze through the stale air of politics

but to reiterate my post, i just dont believe that fascism is about to totally descend upon us…but i could be wrong, hopefully not